Grounded Futures Show
Episode 25: Remaining Unbroken, with chris time steele
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
wrote, love, song, feel, anime, work, question, listen, thrive, ways, trust, good, denver, curiosity, cool, year, book, bobby sands, freestyle, basketball, hip hop, care
SPEAKERS
carla, Uilliam, chris/Time
magneto 00:02
I know the kind of pain you're feeling Alex. I once had it myself. Are you some kind of doctor? No, Alex, I am Magneto and I have come to offer you sanctuary.
Uilliam 00:21
Welcome to season three of the Grounded Futures podcast. This is the show where we discuss topics that are important to our collective survival and thrival. We also dig into ways youth and anyone really can gain new skills to thrive amid current and ongoing disasters. The seasons meta theme is all about trust, trust in ourselves, trust in our work and art and trusting each other. We are your hosts, Uilliam and carla.
carla 00:48
Welcome to our show. We produce Grounded Futures on Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh lands, but our guests are from around the world. A big thank you to Zach Bergman for our show music and a big thank you to Robin Carrico for our show art.
Uilliam 01:04
We're joined today by our wonderful friend chris time steele. chris is a co-learner, hip-hop artist, journalist, storyteller, videographer, and writer. steele has an MA and is a precarious teacher who seeks to work outside typical teaching styles experimenting with hip-hop and co-mentorship. steele contributes to Truthout, has co-authored works with Noam Chomsky, Joy James, and Gerald Horne, and is host of the Time Talks podcast. Through music, under the alias Time, steele has worked with Common, Mick Jenkins, Xiu Xiu & Psalm One. Welcome to the show, Chris.
chris 01:45
Thank you all so much for having me.
carla 01:47
Yeah, welcome. I'm nervecited cuz like, you're really good at this. You're a really good interviewer ...
chris 01:55
no, you all are.
carla 01:57
Yeah, whatever. We don't get Noam Chomsky and Joy James and Gerald Horne calling us up after going "can I turn this into a whole book?" I mean, there's levels.
chris 02:10
Hopefully, Chomsky doesn't do that after all that Epstein stuff. That was not cool.
carla 02:14
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I haven't even talked to you about that. Yeah. That's also not surprising. It's very his wheelhouse to go. "I don't have to answer that question." Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But before we go on to talk-about with you, we want to play a little game,if you are up for it. Yeah. And don't tell us. But do you know how many songs you've done? Do you have a ballpark idea?
chris 02:24
Yeah.
Uilliam 02:39
Don't tell us the
chris 02:41
Like that are actually out?
carla 02:42
Yeah.
chris 02:44
Okay. Yeah. I do.
carla 02:45
Okay. So give us a ballpark figure. Like, you know, a large range that's not anywhere near it. You know how to do this. We're gonna guess,
Uilliam 02:56
Making us pick a number between one and whatever.
carla 03:01
500 or some
chris 03:02
So it's like the price is right. Okay, so
carla 03:04
yeah, and the winner just is good at guessing.
chris 03:08
Between 50 and 800.
carla 03:11
Whoa!. Do I go first?
Uilliam 03:15
So pick a random number?
carla 03:17
Yeah. or just think about it.
Uilliam 03:24
I'll pick, 507
carla 03:30
388
chris 03:32
Oh, that's such a hard one. Because I think it's about 450 that I have....You're both right in the middle.
carla 03:40
I was gonna say 400 because I kind of did a quick maths. But then I was like, oh, but maybe there are some years where it was less.
Uilliam 03:48
Yeah. Wow.
carla 03:49
Holy moly. That's a lot of songs.
chris 03:52
Yeah, there's probably, I have like 1000 total, like, unreleased. Unreleased. Yeah. But yeah, with bandcamp. I think Spotify has like 250 or something and then with Bandcamp, there's like an extra 200 on Bandcamp.
carla 04:07
Well, wow. congratulations, that's amazing.
Uilliam 04:10
Yeah, that's really cool.
chris 04:12
You both win.
carla 04:14
Yes, we are winners. Yes. All three of us.
Uilliam 04:16
Nice. Okay, great. Now we can actually ask the questions. Okay. I want to hear how you ended up working with all these incredible folks, writers and rappers. In your amazing essay for Trust Kids! you wrote: "kids ask questions. Kids have intuition. Kids have answers and find answers." I feel like this is based on your experience. Like didn't you start organizing community rap and basketball events by the age of 13? So with all that in mind, what are some of your watershed moments in life, some times when your ideas and actions were challenged and changed, when you were like damn society sucks!?
chris 04:54
Good question. Oh, wow. I guess, the whole foundation of that answer is just curiosity. So I've always been curious about things. And then I've always just tried to take actions in weird ways, I guess. So when I, like we had seen, me and my friend had seen someone that was stabbed to death at this park, that we would play basketball. And there was never any tournaments, basketball tournaments that were really going on, and we loved hip hop. And Denver's kind of like this, this island that doesn't get a lot of, I don't know, I feel like it didn't have the best art or wasn't really accessible to it as a youth. So we decided to start our own tournament. So when one thing I started doing with curiosity is always had slim magazine. So I would go and look at so this was 800 times. This was probably, like the internet wasn't too big. And you know, when it was like trying to load all slow. So I would see like an 1800 number in slam magazines and I'd be calling them from payphones, because 800 numbers for free then. And I've just started getting hold of people and getting people to sponsor things. And then I started to see like, I can make connections outside of Denver. And this is how I met hip hop artists too, like Main Flow from Mood. And then they got me connected when they came into town. And they were showing this documentary on Mumia Abu Jamal. So this just opened up my world just by being curious and just calling people and reaching out. And that's the same thing. Like I'm just really good at getting dissed and getting told no all the time. And I just like basketball, you know how many shots you're gonna take, you may make a few in, and then brick all the others. So that's what I do. Like, I have, like, probably most of my questions are in spam boxes and recycle bins across the world. But the few people who've written back have actually connected me to amazing things and people, and art and things like that. So I guess really just being curious and not being afraid to just get decimated or ignored. So yeah.
Uilliam 07:11
Yeah, no, that's awesome. No, yeah, I totally get that. Like, that's so cool. The not being afraid to just ask anyone anything and interact with people and know that everyone is even if they're big artists are human as well, and that you can interact with them and connect with them and stuff. That's really cool. That's really, really cool. Yeah.
carla 07:30
Do you want to talk at all about the event or move on to another question?
chris 07:35
Yeah, like the hoops and hip hop tournament was really cool because it was, it was really inspired by one of the main sponsors, he had a t-shirt called Hoops and Hip Hop, it was his brand. So I started selling it at the mall for him and he was part of the Zulu Nation. So he was friends with Kurtis Blow, who did like the old school track. You know, "basketball is my favorite sport. I love how they run up and down the court." So and that was even old school to me at that time. And I just thought it was so cool to learn about from the Black Space to the Zulu kings, and then the Zulu Nation. And then when we ran the tournament, we had an MC battle in between games, and then people could freestyle. And we like, made our own scoreboard. And we found referees from the Rec Center. And there were intense things too at the, at the, at the basketball tournament, like there were a lot of gangs in the north side at that time. And we actually had some gangs. One game I won't mention, was like security for this. And they looked out for, like, that gang even looked out for my dad, they knew him because of the tournament. And like, they respected my dad as an elder. And they knew that he went to North High School too, because my dad's from that neighborhood. So it was cool. We just really made a good community. And yeah, it had its tense moments, too. You know, I was like 14 Running basketball tournament. I didn't know what I was doing. So, but yeah, it was good. And it was fun. And we created what we wanted to see, which was something I didn't even know was like, a thing with autonomy and anarchism as I got older.
Uilliam 09:14
Yeah, that's so fucking cool. Oh
carla 09:16
Yeah it's like intergenerational organizing, like but from youth up, but of course we adore it
Uilliam 09:25
exactly. letting youth have that power to do that. Yes, so cool.
carla 09:31
Yeah. Thanks for sharing. The next question is a bit of a long one. You know, you've listened to the show, you know how I roll. So, you know that I always,m I'm always like saying you should change your title of your show time talks to time listens. Because, I mean, that's what you do. And not only on the show, but everywhere and with everyone I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in terms of people in your life and feeling that way. And in 2018 in the essay Decolonizing the Classroom: Embracing Radical Internationalism, you wrote : “While teaching political science in the community college circuit in Colorado, I was faced with preassigned textbooks that presented history from a Eurocentric male perspective, devoid of a critique of capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism. On my first day of teaching comparative government, a student in the course asked why the textbook didn't cover any of the genocides in Africa, such as Belgian King Leopold II's genocide" I'm not gonna say them all. And you list them all, which is incredible. And you reflected on this on your, you continue to say, "I reflected on my white colonial mind and college education and realize I was never assigned readings that had to do with genocides in Africa, I decided to rework the course readings with student input to change this pattern and reproducing global white supremacy in the classroom." And then I realized, Chris, this happening in the classroom was what led you to Gerald Horne's work. Because I think you speak about that. And, of course, now you've created this new book with him, which is why I've had the privilege to read some. And in the intro of that book you wrote, "When I first started interviewing people, I quickly learned that all you need to do is be present, hit record, and listen with curiosity and care." So we've already talked about curiosity. So the way you responded by listening to your students, and then you took concrete action is so inspiring. It's really rare. And it seems to not only be really about listening, right? Like, it's about curiosity and care. And I wonder if you could talk a bit about this practice of listening with care and curiosity? Like is who you've always been, or was cultivated? And if so, maybe we can talk about that?
chris 11:55
Yeah, that's Thank you. That's a really nice question. I think the care may really come from me, not believing a lot of things and questioning a lot of things. So like, I don't believe my own bullshit. And then I don't believe other BS, like an assigned textbook or something. And then I guess that combined with questioning authority, so I always in a precarious situation. So being in faculty, I'm not really afraid of being fired, because I'll most likely be fired next semester anyway, every time because I don't have a PhD, and I'm barely getting paid enough to even teach. So I combined with all those things, as a lot of like, there's not a lot of fear there. But then there's a curiosity and care. So when the students said that, obviously, I care what he's saying, I obviously agree. Being a teacher is already a hierarchy thing. Like even the way the classroom setup, I'm standing in front of them, I'm giving them the syllabus, I have no idea what I'm doing as a teacher, it's like my first time at community college. So I'm like, Hey, I'd question me too. And then when he said what he said he was from Sudan. It sparked my curiosity. So then, I was like, well, let's talk about this, because I didn't even pick this textbook that that Chair at the Community College of Denver was a really right wing history teacher, he was a strange, strange person. And so I was like, Yeah, let's dig into this. So then I wrote down all the things, and just dug into it. And then when I started trying to talk to a lot of other professors, I don't know, I don't always gel with a lot of different professors. I don't know if it's a class thing. I don't. I don't I'm not sure. It's maybe it's a personal thing. But a lot of them wouldn't They wouldn't engage with that. Or they said, Well,' this textbook is good. It's peer reviewed'. So I felt very alone with that. So then I went in, and I was like, well, who else can I talk to? Well, I could talk to Gerald Horne, I could talk to Joy James. So then I was like, kind of doing research. I guess that maybe ties into my journalism too. And curiosity. Well, I can just interview someone about this. And there's a power in that, especially when you feel alone. And it's nice, like even this podcast conversation. We scheduled this to talk to each other. And it's a beautiful thing when people are so tied up in their own lives, and you can schedule a conversation and talk to someone, so I think really, yeah, those are the ways that it really ties in with questioning and, and then having care to like trust with someone saying actually listen to them, as most people dismiss it. And they think, you know, they want to like a guy like me, they will mansplain that away, like, Oh, I see your perspective. But this is the textbook that's chosen and you can always look into that in your own time. You know, there's all those default mansplaining answers and I try to just resist those. I still do that, of course, but I try to resist it.
carla 14:54
Thank you, thank you so much. Yeah, you. In my experience, you don't do that. Well actually or, yeah but...
Uilliam 15:02
you haven't done that at all, yeah.
carla 15:05
Yeah, I love that. And I, my whole, well a big chunk of my post secondary education was in genocide studies. And you're right, like it didn't come up and this was over 20 years ago. It was really rare that it came up. So these are the seeds, and they're really important. Thanks for doing that work.
Uilliam 15:29
Yeah, that was really cool. That was a really good answer. Yeah, and to go into the next thing your writing spans many genres and styles, and even your voice shifts. It's so cool. But more from your essay in Trust Kids! titled A Fatigue Wearing Judas: Acknowledging Histories and Breaking Cycles. You wrote, "I had trouble writing the story. "Writing isn't always hard, not hating yourself is hard... writing your story and your truth can be disillusioning. And when you do, you realize you aren't as alone as the process of writing can feel. " This is deep with meaning and how did you break through this feeling to write? What are some steps a new writer can take to push through doubt, fear and the rest?
chris 16:19
That's a really good question. I think, I really like finding your whole strength and vulnerability for one. But not just with writing but opening up to your friends and others on like, what you want to write and maybe how you would write it and you may be stuck in your head and writing... because writing can be, bell hooks always talked about this, of it being a very solitary process for her. But then she found it to be meditative as well. But I can find myself being stuck in my head. And I do that with music, too. I don't get a lot of feedback on the music that I make. So I don't know if people don't like it, if you know, we don't sell our shows all the time. So I get stuck in that too. But I guess the other part where you meet yourself is with trust, and vulnerability and trust, it becomes really powerful. It's like a superpower when you have vulnerability, like I am being real. And I am trying to explain how I feel even though it may feel moot or weird. It's most likely there's some truth there and other people are gonna feel that. So I think that's kind of what I was really digging at. And I do have a lot of self doubt with a lot of things I do. And that probably comes from a lot of class things as well growing up, and not being exposed to people who were writers not being around other musicians. And then when trying to do it, getting pushed down from that, because I don't come from a family who does any of those things. So there's a lot of gatekeeping and stuff. But you know, back to the thing of just really not caring, like the art of just letting stuff go and going for it. I think that's where I really find my power. And then the editor of this book was an extremely powerful person. So I want to thank you, carla for encouraging me and helping me give that voice and it's one of my favorite things I've ever written. And it's not a solitary act at all. That's what I'm really saying here. It's about sharing it with others and encouraging each other and not saying no to each other and watching the magic Bloom from that.
Uilliam 18:30
Yeah, no, it was really cool. Like it. Really Yeah, it really resonated and connected with me and my whole family and we just all I was just Yeah, was really cool. Your writing is really, really good. Even in music. It's really cool.
chris 18:42
Thank you.
carla 18:43
Yeah, yeah, thank you. Thanks for saying that. But yeah, I love this essay, because you did a thing where you exposed all the different levels where youth oppression is happening or adult supremacy is happening. But then you also right alongside it showed all the blooms and all the cracks where adults could show up in really incredible ways and where young people can show up in really incredible ways. And you just it was just so poetic and multi layered. So I just love that essay.
Uilliam 19:15
Yeah, not afraid to talk about every experience, which is great.
carla 19:20
Yeah. That's really all really good advice too. I love it. And it's like it reminds me of it's about connecting. Like I think Ruth Ozeki talks about this, like there is no binary between the reader and the writer. Like it's, it's such a deep relationship. Whether it's the listener or the rapper, right.
chris 19:41
Oh, yeah, so true, that's why, you know, people like commercial music too, like I do, too, because you live that fantasy like I'm, I'm on the yacht with Rick Ross and I'm sippin’ Ace of spades. But you know, that's a fantasy of its way. I relate too, but yeah,
Uilliam 19:58
yeah. I love that... Yeah, that's so cool.
carla 20:03
Thank you. Okay, another little bit long one, but not as long. Yeah, so you know, you're so good at holding the multiplicity and contradictions of many truths or many lies are many facts, how facts are weird. And I remember talking to you about how historical materialism is very Eurocentric. And in a very classic carla style, I got really stuck in the brambles with it and slightly confused. And you were so clear, like, right off, right away. And it got me out. It got me out of the brambles and you didn't supply the answers, but you supply openings, like you came in with a hatchet and got rid of the brambles so I can move. And I think you do that for a lot of people. And thank you. And then I don't know like a year later or six months later, your amazing song Whose Dystopia? comes out and you have this line that to me just gets straight to the heart of it, which is, "history isn't materialist, different realities are actual." I mean, how do you do this? I mean, I always call you a poetic historian for this very reason. Because you grab such a large concept, and you're able to say it in one line, and it covers a profound depth and says so much. And I don't know, I'm curious. I'm curious about that process, because I think there's more to it than just you just hear it and you write it. And yeah, like, which of these ideas I mean, there's probably not a hard line. But you know, when do you decide that something you're kind of chewing on becomes a rap song, like a song versus like a written piece, like an essay or something like that? And maybe, maybe there's weavings?
chris 21:49
I definitely always try to go for rap first. If I can get in rap. I'm good. I feel happy about it. And that's, that's where I am. I've always been, I've always been a rapper, since I was like, 12. So that's what I do. And it's just the way I communicate. And this is the way that I Yeah, it's the way I communicate best and most vulnerable, though, the way that I probably boil stuff down so fast as being a rapper is like being in a big family and you just gotta get it out and you got to get it out in a succinct way. And being part of freestyles and cyphers forever, you know, the you'll be rapping in the next rapper will start, you know, going, yeah, yeah, you know, that's, that's them saying, Okay, I'm up next, you're done. So you gotta get your stuff together and succinctly. That's one way, and then Who's Dystopia? probably came about from me arguing with a few people I know who are Marxists or communists and they're always harping on this: you got to approach that from science and scientific theory and applying that to history. And I know there's different ways to interpret historical materialism. But that doesn't, it’s never made sense to me. Because just from that line, like, "Don't you see dystopia in the Santa Maria or the Mayflower’s anchor?” like the Mayflower’s anchor could be seen as how the Japanese may view the H bomb, look at these perspectives, you can't, you can't boil down these things to science.This is colonial thinking to do that, and it's Western thought. So I'm always just thinking through that as well, because our default, like I'm in the US in Denver, the homeland to the Cheyenne and Arapaho. Like there's no humidity here we have high air but the mythology of 1776 is an extreme thick fog of propaganda and mythology, just going through this whole country and everyone's in the like, we've talked about this before of a consensual hallucination of propaganda, and to see things in a historical materialist way, I feel, it's really this, a very similar way of thinking. and I just try to always think through these things and then see where these dualities break apart.
Uilliam 24:18
No, that was such a good answer. It was so cool seeing that of the history of how you started all that and whatnot and stuff. Yeah, it's really cool.
carla 24:28
I feel like you also like, and it links back to listening like I think you do a lot of conversations and you read a lot and like, Yeah, I think that there's a lot of depth in your raps because you put a lot of care. It's back to care, curiosity and listening -- the trifecta of chris time steele’s work. I love that song. Yeah, thanks so much for talking about that.
chris 24:56
Thank you and shout out to Che Nuar.
carla 24:58
Yeah. her piece is great. Yeah,
Uilliam 25:02
That's so cool. You have such cool answers. I'm like, I can't actually think of an answer because I'm like you said everything...sometimes we have people on where I'm like you already said everything, so I don't know what to add. Yeah, yeah. And then, yes. Next question and thing. This is a little thing, a fun thing for us. I feel like we should talk about anime and manga and how we share a love for Ginko and the anime MushiShi. You even cosplayed him right?
chris 25:36
Yes!
Uilliam 25:37
Yeah. And how does anime and manga influence your work?
chris 25:43
Yeah, it's so crucial. I mean, hip hop and anime have had a long history together. I mean, from Adult Swim, and Toonami they always had like, J Dilla, and MF Doom and Stone's Throw artists. And I just remember like, late at night, we would try to catch these anime. That's the only time we would catch them. Because we only found manga in Denver at like Boba shops back in the day. Now they have manga everywhere, like it's in Barnes and Noble and all the stores. So it was always just something we were trying to catch and trying to find in Denver. So as late night TV, we catch a Gundam episode, Cowboy Bebop, you could find Dragonball Z. And that was cool too. It just blew our mind because we loved martial arts. And then from Wu Tang, we were more into martial arts as well. And this was before like YouTube and all this stuff really took off to where you can look up so many things now. But with both anime, there's just something so I don't know. There's just something so deep about a lot of anime and the writing and then what it's able to convey. And then a lot of the Asian influences in the ways that they put a lot of care into color. So like these colors that will come out like the Green Legend Ran and Cowboy Bebop and in the way that they pair the music, it's all like it hit me so philosophically, the way...I don't know. It just conveys a lot of information to me. Just like hip hop conveys a lot like hip hop has an ability to convey like exabytes of info and I feel like Mushish does too, it is so philosophical. Like he's, you know, he' like pouring stuff in this person's ear to get the Mushi out and then the Mushi like clouds, like the different senses and, and then all the forest spirits in the lore. I don't know, I just love. I love all the philosophy that comes from a lot of anime and, and it's just honesty too.
Uilliam 27:47
Yeah, no, that's such a cool answer. No, I 100% agree. I wish I had, I wish I was able to, like I had the access to knowing more about anime when I was younger. I mean, I watched all the Ghibli films, but I didn't really get into anime until later. And my brother has the same thing. So it's like, because we're just the people we're around. So that's really cool that you grew up in a way of actually having access to that. And like, like people, like you actually had people around you that like you'd put on the TV and you'd be actually like excited about watching that kind of stuff. And yeah, I think that's so cool. Because I 100% agree that I yeah, I wish anime was I mean, it's become quite normalized, but like I wish more people would just be able to take it in is this to like, this piece of media that's like, like you said, is really well written and captures people's heart the same way Hip Hop does and other things like that does. Yeah, no, I 100% agree. It's really cool. It's really really cool. And I love that answer.
chris 28:49
I always love all the anime stuff that you bring to all the episodes. Let's talk about anime.
Uilliam 28:56
Yeah thank you, yes. I'm quite obsessed. I've been obsessed for a while.
carla 28:59
Yeah, and I love that you include MushiShi with the more dynamic shows because I've recommended MushiShi to people over the years and they'd be like it's so boring.
Uilliam 29:12
Oh they these are this is why I don't you know... they have a hard time with shows that are like really slow paced quote unquote so like they has if you look at so much media now especially in the West like so much you know, movies like Marvel and whatnot is so fast paced and in your face of just like get the action out there get everything fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. And I feel like with anime like it still wants, it will have stuff that's quite fast paced, but it like it. It's still wanting to do that, being able to actually sit with it and like, actually process what you're watching and wanting to have conversations after you watch it. What you just watched and the meaning in it gets you really interested now and Okay, now I need to like learn stuff about Japan because then I can have even more conversations about what just happened. And a lot of people can't take that. A lot of people are like, I just need to, like, turn off when I watch stuff and it's, ya know, 100%
chris 30:17
That's well said.Yeah, all the explosions, guns and violence.
carla 30:24
Yeah. Or spoon fed, right? Yeah. I don't want to analyse. I like that you called it philosophical. Because it's true. p.
Uilliam 30:30
Yep yep,. 100%. Yeah. Okay, I was gonna ask one more question. Before we get into... Before we get into the rest… Yes. We want to ask about: Where did the name Time come from?
chris 30:44
Oh, yeah, this is not an impressive story at all.
carla 30:49
But people want to know, we all want to know.
chris 30:51
it was to eternally banned me from being discovered on Google and other ways. No, it's going back to N1, the basketball brand. There used to be this shirt. Because N1 used to have like little trash talk basketball things on it. And one of them was that I had this shirt I'd always been wearing that said "I am like time, I can't be stopped" and it has like this guy holding a basketball and I would always wear that shirt whenever I went to like the Rec, the Park. So then people were like, this guy is always wearing this short, he's time he's the time guy. So then it was a joke. I was like time because I couldn't be stopped on the basketball court. So that was just my nickname in the neighborhood. Like, instead of Chris it was like, Hey, what's up Time? We all had our little names. And then when I started rapping, it just stuck with me. So it's just a neighborhood nickname.
Uilliam 31:47
Yeah, that makes sense. But that's so awesome. But it's like a really awesome story.
carla 31:50
It's so cool. And also, like, it just suits you so much. It does. I mean, I don't know if I would have listened to your podcast or reached out. I just love time, ‘what's this about?’
Uilliam 32:00
Yeah, cuz you. Yeah. So many conversations we've had are about time. Yeah, we like time.
carla 32:07
Yeah. Before we get into the rest of the questions we ask everybody, we have a two parter here. Yeah, one, we want to play one of your songs that you can spend some time thinking about, maybe you could, I mean, maybe Who's Dystopia? but also open to something newer? Then maybe you could introduce, and then we will throw it on at the end of the show for folks to listen to. And the second thing is, I kind of heard a rumor that you do on the spot rap. And we are curious if you could do a rap? But yeah, would you be willing to do on the spot rap?
chris 32:46
I can do on the spot wrap. Let's see. What about some? What about some topics or some words?
carla 32:52
Sure. I have put my computer on top of a couple books. And also I have stickers. What's helpful? Like we'd throw them at you as we go or up front?
chris 33:06
Either way, you can put them in the chat too. Okay. Yeah.
carla 33:11
Well, I pulled the card for the conversation. Oh, yeah. It was: inspiration. So let's start with that.
Uilliam 33:18
You can write that in. These are the things you have around you.
chris 33:27
Oh, nice. These are good.
Uilliam 33:32
You want to do the inspiration thing and then write that down?
chris 33:36
I remember that one.
carla 33:38
Yeah, there's some, any other words? Oh.
chris 33:46
Mushi. Okay, let's Okay, well, it's a little harder without a beat. But we'll go ahead and do this. Well incorporate these words in here.
carla 33:57
I'm not going to be able to do Beat. Can you do a beat?
Uilliam 34:01
I don't think I can keep one. I think I could start it and then it would it would trail off
chris 34:07
It will slowly become techno.
Uilliam 34:10
I mean, I could also just tap a pen, like a pen on to get like the, like the, like just to get that going.
chris 34:19
Yeah, you can trail off. You don't gotta keep going. Yeah. Take it back to the lunch room.
We'll take you back to the lunch room.
Every morning I wake up and I have brunch with Doom, because they can never get it.
They can never understand.
So every day I listen to Sun Ra, feel like a motherless child and I'm really trying to find myself, shout out to my mother, really hope that we could find each other.
I put no one else above her. And that's alright when we take it from here to Denver, I'm just trying to remember telling MC that really my pain is colder than December and thanks for having me on your podcast.
My pen is like a rod and I write real fast. Try to do it like Magic can spill out these different words, try to get through the pain and strife and untangle this entangled life.
And they want to see what happens each time we do it even though I got rhyme from my soul, telling these people out here that were on the soul patrol and they really want to say what happened, and I am writing and planting seeds.
They want to say take what they need, but you ought to give back. That's called reciprocity. These other people really don't understand it. I'm rhyming through the stratosphere with unbelievable velocity, you are loved I go above like tech and Guru. They want to say what happened like Gangstar. But no one never really knew you when this is a new premier. That's DJ wordplay, they can never catch it each and every day when I do this, even though they heard them. That's a murder. That's a bunch of crows, can never really turn the sound on and never get muted. They really want to see what happened on the best of, there's no refuting but we're all the best if we are all in a hall of mirrors.
I'm really just trying to trust they really want to see what happened through this different paradigm shift or bust. And they want to say this and that but really, I'm just trying to get these things off of my lids. We're trying to do this from here, smash adult supremacy and trust some kids and I might watch some mushi or another Blues Brothers show like John Belushi.
Uilliam 34:29
was so good. Oh, oh my god. So good.
carla 36:19
I couldn't, I am bowing. I never could do that ever
Uilliam 36:24
So fucking cool. Wow.
carla 36:28
You, you got some deep lines in there... future songs? Do you ever use some of those in future? Like, do you ever grab lines?
chris 36:38
Sometimes. Yeah. Like sometimes I'll like, if I'm ever stuck. I'll just freestyle or freestyle in the car. Because I feel like, like, if you freestyle, you can all of a sudden, like you let go of a lot of stuff. Like, oh, I want to write a good song like that. You're just lying to yourself. So then you just let it go and you freestyle and you fly up into an ether pocket. And I feel sometimes and then you just grab a few things. And then yeah.
Uilliam 37:04
so cool. You must have an awesome memory, be able to remember words on the spot like that. I could never do that.
carla 37:13
It's brilliant. Thank you. Did you know a song? What song would you like us to play?
chris 37:19
I'll probably let you all pick a song. I do have a new song that I just finished.
carla 37:28
I like putting, I like the honor of, I mean, we did that with Sol when we had him on Silver Threads, he gave us a song before it was out and that's special.
chris 37:37
Okay, let me let me get you, let me find the intro for this then so I can explain it. It's a very special song. It requires a few sources though. Let me. Oh, okay. I think I'm learning new stuff as I'm researching this, but I didn't know what I was doing. So imagine this, this track is called our day will come. And it's from a new album called Depressed Joy. And I was working on this track about Bobby Sands, the Irish revolutionary who died of a hunger strike under Margaret Thatcher. And I've been studying Bobby Sands for about a year for this song, and reading everything I could find from him, his prison writings. And then I wrote a song called The Ballad of Bobby Sands. And then I had leftover stuff because I read for like a year. And I found the song called Coming Together by Frederick Resuski. And he's a conductor. And he originally did this track where he took a paragraph from a prisoner who was in Attica, and his pen name in Attica was, was a Sand Melville. And he writes this paragraph in prison, and they take it. And they have like the whole orchestra going, but they read the paragraph, but they do it almost like a wave, I haven't seen it explained that way. But you say the first sentence, and then you say the second sentence, and then you go back to the first. And you say, one, two, and three, and you go back to the first and you slowly read the paragraph. And when you read the whole paragraph, you then erase the first sentence of the paragraph and read it. So then it comes in, you read it all, then you just read the last words. So I found this, this beautiful paragraph from Bobby Sands, and I recreated this, this composition in my own way. And I read this, but I did it with Bobby Sands words. So I'll read. I'll read the full paragraph from Bobby Sands. This was some of his last words on hunger strike. It's extremely amazing and I just recorded the song, I think yesterday. So this is Bobby Sands:
"I was a skeleton compared to what I used to be but it didn’t matter. Nothing really mattered except remaining unbroken. I rolled over once again, the cold biting at me. They have nothing in their entire imperial arsenal to break the spirit of one single Political Prisoner-of-War who refuses to be broken, I thought, and that was very true. They can not or never will break our spirit. I rolled over again freezing and the snow came in the window on top of my blankets. Our day will come. Our day will come."
carla 40:37
Oh, wow. Thanks for sharing that, that whole entire story about how you got there. And I kinda was hinting on that earlier about, like, how you got those one lines, like the year long research dive that you do for one song.
Uilliam 40:51
So cool, though. I had never heard that story before.
carla 40:54
Okay. Yeah, I look forward to it, so you're gonna send a song and Yeah.
Uilliam 40:59
Yeah we will play it.
carla 40:59
Yeah. It's an intro and given the context for it. That's beautiful.
chris 41:05
Yeah, thanks. I haven't really explained it to anyone. I was going to reach out to the composer too to see what they think about it.
Uilliam 41:15
Yeah, that's so cool. Yeah. of songs with meanings. Yeah, like stories.
carla 41:19
Yeah. Like entangled stories like that too... I love Depressed Joy. It's such a good name.
chris 41:27
Yeah, thank you. And thanks for your work on this new album too.
carla 41:33
Oh yeah I have a song on there... It's very exciting. And you don't get to listen to Grounded Futures listeners, until later. Yeah, we kind of did things out of order. So now we're Why don't you do this one?
Uilliam 41:50
Oh yeah, we would love Okay. These are the four questions that we ask everyone. Okay. We would love to hear some of the ways you cultivate thriving and thrivistance in every day.
chris 42:04
Yes, thrivistance. Yes, thriving is, thriving is a kind of a conscious decision. But then something I have to also not focus on. Because just like I'm always studying the Tao is like things that you seek, like they run away from you. And things that you chase are going to leave you so I always have to try not to explicitly go after thrivistance. So I have to remind myself, in my mind, it's very active. So some ways I do this are not in not healthy ways. Sometimes I thrive by changing my consciousness. So now maybe there will be exercise, certain types of, of what you would call drugs, or what is the other one exercising basketball to stop the internal dialogue, or fasting. So I tried different ways to disrupt myself to make sure I can still thrive. And that can be just, you know, acknowledging your depression is walking with you at this time. But at the same way I look at gratitude, friendship. Those things are crucial. Remaining disciplined in certain things. breathing, breathing ways, meditation. My big, my big one right now is really just surrendering. I'm really just exploring surrendering in a lot more ways. And seeing things like I've been working on seeing a lot of things as sigils. So like, you may have something like thriving, and you kind of charge it up within you just let it go. Let it go and let it thrive. You don't. So that may be a thing where I don't actually, I'm not trying to cultivate thriving. I'm trying to like charge it and let it go.
Uilliam 43:58
That's such a cool answer. No, I resonate with that very well as well. Yeah, I definitely try to work towards that a lot. I'm just sitting with it. And take in everything that's happening and try to be present. It's all about presence. Right? That's like that's so cool.
chris 44:14
Yeah.
carla 44:15
yeah, as I've done this show, I realized that oh, what I'm really asking is how do you get present?
Uilliam 44:20
Yeah. And that was like that was an answer that literally was how do you get present. Yeah, that's
chris 44:26
a whole bunch of ways of being present. Yeah
carla 44:28
really was. And of course, we love the Tao. Shout out to the tao. Yeah. And that piece about discipline or like Joy James calls it devotion. I love that nuance, because it's like a devoted love yourself that can be disciplined. Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that everyone gives different answers.
Uilliam 44:48
I know. It's really awesome to see everyone's different stories.
carla 44:51
I've switched up the trust one a little bit because I know you listen. I'm curious if you can share a story of a time when trust shifted your thinking or creativity, and you know, and then also yeah, speak to maybe how trust animates your life and work and creativity and art?
chris 45:14
Yeah, I would say, Well, I guess the syllabus story is a really strong one on trust. I'm trying to think of another story on where trust works. Oh, a recent one is our newest album, All the Dreams I Ever Had, with AwareNess, Chavo. And that whole album came about from Trust, which is funny. He, we were trying to had a show in two weeks. And he said, What should we do for a set? And we were thinking about it, and he's like, I'll make a set that's all going to flow together. And I was like, okay, and then he's like, Wait, it should just be a new album, and the whole album will flow together. And that will be the set. So put, there was two weeks away. And he's like, we can do it. So then he just sent me one beat. And he made like five minutes of a beat that kept changing that night. And I just started writing to it. And then I was like, Okay, I'm done. And then the next day, he got it up to 10 minutes. And we went for like four days, and it was 25 minutes, and we were done. And then it had turned into a whole story. So then we were like, wow, we made a whole album in a week. And then we had another week to get it mixed and mastered, and then memorize it all for the show. So this is all based on trust, like you talk to someone else. It'd be like, that's not a good idea. You got to make sure your music's good. You got to make sure your words are good too, got to make sure you recorded it, if there's no way you're going to be able to memorize it. We just ignored all of those doubts. And just went for it. And we've been doing this for 20 years. So we trusted ourselves based on that. So I would really say yeah, that is a great example of trust. And, I've been listening to Sade a lot again, and I've really liked her song. Love is Stronger than Pride. So that's been another thing that's really been getting me through, a coupling of love with trust.
Uilliam 47:15
Yeah, no, that was so cool. It's so cool.
carla 47:17
Love with trust.
Uilliam 47:18
Yeah. that's so cool
carla 47:18
And that album is incredible..I put it in my first Joy letter as a recommendation because it blew my mind. I mean, it didn't surprise me at all that you all did it quickly because you both just really trust your art and trust your voice. And like you said 20 years of friendship and collaboration brings together, it's just a fertile ground of where magic can happen and bloom and grow. But also it's yeah, I hope you do more with it. Because it has the potential to be a rock, or a rap opera.
chris 47:52
Yeah, exactly.
carla 47:54
So yeah, yeah, we'll put links to that as well. Thank you so much.
Uilliam 48:05
You asked a question.
carla 48:06
I know I moved this. I did. I did.
Uilliam 48:09
So I'm going to ask this one and you ask this one?
carla 48:12
We already did this.
Uilliam 48:13
Okay. Great. So this is the last, well not really the last thing because we have one more little thing. But this is like the last big question. That's a recommendation time. Can you share a book, podcast, shows , songs that you would recommend for folks, or that shifted your thinking? Name a few.
chris 48:39
Oh, yeah, I will. I will. MushiShi for sure. It's a recommendation. A recent thing that really inspired me as always inspires me to Saul Williams, his newest film, Neptune frost. Have you all seen this? Yet? It's an amazing film. It's like a sci fi like cyber punk, Afro Futurist film and he did the music as well. It's just amazing. And it's anti-capitalist. I can't recommend it enough. I recently ran across the poet, Henry Dumas, who was killed by police decades ago. I'm just discovering his work in his book, Ark of Bones is amazing. And on YouTube, I found an interview that he did with Sun Ra and it's him and Sun Ra having this discussion. And it's like, they're playing Sun ra's music so loudly in the background that you can barely even understand the interview, but it's amazing to just listen to it. I'll send you the link. It has inspired me recently. Of course, Trust Kids! and the work that you're always doing, both of you, and the ways that you all kind of curate things is amazing. I really like a lot of poetry. So, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, her poetry always inspires me. bell hooks, the prison writings of Bobby Sands. As far as music goes, I am listening to this artist, Cambatta, who is great. Psalm One, Vic Mensa is amazing. And I really liked that show Atlanta by Childish Gambino. If anyone has seen that, it's so surreal and just beautifully artistically done. And funny, too.
carla 50:34
Yeah, that was a really great list. I love Yeah, it's all over the place in a deep way though. Like always. I haven't seen the film. Neptune Frost, I look forward to seeing that.
Uilliam 50:44
Yeah, I want to watch it. I've never seen it.
carla 50:46
And the sun ra thing... chris has a really good song about sun raw, but, I am clicking my pen, sorry, Chris Bergman. You have a really awesome song about Sun ra that I think is one of the first songs you were working on when we became friends and you sent me like early lyrics of it and I was so excited.
chris 51:11
Yeah, I was gonna do that about Cowboy Bebop at first, as like, I'm gonna write about Cowboy Bebop. Then all of a sudden, I was like, Sun Ra. If you listen to it, the whole, every line is a wordplay from a Sun Ra song, lyric or album. And it's just like a five minute track of all this stuff, it was really fun to do.
carla 51:29
is really good. And you collaborated with some Irish e electronic musicians? Yeah. We will put that in the show notes as well.
chris 51:37
Yes. Acid jazz band from Glasgow. Yeah.
carla 51:42
Okay. Can you actually just say a bit more about your book that's coming out?
chris 51:47
yeah. So I just want to thank you all for having me on this. And I'm really grateful for the time and space and you all listening, and such cool questions. The book that's coming out later this year is with Gerald Horne. And it's called Acknowledging Radical Histories. And, yeah, just excited for that to come out. And I don't have a date yet when it's coming out, but it should be this year. It's pretty much done.
carla 52:17
And it's a book of interviews with him that like
chris 52:19
that spans five years.
carla 52:23
And it's also like, what 50 of his books or something.
chris 52:28
Yeah, yeah.
carla 52:29
And also stories in between, right, that is why it's really unique. Your interviewing style and why I think he reached out, why you're doing this book together, why he reached out is that you get him to weave in, like kind of his humor and the social element of his work and engagement in communities alongside the rigor of his research. It's so beautiful. Can't wait for everyone to read it.
Uilliam 52:51
That's so cool.
chris 52:53
Yeah, that was one of my main goals, because he did so much activism around Mozambique and Zimbabwe. And he never talks about it himself. Because you know, he's an historian, and he digs into it but he's part of this history, too. So it was cool to get that out of him.
carla 53:06
Yeah, I always learn so much when I listen, when you release some shows with him. I learned so much. So thank you for opening up worlds for us all and your show. And the best way for people to be in touch with you and connect with your writing and music.
chris 53:23
You can reach us on Bandcamp on thisistime.bandcamp.com or on Twitter, Instagram at timeraps, and I think I have an email link there somewhere.
carla 53:36
Great. Thanks so much for being here.
Uilliam 53:39
Yes, so much fun.
carla 53:40
This is our last episode of season three, all about trust, and it feels really wonderful and just perfect to share it with you. Yeah, wrap it up with time wraps.
Time 53:59
I was a skeleton compared to what I used to be but it didn’t matter.
I was a skeleton compared to what I used to be but it didn’t matter.
Nothing really mattered except remaining unbroken.
I was a skeleton compared to what I used to be but it didn’t matter.
Nothing really mattered except remaining unbroken.
I rolled over once again, the cold biting at me.
I was a skeleton compared to what I used to be but it didn’t matter.
Nothing really mattered except remaining unbroken.
I rolled over once again, the cold biting at me.
They have nothing in their entire imperial arsenal to break the spirit of one single Political Prisoner-of-War who refuses to be broken, I thought, and that was very true.
I was a skeleton compared to what I used to be but it didn’t matter.
Nothing really mattered except remaining unbroken.
I rolled over once again, the cold biting at me.
They have nothing in their entire imperial arsenal to break the spirit of one single Political Prisoner-of-War who refuses to be broken, I thought, and that was very true.
They can not or never will break our spirit.
I was a skeleton compared to what I used to be but it didn’t matter.
Nothing really mattered except remaining unbroken.
I rolled over once again, the cold biting at me.
They have nothing in their entire imperial arsenal to break the spirit of one single Political Prisoner-of-War who refuses to be broken, I thought, and that was very true.
They can not or never will break our spirit.
I rolled over again freezing and the snow came in the window on top of my blankets.
I was a skeleton compared to what I used to be but it didn’t matter.
Nothing really mattered except remaining unbroken.
I rolled over once again, the cold biting at me.
They have nothing in their entire imperial arsenal to break the spirit of one single Political Prisoner-of-War who refuses to be broken, I thought, and that was very true.
They can not or never will break our spirit.
I rolled over again freezing and the snow came in the window on top of my blankets.
Our day will come.
I was a skeleton compared to what I used to be but it didn’t matter.
Nothing really mattered except remaining unbroken.
I rolled over once again, the cold biting at me.
They have nothing in their entire imperial arsenal to break the spirit of one single Political Prisoner-of-War who refuses to be broken, I thought, and that was very true.
They can not or never will break our spirit.
I rolled over again freezing and the snow came in the window on top of my blankets.
Our day will come.
Our day will come.
Nothing really mattered except remaining unbroken.
I rolled over once again, the cold biting at me.
They have nothing in their entire imperial arsenal to break the spirit of one single Political Prisoner-of-War who refuses to be broken, I thought, and that was very true.
They can not or never will break our spirit.
I rolled over again freezing and the snow came in the window on top of my blankets.
Our day will come.
Our day will come.
I rolled over once again, the cold biting at me.
They have nothing in their entire imperial arsenal to break the spirit of one single Political Prisoner-of-War who refuses to be broken, I thought, and that was very true.
They can not or never will break our spirit.
I rolled over again freezing and the snow came in the window on top of my blankets.
Our day will come.
Our day will come.
They have nothing in their entire imperial arsenal to break the spirit of one single Political Prisoner-of-War who refuses to be broken, I thought, and that was very true.
They can not or never will break our spirit.
I rolled over again freezing and the snow came in the window on top of my blankets.
Our day will come.
Our day will come.
They can not or never will break our spirit.
I rolled over again freezing and the snow came in the window on top of my blankets.
Our day will come.
Our day will come.
I rolled over again freezing and the snow came in the window on top of my blankets.
Our day will come.
Our day will come.
Our day will come.
Our day will come.
Our day will come.
Uilliam 58:36
Thanks for listening to our show. Grounded Futures is immediate production and mentorship collaborative. And this podcast is produced by carla bergman Uilliam Joy, Jamie Leighh Gonzalez and Melissa sharp and their sound tech is by Chris Bergman.
carla 58:51
Resources and transcripts for this episode are in the show notes if you want to donate some funds or check out our other awesome shows, head over to grounded futures.com or email us with comments and suggestions at groundedfutures@gmail.com And please tune in next time to hear more from our incredible guests on how to thrive in the everyday
These were generated on Otter and lightly edited for clarity on June 6, 2023