Rashid Zakat on Combining Music, Photography, and Film - The Truth In This Art Beyond: Philadelphia
Welcome to the Truth in His Art Beyond, and we are back in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. And I'm your host, Rob Lee. This is your source for conversations at the intersection of arts, culture, and community. Thank you for listening, sharing, and subscribing. Please be sure to check out our Patreon and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.
Rob Lee:It really helps us grow, get discovered, and continue to share these great stories. Today, we are diving into the world of video art with an artist who combines film, music, photography, and creative space making in work that engages with black social and spiritual life. He's also the creator of a little newsletter of awesome things. Please welcome Rashid Zakat. Welcome to the podcast.
Rashid Zakat:No, man. Thanks thanks for having me.
Rob Lee:So I wanna I wanna start off by because I think there's a lot of, power and energy when someone is able to introduce themselves. Like, it was like, when you claim yourself, you you describe who you are. It's like sometimes claiming a title, sometimes claiming a role, or how we wanna present ourselves into the universe. So I'm gonna give you that space to do that. And I got a sub question there, but I wanna start off at that that question.
Rashid Zakat:Okay. Okay. I've been I've been I think how I would describe myself probably changes with the week for referral, but I I I think at the baseline, I think I'm a just I'm a really curious person, and I like to know how things work. I like to And I think the way that I've been navigating, asking some of those questions kinda sits somewhere at the intersection of, like, everything that I learned from going to church, growing up, and and going to church was a really, really big part of my life as a as a kid. I'm not particularly religious now, but the community of church, you know, church was like art school.
Rashid Zakat:The the the exuberance of church, you know, I I I've talked a lot about catching the holy spirit and how liberating that feels and and translating that into things. That feels like it sits on one pole. You know what I mean? Or like one side and the other side is, is is is, pure. And maybe that's what the curiosity there's, there's something in me that's also, like, there's there's there's how would I I'm trying to, again, find a way to to put that.
Rashid Zakat:It's not just a reverence, but it's, I I think the other thing I grew up doing a lot of is watching a lot of the TV as a kid. You know, watching a lot of the Simpsons and live in color. And so I think and I, you know, I grew up doing a lot of theater. And where what I'm do what I do, who I am, where I'm at, I think is, some amalgamation of asking a lot of questions about the nature of the things, whether it be you know, my my fascination in this moment is both IP on the Internet. And so how I'm sort of playing with a lot of questions that I have about black people, about our ideas of blackness, what I think blackness is, and the usefulness of the Internet is sort of, played with with the things that I've learned in church, like video, you know.
Rashid Zakat:I mean, I would call myself a filmmaker, I guess, a video artist, whatever will pay the bills on on a or or on a grand application, but using, you know, those things, which also include design, which also includes space making, which also include making bad music, but DJ ing good music, to ponder questions, to and part of questions about blackness, about liberation, about, interconnectivity, community. I don't know if I'm making any sense. I don't have my, my map pitch down, but
Rob Lee:No. No. No.
Rashid Zakat:No. That's that's kinda where I would say where I say I'm at when I'm doing when
Rob Lee:I'm questioning. Yeah. You're you're you're a polymath.
Rashid Zakat:Yeah. Or, you know, like, I I like I it's it's I I I hesitate sometimes to call myself a film maker because I don't really make films. And I'm not disinterested in I'm a little disinterested, but I'm not really disinterested in making films. But I'm interested in what I'm interested in the space filmmaking creates. You know what I'm saying?
Rashid Zakat:Like, I've sort of discovered the term video art before the pandemic, like, for for for all in terms of, like, oh, I've been doing this thing, where I've been sort of exploring aesthetics, exploring, feeling. You know what I mean? Exploring, you know, a lot of my shit is really musical. Excuse me. I don't know if I'm all at the.
Rashid Zakat:Okay. Great. Great. A lot of my a lot of my my work is really musical. And, you know, like, that that that comes from church, that comes from that sort of practice of seeing people crush the Holy Spirit all the time.
Rashid Zakat:But I'm using pop culture and, you know, memes, and, I don't think that I don't think if you know you know sort of culture exist anymore, but sort of wherever I can sort of, slip an inside jokes, maybe is a better way to say it Yeah. Is, is what I'm kinda playing with and using whatever I have at my disposal. So,
Rob Lee:yeah. Yeah. Thank you. No. That that's that's good.
Rob Lee:And, you know, see, like I said, you know, I'm in that class of if you know, you know, because I get those references. I'm like, yeah, here's my entertainment. And as a person who who did a podcast for about 10 years, that that was pretty much the basis of of, like
Rashid Zakat:Oh, wow. Wow.
Rob Lee:I wanna explore pretty much the weird world that would that surround us, and I'm gonna work in my references. I'm gonna, like, talk about these different crime stories. I'm gonna find you know, it was a bit where in this this podcast that I did, I would always find a way to have an alligator story. Sounds like there's one other weird alligator. That's So, like, every 1 or every 2 or 3 episodes, we find a story where, like, there's an alligator goofy, you know, something something goofy.
Rob Lee:Right?
Rashid Zakat:Have you seen the the alligator the dude kicking the alligator that's been circling around that image?
Rob Lee:That would be one that would pop up in the pod.
Rashid Zakat:Right. Right. Okay. Boom. Boom.
Rashid Zakat:It might even make the world read more of that.
Rob Lee:And and there was one, last week that was on ESPN, and I immediately sent it to my partner. I was like, yo, this would be something I would cover on a whole podcast. It was, someone going to a baseball game that was denied access because they brought their, emotional support alligator with them.
Rashid Zakat:Right. And I was
Rob Lee:just like, this is why I need to get back to doing that podcast.
Rashid Zakat:Yeah. Or at least you could even, I don't know how much alligator talk you do on this podcast, but I feel, I mean, we're doing something right now. Right? This is the most. Oh, wow.
Rashid Zakat:Emotional support alligator. That is so a friend of mine earlier, who in her spiritual tradition, they get read, and they, you know, they get assigned an animal. And she was sent me later today. This is a few hours ago. She was talking about how she was read as an alligator.
Rashid Zakat:And she was sitting with that because, you know, fierce fierce creatures, but you don't necessarily wanna get close to an alligator. But at the same time, alligators have they're also, like, you know, I think it's, like, birds clean their teeth.
Rob Lee:It's true. You know what
Rashid Zakat:I mean? Like, I forget, like, butterflies drink alligator tears or something like that, or they enjoy alligator tears, something like that, she was sharing. Wow. But the idea of an emotional support alligator. I don't know.
Rashid Zakat:Something about that brings that all that brings something. I don't know what the theme of the day is, but it brings it all the way around.
Rob Lee:They're they're cold blooded.
Rashid Zakat:So Yeah. You know, but sometimes, you know, you need some cold blooded lovin'. I got nothing.
Rob Lee:I almost want the sound effect, the, you know, the word Jane sound effect just right there. Just boom. Let's do it. So so I wanna go back into this. You you touched on, you know, pop culture.
Rob Lee:You touched on sort of ideas around blackness, curiosity, sort of with those actually, let me go back. Let me go back because I thought this was really funny. So talk about, and then I'll work that next question. And we talk about, sort of that moment. And this is what I call it, that moment when you were struck by the creative Holy Ghost initially Mhmm.
Rob Lee:Or video art to explore anything creative.
Rashid Zakat:You know, I don't I don't know if it was a moment. It was definitely a series of moments. I shout out to my mom. You know, my mom is, like, the first artist that I I know I've known. And she was just always creative.
Rashid Zakat:Right? She was, the head musician in my church growing up. That's one of the reasons I was in church all the time. So she played piano, and she was a piano prodigy. There's a story folks tell about her that when she was maybe 5 or 6, her dad was a pastor.
Rashid Zakat:And she climbed up on the piano, and, you know, I did the same thing. I remember climbing up the piano and just banging and not making any sounds. She climbed up the piano and just played, like, just played. And it it was almost, like, from that day on, she was the church musician. But my mom also made time to sew.
Rashid Zakat:My mom sings. She I just I mean, I'm recently finding out in the last 10 years. She also was a really dope illustrator, and, she always maintained a creative practice, you know. Like, I think church, although that was definitely labor and obligation, it was also a creative practice. You know?
Rashid Zakat:She had to practice. She had to be disciplined. She had to show up for a thing at a time, and then she would sew. You know, she would pick me up from school. We would kinda go our separate ways in the in the basement, and she would just sew for hours and hours.
Rashid Zakat:You know, she sold to hustle, but she also just really enjoyed making clothes. And I think because she didn't, she wasn't as encouraged in her creativity. She was really good about encouraging me and giving me a lot of space and let me sort of, like, you know, staff around. And so I I say all that to say. I'm not sure if there was one moment per se because there was always, you know, my mom was always creating on the daily.
Rashid Zakat:I think that's also how she was working out that she was emotionally regulating by someone as well. And so when I was a kid, you know, I played with Legos. I wanted to be an architect, and then I joined my church's camera crew. Didn't think a lot about I didn't think a lot of it, but some combination of being on the camera crew, learning how to see in that way, you know, they, like I didn't I couldn't have told you what the rule of thirds was until I came to college, but they taught me, you know, they taught me the rule of thirds. They I learned composition, learn how to edit.
Rashid Zakat:You know, we were editing on, like, quarter inch tape decks. And then I I got really interested in theater, so I went to Baltimore School for the Arts, and studied theater. And, some it was maybe 11th grade. Okay. Here we go.
Rashid Zakat:Like, 11th grade in high school, I was totally disenchanted with theater. I mean, I wasn't I wasn't bad, but I, like, was, like, the second worst for like, one person who was worse than me than me. I was in class with a lot of really talented people. Sure. And and, you know, some people now that are in a business and they're working and they're cut on TV.
Rashid Zakat:I see it wasn't, which is amazing. And but I didn't have that love or dedication that a lot of folks, I think, that are that are succeeding now have. But when I was in 11th grade, a kid who had studied theater in my high school, he was a senior when I was a freshman. He came back to Baltimore from North Carolina to make a film, and he was telling me about the school he was at, North Carolina School of the Arts. And that was maybe the moment that everything just sounded click for me.
Rashid Zakat:You know? I forget. We were shooting, like, a PSA or something like that. And I think I originally signed up to act, but he was talking about camera stuff and I was like, oh, I know that. Like, I know I understand video.
Rashid Zakat:Like, this is I've been doing this at church for like 10 years. So I know how to do some of these. So many things make sense. I just don't have language for it. And I think that's maybe the moment where I was like, oh, wait.
Rashid Zakat:I should do film. I should do, like, video stuff. I should, like, play with that. So I told my mom, my mom got me a camera and, kinda that's also how I ended up in Philly. I had some friends that came to Temple for film school, and, all the music I was listening to was coming from it was like Joe Scott and The Roots and D'Angelo.
Rashid Zakat:Oh, like, it was all of if it wasn't coming out of, like, Electric Lady Studios, it was coming out of, Larry Gold. And I, wanted to I was like, I didn't I I wasn't really clear, but I, like, was doing video stuff. I, like, I was playing more with with recording things around in my daily life.
Rob Lee:And I
Rashid Zakat:was like, I wanna do video stuff with, like, the the music people that I love. So that was a roundabout story because that that there is not really one moment, but I think those are maybe a few of the little loops. I think probably that moment in 11th grade was, when I probably got on the path that I'm on now, even though I feel like I've been on it forever.
Rob Lee:I really
Rashid Zakat:And more and more recently. Like, more it it gets more and more refined, I think, the older I get. Sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. No.
Rob Lee:You're good. You're good. And and I relate. Like, you know, I I tell people because it's it's exchange. Right?
Rob Lee:And Mhmm. You know, I can go back to freaking high school, 9th grade, you know, 24 years ago. That sucks. But that that long ago, right, I have another
Rashid Zakat:How you knees, man?
Rob Lee:We're not good. Having having the, like, handy recorder and kind of being trolley, you know, at, at, at city, I'm like, Yeah. So you're not gonna be here next semester. So tell me about your time here. Wow.
Rob Lee:Microphone. That's how it was. I was one of those. And, you know, that was sort of some of those earlier recordings or even, you know, trying to impress a girl. I found this, this sort of dubbing machine that was left in the back of a school, and I was like, I can figure this.
Rob Lee:I'm a tinkerer. You know? Legos, I get it. Yeah. Yeah.
Rob Lee:I remember I was trying to impress this girl. This is so corny and so bad. Didn't get into the school of the arts for context. But Who did
Rashid Zakat:you run this before? Illustration. Oh, dope. Dope.
Rob Lee:Yeah, I was always drawn X Men or have you. I was just my thing.
Rashid Zakat:Oh, gee. Yeah. Come back to that.
Rob Lee:So so I remember getting this dubbing machine and I had this advanced, English class and we were talking about, like, the classics. Right? And we were talking about Beowulf and, Macbeth Beth and things of that nature, ended up doing a rap song to impress this girl in the class. This shows you the era. Because didn't there who was doing all of the clue ad libs, and I got wild jealous.
Rashid Zakat:Got it.
Rob Lee:Like, I'm gonna do a rap song as, like, Macbeth, and it was called murder Mac. Yeah, I did that we definitely would have been friends first of all.
Rashid Zakat:No. I don't know anyone else who was blending Shakespeare and rap music. You know what I'm saying? Like yeah. So anyway Yeah.
Rashid Zakat:That's yeah.
Rob Lee:That's what it was. That's what it was. And so so kinda playing and playing with these ideas and, you know, I I was writing rhymes and all of that stuff, and I had this mortifying moment where my English no, no, my, biology teacher found my composition notebook with all of my raps in there, and she graded a few of them.
Rashid Zakat:Oh, wow. Wow.
Rob Lee:And she was like, this isn't that bad. This is really good. This is dark. And I was like, yo, You are not even in English to grade myself. But, you know, once I I realized that really wasn't my my thing in that way, I think, kinda looking at sort of this this this version of storytelling and kind of refining, going through the process.
Rob Lee:You know, I've been a podcaster for over 15 years in February. And so that's that's a long time in figuring it out and being in a spot now where it's this sort of full circleness where I didn't have anyone that taught me a lot, you know, like really anything. There was no sort of lane here as some folks teach me a little bit about how to use certain boards and mixers, some of the technical stuff, but for the most part, it's self taught. And Yeah. Now I'm teaching sort of this next generation of high school kids.
Rob Lee:I got 2 different groups I'm teaching, you know, to different schools. And, you know, that's that's sort of the thing, but it all comes from this curiosity. It all comes from this, and I can't draw, apparently. So let me try something else. At least
Rashid Zakat:not well, you know, not not to the style they appreciate at School For the Arts. This is true.
Rob Lee:And then they You know
Rashid Zakat:what I mean?
Rob Lee:In 19:90. Right.
Rashid Zakat:Right. I also I'm just hearing, double double toiling trouble. Calls for burn if I a bubble here
Rob Lee:go I was like how damn spot? I was quoting things and the girl in there. She was a model right? She was a model in the school and She was like what's going on murder Mac? And I was like, I heard a nickname.
Rob Lee:Hell, yeah. I take that I I got the number off of that too. So I was just like,
Rashid Zakat:I was like If you did if you haven't done something cringey for a a pretty girl's attention or pretty person's attention, I should say. Have you really been living? You know what I mean? Have you been living your fullest life? Like have you are you open as a person for real for real?
Rashid Zakat:You know what I'm saying? These are real questions.
Rob Lee:I would fully embrace it now. I'm like, look, man. I need a crown. I need Right. You know, we're doing this.
Rob Lee:We're making it happen. I I
Rashid Zakat:feel like that's what my adult life is becoming more and more and more of. I hope it is anyway. I'm just like more I'm trying to get more ridiculous and more absurd and play more and more costumes. You know what I'm saying? Like Yeah.
Rashid Zakat:More shit that people don't get. But if you get it, you'll find this funny as fuck. You know what I mean? Or you'll find it whatever however you find it.
Rob Lee:Well, I mean, I I throw out there every now and again. Like, folks that I have, like, real conversations with, like, this is a this is a version of it and sort of, you know, the folks that are that I talked to afterwards, like, you would obviously be 1. We have some things in common. So it's just like, I was continuing this conversation. But, you know, I'll I'll throw out their different bits and see what sticks, and I have this running this running the gag, because I get invited to different things and especially sort of because I've cover, you know, arts and culture.
Rob Lee:You know, my partner, she'll say, like, yeah, I just feel like the glasses are gonna get smaller and the scarfs are gonna get bigger. What are you doing? Because I'm just waiting for you to be completely pretentious. I was like, I'm going to. I'm going to be there.
Rashid Zakat:Lean into it. Lean into it. Get a beret. You know what I'm saying?
Rob Lee:I'm gonna start wearing captain's hats to podcast. It's like, we need to
Rashid Zakat:talk to you on this creative journey. No. Listen. I like one, I think I just want all black men to get weird as fuck. You know what I mean?
Rashid Zakat:Like I feel like we could all afford to let a load off and to just do some weird as shit. You know what I'm saying? And that probably turns most people off because it doesn't make sense. I don't know. I I hope the next time I see you, you're wearing like a captain's hat and a like and a like, you know, a kunta can take cloth, ascot.
Rashid Zakat:You know what I'm saying? And speaking with, like, a full British accent or some shit. Just to fuck with people.
Rob Lee:Before I move to this next question, it's a segue. There is one day, I got invited. This is years years years years ago, but remember that fake university that Trump had?
Rashid Zakat:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Rob Lee:He went to that for a session, and I spoke in a British accent the entire session.
Rashid Zakat:Please tell me this is recorded somewhere, man.
Rob Lee:It is time to
Rashid Zakat:stand. Unfortunately.
Rob Lee:But the the girl I was taking the time, she was just like she's like, will you just incur it? I was like, that's the only way I can get through it.
Rashid Zakat:Yeah. Wait. So did people buy it? Yes. Yo.
Rashid Zakat:Listen. Yo. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Rashid Zakat:Yes. Yes. And it had, like,
Rob Lee:tartan trousers on and a sweater vest.
Rashid Zakat:That was
Rob Lee:terrible. That was terrible. Who put the Cheesecake Factory after? It was wild. So let let me reset.
Rob Lee:Let me reset because this this feels like this the the other podcast, which is great. But,
Rashid Zakat:10 points though that is Trump University that you did that shit at too. Like sorry. I don't know we gotta be Of course. Question and answers, but
Rob Lee:So and this goes back to that that question I started. So blackness, pop culture, memes, and and sort of this this desire to satisfy curiosity, to say curiosity. What if if it was, let's say, 3 or or, you know, 2 to 3 themes, what are the themes that you're pursuing mostly? And in your opinion, why are those themes important for you to pursue within your your work?
Rashid Zakat:Someone just asked me this question, and I had 3 ready to go, and I was so proud of myself. And I sounded so smart, and I I have none of them right now. So there it goes a bunch of nothing. I I definitely have been thinking a lot about liberation. Liberation both you know, it's political liberation, social stuff, all that stuff, but like, embodiment, like, physical, somatic, like, liberation.
Rashid Zakat:Like, I'm somebody who I think some of my coping mechanisms for, growing up was I'm in my head a lot. You know what I mean? I'm an only child. A lot of my childhood was just me and my mom. And, you know, my mom was a working mom, so it was just me by myself.
Rashid Zakat:But also how I navigated, yeah, navigated a lot of childhood was disassociating in a way. And so coming back to, you know, trying to reconnect with my body, seeing a similar thing in a lot of other people, and a lot of my friends and conversations that I'm having with people, I think, and something else. I'm not quite sure what it is, but liberation and I can talk a lot about more has been a word that's been coming up a lot. I've been thinking a lot about transmission. Like the Internet is a medium, way, you know, radio was a medium sort of like how do you induce emotionality through ones and zeros.
Rashid Zakat:You know what I mean? Like, how it's one thing maybe because again, I'm I'm my so much about how I relate to the world. I can I can point to church, and I think about what's uncanny about going to church and having a preacher preach as you get this knowledge? Right? Like, you get this encouragement.
Rashid Zakat:You get these, like, intellectual nuggets you can use, but they're really validated because the preacher's like,
Rob Lee:well, you know, you know,
Rashid Zakat:the preacher's whooping, you know what I mean? He's like, and you can tell him when you go to the scene, like this difference between if I say, you can believe anything. You put your your mind to to when the Lord says, I can power you to do anything, to put your mind to, because I got, you know, the it's an emotional, I'm gonna get canceled. I can't wait. But it's, it's emotional.
Rashid Zakat:It's enrapturing. It like does something and it's something about doing that with ones and zeros that I'm so fascinated with. Like, how can like a series of memes evoke something emotional from you? You know what I mean? Like, how can, like, if I hit on the right couple of references, I don't have to necessarily say the thing.
Rashid Zakat:Mhmm. I'm trying to get better at saying the thing, but I don't necessarily have to say the thing, but you can understand the thing.
Rob Lee:You know
Rashid Zakat:what I'm saying? And I'm doing all of this shit with, you know, mouse clicking.
Rob Lee:You know
Rashid Zakat:what I'm saying? That's something in that that I'm fascinated with and and maybe as a medium. And maybe there's a third one. Oh, that's it. That's I don't wanna say blackness.
Rashid Zakat:I don't be talking about black people too much. I mean, maybe it's not just a a reverence. I'll say a reverence as well, or humor. Maybe we'll say humor. I think I think humor is a method.
Rashid Zakat:I mean, 1, I just like to laugh. I just I, you know, I like to I like to laugh. I like to make people laugh. I like to hear people laugh, but I think I love some of my favorite communicators and some of my favorite people use humor to get people on the same page in a way. They use humor to communicate ideas.
Rashid Zakat:They use humor to soften a blow of a punch where it's like, yo, I gotta punch you in your gut, but we can laugh about it or we can I gotta tell you this thing? I gotta tell you why you suck. I gotta tell you that, you know, you did this thing. I think it's Alan Watts who says you can't be spiritual without a sense of humor. And there's something about humor that I think like, yeah.
Rashid Zakat:Like, you can change perspective by making somebody laugh more than you can do a speech. You know what I'm saying? Like, I can, like, get you to see what I'm thinking that might be, you know, if if sort of my train of thinking is, like, here and you're trying to thinking is all the way over there. Humor, at least to me, has been the easiest bridge the easiest thing to use to bridge difference to. Yeah.
Rashid Zakat:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say transmission, liberation, humor are things that I think they work their ways into all the things.
Rob Lee:You you you referenced Alan Watts. Like, I come on now. But that's I got I got this question. I I I'm getting you could be either very in a different zone or you're in an air sign. Right?
Rashid Zakat:No. I get that a lot though. Okay. I'm curious to what you think though. I'm curious to what you think.
Rob Lee:You could end up being a Leo for all I know. Wow.
Rashid Zakat:Woah. Okay. Okay.
Rob Lee:I mean, there's been there's been too many references. I'm like, my man just said the thing that I was thinking or a reference that I would make. I'm like, hold up, bro. That's literally the thing. Because, I mean, I'm a cusp, so I'm kinda useless here.
Rob Lee:When was your birthday?
Rashid Zakat:January 20th. Oh. Okay. January 3rd.
Rob Lee:Okay. So you're a cat. Cat gang.
Rashid Zakat:I'm a cat. I'm a cat. Good. Sun, moon, Taurus rising. I got, you know, hurt.
Rashid Zakat:I feel so sorry for people who date me, but, yeah.
Rob Lee:I I similar.
Rashid Zakat:I joke
Rob Lee:I joke with my my, I joke with my my my boss at my day job who's a cap, and I'm like, let's just be petty Capricorns right now. I told them to replace them with a with a sequel script, and my boss is like, she's not she can help. She was like, please do. That's those ones and zeros again. That's the emotionality right there.
Rob Lee:You were fired through sequel.
Rashid Zakat:So many of my favorite folks, though, are, like, born plus minus a day of you. Like, Questlove. You know what I mean? Like, what'd you say?
Rob Lee:Big day.
Rashid Zakat:Who else? Like, my friend, Leah, my my homeboy Brandon, like, super creative people get shit done. Like, hearing that you've been doing your podcast, you've been podcasting for 15 years, then is I put that in the context of, like, the Capricorn Aquarius, like, consistency, but also creativity jam. So but no. No.
Rashid Zakat:No. I I have very little air in my chart, actually. But I get that I get that often a lot. I I I think I give off, like, Aquarius vibes to people. Definitely.
Rashid Zakat:I would I'll take that. I'll take that. I'll take it. But
Rob Lee:yeah. So you you were touching on humor and and that that last thing, and I and I think, you know, in a world where movie theater but anyway, in in this current, like, situation where you where folks can almost not be funny, you you mentioned it earlier of I'm gonna get canceled. Oh. It's sort of that where we don't do nuance. We we're not really good at even attempting to be funny.
Rob Lee:I and and I have a question about failure later, you know, sort of Mhmm. Trying for something and not really quite quite getting it. Could you speak on the importance of having a good sense of humor or a sense of humor as it relates to being an artist?
Rashid Zakat:For sure. I mean, I you know, the artists that I know that don't have senses of humor are really, interesting people. I think I think I think I think I think I think, you know, there's humor as like, a there's humor as a coping mechanism, which I'm not gonna pretend like I don't also use. But then there's humor as like a lens in which to see the world. Right?
Rashid Zakat:Which is like nothing means one thing, you know. Like, everything can mean multiple meanings. Every life, this existence, this thing that we're doing and, you know, just being a human and having flesh and senses and shit is absurd. Right? Like, we we live short lives, but we have these things in our head that are terrified to die.
Rashid Zakat:You know what I mean? Like, we have, like we have this thing in our we have this ability to just story tell in our head that make us think we have to control over anything, and we're really just kind of showing up to the absurdity of every day. You know what I mean? Like, I think I mean, I'll talk I'll talk personally and then I'll talk about artists and then I'll talk about, just my thoughts about because I think you can be funny and I think people are funnier now than they've been in a really long time. And I think something about the force I think something about I'll come back to that.
Rashid Zakat:But, like, from from I guess maybe from my own from my own stuff, humor has definitely been a way that I've coped and survived and managed. Growing up, you know, against the rough drop backdrop of, you know, poverty infused Baltimore state. I don't know. I'm trying to get better at that grant language to talk about, like, my, you know, traumatizing childhood and bullshit. So so I can give you some money.
Rashid Zakat:White people, please, if you're listening to this podcast, I'm please give me money. I'm trying to save the world. No. It's necessary. You know, it's it's it's it's it's it's I think maybe because I am a Capricorn.
Rashid Zakat:Right? And like, I think my demeanor can be very. I think if I was who I am on the inside all the time, I'd be oscillating between, like, telling everybody what to do sharply, forcefully, and then laughing at everybody's inability to do it. There's and something about, I think, the way that I maybe feel like I instinctively want to control the world or think the world is even controllable. How often that's met with, like, no, nigga.
Rashid Zakat:Forces me to try to it's not about not taking things seriously, but it's also about not taking things so seriously that my head can explode. I think that's something I can be prone to. You know what I mean? I can ruminate. It can be really dark.
Rashid Zakat:I can, like, harp into a thing. But then I've learned that humor, at least has been helpful, is a great way to communicate with people too. You know what I'm saying? It's a great way to make sense of my own, you know, outburst and things like that. A way to sort of contextualize how I see the world.
Rashid Zakat:And I think humor from an artist feels important. And I'm I'm totally joking about my humorless friends. I love you guys. To maybe just be really succinct, I think being an artist is about asking question and trying to interrogate something for me anyway. And because I'm not on what the answers are.
Rashid Zakat:I'm trying to discover what the question is by asking a lot of questions to get maybe closer to it. It feels like, having a sense of humor looking use humor as a tool, as a way to sort of, like, look at all the different possibilities and not be so attached
Rob Lee:to all of these,
Rashid Zakat:but everything can become material in this way. It feels important if that's and I think for maybe in a broader sense, maybe what's easy, you know? Like, I think, I I love Dave Chappelle. Because I think how both sides a lot of people and sort of in in yeah. Here we go.
Rashid Zakat:There we go. I'm losing it. I'm just gonna take this off.
Rob Lee:Okay. Okay.
Rashid Zakat:Quality. But, the, I'll I'll, you know, think about how many people Dave Chappelle politicized. You know what I'm saying? Because he was able to entertain you, first of all. Like, you're you're entertained first, and then he's also giving you social commentary that if you aren't watching if you aren't reading the news, if you're not as a you know, if you're not if you don't have a particular lens on black culture, you might not on American culture and black culture, you might not have the tools he has or the framing that he has.
Rashid Zakat:And a lot of what he's doing is just framing things in a sort of way to get knowledge to sort of pass through. And, yeah, that just that just generally feels helpful. Feels helpful. Be miserable if it's not if you didn't have that.
Rob Lee:Yeah. No. I think I think there's there's a lot in there. And when, you know, we we can't do you like, one of the things you said earlier or to paraphrase is like sort of this experience is a weird experience.
Rashid Zakat:It's weird.
Rob Lee:And at times when I'm at my most sort of I want to play with this, I feel the way that the comedian was depicted in, like, the Watchmen stuff. It's just like, oh, this is. And, you know, you almost have to look at it. And even in in the interviews, I don't take you know, when I'm doing interviews or talking with people, well, you know, they'll see, like, oh, we saw that you were in this magazine or on this billboard or whatever. I'm like, yes.
Rob Lee:I'm a c list celebrity. I am a nobody. I was like, I get free drinks on occasion. I can talk with people who are smarter, more talented than me, that make me seem like I'm interesting. That's kinda how I frame all of this or Mhmm.
Rob Lee:Even the sort of gallows bit of it of I I did this podcast on a boat, and then I realized where me and the other guys on the boat did not know how to swim. And I was like, oh, right. Local podcasts are seen here drowning in, in an harbor. And people will say, you can't say you can't say that. That's not funny.
Rob Lee:I was like, it is, and it's my life. So Damn. And you you
Rashid Zakat:get this you prove the stereotype true, though. Damn. The truth is
Rob Lee:art guy drowned. Right. Damn.
Rashid Zakat:It is how I I'm I'm trying to because I never know And I know I'm not supposed to I'm not supposed to ask you a question, but also fuck it. Like, I think Baltimore is, Baltimore is such an interesting place. And I wonder, like, being a celebrity in Baltimore I'll say this. Being like, I see Bilalao in Philly all the time. Mhmm.
Rashid Zakat:I don't say shit to Bilalao if I see Bilalao in
Rob Lee:the streets.
Rashid Zakat:No one does. You because you're not you're not trying to be Joe. You know what I'm saying? You're not trying to, like, do the most. Yeah.
Rashid Zakat:I guess what the kids are saying now. Right? But I I think about and Baltimore has a similar thing. Right? Like, nobody's trying to I think Baltimore's a little bit more, willing to show emotion than Philadelphians.
Rashid Zakat:You know what I'm saying? But it's still like a play of coolness to people in Baltimore. You know what I mean? I at least that's what I get. So as a as a as a self proclaimed celebrity in Baltimore, like, what is the so when you get a good reception for people, what is that like?
Rashid Zakat:Like, what is that what is that interaction? Are people trying to play it cool? Are they like
Rob Lee:it it it's funny, like, people are usually really chill really, really cool. They're like I had this, this coffee last year. I had my branding and all of that, and you'd have people, like, either working at the place that's selling the coffee or people that are buying the coffee that look at the label, look back at me, and they're like, you're you're the guy. And it's like Yeah. No excitement and and things of that nature, and I'm trying to play it so down.
Rob Lee:It's almost like when you're an athlete and you're wearing your own jersey out.
Rashid Zakat:Yeah.
Rob Lee:It's like me carrying around a microphone like, hey. Look familiar? Like, no. But
Rashid Zakat:You should carry around with a little tiny microphone just, like, in case you get spotted.
Rob Lee:I should. I should, actually. Just had a clip, though. Just to laugh. Right.
Rob Lee:But there are some instances where and and this kinda goes into the thing I was touching on be before we got started of, you know, you encounter people, you know, almost, like, looking for the, hey. We we've done an interview together. We've done this together. Hey. What's going on?
Rob Lee:And, you know, a a mutual contact that that we have, mentioned so did the Philly energy, and I've been applying that. You know, maybe Tayeeb was just like Oh,
Rashid Zakat:okay. Word. Word.
Rob Lee:Yeah. He's like, that's not a normal people.
Rashid Zakat:The Philly energy too. Like
Rob Lee:It's not a normal people. I was like, I'm gonna start doing that.
Rashid Zakat:Yeah. Because,
Rob Lee:you know, I'm like I said before, I'm 64. I'm a large dude. So if you can't even say hi to me or what have you, it's just like I kinda moved to the other thing, and, you know, I shy away from it because I'm a pretty shy individual. So being out there, I'm kinda like, I just wanna get to this movie, bro. I just I'm just being here.
Rob Lee:I got too much alcohol in my system. I had to probably cocktails, the c less celebrity status, and I need to get to sort of the next place.
Rashid Zakat:I I feel like, you just made me think about, a dear, dear friend of mine who's I think I would say I don't what would I say? Let me not get beat up because she's gonna hit us, and I'm tired of my hair. But, I she gets recognized frequently enough in Philly, but in a way of, like, she has a podcast. She's just business and people because of her personality, how she shows up, people without meeting her find her to be their best friend in their minds in a way. And so there is this, like, familiarity, this, like, parasocial thing that happens with folks.
Rashid Zakat:Yeah. Yeah. That I guess I watch because I'm like, I'm like a effortless celebrity in Philly. Like, I feel like I have a lot of jail. I mean, I I'm not ashamed myself.
Rashid Zakat:It's like jail electronic. It's like you got a lot of you I got a lot of family. You got a lot of fan. Like, I, you know, the people that fuck with me, I know them. Like, we we have a relationship.
Rashid Zakat:And so it's a lot less getting recognized in this way, but a lot more of like, yo, we've been friends on the Internet for a really long time. What's up? Oh my god. You that dude. And I'm like, oh my god.
Rashid Zakat:It's you. You're that person. But the but the other thing is just I don't know. It just fascinates me. This sort of like, because, you know, you you have this thing you've been doing for so long and that I'm sure people have stories about who you are.
Rashid Zakat:And, yeah. Anyway, sorry. I didn't mean to divert us. No.
Rob Lee:But I I think there is something in there where, you know, sort of I I've been playing with this idea and exploring this idea. I haven't had the sort of wherewithal to continue down that path, but I am curious about sort of how friendship works when you're in these sort of creative circles and and how because it's it's it's a notion of dealing with I'll I'll be very plain when I say this. Dealing with who feels fake, dealing with who sorta doesn't have that time and that sort of energy. And even, you know, going back to the ones and zeros you mentioned earlier, sort of every interaction seems like it has to be a derivative of the online thing. And online, we know it's not real.
Rob Lee:It's already watered down from the real life thing. So it's this sort of loop that just can Yeah. It's just Kool Aid with more water. You don't like that mix.
Rashid Zakat:It can be. It can be. It doesn't always have to be, though. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Rashid Zakat:No. You know, I've I've been so blessed. I mean, my whole life, yo, I've I've been my friend my same friend, I was just saying, who's who's an alligator, is, she we were just talking about how lucky we how lucky we feel to have just, like, good people all the time. You know? And I I can't The only thing I can again, I can everything goes back to church.
Rashid Zakat:I I got I grew up with a really dope, really tight community. I can't say I felt understood by them or seen by them all the time. Sure. But it was people that look out for me regardless. I have other people you know, I have other mothers.
Rashid Zakat:I have I'm an only child, but I have other brothers and sisters. And something in that has always carried through all parts of my life forever and ever. You know? Look, I've always been lucky to meet good people, like, really interesting, loving, talented, introspective, perceptive, passionate, compassionate people. Like, at every turn of my life, I find myself in, like, circles where it's like, oh, shit.
Rashid Zakat:You're you're fucking dope. Like, you know, and you're a good person, and you're looking out for everybody in your life, and you're taking care of people, and you're you're caring. But then you're also working really fucking hard at your job. And, like like, I think, you know, Maori my my I'm sure you know Maori. Like, sorry.
Rashid Zakat:I know, but Puck has people listening. May Mayory Carmel Holmes, who is a dear friend who owns Blackstar. Is there a super public version of that, you know, of someone who is I think another example, actually. I think she's built the thing she's built because she's brilliant. She's creative, but she takes care of people.
Rashid Zakat:You know what I mean? And, like, finds herself in circles of people who take care of people. And then something that happens when it's like, yo. I like, I I I bangs with you on a human level. I love who you are.
Rashid Zakat:We're we're we're we're connecting. I feel safe. My nervous system feels at ease. I feel excited too. And because we're asking some of the same questions and because we're, like, at odds with the world in a way, and we're trying to express something artistically, I think a lot of my friends in relationships again, maybe this is my Capricorn stuff too.
Rashid Zakat:You know, it's like we I meet somebody. We bangs with each other, and then we work on projects together. And we bond and we in, like, you know, that's been just like a persistent thing throughout my whole life. And, I'm trying to work on being a better steward of those friendships and of those relationships because I think sometimes I don't always show up in a way for folks or haven't always shown up in a way for folks. But, yeah, it's been it's been a lot of that.
Rashid Zakat:It's been a lot of just like you know, and and I think too then, you know, again, I've been really lucky that the people that I bang with also bang with other good people. So the cycle the circle is just grow and grow and grow. And then, you know, like, I my my my I have a group of friends in West Philly. Well, we were in West Philly. In in in in our heyday, everybody's kinda scattered around the world now.
Rashid Zakat:But, you know, it's maybe a group of, like, 30 or 40 people that I don't know everybody in this group that well. You know what I'm saying? But in the 12, 13 years, I think that we've been maybe the genesis of who's been friends to friends and really it's been longer than that. It's like somebody who we've been, like, you know, distant friends through this friendship group for a decade, but I trust you. I love you.
Rashid Zakat:I know you. Like, oh, snap. Like, now we're also getting close. That's another thing I think that also happens is, like, these people that you know, I I say the same thing about this is what I was saying about folks online where it's like, there is a superficial thing that could be done, you know, because everybody's trying to eat. Everybody has the way that they're trying to eat or they're trying to survive or get validated or get seen or have their, their backs padded or, you know, get get get get get get, whatever.
Rashid Zakat:Get whatever it is. There is definitely that. But then I don't know. There's folks living at the odds too. You know what I mean?
Rashid Zakat:That are, like, trying to do interesting stuff, that are trying to ask interesting questions. And, there are a lot of folks like that too that's like, okay. We've been friends online for, like, 10 years. And there's something that happens that, like, a connection gets made. And, like, it could it could be this one way where it's, like, really awkward.
Rashid Zakat:You know? And it's just like, what can I use you for? What you're trying to use me for? How can we how can we network? How can we link up?
Rashid Zakat:And I I have no tolerance for that shit. I have no tolerance. I have no because it's like, if if I can't bang you on a personal level, if I can't hang out with you, if I can't, like, feel at ease with you Yeah.
Rob Lee:You know
Rashid Zakat:what I mean? Like, if I can't, like yeah. If I can't just have a conversation about how I'm feeling about something, I'm a be so distracted trying to either people please so I know you like me. You know what I'm saying? That's my trauma.
Rashid Zakat:Or trying to, you know, protect myself, trying to, like, hold back that whatever it is that you're trying to network and I'm trying to network. Whatever it is that I'm trying to squeeze out of you, I can't even do to the fullest extent because I don't fuck with you. Like, I don't I don't trust you. Like, I don't, you know, I don't, feel safe with you. You know what I'm saying?
Rob Lee:I I feel that. And, you know, that's in the in the nature of of doing this. I I I've talked with people and said, like, this is a collaborative hard project. And, you know, as I'm doing these these interviews and big shout out to Mayore because I I interviewed her. It was it was great.
Rashid Zakat:Right. Right. Right. Right.
Rob Lee:But but it is it is that thing where you're you're you're looking through at least I'm I'm looking through of, alright, how does this fit and being more sort of selective in it. Like, there's a certain degree of the the journalistic thing of, does this make sense? Does this make sense to fit in air for this? But, you know, as I was touching on earlier, you know, out of the 700 whatever interviews that I've done, maybe 20 people have my personal line. And, you know, I don't you know, it's it's not it's not for everybody.
Rob Lee:And, you know, to your point of, you know, does this feel like a real thing? Like, the the shortcut used to be, I do a movie review podcast, outside of this. And I would invite certain folks on, like, yo, what about to roast this movie? You trying to do this? And if they get it and it's like, yo, we continue.
Rob Lee:So, like, the thing that I like to do, you know, because I I travel on occasion, sometimes it's just to step away from the normal factory settings, the dullness that you're around. Like, life starts to become wallpaper. I'll go up to Philly just to go up. Like like, yo, I just wanna get, like, coffee from this one spot. And I might help folks.
Rob Lee:Like, yo, what's good? You around? You busy? You wanna grab a coffee? You wanna grab a bite?
Rob Lee:Some people don't know how to deal with that. Mhmm. And I hit I hit everyone that I know with the same thing to see who hits me back and because literally, I'll book a ticket, and it's like, yeah. I'm gonna get there, like, 8 normal workdays set up, and then I'm gonna book that joint home at, like, 3. So it was just like, oh, I'm trying to do the social rounds to, you know, cultivate this sort of thing.
Rob Lee:But, you know, sort of that creative friendship connection, whatever, from the online to the offline and and so on, It's trying to figure out, like, how do you folks, like, operate in that way? And it's case by case.
Rashid Zakat:Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. I feel like it seems like, especially being adults, it feels like it takes like 5 times to link up with somebody. You know what I mean?
Rashid Zakat:Like, you got a 3 to 5 failed attempts. I'm guilty as fuck with that. I'm so bad for everybody. But yeah. Yeah.
Rashid Zakat:Yeah. So you
Rob Lee:so you you mentioned you mentioned failure. So that's that's a question I've had. I started reading this this book today. So this is a new question that you won't even have. Yeah.
Rob Lee:So, you know, I'm reading this book. It's this dude. I think his name is Eric Kessler's designer, and he's talking about just failure as a way to try to, like, move things along.
Rashid Zakat:It's a white book with, like, a orange Yep. Build it.
Rob Lee:Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep.
Rob Lee:Yep. Again, so tell tell me about a time that you've you've failed or, like, fallen short, like, just sort of maybe in the the epic fail far bar lots or have you, but one of those instances where you've, like, fallen short and, like, what have you learned from it? And and I'll and I'll preface it because that could be a very revisiting. Right? Dredging things back up.
Rob Lee:But, you know, there have been times where I'll do this movie screening series. And I did this series called shot in Baltimore, and I'm showing movies that were filmed here in Baltimore. And no one got behind it. There were some people that came out, but then no one really got behind it. And, ultimately, I wanted to try to help support, like, you know you know, emerging filmmakers.
Rob Lee:That's what I wanted to do. And the last one that I did, it was literally an emerging filmmaker. We were doing his films, and we were gonna do an interview. And it's like, maybe we can help him get his next one funded. Nobody showed up.
Rob Lee:That and he was like, I don't think I'm gonna do film anymore. I think I'm gonna transition to a different media. I was like, shit. That's that's the that's the you know, this was my fault a little bit. I felt weird.
Rob Lee:I hope he comes back to it in
Rashid Zakat:a few years. It's like, okay. We can go. Yeah. Or
Rob Lee:if not, maybe. You know? But yeah. And, you know, having that and and and sort of just being attached to things is almost this sort of reminder of or even the naysayer, right, of you know, that's the lane. You're you're supposed to be in this lane.
Rob Lee:Go back to podcast microphone boy versus, you know, trying to extend and do something that's more oriented around bringing community together. And, you know, I kinda just maybe learn different things from it. It's always information, but I deem that as falling short or or failure.
Rashid Zakat:Yeah. Failure is interesting, man. I've I've been thinking a lot about failure generally, both in the the necessity of failure. You know what I mean? And how to contextualize failure.
Rashid Zakat:Trying to think of a time that I fail. I fail I mean, I fail all the fun time. I mean, part of yeah. I I was joking with somebody about this of, like, I'm trying to make part I'm trying to make a big part of my practice failing. You know what I'm saying?
Rashid Zakat:Because that means I'm trying to step out of a comfort zone. You know what I'm saying? That means that I'm trying things that don't work. Yeah. And I think I've see if I can tell the story.
Rashid Zakat:This one time, I my life was in, like, flux. I was in just in flux. I just quit my job. I was living in New York, working at, you know, this tech startup. And I love the people, but I was really disenchanted with the work.
Rashid Zakat:I was disenchanted with the idea of working. And so I left that job. I left New York, and I was kind of, like, bag of bonding around the world for a while. A friend of mine I was helping a different of mine shoot a film, and we were we were in Geneva. And I to make money, he kept us broke.
Rashid Zakat:I was broke, like, you know, broke. I was doing a little bit of consulting for a friend of mine, some kind of consulting and design work. And also trying to, like, tend to my, you know, where I was at the time too because I didn't I didn't know where I was what I was doing with life. I didn't have a job. I didn't have anything lined up.
Rashid Zakat:Blah blah blah. And it was a pretty simple assignment. He wanted me to design some ads. And so I would walk around I was thinking I was there for maybe 2 weeks, 2 and a half weeks. And it was something that, you know, I could have sat down and done for, like, an hour or it was, like, a hour, you know, banging this job out an hour, keep it moving.
Rashid Zakat:And it was maybe, like, 10 days of me struggling to make sense of this design, And I couldn't do it. I was, like, frustrated with myself. I was angry. I was walking around this beautiful place, seeing all this stuff and just, like, my brain was you know, I would, like, shoot some stuff with my friend, and then I would leave to go back to where I was staying. And then we totally preoccupied with, like, why I couldn't get this design to work, and I couldn't get it to make sense.
Rashid Zakat:And I'm I'm you mentioned that book, Failed It. I, took a trip to I love saying shit like this. I love that this is what my life has become. I took a trip to Paris. I took a trip, but I had a cousin.
Rashid Zakat:That was it. This is all this is all on broke niggas shit, but I I put I'm coming in here to Nice. Trade. But the I got I took a train ride to Paris. My cousin was there.
Rashid Zakat:She was like, yo. Train is, like, you know, €30, €40. You can stay in my place. We'll walk around, and then we'll hang out. I stopped at this bookshop.
Rashid Zakat:Even hanging out with her, I was really preoccupied. And I stopped at this bookshop, and I found this book, Whatever You Think Think the Opposite, by Paul Arden. He has a couple of other 10 books that are like this that are like, you know, really short, more graphical sort of things about creativity process, things like that. And it's not who you are. It's how good you wanna be.
Rashid Zakat:It's just that's like the big one. The I, like, sat in a bookshop and just read this whole book. You know, it was like 30 minutes. It was pretty short book, and I just sat there and read it. And I was like, fuck.
Rashid Zakat:The whole book talks about the importance of failure, the importance of seeing things differently, the importance of trying and overshooting and undershooting because the point is you just keep shooting. You know what I'm saying? And you learn from what you kinda you learn what you take away from that. So I that, like, put something in me to my homeboy client that I was doing work for to be like, yo. Your business is wrong.
Rashid Zakat:Like, I couldn't figure out the ads. I couldn't figure out the design because what he was the ads he was trying to make was wrong. As he was trying to make that were wrong were because his business model was fucked up. Like, it's no. It wasn't fucked up.
Rashid Zakat:I love you, man. Thank you if you're listening. But it was he and I and he and I talk about this often. The business saw how it was wrong. And years later, I sent him this, like, long pretentious email.
Rashid Zakat:Like, I mean, obnoxious obnoxious email. That's like, I'm so sorry. I you know, I'm I was like a week and some change behind the deadline when I said I was gonna get it to him. I was like radio silent. So in this long email of like, yo, I'm starting to do the designs, and, like, I'm not gonna do them because this is the campaign is wrong.
Rashid Zakat:Like, what you're doing is wrong. The business you're trying to do is wrong. Like, what you need to do are these things. And, And, I mean, he's a different, you know, we we work together a lot. And so we had that relationship.
Rashid Zakat:And I didn't use a lot of humor to to to to buffer it. And, you know, he's super chill. I love him so much. He was like, alright. Well, that's how you feel.
Rashid Zakat:That's cool. He got somebody else to do the design. Cool. Years later years later, he was like, the email you sent makes so much sense. That's what I'm doing with my business.
Rashid Zakat:Alright. Thank you, Matt. I love you. And, that's maybe an that's not the best example of failure. Because, again, I feel all the time, man.
Rashid Zakat:I I feel all the time. I feel all the time. I'm trying to feel more too, to be honest. I'm trying to put myself out there more and, like, get embarrassed a little bit more. You know what I'm saying?
Rashid Zakat:Like
Rob Lee:The the the failure thing and and I think that I think that does work actually because, you know Yeah. We we don't look at it enough. Like, it's you know, I've been doing the the sort of weight training thing, like, pretty heavily since January. And, you know, I hear folks, and they talk about failing, failing reps, failing sets, and so on, and you have, like, this idea of, like, partial reps. It's like, no.
Rob Lee:No. That's there's gold there. Do that. You know? Don't get it all the way up.
Rob Lee:You know? See what you can do. Push yourself. And, you know, within you don't injure yourself, but that's sort of the thing of seeing what those those boundaries might look like. And going back to and I got, like, one more real question after this.
Rob Lee:But going back to, you know, sort of that film series I was, you know, mentioning earlier, the first film we did was Meteor Man. You know, 1980 classic. Right? And, you know, I lived in Lafayette projects across the street where they were filming part of it.
Rashid Zakat:I went to Harper Heights. I went to Lafayette Elementary School too.
Rob Lee:I mean, look. You know, little Charles Crow and Carlton action back in the day. And, I remember my dad woke us up. He's like, yo, they're filming a black Superman. We're going over there.
Rob Lee:I was like, it's 11. Like, what are we doing? But, you know, in in doing that, it it's like, you know, initially, you know, I had an interview before doing the hosting this this the screening, and this is just my ideas. Like, a just a, you know, sort of a pipe dream idea became a thing. And I I just remember going in there with all of this anxiety, crippling anxiety.
Rob Lee:Like, like I said, I'm shy. Being being in front of folks is like, I don't know. Do my limbs. What are we doing? And, you know, in in doing it subsequently, it just kept getting sort of better and better, and I would try
Rashid Zakat:Mhmm.
Rob Lee:Infer that I'm up there a little bit longer, almost uncomfortable for myself to get used to it. And, you know, after doing the, I'll call it, the summer film, you know, doing some of the stuff with with Blackstar, what have you, I did 2, you know, interviews with 2 of the filmmakers and then some interviews here for the new next film festival and then, you know, hosting, like, a panel. And this is, like, the biggest panel of that I've ever done. It was just, like, 10 people up there. We're chopping it up.
Rob Lee:And I'm like, oh, right. And this was in front of the biggest audience I've ever been in front of. And, you know, my partner, she reminded me, she was like, you doing those movie screenings kinda got you to the stage where you could be up there, and you can at least go through it and then experience it. And for me, because I don't do it as regularly, it's like when you don't lift weights for months and then suddenly it's like, oh, I'm a get back to that normal bench I was at.
Rashid Zakat:Yeah. No. This this book is, my boy Dave Dave McDowell recommended me this book, Creative Practices for Visual Artists. Mhmm. And it was such a joke.
Rashid Zakat:Everything you're saying is is like I've been that's that's helping me reflect on it of, like, you know, your muscles don't grow without failure. You know what I'm saying? They don't grow without you failing. But to also emotionally prepare yourself to work through constant failure, there's something about ritual. You know what I mean?
Rashid Zakat:Having a routine, having a ritual, having, a friend of mine, I was talking to this morning who is, is kinda restarting a gym moment. Like, they had a moment at clip that was like, oh, right. Like, if I do this in the sequence, I'm not gonna have I'm not gonna face resistance because it's like, okay. I'm gonna drop my kid off at school, and then I go to the gym, and then I do my things. You know what I mean?
Rashid Zakat:And also the thought of, like, seeing yourself as something. Like, some a friend of mine posted the other day, something that's like, seeing yourself as an athlete helps you to it contextualizes working out, contextualizes staying fit. It it gives you a reason for that thing. Even if you're a truck driver and you see yourself as an athlete, you see yourself as a runner, then you're more likely to run. You know what I'm saying?
Rashid Zakat:Uh-huh.
Rob Lee:What'd you say? I said 100. Yeah.
Rashid Zakat:Yeah. Yeah. But no. But it's some yeah. It is.
Rashid Zakat:But it's it is something even what you were saying about, you know, the film series was practice. You know, you did you had a bunch of them that you had to do. That was a ritual Yeah. For you. But you you know, you had to show up.
Rashid Zakat:You had to you had to practice. Nobody's there. You had to learn how to deal with the emotional, pain of that. You know what I mean? And show up again, once people come, you gotta learn how to deal with that emotional pain.
Rashid Zakat:Like, that it it's all yeah. I don't know. Just what you were saying. Just just what about this idea of ritual, and ritual was a way of moving through so much of the world. You know what I mean?
Rashid Zakat:Absolutely. Getting through so much of the resistance that, can get gotten through. You know what I'm saying? No.
Rob Lee:I hear you. And it's you you're right. It it is a thing, and I think sort of those I try to find those connections, that don't seem like to be the the the sort of typical one that one is looking for. Like, creative practice, it's like you said, it's it's the ritual thing. Whether you're doing something creative, whether you're doing something physical, whether you're doing something to pick up a new habit, it's the virtual nature of of doing it and just kinda monitoring it and being with it, that I think when you when you're falling short of it, it's like something that's with that in that.
Rob Lee:You're not gonna present send a pretentious email, but, you know, it's a lot of my gonna go. You might send one to yourself, like, look. Yep. She here's the thing. Right.
Rob Lee:You need to check her with yourself, probably. So so this is the last one I got, and this is sort of the the the the open ended piece of it. And I got rapid fire question. You get you get the rapid fire questions too because I know you're gonna be good on. So as we ran out sort of the main conversation, you know, in the next 2, 3 months, what have you, what's up for you?
Rob Lee:What's what's coming soon? Like, what are you, you know, what are you working on? What should folks be looking out for?
Rashid Zakat:Yeah. I actually have things I'm working on. That's great. So I've been working on this one project, Revival, that's been kind of the home for a lot of my ideas, questions, kind of creative various creative practices. I've been trying to just, like, dump it all into this one project and
Rob Lee:people have been enjoying it.
Rashid Zakat:And so, one thing that's coming up that I'm excited about is, I think October 13th. Let me look at my calendar. Yep. October 13th. I have, I'm at a group show.
Rashid Zakat:My friend, Sofia, who Sofia is amazing. She's a you know, she wouldn't call herself a DJ, but I think she's a really dope DJ music collector. She's amazing curator, really thoughtful person, about art and about work and about blackness. She's curating a, she's curating a show with myself and another artist, Adi Robinson, and I'm gonna have revival. I think it's I might be a third person, and I might be a jerk for forgetting them, but I I I know ideas in the show as well.
Rashid Zakat:Adi Robinson is her work is so colorful and so beautiful, and it's really dope. And I wish like, I tell I wish I could do what she does, and maybe I should tell her that. But, the revival is, maybe to quickly explain it, I have hard drives upon hard drives upon hard drives of movies, memes, things that I've downloaded from the Internet, you know, for a long time. Like, if you can it's not helpful. No one can see this.
Rashid Zakat:Just just Rob so you can see. You don't have this is these are some of years of, you know, my own filmmaking work and my own sort of video practice, client work, and things like that, but also full of, like, pirated, downloaded, purchased things from all around the Internet. And I DJ. I've been DJing for a really long time. And I because Serato let you DJ, and I'm just generally interested in this connection between video and sound.
Rashid Zakat:And sort of playing between Ableton and Premiere and Serato to make this it changes form depending on however you're experiencing it, but I essentially DJ video. Sometimes it's a narrative. There's a story. It's almost like watching live edit videos. Turntables is like one version.
Rashid Zakat:Sometimes it's a dance party, with really interesting visuals. And in this iteration, it's an installation, so it'll be it'll be a 2 hour loop of, DJ video DJ performance that'll be at critical distance center in Toronto. I don't know how long. Couple months. And so getting ready for that, which is cool.
Rashid Zakat:And probably some other stuff that I'm forgetting about. My one of my goals has been I make a joke about this, but I'm kinda serious. I wanna be Philly's art DJ. So if there's an exhibition opening, if there is, like, a thing where people can come and kick it, I can come and just play. I don't always have to come and play a dance party.
Rashid Zakat:I can come and play some or some Coltrane or some, you know, some Polish funk music that I I found or some, you know, whatever whatever it is that isn't necessarily appropriate for a dance party, but it's really dope to hear while you're looking at art is super fun to me. And to have, like, music as a like, to curate music as a backdrop as conversation. So I've been trying to do that a lot more and leaning into my own video practice. Like, I, I started posting stuff from my, like, video archive to Instagram a little while ago, and people really like it. Like, I'm I'm really surprised at still, you know, I do this thing, white people Wednesdays, where, you know, it's just white people doing weird white people shit.
Rashid Zakat:And, you know, there's always there's always sort of a meta story there that I'm not always, forthcoming about, but some people catch it. But they're, it'll just be, like, whatever means I'm I'm sort of stringing together that week, or, like, thinking about looking at that week that I don't quite know what's there quite quite yet. But I'm trying to keep playing with this this medium of communicating with with memes on the Internet, but sequence them in a way that it tells a broad story than any one of the memes can do. That's essentially what revival is. Right?
Rashid Zakat:Like, I'm just DJing memes for for music videos and interviews and stuff like that for a couple hours. But, yeah, I mean, trying to dive deep into that practice. I feel like I'm I'm looking at my calendar because I'm like, I have more things happening. Yeah. And and just continually just trying to really develop that project and, lean into a few other.
Rashid Zakat:I wouldn't call them top secret, but a few other ideas I'm excited to unpack with people publicly, next year as well. So yeah. I'll I'll be watching. Any feedback, critique? I love I love I grew up with a Virgo mom, so I love critique.
Rashid Zakat:Any yeah. I'm totally open to that and would love your thoughts, man. Well, no.
Rob Lee:Well, no. So I got I've been adding. It was 2 rapid fire questions. Now they're 5. You brought you brought this on yourself.
Rob Lee:Brothers on yourself. So as I tell people because it gives you nuts, I think you're in the same tribe of you know, well, we've discussed this same tribe that I'm in where when you say don't overthink, naturally, you're just gonna overthink. So don't don't overthink these. Alright. Your day typically starts with what?
Rob Lee:Coffee, tea, something else. What does your day start with?
Rashid Zakat:Well, it starts with with a long version. I can give a I can give a long version really shortly, really briefly. So
Rob Lee:Please.
Rashid Zakat:I've been I've been trying to morning has been really important. I I haven't always been a fan of morning. So it started with, I have a coffee ritual. I wake up. I roll a joint.
Rashid Zakat:I make some coffee, and I do morning pages, which I just sit and write. You know, I just dump all my thoughts, everything I'm feeling. I just try to get it out. I've added onto that, meditation on death. Like, wake up in the morning and before I even, like, try to make coffee, before I, you know, go go do drugs, sit in my bed, you know, and I try to meditate multiple times for, like, 5 to 10 minutes.
Rashid Zakat:Like, whether I'm laying in the bed, sometimes I'll get up and just sit down, but, like, breathe, think, try to clear my mind a little bit, but then just think a little bit about death. Like, think about the possibility of my own mortality, Think about, the possibility of other people's mortality, and then just sit with the impermanence of life. And then so can we make some coffee and write on my thoughts and do yoga and then answer emails eventually?
Rob Lee:That's now now I'm gonna be fixed. Now I'm gonna add that to my morning sort of thing, the meditation on death. That that is one of the first things like, yeah. Who's dead? That's literally what pops in my head.
Rob Lee:But, yeah, it's definitely it's it's been it's been a 2 mile walk and then an hour of, gym weights and cardio, and then all those people that I'm encountering. No. It's it's probably, it's probably drinking way too much coffee and then, drinking protein shakes. That's literally what it is. I live a monastic lifestyle.
Rob Lee:It's terrible.
Rashid Zakat:Good. Good. It's like simple. Because then you can get burning this power to do all the other things. You know?
Rob Lee:This is the only way it happens. So this is this is the next one. This is this has like a sort of a word count around it because I like to add word counts in there sometimes. Describe your art practice in 3 to 5 words. It doesn't have to be a sentence.
Rob Lee:It could just be 3 to 5 5 words that relate to your practice.
Rashid Zakat:Real nigga lot of shit. No. Nice. Nice. Because real things I'll follow directions.
Rashid Zakat:No. My art practice is open ended. It is joyful, musical, improvisational, And, hopefully, I'm trying to live into this more communal. Either creating community either creating community or, making things for specific communities.
Rob Lee:That's good. What was the last song you listened to?
Rashid Zakat:Oh, this might not be, like, the last last song I listened to, but Zach Fox, my god. What is that song? Sipping on the tea. I'm obsessed with that song right now, man. He's absurd.
Rashid Zakat:I think that dude was hilarious and ridiculous. And I shouldn't find him as funny as I do, but I do.
Rob Lee:What is your favorite meme currently? Like, let's say, of of 20, 20, 30, I guess. Whoo.
Rashid Zakat:Of 2023. Wow.
Rob Lee:We're we're in q 4. You know what I mean? So it's like most of the is done.
Rashid Zakat:What meeting do I keep coming back to This I'll I'll probably come up with something better in a moment, but I think there's this one. I forget this dude. It's like the, when you ask your friend to support your delusions, but they just tell you some real shit and they give you real advice. But it's the dude, like, it's they have, like, their remixed version of, one thing. And so it was like the dude looking really hurt, like, And
Rob Lee:it's just sorry. Y'all can't see
Rashid Zakat:what I'm doing. But, you know, he's looking he's sort of looking off put because, that that's been that's been the theme this year. That's been that's been a pretty good name. I didn't do a great job of explaining it, but, I can't think of the creator's name too. He's really, really funny.
Rashid Zakat:I'm lying too. I'm so sorry. I didn't do this twice. My favorite meme this year has been fuck. Ah, fuck.
Rashid Zakat:Fuck. Fuck. I'm gonna look this up because I just posted this because I love making fun of Christianity. You know, to to not to not lay time. Let's let's go with the the, your friend telling you some real shit when you were trying to be you thought they were gonna support your delusions.
Rashid Zakat:That is, you know
Rob Lee:yeah. As as me as me some of the time, actually. It's just like that. Okay. It's me it's me some of the time, actually.
Rob Lee:It's just like Okay.
Rashid Zakat:Are you are you the friend telling real shit, or are you the friend hoping for your delusions to be supported?
Rob Lee:I'm the real friend.
Rashid Zakat:Well, a little bit of both. I guess I guess there are 2 rules of both. Right. Got it. Got it.
Rashid Zakat:Got it. Got it. And making that shit ain't gonna work.
Rob Lee:It it looks like I'm coming through your it looks like I'm coming through your Yeah.
Rashid Zakat:I was gonna say, I think we got a little delay happening. Let me let me go off video for a moment. Yeah.
Rob Lee:Yeah. I guess I guess that's good. Yeah. So I got I got the one last real one.
Rashid Zakat:Okay.
Rob Lee:So, you know, obviously, I I think you have, like, you know, a good taste in movies, obviously. I I think that's the thing. You know, what what's that what's one movie I don't wanna say your favorite per se because I think people get caught on favorites. But what is that one movie that, you know, maybe in the last, let's say, 5, 10 years that you're like, I think we might actually check this one out. You know, like, the people that, you know, kinda dig your work, you're like, you you know your people.
Rob Lee:You know, what it should be that one movie they should check out that you would, you know, recommend? Oh.
Rashid Zakat:I wanna say everything everywhere all at once, but I'm sure everybody's already seen that film. It's it's amazing. You know, your mileage may vary, but Chungking Express is one of my favorite films. It opened up what was possible in with with cinema for me. You know, it's gorgeous.
Rashid Zakat:It gets it gets referenced off and on, you know, over and over. And other people's stuff well, I guess, maybe everything I wanna say, they're referenced in the movie love. But Chungking expressed to me, it's a Chinese film by a filmmaker Wong Kar Wai from the nineties. And he his process of making it was he would wake up. He would write the sides in the morning, and then they would go shoot them.
Rashid Zakat:And then he would you know, the film was done all in sequence in that way. It took super long, but it's such I I think it's beautiful. I think it's a really poetic film, and it's, it's something that I feel like you could kinda make with, like, your homies in a camera. Like, you don't need you know, the cinematographer Christopher Doyle is brilliant and did some really brilliant stuff, but so much of it is set against, you know, the lights the neon lights in Hong Kong, which grounds it physically, but it feels like they would just go to a place, turn on the camera, and, like, shoot a scene. And they would sort of they were, like, crafting the film as they were going as opposed to being this other kind of molded thing.
Rashid Zakat:You know, you're trying to you're trying to get the film closer to your to this vision that you have. And so maybe maybe because it also speaks to the way that I like to work, maybe that's why it resonates. But even before I knew anything about the production of it, you know, it's it's it's beautiful. It's a beautiful film. So I would I I would I I would love for everybody to watch that film and be like, oh, why you tell me to watch that mask?
Rashid Zakat:I didn't know what was going on.
Rob Lee:I'm putting it on my list. I I just I just, like, you know, I'm gonna check it out, after we wrap here. That's what I that's what I use this for. You guys think I'm interested in you all, and I am, but I'm interested in suggestions without asking for said suggestion. So this is really me just doing that.
Rob Lee:So that's pretty much it, you know, off the hot seat. So in these these final moments, I wanna, 1, thank you for coming on to the podcast and spending some time with me. And and 2, I wanna invite and encourage you to share with the listeners where they can follow you at online, social media, website, all of that good stuff. The floor is yours.
Rashid Zakat:Awesome. Thanks, man. And thanks for having me on. Thanks for even and and being persistent and following up too. I'm not always the easiest person to to catch.
Rashid Zakat:I'm working on myself, but, this is awesome. This is a lot of fun. My, you can follow me. You know, Instagram is easy. Just at.
Rashid Zakat:My website, .com, has, you know, some really outdated links to things. I'll I'll get to it one day. And, yeah. I mean, if I'm I'm the only you that exists. So not to be that Google me, not to be that dude, but I'm a easily findable person if you just Google where she's a cop.
Rashid Zakat:My Internet presence is not always compartmentalized very well. I have things kinda scattered all over the place. But I feel like if you start with Instagram, you start with my website, you can kinda branch and follow things from there if if anything. If any of this sounds interesting, Yeah. Yeah.
Rashid Zakat:That's that's the thing. And if there is if you Google if you you also can go to rasheed.tv, Depending on when this comes out, you might you may see a single video. Rashid TV is just a a single project of mine where I'm just you know, I've been practicing shipping, practicing, sharing work that I'm making, work that I'm interested in. And I think sometime in the next couple of weeks, there's gonna be a new version of it. I'm excited to share with folks.
Rashid Zakat:So yeah. But all those things are actually viable and and really easy.
Rob Lee:And there you have it, folks. I'm gonna again thank Rashid Zakat for coming on to the podcast and sharing a bit of his journey with us and some some ideas. Really, really cool conversation here. And for Rashid, I am broadly saying that there's art, culture, and community in and around Philadelphia. You've just gotta look for it.
