Freestyle and the question of the week.
Answers What made you smile today? · see how other cities answered →
Three minutes on stage at Andrew Callaghan’s Channel 5 Carnival in Denver: a Philadelphian introduces We Them Media to the room, asks the host the question of the week, and then, over a lo-fi beat from a phone, freestyles.
The introduction is the pitch in one go: “I have a platform called We Them Media. We’ve been putting up questions every week on like a crypto bounty board and having people around the world go out and ask questions. This week’s question was, what’s something that made you smile this week? So, Andrew, what’s something that made you smile this week?”
Callaghan’s own answer does not survive the room’s audio; the filmmaker’s does, and it is about family: five weeks in Denver for a conference, going home Thursday, “and I’m excited to see my niece and nephew.” Then the ask: “can I freestyle, can I freestyle?” The beat request is specific, “if you have a lo-fi, royalty-free, hip-hop beat from the internet,” and the verse that follows works in the second time on this stage, Pittsburgh in 2023, the bounty programme, and Nigeria’s electricity crisis.
The room’s question for the world comes from the freestyle itself: what do people outside America think about America? Filmed from the floor by We Them Media at the Paramount Theatre stop of the Carnival tour, July 2026.