Art as Activism (Marshall Hugh)

Marshall Hugh is a musician, event curator, activist and basketball coach based in Seattle. He explains a “wild moment in Seattle history” and performing daily at CHOP (Capital Hill Occupied Protest) in summer 2020, comparing last summer’s protests to historical events like the Watts Uprising of 1965 and the French Revolution; the process of writing his Pulitzer Prize-nominated protest album 12th & Pine with his band, Marshall Law Band; and the importance of self care as a leader.

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Marshall: instagram.com/justmarshall22; instagram.com/marshalllawband; "Truth" music video

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By: Leo Yockey

Transcript

0:16

Hey, what's up, welcome to another episode of the Leo Yockey show. Happy June. My name is Leo Yockey. I'm your host, producer, editor, guest book or social media handler, email correspondent, y'all, I'm doing it all. It's a full time job, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I love it. I love this show. I love the guests that I've had on so far. I love the guests that are upcoming. And it seems like y'all do too, which is what I appreciate the most, every time that you give me a five star rating, anytime that you review the show, or share it on your Instagram stories that your friends can check it out to every little bit adds up. And as much work as I'm putting into this. It's all of you and this community that's being built, that is making impossible that I can have this delusional dream to begin with. So I appreciate all of you for being on this journey with me. And it was important to me that I said that at the very top today. So if any of you are new and haven't been here before, I also do a journal prompts on Fridays that I send out via email. The journal prompt has to do with one of my favorite book quotes. And it's you know, from a different book, every week, I read a ton I read like 50 books last year, I've already read 30 in 2021. So there's, you know, no shortage of books for me to pick. And this past week, we talked about Maya Angelou, and a very small quote from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, where she expresses appreciation for black pose. And I expanded on that a little bit to talk about art in general. Because art has always been so important to me, probably no more than in 2019 when I got really sick. And it was the healing power of laughter that got me through seriously, I remember being on this flight back home from Seattle two years ago, and I was in so much pain, there was so much inflammation happening all over my body I could barely eat it was it was rough. And I'm like watching a hockey game on the little screen on the seat in front of me. And I must have looked crazy because I'm watching this hockey game, but I'm like laughing my ass off Meanwhile, because I'm listening to a Nicole byer podcast in my ears. And that laughter was healing for me. And it really made me feel better. And I didn't care who saw and you know, it's not just comedy, it's music to you know, you know that feeling when you hear a song. And it just hits your soul. And you're like, yeah, they get me they get my vibe right now. That feeling is the fuel that we need to be able to move forward and do the things that we need to do to be able to fulfill our responsibilities, achieve our goals, you know, keep putting food on the table, or even just to survive another day. I look at all the protests. And every single time there's a big protest, you know what else there is beautiful paintings from incredibly talented artists, reminding us that even in the darkest and Scariest Places, there's beauty to be found. And I find that so important. Imagine this past year with no TV, no books, no music, no pretty pictures to look at. Man, this last year was hard, but it would have been fucking impossible without that stuff. So I appreciate the artists that are out here doing the damn thing. And I appreciate Maya Angelou for reminding me of the importance of our artists. Speaking of artists, my guest this week is Marshall Hugh, who I met through one of my fellow volunteers that I volunteer with here in LA, who will hopefully be a future guests of the show. Murphy shout out to Murphy. Marshall is a musician. He's an invent curator. He's an activist. He's a high school basketball coach. He's doing all the things out there in Seattle. I love his energy. I am so stoked about this episode. This is an episode I wanted to do, you know as early as possible, and Marshall is the perfect person to have it with Marshall was at the ground level for chop, which I'll let him explain in in the episode. And he explains how art can be used to propel activism and how culture and building that culture and building that community is how we're going to be able to reimagine what the world is going to look like moving forward. So Don't want to take up too much more time, I will send it on over to the conversation with Marshall. What's up Marshall? How's it going? How you doing today? I'm doing pretty awesome. It's my it's game day. I'm a basketball coach. So, Game Day, anybody who's a coach, you know what I'm going through them. I'm running through about 1000 different scenarios of what's going to happen in in the game later on. Hell yeah. Where do you coach, a coach at Jackson High School in millcreek. Washington. And yeah, you got to Google the squad. You know, we're a little prestigious. You know, we've been known wisdom game. So you know, there's high stakes for the kids and for the coaches. Nice, nice. I went to a little bit of nostalgic pride. Did you win a championship in high school? I don't know. Where did you jvzoo you're gonna start already cutting deep. That's messed up. No, but we want championships, we want a lot of games and got to play in a lot of meaningful games. So yeah, I got some great memories around Jackson basketball. That's awesome. That's awesome. I don't mean to cut deep. But you know, I like it when people are vulnerable on this show. So I'm glad we're onto the right foot here. Your hearts open, we're ready to go. You already pretty much hit me as deep as you could off with the first question. So go ahead, shoot from here. Rest of it will be a breeze. That's great. So we had actually, we had talks a little bit about your basketball game before I hit record. And I was telling you you does like it seems like every single time I talked to you, I you know, all to three times that we've talked so far. I feel like I'm I've learned something new about you, which I love. Because I feel like that that fits in perfectly with this show. Because there's so many different things out there we can be dealing with our life. So when whenever you are meeting new people, what exactly do you tell them about yourself? Hey, I'm Marshall. And I'm what like, what do you even say? Um, you know, it's like, it's just a really weird feeling what's happening in my life right now. So it depends kind of geographically where I am. If I'm in Seattle nowadays, it's like, sometimes usually, like somebody has already heard something that they kind of have some preconceived notions, and they know I do music. So I'll usually start there. If I'm like, out of town, I just say like, Hey, I'm Marshall. I'm in a band, and I do a lot of other stuff. That's basically so it sounds like the music is kind of the center point. Cuz Yeah, even Seattle know your free music. Can you introduce yourself mostly based off your music out of town? Right? Yeah, yeah. Music is how I probably first identify, then you go, like event curator, basketball coach, activist, I guess activist is kind of a big one here in the town to and in Hawaii. Actually. That was like the first thing that the venue owner said to me, he was like, Hey, man, you got to tell me about choc I'm like, Okay, wow, like this is a little different, too. So the words out in a couple different fields, because I used to be a practice player for the Seattle storm too. So Oh, cool. Yeah, people know me in a couple different capacities. Nice. I love the web. I'm a huge sparks fan here. Oh, hi. I'm sorry to hear that. I mean, it's been pretty disappointing the past couple years. But I mean, if you want to compare rings at any point, I'm more than happy to do that. We have three we have three rings. What do you mean, we're horrible with furries? Oh, yeah. For Oh shit. I didn't know that. Nevermind, I'm gonna cut that from the episode. For you, at least, Do y'all know your rapid you know? I mean, she's she's the best I love. I love suing Meg, Megan rapinoe. But it is anyway. So for the listeners who don't know what chop is, Can you can you explain what that is really quick. I think that'd be a really good way to kind of introduce what your activism work looks like. If people know that you're a part of that. Yeah, chops probably even more difficult than describing what my job. So chalk has kind of become the focal point, I guess, of discussion of the movement that occurred last summer, but it's just one facet of probably 1000 different things that occurred in Seattle, we have a very This is weird when I say is out of town people we have a very active and thriving protest scene here. Seattle does not play that and traditionally we have not played that. So with the response to the George Floyd being murdered, the town is basically like exploded and a lot of different factions and situations and leaders and groups and Coalition's and random people and activists were born and so basically What happened with us is after like the first six days of the protesting it got like the the purchasers got, like canceled up to Capitol Hill. 11th in Pine, right. Our album's called 12th and pine where this police precinct is, and they set up a barricade the police did that didn't allow for the protesters to walk past because I don't Who knows? This was a fatal error on their on their who knows, I don't know what their tactics were. So anyway, they they set this blockade. And next thing you know, it basically created like a meeting point every single day for the protesters to go, okay, hey, this is where the actions at because this is where the police have set up this blockade. So as a result of that, there's just like this contentious standoff with protesters day after day after day, right there, you know, and so what what happened is, there's a guy named Marty salsbury, this brother out here that runs this independent media called converge, and he's on his like, personal Instagram, after getting like pepper sprayed like third or fourth day, like crying for leadership, like literally tears, like, Where's the leadership and like, I was sitting in my bed, I had gone home that day, like, wow, like this is I feel bad for Omari. I'm like, I gotta do something. And I just pulled the band like, yo, we got to go down there and play and like, counter, like, show some some, like, recovery. So love some, like, a synergistic point that gets people to come back day after day, cuz it's exhausting work protesting, especially being angry 24 seven. So the boys were just like, I like if you say so Marge, like, you know, we rally the squad, my drummer Matt, who's another brother, you know, he's like, bad, you know, let's do it. He bought a generator, we set up our sound system. And then we just started playing in the middle of this protest. Now, it's like, we're like one block away. This is like the intersection 11th and pine. So they have like, 1000s of people lined up against the police like trying to progress past this point. And we're a block away just like, you know, helping people with food and giving different speeches, education, doing our performances and whatnot. And so we did that for six straight days before this is before chop. So we did that for like six straight days. And it was crazy. Like Leo It was like madness. It felt like a war zone. Our brother Jen Gregory got shot while he was down there by like a car that drove into this crowd. There were like, you know, police standoffs that, like, I'm responsible for communicating on the mic width and all this stuff. So basically, there was one night they call it a battle for the hill, where like, they were either gonna, like arrest everybody, or just like, try to, like intimidate us out. They brought in tanks and the National Guard. It sounds like, this is like, I'm like, I'm like playing on the stage. Like, what? What is going on? So we just said, like, Look, we're not about to move, you know, my mom already hit me like, yo, we got bail money for the whole band. Like, if it comes to it, you know, like, y'all, we're proud of you, you know, and like, we had already made our statement like, we're out here, you feel me. So the tanks like barreling down. And this is where like, you really see, like, protesting. When I say we have an active protest community, it like starts getting like, it's a skill set, you know, it's not something that you can go out there and be good at, you got to keep a level head in the middle of the chaos. So this is where when people are talking like negatively about an Tifa, or other action groups, they don't really understand like, what is like in the midst of the fire, I didn't. And so what was happening, this was wild. So the tank is like coming down, and they have this literal tank. And we're like, we're not going to move. So people start sitting around our stage. And they had like, broken this and they're coming down. So what people were doing is, I don't know what their skin color was, but I'm guessing they are not Brown, you feel like they would run out, they would take one probably white person dressed at all black dress, like antiva I don't know what their affiliation is. Right. And they would stand there and then the police would go and arrest that person. But then behind them, they would push something behind them like a dumpster and light it on fire. So then the they would have to call in like the fire truck, you feel me and then have to put that out before they could proceed. Then as soon as they put that out there would be another white person or whoever standing right there like Yo, okay, like you got to arrest me, then they arrest this person and they like another thing behind them. And meanwhile, all these other little fires are happening all around while we're playing you filming. So they can't really progress that fast because they have to keep putting things out over and over again, and arresting people singularly like that. So this goes into the night it's like 2am but next thing you know, we're playing this song like every day we're playing kleos they're throwing flashbangs all types of crazy stuff and people are just not Moving like no like you're gonna either arrest Is it like whatever, like people are literally fighting back against the police. It was saying and like 2am there's like bear cat thing take like just turns around and we're just like, what they retreated. And then everyone's Like what? Like what just happened you know? And that in that moment that's when like that's when chalk was born you feel me like yeah, that is when like that's taught to me because I was like whoa I know some people I don't know who they are by name I know some of them by name like, y'all really like race your life for me for us to make a statement to just say like, it wasn't all about it was in response to the George Floyd stuff but it was like Seattle is was sick of it though. Those people that were there, they were just sick of it, whatever it is to whatever person it was like that was worth dying for getting arrested for you know, like, man, people are really committed to this and that like made me be like, Alright, then it's whatever I'm with it too. So from there that's when kind of a lot of like a whirlwind of things happen that you can't really predict but that was like the thing that was the jump off so the next day I'm like exhausted This is six straight days of me playing like I'm hitting other artists like can you all come perform the people I just didn't get really music and protest or I don't understand or it was scary or I don't really get it you know, but some people showed up my homie Chanel was there. My imri like a lot of other musicians that like were instrument players they were there you know, but it was hard to get vocalist so mean Jayma, the bird and pobox were like taking turd state songs like so exhausted, got massages on my neck is drinking water like tea. I'm really just trying to find a way. So I get drunk. And I'm going through just like I've never been in this situation before of like, middle of revolution, screaming all the time, you know, being a leader and forced into the public eye. So I just like, would go home and just try to crash and sleep. You know, like, I wasn't taking very good care of myself to you know, maybe have a couple beers just so I can like, relax, you know, smoking too. And just like try to sleep and block everything out, turn my phone off and just tell people like, yo, come give me one we got to go back to chop. Like, I don't know how many days we got to do. It was a chop at this point. Like, let me know right to go back to the barricade. We used to call it the barricade back then. And then when I woke up, we went to go buy some like American flags, because we were like, Okay, if the if the tank comes again, we're just going to hold American flags out. And then that way, like, Okay, what can they really do against the American flags, like, desecrate their own thing? So we're like, Alright, how can we think smarter so me and my pops, I at this point, and I'm bugging to because I know my history? I'm like, Damn, I don't know if they got my phone tap. I don't know if I'm like enemy of the state. I don't really know because I'm calling shots in the middle of this wild protest. So we go to Lowe's and, or Home Depot or so we go, we get like seven American flags are looking at us. And we're like, is whatever you know, as we call about seven American flags, and we walk out and we pull up on the band's house, and I talked to Marty, he's like, yo, so the police abandoned the precinct. I'm like, What? He's like, yeah, the police left the precinct. And they just left it. I'm like, that doesn't make any sense to me. Again, I don't know who is strategizing for that. Or what they I don't know the rationale behind any of this because it just seems like dumb move after dumb move. But you know, Chief best at the time was the police sergeant and Jenny Durkin was the mayor. So I don't know what they were thinking or doing or what but they weren't making very interesting smart plays, in my opinion. No disrespect, but it seems like they were panicking too. So next thing you know, I'm like, okay, bad. I'm telling future crystals everybody like a all that you know, because these are people we start to know like, you'll get the word out tell all the skaters all the artists, everybody like, Oh, we up like we're going again, you know, like, forget it is we're going up, you know, and I don't care. We're just gonna still go back there. And that was what that was everybody's attitude, you know, so we pull it up again. But then this time, they were trying to scare us on some proud boy stuff. Even the police were like tweeting pictures of like, Man spotted with a start rifle coming up. 11th and pine are some, you know, a bunch of misinformation, a bunch of pump fake stuff. But we were we were with the smoke that day. Like even me, you I've said, I've made some phone calls like, where like, whatever, no, yeah. And like, there's no police out here. So it's with whatever. And that's where they got the images from that they kind of take, and they put on fox news and stuff and people had guns, but like, it's because like, they're supposed to be proud boys with guns. So we were just like, Alright, if it's gonna come to that, and the police aren't gonna protect us, then we're not going to be intimidated by the proud boys. We're just we'll shoot it out. That's literally was that was literally the mentality, you know, and like, I'm not a street cat or anything. So that's the first time that I'm like, I, hey, go get the straps. Is this this situation really seem that severe in all honesty. And so we just adjusted and adapted, pulled up, we are right there on the corner. You know, they're like, Hey, we should move you inland. So we can't have what happened with Dan Gregory. We're like a car can go in. And then my pot they're like, and they might have rifles or something. I'm like, right there with my thoughts. He's just like, brah like, you know, me my pots got a very interesting relationship. You know, like, He's, uh, he's as intense as it comes. And that's why people are like, Dang, what martial Biggie, you know, because I'm really I was raised, like, raised like this. And I have people in my family that were in the civil rights movement during the watch. Right. And, and it very, very many parallels between chop and the watch uprising, right now. Yeah, because the watch uprising, it allowed for people to do the exact same thing that was happening at CHOP people to explore radicalism, for the first time, explore protesting for the first time and say, oh, whoa, like, people are actually fighting out back against the system. This is a whole infrastructure. This is a whole career like, this is real. What people do, you know, I didn't realize that until I seen chop my you can see on my Instagram, his name is Hey, Shu, and Hey, shimo, and spaghetti. Those were the two members in my family that were like, really in the movement. And they joined the US movement, which was a unit that actually is responsible for establishing Kwanzaa and bringing coins and its traditions to the masses, right. And these are all things that have been you think Kwanzaa is like some like ancient African tradition, which it draws upon. But this is something that was exploded after the watts rising in in Los Angeles. And so the US unit that hey, she mu and CBD were a part of, they were kind of the counterbalance to the Black Panthers in the California region, and kind of nationwide. So they would run security, but they were kind of more, you know, brothers shaved heads sober, you know, their guns are, are underneath their diabetes. And, you know, they're running security, but they're really pushing culture and understanding our culture is how we're going to move things, you know, Black Panthers, they had a different approach, and they kind of clash. So anyway, I'm learning all about this history. In hindsight, I wish I would have known about going into chop. So anyway, a chop basically explodes in that day, we still showed up so my pops, he's like, they're trying to tell me to move in. So this stuff can't happen yada yada yada. And my dad's like, bro, what did you come out here for? Like, we're not moving nowhere. Like, we're right here on the corner with it. Like your however it shakes out. It's right there. You know. So a lot of people's own dads wouldn't like, give them that advice. You know, a lot of people's dads would say like, hey, go do the safe thing, like, you know, but that's just not my pops. You know, he's just like, what, what type of life? Are you trying to live and have that goal in mind, you know, so I don't want as a leader, I don't want people to be afraid. I don't want people to be out there thinking we're gonna get sniped, like, Nah, like, we do what we do right here, you feel me? Yeah. So those are, those are heavy moments that like I didn't understand in them. I'm more reactionary. Like, I'll play in basketball. But again, at this time, like, I'm not sleeping, I'm not working out. I'm not the I'm not drinking the right stuff. I'm not hydrating, you know, I'm really just running on fumes, just so I can cope with this. Like, I never, you know, I'm not around people getting shot, that's not my cup of tea. I'm in a different field. So when I'm around, and I'm experiencing these things, I'm not very conditioned on how to respond to violence in these types of stuff in real time and still have to perform every day and still get, you know, still getting scrutinized in the media and fighting and doing these things. I'm like, Okay, I'm going through a lot quickly, and I just kind of went into a shell and I'd coped in a lot of different ways that weren't always healthy, you know. And I feel like that also resulted in me not being the type of leader that I know I could have been in that situation because I could have really like, provided what was missing. But at the same time, not one person can handle what blossomed and became like a six block territory for like a month straight. That was not Peru was not under like police jurisdiction. So it was just like the people that commerce in there, that painting in there, there was a lot of beautiful things in there. There was some like, you know, Capitol Hill, this place that happens. There's a shooting there, probably every other weekend, you know, so you're there for a month, there was violence that took place there. There's no lie about that. But there's violence that take place on that block, regardless, every single month, but you got twisted, you got war, they got this, they got that, you know, so it was just interesting because cha whether you were it was good or bad for you, or whatever, it defined a wild moment in Seattle history. And that's what our album 12 and pine was about. And we just got away after that experience. And went on like a retreat for like five days, just us in the band and just wrote the album in those five days. And we had some of it on the street actually, like Black Lives Matter was a song that was written on the street. And yeah, we just made the album went right into this studio with jack and Dino who recorded like, Nirvana's first project, and a lot of just like, early subpop stuff. And yeah, we made 12th and pine. And then that was the that was, that was really the start of like, started really using art as activism starter really like unlocking some of the trauma that was associated with that experience and years of other experience and being an artist in this city. And, and not not being able to financially support yourself the way that you wish you could and being a black artist in a city full of white people and trying to be able to get the respect you deserve and, and get credit for the influence you create. It's been a lot, you know, so it was cool. For me, I made some big changes in my life, went vegan, really focused on my fitness, replace some of my negative habits with some positive habits, and just started taking this thing as professionally as possible, because we've been now on a platform to speak on and to speak for more people than you know, just myself. And so I take that responsibility life to the utmost. And so, you know, I've been waking up sleeping, and trying to just be that leader and learn from last year and push myself because now I know like, okay, I could I could do this stuff this stuff. You know, sometimes people talk to themselves in their head or say, like, you know, I should do that. Until like, this really happened to me, and I made the changes and I committed to myself. Now it's not like I should it's like, No, I know, I can do that. So yeah, it's kind of up and go do it, you know? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and before I forget, for those listening, you know, 1212 and pine, I think is a great soundtrack for just really understanding musically, you know, like, what, what was going on on the streets? You know, I listened to that album, like, I feel like, I feel like I'm there. I feel like I'm at a protest. I mean, you have some sound bites that sound like they might actually be from some of the protests, you have some, some satellites of some of some news clips, and you have the the raw emotion that comes out in some of these songs, especially I don't know, it's called I don't want or don't don't want to die. Yeah, that's I mean, it's just, it's so raw. And, you know, I actually didn't go go to any of the protests, I had issues with my husband's stuff. So I didn't, I thought I would probably cause more more issues than not if I was there. But hearing some of the stories that you've told, give a lot of context for the things that you might be hearing on the news, like, for example, especially the fires and understanding that this wasn't some, you know, reckless arson, just for the fun of it. This was a very deliberate safety precaution of, they're coming at us with guns, we're on arms, we need to do something to get them off of us. And that is such a chilling thing to think about in America, you know, because I'm, my dad's an immigrant, you know, I grew up loving America, loving the opportunity that it represented, and, and to see that these things are happening, you know, in my home, you know, it's like, I, I don't really understand people who haven't been compelled to do something, you know. And I, I just really appreciate you walking us through that. Because, you know, the way you talk about it being a war zone. I mean, it sounds like a war zone. What you're describing sounds like a war zone, and we're just playing right through it. So it's like, it was like, you know, like Revolutionary Wars. Oh, We're like the drivers are going or like the Titanic, like, that's what people liking it too. Like, we just kept playing like, we didn't really know what else to do. Yeah, I can imagine, you know, I'm very slowly reading this biography of Alexander Hamilton, it was it was what the musical is mostly based off of. But it's huge. It's like this 800 page book. The thing that I find so shocking is how many similarities you're talking about the similarities between now and the and and what was going on in watts during the civil rights movement? I can't believe how many similarities there are between right now and the American Revolution in seven in the 1700s. Yeah, I mean, it is shockingly similar. And, you know, found some, you know, a, we can nerd out all day, because I'm reading the black count right now, which is a biography on Alexander Dumas, the person who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Three Musketeers, his father, who was like an actual figure in the French Revolution era, and there are so many parallels there as well. So it's a, this is something that you learn is cyclical, right. And when I go into the profession, and the history of revolutions, it's like, okay, there aren't as many surprises as you think there are, you just very rarely have somebody that's able to connect these dots and be active at the same time. And that was a big thing. I know, I was looking for it last year was like some leadership, I was looking for somebody to just be like, hey, Marshall, I need you to do this, at this time, over here and make that happen. And I was just sitting here, like, you know, somebody like anybody that I trust and respect, like, tell me directly what to do. And I just didn't, you know, you can't wait for those moments, they're not gonna come right. back up into history. Teacher, that's your leader, though. That's, that's, that's what it is. And that's what it's been. And so, yeah, moving forward, we're just really trying to create places to channel that energy, and to push it and to be able to be a little bit more of a mobile target, and not so much of a stationary target. So, absolutely. I mean, in in this podcast, you know, we're talking a lot about how the world has changed. And because the world has changed, opportunities have changed. And I'm sitting over here, kind of trying to figure out which one came first. This might be a chicken and egg thing. But you know, you mentioned at one point, you know, all the all the the questionable decisions made by this the at the time police chief in Seattle mayor, and you mentioned you said it's it, it seemed like they were panicking. And I think it's because, you know, like you said, We're living in a revolution. And so the police, the city officials, they're not used to, you know, they're used to when they say jump, we say how high, so when they say, Oh, this is closed, and there's a bear key here, they're used to people saying, oh, okay, I'm going home. But we're in this world right now, where we can see what's happening on the streets in every single city in real time, we can see what's what's happening, and how police brutality has gotten, you know, completely out of control. And we can see that we can see that despite what's what's being said on the news that these protests are peaceful and that all of that empowers the people. I personally believe that the 21st century, access to internet is going to be as Paramount as as access to owning a gun was in the 1700s. Because I think you look at other countries where there are revolutions happening, and they shut off the internet on the people as a way to cut off means I really think that the internet has empowered people to say, hey, you can push back Hey, this is this is you know, your country you can you do have a say you can be out here in the streets and make your voices heard. Was it Oh, and because people are out here doing this? It is just like you said people are getting to explore radicalism, explore, protesting, explore, you know, the outer boundaries of of, you know, what it means to be an American and how we want to reshape that in the coming decades. And because there are people out here on the streets doing that, you do have a lot of people who say fuck it, look at all this is going on. I'm gonna go live my life and do the life that I love. And I and I hope that people, you know, myself included, who have taken the time over this past year to reevaluate their life and realize that they want to move in a different direction. I hope that people attribute the work that's going on in the streets in these protests and this social justice movement to to the ability to make those changes because I think that you know, neither of these things happened in a vacuum. And I think that they're absolutely interconnected, you know? Yeah, I mean, that speaks to the point kind of beforehand when the protests as like a Seattle creative trying to get impact. It's not just a Seattle creative, it's all creative. It's all activists, all these people that do. It's like, they do social work, but how do they get compensated for being that spark that change the whole world, you know, and somebody has to be the catalyst. And so we're finding even ways like NF T's and these other new ways for creatives to put in activists and other people and GoFundMe is to put dollar signs behind this work. And I think like moving forward in society, creatives, and activists need to be compensated, you know, for their work for their impact, because a lot of people and this is just sad to say, a lot of people that are in that field, they experienced such crazy burnout with no safety net at all right? These people are probably already paycheck to paycheck, they're already preaching the good word. You know, before, before this, we were the martial law band, and we were talking about martial law, and people would look at us like, we were crazy. But now we're not in that crazy. So imagine, if you were, you know, an activist six, seven years ago, and you put eight years into this, and people are telling you all No, that's not gonna happen, man Shut up, the revolution isn't coming no time soon. And then, you know, you burnt out before you even got to see this, and you maybe are on the streets. Now, maybe you've just had your faith, you know, broken in your own spirit to change the world, right? And so that we have to find ways to support and incubate those that are willing to challenge the system, and not treat them like enemy of the state, but treat them like artists trying to sculpt our society. And it's just, it's just, there's a lot to fix. And there's a lot to do. So what I've found is that I've had to, like narrow my scope to be like, Okay, I'm going to be an activist that empowers creatives and empowers creative commerce within the city, because cultures that have great music and have great artists at their core, they're actually a lot happier. And because if people are happier, now we can have these conversations. And we can connect, and we can share, you know, exchange resources, because we're happy, we're not doing it out of spite, or doing it because we feel forced to, we're doing it because now we know each other, we're in better moods, and we're seeing how we exchange cultural currencies. And that is a very difficult task at hand. But that's kind of what my goal is for this summer in Seattle is like establishing that feeling of hope and optimism in direct to consumer commerce, amongst creatives in my Pacific Northwest region, and amongst myself as well. Yeah, absolutely. Can you explain a little bit further to like, what your, what your what your grand vision is for, for the future and in the cities that you want to tour in and things like that, and how you want to kind of take this this model that's kind of started out with shop and expanded into something that's one permanent and two, in all cities across the US? Yeah, yeah. I mean, my ultimate goal is every place that I tour, we have like a community center with a community garden that has like a basketball court, you know, it has a workout gym, so I can go there, I can play basketball, I can go there, I can workout, I can go there, get the veggies going on. And we can employ and empower the communities that we tour, everywhere we go. And that way, you know, we're giving our creative energy to them. But it's also something that's sustainable. So we're not just coming into their community and taking from their community, but we're also developing arts programs in their community. We're developing artists in those community. And it's something that's self sustaining and gives back. So yeah, that's my ultimate goal is to take this little chop model, and perfected and get it cleaner and figure out how it works in this new warping society that's ever changing, and get it to bang, blow up and exploding and get other creatives is understanding. This is where we go to give back. This is where we go to, you know, give resources, collect resources and stratagems. And, yeah, that's my ultimate goal. And I want to do that and I want to be movies. I want to be movies. Nice. Yeah, I love that. I love the idea of these, like community centers. You know, this, the organization that I volunteer with here in North Hollywood, you know, the leader has his vision, basically, of having dropped in centers for on house people every three to five miles in LA. And she said if it if we just all got involved, and, you know, it really honestly only takes you know, three hours a week or so of each person volunteering their time, money, whatever it is that they can, if every single person in the community did that we wouldn't have any problems. I mean, I would almost go as far as to say that people should be volunteering and being in their community in lieu of church. Because what what is, you know, what is religion? What is communion with God, if not service? And to me in this world that we're in the state of the world, it would it makes more sense to to volunteer to be in your community to actually be of service than it does to just like sit in a Pew and listen to some priests talk at you. How is that helping anybody? Yeah, I mean, I think I think that the number one thing that I lock in is like, okay, whatever person needs to do to charge themselves up to be able to go out and give that service. That's nowadays, because of what I went through last summer, and the way that I was getting service without giving to myself, I first just like, tell people, hey, like, prioritize self in a way that allows you to give, right so if people got to go and do that, in order to go and do service, then Okay, more power to them. But I agree that if you're doing that, without that step, without if you're not going and watching the beat, and following the template that Jesus set for you, then you're missing the lesson, you got to go, you got to go and interact, and you got to go and put yourself in uncomfortable situations, because society hasn't made these situations normal yet. But if we show the people, this is how you treat people, this is what normal should be. People will feel more empowered, and I think be a part of that. So yeah, I hear you on that. And what's been beautiful with us is that, you know, we're not religiously affiliated, we actually call our music, secular sermons. But I've started to do outreach to churches, because I find that if I can find the right fit, those people do share the majority of the common values I have, we just may differ over, you know, this point or this point. But if you tap in with the right groups, just like you're doing, you know, there are some powerful, powerful churches of all religions and all denominations. You know, I have I have a lot of brown friends. And you know, I go to the giroir, the guru, I believe it is no Eggers, if I messed that up, man, you got to help me out. But you know, I head over there and it'd be welcomed and see the type of service, they feed everybody in the community, you sit down, everybody gets food. So yeah, customs do exist. And there are some great templates out there across all religions. But I think if anybody's getting too locked in, and it's blocking you, you got to get out there and go see what the what the world is out there. The world's going crazy out there, I promise you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's a good. That's a good point in inner interfaith is, you know, interfaith councils tend to do a lot of good because just by nature of being involved in interfaith implies that that you understand that there's, you know, that whatever person's, you know, path to God is their choice and all that good stuff. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit. We're running a little short on time here. I want to talk a little bit about blabbing, man. No, it's great. I, I really, I'm really glad that that you were able to talk about this here, because all of this is really important to me. And I, I wanted to get an episode like this out on the podcast as soon as possible. So I'm really glad that you explained everything so so thoroughly, and so, so eloquently, because especially especially with I mean, these these words on descriptions, man, I mean, you were talking before about a lot of these leaders not really being compensated and stuff like that. And just a few minutes before that you were talking about, you know, being on stage while someone's getting shot, or someone's throwing their body in between the police and a group of peaceful protesters. And I know from my own firsthand experience from from previous jobs and insecurity and stuff, that seeing that stuff is incredibly traumatizing. And so to not have, you know, compensation means you don't have healthcare means you don't have access to therapy. So, you know, the the toll that it's taking on people to be involved is high, it does come at a high personal cost. So you've talked a little bit about this before and after, where before you were really involved with chop and all that, or sorry, when you first got involved, you were kind of self medicating a little bit like drinking smoking to kind of take the edge off and, and just kind of turning off your phone and shutting off and, you know, you've talked a little bit about some of the changes that you've made like working out and going vegan moreso instead of the What can you talk about like the effect can you kind of speak to how much differently you feel, now that you're taking care like Taking care of yourself in a proactive way, as opposed to just self medicating and shutting off all the time. Yeah, I mean, it's night and day, it's absolutely night and day, and I had it explained to me by a good friend ra the other day. And basically, it was like this, the stuff I was putting in my body before, you're not gonna catch me or the vegetable, I mean, unless it's on a pizza, you know, stuff I was putting my bio before it's slowly decaying, you know, the plants are still growing and are still evolving. And so I'm eating a living growing organism versus a decaying organism. So I'm eating something that adds to my energy versus something that's going to detract, right. And that was a very interesting way of hearing somebody put it and I thought it was profound. Because it makes, that's how I feel, I didn't just change my eating or my workout, I really just changed my whole routine to prioritize myself. And so what I mean by that is, okay, I need to wake up early, because I know that I'm the type of person that gets bombarded with texts and phone calls all day. So if I'm up at 5am 6am, not a lot of people are up 5am 6am, and the people that are up 5am 6am, and are texting me, those are usually some really serious people that can get work done. Quick, you know, so I can now that I wake up five to 6am. And instead of me looking at social media, or instead of me, as soon as I wake up saying, Oh, dang it, I'm, I'm not asleep, or I have this to do, I put my phone on airplane mode, I turn on a beat, I drink some water, I stretch, do a couple push ups or whatever, you know, I mean, and then at that point, I'm starting to write my song, I take the first two hours of my day, those are for me, those are for nobody else, you know, yeah. And I think it's so important to push into yourself into reinvest into yourself. That's the most important thing you can do. Because once I start my day off, with two hours invested in myself, I know I'm prepared for the other things are going on in life because I've like charged myself up, then you know, I've creatively got after it physically got after it, I'll usually handle my social media, or I'll do these things called mornings with Marshall. So I'll go Instagram Live and just talk to whoever's up that morning and just kind of spread some good love and try to help them get their day. In our day. Collectively, as as much I'm talking to them. I'm talking to myself saying like, Hey, no matter what's going on in your day, make sure you put your main objective forward, if you've got to go to a job, you don't like understand that that's a means to an end, as long as you're actively working towards your ends. And, you know, I just charge up my people. So by 10 o'clock, by the time I'm headed to like my workout, I'm really locked in like, Okay, I know what my vibe for the day is going to be. I've been up for four, or if not five hours, I've been making music. I've talked to my people, I've hyped myself up to go and fight the world. It's 10am I'm walking to the gym, or I'm running or maybe I'm just getting some resistance band or body work stuff in by the time noon hits, and I've had my smoothie and drank my probiotics from my tummy. You know, probiotics too. It's okay. Hey, I'm getting there. You know, I got to add the probiotics soon as you're right to it. And, you know, by the time I'm cooking lunch and dive in into my emails and get into my workday around noon, I've spent probably six hours really investing in myself and my body and my health and my creative endeavors. Now, when I'm working from noon to four ish five or six is anybody who knows me knows I'm always texting. Like, while I'm doing that I don't have a bad attitude about it, you know? I'm not like, Oh, this is a bummer. I'm like, yo, whatever. I've already done my other stuff. So I gotta send these emails. I got it. I got to get the band to the next level. I got to send this group chat. I got a follow up on these DMS you know, like, this is what I'm choosing to do, because I've already done the stuff that was for me. And then when I get to about seven, eight o'clock unless I got a show or rehearsal or some like it's time to shut it down, you know? Oh, okay. It's really time to shut it down. Like you brush your teeth. Do your stretches, you know like me I do like some body care stuff. I got like a little hurt foot right now. So working on that my hamstring was tight doing some extra work there. And then it's time to read you know, it's like nine o'clock. Alright, time to read some even if it's five pages like if I haven't read yet. Okay, it's Time to read, then I get about nine 930, I've started to kind of cut off my liquids so that I can sleep and actually sleep. So I'm not getting up to pee every three seconds, right. So once like eight o'clock hits, I'm cutting slowly cut off my liquids I'm reading, I'm calming down, I'm brushing, you know, I'm doing my face wash, like I'm getting after myself. And then next thing, you know, it's about 10 o'clock, I got to turn off and after like, nine, you got to get off social media, you got to cut it off, you know, think about the next person thinking about this, you need to be thinking about how you're going to sleep for eight straight hours. Because you can't function without sleep. Like your body can't grow, your mind can't work, like, you got to get you six to eight hours, like every single night, you have to. So that's how I do it. I shut down, I start reading, I get off my social media. And then once 10 o'clock hits unless I got a show or some sort of business obligation, like I'm in bed by 10 o'clock sleeping, so I can wake up by six in the morning. If you do not, that's how I have to get my eight hours, right? That's just like, I switched my routine to emulate that as many days as possible, no matter what. So you know, there'll be times where like the band, they might have to rehearse without me because I'm just like, bros, I've been going nonstop for six straight days. Like, I got to shut it down. Because no, I can't be the bandleader they need me to be if I'm out here sleeping on their couch, you know, I mean, kicking it with the boys is not gonna happen. So it's just a very by doing that, now I have the energy to be the leader to assess situations properly, and to actually make decisions in my own best interest that reflects in a group's best interest, right? Yes, that's been the biggest change. And what I've taken away from coming up on almost a year of like, my first real big protest and leadership, public eye position enroll, or whatever, I don't even know what the media might describe it as. Marshall, thank you so much for sharing that stuff. So in so much detail, because I think it's really important in both for me, and probably also allow my listeners to really understand the math behind what you just said, because, like I said, at the beginning, I wasn't kidding, you're one of the most like, busiest and jack of all trades type people that I know you're coaching this high school basketball team, you're involved in this band, you're organizing community events, and you're you're doing all these protests. And you're I know you're traveling back and forth occasionally in from, you know, here, between LA and Seattle. I'm confident that I'm missing stuff. Quite a little bit San Diego, a couple other places. But yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're, you're out here doing a lot. And this is well, generally keeping a schedule where you're only making yourself available to other people for about eight hours a day. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, it sounds like this is exactly what it is. I think that all that extra time, it's almost like the for every minute that you spend working on yourself, is equal to like, two minutes spent with other people. So it's like they even are spending less time available to other people, you can get so much more done because you're grounded. your stomach's not hurting, your shoulders are relaxed, you know what I mean? Like you're not you're not sick, you're not unwell from the stress. So you actually have more energy and can do more with less time. And I think that that's really, really important for people to hear right now. Because especially with you know, that sudden shift to working from home, like people don't know how to have balance, and no one's ever going to tell us, hey, you have to get your eight hours of sleep and make sure that you're taking care of your body. Like we have to finally decide Enough is enough. I don't want to feel like garbage anymore. Like I need to do something for me and then watch how you know how life kind of rewards us for that. That's it. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. And you know, like, the other day I was at this show, right? And like, we got I got a different life than most people. You know, like, if I'm at a show, man, I'm probably gonna hug 100 people, you know what I mean? And people might look at that and be like, Oh, that's super glamorous, like, Marshall. guest has all these people is like, sounds exhausting. If you think about it, someone 100 hugs and had 100 honest conversations with somebody like I might not be the most pumped up person And after that, you know, like, I got my, I might not be the person that loved the speaker out. But I'm like, got to go home and just, you know, try to get back to it because you realize everything you put out, if you don't put it back in, you're, you're it's a losing formula. And so that that's just, I've found that I'm better able to do my job, when I'm investing that time in myself and having my own schedule. And it creates a lot of ripples in your life, it creates so many ripples in your life, and it changes all the relationships in your life, the minute that you start prioritizing yourself, your health, your dreams and your goals, you can guarantee every relationship in your life is going to change. And the ones that are able to mold without too much friction. Those are the ones they're going to maintain. But I'm also you know, I've gained 1000 friends, and I lost 1000 friends, you look at our eyes, it's like we like we get fans, but we lose, like so people are along for the ride and some people are in as you're on your own journey, you got to be okay with being the captain of your own ship. And, you know, that takes some honesty, it takes a lot of self discipline. And that's something that I have to fight I want to watch a Netflix show while I sleep. But I know that if I don't put on meditation, music or a podcast, I'm not going to get the type of sleep that I'm going I need to get right. So I got to go through the first three, four days of adjusting to not watch Netflix when I sleep. And some people don't want to have to do that. I didn't want to have to do that. But it also resulted in almost half a decade of me not treating my body and the people around me the way I knew I was capable of doing. So. Yeah, that's the best thing I could tell people to do is spend some Mita best thing you can tell people is spend some me time I think that's a perfect place to end it. Marshall, thank you so much for responding to my random frantic DLL. Oh my god, you seem so cool. And Murphy introduced me Do you want to be on my podcast? I appreciate it. Leo's enthusiastic. Man, I'm ready. I'm ready to get out there. I feel like I feel like a caged lion. And yeah, I'm ready to get out there. I'm very, very happy to have met you. I can't wait to meet you in person. The next time you're in LA or the next time I'm in Seattle, whichever comes first, because I've got some ties to the tech community and and relative in Bellevue. So Oh, come on. They should have been on the plane. I know. So yeah. So do you have anything that you would like to promote? I'm not quite sure yet, when in June, this is coming out. So if anything made specific in June, I can't guarantee that this will be out before then. Well, I mean, honestly, my whole management team and everybody would be upset with me if I did have mentioned that we are 12 and pine is under consideration. For Pulitzer, there have only been 30 black people to win a Pulitzer. So even being nominated and being in the conversation is just like life changing, life altering. And so if you can, if you're out there, if you're listening, you know, tap in with 12th and pine and let people know about it let people know that it was nominated and considered for this prestigious award. And that's what the type of energy Seattle's trying to bring to the nation. And we got some cool and powerful things to show the world. And we would love it if you can just tap in and support us however you can't, whatever you've got to support time, energy, money, resources, a connection, like on Instagram, whatever it is, Please tap in and support the martial law band. And we're going to give everything we can right back to the people. Awesome. And obviously I have a link in the show notes. Congratulations on that Pulitzer Prize consideration. I'm like, I'm not surprised because the the album is really good. And like I said, I think it's a very raw real timepiece. You know that that really timestamps that moment in history. And this is a huge moment in I think not only US history but world history. But I'm surprised because the institutions like you said not a lot of black people have have won this prize. So just to hear that you got that considered that the institution decided, you know, I'm I'm happy about that. pleasantly surprised. Congratulations. That's I you know, it took some finagling, you know, I'm saying nothing in the world has ever given me you know, I mean, but we're kicking down doors for anybody and so any any black person can believe that they can, they can get to it, you just got to have the mission in mind. Hell, yeah. All right. I got a I gotta cut this off now. Thank you. Thank you so much. I can't wait to talk to you again. And I'm just going to stop the recording but I will talk to you later. Peace out, peace out. See? All right, once again, that was Marshall hue of the Marshall love band. Thank you again, Marshall. Oh, that was a great conversation. I got like goosebumps, both when we were recording. And then again, when I was editing the interview, when he talked about his time at CHOP, you know, providing his perspective really painting a picture of what it was like to have tanks coming at you to have reports that armed people were coming towards you and that, you know, no one was going to do anything to protect you. I mean, it's it's truly unbelievable. So I appreciate you, Marshall, I appreciate everything that you had to say about self care. I've actually Fun fact, this was recorded, you know, a few weeks before the episode was released, and about a week, week and a half before recording this outro, which full disclosure, it's may 24. Right now, as I'm recording this, and I've actually taken marshals advice, and I am taking the first two hours of my day to do creative stuff that's just for me, you know, he writes songs I work on on my comedy material at that time. And it's amazing how much easier it is to make sure that I have time for that when I start my day with it. Who would have thought right? And I appreciate everything that he had to say about activism to, you know, Marshall was out there on the front lines at CHOP, I am not a frontliner as I said in the episode, that is not where I belong. You know, for me personally, I've been working with the with an organization here in LA, that helps the on house community. And so I get to build community with them. And we're starting to work on on kind of curating our own events, and, you know, whatever skill you have, whatever you're comfortable doing, there's a way to give back to your community by tapping into those talents. So I encourage all of you to to do something, because the world is changing. It's changing fast. And if you are not participating in the rebuild, you're gonna get left behind, right. Anyway, if you liked this episode, please remember to rate and review especially on Apple. If you especially likes this episode, take a screenshot and post it on Instagram. It'll help me out a lot. It'll show your friends what you're into without being too pushy. And yeah, let's get this going. I don't know who the next guest is going to be. The next guest is probably going to be whoever's recording I decided to edit tomorrow. So um, yeah, I don't know who my book club is going to be either. Because I haven't figured out the order my episodes for June. Like I said, y'all I am doing a lot but I love it. So thank you for being on this journey with me and stay evolving.