I like stories that are told about you know a young black men aren’t like we were discussed Marin drug dealers or rappers and our athletes that they just go through normal life and you know I think it’s a beautiful like to do everything an inspiration was I wanted
To tell a story senator black college which I Tunes up HBCU and I wanted talk to a subculture fraternity sorority so that it would be a great time to you know explore that world that subject matter uh and give give the world going to to you know where was I going to
Black college and would like to attach it back fraternity and I thought it was a real great opportunity to show to the world I met with drug four years ago about fifteen and just from that time his passion for their for the artist for the movie for the vision
You always want somebody when you worked on a project that knows what they want and that’s going to you know guide the ship he was just a great captain and I just wanted to help bring his vision to life I read a script and I fell in love
With it and I could recognize Gerard’s intelligence his creative intelligence and I always I’ll go anywhere I gravitate towards artists who are who are smart and who are actually drawing from the people and presenting it back to them in in a form that they can appreciate be entertained by grow from
And that’s that’s I want it to be on the ground with a new filmmaker well I mean I definitely want to be a part of like great story each other and nice when I saw Bernie Sanders the story but sure I did and what the actors did is just I
Was like man this is something I couldn’t stop watching it and I really was moved by the story and I felt like I loved seeing stories that that I untold meaning like these I young black men and you get to see these different sides of what these black men
Are and how strong the women have been and play a part in that but also just the Brotherhood and and really actually just what it takes to be a man and some of the things that we kind of go through thinking what manhood is I liked all
That exploration and I thought they did it in such a pure on his way and I’m you know I want to be a part of dumb stuff so I I was grateful that they allowed me to come on and and I got to write a song
That for the in title song song great I’m glad I’m here with you struggling appreciated appreciated the song you know it’s called the cross and it’s produced by Robert Glasper and Kareem Riggins featuring Lianne La Havas and I you know Jerrod and I talked to
Literally said I want you to do a song you know just you know give me something this it’s just going to touch the soul to a certain degree and I didn’t know exactly what what he I knew what he wanted by what he was saying and then it
Was kind of like almost talking with somebody though I hadn’t worked with him but I knew his language like soon as he said that I knew it we have here to show we had a shorthand so I was at the community I definitely want to we want Starbucks teams a brotherhood and it
Came through in music when I first heard it I was like I was emotionally connected to the to the song right away like I was like he hit it he nailed it and I heard the song I got it like two days before Christmas
And um and I listened I was like oh this comment did is good thing and some really high emotion response to write right away and I wanted to make sure the things because those things he has I kind of wanted to make it like still be
Broad where if you were listening to the song and you were like somewhere else and didn’t hadn’t seen the film yet you still get the context of what the film is and it could relate to your life no matter what so I was sometimes as college or I’d say man weather what are
These give me five words that you think this was about him and he would do that and then eventually I was glad he liked the songs I said to talk and I it was crickets for a minute I hear from it baby was on video it was like with the
Family stuff I’m like damn do we like this join us always then he hit me by like y’all I’m messing with I really like it so thank you thank you we did with dusting themes of hazing that’s where what sort of things business it’s not that doesn’t have to
Make major major thing of the story happens in the film and of course it happens a story but that’s just one of the things that we explored there’s definitely about definitely I would say masculinity also you know what it’s like to be a black man in America
So it’s a lot of the quadrants on issues that’s one of the things – so we have a variety of things that go – we go back to like how we keep I also look at it like how we treat each other as black men as brothers – and not kind of tied
That to our history in this country with along with Frederick Douglass and you just Tiger III included implement a lot of a little history – just to show that who we are as a people and how I would flow with the story and I just want to
Say also really grateful to Gerard for giving the kind of brothers that I know the kind of men that my father and my uncles were kind of men my brother is kind of man I had raised my son to be giving them a platform because what’s
Great is that most people will know all the brothers like like the ones that are in our film and we don’t get to see them a lot in the storytelling and in the moving image people think that ik it you know they have certain stereotypes and some of those films are beautiful and
Hard-hitting and dramatic but most of us most african-americans know brothers like this and most even you know Chinese Americans Caucasian Americans these are these are the brothers we know so we’re getting to celebrate them in their complexity yeah
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