 Boom, what's up everyone? Welcome to Simulation. I'm your host Don Saki, and we are on site at the Ross Science Film Festival, the fifth annual one, where we are spreading amazing scientific ideas through film and media. We are really excited to be talking to the producers, correct, of Behind the Groove? All creators of Behind the Groove, awesome. We have Sydney, we have Jesse, we have Sheldon joining us. Thank you so much for coming on to the show, and Sheldon, appreciate it a lot. Thanks guys, thank you. Behind the Groove is very exciting. I'll ask you guys to share, but for me, when you guys were sharing the idea, I was thinking about all of the unsung heroes, period, just all of the people that are not highlighted, that need to be highlighted, the ones that worked with the people that are, worked with the stars. The song is a hit song. Basically, Behind the Groove is the unsung heroes behind your favorite hit songs. They had to have had a hit song to be on our program, basically. In any capacity, they had to work on the song, whether they were a singer, whether they were a writer, whether they were a composer, whether they were a musician, whether they were just in the room while it was being made, engineering, whatever it is, a coach, they just were a part of the song. This is specifically music. This is interesting because one of the first things that came into my mind was about the tech companies. Within the tech companies, you see Musk in the media, but you never see the next level at SpaceX and Tesla, who's actually contributing to building out all of what they're doing. But you're highlighting, and there's the same thing with film as well. I'm just saying with film as well, you see the cast, but you never see, for example, here at Ross Science Film Festival, we're not highlighting the technical directors and the audio engineers and etc. Yeah. So tell us about how you found these. Well, first of all, tell us about how you found the idea of Behind the Groove to be super important, because no one's doing this quite yet, and it's exciting. Well, thank you. Oh, okay. Well, one of the concepts was we were just wanted to bridge the gap between the baby boomers and the millennials. We wanted to teach people about where the real music came from and who were the real artists behind the music, and that's basically Behind the Groove. And Jesse right here is, man, we've all been working together for what, a year, a little over a year now for this project, but they had it as Behind the Groove, and then they brought me on. And I had a thing called Concert at the Fruit Gallery, so we combined it together, and it really made sense, and it's really what we want to do. And we want to educate the people. We want to let people know how to do different things in the music industry. That's why we have business associates. We have people who do music and, you know, all aspects. We want to cover that. And we want to teach people about music, the real music about everything that comes. And one thing about Behind the Groove is, okay, I work with Sheldon, and I'm Sheldon's business manager, and so trying to do some things a little bit different, you know, with his career. And so Sheldon has, you know, always wanted to do some things with television, and so him and I, we do a lot of brainstorming. And so there was a segment that we were going to do on another project that I had that I wanted to bring Sheldon on board, you know, with that. And it was, you know, Behind the Groove, and you know, talking about individuals that are, you know, behind hit songs. And so, you know, for me, I used to read album covers and did that for years. And I would go in downtown Detroit, just going to record shop and just read album covers. So then as I got older, I started paying attention to these different music shows. And so they were all about creating stars. But I'm thinking, well, what about the other people? What about those that contributed toward making that song what it is? And then as I began, you know, work with Sheldon, I said, we need to, we need to focus on them, and we need to, you know, give them their just do. And, you know, I looked at that on the funk brothers. And I saw all the great work that they were doing and were unrecognized. And I saw the pain in one of the guitar players that had played the lick on, I think it was my girl. And he was sitting in a restaurant and he's playing this, he's hearing this lick playing, he said, that's me, that's me. And then all of a sudden he kind of pulled back because he was, oh, yeah, that's me, but I'm kind of hurt. And so, you know, looking at that, you know, looking at the documentary said, you know, we need to, you know, recognize these individuals, they've done great work, great contributions to music. So people need to know who they are. And so behind the groove is going to do that for them. It's going to educate the younger generation on real music and let them know it's work. You need skills. You know, it's more than creating music, just pushing a couple buttons, but there's a team of people that's involved that makes that song what it is. And that's what behind the groove is all about. Oh, I basically did all what they both have said, but I see it as this is a wonderful opportunity for us to bring homage and honor to people who are often forgotten. That's the main reason we're doing this. It seems to me that there's actually two very fascinating parts to this. There's both honoring the people that are so often forgotten. I love the story of going and reading album covers because then you actually go and see all of the people involved. Yeah, yeah, involved in it. In one song. Even know one song. Just one song. And then and then so it's part of the unsung heroes. And the other part is then it there's an educational component to this of there's actually a dozen roles for people to train into. So it's not just about this wanting to become the star. But there's like 12 other roles that come with the star that need to be and at these tech companies there's a thousand roles that need to be filled. Yes. So this is what's very interesting. So tell us about the like the educational piece as well. Right now we're working on a educational piece for three colleges. We're going to write the curricular based on behind the groove. And what we feel would help educate the youth on what the new music should be and how they can carry it across and bring it across to others. Tell us about what that curriculum is in a little more depth. Well like what it should be like you said. Real music playing real instruments teaching them how to play the real instruments notes learning how to read sheet music which is real like a real musician. They know how to read music. Most kids nowadays they know how to play by ear. They don't know how to read the sheet music. They'd be like yeah I can play that. But OK. Can you read the music. Tell me what that note is. I bet you they can't most of them can't. Nowadays they don't even have that curricular in school anymore. That's out. So we want to bring that back and have a way for schools to generate funds for the kids to be in those classes. So that's one of the things that we're doing also but mainly just giving the education about how how to do it as a business how to do it as a professional as as a singer how to do it in every realm where you'd be taught the you taught the ways of all the all the practices that are done business wise how you can get paid you know all that pretty much that's the number one thing that everybody wants to do after they make the hit songs get paid but yeah that's pretty much we want to do help people our main thing is helping youth and to be able to encourage the younger generation to pick up the instrument and because creativity comes through the through the instrument itself and so to understand that first of all you need to learn how to play an instrument then as you begin to learn how to play the instrument then you begin to become creative and so we want to encourage youth to pick up an instrument learn how to play the instrument and then develop a deeper understanding through learning how to play the instrument then you then now all of a sudden you have a deeper respect for music then you know that there's effort put forth to develop that skill it might take you 10 15 years but you will be very good at it you have a deeper understanding because now you have to create it it's from your imagination it's not from pushing a button this is coming straight from you it's coming straight from your heart so to encourage the generation to okay pick up an instrument and like for example like somebody like Sheldon they were asking him about a earth wind fire tune called gratitude so the guy asked Sheldon said yeah where did they sample that from and Sheldon said that's not sample they actually playing that and so that says something that it takes skill to do that it's not automatic I mean you have to train the fingers like train the mind it comes from the heart spirit soul now all of a sudden you can touch people that that music it it gets to the emotions of people so you want to go you want to get that deep with it so that way now all of a sudden your music is is touching people one of the things that I would repeat is the importance of learning how to read music there's a lot there's a lot of natural talent in terms of playing and picking up on stuff that you hear and that's a great thing to have but you may walk into a studio one day and the producer says I've got a chart I want you to read this is how I want the music to go and he may not be open for any of your embellishment so you got to know how to read it and then that's a very important piece okay this is so cool to me as well because we're kind of we're at this tipping point at an inflection of we have about 7.7 billion people we have exponential technology and entering into every single industry artificial intelligence is now in music as well and yeah so this is this is probably more important than ever for us to be picking up and working with the as like a synthesis between an artificial intelligence and our own creativity and that requires being able to read sheet music that requires being able to pick up an instrument this also speaks really heavily to me about the create don't just consume mantra so when you show people that there's dozens of opportunities within like hits on songs and albums etc that then they then they realize that oh I can also fill one of those roles so I like I like that this this aspect to it a lot because you gotta think about this the wave of the future is the youth and if they're not out there creating music what are they doing where's the new music consuming you yeah yeah but if it's a i right that that doesn't have soul or heart oh that's interesting yeah so you're not gonna get that real vibe that you're supposed to be feeling because that feeling is where it's at the emotion what if you can't tell the difference you can tell the difference for what okay on a on a performance you're right you're right because in pocket do you know what that is teach us about in pocket in pocket okay in pocket well it's a synergy built up between all the artists performing together and they're gonna hit that pocket where that sound is perfect in pocket is there's a thing we used to do with EWF where we may start a song off at a certain tempo and if the audience doesn't respond the way we would stay where we're accustomed to it Maurice might turn around and say pick it up or slow it down but you can't lose the feeling of the music either way you go and we used to always wonder that and he'd say put it on the back beat which meant don't rush it but put it right on the edge of being behind a little bit and all those kind of terminologies you got to know them and you got to you got to recognize them on the spot because otherwise he'll turn around look at you and go mm-hmm one thing that I do is I study I study pretty music and from the vocals to the instrumentation and I'll say what makes that song pretty what makes me play that song like 10 times in a row what makes me go back and listen to that song over and over and over there's something about that that that touches the heart that touched the emotion okay that comes from you that comes from the creator of that music gets that deep and when you see people like for example okay Sheldon performs with a earthwind fire group called kalimba okay I share with people if you close your eyes you couldn't tell the difference I mean they're that good and by Sheldon performing with them that same energy is there the people they they feel it they hear the original songs they feel the energy and they're just as lively as if they've actually gone to earthwind fire concert because the music does it that music is so great my cousin went to the concert in New York she couldn't stop dancing they were just coming hits after hits and people were getting more excited more excited more excited because those are great memories those songs are timeless people go back in their life and remember great times and so there's a lot of power in music a lot of power in music that was yeah there's a there's a feeling that overtakes the the heart when you're it's just it's that spirit being communicated from the artist to the audience and your your in the pocket was really interesting that the different like you know you get you bring it you got to read the audience and dynamically adjust was instantaneously that was very interesting and that's for like a live audience but for it's it's also interesting to think about for a for someone that's just listening via their headphones at home or on the go wherever they're going not um at a live performance there may be a spirit that comes from the compute comes from the computer as well but is this is very strange that we're at this time but um we're we're right there and it's i want to ask you guys a quick question okay you've done nine episodes is that right of what behind the groove no actually we're we've done what three three two two you've done two episodes featuring nine artists yes okay got it got it two episodes with nine artists and then um and then how are you identifying the artists um and then how do you identify the people that we actually have a list of artists that are going to perform with us and that's in our package that have agreed already to do the shows with us because these artists are the same unsung heroes they there's so many people that we are in contact with that work with sheldon's work with jessie's work with i've worked with and the people in our team have worked together and so people come to us and say hey i want to be a part of that once they hear what we're doing everybody wants to jump on board and say hey look i like that because not too many people like the new music i'm just being real they don't like well there's got to be a more meaning in the music right yeah because trap music and you only got you're only saying like three words i'll give you an example panda panda panda panda that's one word that was a hit song i don't know how how did that happen we we've changed this you know how we we've dumbed down ourselves to listen to i don't know i don't know i i don't think that's gonna last forever totally i don't think panda panda is not gonna last so you want to also identify the heroes that are making meaningful music that are not being recognized and identified so you want to highlight those even even the new artists if they're uh actually doing something like bruno mars i think he's probably got the right mode going is bruno mars i can only use him as justin timberlake he's another artist not even justin beaver but justin timberlake you know um he's a good shon mendus he's new he's he's really doing something you know i like him kaleel i don't know if you know glee i mean glee and normanie they got a good track um because i do uh radio dj too also so um hearing the new hit songs is it's pretty up to date but most people bruno mars i'm gonna go with him where can we find behind the groove right now behind the groove los vegas dot com okay behind the groove los vegas dot com that link is in the bio um i want to ask you guys one quick question on the way out which is which is what do you think's the most beautiful thing in the world one word or two words oh in the world where so you can take a sentence i need one word one word two words love but we need to unpack a little bit more then give us the next why why give us the why i think um like having a a loving and humble spirit to pour into into the lives of others and taking what like taking your your experiences and sharing those experiences with others so this way it makes the road easier for them and so i know you know for myself um i'm always looking to give back to people always looking to help people and i'm satisfied with just being able to do something to make a difference in their life to make that road a little bit easier so they can get to the point of success a lot quicker check me out love is the convergence between the waves of sound and the waves of light coming together and making us create songs peace peace and we'll you know we'll we'll we'll wrap on that i really want to you know thank you guys for putting this forward putting behind the groove forward also to also the idea is so important for other people to potentially take and start doing it in film showing behind the groove in tech showing behind the groove in all these other yeah it's this is really good i'm happy you're pushing the yeah you're doing the right thing thank you three so much for coming on the show thanks everyone for tuning in we greatly appreciate check out the link in the bio below give us your thoughts in the comments as well and keep supporting awesome artists and entrepreneurs that you believe in much love and we'll see you soon peace peace thank you that's it guys thank you