ELLIOT LEE - Alt Pop Singer/Songwriter, LGBTQIA+ Openly Non-binary - Autism Awareness Advocate

ELLIOT LEE - Alt Pop Singer/Songwriter, LGBTQIA+ Openly Non-binary - Autism Awareness Advocate

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Alt Pop Singer/Songwriter · LGBTQIA+ Openly Non-binary Musician
Autism Awareness Advocate

I struggle a lot with the feeling of being alone and not having a community. And I did even more as a teenager. That's kind of what my music is about, finding those people who get it so you don't feel like you're alone anymore. And that's why I talk about things that maybe I wouldn't talk about outside of music, because in music it's a safer and easier way to find people who really get it.

ANTHONY JOSEPH - T.S. Eliot Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band

ANTHONY JOSEPH - T.S. Eliot Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band

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T.S. Eliot Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band
Author of Sonnets for Albert

The life of Caribbean people is not really documented. So this idea of Caribbean life being fragmented is something that I've had in my mind for a long time. So when I came to write this collection for my father, I realized that it was the same process and what I had were fragments, especially with him, because he wasn't around in a physical sense all the time. So all I had were little photographs, scattered memories, and remembrances. They're little parts of his life and parts of my experience with him... I never disliked my father. I always loved him and always was fascinated and captivated by him.

Highlights - Fury Young - BL Shirelle - Co-Executive Directors of DJC Records

Highlights - Fury Young - BL Shirelle - Co-Executive Directors of DJC Records

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Co-Executive Directors of DJC Records

I took this class on genocide that had a huge impact on me, and it also coincided, just the timing, with the Occupy Wall Street movement. So then two years later in 2013, I was reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, and the book is about how mass incarceration is like a modern-day racial caste system. And I just got the idea to do an album, because I was listening to a lot of concept albums like Pink Floyd, The Wall. And it started from there, just a little seed and a spark of just this idea for this one album. And then over time, it just evolved into an EP, and then a record label and a nonprofit. –Fury Young

I think in the end, what our mission is, is to dismantle stereotypes around race and prison. But maybe from listening to that album, and you see this guy, he applied for your job, and he has a drug charge or something. Maybe you're not looking at it so crazy anymore. It's like, know what? I'll give him an interview. I'll see. And that interview may change, you know, your life and that person's life. So that's like the ideal scenario. – B.L. Shirelle

Fury Young - BL Shirelle - Co-Executive Directors of DJC Records

Fury Young - BL Shirelle - Co-Executive Directors of DJC Records

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Co-Executive Directors of DJC Records

I took this class on genocide that had a huge impact on me, and it also coincided, just the timing, with the Occupy Wall Street movement. So then two years later in 2013, I was reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, and the book is about how mass incarceration is like a modern-day racial caste system. And I just got the idea to do an album, because I was listening to a lot of concept albums like Pink Floyd, The Wall. And it started from there, just a little seed and a spark of just this idea for this one album. And then over time, it just evolved into an EP, and then a record label and a nonprofit. –Fury Young

I think in the end, what our mission is, is to dismantle stereotypes around race and prison. But maybe from listening to that album, and you see this guy, he applied for your job, and he has a drug charge or something. Maybe you're not looking at it so crazy anymore. It's like, know what? I'll give him an interview. I'll see. And that interview may change, you know, your life and that person's life. So that's like the ideal scenario. – BL Shirelle

Highlights - Karina Manashil - Pres. of Mad Solar - Exec. Producer of “Entergalactic”, “Pearl”, “X”

Highlights - Karina Manashil - Pres. of Mad Solar - Exec. Producer of “Entergalactic”, “Pearl”, “X”

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President of Mad Solar · Creative Confidante & Industry Catalyst for Scott Mescudi a.k.a. Kid Cudi
Exec. Producer: Entergalactic starring Mescudi, Jessica Williams & Timothée Chalamet
Pearl · X starring Mia Goth

And what was so moving was when we went into Netflix to the theater to screen the finished product for the first time. You're sitting there and at the end of it, Scott was crying, and I looked over - it made me cry low-key - but Scott was crying and he said – This completely blows my mind because this is the first time I had a vision up here in my head and tried to express it, and then had to trust all 300 plus people, all around the world, working in different time zones, in different places, and each of them putting a hand to it and seeing exactly that vision. And then watching the product, and it is the best version of anything I could have ever possibly had in my head.
So, to us, that's the purest, most beautiful... Again, how fortunate that every hand was moving in tandem and moving in lockstep, and all of it. But that was the beauty of collaboration, this opportunity for a small vision to touch so many hands and become the big vision.

Karina Manashil - President of Mad Solar - Creative Confidante for Kid Cudi - Exec. Producer of “Entergalactic”

Karina Manashil - President of Mad Solar - Creative Confidante for Kid Cudi - Exec. Producer of “Entergalactic”

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President of Mad Solar · Creative Confidante & Industry Catalyst for Scott Mescudi a.k.a. Kid Cudi
Exec. Producer: Entergalactic starring Mescudi, Jessica Williams & Timothée Chalamet
Pearl · X starring Mia Goth

And what was so moving was when we went into Netflix to the theater to screen the finished product for the first time. You're sitting there and at the end of it, Scott was crying, and I looked over - it made me cry low-key - but Scott was crying and he said – This completely blows my mind because this is the first time I had a vision up here in my head and tried to express it, and then had to trust all 300 plus people, all around the world, working in different time zones, in different places, and each of them putting a hand to it and seeing exactly that vision. And then watching the product, and it is the best version of anything I could have ever possibly had in my head.
So, to us, that's the purest, most beautiful... Again, how fortunate that every hand was moving in tandem and moving in lockstep, and all of it. But that was the beauty of collaboration, this opportunity for a small vision to touch so many hands and become the big vision.

Highlights - Lee Jaffe - Author of “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossroads” - Intimate Portraits of Bob Marley - Basquiat

Highlights - Lee Jaffe - Author of “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossroads” - Intimate Portraits of Bob Marley - Basquiat

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Artist, Musician, Poet
Author of Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossroads

Jean-Michel Basquiat's combination of words and images, this visual poetry, just from a cultural standpoint has been so important. When I met him in 1983, black people were not allowed in the art market, pretty much. And you see that he broke down this barrier, which opened the door for all this multiculturalism within the art market. And you can't diminish the importance of that at all. It's helped to give a voice and an audience to all these incredible artists that might not have had that.

Lee Jaffe - Author of “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossroads” - Intimate Portraits of Bob Marley - Basquiat

Lee Jaffe - Author of “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossroads” - Intimate Portraits of Bob Marley - Basquiat

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Artist, Musician, Poet
Author of Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossroads

Jean-Michel Basquiat's combination of words and images, this visual poetry, just from a cultural standpoint has been so important. When I met him in 1983, black people were not allowed in the art market, pretty much. And you see that he broke down this barrier, which opened the door for all this multiculturalism within the art market. And you can't diminish the importance of that at all. It's helped to give a voice and an audience to all these incredible artists that might not have had that.

Highlights - Anthony Joseph - Award-winning Writer & Musician - “Sonnets for Albert”

Highlights - Anthony Joseph - Award-winning Writer & Musician - “Sonnets for Albert”

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Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band
Author of Sonnets for Albert

The life of Caribbean people is not really documented. So this idea of Caribbean life being fragmented is something that I've had in my mind for a long time. So when I came to write this collection for my father, I realized that it was the same process and what I had were fragments, especially with him, because he wasn't around in a physical sense all the time. So all I had were little photographs, scattered memories, and remembrances. They're little parts of his life and parts of my experience with him... I never disliked my father. I always loved him and always was fascinated and captivated by him.

Anthony Joseph - Award-winning Writer & Musician - Author of “Sonnets for Albert”

Anthony Joseph - Award-winning Writer & Musician - Author of “Sonnets for Albert”

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Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band
Author of Sonnets for Albert

The life of Caribbean people is not really documented. So this idea of Caribbean life being fragmented is something that I've had in my mind for a long time. So when I came to write this collection for my father, I realized that it was the same process and what I had were fragments, especially with him, because he wasn't around in a physical sense all the time. So all I had were little photographs, scattered memories, and remembrances. They're little parts of his life and parts of my experience with him... I never disliked my father. I always loved him and always was fascinated and captivated by him.

TERRY RADIGAN

TERRY RADIGAN

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Musician and Songwriter

So, I started the program called Shelter Songs. I'm in two shelters now and expanding to 4 or 5 throughout the city. It's a nice thing to just look at them and say, "I'm with you for an hour. I'm here to serve you. Whatever you want. I have no agenda on what we're going to write.