[MUSIC PLAYING]
Time to get black, y'all.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Good day.
Good vibes.
Good life.
I'm Craig Robinson, and we're back
for what I promise to be one of the craziest episodes yet.
We're going to deep dive into three different minds that
not only see the world through alien colored lenses,
they know how to take us into their imaginations
and come along for the ride.
Oh, well now that I've successfully given myself
chills, let's sit back, relax, and enjoy some
interstellar creative drip.
Caw-caw, caw, caw, caw, caw.
Caw, caw.
Caw.
Oh, what's up, Craig?
Hey, how are you doing, Bird?
Hey, you know me.
Just flying around, doing my thing, trying to stay out
of trouble.
Same.
Showing the world Black excellence.
Quick question, caw.
You get my fax earlier?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
You sent that fax?
Oh yeah, that was me.
It's always me.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
But if you read the fax, then you
would know that it's time to set up the next segment.
Well, you heard the bird.
Time to hit y'all with these bars, dog.
These bars.
The distinguished Virginia wordsmith
Pusha T once said, legend in two games
like I'm Pee Wee Kirkland.
Well, there's another brother that
can claim being legendary in two games, as well.
From crafting legendary Nike spots, to crafting an
under the radar comic book with Darkhorse 20 years ago that
is now even more pointed and relevant than ever,
this brother takes OG status to another level.
You want to take this one, Bird?
This is unexpected.
Cool.
Here we go.
Caw-caw, caw, caw, caw.
Your attention, please.
Meet Jimmy Smith, creator of Black comic book
hero, The Truth.
Nice job.
Caw.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I've always loved comic books, so I've
always tried to bring that to the work I was working on.
This is in 1996, and there is a skier named Picabo
Street, Olympic Gold medalist.
She's just dope.
I was working in advertising as a writer,
we had this whole idea to make her a superhero.
We spent months on it, bringing it to life, we're ready to go.
It's a week before it's going to air.
Oh, we don't want to do it.
The client pulled the plug on it.
So anyway, obviously, we're pissed.
We're in Dan Whiten's office.
Dan was like, screw that, Jimmy.
Just make your own comic book.
We'll pay for it.
Now, you know, it's like you can hear the record scratch.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I set the story in the future, 2020.
Just enough that it was possible for things to get real bad,
but not flying cars.
I wanted to show a divided society that's too blind to see
the ways in which they're being manipulated into hate
and have no idea why.
So here, we've got these Asian folks, tired
of the "good stereotype", quote unquote,
the Native Americans looking to reclaim their land,
white folks being racist.
I know you all hate the R word.
I know.
And then we got a Black leader yelling, original man,
stirring up trouble.
The Truth is named Freeman S. Jackson, III.
He's just a regular black dude.
He's living his life.
He's in his bag.
He's got his girl, Smoke, who is actually my wife.
Then these ancient deities, spirits from back in the day,
sense there's a disturbance.
Those before form this spear that
ends up going into Freeman's chest,
that gives him his superpowers.
I remember I was trying to find a power that was unique.
I started by not having him fly.
Then I said, no, screw that.
We don't ever get to fly.
Black folks don't get to fly, so I made him fly.
He's called The Truth for a reason,
and that's his main superpower.
He forces you to see the truth, to actually see what is real,
not what's fake, not what's a bunch of BS,
but what's really going down.
Fortunately, unfortunately, the reason
I'm even here talking to you all about this
is because the nation is divided,
and that's the whole story about The Truth.
So The Truth, this was inspired by my life story.
All that soup that came together,
that formed me, how I look at the world today,
I poured it all into here.
I was born in Muskegon, Michigan,
and I grew up in an all Black neighborhood
up until about the age of four or five.
Then my parents moved me into all white neighborhood.
Boom.
I might as well have traveled from Jupiter to Mars.
When I was 15, I was in ninth grade, and I had this party.
I had my white friends over and, obviously, I
had my black friends.
You put on Parliament Funkadelic,
you put on The O'Jays.
Everything was cool with the Black folks,
but the white folks were bugging out like,
Jimmy, put on Led Zeppelin.
Where's Aerosmith?
So then, I'd have to go and switch it up.
Black friends, man, what's going on, dog?
Couldn't win.
So hey, I didn't have that many friends in the early going.
I had to entertain myself, take towels
and tie them around my neck and act like I was a superhero.
It was, kind of, dope.
And it spawned a lot of creativity.
Growing up, I didn't really have any Black superheroes,
except for my dad, and my mom, and my cousin.
He was cool.
He had a big Afro.
He was dope.
So they were superheroes to me.
Back then I just wanted to see myself in a comic.
And I figured if I wanted to see myself,
there had to be other kids that wanted to see themselves too.
All of those experiences led to what I
ended up putting into the book.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Now, you need a bad guy, right?
Bad guys got to be formidable, and the bad guy's got to be
just as dope as the good guy.
So we've got these rich, old dudes who
are pulling all the strings and profiting, kind of like what
you got going on today, and these hate
crusader figure guys, you know.
The dudes that control the world.
They figure out they're being played,
and then they turn into the big bad guy, Toxic.
This thing with four heads and acid vomit.
It just jacks people up, and that's what lies are,
it's poison.
It goes back since the beginning of time,
people who just spread misinformation, spread
hate, knowing it's not true.
And our hero Freeman, he was flawed and misguided too.
He fell for it.
And when he became The Truth, he could see clearer,
so he made sure everybody else could see clearly too.
Once they saw the truth, they realize
they've been played for fools.
So they rallied together, and instead of fighting
against each other, they defeated the real enemy,
which was Toxic.
Freeman ends by saying, we've been living this lie thinking
we're all different, but if we come together and believe
in one human race, well, it just works better for everybody,
doesn't it.
I really don't want to be here.
I'm here because I'm talking about something that's tragic,
that's really sad, and it's shameful.
Something that was written over 20 years ago
is applicable to today, and a lot of this hatred that's
going on, our leaders who are using division to get more
votes, not bringing us together, not making us one nation
under God, but dividing us.
Why can't we help each other?
Why don't we want all of us to have the same types of rights?
Why don't we want everybody to vote?
So that's what The Truth is about,
understanding, coming together and realizing
that we're all one.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I got my mom and my dad in the book.
There's dad.
There's mom.
I know my keys are under here somewhere.
I just have to keep digging until I them.
Patience.
Energy.
My ancestors shall guide me.
Japanese culture is fascinatingly beautiful,
and to be honest, seeing a big Black dude with a Japanese zen
garden isn't an image that grows on bonsai trees,
which is precisely why our next piece is so inspiring.
Imagine you are a black kid living in New Jersey,
and you tell your family you are moving to Tokyo
to pursue a career in anime.
After your mama and aunties fainted, most likely
you get slapped upside the head by your pops and/or uncle.
Sounds like an amazing adventure, right?
Well, trust me, it is the journey of this young brother,
and I'll stop talking about it and show you all better
than I can tell you all.
Your attention, please.
Meet Arthell Isom.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[SPEAKING JAPANESE]
In Japanese, study means the underpinning.
It's the foundation of the background of arts.
And determines the whole world.
[SPEAKING JAPANESE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Now my earliest memory of drawing is when I was two.
At least, that's what my mom told me.
My brother and I would draw, just to build our own realities
and to escape the ones that we were in.
Believe it was in summer, there was a show that introduced
anime to Westerners, called "Anime Unleashed," that
was when I watched "Ghost in the Shell," and yeah,
it had a huge impact on my life.
"Ghost in the Shell" was the only video
that I had in college and, pretty much,
just watched it every day, while I was trying to decide
what my major was going to be.
Around the end of my fourth year of college I got kicked out.
To get me back in I had to attend
this special class that the administration
had crafted for me.
While in this class, my teacher asked
what did I want to focus on?
And I still didn't know, but she noticed in my journal
that I had just pictures from all
the backgrounds of "Ghost in the Shell" and my cityscapes.
And she was like, well I think you
want to be a background artist.
And it was then that I decided that, I don't really
want to be a background artist here,
but I wanted to move to Japan and learn
how to be a background artist.
I had to find a way to work for Hiromasa Ogura-san.
He was the art director of "Ghost in the Shell,"
and I thought that if I was going
to be a successful background artist,
it had to be under his tutelage.
[SPEAKING JAPANESE]
In preparing to meet Ogura-san for the first time
for my interview, I think I was really focused on,
I need to make sure that I make the next part of my goal
become a reality.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So when I first got the job [INAUDIBLE]..
Yeah, I was really excited.
[SPEAKING JAPANESE]
I think those things weighed heavily on me,
because any mistake that I made, I felt, it a mistake that I
made because I was a rookie?
Or was it a mistake that I made because I wasn't Japanese?
[SPEAKING JAPANESE]
Now that I have my own studio, the goals are infinite.
At the end of the day, we just want
to tell stories that represents everyone, that everyone can
appreciate equally, and that incorporates voices from all
over, all cultures, all people.
I chose this office because I used to always
hang out in this area.
The area like the Metropolitan Building and all the rest
of the government buildings.
And I realized that from this office
I can actually see it from the window,
and it really motivates me to just push further
and towards higher dreams.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[SPEAKING JAPANESE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I found my keys, but now where's my watch?
I wonder if the answer's--
no.
Greg probably took it.
Greg takes everything.
Arthell is doing the damn thing, you all.
when I leave my isolation cabin, my first stop
may have to be Tokyo.
If you tell me you don't want to see an anime created cartoon,
you's a whole entire loaf of lies.
Trust.
(SINGING) You are the sand.
Your attention please.
So this is where things are about to get a little--
how can I say this gently?
Meta as hell.
So every episode when I host the show,
the music in the background's been slapping,
like borderline distractingly slapping,
because I want to stop hosting, start getting turnt
and turn the club up.
Well, technically turn the set up, but you get the point.
So I had to holler at the boy, Brandon Drew
Jordan Pierce, aka, BD, to ask who
was creating these crazy slaps.
So he tells me, oh yeah, Craig do--
that's how BD talks--
so he goes, Craig, dude, bro, that's the homie, Teddy Walton.
Slaps are crazy, right?
Then he proceeds to tell me that Teddy got other creative
up his designer sleeve, a short film
and he wants to premiere it on your show.
So then I go, say less, which means, say no more.
And then next thing I know, I'm in this movie theater recliner
about to press play on a short film concept examining
the intricacies of mental health and social media
dependency in urban environments,
amongst a few other things.
I'm here to tell you all, I can't wait to peep.
So let me get these sancks popping and press play.
Your attention, please.
From the mind of Teddy Walton, a unique audio visual experience
that happens to have dialogue.
Poo poo.
You're going to want to stick around for this.
Your attention, please.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We are beautiful people.
I want you to know that we are beautiful people.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Good morning, everyone.
Are you existing the way you imagine yourself existing?
Because if the answer is no, then bam!
I got something for that (BEEP) Introducing the Free Machine.
Free Machine.
You want to be in the hills and not worry about bills?
Beat the Free Machine.
You want to make all the meals and have all the skills?
Beat the Free Machine.
You want to be in the best shape of your life,
outlive your friend, outlive your neighbors?
Beat the Free Machine.
You want to be too blessed, to be stressed,
never acting pressed, getting all [INAUDIBLE]..
You [INAUDIBLE].
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Wake up, that's what he say.
Play this song for the DJ.
We gone make it anyway, anyway.
We gone make it anyway, my, my, my.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I pray that you will see the light.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It's bigger than the money, bigger than a trophy.
[MUSIC PLAYING]|
Bigger is we [INAUDIBLE].
What about the family?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[INAUDIBLE] in my head when I'm all alone.
Plus I'm in my zone.
Let me play my song.
[INAUDIBLE] in my head when I'm all alone.
Plus I'm in my zone.
Let me play my song.
When you're dreaming like I'm dreaming [INAUDIBLE]..
[BELL RINGING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[INAUDIBLE] and break you off.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) You picked the wrong one, girly.
Just look at you.
Look at you.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[INAUDIBLE]
Baby.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[DOG BARKING]
Shit.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[INAUDIBLE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[INAUDIBLE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[INAUDIBLE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[INAUDIBLE] right now.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I can't [INAUDIBLE].
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I can't [INAUDIBLE].
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I can't [INAUDIBLE].
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I can't [INAUDIBLE].
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[INAUDIBLE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Good morning, everyone.
Yeah.
Who do you think you messing with?
I see the message now.
Unplug America.
Unplug.
Well, that's all the time we have for today.
I just want to remind everyone to stay safe, wear a mask,
and take care of each other out there.
Don't forget to listen to the podcast, where we dive
even deeper into our stories.
Check it out wherever you get your podcast fix.
Oh, and be on the lookout for Initiative 29,
our way of ensuring these amazing stories get
told the other 11 months of the year.
You know I can get down with it.
And as always, don't be afraid to find what you love, share
it with the world, and scream from the mountaintop,
your attention, please.
[INAUDIBLE]
Say what, now?
They want me to do another Craigie style jam?
Well I don't know if I can do it alone.
But I got a song for that.
Well, OK, then.
Let's do something Craigie, y'all.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[INAUDIBLE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[INAUDIBLE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) Out, out.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Now you're awake.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Now you're awake.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Now you're awake.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Now you're awake.
[APPLAUSE]