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Failure can be frightening.
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This is I Will Not Lose podcast, where we set out to prove everything is learned from failure, and we must persevere and recognize it as one step closer to success.
I'm your host, Tony Ortiz. Let's jump right in.
This is I Will Not Lose podcast. We're here with Michael Freseto, activist, community man, nonprofit.
it. We got Event Planner, Movement Moves Media. The list goes on and on, man. And you just keep
adding every time I see you. Oh, man. I appreciate that introduction. That's real nice. Very kind.
Oh, yeah. So you got a couple things coming up. We wanted to chat about that. I wanted to bring
Mike on to have a conversation. I've known him through his activism and just kept in touch with
him over the years but then recently with movement moves media you had the lehigh valley hip-hop or
lehigh valley hip-hop music awards that was a success that was you know yeah yeah that was a
big one that was a culmination of uh of many years i'll probably say about five years of uh
getting to know the the people the movers and the shakers in the hip-hop community in the lehigh
Valley. Um, you know, if, if I'm going to put on a show, it, I'm going to make sure that the
right people are involved or, you know, as many as can be involved. Um, I wish I know at the end
of the award ceremony, there was always, you know, two or three people that we left off the list
that, you know, I wish would have been on, um, or I wish would have been more involved in the show
itself. But man, when you talk about the last 20 years of, uh, you know, there wasn't really ever
a there wasn't really ever a awards show for for the hip-hop community now you have the lvmas but
hip-hop was such a small category and and you know big shout out to them for doing their thing and
having such a a large platform um i think but people felt either underrepresented or like they
didn't do due diligence and figuring out who was the movers and shakers so what kind of work goes
into that like you said like figuring out who's who because i felt that you represented the valley
as a whole you put me onto a ton of new music i was just listening to music from there today
you know so it has a lasting effect but yeah yeah well you know what it was you know building
relationships and like just opening doors once you have a conversation with one person they
introduce you to other people and other people and it just kept going like that for five years
five years ago we came out with um you know movement moves media we we produced a a music
video something's got to give and um it was about the uh uh ending the gun violence here in in
allentown that was in 2018 we had a sunny george oso and fitted cub at the time they you know they
were on that track and uh instantly it went viral we had like 75 000 views in the first 24 hours and
uh it just went on from there um they were on many different shows and and radio stations to
you know promote and that's kind of how we got into the music uh scene in the lehigh valley
and then i realized man we have such talented artists musical artists here in the lehigh valley
that really never got their their their recognition you know like there's some other
there's some other industries that recognize the best people every year but here we go we had hip
hop that's been around now for 50 years and here in the lehigh valley we have top-notch talent um
and and they never really were recognized at like a real legit award ceremony like you said lvm is
you're right man love them love them to death actually they're the ones who introduced me into
arts quest okay back in 2018 2019 they wanted me to get um like our demographic and the hip-hop
into the lvmas but it just uh didn't work and then covet happened then they stopped their show
and then you know we were left so uh we were like hey we got to bring it back and if we bring it
back we're gonna we're gonna highlight hip-hop yeah yeah real cool i like the different categories
that you had highlighting different aspects of it and then the show itself brought on beatboxers
dancers represented five elements of hip-hop and you know um it was it was entertaining
yeah for sure yeah yeah we tried to put on a good show um yeah the the beatboxer took a lot
of people by surprise that was javaris brickhouse from from deer you know a lot of people husky
pride i went to school with them yeah yeah you know everybody said that like we made one post
and uh like hey anybody know a beatboxer and everybody tagged him everybody tagged him and
man he was so he was so cool to work with um he was just so humble and just so appreciative to
have that stage and to show his uh his talent in hip-hop because you know beatboxing ain't many
people left doing beatboxing you know it's kind of like for sure that was a cultural thing man we
he would he would beatbox for our rap cyphers back in deer off in the hallways and stuff like
after Jim and everything back when we were all writing and stuff, but it's awesome. It's such
a creative outlet. And, you know, I took a break from music myself, but to see people that have
continued for 10, 15 years and you really have to do it. Like we had a Tug McGraw on the, and I just
want to throw a disclaimer out, shout out to everybody. If we don't name you, we're going to
be dropping a ton of names, this podcast of great music to check out and different things going on
the scene but you know when i had tug on he's talking about a fool's errand and you know kind
of creating and working on perfecting a craft you'd think that it would line up with talent
like all these talented people would be put on or be funded somehow or fed into the machine but
doesn't happen like that no no no no it doesn't happen that way um and then you see that here in
the lehigh valley i mean our our our talent pool here is equal to to and a lot of people say this
You know, this is how I, I, I came to this conclusion, but equal to, to Philly and New
York, you know, scenes, the talent here is equal to that.
It's just, we don't have the foundational support to be able to support those type of
artists in this area.
Like you'll get grant money and you'll get organizations that are just there to help
local artists in like Philly and the bigger cities of New York and stuff like that to,
to help uplift them to connect them to network them with the right people in the music industry
we don't have any of that here in the in the lehigh valley very little and a lot of it wasn't
definitely geared towards the hip-hop community so that is actually part of the reason why you know
we started movement moves media back in 2018 because we just saw this big void in the lehigh
Valley of, um, no organizational support for local artists. Okay. So go on Movement Moves
Media for a little bit for those listening, you know, multifaceted, you have the events and
also the video production services, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, marketing is, is,
is king in my mind, you know, and, uh, you know, you could tell a story, you got to create content
and if people relate to that they'll be interested enough to follow um so that's that's really where
it started and then when you talk about content creators like like yourself too i mean we got some
very talented content creators here that aren't funded either you know uh here in the lehigh
valley especially allentown um and the ones that i you know work with closest for the last five
years you know you got hitman uh angel uh you got the angel yeah you got you got tim foster
um we live tv and and you got uh chris ormeno uh from millionaires you know they they're just
you know they're just workhorses and and they perfected their craft from the last five six
years when i first met with them to now their talent has increased tremendously and um i gotta
throw another name in the hat my guy nick on sale oh oh and nick asenjo oh yeah yeah of course of
course he uh yeah he's uh yeah yeah he's he's top notch and he won the award at the hip-hop show yeah
yeah definitely that was probably the toughest like all the music decisions were hard but that
video one was tough because everybody has uh everybody has a style like you can tell a we
live tv video you know what i mean it's got that like grunge look to it it's it's uh it's dope man
it's dope yeah i love how you how you mentioned that they all have their artistic in each one
one of their videos you could see their artistic uh capabilities or their artistic mind kind of
come out in their videos you could tell the difference of how they cut it or what type of
filters they use at different times you could tell who it is once you start to look at their videos
um but yeah i mean nick nick assange and then even even if you go further back now you know
you know you got jack nine um oh yeah man you know big shout out to jack nine you know josh is
yeah you know the godfather i would say probably the godfather in this area for for you know
videography and editing you listen to any podcast anybody that says that they shout him out as uh
you know somebody that was that was either doing it at the time and nobody could doubt the level
that he's taking it to you know he's got a artist nominated for the latin music awards
yeah yeah he's promoting that now he's top notch in the world yeah you know and to be able to work
with him because he worked with me creating content before i you know i've been doing activism
work uh for for since 2016 2017 uh 2006 2007 yeah i was gonna say yeah yeah um so you know it's it's
going on 18 years now and um uh i got connected with josh somewhere uh around 2010 or 11 is when
i you know started uh you know dealing with him and he was just so like like all the other uh
content creators he was just so humble and just so willing to to work with us uh you know especially
when it dealt with the youth he wanted to work and just say hey you know what this is what i can do
and then kind of opened up our eyes that if you really want to push a message you're gonna need
content you're gonna need content oh yeah and it never ends never but go on to some of that with
the activism some different stuff that you've done like i said that's how i had heard of you
or heard about you you know whether it be notorious or infamous whatever you want to say
you were shaking things up in the city weren't scared to make moves or call out systems yeah you
know um you know the the truth is i i was just always like that i i was and i don't know what
why i was like that but i always questioned things if somebody told me something i would
want to know why like how did you get to that conclusion and enough to try to teach people
this stuff like why where's your information coming from i was like that ever since i was in
in elementary school and i got in trouble for it because then when you know you push back at such
a young age you know the the authorities or the teachers and stuff like that in school you know
they they're like why are you questioning me a lot of them you know especially uh you know especially
in the in the 90s you know it was so it was still conservative and i went to parkland you know i i
was born on the east side my my dad and my dad's dad and my you know when my mom came from the
philippines they they all came here to allentown but then uh we were uh born me and my sister were
born by keck park and then we before um before we started school around three four years old we
my parents moved uh about two blocks on the other side of the uh the border for the school districts
they saw the school district getting into some trouble and stuff 80s 90s they say they're saying
for our kids they moved over to parkland and uh you know in parkland in the 90s i mean i was going
i i was going to school with farmers and stuff like that you know it was very different back then
um really i was i was one of the kids i mean i was the only filipino you know i was i was
of color there might have been in my elementary school two others you know so uh you know and
then i'm the one questioning them so i got in trouble you know i got in trouble a lot so that
activism was just always part of me you know my dad was part of a union um you know he was a
mailman in bethlehem for 30 years and uh you know he he questioned authority to management you know
why why are they doing this you should band together you know to to kind of have fair
conditions for workers you know so that was just always in my mind and uh um i thought there was
no problem with it. I thought when people band together at a young age, I thought when people
band together, good things can happen. And, uh, you know, it got into me going through high school,
college, uh, you know, um, and then that's when I got in involved in, into, uh, uh, into, uh,
activism work. Uh, my second year of college, I started with the weed and seed foundation.
It was President Bush had this Weed and Seed Foundation, and they had a program here in Allentown, 2006, 2007 was the last years of it, because 2008, the president changed.
Yeah, yeah.
And it was the last year of the Weed and Seed grant money.
And at that time, it was Sam Martinez was the executive director of that.
And some people that are still in the activism world and nonprofit world today that are still around today, I remember meeting them almost 20 years ago now back in the Weed and Seed Foundation.
And the first thing was on Ridge and Tillman, we opened up a boxing gym.
We opened up a boxing gym that Louie Melendez was the head trainer for there.
And he trained me a little bit in boxing too when I was a teenager and stuff like that.
And, uh, to be able to, uh, you know, give back and try to set that up for him and like
set up the chairs, sweep, sweep everything, uh, you know, uh, welcome guests in on the
grand opening and stuff like that.
It was just like really exhilarating for me.
And I was like 19 at the time.
And I was like, wow.
And I was a troubled teen.
So, you know, doing something good like this and feeling like, wow, when people come together,
a community can really do special things that really affect people um ever since i was 19 on
that first project it was no turning back i was just like i want to do this all the time that's
awesome it's great when you could get something back from giving you know whether i don't think
you could really go wrong at least for myself giving content out for free giving education
I always try to support local artists, not just by sharing or liking their stuff, but literally hiring them. I have a few artists in my inbox right now that I'm looking through their portfolio, trying to sub some work out to them. And I'm buying music if I get a chance to, or leaving the streams on constantly to help boost numbers.
but I know that artists don't get as much for that, even just reaching out to people
specifically, but for you to get something back from the activism and get some sort of joy to keep
doing it, you know, you're in for the right reasons. Like it's not for the notoriety. It's
not for your picture in the paper. Yeah, no, I actually, to be honest,
I despise that stuff. You know, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's really an intrinsic, um, uh,
motivation for me, just that feeling you get when, when you give back and you're not really
looking for anything in return you're just you're just looking to do the right thing you know you
know people go like you know oh you know if somebody's looking to do the right thing all
the time they're looking for something no there's people out there that just want to do something
that's you know that that's right or you know that feels good um so yeah i've been you know
going on almost 20 years now and you know it's odd that we're talking about this and i don't
talk about this too often but like i always feel especially like the last 10 years maybe uh i always
feel like i got one foot out like i'm gonna step away from activism and the non-profit world and
i'm gonna i don't know then i think about it i'm like what the hell am i gonna do you know yeah i
guess what concentrate on myself concentrate on my family and uh you know maybe try to make more
money, there was a time, uh, where I tried to make more money. And, uh, uh, that was, uh, you
know, uh, after I did the walkouts, uh, for Allentown school district back in 2015, obviously
I got fired after that and it had a legal battle and everything like that. Um, uh, which we could
get back to, but I was facing nine and a half years for that. Um, if they wanted to throw the
book at me, but yeah, I didn't know that. I didn't even know it came close to them throwing
in the book could you like that well you know it it's not that if they wanted to pennsylvania law
they could have thrown that 426 counts of corruption of minors they could have thrown
that at me concurrently and it would have been you know 30 days for each count nine and a half
years whatever but uh but you know the chance of of that happening with me having a pretty clean
record it yeah it wasn't really gonna happen but still a little scary yeah for sure you're going
in front of the judge and yeah but um yeah so i tried to make more money one time right after that
when i got fired and i got into the solar industry and i was like you know what i i'm just gonna put
my head down and try to make as much money as possible you know and i'm gonna and i'm gonna
grind grind grind and you know i've been in the solar industry eight years now but in those first
two years after teaching for six years uh 2016 2017 2018 i worked really hard in the solar
industry and and made a lot of money but during that time it was probably the most unhappy that
i was and i realized it's not sustainable i don't want to just you know burn and turn and make a lot
of money and work i the money wasn't what made me happy you know um you know it's nice getting
that check-in you have more financial freedom but i don't want to waste years doing that and
and that's what was happening and uh you know being able to not be happy and then bring that
into the house and everything every day and and not really be present in the moment with your
family and stuff it's just not something i didn't want to continue to do yeah oh that's cool that
you made that choice though i mean uh at least you got to taste it you know um you got to taste
and see on the other side that it doesn't work out that well you know um there's always things
you want to do i realize you're uh is it your first kid yeah yeah two year old yeah yeah two
and two and a half yeah awesome that'll change your perspective on everything too oh yeah you're
telling me you know i think about um and it's great because luckily my son my my kids are older
but my son is into making music. He's a singer. And so we got the studio right over here for him
and he's been on the podcast. So it's cool. He was, uh, he was on the app trying to figure out
he's into producing and trying to mix with his vocals. I'm like, that's a great age to get into
it. Like 13, you know, he's 13. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. You ask a lot of these, you know,
seventh, eighth grade, you ask a lot of these local artists, when did they start? And that's,
that's cool but yeah you know i wanted to get back to it's amazing to see that you had some sort of
adversity to work through because especially like activism there's a lot of popularity in activism
like when somebody sees you as the person that can get their voice heard you're like the megaphone
and they're feeling a pain but they're too scared to go against the powers that be or whatever
you become that beacon of light like you can there's a lot of really popular activists
you know yeah yeah i i agree that i mean it's uh the reality of it is is it's a burden you know to
it's a big uh it's a big mental burden um that that's part of the to be an activist that that's
part of the thing that a lot of people you know they try to glorify activism it is uh it is not a
it's not an easy life to choose if you want to be an activist you know uh they the pressures that
come on you uh because you know you got those uh systems that you're talking about the the people
in power that they're in power and they see somebody that could, you know, move a thousand
people, you know, um, in the streets and question what they're doing, you're obviously on their hit
list. You know, you, they, they don't, they don't want you around. And that, especially in Allentown,
it's, it's a very small, it's a very small click that, that kind of runs this city, uh, who,
like chooses what happens and when it happens uh and you know you piss off one or two of them
they're all mad at you and they're all gonna they're all gonna uh shun you and they're all
gonna kind of not want to deal with you and then that just makes life a lot harder it's harder to
navigate then but then i and that happened to me you know i realized that happened to me before
the walkouts uh 2013 2014 and then when we did the allentown school district walkouts it was like
hold on, I get this game. They'll never accept somebody who's not in their circle already.
You know, they're not going to accept new people in. They want to do what they want to do.
So, that's why at that time, you know, I've realized it's okay. It's okay. What I feel is
this is right. You know, the kids were screaming for help. Allentown School District was in
shambles just almost like it is now. You know, it's maybe a little bit better, but it really
never really recovered um those are some of the worst years in allentown school district um and
we could talk about the mismanagement of money 12 million dollars gone missing 420 teachers that
are staff that was let go that year uh there were 16 rape cases with children yeah and a lot of
people don't know about this be a lot of people thought oh that that walkout oh yeah they were
they didn't know why we were protesting you know and that was and that was the thing like
even even the uh you know 69 news morning call date when we would say the stuff constantly over
and over they would never write about it yeah i noticed that from my perspective on an outside i
remember that day i remember i drove by alan when you were out there with the megaphones
and um as i went to the news because i want to see what's happening and stuff and i'm sitting
there with my business partner and he's like yeah you know they're mad they don't have books
And I'm like, trying to look for a message. Like, what is the, what is, you got my attention. What's the message? And 69 News, it felt like they were grabbing, I don't even know if it was 69 News. The report that I saw seemed like they were grabbing people that didn't necessarily either know the reason why, or it wasn't like a unified.
it was just and so you get that out it was almost like occupy wall street where they're not going to
grab the brightest people who understand the message and give them a microphone because that
just escalates the protest you know yeah they're gonna have whatever message it was so i remember
i reached out to you back then we could probably go back to our facebook messages and i was asking
what's you know what's going on with that yeah yeah yeah uh you know i i learned i learned a lot
You know, during that. And one of the things I learned is to create your own content at that time. You know, I've realized the importance of that and creating your own news and your own narrative, because if you don't create that content, the powers that be or whoever runs media in your local area, they get to choose whatever narrative that they want.
And that's what happened at that point. We just didn't have enough manpower. We didn't have enough content. We didn't have enough organization funding to be able to do that.
So then I, you know, after that, after the court case and stuff, shout out to Gary Aztec, you know, and the ACLU, if you ever need a good lawyer.
I mean, he's a legend in Pennsylvania.
People who know, you know, criminal law and civil activist law in civil liberties in Pennsylvania.
I mean, Gary Aztec is a legend, a living legend.
And he came on in a case like this would be money, you know, lots of tens of thousands of dollars.
and he did it pretty much pro bono he just because he loved the cause he agreed with the cause um
anyway he he got us off and uh guy man you should have seen the court you should have seen the
courtroom when he walked in because i met with him personally before obviously um before the case
started in june of 2016 but uh we had the allentown school district had nobody in their stands and we
had about 60 to 70 people in our stands and um our we're all sitting down and my lawyer walks in late
and he's wearing a cowboy hat with shades like those rainbow shade glasses he has a big gray
and black beard that goes down to about you know his chest and he walks in with cowboy boots and
spurs on and he comes in with this big paper bag and he puts it right down and instead of going
down to his seat he goes straight up to the uh judge and we're all sitting down waiting you know
it's gonna get started soon he goes to the judge's bench um it was a judge karen divine and he pulls
out of this bag a gallon of honey a gallon jar of honey he uh and gives it to the uh judge she
says thank you and puts it under her bench and then starts starts the trial later i realized
he's the president of the lehigh valley beekeepers association so he gave her a gallon of honey and
started started we started the case the trial and it was uh it was almost like a comedy hour
he had the people rolling and laughing because on his cross-examination of the principals and
the people from alton school district oh man he was just so funny and uh it was just kind of
kind of made like a mockery out of it it was just like there's no way this kid you know supporting
you know these these students should be going to jail for this you know and uh and it ended up being
uh i got found guilty of three but they were dropped a summary offense so it was just a fine
and i remember paying my first fine at that time and i was broke i put all the money we had
all the money i had into the cause yeah and uh the first payment comes it was a fine of 550 dollars i
i didn't have that money back then man teachers make no matter people think teachers make money
then we made nine dollars an hour that's what it ended up being where i was working 60 70 hours a
week um but uh i paid my first 75 secretary uh comes out and goes just wait just wait goes back
to judge karen divine and comes back out and she goes the judge says you don't have to pay anymore
so i just paid 75 and that was it there you go man yeah there you go but it's the lesson learned
and that's what my that's what my listeners tune in for like we go with the whole success because
everybody wants to hear the person that's protesting at the Super Bowl and has a million
followers on Instagram. Let's focus on the stories in the beginning. You're at it 20 years now.
You're young, you're healthy. You might got another 20, 30 years of doing this. So who knows
what you can change and what you can move. But even just to be able to have that recognition
without the community. I mean, you have Reggae Fest coming up. This isn't the first time you've
done that i saw the videos from successful events how many years now of reggae fest was last year
the first or second this is going to be the fourth year of reggae okay yeah yeah well yeah we're
looking for a big one this year at steel stacks you know arts quest has been great um you know
cassie hilgert patrick brogan over there at arts quest um you know and a lot of their other staff
members man they've been just so great uh to movement moves media i know um you know they
they brought us on, you know, seeing that we could help them with their, uh, DEI goals.
And, um, you know, uh, we've been doing a good job bringing them a new demographic that they
had a tough time reaching. And, uh, it's been, it's been great, uh, having the partnership with
them. And, uh, you know, we have about five, six shows there a year, but Reggae Fest is definitely
our, our flagship. Uh, it's happening, uh, July 6th, uh, this year. Um, we actually just got done
with the lineup the lineup is is amazing especially if you're in the reggae scene
we're actually going to go from two stages to three stages this year um and uh we're looking
for about 15 20 000 people this year last year we had over 12 000 um and our goal is to grow it to
the largest free reggae festival in the country and in about three to five years we think we could
hit that goal um there's one that you know we're not in competition with them but there's one down
in uh atlanta georgia every year called b reggae and um they have uh the largest free reggae
festival in the country and uh yeah we're trying to be just like them that's dope yeah that's super
dope it's it's it's a great it's a great genre you know reggae and it's uh you know it goes well
with activism yeah ain't that the truth ain't that the truth and you know it's just uh it's
happy vibes you know it's uh it's uh speaking about some real stuff you're right it goes with
activism too so maybe that's why i always connected with it um but um you know it's just
such a the the feeling you get the atmosphere you get when you go to reggae fest is just of pure
love it's like it's like a safe place to be at like you don't really have to worry like everybody
is there for a good time and making sure that everybody else around them is having a good time
and it's uh it's just that that energy that i've realized is so powerful when you could get people
from different classes and from different demographics in the city into the same arena
or under the same roof that's when the magic happens because when you have when you have a
just a hip-hop show or just a country show or just a art mural show the people from that community
go to that show so basically we're segregating ourselves from our own arts community we're
separating ourselves. But when you could find something where you could bring all those
different sub-communities together, that's when the real networking happens. And that's when the
real, what I like to call just the real magic happens. That's when people from a different
walk of life, a different class could meet somebody there and make a connection where
then they collaborate for years to come and create a new relationship that maybe would
have never happened if they didn't go to an event like that yeah it's it's crazy man it's crazy
i was just thinking about the level of exposure that a new artist needs like you're no longer
discovering a new artist from a random facebook post and saying i'm gonna dive into that right
now you know like even there's projects that i want to check out like i've been really into
johnny bill's latest project and i saw the marketing for that super long ago you know i
had heard of who he was and never went in and checked into his music so i'm thinking that's
just one example of somebody who it took a while but even through the the music awards that put me
on to a few people um just tapping back into the local scene listening to podcasts that you know
these artists aren't afraid to go out on different podcasts and connecting with them on that level
it's kind of like all right now i want to hear what you have to say in this sort of music or
something, you know? Yeah. Hey man. And like I said, I mean, we agree on this. I mean,
the talent pool here in Lehigh Valley is top notch. I remember we had a show with a cruise
control, Johnny Bill's, you know, a group, you know, Alex Cruz, who grew up here. He has actually
friends with my cousin growing up and going to school. And then he moved down to Tennessee,
but he's still doing his thing and managing it. And cruise controls is a great team.
and um you know we had a show in july at arts quest and we had some old and these are you know
younger hip-hop people we had you know a bunch of cruise control there we had macville there
and uh shout out to macville yeah i discovered him this year too he's he's top-notch too man
then you look at his pedigree and uh where he came from i mean his he came from you know
people who started hip-hop here in the 90s in the 90s here and he's you know the the offspring of
of that so yeah he he's definitely got it running through his blood um and and it shows um same
thing with bez music you know um but but um we had a show in in arts quest and uh july and i had
some old school hip-hop people there in attendance we had about 200 250 people there and there was
some old school hip hop people that came out from Allentown Bethlehem.
And you could tell, you know, it was a different, a different generation,
you know, the, the bag, your pants, the fitteds, you know, it was like,
you know, the gray on their beard and hair. I'm like, Oh man,
this is how I grew up. Exactly. Exactly. And you know,
they were sitting around, you know,
standing around and listening to these new generation hip hop artists with live
bands backing them up. You know, it wasn't just that they had real live music
plane behind them and you know i'm walking around you know and and socializing with the people in
attendance and they're like yo who are these people like like i go to a show down in philly
and it's the same same level same level here um yeah man it was it's great so i mean cruise
control is doing their thing you know uh black dre you know eric rose alex uh johnny you know
that that's some of the top-notch talent here in this area especially man when you when you could
perform with live music and live instruments backing you that's a that's a whole different
level that that's knowing music uh uh at a higher level yeah i feel like johnny was talking about
that on a podcast about this about the live i'm not i'm sure he's done more live music than just
one but he was talking specifically about playing with a band so that's super cool yeah the
performance is at the actual thing shout out to quays of the artists if not for that snow we would
had his episode dropping um we still gotta record i got him on the schedule yes yes yeah he's he's
he's a real talent too man love him i discovered him i actually ran into quesa at the america's
hotel he was shooting a wedding and i was there i think i was picking up a check or something like
that and i saw his camera and we just got to talk and so i was actually filming too and i have my
little cell phone on the gimbal and stuff and he's got like the black magic with the whole rig and i
was like i put mine away and i was like so what you got there that was it was funny but then we
ended up you know you realize you have a ton of mutual friends and you see a madden power 610 day
and you start listening to the music and for a while i was even um i gotta get back into it but
i was playing that gospel music like literally just playing his album front to back all praises
do uh in the morning when i got up and getting ready so it was uh it's nice that i mean it's
out there it's free and music lives like forever so even like uh phase one dropping four albums
last year that gave me something to listen to constantly and then each of his artists have
back catalogs so you can go down a rabbit hole i mean i'm just waiting for somebody to have heard
the music awards and just say okay cool somebody curated what they voted on as the best let me just
start there because it gets so deep i mean even if you go back to artists that you'll see that
like um i don't want to say left the area but you know they're on tour and they're touring the world
you know king magnetic whitney payton yeah you know what i mean um yeah we reached out to them
too yeah definitely yeah but it's all uh it's all a lehigh valley music thing um and you know
lehigh valley when it comes to music it it it had that pedigree it was it was a haven for music back
in the 60s 70s 80s um you know because anytime some of the top artists uh whatever genre you're
talking about when they were on their tours and they went from pittsburgh or to philadelphia
philadelphia to new york leah valley is in the middle of all of that you know so so they would
stop here and have shows so um there was always top-notch music in this area where there every
weekend there was some top-notch talent in the country or the world that was playing here
and then it kind of you know kind of went away in the 90s early 2000s and uh i feel like it's uh
it's on its way back up it's just absolutely we need that we need that organizational support
But that comes, I strongly believe that comes from a grassroots collaboration where the independent artists that we're all talking about now, where they work together to be able to uplift not only themselves, but the other artists that are very talented too, that just don't really get the recognition.
I think that grassroots collaboration needs to happen in order for us to get some eyes on us where there's real donors and real grant money that is there to support the entire movement.
And I think it'll happen.
I hope it happens.
What do you think stops it?
Is it like egos?
Yeah, you know, you always hear that, you know, that egos are there to stop it.
um yeah i i but i wouldn't say that it's just egos yeah no yeah it's not it's a mix of things
it's a mix of things like i had gil thompson on here local rapper and he was talking about how
important it is to have a team but a lot of the times in like the 90s early 2000s everybody wanted
to be the rapper you know what i mean like you can't have a band with four drummers well maybe
you can i'm sure there's slip knots and all this sort of stuff out there but you know it's figuring
out what your lane is like i think uh early yeah in my career you know i was in audio engineering
with 90 nuisance who was uh nominated as a best producer yeah it's fantastic yeah you know that
was probably oh i don't know 2010 maybe a little bit earlier um and then i sat there and i said
man, I can only engineer music for like, I don't know, two hours, but I could design for like
eight. I'm just going to work on doing stuff for artists, mixtape covers and, you know,
nightlife club flyers. But that's my contribution to this area. Like I hope at some point somebody
would say, all right, those I've done a lot of logos for this area. So even if somebody doesn't
say he's the nightlife flyer guy, you know, they might hold somebody else as the king of that.
I've literally branded businesses. You can drive around the Valley and see my artwork, you know,
all down Hamilton street or something like that. You got to kind of figure out what your lane is
and what talent you can bring to, to doing that, you know, like I hope I'm making sense.
Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. You know, that's team building. That's team building one-on-one,
You know, you know, when I when it came to me building this nonprofit movement, Moves Media back in 2019, I knew that when I was building the board, you know, we can't have all the same people, you know, here on the board, you know, that are talented in the same genre.
We need people from other, you know, that are professionals or experts in different things, some in marketing, some in social media, some in some in performing, some in video editing, some in photography, some in.
we have an elder on the board who's 92 years old who's who's sharp he's just amazing walter beach
um he he played actually he played in the nfl uh back with jim brown on cleveland he was a
cornerback um yeah he's he's an amazing guy and uh you know we have nice nice jones who's who's
on the board and he's always been a part of uh you know always in the background of the things
that um i did in activism right you know to be honest i feel like i wouldn't be here without him
So I had to build a board that had all these different experts in different fields and have them work together. And that's the tough part. So when you say that question, why hasn't that happened here with artists in the music scene in the Lehigh Valley?
i think that level of collaboration of building the team and knowing your lane like you said this
people do this this is your this is your section to take care of and then have other people hey
this is your section this is your section but if we all work together if we all do our part right
it's going to run like a well-oiled machine and i i haven't seen that yet i haven't seen that yet
um we're i feel like we're getting closer and closer in the last five years
but we still got a lot of work to do to get there well maybe social will help it out
you know i think there's a lot of work to do but if you think about the fact like think about uh
phase one and tug mcgraw keep bringing them up but they connected through myspace
and back then you had to like yeah everybody had a myspace but like you weren't just out
networking with people in your area like that. Nowadays, kids know people from other geographies
just through their profile, through TikTok and stuff. So I always like to think my son's
generation of content creators has more eyes out there. I mean, maybe it's more saturated, but
I don't know. The egos will always come into place, but I think it's possible. And I think
there's tons of teams doing great work and putting out what they can the other thing too is we gotta
support them like we gotta go to shows and buy merch and share the music you know like there's
there's some onus on the consumer yeah for why somebody's not able to do nothing but create
music you know it doesn't mean they're bad yeah you know and i think you know you bring up a good
point uh you know the consumer i but i i i do believe that the consumer is getting more conscious
um that they realize you know there's a push here now of getting away though away from
the phone spending more time in the moment instead of on your phone even though the phone has taken
over many people's lives you know mine included um but i think we we got into that so deep in the
last 20 years or so even in 25 years that i think there's a a social movement to try to get away
from that and then spend more time building relationships with the people right in front
of you or right next to you yeah um and that's where real collaboration i feel from just from
my experience that's where uh things happen when when you when you put down the phone when you put
down you know get connected yes that's a great way to get connected but when it comes to really
building a relationship with somebody and working together where you trust that person and that
person trusts you that trust is going to happen in an in-person in-person meeting in-person meeting
get to know them well maybe even get to know the family you know show them that you care and they
care about you and that's when you can that's when you could really really work with somebody and
know that, hey, I don't have to deal with an ego. I don't have to worry about, should I trust this
person or not? I knew this person now for five, six years. We're working together. Everything he
says is his word. Everything I say is my word. And we're going to keep building together. That's
when those connections become really powerful. And I really feel that the only way that those
connections can become that powerful is if people spend more time like this yeah person to person
i agree with you a hundred percent that's very well said there's a reason why i have the studio
here i have the tech to do live interviews or whatever but i just i don't shout out to everybody
that does zoom podcast you can bring great guests from all over the place but it's just not the same
conversation it's not it's you know those connections are definitely lost but i mean i
could say right here man i mean this is the deepest conversation you and me ever got into
absolutely we never sat down like this and talked for an hour about some of these you know
conversations you know we had some small talk here and there for the last you know eight ten years
whatever but we're we're actually sitting down you know a few feet from each other and talking
about some you know some you know serious topics when was the last time that happened between me
you no yeah so thanks thanks for saying this definitely i remember uh it's probably the first
conversation we had that you weren't in a suit i remember we in the vegan butcher shout out to the
vegan butcher um but so you got dj focus podcast coming up thursday right you'll be on there
khalim yeah and kawana yeah um yeah shout out to kwanatad and yeah khalim yeah i'm uh uh yeah they
they uh invited me on i uh it's thursday right yeah i'm going yep i'm going over to his uh his
studio out in easton i believe it is and uh you know i've been i've been watching it and uh you
know he's uh he's you know i'll tell you a story about him so actually the 50th anniversary of
hip-hop award ceremony that happened in october just a few months ago that we had at arts quest
the day before it we had a pre-party you know red carpet set up and we had it at main gate
and um oh yeah i remember that yeah yeah yeah and there in the middle of it there was a fight
on stage i heard about this go ahead go ahead yeah there was a fight on stage and um it was
you know everybody saw it is not like you know people saw it it's not like it was a secret it
was a you know like a real punches were thrown and stuff like that it was between the two djs it
was dj menace and uh and and baseline and um you know they were uh i think i think there was some
some blood boiling between them over the last few months or something like that and i guess
somebody ticked somebody off off stage and it just ended up in in uh allegedly allegedly yeah
anyway man in the middle of it menace walks out baseline walks out and i'm outside talking to
people and all of a sudden the music just stops for like and i'm like all right maybe he's changing
the track he never lets the music stop and then people come like yo man you see what happened on
stage i'm like what they're like yeah they got in a fight we hate fights why why is it happening
i'm like oh my god all of a sudden like in like eight minutes the music starts playing again and
this is after menace storms out baseline storms out the music starts playing again and i'm like
oh wow wait hold on who's playing the music and freaking khalim is up there on stage playing
music from his phone yeah he became the dj for the rest of the night everybody went through
bluetooth everybody else was like leaving and mad like oh the music stopped he started playing the
music everybody went inside and everybody stayed the whole night had a great time it was he played
great music he kept the energy going and for him just to be there in person and be like oh my god
I got a lot of music on my phone. Let me, let me play something. And to save that night, man,
I'll never forget that, man. That's crazy. Yeah. I was, um, I was over there. I'm trying to help
him get some stuff going with the multiple camera angles and stuff, help him out with the tech. And,
uh, he was telling me that story about that. So, but it was cool. We, um, we did at least this
Thursday, the video, the multiple cameras won't be set up, but, um, we got to just connect for
an hour and talk about different things. And I had been on his show for two hours and we didn't
connect, like just being in the shop, working on stuff like that. So it was cool. I had put
something out. I don't know. This will probably air in a few weeks from now, but I lost my hard
drive or it's at the shop with like three fully done episodes recorded on it. So I didn't have
anything to drop last night and I was going to let it skimp. But then at like 930, I'm like,
fuck it, we're going live. And I just recorded no mic, just straight to camera. Like I was sitting
here, but I just like whip something together and was talking about how I'm allowed to make a
misstep over this amount of time. But I have to remember why I got into podcasting. Like it wasn't
to feed the algorithm. I don't really care about popularity. Like it's cool that people know what
i do and i love giving a platform but you go back to the first episode i started all this to help
promote gil thompson's music you know so when people tell me i don't support local or i don't
support artists i'm like nobody creates a show and brings artists on for a year
because i can't always buy their music you know like i'm always in donating time and service and
stuff but there's some people you'll definitely have to connect me with i'm sitting here wondering
We talked off camera about how we have close to 300 mutual friends on Facebook.
And I'm like, there's no way that's possible.
If I go through my messenger right now, just people who are in my inbox, you mentioned
a whole bunch of them.
I got phase one in here.
You, I've got, um, Johnny bills.
I just reached out to him.
I've got, uh, Colleen Bailey.
I got Quaisa, Angel, Tim Foster, Quanta Tatted.
I mean, not to put everybody's business out, but we talk to the same people, you know?
So I'm glad you were able to come and hop on my show.
I wanted to go through, I wrote notes and we haven't even used them.
It's been a great conversation, man.
Yeah, yeah.
It's natural.
I know it's natural because I'm in, like, like you said, we, we, we, we kind of like,
you know, knew each other, you know, for, for eight, 10 years of, you know, we knew
what each other was doing and, uh, you know, to be able to sit down, you know, I, I felt
like this was going to be a natural conversation because we had a lot to talk about over the
last 10 years.
For sure.
For sure.
well for the more recent is there anything like how are you building and learning from your
failures with reggae fast and like is there anything you're gonna do different for lva uh
music award or sorry not lvma for hip-hop awards next year uh yeah good good uh good questions um
yeah i mean that's i'm really the people that work with me know this i'm really self-critical
about uh the things i do um in some ways i'm a i'm a perfectionist but kind of laid-back
perfectionist if that makes sense kind of kind of oxymoron but uh um i always
and and i think it's a bad thing possibly but after every show my first thoughts out i did
about 120 shows 130 shows almost um in the last uh you know 18 years or whatever and uh after every
event my mind automatically goes to all right what went wrong and uh how can we make sure that
doesn't happen again how can we be better for next time and that's such a buzzkill when you're
sitting with the people who just ran the whole show with you and your first thing that you bring
up is wow what a great night you know you say i say the small stuff for you know three positives
are negative but my real thing is i want to get to all right we messed up here here and here
how did that happen who was on that how can we make sure that does that doesn't happen again
such a buzzkill like you know everybody at the end of the show should be like oh man what a night
because for sure yeah yeah and and you know i'm learning that more and more as you know so every
show you know you you get into the experience of things and experience really gives you the
knowledge you know you could you could read about theories and stuff like that and how to do things
but really you really learn when you experience and you actually do what whatever you're trying
to do and you do it not just once but you do it over and over and over and over again um that's
why you know you got your professors who are you know 60 70 years old and they could just talk
about this stuff because they've been doing it for 50 40 40 50 years um so so you know when it
comes to reggae fest you know there's a lot we can improve you know that's just where my mind goes
uh and i and i want to improve it and in order for us to get to that goal of becoming the largest
free reggae festival in the country we're going to have to keep improving so um yeah we we got
some things to do there when it comes to the lehigh valley hip-hop awards um we're going to
try to, uh, improve on that award show too. I will say this though, the, the award show was
such a culmination over, you know, five years. Um, we wanted to make sure we had our ducks in a row,
um, before we had this show. And once we had that opportunistic time, it was like, all right,
we're ready for it. Let's, let's do it. Um, and the team was amazing. Um, you know, the whole
team i a big shout out to you know the marketing again uh you know at the top of the list a big
shout out to uh angel ohea hitman he he took that whole show and he created every single piece of
content for that show there were 88 videos that he had to create 88 videos um the longest one being
about five minutes long the shortest ones being in my 20 seconds or whatever but he had he had
to create 88 uh different videos to make that show happen and he did it um you know izzy fletcher
was was great backstage rich wilson uh who who helps out with uh uh one earth reggae fest too
um he's doing his thing um you know you know i while i'm while i'm bringing this up i have to
mention too that all of them are pretty self-critical too because they when we had this
conversation after after the events they were all like for next year let's brainstorm right away and
you know before i started on this tangent i said there's pros and cons to to you know talking about
like the negatives right away after a show but the one good thing is is that everybody know and still
feels the the things that happened wrong and how to improve because it just happened and everybody
knows it happened who were running the show so it's like instead of waiting a few weeks to talk
about it and then you kind of forget oh it was it was not a big deal but okay but how can we not
make that happen again for next year how can we improve that's why i think i do it after every
show even though it's a buzzkill i mean sometimes the imperfections are dope true that was the point
of me putting out like a half-assed episode and talking about how much work it is to put out a
good pristine episode like people see us just having a conversation they don't realize my mind
is wondering is camera a still rolling and like but no uh it's almost like the i remember at one
point at the lv of music awards i think what's his name was up uh meat beats had won an award
and j capital p didn't know that he was in the building so he started going off on how we're
gonna dedicate this to and then meat walks up on stage and the music drops and he was like oh i
even though you were here i could have sworn that was scripted like that worked out so well
that is so funny you bring that up oh my god i love that moment that was such a good moment
yeah um because you know you know you know meet meet you know he's just you know top notch and
he's been doing it for so long in this area so everybody knows him and and you know what for him
to be able to do that not come there early so people see him just to come there and then walk
up late to the stage that's him man yeah no and you know what it was and it's funny shout out to
me i'll tell you he comes by and uh i'm gonna take it back to empower 610 day so they have me
they pull me on stage to give me flowers i think you were one of the at west end at the park at
the arts park yeah yeah so i'm sitting there talking to me about when are you going to be
on the podcast let's set something up and they go and now we want to bring up tony ortiz i had
no idea that nice and lewis were gonna give me flowers on stage so i'm like yo i gotta go hang
on so i go up i get my awards next time i see him is when he's coming off the stage at lv music
awards and he comes over and he whispers to me keep doing your thing with the podcast i'm gonna
have a crazy story he shows me the thing and just walks off and i'm like that is him man
that's him yeah yeah but he's great though man he's great man yeah i gotta get him for coffee
as well as uh this but i don't know you want to shout out where people can well is there anyone
else you want to shout out any new music you want people to check out you never know who's listening
yeah man um i there's there's just so many i mean we we had a really solid list at the uh
at the hip-hop awards ceremony we had a really solid list for nominees um and you know you still
got the the old school people in this area that that put on you know and create good music but uh
this new generation is a is a is a great talent um there's too many to just point out and just say
say a few but you know and this is this is why i i think it's so important for the people that
can put something together to put something together in a collaboration where it has to
be noticed by big donors and funders and venues um because that's when you get the recognition
and i'm not i'm not against like the the little bar shows and stuff like that but when you go to
like a an established venue that has millions of dollars of funding backing it every year
it opens doors uh and open the networking is at a different level that i realized from my
experience where some of those things where we can push some of our talent to become a superstar
regional or national superstar that i believe that that's where it's going to happen i could be wrong
that might not be the best path it might be the best path of just doing a crazy viral video and
it going viral and then you know catching a storm from there and and you know signing with somebody
we don't really know but i will shout out if i could shout out one person it would be red mcfly
oh yeah yeah red mcfly shout out red mcfly because uh he uh he um you know i doing the hip-hop awards
it was kind of like a history lesson for me because i'm not particularly a a music person
i'm really not it's um that's the honest truth i'm more of an organizer and that's what i'm and
And I saw the talent in the music in this area and I just got drawn to it.
And I saw, I saw, always saw the power in music, how, you know, so in that type of art,
you know, it's, it's very powerful.
I could move communities.
It's healing.
So I saw that and I was like, I just got, I gravitated towards it.
But I, through the history lesson that I learned through the award ceremony, and I
had some one-on-one conversations with Red and Red was so, so open and humble to talking
about not only his past but um how to improve our show before we even had the show uh what he
thought we needed to have to make it legit um and uh and uh he gave some great pointers um but what
i realized about him man is when you talk about the lvmas he was probably one of the first hip-hop
artists at the lvmas to win an award um you know you're talking about at the end of the 2000s you
You know, he won awards like back-to-back awards.
Again, they weren't really represented well at the LVMA's hip-hop.
But then he took kind of like a hiatus.
But during his hiatus, it's not that he stopped.
What he did was he started networking underground and building the relationships with the people in hip-hop.
Not just from this area, but from, you know, this region.
You know, Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, Boston.
and he got to know some real key players.
And what he did was he really built the relationship with those people.
So it took him 10, 12 years to get to where he is now.
So seeing where he is now at that precipice of kind of blowing up,
you know, for this area, I think he is probably tops,
you know, close to the tops in this area.
It's not like it just happened overnight.
Right. He put in that grind work for 10, 12 years, even longer, to be honest, longer than that, to get to where he is now.
So he took the long road. He took the building relationships, getting to know people, networking.
He took what I would call the old school approach to it. And he's done a fantastic job.
And now he's at the point where he's building his team that, you know, take flight society where he has different experts and different avenues that can help his team grow.
i think he's doing a great job yeah super dope yeah shout out to red mcfly and if i remember um
nicole had uh spoke so highly of him in her acceptance speech because he wasn't there to
receive the awards yeah but yeah drama did and uh she uh yeah she's she's she's great too yeah i
love talking to her oh man i thought phase was gonna kanye the stage when red won best producer
maybe it was close could be could be we'll see what happens but this was great anything you
want to shout out your social or uh yeah i mean um you know it's movement moves media um you know
so movement moves media facebook um we're in maybe uh we just don't have enough manpower yet for
other social platforms but uh you know we our website is up to date and has a lot of information
on that um and www.movementmovesmedia.com um you know we have the wdiy show um uh you know radio
show that that we have uh i love to get local talent entrepreneurs and stuff and artists onto
that show as much as possible um and then uh you know i gotta give a shout out to uh um promised
neighborhoods of lehigh valley um they have been you know dr bats over there you know you talk
about the nonprofit world um in the lehigh valley which was talking about the in the beginning of
this uh you know conversation we talked about that that click that circle you know that's almost
impossible to penetrate in this area that kind of makes the decisions in this uh in this city
um dr batts has done a great job of uh building something where he he wasn't really accepted you
know in the nonprofit world uh and his board believed in him you know pastor edwards julie
Thomas's and the rest on their board, he built a great board and team. And that board supported
him in such a way that, I mean, he grew that financially 10 times from when he first started
over five years, from when he first started to a few hundred thousand dollars to now a multi-million
dollar nonprofit, and all for what I would consider great, great causes. You know, I seen
them when they were about to go out of business, basically, and then he took over as executive
director and completely turned that around. And now, not only is he supporting his own employees
and all the people that they reach in this community, but he's supporting other nonprofits
and people that are doing uh good work too and to have that done in in the space that he's doing it
in where it was never accepted um he wasn't part of the circle for him to create his own lane
man you know shout out to him i mean him and the entire team at promise neighborhoods um to be
honest our non-profit wouldn't be where we are without their support too um you know and now
in their space uh right by parkette's uh uh the old wards oriental rug spot 333 west union street
by the train tracks uh we're we're having a uh sound engineering and djing class that's going
to start in in march where uh mac phil and and bez music are okay yeah i saw promos about that
you'll have to connect me with bez i don't know bez personally but uh a lot of people that i
talk to bring him up so oh man he's great man i met him when he was uh 15 dude talked like he was
30 when he was 15 man he was he was like a freshman in high school and he was just talking
about business my not none of this is my vision for the next 10 years and everything he said when
he was 15 is is happening and more he's just a business-minded person that's awesome and you
talk about the pedigree he comes from so like uh jabez karaskia you know his dad is will yeah so
will was in the music scene for his whole life you know and so was his dad that's what i heard
about back in columbia and stuff like that will was on uh eric rodriguez on dope individuals only
podcast yeah yeah and that's why you know and i listened to 106.9 that's my locked in station
that's replaced power 99 for me at least when i'm not on my spotify or something so i'd love for you
to connect us definitely yeah yeah i would love to that would be a great meeting yeah he's a great
person good energy for sure for sure yeah cool so we'll find the man at movement moves media
this has been another episode of i will not lose podcast thank you with uh for staying tuned through
that rocky filler episode but we won't do that again at least not this year all right thanks
for staying tuned guys peace thank you for listening to another episode of i will not lose
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