The Lost Episodes: MIA

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Adam Friedland?

  This episode is brought to you by Major League Baseball. There is nowhere left to go. Two teams, one championship. Watch the World Series. Yeah, the World Series, presented by Capital One on Fox and Fox One. No time like October. Visit MLB.com/Postseason to learn more.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  Observe the North American dad. 50s, great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, dang, that's a good offer. The highest form of approval. No haggling, no hassle. No one called him boss. He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on Carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply.

• 0:53Adam Friedland?

  Welcome back to the Adam Friedland Show. This is the second week of our lost episodes series on the 26th of August. Season three premieres. Folks, this week's episode is with MIA. I was, I went to London for a soccer game from my bachelor party and I'm disgusting. I was sick and I'm sitting next to this angel. But it's a really good episode. We, I just watched it this morning. It's really good. You'll enjoy it. So that's probably why we didn't release it. I don't know. But also New York Comedy Festival, November 27th, Town Hall. Get your tickets at adamfriedland.show. Thanks a lot, guys. Enjoy the episode. It's good.

• 1:39Adam Friedland?

  That's, why you sound sarcastic? Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to welcome MIA. Give it up for her.

• 1:51Adam Friedland?

  You really brought an entourage today. Hi.

• 1:54Speaker 02

  Hi.

• 1:55Adam Friedland?

  Hi, Maya. Thanks for coming on.

• 1:58Speaker 02

  Hi, Adam.

• 1:59Adam Friedland?

  I'm a big fan. I was telling you on the phone yesterday. You strike me as a person that everything you try, you're good at. Is that right?

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 2:09Adam Friedland?

  You just can do it. Like you didn't want to be a musician. You just did it. Is that right? You want to be a filmmaker?

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:16Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 2:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. It takes, it takes a lot of money to make a film.

• 2:21Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  And I was like, how am I going to do that? You know? And then.

• 2:26Adam Friedland?

  I talked to a filmmaker because I thought he might have met you today, but he said that. I think you just are a fan, but I wanted to know if you guys have met. I took to Harmony today.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Harmony Corin?

• 2:37Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, I have a number one fan.

• 2:41Adam Friedland?

  He said, say what up. Yeah. And you like Dogwood 95, too. Those are your, that's your vibe.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:46Adam Friedland?

  Hearing that, you went to Central St. Martins, which is like the art school in the UK. Were you like, were, you were cool growing up? Or were you weird?

• 2:57Speaker 02

  I was both. I was weird and cool. But Harmony Corin made weird, cool as well.

• 3:05Adam Friedland?

  Sure.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  So it was perfect. It was that perfect time. I was like 18 when he made, or maybe 17, 18 when he made Kids.

• 3:13Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  So it just.

• 3:16Adam Friedland?

  That made me afraid of having sex.

• 3:18Speaker 02

  You know, that there was a tiny little thing where weird, cool people belonged and it was nice.

• 3:23Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:24Adam Friedland?

  Do you have like early film projects from schools still that you like still have access to?

• 3:33Speaker 02

  I am, I just, I don't know. Somewhere in my mom's attic, maybe.

• 3:37Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Do you remember what they were?

• 3:39Speaker 02

  Oh, God, yeah. I made this weird film, obviously.

• 3:46Speaker 02

  And it was about, it's funny. It was about numbers. Okay. So I was trying to work something out. I was really, I was, I was, okay. So if you did film at St. Martins.

• 3:58Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  You kind of had to be a lesbian, you know? And I would go in with stilettos and shit like that. And they were like, she needs to be kicked out of college. So they would always have a group meeting saying, Maya's coming in with like tight leggings and stilettos on and miniskirts.

• 4:17Adam Friedland?

  You're talking about the prejudice you experienced.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, so they were like, she's not serious about movies. She needs to get kicked out. So.

• 4:23Adam Friedland?

  She's cargo shorts.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  Yes. And a plaid shirt. Like everybody was sort of like that. And like, you know, at that time, it was really fashionable to shave all your hair. So everyone had like skinheads and trying to look like aliens and things. And then, and then there was me that was kind of like listening to hip hop and, you know, and R and B and would be wearing stilettos. But also like I did go through a mullet phase and stuff like that. But then, but you know, I was experimenting.

• 4:55Adam Friedland?

  You're finding your thing.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  I was finding my thing. And, and so I realized that the best films to make were material, materialist films where you affect the film, which means that your creativity became more about not, you know, writing shots down and making narrative movies. Or I didn't want to do like highly conceptual movies either. So it was more about like how to invent a style in the way you.

• 5:34Adam Friedland?

  You were fucking around.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like the physical form of the film, you know? Like it was an art degree as well.

• 5:40Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  So the first one I made was about numbers and it was about this, this setting up this, funny enough, it's, it's like setting up a narrative, but the narrative was just about this guy, say like playing the lottery or something. Yeah. But each scene, the way he chooses the numbers is just a weird way, right? But the narrative of the film sets you up that he's one thing. But then at the end, it's something else totally. So it was, it's kind of like a.

• 6:17Adam Friedland?

  And did you earn the respect of the lesbian community or?

• 6:21Speaker 02

  I didn't.

• 6:22Adam Friedland?

  Oh.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  I didn't.

• 6:23Adam Friedland?

  They're a tough, they're a tough one.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  No, this is what happened. The actor that I casted to do it, I swear to God, I filmed the stuff. He was really like cool and everything. And then like my friend, or the year after my friend, who was in the same class, she ended up becoming like the first porn director for Channel X.

• 6:48Adam Friedland?

  Who?

• 6:49Speaker 02

  She was called Anna.

• 6:50Adam Friedland?

  Was it? She's a porn, wow.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  She was doing porn while we were at St. Martins.

• 6:55Adam Friedland?

  Oh, cool.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  And, and I'd cast this actor to be in this numbers film that I was making. And then a year later, she's like, you know, my cameraman dropped out. Can you come and help me do camera today?

• 7:07Adam Friedland?

  You shot a porno?

• 7:08Speaker 02

  So I went to do camera, but I was very highly opinionated about like the lighting and this and that, you know? Because I'd been obsessed about material filmmaking. And so I was like not interested in the narrative.

• 7:24Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  But then there's a knock at the door. The actor arrives and I open the door and it's the same actor.

• 7:29Adam Friedland?

  And then you got to see him having sex?

• 7:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. And basically he, he couldn't have sex in front of me because he already knew me kind of thing.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  So then she fired me on the set and she was like, you need to leave.

• 7:44Adam Friedland?

  You're ruining this.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:45Adam Friedland?

  You can't get hard.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. So then that was my like very short lived. So I, I've tried different things. Yeah.

• 7:54Adam Friedland?

  But you, you started doing visual arts. You were making like an album artwork and stuff, like graphic arts and stuff. Is that correct? And you just smashed that and then what? You just became a music? I mean, it doesn't seem.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Yes, I sometimes.

• 8:07Adam Friedland?

  There's something very charming about, it's like the kind of girl that you like fall in love with and then she ruins you because she's just so amazing. But she, yeah, then she goes like, oh, I have to go to Europe with a married man. And you're like, okay, fine. What's wrong with me? You were with a journalist that took you around to different genocides?

• 8:29Speaker 02

  I wasn't with him.

• 8:30Adam Friedland?

  There's a song about it, right?

• 8:32Speaker 02

  I was pining.

• 8:33Adam Friedland?

  But what I'm saying is like you had this like.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  That was my past, okay?

• 8:37Adam Friedland?

  I'm just saying, you, you, it's what's clear is like there's this, I have this image in my mind of like you just like going through life and just like being purely creative and like trying out different things and then kind of, because it is a very rare thing to like, for someone to just have a knack for any creative arts that they apply themselves to. Although that Numbers movie, I don't know about that, but that.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it wasn't good.

• 9:02Adam Friedland?

  No, no, but like.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  But I was trying something that, you know, I was, I was trying to figure out how, you know, it's actually became a Hollywood formula of the next whatever, you know, like to set up a narrative and there's a twist at the end. Like.

• 9:20Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, sure.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  That became a thing.

• 9:22Adam Friedland?

  Shawmelian.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  Exactly. He's a pro at that. So that's, it's a thing, but you know, at that time, my first year, I was, I was trying to do that. But then, anyway, because obviously my dad's not.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  From the art world, you know.

• 9:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  He's a politician and he's a writer and things like that.

• 9:42Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, how did immigrant parents handle you being an artist?

• 9:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So it was the first time someone had done that. So it was kind of lonely, even though you say, oh, you're just rolling around being creative and expressive.

• 9:54Adam Friedland?

  I mean, you must have been thrilling to be around in those days. I don't know, I'm sorry if.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  Also weird, you know, because you go home and your family are like weird.

• 10:03Adam Friedland?

  That's the best. Your mother was a seamstress for the royal family.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:09Adam Friedland?

  And she made medals, is that correct?

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, because during the time I was living in the council flat, my mom looked in the paper and the only job that didn't require English was the sewing thing. And my mom's always been a seamstress, even in Sri Lanka. So her and my cousin applied for the job and they both got it and it was around the corner from my school.

• 10:31Adam Friedland?

  And they chilled with the Queen of England?

• 10:33Speaker 02

  And they would just sit in a room and sew these medals and it's like so bizarre, you know, I didn't really.

• 10:39Adam Friedland?

  Well, you got, what is it called, MBE?

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the full cycle of that is that my mom stitched my medal.

• 10:48Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  Which is weird.

• 10:50Adam Friedland?

  What is it called, what does it mean? Member of the British.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  British Empire.

• 10:56Adam Friedland?

  Empire. How'd that feel? And you got it from the Queen at her birthday party?

• 11:02Speaker 02

  I got it from Prince William.

• 11:06Adam Friedland?

  Prince William, the bald one?

• 11:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:08Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Charles wasn't there. And then I went to Prince William and as I got my medal, I was like, hey, can you release Julian Assange?

• 11:19Adam Friedland?

  You said that?

• 11:20Speaker 02

  I did. So if you hear me talking, that's what I was saying. I was like, can you please release him out of, you know, H M R C Belmarsh, which is the most worst prison ever? And he said, I'm sorry, it's out of my hands. And then I was like, but you're the king.

• 11:39Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, he's just the prince.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  The prince.

• 11:41Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  I was like, surely you can talk to your dad or your grandma.

• 11:46Adam Friedland?

  No, those guys can't do anything.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  He was like, no, it's out of my hands. I don't have that power.

• 11:50Adam Friedland?

  They just live in a house.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  And then I walked off.

• 11:54Adam Friedland?

  Wait, so did you get, did they do it with a sword or no? That's not.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  No, he just like pins it on you, I think.

• 12:00Adam Friedland?

  What do you get? Like, do you get like a discount at like a Tesco's or what, like?

• 12:04Speaker 02

  Okay, I didn't get anything.

• 12:05Adam Friedland?

  What are like the, what are the Bennys for a M?

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Nothing, but you know what? It's kind of useful right now, today in this moment. Because, you know, you're like cancelled for words, but I got that medal for my words.

• 12:21Adam Friedland?

  One thing I've, I've always fixated on is like, there's this cultural exchange, like especially in rock and roll, like, like Mick Jagger sings in an American accent or Adele sings in an American accent, like, something about you and the Clash is like, you're using your own voice, like, was that a deliberate thing or?

• 12:42Speaker 02

  No, I'm just me, you know?

• 12:44Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 12:45Speaker 02

  It's hard to be something you're not.

• 12:47Adam Friedland?

  Like Mike Skinner, I always thought was really cool that he sounds that way.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  So I, I had, I wanted to be as honest as possible. And also, truth is important to me. So like, you always had to be like that so that it was just airtight, no one can knock you, you know? And, and, and I thought, to me, that was important to be truthful.

• 13:09Adam Friedland?

  Did you go to sound clashes and stuff?

• 13:11Speaker 02

  I actually came from a different zone.

• 13:13Adam Friedland?

  You were listening to hip hop?

• 13:14Speaker 02

  I was listening to hip hop and then I was listening to, you know, dance rave music quite a lot, like.

• 13:20Adam Friedland?

  The 90s?

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I did a bit of that and that was always part of my thing. But then I discovered, well, I came to America for the first time in, in the late 90s or middle, middle 90s. Yeah, some, something like that. And then that, that, then I got really into West Coast rap or any rap. It from everywhere. And then I was a bit of a hard head about that until I went to St. Martin's. And then when I started mixing with people and they would take me to like London parties, because I didn't really go to those kind of parties, you know, like cool parties, jungle raves,

• 14:02Speaker 02

  which, which kind of samples dance for a lot. And it had, it's much more like street stuff. And then when I started going to fashion parties is when I was getting into like indie music. I guess Oasis came out, when did Oasis put their first record out?

• 14:16Adam Friedland?

  94.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  So I started St. Martin's around 96. So that's what was popping, you know? Oasis, The Verve, like you had all this indie music and Spike Jonze started making music videos. And it was all just like the best kind of art, you know, Radiohead was like the biggest band and. Yeah, best band ever. So I, you know, you couldn't avoid it. It was just like in your face. It was just like the best time in London. It was basically the cool Britannica era. And so you couldn't avoid it. I was at St. Martin's and that's when I got into the Clash.

• 14:59Adam Friedland?

  So what was the segue into music? Was it?

• 15:02Speaker 02

  I didn't want to be a musician at that time. I was just impressed by video, music videos, you know? So my ambitions after leaving St. Martin's was to be a music video director. And nobody would give me a job because you really had to like network to do that, you know? And, and people were like, what's she gonna know?

• 15:23Adam Friedland?

  She's not a lesbian.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  She's not a lesbian. And it's so dominated by like these like dudes, you know? And so my favorite video at the time was, I would say every Radiohead video. Every Radiohead, yeah, that, that, they were the pinnacle. And Bjork had amazing videos. So we were just like, wow, you know, it was like the best time for art.

• 15:46Adam Friedland?

  Do you remember the first song you made?

• 15:50Speaker 02

  The first one I wrote was M I A, which is the hidden.

• 15:52Adam Friedland?

  And you just dropped your first song that you ever tried?

• 15:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:56Adam Friedland?

  Fucking hell.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  That was.

• 15:57Adam Friedland?

  I mean, that's crazy. You know, that's kind of, like in standup, like no one's good when they start. Like apparently Dave Chappelle was, you know, like, but it is a very rare thing to be able to just like, you're probably gonna be.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  But I just dropped my sketchbooks, you know?

• 16:15Adam Friedland?

  You're gonna be Michelin star chef tonight, if I had to guess.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  I kind of can be.

• 16:20Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, she kind of can be.

• 16:22Speaker 02

  It's kind of what I've been doing since I've been fired, like cooking every day. And it's just like, wow, you know, like,

• 16:28Adam Friedland?

  Who's getting fired by? The Monopoly man?

• 16:32Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 16:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, the, the powers that, anyway. Tell me about the film C B Four.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  Wow, you really, do you know people that went to St. Martin's with me or something?

• 16:44Adam Friedland?

  No, I just love, I, it's, I just, no, I don't.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Okay, C B Four came out. Obviously, I love comedy as well.

• 16:53Adam Friedland?

  It's a Chris, Chris, it's like a Chris Rock film.

• 16:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's a spoof that Chris Rock did, yeah, of West Coast rap. And it was so hilarious, but obviously it was borderline not good. It's highly controversial. It wouldn't even get shot nowadays, you know? But at that time, it was so extreme and it was so funny and it was dealing with really important subjects. And I took it into college and I was like, I want to, you know, because everybody kept, like, any suggestions for like films we need to discuss and, you know, in film theory or whatever, everyone would be like, Fellini, Goddard and, and I was like.

• 17:40Adam Friedland?

  Dreyer.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Yes, and I, I presented C B Four and then everyone's like, absolutely, kick her out now, kick her out.

• 17:47Adam Friedland?

  She's the coolest girl I've ever met. Was Jarvis Cocker at your school?

• 17:50Speaker 02

  So he'd graduated by the time I'd gone there. P J Harvey went there.

• 17:54Adam Friedland?

  Whoa.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:56Adam Friedland?

  Wow.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  Jarvis. And I heard Sade went there, but she did fashion. And then there was rumors that David Bowie went there, but I'm not sure.

• 18:06Adam Friedland?

  In terms of the way that music is distributed, in terms of like guerrilla kind of self-produced marketing, like, you were kind of the, you were like maybe like, I don't know, Soulja Boy were like the, do you consider yourself MySpace generation? I mean, that, that is really just like, it's a precursor to SoundCloud and like everything that's come since then, right?

• 18:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I guess so. I guess so. It just all happened so fast, didn't it? Like, because really I started off the DIY person and spray painting and pressing vinyls and, actually, the first demo, that M I A song, Anne Glang, were, were recorded on a DAT tape. So I had to go and borrow like studio time and they gave me M I A and Glang on a DAT.

• 18:48Adam Friedland?

  So you could put it on MySpace?

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, then I had to buy a DAT machine and, you know, and convert it. And so then, you know, when I did vinyls, that was like, okay, now we're talking like common people language, like pressing vinyls. So people can play it in the DJ sets. And when I met Diplo, there was vinyls going on. MySpace hadn't happened, you know, that came like a couple of years after.

• 19:16Adam Friedland?

  And you guys were dating, you were like collaborators as well? What's wrong? I can't say that?

• 19:23Speaker 02

  No.

• 19:24Adam Friedland?

  You had a boyfriend, sorry. I mean, like you got, you made paper plays together.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  I found him.

• 19:30Adam Friedland?

  You discovered Diplo?

• 19:31Speaker 02

  I discovered him.

• 19:33Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 19:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 19:35Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I turned up at his thing. He didn't turn up at mine.

• 19:39Adam Friedland?

  Well, it sounds like you went to his show.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  I heard his demo. So he made his first song. It was called Newsflash. And it was on a friend's mixtape. And I was like, that sounds like The Sound, you know? Or this person, they need, there's something that I feel like is a, a thing that they get the same.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  Well, they've had the same upbringing musically.

• 20:06Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  And I could tell that by one demo. And then I just rang around and found out like where he was or who he was. And this is before the internet and somebody had, he was signed to a British record label called Ninja Toons.

• 20:22Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  And, or Big Data or something and they booked him for a club night in London.

• 20:28Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  And I got the flyer and then I went and I took Galan, which was a white label. And I was like, can you play the song? We had some, you know, beats in common and, and he knew some odd references that only I knew. And, and I was like, wow, that's pretty cool, but we didn't really get together. It's only after I went to Philly to make the mixtape.

• 21:02Adam Friedland?

  And you heard, you were telling me the story behind hearing the track for Paper Planes?

• 21:08Speaker 02

  We had a, we had a, a friend in common who was the editor of Fader magazine at the time called Knox Robinson. And Knox had a record label and he went to Jamaica and he was doing a remix album of the Serious Times rhythm.

• 21:26Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  But this is how everything is connected because of all rhythms, yeah. He was doing Serious Times rhythm and I feel like I'm major in talking about Serious Times. And so he brought the record to my apartment and me and Wes were living together at the time and he was like, here's the Gypsy record, right? So Gypsy had a record.

• 21:51Adam Friedland?

  Folja?

• 21:53Speaker 02

  No, it's before that, Serious Times. Yeah, that was his big crossover hit. But before that, he did a Serious song called Serious Times.

• 22:09Adam Friedland?

  A Serious Times?

• 22:09Speaker 02

  Is the best song.

• 22:11Adam Friedland?

  I wanna listen to it.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  The best song. You're gonna love this song. It's one of my favorite songs.

• 22:18Adam Friedland?

  He doesn't say the tightest hole. It's like different lyrics.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  It is the tightest hole.

• 22:24Adam Friedland?

  I thought it was the tightest.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  No.

• 22:27Adam Friedland?

  I thought it was a nasty song.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  This is Gypsy and he's highly conscious.

• 22:30Adam Friedland?

  I apologize, guys. He's a conscious guy?

• 22:33Speaker 02

  He's a very conscious guy.

• 22:34Adam Friedland?

  I thought you were talking about his penis being too big.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  And I was obsessed with the song.

• 22:38Adam Friedland?

  What's it called? Gypsy?

• 22:39Speaker 02

  Serious Times.

• 22:41Adam Friedland?

  So Wes was remixing that. Okay.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  And he got the Paper Planes beat on the go. It's like nine thirty in the morning. And he's got the Clash sample going. And he's going, and he's trying to fix it to these are some serious times. And I was like, this is my favorite song. Why would you even ruin it?

• 23:05Speaker 02

  And then at the same time, I was like, I can write a song on that. So I was like, I have some lyrics and I, I kinda got out of bed, got on the mic and

• 23:15Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  We tried Paper Planes.

• 23:18Adam Friedland?

  Did you get in trouble for the gun? No.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, there was a bit, yeah.

• 23:24Adam Friedland?

  Who cares?

• 23:25Speaker 02

  In- Inoscope kept taking it out and then we just kept fighting.

• 23:28Adam Friedland?

  They put out Kim by Eminem. They put out a song about him putting his wife in a trunk.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you know, like people on the TV.

• 23:38Adam Friedland?

  And take your money?

• 23:39Speaker 02

  It's different when it comes from a brown woman, a baddie. It's very baddie stuff to do.

• 23:46Adam Friedland?

  I mean, that's, yeah.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  For a white blonde guy is different, but when it comes from a brown woman, yeah.

• 23:53Adam Friedland?

  You can't say boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and take your money?

• 23:56Speaker 02

  With a past.

• 23:57Adam Friedland?

  Oh my god. Was that the first time you got in trouble?

• 24:00Speaker 02

  You ain't saying that, eh?

• 24:01Adam Friedland?

  Was that the first time you got in trouble?

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Hmm, no. The first time was when I said, like, PLO, I don't surrender. On my first song.

• 24:09Adam Friedland?

  Like Andrea Pirlo?

• 24:10Speaker 02

  So I came out the gate in trouble, really.

• 24:13Adam Friedland?

  Wait, wait, what's the lyric?

• 24:15Speaker 02

  In Sun Showers, which was my first single.

• 24:18Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Uh, it said, like, PLO, I don't surrender.

• 24:22Adam Friedland?

  Andrea Pirlo, the soccer player for Italy?

• 24:25Speaker 02

  No, like P L O.

• 24:26Adam Friedland?

  Oh, like the PLO?

• 24:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, like Palestinian Liberation Organization.

• 24:30Adam Friedland?

  Palestine tip.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  It was my first sentence.

• 24:32Adam Friedland?

  So you got, she got cancelled for that?

• 24:34Speaker 02

  Yes, in two thousand and four. So they took it off the radio, they cancelled my song and then, and then people started writing into the American government.

• 24:44Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  Saying, this person cannot come to America and perform.

• 24:47Adam Friedland?

  Cause of that?

• 24:48Speaker 02

  Yes. So when I came to do my first show in New York. And I did the knitting factory. They, they told me at that point that people were writing in saying you can't have this artist perform in New York.

• 25:05Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  And so that's when America pulled up my past history. Cause I, I started getting immigration problems because of that. So before that, before two thousand and four. I'd been coming and going in America all the time. I never had problems. I could come in on an Esther. Stay for three months, you know, like I worked with Diplo, I was on tour with Elastica. I'd been here visiting my family, like on the west coast, like hanging out with my cousins and stuff and never had problems. But the day I put out Sun Showers, the FBI went and like dug out all this stuff and you know.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  Cause they wanted to find something on me and then they found this like record I had from, you know, when I was like eighteen. And then they were like, we're gonna stamp her.

• 26:02Adam Friedland?

  Cause you said P L O?

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Yes, and that's really when my stamp on my passport appeared. And since then, you know, I get called into immigration all the time and interrogated all the time. And it takes me like hours to get out of there. And that happened because of the Sun Showers song.

• 26:20Adam Friedland?

  The stuff you get in trouble for is kinda bullshit.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  It's such bullshit.

• 26:26Adam Friedland?

  Having a gun on the best song ever?

• 26:29Speaker 02

  Look at how forgiving I am to society.

• 26:33Adam Friedland?

  What about the Super Bowl?

• 26:35Speaker 02

  A middle finger?

• 26:36Adam Friedland?

  She did this at the Super Bowl. How badass is that with Madonna?

• 26:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, and also like my lyric was, I don't give a shit. So it's not even, oh, the biggest, you know, it's not the same. It's like a suicide bombing.

• 26:50Adam Friedland?

  Oprah called you a terrorist.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  Everybody did at the time because tigers were like, they were kinda going off at the time. But the New York Times was calling me that, you know?

• 27:02Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  So like everyone reads the New York Times. So before social media and before the social media cancellation world. The media had the power, you know, and that's kinda how they did the thing. And you know what? It's really interesting because now

• 27:23Speaker 02

  I'm swept into this left wing, right wing conversation in the US. But when I first arrived and they were writing in saying this person can't perform, you know, in these venues. That like was, I don't know, I just generally took it as American. Like it wasn't left or right, you know? It was just like, I don't know.

• 27:50Adam Friedland?

  But as this stuff was happening, you were still, your profile was growing.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  Luckily, every time they ban you on this thing, a new thing would pop up and you'd just be on that thing.

• 28:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  Like those kids, so like they, they, when I first put my record out, they were like, we're not gonna stock it in record shops. Because your music is weird and it's strange. Like we don't know where brown women fits. Because you don't fit with the white thing and you don't fit with the black thing and we don't know where to put you and you ain't Desi either. Like you're not making Indian music, you know? So we're not gonna put you anywhere and we're just not gonna sell your records. And they would come to XL and say that, like Tower Records and Virgin, Megastore and shit. And I, and XL will call me in and say, they don't know where to put your record. And I'd be like, just put it next to the till. Like if it doesn't go into a rack under genres, put it next to the till.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  And they'd be like, no. And luckily for me, LimeWire popped off, you know?

• 28:51Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  And people started downloading it and partly that's because of Diplo, because he was already on tech.

• 29:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  He was already on blogs and having chat rooms and I didn't even have a computer like that. But Americans were like ten years ahead of us, you know, in, on that kinda front. England hadn't caught up yet. But you, I was introducing England to the chatroom world for the first time because.

• 29:24Adam Friedland?

  It sounded new.

• 29:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:25Adam Friedland?

  The first time I heard you.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it was kinda like popping off because of the internet and thank god for the internet at that time.

• 29:32Adam Friedland?

  So piracy helped you?

• 29:35Speaker 02

  Piracy helped me because it got me on chatrooms.

• 29:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  And then when a ruler came out, like six months later. It got downloaded a million times for free.

• 29:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  So the record label didn't sell records.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  And my record label told me that Jack White from White Stripes was using all the vinyls as shooting targets.

• 30:05Adam Friedland?

  He didn't like it.

• 30:07Speaker 02

  He didn't like it.

• 30:08Adam Friedland?

  What?

• 30:09Speaker 02

  So I don't know, maybe he liked it, but he was, it's just that they had so many vinyls left over. That he, he, they gave it to him and he was using it as a shooting ranch, you know, as a target. And I was like, and then obviously I blew up on the internet. Because every time, it's like, it's like, I love that my life is like this, that this is why I believe in god so much. Because, you know, every time somebody does that, something else pops off.

• 30:41Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Like you just, you just can't be cancelled. Because the entire thing moves and, you know, that's beautiful.

• 30:50Adam Friedland?

  All press is good press, kind of, maybe?

• 30:52Speaker 02

  I don't know. No, I don't, I don't think that's what's happening to me. I genuinely

• 30:59Speaker 02

  I'm not tied to anything. Like it's not that nothing is precious, but you're not tied to the world, you know, like I am of the world, but at the same time, I don't know. It's like you, yeah. It's, it's not like that, you know?

• 31:16Adam Friedland?

  But obviously you started collaborating with like a million like legendary artists. Who was the most inspiring?

• 31:26Speaker 02

  Ah, that's a nice question.

• 31:30Speaker 02

  The most, I mean, loads of people.

• 31:31Adam Friedland?

  Timbo?

• 31:34Speaker 02

  Timbo's kind of going through a controversial thing with the AI thing right now.

• 31:39Adam Friedland?

  Oh, really? I don't know.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  But of course, like, before I worked with him.

• 31:44Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  He was like the legend, you know?

• 31:47Adam Friedland?

  I know.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  And.

• 31:49Adam Friedland?

  What, Missy? I mean, like.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Madonna, obviously. I never thought in my life I would meet Madonna, you know?

• 31:56Adam Friedland?

  Were there other female rappers that showed love? Like Missy Elliott?

• 32:00Speaker 02

  Yes, and Lauryn Hill. I got to do some dates with her.

• 32:04Adam Friedland?

  "I Can't Stand the Rain" was my favorite song in fifth grade.

• 32:07Speaker 02

  Amazing.

• 32:08Adam Friedland?

  She was cool because she was like, she's a big girl. And then all the guys in the videos would be like six pack, like, uh, like hunks, right? It was kind of a reversal of like, uh, the hip hop, like.

• 32:20Speaker 02

  The gays.

• 32:21Adam Friedland?

  Well, like the video.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  The female gays.

• 32:23Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, the female gays. Yeah, exactly. You worked with Ye?

• 32:26Speaker 02

  Yes. Um, so when I met him, he was the most open minded out of all the rappers. He kind of was like hungry. I think he was just hungry to know everything and learn everything. And he's like, what's going on, you know?

• 32:43Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Cause he also went to art school.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Did he? I didn't know that.

• 32:47Adam Friedland?

  College dropout.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  I didn't, I didn't realize that was an art school.

• 32:50Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  I know his mom was a teacher.

• 32:53Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Todd.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 32:55Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Is the Diddy stuff real? Is all that stuff real?

• 32:59Speaker 02

  I have no idea.

• 32:59Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Jay-Z caught two. He caught Epstein and Diddy, right?

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 33:06Adam Friedland?

  That's a, that's a.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  Every time you mention that, I want to talk about my brand, Omni.

• 33:13Adam Friedland?

  Oh, you, you have smoke? Is there a thing?

• 33:16Speaker 02

  What?

• 33:16Adam Friedland?

  Did I touch on a thing with Jay-Z?

• 33:18Speaker 02

  No.

• 33:19Adam Friedland?

  You got a smoke with him?

• 33:21Speaker 02

  Don't try to like.

• 33:22Adam Friedland?

  Did you bang, bang, bang?

• 33:23Speaker 02

  Get swings.

• 33:24Adam Friedland?

  I'm not that kind of host.

• 33:26Speaker 02

  The thread.

• 33:26Adam Friedland?

  I'm your friend.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  Every time you try to get the thread, I talk about my threads. Finest copper threads.

• 33:32Adam Friedland?

  Oh, so you, you, you hate Jay-Z? You're gonna kill him? Don't, cut that. Okay, um, yeah.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  I didn't say that. These words did not come from.

• 33:40Adam Friedland?

  Wait, but is it, like, what is it?

• 33:41Speaker 02

  Now, I don't have beef with anyone.

• 33:43Adam Friedland?

  Me neither.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  I forgive everyone. And my relationship with God and in who I am.

• 33:51Adam Friedland?

  That's the only person I beef with. How dare you?

• 33:54Speaker 02

  Sometimes I have, I have questions. But, you know, I, I, I think everything is a necessity.

• 34:01Adam Friedland?

  What are your favorite artists working right now?

• 34:03Speaker 02

  It's really hard because we're in an AI time. Yeah. So.

• 34:09Adam Friedland?

  With music.

• 34:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I don't know, the definition of an artist.

• 34:14Adam Friedland?

  It sucks, though.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  It kind of sucks because I don't know. You know, is the genie is somebody who uses AI? Or is the genie is somebody who absolutely resists it? And really brings some conversation about that? Like, I, I can't tell what I love right now. Like, I, I listen to different sounds, for example, like.

• 34:38Adam Friedland?

  Like, sorry.

• 34:43Adam Friedland?

  What was that?

• 34:44Speaker 02

  That is so New York.

• 34:47Adam Friedland?

  What's, yeah, fart. Fart is huge in New York. I got.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  Slap sick.

• 34:54Adam Friedland?

  What, okay, what, what sounds? Hog, hog. Boy, yo, yo, yo.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  Like, there's a whole movement in India, right? There's, there's many different things popping off. So they have, like, like, since lockdown and all of that. India, if you go to like villages, they have these sound systems that really belongs to the people, you know? And it's really hard to find. They're not advertised on the internet. They're like hidden. It's like private, secret raves and things, you know? And that, that.

• 35:31Adam Friedland?

  What do they play?

• 35:32Speaker 02

  That kind of movement to me is more thrilling, so.

• 35:35Adam Friedland?

  What does it sound like?

• 35:37Speaker 02

  It is sound, it's, it's sound. But they use sound waves to compete. So they set up like speaker systems.

• 35:45Adam Friedland?

  Oh, like sound clash?

• 35:46Speaker 02

  It's not really like that, but it's literally about the sound waves. So they put like, say.

• 35:52Adam Friedland?

  I'm so confused.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  A bottle of water in the middle of the two sound systems and someone has to knock it over with the sound. So it's a sound clash, but it's like noise clash as well. I don't know. Um, so you go there and your particles literally gets rearranged. Like, when you go, you have to like.

• 36:11Adam Friedland?

  Have you been?

• 36:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I, and I've never felt anything like it. Like, I had to lie down for two days and assess like what had happened to my body? And if I was the same person ever again? But people go deaf, like, for like three, four days after they go to one of these. And it's just basically.

• 36:30Adam Friedland?

  That was horrible.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  It's, it's actually not a good feeling.

• 36:34Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it sounds terrible, yeah.

• 36:35Speaker 02

  But there, and there's like, you know, issues like, I spoke to the people in the village and everything. And people say, this is not, you know, there's, this is not real music, you know? This is something else, but this is using sound in a different way. But they use, like, say they take EDM and electronic music from the West or trance music or dance music. And they like, just do stuff to it so hard, yeah?

• 37:02Adam Friedland?

  Uh huh.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  It's the most intense thing. And then they try to affect the environment, like blow chairs out of the room and shit, you know? And it's like, that's, that's the dance. That's the, um, parties.

• 37:18Adam Friedland?

  That sounds terrible.

• 37:22Adam Friedland?

  But it sounds, I mean, it's cool.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, you know, artistically, I mean, it depends what you think of as art, really, you know? Like.

• 37:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 37:32Speaker 02

  We discussed that yesterday on the, this is how Bob Dylan came up. Because if, if art is only judged through what's popping on TikTok and it's just about a dance routine that kids can copy, then yes, Bob Dylan would not make it and neither would Kurt Cobain and neither would, you know, anybody, even me, you know?

• 37:51Adam Friedland?

  You would make it.

• 37:52Speaker 02

  Even if someone put a gun to my head to do a dance routine, I don't think I could.

• 37:56Adam Friedland?

  But then you take your money.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. I would take the gun.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  Before this.

• 38:06Speaker 03

  There's this.

• 38:09Speaker 03

  As you celebrate the game, take a deeper look at its roots. The people growing the grass, paving the lots, welding the goalposts, inspecting every football. The hardworking people that make every Sunday possible. Carhartt is proud to outfit the crews behind the game. Visit carhartt.com/jointhetrades to learn more.

• 38:31Speaker 04

  This episode is brought to you by EA Sports FC27. Welcome to the world's game. FC27 is introducing The Grounds, where the streets meet the stadium. Connect with friends, go pro and express yourself on or off the pitch. Play FC27 with the ultimate edition September 18th. Learn more at EA.com. Rated E for everyone, includes in-game purchases including random items. The Grounds is only available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, PC and Nintendo Switch 2 versions.

• 39:02Adam Friedland?

  So you mentioned on the phone, you're like, every time I do a podcast, I get canceled. I'm like, I didn't even know that. But it's like, in researching you and learning more about you, the things that keep popping up seem so nothing.

• 39:17Speaker 02

  And nobody apologizes for their nothingness.

• 39:20Adam Friedland?

  Well, it's just like, for you having Boom Boom Boom in the greatest song ever, or for you using the middle finger at the Superbowl, like.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Eating french fries, not babies.

• 39:30Adam Friedland?

  These are like such quaint, like controversies, right?

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:34Adam Friedland?

  I heard an interview with Sharon Stone, right? And like her last major performance, I'm pretty sure in a major movie was Casino, you know? And I think like, kind of if I'm piecing things together, it's like, is, if you're a woman that's like a little bit too, that can't be controlled, like, does it serve as a, at a disadvantage or a certain point?

• 39:55Speaker 02

  This is a really great question. You said they'd be good. That is, that is people putting, trying to cancel you and put you in a box.

• 40:07Adam Friedland?

  But they're not doing it to Taylor Swift.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  They're not. Because this is what I was saying on the pod, podcast yesterday. Even they did it to me a few times. Even like supporting Julian Assange and now he's a free man and.

• 40:20Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  People love him now, you know? You're not the problem, but you are the target. Like you said, you're the target. And why are you a target? It boils down to spirituality, you know? Because I do think it is a spiritual warfare. And I think it is because.

• 40:36Adam Friedland?

  You don't think it's just some like guy in a boardroom that's just like, ah, get her, get her guy out of here?

• 40:41Speaker 02

  You cannot be on that list every year for random things. You just cannot. If you're consistently on there. And then I had to go back to be like, was I on these lists from when I got famous? Or was I on, like, experiencing stuff like this in my life, throughout my life? And the truth is yes. You know, like, there was always problems. You're canceled for being a Tamil, you're canceled for being this, you're the, and, you know, my school life was not easy. It's not like I was like this, you know, my, my, my.

• 41:14Adam Friedland?

  But why would you be canceled for being from a country? Like, for your ethnicity?

• 41:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, the thing is, I, I, I, I think that some of these things are a necessity.

• 41:25Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  When you get canceled. I do, I, I, so it's not like I have strong feelings towards this.

• 41:33Adam Friedland?

  But to, to be a female pop star, right? Like, uh, there, there's a degree of, uh, uh, you know, they, they, it's a company, right? This is, you know, it's like Taylor Swift LLC or something, right? Like.

• 41:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 41:46Adam Friedland?

  You know, like you. You are someone that like, uh, it's kind of a free spirit. And like, do you think that that puts you at a disadvantage beyond your race? That, that you're just a person that's not like a CEO of MIA? When I heard that interview with Sharon Stone, going back to that, like, like, her assessment was, yeah, that like, there, there'd been a decision kind of that, like, you know, she can't, she's too, she's like a 155 IQ. And they're like, yeah, we can't, like, kind of like.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  So what are you saying about Madonna then?

• 42:18Adam Friedland?

  Does she get in trouble? She did get in trouble. The uh, the music video for uh, Like a Prayer?

• 42:27Speaker 02

  I think that's the only time she's been in trouble, isn't it?

• 42:31Adam Friedland?

  That song, what is that, what do you think that song is about?

• 42:34Speaker 02

  No, but that is the only time she's been in trouble.

• 42:36Adam Friedland?

  No, I think when she made the sex book, when she was doing erotica. Uh huh, Like a Virgin, people didn't like that. I'm down on my knees, I'm gonna take you there.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Isn't her song about, I know people are saying-

• 42:49Adam Friedland?

  It's about blowjob.

• 42:51Speaker 02

  I know people are saying that.

• 42:52Adam Friedland?

  And she's giving black Jesus a blowjob, it's heretical.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  So she's saying-

• 42:56Adam Friedland?

  And I learned a lot.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  Jesus was black and that's kind of what Kanye said.

• 43:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  But he got majorly cancelled and she got more famous.

• 43:06Adam Friedland?

  I mean like, does that, does that float around in your mind? Or are you just kind of unaffected by it? Cause you also seem very well adjusted in speaking to you.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, so they, yesterday they kept saying, are you traumatized? Are you traumatized with all these cancellations? And you're like, no.

• 43:21Adam Friedland?

  For fucking what though?

• 43:23Speaker 02

  For what?

• 43:23Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 43:24Speaker 02

  That's their ignorance, not mine, you know?

• 43:26Adam Friedland?

  But you wonder like, who's doing it? Who's saying cancelled?

• 43:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, so then, when I said they, they were like, who's they? And you know, and I thought that that was like, a funny thing. But with me, honestly, I cannot define the they. The they in my case, is many different types of people.

• 43:45Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  I'm very varied in the palette of they. It's not the, you know, quotation marks. It's not, in America, the, the, like you said, even if it's the robots or the AI and the algorithms doing that, they're programming the machines to think like that, because they're thinking like that.

• 44:07Adam Friedland?

  I think it's just guys that are really rich, they can just make decisions in the industry. If they want to, probably.

• 44:12Speaker 02

  No, but it's across the board, not just industry. It's across the board, division, division everywhere, and hate everywhere. People only communicate now with negative comments, like you said. Real life is not like the internet.

• 44:24Adam Friedland?

  Oh, it's just like, you go to dinner, then you see your dad. You go fly home to see your dad. And then you go, you go on vacation with your girl. You're on a beach, it's kind of nice.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, nobody comes up to you going, nah nah nah nah nah, you know?

• 44:39Adam Friedland?

  No, I mean, also those are the things you kind of, at the end of the day, that you kind of matter in life, right? Like, someone's like, nah nah nah, like, you, what? You flicked off the camera at the Super Bowl next to Madonna, that's so sick.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, even Madonna would like that. Nobody said, oh, the old Madonna.

• 44:56Adam Friedland?

  Does it affect you, like, do you want to make tracks still?

• 45:01Speaker 02

  Does it affect my music?

• 45:02Adam Friedland?

  Does it affect your like, desire to create art? I mean, it's not even music, like-

• 45:06Speaker 02

  No.

• 45:06Adam Friedland?

  Like-

• 45:07Speaker 02

  No, cause that's, that's my gift, you know? Like, God gave me that, no one has the right to take that away. And no one can.

• 45:15Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 45:15Speaker 02

  They don't have the power to do that.

• 45:17Adam Friedland?

  What are you working on right now? One of these Indian sounds?

• 45:20Speaker 02

  No. At the moment, I'm out of work.

• 45:25Adam Friedland?

  Well, see, there you go, like, don't, don't you deserve, I mean, you seem like-

• 45:29Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 45:30Adam Friedland?

  An incredibly like, creative individual, like uh-

• 45:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, so when I say that, it lasts for about forty-eight hours, you know? Like, at the moment, I have just been making-

• 45:44Adam Friedland?

  Tracks.

• 45:46Speaker 02

  Focusing on my clothing line.

• 45:48Adam Friedland?

  So tell us about that.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  This is Omni.

• 45:51Adam Friedland?

  And it has something to do with Jay-Z or something?

• 45:53Speaker 02

  No, no, no, it's got nothing to do with it. But this is a clothing line, basically, that came out two years ago? And it's made of metal, you know, so this is copper.

• 46:04Adam Friedland?

  Metal pants?

• 46:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is copper and this is copper. And it just like, stops wifi- Yeah, I mean, this is mesh, you know?

• 46:12Adam Friedland?

  Oh, that's mesh, but what about the pants? Yeah, I would get kind of sloppy.

• 46:15Speaker 02

  Well, this is mixed fabric, so it's patched with different ones. And some are breathable, and then it's got a zip, make it as breathable as possible. But, there's different things, and I-

• 46:28Adam Friedland?

  And what is the purpose of, of the metal clothing?

• 46:30Speaker 02

  Okay, so you know you live in New York City, it's actually perfect for New York City. So you have all these skyscrapers, and if you look through the window, like, every single window on every single skyscraper has got an internet router, you know?

• 46:44Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, everywhere does.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  Everywhere does. Every rooftop has got five G towers, which is now six G towers, and eventually-

• 46:50Adam Friedland?

  Six, they came out with six?

• 46:51Speaker 02

  Yes, and eventually you'd go to ten, because China's already on ten. So if America-

• 46:56Adam Friedland?

  They're killing us, yeah.

• 46:57Speaker 02

  They're just killing us.

• 46:59Adam Friedland?

  See, they're like flying cars and stuff, yeah.

• 47:01Speaker 02

  I wish I would, I wish I could talk about that, cause I had to go there to make the stuff.

• 47:06Adam Friedland?

  You were there to get metal clothes?

• 47:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, because they, only they, they produce the fabric.

• 47:12Adam Friedland?

  Uh huh.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they're already on ten G, but they also give you the fabric.

• 47:17Adam Friedland?

  So you're saying that the radiation is bad for people's bodies and stuff?

• 47:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you know, like, in the last twenty years, the, the sperm count in men has gone down sixty percent.

• 47:27Adam Friedland?

  I didn't know that.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  You didn't know that?

• 47:29Adam Friedland?

  No way.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. So it's really like, protecting your reproductive-

• 47:34Adam Friedland?

  But is that because of cell phones?

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Yes, because people put cell phones in their pocket.

• 47:37Adam Friedland?

  That sounds like some uh, RF, RF juniors type of-

• 47:42Speaker 02

  Well, you know, he's a smart man, isn't he? Like, he's from New York.

• 47:45Adam Friedland?

  He seems kind of like a wackadoodle to me.

• 47:50Adam Friedland?

  Also, you see that video of him trying to do pushups? He can do like, two, even though he's got big muscles, he's definitely on roids.

• 47:58Speaker 02

  He's in his seventies.

• 47:59Adam Friedland?

  So what, when I'm in my seventies, I'll do three pushups, for sure, just to beat him.

• 48:03Speaker 02

  You can't judge it on that, the physical body is like, like, the, you know, he, he, I don't know, I don't know the ins and outs of that. But he's not the only one who knows about this stuff, there's actually-

• 48:18Adam Friedland?

  Five Gs and stuff? Wait, so when did you discover that, like, the negative health impacts of that? Cause there are people that go to that town in West Virginia that has like, no service, right?

• 48:30Speaker 02

  I tell you what, it's like-

• 48:32Adam Friedland?

  I've heard of like-

• 48:33Speaker 02

  I am a Tamil, and these people are very old in nature. And I, in my lifetime,

• 48:40Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 48:41Speaker 02

  Not passed down information and things I've read, but my entire life is, you know, it's really, I've come from living in a village with nothing. No television and no cellphone, no phone even, and no car. Like, I come from, you know,

• 48:59Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 49:00Speaker 02

  Eighty, Sri Lanka had nothing, and it was a war zone. Like, it's as organic-

• 49:05Adam Friedland?

  And you're a part of an oppressed minority too.

• 49:06Speaker 02

  No, but it's also, it's not outside of the war. I remember a time, with my own brain, where you did not have anything electronic, you know? I, I lived the most organic life in the world. Like, you pick your fruit off the tree, and you get your vegetable in the garden, and you cook it, and you eat it, and you live.

• 49:26Adam Friedland?

  Simpler life.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  And yeah, and your entertainment was organic, like, your travel was organic. You used a bicycle, you went to, you know, you wrote on slates.

• 49:35Adam Friedland?

  It's interesting, cause your music is very uh, digital.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  I know, so in my lifetime, I did ten years of that. So I'm not talking about my grandparents' life, I'm talking about my own life.

• 49:47Adam Friedland?

  Sure.

• 49:47Speaker 02

  I remember that. I remember what it feels like to eat off a banana leaf and not off a plate, you know? I remember what it feels like to wear cotton and see the people that weave that cotton, you know? And then, obviously, I'm part of the digital revolution of everything that happened, and all of these things, and wrote a song called Connected to the Google, Connected to the Government, named my child iKid, like an iPhone, the same year it came out.

• 50:14Adam Friedland?

  That's a first name?

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Yes, and-

• 50:17Adam Friedland?

  Did they go by iKid?

• 50:19Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:19Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 50:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so like, I embrace technology too, like, I'm not a nonce.

• 50:25Adam Friedland?

  No, nonce is a pedophile, I'm pretty sure.

• 50:28Speaker 02

  Nonsense, as in dummy, you know, like, I'm aware of the situation. I've lived in New York, I know what it feels like.

• 50:35Adam Friedland?

  You know what I'm thinking right now? I don't know anything about radiation or anything, it could be real, could be not. But I know that it's labeled like, conspiracy, right? But like, on the other hand, you're an artist, right? You should be wearing metal clothes, right?

• 50:48Speaker 02

  Do you know why? Do you know, I tell you why I wear metal clothes?

• 50:52Adam Friedland?

  Well, no, we used to permit for our, our artists to be, to be like, different. I watched an interview with Marla Brando recently-

• 51:00Speaker 02

  And leaders of like, new thought, and new philosophies, and new ideas. And like, you say art, David Bowie, he premeditated content creators. And when I was, when I first came out as an artist, I was a content creator, which is why I shot the documentary. A lot of that footage is self-shot with my own camera. It's not, you know, I'm talking about the Maya Matangi documentary, where you didn't have an artist that had footage like that. Cause I was a selfie, content creating, film a person, before the era of digital-

• 51:40Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 51:40Speaker 02

  Social media. Like, I shot it on handycams, yeah. And was addressing the camera all the time.

• 51:48Adam Friedland?

  I used to do jackass videos on those.

• 51:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, and this is like- Fifteen years before that, or whatever. So when I had that footage, and you were making that footage on MySpace, that then became a thing. Content creating and self-documenting and taking selfies. And, you know, the cover of Cala is just a selfie photo on photo booth.

• 52:07Adam Friedland?

  So you invented it, and everyone's copying it.

• 52:09Speaker 02

  It's not the point. What I'm saying is... No, but what I'm saying is, just like David Bowie twenty years before said, "There's gonna be content creators." And yes, you just got... You're doing the thing he said. And we're like, wow, he foresaw the thing. Some artists have the ability to be the zeitgeist.

• 52:29Adam Friedland?

  I like that you're wearing metal clothes, because you're dope. You're a genius.

• 52:33Speaker 02

  No, but...

• 52:34Adam Friedland?

  No, what I'm saying is...

• 52:35Speaker 02

  Why would you not wear clothes made out of silver and gold and copper and these things? It's luxury.

• 52:41Adam Friedland?

  Because I'm careful, like, you know, I like a breathable material. I like a cotton.

• 52:46Speaker 02

  Yes, but you know, copper, in the ancient times, the yogis used copper. It's an antibacterial method. So they stored water in copper pots. You know, they ate from copper plates. And they did wear copper bracelets and things.

• 53:01Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah. Because they didn't have toilet paper also.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  It doesn't matter. The point is the beneficial... Huh?

• 53:08Adam Friedland?

  I'm not trolling, actually, like...

• 53:09Speaker 02

  No, it's not trolling, but it is beneficial to the human body. Natural material. We are made of dust. If you believe in, you know, that we are made of material or come from the stars, or whatever people believe, like, made from the dust in the material world.

• 53:28Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, well, we're made in God's image, too.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  Yes, and when we die, our body goes back to the ground, back to the minerals.

• 53:36Adam Friedland?

  So sad.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  And our soul and spirit goes to God, you know? But our vessel is made of the material from Earth. So obviously, anything made from the material of Earth is good for you.

• 53:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 53:49Speaker 02

  You know, why wouldn't it be?

• 53:51Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. I mean, I don't know. It just sounds like you're from California to me. But, no, I mean, but like, but you could be right. But like, I don't want to like... I think you're a genius. And I think it's like, I think it's dope that you're wearing metal clothes. Honestly. And I think that it's like, I think that everyone wants to hate on everything. And like, that, you know, I can see how that, like, people's reaction would be like, "Oh, that's conspiracy whatever." But like, whatever, dude, like, you know? Robert De Niro could wear metal clothes.

• 54:25Speaker 02

  I would have said, ten, twenty-five years ago, you said, "Someone's gonna make a thing that goes into your brain called Neuralink." I would have been like, "Conspiracy theory."

• 54:34Adam Friedland?

  You know that guy?

• 54:36Speaker 02

  I don't.

• 54:37Adam Friedland?

  Musk?

• 54:38Speaker 02

  But why...

• 54:38Adam Friedland?

  You're boys with Musk, though?

• 54:40Speaker 02

  I'm not, actually. That's something the internet made up. That's conspiracy theory.

• 54:45Adam Friedland?

  Going back to what I was saying about you just being an enigmatic individual, I can see how people like, wanna like, weaponize that. And it's just, to me, after talking to you about art and about how you feel about art, it pisses me off. Because like, truly, like, yeah, what matters is like, is like, that you're like, creativity, you, you know? What matters is that you make art and it affects people. And you put it out. And I think you do. And I think you are a genius.

• 55:19Speaker 02

  Well, the thing is...

• 55:19Adam Friedland?

  I'm dumb as fuck. I don't know if you knew this.

• 55:22Speaker 02

  No, no, no. I don't say I'm a genius either, because...

• 55:25Adam Friedland?

  You can't say it about yourself. Only Kanye does.

• 55:28Speaker 02

  Only Kanye does. And Kanye did say that I was one.

• 55:31Adam Friedland?

  Did?

• 55:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. Then he said, "No." He changed his mind.

• 55:36Adam Friedland?

  Did he change his number?

• 55:37Speaker 02

  Huh?

• 55:38Adam Friedland?

  Did he change his number? You down to get a little bit of 5G so I can talk to Kanye?

• 55:45Speaker 02

  I use, I use technology. That's why I'm wearing this. Like, this is cotton.

• 55:49Adam Friedland?

  Okay, so get her a phone, dude. Let's call Kanye right now. I just wanna say what up. I can say I can fix all this.

• 55:54Speaker 02

  Kanye's not talking to me right now.

• 55:56Adam Friedland?

  Why?

• 55:57Speaker 02

  Because...

• 55:58Adam Friedland?

  Because you, why?

• 55:59Speaker 02

  Because I don't know, actually. He was like, "No."

• 56:02Adam Friedland?

  You've been making art in the public eye for like, twenty years, right?

• 56:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 56:07Adam Friedland?

  Does it feel like things have changed significantly? Like, does it feel like the way you're treated as an artist and like, the way people interact with your art is different? Is it, does it make it more difficult? Or is it more...

• 56:20Speaker 02

  This is what Americans wanna know. Like, have they done a successful job at deleting my, you know, history and my abilities, or my gift, or my talents?

• 56:31Adam Friedland?

  I don't know anyone who's doing that.

• 56:32Speaker 02

  They, they asked me this question a lot. They're like, "Has it, you know, worked?"

• 56:37Adam Friedland?

  People are deleting you like you're R. Kelly?

• 56:38Speaker 02

  And I don't know if it's like, the, you know...

• 56:42Adam Friedland?

  You're not R. Kelly.

• 56:44Speaker 02

  No, of course not. So this is why I'm like, why would it, why would it matter? Like, you ate a french fry. I eat french fries still. I love potato. Like, like I said, I want my husband to be like a potato that is versatile. You can fry it, mash it, grill it, roast it. Everything. And I'm like, I'm never gonna give up eating potatoes because the New York Times didn't like it. Do you know what I mean?

• 57:08Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it sucks to be a woman.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  So when you ask, "Is it gonna change your life? Does it change your life?" And it's like, no. You have to look at the machine and be like, "That's the machine." But the machine suffers too. Like, they do that to you, but they suffer too. You know? And, and you have to look at that and be like, "They, in ten years' time, they will be living in the environment that they create." And every time you cancel...

• 57:33Adam Friedland?

  Oh, they can fuck off, dude. My girlfriend's still gonna be mad about that we need a new bed frame and shit. The machines aren't gonna ever stop that from happening. And we got a bed frame a year and a half ago. She says, and she says it's too squeaky.

• 57:47Speaker 02

  No, but you...

• 57:48Adam Friedland?

  Shane, that's insane.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you have to think that, um...

• 57:53Adam Friedland?

  You have a nice house?

• 57:55Speaker 02

  Do I have a nice house?

• 57:56Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it's probably amazing.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  I, I live in a rented house in America.

• 58:01Adam Friedland?

  I didn't ask you if you owned it. There's probably just awesome stuff is inside of it.

• 58:05Speaker 02

  No, not at all. I live in an empty house.

• 58:08Adam Friedland?

  Oh, you're like Steve Jobs style?

• 58:10Speaker 02

  Oh, what's his style?

• 58:11Adam Friedland?

  I think like, one chair in the middle of a white warehouse.

• 58:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did that for a bit.

• 58:17Adam Friedland?

  Like Kanye, Kanye was into that, too. Let's just call him Squash the Beef. And I'll, I'll make it right with, for him. I love him so much.

• 58:29Speaker 02

  That's good. He needs love.

• 58:31Adam Friedland?

  I know, and I, he needs the love for me.

• 58:33Speaker 02

  But so does a lot of people. A lot of people need love.

• 58:36Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Do you feel like you need love?

• 58:39Speaker 02

  I thank God found unlimited amount in God.

• 58:44Adam Friedland?

  Oh, but that's not a guy you could chill with, watch a movie.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  Well, it's a different...

• 58:48Adam Friedland?

  Do you feel like if you're watching a movie, God's watching with you?

• 58:52Speaker 02

  Actually, funny enough, yes.

• 58:54Adam Friedland?

  But he's not making jokes about the movie. No, chilling with your friends and making jokes about a bad movie? God can't do that.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  No, that's a different kind of love, though. Friendship love. There's like, seven types of love. But the infinite, abundant, you know, forgiving love is from God, you know? And you can say it's in yourself and you find it. But that's loving yourself and allowing God to, you know, exist in that space or whatever. And, you know, and it, and it creates the universe to interact with you in a certain way that you... Love is everywhere.

• 59:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, but we should just watch a bad movie with Maya.

• 59:42Speaker 02

  Like what?

• 59:42Adam Friedland?

  And make jokes about it. Windy City Heat. What do you, what should we watch? The Room? Have you seen The Room before?

• 59:50Speaker 02

  Ah, I wanted to see that.

• 59:52Adam Friedland?

  Yo, we gotta show her The Room. I haven't seen it in so long. Manager, can we watch The Room, please? What?

• 1:00:05Adam Friedland?

  So directed by Tom and Wissel, written by Tom and Wissel, sorry, Tom and Wissel. Okay, yeah.

• 1:00:09Speaker 02

  This reminds me of like, the bad porn movies my friend used to make in college.

• 1:00:13Adam Friedland?

  It's the acting level of porn.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  I cannot tape this. Why are you doing this to my life?

• 1:00:18Adam Friedland?

  This is like Daniel Johnston. This is outsider art.

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  No, this is somebody who didn't make it to their therapy session. So basically, I'm on the Adam Friedman TV show, and he's put on a whole bunch of porn.

• 1:00:32Adam Friedland?

  You just need it. I'm not, it's not porn. Honestly, this is on YouTube, you see her nipples. It's pretty cool.