S2E10 Is Cardi B an Industry Plant? with A Zell Williams

Jennifer Field: [00:00:05] Hey, everyone. Welcome. This is season two episode ten of the Unofficial Official Story. I'm Jennifer and I am happy that my old friend is our guest today, Zell Williams.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:00:17] Hey, guys. I'm Dwayne Perkins and I'm an industry plant.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:00:21] And I'm Koji and I really wish I wasn't an industry plant. I don't know why no one asked me. Well, I know why we'll get into that.

Jennifer Field: [00:00:27] So this is a podcast where we're going to tell you the official story. We look at paranormal conspiracies, unexplained phenomena, cryptids true crime. And by the end of the episode, we're going to tell you what really maybe happened. So in this episode, we're asking the question, is rapper Cardi B an industry plant? But first, we're going to introduce our very special guest, Zell Williams. Zell is an award-winning playwright and TV producer whose work has been developed and performed at the Public Theater in New York, Interact Theater in Philadelphia and the Royal Court in London. And as a TV writer, he's worked on such shows as the Fox drama. Next, NBC's Law and Order Special Victims Unit, BET's American Soul and Freeform's Good Trouble. He's currently a writer for season two of AMC's critically acclaimed interview with a Vampire series. His play, Diversity, will have its world premiere on Broadway from the producers of Haiti's Hound and the Piano Lesson with Samuel L Jackson. So Zell is also a podcaster. He is the co-host of the Inner Cities podcast with author and attorney Toshi Onyebuchi for Highway Citizen Productions.

Zell Williams: [00:01:41] Great to be here. Honestly, I'm a I'm a fan of you guys a show. I'm a huge fan of Jennifer Field, who we went to school together. And yeah, I also, oddly enough, I have actually written a play about industry plants. As I was doing the research for this, I was like, Oh shit, that was the theme of that thing.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:01:58] What was it called and what was it about?

Zell Williams: [00:02:00] So the play is called the Urban Retreat, and it is about a unpublished, middle aged, divorced public school teacher in Chicago who thinks he's about to have a chance to write his hit book. But actually he's been hired to help ghostwrite the memoir of a hip hop megastar name. Trench de Trench also used to be one of his students. And it's this huge conversation about black masculinity, black art, and what is what counts as selling out or not. The thing about conspiracy theory is that involve black communities is that we've had so many actual conspiracies against us that things sometimes things sound crazy, but actually they are rooted in truth. And like if you listen to you, by the way, I'm not the first person to do this. You go back and you watch August Wilson's piano lesson, like, put that on Netflix with Viola Davis and friggen Chadwick. You watch it. That's a play about an industry. That's a movie about industry in the 1920s, like trying to sell his music to to these white men to get in it. And so anyway, as I went down this rabbit hole, I was just like, My God, I thought I was afraid I was going to have anything to say. But I I'm really touched by this topic.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:03:05] Did you always want to be a playwright, a writer, or is that something that came up more recently?

Zell Williams: [00:03:09] Absolutely not. And this is the honest to God truth. I grew up in Fresno, California, in the Central Valley, and I, until I was nine years old, wanted to be a Ghostbuster. That was my high aspiration. I thought, you just have to move to New York because there is literally no place in America less like New York than Fresno, California. No disrespect to my hometown, but finally somebody was like, Oh, that's not real. You're not watching a documentary about busting, making them feel good. I basically I did I felt people I was like, What? What are these people do? And it's like, well, one of the one of these people is a comedian. One of these people is a writer. One of these people is a director. And so for a long time and trust me, I have let these aspirations go. Don't hate on me. I thought I wanted to be a comedian and I was too scared to do like comedy. And then I felt like, well, I guess I want to be an actor. And then I started acting and I was like, Well, I really don't. I'm not finding any plays that tell the kind of stories I want to tell. So I thought I'd be a director. And then I was like, Well, that's still directing other people's stuff. And I finally just started right before I met Jen in college. I started writing plays in Stockton when I was going to a community college up there, and I went across the street to a Barnes and Noble, and there was this brand new play that had been published and they don't publish plays. I don't know if you guys know this plays are not profitable at all, so they don't publish them that often unless you win a Pulitzer. And I go across the street and there's this brand new play that on the cover had the cast was mos def and Don Cheadle and I was like, What the fuck is this? Like Black Star of Mos Def? And I read it and it's Top Dog Underdog and it's by Suzan-Lori Parks, and it just really solidified like, Oh shit, you can write about black people today. It doesn't just have to be like, No and no disrespect, it doesn't just have to be August Wilson writing about like my parents and my grandparents. It doesn't just have to be like, you know, Lorraine Hansberry doing Raisin in the Sun. There is there are stories to be told about what I am going.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:05:03] What's crazy is that. You actually could have been a Ghostbuster, though, Like now it's a real thing Again, 

Zell Williams: [00:05:08] I Grew up and then I realized, Oh my God, the Ghostbusters are really conservative. They aren't listening to the DEA. They don't give a fuck about you. They only care about their small business. Like the Ghostbusters had some problems.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:05:18] Right. 

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:05:19] You're also a TV writer and producer. What's the biggest misconception they have about what you do?

Zell Williams: [00:05:24] Oh, misconception that it's fun no. You know, it's funny. So I am a playwright originally, and back when I was a baby playwright, I was it was the start of like the golden age of television. And it was the tail end of people being like, Oh, you write for TV, you're a sellout. And like. And then it was just people, Let's see who Jason Grote wrote for Mad Men and frickin I can't think of I can't. Rajiv Joseph was writing for like, Nurse Jackie, all of these playwrights who have, like, careers and Pulitzers just for like, yeah, no, we like to have health care and eventually pay off these student loans we paid to get good at this shit and maybe a child and that. So the biggest misconception I guess I was sort of used to be is that like if you were a playwright writing in TV that you had sold out, which again, that's just us all. Like, I feel like every playwright is kind of like an industry plant in that way because we have this story of like, you know, oh, we came from the streets in New York or doing storefront theater in Chicago, and nobody came out. And then I got discovered by, I don't know, Ron Howard, let's say, and now I work in TV. Yeah. So that's that would be the biggest misconception. Also, I would say the other misconception is so like I said, I, I've known Jen since we were in college together. I don't know. I don't I won't give away how old we are. But it was a minute, it was a while ago. And I think that the other big misconception about like we're so next year when the play goes up, one of the things I'm already freaking out about is people being like this TV writer coming to write plays and it's like, No, no, no, that's not what it is. I was lentils and rice. I can't tell you how often that was dinner because that was what I could afford. And I think the misconception there is that the path of how you get to where you are when people start to notice you is how they define you, I would say. And to that point, I you know, I'm straight with you. I did not respect Cardi B as much as I now currently do. Before researching for this podcast, she didn't get where she is the quote unquote conventional way. But you know what? Mad respect for for where she is and how she did it and what it takes. Because you know what she did? She she sacrificed her body in some situations. She sacrificed her her her goals and like, changed all that.

Jennifer Field: [00:07:43] Yeah, let's get into this. So we're going to get this story straight about industry plants once and for all here on the unofficial official story.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:07:50] Let's do it.

Jennifer Field: [00:07:50] Imagine a rapper writing lyrics in their basement for years. He makes his own songs in his garage. He gains he or she gains a small but intense following. And after a lot of hard work and maybe a little bit of good luck, the right music executive hears their song and then bam, they have a song playing on every radio station and every Spotify playlist. Great story, right? This is like the music's version of the Hollywood dream. But what if it was all fake? This rapper is not writing lyrics in their basement or their garage for years coming from the ground up. What if? What if their success was preordained? In other words, what if they were industry plants?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:08:30] I mean, do people really, really think that they'd come out of nowhere and they they somehow make it and blow up?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:08:35] Yes, people do. The short answer is yes, It's because people are not in an industry like Derrick Lu, the actor. Right. Or is it Luke? I always forget his last name, but like his back story, they say Denzel discovered him in like a drugstore or some some store on a lot. And it's like, if you don't know, you don't know, right? You know what I mean? And that's the hardest thing, is once you have any access to the industry, you don't want to shatter regular people's civilians sort of dreams and how they perceive things, you know, like,

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:09:06] Yeah,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:09:06] You don't want to tell people like, oh, Storage wars, they know what's in there already. You know what I mean?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:09:12] No, wait, wait. Dwayne, take that back. Take that back, Dwayne. They don't know what you're getting next. You don't tell me the Kardashians are. That's a scripted show.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:09:22] Right Right, right. And wrestling is fake.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:09:24] What?

Jennifer Field: [00:09:27] There you go.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:09:28] But what is an industry plan? We're referencing it. We need to, I guess, define it. According to an article we found on Complex, the link is in the show notes. They explain the industry plant in this way. An artist who is being groomed and developed away from the public eye by a label only to be placed in a spotlight inorganically with a hit song or a moment. Here's another definition we found on the YouTube video titled The Real Truth About Industry Plants also link in the show notes an artist who presents themselves as independent or self-made, but actually has the resources of some larger power, i.e. a label backing them. The Real Truth video broke down two of the most common criteria for identifying an industry plan, and they are someone with the backing of a label, someone who had preexisting connections or money through their family. The key part to know is that an artist's artist fame success is not authentic and discredits any talent or hard work and insinuates that the artist in question is fake and merely a product of a highly successful marketing machine.

Zell Williams: [00:10:29] Okay. Because we got to talk about those two things.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:10:32] Yeah.

Zell Williams: [00:10:32] Ya'll. I mean, I again, I'm a fan of the show. I've heard you guys talk. I know you got a history in comedy. You've done things in the industry.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:10:39] Yes. Yes.

Zell Williams: [00:10:40] And I remember when I told my mom for the first time that I got an agent, she just thought like, Oh, oh, shit, it's a rap. It's done.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:10:48] Right. Right.

Zell Williams: [00:10:50] And I think I think, like you say, a lot of people who aren't in the industry kind of think, Oh, well, they're signed by a label, so obviously they're a millionaire now. And no, that's that's not how that goes. That is not even the first step. That's like step maybe step 200 on 1000 steps.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:11:06] And also it's it's it's one of these things where it's like when I was reading the definition, right, someone groomed away from the public eye. That's like literally every athlete. Like every athlete.

Zell Williams: [00:11:17] Yes.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:11:17] You don't know who they are. They play high school, they play junior high school, whatever the case. I mean, now because of the Internet, we have more access to these guys. But we didn't know who LeBron was until it was time for us to know who he was.

Zell Williams: [00:11:29] I'm always jealous of them, though. Athletes with athletes, it's like, Yo, if you happen to be six foot ten and can dunk this like there's no disproving that. Like there's no. And I think I think the thing people confuse not liking an artist they think, oh, I don't like this artist, but they're popular. Thus they must be an industry plant. It's not like Taylor Swift can, like, qualitatively prove she's better than anybody. Right?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:11:54] Right.

Zell Williams: [00:11:55] It's an art. It's a it's an art form. Now, if there was like, if Taylor Swift could fucking dunk, then maybe we could have a conversation.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:12:02] Crazy thing is, even in sports, though, it's different because, yeah, we can quantify some things, but also a lot of it is largely depending on your situation. Like Tony Parker is going to be a Hall of Famer, but he's a Hall of Famer because he went to the right team who knew how to use him like LeBron was going to be a Hall of Famer any where he went. Tony Parker could have been a guy that we that was in the league just three years. And he's one of my favorite players. You know.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:12:25] My son, he's an elite baseball player. He's this little Asian kid and he hits home runs. He hits like over 200 feet Home runs as like a little kid. And it's amazing to me that when people look at him, they automatically discount him, even they see what he does. And it's because he's this Asian kid. He doesn't look like a baseball player. He doesn't look like the kind of player that he is. And so I always tell him, these guys like, no one's going to know. Everyone's going to discount you every step of the way.

Zell Williams: [00:12:52] I think you're absolutely I think race plays something into this, which is real fascinating, but also because of like the incline of a career, you know, because you can't you even if you never see a kid in high school, you see them like and you see them in the Sweet 16 or something like, you know, we've all been there's all this we I've been I've been talking and excited to see Zion Williamson basically be who he's being this year for like three years now and he was injured I know but like with with artists, I think because when that thing does happen, when like you are at the right club on the right night and somebody happens to be not wanting to be at home and and they and they saw you do a thing and it's and they happen to be working on a project. It's like, oh yeah, you could totally be like number three in Bad Boys Eternal.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:13:39] You know, who can determine if someone is an industry plant, not someone behind their computer in Des Moines or whoever they are. It's actually people in the industry, like if you're a comedian, right? And like, I've never heard of you, especially if you live in LA or I've seen you and you're okay, and then boom, you're everywhere. I can make that call. But yeah, but regular people can't make that call. You know, I can say, Ooh, that was a little weird.

Zell Williams: [00:14:03] Comedians and rappers are the fucking hardest. When it comes to this, because you guys. You guys have all and I get it because you work and you struggle and you scrimp to get there and then you see this person like, fucking leapfrog into space. But yeah, you're right. You're right. The industry will know.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:14:20] Let me say also this, you know, and then we'll move on is that I teach so I teach screenwriting at a bunch of different places. And one of the things I always tell my students is this The success of your project has almost nothing to do with you. Like, you just never know which you could write like a book. That's the most amazing book since, you know, I don't know, like 1984, but it comes out on September 11th, 2001, and no one's going to read that book. Right? All of a sudden, like no one cares. Or you write a shitty book about vampires that could go outside and all of a sudden everyone in the world is reading the stupid book. And you're a terrible writer, by the way, Stephanie Myers. But like, like. And it becomes popular. I mean, like, God bless her, she became super successful.

Zell Williams: [00:15:01] That's important because like, the important part of this is the industry part of it. Like, not even not even the planet part because like, look it to your point. Like if you have written like nothing but like Citizen Kane and it's never been made. And then one time you got drunk on like fucking gin and you were just like, I'm killing it this weekend. And you came out with a script that's like vampires versus John Wick and shit. Like, you can't you can't choose what a studio is looking for. They might pass over those three citizen Kane's. And now you're the guy who wrote Vampires versus John Wick. That's on your gravestone.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:15:32] And it's important to know that usually all these people, you know, anyone we explore is an industry plant has some modicum of talent, right? Like, and it's a little bit more subjective, but it's like, nflx, maybe you're not the best quarterback, Maybe you're the backup quarterback is better than you, but you're still an NFL quarterback. You know what I mean?

Zell Williams: [00:15:49] Exactly.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:15:50] Yeah.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:15:50] People are at home trying to figure out fairness. And I heard someone say this, quote recently, and it's like life isn't fair. Like fair is where you go to see a pig with a ribbon on it. You know what I mean?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:16:04] Where did the term industry plan come from? Once again, according to the same complex article we mentioned previously, it seems to have emerged through message board culture at the start of the 2010.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:16:14] Industry Plants real. Like most things found on the internet today, It depends on who you ask, but it is generally considered a conspiracy theory.

Jennifer Field: [00:16:22] And why don't people like industry plants? So we found this great quote from a website called Study Breaks dot com and we're going to put a link in the show notes and it explains why people dislike industry plants so much. So there's like this desire for authenticity from musical acts that's been around for decades. Music listeners doubting the legitimacy of certain singers or bands found expression in the label Poser, which we all know and is from the punk movement of the seventies and rap and hip hop artists from the nineties. So although past eras of music emphasize organically grown talent, Generation Z has demanded this quality more than ever before. Younger people are known for their insistence on more honesty from brands and general outspokenness. So these traits translate into their views on the entertainment they consume, which is then expressed on social media platforms.

Zell Williams: [00:17:18] Is that true, though? Because like, let me just say like Gen Z, y'all are walking around with recording equipment that like Steven Spielberg was the only one that had it when he. Was a child.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:17:29] Right

Zell Williams: [00:17:31] Not only that, but it's like you can put your shit out there right now, like you don't need to. Like, hopefully your dad is like some exec somewhere. Like you can throw that shit on Tik tok Right now I feel. I feel like the second they see it. It's already part of the industry because it's on Tik-tok.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:17:44] And also I think people have to understand it's like inertia. Inertia is a thing. And so how much inertia do you generate before it just sort of takes on its own life? And I think the industry plant issue, it all depends on where they come into the process. You know, like do they take you from your mother when you come out of the womb and start training you to dance and sing? You know what I mean?

Zell Williams: [00:18:07] Shove you into the Disney workshop. Your light skinned enough just to be perfect. No one knows where you come from.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:18:12] And that's and that's fine. If there's some Doctor Morrow thing, you still have the talent, right?

Zell Williams: [00:18:16] That's why they're shutting down Splash Mountain is they need more space to hold all of these non specific ethnic children that they're going to release on the world. Now that's just getting too much.

Jennifer Field: [00:18:27] Oh, my God.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:18:28] It's like they go visit their real mom. Why don't you give me up? I didn't know how to tap dance anyway, so if you get enough inertia going, then, yeah, the machine will get behind you. The machine? There is a machine. It does get behind some people. It's just a matter of why it gets behind those people. But it's like wherever there's money, there's going to be some fuckery afoot and you just have to accept it.

Zell Williams: [00:18:51] All of these websites, they leave out something real important that you're pointing out, which is like you only become an industry plant once you are like uber successful,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:19:00] Right

Zell Williams: [00:19:00] If like people gave a fuck about quality, I always think like jazz would be the biggest music industry alive because there's absolutely no if you watch a jazz concert, every single note is coming out of that person doing that thing right now. But like, there's no, like pyrotechnics. There's no like dancers with, like, sharks and suits and everything. The thing the thing that this always gets thrown around with is when you get, like, successful because, like, there are people we we are people we know, people who like literally been in the industry grinding every day. They may not be rich, but they show ain't broke and they're making it happen. They suddenly have like an indie movie that gets picked up or something. It's like, Oh fuck. Well, you know, they were always in on the, on the, on The, on the game. They knew what it was. They were working. They were trying to lay down these tracks, playing games broke and then they Can leap out of it. It's like it's weird.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:19:47] Other than being inauthentic, what are some of the more nefarious implications of industry plants? The YouTube video The Real Truth About Industry Plants brings up some of the real issues of industry plants, and we're assuming they are true. The exploitation of young artists by large corporate labels, prioritization of profit over people and sexism and bigotry that reflects in who becomes successful.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:20:07] You know, when as you get older, you kind of realize how much people tolerated you when you were younger and you kind of retroactively. You retroactively feel bad about it and you're like, man, I wish. Thank you for putting up with me.

Zell Williams: [00:20:20] I was a real asshole. I always think I was like, my mother could have strangled me to death. Like at least 15 times. And I've been like, You know what? She earned it.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:20:30] Its also what you don't know, even as a comic, you know, like, we have this sort of we're kind of journalists in a sense, right? We we try to decipher patterns and tell people about the patterns we see and point out things. But even there's still some things you don't see till you get older. Just follow the patterns. But some people are too young to even know the patterns. You know, the patterns of like just how things go. Like musically, I hear a song, then I hear another song that sounds just like that song. But the second song gets way more pub than the first song Did. They come out about three or four weeks apart and you're like, Man, someone decided that second song was going to be the song, or you have people with certain names, and the names repeat like Nas and then Lil Nas X or Allyah, and there's an artist after Allyah with a super similar name. There's two singers called Robin S, and they both have a song called Show Me Love. This is a real Thing.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:21:22] Whatever happened 4Pac,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:21:23] Right, Right. There's a black robin s and she goes, If you're looking for a devotion, you got to Show me love.

Zell Williams: [00:21:32] Show me love.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:21:32] Me there's a white robin s about five years later. Show me love, Show me love.

Zell Williams: [00:21:38] I was thinking that one. And I feel ashamed of myself.

Jennifer Field: [00:21:42] Confused. I didn't know that there was two.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:21:45] Well, the second robin s goes by something else now, but that's just the marketing of it. And you can't be mad at marketing. These people are just it's all products and they're just trying to get sell their products, you know?

Zell Williams: [00:21:57] And we were talking about musicians. That's the other thing with like musicians is that like music is maybe the most intimate art form that does not involve mask and like part key parties or something Like it's, it's really you put it on, you put it like in your ears, right? You literally put it in your ears and it goes directly into your brain. And I think there's something about that that makes people really want to believe the person saying this has been through heartbreak or like has slang rock, you know, whatever they say. Like it's I think I think for people that kind of quality of like believing that this person is a source of it makes you feel like, oh, it's better that I listen, I'm I'm a better person because I. I listened to this music. I listened to this. Robin Not that, Robin, because whatever. And it's like, you know, in some instances it's like, well, yeah, that's, that's, that was Nirvana and it cost Kurt Cobain a lot. And then it's like in other instances, it's just like it's just you just trying to have a good time.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:22:59] Oh, exactly. And teenage angst is not anything new. Everything's been studied, dissected, and then as much as they can, they apply practices to the art form to benefit and make and make money, you know, like like the Beatles greatest boy band ever. I remember watching the Beatles, like, not live, of course, but there's videos of them getting off a plane when they first arrived in America. Right. And all these screaming fans, this is pre-Internet and I'm going to curse. I'm sorry, but how the fuck do all these people know the Beatles are landing on that plane at that time to show up with those signs? It's all staged. Doesn't mean they're not talented, right?

Zell Williams: [00:23:36] Yes.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:23:37] It's staged. And so the real thing of the industry is who are the people who have their own thoughts? And if you can make those people, your fans, they will bring more fans and then they'll then then they won't be your fan anymore because they'll be mad. But it's all about getting those first fans who are like impervious to the marketing.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:23:57] I mean, the nefarious ness is this like if they don't believe that, you can like, you know that you look like the kind of person that does it like. So, for example, like, like they think African-American men are dangerous or violent or strong. So that's why you do like that's why gangsta rap was, you know, but like the moment, like an Asian guy does it, you're like, well, I don't think that he could you know, I don't think he could do that. And it plays on those kinds of stereotypes.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:24:19] Oh, yeah.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:24:20] And I think that's where, like, it goes wrong. It's like, yeah, like a white pretty girl could do that. But like a black African American woman that comes off as different. And you can't do that. You have to be this. And I think that's where it kind of gets like a little I mean, it gets a little bit wonky.

Zell Williams: [00:24:36] When industry plans go wrong? 

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:24:37] Yeah, when industry plants go wrong.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:24:38] You think about it like this, you think about like television in like the thirties, forties or whatever, where the commercials are sort of this. They're hidden inside the program. And when we look at it, we're like, That's ridiculous. That's clearly a commercial. But people back then probably didn't quite they weren't as savvy as we are.

Zell Williams: [00:24:55] So they didn't know Fred Flinstone wasn't a fan of Winston cigarettes. He didn't find them smooth. Like he had no idea.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:25:03] So if you think about it all as it's all a commercial, then it's like everyone's an industry plant in a sense. And these are commercials. Like when Jay-Z said, Give you bling, like the next. He says, No, he said Motorola to Motorola to way page me He was paid to say that line you know like two way pagers were this little blip. They were already obsolete before they came out. You know what I mean? Like there was a cell phone.

Zell Williams: [00:25:27] Exactly. Yeah, the cell phone was on the way.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:25:29] We had a cell phone. It could text. or it was about to be able to text and then it just said, Let's just drop in this little two way pager thingamajig and make a little fortune off of it. It's only going to be a thing for like a year, but everyone's going to be talking about it.

Zell Williams: [00:25:42] Once your favorite artist makes it, they will absolutely figure out a way to put the Kia Sportage into a rhyme. If the if Kia is willing to cut a check. But like Koji, I mean, you bring up a really good point though, because if you think about it, industry plants. So when it comes to race, industry plans have been a thing basically as long as there have been entertainment industries. Because you think about like I was watching Stormy Weather because again, I'm a million years old, I was watching Stormy Weather. It's got this great Cab Calloway leading the band in there and you just look at it and it's like, that motherfucker has a conked hair and he's just singing all these white people ski doo doo doo doo. And then the Nicklaus brothers, who are fucking amazing, do this huge tap dance around like a tap dance that would like fucking kill online right now. And even they have like, but like, you're looking at it and you're going, this is Cab. Cab Calloway was one of the few people who could do that because he looked good and because he was willing to put the hair back. And I think you have a lot of people actually, you know, it's a part of it's a part of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Again, I don't know why I'm hyping all of the August Wilson. But

Jennifer Field: [00:26:45] We love him.

Zell Williams: [00:26:46] It's a part of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, where people are talking about like Bessie Smith's cutting albums and Viola, and she was like, I don't care about Bessie. I was here before Bessie. And it's like, Wow, Even back then, they're talking about like people who are willing to do the marketable thing to break into the industry and other artists calling them plants. I mean, really, it has been used not only not only to like solidify what is quote unquote real or legitimate or authentic in a culture, but also to push out what isn't. And like it has a double edged sword because like, yes, absolutely. Point out the fact that we shouldn't have to conk our hair. We shouldn't have to, like, change ourselves to fit into this world. But then also you get to the point where it's like the nineties. This is another reason why I don't think Gen Z's as committed to realness as we were is because like we needed a rapper to get shot. We needed him to get shot multiple times to believe anything.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:27:38] Right.

Zell Williams: [00:27:40] Well, I understand it with these kids because they go through shooter drills. Gen-z Seen enough. I take it back. Gez-Z, you're doing you're doing fantastic. 

Jennifer Field: [00:27:50] They're trying. They're trying to be. 

Zell Williams: [00:27:51] Don't be like us.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:27:52] Here's a list of people who have been accused of being an industry plan. Lizzo Post, Malone, Billie Eilish. She was big t shirts, I think.

Zell Williams: [00:28:02] Is that all you know? She that big t shirt girl? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know her.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:28:06] There's a song called Billie Eilish. Some other guy has a song called Billie Eilish.

Jennifer Field: [00:28:10] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Zell Williams: [00:28:12] Black t shirt, Billie Eilish. And that's actually how she kind of came into my recollection, because I had to look up.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:28:18] Right.

Zell Williams: [00:28:18] What's the fuck is he saying?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:28:20] It's a cheat. People type in Billie Eilish and they hear your song. It's brilliant.

Jennifer Field: [00:28:23] Yeah.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:28:24] Anyway,

Jennifer Field: [00:28:24] Right

Dwayne Perkins: [00:28:25] Yeah, Khaled. I don't know which Khaled, is that DJ Khaled who never loses or the other. Okay, there's a new see see the two names. So Chance the rapper Lil Nas, X, Wiz Khalifa, 50 Cents. Wow. Kanye West. Travis Scott, Elaine. I don't know who Elaine is. All I know is Seinfeld. I don't know. Drake, Olivia, Rodrigo, Adele, Dua LIPA, who I really like, Dua LIPA and Cardi B.

Jennifer Field: [00:28:50] It was Azealia Banks who called out Cardi B, so she said she was an industry plant lmao, but SIS took advantage of the opportunity and rode that bitch the fuck out, assembled the right team, seize the moment and made herself a cultural mainstay. You have to respect it. So that's a backhanded compliment if I've ever heard one. But Azalea is always really outspoken.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:29:14] One thing that many people have known or many have noticed about the whole industry plant thing is that most of the artists called out as industry plants are women and people of color.

Jennifer Field: [00:29:21] So what's going on here? Are industry plants a real thing? Is Cardi B and Industry plant? Well, when we return, we're going to put our minds together and figure out what really maybe happened. Now that we've discussed the facts, let's give our theories.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:29:39] Okay. Well, I think you have to go on a case by case basis. But I will say our industry plants a thing. Yes, but you shouldn't lose sleep over it because it's always been a thing. And it doesn't mean they're not talented. It's just it's just another way to sort of like discredit or explain away things. Life isn't fair, you know, And that's just it. Now, is Cardi B an industry plant? I would say I would say yes, because we're saying people of color are being accused of being industry plants. The real question is, why would they be industry plants? Right. And I think this is what people talk about in the barbershops and online and in the YouTube comments. And that is like, are you willing to sort of go along with the narrative that they have laid out before you? You know, like when you hear a little girl singing Cardi B songs its fine if adults sing it, but if little girls are singing it, it goes it taps into that, that theory of like they're trying to attack us at that base level just to get us off off our grind. So I would say as an entertainer, I've been treated fairly, but I will say like me, not drinking and me not like I'm not too much of a I'm a capitalist, but not in a you know, like I'm not going to if I get a sitcom, I won't buy a new car tomorrow, you know. And I just think something about that way that I have, it makes me not a clear choice, because the clear choice is whoever is going to push a narrative and or sell more widgets, whatever they're trying to sell. So I think if Cardi B was willing to like drug dudes to get money while she was stripping something, I think she said she's done, then you know, she's going to play along and do anything you need her to do and she has a talent, so we're going to put the money behind her.

Zell Williams: [00:31:22] So she was coding her way. She was telling the industry she was ready to be a plant by all the things that she had done before.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:31:27] You could sell out and still not win if you don't have the right talent. And that's the worst. You just you just sold out for no reason. But I think for her, yeah, she she basically was saying, Listen, choose me, I'm going to play nice. Like we talked about this before. I think like The Rock, who's great? I don't think he does anything bad, but he's in 20 movies a year. You know, if I was him, I'd be like, Hey, guys, I'm only doing five movies, you know? That's why they won't pick me, because they know I'm only going to do five movies.

Zell Williams: [00:31:55] Exactly. That's the only reason you and the Rock aren't in the next. That and you can only have one Dwyane. Yeah, like no one's going to. No one's going to believe a movie with two Dwyanes.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:32:09] So this is my my theory. Okay, So first of all, let me mention I don't I'm never listening to Cardi B. I've never heard a single song by her. Hip hop died once. Once Pac died, Hip hip hop died for me. So I didn't I didn't listen to anything. So I have never listened to her. So I can't say anything about her personally. But let me just say this. There is a group of individuals and who have tapped into the algorithm of our world, and they know that they could just move some number ones and zeros and all of a sudden they're going to be successful. So these artists on this list, all of them have either paid with their lives or money or soul sometimes, and given it to these guys who manipulated the code and for whatever reason, their their algorithms really reflect in people's heads. So like to Zell to your point of like when people hear the music, it sticks with them or when they watch movie or whatever or whatever it is, it sticks with them because it's not just because it's good, but it's because it's algorithm has been changed in that kind of matrix. Like we're all part of like a fake world kind of thing, but or a computer simulation.

Jennifer Field: [00:33:08] So like, the coding is not only behind the algorithms of social media and anything viral, but perhaps even like the music itself,

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:33:16] The whole thing,

Jennifer Field: [00:33:16] Like it's made to get you hooked and fall for them.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:33:20] Because it's an it's just part of the algorithm of Our lives. The artists that aren't successful, the artists that don't make it, whether hip hop or whatever, it's because they weren't willing to give up the thing that they that they were being asked to give up in order to become the success. That's why not everyone is successful.

Jennifer Field: [00:33:37] So my theory is that there there are no industry plants in terms of what I think an industry plant is, because when I think of that term, I think of something like malicious and deep state and nefarious, you know, like it's totally much in it for the money and that the person has been planted like a like a puppet, right? So that's how I take the term. And so therefore I don't think I don't believe that that's what's going on. But I do believe that, yes, people get opportunities and it can be from money, it can be from connections, a label can develop an artist. And in that case, there's nothing wrong with that. So I wouldn't call that an industry plant, though. I would just call that like it's just part of business or it's just sometimes how how the business works, how an artist can succeed. So my theory is just that there's no industry plants and that Cardi B I mean, first of all, it wasn't she on like some reality show before she was a rapper.

Zell Williams: [00:34:41] She was on love and hip hop. Although for me that was like, it is weird that you're that you are a star before you're a rapper.

Jennifer Field: [00:34:48] Yeah.

Zell Williams: [00:34:49] Which I think plays into that for people. Like they're like, Wait a minute.

Jennifer Field: [00:34:53] Yeah.

Zell Williams: [00:34:53] Shouldn't it go the other way? Shouldn't you be, like, working hard to perfect this craft? And then somebody is like, put a camera on you?

Jennifer Field: [00:35:00] I knew that she was already, like, known back then. So this whole thing that she's an industry plant, it just means that she's been maybe she's been nurtured and developed a little bit. So yeah, I just think there's nothing wrong with getting produced and developed and helped along the way. And good for you if you have that.

Zell Williams: [00:35:17] Well, again, thank you for having me. I clearly was this touch a deep place with me. I'm going to say as much as I laid this out and had like the like thought about the history of like industry plants. And I do agree with Jen. I think some people confuse marketing with industry. Netflix has a million shows out every year they pick like two to highlight and I'll just say like I think Mo is the best show Netflix has had in a very long time. I have never seen an advertisement for a MO. I can't stop seeing advertisements for Wednesday. I don't think Wednesday is an industry plant. But like Netflix has decided, more people will watch Wednesday and then some of those people will stick around to watch Mo. And that's kind of how it will balance out. And I think that's kind of so, yes, in that respect, I don't necessarily think there's that's an industry plant. I will say this. I have listened to a lot of Cardi B for the past 48 hours and done some research. And I think she I actually do think she's an industry plant, but not music. I think she's a stripper plant. I think because think about it, I started thinking about this the other day when we were 2000 Happens strippers are like the background in The Sopranos. Chris Rock has jokes about clear heels. Everybody is hating on strippers. Right. And then what happens all of a sudden, you have you have classes where it's like you're working out. And so we get like rich white people going

Dwayne Perkins: [00:36:30] J.Lo is doing movies.

Zell Williams: [00:36:31] And it's like, well, that's not enough people.

Jennifer Field: [00:36:33] Yes, right, Right.

Zell Williams: [00:36:34] J Let's do a movie about strippers. And then all of a sudden they're like, Look at this. Look at this black Latino lady in New York. She's loud, she's proud. She's out there. She's going to get way more people into this. And now look where we are 20 years later. Nobody is like nobody's talking about clear heels the thing. It's like it's part of like sexual identity. So thank you to the strip Clubs of America Giving us Cardi B.

Jennifer Field: [00:36:57] She's an industry plant for stripping for strippers.

Zell Williams: [00:37:01] Oh, and to the to the colletcive Municipal airport neighborhoods where all of the strip clubs are located. I know you had a hand in this. You brought us this amazing artist Who.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:37:13] That's great.

Zell Williams: [00:37:13] Has been through so much. And now she's ruling the music game. So, so big ups on everybody. This is a this is a step for sexual positivity brought to you by the strip club. Thank you.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:37:23] I think that's great. Now, let me ask you, was it for recruitment or just to change the. Our viewpoints about stripping.

Zell Williams: [00:37:30] All of it? All of it now it's like you don't have to. First of all, everybody goes to the strip club now. Nobody feels like any kind of old, you know, 20th century shame about it. So that's great. You got people like young women out there who are like, Look at her. She's proud of her body. She's got work done. She don't care who knows it, you know, And she's out there and she's got a music career now. So you get more people in the seats. You get more people on the stages. It's it's just it all comes together. It's a long game, but I think it's paying off.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:37:59] So if Cardi B was a plant for the stripping industry, was Lizzo a plant for sort of like the larger strippers? Yeah.

Zell Williams: [00:38:09] Now we're getting the big girls out here. Well.

Jennifer Field: [00:38:13] Yeah, absolutely. Huh?

Zell Williams: [00:38:14] And now you don't even have to be. You don't even have to be. By the way, it's not even a shame anymore, if that's what you like. If you. If you like some meat on it. There you go.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:38:20] Right, Right.

Zell Williams: [00:38:21] It's taken steps in by the dude by the end of this decade. I'm telling you, it's going to be like Marvel, where they'll be like a stripper for every body type and size and neighborhood you can ever want.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:38:30] Did you say Marvel?

Zell Williams: [00:38:32] Exactly. It'll be like a marvel movie where it's like, you can't stop. In fact, this is how strip clubs get out of that whole airport bad neighborhood vibe. And if you don't have a strip club next to your elementary school, your neighborhood is going to look lame.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:38:45] Right?

Zell Williams: [00:38:47] People are going to think you're a prude because like, Oh, what, you don't like your kids go to the strip. Club and see what they could do with their future. Oh, my God, it's great.

Jennifer Field: [00:38:55] Oh, my goodness.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:38:56] And I feel like all like a lot of sort of secondary industries are being helped, you know, like negligee, makeup, the glitter. People probably are very grateful because, you know, glitter wasn't moving.

Jennifer Field: [00:39:09] Wasn't moving. 

Zell Williams: [00:39:13] The dollar bill industry because who has dollar bills except for weirdos going to the club. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:39:16] Right

Zell Williams: [00:39:17] Nobody.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:39:17] That's true.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:39:18] I was super worried about the glitter industry until now. Now I feel now I feel like, you know, world is going to be okay, right? The glitter is going to be okay.

Zell Williams: [00:39:27] I have my Christmas like Christmas stuff up. I'm never not going to have glitter. In this part. It's sad.

Jennifer Field: [00:39:35] We gave her theories. Now we're at the point in the show where we need to pick the unofficial official story, one that will for once and all answer this question. So what do you guys think? Which theory do we want to go with?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:39:46] Well, I think there's something to say about Koji's. And so I'm saying like this, some kind of if there's a Venn diagram, Koji circle hits on the truth. I don't know how much, but on some level it does. And we haven't even talked about shadow banning like we've talked about promoting certain people, but they also sort of depromote other people, right?

Jennifer Field: [00:40:04] That's True.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:40:05] But in terms of our theories here that we've presented, I think Zell's is for me, I'm voting for Zell. That's I think that's amazing. And the music is kind of made for strip clubs, too. So it all it all feeds.

Zell Williams: [00:40:16] Exactly. That's what I'm saying. She's giving back. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:40:19] There's song you hear on the radio that don't sound good. And you hear him in a strip club. You're like, Oh, okay, Now, I get it.

Zell Williams: [00:40:24] Honestly, that was my overwhelming like, thought when I was listening to, like, Cardi B back to back to back. I was like, Oh, oh yeah, I feel like I should be ordering another time.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:40:36] I need chicken wings.

Zell Williams: [00:40:39] That I won't eat, but I will have them.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:40:42] Right.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:40:42] I don't know how many times I've watched my on Instagram, my Instagram feed, my friends who are who are amazing women who are doing strip club dance classes and they're putting their videos up.

Jennifer Field: [00:40:53] Right.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:40:53] And I'm just going to say that once I once I heard your theories Zell and I just thought to all those videos of all those people putting up those videos that you couldn't have done ten years ago or 15 years ago or whatever, because that would look then you'd be a stripper, which is a bad thing. But now, like, that's exercise.

Zell Williams: [00:41:08] That's part of someone's life and expression and more power to you. I'm just saying how it is. I'm not making a moral judgment. I'm just saying what it is. I see you big stripper.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:41:16] Do we think it's a coincidence if I if I'm correct here, that she has a song called WAP that stands for wet ass Pussy, but also WAP means white Anglo-Saxon Protestant coincidence? I don't think So.

Zell Williams: [00:41:29] I you know, it's funny. I would love that either. I would love if somebody was like, I want to make sure that whenever somebody Googles WAP They don't see white people anymore. I would love that to be the case.

Jennifer Field: [00:41:44] I like Zell's too, because that's kind of like it sort of fits with her rise and the speculation around it. And yeah, it kind of goes way back that she there was another reason why she got placed here for us to love.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:41:58] Yeah. And then, Zell, what about you? Are you going to vote for yours or.

Zell Williams: [00:42:01] Is that uncouth? Is that not the thing to do on the unofficial.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:42:04] No, no, that's that's couth. That's completely couth. Yeah.

Zell Williams: [00:42:09] I'm one of those bad playwrights who's like, I feel no shame. Yes, I'm going to vote for mine. And I. I want you to know if I ever get nominated for any award, I did vote for myself. That's not even a question.

Jennifer Field: [00:42:27] That is the official story. All right. We're going to take another break. And when we return, we'll find out if we want to be an industry plant in our fields. If at the beginning of our careers, some mysterious executive offered you the opportunity to be an industry plant, would you?

Zell Williams: [00:42:45] Yes. Hands down. Unquestionable. Well, it comes with a caveat. If they don't want me to change like I was in, I was doing this thing for arts institution. And the crazy thing about arts institutions is that we always talk about having no money and then we invite you to a literal opera house to talk about how hard it is to be a black writer. But like This was it was just a Beautiful house, five bedroom house in the Hollywood Hills. And I was just joking with somebody. It's like, Yo, I love what I do. But if you told me I had to run like Law and Order stop and frisk unit to have this house, I would kind of have to think about it because, like, I you know, I think I can't remember who it was. I think it was Dwayne earlier was saying it's like, look, one of the things about what we do, any form of art, is that one of the hardest things to do is to get people to just believe in you and invest in you. And when I think of industry plants oftentimes look, I mean, I there are a lot of popular I don't like a lot of popular. I have a lot of jazz albums. I'm an old, old man. There are a lot of popular musicians. I don't understand really why people are like, the music is good enough and nice enough, but it's not changing my life. If I could stay the person I, you know, it's like, Wait, wait, what did Jay-Z say? Like, honestly was I can't remember. Oh, God, I'm getting so old.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:44:04] Oh he said truthfully, I want to rhyme, like, common sense.

Zell Williams: [00:44:07] No, no, truthfully, I rhyme like Talib Kweli.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:44:09] Talib Kweli. That's right. That's right.

Zell Williams: [00:44:11] Like, if it wasn't about money, he would be Talib Kweli. And I'm kind of like, I. I would like to remain Talib Kweli. Now you're making me regret it. I'm going to say yes. Though, because when I was a young, brash man, I would say like, Oh, I want to win a Pulitzer by the time I'm 30 because I was a young idiot. And and that doesn't mean anything.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:44:28] I don't know if they would let you set the terms, you know what I mean?

Zell Williams: [00:44:32] The point. That's a good Point.

Jennifer Field: [00:44:34] You might have to change.

Zell Williams: [00:44:36] That's. That's okay if I have to. Depends on how far that change is. Like, am I? I'm not going to get myself in any industry trouble, but, like, am I. Am I writing things as a black man in a dress? That's a bridge too far. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:44:49] Hey Zell, I like what you did there, man. That was nice. You threaded that needle. You, Drew Brees, that you threw that 50 yards, threw a tire, and I appreciate it.

Zell Williams: [00:44:58] If someone who did make. A lot of money doing that wanted to produce something I wrote, let's talk about it. Let's get some coffee, baby. If I have to. I guess I don't. I guess, yes, I will say I'm happy I didn't become an industry plant with my broke ass.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:45:18] Well, you know, the thing about this question is that it's almost like the boogeyman coming to your house and saying, Do you want to help me scare other people? Right? And then you're like, Oh, shit, you're real. So my thing is, if they came to me and said, Do you want to be an industry plant? And you think there's some it's a meritocracy on some level. So if they came to me and said, Do you want to be an industry plant? It depends. Because on one hand I would think, Oh, I deserve it. So yeah, it makes sense that you chose me. But on the other hand, I would be like, Oh, this is not fair. And then if I knew to what extent it wasn't fair, maybe I don't even do comedy. Maybe I just go do some other industry. But then that industry is probably not fair either. So it's really, really hard to answer. I think the answer is no, because I don't think I would have agreed to the terms. And then the question is, then when I keep doing it, because the reason we do this is you think you're going to reach some level of success and then you go, okay, maybe the machine won't get behind me, but I can still make a living and I can be fine. And that's kind of where I'm at right now. But if you think a game is rigged, then you shouldn't play the game, right?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:46:21] Yeah.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:46:21] But then again, if you love the game, then maybe you still play it and you just. You're okay. That is rigged.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:46:26] So for me, I think as a young man, I don't think I could have. I would have. Because, you know, what are the what were the opportunities for an Asian American in the 1980s and nineties? It was like 16 Candles, right? That was like that was my opportunity. That kind of like that kind of bullshit,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:46:39] Right.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:46:40] If I was a young man, now there's much more opportunity and there's much more things I could do. I have much you know, it's not I'm not so limited as an Asian American filmmaker, writer Or whatever, as an artist like screenwriter. But back then, like when I was a kid, like, I mean, what, what were the options I had? Mine is yes. With the caveat of like, what kind of opportunities were there really for somebody like me at that time back then? Yeah. Like I tell my like I was telling my kid, like when I was deciding to be a screenwriter back when I was like in my twenties, me, I remember looking at with my mom, I looked up information and I was like, Are there screenwriters like me like that I wanted to be. And we couldn't find anybody, really. And then my mom's like, This is not a viable career, you know? Like, there's nobody like this out there.

Jennifer Field: [00:47:24] Wow.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:47:25] Like what? What, what would an industry plant have given me?

Jennifer Field: [00:47:27] I think you guys know what my answer to this question is. Yeah, of course I would. Yeah, You know me. I will do anything.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:47:36] Well, don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say that, though. I mean, you wouldn't do anything.

Jennifer Field: [00:47:40] Okay? Yeah. Okay. There has to be some kind of some kind of boundaries here, right?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:47:44] Harvey Weinstein just sat up and it's like, really anything, you know.

Jennifer Field: [00:47:48] Pretty much Right.

Zell Williams: [00:47:49] I think you did it out yourself as like the actor in the group. Because I do. We have ideas and we stand by them and blah, blah, blah. And you're like, I pretend like to enjoy candy bars. I will. Yes. Yes.

Jennifer Field: [00:48:07] Like, speaking of Weinstein, it's funny because when all that stuff was going down, I remember thinking like, Shit, put him in a room with me, try me. I was actually like, I would I would feel that out. I'd be curious. I would have I don't know if. I'd be down, but I'd be interested. But I have to like you if I do anything with you. But anyway, my point is, is yes, I would want to be. Please give me opportunities. I want to be an industry plant because of course, an industry plant really just means they're just going to help you and just give you the connections and make you a star. And I'm not coming out of nowhere. I've been dreaming about this since I was a kid and working every day at it.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:48:43] You know, it's crazy. I was at a barbecue in Brooklyn, right? But I have a cousin. He's like a I guess you could say, a second cousin, right? My stepfather's first cousin, but I've known him my whole life. Whatever. Right. And, you know, he's a good dude. You know, he's tough. He's from Brooklyn. He's a light-skinned dude. And here's why that's important, because he's been in jail before and he's yoked, Right? So he's probably tougher than most because it's like something in the black community. Like sometimes light skinned dudes have to be tougher. They have to go extra hard to not get. You know what I mean? So he's a good dude, but you know, he's not to be played with. And he was drunk at this barbecue and he was like, You've been doing comedy a long time, you know? Don't you think you should have blown up by now?

Zell Williams: [00:49:26] Oh, damn.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:49:27] He was drunk. And and like, it was one of those things where I calculated the probability of winning any kind of a fight and it was really close to zero. So I just had to let him talk. And he didn't mean you weren't drunk. Yeah, he didn't mean any harm by it. Even drunk. He would. He would have won. But then he said and I didn't feel like getting he was too drunk for me to explain to him, Hey, you know what? I don't have a sitcom, but I'm doing fine. I pay all my bills. I tour the world whatever the case. And then he was like, he said, a famous comic who I won't say the famous comic, but he said, I used to sell coke to this famous comic or like someone in his entourage, and this guy might be gay. And he said if he wanted to touch your little thing, would you let him Would you let him touch a little thing? I was like, First of all, I'm a grown man. I don't know. We get this little from let's let's get that out your mouth right now. But but secondly, it was just a weird question because I think in that moment I realized he didn't know me as well as he thought he did, because, like, we're both from Brooklyn, it's like you're not the only one from Brooklyn, you know what I mean?

Zell Williams: [00:50:28] Yeah. And you got to have some sympathy because that sounds to me like somebody who who clearly didn't do something they wanted to do and.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:50:37] Right. That's exactly right.

Zell Williams: [00:50:38] And that's where that's coming from. Like they you know, he's questioning how far you'll go to succeed because, you know, maybe he didn't and maybe he didn't have a chance to do the things you did. But like, at the same time, it's like that is fucked up. That is Who.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:50:52] But I give him props for even thinking maybe because he was in the streets a little bit, thinking beyond what the normal people think, like knowing that there's something there may not be that thing, but there's something there other than just your talent. Like he called me not talented enough. But then in a way, he acknowledged that I was talented enough because he was like, you know, you got to do this other thing. That's what all the other people do. I don't I don't know. It's just weird.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:51:16] Dwayne Let me just say, I would have been willing to sleep my way to the top. I mean, if beautiful women were like, Hey, you'll. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:51:22] Beautiful women,

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:51:24] I'll give you $100 million to make the script and all you have to do is have sex. With me, I'd be like, okay, I could.

Zell Williams: [00:51:31] Okay, that's the caveat.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:51:33] I wouldn't even have sex with a woman for it. That's just a stepping stone, because that's just a that's just the test of waters and gets you closer to doing something else.

Zell Williams: [00:51:41] Yeah. And I had a I ended up at this retreat in Ojai because occasionally I like to treat myself like an old white woman.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:51:49] Right.

Zell Williams: [00:51:51] I it was, it was a weird thing because I it was it was sort of a gift from a friend, and I didn't realize it until I was there, but it was kind of sort of a B and B and I was alone, and I happened to be there. And there was a we're you know, we're not telling stories on the street, but there was an actor who had a show is is popular. And they were there with their partner. And we just started talking about theater and they had to spend time in New York. I went to NYU. And so, like they asked, it was January. And so, like the theater, Broadway had just reopened and they asked about like life in the theater and plays. And I was like, oh, well, you know, it's really hard. And, you know, we're going to see how it comes back. But, you know, some things, some things. And basically they got to this point where it's like, well, they they didn't say this, but they were kind of hinting like, well, if you are good, things will ultimately work out for you. And this person had had a show that lasted a lot, a good few seasons, very popular. They were seeing it's funny, your uncle, your cousin, excuse me, sees the world from the side of like people working up, which is like when you are working up, you do acknowledge the fact that again, it's literally one night you could be somewhere and somebody shows up and sees you do your thing. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:52:59] Right,

Zell Williams: [00:53:00] Or like, somebody picks up this thing. And then when you're on the other side of that, you have to tell yourself, Oh, no, no, I am the greatest.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:53:05] Absolutely.

Zell Williams: [00:53:07] So it's nice that your cousin, like, he's acknowledging that truth.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:53:11] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, as a comic, what happens a lot is you get offstage and this is not only my story, this is every comic has the same story. And Zell you're really funny. If you did comedy, you'd have the same story as well. You get offstage at a club, the Chuckle Hut, in you know, Idaho or whatever, you know, and people come up to you and they go, He was so funny. I was here say last week and I saw Fill in the Blank, You're funnier than that guy. And sometimes that's just expectations because they pay twice as much to see that guy. But other times it's it's sort of like, yeah, that guy isn't funnier than all the other comics. He's just the one with the show and he's funny, don't get me wrong. But you know the truth Of it,

Zell Williams: [00:53:53] That that and that unfairness is where I think industry plant becomes like just the easy paste upon labeling.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:54:00] Exactly.

Zell Williams: [00:54:01] Because like when you were talking about it, it's like, well, no, they were like, oh, well, it's somebody who's family is like, No, that's nepotism. That is a real problem. And then they were like, Well, no, it's somebody who's bought their way into the industry and it's like, no, that's that's privilege. That's a that's a whole other problem.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:54:13] Right?

Zell Williams: [00:54:13] But like, yeah, it's to, to your point about that, it's like I think, I think it's useless to focus on the industry plant. I will say if you get the sense that somebody is an industry plant, maybe take it back and just focus that attention on someone you think should be where that person is, buy another copy of that person's album buy another.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:54:33] Exactly.

Zell Williams: [00:54:35] If you if you are just like write or die for Azealia Banks, buy two copies of makes album her her record producer will notice it. And then she will be up.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:54:47] Zell why don't you tell us a little bit about your podcast?

Zell Williams: [00:54:49] I am a co-host of the Inner Cities podcast with my very good friend and author and not my lawyer, but a lawyer, Toshi. And we are two black men who find ourselves in the precarious state of the world and are trying to understand how this bullshit keeps going on. So if you want to hear two writers talk about politics, news, culture, video games is one thing. We often find yourself talking about movies and also like we talk about because, you know, we're we're two people trying it. And so we do talk about what it is to try to have a life in this industry as as to as two progressive men of color. So inner cities look forward wherever you get podcast.

Jennifer Field: [00:55:33] Thank you, Zell, for coming on today. And please tell people where we can follow you. Social media website, anything like that.

Zell Williams: [00:55:41] As long as it exists. I'm on Twitter at ACZEL Will. Azn. Wwe, WWL and on Instagram mostly as well if you want to see pictures of a dog because I am a I am a playwright so I am kind of anti social so I don't share everything. But you can follow us and listen to the show inner cities. And also please for the love of God, watch the 99% on Rotten Tomatoes Interview with the Vampire on AMC and AMC Plus featuring Jacob Anderson as the vampire. Louis Tulloch, who you may know is Grey Worm from Game of Thrones to a retelling of the classic novels by Anne Rice in a way that is exciting and new.

Jennifer Field: [00:56:22] And thank you all so much for listening. There are almost 3 million podcasts out there, so we're so honored you've chosen ours to listen to. Thank you for tuning in today. Check out our website Unofficial Official story dot com. We got our show notes there. You can hear our past episodes, all the links. And be sure to come back next month because we're going to find out the answer to the question, did the Clintons kill Kobe Bryant? I mean, wow, that is so out there.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:56:49] They've killed everybody, you know?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:56:50] Righ do.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:56:51] I mean, here's a question for you guys. I'm I'm in the middle of doing research for that episode. How many people do you think that they've been linked to killing just number wise, what do you guys think?

Zell Williams: [00:57:01] I must say three I'm going to put it at 3 to 6.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:57:03] I say Ten.

Jennifer Field: [00:57:04] There's so there's so mean to them. What a 100?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:57:07] 50 is like 56 is the number. 

Jennifer Field: [00:57:09] That is terrible.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:57:10] People from like Anthony Bourdain, Kobe Bryant, Ruth Ginsburg, even former prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, you. Know,

Jennifer Field: [00:57:18] Oh, my God, What.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:57:21] Then? You know, like and then then all the people from Arkansas, like Vince Foster, obviously, he's like the big one that started this whole thing a long time ago. But anybody who's died in the last, like ten years, it's Clinton, it's the Clintons, either Hillary or Bill. One of those two, like, anyway,

Zell Williams: [00:57:35] Betty White.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:57:36] Betty White 

Jennifer Field: [00:57:38] Oh.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:57:38] Well, thank you guys so much. Thank you, Zell. And thank you, everybody.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:57:42] Thanks, guys. Great episode. Thank you Guys.