Octavio Blanco (00:00)
I feel very, ⁓

disappointed in that because I think that it's just feeding into the negative stereotypes that the mainstream media seems to thrive on when talking about our communities, which is the reason why we're doing this. You know, we're trying to show the world that we're so much more than that. We are

our main goal in this program is to highlight those individuals and those organizations uptown that are making this community better.

Led Black (00:59)
Yeah, what up, what up, what up everyone? It's Lab Black and Octavio Blanco, another Black and Blanco Uptown Voices. This is Sun 61, Sunday, April 28th. Shout out to everyone. I'm sorry, my bad. It's Sunday, my bad. April 26th. And before we go any further, I wanna make sure to let everyone know to make sure you hit the subscribe button.

Octavio Blanco (01:05)
What's up?

Episode 61.

No, 26th, 26th.

Led Black (01:28)
You know, it's free. Show us that love. Uptown Collective's YouTube. Tell your people about it. We're here every Sunday and on Tuesday we drop our usual Uptown Voices episode. So, I thought I'd my brother. Talk to me. How you doing, man?

Octavio Blanco (01:41)
I'm doing good. I'm actually really excited about this Tuesday's episode. ⁓ We spoke with Serena Pribasi, ⁓ the owner, co-owner and co-founder of Boonee Coffee. So that's a really, really interesting and it was a really nice conversation that we had with her. So I can't wait to drop that on Tuesday. I hope everybody tunes in when we drop that. ⁓ I'm doing I'm doing really good here. Yes, Led, I want to encourage everybody.

to please, please, please subscribe to ⁓ Uptown Collective's YouTube channel. ⁓ That's where you're gonna be able to watch these live. You also watch it on Instagram. But we're very close on the YouTube channel to ⁓ our first hurdle for, ⁓ I wanna say, what are we calling it? What are we calling it? Sustainability. Our first hurdle for sustainability. So yeah, it's important for us to be sustainable and to be able to bring you

Led Black (02:32)
That's right.

Octavio Blanco (02:38)
even more and more interesting and more well produced ⁓ podcasts and other things in the future. So yeah, please subscribe to ⁓ the Uptown Collective YouTube channel. That's a huge help. ⁓ So I think, yeah, go ahead.

Led Black (02:53)
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And then again, yeah, Tuesday, I'm

really, that's gonna be a great episode. Serena of the mighty Boonie Empire, one half of that, of the team that makes it happen. It's gonna be a great episode, Tuesday. Y'all should check it out.

Octavio Blanco (03:07)
Yeah, I mean, with all these interviews that we do with the uptown luminaries, it's always interesting to me to hear their stories and the risks that they took and just the work that went behind, making sure that their dreams came true. So I find it personally very inspiring. I hope that you will too. These are people just like you and me who decided to

to do their thing. And when you hear their trials and tribulations and all that, just really does, ⁓ it brings you inspiration. If you have your own thing that you want to be creating, ⁓ doesn't, it's never an easy path. It's always fraught with challenges. And it's nice to hear ⁓ exactly what the challenges were and how they got over them. So yeah.

this Tuesday that's gonna be dropping first thing in the morning. So it'll be here on the YouTube channel and it'll also be on all of the other ⁓ podcast networks. So Spotify, Apple, ⁓ Audible, just everywhere you might download your podcast, you're gonna be able to see it. So.

Led Black (04:26)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And I just want to make sure that everyone today...

1159 Sunday, April 26. I got it right this time is the last day to submit your artwork for Noma's latest exhibit. It's called America the Beautiful with a question mark. And it looks at what America means as it approaches its 250th anniversary. It's actually curated by ⁓ Nerea, the Noma director, Leiva Gutierrez, who's awesome and amazing. So I'm really interested to see what comes out of that. So last day.

Octavio Blanco (04:36)
Hahaha

Led Black (05:01)
today to submit. So make sure you check that out. And then also make sure you stop by the 181st and 190th A train stations where the elevators are at because Noma partnered to do some subway also a lot of our friends are there. Fuego, Josefina Hernandez, Frank de la Melcez. So make sure you go check that out. It's free art. Take pictures, tag Noma, Noma NYC.

And shout out to Noma for always doing it again. I know I always show love to Noma, because Noma's doing mad important work. So they actually got a gala on May 27th, I think, and on May 19th, Emmett Cohen Trio's gonna be performing at the Harlem School of the Arts. If you have never seen Emmett Cohen, he is just a bad, bad man. He's a world-renowned pianist, jazz pianist. I see him do things that I've never seen anyone do.

Octavio Blanco (05:53)
Yeah,

you're saying I want to see this one. He goes into the piano.

Led Black (05:55)
He's so,

he opens the, he basically goes in the piano and start playing the chords from inside the piano, rocking out. The band is super tight, so make sure you check them out, you know. And, you know, School of Arts is a very important organization of town. So, so some, if, if, think the suggested donation is 20 bucks, it goes to helping their summer program. They do a lot of really important work in the community. So yeah, spread that love, you know what mean, for reel.

Octavio Blanco (06:15)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's gonna be one that I'm, I'm gonna see if we can we can get to that because that sounds that's like, he's an artist that is just incomparable. And ⁓ the quality of that. ⁓ Artistry and music is something that you're just really not going to get anywhere else. And we're so lucky to have that kind of talent here uptown providing that kind of

⁓ you know, performance, for us at a pretty reasonable price. So I definitely going to look into that and going to get my own tickets for that. And, ⁓ I encourage others to, to do that as well. ⁓

Led Black (07:06)
And

hold on, hold on, Dr. I was speaking of musical mastery. We have a master, a master from Venezuela, from El Sistema, coming to the United Palace. I think you already bought your tickets. I haven't bought my tickets yet. Tell the people what that's about. Cause we have a grand master coming to the Heights. What's going on?

Octavio Blanco (07:10)
Yes. ⁓ A master, yes. Yes, yes.

Yes, I did.

Yes.

Well, it's the New York Symphony coming to the Heights. ⁓ that's going to be ⁓ the conductor is Dudamel, you know, ⁓ with Dudamel ⁓ the big dog. He was the conductor for the LA Symphony for, I think, a long time, like four to six years or something like that. And now he's here in New York.

Led Black (07:40)
You stop do the mouth. The big dog.

Octavio Blanco (07:54)
with the New York Symphony and the New York Symphony, the New York Symphony is coming to uptown to the United Palace. mean, Gustavo Dudamel ⁓ is a world renowned, like just amazing, know, ⁓ they broke the mold when they made that guy. ⁓ So just the fact that he's gonna be here along with the New York Symphony, I need to repeat that.

is just outstanding. And I bought tickets on the main floor for $25. So there are more expensive tickets, and I don't know how the $25 tickets, if they're still available, but you should definitely check it out at boletos.com. That's where these tickets are sold for United Palace. And yeah, man, this is gonna be, I'm really, really excited about this.

Led Black (08:33)
Yeah.

And you know, I want to just say where he comes out of, right? So he comes out of El Sistema in Venezuela. For those that don't know, El Sistema is like a musical program for poor kids in Venezuela. So it teaches them, you know, and basically nurtures their musical talent to play classical music. So Gustavo de la Mel comes out of that system, you know, to come from that kind of like, you know, that kind of organization that's about uplift.

Octavio Blanco (09:03)
Yes. Yes.

Led Black (09:21)
and about taking poor people and showing them that they could expand their horizons. And for him to make it to such a high level, I think it's gonna be a special performance. And again, I'm not a classical music person per se, but they make it like, they cool it up a lot. They do like salsa. I seen them do, I think it was ⁓ a number that was like a mambo. So it's exciting.

is happening in the Heights, make sure you get your tickets, y'all. out to Kola, shout out to Crazy Legs, who's on the live. That's a hip hop Bronx icon. So shout out to Crazy Legs, the one and only Crazy Legs, Rock Steady, you heard?

Octavio Blanco (09:52)
Yeah, and when it comes to all...

⁓ shit, what's up crazy lags? What's up? ⁓ damn.

Yeah, so you know, like music is music and I think, you know, ⁓ classical music is just another another kind of music. I dabble. think a lot of people will get a lot out of it. And I think what's also really, really cool is that Duramel came out of El Sistema, like you mentioned, he doesn't come from this affluent background, but also what the United Palace and the organizations at United Palace, like say like Jazz Power and other organizations that are there.

They're out of the same, they're in the same like ⁓ frame of mind, right? Where they're, they wanna uplift the community. They wanna bring young people who maybe haven't been exposed to this kind of music or this kind of world into that kind of world. ⁓ You know, I think that it's gonna be an amazing, amazing, ⁓ amazing show and I can't wait to see it. ⁓

Led Black (11:04)
Yep.

Octavio Blanco (11:06)
I wanted to mention something that's coming up on May 2nd. I'm going to put it up on the screen here. It's ⁓ from the ⁓ Uptown People's Project, which you may or may not have heard of. But Uptown People's Project, they're like a community group here that's ⁓ collaborating with Carmen De La Rosa's office. ⁓ And they're doing a spring cleaning. We've talked about how we need to be better.

about spring cleaning in our communities. And they're going to be all over ⁓ the neighborhood on May 2nd, cleaning and getting people to volunteer. They're looking for volunteers. They're going to be in your area. They're going to be up on 207th Street. They're going to be on 190th Street. I'll put it up again so you can see it. ⁓ On Dyckman and Nagle, they're going to be.

225th and Broadway they're gonna be, they're gonna be ⁓ at 207th and Cooper Street. ⁓ They're gonna be ⁓ 190th and Amsterdam. ⁓ All over the neighborhood on May 2nd to clean up. They're gonna be at Bennett Park at 184th and Fort Washington and 163rd Street and Amsterdam. You they're gonna provide all the cleaning supplies and everything.

But I think this is a great opportunity for like the neighborhood to come out, all of our people to come out and volunteer and be a part of, you know, cleaning up. You know, you see me, I do my little personal cleanup every whenever I often when I leave my apartment, I leave my little trash picker up or thing. Because, you know, I've got this view in the back, but people kind of disrespect the street and they leave trash. So I look out the window and I see trash and instead of just getting pissed off about it.

and complaining, I just go out and throw it away. You can't change people really, but you can do your own thing. You know, this is New York, there's all kinds of folks. Some people care, some people don't care. But if you care, get out there and do something about it. That's what I say.

Led Black (13:13)
Yeah, you kind of surprised

me. Like we were finishing our meeting and we're walking home and you pulled out the stick and you started picking up garbage. I'm like, shit, that's different. But shout out to you. You know what mean? Like I don't do that, but like sometimes I bark at people that just lit in front of me.

So sometimes I see like old Dominican men, I'm like, you know I'm saying? Like what's going on? So yeah, but now that's true, man. Like it's our community. Like we should take care of it. You know what mean? And it bothers me when like, when it's young folks too, they'll throw something out the window. And I'm like, what the fuck? Like, why are you doing that for? You know what mean? So shout out to you. Shout out to this big event. And I almost forgot before we go, cause there's a lot of stuff happening. The printed.

Octavio Blanco (13:37)
Yeah.

We need to take care of it.

Led Black (13:55)
deadline for the NOMA guide. The uptown all sugar, it's May 1st. That's really important. And then also I wanted to shout out for this one, there's a West Harlem Tennis Clinic for kids ages five to 18. It's also next Saturday, May 2nd. West Harlem underscore DC or NIG to check it out. I know you had a few more other things, brother. Go ahead.

Octavio Blanco (13:58)
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Word Up, you know, we love Word Up. ⁓ And so they're having a really cool event up in the Bronx, the Bronx Music Hall with Julia Alvarez. She's an author and Angie Cruz, a local legend author here. ⁓ This is coming up on the 28th, which is on Tuesday from seven to nine p.m.

Led Black (14:22)
Word up.

Octavio Blanco (14:43)
at the Bronx Music Hall. And if you haven't been to the Bronx Music Hall, you gotta check it out. It's really a cool location, ⁓ brand new in the Bronx. And you'll get to meet and hear ⁓ from these incredible ⁓ authors. ⁓ Julia Alvarez, I'll put it up again. She's got a new book coming out ⁓ called

I think it's called visitations. I'm not exactly sure, but Angie Cruz is going to be in communication with her. She's the author of Dominicana and how not to drown in a glass of water. So ⁓ really, really good event. And for members of ⁓ Word Up, there's an event the same day at five o'clock from five until seven. And if you're a member,

You get to go and have the opportunity to be a part of the reception with Julia Alvarez. To be a member, you just need to go to wordup.com and down in the lower left-hand column of a corner of the website, ⁓ you will have a link where you can click to ⁓ become a member. So they're doing all kinds of stuff. They always have.

really cool events. ⁓ And ⁓ speaking of Boonie, we talked, like we said, we spoke with Serena ⁓ and we're going to be dropping the episode on Tuesday. But Boonie always has really cool events. ⁓ Every week ⁓ at Boonie Inwood, there's like a learn to play chess. ⁓ There's ⁓ all kinds of

of open mics. think that's, you know, all these events that they have, I'm putting them up on the screen. I like this event. Mondays from six to eight p.m. at Boonee and Piners is a writers group led by Serena. She's an author in her own right. So, you know, definitely, you know, if you want to participate, you know, check out Boonee on Instagram or at their website, and that's where you'll find

a lot of their ⁓ events that you can participate in. like I said, the ⁓ writing event, the writing group, I think is very cool. You have to sign up because space is limited. ⁓ So anyway, that's a shout out to Boonie, ⁓ one of our artists.

Led Black (17:31)
before you go

any further, I saw they have a learn to play chess and I've always wanted to play, learn how to play chess just so can say, I play chess, know, it just seemed reel fancy with my finger up, like I play chess, you know what saying? K was like, is this chess not checkers? And I can't say that cause I don't know how to play chess. So I wanna learn how to play chess for that reason.

Octavio Blanco (17:34)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Great chat.

I think you'd

be a great chess player, bro. I think you've got that mind. I think you've got that mind. You know what? My brother, he's five years younger than me. He's like a chess prodigy ever since he was a kid. Yeah. And it's great for him, but terrible for the older brother who tried to beat him and couldn't ever, you know, I, I I'd be like, Hey, let's, let's play chess and be like, sure, let's play chess. Checkmate. Checkmate. It's like,

Led Black (17:53)
Thanks, brother. You too.

Really?

Mm-hmm. That sucks.

That sucks. That

sucks.

Octavio Blanco (18:20)
Yeah,

so he kind of killed he kind of killed chess chess for me over there. got one more ⁓ cool thing that you and I are going to be involved in. And that's the Wahee Chamber of Commerce policy breakfast. That's not this week. That's the week after it's ⁓ going to be on May 7th from 9am to 12.

PM, speakers are gonna be Mayor Zoran Mondami, ⁓ Brad Hoylman, Siegel, the Manhattan Borough President, ⁓ Kenny Minaya, who's the Small Business Commissioner, and many, many others. What's really cool about it is that the event is sold out. So if you had wanted to buy tickets to attend to the event, you can't.

It's not, you're not going to be able to go. It's sold out, but we're going to be there and we're going to be live streaming the event. I'm going to be, you know, fingers crossed, but ⁓ I think that we'll be able to do that. The plan is to be live streaming the event. I'm going to be there this Tuesday to make sure things, ⁓ things go smoothly. And so if you hadn't been able to purchase your tickets, but you want to hear

what all of these ⁓ elected officials have to say about policies and small businesses in Uptown tune into ⁓ our live stream. It's going to be on the Uptown Collective ⁓ YouTube page. It's going to be on Instagram. It's going to be on Facebook, all Uptown Collective, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. ⁓ You know, the Chamber of Commerce is

is doing great things. ⁓ They do this event every year. This year it's gonna be in the armory. They had, I think, 225 seats available and they're sold out. So that's really, really impressive. And we're gonna be there live streaming it and then we're also gonna be trying to do interviews with folks that are there. We're gonna be pulling them out. ⁓ Those aren't gonna be live streamed. Those are gonna be recorded, but those will be available.

on our socials where we'll be sharing them after the event so that you can get a little bit more intimate conversations. yeah, me and Led are gonna be there trying to represent the community and the businesses and to really like just hear what the plans are, why the chamber is important, why did they, the elected officials come, like what is it about Uptown that they're trying to help? So also, if you do have

Any specific questions that you'd like us to ask, definitely hit us up on Instagram. You can DM us at Uptown Collective or you can DM us at Uptown Voices Podcast. We'll be happy to ask the questions that you have. And we invite you to just talk to us if you have any questions about anything or if there's events that you want us to...

to highlight, just talk to us on the DM. It's at Uptown Voices podcast and also at Uptown Collective with a V, no E, Uptown Collective. So yeah, that's pretty much all I had in terms of like, ⁓ go for it, go for it.

Led Black (22:04)
I have one more.

So same thing, Saturday, May 2nd at the Jackie Robinson Bad Show. It is the fourth annual West Harlem Summer Jazz Festival brought to you by the West Harlem Art Alliance and Harlem Late Night Jazz. It's going to be microcruise and friends. It's a kickoff performance and it's a centennial celebration of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. know, jazz is alive and it's alive in Harlem, right? And Harlem is, you know, while not the birthplace of jazz, was an important incubator. so jazz is still alive.

Uptown. So make sure you check that out. Shout out to Michael, pardon my mean, who we have to have on the show. think, do we have him on the show? Yeah, we did, right? That's right. We had him on the show. We had him on the show already. He needs to be, yeah, he needs to, he's doing big things. And he's also one of the honorees for the Uptown Art Show this year. So that's.

Octavio Blanco (22:42)
We had him on the show. had him. had him. Well, he needs to be a regular. He needs to be a regular.

You know

what, we featured him, right? We featured him because he's done so many good things in the community throughout a career here of community leadership. But we should bring him on our Sunday live and just chat about stuff that he's got coming up in the next couple of weeks, months, or this quarter, however, he wants to do it, just have a chat with him. It's nice to have people.

Led Black (23:07)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

He's the man.

Octavio Blanco (23:23)
Yeah, he's the man.

Led Black (23:24)
And then I wanna just say the other honorees is Joyce Arewumi. She's the founder and president of the New York African Chorus Ensemble. So she's one of the other honoree. The other three are is Reynaldo Garcia Pantelon. Shout out to him. He's an artist and educator. You've seen his work at Word Up.

and Maida Linares, who's the VP of Public Affairs and Communications at Liberty Coca-Cola, shout out to her, and the Marge of El Mansion is also receiving the honors. So that's a big deal. So now the Uptown Astro is really weeks away. June 1st is the kickoff. And I'm going to just let this in right now. So my homie, John Oman and I, last year we did like an unofficial Uptown Astro after party.

Octavio Blanco (23:54)
Yeah. Yeah.

Led Black (24:05)
Right. So we're doing it again this year. So right after the Uptown Astro, you're to walk a few blocks north to where we're headed. We'll put out the details, but we're going to do a second unofficial Uptown Astro after party, right? Like you need an after party. The after party is, you know, what you need to, to, after, you know, you have a good event. So please come out to that. And I also want to talk about Madbills to Pay, right? Madbills to Pay. Yeah. It came out last week.

Octavio Blanco (24:28)
Yeah, we can't let that slide.

Led Black (24:32)
April 17th, you know, only in two theaters, but we had a smash week. We had a really good week. We've been extended that film form. We got a slight extension to Regal.

We got a mention in Deadline about how good we did last week as a film and it's expanding. We're gonna be announcing more theaters, maybe not in New York, but across the country. And again, it's a really good film. A lot of people that follow Uptown Collective have gone to see it. They've talked about it. And it's important that we support this film today.

Sunday, April 26 at the 720 showing. I'm going to be hosting a Q &A with the cast. I don't know if the director is going to be there, but you know, it's interesting that I've now, I watched this movie so many times, right? Like, and every time I watch it, I learn more from it. It's a, it's a.

It almost feels like a documentary, like that you're you're just, you know, embedded with this Dominican family in the Bronx and you go through the trials and tribulations with them. And what's interesting watching that, because I've been really, I haven't gone to the film forum to see it because my duties have been in the Bronx. And it's interesting to be in the Bronx where the movie is set to watch it in the Bronx to see how audience, you know, how the movie resonates with them. It's really interesting. And last week when I...

Octavio Blanco (25:44)
Yeah.

What's the Q

&A like? You were mentioning to me the other day, how the Q &A is like on point, like in the Bronx.

Led Black (25:57)
Yeah, it was

interesting because the Q &A I hosted last year, last week, you know, it was just me and Destiny Checo who plays the female lead. So it was great because we actually got to spend a lot of time on her, her process. You know, this is her first gig as an actress. You know, she had the only she didn't even have like a reel ⁓ Joelle Afonso Vargas, the director, found her through TikTok.

and asked her to, yeah. And then, you know, she did a self tape and she got the gig. And what's interesting is her name is Destiny. The character's name is Destiny. It was already written. so it's Destiny's Destiny to play Destiny, right? And it was interesting because, so we watched the film. She was amazing, right? So, so we...

Octavio Blanco (26:21)
⁓ wow.

Yeah. She was great. It was great. They were all great.

like considering her that she was like found on TikTok, it was amazing.

Led Black (26:44)
It's amazing.

And what's interesting, right, so I, you know, everyone watched the movie and wrapped attention. You could see the gas, the laughs, the, no, he didn't, no, she didn't. You know, you saw that. And then when the movie was over, I went to the front, right? And, you know, I'm going to announce that we're going to do this Q and A and people saw Destiny on the sideline.

And they lost their mind. Like, you know, they made it feel really good. Like they treated her like a superstar. And then what would commence afterwards, like I had a really good conversation, asked her a bunch of questions. But then when we opened up to the audience, it was beautiful. It's like very few people left after the movie. So many people stayed. So many people had such good questions. So many people were thankful to see themselves on the screen. You know, we talk a lot about representation, but representation really, matters with this film. And I got to give one more shout out to Joel.

Afonso Vargas, right? Because he's not just the visionary director behind this film. I think he also chose that he wanted, he didn't want fake representation. He wanted it to be reel. This, it was up to, and again, nothing against old scope, right? Who's the distributor, but if it was up to them, they would only play like in certain theaters. But he said, no, I want this in the Bronx. I want this in the Bronx. not only he, he also said,

If I signed to y'all, I need you to make sure you have a multicultural agency to handle promotions. And that's how me and Calixto, who's a New York Latino Film Festival executive director, but it's also an agency, that's how we got the gig. Because Joel insisted that you have multicultural.

backing for the project, which I think was brilliant because I think we did a really good job. know, if I may say so myself, you know, I think we deserve some type of award for this campaign. You know what saying? I ain't gonna lie. We got we got a good product. You know, we got the product. We we got a good product. But but I think we really bust our behinds to make sure that it resonated with us. Right. Because it's really important that this resonates with the culture, that the culture understands these movies for them. And again, what's interesting being there, these theaters watching people

Octavio Blanco (28:26)
props. Yeah, you you're rocking. You're definitely.

Led Black (28:49)
People leave their theater inspired. You know, they see themselves behind the camera, in front of camera in a movie that went from, you know, no budget to winning best ensemble cast in Sundance, winning across the world, Korea, Beijing, Berlin, doing this thing. So, you know, shout out to Madbills to Pay. Pull up today, 720, at Regal Concourse. I will be there moderating a panel with some of the cast. So pull up Madbills to Pay movie on IG.

Octavio Blanco (29:18)
Yeah, man, that's yeah, I got a, you know, props to you, props to Calixto, props to everybody who's involved in that film, the cast, the director, everybody, you guys have been killing it. And I'm excited to see it get wider distribution in the United States. I'd like to hear I would love to see like what the what the reaction is in other cities, ⁓ other cities. Don't forget, Dominican

Led Black (29:23)
Thank you, brother.

Right.

Octavio Blanco (29:48)
culture, Dominican Americans and Dominican New Yorks are not just in New York anymore. They're in Pennsylvania, they're in New Jersey, they're in Florida, they're in they're everywhere. I mean, even beyond, Los Angeles. So the fact of the matter is that our culture, I I am not Dominican, but I'm Dominican-like because I live in this neighborhood for the last 30 years.

Led Black (29:55)
Mm.

Massachusetts, yeah, everywhere.

Yeah.

Octavio Blanco (30:18)
And

now I now speak fluent Dominican. So ⁓ but I think I think that like we need to recognize that Dominican culture is American culture. Dominican Americans, Dominican Yorks are now everywhere. We're talking about second, third generation, fourth generation here in the United States. And actually, don't forget who was the original ⁓ immigrant to New York City, the first

Led Black (30:47)
Juan Rodriguez, Juan Rodriguez, Juan Rodriguez. So he actually predated the Dominican Republic becoming a state, but still he is Dominican. He was a prototype Dominican, you know? And when he came here, he's like, I don't wanna fuck with the Dutch, I'm staying with the Lenape. You know what saying? He became married, the Lenape woman had a bunch of kids. That's bad Dominican, like so, you know what I mean? Shout out to him.

Octavio Blanco (30:57)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, anyway.

Led Black (31:15)
And

I want to shout out Kathy Hurtado on IG. She says she really enjoyed Mad Bills to Pay. So thank you to her for coming out. And what we're doing with this film is creating ambassadors for the film. Everyone that sees it pushes it forward and takes it to the finish line. So thank you for that. And yeah, man. And we can also talk about this incident that happened, I think, earlier this week in East Harlem.

Octavio Blanco (31:38)
Yeah, we're

taking a we're taking a we're changing gears here. We're going we're going to be talking about this awful stuff. Awful stuff.

Led Black (31:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so

it was a 14-year-old boy who took a girl, I think it was of his age, but half his size. And I think he was trying to get her number. She was ⁓ not giving it to him. So he took her, body slammed her.

and then stomped on her head. And what was really bad though is there was a kid behind the camera, another little boy, and ⁓ he was egging this kid on. And as a kid growing up in the hood, right, you never did shit like this to girls. You would look soft, you would look corny, like if you did this to a girl. So I think it's a bigger dynamic at play that I don't think we talk about enough. And I think that there are young boys

you know, are ⁓ ripe for programming, for, you know, just tell it like the whole Manisfia culture, you know, I think has a lock on young boys. And I think that like violence to women, hatred of women is becoming much worse. And I think ⁓ I couldn't see the video at first, to be honest. I was like, this is disgusting. Like, how could you do this?

Octavio Blanco (32:53)
I

have not watched the video. gotta say, maybe I should. I haven't watched it. There's enough like horrible stuff in the world that I sort of made the decision not to watch the video. But now that we're talking about it, I'll try to get around to watching it, but it sounds awful.

Led Black (33:17)
Yeah, and there was a second video that was released about his mom. And his mom was kind of kind of downplaying her son's role in it, saying the little girl was the fault. yeah.

Octavio Blanco (33:21)
Yeah.

What? Yeah. She was

saying something like he was being bullied or something. I don't know. I didn't quite understand how that excuses anything. I don't know. don't understand. What I didn't understand was who was bullying the boy. Was it? Yeah, I don't know.

Led Black (33:44)
He

was, yeah, she was saying that the little girl was bullying the boy. But you know, again, that's ridiculous. He's the one that body slammed her and stepped on her head. But again, I feel that is one of these situations that, you know, first of all, that little boy will not know peace anymore in his neighborhood, right? So maybe all of us don't know, but if you're from East Harlem, from that area and you're in school, you know who that kid is. heard that.

some of his neighbors, the men want to beat him up. And I don't condone that at all. You know, I don't think that's right. But what I'm saying is there's this ramifications for the things you do. to be honest, I think while the little girl is the ultimate victim, I feel bad for this little 14 year old boy too, because like he's kind of thrown away his life in a certain way or he's going to definitely set back his life. So this is like a bad situation overall, I think.

Octavio Blanco (34:37)
I'm I don't know if you know, but I'll ask. ⁓ Now you were saying that there was another little boy behind the camera and he was egging on the boy who body slammed and then stomped on the girl. Now that could could also be bullying. I don't know anything about ⁓ who this boy is or who the boy behind the camera was.

Led Black (34:49)
Mm-hmm.

Octavio Blanco (35:03)
But what I do know is that sometimes there are little boys or young men who might be ⁓ sensitive to bullying, who you could push around to do things because they maybe they're not right in the head or perhaps they're a little bit slow. I don't know that this is the case, but I'm just asking because it makes me wonder. I put myself.

in my 16, 14 year old self's mind. And I was not the greatest kid in the world. And I do confess that at that age, ⁓ I did have like a period of time in which I was a bully ⁓ in my middle school. And ⁓ I feel very, ⁓

Led Black (35:33)
Mm-hmm.

Octavio Blanco (35:59)
you know, I feel bad about that, you know, because, you know, the kids that were in my middle school and who I was being mean to, you know, it just wasn't right. But, but what I was what I'm getting at is that sometimes you can push another little boy to do stupid things. And I wonder if we're dealing with the situation in which

Led Black (36:20)
100%. 100%.

Octavio Blanco (36:28)
That kid behind the camera is like the ultimate bully. You know, one thing that our young kids need to deal with now is the video camera, the phone, the Instagram, social media. It's different now. ⁓ On the one hand, the kids might be excited because they might feel like

Led Black (36:47)
Social media, yeah, social media is different.

Yeah, I agree.

Octavio Blanco (36:57)
doing this is gonna make them Instagram famous, right? Maybe he didn't understand, maybe ⁓ that's what the kid behind the camera wanted to do was to be himself.

Led Black (37:11)
It's possible. I

I don't think so much that, but I also think that peer pressure has always...

been a thing for everyone, right? And then you add being poor to add something and then you add social media to it. And that's an explosive combination, right? And when you look at the video, it almost seems like the kid behind the camera, to your point, is almost like, he's almost like controlling the other kid. Because it's when he goes, she called you a pussy, that he slams her.

Octavio Blanco (37:43)
Yeah.

Led Black (37:44)
You know, so it's like, and then he's like, he's hyping a mom the whole time. So that little kid is just as a fault for what happened. ⁓ And again, I just feel this is a very unfortunate situation, but I think we have to take seriously the way our young boys are being. ⁓

They're being programmed and they're being taught this really vile anti-woman thing that when you're poor, when you're, cause again, this is a kid who's 14, he's 14 years old. He's a big kid, but he's still a child, right? Why would a child do this to someone else that's half his size? Like that's the reel, I think.

Octavio Blanco (38:19)
Mm-hmm.

Led Black (38:27)
problem here. Like this is really bad for us, you know, as a society. Like again, when I was a kid growing up, I did a lot of stupid shit in Washington Heights. But beating up a girl was not something you ever do because you could never live that down. Like, yo, you beat up that like you that would not be cool. Right. But again, we had we had hierarchy. You know, we weren't getting not that we didn't get toxic masculinity. Of course we did. But it wasn't like this. And the social media thing. right. It might could have been, hey, let's do this.

Octavio Blanco (38:43)
Yeah.

Led Black (38:55)
you know, for likes, who knows? But again, I think it's a very dark place that I think we really need to look at. We need to talk to the young men in our lives, you know what I mean? Make sure they know what, again, like I think what happens is as poor people, as black and brown people, we have a narrative, but we don't know it. You know, and we don't know that we need to take care of each other. We need to look out for one another. So I was really disgusted by it and it took me a while to actually watch the video.

Octavio Blanco (39:22)
Yeah, it's awful. ⁓ But it's an important conversation. And everything nowadays with social media is magnified. I understand that the young girl had a concussion, but that she's OK. I think that she's all right, but still traumatized from this event. And also now, take it beyond social media. It's been on television.

It's been shared a bazillion times, you know, that in and of itself can be traumatizing too. So, you know, a lot of times media, media, our local news and our local channels, you know, they see that and they want to talk about it fits their narrative of what ⁓ Uptown is all about and what these people uptown are all about and what black and brown people are all about.

And so they magnify that and it reflects badly on our community when the truth of the matter is that this happens, is happening in all communities and in all levels of income. It's not just uptown, but for whatever reason, you're only seeing it when it happens ⁓ uptown. And I feel very, ⁓

disappointed in that because I think that it's just feeding into the negative stereotypes that the mainstream media seems to thrive on when talking about our communities, which is the reason why we're doing this. You know, we're trying to show the world that we're so much more than that. We are we are I mean, we don't shy away from the issues. Obviously, we're talking about this.

But our main goal in this program is to highlight those individuals and those organizations uptown that are making this community better. You know, there's tons of resources uptown. There's tons of community uptown. We're tight knit, whether you're East Harlem, Washington Heights, West Harlem, Inwood, we're tight knit communities. We care about each other.

And I do hope that ⁓ when all is said and done with this East Harlem situation, that it's not that this young boy gets beat up by his neighbors. I hope that this can be in some way an opportunity to teach that young man something. ⁓ I hope that this is an opportunity for the community to be introspective about how come this happened.

And to find solutions, know, like find solutions that are positive, right? Let's inject more positivity. Let's teach our children better. And let's take this as a learning opportunity, as tragic and as awful. And as much anger as it does make us feel, anger is a dangerous ⁓ emotion, right? Anger can block you from really thinking through.

Led Black (42:20)
Mm.

Octavio Blanco (42:42)
It can make you react in a way that you yourself don't necessarily want to. The way that I think about anger and I feel anger a lot is that it's a red flag. It's a pause. makes me pause and say, okay, you're feeling angry. Why are you feeling angry? Think about that and how do you respond from there rather than just like responding with anger immediately. Now, the reason why I do this.

is because I have been angry in the past and it has not served me well. You know, I've had my issues and I don't need those anymore. So I needed to learn a new way to handle anger. And so I look at anger as a red flag, not to say don't feel angry, but just like when you feel angry, that's a flag waving at you saying, okay, you got to think about this. What is it that's making you angry and don't respond immediately. Take a breath.

You know, think about it. So.

Led Black (43:40)
And I wanted to ask you what you thought of the latest ⁓ assassination attempt. What the fuck was that yesterday? Like, I don't even want to see content about it. Like, again, like, you know.

Octavio Blanco (43:47)
Hahaha

Now

I got.

Led Black (43:54)
It felt like

bullshit. felt like straight bullshit. The guy ran through with a gun and then now Trump took the opportunity to say, that's why we need a ballroom that's heavily guarded. And I think it's just another. And again, the first fake assassination step with the ear thing, even MAGA is starting to doubt that shit. So, you know, I would have put nothing past this administration. I think this is the worst of the worst. We're living through like bizarro America right now.

Octavio Blanco (44:24)
Yeah, I mean, look. Again. I can see why people would question the authenticity of these assassination attempts. ⁓ I think that they are reel. I don't think that they're that they're made up.

Led Black (44:41)
Even the one with

the even the Butler one. You know that, I don't know. Hold on. Hold on. I think this is a problem here because did you see how they did you see the video of them staging the photo, though? There's a video, right, of a Secret Service putting everyone to take the picture. And then you saw the flag being down and he pulls up and then he got shot by AR-15 and it healed.

Octavio Blanco (44:44)
Yeah, yeah.

I think it was reel. It was reel.

I saw that video, yeah.

Led Black (45:09)
What is this guy fucking Jesus like he thinks he is like, I don't think it was reel. I think it was very fake. And again, I just I think that again, this goes back to my ongoing theme, right? It's a failure of negative imagination. These motherfuckers will do anything. And right now, you know, he's on the ropes. That midterm election isn't good.

Octavio Blanco (45:13)
I mean

Led Black (45:32)
looking good. So he'll do anything to get back there and he'll even, you know, not have elections. So I don't believe anything that Trump says, nothing. And again, that Butler thing, you know, for the Secret Service guy to be directing pictures for social media, like that's fucking crazy. That's insane. And then, hold on, hold on one last point. Trump talks about Rosie O'Donnell still, right?

Octavio Blanco (45:39)
I mean.

I I mean, look.

Led Black (46:01)
but he doesn't talk about the kid that tried to kill him? Come on now. Like that shit is faker than fake.

Octavio Blanco (46:05)
Well, well, the kid is dead. The kid died.

The kid died. So he was shot. I think it's dangerous for us to to say it's fake, because I think that the fact of the matter is that this president is disliked and hated by a lot of people. And I think that it was a reel thing. I don't know about I saw that video.

But that video can be interpreted in many ways. The way you interpret it is one interpretation, that it was fake and they were guiding the camera. There's plenty of other interpretations that you can make of that video. Last night, was... I don't know that they lowered the flag. Hold on.

Led Black (46:46)
of lowering a flag and also, and also if, all right, so let's give it, remember when Reagan

got shot? Remember Reagan got shot? He's not supposed to pose for a camera with fist up. Like, come on, like that is faker than fake, faker than fake. Yesterday, maybe not, yesterday, maybe not, but that, yeah, I don't.

Octavio Blanco (46:55)
Yeah, yeah.

I don't know. I don't I mean, that's your opinion. That's your that's your opinion.

That's your opinion. I also don't believe anything that this administration says, but I do believe that that was an actual assassination attempt last night. Also, I feel was a reel assassination attempt. ⁓ I don't know. Obviously, I can't I can't.

know it, but it does seem that it was reel. It's pretty stupid, like as an assassination attempt to try to bum rush the show with your gun. He did apparently shoot a Secret Service man who was saved by his bulletproof vest. mean, you know, I don't know that that was, I don't think it was fake. I do think that this president

is hated by a lot of people. And unfortunately, people take the law in their own hands and they go after him and try to...

Led Black (48:10)
So hold on, hold

on, hold on. So I can see yesterday, maybe I can see yesterday that shit wasn't even an assassination attempt. That shit was like some fucking hardcore parkour with a gun shit. That shit was so stupid, right? But the one where he got shot with an AR-15 in his ear, right?

Octavio Blanco (48:24)
Yeah. ⁓

Led Black (48:30)
That shit is makes, I mean, you have to be incredulous, right? And even Maga, right? Even the hardline Maga people are questioning. Again, for him not to be put down, for him to be allowed by Secret Service to put his fist up, you know what mean? Like that shit is just, it reeks, it reeks.

of false flag operations. And the way he used it massively, I think that helped him win the election, right? I just, I can't. And again, I think that shows the difference between you and I, right? Like I just, cannot, cannot, cannot believe that that was reel. I cannot.

Octavio Blanco (49:09)
Look, we don't know, like, here's, you can't just make these blanket statements because we don't even know if the blood that was on his ear was his blood, right? Like, we know that the bullet either grazed him or was very close to him, but we do know that somebody behind him was killed by the bullet. And that blood might have been that other person's blood and they just,

took it, like kept it and made it and did something with it. Like he is masterful with the media. He also is not as stupid as people think he is, especially when it comes to media opportunities. And for him to put his fist up was a masterful stroke to show that he's tough. Even last night, even last night, even last night.

Led Black (50:03)
But wait a minute. No, no, no. Hold on. Before you

say that though, Secret Service shouldn't allow him to put his hands up, right? Secret Service should not allow him, right? Because then he becomes a target again. The shooter hadn't been neutralized yet, right? Their job was to keep him low and get him away. For him to do the stunt, it's just bullshit. It is bullshit. And again, it's like, that's the thing. I just feel that we...

Octavio Blanco (50:32)
That's what you say.

mean, that's that's what you say. And that's fine for you to your opinion.

Led Black (50:35)
No, no, hold on. No, it's not what I used.

That's not what I say. I saw and you saw video of Secret Service pushing camera photographers, right, to take the great picture and then the flag being lowered. That's not me saying that. That's actual footage.

Octavio Blanco (50:51)
Look, no.

Yeah, but again, I don't know what that footage actually showed. You can see it how you want it to see it through your own.

Led Black (51:00)
You saw the picture, it

was a perfect picture. It was this. That's what the point of that was.

Octavio Blanco (51:04)
I know,

I know, but listen, Lyd, if I'm a photographer and I'm on the scene and I'm there as a photographer, I'm gonna try to get the best photo possible.

Led Black (51:16)
You

are, but for Secret Service to assist in that instead of assisting the president that just got shot is bullshit. Another thing is, hold on, an AR-15 in your ear, that's not gonna recover. That doesn't recover, right? It's an AR-15 round. It's not gonna, that's what saying, this is rank bullshit.

Octavio Blanco (51:24)
I don't know

That's what I'm

Yeah, but we don't know if that was an actual injury or if that was just a blood spasm.

Led Black (51:41)
Well, Trump, ⁓

according to the official reporting, that was a shot. got, he got, it hit him. That's what the, it wasn't glass. He got hit. That's what he says. And that's how he ran with it.

Octavio Blanco (51:45)
Yeah.

Yeah. But again,

but again, I don't believe it. But I do believe that he was shot at. Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, look, I think I don't know what that Secret Service person was doing. It seemed to me like they were trying to move that photographer out of the out of the way and that it just happened to be that they were going in that direction. And the photographer wanted to stay there taking a photograph. Right.

Led Black (52:00)
I don't

Octavio Blanco (52:21)
That's what the photographer wanted to do. The flag, I don't know what the heck was going on with that. I don't know if it was lowered or if that was just the camera angle makes it sometimes it makes it look like things are being lowered and raised in backgrounds. I don't know. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't there. All I know is like what they told us, right? But, you know, well, I accept that he was shot up because I accept that that people

Led Black (52:41)
and you accept it. I don't know why you accept it. I don't understand that part.

Octavio Blanco (52:49)
really hate this guy and that people are trying to shoot him. So, you know, last night I think was reel.

Led Black (52:58)
Fuck Trump. Fuck Trump. Fuck Trump. Fuck Trump.

Fuck Trump. Fuck Trump. Sorry, I had to say that. Because someone on IG said, people hate him because he's trying to bring back law and order the way it was when I was growing up in NYC. Fuck out of here.

Octavio Blanco (53:05)
I'm not disagreeing.

yeah.

Led Black (53:16)
Fuck outta here. Fuck Trump forever. I wish they woulda got his ass. I hope he... Again, I'll say it again. I'm waiting for that motherfucker to die, because I'm gonna have the biggest party uptown. Everyone's gonna be there. It's gonna be fucking live, because I hate Trump. I hate him so much. So, so much. So much.

Octavio Blanco (53:22)
Bye.

Yeah, that's a

that's just a stupid comment. Like, what was law and order back then? What was that? Like, what are you talking about? Exactly.

Led Black (53:43)
Fuck you talking about? Fuck out of here. Fuck out of here.

Lord, no. I grew up in the fucking, I grew up during the crack era. What Lord, no, are we talking about? Like, get out of here. Fucking ridiculous.

Octavio Blanco (53:49)
Yeah,

how far back are we going and what exactly is this law and order that they're talking about? Give me a freaking break. Look at this, the most corrupt president in history ⁓ talking about law and order. just shut that down. That's just ridiculous. ⁓

Led Black (54:10)
You know, it's adjacent to the Trump thing. There's a guy on IG, I forgot his handle, but he's like a therapist. We talked about him that he like basically says he diagnosed with Trump with frontal temporal dementia or whatever. And, you know, he predicted Trump dying this week. You know what mean? Like I think on Thursday. And I was waiting. I was like, yo, please, like let this shit be reel. Like, please let this motherfucker die. Like, please. You know what saying? Because JD Vans don't got the sauce. You know what saying?

Octavio Blanco (54:18)
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Again.

Led Black (54:40)
We'll get rid of him. But I was like, man, I can't wait for this fucking thing to happen already. Like, you could just say, hey, I can't wait for that thing to happen. And people know right off the bat what you're talking about.

Octavio Blanco (54:49)
But listen, look, here's one thing that does happen and why people do gravitate towards these theories that it's a staged situation. Like what else happened yesterday? Yesterday there was a huge New York Times report that just showed what you and I have been talking about, which is that all the ⁓ damage that we've been told about what happened

during this war with Iran, all the bases that were bombed, the damage was much greater than what we've been told. If we just look back at everything that comes out of this administration, it's all lies. But when you look at like big news events, big news reports, like ones that look particularly bad, and then you have something happen like an assassination attempt, all the media...

gets drawn to that assassination attempt, like, understandably. And it takes away from the impact that the other report would have had, which was a pretty serious report showing just how much more damage our bases in the Middle East sustained vis-a-vis what we were told. You know what mean? So there's reasons why people do

you know, gravitate towards these conspiracy theories or why they don't believe what the administration says. Because the administration always lies. Their first impulse is to lie. In Minneapolis, when ICE killed those people, and especially when they killed that young man, the first thing they did was lie about it. he was...

wielding a gun and he, no, he didn't even take, he had a gun, but he didn't take it out from his back where he had it. And they shot him, ⁓ that he was ⁓ a terrorist, not a terrorist, just a really nice guy who was just there to help people. So, ⁓ when you have an administration whose first impulse is to lie about everything, ⁓ then nothing's gonna be believed.

And unfortunately, that's what they want. That's what they want because that just throws everything into this fog that nobody can figure out what's reel and what's not reel. And that's to his benefit and to his administration's benefit.

Led Black (57:10)
Yep.

Yeah.

And you know, just for the audience that's watching, I just want to know that there's plenty of bipartisan hate to go around from me. Right? So while I say fuck Trump, I also say fuck the Democratic leadership. Fuck Kamala. Fuck Gavin Newsom. Fuck Andy Beshear. Fuck Schumer. Fuck Apec Shakur.

Octavio Blanco (57:39)
Yeah.

Led Black (57:55)
So I just want say that hatred goes both ways. We are in this problem. We are now as a country because of both parties, right? Biden basically gave the floor to Trump just to say, here, take it, right? Did nothing, did nothing. So I just want to say that people think I was like, I do fucking really hate Trump.

but there's a lot of hate to go around from my heart. I know you don't like hate, but I think sometimes hate could be a motivating factor and make people change. And I ⁓ don't believe that there's anything, like I don't have, like again, Biden, Kamala, don't run again. Like what are you doing? Don't fucking run no more. Like you lost. Don't be like another Hillary Clinton. Like you're married to a Zionist. We don't need your type here anymore. I'm rocking with Ro. I'm gonna say it again. I'm rocking with Ro. Ro Khanna is my candidate for president.

Octavio Blanco (58:20)
haha

Led Black (58:42)
He ain't perfect, but if it wasn't for him and Massey, we wouldn't even be having this talk about Epstein. And you know, he says this, we need to get rid of the Epstein class that rules both parties. They're the donors to everyone. So, Ro, I'm rocking with Ro. And I want everyone to make sure to subscribe to the Uptown Collective YouTube channel. Tell your people about it. It's about to end. We got about a minute and change. So thank you. Spread love is the Uptown way. Octavio, take it away. What you gotta say, brother?

Octavio Blanco (59:10)
Now I agree with you that there's a lot of hate, a lot of blame to go around. I do caution against hate. I don't like hate. I think hate is a very, very dangerous feeling and emotion. I think that there's a lot to hate though, I gotta say. I struggle, I've been struggling with it too, but I do think like if, these are good conversations that we continue having.

I invite everybody who's on IG and on all their social media to chime in and talk to us when we have these shows every Sunday at 10 a.m. We're on. and yeah, check us out on Tuesday. We're gonna bring it back to the community and we're gonna bring it back to people in the community that are really trying to get beyond hate.

Led Black (1:00:04)
So let me let me because you're bringing up hate. Let me end this with a hate quote from Che Guevara. Hatred is an element of struggle. Relentless hatred of the enemy that impels us over and beyond the natural limitations of man and transforms into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machines. Our soldiers must be thus that people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy. Thank you. Spread love is the uptown way.

Octavio Blanco (1:00:26)
Why are you saying hate and then spread love as the uptown way?

Led Black (1:00:29)
Yes. You need to hate the things that are bad. Trump and his cohorts and this machine are worthy of hate. I just don't hate. No, sometimes there's things you need to hate. I'm sorry. Things you need to hate.

Octavio Blanco (1:00:43)
I hear

you, I hear you, I hear you. You gotta hate things that are bad. I can get with that, I can get with that. All right. Bye bye.

Led Black (1:00:48)
Yeah.

All right, y'all, spread love as the uptown wave.