How I Made It

Angelo Baque and Shaniqwa Jarvis w/ Jerry Lorenzo, Melody Ehsani, Paulo Calle, and Lena Waithe

Angelo Baque and Shaniqwa Jarvis speak with some of their favorite creatives about their rise to the top.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: Hi, everyone, welcome to our How I Made It, which is a conversation between a few of our favorite-favorite people, designers, artists, everything that Lena is. All of you have made -- I wrote this down, okay. So all of you have made an honest and impactful contribution to our society, and we want you to talk about how you started. And I am cohosting this with my best friend Angelo Baque.

Angelo Baque: That is me.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: Who is about to take it over.

Angelo Baque: Cool. Welcome everybody to How I Made It, I guess technically this will be Part 2, we had this conversation back in New York two years ago at the last iteration of Social Studies. And I just want to say thank you Jerry, Mel, Lena, Paulo for taking time out of your day. I think the most important lesson that we learned from the last conversation is helping create transparency to continue to build inspiration and aspiration for this -- for the next kind of second-generation wave of creatives that you know ideally will mirror what we look like, you know. That was always the goal when Shaniqwa and I conceptualized Social Studies about four years ago. So I think -- I feel like our crowd kind of has a good idea of me and Shaniqwa, I think it’s really important now for everyone to take you know two to three minutes to kind of intro themselves and then we'll kick off the conversation. So Mel, would you start if off, please.

Melody Ehsani: Sure. I am Melody Ehsani, I am a designer, I have had a brand for the last 12 years. And yeah, it’s what I do.

Angelo Baque: Cool. Jerry.

Jerry Lorenzo: I am Jerry Lorenzo of Fear of God. Every time I go to try and figure out what tile to use, I never can, I don’t like to be boxed in. So I just, Jerry of Fear of God.

Angelo Baque: Cool. Paulo.

Paulo Calle: Hi, my name is Paulo. I had my first brand was Rare Panther and now I am currently working with one of my best friends Verdy, on a brand called Girls Don’t Cry and Wasted Youth. And I do more marketing and direction, that’s more my type of a thing.

Angelo Baque: Very humble of you, Paulo, very humble of you. Okay, Lena.

Lena Waithe: My name is Lena Waithe, and I consider myself to be a writer, particularly a television writer, who then kind of started to write movies as well. But I am a producer as well. And I moonlight as an actor sometimes. But yeah, and also I view myself as a connector, try to connect people, that’s what I would call myself.

Angelo Baque: Also, very humble, very humble, Lena, very humble.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: I would have just started it off by being like, Hi I am Shaniqwa, I am the greatest, like you guys were, took it a different direction. So okay, alright, now I know what we are doing here, so this is great.

Jerry Lorenzo: Always trying to bring you down Shaniqwa.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: No, oh god, this head is so big, so heavy.

Lena Waithe: Fit it through the door.

Angelo Baque: So I think the obvious here is that not only, we are all creators but also creators of color. And me coming from a very strict immigrant household, the idea of pursuing the Arts was a no-no in my household. So there was a certain point in my life where I said, basically I am going to go for it. You know like I went against my family, I went against my mother. You know I didn’t go to the traditional route of like doctor, lawyer, teacher -- my mother would have taken anything-anything but fashion designer or photographer. So -- well, my curiosity is, I would like to hear what was that kind of like breakthrough moment when you were like, alright this is it, this is what I am going to pursue career x, because I know, in nobody’s family I would think where I am going to assume predicted that you would be in the position that you are in right now today. So Lena, because I know that I am just super curious, I would like to hear from you first.

Lena Waithe: You know what’s interesting, I am very lucky, I always say I didn’t have the Sheryl Lee Ralph mom from Sister Act 2. That wasn’t, and that is also about, how I lived my life the references are always right there. That wasn’t the case, I mean one of -- on the South Side of Chicago, literally living in the house in which my mother grew up in as well, I had the honor of growing up at my grandmother’s house. They just wanted me not to get pregnant, which was actually easier than they would have assumed. But and not to have a substance abuse issue which my father had and so did my uncle. So they were like, please just be a contributing member of society, pay your taxes, don’t get arrested and just be a good Black person.

Now what I think what they meant by that was for me to be well-behaved, and to not make noise and to not ruffle feathers. So that was I think the thing that may have sort of thrown them more, but they could tell very early on that I had a great love for watching television, obviously A Different World was one of those shows. And but then also I really, genuinely enjoyed watching the movies and I was just fascinated by that. And they just were like, okay we would love if you went outside more and you know, that kind of thing. But they just sort of embraced it, you know when I decided, I want to do major in Writing and Producing for Television at Columbia College, which I was very happy was in my own backyard. My family was like, cool, great Lena wants to go to Hollywood, cool, that was never anything weird about that. But I don’t think they foresaw me being cast in a Steven Spielberg movie. I think that kind of went beyond their wildest dreams and my own. I never even thought to dream of that or being in it, being on screen was never a part of my master plan, I really just want to be a television writer. I wanted to be a respected television writer. But I didn’t dream about Emmy’s or anything like that, I just wanted to be respected and be good at anything that I was pursuing. So they really didn’t have to, they didn’t took too much issue with it, they didn’t know anything about it. I obviously don’t come from a showbiz family, but they were always very supportive and always just was very clear about who I was, very early on. And so, yeah, so that’s sort of the journey.

Angelo Baque: Jerry.

Jerry Lorenzo: Yeah, I think, you know a lot of what you said, you know, Angelo really rings through in my household, not in a sense that they didn’t necessarily want me to have a career in fashion or arts, it was more that it just wasn’t a possibility, you know. And it was never something that I looked to or something that I could do, you know it was kind of like, “Hey, if you are not going to make it, playing sport, you either go to college or get a job at UPS” you know it’s like, go provide, you know and that’s, that was kind of the reality of my household.

You know I went to school, I went to grad school, I got my MBA. But all through grad school and undergrad, I worked retail and just gained a ton of first hand skills that I still lean on today. And by the time you know later in life, you know early, early to mid-30s, when I looked up and a lot of my friends had brands and you know Melody can probably attest to this and I was like, you know all these guys got brands and narcissistically I feel like I can dress better than them, so I was like I could probably do this too.

So it wasn’t until late, you know that I was like, “Hey, let me try my hand at this,” but it was through working retail that I had all of these you know subconscious skills that I didn’t know that I possessed about understanding what people wanted, how they wanted to dress, why they bought certain things, how they, you know how those things made them feel, etc. etc. But yeah, I can definitely attest to the fact that my parents probably never saw this happening. But I think it just comes from a deep conviction and a belief and a vision that I feel like God placed in my heart, and I think, you know, as we are talking about How I Made It, I think, it’s you know, the money is a product of the vision, you know the Emmy’s are a product of the vision you know and it’s all of these things are fruits of the labor, but they don’t necessarily, they aren’t the gas that makes the engine go. So if without a vision or without you know a picture of where you're heading, I think-I think it’s tough to-to get to that place in your dreams.

Angelo Baque: Right. Mel.

Melody Ehsani: I mean, I think that Jerry and Lena already covered so much, but I think it’s interesting, because every culture has like a different sort of set of its own] rules of engagement. And in my culture it was very much like a woman's value lied in who she married. So for a very long time even though I wasn’t mirrored properly at home, like if I pursued anything in the Arts, I was never really encouraged to go further with it. It was always like, you know I always felt like my mom sort of brought me back to like, “Oh but this is what’s good, like you should strive higher, you should strive to be a doctor, a lawyer, you know like.” And that was always the higher to her and she kind of you know placed like Art and like the Arts more so as a like a hobby. She is like, at school, it could be a hobby but it’s never something that you can actually make your whole life. And so I never really considered it as something that I could do as more than a hobby.

And I didn’t really realize how big of a deal it was until I got to the age where I was like the age of marriage. And it all started the whole thing, the whole cultural thing started to crumble around me where I was like, oh my god, it was like that. The reason why they actually want me to pursue something is, yeah because they do want me to pursue like being a doctor, but really it was because it would make me a better candidate as a wife, you know. So I would likely find a husband that was in medical school or you know it would take me more appealing to somebody, like to marry somebody that was also you know stable, so to speak.

And so when I started to realize all this, I was like, oh my god, and I went through this whole process where I really tried to find my passion and the way it really came for me, not from what was projected on me, but where it came for me from the inside-out. And that’s when I kind of started to explore, you know kind of like what Jerry was saying like it was the things that I had always looked at, and I am like, “Oh I think, I love that, and I think I can do it, but I think I could do it a little better,” or “I think I would do it like this,” or and just started exploring that. And I still am.

Angelo Baque: Thanks Mel. I feel like I have to learn a whole bunch about you. Paulo.

Paulo Calle: For me, my family is from Bolivia, and I moved to America when I was 10 years old. And my parents in Bolivia, my dad owned a library, my mom was like a general banker for like a whole, like a big bank company. And when we moved to America, my parents, my dad went into construction; my mom went to the cleaning houses. And they were always, all they wanted to do is give me a better life than what they have and better opportunities, but they wanted me to become a doctor or a lawyer. For them going to school and getting a degree was the most important thing.

And but I wasn’t really into that, I was into food, creativity, art, I just really, I was just really curious about just clothing and other thing, just cultural stuff. And I knew I always wanted to travel and I was always good with people. And honestly, Angelo is a big reason why I am here, because he was the first person that I saw, that looked like me, coming from South America, that made it a reality, because before I couldn’t gauge who I can relate it to, or is this even possible. Am I just like wasting my time, what am I doing? But when I found about Angelo, I was like, wow, this is doable, this is a reality, I can actually do this.

Yeah, my parents still don’t know what I am doing, they just know that I am not asking for money or you know if they need money I can help them. But they are just happy that like we turned out okay, like my parents visited me not so long ago, and they were just like, my dad had a real conversation with me and he was like, I am just proud, because a lot of kids turn out bad or a lot of kids, you know in my -- and I go the route I went, but it took a lot of sacrifice. And I was the first in my family to do this. So I feel like, it seems impossible, because you are doing something that’s new to them, and they don’t understand it. And they are like why you are doing this? Why aren’t you going to college? Why are you dropping out of college, like why do you want to move to California? Why don’t you stay over here in Maryland, but I had to take those chances and sacrifices to get where I am at and I feel like I am lucky enough that my parents were really good parents. And the one thing that my dad always got in my head was, whatever you want to do, you got to be the best at it. Like if you want to rob houses, be the best robber that could be, like don’t get, don’t rob a house and get caught, now you are an idiot. So that always stuck with me, whatever I do, I just try to give it my best and try to do the best that I can, but yeah that’s-

Angelo Baque: By the way I didn’t pay Paulo to say that, thank you Paulo, I love you, appreciate that. Shaniqwa had a follow-up question.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: Listening to everyone, I was hearing a lot about the vision, you know being able to see things way in advance. I was wondering if you guys could talk about, what was the deciding moment to do what you do, like was there ever a time when you weren’t listening to your gut and you were doing something else, and then all of a sudden, ooh, it came to you, this is what I need to do, I am doing, I need to be doing this. Mel.

Melody Ehsani: I don’t think it was a deciding moment, I think it was more like I hit kind of like rock-bottom, because I kind of got to the place where I had exhausted everything that I could have done. And I knew what it was that I really wanted to do, but I was too scared to do it. So like, you know before I started my brand I opened up a store with a friend of mine, and I was like, okay, well, in this store I'll just make stuff and put stuff in the store, and I'll buy other people's stuff. And after like a couple months into it, I hated it. I was like, I don’t want to be doing this. And then so it was like, it was kind of like I kept trying to do other things and then failing at them. And it kind of got to the point where I had exhausted everything else, and I was like, I don’t know what else to do except for kind of dive off the cliff. So then I did.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: Jerry.

Jerry Lorenzo: I think like one of the things that Paulo said is like super important, you know and seeing someone like Angelo and seeing someone that looks like you, doing something that you either aspire to do and never thought that you could do, because the example didn’t exist. And so for me it wasn’t until I noticed my peers that, again, you know had their own streetwear brands, and at that time you know my perspective wasn’t so much in a graphical placement as much as it was and you know how the hoodie fit, and the t-shirt and the shape, the proportion of it. And so it was seeing my peers, you know be successful in an industry that I felt like I had a vision for.

And you know not sort of to take this thing all the way to the election, this early in the conversation. But you know it’s just where the conviction goes and you know my daughter is seeing someone like Kamala Harris, running for the Vice President of our country, you know and now they know it’s possible. You know I mean I grew up, never, you know my parents would tell me, you could be whatever you want to be. But it’s like, oh I can’t be president, you know until Barrack became president and you see someone that looks like you break that barrier.

And so I'm saying all that to say is once we are in this position as well, there is a responsibility to the kids in the next generation coming up behind us to set a standard of excellence. And I think Paulo said it also, like you know we can’t afford to be anything less than the best versions of who God called us to be. You know we got to be better twice as good as whoever else we are competing you know. And when we do get jobs and I think Shaniqwa said this, when-when we get jobs, it’s like you know without a shadow of a doubt that we are way better than the next person next to us, you know because that’s the calling and that’s the responsibility that we carry with us in being of color. So I think I went on a tangent, but hopefully I answered the question.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: Kind of, but I loved just what you said. I loved what you say all the time. Lena.

Lena Waithe: You know, I don’t remember a deciding moment either; I think it was -- I was always watching television. And I think the interesting thing for me is I think a moment where I figured, hmm this is something, I used to listen to the writers and directors commentary on Sex and the City, Friends, I remember listening to Will & Grace, I remember watching old episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda and Mod and as a young -- this is just being really trying to understand it. But I remember being in college and listening to Michael Patrick King's commentary of Sex and the City like falling asleep to it. And I have learned so much you know from him and now getting to have met him, I just, he just taught me while listening about story, character and things like that, and that is a language that I understood very well and also the power that it had.

And you know and in early days of like Grey’s Anatomy, like really getting into like, okay the pink mist episode, just really being taken with how everybody could be watching characters and stories and be talking about them. And I remember you know going through a West Wing phase, going through a House phase, you know and just really being obsessed, and also like just falling into the dark hole of Mad Man and things like that. That’s when I sort of realized oh I don’t think everybody does this. I think this is, it was, you know it was like me watching game footage. And then I looked at old seasons of The Chi and try to figure out, okay, we could do this better, this could be stronger, waiting for 20s and knowing like this is a moment, this is a pivotal moment and I have to get it right.

So yeah, so I think for me it was-I was very clear that there was an obsession, that’s sort of what I always refer to as an obsession, you have to be obsessed, you have to be drowning in it. That’s why all of us we can all watch the Last Dance and even though we may not play basketball, we understand the weirdness that is Michael Jordan, we get it, like a lot of people look at it and go he was an asshole. It’s like we go in there like, oh yeah, I recognize that, I see that myself. Because we know what it’s like to not care about anything else, but what we see in front of us.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: Paulo.

Paulo Calle: For me it was what Jerry said, just watching my peers becomes -- like I was there early on when Odd Future started, and I was good friends with Left Brain and Hodgy and Tyler and them just take an idea and blow so big it just made me realize, oh like we could, like this is -- but we could do this. I am like these are my friends who have become successful and they are getting paid for their ideas. And I feel like my ideas are just as good or my ideas are not that bad. And I remember I was working retail and I was late and I got fired, it was my fault, but I just that feeling, I just remember I never went to work for anybody else. But like seeing my dad how hard he worked every day he woke up like at 5:00 in the morning, come home at 7:00 PM, and he worked so hard and like that’s how I really learned the value of hard work. But I knew that I didn’t want to have a boss, I didn’t want to, I didn’t want somebody else dictating how I am going to live my life. If I want to travel, I want to be able to travel, like that was my main thing. But I said, I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but once my ideas started working, or I got my first chance to do a lookbook and it came out good and I got a good response, it made me feel like I could do this.

And then once I started working with different people, different clients, and once I was just, you know I was just [inaudible 00:22:39] long time ago, like when we first started it, with me and Verdy, I was afraid to ask for a flight, I was like, wait, you are willing to fly me out to a place, I am like, you can get an economy flight, oh my god, this is amazing. And now it's like, “Yo, we need, you know we need a first-class, we need a driver, get me hooked up, I didn’t even think these things were possible. I was just like glad that somebody was willing to take me to a different place and I didn’t have to pay for it, I was like, oh my god, this is amazing, I didn’t know that thing.

Lena Waithe: On the flight that you ain't pay for, it’s like, would you like what? And they are going to fly you first-class, I remember my agent was like no they are contractually obligated, but I was like what do you mean contractually obligated -- like it was just like it’s true like [inaudible 00:23:26]. Now I am like, what coach, what, what, what’s going on.

Paulo Calle: Well, it was new and like out of this whole discussion and I feel like, I am, I don’t know, I think I am the youngest one, so I feel like you guys have been doing this longer than me.

Lena Waithe: Just 34, everyone on this [Inaudible 00:23:44].

Melody Ehsani: How old are you Paulo, how old are you exactly?

Paulo Calle: I am 30.

Lena Waithe: Okay.

Melody Ehsani: Okay, we all are like okay, okay.

[Crosstalk]

Paulo Calle: All you guys and everybody else, but like I said, you guys might have been doing this longer, but when I first, they would tell us, that we could get first-class, I was like, wait what?

Lena Waithe: Oh --.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: I think we still all feel that way, whenever someone is going to pay you for your worth. When someone is going to recognize you for you know your worth, and you are like, oh, you know I think we are all shell shocked all the time, that people want to do that, that people recognize that within you.

Angelo Baque: I think from what I am hearing also, is validation. You know because at a certain point, at least for me like I stopped giving a shit, you know like I really started believing in myself, like you know what, my ideas are that good. I don’t need a certain person to validate my ideas for it to be good, right. And most of the time actually ten times out of ten in my career it’s always a White person, saying, you know, me looking to get that validation from White person, you know. And we are kind of like in this transition of like a changing of the guard. So it might sound really like kind of like a simple question, but it also transitions into for me like validation and ownership, right, ownership of ideas you know. And I feel like everyone here and everyone here is an owner, right, everyone you know like also when that kind of, that pivot happen, when you are like, you know what, I validate me and I need to own my shit, you know like I can’t continue to you know work like Paulo was saying like, you were working in retail. Jerry.

Jerry Lorenzo: Yeah, and I was going to also piggyback on like kind of what Paulo was saying about his pops, you know and I watched my dad, you know kind of break some ground in Major League Baseball, becoming the first ever you know head coach in Chicago’s sport history and managing The Mets and the White Sox, and you know having a record over 500 and still not getting interview opportunities. And you know even being considered one of the best in his field, his destiny so-to-speak within that field lied in the hands of the owners and general managers within that sport.

And I carry that with me today, you know I remember being in Chicago and you know dad being on the front paper and everyone loved it until the next day, you know fire him, get him out of here, you know and we were out of there, we were out of Chicago. And so there is this something inside that says in order to really, I guess right the ship so to speak, we need to be in a position of power, we need to be in a position of ownership. We need to be in a position to -- we have an issue with hiring [indiscernible] we have an issue with us not getting enough jobs, we got to be in a position to create the jobs, you know what I mean.

And so I-I carry that responsibility with me and I think along with that responsibility is not just an intention, it’s you know having the policies in place to make sure that you know, our office is diverse as you know, what I am saying my heart is, you know and we can all get lazy and you know and things can happen while we're not paying attention. But you know, just speaking as if being a business owner and then once you are getting in this position, understand the responsibility you have for your company to be an example of the change that we are all asking for. We are all asking for change, we are all asking for the world to say that we matter. And you know you can’t ask someone to love you, we can’t, you know you got to show them, you have to be the example of that.

And so for me, you know I am not going to look for someone to say, “Hey, let’s do a collaboration” or “Hey, do you want to be a creative director somewhere?” that’s not my, you know my goal is to you know be as in control of my own destiny as possible you know. And in that honoring that opportunity and giving opportunities to the marginalized and those that are consistently overlooked, and having the company in and of itself being example of the strength of diversity and inclusion.

Angelo Baque: Lena.

Lena Waithe: You know here is a very interesting thing. In television, in film, we don’t own anything, we don’t. You know there is a thing where you celebrate, well I just sold the show, you are really celebrating, selling your IP to a major conglomerate, I don’t own The Chi, I don’t own Twenties, I don’t own Queen & Slim. But I basically sell it to them so that way it can reach a broader audience, and I get points from it. You know it’s like I sell them a thing, so that way we, they then now are my boss, the very weird thing. Distribution is something we kind of haven't figured out yet, I back the script with my own content, been there a space for me to own. And I think there is, you know these conversations are happening, about ownership and owning your IP and things like that.

A big reason why I work so much, the reason why you hear my voice on AT&T videos that I am doing this here, I am doing the stuff is because it's like I'm creating multiple strings of revenue, so that way I can you know, but also too there is a big thing on me to make sure the content that’s comings out of Hillman Grad Production is good every time. You know there is no, it’s not easy being a Black artist, I got to hit it out the park every time.

Jerry Lorenzo: Homeruns every time.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: All the time, every time.

Angelo Baque: Always.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: Or we will come for you.

Lena Waithe: You came from --. You know so there is that added pressure. Also too like being a Black person in the world, you know there is that. And so I am dealing with that and also trying to please the audience who is very hard to -- they are not always easy to please you know. But then also too there is this element of like in terms of who owns the talent and it's still White people. There are still Black folks, yeah, like okay this Black person is not running this network, the Black person, it’s all White person over there.

And I think in my business, it’s about who can, I am trying to be the best I can be at what I do , but at the same time, I am also an artist, and I still want to try different things. And I think when you look like me, you walk like me, you talk like me, there is a certain expectation of what you are going to get from me. And I think in a way you kind of expect Queen & Slim, you expect Twenties, you expect The Chi, well now it’s my ambition to give you something that you don’t expect, and that might make you confused. And so and that’s what I do have coming, and I am curious to see if the audience will grow with me, will rock with me. But that’s the thing, it’s like yes I have Hillman Grad Productions, you know I have that, you know, but the truth is, I am working toward getting to a place where the ideas I come up with I own, but what’s great is that I am already starting to amass these entities and these characters and the stories that people know came from my brain. And so and that is my commerce. Because people know, okay this section of people trust you and that’s really all I have.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: True. I think it’s interesting to hear, like to talk about ownership I mean I think all of you have heard me talk about ownership, you know when it comes to any ideas I have ever had, any of the work that I do so on and so on. And Mel we have talked a lot about this and I kind of want you to talk about your Jordan collaboration, like how that came about and you know, but like that’s a huge, I think that’s a huge thing that you’ve done, two of them.

Lena Waithe: Yeah.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: Right two, Jordan? And not to say that’s not the first shoe, you’ve done other shoes which were also impactful and people loved them, and they sold out super quick, but you know everyone likes to talk about your last things, so we'll talk about the Jordan.

Melody Ehsani: Wait what aspect of it do you want me to talk about?

Shaniqwa Jarvis: Everything. No, but mainly just to talk about how that came about, your ideas, how it all came to you, your storytelling within that.

Melody Ehsani: Oh, okay. Well, it came about, because I had a history with Reebok and I guess I had shown that I could make shoes that were popular and that sold really well to women’s market. And so the moment I left there, they kind of, I knew somebody at Jordan that found out that I have left and came and approached me about it, and so that’s how it came about. And it was a very long drawn process actually, it wasn’t that easy.

But anyway, for the shoes, the first program that they -- well, first of all they wouldn’t give me my own collaboration. So they put me as a part of a program called like the Fearless Ones, and they gave, I think four or five different people their own shoe as a part of this Fearless collection. And so I made one shoe which was the AJ-1 and they gave me a mid, which I was pretty pissed about initially, because it was like made that for kids. And but then I ended up being fine.

And the storytelling behind that was pretty simple actually, I had been to Egypt earlier that year. And I had, I am really big into nail art, it’s sort of like my little canvas. And I had done each nail a different color, and I really loved the way each color looked next to each other and all together. And so I kept searching for something else to apply this sort of color story to. And then when I got the shoes, I was like, oh this is perfect, I have 10 different panels across two different shoes that I could use these colors with. So that’s kind of how that came about.

And then the second one was a little bit more in-depth, because they had brought back, the only shoe that they had ever designed specifically for women’s, which was iconically sort of known as the Sheryl Swoopes shoe even though it was never really associated, I mean it was never officially a Sheryl Swoopes shoe. And they wanted me to be the first person that sort of brought it back. So that was pretty amazing. And so I started researching about the shoe and its history and I remembered seeing it, when I was younger in Eastbay, because that’s how I used to buy shoes. And it was kind of perfect, because the time around which the shoe was coming out, was also coincided with the ten year anniversary of the movie Love & Basketball. And it was also the ten year anniversary of the WNBA’s existence. And so that kind of bugged me out because it was all around I remember that era so perfectly. And it was around, because I graduated high school in 1998. And so I was all started around that area. Why are you guys --

Jerry Lorenzo: ’88?

Melody Ehsani: ’98.

Angelo Baque: Yeah, you heard that too, right Jerry-

Melody Ehsani: Did I say ’88?

Shaniqwa Jarvis: No, no, you said.

Melody Ehsani: Did I say ’88?

Shaniqwa Jarvis: No you didn’t, you said ’98, you said ’98. Don’t let them play you.

Melody Ehsani: ’98.

Angelo Baque: Get me that doc, hook me up, [inaudible 00:36:16] hook me up.

Melody Ehsani: So in ’98. So anyway it was kind of the perfect -- the perfect opportunity to sort of like bridge all that together, because for me growing up, when I was like 17, 18 around that time, all of that was sort of huge like, when Love & Basketball came out, you had never seen a character like Sanaa Lathans on TV before, like you had never seen a girl that wasn’t either super sexy or super nerdy, or there was all these pockets which you had never seen in athlete before, you had never seen an athlete couple, you had never seen an athlete couple of color, you had never really seen a love story of color like that before. And so it really had a big imprint on me. And I remember when I saw that, because she embodied so much of the things that I sort of felt, because I also played basketball during high school, I spent the whole time on the bench, but that’s, I hear, you know that. You know it was like the first time I had kind of really saw the closest thing to myself, because you know if we think about it, up until like a couple of, well first of all there still hasn’t been an Iranian lead in anything. But the closest that I think I had ever seen to it was probably Aziz Ansari in terms of somebody from my part of the world. So anyway, it was a perfect storytelling opportunity with the shoe to sort of bring all that stuff together and, yeah use it.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: And it did pretty well, didn’t it?

Melody Ehsani: It did.

Angelo Baque: I will tell you how well it did that my neighbor [00:38:00] stole the shoes from my mail, I have the fucking video of my neighbor like, with the box cutter opening it up, looking at the shoes being like, like pointed at the shoes like, damn these are dope and just like went right into his jacket.

Lena Waithe: Wow.

Angelo Baque: They were that ill that my neighbor stole them and bought a fifty sack of weed with that.

Melody Ehsani: Yeah, it was kind of cool, the first ones actually are the ones that you talked about that they stole. I think that they said that they are the best-selling and most requested women shoe they have at their women’s club that they have ever had, and they have.

Angelo Baque: You are goddamn right no, that’s right.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: That’s right.

Angelo Baque: That was right, goddamn-

Shaniqwa Jarvis: That’s right.

Angelo Baque: Everybody give Mel a hand of applause. That was a goddamn -- that’s right, give the women her shoes.

Lena Waithe: Come on.

Angelo Baque: Paulo, we are going to take a quick streetwear break, red alert for everybody, Paulo, you know if I didn’t know you, I wouldn’t know the backstory of Girls Don’t Cry, you know when I think of your brand, I think of you know phenomenon. And I think you know, people like you know kids that are tuning into this would like to know a little bit about you and you know how you and Verdy met. You can do a quick little brief, you don’t have to get to the whole rundown, but I am still curious.

Paulo Calle: So well my first brand Rare Panther, we had an opportunity to go to Japan maybe like six, seven years ago. So we went to Japan, we did a pop-up, and my partner Reggie, he is a contemporary artist. He traveled to Japan the year before. And he was -- he actually met Verdy and he was Verdy’s first American friend. So then when I went to Japan, Verdy was my first Japanese friend. And Verdy is still the same person that he is today the most happy, joyful, the person you will probably ever meet. And yeah, we just became friends and we kept in touch. I remember when I went there, I didn’t know anybody so he modeled my lookbook, I am like put on my hat and did the whole thing and he was like, I don’t do this but whatever. So he did it and then we just remained friends. Every time he will come to LA, he will sleep in my couch, stay in my house; every time I went to Japan, I will hit him up, and we are friends before anything. And he started the brand Girls Don’t Cry as a gift for his wife.

So his wife was kind of going through a tough time, he is a graphic designer. He made it his font, he like hand-drew the entire font and he made a T-shirt and a tote bag and gifted it to her as a gift, you know just to remind her that women are strong - like keep pushing forward. And it was a gift and then he kind of just gave it to a few people, people kind of found out about it, did his first pop-up in Japan, and it went crazy. And then he came to America and was like, you know Paulo, I want you to be my partner, could we please work together. And I couldn’t say no to him honestly, he is just so nice, I was like, Verdy, let’s do it.

But we need to find him and think that us working together that our lives were going to change or we were going to be able to get the success or anything that happened, we were just like, yeah let’s work together. And yeah, that’s how kind of it came about. And we did our first pop-up in 2018, in La Brea. And that was the first time like Girls Don’t Cry was in the U.S. and from there it was just history. After that we got a call from Jun Undercover Collaboration a call from Nigo, and me being a little streetwear Japan, like I love Japan streetwear. Getting all these opportunities I couldn’t believe it, you know like what, they want to work with us, they know about what this is, and I was just happy.

And well, what we have been able to build is, there's -- we have three, we don’t have one brand, Girls Don’t Cry like I said is a gift for Verdy’s wife, Wasted Youth is a brand that Verdy started, that focuses on his love for punk and skateboarding. And we have a character name Vick which is like a panda rabbit mixed in one. And when everybody wanted to work with us, everybody wanted Girls Don’t Cry and we will be like, no, you get Wasted Youth, and they would be like, no. And then people just wanted to work with us. And the way I describe our business, we are like a modern day agency, where me and Verdy work on everything together, but we dictate what project we get. And people just want to work with us, and I think that’s really important, because we are not following seasons, we are not following, we don’t wholesale to anybody, we don’t do the traditional ways to do fashion. We kind of are making our own blueprint in a way, but me and Verdy have been you know we are students of the game that we learn a lot from all of you guys and just the people before us. But we also wanted to change the game, we don’t just want to play it. And I feel like we have been lucky enough that we have been doing some of that stuff.

Angelo Baque: By the way Paulo and Verdy are millionaires now, give him round of applause, millionaires, there we go.

Jerry Lorenzo: I love that being in a position to dictate, I think that’s so like, you know so important, and it’s kind of going back to what Melody was talking about, and you know some of these companies will give you an opportunity, but that opportunity most likely is already figured out, set of ideas that they want to plug you into, you know, Hey, now you play with this Air Force 1-Mid, you know I mean or whatever that maybe. And once you get to a place where you understand the value that you are bringing the company, you have to be strong enough in your point of view to change, who is dictating either the collaboration or the relationship. And I think that’s really huge is once you understand it’s like, oh actually I'm-I'm not going to color up a three, we are going to -- I've got a better idea that would be a better use of your innovation and my point of view.

And so I think one of the greatest things that we can exemplify for the next generation is you know, how do we dictate change and how do we dictate our point of view. That is not a system that’s pulling us into something, and sometimes you can get pulled into someone else’s plans. And that can take you off track of your own vision for your own life. And so a lot of gems in between what you and Mel were talking about, I was just kind of picking up on.

Paulo Calle: No, I think that’s a good point though because I think, I mean I can speak for myself, maybe some of us just to get the opportunity sometimes we are just eager to say yes, like, oh what this company wants to work with us. But I feel like once you know the true value and what you actually, they need you more than you need them. And I want to -- like the word no has more value than anything else like I don’t have to do any of this, like you guys need us, we need you guys. And like you said, being true to your vision and what it stands for, so for example, with Girls Don’t Cry, this was a gift for Verdy’s wife, anytime we do a collaboration if his wife doesn’t like it, then it won’t happen, because the true essence of the brand was the gift for her. So it doesn’t matter who wants to work with us, you know, it could be whoever, but if it’s not true to Verdy’s wife or what she likes, then we won’t do it.

And I really respect that because you know sometimes you get offered crazy money, you are like wait, what, we are saying no, but I think it’s really important to say no. And what you said earlier, I feel like I am more interested in the journey. I want to be here for 30 years and the money is just the icing on the cake. But once your main focus is money, I feel like that’s when you lose the passion when you have to go to 9 to 5 or you have to do it, I think like the reason we enjoy everything that we do is because we have that creative freedom. And I feel like once it becomes a job, I think it just sucks, the reason why you fell into the gambit, you know it kind of sucks the fun out of it, in my opinion.

Jerry Lorenzo: Agree.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: Yeah. We have covered a lot of things here. And Angelo and I talk often not just because we are best friends and bounce ideas off of each other, but when we were younger, he and I, we just wanted to do what we wanted to do. And we always had people who would be like, nah, like straight up they would be like not with them again, you know. And I think it’s what really propelled the both of us to like push hard in the fields we were both working in. And my computer is going to die. But so, but I wanted to ask you Lena, because I know that there has been things that have actually helped to propel you forward. And if you wouldn’t mind sharing that, even if it was like a friendship or chance meeting with someone, who has like helped you to keep it moving, because every day you know, you know some days you don’t want to like oh.

Lena Waithe: You know I mean that was -- very much been the community you know and I think that-

Off topic conversation]

Lena Waithe: Yeah, the people that I got a chance to work for the first person I got to work was Mara Brock Akil over at Girlfriends. And who then led me to Gina Prince-Bythewood who I've loved and Mel so [inaudible 00:47:44]. And then Gina was like so I know somebody else that needs an assistant who [inaudible 00:47:55]. So I went and worked over there. So you know, I got -- they kind of played hacky sack, a little bit all these Black women that were in the space that I wanted to be in. And I think -- but then also too, I mean my homie was Justin Simien. You know I think we were very much like, you and Angelo, you know like, we want to, we get stuff we want to do, and Justin was someone that I met in the Writers Group, and we just really connected. And then I met Nia Jervier and Ashley Blaine and all these people.

And so what happened was, I saw people ahead of me, who were sort of their own class and I kind of quickly realized that I was a part of a class as well. And I met Mel, you know I met all these people that were through you just meet all these people. And somebody who has worked with Mara Brock Akil, that’s where I met Jerry’s wife, who is now his wife. I mean we are all in this universe, and we kind of connect and we relate to each other and we connect to each other and we understand each other. And so everyone I have met and befriended and worked with in small capacity is very much, we are part of, I always say this -- we are a tribe, we are the same tribe.

And it’s something that you know I picked up by watching something, I am always watching something, watching a documentary. One of my favorite documentaries is about A Tribe Called Quest. And I love that Q-Tip, he was like, “It’s never about me it’s about the tribe.” And it is just something about that just was like, ah. And people weren’t even [inaudible 00:49:37] it is always about Q-Tip, it’s all about Q-Tip. And Q-Tip is like no, no it’s not about me, it’s about the tribe. So that just really stuck with me and I think that’s really how I live. You know whenever people hit me up or they ask for something, or they need something, I am always very quick to be like, “Okay let me get you” “I got you” you know that’s why I think I get hit up so much because I think people are very aware of that if they hit me, they are going to get a response.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: That’s why you are here, that’s why you are here.

Angelo Baque: Can I get Lena’s number now, do I get access.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: No, you don’t get access.

Lena Waithe: People they know, you guys have known what it is, Mel know, Mel hit me long time ago, it's like I have a table read, I was like can we just do a table read, you know what I mean.

Melody Ehsani: Now can you tell you this is before Lena had -- this is like years ago, Lena hadn’t blown up it all, nobody knew who Lena was yet. And my cousin, who is like, you know late 40s early 50s, she is in a job that she likes, but she doesn’t really like and she had expressed, she have like secretly told me that she was working on a script kind of like as a passion project. And I was like, a script, I was like that’s not just something you write, because you're at the board, like you have to have some kind of love for this, so it kind of alerted like my attention.And so we were in a group, and Lena heard about the fact that my cousin who she has no connection to, had written this script. And Lena was like, “Yo, does your cousin need help, I can help her. Like let’s just set up a table read at your house, let’s do this.” Literary without me involved, in a matter of like a couple of hours, Lena had set up like she had called 10 of her friends, these are like known actors, actresses, had set up a table read, and had invited my cousin over. And they all sat around and read her script like with actors and stuff. This is somebody who is a teacher, like she is not in this world at all, do you realize like, it made me so emotional thinking about it, it like literally changed her life. Like that Lena had gone out of her way to do this.

And that’s what I always say about you Lena, because that’s still who you are, like after the Emmy, before the Emmy, like that’s still what you do. You're like, I think that you are a mentor, like that’s you are a writer but really you are a mentor. You like you just clear the way for everyone and pull people through and bring them with you. And that’s the testament to your character. And that’s why the fruits of your labor do get to be something like an Emmy.

Lena Waithe: Thank you. Well I do, but I think, but I our mentor, because I was mentored, you know. And [00:52:30] you know Susan Fales-Hill who was the showrunner of A Different World, who I now proudly get to say is the showrunner of Twenties. You know I just and just before this, I swear I am not throwing names around but I just talked to Robert Townsend but it’s because I want to work with him, is because I am very aware of who came before me. I know that I do not do this without the help of those that have to have laid the groundwork for me to come in and do what I do. And so I think that’s why it’s still important, I never want walking in your purpose to be a privilege. You know it’s like-

Jerry Lorenzo: You know what it costs.

Lena Waithe: Yeah, go ahead Jerry.

Jerry Lorenzo: No, I was just saying you know the cost, you know the cost that you know people would pay for us to be where we are. And you know the people that came before us and the cost that they had to pay, you know whether -- they never even getting to see the opportunities that we get. And so now that we have those opportunities, understanding of what sacrifice and the walls that were broken before us, we have a responsibility to take it to the higher heights, you know. It’s, you got to take it to the heights where you can you know be in a position to pull some other people up behind you. So that’s amazing, that’s heavy. I love that, you know you are in your position and you constantly recognize those before you, I think that’s super amazing and continue to write stories that celebrate us, and understanding the responsibility that we have sometimes to first celebrate us, maybe even before some of those other movies and ideas that you have in your head that maybe aren’t about us. But we have to carry the responsibility of celebrating us, sometimes before doing something selflessly that maybe we have an idea outside of that, and that’s just another thing that you know, we just have to carry, you know in being of color, just comes with it. So but thank God, we are super gifted, so-

Shaniqwa Jarvis: There it is, there it is. Well I want to thank all of you for sharing your time, your stories, your feelings with us and with our Social Studies fam. It’s very important because you know creativity isn't made in a vacuum, and things are just handed to people especially when they look like us, when you are black-brown, that just isn't what it is. So I really appreciate all of you for being friends of ours and also for trusting us to get you know personal and share all of your bits, inch.

Angelo Baque: I feel like at least for me the most important lesson learned because so many kids ask me all the time, like what did you do, how did you do it, what did you go through you know to get into the position that you are in right now. But at the root of it what I heard from everyone here, it all started with a good intention, right. The heart is in a good place, then the fruit that you bear through the work, it will be amazing. And I feel everyone in their own right has beared like the most beautiful basket of fruit you know from the labor of their love and their work.

So you know so for you kids that are watching, you know from where you are at right now, like if the intention is, because you are really obsessed or are you in love with this body of work that you are pursuing or this career that you are pursuing, then you know no matter what, whatever the outcome is, you will be fine. It’s not about like and Jerry and Paulo mentioned it, you know it’s not about the million dollar, as much as I joke about it, it’s not about the seven figures or eight figures, it’s really about where is your heart at, how are you being of service, how are you helping your community, how are you helping out your family and how are you helping others get through that door. And that was the whole, honestly that was the whole objective of why Shaniqwa and I came up with Social Studies, was to help others. So --

Shaniqwa Jarvis: Because we really weren’t helped.

Angelo Baque: Yeah as much as Shaniqwa, a lot of doors were shut on our faces back home in New York. You know we went through a lot of shit to get to where we are at today. It wasn’t handed to us, we really fought. And I assume that everybody in this room fought. So thank you.

Lena Waithe: Can I just thank you all for creating the space, and bringing us together. I mean this is such an amazing thing that you guys are doing, because oftentimes when you aren’t helped and that’s sometimes a thing a cycle you continue. So I just -- it's time to break the cycle. Because of you so many others would be helped and you will never know like how many people you will help. Somebody, somewhere is going to be on the panel and say, well you know I was learning by watching this panel of Social Studies. And so thank you all for including us in that, truly.

Jerry Lorenzo: Thank you.

Paulo Calle: Yeah that was amazing. Thank you guys.

Shaniqwa Jarvis: Love you all.

Angelo Baque: Love you all.