July 2, 2025 • 58 mins
What happens when a kid from Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn leverages technology to empower the Black community? Ken Granderson's journey from MIT student to digital pioneer offers a powerful blueprint for self-determination through technology.
Growing up in what he calls "the neighborhood formerly known as Do or Die Bed-Stuy," Granderson found himself at MIT in 1980, where he balanced academic pursuits with becoming one of the Northeast's premier DJs for Black college parties. While his classmates were immersed in computer science, Granderson was spinning records—until the late 1980s when he reconnected with technology and discovered its transformative potential.
This reconnection led to creating BlackFacts.com in 1997—the first Black history search engine that continues operating today. Granderson's vision extended to putting the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation online in 1998 and developing digital platforms for Boston's Roxbury neighborhood when most communities of color lacked any online presence.
Throughout our conversation, Granderson delivers a masterclass in recognizing untapped potential. He spotlights accomplished Black MIT graduates whose contributions remain largely unknown—department chairs, government appointees, and innovators whose work has shaped technologies we use daily. As he puts it, "We have everything we need in our community to move ourselves forward."
The most compelling part of Granderson's message addresses today's AI revolution. He argues that artificial intelligence represents an unprecedented opportunity because "it's the first technology that requires zero technical skills to use it to become much more powerful at whatever you're trying to be." Unlike previous technological waves, AI's low barrier to entry creates a more level playing field.
Whether you're a techno
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
what's going on, everybody?
It's ron brown lmt, thepeople's fitness professional,
and I have the brother kengranderson.
Is that how you pronounce it?
That's the okay, just to makesometimes I butcher people's
names.
I just want to make sure.
Thank you for coming out thisevening.
(00:31):
I really appreciate you.
And first off, we're going togo with the title.
The title is Self-DeterminationThrough Technology.
Ok, and I want to go into yourhistory.
Who are you?
Let's go into that.
Who are you and where were youborn and your upbringing?
So let's start there.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Okay.
Well, Ron, should I say Ron,Ron, Brown, what's the best way
to?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Ron is fine, ron Brown.
Call me Ron, ron Brown, itdoesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
All right.
Folks used to say just don'tcall me late for dinner.
So, ron, thank you very muchfor inviting me.
Yeah, my name is Ken Granderson.
You know I am a child of theneighborhood formerly known as
Do or Die Bed-Stuy that's whatwe called it back in the days.
Di-bed-sty that's what wecalled it back in the days Was a
(01:28):
teenager in the late 70s.
You know, grew up pretty closeto Boys and Girls High, a-train,
utica Ave, a-train Station and,you know, upbringing basically
blue collar.
You know daddy worked for thepost office.
You know mom worked office jobsat churches, actually Methodist
(01:49):
churches and left the Brooklynarea in 1980 to go up to Boston.
I was, you know, doing prettywell with math and science and
ended up at MIT Doing prettywell with math and science and
ended up at MIT and I stayedthere.
After I stayed in the Bostonarea After I graduated and
(02:13):
reconnected with a passion forcomputers, and when I say
reconnected, I got introduced tocomputers in high school.
But in the late 70s my family,we couldn't afford computers,
computers.
So I got into stereo and hi-fiand started dj, which ended up
being a business that I ran.
I was like the number one, uh,dj doing black college parties
(02:37):
in the northeast um in newengland area, I will say like uh
, dartmouth college up in um,new ham, new Hampshire, down to,
like New Haven, connecticut.
You know, during the 80s andend of the 80s I reconnected
with the whole computer thing,got into it pretty heavy, made
some programs that let me quitmy day job and you know that set
(03:01):
the stage for this idea ofself-determination through
technology.
You know.
So I was working, you know,mainstream tech job, made some
programs that put.
But you know I tell people,google me and you can find on my
website You'll see, for example, this book, windows Gizmos.
(03:32):
You know that has my program init.
You know, with my, my companyname, inner City Software, and
in the thanks I go and thankfolks who inspired me, et cetera
, et cetera, because theyprinted everything that I wrote
in this book verbatim.
(03:53):
And so in the acknowledgementsand thanks you'll see I'm
thanking my family, blah, blah,blah folks.
And then I mentioned MartinLuther King Jr, of course, right
, but I said Marcus Garvey, theHonorable Elijah Muhammad
El-Hajj, malik El-Shabazz, butas Billy Mays, I think it was
(04:15):
said, but wait, there's more.
At the bottom I have theHonorable Louis Farrakhan and
the Nation of Islam forcontinuous wake-up calls and
reminders of the conditions ofthe have-nots of America.
Because when I say I grew upblue-collar, we never had a
whole bunch of things, but I hadthe fortunate luck of being
born into an intact anddrama-free family and I have
(04:40):
learned to not take that forgranted and realize how that
kind of put me on a track whereI was able to, you know, build,
move forward and not have tohave folks who should have been
supporting me sabotaging me,like I've seen happen too often
in many of our families.
(05:01):
So I'm just very, very groundedand clear about that and I
thank, you know, some of ourbrothers and sisters who have
made sure that many of us didnot fall through the cracks, you
know, and that all inspired meto focus on building
technologies to inform, educateand inspire Black people,
(05:24):
including BlackFactscom, thefirst Black history search
engine I set up in 1997.
Run to the present day, gothere right now.
Today is Lena Horne's birthday,we have Black history videos for
every day of the year, and etcetera.
I'm going to stop and pausebecause I'm one of these folks.
You can tell I'm excited aboutthis, and so you got to stop me
(05:50):
and get a word in edgewise.
So I'm going to pause rightthere and follow your lead on
where you want this conversationto go, because I really
appreciate what you're doing andthe opportunity to share
something that I think we don'tknow what capabilities we have
and especially today with wheretechnology is.
(06:10):
I'm glad to have the chance toshow your audience the potential
that is literally in the palmof their hands today.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Right Now.
You said you grew up in afamily that was, I think you
said, undisrupted, or Intactmeaning my daddy was there, OK.
Intact.
Ok, so your dad was there.
Yeah, your mom.
So you grew up in a two familyhousehold and all that.
I mean, yeah, two parenthousehold, things like that.
Ok, so did you have anysiblings and things?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, did you have any siblings and things?
Yeah, I got one older brother,you know who, who actually, you
know, introduced me when I wasgraduating from college.
He introduced me to literatureof self-improvement.
That actually changed mydirection because you know, you
know, yeah, I went to MIT,prestigious school, all that
(07:09):
kind of good stuff.
So I knew all I had to do wasgraduate from college and I'm
going to make more money thanthat.
The bad news about that is thatI did not have any aspirations
past getting a job working forthe man it was.
It was when I was introduced toliterature that helped me
understand that there could bemore opportunity for me to do
something with a greater impact.
And because I happened to be intechnology at that time, you
(07:35):
know I was able to do thingslike put the Congressional Black
Caucus Foundation online in 98.
I put the government of StLucia online.
A dozen years ago, boston'sRoxbury community the
neighborhood I was living in,the Black neighborhood put them
online.
I put the Black newspaperonline.
(07:56):
Those are the sort of kind ofthings that you can do with
technology if you have themindset, and we can do these
things in other areas is whatI'm trying to really that's my
message really to other folks isit depends on what you're
focusing on.
You know you can focus oneveryone's focusing on just, you
know, paying the bills andwhatever, but it just takes a
(08:18):
little bit extra that you mightfocus in a certain way.
Most of us just do it for ourown, but I knew that I didn't
have the opportunities that Ihad because folks would just say
worrying about their own self.
You know, it was because ofpeople who I never met, who they
knew they would never meet me,that they opened doors for me,
(08:41):
and so that is just part of myown personal philosophy that you
know I place a high priority onusing the talents that I've
developed to try and make surethat I pay it forward and, you
know, and live up to thesacrifices of my ancestors.
We'll put it like that.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Right.
So now you were inspired to getinto the technology around the
80s, you're saying.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I was first introduced to it in the late 70s
, in the late 70s, ok, so let'sI want to stop there.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
So in the late 70s, what was the technology like?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, yeah, man, people would laugh at it, you
know.
You know, school had a digitalPDP-11 computer look like small
file cabinet.
You know black and whitemonitors or just one color green
.
Nothing that was or either thator we were my first programming
project.
We did this class at NYU.
(09:41):
They had these printoutprinters and we would play the
Star Trek game class at NYU.
They had these printoutprinters and we would play the
Star Trek game where you wouldprint out what was supposed to
be the quadrant in space, youknow, and you'd say, oh, what am
I going to do?
Pick number one to eight,number one, shoot the phasers,
you know, and they would printout the next.
That was where the tech wasback then.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Okay, and you said, people laughed at it.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Well, today they would laugh at.
Laughing is what I'm saying.
Back then it was just like, ohgreat, this is great.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Right.
So what was the first computeryou were introduced to?
Was it like IBM, or was it?
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yeah, well, I mean, back then, wasn't it, wasn't it
Poly Prep, I think?
Uh, downtown on j street, butit might have been another place
.
You have these big computerrooms, you know and and I'm old
enough to we when we had stuffon cards, so you would have
these punch cards and you take aset of punch cards and they
would print out all the this biggreen paper, and you know.
(10:38):
So I'm saying this is like theold school stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Nothing personal computers didn't happen until
the 80s okay, now in the 70s youwere, you were interested in in
in computers.
How about your peers or otherblack people around you?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
no, now, you know I, I did go to a very small um, you
know um, mostly white school,st Ann's School in Brooklyn
Heights, you know.
So, out of my graduating classof 70, there were 10 black
students, you know, six girls,four boys.
I was the only one who wasinterested in computers.
Yeah, I mean it really backthen, only the nerds were really
(11:25):
interested in computers, youknow.
But when I, when I, when I wentto college, right, the nerds at
MIT is another level of nerd,right.
So these were these guys who,like you know, beards and they
have their life in theirbackpack and they're playing
Dungeons and Dragons and I'mlike, okay, like I like
computers, and they gotcomputers here.
(11:46):
Those are the computer guys,but there's girls over there,
guys.
Well, I think I'm going to keepDJing.
So I love the computers, I lovethe computers alone.
Until the late 80s.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Okay, so now the 70s.
You left the computers.
There was a question that I hadthat was just right there.
Oh my God.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Well, I said, I started DJing.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
No, no, no, not that one Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
What was your experience like at MIT at that
time?
Well, here's the interestingthing this was four years after
busing riots, where you know,the guy was stabbed with the
American flag, you know kind ofthing, and people are like, oh,
so racist, so racist.
You know, I get off theGreyhound bus, I got my duffel
bag with my gear, et cetera, etcetera.
(12:52):
You know, you know, I have noidea what I'm.
You know what I'm up for.
You know, walk from the train.
I see on this little hill bythe student center table, black
Student Union.
I'm like I'm safe, right.
So my experience was very Blackbecause we, whether it was, you
know, the Black Student Unionand many, most of the Black
(13:15):
students, we knew each other,you know, et cetera.
Or especially after 1982, Ipledged Kappa, alpha, psi
fraternity, which you know, oneof the quote divine nine, you
know nine predominantly blackfraternities and sororities
which that really connected meto other black college men
(13:38):
throughout the country.
You know that I didn't muchtraveling, but you know so.
But my college experience,although I was in Boston, was
very black.
You know, I'm DJ, I'm DJing theblack party.
So you know, I have led a veryunique experience in that way.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
You know, you know, all right, yeah, let's, let's
unpack that a little bit, just alittle bit, all right.
So mit, very just a blackexperience.
When I think of mit, when I wasin um, when I was in um high
school, there were people, youknow, trying to really get into
mit and um.
That was the first time I heardabout mit and um and uh, the,
(14:33):
the, just like I don't.
I didn't want to say like this,but like the so-called nerds
yeah I love it, I could show youmy nerd pride stickers.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
And so you had, but although you, but you had a
black experience there now, andthis was in Boston now, from
what I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Cambridge is across the river from Boston, you know.
You know, like Boston area,culturally, honestly, it's a lot
more progressive.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Oh, okay, cause that's where I was going.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Okay, yeah that's where I was going with that.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Yeah, because you know Boston, from what I hear,
is like more like racist.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Well, I'm glad you mentioned the racist thing right
.
So when I would come home andvisit, people were like, oh man,
boston is so racist.
And I would say, yeah, man,like it's so terrible man, it's
so terrible what happened tothat brother, yusuf Hawkins, and
then what they did to thatAbner Louie, my brother, and
Amadou Diallo.
Oh no, that was, on New York,worst racist incident while I
(15:33):
was there.
Charles Stewart kills his wife,says the black man did it.
So my point being, bro, there'sracism everywhere, all right
and so, and I didn't even get toHoward beach, okay.
So, yeah, you know all the allof these things happen when I'm
in Boston, which is supposed tobe so racist, but you know.
But at the same point, yeah,boston, the you know the Boston
(16:01):
side of things.
You know Boston definitely moreconservative, et cetera, et
cetera.
Cambridge is just more Harvard,mit.
It very influenced a lot of theculture more laid back, you
know more of of your, your ally,white people.
You know, um, like liberals incambridge, you know yeah you
know, you know, you know, but,but when I say it was a very
(16:22):
black experience, meaning Ipretty much spent all my time,
um, you know, in college sort ofvenues, um, and frankly, um,
many of the black students werelike tourists in a sense.
We went into the community toget haircuts, to get ethnic food
(16:44):
and to get weed okay alright,we didn't.
it wasn't until after that Ireally started connecting with,
you know, native BlackBostonians, and my last 20 years
I was stayed there until 2018.
(17:04):
You know, I made what I inretrospect consider like a major
strategic error in staying inBoston.
When I graduated, a lot of mypeers would go to DC or they'd
go to Atlanta.
Why?
Because Black folks were doingstuff there.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
And I reasoned that, well, if you stay somewhere
where there is a bigger need,you can build something from the
ground up and you'll be likeyou know, you know the main
person the main person, whatever.
Um, what I didn't account for iswhat I ended up viewing as the
(17:47):
inertia, stagnation maybe it'sconditioning of Black Boston
that I say to people think aboutpeople of note that have come
out of Black Boston.
Now you have to, you know youneed to remove the sports folks
and the entertainment folks,because those are areas where
we've been allowed to rise, youknow, for a long time.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Think of anyone name a name in business, in medicine,
academia, you know politics, orwhatever that came out of black
Boston.
Right, you, if you were therein 1984, the name Mel King might
mean something to you.
He ran for mayor in Boston.
He didn't win, but he madehistory.
(18:32):
But he made history.
That's 84.
You got to fast forward to themid-2010s for Ayanna Pressley to
think about anyone, a name,that you would be like oh, this
is someone in Boston.
Black Boston is doing something.
And so my point being that Ibuilt websites like Roxburycom.
They, you know, built websiteslike Roxburycom.
(18:54):
That you know.
If you, I always say to peopleyou know Google my name, you'll
see my personal website.
I've archived everything I'vedone.
I got an eight-minute videowhere you will walk through of
Roxburycom from 23 years ago,where you will see we had
community news, we hadself-service events and business
(19:17):
directory listings, as, two andfour years before yelp and
eventbrite were even founded, wehad cutting edge tech for our
community there.
But I was never able to takethat and, you know, like kind of
make a lateral move into thebusiness world with it.
(19:37):
You know, and it's because thepeople there didn't have those
connections the Black folksthere, or if they did, I found
Black Boston to be a bit insular.
You know I was an outsider,even though I, you know I
adopted the Black communitythere.
You know I bought a home there.
You know I was an outsider eventhough I, you know, I adopted
the black community there.
You know I bought a home there.
(19:57):
You know, at my office there,you know my home was one block
from the Caribbean Carnivallocation.
You know.
I was a kid snacking the hood,all right.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, and so you know I was.
You know, like I say yeah, yeah, I was, gave it my best shot,
came back to New York in searchof folks who had a little more
vision for a bigger, for biggerpossibilities.
Because, as I will suggest tofolks and you can see in the
(20:29):
1996 video that you'll find onmy website and a project we call
Inner City Access, where you'llsee both me and my current
business partner Dale we hadboth had black hair at the time
where, you know, it was eight ofus in total.
We put Boston's blackneighborhoods online.
We had websites for thecommunities.
We didn't have money, we didn'task anybody, you know, you know
(20:53):
we didn't ask anybody, you know.
You know we didn't haveconnections, we just did it.
That is my message abouttechnology.
It is the most powerfulequalizing tool I believe in
human history and today it isliterally in the palms of our
hands.
You know they say that ourphones are more powerful than
(21:14):
things we sent folks to the moonwith.
You know.
But what do we use it for?
You know cat videos andwatching augmented.
You know posterior bouncing.
You know it's like.
Come on, people.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Well, I want to get to that.
Now Back to your DJ life.
Let's unpack that a little bit.
So so your dj life.
Uh, what kind of look, whatkind of dj dj equipment did you
use?
Did you use classic techniques?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
um, well, this is so interesting.
Yeah, when you say techniquesand, and you know what, you know
, I didn't ever.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
When you say take what?
Yeah, yeah, I actually didn'tnever had the 1200 mark twos.
I actually had a 1800 and 1600,the original series, right, but
I was gonna say I don't, Idon't know, and maybe we do it
(22:08):
on another show, if you want, um, if we could do screenshots,
but I could show you an image,you know, of me and my partner
sitting on the set, because itwas when you, when you, went to
one of my gigs.
I'll put it like this we'resitting on a bunch of speakers.
The ones on the bottom werefour foot by four foot folded
horns.
They weighed 200 pounds a piece.
I had a digital synthesizerthat did the lowest, that
(22:31):
synthesized an octave lower thanthey could actually write on
the records.
So you got it right here.
Yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Do not play, do not play.
And we played.
Basically it was, I'd say, amix of sort of R&B, dance music
and hip hop.
And when I say on the hip hop,right, your Caribbean music
hadn't really crossed over atthat point, right, what was very
(23:02):
interesting about music backthen was that it was very local
meaning.
You had, like you know, in NewYork, you know you had folks
playing one kind of music.
So, for example, okay, to thisday you probably play Love is
the Message, right, and thething is, folks in other parts
of the country never heard itright.
(23:22):
And then you had, for example,the sound of LA LA records.
You know, you had like someMiami sound, you know.
You had some folks in theMidwest and then, you know you
ended up my freshman sophomoreyear, the Minneapolis sound
started, you know, coming up, etcetera, go, go.
(23:43):
You didn't hear those differentmusics back in the late 70s,
early 80s, because we just hadradio, and radio is very, very,
uh, local, local in range.
There was no internet right andso, um, you only heard music in
your culture and what wasreally interesting was perfect.
(24:07):
Example you know my boy, markpetty, from detroit, you know,
sophomore year he comes back,you know, and he's like, well,
what are you, what are youtalking about?
The time he was like cool, getit up the stick.
What are you talking about here?
Listen to this.
I'm like cool, get it up thestick, you know.
You know, because they were youknow one of, you know, one of
(24:29):
prince's protege bands, you know, and and they were doing gigs
all in that area and so, yeah,yeah, so because we had black
folks coming from all over, youknow, it became sort of a
melting pot of music.
But the caribbean music, uh,because back back then, you know
(24:50):
how they had I might have knowntwo Haitian folks, jamaicans
had started coming in, you know,in slow numbers, you know, back
then.
So you heard a little bit ofreggae but not much.
You know it was a little laterthat that picked up.
But then also during that decadethe music shifted and late 70s,
(25:15):
before rap was what we calledon wax.
Um, you know, okay, in brooklyn, you're in brooklyn, you're in
bronx, queens, you're doingblock parties, folks are rapping
.
But it was.
It was ignored by the industryking tim, the third, by fatback
band, about eight, seven, eightmonths before rappers.
Life was the first rap record,you know, on wax.
(25:36):
Then Rapper's Delight camelater changed the whole thing,
but yeah, but their whole thing.
And you know, obviously theytook good times.
You know we were cutting andspinning, good times, you know,
good times dude.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Now Roger, Wow, you guys were cutting good times.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, but see, good Times was the baseline.
Oh right, right, right, youread about that.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
It was the baseline of a bunch of things.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, do, do, do, do, do, do, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
So Rappers Delight took it.
Vaughn Mason's Bounce Rock,skate, bounce, boom, boom, do,
do, do, do, do, do.
You know there were so manyrecords that took good times.
They changed a little bit of it, you know, but I don't remember
(26:31):
where I was going with that.
Oh, but rap, right, and this iswhere some of your audience is
going to get mad at me, but it'sOK Because, fast forward, I
stopped DJing in the early 90sbecause I refused to go where
the music was going.
Here's what I mean we, westreet DJs and stuff doing
(26:53):
blockbusters, whatever.
Rap was what I always calledour urban folk music.
It was us being able in thecommunities, being able to say
what we wanted to say.
Show up and listen to thatmusic.
The beginning genres orsubjects of rap were mostly
around a couple of subjects.
I'm the baddest in the game.
Or throw your hands in the air.
(27:15):
You finish the.
you can finish the yeah, okayright, these were what I call
communal celebrations of joy andculture.
A little bit later, in themiddle of the decade, you have
folks like grandmaster flash,furious five, doing the message
and right, and it's sointeresting.
(27:36):
A couple of years ago, for thefirst time I got to meet
Grandmaster Flash and I saw apresentation of his where he
actually had a formula about thenumber of rotations.
He calls it like I don't knowif it's 3x plus 2 or whatever,
but mathematically, if you knewenough about music structure,
most dance music is four, fourtime, whatever, and you knew how
(27:57):
to backspin or just blend.
Well, I blended more than I cutright.
You would spin the record backa certain number of revolutions,
usually where you might have itmarked, you know, to a certain
cue point, whatever.
Flash had a formula of thenumber of rotations, whatever to
keep it going and I was just soimpressed by the way he had
(28:20):
broken it down.
I was like bro, you have noidea, you know, but I digress.
You know some of the thingsthat they did, like the message,
you know they were reporting onchallenging situations in the
neighborhood and all Right,which you know I think is very
important.
But things started taking aturn in a different direction,
(28:47):
you know, as typified by the1989 record self-destruction,
where there were elements of thecommunity that have always been
with us, but they were formerlyon the outskirts and they were
not encouraged or normalized.
Hold on.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I got to drop a bomb on that.
One more time, please.
You were on the outskirts, butthey were not encouraged.
They were not encouraged andnormalized.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
They would not encourage and normalize.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
So it would not encourage and normalize.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
We all know that we've been dealing with
institutional racism and hascreated things like, you know,
the, you know prison pipeline,et cetera.
So we know, black men havealways, you know, ended up being
unjustly over-prosecuted, etcetera, et cetera, et cetera.
(29:40):
But back when I was a teenager,you know, going to jail was
something you were embarrassedabout.
That was not a badge of honor,that was not how you, you know,
made your bones and, and youknow, things shifted where.
(30:03):
And I personally this is justmy own theory, right, you know,
I'm not a philosopher or youknow a social scientist or
whatever philosopher or you knowa social scientist or whatever.
But if you're in the suburbs andyou got football and you know
little league and all this stuff, you got lots of opportunities
for young men to burn off thattestosterone, that testosterone
(30:26):
that wants to be the baddest youknow MF in the neighborhood
that testosterone that wants toshow you know, I'm bigger, I'm
better, I'm cooler or whatever.
And if you don't have thosethings, then you have a higher
possibility of that energy goinginto a direction where you get
(30:48):
attention and respect not fromachievements that everyone will
be happy about, but by makingpeople afraid of you and by
doing things that, um, are likewe own.
You're the toughest, you're thethe baddest, because you can
beat, you know, you know mfsdown or whatever, and so you
(31:11):
know, I think, because so manyof our communities do not have,
you know those, you know thelittle leagues, you know scouts.
They are just all kind ofthings to help it engage and and
direct.
You know that energy,especially that male energy.
(31:41):
Um, you know, I I fear that thatbecomes a melting pot.
You know of, of of.
It just takes, you know, alittle trouble here and there.
You know, but then, to make itworse, when you have certain
kinds, there's been drugs in thecommunity since forever, in
every community, right.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
But there's different kinds of drugs and different
kinds of things.
And let's say with cocaine.
I've never been to Columbia butI have a feeling people don't
get strung out on chewing thecoca leaf.
All right, you know they.
They up in the mountains.
They need it for the oxygen,you know, thin air, whatever,
whatever.
But powder cocaine, yeah, itcan mess you up, but you got to
(32:23):
be rich to get messed up withpowder cocaine, so it's got a
self-limiting thing.
Freebase came after that.
It was another chemicalprocessing that made it cheaper
and more powerful.
And when you do that, anyonewho smoked weed, you know, will
remember back in the day, willremember.
You know will, will, willremember back in the day, will
remember.
You know you could get ouncesbut you know, oh, that costs
like forty dollars.
I got forty dollars.
Give me a dime bag, you know.
(32:43):
You have nickel bag, tray bags,loose joints Folks don't have.
When you don't have a lot ofmoney, you've got to be able to
get it in small quantities.
And when they started processingthis, this stimulant, the
cocaine stimulant, you know, andsynthesizing it more and
removing some of the buffersthat mother nature had in the
(33:04):
coca leaf, you know, and makingit more powerful and cheaper,
you create a vicious cycle ofyou know you can afford to get a
little bit, you know, and whatI've heard with some of of you
know you can afford to get alittle bit, you know, and what
I've heard with some of these,you know you spend after your
first hit, you end up chasing ahigh you'll never get again, you
know.
But it's like a perfect stormof a vicious cycle where little
(33:29):
bit of money so you can do it,you know, and then get you in
and then you need more and more.
Then crack came and you gotmore money.
So I've observed in over mylife in different industries,
whether it is sports,entertainment in terms of movies
(33:49):
, as soon as big money getsinvolved, it changes it.
Big money gets involved, itchanges it.
Meaning I don't think that youhad in the 50s, 40s, whatever,
folks in sports who are gettinginto it to try to get rich as
their main thing.
Or in music, yes, you've alwayshad some people who made records
right, but once you get bigmoney into stuff, you're going
(34:13):
to attract people who will selltheir own grandmother for the
right price.
That's what happened with thedrugs.
We've all been able to sellweed and this and that, but it
was with crack which, just themechanics of it, created this
very fast way to generate lotsof money.
(34:34):
And then you started havingautomatic weapons and that
creates an environment where youhave people who can make
incredible amounts of money byterrorizing our neighborhoods
Right, but then you had rapperswho embraced it talk to them I
(35:05):
used to argue that the quotegangster rap was like a cancer
in our communities.
I was like, how do we go fromsay it loud, I'm black and I'm
proud to?
I don't even.
I say I don't like saying wordsthat the Klan is jealous they
didn't come up with.
I'm not going to say that word.
(35:32):
That was the last word thatmany of our ancestors heard as
the news closed around theirneck.
I refuse to just use itcasually.
You know, as Richard Pryor saidwhen he went to Africa, you
know he didn't see.
You know no soft or hard R's,okay.
So how did we end?
How did we make that transition?
I believe folks sold out.
(35:52):
I believe that there were, youknow.
Well, I'm sorry if I'm jumpingaround, you know, but just like
you know, but when I saw in the,when I mentioned like movies
and sports, right, how muchmoney do you think you know the
Wizard of Oz made?
Who knows?
(36:15):
The point is no one knows andno one cares right right why is
it?
when a movie comes out, it'slike, how much is it making the
box office?
Well, if my kin ain't in it orI ain't got money, and it
doesn't matter.
It does not matter if someoneis playing ball, someone's
making a record, oh, how muchmoney.
Unless they're your friend orthey're going to lend you some
(36:38):
money, it doesn't matter.
But that's what we focus on.
You know, the money, the money,the money.
You know, and, and what I sawwas when I debated folks about
this, people would say oh, youknow, folks are getting paid,
whatever.
And I'm like, like, like, like,you're saying that, like that's
an excuse.
You know, I'm not a religiousperson, but you know, according
(37:02):
to you know, the Christiannarrative, judas sold out Jesus
for 40 pieces of silver.
I don't know what the goingrate is for selling out your
community, but you know, I doknow that only a small handful
of them actually got paid andquite a few of them had.
When you mentioned nerds earlier, I've embraced the word nerd,
(37:23):
but I say the retirement plan ismuch better than gangsters,
hello.
So you know, when I used toquestion these things, people
would be like oh man, you know,this got a slamming beat.
I'm like did you see the bassbottoms that I had?
(37:44):
I understand beat.
If it's really about the beat,then the beat.
You could have that beatjamming to some public enemy to
some KRS-One to some ex-flan,some poor righteous teachers,
right enemy to some KRS-One tosome ex-plans some poor,
righteous teachers.
You don't have to have thatbanging beat to talking about,
yeah, the neighborhood is notjust that, the neighborhood is
(38:06):
messed up and you can get shot,but you get shot because I'm the
one pulling the trigger,whether it was glorifying it or
just normalizing it.
I believe that we have a wholegeneration of urban Black kids
who grew up in neighborhoodswhere I say you know my
(38:26):
neighborhood, I call it theneighborhood formerly known as
do or die, bed-stuy.
You know, bed-stuy wasconsidered a real tough
neighborhood.
I did not grow up in fear thatevery loud noise could have been
gunfire.
I did not grow up in fear thatevery loud noise could have been
gunfire.
I did not grow up that way.
You know, I grew up beingconcerned about some of the
local gangs, and I'm a skinnydude with glasses, so you know
I'm well suited, justified, tobe concerned.
(38:47):
But I was not, you know, inmortal fear that anything could
jump off at any time, you know,and that it could be over some
stupid, ignorant stuff, likepeople getting jealous about
some kind of foolishness, or youmad about someone who lives on
(39:08):
a street that you don't even own, no real estate on Right, often
named after some slavers orsomething I'm like what is wrong
with us, you know, you know, soI stopped DJing because I
refused to play music that youknow called us, you know our
(39:39):
women out of our names.
You know I refuse to do it.
I couldn't feel good aboutmyself.
You know, doing things that,that or playing stuff that was
just like I'm thinking about.
You're making me think aboutsomething that happened a year
ago.
I visited Boston.
An old friend and roommatebought the black newspaper there
.
It's called the Bay StateBanner.
(39:59):
He bought it from the originalfounder who ran it for like 60
years, and I went to this galathat they had and I met his wife
for the first time.
When she found out who I was,she was like, oh my gosh, you
helped me get through college.
It was like you were my therapyfor dealing with these white
folks and this and that.
And it was because I createdthese experiences of folks
(40:24):
getting together and having agood time being, you know, being
playing all Black music, youknow, and all, and that's what I
and all and that's what I.
That's what I enjoyed doing.
(41:02):
I tried, I've tried, to takethat into the tech space and
create technologies thatcelebrate our successes.
You know that that talk aboutthose of us who have beat the
odds, who have you know, whohave done incredible things,
because so many of us have doneincredible things.
But, bro, one of the reasonsthat I'm so appreciative of you
doing what you're doing is thatwe are so bad at telling the
good news about those of us whoare doing wonderful things.
Like I want to name a couple offolks you mentioned.
Oh, you heard about MIT.
Whatever People get into thesenames and this and that and the
(41:23):
other, right, it ain't aboutthat.
I want to name a couple of myclassmates, because folks don't
know my classmate and friend,paula Goodwin, homegirl from
Detroit.
She used to be in the chemicalengineering department at MIT
and guess what her job there waswhat's that?
(41:45):
she was the chair of thedepartment.
Right now there's a sisternamed Cristala Prather.
She is the chair of thedepartment of chemical.
Paula was a Biden appointee ofsome science advisory.
(42:07):
Another sister, april EricksonJackson, born right here in
Bed-Stuy but she grew up inCambridge and she actually did
her undergrad work at MIT.
I think it was at Howard thatshe did her like a PhD and stuff
.
She's been at NASA for 30 yearsor so.
(42:28):
Biden made her assistantsecretary of defense of science
and technology.
Science and technology.
These are sisters.
I got a friend here in Brooklyn,a brother named John Henry
Thompson.
Look him up, you'll see him inBlack Inventors.
In the 90s he was working for acompany called Macromedia.
(42:54):
They had a program calledDirector that brought animation
to Macs and PCs.
He wrote a programming languagecalled Lingo that was
instrumental in folks doinganimation on desktop PCs.
So when you see the Bigfootvideo, ai videos and stuff that
people make, now he is, you know, a predecessor of that.
(43:18):
We have Black people who ourfingerprints are on all kinds of
things that we don't know aboutbecause we want to talk about
which rapper is banging whichmodel instead of talking about.
You know what Black person is.
You know running.
You know this college.
(43:39):
There's a brother who runs theBoston Foundation now there's a
brother who runs Bentley College.
There's a business college upin the Boston area.
There's sisters who Bro thestuff we do.
It will blow your mind how muchwe have done that we don't know
(44:00):
about just because we don't talkabout it.
And that's what Black Facts isabout.
Gotcha, we have everything weneed in our community.
That's what I believe to moveourselves forward.
(44:23):
If we would just embrace ideaslike the African philosophy of
Ubuntu you know, are youfamiliar with the philosophy of
Ubuntu?
Often characterizes you know, Iam, because we are.
Basically it's about let's notdo this individualism.
You know, that's like a veryWestern and definitely very
American psychology.
But to look at, I think, thequote I think it was Martin
(44:46):
Luther King says injusticeanywhere is injustice everywhere
.
Ideas like that that say Ican't be okay if you're hurt, I
like that idea right there man.
Well, hey, I can't.
I'm certainly not the author.
I'm saying you know many of ourcousins on the continent.
This is their normal.
(45:09):
You know the Ubuntu philosophy,you know I mean I mean, imagine,
imagine if we raised, you know,our folks to think that way.
That doesn't mean you don't tryand be successful.
What it, what it means is thatyou know, you realize that you
didn't come up with this all onyour own.
You know.
(45:29):
You know you're walking on theshoulders of giants who preceded
you and if you want to makesure that the other folks who
come after you are able to do it, you got to do your part, you
got to pay it forward.
You know.
You know we're all in thisthing together, on this on this
rock, unless, unless Elon Musk,you know, gets to Mars and I
encourage him to be first, butyou know, unless you know, we
(45:52):
start colonizing Mars, we'restuck here together and you know
we might as well I, we might aswell just my opinion we might
as well figure out how to put ina little extra effort to make
sure that someone else is doinggood, because it makes it easier
(46:15):
for all of us.
Man.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Right, because we're all connected.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
We are all connected.
We are all connected, eventhough it's not my technology.
I encourage folks to get intoLinkedIn because when you say
we're all connected, many of ushave heard the idea of six
degrees of separation.
Well, in Black communities,it's more like two and three
degrees of separation.
Well, in Black communities,it's more like two and three
(46:40):
degrees of separation.
Right, you know, I wouldencourage anyone you know create
an account, free account, onLinkedIn.
Start seeing who you'reconnected to, because, for
networking, I'm one of thesefolks who, if I know that you're
trying to be about somethingand I think I know someone who
might be able to open a door foryou, I'll try and connect you.
(47:02):
You know, if I don't know youthat well, I might say like, hey
, you know, there's this guy,rod.
I don't really know him, but heseems like he's, you know, the
right guy for you know that hemight be able to you know be,
you might be able to do this orthat.
You know, and I'm that guy whowill, you know, get on someone
and be like yo, you need tocheck this person out.
You know, I believe that ifmore of us did that, bro, we
(47:25):
could solve so many of theproblems that we have where
we're begging, you know, beggingthe folks who would sell us.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
You know, as you know , sell us home depot.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
200 years ago we we expecting them to fix our
problems and this and that, whenfolks and give us jobs and all
that, and ain't no oneinterested in giving you a job.
They're interested in youmaking them money that's you
know which which I don't thinkis a bad thing if you understand
it and you recognize it and youdon't work yourself to death
for people who will forget you.
You know, if the businessdecision, if corporate says we
(48:05):
need to send you packing, youknow you know, you know, if
you're working, give an honestday's work, do your job.
You know, et cetera, et cetera.
But don't let them con you intothinking that your family,
you're not, you're a resource,you're an asset.
You know to them and the minuteyou become a liability, you
know you'll be history.
(48:25):
You know.
But then there's Blackbusinesses who are trying to do
things.
I want to introduce you tofolks like you know Tawana
Rivers.
You know who runs the Black 10KProject, where they put Black
businesses in front of hermembership.
You know Tawana Rivers.
You know who runs the Black 10KProject, where they put Black
businesses in front of hermembership.
You know to potentially beinvestors and stuff.
You know there are folks whoare doing all kinds of things.
(48:47):
Man, you know, to try and goagainst these narratives that we
don't have or we can't do, I'mlike no, no, no, we just don't
know and we don't do enough.
You know a lot of times wedon't know about this other
person who's doing X, y, z andmany times, if we do know, we
(49:08):
don't take that step, we don'ttake that action.
You know.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Right, indeed, indeed .
So now going into this new AIera, what do you think we should
know in this?
Because I use chat GPT.
Sometimes I'm looking at otherapps to change video into like
animation and things like that.
So what do you think we shouldknow now going into this AI era?
(49:34):
What do you think we shouldknow now going into this AI?
Speaker 2 (49:37):
era, right, right, and I'm checking the time
because I know that you know ourtime is short.
I would suggest this because,okay, I've been using ChatGPT
like all day, every day, forabout two years now.
I don't create, you know,videos hands-on, so I can't
speak to some of those.
I'm more of a consumer.
(49:57):
You know of some of the the funand crazy.
You know different videos Iwill say this as a long term
technologist, et cetera I'veheard a lot of hype is the first
technology that requires zerotechnical skills to use it to
(50:20):
become much more powerful atwhatever you're trying to be.
Why?
Because you do not even need toknow how to type, because this
is it On my phone.
I can use the mouth that I know.
This is it, you know.
On my phone, you know, I canuse the mouth that I know.
(50:41):
You know the mouth that I knowhow to use and the phone in my
hand to say you know, hey, I'minterested in starting a
community talk show for theblack community.
(51:01):
What do you think I should do?
You know, literally, you know,you know, literally, you know
you can start doing.
Oh, that's a powerful idea, oneof the potential ideas for real
impact starting a blackcommunity, whatever.
Here's a step-by-step blueprintClarify your purpose, pick a
format, design your segments.
Well, you know, opening model Ishould have I'm sorry I didn't
hit the audio thing Openingmonologue, main interview,
community poll, spotlight,whatever tech setup, equipment,
software editing, distribution.
Build a team, even small.
(51:21):
Engage your community.
Start with a pilot session,bonus ideas.
That's what I just got inseconds from that kind of
question.
That's what you can do, nomatter what you're trying to do,
and people talk about it's biasand this and that points.
(51:53):
Our thing is to enable educatorsto teach Black history and
ethnic studies from anyinternet-connected device, from
these smart boards that theyhave on their walls to
smartphone.
This is what it looks likerunning on the phone Black
history videos, but we gotquizzes and all that.
That's the kind of thing youcan do with AI.
(52:15):
Would it recognize my face aswell?
Maybe not, but guess what?
I'm not trying to do that andthe stuff I'm trying to do?
It has saved me incredibleamounts of time.
It has put money in my pocketand I'm as Black as you want to
be all day, every day, and twiceon Sunday.
So I'm not going to say that itcan do anything you want to do
(52:38):
as a Black person, but the onesthat this Black person is needed
to do.
It's done it and helped mebecome incredibly efficient.
I encourage anyone to learn it,because I believe the future is
going to be created in theimage of the people who
understand how to master AI.
So you can ignore it if youwant, or you can use it.
(53:01):
I recommend you be one of theones that use it.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
That's just my personal Right Cause there's now
some kind of like AI revolutionon on online where it's like no
, not AI, but chat CBT.
Oh, chat CB, gbt.
You know they are wrong and youdon't want to use them as a
source because of this.
That the third like uh, you goahead you go ahead.
Speaker 2 (53:28):
Yeah, you know, I said, I say you know what.
Now you know it's still today,at least as of today, still a
free country.
You know like you don't have touse it.
If you you're not going to useit, I recommend you sign up with
the Amish.
I hear they're very nice people.
But if you're going to live ina modern society, if you're not,
if you don't learn how to useit, it's probably going to be
(53:49):
using you.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
Right, like it is for sure.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
Like AI is for sure If you're on Facebook, if you're
on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
It's being put into everything.
I view today as very similar to30 years ago with the internet.
When I was trying to get folksto use the internet, you know, I
literally would print out thehomepage of stormfrontorg, the
white supremacist website, whitepride worldwide, and we'll say
look, there's this thing calledthe internet.
(54:20):
These people are using it toput their message out.
We can use it too.
We didn't use it.
What I mean is name me someblack organization that's really
leveraging technology.
Maybe they just I'm not in theright circles, but I'm not aware
of any that are really usingtechnology, the way that it
(54:43):
could be used.
You know, at this point, Ibelieve AI because we're all
starting at the same point.
That was what I experiencedwith technology in the 90s.
Everyone's starting at the samepoint.
There's no old boy network tokeep you out.
You didn't need to havemillions of dollars to get
involved, like, if you want todo, say, a car industry or
(55:03):
whatever.
You know, with AI, boom, free.
I got a $20 a monthsubscription, okay.
You in New York, that's lunchone day, okay, don't even, don't
even like, don't be cheap, likethat.
Oh, I want to use the free,free, free, ok, fine, you know,
I don't even think when it comesto twenty dollars a month.
(55:23):
Come on now, are you serious?
You know, and I can answer, itanswers questions for me all day
.
I got to do a research.
It's crazy man.
So, anyway, I know, I know that.
You know, you said you had tojump to another thing, and
someone is saying double checkand verify.
Oh, that is very true.
(55:43):
It makes mistakes.
Sometimes it gets what I callstuck on stupid.
Right, yeah, we should probablydo a whole session on AI.
That is absolutely the case.
You know you want to doublecheck?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wouldn't.
I wouldn't, you know, trust itto without questioning.
And if you're doing it forthings like I do, for
(56:05):
programming, you better knowyour basics first, because it'll
, 80 percent of the time, righton point.
That other 20 percent can be a.
You know what, indeed, can be ayou know what?
Speaker 1 (56:17):
Indeed, yes, sir.
Well, thank you for coming outthis evening.
We really appreciate you,brother Ken, very informative.
You broke down your history andhope to have you back.
Speaker 2 (56:29):
Right, all right.
But you know what?
Remember everybody.
Go to blackfactscom all right,because, as the shirt says,
black Facts Matter.
This is our thing.
Every day, you get the BlackHistory video of the day.
It's your recommended dailyrequirement of Black History.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
Indeed.
We appreciate you.
Thanks to everybody.
We're on in a few minutes withYZ, or Y is Asia from the 5%
Nation, and we are out of here,peace.
what's going on, everybody?
It's ron brown lmt, thepeople's fitness professional,
and I have the brother kengranderson.
Is that how you pronounce it?
That's the okay, just to makesometimes I butcher people's
names.
I just want to make sure.
Thank you for coming out thisevening.
(00:31):
I really appreciate you.
And first off, we're going togo with the title.
The title is Self-DeterminationThrough Technology.
Ok, and I want to go into yourhistory.
Who are you?
Let's go into that.
Who are you and where were youborn and your upbringing?
So let's start there.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Okay.
Well, Ron, should I say Ron,Ron, Brown, what's the best way
to?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Ron is fine, ron Brown.
Call me Ron, ron Brown, itdoesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
All right.
Folks used to say just don'tcall me late for dinner.
So, ron, thank you very muchfor inviting me.
Yeah, my name is Ken Granderson.
You know I am a child of theneighborhood formerly known as
Do or Die Bed-Stuy that's whatwe called it back in the days.
Di-bed-sty that's what wecalled it back in the days Was a
(01:28):
teenager in the late 70s.
You know, grew up pretty closeto Boys and Girls High, a-train,
utica Ave, a-train Station and,you know, upbringing basically
blue collar.
You know daddy worked for thepost office.
You know mom worked office jobsat churches, actually Methodist
(01:49):
churches and left the Brooklynarea in 1980 to go up to Boston.
I was, you know, doing prettywell with math and science and
ended up at MIT Doing prettywell with math and science and
ended up at MIT and I stayedthere.
After I stayed in the Bostonarea After I graduated and
(02:13):
reconnected with a passion forcomputers, and when I say
reconnected, I got introduced tocomputers in high school.
But in the late 70s my family,we couldn't afford computers,
computers.
So I got into stereo and hi-fiand started dj, which ended up
being a business that I ran.
I was like the number one, uh,dj doing black college parties
(02:37):
in the northeast um in newengland area, I will say like uh
, dartmouth college up in um,new ham, new Hampshire, down to,
like New Haven, connecticut.
You know, during the 80s andend of the 80s I reconnected
with the whole computer thing,got into it pretty heavy, made
some programs that let me quitmy day job and you know that set
(03:01):
the stage for this idea ofself-determination through
technology.
You know.
So I was working, you know,mainstream tech job, made some
programs that put.
But you know I tell people,google me and you can find on my
website You'll see, for example, this book, windows Gizmos.
(03:32):
You know that has my program init.
You know, with my, my companyname, inner City Software, and
in the thanks I go and thankfolks who inspired me, et cetera
, et cetera, because theyprinted everything that I wrote
in this book verbatim.
(03:53):
And so in the acknowledgementsand thanks you'll see I'm
thanking my family, blah, blah,blah folks.
And then I mentioned MartinLuther King Jr, of course, right
, but I said Marcus Garvey, theHonorable Elijah Muhammad
El-Hajj, malik El-Shabazz, butas Billy Mays, I think it was
(04:15):
said, but wait, there's more.
At the bottom I have theHonorable Louis Farrakhan and
the Nation of Islam forcontinuous wake-up calls and
reminders of the conditions ofthe have-nots of America.
Because when I say I grew upblue-collar, we never had a
whole bunch of things, but I hadthe fortunate luck of being
born into an intact anddrama-free family and I have
(04:40):
learned to not take that forgranted and realize how that
kind of put me on a track whereI was able to, you know, build,
move forward and not have tohave folks who should have been
supporting me sabotaging me,like I've seen happen too often
in many of our families.
(05:01):
So I'm just very, very groundedand clear about that and I
thank, you know, some of ourbrothers and sisters who have
made sure that many of us didnot fall through the cracks, you
know, and that all inspired meto focus on building
technologies to inform, educateand inspire Black people,
(05:24):
including BlackFactscom, thefirst Black history search
engine I set up in 1997.
Run to the present day, gothere right now.
Today is Lena Horne's birthday,we have Black history videos for
every day of the year, and etcetera.
I'm going to stop and pausebecause I'm one of these folks.
You can tell I'm excited aboutthis, and so you got to stop me
(05:50):
and get a word in edgewise.
So I'm going to pause rightthere and follow your lead on
where you want this conversationto go, because I really
appreciate what you're doing andthe opportunity to share
something that I think we don'tknow what capabilities we have
and especially today with wheretechnology is.
(06:10):
I'm glad to have the chance toshow your audience the potential
that is literally in the palmof their hands today.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Right Now.
You said you grew up in afamily that was, I think you
said, undisrupted, or Intactmeaning my daddy was there, OK.
Intact.
Ok, so your dad was there.
Yeah, your mom.
So you grew up in a two familyhousehold and all that.
I mean, yeah, two parenthousehold, things like that.
Ok, so did you have anysiblings and things?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, did you have any siblings and things?
Yeah, I got one older brother,you know who, who actually, you
know, introduced me when I wasgraduating from college.
He introduced me to literatureof self-improvement.
That actually changed mydirection because you know, you
know, yeah, I went to MIT,prestigious school, all that
(07:09):
kind of good stuff.
So I knew all I had to do wasgraduate from college and I'm
going to make more money thanthat.
The bad news about that is thatI did not have any aspirations
past getting a job working forthe man it was.
It was when I was introduced toliterature that helped me
understand that there could bemore opportunity for me to do
something with a greater impact.
And because I happened to be intechnology at that time, you
(07:35):
know I was able to do thingslike put the Congressional Black
Caucus Foundation online in 98.
I put the government of StLucia online.
A dozen years ago, boston'sRoxbury community the
neighborhood I was living in,the Black neighborhood put them
online.
I put the Black newspaperonline.
(07:56):
Those are the sort of kind ofthings that you can do with
technology if you have themindset, and we can do these
things in other areas is whatI'm trying to really that's my
message really to other folks isit depends on what you're
focusing on.
You know you can focus oneveryone's focusing on just, you
know, paying the bills andwhatever, but it just takes a
(08:18):
little bit extra that you mightfocus in a certain way.
Most of us just do it for ourown, but I knew that I didn't
have the opportunities that Ihad because folks would just say
worrying about their own self.
You know, it was because ofpeople who I never met, who they
knew they would never meet me,that they opened doors for me,
(08:41):
and so that is just part of myown personal philosophy that you
know I place a high priority onusing the talents that I've
developed to try and make surethat I pay it forward and, you
know, and live up to thesacrifices of my ancestors.
We'll put it like that.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Right.
So now you were inspired to getinto the technology around the
80s, you're saying.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I was first introduced to it in the late 70s
, in the late 70s, ok, so let'sI want to stop there.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
So in the late 70s, what was the technology like?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, yeah, man, people would laugh at it, you
know.
You know, school had a digitalPDP-11 computer look like small
file cabinet.
You know black and whitemonitors or just one color green
.
Nothing that was or either thator we were my first programming
project.
We did this class at NYU.
(09:41):
They had these printoutprinters and we would play the
Star Trek game class at NYU.
They had these printoutprinters and we would play the
Star Trek game where you wouldprint out what was supposed to
be the quadrant in space, youknow, and you'd say, oh, what am
I going to do?
Pick number one to eight,number one, shoot the phasers,
you know, and they would printout the next.
That was where the tech wasback then.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Okay, and you said, people laughed at it.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Well, today they would laugh at.
Laughing is what I'm saying.
Back then it was just like, ohgreat, this is great.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Right.
So what was the first computeryou were introduced to?
Was it like IBM, or was it?
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yeah, well, I mean, back then, wasn't it, wasn't it
Poly Prep, I think?
Uh, downtown on j street, butit might have been another place
.
You have these big computerrooms, you know and and I'm old
enough to we when we had stuffon cards, so you would have
these punch cards and you take aset of punch cards and they
would print out all the this biggreen paper, and you know.
(10:38):
So I'm saying this is like theold school stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Nothing personal computers didn't happen until
the 80s okay, now in the 70s youwere, you were interested in in
in computers.
How about your peers or otherblack people around you?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
no, now, you know I, I did go to a very small um, you
know um, mostly white school,st Ann's School in Brooklyn
Heights, you know.
So, out of my graduating classof 70, there were 10 black
students, you know, six girls,four boys.
I was the only one who wasinterested in computers.
Yeah, I mean it really backthen, only the nerds were really
(11:25):
interested in computers, youknow.
But when I, when I, when I wentto college, right, the nerds at
MIT is another level of nerd,right.
So these were these guys who,like you know, beards and they
have their life in theirbackpack and they're playing
Dungeons and Dragons and I'mlike, okay, like I like
computers, and they gotcomputers here.
(11:46):
Those are the computer guys,but there's girls over there,
guys.
Well, I think I'm going to keepDJing.
So I love the computers, I lovethe computers alone.
Until the late 80s.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Okay, so now the 70s.
You left the computers.
There was a question that I hadthat was just right there.
Oh my God.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Well, I said, I started DJing.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
No, no, no, not that one Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
What was your experience like at MIT at that
time?
Well, here's the interestingthing this was four years after
busing riots, where you know,the guy was stabbed with the
American flag, you know kind ofthing, and people are like, oh,
so racist, so racist.
You know, I get off theGreyhound bus, I got my duffel
bag with my gear, et cetera, etcetera.
(12:52):
You know, you know, I have noidea what I'm.
You know what I'm up for.
You know, walk from the train.
I see on this little hill bythe student center table, black
Student Union.
I'm like I'm safe, right.
So my experience was very Blackbecause we, whether it was, you
know, the Black Student Unionand many, most of the Black
(13:15):
students, we knew each other,you know, et cetera.
Or especially after 1982, Ipledged Kappa, alpha, psi
fraternity, which you know, oneof the quote divine nine, you
know nine predominantly blackfraternities and sororities
which that really connected meto other black college men
(13:38):
throughout the country.
You know that I didn't muchtraveling, but you know so.
But my college experience,although I was in Boston, was
very black.
You know, I'm DJ, I'm DJing theblack party.
So you know, I have led a veryunique experience in that way.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
You know, you know, all right, yeah, let's, let's
unpack that a little bit, just alittle bit, all right.
So mit, very just a blackexperience.
When I think of mit, when I wasin um, when I was in um high
school, there were people, youknow, trying to really get into
mit and um.
That was the first time I heardabout mit and um and uh, the,
(14:33):
the, just like I don't.
I didn't want to say like this,but like the so-called nerds
yeah I love it, I could show youmy nerd pride stickers.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
And so you had, but although you, but you had a
black experience there now, andthis was in Boston now, from
what I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Cambridge is across the river from Boston, you know.
You know, like Boston area,culturally, honestly, it's a lot
more progressive.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Oh, okay, cause that's where I was going.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Okay, yeah that's where I was going with that.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Yeah, because you know Boston, from what I hear,
is like more like racist.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Well, I'm glad you mentioned the racist thing right
.
So when I would come home andvisit, people were like, oh man,
boston is so racist.
And I would say, yeah, man,like it's so terrible man, it's
so terrible what happened tothat brother, yusuf Hawkins, and
then what they did to thatAbner Louie, my brother, and
Amadou Diallo.
Oh no, that was, on New York,worst racist incident while I
(15:33):
was there.
Charles Stewart kills his wife,says the black man did it.
So my point being, bro, there'sracism everywhere, all right
and so, and I didn't even get toHoward beach, okay.
So, yeah, you know all the allof these things happen when I'm
in Boston, which is supposed tobe so racist, but you know.
But at the same point, yeah,boston, the you know the Boston
(16:01):
side of things.
You know Boston definitely moreconservative, et cetera, et
cetera.
Cambridge is just more Harvard,mit.
It very influenced a lot of theculture more laid back, you
know more of of your, your ally,white people.
You know, um, like liberals incambridge, you know yeah you
know, you know, you know, but,but when I say it was a very
(16:22):
black experience, meaning Ipretty much spent all my time,
um, you know, in college sort ofvenues, um, and frankly, um,
many of the black students werelike tourists in a sense.
We went into the community toget haircuts, to get ethnic food
(16:44):
and to get weed okay alright,we didn't.
it wasn't until after that Ireally started connecting with,
you know, native BlackBostonians, and my last 20 years
I was stayed there until 2018.
(17:04):
You know, I made what I inretrospect consider like a major
strategic error in staying inBoston.
When I graduated, a lot of mypeers would go to DC or they'd
go to Atlanta.
Why?
Because Black folks were doingstuff there.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
And I reasoned that, well, if you stay somewhere
where there is a bigger need,you can build something from the
ground up and you'll be likeyou know, you know the main
person the main person, whatever.
Um, what I didn't account for iswhat I ended up viewing as the
(17:47):
inertia, stagnation maybe it'sconditioning of Black Boston
that I say to people think aboutpeople of note that have come
out of Black Boston.
Now you have to, you know youneed to remove the sports folks
and the entertainment folks,because those are areas where
we've been allowed to rise, youknow, for a long time.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Think of anyone name a name in business, in medicine,
academia, you know politics, orwhatever that came out of black
Boston.
Right, you, if you were therein 1984, the name Mel King might
mean something to you.
He ran for mayor in Boston.
He didn't win, but he madehistory.
(18:32):
But he made history.
That's 84.
You got to fast forward to themid-2010s for Ayanna Pressley to
think about anyone, a name,that you would be like oh, this
is someone in Boston.
Black Boston is doing something.
And so my point being that Ibuilt websites like Roxburycom.
They, you know, built websiteslike Roxburycom.
(18:54):
That you know.
If you, I always say to peopleyou know Google my name, you'll
see my personal website.
I've archived everything I'vedone.
I got an eight-minute videowhere you will walk through of
Roxburycom from 23 years ago,where you will see we had
community news, we hadself-service events and business
(19:17):
directory listings, as, two andfour years before yelp and
eventbrite were even founded, wehad cutting edge tech for our
community there.
But I was never able to takethat and, you know, like kind of
make a lateral move into thebusiness world with it.
(19:37):
You know, and it's because thepeople there didn't have those
connections the Black folksthere, or if they did, I found
Black Boston to be a bit insular.
You know I was an outsider,even though I, you know I
adopted the Black communitythere.
You know I bought a home there.
You know I was an outsider eventhough I, you know, I adopted
the black community there.
You know I bought a home there.
(19:57):
You know, at my office there,you know my home was one block
from the Caribbean Carnivallocation.
You know.
I was a kid snacking the hood,all right.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, and so you know I was.
You know, like I say yeah, yeah, I was, gave it my best shot,
came back to New York in searchof folks who had a little more
vision for a bigger, for biggerpossibilities.
Because, as I will suggest tofolks and you can see in the
(20:29):
1996 video that you'll find onmy website and a project we call
Inner City Access, where you'llsee both me and my current
business partner Dale we hadboth had black hair at the time
where, you know, it was eight ofus in total.
We put Boston's blackneighborhoods online.
We had websites for thecommunities.
We didn't have money, we didn'task anybody, you know, you know
(20:53):
we didn't ask anybody, you know.
You know we didn't haveconnections, we just did it.
That is my message abouttechnology.
It is the most powerfulequalizing tool I believe in
human history and today it isliterally in the palms of our
hands.
You know they say that ourphones are more powerful than
(21:14):
things we sent folks to the moonwith.
You know.
But what do we use it for?
You know cat videos andwatching augmented.
You know posterior bouncing.
You know it's like.
Come on, people.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Well, I want to get to that.
Now Back to your DJ life.
Let's unpack that a little bit.
So so your dj life.
Uh, what kind of look, whatkind of dj dj equipment did you
use?
Did you use classic techniques?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
um, well, this is so interesting.
Yeah, when you say techniquesand, and you know what, you know
, I didn't ever.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
When you say take what?
Yeah, yeah, I actually didn'tnever had the 1200 mark twos.
I actually had a 1800 and 1600,the original series, right, but
I was gonna say I don't, Idon't know, and maybe we do it
(22:08):
on another show, if you want, um, if we could do screenshots,
but I could show you an image,you know, of me and my partner
sitting on the set, because itwas when you, when you, went to
one of my gigs.
I'll put it like this we'resitting on a bunch of speakers.
The ones on the bottom werefour foot by four foot folded
horns.
They weighed 200 pounds a piece.
I had a digital synthesizerthat did the lowest, that
(22:31):
synthesized an octave lower thanthey could actually write on
the records.
So you got it right here.
Yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Do not play, do not play.
And we played.
Basically it was, I'd say, amix of sort of R&B, dance music
and hip hop.
And when I say on the hip hop,right, your Caribbean music
hadn't really crossed over atthat point, right, what was very
(23:02):
interesting about music backthen was that it was very local
meaning.
You had, like you know, in NewYork, you know you had folks
playing one kind of music.
So, for example, okay, to thisday you probably play Love is
the Message, right, and thething is, folks in other parts
of the country never heard itright.
(23:22):
And then you had, for example,the sound of LA LA records.
You know, you had like someMiami sound, you know.
You had some folks in theMidwest and then, you know you
ended up my freshman sophomoreyear, the Minneapolis sound
started, you know, coming up, etcetera, go, go.
(23:43):
You didn't hear those differentmusics back in the late 70s,
early 80s, because we just hadradio, and radio is very, very,
uh, local, local in range.
There was no internet right andso, um, you only heard music in
your culture and what wasreally interesting was perfect.
(24:07):
Example you know my boy, markpetty, from detroit, you know,
sophomore year he comes back,you know, and he's like, well,
what are you, what are youtalking about?
The time he was like cool, getit up the stick.
What are you talking about here?
Listen to this.
I'm like cool, get it up thestick, you know.
You know, because they were youknow one of, you know, one of
(24:29):
prince's protege bands, you know, and and they were doing gigs
all in that area and so, yeah,yeah, so because we had black
folks coming from all over, youknow, it became sort of a
melting pot of music.
But the caribbean music, uh,because back back then, you know
(24:50):
how they had I might have knowntwo Haitian folks, jamaicans
had started coming in, you know,in slow numbers, you know, back
then.
So you heard a little bit ofreggae but not much.
You know it was a little laterthat that picked up.
But then also during that decadethe music shifted and late 70s,
(25:15):
before rap was what we calledon wax.
Um, you know, okay, in brooklyn, you're in brooklyn, you're in
bronx, queens, you're doingblock parties, folks are rapping
.
But it was.
It was ignored by the industryking tim, the third, by fatback
band, about eight, seven, eightmonths before rappers.
Life was the first rap record,you know, on wax.
(25:36):
Then Rapper's Delight camelater changed the whole thing,
but yeah, but their whole thing.
And you know, obviously theytook good times.
You know we were cutting andspinning, good times, you know,
good times dude.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Now Roger, Wow, you guys were cutting good times.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, but see, good Times was the baseline.
Oh right, right, right, youread about that.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
It was the baseline of a bunch of things.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, do, do, do, do, do, do, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
So Rappers Delight took it.
Vaughn Mason's Bounce Rock,skate, bounce, boom, boom, do,
do, do, do, do, do.
You know there were so manyrecords that took good times.
They changed a little bit of it, you know, but I don't remember
(26:31):
where I was going with that.
Oh, but rap, right, and this iswhere some of your audience is
going to get mad at me, but it'sOK Because, fast forward, I
stopped DJing in the early 90sbecause I refused to go where
the music was going.
Here's what I mean we, westreet DJs and stuff doing
(26:53):
blockbusters, whatever.
Rap was what I always calledour urban folk music.
It was us being able in thecommunities, being able to say
what we wanted to say.
Show up and listen to thatmusic.
The beginning genres orsubjects of rap were mostly
around a couple of subjects.
I'm the baddest in the game.
Or throw your hands in the air.
(27:15):
You finish the.
you can finish the yeah, okayright, these were what I call
communal celebrations of joy andculture.
A little bit later, in themiddle of the decade, you have
folks like grandmaster flash,furious five, doing the message
and right, and it's sointeresting.
(27:36):
A couple of years ago, for thefirst time I got to meet
Grandmaster Flash and I saw apresentation of his where he
actually had a formula about thenumber of rotations.
He calls it like I don't knowif it's 3x plus 2 or whatever,
but mathematically, if you knewenough about music structure,
most dance music is four, fourtime, whatever, and you knew how
(27:57):
to backspin or just blend.
Well, I blended more than I cutright.
You would spin the record backa certain number of revolutions,
usually where you might have itmarked, you know, to a certain
cue point, whatever.
Flash had a formula of thenumber of rotations, whatever to
keep it going and I was just soimpressed by the way he had
(28:20):
broken it down.
I was like bro, you have noidea, you know, but I digress.
You know some of the thingsthat they did, like the message,
you know they were reporting onchallenging situations in the
neighborhood and all Right,which you know I think is very
important.
But things started taking aturn in a different direction,
(28:47):
you know, as typified by the1989 record self-destruction,
where there were elements of thecommunity that have always been
with us, but they were formerlyon the outskirts and they were
not encouraged or normalized.
Hold on.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I got to drop a bomb on that.
One more time, please.
You were on the outskirts, butthey were not encouraged.
They were not encouraged andnormalized.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
They would not encourage and normalize.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
So it would not encourage and normalize.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
We all know that we've been dealing with
institutional racism and hascreated things like, you know,
the, you know prison pipeline,et cetera.
So we know, black men havealways, you know, ended up being
unjustly over-prosecuted, etcetera, et cetera, et cetera.
(29:40):
But back when I was a teenager,you know, going to jail was
something you were embarrassedabout.
That was not a badge of honor,that was not how you, you know,
made your bones and, and youknow, things shifted where.
(30:03):
And I personally this is justmy own theory, right, you know,
I'm not a philosopher or youknow a social scientist or
whatever philosopher or you knowa social scientist or whatever.
But if you're in the suburbs andyou got football and you know
little league and all this stuff, you got lots of opportunities
for young men to burn off thattestosterone, that testosterone
(30:26):
that wants to be the baddest youknow MF in the neighborhood
that testosterone that wants toshow you know, I'm bigger, I'm
better, I'm cooler or whatever.
And if you don't have thosethings, then you have a higher
possibility of that energy goinginto a direction where you get
(30:48):
attention and respect not fromachievements that everyone will
be happy about, but by makingpeople afraid of you and by
doing things that, um, are likewe own.
You're the toughest, you're thethe baddest, because you can
beat, you know, you know mfsdown or whatever, and so you
(31:11):
know, I think, because so manyof our communities do not have,
you know those, you know thelittle leagues, you know scouts.
They are just all kind ofthings to help it engage and and
direct.
You know that energy,especially that male energy.
(31:41):
Um, you know, I I fear that thatbecomes a melting pot.
You know of, of of.
It just takes, you know, alittle trouble here and there.
You know, but then, to make itworse, when you have certain
kinds, there's been drugs in thecommunity since forever, in
every community, right.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
But there's different kinds of drugs and different
kinds of things.
And let's say with cocaine.
I've never been to Columbia butI have a feeling people don't
get strung out on chewing thecoca leaf.
All right, you know they.
They up in the mountains.
They need it for the oxygen,you know, thin air, whatever,
whatever.
But powder cocaine, yeah, itcan mess you up, but you got to
(32:23):
be rich to get messed up withpowder cocaine, so it's got a
self-limiting thing.
Freebase came after that.
It was another chemicalprocessing that made it cheaper
and more powerful.
And when you do that, anyonewho smoked weed, you know, will
remember back in the day, willremember.
You know will, will, willremember back in the day, will
remember.
You know you could get ouncesbut you know, oh, that costs
like forty dollars.
I got forty dollars.
Give me a dime bag, you know.
(32:43):
You have nickel bag, tray bags,loose joints Folks don't have.
When you don't have a lot ofmoney, you've got to be able to
get it in small quantities.
And when they started processingthis, this stimulant, the
cocaine stimulant, you know, andsynthesizing it more and
removing some of the buffersthat mother nature had in the
(33:04):
coca leaf, you know, and makingit more powerful and cheaper,
you create a vicious cycle ofyou know you can afford to get a
little bit, you know, and whatI've heard with some of of you
know you can afford to get alittle bit, you know, and what
I've heard with some of these,you know you spend after your
first hit, you end up chasing ahigh you'll never get again, you
know.
But it's like a perfect stormof a vicious cycle where little
(33:29):
bit of money so you can do it,you know, and then get you in
and then you need more and more.
Then crack came and you gotmore money.
So I've observed in over mylife in different industries,
whether it is sports,entertainment in terms of movies
(33:49):
, as soon as big money getsinvolved, it changes it.
Big money gets involved, itchanges it.
Meaning I don't think that youhad in the 50s, 40s, whatever,
folks in sports who are gettinginto it to try to get rich as
their main thing.
Or in music, yes, you've alwayshad some people who made records
right, but once you get bigmoney into stuff, you're going
(34:13):
to attract people who will selltheir own grandmother for the
right price.
That's what happened with thedrugs.
We've all been able to sellweed and this and that, but it
was with crack which, just themechanics of it, created this
very fast way to generate lotsof money.
(34:34):
And then you started havingautomatic weapons and that
creates an environment where youhave people who can make
incredible amounts of money byterrorizing our neighborhoods
Right, but then you had rapperswho embraced it talk to them I
(35:05):
used to argue that the quotegangster rap was like a cancer
in our communities.
I was like, how do we go fromsay it loud, I'm black and I'm
proud to?
I don't even.
I say I don't like saying wordsthat the Klan is jealous they
didn't come up with.
I'm not going to say that word.
(35:32):
That was the last word thatmany of our ancestors heard as
the news closed around theirneck.
I refuse to just use itcasually.
You know, as Richard Pryor saidwhen he went to Africa, you
know he didn't see.
You know no soft or hard R's,okay.
So how did we end?
How did we make that transition?
I believe folks sold out.
(35:52):
I believe that there were, youknow.
Well, I'm sorry if I'm jumpingaround, you know, but just like
you know, but when I saw in the,when I mentioned like movies
and sports, right, how muchmoney do you think you know the
Wizard of Oz made?
Who knows?
(36:15):
The point is no one knows andno one cares right right why is
it?
when a movie comes out, it'slike, how much is it making the
box office?
Well, if my kin ain't in it orI ain't got money, and it
doesn't matter.
It does not matter if someoneis playing ball, someone's
making a record, oh, how muchmoney.
Unless they're your friend orthey're going to lend you some
(36:38):
money, it doesn't matter.
But that's what we focus on.
You know, the money, the money,the money.
You know, and, and what I sawwas when I debated folks about
this, people would say oh, youknow, folks are getting paid,
whatever.
And I'm like, like, like, like,you're saying that, like that's
an excuse.
You know, I'm not a religiousperson, but you know, according
(37:02):
to you know, the Christiannarrative, judas sold out Jesus
for 40 pieces of silver.
I don't know what the goingrate is for selling out your
community, but you know, I doknow that only a small handful
of them actually got paid andquite a few of them had.
When you mentioned nerds earlier, I've embraced the word nerd,
(37:23):
but I say the retirement plan ismuch better than gangsters,
hello.
So you know, when I used toquestion these things, people
would be like oh man, you know,this got a slamming beat.
I'm like did you see the bassbottoms that I had?
(37:44):
I understand beat.
If it's really about the beat,then the beat.
You could have that beatjamming to some public enemy to
some KRS-One to some ex-flan,some poor righteous teachers,
right enemy to some KRS-One tosome ex-plans some poor,
righteous teachers.
You don't have to have thatbanging beat to talking about,
yeah, the neighborhood is notjust that, the neighborhood is
(38:06):
messed up and you can get shot,but you get shot because I'm the
one pulling the trigger,whether it was glorifying it or
just normalizing it.
I believe that we have a wholegeneration of urban Black kids
who grew up in neighborhoodswhere I say you know my
(38:26):
neighborhood, I call it theneighborhood formerly known as
do or die, bed-stuy.
You know, bed-stuy wasconsidered a real tough
neighborhood.
I did not grow up in fear thatevery loud noise could have been
gunfire.
I did not grow up in fear thatevery loud noise could have been
gunfire.
I did not grow up that way.
You know, I grew up beingconcerned about some of the
local gangs, and I'm a skinnydude with glasses, so you know
I'm well suited, justified, tobe concerned.
(38:47):
But I was not, you know, inmortal fear that anything could
jump off at any time, you know,and that it could be over some
stupid, ignorant stuff, likepeople getting jealous about
some kind of foolishness, or youmad about someone who lives on
(39:08):
a street that you don't even own, no real estate on Right, often
named after some slavers orsomething I'm like what is wrong
with us, you know, you know, soI stopped DJing because I
refused to play music that youknow called us, you know our
(39:39):
women out of our names.
You know I refuse to do it.
I couldn't feel good aboutmyself.
You know, doing things that,that or playing stuff that was
just like I'm thinking about.
You're making me think aboutsomething that happened a year
ago.
I visited Boston.
An old friend and roommatebought the black newspaper there
.
It's called the Bay StateBanner.
(39:59):
He bought it from the originalfounder who ran it for like 60
years, and I went to this galathat they had and I met his wife
for the first time.
When she found out who I was,she was like, oh my gosh, you
helped me get through college.
It was like you were my therapyfor dealing with these white
folks and this and that.
And it was because I createdthese experiences of folks
(40:24):
getting together and having agood time being, you know, being
playing all Black music, youknow, and all, and that's what I
and all and that's what I.
That's what I enjoyed doing.
(41:02):
I tried, I've tried, to takethat into the tech space and
create technologies thatcelebrate our successes.
You know that that talk aboutthose of us who have beat the
odds, who have you know, whohave done incredible things,
because so many of us have doneincredible things.
But, bro, one of the reasonsthat I'm so appreciative of you
doing what you're doing is thatwe are so bad at telling the
good news about those of us whoare doing wonderful things.
Like I want to name a couple offolks you mentioned.
Oh, you heard about MIT.
Whatever People get into thesenames and this and that and the
(41:23):
other, right, it ain't aboutthat.
I want to name a couple of myclassmates, because folks don't
know my classmate and friend,paula Goodwin, homegirl from
Detroit.
She used to be in the chemicalengineering department at MIT
and guess what her job there waswhat's that?
(41:45):
she was the chair of thedepartment.
Right now there's a sisternamed Cristala Prather.
She is the chair of thedepartment of chemical.
Paula was a Biden appointee ofsome science advisory.
(42:07):
Another sister, april EricksonJackson, born right here in
Bed-Stuy but she grew up inCambridge and she actually did
her undergrad work at MIT.
I think it was at Howard thatshe did her like a PhD and stuff
.
She's been at NASA for 30 yearsor so.
(42:28):
Biden made her assistantsecretary of defense of science
and technology.
Science and technology.
These are sisters.
I got a friend here in Brooklyn,a brother named John Henry
Thompson.
Look him up, you'll see him inBlack Inventors.
In the 90s he was working for acompany called Macromedia.
(42:54):
They had a program calledDirector that brought animation
to Macs and PCs.
He wrote a programming languagecalled Lingo that was
instrumental in folks doinganimation on desktop PCs.
So when you see the Bigfootvideo, ai videos and stuff that
people make, now he is, you know, a predecessor of that.
(43:18):
We have Black people who ourfingerprints are on all kinds of
things that we don't know aboutbecause we want to talk about
which rapper is banging whichmodel instead of talking about.
You know what Black person is.
You know running.
You know this college.
(43:39):
There's a brother who runs theBoston Foundation now there's a
brother who runs Bentley College.
There's a business college upin the Boston area.
There's sisters who Bro thestuff we do.
It will blow your mind how muchwe have done that we don't know
(44:00):
about just because we don't talkabout it.
And that's what Black Facts isabout.
Gotcha, we have everything weneed in our community.
That's what I believe to moveourselves forward.
(44:23):
If we would just embrace ideaslike the African philosophy of
Ubuntu you know, are youfamiliar with the philosophy of
Ubuntu?
Often characterizes you know, Iam, because we are.
Basically it's about let's notdo this individualism.
You know, that's like a veryWestern and definitely very
American psychology.
But to look at, I think, thequote I think it was Martin
(44:46):
Luther King says injusticeanywhere is injustice everywhere
.
Ideas like that that say Ican't be okay if you're hurt, I
like that idea right there man.
Well, hey, I can't.
I'm certainly not the author.
I'm saying you know many of ourcousins on the continent.
This is their normal.
(45:09):
You know the Ubuntu philosophy,you know I mean I mean, imagine,
imagine if we raised, you know,our folks to think that way.
That doesn't mean you don't tryand be successful.
What it, what it means is thatyou know, you realize that you
didn't come up with this all onyour own.
You know.
(45:29):
You know you're walking on theshoulders of giants who preceded
you and if you want to makesure that the other folks who
come after you are able to do it, you got to do your part, you
got to pay it forward.
You know.
You know we're all in thisthing together, on this on this
rock, unless, unless Elon Musk,you know, gets to Mars and I
encourage him to be first, butyou know, unless you know, we
(45:52):
start colonizing Mars, we'restuck here together and you know
we might as well I, we might aswell just my opinion we might
as well figure out how to put ina little extra effort to make
sure that someone else is doinggood, because it makes it easier
(46:15):
for all of us.
Man.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Right, because we're all connected.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
We are all connected.
We are all connected, eventhough it's not my technology.
I encourage folks to get intoLinkedIn because when you say
we're all connected, many of ushave heard the idea of six
degrees of separation.
Well, in Black communities,it's more like two and three
degrees of separation.
Well, in Black communities,it's more like two and three
(46:40):
degrees of separation.
Right, you know, I wouldencourage anyone you know create
an account, free account, onLinkedIn.
Start seeing who you'reconnected to, because, for
networking, I'm one of thesefolks who, if I know that you're
trying to be about somethingand I think I know someone who
might be able to open a door foryou, I'll try and connect you.
(47:02):
You know, if I don't know youthat well, I might say like, hey
, you know, there's this guy,rod.
I don't really know him, but heseems like he's, you know, the
right guy for you know that hemight be able to you know be,
you might be able to do this orthat.
You know, and I'm that guy whowill, you know, get on someone
and be like yo, you need tocheck this person out.
You know, I believe that ifmore of us did that, bro, we
(47:25):
could solve so many of theproblems that we have where
we're begging, you know, beggingthe folks who would sell us.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
You know, as you know , sell us home depot.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
200 years ago we we expecting them to fix our
problems and this and that, whenfolks and give us jobs and all
that, and ain't no oneinterested in giving you a job.
They're interested in youmaking them money that's you
know which which I don't thinkis a bad thing if you understand
it and you recognize it and youdon't work yourself to death
for people who will forget you.
You know, if the businessdecision, if corporate says we
(48:05):
need to send you packing, youknow you know, you know, if
you're working, give an honestday's work, do your job.
You know, et cetera, et cetera.
But don't let them con you intothinking that your family,
you're not, you're a resource,you're an asset.
You know to them and the minuteyou become a liability, you
know you'll be history.
(48:25):
You know.
But then there's Blackbusinesses who are trying to do
things.
I want to introduce you tofolks like you know Tawana
Rivers.
You know who runs the Black 10KProject, where they put Black
businesses in front of hermembership.
You know Tawana Rivers.
You know who runs the Black 10KProject, where they put Black
businesses in front of hermembership.
You know to potentially beinvestors and stuff.
You know there are folks whoare doing all kinds of things.
(48:47):
Man, you know, to try and goagainst these narratives that we
don't have or we can't do, I'mlike no, no, no, we just don't
know and we don't do enough.
You know a lot of times wedon't know about this other
person who's doing X, y, z andmany times, if we do know, we
(49:08):
don't take that step, we don'ttake that action.
You know.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Right, indeed, indeed .
So now going into this new AIera, what do you think we should
know in this?
Because I use chat GPT.
Sometimes I'm looking at otherapps to change video into like
animation and things like that.
So what do you think we shouldknow now going into this AI era?
(49:34):
What do you think we shouldknow now going into this AI?
Speaker 2 (49:37):
era, right, right, and I'm checking the time
because I know that you know ourtime is short.
I would suggest this because,okay, I've been using ChatGPT
like all day, every day, forabout two years now.
I don't create, you know,videos hands-on, so I can't
speak to some of those.
I'm more of a consumer.
(49:57):
You know of some of the the funand crazy.
You know different videos Iwill say this as a long term
technologist, et cetera I'veheard a lot of hype is the first
technology that requires zerotechnical skills to use it to
(50:20):
become much more powerful atwhatever you're trying to be.
Why?
Because you do not even need toknow how to type, because this
is it On my phone.
I can use the mouth that I know.
This is it, you know.
On my phone, you know, I canuse the mouth that I know.
(50:41):
You know the mouth that I knowhow to use and the phone in my
hand to say you know, hey, I'minterested in starting a
community talk show for theblack community.
(51:01):
What do you think I should do?
You know, literally, you know,you know, literally, you know
you can start doing.
Oh, that's a powerful idea, oneof the potential ideas for real
impact starting a blackcommunity, whatever.
Here's a step-by-step blueprintClarify your purpose, pick a
format, design your segments.
Well, you know, opening model Ishould have I'm sorry I didn't
hit the audio thing Openingmonologue, main interview,
community poll, spotlight,whatever tech setup, equipment,
software editing, distribution.
Build a team, even small.
(51:21):
Engage your community.
Start with a pilot session,bonus ideas.
That's what I just got inseconds from that kind of
question.
That's what you can do, nomatter what you're trying to do,
and people talk about it's biasand this and that points.
(51:53):
Our thing is to enable educatorsto teach Black history and
ethnic studies from anyinternet-connected device, from
these smart boards that theyhave on their walls to
smartphone.
This is what it looks likerunning on the phone Black
history videos, but we gotquizzes and all that.
That's the kind of thing youcan do with AI.
(52:15):
Would it recognize my face aswell?
Maybe not, but guess what?
I'm not trying to do that andthe stuff I'm trying to do?
It has saved me incredibleamounts of time.
It has put money in my pocketand I'm as Black as you want to
be all day, every day, and twiceon Sunday.
So I'm not going to say that itcan do anything you want to do
(52:38):
as a Black person, but the onesthat this Black person is needed
to do.
It's done it and helped mebecome incredibly efficient.
I encourage anyone to learn it,because I believe the future is
going to be created in theimage of the people who
understand how to master AI.
So you can ignore it if youwant, or you can use it.
(53:01):
I recommend you be one of theones that use it.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
That's just my personal Right Cause there's now
some kind of like AI revolutionon on online where it's like no
, not AI, but chat CBT.
Oh, chat CB, gbt.
You know they are wrong and youdon't want to use them as a
source because of this.
That the third like uh, you goahead you go ahead.
Speaker 2 (53:28):
Yeah, you know, I said, I say you know what.
Now you know it's still today,at least as of today, still a
free country.
You know like you don't have touse it.
If you you're not going to useit, I recommend you sign up with
the Amish.
I hear they're very nice people.
But if you're going to live ina modern society, if you're not,
if you don't learn how to useit, it's probably going to be
(53:49):
using you.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
Right, like it is for sure.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
Like AI is for sure If you're on Facebook, if you're
on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
It's being put into everything.
I view today as very similar to30 years ago with the internet.
When I was trying to get folksto use the internet, you know, I
literally would print out thehomepage of stormfrontorg, the
white supremacist website, whitepride worldwide, and we'll say
look, there's this thing calledthe internet.
(54:20):
These people are using it toput their message out.
We can use it too.
We didn't use it.
What I mean is name me someblack organization that's really
leveraging technology.
Maybe they just I'm not in theright circles, but I'm not aware
of any that are really usingtechnology, the way that it
(54:43):
could be used.
You know, at this point, Ibelieve AI because we're all
starting at the same point.
That was what I experiencedwith technology in the 90s.
Everyone's starting at the samepoint.
There's no old boy network tokeep you out.
You didn't need to havemillions of dollars to get
involved, like, if you want todo, say, a car industry or
(55:03):
whatever.
You know, with AI, boom, free.
I got a $20 a monthsubscription, okay.
You in New York, that's lunchone day, okay, don't even, don't
even like, don't be cheap, likethat.
Oh, I want to use the free,free, free, ok, fine, you know,
I don't even think when it comesto twenty dollars a month.
(55:23):
Come on now, are you serious?
You know, and I can answer, itanswers questions for me all day
.
I got to do a research.
It's crazy man.
So, anyway, I know, I know that.
You know, you said you had tojump to another thing, and
someone is saying double checkand verify.
Oh, that is very true.
(55:43):
It makes mistakes.
Sometimes it gets what I callstuck on stupid.
Right, yeah, we should probablydo a whole session on AI.
That is absolutely the case.
You know you want to doublecheck?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wouldn't.
I wouldn't, you know, trust itto without questioning.
And if you're doing it forthings like I do, for
(56:05):
programming, you better knowyour basics first, because it'll
, 80 percent of the time, righton point.
That other 20 percent can be a.
You know what, indeed, can be ayou know what?
Speaker 1 (56:17):
Indeed, yes, sir.
Well, thank you for coming outthis evening.
We really appreciate you,brother Ken, very informative.
You broke down your history andhope to have you back.
Speaker 2 (56:29):
Right, all right.
But you know what?
Remember everybody.
Go to blackfactscom all right,because, as the shirt says,
black Facts Matter.
This is our thing.
Every day, you get the BlackHistory video of the day.
It's your recommended dailyrequirement of Black History.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
Indeed.
We appreciate you.
Thanks to everybody.
We're on in a few minutes withYZ, or Y is Asia from the 5%
Nation, and we are out of here,peace.
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