SPEAKER_00 1:46

Welcome back to another episode of the Hilltop Glove Podcast. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Pierce Freelon. Pierce is a Durham, North Carolina-based musician, Emmy Award-winning producer and professor at the University of North Carolina. He is the founder of Black Space, a digital makerspace, offering black and brown youth the breathing space to manifest their dreams through programming and poetry, coding, puppetry, 3D printing, animation, beatmaking, rap photography, and DJing. Pierce is the co-creator of Beatmaking Lab, which produced an Emmy Award-winning PBS series called The History of White People in America. Beatmaking Lab is a community-based program that teaches kids electronic music production, entrepreneurship, and the history of beatmaking. His critically acclaimed children's music has been featured in Billboard and Rolling Stone. Pierce is also the frontman of a jazz hip-hop band, The Beast. And as a professor at UNC Chapel Hill, he teaches African American and Despora studies. He studied his master's at Pan-African. He studied his master's he received his master's, I'm sorry, in Pan African Studies from Syracuse University. Pierce, how are you today?

SPEAKER_03 3:03

I'm doing good. How about you?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

I'm doing great. Thank you for joining us this morning. And I can say that I had the pleasure of doing your background information, and I really did learn a lot about you. So thank you for being who you are.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

Thank you for the wonderful introduction. I do I want to say just one little caveat. So everything that you mentioned is has not happened simultaneously. So for example, I'm not currently a professor at UNC over the years. I think I started teaching at the university in 2009, but I'm not currently teaching there. So these things happen at different times over the course of a career over a decade. So you hear all that, you're like, dang, you're a teacher. You did this, that, and that. It's like, yeah, but not all at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

When I was reading your information, I'm like, wow, he has a lot on his resume. I don't even know like what to actually put. Like you had so much going on. So I wanted to kind of touch everything. But can you give the people a little bit of background, your background information, and tell them a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_03 4:09

Sure. Well, you just did the most thorough job running through every little thing that I've done. Yeah, I mean, I'm an art I'm an artist, entrepreneur, and a father and husband, and you know, and uh and a writer and musician. Like that's I definitely wear a lot of hats, and that's been you know, that's worked well for me. I think that I have a lot of interests, and the there are overlapping, a lot of what you described are kind of overlapping projects. So, for example, at Blackspace, where I mentor youth, like the most recent woke shop we did at Blackspace was a podcasting woke shop. I'm working on this podcast. And what I what I often do is when I have a project, like History of White People is animated a podcast I'm working on, is called Work at Work. It's like introducing kids to workplace jobs. I get youth that I mentor in the community to work on those projects. They've been trained up in audio engineering and mixing and music production, and I hire them to do jobs that are connected to projects that I'm that I'm that I'm working on. So, for example, in History of White People in America, there's like high school kids who did the engineering for that. There are there's kids who did the production on that, there's kids who've done voiceover work for the episode, voicing some of the characters, and we do all that at Blackspace. So it sounds kind of like, oh, how do you have time to like mentor and work on creative projects? I'm like, well, the mentoring is working on the creative projects because these mentees, they're dope, they're skilled, they're talented. We've trained them up, so they're equipped to do professional level, you know, peers, collaborators. So yeah, just finding a way for me to blend the worlds that I care deeply about is kind of is is the how when you look at all this stuff and you're like, how do you there are not enough hours in the day to be, you know, all these things. So anyway, that's just a little life hack for you that I've used.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

But that's perfect that you keep the kids involved in everything that you have going on. So to get into more of your childhood, uh, what age were you when you actually decided to take an interest in music?

SPEAKER_03 6:21

I was always interested in music. You know, my mom uh was reminding me the other day that, you know, I had a bunch of imaginary friends and uh I would make plays and do things at home. I had this play that I wrote, wrote, I'm using air quotes with my fingers with a rope. But basically I had a dream about these people who lived in the trees, and they jumped out of the trees and the lightning strikes as soon as they hit the ground. It's like Shazam. And then I would hit the little light switch in the house, like you know, to simulate lightning and you know, just very creative household. You know, my home was full of records, and my mom was a singer and a musician, and you know, my dad, though, you know, played the drums, but also was like a DJ, and you know, like just had a very uh rich uh upbringing and legacy with my parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, my great-grandfather, my dad's grandfather was a painter in the Harlem Renaissance, and you know, just just grew up around artsy people. So there was never like a moment where I was like, now I'm gonna do music. It's like, yeah, music was a part of our daily lives, and I never thought about it as something that I needed to get into because it was the air that you know that I breathed, uh, brothed, breathed.

unknown 7:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

I guess it's breathed as a child. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Now your mom is a jazz in the jazz scene also, so did you ever get to see her perform?

SPEAKER_03 7:59

Oh my goodness, all the time. She uh she was, I guess it was interesting. Before I was born, she was like a nurse or was training to become one. That's what brought her to North Carolina was UNC Hospital and my dad, and they got married in 1979. And uh, you know, her her training, her background, her undergraduate degree was all leading her towards being a healthcare professional. But after I was born, I'm the youngest of three. After I was born, you know, she had this interesting choice on her hands about re-entering the workplace, and you know, she had always had a passion for music and jazz music in particular. You know, she and my dad kind of talked it out, and he was like, Look, you need to do what you love and what you're passionate about. And if that's music, you know, go for it. And uh so anyway, I don't know what my siblings experience was like, but pretty much my entire life, my mother has been immersed in her music. So yeah, I was doing homework backstage at the Carolina Theater, and you know, she took me on tour with her when I was in middle school. We went to Japan, we went to Finland, got to go to the Grammys in the mid-90s when she was first nominated. Wow. And, you know, it's just that's been, you know, not all of it glitzy and glammy, you know, early in her career, especially in the late 80s, early 90s before she got signed. You know, it's like the Bimbey music festival in Durham or Centerfest, or you know, she used to perform in the lobby at the hotel downtown during the holidays, like singing tunes, you know, around town, but you know, gradually built her career from from the bottom and and was talented and built relationships and and here in Durham with at North Carolina Central. There's a jazz program there, and she met Brother Yusuf, who was a jazz pianist from New York, who had relocated to Durham to teach at Central, and he connected her with some folks, and you know, the rest is history. But it's uh yeah, grew up in a very creative household, and my mom was a great example for me in pursuing your passion in life. And yeah, I've I've followed suit.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Would you say that she is your biggest inspiration, or who else inspired you as a child growing up? Like, did you listen to a certain type of music?

SPEAKER_03 10:32

Yeah, well, you know, I would say influences they're not all musical. Like, uh for me, it was really more the way my parents showed up for each other and themselves. So like I would say my mom influenced my sister as well, who's a visual artist, not because you know she pursued the same career trajectory as my mom, but because she, you know, showed my sister what it's like to trust yourself as an entrepreneur, as a businesswoman, to pour yourself into your art and and trust that that you know the wings that that you build will sustain you in flight. You know, because it is a bit, you know, the metaphor there is like jumping out the nest and hoping that you can fly and don't just curse flat on the ground. It's like that takes a lot of courage. And my mom was a woman who who did that and who whose you know the air caught her before she hit the ground and she was able to soar. And so that was definitely an inspiration. But my dad did the same thing. My dad was an architect, and um, you know, he had some crucial uh moments in his career where you know he was working for this firm called O'Brien Atkins and was like a VP and you know, had a great salary in company car and was doing really well, and you know, had a moment in his career where he decided to leave practicing architecture to get his master's and and then decided to start his own firm. And you know, that's risky, like, you know, for a black man in the South to just, you know, in a field where there aren't a lot of black architects, you know, just to say, like, I'm gonna do me. Like, and to start from scratch, to take a huge pay cut to say, babe, like I'd rather do for myself than than work for these guys that I respect. You know, it's not like they were jerks or anything. They treated him very well because he was good at his job, but uh he he chose instead to bank on himself. So so that you know, that's inspirational to me, not because I'm an architect, but because it showed me a blueprint around what you know what believing in yourself can achieve. And so yeah, I'd say my dad and my mom were huge inspirations, and there are many, many, many others that I could name, but you know, start at home with my parents for sure.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Excellent. Excellent. Well, good morning, Pierce. I'm finally up here. I made it up here, it's DJ and what speaking with you this morning. And I know my brother, before we jumped into the show, I know we were discussing the fact that we do talk to a lot of people from a similar quote unquote as you are and black creatives, especially. We love having them on the show, um, especially understand uh entrepreneurial uh aspects of being a creative and making it something that can be a quote unquote career. And one of the things that we always like to ask, and this is like the same same question we ask to most of them, is just what like in your mind or your words, what's the importance of having black creatives in art worldwide and even here in the US? Like, what is the importance of having you all's have you say perspective on life? What does that bring to our culture?

SPEAKER_03 13:57

That's a great question. I mean, look, black people are dope. We're we're creative, you know, and there's just different, there's just different words. If you look back in history, you know, cool, swag, sauce, juice, like what you want to call it, like soul, black people got soul. Glow. Like, listen, we've been kissed by the sun, and somehow our melanated superpowers are just oozing out of our flesh in the form of a lot of dope things in this world. And you can see that by the way that our culture is just embraced by everyone, like jazz, you know, breakdance, hip-hop, you know, our foods, our slang, our clothing. Like, come on, we got it. We are it. And I think that our presence in spaces is an amplifier. It just is uh it's an X factor. And I, you know, and I don't think that's unique to black people either. You know, like everybody's got their own flavor, and and I think that, you know, there's a couple good metaphors, but food is one of them. You know what I mean? Like just think about the think about the you remember that um Black Jeopardy sketch with uh Chadwick Bozeman where they were talking about uh potato salad. Yeah, yeah. You know, Karen's potato salad got raisins in it. Like raisins in it. Listen, it's not good. Listen, but you know what? Somebody out there, some Ukrainian they love it. And bless their hearts, you eat that raisin potato salad. We're gonna be over here with grandma's potato salad, but you you you do your raisins. Like, do you I'm not mad at the raisins. That's just not how we get down. And and what a beautiful thing that that you know you have Ukrainian folks, and over here you got sushi. Over here you got, you know, chimichangas, over here you got, you know, Fufu from West Africa. Then on in East Africa, you got Jerry and the you know, Ethiopian cuisine. We eat with our hands over here. South, you know, it's a wache in in the you know, in this area. So there's just what a beautiful opportunity to be on a planet with so many different vibes, so many different flavors. I'm just saying, our flavor, it's a little spicy. It's a little, it's a little, mm, ooh.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Do you think we have a do you think we have a and always we have we have debates about this, but do you think we have a unfair force on the worldwide culture? Do you know what I mean? Like, do you think we impact it in a greater way than than other cultures at times? Whether it be negative or positive.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

Like punching above our weight kind of thing. Like, well, here's the thing. Here's the funny thing about white supremacy. They want us to believe that culture is European culture and that black culture is this thing on the side. Southeast Asian culture, you know, for India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, that's just a little, that's just a little spice. You know, East Asian culture with their centuries and millennia of literature, of art, of because we never read Japanese authors in middle school, because we never study Chinese or even Russian playwrights, you know, it's all Europe. And look at a map. I saw this uh video with uh what's the name? Oh god, Mississippi rapper Lanner. I saw this thing on on Instagram of him talking about how maps are upside down and the North Pole is actually in the south, and vice versa. And, you know, we obviously know that the scale of maps is tremendously distorted and Africa's way too small, and you know, America and Europe are huge in comparison. That's a great metaphor for the significance of white culture globally as it really is versus how they portray it to be. They build it up in our minds to be this, to be the standard, when in reality they're a small piece and a large of everybody, and Africans are a big old chunk. Yes, uh, that whole continent. Like, so I think if you look at a if you look at an accurate map, you'll probably see you know something that is uh is different from what you've been taught, and that that distortion that erases indigenous contribution, that erases Asian black and and and just and elevates disproportionately not just white, but a particular type of European legacy and contribution that makes us feel like when black culture spreads around the world, like, oh man, it's just little old black culture, but everybody loves up. No, man, like black culture is the source of all of it. So of course we're influential around the world. We've been influential around the world for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. And European got all of their, you know, stuff around agriculture and written language and literature, you know, all that was popping in the Songhai Mali Empire, you know, in Northern Africa. All that was popping like back when they were still, you know, in a in a in a less developed, to put it nicely, in a less developed state in Europe. And that's not, listen, I'm not one of these hoteps out here that a black man is, you know, every culture has developed. Every culture has developed in different ways in human culture as a species, not black folks, which is something that's recent. We created that recently. Human culture, they it has sparks when there are fusions and remixes of different peoples. Yeah, so bless their hearts. We showed them about bathing and technology and writing and agriculture, and they took it and ran with it. Good for y'all. Great. Yeah, that's what you're supposed to do. Yeah, yeah, that's what you're supposed to do. Listen, and we learn stuff from you know, Asian cultures and indigenous cultures, you know, like it's just it's a mixtape. Like, let's win, okay?

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Let's all everybody. What's uh what's what's DJ Khaled said say all the time? This is enough money for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 20:52

Everybody, right? So yeah, yeah. This isn't a way to like, you know, disparage ancient Europeans or whatever. No, like everybody, every people on this con on this planet has contributed worthy things and learned from others and and collectively we built. So I I yeah, what I think is that there is a myth of white superiority and relevance globally that is perpetuated by the education that we were raised under, and that makes us underscore black contributions because we we weren't taught those contributions in the same way that we were taught European history, and that that Eurocentric curriculum is you know is part of a colonial, it's a legacy of slavery and colonialism. Like do you think that's something that hinders them as well? Of course it hinders them. Like, white supremacy is not nice to anyone, but very a very wealthy subset of white men, mostly. Like it and most first of all, most white people are not that. Most white people are broke, like the rest of us.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

Like Dick Gregory says, real, real, most white people that you know, they can't help you even if they wanted to.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

Right, right. And so, and so it's unfortunate for them and for and for everyone that any one person would attempt to step on the necks of black folks or women or poor folks. Like that's we all suffer, including, and here's something you learn from a pedagogy of the oppressed. I'm looking back at my uh library now, I don't um would have to search around for it, but I'm paraphrasing, but you know, he basically says, you know, that the people who are causing the harm are also harmed by their posture of oppression. You know, but that's how that's how power works. It's like, you know, I'd rather have less freedoms at your expense than collective freedom because that then I wouldn't be in the middle. I wouldn't be able to tell you that I wouldn't be able to erase your history in the way that you know has worked well for for a very few elite white male Christian, you know, folks. So specific. I mean, that's what it is. That's what it is.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

So yeah. Well, moving on to a lighter topic. Of course, being a public servant and working among the youth, I know you get to see the impact of your work in the daily and your daily going arounds and and and working with these students, and even from years down the road. And of course, there is a fight in public education right now. And it's funny, it's an old fight, actually. It started back in like the 80s, like late 70s, early 80s. 80s. But of course, the funding for creative arts in schools has been slowly stripped away. They've slowly just taken the paint off the walls on it. And recently there's been some push to put it back in. But it's having to fight against things like STEM because we have to economically, like globally, we have to be able to have the best scientists and mathematicians, et cetera. And I understand that. But should how, of course, I feel that art should have a high place in public education. But how do we quantify its impact so that we can ensure increased funding, like to create political will to push it? Like how do you get numbers that show that it's doing something positive?

SPEAKER_03 24:27

Yeah, it's interesting to me that, you know, art being stripped from the schools is your interpretation of a light change in conversation. But uh no, I'm just playing. I hear what you're saying. Uh, and that's a really good question. I think that, you know, one of the one of the real troublesome things about our education system is that it it doesn't recognize different types of intelligence. It has a disproportionate weight on, you know, certain types of mathematical, computational, regurgitational ability without recognizing the value of the creative economy. There's the oh god, what's the guy's name? I think it uh creative economy. I'm gonna look it up. Interesting author who talks about, you know, kind of millennials and the creative economy. And okay, is it's not Richard Florida? Maybe it is a different book by Richard Florida, the practice. Anyway, you know the book I'm talking about. Look at Rise of the Creative Class. It is Richard Florida. He had another book about the creative economy, but with uh Rise of the Creative Class, he talks about how, you know, how important these skill sets are that, you know, like you said, are being stripped out of high school, middle school, elementary school curriculums at the expense of this, you know, this desire to kind of build up a workforce that is, I don't know, like a robot. That's what they want. Calculator, technocrat, you know. And the thing is, listen, we need people who are proficient and competent in those languages and who can code and engineer and develop. Yes. We also need people in in creative mediums, and we also need people who understand empathy and and who have those emotional intelligence, intelligence, and competencies, and fluencies. They don't put any work behind that. Yeah, they don't, and and that will be uh that will be their downfall if they don't recognize the value. Um you know, it's a bit like it's a bit like you know, focusing on a cash crop at the expense of the soil instead of having a diverse you know, crops, some of which rejuvenate the soil so that five years later you could put the you know tobacco or the cotton or whatever back in. And if you think about that in a capitalist context, you know, they're not worried about the land. They're worried about reaping as many benefits in the shortest term possible out of the soil as possible. And it's cheaper. What's cheaper than figuring out how to do it sustainably is just, oh, there's a shit ton of land out here. So we're gonna, we're gonna, when we're done with this land, we'll take these trees out and we'll start over again. And that will just become, you know, arid. Listen, that's how you build a desert. That's not how you build a sustainable, robust, and resilient economy. And economics of this country are really they're designed to maximize profits, not to maximize any other bot and any other outcome, not mental health, not you know diversity, sustainability. It's all about maximizing profit. And our educational systems are also designed towards that end. The most high-paying jobs, whatever, whatever, our STEM, we're getting beaten by India and China and some of these other places. We need to get up our STEM. Like that's not even that's that that's not even a smart or sustainable model. And if you if you try to shove that down folks' throats without curating a more kind of uh diverse menu, again, it's funny too, how it comes back to our earlier metaphor around the map or whatever. There's like this singular focus of like, we need this. And that's just not sustainable, reasonable, that's not gonna create dope result. And innovation is really in the artist, it's in creative thinking, it's in you know, computational thinking, but also critical thinking and create, you know, we don't need robots.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

How can we prove that? How can we prove that with with data so that you can because the thing is, I know with the way that economic like educational funding works, you have to have metrics, right? And it sucks sometimes, but you have to play the game the way that they have it set at the moment until you can change the rules. So, like, is there a creative way that we could, because it makes sense using creativity, a creative way to go around the statistics, because you know statistics lie. Is there a way you could use those that in your favor to say I don't think there's any shortage?

SPEAKER_03 29:34

If you go read the creative class book, if you look at what neurologists and neuroscientists have to say about the brain of a child that's been exposed to arts education relative to those who do not, the evidence is actually there. I don't think that the problem is evidence. The issue is is more around politics and and the the culture around people don't believe it. And that's also not that's also not uncommon. Marketing? Marketing is a part of it for sure. But that you know that there were doctors out there and professionals out there saying that smoking is once a week is healthy. Like you know what I mean. Like it took a it takes a cultural movement. Oh, there's another example of this that I'm struggling to grasp around just uh conventional wisdom that we think of as just like obvious today, but uh but the evidence was out like global warming is is another example of the evidence is there, it's the politics where that are slow to change. And some countries don't have this issue, like they don't. That's well, that's what's so crazy.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Like, this is not everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 30:52

It's not everywhere. And then I was talking to my friend who's uh a Chinese musician and author, and there to reach like a certain threshold of intelligence, art and culture are a part of the the spectrum of expertise that you have to master. It's like mind, body, spirit, soul, like it's it's holistic. Yeah, whereas here, you know, you know, a genius can be someone who's inept at the other three things as long as you have that that kind of computational expertise. So yeah, man, there's just uh there's just a woefully inadequately, inadequately narrow view of what intelligence is, and I think that it's cultural. Yeah, I don't think I don't think there is a I don't think there is a lack of data out there that shows that kids are better off when they have not even just art, sports.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

Seriously, anything where you're doing social interaction and like especially teamwork. Oh my lord. Come on. Um and I was reading some, I was reading articles and in journal reports on this stuff because like you said, it's there. My thing, that that's what blew my mind was the fact that they had such information, but it doesn't seem like it's pushing the narrative.

SPEAKER_03 32:07

Yeah, you know, and and it's and and it's tough because I think a lot of it is, you know, a lot of it is based in routine, a lot of it is based in just kind of lethargic old school ways of thinking. And, you know, for example, like the fact that our school year is structured around, you know, uh the farming, the farming of yeah, the the farming system, like summer's off, so the kids can work the farm. Obviously, we're not in an agrarian economy anymore. So why are we still using that model? The reason is because, you know, teachers would raise hell at their current salary, especially if all of a sudden they had to work through the summer, like that's whack. Like I ain't trying to do that. And then I'm not blaming this on teachers, like I'm saying we're used to working underpaid.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:55

We're used to it. If I've been had summers off since since you know, as long as I can remember, and all of a sudden now we're gonna switch to some other stuff, like that's why that's riots. Yeah, like people just just change is just difficult.

SPEAKER_04 33:11

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

Change is difficult, but there's there's no there's no scholar anywhere that would look at our education system and say, oh, that makes sense. Like, you know what I mean? It's like daylight savings.

SPEAKER_04 33:24

We've all start.

SPEAKER_03 33:26

Listen, listen, there are people going wild about Pluto's not a planet no more. Just like you, you, you just it change is difficult. And I think, and ironically, I think that's where black folks have the opportunity and minorities. What you know, I'm using air quotes again, but just folks who have a different background, different narrative, different story. Like, you can't tell, you know, a first-generation immigrant, like, oh, well, we've been doing this for a long time. Like, no, my whole life has been situated around change and adaptation and innovation. Like, that's that's part of my DNA. I would not have survived in this country if I didn't have those competencies, which is why those types of voices are vital to have in the room with people who are making decisions. Because when somebody's like, oh, well, we can't do X or Y, they're like, What do you mean? Like, you absolutely can. And there's a resiliency tucked into that experience of needing to, you know, of needing to adapt. And that's why, you know, boardrooms that are all white men, you know, and all boarding school or Ivy League or whatever, while there are certain ways in which those experiences help perpetuate the status quo, those experiences are actually designed not to innovate in the same way that that a voice outside of those paradigms can really be a change maker. You know? So it's about keeping tradition. I mean, yeah, the lack of an erradical lack of imagination.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

I like that erratical lack of imagination. Yep, yep, yep. Well, moving into some creative and imaginative thinking, especially on the way in which we um teach and educate our youth. And this is how I knew about you, man. And I was telling my brother this, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I was up here looking at his stuff set. I know exactly who he is. Um, so you do your your black space and your beat making labs. And of course, you've had the documentaries around that stuff. I watch PBS. I'm not ashamed to say that. I love my PBS. But um, I know I got to run into some of your work on there, and then of course we gotta ask, man, could you share with us the purpose of black space? First of all, explain it to our audience so they can understand black space is cool as heck, and then how it came into being, because that's interesting, the whole situation around that. And then ultimately, where do you see black space heading? Could that and could it be something that we take and replicate throughout the country?

SPEAKER_03 36:03

Yeah, sure. So, yeah, black space really, I think was was born out of uh like a lifetime for me, like a commitment to wanting to share some of the gems that I'd received in creative spaces that I grew up in. So, like, you know, like we talked about my background, I had a very creative household where I was supported and nurtured by entrepreneurs and artists and people who said yes. And it wasn't until I got to college that I realized like there are people out here that have aspirations of wanting to start a business or uh be an artist, and they're told no by their parents or their mentors or their elders, and they're uh encouraged instead to do something, quotes, you know, something respectable, something that they recognize. And uh, you know, that was when I kind of realized, wow, I had a really privileged upbringing. Like my parents were were so encouraging of whatever I was into. And yeah, I wanted, I really wanted to provide that with some history and some background and some culture to go with it. And so I, you know, God, this is like back to college, undergrad. I developed this kind of curriculum called Black Ademics, and I went into my old high school, Durham School of the Arts, and and taught this kind of after school program. And and I really put butterflies in my stomach, working with the kids and and seeing how their eyes lit up when they heard their story, kind of pouring out stories they didn't know were there, just pouring out and then sharing them with others and seeing how it impacted their peers and their teachers and their parents and their families to help them process emotion, to help them grieve, to help them articulate a vision. Like even now, talking about it, I just get excited because it's such a beautiful, vibrant space to be in, like working with young people to create things, to create a vision, to create a song, to create something out of nothing. It's like magic, you know, it's like birth. You know, giving birth to a creative project is in a lot of ways, you know, you labor to create it and then you bring it out into the world, and then it has life on it of its own. And that's just uh that kind of that kind of uh doula-ing, that kind of midwifing uh uh creative idea into being is is really deeply connected to my purpose as a on this planet. And um I'm good at it and I recognize very early that not just do I enjoy it, but that that this is why I'm here, one of the reasons. So anyway, you know, that that first of all, the realization, which you know I describe as butterflies, but it's like there was a sense of awareness in me to reflect back. Like I've had a lot of jobs prior to that. I you know, I worked at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, I worked at the Department of Solid Waste, I worked at Eckert Drugstore, you know, stacking cabinets, and I always felt good when I collected my check, but you know, the work was kind of mundane. It was, you know, it didn't, it didn't, I wasn't passionate about those other jobs. This was the first time where I was actually doing work where I couldn't wait to get back to doing it the next day. There was just, you know, so anyway, so that that recognition that wow, there's something here that deserves a deeper exploration was really important for me personally. Now, how that manifested out in the world was it started as a as a you know, undergraduate independent study to develop this curriculum and work with kids, whatever. Then the spark happened. I fell in love with the work, and then that developed into programs like Poetic Justice, which was this after school hip hop and spoken word program, later on beatmaking lab, which was like this electronic music production curriculum in class, and we went to Panama, Senegal, Fiji, Ethiopia, all over the world teaching kids how to make beats. And again, same butterflies that I had at Durham School of the Arts after school, you know, in 2004, or whatever that was. Same kind of feeling, like, wow, I'm really in the Congo right now, giving these kids a tool to amplify their voices. Like, this is dope. This is really connected to my purpose. And so did that work with Beatmaking Lab. And, you know, black space is kind of the pinnacle. It's the it is the those seeds that I planted through Poetic Justice, through Beatmaking Lab, through Black Ademics, those were like seeds, and I've spent time, you know, growing and nurturing this passion for working with kids and giving them tools to be entrepreneurs and creatives. And, you know, over the course of 10 years, I look up and I'm like, wow, there's a there's a whole tree here. You know what I mean? And this tree is bearing fruit. And then so black space really became a hub for me to do all that work. We do poetry at black space, we do beat making at blackspace, we do black history at black space, we do puppetry, we do coding. It's free. Kids don't pay a dime, they roll up and they learn. We love up on each other, we teach them, we expose them to art, and then we get them work. They've got IMDB credits on animated series, and they've they're featured, their music is featured on podcasts which have been nationally syndicated, like that, you know, that's it. And what I've learned.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

That's an important part. That's an important part. What you just said, the economic part of it, yes, sir.

SPEAKER_03 41:47

Oh, yeah, that that's that's crucial. We're not in here just learning art for fun, for art's sake. Like we're trying to get you a job, we're trying to get you a skill set that can, you know, that can help you be self-determining in your life. And that, you know, and what's funny is you know, the metaphor of the tree, which has come up a few times when we were talking about schools and farming and whatever, but I think it's a powerful one because as I've grown in blackspace and harvested, you know, the fruits of that labor, you know, the kids and the other mentors, like there's been a record label that started, you know, out of blackspace. There's been, you know, a puppet show that is now like premiering in Atlanta, like you know, with Jigetto, you know, Jigetto was doing puppetry like way before Blackspace, but but Spinocchio. Oh my god, they're so dope.

SPEAKER_02 42:43

That was actually, oh my lord, yes. You need to get Jigetto on the show.

SPEAKER_03 42:46

But that was like that was a show that was really incubated and developed. That not Jighetto, but the there's a particular show called Spinocchio, which is this afro-futuristic kind of puppet story of this, you know, kid and his dad, and you know, he's a robot, he's a b-boy. It's just interesting. But that was kind of incubated in black space, and though you know, we don't own any of it, it's all Jighetto, like that feels like a fruit that has developed its own orchard, you know, in a whole different area based on the work that we've done and building community and gathering folks at black space. So it's just wild to me how you know when you invest in black folks and and give folks kind of tools and space and and let their imaginations run wild, what types of things are possible? And yeah, to answer your last question about the future, I am absolutely thinking about growth and expansion. COVID gave us a real opportunity to sit back and reflect. Yeah, like we had been going hard, you know, then we had to close for like a year and a half. You know, black space's physical space is very small, like it was impossible to socially be socially distant there. And so we've done some virtual stuff, but for the most part, like black space has been closed for two years almost. And during that time, we've been able to reflect on the work that we've done and kind of project uh you know a trajectory for our future, and that does include kind of national expansion, and we're working on that now. So yeah, it's it's it's it's a labor of love for sure, and you know, it's it's been very fruitful.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Well, um a question I know I know a few questions I had in particular was the fact, you know, I first learned about you by doing some um research on our playlist, and I came across Black to the Future. And also, congratulations on the Grammy nomination, too, for Best Children's Album. And I know one thing I got from it was it seems like you know, it's it's a blessing to be able to spend time doing what you love with those you love most, and particularly with you know, you producing this project with your daughter. So the questions I have, just outside of the process of actually making this album, what's the what what is the day in the life of Pierce, uh Freeline the dad? And what suggestions could you give other parents looking to incorporate their children into their creative interests?

SPEAKER_03 45:13

Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I'll start with the latter question is incorporating to me, you know, and I'm sure folks at the beginning of this podcast, when they heard my bio, thought like like sometimes I think when I hear my bio, first of all, I need to shorten it because way too long. But uh secondly, like how you how do you have time for all that stuff? I was talking to a friend the other day about how like I I look at my life kind of like a Venn diagram, and there's there's circles around. Like educator and musician and like service, which includes things like city council or you know, black space and parenting. Let's just take those four circles. To me, how how it works when I'm thriving at my best is when there's the most overlap between those circles as possible. So if I have to go do some, like for example, I'm just thinking on the service side. I remember there was uh an eviction crisis in Durham in 2019 before COVID, where I really wanted to support some organizers and making sure that folks in Durham were not evicted during the winter months when they'd literally be kicked out in the you know, so that that that's a service bubble. You know, I I overlap that with the parenting bubble by bringing my kids with me to go put up yard signs and go get people at the Durham uh winter festival to sign a petition. Now, on a Saturday morning, I could easily be playing uh, you know, Mario or shooting some hoops or helping my daughter, you know, make TikTok videos. Like those are also parenting activities, are in the parenting bubble, you know, and I do those things. But when there's an opportunity to to make those bubbles overlap, then I'm thriving. Now, if I if I if on a third tip, after we spend some time signing people up to do the, you know, to join the petition, we then go to the studio and write a song about it, me and Stella, you know, about you know, put that out, then that's like that would be a third bubble. We didn't do that, but I'm saying, hypothetically speaking, that's parenting, it's creative, it's service, it's helping the community, it's teaching my daughter a deep lesson about art and activism and the tradition of Maya Angelou and Nina Simone. It's all of those things. And I look for opportunities to blur those lines and to and to make those bubbles kind of come together. Sometimes the kids aren't here for it. They're like, I'm not trying to leave the house, like it's cold, you know, and sometimes it's optional, sometimes it ain't. Get your butt in the car, we're going. Like, you know, and you kind of have to, as an individual, strike that balance. But you know, same thing. Like my mom, you know, when my dad had a business meeting, and you know, my mom picked us up from school, but she had a gig that night, she brought us to the gig. We already listened. She already know what it is. We're doing homework backstage, and as soon as we're done with our homework, we, you know, we're sitting in the wings of the stage watching the performance from the side and you know, eating her food, you know, that that the promoter brought for her, you know, and then she takes us home and tucks us in. Like it's not a question of and my dad too, he had a room in his office when he's when he opened his own firm. He bought an office building in in Durham, and there was a room called the Boom Boom Room. That's where it was basically like a room full of you know blueprint paper and drafting markers and you know, things that architects use to architect, and he'd stick us in that room, you know, when he had a meeting or whatever, and we got to see him in the workplace and you know, meet his employees. And you know, it was just that there's I think a lot of parents during COVID, you know, working from home got a taste of that, but I don't think there needs to be a separation. I I remember doing lectures. Sometimes my wife had some kind of engagement. She's like, Oh, but you have class. I'm like, I don't care. Kids can come to class, I'll give them an iPad and some headphones, or they can just watch the lecture. Like, yeah, learn. Learn. You know, you just got a glimpse into, you know, for free. For free. I've got that, you know, and the kids, the kids are like, oh, and then class happens, and then it's over, and you know, take them to lunch, like whatever. Like, it's there's no that's a rich experience, so yeah. There's no to me, and and honestly, if I were ever in a job where that were appropriate, I would quit that job. Like, to me, being a parent, uh you can't just unparent because it's inconvenient for work. Like, that that's a non-negotiable for me. So I know everybody doesn't have that privilege and luxury, but I tell my wife all the time, if I'm ever at a lecture or a performance or an event where it's inappropriate for my kids to be there, then I can tell the people kindly, well, then it's inappropriate for me to be here too, because I'm a parent and I can't self-replicate, you know. So you're dealing with all of us or none of us.

SPEAKER_02 50:56

I like that though. Always make sure you're in a positive space. I like that. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

Exactly, exactly. With that said, what current projects are you working on? And how can our guests um locate you on social media?

SPEAKER_03 51:10

Okay, social media, my name is Pierce Freelon, P-I-E-R-C-E, like Pierce Your Ear, last name F-R-E-E-L-O-N. That is all of my socials Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, no funky spellings, no characters or anything. It's just Pierce Freelon. So that's how you can find me on social. In terms of new projects, yeah, I've got a lot of exciting things in the works. Working on some television stuff, doing some podcasts and music. And uh yeah, hopefully Blackspace will be launching some more woke shots this fall. Or sorry, this spring. So yeah, just you know, doing my thing, more of the things I've been doing. A picture book coming out, children's picture book called Daddy Daughter Day, based off the song of the same, same title.

SPEAKER_00 51:57

So love the video.

SPEAKER_03 51:59

Thank you, thank you. So check out the book and yeah, just uh that's it.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

Well, thank you so much. We definitely enjoyed this episode. Um, we're gonna have to pick your brain some more because I was not enough time. But we do want to say thank you. Anything else you want you guys want to add or have any more questions?

SPEAKER_02 52:23

Well, I just want to say thank you. Yeah, I'm happy you joined us today. I appreciate you taking time out of your schedule um to speak with us, man. And I I I I like the the the way you explained and expressed yourself in the questions and answers so that people can understand it in a tangible way. You didn't go too high, you didn't go too low, man. And I know I appreciate that. Especially with those tough, those difficult questions I was trying to give you.

SPEAKER_03 52:47

No problem. I enjoyed the I enjoyed the thoughtful questions and appreciate the work you're doing and would be happy to yeah, continue the conversation later. And uh, thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_00 52:59

All right. Well, that's gonna be it for today's episode. And make sure you guys subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts. And thank you for tuning in to another episode. We'll see you next time. Bye.