Mosart Nuñez

Genius Black:

I want to welcome y’all to the inaugural episode of Black Owned Podcast. What we’re doing first off, I want to introduce myself. My name is Jerry Edwards, also known as Genius Black, and I’m one of the originators who helped to launch Black Owned Maine with my friend, Rose. She’s the visionary. She’s the person who started it and had the initial idea. I am one of the voices and beautiful brown faces, mine happens to be freckled, that represents Black Owned Maine, as well as Black folks far and wide.

Genius Black:

Our first guest on Black Owned Podcast is a producer, an educator, an activist, and a local pillar of culture and creativity, my man, Mosart212. Welcome.

Mosart Nunez:

My name is Mo, Mo Nuñez. Most people in Portland know me as Mosart212 or Mosart Nuñez. Actually, interesting fact, my first name is Moises. Tons of people don’t know that. So I figured this would be as good a time as any to clarify that.

Genius Black:

Ay.

Mosart Nunez:

It’s not Mosart. I actually feel really pretentious whenever anybody ever calls me that. I just get a little embarrassed that I’m just like, “Don’t say that out loud, please. My mom wasn’t like that.”

Genius Black:

Understood. That’s not my name.

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah. Word, man. I’m super happy that we’re doing this. This is incredible.

Genius Black:

Yeah. No, I’m super excited. I would be remiss to not just thank you for being the first guest.

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah. I’m psyched. Got to start somewhere.

Genius Black:

This is where we start.

Mosart Nunez:

Set the bar low.

Genius Black:

Ay, yo. All right. cool. But again, really, welcome to the show, Black Owned Podcast. There’s going to be many more to come. I want to just jump into the first segment here, which I’m going to open with a little bit of an analogy. You ever been out and about and you know it rained last night. The way you know that the rained last night is because this morning, it’s a bunch of worms all over the ground on the concrete. You see them going down the drain. Because when it rains after a storm, it drives the worms to the top.

Genius Black:

The reason I’m bringing this up is that in current times, something I’m calling protest times, in our current race reality, there’s a lot of worms crawling to the surface, brother. There’s a lot of people that are feeling pushed to pick a side, to speak up, to make a statement or not make a statement. So in this segment, we’re going to call it Worms Crawling to the Surface. So what I want to talk to you about first and foremost is how the discourse in Maine and the conversation has been changing as a result of the protests and the protesting, as well as just that, once again, national attention on racial violence against Black people, in this instance a Black man, how has that discourse changed?

Mosart Nunez:

Good question. I think that there’s a lot of places to start there. But I think the first place is to acknowledge what seems like a really quick response from the community and from people stepping up and what appears to be an outpouring and a surge of people who all of a sudden are showing up and protesting and all that. But I think it’s important to note that that didn’t just happen. A lot of people have been talking about things for years. A lot of people have been sort of flirting with the idea of doing something. So I don’t think that this just happened overnight, like this one event all of a sudden galvanized people and they’re just like, “Let’s go protest.”

Mosart Nunez:

I think because of the ways that people of color engage their white community members, in particular in Southern Maine, I think that there’s been a lot of prep, if you will, to get to this point. There have been a lot of people, I think, Black and white, who have been doing things before this. Now just there’s an acceptance, if that makes sense. I think for a lot of people, they needed permission to do these kinds of things, to be as vocal. I think for another group of people, they needed to feel like it was okay to do these things, because there was before this a lot of low stakes engagement and a lot of safe engagement and activity.

Mosart Nunez:

I think this is the perfect convergence of a couple of factors that have made people feel like, “I can do something.” I think that that’s what we’re seeing is that people feel like they can do something, which is crazy considering that there’s been Black people in the community who have been urging the community, Black and white, to get involved and it’s never really caught on how it’s caught on now. But I do think it’s important to note that there have been people since I moved here a decade ago who were always talking about what they’re still talking about now.

Genius Black:

I have to agree. I can say for me, it crossed my mind the other day that I see in the news that some police departments are looking to handle some things differently. I see some business making some statements about changing some practices. I see some of my white brothers and sisters stepping up and thinking about things differently, saying some different things. But I mostly see Black people saying exactly what they’ve been saying for roughly 100 years. That’s not a joke. That’s not petty. That’s real. Our story at this point actually isn’t changing.

Genius Black:

I’m not trying to make this about a lie or the truth. But what I’m saying is that if you think about the one part that’s been consistent through all of that, and people recognize it right now, something has to give. Even the people who don’t want something to give recognize something has to change. But it’s not the Black people who need to say anything different. It’s just one of those things that the problem has lied outside of Black people for a long time. So I want to hear more from you, but I’m going to give you this set-up. Remember, we’re talking about the worms crawling to the surface, right?

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah. Yeah.

Genius Black:

So a lot of people we’ve been noticing, or I’ve been hearing about it and I’ve been seeing, have been kind of exposing themselves as racist online. This has been happening. I’m not surprised, but it’s real. Something that I’m going to repeat here, and everyone’s going to hear me talking about it. Outside of Maine, there’s a stigma amongst people of color, “Well, I don’t know if Maine is so welcoming to Black, brown, this, that. I think it’s mostly white people, right? There’s not really any Black people there. I mean I don’t know what’s up, up there, but you know.”

Genius Black:

And then a lot of white people who aren’t in Maine, there’s this stigma that Maine’s really white and that because it’s mostly white and there’s not many Black people, that there’s no racism here. I think that’s hyper ignorant because that presumes that Black people are the source of racism. Why would there need to be Black people somewhere for there to be racism? The racism literally never came from the Black people in the first place. That’s just not where it comes from. It doesn’t live there. It’s not what it is.

Genius Black:

So how could there be a state void of Black people, therefore it’s void of racism? Again, as if the racism came from the Black people. This is something that I’ve been trying to repeat to help people think through, because I think it’s a common misconception about the very actual nature of racism. So what I’m saying to you, since we talking about the worms crawling to the surface and since we’re talking about this misconception of racism somehow coming, being originating from Black people, I’m just curious, have you seen these people really showing their true thoughts?

Genius Black:

Have you had to deal with that? What kind of pressure do we need to keep going? I mean do we want the worms to keep coming out? Is this good? Is it bad? What’s up? Or if you disagree, if you don’t think it’s the worms-

Mosart Nunez:

No, no, no, no. It’s not. Actually, right now I’m just trying to think. There’s so much in that, so many layers to what you, what you just laid out. I would absolutely agree right now there’s people just sort of outing themselves. But I would also add that for a lot of these people, it’s cathartic. They’re happy to be able to say, “Go back to Africa.” They’re psyched. They’ve never been able to do that shit. Now, they’re like, “Boom.” Man, everybody gets a chance. It’s democratic. We can all be as hateful as we want. Do you know what I mean? You can use your platform to say, “Black is beautiful,” but I can also use my platform to say, “Go back to where you came from.”

Mosart Nunez:

We’re equally as able and we’re equally as legitimate. That’s what we’re seeing is there’s this misconception that there’s a legitimacy to your opinion and your hateful rhetoric. That’s really insane. A lot of it includes like, “Well, I have a right to say these things.” There’s that piece that’s there. So I want to add that nuance to it. Do I think it’s good or bad? I mean I don’t know. It’s so wrapped up in the way that we communicate via social media, that there’s an urgency that social media adds to it that doesn’t actually add anything to the outcome. So there’s a tendency to think about things that happen on social media as faster, more present or newer or more recent, you know what I mean, just because the turnover is so fast.

Mosart Nunez:

I might post five times a day and five different thoughts. They might evolve over the day, giving you the sense that somehow I’m thinking about this all the time and that my thought is becoming more and more evolved as I go along. But it’s just the same as when we had cameras and, before that, when people were drawing. That capturing of the moment is literally that’s all that’s happening. It’s just a moment. What’s the name of that thing when they would take the metal plates, the copper plates? I Think it’s tintype or something like that.

Genius Black:

Daguerrotype.

Mosart Nunez:

Right. Okay. So all we have is just a lot more of those, just tons and tons of those. We can make them faster. We can make them faster than we used to be able to make them.

Genius Black:

Yes, sir.

Mosart Nunez:

So we can’t conflate the speed at which we capture these instances with the progress that’s supposed to go with them. It’s not a relationship there. So the exposure of what people are saying or doing or how they’re outing themselves, I mean it’s inevitable. People will always do that. It’s just happening faster, which makes us think that either there’s more people that are racist than we thought. But I don’t think that’s true.

Genius Black:

No. No one’s becoming racist because of this.

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah, yeah.

Genius Black:

No. No.

Mosart Nunez:

I think to sort of round out the series of questions here, I think that we’re going to have to figure out a new way to deal with what we hear and learn about in the social media platforms. It’s not like reading in a book or seeing it on film or go into a lecture or a debate or attending a gathering and then hearing these things. We’re going to have to have different reactions and different modes of interacting with the stuff that’s being presented to us. I don’t know that we have that yet. I don’t think that we have a way to respond currently. Our way currently is to call it out and cancel.

Genius Black:

I think we have to develop new ways. I mean I think that’s what you’re getting at.

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah. Yeah. We have to develop new ways because there’s an overwhelming influx of negativity that’s happening on these platforms that’s not unique to these platforms. But it’s there and that’s going to require us to interact with that information in a very different way.

Genius Black:

I think you’re absolutely correct. I mean we can talk more about … Because I want to know more about maybe, for instance, why you started to make a business of your talents and tools. But to just harp in a little bit about Black Owned Maine, for instance. We were a protest for a response. So we decided just to talk about something that you build that allows you to react in a different way than before. I realized that what we were doing was bypassing the argument in Maine, for instance, about if it’s racist to focus on Black-owned businesses. Or are you guys saying Black-owned only? Or is this a Black Lives Matter only type thing? Which I’ve never heard a Black person ever say Black lives matter only.

Genius Black:

But you get that instant the guilt, the regret, the anger, the racism, all that from, honestly, just a lot of white people around. You have to Wade through that. Well, instead of getting in the argument, instead of facing our interlocutor and spending time to try to convince them and show them facts, we skipped it. We created a way for people to vote with their dollars and, if they so chose, to put their dollars directly into Black businesses. People use terms like systemic. What does systemic mean? What are systemic problems and how do you resolve systemic issues?

Genius Black:

You resolve systemic issues systemically. So what we did is we created a mechanism to literally get funds to people who historically have been kept away by banks, by racism, whether it be that way. So for us, everyone knows I could give a dozen and a half instances of how the money has been kept from Black people historically, never mind the fact that they actually used to be bought and sold for that same money all through history. So again, we just created a mechanism.

Genius Black:

The reason I say that is that whether it be social media conversations, whether it be new spaces online for people to meet virtually, whether it be businesses and mechanisms like Black Owned Maine that allow money and resources to flow more freely and create safe spaces for Black people to just be vibrant, we have to create new America. We have to create a new future because people are going to obviously go back to the old mechanisms. A couple months from now, when it doesn’t sting as bad, when there aren’t as many videos in that particular season on television, what are the relative mechanisms that we’ve put in place that the racists will come to break down? Because they always do. We’ve seen this before.

Genius Black:

But what would we put into place to slow them down and to keep our power? Because that’s the fight we’re in. So that being said, I was asking you a little bit about the social pressure. I think you kind of touched upon that. I’m wondering what you think happens after the protest. A lot of people said, “Go vote, go vote.” That’s how Black folks get lifted up. I think there’s weight to that. I think it’s about bigger than voting. I think there’s certain things that voting kind of can’t even touch, especially immediately. But what happens after protest? Is it about voting? What should we be focused on?

Mosart Nunez:

I think that focus-wise, I’m really putting all of my eggs in the educate yourself basket. I think it’s super important that people continue to learn about the things that they’re not clear about, about the things they’re confused about, about the things that people mention, about things that are linked to those. So somebody mentions Juneteenth to you and you don’t know what that is, then you go and figure it out. There’s resources. You live in the age of the most information available at your fingertips in a way that we haven’t before. I’m saying that also with the caveat that not everyone has access to these things, et cetera, et cetera. But that barrier to entry is still far, far less intense than it used to be.

Mosart Nunez:

There’s a lot of ways to get information nowadays that is accessible. This is what we invented the internet for. It’s to be able to empower democratically the thoughts that we have and turn them into information and then share the information to create more nuanced ways of thinking. So for me, it’s go learn. Learn about the history of your city. Learn about the policies in your city. Learn about why things are. You don’t like the uniform policy at your school. You learn what it is. All the way, you learn what it is. What is written? How is it written? When was it created? Why was it created? What was the original goal?

Mosart Nunez:

Is the original goal still a goal that we need? Is it outdated, outmoded? We have to keep in mind that, especially in something like policy, lots of policy was created a long time ago with a particular thing in mind at that time. We’ve kept them. Most policy doesn’t even get updated. You know what I mean? So we need to just be learning more. You’re curious, then work on that curiosity. Feed your curiosity. I think what happens after the protests is I would hope that people would turn to books.

Mosart Nunez:

They would turn to art.eee They would turn to resources in their community so that they can keep learning so that they don’t repeat the bad parts of history. I’m all for continuing to protest from now till November 8th, 9th, November 9th?

Genius Black:

We got a lot of work to do before then.

Mosart Nunez:

I’m all for that. I think that’s great. I also think that some of us really need to hit some books. I think we need a lot of depth in the deep end of the critical race analysis pool. How many of us understand how racism works and what some of our greatest thinkers that were Black that were women, that are having all these intersections, what are their thoughts? What were they laying out? What were their observations? Stopping at one person that … Okay, cool. Start here and spend some time with it, but really look at all the angles. Figure out why there’s a difference between W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington.

Mosart Nunez:

Just figure out why, because then that right there starts to break down how you end up with Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, who’s an anti-Black Black man. You end up understanding the ways in which, although you’re told Black people are monoliths, they’re not. But this helps you understand just how much they’re not. you know what I mean? So for me, it’s what happens after the protest is people begin to want to learn and then they learn more. And then they share that info and we just keep it going.

Genius Black:

Absolutely. Thank you. So I have a question building on that. In Maine, it’s one thing. The race reality nationally, there’s a couple levels to think about it. But I want to hear a little bit … Police behaviors and actions have sparked a lot of reaction, action, activity, feelings. It’s not a new occurrence. But I think we all felt this building and burgeoning and building and building, and to what exactly, who knew?

Genius Black:

One thing we know now is this. Things will be different. Now we’re trying to help figure and shape out where. Can the police do right by Americans? Can the police departments, I’m saying as a whole and even some of the individuals, I mean I know they always try to do this whole one bad seed or one bad apple, which I think is crap. It’s just a way to honestly say the rest of us can just be racist and think and do, but if you ever actually catch one person, then yeah, we’ll go ahead and let you publicly point their finger at them.

Genius Black:

But you can never scrutinize the whole system. That’s stupid. That’s where we’ve been trapped with our hands down. So what I’m saying is can the police do right? What you think, man? What can they do?

Mosart Nunez:

This goes back to what you were saying about systems and that kind of stuff. Unfortunately, the system itself is not designed to do right by people. So can cops do right by people? If they’re good people. I’m not doubting that there are good people on the police force, but they’re not incentivized to be good. They’re not rewarded for being good. They’re not asked to be good. So we got to clarify that their job isn’t to be good people. So right then and there, we have an issue, you know what I mean? So reforming that is really going to take a movement within our structures that acknowledges that we don’t currently have the thing we wish police turned into. That thing doesn’t exist.

Mosart Nunez:

So we can’t turn them into … I used to teach a writing class. In writing workshops, students would want to know, “Can I turn this poem into a short story?” Or, “Can I turn this short story into an essay or a novel?” Most of the time, the answer is not really, because it started off as this and it lives in this world. You made it this. You could dismantle it, but you’re not really going to evolve into another thing. You know what I mean? You should start from where you want to be. You know what I mean? Could you turn a poem into an essay or a novel? Yes. But you would have to take apart a lot of it and, in the end, it’s not even going to be recognizable.

Mosart Nunez:

So I would say that the police, as we know it, are doing their job and they do it very well. You know what I mean? They do the thing they do effectively. What that thing is, is pretty detrimental in particular to poor people and people of color. But if were really messing up in the ways that we say that they are, the people that are … How do I say this? When millionaires and CEOs start saying the police aren’t doing their job, then that’s a different conversation. That’s a conversation that skews closer to what we’re seeing. But the reason that they’re going to say that police aren’t doing their jobs isn’t because they’re getting pulled over and beat up. It’s because their assets aren’t being protected. You know what I mean?

Mosart Nunez:

Police serve a different master. That’s the clarifying statement here. Their intents and purposes weren’t, haven’t been, are not moving towards the protect and serve of common citizens. The protect and serve is accurate. It’s just we always assumed the end of that sentence was in my community, but it’s not. So I don’t think that we can work with what we have. You know what I mean? We have to take a look at the ways that they are carrying out their duties, figure out if we need those duties. Is that a thing we need? And then work from there. So start picking out, okay, we do need this. We don’t need that.

Mosart Nunez:

And then with the list, when we have what we do need, then the second question we need to ask is, “Are police the best people to do this?” Now we whittle it down. We have three more things left on the list. Now we’ve asked what do police do, are they the best ones to do it? Now we have to ask, “What is the least harmful way that the police can do this thing?” How much will it cost, not just literally, but figuratively to have them be the ones to do this thing? You know what I mean? That’s the thing. With the police, even the people who want to keep the police don’t want to pay the price of keeping police.

Mosart Nunez:

It’s not about your city budget. It costs a lot to keep police in your community. It’s the constant living under armed guard. Is that a price you want to pay? I don’t want to pay that price. That’s not a fair price to me. That’s not a wager or an exchange I want to get into. You know what I mean?

Genius Black:

I just want to offer an example because I think it’s something that doesn’t cross people’s minds. If you are white and you’re listening to this, think about it. With the way police operate, you could be in your neighborhood away from the Black folks and if a Black person or Hispanic person or whatnot is visiting someone in the neighborhood and the wrong thing goes down, and don’t assume that it’s the person of color doing anything wrong. There’s a lot of drugs and alcohol and dysfunction in white communities. Am I lying, y’all? Come on. Anything can happen anywhere.

Genius Black:

But there just happens to be a Dominican brother there for the weekend with his girlfriend or trying to get back with his ex-girlfriend in real life. The cops show up. You want people dying in your neighborhood? Do you understand? Stop separating yourself from the issue because the police tend to make you feel safer, until they don’t. I don’t think that me saying this right here on this recording is going to open up everyone’s eyes, but even a little sliver.

Genius Black:

I appreciate you and I want to hear what you thought about that. To me, what you just said is honestly, very positive and it’s measured. You actually gave multiple steps. I think that people hear terms, like defund the police, and they hear these things and they cringe. They go, “Then what would we do in the case of this, this, and this?” It’s like, you guys, instead of thinking or considering that Black people have thought about this for a long time, you have a gut reaction and tell us once again that we don’t know the solutions and that it should actually be what you think it is, what makes you feel safe.

Mosart Nunez:

You know that thing I said about education, the reason that we learn and we get critical and we learn to analyze things currently, we live like in a place where everything is these two extremes. So we either have police or we have Mad Max and Thunderdome. That’s wild. Think about the extremes. There’s no middle ground, really?

Genius Black:

I don’t want to be in the Thunderdome, bro.

Mosart Nunez:

Exactly. There’s no middle ground? You don’t imagine a scenario in which we have less police and we don’t have roving marauders burning things down? There’s no capacity. That’s the thing. It’s like people don’t have the capacity to imagine alternatives. That’s a lack of critical thinking-

Genius Black:

It is.

Mosart Nunez:

… and a lack of critical analysis.

Genius Black:

It is.

Mosart Nunez:

Getting rid of the police, let’s be honest, that’s scary if you’re scared of X, Y, and Z in your community. But then if you learn more about the things in your community, you’d be less scared of them.

Genius Black:

That’s how it works.

Mosart Nunez:

If you’re less scared of them, you go back to that original statement. We need police because, and now you’re less likely to say that thing that you just learned about. You might keep this other category of things you’re afraid of. But then when you get to learn about those, then you also figure out that that’s not really a thing that we need to live under a gun for.

Genius Black:

So, I’m going to prep you with the next question, which is I’m going to say to you, Mo, why is black ownership important in Maine? While you’re thinking about the answer, I’m going to say to the audience listening, if you are offending by us talking about how the police maybe need to be defunding, I’m not even saying they should be, though that might be true, or if you are offending by us just playing with these ideas and thinking them through in front of people because we believe in critical thinking, well, it’s not that we don’t care, we do care, but we are just exercising our rights and our intellects because even though we are black and brown, we possess them in a strong way.

Genius Black:

So, you’re going to hear more of these conversations out loud. Try to become part of them, even if you feel like it’s offensive, we’re not talking about hating the police, but we are definitely saying that just because the police makes some people comfortable, we don’t feel comfortable with the very nature of policing and what it was even designed to be, and we do not agree that simply because someone is hired as a police officer that that inherently makes them a hero, and that we shouldn’t scrutinize their behaviors along the way. That’s ignorant, and if it was literally any other profession that you’ve dealt with in your entirety of your life, you would stand up on your right, especially if you were paying them, to scrutinize their work. Yet, you like to label police as heroes and demonize people who scrutinize them. We all see you. We’ll move onto the question that I’ve had my homie thinking through. So, if you agree, and tell me why if you do, why is black ownership important, but in Maine?

Mosart Nunez:

I do agree. I think it’s important in Maine because Maine is part of America. I don’t know if you’ve looked but America has black people, and if they want to open a business, if they want to have services in their community that they offer to other folks, that’s why. It’s not, I don’t have a very complicated or involved answer other than, this is where I put on my libertarian hat. It’s their right, and you win. You win. They open a business in your neighborhood, in your town, guess what you have that you didn’t have before-

Genius Black:

Straight up.

Mosart Nunez:

I mean, that’s it. That’s it. You really want to argue with somebody moving in and really hooking up some great curry? That’s where you want to really fight about? Come on, did you have curry? Like I understand if where you’re at, you’re like, “But it’s going to push out ma and pa’s curry shop.” Okay, I get it. We’ll have that conversation, right? That’s a different conversation by the way than it is about diversifying.

Genius Black:

Yes, it is.

Mosart Nunez:

But, people want to conflate those all the time, and see them as the same, and see the argument that we don’t need this here or that doesn’t belong here. Those are insane. This is where the white supremacy that people are ingrained in hurts them. This is where they are hurt. This is where those people aren’t living life, you know what I mean? Imagine being so racist that you would rather not eat a badass curry than eat it, because you’re so racist. You know what I mean? You would deprive yourself of stuff, you would be like, “I don’t want that,” that’s how racist you are. That’s insane. That’s insane, okay?

Mosart Nunez:

You’re turning down jobs, you’re turning down opportunities, you’re turning down a diversity of thought. You would turn all of those things down because what, you’re the master race, or because those people are inferior? Those reasonings, that just doesn’t make sense. So, you are living under your own oppressive mantle, that albatross of racism is hurting you, you know what I mean? You don’t want to open up your borders to people who look differently than you? Open a history book and figure out what happens to you.

Mosart Nunez:

I’m going to tell you right now, spoiler alert, you’re not in the last chapter of that book, you know what I mean? There’s less of you as the book keeps going, you know what I mean? So, go ahead, that’s on you, but you have an opportunity, now more than even, to diversify. No one loses. This is the thing that’s really, really insane, no one loses. Nothing goes away, nothing… You get, you get, you get, you get.

Genius Black:

Yeah.

Mosart Nunez:

Things become richer, things become more nuanced, more complex. You’re able to see your own self differently, you know what I mean? I always joke with my wife, like if I had all the money in the world, one of the things I would do is I would have a hillbilly exchange program. I’d take hillbillies from Maine and bring them to the Dominican Republic, drop them off in the middle of nowhere. They would survive perfectly. They would fit right in. They would know exactly what to do. They’d know how to get water, they’d know how to plant crop, reap, they would know how to do those things.

Mosart Nunez:

They’re not that different, right? But, you talk to somebody from those regions of Maine, who are like, “Been white, stays white, will be white,” and you say to them, “But, you have so much in common with people in X part of the world,” and they’ll insist that they don’t. It’s different, that those people are savages, that those people come from shithole countries. It’s like, well water is well water. Physics work exactly the same. It’s not the physics in the Dominican Republic are any backwards.

Mosart Nunez:

They’re the same. Crops go in the ground in the Dominican Republic, and then they come up at the same rate they do here. That’s it. So, the idea that somehow you are… It’s just crazy, it’s just a lot of robbing yourself. We rob continents and loot history, but the biggest loser at the end of the day is the people holding the whip. They’re the ones that aren’t living, they’re the ones that are spending their whole life trying to figure out how to stay there. I don’t want to live like that. I don’t envy those dudes.

Genius Black:

No, I do know. Why would you envy them?

Mosart Nunez:

I mean, the diversity question, yeah, it’s why should Maine be more diverse, why should we have more, why is it important? It’s important because it’s inevitable. Don’t you want to be a part of how things look, rather than the part of taxidermist, keeps it one way? By the way, we don’t taxidermy live things. You put them, and they die, and then you preserve them, and they stay dead, and then you look at them, that’s it.

Genius Black:

That’s not how you handle things that are living.

Mosart Nunez:

No, you don’t interact with it. That’s crazy. I don’t want to treat history, people, cultures that way, that’s preposterous. That’s stupid, that’s just, it’s shortsighted, and it’s not even selfish, it’s just ridiculous.

Genius Black:

And I want to talk about the victims of racism. What you have to understand about the actual nature of racism as it’s been actuated in America, is that the victims are mostly white people. What does it make them think, what does it not allow them to think, what obvious things in front of them that they see daily does it actually mask and teach them aren’t exactly what they know it is? A lot, a lot of things. So, what you were just talking about really points to something that I try to open people’s eyes to.

Genius Black:

For a second, just back away from thinking about how bad black people have it, and think about how white people in America aren’t even allowed to recognize the truth. You can have someone shoot up a church full of black people after praying with them, and then white people get on TV and go, “Well, we don’t know it was race related just because he said A, B, and C.” Then, all the black people are like, “Well, okay, we’re not just operating on an assumption. There’s a lot of indicators, but are you really sure that what you should be talking about is how we always jump to race? Maybe there’s something about the nature of your reality that’s really blinding you.” Maybe you got racism all in your eyes, but they don’t see it.

Genius Black:

Then, the manifesto or whatever comes out and it says, “I hate niggers a lot, that’s why I’m here, because I want them to die fast.” Then, those white people just get off TV and stop talking about it, right? But, they love to create that space where maybe it’s just, “Come on, black people, you’re always… Every time you black people come around, you want to talk about race.” Interesting, or are you always acting out your ideas of race against black people. Anyway, that’s a whole nother conversation. But, I just wanted to say, the victims are not just black people.

Genius Black:

There’s this weird thing that when people talk about racism, they just envision black people in their heads as if the white people are off the hook. Who’s hurting right now? Black people, we saying the same thing. White peoples’ lives are being turned upside down. My life is not being upside down because of protesting in the streets and because of whoever saying stupid stuff on TV. But, there’s some people who feel real different. Look around and think about who those people are, and how this is a mechanism of racism we’re living within, and it’s designed to make us feel this way.

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah. I’m laughing because in child development, and when we talk about neurology and neuroscience of what we look at as the indicators and markers of how kids are growing, and if they’re growing healthily if you will, we talk about object permanence. So, the reason peekaboo is hilarious to little kids is because they don’t have object permanence. If they don’t see the thing, literally it disappeared into thin air. So, then when you come back and you’re like, “Peekaboo,” and they freak out, it’s like you literally just appeared again, right?

Mosart Nunez:

So, imagine being a group of people who has no object permanence around race and racial relations. To your point that well, we need black people to be racist. That’s like three years old. We’re going to have to go and take you to a neurologist or something, because you should have outgrown the concept of object permanence. You should understand that because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it disappeared, you know what I mean? Just because you see something now doesn’t mean that it’ll be there later-

Genius Black:

Or the fact that you just see it now, that it wasn’t there for a long time before right now.

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah, exactly.

Genius Black:

Yeah.

Mosart Nunez:

So, it’s just again, that same thing of… Again, if we, as educators found out that a child is not matured past his object permanence age marker, there’s a whole set of things we put into place to make sure that they reach that, that we understand what’s happening neurologically, that we provide services and support so that we can figure out, is this a thing that’s going to be this way forever, is this permanent, is this temporary, and if so how’s it going to affect where we’re supposed to be at this marker? We do that for children. So, think about being an adult who lives in a world like that? That’s childlike, you know what I mean?

Genius Black:

Yeah.

Mosart Nunez:

That whole thing is ridiculous.

Genius Black:

Everything you said, I think is brilliant. I love how you talked about it, but I am also surrounded by it, so it can be disheartening. You know you did talk about development and I know that right now a lot of people are having some breakthroughs are stuff and I want to encourage that. I don’t ever want to sound… I don’t want to be, nevermind sound, I don’t want to be overly cynical. But, I can just tell you as a person of color, it’s a slap in the face when someone all of a sudden realize that instead of a lifelong liar to them, you’ve actually been an honest truth teller, and all of a sudden they see something different. It’s frustrating. That’s just honest, real black talk.

Genius Black:

But, that being said, speaking developmentally, when a person realizes something, hey, at least they realized it. We’re trying to develop, we’re trying to grow. You are an educator, so I know that that’s a lens you use a lot. So, I want to move forward and talk a little bit about, I just see young people leading in this movement. The youth energy is leading energy, and it’s powerful, sparkish energy. But, you’re an educator, so can you talk a little bit about what is that you help people to figure out how to do and communicate around, who’s the recipients, who’s in direct contact with you who might end up… what types of people might be benefiting from what you do? [crosstalk 00:12:38].

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah, yeah, no, it’s a great question. I think first and foremost, I’m an advocate for marginalized youth. In different communities, that’s going to look different. In some communities, that’s going to be at risk youth. In other communities I worked at, those are repeat offenders. In another community, it might be a large population of illiterate youth or function illiterate youth. But, it’s basically helping school systems and educational support systems in cities and towns reintegrate these young men and women. It’s extremely important, because they are an incredible resource. They’re resilient, they’re young, and they’re capable. So, for you not to invest in that is like throwing away money and opportunity.

Genius Black:

Say that.

Mosart Nunez:

Right? And so to me, that’s just, again, I go back to, that’s nuts. So, the recipients of my outreach are people who have the power to make changes either through policy or practice, to reengage or engage or reach out to at risk youth. I don’t need to say that nine times out of 10 that includes and is overwhelming black and brown youth, but I’ll just clarify, and the ultimate beneficiaries are youth who want to be not thrown away. It’s not kids who want to be back in school or anything like that, I mean sometimes it is, but it’s really kids who don’t want to be thrown aside or cast aside and treated like they don’t matter or that they’re invisible in their communities.

Mosart Nunez:

So, a lot of the work I do is to figure out, with the youth, “What do you want?” And then, figure out with the adult, like how is it that we get to seeing and actualizing the potential of this group, of this block if you will. A lot of it, I was talking earlier about dual capacity building. So, I might spend some time talking with a group of youth about effective ways to engage the mayor, but I’m going to spend twice as much time talking to the mayor about how to listen to youth. They’re going to need a lot of handholding in the way kids don’t, and they’re going to need a lot of deprogramming in the way kids don’t.

Mosart Nunez:

So, I really try to teach all groups about community engagement, and what it means, and how to have authentic community engagement, and what are the ways that we act off of community engage; what does community engagement get us when it’s purposeful, intentional, and authentic? Then, teach teachers, sometimes I do teacher workshops where we talk about what are the… Teachers want to have difficult conversations, they’ll tell you that. Oh, I want to know how to have difficult conversations with my students.

Mosart Nunez:

A lot of the times, I might step in and say, “Well, let’s figure out what your capacity is to have those conversations. If I give you a bunch of pointers on how to do it, doesn’t mean that you’re going to do it effectively. So, let’s just take a step back and start figuring out why is this important to you, what do you think will happen when you do it.” In the same way that I often get people approaching me who say, “Oh hey, our goal is to have diversity within our workforce and we want to have more black people work here,” and the first thing I say is, “That’s a terrible idea. That’s an awful idea. I don’t want to participate in that idea.” A lot of people, they’re like, “Oh, well, don’t we want more black people?” It’s like, “Well, I mean, we do”-

Genius Black:

We want you to open your mind.

Mosart Nunez:

In safe spaces. I mean, I could bring a thousand black people to your job, and then have a thousand people leave, you know what I mean? The question is, “Are you ready to work with black people?”

Genius Black:

Yes.

Mosart Nunez:

A lot of people focus on how do we make our applications attractive to black candidates, and the question is, if a black person were to work for you, with you, alongside you, does that work? Are you capable of doing that? You know what I mean? Black people aren’t pets, you don’t bring your fucking black person to the office day, you know what I mean? This isn’t like, “Oh, we don’t have allergies, so you can bring in your black friend,” you know what I mean? They’re people too, and so as such, we have to be able to know that we’re responsible enough to have the privilege, to take advantage of the privilege to be with them.

Genius Black:

Yes.

Mosart Nunez:

Just like anybody else, you know what I mean? A lot of these conversations that I’m having with people really centers around why do you want these things, are you capable of having these things, once you get these things what happens next, you know what I mean? So, one of the questions I constantly ask anybody I’m working with is, let’s suppose everything works out exactly how it’s suppose to work out, then what?

Genius Black:

Got you.

Mosart Nunez:

And we might go from there, just from the then what.

Genius Black:

I love that. I think that’s a great approach. One of the things I wanted to ask you is in your work, how do you broach difficult topics? Because obviously people need the most help with those topics, right? But, you already told me, you kind of drill down to, well, what’s the why. Believe it or not, we need to actually examine what you want to get out of this because if it’s a higher percentage of black people, you might be really misinterpreting [crosstalk 00:18:44], you know?

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I’m the only person who looks like me wherever I go.

Genius Black:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mosart Nunez:

So, the higher up I go in the world of whatever, education, city government, all those things, it’s a difficult conversation for me, because I’m usually the only one who looks like me. So, I usually just put that out there, I let people know that, and that disarms them right away, kind brings them over to my side. I think that having difficult conversations is just a new buzzword, it’s a new buzz term. I just need to know what is it that you’re talking about when you say that.

Genius Black:

Absolutely. I think what’s going to happen is a lot more nuanced conversations moving forward. And I just think that’s something that you’ve been already teaching people in your work to do. So, hopefully just expands… I’d love to see some of what you’ve been try to teach people, to see it echoed in society, and you have to do less unteaching and unlearning and all that. So, that sounds awesome to me. One of things I wanted to ask, because you have your finger, in the work you do, on the pulse of let’s say some leaders in our community, some adults and some people who hold some power.

Genius Black:

But, you also have your finger on the pulse with some of the younger people because of some of the trainings and interactions you might have. I’m just curious, why is it that the youth voice is just… I mean, I guess, in these moments and movements in society, has it always been the youth voice and youth energy? I’m just curious, because I’ve been noticing a lot of young people, not only do they feel energized, somehow I feel like people feel inclined to listen to them a little bit more, like they have to. What’s up with that?

Mosart Nunez:

So, I think one of the interesting things is to think about the sphere of influence and who has it, and how long they get to live. We have people living much longer now than we have ever, so they’re taking that locus of control with them every decade. But, if you look back at history in general, there were no 45 year old pharaohs. Monuments are built to 18 year olds, 19 year olds. We’re looking at entire societies built on the revolutionary actions of youth, over and over and over again, you know what I mean? We’re not looking at 70, 80 year old people unless they’re robber barons, emphasis on the robber, decimating society.

Mosart Nunez:

For the most part, people creating change and ushering in new ideas are by and large historically young. Really, we can pinpoint it at different points of history just how young. We can look in our windows and look just what is that sphere of influence. In sociology and in political science, we’ve called it the Overton window. Where can you look currently about the things that we are thinking about that are acceptable in the way that quote unquote it is, and then over time that thing shifts. So, when we look at people’s favorite nonsense, like “Well, people hate Republicans but Lincoln was a Republican,” that’s a perfect example of the Overton window.

Mosart Nunez:

Over a hundred years ago, Civil War era, was here. Republicanism looked like this, over time it shifted. It’s still the same term, but it’s shifted, and now the accepted understanding of Republicans and Democrats are totally different. It’s a spectrum, and we use the same terms. So, that youth thing works the same way. It’s not new, it’s not different, it’s not out of the realm of the way we’ve done things, it’s just again that it moves faster, there’s more of it, which gives us the impression that there’s some sort of dynamics that are happening that are new than they were before. But again, we can look at segments of history and find almost all rebellions, all uprisings, the majority of them, let me be careful about saying all, the majority of them are going to be youth led.

Genius Black:

But, I have been observing that. Even I was out in Portland protesting, and the young people, their energy was just so powerful, and it was respected. I mean, people needed some real energy, you know what I mean? We had to get up, we had to come out that house for this.

Mosart Nunez:

I mean, it’s investment. There’s a conservatism that is inherent to getting older because you have more responsibilities.

Genius Black:

Yes, truth.

Mosart Nunez:

So, a 19 year old, a 20 year old, a 21 year old can dedicate a real, authentic, larger portion without having to think about mortgages and jobs and the fallout and all these things. That’s not to say that adults are not just as passionate, but they’re certainly not as actionable.

Genius Black:

Yeah, and [crosstalk 00:24:16]-

Mosart Nunez:

We have to acknowledge that, we have to acknowledge that. You have to be honest with yourself, you have to be transparent and honest with yourself about why you’re not doing these things. And if the answer is I’m worried about my kids, then fucking say that, you know what I mean? Say that, be honest, and acknowledge you know that that’s why you’re not doing it. Figure out what you can do that fits in the realm of where you feel like you can control things, and practice stepping out of your comfort zone, you know what I mean? That’s the other piece is that the youth have far more investment in the future than old people do.

Genius Black:

It’s true, and they haven’t been numbed and dulled by as much crap in life, and that’s true. No, I appreciate that. I wanted to talk to you, kind of shift gears a little bit. I know that in the work you do, teaching facilitation and helping people to be able to communicate better, as well as I know you are a music producer and you’re a creative person, and you perform. I want to talk a little bit about that aspect of you, as well as just like your creative process for instance. We can just jump in. Is your creative process looking any different these days? Are you settled into something when you want to come up with ideas? Again, whether it be music or even if you’re developing things on more kind of the educationing side, I’m just curious. Creativity, I think essential in certain business, maybe not all, but particularly as black professionals. I know for me, I rely a lot on my creativity. I love jobs when I can really have my intuition and creativity play a huge role. I’m just curious, on any of those sides, what is your creative process look like?

Mosart Nunez:

I had a conversation recently, so I’m getting ready to return after almost 20 years to finish off my PhD. I’m finally ready. And I’m having this conversation with the institution that wants me to go there, and I’m meeting with this advisor who I’ve know for a while, and they’re asking me questions about my thesis and dissertation and focus, and they keep asking all these music questions. I finally have to stop and be like, “This has zero to do with music. I’m not going to be… any part of this is going to have anything to do with music,” and they were taken aback, and were like, “Whoa, nothing?” I explained at that point that those are two separate worlds for me. I don’t mind… I shouldn’t say I don’t mind.

Mosart Nunez:

I like doing workshops that center around music, but if that’s what I’m going to do, that’s what I’m going to do. So, if I’m going to do a workshop and it’s going to be a bunch of kids learning how to DJ or the essentials of mixing, I’m all here for it, I’m going to do that. That is not what I’m going to do or bring up when I’m doing a workshop on facilitation and vice versa. I might talk about some aspects of DJing while I do the facilitation workshop, and I might talk a little bit about education in that world when I’m doing the mixing workshop, but I really have a firm line between those things. I don’t talk about DJing at work, I don’t talk about producing. Part of that has to do with why I do music and what I do when I do music.

Mosart Nunez:

So for me, music is when I get to step outside of my job, which is very stressful, very demanding, and takes up a lot of my time. Music is when I get to not do it. I don’t have any aspirations with my music, I’ve never had it, you know what I mean? I’ve been offered record deals, I’ve been offered all sorts of stuff in that world that I’ve turned down repeatedly. I’m not interested at all. Because of that, I also am very mindful that I occupy a very, very privileged space, and in particular in Portland in that music is not my livelihood. So, that means that I have to be very careful and very thoughtful about what I say yes to and what I agree to do and how I interact with other musicians, because it is their life, it is their bread and butter, you know what I mean?

Mosart Nunez:

So for me, I’m constantly thinking about that. But, I also again, this is what allows me to be a diva, I can ask for what I want, I can turn stuff down when I feel like it, I only take stuff I want to do, you know what I mean? It’s a different, my process is I do it. I try to do a little bit a day that’s related to music, whether it’s mixing, or listening to new music, or going out and discovering new stuff, or experimenting with new ways of creating music. But, there’s never an end goal. I’m not thinking, oh, I’m going to put this out, or this is going to turn into this. There’s a very just go with the flow thing with it that for me, it keeps it sacred and protected.

Genius Black:

Yeah.

Mosart Nunez:

[crosstalk 00:29:39] that makes sense.

Genius Black:

It does, it absolutely does. No, I love that. I think a lot of people end up falling out of love, just having this weird relationship with their creativity and their art or their music because they don’t separate those spaces enough, you know?

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah.

Genius Black:

So no, I completely get that. In terms of, just because again, I’m a big guy when it comes to black culture and our creativity, I do want to listen to a couple of your tracks and discuss some of what I hear. So, I’m just curious again, back to the creative process, generally speaking, talk to me a little bit about your creative process.

Mosart Nunez:

The song we’re going to listen to is called Nobody But You, and as far as my process goes, I think this one is a good example of how I put stuff together. It’s a sample from the group Antony and the Johnsons. I love that album that I took this song from. Then, the rest of it is just myself noodling around on some synthesizers. I’m drawn to the music I make, it is not as heavy and it’s definitely a lot of found sound and stuff put back together again. So this, just I think has a good mix of when I sit down, I’m thinking about things in three ways.

Mosart Nunez:

I’m thinking about a sample that brings in something I love, I’m thinking about an atmospheric element that tells you when are you going to listen to this, like you’re not listening to this at a party, you’re not listening to this to dance. But then, there are other times where I’m thinking, oh that’s what I want people to do, or that’s what I wanted to give you the feeling of. Then lastly, the drums or what people call the beat, I don’t always try to create a beat, anything straightforward like that. That’s going to catch fire. It’s already caught fire. It was smoking, okay. All right.

Genius Black:

That’s a good one.

Mosart Nunez:

Hey, we can just leave it in because if you listen to this song, it’ll catch fire. Isn’t that what the kids say? That’s what the kids say, right?

Genius Black:

No, they said it is fire.

Mosart Nunez:

Oh, they say it’s fire. Sorry, okay. The beat or the background and all that stuff then tends to be a third part. So, I try to think of it into those three ways. And the things I sample, I try really hard to dig into what I like to listen to when I’m not listening to rap or hip hop. That’s usually what I try to go for.

Speaker 3:

(singing)

Genius Black:

So, now that we all listened together, I got some thoughts and things that I want to share. The first thing is, when the song first started, I was like, oh man, this is kind of atmospheric. It comes in, there’s these textures, there’s this kind of ebbing into it, there’s this organic thing happen, I kind of feel wet and metallic a little bit, I like that. I was like, all right, so this is going to be long winded, I’m thinking 10 minutes, 5 minutes, and I was like, nope, two minutes, 13 seconds, get in, get out.

Mosart Nunez:

Mm-hm (affirmative).

Genius Black:

So, I thought it was cool. To me, it’s interesting to have an atmosphere, or what I perceive to be an atmospheric approach to something that’s so short. I don’t know why for some reason that stands out to me. So, I thought that was cool. There was a couple moments where something really started to creep in, like a vocal sample and some different things. Those really had me interested. I was really trying to figure out, is that thing going to really become the center of attention. But, you were kind of sneaking it in, letting back out. So, I’d be curious to hear about some of that. I mean, I have a couple more things I’ll share, but like yeah, what’s up with that, with the textures and the ebbing, bro? I got that right off the bat.

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah, I mean again, I don’t really… Aside from the three things that I’m thinking about, which is the sample I’m using, the textures I’m using, and then the background, the bones, like the beat, I don’t have a time linked in mind, I don’t have a peak in mind. So, I think that that’s one of the things that’s unique to a lot of the stuff I do. There isn’t an actual drop like in dance music or the high moment like in pop music, not really interested in that kind of stuff.

Mosart Nunez:

I think that I make a lot of music that’s built around listening to it for yourself. I know that sounds cliché sometimes, when people are like, “You know, I make headphone music,” but I literally, I make stuff that I imagine that you’re putting on just when you want to chill and you just want to be a little contemplative, and you want to just hear some weird stuff, you know what I mean? So, in this case, I find their voice very amazing. I think that Antony’s voice is unbelievable, and what’s really interesting is that I didn’t do anything to the voice in that sample except put a little bit of reverb on it. That’s how haunting their voice is to begin with.

Mosart Nunez:

Sometimes, I’m looking for samples where I don’t have to change anything, just to capture the magic. Then, I found some textures that I had recorded a little bit earlier, one of which was me trying to get a zipper to work on a sweatshirt that I have that the zipper came off. But, the zipper was stuck at the top, and I couldn’t get it down. So, when you hear the [inaudible 00:37:50], that’s just me rubbing my hand back and forth, and then taking a pencil to try to loosen the zipper.

Genius Black:

Got you.

Mosart Nunez:

So, I’ll talk around the house and I’ll record stuff like that, or I might be watching a movie or a show and then some interesting noise is occurring in the show that I might record, and then I just keep it. I keep folders of just stuff like that, listening to NPR, might hear somebody say something really interesting, and just borrow that section. Then yeah, I mean to me, a lot of the stuff that I put out is really, what you’re hearing is what it sounds like when I have a bunch of hardware in front of me and I just mess with it for a while.

Genius Black:

See, that’s interesting.

Mosart Nunez:

There’s not a plan. It’s literally like after four or five hours over the span of four to six weeks, this is what it would sound like.

Genius Black:

Got it. Okay, so Nobody But You, I think what I was hearing was a muffled or filtered bass line. I don’t know if you had sampled the-

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah, yeah.

Genius Black:

I don’t know if you had to sample the bass.

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah.

Genius Black:

And sometimes, I don’t know if you were like raising, I guess, you’re letting more of the highs through. It was kind of peaking up sometimes, right?

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Genius Black:

Talk to me a little bit about that. Because first, I was like, wait, what is that? But, it was holding down the bottom, it just wasn’t all present.

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah, yeah. I found over the years that I don’t go in for making music that has a heavy end or a low end. I listen back to a lot of the stuff I’ve made and it’s just not there. I’ve stopped trying to make it. So, if you actually listen closely to a lot of the stuff I make, there’s actually no real base in it.

Genius Black:

Okay.

Mosart Nunez:

There’s no real bottom, boomy, subby kind of thing happy. I just give you the impression that there is by creating movement in other places.

Genius Black:

So, you cut off the high end and the low end of this bass line then? Because it feels low fidelity like you got rid of some of the highs, but then you go rid of a lot of the sub, like it’s just not there?

Mosart Nunez:

No, I just in that case, if I remember correctly, I recorded that bass line from another song, so it was a sample. Then, I ran that sample with nothing but the low end, and then I ran it again with nothing but the mid, and then I ran it again with nothing but the low end, and then I ran it again with nothing but the high end. And I’ll just do that. Sometimes, I’ll just sit there and keep processing, re sampling, re sampling, processing, until it ends up wherever. But, that also creates a lot of artifacts in the sound, a lot of noise.

Genius Black:

Yes, and that’s part of the texture I hear. I love it.

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah, I couldn’t get that anywhere else. I have a couple of machines too in the studio that are broken, that I’ve kept, because they do a certain thing that other things can’t do. They weren’t designed to do that, but now that they do that, really, really love them.

Genius Black:

[crosstalk 00:40:46].

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah.

Genius Black:

Yeah, yeah.

Mosart Nunez:

I have a-

Genius Black:

That’s fire.

Mosart Nunez:

I don’t know if y’all know Kaoss Pads. I have one of the original ones, and it’s a little… I have a original Kaoss pad mini, it’s a piece of shit. It shocks you when you touch it, it works some of the time, it doesn’t work other times. It’s really finicky, but when it does put out sound, it puts out this horrible 8-bit scrunchy squeak. And if you take that squeak, that crunchy, all that stuff, and then compress it, and mess with it a bunch, you end up with this really cool digital sounding whatever it is, whatever the sound is. It ends up sounding really flat and digitized in a way that I’ve tried really hard to get in other gear. So, a lot of the stuff you hear too is just me, I’ve-

Genius Black:

I love it.

Mosart Nunez:

You know when John Cage has his fixed pianos and he puts the pennies on the [inaudible 00:41:48], that’s not called [inaudible 00:41:49], what the fuck are they called?

Genius Black:

The hammers?

Mosart Nunez:

The hammers. You know, that kind of stuff, like a lot of my gear’s at this point just fixed gears, stuff that I’ve messed with and now it only does this thing.

Genius Black:

Yeah, no, for sure. That’s awesome, man. That’s awesome. Well, no, thank you, and for sharing that too. Like I said, I want to just think a little bit even about the creative process. I love the layering of samples. I think that the art of sampling isn’t as prevalent as it used to be, and so even though people still sampling, we have big records that come out that are sample based, and I love that. But, the really, hey man, I’m going to snag the mids, then I’m go ahead and grab the bass, I’m going to process that differently than I do the mids, and I’m actually going to distort the high end, and then I’m going to turn it down. But now, what you’re hearing on this quote unquote bass line is something that I broke into a whole spectrum myself

Mosart Nunez:

Right.

Genius Black:

Right, so I just want of the just highlight for people, some people are digging deep. Some people can sit down and talk to you about chord structures and harmony and the melodies in the way that just… I mean, I get lost in the first two minutes, right? We all have specialties, but I wanted to just showcase some of what you like to dig into in that kind of organic textural sound. I love how you’re leaving some things natural, some things you’re wetting it up yourself, but it comes off very… There’s a lot of movement, like you said. There’s this ebbing, I love it.

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah, I try to do that. Then, over the years, I’ve been working… I’ve been a DJ for 25 years, and I’ve been producing music for probably 15 years.

Genius Black:

Okay.

Mosart Nunez:

And over that time, I’ve taught myself how to play drums, I’ve taught myself how to play piano, I’ve taught myself how to play bass. I’m not good at any of these things by the way, but just teaching myself and learning has also helped develop other ways to use the things that I’m thinking in my head. It’s helped me express what I’m thinking in my head a lot easier. Then of course, there’s DJing, which just gives you a huge foundational understanding of what sounds good.

Genius Black:

Yes, it does.

Mosart Nunez:

When I mentioned earlier I have zero interest in a record deal or anything like that, part of it has to do with I don’t need, want, or aspire to have anybody at all tell me what to do with the stuff I create, zero, not in exchange for money, not in exchange for anything. I get that there’s some people who work it, and they’re finally at the stage where they’re like, “Well, I control everything.” I’m happy for you, but I don’t even want to do the first step to get their, even if that’s the end goal, I don’t care.

Genius Black:

Right.

Mosart Nunez:

For me, there’s nothing there. There’s nothing that I want. And ultimately, I don’t want to sell my stuff. I’m interested in what sounds good; will people think this sounds good? But, I’m never actually thinking, will people buy this, I’m not sure I’ve ever thought that in my whole life.

Genius Black:

Yeah, not your angle, not your [crosstalk 00:44:33], no doubt.

Mosart Nunez:

That song is a perfect example of this is what I felt like making. And I’ve had people be like, “Yo, I’ll put this in a commercial. This is fire for car music commercials.” I’m constantly being like, “No, I’m not interested. I don’t want to make anything that sells something else.” I don’t want to sell my stuff, let alone give you stuff that makes it so you can sell other stuff.

Genius Black:

Everything is not for sale.

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah, I’m not… and I think that’s why I can do what I do. I think again, it’s a very privileged position, so I want to be mindful that I’m speaking from a privileged position. I can do whatever I want and people listen to it. Not everybody has that freedom and has to make sacrifices and stuff, so-

Genius Black:

That’s good to recognize. Well, no, I really appreciate you taking the time. Going to wrap it like that, and I think that me and you will probably have another podcast coming for people. Maybe we can collaborate on some music, give some people something dynamic in the moment, but we’ll wrap up today. Again, thank you for being on the first Black Owned Podcast, representing with us, appreciate you.

Mosart Nunez:

Yeah, man, hell yeah.

Genius Black:

Thank you for listening. Want to make sure you guys know to follow us on Instagram at Black Owned Maine, on Twitter at Black Owned Maine, and on Facebook as Black Owned Maine as well. Also, you can follow me on Instagram at Real Genius Black. Also, check out the directory at www.blackownedmaine.com. Also, you can follow Mosart212 on Instagram. Lastly, I want to say this, there are people who want to get active, there are people who want to support, go to blackownedmaine.com/donate. That’s something you can do specifically to support the important work that we’re doing. Thank you.