Daveed Diggs & Rafael Casal / "Blindspotting"

I do. My kid likes peanut butter on waffles. Waffles. Yeah, Like, do you do you make a kid real waffles or these egos? Oh? No, man either Yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah. Although my wife does do like she'll mix up muffin batter and so she can sneak like zucchini and like vegetables into the He'll actually eat that kid. He just turned to very smart waffles exactly. It's not too bad, man, The sugar retaste over powers Uh yeah, damn. I still I still get eggo waffle cravings sometimes do good. And

so that's a life. That's a lifetime craving, especially have one. Oh yeah, you have a month, Like that's just what you do. Now you have a sailor. We have Boots Riley in here last week yeah Oakland, well Oakland represent I still have I was trying to get there this weekend. Didn't make it. It's crazy I try and go during our break today. I didn't know much about it and I just saw it a couple of weeks ago. I

was in Sundance. I saw Blind Spotting there I'll talk about but I didn't see his movie there, and uh so I didn't really know a lot about it. And it's it goes places. Man. You saw it, so you like or you saw it anyway, I don't know if you actually like. Just told me if you saw it, you must have it. You must have liked it, like it feels like my kind of movie. Like I'm fairly certain I'm gonna like he told me I was gonna like it. So it's good stuff. Man, I'm always still going.

But what are you? What do you put on your head? Goes sir Sarah. I'm just straight better. I don't even really like starrup on it. If I if I use like, well, jam, I'll throw a little jam on it. I don't I if I use syrup, it's it's like in a in Ford little squares or something. I like very scaring. I like a full pool when I'm messing with the wall. It's not surprising. Give me the whole to the brim fried chicken too. I'm done with the fried chicken and water.

Little fried chicken in the syrup and fried chick. You got it, all right, Friday, let's see that kind of like now they're making art out of here. Yeah. I'm just trying to eat the whole box and then terrible about myself. I just want to eat the whole box of Eggos and then cry myself. Just right. Put my questions here. I don't know if the last go telling you, But the closer you can get to the mix, the better. I'm familiar with the sms of them, are you wow?

I guess you would be. With the music. It's like, yeah, this is the travel brig. These things are like tanks and put them in your bag. They won't get backed up. They sound great. All right, we are recording, so we're gonna jump in. All right, everyone, I'm here today with the writers and stars of Blind Spotting to Bee Digs and Rafael Kassol say that correct did out the gate. I saw the movie and Sundance as I was saying, awesome movie, I saw it Sundance. I saw it like

eleven thirty PM. Yeah, the Egyptian Yeah, man, we didn't get to go to that one, right, that's the one we didn't get to go to. It was exciting. Oakland was definitely in the house there. Yeah. Yeah, that feels like a lifetime ago. Sundance all of a sudden, it's so crazy. We've been talking about this movie since then. I wanted to. I wanted to start there. What was

your your Sundance experience? Like a blur blur, mean, we don't, you know, we didn't get to see any movies when we were there, which is the only unfortunate thing it was. It was such a luckily the movie was really well received there, and so we're in this press tornado for the bulk of the time there. But but you know, the the ironic part is were like movie buffs and we didn't get to see any day. Yeah. Very excited

to go back to Sundance as Justice spectator. I've been twice in the first time was the year before to play a show, to play a concert, a concert there for a concert for another movie, but we weren't a part of that movie. Yeah, but as one of the composer series that they've been they've started doing and Sundance our friends somewhat to hinder Hughes had us out to play a concert with him and that was great, but

also didn't get to see movies. So one year I'll go to Sundance and just watched some damn movies because it seems like that would be really fun to do there. It seems like the people doing that are having a great time. Although the other end of the spectrum is you know when you're working the festival as a journalist and you're seeing like six movies in a day. Yeah,

that's not for me personally. I don't like that because I could see how I could see how you know, your perspective on whether or not you're watching a good piece of work can't get warped after a while. If I'm a filmmaker, I don't want somebody in there like when they exhausted. Yeah, I guess, yeah. I think the moral is that, like if you're working at a film festival, it kind of sucks. Yeah, but you're just but like any spectator is pretty great. Uh. How did you guys meet?

I want to start there and kind of work our way into them days we meet the story that you've probably told a million times only today, the we met in high school years ago. I mean we met at a poetry slam in high school. We both fancied ourselves poets. Only one of us was I'll let you figure out which one, and then we didn't hang out much. He was four years younger than me. I went off to college, came back, and Raphael was running a recording studio in

North Oakland. Some mutual friends were like playing our music for each other, and uh, and that was it. I went over to the to the studio. We'd like stayed up making songs. And I would say that studio session never ended, still going, uh together. What did you guys bond over in the arts? And and also I'm curious, what do you what did you differ over in the arts.

For sure, bonded over music at first, but I think you know, we're of that multi hyphenite artist generation where like you know, you always do five other things and some bleeding over in the theater was easy for us, and poet was to a certain degree both of our bases um and you know, and and and then we were both educators too, and so that there are so many, so many touch points were similar, differ, What do you

things differ? We have slightly different music tastes. I guess yeah. Well, also like Raphael has much more of an ear for what is popular than I. Do you know what I'm saying?

Like working with rapt in my ears is better? It just I care no, But I think you also know, like there's something about working on a song with rapping where like all of a sudden needs taps into whatever is I guys, see you right now and you don't even know how he did it, Like he's just wired that way, like he can he feels like what the pulse of music is on And I am not wired that way at all. So like I does an immersion thing,

And are you more immersed in that than maybe? No, I haven't argue that I am more immersed that argument, but I but what I what I will say is different about the way we listen to music. Is I pick four albums and that's all I listened to for six months with with no interruption like when I'm at digs. The The identifier of Jigs's car was chaos and just a trunk follow c D finders of CDs because things.

Every Tuesday would go to a Biba or tower wherever it was that that had all the newest releases of music and just buy everything that just came out, and then he would listen to everything one time through, and then I would get in his car, and whatever made it from that first purchase to the binder I would hear and I would really just open the binders and go what's good, and him, sort of knowing my taste, would go, we should listen to this. You're probably not

gonna like this with this diet. We should listen to this, you know, and it would either be that's the newest stuff or in there were also things that had stayed with things over the last ten fift twenty years of his last I'd also go like, what is this, Oh, that's like an old you know, Bootsey Collins records. We're gonna listen to that whole thing on this drive, you know, and some my you know, I for a lot of people had a very wide spread of of of taste

of music. But in relation to Di I mean, Diggs listens to literally everything, um and so you know that that was sort of the the the obsessive difference me. He gets obsessed over albums too, and listens to him NonStop. I think I latch onto certain things that are like I know he hasn't listened to the Drake album five times.

I haven't. I didn't. I didn't suffer through that thing one time, shots fired, I stared through it twice the third time talked me into it, yes, yes to like, has it even more of a pulse on it than I do? Was like the Drake albums joke. I was like, are you sure? She was like, yeah, let's do it again. I was like, Okay, she's wrong. But there's some great beats on it. I think there's who needs that many? Why do you have songs? Well, here's the thing that's different.

I agree that it's too long, but I think that I don't know that's a Drake things so much as I like, we're just talking about this earlier, is like that what we loved about what Kanye and Push It and Ketty just did. Whether or not you like the music, is there just further, like people are further cementing this idea that like seven or eight songs is an album,

like that was an acceptable release. You can call it what you want to, but again, categories really cares, but an eight track releases like is the bar now, It's no, it's not even a mixtape. It's it's just a thing that is an acceptable release. It's a complete thought. And this is a problem with Dreg's album is that it's like, so it is one's there's only one thought on that

moutherfucker and it lasts four hours. It feels like when there's a moment where Frank Oshan released a bunch of songs right after a Channel Orange it was like forty records and they're dope, but like I never got through all forties, so so daunting I did, but those were different interesting like the difference, but we're not because I

was the hell of R and B that Digs. Probably I love R and B in a way that like Digs enjoys R and B, but not give an example of that of like like I enjoyed James Blake and Diggs hates him. Yeah, I don't care, you know, but I think I think that there's things about like top like top line artists and melody artists. That is where Diggs care slightly less ends when really good at things like writing hooks at things like you know that isn't best an incredibly important skill that I'm aware that I

don't have. But I know when I'm writing a song, depending on the lyrical content and the kind of top line, whether or not Diggs is gonna be like dope or like man. That's what we just did the other day. We're like, I wrote it and went, I know exactly where this is gonna say. It's gonna be like this is really good. It's very radioly is it on brand for me? Partial credit? And I know that, And I know what that means. You know, was local music? You know the Bay Areas scene important to you coming up?

I mean, remember is the only the last interview we just did, they asked us, they asked us one our top five or and we we all we know the answer to that. The first inst that as always the forty is our favorite rapper. When you're the favorite rapper with somebody else and you as are hip hop head's like you're probably good for everything, like for all the same reasons that that's your favorite rapper is the reason why you can be best friends, right, that's our that's

our step brothers moment. Support your favorite rubber yesterday, which does become bad, which is easy in the Bay Area if you both have you know, if you both love E forty, Like, there's so much there that that means the language you love, like you love the specificity of your area, you love, you love this innovative slang culture. You love. You love sort of aspects of pimp culture and hustle culture. That's like super fascinating to a lot

of people. Um And and you have a certain sense of feeling like an underappreciated person because that's what the forty is to a certain degree, is like an artist who has done so much for hip hop and so rarely does he get any credit for it. And like that isn't that is not just an E forty specific thing. That's a bay Area specific thing of culture. It's a big part of what I wanted to make this movie is to be like, you don't realize how much impact the Bay Area has had ont on culture across the

country and around the world. Um And not that the film is not addressing that, but it's just showing how beautiful the Bay Area is, um and and and in that we curated all this music that accompanies it and all this slang that accompanies it as sort of a nod to that feeling. Were you big into the soul side screw at all? I was a huge Yeah. And that's questions right there, that's a big question. Yeah, the answered I was for sure. I used to know who

that is, Yeah, Quantum, all those kids they became. Yeah. Also like black, it was black, Yeah, I used to I used to see gifted gab and he was also

a music and using a me. But every Tuesday, and this is all growing up, I would see him there every Tuesday and never once spoke when I was a way too star strike to talk to him, becau is my understand is my limited understanding of the world at that time, Like that to me was a major star, I know, how like not true it really that what you did say, But to me, like from the Bay like that was that dude was to me a major,

major star and I could never talk to him. And then we ended up when I was in collegewen a backstage at a concert together something I finally like told him that story that I just told you. It was a great moment for me. Always saw Lyrics Born at him. What's that what's that cafe that everybody goes to him Berkeley on Melvia and University that's opened to emulate and let's see. No, but I would be there doing like laney college homework, and he would be there, like also

working on something. But I can't imagine. Well, maybe Lyrics Born does write lyrics out of cocol That's possible. A little little cheesecake and a latte and knock got these bars very possible. Sure, this is really inside baby. I'm getting to the Weeds on music. But I kind of wanted to want them that first, that first album man that self out or no, what was it called? I said, I talked to the dude to rant it. He said, we weren't quite there yet. Fuck you you know you

know Macbee Dog. Yeah, he had a song on one of their like the Soul Sides collective collection things called hot Breath that's like, yeah, it's like a minute and a half. It's like one verse in a course or if it was like a totally unfinit or felt like just like but it had the greatest line I ever heard, which is no longer relevant, but at the time it was just this. You went out like Mark Hamill in the line just but you know, Mark Camill's back obviously

doing great. He's the boys of the Drum for a long time. Much money that had. Yeah, the same thing happened last week. Like I said, I had Boots Riley on and we were talking and about music and uh, you know Oakland's having a moment obviously, I mean the Coup Booths told them was very important to me. Pam the functor is also you know rest in Peace, the DJ for the Coup, who was just like the party

DJ growing up. And then you know, I went to tons of parties that she DJ, and would also watch her like do the tournaments and she would like scratch with her tits. It was amazing. And uh and then I saw her at um at a at a little club in this when I'm doing Hamilton's on Broadway and we get we get a call and we get an email at intermission that Prince wants to wants us all that wants to do a show for us. After the show.

I wants us all to come to this club Prince wants to perform for us, and we were like, what, like the whole cast goes and Pam had been Princess DJ for the last bunch of years. So I'm sitting there in in this concert about to watch Is perform and Pam is Zjing Forum and the whole show was Pam, Prince and one dancer. That was the whole show. And like it good so to eat saying so to be, like so to be in this room. And this is

thirty one days before Prince died. So I'm in this room with a woman who I had I grew up watching, who is performing, who's been touring with Prince now for the last bunch of years as like Prince's Club Date DJ. You know, it's just an unbelievable experience for me. Well, like I said, Oakland's having this big moment in film with with Boots's film, with your film, you know, with the stuff Ryan Coogler has been putting together. I think Ryan takes the kick on that one. We'll well, well,

we'll take our our part of that. Sure, you guys have made a very potent kind of representation of of where you grew up. But I'm why do you think Oakland is popping right now like that, Well, Oakland is popping for non film reasons. Oukland is popping because the real estate is cheaper in San Francisco, that's why. Um, But in the arts, why why do you think? I mean, I have something to do with it? Maybe, I mean your film is all about that. I don't. I don't

think it does. I think I think we've I think Boots has been working on his film down here as long as us. People have been trying to make movies about the Bay Area for a long time. Licks tried to do it, Kicks tried to do it, and they did do it. I mean, um, you know Fruville was early on. It's it's not like filmmakers haven't been trying to tell those stories for a while. Like I also feel like if if Boots movie came out next year, in our movie came out this year, we wouldn't be

having this conversation about a moment. It doesn't take much for it to feel like a moment. It really just takes like two Um. But but I think there's a generation of people that grew up in the Bay Area who felt like the barrier got no shine or got no attention for the narrative that it that it had have been telling. And again how much game it's giving

so many other places. I mean, there are you know, there are plenty of shows that have passed through television in the last ten years that have claimed to be in the Bay Area. I mean full houses in the Bay Area. It's like there's not been barrier content. It just hasn't been made by Bay Area people. You know, A Parenthood was supposed to be based in Berkeley. That was absurd and nothing about that show. I grew up in Berkeley. That's not Berkeley. I don't know any of

those people. I remember he was at a bar once, a tequila bar and San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley. I was like, fuck you, what do you got the album Tross you liar? People would not like you. And they're in a suit. He was like in a suit on a pay phone, was like, who wrote this? You liar? Liar? Um you know and that, But that's the same. There's been so many moments where people come in and they and they do their best to like pay tribute to it.

Like I it was like when Tiger came and fell in love with the Bay Area and got I fell in love with bay Area production, and then his next four albums all sounded like bay Area music. We knew that he got it from there, and he said it too, but that was as far as it went. And then everyone just associated that with l A's new sound. But we all knew and Tiger new and and didn't try to hide it, said that that was the time in

the Bay Area. Wayne and Drake both came to the Bay Area and fell in love with bay Area music and took that sound. And Drake says it in lyrics all the time. It just goes over people's head because a mat Orate reference is so specific that you don't get what he's saying when he says rest in peak matchro we will do rest in peace match. Everyone do it for the bet. That's huge for us. You know

what that means. Um, It's been sourced material for so long, but the people who get to them put it on the main stage haven't really been bay Area people who feel that obligation to tell the whole story. There was a period like when we were coming up to where the Warriors fell like training camp for great players, and they would go through it like we all we have

this chip on our shoulders in the bay. Like you know, like the great great players would come through the Warriors and then and then leave and and go somewhere else and become great. You know what. We would sort of watch them becoming great in time for them to leave. And so, yeah, you're right, there are a lot of things that point to this moment right now, like to champs, like three championships and like you know, like there's a

boiling for so long. Yeah, So but I think, um, we there is in a community that is changing so rapidly and where context is always being lost and all of this stuff. I think a lot of artists from their field it's need to tell these stories in particular right now. You know, maybe where we had fantasies about it before, it feels urgent right now because if we don't get these stories out now will be gone and being recognized. It feels like just a preserving an endangered

species or something. You know, you have to Internet generation. It's a reflection, you know, like access is different now, Like you know, back in the Daily it was like quantum in these places were the only places that indie artists could get the megaphone right. And then came the digital wave, right that allowed people to build up enough cloud to even make a movie or you know, or a visual album or not you know, an album on

their own. Like technology is caught up in a way where the labels and the studios are not necessarily dictating where things are getting made in the same way anymore. Um, we always talk about the Bay Areas are our Whoville, right, It's this It's a small little thing that if you if you look closely at it, as all this culture and all these big characters and big voices and interesting stories. Um, and when you live there and you see one of

those things become real size for everyone else, Uh, it's inspiring. Right. So it doesn't take much, you know, the Warrior, you know, even just Steph Curry coming and becoming this massive star and these other players becoming these celebrities and repping the town and like having a parade down the middle of the town, like makes your city feel a little bit bigger and more important. Right, So you're you're suddenly your context is more relatable. And the more relatable your context is,

the more you can do with it. Right. So the first time we saw real Bay Area ship happening around because even when the high fee movement had it's like a quick little burst into the national conversation. It was like, at least we had a reference point and go someone be like, oh yeah, y'all are on the Hi Fi ship. You know, it's like cool. You don't really know what that means, but at least we have we can start somewhere exactly. You know, well, let's drill down into the movie.

You've been working on this for a decade. You wanted to tell a story just looking at the gentrification that was happening in Oakland, and as you were just saying, to be about just the catch, catching it before it's gone essentially, But talk to me about what what did you when you sat down and you first wanted to write a story that took place in Oakland that represented where you come from. What was the colonel? What was

the central thesis? We want to say this, Well, the I mean, the the real thesis was created by our producer Jess Carter, who found Raphael via a YouTube wormhole looking at his poetry staffing and approached him and said, do you think some of the way that you write verse would translate into a film UM, and later when I was sort of brought into the fold, UM, we you know, that was really the lynchpan was about verse, about how do we use verse, and then about us

wanting to tell a Bay Area story. We knew that that was the case very shortly but around that same time, I don't know before after, but Oscar Grant was was killed at Proof of our Stations. So all of a sudden, in order to tell in a Bay Area story, that's the story we're talking about, you know, we have to that. That was just in the air, and it was you know,

Oscar's face was everywhere. There were protests and riots and all these things like we had to, So that sort of became We knew that was going to be an instigating incident in the film. UM. We knew it would star us, We knew it would be inverse. We knew it would be about Oakland, and that was that was the I don't even know that gentrification was like a word we were throwing around as a major theme. It

was just it was a convention that we could use two. Originally, the idea of them as movers was the way to get around to all these different points of view in the city. Um, what happened is over ten years, it went from like there's some influx of people, so there's a massive takeover of people not from the Bay Area, and so the urgency raised for us about this time

capsule at this moment. But I don't know that. In the beginning, We're like, when you want to talk about gentrification, we wanted to talk about we want to show a bunch of different neighborhoods. So that's why we made the overs, so that they could go from place to place and we could show as much of we could show off as much of cut as possible. Yeah, Um, themes that developed as you started writing. I mean, to me, a theme that kind of pops out is just about identity

and who you are. And I think about the scene with you at the party and that you don't have to act ghetto to hang out here, and that's a that's a layered moment at least. I mean, it's a challenge to who he feels like he is, and uh, your reaction is so potent in that moment. And I just you know, how did these themes start to develop?

I guess on the page. I mean, I think we were just trying to tell these stories honestly, So we never really thought of it in terms of like an issue we need we did, So there was never a moment we were like, you got to really dial in on identity here, you know. Um, it was just about who is Miles, And it was about putting Colin and

Miles in this in this particular situation. You know, the countdown, the probation countdown was an interesting point right when we sort of settled on that as a as a clock by which we would be able to follow the film.

That ramps things in an interesting way. So it was always about making choices for these characters that end up forcing their hands or forcing their you know, it ramps up situations, um, and so it provides a layer of tension to everything again is right exactly exactly and so and I think Miles in response has to you know, their lives are are inseparable, so they can't you know, so Miles has to respond to the same clock, right,

And that's the that's one of the big problems. But that's what's sort of coming to a head in that scene, right, It's like Miles hasn't yet understood that his that Conan's life is so drastically different now than the let you know, and Miles isn't worried about it in that scene. You know, he's he's upset about his own how displaced he feels even in this party, you know, yeah, yeah, that question of you don't have to act ghetto to hang out here,

it's so layered. What do you mean by ghetto? Do you think that he thinks that he's acting ghetto and that's we used it? Do you think that's what ghetto is? The way that he's acting. Who does Miles think Terry is in that moment, Like, does he think he's a local? Does he think he's a preppy local from a nicer

neighborhood of Oakland? Does he think, you know, there's just somebody who got him sucked up and he needs to put him in his place, which is probably done a hundred times through his life as somebody, you know, a streak can come out to him, never seen Miles before and say, like, you know, give him, give him any

sort of sense that he doesn't belong there. And Miles has belonged there his whole life and grew up there and has to know Miles has probably had to claim his space with his peers more than any one of his peers has ever had to you know, and to him him being a little bit of a powder kig in that moment, like to him, it's totally justice of yourself going into that character. I mean, sure, we're actors. Of course, of course there is, um My, a lot of my context growing up was growing up around black

and brown people. So yes, that that that assertion of of ownership of space. Absolutely, Um, I don't know that I've ever had that moment happened. I don't know that. I don't because I'm usually around people that know my context and the level of gentrification that Oakland is at now it's so far beyond it whereas when we lived there. Um, but you know, yeah, I can't. I actually less bothered

by that moment that I am. The moment right before that that they experially has with Sid don't reveal what happens when he's walking in and and that I that I have experienced more when somebody, when somebody is dressing up as you a little bit, you know, that's a weird feeling. I feel that way. Yeah, I feel that way sometimes when I when I feel like somebody's and is and and anybody can relate to this, I guess, and you feel like somebody's in some to some degree

appropriating your experience and that's not authentic to you. There, Absolutely the project goes places it very much as you were talking about with the verse at dovetails of what you guys have been doing with theater and theater and verse and the bars workshops and things like this. So, uh, I guess I just want to talk about that. Um. It's it's a unique way to tell stories that should you'd think it would be more developed even that it

is now already. I mean, it's it's kind of something that you guys have planted your flag in and I

just want you to talk about that a little bit. Yeah, well, I think you know the earliest examples of theater and verse, right, Versus has been around as a as a mode of performance and storytelling for a long time, and we came up through this poetry scene in which you you learn verse skills in order to force people to listen to you, or that's why you teach kids poems because nobody cares that they have to say, so you make it sound pretty and then everyone will listen to you. But there's

technique to that too. You you know, you rhyme the and this is the same technique that's happening in in first driven theater too. But you you know, if you the phrase that you rhyme, people are gonna hear the rhyme. So so you need someone's ear to pay attention to something that is a that's a technique, um, you know,

stressed and unstressed syllables. It's another These are all just techniques right, um, that have been around for a long time contemporary yeah, and and even still have been happening in you know, in the performance poetry wrote and in hip hop. Certainly, like all of these techniques were used all the time. We don't see it in film a lot in this way, and that we didn't I wanted to feel like a musical and we didn't want them to feel like We didn't want to make con and

miles aspiring musicians. This wasn't a story about how too like budding rappers discovered their rap voice, you know, like does this is a practical and fun tool used in the way we sort of grew up using. I mean that and that's another very Bay Area thing. Language is so important to us there and it is. You know, there's a there's a conversation where Miles is engaging in a sale with somebody on the street and it's all in like really thick slang. That's real slang, like those

those aren't joke words. That's that's real Bay talk. And conversations like that happened. And in those conversations you're trying to one up each other in how fly your your speeches, and that's that's sort of a cultural norm that we grew up around. So it's another thing we sort of

wanted to show off about the Bay Area. Um. But yeah, so using you know, using verse in all of the ways versus been used historically, but then just burying it a little bit, being a little making it a little less about this is a moment in verse and really just using it as part of the way that people talk in order to justify where we get to at the end, which is essentially this is a moment in verse because it has to be you know, Um but that so that that was what we were trying to

do with the film, you know, from a from a technical standpoint, and I think, um, and I don't know it is. It has proven to be a useful tool for us and for so many of the kinds of artists we grew. You know, we're both mentored by a guy named Mark Bamuty Joseph who's um an incredible playwright and performance artist and poet and dancer, and um his work is always in verse two and it functions the same way it functions. It is practical the verses for

a purpose. It's not it's not just because it's pretty. It makes you listen differently, and so we imagine it can be a useful tool in film as well. It has already proven to be in things that are more music. At least for me, we felt like the right people to do it. I mean, we've done we've done the work in the in the medium, and I think when it's been a decade thinking about how to how to

do it in a way that felt natural. And there's you know, there's other films that have involved poetic verse and other capacities, and there's theater that has that has done it in recent years, and it's it's it's been in solo works for a long time. A lot of poets have gone on to do solo performance works that are heavily in verse, uh, and it just felt like new ground. I mean anything, anytime you have a unique

take on a medium, you go for it. Right. That's there is If there's any sort of interesting moment happening with Oakland film, it's that both ours and Boots Riley's film take a hard swing at a at a slightly new convention for how you approach film. I mean that the level of absurdist comedy that's in Boots is sort

of unmatched by anything I've seen in recent years. And I think to the same degree, like I haven't seen anything take a swing for verse, verse driven work in a film like like ours, And I think that's it. Being innovative in the medium is something that we have

a lot of pride in in the Bay Area. Right We are in innovating language, We're innovating cadence like that's huge in the music, and so I think it is inherently there in the spirit of us as artists being from the Bay Area, to try to to try to flip it, to give it like a you know, to dial it up another notch. If we're gonna do it, let's dial it up. Was that specific to this project. Is it something that you'd want to do in other films? Keep keep exploring this idea or sure, but not not

as a through line. Yeah, I mean yes, I'm sure we will do much more work in film in versus again, but it will be different. We did it this way, so we'll figure out any way. I don't think it's like our aesthetic for everything they do, but I think it in you know, verse work will always inform an aspect of the film. Sometimes I just be the score, you know, how do you use how do you use music?

And I mean versus so much about timing and tone and and uh giving a scene the energy that it needs to do the thing that it's supposed to do. So like any convention in film or in theater, it works the same as a really great lighting queue or a really great you know, music queue, Like that's it's a thing to make you focus your attention and look at at the spot we want you to look at. Yeah. And I was gonna ask you, Raphael, if you are

you interested in pursuing acting further beyond this? Yeah? Yeah, because I wasn't actually sure. I mean, this is this is your first feature, right, just starting? Yeah, it's both of our first features to start, is that your first you've been doing the TV and started like that, but whatever. But at the point being I can see the VID is going in that direction. I wasn't sure if that was what you were interested. Yeah, yeah, everyone's got to

have a first one. Absolutely want Yeah, it's sucking stupid to quit right now. I don't know if you wanted to go back to you know, or stick with your spoken words stuff that you're you've been entrenched in for so long. And if that's like, I don't think you

pick man, I don't. I don't think there's I don't you know that'd be like, well, now that David has done his first movie, I guess he's gonna quit music, Like of course not, you know, but now now we have an opportunity to do it in a different on a different level and a different capacity, like we're musicians where writers Dick now are going to write more movies, We're going to produce more movies and hopefully some TV

shows and whatever. You know, there's a door open or not a not a not a not a narrow it not gave my story and now not not at all, And then uh, we're you know, there's if anything, we just we just came into a hallway with infinitely more doors than we ever had before. And I think it is in our nature as multi hyphenit artists to like multi hyphenate a few more time, the first time that's been used as a verb. I'm pretty sure everybody should check that. Blind Spotting is the movie I loved. It's

one of the best movies I've seen all year. It opens lot and white on the twenty seven. Go see it. Blind Spotting. The v Digs and Ruffiel Kaso, thank you for having on my show released for havings. Thank you for all Chancell