Hip Hop can save the world, with Evante Daniels Artwork

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The Soap Box Podcast

Hip Hop can save the world, with Evante Daniels

March 20, 2024 • Peta O'Brien-Day • Season 2 • Episode 4

Power. Who’s got it? Who’s trying to get it? And who’s trying to keep it from you? It's the age old question. And that's what I'm talking about on the podcast today with my guest Evante Daniels.

Evante is a content strategist and the author of “Power, Beats and Rhymes”. A book that we discussed in our chat. He's got over 16 years of experience in content production, and he's consulted for brands like Adidas, Jordan, and Apple.

And he believes that hip-hop can save the world.

In our chat, we talk about how this decentralized movement is something that we could learn from to turn the tables on those in power.

And it's a wide-ranging conversation, that starts in Rome, and moves through manifest destiny, all the way to televised presidential debates, and how we can think critically when we engage with content online.

Evante brings this lens of hip-hop to lay over all of the things that we talk about.

How Rome holds the origins of all modern power narratives.
How we can make history accessible through the language that we use, and how doing this demystifies, the narratives that the powerful put up in front of us.
How hip-hop is naturally democratic and decentralized and what we can learn from it about interacting with power.
The three tools that those in power are using against us to take more power from us.
And how we can be content literate in a busy world where everyone's trying to push you towards their own narrative.

Evante’s book, “Power, Beats, and Rhymes” guides our conversation.

And once you've listened to this episode, I implore you to go and pre-order his book. Read it. And grab one of the tips that he gathers to transform your community and the way that you act within our culture.

I can't wait for you to hear this chat with Evante. I think you'll really enjoy it. So sit back. Get comfortable. And listen to Evante, jump on his soap box.

From the show:
Pre-order Evante's book
Find Evante on Instagram
Find Evante on LinkedIn
Check out Evante's website
Read Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" (but only after you've read Evante's book!)

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And he believes that hip-hop can save the world.

In our chat, we talk about how this decentralized movement is something that we could learn from to turn the tables on those in power.

Evante brings this lens of hip-hop to lay over all of the things that we talk about.

How Rome holds the origins of all modern power narratives.
How we can make history accessible through the language that we use, and how doing this demystifies, the narratives that the powerful put up in front of us.
How hip-hop is naturally democratic and decentralized and what we can learn from it about interacting with power.
The three tools that those in power are using against us to take more power from us.
And how we can be content literate in a busy world where everyone's trying to push you towards their own narrative.

Evante’s book, “Power, Beats, and Rhymes” guides our conversation.

I can't wait for you to hear this chat with Avanti. I think you'll really enjoy it. So sit back. Get comfortable. And listen to Avanti, jump on his soap box.

Ivante, I'm really, really excited to get to talk to you. Thank you for joining me. Cool. So, for people who haven't come across you before, they need to go and check you out on LinkedIn as quickly as possible. But for those who haven't, can you tell the listeners a little bit about you and who you are, where you've come from, how you got here?

Yeah, absolutely. I think titles are weird. So I think if I have to put a title on what I do, I'm considered a content strategist and ethnographer meaning that I study culture and I look at how we can apply that to creativity and to really for brands and in marketing. I've been doing this around 16 years.

I started in content production back in Atlanta where I'm from 16 years ago. And. Through bouncing around from logo designs in college for a burrito instead of a paycheck and, and all these other experiences along the way worked in nonprofit and then moved over to tech during COVID, but the whole time had really been focused on the people that we were serving with the products or services or who was that end user.

And so it led me to this place of, of writing kind of this book on how we can understand as everyday people. Some of the tools and tactics that, like, I used for 16 years and continue to use this day.

Cool. I'm so excited to talk about your book. I really, really enjoyed it. It was a wild ride. The, yeah, the marketer in me, the history buff in me, like the whole thing, just like in a big melting pot. It was great. Yeah. So before we get to that though, I ask all of my guests what their soapboxes, what is the thing that like keeps you up at night that you that you end up in the kitchen at parties talking everybody's ear off about?

What is your thing, your soapbox? Yeah.

part of that soapbox. My soapbox, and I had to, like, kind of, there, outside of the book, would be saying the, this thought that hip hop can save the world. And you go to my LinkedIn, you'll see it everywhere on my, my byline and my, my cover image, but I look at hip hop as a, as a decentralized movement.

And so looking at the power of community, the power of stewardship and how like it changes power dynamics and even in countries, I will go off at anybody's dinner party. And turn a conversation if they bring up Kendrick, I'm going to quickly pivot into political discourse of how, like, this journey for the last 50 years of hip hop and the genre of rap music specifically really show us how we can deal with moments of injustices in our communities when we're seeing, you know, Power changing hands and going in places we don't want it to go.

And so, yeah, I'm already doing it. That's, that's what I, this is the soap top, the soap box.

Cool. Yeah. There was there was a sentence at the beginning of your book that I really thought was, yeah, kind of summed up like power, who's got it. Who's trying to get it, and who's trying to keep it from you.

Yes. Exactly. And so like, that is helping people understand that has become the, the, the soapbox and really through the lens of hip hop, because I'm a child of hip hop. I, I was born in the 90s in Atlanta and an outcast is reigning supreme dungeon family is doing what they do and have been in it ever since.

And also growing up in a place that is rich with history. As Atlanta is from civil rights, from civil war, and even before that, you know, it all just kind of came together really in hearing, you know, even rappers talk about Atlanta history or civil rights leaders and seeing that kind of get passed forward.

It's like, I wanted to have my own take on it through the book and really say, this is the same conversation that we've been having. Here's the next part of it because, you know, it is a conversation that's been going on for quite some time.

Yeah, and as an aside, like, when I told my husband about your book at the beginning of every chapter, you've got, like, you've got tracks and artists that kind of go with every chapter. And firstly, he was like, I'm really jealous and I think I would quite like to interview him instead of you. And then he started, and then he started like playing all of the tracks as I was reading the book.

And I was like, okay, I've got my own little like personal DJ where I can kind of, yeah.

that's the, you know, that was kind of a thought process, but also I, I write with music a lot. I can't, I was talking to a friend about this yesterday and she's the exact opposite. She needs dead silence. For me, I need like Ante up by MOP and like, like Ying Yang twins to be like blasting through my apartment.

And, you know, the book, a lot of it was transcribed where I would record. And so I'm pacing my apartment walking. What I found out were several miles at a time. Right. Wow. Blasting music in my living room. It's a very chaotic process, but like. Coming up with the track list was actually the easiest part because I was like, well, this is the song that I think of when I'm trying to communicate this.

Like, here's the energy that I'm feeling as I'm talking it through and then kind of adding a couple of other songs around it, but it created a playlist for, for every chapter

Talking about hip hop and Atlanta is obviously like, incredibly important, but the book doesn't start there. Tell me a little bit about why you start in Rome.

Okay. I will say it was not my intent. I am not a I'm I love history, but I'm not obsessed with Rome. And I'm saying that in a world post the tick tock trend where everyone was asking their partners and boyfriends and spouses. How often do you think about Rome? I want to be very clear to all of your listeners.

I don't. I really don't. Actually, I was paranoid in that moment because I had been doing research on Rome for about a month and a half. And then I would go to TikTok and was scrolling and then they're like, how often do you think about Rome? And I was like, I know the algorithm ain't got me like this.

Like I was thinking that there was some grander scheme at work and that I had unfortunately made it to the Rome historian side of TikTok, which no shade to them. I'm

No, I'm pretty sure,

want to be part of them. I was like, I don't want to be here. And then I found out it was a global trend. And so I was both relieved and also kind of concerned at the same

Yeah.

time.

But when looking at power,

Mm hmm.

I just want it to go backwards. And so I started with, oh my gosh, I want to say I started with Manifest Destiny. I was having a moment one night where I would sometimes I'll watch TV and it'll spur a thought and I'll go, now why does that exist? And I know what I'm asking isn't really about the drama of the TV, but more of the narrative that the show's kind of pushing forward.

And it was talking about this idea of just getting more stuff and this idea of being better than somebody by having more things.

Yeah.

And I was like, okay, yeah. You know, it was like, Grew up hearing that, but where does that come from, you know, and and so I went back in the 1st example that popped in my mind was manifest destiny and I was like, oh, well, yeah, you know, that was the whole thing where they're like, you're superior.

Go take all that you want.

Mm hmm.

And I was like, well, where does that come from? And I was like, well, there's colonialism. There's imperialism. There's all these instances. And so, as I kept going back. Through the lens of like the West and really looking at Western history, it just kept it. I eventually ended up at Rome and ended up in this place where I was like, okay, something has combined both like. Law and church where there is a sense of order and that there is a sense of faith, right? Like the, the idea of economics and gathering things and a business sense, but then there's also a level of morality of what's seen as good or what's seen as bad. And somehow those 2 wires have been crossed. And so when it came down to it, it was that the.

Fastly, the easiest hook in our history that I could tie it to was Augustus and Caesar at really at this point where we see Caesar being deified created into being seen as a godlike figure after his death. And his heir, then reigning in a position as, you know, over law and economics and, and, and the, the empire was now the son of a God, and there's no 1, you can really be better than if you were the God itself. so it was just such a moment for me where I was like, I didn't expect to go this far down here. This rabbit hole was quite deep and dark, but at the same time was like, that makes sense. Right? And then seeing kind of. If we could be like, it's almost like the the nesting doll eggs where it's like other layers have been added to it, but at its core, this link, this wire crossing exists.

And what it's done is that it's allowed for a lot of narratives and a lot of things that I address in the book to become manifest where we talk about, you know, even things like the world terror, right? There is a part where we're able to make those kinds of calls of destruction and death, or a leader is able to do so because there's a level of moral superiority.

And I think it's really important that we can see that link and then decide for ourselves to decouple it or leave it as it

Mm hmm. Yeah, and I think by, by taking it back to that, that core, that initial kind of spark, it helps you see. behind the facade and behind the the party line as it were and you're like well yeah no you're not you're not saying this or doing this because it's the right thing to do you're saying this and doing this because of all these power dynamics that you're trying to that you're trying to hold up mm

Intentionally or unintentionally, you know, it's saying that, like, oh, well, when you say this, this is what you're really doing and whether, you know, it or not, right? Because power is what power does is not necessarily a school. You have to go to to learn it and to act on this stuff, but being able to kind of label it so that we can look back through it in history and say, okay, this is what this move was.

mm hmm yeah

us predict them in the future.

No, it was so interesting. And yeah, I mentioned before we started recording that it reminded the way that you tell stories, historical kind of narratives that can sometimes be really dry, the way that you retell them in a really accessible way. Reminded me quite a lot of spending a lot of time growing up in like Bible summer camps and retelling Bible stories for kids and like normal language and them going, I'm sorry.

That happened. There's no way that that's in the Bible. And I'm like, yeah, no, no, totally.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's that there. I was a youth minister for a while and served in youth ministry. And I remember talking to a kid one time and they were just caught up on one thing. And they were like, You're trying to tell me that this dude just had a donkey's jawbone, and he just killed all these guys, and then tossed it over a hill, and I was like, yeah, that's pretty much what happened, but like, when we make things accessible, I think it, it kind of, it, it makes us, it makes it closer in a way that it hasn't been, you know, I look at American history, the way we talk about our founding fathers, and I'm like, these were some guys.

These were some dudes like and they, you know, they did their best in the moment and this is what came out of it. But you can't convince me that half of that wasn't a frat party. And, like, when the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are being created, like, because we're people and the same way that we come up with agreements today are the same way that we talk things through is the same way.

And in a lot of similarities that they did back then. Sure. The garments have changed. A lot of the language has changed around it, but us being people really hasn't, you know, our concepts of what's right and wrong have. As we've evolved and we talk about that in the book as well, that like, we're learning and evolving as we learn more about each other, but that essence of human spirit and how we, you know, the goofy things that we do on a regular basis.

Well, I hate to tell you, but they were doing goofy things back then too.

Yeah. Yeah. And that demystification kind of remove some of that power, like it takes actions and decisions and people off of pedestals. So that, yeah, it gives us the permission to, to challenge it. Which, I mean, these days is becoming even more, more and more important.

Absolutely. And that's 1 of the reasons I look to hip hop. You know, I'm a rap fan myself. I, I listen to it every, every single day. And that's just like my daily nutrition and vitamins. But like, I personally look at it as a sense that every lyricist that steps up to a microphone steps up on an equal level.

All right, when these rap battles first started, it was 2 guys surrounded by their friends and peers and they would spit their best bars and it was up to the community to really decide if they were valid or not. No matter how great they may have said, they may have said, I'm the realist. I'm the best 1 who's ever done it and they could put that out there and they had to put it out there with an air of confidence, but it was the community who said, no, no, you're not get off the stage.

Right? Like, that whole dynamic changes how we look at power.

Mm hmm.

And it changes how, you know, we look at people when we say that, okay, this person is stepping into this role. They are to be there. And part of them being there is to do good. If you want to stay at the top, you have to continue to deliver. You have to continue to be there.

And sure, there's some competitiveness to that, but in rap, that's, what's led to so many young rappers coming up to a new level that they've never been at before. That's also why when we look at the OGs in rap, we don't look at them the same way as somebody who has to drop a new album because they're not.

Right. And so there's a level of respect, but as time has changed, those positions change. And so it makes it really easy to say, okay. Yeah. When you hit a certain level, I remember Andre 3000 dropped his album last year, and he talked about that. He didn't really want to rap about getting a colonoscopy and like, that's why it was an album of flute sounds like he was like, I'm not, I don't want to do that.

And, you know, that transition of age means that there's a level of community and respect and empowerment that comes through that. But it's a, it's a head face, like head, head on head collusion collision with the way that we deal with power. Traditionally. Right in our in a lot of our businesses and a lot of our entities and industries, because this is something that we see come from the community.

Mm hmm. Yeah, and the way that you tell that story of the development of hip hop It's almost like you frame it as this continual battle between people decentralised and community kind of based and Powerful entities and companies and organisations desperately trying to centralise it and like, bottle it and control what it looks like and what it sounds like.

absolutely. I'd say it's a it's trying to trap lightning in a bottle is exactly what we've seen time and time again. And, you know, I think with rap, it's really easy for me to see it because I know the record industries and knowing that, you know, the way that rap became popular was through mixtapes, was through people passing tracks on the streets, on the blocks of listening to what was being played in someone's boombox and then recording that.

And then that made it to college radio stations, but it was all very organic. Right. There wasn't the middle man was a part of the community. There wasn't a certain person who said I will gatekeep or or or not your access. And so, you know, the selling point before rap for a lot of these labels was that they had instruments.

They had the studios. They have the space. But with rap, you didn't need. Instruments. You didn't need, you know, all of this stuff. You needed your, your folks records and somebody's boom box and you could take over the world. And so I think when we, we see today where we are with digital stuff, where everybody has a camera in their pocket that shoots at 4k quality or, or, you know, shooting all these high stuff and you're able to create images and create text and whatever else, all these pieces from your phone that looking to.

Once again, we still have industries that are going to try to capitalize on that. And they're going to try to take those pieces and try to bottle it. And the, you know, I look at hip hop and go, well, that's cool. Cause they can't, because we've seen what happens in a 50 year war. If this one in particular cultural movement and struggle and hip hop stands undefeated.

Yeah. You talk about, so you you talk about these three tactics. That kind of powerful organizations or individuals or kind of governments or whatever use. So the disruption and the fragmentation and then the diffusion. And , when I talked to you before I read the book you talked about the need to understand.

the way people are, like the tactics that people are using in a war against you so that you can then kind of build a response.

Absolutely.

So, can you tell us a little bit about those three tactics and how they're used at the

Absolutely. Absolutely. So the thinking, the key thing to track and, and looking at community and looking at power from this scale is like, if you're looking at a monopoly board, you're gonna track all the little pieces. And each of these pieces represents, you know, resources, time, effort, money natural goods people in some cases, the people who do the work, all those pieces.

And so, when, as we grow as people, and as we're, as we're, you know. Becoming larger communities, sometimes there are people who want to have control over what those people say, what those people do. And so those 3 tactics, you know, disruption, fragmentation, diffusion are laid out not only as 3 individual tactics, but also part of a 3 step process that we see anyone from somebody on a street quarter in a gang do.

Right, and wanting to take over power. They're a student in a classroom wanting to be, you know, the funniest person in the room or, you know, a CEO wanting to do a takeover. The 1st step is is disruption. You have to create chaos. You have to create panic. Right? And we see that a lot in in moments and sometimes it happens naturally, but especially from an intentional power place.

We see people maybe use fear mongering tactics and say, did, you know that this thing may happen? 1 of my favorite examples is the Procter and Gamble Don dish so bad that ran with actual footage of the oil spills when they 1st started these campaign pieces. And so, like. In those moments, you're interrupting somebody, you're taking them back to a moment of trauma or of crisis or something like that.

And what it does, if you could imagine that, that game board is it throws all the pieces up into the air. It's this unpredictable, unexpected thing. Which is why that's the 1st step now quickly after that comes fragmentation. When people are in moments of chaos, when things are crazy, when something unpredictable happens, people retreat, we have to stick with what we know we stick with what we're closest with, which means as we're getting to know more people as we're getting to know our communities around us, there are always these little fraction points, right?

You know, frictional points where maybe we're a little different, you know, a joke in the, for the black community is sugar on grits versus salt on grits and like. Had this been a food related crisis, that would be a particular stress point where it's like, well, the salt, the salt guys are going to stay together.

The sugar guys are going to stay together. Right? And we see this all the time, right? When things get, you know, it's either a team or a community, or it's just, hey, we're going to just stick with our family right now because what's going on out there is a little crazy. And so if you can push people to separate communities into smaller groups.

On those stress points and on those, those belief lines in their community, where there's already, you know, mending and work happening, but it's not as strong as the full community is yet, then you're able to break it down. So, this is the divide and conquer that we've heard of before, but again, happens at any level.

You can do this with a group of people. People have done this with, you know, with larger companies, but you find those areas that are weak and then they take, they push on those as people are trying to heal. And I think that's the key thing here is that a lot of times when we look at these tactics, it's easy to say, well, this is just naturally that people break down and community breaks apart community doesn't break apart and stay apart community may reshift but as we are, and we're seeing this on a global scale that as we're learning more about each other, we're finding more similarities than differences.

We're becoming more people together. There's a larger sense of we, that goes out forever before. And it's because of that, that we have that 3rd tactic that gets used. And that's diffusion. And that's the tactic that makes it really hard for the communities to heal because it, it, it floods the area in a way to where you don't know exactly which way is up.

And so you can't find a way forward because everything in front of you is, you know, A facade, an illusion, another, another mirror wall that keeps you from actually being able to say, okay, what's the easiest way out of this? We see this a lot in politics, right? When we're dealing with political campaigns, you, you hear the, the, you know, in American politics, we hear the, the, the election debates on TV and debate.

You know, you really need another person to then fact check what those guys promise, because you don't know if what they promised is what they can actually do, or if it just sounded good, or if it's not their responsibility. And so, like, in moments like that, they're like, yeah, vote for peace. And you're like, I don't know what we're talking about right now, right?

That, that's the level of diffusion. And so when we see those three things happen, we see this permanent separation. We see an increasing level of, you know, Polarization is how the news would put it where suddenly there is an us and them. It's no longer we. Right and so, like, I think that, you know, in breaking down those tactics and saying, they really apply everywhere.

And when we see those tactics, when you see someone pushing on those boundaries are breaking down those points in a moment of stress or chaos. Shutting that down, right? Making it a way possible and using your leverage in the community to go, no, let's stick together through this rather than even if we are going to retreat for a little bit and go into our own spaces.

Let's not make this worse than it needs to be so that we do have a way to come back together.

Yeah. Have you read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine?

I have not.

So when I was reading the section about disruption and about a big event that comes in and then everybody's traumatized and it's harder to make decisions because you're being bombarded with all these different things. Shock doctrine is, is about that kind of psychological phenomenon about how it started with CIA kind of experiments in psychological torture essentially, and then was taken as a tactic and used by economists and politicians and the military around the world to take advantage of man made or natural disasters.

To to destabilize communities or destabilize countries or or regimes to go in and to make the changes that they wanted to do or to take advantage of natural resources. So she talks a lot about Latin American governments. She talks about Iraq. She talks about Hurricane Katrina loads of different things.

So no, I would, yeah, I would

I might have to read that. I gotta read that. I gotta read that. ,

You've painted the picture of an example of how hip hop as a culture has resisted these attempts. of, like, resisted these tactics of disruption and fragmentation and diffusion.

The, the last bit of your book was fascinating because you give a whole, like, smorgasbord of tools taken , from that culture and, and from the ways that hip hop has kind of has resisted those and frame them in a way that people can go away and use them in their own community.,

It's very rare sometimes that somebody will write a book and describe a situation and a phenomenon or like, or help people understand something and then give them practical tools to go and do something like with it.

Yeah.

and that was really, really interesting. What was it that made you want to put that part in the book? Why didn't you just stop at, This is what I've found and isn't it interesting?

I think because we're looking at, I gotta look at it through the lens of hip hop, right? In hip hop, you don't own the process. Right. This is a really key thing is we don't deal with intellectual property in hip hop, right? Like, and even when people may borrow someone's line or something like that from one song to another, there's ways that it's done in which it's not about, oh, I owned this.

And so, and in creating the book, I didn't feel like I own jack shit. Like, I, it didn't feel that way at all. Like, I, I felt like. This is what I've learned. This is what is out there. And then when I got to the tips, I was like, well, this is what I have learned. That's worked whether that's from online, whether that's from talking to someone, whether that's from a leadership program.

I was in and then remembering that the power in hip hop is that stewardship is that giving it forward and saying that, okay. If we want to make a difference, then I cannot do it the same way that I've heard and talked about making a difference before, right? That's the insanity thing. And so it's like, if I want to write a book, that's a cultural critique and saying, here's where we're at and saying here that we, we have the power to do something.

And then it's like, okay, but for 599, you can go to my website and you can get those, those tools, right? Like that. And no shade to those who are out there be like, It's in running a book on that model. And like, it felt so, I was like, I can't do that. I felt terrible, but then I also thought about me as a kid.

And I thought about me when I was learning stuff and growing up was that like practicals, how I understood.

Yeah. Yeah.

that, like, if I could go back and take calculus in high school now, I would do great because I understand more practicality around the crazy derivatives and all the other stuff that was happening and the same thing for history.

Like, oh, my gosh, election elections make a lot more sense when I'm able to see all these different pieces. And now I know when I see a, you know, a pack, what a pack is, or a super pack, or, you know, stuff like that. And so, you know, For me, it was like, if I really want people to get it, then part of getting it is then working with it is then taking a step forward and saying, I can do this.

I understand that this isn't just a conversation that I will tweet about, or I will post on Instagram, but like, it's going to be something that, okay, this is an actual thread. And in such in an age where likes and follows some people equivocate it to the money itself, you know, in a world where we still need currency, we still have to make actual action and my recipe for change is awareness plus action.

So, I was like, let me spend 2 3rds of the book. Making you aware, making you, you know, and then like really drilling it in, knowing there's a lot more that could be talked about, but just saying, here's the, here's the part of it. Here's what you need to know to go and, and really making that the focus. And so for me, it was like, like pretty much day one was like, I'm going to write a book.

Day two was like, it has to be practical. Like, and it just, it was, it was very much that from the beginning.

Day three was Rome.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

No, they're great and they're They're really wide ranging as well, like you go all the way from working out how to to like, sort out your notifications on your phone so that you're not constantly pulled out of whatever it is that you're doing and people aren't, other people aren't constantly deciding where your attention lies. All the way through to building a community garden all the way through to like petitions, but it's, you can, you can read through that section of the book and you can find something that you can do right now, like without even like getting up. And you can find things that you can that can totally transform your community.

Yeah, that's because, you know, there's a level of agency that has to be involved in change, right? I very much believe in that. And that's it's a hip hop piece. There is that this all starts with you. You have to grab the mic, right? If you want to say something and so that's why the individual side, you have to be able to feel that if you understand it, that there's something you can do, but also to say that you can't do it alone.

Right. Like this is, and a key part of the book is the, that, that we mentality is saying, like, we have to work together. You have to build that community, whether it's three people, right? Like, it's like, you can do a lot more with that. And so I wanted to make sure that at every level of scale, whether it's 1 person, 8 people I think there's 1 in there that, like, tells you how to write a press release for doing your own public awareness campaign. I mean, when I used to run those, I would get donated 20, 50, 000 of in kind time on air for stuff like that, just by figuring out how to work with people and make those differences. And so it's like, if you're going to fight these narratives, right? If you're going to fight these harmful messages that hurt the way that you see yourself, you see others, you can't do that based off of your perspective alone.

Or how do you know? That that's the right perspective to have, right? It has to come from the community coming around you and saying, yeah, that's actually what we need to do right now.

Yeah, you, being a marketer like myself. Content is obviously a huge part of, of your life, kind of, and your business and your working life, but also but also a huge part of the narratives that you're encouraging people and helping people to fight against. And you talk a little bit about content literacy.

In the third part of the book and, and as a, as a marketer, my little like antenna, I was like, Ooh, how interesting. But also like for a lot of my audience, you know, apart from my mom it's still there since occasionally they're business owners. They are operating in a lot in the online space.

They're consuming a lot of content. They're putting a lot of content out there. They're navigating the fog of kind of what's going on. And I think having an element of content literacy as they're trying to run their businesses and be socially conscious in their messaging. and in their relationship with their audience.

That level of critical thinking is really, really important. And you have like, you have five questions that people can ask to help kind of with their content literacy. Why is this showing up? Why is it showing up here?

Why is it showing up now? Why is it showing up in front of me? And then I think the last one is what is it saying, but I didn't finish writing the sentence.

so what or something like that is usually the last 1. Yes. So, I think there's 2 sides to this 1 for you for, for business owners everywhere. You know, you're getting hit with business like ads on things that are being told that are going to save you money that this is the way you should run your business.

And that's where content literacy is going to save you a lot of pain, because 80, 90, probably 99 percent of what you're going to see in that space of just through scrolling isn't always accurate and it's coming from a, it comes from a place of having a goal. Right. And I think that's the business mind to have here is to say that there's a goal.

There's somebody wants something. And that's why this is here right now. And it could be a very simple, innocent reason. Like, you know, a kid is posting on their social media. Well, they want people to see their cool dance moves or their photo of their dog or their friends or whatever. Right? Like, that's, that's a reason just the same.

But taking a minute to ask that is really important when it comes to creating content for a business that you should think about reverse engineering from those questions of making sure that you're thinking through, huh, are the same people following me on Facebook? Also following me on Instagram, probably not.

Those are two different platforms. And unless you just have a really loyal fan base, which if so. Like, congratulations, but for everybody else, right? Like, you're doing great, but for everybody else, like, those are 2 different platforms. They're going to see different stuff. There's different things that pop up on Instagram that pop up on Facebook.

So, you know, what you're saying is important where you say it also matters, right? And the way you can think about it is the same way you think about a conversation or talking to somebody. If I want to offer up corn dogs, I probably shouldn't announce that at a, at a funeral. Like it just doesn't seem like a good move, you know, but we have to, we, it, whether it is digital, we ignore that kind of context clue. That just because you're able to go www and top in a new website, you're actually entering a completely new, different space. And the people in that space deserve a fighting chance to understand and to think critically about what you're providing. And so, you know, that's why the book is aiming towards them to say like, Hey, you should, when you're scrolling, you should think, and as a business owner, you're also a consumer, you're also buying stuff you should think, and then when you're creating things for your own business. You should create them in a way that people can think through what you're doing and understand you and understand the reasoning behind it. Understand the, so what, you know, so what is my favorite question in marketing and because it drives people insane when you ask it and they're like, I was working on this project for, you know, this thing, we're launching this and it's going to, it's going to do this and be like, so what they'll want to beat you into the ground.

, you know, I think if we were to compare this back to hip hop, the rappers that made it talked about things that the people they were, their listeners were going through, right? There weren't a lot of rappers who talked about the experience of being a rapper and the frustrations of having to rerecord that one bar over and over and over again, because they couldn't get the EQ right.

Like you don't hear that, but what you do hear is like Dear Mama. Right. You hear the parts that relate to every person that relate to the people and that's what people want to see. You know, I say you should read the book because you need to understand the importance of transparency in this new age that like, Either you got to make the best lie ever that is 360 degree impenetrable, or you're just gonna have to tell the truth.

And honestly, it's going to cost way too much money to make that kind of lie. So just tell the truth.

It's much easier.

It's so much easier. And so I just, just go ahead and be real about it. And like your, your community will rock with you as you learn the ways to, to put it in front of them, but, you know, content literacy, because everything is content.

I think that's the key thing with it is that like. We're talking when an ad pops up, we're talking what you see on your Netflix account, which you, you know, what your kids see news on Apple or Google news or New York times or BBC. Like, all of these pieces are serving content. And so you do yourself a disservice by not just taking a 2nd and saying, oh, this there's a game happening here. Right. You deserve a fighting chance and we deserve a fighting chance. And so that's why those questions, I wanted to make them simple and straightforward, but really to say like, no, just, just take just one second, just take a couple of seconds and before you click and just like go down this rabbit hole or this journey, know that it's going to be beneficial for you.

Everybody needs to go and read the book. Where can they

So they can find the book on like everywhere that books are available. It's on Amazon, on Barnes and Noble. It's also available on my website for pre-order. I don't if the book comes out April 10th is the official launch date. So I always tell people pre-order it if you want, but you can also get it though.

eBooks will be available in all various places, and I'm working slowly to also make it accessible through libraries because we love the public libraries. There were several steps in the book that required the public library as well.

That's cool. And you're doing the audio book or you've done the audio version?

Yes, I am

post the other day.

Yes, I'm recording the audio book. Now, I would not recommend being dyslexic and recording an audio book as I quickly learned. So it's been fun. I will say that it's it's I'm enjoying the process because at this point I have to it will come out eventually a little bit after April 10th is what it's looking like at this point, but the ebook and paperback will be available everywhere on April 10th.

cool. So, Power, Beats and Rhymes by Evante Daniels. You need to go and pick it up. If people, as well as, as well as buying the book, obviously, if people want to come and connect with you, find you online, check out what else you're doing. Where should they go for that?

so you can follow me on linkedin at avante daniels also on instagram at avante dot daniels because we have to have a period there for some reason. And then on my website at avante daniels dot C. O. and that's E. V. A. N. T. E. And so you can find me at any of those places. I always love to connect with people.

Feel free to reach out.

That's great. Thank you so much for chatting to us, Vante. This was amazing.

Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it.