Meet Derek Fordjour – One of My Favorite People

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How do you know when something's finished?

I think there's a creeping feeling that you get where you're like, I'm not making this better.

You know, it's kind of like when you're at a barber's chair, like the longer you're there,

this guy can only remove hair.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I know exactly.

You shouldn't be there too long.

It's like a moment that if you're like,

it's been a while.

You want to look for

diminishing returns in a way.

Yeah, like there's a point where you're like, if I stay in this,

it's not going to get better.

I'm sure you like write a joke and you're like, that's too many words.

I did too much to get there.

You know, it's enough.

Leave it.

There's like an instinct, right?

Yeah, mine, I think, is more, do I still feel this way?

Yeah, that's the same thing.

Yeah, that's that's more mine.

My guest on today's podcast is someone I'm lucky enough to call a friend and a human being who has achieved one of the hardest things in the world, which is becoming extremely successful and genre-defying in many ways as an artist.

I always think about how crazy it must have been back in the days to be friends with someone like Picasso or Michelangelo or any of those people.

And I'm not comparing artists, but for me, Derek Forgel is the modern equivalent.

He's an artist, artist, he's a painter, a sculptor, one of my favorite people who's able to bring history, identity, and joy to life in a way that stops you in your tracks.

We've known each other for a while now.

I've always been inspired by how deeply he sees the world and how beautifully he translates that onto the canvas.

And so in this conversation, we get into how art messes with value in the best way, why all work is kind of a scam, and what it means to create beauty even when no one's buying it.

Yet,

I think you're really going to walk away from this conversation with your mind spinning and hopefully your heart full, just like I always do.

This is What Now with Trevor Noah

Rolling,

All right.

Derek Forger, what's going on, man?

Hello, Trevor.

How are you going to go and get a block nose when we're doing a podcast?

Bro, you blow me up immediately about the nose.

No, because you know why?

I'm not self-conscious about it.

No, but okay, let me explain.

First of all, I apologize.

I don't know you're self-conscious about it.

The reason I have to call it out is because some people will be hearing your voice for the first time.

That's true.

Some people.

That's true.

And then they'll think that that's how you speak.

Yeah, I have a very different voice than what I have today.

Yeah, yeah.

Right?

So it's similar, but it's, I know you're nasally today.

But you say you're not sick.

Well, I can't be sick.

I can't.

I'm an American.

Let me tell you, I worked at the Daily Show.

I was in the office for eight years.

I hosted for seven years.

No one ever admitted being sick.

The entire time.

No one.

But wouldn't you say that's also like entertainment culture?

Like nobody wants to like,

first of all, you're the boss to each other.

Yeah.

Do they admit it?

Oh, that's a good question, actually.

I never considered my position of.

No, you don't.

Because you're such a man of the people.

You just don't.

You actually really never considered that.

Yeah, you don't think.

No, you know what it also is?

It's because in South Africa, we don't really have that.

What?

Like

the culture of...

Yeah, like I think in America more than most places, maybe in Europe actually, to a certain extent, the hierarchy in an office place is respected in a different way.

Oh, it's true.

So

managers don't realize that rooms move differently when they step into them.

Not at all.

Yeah.

But I would argue in most parts of, at least south africa i know for sure yeah there's like a boss and a manager but a lot of the time that person just came from where you were right exactly so there's a certain level of familiarity

yeah it's true i mean even in ghana i mean there's this wonderful thing you observe right away where the boss and his subordinate may hold hands like say same sex yeah and it's a way of like let me have a chat with you and that's totally normal to hold hands in fact by the time we leave my brother and I hold hands while we're walking around.

See, you're trying not to smile because you've been not trying to smile.

I'm smiling.

Your smile was just growing.

Yeah, right?

The whole thing.

This is

completely normal.

No, no.

Okay, I'll tell you why I was smiling.

Why?

Because I was thinking, because I'll start by saying this.

I'm not ignorant of the idea of men holding hands.

I know this, yeah.

Because in South Africa,

same thing.

So, depending on where you're from, people would hold hands.

I remember in the Middle East, men hold pinky fingers.

I don't know what they do in Ghana.

They hold full hands.

They have to smile, but yeah.

No, they hold pinky fingers.

It's quite normal.

You like lock pinkies, two friends, men, and you walk, yeah, and you walk, you walk hand in hand.

It's just a pinky that's yeah, you see, everyone thinks one part of it is weird.

Yeah, what I found weird in that situation is there's something almost more threatening

in your boss calling you

and giving you the hand.

Hey, Lamia,

hold my hand.

Let me talk to you for a second.

That is scarier.

The idea that somebody's going to berate me or chastise me while holding my hand.

It's true.

That could be, it could be threatening.

But this is the trauma I think I have from being a kid.

The worst beating you would get is where your parent was holding on to you.

Oh, yeah, because you can't run.

Yeah, you can't run.

You know about this.

I haven't talked about this in years.

Talked about what?

Being beaten.

Like

affectionately.

Like affectionately.

Well, we're speaking about it affectionately.

Oh, yeah.

Like it's normal.

We joke about the objects with which I was.

I mean, I didn't want to talk.

What was the craziest object you got hit with?

The craziest object was probably skillets and pots in the kitchen because it's a kitchen.

Thrown or hits?

Both, man.

Okay.

I mean, it was me, though.

I have two brothers.

They were great.

She never, I mean, they didn't require anything.

You're victim blaming.

Don't blame me.

Can I tell you?

I'm not for it.

Right.

But

it was quite normal.

It was.

It was.

I never got hit with a pot or a pan.

Yeah.

Uh, because my mom didn't cook much.

So I think that's probably why I was saved from that environment.

Yeah.

But I got hit.

What?

Oh, everything.

Really?

High heels.

High heels were terrible.

I'm not laughing either.

There's nothing.

Yeah, I got hit with high heels.

Very few belts, I guess, because my mom didn't really wear belts.

You've thought about this, too.

Yeah, I mean, I think...

Okay, I'll tell you why.

So now that I am at an age where I think my mom accepts that I'm an adult and I feel like I'm an adult.

And you're the same plane with her.

Yeah.

You can both reflect.

I've now decided to like

open up the statute of limitations

and say to her,

yo, lady, what were you doing?

Did you try it?

Did you soft try something to see if she was ready?

Because you have to.

I think every few years I probably said something to her.

Okay.

See, that's still respect.

Yeah, like maybe in my 20s.

Maybe in my 20s, I said to her, oh man, the beatings you used to give me.

And the way she'd react would be like, you want another one?

That sounds exactly.

That's my mom.

Right.

Where are both of your parents from?

Both of my parents are from Ghana.

You're first generation, right?

First generation, same tribe.

So both of my parents are Asanti.

So, you know, we say Ashanti, but in Ghana, we say Asanti, but 100%.

So I remember my dad telling me in the,

oh, I don't know, I must have been in kindergarten.

He goes, I'm going to tell you something.

He sat me down and he goes,

if the entire Ashanti kingdom perishes tomorrow, but you're alive,

then the Ashanti kingdom lives.

And that's the way he explained where we were from and what it meant to be part of a tribe.

That the entire kingdom lives in you.

And mind you, I'm in like Tennessee having this conversation as like a kindergartner.

But that was like the early framing of like what's in our blood, you you know.

Sounds like the opening of a Black Panther movie.

Yes, yes.

It really does.

The trilogy.

Scene opens up.

Right.

Young Derek,

little black kid in Tennessee.

That's right.

100%.

Camera comes into like the little house.

Where did you live?

A house, I'm assuming.

Like a small little house in Middlesex.

It was a little apartment, actually.

A little apartment.

Yeah, even better.

Marvel loves apartments.

Could we start with?

Superheroes love apartments.

It has to be an apartment.

Apartments are better than houses for superheroes.

But it has to start with the kid being bullied, being called African booty scratcher.

Were you called that?

Were you not?

I was in Africa.

Who's going to call me that?

That's true.

This is true.

That would be awkward.

Who was going to say to me that would be awesome?

Ah, Trevor, you're an African booty scratcher.

I'm like, yeah, we're all African booty scratchers.

What do you mean?

No, it's true.

Wait, you got called African booty scratcher.

Totally.

It's a thing.

This was the full sentence.

My son was called the same thing.

No, you're lying.

I was shocked.

I'm telling you.

This is now.

Now I was like, what?

I was like, are you?

I thought he was spoofing me.

It's like, no, it's a thing.

Well, it's a funny thing.

Okay, wait, wait, let's take it back.

So your parents moved from Ghana.

Yes.

To Tennessee.

So I'll give you even more drama for your movie, the movie.

Let's do it.

My dad really just wanted to be a doctor.

And the entire village.

helped conspire to get him to America to become a doctor.

So he tells a story.

I have no idea how true any of this is, of like leaving the village with

a bag of money that everybody pitched in to give him on his journey away.

So he literally was like saving the entire, he was going to be a doctor.

Wow.

That was the deal.

And then my mother left at 16 to 10.

So this is like a village village then.

Yeah, well, my dad was from Kumasi, which is like another, it's like a second city

after Accra.

Have you ever been to Ghana?

I've never been to Ghana.

What?

You're going to take me?

Sreva.

Really?

You have not?

No, no, no, no.

Thank you.

I don't want to.

So I talk to my friends about this all the time.

Anywhere in Africa,

I don't want to just go as a tourist.

I'd rather go visit.

I want to go to visit my friend's house or visit them.

Because going as a tourist is too familiar to me.

Like if I go as a tourist to Italy, it is very much, I'm like, ah, wow, this is Italy.

This is...

Right.

You get a guide.

When I'm in Ghana, I know the food.

I know the music.

I even understand the people.

Of of course, you know what I mean?

Yeah, so I need my people there to take me deeper.

Otherwise, like, what am I going to do?

I'm going to take pictures of little African girls.

Stay at your hotel, right?

Come on, drive.

Come on, it's true.

Come on.

Okay, so you want to hang differently.

Yeah.

And we struggle with this too, because unfortunately, my brothers and I don't speak the language, which is, I mean, language is

the

passkey.

No, it is the thing.

It's the thing.

So we don't have that.

And even though we're English speaking because of the British,

it's still different.

So when I go without my parents, it feels really different.

There's like a piece of Ghana that you're locked out of.

A little bit.

Huh.

It's like you approach the groups while everybody's speaking three and they change to English because you're it's polite to do they want you to hear but it's you're still that's not the same it's not the same the South Africans will do the same thing yeah but you can feel that it's almost like someone took the spice in a meal and washed it and then gave it to you because you can't handle the spice look there is that of all the places that being ghana is the most welcoming to english speakers to people returning home yearning for culture it's the best place isn't it getting overrun by americans now though stop saying that i asked the question i'm not running i'm not saying anything no you know why you know why

isn't it there's a question mark at that no i won't say that the kid that was called african booty scratcher yeah needs all of those kids that call him that to return so there's no overrun.

We need more to go back.

So you're saying no, it's not.

I'm saying no.

Okay.

Okay.

I'm saying no.

I've heard a lot of stories.

I'm saying no, but I also know what you're saying.

Like,

I'm saying one thing with my eyes and another with my mouth, right?

We could do this, right?

So, no, it's not overrun.

Can I tell you, my favorite stories have been my Ghanaian friends complaining about black Americans coming to Ghana and they'll complain about them as if they're like white people.

Oh, totally.

Yeah.

I mean, on some level, I mean, I mean, that's, but I look, I, I choose to stand for the marrying of the marriage of like the African cultural experience and the African American and the British American and everywhere else in the diaspora we exist.

I mean, I think you, you definitely represent that.

Oh, I love it.

And so that's what I'm on.

You know what I mean?

Okay.

Like, it's not overrun.

There's space enough.

Okay.

But you know what's happening is now they're like encampments and suburbs that are for like African Americans.

And it's being marketed as such.

And so as an African-American, you could buy a home in the like...

In an African-American enclave in Ghana.

I think it's fine.

I don't know.

I mean, if it works, it works.

That's a big if, right?

But

it brings people back.

We have to take you to a slave castle because have you ever been to any?

Huh.

That's a sentence that's never done.

Let me watch you deal with it.

Let me watch you deal with it.

I don't feel like there's ever been a time in history when that sentence has ended well.

But you have to experience why.

Because,

first of all, I didn't know that you hadn't done this.

So I'm even more convicted about it.

I've been to slave castles, but I need to know why this one in particular.

Okay, well, I think there's a moment, well, at least for me.

where you go to the door of no return and it's in all the castles.

Oftentimes it'll be like the port, near the port somewhere there that's right they bring them in and there's a little area where they're going to get loaded onto a boat and that's the area of no return that's right yeah so it's similar in the one i went to was in zanzibar yes yes very similar so first of all i mean east african slave trade was different

um just as brutal but um

i think the dynamics are different east-west but there's always that moment in the castle where

you

stand between where you were and where you're going.

And for me, when I stand there, I get it.

I get the whole diaspora.

Like, I understand

my experiences in Brazil and Canada, you know, parts of Europe where there are Africans.

Like, I get it.

Like, we all came through that door.

And I don't know that there's another

physical location that explains the movement of black peoples in the world quite like that point.

For me.

No, I feel you.

You know?

What do you experience there?

I mean,

it's a complicated collection of feelings.

Because on the one hand, there's relief, I'll be honest.

There's relief that it is now history.

Right, that it's there, you know?

Yeah.

So, like, I

know, but what I mean by that is it's over.

Yeah, there is something I feel whenever I go to these places where I'm like, damn, I'm glad that's done.

Right.

I know there's other things to deal with, but I'm like, I'm glad that's done.

Right, that's true.

You know, because I could also be here, but not as a tourist.

But you feel that in your body, too.

Yeah, there's just like an element of, okay,

and then there's another side of me that's like, damn, this is

heavy.

It's dark, yeah.

Yeah.

For instance, I've never taken a picture there.

And not because I judge people who do take pictures there.

I just,

it's like a sacred site.

Yeah, it's like, I go, do I take a picture of me here?

How do I pose?

Do I smile?

I've seen them all.

I've seen the smiles.

I see the fists.

I see the somber.

Yes, the somber.

You see the somber.

Yeah, but and I get it because those are all the feelings that people are having.

But let's go back to your dad because I want to understand

this journey of Derek because I know you.

This is the thing I love about doing podcasts with people I know is I realize how many things I don't know about them.

You do, exactly.

Because I would never ask this in a conversation.

No.

You're taking all the spice out.

Essentially.

Yeah, yeah.

This is a version of ourselves.

Yeah, it always will be.

But like your dad, so your dad comes here.

Yeah.

Was he already married to your mom?

No, but they were dating.

And, you know, we found some lovely love letters that they wrote to each other.

So my mom went to school in England for nursing.

Yeah.

And

your dad was going to be a doctor.

Yeah.

Isn't that?

Man, you guys are Ghanaian.

This is like Ghanaian.

Right.

Proudly doctor.

Lawyer.

Right.

Engineer.

Right.

exactly this is it right a real this is a real professional this is a profession it's a proper yeah that's like a you know doctor okay so wait so your parents so you're born in the u.s i am born in yeah memphis tennessee why memphis why do i always want to know why immigrants land where they do and why they call that home dude i really want someone to research African immigration.

Like, we know the story of how the Irish came, we know how the Italians came, but I don't know that anyone has really studied like the movement of Africans to America.

And I would just love to hear the story because we have so many cousins, Ghanaian and Nigerian, in these far-out places in Ohio or Texas, Tezas.

we call it like all these places.

And we're just now of age to like share experiences.

But I think it happened like maybe the 60s is when it really picked up.

But yeah, so my dad came here.

My mother was in England for nursing school.

And there were all these strange things about growing up.

Like we would eat beans with our eggs in the morning.

And I just thought this is what people, it's normal until you like share with a friend, like, wait, you guys don't eat beans?

And they're like, beans?

Why are you eating beans for breakfast?

Were you in a black neighborhood or white neighborhood?

Where were you?

Bro, so black.

I said African booty scratcher.

Follow, Trevor.

Come on.

No, but come on.

How am I supposed to know?

I don't even know.

First of all, I don't even know the term.

Listen, white kids are not going to call you African booty scratcher.

Generally speaking.

That's just too.

It's too what?

It's to a lot of things.

It's too what?

It's a lot of things.

It could be a lot.

I have a list.

Like why they wouldn't say that.

First of all, there's too many syllables.

It's too funny.

It's too, you know what I mean?

Okay, okay.

You mean on that side?

You say it's too much swag.

It's just a lot of swag.

It's like an insult that will also make you laugh.

It like hurts and tickles you in equal parts.

that's very black it's very african you know what i mean like i'm offending you and you love it so we grew up in a very black community okay and we're talking about you know the 70s 80s so this you know memphis i mean dr kids died in 68 yeah this is full of segregation yeah so my father actually we're just learning a lot about like the rage he had about like going to graduate school uh to to uh to to dental school because he was like i think the second black oral surgeon in the state.

But he's very African, so he doesn't know about black history.

They don't know about black American history.

Yeah, they don't know anything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I also wish that there was like a place that if you come from an African country, you can go like learn black history before you engage with society.

Why?

Well, because what it means to be a black immigrant, as we're seeing in this time, I mean, this statement now has lots of weight.

You also have the double burden of understanding racial politics.

So you don't just enter.

It's a bit like you enter a game in action when you are an African immigrant and you come to America.

But you have on a jersey and you're on a side and you're losing.

And the refs are really mean.

Oh, that's a great environment.

Oh, man, that's a great enemy.

Like balls are flying.

But nobody explains, you know, the history, the game.

I think that's why it creates a lot of conflict.

Yeah.

So I remember the first time I discovered this,

I was doing comedy shows.

This was like way back, way, way, way back, long before Daily Show, long before anything.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

So I was doing stand-up shows at colleges around the U.S.

Oh, that's a good education.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then one day I got booked.

I forget where this university was, but I got booked by the...

African Student Council.

The African Student Union.

Yeah,

African Student Union.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

So I get booked by them.

Right.

And so I get to the campus and I ask mistakenly.

I said, I'm looking for the African American Student Union.

Wrong group.

Yeah.

And these people were like, oh, we'll take you there.

And they took me there.

And you were like, and I got there and they went,

wait, no, we didn't.

And no one knows me.

So it's not like someone's going, oh, Trevor Noah.

They're just like, what are you here for?

I said, I'm here for comedy.

This is great.

Like, where?

I was like, oh, the African American Student Union booked me.

They're like, nah, we don't have any bookings today.

We don't.

Right.

It goes around, goes, I call my managers, my team.

This is finally gets back they go no you're at the wrong place it's the african student union right so they come and pick me up right and when we're in the car going across campus i go

what am i missing two groups right yeah and then they tell me oh there used to be one union right which was the

black student union that's right yeah and they said there was so much friction between yeah the non-american black students do you see my

yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can see it already.

I can see

I'm triggering you here.

Yeah.

You know, when I hear that, I hear the tragedy in a few ways.

One, that blackness is flattened to just black because it's quite heterogeneous.

There's a lot of mix inside of that.

We know this.

Yeah.

Even as a West African and a South African, there's worlds of difference.

So it's kind of absurd to fit it all in the the first place to black.

So that's one tragic thing.

The other is the splintering that happens and then the potential tensions that arise, which are not always the case.

Everybody's kind of happy when they have their own place.

But

it never absolves you from the unfortunate necessity that you must advocate collectively.

Yes, because you are oppressed collectively.

That's right.

So the splintering splintering is comfortable for entertainment, for culture,

so long as you can reunite when it's time to advocate.

But that doesn't always happen.

Yeah, that doesn't.

So that's the tragedy that I feel, right?

One that it's already flattened in the first place, but also it splinters a collective action.

It also creates a type of resentment, I found.

So for instance, I would meet African immigrants

who would speak about African Americans.

Oh, bad.

They would just be like,

why don't they work?

They're like Republican in their vibes.

They're easy to white people.

Yeah.

Worse, if we're honest.

Well, worse, because

they don't want to work.

Yes, exactly.

Let me tell you something about black Americans.

They don't want to work.

Yes.

They don't go to school.

They love to do crime.

Why are you wasting time?

They love to do crime.

They love to do crime.

Let me tell you something.

They are not African American.

They are just American.

I don't know why they put African.

The way they are dressing, their pants, their trousers are falling.

And you're like, like, wow, this is like full on.

Dude,

I have relatives like this.

That's why I love the idea of having a school.

Yes.

Because what will happen to a lot of Africans, and I'm sure you've seen this, is a lot of those Africans who come in with like the respectability politics.

Yes.

One day they come up against the brunt

of American racism in some way, shape, or form.

That's right.

And they're shaken forever.

Forever.

I mean, I have also that point.

I have an uncle, Uncle Manny.

He's now passed.

And it wasn't until his later years that he talked about he lived in minnesota uh lisa my cousin lisa he raised her and he talked about like being used because he realized that oh i was just i wasn't fight i wasn't angry so he came in the 60s had success as a corporate guy but he was a token um and i don't want to reduce his life i mean he was a hard working man with you but he as in his later years

looking back now with a black an understanding of the identity he's like oh man, I think they used me, you know, like I think I was part of this game.

And it really is, you're talking about those moments, sometimes it happens later.

I hope, Trevor, that we're in a different world now where social media is cool.

Like you see Nigerian weddings, you have these shows.

Like kids, if you're six, seven, eight in today's world, you have Afro beats.

There's all this cultural export.

It's just like a different time.

And I, I mean, maybe I'm, I don't want to be Pollyanna, but I just think it's different.

I've noticed more kids growing up today are comfortable with their culture in ways that kids weren't before.

Totally.

Like I know, I know all of my Indian friends growing up.

Yes.

Were, I mean, they were ashamed of, especially if they grew up in England.

Yeah.

It was just like, don't open your lunchbox.

We all have that.

Yeah.

Yes.

And now,

now on TikTok, people are like, where do I find the best Igusi?

Exactly.

Where do I find the best Jono Frice?

Where do I find that?

You know what I mean?

Yeah,

it's not even just a pride, but there's almost,

I don't know, man.

There's character that comes with it now.

Yeah, but it's also not just comfort, it's cool.

It is cool.

I think

that's a very important distinction.

Comfort happened some while back.

Now cool is definitely the thing.

Like to be African and to live in America, I think it's cool.

When I grew up, it was kind of like we would say to our black friends, like, yeah, you know, you haven't got any.

They're like, look at you ain't

African where?

Do this.

Set up.

You know, it was like, bro, I'm really African.

Like, trust me, say something.

You know, it was like that kind of like shakedown.

And now that we're older, we realize that they also just didn't,

that splintering, they didn't want to happen.

And then there was also this like envious thing.

Yes.

Because they're like, dude, we don't know where we came from.

Like, we don't know our origins.

You know, when we got old enough, they talked about that.

I was like, oh, that was like part envy.

Like, it was, they admired it on some level, and they were also envious of it.

And I also appreciated differently, what it, what it means to go back to the town of my mother's mother.

That is like the, and that's, you know, we are matrilineal, but to know that is to like locate your lineage.

That's part of the slow violence that happened in America.

Yeah, I'll often say

we talk about slavery as being one of the most heinous things that happened in history, and it is.

But I don't think we speak enough about

how cruel it was to not just steal a people from their place, but steal a place from their people.

Oh, there you go.

Do you know what I mean?

That's what happened on the other side.

Because they robbed people.

I think of it for myself.

There are moments when the world will throw you around.

People want to label you, not label you.

Of course.

No matter what it is,

if I pause and I breathe, I go, you can take everything away from me.

You can even take my citizenship from my country.

I'm not South African anymore.

But you know what?

My Tosa lineage,

I can paint it for you.

I can paint it for you and I can show you each other.

Each little, like, you know what I mean?

Which name took us where and how

do you get what I'm saying?

And I think that thing,

people take for granted how beautiful it is

to know why you do what you do

because it comes from a long story that was told before you.

We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break.

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So I

remember Roots.

I don't know if so for the show?

Yeah, the show.

Right,

exactly.

So they've had a few iterations of it, but when we grew up, it was the first iteration from Alex Haley, the author who wrote Roots.

And it was, I think, for a long time, like the most watched miniseries.

Black, white, American households were obsessed with roots.

And it created a narrative for African Americans that

explained

their roots in this very detailed, multi-generational story.

The old African, you see Kutikente as a young man, and then you see him as an old African.

And so Kutikente was in the lexicon and the whole thing.

And then years later, we found out that some of the details in that story were fabricated that Alex Haley wrote.

And so it wasn't all true.

When it came out, it was like, this is all true.

This is factual.

And I've, you know, and that was part of the strength of it.

And then years later, we found out that some of it wasn't true.

And it didn't matter.

Because people needed a story.

I think it also doesn't matter because all stories aren't true.

Exactly.

History is itself a fabrication.

I love your bit about nations and

anthems.

You know, it's like it's all.

And so, I mean, I love both sides of that.

That

I knew it when it was factual and it was, and then when it was something that was falsified and it didn't matter.

The power did not, the power of the story didn't change.

How do you think that informs your arts?

Because when I think of your art,

I think of you as a storyteller and not in like a highfalutin way by the way like let's let's preface all of it by saying this

yes Derek Forgio is easily considered by many especially who like know what they're talking about you're considered a luminary of the art world oh wow no you you really are and and it's it's not easy to get to the place that you've gotten to

like in in the art world it's also Let's be honest, five times harder to get there as a black man, like randomly, randomly.

Like a black person,

yeah, but I think less so in the NBA.

Let's put it that way.

Oh, Trevor, you say some of the wildest things.

What are you talking about?

And it's totally appropriate.

I'm saying there are some areas that are still way harder to get there.

Can you give me another one?

Because I was a black person.

Give me one more.

What do you mean?

Like, just another one.

Like, so we have the NBA.

You want to go into music.

If you're a black man walking into music, no one's going like,

I don't know.

Let's hear something.

I don't know about that.

Let's hear it.

What are you made of?

No, that's true.

But the art world.

You're right.

You're right.

This is true.

The art world is the most gate-kept gatekeeping that has ever existed in the history of gatekeeping.

That's fair.

So what I want to like, so the reason I want to preface it with that is because your art holds a special place in the storytelling

of the intersection, I believe, between African American history.

Yes.

But I want to know how much the idea you just talked about informs how you perceive your art because you what you just said was crucial, right?

We all need stories.

Right, right.

But the facts of the story are less relevant than the story itself.

Well, I think, like,

I love the question, and I think about

you that way.

Like, the shock I just had about what you just said, you have the authority, the moral authority, to make certain comments.

Oh, man, I just have authority with you.

What do you mean?

You have authority with me.

If If you're offended, then I'm screwed.

What kind of authority you got with me?

What I mean is like, if you're offended, there's only, I mean, we're friends.

It's true, it's true, it's very true.

But I mean, even publicly, right?

I just think sometimes what you do, and I understand why you'll do this, I actually think it's a very African thing.

You will dismiss, a lot of people do this.

You'll dismiss how hard it was for you to get there.

There's a certain element of you being like, no, no, no, it's hard for all of us.

And I'm not saying it's not hard for everyone.

Right.

But I'm saying what you chose was particularly hard.

I mean, it's okay.

So it's true.

So you and I'm, and again, this is hard.

And again, let me know if this is what's hard about talking to you.

And let me clarify this for people.

I don't mean painting is hard.

Art is already hard.

No, right.

I'm talking about getting into the art world and being considered a verifiable part of it.

Yes.

You see what I'm saying?

Yeah.

So now you're forcing me to have a real conversation.

I mean, that's what I'm saying.

I guess that's why I'm here.

Well, that's why we always.

I'm like, damn.

When have we not had a real conversation?

Yeah.

This is what he does like because i'm so well attuned to like

switching the conversation yeah given the context and how it's going to be received yeah yeah i'm with you and so there's a lot of posturing and withholding that's necessary because with art you want the conversation to be about the work and you don't want the

uh

the traps to happen where it it gets into places that you have no investment.

You see, but that's something I feel like is also unique to a black artist.

It is.

I'll give you an example.

Absolutely is.

Vincent van Gogh, right?

Yeah.

Very good at that pronunciation.

Yeah, I mean, you have to be.

You've been to the museum?

Did you go?

Actually, I haven't, haven't I?

I haven't either.

I haven't either.

I haven't.

I don't think I have.

Okay.

But they never talk about his art without talking about his story.

Right.

His health, his mental health, the way he saw the world, what he was going through, the medicine he was on.

Picasso.

I've never heard anyone talk about Picasso and just be like, eh, Picasso, the painting.

No, they'll tell you about his journeys and his travels to Africa and the way he saw women and the loves.

The passion.

The loves who informed him and how his heart was broken.

You know what I mean?

There is no artist, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, you name it.

There are none of them

where their story is not part of their art.

Oh, this is true.

Right.

And it's never seen as an excuse.

It's never seen as...

something that leaves a blemish on their work in any way.

However, to your point, with black artists,

I find, for the most part, in speaking to you and many other black artists, the art world wants your story.

That's right.

But not like

the rough edge of the story.

Not the messy parts.

Yeah, not the messy parts of it.

I was looking at this idea called stereotype threat, which I came across 20 years ago.

There's a guy named Claude Steele who talks about not

racism.

The

anticipation of racism happening has deleterious effects.

Like, if I don't even encounter it, but I think on the other side of this door it might happen, it affects how I present myself.

Damn.

Right?

And strolling is racism.

I like that.

Right.

So, so stereotype threat is an additional anxiety.

There's the thing, which is actually racism

that you have to contend with.

But your anticipation of it, how you steal yourself,

how you, you know, that is also like very anxious.

So that's a lot of what my work is about, is the strategy, the gamesmanship

necessary to

traverse a troubled space, right?

And the art world, and you're right, has been troubled.

It's tough for us, but I have to acknowledge all of the artists that came before me

and my peers to make this moment possible.

And I sound like I'm giving a war speech, but

I think it's really just important to acknowledge because those are the artists that people just don't know at all.

Who would you say are the black artists who made the art world see black art differently or open the art world to black people?

Can you think of just a few of them?

And I'm not saying they're the only ones.

No, just a few.

It's a complicated question because

there is a moment that the art world starts to take notice of black artists.

But then there have been artists working way before that that were just never acknowledged at all.

So there's a lot of retrospective work that's happening to

acknowledge art.

So it's kind of like saying, like, if we were to use an NBA analogy, like...

Like we all know like Michael Jordan was the first guy that showed us you can have astronomical commercial success

while you have success on the court, right?

So there's no Kobe, there's no LeBron without Jordan, but there was also Dr.

J, right?

And there was also Wilt Chamberlain, right?

And so there's so many people behind him.

I would say probably David Hammonds.

David Hammonds.

Yeah.

And actually on the pier here in New York, there's a wonderful monument that he has across from the Whitney Museum.

I think it personifies perfectly why so many people might not know the name David Hammonds.

There's a full-blown monument that costs tens of millions of dollars to build.

And I spoke to the director of Whitney about this.

So we, I mean, it's a big thing for them, but you could pass it a million times and never notice it.

It has thin wire frame to outline what used to be the piers on

the West Side Highway.

So he just framed a building.

So you can miss it, and he's okay with that.

And this is part of the genius of david hammons his presence is as

fascinating as his absence

and he's done some of the most compelling uh conceptual projects like he sold snowballs on the street

like for for an exchange like people bought snowballs and that's that's that's an artwork Hmm.

Right.

This is David Hammonds.

I mean, that's one of his more popular artworks, but he can hide in plain sight.

He played like a broken-snowballs that actually melts.

Yeah.

Okay.

But you can buy one.

Okay.

It opens up this amazing commentary on commerce.

What are you buying?

What is exchange?

Where is value?

I feel like

there are fields that people get into

that don't reveal

how essential they are to society immediately.

So when you look at fashion,

a lot of people just go, oh oh man, fashion, whatever.

They very seldom look at how fashion can include or exclude them from a space and make them seem like they're supposed to be or not to be somewhere.

That's right.

Do you know what I mean?

A simple example is like just a suit.

Just a suit in and of itself

immediately became a signifier.

Yes.

as to whether or not you were deemed respectable enough to step into certain establishments.

Absolutely.

Right?

And so you look at how like MLK used a suit.

Yes.

And he was like, all right, guys, we're wearing suits.

That's right.

We're going to go get beaten up.

That's right.

It would be way easier.

We're broke.

Yeah.

It would be easier to wear like hoodies.

Yes.

It was more comfortable.

We're going to get beaten up.

We're beat down.

You're going to be easy.

Why wear a suit?

That's right.

The man said, we're going to wear a suit because the suit represents something and it says something.

I love it.

Yes.

And I remember speaking to someone in fashion about this, how they were like, oh, a lot of people think of fashion as just being whatever.

But even look at sizing, for instance, right?

When sizes become more accommodating, more people feel like they're part of

the world now.

That's right.

You know, it's small things and yet it's powerful no no no because you're talking about the power of images yes right architecture was another one most people yes don't care about architects most people right and most people are affected by architects in ways that they would never ever imagine from like a bench that tells you whether or not you can or should sit at a park yeah all the way through to how your house sits in relation to another house telling you whether you should greet your neighbor or not and some people like what are you talking about and i'm like no no no architects have showed me some other worlds That's right.

Let me add to that.

And then when we open this conversation even more broadly to African architecture and different modes of

creation and

domicile and public space and the plaza, it's a big conversation, but it's invisible to most of us.

What you're talking about relative to

the suits and respectability, you'll see a lot of suits in my paintings because of that.

It's a signifier.

It's a code about how to

navigate space, how to anticipate a certain perception, and then to use it for your benefit, which is why, back to Hammonds, his invisibility

is as crucial as his visibility, right?

And so when we talk about representation, over-representation, under-representation, I kind of jokingly say, like, if you ever went to see the doctor and all the doctors were six feet tall and they were black guys,

we would all whisper a question to someone, like, what's

and I joke, my little brother Rick is a dentist, right?

And I talk about him all the time because I used to get on my brothers about wearing expensive shoes.

Yeah.

And I'd be like, bro, I would never pay that much money for shoes.

You guys are ridiculous.

And I just thought, like,

like what you were saying earlier about like the way Africans critique African-Americans.

Like, you're paying $400 for shoes, $300, like, you know.

And And my brother is like,

hey, man, they look at my shoes.

Oh, damn.

And I was like, oh, he's right.

He's like the only black doctor in a practice of four doctors.

The other three are white doctors.

And

they look at his shoes.

And he feels that.

And so there's this tax where he's going to spend more on shoes.

What his partner is arguably, I don't know what they're wearing in real life, but I mean, in theory.

Yeah, but their competence

is not connected to

their representation.

All of these conversations are embedded in the codes in my work because

I feel like it's additional pressure.

I mean, to take us full circle back to your question about what it means to be black and to enter this space.

One, it's impossible without our four

bears.

And I've even had dealers at different times where we would talk about the absence of black artists, you know, 80s, you know, 70s from the commercial art space.

And they said, hey, man, the blacks weren't making the good work.

The blacks are making the good work now, man.

They got better.

You guys are making the good work.

It's why it's working.

It just wasn't that good then.

And I thought, wow, there are a lot of people that believe this.

That's why I cannot talk about entering this space without shedding light on all of the ones so much further behind me, you know,

because they really made it possible.

There's an artist named Norman Lewis, who we're going back now to bring his legacy forward.

There was an exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art.

The curators, in the middle of the exhibition, had a letter that Norman Lewis wrote to Leo Costelli.

Leo Costelli is a legendary dealer in New York and all of the art world.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Norman Lewis's studio was right around the corner from Leo Costelli's gallery, like two blocks.

And Norman Lewis had been writing letters to Leo Costelli to ask him to visit the studio.

And it never happened.

And so the inclusion of that letter gave what you're talking about, the kind of perspective of what it meant that Norman Lewis was able to make all of this work

under those circumstances.

I'm with you.

Right?

You're with me, right?

And so

I don't know.

I feel like I'm in this space where it's cool and we can make money.

And, you know, it's like looking at the NBA.

I also have a friend whose dad played in the NBA and

he worked and sold used cars in the offseason.

Like, he was pre-money.

He was pre-money.

Yeah.

Same game, worked as hard, might have worked harder.

Yeah.

Right?

But doing the same thing.

Now it's time for a segment we call Where in the World, brought to you by Uber.

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Christiana,

do you want to know where I am now?

Sometimes I feel like you get frustrated that I'm traveling.

No, no, I'm interested because you get to travel and I don't.

So I'm living vicariously through you right now.

Oh, I like this.

I like this.

This is like like a new, a new vibe.

Before you'd almost say it like, like I don't have a home.

And now yeah, yeah, no, now you said, you said open.

Well, currently, I am in your neck of the woods.

I'm in London.

I came here for a friend's birthday party.

And yeah, he took me everywhere, actually.

I'm trying to go.

everywhere that I can go in London that I haven't been.

So I'm trying to stay away from like the usual, you know, like Buckingham Palace.

Oh, yeah, you don't want to do that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And like the I.

So I'm all in like Brixton and Hector and Delston.

And

yeah, yeah, and like Camden and all of these places.

Yo, let me tell you something.

London's a vibe.

It's great, especially when the weather's good.

When the weather's good, it's one of the best cities in the world.

You see, I don't often go to London when the weather's not good.

And what I don't like is how all of you Londoners say that.

That sentence.

That's crazy.

I'm surprised that you've been to London and the weather's been good because normally it's just rainy and grey.

Like, that's the London I.

Yeah, I mean, mean, I mean, I mean, now and again, I'll bump into like a rainy, gray day, but I don't, let me put it this way: I've been to a few places in the world where more people immediately bring up the weather like a reason I should escape.

So I go everywhere.

I go everywhere in the world.

But in London, I'll say to somebody, they'll go, oh, they go like, oh, Trevor, how are you enjoying London?

Are you having fun?

And I'm like, oh, I'm having a great time.

They're like, oh, yeah.

And the weather's been good.

You're really lucky.

You're really lucky, Trevor.

It's not always like this.

Oh, you should go before it changed.

I'm like, yo, what is happening right now?

What is happening right now?

Just enjoy it.

It's being British.

It's like the national pastime is to speak about the weather.

So you're either complaining about it or you're happy about it.

Those are the two states of emotion when it comes to the weather.

So, yeah, but

I find it's more the Brits are complaining about it or they're complaining about how it normally is, but it's not now.

So you'll go, this is nice.

They're like, yeah, but it's not normally like this.

Yeah, we're a nation of complainers.

I don't know.

I think it's lovely and I'm enjoying myself.

Well, that was today's Wear in the World brought to you by Uber.

Whether it's your best friend's wedding or your niece's first ballet recital, Uber is on their way so you can show up for what matters most.

Uber on our way.

I'll often say to people,

And I think I have this because comedy has been my profession.

Yeah.

I often will say to people,

all work is a scam.

I love this.

Right.

I'm not saying things that people do are scams, but I'm saying work.

The word work.

All work is a scam.

Yeah.

Because the value of that work is merely assigned by those who have the resources.

That's right.

It's all arbitrary.

Yes.

You know, so that's why I was smiling at the snowball thing.

That's why I had that fake, because I'm like, oh, man, yeah, that.

And I try and explain this to people and they go like, no, no, no, but, but what about, and I'm like, listen, I'm not trying to offend anybody.

Right.

But almost all our jobs are fake.

Yes, they are.

Okay.

Absolutely.

And we also assign a fake value to them.

And that value shifts and moves.

You know, one of the simple examples is like, if you think of like the computer game back in the day in the U.S.

Yeah.

It wasn't a really well-paying job.

No, not at all.

And women used to work as computers, as they call them, and they would like run those machines and plug, plug, plug, plug.

And then that was like a stable job and started growing.

And the men came, took it over, and then it skyrocketed.

That's right.

And if you look at most professions that are generally considered a woman's profession, when the men get involved, when the men get involved, the money goes up.

But when the women are involved, the money goes down.

That's right.

So nursing,

teaching, all these professions.

Yes.

But doctor.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

Money goes up, money goes up, money goes up, money goes up.

I actually want to know, though, like in the art world, I understand that things cost a lot of money.

But I know for myself and for most people, a lot of people will just be like, this world,

it feels like a scam.

It feels like people are just making it up.

Right.

So for instance, I'll go with this.

Many people do not question the price of a Louis Vuitton bag.

Right.

All right.

Because of the story they've been told.

Yes.

Because they love that.

They believe it.

Yes.

And they go, it's Louis Vuitton.

That's right.

And someone goes, oh, that's a Louis Vuitton.

That's right.

And then when you break it down into its components, And people do this all the time.

That's why YouTube is amazing.

That's right.

Someone will go, oh, it costs $12.

Whatever to make this Louis Vuitton bag.

That's right.

And they sell it to you for $2,000.

That's right.

And the same bag with the same level of artisan skill, the same level of everything.

Yeah.

Someone else is doing it for $300.

That's right.

And you're buying it because of the Louis Vuitton of it all, right?

In that world,

I find people are less likely to question it.

Same thing with cars.

That's interesting, yeah.

Right?

People will buy a Ferrari,

but really, all Ferrari has done is limit their supply.

That's it.

Focus on the demand.

Tell a great story.

Tell a great story.

It is a fantastic car in many ways.

But they could make more of them if they wanted to.

Easily.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you think it is about art that like jars up with the every man?

You know, it's a great question.

And I think what you're asking about is not art.

I think you're asking about value, the way the art world assigns value, right?

That's exactly what I mean.

Yeah.

And even more specific, we're talking about the art market, which is different than, but related to art itself.

It's an important distinction to make make because I think out in the world,

outside of the art world, much like the purse, we conflate the value or the price.

We relate the price to the value, right?

So

we see a Louis Vuitton, and automatically we know it's expensive.

Yes.

Right.

In the art world, very differently,

you will witness the cost of the Louis Vuitton bag go from $3

to $20

to $3 million.

Nothing about the bag has changed.

We don't tell a different story.

We've added deluxe zippers.

There's Wi-Fi in the bag.

Nothing.

When you bought it at three,

it's the exact same bag.

And so that's what's baffling to people that

we don't even hide the fact that it's the same bag at $3 that it was at $3 million.

You have so many people here in New York City who will tell you,

oh, I paid $200 for my Warhol.

Or, you know, I...

Or like an original Andy Warhol.

They bought it for $200.

100%.

And now it's worth...

Oh, my gosh, $20 million.

Why would we?

Oh, you think you would have been able to...

You think they would have sold it to you?

I mean, this is...

Dude, you just talked about the suit.

Yeah.

You talked about access.

I'm saying, like, we cannot, I mean,

because access and value, all this stuff is related.

So the question then is...

But Andy Warhol said, who gets to pay that $3?

Yeah, you're right.

Who gets to pay the $3?

Who has that intel?

That's what the black artist represents, and what's very complex about us entering the space, because you can't have black artists in this space without complicating the space for black institutions, for black collectors, for trustees.

The entire ecosystem is affected when black artists participate.

I'd like to also point to the entertainment industry when we had black comedians, actors, but you didn't have black ownership.

You didn't have agents.

You didn't have, it took a while to get the infrastructure.

And so we are now advocating for us to participate more globally in the business, right?

And I think that that's part of why they kept us up.

There you go.

So it's like the question is not me because

we're kind of frontmen, you too.

Nobody sees the entire operation behind you.

We see you right but part of being successful is understanding the apparatus and getting good at that and we've been in long enough where that's starting to happen and that's to me even more exciting than the mere presence of black artists how did it feel when you saw the value of your art go up like did it did it liberate you or did it imprison you

i you know i have to i'm trying to remember that we're here because you know i want to ask you the same thing i won't do that you can okay this is how we talk so there was a time when you were probably paid twenty dollars for getting on stage.

You're being very generous.

Bro, I literally come across emails sometimes where I was begging people to buy my work.

Like,

hello, Trevor.

Hope all is well with comedy in your world.

I saw your special.

It was great.

Listen, hey, man, I got these new works.

I was doing that.

Like begging people to buy the work.

That was so long for me that I don't believe the $3 million number.

Wow.

Right?

I know it's made up.

Now, that's not to say that there's no value.

No,

I know what you mean.

Do you know what I mean?

No, I'm with you completely.

Someone asked me this one day, and they were like, can you think of an analogy for it?

And this is how I thought of it.

In life, when you are creating, forget art, just creating.

I think there are two ways you can achieve success.

Okay.

I think of society as being people on a train.

I like this.

A train is constantly moving.

The train is constantly moving.

That's society.

And as somebody who's creating, you are trying to get the people in the train to look at the thing you're doing and take it.

Right.

And then you are now in commerce with them in some way.

They're accepting of you.

They remunerate you, whatever it might be.

But the point is, you need the people in the train to get there.

Wait, where are you?

Are you on the platform?

No, you're just like standing on the side.

Are you the side of the train?

You're just just standing on the side of the train.

It's like, hey, society never stops moving.

That's right.

Except when it does.

There's moments where society just like it slows down

and they look out the window.

Right.

And I always go this one of two ways.

Either you can run as fast as the train and try and be next to it so that society looks at you and goes, oh, I see you and I'm with it.

Or you can stay exactly where you are

and just hope that the train will stop one day

where you happen to be.

Right.

And so when I think of it, it, let's.

I love it.

We can take it to anything.

There's a time in history when Ferrari is struggling to sell his cars.

Yeah, totally.

Do you know what I mean?

Yes.

Now, people are like, what are you talking about?

You go into the watch world.

There's a time when Patek Philippe is begging people.

Begging people

to buy their watches.

Totally.

Going around to little jewelry stores in New York.

Now, good luck getting one.

That's right.

I think that applies to everything in every way.

Yes.

And that's why i often say to people i'm allergic to the advice that most successful people give

because most successful people will give advice that implies that they're they're responsible for their success there you go you know what i mean so they will say yes let me tell you what you got to do that's right you got to believe in yourself right you got to work hard that's right you see the other person you got to work harder than them that's right and you got to put your effort in yes and you believe yeah and if you believe yeah anything is possible yes welcome to america yes right but the anything that they leave out is failure.

Yeah, right.

If anything is possible, then failure is possible.

That's right.

Right.

That's right.

That's right.

And I feel like not enough of them say

luck.

Dude, it's real.

Be involved in computers around the dot-com boom.

Yes.

Luck.

There are companies that blew up in that period, sold, and then within a few years were worth zero, literally zero.

Right.

Yahoo bought companies and sold companies.

Yahoo itself got sold and bought.

There's all these stories.

No one would say that of the business world.

They wouldn't say the business world is fake.

No, they can't.

You get what I'm saying?

They're invested in a big.

They would never say the business world is fake.

No, no, no.

They can't say that.

They can't.

But they know when you go behind the scenes at all these big finance, inside, they'll tell you, it's a fiction, man.

We need everybody to believe the same thing at the same time.

Right?

It's a house of cards.

Yes.

It's just intersubjective realities, I believe.

Oh, this is good.

I like that.

I've never heard that term.

I learned it from Yuval Noah Harari, who we had on the podcast.

I love that.

Talk to him, and in his book, Nexus, he's talking about how humans have connected all of these ideas and how we've made societies out of agreed fictions.

That's what it is.

Yeah, he goes, gravity is objective, right?

Right, right, right.

Whether you believe in it or not, it isn't there.

Right, it happens.

The US dollar

is a fiction that is real because we agree upon it.

That's the only reason why.

Yeah, so now you've just explained contemporary art.

You've just explained it.

Well, you've explained the market.

It's a fiction that we all agree

will legitimize.

Yeah.

Now, I say to artists all the time,

realize what's happening when you're able to sell your art because people can give you compliments and not give you money.

Oh.

Right.

I can like you.

I can think you're great.

But if I don't buy a ticket to your show, Like that's just a different level of investment.

I'm with you.

And so, you know,

I used to hear years ago, you know, my dad would tell me, son, a professional is somebody who gets paid to do what they do.

Right?

You get paid.

For artists,

you can be a professional and have no money coming in for a long time.

In fact, it could all come after you die.

Oh, easily.

It could come.

I mean, hopefully less so these days, but it's true.

So the money cannot validate the art.

Because of what you just said, because value is all over the place, the value is shifting.

Sometimes they can miss it.

All those black artists for, you know, 150 years that were overlooked weren't making better or worse art.

The country discounted them.

It's the train.

It's the train.

So the train

wasn't stopping there.

The train wasn't stopping there.

So for me and for other artists, you have to at once know that the art is

authentic and true and real because it's what you have transferred into that material.

In my case, I I make objects.

But that transfer has nothing to do with anything but me and that material at 4 o'clock in the morning.

It's a spiritual experience.

When I'm done with it and it enters the public realm for critique, for connoisseurship, for commerce, that's a different thing.

Those two things are related and separate.

And that firewall, at least in the mind of the artist, has to remain intact.

I actually like this for all artists, to be honest.

Right.

It really applies to all of us.

It doesn't matter.

What we're talking about.

If you're in fashion, if you are in music, if you are in

physical, what do you call art in your because art covers everything, but then what?

Art is fine.

I mean,

yeah, contemporary art.

Contemporary art, yeah, okay.

But in all of these spheres, I think it's the same thing.

It is the same thing.

It's true.

I mean, what you said about the art world that people tend to pay attention to are the big numbers.

Right.

How much the paintings sell for.

but people don't talk about your salary

like you.

Yeah.

You want people to talk about

what you're interested in.

And the conversation is,

ironically, that's where value is, though.

Yeah.

I think the difference is for us though, and I've always wondered how you feel about this as an artist.

The difference is

I have

a million relationships of one.

You have one relationship of a million.

Oh, this is good.

Slow down.

So you have a million relationships.

I have a million relationships

meaning one person.

So there is no one audience member who is making me or breaking me.

Right.

Right.

And I appreciate them almost all equally because it's like, no, that's why you could.

You're coming in with your $20 and you're coming in with your 300 Rand.

You're coming in with your 25 or 40 pounds.

And you're coming in with your, everyone's coming in with their whatever amount.

Right.

And this is like a collective, but all of you have come in with a little.

Right.

And then we're making this show.

Yes, right?

But I have a million ones, and that's the relationship I have.

Yes, but you have one relationship with them with a million.

Very true.

Do you get what I'm saying?

100% agree.

The art world, in many ways, is not democratic.

What you're explaining is democratic.

Yes, it is.

That's one

woman, one dollar.

One vote.

That's exactly what it is.

One ticket, one vote.

And this is also why you could be a superstar and why so many people know your name.

Because you play to the widest possible demographic on some level.

Yeah, no, you're right.

Okay, for us,

we're known in very small rooms

with very few people with lots and lots of money.

Yeah, the most powerful people.

I'd love to know from your perspective as an artist,

why do you think art is so essential?

Well, I truly believe that art is

in our original coding.

Because you would be hard pressed to find any society anywhere in the world through any period of time that did not create something

outside of themselves.

Cave drawings.

I don't go to cave, but like let's go to South America.

Let's go to the rainforest.

Let's go to the way they twisted leaves together to make beautiful thatcheted homes.

It's really impossible to find humans where they're not creating anything.

And so,

and I've thought a lot about this,

about why

people care.

One of the things I used to love to do in New York City, and this is even before I was begging people to buy the paintings, you're just kind of in a room and you're making things and you're just fucking suffering.

Maybe somebody bought a painting.

I would take the painting to them uncovered so I could ride on the train with my art just to see whether anybody cared.

Oh, I like this.

And you'd be surprised how many people of different kinds would say, you did that?

And I say, yeah,

that's good, man.

All types of people.

And I used to love the way.

This is a, I feel like you invented the first like people's gallery.

They should, you know, they should do, they should do that.

Someone should do that.

Dude, I love that.

There's a woman named Sandra Bloodworth who just retired from the MTA in New York City.

Her job for over 30 years was to pick artists for the subway to do

public works.

And New York City probably has one of the best public works program in all of the country.

I did not know that.

Yes.

And so it's not always original work.

I have my work at the 145th Street 2 or 3 line.

Yeah.

And it's all my work.

The ideas are in there.

And I love it.

What kind of work?

What's the story?

You know, it's like

I designed murals on the tiles.

If I had my art at a station, I would feel personally connected to the station.

Oh, I love it.

Yeah, but I would like go and want to keep the station clean and I want to fight people.

Let me tell you what.

Before you get to the point where you're, you know, looking at museums as a possibility, you know, you have the public.

Like, I took the train every day.

Yeah.

So, like, to have my work in a train station in New York City was like.

What?

I would be scared.

Dude, so it's great because...

Let someone try to take a shit at that station.

Yeah.

That's what you think.

You don't even understand the fight that we're going to have.

That's my art station.

Yo.

Yo, D, you don't even understand.

But what I say is, it is the Derek Forger Underground Museum of the People.

That's the way I refer to it.

I like this.

But I was actually, you know, after divorce, which happened years ago, I was like struggling again, living out of my studio,

sleeping on an air mattress.

Like it was just tough times.

And it was a block away from where they called me to put my work at the station years later.

And I just thought, this is not coincidence.

That was my station during some of the darkest months of my life.

And that's where my work is.

So I think that, look, I think it's spiritual to answer your question.

I think that there's no people without making something.

I think about the blacksmiths.

the instrument makers, all the technologies that lived in the people that moved to different parts of the world and how those things then express themselves.

Right, right.

The banjo, you know, which is, I just have a banjo on my last show, but I love the story of the banjo that starts in Africa with a gourd and ends up, you know, as folk music in America.

Oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It's actually a comedian who did a lot about that history.

Steve Martin, in his later years, did a lot of research on the banjo.

And it starts in Africa.

There's no banjo in America without the American slave.

That is wild, because the banjo seems seems like the epitome of white America.

Exactly.

And so, I mean, look, Beyonce is dealing with that too.

I think she had the banjo in her work.

There's a Black Banjo project that has been researching this.

But you asked about my work and like what stories.

I love the opportunity to

introduce those complexities and to magnify them and to

have people make connections to things that they might not have made otherwise.

I mean, it's what you do with your work too, right?

It's like,

how can we think about this separate and apart from the stories we've been told about what they are,

right?

And art is a space where we can make a new story.

I think I

only truly, truly, truly understood the value of art when I went to Ukraine.

Tell me about this.

I traveled to Ukraine.

This was many years ago,

obviously before the conflict.

I was going to go watch a a Champions League final.

So we go,

and

what I was most taken by

was how devoid of art the place was.

Like any Soviet countries, and not all, but there were many parts of what we call former Soviet Union countries where it's devoid of art.

Everything has to be functional only for the purpose of the function.

It's like East Berlin.

It really is.

It really is.

And when I came back from Ukraine,

I remember traveling and realizing, oh, man,

you know, the thing about art that's weird is

that you don't play video games, right?

No.

How do you know that?

You're making a presumption.

Man, you don't give me video game advice.

Yeah, I hate that.

Also, if you played video games, you'd never finish your art.

That's how I know.

It's very true.

Like I've been to your studio.

Yes.

You are working.

I know video game people, trust me.

You're like, that's not what's happening in here.

Video games and like

hours in the studio.

I play my whole life.

There's something that I learned from video games that like applies to art and it's like it's what they call like passive buffs.

Okay.

So there's some things you would apply to a character

that are obvious and easy to see.

Like what?

Like a sword?

Yeah, here's a sword.

Right.

The sword is easy to understand.

You have the sword.

But then you'd have like a buff.

And a buff would be, you are going to be 20% stronger now.

Right.

Wow.

yeah.

Now, you don't necessarily notice the 20% stronger in every single encounter, but it does make the game easier and it makes a difference.

Right, right.

And I remember coming back from Ukraine, traveling back into like the world, going, oh, damn, this is what art does.

Art is like a passive buff to society.

Oh, I love this.

Yeah, it's true.

You know what I mean?

It's true.

You stand in a train station, you stand in an airport, you stand at a bus stop, you stand anywhere, any liminal liminal space

that has no art.

Okay.

Watch how much you don't feel.

Right.

And it's a difficult thing to notice because noticing absence, as you were saying earlier,

is extremely difficult.

It is hard.

You know, it's very difficult to go.

I'm noticing that nothing is here.

Yes, yes.

Sometimes it's even difficult to notice what is there, but when you look at art,

When art is when you're not even like looking at it, right?

Yeah.

It's doing things to you.

Oh, it is.

So it's impossible to walk through the sistine chapel and be unaffected yeah and not have like one that's not possible you know this is like it doesn't matter what the painting is no it doesn't matter it doesn't it doesn't matter whether you know anything about you know you i like i don't even i don't know anything about art yes but like when i look at a rembrand yes and i didn't even know it's a rembrand that's right i just go like where's that field yes exactly what is what is that place take interest right and you know who i realize knows this and has not robbed us of it, but they're very slick about it is the advertising industry.

Yes, they do.

Yes.

Because now billboards are our arts.

Oh, absolutely.

Right.

So when you travel somewhere, you see Coca-Cola.

That's right.

You see, you know, like all these story, the optics.

It's like everything's shining on a billboard.

Oh, absolutely.

Shining on a billboard.

Shining on a billboard.

You're in Times Square.

Yes.

And they know the passive power of it.

They know that in that moment, you may not go, Coca-Cola.

But if they keep, if you keep seeing that red.

Somewhere along the line, you're going to be thirsty and you're like, man, I really feel like a Coke.

And they go, thank you, we got you.

And now I think if Coca-Cola can make you crave a Coke by putting up a billboard,

then an artist can make you crave hope by putting up a billboard.

Do you know what I'm saying?

I like that.

Okay, so I'm going to complicate that.

I like it.

I think it's a great opportunity to think about the difference between advertising and art.

And it's really simple in that

advertising, even design, they solve a problem.

They answer a question,

right?

That they've sometimes created.

Yeah, they've created the question, but they answer it.

That's the goal.

Art is interested in the question.

Ooh, okay.

I like this.

So we'll say design,

the goal is to solve a problem.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Art is to

create the question.

Yeah.

So I think that

that's the difference.

And I think that's also why people are sometimes intimidated by it.

But it's like listening to you tell jokes.

Sometimes there's so many levels in the joke that

it can be really funny if you understand all the resonance.

That's true, yeah.

But you don't have to get those deeper levels.

It can also just be funny on level one.

You taught me that about arts.

Really?

Yeah.

What did I teach you about?

Tell me something, Trevor.

Really sweet.

Yo, art is the most intimidating world I've ever come across.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I still,

still till this day, I'm not even going to pretend.

I just go, that's a nice picture.

That's all it takes, though.

And you were the first, can I tell you, you were literally the first human being who said to me, like, hey, brother, you're like, relax.

Yeah.

It's okay.

You're like, relax.

You don't need to know anything about the medium.

Right.

You don't need to know anything about the strokes or what it evokes.

No, no, no.

Symbolism or how it relates to another art.

You were just like, do you like it?

Yeah.

What'd you like?

And I'll just be like, I like the picture.

And you'd be like, why do you like the picture?

I'd be like, I don't know.

I like that person's eyes.

And you're like, oh, well, let's talk about the eyes.

You were literally the first person who did that.

And it made me more comfortable just liking art because I like what I'm seeing.

Well, I mean, look, that's, look, not to be, you know, flattering each other, but that's also what you did with humor.

There was a point in life where I thought, oh, I could be a comedian, but I was like, it's not serious enough, though.

Like,

I wanted people to take me seriously.

And I don't know, like, as a kid, I thought, well, as a comic, like, you're kind of a clown, you know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I didn't really, but it's actually like, it has the space for social critique, for satire.

You can get in places that other,

you know, public figures can't.

And you can push push that as far as possible.

And you're part of some kind of social change.

A joke is so trivial on some level.

It's not a serious thing.

A painting on its own, I mean,

it's just an object.

It doesn't have any embedded powers, arguably.

But then there is a part where that is true, though.

There's something true.

A joke can be more.

It can be profound.

You know, an object can stay with you.

And I think that's the stuff we traffic in.

I mean, as you were talking about,

you know, the kind of magic and art or value, you know, I think about like laughter.

You know, it's like laughter is democratic.

You know, we're coded for laughter.

Yeah, we are.

It doesn't matter where you are in the world.

I think about like Mr.

Bean or something like where there's no language.

Yeah.

You know, but I think we human beings are encoded to appreciate art.

I think we are, actually.

I believe, I mean, my whole existence is predicated on that belief.

No, I actually believe we are.

We look at it and we feel whether we like it or not.

Yes, it's involuntary.

So

I think that, you know, part of what I love about being an artist is

the way I can reach people is at a very human level.

It's not about

class, race.

It's none of those things.

In fact, I can be all about my cultural experience and bring people into it that live outside of it.

And how marvelous is that?

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What are you working on right now?

Because you did a show recently.

Yes.

How long do you take between...

How long does it take you?

It takes me about a year to put a show together, a little more.

Do you take a break?

I don't know you take breaks.

I try not to take too many breaks.

I mean, this is my own, like, whatever, anxiety.

What is that, like, like poverty trauma?

I can't claim that entirely.

Because I know a lot of artists are, and I think this extends to many people, maybe in today's age, but there's a terror that if I step away from the thing for too long, then to go back to the train analogy,

it'll move.

I'll miss it.

Okay, well, I have to say this about the train analogy, which I loved.

When you were talking about that, I was thinking about like performers that keep trying to stay relevant.

Yeah, chase the train.

Chasing the train.

You're chasing the train.

Yeah, which is a fool's area.

It's a fool's errand.

It can work.

At some point, you're going to fall out.

You can't go as fast as a train.

Well, here's the thing.

You might not fall out.

But I think there's a compromise in everything you're doing in life.

So keeping up with the train means that in many ways, the train is dictating what you should should create and not the other way around.

This is the difference between, let's say, an illustrator and an artist.

An illustrator is

in design, doing the work that they're told to do to tell the story for the deadline.

I can take five years on a painting if I want to.

I can take 20 years if I want to.

I can take one minute if I want to.

the train and the approval and that that's not what i'm working for it's something very personal and very internal and i set the time in fact there is no time in my studio here's where the magic happens with art i had a relationship with everything that goes out of my studio

i had an affair with this thing a love affair hated it loved it brought it back the whole thing every time

The whole thing.

There's not one thing that I make that I don't obsess over.

And so my investment is what makes your investment possible.

And I think there's a point in terms of finishing a work where you get a feeling that's just like, I think we've had our time.

You know,

you can go in the world now.

But art really concludes when it enters the public sphere.

Like, I start it, I make it, I have an experience.

When it goes out for me, that's when it's...

the cycle is sort of complete.

You know, it's like

you can write jokes on a pad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Until you say them to the audience.

You have to say it.

Yeah.

And it has to land.

But like, philosophically, like, where does the joke live?

Does it live on the page or does it live in the delivery?

It's always been a tough one to answer, but

I think the way I see it is I go,

for me at least,

the joke exists when I've thought of it.

That's when it exists.

Oh, this is like a this is this is like a very

you know what I mean parallel political conversations Yeah, but that's literally for me.

I go

in,

once I go, huh, that's funny.

That's already a joke.

I'm the audience of one and I've gone, that is funny.

The difficulty and where I think the professionalism comes in

is bridging the gap between your brain and mine when we're in a room together.

Can I get your synapses to fire in the exact same way that mine did for you to see why this is funny?

And that is where I think great comedians show themselves off.

They are able to create the same idea of the world

that they have in your mind.

And that is like, ah,

that's a, that's a, that's, that's mastery.

Yeah, but you've just explained what artists do.

It's the same thing.

That

this thing is doing something for me at a personal level.

And that experience is authentic and satisfying, so much so that I'm going to invest all this time and energy.

Right.

But that's a one-on-one experience.

And then at some point, it has to live in the public space.

And when I told you

so much harder, though, because you put it out and it's done.

If I put it out and it doesn't go well, I'm like, all right, let me take it back in the studio and change a few things.

You put the painting on the wall, and someone goes, boo,

it's done.

Well, what's beautiful about us is we don't hear the booze.

Museums are quite quiet.

We're like, soft, shut

everyone, quiet.

Soft booze.

Do not boo the artists.

Okay.

So the conversation is a little more internal in that.

Yeah, but I think I would be more terrified by that.

How do you know that somebody likes turkey shows?

If you're trying to stand on stage in Turkey,

how do you know?

12,000 people.

Yeah, but how do you know that people don't like, you know?

They keep calling you back for the Grammys.

We had to cancel the Turkey show.

It's a fifth call.

I'd be terrified.

We had to cancel the Turkey Show.

Did you cancel it?

Yeah, we had to.

I saw that.

There was a whole...

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring that up.

No, no, I mean,

not like.

What happened?

This happens sometimes.

We had to cancel shows in Hong Kong

in and around the protests, you remember?

Yeah.

Yes, I was.

We had to cancel shows.

Yeah, we canceled shows too.

Yeah, we had to cancel shows in India when there were the farmers protesting.

And then we had to cancel in Turkey now.

Dude, but let me ask you this.

How do you know what's funny in other places?

I don't.

That's what I love.

But why would you get on stage if you don't know that?

No, but you see, what I love is finding the thing.

So

funny is universal.

Okay.

This is the first and foremost.

In theory, yes.

No, no.

We can fight about it all day.

Funny is universal.

And what I mean by that is everyone in the world experiences funny.

Yes.

Rats laugh.

Did you know this?

I did not know that.

And I would have had to come here to find that out.

Yeah.

So rats laugh and rats smile.

What does this sound like?

I don't know.

Okay, that's fine.

I've just read the papers on it, right?

A rat laugh.

Okay.

So rats laugh.

Okay.

We don't know why they're laughing.

I don't.

I don't.

Right.

For sure.

But they're laughing.

Humans

find something funny everywhere in the world.

What I love is trying to figure out

where their funny is and how my funny can intertwine with it.

So I used to, and I still do in some ways, I used to envy American comedians because American comedians could go anywhere in the world and tell a joke the way they told it in America.

Because people know Americans.

Because the world knows America.

So they would go like, hey, man, so, ha, man, so I voted for George Bush.

And

whoa, let me tell you something.

And the audience isn't like, George Bush, who is

this George Bush?

That's right.

What are you talking about?

Who is George?

No, that's right.

Well, it's like, keep going.

Tell the joke.

Right.

You know?

But if, as a South African comedian, I would travel somewhere else in the world and then I would be like, oh, man, oh, let me tell you, Julius Malema.

Half the people are like, what did you just say?

Yeah, we don't know.

Who is that?

What is that?

So while it was a curse in some ways, it was a blessing in many other ways, because it meant when I traveled, I would have to spend more time trying to understand what's funny there.

Right.

What are they thinking?

How do you do that?

Why are they thinking that?

How does their language match up with what funny is or isn't?

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, but what do you do?

You absorb the culture?

I try my best, yeah.

I go in.

I just sing around for a while.

Yeah, yeah.

I just listen and look at what people are laughing at.

Yeah, like my least favorite experience doing comedy is traveling to a place and leaving it immediately.

I hate that.

I don't want to fly and fly out.

Yeah, you like to be there.

It takes more of my life, but I like to go there, eat what the people eat, see what the people see.

And by the way, have it as my experience so that by the time I get on stage, whether it's in Amsterdam

or whether it's in Cairo or whether it's in wherever, I just want to go on and be like, man, this is how I feel

about these alleyways.

And the magic happens when they go, oh my God,

you felt that?

We feel that too.

You felt that?

Right.

And it becomes a magical experience because they go, we even forgot that we feel that.

Right.

You know?

And I remember

I really never appreciated it until it was two people who helped me out, Kevin Hart and

Dave Chappelle.

Kevin said to me one day, he was a classic Kevin.

Kevin was, he was, we were at a tennis match.

And Kevin was like, he's like,

he's like, man, Trevor, let's say, let me tell you something, man.

Let me tell you something, man.

He says, man, I'm sick of your bullshit, man.

I'm sick of your bullshit.

And I was like, what do you mean, Kev?

He's like, man, he's like, every, every country I go to, they go, they go, you know, who came here?

Trevor came here.

And they're like, man, you were funny.

They're like, oh man, but Trevor, oh, man, he told us jokes about us.

And Kevin's like, man, what is some bullshit?

He lives in America.

I live in America.

How's you?

And Kevin was saying, he's like, I hope you said, I hope you appreciate what you have.

Yeah.

Don't try and be more this.

Don't try and be, you know what I mean?

Right, right.

And Dave said the same thing to me as well.

We did a comedy festival that Dave was headlining.

And then I was in the run-up days to Dave's show.

Yeah.

And I think it was like maybe the first comedy festival in the UAE.

UAE.

And

we both performed our shows.

And I mean, Dave Chappelle is a master of the craft.

Yeah, you know?

And like afterwards, we're hanging out.

And Dave says to me, he goes, he goes, man,

he says, I'm funny, don't get me wrong.

He says, but tonight, I watched you become Dubai's favorite comedian.

He said, you weren't, he said, I was Dave Chappelle.

That's big.

But you were their comedian as if you're from here.

Yeah.

And I think that's what I, and I think think it's partially where i'm from as a person my life growing up all that my you know everything yeah i've always loved this i i feel like there's something special when you can find a way to use your culinary skills to cook somebody's food for them that's right oh that's that's a great analogy you know i used to not understand how serious you were about that you used to say that after you finished a daily show and you were like i just love to travel and i'd love to i was like oh he likes to go like like who loves to tour but you don't just tour you're like learning

You're like learning the culture and trying to like understand and apply.

I'll tell you why.

I think, you know, not to make it too existential, but I think it's particularly now because it's in short supply.

One of my favorite things I get from traveling the world and meeting people and doing what they're doing is it reminds me there's no one way to be right.

There you go.

You know what I'm saying?

Yes.

So there is no one way for a joke to be funny.

Yes.

There is no one way for a food to be delicious.

You know, earlier on just here with the crew, we were talking about like fermented shark meat in Iceland.

Yes.

And if you're not able to handle it, you're like, this is trash.

This is disgusting.

But they're like, no, it's not.

I love it.

And somewhere else, people love caviar.

In another part of the world, people are like, what is this?

So I think that reminds me in everything, politics, in

the way I relate with other human beings, the way you raise a child, the way you make the world.

I go, oh, don't think that is, there is the way.

and you know how you know there's not the way

all those cultures and people exist

Look, they're doing fine.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, so if there was one way if there was one way for the world to be right every other culture would be that way.

It's so true, but I find a lot of the time bigger nations and bigger cultures will assume so they'll like the British land in Africa and they go these savages right.

They don't know how to do anything.

It's like, yeah, but you found them here doing it.

That's right.

That's right.

If you didn't find them, I would agree with you.

Yes.

But because you found them, it means they do know how to do something.

Yes.

Yeah.

Same thing when like the Spanish get to South America and Central America.

Oh, God.

They're like, oh, these people don't know.

And it's like, no, no, no, no, no.

They do know.

Yeah, they're fine.

Because they're here.

You know, as a kid,

my mother would sometimes close the door and be like, I'm eating my food.

And when she says my food, she means she's eating Ghanaian food.

She eats with her hands.

And

she would say, I mean, we all eat with our hands.

We eat fufu and otherwise.

And she would say, these people won't understand that, why I eat with my hands.

They think I need a fork.

And for her, she understood the fork as a colonial object.

Oh, that was unnecessary.

I mean, it is unnecessary.

It's unnecessary.

It's completely different.

And she would say, food actually tastes better.

I mean, your hands are tactile.

You're experiencing the texture of the food and you're ingesting the food.

Did she know that based on research?

Because that is true.

She lived.

I mean, she lived it.

I mean, she grew up.

I'm saying she was just saying this intuitively.

Well, she's saying we've eaten.

she's doing that magic model

yes exactly she's doing that magic

how did they do that she she's saying they'll say something that like a university oh yeah in a paper oh totally researchers have found eating food with your hands increases that and your mom is like she's like yeah yeah yeah this is exactly right but you know to go back to what you were saying about the cultures man uh you remind me of going to a few years ago i went to actually israel and uh from there i went to south africa and i remember going to hector peterson square I mean, the story of them teaching Afrikaans.

And after that, I went to Australia.

And when I came off the plane, they apprehended me for a while.

And here I am thinking, like, oh, I'm taking a break.

You know, I've worked hard enough.

Like, let me treat myself.

And here, this Australian guy is asking me what I'm going to be doing.

How long am I here?

And then I'm starting to imagine myself as like, you know, some, like, do I have a dubious dubious motive for being

like the questioning went on so long.

I'm like, bro, this has been 20 minutes.

Like, I'm 24 hours away from home.

And so that trip showed me, and it was actually a relief that injustices against mankind are as old as mankind itself.

It blew my mind some kind of way to realize that, oh no, this is like, this is it.

This is a human experience.

Right.

Yeah.

Also,

it's like tough to be black everywhere on some level.

Like it's troubles.

Traveling taught me that

making art about my lived experience can be resonant because everyone has some version of what those challenges are.

You know, when you think about the universality of a laugh or a painting from

any far-off part of the world.

Yeah.

I want to see it.

I want to experience it.

I can engage it.

I can look at paintings that were made a thousand years ago and have an experience.

I don't know the humor works that way.

It doesn't always age well.

Like, is there a timeless joke?

I think so.

Really?

Yeah.

That's still funny?

Yeah, yeah, completely.

Like a hundred years later?

I think so.

Oh, this is.

Yeah, I think so.

I think some jokes

exist in the human experience, and so

they will always be funny.

That's true.

You know, I'm sure there's a joke that Ali Wong has told about having a child that can live forever.

For as long as women will have a child, I think that joke will be funny.

There are some jokes, though, that are about a thing that may be as short-lived as the thing is.

Because the thing is gone.

But there are some jokes that I do think they will just travel.

As long as the people understand the context, that joke will continuously be.

I mean, as Africans, we know this, right?

Proverbs.

Yes.

Like, they still tickle people.

They've been around.

Just saw Denzel Washington and Jake Jalen Hall performing Shakespeare.

Yeah.

Word for word.

And people laughed.

You know, so things can be timeless.

Art certainly is.

But humor can be.

Yeah.

But comedian.

And it also just depends.

I think of it like fashion as well.

It might just come around.

It might come in waves.

It might go in waves.

A simple example is look at content that goes viral in the world at different times.

There are TV shows that were hot in America

and then 20 years later become hot somewhere else.

Really hot.

But Americans are like, oh,

we don't think that's funny anymore.

It's true.

But that place is like, we love it.

We love it.

We love it.

The way you said the black man cannot come inside.

Ha ha, what a great joke.

You know, I saw recently these Africans that play, is it Kenyans or they play country music?

Have you seen this?

No.

But they love it.

They have these parties and there's like all these Africans wearing like top to bottom like cowboy gear.

Yeah, yeah.

and they but it's a marriage of the cultures I love this stuff when culture can oh no that's my favorite thing this is what we live for right I mean I think as artists I mean that's what we really are trying to mine is like the human experience I mean and it could get dark because you you got to go inside um when I first started painting I would I would make paintings and people would say and I would have like you know an athletic guy a bright pattern background and people would say Kahinde Wiley and I'd be like no no no no no But I couldn't.

He had already occupied that space.

Oh, damn.

And so I was like, optically, the things I'm putting together are adding up to what I don't want.

Like, and so the only way forward for me was to get into, okay, well, what's the feeling about this image?

And it's like, oh, vulnerability is what I'm interested in.

Because when I experience, yeah, when I experience radiation.

Distilling it down to the whole feeling as opposed to

what it looks like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right.

And I'm not saying that that's what he's

doing.

But I'm just saying, like, that was for me my salvation is to get inside the experience.

And

because everyone knows what it feels like to be vulnerable.

Yeah.

Everyone doesn't know what it feels like to live in my body.

And so, to me, I don't know, in my practice,

I try to do that inside-outside thing as much as possible.

I think you succeed.

Well, thank you.

And even if people don't feel it,

the pictures are pretty, man.

Hey, man, that's an insult in my world.

No, man, the pictures are pretty.

The pictures are pretty.

The pictures are pretty, and I think we should allow people to accept that.

Like, you know why?

I'll tell you why.

Because

whether it's the Mona Lisa,

whether it's, you know, David and God, or whatever it is,

the pictures are pretty.

I know people will like fight about it or whatever.

But ultimately.

Yo, the pictures are pretty.

They are beautiful.

Now they come.

We traffic in beauty.

They come with a story and they come with meaning and there might be layers and then like an art historian will tell you why it's significant that that road leads nowhere or why those hills make that shape.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But we should never forget

that it does look pretty.

I say that you have beautiful art.

Thank you.

That also comes with a lot of meaning.

But I'm just saying.

Now you're throwing that in it for me.

No, I'm not.

I'm just saying as somebody who doesn't always understand meanings of, I'm not learned enough.

Yeah.

I just look at it and I go like, dan, that's dope.

Yeah.

And I think, I think you shouldn't take that for granted.

It's nice to have something where someone just goes like, damn, that's dope.

No, I do.

I mean, I'm joking.

It's absolutely true.

I mean, beauty is definitely a strategy for me.

Because, but back to your analogy about the train,

we're trying to get your attention.

I operate in the glance economy.

Yes.

Right?

You don't need to stand in front of a painting for an hour to have an experience.

In fact.

Yo, let me tell you something.

One of the biggest reasons I don't like going to museums and art galleries.

Why?

Especially if if someone from the museum or art gallery knows I'm there.

Yeah, because they come together.

It's because they'll come take me on tours and stuff.

And then what happens is,

I don't know how long I need to stand in front of an art piece to make it seem like I fully appreciated it.

Do you know how much pressure they are?

So I'll stand there and then someone will come stand next to me and they'll go, stunning, isn't it?

And I go, oh, yeah, gorgeous, gorgeous.

And then they stand.

Right.

And I stand.

And then I go, if I walk away now,

it looks like I'm not engaged.

Right.

And then I'll like zoom in, I'll like come forward, and I'll be like, wow,

fascinating, oh, man.

Dude, this is a lot of performance.

That's it's too much stress.

All right, here's what I'm going to say.

That's why I like looking at art with you because I can literally just say to you straight up, I can go, I like those pants.

That's right.

It's true.

And I think it's important to be able to do that.

Okay, that's very important.

And I'm going to absolve you of that pressure.

You may never do that again.

You may also say, I don't get it.

I'm not into it.

That's a good thing, too.

That's a reaction.

And in art, that's totally possible.

There's some art that just bothers me, but it bothers me.

Okay.

And that's a good thing.

So this, I think the complication with the word pretty is that it flattens for me.

Beauty is to me more expansive than pretty.

Oh, I'll take

it.

Right.

So pretty is just purely aesthetics.

It's just pretty.

But beauty is.

Whereas you could be beautiful inside and out.

Well, I think a lot of your paintings are beautiful on the outside if people don't know what's on the inside.

That's what I'm saying.

I'll take that.

No, but I'm serious, man.

And like, for real, I think,

yeah, man.

What I've always loved about your work is I cannot separate your work from you.

Yeah.

Which, in my world, is a compliment.

Yes, that's a high compliment.

I love that.

I worked hard to get there.

Yeah, man, because

I don't just enjoy the stories you tell.

I enjoy them immensely, but I enjoy

how you tell you in the art.

Do you know what I mean?

Yes.

I love that people get to know a little bit of you,

and you get to tell people a little bit of us.

You know, I love that like Africans have stories in your art.

I love that black people have stories in your art.

I love that there are some people in America and around the world

who have only had a black person in their house.

Yes.

In your art.

Yes.

They've never had a physical black person

but there are black people on their walls and and you know what their kids grow up looking at those black faces and i mean this like in a real

we have this conversation i appreciate it i talked i'm really appreciative of that where i just go like damn you did that well but it's true like think about that and so i've been asked also well How do you feel about that if they're those people that don't have direct engagement with black people in their lives, but want to acquire images of black people?

And I say there's something beautiful that you find about the experience.

And as long as I put enough truth in the work, where the work is not merely to perform aesthetically, they're part of the conversation.

And I think it's a good thing.

Artists, amen.

Let me tell you something.

The first artist who painted white Jesus

changed the world

immensely.

Changed the world.

Changed our world.

Certainly changed the world.

But that's what I mean.

Think about it.

Think about it.

Think about history as we know it.

Would it be the same if that painter kept Jesus as dark-skinned as Jesus was?

Just think about that for a moment.

Because it would be a whole lot harder for people to travel to other places and do the things that they did to those people when those people look like Jesus now.

You get what I'm saying?

So that's where I'm saying.

That's the big thing.

But I'll also say to complicate that, there are pictures of black Jesus that have been created long, long, long time ago.

That's that market conversation about that one guy that painted long-haired Arkansas Jesus.

Like, why that became

as popular is because of a machine.

It's not because of the painting.

So, when we go to, say, Ethiopia and we see Orthodox Christ, he looks very different than Arkansas Christ that we know in America or the Western Jesus.

But that one didn't travel because it didn't function as propaganda.

So, I don't want to say that that artist made this move.

The machine moved that artist's work.

Right?

So that's why that firewall is so important.

Before we wrap this up, I just realized there's something I've never asked you, and I've always wanted to.

I always remember this when we're not together.

This is going to be good.

Have you ever heard the conspiracy theory that the CIA invented American contemporary art

or abstract art?

Or forgive me if I'm using the wrong term.

No, no, no.

Have you heard the conspiracy theory?

I don't know it well.

I've heard some things about them being involved in using it with yeah so apparently it's just because you when you said machine yes post-world war ii the world is now forming itself it's becoming this new space and america is now a superpower okay in a way that it wasn't before world war ii right so america was big but it wasn't like the early 40s of the world right early 40s now america has the atom bomb yeah the world is looking at america different america is this thing And America, this is all the story, by the way.

America realizes that while it is seen as the military powerhouse of the world it is not considered the cultural powerhouse of the world right so America starts going okay we got to get culture out there we got and it's doing it in multiple ways music and you know film is burgeoning at that time and it's growing but the the upper-minded echelons say yes but America will never have arts right right art is of Europe yes it is of the sophisticated all the art of America for America is a young baby and the story goes that the CIA is then tasked with creating yes an art market.

And so they like start telling people, just make shit and we'll buy it.

And they go in, they buy it, they inflate the price, they get galleries buying it, they get a market going, it becomes this whole big thing.

The story becomes the art.

The art's blowing, it's burgling as well.

And then the thing is created.

Have you heard anything about this?

I tell you why I think that's complete BS.

Because it's great, it's great fun.

It's a fantastic one.

I like it.

I mean, for a dinner party, it's wonderful.

I'd stand around and listen to it.

Remember what we said before about

the belief that

human beings are encoded to create.

Yeah.

So

creating art at all levels in all ways has been ubiquitous with human beings.

The art market really didn't get created until the 70s.

And there was a guy named Skull who owned taxicabs.

He was a wealthy guy who decided to go to to Sotheby's, which at the time was only really selling antiques and

cars and other things.

So he had bought art from all these artists in New York, probably many from Leo Costelli, and he decided, I'm just going to resell this stuff.

And he did it at these high prices.

And Robert Rauschenberg was there at the sale and like shoved them.

And they had this match.

And there's a photograph of the moment when Rauschenberg.

And so Rauschenberg says, Hey, man, you bought that for me from this, and like you took advantage of me.

And Skull says, I did you a favor.

And so inside our world of contemporary art, that's the origins that we know about.

That's the moment.

Yes, that's the moment when New York City started to become the center of the art world.

So that's, I mean, in terms of art market, I mean that's so that's a bit more plausible than this because Americans, I mean, you know

The government is not I mean they wouldn't even support artists well in this country at all So they that just gives them too much credit Do you know what I'm saying?

Like I want to believe that so much like if you told me that happened in Canada I I might I might believe that more because Canada supports their artists.

They understand culture.

If you told me this happened in Korea, look at what they're doing with K-pop.

The government is like helping underwrite that thing.

That's cultural export.

But America?

Wow, that's a stretch.

Great story, though.

Oh, man.

I like the story.

Yeah, as we said in the beginning, doesn't matter whether it's true or not.

Doesn't matter.

We just need a story.

Yeah, man.

This is fun, Dee.

Yeah.

Thank you very much for coming.

Is there any way where people can see your art right now?

Yes.

Like, where should they go?

Other than which way, which station?

Let's start with that.

Okay, so there's a.

Yes, yes.

The Derek Forger Underground Museum of the People is at 145th Street on the 2 and or 3 stop at 145th Street.

So that's cool.

So that's there.

I have a show I'm working on in September in Los Angeles, which is going to be great at David Kordansky Gallery.

Thinking only about music.

And people can just go to these things.

They can just come, dude.

Like, please come to the show.

Just come.

It costs no money.

It's wonderful.

So I wish more people went to galleries and museums.

So I want to encourage people to just go.

This show is all about the black voice.

And I think this is a time where we need to raise our voices.

I think the black voice is emblematic of so many things around democracy that are really powerful.

So, hopefully, get you to LA.

Well, yeah, I'll pop by.

All right, bro.

Look at that.

I travel, man.

You don't

travel a lot, my friend.

I travel.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me, Travis.

Thank you for joining.

Thank you.

All right.

What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions.

The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yameen and Jodi Avigan.

Our senior producer is Jess Hackle.

Claire Slaughter is our producer.

Music, Mixing and Mastering by Hannes Brown.

Thank you so much for listening.

Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now.

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