From 2020 until 2023 I hosted a lot of interviews with all sorts of people.
There ended up being two main iterations of the show, both of which should come back in 2025. Bridge the Gap is the show I do solo, where the focus used to be on Montreal artists. Then there is PRSPCTVS with the homie Littyyy Bro Flacko, which was very NYC based.
We talked to Immortal Technique, General Steele and Agallah Don Bishop on the PRSPCTVS, me driving to NYC and everything. Big vibes and accomplishments. Inevitably after running a cost analysis things had to go on a bit of hiatus to focus on life stuff and take a bit of a much needed break.
Now I miss it and want to get back into the interviews but I’m also still battling some demons.
For whatever reason people love the way I handle these “interviews”
In full truth, we do the “Conversation with” styled interview.
It’s not a standard Q&A format where I ask thoughtful questions and the person responds. Instead I know how to make leading statements that guide someone through a dance of opening up. My goal is to fill out someone’s life story as though it were a Wikipedia page.
We start when you are young and walk through your life. The goal is to trick you into opening up about the random anecdotes you’ve always wanted to share, but no one asks about. Because people’s interview questions are stock AF for the most part.
I watched quite a few interviews when I started this project to prepare. I found the loosey goosey format of a Drink Champs or a My Next Guest Needs No Introduction were far more fascinating than the old school format. Questions are important and there needs to be a place for them, especially the hard ones.
My show is not afraid to explore hard topics, but how we get there is unorthodox.
People seem to really like the interviews, unlike most things I’ve tried creatively, this one connected with my peers at large, sort of.
People wanted to be on my the show more than watch the show
I’ve spent a lot of time grappling with this reality as people talk to me about support but never $upport.
Still after a while it was clear no one was watching.
Now this isn’t a criticism about people not watching my show as sometimes people twist my intentions. It’s a criticism for how everyone treated the guests I had, which were their peers. People who I’ve interviewed, who have a well documented mid tier life story on my show, talking all kinds of crazy about people who also don’t have a lot of real accomplishments.
My peers kept saying things like, “find better guests”. I promise you that everyone who said that to me, someone else said that about them when they were on my show. I did actually find much better guests, they just weren’t in Montreal.
I have several “Montreal legends” who are interested in doing the show with me. But I feel weird inviting them to come on a platform knowing there’s no audience for it. If I knew 50-100 people would fuck with an episode, I’d be more inclined to produce it.
I don’t need money for motivation, I make money to do vain shit like host podcasts, but I don’t even think 15 people watched most videos once they hit YouTube.
Also this isn’t just about me, go find me a single English Hip Hop platform y’all support. There ARE actually quite a few out there and my peers have a reason to not watch any of them. I’m a marketer however, so if there is no market it’s literally a waste of time from my perception.
I feel weird because hundreds of people told me they wanted the show, but that really just meant to be on the show, not to support the show.
The format is good, the guests were bad, so what’s next?
I think the logical choice for me is to leave Montreal with the show and build it somewhere else.
The last time I was in Toronto it clicked that maybe I should start looking around that city for the next steps. A lot of the blockers we face in Frenchland don’t exist and if I’m just doing a podcast, I can pop in once a month at virtually no cost to me. Once I find a couch to crash on, the trip is like 120$ of tax write offs.
Now what I’ve seen in Toronto is that there is a lot more interest from Toronto people in English Toronto content. When I started with the New Yorkers, they loved my ignorance and that will 100% be my cheat code to Toronto. I’ll get people on the show, we’ll be in Toronto, in front of a live audience, in a weed friendly environment, as Toronto artists educate me on the GTA via their careers.
I think the potential for interest in the exact same show, in a different market, is very real. Plus once the show is mobile, it’s mobile. We find a spot in any city, find someone worth interviewing and make it a reality.
This doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore Montreal, I just don’t think it’s going to be my primary focus. Montreal stuff will happen when it can happen and when it makes sense. For some of the people I want to interview, I’d like to work out the kinks of the new model before bringing them on board.
I want my guests to get a bag off being there and it’s on me to build that ecosystem. And if people get paid, Montreal needs to be getting paid first. So I need to go elsewhere to get to that point.
Unfortunately.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone
P.S. I don’t make enough money to be giving charity to the culture right now, one day I will again.
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