The Get Down Movie Club With Series Composer / Music Producer Elliot Wheeler

The Get Down Movie Club with Elliot  Wheeler===

TrevFM: Hello Neighbors. Welcome to another episode of Spread Love fm. I'm your host Trav. In this episode, we take a deep dive into the soundtrack of the Cult Netflix series, the Get Down with Producer Composer, Elliot Wheeler. 

Elliot Wheeler: But we turned up on the day and um, all the musicians were there for doing the filming.

And I was like, so, okay, so who's the drummer? Cause I need to talk to the drummer. And I'm like, man, the drummer. Like, what do you mean? Like you didn't turn up. I'm like the entire scene is about getting, the entire show is based around this breaking. 

TrevFM: Enjoy the show and if you would like to hear our curated playlist of the tracks discussed in the episode, visit the show notes.[00:01:00] 

Elliot Wheeler: Hey man, how you doing? 

TrevFM: Good. How you doing? Yeah. Real good. Real good. Oh, thank you so much for, for joining in today. I'm just, uh, so happy to have you here. 

Elliot Wheeler: Oh, look, it's such a pleasure. It's, um, It's wonderful to be, to be jumping back into this world again. I gotta say it's a, it's a real, um, real, real trip for me to be putting my head back in, into this universe.

It's, it's incredible. 

TrevFM: Tell me, you are a, a producer, co. Um, also the composer. For the Get Down, you work with Bar Bar Luman. And I just wanna talk a little bit about your background, your involvement with the Get Down. My 

Elliot Wheeler: background is, yeah, as you said, I'm, I'm a producer and, and principally a film composer and I'd worked with, with Bears on, um, The Great Gatsby filmed sort of doing a lot of the additional music and production around that and a lot of the, sort of the jazz production and, and then also doing a lot of the sort of the crossover into the hip hop [00:02:00] world and, and pulling those tracks together for Human In Great Gatsby.

And then, then we did another project, another musical project. So we sort of spent sort of three or four work years working together by the time they get down and came around and, and it's funny with, with Bears as is off on the. With him. You never actually know when you start working on a project, he's like, he's, he sort of gave me a phone call or an email and like, l I'm, I've got this little project that I'm doing.

Like, do you wanna come over and, and maybe help out on it? And you're like, at that point you're like, help out. Like, what, what does that mean? Like, like helping find some tracks. Am I like writing a little theme? And then eventually came in and like, yeah, executive music, producing it and composing all the score.

But it meant that we, we, we came. And we were there, right, right from the very, very beginning in terms of like auditioning the actors and coming up sort of conceptually. With what we're gonna do. And the thing with, with the actors that they all, they all had to be sort of triple threats. They all had to mm-hmm.

be able to [00:03:00] act, had to be able to dance as well. And also obviously had to be able to, to, for some of them, for, for the disco side of things, had to be able to sing, but, but also particularly had to be able to rap. And so that was wild. So we were there right from the beginning process of it and, and bringing in sort of all the, all the founding fathers, like getting to meet Grandma Flash and, and um, Curtis Blow and.

And like going up and I was talking to Cool Hook and yeah, it was, it was wild. And then, and then, so you got the hip hop side of things and you got the whole disco side of things as well and sort of collaborating with, with people like Nara Rogers. And, and basically my role was to sort of try and bring in all of that, synthesize that work with the, the kids and, and the actors to get all that material on screen and look, and when I say I was doing it, there was an amazing team that we had my, my editor.

Music editor and sort of co-producer on this with Jamon Shore. And um, he was putting together a huge amount of the stuff. We had music supervisor and music coordinator, um, Stephanie Diaz Marto and Sarah Bromberg did an [00:04:00] amazing job cuz you can imagine with a production like this, when you're dealing with so many samples and such a complex layering of all those samples, the licensing on this show.

Was just insane. And they did, and amazing job to pull that through. And then at the head of it, you've got bas who puts music sort of storytelling at just the, the center of, of everything he does in terms of the, the films and the, and the TV that he made. So, um, yeah, so that was, that was sort of my role sort of.

And, and then we got to also, That's, uh, what blows my mind on this project. You look back and like, and then we got to do the score. Like we got to, we had the Dap Kings as like our members of the Dab Kings as our like house band to sort of get this sort of seventies sort of sound. And then we're also recording like a full hundred piece orchestra for every single episode, so.

Wow. Yeah, it was, it was insane, man. It was 

TrevFM: great. And as some of the artists you had like Kamasi Washington, I mean, yeah. This was before he became, like, [00:05:00] came on my radar at least. Was this early, was he known at the time when you started working with him? 

Elliot Wheeler: Yeah, I mean, Kamasi and Kamasi was absolutely known.

And, and, um, I mean, and, and I'm sure like all all artists, there's a trajectory that you have, but he was definitely on our radar and we were looking for someone to come up with. A theme for the, for the Kipling. Oh, 

TrevFM: listen. Uh, mentioning the Kipling, just so you know. So I wasn't too familiar with that track.

And yeah, I was doing a whole listen to the entire album. That track moved me so much. It was like, wow, why didn't I recognize this before? It's just a couple of questions. What part of the series? Kipling's theme. When did that come in? If you can remember? Uh, 

Elliot Wheeler: look, and that's, that's you. You're gonna test me now.

I think you hear the Kipling's. I think it might even be in episode one. I'll have to go back through and check. But yeah, we wanted something to sort of, to get that, we wanted to get someone who had that sort of, that like the character has this [00:06:00] cosmic energy about it. Mm-hmm. And that was when we went to Kamasi to see if he could come up with something.

And he just, and he, like, when he record, he records so much material cause he's just an incredible jazz scene. So just flying out of him. But yeah, we went, I went down, see him before down in, down in Brooklyn, the sort of, a couple of nights before and then he went to the studio and Yeah, it was, it's. You did an amazing job.

It's incredible. 

TrevFM: Yeah, it was, it was an amazing track and, um, it, it had this feeling to me like, I don't know if you're familiar with the film, uh, Mota Blues. Yeah, yeah. The theme for Mota Blues. It had that same kind of vibe to me. I guess that's probably why in a hip-hop movie, I wasn't, kind of, didn't have my radar antenna up for it, but it was a spectacular piece of work that just kind of jumped out that I didn't hear.

With the list of songs that I've gone through and heard before, over and over, this one was like, whoa, where was this? And that's part of the reason I think it moved me. 

Elliot Wheeler: But, um, yeah, and look, and that's, that's one of the things like, and obviously this story is about the birth of hip hop, it's also within the universe building that we were [00:07:00] doing.

We wanted to try and get a representation of what New York as a city mm-hmm. was, and. Hip hop, I mean, as, as sort of many of the, the people who were there were telling you it was this, it was this thing that was happening in the Bronx and, and obviously in Brooklyn as well. Like you had obviously disco in the Bronx.

You also had all, all the influence of the Puerto Rican music that was happening there. But then you had this incredible, incredible, sort of free jazz that was happening and all, all the jazz that was happening in New York at the same time, you had the burgeoning, sort of the punk scene that was, was happening down at, at, on the lower side and.

Yeah. So we wanted to try and get all of that sort of feel in there. And also for me as well as, as a film composer, some of the music that was happening in the film scores at the time mm-hmm. , um, was absolutely incredible. Like Gary Goldsmith as a, as a very obvious influence for some of the Get Down Brothers, the main theme there.

But then also the Isaac Hayes, what he was doing in film score in Herby Hancock. Yeah. On that side of the universe. And that was something [00:08:00] that we were trying to pull in as. 

TrevFM: Yeah, and I love to go. We will go into the spec, a lot of the specific, especially some of my favorites. But one of the things I wanna talk about in terms of a general, um, technique and technique that I've seen with this film is the layering and the mixing of.

You would have one scene, um, where there'll be one or two things happening at the same time in a mix in between the music. Uh, sometimes there were three time, three scenes and three layers of music going on at the same time. Tell me about that. 

Elliot Wheeler: Yeah, look, and that's one, it's one of the most fun things that we do on these projects, and it's, it's a credit to bears that he can, he can keep all of that in his head, but it's a really.

Unique and fun way of being able to, in some ways speed up storytelling. Cause you can see that there are, there's a story happening over here in the hiphop world's story happening over here saying Marlene's world, there's a Mylene Cadillac and you got a disco thing going on and you can sort of conjunct [00:09:00] time in some ways because you can run these parallel sort of paths that are going.

And it say with the, the power thing that happens, I think it's episode seven where you've got Jackie's sort of pleading with his executive. You've got this incredible, uh, it was so called this operating track that we did with, it's a track called Power that We did where it's got an opera thing going on behind it and it's also got this incredible, um, sort of seventies fun.

Sort of track happening. And then you've also got the Get Down Brothers doing a rap with over at Cool Hers Place. So there's three different layers going in all at once, but it's all about the, the notion of power and how, how power exists and how it works and different ways and those mechanisms are pulled.

The bringing of that together is so technically difficult and it's, you need all the departments working on it. You need the editorial department to be across what's happening. And we've got, um, we had fantastic editors. A bunch of them, but particularly Jonathan Redman and Nic and Vanessa who are working with us on those.

And you've [00:10:00] just all gotta be in lockstep of understanding what the overall architecture is behind bringing those tracks together. And then it's just a very complex weave of. Plotting it out and working out where each one needs to come in, making sure that all the tempos are locked up, that you're gonna be able to do it.

Keys locked up that are happening, then you, yeah, like that, that particular one example, we were literally recording an orchestra. There was, um, an operatic element to it. There was the beats. We had grandma master flash coming in, providing beats. We had the dap Kings doing some of the stuff in there. It's hugely rewarding.

Very complicated, but really cool . 

TrevFM: And this is, there's a thing that I, and I spoke to, I spoke to Seth about episode one, and there's this. Idea that you think of hip hop, it's music, of course, yes. But then when you think of the genre of musicals and trying to put those two things together, initially, when you hear, just hearing the idea of a hip hop musical and how [00:11:00] you talking about coming from this world, it's very masculine, high testosterone world.

And you're gonna do a musical and to make that work. How did you approach that challenge of, of making it palatable for the audience? Like me, I'm from Brooklyn and I kind of grew up a little bit later, but in this world. Yeah. And my initial idea of, oh, they're gonna do a hip-hop musical. 

Elliot Wheeler: Uh, well, I mean, part of it I think is, as we talked about, it's, it is, it, it's a hiphop musical, but sorry, the hiphop program, but.

It's also tied in with, as hiphop was being born, and it was sort of this, this nascent musical form you had hiphop, disco, disco, disco had an absolute peak and it was prevalent everywhere. You couldn't get away from it at the time, and it was so shiny and so produced and so slick. And the really interesting nexus for me was [00:12:00] where those two worlds.

Combined cuz you couldn't get a sort of a raw form of, of music at the time than, than hip hop. I mean the, the ingredients that were being made to make that music was, was born in the environment that it came from and was so tied into what was happening socially and in terms of the way the city was being treated in terms of the, the sort of social building that was there and, and the, um, just the actual physical environment that the, that it was happening in.

But so where sort of that, that met, met the shyness of, of disco. Was a really interesting sort of, um, point for me. And I think the way that we tried to keep the, the hip hop side of it and keep it as, as true to the, to the art form and to the fans and to the people who were trying to represent was we made a, a really strong pleasure at the beginning that all of that music had to actually come from those people, so, mm-hmm.

Working with Graham Master Flash and, and Flashes was all over, was all over. The music that was, was coming on the hiphop side of, of the storytelling raim as well. [00:13:00] Graham Master Flash introduces to Rahe and I'd love to talk about bras, um, involvement a lot more as well, but he was across all of the performances that the, that the young boys were doing.

And in terms of writing the actual lyrics for us, obviously working with nas, you sort of, you, you can't. Kinda go more to a, sort of, more to the source than actually working with Nas as the MR books. And so that was sort of the way that we tried to make sure that even though there was gonna be this disco and this sort of that side of the world to balance that with, with sort of as authentic Italian as we could.

Um, and that was sort of how we went about it. And 

TrevFM: then you had, um, when you talk about the disco element and Well, and also there's this thing where your pain homage, as you said, there's, there's a lot of original music that I'm sensing. Yeah. But there were times when I couldn't tell whether it was. There are authentic tracks from the seventies and eighties.

Oh, is something that was new. And there sometimes there was a mix, uh, for like, for, for example, wild In the Streets, which Yeah. Was, you know, it starts off, [00:14:00] it's not a song that I was familiar with, but I knew it. I kind of, I remember, but then hearing it start off as the original and then there's this modern kind of feel like, was there a lot of that mixing happening?

Elliot Wheeler: Yeah. And that was, I mean, that was awesome. That was. The amazing thing about this project is like, we were like, ah, it's Garlin Jeffrey's track. Let's, let's put it in. And we're like, why don't we just call him ? And so, wow. Really? Yeah. We called Garlin and, and he came into the studio and we just, we rerecorded that track with him.

Whoa. It's him doing it live like in the studio. And we just recomposed the track basically. And then we got, so we had the, we got up to Avatar Studios and we recorded the, the, these limits from the DAF Kings doing the, doing the track for us and Garland singing over the top. And then, and then we took it over to the orchestra and got to do a bunch of stuff on As Yeah, man, it was wild.

And, and Garland was, he was so fantastic. When he found out, I was like, about it. It was like, yeah, that I'm down. Like didn't, um, That's a real compliment. It's exactly what we wanted to do. [00:15:00] We wanted to try and make it seem that you couldn't tell when the new tracks came in and when they were, when we were referencing old tracks and, and some of the work that was done by the external producers on this as well.

Malay was one of the producers that we used, and like the mix that he did with Cadillac. Theme he did for shas Theme was amazing. Michael Kiwanuka was another artist that we used and used a lot of his material. He was very generous with sort of helping us out with, with stems and that sort of thing for some of the tracks like Rule the World that sort of, he was working on and Nas working on James Shore and they did some great work on that track.

Yeah. So that was, and yeah, Mae's work in particular, I think was outstanding on, on this. 

TrevFM: Yeah. There was a track, uh, with Cadillac when he had the first dance off Cadillac doubles, gun . 

Elliot Wheeler: That was one of my favorite tracks. And we were working really closely with, with, um, rich and to Talladega, who were the associate producers on the film, but also the choreographers and those guys are amazing and they've become such dear friends, their family now and, um [00:16:00] mm-hmm.

But we're working with that. And there was a few tracks bouncing around and I think they may have even, I can't remember where the track ended coming. They may have brought it for us. But when we're working with Yaya, my team and Yaya has such an incredible work ethic. But they were, they were sort of working with us and we had this incredible dojo set where we were filming this production office, and it was, Area where we had, it was amazing.

We had, like, those guys were learning to do the hustle and the bus stop and so we had all 

TrevFM: bus. Oh, so you, that bus stop, just, sorry to interrupt you, but I'm not, I wasn't familiar with the bus stop, but when I heard that I was like, how could I have not known that track going up? It was so 

Elliot Wheeler: dope. And Nelson George, who's obviously your, your dear friend as well.

He was on as one of the writers, but also as our sort of music historian and. Our guide through that musical world. He was, he was all about the bust of it. And then he, he came in and was, was telling us a lot about it and was there at all the rehearsals as well. But we [00:17:00] walk in and, and Richard to would be working.

Oh man. And the voguing, like we had Jose Extravaganza coming in for the voguing. It was amazing. But you walk into the Dojo and you'd have a group of people working on the bus stop over there and then you'd havehow working with Richard Tone and all the guys. Learning how to be beat boys basically. And sort of getting down on the floor with, with their team on one side.

And then you'd have like, again, sort of Charing would be working with um, grandma Flash to sort of learn how to actually dj. Cause you forget with all these scenes, like all, like Sha actually had to look like he was doing all these, these cuts that grandma must have flash flasher put together. So that's, and learning the DJs, obviously, if you've never done it before.

Yeah. It's a real, really particular skill. So we walk out there, but. Yeah, it was, it was amazing. And Richard to on that, on that, um, devil's Gum was there was this particular bit and I just came out and they were like, man, it's, it's cutting off in the wrong spot. Can we like bring it in so there's got more this beat here?

And, but yeah, it was this really close [00:18:00] collaboration with Richard to being able to just work on exactly what they needed, play to make the the tracks work and to make the dancing work. Yeah, the other one, the Misty Holloway track that we did, Bridget Bark and who sang on that for us as sort of a remix of that rule of world.

And, but then also the telepathy track that we did with, with Christine. 

TrevFM: A yes. I love that. That's in the club scene. I wanted to talk to you about that scene that, that track, because it was actually, um, one of my favorite tracks. The series, that episode kind of, kind of flirts with gender fluidity. You know, in this hyper meal world, but then you think about downtown and that's what it was 

Elliot Wheeler: like.

Like anything in one of the bads films like having to get that universe right was so important. And also because you have all these people whose story you're trying to tell. And obviously for the voguing community, that was really. Important. So we, we, we talked to as many people as we could from, from that scene and from the ballrooms.

And like I said, we've got Jose Extravaganza who was one of the, the [00:19:00] dancers there and Rich and Tony collaborated really closely with him to make sure that all those voguing moves were absolutely legit. And then we talked to the community and got members from that community to come down and actually be a big part of that scene.

And it was, yeah, a really important seeing both for, for Dizzy's character, but also to sort of show that world and that universe. Cause it was another part of what was happening there. And if you went down to meat packing district, it was. That's what was going on. And, and those, those ballrooms were, were absolutely a part of the, the New York, um, fabric at that time.

But it's another one where, yeah, it was actually, it's actually a, the track was actually written by C and then we took it and worked again with Richard Tone to sort of work out what that, if you were gonna be voguing to it, what would be the best sort of beat to have. And so we sat there in the studio with Richard to going, is it like it faster, slower?

Like, do you need more of a back beat? What it is, what is it? And then just produced it up from. Um, again, we had Bridget bark and put down some amazing demo vocals on it and then threw it over to Christine Aguilar and she, she killed it vocal. And I remember it was, it was a bit of a sleeper track [00:20:00] cuz it, it got, I think it went to number one on the, on the, on the dance chat at one point.

Oh really? And. Yeah, I think she was like sort of coming outta nowhere and all of a sudden she put out a little clip for it and yeah, it was again, one of those moments where it was this sort of ki and everything came together and, and I love that scene. It's absolutely beautiful and, and really I think shows that universe, I mean, it's for all the characters, but this incredible explosion that you have at that age of just discovering.

So many things and he's walking into this whole new world. This suddenly blows his mind, and particularly as an artist, where he's going from being a graffiti artist to being introduced in this world and sort of the world of, and sort of the best art experience where you've suddenly got this world that's coming off of street art, that's going into museums and, and art galleries and, um, and how that crossover sort of happened, but um, but also just obviously sexually for him.

And that in being sort of opening into that world of, of gender fluidity, Um, yeah, it was a wonderful scene. [00:21:00] Yeah. 

TrevFM: And it was a great track. Um, and the Vogan was one question, I guess I want to ask, ask a technical question. Um, when you're playing that music, uh, when they're dancing, because they are also talking, is the music playing then, or are they talking without the music?

Elliot Wheeler: Yeah, it's a really interesting and a cool thing. So you have what, what you call a thumb track, and basically you go through and you create like a, a click track, a metronome. Track for that's in time with what's happening. And what you generally do is play the full, full blown track, um, up to get everyone in the mood and get everyone dancing.

And then when you actually have to get the dialogue, the director or the first ideal call thump, and you, you kill the actual thump and you've got a thump that's playing at about, uh, let's see, 30 or sort of 30 to 60 kilohertz. So it's really deep. So you're just having this really sub frequency, but what that means, Everyone can still hear the rhythm and can still move in time, but then in post [00:22:00] production, you just go through and you put a low pass filter over the music, over the dialogue tracks, and so you're still getting all the resonance from about.

80, 80 her up. But you, you can get rid of the actual thump, thump thump that's going in the background. Yeah. It's a cool trip. . 

TrevFM: That's cool. Cool. Um, another thing that you mentioned, you spoke about, uh, grand Master Flash and getting shouting fantastic with the DJ and how to make that look authentic. And it was a scene.

It wasn't the soundtrack, but it was a score, uh, where the pigeon scene, and I think you call this track, the pigeon score. Yeah. And that sound just like wondering and discovery and it's like words are Flynn and you, you, you imagine the, the dj. Tell me a little bit about that score. 

Elliot Wheeler: Yeah, that's one of my favorite pieces of score.

It was just, um, you had this wonderful thing where there was these lyrics being written. Um, it was one of those ideas where, You could see what was happening visually [00:23:00] so clearly that you had the pigeons sort of moving around. You know, obviously they were, they were a bit high. This notion of they're sort of just being circles within circles, basically of both storytelling, what was happening with the pigeons, what was happening on the decks, the notion of time and that very sort of complex.

Notion with even DJing where you are sort of trying to pay attention to what's coming up, but you're also listening to the track. Mm-hmm. . And so there was this string line that sort back in the back, the back, the back, the back, the back back, the back, the back, the back, the back that I wanted to get in there.

Um, so we went and recorded that as a, as a sort of sample and this sort of came up with the beats. And then we went and had, um, wonderful singer Freedom Brennan came in and sang the lines, the, the lead part for me. And we recorded this, this fantastic sort of gospel choir up at, up at. At Avatar Studios and, um, yeah, I can't remember how many were in the group.

It might have been like maybe 20 of the chorus and it was just, it was, it's, it was so amazing to be able to just do that sort of track properly. Like you've gotta fall quiet. You got, you've got the string players in there. Yeah. It was cool. [00:24:00] That's one of my favorite tracks. One of my proudest moments as a producer was, came in and Nas heard that track and he was like, You do that?

I was like, yeah, A piss bump. Yeah man, NA's gonna be a piss bump. That's cool. up using that as a, at the basis for one of the introduction tracks that, that Mr. Books does at NAS ended up. Um, I think it might even be for episode two. I think that the sort of, so for each one of the episodes, obviously NAS came in and, and created the, the introduction story is that Mr.

Books goes to sort of give a, that sort of introduction to, to each one B episodes and. And, um, I think we used that as a basis for episode two, I think. Yeah. 

TrevFM: Cool. How did you choose the track that Shalene would use as his practice track? It takes two. Like is that something that Grand Master Flat? Well, it was, that track, if I remember correctly, was after.

Grand Master Flashes time . Oh no. And this, what? No, what am I saying? The original, of course, but I'm [00:25:00] thinking of the rap version. , I just realized that. So, um, how do you decide is that, are the tracks tracks that Grand Flash actually used 

Elliot Wheeler: to. Yeah, so, so what we do with Flash, um, I mean, flash came in and, and he spoke to us for so long before we started anything about, about the world, about that, about his universe, about, about how he sort of came up with the, with, with the techniques that he used and, um, and also about who was like, what cool Herk was doing at the time, what he did with how.

He sort of went, saw what Kool was doing, and then took that and came up with his next mix technique. But at the very, very beginning of the show, he came in and, and did a, a workshop for all of the artists and did about a 20 minute set. Mm-hmm. . Um, and he came in and he actually brought in the original vinyl that he was using back in, in, in the seventies.

Um, and it was insane. And we actually, that was one of the, we ended up getting recording on it and, And using that recording as, as a sort of starting place for a lot of, when we're going through [00:26:00] and trying to find the tracks. But then what would happen is we'd, we'd sort of go to flash and go, look, here's, here's the scene that we have to do, like say the, the mix tape.

The flash mix tape that we, that you see in, I think it's episode two, where the boys, um, put on the use, use the mix tape. And so we said to flash like episode three. Episode three. Yeah. Yeah. I love how well you know this series. It's amazing . I said, look, this is what we have to do. So Flash came into the studio and brought in all of his old records and, and just, and did a set for us, basically.

And then we would sort of cut together that based on what we needed. But for all of that, we would always go and say, look, we need to teach Sha uh, Shalyn needs to do this thing where he's learning like. What would be, what would be an appropriate track to use, and we'd check it out with flashing. But yeah, this, this, this, this, this.

And give us a bunch of options. And then one 

TrevFM: of my favorite moments is when they finally figured out after the pigeon theme, and they go downstairs and, and [00:27:00] books. Zeke figures out how to get the crayon to work. Yeah. And then the next scene is with flash is when he comes and he's telling them how to do.

Yeah. And then he walks around the room and he comes back and I think, I can't, the track that's playing I think is the Commodores. Um, no, not, no, it was um, ah, it's um, assembly 

Elliot Wheeler: line. Yeah. Assembly line. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Which is not my favorite tracks. It's incredible. Yeah. 

TrevFM: That was amazing.

An amazing moment. And just, I mean, you know, he puts, takes the headphones off, he walks around and you hear just kind of repeating and then he mixes it and it starts playing on beat and then their reaction like, did you see that? Did you and assembly learners playing it just like perfect . 

Elliot Wheeler: Yeah. It's an amazing scene.

And, and apparently based on something that did happen at some point. Yeah. Amazing that, that scene in particular, it's another one of those. Um, examples of, [00:28:00] of craft that is hopefully fairly seamless, but the, like, the technicalities of actually getting that scene right. We worked on for so long and another one where all the departments had to be working absolutely in sync.

And I remember Jamison was out there on the day and like having to get the storytelling right, but also making sure everyone actually understands the mechanics of, of how mix. Actually works cuz it is, it's a really complex sort of brain process to go through to actually when you're thinking about it for the first time.

And my mind boggles when you think about Flash actually sitting there in as, I can't remember exactly how old he was, but like as a, as a sort of young adult sitting there in his basement, hearing what cool was doing, going. But I, I want the beaches to keep going. All the time, but keep in beat. And how, how on earth can I do that and get it to actually work and to, to work out that if you had the two records and then you, you bring one back and then, but like how do you make sure you actually get back and find the [00:29:00] exact right beat?

And so we had to struggle through that as writers to try and work out how to do it and then, and then try to work out how to do it musically as well. , it was such a trip and we spent so long and, and, um, and yeah, and Ed Bian, the director who, for that. As well, like trying to get him on sort of working through the process with him and how to shoot.

And I think Art Thomas was out on set that day as well. Um, yeah, it was, it was messed up. And then you'll see, then you've got ma a who's actually playing Grand Master Flash. 

TrevFM: Oh, he's great. He has a great casting. 

Elliot Wheeler: He's incredible and was funny when we saw his. I know when Flash, flash saw first saw his audition type, he was like, dude, like, I don't wanna say this.

Have I met your mom? Like . Then he looked so much like him, it was in. But then for and poor ma do it, was this a bizarre coincidence? Cause he was told that he was playing like a DJ from the seventies this amazing mix tape where he played, like, played himself as Grandma Master [00:30:00] Flash. And then he, when he came into the audition, bass was like, right, so you've got it.

You, you've, you're playing the part of Grandma Master Flash. He's like, wait. I'm, I'm playing Flash. Like he didn't even know he was actually playing. Really? That's funny. And so, and Momu is an incredible actor. He's, he's has like, he's a trained actor. A wonderful train, has wonderful training, but the process for him to then get in, get the accent right, and be standing there working with Flat and Mamadou would tell the story, says, I've never been so terrified in my.

Oh, and like, and they worked for ages, like even on like flashers. Like he's gotta walk like me, man. Like it has this swagger, it's got it, gotta have the, he's gotta have that thing. And he walked for age on how he walks. But then also like mamadou had to have flashes, had to look like flash DJing. So they spent months and months and months just there on the decks.

And mum and who had never DJ'ed before. Um, So like, for him to actually work out how all that works was, [00:31:00] um, yeah, they, he really put the, put the hard work in and Flash was riding him every day, man. It was like, you're gonna me, you have to look like you can do this. Yeah. 

TrevFM: It was cool. Yeah. The au the authenticity absolutely came through with the casting, the, um, the.

That scene, the final scene in episode one at the party when there's that little beef and flash shouting nods over the flash cuz we need to change the pace cuz things are gonna get hot and flash takes the record, puts out like that, nods. Was, like I said, that, I mean, I don't know, flash, but I was like, that's, that looks like flash

And then they start to, then Charlene does the flip into the circle. Like, I don't know. It just, it felt so genuine and I really appreciated how authentic, even the characters that were fictional Shalin, the way he walked, the way he moved, the way he flipped, the way he would run through [00:32:00] the city. By the way, a score with the kung fu.

I spoke to Seth about this as well, cuz. Time. I'm from that time seventies in Brooklyn and it was all about Kung Fu back then, it was all about Bruce Lee. And to have that music going with him as he goes through the city was just an amazing kind of addition that just made the series. Yeah. Tell me about that.

The kung fu theme. 

Elliot Wheeler: Yeah. There was, I mean, there was one of, one of Shall scene was that was, um, Malay worked on that track, um, as well, but it's, it was this thing that we did, we wanna, we did wanna have, Sense of, of the karu prevalence as it as it had been at the time. And um, and one of Cha's things that they said to him was like, cha never.

Never walks. Like he's always fantastic. He's always doing something incredible. And Shameik Moore, man, that guy is so talented. He's incredible, amazing musician. But just his physicality that he has on top [00:33:00] of being such an amazing actor. And like the first time you meet ch he slides down the rock. Yeah. 

TrevFM: Oh my God.

Amazing scenes. 

Elliot Wheeler: Like that was so that Shameek just came up with on the day, like he was just there and he just like, like that's like, how can you get down? He's like, like this. And just like slid down the rock and. It was blew everyone's mind. And like you watch him, there's a scene where, um, 

TrevFM: just a, just to cut just to, that was probably the most amazing intro scene in hip hop film history, just so you know.

Yeah, it was, I didn't know he came up with that. That's amazing. 

Elliot Wheeler: Yeah, it was all him. And then like, I was watching the other day and, um, where, um, Brook has gone to get the internship with, with, um, And shall meets him outside. And then when they're like shower's, like, yeah, man, screw you. And like he's just leaving him, but the entire time he's walking on top of the cars.

Yeah. Yeah. And then he just does like, does like a forward flip on top of the car. And then runs off. Like he just, he never does anything ordinary. Like having that, that sort of [00:34:00] sonic element that sounded like, um, one of those country films. It's just a really cool thing to have in the film. 

TrevFM: So, um, I have so many questions that I think I need to start, uh, talking about.

The thing that I do not wanna miss, I really wanna talk about a lot of these tracks and I do want to get back in some of the casting. Um, One of my favorite actresses, Haron Ola, and that I, I spoke about the trailer when I saw that the first time and it just blew me away. And then, uh, episode three with the blackout.

I can't remember the title. I always forget the name of the sound, but up the Ladder, one of the most amazing tracks that I've ever heard. I mean, when I heard that track in the film, it moved me. It, it. I mean, I hate to admit it as a, as a older male, but I broke down in a way just hearing that song and hearing that interaction and, um, I didn't realize it till later that she, and correct me if I'm wrong, but she's singing that, 

Elliot Wheeler: correct?

Yeah, she is. Yeah. [00:35:00] Horizon was a fantastic singer and it was really interesting because she's put out her own music and her own music is nothing. What you hear in the film. Like in the film, we often had to get her to really belt in terms of some of those songs. And cuz she was a disco star, she was sort of in the Misty Holloway sort of, um, I think Misty Hollow, Donna Summer, sorry, I'm now getting my, my, my fiction and my real, real performance few, but in the sort of the Donna Summer, um, vein obviously, and she really had to sing and yeah, so Horizons Horizon does all of her own singing, um, and.

Yeah, she'd come into the studio and we, we had a little studio down there on the, on the west side. And, and, um, she came in and cut, cut all of those tracks. And that, that particular tracks, I mean, as you know, it's a Supremes track that, that we based it on, and it's, it's just such a gorgeous thematic. Theme both lyrically and, and music.

It's one of my favorite tracks as well. There's a, a beautiful score version that we got to do with, with, um, a trumpet player called Ralph Leslie. 

TrevFM: Yes. I love that. It plays at the end of episode three, 

Elliot Wheeler: [00:36:00] that was, again, we spin up to avatar and, and recorded. That was just, that was one of my favorite experiences.

Him was just me on piano and him on trumpet, and then we put, oh, you were on a. Yeah. Yeah, it was cool. We just, it alive and then had the orchestra sort of come in and play over the top of what we recorded later on. But yeah, that's another one of the, those weaves that I think just worked so well. And then you've got, you've got the books Hunged over the top of that as well, and then that beautiful scene when they make love at the end Yeah.

With with her singing it and she just did such a beautiful rendition of it. I think that might have been, I can't remember where that. Came from the suggestion, my maybe Nelson George or maybe Stephanie, that that found it. It was, but it was, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's one of my favorite tracks as well. And, and, and when you hear the original, it's, it's such a, it's a fantastic track and it was so cool to be able to do that treatment on it.

TrevFM: Yeah. I was actually, I, I found out about the original because I was trying to find a version of the track without the dialogue doesn't exist. Yeah. 

Elliot Wheeler: Um, [00:37:00] Of the version that we did. 

TrevFM: Yeah, the version that you did, cuz you have, um, justice Smith, where he does his depart from the scene when he meets Marlene back at the apartment.

So that's always on every track. So when I play it out loud, people are like, what are you playing,

Elliot Wheeler: I'll try, I'll try and one for you. I'll, I'll go back into the vault and see, see if you can put. 

TrevFM: If you can, that would be really appreciated actually. Cause, but then there's a, there's another track she does. And I, it's okay to jump around because we're not doing this sequentially, but the final scene, and I'm gonna jump back again.

We have about 10 more minutes. I'm gonna try to make sure we stay on, on, on pace. But the other side, when she. At the end of season two. So perfect. It felt like, cuz I actually, I heard that they were supposed to be a season three and I said, no, no, this is it. This is how it needs to end. The song is perfect.

They played the song throughout the series during different [00:38:00] moments. Uh, I loved it when Jim, Jim Smitts was finally arrested. When he was arrested on top of the car and gave that speech and they played that underneath that and the line that was really. Really funny is when, um, the President Mesh records said this is gonna be to funerals.

What Happy birthday is to birthday songs. , he's right 

Elliot Wheeler: for me. Um, yeah, it's a, it's a beautiful track. We needed this, this track to be something that, that she could sing that was, that was gonna sort of, Launch her into, into her new existence and, and had to have that, that sense of, of departure as well. Like it's, it's an incredibly, one of those beautiful moments where two people are very much in.

Yeah. And, but just life means it's, it's not necessarily gonna happen for 'em. And, and it's a real maturation I think of, of those young characters. Like one of the things that I really took from watching the series again, cause as I was saying to you before we came on trip, like, I haven't died back into this [00:39:00] world again for, for so many years now.

Because it was one of those projects that you work on and they to come along a few times in your career. You, you give so much of yourself, like every fiber of your beam because so many of the stories that we, we were telling was so important to get right and there's sort of you, you leave nothing on the table in terms of you, sometimes you need, you need a break from these projects sometimes before you can actually enter the world again, to, to sort of be able to, I think just be able to process what, what you actually worked on and, and sort of what the project meant to you and, and what you gave to it.

But watching the project again. Watching some of the episodes, again, I was reminded how much of the storytelling comes from the perspective of these kids who are just on the verge of becoming an adult. And yeah, and I remember at that time is like everything is so important and you are discovering it for the first time, and you feel like the world is discovering it for the first time, and you're going through all this incredible.

Educations and discovering, and there's a [00:40:00] sexuality, there's the art, there's the physicality. The thing I love about that piece, the other side is that it does feel like and arriving at somewhere new and it's a breaking through of a new level of maturation for, for, for these characters. And, um, and it's, it's an absolutely beautiful piece.

And, and I think the both. Um, the way Justice performed it and, and the way that Marlene sort of horizon performed her track it, if they really do justice to, to that and, and to that stage of their life and, and to the beautiful piece that it was. 

TrevFM: Yeah. Yeah. It really captured this idea of, we were young because part of it, there was two versions I, I, I found out is when we nas, um, and justice and, and then there's an original version that was sung by, uh, another singer.

Um, That version with Nas and where Zeke, uh, comes in and gives his line and the way they recorded it, because it was amazing because it was that final scene in the booth. It was like first time as opposed to hiphop appearing the [00:41:00] first time in Rapper's Delight. Here is the actual first recording of hiphop.

Zeke, what is that? Poetry, or you sound like Gil Scott Herron. Why'd you get in the. And it was perfect. Like for me, it spoke about, cuz when you have the NAS version of it, it's him speaking in the nineties in another era talking about what happened back then. So it was, it was the. Thing that I, the movie that I could kind of equate it to, and this may be a little, a bit of a reach, but Vanilla Guy, which is one of the saddest movies I've ever seen.

And that idea of that when he gets old, everybody's gone. It was, it evokes a similar feeling that one song kind of captured that same vibe. 

Elliot Wheeler: Yeah. And, and again, what not the, the genius of working with NAS is that he was so incredible at taking those storylines. Like batters would come in and brief him and say, look, this is what we need to, this is what we need to have happen [00:42:00] in the story.

And he's sort of, here's a story beat that we wanna say, and he would come back with these. Incredible raps that were just, that were so on point. They covered what was sort of, again, really technically a difficult sort of list of themes to go through. But he would just put it into this incredible poetry that was amazing.

And I think what he did at the end was so beautiful and such a amazing way of, um, of capturing sort of exactly what you say, like someone looking back at that time. And there's such an nostalgia and such a love that you have for that period of your life. But also what it meant for, for him and for hip hop.

And that was, I won't go into what they were, but there were so many d. So many different options of what almost happened at the end. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So it's a storytelling and. How it was gonna finish and, and what, where, where books was gonna be at the end. But I think where it ended up was a really beautiful space.

TrevFM: I wanna jump through a bunch of things cuz there's so much that I didn't cover and I knew this was gonna happen, but I want to kind of backtrack a little bit cuz there's some favorite tracks that I would like and favorite moments I like to bring up. So, um, it set me [00:43:00] free when they had, they used her, the.

And then, uh, there was that line where one of the, uh, party goers said, this is the best thing since Apache . And it was so cool cuz it, I remember brought back a memory, cause I remember when I first got the taper, a mix taper Apache, how amazing that was. And I was there when they said that. I was like, that's me when I first heard Apache.

Yeah. Right. Tell me about 

Elliot Wheeler: that. Well, that was, I mean, that was sort of the. The whole genesis of, of sort of this sort of genesis, but like there was a thread that went through the entire sort of that first season is that we knew we wanted to have one break beat that basically tied all those stories together.

So it's wonderful to have a musical device that actually is that, that linking. Part of, of all those storylines. So obviously you see it, you see Jackie recording it at the church and we recorded it, this fantastic church down the Bronx when he was doing the original version of Set Me Free and it did have to have this sort of Pentecostal sort of [00:44:00] Puerto Rican Pentecostal thing going on as well.

and then this actual drum break of, of, um, of this guy we film filmed this . Great. Yeah, great thing about filming that track. You, you see the drummer, that guy Fantastic. Uh, who's Drumm? But we turned up on the day and um, all the musicians were there for doing the filming. And I was like, so, okay, so who's the drummer?

Cause I need to talk to the drummer. And they're like, man, the drummer flaked. Like, what do you mean? Like, he didn't turn. I'm like, the entire scene is about getting, the entire show is based around this break beat and um, and so we're like, what are we gonna do? And this violin player goes, I can play drums.

I'm like, really? This has to be the best break beat. It's like the hip hop has ever heard.

Yeah, it was, it was really cool. And one thing, one thing that I did say I wanted to go back and talk about was, was Raheem's Reems contribution to, [00:45:00] to this series in that, um, similarly to nas, where Bads would sort of say, here's, here's what we wanna do. For all the, for all the, the, um, not so much the, like Zeke's stuff that were internal monologues and the, the more poetic stuff that he was doing, um, that was coming from the writers.

But we would, for a lot of the actual boys raps, the writers would, would give a version of, of what we wanted the rap to do. But then flash very early on, bought Rahi in and, and said, RA can work with you in whatever capacity you want, and. RA ended up being that, that filter for us. And he would take those verses and, and, and rewrite them for the, for the, for the young guys to, to for, for the get down brothers to, to rap because.

Like all of it. We were like, this has to sound like it's authentically from, from the period. And, um, and RA being there, you could go to, is that what it sounded like? He's like, man, it's, it's there. So it's, it's all, it's all those are sort of all RA's rhymes. And, and that's, and he was there as well then he'd be in the sessions with us when the guys came in to do the [00:46:00] pre-records, and then he would work with them to make sure that the delivery was right, the, the cadence was right.

Where they were feeling the beat was right and they'd rehearse 'em so that like all the moves were right and that sort of stuff. And that was one of the things that he talked about a lot with Richard Tone was that, that thing of getting the moves right and sort of having little dance moves that they were doing that was like something that sort of brought them to that next level and that, yeah, it was cool, but I really wanted to acknowledge RA's contribution.

Cause he was, he was huge and 

TrevFM: serious. Yes. I have to, I, I, I, before I forget, this is something that I want to ask and I have two more questions. If you have 10 more minutes. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Um, well that scene, that final scene, first of all, I want to just compliment to whoever the DP was, uh, when they zoomed in and they had the get down brothers crossing each other and the Yeah, William.

Yeah. Um, but there was another amazing moment when he came from the making the speech and there was that whole thing about the paying amage to the graffiti [00:47:00] writers, but in between that when he was walking. That stage to the battle. Yeah, that was 

Elliot Wheeler: incredible cause and that was a real coup cuz no one, no one's been allowed to, to use Star Wars.

Outside of Star Wars franchise and that was B'S work. His magic, he literally called George Lucas and they went and sat no where in a cafe, in a restaurant around the, around the corner from where we were shooting And B'S pitched to me. He is like, man, star Wars in 77. Like it , that was the universe. That was what was happening.

And that was the biggest film. Um, like, can we please use it? And, and then, um, Stephanie and Sarah did magic with the licensing side of stuff, but it was, that was bad reaching out directly to George going, here's the context. It's gonna be used as a sample. And yeah, that it was cool that you had the, the bowling bowl coming down and yeah, 

TrevFM: it was amazing.

Wow. It was. 

Elliot Wheeler: Yeah, that was cool. 

TrevFM: It was really cool. That Backstory's amazing. I had no, I wouldn't have guessed. Wow. That's amazing. [00:48:00] George Lucas actually. Okay, dad. I thought, see, I don't know how it works. I thought maybe you guys sampled a short enough version that it was legal . That blows me away. Cause that was actually one of the best scenes.

That's to me, just to jump across really quickly. That was one of the best scenes in the film. Um, both from the poetry to the actual battle that's going to the battle. We haven't spoken about the get down brothers, how authentic they were. Um, that, uh, track. And then there was another track that I really loved.

That was, uh, the opening performance in season two, break the locks. Yeah. And how much samples that you guys use to tell me the story about, about that . 

Elliot Wheeler: I mean, the, the amazing thing about this show is that , I don't know if I'll ever work anything like it again, is that we, we would just, we'd just choose the songs that we wanted to use and then be like, Can we like 

TrevFM: guys Beastie 

Elliot Wheeler: Boy [00:49:00] style.

Yeah. And like, and somehow it just kept on working out. So like, and, and like the rock steady track as well that we use like it's 

TrevFM: Cadillac Battle, he points to the DJ play my track and it comes on to rock steady in that battle. Whoa. That's one of the, you know, that's an all type favorite for anybody. 

Elliot Wheeler: That one was so cool.

I mean it was, and it was a great, a great choice cuz it was like for the B Boys. That track was one of the tracks. But then him think that Cadillac thinking, oh, this is a, it was just a massive group effort. Like again, flash giving us the raw material to work with. Cutting it up. We sort of, he would give us the raw stuff, we'd cut it up into a basic shape.

He'd come in, remix it again. Um, We'd sort of finesse that again and come in and sort of see what we finesse and re scratch that again. And, and then Rahe was sort of reworked all the rhymes. And then the process would be we just, we'd get the, the get down brothers, all the guys in to record in the studio to start with, [00:50:00] and Rahi would be nailing them about pronunciation and where stuff came.

And then they'd have to go back and, and um, actually what would happen when his first raim would record it, first, give it to them so they could have a chance to practice it, so they'd sort of learn it with all of his inflections. Anyway, so that was a massive head start to getting the performance to sound sort of legit.

And then, They'd come in record and they'd have to relearn what they'd done so they could have it in their ear so that when they were doing it on camera, it looked absolutely live. And then we'd also record them doing it when it was live. Oh. Um, so that if we did wanna use breaths or sort of mix any of that stuff in, then we could, um, so the technical process of it, but it was really, yeah.

It was using the, using the tracks that, that Flash gave us and, and, um, and then, and never just working there, working their asses off to make sure it was, it felt. 

TrevFM: It was act a hundred percent. It was more authentic than the real thing. I was too young to remember and it felt like I was there. And um, you know, I have, I still have some of the records.

I have. [00:51:00] My brother brought Rappers Delight. You could probably see it back there. And that's the original one. We brought my birthday party as well here and I listened to them vinyl. But, um, a couple more questions really quick. Uh, yeah. Um, one of my favorite characters, uh, in the, was Jackie. Jackie Moreno.

Yeah, he was fantastic. Wasn't he amazing? And that scene, uh, when they, he creates a song in real time in the movie. Yeah. And that was a song. Tell me about that. How, who, tell me how did that work out? That was a great scene. 

Elliot Wheeler: Oh man, that was another one that was like, the building of that was, was just insane.

And I was, Kevin, the actor was, he did such a fantastic job with it. So it was song that came to us from the Americas, a group called The Americas. Yeah. So we sort of came up with this notion that it, there's this like, woohoo, it's sort of the, the vocal belly that's there. And so I took that as like a little motif and sort of brought that back earlier in the scene.

Scene where the idea was that sort of Jackie's there and he's sitting in the [00:52:00] piano and he's crapping himself. Cause he, he can't, he doesn't know how to write disco. And he's like, oh man, I dunno what to do. And so he is got this one little dug, go, go, go. And it gets stuck in his brain and he starts sort of snorting up and then shooting up.

It's just he's going in this sort of this. Getting more and more twisted in his sort of mental state. And he's just got this one melody that he just can't get out of his head playing piano and sort of rag man off, sort of get into this classically trained sort of musician who, but is trying to work out how to do a disco thing.

And then obviously he sort of reaches, reaches bottom. And then that scene where he is. Papa Forte is being, um, sort of confronted by Pastor Cruz and he has this revelation and this notion that disco is sort of like the savior for people. That's why they go to have that sort of moment of communion and that moment of being lifted up and sort of ties it together with the, the Pentecostal thing and then this great.

Thing that bas does where you crossing that across time zones where you're seeing him record it, um, and imagining. And um, yeah. So it was just great to be able sort of break it down [00:53:00] like that. Like have a track that came in that Stephanie worked on with him, Americanos and brought it in and sort of broke it down that way and then sort of rebuild it back up to be our own thing and then put the break beat in the middle of it and yeah, it was.

TrevFM: Yeah. Okay. And then I'll, I'll just make a couple of mentions cause I want have one more question, but I like to mention another one of my favorite tracks. I'll keep my light in my window. Um, oh, it was the first performance when she was on the, the show. I love that 

Elliot Wheeler: track. Yeah. Another track, and forgive me, this is one of the ones where I, I am blanking on names.

It was a track that we found, um, that Nelson George told us about. Um, oh, what is it? The, the. Ah, it's killing me. Um, but it was, it was this disco, um, disco sort of gospel that was, was happening, um, in one of the churches here in New York. And, um, so we got the stems from it. Okay. Um, and, and rework that track from the original good horizon to come in and, and sing.

So, so stripped the vocal out, used the basic elements from the master [00:54:00] that we got. Um, and then Horizon came in and sang over the top and, and, And we, and I sort of re reprogrammed the beats a little bit, um, to sort of give it our own, our own feel. But it was using, and forgive me, it's killing, I can't remember.

You 

TrevFM: gotta send this to me. I'll put it in the show notes. Yeah, ill, 

Elliot Wheeler: I'll, but it's, it's awesome. And that's one of my favorite scenes actually as well. Like, it's such a sort of unfailing me joyous track. It's still really like the dope track. Like it's, it's cool. Yeah. I 

TrevFM: love it. All right, so, One final question and then, um, so tell me about the power of music to transcend art, to race, religion, and why, what music means 

Elliot Wheeler: to you.

Oh, wow. Trip. Big question for the final one, man, that's, um, music for me, it's, I mean, it's, it's what I do every day. Like, I can't, I can't imagine my life without music and principally what I do, I, I work as a, as a film storyteller. That's, that's sort of what. [00:55:00] For whatever reason, that's where I've ended up in my life.

And that notion of being able to tell stories through music is, it's central to sort of everything I do and, and the way I see the world. And I think something like the get down, you see the different ways that the music does that for different people. Like it's happening in so many different scenes in that one small moment in time in that one city, in this world.

But you've got like for, for the hip hop community that. Had so little given to them from society. They came up with this thing where they were jacking into the street lights to get their power. They were stealing turntables. They were coming up with like remixing the music that other people. Gave to them to create their own thing.

And it was this, this way out for 'em. And it was both an escape, speaking to flash and, and, and were other people that were there. It was, um, this, this way of, of escaping both to bring themselves together as a community to, in some ways for the, for the gangs. [00:56:00] They sort of took some of the violence that was in the gang warfare and it became a musical battle.

So, I mean, it was transforming the community even, even in that such a specific sense. But then obviously you got someone like Marlene who's saw the, the same sort of trajectory through disco and that ability to transcend and that, and then to be able to give that to viewers, you know, modern context where you're saying like, there's moments where you break down.

It does, it unites us, I think, and it, it's in some ways it, it connects and I'm, I'm, I'm not particularly. A religious person, but there's a spirituality. I think that in when you can feel something that somebody else is feeling and you can have that moment where you time can step away and you can be in that one moment together with someone else feeling the same thing, being moved by the same thing, there aren't that many other things in the universe that can do that.

Like maybe, maybe food can in a, in a way looking it up. Perhaps can, but it's hard. A hundred people or a thousand people or whatever, it's to look at the same piece of visual art in the same way. And I think music is, is so [00:57:00] unique in that sense that it does, yeah. It can bring you, it can bring you closer to, to the rest of your mounting in that way, and then to your brothers and sisters when you're, when you're listening to something.

And it's, it's, it's has that unique quality and I think it can lift us up to, to a better. 

TrevFM: Oh, thank you so much, Elliot, for joining me here today. Um, I do have a bonus, uh, mentioned, uh, from the Great Gatsby, another track that I really love, uh, where the wind Blows by Coco O Ah, 

Elliot Wheeler: yeah, man. 

TrevFM: Yeah. Beautiful. One of my favorites, by the way,

But thank you so much. You 

Elliot Wheeler: have to get rich. You have to get rich in turn on here as well. I didn't get to, I didn't really get to talk about the relationship between music and choreography enough in, in this chat, but man, it's. Where it was, it was so tight, and they've got so much to talk about in terms of the story.

So I'm, I'm gonna hit them up again and make sure they, they get, get their answers on here. 

TrevFM: Oh yeah, absolutely. I would love that. 

Elliot Wheeler: All right, tr [00:58:00] and thank you so much. I, I'm really grateful for the opportunity to talk about it, and it's, um, it's really affirming for, for me to, to have someone to talk to you and, and have someone who loves the series so well and knows it, feel like you know it better than we do in some ways.

So it's, um, a lot of respect to you for, for. Doing something deep to eye. I really appreciate. 

TrevFM: Well, thank you so much for working on giving us that work of art, so thank you. 

Elliot Wheeler: Thanks. 

TrevFM: Thanks for joining us. Please follow and leave a review. I would like to thank our show partners, locals I know, dot com, helping artists generate revenue, find opportu.

Get discovered and develop sustainable business models. That's locals I know.com. Mike Bikes NYC on Instagram, amplifying the voices of activists since the summer of 2020. Head over to Mike Bikes NYC on Instagram. That's Mike with the Mi [00:59:00] C and the Freedom market.shop. A marketplace led by people of color united in the principles of social and economic justice.

That's the Freedom market.shop until the next show. See you next time.