220: Why Your Darkest Truth is Your Greatest Creative Weapon with Spoken Word Prodigy, IN-Q

In this episode of The Light Watkins Show, Light Watkins welcomes back the dynamic poet and spoken word performer Adam Schmalholz, better known as IN-Q. Light dives into an inspiring conversation with IN-Q, exploring the extraordinary journey of one of today's most electric spoken word artists.

IN-Q opens up about his latest project, The Never Ending Now Poetry Journal, a 10-week guided journal designed to help individuals express their dreams, growth, fears, and gratitude through the power of poetry. He shares the story behind the creation of this journal and its accompanying album, emphasizing the transformative impact of storytelling and self-expression.

Listeners will hear about IN-Q's personal experiences, including his sensitive and raw journey through therapy and a pivotal conversation with his wife that became a key element of his album. IN-Q reveals the deeply personal nature of his work and the courage it takes to share such vulnerable moments with the world.

The episode also features engaging discussions about creativity, vulnerability, and the power of art to heal and inspire. IN-Q's insights into his creative process, his thoughts on the importance of authenticity in art, and his perspective on the role of vulnerability in personal growth provide valuable takeaways for listeners.

Light and IN-Q's conversation is not just an interview but a heartfelt exchange between two friends, making it a rich and relatable experience for the audience. Tune in to discover how IN-Q's work can inspire you to embrace your own creative journey and find deeper meaning and connection in your life.

Transcript

AS: “Even after I finished it, I wasn't sure I wanted to show it to anybody. It had been such a healing process for me that I didn't know if I wanted to turn it into a product, but I sent it to a few people. And my criteria was if people got back to me and said, Hey, this is like moving and meaningful to me, then I would take the hit basically, and be willing to let people see behind the curtain. Sometimes I'll write poems and, , no one ever hears them. Like they're for me. They're always for me first. When you create a piece of art with your audience in mind, I think you lose something. I don't know what, , but you're basically like strategizing creativity rather than experiencing creativity. So yeah, I finished this thing and it was for me. And then I had to decide if I wanted to give it away to other people.”

[INTRODUCTION]

Hey friend, welcome back to the Light Watkins Show. I'm Light Watkins and I have conversations with ordinary folks just like you and me who've taken extraordinary leaps of faith in the direction of their path, their purpose, or what they've identified as their mission in life. And in doing so, they've been able to positively impact and inspire the lives of many other people who've either heard about their story or who've witnessed them in action or people who've directly benefited from their work. 

The goal of these conversations is to expose you to as many people as possible who found their path and to humanize them. And after hearing story after story, hopefully eventually you give yourself even more permission to move further in the direction of whatever feels like your path and purpose. Because what you'll see is that anyone who's done that has had to overcome many of the same obstacles that you might be dealing with right now. And this week I'm back in conversation with poet extraordinaire, Adam Schmalholz, who's more commonly referred to as IN-Q, which stands for In Question.

IN-Q is one of the most electric spoken word performers on the scene and he's got a new project that helps you express yourself through spoken word. He says that we are all storytellers and the stories that we tell ourselves and other people become our lives. The Never Ending Now Poetry Journal is an opportunity to take your own poetic journey by exploring your dreams, your growth, acceptance, fear, purpose, empowerment, gratitude, and ultimately love.

It is a 10-week guided journal that creates a space for you to change your story and change your life through the power of poetry and by using intentional prompts, each chapter encourages you to experience, create and activate, allowing you to write your truth as a positive outlet for stress release, self reflection and self expression.

So we unpacked IN-Q's process of creating this journal and an album of the same title, which is streaming on Spotify. And as you'll hear, he was a bit sensitive at first when I tried to get him to talk about the backstory of the raw emotion that he expressed in a couple of the interludes from his new album. But he warmed up over the course of our conversation. 

And we finished by sharing our thoughts on the Kendrick Lamar and Drake diss tracks. I consider in queue to be a good friend of mine, and it's always fun to have my friends on because the conversation can go in all kinds of places that may blur the line between a straightforward interview and two old friends just catching up.

So I think you're going to really enjoy this one. You're going to find it very enlightening and creative and without further ado, here's my conversation with the incomparable. Mr. IN-Q.​

[00:03:50] LW: IN-Q, welcome back to the podcast. It's good to see you again. 

[00:03:59] AS: Thank you for having me, man. 

[00:04:01] LW: Yeah. So I had you before and usually the first time someone comes onto my podcast, we go really deep into the backstory, which we did and , for the listeners who haven't had a chance yet to listen to that episode, which is what I hope they do after listening to this episode, can you just give us a bit of a summary, of what you do, how you came to be IN-Q , what you're known for in the world and this kind of thing.

[00:04:28] AS: Yeah. I mean, whenever somebody asks you something like that, there's so many different answers you could give. I am a poet and I travel around the country and the world performing for people. I'm also a songwriter, a workshop facilitator, author, husband, friend.

[00:04:46] LW: From Santa Monica. Right? 

[00:04:47] AS: Yeah. 

[00:04:48] LW: Yeah. Cool. And I do highly, highly recommend going back and listening to our first episode. Because like I said, we do go in pretty deep and how your superhero backstory, how you became a poet and songwriter and all the things. And most recently you have released a journal as well as an album called The Never Ending Now. And I thought we could start with interlude three. Right? Because you're telling a story from your earlier years and that can give a little context to sort of one of just one or two moments that helped you develop into the person you are today. You're at camp… 

[00:05:31] AS: I don't want to talk about that. I know I'm a pretty, pretty tough guest so far, huh? I'm pretty good at drawing boundaries. That conversation that I had with my wife was like an extremely personal, private conversation that was never intended to be heard by anyone else other than us. 

[00:05:53] LW: Well, talk about why you included those conversations on that album. Obviously it makes it's very vulnerable share. What was the intention behind that? 

[00:06:04] AS: So what had happened is I had been working with a therapist for like six months. And we had gone pretty deep into my life. My father was not around at all. I didn't meet him until I was 15. My mom was a school teacher and she gave me everything that she could, but we had a very complicated relationship. And growing up, I never quite felt like confident or empowered in who I was for lots of different reasons. So I had a lot to unpack and without going into all of the different details, that was the majority of what I was focusing on with this therapist. And then we ended up doing a medicine journey with the intention of going into all of those things that we had been discussing over those six months. And one of the things that came up was these like frozen ages in my life where when I got triggered now as an adult, sometimes I would basically like go to sleep and those frozen ages would take over, you know, it was like I would catch amnesia or something like that.

So I was discussing it with my wife. It was a really, really personal, private conversation. And she decided to take out the phone and record it. And she told me she was recording it, but she's my best friend. And we were already pretty deep into the conversation. So my tone didn't change at all. Like right now, I mean, I'm, being as authentic as I can be, but I obviously know there's an audience, somebody might be listening to this, you know?

I Wasn't thinking that anybody would ever listen to it. And then she sent it to me three days later, and I had been working with this classical pianist, Isabella Terso on this project where we had done a few demos of my spoken word and classical piano with light strings. And I really liked the demos, but I didn't know what to do with it, or it was worth pursuing, if there was any market for this in the world, or even what I wanted to say.

And then after I listened to the conversation, I went, oh, okay. Like I could use that as the through line to complete this project. And then even after I finished it, I wasn't sure I wanted to show it to anybody. It had been such a healing process for me that I didn't know if I wanted to turn it into a product, but I sent it to a few people. And my criteria was if people got back to me and said, hey, this is like moving and meaningful to me, then I would take the hit basically, and be willing to, you know, let people see behind the curtain, which is different than, than just my poems, you know? 

[00:08:32] LW: So the version you share with Lewis and Mike Posner and those guys that had the interludes in it as well, or is it mostly the poetry?

[00:08:39] AS: No, it was the whole thing. I finished it and then I was perfectly fine to never… sometimes I'll write poems and no one ever hears them. Like they're for me. They're always for me first. When you create a piece of art with your audience in mind, I think you lose something. I don't know but you're basically like strategizing creativity rather than experiencing creativity. So, yeah, I finished this thing and it was for me. And then I had to decide if I wanted to give it away to other people. 

[00:09:15] LW: So you've written platinum songs for people before, and when you're collaborating with Isabella, what was that process like? How much, direction did you give her in terms of creating say complimentary music to the work. Did she have free reign? Like, what was that process like of creation? 

[00:09:35] AS: So they originally reached out to me and they wanted to work with me. And so I sent like literally like a voice note of one of my poems and then she composed something to it and I really liked it. And so I sent her two other ones and she composed. Two other things and one of them I liked and one of them I didn't like and then she redid it and so then we had these three and Like I said, I enjoyed them But if I was to set out to make an album consciously, this is not stylistically the music that I would have chosen It's really I mean, she's incredibly talented. She's world class, but it's really soft and it's really like I don't even know, like, makes me actually perform the poems differently than what they were originally intended and differently than when I do them a cappella. So if I had, like, thought about what do I want to make, this would not have been the thing, but sometimes if you just follow the breadcrumb trails of your curiosity or your enthusiasm or your creativity, you wind up somewhere that surprises even you. 

And so that was pretty much the initial process. Once I decided to have the conversation as the through line, we were in a situation where like Andrea Bocelli's producer had heard one of the tracks. Do you know this story? 

[00:10:58] LW: No. 

[00:10:58] AS: Yeah. So they asked us to perform at the Hollywood Bowl. And at the time I had done, like, I basically do like 60 shows a year at this point or workshops, and I was really busy. I was really excited about doing it, but I had so many other things going on. And this was through a connection of theirs, her and her partner and manager Boban, who was a champion of this project from the beginning. 

So we ended up having a call with the producer. He was really excited about us performing. Isabella flew out from Italy with Boban. She was like seven months pregnant or something like that. Okay. We arrive and one day before the show, the producer pulls out and says, I'm so sorry, we don't have space anymore, our apologies. 

And so then she's just in LA and once again, man, And I'm not even sure with the conversation as a through line that I would have had the time or the energy to finish this project. And definitely I wouldn't have done it then, but she was here. So we just went into the studio and we mapped out the rest of the album in like four hours.

I just started doing the poems that I had been thinking about for the full story that I wanted to tell. And, she came up with probably like three quarters of the rest of them then, and then composed one or two other ones. And she was sitting live at the piano, and I was just like, spitting. And then once she sent them to me, I recorded them in the next like two weeks. And then figured out how I wanted to cut up the conversation to kind of give that overview.

[00:12:35] LW: So that conversation took place at, in one time, one moment, or was it? 

[00:12:40] AS: No. Yeah. One moment. Yeah. 

[00:12:41] LW: Yeah. 

[00:12:42] AS: There's a lot more to the conversation. It was funny. A friend of mine, I sent it to one person and he goes, you know, I think you should maybe take out one or two of those things.

He's either that story about the man hitting you or the. the story about getting robbed or something like that. I was laughing and I was like, no, I'm going to, keep them both in. It's not really about a pity party or anything like that. It was just an honest conversation that I was having with my wife.

And there's trust me plenty of other stories that I could have added. They didn't come up in that particular conversation. I also don't like comparing pain. I think it's boring. You know, I think whenever somebody is. Honest enough to show me their pain. I feel honored and, I can't control how people receive any piece of art, you know, let alone perceive me.

[00:13:34] LW: I thought it worked brilliantly. I think an album of just poetry and music straight through could work too. But I thought having those little interludes, it really captured your attention, and I've heard you perform live before a whole set, right? And one thing that you do live that would not have been on the album had you not had the interludes as you, give a little prelude to the piece, but you don't know it's a prelude to the piece. You're just like talking shit or you're doing some crowd work. And then it just kind of weaves its way into, and before you know it, you've started this piece and you can tell because you start the cadence. That's your kind of your signature. And so it wasn't exactly that on the album, but I felt like it gave us a little bit of that vulnerability  that you oftentimes add into your live performances. 

[00:14:27] AS: That's a nice thing to say, man. I appreciate that. The thing about the live performances, you know, when I'm performing, I'm taking a piece that is already moving and meaningful to me. You know, I started in a place of truth for myself. And since I'm the first person in my audience, I'm oftentimes giving myself advice. So when I say you in my poems, I'm really talking about me.

And therefore I have awareness that sometimes when I'm on stage, it could come off as preachy to other people. If they actually think I'm looking down on them, telling them something about their lives. That is not the intention. And that's not where it comes from. It comes from the exploration of my life and the lessons that I have to relearn over and over and over again.

So oftentimes the interludes that I do at shows are like almost like purposely human. I tell dumb stories about myself, embarrassing things, things that I'm like ashamed of, but that will make people laugh and trust me and lean in more so that when I'm doing the poetry, they'll open up their minds or open up their hearts and maybe be able to receive whatever they're supposed to receive, which is none of my business.

Sometimes people will come up to me after shows and they'll be like, yo, man, when you said, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, really resonated with me. And I go, oh, amazing. Thank you, even though that's not what I said, and who am I to correct them or tell them what they heard was wrong. So I never, I never say anything, you know but even those stories that are the interludes that I use in live shows, they're still controlled.

Because I get to plan them out and I get to use them as a bridge to the next piece. The conversation with my wife was not planned out, man. I would never have not only said those stories, I would never have said them in those ways. You know, and there is something that's like, almost like scarily personal for me to release something like that, but there was a, a freedom in it as well, because ultimately it's like, you know, here, take it or leave it. 

[00:16:43] LW: And by the way, again, we're talking about The Never Ending Now album, which anyone can listen to on Spotify. But it's also a testament to your marriage, you know, the fact, and look, who knows what's really going on behind the scenes in anybody's marriage.

But the fact that you could share things like that so openly and vulnerably, I think it says a lot about the partner you chose and vice versa. And just feeling comfortable enough to talk about this kind of stuff. 

[00:17:10] AS: Thank you, man. Yeah, I really appreciate it. It's definitely better behind the scenes. It's not perfect of course, every relationship is hard, but it's worth it. It's the best decision I ever made. She makes my life infinitely better when it's good and infinitely better when it's bad. And that's like a, a bar, but it's really true. Like, I mean that. And we didn't know this, but we came to find out later and she'll allow me to express certain things.

From her own personal life, but she grew up because of circumstances as a secret to a part of her family that didn't know that she existed. Her father was not in the picture. He had a completely different family and, two brothers and two sisters that didn't know that she existed, which means she grew up feeling like she was a secret in the world. 

And I don't go into this on the album or anything, and I rarely talk about it, but I had the same exact experience. So my father had a completely different family, two brothers and two sisters that did not know that I existed until much later in life. And I always knew that they existed. So there's a thing that happens when you grow up as a secret, you're the secret and you know, it it's even different than a parent abandoning you.

There's a whole nother thing that is underneath that. And it shapes who you are and it shapes how you view the world. And so it's interesting, you know, she's from Fresno and we had very different circumstances other than that, but like, We have this almost like foundational thing in common, and we didn't even discover that until, you know, a little bit deeper into our relationship.

[00:18:53] LW: Yeah, and we've talked offline. I think the last time I saw you over at Craig and Sarah's place about, actually met your wife for the first time. And you know, you were glowing and smiling. And you're a grown ass man. You're in your 40s, right? So obviously you've dated and had many experiences prior to that. What were some things that, what were some indicators that made you think, okay, She's the one, because I think a lot of people, especially nowadays with the, paradox of choice that we have in the world, you know, which is really a delusion, but what were some of the things that, indicated that, Hey, that's the direction I need to go in , and really commit in a way that I've never committed before.

[00:19:35] AS: I don't know. I mean, that's almost like, tell me about how you are, who you are, you know, it's like the thing you asked at the beginning, there's so many different directions I could, I could take that on the first date that we had, we went back to her home and we had tea on her porch and we had had a nice date.

And at one point she looked at me and she said, so how old are you again? And I said, I'm 39 right at that time. I was 38 or 39, I think. And she goes, you don't have any kids. And I said, no. And she said, and you've never been married. And I said, no. She looks at me and she goes, what's wrong with you? Right? And the thing is, she had every right to ask. 

[00:20:24] LW: Hey, at a certain point, you can't blame anybody else. At a certain point, you have to look at yourself and say, okay, what is going on with me? 

[00:20:31] AS: Exactly. Exactly. If that's what I say that I want, if it's not, then God bless, like, you know, live your life and joy. But like, if you say that you want that thing and you haven't been open to truly going there with somebody, what is the obstacle, you know, and I knew that I had not wanted to settle down. I knew that. I also knew that I didn't want to have a halfway relationship or three quarters way relationship.

I wanted a ride or die. And it's because how I grew up, man, in all honesty, I did not have a lot of trust in my life. Past seven, I didn't trust anyone, man. I really didn't. And I had friendships, which were great. You know, there were, there were friends that I had that were great and I had security. I was not like, you know, but in terms of like trusting an adult or trusting the world or trusting myself, you know, so I needed to trust my partner. That was a requirement for me.

So anyway, I didn't want to answer the question because I had been asking myself the same question. What's wrong with me? Am I just getting in the way of really being intimate with somebody? Or am I not wanting to settle down? And I think that ultimately the answer to her question is I was waiting for her and she was, and is the perfect person to combine those two things, which is that I didn't want to settle to settle down and I wanted to have that true, real intimacy, real trust, ride or die.

And also I needed to be willing to open up and let somebody in and risk because the thing is, no matter how much you love in life, you have to deal with the same amount of loss on the other side and she could destroy me, man, like, There's not much else that could do that to me right now. Like, I don't even really give a fuck about being a poet any I mean, I love what I do.

I love the reactions that I get. I love creating art. But that is not my identity. I don't have an existential crisis if things don't go to plan. I love my friends. But like, They can't destroy me. You know what I mean? So that's what it takes is being willing to be destroyed so you can connect in ways that you've never had the willingness or the capacity to do.

[00:23:07] LW: How important is it for, just as a creative, how important is it for your partner to be your muse or is that not even really a consideration? 

[00:23:17] AS: Well, it depends upon how important, the art is that the muse inspires to you, not to other people, you know, like, it's strange to say this, Because I spent 30,000 hours on rhythm and rhyme, but like as much of my identity and who I am has been wrapped up in what I do, what I do is not who I am, who I am is who I am. So like when people ask me the question of do you have to be miserable in order to create good art? 

I'm like, well, I don't know how to answer that for anybody but myself. But to answer myself, I don't even care because I don't want to be miserable. Like it's not worth living a life of suffering to create art for other people. I want to pursue joy and truth. and growth. And I trust that art will come out of that. She has been a muse in many ways, but oftentimes, The pieces that I create now are either when I have an assignment that I feel aligned and inspired by, self created or hired, right? Or when I'm traveling and I'm so forced outside of my own box and I'm alone and I have nobody else to share those thoughts with that they start to pour out into my pieces. So she is my muse, but sometimes I don't even need to create anymore.

[00:24:47] LW: Can we talk about vulnerability? Because I think we're kind of, we've hinted around this, someone being able to destroy you. Obviously you have to be very vulnerable for that to, to be the case. What is your relationship like to that concept of vulnerability?

[00:25:03] AS: You know, once again, it just depends upon how open I want to be when I answer this, right? Like how vulnerable do you want to be when you talk about vulnerability?

[00:25:10] LW: Like is that something you seek out actively or is it something that you you just naturally that's what you've sort of conditioned yourself to be vulnerable, but you have to kind of hold back sometimes depending on the situation.

[00:25:23] AS: Well, we teach what we need to learn. So when I'm doing these storytelling workshops, I am definitely holding a container for people to be vulnerable in ways that they are not used to through a genre that they would probably never use to express themselves. But that's me telling vulnerability. The album is me showing vulnerability and I'm pretty adept at like playing the social game while also being authentic. But it's still like tracing paper, you know, it's like you get so close that people maybe can't even tell the difference, but it's scary to really be vulnerable because you have to let go of your control. You have to really see and be seen and For somebody that didn't trust a lot growing up letting go of control is even more terrifying because every time I did I was like The house fell down on me. So it's like I have my version of PTSD.

And I know that, like I said, I don't compare pain. Lots of people have been through way worse, but my internal world some people live in an amusement park in their mind, it's a haunted house. And I have cleaned out the cobwebs over and over and over again. It's never ending now, never ending spring cleaning, you know? So I'm proud of my progress. And I'm getting closer and closer to trusting myself so that I can trust the world and just lay down the armor, you know, like, yeah what is your relationship with vulnerability? Like how does that move for you and how does it move into your art and how does it move into your relationships?

[00:27:10] LW: I was just thinking about that as you were sharing. And, I definitely have a love hate relationship with it. You know, we both have platforms. My platform is more about spirituality and helping people sort of turn the light on inside. And one thing I've noticed over the many, many years that I've been doing that is you get rewarded for this is going to sound like an oxymoron, but controlled vulnerability, meaning I share the stories that I want you to hear display some degree of vulnerability, but I know that I sometimes leave things out that would expose me to you giving me unsolicited advice about how I could have better handled that situation. Right? 

And I think that's something that I sort of find myself trapped in is wanting to be vulnerable, but at the same time, not wanting to expose myself to that, because I feel like that's the sort of culture that we have, created, especially with social media, where everybody's a philosopher, everybody's a life coach, everybody's jumping in and giving everybody else advice about, you know, things and things, especially with Woke culture where, Oh, you know, everything is great. You should see the best in people, but what about my narcissistic husband and what about this and what about that? And it can create what I feel are distractions to the primary message. 

And my spiritual teacher used to say this thing, he would say, truth is different in different states of consciousness, which is not necessarily a hierarchy, but it's just a matter of how many of these truths can one person hold in their awareness at the same time and being able to discern that there's a responsibility not to give too much. And when you do give too much and you get punished for that, then that's on you and that's not on, that's not really on the other person. So I have all of these conversations in the back of my mind when I'm thinking about that concept of vulnerability. And the other thing that I wanted to actually, I wrote down as a note to talk to you about when it comes to vulnerabilities, I feel like men and women experience vulnerability differently.

I feel like women have been encouraged to be vulnerable and I feel like men have permission to be vulnerable if they have done the work, if they've earned it, if they've created something of value for society, then you can be vulnerable and it's celebrated. But if you haven't. And you try to be vulnerable, then you're almost ridiculed or shamed for it because…

[00:29:51] AS: Do you have a deeper example of that?

[00:29:53] LW: Like a Rich Roll or someone like you or someone like me, we come out and we say, yeah, you know, I had these dark night at the soul moments. And it's like, oh, wow. Rich Roll had a dark night at the soul. He's so successful. That's so inspiring because now that I'm going through this, then I know that I can keep going and I'll reach that same level of success whereas if you haven't arrived at that level of success, and you're talking about your dark night of the soul as you're going through it. it can be received differently because there's nothing to contrast it with. So I feel like men have, we almost, there's an expectation that you have to create something in order for that share, that vulnerable share to be seen in proper context. I don't know if, if women necessarily have that. What are your thoughts? 

[00:30:43] AS: That's an interesting thing. I've never considered that. I think sometimes when you are holding space for a woman, and once again, by you, I mean me, it's good to have clarity of what they want. Like, do they want advice? Do they want you to try to help solve it, or do they just want to be listened to and supported and if I don't have that clarity before or during a conversation like that, after can be not what I intended. So I think, you know, for men who are sharing vulnerability, whether it's with. I don't know, with, a group of people or on whatever platforms they share. I don't know. Maybe they should have the same intention of knowing what they're doing and why they're doing it and what they want from it. I Think that men are taught to have like an invincibility thing because if you were vulnerable all the time, you'd get nothing done in the world. 

Even when I do these, workshops, a lot of them now are corporate. I started out doing libraries, bro. I did juvenile facilities, junior highs, high schools, upward bound programs. They were for teenagers and I saw, wow, this really impacts them and helps them retell their story. Through poetry. It's a beautiful thing, but I never considered it would work for adults. And I really never considered it would work for corporate. And then what I came to find is, wow, it not only works as well, sometimes it works better because they have more stories that are piled under these layers of life that need to come out.

They're unexpressed and they are dying to express themselves, so I'll do these things, start pouring their words out and then pour their emotions out and they pour their thoughts out and their confusion. And when they're accepted by the group, there's more context to who it is that you're working with better communication, better collaboration, hopefully better creation, because you have a human moment together, but I'm not under any illusion that if they went back to work the next day and everybody was just talking about what they were feeling the night before, that they'd be able to get any tasks done. It's unrealistic. But being vulnerable none of the time in life or in your workplace is clearly leading to a lot of the mental and emotional illness that we're seeing out there, especially with the amplification through social media. So I think people need contained spaces to be vulnerable together. Like ways that they could feel safe to do that. And then I guess also knowing when to put it away and just get shit done, you know? 

[00:33:50] LW: Well, that's what's so brilliant about what you've created this journal, because you've essentially, from what I could tell, you've deconstructed the process of how to explore your vulnerability through the act of poetry, writing poetry.

Talk a little bit about that, about the self awareness that's required, the empathy. You have this one really brilliant quote. Don't try to make a great poem. Just make something that feels true to you. And if it feels true to you, then it'll be more impactful than it would have been otherwise if you set out to make an impactful piece. I want to be the next IN-Q, I want to sound like IN-Q. I want to move people. I want to make people cry with my story. 

[00:34:31] AS: Yeah. I mean, I personally. Like IN-Q, whoever this is, on the other side of the digital universe, when I'm in the audience, I just like to watch people tell the truth. That makes me lean in. And whenever somebody's like, I'm gonna do this thing, I just, a part of me turns off even sometimes when I have my own insecurities or I'm in my own mood and I can't truly connect to the moment or the people the way that I want, I judge myself for the same thing. I'm being too performative. The other day I had a show, it was like 300 people in a room and this guy like is on his phone in the front row. So I just like go sit down next to him and, and I do it cause you break. That third wall, then the audience is kind of like, whoa, okay. I have to pay attention now.

But he comes up to me after the show and he goes, I'm so sorry. I was on my phone. I was writing down the name of your album. I love your work. 

So once again, it's like the observer, the performer, the audience. The truth, the many truths, all in the same space at the same time. This journal was an opportunity for me to give people same facilitation that I do in my storytelling workshops without me having to be there because my presence isn't really scalable at a certain point. 

We're working on a family right now, and I can imagine the same love that I was talking to you about before, being almost exponential, not better, but exponential in terms of like the level of like this little life form could destroy me if there's a loss here, I want to be there for them.

I want to protect them. I want to learn from them. I want to set boundaries for them so they could be a free person in the world. So it's like, I'm not going to want to be doing 60 or 70 shows a year.

[00:36:44] LW: Right. 

[00:36:45] AS: This was an opportunity for people to re experience the album, so they could go through all of the poems that are on the album, and then have prompts around those subject matters, so they could explore those same stories for themselves.

And, ultimately, it's meant to lead you towards hope, infinite possibility, and love. I mean, the album and the journal are really just a path to love.

[00:37:11] LW: When you talk about making something true to me, I'm just going to interpret that as a rule of writing poetry, right? When you sit down to create a poem, rule number one, express what's true for you. Are there any other rules that people who want to create in this way should be aware of. And I know rules is a very rigid term, but just suggestions, we can call them, to create something that feels true. 

[00:37:45] AS: Yeah. So look, the branding of this is like, I really would love for eight year old kids to say, I want to be a poet when I grow up and that really just doesn't exist in popular culture. The branding of this is it's a real shame that our society makes us believe that we need to be a professional artist in order to create art. It's really like a shame that we do that because I think this is part of the reason as I was talking about before that people are having so many issues right now, they don't know how to connect to themselves and they don't know how to connect to other people and emotion is supposed to be energy in motion. You're supposed to move the energy. There's lots of ways to move the energy.

One of them, which is so valuable, is what you teach. Meditation has been a game changer for me in my life. Yoga has been a game changer. Breath work has been a game changer. Therapy has been a game changer. These medicine journeys has been amazing. Adventure, travel, nature, moving your body. I go to boxing all the time. I love it. I mean, it's like one of my great joys in life. 

But the thing that has been foundational for me is creativity in all of its many forms. And so, it's like, removing the stigma of needing to be a professional poet to make a poem. Removing the stigma of needing to be a professional singer to create a song. Removing the stigma of needing to be a painter to sit down at a canvas and pick an issue in your life that you're trying to move through. Something you want to release, something you want to create. And then use that frame to make your picture and don't try to make something great, just make something moving and meaningful to you. So those are really like the main things that I would say is like, you have to pick something in your life that grounds the artistic experience because otherwise, a blank canvas is infinite possibilities and infinite possibilities can be scary.

But if you say, hey, I want to talk about this dream through images and through paint, you remove it needing to be great and you just allow yourself to see where it goes. You might be surprised at what you wind up with on the other side. And if, you're not surprised by the piece of art, you might be surprised by the experience of creating it.

There's a thing that happens, and I don't even know if I'm answering your question, but there's a thing that happens when you get art outside of yourself that is different than just talk therapy. Or even a weirder example, if I was to put on music and dance for 10 minutes, I'm dancing. And by the way, I don't even really do this. So I'm not trying to pretend like I'm better than, you know, once again, I'm just just talking to myself here. But if I was to put on music and dance for 10 minutes, I'm dancing. If I'm just dancing to the music, then I'm just dancing to the music and I'm letting it take me wherever I want to go. And that's an amazing experience. But if I put on music and I say, I'm getting something out of my system. If I give it an anchor that is important to me, it changes the experience of doing it. If I tell you about something that I'm working through right now, I'm sharing it. And yeah, you could say that.

Our conversation is our art and our lives are our greatest form of art, but we're so used to it that we don't separate. Like our talking or our living from our lives. It's just part of our every day, right? But when you make something, you separate it from you. And that separation allows just enough space for the light to come in for the story to have less power over you because you've separated it from you. And then when you share it with somebody else, there is an alchemy that takes place. And I've witnessed it over and over again. You know, I never intended , to make these workshops. They just kind of happened by accident. And then I realized one day, wow, this is actually really valuable.

[00:42:28] LW: So in the journal just double clicking on this concept of the process of creation, you give us a three step sort of outline which is you're suggesting that people listen to or read one of your unreleased poems from the album and then we go to creation, which is using prompts to create your own poem and I feel like that's normally where it stops. Like I've even written down poetry, right? I have journals and shit with poetry in it. But I stopped there. I haven't gone to the third step, which I feel like is really the most transformative of the three, which is activate. And in the activation phase, this is where you, actually share what you wrote, either through a performance or memorization or visualization.

So a couple of questions about the activation phase. How do you do that? How do you share without sounding like some sort of, you know, Hey guys, I wrote this poem. You don't want to hear it. Do you have to go to a slam poetry local thing to share your poem? And then also, how do you memorize a poem? What are the best practices? Because you obviously have committed hundreds or maybe thousands of poems. Poems to memory. How do you do that? And you keep them all in there in your head. 

[00:43:52] AS: So the first part of the question is yeah, you can definitely use my poems from the album. You can use my poems from inquire within, which is my other book. You can use my poems from the journal, but you don't have to. You can use somebody else's stuff to use any form of art to kind of like spark you into creating your own. So the second part is just using those prompts. But once again, you don't have to, you can just think of what's going on in your life that really pisses you off or really moves you or a moment that changed who you are and you'll start to develop your own prompts as you pay attention to the thing that kind of like pushes you into creativity.

And then the third thing is the activation, which is like, It's as simple as creating the container. Like when I'm doing these things live, it's only positive, constructive, loving, caring, passionate, compassionate, supportive feedback. So the audience celebrates whoever it is that is getting up and performing, no matter what they're sharing. It's not really about what they're sharing. It's about the fact that they're sharing. And then they get to be celebrated for that courage that it takes to be vulnerable from a place of strength. When you don't have that type of a community that's built in, you have to create your own and you literally could call up somebody that you're close to and say, Hey, I'm doing this journal.

One of the exercises is to share it with somebody in my life. Are you open to holding space and maybe having a deeper conversation about the poem afterwards? And if you say that almost everybody that you feel. That you trust enough to do that with will respond well. And if they don't, then you have to be prepared for that. And that's okay. But we're all adults here. You know, it's like, not everything is going to go perfectly. I heard a story the other night, there was a guy I had done a gig in Canada. And he got up and he read this poem and it's this beautiful poem, man. And he got this huge standing ovation. He had never written a poem in his entire life.

And it was so powerful for not only him, he was crying while he was reading it, but everybody in the audience was crying. And then many, many months later, this woman that I work with, Sophia was at a dinner party with him and he was trying to explain to people about this experience that he had had because they had become friends after the workshop.

And It was like a bunch of like New York dinner party people. And they had their armor and their edge and that New York skepticism, which is so beautiful, but it's also real, right? Because they have to navigate through New York every day. And, , there's a lot to navigate through. So anyway, so he was like, do you guys want to hear it?

And everybody was like drunk, basically, and I guess they were like, nah, you know, and she said that he kind of like, you know, it hurt his feelings a little bit. Right. So not every situation is going to be the same. Open to something like that, but when you do create the right container, and that's why you kind of have to set it up and ask, does the person have time?

Does the person have space? Is it something they would be open to? And you have that experience of like being witnessed.

It's a beautiful thing, man. I mean, I've even done it with strangers, like gone to the park or whatever and just been like, Hey, can I do a poem for you? 

[00:47:28] LW: You have videos of this, of you going up to people on Abbot Kinney, saying, Hey, can I do a Valentine's poem or whatever to couples? And some people say no, and we're not open to it. 

[00:47:39] AS: Yeah. Some people are not open to it and that's okay. 

[00:47:44] LW: I think that really mostly speaks to our just skepticism of people like, what does this guy want? You know, they're looking at your shoes to see if you're homeless or you're going to charge me money or something like that. Right? So you have to know your audience. 

[00:47:55] AS: Yeah. 

[00:47:56] LW: Speaking of which, do you have a sort of rule for yourself when it comes to subject matter when it, particularly as it relates to say, global issues, you know, BLM, Palestine, Ukraine, Iran, because as an artist and particularly as a popular artist, a lot of people look to people like you to make sense of whatever's happening or in and around them in the world.

What is your sort of internal, gauge when it comes to navigating whatever's in the news and how you create around that? Do you address it? Do you ignore it? Do you just stay true to yourself? What do you do? 

[00:48:39] AS: It's a really good question. I don't fully know the answer. I mean, I'm still, I guess, figuring it out. 

[00:48:47] LW: Like, I have to either come up with something or say nothing and be open about that. 

[00:48:52] AS: You know, I will do a poem for you that nobody's heard because. I think it speaks to this conversation that we're having right now. All right. You ready? 

I don't know is a perfectly appropriate answer to any question. 

I don't know. 

And I won't pretend to know to get attention. I don't know. 

Why does everybody have to have a perspective? 

I'm not taking a position can be a powerful position. I don't know. 

And I won't be forced to give you an opinion. I'm allowed to just listen. 

Silence is not always indifference. Silence is not always violence. Sometimes silence is just fucking, it's okay to be quiet. 

It's okay to be patient. I'm not yet an expert on this specific situation. I need more education. I need more information. I need more conversation. 

What I don't need is more posting from a random dude named Jason living in his parents basement. He don't know. But it's wasting space for me to tell him so.

So I comment in my head instead and try to let it go because I don't want to use my voice to be a part of all the noise. 

I cherish freedom of speech, but also freedom of choice. 

And I won't blindly follow anyone. Get off my timeline. 

You're like what happens after arrogance and ignorance combined. It's out of line.

So I remind myself to get offline and get some sunshine. 

I'm not lying to myself pretending everything is fine, but I do my best to be compassionate, considerate and kind to find the things we have in common, even if we're not aligned because two truths can occupy the same space at the same time. It is not a personal attack on your mind.

[00:51:06] LW: That's perfect. That was a perfect answer. 

[00:51:12] LW: Can you talk a little bit about how you create that specific piece? How long did it take you to do like, and , how will you memorize that? Because this is a question for me, man because I have such a hard time memorizing things. And if someone has a best practice for memorizing it, Then I would love to hear literally, technically, I repeat this 50 times. I go to the next line 50 times. I do both together like that. Like, would you mind sharing a little bit about your process? Yeah, 

[00:51:41] AS: absolutely. So I talk about this in the journal that there's different kind of like best practices, but the thing that I would pass along to you that you might or might not find valuable is but at least it's just informational. 

One of the things that I did at the beginning, well, that's not necessarily true. I think the rhymes always kind of like point the direction and because they're almost cellular to me and I repeated them so many times over and over again. It's really not hard for me to memorize things now, but one of the ways that I will like ground pieces or explore pieces that also help with memorization is I'll take a piece that I wrote and I'll read it normally, like how I hear it in my head.

And then I'll I'll read it with intense emotions, so it doesn't matter if the piece. Is an angry piece. I'll read it with anger. Like, I don't know is a perfectly appropriate answer to any question. I don't know. And I won't, you know, whatever. Right. And it's like, and then I might go, let me find the joy in this.

Like, I don't know, is a perfectly appropriate answer to any question. I don't know. And I want, you know, like that. And then maybe there's sadness, maybe there's even like, I don't know, confusion. So I go through these different emotions and I over exaggerate them so that I have this experience. That's very intense.

And when you over exaggerate something, you start to memorize it because, you know, think about like an intense situation. Your adrenaline starts going, you know, you activate yourself differently. And one of the things you activate is your mind. The other thing that I'll do is I will do it while I'm moving my body, so that's something, you know, the other thing I'll do is once I have it off book.

I'll do it while I'm doing something else. So let's say I'm doing the dishes. If you're going over it while you're doing something else, or while you're driving, you're doing two things at once. So it also sneaks , in an angle that you wouldn't have if you were just like, sitting down going over it.

The other thing is I'll change the speed. Like, I'll do it really fast. I'll do it really slow. I'll whisper it. I'll do it at the highest volume. You could stand on a chair. You could perform it to a tree, right? And I think you could just be creative. And once you kind of like realize that you don't have to just like sit there and try to memorize it, it can become more fun.

And then once you have it, then try sharing it with one person. You know, try sharing it with, do it over the phone for somebody, ask if you can, you know, it's the same thing with like sharing a poem, although sharing a poem is more for the experience of sharing the poem, you could also do it for the experience of just having the pressure of having some sort of an audience and still maintaining your memorization muscle.

Yeah, I don't know if any of that is helpful, but… 

[00:55:09] LW: It’s super, super helpful. And I think it's a difference also in memorizing and embodying. And I think all those reps that you mentioned probably help you embody it a lot more so that it's connected to the emotion that, you know, you actually wrote the poem with.

[00:55:25] AS: Well, the interesting thing is that when you then go back to reading it normally, even separate from the memorization, All of those shades of truth. That were forced start to come out naturally because you'll have a moment in a piece that is an angry confrontational piece that is funny or joyful, but you might not have even found it had you not given yourself the permission to actively explore those undertones? So I think it usually will make a piece a lot more rich than how I imagined it in my mind. 

[00:56:02] LW: Do pieces evolve? Will you be reciting a piece, you know? Six months later. And then you'll think of a different way to end it, or do you kind of lock it in and that's just how it is. Because it captures a moment in time? 

[00:56:15] AS: No, they're all living, breathing documents for me. And they change as I change my relationship to them changes. Sometimes I outgrow my pieces. Sometimes I edit them in real time. Sometimes I actually go, I don't believe that anymore. Sometimes I go, wow, I didn't even know what that meant when I wrote it. And now I do. And so it like deepens my experience with sharing it. And one of the things that I love and hate about creating these things is I kill it so that it can have life for someone else, but for me, they're always alive and evolve like life evolves, but when I put it into something where it's like trapped in here, it can have life for someone else in a way that I never imagined.

But I can't change it not in there at least. So one of the coolest things Kanye West ever did was he had put out a song and, it was like done. It was like a complete song and he didn't do a remix of the song many years later. I don't remember the specifics, but he just basically changed the song. Like he just made it a different song from a song that was already done and it wasn't a remix. 

[00:57:41] LW: He does that a lot. He'll release the album on Spotify and then a week later he'll go back and rearrange the whole thing. 

[00:57:49] AS: I think that's so cool. It's probably annoying to people who are fans of that particular thing. But what it makes me feel is that art is alive. And I think that's just a beautiful thing. 

[00:58:02] LW: What do you think about Harry Mack? 

[00:58:03] AS: Very talented. I don't know much about his history or how he has become a master at freestyling, but you can tell he is world class and he has put in his outlier hours and then some, and, , I love the way that he can pick anything up and incorporated into a freestyle, he's not afraid, you know, like he can relate to any type of person in any type of situation and I respect and admire that and I don't know him. I'm literally never met him, never seen him, but I'm happy for his success. 

[00:58:37] LW: Have you given that a shot in your exploration of poetry because you're former rapper as well just freestyling poems. Is that how you normally do it anyway? You sit down with a piece of paper and you're just basically freestyling or you have a thesaurus opened up or the rhyming dictionary or something?

[00:58:55] AS: Neither. Although I would be lying if I said I've never used a thesaurus or a rhyming dictionary. I've used both of those coming up. I used to sit in front of books when I started making poems. Raps and I was like 13 or 14 and just pick out words to use that I thought were interesting. Like I always loved the sound and the shape and the rhythm of words, stretching them in different directions to explain or describe something.

So, yes, I have used that stuff. I do not use that stuff now and I definitely don't freestyle and it's partially because I have way too much respect for poetry. And I have way too much respect for hip hop. When I used to freestyle, I was either in cyphers, I was battle rapping people and yeah, even from Santa Monica, it was serious.

You know, like your reputation is on the line. I've gotten in fights around freestyles and battles before. People that I've, well, I don't want to get into too much, but I took it very seriously 

[01:00:04] LW: As a fan of the genre, who's your favorite freestyle what we could see on YouTube? 

[01:00:10] AS: Oh man. Oh, there's so many interesting battles that they have out there now. There's like a, what the king of the dot thing, which I think the Canadian stuff. I've looked at, all of those things and gone deep down rabbit holes.

I mean, but at a time in my life, I traveled across the country with like 10 other MCs and we battled people in different cities, you know, it was. A part of my life, you know, like truly. And even when I wound up at the poetry lounge that I was at, the poetry lounge in Los Angeles called DPL, at the Greenway court theater, which is still every Tuesday night, a lot of us were MCs.

You know, we, we kind of came from that. So it had that edge. But I don't do that now because, I don't know. I just, I would never even know how to like, , this is a random thing, but like the Kendrick Drake battle has brought me. More joy. Really? Yeah. Just watching this whole thing go down as a fan.

[01:01:13] LW: It's funny. I got into a thing with my girlfriend because I was obviously we've all heard the song and you know, not like us. And I was telling her I'm kind of tired of hearing this song. I said, I appreciate Kendrick. I appreciate The artistry behind creating that song and the producer muster, who was behind the song and all of that, but I'm not into diss tracks.

I'm just personally, I like music that sort of brings people together. And then she was like, well, you know, that's the whole point behind it. It's like, it's a game. It's art. It's like a jousting. And I said, look, to use your words, those two truths can coexist.

I don't have to necessarily love it, although I can appreciate the song and the reason behind it. But it's, you know, I think it's brought, this is the, one of the first rap battles that has gone super mainstream. 

[01:02:00] AS: Yeah, it's the first modern rap battle as well, in terms of like the way that they used technology.  Look for me, Kendrick Lamar is a spiritual teacher. He's not only an MC. I mean, he's really an unbelievable artist. 

[01:02:18] LW: Did you hear his commencement address? It was fantastic. 

[01:02:22] AS: I did. I got chills. Yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was amazing. He was talking about talking to God as a homie.

[01:02:27] LW: Talking to God as his homie, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

[01:02:28] AS: Which is such a great way to frame it. It's so relatable. And it was something that stood out to me as well, because I could recognize myself in that when I have a consistent relationship with God, I'm talking to him like he's my best friend, so I thought, that was really cool.

Anyway, what I was going to say is, is that as much of a fan of that as I am, I can't imagine at this stage in my life trying to say that I'm better than anybody else. You know, I personally, right, I'm 46 years old. I'm not better than anybody at anything age. I think he's 46 or 47. No, he's not. He's 38, I think because he actually just had a birthday because we're both Gemini's, which is like, really, I'm fanning myself out right now. But I really respect his art, man. And I respect what he's done for hip hop for culture and for bringing interesting ideas into the world, you want to pull it surprise, man, you know, for it to pimp a butterfly. I actually think it was maybe it was for a specific album or maybe it was for all of the stuff that he had put up until that point, but, yeah, he's just an incredible writer.

And I guess my point to say all of that is when I look back on a lot of the battle raps, that I did when I was a kid. They were so instrumental in becoming a better artist. And also there's a lot of things that I said that I'm embarrassed by now, you know, that two truths. 

[01:04:00] LW: I love it. All right, man. Well, look, these journals are out, they're available, Amazon, other places as well. Who's the avatar, that you had in mind when you've created this thing, who's, who's ready for this? 

[01:04:15] AS: I think anybody that wants to have a new modality for stress release and an opportunity for better mental and emotional health through creativity. We released it during a mental health month and yeah, you just look out there, man. There's a lot of people who are really struggling. So, I hope that it finds the people that need it because they're in a place of struggling and they're looking for the light. And I also hope that it finds people who are already doing really well and just want something else in their lives that might bring them some joy, some peace and some clarity.

[01:04:57] LW: Thank you for coming back on and sharing more of your story and your process. It's always a pleasure having these conversations with you. Always leave them feeling more inspired and, look forward to seeing you again soon, my friend. 

[01:05:10] AS: Thank you. Yeah. Ditto.

Thank you for tuning in to today's episode with IN-Q. You can grab a copy of The Never Ending Now poetry journal everywhere books are sold and you can listen to the album on Spotify. Just search The Never Ending Now. And you can follow IN-Q for more inspiration on the socials @INQLife, that's I N Q L I F E. You'll also find links to our discussion in the show notes at lightwatkins.com/podcast. 

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