00:00 SPEAKER_01 Okay, I'm gonna tell you who told me to do this. Taraji P. Henson told me almost 17 years ago. She was like, never heard of her. She said, girl, you put you like a little bit of money away and what you do is you go to these Beverly Hills pawn shops. Oh! Yeah. This was $200 at a Beverly Hills pawn shop. And the first person who ever told me that, she was like, uh-uh, girl, you need some diamonds. You need some good ones. Not these like, the only way you get these good diamonds and not something that has been a blood diamond. If the blood diamond already exists, get the one from 50 years ago. It's in a better setting. Yo, hey, what we gonna slap today? Yo, hey, what we gonna slap today? Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, welcome to Slap the Power. I'm Rick Bajodil. I'm Maya Sykes. And today we are continuing our conversation on fast fashion. So we all know that fast fashion is no bueno. But what do we do about it? And why is it no bueno? We know that on a large scale, it's causing disastrous environmental concerns. It's pushing the American culture specifically, if not globally, let's be honest, to being over consumers on a massive scale that is destroying us financially. It's destroying us economically. And we're running out of room to put all this crap, like let's be real. These pieces aren't getting recycled properly. They're not getting disposed of properly. So we're literally sending our trash overseas and telling other people, you deal with it. So let's just get into some of these statistics, okay? So back in the back, back in like the 90s, let's say, because that's really when it changed over. The American household bought between 10 to 15 pieces of clothing and one to three pairs of shoes, right? If you were lucky. And that was if you were lucky. And if you were a child like me, what didn't fit you in the husky department, you had to get made. She was, she's a thick girl. She's thick, thick. It is what it is. But by 2013, we went from that number to buying on average 68 pieces of clothing and seven pairs of shoes, which is an increase of over 70%. And by 2023, we are now averaging 77 pieces of clothing and eight pairs of shoes. So that is an increase in a decade of over 13%, right? And we're doing that because of shops like Shein, Taimou, Fashion Nova. And the push in 2013 to get so many pieces of clothing came from places like Topshop and Zara and H&M. But even then, Topshop, Zara and H&M had clothing that was in a price point where maybe the cheapest article of clothing that wasn't an accessory was let's say $25. And then you had pieces that probably topped out at around two to $300. But now with the introduction of things like Shein, Taimou, Fashion Nova, some of these other sites,
03:03 SPEAKER_02 clothing is as little as $5, right? For the fact, what looks like it's fashionable shit.
03:07 SPEAKER_01 Right, right. And people are like, oh, I can buy 14 things on wish.com and look like Kim Kardashian. But then you get that stuff and you're like, no. Because I remember seeing this one dude and he tried to get a Black Panther costume off of Wish and he looked like the brown bear.
03:25 SPEAKER_02 It was just a hot tragedy. Ha ha ha. And the marketing side of things is incredibly interesting to me because I understand that we've talked about this before. We're hypocrites as artists. We create as a nature of our beings, but we create our merchandise and we create, that's the largest means for us to survive. And so I'm interested because you kind of said, so why do I have to pay attention to fast fashion? It's like, for all of us as artists or consumers of the bands that we like, the artists that we like, there are options for us that are out there that I didn't even know about. So I've been realizing and learning in real time and that's another reason why I'm so happy
04:00 SPEAKER_01 to go over that subject. Yes, and because of that, we also want to present solutions because we can't just tell you about the calamity of the world and be like, okay, bye. So to that end, we asked a wonderful friend of ours to join us and if you don't know about her, I would really like you to. So let's just get into this fabulous lady right here. In studio, what? We are so privileged to be able to discuss this topic with a world-class viola and violinist player whose all-female quartet, the Orchid Quartet, found a way to provide sustainable merchandise to their fans. Please help us welcome the incredible Miss Kiara Anna. Yeah, Kiara! So going back to just some of these statistics, okay, one of the things that I know I've talked about with you is that people are saying fast fashion is affordable, but if we really look down at the breakdown, no it isn't, it's just using enslaved people to make the clothing affordable. Fully. Right? So one thing that you were talking about that I also do is clothing swaps.
05:08 SPEAKER_00 Can we talk about that? Clothing swaps are some of my favorite things to do. I host one probably every few months, maybe once a quarter, because it's kind of like to bring in the new season. So we just had one for spring cleaning kind of vibes. And it feels really good when you are, so the overarching vibe of a clothing swap is that you go through your wardrobe that you have and you think, oh, I haven't worn this in over a year, my body feels different right now, I'm probably not gonna wear this for a little bit, I don't need it right now, or this jacket, I don't like it anymore, I bought it two years ago and I've worn it too much, or I really love this thing, but it's been on my body too many times, et cetera, et cetera. So then you bring all that stuff to my house, and then we set up a whole kind of like showroom. Her address will be in the show notes, don't worry about it. Don't worry. We set up like a whole showroom, so we have like jeans over here and then pants and then skirts and dresses and shirts, and it's a ton of clothes, it's quite wild, honestly. And I invite a bunch of people and then people kind of come through and I have snacks and we have tea and we just shop each other's wardrobes. Honestly, that sounds so fun. It's so fun. So productive and fun. It is. It's amazing. And it's also, as artists, I feel like we are stuck a lot in the space of when we are seeing our friends, it's like on jobs and we don't often, because we're so in the hustle culture also because of where we live, we don't often just get to spend time with our colleagues when it isn't like for a paycheck. So this type of thing feels so nice because it's like rejuvenating your wardrobe and connecting with your friends and it's not for a gig and then you go home and you have two new bags of clothes and it's so exciting. And to be part of the best part of it is it'll be like sisterhood of the traveling whatever, because someone will try on a dress and they'll be like, ah, it doesn't really fit me quite right. You try it on and then you see it on four different people and then eventually it gets to someone where it's just like, that looks so good on you. And then the original owner is like, oh my God, that's so cool. It's gonna get a whole nother life with you. So it's just a really cool, and obviously it's free because you're just recycling and reusing. And then I take everything after that and I either donate it to Goodwill or to Out of the Closet. And yeah, it's great. I mean, the other day I took some stuff, the leftover to Goodwill and there was this man outside of Goodwill who obviously was experiencing homelessness and he was just like, hey, what do you have there? And I was like, it's a lot of women's clothing and he's like, I have a girlfriend. And I was like, okay. And I handed him a few bags and as I was leaving, he was looking through it and putting things to the side and I was like, oh, our clothing swap made it to this man and hopefully some of his community. Yeah. That's amazing.
08:01 SPEAKER_02 Plus, you get guys some props coming back to his girl. Totally.
08:04 SPEAKER_01 You know, baby, look what I hustled up for you. Because true love, you need these H&M jeans from four years ago.
08:12 SPEAKER_02 Exactly. The part of me that is also intrigued is how to move forward as an artist because we are lucky we're in charge of our merch design and everything like that. But the suppliers and where you get things when you start drilling down to the next level, it gets a little more complicated. And then if you go one level deeper than that, it gets super complicated because sometimes they're, you know, sometimes they're farming this out to. Fully.
08:38 SPEAKER_01 And they're greenwashing you. Lots of companies. They're greenwashing you. For those of you that don't know what greenwashing is, a lot of fast fashion brands are saying, we hear you that the environment is important. So they put up a green background and some baby cows around and they have some little skinny lady go around in something that's all organic cotton
08:57 SPEAKER_00 and that's their consciously sustainable model. Two percent recycled bamboo fibers or something. And you're like, oh, this is great.
09:07 SPEAKER_01 But when you get down to the nitty gritty of it, over half of their stuff is still not being recycled. It's still being thrown away within one year of use, right? And that's something that has only happened in the last two decades, you know? Not without a clothing swap. But you know, this is a thing that I wanted to discuss from both of your perspectives because you both are in groups that found ways to have sustainable merchandise, not just your design. So can you both get into how you found that and why? Totally, yeah.
09:35 SPEAKER_00 I'm gonna learn from you. This was important to us as a group that wanted to create merchandise for sale at our performances. And we thought about it a lot and we thought about how we could try to be at least a little bit more sustainable. And it's hard because it's what we, the solution that we have come up with could be a lot better and we are constantly trying to do better. But what we have found is a wonderful shop in Philadelphia. They're called Print Natural and they print on only cotton and organic clothing and then we pay the extra little bit to have these pieces that are made in the US. And they only print, they don't do digital printing, they only print, it's like this other way of printing that is less toxic for the environment. So that was a point for us too. That was like important to us because you think about the process that these clothing, that clothing goes through before it is ready to be worn and it's a lot. There's a, especially with Jean, Jean is a very sort of like well-known product that goes through a lot and creates a lot of toxic, toxins and the energy, with the energy and creating toxins into the environment and that's not great. So yeah, we just try to, as much as we can, support these smaller businesses and they're still sourcing their clothing from companies but then we kind of, you can choose on their website, for example, which company you want to source the clothing from that they're gonna be printing it onto, your design onto and so we try to choose the companies that are in the US and that are using
11:15 SPEAKER_02 more organic materials, et cetera. So that's almost like what we were just talking about, that's almost like the second level, right? So you almost have to, you have to sort of filter through it a little bit. Totally.
11:25 SPEAKER_00 There are also. But at least it's available to you. Right, yeah. I've found out about a few other artists that are a little bit more high profile that are doing really cool things with their merchandise, like that band, The 1975. They played this, or maybe it was on a whole tour, because you have to have, it's hard, because you have to have the money to be able to support Yes. whatever movement you're doing or that cause and this was really important to them and that's so cool. So at a few of the festivals that they were playing, if you brought your own shirt, they would live screen print their merch onto it.
11:59 SPEAKER_02 That's what's up. Yeah, that's what's up. My girl, Maya, she brought in to the studio for us to have an iron and that's what we're doing. We're gonna be doing iron-ons on the site. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, slapthepower.com. That's so cool, yeah.
12:11 SPEAKER_00 Hit them up for your iron-ons, but yeah, it's killer, right? That's so cool, yeah. And then I also have a really great friend that's a producer who, his idea is that he goes and thrifts and so every, and then he has a pattern that goes, or a few patterns that go onto his merch and so every piece is unique, which I think is so cool. So he goes. Yeah, I was thinking about that too. Yeah, so it's like extra work for him for sure and then when you're purchasing, it's like one of one so that's a little harder for sizing, but it's still great. You can still do a really wide range when you're thrifting.
12:43 SPEAKER_02 I would think you could also put that in a sort of special bin in your merch category. Totally. Yeah, like that off. Right. Which is, it'd be special to the fans and like you said, it's one-on-one pieces that he chose and curated. Which is so cool.
12:55 SPEAKER_00 It's so cool. I love that idea too. Yeah, those are a few ideas of ways that I've been kind of turning my cogs in my mind of like, okay, how can we, what's the next step? Like what's the next level? And how do the fans pick up on it? It's great, I mean when people come to our merch table, we make sure to say this is all printed on recyclable, we have these canvas bags and we're like, obviously they're reusable bags, but that they are recycled bags as well. Made out of recycled material, yes. And that they're printed with non-toxic dye and people react really well to it. I mean, when people come over and they have their hand on something and they're already interested in it, they're probably gonna buy it anyway because they're interested in it. But then when we say those things, they're like, oh yay, you know, so. And I can even prove that because I did a show with them. You were the best hype woman.
13:48 SPEAKER_01 But I just said, you know, A, it's freezing and they got beanies. She was wearing a beanie. I sure was, I wore it the entire, listen.
13:57 SPEAKER_02 That's what I saw in the Nextdoor app, right?
13:59 SPEAKER_01 That's the beanie. Have you seen that, you know that Nextdoor app? So I would check, somebody was like, oh you should check this out in your neighborhood or whatever. And I was like, I ain't trying to say Nextdoor is a little racist, but when I checked it, I saw a figure and I was like, oh that's me. I was walking Jean Koy's dog, because Jean Koy's dog, Rico, stays with me a lot, right? And I'm walking Rico in a beanie and a hoodie. Watch out for this thug.
14:23 SPEAKER_00 Wait, that was the post? It was like watch out for this? Watch out for this.
14:26 SPEAKER_01 There was like this shady character. And I was like, for real? I probably lived here longer than y'all. Oh my god. So I was like, mm. And she can sing better than all y'all. Yeah, for sure. Mm. Oh wow. It was giving, mm. Wow. I digress. It was giving, mm. Yeah, it really is. You know, one thing that I wanted to talk about that I think is really important is that the company that you were going through, Manufactors in Philadelphia, or tries to.
14:53 SPEAKER_00 Yeah, so their printing is in Philadelphia and then they source from different, so they've also already done that one step deeper dig. So they're only representing companies that they feel good about, which is cool for us. Yes. Because people are always doing, you know, if you look enough, people are always doing the next step of research, which is great. So yeah, they're in Philly. It feels a little ridiculous, honestly, for us because we're here in LA and there are, you know, there are like made in Los Angeles clothes and I have dug deep here. And every time I call a place here, they're like, oh, we, you know, everything gets printed overseas. Yeah, and I just like cannot find that. But I'm sure that it is super here.
15:39 SPEAKER_01 I should put you in contact with a friend of mine, Antoine, because he does printing here in downtown. Okay, great. Even if you did like got the shirts from a sourceable place, like he does great printing press. And so we'll actually, you know, let's put, it's called Print Natural, the company we use. So in our show notes, we'll put access to both my friend Antoine and to Print Naturals because we also wanna tell people that this is something that if more of us need a lot, maybe we will have more options. It is so hard to talk about this nefarious thing looming over our heads without just feeling like, I can't do anything. But we're learning that, you know, we can do clothing swaps and looking at sustainable manufacturing. So maybe we should just talk about some other options that we're personally doing, you know, in response to this.
16:28 SPEAKER_00 So what have been some of yours? Yeah, so I have, I mean, I guess it's not something that I've made like a hard and fast rule, but I cannot remember the last time I bought a new article of clothing. I did buy running shoes new. You kinda have to. You kinda have to. So that was like, yeah, totally. I was like, okay, fine, I'll buy new running shoes. But I thrift like basically 100% of my clothes. And since I tour so much, it makes it so much more fun because literally I just, when we land in a city, I'm just like thrift stores, like wherever we are. And this goes across Europe. I was just in Europe for one month and I packed just a carry-on and a backpack. And I tried to leave a little space because I knew that I would go thrifting. And I found some incredible fun pieces. I'm not, I feel like I wouldn't call myself like a really fashionable person who can go into a thrift store and find like the piece that is going to, you know, go onto the red carpet or whatever. But I'm really good at finding like, you know, nice options for things and just filling out my wardrobe in that way. And so yeah, thrifting is huge for me. Clothing swaps are huge for me.
17:46 SPEAKER_01 For the higher end stuff though, I've been going to these consignment stores. Totally. And consignment stores can get it. Fully.
17:52 SPEAKER_00 And we're really lucky to live in Los Angeles too because the quality of clothing, the amount of money that is in this city that people are just like, I don't want this anymore. Totally.
18:04 SPEAKER_01 Those consignment stores or like Wasteland or the. No, but I go to this ring. Okay, I'm gonna tell you who told me to do this. Taraji P. Henson told me almost 17 years ago. She was like, never heard of her. She said, girl, you put you like a little bit of money away and what you do is you go to these Beverly Hills pawn shops. Oh. Yeah. That's genius. This was $200 at a Beverly Hills pawn shop. And the first person who ever told me that, she was like, uh-uh, girl, you need some diamonds. You need some good ones. Not these like, the only way you get these good diamonds and not something that has been a blood diamond. If the blood diamond already exists, get the one 50 years ago, it's in a better setting.
18:47 SPEAKER_02 That's exactly what she said to me. One of the things I've been trying to do is keep the flow in my life. I love the musical quote where Quincy Jones talks about the space where you don't play is where you're leaving room for God to come in the room, right? So that's the closet. I've gotten that way with my closet. So when I add something, I like to. I like to force myself to give away something. Love that. And you just gave me a great idea too. Cause on tour it is difficult. This is the hypocritical part for us is because especially when we're wearing suits or we're wearing a lot of stuff and you're just burning through them. But you kind of, the giveaway idea, like as artists too is a way for, especially if you can find like people that need it and you're on the back of, I like the, I get rid of one thing. When I pick up one thing, even on the road, I only have so much weight in the back that it'll clear away. So when I get something, I've always been like, Oh, I don't want to put that in my bag. But now it's like, Oh cool. I can just gift it away on the replacement and find it from a thrift stores. That's a redo. I love that.
19:48 SPEAKER_01 You know what I do is I pack one 50 pound suitcase but I only pack it half the size. And then I put my carry on in there.
19:56 SPEAKER_02 Oh, yeah. A little shake and bake.
19:59 SPEAKER_01 Yeah. So then as I find stuff, I can put it in my carry on.
20:04 SPEAKER_00 And you still have half of your suitcase. Yes. And then I can check. That's good, Maya.
20:08 SPEAKER_01 Yeah. So then I'm not paying a weight charge or whatever. And I found this. I'll even give you one cause I have an extra one. I get free stuff from Amazon. If I review it through this program called Amazon Vine. So I'll hook you up. But what I have is this, it's a little. She gets stuff. It's amazing. Oh, it's the best. It's the best. Hey Amazon, that's the time, you know, when Jeff Bezos be doing it and doing it well. You know, congratulations on your upcoming initials. Anyway, stop killing us though. Anyway. You can still get it though. You know, but Amazon Vine, proper. Anyway, what I have is it folds down to the size of an envelope, but it expands to a devil bag. Oh. Get it. Wow. I got three extras. I'm gonna get you one. Oh my God, that's amazing.
20:53 SPEAKER_00 That's gonna be your gift for being on Slack. Wow. But yeah, that's the other way. You just have to like make a lot of friends. And so then they're like, oh my God, I have this thing, I'll give it to you. And then I'm like, great, I don't have to buy it.
21:04 SPEAKER_02 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fantastic. First of all, thank you for coming down. Oh my gosh. It is birthed out of a need that kind of came out of the pandemic, came out of George Floyd. It came out of a need to feel like that we could actually, instead of just talking about, you know, the party and stuff like that with our music or trying to hit somebody like that, it's so much more interesting to me to try and raise some of these issues, but we gotta blend with the kale that we're trying to put on the plate. We gotta blend some chocolate cake too. Ooh, my favorite food. We have a game, let's shout out the table topics. Table topics. It can get you into a spicy chocolate cake. So the rules of the game. Like Mexican chocolate cake? So you have, yes. So the people that can't see this, it's a audio medium, I understand. So there are three cards that have been played. That Chiara, all of us, and Maya picked in the studio. The deal is here, you pick one. We have not seen them yet. You have not seen them yet, correct, correct. And you pick one and there's an open mic on and we're rolling and you have to answer it. Okay. And the only other rule of the game is you get one swap.
22:06 SPEAKER_00 We will turn it over to our esteemed guests. Okay, so I just flip one of these over. Yeah. And I read the question probably. You read the question, yeah. Oh. Okay, what's the worst job you ever had? Oh man. That's hard because I feel like I have learned a lot in every job that I have had. Don't say M&M. I know, no.
22:28 SPEAKER_02 I could not, it was so fun. So that gig was actually okay. That gig was so fun.
22:33 SPEAKER_00 Okay, cool. I, worst is hard. I mean, actually maybe this one, but only because of the personnel. I thought you were saying this one like coming from here. No, no, oh my God, no. I was remembering. Okay, so I had this beautiful destination gig and it was in, I think it was Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, or very near to that.
22:59 SPEAKER_02 Okay, this is already sounding like a white problem, but okay, you can keep going with it. I know, I know.
23:02 SPEAKER_00 Give me, give me, give me. The man that we were working for was a menace. And he made me cry in front of all the guests. It was a wedding and they worked us pretty much the whole day. You guys know how this is when you go for like a fly date and then they don't give you any food and then you're sitting out in the sun and you're like waiting to soundcheck, but like nothing is built yet because. They're slow. They're slow and like they haven't clearly communicated what they needed to the people who are building everything and everything. So it was one of those where it just was a total cacophony and it resulted, it like should have been such a beautiful trip, such a beautiful wedding. And for me, it just felt like I was, I was just like really hurt because it just, it sucked. It was like I was there for. You know, there's so much of that too.
23:50 SPEAKER_01 I've been noticing that like on a lot of wedding gigs I'm on, I always feel like less and less I'm being treated like a person. And they want me to be happy about that because I have a job and I'm like, you must not know about me. Cause I am not the one. Like I'm uh-uh.
24:05 SPEAKER_02 Yeah, I'm not the one. Uh-uh.
24:07 SPEAKER_01 No child. My worst job was Hard Rock Cafe, hands down. Where? Which Hard Rock? I worked at the one that is the defunct one now that was under the Beverly Center. Oh wow, yeah, yeah. I remember the day I walked out because a customer called me the N word and I went to my manager and I told him and he was like, well, you know, it might be a cultural difference or there's just nothing we can do. I said, I officially quit cause I'm about to kick this man's ass. And I don't want you to be liable for it. So I resigned, here you go. And I went and I slapped the crap out of that man.
24:43 SPEAKER_02 Walked away and went home. Yes. Well, that's the thing about a wedding gigs too is you're, I don't understand. I get it. How stressful they can be, the event. But it's losing sight of the fact why everybody's there. Yeah, and aren't we all there?
25:00 SPEAKER_00 Totally, and we're all there to like support
25:03 SPEAKER_02 whether we're getting paid or you're just there as a guest. Even more to sort of juxtapose it over that is even more, you know, yeah, just crushing. You know, you're out there in the sun, having an eating.
25:13 SPEAKER_01 Yeah. And that's totally a cultural thing because I promise you, if you do like a Persian or an Armenian wedding, you are not treated that way. They have a table for you. You were treated as an honored guest. Yeah, yeah. It's true. They, you know, everything is taken care of. They pay you in cash. It's wild. Shout out to my Armenian Persian communities. Cause y'all can get y'all come through with the come through. And y'all's chicken is delicious. Okay. Okay. What was yours?
25:38 SPEAKER_02 My worst gig was, I was 14 and I would, so on the weekends they would have the paper that they would but it was the paper, the newspaper, Tampa Tribune. Shout out Tampa. But it's, it was the, you had to put it together in three things. So we would actually start working at one in the morning and then you'd start putting them all together. And by five, your hands are just, you know, all black and you're just, and you're lifting these bales of paper and everything. But it's funny as I think about it as my sort of on paper worst gig, but now, especially for me after the pandemic, I've realized that everything is, everything is a gift. Everything is a gift. And even that was a gift for me as I did that for probably a year and a half to get up to get money. And it was just, you know, it was character building for sure.
26:32 SPEAKER_00 Yeah, for sure. Yeah. We now say at all of our performances that we are so incredibly grateful to the audience just because we do not take this job for granted even though like we maybe did in the past, you know? But oh my God, just being able to share space is like. Yeah.
26:52 SPEAKER_01 That part, because especially for the wedding gigs, I'm like, even though the wedding promoter or whatever has treated me terribly, I'm still the only person not reading off of iPad. I'm performing to my fullest capability. You deserve that. That's because you got a pornographic memory though.
27:05 SPEAKER_02 That's fair. So all right, Maya, Maya, draw one. Going from the middle. Okay, okay.
27:14 SPEAKER_01 Because I'm just being different today. Okay. If you live to be 100, would you rather have a sharp mind or a fit body?
27:22 SPEAKER_02 Sharp mind, hands down. Yeah, yeah. I think same. Same, same, yeah. All right, I'm gonna go lefty. You know why though?
27:31 SPEAKER_01 I feel like if you have a sharp mind, you also have a fit body.
27:34 SPEAKER_02 Right, right, I feel like yeah, that comes before you. I don't feel like they don't. Yeah. You have to have that. Right. Yeah, yeah. And if you have a sharp mind,
27:41 SPEAKER_00 you would just be compelled. Right, totally. All right, I'm going lefty here. Okay, lefty. From the lefties.
27:46 SPEAKER_02 Lefty Lucy. Have you ever had an experience that led you to believe in angels or ghosts? I like that question because my mom is Cuban and we grew up very Catholic and I learned about intuition when I was young. And because my mom, famously there's a story where she, every once in a while, she gets some sort of premonition that comes out of nowhere and she knows it when it's that thing to believe in. And she had a story when she was little that was told to me by her cousin because he was there and privy to it, but she basically hid her parents' passports. They were going, they were taking a trip to Cuba from Miami to Cuba and she hid the passports and the little jumper plane, they got to the airport, they didn't have their passports. She hid her mother and father's passports and the plane actually went down and crashed. Ever since then, they were pissed at her that she hid the, until, I think it was, whatever, later in the day or something. And from there, I've seen, over and over again, examples of energy and how you, energy is everything. So people call it ghosts. Some people call it spirits. I like what quantum physicists call it, the field, like whatever, but I believe in energy and the more we can stay open to the energy, I think it's not ghosts, it's just, it's that energy. Energy doesn't die. Energy does not die, it only gets transferred, so I'm here for it, those are my ghosts.
29:30 SPEAKER_00 Wow, that's powerful.
29:32 SPEAKER_02 Almost with angels too. I'm just so reassured so frequently on the angels that are out there
29:37 SPEAKER_01 that I just, I can't, yeah, I can't. Angels have definitely gotten me by. And I definitely believe in God, I think, because of how much angels have gotten me by. Like when people are like, you know, what makes you believe in God if you can't see it or touch whatever, I was like, but I have heard it. And I know, I survived a car accident because God told me what to do. And I know that that's what happened because my throttle cable came loose and I was driving near around UCLA when it happened, around like 11 o'clock at night, and my throttle cable came loose, my car accelerated to 90 miles an hour and I couldn't stop, and it started smoking so I couldn't see. So I rolled down my window and I was like trying to, I was honking at people, like scared I was gonna hit them. I had no idea what I was gonna do. And I was like, God, I don't know, please help me. And on my, I had a Saturn at the time, and on my dashboard, it looked like a TV appeared, and on that TV was an episode of Oprah Winfrey, and there was a woman explaining how OnStar saved her life by having her put her car in neutral because her brakes went out. And I saw that, and I did that, and I came this, I came just two inches before hitting a tree, got out, called AAA to have myself towed, and they were like, we're so sorry, there's an accident, so we're like at least an hour away. And I could see up ahead, right, on the opposite side of the median, because I was headed eastbound, but on the westbound side of the median on Sunset, not that far from where BOA is, right? I could see a mound, right? And it just looked like a heap of clothes. Turned out there was a jogger that had been hit by a car. Oh my God. And I stopped, and that person was hit moments before I stopped. Oh my God. Oh my God. So yeah. Yeah. God told me what to do.
31:32 SPEAKER_00 That is crazy. Yeah. How about you? Oh my gosh. Well, maybe fortunately I don't have anything that dramatic. My God, Maya. I know, I know. I think I haven't felt the sort of like angel energy presence more than in the last like four and a half years since my dad passed. He was a really big meditator, really big, like really connected to the earth, connected to his surroundings, connected to nature. And I feel like nature has just been like popping off for me in these last few years. And I really feel like it's like him. At this new property that we have, we've been there for two years, but like the first time I went to look at it, I walked up the hill and there were just like two hawks circling the house. And I see them, well, I don't know if they're the same hawks, but I see hawks like so much around there. And then just a few weeks ago, I played at the Hollywood Bowl. I was the soloist and it was on my dad's birthday. I love that. Name drop. Location drop.
32:35 SPEAKER_01 I've never heard of the Hollywood Bowl. Where is that? Where is this Hollywood Bowl?
32:38 SPEAKER_00 What is that? But it was on my dad's birthday. And as we finished soundcheck, like obviously that was a big like thing for me. I had never done anything like that. I like walked back towards my dressing room and there was like a hawk circling. Stop it. So I just, I feel, I just like feel him, I guess. And he wrote on a stone that I have at my meditation station at home. It just says seek guidance from within. Like he wrote it like in a pen on this rock. And that just feels really like powerful to me, I guess. So yeah, I love the idea of like intention and energy and angels and yeah, it's pretty cool.
33:17 SPEAKER_01 Well, I feel like we could go on and talk to you forever in a day, but we do, we should probably wrap this up. So let's just say where people can find you. What are the best ways that people can listen to your music, find out more about what you have to offer, what you got. Oh, thanks.
33:34 SPEAKER_00 Okay, so on, all right, amazing. On Instagram, I am the Kiara Anna. So K-I-A-R-A-A-N-A. And then my quartet is Orchid Quartet at Orchid Quartet Everywhere. We have lots of, thank you. Thank you. We have lots of really fun concerts coming up here in Los Angeles. So come out, if you're local, come out and see us. You can just go to our website to see what's coming up there. A lot of my, our website's orchidquartet.com and my website's kiaraanna.com.
34:08 SPEAKER_02 And I presume you have lots of sustainable
34:10 SPEAKER_00 and only sustainable options on. We have merch on our website. We definitely need to update it, but yes, we have merch on our website and we'd love to see you at a show.
34:20 SPEAKER_02 You can also stream our music and yeah. That's amazing. Yay, thank you again.
34:25 SPEAKER_01 Get swapping. And thank you again so much. This has been a wonderful conversation. And I think for me anyway, I'm coming away feeling more positive about the situation. So thank you for adding to that positivity.
34:37 SPEAKER_00 Yeah, I also have found that I follow a bunch of these sort of like capsule wardrobe people or like really thrifty. There's also online thrift stores if you live in.
34:47 SPEAKER_01 Thread Up. Thread Up. The Real Real. Totally, yeah.
34:50 SPEAKER_00 For higher end stuff. Yeah, exactly. So all of these options are so great. Like if you feel like you've never found anything in a thrift store or Poshmark is amazing. Yeah, Poshmark is fantastic. And like I'm married to somebody who he just like doesn't like looking through racks. Like it's kind of meditative for me to go to the goodwill.
35:08 SPEAKER_02 There's only one section of the store that has all black. Exactly, right.
35:11 SPEAKER_00 That's it. For sure. Ha ha ha. That's so good.
35:15 SPEAKER_01 God, my man. How much a boy? How much a boy? Maybe we can get him into a gray.
35:20 SPEAKER_00 Maybe we can just upgrade a new song. I'm trying, I'm trying. But yeah, I think like following people that are inspiring, that are doing this kind of work is amazing because it's true that the trends are upticking because I think fashion's moving even faster than it ever has before, which is like cool and exciting, but also like not great for the fast fashion thing because everything's just being pumped out more. However, I think there's a lot of hope because we have so much, we are able to connect so much on the internet and with other people and get inspired that way.
35:51 SPEAKER_01 That's the key. I also see that like because of shows like Secession and things like this, there's also an uptick in this thing called Quiet Luxury. So I do, while I'm like, okay, a baseball cap does not need to be $625, sir, but it is kind of nice that we're looking at things that are made with a little bit better materials that cost a little bit more, but the idea is that you will keep it for longer. So it's not about how flashy it is or the name brand. Quality over quantity. It's a piece, it's not disposable. Exactly. It turns into, yeah,
36:23 SPEAKER_02 and the disposable part is the real big problem. Absolutely. And yeah, and now we know. Because we're not disposing of it. No, and we wanna keep the piece and trade it at the clothing. It's clothing swaps and stuff. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh my gosh, thank you so much. It's been several years since I've actually seen you in person and it's just, I love the, let's do it some more. Yes, please.
36:42 SPEAKER_00 Thanks for doing everything that you two are doing. This is amazing.
36:45 SPEAKER_02 Thank you so much. No, no, no. We'll have, one of the things is we wanted to define the problem, but also give people a way that they can kind of help themselves and we'll have as much as we can in the show notes where people, if they wanna do anything, they wanna get in touch and show up at her house, her address, we're gonna make sure and put it on the website. In the show notes, yeah. That's right. Don't worry about it. You can see the hawks and everything. Come on and get you some clothes on your way out. Thank you, Chiara. Stockers Unite. Thank you so much. Thank you folks so much. Yeah, thank you, this has been great.
37:15 SPEAKER_01 Thank you again. Yes! Woo! Bye!
SLAP the Power is written and produced by Rick Barrio Dill and Maiya Sykes. Executive producer, Duff Ferguson. Our Senior Producer is Sabrina Siewert. Associate OProducer, Rhee Khoury. Audio and visual engineering and studio facilities provided by Slap Studios LA with distribution through our collective home for social progress in art, Slap the Network. If you have any ideas for a show you want to hear or see, or if you would like to be a guest artist on our show, please email us at info at slapthepower.com.