This time we interview Madness & Company at LA Comic-con! Listen in as we discuss modern art in movies.

This is Film Center, your number one show for real entertainment industry news.

No fluff, all facts.

Now, here are your anchors, Derrick Johnson II and Nicholas Killian.

Hey everyone, welcome to Film Center.

My name is Derrick Johnson II, and this is your number one place

for studio news, and I'm here with this is Kenny from Madness Company.

Madness Company.

We are here live at the Comic Con LA Comic Con.

If you're listening to this, probably L.

A.

Comic Con might have passed by however, you can still check out Madness and

Company and everything that's really great about them on their website

and any other socials that they may have let's just get right into it.

I'm here with the artist and owner, right?

You have a Very interesting setup here.

It's this half hip hop, half kabuki style things that's going on.

Yeah.

Tell the audience a little bit about yourself first.

Cool, cool.

Hey, my name's Kenny.

I'm from Madness Company.

Madness Company is a merchandise and apparel brand started by my wife and I.

Dynamic duo.

Kenny and Indy, you'll see it on a lot of our shirts and our, Products you see

a little signature there, but overall Madison company is a way for us to do

business together While also being able to develop myself as an artist and just

see how far we can see how far we can take the brand so I mean There's a lot

of people who listen to the show are either industry professionals or they

want to get into the industry and we focus mainly on movies and television.

Movies, television, entertainment industry.

However, in this industry, it's very difficult, especially as

someone who runs a business, to use, do with family members.

In the entertainment industry, there's a whole bunch of controversies

between people who are trying to work together but are also married.

You know what I'm saying?

Can you tell us a little bit about that dynamic and how

this really came to be about?

Was it inspired by YouTube or?

So I definitely seen a lot of brands recently blowing up where

it's a lot of two man teams.

Sometimes it's just, a guy and his brother.

Might be a guy and his best friend might be two, two

women, a mother and a daughter.

However, I realized that it can be done by two people.

Throughout college, I can say my wife's been running events for a very long time.

She's very business oriented.

And as far as visuals and just from the creative side, there aren't really many

things that I see that I can't make.

So having both of those fields covered, we were like, Hey, let's

see what, how it will work if we were to go into business together.

I would say one of the best things we did, though, is instead of cutting ties

with all of our jobs and ending everything that we're doing professionally.

We decided to do this on the side, starting out.

By doing that, you take away the pressure of, Oh, this has to work,

or oh, we have to make money.

It's all about any money that's made goes back into the business

and then we re strategize.

It's just, the only thing you're really sacrificing at that point is, man hours.

There's no real money.

There's no real pressure that really can make the business less fun.

So at that point, it's just, let's see if we can solve this puzzle.

If we solve it, boom, we've done it.

It's a success.

So we're recording here at Comic Con because Indie creators are

taking over like a larger and larger portion of the industry.

Yeah.

I said this on the radio show before where I have this prediction.

That basically, studios will be replaced by indie people.

Yeah, I can see that.

Just in general, because they can get closer with their

fanbase, and things like that.

Do you find that it's difficult to grow a fanbase against, Cause you're here

in LA Comic Con, it's no small feat.

You know what I'm saying?

Thanks.

Did you find it difficult to grow to this size?

Like, how long have you been doing this?

So I think it's been a steady rate.

So we've been doing this what, it's This would be September

would be year five for us.

We started this in 2018 and on, if you're ever on our page, you

can follow us at Madness and Co.

But you'll be able to see the process of how we've grown from, selling out of a

bar, in the back of a bar to selling a couple shirts, to getting to this point.

And I think the way we did that was by creating, instead of me making a comic

and trying to sell you on a comic, we created really rad shirts, really

rad characters, and people wanted to know more about those characters.

And then we continued to flesh that way.

So your strategy was merchandise.

Yes.

And to express interest into the story.

Exactly.

It's interesting because on this show we've also previously

talked about transmedia.

Once you have one major story that gets into different mediums.

Yeah.

And transferred from all this different stuff.

And you're one of the first ones that I've seen.

I'm gonna start with the merch first.

Yeah.

Where did that you're not from Los Angeles.

No, I'm from Atlanta originally.

From Atlanta originally.

Was there anything so you're from Atlanta, grew up there, actually,

I grew up from Cincinnati.

We actually moved to Atlanta, I would say, about seven years ago.

One of the best decisions I've made.

So Was there anything that when you were younger that made you say

Oh, this is what I'm really into?

Oh yeah, definitely.

The entire premise of Madness and Company is an amalgamation

of everything I grew up with.

And that's anything from, movies, to cartoons, to comic books.

It's all fleshed in there.

To music, it's all in there together.

And you'll see a lot of the easter eggs pushed out through our different items.

I would definitely say that, yes, we started with merch first, but I would

say an even better description of that would be we started with characters first.

I know everybody, when you're in the back of class, Oh, this is my character that

I made, he's got chainsaw arms, whatever, whatever you wanted your character to

be like, that's what we started with.

We built the world around them, and then, once I had that archetype, I could then

flesh out the story and really tell Okay, this is what I want this character to be.

I went out, I'm able to go deeper now.

It's such an interesting tactic.

Because you knew you, a lot of indie creators are doing something

with the billiard studios are doing on a lower level.

Yeah.

And by lower, I don't mean quality wise, but just in size.

Yeah.

And it's interesting because with us, even with this radio show, we started

originally with just straight up audio before we started moving to other

things, before we started doing TV.

Now I.

personally have a background in, in working with studios and like movies

and television, but this whole film center thing, we started off just purely

audio and you started off with merch.

Yeah.

It's amazing to hear someone saying okay, I'm going to start with, cause usually

merch is the end goal for a lot of people, but that was your starting point.

Did you have any like inspirations to do it that way?

Or was it like.

I just want to do something different.

There was a mixed bag that was going.

I'm a graphic designer full time.

I've worked with Apple, I've worked for CNN, I've worked

for a lot of larger companies.

However, through those, I never had full autonomy of the design

direction, nor was I able to figure out what my specific art style was.

There were two fronts that I wanted done through Madison Company.

I wanted to create really cool items that, me as a kid would have loved to

have, while at the same time Having a vehicle that I can put these characters

and put these ideas on, on a garment for.

So as an artist, it's something crazy being able to sell a high quality

product and then also see people wear your drawings at the same time.

It's probably really cool.

Yeah, it's really, it's surreal almost.

It's really surreal.

Yeah, what's interesting is that a lot of a lot of successful professionals

like yourself They always start off getting the experience first, if you're

listening to a show and you listen to a show a lot of people that we interview

before they break off on their own, they have experience doing other things.

I started off writing for TV and TV and movies.

No kidding.

Prior to branching out on my own and doing my own thing.

Gotcha.

What was it like?

Say okay, I'm gonna step take a step You know into this more indie creative mode

was it because you're handling two things at once There's a lot of people who are

probably industries professionals a lot more and more industry professionals are

breaking off into their own stuff What was the moment you were like, okay, you

know what I'm going to just move Farther and further into my own thing and kind of

leave this other making stuff other people behind I think there was a time where you

know, every artist wants to work for a bigger company maybe you want to work for

Cartoon Network or maybe you want to work for Marvel Studios And you'd learn to draw

those characters You learn the different art styles that mimics a show that you can

keep up with their artists that currently, you know Currently are employed there

but through that after a while I realized that there are so many people trying to

do that But I can create my own characters have full autonomy have full direction of

these stories And that further solidifies the decision of being like, Okay, if I'm

gonna step away from Apple and CNN, If I'm gonna step away from these bigger

industries and graphic design, It only makes sense for me to create these

unique stories that are fully my own.

Do you think that, that gave you a good level of training?

Cause I try to tell a lot of people you can start off indie.

There's nothing wrong with starting off indie, but when you work for these

bigger companies, there's like a level of discipline, there's a higher level

of scrutiny, you know what I'm saying?

I remember getting notes upon notes and being like, Oh my gosh, I just

wish they would just accept what I do.

But now looking back at it, I'm like, okay, this was showing me how

to get to that professional level.

Showing me that my first draft.

It's probably can still be better.

Yeah, I'm saying is you think that discipline is something you

take into your Business today.

Yeah, I can definitely say that.

I think I haven't even thought about it that way.

I am Working on those industries.

Obviously, you have to be polished you have to make sure that you have

all your piece, piece and cues set up properly, but as far as Them helping

train me to better myself as an artist.

Yeah, I can definitely say that.

I think I have a much stricter level of quality that I adhere to.

Have you been drawing like your whole life or?

Oh man.

So that's a great question.

So what actually got me into drawings was.

Third grade Kenny couldn't draw a dragon to save his life, had a

whole meltdown, end up leaving.

And then I ended up just practicing and practicing all day to draw like

the artists and the art and the cartoons that I'm seeing on TV.

So I could get to that point.

And I would definitely recommend that to all artists.

There's nothing wrong with learning what makes the things that inspire you.

Good practice.

Those line works.

Your natural subconscious is going to.

Deviate from it, and you're gonna figure out your own style, but there's

nothing wrong with learning from what's already working, what's already popular.

you guys are listening, he's talking a lot about, learning from the professionals.

Yeah, big time.

There is a there's a thought process, at least when I was in school given to

me by Kevin Mack who's done some stuff with Marvel and all that kind of stuff.

And he was teaching me how to write.

He was saying that, whatever you want to learn how to do,

the training is out there.

You just see your, who you look up to.

You know what I'm saying?

Whoever you look up to, try, not to copy per se, but understand

what they're doing in their process and how their designs look.

And that's your training program.

That's 100%.

There's so much information that artists are putting out there nowadays.

If you can see a speed drawing of an artist, there's so much you can

learn of seeing their entire process.

When we were younger, you couldn't see it on YouTube.

We didn't have that.

When we were younger, we didn't have that.

You're going through the comics and the pages and watching the

movies develop your own notes.

I put the the white piece of paper over the DVD magazine so you could trace it.

When they had the light boxes and you could see through the paper,

you're like, oh, this is technology.

Yeah, you thought we was living in the future.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know what's really interesting is, especially this whole weekend,

we're really pushing that talk to a lot of different indie, indie creators.

Yeah.

And, something that I'm always comparing this, the indie side to, and I say indie

with heavy quotation marks, because a lot of indie people, a lot of stuff.

Studio people leave to go indie and then they go right back into studio as soon as

they're, bigger but there's a difference between how they market themselves, you

know what I'm saying, with studios and with you with indie you have this ability

to say either I'm going to make what I don't see, or I'm going to make towards

market, studios always making towards market, do you find yourself, because

you used to work for larger companies, do you find yourself often making more

Things that you want to see like you said earlier like what I want to see when I

was a kid Or do you self see yourself like oh, you know what this is selling

more this type of design says more Maybe I should make more stuff like this for

market So I think there's an amazing balance that has to happen there as an

artist, you know You're gonna create your own designs and when people rock with it

You get locked into being like, okay, I have good taste and you do as an artist.

You're going to have a unique taste.

If you want to make a country style fighting game, that's uniquely you.

And if people rock with it, no one else can take that away from you.

However, as I'm creating designs and as I'm creating these

layouts, we're developing fans.

We're developing a community and they love the same things.

That's why they rock with it.

So I have to also.

Back their point of view a lot of times where they're like, Hey, we'd

love to see this in this color.

How do you find that balance?

Because for every creator is different.

Yeah I would say definitely talking with them.

A lot of times we'll have a shirt where, you know, or design where

it's almost done, but there's that last bit of decision making.

We can't quite figure out and we'll throw it to the community and a

lot of times they'll be like, oh, this will be a great idea, Nate.

They have feedback.

There's also artists in our community and talking with them helps.

You know into that next direction.

I've already done the groundwork as an artist to have my characters out

there and keep pushing their stories.

But when it comes to creating like really great renditions of the

art and merchandise, the community definitely helps along the way.

You have a very unique art style.

Yeah, I do.

There's an issue right now that a lot of big studio productions are

looking the exact same kind of.

Yeah.

Some people are calling it the Disney effect.

Oh man, yeah.

3D animation looks like the same, but if you look back in the early

thousands, like when we were younger, they just, this stuff looked different.

They were still doing Judy animation.

Yeah.

Treasure planet was a thing journey to Atlantis was a thing.

And then they cut it all off to focus on more on 3d animation.

Yeah.

Cause it was easy to pump it out.

But now even DreamWorks is trying to, there's a lot of people

who work at DreamWorks who came from Disney, obviously, right?

They left with Steven Spielberg when he decided to make DreamWorks.

Yeah.

But now we're in this zone, where it seems like the artists aren't allowed to

really express themselves artistically.

Man.

And instead do what works and it's amazing to see something like the animated Spider

Man movies where they decide to break out and do something different and unique.

And for some reason, the studios are flabbergasted by this.

Why do you think they're pushing this standard animation, because

you have a very unique So why do you think they're pushing this standard

animation instead of breaking it down into styles like maybe like your own?

I think this highlights how important designers and creatives are.

I think we're able to see and we're able to create things that are

unique and are loved by the people.

However, without creatives, a lot of people are just going to look

at the numbers of what works.

If I see that Inside Out style works, I'm just gonna create the same

thing that looks like Inside Out.

There'd be no reason for me to think beyond that.

However, when you give it to the artist, you end up with stuff like the new

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

Completely, the artist had a full field day with that.

They had as much fun as they wanted.

They gave it's own flavor, it's own vibe.

It was absolutely one of the top movies, when it came out.

Like it's, it speaks for itself.

What do you think is preventing those studios from being more

encouraging about, unique art?

I think right now all the studios fell into kind of the, all

right, let's only use what works.

But now that the studios are starting to see okay.

Letting the artists work is starting to work.

I think we're gonna start seeing more studios actually do that I

think they're started as a transition starting where it's oh spider man works.

What if we let them do it again?

Oh ninjas hurdles work.

Oh Building confidence.

Yeah, I think it's gonna happen where the decision making is less cookie

cutter and now let the artists go crazy.

But I do think if the artists go too wild, there's gonna be a natural balance where

the studios like this movie kind of flops.

Let's go with what works.

And let's find that balance between culling the artists while at the same

time, allowing that bit of freedom.

I think it's a, I think it's a spectrum.

So there's this in.

Entertainment.

Yeah, there's a renaissance about every 20 years you know there people always

talk about the movies from the 50s the big like epics and stuff and her and

stuff then People only talk about the 60s too much because there's overshadowed

and it's in the 80s too much because it's overshadowed by the 70s Yeah, Star

Wars Jaws, Indiana Jones, you have The Godfather, 70s was going crazy, right?

People were trying to get back to that, yeah.

Yeah, and then you have another renaissance in the 90s, right?

Yes.

Quentin Tarantino was one of the big leaders in that, you know what I'm saying?

And then what's interesting is that the next quote unquote renaissance

started with, technically the superhero was a really big, was blown

up with Spider Man, but around 2010.

Iron Man was the quote unquote first start with the 2008, quote unquote,

but Blade was really there before, that's what I'm saying, right?

Happened in 2010s, and now it seems now in 2023, we might be on

the cups of another, revolution.

Now, do you feel like the same way, or, no?

It's interesting, I think we saw a bit of a renaissance.

With how Marvel completely changed the way that cinematic universes work.

I think a lot of movies also started to play with that, like Glass for example.

Yeah.

That was it's own, they started to make a universe of that and seeing these

movies and these series actually talk.

I think we're seeing people experiment.

And maybe it isn't as far as to say it's a renaissance, maybe an arc, within an era.

But, I do think people are trying to develop a new way to provide entertainment

that we may have not seen before.

I've never seen TV shows be connected to multiple movies, be connected

to, all that pushes the, all the lore together, that's something new.

Now, is that a renaissance?

Maybe not, but I do think it, it will be the start of future, renditions

and how we push entertainment, yeah.

As a professional artist yourself, what do you see, like, when do you see something

on a TV that, or a movie that actually catches your interest artistically?

Because, like I said, there's a kind of, there's a huge consensus right

now, especially with a lot of fans, that things are looking the same.

How do you see something, how do you look at something on the television

or movies and you're like, Okay, this is something that's unique and

that's connecting with me personally.

Because you're also a professional artist.

So the way you're looking at images, the way other people

look at images differently.

Like for myself being mostly a writer director and doing really

a lot of writing, I'm always like, It's not like I can't turn it

off, you thinking about the story.

But because the consensus right now is about art, there's a

huge concern about unique art.

You know what I'm saying?

How do how do you think oh, okay.

I think that this is something that I could take away from.

Okay, are you thinking from a live action or more like an animated standpoint?

Either one.

Either one.

Because you seem to have a lot of references in your art.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think it, like you said, it's hard to turn it off and you never really can

see past the kind of analyzing standpoint whenever you're watching something.

But I'll say I'm always pulling it in.

So I would say the best example right now would be Bullet Train.

I just saw Bullet Train not too long ago and seeing the storytelling,

at first I thought it was a Quentin Tarantino film by how it was written.

But I love That movies are starting to become aware of their tropes, of their

the different stereotypes that are in there, of the way they tell their

stories, but they double down in that, and they don't always do it from a comical

standpoint, but they dive deeper into the, alright, we know how edgy this is,

we know how, over the top this is, but we're gonna make it work in this era.

For example, during the era where samurai movies were

amazing, that was an amazing era.

However, now when it comes to movies, the main character of the movie also

realizes how Absolutely crazy it is to see a samurai in that movie.

So they'll comment on that what is happening?

Got like a little more meta.

Yeah, it's it's definitely more meta.

I think that's the thing.

Seeing how meta things have been in entertainment a lot these days.

That's what I'm pulling from.

Wow.

I love that they're, things are a lot more aware now.

And they're commenting on that.

Would you say that like I said, you have a lot of things, a

lot of references in your art.

Do you have some main inspirations?

Oh yeah.

I would say, man, that's a great.

So obviously anime, a lot of the classic anime, Dragon Ball Z, Mazinger

pulling from a lot of those sources.

But in the way that I pull from them isn't just oh, I want

my guy to be a giant robot.

It's more so in things that people don't really see, like In the intro

of the anime or in the ways that they set up certain angles, or there might

be the protagonist and you'll see the robot silhouette in the background.

Those were all artful ways of highlighting big characters, or those ways of

doing storytelling through music.

Like, all those things matter.

Your art reminds me a lot of Samurai Jack.

Yeah, exactly.

And this is, there is this term that I heard for the first

time in my life, here at L.

A.

Con, where they're saying Afro May.

Afro May?

Afro May.

I've actually never heard that.

Where it's African American hip hop style, things like that, being combined

with anime, almost the only thing I can really think of, like, when I think

of Afro May, peak Afro May, is again, have you ever heard of this before?

I don't know, this is the first time I've heard of the term, but now I can

see the whole Rolodex of all the things that would fall into that category.

Yeah, Afro May, when I see Afro May, I think of The Boondocks.

Yeah.

I think of Samurai, Afro Samurai, Cannon Busters.

Yeah, Cannon Busters, stuff like that.

Do you see a rise in an Afro man?

I do.

I'm seeing a lot more black artists that we've been talking to have been

like anime is a big inspiration.

Why do you think It's anime that's such a huge inspiration to the African

American culture, comparative to others.

So this will be an interesting kind of monologue I'm gonna go on.

I think Monologue away.

I think a lot of African Americans first experienced anime through Dragon Ball Z.

And I think it it connected with us in ways that we didn't expect at the time.

Cause you'll see a various, a various spectrum of of black people kind of love

Dragon Ball Z for different reasons.

You'll see, super hood guys be like, man, I love Dragon Ball

Z, I still rock with Vegeta.

And you'll see, super geeks that are like, walking around in Goku outfits.

But it's still for that whole spectrum.

And I think there's an underdog story that's been.

Prominent in a lot of early anime that you know may not be as prevalent now But

I think it's still one of the main cruxes anime and that's the underdog story It's

and with us being black people i'm feeling like the underdog I think when you see a

character persevere constantly take those hits train and do his best It fills you

with a hope that you it can be a little kind of silly But I do think it fills you

with a hope that you didn't realize you needed that time and you pull from it.

So training and seeing characters like Goku, seeing these anime characters work

hard, might not succeed but continue to push through, it gives us inspiration and

I think we continue to pull from that.

But then after a while we start to love anime just for what it is.

Oh, wow, this is a creative craft.

I still love the underdog story, but now these other characters resonate with

me, whether because they're super cool or because the way they navigate life.

Yeah.

But I think it all started with how we pulled in with our first anime for a

lot of people, which is Dragon Ball Z or which is Naruto seeing that story.

Yeah.

It's so incredible because once again, I haven't heard Afro May until like

literally yesterday, this is December 3rd that we're recording this.

December 2nd, 23rd.

I was like, Afro May?

But it made so much sense as soon as I heard it.

You even think about things like Kanye West's Power.

Yeah.

When it's the whole music video is Akira.

It's Akira, yep.

And you hear and this interesting thing about African Americans this quote.

And I forget who said it, but basically, to be an African American is to be

a race and a people without a home.

Because African Americans, we can't really relate to Africa.

We haven't been there in generations.

Hundreds and hundreds of years.

We're learning about what would be our own culture in the same way we

would learn about any other culture.

You know what I mean?

We're new to it.

And yet, at the same time, we are American, but a lot of other American

minorities Like Asians or like Hispanics, they can say, Oh, I'm from Italy

or I'm from specifically Guatemala.

They have a home.

From Burma.

They can like, Oh, I'm going to go home to my home country.

We don't know where our countries are.

So there's this possibly stipulation.

And you gotta let me know if you agree with this.

Yeah.

That it's okay, that's a far away land and it's not.

It's not home to us, but also we connect with that.

It's okay, you know what?

I'm also not American, but I am American.

I 100 percent agree with that.

100 percent agree with that.

I think I was just talking to another animation studio, the main director

that he's from Nigeria, but he does have a home he's coming from.

I think with us, being black, African Americans that are born and raised

in America, even down to like our last names I don't think my great

ancestor's last name was Fowler.

Yeah, but I think not having those original roots, we adapt the roots from

different things that resonate with us.

I think in the same way that there is this give and take relationship when

it comes to, black entertainment, black culture that we've developed in our,

our few kind of decades here in America.

The way they're pulling from us and we're pulling from them.

I think we do resonate with Japan.

I think we do resonate with Africa I do think we do resonate with a lot

of different places But I think we're creating our identity here as a result

of what we're seeing and developing from everywhere else So this is really

interesting Perspective from Asia that one of our previous guests gave us.

He's from Japan And he was talking a lot about how, like, when, in

America, anime fans will talk about oh, the sub versus dub.

They have the same arguments about King of the Hill.

Yeah.

They have obviously, Japan and baseball has been well known,

but they also really like college football and things like that.

There's also a trend right now for them to, there's a style in which

they can Heat and curl their hair to get the acros and stuff like that,

and so you're saying them pull from Specifically African American culture.

Yeah, not American general, specifically African American culture, and then we're

also pulling from them Absolutely, and the world's getting more and more connected

Do you think that this would like?

Once again, I heard Afro May for the first time and it feels like something

that it feels like that would be like an island somewhere like this is Afro May

Island where it's like half, half Asian, half black people are there, right?

And since your style, you have you obviously pulling

from the east a little bit.

Yeah.

Would you ever go over to so you got invited to, to, somewhere in

Asia, would you like, give some lectures on not even lectures,

but to Show them some of your art.

Yeah we're actually planning to head to Japan in this next

year in 2024 for the first time.

Oh, if you're listening, you're from Japan.

Watch out.

They're coming.

They're about to go out.

We're gonna come.

I think there's so much for example, learning, learning katakana, learning

hiragana, learning kanji, learning how to speak the Japanese language.

And navigating that with myself, as a, American artist.

But also wanting to pay respect to Japan in the way, because I would say, okay,

Madison Company, our mascot is a lantern.

And that stems from the fact that when I was a kid, I saw a lantern festival

on TV, had no idea what that was.

But after a while, I really started to resonate with Japanese culture.

I really loved the way that they would highlight their culture.

I loved the way that they created items.

And a lot of our Western, Highlighted films, whether it be Western cowboy

shoot offs, or just samurai, stand offs, lightsabers are just Samurais in space,

power Rangers are just super sentai, like Really learning where a lot of the origins

of a lot of our Western media borrow from, Japan has been really interesting.

To see the influences.

Even something, Especially who was influenced by it, right?

Both Steven Spielberg and Jordan Peele have been putting in Bids for

years to do a live action Akira.

The first close person to get close is ironically is Kanye West, you know

Even though the whole thing is really a reference then you have things like

he's not technically only from Japan.

He has some Korean background, but Satoshi Kon who made the movie Paprika that the

American iteration of it is Inception.

Yeah.

Where some of the shots are shot for shot.

How do you, instead of doing this shot for shot, you're taking those

references and making them unique.

How do you know okay, this is I think you naturally have your own deviations

of what you like as an artist.

And I think that helps me a lot and one of the things that really has pushed

Madness and Company as far as it is.

I love when there's a collision of cultures.

I think that's what a lot of people don't highlight enough.

So for example, when we were younger, we loved, martial arts movies.

But it wasn't that we were watching the true yeah, Wu Tang exactly

was where I was going to go next.

But it wasn't like we were watching the original movies, we were watching

bootlegged, poorly dubbed, VHS, Shaw Brothers movies, but it's like something

about the poorly dubbed, something about the over the topness, but still the

action being oriented, the action oriented kind of subject matter, all those things

resonated, and that's what made the culture, it wasn't the streamlined, high

resolution, it was the grittiness, it was the poorly dubbedness, it was the attempt

to see in those two cultures collide, and I think that's where the love is,

it's same thing with Wu Tang, the hip hop beats over with the Japanese undertones.

It's where the, it's a medley, like a subculture is formed between those two.

I think that's what I really love about it.

Like you'll hear us playing Boom Bap in the back of our, ramen shop.

But at the same time, I want to make sure that if I'm going to have the ramen

shop out there, that I get true Chochin lanterns made, that I sew the northern

curtains, that I create, the roof tiles.

Like I'm actually taking the time to do the research, even

though I haven't been there.

But there's so many references that you can learn from.

And create it so that it's authentic.

The information is so much more readily available.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's if you're gonna do it, make it authentic.

But don't make it to the point where it's less you.

If that makes sense.

Yeah, something interesting about Wu Tang.

I have a friend who's from Shanghai.

And also, if you watch, there's an interview with Jackie Chan, where they

ask Jackie Chan, Do you like Wu Tang?

And he's very confused.

He's what is Wu Tang?

What is that?

But Wu Tang is actually popular in China, but Jackie Chan for

some reason didn't understand.

And then I asked my Chinese friend.

I was like, do you like Wu Tang?

And she's because she saw the symbol on my chest, she's oh, they're awesome.

I was like, oh, you like Wu Tang?

And she gave me this very confused look what is Wu Tang?

It's it's a symbol, it's what I'm wearing.

It's actually supposed to be Wu Dong.

Yeah.

It's supposed to be wudong.

And so if they would have said oh, this is wudong.

It's not wutang.

Yeah, but it's that mistranslation that then it's okay now

it feels like it's for us.

Yeah.

Yeah the different spin on it it's been great to have you on Working, working

everyone follow you and check you out.

Yeah, definitely.

So again, we're Madness and Company.

You can follow us at www.

madnessandcompany.

com or you can follow our socials at Madness and Co.

So that's at Madness and Co.

Check us out.

We'd love to have you be part of the community.

If you have ideas, definitely shoot it to us.

We have a Discord as well.

You can hit us through our link tree.

It'll be on our Instagram.

And join the community.

If you have art that you're making, hop in there.

Let's talk, let's compare ideas and let's just, let's chat it up.

Excellent.

Thank you so much guys.

This has been film center.

And my name's Derek Johnson.

The second I'm Kenny and this is a Madison company.

Yeah.

And we'll see you later.

This has been film center on comic con radio.

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