Also known by the artist handle GANGBOX, Garrison-Msingwana works across a variety of mediums — including painting, sculpture, and digital rendering — to conjure his own uniquely absurd vision of the world rooted in fashion, pop culture, and the supernatural. He has collaborated with clients including Loewe, Adidas, and Stüssy, and recently launched his first U.S. solo exhibition of paintings, “LAUNDRY 002 – A Thread is a Vein,” in New York and Los Angeles.

The collection of 12 paintings is a continuation of his remarkable LAUNDRY series, which is predicated upon the idea of piles of clothing possessing their own life and sentience. In Garrison-Msingwana’s “uncanny universe,” clothing is near biological. “Who knows what the internal structure of these piles actually looks like,” he explains, “beyond just the regular human form.”

The Book for Men caught up with Garrison-Msingwana to discuss his upcoming multimedia projects, how anime continues to inspire his work, and why he thinks AI could never truly replace artists.

You grew up watching and drawing Japanese anime, which often features characters with an almost supernatural stylishness. How important was fashion to you and your art from an early age?

I didn’t really associate the two for a long time, but I was really interested in character design. Especially in anime because they have these really bizarre characteristics — like Kenpachi, in Bleach, has bells at the tips of all the spikes on his hair. Things like that were just so beyond, bending physics and reality, and I always really admired that. Japanese storytelling, and honestly most cultures’ storytelling, stories from my dad’s culture — he’s Tanzanian from Dar es Salaam — are so reality-bending and folkloric and magical, and I realised that I could blend it all together easily in my work.

With “LAUNDRY 002” there’s a wonderful absurdity to how unwieldy the piles are. How inspired were you to create fashion that is similarly physics-bending?

That does totally tie in. I just don’t really worry about the rules. I think it’s important to keep that dreamlike nature to it; a kind of floatiness that can exist, or a rigidity with some of the clothes and the fabrics that would be so technically hard to achieve. I’d need a whole other career just to be able to make a lot of that stuff, or to even understand where to begin with real textiles and real fabric. So painting it just liberates me to experiment, and then maybe I can collaborate and leave the other areas of expertise of making it real to somebody else.

You recently exhibited this collection in L.A., and New York before that. What was it like going coast-to-coast with your work?

Spectacular. I’ve never felt more accomplished and proud. And so much of that is due to Hannah Traore, my gallerist, and her belief in me and support in getting people interested in what I’m doing. It’s really beautiful to encounter people that have their own completely different interpretations of my work. Honestly, that keeps me going in many ways. I have a lot of theories about what I’m doing, but mostly I’m just doing what comes natural to me.

What are some of the insights you gained?

Somebody brought up homelessness to me and how these figures reminded them of bag ladies, or bag men, who live with everything they have. And that makes me think even deeper about what aspects of yourself are intrinsically you. One of my good friends told me that he looked at the piles and felt a sadness. He thought that it looked like these piles were very burdened. Even though you can’t see any physical traits, I guess it was making him think about how heavy it would be to carry all those things, and how limiting it would be. Things like that can set me off in new directions and are beautiful ideas that wouldn’t necessarily have come from my own mind.

You’ve spoken before about wanting to do more multimedia and textile work. What are you working on now?

I can’t say too much right now, but essentially I’m working with a company who are providing materials for me to figure out how to design sculptures. They are essentially PILES, but for a brand. So they’re maybe not as chaotic as I would make ones for my own purposes, but it’s my first endeavour in trying to make them real using textiles. I’m profoundly excited about working with textiles in limited runs in a sustainable way.

I’m also moving to the UK at the end of the year because I want to work on a comic book full time, and I’ve decided that that’s the place that’s best to do that (laughs). I think I’m going to treat it like [Katsuhiro] Otomo, where I’ll probably put like 10 years into it because I’m going to be a bit of a psychotic perfectionist about it all.

The story is called Ghettomancer, but I’m just world-building right now, coming up with characters, their motivations, and overarching stories and themes that I can take from my real life and experiences and kind of codify them or stick them into this very supernatural world that I’m working on. The nerdy kid in me is like, ‘Wow, this is really happening, I’m going to be able to contribute to this world of incredible art that I’ve always admired.’ That kid is like my best friend.

As a working artist, how do you feel about the rise in AI-generated images? Does it inspire you to make your work more bespoke to human experience?

Definitely. The idea of AI having consciousness or trying to supplement humanity is what concerns me. I like technology, but when it comes to my work, I’m definitely an analog guy. The solitude and the simple act of exploring and using my hands and my mind to solve problems is my favourite part. And I love to leave evidence of humanity in everything I do. I leave the tape on my paper works, and you can see fingerprints and mistakes that I painted over. It doesn’t take away from the beauty, in fact I think it adds to it in many ways.

I don’t think that AI could ever get in the way of that, or compete with real artists, to be honest. And I feel like the people who want that out of art don’t appreciate artists and art very much. It’s probably mostly advertisers who don’t want to pay a model, and who would prefer to generate an image for five cents. I just don’t see the point of trying to fake that, or trying to force some evolution to that thing that is already so essential and beautiful about being human, you know?

Photography: Scott Pilgrim, shot on location at East Room.

The post Moya Garrison-Msingwana Sees Humanity as Art appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

“I believe that every day we’re on this planet, we have the potential to grow, to fulfill, to create, to spread love, and to spread light,” Common explains. “To bring that consciousness and spirit and good energy, there’s so much work to be done. I do believe that art has been one of the most impactful ways that I’ve been able to do it, and I just thank God that it’s one of my purposes.” 

It’s a typically humble response from one of the most influential artists and social icons of our time. Throughout the ’90s and 2000s, Common helped define an era of socially conscious rap, while pioneering the Soulquarian movement with such legendary collaborators and luminaries as Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, Questlove, and the late J Dilla. 

He was invited by First Lady Michelle Obama to perform at the White House alongside other distinguished poets and writers, and later recorded the first ever Tiny Desk Performance from the People’s House. He even got to collaborate with his long-time hero Maya Angelou on the title track of his 2011 album The Dreamer. In his career as an actor, he has appeared on screen alongside some of his inspirations, including Denzel Washington and Ruby Dee, and just last year made his Broadway debut alongside the great character actor Stephen McKinley Henderson. And he has never stopped releasing thought-provoking and deeply soulful music for which he has been awarded, among many other accolades, an Emmy, several Grammys, and an Oscar. 

Though he’s one Tony Award away from an EGOT, that doesn’t mean he has an ego. He speaks passionately about always working to evolve as a musician; in fact, he doesn’t believe you can ever truly become the master of anything, especially when it comes to life and art. He mentions listening to De La Soulagain in the wake of the death of founding member David Jolicoeur, better known as Trugoy the Dove, which coincided with the revered hip hop group’s extensive back catalogue finally making its way to streaming. 

Common’s still learning from the music that he grew up with, and it continues to inspire him to strive for greatness. “I went back and tried to learn some of their raps in different ways, and I’m like ‘Man, the learning is infinite with this stuff,’” Common says. “There’s so much, you’ll never get it down. I don’t care if you’re noted as the number one emcee to ever live, you still can get better. And I feel like I always want to be better and get better.”

He can be most recently seen honing his acting craft in the Apple+ Original series Silo, a post-apocalyptic mystery based on the science fiction book series of the same name by Hugh Howey. His character is one of the ten thousand underground occupants of the titular structure, which is buried hundreds of stories beneath the surface of the earth in a seemingly toxic dystopian future. The story’s hook is irresistible: the inhabitants do not know who built the silo, or how long their people have been down there; they do not know why the world outside the silo means certain death; and they do not know when it will be safe to go outside, only that this day has yet to come. Curiosity regarding these bigger questions is, shall we say, disincentivized within the populace. 

Common plays Sims, the head of Judicial Security within the subterranean civilization, who is burdened with preserving the status quo of the silo by any means necessary. The actor likens the Judicial organisation as a whole to ade facto governmental structure, with his specific department resembling a combination of Congress and the CIA.

As befitting a man for whom the work is never truly done, Common was in the booth when he first heard about the project that would consume the better part of the next year of his life. Since the pandemic, he has become even more intentional about how he spends his energy and values even more where he chooses to put his heart and soul. He usually doesn’t allow phones in the studio when he’s recording, but his manager and agent assured him they had an important opportunity to discuss. He was immediately intrigued by the project’s pedigree: it was developed by veteran creator and showrunner Graham Yost (Justified), with Academy Award nominee Morten Tyldum attached to direct and the acclaimed Rebecca Ferguson starring and executive producing. Once he began reading the script, he could barely put it down.

“Sometimes for my birthday, my friends and I get a boat down in Florida and just enjoy the day. I started it that day before we went out on the water, and I remember the feeling that I couldn’t wait to get back so I could read the rest.” His only caveat was working outside of the United States, since he had appreciated being home after the pandemic. But ultimately his enthusiasm for the project, not to mention the city of London, won out.

He describes his time on Silo as one of the greatest creative experiences of his life. “Being part of something you think has the potential to be great has been so fulfilling.”

Though he cuts an intimidating figure, permanently clad in sleek leather jackets and dark turtlenecks while oozing a controlled menace, Common is quick to locate the family connection that grounds the character. Sims has a son and a wife and desires more than anything to keep them safe. He also has a responsibility to protect the other residents of the silo, which unfortunately might mean suppressing any inconvenient truths that could potentially incite a rebellion or otherwise drive order into chaos.

“He has to manipulate things sometimes to keep control, which is something we know that governments do,” he says. “They plan, they are very smart in certain ways, and do things to keep people distracted, keep people in fear, keep people in order. Because the silo’s a difficult place to be in, but also people realise that it’s their way of life, it’s their culture, and they want to protect it.”

The metaphorical timeliness of finding yourself stuck inside, being unsure if the government is lying to you, and feeling as though you are slowly losing your rights is not lost on Common, but he insists that governments have lied to their people since the beginning of our history. There is nothing new under the sun or, in this case, under the dirt.

While he allows that the comparison is salient, to him these are larger philosophical questions. “If we think about the silo, people are being told that what’s on the screen is what it’s actually like outside, but they have no idea what the truth really is. And I think that’s one of the things in society, and I’ll speak to America — people have to discover for themselves what the truth is. Certain things are true: a bird is a bird, a tree is a tree. But individuals have to be allowed to develop their own perspectives too, along with certain universal truths that exist. And in the silo, you get to see how this structure doesn’t allow you to develop your own way of thinking.”

The feeling he describes, however, couldn’t be further from the experience of actually making the show. “I feel like I’m working on one of the projects that I’ve been most inspired and enthused and fulfilled holistically.” The actor also recently completed a run on Broadway in Stephen Adly Guirgis’ 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Between Riverside and Crazy.

“All the actors I knew, not to mention acting teachers, told me the stage was going to be the most challenging experience for me as a performer,” he recalls. “Some also said it would be the most fulfilling, and I think both were right.” For someone who had grown up loving theatre, it was a dream come true. He knew he had the acting chops and had certainly rehearsed enough in his acting classes — but until he stepped on that stage, he would never truly know what was demanded of him.

What was incredible for Common from the jump was the amount of preparation involved in the process, not to mention the discipline required to actually carry it out. During early read-throughs, he found it very challenging to sit at a table for eight hours a day, which he realised he likely had not done since his last menial job at 18. But he acknowledges the hardest part for him is just showing up.

“To do the work every night, that’s the biggest choice. To actually go out on that stage every night even when you’re thinking, ‘How am I gonna do this?’ You’re tired, maybe you’re concerned about something going on with your family, but you still have to go out and do the work.”

The demands of the schedule took a toll on his health. In the course of the rehearsal period and three month run at the Helen Hayes Theatre on West 44th, the actor suffered everything from COVID to an upper respiratory infection to laryngitis to a stomach virus. As Lee Strasberg may well have said at one point in his career, theatre is no joke. And yet Common’s enthusiasm was hardly dampened. “It’s something where I think, I want to do this for the rest of my life, and I’m already looking forward to doing it again.” 

Common recognizes how lucky he was to be working with such accomplished collaborators in his first foray on the stage, and also admits he may well have been spoiled by the experience. “I was working with Stephen McKinley Henderson, one of the greatest actors of all time. Not everybody knows his name yet, but when they came to that theatre they got to see a true master. And I was able to learn from him and bounce scenes off of him and absorb his wisdom.” Henderson reprises his role from the original off-Broadway production as Walter ‘Pops’ Washington, a retired New York City policeman who is in the process of suing the department after being accidentally shot by a fellow officer. 

Common stars as his recently paroled son Junior, who moves back into his father’s home with girlfriend Lulu and sober buddy Oswaldo in tow (played by original cast members Rosal Col.n and Victor Almanzar). The play deals with the domestic struggles faced by this makeshift family while they attempt to hold on to one of the last rent-stabilised apartments on Riverside Drive in Manhattan. 

This experience has only deepened his respect for those who dedicate their lives to the stage. “I want to acknowledge everybody that participates in theatre, whether it be regional or across the board, Broadway, off-Broadway, West End. It’s a real collaborative team of passionate people that do theatre,” Common says. “From the people dressing us, doing costumes, to the people that did the lighting, they’re just there for the art. Obviously you have to make a living, but they care about this art form. It’s a beautiful thing to behold, and it comes through in the passion they bring to the work.” He also has nothing but the highest praise for Stephen Adly Guirgis, who he calls one of the great playwrights of several generations. 

When he first read the play, he was not only blown away by how funny and raw it was, but by how the material had only become more plangent over the years. “That’s what it’s like to experience something that’s timeless. The immediacy of great art can speak to now and forever.” When asked if his view of the role of the artist in society has changed over the years, Common doesn’t hesitate. Looking back on who he was as a person when he recorded his first album, he realises he had no idea there was so much power in having a microphone, and that he could actually impact the course of other peoples’ lives with his music. Honestly, he just wanted his friends to think he was dope, and for KRS-One and De La Soul to know who he was. Not a bad place to start, he admits. But the more time that he spent in the industry, he began to realise that he felt a higher calling as an artist, and that he had a duty and a responsibility to his audience. “Not just a duty to make music, but also to always be evolving as an artist, and speak truth to where I am.” This impulse to be true to himself has led to records that have sometimes challenged fans’ perceptions, like Electric Circus or Universal Mind Control. Common sees it as a responsibility of the artist to continually challenge themself. “I owe it to the people to try and give them things that can be life-changing and inspiring, because I feel like if I’ve had the exposure to these things, then it’s for a reason. It’s not for me just to hold onto. It’s like if you have some information or you’ve experienced something, do you want to just hold onto it for yourself? If so, it’s not serving its greatest purpose in life, and maybe you’re not fulfilling yours.”

It’s a duty and a responsibility that he feels blessed to have. He’s also in the enviable position of being able to make music when he is inspired to do so, and not in order to pay the bills. Not only that, but when he is creating new material he doesn’t have to bow to commercial considerations. “It’s not in the back of my mind all the time like, ‘I need to be on the radio station.’ And that in itself is so amazing because it’s being done with the love in it. I don’t even know where it’s going to go, I don’t know if 10 people are going to hear it. I just want to put music out there and have it resonate with people who are open to it.” His newest albums, A Beautiful Revolution Pts. 1+2, were created amidst the pandemic, and he credits the creative sessions with helping to keep him balanced during that difficult time. “It brought so much light to me, and I think that comes through. Even if it’s a song dealing with something heavy, our passion and the love that we bring creates its own joy.” 

Common seems to be a man that people go to in times of trouble, a port in the storm, and he’s more than happy to share his light. During the pandemic, he had a lot of friends calling him to check in and to ask him for any wellness tips that he could share. “I’m just learning, I’m not an expert,” he admits, “but I was letting people know what I was doing, whether it was taking turmeric, or working out, making sure I was saying my prayers, or just watching something that was funny.” He realised that spreading health and wellness was something he could do to give back to his community in a very trying time. 

This led him to start the health and wellness series Com + Well on YouTube, where he stated his intent to meet his viewers wherever they are in life and provide them with tools and resources that they can use to take care and love themselves in new ways. He knew that not everyone was as privileged as he was to be able to thrive during the pandemic, so he wanted to do his small part to share the happiness he felt lucky to have. “I know we’ve all experienced that feeling that when things are good, you know, I feel like I got things locked down. Then two days later, I feel like I’ve been knocked off my freakin’ horse, and I gotta get back up.” That’s part of what helps keep him humble. “This is a true experience that everyone goes through on the path of life. Because of that, I’ve never felt like, ‘man, I made it’, and that’s it, you know?” 

When asked what else he would like to accomplish as an artist as well as a man, his response was refreshingly straightforward. “As a man I think I’m always looking to grow my relationship with the Creator, I’m looking to have fun, I’m looking to build in life partnership, to build my relationships, and to become a better listener. And also become more fruitful to the planet in all aspects. As an artist I’m like, let me use my talent, these gifts and the passion that I have to continue to multiply and add on, to my life, to other peoples’ lives, and to the world in the best way possible. To the day I leave the planet, I want to be creating art; acting, making music, and doing activism work. That’s how I feel.” 

For Common, it’s all about appreciating the here and now. “One thing I have learned in this life is to be present in the moment when something is going really great. Like if I’m at an award ceremony, or if I’m in a session with Stevie Wonder, I always think, ‘Dang, how did I get here?’ I’m working with Stevie Wonder, he’s one of the first records I ever owned, you know? So I am definitely happy and grateful to be in those moments. You don’t lose the admiration and the joy of being there with people that you’ve admired for your whole life. I don’t lose that. I always have that.”

Photography: Ciesay

Styling: Jay Hines (The Only Agency)

Grooming: Maria Comparetto (The Only Agency)

Production: Aila Koch at Pluslive Studio

Lighting Director: Darren Karl-Smith

Movement Director: Emmanuelle Loca-Gisquet

Styling Assistant: Ashley Powell

Shot on location at Spring Studios

The post Common Continues To Push Beyond the Limits appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

Trejo has leveraged his stature as one of the most recognizable ‘bad guy’ faces in Hollywood to become an advocate for youth sobriety, speaking at local schools in Los Angeles about his experiences with drugs and alcohol. Having been introduced to marijuana at the age of 12 and heroin at the age of 14, before serving time at the notorious San Quentin prison in his youth, his message is sure to resonate more than most.

In 2019, Trejo launched a record label called Trejo’s Music, which offers a platform for up-and-coming young artists. More recently, he was helping to feed those in need during the lockdown, from the homeless of Los Angeles to essential workers like nurses and hospital staff. He even brought food to police officers during the riots in the city. “I think that’s why the good lord kept my restaurants open even during the pandemic,” he says.

What started as a business plan for a single Trejo’s Tacos location has grown into five restaurants across Los Angeles, including the titular Trejo’s Cantina in Hollywood. “Sometimes my friends will go in incognito, to tell me how the service and the food was,” Trejo laughs. “And my staff will say, ‘Dan, we know that all the guys with tattoos on their necks are your spies. They’re the guys that look like they’re going to rob the place.’”

SHARP spoke to the multi-hyphenate about the beauty of nonalcoholic drinks, what the spirit of the cantina means to him, and the inspiration behind his newest cookbook, Trejo’s Cantina.

Your first cookbook was mostly recipes from the menu at Trejo’s Tacos. What made you want to write a second?

Really, it was the response from the first book. We sold a lot of books, and a lot of people were asking me, “Do you have any more recipes?” And we do! I mean, my mom gave me her whole 80 years’ worth of recipes.

You talk about your mom quite a bit in the new book. Is there a lot of your family’s influence in this batch of recipes?

Everybody’s. My grandmother, my aunts, but especially my mom. She was just an amazing cook. At the first of the month, we would have these unbelievable meals, like Carne Asada and Carne Verde. Then by the middle of the month, the food would get a little thinner, you know?

By the time we got to the end of the month, she had a thing called We Mix It, and it was basically leftovers and whatever was in the cupboard. It was really good and all, but don’t ask her that recipe, you know? [Laughs] Because you don’t want to know it.

It was like in the penitentiary. We would get, like, five cup-o’-noodles, potato chips, Fritos, some hot dogs, whatever we could get, and we’d mix it up and bake it, and we had a You Mix It. Except in there we called it a spread. All the guys who don’t get a visit on Visitor’s Day, they would each bring something into the yard, and we would have a spread.

You mention that in the book, and how it seemed you turned that corner of the yard into your own little cantina. Can you describe what the cantina means to you?

What the cantina means to me is a big group of friends getting together and sharing everything they have. Because in the pen’, all you have is the money that people send you, and the hustle that you do in the joint. And so you share everything you’ve got like a big family.

When I walk into the cantina and I see everybody enjoying themselves, I get that same feeling of comfort and safety. Safety is one thing in the joint that’s hard to come by. But that’s the way you feel in the cantina.

What I love about this book is that you give so much detail and history to each ingredient and aspect of a dish, but you also stress that every recipe is modular, and you can adjust to your ingredients and preferences. How important was it for you to have a book that was approachable?

I had to have a remedial kind of book. You know, some of my mom’s and grandmother’s recipes are a little vague — “un poquito de sal!” And you had to get just the right pinch! [Laughs] So I definitely wanted to make sure it was simple.

I get nothing but compliments about the first book. People say, “Hey, my wife and I, we try a different recipe once a week, and it’s really simple!” I’m glad they say that, because that’s what we were trying to do, and it’s the same with this new book.

Do you have any favourite recipes from the book you might recommend to people who are a little intimidated by cooking?

The Shrimp Tostadas. I like that one because it’s so simple and so delicious. And my favourite drink, The Mexican-Spiced Cranberry Juice, and Sprite. I can’t tell you what the Mexican Spice is though, or I’d have to kill you. [Laughs]

We have a lot of nonalcoholic drinks in this new one, and I’m very proud of that. Because a lot of the time, people don’t want other people to know they’re not drinking. Plus, if you’re going to spend a long time in a restaurant talking, it’s better not to keep pounding them down.

I never really considered that, how the non-alcoholic drinks allow you to blend in.

It’s one of the reasons we’ve got non-alcoholic drinks at Trejo’s Cantina. I don’t drink, I’ve been sober for 50 years, but when I go to a bar or nightclub, people are always trying to buy me drinks. So I always have to turn them down, and they ask why. Usually, if I’m in a bar setting, I say “Oh, because when you get good and drunk, I’m going to take your wife home,” [Laughs] They shut up real quick! Don’t tell my agent that one.

I love how, in the book, you’re very against the word “mocktail” because you put as much effort into these drinks as the alcoholic ones.

They’re delicious! I love them all.

When did you first know you wanted to open a restaurant?

I did a favour for a director named Craig Moss, who needed a name actor to star in a movie he was making. I was gonna say it was low budget, but at least with low budget they’ll give you a sandwich. [Laughs] This was a no-budget movie!

I showed it to my agent Gloria and she said, “This might be pretty good, Dan, it’s a good story.” At the time I was waiting on another film that would have a real paycheque coming, but she convinced me that this one would be a better idea. So I took this movie called Badass and this thing turned into a trilogy, and I ended up making three times the money. Listen to your agent!

On the first movie, I met a producer named Ash Shah, who had been in the restaurant business, and he noticed that I don’t eat processed food. I won’t go to the Jack or the Mac, I’ll eat good food. So Ash noticed and said, “Danny, you love good food, why don’t you open a restaurant?” And jokingly I said, “Trejo’s Tacos!”

Then, after the third Badass wrapped, Ash brought me a business plan. It was about 12 pages long. I opened the first page, and there was no killing, so that was a tough read. [Laughs] But I gave it to Gloria, and she said, “Dan, this is a no brainer.” So that’s why I’m in the restaurant business!

You’ve said people come from all over the world to visit the Cantina. Do you have any notable stories?

It’s funny — when we were first opening Trejo’s Tacos, this bicycle club from Manhattan Beach posted that they were going to have a run to the opening in La Brea. But when the trades reported on it, they didn’t say bicycle run, they just said “bike run”.

So all these bikers from the Inland Empire saw it and were like, “hey, they’ve having a bike run!” [Laughs] And at the grand opening, we had this huge crowd of both spandex cyclists and the leather wearing bikers. They were taking pictures of these big burly guys on a 10-speed, and then all these spandex clad guys on Harleys. And business hasn’t slowed down since.

We’ve been really blessed that all five have stayed open. And everybody says, “what’s your secret,” because we’ve been open now for almost six years. Everybody thinks it’s a big secret, but it’s not! It’s just good food! I’ve never heard anybody going on a date saying, “Hey babe, you want to go to this restaurant? They’ve got really crappy food.”

Do you have any future projects you’re looking forward to?

We have an album out now called Trejo’s Soul Collection Vol. 1, and the next album is going to be called Souldiez Are Forever. In fact, we’re holding a concert at the Fillmore in L.A. at the end of March.

We’re opening a new restaurant in Detroit, but we’re doing it as a house of blues venue. We’re doing one in London as well, so I’ll be traveling. I have great partners in Ash Shah and Jeff Georgino, and they are masters, just brilliant.

In fact, Ash is the one who got me into opening a restaurant in the first place, because — and don’t tell anybody — but I didn’t know anything about running a restaurant.

Find a copy of Trejo’s Cantina by Danny Trejo here.

The post Together at Last: Danny Trejo Is Making Moves From Screen to Kitchen appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

“Run,” which dropped on Independence Day as a reminder of a freedom which has always been tentative to some, was accompanied by a provocative video directed by Montreal native Adrian Villagomez. “It was inspiring to me [simply] because a French Canadian, because he was not American, did not come with the same prejudices, and really shot it like it was an Afrofuturist video,” Render says.

The striking and visceral short film depicts a young Black man running through a metaphysical war zone where modern-day allies stand alongside Black historical figures like Frederick Douglass, Shirley Chisholm, and Fannie Lou Hamer. While the subject matter sounds grim, “Run” is suffused with hope, from the soulful church organs that open the video to the soaring horns throughout the track, which seem to herald a better tomorrow – a future where evil is, if not fully conquered, certainly in retreat.

SHARP spoke to Killer Mike about the new track, his political ambitions, and the prosecution of Young Thug, Gunna, and YSL.

You’ve served as a campaign surrogate for Bernie Sanders, and you’re an activist, and a cultural commentator. People from all walks of life listen when you talk. When are you going to run for office?

Well, first, I’m going to keep running Run the Jewels. There’s some people that like politics — those people in ninth grade that are already running for school secretary or president of their class. I wasn’t that person. But what I didn’t understand was that I have leadership qualities, and that people were going to one day encourage me to run.

When I get a lot more grey hair, and after I’m done running up and down the road on rap tours, I’ll settle in and run for school board or something. I think my first responsibility is to myself and my family, and my next responsibility is to my local community. I encourage those people out there who might not be Killer Mike, but who know a few hundred people that want to make some change, to run locally.

Your new video for “Run” shows the just rising up against the tyrannical, Black and white people together taking up arms against Confederates and Nazis.

Thank you! I love that you saw the white people that were with the Black people. I’ve gotten so aggravated by certain comments like “You’re insinuating a race war!” I’m like, there’s a Pacific Islander and a white guy right next to each other, what do you mean “race war”?

But it is the just rising against the unjust. The just cannot be content being silent while evil abounds. At some point, the just need to rise against the oligarchs to say, “Yo, this is not right. You’re gonna do right, or we’re gonna righteously get rid of your asses.”

Usually, when you see a Black man running in a video, you assume he’s running from something. But the star of my video isn’t running from anything; he’s running toward a future where we are unified together overcoming the forces of evil. What I wanted to show was that true patriots want freedoms and rights for all and are gonna push against traitors and tyranny together.

You’ve been outspoken about First Amendment rights and how that plays into art. What does that mean for you?

I think that First Amendment rights in America are something that we’re constantly in danger of losing. Noam Chomsky said, if you don’t want the right of freedom of speech for someone you vehemently disagree with, then you don’t want freedom of speech at all. There are people I disagree with, but I want them to be able to say their point of view, because if I call for them to be shut down because I don’t like what they say, next they’ll be coming for me.

It’s totally unfair to live in a country where a white woman who really killed her husband can write an article called “How to Murder Your Husband” and that article not be allowed to be used in court. It’s totally wrong for her to have her First Amendment rights valued, and for a Black kid who raps to have his lyrics used against him. Fair is fair; you have to treat them fairly.

The video contains signs including “FREE THUG, PROTECT BLACK ART, FREE GUNNA.” What was it like working with Young Thug on this track, then seeing his subsequent arrest and prosecution?

I spent two weeks with Thug and Gunna in the studio. What I saw were leaders amongst men, job-providers, and brilliant creators. And when Thug gave me this verse, hidden in it were a few gems that he placed there.

He says, “Thinkin’ the same but ain’t bankin’ the same.” Thug was one of the first people to jump on the Black banking campaign with me, to make sure that Black people used their dollars and circulated them in Black communities. When Thug says, “We gon’ escape on a yacht boat,” I envision this mass return to Africa on these luxury liners of Black people who have been brought here, who are descendants of people who were formerly slaves.

To me, he created brilliant, beautiful imagery that’s abstract and mixed it with all kinds of cool talk about designer stuff — but there really are fragments of abstract intellectualism in there. I value him as an artist; he’s a total rock star. I think that he’s in jail on trumped-up charges, and I also think that his lyrics should not be able to be used against him.

The post Killer Mike Strikes Back appeared first on Sharp Magazine.

While some might enjoy a victory lap after their most acclaimed work, Curry has already announced several upcoming projects, including an expanded version of Melt My Eyez, as well as sequels to the 2020 mixtape 13LOOD 1N + 13LOOD OUT and the Kenny Beats collab Unlocked. What has piqued the interest of most, however, is the revelation that his next studio album will be a melodic R & B record evocatively entitled Designed By Angels.

While this might seem like a left-field choice, it would be unwise to second-guess the artist. “Every time I work on new music, people always get skeptical because they don’t know how it’s gonna be,” explains Curry. “Then they get the project and they’re like, ‘Holy shit! This is really good!’”

SHARP caught up with Curry in the studio to chat about the vision for his latest album, how therapy helped shape his outlook, and the one side of himself that he has yet to express on the record.

Your latest record dropped in March to stellar reviews. Most critics seem to think it’s your strongest yet. Do you feel like you’re at the top of your game?

No, no — I didn’t even scratch the surface. It’s not my peak. Most people peak in high school!

Your previous record, ZUU, came out in 2019. How do you think you’ve changed as a person since that record was released?

You know, I make less stupid decisions — but I still make stupid decisions. I would say I did a lot of internal growing. I was looking at myself for real, for real. The majority of the time that I was working on ZUU, I was trying to appeal to Miami. I was making old-school Miami music because I was homesick. But now, this record is coming from more of a place of my interests — what I like and who I am as a person, good and bad, and me trying to work through that.

You’re easily at your most introspective on Melt My Eyez, talking about your various experiences with depression, addiction, misogyny, and abuse. Was it scary to be so vulnerable on the record?

Hell yeah! Because I knew some people probably weren’t going to get it. But then I realized, most people go through this shit all the time, and the people that don’t like it are the ones that don’t want to really look at themselves. And the ones that do like it say, “I like how vulnerable you were, because it’s easier to relate to you.”

Most people can’t relate to somebody who’s got lots of money and cars, and stuff like that, because they’re going through shit, you know? So I just had to put on front street what I was going through, for real.

How has going through therapy helped you to find the voice to express these struggles in your music?

Because a lot of that stuff that I was expressing through my music was mainly anger and sadness. With anger, that’s a front, and underneath that is the sadness. So going to therapy just helped me explore the other range of emotions that I have: happiness, guilt, melancholy, anger, anxiety — I’ve had to literally go through all of them and feel. And, trust me, that’s pretty hard.

The musical inspirations you’ve listed are multitudinous: jazz, acid jazz, trip hop, R & B, and more. How do you go about incorporating that many influences into a single project?

Hell nah! Because I knew once I put it all together, they were all going to be cohesive either way it went. I just wanted to incorporate all these things because I was hearing them, and you know when you hear a record over here, and a record over here, and a record over here, and you’re like, “If I put this all in a playlist, it’s all gonna flow.” That’s how I looked at it.

You’ve said your next studio album, Designed by Angels, will be an R & B record inspired in part by Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange, D’Angelo’s Voodoo, and OutKast’s Love Below. Is this something you’ve been considering for a long time?

Yeah, I feel like that needs to happen, because they got the angry me, they got the introspective me, they got the lyrical me, the super creative me — the only thing that was missing is the love aspect, the heart chakra, they’re missing that, you know? But before that, you’re gonna get projects like 13LOOD 1N + 13LOOD OUT 2, you’re gonna get Unlocked 2 — and I might even squeeze a third one out there before I even think about touching Designed by Angels. And Unlocked 2 isn’t going to be an EP like its predecessor; it’s going to be more of an album.

Can you give us a tease of what to expect from the Melt My Eyez deluxe?

Jazz, jazz, jazz. All that jazz.

That’s interesting, because on the track “Mental,” you say, “This is not rap, this is bebop”. Do you mean that literally?

Yeah, it is bebop. You’re gonna see what I’m talking about. You’re gonna see it, you’re gonna hear it, you’re gonna feel it, you’re gonna be engulfed in it, you’re gonna embrace it. You will bask in it.

The post Denzel Curry Is Just Scratching the Surface appeared first on Sharp Magazine.