Jan. 8, 2026
Selena Netflix Documentary: Was She the Original Taylor Swift? | The Cool Check In
The new Selena Netflix documentary, Selena y Los Dinos: A Family's Legacy, offers an intimate look at the Queen of Tejano’s meteoric rise, but it also leaves fans wondering "what if?" Hosts Garrett Gonzales and Mike Joseph dive into the never-before-seen footage and family archives that define this 2025 release.
The central problem addressed is the "lost crossover"—the moment Selena was murdered just as she was poised to dominate the English-speaking market. By analyzing her business savvy, fashion branding, and fan connection, Garrett and Mike explore the provocative theory: Would Selena have achieved Taylor Swift-level global dominance had she lived?
Listeners will benefit from a deep breakdown of her musical evolution and a critical look at how the documentary handles her legacy without focusing solely on the tragedy. Whether you are a lifelong fan or a newcomer discovering her through Netflix, this episode contextualizes Selena’s impact on modern pop stardom.
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WEBVTT
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[SPEAKER_00]: Mike, I think we've got to be honest with the audience here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We actually recorded this very episode one time already.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And unfortunately, we had to rerecord it because of the timing aspect of it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to talk about Selena and the documentary that is out on Netflix right now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The reason we had to re-record it is because before we were going to put this out, her father was still alive and then over the time frame, he has since passed away, so we decided that we're going to re-record this episode and not refer to him as if he is in the present tense.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like less than a week later, I think.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was, yeah, it was very close to.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is 50 for 50, but we thought it would kind of be cool to make some of this stuff pretty timely because in 50 for 50 we're talking about the history of records that albums that that affected us.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This documentary is dropped just not not that long ago, and so we want to have a side sort of podcast related to 50 for 50.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So we are calling this the cool check-in
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[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and and the before we had actually when we recorded the first one, we didn't have a name for the whole thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So did not sense then we we we created the the name for this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So the the cool check and it's just going to be like every once and again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Mike and I are going to talk about something that is more recent, something that's a little bit more timely.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And some of that will be the things that happen in music, some documentaries that come out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to be movies about music that we may check in on.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's what this is going to be.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And when I told you I said, hey, there's this new documentary on Selena.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It might be kind of fun to talk about because we're not going to do a Selena album on 50 for 50.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it's also these these episodes are also kind of fun for us to just go.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to talk about this person more than likely.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk about them in a shorter version.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And these will be shorter as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Our 50 for 50 episodes are hour plus.
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[SPEAKER_00]: These are probably, you know, half that or whatever.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm actually curious, um, from a cultural perspective, like what Selena meant to you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't really mean anything to me, honestly, until I really learned her story that Tejano music is not something that I necessarily latched onto as I was growing up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I remember
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[SPEAKER_00]: there was a Spanish language album that my dad used to listen to by Linda Ronstatt, among all people.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so there wasn't like there wasn't any Spanish or Mexican music in in my home, because there was, but it was to be fair, Linda Ronstatt is part Mexican.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, yes, it's not like
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so that album, I'm actually trying to remember, he's probably seen on the screen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Jimmy Padre.
03:35.660 --> 03:44.016
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that album was on a lot in my household, but it's not like my dad was solely listening to Spanish music.
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[SPEAKER_00]: My dad is born in the United States.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't even speak Spanish himself.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So that culture, the music and stuff did not really, it didn't really exist that much to me though, you know, when hip hop started to incorporate a lot of like the street slingy Spanish, like I always thought that was cool because it was like, oh, like this different culture
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, hip hop was started in the Bronx by, I mean, not just black people and certainly not just black American people, but, you know, people from the Caribbean, you know, which is certainly inclusive of, you know, Latino culture.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I mean, the Bronx, particularly South Bronx, is very much Puerto Rican and Dominican neighborhoods, even to this day.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, the Latin community is very, very important to hip-hop culture, you know, from the very, very beginning of it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But when was the first time you remember hearing Spanish in hip hop or like Spanish words or lines or, you know, I mean, I mean, that wasn't just kind of like one word.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So to be fair to like start from the beginning, my, I was raised by my maternal grandparents who were both born in San Pedro de Makori, which is in DR.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And while most of the music that we listened to or that I listened to as a kid was, you know, American English music,
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[SPEAKER_01]: you know, my grandmother, in particular, would listen to like, salsa and madangue, and we had, you know, celia cruise records in the house, you know, all that kind of stuff.
05:42.004 --> 05:51.593
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I think New York City also is just such a very like Latin dominant culture, even if you are not of any sort of Latin descent.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like you still have kind of, you know, everybody who's raised in New York can speak a little bit of spanglish, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So in terms of hip hop, I mean,
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[SPEAKER_01]: They were definitely from like the break dancing days like I remember seeing like all those early break dancing movies and there were people of Hispanic descent in those movies in terms of hip hop probably the first person I heard utilized Spanish in hip hop was actually like from the west coast would have been like mellow man ace.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I was going to say.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: that's the exact song that I was thinking of.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I wouldn't say that that song was necessarily or is well remembered or well respected.
06:37.185 --> 06:43.536
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a little bit of like a little bit of a joker, you know, the hook and everything was very catchy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's very memorable, but thinking about like
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[SPEAKER_00]: that's memorable as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it didn't like it wasn't something that, you know, I was wondered when I was growing up like, and we'll talk about this in a future episode because we talk about the Fuji's
07:07.660 --> 07:18.823
[SPEAKER_00]: and how Wycliffe started to use a lot of different cultural music in his songs, which made the carnival so much of a fun record.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, like, you know, I'm trying to think of like moments where Latin artists were kind of like,
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, this is like, even somebody like, um, you know, Ricky Martin or something, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, I mean, it was still there was still a little bit of a gimmick to it.
07:40.004 --> 07:50.116
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, when we were kids, there was, uh, like, Manudo in New York, particularly was, I know, I would imagine in all other communities that had a healthy Latin population.
07:50.136 --> 07:51.178
[SPEAKER_01]: They were on silver dollars.
07:51.258 --> 07:52.399
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, you knew.
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[SPEAKER_01]: you know, and then after Minuto came Lisa Lisa, you know, who's from New York, and Gloria Estefan, and then, you know, things kind of built from there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And Lisa Lisa was, you know, not directly hip hop, but she was hip hop adjacent.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
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[SPEAKER_01]: because you know they were making you know she was making music with full force you know full force was also hip-hop adjacent so you know again like the cultures were intermingling from day one yeah to bring it back to Selena obviously when
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[SPEAKER_00]: her murder happened.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was a giant story.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And if you didn't know who Selena was, you were very quickly to find out who she was because right before she passes or she gets murdered,
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[SPEAKER_00]: uh... she's recording her her English crossover album and so those songs start to play after she passes away and uh... that you know to think about like and this is kind of why we're doing this this episode is a lot of what we have talked about on fifty for fifty so far and some stuff that people haven't heard yet but stuff that mike and i've recorded some of the themes are like
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[SPEAKER_00]: this young greatness.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And in some instances, the music that was created that we are fans of is created at such a young age of the artist.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then,
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[SPEAKER_00]: We don't, in some cases, we don't get to see what happens to them as they grow older or the first album is really the only thing that matters in their catalog.
09:36.021 --> 09:38.224
[SPEAKER_00]: So Selena's also someone very young.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She's like five years older than us.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like she was born in 71, I believe.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, to think, you never think of Selena,
09:49.002 --> 10:02.175
[SPEAKER_00]: As growing older, you only think of her as, you know, however old she was, I think she's 20, 20, or yeah, 23, 24, she will forever be 23, 24, to us, because that's how we saw her.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I just think that whole idea of art and everything and who she is and who she never got to be.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's just something, it's just a story that we're gonna tell a lot about over these episodes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So the thing that I wanted to talk to you about when it comes to this documentary is it almost always feels like
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[SPEAKER_00]: these young groups that are created, like there is the blueprint to this, and it is the Jackson Five.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And Selena and her family was no different, and they tell that story in this documentary, what we know about how hard the Jackson kids life was.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's almost like,
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[SPEAKER_00]: do we really want that to be the blueprint?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's the blueprint for success 100% but also that's a rough life man.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And for every Jackson family that ended up getting super successful, there's a hundred families that were not as successful.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, we're looking at the Jackson's, but was there another family as successful as a Jackson's?
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[SPEAKER_01]: No.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so the Latino version of the Jackson five is kind of how the group was created.
11:22.201 --> 11:31.951
[SPEAKER_00]: And the group, Selena, Elos Dinos is based off of her father, Abraham's band, when he was younger, was Elos Dinos.
11:31.971 --> 11:39.199
[SPEAKER_00]: So he just kept that band and the idea of that band with the young kids.
11:39.179 --> 11:52.152
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, the idea that, you know, they're a little bit too Mexican for Americans and yet they're a little bit too American for the Mexican audience.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That is something that I know a lot of people who are like me, who did not grow up in Mexico and grew up in the United States and did not learn language.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know,
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[SPEAKER_00]: I am a biracial person, so I just kind of try and fit in wherever I go, but in very, very strict Mexican cultures, I don't fit really at all.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That is a struggle of growing up in different cultures and such, it's just that idea of where do I land?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Even I have a really good friend.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He still has, he can see grew up in LA and he grew up with Spanish-speaking parents.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So he still even has an accent to this day as a man as 40 years old.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But the cool thing about it is it is not something he ever tried to get rid of, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like that is just who he is and he is right proud of that.
12:52.040 --> 13:00.773
[SPEAKER_00]: If he goes to, if he goes to speak at a conference and he has that accent, somebody in
13:00.871 --> 13:06.560
[SPEAKER_00]: create some sort of, you know, they're kind of going to have a conclusion about who he is just based on that.
13:07.381 --> 13:09.264
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, that is who he is.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I always find that aspect pretty fascinating.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, how do we all fit in?
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, who are we to everybody?
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[SPEAKER_00]: We can't please everybody.
13:17.616 --> 13:22.664
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do we all just fit in, you know, in the identity of what America is supposed to be?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the thing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, obviously I'm black, but
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm a first generation American, both of my parents were immigrants, you know, my families from the Caribbean.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're looking at black American history, like there's a definite disconnect there, and even from the perspective of like the community I grew up in, which was very
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[SPEAKER_01]: it was black but very like Caribbean centric.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's a sense that once you're Americanized, you're not really a part of that community either.
13:57.730 --> 14:05.185
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's really just kind of figuring out your individuality and getting in where you fit in and not really
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[SPEAKER_01]: trying to not concern yourself too much with where other people want you to fit.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I mean, this is a lesson that I've had to teach myself and learn over and over again, not only in terms of like my ethnicity and my race, but also my sexuality, it's like, you know, you're you before you are anything else.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And you need to figure out
14:30.933 --> 14:37.167
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, where your comfort zone is and don't let other people dictate to you where you should be.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And how hard is that?
14:39.152 --> 14:40.354
[SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty hard.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Pretty hard.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because, you know, people are going to pull you, you know,
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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if this is specifically an American thing, but there's just this desire to be part of something, be part of a community, and the easiest way for people to find a community is like people that look like you act like you talk like you, whatever it is.
15:00.758 --> 15:08.871
[SPEAKER_01]: And like there's a saying, your skin folk ain't always your skin folk, and the reality is like you're going to connect with
15:09.458 --> 15:23.917
[SPEAKER_01]: different people in different ways and, you know, basing who you connect with specifically on like a genetic marker, I don't think necessarily makes the most sense because they're not going to have something in common just because of that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the, you know, when you when you
15:29.000 --> 15:48.983
[SPEAKER_00]: get older and this is part of the reason we're doing that big reason we're doing this is because we've got 49 coming up on 50 years behind us and you would think that you know when you're a little kid you go oh wow like when you get older you gain all this wisdom and you do you do gain a lot of wisdom
15:50.515 --> 16:02.750
[SPEAKER_00]: but it's not always easy to apply and it is often you can say it and you can tell other people, oh, this is how I see it, and this is how I try and do it.
16:03.031 --> 16:11.501
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is much, and it is hard to actually follow through in what you say because of insecurities or fears or whatever.
16:11.541 --> 16:19.932
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, just the idea that we as guys
16:20.890 --> 16:31.592
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's it's very honest and it's very it's probably helps people when you kind of tell them like
16:32.382 --> 16:34.104
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't have everything figured out.
16:34.125 --> 16:36.207
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm never going to have everything figured out.
16:36.308 --> 16:40.073
[SPEAKER_00]: And we are a work in progress until the day that we die.
16:40.213 --> 16:47.444
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that is something that, you know, coming to grips with that as someone who's turning 50, you're just like, oh, by 50, I'll have it all.
16:47.464 --> 16:49.246
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like, you have to have it all figured out, right?
16:49.346 --> 16:50.208
[SPEAKER_00]: No way.
16:50.348 --> 16:51.650
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, there's no way.
16:52.170 --> 16:52.491
[SPEAKER_01]: No way.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of those things, I am.
16:56.716 --> 17:02.602
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, when you get asked, what do you wish you would known at a much younger age that you know now?
17:03.202 --> 17:07.526
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is one of the main things is that you're never going to have it all figured out.
17:07.947 --> 17:10.089
[SPEAKER_01]: Like life is a continual process of learning.
17:10.109 --> 17:14.153
[SPEAKER_01]: When I was a kid, I looked at my elders, my parents, my grandparents, my aunts, my uncles.
17:14.493 --> 17:19.017
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh, it feels like they know everything because they're telling you how to live your life.
17:19.698 --> 17:24.883
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you step, you get older and you look at it from that perspective, it was like, oh, they didn't know a damn thing.
17:24.863 --> 17:27.968
[SPEAKER_01]: They were making it up as they went over just moving.
17:28.188 --> 17:35.859
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they were moving and sometimes all you can do right like we didn't we have a lot of Things that we want to do we have morals.
17:35.959 --> 17:37.442
[SPEAKER_00]: We have foundations.
17:37.482 --> 17:47.817
[SPEAKER_00]: We have blueprints of how we follow and sometimes You just have to move you just you're not you can't sit there and always
17:47.965 --> 17:55.256
[SPEAKER_00]: analyze and think and sometimes you just have to go and go and hope that you're doing the right thing or that you in that moment.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, and then if you're not in and if you don't do the right thing, then you have all these regrets.
18:00.002 --> 18:10.057
[SPEAKER_00]: You have all these weird feelings like, oh my gosh, and you know, all of a sudden something that happened 15 years ago just as in your brain for some reason and like, what why am I even thinking about this?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, it's interesting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, to circle this back to Selena,
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[SPEAKER_00]: And this is why we do this, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to go off on tangents because music is something that we utilize in a way to not only for entertainment, but also to kind of like think about stuff and to learn about things and what was this person going through?
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[SPEAKER_00]: The...
18:35.283 --> 18:40.792
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea I had, and I shared this with you in our episode that has now been deleted.
18:41.053 --> 18:42.796
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not gonna surprise you with this one.
18:43.577 --> 18:46.021
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was watching the documentary.
18:47.043 --> 19:00.987
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm watching Selena as a very young person, kind of figure out that she can use her popularity as a brand of sorts.
19:01.321 --> 19:05.306
[SPEAKER_00]: She is working on fashion.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She has her own boutique and this is unfortunately where her passing, her untimely passing is at the crossroads because the woman who murders her is the person who runs her fan club and then she gets close to her and then she hires her to help her run this boutique.
19:24.608 --> 19:36.363
[SPEAKER_00]: But the idea that Selena in a very early, you know, we're talking mid 90s, she was like, oh, I can use this popularity and this relationship that I have with this audience.
19:37.004 --> 19:41.029
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I can create something not music that is something else.
19:41.710 --> 19:42.911
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can share it with them.
19:43.012 --> 19:45.335
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe that is part of my career.
19:45.375 --> 19:49.620
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, what if Selena was like,
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[SPEAKER_00]: Taylor before Taylor like that idea was out there for me, could she have actually created that blueprint for what Taylor Swift does today now Taylor Swift does it to an extreme but Beyonce right, they have the same relationship with with it with their fans, but Selena was doing it like in the mid 90s and she hadn't even crossed over to the US yet, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: she was her branding sense was definitely way ahead of it's time.
20:18.201 --> 20:27.072
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, realistically speaking, the amount of money that you're going to make off of records is fairly limited.
20:27.313 --> 20:30.817
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, maybe she realized that and was like, I want to branch out into other things.
20:31.177 --> 20:33.641
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe she just had like this creativity genius.
20:33.661 --> 20:35.463
[SPEAKER_01]: She was like, I want to branch out into other things.
20:35.903 --> 20:39.688
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever it was, she saw,
20:39.668 --> 20:40.549
[SPEAKER_01]: the future.
20:41.431 --> 20:58.157
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, at that time, early 90s, there weren't really a lot of musical artists, even in hip hop, and we'd like to view hip hop is kind of like the forefathers of all the branding stuff from Rockefeller to, you know, so on, so on.
20:59.159 --> 21:07.532
[SPEAKER_01]: But she was even a little bit ahead of the curb there, in terms of figuring out like alternate ways of branding and, you know,
21:07.512 --> 21:12.521
[SPEAKER_01]: Beyond just making music and going on tour because even, you know, she said in the documentary.
21:12.541 --> 21:16.909
[SPEAKER_01]: She was like, you know, I don't know if I necessarily want to like go on tour and make music forever.
21:18.833 --> 21:23.682
[SPEAKER_00]: And as we know, There are going to be more
21:24.117 --> 21:46.193
[SPEAKER_00]: folks whose careers, you know, maybe they have a little bit of success, but to have that everlasting success is is a foreign few between, you know, think of an artist who you love, and there's a hundred other artists who you know that you like a song of who never really made another song that that you like as much.
21:46.173 --> 22:02.730
[SPEAKER_00]: And so for her to look at it that way and go, and, and, and, and again, this is another theme that that we keep talking about as we do these shows, which is this young brilliance, the idea of of understanding the business savviness of that at that moment at the young age going like,
22:02.710 --> 22:32.532
[SPEAKER_00]: music may not be forever like I'm hot right now I'm popping but maybe down the line it's a little harder as I get older how do I grow with my audience but here's something that I can do right now that I also enjoy that you know maybe I don't maybe I don't have to be as popular as I am today to do it and you know you you made me think of something and I never thought I would
22:32.512 --> 22:41.315
[SPEAKER_00]: I was trying to think of like, who is the first rapper that I thought really attempted to commercialize his persona?
22:42.198 --> 22:47.331
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think Hammer tried really hard to do that.
22:47.480 --> 22:54.011
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem was, he kind of again, we go back to just sort of, where do you fit?
22:54.852 --> 23:08.155
[SPEAKER_00]: Hammer was in the middle of, like hip hop didn't really accept him, and then the music world still saw him as,
23:08.557 --> 23:11.243
[SPEAKER_00]: rap music and it wasn't really acceptance.
23:11.263 --> 23:21.207
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's kind of in the middle and he's trying to utilize his insane popularity to create an after career for himself.
23:22.049 --> 23:26.700
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know what hammers do in today, but
23:27.136 --> 23:36.813
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't imagine he's anywhere near a successful as he thought he was going to be based on all the people who he had to pay for and who he had to support.
23:37.454 --> 23:47.592
[SPEAKER_00]: And all that stuff like if you think in 1991, you're like, oh man, MC Hammer's going to be in my life for the next 20 years and he was pretty much gone in five years.
23:47.572 --> 23:50.717
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, less, but you're right.
23:50.917 --> 24:01.432
[SPEAKER_01]: Hammer from a branding perspective, Hammer was one of if not the first rap artist who really just kind of like he was getting mainstream endorsement deals.
24:01.492 --> 24:02.894
[SPEAKER_01]: He had his record label.
24:02.954 --> 24:13.950
[SPEAKER_01]: He was doing like all this different stuff and I think, you know, maybe he missed time.
24:14.116 --> 24:23.985
[SPEAKER_01]: when that bubble was going to bust, but also like like you said hip hop was not really conducive to that kind of thing at the moment.
24:24.005 --> 24:44.123
[SPEAKER_01]: There was still like a purity aspect to hip hop and you know Hammer came out to gate already with like a side eye because he was overtly commercial and you know had the whole like entertainer thing and was dancing and doing all this stuff that was
24:44.103 --> 24:49.651
[SPEAKER_01]: had he come around five years later, he probably would have had a longer career.
24:50.231 --> 24:54.117
[SPEAKER_00]: He probably looked at, he probably looked at Puff Daddy and was like, come on bro.
24:54.237 --> 25:06.634
[SPEAKER_01]: Puffie and Jay at Will Smith, like all these people who kind of took his blueprint a little bit and just like ran far and long with it.
25:08.015 --> 25:09.137
[SPEAKER_01]: But also hammer's not in jail.
25:09.477 --> 25:32.588
[SPEAKER_00]: So sure, yeah, he's not the aspect, so this is an album that we will talk about at some point, but my origin story of becoming a fan of hip-hop very much has to do with this idea of like, oh, so
25:32.568 --> 25:35.412
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though I like, you can't touch us, and I like him, see Hammer.
25:36.253 --> 25:42.801
[SPEAKER_00]: There is the majority of the culture that he is in does not agree with that style.
25:43.222 --> 25:46.786
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you hear Q-tip said, you know, rap is not pop.
25:47.847 --> 25:52.273
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, whoa, so I really like a tribe called Quest.
25:52.293 --> 25:54.576
[SPEAKER_00]: And they don't like Hammer.
25:54.657 --> 25:59.441
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was like, man, so now I have to sort of figure out what this is.
25:59.521 --> 26:00.562
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what is the difference?
26:00.582 --> 26:02.084
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, why don't they like Hammer?
26:02.164 --> 26:05.146
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it because of the Rick James sample?
26:05.547 --> 26:11.772
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it because he's, you know, he, and then as you learn more about the art form.
26:11.913 --> 26:15.175
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, okay, like, yeah, he's not the greatest rapper in any way.
26:15.516 --> 26:19.139
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, there's just a lot of things that as you learn about these cultures.
26:19.159 --> 26:21.121
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's what makes hip-hop unique.
26:21.281 --> 26:24.664
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, you know, again, going back to Selena,
26:24.644 --> 26:39.936
[SPEAKER_00]: What makes crossing over which is what she was trying to do to go from the Tejano Spanish speaking Spanish singing audience to the US as as she passed and I do wonder
26:40.439 --> 26:56.575
[SPEAKER_00]: would she have been accepted had she not passed away would would that English album have been kind I guess you think about Shakira coming several years later like Shakira becomes a giant pop star
26:56.555 --> 27:18.732
[SPEAKER_00]: on across over album would Selena have been able to do that, she didn't have the same act as Selena as a Shakira, but she was younger and she was in tune with Ralph
27:19.420 --> 27:24.304
[SPEAKER_00]: to kind of introduce like, hey, I may do Tejhán on music but I also know how to do this stuff.
27:24.384 --> 27:28.068
[SPEAKER_00]: I also really appreciate this stuff that is really cool with American culture.
27:28.568 --> 27:28.808
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
27:28.828 --> 27:49.427
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was still another three or four years after, you know, Selena passed away that there was the, you know, quote unquote Latin explosion where like Ricky and J. Lowe and Big Pun and, you know, all of these artists kind of came out like 98, 99, 2000, whatever.
27:49.407 --> 27:59.367
[SPEAKER_01]: When you pass away and particularly when you pass away tragically like the cult of personality around you grows so much like it's kind of hard to say
28:00.562 --> 28:05.827
[SPEAKER_01]: how successful or how long someone would have been successful if they had lived.
28:06.228 --> 28:11.793
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, certainly in terms of the Latin community Selena was very much her rising star.
28:11.813 --> 28:22.864
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I don't know necessarily that she'd hit her peak there, but I don't necessarily also know that the crossover would have been as impactful had it not been for her passing.
28:23.845 --> 28:26.147
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that is the age old.
28:26.127 --> 28:31.942
[SPEAKER_00]: question hypothesis theory that that we always think about when artists pass away young.
28:33.045 --> 28:35.030
[SPEAKER_00]: What would their careers have been like?
28:35.050 --> 28:38.138
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean you think of James Dean, right?
28:38.178 --> 28:43.191
[SPEAKER_00]: Like everyone was compared to James Dean if you were young.
28:43.171 --> 29:08.115
[SPEAKER_00]: Caucasian and cool like oh that's the next James James James and who knows what James scene would have been like if he actually got to 50 years old would he still have been an actor or whatever so it's always like the thing that the what if of of of this stuff so all right this was this was cool I am glad we got to talk about Selena I'm glad that documentary is out there
29:08.095 --> 29:14.886
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, she had mentioned that something that I thought was really interesting and we'll end with this.
29:15.347 --> 29:18.432
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone remembers the Selena movie with Jennifer Lopez in it.
29:19.614 --> 29:26.745
[SPEAKER_00]: Suset said that the reason they made that movie or they agreed to the movie is because
29:26.725 --> 29:31.214
[SPEAKER_00]: the movie company said we're putting this thing out with you or without you.
29:31.895 --> 29:49.189
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you want to if you want this thing to have your voice in it, like you should you should come work with us and on this and she like can you imagine like your your little sister passes away and then immediately the the the the business of entertainment is like
29:49.169 --> 29:51.717
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we're going to make a movie to monetize your sister's death.
29:51.777 --> 30:03.752
[SPEAKER_00]: So come on board unless, you know, if you want us to make something that has your experience in it, I mean, I'm not a lawyer or a legal expert, I feel like if
30:06.263 --> 30:18.790
[SPEAKER_01]: if the idea of a movie came across in a big studio was behind it and they didn't get permission from the estate that there would be some kind of like legal liability there.
30:19.151 --> 30:22.017
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe all they have to do is call it unauthorized.
30:22.598 --> 30:22.718
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
30:22.738 --> 30:25.825
[SPEAKER_01]: Then it wouldn't have been as, you know, anywhere near as successful.
30:26.260 --> 30:27.062
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know.
30:27.523 --> 30:37.223
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe of course there is the opportunity for them to also make some money off of it, I'm assuming as well from the estate.
30:37.804 --> 30:37.924
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
30:37.945 --> 30:38.486
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, man.
30:39.207 --> 30:41.773
[SPEAKER_00]: This is it for our first cool check in here.
30:41.813 --> 30:46.783
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll we'll have a few more of these will a bunch more of these over the series over the 50 for
30:46.763 --> 30:48.446
[SPEAKER_00]: 50 hope everyone's enjoying it.
30:48.967 --> 30:51.613
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, 50 for 50 dot net.
30:51.733 --> 31:08.586
[SPEAKER_00]: The website is up and stuff is on it and it's also where you're going to be able to read mics writing on the reviews of the albums that we talk about and we've talked about putting playlists and stuff up there and we'll we'll get that going and figure that out, but that is going to be your place.
31:08.566 --> 31:18.703
[SPEAKER_00]: to make sure that you can see and hear all of our stuff, all the YouTube videos, and if you don't like YouTube, all the audio of these videos is up there as well.
31:18.963 --> 31:19.464
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, Mike.
31:20.386 --> 31:21.087
[SPEAKER_00]: That is it from here.
31:21.107 --> 31:24.853
[SPEAKER_00]: So for Mike, I am double GC when we see you piece out.
00:10.021 --> 00:12.604
[SPEAKER_00]: Mike, I think we've got to be honest with the audience here.
00:12.845 --> 00:17.150
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually recorded this very episode one time already.
00:17.190 --> 00:24.379
[SPEAKER_00]: And unfortunately, we had to rerecord it because of the timing aspect of it.
00:25.661 --> 00:33.210
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to talk about Selena and the documentary that is out on Netflix right now.
00:33.562 --> 00:51.927
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason we had to re-record it is because before we were going to put this out, her father was still alive and then over the time frame, he has since passed away, so we decided that we're going to re-record this episode and not refer to him as if he is in the present tense.
00:52.327 --> 00:52.528
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
00:53.188 --> 00:55.872
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like less than a week later, I think.
00:55.892 --> 01:03.282
[SPEAKER_00]: It was, yeah, it was very close to.
01:03.262 --> 01:15.517
[SPEAKER_00]: This is 50 for 50, but we thought it would kind of be cool to make some of this stuff pretty timely because in 50 for 50 we're talking about the history of records that albums that that affected us.
01:16.959 --> 01:27.051
[SPEAKER_00]: This documentary is dropped just not not that long ago, and so we want to have a side sort of podcast related to 50 for 50.
01:27.091 --> 01:32.678
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are calling this the cool check-in
01:32.658 --> 01:40.032
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and and the before we had actually when we recorded the first one, we didn't have a name for the whole thing.
01:40.052 --> 01:44.301
[SPEAKER_00]: So did not sense then we we we created the the name for this.
01:44.341 --> 01:48.068
[SPEAKER_00]: So the the cool check and it's just going to be like every once and again.
01:48.048 --> 01:52.821
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Mike and I are going to talk about something that is more recent, something that's a little bit more timely.
01:53.463 --> 01:58.336
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of that will be the things that happen in music, some documentaries that come out.
01:58.677 --> 02:02.106
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to be movies about music that we may check in on.
02:02.407 --> 02:04.352
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's what this is going to be.
02:04.332 --> 02:08.816
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I told you I said, hey, there's this new documentary on Selena.
02:08.836 --> 02:14.702
[SPEAKER_00]: It might be kind of fun to talk about because we're not going to do a Selena album on 50 for 50.
02:14.722 --> 02:18.866
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's also these these episodes are also kind of fun for us to just go.
02:19.326 --> 02:21.388
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to talk about this person more than likely.
02:21.448 --> 02:24.551
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk about them in a shorter version.
02:24.851 --> 02:26.393
[SPEAKER_00]: And these will be shorter as well.
02:26.613 --> 02:29.155
[SPEAKER_00]: Our 50 for 50 episodes are hour plus.
02:29.175 --> 02:31.618
[SPEAKER_00]: These are probably, you know, half that or whatever.
02:31.978 --> 02:32.078
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
02:32.058 --> 02:38.909
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm actually curious, um, from a cultural perspective, like what Selena meant to you.
02:40.592 --> 02:54.255
[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't really mean anything to me, honestly, until I really learned her story that Tejano music is not something that I necessarily latched onto as I was growing up.
02:55.156 --> 02:56.378
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember
02:56.847 --> 03:04.836
[SPEAKER_00]: there was a Spanish language album that my dad used to listen to by Linda Ronstatt, among all people.
03:05.798 --> 03:18.733
[SPEAKER_00]: And so there wasn't like there wasn't any Spanish or Mexican music in in my home, because there was, but it was to be fair, Linda Ronstatt is part Mexican.
03:19.073 --> 03:19.293
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
03:19.354 --> 03:24.880
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yes, it's not like
03:24.860 --> 03:25.321
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
03:26.283 --> 03:33.216
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that album, I'm actually trying to remember, he's probably seen on the screen.
03:33.556 --> 03:34.518
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Jimmy Padre.
03:35.660 --> 03:44.016
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that album was on a lot in my household, but it's not like my dad was solely listening to Spanish music.
03:44.036 --> 03:45.859
[SPEAKER_00]: My dad is born in the United States.
03:45.899 --> 03:47.863
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't even speak Spanish himself.
03:47.843 --> 04:17.108
[SPEAKER_00]: So that culture, the music and stuff did not really, it didn't really exist that much to me though, you know, when hip hop started to incorporate a lot of like the street slingy Spanish, like I always thought that was cool because it was like, oh, like this different culture
04:17.088 --> 04:35.215
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, hip hop was started in the Bronx by, I mean, not just black people and certainly not just black American people, but, you know, people from the Caribbean, you know, which is certainly inclusive of, you know, Latino culture.
04:35.195 --> 04:43.534
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I mean, the Bronx, particularly South Bronx, is very much Puerto Rican and Dominican neighborhoods, even to this day.
04:44.055 --> 04:52.073
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, the Latin community is very, very important to hip-hop culture, you know, from the very, very beginning of it.
04:52.053 --> 05:03.965
[SPEAKER_00]: But when was the first time you remember hearing Spanish in hip hop or like Spanish words or lines or, you know, I mean, I mean, that wasn't just kind of like one word.
05:04.686 --> 05:21.503
[SPEAKER_01]: So to be fair to like start from the beginning, my, I was raised by my maternal grandparents who were both born in San Pedro de Makori, which is in DR.
05:21.483 --> 05:33.585
[SPEAKER_01]: And while most of the music that we listened to or that I listened to as a kid was, you know, American English music,
05:33.937 --> 05:41.984
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, my grandmother, in particular, would listen to like, salsa and madangue, and we had, you know, celia cruise records in the house, you know, all that kind of stuff.
05:42.004 --> 05:51.593
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I think New York City also is just such a very like Latin dominant culture, even if you are not of any sort of Latin descent.
05:51.833 --> 05:57.178
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you still have kind of, you know, everybody who's raised in New York can speak a little bit of spanglish, right?
05:59.080 --> 06:03.724
[SPEAKER_01]: So in terms of hip hop, I mean,
06:03.805 --> 06:23.201
[SPEAKER_01]: They were definitely from like the break dancing days like I remember seeing like all those early break dancing movies and there were people of Hispanic descent in those movies in terms of hip hop probably the first person I heard utilized Spanish in hip hop was actually like from the west coast would have been like mellow man ace.
06:23.642 --> 06:24.103
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
06:24.123 --> 06:25.586
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I was going to say.
06:25.906 --> 06:26.387
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
06:26.367 --> 06:28.991
[SPEAKER_00]: that's the exact song that I was thinking of.
06:29.612 --> 06:37.165
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wouldn't say that that song was necessarily or is well remembered or well respected.
06:37.185 --> 06:43.536
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a little bit of like a little bit of a joker, you know, the hook and everything was very catchy.
06:44.096 --> 06:52.290
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's very memorable, but thinking about like
06:52.270 --> 06:54.675
[SPEAKER_00]: that's memorable as well.
06:55.276 --> 07:07.680
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it didn't like it wasn't something that, you know, I was wondered when I was growing up like, and we'll talk about this in a future episode because we talk about the Fuji's
07:07.660 --> 07:18.823
[SPEAKER_00]: and how Wycliffe started to use a lot of different cultural music in his songs, which made the carnival so much of a fun record.
07:19.385 --> 07:27.762
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, like, you know, I'm trying to think of like moments where Latin artists were kind of like,
07:28.349 --> 07:34.296
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, this is like, even somebody like, um, you know, Ricky Martin or something, right?
07:34.336 --> 07:38.942
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, I mean, it was still there was still a little bit of a gimmick to it.
07:40.004 --> 07:50.116
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, when we were kids, there was, uh, like, Manudo in New York, particularly was, I know, I would imagine in all other communities that had a healthy Latin population.
07:50.136 --> 07:51.178
[SPEAKER_01]: They were on silver dollars.
07:51.258 --> 07:52.399
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, you knew.
07:52.379 --> 08:04.839
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, and then after Minuto came Lisa Lisa, you know, who's from New York, and Gloria Estefan, and then, you know, things kind of built from there.
08:05.741 --> 08:10.589
[SPEAKER_01]: And Lisa Lisa was, you know, not directly hip hop, but she was hip hop adjacent.
08:10.789 --> 08:11.350
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
08:11.330 --> 08:29.575
[SPEAKER_01]: because you know they were making you know she was making music with full force you know full force was also hip-hop adjacent so you know again like the cultures were intermingling from day one yeah to bring it back to Selena obviously when
08:29.555 --> 08:31.099
[SPEAKER_00]: her murder happened.
08:31.159 --> 08:33.284
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a giant story.
08:33.826 --> 08:44.914
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you didn't know who Selena was, you were very quickly to find out who she was because right before she passes or she gets murdered,
08:44.894 --> 09:10.632
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... she's recording her her English crossover album and so those songs start to play after she passes away and uh... that you know to think about like and this is kind of why we're doing this this episode is a lot of what we have talked about on fifty for fifty so far and some stuff that people haven't heard yet but stuff that mike and i've recorded some of the themes are like
09:10.763 --> 09:12.426
[SPEAKER_00]: this young greatness.
09:13.628 --> 09:23.767
[SPEAKER_00]: And in some instances, the music that was created that we are fans of is created at such a young age of the artist.
09:24.228 --> 09:25.330
[SPEAKER_00]: And then,
09:25.664 --> 09:35.981
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't, in some cases, we don't get to see what happens to them as they grow older or the first album is really the only thing that matters in their catalog.
09:36.021 --> 09:38.224
[SPEAKER_00]: So Selena's also someone very young.
09:38.265 --> 09:40.408
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like five years older than us.
09:40.729 --> 09:42.411
[SPEAKER_00]: Like she was born in 71, I believe.
09:43.954 --> 09:44.054
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
09:44.074 --> 09:49.022
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, to think, you never think of Selena,
09:49.002 --> 10:02.175
[SPEAKER_00]: As growing older, you only think of her as, you know, however old she was, I think she's 20, 20, or yeah, 23, 24, she will forever be 23, 24, to us, because that's how we saw her.
10:02.716 --> 10:09.903
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just think that whole idea of art and everything and who she is and who she never got to be.
10:09.963 --> 10:16.309
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just something, it's just a story that we're gonna tell a lot about over these episodes.
10:16.728 --> 10:26.620
[SPEAKER_00]: So the thing that I wanted to talk to you about when it comes to this documentary is it almost always feels like
10:26.887 --> 10:33.580
[SPEAKER_00]: these young groups that are created, like there is the blueprint to this, and it is the Jackson Five.
10:34.141 --> 10:46.485
[SPEAKER_00]: And Selena and her family was no different, and they tell that story in this documentary, what we know about how hard the Jackson kids life was.
10:47.327 --> 10:49.030
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's almost like,
10:49.010 --> 10:50.893
[SPEAKER_00]: do we really want that to be the blueprint?
10:50.913 --> 10:57.664
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's the blueprint for success 100% but also that's a rough life man.
10:58.245 --> 11:06.499
[SPEAKER_01]: And for every Jackson family that ended up getting super successful, there's a hundred families that were not as successful.
11:06.559 --> 11:12.649
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, we're looking at the Jackson's, but was there another family as successful as a Jackson's?
11:12.729 --> 11:13.110
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
11:14.693 --> 11:22.101
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the Latino version of the Jackson five is kind of how the group was created.
11:22.201 --> 11:31.951
[SPEAKER_00]: And the group, Selena, Elos Dinos is based off of her father, Abraham's band, when he was younger, was Elos Dinos.
11:31.971 --> 11:39.199
[SPEAKER_00]: So he just kept that band and the idea of that band with the young kids.
11:39.179 --> 11:52.152
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, the idea that, you know, they're a little bit too Mexican for Americans and yet they're a little bit too American for the Mexican audience.
11:52.492 --> 12:03.142
[SPEAKER_00]: That is something that I know a lot of people who are like me, who did not grow up in Mexico and grew up in the United States and did not learn language.
12:03.162 --> 12:04.984
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know,
12:05.690 --> 12:16.447
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a biracial person, so I just kind of try and fit in wherever I go, but in very, very strict Mexican cultures, I don't fit really at all.
12:17.349 --> 12:27.044
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a struggle of growing up in different cultures and such, it's just that idea of where do I land?
12:28.026 --> 12:30.870
[SPEAKER_00]: Even I have a really good friend.
12:30.850 --> 12:38.821
[SPEAKER_00]: He still has, he can see grew up in LA and he grew up with Spanish-speaking parents.
12:38.862 --> 12:41.886
[SPEAKER_00]: So he still even has an accent to this day as a man as 40 years old.
12:42.847 --> 12:48.195
[SPEAKER_00]: But the cool thing about it is it is not something he ever tried to get rid of, right?
12:48.235 --> 12:51.500
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that is just who he is and he is right proud of that.
12:52.040 --> 13:00.773
[SPEAKER_00]: If he goes to, if he goes to speak at a conference and he has that accent, somebody in
13:00.871 --> 13:06.560
[SPEAKER_00]: create some sort of, you know, they're kind of going to have a conclusion about who he is just based on that.
13:07.381 --> 13:09.264
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, that is who he is.
13:09.364 --> 13:12.769
[SPEAKER_00]: So I always find that aspect pretty fascinating.
13:12.789 --> 13:14.091
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, how do we all fit in?
13:14.131 --> 13:16.114
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, who are we to everybody?
13:16.154 --> 13:17.576
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't please everybody.
13:17.616 --> 13:22.664
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do we all just fit in, you know, in the identity of what America is supposed to be?
13:23.225 --> 13:23.966
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the thing.
13:24.046 --> 13:26.710
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, obviously I'm black, but
13:26.875 --> 13:33.306
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm a first generation American, both of my parents were immigrants, you know, my families from the Caribbean.
13:33.767 --> 13:47.871
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're looking at black American history, like there's a definite disconnect there, and even from the perspective of like the community I grew up in, which was very
13:47.851 --> 13:50.837
[SPEAKER_01]: it was black but very like Caribbean centric.
13:52.139 --> 13:57.370
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a sense that once you're Americanized, you're not really a part of that community either.
13:57.730 --> 14:05.185
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's really just kind of figuring out your individuality and getting in where you fit in and not really
14:05.165 --> 14:10.654
[SPEAKER_01]: trying to not concern yourself too much with where other people want you to fit.
14:11.576 --> 14:26.741
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I mean, this is a lesson that I've had to teach myself and learn over and over again, not only in terms of like my ethnicity and my race, but also my sexuality, it's like, you know, you're you before you are anything else.
14:28.083 --> 14:30.227
[SPEAKER_01]: And you need to figure out
14:30.933 --> 14:37.167
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, where your comfort zone is and don't let other people dictate to you where you should be.
14:37.207 --> 14:39.112
[SPEAKER_00]: And how hard is that?
14:39.152 --> 14:40.354
[SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty hard.
14:40.675 --> 14:41.096
[SPEAKER_01]: Pretty hard.
14:41.697 --> 14:44.183
[SPEAKER_01]: Because, you know, people are going to pull you, you know,
14:44.973 --> 15:00.157
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if this is specifically an American thing, but there's just this desire to be part of something, be part of a community, and the easiest way for people to find a community is like people that look like you act like you talk like you, whatever it is.
15:00.758 --> 15:08.871
[SPEAKER_01]: And like there's a saying, your skin folk ain't always your skin folk, and the reality is like you're going to connect with
15:09.458 --> 15:23.917
[SPEAKER_01]: different people in different ways and, you know, basing who you connect with specifically on like a genetic marker, I don't think necessarily makes the most sense because they're not going to have something in common just because of that.
15:25.279 --> 15:28.463
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the, you know, when you when you
15:29.000 --> 15:48.983
[SPEAKER_00]: get older and this is part of the reason we're doing that big reason we're doing this is because we've got 49 coming up on 50 years behind us and you would think that you know when you're a little kid you go oh wow like when you get older you gain all this wisdom and you do you do gain a lot of wisdom
15:50.515 --> 16:02.750
[SPEAKER_00]: but it's not always easy to apply and it is often you can say it and you can tell other people, oh, this is how I see it, and this is how I try and do it.
16:03.031 --> 16:11.501
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is much, and it is hard to actually follow through in what you say because of insecurities or fears or whatever.
16:11.541 --> 16:19.932
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, just the idea that we as guys
16:20.890 --> 16:31.592
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's it's very honest and it's very it's probably helps people when you kind of tell them like
16:32.382 --> 16:34.104
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't have everything figured out.
16:34.125 --> 16:36.207
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm never going to have everything figured out.
16:36.308 --> 16:40.073
[SPEAKER_00]: And we are a work in progress until the day that we die.
16:40.213 --> 16:47.444
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that is something that, you know, coming to grips with that as someone who's turning 50, you're just like, oh, by 50, I'll have it all.
16:47.464 --> 16:49.246
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like, you have to have it all figured out, right?
16:49.346 --> 16:50.208
[SPEAKER_00]: No way.
16:50.348 --> 16:51.650
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, there's no way.
16:52.170 --> 16:52.491
[SPEAKER_01]: No way.
16:52.651 --> 16:54.694
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of those things, I am.
16:56.716 --> 17:02.602
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, when you get asked, what do you wish you would known at a much younger age that you know now?
17:03.202 --> 17:07.526
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is one of the main things is that you're never going to have it all figured out.
17:07.947 --> 17:10.089
[SPEAKER_01]: Like life is a continual process of learning.
17:10.109 --> 17:14.153
[SPEAKER_01]: When I was a kid, I looked at my elders, my parents, my grandparents, my aunts, my uncles.
17:14.493 --> 17:19.017
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh, it feels like they know everything because they're telling you how to live your life.
17:19.698 --> 17:24.883
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you step, you get older and you look at it from that perspective, it was like, oh, they didn't know a damn thing.
17:24.863 --> 17:27.968
[SPEAKER_01]: They were making it up as they went over just moving.
17:28.188 --> 17:35.859
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they were moving and sometimes all you can do right like we didn't we have a lot of Things that we want to do we have morals.
17:35.959 --> 17:37.442
[SPEAKER_00]: We have foundations.
17:37.482 --> 17:47.817
[SPEAKER_00]: We have blueprints of how we follow and sometimes You just have to move you just you're not you can't sit there and always
17:47.965 --> 17:55.256
[SPEAKER_00]: analyze and think and sometimes you just have to go and go and hope that you're doing the right thing or that you in that moment.
17:55.316 --> 17:59.922
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and then if you're not in and if you don't do the right thing, then you have all these regrets.
18:00.002 --> 18:10.057
[SPEAKER_00]: You have all these weird feelings like, oh my gosh, and you know, all of a sudden something that happened 15 years ago just as in your brain for some reason and like, what why am I even thinking about this?
18:10.117 --> 18:11.819
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, it's interesting.
18:12.320 --> 18:15.745
[SPEAKER_00]: So, to circle this back to Selena,
18:15.725 --> 18:17.828
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is why we do this, right?
18:18.068 --> 18:33.408
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to go off on tangents because music is something that we utilize in a way to not only for entertainment, but also to kind of like think about stuff and to learn about things and what was this person going through?
18:33.428 --> 18:35.050
[SPEAKER_00]: The...
18:35.283 --> 18:40.792
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea I had, and I shared this with you in our episode that has now been deleted.
18:41.053 --> 18:42.796
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not gonna surprise you with this one.
18:43.577 --> 18:46.021
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was watching the documentary.
18:47.043 --> 19:00.987
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm watching Selena as a very young person, kind of figure out that she can use her popularity as a brand of sorts.
19:01.321 --> 19:05.306
[SPEAKER_00]: She is working on fashion.
19:05.406 --> 19:24.628
[SPEAKER_00]: She has her own boutique and this is unfortunately where her passing, her untimely passing is at the crossroads because the woman who murders her is the person who runs her fan club and then she gets close to her and then she hires her to help her run this boutique.
19:24.608 --> 19:36.363
[SPEAKER_00]: But the idea that Selena in a very early, you know, we're talking mid 90s, she was like, oh, I can use this popularity and this relationship that I have with this audience.
19:37.004 --> 19:41.029
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I can create something not music that is something else.
19:41.710 --> 19:42.911
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can share it with them.
19:43.012 --> 19:45.335
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe that is part of my career.
19:45.375 --> 19:49.620
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, what if Selena was like,
19:50.258 --> 20:12.807
[SPEAKER_00]: Taylor before Taylor like that idea was out there for me, could she have actually created that blueprint for what Taylor Swift does today now Taylor Swift does it to an extreme but Beyonce right, they have the same relationship with with it with their fans, but Selena was doing it like in the mid 90s and she hadn't even crossed over to the US yet, right?
20:13.816 --> 20:17.941
[SPEAKER_01]: she was her branding sense was definitely way ahead of it's time.
20:18.201 --> 20:27.072
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, realistically speaking, the amount of money that you're going to make off of records is fairly limited.
20:27.313 --> 20:30.817
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, maybe she realized that and was like, I want to branch out into other things.
20:31.177 --> 20:33.641
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe she just had like this creativity genius.
20:33.661 --> 20:35.463
[SPEAKER_01]: She was like, I want to branch out into other things.
20:35.903 --> 20:39.688
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever it was, she saw,
20:39.668 --> 20:40.549
[SPEAKER_01]: the future.
20:41.431 --> 20:58.157
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, at that time, early 90s, there weren't really a lot of musical artists, even in hip hop, and we'd like to view hip hop is kind of like the forefathers of all the branding stuff from Rockefeller to, you know, so on, so on.
20:59.159 --> 21:07.532
[SPEAKER_01]: But she was even a little bit ahead of the curb there, in terms of figuring out like alternate ways of branding and, you know,
21:07.512 --> 21:12.521
[SPEAKER_01]: Beyond just making music and going on tour because even, you know, she said in the documentary.
21:12.541 --> 21:16.909
[SPEAKER_01]: She was like, you know, I don't know if I necessarily want to like go on tour and make music forever.
21:18.833 --> 21:23.682
[SPEAKER_00]: And as we know, There are going to be more
21:24.117 --> 21:46.193
[SPEAKER_00]: folks whose careers, you know, maybe they have a little bit of success, but to have that everlasting success is is a foreign few between, you know, think of an artist who you love, and there's a hundred other artists who you know that you like a song of who never really made another song that that you like as much.
21:46.173 --> 22:02.730
[SPEAKER_00]: And so for her to look at it that way and go, and, and, and, and again, this is another theme that that we keep talking about as we do these shows, which is this young brilliance, the idea of of understanding the business savviness of that at that moment at the young age going like,
22:02.710 --> 22:32.532
[SPEAKER_00]: music may not be forever like I'm hot right now I'm popping but maybe down the line it's a little harder as I get older how do I grow with my audience but here's something that I can do right now that I also enjoy that you know maybe I don't maybe I don't have to be as popular as I am today to do it and you know you you made me think of something and I never thought I would
22:32.512 --> 22:41.315
[SPEAKER_00]: I was trying to think of like, who is the first rapper that I thought really attempted to commercialize his persona?
22:42.198 --> 22:47.331
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think Hammer tried really hard to do that.
22:47.480 --> 22:54.011
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem was, he kind of again, we go back to just sort of, where do you fit?
22:54.852 --> 23:08.155
[SPEAKER_00]: Hammer was in the middle of, like hip hop didn't really accept him, and then the music world still saw him as,
23:08.557 --> 23:11.243
[SPEAKER_00]: rap music and it wasn't really acceptance.
23:11.263 --> 23:21.207
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's kind of in the middle and he's trying to utilize his insane popularity to create an after career for himself.
23:22.049 --> 23:26.700
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know what hammers do in today, but
23:27.136 --> 23:36.813
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't imagine he's anywhere near a successful as he thought he was going to be based on all the people who he had to pay for and who he had to support.
23:37.454 --> 23:47.592
[SPEAKER_00]: And all that stuff like if you think in 1991, you're like, oh man, MC Hammer's going to be in my life for the next 20 years and he was pretty much gone in five years.
23:47.572 --> 23:50.717
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, less, but you're right.
23:50.917 --> 24:01.432
[SPEAKER_01]: Hammer from a branding perspective, Hammer was one of if not the first rap artist who really just kind of like he was getting mainstream endorsement deals.
24:01.492 --> 24:02.894
[SPEAKER_01]: He had his record label.
24:02.954 --> 24:13.950
[SPEAKER_01]: He was doing like all this different stuff and I think, you know, maybe he missed time.
24:14.116 --> 24:23.985
[SPEAKER_01]: when that bubble was going to bust, but also like like you said hip hop was not really conducive to that kind of thing at the moment.
24:24.005 --> 24:44.123
[SPEAKER_01]: There was still like a purity aspect to hip hop and you know Hammer came out to gate already with like a side eye because he was overtly commercial and you know had the whole like entertainer thing and was dancing and doing all this stuff that was
24:44.103 --> 24:49.651
[SPEAKER_01]: had he come around five years later, he probably would have had a longer career.
24:50.231 --> 24:54.117
[SPEAKER_00]: He probably looked at, he probably looked at Puff Daddy and was like, come on bro.
24:54.237 --> 25:06.634
[SPEAKER_01]: Puffie and Jay at Will Smith, like all these people who kind of took his blueprint a little bit and just like ran far and long with it.
25:08.015 --> 25:09.137
[SPEAKER_01]: But also hammer's not in jail.
25:09.477 --> 25:32.588
[SPEAKER_00]: So sure, yeah, he's not the aspect, so this is an album that we will talk about at some point, but my origin story of becoming a fan of hip-hop very much has to do with this idea of like, oh, so
25:32.568 --> 25:35.412
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though I like, you can't touch us, and I like him, see Hammer.
25:36.253 --> 25:42.801
[SPEAKER_00]: There is the majority of the culture that he is in does not agree with that style.
25:43.222 --> 25:46.786
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you hear Q-tip said, you know, rap is not pop.
25:47.847 --> 25:52.273
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, whoa, so I really like a tribe called Quest.
25:52.293 --> 25:54.576
[SPEAKER_00]: And they don't like Hammer.
25:54.657 --> 25:59.441
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was like, man, so now I have to sort of figure out what this is.
25:59.521 --> 26:00.562
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what is the difference?
26:00.582 --> 26:02.084
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, why don't they like Hammer?
26:02.164 --> 26:05.146
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it because of the Rick James sample?
26:05.547 --> 26:11.772
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it because he's, you know, he, and then as you learn more about the art form.
26:11.913 --> 26:15.175
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, okay, like, yeah, he's not the greatest rapper in any way.
26:15.516 --> 26:19.139
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, there's just a lot of things that as you learn about these cultures.
26:19.159 --> 26:21.121
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's what makes hip-hop unique.
26:21.281 --> 26:24.664
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, you know, again, going back to Selena,
26:24.644 --> 26:39.936
[SPEAKER_00]: What makes crossing over which is what she was trying to do to go from the Tejano Spanish speaking Spanish singing audience to the US as as she passed and I do wonder
26:40.439 --> 26:56.575
[SPEAKER_00]: would she have been accepted had she not passed away would would that English album have been kind I guess you think about Shakira coming several years later like Shakira becomes a giant pop star
26:56.555 --> 27:18.732
[SPEAKER_00]: on across over album would Selena have been able to do that, she didn't have the same act as Selena as a Shakira, but she was younger and she was in tune with Ralph
27:19.420 --> 27:24.304
[SPEAKER_00]: to kind of introduce like, hey, I may do Tejhán on music but I also know how to do this stuff.
27:24.384 --> 27:28.068
[SPEAKER_00]: I also really appreciate this stuff that is really cool with American culture.
27:28.568 --> 27:28.808
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
27:28.828 --> 27:49.427
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was still another three or four years after, you know, Selena passed away that there was the, you know, quote unquote Latin explosion where like Ricky and J. Lowe and Big Pun and, you know, all of these artists kind of came out like 98, 99, 2000, whatever.
27:49.407 --> 27:59.367
[SPEAKER_01]: When you pass away and particularly when you pass away tragically like the cult of personality around you grows so much like it's kind of hard to say
28:00.562 --> 28:05.827
[SPEAKER_01]: how successful or how long someone would have been successful if they had lived.
28:06.228 --> 28:11.793
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, certainly in terms of the Latin community Selena was very much her rising star.
28:11.813 --> 28:22.864
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I don't know necessarily that she'd hit her peak there, but I don't necessarily also know that the crossover would have been as impactful had it not been for her passing.
28:23.845 --> 28:26.147
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that is the age old.
28:26.127 --> 28:31.942
[SPEAKER_00]: question hypothesis theory that that we always think about when artists pass away young.
28:33.045 --> 28:35.030
[SPEAKER_00]: What would their careers have been like?
28:35.050 --> 28:38.138
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean you think of James Dean, right?
28:38.178 --> 28:43.191
[SPEAKER_00]: Like everyone was compared to James Dean if you were young.
28:43.171 --> 29:08.115
[SPEAKER_00]: Caucasian and cool like oh that's the next James James James and who knows what James scene would have been like if he actually got to 50 years old would he still have been an actor or whatever so it's always like the thing that the what if of of of this stuff so all right this was this was cool I am glad we got to talk about Selena I'm glad that documentary is out there
29:08.095 --> 29:14.886
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, she had mentioned that something that I thought was really interesting and we'll end with this.
29:15.347 --> 29:18.432
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone remembers the Selena movie with Jennifer Lopez in it.
29:19.614 --> 29:26.745
[SPEAKER_00]: Suset said that the reason they made that movie or they agreed to the movie is because
29:26.725 --> 29:31.214
[SPEAKER_00]: the movie company said we're putting this thing out with you or without you.
29:31.895 --> 29:49.189
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you want to if you want this thing to have your voice in it, like you should you should come work with us and on this and she like can you imagine like your your little sister passes away and then immediately the the the the business of entertainment is like
29:49.169 --> 29:51.717
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we're going to make a movie to monetize your sister's death.
29:51.777 --> 30:03.752
[SPEAKER_00]: So come on board unless, you know, if you want us to make something that has your experience in it, I mean, I'm not a lawyer or a legal expert, I feel like if
30:06.263 --> 30:18.790
[SPEAKER_01]: if the idea of a movie came across in a big studio was behind it and they didn't get permission from the estate that there would be some kind of like legal liability there.
30:19.151 --> 30:22.017
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe all they have to do is call it unauthorized.
30:22.598 --> 30:22.718
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
30:22.738 --> 30:25.825
[SPEAKER_01]: Then it wouldn't have been as, you know, anywhere near as successful.
30:26.260 --> 30:27.062
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know.
30:27.523 --> 30:37.223
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe of course there is the opportunity for them to also make some money off of it, I'm assuming as well from the estate.
30:37.804 --> 30:37.924
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
30:37.945 --> 30:38.486
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, man.
30:39.207 --> 30:41.773
[SPEAKER_00]: This is it for our first cool check in here.
30:41.813 --> 30:46.783
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll we'll have a few more of these will a bunch more of these over the series over the 50 for
30:46.763 --> 30:48.446
[SPEAKER_00]: 50 hope everyone's enjoying it.
30:48.967 --> 30:51.613
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, 50 for 50 dot net.
30:51.733 --> 31:08.586
[SPEAKER_00]: The website is up and stuff is on it and it's also where you're going to be able to read mics writing on the reviews of the albums that we talk about and we've talked about putting playlists and stuff up there and we'll we'll get that going and figure that out, but that is going to be your place.
31:08.566 --> 31:18.703
[SPEAKER_00]: to make sure that you can see and hear all of our stuff, all the YouTube videos, and if you don't like YouTube, all the audio of these videos is up there as well.
31:18.963 --> 31:19.464
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, Mike.
31:20.386 --> 31:21.087
[SPEAKER_00]: That is it from here.
31:21.107 --> 31:24.853
[SPEAKER_00]: So for Mike, I am double GC when we see you piece out.