Mitchell Jackson: A Story of Resilience, Hustle & Art

Tom, Mickey and Jeffrey are back for a new season of Unglossy. In this compelling episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Mitchell S. Jackson opens up about his remarkable journey from the tough streets of Portland, Oregon, to becoming a celebrated writer and educator. Mitchell shares intimate stories of balancing street life with academics, the transformative power of writing, and the challenges of teaching during a global pandemic. He reveals how his time in prison and the long, arduous process of writing his debut novel, The Residue Years, shaped his identity and artistic vision. Alongside reflections on winning the Pulitzer and the evolving role of public intellectuals, Mitchell dives into the unexpected intersections of music, NBA fashion, and cultural narratives in his latest book, Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion. Tune in for an inspiring conversation about resilience, authenticity, and the enduring art of storytelling.

"Unglossy: Decoding Brand in Culture," is produced and distributed by Merrick Studio and hosted by Merrick Chief Creative Officer, Tom Frank, hip hop artist and founder of Pendulum Ink, Mickey Factz, and music industry veteran, Jeffrey Sledge. Tune in to hear this thought-provoking discussion on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you catch your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram @UnglossyPod to join the conversation and support the show at https://unglossypod.buzzsprout.com/

Send us a text

Support the show

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week on Unglossy .

Speaker 2 (00:02):
So I go get in my car and I feel like I gotta run an
errand and I call my mama.
As I'm backing out of my garage, I'm like Mama, mama, like
you'll never believe this, likeI just won a Pulitzer.
She said oh, that's great baby.
Uh, what's that?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
From the top.
Yeah, I'm Tom Frank.
I'm Mickey Fax.

Speaker 5 (00:26):
And I'm Jeffrey Sledge.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Welcome to Unglossy decoding brand and culture.
I'm Tom Frank, partner andchief creative officer at Merit
Creative.
This is Mickey Fax, hip-hopartist and founder and CEO of
Pendulum Inc.
And that is Jeffrey Sledge, aseasoned music industry veteran
who has worked with some of thebiggest artists in the business.
We're here to explore themoments of vulnerability,
pivotal decisions and creativesparks that fuel the

(00:48):
relationship between brand andculture.
Get ready for athought-provoking journey into
the heart and soul of brandingthe unscripted, unfiltered and
truly unglossy truth.
Welcome back fellas, welcomeback world.
It's been a minute since ourlast unglossy recording.
Happy New Year.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
I got my guy Tom on my wall.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Look at that I don't know why you think that's me on
your wall.
For those who can't see, it's aguy with hair and a mustache.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
This is you back in the 80s man.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Back in the 80s you was in the club.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
I guess, so yeah, I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
So, yeah, all right, some exciting news.
Based on the success of thisshow in our first season, we're
now rolling into season two,starting today.
Right Plus, we have an expandednetwork of shows here at
Merrick Studios.
I'm going to run through themreal quick.
Okay, let's do it.

(01:41):
We got mixed and mastered withour very own Jeffrey Sledge,
where he dives deep into thejourneys, challenges and
triumphs of the people shapingthe sound of music yesterday and
today.
How about that, jeffrey Sledge?
And tomorrow?

Speaker 5 (01:56):
Yeah, we got a bunch of recordings already ready.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
They're going to be coming out soon.

Speaker 5 (02:02):
Yeah, yeah, I'm excited about that one.
I think we got, I think we'reonto something here that's going
to be a nice a nice run, a nicerun, a lot of good stories
coming out.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
We got pitch lab, which I host with a former guest
of this show classic.
That is a brand session withceos and founders who are
hustling to take their companiesto the next level.
With a little magic at the end,we interview these guys and
then we create a punchy fun30-second content piece for them
.
Very good stuff, very goodstuff.
Our first guest was a guy whoruns a place called Coffee Black

(02:36):
and sure enough, the firstthing out of his mouth was
please say hello to Mickey Faxfor me.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Oh man, what's up?
I'm saying hello right now.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Thank you, I can't get away from you no matter
where I go, you're popping outhere.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
I'm all right.
I'm all right.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
We got Place Shapers, which is hosted by my colleague
and friend, todd Feidelman,which features candid
conversations with the realestate industry's top movers and
shapers, visionaries shapingthe spaces where people live,
work and connect.
All these shows brought to youby Merrick Studios.
Merrick Studios.
And lastly, we cannot forgetabout Pendulum Inc, which is

(03:13):
about to celebrate its thirdgraduation with an entire week
dedicated to hip-hop.
Tell us a little bit about thatweek, starting with our
celebrity lecture.
Yeah man.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
We got my guy Tretch pulling up February 26th it
should be good on Zoom.
Make sure you guys get yourtickets for that.
That's going to be apparent,you know, on our website,
penduluminccom.
And then we have our PendulumInc showcase open mic cypher on
March 1st Headline by myself andCorey Guns, with Pete Rock

(03:43):
playing beats, hosted by SonnyAnderson and DJ'd by DJ Evil D
Should be great.
We got some surprise celebrityguests Pulling up to rap on the
mic With some up and comingartists.
It should be dope.
It's a brand new endeavor I'mtrying to put together and we
already halfway sold outPre-sale tickets, so I feel good
about that.
And last but not least, we gotour graduation happening sunday,

(04:05):
march 2nd private event, butit's very special, you know.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Commencement speaker don't give it away.
Yet we're giving away.
Yeah, yeah, don't give it away.
Yeah, all right.
All right, all right we got alot going on here and we're back
with our glossy we had a very,very cool guest to kick off
season two.
I was I.
I really enjoyed this guy.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
A lot.
Money, money money, money,money, money money, money, money
, money, money, money moneymoney money, money, money money,
money, money money, money,money money, money winner in
here and then you know we'll getthe egot right, I got a plug on

(04:44):
a tony award winner, actually agirl.

Speaker 5 (04:46):
Uh oh, she's not a girl, she's a grown but a girl
college with.
She's like really big I'm gonnawait, man, though we've had.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
So we've had a pulitzer, we've had an oscar,
oscar, we've had an nbachampionship yeah, we had it.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yep, we had an em, an Emmy, right.
The Emmy was the chef, right?
Oh no, I thought he was anOscar, that's an Emmy?
Well, it's the same thing no,emmy and Oscar is two different
things, so we've had an Emmy.

Speaker 5 (05:18):
Marcus won an Emmy yeah, marcus won an Emmy who won
an Oscar we haven't had anOscar person yet.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Alright, alright, so we need an Oscar and a Grammy.
And it's only Now you wouldthink that we can get a Grammy.
You know I gotta start flexing.
You gotta flex a little bit BYou've been kind of late Season
2 is Season 2, I might have toyou know, get a little jiggy on
y'all.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
You know I might have to deal with that.
I might have to call JermaineDupri I might have to call
Jermaine Dupri for one.

Speaker 5 (05:49):
You have a lot of phone calls to make.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Jermaine Dupri will be fired.
That'll be the Grammy one.
Let's get a Grammy.
All right, let's dive into ourPulitzer Right now.
This guy was good Mitchell SJackson Rich.
Smicky.
Unglossy is brought to you byMerrick Creative, looking to
skyrocket your business'svisibility and drive growth.

(06:14):
At Merrick Creative, we solveyour brand and marketing woes
With big ideas, decades ofexperience and innovative
solutions.
We'll draw in your targetaudience and keep them hooked.
Remember, creativity is key tosuccess.

(06:38):
And now back to the showJackson.
He's the winner of the 2021Pulitzer Prize and National
Magazine Award in FeatureWriting.
His debut novel, the ResidueYears, received a Whiting Award
and the Ernest J Gaines Prizefor Literacy Excellence, while
his essay collection SurvivalMath was named a Best Book of
2019 by 15 Publications.

(06:59):
His latest book, which we'regoing to get way into Fly, the
Big Book of Basketball Fashion,hit the USA Today bestseller
list and was praised by the NewYork Times as elevating
basketball style to high fashionstatus.
Beyond his writing, mitchellholds major fellowships and
teachers and teaches at ArizonaState University, while also
contributing to the New YorkTimes Magazine and Esquire.

(07:21):
We're thrilled to have him here.
Welcome, mitchell.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Thank you, thank here .

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Welcome, mitch Thank you.

Speaker 5 (07:28):
Thank you, mighty Mitch.
Yo, I see you got the Tom Brownon the load.
I'm going to let you cookthough.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
I had to do it for you, man you know what I'm
saying.

Speaker 5 (07:40):
The first thing me and Mitch do is check out what
we're wearing.
I see you Because we first met.
It's been like that.
Okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
He looks like an author.
He looks like an author.
You two don't look like anauthor.

Speaker 5 (07:52):
He looks like an author.
I definitely don't look like anauthor at all.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
I'm an author, by the way.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
You are an author, mickey.
There we go.
Now you're talking to us fromarizona state.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're in the.
You're in the mountain timedistrict where we were that was.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
That was throwing us all off.
Yeah, me too.
Now how long have you beenthinking out there now?
Uh, this is my fourth year.
Oh, it's been a minute.
Yeah, man, I left new york andwent to um.
I was teaching at university ofchicago.
It was a pandemic year, though,so it's kind of weird because I
never actually taught a classon campus.
We were all Zoomed, and then Iended up leaving to come here

(08:31):
before I taught my second yearthere, but I thought when I left
New York, like Chicago wasgoing to be it, that was home
base.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Wait.
So you never stepped foot intoa classroom at the University of
Chicago for the first year.
You were there, and then youwere gone, and then I was gone.
Yeah, wow, yeah.
What made you, what made you goto Arizona state, other than
the weather?

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Man, you know, they make you offer.
You can't refuse, you don't.

Speaker 5 (08:54):
Bread, the bread, shit, you know, you figure it
out with the bread.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah, so now you grew up in Portland, oregon, though
right, you're a West Coast kid,I am a West Coast guy.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, man, that's actually how me and Sledge met.
Now I was counting back, it'slike 20.
It's over 20 years.

Speaker 5 (09:16):
I was trying to figure out how long it was.
It's been a long time I movedto.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
New York in 2002, and you were one of the first
people that I met when I movedto New York.

Speaker 5 (09:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
So I have a friend, a big homie named Ramon
Blackburns, got his own store,had a fashion line back then and
moved to New York like maybethree, four years before me, and
so that he was like my kind ofentree into into New York and
the fashion scene and you know,music scene a little bit.
Yeah, I came out there forgraduate school NYU in the fall
of 2002.

Speaker 5 (09:54):
Wow, yeah, that's been a long time, man.
What do you do, jeffrey?
Just walk the streets Becauseit seems like everybody says
they meet you.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
The first person they meet in New York is Jeffrey.

Speaker 5 (10:03):
Sledge.
Well, two things.
Sidebar Ramon, actually hisstore.
Chris Atlas is a partner inthat store.
Oh, wow, yeah, and Chris hasbeen on the show as well.
And then we have a mutual friend, ozzy.
Ozzy actually saw him Christmastime when I was home and Ozzy
was deep into fashion, he wasworking with Ramon on some stuff
and I'd always go by Ozzy'soffice and hang out and you know

(10:30):
, just kick it or whatever, andRamon would come by with Mitch
and we all just got startedkicking it that way and Ozzy's
office on the fashion district40 something street in the
fashion district in New Yorkyeah man, I almost ran up on a
dude that I thought was Ozzy atArt Basel, just whatever Basel
was like a couple months ago.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
I could have sworn it was Ozzie and I hadn't seen him
in a minute.
I was like Ozzie and he's likeoh, my bad bro, oh my bad, oh
man, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (10:56):
So I know you played ball out in Phoenix, sorry, in
Portland too.
Yeah, portland, yeah, yeah,yeah, I mean.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
I stopped at junior college ball but my partners was
.
You know, most of my friendsplayed Division I college
basketball.
Half of them played overseas.
Okay, A couple of them playedin the league and one was rookie
of the year.
So it's heavy basketball inPortland.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Oregon Rookie of the year.
Now you can't just stop there.
Who was the rookie of the year?

Speaker 2 (11:25):
Damon.

Speaker 5 (11:25):
Stoud uh damon stuttermeyer.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Oh, all right, yeah, he's away now, he coached
georgia tech now.

Speaker 5 (11:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's right he does.
Yeah, he coached.
He coached uh, in the pros, forhe was up with this.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, he was assistant, right, yeah yeah yeah
so emay was my high schoolteammate.

Speaker 5 (11:37):
The coach, yeah oh yeah, he was boiling too, okay,
yeah he started with me.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
It's crazy because Emei was like the third best
basketball player in his family.
His brother was the same yearas me.
We played freshman basketballtogether.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
This must have been a heck of a high school team,
yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, I guess so yeah .
And then his sister played inthe WNBA early, like maybe one
of the first draftees.

Speaker 5 (12:02):
Yeah, and played in the Olympics for Nigeria.
Wow, that's crazy, yeah, crazy.
So tell us about the wholebecause I gave Tom a brief
overlook of your story, yeah,how you played ball and kind of
got to the streets a little bitand figured that out and kind of
break it down for us, you know.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Man.
I had a young lady who used tocall me street nerd back in the
day.
Uh, she was the only personthat called it to me, but I
thought it was such a aptnickname because I was always
like half in, half out, like Iwas an honor roll student.
I I just showed, maybe like sixmonths ago.
I I showed my friends I had alittle plaque, I was like 4.0,

(12:45):
student, scholar, athlete inhigh school, and then I was also
, you know, selling dope on theside.
But if you go back a generation,all of my family not all of my
family, that's not true.
My father, his brothers, mystepfather all of them diehard
hustlers.
Brothers my stepfather, all ofthem diehard hustlers.

(13:08):
So I grew up around that, so itdidn't really seem like that
much of a stretch by the time Igot to high school and started
hustling my mother.
You know I'm from the crack era, so my mother was struggling
with addiction and I was aroundit and kind of demystified it by
going out and doing it on myown.
I never was like, I think, ifyou're going to be a good
hustler like you, got to commit.
I never committed, but I'vemade enough to.

(13:30):
You know, go get my littleLexus and Moroli and all that
shit, but I wasn't no kingpin.

Speaker 5 (13:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so what?
What happened?
I know you got, you got caught,you get a little.
So what happened exactly?

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, man, know, you got caught.
You get a little yeah.
So what happened exactly?
Yeah, man, I got caught.
I was in college so crazy,because now they're trying to
kill diversity and inclusion andmy scholarship was the
underrepresented, minorityachievement scholarship.
It was called UMass, portlandState University, that's how I
got.
They were paying for my tuitionand they actually held that
scholarship while I was inprison, so I was able to come
back, finish my degree.

(14:07):
I mean, if I didn't have thatscholarship, I don't know I'm
taking less when I could.
They held that for you.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
That's kind of impressive.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
The way my idea is 16 months, so the way it worked
out was, if you count the summerbreak and a whole school year,
that's what it was.
So I just told him I got afamily emergency.
I need to unenroll for thisyear of school.
So I didn't tell them I wasgoing to the penitentiary, but
they still did hold it for thatlength of time and that really
was like the most importantdecision of my life was going

(14:38):
back to school.
And while I was locked up Istarted writing a little bit and
then so I got out in 98 andthen I went to graduate school
in portland in 2002 uh, forwriting.
And so that's around.
That time is when I no, sorry,in 2000.
And uh, that's when I decided Idon't know if I decided I was
going to be a writer, but Idecided I was going to write a

(14:59):
book, which I think are twodifferent things to write a book
and to actually claim a writeras your identity is a different
thing, so so I'm prettyimpressed that I mean I got to
imagine coming out of jail andmaking that decision to go back
to school.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
I mean because that could have went many different
ways.
Uh, like what, what was kind ofthe the part?
I mean, how did that come about?

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Well, no options, or or feeling like I had less
options.
You know you go to jail.
If you smart, you do know thatyour options have just been
restricted, right.
So a whole lot of things youcan't do.
It was easy for me to go.
They were holding a scholarship.
It was part of my identity.
I was always a good student, soI did that.

(15:48):
I didn't want to work.
There was that too.
But I also feel like it's agreat thing to be part of a
small community, because peoplethat knew me knew me as a
basketball player or a goodstudent or a drug dealer, and so
it was really easy to kind ofshed the part that least

(16:09):
belonged to me and to enter intothose identities that were more
felt, more genuine or realparts of me.
So to go back to school and dowell was a thing that I had done
my whole life, so it wasn't ashard as you think.

Speaker 5 (16:26):
So when you went, when you went, were people
supportive or was some, was somecats kind of like hating on you
, like kind of like, oh man, youknow.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
I was.
You know, I was just I wasjoking when I had a big homie,
um, this dude named LG, so hecame, he was in, I knew him from
the streets.
But he came maybe like I waslike I don't know nine, 10

(16:53):
months into my sentence and Iwas in a dorm and he, like on
the own transport day, witheverybody coming in, they got
they roll up shit and they and Iwas sitting by the door playing
dominoes with somebody and hedidn't know I was down, so he
come in and he didn't know I wasdown, so he come in and he got
his bedroll and everything andhe's like Mitchell, like what
are you doing here?
I said time nigga, same as youis come on and sit down and I'll

(17:15):
give him 150 to zip that day.
And when I tell you 30 yearslater I still be like LG, that
time I beat you 150 to zip.
Um.
Well, I tell that story becausethe shock on his face when he
saw me was like don't belonghere, yeah, and that I I kept
that with me like I don't belong, like it's a dude that don't

(17:36):
belong in prison, that'll go toprison.
Well, I'm here now, like let mego ahead and handle my business
.
I was not that dude like I wasgonna survive it, but I wasn't
like I'm of it.

Speaker 5 (17:46):
Yeah, you look.
You was always looking out thefront door.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And you did survive it.
Like I can't, I can't evenimagine.
I mean I can't imagine.
I don't know if I would survive18 months, or what is it?

Speaker 2 (17:58):
18 you would if they gave it to you.

Speaker 5 (18:02):
You ain't got no choice.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
You can't do it till you get it.

Speaker 5 (18:05):
Yeah, yeah.
Then you got to figure it out.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah, so how much, how, how far did you dive into
writing when you were, when youwere there?
I mean, I assume writing couldeasily pass a lot of time.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
I didn't really dive in until I was getting close to
going home.
So so two things.
One, I just kind of passed timefor most of the time.
So again, I was playing a lotof dominoes, I played pool, we
had weights, but somebody atanother prison hit a dude in the
head with a weight and theytook the weights from us.
So we couldn't all the Oregonprisons got weights taken.

(18:41):
So I was like on calisthenicsand stuff.
And then when I knew I wasgetting close to going home, I
was like, oh, I need to preparemy brain for going back to
school and being a student.
Like I haven't been likeintellectually engaged.
I didn't use that kind oflanguage, but I'm like I need to
make.
I had to get my mind ready forthat.
So that's when I startedreading.

(19:02):
We had like a little bookshelfand I started reading.
And then the other thing was alot of guys, you know, you start
telling your story in prisonand if somebody wrote my story
down, it'll be a this and that.
So I was like I had that samekind of mentality, except that I
actually did start writing, um,my story down.
And then the last thing was Iused to play a lot of ball and

(19:23):
they they was like the old hairswas like man, when you get
short, you can't play no moreball, because they'll try to do
something to you out there,either to hurt you or to make
you lose your time.
So they're not going to oppose,so you mad.
And now you ain't going homenow, so I was like all right, I
ain't playing.
No more ball, that's smart,that's smart.

Speaker 5 (19:42):
Towards the.
I ain't playing, no more ball.
That's smart.
That's smart.
You kind of really, towards theend, you just really kind of
stayed to yourself and juststarted writing.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
Hell yeah, nah, I'm going home.

Speaker 5 (19:49):
Yeah, you're not even joining If.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
I, it's me out.
So how was the?

Speaker 5 (19:53):
transition going like your first, you know few
semesters or whatever in college.
How did that?

Speaker 2 (20:06):
how was that out of that so great?
It was like just, it was normalman.
You know, I had a little bit ofmoney saved so I wasn't like
dead broke.
I still had my, my jewelry andmy shit.
And I had a woman man, I man.
She helped me like she nevermissed a visit the whole time.
I was every, every visitingweek.
She was there I mean, I sit outmy window and look and you can.

(20:26):
And then it got to the pointwhere dudes that didn't really
even know me would see herparking and be like, hey man,
your lady outside, man here shecome, you know.
So that really got me throughto have somebody.
It's so crazy, cause I'm I'mdoing an event tomorrow with
this woman, kiana Harris, who Imet like some years ago and I

(20:53):
can't remember how much she did,but her partner did like maybe
a dub or something like that.
He was stretched out and shedid time with him, the whole dub
.
I don't know if it was a dub,it might have been like 15,
whatever.
Well, it was over a decade itwas a long time yeah, and she
did it with him, and so I Ithink about that, like what it
means to have someone from theoutside who was showing you

(21:16):
every week.
They care about you, thatyou're not forgotten out here
and I'm obviously my time is notlike I ain't doing no dime or
nothing, but like that shit isso important.
So I had that also when I camehome and I really that probably
was the bedrock of how I gotthrough the time.

Speaker 5 (21:34):
That's interesting, that's interesting, that's
interesting.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
20 years, what's you know?
Because I want to move awayfrom the prison, kind of talk.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
But you know, being there for16 to 18 months, you know, from
a, from a outside, looking in,what do you feel like you missed

(22:02):
the most when you got back out?

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Uh, and what do you feel like you missed the most
when you got back out?
Man, I don't think I miss thatmuch.
I mean you miss it while you'regone.
Like you miss you know what Imean.
I used to listen to the radioand imagine what the club was
doing on Saturday night.
Or there's pictures like I'vehad the same friend since I was
freshman in high school, and sothere's pictures that with

(22:30):
they'll still reshare and it'llbe from the time when I was and
I'm like damn I, it'll remind me.
Oh, I was gone.
I wasn't at that thing.
That y'all yeah talking about.
That was so, you know, andthey're resharing shit 30 years
later, so obviously it wasmeaningful to them.
So there are those moments.
But I think, to kind of evensegue us into the present, one

(22:50):
thing that prison did for me,was it?
Let me know, I can handle anyadversity, oh yeah, and there to
me is, there's nothing moredehumanizing than bend over
cough and spread them, moredehumanizing than bend over
cough and spread them when youlike.
There ain't nothing morehumiliating, dehumanizing.

(23:11):
And I think, if you can, if youcan get past that and maintain
a sense of also compassion andempathy and humanity and get on
the other side of that, likewhen you've experienced
something in the world, you'relike man, whatever.
I remember my homeboy came home.
We were best friends when wewere young and he had did like I
think he was 16, so he had cameto new york when he was talking

(23:33):
and uh, he was like, yeah, man,you know I was out there, man,
this little homie was talkingcrazy to me, man, I got him in
the rec room and just jabbed himup real quick and I was like
what, whoa?
Like?

Speaker 5 (23:44):
he said it like he turned like his normal.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Yeah, yeah, he took it like he was and I was like we
just we I mean it's my dog fromfirst grade on.
And he said that shit, like hekissed the dude on the cheek or
something.
He like yeah, real good, andkept it going.
And I was like, oh, we'redifferent now, like you know.
I don't know if I could justand just talk about it like

(24:09):
there ain't nothing happening,you know.
So I think it shows you thingsabout yourself, right?
So when I'm in the universityand I'm experiencing, say, some
kind of adversity with my deanor with a colleague or something
like in my mind, I go back tolike, well, let's compare these
two things, man like one isfreedom and humanity and

(24:31):
humility and your manhood, andthe other thing is about whether
or not you want to show up atthis meeting.
I'll take whether or not I wantto show up at this meeting every
time every day of the week.

Speaker 5 (24:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So how long did it take you toto write the, the, the first
novel, because it was beforeresidue, right, was it?
Oh, was it?

Speaker 2 (24:51):
yeah, yeah, I did also um, but over so was really
kind of after, even though itcame out before.
I was working on residue.
Residue, I say, is a book.
That it's the book that Idecided to write, so it was the
pages that I brought home fromprison.
Then it was my first MFA, so myfirst graduate thesis.

(25:12):
Then it was my second graduatethesis and then it took another.
I mean I finished graduateschool at NYU in 2004.
It took another 10 years.
So I worked on that book like15 years before it actually got
published.
And again, there are lessons.
Right, will you stick withsomething?
For 15 years?

(25:33):
I came to New York.
All that time you knew me.
I was working on that book youknow, like literally
yeah, it ain't nothing, you know.
And the crazy like I was justthinking about Doshi, right, I'm
like she's popping now.
She definitely getting you knowshe had the Super Bowl
performance.
I'm sure she's getting 20, 30racks of performance, right.

(25:55):
So like it's a very real chanceshe's a millionaire now.
I won damn near every award youcan win when that book came out
.
I was not anywhere near amillionaire, right.
So even the success that youexperience as a writer, there's
really no equal to it, becauseit takes the same or more amount

(26:15):
of time, right.
Fifteen years.
They gave me seventeen thousandfive hundred dollars as a book
advance for that book.
So if you can imagine seventeenthousand dollars for 15 years
of work like that, math ain'tmathing you know, basically a
thousand dollars a year, alittle more, yeah, basically
yeah, and then you're not.

(26:36):
It ain't like you could start it.
Like you know.
I think about a music artistlike I obviously everybody been
talking about Kendrick right.
Like if you were to takeKendrick's first two albums and
where he was after his first twoalbums and you put survival,
math and residue and whathappened?

(26:56):
For me in the book world,they're basically the same
narrative, like it's.
It's the second, it's it'swe're equals in our different
genres, except that one genreyou're an international music
star who's a multi-millionaire,and the other one you're like
man, I don't know if I shouldtake this gig for for five
thousand dollars to go speakover here, right.

(27:18):
So it's really interesting,like the value we put in the
different worlds.

Speaker 5 (27:24):
So that is crazy, yeah.
So what well, I want to getdeep into the residue thing.
So I watched the documentarytoo, by the way, which was oh
yeah yeah yeah, that was super.
That was super, super dope.
It really explained it wellLike so what was the kind of
your motivation behind behindwriting a book was?

Speaker 2 (27:46):
you behind.
Writing a book was, you know,obviously the right story, but
but what else, man, it was tomake?
Okay, there was two things.
One it was to show that I couldtransform my experience into
art so I really early on I itwas like a fort, it was like I
can write a hood book.
That's when you know.
Remember they used to sell thehood books on 125th and you know

(28:09):
, yeah, I hand ahead.
Yeah, or I could get on the, inmy mind, the tony morrison path,
right, like you can get on theacclaim and you might win a
pulitzer someday and that, andso that's a different path.
Like you got to really study,you may or may not crack you or
may not sell some books, and soI decided that I was going to be
on that path, a triple entendreor anything but like I'm

(28:30):
learning it down to that levelof nuance in the residual years.
And then there's the experience.

(28:54):
So there's the kind of makingsense of it, there's also the
like, but this also has to beart, because if I don't make
sense of it, my whole lifethey're going to be like oh man,
you, you know, you had a mamathat was on dope and you you
went to prison like shit, and soI'm gonna be in that lane and

(29:14):
then that becomes for me mycurrency, and I didn't want that
to be my currency for the next20 years.
I wanted you to say, man, thisguy's a real artist and he
happens to have this experiencethat informed these first two or
three books or whatever.
But you know, I mean, if I'mwriting about NBA basketball and
they say that's art, but Iain't got shit to do with my
mama being on dope.

Speaker 5 (29:33):
Not at all.
Not at all yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
I was, I felt really fortunate.
That residue was like how Imade sense of my personal
experience.
Survival math was how I madesense of my community and the
history that shaped black peoplein Oregon.
So to me those two things arelike OK, I said what I needed to
say about this, and now whereare we going after that?

Speaker 4 (29:54):
And we'll be right back.
Master the art of lyricism withPendulum Inc.
The first school for rap.
Learn elite techniques throughimmersive lessons, real world
exercises and and guidance fromhip-hop icons.
This is where MCs sharpen theirskills and glow boldly on the
mic.
Ready to level up, visitPendulumInccom and start your
journey today.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
And now back to the show.

Speaker 5 (30:17):
I might be skipping forward a little bit, but where
were you?
How did it happen, when youreceived the?
The poster, yeah, the poster,yeah.
How did it happen?

Speaker 1 (30:26):
when you received the Pulitzer, yeah, the Pulitzer,
yeah.
How did that happen?
Did you just get a letter inthe mail, or somebody show up at
your house?

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Bro, the crazy thing about that, that was pandemic
year.
I was living in Chicago so itwas sheltering.
And that year, because of thepandemic, they had moved the
National Magazine Awards and thePulitzer.
No, they moved the NationalMagazine Award so it was
actually the day before thePulitzer, so the ceremony was

(30:54):
virtual.
For the National Magazine Award.
It was like this and I'm onthere with all the Runners World
people and the big Hearstexecutives and they, you know,
they announced, you know thewinners Mitchell Jackson, the
Mount Aubrey I'm like oh shit,like this is crazy.
And I remember I got off of the.
After we had got off the call,I got an email from the head of

(31:20):
publicity for Hearst and he saidMitchell, I just want you to
know that this is our Oscar,because I didn't have any really
perspective of the magazine.
So I'm like, oh shit, like thisis crazy.
Now this is, say, 7 or 8pmChicago time, that this is, this

(31:40):
is an evening ceremony.
So the next morning or the nextafternoon in New York they're
doing the Pulisers.
I knew they were doing it andthere are maybe two or three
people that have won both.
So I'm like there's a remotepossibility that this could
happen, but I do not want tostress myself out.
So right before I know that theceremony is happening, I'm like

(32:03):
let's take a nap I lay down.
And then I get a call from myhomeboy who went to nyu with me.
He had won a pulitzer in poetry, maybe like four years prior.
He never called me.
So I pick up, I'm like what'sup, man?
He said man, congratulations.

(32:24):
I said congratulations aboutwhat he said man, you just want
a pulitzer, you don't know.
I said get the fuck out of here.
He like nah, man, you go check.
So I go online and thepulitzers do it.
It was on twitter.
That's how I found out.
Wow, I'm looking on twitter andI'm like man, this can't be
true, this can't like.
Maybe they lying.
So it took a lot verifying forfor me to believe it.

(32:48):
But yeah, I got the call.
His name is Tyemba Jess.
I don't know what year he wonthe Pulitzer, maybe 2015.
He was the one that called meand said man, congratulations.
I will never forget that,because both of those things
happened within 24 hours, thatthat had never happened to
anyone because the ceremonieswere never back-to-back before.

Speaker 5 (33:08):
They're always like yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
So you had no idea you were going to win.
I mean, you thought maybe youhad an outside chance, but you
really didn't think necessarilyyou were going to get either one
.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yeah, well, you know I knew I was.
So the National Mac NeimanAwards they announced finals.
Actually, tomorrow theyannounced the finalists for this
year.
So you know you're a finalistand you know you're going to the
ceremony with the Pulitzer.
You have no idea.
They announced finalists andwinners same day you got they.
They're not giving you no emailor nothing, it's just you find

(33:39):
out when the world find out.

Speaker 5 (33:41):
Oh, wow, you get anything.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
Do you get a certificate statue?
What do you get?
Yeah, oh, I want to see thestatue.
You got one.
Here we go, let's see it.
We've had an Academy Award.
We've had an Academy Award onhere, right?

Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
And now Wow.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
I get a little ski or something, but this is the
little thing they give you here.

Speaker 5 (34:02):
The Get a little ski or something, but this is the
little thing they give you here,the little trophy that's dope.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
I want to say I think this is made by Tiffany.

Speaker 5 (34:08):
Probably.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Woo.
But yeah, you get that and someother stuff.
I remember going to theceremony because they did it
super late and they had thelittle gift bags when we was
leaving and they had Tiffanygift bag and I'm walking out
like a real black person.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
I'm like oh, oh, hold on, man, I gotta get back get
back yo I don't think you shouldlimit that to, uh, just black
people.
I would have done the exactsame thing I.
That's how I was raised grabtwo of those bags.

Speaker 5 (34:35):
Let me get two let me get an extra one for me don't
mind my dad so wait, how did so?
How did your?
How does your world changeafter winning like that's, like
you said, this oscar never awardin in journalism?

Speaker 2 (34:48):
in writing.
Yeah, I mean, I think it'sinteresting.
Um well, two things, one, oneof the most.
Now, it wasn't most humbling,but I remember that after the
pulitzer I'm like in disbelief.
I'm walking around justliterally like I can't believe
this.
And also I'm in Chicago, so itain't like I got no partners

(35:09):
around me, I'm just me and myladies out there.
So I go get in my car and Ifeel like I got to run an errand
and I call my mama.
As I'm backing out of my garage, I'm like Mama, mama, like
you'll never believe this, likeI just want a Pulitzer.
She said oh, that's great, baby.

(35:31):
What's that?
So that immediately I was like,well, the world don't care about
this shit like I do, the worlddon't care.
So that was one thing.
And then I think again, we justdon't have the same like an
accomplished slash.
I don't think that there isreally such a thing as writer

(35:57):
fame.
Oh well, if you think about itlike, I remember being at I used
to teach at John Jay for alittle while and they had an
event with Stephen King.
They had tables like lined up,maybe like 60 feet of books
stacked like four or five bookshigh.
I mean this had to be thousandsof books that he couldn't have
signed all of them, but I meanthey were giving them away.
Stephen King walked in there,walked right past the books.

(36:20):
Nobody is losing their mindover Stephen King.
You know James Patterson walkeddown my block right now.
No one probably but me wouldreckon you know.
So, like, yeah, I think thisidea of writer fame does not
exist.
Now, writer accomplishment,like you, go into a room full of
writers, obviously, I know whoColson Whitehead is, I know what

(36:41):
Ta-Nehisi Coates is, I knowImani Perry, I know Rox Colson
Whitehead is, I know whatTa-Nehisi Coates is, I know
Imani Perry, I know Roxane Gate.
But this idea that your lifeflips, you know, like that, like
all the artists that you werewith when you watch, you know
tipping them, you know in thebeginning of their career they
can walk into Jive, you know,then they get popping.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
They come in and not everybody want to come to the
office, like that just is nothappening with us.
So I think it's a it's a reallygreat thing if you're humble
about it, because it allows youknow that's not, that, even that
is not.
You know what.
What's equal to OK so thinkabout it.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
James Patterson Right , I got a ton of James Patterson
books behind me, you know hewere to walk down.
I don't know if I'd know if he,like, stood right next to me at
the bus stop.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
I have no idea who he is, so I went to this um, I'm
not going to mention her namebecause, well, maybe I will
mention her name.
I went to the uh dinner.
It was this, this, this, thiswriter named minjin lee, who's a
really cultural figure, likeshe's a great person.
This is in new york, this ismaybe last fall, and I is me and

(38:05):
a bunch of writers and likeother cultural figures there.
And this me, jelani Cobb, fromthe New Yorker, and it's another
writer there, and this writerthat is there is literally the
top selling memoirs of all time.

(38:25):
I mean more than MichelleObama's Beloved.
So I mean, y'all can probablydo the research and figure out
who.
This is right.
So me, her and Jelani aresitting on the couch Now.
I know her because we hung outa little bit, but Jelani is the
guy at the New Yorker right, theblack guy at the New Yorker
runs.
Columbia's journalism program.
He's on the Pulitzer board.
I mean, it really is no biggerkind of literary figure in the

(38:49):
culture than Jelani.
And Jelani is like looking overand he's like, hey, yeah, so
are you a writer?
And she's like, yeah, yeah, I'ma writer.
Now this is a woman who'sprobably sold 10 million copies
of her book.
Now, this is a woman who'sprobably sold 10 million copies
of her book.
What are you right?
And I'm like like, imagine shesold more copies of her book

(39:10):
than usher sold a confessions.
You know, like being in a room,ushers in a room with somebody
and they're like so what you doyou see, like for real, see what
I'm saying.
Like I just would never.
No, what was his response?

Speaker 3 (39:28):
What was his response ?
What was his response when she?
Did she ever say what she wrote?

Speaker 2 (39:32):
She said, yeah, I'm a writer.
I don't even know if shementioned her book, because I
think on the other side of thatis like a little bit of ego,
like if I'm somewhere and I sold10 million copies of my book,
like I'm like, hey, you, youshould know who I am yeah, but
also the humility, like yeah,all right, and I'll just leave
it at that, like if you want tofigure out who?

(39:54):
and then I put me, bro, I'll putthem to the side and was like,
hey, man, homie, yeah, we shouldknow her so, so, okay, okay.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
So, so, to play devil's advocate here, yeah, you
know, do you feel like, well,this kind of answers the
question, but like somebody likerl stein, right?
Yes, who did goosebumps, is itthe same with him?
Uh, the woman who wrote harrypotter, is it the same for?
Her yeah, you know, like, likeis it, is it movie?

(40:25):
Well, stephen King?
Like nobody cares, I just thinkI think Stephen King is more of
a recluse, he's not really apublic figure.
But like, yeah, you think, ifmovie adaptations turn into
popularized, movies.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
I think what it is is when you're a writer, the work
becomes famous, not you, not youthat's a good point, yeah yeah,
oh, like jk rowling, not her.
You know jk rowling, I'm sure itcan go to the grocery store,
but harry potter is obviously.
I mean, I, my first book was onbloomsbury, uk or bloomsbury

(41:03):
america, which we got out ofBloomsbury UK because of the
success of JK Rowling, she, shepublished that book on
Bloomsbury in the UK, so theyhad a subsidiary in America.
So, yeah, you say, you say hername, everybody knows her name.
Just like you say Stephen King,just like you say they know the
name, but that's not fame,that's like I know her work,

(41:26):
right like now the dude whoplayed harry potter that's fame,
that's fame.
You know, jk riley walk rightdown the red carpet like, uh, we
need a name tag for her yeahwhat do you?

Speaker 5 (41:38):
think happened?
What do you think is thedifference?
Because, like, obviously, yearsago you had James Baldwin, you
said Tony Morrison, you know um,you know uh um, my man who
wrote the Children, david uhBlack on his name.
But you had some writers thatwere like very well known.
It was maybe because they wereon the talk show circuit, or
maybe it was just, I think it'sthe.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
it's one we are in the era of.
Well, okay, I'll say for jamesbaldwin.
So james baldwin has thebenefit of being around when the
public intellectual blackpublic intellectual is just
coming into being right so, ifyou think about, before james
baldwin, we really only have webdu bois that people around the

(42:16):
world know as a publicintellectual, and that's not
even langston.
Not even langston, no, not as apublic intellectual, langston
as an artist, but even him he'sbefore baldwin.
Like baldwin is his civilrights era.
He's 50s in the 60s.
I mean, right, really he's early60s into 80s.
Right, he dies in, I think, 80something.

(42:37):
But but the public intellectualis how baldwin, those debates
with Norman Mailer, and you know, like he is a figure, because
that we care about that, likeit's, it's hard.
Well, now we got anti, antiintellectualism Right, so when

(42:58):
we just we don't care aboutpublic intellectuals in the same
way that we did in the 1960s,and so I think that it's harder
to get that attention.
Also, baldwin is writing in anera where it's only 10 of them.
You know, like, how many ofBaldwin's contemporaries can you
name?
Can't.
So it's a smaller pool.

(43:21):
We care more about them.
Writers are on the Dick Cavettshow.
They're on you know right.
So like that's a harder thingnow to do.
And I think in this era whereeverything is here and gone,
where there's a push againstanti-intellectualism, like so
many things like limit thewriter, like if I Like Ta-Nahasi

(43:42):
coates, is probably the closestthing that we have to a james
baldwin like, where he, if hecomes out with a book, he's
gonna be on the morning show,he's gonna be on the evening
show, he's gonna sell outeverywhere.
But now think about this doy'all know who close?
And whitehead is no, not me,okay, colson Whitehead is the
most decorated black writeralive.

(44:03):
Really, he got the Pulitzertwice.
He wrote the UndergroundRailroad.
Nickel Boys is his book.
They just put that movie out.

Speaker 5 (44:11):
Yeah, movie yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
He won a Pulitzer for both of those books.
He got a MacArthur Fellowship,genius Fellowship.
He won the National Book Awardand the Pulitzer the same year.
Like every award you can thinkof, he got it Now y'all didn't
even know the man's name.

Speaker 5 (44:32):
Yeah, so he could definitely walk down the street
without no problems.
Yeah, exactly, have dinner andall that.
Nobody paid a check.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Yeah, he all at Ricardo's Word Word.
Gotta wait for his table Packit.

Speaker 5 (44:42):
Yeah, he all that Ricardo's yeah, word, word.
No, it got away from his table.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Packoff's getting the table before him, absolutely.

Speaker 5 (44:51):
Absolutely.
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
It should be Packoff's getting the table
before them and everybody yeah,then everybody, yeah.

Speaker 5 (44:57):
Packoff's yeah, he get the table for everybody.
You know, wait.
Yeah, he did it their way, butyou know, wait.
I want to ask you one morething about the Ahmaud Arbery
thing.
Is there something in yourresearch of doing that book and
writing it?
Was there something that mostpeople don't really know about
that case?
I mean, we know it, kind oflike you know you was jogging
and the white guys chased him.
Is there some other underlyingthing that you might have?

Speaker 2 (45:19):
discovered or is it just kind of is what it is, I
think about the case.
No, I think the facts werepretty widely um and well known
and well reported.
I think for me what Idiscovered in doing that story
was how much that young man wasloved, so everyone.
So how I did the interviewing,like I did that inner, I did

(45:41):
that story during the pandemic,so I never went there all of
that was over the phone, so Iwill be talking.
The first person I talked to washis coach, the guy that started
run from my, I think Jason.
I'm talking to Jason and, uh,he's answering my questions, but
it's a dude in the backgroundthat keep talking.
I'm like man, who is that?

(46:02):
He like, oh man, this isMaude's best friend from since.
Just, uh, keep talking.
I'm like man, who is that?
He's like, oh man, this isMaude's best friend since.
You know sandbox.
I'm like, oh man, can I talk tohim?
Sure, then another day I'lltalk to him.
He telling me stories yeah, sohe was with such and such.
I'm like man who is that?
Oh man, that's Maude's sister.

(46:24):
You think, you think you canhook me up with her?
Sure, man, let me see.
Then next day I'm talking to mysister.
My sister said, yeah, I wastalking to his girlfriend.
I'm like, oh, you think you'llhook me up, and so that's how it
would go.
Every one of them was telling meabout another person and they
were open enough to talk to me,and I just kept hearing these
stories about how much theyloved him.
Um, and there's even a line inthere, um, toward.

(46:47):
There's a long list at the endof the um.
I'm gonna call it an essay orfeature story, some people call
it.
There's a long list at the endof it and it's like my was this
and then my was that and my wasthis and he was loved and to me
that was like the thing that Iwanted to get across also, not
just to speak for mod, but tospeak for philandro castro, to

(47:08):
speak for eric, like, oh, thesemotherfuckers are in love, like
whatever else you think aboutthem, they got some people
that's like sad than amotherfucker because they gone.
I just did this story and justdo it last.
I guess you might have reportedin 2023, but I think it came out
in 2024 story on Al Sharpton.

(47:29):
So I was with.
I was with Liv for three months.
It's the most reporting I'veever done on a story and one of
the things that we did was hegave the eulogy at the woman who
got shot through the door.
Oh yeah, is it age?
No, that wasn't AJ, or maybe itwas AJ.

(47:52):
She got shot.
The white woman shot herthrough the door in Ocala,
florida.

Speaker 5 (47:56):
Yeah, that woman just got convicted actually.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
Yes, she just got convicted, right.
So we go there, crump is there.
We get in there and Crump islike, hey, man, the family want
to meet you.
So then we go back into theholding area.
I mean this is like literally,we get into the church in five
minutes, not even five minutes.
Crump is like, hey man, I wantto meet you.
So Sharpton is like, all right,cool.
So we go in the back where justthat woman's family and friends

(48:21):
are, and her mother walks overto Sharpton.
As soon as she meets him, shejust lays her head on his
shoulder, like like she knewthis man her whole life.
And I was just thinking like allthese people in this room loved
that young woman.

(48:42):
Like that's it.
You know what I'm'm saying.
Like you, it's really likeaverage shit.
But when you reported on ityou're like, oh, it's
sensational, they got killedlike this, and ain't that shit
sad.
Yes, it is sad.
And then the other part of itis there's 50 people in here
that love like could tell you astory about what she did and
didn't do and the day she didthis and that and that.

(49:04):
That really like that connectedme to the Aubrey piece because
I didn't go to Ahmad's funeral.
You know, I did take his mamawith me to the Pulitzer ceremony
, though, wow.
Wow, that's cool you went to theyeah, yeah, yeah.
I was like man ain't no way Icould go accept this shit and
not honor this man in some way.
I was so thankful, man.

(49:24):
We had a good time.

Speaker 5 (49:28):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Wow, wow.
So you go from this stuff,which is yeah, to basketball, to
basketball.
We got to talk about yourlatest book.
How do you make that jump?

Speaker 2 (49:41):
It's not even a jump.

Speaker 5 (49:42):
Not to cut you off, but like knowing Mitch, like for
me that makes perfect sense.
But I know, him you know whatI'm saying.
But I'm like yeah, of course hewould do that.
You know what I'm saying.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
Sledge is one of my main customers.
Man, I had that Adidas, I'dcome through Jai and make a
couple hundred dollars.
Did you tell y'all about this?

Speaker 5 (50:06):
No I didn't actually.
My bad.
Go ahead.
The statute of limitations hasrun out.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
So I told you, I was a little hustler in my younger
years and I kept the spirit ofhustling.
I had a plug at Adidas when Iwas in graduate school and I
would get like shipments ofAdidas and then I would go.
It started off.
I started going to thebarbershop but then I started

(50:37):
going to the label.
So I would go see Sledge at Jai, so I would just come with a
duffel bag or something like man, I'm here and Sledge would call
everybody down and they'd comeget their Adidas.
And then I would go to Def Jamand see Lenny S and I would go
to wherever Pecos was and go seethem.
I remember one time Lenny toldme to come to Baseline.

(51:00):
So I go in there and I'm in thehallway in Baseline and it's
Kaiser.
These are the people that Iremember.
It's Kaiser, hove, lenny, thoseare the only people that I can
remember seeing and theyshooting dice in the hallway.
Man and Hove look up and helike, uh, like lenny, who like,

(51:24):
who is this?
And then he like, oh no, thismitch, he cool man.
He got the adidas.
He said you got this nigga, andhe's selling hot merchandise.
And I didn't realize at thetime.
They was recording the blackalbum oh wow, that was black
album time.
Yeah, yeah yeah that was like mymove around in the, in the, and

(51:48):
at the same time I was workingfor a magazine, so I would all,
I would also be interviewing.
Like I wrote, did I, did I, doyou sledge?
I don't remember possibly, Idon't remember yes I used to
write um a lot of stories.
I know I profile Peck.
I know I profile Lenny A lot ofpeople.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
You would get in there with all the Adidas stuff
and then you would interviewthem.
That was smart.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
I wouldn't go in there during that time and do it
, but I'm saying thoserelationships began with me
having.
Adidas, Also because Ebro wasmy boy too.
So we would end up I would beat the shit sometime with Dante
and Ebro, so that that was, um,that was, you know, my music

(52:32):
phase, I guess.
Yes, uh, but so I've always hada love for fashion.
My very first piece I everpublished, 2001 December, was
called Almost Famous and it wasabout three of my homeboys who
almost made it to the league butdidn't.
So that was my very first piece.
My very first column forEsquire was about basketball and
the Esquire my editor atEsquire is the guy who brought

(52:55):
the fly book to me as an idea.
It was his idea for me to do it.
So I've always written aboutsports.
I've always been interested infashion and really written about
fashion too.
So it did make sense.
If you knew me beyond survival,math and residue years.

Speaker 5 (53:15):
It's not out yet.
Is it out yet which one?
The fashion?

Speaker 2 (53:18):
book.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitelydefinitely Best thing that
happened to me, not not best.
Uh, two exciting things thathappened to me.
Right after the week that flycame out, I got an email from
adam silver.
Oh wow, I'm silver was like Ilove.

(53:39):
Let me.
I'm gonna tell you what he saidnow, because this shit is,
statue of Limitations is gone.
Let me see where they go.
Adam Silver, there we go.
Dear Mitchell, I ran ScoopJackson's review of your book
and immediately ordered a copyon Amazon.
I loved it.
We're sending copies of yourbook to all of our teams and

(54:00):
partners, sending copies of yourbook to all of our teams and
partners, and I have no doubtthat they'll enjoy reading it
and reflecting on nba playersinfluence on fashion and culture
over these many decades.
I can't wait for the start ofthe new season.
On and off the cart.
Regards adam wow for me.
I was like I mean shit if thecommissioner of the commissioner
of the nba, yeah, like it, Idid my.

(54:22):
Whatever I was supposed to do,I did it.
And then later, um, my homeboy,strangely one of my big homies.
I didn't know, this was coolwith dr jay and if you look at.
Look, dr jay is all through thesecond year like that would fly
have you wanted to fly?
you know, definitely one of thefly dudes ever, definitely one
of the flyest dudes ever in theleague and he gave Dr J the book

(54:45):
and they took a picture and hesent it to me and I was like
that's it.

Speaker 5 (54:49):
I don't give a.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
that's cool you got to blow that thing up and have
it on the wall.
Yeah, okay, so give us, give usthe rundown, the summary of
this book.
So this is I'm, I'm gainingthat it's it's fashion
throughout the eras of the NBA.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
So it is really to me a cultural tableau.
So it was me trying to definethe eras of NBA fashion, which I
didn't think that I could dowithout talking about the
cultural, political, financialforces that created every era.

(55:25):
So it's like from the inceptionof the league, or really right
before that, what was happening?
What were the players wearingwhy?
What's the next era?
Civil rights era.
What are they wearing why?
What's the next era?
1970s or so?
What are they wearing why?
What's the next era?
Jordan's era, next era, iverson.

(55:46):
So it's like trying to figureout, like what are the watershed
moments?
Like where is the fashiontaking a turn?
What is happening around thattime?
What images represent that turn, and then me trying to suss why
it's happening.
So they're really essays ondifferent eras.
I mean they're chapters, butthey're to me, why it's
happening.
So they're really essays ondifferent errors.
I mean they're chapters, but tome it's essay, and y'all know

(56:07):
the root word of essay is to try, to try or attempt.
So they're really an attempt atme trying to make sense of
different errors of fashion andwhat brought them into being.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
Interesting.
So let me ask you this then,because I'm curious about this
At what point?
So we're talking about NBAfashion, right, but to me there
was a moment when we neverreally thought of, I think,
sports fashion until all of asudden now, on every show that
you ever watch before an NBAgame, before an NFL game all of
a sudden, the visual that yousee is that guy walking in.

(56:43):
When did that happen and why?
How did we switch to?
All of a sudden, the visualthat you see is that guy walking
in.
When did that happen and why?

Speaker 2 (56:53):
How did we switch to?
All of a sudden, that became athing that was very important.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
Well, I think we're talking about what birthed the
tunnel.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
The tunnel, that's when we started, right.
So the tunnel was birthed byLeBron and Miami, right D-Wade,
chris Bosh, lebron that's whenwe start.
I mean they used to kind ofshow it like man you see Magic
walking down the tunnel but toactually focus on the players
coming in and the playersrecognizing that.
Now the focus is on me and whatI'm wearing.

(57:20):
That is the era of the bigthree in Miami and also the big
three in OKC.
James Harden and I mean we'llput KD on there, but he ain't
really the fashion dude.

Speaker 3 (57:34):
But that is a big thing, russ and James but it
wasn't even really James kind ofin OKC so Russ was really rough
.
And then it got to James andHouston.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Yeah, I think it's also at the moment, and to your
point, thomas, it's like theleague and the and the
businesses started seeing thatthey can monetize it.
So those like when you startseeing people walk by step and
repeats, right like I rememberseeing an old picture where they
houston, had like a whole stepand repeat for them to come down

(58:09):
the tunnel, I'm like, and itwas toyota so I'm like okay,
they getting bread, they realizethey can get bread now.
So to me that, yeah, that's apart of it.
Right, like I did when the bookcame out.
They, it was the first yearthat they had the nba play-in
tournament and, uh, they did itin vegas and that was the first
year they had a.
They had the tunnel.

(58:30):
So, like I walked down thetunnel with them and they had
the, the trope, the play-intournament trophy, in the middle
of the tunnel and the, and Iwas like, oh, this is a real,
like they figured out how tomonetize it.

Speaker 5 (58:42):
Yeah, it was interesting.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
It's like I'm like okay, once corporate America is
on it, it ain't all that cool,no more.
So like where are you going now?

Speaker 5 (58:55):
Yeah, oh, you think my backlash from um Stern.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
That's what I was about to ask.

Speaker 5 (59:01):
Yeah, oh yeah, definitely I used to go with the
big tees and the jeans and thebraids and the ice.
And then Stern was like,mandated, you had to wear a
sport jacket, I think, orsomething.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
Yeah, yeah, no, it was that.
It was Iverson coupled withMalice in the Palace.
Remember they got in that bigfight in.
Indiana.
So, yeah, it was like oh no,y'all could very easily have us
like you're going to fuck up themoney, right.
They're going to be like oh,these Now think about it.
also, though, hip-hop is alreadymaligned, like we're talking

(59:35):
about late 80s with you know Ho,with the big white tees and you
know saying nelly coming outwith the white, even though cash
money you know so likeeverything in hip-hop I mean,
y'all know this better than meis like trending towards.
I was I had an interviewearlier than this and I was
telling the um woman.
I was like in the civil rightsarea era we were leaning into

(01:00:00):
respectability politics, rightlike in the.
If you look at the way we dresslike slim suits, white shirts,
right like in the era people waslike fuck your respectability
politics, like we gonna dresshow we gonna dress, because
y'all gonna say whatever you'regonna say.
Anyway, if we got on a suit,y'all still gonna call us a thug
, so we might as well just do ithow we feel.

(01:00:20):
And also it's the era where hiphop started making real money
like not rich, but like wealth.
You know, I was like go back,it's whatever year that was,
that they first had a rapper inForbes Right, like that's when
whole, I'm making I'm what is it?
1 million, 2 million, some someI'm till I'm the hundred

(01:00:40):
million.

Speaker 5 (01:00:41):
man Like million, something, something until I'm
the 100 million man like I don'tknow what year that was, but
for me that's like he was in aswell.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
But who was master p?
That's right, that's right.
And everybody that was inforbes was like white t and big
chain in it, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:00:55):
So it's like we don't gotta do that no more to get no
money yeah, yeah, yeah, that'sa good, that's a yeah, and that
was essentially because, like Isaid, it's a runway level now.
Yeah yeah, they do the stuffright off the runway and wearing
it.
You got those four or fiveseconds like focused on just you
.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The huge ancillary businesses,big stylists that are involved

(01:01:18):
now, exactly yeah.
Then in guys' shit, becausethey know, know, you know I
could get him to wear this.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
So he's four or five seconds and this is like a free,
free commercial, yeah, whateveryeah and now it's extended into
the w, the w, nba so with therise of the w?
Nba I think the last like year.
You saw that it, the fashion,took a whole other level.
It was great oh yeah definitely, definitely yeah so what are
you working on next?
What's's the next big thing?
Can you give us a little tease?

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
A novel.
It's called John of Watts,about a black man from Watts who
, who actually spent time inOregon space on a true story who
started a group to train atrisk youth to become elite
athletes and then it became acult.
Well, he started, they startedbeing really harsh with the
training and then it became acult.
Well, he started, they startedbeing really harsh with the

(01:02:06):
training.
They ended up becoming a cultand his daughter was actually
killed by some of the members inhis coat and they got disbanded
.
But it's really back to my, notback to my roots.
It's fiction.
It is connected to sports.
He was a former basketballplayer, actually tried out for
the Blazers.
Um and uh, it's really mewriting about home.
That's one thing that I'mreally like.
Fly is kind of an aberration,not necessarily because

(01:02:30):
basketball is such a big culturein portland, but, um, I'm
committed to writing about home.
Like, if you think about whatbaldwin did, he was really
grounded in new york city.
You think about what Tony Northdid.
He's always writing about Ohio.
You think about Edward P Jones.
He's writing about the DMV.
You think about Faulkner.
He's writing about Mississippi,or a fictional town in

(01:02:53):
Mississippi, right?
So for me it's like I want tosee the world through the lens
of home, and this book reallyallows me to do that of home and
, uh, this, this book, reallyallows me to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
All right, I gotta ask you onemore question.
Yeah, emerging writers who areout there, who want to be, who
want to get into the career ofwriting, like what's, what's,
what advice do you have for?

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
um, the same thing.
Mickey would probably say learnyour craft.
Um I, uh, I was listening todot do his, um, his interview
with um, with ebro, and one ofthe things he said I think I
wrote it down as a quote.
Let me see I hope I did.
Uh, he said my quotes.

(01:03:35):
He said respect the art formand it'll get you where you need
to go.
And I think that is this.
I mean, are you willing to putin 15 years on?
And I'm not saying do it, butif you ain't willing to do it,
maybe this ain't for you.

(01:03:56):
And so I hear people like, man,I want to.
I got a story.
And I'm like okay, everybody,you see walking, got a story.
Like are you willing to learnform?
Are you willing to learn what asentence is?
Are you willing to learninaugural?
Are you willing to learn freeand indirect discourse?
Are you willing to learn thefour or five or ten templates

(01:04:19):
that you need to structure thisstory?
And like, if you not dosomething else, or, or, or, or.
Don't bring it to me, causelike I'm, I'm, I'm a different,
I'm a different kind of writer.
Like I'm, I'm not out herewriting for the bestseller list,
I'm out actually writing foreternity.

(01:04:40):
You know like what, what doesit, what does it feel like and
what do you need to do to createsomething that is going to
exist for my kids, kids?
kids right, and that's stillspeaking to what's happening
with humanity.
So so I think that's adifferent thing than, like, the
kind of immediate success thatyou could get with a pop hit,

(01:05:03):
which I kind of like like a pokefiction book yeah, yeah, yeah,
exactly exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:05:09):
The pressure comes.
I remember um and I no shots toher because I enjoyed her work,
but I remember kind of hearingabout all the stuff the sister
soldier went through.
Yeah, she dropped when, youknow, went closest Dead.
It blew up so big.
Yeah, I don't know if she wasprepared for it to that level.
No, you know like everybodycould optionate and you know

(01:05:30):
make movies and it kind of tooka toll on her because it was
such a big book, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
And she was pioneering in that sense because
she was the first one to pushthrough Like she really did.
I mean, we wouldn't have hadthem.
Tables on the 125th withoutSister.
Soldier yeah, definitely.

Speaker 5 (01:05:47):
Everybody read Coldest Winter Ever Like
everybody read that book.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
What was the one that came after her?
She's still around, terry Woods, remember her Wow.

Speaker 5 (01:05:57):
From Philly.
Yeah, terry, I forgot about her.
Yeah, she got a couple ofdrinks made in the films too.
Wow, that's right.
Yeah, yeah, wow, yeah.
That was the whole thing, youknow.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
So what classes do you teach at Arizona State?
Let's bring it back to where westarted.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
Man well, the beauty of teaching now is I teach one
class a semester.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
Oh that's easy, so right now teaching writing
workshop.
Yeah man, listen man In.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
New York I used to teach sometimes up to nine
classes at three or four.
Before I was a full-timefaculty at NYU I would be
teaching at Medgar Evers, johnJay, nyu and College of New
Rochelle.
Sledge used to see me comingout of College of New Rochelle.
I'm glad you should see mecoming out of College of New

(01:06:45):
Rochelle up there at StudioMuseum and that's running around
.
you know, deep in Brooklyn y'allknow where Mega Everest is
running all the way back up toHarlem NYU, then going to 57th
street.
I was doing that shit for like7-10 years moving around like
that.
That's why I had to have themeditas.

Speaker 5 (01:07:06):
There you go see, now you got writer's fame yeah,
right the pill surprise got youdown to one class now you're
good.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
yeah, that was a master class in writing, right
there it was, it was Wow.
Yeah, mitchell, thank you man.
I could sit here and listen toyou talk all day long and I got
to go get this book now Fly.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
Yeah, man, check it out, Let me know what y'all
think.
Man, man, uh, absolutely sameeffort into that.
You know, like I, I wasthinking like mickey.
I remember hearing you like Imean, sledge brought me on like
I don't know shit 20 years agoto 18, something like that and
just like you can hear one whensomebody care about the language
and you know like get torapping, like when somebody

(01:07:59):
actually cares about languageand the art form, and for me
that's across everything, likeit's in fly, it's in any column
you read of mine.
There's a, there's a column, um, that I did on kanye.
Uh, it was some crazy shit.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
He did like two or three years ago that doesn't
help us narrow it down rightthere.
All, all right, hold on.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
Hold on.
I want y'all to hear thisbecause I want you to know what
I mean.
Let me see Kanye EsquireMitchell.
There we go yeah, Okay, yeah.
The title of the essay is yeah,yo, yay.
You are a racist by proxy.
I should have republished thisshit.

Speaker 5 (01:08:38):
He doing the same shit right now, yeah, yeah this
is the opening.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
Yo, yay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're a trolling provocateurpar excellence.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yay, you're afree thinker and iconoclast
even.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yay.
You've released hella greatmusic over the years.
Tsunami many a fashion wave.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yay.
Kudos to the activist bent ofbush.

(01:09:04):
Don't care about black people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yay.
Big facts beyonce should havewon.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yay.
Points for the benevolence ofthe donda academy.
Yeah, yeah, you reached thatbilly round with the big homie.
Yeah, yeah, we should considerthe mantra of your, the mania of
your mental health struggles.
Yeah, yeah, the trauma of anear-death crash.

(01:09:27):
Yes, oh yes, deep compassionfor the eternal hurt of losing
your mother.
That's how that starts.
And if I were to break thatdown like in my mind y'all
remember that song.
Um uh, it's burner boy's firsthit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know that shit got big
because people thought it was aKanye song and they were

(01:09:50):
searching it in Apple Music.

Speaker 5 (01:09:52):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Yeah, that's how I got it.
So that chorus was in my headwhen I was doing the yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah.
So for me, like, like that's acolumn, that I didn't have to do
that for a column, but for meit's like if you're not willing
to put that kind of work in on acolumn, then don't do it, or
don't come talking to me aboutwriting.

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
Talk to somebody else who ain't gonna do that yeah,
I'm gonna give you the basicsyeah, yeah, I mean, you know,
mitchell, honestly, man, we needan article on pendulum make,
yeah, and it should be aboutthey care about the language, I
mean I don't see that's a greatpoint.
Yeah, you know, because we Igotta send you one because we

(01:10:33):
really care about the languageyou know, yeah, yeah, send me,
I'll text you I got you give me.
You better get him a book,mickey, you know I'm gonna get
him a book, you know I'm gonnaget him he will.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
I'll make sure you get a book.
If he doesn't make sure you geta book.
Mickey, you know I'm going toget him a book.

Speaker 2 (01:10:48):
You know I'm going to get him a book.
He will.

Speaker 4 (01:10:50):
I'll make sure you get a book if he doesn't make
sure you get a book.
Yeah, but yeah, man, I enjoyedhanging out with y'all.

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
Man.
I was spanking out brothers,man.
You know, like you, my day onein wild.

Speaker 5 (01:10:56):
You, basically my day two shit.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (01:10:58):
Half my life I didn't know you yeah, for real, it's
been a long time.
Yeah, I'm glad we did this.
I'm not going to come out toArizona to check you out, but
next time you come Arizona I'llgive it a shot for you
restaurants you got the weatheryou got a little bit of shopping

(01:11:19):
if you want to do the boutiqueshit.

Speaker 2 (01:11:21):
Yeah and uh, this is the travel and tourism page for
Arizona.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
right here a little bit of shopping.
If you want to do the boutiqueshit, yeah, and you know, just
come out.
This is the travel and tourismpage for Arizona right here.

Speaker 3 (01:11:29):
They got the suns?
I guess, yeah, they got thesuns.

Speaker 5 (01:11:32):
You probably know.
You know what I'm saying.
There's a little something outthere.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
It ain't ATL man, but you know, we all right.
There's a little something,though.
There's a little A littlesomething, something, though.

Speaker 5 (01:11:39):
A little something something, though.
It's all right, it's all right,cool.
Thanks a lot, man.
I really appreciate it, bro,all right man Later.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
All right, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
All right, folks, that's our show.
Tune in to Unglossy, the codingbrand and culture on Apple
Podcasts, spotify or YouTube,and follow us on Instagram at
Unglossy Pod to join theconversation.
Until next time, I'm Tom Frank.

Speaker 5 (01:12:02):
I'm Jeffrey Sledge.

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):
Smicky, that was good .