Let's Talk about Web 3: Season 3 Ep 2 w/ Maceo from We ThemMedia

0:00Back to Let’s Talk About Web 3. We’re in season 3, episode two with our guest, Mo. I got my co-host here, Oni B. Well, as we always start off, we like to start off with a little bit of gratitude this week. I am grateful for the opportunity to share what we’re building. I feel like this week already, it’s Wednesday, has been an amazing opportunity so far for three or four different unique communities that I’m not normally a part of. Um, for us to have shared shared something or other um that was uh that was new this week. So, I’m just grateful for that opportunity. Um, it’s

0:39already been a really cool week. Um, B, what are you grateful for this week? Honestly, I’m I’m grateful this week. I’m grateful for right now for tech, man. Not going to lie. Like the the ability to connect with homies like in this room right now. Like it’s understated. And I I did a stream earlier today and I was outdoor sunny LA chilling, vibing on Wi-Fi, you know, streaming clear cameras. Like, you know, I’m I’m really grateful for tech. Like, you know, sometimes people will be like it’s a crutch. humans are falling out of their, you know, their their personal, you know, communication and things like that. It’s

1:18like, no, a lot of homies out here are utilizing it to connect with each other digitally, globally. You know what I’m saying? So, I’m really thankful for that. It’s a really cool time, you know? But maybe I’m just a oldhead. I’m an oldhead and I remember a time without the internet type vibes. We was outside playing. So, I’m really I’m really grateful for tech. What about you, Michelle? What’s good? What you grateful for, man? Um, I would say I’m grateful for community today. You know, I had a fantastic meeting earlier today with my mentor for a couple hours. I got to educate about blockchain, Bitcoin,

1:48Ethereum this morning. Only now it’s the Africa community. I’ve only educated maybe once or twice on this kind of stuff. So, it was pretty dope to get that experience. Um, you know, I got somebody reached out to me about a job supporting on like a startup working in the law space just out of the blue yesterday. And I’m just seeing myself growing and developing in whole new ways because people are showing up and extending opportunities just like this, right, to come and speak. So I’m grateful for our community today.

2:12Hell yeah. Well, I like that. Let’s get started. Uh we’ll we’ll we see Freeze in the building. Shout out to you, Freeze. Um I had a little stream earlier today with Freeze, where we did a little card ripping. Um I did some digital card ripping. He did physical card ripping. It was pretty cool. Um Europe’s actually a $200 card. say uh 10x technically on a $20 pack. So, in crypto terms, uh

2:36cards, the Pokemon cards uh is what he was opening. And I was opening up Pokemon and football PSA graded cards with the uh the new beta power packs thing that’s going on with collectibles that I’m excited about. But um but enough of that. I’m excited to get um to chatting with you, Mo. Um, you know, my first question as always with most people, how did you get into blockchain? Like what got you to this space here today to start even thinking about we Them media?

3:06Yeah, that’s a good question. How did I get into blockchain? Um, I would say I got into blockchain in college. My college roommate, he was uh trading NFT PFPs and he like was on the white list for some projects like doodles actually and he was up like 60k and I was like, dang, how how do I like where am I at? like where like what do I got to do to play in this in this league? So, you know, just jumping on his bandwagon, asking questions. He got me into some DAOs, helped me get a ENS domain ahead of that airdrop. That airdrop kind of

3:34was like my green light. Like, I’m here to play. Gave me some house money. That’s kind of what kicked me off. Excellent. That’s a that’s a good onboarding. It’s like you see, you know, those collections, the doodles going crazy. That’s cool, man. I was on the outside of Doodles. Um I’m a huge fan of burnt toast like pre Weeb 3, you know. IG side and like just to see artists kind of tackle this space and hop into it and utilize the tech, man. And I don’t know how much you’ve been tapped in with his journey, but you know, he’s diving into like the AI side, too, and just

4:06embracing it. You know, one of those can’t beat it, join it type vibes, and he’s diving heavily in, which is really cool. So, and Burnt Toast is the artist behind Doodles.

4:15Yes. Oh, yeah. I didn’t even know that. Yeah, he is. He’s super cool guy, you know, super talented. Yeah, I’ve been following him for a long time since like I want to say like 2012 13. Like it’s been a minute.

4:27Yeah, he’s super talented. Pretty dope. I didn’t know that. What about you two? How’d you two end up in this space? Go ahead, Z. Oh, GameStop for me. Um Jan 21 Jan 28 2021 uh you know buy button stopped. learn more about the financial system and how that’s probably, you know, pausing the game, you know, changing the rules and then unpausing it for, you know, us pores. Um, and that was an interesting moment for me and learning more about debanking and slowly over time, uh, learning about why it matters. I’ve been working with musicians. So, it’s kind of like perfectly handinhanded helping fix the music industry as well. So, it’s

5:10kind of like perfect for the financial and the musical industry. And that’s kind of why I came here. What would you be? Man, I I’m a I’m a OG. I should be rich a million times over. Got all the homies on the yacht with me. But I’m one of those kids kicking myself. Um I found out about, you know, Satoshi White Paper back in, you know, 08. Getting we’re coming up to the anniversary Halloween.

5:35Yeah. 2008 Halloween. It hadn’t yet. Correct. So yeah, man. But everything happens for for a reason. You know, hindsight’s always 2020. But um yeah, I talked about that story quite a bit. Um Gizmodo Life hacker. I don’t know if you guys know like the Gawker blogs and stuff like that. I found out about I found out about this tech back then. Way back then, you know, before the buying stuff, it was like I’m trying to convince me and my homies, you know, family to get into mining. You know, I remember researching graphics cards during that first shortage and all that good stuff to try to build some rigs,

6:10whatever. I was trying to learn all of it. Didn’t really get in. But then heavily, you know, I was just watching it from the outside, watching the peaks, valleys, and all that good stuff. And then once, you know, 2015, 16, 17, I started to see bunch of the artists like Burnt Toast start dabbling the space, talk about web 3, talk about NFTs, and I was like, wait a minute, now we’re pairing art to this blockchain that I saw so long ago. And I was like, okay, I’m in. Because I got a heavy graphic design background. I’m like, cool. So like 19 20 21 I’m looking for

6:41communities trying to vibe didn’t see anything that I rock with. So you know 22 or you know summer 21 brainstorming I’m like cool just to build our own table build our own collection you know the apes were going crazy I’m like that ain’t really for me. So built Onagi the OG launched that January 22 rest was history man on university kind of came about uh February because a bunch of the homies are like we love what you’re doing. We love the art. We love the artists. We love Prime. We love all that good stuff. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You’re talking

7:10Ethereum, Metamas wallets, all this good stuff. Gas fees, guay. Like, bro, what? So, we pivoted into the education side. February 22, did our own Naji Saturdays getting those chats going. The rest was history, man.

7:25Really dope. Really dope. Yes, sir. Well, so from that I was gonna say from that initial point, mo then what is that journey from, you know, entering the blockchain space to thinking, okay, you know, I need to build we them media. What was what prompted that and and how did you get to that point?

7:45So, I had a podcast I was already thinking about for like maybe a couple months before I got into crypto, right? We them I wanted to start this podcast. I wanted to somehow create value for black people and black culture and just like have more conversations around this like super provocative language. Um, which I felt was very resonant with me and some of my friends at the time.

8:05And you know, I feel like I came out of black spaces in high school, a really like like predominately black space. And I feel like people use that word all the time. And I felt like went into this predominately white college and I almost found myself censoring myself. But I felt like, you know, how do I navigate, you know, what I’m learning about my own identity? And so I feel like as I got into crypto, I already have this idea of this podcast and I didn’t really see much content about crypto. Like I got this airdrop. Now what? Like I don’t know anything. I’m like looking up

8:31crypto projects on YouTube. I see Ponzi schemes like Olympus D. Like I’m like what do I do with an Olympus D, right? I just see like I I feel like the content that I’m seeing on YouTube isn’t very substantial outside like whiteboard crypto. And I definitely didn’t really see any black people making content that was informative. Um and so myself already wanted to work in the music industry. I’m a rapper as well. I was kind of curious what could it look like to explore that intersection right of music and web 3 as like a place I knew I had a real interest. Um and so honestly

8:58over the next couple months I was researching protocols audience platforms. Um and by the end of my school year I found water and music. I was in like my philosophy classes researching music crypto every day like just trying to figure out like what can my career look like because grad school for philosophy didn’t make a lot of sense. And I didn’t find like a job in crypto. What I found was water music. this music and tech research organization which had gone through um what is it called? Seed Club to become a DAO. At the time seed club was a DAO like accelerator and I was like okay. So

9:30I found this music tech community where I could get paid to contribute is what they told me and so I paid like 80 bucks or something like that to get a year membership and I jumped in there and asked immediately how can I contribute like what can I be doing to get paid? Um and they were interviewing people collecting music NFTts and I was like okay dope. So, I was immediately put right in the middle of the meta. Like, people are buying these things. I don’t know why, but I get to find out. So, I got to interview people collecting NFTTS. Um, which was super dope. I got

9:54to really hear what they liked and didn’t like about that user experience. Um, and that was just super informative to me. And I just kind of noticed over the time I was doing that that it was a dying meta at the same time. And so, while I learned a lot about how that bubble was working and popping, I also was kind of having to reimagine what I’m even doing here now. because I learned that the thing I think I want to do is not necessarily feasible. Um, and then I was fortunate enough to kind of pivot into just trying to interview black people in general in crypto. And

10:23somebody who I learned through that community, right, CY Lee, um, was like a major patron of the arts in the crypto space. And so he and I kind of got connected soon after that, um, he reached out posted on Twitter looking for somebody to interview um, an artist he worked with, um, that I didn’t actually end up interviewing, frankly. But you know from there we just got to have you know more of a relationship continue to discuss and you know by FWBFest I met him there in person. And I was sharing with the community what I wanted to do with my podcast really with We Them Media at large think about how

10:51could crypto be a way for us to build a new kind of like like organizational structure for creatives like how can a DAO be the new music label you know like how can we you know create something that helps more of the value artists are generating go-to artists so they can do more community oriented work you know and also give them the resources to have a team that they can actually work with you know that’s not inside of a a system that is designed to exploit you right music professionals don’t really have anywhere the major music groups if they want benefits and a quality life right now.

11:19Got it. What could that look like was a big question I was interested in. And I feel like I got funding for a podcast and just kind of ran with it and didn’t really re-evaluate what my actual goals were inside of that time because I felt a little bit like scared I was going to lose my funding if I was a little too honest about how overwhelmed I was about, you know, I was looking for a job in crypto and now I have a crypto podcast and like I I almost don’t even know necessarily where to go with it or like how to build out a team around it

11:45because it wasn’t necessarily long-term to be a crypto podcaster when I started, but more so to delve into that intersection of music and crypto. And it didn’t really seem like an easy thing to really sell creatives at the time. Like it’s like actually what do you do as a creative here? It’s like I don’t know what to tell anybody. And so it just became a journey of me interviewing black people in crypto and learning about their journeys, traveling to different conferences from ETH Denver to ETC to DevCon last year in Thailand and just getting to really learn about how this technology is impacting, you know, economies around the world.

12:15Learned about inflation. I’ve now spent a couple months in in Nigeria, a month in Kenya. um just really getting to see how this technology is taking shape in different kind of markets around the globe. And now here I am, you know, trying to look at how do I bring that information to bear on North America and how do I leverage my experience now to to tell people I know what I’m talking about and you should know, you know, what’s going on and you know, be hedging against inflation. Like no shoulds, right? But there’s an opportunity to hedge against inflation, you know, by dollar cost averaging into these

12:43technologies and opportunities. Bro, I love all of that, man. That’s what I’m talking about. Free said, “What’s this pod?” Um, so we’ll get you the information. We’ll we’ll tell the people where to find you at the end. Heck yeah, man. Like, we need more of that. I’m saying we need more of that, bro. It’s like, and when I was in the beginning, you know, hunting, looking, and deciding to build my own table. Like, I was looking for the homies like you. So, it’s good to see you here. It’s good to see you know you and other people like Z just hitting the ground running bro. I didn’t know you were

13:17tapped into um C uh C w like that. I didn’t know like that’s lit bro. So yeah, everybody’s just the networks are spiderweb and connecting together growing. You’re you’re tackling it on

13:29a global side in in the IRL side. You you flying out to the to the motherland and all that good stuff. And man, keep going. Keep going, bro. Like so kudos to you. I’m super proud, super in uh inspired by your journey, bro. Keep killing it. Keep killing it.

13:45I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Heck yeah. Yeah. No, it’s honestly dope hearing more about you uh like right here. Uh yeah, dude. Uh I I love hearing what people saw before in 2021 when I have conversations with folks. And it’s really interesting to see why different people believe there were challenges in the space at that time, right? because I didn’t get a firsthand experience of it. I’m only a third party observer. I couldn’t have gotten one. But every time I get another experience that’s different but has like everyone’s taken a lesson from it. And I think that’s one of the really cool things about hearing

14:25from folks in the space is a lot of people aren’t afraid to share the information that would have helped them in the past to the next generation of folks. And I think that’s a little bit of different culture than some of society today where it’s a pull the ladder up culture like where like oh man like I got challenged by this so you should also do it right like um and I’m curious like some of your thoughts on that and then like just tapping in a little bit more with culture and like I know we had a little bit of a conversation in the last uh couple days

14:58about uh you know I went to a wedding this weekend and just for me learning a little bit more about my culture um and and just diving into that. It’s always a blessing to hear when people are excited to share other cultures, especially some of these cultures that don’t have a lot of internet access. So, like we just don’t know about them, right? Like people don’t know um about all these like groups of people that just like haven’t tapped into this like greater economy that we are a part of, but they have their own local groups and their own customs and their own different, you

15:31know, ideals and traditions. But yeah, so your question then is really around like how I see like paying knowledge forward and like Yeah. Yeah. Like I I Yeah, exactly.

15:46Um can you restate your question? Yeah. Yeah. No, you’re good. I more just mean in terms of just like in learning more about culture. Like we’ve had that conversation the last week. I would love to dive in more about like that part of your ethos.

16:04Oh, okay. Yeah. Hey, I thought you were asking me about like my thoughts on how Yeah. No, I was just saying that in general. That’s part of these cultures, right?

16:12Yeah. I mean, you know, I studied psychology and philosophy in undergrad and a big thing for me was I was in the world of studying perception specifically, right? And how we perceive each other, right? I discussed going from like this predominately black environment to this predominately white environment. And I spent, you hear me talk, I spent a lot of time predominately white environments the majority of my life, right? And so starting to think about how we conceptualize and conceive of difference and then even, right, how we proceed to construe it in our minds over time um became a really big question for me, right? And studying things like

16:44intersectional like uh identity and thinking about like I’m a man, I’m a straight man, I’m a straight black man from a low-inccome background. All these different identities impact the way I navigate, experience, and perceive the world, right? and even the kinds of conversations that are normative right in my culture assuming I hang out with people that are like me then you go into the fact that I’ve been in these predominately white academic environments and then you’re they have a new whole new component in dynamic that I’m just accustomed to right and so for me a big question is how do people see the world given you know the body like

17:14the the body they occupy and also the communities they occupy and then the larger you know societies they occupy right and what things are normative inside of each of those demographics Um, and so I’ve become really interested in conversations for culture that kind of respect or recognize culture as a product of having to navigate those inter like those interconnecting realities, right? Um, and so I become really interested in, you know, what are people’s backgrounds because their backgrounds give wake to, you know, how they perceive the world they have to navigate, you know, the historical world they’ve had to navigate, right? your parents are navigating just another

17:49iteration of the same, you know, body that you’re navigating to some degree, but likely in a different temporal context, which is, you know, another thing to recognize. And so for me, the conversation for identity is really like it kind of ties back even to this notion of we them Like for me, we them is like a conversation about the black identity, but my black identity is not like Bee’s black identity is not black Dave’s black identity is not girl crash or Leo Pastel or my mom or my dad or my grandma even, you know? It’s like a plethora of of different kinds of black identities. Jamie Cornelia, you

18:21know, Iman, you’re Europe, right? Latasha, like we’re all navigating this space, but likely from very different lived realities. Um, and you know, different levels of privilege in different ways. And so, how does that impact the way that we navigate spaces, the way that we perceive, understand spaces, and even the way that people perceive me, right? like me being a college educated like black man from a from like a like who’s been in a lot of white environments, I speak the way I speak, which affords me a certain level of privilege. And so for me, it’s like inside of all of that, there still is, you know, code switching. And so there’s

18:52things I leave behind when I enter certain rooms that are not things I necessarily like to leave behind or that I actually didn’t start out leaving behind, but when I found myself in black spaces, I found new modes of expression.

19:03And so I’m always curious like what are the modes of expression? people I’m meeting leave behind in order to navigate the what is most often predominantly white culture that we’re participating in.

19:14Damn, that was deep. I have to think about that more. I love that. That was a lot of words you said. No, no, it was a lot of words, but it was everything you were saying was super on the money and I really am interested more in those things. But it was cool for me to hear from my perspective um a little bit about how that is for you. And you know, you’re talking about your black culture, but the same thing applies to every single other individual for whatever they are. So that’s really cool to to see. And like it’s different with I mean like my my cultural uh

19:48background and heritage, there’s only like a 100,000 of us in the world. So it’s like a significant even more minority where it’s like most people out of all of the people I’ve ever told the name of my religion I could count on like two or three hands of people that separately had heard of it. Right? So it’s definitely interesting to hear different perspectives on different cultures as well and understanding that just because you know one culture is from one thing you know the different things and perceptions and privileges that that person has makes that experience a completely different thing. And so I’m curious um like given my my

20:26interest in that domain like what are the things that people frequently don’t know or don’t anticipate right about your religion and culture like or like things that maybe uh people don’t even necessarily want to talk about right because of how it might be perceived right that makes

20:40yeah no I mean it’s an amazing point because like I just got I just realized today um on the GM faraster pod they said you’re probably one of the first people that’s ever been onboarded through a religion and I was like oh Like that’s kind of cool. I didn’t really think about it that way, but like that is a part of my identity. It’s something that I would like to talk about more, but I’m not like because religion is such an interesting topic and hot topic, I don’t try and like push it, right? Like if asked, of course, I’m very excited to talk about. But um but

21:12essentially like our religion is called Zoroastrianism. one of the first monotheistic religions that you know predates Judaism and Christianity. And I went to a Catholic school from K to 8. So I have a little bit more Catholicism like knowledge through me than like most Catholics in America, right? In terms of like learning scripture and like learning more about like everything there in that religion. So that gave me a really interesting perspective because I was seeing the prescriptive culture of Catholicism. You can’t do this, you can’t do that, you can’t do this, you can’t do that. And being a child and like understanding like we are human a

21:59little bit, like of course not to like the level I do now, but just like understanding like we’re we’re kind of kids, right? And like not going to be at that same level of maturity as an adult. Um re like our religion’s faith is basically like do good words, say uh say good words, um think good thoughts, do good deeds, and that’s all you have to do to get into heaven. You know, don’t listen to the law or this or that, but you know, in your good mind and your consciousness um what is right and what is wrong, and it’s up to you to be, you

22:30know, that individual. So, it’s definitely uh an interesting experience when like I went to Catholic school for a lot of my like you said that like predominantly white experience in space in a completely different aspect because when I was in sixth grade I spent a um I spent a month in India um studying to become a moed in our religion which is a Zoroastrian priest um the way it works in our religion it’s yeah exactly and I don’t get to talk about a lot but and it’s like it was a lot but like and there’s been a lot of things that have come from that but like it’s a really

23:08interesting and unique experience that I’ve had that honestly at a young age I was like being pushed and like oh you’re like doing bad things and knowing you’re doing bad things but I’m just like a kid doing these things. So like really with my mentality for a long time. Um but I eventually finally figured out and realized because for me um my dad was our head priest in our like Boston area. I was the first priest born in the states in that Boston area and like we did a lot of communities um community like events and functions. Um whether it was a first communion type

23:44function like someone entering our faith. I did my sisters and a bunch of our other younger sisters ceremonies with my dad and um also of like um just like housewarmings and like these other different events because my dad was kind of the head priest of the area and like on online sometimes people would just like find us online and like request. I jumped into a lot of different things to the point where like actually when I was in high school I did a marriage, right? And it was really interesting to me like getting that experience and just being like still a kid and still like learning and needing

24:17to mature. Um but uh but I realized after all of that um in our faith one of the big things is and was it’s kind of changing now with with time um is that back in the day of ancient Persia you were whatever your father was as an artisan. That’s just like you are whatever your family line is. So the priesthood is usually passed down by family line. So my dad was a priest, his dad was a priest, etc., etc., and so on. And there was this requirement um for our faith to be of a priestly line to become a priest. So it was also kind of

24:54just a given and something like I just like had a unique individual experience that I knew I was just getting from RIP. but like explaining to anyone else that it’s completely foreign and unique experience not only in a in my religion talking to the other folks in my religion and friends around me. Um but then like to a bigger picture so yeah that’s a little bit more about me and he definitely learned a little bit there too. So yeah I’m glad you

25:20Absolutely. Absolutely man. And I’m a little bit curious. I have one more follow-up question. Does like going back to to India decided to be a Mobed you said right? Does that give you right like a greater level of privilege or recognition in the community being back home now?

25:37Yeah. And that’s like the weird thing for me because it’s like it somewhat feels un undeserved but at a certain point you like learn to be appreciative of the privilege you’ve been given. So like that was a challenge for me from sixth grade until you know literally my last year of college when I was for the first time really thinking about like everything mental and like learning about all of this a little bit more. But yeah, no it’s uh it’s definitely an interesting it it was its own challenge growing up. Um but yeah, no it’s uh it definitely is because I’ve had that unique perspective of just like studying

26:14our faith a lot more and our faith isn’t studied too too much. But it’s really interesting hearing like when I the like experience I had that onboarded me to crypto was going to New York for our Zoroastrian world congress. very similar to a crypto event, ironically enough, where it’s like a bunch of kids go like some people going to talks and talking about legit ass like super important stuff and then like the other people half of the people hung over like coming back from just the night out and networking and wanting to meet other folks just have a good time which you know I was a part of both groups in a

26:48lot of different ways and like I’m not judging of one side or another. Um, I don’t really like, you know, going either way too much, right? And that’s that maxi conversation we come back to in blockchain, right? Where it’s just like being too strongheaded on one side and not being able to change your opinion is just a bad take, period. Um, but yeah, like so like that whole experience was me going to this like world um congress and then that was in New York, so that was a bus ride away. My whole family went to that. That was like my first time being around people

27:19in our faith that wanted to know more and knew a lot more culturally than me versus like in Boston. It was always like I was like my dad’s son and learning all of my scripture and stuff from him. We don’t have like a pope or like any central figure. So for me, my dad was a huge part of like that father figure in my life. Again, learning to get out of his shadow, learning what I’m uniquely strengthened at and you know sometimes his weaknesses and and his own challenges, right? like he’s only a human even though in our faith like he was looked on in a very positive light.

27:51So, it’s awesome. Like, it just gave me that appreciation finally to like take a step back and be like, “Wow, like everyone has their own issues with their parents, but like in the grand scheme of things, unconditional love, like super blessed, super grateful, like that is something that other people don’t have.” And realizing that in real life was the biggest like mind for me because like that was normal to me. And learning that not everyone has that honestly is a big part of why I’m here today. Like I met Django and he never had like he never had a father figure finger in his life and like that like experience

28:26really stuck with me because it was just like I realized like how lost I would be without my dad. Um and just like that whole experience but yeah it’s it’s always it’s an interesting conversation. But I want to definitely bring it back to you if you have any other questions. You’re welcome to. I love the combo but um because it’s all part of the same thing.

28:43Yeah. I mean, I don’t I I could keep going, but I’m for the moment, you know, but dude, I’m good just chithatting. Like, that’s that’s the beauty of these. Like, whatever you want to talk about, we’ll we’ll chitchat. B, you have something, too. Um, you’re you’re welcome to to pop in and say say anything. Yeah, dude. I love I love your energy. I’m I’m happy we’re working more together and talking more about things and ways we can collaborate more because the thing I’ve been trying to find and leverage is how can we the people who want to give effort, time and energy to the creators and the

29:19independence of the space while being able to give them their own autonomy, independence and freedom but still be able to um have that culture come back and you know um karma kind of like kick forward, right? Like we always talk about karma and like we can see that in like the karmic value of life in the world in the big picture, but in like just straight crypto is not there, right? Like there isn’t just because you do something good like it’s not coming back to you. Well, in fact, it’s probably the opposite, right? Like in terms of like you’re looking at like your other well-being, whether you’re

29:53looking at, you know, personal financial networking, right? So that’s like a whole interesting other side of it. But yeah, dude. It’s uh it’s always good chatting with you.

30:03I love it. I love it, bro. No, I think it’s real cool just to real quickly just to see like, you know, get exposed to world religions. So, shout out to you all because like there’s not a whole lot of, you know, simple focus on be a good human. You know what I’m saying? And I think a lot of like larger religions and a lot of people who have been, you know, I grew up Baptist and it’s like the main mission is just to be a good human. and the amount of people that can’t gras gr grasp that concept and are in these religions and you know what I’m saying

30:33you know what I’m saying so that’s why I like saying spirituality right because it’s like religion like even atheists can understand spirituality and what that means right and I think that’s such a more important

30:47thing than whatever your beliefs are right like it like you said it should just be to be a good human being and that should transcend all religions but it doesn’t right because of whatever trauma and things we’ve been pushed on by whatever, right? And um it’s a interesting like concept like it’s such a like challenging topic because it’s like that you know religion and politics thing you don’t talk at the dinner table thing even though in the last you know however many years I don’t know how how true that’s been um because how how fair has been in my life but like honestly like growing up high school even in

31:23college like I was always like so far removed from politics and wanting to like stay away from it for forever and then crypto freaking pulled me and and got me to the point of like understanding that like while the whole system and and and people in it are challenging and and they’re like just being a leader and being there like good leaders step in because they know that without them being there it would be worse. And that’s what I’ve realized for myself. I hate responsibility. I hate liability. I love doing just like whatever for the fun of it. But I’ve found like different places that I can

32:01see my effort being the best effort being there. And I think like realizing that as well is like a whole different thing. But yeah, um I see we got crypto noobs in the chat. Ken going crazy, man. I love it. I love it.

32:17Yeah. And then your chat’s going crazy on some other stuff, I think. I can’t tell. That’s cool. Crypto noobs. Um I met him at Oasis onchain. It’s like a conference in the Bahamas organized by Stephan Delivo.

32:29Talk that talk. Tell us tell us how we’re gonna we’re gonna do let’s talk about web 3 trip with We Them Media. Let’s start. I’m actually so I was just talking to Anagi today about like let’s do merch and like do a little more like let’s talk about web 3 brand stuff. We’ve just like done it as like the name of this like whatever. We initially started as an exspace, transitioned into a podcast with this live stream, but then it’s been like and it’s always been a part of the Zho. Um, but because I’ve been building 247 on the Zhou 30, you know, especially like other projects, it’s

33:04been like one thing I want to put more effort into, but we just haven’t had the energy. Um but I think like finding one of those monetization like mechanisms um in a very small group like um just trying out different de apps and tools as a brand so that we can showcase them is such a good like showing point. So like um tools like pods pods is what really took off in my mind of like we can actually do this with the podcast. I always saw like everyone else doing the whole like ads thing and selling to sponsors and talking about their sponsor within their podcast and I personally

33:41always hated that even though I totally see why everyone does it and I I get it. Talk about Mantle. You’re not listening to to Banklist this season.

33:49Exactly. So, no, I’ve never listened to Bank list to be honest with you. Um, which is another whole wild thing, but like I have very specific like thoughts on Anyways, I digress. That that like always was weird to me. But then like learning more about these tools that we can use in addition to the podcast that help give the multimedia mode that’s not just like okay I can’t only monetize the 60 minutes that were audio today you know then there’s video then there’s you know on YouTube after edited there’s you know clipping it up and then these there’s all these other pieces that go into then building a brand and I think

34:24with our knowledge and the DAO aspect of like I like love DAOs even though like everyone like that’s a scary word for a lot of people in 20 I mean maybe two or three years ago not in 2025 but um but like I love that idea like I was a part of PDX down Oregon when I like first got um down the rabbit hole so like those people were very like public goods regenheavy focused so like learning how a DAO needs to work to be a successful DAO and function was really interesting so I’ve been part of a couple failed DAOs and realizing that like the word

34:57DAO is just a concept Um and uh that is a part of um the challenge with like just hearing a word and automatically assuming a definition especially in this space where it’s like especially like we’re going back to music

35:17onchain um it onchain music has not gotten like 1% of all three of us understand like it can be a lot hundred times bigger So I think like that just because someone says something I mean the word NFT when I joined in 2022 was this scary thing right that everyone every time I was talking about I was interested in the stuff I had to kind of like be you know like this second identity right so it’s it’s a interesting space 2025 is so different than 2022 and even you know 2019 and and and earlier so um I’m just excited to cook up with y’all um oh so I

35:53guess coming back to the pods thing we got like just people checking out our pod, buying it as an NFT just by like being on a platform and like that was cool to me to see. Um I need to push a little bit more. I need to get our our season our whole season one and then season 3 episode one up there. But um I think just finding these other tools, learning more about something like Empire Builder um over on Farcaster with um with um Yerber Yerber man I can’t pronounce his name. Yerber Yerberker I think is what it is. Um um just cool things that people are building to help

36:31make uh there was someone who said really two really good words. It was like um structures that build together uh symbiotically as opposed to not together.

36:44I don’t know. There was a great quote that I’m going to have to go find at some point and hopefully pin over somewhere. But but yeah, like these people who are creating tools and uh and launchpads that aren’t for themselves, but they’re built for themselves because they see the solution, but then that same solution applies to many more people. And that’s what I love about this like dev creator culture. Um that’s what I’m excited to help you guys support. I love the whole nouns Africa thing, seeing you over there as well. also hearing that you did an education thing over there. Um, you know, maybe uh

37:16B that’s that’s that’s next on your list, Chief. You gota you got to get over there and put your work in. Um, put your put your time in because

37:24I got a lot of homework, man. But yes, absolutely. We all do, right? So, that’s the that’s the beauty of the space and like finding the dope people around like you’re saying, you know, we we’ll bring it right back to what you’re saying at the beginning. Grateful for a community, the people that we do have here. supporting us in each of our own lanes and then together as a whole. So, um yeah, I guess that’s just a long-winded way of saying excited to kind of like have you on board whatever we we build here and would love to start figuring out ways that we can uh tap in with some of that

37:55like you know knowledge of of your experience of of that podcast journey and I didn’t know any of that to be honest with you. So like that’s pretty cool. Um, and we definitely need you back on specifically for something something cool like that if you are interested. But um, nonetheless, I know you’re doing amazing cool things with all of the other communities you’re rocking out. So yeah, I don’t know be how many if you had a bunch more questions, but

38:19for sure. I feel like we keep talking forever. So what is the what’s the uh the prep for whatever this next, you know, bull or this next crazy cycle goes crazy? Like what is some of the prep that you’re doing with you and your community? I know you had mentioned um a while back when I was in one of the calls. I’ll be trying to catch the calls, man. I’m bad. But um you know, you had mentioned like being a founder of a community and hitting that sweet spot to be like, you know, I’m able to pass the re pass the ball to you know, some of my team and my

38:49team is really taking the reigns and they’re, you know, they’re having the confidence to just run with the ball and I thought that was super dope. You know, that’s something that, you know, all founders struggle with. So, I think that’s really cool. So, how how are you prepping yourself? you know, we them the team, you know, to just go crazy this next bull because it’s coming. Let us know.

39:09I feel like I’m in the the iteration cycle at this point. Like what like what is the ball in the first place, right? Like We Them Media doing events coverage like I don’t know. We tried that. I feel like I’m not super confident in it right now. I think there’s an immediate need for us to make sure like our our media person is one person essentially, right? And historically, I feel like I haven’t allocated capital in a way that’s left him feeling supported and it’s left him feeling stressed and o overworked essentially. And so if we want to actually cover events and do it, you

39:40know, at a professional level, I think it demands having a bigger team, but we don’t have any capital, you know, and so I think that kind of creates one stop gap there. Um, I’m interested in doing educational content. Like, sure, I’m interested in like really bringing more black Americans on chain. like a big thing right for We Them Media is like we want to be uh we want to see Africans and people of African descent become first adopters of blockchain technology

40:05and thousand% right and for me that’s black Americans like I can talk about the diaspora but I’m I’m a black American human being right I haven’t been I’ve been to two countries in Africa there’s 54 I think so it’s like clearly I’m not the one represent the diaspora right and

40:20I think it’s cool that we’re lining up with Downst Africa and the opportunity to see partners like that be ble to support us, right, or like partner with us to do things that actually reflect the diaspora is cool. And I’m excited to see what that can look like more long term, right? That we’re building out those structures to be able to support media production and pay a team and potentially get budgets from that community to do small things. Um, which work for people on ground, right, to support that without needing to feel like they’re doing work for free. And then I think beyond that, right, I am

40:49still figuring out like if I want to do educational stuff focused on black America, what does that look like? You know, I’m very curious to hear about like what where Onaga is at in terms of, you know, educating people what the challenges are. Um, we were discussing today like I went to this entrepreneur summit over the weekend and it was cool talking talking to people in real estate, um, people in laundromats, people in uh, storage units and housing, um, people that do education as a service, sell courses, people that do marketing, uh, people in taxes, like people in stuff I don’t know anything about honestly. and hearing about like

41:23their the business acumen they have to navigate in or leverage right in order to do what they do well and I got really aware my business acumen is not very big like it’s negligible actually and so you know looking for mentorship in that space and looking at how do I bring this project above board but also how do I bring it back home to what I’m actually committed to if I want to make a difference in black America what does that look like if I want to support creators what does that look like what is our revenue model like all these questions I actually have to ask if it’s

41:47if it’s sustainable and makes sense and even having those questions and asking them is the first step. So that awareness is key. Yeah. Yeah. So I think like I’m still figuring out what it looks like, but I think right now what I’m thinking about is can we be educating people that have money in America about crypto and can they look at, you know, my track record and what I’ve been up to as the reason to trust us and my community as people to, you know, showcase what black people, African people in the diaspora are doing with this technology. And you know, like I mentioned earlier, why it makes sense

42:19to potentially be DCAing into, you know, the biggest opportunities of our lifetime potentially. You know, you don’t have to go in here and day trade. You don’t have to go in here and trade perpetuals. Like, I don’t know what that is, but I have a lot of conviction that all these currencies could be hyperinflated very soon and that we could all be stressed and wondering what should I be holding besides the things that I hold. Um, and just giving people a really deep awareness of the dangers that can come and just navigating a fiat world without knowing what that actually entails, which is what my parents, my

42:47grandparents, my great-grandparents have been doing. And for most of us, that’s just the truth. Unless you know about inflation and, you know, international monetary systems, right? You don’t really necessarily understand what it means to hedge against like local inflation with foreign currencies. You know, even forex traders, I don’t think consider that there’s an opportunity to arbitrage against inflation. there’s arbitrageing against like changing currency values without necessarily considering monetary policy and the things that impact those things. But I think traveling the world and looking at crypto has given me a much deeper understanding than anybody I know you know that I interact with on a week-toeek basis. Right.

43:21Yep. Thousand% n crypto noobs say you got this miss for sure. That’s what I’m talking about. And I agree. I agree. to answer your question. Um, you know, that’s dope that to see like the homies over the weekend like you’re cooking and you’re killing it, having those business discussions, man. But give yourself give yourself some grace. Business is just as vast and as huge as tech is. You know what I’m saying? There’s a a billion way trillion probably septillion ways to handle and be successful and do business just as a term itself, you know, just like tech. So, give yourself some grace. Um, I know you know I know you were you

43:57were in the rooms and you were teaching a lot of people just like you teach in the space right now. Um, think for me over the weekend I was at TwitchCon so I’m heavily diving into this social media. I mean well this evolution of social media into short form long form live content is I’m having a blast and just expanding the network there bringing you know the community building side but also bringing like the the tech education emerging tech education into the live stream side figuring out how to you know best bring that while still learning the tools still learning this even web two tech around just like you

44:31know OBS and you know streaming services and different things like that. So that’s been my journey um you know pretty much like since April on. Um you know of course the deans at the U they’re always on me. They’re like let’s let’s let’s get the ball roll and get the content roll and things like that. So you know I’m just uh heavily just hitting it on the content side. Um which is really cool because you know I think that’ll be valuable for for later on just like you know our our Twitter spaces and that you know content that we still have up on Spotify and all that

45:00good stuff um is is valuable from back in the day. So yeah, man. I hope that was helpful. Yeah, definitely. And so I’m hearing that you’re not necessarily focused as much on like the education like infrastructure or structure at the structured level, but more on the content side now, right?

45:17Yeah. Yeah. And I think the reason too um I just had an incredible call in July with Ritzy, shout out to Olivero, another another crew that’s basically doing what me me you Z is doing on the you know uh the Spanish speaking side, you know. Um and I’m heavily tapped in with them. I had a conversation with her in July. She just dropped that podcast on Monday. Was that last Monday already? The week already fly.

45:40Back up on that one. Yeah, it was last Monday. So, she was talking about, you know, the content journey and things like that. I was telling her the the the bridge between me and her and Olivers was um Louise. So, shout out to Louise. He’s actually over um dang, what’s the coin that’s the S?

45:58No. No. Dang it. It’s a new one. They just changed. They just rebranded. But anyways, there I I’ll I’ll tell you guys later on. But he’s the community manager for that like the whole the whole chain whole coin type vibe. So he’s killing it on that side. Um but they were building learn.io. So it was a it was the infrastructure that was built

46:19and I was heavily like we were working on like curriculum and stuff for that platform. And that’s kind of why no Onagi didn’t really go behind the scenes in the tech side to build the infrastructure because we were kind of partnering with them on that side. So, but hey, I mean now is the time or I mean if We Them Media’s tackling it, hey, we’ll partner left and right. So, but it is, you know, and I know Z knows, you know, with the with the AI coding, vibe coding, all that good stuff, like it’s easier than ever to to get stuff built now, which is crazy. I honestly think

46:53like we’re going to be building like the institutional like learnings in the future like especially with like how to prompt AI literally that part is things that people are going to need help with and support in how to leverage that like data automation layer all of these other pieces like learning that is going to be different like that is going to change this education system right so I I I think of it not even on like a formal education system side because like everyone that’s in formal education whether it be the teachers or the students are going to also on their side be trying to learn this. So it’s like to

47:30me that’s where the classes are going towards even if like some of them are definitely leveraged and useful in lots of different ways like I got my electrical engineering degree and that helps infinitely with now realizing how computers work. I didn’t know that a lot of my knowledge was c was not common knowledge until I started not hanging out with engineers and I was like oh

47:52that’s just not something you know I just like I’m just know it like right so that side of things is insane like don’t get me wrong but like

48:02thinking about you know the next generation of kids thinking about people like Candy’s kids you know um like folks that are you know have kids young kids now um that are that are about to be growing up in this age, what do we want for them? And it’s like if we have these like communities like third places, I think that’s the thing we’ve lost a lot of

48:22precoid but including co right like that was I mean people lost their second places in co their workplaces, right? So it made it even more important to have a third place.

48:31Yeah. Um, and I think that like piece of like it happens to be digital is such a hangup for a lot of people, but once you realize it can extend beyond the digital, it transcends worlds because you realize that you can make a difference in someone’s life halfway across the world on a whim, especially here in the US, realizing like how much of a difference our like our earning dollar is or our spending dollar, right? So, like that part like boggled my mind because everyone’s thinking like AI automation, we’re going to like get rid of all of the people, but I’m like, nah, how do I like if we’re if everyone’s

49:09outsourcing stuff anyways? How do I teach outsourced people how to leverage this tech the best so that the money that I’m paying them is going the farthest, right? So I think like and then that person being able to do more and earn more and have more of a capacity to then like expand on that as opposed to doing one thing and being locked into one thing especially when people want them to stay their virtual assistant or whatever, right? Like finding that like next level up for other people. So yeah, I’m having a blast. Um but like yeah, it’s it’s getting close to the end here. So maybe

49:42we should uh a uh we’ll each ask one more question to mo maybe two questions if you have a lightning round question. Oni I’m gonna ask two and then you’re gonna ask two. Okay.

49:53So what’s your favorite NFT? just like very one of one of one of one of it doesn’t have to be the like what’s like a NFD you bought that you appreciate your like one of the ones you’re going to show off like let’s say you had a a metaverse be in that gallery

50:14um you know I work pretty closely with Jed EXO like Jed you both know Jed I’m pretty sure um and I collected his song maybe Lost or Soul I think it was lost. Um I think it was on my birthday that he meanted it too in 2021, right? No, 2022, like when I finished college. It was that winter. Um when I was first getting into the space and I would say it was like an NFT I I collected and was excited about. So I would say that’s that’s definitely one I would always show off. I feel like he is now, you know, easily one of my closest

50:50friends in this space. someone I co-conspire with, someone who I look at like a brother and I feel like that’s just a product of me being in this space and I admire his music so much and I think, you know, seeing him on his entrepreneur journey now and, you know, just someone who’s been in the space and ongoingly been passionate about making a difference, period. That’s my favorite NFT.

51:09I love it. Um, I’m going to show off something real quick here that you should definitely check out. M3 um Yeah. Yeah. This is a media player built by Prism, who was in the chat at one point. I don’t know if he’s still here.

51:23Wris, you log in with you log in with your wallet and it grabs all of your music NFTts. It doesn’t have soul yet, but it has a bunch of EVM chains.

51:32Um, and it’s music player. So, um, that’s pretty smooth. That’s cool. Yeah, it’s it’s pretty cool. Um, I’m not going to play it right now, but uh, yeah, we love Jed. Jed is one of the top members of the Zho, so shout out to him. He’s a goat. I love his energy and I just love love like hearing all of the cool things that have like he’s been tapped in with and I’m like, “Oh, Jed’s here. Oh, Jed’s here, too.” It’s just cool. Cool. I love people like that. There’s certain people that are good at that online capacity and being multiple communities at once like well like

52:09actual contributor and those people are really interesting to me because that’s the like side of being able to manage your time well that’s important and the biggest challenge in the current world today. Um but I’m gonna say a quick thing. This lost NFT I got because um I was buying a bunch of Jaden’s NFTts and I got it in a giveaway pack. So that’s pretty cool that you said that. Um because I forgot where I got that until Prism made this

52:36and I forgot I even had it and I won it. Um and that’s Yeah. So shout out Jed. Um do you have a question be?

52:45No, I was just gonna say shout out to Jed. He’s super heavily active in now Africa as well too, man. Yeah, it’s it’s cool to see just everybody just, you know, networking and grinding and very much rising tide raises all boats. So heck yeah. That was my favorite quote coming.

53:01Did you ask too of the lightnings? No, not yet. I was I just was curious back if you wanted to. So, one of my lightnings, you know, and I love to ask this one over at um undivided attention as well, too. But if you had to pick one, you know, is it blockchain or is it AI? That’s my favorite,

53:19especially the people who know both. Man, that’s a good question. I think for me, I use AI every day. But I feel like without blockchain, I would never have started to ask the questions I’ve been asking about money. And I feel like comes down to money. So for me, I think it’s blockchain all the way because I think

53:40blockchain is in my mind what makes the idea of money truly being a public good possible for the first time in human history. And I think AI is like going to destroy our labor economy. Maybe not, but the odds are much higher than not. And I think if we don’t, we’re in that world, we don’t understand money, labor is abstracted away from us. It’s like I don’t like it’s like are there then they become two worlds in my mind right? So for me I think blockchain is important just because it is in my mind the opportunity to really define a world where value is actually determined by

54:09people and not by just a few people. That’s a that’s an amazing point. I think I remember back to when there was you know some tech conversation going around talking about universal currency and things. Universal currency talk came from like the AI side which is weird because I feel like that should come from the blockchain side. So, yeah. No, I heavily align with that. All right,

54:30I’m gonna go with easy one. TV or movies? What kind of guy are you? I I would say movies. Like my my dad’s an actor. He’s in Screen Actors Guild. Like I think movies are cool. I But the thing is I love anime. I watched so much anime like an obscene amount of anime.

54:49Yeah. And so I’d say like TV or movies like for me I lean towards movies because I feel like it’s easier to digest the movie with people. Um whereas a TV show you got to find the niche people who have watched that show as well. But I have to acknowledge I do have to jump. I have another call at

55:06Good. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to say I appreciate you both having me on here. I love being on here. I love to be on this every week. Like you tell me what I can do to be as involved in this conversation as possible. Like

55:17let’s go. I was tired with my podcast was it just being me, right? But there’s so much to talk about and I think a nuance conversation about more than crypto is so critical and I think you two are doing a fantastic job. So I just wanted to say kudos. You let me know anything I can do, I’m here. You want me to tell people about it, I’ll tell people about it. Like anything.

55:34Perfect. Appreciate you. I love it. I appreciate you, Mo. With that, we will uh call it. Appreciate everyone.