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Unknown Speaker  0:00  

Robin I will see you Monday morning at nine o'clock. We are W and Z k Dearborn heights Detroit's your ethnic superstation at 690 days 680 Nights. W NZK. He has available a few good hours of airtime for all few good programs to serve their communities. Radio is better than ever in targeting an audience that listens to what you say. Learn more about this exciting radio broadcasting opportunity by calling WNZK radio at 248557 3500.

Speaker 1  1:15  

Welcome to very Detroit radio

Unknown Speaker  1:32  

Maduro driving men ahead, the Maduro lonely leading around a bend in the openings of space towards the horizon was nationalist promised us in the vision of the West spine heights at the worlds and coast of blue Pacific Starry Night. Noble and half Bananaman sloping in a tangled night sky. The tournament's is great formations and miss the huddled invisible insect in the car racing onwards illuminate the rocket, the drag the Butte to start to draw the sunflower in the grass, son of orange buted Westlands of Arcadia, following sounds of the isolator, Dewey exposures to infinity and black space, home of the rattlesnake and the gopher. Level of the world low is flat, the charging restless mute on the voice road Keating and a seizure of toggle and power into the route plots as landowners in green unexpected ditches by the side of the road. As I look from here to Elko along the level of this trend parallel to telephone poles I can see above playing in the hot sun it's your sisters. It's yourself beyond the fastest freight train. Speed the small find the size spin the shiny throw the shroud kiss the morning star in the morning glass. Mad rolls tribesmen ahead. Pencil tracer is about famous wish and the travel of the horizon is just nosy cloud help us in a drabble of specialists distance. The Black Sheep clouds parallel above the seams of the CPQ so a little Missouri rocks haunt the Badlands. Harsh dry brownfields roll in the moonlight with a shiny cow's ass telephone calls to the big time. Cutting immensity illustrates the crazy Voyager of alone automobile presses fourth is eager insignificance in those plates and licenses into the past traumas of life. Choices tragic life Jania basis and

Speaker 1  4:01  

good morning and welcome to very Detroit radio. My name is Danko. Souter offski, your host and my sidekick today, Tracy Moy Hello, how you doing today. Tracy? Good, how are you? Good. Um, today's show, we are going to be discussing the spoken word as it affects culture. So, we're going to start off with our first caller. Ken, are you there? Yes, I'm here. Yes, Ken, thanks for calling in. Can tell us a little bit about yourself. You're first of all founder of C chord solutions. My name is Ken Soroka.

Unknown Speaker  4:46  

Right. I'm Ken Soroka. We're proud of C chord Solutions. We're a electronics design company and software programming company servicing we do automotive industry. real medical those kind of areas.

Speaker 1  5:02  

It's interesting, because thank you, first of all for calling into the show, especially since our shows about the spoken word. And I noticed that there's been a lot of talk about artificial intelligence and how that relates to our voice. Right, Tracy? I mean, you've seen a lot more happening with voice activation, right?

Unknown Speaker  5:24  

I feel like you're taking I feel like this is night writer, like come to LA.

Speaker 1  5:28  

Yes, yes. Yes. So in this in this can, um, what's happening is we have Google Alexa, all these things? How does the future look, as far as when we're communicating, let's say, two direct commands in a vehicle. Right? Well, if

Unknown Speaker  5:47  

you know, you used you mentioned Alexa, and in the past, voice recognition has been pretty primitive. So you used to be able to dial into telephones or automatic automated systems, and, you know, speak a number or small, small little clips of phrases. And those were just simply pattern matching algorithms. So you would match like the number one or very small pieces of sound that you could just match, you know, based on frequency or things like that. But as we add artificial intelligence now, as you know, you can talk to Alexa or different things, the, the computer can break the speech pattern down into actual sentences, and then send it to an artificial intelligence pattern matching system, that'll actually process the sentence like the, you know, the human brain processes the sentence,

Speaker 1  6:38  

what, what's changed that's made this possible, as always,

Unknown Speaker  6:43  

what's changed is the compute power. So a lot of artificial intelligence now uses high density graphics processors, instead of just normal CPUs. And you'll notice like on your cell phone, you know, your, you know, people's cell phones nowadays are pretty much with a supercomputer, you know, had back in the 60s and 70s, you know, your cell phone has more processing power than the space shuttle computer. So, but by adding graphic chips into the mix for GPU processing, they can paralyze many, you know, these pattern matching algorithms, they can, you know, you can have hundreds and parallel processing, in trying to match words to phrases and things like that. So the computer can operate written very fast in a parallel type operation.

Speaker 1  7:34  

So your company basically, can, can it take the pretty much from what I understand is that you can take, basically, from the voice command to actual functionality is what your company does. So, it's able to take in the voice, give it a path and give it a functionality to whatever it wants to do, right?

Unknown Speaker  7:59  

Right, we we help program and design the systems that do the matching in, you know, the thinking behind, you know, that will interpret the spoken word, and turn that into an actual command. So, you know, this, these are, like you mentioned, in the vehicle, this is really important, because you don't want to be looking or operating a, you know, your, your, your touchscreen, while you're driving, right, you know, so you want to minimize the driver distraction. So by interpreting and being accurately interpreting words in the car, or commands, or even, you know, more into sentences, you can have the car react to your voice, and, you know, be more accurate in what it does.

Unknown Speaker  8:43  

So how many different variations of this are there? Because when you're driving and you're giving voice commands, sometimes it, you know, mistakenly calls this person but you met this person. So how, how many variations does it need to actually accurately predict what you want? Well,

Unknown Speaker  9:04  

you actually the new with artificial intelligence. So the old system we used to have where you could just say, you know, dial mom or dial dad, you know, those were just matching based on like a frequency, you know, kind of you can think of like maybe an analogue matching, the new systems actually look at the word and can interpret, and they learn based on your voice. So if you, if it makes a mistake, you actually train it, and then the computer will learn over several iterations. How to, you know, what, what it means and how to interpret your voice. Oh, so it just, it evolves? Yes, yes. Yeah, actually, actually, a lot of the artificial intelligence systems they start off in the neural networks, you actually train them. So you train them with another computer, you put a bunch of, you give it a bunch of scenarios like say, here's a stop sign, and then give it a stop sign and the different variations of what a stop sign would look like. and you train the computer, so you don't actually program it, you know, what stops is six sides, you actually show it the image over and over again. And it learns.

Speaker 1  10:13  

That's, that's interesting and scary, right? This moment, I'm thinking like, oh, boy, it's really all, in reading some of the articles on artificial intelligence, basically, what's happening is all this data is being collected. And all of us, through this data are being analyzed and figured out. So

Unknown Speaker  10:38  

where are their safety components? And this? Well,

Unknown Speaker  10:42  

I mean, that's the thing, right? So you have to, you know, along with the training is the computer also makes the state right. So it will, you know, you can say, this is a stop sign and then presented with another image that it will misinterpret. And you have to tell it, no, that's not a stop sign. So it'll learn learn, learn over again. So you mentioned data, and that's why the, you know, the big data today is the buzzword, you know, collecting all this data, because data's, you know, the, the key, right, having all the data to be able to train the computer. So, you know, that you have the right, you know, output that the computer stops making mistakes, right?

Speaker 1  11:20  

Yeah, um, how differently are you attacking the is the program, he's got to be completely different than how you would have typically programmed in the past that you're actually creating something that's absorbing information, and then using it within the program.

Unknown Speaker  11:35  

Right, because you can't even think it's not like linear programming, like you used to do, you know, say, if then do this. It, like I said, you train it. And then based on pattern matching, so it'll match. And that's why the, you know, the introduction of graphics processors into the compute environment, you know, instead of processing video and displaying video, they're actually doing calculations and taking pattern, you know, taking multiple patterns simultaneously, similar to what your brain does. You know, when you look at an image, your brain is automatically trying to say, is that a door, you know, it's square, it has, you know, four sides to it, and you know, the characteristics of a door, and then you match it up to Yes, that's a door and I can walk through it, you know, it's not a wall. Right,

Speaker 1  12:18  

right. Right, right. It's interesting how that leap happened so quick. And all of a sudden, now, I don't know that we, as people understand what that means. And where all this data is going. It seems like everyone's kind of loose on it. And everyone's like, okay, yeah, no problem. I'll get Alexa and Google and whatever. And then that's not really part of your bag. But just from a side note, that's kind of scary. Well, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  12:46  

Because your neighbor is listening to your conversation accidentally.

Speaker 1  12:49  

Right. And I heard that Facebook glitch, which was not Facebook, but based on time. Yeah, that programming, is that fixed?

Unknown Speaker  12:57  

Yeah, I think they fixed

Unknown Speaker  12:59  

that. It was discovered by some 14 year old, I just read an article on it yesterday, I

Speaker 1  13:03  

saw it a few days ago, there's, there's gonna be all kinds of those things as we open up more and more, I think so. So if someone wanted to create something with artificial intelligence that was possibly like a wearable or something like that, C chord solutions could take whatever and, and put the hardware and the software programming together to make a product.

Unknown Speaker  13:30  

Right, we could well, you know, wearable right now that computer can't be shrunk that small. But, you know, what would happen is if you needed like an in cockpit, you know, inside the car, type system, AI system, yes, we would help you build the system, put it together, train it, collect the data, you know, apply the right data, a lot of times, it's not just collecting the data, but you have to, you know, get another company to purchase it, and kind of integrate the system together. So some of these systems go down from the electronics level all the way to, you know, to big data. So you have to know the entire infrastructure in order to you know, provide a complete solution. And that's what we do.

Unknown Speaker  14:10  

So you are also acting as the liaison between whatever companies, you need to make something happen.

Unknown Speaker  14:18  

Yeah, we usually act like a trusted partner to a lot of the companies we work with, and that's what they like that we, you know, we kind of work with them in their best interest. If, you know, if it's something, you know, there's not one company can provide every single thing. So, you know, if you needed, you know, a lot of the companies, even the bigger companies, they go out and they purchase big data, you know, purchase data sources from other people and apply it right. So, as you're training the car to drive down the road, you have to have, you know, having show at intersections or railroad tracks showed all this stuff to train it again, it's not like a normal programming where you say, hey, if it's a railroad track stop, you know, it has to know that railroad tracks look different in different areas, you know,

Speaker 1  15:00  

A scary world we're walking into here with the spoken word, but I want to, I wanted to bring it to light, because I think it's important how we use our words and what's happening with our words and how they're being collected and repurposed.

Unknown Speaker  15:15  

Well, right, and, and I'm sure with the Alexa and all these other, you know, that's why they want to come into your home, because they want to listen to what you're, you know, you're ordering or what you ask. And all that data is being collected and processed by AI, by, you know, all the, you know, all these people, and then, you know, based on your actions, they'll present you with different you know, things so they're gonna say, if you're ordering a lot of, you know, detergent for your washing machine, and they're going to, you know, offer you you'll, you'll notice, certain things will pop up like that. artificials. And yeah, that's AI in the background, interpreting what you're doing, you know, your behavior, right? Like the

Speaker 1  15:53  

retargeting stuff, you see?

Unknown Speaker  15:55  

Yeah, I mean, you don't think about it, because you're like, oh, yeah, I do need laundry detergent, but it's scary that it knows you better than you know, you. Yeah,

Speaker 1  16:03  

I don't I like that. I like to see it's empty, and then I go buy some can. Thank you so much for calling in. What's a good way for folks to get a hold of you? Should they have a question about creating something with like Iot of things?

Unknown Speaker  16:17  

Um, the best thing is just go to our website, www dot C chord solutions.com. And we have our phone number there and email.

Speaker 1  16:26  

All right, thank you for sharing artificial intelligence and the spoken word, how it relates to that can have a great day.

Unknown Speaker  16:33  

Thank you for the opportunity. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Speaker 1  16:35  

Bye now. Alright, that was interesting, huh? Yeah. Kind of scary. What we can do today.

Unknown Speaker  16:42  

That's why I shop so much. They tell me what I need.

Speaker 1  16:45  

Exactly. That's why a lot of people shop so much. Oh, yeah. All right. So next up, we have a great organization coming on, Inside Out Detroit. I'd like to welcome Suma Rosen. soom Are you there?

Unknown Speaker  17:02  

I am. Good morning.

Speaker 1  17:03  

Good morning. Suma. How are you today?

Unknown Speaker  17:05  

I'm great. I'm actually really excited to talk to you guys about Inside Out literary arts. And I'm here with colleague Justin Rogers, who's the head of our citywide poets Procmail program.

Unknown Speaker  17:16  

Well guided to talk to

Speaker 1  17:17  

you guys. Welcome. Well, this, this topic is kind of timely, the spoken word. There's a lot of things going on with Valentine's Day in the love and culture and a black history month. And an all the changes that are happening here in Detroit as we're transforming. It's nice to know that there's an organization like yours, that's helping our youth. save themselves. Yeah. So thanks for being here for our youth. You bet. Tell us a little bit about what got you interested in, in being the executive director there at inside out?

Unknown Speaker  17:58  

Well, inside out for us all has been around since 1995. And grew up out of the community. We were founded by a DPS school teacher who saw firsthand the power of bringing an actual writer of practicing artists into the classroom to work directly with students. We have since grown so that we not only have an in school program, but we also have our citywide poets program, which Justin can talk about, but that provides after school and out of school experiences for teens. And I think one of the things I'm personally most excited about is whether or not our young students become, you know, professional are amazing poets on their own, and many of them are definitely good enough to do so whether or not they actually become poets, the fact that we are working with young people to find their own unique voice and to share that with the world, is what gets me super excited, because I think I really want to live in a world where everyone's voices at the table and that I hear what people think. And I really think when we talk about you mentioned, you know, the revitalization of Detroit, I think that to even begin to have a conversation where we don't have youth as part of it is just a non starter for me. So I'm excited about the work that we're doing and how we help young people empower themselves.

Unknown Speaker  19:19  

I was just gonna say that it's all about empowerment, and feeling like you even have the opportunity to express yourself and that people are really listening to you.

Unknown Speaker  19:27  

Yeah. And I'm gonna put my colleague Justin on the spot here for a second because not only is he the coordinator for our citywide poets program, but he actually came through the program himself as a team.

Speaker 1  19:38  

Oh, hey, Justin. That's interesting. Way to go. So you've been through you've actually been from the beginning to be the future.

Unknown Speaker  19:48  

Yes. Yeah. It's been a long time coming. I was a student in the program back in, oh, 809. So 10 years ago at this point, and I'm honored to be able to coordinate the ends hire program now. So a little bit about the program, citywide poet has 10 high school sites across the city, where we offer after school programming for youth who want to take their writing and their creative aspects to a new level. So each site across the city meets for two hours after school with a well known local artists. And through the program, they have access to performance opportunities, like an open mic that we put on, we do have visitors visiting writers series at the Museum of Contemporary Art. And we actually have one happening tomorrow. So any youth who are interested should come to the museum at 12. And we also do a slam competition, that sends a group of five teams to the national competition known as Brave New Voices. And I also had the honor of participating in Brave New Voices in 2009, and 2011. And those are the spaces where I truly found a literary community on like, an international level. So it's really, really important for us to continue to expose you to the wider world in that way. And that's why we do some of the programs that we don't, have

Unknown Speaker  21:07  

you stayed connected to the people that you met in these competitions.

Unknown Speaker  21:11  

Absolutely. The people that I've met in these competitions are now my best friends. My wife came through this program as well. So literally, my entire life came up. And it was really formulated through poetry and the people I was able to meet and network with, through these programs.

Speaker 1  21:27  

So about basically around words.

Unknown Speaker  21:29  

Yeah, absolutely. There's no way I could have done life without it.

Unknown Speaker  21:34  

So do you still find that you have to recruit students to be in this program, or there, or are they like really just interested in wanting to participate?

Unknown Speaker  21:44  

It's a balance. I was definitely the shy kid who didn't want to write or read anything. But very quickly turn to the one poet in the program who like is always asked to be on stage and is always reading and writing something. So I see that students a lot where it's a, you just need to know that it's okay to say how you feel, without having to put it into an essay without having to work within these bounds that school often kind of forces folks to write within. So you know, those are the students that we're actively recruiting, we're also recruiting the students who have no idea that they're interested in poetry, or have an idea that they like writing, or the students who write music, who don't understand that music can also overlap into poetry. So we are often recruiting students who don't know or don't think they have an interest in this, but kind of when they have the chance to really interact with it, they're exposed to a whole fresh world. And on that same coin, there are many students who are interested who have seen the YouTube videos who have read the anthologies who come and say, Hey, I really, really, really want to be a part of this. So it's a bit of a balance.

Speaker 1  22:53  

I like I like what you're doing because just tracking the after school programs, you're making it sexy, you know, because I think poetry when you look at it, uh, where do you go with it? Right? To a youth? Yeah, um,

Unknown Speaker  23:08  

we really try to promote that, you know, poetry is not the old dead white men form, you know? Yeah. Very alive and thriving. Yes, something very much that a middle schooler can be amazing and be on national stages with you know, it's just as much as the art form as painting or drawing is just as prominent and as important as rap and hip hop. And we kind of just allow spaces for it to be that.

Speaker 1  23:36  

And what I think is great is we also you also do a Detroit poet, low or youth poet laureate, which we have on the line right now your Can you give us a little bit introduction of Amani

Unknown Speaker  23:52  

Sure. I love to talk about Imani. I hope she's listening. So Imani Michelle, joined today by poets. And when you get her on the line, you can ask her

Speaker 1  24:01  

money. Are you there? Yeah. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead.

Unknown Speaker  24:05  

Go ahead. So, Imani is actually I like to say this and always makes her laugh and think that I'm making it up. But she's actually one of my current favorite poets. She she had a chapbook come out in November. That is full of amazing work. She gave a reading that just blew me away. She is an up and coming. I think that she I mean, even though she's the Detroit youth poet laureate, and she's only 18 I think she can share the stage with any adult poet today, anywhere. And we're we're thrilled that the program that we have has actually helped provide some opportunities for Imani to grow as an artist and to meet new people and to receive done a series of workshops with teens and with adults. She's had access to sell access to all sorts of opportunities that probably wouldn't have come her way without this particular role. And it is a competitive process. We had a panel of secret judges who chose we put this as the she's our 2018 youth Poet Laureate. So we'll be doing it again soon. But since Imani is on the line, you should probably talk to her about her and maybe Monica talk about coming into city wide poets and how that's affected her life.

Speaker 1  25:18  

I Amani Hi, good morning. Welcome to our show. Thank you for calling in.

Unknown Speaker  25:23  

Thank you for having me. Absolutely. So

Speaker 1  25:25  

how has poetry changed your life, Amani.

Unknown Speaker  25:30  

Um, in many ways, but I feel like the most the biggest way of changing my life is that he gave me a sense of direction. A lot of times people are like, the traditional path is like, you graduate, you go to college, and then you work. But I've never really been interested in anything like, oh, like being a nurse or something. And like a field like that. So it gave me an idea and the resources to get to like a place that I could be happy. I'm working toward a lifestyle that fits me. And that's

Unknown Speaker  26:08  

at 18. That's, most people don't figure that out. Right?

Speaker 1  26:12  

Ever, right? They get stuck in a course of what you saw what you just mentioned the money and go to college, go there, and then you're in a job, and then you're unhappy, and you're unhappy. So it gives, I would imagine, as a youth, poetry gives you this sense of power to express yourself where you might not have been able to before.

Unknown Speaker  26:38  

I'm most definitely. And I feel like with this tradition, I have a platform to to present those feelings as well, which is big. The beyond being able to like express myself. With city wide poets, and coming and reading work from other artists, it's also opened up my eyes to like, let me know that I that I'm not alone, just like the power in other people's work. And also building community like I met a whole bunch of people. Like I come from a background, nobody writes, nobody knows anything about poetry, but it's like I met a whole bunch of people that like are doing the same thing that I'm doing have similar feelings. And it's like, citywide poetry brought me a community, more so than anything else. And I appreciate that.

Speaker 1  27:26  

So are you prepared to recite a little poem for us? Sure. That'd be that'd be a treat for our audience and us. So let's hear what you have in money.

Unknown Speaker  27:38  

Okay, this poem is entitled, we don't come from college. Okay, we don't come from college funds. My mother is behind on the bills again, I get money hidden inside of a birthday card amount opposite of the year turns 1515 months. I say thank you for the cars. Don't tell my mother about the money. Grandma said it's only for me. And I don't have to share. In fact, I'll be in trouble if I give her a red cent of it. Grandma offers to keep the money in her apartment. My mother has found all of my hiding spots underneath the mattress, behind the dresser, inside of my grandmother's chest, it is funny how money in secret they go hand in hand. And you can never use the same hiding places twice.

Unknown Speaker  28:34  

I'm like in tears over here.

Speaker 1  28:37  

Nice. I mean, to be able to express that I think is critical right? For all all our youth in in Detroit, right to be able to have a voice so

Unknown Speaker  28:50  

do you always write from such a deeply personal perspective?

Unknown Speaker  28:55  

Um, I feel that this space is easiest to write from just because like with me and I know me, but not always sometimes I'm trying to put myself in an another item or another person shoes. Which which is fun and explosive. But most of my writing is like from me, or like my thoughts.

Unknown Speaker  29:19  

When you perform Do you find that you kind of take on a different I don't want to say persona but like that you have a different way to express yourself.

Unknown Speaker  29:30  

Um, surprisingly not really. I feel like I can be my most authentic self onstage. I'm more comfortable like performing than I am just like a one on one because it's like it's a lot less low stakes in my head because like none of these people know me. I can't I don't take them home with me so I can just be myself and unapologetically

Speaker 1  29:55  

it's, it's a great program that you're a part of and Being the Detroit youth laureate, I think we want to be able to tell everybody that they can they can get to your material through inside out. detroit.org. Okay, excellent. Thank you so much, Imani for reciting some poetry and being on our show. I wanted to take this a little bit further with Suma and Justin. So Where where are we going next now with the organization and what are some some cool things happening here now in the future?

Unknown Speaker  30:30  

Oh, well, we always have a lot going on. I want to just as we're wrapping up on the money sharing some poetry with us this morning, I just wanted to also say that she's a really fantastic example of the two kinds of things that we really focus on, there's that we say we help young people write for the page and for the stage. Amani, if you look at her work on the page, it's lyrical, it's beautiful. She's incredibly expressive and descriptive, and it's gorgeous. And it holds up if you're just reading it quietly to yourself, but if you ever have the opportunity to see her step up on the stage is a completely different experience. And many of our young people can do both of those things. Some of them feel that they're, they're like, yeah, no, I don't really want to perform, I want to write for the page. And some of them are like, no, no, I really like competitive poetry slams, or I really like the space of like, you know, bringing it as a performance. And that whole width is a it's quite an amazing spectrum. So she's she's a unique example of someone who can who can do both.

Unknown Speaker  31:34  

Oh, sorry, I don't want to interrupt. But I was watching some of the videos on YouTube of these kids perform of the you know, your, and just the tempo and the beat and how they feel about it, it really comes out. It's an amazing thing to watch.

Unknown Speaker  31:49  

Yeah. So. So in terms of what's coming up, we're actually kind of coming into our busiest season, if you will, in terms of places where people can come check us out in the community space. Justin did mention that we we have a visiting writers series called scrapes the page, and we have one tomorrow, we have another one on March 2. And while they while the visiting writer does do a workshop with teams, which is close to the public, and that's only 14 participants, they do do an open mic and feature performance. So I will probably be checking that out tomorrow around 230. So that's one thing. So like you can check out that's on our there's information about that series on our Facebook page. In addition, we are coming into slam season which I'm going to have Justin say some more about which is if you've never seen a poetry slam it is an incredible ride. And I'll let him talk more about that. And then we're coming into our annual youth Poetry Festival at the end of April, which is the it's Michigan's it's a Statewide Youth poetry festival called Louder Than a Bomb. And it's the last weekend in April. And there are sections of that weekend festival that are open to the public as well. Justin,

Speaker 1  33:03  

looking forward to that all these events sounds like just a good time I saw you at the DIA performing some stuff there with your group. Yeah, Justin, let us know a little bit about where you're going with the slam stuff. Yeah, absolutely.

Unknown Speaker  33:17  

Um, so some of the videos that you all the videos actually that you've seen online on YouTube are from our previous year's slam competition. So if that's something that you've enjoyed, you will definitely enjoy our slam series. So the way this works is we have two qualifying slams where all of our students register to be a part of the competition and the top 12 scoring poets from those two competitions. Move on to a Grand Slam. Grand Slam is at L club in southwest Detroit on March 21. Open to the public, there is a $5 suggested donation. And those top 12 scoring poets will go through three rounds of flam competitions. And at the end, the top five scoring poets will be named our Detroit youth poetry slam team. And that slam team will practice and engage in the community from April all the way up to July when they get ready to go to the national competition break.

Speaker 1  34:16  

Well, we'll uh, we will definitely share this information on our Facebook page and to our audience as well. I want to thank you, Suma, and Justin for coming on our show. Amani, thank you for being on our show. I'd like to finish it off here. We're gonna go to one of the YouTube videos to kind of wrap up from Aaron Mahone any quick introduction about that? It's a

Unknown Speaker  34:47  

folks. Yeah, oh, yeah. Which Which one is

Speaker 1  34:50  

the one I wanted to do with soulfood? Yes,

Unknown Speaker  34:53  

I mentioned that. Yeah, no, I love all of Aaron's work. So I'm gonna let the work speak for itself. But Karen is a student from our Detroit Main Library site Okay, our main library site is open to all teams in the city and meet on Wednesday evenings from 430 to 630 and other than outside to work sampler So

Speaker 1  35:11  

alright, I just wanted to leave leave you here with a little bit of SLAM so here we go thank you inside out for everything that you're doing Have a great day. Thanks for having us. Are you better by

Unknown Speaker  35:23  

the gatekeeper of all thank goodness and I can morph into the frying pan God at the wick of a gas stove it's about love and courage just like the cottage cheese held them up vessels cuz my family I never heard in the low carb gluten free diet see we can job for someone jazz in our system too much blue grass caught in it for five star jumps too much. survivor's guilt for being picked on an ocean seeping salt into our skin until it's the only thing we want to drown in the flowery melody of taking arteries is all my family drowns in but there's a bug that could cause what's a high pretension anyways nothing has come to granny how to cook for diabetics our image component to a crispy gives a man was nothing so when we are at no so food. This is more than a season deal. This is a lifestyle and black folks dying from a corrosive heart sounds like a wise to me cuz our blood pressure is nothing but a myth. Right?

Speaker 1  36:29  

Right. All right, folks, make sure you check out inside out Detroit, they're doing some great things help support the organization. They do great things for our youth to be able to express themselves in many different ways through it in school programs and outside of school. So Tracy, yeah, that was a pretty interesting conversation here with some great poets next. Yeah, it was really good. Um, next up, we have a Peter are calling in from the up Peter. Are you doing a so what are you doing in the up over there, Peter?

Unknown Speaker  37:18  

All right now I gotta be getting off of I'm 69 It's getting a little wet and slippery. Just too hard to keep on it.

Speaker 1  37:26  

Well, is that your main job over there up there in the up is to make sure that anything on it keeping on it?

Unknown Speaker  37:33  

Sometimes you just gotta ride it while you can. You know? I got I got a couple of beavers I got I got to tell someone a little bit here. You beaters. Little bit extra beavers for your Peter beavers for the theater. Yeah.

Speaker 1  37:49  

So tell us tell us what a little bit about em 69 dryer balls.

Unknown Speaker  37:56  

Well, the dryer balls, you know, they go in there they go in there. They make sure everything stays nice and soft for you. Okay, that you don't get some things you just don't want getting too hard. You know, see, I

Speaker 1  38:06  

didn't know that up in the up that they actually use the dryer balls all the way up there.

Unknown Speaker  38:12  

Well, up here, you know, you get a couple of folks. They don't really like to do it, you know, but but the rest of us. Some of us we like to we like to just grab those balls and throw them in there. And keep everything kind of tumbling around nicely.

Speaker 1  38:26  

Well

it does make it fluffy right. That's the purpose of the dryer balls don't they also make them a little bit drier? Like the laundry actually get done faster?

Unknown Speaker  38:42  

Yeah, they care any they make it? They let you get over with a quick you know? Uh huh. So you're not you're not just you know, beating it, you know,

Unknown Speaker  38:52  

over and over. You can't decide today if you fast or slow, right? It's

Speaker 1  39:00  

the weather up there and the UPS really change things up for you guys up there.

Unknown Speaker  39:05  

But sometimes you do you got to change things up. You can't always just go out at the same route. Well gotta you got to experiment with a few other ways.

Speaker 1  39:15  

Well, I feel for you guys. I know you experienced the vortex and then the ice storms and now coming out. slippery and wet. Yeah, yeah. Well, folks, if you need some more information on em dash 60 nine.com Please get out there and and see what you need because m dash 69 really needs your support. Thank you Peter for calling in and they have cool stuff and they really do have cool stuff. Mugs, T shirts and whatnot. Alright, air dryer balls to thank you so much, Peter for the update up there. Thank you. Alright, have a great day later. All right. So that was nice to know all the conditions up there. Next up, we are continuing with the spoken word tracing Ah, and we are honored to have ha on the phone AJ Are you there?

Unknown Speaker  40:08  

I'm here.

Speaker 1  40:09  

How are you today?

Unknown Speaker  40:10  

Very, very good. How are you guys doing?

Speaker 1  40:13  

Good, good. Um, first of all, um, how should we address you just by AJ or you're known as

Unknown Speaker  40:23  

I like to go by Jedi Master if you guys don't mind that would be fantastic. Or or Sith Lord, whatever doesn't matter. Ha, ha, ha find

Speaker 1  40:40  

it. But if we wanted to find you in the director world,

Unknown Speaker  40:44  

oh yeah, yeah, my full name, which is a lot harder to pronounce is Jamal, the here, Ahmad. So you just need to type that in into Google. But my last name is Aman ah, ma D. First name is AJ ma L.

Speaker 1  41:02  

Excellent. Thank you so much for calling. I'm so excited to have you on our show here. Talking about the spoken word. You're a writer, you're a director, you're from Detroit? Has this always been your passion?

Unknown Speaker  41:16  

Yeah, ever since I was a little kid. You know, as soon as I knew that a movie was something you could make. It was my passion. So ever since I can remember and probably to be honest with you. It's my first month in existence on the plant. And I think I started liking this kind of stuff. And I've been drawing ever since I was two years old. So it's been kind of in my DNA forever.

Speaker 1  41:41  

It's to me as a filmmaker, director, writer, are you visual? Or are you more? Using the words to kind of guide the scenes?

Unknown Speaker  41:53  

You know what? I'm going to tell you a couple of times. That's a pilot. That's one of the best questions I've ever gotten from anyone in my life. Wow.

Speaker 1  42:01  

Thank you. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  42:03  

Because, yeah, it's something that actually is very pertinent to me. Number one, I find that in, in just life in general, in everything from school business, friendship, relationships, what have you. Words and communication are the most integral and important thing that will get you to connect to other people. And it will get you to relay the information you want to relay or convey the emotion you want to convey. So words are one of the most important tools we have. So it's extremely important to me, however, with the amazing question you asked, I am an extremely visual person, you've heard the term, a picture's worth 1000 words. Sure. And so let me give you an example. What I mean by that, if you are if you're making a scene or watching a movie, and you hear a character, say to another character, I love you. Well, it tells the it tells the idea, it definitely works. But if the character is silent, and you see them, sacrifice themselves, if we watched them sacrifice themselves for another character, like their life, then you feel the love. So I've always been extremely visuals and for little kids. So I think I approach things from a very visual standpoint, and that's where my passion lies at sometimes with a one image. You can tell 1000 if not a million words.

Speaker 1  43:43  

Yeah. And really your last, your, your your current film that the trailer is out. When will it be released? Official?

Unknown Speaker  43:54  

You know, we literally just put the finishing touches on this film. And when I say I mean, I mean literally like last week, well, sound design was completed. And what's been happening was our plan was to start the sales process as soon as the movie is done. And we just started by happenstance getting into quite a few festivals. And by happenstance, yeah, meaning that we didn't know that we would start hearing back from them so early. And it just happened at the beginning of this starting middle of last month. And we just heard from one and then another, and then another and then another. And so what we realize is that this is a perfect opportunity right now to start building up a kind of like a, what we hope, a groundswell of support for the film from Michigan people and especially Michigan moms and their kids because the movie is filled with just extremely talented children from all over Michigan. So we're going to be doing that over the course of the next three months. And of course, we have started getting into a lot of inquiries about distribution. But what we're gonna do is we're just going to see for the next two months, how the reaction of the audiences are, and then start using that as a way to kind of build up a following for the film. And that should also help with the distribution process as well. So to answer your question better, we're doing both things concurrently.

Unknown Speaker  45:25  

Do you want to say what the film is called? Just called

Speaker 1  45:32  

Well, yeah,

Unknown Speaker  45:33  

yeah. Yeah, the film is called my soul to keep, or MST, K for short. And we actually were very honored to have been exclusively our trailer was exclusively released. On Joe blow.com, one of the more influential movie news sites. Sweet.

Speaker 1  45:57  

Oh, well, you know, the trailer. I mean, that's great. Yeah. Beautiful job. I can't imagine the movies just as as great. And it

Unknown Speaker  46:05  

was nice. I see the kid in the Detroit Tigers t shirt. Yes. I like that.

Speaker 1  46:10  

Yes, that was that was cool. Oh, AJ, I like that. Yes, it was a jersey. It was a tiger. Was it a t shirt jersey.

Unknown Speaker  46:20  

It's a t shirt. In fact, there's a lot of a lot of Easter egg. In the movie for traitors. Michiganders trance Transformers fans at fan GI Joe fans, Quicken Loans fans have had fans. There's a lot of stuff in there. For a lot of people, and I'm glad you caught some of the stuff already. But yeah, we were very, very honored to have them put the teaser up. They wrote an amazing write up. I think they were being extremely generous and very nice to us with the write up that they put up there, but it's been getting, you know what, I can't ask for anything better for the first couple of days after revealed the poster in the teaser. So

Speaker 1  47:02  

so it's a horror. It's so let's just let's go over it really quickly. It's a horror. It's a horror film.

Unknown Speaker  47:09  

Yep, you know, we've been everybody wins and asking. So what is the movie and me and the other two producers, Justin Highness and Yolanda Mendoza. So us three kind of make up the core team. For the film, we have been telling everybody it's kind of like, Home Alone meets Halloween. And with a little bit of a scarier twist to it. So it's kind of got elements of really nice adventure movies from the 80s like Guney. Scott's gonna say Goonies. Yeah, it's got some of those elements in it, for sure. It's got definitely the home loan vibe, because the kid gets a home loan. And, and for sure, he's got to find out if if what he thinks is real. He thinks there's something living in his basement is trying to steal his soul. So he finds out if this thing is real or not, throughout the film, so it's we weren't, you know, until you're done with a movie, you know what your expectations are until you're done with a movie, you're not really sure what it's going to end up being you it kind of takes on a life of its own. But we were again, very honored. We just released the news yesterday, we were officially selected by the horror hound Film Festival and convention. That's actually happening in Cincinnati. In March. It's the largest convention of its size between 35 and 50,000 people attend this convention. That's great. Congrats to that. That's

Speaker 1  48:37  

fantastic.

Unknown Speaker  48:38  

Thank you so much. I mean, we're really proud. In a couple days, you're

Speaker 1  48:41  

getting all these official selections and all this.

Unknown Speaker  48:45  

Yeah, well, you know what I'm gonna, you know, take the time on your radio show to announce that we just found out that we actually won an award. Oh, in effect, yeah. Yes. Yep. We won an award from indie fest.com I started indie fest Film Festival and it was for excellent special excellence. And that was something we just found out about yesterday, I believe. So we we've been getting a couple actually a lot of a lot of things moving over the past couple of days. And beforehand festival is our is our really kind of big thing. And it it just lets everybody know, and let us know that they're taking it seriously as a scary movie or as a horror film, even though it's got this really, really strong kind of kid vibe to it. But it's really about the magic of childhood. And that also includes, you know, the fear when you're a little kid you feel magic all around you. But you also believe that there's something under your bed and that's kind of like the magic

Speaker 1  49:39  

house scared all

Unknown Speaker  49:41  

still in my basement. To tell us

Speaker 1  49:46  

a little bit about who supported the process of the filmmaking. I mean, because it's not inexpensive to make a film.

Unknown Speaker  49:54  

Yeah, well, you know, we, our company did and the same team that made our last Film gin, we've got two executive producers, Richard Mandell and najem SIADH. And also our team of Justin Highness Yolanda Mendoza, and myself. So we're the same team that made our first feature film gin. And we're here in Michigan, we were here way before the incentive. We're here. Of course, after the incentive, our goal really is to continue making movies here in Michigan. That's why we were. That's why we were created. That's why we're here. And that's why we take we're taking these risks, it is a very risky business. And the fact that we're still here is very, it's very unusual, to be honest, that we've seen companies come and go, come to Michigan, leave Michigan, go in business go out of business, and we're still here. And it's really at the end of the day, a passion. I can't be more highly of Richard, and najem. Who are just that, I mean, we raised money for our first film, we we've done our second film now. And it's really been quite play speed. Yeah. And I hope, I really hope that people out there who who believe that we can create something great in Michigan, and in Detroit, I hope they support the movie. I really think that we can do this for years to come as like a mini studio here. And we've proven that we're not here because the incentive we're here because of movies.

Unknown Speaker  51:33  

Yeah, no, that's great.

Speaker 1  51:34  

I write reason not for

Unknown Speaker  51:36  

the cash. You do other things too, though, like advertising music videos. I mean, there's a couple things I've seen on your

Unknown Speaker  51:43  

car. Yes, we are a very strange company. We we make movies we do national and regional TV spots. We've done a lot of TV spots for Quicken Loans, one reverse mortgage. Anytime you see Henry Winkler on TV, the Fonzie. We've done those commercials. A Yep.

Unknown Speaker  52:01  

I noticed I noticed you were actually in the video. And

Unknown Speaker  52:06  

yeah, yes, the music video, right. Yeah, I'm right, Lee, actually, you'll see. You'll see, Shaw had played one of the other producers, Richard Mandela's in there, I'm in there. It's great. Yep. We always try to sneak in our friends and especially our friends kids into our production. So you'll see a little girl in that movie in that music video. She's also Mr. Sides. Daughter, she's grown up since then a little bit. But we try to sneak in Oh, she's also in the movie as well. She's in my soul to keep but she's in a classroom scene at the beginning. So you'll always see some cameos from Michigan people in and around our project.

Speaker 1  52:47  

Maybe we you can sneak us in a couple now. Somewhere in the back,

Unknown Speaker  52:55  

when and where and we will put you in for sure. I will probably at all

Speaker 1  52:58  

I want to say congratulations again. Watching the trailer I could tell it was great. How much time you took to evaluate each shot. The cinematography, I thought was great. So really great.

Unknown Speaker  53:12  

The colors, the angles, I mean, it just it looked really good.

Speaker 1  53:15  

Really nice job.

Unknown Speaker  53:16  

Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd like to just compliment our cinematographer. His name is Yan Miculek. And he is McKay like I believe is how you pronounce it. And he is phenomenal. I mean, together we were able to design every shot. And the and the guy just really brought it we actually did something new for this movie. I call it XO morphic. It's actually a super wide anamorphic way of filming a movie where we use a very new camera system and made them with very old lenses, like we're talking two year old lenses, and got a really interesting little

Unknown Speaker  53:59  

thing, because it seems like it was really clear.

Speaker 1  54:03  

Yeah, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  54:04  

Yeah. Yep. It is. It's extremely clear. It's shot in 6k. It's really a very, very high resolution. And it's it's shot in a very, very modern camera system. But to make it feel and look very, I guess, non digital. We paired it with these lenses that have been around for like 70 years. And they have their own problems and issues. But what they do is character magic. Yeah. Got character. Right, exactly. And that's something you don't find a lot in digital productions. They usually look like digital productions. This one doesn't. And I'm very happy to say that the look turned out exactly the way that we intended. And it's one of the achievements of of the film so far.

Unknown Speaker  54:46  

We're excited to see

Speaker 1  54:48  

Yeah, absolutely. We'll keep our audience posted for it. And again, congratulations to a Detroit, Michigan made film Exodus pictures I appreciate that. Thank you, AJ, for calling and we wish you all the best and luck for the coming year and getting that show out. And we will help as much as we can have a great day.

Unknown Speaker  55:10  

Thank you all. So if you don't mind, if you could just let your audience know that if they if they'd like to support the film, they can find it at my soul to keep on the Facebook on Facebook. They can also find it on Instagram as well. And we'd love them just to start joining the Instagram page at my soul to keep the movie and the Facebook page so we can start building our numbers and our support.

Speaker 1  55:32  

Yeah, and we will share that on our Facebook page to to your Facebook page and to wherever your newest information is to so thank you so much and my soul to keep we're excited to to watch it grow and become a sensation.

Unknown Speaker  55:50  

Thank you very much, guys. I really appreciate it. Thank you taking anyone by

Speaker 1  55:53  

No. Okay. All right. Wow, what a great great guests we've had on for the spoken word today hunt crazy.

Unknown Speaker  56:01  

Yeah, love the talker. Oh, yeah, my favorite. Yes, yes.

Speaker 1  56:05  

Yes. Um, so next up, we have wizard, wizards wisdom wizard. Are you there? Hey, Dan, go. How are you doing? Oh, pretty good. How are you today?

Unknown Speaker  56:15  

I'm great man doing great. Back in the frozen tundra. Yes,

Speaker 1  56:19  

yes. Yes. Yes. And so you're coming from Virginia. We're all that political mess is going on down there.

Unknown Speaker  56:26  

Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  56:29  

At all pop. They're so interesting. Conversations are different. Yeah. So

Speaker 1  56:33  

wizards wisdom is our weekly wrap up of the wizard stock wizard. You operate out of tangent gallery. And you give us some some interesting thought every week about law life.

Unknown Speaker  56:52  

I was thinking because there's a spoken word up so that I might do one of my poems was the limit if that's all right, yeah. All right. Go for it. All right. Because all meditation has been discovered to be the missing link between mind and spirit, the dusty dirt road that connects urban sprawl, so full of silence and a sea of noise to it involves where sunsets paint as revelations and fractal languages across the sky. But too many people stick to the highways. Nowadays, too many people ignore that dusty dirt road and the overwhelming pole of the black hole located directly in the center of their forehand. Now I know the Step Into Darkness has never been easy for anybody. But I promise I have made that journey tip toeing the fine line between rhythm and chaos at a speed of 77 beats per minute. I've been spun upside down by the heavenly connection and I ascended the ladder of time and each rung quieted the clocks until there was silence. And finally, I could hear the harmony as the trinity of time drew their bows across the fabric of the universe. I listened to his past and present and future all joined in the joy for the treasure of timelessness. I was baptized in the Milky Way and I ascended to orbit the sun and we dance, we dance. We danced until the moon came up. And here I stood at the cross points of time with pirouettes lingering in my toes and size caught in my throat as I watched the history of this world unfold because I watched them stumble and then mumble and then stumble again and choose too big for their souls. They tried to put on their daddy shoes before they were full grown children of the infinite so of course they stumble. But all I wanted to do was to teach them to dance. All I wanted to do was to hold their hands across the lines of insanity and fetal infinity to become stillborn children of enlightenment. Drowning and sanity. Living in light and dying in a

Speaker 1  58:49  

WOW WOW wizard. Thank you. You're welcome. We have gone to another dimension with those words. Tracy

Unknown Speaker  59:02  

I'm ageless over here.

Speaker 1  59:04  

Um, thank you for leaving us with those wise wise words wizard. Man very Detroit. Signing off great leaving you with the little purple words from Jack Kerouac.

Unknown Speaker  59:17  

The draw the sunflowers in the grass, orange buted Westlands, Arcadia, follow on sounds and the isolator, Dewey exposures to infinity and black space, home of the rattlesnake and the golfer. Level of the world low and flat charging restless mute on the voice road Keating and a seizure of toggle and power into the

Unknown Speaker  59:44  

W NZK. Has available a few good hours of airtime for all few good programs to serve their community.