LA-based musician Rhys Langston discusses self-promotion, shifting definitions of success, the artist’s balance between delusion and pragmatism, and more!
Check out his new record “Polyglot on Chloroform”: https://push.fm/fl/polyglot
And follow Rhys on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhyslangston/
--
Thanks for listening and supporting left media. If you’re interested in conversations about the intersections of creativity and social change hosted by a socialist organizer, please follow along for this 8 episode “Season One”. I am also so grateful for comments or shares that help us reach more people!
Here’s some links to your favorite websites. I’d love to hear from you.
- Jordan
And Roses Website
Youtube
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Twitter
LA-based musician Rhys Langston discusses self-promotion, shifting definitions of success, the artist’s balance between delusion and pragmatism, and more!
Check out his new record “Polyglot on Chloroform”: https://push.fm/fl/polyglot
And follow Rhys on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhyslangston/
--
Thanks for listening and supporting left media. If you’re interested in conversations about the intersections of creativity and social change hosted by a socialist organizer, please follow along for this 8 episode “Season One”. I am also so grateful for comments or shares that help us reach more people!
Here’s some links to your favorite websites. I’d love to hear from you.
- Jordan
And Roses Website
Youtube
Instagram
Twitter
Welcome to Roses, I'm Jordan, and I'm here today with Reece Langston, who is an LA based musician and multidisciplinary artist, who just came out with his 19th project, 19 of them, Polyglot on Chloroform. It's in collaboration with New York producer Steel Tipped Teeth. Dove, Reese releases music under his own independent label, black market poetry. And today we're hoping to cover a ton of topics like the weirdness of self promotion in the ever shifting social media age, what artistic success means when you're still working two day jobs, and a lot more. Reese, how are you doing today?
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:I'm well. Pretty much trying to do all of those things that you gloriously introduced. Mostly just, worked today and prepared for this. Feeling, good. Yeah.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:We'll, we've got some. Heavy subjects to discuss. They're not all heavy but before we get into anything, I did want to ask you what is something that has been inspiring you lately?
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:Inspiring me lately. It's actually funny cause I've been scrambled and haven't quite been inspired. I think something that has been inspiring has probably just been looking at old notes. I took, whether that's things I was studying or like notes to myself like a reminder. It's a little bit egotistical, or ego e egoistic. But yeah I was looking at some. notes I was taking on a book, like a year and a half ago. And I was just like, Oh, I can do that again. I can sit down and focus and take time to really reflect. And that was like a motivation inspiring thing where I was like, Oh, I've done this before. I might be out of whack right now. I can do it again. Yeah. Little reminders like that are Pretty inspiring
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:As we talk you are, you're about to release this new project and by the time this comes out, it will of course be out. Is putting out a project like this, is this kind of just like routine for you or 19 projects in? Is it still like exciting?
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:I'm actually at a crossroads right now with that so It's exciting because it's the first project of its kind in the sense that it's going to be the first project on vinyl. And so that's really
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:Cool. Yeah.
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:content for. Which is definitely some would say in this era, that's like a death sentence to have very minimal content and just want to put something out. So it's interesting for those two reasons. Something to get excited about and uh, something I could, could be apprehensive about, but I'm not quite I think tabulating all the projects to give you the number of how many of those were, this is, the 19th I, not everything is super long. This is only a 20 minute endeavor. But You know I've found, yeah, the excitement is changing, I'm I think I could put out a lot more music and have it be even more, not even more, I could have it be pretty mechanical. And so I'm trying to make sure it's never that. I think right now a lot of like personal and macro, like micro and macro economic forces are like affecting us all. And definitely like releasing an album right now with where just I am personally. Yeah. different kind of thing where like the money situation or the time situation factors are a little bit different. Because I've sunk a lot of my personal finances into releases. And been fortunate enough to have that money through, the years and stuff like that. But there's only so much of that you can take on yourself.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about the new project? For anyone who's not familiar with your work obviously there's you've covered a huge variety of genres, if anyone's going to check out Polyglot and Chloroform, what are they going to hear?
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:Yeah, I like you mentioning that. Definitely, it's smart to say that, it's a dice roll if you just were to click on a random project of mine. In
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:I did that. I was, when I was preparing for this, I was like, okay, I got to listen to Reese's stuff. And yeah you've done a lot.
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:Yeah, thank you. I think that's trying to like chase myself a little bit and catch up, be my own competitor a little bit. It's not straight up rap music, but it is like taking the rap approach first. It's not going to be something that is, solid like that that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that it's, you know, it's focused on rap, but in my particular, my own kind of disposition, it's making that as weird as possible. There's anything from I don't know, something like that could be a post Earl sweatshirt kind of rap song to something that is a kind of like a linguistic gymnastics, Blackalicious, Bus Driver type Dovey Diggs type, just multiple syllable thing. But there's even like a song where I am singing, and it's like a ballad about heartbreak, and with it, so the approach is simplified, but it's never simple, I guess I should say. Okay,
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:I was thinking like, I don't even, I don't know how I would describe this, but I was enjoying it. And yeah, I would,
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:that's important
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:I, if you're listening to this podcast, go check it out. Reese Langston on where should people find it by the way.
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:We're gonna do a staggered release so for the first seven days if it's a release it's gonna be on bandcamp only then on May 7th, I believe, it's going to be out on all the corporate ubiquitous platforms, like Spotify, Apple Music, and all that.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:So if you really want to support you by the time you're hearing this, it'll be past the 70 window, but you go to band camp.
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:Yeah, and the vinyl will be a very limited run too we're not just saying that. Like for manufacturing and overhead costs. It's only going to be a hundred piece run and we're only going to sell like 85 of those. I was joking.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:this and you bought it on bandcamp and you think it's good by the vinyl, how about
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:Yeah. exactly. And honestly, like the secondhand vinyl market, I hope to blow up at some point when I do, you can sell it for 600 secondhand, so
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:That's right. Yeah.
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:Get your bread up.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:on and roses. Yeah. We've got investment tips. That's right. One of the things we were chatting about is just As an independent artist, as any kind of artist, it's just such a weird the whole, like self promotion. What an interesting thing. It's not enough. And I've been thinking about this with regards to this show as well. Like I've been working so hard to I want to make something that's like really quality. That's really good. Like just production. Like I know that there's. There's even better stuff out there, but I'm trying to make it as good as I possibly can. Cause I think this is a great idea what I'm doing and I want to put it out there, but it's not even enough to just put something really good out there. Because a lot of other people are too, and also because we live in this world where our interactions with each other are mediated by, like these social media giants and algorithms. And it's not enough to work really hard to just make an interesting thing, you also have to if you want people to listen to it and take it seriously, you need to work really hard at just Putting it out in people's faces, which for me is not always the most like comfortable thing to do. How do you feel about self promotion as an artist?
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:Tricky question. To be irreverent and blunt. If I were just one to be that way, I'd say like it's it sucks. It's soul sucking. I definitely feel like I am working on someone else's working under someone else's like operations and terms. Like these methods to self promote are not necessarily those that I set out for myself, but they're the conditions I'm working in. I don't have a marketing budget. I'm thinking about things like that, but social media is my form of marketing, really my, my tool for that. The personal and the, more public form of communication have been completely muddied together. And I think that creates something where, we have on a personal, person to person level we can, I can want to post photos of my recent engagement and that might be on the same profile that I post my music and my writing and stuff like that. And that in and of itself is not a problem, but I think there is like, when I'm using my social media accounts to try and get more clicks on Bandcamp, purchases on vinyl, everything else and then I also want to share genuinely personal information. It's pretty, it can get I wouldn't say always dramatically but it's like uncomfortable and a little surreal. When you really think about it in the moment it's become so natural. But I think, like we're even in personal things, we're thinking about the most clever caption or like the most eye catching thing or the best photo to advertise ourselves. At the risk of sounding like a night, like a 20th century, felt aphorism philosopher or whatever. But I think we've been like inculcated and in taken the logic of slogans and advertising in every form of our lives. And particularly when I'm the sole machine of my promotion on these accounts that I run myself yeah, there's just that dynamic that's constantly working.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:Want to, can I ask you like a very, an impossible to answer question, but I want to hear what you have to say about
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:I love those questions.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:When I was thinking about this conversation and some of the things we were chatting about the other day, I was just thinking about self promotion and I was thinking about just how so much of even like mainstream art even like the work itself is like I feel like there's just discourse around like songs that are written just for one single line to be grabbed to use as a tick tock sound. And I was just, thinking about, the ways in which like tick tock and social media has just created this new landscape where people are just like trying to. Make something so fake that you engineer it for engagement. Then last night, I was reading this Eve Babbitt's book, L. A. Woman, and there's this bit where it's just like this character who is coming of age and they're part of a ballet troupe, and there's some sort of dispute on the troupe with The boss and the person wants to do it one way that they think will be like more organic. And there's this line from the guy who's the boss. And he's no, we're going to do it this way. Art is artificial And this is, Somebody writing in the, I think it was like, she wrote this in the 80s, portraying something based on somebody she knew's experiences back in the early 20th century. And this idea like art is artificial. So that's not even necessarily a new thing. And so I guess what I wanted to ask you, and this is, yes, it's very out there, but you make art because we want it to be heard. I think on some level there's a degree of self expression, but there's also a degree of connection. I guess what I'm wondering is do you think that people, when they're looking for art and artistic things to consume, are people more interested in finding something organic or do people want artificial?
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:I think there is a way to answer that. People do want something that is underground, but they want it to be reified And people don't have time for the actual people Who are truly underexposed and unexposed It might be a simple time issue Like, there's just too much stuff out there it's come up in two things I've listened to recently. One with a podcast with Yiannis Varoufakis, who's the former finance minister of Greece, he was on a podcast, and I forget where else it came up, but in that podcast I listened to yesterday, the question came up like, Why do you like what you like? Who told you that? And maybe a more fundamental and just not in terms of art, but everything else, like a political action a life from the scale of like community engaged, politically active person. Maybe like the meaning of, a lot of life and things are finding out through What you like and what you want And so To answer your question in the somewhat non answer, but it's just look on Spotify discover weekly like that whole thing has been appropriated by the industry and stuff like that. I do think that people are interested but I think we're I think we're duped a little bit into thinking things are more organic than they are and not like Things are being fed to us. There's been a lot of exposes on artists who were signed before they renounced, they were signed and somehow it's particularly as an artist who doesn't have a marketing budget, who doesn't have a team, doesn't have whatever. You often wonder like, how do people hear about these people? How did these. In terms of a logistical thing, right? How do the links to these people's work proliferate and get shared? I think to a certain extent the algorithm is random, but, there's no transparency on it. It's who's, paying To have shit bump to the top with a line of code or something like that. I think it's this very thing. I think, yeah, the aesthetics of organic discovery, the aesthetics of the unknown artist, have been appropriated so much by the powers that be Because it is an aesthetic thing. It's like a authenticity. It's like a presumption of authenticity, I think.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:Yeah,
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:it's weird. I don't know. It's, I can't I can't answer, but I can give you that framing that I see right now.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:Yeah, I told you it was an impossible question, but it's interesting though because there's that kind of thread there where it's almost like we're talking about the consumption about like consumption of media and culture and there's know, like very big conversations about, like being a conscious consumer of like the clothes you wear and, where that's sourced from or or the food you eat and those in those worlds, it's there's this clear understanding of the, there are forces that, make certain things. so much more easily available. Like in, in places where there's a food desert, it is just cheaper to get calories by getting junk food than it is to get fresh vegetables. And it's interesting to think of that in terms of, and maybe it's almost a little like. Facile to say this, but to think of that in terms of like conscious consumption of your media, just to, it is almost like a way to be a more whole person by just interrogating what are the sources that are informing your tastes because there, there is a lot of money that is like going into informing your taste. And if I'm not saying, liking pop music is bad. I'm not saying liking something on a major label that's blasting on the radios is a bad thing. I, cause. That stuff is really fun, but it is almost a way to learn something about yourself and get in touch with yourself by like just, making this extra time to learn yeah, like why do I like this? And what do I really like? so then for, back away from the consumer side, back onto to the artist side, your side. I want to talk a little bit about the subject of like success and how you think about. Success. Tell me a little bit about like your current situation where, you are not a like multimillionaire artists whose songs are constantly on the radio. But you have made some beautiful things and in your day job, you, a upstanding contributing member of society. Yeah, tell me a little bit about it, what your life overall looks like and how you think about success for yourself right now.
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:Yeah, true. So I am fortunate to have been raised by people who made a living in the arts and those people also weren't multimillionaires. They weren't even hundred thousandaires really at all. And so from an early age, I think it wasn't even told to me explicitly, but there was an idea that like, this was a thing that people did. As a job. And it was possible because it was just there. And so I've been fortunate to keep going because where I'm at definitely I feel would discourage a lot of people who might have all or nothing. Viewpoints of success. I work two, two and a half jobs right now in education. I'm a substitute teacher in general education, like instruction in public schools and elementary. And I also am an art teacher with a non profit that services public schools in the LA region. I work six and like six days, six and a half days. Cause I might not be working eight hours each day, but I'm doing like. Work into a certain point with one thing and then doing two hours in the evening or two hours somewhere else and that takes up a lot of time and that also like That time is valuable to create But that those two jobs will offer me flexibility and With the way I grew up With the advice, I've been fortunate enough to be given among a lot of bad advice too. I've kept on this way and I feel like success has been redefined very many times, even within that. In 2022, I felt like I probably had the most success ever in terms of had a few months paying my rent from a commission. That aired on national television and had people recognize me in the community. And even when I was substituting, they were like, Hey, you're the guy for the Metro ad. And it was also for something that was a public good. I think but train, I made a composition for the K line train, which services like the Crenshaw district which is one of the areas I grew up in I came of age in LA. I did a commission for that, like I've also put out a book and an album that year. I played shows in Portland and New York and had a big like showcase in L. A. that I played that year. And that scaffolding was created all my own. People reached out to me, I followed through. And then I got, I had some like ailments like some sickness, long COVID some really bad allergies have flared up physical kind of problems as healthy as I normally am, and yeah, at the start of 2023, I had this five point plan I was going to enact with all that momentum. Because I had no team, that kind of, that momentum, that visibility, it was carried on for a little bit, but definitely evaporated. And I've had to realize, like success is little moments. And it's I think for me, success would be able to be recollecting on those moments building more. But when I look back on other moments being like, okay, yeah, I did that. Few regrets as possible.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:Yeah,
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:And yeah, I think, personally, like where I want to go now, what would be the most, realistic version of success for me would be to be working less. Definitely. And being able to be in more community with, people who I look up to being considered peers by them. That might not have a monetary value on it, but just being like, I can hit up this person who I've been idolizing. I can text Oba Mike Eagle now. That's pretty sick. I've been a fan of that dude for forever, and I can text him.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:That's yeah, really interesting. Especially the way that You know, the definition is very personal. It's something that I think shifts over time. I guess I think, yeah, in terms of, the sort of like conventional definition of, making it as an artist, which is, this is you're a full time artist, you don't need another job. Even if you're not necessarily fabulously wealthy, it's. It's like you get to work on your art full time, but I, yeah, like I was just reading this article came out the morning of us recording here published in the Guardian. The headline is the working class can't afford it. The shocking truth about the money bands make on tour. And yeah, this article is just like full of examples about how, like even artists who appear to have made it like millions of streams on Spotify thousands, tens, hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, but they go on tour and end up actually like in debt or barely breaking even or making it something like a few thousand, let's, it's British, so a few thousand pounds. But I, I guess I, I think about just, yeah, this dynamic where it's even being a Nepo baby doesn't guarantee that you're going to be able to like yeah, make a living from art. And I almost wonder, like, building this show where we want to talk about like creativity and, the actual like material dimensions of living an artistic life is should the advice almost be like, don't try to do that. Do give up on the dream of pursuing your art but at the same time, like there, there are people that do make it work or maybe at least for a short time. Hey, I'm just curious, like what, what advice would you share with somebody who's. Maybe like in high school or just graduating and this wants to pursue their art How they should think about like success and making plans for themselves Yeah
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:In high school, I was fortunate enough to be the recipient of a few academic scholarships. One of which pay for my, my, all my books that I had to get for classes. And they, all they were asked me for was like to check in with them and they quickly discovered that I had an art practice. I was an artist. I, and one of the founders of it, the heads of it, he. He was like, you're an artist. All of these other people in the program, he was trying to make sure they got internships every summer, which I did. and had a career track that they were building towards. And when he found out I was an artist, even though I was doing fellowship, I was doing internships, he said, you're an artist. You don't need much. You just need a cheeseburger and a floor to sleep on. And as long as you got, something over your head, you should just, keep going for it and do the struggle. And so I think that was very helpful to come from outside my family to have that. I do think it's a bit outdated in the sense of the struggle romanticized and not like indicative of maybe ways that shit could be better things could be better i think yeah i think at the end of the day it's really it's really more of a question of it's hard to tell like starry eyed teenagers that like you know they might just have to do it in obscurity I think maybe framing it like it might not look the way you think it's going to look. But I even think being as like pragmatic and educated on the lack of social safety net, the reality of the entertainment industry being like the worst for artists, mental health and all these things. I still keep in my head like the delusion of some liberatory level of success. And I think that's important. As a, I think that's also what separates the art from like any other thing too, is you do work in a sort of your medium beyond what you work in music, art, theater, is like delusion, is like dreaming, is like being unrealistic. If you're gonna be realistic as an artist I don't know, it's not really the thing. I think like there are strategic and pragmatic, I guess that's the word, like you can be pragmatic about stuff, but you also have to get outside of that. And so I think it comes, with some maturity. Some people are quicker to adapt to it than others. I used to like fucking complain on social media all the time about feeling like unseen and lost and stuff like that. I don't do that as much. Now I just do it on my close friends on Instagram. It's fine. But yeah, I think, to a certain degree, it's like change maybe your perspective, at least in the immediate. Okay. Know that like it might not hit when it hits and But also like you got to be delusional like it's just part of the job like you got to be fucking You got to be an idiot a little bit, in terms in other people's eyes
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:Yeah, being a socialist is that too like being able to maintain both the, yeah the actual pragmatism of what do we need to do on the short term, but also the delusion of we can actually change the world. We actually believe that it's it feels like a real delusion sometimes, nevertheless it's the North star that, to believe that actually Change, positive change is possible.
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:Yeah, maybe that's why like reactionary conservative art is typically really bad Because, they have a deranged idea of like a return to something, or some kind of like boundaries on things. And inherently I think creative thinking is, should be trying to reach those boundaries and test them. And obviously people do that in ways that sometimes punch down. I still don't quite the whole thing about the age thing being arbitrary. It's still hard for me to like conceive of myself as, and I think really for a lot of people as Someone who has experiences to tell the younger people, even though I'm a teacher, I interface with them every day. I talk to them every day. But yeah it's hard to think about it. I don't know what I have to offer. I can look at my CV and be like, Oh, that's cool. But I still feel authority, the caution at having authority. A little bit on certain things.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:Yeah.
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:Maybe if I had more money, I could, I would like seed that. And I'd be like, you know what? I've done it. All right. It takes this and that. And if you didn't do it, you did it wrong. Yeah. I don't know.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:I know what you mean. I do know what you mean. As somebody who also does not have the money. But I've got a little bit of delusion. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about I guess this is interesting because you say you don't necessarily feel as though you have much to say, but when we were chatting the other day, and we're talking about like political engagement, you had mentioned to me that you see. Some of the work that you create as a type of practice and like something that you are interested in doing is for instance, you were talking about the like taking, like academic concepts that are often like, just locked up behind, many barriers for a lot of people and trying to play with those while making them more accessible. Yeah tell me where does that come from for you? Yeah. How do you see the, like political dynamic of the art that you create?
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:Yeah. So I think this project that I'm putting out might be like, not the project that would communicate that the best, but I definitely I think there's a liberatory potential. And oftentimes a very subversive potential in, couching complexity in inviting things. I think that's already done by, if you want to think about the hegemonic forces that, can control our lives. It's all subliminal messaging, brainwashing, leading us down to a rabbit hole more of what they, whoever they is, that's like the typical thing. They, but whatever they want, And so I think the artist's role is, for me, artist's role for me is to take that potential and appropriate it and manipulate it to my own design. And I mentioned the project not being the best synthesis of it, maybe the project before with Pioneer 11, which had a lot more melody. But it's like a song on that project. I'll drop the word epistemology, but I'll be like singing it or crooning it in such a way that it's matter of fact. And while that word might not be liberatory in its, or people might not grasp onto it, the fact that I'm putting it in someone's ears who might not have heard it. Might get them to look up something. Might get them to think about something. It's the same thing that advertisers do, right? Like every they constantly remind us of shit they want us to dig into more. And so I think I, I work in other mediums. I work in visual art and, the music has the music that I produce. But words are very important to me. And so I think language, especially working in English, which is like the imperial. language of the world now. There's a lot of power in that. And now I think like whole different ways of the youth, particularly expressing themselves are being colonized and overtaken by the internet collapsing everything. Most of that collapsing being in 30 year old, black English, black American English at the end of the day people, the new terms now are just like stuff that black people have been saying for decades. And back to the point about self promotion. I think that a lot of what I'm doing is. It might not be like pointed this way all the time and might not be consciously seen as this all the time But it's putting things in front of people That they don't expect in ways that they can reach out and grab on to Someone there's been many like different ways of visualizing it You know, there's a barometer or whatever where it's like the artist goes 10 percent So the people interacting with have to go 90 and that's like a lot of work on the people who do that. And the people who do that are probably like into conceptual art and stuff like that. 50, 50, sometimes it's cool. I think 50, 50 is really hard to get. Oftentimes pop music is 90, 10 or 95, five, where it's like, there's so much spelled out that the The only thing people have to do is take out earplugs or have their ears have not be auditorily impaired basically to understand what's going on in pop music. But, it doesn't stop there. The words also have to be given. Attention in the words can be challenging in a way that if the music is inviting enough it is Ideally, yeah, i'm like brain i'm trying to brainwash people to think deeper You know what? Like you might not understand this thing on the first listen, but like ideally if I do my job, right? Or if I do not my job, if I do yeah Maybe I could say if I do my job, right or if I really like effectively try and have something Catchy. You might listen to a song 30 times and then be like, Oh shit, that's what I'm, that's what he's referencing. It might lead you to read a whole book. And I, I wrote that in a cause I released a book with my album language arts unit. I wrote about the whole idea. I brought up two metaphors of the rabbit hole and the iceberg. And those are like two pretty ubiquitous like metaphors. Particularly on the internet, the iceberg meme of stuff, the tip of the iceberg and stuff
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:Sure.
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:and the rabbit hole, things going down. I think that there are ways that like multimedia instead of like us bemoaning it for being so ADHD, there are ways that it can like scaffold and that's the that's my educator language scaffold stuff, build, build pathways for people to go up or down something.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:Yeah. In
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:what I see my art as. It's just it's sometimes hard because I do a lot and people, it's very easy to reduce it to particular moments versus the big approach and picture and variation.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:In, in, in this collective sociological historical moment that we're all living through right now genocide in Gaza deadlocked Congress, conservative Supreme courts it's an election year. What are, for you, some of the like, Issues that have been on your mind. And that you're thinking as an artist like about how to engage with Yeah,
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:most of my projects lead with. It may be not intentionally but I collect a lot of words and a lot of just random notes. I, my studying somehow starts to cross pollinate, if you will. And I'm like in a bit of a bit of a new leaf for many reasons. I just. Finished a good draft. Probably it's 80 percent there. I don't mean a good version. It's not a draft of a song about, yeah, Gaza genocide the ongoing, genocide against ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. I say that as an artist who also released a song talking, about being proud of being Jewish. And Black at the same time also had a song about repudiating Israeli birthright through rejecting, it as a colonial privilege on a project. So it's not new, and I think not to pat myself on the back, but a lot of stuff that I have been writing that will come out, like on Polyglot and Chloroform, there's a bar about as me, as I, it's it's me, it's like an image of me exiting a party, right? As I exit onto Mulholland Drive, I check my phone's time. I have a pitch to prepare in the morning. It's a sitcom about human rights in Palestine. I wrote that in 2022 I honestly just did that because I watched the season of Rami where, he goes to Palestine and I thought it was like, oh, okay, a sitcom. Like it was not a sitcom, but I was like, it was just in my mind at the moment. And when issues don't go away and issues of that degree, they come up. And I think if you're tuned in, you're always just, you'll find ways to connect it. And that's what I feel like is going on right now. Again, not to give myself too much credit. I do think that I'm just trying to, yeah, look at Right now, what's really interesting to me is the swath of things going on and being very interested in communicating particularly to people who might be wanting you know, to have these conversations The connective, I, I read this recently. I like this phrase and it's, not an uncommon phrase, the connective tissue between all these issues that they don't exist in isolation. In fact, that they positive feedback loops of one another. You deadlocked is due to a kind of It's fuckin politics is, a spectator sport, and they're just they have their particular corporate interests, and they're just want to communicate their version of the sport that they're in. That's how I look at it. But that sport is embroiled in how the world functions. And, the U. S., that, Auditorium and that arena and that theater that is Congress and that is legislatures around the world they've presided over and created a lot of these systems and I think that, there's interesting things where the as a someone who practices art, right? There is soft power that all these things that all these entities utilize. To influence inform and even manufacture, consent about things to go to Noam Chomsky a little bit. But to have these conversations come into the picture in 2023, 2024, about like really finally interrogating how. The architecture of our society, the physical architecture is being produced to be able to have engaged with that artistically, creatively, like almost nine years ago now. I think that is really powerful and something that I, I've definitely had. I've, I think maybe in the last, it's probably since, the Israel's campaign in Gaza started their ethnic cleansing turned genocide resumed in full force in different force and, totalizing force in Gaza. Yeah, That definitely lit a match, I think, in a lot of people and it did for me because I had tapped out because I had been a little bit tired of being activated. By stuff that I felt was like negative and wrong and I was trying to be more delusional and invoke my more radical imagination, but I couldn't, I just couldn't like, I was like, what even is the possibility outside of this? Not that despairing, just I'm not even going to think about that. So I'm just going to check out. I have the privilege to do that as much as I might be struggling. I do have the privilege to check out when I want to. Of certain things, I should say most, most of a lot of things that are going on in the global South I can check out of and yeah I went on, I went over a little bit because I know you're trying to move on, but I felt like, yeah it's been this re ignition and I realized, just like how important it's been for me to really try and connect the dots. And I think it's interesting how being aware of how to remain in touch, because a lot of people just turn on CNN and MSNBC and think they're getting abreast of things. But it's the yearbook high school drama version of things, instead of really, diving into things and seriously questioning sources and getting not alternative facts, but certainly sources that might be obfuscated for a reason. Yeah.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:with, As we're recording, it was just announced that Biden signed the bill requiring like TikTok to divest its owners and sell itself. And one of the big reasons for that, that talking heads and conservatives are talking about is because look at all this content about what's going on in Palestine. But I do also, yeah, I really want to, yeah, I just. Shout out like as we're recording this the thing that's happening this week is this real upsurge of like student organizing that's taking place on campuses across the country and I think yeah this really has been in general this a moment for I think a lot of people of the kind of like you know wake up and Caring about things that we felt like we had been too fatigued to care about. And I remember it was like Biden speaking about what was going on in, in Gaza and saying last year at some point, I think in October, he was like, yeah, I don't think people are going to, there's going to even, I think that maybe this was like a positive thing. Private quote that was quoted somewhere is I don't think people are going to care about this by November. But here we are recording at the end of April and it's happening. it's still happening. and people are carrying the torch because there is injustice in the world. And for all of the organizers who are involved with this on campuses across the country, for all of the like YDSA organizers that, that are involved in like helping to connect this national movement, as well as of course, like the other organizations like P Y M S J P Jewish Voice for Peace. It's incredible work that y'all are doing, and it's work that I think Yeah the pairing of, yeah, Reese, how you were talking about This work of, articulating things a little bit and trying to spark some curiosity, and that also with, the, this just actually people turning out on the streets and like bonking officers with giant empty water bottles is it actually is a moment of, despite like the unfolding horrors, it's a moment where you can see resistance. I think my concern is we've seen moments, especially like in 2020 as well, where there was moments of like widespread resistance that due to a lack of organization and, institutional support ended up fizzling out. Nevertheless, I don't know, we move, There's the sun has not set yet on, on the hope of humanity. We were talking earlier about, yeah, this dichotomy of being a delusional person versus being a pragmatic person and how you have to be both. When you think about everything going on in the world, Do you feel like you need to be both pessimistic and optimistic? How do you think about the world in those terms?
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:I try and think about the world. World, yeah.'cause I, I do I think I'm often like, it's funny because I'm like a, I have negative thoughts intrusive thoughts a lot just about personal stuff. And so it can be really hard. That's something that I've worked on in my personal mental health. Like interrogating that and realizing, oh, I'm caught in the loop. I been recently framing myself as skeptical. And I think that's been more useful than optimistic or pessimistic in terms of if I'm skeptical it might be That I'm pessimistic about or like I have a negative view of something or like things don't feel it's more like more than I'm negative about something things don't feel right and I'm going to figure out why that is. And I think that is inherently a little bit more optimistic, but also I think pragmatic where it's okay, I'm going to diffuse the situation and again, to disarm and totally throw out the whole facts versus feelings thing. At the end of the day, You can't take emotions out of anything. Feelings are facts of life. Feelings dictate things. Probably the reason that most problems in the world exist is because of emotionally dysregulated people in power. And they make, even though their judgments seem like they're coming from a physical position, they're probably not fucking mentally well. Probably that's probably why they're in power. Or maybe, they can cut off parts of themselves. And that also is a level of mental unwellness that's different than just explosion. So yeah, I like to think about is like skepticism. And yeah I, I'm trying to do that more. I can't say like that I'm a paragon of that, but that's how I've been trying to retrain myself. Also because going back to like our first question of things pretty stressful work that I can be involved in. And so, unfortunately just through dealing with that, learning how to de
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:an educator?
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:my emotions, or being able to pivot really quickly, or calm someone down. I've had to have my shit together, and I guess that's required me to look a little bit more inward, and some people obviously don't have that time to do that, or that have the Have had the entry points to do that, more than the time. And dude, shit is terrible. Definitely. Definitely trying to remain activated by this stuff because depression is real. I've had it. Probably comes in spurts. I'm sure here and there for me. I'm sure a lot of people have it and don't realize they do I think the to counteract that it's okay, this shit that's really messed up stuff. It's really messed up Is it going to activate me in a certain way? And if it's not going to activate me, can I tune it out until i'm ready to receive that activation? Because I think like it's pretty easy to get like Paralyzed and then the paralysis becomes passivity, which is very easy for The ruling class if we want to call them that to
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:I have no
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:Use against us Yeah, you know i've just been using my chance has been using powers that be industry ruling class capitalist pigs, whatever
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:there we go. Oh, Maryam Kaba. I don't know how to pronounce her name. But let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair. It is a great line. It's not always easy to do, but it's, it is, it's aspirational.
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:I think yeah, if being somewhat propelled or kept in education through it being my main work experience and like my necessity of make, earning money it has, Given me certain tools and it's forced me to have a certain outlook. Also it's pissed me off a lot dealing with structural issues there, but I think it's, I've probably remained in it because, you, if you're going to be in education, you have to believe that, you People maybe have more capacity than they, they do, or you have to find a way to be an activator of people or be able to meet someone where they're at. I mean, a large part of the issue is education, miseducation. That's a whole other thing we could have a whole other episode about. I'm definitely sure. And i, unfortunately, yeah it's we don't realize, so much about the Black Panther Party and all these, parties and things, movements, in the middle of the 20th century that took over. They were involved in active political education and we don't realize that everything we do, maybe you do, us who might be listening to this realize, the average person might not realize that everything that they're being, Fed to a certain extent is a form of a political education. It's like being fed the little bits of poison until your immunity becomes so much that you keep, tolerating it you have, complete immunity from it. Not the perfect metaphor. But yeah, I think looking at everything like education, the same education and art. are separate from life. Where it's like they are integrated into life. But there's many other compartmentalizations we can talk about. And I don't know. Yeah
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:I think we will need to talk about them on another episode.
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:Yeah.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:We're, yeah, I think we're at time, but Reese thank you so much for coming on the show. I really enjoyed this conversation.
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:Yeah, it's been wonderful. Thank you so much for asking me. I definitely resonate a lot with Just where you're coming from and, how you've managed to get something halfway coherent out of me.
jordan_1_04-26-2024_165609:It was great. It was, really good. Thanks so much everybody for listening and make sure to check out Polyglot on chloroform if there is a vinyl still available, snatch that up. It's going to be worth 600 someday. Asterisk investment carries some. Risk of loss. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Reese. Thanks. Thank, you everybody. This is and roses. Bye.
rhys-langston_1_04-26-2024_165611:Peace!