 set until I start talking. And we're live. Welcome friends. We'll get started in just a moment. I'm going to utilize the chat box. Here is the link for today's program. And this link contains library news, as well as links to our presenter, Clover Hope, and links to how much we love to make book lists. So there's lots of book lists on here as well. And oh, I see I didn't put the main book list. Let's see if I can find those really quick. And we'll get started in just a moment. All right. Let's go ahead and jump in and I'll do some announcement. Welcome friends. We'll get started here in just a second. All right. And so I'll continue to put links in the box as we talk today. And as things come up, we'll add those to the chat box as well. So first off, I want to thank everyone for being here. And I want to definitely thank Clover Hope for coming to us. The joy of the virtual library living and COVID living is we get to have people from all over, not just the world, but all over America. And thank you, Clover, for joining us today from New York. Yay. And we do want to acknowledge that the San Francisco Public Library acknowledges that we occupy the unceded ancestral homeland of the Rami Tuashaloni peoples, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. We recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. And as uninvited guests, we pay as uninvited guests, we affirm their sovereign rights as first peoples and wish to pay our respects to the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Rami Tuash community. And I'm going to throw in the chat box right now a chat link to a great reading list, resource list that contains information and websites about Indigenous culture, particularly here in the Bay Area. A great website to check out is called Segorte Land Trust, and this is an all women led leader organization based in the East Bay. And they are focused on land back land rights issues. And they have an amazing thing called the Shumi tax, which you can pay your tax and as a donation to their organization. So check that out. And this is our second summer stride program. Yay, we are well into summer. So you know, we love to highlight all of the things happening in summer and that you can do your summer reading, summer learning, summer exploring, 20 hours get you our free, iconic summer stride tote bag, you know, it's a new one every year for San Francisco Public Library. So get your tracker, do your time, get your tote bag. Tomorrow in person. And yes, I know we are in an uptick in the COVID situation again, so mask up, but come on down. The correct auditorium is gorgeous. It's big. We can space out, you know, spread out. But we have the amazing Bryant Terry, and he is bringing together black farmers, black agricultureists, actually, a vintner who is based on the 280. I know anyone who's traveled the 280 freeway knows this spot. And who knew that there's a vintner there off the freeway on the 280. So they're going to talk about their agriculture journey. And food justice in the Bay Area. So three farmers will join us three farm organizations doing work here, mainly in San Francisco, but also in the East Bay. And Bryant Terry will be leading the moderating the conversation. They'll also be books for sale. And this is in our beautiful correct auditorium, but also streamed should you not want to make it out. And I'll put the links in for all of that. And some other upcoming events that we have, I'm just going to breeze through these. We have an amazing Balinese chef coming from Bali to promote his cookbook. And I hear he's bringing a food cart. So there might be samples. Don't want to miss that. June 18th, 4 p.m. in the Latinx community room. Poetry. West Oakland to West Africa. Sisters across the ocean coming up Sunday. This Sunday, 11 virtual. And author, Chris men, Japara, Black Ghosts of the Empire. And these are all these last few two events. And Bryant Terry are all in anticipation of Juneteenth. And if that wasn't enough, June is Black Music Appreciation Month, which is why I called Clover Hope and you know, put out the call to have her come in. And we have two reading lists, which I'll put in the chat box in a moment that are all some great books about Black Music. If you haven't read Little Devil in America, I suggest that book as well. And with that, I'm going to go ahead and introduce Clover Hope today. Clover Hope has written the book, The Motherload, which highlights over 100 women who have shaped the power, scope, and reach of rap music, including pioneers like Roxanne Chante, game changers like Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott, and the current reigning queens like Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, and Lizzo, as well as everyone who came before and after and in between. And that is no joke. This book is it's packed. It really is packed. Clover is a Brooklyn based writer and editor. She's written a range of publications over 16 year career. She's written for Vibe, Essence, XXL, L, Billboard, Wired, The New York Times, Vogue, and many more. She's currently contributing editor at Pitchfork and an adjunct professor at New York University. And this book is available in print, as well as an ebook format at all library locations. And you can also purchase it from Abram Books, which is the publisher. And I'm going to I'm going to put us both on the screen at the same time. Spotlight. Spotlight. Hi, Clover. Thank you so much for being here today. And like, yeah, as I was saying, the book is really, really packed. It's a very comprehensive deep dive into so many amazing women. Similar to Little Devil in America. It took me a long time to get through it because he also goes into like the earworm dive of like also looking up all the songs and then off into the branches of all of the songs as well. I created my own Spotify motherload song list. What's nice about the book is the way you I really like the way you laid it out. So you have the never forget and who they are and what to listen to. So you can, even if you just read that section of Clover's book, you would be like so educated. I also in preparation checked out Beat Street, which I hadn't seen in probably 20 plus years. And honestly, it still holds up. I swear it does. It does. It really does. It was I made my 17 year old watch it too. And he's like, I don't know, but he definitely not for the team. Yeah, right. Yeah, he got through it. He got through it. So really is a thick, thick, well researched deep dive into such amazing women. I have a couple of questions that we can start with, which is one, how was your experience publishing during COVID? Great question. It was difficult, especially as like a first time author, you know, you kind of want to get that in person experience of, you know, interacting and engaging with the readers and having the talks, you know, like sitting down and actually chatting in person. And so that was what I was expecting, you know, like when I started out actually working on the book, you know, in the future, you know, like, you know, in the future, I saw, okay, I'll have to do this little tour. Part I also, on the other hand, and like, kind of, I think, you know, I've also been teaching classes via zoom. And there are some pluses and some minuses, like, you know, in terms of, like just being able to kind of have more of like comfort, not like commuting. And, you know, like that part of it, the actual logistics is like, okay, this is like economical, I guess. But yeah, I did miss out on, you know, like just doing the, just even like visiting libraries that grew up loving libraries, like I went to the St. Albans branch in Queens, where I grew up and I was there literally every weekend, just like getting new books and like just kind of, you know, like a regular and just the idea and the presence of libraries I love. So just missing out on that in bookstores, you know, it was the quote, but luckily, I was able to, you know, I do a ton of like talks like this and also do more than, you know, I maybe would have been able to do like if it was in person. So it's almost like a bigger reach, which is nice. For sure. For sure. The Queens Library is very well known in the library world plan. They do some revolutionary work. Yeah, they've been really known for some of the groundbreaking work that they do there, especially with like digital literacy and really bridging that gap in the digital divide. So big shout out to the Queens Public Library for sure. And thank you for being a library kid. That's probably why you agreed to do this. Thank you. Yeah, I miss my little library card. Yeah. Well, we can get you set up with one from from San Francisco to open that up. I think that's a good kind of segue into my next question, which is, you know, about the history, the historian side of your work. And, you know, you really did become a historian developing this book in an archivist. And where did you tell us about your methodology and the research? And who, what archive has the best hip hop collection? And then you also mentioned a lot in the book. A lot of this history had to come from oral histories. And so was that how did you find out about those and where did you find those? Yeah, it's funny, like kind of embracing the historian aspect of it, because, you know, like I am sort of like a natural researcher. I started out as a fact checker when I was working at Vibe. That was like my first, you know, actual like paid job. And I love just like looking up things and like just naturally curious that plays into just being a writer and journalist. And so that curiosity is like, it's not just that I look at the research as like a tedious thing. It is tedious, but I also really do enjoy like finding facts and uncovering things that people either haven't seen or heard about before, or just kind of like something that's kind of under underlooked or ignored. And so that's what the whole idea behind the book was that a lot of these women are under unsung, or like lesser known. Obviously, you have the Queen Latifahs and Little Thames and so on Peppa Eve, like those names that a lot of people know about. And then you have, you know, like your Lady of Rage who was signed to Death Row Records, or like, you know, like some of the artists who maybe only had once on the 90s, like a soleil, but they contributed to kind of like this larger conversation about women in hip hop. So the idea initially was that I started out with kind of like 40 or so that I was going to try to do entries on 40 women. And then initially, I wasn't planning to kind of like speak to so many people. And then the more I kind of like just deep dived and found and tracked down women and not only the women to like people who worked with them, so stylists, photographers, directors, I just kind of kept it kept building and got more ambitious. And I was like, I just basically need to do oral histories of these women. And a lot of your stories, like you said, are not something you can Google online. The stories of like MC Shahrock, who was, you know, widely considered like the first female MC. You know, there's a lot about her story that wouldn't like uncover with a cursory like search. And so I had to, you know, like find her and she was someone I didn't interview until like the end of the process, I like kept reaching out to her and emailing and initially it was like, like I didn't hear back and she has her own book. And so that was also part of my process. There was a few, there were a few tears. One was I knew I needed like existing material, obviously. So I purchased a bunch of books that some of the women had already written. MC Shahrock had written a book about being like the first lady of Ked Pop. Antoinette was another rapper who had written like a memoir. And she was in this famous like rivalry with MC White. There was a Mercedes Ladies, which was one of the first like female, pretty much the first like female like girl group in rap. And Sherry Sher, who's like the leader of the group had published a novel that was pretty much like a, you know, fiction, but like they're like real life. And so I, you know, got all of these books. And basically like read through them Queen Latifah's book. So Peppa from Song Peppa had a book even like Timbaland because I would need to get some facts about Missy. So I like got Timbaland's book was a producer who like worked with her. Angie Martinez, who's a radio host who did, you know, like had a brief career as a hip hop artist. I basically purchased all of these books, you know, and use that as, you know, supplementary material. Also, there's a really great book that Vibe had published is more so like a heavy glossy or like just like a thick magazine where they profiled a few women in hip hop. And it's R&B, it's a hip hop divas, like Vibe's hip hop divas. And so I bought that, you know, like just looked it up on Amazon. The other thing was that I bought a ton of like magazines, old magazines, like the Lexal magazine and source basically music and hip hop magazines that had women on the covers from eBay. Some of them, one of them I had to get from like Australia, like an Australian like seller. So, you know, all of these I should actually put them in like a pile or something like, you know, like take a picture. So that was part of the process. And then the actual interviews that was, you know, the longest, just, I don't know, people like to hear about the logistics, but I made a spreadsheet. I love organizing and spreadsheets. I was like, all right, here, all people I need to contact. And then I would just check off people and, you know, have to track down some people via Instagram and like, you know, in the DMs, like, white pages, more like, you know, some of the sites where you can kind of like look up the numbers. So I, you know, I pretty much did a really, that was like an ongoing process. Because a lot of times I would also get contact info from people I already spoke to who would be like, Oh, like, here's a number for so and so, or you should speak to so and so. And then it just kept building. And, you know, so the research process was basically like in phases. And it was, it was fun. It's like, very tedious. And a lot of, you know, just kind of hoping, you know, like people respond. And, you know, a lot of, you know, some people also turned me down for interviews, who I would have loved to speak to. And, you know, just from like some of the early pioneers or people who worked with them. So it was, yeah, it was, it was a, it was very much like a tiered process that started with me just wanting to find the new and, you know, mix in like, all right, here's the familiar with like, here's the like some things you can discover, basically. Yeah, that's much deeper than I had thought. Yeah. So you're actually doing like, your own source research research on this. Yeah, a lot of the, did you like record your oral, you recorded everything? Yeah, a lot of the one, one kind of like, just, I guess, weird thing that I had in mind was like, I want to be able to have information in this book that you could like populate someone's Wikipedia page with, because it's like, all of that stuff has to come from a primary source. And like, speaking to the women and the people who work with them, like, those are the primary sources. So, yeah, it was, you know, keeping track of all these recordings, I guess, to have all the audios. I did transcribe all of them myself, which like, later on, I was like, people were like, oh, didn't have your research assistant. But it was, I just also liked listening back to the stories, because that did help me with writing the entries, like, hearing them speak over and over and like actually really like getting it in my head, basically. Yeah, I bet that was powerful, just to hear them. Yeah. I wonder, do you have like plans for those recordings? Like, could they go into an archive? Have you thought about that? I haven't thought about it. I haven't thought about a thing. I mean, I'm working on a couple of things, which are like an audit, an audio book, and also a docu series that hopefully will go into development. Maybe there's some use, but that sounds cool. That'd be cool if there was an audio book with the women speaking at the same time. Oh, I'd love that. Yeah, so there's, I have audio from like way back, interviews from like years ago, from when I had that little mini tape that we had to record on. So what, is there a library out there that is collecting hip hop archives? So Cornell has a library that has a source of like old posters. Like, there's a digitized version of some of the like old hip hop posters, like party flyers that, you know, people would, you know, just put up around the neighborhoods when hip hop was just kind of building an identity in the Bronx in the 70s. And so they have a really extensive catalog. And so I looked a lot of those up to even just get information about like years and dates. And oh, so this, this party happened on this date. Like it's such a, it really is like a really good preservation of like, you know, that time, because, you know, people weren't taking photographs, you know, they weren't video. There wasn't like video evidence of a lot of this stuff happening, like the parties and the emceeing and like break dancing. And so the flyers are like a big part of that. So Cornell has a great archive. And then I know there's going to be like a hip hop museum opening up in the Bronx in a few years. And they will have like a pretty extensive library of just archives and, you know, just physical artifacts and things like that. And I am very much like looking forward to that because that'll be, you know, like a first of its kind, basically. Yeah, that's excellent. I know in the book, you mentioned how the flyers were really pivotal in your research as far as like tracking down even who was like performing at these, like there's no proof of who was even there. And so those, those flyers is like just such volatile ephemera are like so vital to your research. And for the women, it was basically like proof of their existence. A lot of the women who were, who came early on who, you know, people might not know their names, like a Pebbly Poo who I spoke to. And she was just, you know, like she was a teenager, you know, like getting into rapping and before it was even called rapping emceeing and break dancing. And so when I spoke to them, a lot of them were like, well, check the flyers because you'll see that like I did this and that was their proof of like just, you know, being visible basically. And I thought that was interesting because, you know, a lot of those, you know, like the pre kind of internet times, obviously, you're, you know, the recognition of your career or like, you know, they didn't even have careers. It was just like the recognition of like the activity that you were doing that ended up being this huge phenomenon is not so much on record like it is today or even in the 90s or 80s. So, you know, those, those types of artifacts are like really important to just like proving to just like make helping these women feel seen, basically, which I thought was interesting. Yeah. And then you mentioned something to like, you know, even Pebbly Poo being 14 years old when she started, so many of the women in your book were that age when they first got, I mean, their children, children, yeah, just, you know, and then it's no wonder that the longevity of their career couldn't be sustained as far as like, even making money or being paid rights and royalties and just being a child, getting into it. And before the, you know, like rap was like an industry, which would be like 79 with like rappers the white and, you know, when it was actually on physical recorded, like on recording. So there's so many kind of like, probably tapes and eight tracks and like things like that, that have like some audio recordings on it that I'm sure, you know, like people, you know, like, you know, like trade or like Salon eBay and stuff like that. But yeah, like it's, this is a time where, you know, they're the voice that they wanted their voices to be heard in some way. And a lot of these were like, you know, young black and brown kids in the Bronx, like in the communities who were like, what needed is like creative outlet. And a lot of them were young girls who, you know, had circumstances, you know, like a sharey share of Mercedes ladies, talked about just having to work, work a job, like for, you know, like to kind of like help her mom out. And, you know, in between them, they were also kind of like trying to escape a bit. And that's what a lot of what she talked about and hip hop was that for them, it was like this outlet to kind of like funnel energy. And it's really amazing to kind of see how it's become now. But yeah, a lot of the girls just want to be recognized for that, basically, the young women. Yeah. Tell me about your, your family support for like wanting to be a writer, like so I, we might have some teens on here because I kind of tried to program this during a time when teens would be able to join in summer. But, you know, a lot of parents aren't being like, yeah, go be a writer, okay, go be, you know, follow that dream of being a journalist, you know, or a writer. What was your family support like for that? We were always like, when I think about it, we were always just kind of like doing art things or like in the arts. I was in like an acting program for a bit, like in dance classes. And like my love of music, like come from my dad just playing records around the house and he had like a really big collection of vinyls that I would like flip through. And so like when I, and then I was always kind of like writing in my room and reading, a thing that they encourage a lot was with the reading. Like we're, you know, an immigrant family. I was, I was born in Guyana and came here when I was like pretty young, like one year old. But, you know, my family, my parents are, are like grew up there. And they really just encourage us to kind of like read. We had this, you know, we had a library in our home, just like, you know, shelves of books that I would basically like flip through. And then I would get my own, like, you know, like the teen, like the YA books, you know, that I didn't want them to know I was reading. And, you know, I had my own little stash, but, you know, they have like encyclopedias that we would just kind of flip through like encyclopedia Britannica. And I would just basically kind of grab some of those sometimes and read through them. And so that led into me like just writing poetry. And then I think they definitely like, you know, my, my, both of them I think are like good writers that I didn't really know until later in life. When I was like, when I would like read something back that they wrote or something, and be like, oh, I think you are, you know, like maybe this is where I got it from or whatever. So it was definitely, I think the arts and just some, you know, knowledge was encouraged, I think. So I think that was the thing that kind of pushed me into journalism itself, just trying to know things. Definitely. I don't know. I'm probably know it all. And I just like knowing like random facts and, you know, excellent. And now I'm not sure if it was one of the women or you that said that your dad even was playing records when you weren't even in the house. The music was still going on. Was that you or your story? I'm not sure. But it's probably, yeah, like a lot of the women, you know, like who kind of like come up and decide to do to get into hip hop. Like they've had it kind of like, they've had music or soul music or like, you know, it's a lot of Motown and played around the house. And obviously, hip hop, a black music that comes out of like disco and soul and all that. So it was just always in the car, like in the in the house, like we had a giant record player. And then I started getting my own CD player accept tape. So it was like, it just naturally bled into me starting to discover my own music eventually, like when I was probably 13, 12, 13. Yeah, definitely reminiscent of many of the women in the book. And that also reminds me that, you know, the book isn't while there's a many women featured either predominantly East Coast or predominantly West Coast, you cover the span of America as far as this book is concerned. And how did you decide to lay that the book? I mean, it's it's sort of in chronological order, but you do jump around a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, that was a long process in terms of like how we would like whether it be themed by eras or so it's pretty much just laid out chronologically. And I am from New York. So I didn't want to have this kind of like East Coast bias. And, you know, that was also part of like in researching I had to I discovered like groups and women who I had not really known about growing up like conscious daughters from Oakland, like I didn't know, you know, that that they're worth. I didn't know that there were so many women. Yeah. And, you know, like, I didn't really know about like Mercedes ladies and you know, like some of the other some of the, you know, kind of like regional acts in from Miami or like Houston. So I, you know, that was part of it just making sure that it was like broad enough like geographically. And then yeah, as far as format like I didn't want it to like I love been psychopedias. I wanted it to I didn't want it to read like you were reading a psychopedia, but that it felt like you were getting a lot of information. So yeah, like you mentioned, there's the for each person, there's the the little nuggets of just like, you know, blurbs. And I come from the world of magazines and print. And I think that just, you know, naturally, like having like a visual kind of eye or like, you know, I love just reading like an explosion of information on a page that you can kind of come back to, you know, like now and then. So I wanted to have like factoids and the graphics and be able to like flip through the book, whether you were doing like a deep dive or just like showing it to someone, you know, where you're like, Oh, hey, like, here's some information about like, you know, the sequence. And here's a song, you know, like the biggest song they had and like why, you know, short bio and all that. So that was important to me because, you know, if you're if I want the women to be a thing where like women are like remembered or like, you know, thought of, it's, it's, you know, it's, I wanted to appeal to the casual hip hop fan or casual music fan and like the kind of like hip hop head who maybe like been in the dirt since like the 80s or whatever. And so, you know, like it's so I wanted it to kind of like be able to kind of be have that appeal. So that the format, it took a while to kind of just get to get just gets like the placement right and things like that. But I really like how it turned out and we always wanted to do illustrations also. You know, that was like Abrams, the publisher is just very much known for like really eye popping visual, like very like well designed books. And so that was like going into it, like I knew it would just look good. And that also made me, you know, like feel good as someone who, you know, like values aesthetics, like print aesthetics. So the illustrator, Rochelle Baker is amazing. So we work together. And she just really, really like brought it to life. So I really like appreciate her. She really did. I'm putting in Rochelle's info there right now. Yes, you said some some things that triggered was the way you did set up the book. So anyone could just open this book and find a nugget for sure. But you can also just definitely deep dive into it. I also like the pages that are like a bust out of a certain kind of genre or the factoid pages. So anyone could pick up this book and find great info and entertaining info. It's not not not necessarily all deep dive like research. It's all it's fun as well. I love these pages. And your journalist side definitely comes through. And that that makes me want to ask like, as far as like working with Abram and you know, we like to ask the the writing questions and the how to the publishing side to around the library world. But so how closely did you work with like, I want it to be designed like this? I want to work with Rochelle. I wanted to look like this. So how much power did you have in that kind of aspect of getting the book done? It was great, actually. And as a first time author, I was, you know, really glad that they gave me the freedom to have to basically decide, you know, like every step of the way like what how it was going to look. And so they, you know, like asked me to like, you know, who are some illustrators are thinking about. And I found Rochelle. And she is like Detroit based and like working comic book store. I really loved her work. And so I, you know, like, you know, put her forth. And that was like, I, you know, like definitely wanted a black woman to be to like illustrate it. So that was one thing it was like very much like, you know, like free reign, as far as, as far as that, and then visually the design art director, like we worked closely together, like, you know, they have their team who was like amazing. And so, you know, like bring templates and like so they, you know, like they're designing it. Like so totally giving them credit for, you know, like the, like the visual presentation. And so we collaborated and, you know, I wanted texture and I wanted it to kind of pop, but also feel a little sophisticated. And so, you know, I, you know, like the cover, everything from like the two would be on the cover, as far as like illustrated to like which illustrations, which women would be illustrated because not all of them are, you know, like I pretty much made that decision. And so it was very much like super collaboration, but they gave me like a really good like free reign to make the final decisions basically. So I'm happy about that. I know, like, I'm not sure like maybe some people don't get to really have as much say over the cover, but everything from like, like the cover image, everything from like the font, I was like, you know, I'm very specific about fonts. So more particular about fonts. So, you know, I wanted it to, you know, just kind of feel like me basically. Excellent. And I see a question just came into the Q&A and I'll put that out to the other folks in the audience. We're happy to take any questions. And I'll see what this question is. Even with the powerful women, there's still a male presence. Do you see this ever changing in the industry? And I, you know, I did see that for sure in the book, you know, massively powerful women, but also, you know, it's also either seen through the male gaze or, you know, the industry is controlled by men. And then do you ever see anything like that changing in our, in our tight lifetime? How about your lifetime? There was like undercurrent of that. Yeah. It was well chemistry as far as Biggie being the one who chose her famous like squat pose. Yeah. Or saw in Peppa who had a male producer writing a lot of their like pro women anthems. You know, like it's one of those things where it's the infrastructure, like the music industry is set up in this way where men just have a lot of the final say or like they're the gatekeepers. I think maybe more and more like women, especially like women of color are getting into, you know, like higher positions where they can be, you know, like have more of, you know, like more of a say in like the top order things, which is, you know, I think in most industries, whether it's entertainment, Hollywood, a lot of times the issue is not like at the middle level inside the top. And it's hard to kind of get people in place at the top who can then like, you know, make decisions that benefit, you know, like, you know, people who have traditionally like had less power. So like, you know, it's, I don't know if I see it changing that like completely, but do see just more like embracing or like, I guess like, you know, people would kind of need to be taught to do the thing that is like, not just good for like, because like you should just have, we should just have workplaces that are, that have different types of people in them because that's how the world is, you know, that that should just be the natural thing. Like, I think there is a shift more toward that, but I don't, it's hard to say like how like feasible it is because the music industry is still like the most volatile as far as like, you know, contracts and like things like that. Like it's there's no union, like there is a Hollywood so or like no collective union. So, you know, it's still pretty rough. Yeah, for sure. And again, anyone can feel free to ask a question. Some of the things that I, you know, I loved Salt and Pepper and the feminism side of them. And, you know, you do mention that maybe that is there was a male side to that as well. Another one that I really enjoyed hearing about was Mia X and her embracing of like a different body type. And I think, you know, hopefully, I mean, I have a teenager which I mentioned to you earlier, and I see those things changing for those for our youth like that, and they know what's wrong, and they know what's right now, and it's vocal. And so I do hope to see some change like that. And in media, it's so hard. I mean, you still flip through all of the Amazon or whatever's in the Hulu, and it's still just white dominated media. And you're just like, I mean, I don't want to see it anymore. I'm white. And I don't want to see that. I want to see some, I want to see something different, you know? Yeah. So, I think I have hope that things will change. But yes, it's a top, it's a top down world still. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're seeing like, it's kind of like little moving the needle kind of like bit by bit. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, I mean, the Me Too movement, those things, I mean, our kids know now that, you know, there is like a certain base level that they have, that we didn't have, even from like, you know, mental health conversation. And there's a base level understanding and like, I think, access and resources that they have that that like previous generations didn't have that really helps them kind of be more open minded and be more kind of, you know, just like authentically kind of this way. So yeah, I do, I do appreciate that. And teaching also lets me see that because, you know, I'm teaching like teenagers at NYU. And like, it's really interesting to kind of see their perspective. Yes. Yes, this is a great question too. And I'm going to get to that. I was just telling Clover before we started in preparation, I watched Beat Street and made my kid watch it as well. Definitely had some like he was like, what, what? Okay. But it was so awesome seeing the opening with us girls opening it. I loved the outfit was the both all three of the outfits, but the green and yellow sweater. Oh my God, I love that so much. So 80s, so wonderful. So if you haven't seen Beat Street, it's still out there, you can find it, we can check it out on DVD at the library. So there's a question. Is what are you reading fiction nonfiction? What's what's on your night stand? I'm gonna grab a really good book that I highly recommend. And this is from a former white wall friend and former like boss of wine, Danielle Smith, and it's shine bright. And it's basically a history, a personal history of black women in pop. It's like, amazingly good. Just, you know, as you realize, like, you know, the, the numb, the number of stories or women who you know their names, but maybe not necessarily a lot of their back story, or maybe you understand like generally why they were important. But, you know, talking about a Gladys night and getting really into like the specifics of like why she was important to the pop world and like to like black music as that's kind of what this book does. And I like if you, you know, like my book or like you I highly recommend reading that one. Another one similar to that is like the liner notes. Can't find my book shelf is right in front of me. I can't but like liner notes from a revolution I might be getting the title wrong a little bit. And that's another one, the intellectual life of black feminist sound. Yes. And that's another one that just in this lineage basically that would that I'm reading and highly recommend. There we go. Yep. Thank you. I love that. And so I'm just going to put it in the chat box one more time here. And I did make two lists one is for geared towards adults. And one is geared towards children. And thank you, Katie and Diego. Yeah, yeah. All right. Let's see. I think that I am about ready to wrap up. I don't have any more questions. How about our crowd? Do you have any more questions? I want to thank Clover for being here today and for sharing all of your knowledge. And I know that you are going to well, yeah, how about what's your next project? What are you working on now? And I just I see that you I mean, I think you have this knowledge and now you have the history and the archive you're building your own archive. Honestly, it sounds like that I know that we will hear more from you or you will be doing something in the history realm of hip hop. And I think that's really amazing. Thank you. I'm honored to even hear that. Yeah, like the docu series that I'm working on with Lisa Cortez films, you know, working on shopping that and getting it developed audio book for the book. So you know, there's some extension past the release date, which was last February now. And getting a little bit more into like unscripted work, as far as like TV. So you'll see something popping up in the next year or so that I'm working on in the TV realm. And hopefully I can kind of like continue down that lane. I do love, you know, just telling histories, basically telling stories and finding like different perspectives and timelines that people haven't really gone down. And so if I am just like continue to do that, I think that some, you know, like that would be like, you know, satisfying or like kind of honoring the historian title, basically. Yes. Okay. And I'm going to put in the chat box here really quickly, you can get the book from, of course, the library here. Or you can also purchase the book from Abrams or your favorite local independent bookstore. And Clover, as I mentioned, when you find yourself in the Bay Area, please let us know. We would love to host you for an in-person event. And we would, it would be so fun. Thank you so much. It's been amazing. Thank you so much. Thank everyone for coming. Absolutely. And this will be available on YouTube. So you can watch it there and share with your friends. And Clover, thank you so much for all your amazing knowledge and this really deep book. It's a very deep dive. And like I said, it's entertaining as well. It's not like huge research, but it is at the same time. So great job on your work. Thank you, everybody.