Self determination through technology- Ken Granderson

What happens when a kid from Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn leverages technology to empower the Black community? Ken Granderson's journey from MIT student to digital pioneer offers a powerful blueprint for self-determination through technology.

Growing up in what he calls "the neighborhood formerly known as Do or Die Bed-Stuy," Granderson found himself at MIT in 1980, where he balanced academic pursuits with becoming one of the Northeast's premier DJs for Black college parties. While his classmates were immersed in computer science, Granderson was spinning records—until the late 1980s when he reconnected with technology and discovered its transformative potential.

This reconnection led to creating BlackFacts.com in 1997—the first Black history search engine that continues operating today. Granderson's vision extended to putting the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation online in 1998 and developing digital platforms for Boston's Roxbury neighborhood when most communities of color lacked any online presence.

Throughout our conversation, Granderson delivers a masterclass in recognizing untapped potential. He spotlights accomplished Black MIT graduates whose contributions remain largely unknown—department chairs, government appointees, and innovators whose work has shaped technologies we use daily. As he puts it, "We have everything we need in our community to move ourselves forward."

The most compelling part of Granderson's message addresses today's AI revolution. He argues that artificial intelligence represents an unprecedented opportunity because "it's the first technology that requires zero technical skills to use it to become much more powerful at whatever you're trying to be." Unlike previous technological waves, AI's low barrier to entry creates a more level playing field.

Whether you're a techno

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

what's going on, everybody? It's ron brown lmt, the people's fitness professional, and I have the brother ken granderson. Is that how you pronounce it? That's the okay, just to make sometimes I butcher people's names. I just want to make sure. Thank you for coming out this evening. I really appreciate you. And first off, we're going to go with the title. The title is Self-Determination Through Technology. Ok, and I want to go into your history. Who are you? Let's go into that. Who are you and where were you born and your upbringing? So let's start there.

Speaker 2: 0:51

Okay. Well, Ron, should I say Ron, Ron, Brown, what's the best way to?

Speaker 1: 0:59

Ron is fine, ron Brown. Call me Ron, ron Brown, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2: 1:04

All right. Folks used to say just don't call me late for dinner. So, ron, thank you very much for inviting me. Yeah, my name is Ken Granderson. You know I am a child of the neighborhood formerly known as Do or Die Bed-Stuy that's what we called it back in the days. Di-bed-sty that's what we called it back in the days Was a teenager in the late 70s. You know, grew up pretty close to Boys and Girls High, a-train, utica Ave, a-train Station and, you know, upbringing basically blue collar. You know daddy worked for the post office. You know mom worked office jobs at churches, actually Methodist churches and left the Brooklyn area in 1980 to go up to Boston. I was, you know, doing pretty well with math and science and ended up at MIT Doing pretty well with math and science and ended up at MIT and I stayed there.

Speaker 2: 2:08

After I stayed in the Boston area After I graduated and reconnected with a passion for computers, and when I say reconnected, I got introduced to computers in high school. But in the late 70s my family, we couldn't afford computers, computers. So I got into stereo and hi-fi and started dj, which ended up being a business that I ran. I was like the number one, uh, dj doing black college parties in the northeast um in new england area, I will say like uh, dartmouth college up in um, new ham, new Hampshire, down to, like New Haven, connecticut. You know, during the 80s and end of the 80s I reconnected with the whole computer thing, got into it pretty heavy, made some programs that let me quit my day job and you know that set the stage for this idea of self-determination through technology. You know. So I was working, you know, mainstream tech job, made some programs that put.

Speaker 2: 3:12

But you know I tell people, google me and you can find on my website You'll see, for example, this book, windows Gizmos. You know that has my program in it. You know, with my, my company name, inner City Software, and in the thanks I go and thank folks who inspired me, et cetera, et cetera, because they printed everything that I wrote in this book verbatim. And so in the acknowledgements and thanks you'll see I'm thanking my family, blah, blah, blah folks. And then I mentioned Martin Luther King Jr, of course, right, but I said Marcus Garvey, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad El-Hajj, malik El-Shabazz, but as Billy Mays, I think it was said, but wait, there's more.

Speaker 2: 4:17

At the bottom I have the Honorable Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam for continuous wake-up calls and reminders of the conditions of the have-nots of America. Because when I say I grew up blue-collar, we never had a whole bunch of things, but I had the fortunate luck of being born into an intact and drama-free family and I have learned to not take that for granted and realize how that kind of put me on a track where I was able to, you know, build, move forward and not have to have folks who should have been supporting me sabotaging me, like I've seen happen too often in many of our families. So I'm just very, very grounded and clear about that and I thank, you know, some of our brothers and sisters who have made sure that many of us did not fall through the cracks, you know, and that all inspired me to focus on building technologies to inform, educate and inspire Black people, including BlackFactscom, the first Black history search engine I set up in 1997. Run to the present day, go there right now.

Speaker 2: 5:33

Today is Lena Horne's birthday, we have Black history videos for every day of the year, and et cetera. I'm going to stop and pause because I'm one of these folks. You can tell I'm excited about this, and so you got to stop me and get a word in edgewise. So I'm going to pause right there and follow your lead on where you want this conversation to go, because I really appreciate what you're doing and the opportunity to share something that I think we don't know what capabilities we have and especially today with where technology is. I'm glad to have the chance to show your audience the potential that is literally in the palm of their hands today.

Speaker 1: 6:19

Right Now. You said you grew up in a family that was, I think you said, undisrupted, or Intact meaning my daddy was there, OK. Intact. Ok, so your dad was there. Yeah, your mom. So you grew up in a two family household and all that. I mean, yeah, two parent household, things like that. Ok, so did you have any siblings and things?

Speaker 2: 6:43

Yeah, did you have any siblings and things? Yeah, I got one older brother, you know who, who actually, you know, introduced me when I was graduating from college. He introduced me to literature of self-improvement. That actually changed my direction because you know, you know, yeah, I went to MIT, prestigious school, all that kind of good stuff. So I knew all I had to do was graduate from college and I'm going to make more money than that. The bad news about that is that I did not have any aspirations past getting a job working for the man it was.

Speaker 2: 7:18

It was when I was introduced to literature that helped me understand that there could be more opportunity for me to do something with a greater impact. And because I happened to be in technology at that time, you know I was able to do things like put the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation online in 98. I put the government of St Lucia online. A dozen years ago, boston's Roxbury community the neighborhood I was living in, the Black neighborhood put them online. I put the Black newspaper online.

Speaker 2: 7:56

Those are the sort of kind of things that you can do with technology if you have the mindset, and we can do these things in other areas is what I'm trying to really that's my message really to other folks is it depends on what you're focusing on. You know you can focus on everyone's focusing on just, you know, paying the bills and whatever, but it just takes a little bit extra that you might focus in a certain way. Most of us just do it for our own, but I knew that I didn't have the opportunities that I had because folks would just say worrying about their own self. You know, it was because of people who I never met, who they knew they would never meet me, that they opened doors for me, and so that is just part of my own personal philosophy that you know I place a high priority on using the talents that I've developed to try and make sure that I pay it forward and, you know, and live up to the sacrifices of my ancestors. We'll put it like that.

Speaker 1: 9:00

Right. So now you were inspired to get into the technology around the 80s, you're saying.

Speaker 2: 9:08

I was first introduced to it in the late 70s, in the late 70s, ok, so let's I want to stop there.

Speaker 1: 9:16

So in the late 70s, what was the technology like?

Speaker 2: 9:20

Yeah, yeah, man, people would laugh at it, you know. You know, school had a digital PDP-11 computer look like small file cabinet. You know black and white monitors or just one color green. Nothing that was or either that or we were my first programming project. We did this class at NYU. They had these printout printers and we would play the Star Trek game class at NYU. They had these printout printers and we would play the Star Trek game where you would print out what was supposed to be the quadrant in space, you know, and you'd say, oh, what am I going to do? Pick number one to eight, number one, shoot the phasers, you know, and they would print out the next. That was where the tech was back then.

Speaker 1: 10:00

Okay, and you said, people laughed at it.

Speaker 2: 10:04

Well, today they would laugh at. Laughing is what I'm saying. Back then it was just like, oh great, this is great.

Speaker 1: 10:09

Right. So what was the first computer you were introduced to? Was it like IBM, or was it?

Speaker 2: 10:17

Yeah, well, I mean, back then, wasn't it, wasn't it Poly Prep, I think? Uh, downtown on j street, but it might have been another place. You have these big computer rooms, you know and and I'm old enough to we when we had stuff on cards, so you would have these punch cards and you take a set of punch cards and they would print out all the this big green paper, and you know. So I'm saying this is like the old school stuff.

Speaker 1: 10:41

Nothing personal computers didn't happen until the 80s okay, now in the 70s you were, you were interested in in in computers. How about your peers or other black people around you?

Speaker 2: 10:57

no, now, you know I, I did go to a very small um, you know um, mostly white school, st Ann's School in Brooklyn Heights, you know. So, out of my graduating class of 70, there were 10 black students, you know, six girls, four boys. I was the only one who was interested in computers. Yeah, I mean it really back then, only the nerds were really interested in computers, you know. But when I, when I, when I went to college, right, the nerds at MIT is another level of nerd, right. So these were these guys who, like you know, beards and they have their life in their backpack and they're playing Dungeons and Dragons and I'm like, okay, like I like computers, and they got computers here. Those are the computer guys, but there's girls over there, guys. Well, I think I'm going to keep DJing. So I love the computers, I love the computers alone. Until the late 80s.

Speaker 1: 12:09

Okay, so now the 70s. You left the computers. There was a question that I had that was just right there. Oh my God.

Speaker 2: 12:20

Well, I said, I started DJing.

Speaker 1: 12:21

No, no, no, not that one Okay.

Speaker 2: 13:08

What was your experience like at MIT at that time? Well, here's the interesting thing this was four years after busing riots, where you know, the guy was stabbed with the American flag, you know kind of thing, and people are like, oh, so racist, so racist. You know, I get off the Greyhound bus, I got my duffel bag with my gear, et cetera, et cetera. You know, you know, I have no idea what I'm. You know what I'm up for. You know, walk from the train. I see on this little hill by the student center table, black Student Union. I'm like I'm safe, right.

Speaker 2: 13:47

So my experience was very Black because we, whether it was, you know, the Black Student Union and many, most of the Black students, we knew each other, you know, et cetera. Or especially after 1982, I pledged Kappa, alpha, psi fraternity, which you know, one of the quote divine nine, you know nine predominantly black fraternities and sororities which that really connected me to other black college men throughout the country. You know that I didn't much traveling, but you know so. But my college experience, although I was in Boston, was very black. You know, I'm DJ, I'm DJing the black party. So you know, I have led a very unique experience in that way.

Speaker 1: 14:43

You know, you know, all right, yeah, let's, let's unpack that a little bit, just a little bit, all right. So mit, very just a black experience. When I think of mit, when I was in um, when I was in um high school, there were people, you know, trying to really get into mit and um. That was the first time I heard about mit and um and uh, the, the, just like I don't. I didn't want to say like this, but like the so-called nerds yeah I love it, I could show you my nerd pride stickers.

Speaker 2: 15:20

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:22

And so you had, but although you, but you had a black experience there now, and this was in Boston now, from what I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: 15:30

Cambridge is across the river from Boston, you know. You know, like Boston area, culturally, honestly, it's a lot more progressive.

Speaker 1: 15:40

Oh, okay, cause that's where I was going.

Speaker 2: 15:42

Okay, yeah that's where I was going with that.

Speaker 1: 15:46

Yeah, because you know Boston, from what I hear, is like more like racist.

Speaker 2: 15:51

Well, I'm glad you mentioned the racist thing right. So when I would come home and visit, people were like, oh man, boston is so racist. And I would say, yeah, man, like it's so terrible man, it's so terrible what happened to that brother, yusuf Hawkins, and then what they did to that Abner Louie, my brother, and Amadou Diallo. Oh no, that was, on New York, worst racist incident while I was there. Charles Stewart kills his wife, says the black man did it. So my point being, bro, there's racism everywhere, all right and so, and I didn't even get to Howard beach, okay. So, yeah, you know all the all of these things happen when I'm in Boston, which is supposed to be so racist, but you know. But at the same point, yeah, boston, the you know the Boston side of things. You know Boston definitely more conservative, et cetera, et cetera. Cambridge is just more Harvard, mit. It very influenced a lot of the culture more laid back, you know more of of your, your ally, white people.

Speaker 2: 16:52

You know, um, like liberals in cambridge, you know yeah you know, you know, you know, but, but when I say it was a very black experience, meaning I pretty much spent all my time, um, you know, in college sort of venues, um, and frankly, um, many of the black students were like tourists in a sense. We went into the community to get haircuts, to get ethnic food and to get weed okay alright, we didn't.

Speaker 2: 17:31

it wasn't until after that I really started connecting with, you know, native Black Bostonians, and my last 20 years I was stayed there until 2018. You know, I made what I in retrospect consider like a major strategic error in staying in Boston. When I graduated, a lot of my peers would go to DC or they'd go to Atlanta. Why? Because Black folks were doing stuff there.

Speaker 1: 18:01

Right.

Speaker 2: 18:02

And I reasoned that, well, if you stay somewhere where there is a bigger need, you can build something from the ground up and you'll be like you know, you know the main person the main person, whatever.

Speaker 2: 18:18

Um, what I didn't account for is what I ended up viewing as the inertia, stagnation maybe it's conditioning of Black Boston that I say to people think about people of note that have come out of Black Boston. Now you have to, you know you need to remove the sports folks and the entertainment folks, because those are areas where we've been allowed to rise, you know, for a long time.

Speaker 1: 18:47

Right.

Speaker 2: 18:48

Think of anyone name a name in business, in medicine, academia, you know politics, or whatever that came out of black Boston. Right, you, if you were there in 1984, the name Mel King might mean something to you. He ran for mayor in Boston. He didn't win, but he made history. But he made history. That's 84.

Speaker 2: 19:17

You got to fast forward to the mid-2010s for Ayanna Pressley to think about anyone, a name, that you would be like oh, this is someone in Boston. Black Boston is doing something. And so my point being that I built websites like Roxburycom. They, you know, built websites like Roxburycom. That you know. If you, I always say to people you know Google my name, you'll see my personal website. I've archived everything I've done. I got an eight-minute video where you will walk through of Roxburycom from 23 years ago, where you will see we had community news, we had self-service events and business directory listings, as, two and four years before yelp and eventbrite were even founded, we had cutting edge tech for our community there.

Speaker 2: 20:04

But I was never able to take that and, you know, like kind of make a lateral move into the business world with it. You know, and it's because the people there didn't have those connections the Black folks there, or if they did, I found Black Boston to be a bit insular. You know I was an outsider, even though I, you know I adopted the Black community there. You know I bought a home there. You know I was an outsider even though I, you know, I adopted the black community there. You know I bought a home there. You know, at my office there, you know my home was one block from the Caribbean Carnival location. You know.

Speaker 2: 20:43

I was a kid snacking the hood, all right.

Speaker 1: 20:45

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:46

Yeah, and so you know I was. You know, like I say yeah, yeah, I was, gave it my best shot, came back to New York in search of folks who had a little more vision for a bigger, for bigger possibilities. Because, as I will suggest to folks and you can see in the 1996 video that you'll find on my website and a project we call Inner City Access, where you'll see both me and my current business partner Dale we had both had black hair at the time where, you know, it was eight of us in total. We put Boston's black neighborhoods online. We had websites for the communities. We didn't have money, we didn't ask anybody, you know, you know we didn't ask anybody, you know. You know we didn't have connections, we just did it.

Speaker 2: 21:34

That is my message about technology. It is the most powerful equalizing tool I believe in human history and today it is literally in the palms of our hands. You know they say that our phones are more powerful than things we sent folks to the moon with. You know. But what do we use it for? You know cat videos and watching augmented. You know posterior bouncing. You know it's like. Come on, people.

Speaker 1: 22:08

Well, I want to get to that. Now Back to your DJ life. Let's unpack that a little bit. So so your dj life. Uh, what kind of look, what kind of dj dj equipment did you use? Did you use classic techniques?

Speaker 2: 22:25

um, well, this is so interesting. Yeah, when you say techniques and, and you know what, you know, I didn't ever. Oh, no, no, no, no. When you say take what? Yeah, yeah, I actually didn't never had the 1200 mark twos. I actually had a 1800 and 1600, the original series, right, but I was gonna say I don't, I don't know, and maybe we do it on another show, if you want, um, if we could do screenshots, but I could show you an image, you know, of me and my partner sitting on the set, because it was when you, when you, went to one of my gigs. I'll put it like this we're sitting on a bunch of speakers. The ones on the bottom were four foot by four foot folded horns. They weighed 200 pounds a piece. I had a digital synthesizer that did the lowest, that synthesized an octave lower than they could actually write on the records. So you got it right here. Yes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:17

That's interesting.

Speaker 2: 23:19

Do not play, do not play. And we played. Basically it was, I'd say, a mix of sort of R&B, dance music and hip hop. And when I say on the hip hop, right, your Caribbean music hadn't really crossed over at that point, right, what was very interesting about music back then was that it was very local meaning. You had, like you know, in New York, you know you had folks playing one kind of music. So, for example, okay, to this day you probably play Love is the Message, right, and the thing is, folks in other parts of the country never heard it right. And then you had, for example, the sound of LA LA records.

Speaker 2: 24:05

You know, you had like some Miami sound, you know. You had some folks in the Midwest and then, you know you ended up my freshman sophomore year, the Minneapolis sound started, you know, coming up, et cetera, go, go. You didn't hear those different musics back in the late 70s, early 80s, because we just had radio, and radio is very, very, uh, local, local in range. There was no internet right and so, um, you only heard music in your culture and what was really interesting was perfect. Example you know my boy, mark petty, from detroit, you know, sophomore year he comes back, you know, and he's like, well, what are you, what are you talking about? The time he was like cool, get it up the stick. What are you talking about here? Listen to this. I'm like cool, get it up the stick, you know. You know, because they were you know one of, you know, one of prince's protege bands, you know, and and they were doing gigs all in that area and so, yeah, yeah, so because we had black folks coming from all over, you know, it became sort of a melting pot of music. But the caribbean music, uh, because back back then, you know how they had I might have known two Haitian folks, jamaicans had started coming in, you know, in slow numbers, you know, back then. So you heard a little bit of reggae but not much. You know it was a little later that that picked up.

Speaker 2: 25:44

But then also during that decade the music shifted and late 70s, before rap was what we called on wax. Um, you know, okay, in brooklyn, you're in brooklyn, you're in bronx, queens, you're doing block parties, folks are rapping. But it was. It was ignored by the industry king tim, the third, by fatback band, about eight, seven, eight months before rappers. Life was the first rap record, you know, on wax. Then Rapper's Delight came later changed the whole thing, but yeah, but their whole thing. And you know, obviously they took good times. You know we were cutting and spinning, good times, you know, good times dude.

Speaker 1: 26:29

Now Roger, Wow, you guys were cutting good times.

Speaker 2: 26:34

Yeah, but see, good Times was the baseline. Oh right, right, right, you read about that.

Speaker 1: 26:41

It was the baseline of a bunch of things.

Speaker 2: 26:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah, do, do, do, do, do, do, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Rappers Delight took it. Vaughn Mason's Bounce Rock, skate, bounce, boom, boom, do, do, do, do, do, do. You know there were so many records that took good times. They changed a little bit of it, you know, but I don't remember where I was going with that. Oh, but rap, right, and this is where some of your audience is going to get mad at me, but it's OK Because, fast forward, I stopped DJing in the early 90s because I refused to go where the music was going. Here's what I mean we, we street DJs and stuff doing blockbusters, whatever. Rap was what I always called our urban folk music. It was us being able in the communities, being able to say what we wanted to say. Show up and listen to that music. The beginning genres or subjects of rap were mostly around a couple of subjects. I'm the baddest in the game. Or throw your hands in the air. You finish the.

Speaker 2: 27:55

you can finish the yeah, okay right, these were what I call communal celebrations of joy and culture. A little bit later, in the middle of the decade, you have folks like grandmaster flash, furious five, doing the message and right, and it's so interesting. A couple of years ago, for the first time I got to meet Grandmaster Flash and I saw a presentation of his where he actually had a formula about the number of rotations. He calls it like I don't know if it's 3x plus 2 or whatever, but mathematically, if you knew enough about music structure, most dance music is four, four time, whatever, and you knew how to backspin or just blend. Well, I blended more than I cut right. You would spin the record back a certain number of revolutions, usually where you might have it marked, you know, to a certain cue point, whatever.

Speaker 2: 28:49

Flash had a formula of the number of rotations, whatever to keep it going and I was just so impressed by the way he had broken it down. I was like bro, you have no idea, you know, but I digress. You know some of the things that they did, like the message, you know they were reporting on challenging situations in the neighborhood and all Right, which you know I think is very important. But things started taking a turn in a different direction, you know, as typified by the 1989 record self-destruction, where there were elements of the community that have always been with us, but they were formerly on the outskirts and they were not encouraged or normalized. Hold on.

Speaker 1: 29:43

I got to drop a bomb on that. One more time, please. You were on the outskirts, but they were not encouraged. They were not encouraged and normalized.

Speaker 2: 29:53

They would not encourage and normalize.

Speaker 1: 29:55

So it would not encourage and normalize.

Speaker 2: 29:58

We all know that we've been dealing with institutional racism and has created things like, you know, the, you know prison pipeline, et cetera. So we know, black men have always, you know, ended up being unjustly over-prosecuted, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But back when I was a teenager, you know, going to jail was something you were embarrassed about. That was not a badge of honor, that was not how you, you know, made your bones and, and you know, things shifted where. And I personally this is just my own theory, right, you know, I'm not a philosopher or you know a social scientist or whatever philosopher or you know a social scientist or whatever.

Speaker 2: 30:55

But if you're in the suburbs and you got football and you know little league and all this stuff, you got lots of opportunities for young men to burn off that testosterone, that testosterone that wants to be the baddest you know MF in the neighborhood that testosterone that wants to show you know, I'm bigger, I'm better, I'm cooler or whatever. And if you don't have those things, then you have a higher possibility of that energy going into a direction where you get attention and respect not from achievements that everyone will be happy about, but by making people afraid of you and by doing things that, um, are like we own. You're the toughest, you're the the baddest, because you can beat, you know, you know mfs down or whatever, and so you know, I think, because so many of our communities do not have, you know those, you know the little leagues, you know scouts. They are just all kind of things to help it engage and and direct. You know that energy, especially that male energy.

Speaker 2: 32:19

Um, you know, I I fear that that becomes a melting pot. You know of, of of. It just takes, you know, a little trouble here and there. You know, but then, to make it worse, when you have certain kinds, there's been drugs in the community since forever, in every community, right.

Speaker 1: 32:32

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:33

But there's different kinds of drugs and different kinds of things. And let's say with cocaine. I've never been to Columbia but I have a feeling people don't get strung out on chewing the coca leaf. All right, you know they. They up in the mountains. They need it for the oxygen, you know, thin air, whatever, whatever. But powder cocaine, yeah, it can mess you up, but you got to be rich to get messed up with powder cocaine, so it's got a self-limiting thing.

Speaker 2: 33:03

Freebase came after that. It was another chemical processing that made it cheaper and more powerful. And when you do that, anyone who smoked weed, you know, will remember back in the day, will remember. You know will, will, will remember back in the day, will remember. You know you could get ounces but you know, oh, that costs like forty dollars. I got forty dollars. Give me a dime bag, you know. You have nickel bag, tray bags, loose joints Folks don't have. When you don't have a lot of money, you've got to be able to get it in small quantities.

Speaker 2: 33:29

And when they started processing this, this stimulant, the cocaine stimulant, you know, and synthesizing it more and removing some of the buffers that mother nature had in the coca leaf, you know, and making it more powerful and cheaper, you create a vicious cycle of you know you can afford to get a little bit, you know, and what I've heard with some of of you know you can afford to get a little bit, you know, and what I've heard with some of these, you know you spend after your first hit, you end up chasing a high you'll never get again, you know. But it's like a perfect storm of a vicious cycle where little bit of money so you can do it, you know, and then get you in and then you need more and more. Then crack came and you got more money. So I've observed in over my life in different industries, whether it is sports, entertainment in terms of movies, as soon as big money gets involved, it changes it. Big money gets involved, it changes it. Meaning I don't think that you had in the 50s, 40s, whatever, folks in sports who are getting into it to try to get rich as their main thing.

Speaker 2: 34:44

Or in music, yes, you've always had some people who made records right, but once you get big money into stuff, you're going to attract people who will sell their own grandmother for the right price. That's what happened with the drugs. We've all been able to sell weed and this and that, but it was with crack which, just the mechanics of it, created this very fast way to generate lots of money. And then you started having automatic weapons and that creates an environment where you have people who can make incredible amounts of money by terrorizing our neighborhoods Right, but then you had rappers who embraced it talk to them I used to argue that the quote gangster rap was like a cancer in our communities.

Speaker 2: 35:49

I was like, how do we go from say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud to? I don't even. I say I don't like saying words that the Klan is jealous they didn't come up with. I'm not going to say that word. That was the last word that many of our ancestors heard as the news closed around their neck. I refuse to just use it casually. You know, as Richard Pryor said when he went to Africa, you know he didn't see. You know no soft or hard R's, okay. So how did we end? How did we make that transition? I believe folks sold out. I believe that there were, you know. Well, I'm sorry if I'm jumping around, you know, but just like you know, but when I saw in the, when I mentioned like movies and sports, right, how much money do you think you know the Wizard of Oz made? Who knows? The point is no one knows and no one cares right right why is it?

Speaker 2: 36:57

when a movie comes out, it's like, how much is it making the box office? Well, if my kin ain't in it or I ain't got money, and it doesn't matter. It does not matter if someone is playing ball, someone's making a record, oh, how much money. Unless they're your friend or they're going to lend you some money, it doesn't matter. But that's what we focus on. You know, the money, the money, the money.

Speaker 2: 37:21

You know, and, and what I saw was when I debated folks about this, people would say oh, you know, folks are getting paid, whatever. And I'm like, like, like, like, you're saying that, like that's an excuse. You know, I'm not a religious person, but you know, according to you know, the Christian narrative, judas sold out Jesus for 40 pieces of silver. I don't know what the going rate is for selling out your community, but you know, I do know that only a small handful of them actually got paid and quite a few of them had.

Speaker 2: 37:57

When you mentioned nerds earlier, I've embraced the word nerd, but I say the retirement plan is much better than gangsters, hello. So you know, when I used to question these things, people would be like oh man, you know, this got a slamming beat. I'm like did you see the bass bottoms that I had? I understand beat. If it's really about the beat, then the beat. You could have that beat jamming to some public enemy to some KRS-One to some ex-flan, some poor righteous teachers, right enemy to some KRS-One to some ex-plans some poor, righteous teachers.

Speaker 2: 38:36

You don't have to have that banging beat to talking about, yeah, the neighborhood is not just that, the neighborhood is messed up and you can get shot, but you get shot because I'm the one pulling the trigger, whether it was glorifying it or just normalizing it. I believe that we have a whole generation of urban Black kids who grew up in neighborhoods where I say you know my neighborhood, I call it the neighborhood formerly known as do or die, bed-stuy. You know, bed-stuy was considered a real tough neighborhood. I did not grow up in fear that every loud noise could have been gunfire. I did not grow up in fear that every loud noise could have been gunfire. I did not grow up that way. You know, I grew up being concerned about some of the local gangs, and I'm a skinny dude with glasses, so you know I'm well suited, justified, to be concerned. But I was not, you know, in mortal fear that anything could jump off at any time, you know, and that it could be over some stupid, ignorant stuff, like people getting jealous about some kind of foolishness, or you mad about someone who lives on a street that you don't even own, no real estate on Right, often named after some slavers or something I'm like what is wrong with us, you know, you know, so I stopped DJing because I refused to play music that you know called us, you know our women out of our names. You know I refuse to do it. I couldn't feel good about myself. You know, doing things that, that or playing stuff that was just like I'm thinking about. You're making me think about something that happened a year ago.

Speaker 2: 40:30

I visited Boston. An old friend and roommate bought the black newspaper there. It's called the Bay State Banner. He bought it from the original founder who ran it for like 60 years, and I went to this gala that they had and I met his wife for the first time. When she found out who I was, she was like, oh my gosh, you helped me get through college. It was like you were my therapy for dealing with these white folks and this and that. And it was because I created these experiences of folks getting together and having a good time being, you know, being playing all Black music, you know, and all, and that's what I and all and that's what I. That's what I enjoyed doing.

Speaker 2: 41:40

I tried, I've tried, to take that into the tech space and create technologies that celebrate our successes. You know that that talk about those of us who have beat the odds, who have you know, who have done incredible things, because so many of us have done incredible things. But, bro, one of the reasons that I'm so appreciative of you doing what you're doing is that we are so bad at telling the good news about those of us who are doing wonderful things. Like I want to name a couple of folks you mentioned. Oh, you heard about MIT. Whatever People get into these names and this and that and the other, right, it ain't about that. I want to name a couple of my classmates, because folks don't know my classmate and friend, paula Goodwin, homegirl from Detroit. She used to be in the chemical engineering department at MIT and guess what her job there was what's that?

Speaker 2: 42:23

she was the chair of the department. Right now there's a sister named Cristala Prather. She is the chair of the department of chemical. Paula was a Biden appointee of some science advisory. Another sister, april Erickson Jackson, born right here in Bed-Stuy but she grew up in Cambridge and she actually did her undergrad work at MIT. I think it was at Howard that she did her like a PhD and stuff. She's been at NASA for 30 years or so. Biden made her assistant secretary of defense of science and technology. Science and technology. These are sisters.

Speaker 2: 43:22

I got a friend here in Brooklyn, a brother named John Henry Thompson. Look him up, you'll see him in Black Inventors. In the 90s he was working for a company called Macromedia. They had a program called Director that brought animation to Macs and PCs. He wrote a programming language called Lingo that was instrumental in folks doing animation on desktop PCs. So when you see the Bigfoot video, ai videos and stuff that people make, now he is, you know, a predecessor of that.

Speaker 2: 43:56

We have Black people who our fingerprints are on all kinds of things that we don't know about because we want to talk about which rapper is banging which model instead of talking about. You know what Black person is. You know running. You know this college. There's a brother who runs the Boston Foundation now there's a brother who runs Bentley College. There's a business college up in the Boston area. There's sisters who Bro the stuff we do.

Speaker 2: 44:34

It will blow your mind how much we have done that we don't know about just because we don't talk about it. And that's what Black Facts is about. Gotcha, we have everything we need in our community. That's what I believe to move ourselves forward. If we would just embrace ideas like the African philosophy of Ubuntu you know, are you familiar with the philosophy of Ubuntu? Often characterizes you know, I am, because we are. Basically it's about let's not do this individualism. You know, that's like a very Western and definitely very American psychology. But to look at, I think, the quote I think it was Martin Luther King says injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Ideas like that that say I can't be okay if you're hurt, I like that idea right there man.

Speaker 2: 45:37

Well, hey, I can't. I'm certainly not the author. I'm saying you know many of our cousins on the continent. This is their normal.

Speaker 2: 45:46

You know the Ubuntu philosophy, you know I mean I mean, imagine, imagine if we raised, you know, our folks to think that way. That doesn't mean you don't try and be successful. What it, what it means is that you know, you realize that you didn't come up with this all on your own. You know. You know you're walking on the shoulders of giants who preceded you and if you want to make sure that the other folks who come after you are able to do it, you got to do your part, you got to pay it forward. You know. You know we're all in this thing together, on this on this rock, unless, unless Elon Musk, you know, gets to Mars and I encourage him to be first, but you know, unless you know, we start colonizing Mars, we're stuck here together and you know we might as well I, we might as well just my opinion we might as well figure out how to put in a little extra effort to make sure that someone else is doing good, because it makes it easier for all of us. Man.

Speaker 1: 46:55

Right, because we're all connected.

Speaker 2: 46:56

We are all connected. We are all connected, even though it's not my technology. I encourage folks to get into LinkedIn because when you say we're all connected, many of us have heard the idea of six degrees of separation. Well, in Black communities, it's more like two and three degrees of separation. Well, in Black communities, it's more like two and three degrees of separation. Right, you know, I would encourage anyone you know create an account, free account, on LinkedIn.

Speaker 2: 47:26

Start seeing who you're connected to, because, for networking, I'm one of these folks who, if I know that you're trying to be about something and I think I know someone who might be able to open a door for you, I'll try and connect you. You know, if I don't know you that well, I might say like, hey, you know, there's this guy, rod. I don't really know him, but he seems like he's, you know, the right guy for you know that he might be able to you know be, you might be able to do this or that. You know, and I'm that guy who will, you know, get on someone and be like yo, you need to check this person out. You know, I believe that if more of us did that, bro, we could solve so many of the problems that we have where we're begging, you know, begging the folks who would sell us.

Speaker 1: 48:19

You know, as you know, sell us home depot.

Speaker 2: 48:20

200 years ago we we expecting them to fix our problems and this and that, when folks and give us jobs and all that, and ain't no one interested in giving you a job. They're interested in you making them money that's you know which which I don't think is a bad thing if you understand it and you recognize it and you don't work yourself to death for people who will forget you. You know, if the business decision, if corporate says we need to send you packing, you know you know, you know, if you're working, give an honest day's work, do your job.

Speaker 2: 48:49

You know, et cetera, et cetera. But don't let them con you into thinking that your family, you're not, you're a resource, you're an asset. You know to them and the minute you become a liability, you know you'll be history. You know. But then there's Black businesses who are trying to do things. I want to introduce you to folks like you know Tawana Rivers. You know who runs the Black 10K Project, where they put Black businesses in front of her membership. You know Tawana Rivers. You know who runs the Black 10K Project, where they put Black businesses in front of her membership. You know to potentially be investors and stuff. You know there are folks who are doing all kinds of things. Man, you know, to try and go against these narratives that we don't have or we can't do, I'm like no, no, no, we just don't know and we don't do enough. You know a lot of times we don't know about this other person who's doing X, y, z and many times, if we do know, we don't take that step, we don't take that action. You know.

Speaker 1: 49:49

Right, indeed, indeed. So now going into this new AI era, what do you think we should know in this? Because I use chat GPT. Sometimes I'm looking at other apps to change video into like animation and things like that. So what do you think we should know now going into this AI era? What do you think we should know now going into this AI?

Speaker 2: 50:14

era, right, right, and I'm checking the time because I know that you know our time is short. I would suggest this because, okay, I've been using ChatGPT like all day, every day, for about two years now. I don't create, you know, videos hands-on, so I can't speak to some of those. I'm more of a consumer. You know of some of the the fun and crazy. You know different videos I will say this as a long term technologist, et cetera I've heard a lot of hype is the first technology that requires zero technical skills to use it to become much more powerful at whatever you're trying to be.

Speaker 2: 51:02

Why? Because you do not even need to know how to type, because this is it On my phone. I can use the mouth that I know. This is it, you know. On my phone, you know, I can use the mouth that I know. You know the mouth that I know how to use and the phone in my hand to say you know, hey, I'm interested in starting a community talk show for the black community. What do you think I should do? You know, literally, you know, you know, literally, you know you can start doing. Oh, that's a powerful idea, one of the potential ideas for real impact starting a black community, whatever.

Speaker 2: 51:45

Here's a step-by-step blueprint Clarify your purpose, pick a format, design your segments. Well, you know, opening model I should have I'm sorry I didn't hit the audio thing Opening monologue, main interview, community poll, spotlight, whatever tech setup, equipment, software editing, distribution. Build a team, even small. Engage your community. Start with a pilot session, bonus ideas. That's what I just got in seconds from that kind of question. That's what you can do, no matter what you're trying to do, and people talk about it's bias and this and that points.

Speaker 2: 52:31

Our thing is to enable educators to teach Black history and ethnic studies from any internet-connected device, from these smart boards that they have on their walls to smartphone. This is what it looks like running on the phone Black history videos, but we got quizzes and all that. That's the kind of thing you can do with AI. Would it recognize my face as well? Maybe not, but guess what? I'm not trying to do that and the stuff I'm trying to do?

Speaker 2: 53:00

It has saved me incredible amounts of time. It has put money in my pocket and I'm as Black as you want to be all day, every day, and twice on Sunday. So I'm not going to say that it can do anything you want to do as a Black person, but the ones that this Black person is needed to do. It's done it and helped me become incredibly efficient. I encourage anyone to learn it, because I believe the future is going to be created in the image of the people who understand how to master AI. So you can ignore it if you want, or you can use it. I recommend you be one of the ones that use it.

Speaker 1: 53:42

That's just my personal Right Cause there's now some kind of like AI revolution on on online where it's like no, not AI, but chat CBT. Oh, chat CB, gbt. You know they are wrong and you don't want to use them as a source because of this. That the third like uh, you go ahead you go ahead.

Speaker 2: 54:05

Yeah, you know, I said, I say you know what. Now you know it's still today, at least as of today, still a free country. You know like you don't have to use it. If you you're not going to use it, I recommend you sign up with the Amish. I hear they're very nice people. But if you're going to live in a modern society, if you're not, if you don't learn how to use it, it's probably going to be using you.

Speaker 1: 54:29

Right, like it is for sure.

Speaker 2: 54:31

I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 54:32

Like AI is for sure If you're on Facebook, if you're on Instagram.

Speaker 2: 54:37

It's being put into everything. I view today as very similar to 30 years ago with the internet. When I was trying to get folks to use the internet, you know, I literally would print out the homepage of stormfrontorg, the white supremacist website, white pride worldwide, and we'll say look, there's this thing called the internet. These people are using it to put their message out. We can use it too. We didn't use it. What I mean is name me some black organization that's really leveraging technology. Maybe they just I'm not in the right circles, but I'm not aware of any that are really using technology, the way that it could be used. You know, at this point, I believe AI because we're all starting at the same point. That was what I experienced with technology in the 90s. Everyone's starting at the same point. There's no old boy network to keep you out. You didn't need to have millions of dollars to get involved, like, if you want to do, say, a car industry or whatever. You know, with AI, boom, free. I got a $20 a month subscription, okay. You in New York, that's lunch one day, okay, don't even, don't even like, don't be cheap, like that. Oh, I want to use the free, free, free, ok, fine, you know, I don't even think when it comes to twenty dollars a month. Come on now, are you serious? You know, and I can answer, it answers questions for me all day. I got to do a research. It's crazy man. So, anyway, I know, I know that.

Speaker 2: 56:14

You know, you said you had to jump to another thing, and someone is saying double check and verify. Oh, that is very true. It makes mistakes. Sometimes it gets what I call stuck on stupid. Right, yeah, we should probably do a whole session on AI. That is absolutely the case. You know you want to double check? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't, you know, trust it to without questioning. And if you're doing it for things like I do, for programming, you better know your basics first, because it'll, 80 percent of the time, right on point. That other 20 percent can be a. You know what, indeed, can be a you know what?

Speaker 1: 56:54

Indeed, yes, sir. Well, thank you for coming out this evening. We really appreciate you, brother Ken, very informative. You broke down your history and hope to have you back.

Speaker 2: 57:07

Right, all right. But you know what? Remember everybody. Go to blackfactscom all right, because, as the shirt says, black Facts Matter. This is our thing. Every day, you get the Black History video of the day. It's your recommended daily requirement of Black History.

Speaker 1: 57:26

Indeed. We appreciate you. Thanks to everybody. We're on in a few minutes with YZ, or Y is Asia from the 5% Nation, and we are out of here, peace.