7x7 Bay Area: People Will Talk

7x7 Bay Area•7x7.com

7x7 sits down for candid conversations with the Bay Area's culture makers, trendsetters, and rule breakers. Join host Leilani Marie Labong for talks with chefs, actors, artists, winemakers, #vanlifers + more!

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Episodes

Wine Disruptor Kashy Khaledi: On going rogue in the Napa Valley

When Ashes & Diamonds first came onto the wine scene in late 2017, its singular modern architecture and rabble-rousing programming disrupted Napa's lineage of stodgy wineries, where your baby-boomer parents might feel at home drinking a big cabernet in a dated, amusement-park-like setting. Such an eye for nonconformity may have been forged during proprietor Kashy Khaledi's coming-to-America era—his family immigrated from Iran at a particularly impressionable time during Khaledi's youth and, ...

Sep 18, 2019•43 min•Season 1Ep. 6

Phenomenal Woman Meena Harris: On Feminism's Most Iconic Tee

As the little black dress was once fashion's unmistakeable emblem for contemporary femininity, a little gray tee is now our symbol for modern feminism. You may have seen founder Meena Harris' "Phenomenal Woman" T-shirts on the likes of America Ferrera and Alicia Keys on Instagram; or perhaps you caught the signatures of #1600Men in support of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford in The New York Times —that was the work of Meena, too. What began as a simple project to celebrate Women's History Month has bec...

May 28, 2019•48 min

Photographer Tabitha Soren: On art and life after MTV

The '90s pop culture icon who rose to fame as an MTV news anchor thanks to her high-profile interviews with the likes of Tupac Shakur, Mariah Carey, and Hillary Clinton finds herself on the other side of the mic, talking with 7x7 about her second act—as a Berkeley-based photographer about to launch her first solo museum exhibition. The achievement, though, is a long time coming: For 15 years, she followed the lives of minor league draft picks for the Oakland As (a connection spurred by her husba...

Feb 27, 2019•53 min

Fiber Artist Windy Chien: Untangling life through knots

A recovering Apple employee and former owner of San Francisco's Aquarius Records, Windy Chien is now fully and unapologetically exploring her creativity as a full-time artist, transforming rope into mesmerizing art installations that both honor and elevate the utility of the material. It all started with a humble personal exercise in 2016: the now-iconic Year of Knots, in which she learned how to make a new knot each day. Many momentous accomplishments have surfaced in its wake: Chien recently e...

Jan 08, 2019•49 min

'Blindspotting' writer/actor Rafael Casal: East Bay to the Bone

Berkeley-born Blindspotting writer/actor Rafael Casal isn't the first movie star we've interviewed—or the 10th, or even the 20th—but he is definitely the funniest, most insightful, and the easiest to talk to. The up-and-comer exists in that almost-famous limbo between being mostly unrecognizable on the street and being a legit paparazzi target—and let us tell you, Casal is lovably normal and Bay Area to the bone. Here we chat about his 2018 film (which got kudos from fellow Bay star Ali Wong), g...

Dec 21, 2018•57 min•Season 1Ep. 2

Chef Samin Nosrat: Author 'Salt Fat Acid Heat'

In October, 2018, Berkeley-based chef Samin Nosrat's series Salt Fat Acid Hea t made its Netflix debut. Based on the New York Times bestselling book of the same name, the show takes Nosrat around the world—from Mexico to Japan and Italy—to explore these basic tenets of cooking. Back in the Bay Area, the Chez Panisse alum and cooking teacher to Michael Pollan sits down for a candid chat with 7x7 about her Iranian upbringing, her evolution as a chef, cooking with intuition, Thanksgiving, comfort f...

Oct 02, 2018•59 min•Season 1Ep. 1

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