Where are You're out? In twenty nineteen? Are you hot or are you cold?
I'm hot for now.
George the Poet wasn't talking about himself there, but he might as well have been, because you get the sense that this is George's year. Maybe you could have said that about twenty eighteen to two. That's because, together with sound designer and producer Ben Brick, George cooked up something pretty special, the first series of their now multi award winning podcast.
You might know it.
The title is pretty matter of fact. It's called have you heard George's Podcast? And if the answer to that is no, then, first off, what are you doing? Because not only with a conversation you're about to hear make much more sense if you go away and find it, but also it's just an incredible, moving, thought provoking, innovative piece of work, and I'm definitely not the only person
who considers it a real game change. It's also a better introduction to George as a person, his past and his future intention than any interview probably ever would be. But that certainly doesn't stop me being extremely excited to introduce George and Ben Brick as my guests on This Evening's podcast, The timing is good because on Monday, the fourth of November, the first batch of episodes from series two, the brand new series of Have You Heard George's Podcast,
will arrive. You'll find them on the BBC Sounds app first and then on other platforms. They're going to be broadcast on Radio four and Radio one Extra as well. Earlier this week I went to the studio in North London where they made still are making in fact on the podcast, and there's loads of chat in there about what you can expect.
From season two.
So thank you to George the Poet, thank you to Ben Brick. Please enjoy tonight's episode and as ever, if you do like what you hear from Midnight Chats, please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to Loud and Quiet magazine. We ship all over the world and all the information is at Loud and Quiet dot com slash subscribe, where we will post you our next nine issues of the magazine for is little as three pounds per month. It helps keep our independent magazine in print, it helps us
make this podcast. We're in Benbrick's studio just to sort of set the scene for listeners. We're in your studio in North London, and I'm imagining that given that season two of your podcast is about to come out, you have spent some seriously long hours in this room, most recently, What's what's the day to day been like working on season two of Have You Hear George's Podcast?
So we're trying to get a lot more done in the time that we have than what was the case previously last year.
But it's great.
We're doing what we love, building on the learnings from the last chapter of the podcast. Benbrick's getting better and better at what he does and endlessently motivated, So it's all good.
The way people are going to hear this podcast series is slightly different from the first series, which you would make an episode, then you had a period of time to let that kind of sink in, think about where you're going to go next with it, perhaps a longer period of time to work on things. This time is all going to come in one go So how did that make you work differently? Like day one of working on the podcast, what did that look like when you knew you had to put together ten episodes?
Yeah, so it's actually coming in two goals, two sets of five, and that really shaped the writing process.
I'm not going to lie.
It made me approach the overall narrative very differently. Writing a few stories in the last chapter of the podcast episodes three and eight and other elements across made me really curious about story development, character development, character art. So I started reading a lot about that last year, and I think think a lot of that reading are starting to express itself in this chapter. It feels more of
a continuous journey. And at the same time, I guess all of my essay writing from younger years is really coming back to me, and I'm starting to think about the arguments that I'm constructing and being a lot more deliberate and ensuring that they're understood.
Episode eight of the first series of the podcast is one of the most ambitious piece of audio that I think I've ever heard. It's effectively this inner dialogue that you're having with yourself about your creative process, the tensions that are there, the self doubt, the ambition, this soup of all these different things going on, so complex and like rarely do you hear somebody present it in that form. So, first off, how did you find the process of doing that?
And then on Benbrick I'm interested in your thoughts. How did you describe what you wanted to do with that to you? Because you must have just thought, wow, that I've never had to do anything like this before. Presumably thank you.
It's a great question. So the blessing of being able to start the podcast in the way that we did was that there were no precedents, blueprints, or expectations that meant that I had to be self referential in what I wanted to discuss. I looked inward, and at every point the biggest challenge within myself seemed like the most worthwhile thing to discuss. That's probably a bit of a
metaphor about life. And I knew, after dropping hints of my internal process in episode six introducing the character of Sanyu, that the big reward would be to try and explain as much about that process that space as possible. So we attempted it, and we spent a month on the episode, released it, actually performed it live, and I wasn't sold. I knew that the reason I wasn't sold was because the truth, the essence of that idea hadn't been satisfied
in what we'd released. Even though Benbrick's work was flawless, impeccable. My writing was hampered by everything that I described in the episode.
In terms of the sound design of that episode, did you immediately get what George wanted to do with it? And I suppose a general question your teammates in terms of making this podcast happen, the way it's delivered, the way it sounds. Have you always been on the same wavelength? Was there a period of time where you had to really key into what George's vision was for it.
A lot of the time he'll record a whole part, like maybe two or three minutes long, just audio, and then we'll start cutting up the different characters and a line in them, and he'll say, oh, by the way, that bit's setting a swamp, or that's going to be in hospital, or there's a car crash that's going to happen there, no, not there, nudge left, no, no, right, right, and we get we get these bits aligned, and then I can go and embellish some of the sound designs,
and if George doesn't have an idea for music, which she generally does, like this should be like Matilda this scene, or I can go and start experimenting with that and then it's like that. That's phase one, and then George will go and right the next bit, and then we'll come back and listen and tweak that first version of it, and then we'll have version two. We'll put down the next bit, create version one of that, and then tweak that and it just moves through the process.
George, you said that the first series of the podcast was a reintroduction to what you were all about, what your character was about. This one is a mission statement, so you put it. Can you just unpack that a little bit for me and how you feel the development between seasons.
One and take So.
I have been many things across my career, and these different things have allowed people various access points to what I am. Essentially, I've done some adverts, I've done a lot of recorded music. I've done random appearances in spaces that you might not have expected, like Formula one or the Rugby World Cup, and everywhere I go, I am me,
but I am giving a fraction of myself. Series one was my opportunity to say, this is where that fraction fits in the broader scheme of things, this is why I communicate the way I do, and this is what I would love to be able to talk to you guys about series two. Now we have established that foundation. Now we're talking. So what are we talking about and
why are we talking about it? That is a long story, and I'm grateful for the form of podcasting because I really can't see where I would be able to dive into that story if not for this this space.
And Ben Brick your love of the format, presumably where does that go back to? Given that you've worked in sound and your career is sound. So before you started working on this project, was there a blueprint for the type of thing that you wanted to achieve or did you feel from the start that you were creating new ground.
No, I don't think there's ever a blueprint. I think me and George both wanted to make exceptional art from you know, even when we were both making music and coming into contact with each other, we would always be talking about the limitations of pop music or even the way we were limited by labels or publishers. So there wasn't really any blueprint and that was the best thing. We could just do what we wanted and you know, create an episode, then decide that it wasn't quite right,
so rewrite the entire thing and the earlier question. We're pretty much on the same page, I would say from day one. I think it's because we both have so much freedom, and we both trust each other's intuitions, so we can really run with something and try and create some weird, wild fantasy thing, and if it doesn't work, we both generally also know that it doesn't work, and then we try the next thing.
There's a bit of a myth that goes that the best creativity often comes from some kind of tension in the studio, you know, like the kind of rubbing of two minds or talents together. You both seem incredibly measured and calm. Do you ever debate the details of what people are going to hear? Does it get heated ever? Or is it always just this very calm.
I think we both know how important getting each individual element is. If one person says, now, that's not right because the camera's going to be that side in that scene, then you take a step back and you like, oh, yeah, that kind of would look good with the camera there. Okay, let's reset everything and try again. But I think the tension or the the way doesn't come from us. It comes from the stories that George's turner.
In terms of a preview for series two, then this was really you telling your story through the platform of podcasting. But equally it was very multi layered and it was a commentary on some much much bigger issues as well. People really rightfully kind of focused on the episodes around Grenfell, for example, that I think struck a chord with so many listeners. So in terms of this series, what else can people expect? In that sense, what else are the things that you were keen to address.
I'm going to be fleshing out some of my ideas about the economy and the position of my community within the economy and the opportunities that come with that. In order to do that, I'm exploring some new storytelling methods, and I'm just trying to be very clear, very literal, almost a little instructive to any young creators that are
following our journey. I just want to show them the different ways in which you can make yourself understood but also transform your situation, because that really really is needed. It's a matter of urgency for a lot of young creators from my.
Environment that stunts a lot of people basically being able to flourish and reach the possibilities that you know that they could do.
I do think access to opportunity is a big decider in your life chances. However, the opportunities that we're discussing today are just the latest in a very long story. So without historical context, without some real sociological work, heavy lifting, it's going to be very hard. Because I'm not going to lie. A lot of the opportunities that have brought
me to where I am were free. But it is a matter of the headspace that my parents were in, the serendipity of where I was, and how I felt about myself being born in like the blackest part of the country. All of these things advantaged me. But those facts as a reason, there's not a million George the poets, right, and that's that story. Those reasons need a little bit of concentration, patience, and unpacking.
I'd like to take things back to the sort of early days of your experience with writing and your love of words, and also your love of music and rap as well.
Well.
You're about fourteen or fifteen when you first wrote, when you wet your first rap?
Right? Can you remember it? I remember bits of it?
Okay, what did it have a title.
Did it? Did it?
Was it formulated as a piece.
But that's cool because I don't oh, no favors, fingers in a lot of pies and tasting different flavors can't be sidetracking. I can't be certain, But what I was doing was trying to establish who I wanted to be, So my lyrics were never like violent. A lot of people just gravitated towards gratuitous shock value lyrics because that is the tradition that we inherited, or that's what we thought we were seeing in the generation above us. I'm older now, I understand that a lot. In many ways,
it's just trauma being passed on. But my early lyrics were again a bit of a mission statement what I wanted to how I wanted to exist in society, and what I believed in and what I didn't believe in. Also, having such responsibility over my younger siblings gave me parameters of what I wanted to talk about and what I didn't.
That was a key thing, because you felt that you didn't want to be seen to be talking about things you wanted to say an example.
Yeah, yeah, and I didn't want to lie.
It was not like I was perfect, But RAP gives you that space to just explore yourself. You're sorry, your dark side, and your hopes and dreams.
In terms of you're developing or developed a relationship with Center Rafaels and the community that you're from in the present. Like I saw recently that you'd made like a promotional video to try and explain the situation around the proposed redevelopment of the area. Yeah, I mean, this is obviously an understatement to say that you're still incredibly like, kind of loyal and want and want to represent that area.
Just tell me a little bit about that and how why that remains just such a constant thread throughout your work and a huge part of who you are.
Well, I believe that the person I am today is a consequence of the experiences of yesterday, and the ultimate yesterday was the hood my estate, Right, So to what extent am I really being understood If I am not elaborating the conversation around my community and communities like mine, I'm always on the lookout for convenient opportunities to do
that in the most constructive way possible. So when in late twenty eighteen, I found out that my estate was being considered by a brank council for redevelopment, and there were tensions between the council and the community about the
way information was being shared. It was a perfect opportunity for me to make myself as useful as possible as a representative slash stakeholder within that thing, empowering my neighbors to feel like it's just The council consists of human beings who are capable of communication, and even though we've had a fraught relationship as for as long as I can remember, it is always worth trying to reimagine the conversation.
And thirdly, I am also on the lookout for opportunities to show other rappers how to reimagine their position because when I think about the mind, as I talk about throughout the podcast, when I think about the money and the influence generated by rap, I think there is a lot to be gained in terms of the political organization. The potential there is unprecedented. You need to know the details of how these spaces and demographics operate in order to make something sustainable.
I want to keep talking about music, but Benbrick, I'm interested to bring you in to hear a little bit about your formative experiences with music. I mean, you work now largely in sound design, but music is key to have you heard Georgie's podcast? You know we heard you know from the very opening moments of hearing of Georgia Smith, for example, it's a real scene setter. So can you tell me a little bit about your relationship with music, if you ever produced music, and how do you see
the podcast? Relationship with music? Why is that important?
I played piano from maybe four or five years old, classical piano, and studied music and some recording, worked for an artist signed to a major label, took my own studio, and then started writing with artists and had a lot of success writing with artists and sold a lot of records around the world. I think the thing that I realized was I wanted to take my time with what I spend my time doing. I wanted to be intentional
about it. So when everyone else was writing one hundred songs a day, or hundred songs a year, or three hundred songs a year, maybe I was writing way less, but trying to imagine a way to make those pieces of work more useful. When I'm composing the music for it. It's like you're not trying to say too much. We're trying to let George speak, and you don't want to add excess emotion onto the scene if he's already saying
something emotional. So that's the balance and that's what I've been learning about through this process.
And George people will know that. I mean, you went off to study at Cambridge University. After that, your music career gathered pace. You are signed to Universal Records, you were featured in the BBC sound Off poll, for example, as a new artist to watch and things like that.
When did you realize that the things you wanted to say were perhaps bigger than in the format of a conventional three minute or four minute song or even a forty five minute long album was not the right one for you because you needed to you needed another medium to basically express your ideas. Did you know that all along? Or where's there a sort of penny drop moment?
Didn't know it all along? I didn't.
I got signed to Universal Music shout out to everyone at Adding Records five weeks after I graduated. And in that year, as I explained, I've been in operating in a lot of directions. I was doing corporate addresses just writing poems about sustainable development, and I was doing random TV things that had never you know, all credit to the creative agencies that I was working with. Someone might have seen me at an event and thought, I think that guy can write a poem for a whole you know,
ad campaign. People started approaching me with that, and that was before I got signed. That's important to note. So when I was signed and I found myself in the machine experiencing a lot of the things that Benbrick just described in terms of slightly formulaic approaches to content generation content creation, I was able to understand it and work with it to an extent, so it was quite pragmatic. It's not like I had a master plan before then.
The plan was vaguely to raise my profile and put my core concerns at the forefront of my career, of my celebrity. So as long as I am getting famous,
the issues are getting famous. It was in the music industry that I realized if a space is not created for that function, then you have an additional job to do in transforming the space, as well as trying to do what you wanted to do anyway, So there's extra work in reassuring all the stakeholders, interpreting what was said in the meeting and trying to figure out if that's going to lead to budget green lights or problems down the road, and managing egos. You know, this is real
and it's not frivolous work. It's just not the best use of my time as someone just fresh out of you know, formal education in which all primacy is given to ideas.
It doesn't really.
Matter how you know, Like a lot of the values of the music industry were not shared. I didn't share them on entry, so all credit to them because I was educated on a lot of other aspects of the game, for example, the mechanics of pr generating hype, the logic of building an audience through live appearances, people skills, learn a lot about myself, learn how to communicate better, learn the ways in which I might let myself down, let
the process down. But ultimately, just two years to shy of two years into my stint with Island Records, I asked to leave, and all credit to them. They completely understood and were very accommodating. We had successes, you know, you know, sample and we had a brit nomination my EP that I released with them was in talks for a Mercury nomination, but because it was an EPO, it didn't qualify. So a year after leaving them, that's when it started occurring to me because I started watching a
lot of Netflix. I tried to chill that I'd never done that before in my life. It'd been like school, responsibilities with the kids, with my little bros, and a high level of intensity and the ends and then Cambridge and then you know a bit of drama, people go and jail, and I'd never just just just chilled apart from like five months in Uganda, which is great. So watching Netflix that made me realize, I want a serial effect. People have to come back, so this one drop isn't
going to work for me. And then I was chilling in Uganda one day and I realized that stand up comedy was a much better model for me to try and study and emulate, because the stand up comedian is one person with a microphone on the stage, and that's how I started out as George the Poet. And when I was doing that, I didn't really I could be on stage. People like wanted me on there for ten twenty forty minutes without music, So I thought, okay, what does that mean?
What can you do?
I thought, okay, it must be about communication and stories, and that led me to the podcast.
I want to ask you both in a minute about the live performance aspect, because I've come to see you perform both together live before. But before I do that, I know you've had like a hot and cold relationship with rap music over the years. So where are you at in twenty nineteen. Are you hot or are you cold?
I'm hot? Yeah for now?
What's been hot? What's happened this year that you just thought? That's moving the narrative on. That's what have you really enjoyed?
Well?
I think what we expect of ourselves as performers creators is evolving very publicly. You know, the most famous of us has two scholarships. You know that he gives out to the best university in the world for the people from the environment that we're from. Some of us have TV shows on the BBC in which we again advance the culture, elaborate people's understanding of it. Books have been
released about what we went through and why. So I am trying that the glass is always half full, to be honest with Rapp, might be even fifty one percent full. It's just that I'm so close to the downsides and a lot of the consumers aren't. The majority of consumers aren't directly understanding how some of the things that are described reinforced in the music are real, and we need to move on from that. Can't keep talking about women
the way we do. SPAD is bad for us. It hurts us, you know, like it's it's kind of cancerous. But it's like a given, Like the conversation has been raging for four years, thirty years in terms of like the more gangster content, So it's now there's a lot of cynicism, a lot of resignation. Women is just one aspect. Obviously violence, obviously crime. There's a lot of resignation in rap. And I'm gonna be thirty in a couple of years. I'm coming to a place where I'm like, I get it.
I understand it was hard on No one's there for us, no one's explaining, no one's helping, and.
We made it.
So the economic reward of what we've been able to achieve seems like the ultimate vindication. But if I don't just sit my bros down and say all right, Let's be ambitious. Let's see like how close we can get to form in our own government. Let's see what governance infrastructure we can create outside of the played out narratives. Yeah, I feel like that's like what I was born to be right now.
And loads of the conversations you have with your peers that you know through music channels, obviously storms that you know that you're referring to their like had this glasson by moment this year, which was just absolutely incredible.
I just want a generation of Storms, and we're gonna get it. It's impossible for the most famous and influential wrapart in the country to do that at Glastonbury and for that to not have serious generational ripple effects. Just the way kids are growing. It's kind of like Greta Thumberg. It's like you grow up with that happening in your generation. People to this day we still talk about the Baby Boomers and the way in which they shaped the world
that we live in. That is what Stormzy means to me, the.
Live aspects of what you both do. I've seen you on stage together, most recently at the London Podcast Festival in September. I'm interested to know your thoughts on the type of audience that you've broadcast to previously when you've made music. How is that different to the demographic that you see, the faces that you see when you look out from the stage when you've been presenting what you've been doing with the podcast.
So obviously it's white right now, it's a little bit older as well. It's great though, like there are reasons why that might be the case, for example, at the London Podcast Festival, and I have again a long story, but it's kind of part of the plant. It's necessary. The brief I gave myself from starting the podcast was that you've got to bring the streets and the intelligency are to the same table. And the streets I'm cool with. I know the streets, I know the rhythms and the sensibilities.
It's the intelligency that I was keen to be uncompromising with.
Now.
The form that I use in the podcast very deep dive,
very academic. I'm doing like I'm being too, like this is me though I've spent half my life in the black working class, just under half of my life in the white middle class institutions of my school and my university, so I am genuinely both for these things and in order for me to make progress, especially with rappers and the rap culture, I need to ensure that there is a rich understanding on the side of the intelligence here on what I perceive as Middle England, a real understanding
of how much there is to explore. Once that understanding has been established, as I feel like it has done this year, then we can get to the more. It's this conversation is going to get difficult in that this is easy right now.
You talked a lot in the in the live performance about how changes needed and change is uncomfortable, change is painful.
I think for Middle England to really open its heart to just how deep the violations against blackness have been, it's going to be hard.
Man.
You're not gonna want it. It's like it's like being in a relationship. Is the way I, in fact think of my think of Europe and Africa's relationship. Europe Africa. When he was young and she was beautiful, and he fell in love at a time where men could just take things right, so he took her, didn't really think about what she needed.
He grew, we all grew, we all grew up.
Times changed and it became a slight embarrassment, like the dynamic slight for Europe obviously on the side of Africa.
You're now you've grown in a.
Very abusive relationship that like the most abusive relationship that is humanly imaginable, right, And I know that sounds like strong words, but I mean fine, So now that we're here, I think it's what I see is that a lot of people children of Europe are not aware like that you see your dad, you know what I'm saying, might not be aware of who your dad has been. And you know, like the extent to which he hasn't really apologized,
he hasn't really made amends. He has this weird holdover, you know, his former lover, in which he just continues to extract and manipulate and hide what he's done.
Today.
You know, my nephews came back from school talking about Martin Luther King. I'm like, I wonder why we never talk about Freddie Hampton. I wonder why we never talk
about No. In fact, take it over here, like why do we not talk about why don't they know about the NF you know, why don't they know about the presence of the NF and the mutation of a lot of these ideologies into different political movements today, and why much of the Caribbean community especially is overrepresented in prison, Like this is relevant, this, this is us, this is your neighborhood. So we have an education system that is
wildly divorced from information that's most relevant to us. And I think that's that is very much the core of my focus. Reimagine just setting the conversation, setting the conditions for a progressive conversation on how we can have an education system that does a lot more to acknowledge the uncomfortable realities.
Bend brick your thoughts on the live show. We've already talked about how I feel like the podcast has rightfully been celebrated for being so ambitious in terms of the way it sounds and the lack of constraints, and when you transfer that to the live arena, it's a different vibe ale together, it's a room full of people. Do you have the same attitude approaching that? Do you feel like do you both daydream about how you can really extend and push what the live aspect can look like?
We do.
We're always thinking about what could be next. Up to now, we've kind of been taking the things that we've recorded on the podcast and reimagining them for life, taking bits out and triggering different sounds, and George holding the audience and going from talking into this thing where suddenly you realize he's performing poetry and you're like, dah, you got me, Like he tricked us all. But we're thinking like whether it could be VR or silent discos or stage shows,
west end shows. Yeah, I think that for the whole podcast, we're keen to expanding to as many different areas and reimaginings of.
It as possible.
I'm waiting for have you heard George's podcast the Broadway residency that can see.
It, especially for the grandfel One. I think that's kind of inevitable, and we go there in one of the episodes obviously, like we're just excited. That's the thing. It's not like we know what's going to happen, but we're just excited and we're pushing.
Because the podcast is the story of your experience, George, and ultimately that is a story. You were born and raised in Britain, it's a UK centric podcast. I'm interested to know what kind of international feedback have you had.
The international feedback has just been astounding. I was getting bits of it last year. People just scattered around the world Australia, Mainland, Europe, America quite a bit of interest. But when I went back to Uganda that was a turning point in my life because a podcast is, like I said, the most elaborate explanation of who I am that I've been able to pull off thus far in an eight year career. So to now offer the most uncompromising explanation and be received back home.
Is great.
Part of it is an extension or as a result of lessons that I learned as a rapper. I learned that too much slang doesn't work. Too much focus on intense lyricism. This is who I was as a teenager. It has you know, there can be limitations to that. So now I'm a little more conscious of relaxing. Sometimes it's as simple as pronouncing my teas. That's another thing that I was aware of. You know, from the international feedback,
there are some things people just didn't catch. Because I am started rapping for the mandem, I wasn't thinking anything further than my social group. Now I'm like, okay, oh you want to you want to. Okay, come, let me ensure that you feel included here because I like having you in this conversation.
We already referenced it earlier talking about episode eight of the first series where you're talking about Sanyu and the internal dialogue that goes on in your head and how you manage to translate that into a podcast, and just how refreshing and original that sounded. Writing as an outlet. Just thinking about that process is such a huge part of who you are. If you hadn't discovered that passion, that way of communicating with yourself and others, what do
you think would have happened? Because some people don't discover their creative outlet, do they? They go through life and it just becomes this sort of knotted frustration in their mind. So why is that important to you? And what do you think would have happened if you hadn't have discovered that.
I think the most powerful thing is being able to articulate what I am doing, because, to be honest, if I didn't have this profession, my creative impulses would probably be expressed in other ways. Let's say I was I worked in an ad agency, I'd probably be the one to come with the wildest ideas, and I wouldn't necessarily
know why that is who I am. It just so happens that my job has allowed me to reflect on myself, which has very much influenced my ideas about the economy and what is expected of us and what is put to us as possible, and how it would shape our young people, or our workforce, or our treatment of the elderly,
or our expectations of the care sector. If people brought their whole selves to work, were allowed to be as creative and expressive as possible, and in the essence of what they did, there was catharsis, There was work, There was emotional work done. Where the Sandy episode does so much for me, Sanyu actually birthed the podcast. The character
preceded the whole podcast. But I saw the potential in creating an expansive, otherworldly experience in which we just explore everything within us, as opposed to looking for external stories and stimuli and trying to jump on to the latest talking point. What about you? You are more than sufficient to hold the attention of an audience.
Within the podcast, you talk about processes that need to change and depict a kind of future, of how things look. Do you think you are an optimist? Do you think you're a pragmatist? You think you're a mix of all those things when you talk about how things need to change and have to change, you know, regardless of how if there's pain involded that or not.
I think pragmatist is the best word to describe me. There are some things which I'm very you could say in person, mystic about things that I want to change. For example, I don't see a situation in which not a single young person gets killed in the city next year, in the win the next twelve months.
I don't.
I mean, I can see how I would create the conditions for that that to not happen. But again, that's why I'm up all night losing weight, because I think, you know, I might have a shot, I might be able to coordinate some change. And I don't know if anyone else sees all the things that I see because of that year. It's there's a degree of pragmatism understanding all the ways in which things can change.
Benber Can.
I do a lot of reading, and obviously that just opens your mind to possibilities beyond the immediate, beyond the tangible. So I'm always are on the side of optimism, but I'm grounded in pragmatism.
We've talked about what's happened in the past, what you're working on now. Obviously you've worked in music, You've made bodies of work, album's EPs. At one point you want to be an MP. Where are you at now? What is the process of having this podcast reached so many people? What effect does that had on you when you go back to any of those formats or any of those ideas, would you see a different path yourself now?
H So the process of writing the podcast has made me think. As crazy as the podcast sounds, that is how crazy I have become. So I think in multiple directions for different reasons, and because we've been able to achieve a lot of different things every single podcast episode, it takes less for me to conceptualize how things can be built and translated. So things happen quite like extensively
dramatically in my mind. But at the same time, the podcast writing process enabled me to just play with time. There are times in which I will like the Grandfell episode was a kind of operational challenge because I'd never written a short story, especially and I'd never expected that a short story can have such emotional potential. Wasn't really into shorts, but I just learned about or I intuited my way through story beats, and then after writing that episode,
I read more and more about it. So now as we're talking, I see time in like three scales simultaneously, Like there's the moment, Then I would say, there's the season, who like who you.
Were at this time? Who I was?
What was what were our recent experiences in this room that we that led to this conversation? And then I guess I see the universe. You know, all of these three scales are happening simultaneously, but if you can respect all of them, you'll find answers and respite on every level. And that just keeps me optimistic.
Anyway, good night,