Adela: 0:08

well, hello world, it's been a good minute. Welcome to the artists within podcast. I'm so excited. I'm your host for the season adela hotel and so welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm losing my brain and my thought because this episode, as always with anyone that I do, my technical abilities are always tested and I've come very far. We finally figured it out, and so I'm really really excited to introduce to you our next guest.

Adela: 0:33

Our next guest is a local filmmaker. He's an entrepreneur and a pioneer in changing the way we are defining filmmaking. Health, agriculture probably saying that word wrong, but that's okay and I'm really just excited to hear his story, how he came about, what he's getting ready to do now and what his goal and mission is for our city, for his own dreams and for just our everyday life to inspire you and motivate you. Anyway, I am like I said, I'm losing my train of thought this morning just because of where that was, so bear with me. But let me introduce you our guest, trey Ford. He is the co-founder of Black Film Matters.

Adela: 1:15

He is also an entrepreneur, a filmmaker, as well as a producer and director I'm going to assume, because he's got a documentary coming out, and director, I'm going to assume, because he's got a documentary coming out, and I actually just got a pleasure to meet him in person at Collab Cafe at a recent event that they had called Pitch Party, and it was a really phenomenal place, a great event for our city and our artists. And they're going to be hosting another one, I believe in August or September, but he'll correct me when he comes on, so stay tuned to hear about that. Anyway, welcome Trey Ford. Hello, sir. So, yes, yes. So go ahead and introduce yourself, because I'm sure I fumbled here and there in my introduction. Now, as with always, my nerves can get the best of me and I can stumble and fumble in my space and play sometimes, so please do me the honor and introduce yourself in a much more proper way 15 year hiatus and a visit for holidays and stuff.

Trey : 2:41

But when I got to Jacksonville I was managing a comedy group with my business partner with Black Films, matter Aaron Day. The comedy group was called Fake Famous Comedy and it was a group of comedians that were I don't know how they do the classifications like.

Adela: 2:57

B-level.

Trey : 2:58

A-level star or whatnot, but they were very talented, however not very well known outside of their own personal cities and networks, and that translated into the skill set we needed to take Black Films Matter to the next level because we were touring and we learned some things about how to mix some business opportunity for people wanting exposure to the crowds that were coming to our comedy shows and some of our events into the fold and use that as a way to pretty much pay for some of the bills, because what artists don't get is any type of support, and so we wanted to use our platform to support artists with the fake famous. So we had different people do musical openings and things like that. We had Miss Haiti, pascal Bellany, who I went to college and church with back in Gainesville. She got involved with us from a management standpoint. So I guess my introduction is that I'm like the art Swiss army knife and I'm not the best at everything still, but I'm effective, and that effectiveness translated into filmmaking when we started as film programmers and a lot of people don't know what the term film programmer is.

Trey : 4:11

Typically, a film programming company is a festival. So programming along the lines of creating events for people to learn things or people to be exposed to things. That's the type of programming If you even think about the word TV programming they're putting out programs that are either teaching you something or entertaining you in some way, informing you in some way. So we do that in an event type of way with Black Females Matter. It's a very niche film program company, and I say that because we haven't launched our first festival yet, which will be the Afrofuturism Film Festival. It's a partnership with Jason Marley and the Afrofuturism Experience Team, which is a digital art festival, and so the Black Films Matter the way that people know it and have been exposed to it has been a themed private screening company. So we'll take a large box office or studio film such as um wakanda forever and we'll have a theme around it. The theme was pretty much national for wakanda forever because it was all white and you guys did that in gainesville, if I remember reading about that.

Adela: 5:16

Right, we did it in gainesville. Yeah, we did several screenings.

Trey : 5:18

Okay, we actually started our company with the first black panther in gainesville.

Adela: 5:22

So Okay, so that's what I read, okay.

Trey : 5:25

Yeah, and then in I guess it was last year or the year before last Wakanda Forever came out, which was the sequel, and the main character actor had passed away Chadwick Boseman. Right, and so we did. Actually, this will create a good, I guess, comparison. We did Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which was Chadwick Boseman's last film, and that was set in the 1920s. It was in an era where people were traveling the chitlin circuit to to do music. Ma rainey was a musician and it was right when they started to learn how to record music and they had traveled from the south to I Chicago. But it was that roaring 20s type of attire I call it Harlem Nights attire. So we did a private screening of that where we commemorated Chadwick Boseman and all his work that he'd done. He's been in several historical depictions of films.

Adela: 6:18

He is one of the greats we've lost. Like just one of the greats, it gives me chills to know what we've lost. Right, because that level of talent I have.

Trey : 6:31

I have a different perspective on the on the word lost, because he's somebody who lived a life poured out as an inspiration. So it's almost as if you know and we hate to lose anybody earlier before right before our perspective of their time. But I think about people like Tupac Shakur, who lost his life in a different way, or Marvin Gaye or Selena, and these are people who still make an impact today, even though some of them passed away in the 90s or whenever.

Adela: 6:58

Tupac is the reason the podcast started. Well, not the only reason, but Tupac is the reason I have the whole motto. When I came to America and I didn't understand anything I'm just getting into the culture and one of the humans that came across was Tupac and his word. He had an interview where he has carried me since, like the age of 12 to now. Just the idea of being a spark in someone's life, right, just the idea of fueling someone with life and energy and hope that they're capable of overcoming and doing whatever it is they do, because, like, we can't do it for them because we don't know their structure, we don't know where, who they are and what they want, but to spark it.

Adela: 7:51

And that's what Chadwick did, that's what Marvin did, that's what Selena did, that's what so many greats who, again, we either lost late or we lost to something life it's. It's a loss to us in a sense that we won't see more of their work. But what a gain to be able to rewatch and relearn and what a gain to be able to find wisdom in something new every time we see them right, if we can look at it from that perspective and see every time we hear a speech from them. We should look at it for something new and some new feeling, because that's it for them, you know, that's it and their legacies, and so, if we think of it that way, kobe too Kobe is a huge, you know, inspiration to me because he made a contract with himself. Those words changed my life, changed how I work, changed how I function, just because he said I made a contract with myself.

Trey : 8:42

So yeah, Jobs not done. No, he said, I made a contract with myself.

Trey : 8:46

So yeah, job's not done, no job's not finished, like no, yeah. So that's actually a good segue as far as what you're saying about Spark and catalyzing something, because you know, again, we didn't start as filmmakers, myself and AR and A my partner, we started as film programmers. And really, you know, frat guys, both of us are in the NPHC. I'm a Sigma, he's an Alpha, and so, using our skill set from throwing parties back when we were young and both of us stayed semi adjacent to that industry in some way, shape or form, and what we found is that when we went from so, we started with theme private screening. So I gave you the example of All White for Chadwick Boseman to commemorate his life and his passing, and then they did the same thing with the character the Black Panther, t'challa, and then with Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, we came in the Harlem Nights Roaring 27, batire, and what we found is that we have a system that is duplicable for any filmmakers who have a project that they're just releasing, whether there's a theme or not. They they're wanting to do a world premiere to celebrate the actors and celebrate the completion of the production. And so we started working.

Trey : 9:58

The first screening we did that was independent was Ebony Payne, english a poet here and really just a pillar here in the art community. She is a recording artist. She has multiple studio albums and more, more so known for her poetry. However, she's just multi-talented and she's a leader as well. She used to run this thing called the or not this thing, this nonprofit organization called the Performers Academy, and so anyway, she got a grant to do a visual album and we screened her visual album, kind of when covid was still a little more sensitive, and we did it in an outdoor space in the courtyard of the main library downtown jacksonville. And a beautiful, beautiful experience being able to use our skill set for the underdog, so to to speak. And after we did that for Ebony, we started working with Carlos, who is one of the panelists from the pitch party. Carlos is one of the most consistent filmmakers that I know of in Jacksonville. He always has a feature film every single year. It feels like he is.

Adela: 10:58

I'll be actually interviewing him in a couple couple weeks, so I'm really excited. Yeah, I'm really excited for that too. Yeah, I've, I got to meet him at your you know, your last event and and I followed him for years now actually, and see constantly, and I was like now I get to put a face to the human, to all of it, really in person. So yeah, so that's, yeah, he's fantastic right.

Trey : 11:21

So with carlos we have a pretty much a partnership where we screen all and we do all his world premieres.

Trey : 11:27

And now it's like OK, who else can we work with that we can help them Because you know, like I said, I'm a Swiss Army knife.

Trey : 11:37

I would say Aaron is as well. We have our different skill sets that merge together, that are separate but complementary, merged together, that are separate but complementary, and we've started to build a team of people who do the things that we don't do as well, and now we have like an actual service. So that that's one of our first services from from a black films matter standpoint on the programming side is helping independent filmmakers do their screenings or go on a tour if they have a tourable product. And then it was natural to kind of start working our way back into production. We've got multiple ideas and opportunities to do documentaries just based on our body of work, and that might just be one documentary that shares everything, or that might be multiple series. But just you know when you, when you can project, manage, when you can galvanize people, when you can be organized or we can find somebody who is organized, then you're able to establish a team.

Trey : 12:25

My acronym for team is together, everyone achieves more. I've been saying that since, since high school and on the football team. I was a defensive captain. We didn't have a great football team, but we tried our damnedest.

Adela: 12:36

Hey, listen, you don't have to have the greatest of stuff. Sometimes you should get to get to the next level and the next level, and so that's that's it. It's step by step, yeah, yeah.

Trey : 12:47

So I want to ask you to kind of wrap up my intro. I'm working on a doc reality called transformed, and it's transformed emerging entertainers and it's about the the the diametrically opposed ideals of society's body, positive movement and just whatever your body looks like, that's great, versus the industry standard and being competitive in show business and in multiple areas of show business, whether you're a singer, whether you're an actor, and I'll give you two examples with the cast members that we have. Dd everywhere is somebody whose background or professionally is more so, like technical and cloud management and things like that. However, she's an extroverted personality and wants to. She does a lot of solo traveling a middle-aged woman and that's like the group of people who travels the most middle-aged woman. So she wants to be a travel show host and if she wants to do that on a major network or compete for a job, then you know there's the thought process that you have to look a certain way and things like that.

Trey : 13:48

Yeah, or she can go independent, because the reality is the way that she looks currently is probably more relatable and it's, you know, it's not unhealthy or anything like that, but it's a perspective right so yeah, perspective ideas or whatnot.

Trey : 14:02

And then, on the other hand, with a man, uh, broadway louis. He is an actor and rapper and you know he was cast for a film that I don't think is in production yet, but at the time when we started doing the, the weight loss show, he had the. The director saw him one day out and like patted his stomach and said hey, you know, that's not what I had in mind when I casted you and you know that, that's a little, that's a little oh, we, we get it yeah a little different.

Trey : 14:26

You know, we motivate each other different, you know, and so you know it's that that's an hr uh that's right now.

Adela: 14:32

That's a straight hr violation back in my day. That's a motivational thing right back in my day that's how we motivate each other right now.

Trey : 14:42

Yes, that is a straight hr violation and in the inside of the documentary or documentary reality. What I like about it is it's going to be a little bit of that weight loss and reality and, and you know, feel bad or feel good or feel relatable stuff. And then it's also going to be an ode to jacksonville, as far as there's different things in jacksonville that are, like, naturally, fitness related, like walking the bridges or running on the beach we've got like a bubbling pickleball community we have so much.

Adela: 15:10

We have bike biking communities, we have like all these network. Oh my gosh canoeing.

Trey : 15:15

Yeah, jacksonville has the most parks in the us, I believe in the continental us or maybe in the entire us. We are literally we are literally.

Adela: 15:25

This is why I love our city so much, why I'm so focused on what we're doing. Why we're doing it is because we have so much here. We're just so segregated in such small little niches of because Jacksonville is so big, it's so segregated. To all of that we know what we have, but to kind of delve into it and mix it, or get it together. It is.

Trey : 15:48

And what I'll say about that is that that spread outness and that difference in the different areas actually poses a great opportunity for filmmakers, because somebody can come be inside of Jacksonville filming or come from the outside in and really have any type of scene that you want from beach to downtown to railroads to forests, to lakes to rivers to.

Trey : 16:12

You know, there's everything that you need here in Jacksonville and this used to be a film capital. With the winter, film capital because of the weather is more moderate and or warm than you know, your your new york and it's cheaper than la and, and so basically, I started to delve into all parts of the film making space and by day I uh was working at a farm and my degree is in agricultural operations management I saw, saw that, I saw your answer yeah, I'm seeing a merging of my day job quote unquote which I really just started working in farming, you know, a decade after I graduated with a degree, just through an opportunity I had as an elected official for supervisor of Duval School of Water.

Trey : 17:00

But it's always naturally going to gravitate back to film for me, because I'm a storyteller, I'm an artist and I just happen to go the business route first.

Adela: 17:08

Yeah, I mean. Well, the business route is going to pay for the dreams and the creativity, because we talk about our generations. Like I say, we're not starving artists because we can't afford food. Let's be real. But we are struggling artists and it's a struggle to get a community together. It's a struggle to get a community together. It's a struggle to get team together. It's a struggle to to get actually. It's a struggle to get anybody to do anything, including yourself, and so the fact that you have done what you have done, gotten to here and now we're focusing on the agriculture, it's so phenomenal because I, I have found well, let me ask you this before I even get into that you, um, how do you believe, uh, that art influences our understanding of human existence and how do you believe that it can contribute into our overall, overall well-being, um, and, and the way we interact with society?

Trey : 18:06

Film. How does film do that?

Adela: 18:08

Well, how does art in general, or film, with what you do passionately right now? You know agriculture. To me, I think of art as anything we have the ability to create? Somebody washing dishes and creating a clean space is art, because it takes skill. It takes Curating the space you curate right, you curate right. You curate your environment Right, absolutely so, from your perspective, how does art translate into us in society?

Trey : 18:36

Yeah, so I would say art is a transformative agent, and what that means to me is it gives the gives the ability. It's a translation that doesn't require language necessarily, but it is a language and, as you, as you mentioned the ability to curate a space. Uh, they're using this term called placemaking now, which is kind of a new term, but it's been around for millions of years, I'd assume, because placemaking and storytelling is, you know, being around a fire, telling people about the constellations, and you know what? What animals were fighting up there, or gods, or can you?

Adela: 19:13

like, can you believe that? Like again, I talk about it in our day we're not that old, but we're not that young either. So like we're in between. But in our day, um, we did that and that was just normal and that was something that was like we placed it. And now we are in a new end age. That like we're how yeah, it's. It's very weird to me to see that we're almost reverting back while trying to make it new age. Does that make sense? I'll give you an example.

Trey : 19:44

Yeah, well, there's, there's, there's this concept called the hero's journey. That's been around forever and ever and ever. So anytime you watch a Star Wars or you watch Lord of the Rings, which is two completely dynamics as far as these people are elves and dwarves and stuff like that, and then you've got aliens and spaceships it's the same storyline. Uh, an example of how it translates or it transforms society would be, uh, people who were born in the late 80s and early 90s probably remember captain planet, and I find that those people who watched captain planet it was about, you know, making sure that corporate doesn't destroy certain things that are beautiful in nature due to, uh, you know, just the almighty dollar, right. So you've got a group of people who watch that show, who don't litter, who care about the environment, who want to be as responsible as they can, you know, yeah we all hate paper straws, but all right, I can do the metal straw and clean out, you know.

Trey : 20:36

So those, that group of people is just vastly different in their perspective of environmental issues and sustainability than people who maybe didn't grow up with that particular cartoon. And so any art translates history. Art translates culture. It is a motivator and a movement maker, from the standpoint of visual arts, murals, being on a wall that look like somebody, and it makes you feel like you could be somebody, not seeing examples. And but you know, to me film is the most comprehensive of those because it ties everything in. You've got visual art in films. You've got people who are visual artists that are like the main characters of films, whether it's a horror movie or a love movie. You've got music is always interwoven in film. And and then, obviously, if a picture shares a thousand words, how much more does a video do? Is it 10,000?, is it a billion?

Adela: 21:31

It infuses. It infuses cells. It's a motion picture.

Trey : 21:34

Yes, that's my answer and I don't know if I fully answered your question. But film and all forms of our commonality is it's our common ground. Yeah, and it's a way you know who can walk together unless they agree is a Bible scripture that I always think about. So when we find common ground, then we can progress and have conversations that are meaningful instead of just trying.

Adela: 22:10

We have out there is has a net positive on defining the narrative or defining the human, or giving them influence, or a net negative right now, or is it a little bit more in between or is it more nuanced than we think it is? Because I do believe 100% that art is a, that entertainment is a form of education. It is the best form of education, and if we can entertain someone into feeling something, we get to convince them into changing their perspective. So how do you do you see that our industry right now, or our you know our platforms and what we're at? Is that more of a net positive or net negative to our society.

Trey : 22:53

I would say a net positive, but it's it feels probably to a lot of people like it's close or that it's a net negative. And the reason I say it's net positive because we're talking about light and dark.

Trey : 23:04

Basically, you know the thing, the thing about dark is it can't exist where the light is no so the fact that there's any level of light from the standpoint of storytelling and music and things like that, there, of course, there's going to be dark, because that's how we even know the contrast between light and dark, you know. So it can't be 100% light anyway, and well, maybe, maybe we'll go to the sweet by and by. But on earth there's a constant struggle between positive and negative poles, even between hot and cold, um, and so my thought process is not be lukewarm, pick a side and be great on that side, and just understand that if you pick the dark side, you're eventually going to lose listen, every action, every action has a consequence, right?

Adela: 23:52

you mentioned the spark.

Trey : 23:54

If you're in the complete dark and you have a lighter or a match and you spark it up, boom, the dark just lost. As soon as that happened. It sure did oh my gosh, territory, right when it happened. Yes, the the reality is, you know, yes, there is light working, music that is not as pronounced and exposed and well spread. However, when that light touches those individuals, when that that artist with 3 000 followers, but they have the right song for that person, that is a. It's an impact that is immeasurable. Each, each, each and every one.

Adela: 24:31

Yes, absolutely. Oh, my gosh, I love that. I. I found that our again, our, as you said, as a translator, it's, it's a way of us to communicate.

Adela: 24:44

I know that when it comes to us talking about mental health and talking about different ailments of human beings and their state of existence, trying to find your words, trying to find a way to say something, it can be really, really difficult, and especially in a day and age where words have lost almost all meaning and we're just spewing them at least in my opinion, we're just just continuously spewing words but not understanding what the word means. And when we just speak, speak, speak, speak, speak without the thought, without the process, without the intention, we tend to create a lot more ailments within our own selves. Because it is a free form of running of our minds, and I found that art has a way of being able to control the chaos because, as you've mentioned before, it forces you to put into perspective the steps that are required to achieve a feeling in a picture, because we can achieve a picture plenty of ways. We've been on plenty of sets, I'm sure. Where we got the picture, we got the shot, whether that's a motion shot or a still shot. We got the shot. But to achieve the actual feeling of translation, what you're trying to say when and convey without words, um, I find is is something that, where it taps into mental health or just your health in general, that that's what makes our living space like everything, your health in general, that that's what makes our living space, like everything we do, is infused with that right, like everything, our body movements, our voice, our tone, our because it's music. When we speak right now, hopefully my sound is melodic and not annoying, right, but it's music and it's a cadence and it's a tempo and we may not understand it in musical, technical terms, but if we understand that, it has the same application.

Adela: 26:29

Just like I want to ask you about agriculture, because two years ago I was sitting, I'm working on a documentary called Define, the Narrative, and I started it because I wanted to go home, and I wanted to go home and touch the land of my soul because I believe the earth and you and everything is a healing. You touch it, you're done, you can return, it's just that's it. And I was working in my backyard and I was in my head I want to have all these gardens I want to have again. You're spewing the word and not understanding what it means and I had this moment of just anger flood over me and I'm crying because now I'm blaming everyone else for everything and I'm just whatever.

Adela: 27:05

And God's words clear as they come by and was like Adela you are seeking for a place and space and time in a land you don't even know, in a foreign country you don't even know. Yes, you were born there. Yes, you experienced something, but you're here right now and you are in your backyard. You are not willing to touch the soil and the dirt in your backyard and yet you're seeking for something thousands of miles away. When that hit me, I'm looking.

Adela: 27:33

I was like oh, I got so disgusted with myself, because I'm like seeking for something, because stories, as you say, define us, and my story was I'm a prisoner of war, I came to America, I'm an immigrant, I have something to fight for, I have a name, I have this like legacy. What do I have other than words of people and humans that don't belong to me? And so I found that once you start getting in the dirt and start really building your own self in that way and through plants, literally, I've grown tomatoes and beans and right now I'm in my peppers and you know we're mints and flowers, roses. I am a roses, listen, love my roses, and so tell me how, because for me it's transformed my life, like it is the most healing way.

Adela: 28:27

I think an artist can do anything and and you that is, you said it in here we are made in the image of our creator. I think, on our last question, and and that is like the ultimate part of creation, right to be able to create life and sustainability through food, through what we have, the dirt. So when we come to film, when we do that, that's just an expression of something that's already done and built in. I feel like, so how does that? You mentioned your service in the back and you have your degree and all that. How has that played an influence? And when you're making your films and when you're doing, how is just being able to get in the dirt transformed you as a being.

Trey : 29:09

That's a great question. The answer for me is it's forced me to slow down. So we live in a high, highly speed information transfer society and I wish I would have said that better. But it's just tmi coming in and humans are right now, in 2024, are super dependent on their brain from an intellectual and information standpoint. And that is not all the information. Some of the information is felt through the gut, through the heart. That it's not just the mind, and even some of these questions are very heady, right, but some of the answers are more so bodily or spiritual or emotional answers, and I feel as though agriculture is slowing people down enough to reconnect with other sources of information.

Adela: 30:01

There's a field around your heart.

Trey : 30:03

There's a field that goes through your spine and stuff like that, and it ain't got nothing to do with information and words and technical and no, a lot of this stuff is-.

Adela: 30:13

It just shuts down.

Trey : 30:15

Yeah, your brain is meant to keep you alive, not necessarily create or any of those things, and so I actually I have a pepper for you. This is a fish pepper. This is part of the documentary that I'm going to be working on and that's Mia's Captain Planet there, so the Captain Planet from the 80s. He had a mullet and stuff and, like spandex, I got a little suit on there.

Adela: 30:35

I love it. Shout out to.

Trey : 30:36

Maya. Maya is an artist who did this. She has murals in Phoenix Art District and she's just a phenomenal artist and she went to paxton's one time for school, for advanced studies eagles, let's go. So basically for me, agriculture. I was in a high speed type of environment as it relates to business. I was in sales and I had done some things in multiple marketing and advertising and it's boiler room and it's sell, sell, sell and it's go, go, go. And how fast can you get to a million? Can you get to a million dollars before 30 years old? That was the life I was living and I started growing these jalapeno peppers in my back patio in gainesville. One of my buddies from college gave me some and they they had them in styrofoam cups, which is not like super captain planet ish. But don't judge me yet, I was just we all started somewhere.

Adela: 31:24

It's the corrections we make along the way absolutely so.

Trey : 31:29

You know, the thing about gardening or homesteading or farming is you can't rush me, I don't care if you're doing hydroponics, even there's there's rules, there's laws in place that make you reach checkpoints and make adjustments and things like that.

Trey : 31:46

And combining that fast life society with agriculture or gardening or just something that is just slower paced but higher paced, I would say, from an energetic, spiritual, emotional standpoint, because that's the body that we oftentimes neglect anymore because of all the societies. I got to get married and I gotta go to college and I gotta do all these things. You know, I gotta check all these boxes and all that stuff, and the reality is, I would say, getting culture back into agriculture. It would be hugely beneficial a because we don't know what's in the food that we're buying anyway. So it's like, hey, this is a. The number one way to be an activist is to take control of your own life from a shelter standpoint.

Trey : 32:27

Become accountable and responsible for what you do. Get the base level needs Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know get those things where it's not on the government or some other society and system, that on your family system or on your personal. It's your personal accountability, like you said, and so. But then then agriculture also posed a storytelling opportunity. So I've got the. I used to work at this farm uh, that's in Jacksonville and while I was working at the farm I was, I was coordinating their market, so I was doing like event planning for the farm and I was like, well, I'll grow one crop.

Trey : 32:56

And I bought these fish peppers. You can't really tell what it, what it's going to be like when it's an adult, because this is a very young seedling. But basically the fish pepper, it has these green and white leaves. The peppers are smaller than jalapenos, or maybe mine just are, but the color profile is like green and white swirl, almost like that chocolate and vanilla swirl ice cream. But it's, you know, obviously it's green, it's a plant and they go from that green and white to a red. The spice profile is about higher than a jalapeno but less than like a habanero or less than like a gold pepper.

Trey : 33:31

They're spicy, though. If you just bite one they're spicy, but they're really good to cook with. They're called fish peppers because during the Haitian revolution they you know, they kicked France out of there and then they brought the fish peppers up to, I guess, the former slaves or the slaves that were in the Chesapeake, the Virginia, Maryland area, and they were just the most popular pepper in fish houses. They're just really good seafood, seafood, spice adders, I guess you will and I started digging into the story behind this fish. I bought it because it looked pretty, so art, right, it's very artistic. It was like green and white and I was like that's a funny looking thing. It's like a little Dalmatian jalapeno pepper or something. And Lo and behold, I ended up getting a harvest and I was like, well, I might as well keep planting these, and so I dug in a little bit deeper into the story. Right, this is storytelling.

Trey : 34:20

There was a guy named Horace Pippin who was a farmer he's a black man and he was trading with this guy named, I think, mr Weaver, who was a beekeeper, and this beekeeper was giving him stings, like for arthritis or something like that. So and I just paused there because there's so many things that we rely on informationally that are maybe false or may not be the full information. When it comes to pharmaceutical drugs and you know the CDC and stuff like that, I'm not buying everything that they're selling. However, I know we're under that system and all that stuff. You have to put your mask on six feet and all that stuff. But these people don't know everything. They're just people like you and I who have gone through multiple degrees or something like that. There's people who know more than them but who don't have the and that's kind of the comment I was making about the light and the dark.

Trey : 35:03

You know, there's people who know, like herbalists and stuff like that. Listen, the human being knows.

Adela: 35:09

I have been preaching this for the longest, and I say preaching. I'm not preaching none of that, so please don't push me, but I'm saying this.

Trey : 35:17

Hey, this is your platform. You can say what you want here. I'm just saying Thank you. Thank you.

Adela: 35:26

But it's so true. You know you're no. You are born with this innate knowledge of this greatness within you, this light, this power. We have been programmed to think that that thought and that like feeling of that fulfillment and that knowing is false and it's narcissistic and it's selfish, and it's all these other negative stereotypes that we're now utilizing to prove that mental health is okay, that being unstable or that being in a space in place of your unwellness is okay, that being unstable or that being in a space and place of your unwellness is okay, that we should accept that and listen.

Adela: 36:01

I literally run a nonprofit for advocating informing on mental health, but it's about changing the perspective. It's about the human, not the actual mind. It's about you as a being. So you know you're now, you know who you are, you know what you want, and then, yet you refuse to listen to it because it's about you as a being. So you know you're now, you know who you are, you know what you want and then, yet you refuse to listen to it because it's scary, because you're the only human being, you're the only person that hears that voice. You're the only one. Nobody else can confirm or deny why is?

Trey : 36:26

and then you believe you're fearfully and wonderfully made.

Adela: 36:29

Yeah, you're playing wonderfully made.

Trey : 36:30

There's probably some information that's just coming to you that you have to.

Adela: 36:34

You need to know and bring out and share with someone it might be a painting, it might be a song, it might be a it might be the word that might inspire a spark for someone to make a movie, to create the music, to create a thing that you change their life it has. You have no idea the power you hold.

Trey : 36:56

I'll tell you one of my favorite scriptures and it's from John. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God, and I apply that directly to. In the beginning he said life being it was. So we call our shots all the time.

Adela: 37:13

It is what it is.

Trey : 37:14

It is done as is I'm going to do this and then you do it, and that is creation. That is, your direct connection to the creator. Is that this did not exist. The Florida Fish Pepper Co did not exist until Trey Ford bought a plant from Dave the Plant man at the Beaches Go Green Market, bought two, one of them died, one of them them lived, and that one is supplying. We've got like probably 20 something ceilings ready to go out in the on the patio. So it's like, and that's just one patio and that's, and that's the idea decision to buy a decision.

Adela: 37:45

Oh my god, all from a decision and we don't. We think about using the word choice right and from a word. We have the words choices, right, words choices. It's because we have a thousand choices a day that we can choose to do whatever. That's a thousand words. You can choose to say whatever too, but one decision on deciding I can, it's done, it is what it like, that, and then you do the action. Part of like the follow-through of your word is what gives it the power in the meeting. When you don't follow through, that's where you go. You're like you know what. It didn't happen. I asked for God for this, or ask the universe for this. I asked my friends for this, or I did this and I did this and I did this and it didn't happen. Well, you didn't do because you didn't act, you didn't go out today the doers get blessed, not the sayers.

Trey : 38:34

it's not just saying, it's doing.

Adela: 38:37

Yes, oh my goodness, and it's too, and I think that that, in a way, that we've taken art out of our social construct because it forces you to move. I wholly believe that art forces you to move, it creates this movement of feeling that you cannot resist. I'm sure that there's been a project or something that you, as an artist that you were in, you're like. I cannot get rid of this feeling. I cannot get rid of this need to do. I don't know what it is, I don't even know how to get there.

Adela: 39:08

Please tell me, because I mean, this podcast is mine. It's taken three years, three years to get to here, but I knew, I just knew, and so tell me yours.

Trey : 39:18

So the example, the recent example, because I think all humans go through this multiple times and then we finally wake up to that thing and then we go to the next level and then, for some reason, we forget. But my specific example relates to something I mentioned earlier, which is the show transform. So in 2017, I was probably about 280 pounds and I'm a former, like I just mentioned, I played high school football, so not to say that football players are like the most lean people and I wasn't playing in a lean position. However, I was under 200 pounds at that time. I was pushing 300 almost.

Trey : 39:54

And this is after lifestyle changes being married, having kids, slowing down, not being in college anymore and I went to San Francisco and there's lots of hills and I was just gassed. I was like man, how did I let this go this far? Gassed, just, I was like man, how did I let this go this far right? And so I started to do this process called compounding commitment, which I really learned more. So, in the context of growing your money, you know it's similar to atomic habits, james it's the same thing compound interest.

Trey : 40:25

Have you heard of the book compound action, compound yes compounding commitment is stronger, in my opinion, than compound interest, because compound action is very numerical and specific, but compound commitment.

Trey : 40:37

When you're compounding different habits stacking on top of each other, there's like a whole nother realm of exponential growth that is really hard to trace and track. So that's why I think it's stronger. But what I'll say is that transformed the reality TV show came from what I was attempting to do in launching a course, because from 2017 to about, let's say, the August of 2018, I had gone from 280 to a pretty good looking 215 as far as the body masses, like that, and I didn't become a a cultist in the, in the CrossFit community or the vegan community or anything like that. I didn't you didn't.

Adela: 41:14

How did you manage to?

Trey : 41:16

because boy simple changes so yeah walking every day, monitoring my water and take. You're talking about mental health. The two of the three are the biggest things. All had to do with mental health and the reason I split them into three is because I started morning mindfulness, then I started nighttime mindfulness, then I started meal, my office. I was doing a little thumbs up thing.

Adela: 41:36

I didn't know what zoom does it does that whenever I listen, the universe, always, whenever we're on the right track, it does. It does. That's our validation. Yes so.

Trey : 41:45

So basically I say I'll have to say I didn't lost. I never launched the course because I got so caught up in the technical aspect of do I put it on Udemy or Teachable or YouTube or how do.

Trey : 41:55

I charge people and I'm not athletic again. I'm just not fat anymore. So is it true? Is it false? Never launched it, failure to launch over and, over and over again, and now, in 2024, I'm really in production and now I'm at 205. So I am athletic again, but everything had to come to a point where it's like man, this is for you to bring forth, because it's not about you.

Adela: 42:17

No, it's the structure of your being.

Trey : 42:18

This is about other people who are living the same experience that you're going to get them into this next wave of their life. Yes, and so you have to be the trailblazer and the pioneer, or else you're effing everybody else over. I don't know what type of podcast this is. I don't know if I can curse oh, curse, oh. No, you can. Where we can listen.

Adela: 42:33

I've already said in my other stuff, I'm like I'm getting canceled before I even get started and everybody assumes when they look at me I'm just like this, like ah, they let me in rooms and they're like, oh shit, I'm like I know you shouldn't let me in a room right, like no I I mean I try, I try very hard to be, to be respectful, I try to be conscious of it because it's not godly like, and it's no, it's not bad it's for myself, I, I would like to be god says don't curse.

Adela: 42:59

You know there's things I I try to be better. I'm not saying I tell god every morning I get up I'm like god, please forgive me the sins. I say today because I am saying them today and I know they're coming. I know I'll need to learn better and let me learn better and so, but when they happen I can catch myself or I can stop myself. I try to exert that level of control, as you said. Here's what you said we that. That's that part, that compound commitment, I call it. I read this book which you guys can find on our thinking thinkingorg-taw website when it's all launched and ready and go on July 16th, but you guys can find on there. We have a list of books that are books for defining the narrative and changing your perspective and it's just a list of authors that are free on YouTube for, again, resource information. And one of the things is there is compound. It was called Compound Interest Book or Compound something, but it talks about compound action and, like you just said, compound commitment, commitment for me.

Adela: 43:54

I understood the word compound action action every day and I, you know that penny, uh, uh, do a penny a day and double it, whatever so if you, instead of a penny, change it into an action and you take the action of one task and you don't focus on thousands of tasks, because you can't do that, but you go you know what man that's right right.

Adela: 44:13

Well, here's what I had to learn. This I have to say you do, because I had to learn as a housewife. I'm fully full. I didn't understand the concept of creating the structure for my home and my family, because society told me that I needed to be a powerhouse woman and a career woman and I needed to be a CEO. And I tried that and I tried to die. So when I stopped doing that and let my husband be the CEO of society, because that's what he's made for, like, let's be real of where we're at.

Adela: 44:43

Men are made to fight the societal wars. Women are meant to create the home for them, to have the ability to fight that like kill me if you want to.

Trey : 44:51

I'm not, I'm saying that.

Adela: 44:52

So what we've done is try to turn it and reverse it around, for us to say that women can be out there fighting societal wars because of emotion. And let me tell you something your emotion gets you killed and, speaking from experience, in every shape or form, your emotion gets you left and right. Here's where we're at in societal structure, right so oh, I will.

Adela: 45:11

This is why it took me listen. It took me three years to be well. It took me three years to define my narrative, to understand where I am, to what I want to do, because I know this is a comment to that. Please.

Trey : 45:21

Here's. Here's a comment I'll make to that, and this is a. This is a dangerous subject because people got all kinds of opinions on it and they're very, very they wrap their identity in it so they can't even have a conversation without offending somebody's direct identity. So I usually try to stay out of this combo. But what I'll say is in relation to filmmaking.

Trey : 45:43

You can notice that in shows like the Simpsons and shows like some of these 90s sitcoms, the father is really looking like he should have a dunce cap on. He's looking very dumb, looking like he should have a dunce cap on. He's looking very dumb and like the. So there's a. And then you, you notice that there's a cry out for fatherhood and fathership in, uh, the united states specifically. I don't know what's going on in other countries, but you know, the reality is the reason that the dark side has attacked that aspect of the family where the man, uh, where the man is structured one way and the woman is structured another way. It's not about better than or less than no, no, let's be real. Where it is, there's human beings and there's right.

Adela: 46:22

There's a man who thinks in this, literally there's science that says your way, your brain particularly, is wired different from mine. You cannot think the way I think and I cannot think the way you think, no matter how much we want to change right, no matter how much we want to change the physical structure.

Adela: 46:38

You can remodel the home on the outside a thousand days and a thousand ways and make it look real good, but when you walk inside, and it's right, you can remodel, I don't care. You can remodel it, you can change it from all shapes and forms and sizes. However, you cannot change the interior that has already been godly given and created.

Adela: 47:00

And if you don't, like it I don't care Listen like I said you, here's what I say this If you don't want to have a human conversation, it is a human conversation. You are a human being, first and foremost, and then there is a male and then there's a female, and then everything else in between is what we as a society have decided to construct.

Adela: 47:23

as literally, as a society, we've decided to construct and again, take me for what you want, but you can challenge me on my stuff. And unless you've survived the grenades, tanks and the bombs and the mines and everything else that I and really face the human itself, the same man who put a gun to my head is the same man that saved my life. Judge me, judge him, listen, judge him by his muslin, by his affiliations, judge him by all the characters or whatever, but that human being is the same human being that changed from within to decide that I was worth saving my life. You will not tell, I don't care. You are what you are inside, you are who you are when you are created. You have decided not to tap into that power. You are light. We don't, we don't, we don't fight it.

Adela: 48:03

And when we don't recognize that women, women particular, are the lightest of light, and what I'm about to say? This men are our dark, men are our dark and not in a way that it's oh my God, but they are our contrast. We are supposed to light them up, we are supposed to lift them up, we are supposed to make sure that they're there and they're supposed to protect us from the dark, that they know that it exists, because we're not supposed to experience that. Why do they say women and children are to be protected the most? Do we always say that constant thing? And yet women and children are the first thing that get hurt, and not in our society, in america. In america, women and children are the first thing to get hurt. Why?

Adela: 48:44

because, thank you. Why? Because and I will say this, say, however, you will and again cancel me before I even get started, because a man has decided that he can fit into my space and my place and my thought and my existence and say that they are what they are. With that, that's not how that works. And then you're going to tell me again I don't care what you want to do, but when we talk about the dark side of society, the man, part of it I'm not saying the women I will be the first to say we're the cause of that because we didn't light up our men enough.

Adela: 49:11

We're the cause of what's happening because we didn't light up our men enough. We're the cause of what's happening because we didn't stand our ground in our lightness. We decided to follow their darkness. We decided to go into it and be like I am darth vader, like hell. No, bitch, you're not darth vader, right? You're not. Let's just be real. You're not going to go out and commit mass genocide and murder. Maybe hillary clinton will. I will say that, however, um, but the rest of?

Trey : 49:35

us. I just want to commend you for saying all this with your chest, or with your breast, you know, whatever? Yeah, the correct thing we can say, because stand on business with it. Here's the thing. Well, it almost killed me.

Adela: 49:49

It almost killed me Two years. A year ago, I almost died because I was. I was literally fighting this construct of becoming this independent, launching and doing all this while a motherhood, while this, confused so much. So, while I suffered a tragedy in my life that I shouldn't have as a child and as a woman, I'm suffering even more now, and now I'm supposed to compete with a man in a place in space, but then I don't. I realized that. Here's what I learned If you cannot manage your home, how the hell do you think you can manage anything on the outside?

Adela: 50:19

Okay, my husband is not meant to manage the home. He doesn't even know what goes on. But let me tell you what he told me. That was the best. Listen, I'm 18 years in. I get to say this now, but let me tell you what he told me. The best compliment 18 years that he said he was at work the other day. He said, adela, he came home, whatever he's like, you solved all my problems today and I was like what the hell do you mean? I didn't even like, I didn't talk to you, I wasn't there, like we. I meant to message you like you know, like I meant to think of it, right he goes.

Adela: 50:44

No, no, no, no he goes. I looked at my friends, I looked at all my people around them. He's like some are going through a divorce, some are on this, some are don't even have that someone fighting with this someone, all this or whatever. Whatever he goes must be nice to have an adela at home, and it was like when they said that to me it hit me.

Adela: 50:58

He's like I have a coffee in my hand that's made. Every day I get a meal made. I get I have my socks. I never run out of socks, I never run out of underwear, right, like when you have that.

Trey : 51:08

I'm not even, I'm not even married anymore and and, but I do have a girlfriend and and like just the natural needs being met just due to Trey being Trey a man and D being D a woman. It just naturally works out together.

Adela: 51:27

We talk about accepting the roles. Naturally accept the role that you've been, you've been bored with. Naturally accept it. That doesn't mean you can't, doesn't mean we can't do the same skills. I can't try your skills Doesn't mean you can't try mine. But you will listen, no offense. But you as a man will never manage the way I manage. You can't think of the 70, 80 things that I do.

Trey : 51:49

I'll tell you an example. She's very strong, she used to be a weightlifter, and so she is able to lift heavy things, but why? Because it's still easier for me and I never was a weightlifter. You know what I'm saying?

Adela: 52:00

because you're you're again, literally, literally, genetically scientifically if I can lift them.

Trey : 52:08

Made different, made different for different purposes and I say this so she doesn't do the hype thing that much. See, and I have a tall man, so I'm like no, come here.

Adela: 52:18

Oh listen. But here's the thing, what I've learned, right, society has forced women to have to oh that's good, no, that's good.

Adela: 52:24

Well, here's what I learned and I tell women all the time now, and they don't, they're just like what do you mean? I'm like society has taught you that you're supposed to be the cactus in the world and you're supposed to be that like that, just her right, uh, when in reality I am the delicate little flower that when I come home and I am in it like I come into my house, I'm like, if I can't do that and just be a complete, delicate, fragile, being your full, feminine, vulnerable form, all into the, the relaxation of being.

Trey : 52:54

But here's the art I feel like being feminine is art it is, and here's what I was gonna say.

Adela: 52:58

I sometimes get.

Trey : 52:59

I sometimes get uh confused as to why. Why would you not want to be? And I'll tell you why it's the most beautiful thing, because I'll tell you why because I did it.

Adela: 53:07

I'll tell you why, and I was going to just point to that. Because, especially when you've gone through trauma and you've been a survivor your whole life or you've had, and again as a society you mentioned, where we don't have fathers in our home, where we don't have proper mothers, are our dynamic of a culture for? For the family is not there for the child to have the sustainable structure that they need, right? So it's not about confidence and it's not about self esteem, it's about instilling resilience, it's about stealing proper decision making and it's about just teaching a human how to function. And I wasn't taught that. So when I, my dynamic in my life was my parents, my mom, you know, my dad was the he know you never say anything against him, against a man, so patriarchy. When I came, to America right.

Adela: 53:59

So I was like, hey, no, um. But then you can say no to everything, including yourself. You can say no to being feminine, you can say no to your natural existence. And when you become to say no to your natural existence and you start to adapt this masculine role in your life, then you're like I have to do everything. No, man can do anything for me and I am just oh, and that is a.

Adela: 54:15

You see, that's a chip a mile away and all right, but I ain't dealing with that and and for all of you who are gonna be like, well, it's a man's job, it's a woman's job and you need to be here and there's different things. Okay, as a human being, your job period, what role you have, is to create a safe space for another human being for them to flourish period. And a discussion. I don't care what role you play. So to create a safe space for another human being for them to flourish period. End of discussion. I don't care what role you play.

Adela: 54:38

So if you're not doing that, for that I didn't have that. So I had to learn to create the home for me. I didn't have a stable home where my mom wasn't again I call it in a nice way, crazy. My dad wasn't crazy. You know where or where. I wouldn't be crazy. I thought those behaviors were normal and fearing peace Okay, not fighting, fearing peace. The fact that everything is checked and I know every corner. I know how my house functions and runs, like I can tell you where and what and how and who and why. My husband couldn't tell you anything. But that's my job.

Adela: 55:13

So I'll tell you but here's where what women don't understand, right, having that skill is something a man can't do, and go into a company when it's time for them to be like I can do A, b, c, d plus Z. We don't give ourselves time, as women, to feel this feminine energy while being able to be confident. All we're force fed is literally the narrative that I am an independent woman and I make my own decisions, which OK, fine, but let's do this. I am an independent human being who makes their own decision, let's take away the woman.

Trey : 55:46

We can tie that back to. We can tie it back to film. So, yes, film programming. So film and TV programming.

Trey : 55:49

Some of the changes in how society runs are driven through media, whether it's the news and and we're attempting to trigger people, because you know, uh, violence and and chaos sells more than feel good stories or whether it's the things that are being pushed by the large box office studio film system, which is la and hollywood, and you know, again, it ties back to there are people telling the story the right way and they're in the smaller streaming platforms.

Trey : 56:21

We, we had a tiny, tiny desk called art of flow. Uh, that I was more of a producer, the, the founder and creator of that was a woman named savita who owned a this thing called the water bar that was in murray hill, and the artists, uh were guy named larry in the mood, and basically, you know, we did this tiny desk but their, their album that they had made together, was about meditation and water and self-actualization and mental health and things like that, and so that that is on a streaming platform called quelli tv and it was the most watched uh film for the last quarter, which, again, this streaming platform only has about 5,000 or 3,000 to 5,000 subscribers, but out of the 3,000, for whatever reason, a lot of people were watching it and those people I know were impacted because of the content.

Trey : 57:08

Because people are looking for peace, and that's what content is being even social media, what's popular on social media versus what's harder to go viral. But really in social media I think it's very. I personally like capitalism because it's honest. I feel like that's how production means money. You know what I mean. And if you can't produce that human beings should be willing to help you.

Adela: 57:29

Production means freedom. Let me just be real. Production means freedom. The ability for you to produce what you want freely.

Trey : 57:39

Capitalism is. To me, capitalism is the closest to nature Right. Nature is not socialistic, it's no, it's survival of the damn fittest. Have you ever, ok, have?

Adela: 57:44

you ever been in the nature? Right Right, it will kill. You will not survive.

Trey : 57:50

And these are two people who work for nonprofits. So to me, nonprofit is the tie between, you know, government and and and capitalism, or corporate from the standpoint of. Okay, there are less able people that need to be supported, but nonprofits are capitalistic as well.

Adela: 58:06

Oh, 100%, it's a business.

Trey : 58:08

So, it's.

Adela: 58:09

We just don't think of it as a business.

Trey : 58:11

I think that some of these things that we're talking about, they're innately in society as a, as a conversation, whether it's an overt or covert conversation. And that's where art ties in, because you'll see, uh, paint, whether you see a painting of a man and woman ice skating in the park and it's romantic, or whether you see in a movie, or whether it's a song, that resonates, I mean throughout throughout age, as you said it yourself, ages it would be.

Adela: 58:35

Paint is going to dip. I mean, art is going to depict our stories. It's going to tell and it's primarily, if you're the winner side, it's going to tell your story.

Trey : 58:44

But literature, but it is, art is literature.

Adela: 58:47

Oh well, that's why I talk about when we talk about when you're listening, art is literally anything you're to me. I look at it as a consumption, anything you consume. So if you're consuming food, culinary art it's, it is an art, right?

Adela: 58:58

That's why, like, that's why the word, the word creator, again, I am not uh, uh, uh, please, for anybody, but I'm not in any kind, I'm not a form of religion or anything, but I believe in God and I believe in the, in the word, 100%, and that's that. And you are who. You are what you say, right. And it says the Bible says that we are made in the image of our creator. So why are we not creating the art of our own selves, like? If we believe that our creator is a painter and a master of all these things, then why are we not the master of our own color, the master of our own thought, the master of our own existence? And I don't know what that looks like for you, right? I don't know how that will be for you, but nobody's supposed to know that. That is your hero's journey, right?

Trey : 59:39

That is your hero's journey. That's why you're here.

Adela: 59:42

I mean, I look at things now and I look at movies. Or I just watched a film that like absolutely phenomenal I believe it was 1917 and it's a World War I movie on uh now, and maybe I'm wrong on the date, um, but anyway phenomenal and and the way the shots were taken and, being now that I'm in the producer and director role, you can see all the stuff, all the ways and when you're, when you can see it and you can feel it, while you're still able to see the process and feel the process, like that, that human, who, that that job, that team's job is done because it was able to translate. So, for those who don't know the how the process works and they can feel for you to be able to look at that hero's journey or look at someone's journey, then, no matter what they're not giving up, no matter like we're talking about our humans who are fighting wars and we can't get up to fight our own laundry, fight our own own dishes, fight our own like self. I just I don't. That's the concept.

Adela: 1:00:39

I don't understand is how we allow and again, I've been there, I did it, I allowed myself, I was part of that and I don't know how I did, how I allow myself to go and say nothing matters, nothing is worth the creation, nothing, nothing we do is worth it, we're just absolute, like whatever, sure independent woman, independent this, this and that, my own way, highway, and not recognizing that my, your power as a human being is just your existence and your breath and it can literally, literally save someone's life by your presence.

Adela: 1:01:13

You don't have to speak words, you don't have to do anything other than exist in your best presence. But that doesn't mean you're not moving, that doesn't mean you're not acting upon in your own film, as we talk about, and that's why I love filmmaking and I love art, and that is because you literally get to create your own painting, your own artists like that, behind me, that's me, that's someone taking a picture going. I see you at a van gogh museum and it's like, oh adela, I see and I'm like what I'm in my own world and can you believe someone else painted a painting of me as, and you're like, holy crap. So that is the influence you have on a human um that no words can do and say so I just want to share a point of awareness.

Trey : 1:01:53

I'm at about five percent on my iPad, perfect, good Cause. We're actually hitting the last Mark. Last question, last.

Adela: 1:01:58

Mark. No, we're right on time. So I wanted to ask you what particular projects you wanted to share with us and where everybody can find you and the events and all that other good stuff.

Trey : 1:02:07

Okay, I'm going to start with where they can find me. My main Instagram is at I am the DJ Atlas. Underscore T Kind of a little play on the words. Atlas is a Titan that I identify with based on my space or who I am in this space and as it relates to being a catalyst and bringing things forward. So underscore T is Trey, but I am the DJ at last, because I curate not just a party, but I curate this whole entire Jacksonville renaissance. I'm the DJ of it so.

Trey : 1:02:38

Trey Solo 8 is more my personal page at Trey Solo 8. These are all IG, and then at Black Films Matters where you can find all my film stuff. But if you follow at I am the DJ Atlas underscore T, you'll see most of everything I do, because that's kind of like the catch-all page and what I'm working on.

Trey : 1:02:56

That I'm really excited about is the Florida fish pepper Co. It is a nonprofit organization. It's basically a co-op of growers, and growers is defined as gardeners, homesteaders or farmers who are willing to dedicate a certain amount of space to growing fish peppers. Because We've got a cool situation here where we're going to do storytelling agriculture. It's going to be community and you know it's this. I'm super excited about it and this is like its own podcast by itself.

Trey : 1:03:24

But I am, um, I have one mother plant or father plant. Uh, we have one plant peppers, right and so I've dedicated everything to just seeding. Right now. I'm going to seed like crazy because we want to launch a product in November, probably two products, a hot sauce and a dry blend and we're going to allow the Growers Network to come up with other products and we'll do like the whole M&M thing where they like, vote for the color of M&M, we'll release new products. So this is like a 50-year plan, and this is me right here. Also, I'm launching a community garden crawl, which is think bar crawl and farm tours type of thing. There is going to be beer involved. There's things called beer gardens. So I figured, oh, community garden crawl.

Adela: 1:04:08

Well, we'll have to come feature that when that comes.

Trey : 1:04:11

Yeah, so I'll be launching that through as my role as supervisor of Buval Soil and Water Conservation District. And we have Carlos's premiere coming up in Jacksonville and Orlando. So the future soul comes out in Jacksonville September 20th at Regal Avenues and September 28th in Orlando Still looking at the two theaters there. We have oh, you mentioned the next pitch party. The next pitch party is actually going to be on 904 Day, which is Art Walk, james Weldon Johnson Park, and we're probably going to do it at the Jesse or Mocha and we're looking for our next film to be the beneficiary of that.

Adela: 1:04:53

Can it be a documentary? Can it be a?

Trey : 1:04:54

documentary. Yeah, can it be a documentary.

Adela: 1:04:56

Can it be a documentary? Yeah, I mean, it can be whatever. Okay, there's like three people who have to vote on it but. Okay, cause, cause, cause, cause. You know we're going to do another one in October.

Trey : 1:05:06

So the one, the one in um. The one in September is because it's going to be 904 day, but then October we're going to go back to collab.

Adela: 1:05:15

Okay.

Trey : 1:05:15

And so the one in the, the one in September, won't be at collab, but I like, I like that space. That was perfect space for it.

Trey : 1:05:22

I do too. Yeah, pitch party, jax. What else is coming up? I've got brunch on the beach, june 20. Well, this is at Refinery every last Saturday and we will probably stop in September. So if you see this in July or August, just follow the pages. You'll see Brunch on the Beach and July 20th there. For the single folk, there is a summer social that is going to have some singles mixers and some speed dating and, even if you're not looking to go out there and date, just have fun with other singles and other people who are just cool. That's going to just have fun with other singles and you know other people who are just cool.

Trey : 1:05:57

Network that's me at nexus and it's hosted by ori lotus or v. She does, uh, yoga. She's a yoga instructor and really dynamic woman. So, uh, what else? Oh, I'm launching a podcast. Let's do the last thing. Uh, I'm launching a podcast called bringing the culture back to agriculture. That's being produced by dana, who did the montcree Springs film, and Black in the Garden. Both of them are at the pitch party, so I'm getting in the cast seat and some other people are doing the producing. So I'm looking forward to that.

Adela: 1:06:24

That's awesome.

Trey : 1:06:25

That was a lot right.

Adela: 1:06:26

No, I know and I want to make sure that I didn't miss it, but did you mention Art of Flow?

Trey : 1:06:30

Oh yes, art of Cool is available on Quelly TV, wwwqueleytv, and it's streaming right on there. It's a subscription service but you can do your subscription price based on if you want ads or not.

Adela: 1:06:49

But if you like documentaries, quelly TV has some of the best documentaries I do. I love. I've seen every. Yeah, I'm up.

Trey : 1:06:53

OK, I'll give an example. They did this. There's this documentary I'm about to watch. That's about two mayors running for mayor of New Orleans and they were like completely different types of people. I think it was a woman versus a man.

Adela: 1:07:09

I think they were both black, but I just saw I caught the trail. I was like oh, I'm watching that.

Trey : 1:07:12

That was very interesting. So I love that. I love stories Great great love stories.

Adela: 1:07:14

great great content okay, I'll have to check them out. Well, shout out to quelly we're not sponsored by them, or anything like that. I just wanted to shut that out either. Just to shut up, but listen yeah, give us money and we'll do it again.

Trey : 1:07:24

Look, look, look, we're here because a woman-owned brand in dc they're not that big they're, they're, but they, they're, they're. They're small, but mighty yeah they get, they involve themselves it comes down to we, the people man is the boss yeah, boss woman. I know we said women don't have to be the bosses. But you know, sometimes you do.

Adela: 1:07:41

No but no.

Trey : 1:07:42

Here's the thing companies that need a boss, you know on that.

Adela: 1:07:44

No, no, but that's that's. That's where we're gonna get. Just to clarify that. No, we don't need to be, but here's the time and place for that. Like I am in my boss era, right now there's no ceo, but you're the boss of this podcast right. So on the right. So like there's no, there is no, there's no, there's a time and place for it is we can't, we just can't do it to do it right, to do it the way it's meant to, to be who you are, to fulfill your like.

Adela: 1:08:11

You cannot and this is speaking from someone who's been told a thousand and one times pick a lane, stick to a lane. Pick a thing, stick to a thing. I can't pick a lane or stick to a thing, but I did pick me and I stuck to me.

Trey : 1:08:24

And that's a great lane.

Adela: 1:08:25

And if you can do that, then no matter what you do out to the world, you will find your way Like your path will be so clear. So it's not about you can't do this. You your way. Like your, your path will be so clear. So it's not about you can't do this. You shouldn't do this, we don't need to do that. It's time and place and space. Give yourself the time to grow, give yourself the space to understand yourself and give yourself the proper place of a structure so you don't fail.

Adela: 1:08:46

We, we rush into everything, like you said, with, with, with the. When we're planting, when we're gardening, I killed three years worth of plants, three years in a row. I mean mean, I killed everything, left and right. Because you know why, again, I rushed it. I didn't pick a lane, I didn't pick a space, but that taught me, now I'm fruitful, now I just takes a little more time. It just slow it down and change the process, and that's okay.

Adela: 1:09:09

Society, you don't need to follow society's rules of rush, rush, rush, rush. That's the capitalistic world that we live in and that's great. But that's for our men to run it the way they need to, not, and I, you again quote me however you want, but that's where they're meant for the fighting role. Um, I don't want to fight, I'm done fighting like why are we continuously fighting? You know, if you want to fight, go be the man and fight like that's fine, I'll just be back here to mend your wounds when you come back. That's it. But in any shape or form, you know, all right. So on that note, trey, it was such an honor and pleasure. I can't wait to talk to you more and further and just get you back on again. I hope that you had a great time.

Trey : 1:09:47

I hope you had enjoyed your conversation and let me know where to drop this off, Listen you and I will be in contact right after I message you.

Adela: 1:09:54

We're going to be in contact because I had a question or two, but I do want to ask you something. Leave our listeners with a sentence or word of encouragement, or just something of encouragement.

Trey : 1:10:08

My word of encouragement is create, don't wait, take the step. If you're going from Florida to California, the reality is you can't see California when you start the journey, and as you progress you'll see the signs change. You'll go on I-10, I'm assuming If you're driving all the way through. You've got to pass through Alabama, new Orleans or Louisiana, texas, to get to California, and so there's no point in you trying to do all these mental gymnastics. Just go.

Adela: 1:10:40

Just go.

Trey : 1:10:41

And enjoy the journey. It'll be the best thing you ever decided to do.

Adela: 1:10:44

Awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate everybody. Remember to follow, like, subscribe, share and all the other good stuff. Remember to listen to us on all of our platforms. And please go to our thinking phinc-ingorg and sign up for all of our platforms. And please go to our thinking P-H-I-N-C-I-N-Gorg and sign up for all of our good stuff. Much love and we he got out.