March 8, 2025 • 29 mins
SLT 'the TALK' Featuring Kariz Marcel
Host: RUDEBOY ARTIST & MRS MELANINREIGNS
Real Topics & Raw Conversations
Check out www.speaklifetour.org
Host: RUDEBOY ARTIST & MRS MELANINREIGNS
Real Topics & Raw Conversations
Check out www.speaklifetour.org
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
I'm your co host brow Boy Artists, and I'm missus Melanie.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Rains and they will have with us carriers myself say,
that's pleasure, brother, it's a pleasure. Yes, that's It's absolutely
good to be outside a little bit.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
So tell us a little bit about your careers.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Oh dad, you know, I'm a dad. You know, they
big time dad, big time husband. Uh enjoy healthy environments
and healthy people. That's thinking healthy and doing things that's
uh not necessarily on a negative frequency. You know, it's
(00:49):
trying to stay positive and make sure that they're making
right decisions in life, you know, and all those kinds
of things. So people are around is very important. And
and everything else come after that, you know, so music,
executive work, consultation, where production, you know, all that stuff
(01:09):
kind of comes after those things are like solidified, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, and so it's been a long time. Man, I
just want to thank you, you know, personally coming onto
our podcast on the first episode of our podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Man, that means deal with me.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Uh So I really I met you, you know when
it's just kind of getting the black Water Project off
the ground.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Black So I want you to tell our audience.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
How has that journey been from the moment he mat
to where you're at right.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah, first of all, I just want to say thank
you for just you know, jumping out. It's just, you know,
that was even before my son was born, you know,
like ten years ago on most so when you know,
Joy just he jumped out with the faith and you know,
with supporting us back then. So that's why I like
paying the forward. Now we hate this. It's like, you know,
(02:03):
that's why you never really know, you know, who's gonna
be doing what, you know, And when we was early
on with a vision, he believed in the vision, you know,
and that's why I you know, wanted to say thank you,
fat and just just being around during those status but yeah,
you know we that that that journey, uh, leading to
(02:24):
this point, it's been so edge. We morphed into so
many different elements of the culture. When Blackwater first started,
we were just like, let's curate an environment where we
can have a multi generational of blackness and multi eras
(02:46):
of blackness all celebrate the same moment. And that was
interesting because you can go everywhere from you know, fail
our Coolie to Cardi Beef. But what what language you're
going to create to help to bring those people together
(03:06):
in a healthy way. And that's what that that's what
was the first intent of Blackwater was was realizing that
you know, a lot of us naturally being, you know,
especially if you're bought from like the eighty on up.
It's like we we're dual. We're dual people, and we've
got these very ratchet things in our minds, these very
(03:29):
conscious things happening. At the same time. You often battle
and you know it's like, yo, I wanted to go
to your club, but also like doctor Umar, like okay, cool,
I'm going to do both whatever. Right, But it's like
the ideology of like accepting the duality of everything that
we are and creating very entertaining energetic environment to accept
(03:52):
that energy. Yes, it's kind of like what Blackwater intent
was in the beginning and morph into several other things
from then on, it's still with that element being and
its core, it's core heartbeat, you know in a way.
You know, So, yeah, what does purpose mean to you family?
You know, something to live for outside of yourself. Yeah,
(04:16):
it's really that simple. You know. Purpose has a lot
to do with like leaving something that people can remember
about you and yeah, yeah, so I know this man.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
When I reached out to you, you said that you
bransformed the journey, like you're not just career.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Is that about that?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
That transformation and what made you decide to go that
route that you are? Well, you know what's interesting that
in this in life, I'm not I'm not disciplined enough
to make decisions. I need things to force to do
stuff right. Like I can say a lot of my
(05:03):
decisions was because I was I decided no, It's like
I made some I'll do something. And then because you
do that thing, the cause and effects happen. You kind
of fall into these spaces and you're like, okay, pathily
police resistance, let's do that. So with that being said,
because I don't want to take the credit of all
of the decisions, it's like it's God, you divine things
(05:23):
that's happened. That's like makes you move into these spaces.
But you know, yes, leading up to about.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, in a little twenty nineteen, I
was doing mostly production, beat making production, recording music, And
I said I still do to this day. Don't get
a twisted I want to say, but I say, that's
like my soul thing between that and doing youth program
design was like my life extremely leading up to that point.
(05:53):
And then I was introduced to that space in Marylandoch
Place on the top floor, and uh, it was like, oh,
you know, let's let's build a let's build a hub.
And and so it turned into from making be producing
artists and being the majority of what I was doing
to now brick and mortar. And I didn't you know,
(06:17):
I was getting involved, but I jumped in there, raised
a bunch, we did okay with the little fundraiser, got
grant money, and I was able to open up the space.
And and so before we know, most of my time
designing find you know, furniture shopping, fabric shopping. It turned
into the creation of space. And so a lot of
(06:39):
the artistic time that I used to spend making beats
and building catalog into building space. And so it kind
of like why I would try to sit down and
make a beat. I don't think I've ever successfully finished
making a beat in there since we've been there. We've
been for five years. I ain't even focusing there because
it's it's the executive mind, it's business. It's that took over,
(07:01):
you know, what I'm saying. And so I still that
we produced records. I have clients, and that's at least
two days a week. I'm busy with that, you know.
But yeah, boning out of that twenty nineteen and then
going into Pandemic and shit, a lot of us had
to make shifts. And you know, coming out of the
Last Your Dinner album, we did eighty five to Africa.
(07:24):
You know, it was like, oh gosh, you know, big record.
You know, it did a single, you know, it charted
Billboard and you know, tour about the start. We did
a couple of dates, a little small local city dates
with them, and then Pandemic. So it kind of like
the trajectory of this amazing album that we've worked on
(07:46):
all these years. He just I mean, it was an
incredible classic in my opinion, it just kind of like, oh,
that's not happening all right, so what are we going
to do? And so by day of twenty twenty, we
my wife said that they union to the building in downtown.
I was like taking out the house, take the studio
out the house. I love having a studio the house.
(08:07):
You know, it's kind of like it was not having
it there. But the house people that wasn't working. It
was in the right environment for it. She was right,
She's always right, and uh yeah. And so I moved
out of there and moved to the downtown. Yeah yeah.
And that's kind of cause the production beat making world.
(08:28):
But you know, I was able to recruit and and
help a lot of other up and coming be makers
and kind of bring them on board and kind of
give them game. And I you know, that's what kind
of ventually led I'm won't give it all now. I
know it's an interview, but eventually led us to building
a true production company.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Okay, I heard you talk about being a father first
or anything else.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah, and I thought that was really good. So how
do you balance the two? I don't. I mean, it's
really horrible. I don't. I try. I don't. I think.
I okay, let me reword that. You know, I guess
balance is not the word, because balance, to me is
(09:09):
is it's conflicting, it's disruptive, it's argumentive. In order to
move things into a balance, you gotta go gets hot cold.
It's tough, right, But this where I'm at today with it.
If you would ask me that maybe four three four
years ago, I probably would have said, I don't it's tough.
(09:30):
But today that fight doesn't exist, I think because I
stopped fighting it, you know what I mean. It's like
what needs to happen, and just prioritize the things that
need to happen with them and with the family, and
and look at that as its own, like twenty four
hours in a way like of its own life over there,
(09:51):
and then shape things around that, you know, which I'm
able to do now beginning not so much. But it
took some time. It takes. It takes time for us
to clock and see y'all, I can as soon as
that stick got them two lines on it, they're like, oh,
I'm a mommy. Sometimes to take a minute for us
to really understand like what needs to be done and
(10:12):
how to do it, and you know, not be realizing
that like doing dishes and taking the trash out is
just as important as getting money. So you know, some time.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
And I see that as you value family overall, you know,
it's always first of course, right. So, but when it
comes down to community, what ways are you? Clearly I know,
but I want you to tell our audience what ways
are you engaged in community? I know the last time
I ran across, we ran across the paths. I was
dealing with the little sat back and had a little
(10:46):
money incarcerated, and uh I seen you there. He was like, Bro,
we got the we got the studio here, come down.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Make some music. Right?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
How did you make that transition? I clearly see that
prison reformation and something that you're into. How do you
make that transmission, that transition with community along with that
as well?
Speaker 1 (11:05):
I mean, you know it's always it's the start of
as well as I can remember. You know, I've been
involved in had a mission to use my art to
like have a social impact. That's been in me for
a while, you know, you know, leading there's a you
(11:30):
know probably I want to say fifteen plus years that
that kind of was what I was doing, and you
know that community part came from I think, man, that's
a good question. Man. I want to say I was
a teaching artist for starters, right. I didn't really know
(11:50):
that's what I was supposed to be doing. I'm trying
to get through this story quick because it is long
the story of my life, but I'm gonna try to
just just get through that. Artists and then coming out
of teaching artistry. You know, I was trying to understand
the business of how these programs work. That intrigued me,
(12:13):
like how are you guys able to hire the artists,
painters and videoographers all these people and put them into
schools And that just intrigued me, right, And then also
the work itself working with youth at that time and
recording music or producing songs with you so, but then
trying to understand how can we scale this idea, how
(12:36):
can we have a bigger impact? Kicked in a couple
of years a game and I started to say, you know,
I want to build my own company, and I was
called Chris Kids and Richmond Services. We ran that for
up to probably about ten years, and wrote curriculum and
scaled it throughout the East Coast, ended up with sites
in New York, DC, Baltimore, other parts of Maryland, and
(13:00):
at one time I think we probably had like Son
of East sites running at one time on the East Coast.
And it was about you know, that was the business
of it. But you know, within all of that, I
realized the impact.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
It was like all these kids are like coming back
to me, like right, with different perspectives and different ideologies
of like like, uh, what it means to like have
like self esteem and purpose even at the young age.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
You know, So I started to see later it was
wrong because the community aspect kicked in while I was
in my business journey. It wasn't like in the beginning,
like how can I save the world. It started to
happen as having a business in it, and then realizing like, damn,
they really need this, you know, like we actually doing
something more than just making beats with kids. This is
something else, And then started to evolve that part and
(13:47):
try to find different intentful ways to create programming that
will overall better than internal external life of the of
population that we serve. And so eventually, you know, I
started working the systems and the DC Youth Jail, and
then you know, our bullets came on board, and I
(14:11):
uh consulted them for a while and work with them
as a as an instructor. And so it's been a
journey and even to fa forward to today, I mean
I'm still involved with programming the different capabilities, helping other
artists and organizations start their programs. Because I've been through
(14:33):
so much. I'm like I've raised money, contracts, the requests
for proposals. So on the side, I still I do consult.
I have some ownership and some different ips out there,
but uh, you know, right now we got I think
the program I'm probably most recently involved in on that
(14:53):
side is UH music Therapy in New York City with
UH with my business and it's a wrap out of
Queen's name graph shout out the graph. It came to
me and uh, it was like, Yo, trying to do
this program and he was just everywhere with us. So
I have to kind of organize the starts and then
you know, we started putting it into Brooklyn, Bronx, different
(15:16):
schools and then yeah, so that that that took off,
and then our curriculum for Life Bridge Health here in Baltimore,
which is a podcast and violence UH intervention pace program
that I put together for Center for Hope on the
Life Bridge and so yeah, so that's still part of
(15:39):
my life, you know, but it's just not the thing
that I'm like because it's so ingrained. It's like I'm
still that gon'na always exist, you know. It's something that
I enjoy seeing the impact of what the programs do,
you know what I'm saying. Overall, even if some of
the guys that work at the studio. Now, these were
(16:02):
guys who were kids once upon a time that would
like alumni. They was eleven twelve years old in my
program back in twenty eleven, twenty twelve. Now they chart
and producers, you know. So it's it's the data that
speaks for itself, for concept that we can take somebody
from I don't know nothing to like, oh crap, I'm
(16:23):
looking we just got nominated for this thing or whatever, right,
but it just takes time, you know, And I enjoyed
those kind of those result driven destinies, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Okay, So you guys touched on, well you touched on.
You never know who you're interacting with. And I want
to ask you how important has networking been for you
here at Speak Life Tour. One of the things that
we strive to do is make that connection between the communities,
the businesses and the brands. So I heard you touch
(16:58):
on networking slightly, and I just want to ask you, like,
how important has that been for you and your development?
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Networking? Yes, you know, it's interesting. I mean it depends
on what side when it comes down, Like I'm always too,
I got the music industry meet and then I got
the Social entrepreneur me programs, and so I'm trying to think,
you know, to come down to the program side. Definitely,
(17:26):
it was some networking and some things that had to happen.
When it comes to the music side of it, network
as much, I don't really enjoy the music industry, I
don't really enjoy those. I don't know. It's a personality,
I don't know. It's like the music thing is that
I love the music. I love making music, right, but
(17:48):
it's like the participation of man trying to I don't know.
I just don't enjoy some of the networking things and
music as much as I probably should, you know what
I mean. And it depends. It has to be the
right crowd, you know, you know what I mean. But
networking is important, but what also what's important is working
(18:11):
with people who are very networking, who are very loud,
who are everywhere all the time, who you have like
right today, like I have people that work in our
company that are everywhere all the time, all Star weeking,
the Grammy Party, and because they love that networking thing.
(18:32):
I'm not too on it personally, but that's where my
weakness is. And that's also why I have these people
around me and these partners that I have, have amazing
partnerships with people, and every part of all part of
my intellectual property doing is is somebody that exists that
like the run day in mouth outside and gold places
(18:53):
and shake here and because babies a whole lot. So
I just make sure that's around and you know, and
work with people who have like enough of a name
and a reputation. Whereas though we don't have to like
network as much as comes to us, it's a law
of attraction methods.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
So when it comes down to like, because we are
at the end of the day, right challenges.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, when you're faced with.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Those challenges, how do you stay with that mindset? I'm
staying positive and still wanting to connect and still wanting
to be a big pillow or impact.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, that's a great question as well. You know, I
allowed darkness and depression to happen. First of all. You know,
I've learned that, you know, fighting the darkness prolongs to healing,
and so I used to try to like the whole
crowd or break down, but you strong, you know, But
(19:52):
what I do now is that I literally would shut
it down.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I will you know, people say you got to speak
life and to yourself, which is really great. You guys
to speak life and things are very important. And there's
a part of another part that just makes you want
to speak bad about.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yourself to yourself. You ship you, but man, you ain't
got and just be negative, right, I allow that to happen.
I will listen. Man. I would go through a point
where it's just like, I look, I just found a
book recently. It's one of my writings. I was just
going in on myself everything that was so wrong, and
(20:27):
I just was like, I do it away. I was like, man,
I can keep this around, throw it that way. You
don't feel like that anymore, you know. So I first
of all the choices come, I allow myself to feel bad, right.
And then because I'm just like the emotional artists at
the end of the day, yeah, you know, executive business owners,
but like people know me, understand, like, I'm still like
(20:47):
this artist like and so I love that emotional artist
stuff that I get through it quickly though, because of
the family and the people that's relying on me, and
it's and it's quietly nobody knows when I'm going through
that at all. I make sure of that. That's really
important to just trauma dump on the people around you
who you're gonna need it for something. And now you're
(21:07):
you're crazy, you know, don't let don't let that know
you're crazy when you're crazy, and then come out and
then come a week later, try to write you normal
and you need something serious like yo, you crazy or
state you yourself into the crazy gun, right, And that's
just how that's how I do that, you know, Okay, yeah, okay,
do you have any other questions before you up?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
I do so I just wonder and it ties it
hand in hand really, right. So I remember if you
brought me on a project that you had at all
school right there?
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, that was that was serious, it was it was
a good experience for me. So you brought me into
help document the project.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yes, and you do stuff right now.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
It's going on on the YouTube series right Actually it's well,
it's it's coming. It's now April fifth, well Max Max
cartoon that work Max uh networks. Man, they just got
Nigeria just locked in on them, UK locked in on
it networks over there, Big networks. It's a network show. Serious.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I want you so I wanted to tell us and
tell the audience. How do you bridge that between education, entrepreneurship, amity.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Well, it's always back in my mind right, first of all,
the education piece. I want to get back into doing
programming one day, right, like my own kind of program whatever. Right,
So I make sure that why we're creating, I'm kind
of in the back of it, like doing these big projects.
But behind the scenes of doing these big projects, I'm
(22:40):
trying to pay atttion to the pro to the possible
programming things, programming things that can happen if we decide.
When I decided we launched programming, because I'm like, wow,
we've got to you know this, Hopefully this is a
successful film coming out. It's called Child of Wonder. Hopefully
it's a very successful film. And even if it's not,
(23:02):
it's still that it's just great, like you know, credit
or whatever. And I want to be able to bring
create programming where we can show people how to do
this kind of work and create those jobs and bring
them in as contractors or as you know, some sort
of like in house producers one day or something like that,
internships or something like that. That'd be really cool, and
(23:25):
then follow like the business side of you said education, entrepreneurship. Yeah,
entrepreneurship side of it. It's definitely partnerships like that is
very important for me today. You know, having someone around
that is really good at the things that I'm just
that I'm not gonna say I suck at because I'm
good at everything if I choose to be with the
(23:48):
issue is that the consistency and being good at those things.
So you know, you can train yourself and put an
ask on to be good at anything you want to
be good at. Try to balance those things and scale
that simlaneously it becomes the war. So that's when you
bring in people who are really good, you know, at
(24:10):
those things. So entrepreneurship understanding you know, pay and how
to pay people, you know, like to all those things,
get knowing the right people. I mean, in our case,
we have a break a physical space, so it's always
overhead associated with all of our costs. So things costs
will be bit more now versus when I was in
my house in the basement, you know what I mean,
(24:31):
because I just got more expenses and more things to
take care of. I mean, you know, but entrepreneurship is
also to me is the gift like how can you
be in a position to get back truly if you're
if you don't got your stuff together right. For so long,
I didn't have my stuff together, but it was making
a social impact. I was borderline homeless, but yet programs
(24:55):
and helping everybody, and that's who my heart was. But
event I made a choice to just just buckle down
on the for profit side of my business and really
hock in on that and and focus on just all right,
we know how to do the impact thing and the
community thing, but let's let's let's get the money. And
(25:17):
eventually that became my focus. I'm so glad I made
that transition, and I'm gonna I'll come back to the
you know, community aspect, but from a position where we
can truly help without taking away from ourselves, gotcha.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
And that's powerful because I think that's something we all
have to learn how to balance. And that's one of
the main pieces. Is there anything you're working on right
now that you want to let the people know about
and also plugging your social media, website, everything like that.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, I mean, like I said, we are, We're cold
Composers in the EI new series coming out thirteen episodes
or for ten episodes, and I think that's how they're
saying it. But anyways, yeah, April fifth, it's about a
little African Nigerian, beautiful little girl who is trying to
(26:09):
access her powers for good. And as I'm gonna keep it,
that's way more detailed. That's an amazing storyline.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
That I saw a little snippet of like it was
like a kind of like an introduction to it.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
And yeah, yeah, it's player. It's been. It's been a
ball working working on that with the team and and
and scoring and also being able to like, you know,
bring on Baltimore musicians and hire them to be on
the big screen, you know, which was very important. And
(26:43):
I'm like, all these years I've been trying to bridge
using my program to bridge the gap between industry, and
when I started to focus on the business, I've actually
was doing that, you know what I mean. So now
it's like, okay, let's create the opportunities. And so that's
been doping. You know, these different musicians come in and
playing with you know, a lot of traditional African instrumentations.
(27:06):
When you list when you watch the film, you hear
a lot of drumming, You hear a lot of traditional
African music that was a lot of it was tracked
at Blackwater and yeah, and so when we were heavily
involved and uh some of that work that you'll be
hearing coming there. So that's really what's what's going on.
Everything else is just stuff that like because I'm really
worth talking about just yet. I mean, there's some albums
(27:28):
and stuff coming out that I got production on. There's
some dope projects coming out, you know there. Uh, continue
doing the work uh in New York City music therapy
program with graph and you know. Uh. Yeah. I one
thing I'm not afraid say that I am working on
(27:50):
that is in the process of the artwork getting done
is a children's book that I wrote, and I'm putting
that out there. I know they won't even like put
those things out there, but like because I'm like trying
to get the artwork done. But I haven't told anybody
that yet actually, but I did several revisions of this
(28:14):
book and it's like a it's like a it's a
hip hop sci fi about this little fifth grader as
like a bully and this kid is like music changes
life and he can transported to a different time in
hip hop culture and learn something about itself and make
it out of there, you know. So yeah, I want
(28:36):
to get this book done and uh but yeah, that's
that's what's going on. I mean, you know, I'm not
as active on social media. I'm busy doing the work.
But uh, if you want to follow, you know, you
could come on follow it. Convince myself on Instagram. I
might post something here and there, you know, not the
(28:57):
best at that part of the game. But uh, we're
doing work though, you know, we're paying the bills.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
So hey, that wraps up our episode, says with char
myself again. I am your co host Grouper Artists alongside.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Melanie Rains and her usual you can find us that
speak like tour and thank you so much for coming today, Charis.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
It was a nice I don't think I've ever met
you a person.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Okay, it was nice to have you to thank you
for coming on.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Thank you
I'm your co host brow Boy Artists, and I'm missus Melanie.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Rains and they will have with us carriers myself say,
that's pleasure, brother, it's a pleasure. Yes, that's It's absolutely
good to be outside a little bit.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
So tell us a little bit about your careers.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Oh dad, you know, I'm a dad. You know, they
big time dad, big time husband. Uh enjoy healthy environments
and healthy people. That's thinking healthy and doing things that's
uh not necessarily on a negative frequency. You know, it's
(00:49):
trying to stay positive and make sure that they're making
right decisions in life, you know, and all those kinds
of things. So people are around is very important. And
and everything else come after that, you know, so music,
executive work, consultation, where production, you know, all that stuff
(01:09):
kind of comes after those things are like solidified, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, and so it's been a long time. Man, I
just want to thank you, you know, personally coming onto
our podcast on the first episode of our podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Man, that means deal with me.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Uh So I really I met you, you know when
it's just kind of getting the black Water Project off
the ground.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Black So I want you to tell our audience.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
How has that journey been from the moment he mat
to where you're at right.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah, first of all, I just want to say thank
you for just you know, jumping out. It's just, you know,
that was even before my son was born, you know,
like ten years ago on most so when you know,
Joy just he jumped out with the faith and you know,
with supporting us back then. So that's why I like
paying the forward. Now we hate this. It's like, you know,
(02:03):
that's why you never really know, you know, who's gonna
be doing what, you know, And when we was early
on with a vision, he believed in the vision, you know,
and that's why I you know, wanted to say thank you,
fat and just just being around during those status but yeah,
you know we that that that journey, uh, leading to
(02:24):
this point, it's been so edge. We morphed into so
many different elements of the culture. When Blackwater first started,
we were just like, let's curate an environment where we
can have a multi generational of blackness and multi eras
(02:46):
of blackness all celebrate the same moment. And that was
interesting because you can go everywhere from you know, fail
our Coolie to Cardi Beef. But what what language you're
going to create to help to bring those people together
(03:06):
in a healthy way. And that's what that that's what
was the first intent of Blackwater was was realizing that
you know, a lot of us naturally being, you know,
especially if you're bought from like the eighty on up.
It's like we we're dual. We're dual people, and we've
got these very ratchet things in our minds, these very
(03:29):
conscious things happening. At the same time. You often battle
and you know it's like, yo, I wanted to go
to your club, but also like doctor Umar, like okay, cool,
I'm going to do both whatever. Right, But it's like
the ideology of like accepting the duality of everything that
we are and creating very entertaining energetic environment to accept
(03:52):
that energy. Yes, it's kind of like what Blackwater intent
was in the beginning and morph into several other things
from then on, it's still with that element being and
its core, it's core heartbeat, you know in a way.
You know, So, yeah, what does purpose mean to you family?
You know, something to live for outside of yourself. Yeah,
(04:16):
it's really that simple. You know. Purpose has a lot
to do with like leaving something that people can remember
about you and yeah, yeah, so I know this man.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
When I reached out to you, you said that you
bransformed the journey, like you're not just career.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Is that about that?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
That transformation and what made you decide to go that
route that you are? Well, you know what's interesting that
in this in life, I'm not I'm not disciplined enough
to make decisions. I need things to force to do
stuff right. Like I can say a lot of my
(05:03):
decisions was because I was I decided no, It's like
I made some I'll do something. And then because you
do that thing, the cause and effects happen. You kind
of fall into these spaces and you're like, okay, pathily
police resistance, let's do that. So with that being said,
because I don't want to take the credit of all
of the decisions, it's like it's God, you divine things
(05:23):
that's happened. That's like makes you move into these spaces.
But you know, yes, leading up to about.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, in a little twenty nineteen, I
was doing mostly production, beat making production, recording music, And
I said I still do to this day. Don't get
a twisted I want to say, but I say, that's
like my soul thing between that and doing youth program
design was like my life extremely leading up to that point.
(05:53):
And then I was introduced to that space in Marylandoch
Place on the top floor, and uh, it was like, oh,
you know, let's let's build a let's build a hub.
And and so it turned into from making be producing
artists and being the majority of what I was doing
to now brick and mortar. And I didn't you know,
(06:17):
I was getting involved, but I jumped in there, raised
a bunch, we did okay with the little fundraiser, got
grant money, and I was able to open up the space.
And and so before we know, most of my time
designing find you know, furniture shopping, fabric shopping. It turned
into the creation of space. And so a lot of
(06:39):
the artistic time that I used to spend making beats
and building catalog into building space. And so it kind
of like why I would try to sit down and
make a beat. I don't think I've ever successfully finished
making a beat in there since we've been there. We've
been for five years. I ain't even focusing there because
it's it's the executive mind, it's business. It's that took over,
(07:01):
you know, what I'm saying. And so I still that
we produced records. I have clients, and that's at least
two days a week. I'm busy with that, you know.
But yeah, boning out of that twenty nineteen and then
going into Pandemic and shit, a lot of us had
to make shifts. And you know, coming out of the
Last Your Dinner album, we did eighty five to Africa.
(07:24):
You know, it was like, oh gosh, you know, big record.
You know, it did a single, you know, it charted
Billboard and you know, tour about the start. We did
a couple of dates, a little small local city dates
with them, and then Pandemic. So it kind of like
the trajectory of this amazing album that we've worked on
(07:46):
all these years. He just I mean, it was an
incredible classic in my opinion, it just kind of like, oh,
that's not happening all right, so what are we going
to do? And so by day of twenty twenty, we
my wife said that they union to the building in downtown.
I was like taking out the house, take the studio
out the house. I love having a studio the house.
(08:07):
You know, it's kind of like it was not having
it there. But the house people that wasn't working. It
was in the right environment for it. She was right,
She's always right, and uh yeah. And so I moved
out of there and moved to the downtown. Yeah yeah.
And that's kind of cause the production beat making world.
(08:28):
But you know, I was able to recruit and and
help a lot of other up and coming be makers
and kind of bring them on board and kind of
give them game. And I you know, that's what kind
of ventually led I'm won't give it all now. I
know it's an interview, but eventually led us to building
a true production company.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Okay, I heard you talk about being a father first
or anything else.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yeah, and I thought that was really good. So how
do you balance the two? I don't. I mean, it's
really horrible. I don't. I try. I don't. I think.
I okay, let me reword that. You know, I guess
balance is not the word, because balance, to me is
(09:09):
is it's conflicting, it's disruptive, it's argumentive. In order to
move things into a balance, you gotta go gets hot cold.
It's tough, right, But this where I'm at today with it.
If you would ask me that maybe four three four
years ago, I probably would have said, I don't it's tough.
(09:30):
But today that fight doesn't exist, I think because I
stopped fighting it, you know what I mean. It's like
what needs to happen, and just prioritize the things that
need to happen with them and with the family, and
and look at that as its own, like twenty four
hours in a way like of its own life over there,
(09:51):
and then shape things around that, you know, which I'm
able to do now beginning not so much. But it
took some time. It takes. It takes time for us
to clock and see y'all, I can as soon as
that stick got them two lines on it, they're like, oh,
I'm a mommy. Sometimes to take a minute for us
to really understand like what needs to be done and
(10:12):
how to do it, and you know, not be realizing
that like doing dishes and taking the trash out is
just as important as getting money. So you know, some time.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
And I see that as you value family overall, you know,
it's always first of course, right. So, but when it
comes down to community, what ways are you? Clearly I know,
but I want you to tell our audience what ways
are you engaged in community? I know the last time
I ran across, we ran across the paths. I was
dealing with the little sat back and had a little
(10:46):
money incarcerated, and uh I seen you there. He was like, Bro,
we got the we got the studio here, come down.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Make some music. Right?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
How did you make that transition? I clearly see that
prison reformation and something that you're into. How do you
make that transmission, that transition with community along with that
as well?
Speaker 1 (11:05):
I mean, you know it's always it's the start of
as well as I can remember. You know, I've been
involved in had a mission to use my art to
like have a social impact. That's been in me for
a while, you know, you know, leading there's a you
(11:30):
know probably I want to say fifteen plus years that
that kind of was what I was doing, and you
know that community part came from I think, man, that's
a good question. Man. I want to say I was
a teaching artist for starters, right. I didn't really know
(11:50):
that's what I was supposed to be doing. I'm trying
to get through this story quick because it is long
the story of my life, but I'm gonna try to
just just get through that. Artists and then coming out
of teaching artistry. You know, I was trying to understand
the business of how these programs work. That intrigued me,
(12:13):
like how are you guys able to hire the artists,
painters and videoographers all these people and put them into
schools And that just intrigued me, right, And then also
the work itself working with youth at that time and
recording music or producing songs with you so, but then
trying to understand how can we scale this idea, how
(12:36):
can we have a bigger impact? Kicked in a couple
of years a game and I started to say, you know,
I want to build my own company, and I was
called Chris Kids and Richmond Services. We ran that for
up to probably about ten years, and wrote curriculum and
scaled it throughout the East Coast, ended up with sites
in New York, DC, Baltimore, other parts of Maryland, and
(13:00):
at one time I think we probably had like Son
of East sites running at one time on the East Coast.
And it was about you know, that was the business
of it. But you know, within all of that, I
realized the impact.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
It was like all these kids are like coming back
to me, like right, with different perspectives and different ideologies
of like like, uh, what it means to like have
like self esteem and purpose even at the young age.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
You know, So I started to see later it was
wrong because the community aspect kicked in while I was
in my business journey. It wasn't like in the beginning,
like how can I save the world. It started to
happen as having a business in it, and then realizing like, damn,
they really need this, you know, like we actually doing
something more than just making beats with kids. This is
something else, And then started to evolve that part and
(13:47):
try to find different intentful ways to create programming that
will overall better than internal external life of the of
population that we serve. And so eventually, you know, I
started working the systems and the DC Youth Jail, and
then you know, our bullets came on board, and I
(14:11):
uh consulted them for a while and work with them
as a as an instructor. And so it's been a
journey and even to fa forward to today, I mean
I'm still involved with programming the different capabilities, helping other
artists and organizations start their programs. Because I've been through
(14:33):
so much. I'm like I've raised money, contracts, the requests
for proposals. So on the side, I still I do consult.
I have some ownership and some different ips out there,
but uh, you know, right now we got I think
the program I'm probably most recently involved in on that
(14:53):
side is UH music Therapy in New York City with
UH with my business and it's a wrap out of
Queen's name graph shout out the graph. It came to
me and uh, it was like, Yo, trying to do
this program and he was just everywhere with us. So
I have to kind of organize the starts and then
you know, we started putting it into Brooklyn, Bronx, different
(15:16):
schools and then yeah, so that that that took off,
and then our curriculum for Life Bridge Health here in Baltimore,
which is a podcast and violence UH intervention pace program
that I put together for Center for Hope on the
Life Bridge and so yeah, so that's still part of
(15:39):
my life, you know, but it's just not the thing
that I'm like because it's so ingrained. It's like I'm
still that gon'na always exist, you know. It's something that
I enjoy seeing the impact of what the programs do,
you know what I'm saying. Overall, even if some of
the guys that work at the studio. Now, these were
(16:02):
guys who were kids once upon a time that would
like alumni. They was eleven twelve years old in my
program back in twenty eleven, twenty twelve. Now they chart
and producers, you know. So it's it's the data that
speaks for itself, for concept that we can take somebody
from I don't know nothing to like, oh crap, I'm
(16:23):
looking we just got nominated for this thing or whatever, right,
but it just takes time, you know, And I enjoyed
those kind of those result driven destinies, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Okay, So you guys touched on, well you touched on.
You never know who you're interacting with. And I want
to ask you how important has networking been for you
here at Speak Life Tour. One of the things that
we strive to do is make that connection between the communities,
the businesses and the brands. So I heard you touch
(16:58):
on networking slightly, and I just want to ask you, like,
how important has that been for you and your development?
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Networking? Yes, you know, it's interesting. I mean it depends
on what side when it comes down, Like I'm always too,
I got the music industry meet and then I got
the Social entrepreneur me programs, and so I'm trying to think,
you know, to come down to the program side. Definitely,
(17:26):
it was some networking and some things that had to happen.
When it comes to the music side of it, network
as much, I don't really enjoy the music industry, I
don't really enjoy those. I don't know. It's a personality,
I don't know. It's like the music thing is that
I love the music. I love making music, right, but
(17:48):
it's like the participation of man trying to I don't know.
I just don't enjoy some of the networking things and
music as much as I probably should, you know what
I mean. And it depends. It has to be the
right crowd, you know, you know what I mean. But
networking is important, but what also what's important is working
(18:11):
with people who are very networking, who are very loud,
who are everywhere all the time, who you have like
right today, like I have people that work in our
company that are everywhere all the time, all Star weeking,
the Grammy Party, and because they love that networking thing.
(18:32):
I'm not too on it personally, but that's where my
weakness is. And that's also why I have these people
around me and these partners that I have, have amazing
partnerships with people, and every part of all part of
my intellectual property doing is is somebody that exists that
like the run day in mouth outside and gold places
(18:53):
and shake here and because babies a whole lot. So
I just make sure that's around and you know, and
work with people who have like enough of a name
and a reputation. Whereas though we don't have to like
network as much as comes to us, it's a law
of attraction methods.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
So when it comes down to like, because we are
at the end of the day, right challenges.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, when you're faced with.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Those challenges, how do you stay with that mindset? I'm
staying positive and still wanting to connect and still wanting
to be a big pillow or impact.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, that's a great question as well. You know, I
allowed darkness and depression to happen. First of all. You know,
I've learned that, you know, fighting the darkness prolongs to healing,
and so I used to try to like the whole
crowd or break down, but you strong, you know, But
(19:52):
what I do now is that I literally would shut
it down.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I will you know, people say you got to speak
life and to yourself, which is really great. You guys
to speak life and things are very important. And there's
a part of another part that just makes you want
to speak bad about.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yourself to yourself. You ship you, but man, you ain't
got and just be negative, right, I allow that to happen.
I will listen. Man. I would go through a point
where it's just like, I look, I just found a
book recently. It's one of my writings. I was just
going in on myself everything that was so wrong, and
(20:27):
I just was like, I do it away. I was like, man,
I can keep this around, throw it that way. You
don't feel like that anymore, you know. So I first
of all the choices come, I allow myself to feel bad, right.
And then because I'm just like the emotional artists at
the end of the day, yeah, you know, executive business owners,
but like people know me, understand, like, I'm still like
(20:47):
this artist like and so I love that emotional artist
stuff that I get through it quickly though, because of
the family and the people that's relying on me, and
it's and it's quietly nobody knows when I'm going through
that at all. I make sure of that. That's really
important to just trauma dump on the people around you
who you're gonna need it for something. And now you're
(21:07):
you're crazy, you know, don't let don't let that know
you're crazy when you're crazy, and then come out and
then come a week later, try to write you normal
and you need something serious like yo, you crazy or
state you yourself into the crazy gun, right, And that's
just how that's how I do that, you know, Okay, yeah, okay,
do you have any other questions before you up?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
I do so I just wonder and it ties it
hand in hand really, right. So I remember if you
brought me on a project that you had at all
school right there?
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, that was that was serious, it was it was
a good experience for me. So you brought me into
help document the project.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yes, and you do stuff right now.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
It's going on on the YouTube series right Actually it's well,
it's it's coming. It's now April fifth, well Max Max
cartoon that work Max uh networks. Man, they just got
Nigeria just locked in on them, UK locked in on
it networks over there, Big networks. It's a network show. Serious.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I want you so I wanted to tell us and
tell the audience. How do you bridge that between education, entrepreneurship, amity.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Well, it's always back in my mind right, first of all,
the education piece. I want to get back into doing
programming one day, right, like my own kind of program whatever. Right,
So I make sure that why we're creating, I'm kind
of in the back of it, like doing these big projects.
But behind the scenes of doing these big projects, I'm
(22:40):
trying to pay atttion to the pro to the possible
programming things, programming things that can happen if we decide.
When I decided we launched programming, because I'm like, wow,
we've got to you know this, Hopefully this is a
successful film coming out. It's called Child of Wonder. Hopefully
it's a very successful film. And even if it's not,
(23:02):
it's still that it's just great, like you know, credit
or whatever. And I want to be able to bring
create programming where we can show people how to do
this kind of work and create those jobs and bring
them in as contractors or as you know, some sort
of like in house producers one day or something like that,
internships or something like that. That'd be really cool, and
(23:25):
then follow like the business side of you said education, entrepreneurship. Yeah,
entrepreneurship side of it. It's definitely partnerships like that is
very important for me today. You know, having someone around
that is really good at the things that I'm just
that I'm not gonna say I suck at because I'm
good at everything if I choose to be with the
(23:48):
issue is that the consistency and being good at those things.
So you know, you can train yourself and put an
ask on to be good at anything you want to
be good at. Try to balance those things and scale
that simlaneously it becomes the war. So that's when you
bring in people who are really good, you know, at
(24:10):
those things. So entrepreneurship understanding you know, pay and how
to pay people, you know, like to all those things,
get knowing the right people. I mean, in our case,
we have a break a physical space, so it's always
overhead associated with all of our costs. So things costs
will be bit more now versus when I was in
my house in the basement, you know what I mean,
(24:31):
because I just got more expenses and more things to
take care of. I mean, you know, but entrepreneurship is
also to me is the gift like how can you
be in a position to get back truly if you're
if you don't got your stuff together right. For so long,
I didn't have my stuff together, but it was making
a social impact. I was borderline homeless, but yet programs
(24:55):
and helping everybody, and that's who my heart was. But
event I made a choice to just just buckle down
on the for profit side of my business and really
hock in on that and and focus on just all right,
we know how to do the impact thing and the
community thing, but let's let's let's get the money. And
(25:17):
eventually that became my focus. I'm so glad I made
that transition, and I'm gonna I'll come back to the
you know, community aspect, but from a position where we
can truly help without taking away from ourselves, gotcha.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
And that's powerful because I think that's something we all
have to learn how to balance. And that's one of
the main pieces. Is there anything you're working on right
now that you want to let the people know about
and also plugging your social media, website, everything like that.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, I mean, like I said, we are, We're cold
Composers in the EI new series coming out thirteen episodes
or for ten episodes, and I think that's how they're
saying it. But anyways, yeah, April fifth, it's about a
little African Nigerian, beautiful little girl who is trying to
(26:09):
access her powers for good. And as I'm gonna keep it,
that's way more detailed. That's an amazing storyline.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
That I saw a little snippet of like it was
like a kind of like an introduction to it.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
And yeah, yeah, it's player. It's been. It's been a
ball working working on that with the team and and
and scoring and also being able to like, you know,
bring on Baltimore musicians and hire them to be on
the big screen, you know, which was very important. And
(26:43):
I'm like, all these years I've been trying to bridge
using my program to bridge the gap between industry, and
when I started to focus on the business, I've actually
was doing that, you know what I mean. So now
it's like, okay, let's create the opportunities. And so that's
been doping. You know, these different musicians come in and
playing with you know, a lot of traditional African instrumentations.
(27:06):
When you list when you watch the film, you hear
a lot of drumming, You hear a lot of traditional
African music that was a lot of it was tracked
at Blackwater and yeah, and so when we were heavily
involved and uh some of that work that you'll be
hearing coming there. So that's really what's what's going on.
Everything else is just stuff that like because I'm really
worth talking about just yet. I mean, there's some albums
(27:28):
and stuff coming out that I got production on. There's
some dope projects coming out, you know there. Uh, continue
doing the work uh in New York City music therapy
program with graph and you know. Uh. Yeah. I one
thing I'm not afraid say that I am working on
(27:50):
that is in the process of the artwork getting done
is a children's book that I wrote, and I'm putting
that out there. I know they won't even like put
those things out there, but like because I'm like trying
to get the artwork done. But I haven't told anybody
that yet actually, but I did several revisions of this
(28:14):
book and it's like a it's like a it's a
hip hop sci fi about this little fifth grader as
like a bully and this kid is like music changes
life and he can transported to a different time in
hip hop culture and learn something about itself and make
it out of there, you know. So yeah, I want
(28:36):
to get this book done and uh but yeah, that's
that's what's going on. I mean, you know, I'm not
as active on social media. I'm busy doing the work.
But uh, if you want to follow, you know, you
could come on follow it. Convince myself on Instagram. I
might post something here and there, you know, not the
(28:57):
best at that part of the game. But uh, we're
doing work though, you know, we're paying the bills.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
So hey, that wraps up our episode, says with char
myself again. I am your co host Grouper Artists alongside.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Melanie Rains and her usual you can find us that
speak like tour and thank you so much for coming today, Charis.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
It was a nice I don't think I've ever met
you a person.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Okay, it was nice to have you to thank you
for coming on.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Thank you
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