Welcome To The Crossover

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello everyone, welcome to this special joint episode of Carry On Friends Style and Vibes and the Reels to the Rhythms. I'm always excited when we do these crossover episodes because I feel like, as Michaela said, beer things. So, um, welcome, my co-host Michaela Madoops. What is going on? A long time still carry. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And we're even more excited because we have Jess with us. Jess, welcome to this crossover event. Oh, you're still.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

I'm great. Thank you guys for having me. I'm excited. I love the name too. Reels and rhythms is love it.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

All right. So, I mean, everybody already knows Mikhail and myself, so we're just going to skip to them knowing who you

Meet Jess And Her TV Path

SPEAKER_00 0:52

are. So, tell the people them a little bit about who you are, Caribbean country you represent, the work you do, and then we'll get into the project we are here to talk about.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Sure, yeah. Um, I am originally from Jamaica. Actually, I was born in New York, but I was never raised here, so I don't work the same way because I was raised in Jamaica. So I was raised in Kingston. Um, went to Hopefield Prep and then Campion. Shout out to all the Campion Massman. And I came back here for college, you know, as um as about 17. So I've been here in New York for a long time. I consider both home at this point. And so I've been working in TV now for over a decade, I would say since 2013. So I've been 11 years of TV. So I've done a bunch of different um positions across TV. But um, this this doc I'm coming up is kind of like my first doc by myself. I've worked on stuff on Netflix and I do a lot of food network shows um as a producer. I've been working on a lot of AE stuff lately and PBS. Um, I do like a food show for PBS every year, but and I love music, so that's really why I'm happy to be doing this. So I kind of do two things food shows and music.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Well, two things dear to a heart. We love with Belly and we love music. So you're right in the company of me and Michaela. So um we reached out to you because you have, and I'll throw it to Michaela to finish the rest. You have a documentary that's coming out that's called Roots Rock Reggae and Michaela Q U. Tools. Tools. So I was so excited when I saw this project because, as Michaela said, I've been in a chill and be still semi-sabatical. But when I saw it, I was just like, this was kismet. It was meant to be because Michaela and I talk about dance hall and the segments in dance. You have the praise and worship, you have the troll back tunes, you have the souls section, we have all these things, and it's very hard for people to understand like why we do these things. So, talk to me about the project, why you started it, and all that good stuff.

The Spark Behind The Documentary

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Okay, so I again grew up in Kingston, and every night would listen to Fame FM. Every night. I didn't have TV in my room, so every night, even now, I still do it with like Spotify. I listen to you know, Souls at night, which is you know, it can range. That's why it's called Soul on the Souls on the RB, because it can range from country to pop to pop ballads to soft rock. I don't really know what the exact definition is, we'll get into that in the dark, but we know when we hear it, what is souls, right? We know certain artists are probably not souls, we're not playing them at the dance, right? And so I've always loved this part of Jamaican culture in general. I just find it so fascinating how we love artists like Marty Robbins and Patsy Klein and these really old country artists. And on a Sunday, up until I think when Zip FM maybe came on the scene, which was I forgot which year Zip um, you know, debuted in Jamaica. We never played dance hall and those things on a Sunday. On a Sunday, it was always you go back, right? And it was for after church, and you don't play Boujo, even though I love Boujo dearly, you know, but you're not playing that kind of more, you know, even though Boujo is not super hardcore, but you know what I'm saying. You're not playing an elephant man on a Sunday, you're not playing certain artists ninja man on a Sunday. You're playing older artists, you're playing old country. So I've always thought about this, and what really sparked the doc is two things. One, I was in Paris a couple of years ago with some friends of mine. I was playing Water from the Moon. We were like all playing music, and like our friends Paris laughed, and they just didn't love water from the moon. And I was like, what? This is our song. I was so hurt internally. And then last year, my dad got an award for um his service to Jamaica, you know, on the Heroes Day, so he got one of the awards for um his service as an air traffic controller. So but the night I was only there for 36 hours in Jamaica, and I went to this party called Isle of Souls, and it's every Sunday night. Um, shout out to them. I, you know, I we're gonna work with them on the dock. And I was like, uptown people can be elusive, but everybody was dancing, everybody was singing, everybody beat them juice, and I sing out to Selene and Michael Boltz, and then Lady in Red. And I was like, you know, I realized that some songs are songs that just we love in the Caribbean from the Paris incident, right? The Paris situation. And then I was like, I've never gone to a place in the world, and I've traveled a lot where people only play this for the entire night and dance. Like people love Celine all over the world. We're not unique in loving Celine, but to go to a place and you only hear soft rock and Michael Bolton and air supply, and you know what I mean? Meatloaf, maybe, right? That is unusual for the rest of the world. And so I was like, somebody should do a doc on this. And then I was like, why don't I just do it? Like, you make television, you know? So that's really where it came from.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

I think what I love about what you shared is the inspiration behind it and the fact that you saw something that was missing and you said, I'm capable of doing this, let me do it. Yeah. And and I think that to me, that is cultural preservation at its finest. And I think souls, as it is known, that section, that genre is very unique to the Caribbean, and it really goes back to what we played on radio. So even going further back, Reggae wasn't even allowed on radio. Right. So we've seen glimpses of this in other documentaries. So the one with Biggie talking about how he went back to Jamaica and his mom really talking about how her favorite artist. Um, and then even in a past um podcast episode with Miss Pat, she talked about um selling RB records on the road through her record label uh at a record store at the time. So they weren't even the label. So it just goes with the culture essentially of how that really grew. But I'm curious, even in that party, has souls transcended to this next generation? I know that they listen to RB and I know that they listen to other genres, but souls as we know it, of this nice look a presentable box, has that transitioned to the next generation? I don't know, so that's why I'm asking.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Yeah, I mean, there were some younger people there. I'm a millennial for sure. I'm probably like a geriatric millennial at this point. Um, but yeah, there were younger people there. I would say it tended to lead probably, you know, younger millennial. But there were some people I know for sure in like probably their mid-20s, because I feel like their parents' music now is probably like our like Usher and Beyonce and you know, some of those, or Keisha Cole, right? That's why it's that song Love has been like all over. I feel like in some ways we're the aunties now. And so like I think for them, maybe some of the older, super old stuff might not, they might not know that stuff, but they still understand, I think, the concept of it as a like RB, but you could also have an Ed Sheeran, which is in the same box, even though he's a pop artist, you know what I mean? I think that still does translate, but I don't think they maybe know, unless they have their grandparents still around, like Marty Robbins, who we, you know, lots of Jamaicans love Marty Robbins.

How Sunday Radio Built The Ritual

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Um, one of the things you said before, and I don't know if you'll cover this, but you know, I'm I'm in the Gen X generation. So I grew up when there was just one, it was just JBC and everything else was radio and TV sign-off. And the radio format, you talked about it on Sunday, right? Sunday morning before church collectively starts. So most churches would start at 10. You play your Christian music after that. It's some it's some Latin type music, whether it's Bossa Nova or some salsa, and then as we get into the nighttime, it gets to be the souls or whatever, right? Um, and there was a particular radio format. My favorite radio distracted growing up was Donovan Dakers. I loved Donovan Dakers, right? Um, so how much has radio played a role in our love of souls, given that for a very long time we were a one-channel country and multiple radio stations? And to Michaela's point, do you think now where even though Jamaica is still a heavy radio country, but not as much with social media and stuff, how does that play a role in the younger generation experiencing souls the way we experienced it?

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Because I don't live there um full-time anymore. I don't know if they listen to it the way we do, but I think radio, in a lot of ways, I think radio is super important to Jamaican life, right? I used to live my life by RJR in the mornings. Like literally, they had like a, you know, the the they used to have a uh a segment for everything, like a 10 past year, 15 past yeah, third, I think at 6.30 in the morning it was news, 645. So I think a lot of people listen to the radio, and I think it really helps shape how we think about like even the way things should be played. Um, I think with souls in particular and older music like country and um RB in a lot of ways, that is the foundation, I think, of what you know in radio. And I think that to that point about the radio station being the one, I think that is the foundation for all radio stations did up until maybe like 15 years ago. I think up until I think when Zip came along and they started playing more secular music on a Sunday, most radio stations still follow that kind of tiered thing on a Sunday. Morning, gospel. Afternoon, you go to your old country with your Patsy Klein and your Skeeter Davis. Afternoon, you might get into a little older, softer disco, right? You might play some, you know, ABBA, right? Or something like that. And then evening time, you know, you might go a little bit more RB, shylights, OJs, things like that. So I actually think radio is really, really foundational in terms of like how we listen to music, our palettes in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

I I love this idea of what radio has done for us musically, um, in how we relate to souls and um or love for souls. So all right, we we know souls is a miscellaneous category for anything that feels very RB, soft rock, um, you know, soft pop, if you want to say. Um, what else? It's anything where we feel like it's singing to a particular, like soulful singing. Maybe that's why we call it souls. It's interesting, and you now living in New York, all three of us, we carried that to New York because being in Brooklyn, they used to keep dance where it was a completely souls team dance the whole night is souls, right? So I want to ask a really fun question.

The Souls Song You Expect

SPEAKER_00 13:13

When we think of dance all and dance all parties, Jamaica or the US, what is the number one soul song you think they're gonna play in the dance? In your opinion, Michaela and Jess, what's the number one song you know? So they might go pull a tune here in the soul section of this dance.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

So, my instinct, like once he said it, my instinct was Michael Bolton's soul provider. That's like the just the sound. And then they rinse it with the Romy and Virgo and come back. Yeah, it just came to my mind instantly. It's one of my favorite soul songs. We know Jamaicans love Michael Bolton. I guess I'm just going to go with my instinct and say Michael Bolton's soul survival.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

I gotta go with my instinct too. First name came to mind was Celine Diane, but the song that came to mind is like a virgin Madonna. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

The song that comes to my mind is Guilty with Barbara Streisand and Barry Kidd. Then we get nothing to be guilty.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

Oh, yes, we love that song. We really do love that song.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

It's true.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

We also love there's this one Celine.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Um I'm alive. Let's just anything Celine. They love anything Selene, they love Ice Brenda.

Jamaica’s Unofficial Hit Singles

SPEAKER_02 14:36

Well, that's one of the things that really is a big part of the doc for me that I want to make sure I touch on is that Jamaicans also, and I can't speak for other islands, but Jamaicans in particular pick their own singles. So there are songs that are just popular in Jamaica. And I say this because I've been doing a lot of research, right? And artists would come to Jamaica at Kenny Rogers the first time he came. I don't want to give too much away from the dark, but like um, Kenny Rogers came to Jamaica, and you know, our favorite song is Write Your Name Across My Heart, right? We love that song. It's one of our favorite songs outside of the gambler, probably. And it's not a single, it was never released. So the promoter was like, listen, you have to close with this song. And so he's been interviewed by Winford Williams, and he's like, Oh, we're not gonna do that. And I know he did it because I what I read the article after Ningulino, and so the promoter must have been like, absolutely not, right? This is your this is your gambler here, right? Like, and Jamaicans do that a lot. We will pick a song, I don't know what exactly we gravitate to in the song, and that's our that's our favorite song. There is like this one random Celine Dion song that they play at the dance all the time that literally nobody I've ever mentioned it in America knows it. They're like, What? And they know a lot of Celine Dion songs, but they don't know this song. I think it's called Um Something About Her Mother. I forget the name of it. It's like mama, you gave me wings to fly.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Like, I know that song.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

It is not a single, right? And I think it's goodbye is the hardest word. I think that's the name of the song. And it's really a hit in Jamaica, particularly like downtown. I don't know why. Like, I don't know where it came from. I don't know. Jamaicans like to taste really fascinates me, like what they gravitate towards and what they kind of reject, you know?

SPEAKER_00 16:29

It's so interesting because when I used to go back to Jamaica for vacation, I would hear songs play on the radio that I didn't hear it even on the RB station here. Particularly, there was a song with James Ingram and Anita Baker from a movie. And I was just like, I've never heard this song. And people are like, What is this? Like, I've it wasn't even played on the the black stations here. And in Jamaica, I mean, almost every night it played after it's just like I had no choice but to know it. So um, another fun question for both of you who is an artist that um for you, Jess, that you know this artist in Jamaica, but you in America, they're like, Who is this? Um and Michaela, maybe for you it's what's a song that you know that you went to Jamaica for the summer or for holiday or whatever, and you heard it and you came back and everyone's like, What is this? Sort of like Biggie's experience.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yeah, I think I think it was more the group Air Supply. I'm like, I don't know who Air Supply is. Because I and then they they start playing song. I'm like, oh yeah, I do know air supply. And I'm like, but I can't put a face to to the songs because I didn't know who they, you know what I mean? Like the name of the band. It's only like probably maybe even the last 10 years that I even really did the research on who, and and it was because of probably like my mother-in-law, like talking about air supply, and I'm like, who's that? And they're like, you know, air supply, man, you know them tune and them play the tune. And I oh yeah, I know that side. But true, my mother was a rebel, so I'll be a regular sheep. I'll be a regular dance house, she played. So my my auntie was the souls, and I mean, my lady, she would have locked up in her room and a vice on every song. And and at that time, you know, she came here, so she was listening to RB station, so it's mostly, and then she'd make like have to like put in tapes and all these kinds of things. So that's how I really got exposed to to the to the souls, and then when I would go to Jamaica, I'd I'd hear like CDs and and and and parties that would have those segments, and it it just kind of stuck. I'm like, yes, only in it's it's one of those best kept secrets of Jamaica, to be completely honest. And it's one that I think we should preserve because it's so good.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

I know, I agree.

Country Music And The Outlaw Thread

SPEAKER_02 18:58

The funny thing is when I started working on this, I'm gonna answer your question, but when I started working on this, um, I looked up air supply because I was like, oh, we love so many other songs, and there's all these Reddit threads and stuff where like, oh, air supply sucks, and like Sleene Dion is the worst, and like Michael Jackson is like the worst. But like, not Michael Jackson, I'm so sorry. Michael Bolton. And you know, they've parodied him in movies about how his music sucks. And I'm just like, what? This is amazing! Like, how dare you come for Michael Bolton and Kenny G and these people? Um, to your point about artists, though, I think unless I met somebody from the South, like from the, you know, who grew up in Tennessee or um not in Florida, like you know, like deep, you know, deep South, Tennessee and South Carolina, people don't know Marty Robbins. And Marty Robbins is a really old artist, so that makes sense. But I listened to him a lot in Jamaica actually growing up. Like um the El Paso song is huge. In the dark, I'm gonna draw a lot of parallels when I have a whole graphics thing in mind. Um, but between like some of the lyrics and some of the songs from like like Marty Robbins to some of the dance hall lyrics, which I think there is a I think there's a chain. Um, you know, the big iron on his hip to, you know, cartel on him, 9,000 guns that he name drops. And and you know, I think Jamaicans love an outlaw, right? Like you hear it with a rude boy, they love an outlaw, they love a rebel, and dance hall is like rebel culture in a lot of ways. And so I actually think a lot of it is rooted in like country and western movies and music, yeah, to where you get to dance hall and it's some of the same themes. I think even some lyrics in some cases overlap, which I even the names of the artists were getting very Josie Wales, Josie Wales, Josie Wales, um, Johnny Osborne. Um, a lot of yeah, and so and that's because we only had one station, right? Um, growing up, and he they would play that on a Sunday or whatever because you have to fill the airtime when you don't have news. I mean, Jamaica's a small island, like how much content can we produce for our station? So I I think that it's a big foundational part of like what we listen to, is like really old country western. They love those themes, and you even hear it in like a Wayne Marshall song, Marshall in town, tell them and it's the whole thing, they love it, you know. So I think for me, that's one of the things that a lot of people, even though they grew up around a lot of Caribbean people in New York, I think some of those really old school country they didn't know, even which surprised me. Um yeah, I think it's a little bit different if you grew up in the island.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

It's so interesting that you talk about country because I can think of, you know, of course, we know Kenny Rogers, the gambler. Oh my god, even the other day my husband was singing it, right? Um, I even to a certain degree, I've talked to Michaela, like, I really think Lionel Ritchie is a country singer, but they just put him in R and B. But one, but one country singer whose album went really pop bad. When I moved here, no one really knew about her, is Crystal Gale, and everyone loved her. And they first they loved her because she had hair all the way down to her ankles. So that was one thing. But all everyone would sing was a long and lasting love. And they just kept singing that song over and over. So there's something there with the country music and Jamaica that is very interesting in terms of the correlation. So I can't wait to see it with your doc.

Kickstarter Goals And Film Stages

SPEAKER_00 22:30

So let's go back to the doc. You are doing a crowdfund right now. What's the goal of the crowdfunding? Where are you in the production of this documentary? And I'm gonna add one more question because we want to know is this going to go the film festival circuit? Is it gonna be a general release? Let's know what's happening.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Okay, great. This is two great questions. So we're still in pre-production, actually. It's funny, I think this video, a Kickstarter video, was so strong that people are like, it's a it's like a trailer. I'm like, not quite. You know, we have a lot to film. As a lot of people, I'm trying to get to be in the docs. Celine is obviously my Mount Everest of interviews that I'd like to have. Um, I have people already on board, and so I've I've I've been amassing content and our archival, and I've had some yeses for when I go to Jamaica in October. So I have a couple shoots already scheduled there, and I've shot like a couple small things already. But the crowdfunding is really for production, right? Um if you work in TV and film space, um, you are aware, or if you follow the industry trends, you know that it's been on a significant downturn since last year, since the strikes, since the writer's strikes last year, which just happened in last May. So I think I think the official numbers I saw there, that they were like, it's like down 40% or something, which is a lot, right? It employs a lot of California, a lot of New York. So we've been in a really slow season. And I decided to launch the crowdfunding because I didn't want to wait to get told yes. I find in TV, just like with other trends, market trends in other spaces, and I'm not a business person by any means, trust me. I've learned that from this experience. But, you know, there's certain times under green lighting, certain things, right? Sports is hot right now, you know, true crime is hot. Everybody wants to do a true crime doc. So it was kind of hard for a music space. And unless you're Caribbean, you don't think there's a big audience for this. If I was going to send to like an executive somewhere, right? And I just didn't want to be waiting and waiting. I haven't worked as much as I normally work in the past year and a half. So I'm like, I could either use this time to stress myself out every day and applying for new gigs, news. And I've worked, but just not nearly as much as I normally work. Normally I'm like overlapping sometimes, it's so busy. Or I could put my energy into something that I actually want to make, care about, my people, my story. And then what's stopping me? Money, right? That's the thing, that's the barrier, is the money. I think even the access to people, I know enough, and I think I'll get there. I used to, you know, work for the music industry in Jamaica. So I was like, all right, if money is the issue, let's find money. And instead of waiting for, you know, a Netflix or whoever to say yes, let's raise some money on our own, right? And hopefully people would either come or it gets made, and like a hundred people see it and it still got made, and a hundred people love it. That was where I landed. And so the amount I was raising is actually significantly less than I wanted to raise. But Kickstarter is all or nothing. So if you don't get all the funding, you get no funding. And it's not about not being ambitious, but you don't want to overshoot and then miss, right? And then get nothing. I'd rather have $20,000 than have, you know, try to raise 40, but raise 32 and didn't get anything. You know what I'm saying? So that's where the Kickstarter came in. And I can elaborate, but I won't keep going.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

No, no, no. And I think in terms of if just explain a little bit more. When you when you said you're in pre-production, just let the audience know specifically what that means. It's just like identifying the potential guest, etc., and then post-production because we want the audience to support it and we want to explain to them clearly where you are in the process so they could support it.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Cool, cool. Um, so all right, so you have like four stages essentially, actually, five stages of production, really. You have development, you have pre-production, you have production, post-production, and then distribution, right? We for a long time were in development where I was researching and stuff like that. And then I started reaching out to people like, hey, like, you know, there's people who have reached out to try and be in the doc, like our I love souls, you know, friends, that party, right? Who we're gonna shadow them a bit and like shoot some of that party, right? That's obviously uh something we want to showcase. That's a big part of the inspiration for the doc. Um, so pre-production is where you're kind of you have the funds, at least in you know, partially, right? And so you can already can start setting up shoots and start shooting and start setting up logistically what you're gonna do. Development is where you're really just doing research and kind of like the anthropological part. Production is where you're actually shooting, you're getting the footage, you're doing the shoots, you're on set, and then post-production is past that. It's done. Now you're editing it, and then distribution is obviously where it starts. You're going to festivals or you're going to your, you know, your network or your Netflix's or wherever it's gonna land. Um, my initial plan was to just get it made, right? And if I could get it into festivals, amazing. But the enthusiasm and the momentum since a week and a half ago has really stunned me. And I don't say that lightly, right? Um stunned. So I think there is a better conversation and a bigger conversation about where it's gonna land now, possibly. Um, so maybe it's not just these small festivals anymore, maybe it's like a bigger conversation. But I'm in talks with some people to see what can happen. And I do have a sponsor that came on board who gave who challenged us to raise more money. Um, then they will kind of like match it, or you know, there's gonna be two ways. Like they're gonna, we already actually met one goal to get 50 backers. So they gave us 5,000 and then um we'll do another campaign and then we'll get another 5,000. So that's Bloomahole Capital. They're um an investment company based in Jamaica. You might you guys might know about them. Yeah, but David Mulling. So they're great. So yeah, so that's like, you know, it I've put it out there, at least the Kickstarter part, and people have been coming and circling and asking, which is great. Like, I can't ask for more.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Michaela, jump in when you have a question.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

But in the meantime, no, yeah, ask the questions. So that's why I'm gonna interrupt you, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

So you said that you are overwhelmed and surprised by the response. And I want to know why, because we're in media in different spaces, but the reason why I started carry on, friends, Michaela is doing style and vibes, and I do breadfruit media because we think a fraction of what we represent on our culture is not necessarily out there for us to consume or interact with. So I'm not surprised by this. Like, I immediately like, Michaela, you see this, right? So that was how I felt. So, what was it about the response that surprised you? I just wanted to

The Surprising Viral Response

SPEAKER_00 29:48

know.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Sure. I think what surprised me, I thought people would be excited. So the same way, like, oh, we talk about this all the time. I talk about it all the time. Every Caribbean person I know, especially who grew up in Jamaica or in Haiti, I know Haiti feels similar. I know some of Trinidad is like that. I think we all know this about it, um, about the Caribbean and that we love it. But I just, I guess I just didn't expect the such an explosion of interest so like so fast. Like I knew people would be interested. And I was saying to myself, listen, if I can get to like a thousand views in the first day or so, that's pretty good, you know. Like, I knew my media network would care and the people in New York, but I hit I think 20,000 views in like 18 hours. Um, the video is well past six, almost 60k at the or 60k at this point, just on Instagram. That's not even including Facebook. I know people feel like this about souls and like that part of our culture. I guess I just didn't expect it to be so strong where people were sharing it for me. You know, I have a team, a crowdfunding team that helps me try to get the word out there. But for the first day and a half, like people just did the work for us almost. Like it was shared so much. If you look at my insta, my little icon thing, I think it's like a 980 times on that one video, but my film page also has a bunch more, and then you know, each team member theirs got reshared as well, you know what I mean? So it's I mean, the video is like baby viral, whatever. Like, it's not viral yet. I'm not on shade room, right? But like it's like baby viral in like the Caribbean communities, and I was like, whoa, I I think there's just a scale of the of the support, surprised me. Not so much that people liked it, more just like, whoa. And people were talking as if it was like already made in one case. Coming soon. Yeah, and I said coming soon, like that's what you say in the Kickstarters, but I I don't know. I I'm just surprised that people latched on to it the way they did. I'm a producer, so I see so many, like I'm not saying mistakes, but things I would change, right? I've watched a video a total of maybe four times, and that is to edit, right? Because I hate watching myself listening to myself. I'm a producer for a reason. I like being behind the camera. Um, but I was told by my co-founding coach that you I need to be in front of it, and my enthusiasm will radiate, and I think it did. I I think so. I think that's part of why people like it. I was also like looking for like comments about like my appearance. I was like, oh god, whatever people are gonna say. But I actually have seen none zero. You love good girl, I mean people really focused on the content of the video, which is what I really wanted. Um, I just I think it was a scale of it so fast. Like David Mullings, the from you know, from Zumaho Capital, he reached out to me actually, and he said that he got it sent to him four times that day. Like, so and I was like, really? And then I met this girl last week at um a friend of mine had a birthday dinner, he's in New York from Jamaica, and the girl was like, Oh, you're the girl from the video, the the souls video. I was like, What? Like, yeah, she's from she lives here now, but like again, I didn't know it was reaching people, people who had also one said no to being on the team. So when I was looking for like crowdfunding team members, two people ended up dropping out or just not ghosting me, and then one of them was like, Oh, somebody sent it to me on Twitter, and then she sent an apology. Um, I've had sponsors who I reached out to try and do a matching campaign or help us um reach back out to me after seeing the video, even though they ignored me. So that stuff has been like really interesting. I think that that part of it has sparse me.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

I think what what what truly happens is people like to see the concept, and because it was executed so well in terms of it was like its own mini doc, even though it was an introduction, right? Yeah, so so I think conceptually we've all we all have a connection to souls, and when you describe it versus when you have this tangible asset to explain it and get excited around, it's the first time that people are seeing this type of one um focus on we see cultural content get you know shared and um distributed, but it's won by you to you know, you're Jamaican, you have a connection. Again, your your story radiates in the video, and you were able to kind of tie it into like a a few minutes, like people can visualize what the entire doc would talk about. And you know, all Jamaican people still, we love get excited. Uh we love make sure seven culture devils, yes, and we are very proud to to kind of when it's excellent. That's it. I always tell people like you know some people are gonna support. No, you're no, you're not right.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

I always tell people the two most obnoxious things to be is like Jamaican and New Yorker, like a New Yorker, because it's just it's a lot, it's very true.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

Levels, levels, and then only about Brooklyn, yeah, and Brooklyn specifically. That's that's no, it's so true.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

And then if you come from Flatbush, absolutely no, it's so true. I think I guess for me, so my editor, so I had a few things about the video, and I worked with her before. So my editor, her name is Jenny Filippaso, she's like Italian, I think she's Italian. I worked with her on a docuseries I worked on last year for um Xfinity uh about hip house, which is like hip hop and house music, you know, that little period he had in like the early 90s. And she was our editor and she's amazing. And I basically said to Jenny, I told her I was trying to do. Um, that show was very stressful because of the timeline was very short. Not stressful because of the content, but just like got a short window to make three episodes, right? Three weeks essentially. So I knew she could do it, I knew she could do it fast. And I was like, listen, Jenny, I have no money. So I was like, it's a three-minute video. It's like there's no more than three minutes. Like anything over three minutes for our Kickstarter is a death knell. You don't want more than three minutes. In fact, if I could get it down to two and a half minutes, that is the key, right? The shorter the better. I'm aware of people's short attention spans. I'm convinced I have ADHD. So I want it to be short. I sent her all the stuff that you see in the video for the most part. Like all the archival stuff I had sourced, the interview with Assassin um Agent Susco, and you know, the elephant man clip, all the stuff in there I had sourced, and like we kind of talked about how I wanted it to kind of look. And that version of the video is the I guess like the fourth cut. It's you know, the first one was like five minutes, and we cut it down to three, and you know what I mean? And then I had a couple things. One of the things I noticed that is um, I hate to hear it, is that the audio doesn't match for the part where I'm like a kid because because I had shot this way back in February when I first had this idea. My friend shot it for free. And it was before I hired my coach, Justin, who's I have a crowdfunding coach. Um, and so he was like, you need like a personal thing. And I'll and I was like, Oh, but I thought I explained that. He's like, No, you need something where you are talking about it in like a different way. And I was like, All right, I can't reshoot it, I have no money for that. So I didn't pay him the first time, so I definitely don't buy the second time. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna find childhood pictures, um, and then we'll just put VO. So I was on a show working, so we had like an interview room because that's where I do all my interviews for the show. So it was quiet enough, right? It was at the studio in Jersey, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna go in there and record like 10 seconds of VO. 20 seconds was my absolute max because remember, I had like a two and a half minute, like hard three-minute max. No, my max was three minutes. So I went in there and I was like, these pictures, Jenny, have to fit into this like 15 seconds. Um, so for me, I hear it every time. If I listen to it, I'm like, oh, it doesn't match. Um, but you know, people wanted in to hear it, and two days seem to love it anyway. So it's fine.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

I can relate to you know, being an editor if you're like, eh, that's not quite right. But I think that segment of it connected because we were all young listening to these music. Like, I would tell, I mean, this is not quite souls, but you know, I would talk to my husband, his sister, so my sister-in-law, her husband, brother-in-law, and we would talk about how Derek Harriott did sing song songs. And I'm like, we shouldn't have been singing these songs, you know, but because the parents were singing it and we remember because the music, it's it's a soundtrack of our lives, right? So you remember where you are at a particular time, like Barry G was huge for me, so I remember what it was like coming home from school and listening to Barry G. So while you, from an editing perspective, didn't like that, the the image of the kids or as a child resonates because we are all connecting. Michaela, all of us here started connecting to music when Ralica bit me. When we have no reason for saying I'm your lady, you know, uh, none of those things are I'm leaving on the next plane out, Celine D whatever it was.

SPEAKER_02 39:44

My dad is like one of his favorite songs ever.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

I'm like listen, my mom would um kill songs by surface and all these people. And I was just like, when I listened to them, I was like, why them just love all of these heartbreak songs?

SPEAKER_02 39:59

They was just they were just like sad.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

They love a love song. They do. Jamaicans are actually pretty sentimental people, I find, when it comes to music. And I read somewhere, and I think I said it in the dark about just no guilty pleasure music. And I can't remember where I heard that quote from. I think it was from Diplo, actually, in like a Rolling Stone article. Because again, I've been reading up on a lot of this stuff for uh many months now. Um, and it's true, Jamaicans, you know, the way Americans are a little bit sometimes like elitist about music, like, oh, this is terrible, or like whatever. Especially like rock fans are like that, they're very like, you know, this is not good. Um, Jamaicans don't really have that gauge. Like they love a melody, they love big, kind of big melodic ballads, and um, so I think that really is what is like their foundation.

Influence Without The Ownership Wars

SPEAKER_02 40:48

They love country music, I think, because of the storytelling and the outlaw theme. And then they they just love a classic song, like a classic struct song structural, you know what I mean? Like it's they're not not to say it's simple, because I think those that out of the music is actually quite complex, and the way they redo it in reggae, which is another huge aspect, is really interesting. Um, and one of the re the things I really don't want to get into in the doc where people are like, see, we did this first, and like I don't want any of like who is appropriate, like it's not about that. That's what I said in the end, because that's genuinely why I want to do this. I think music in general, right, is so much about just like food, so much about taking things and making something your own with what you have. Like a lot of the South, they claim country music, but some of that, some of those themes are Mexican, actually. The cowboy hat is Mexican. Um, you know, some of the band, you know, and the bandos from Africa. Like I'm just saying, everybody takes their own thing and it becomes their own cultural stuff. And so that's what I want to focus on. Not about like you taking this from us, and like, you know, or from Trinidad. Because I think Deo is actually like a Trinidadian song, the original version, before Harry Belafonte's version took off, right? I have a whole grid of this stuff. Um, and that's what I'm saying. And so it's not about like Trinidad getting upset. It's just like, listen, we're all connected, all a diaspora. We all made something different. Soka is its own thing, and and calypso, and you know what I mean? Like, but it's all originated in like the same place, at least the foundation, I think, of music. It's and then you do what you can.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

I think we, you know, and Mikela, we talked about this in collectively, and we had um a music ethnocologist on the podcast, and we talked we talked about getting away from the origin story. And Mikhaila and I, we've been talking about this a lot, particularly with Afrobeats and Dansaw. Yeah, and those conversations take away from the actual music that we're trying to enjoy. Like, for instance, there was a when when Beyonce came out with the whole country music, there was a documentary that talked about the first recording of a banjo or a type of banjo is in is a slaves in Jamaica, and I was so surprised. And but Jamaica is not gonna claim sad country music, it was just you know, it's the history, and um, from a creative perspective, that frees me up to not think of not that I was, but I think it frees you up to think of myself only in boxes of dance, all reggae, and soca. I can be more than this because there's country, and I think that's why we love the music the way we do, and Michaela and I, we could we are creative in the way we are because culturally we were never boxed in. So you talk about hip house. I grew up in that generation where we were like dancing, hip hop, and the house, yes, yes, right now that doing you know, and they had the dance crews. Um, so music, because that was a love that I have because after TV sign off, you only had the radio. Yes, because I had this variety of music, I was never bought. In to think of things a particular way. Again, to Michaela's point, we could go into a party and there's a praise and worship segment, there's the Soka segment, there's the old, like there's so much because it represents how we think about music and how we communicate. And I think that's where we can free up ourselves creatively. I think make Michaela loves to talk about how we like to box artists in, and artists don't also don't want to, you know, there's a time and place to box people in, and there's a time to put your fork down and claim a genre just because that's how the industry works. Yeah. And I think that trips up our artists in terms of, but I like souls and I like gospel and I like that don't do that really.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

You know, so no, and that's the thing. The souls, because souls is not one genre. Like I would love to say it's just RB because we love that, you know, that Kelly Price and there's a few songs that we love, like Rock Me Tonight, you know. We love some of those songs, but that's Freddie Jackson, I think. Um, but you also play a Mariah Carey song alongside it, you'll also play Celine Dion alongside it, you'll play, you know, um Ambrosia, who I posted last night. We don't even do that. It's about the for us, it's all the same kind of ballad structure. So we, you know, we never really got into that. And I do find those conversations a little bit reductive. I hear this with like, you know, like Afrobeats is taking over dance hall. It's like, or taking, and I'm like, well, I'm happy for them, actually. I think that's great. I think it's time for Africa and you know, Nigeria and South Africa to have their moments, you know. A lot of those Afrobeats artists, a lot of their early stuff sounded like dance hall. They were heavily influenced. And whiz kid you can hear it in his early music, burnable, you hear it in his early music. It sounds very close to dance hall, and I think they found their own, you know, the more distinct sound, you know, um, eventually. But like I love that they, you know, took inspiration and Afrobeats is amazing. I listen to Afrobeats probably, you know, 60% of the week, right? So it's not it's not a time upset. I don't, I don't know why we have to do that. Like for me, when I heard a Chronics and WhizKids song, like this is my world in one place. Like, I was so happy to hear that. I don't see the need to feel like we need to be upset about that. Also, Jamaica's like three million people on an island, and you're talking talking like a whole continent. You know what I'm saying? Like, I was like, that's crazy, right? We should all be, I think, a little bit more. This is just my opinion. I'm not advocating for anybody else to feel this way. Just I think it's more about using what you have and the influence and what the instrument you just like with food, and you know, turning it into whatever it is that works for you. And some of it can be really amazing. I think some of the best reggae songs are covers of a soft rock song or a country song. Like, I can't even imagine Missing You by Sanchez not existing. I can't imagine it. I love that song.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

Or in the 80s where they were singing You Gotta First Card. That was like a whole cover of like.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

Yeah, and I love both. I love Tracy Chapman, and I really love those versions of some of those songs. Like, even like Country Road Take Me Home, you know, like that is a great song. Also, Bob Marley's first records were covers. You know, before he found his song and he was doing more record, he was doing like scow music at first. So that's not what this doc is about. So if anybody's looking for like we did this first, and like in like a more divisive, that's not gonna happen. It's just not what I want to focus on. It's for me, it's like and I hear Haiti. Listen, I hear I see the comments. I hear you, Haiti, I hear you, Trinidad. We know, I know they feel this way too. Like, I just don't have the resources to to to go all over the Caribbean to shoot. And but I know they feel I know a lot of them feel similarly to what you do.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

No, I I think souls is more about the tempo. And so, you know, the the the feeling that you get around the the rock, even yacht rock, what they call it now, pop ballads, country, RB, a certain tempo of disco, you know, like all of the the 70s souls um movement. Like it's really about this tempo, and I think the the genres themselves aren't unique, but the way that it is packaged in Jamaica and in the Caribbean is unique, and that's a cultural thing. And I think absolutely kind of tying tying it back to to what we were talking about. I think a lot of the the misconversations and and um the opposite ends really comes from equity, heritage, and mistreatment of culture. And so neither party is wrong in their sentiment and perception. However, the equity has been lost amongst all of us. And I think that we have to do a better connective job of recognizing each other in the the history, because we've seen how history gets erased, right? Yeah. And so the conversations really get fired and passionate behind the potential erasure of collective history. We've seen it with country music and and we've seen it with hip-hop music. So those consorted efforts to really say, hey, it's not just this, it is this, and then someone telling you, no, it's this, and then we're like, but this is all well documented in history, that it's not just this thing. Why are you not including us? And you can literally hear the tempos, the this, that. And to your point, the entire industry has evolved, and the way that we consume music have created, you know, the evolution of it. But again, I think the conversations really are about us being included in the conversations around equity and inclusion of the historical references. And I think we don't need to fight about it. And I think people fight more in the comment section than they do in person. So I think like no Caribbean person is really asking about whose rice is better than this one on a daily basis. Like nobody I will I will eat uh those candulas, I will eat rice and peas, we will eat the the the black rice, I'm gonna want a jalaf rice too. I'm like a lot of them. But on the internet, it it it narrows. It can't be like that on the internet, yeah. It's just the internet. So I think we all at a party, we hear Afrobeats, we hear souls, we hear dance hall, we hear RB, we can't even do a little other new hip-hop stuff, and that is is what we I think most people really in the entire black diaspora really want to experience. I was by the way, I wish more parties played souls here.

SPEAKER_02 51:08

I do that's not like in the I think in Flatbush it happens, but if I go to like certain parts, that's not happening, and I miss it. I miss it a lot. I actually have to say. I I I have cry tried to create on my phone every night the same kind of playlists or same kind of stuff like that for Spotify that like um fame fm used to do at night.

Playlists, Rewards, And How To Back

SPEAKER_02 51:32

Leave that tags. Okay, I will. I will I will share. There's actually a few of them if you just type in Souls Mix. A few people have done them already, and they're actually really, really good. There's like songs with like 80 songs, and they're really good. So one of the tiers of the rewards for Kickstarter, at the $50 tier, you get a playlist with curated by me with like a, I would say maybe like 40 or maybe not as many as that, but um, reggae covers of different genres. And then at the $100 mark, there is a Souls mixtape um curated just for the campaign by DJ Dangles from Federation Songs, and it's all the classics. He left out a few because there's some songs I want to tackle. I mean, come on, you can't have everything, yeah, in the doc itself, and like even some things I try not to talk about too much. I've talked a little bit about some of those things here, but I try not to talk about them too much because I want to make sure in the dock it feels fresh and not like, oh, I heard her say all of this and you know, before in her social no, there is so much we did not even cover. Yeah, but like even like the Marty Robbins thing, I actually don't post that just because I it's a lot, it's a thing I really want to explore a little bit deeper because I I see the connections being really so strong.

SPEAKER_01 52:47

Okay, so what what we need to do is make sure that before and after your search, Marty Robbins before like the shirt search relevancy of Marty Robbins before and after the doc get released because that is going to be leading. Yeah, that's a good idea. That's a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

My hope is that in some ways labels are more um friendly to docs like this. You don't have to give us the whole song to use, but just you know, I think it actually drums up interest more for those artists. I think people, nostalgia is a really powerful thing. Um, I think especially with millennials and gen X, and I have a theory about this. I think it's because there's now the internet, right? But we grew up in some ways before the internet became the way of the world. So people, these kids won't forget like what they liked. It's there's like a record there of their Instagram or whatever. But like we remember a time when we couldn't, you know, I couldn't even Shazam. Like to your point about knowing Air Supply, the artist's name. Like, I didn't know who they were when I was seven. I didn't know the name of the band. We didn't have Shazam, right? I discovered that they were air supply later, right? Um, so I think that the nostalgia for Gen X and then like Millennas is really strong because we like we're gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

Even for Jim Z from an exploration perspective, because if you think about like shows like Stranger Things that tap into that 80s era of nostalgia, like uh what's her name? Something Bush. Kate Bush. Yeah, like her inclusion, her music being included in Stranger Things, yes, really amplified people discovering her and Hill Woods and her catalog, and Hollywood back, yes.

SPEAKER_02 54:29

Yeah, I think I think it's they rediscover, I think they discover, but for us it's like pure nostalgia.

SPEAKER_01 54:34

Yes, yes. So for for corporations, it it equals more money, so that's why they should include it completely.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

So um we can't do this leverishing thing forever, but we just want to Michaela is laughing because we love music. Like, I want to give you my I call it my genre bending playlist because the mix up what is in this playlist on my phone does not make sense to anybody else out here. There's no reason why Gregory Abbat and Richard Mark should be on the same playlist, but it worked for me and Jamaica. So um I wanted to just like put a pin here, get people excited about the documentary and support the thing and uh get excited about you know what creators like you are doing to present stories that mean so much to us being told in a way that just resonates, you know, because it's not gonna just resonate with me. Me not say my mother and uncle them all like it because when dance I keep out of street, and I'm for them ears alone to hear it, all of us are hearing it, and that's that's what radio did for us growing up. We all heard it, we all interacted it with a different way. I remember when I was in grade three or grade four, there was no reason why I'm singing Karen White, I'm your superwoman. There's no song. There's no reason. Every Jamaican kid knows that song, right? Every Jamaican child knows that song. So that's the power of music, and that's the power of telling or interaction with music, even if it originates somewhere else. You know, the way that a culture interacts with it creates a whole new story and experience. So I'm super excited about it. Michaela and I will drop the links to the crowd fund.

Funding Deadline And Farewell

SPEAKER_00 56:31

Does it when does it end?

SPEAKER_02 56:32

It ends on September 19th. Um, we are about 55% funded right now. I'm just looking right now. So that's great, um, which is unusual for you know crowdfunding campaigns for indie films. Um, our coach, I have a, like I said, I have a coach, Justin, that I'm working with who's done this a million times. So he's been really helpful. But I put my own, you know, I have my own ideas and spins on things. Like Mondays, we do Salene Me Monday, right? On our social media, right? So it's all Clean all day, right? On a Tuesday, we're doing like trivia, um like reggae trivia to see who knows which is a cover and stuff like that. Um, and then the rest of the week is just fun stuff. Like we do a um a souls pick every day. People are welcome to give suggestions. We've taken many. September 19th, but feel free to you know share it, like it. Um, we have some new rewards coming up this week, I think.

SPEAKER_01 57:32

Yeah, that's exciting. Yes, and I'm right, I gotta do my donation today.

SPEAKER_00 57:37

So on that note, um, just you know, this is not the last of us, but you know, again, congrats on the project, and um, we're super excited for you. Thank you, and of course, of course, and as I love to say at the end of every episode, walk good. Well, Michaela, what you love say?

SPEAKER_01 57:56

It's been so long, later peeps. No, but make sure you guys go out and click the link. Uh, support Roots Rock Reggae and Soul's documentary. Um, emphasize this dinner. Yes, um, and share with all your friends them. Please and thanks, cuz we need support. Thank you so much, Jess. We appreciate being on the on the show. So, anytime. This was fun. It was. We gotta do it again.

SPEAKER_02 58:28

This was fun to my thing.

SPEAKER_00 58:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:30

Come, I mean, listen, let me know. I'm always around.

SPEAKER_00 58:34

All right, all right.