How do you describe a Laurie Meadoff? Start off with a big heart, add a piercing intellect, an insatiable curiosity, and a gargantuan exploding fireworks extravaganza of an imagination. Then add that she's a can't-sit-still, serial do-gooder problem solver who translates the word "NO" in any language, as the starting gun for the next story in the million chapter book she's been living, entitled There's no Such Thing as an Impossible Dream!

In this episode of 'Change the Story, Change the World,' host Bill Cleveland introduces Laurie Meadoff, a transformative entrepreneurial force in community arts, youth development, and social change. Laurie reflects on her life's work, including founding the internationally recognized CityKids Foundation, producing Emmy-nominated series, and engaging in art-based change initiatives across the globe. The conversation explores her unique approach to social justice, cultural democracy, and health equity through creative endeavors. Meadoff shares stories of impactful moments, like connecting youth worldwide and encouraging new generations to channel their creativity for activism, ultimately underlining the importance of listening, community empowerment, and sustained social impact.

00:00 Meet Laurie Meadoff: A Force of Nature

03:59 Laurie's Journey and Impact

06:16 Community Empowerment and Creativity

08:42 The Power of Listening and Adaptability

09:55 Art and Social Justice

11:00 Personal Reflections and Global Impact

18:25 Lean on Me: A Musical Interlude

22:05 Chat the Planet: Bridging Global Youth

28:53 Keith Haring's Legacy and City Kids

30:11 Artivism in Chicago

31:44 Take Back the Mic Africa

35:16 The Role of Artists in Society

39:06 Innovations in Health and Artivism

41:02 The Power of Observation and Witness

42:15 What You Going to Do About Hate?

48:52 Reflections and Future Aspirations

51:41 Closing Remarks and Resources

BIO

Laurie Meadoff is a leader, an innovator, and a change maker. Through artistic and expert use of her wide array of talents, Laurie has been able to make monumental strides toward a more tolerant and compassionate world through her media and community engagement strategies. Internationally acclaimed for her more than forty-five years of work and accomplishments, Laurie Inc. & Team's current clients list include:

Take Back The Media /Amp.it, a digital media platform that helps content owners know ‘Who's Watching and Why’. Creator of double Emmy nominated "Take Back the Mic: Africa”. We are now building a state of the art film and television studio in Africa.

Geoversity, Nature’s University in Panama, focusing on biocultural and indigenous leadership and environmental action.

The UN Global Mental Health Task Force, alongside The CityKids Foundation, Deepak Chopra’s Chopra Foundation and Social Architects. We are committed to a world where mental health is universally recognized as a fundamental human right.

Bodimetrics - the newest technology, addressing healthcare inequities by offering continuous blood oxygen and pressure with FDA-cleared medical devices.

Rozana Health Diplomacy, an international organization promoting access to quality healthcare in Palestine and Israel, through joint initiatives between communities in conflict. 

Laurie is committed to moving disruptive groundbreaking companies forward while networking with her social impact investors.  

Laurie has always had her pulse on youth culture. Laurie launched Authentik Inc. with partners Tony Krantz, Derrick Ashong and Siobhan Kavanagh. Authentik Inc is an innovation firm based out of NY and LA. Authentik Inc helps top brands stay culturally and socially relevant for the next generation. The team of world-class producers, change agents and millennials work with businesses to revolutionize meaning, message and impact.  

Authentik Inc has worked with various prominent C-suite clients including Sea World and Pepsi leading the direction for complete brand transformations. Laurie leads business development along with her group of global Authentikators. Most recently Laurie was a Co- Executive Producer for Earth’s Call at the Aspen Institute and Our Planet Our Future, a global call to action to people of all ages, faiths and cultures worldwide, to move the world together on climate change. 

Laurie was Executive Producer and content developer and producer of a 13 part PBS series called Feel Grand with Jane Seymour focusing on health and well-being. She also produced a web series with Deepak Chopra called Timeless You.

Additionally, Laurie was nominated for an Emmy in 2016 as an Executive Producer for The World Cup of Hip Hop, a groundbreaking online global music competition which was nominated in the ‘Original Interactive Programming’ category. 

Laurie served as CEO of Cancer Schmancer, a groundbreaking women’s Health Advocacy organization founded by actress Fran Drescher. Laurie’s innovative work on behalf of women included the creation of Trash Cancer home parties produced by Humana focused on prevention, which reached over 28,000 people. Laurie also worked with her team to create Fran Vans, which screened women in need in both NYC and LA. 

Laurie consulted for The Goldie Hawn Foundation with strategic planning for the launch of their social emotional learning program, MindUP. There, Laurie assembled the organization’s board, designed the marketing strategy, and co-produced a major fundraiser in New York City that resulted in palpable success for the Foundation. ​

As CEO of Chat Ventures, she executive produced programming for Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, ABC, HBO Family, MTV and VH1 and a host of international broadcasters. In addition to overseeing creative and strategic vision for the company, Laurie then formulated Chat the Planet, a global dialogue initiative committed to using media and online dialogue tools as a means of breaking down barriers reaching 350 million homes worldwide. As a part of this endeavor, Laurie co-created and executive produced the Webby award-winning series Hometown Baghdad, which reached three million web viewers in the first week and aired on The Sundance Channel and National Geographic International in long form. With experience filming in South Africa, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Australia, and Jordan, Laurie’s ability to imaginatively and insightfully capture a diverse range of subjects is exemplified. Laurie has spoken globally and was a part of Cultural Diplomacy panels’ for the Brookings Institute in Doha for three years along with speaking in engagements in Hong Kong and India.

Consulting for the Dalai Lama’s Connection for Change event, Laurie developed and produced Dinner Dialogues as a grass roots engagement tool for people to host salons targeted on the theme of wellness. She also helped produce major events for Deepak Chopra’s Alliance for the New Humanity for several years bringing the world’s top leaders together for shared dialogue. ​

Laurie is the Founder and President Emeritus of The CityKids Foundation. Founded in 1985, The CityKids Foundation has worked to engage and motivate young people from diverse demographics to positively impact their lives, their communities and the world using their voices. Success came naturally to Laurie in her role here, as she organized and executed annual fundraising events with sponsorship from mammoth corporations including Pepsi, MasterCard, and Burger King and the presence of well-known personalities such as Demi Moore, Michael Bolton, Robert De Niro, Herbie Hancock, and Keith Haring to enhance publicity. As a byproduct of the foundation’s achievements, which included a nationally touring repertory of the members, Laurie co-created and executive produced with the Jim Henson Company, the Emmy-Nominated series featured on ABC, CityKids. As a result of Laurie’s vision, drive, and excellence in communication, her community and youth outreach initiatives through media and performance have endured and the relationships cultivated persist today. ​

Laurie’s many awards and other distinctions include: ​

Emmy Nomination for ‘The World Cup of Hip Hop’, 2016 

2 Emmy nominations for ABC series, “CityKids” 

Board of Governors, We are Family Foundation 2016 

Dr. Joyce Yerwood “Lifetime-Maker” Award, 2012 

Richard Manware Humanitarian Award, 2008 

3 Webbys for Hometown Baghdad, 2008 

Brookings Institute Cultural Diplomacy 2007, 2008 

1 Gold Promax, History in the Making, 2004 

2 Silver Promax, History in the Making, 2004 

Aegis Award of Excellence, Bridge to Baghdad II, 2003

Rockefeller Fellowship: Next Generation Leadership - Year long fellowship studying issues of globalization, racism, media, immigration and democracy, 1998.

Guest commentator on NPR, CNN, The Oprah Show, LA Times, NY Times, BBC, Today Show, Good Morning America, Video Podcasts, Deepak Chopra, Sirius Radio, and a host of international broadcast programming. 

Laurie received her Bachelor of Arts in Education and Art History and her Masters in Educational Theater from New York University. 

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• MTV
• VH1
• ABC
• Sundance Channel
• National Geographic
• Brookings Institute
• Laurie, Inc.
• Team Authentic, Inc.
• Cancer Schmanzer, Inc.
• Earth's Call
• Next Entertainment
• The Start Fund
• City Kids

Some people believe that we can never be one race for they cannot see all that God has given up to us dig deep in your heart and I know you can trust so believe that you set us free can all God's children's head listen to me that this cannot go on too many babies I dying this in love I wanna hear the rainbow I wanna hear you the rainbow I want to heal the Rainbow I want to heal the rainbow I want to heal the rainbow I want to hear....

From the Center for the Study of Art and Community. This is Change the Story / Change the World. My name is Bill Cleveland.

That song, heal the Rainbow, was produced and performed by a creative community of young people in New York City called City Kids, which four decades ago was just the germ of an idea percolating in the audacious heart and mind of a young artist named Laurie Meadoff. Thinking about this episode, I asked myself, okay, Bill, how are you going to describe a level five force of nature like Laurie Meadoff?

Well, we'll start off with a big heart and then add a pursing intellect, an insatiable curiosity and a gargantuan exploding fireworks extravaganza of an imagination. Now, that's the foundation.

Then you have to add in that she's a can't sit still, serial do gooder problem solver who translates the word no in any language as the starting gun for the next story in the 153 chapter book she's been living entitled there's no Such Thing as an impossible dream.

All of which has manifested in the real world as Laurie becoming an award winning and three times Emmy nominated executive producer for MTV VH1, ABC, the Sundance Channel, and National Geographic. An audience of over 350 million for her two series, Chat the Planet and Hometown Baghdad.

Work with the Brookings Institute on Cultural Democracy, Leadership of Laurie, Inc., and Team Authentic, Inc. Cancer Schmanzer, Inc. Earth's call. Next.

Next Entertainment, The Start Fund, and a 40 year journey as founder and chief cheerleader for the internationally recognized arts based youth development organization called City Kids. So that's the setup. Here's the story, part one. Give it up to get it. So, Laurie, welcome to the show.

Tell me and our listeners, where are you calling from?

I'm in Rockaway Beach, New York. So when you fly into Kennedy airport, there's a little strip of land of peninsula, the Rockaway Beach peninsula that you go over.

And I grew up in this house, ran away from home and went around the world a few times over and then came back to raise my three kids here. And I always remember hearing about a tribe called the Ricawaki Indians, where Rockaway beach came from?

And when I looked even further, it was the Canarsi native american group.

Wow.

That inhabited Rockaway beach in Queens. And it meant lonely place or place of water light as well as sand place. So I live in a sand place.

Oh, I love water light. So, Laurie, what is it that you do in the world?

My mother was still asking me before she passed away. Laurie's amazing. What is it you do?

So I always am trying to figure that out as an innovator and a creative, we're always taking a look at reinventing and looking what moves us forward. But I guess I would say I put things in the world that have lasting impact. I think that's the thing that I have seen over and over.

And the essence of my work has been diverse young people working together through safe space, turning their pain into purpose, and moving folks into action together. And my vehicles, arts and media. I'm passionate about health equity, and I've done tons in the health field and impact investing, too.

But anything that moves a social needle forward has my name written on it. I love creativity and innovation in addressing social justice issues.

That's so interesting, because so many of my recent conversations have been with people that are at the intersection of what you just described, people everywhere from hospitals to public health to brain science.

And in your case, I know that you have been deeply involved in youth development, education, cancer prevention, film and tv production, social impact investment, organizing. Hey, what took you there?

Well, it's interesting.

When I was a kid in Rockaway, I was bused into a school on the island, and I remember going through really burned out neighborhoods and seeing some people on the front porch. And I'll never forget there was a mattress on the front porch outside.

And I remember being twelve, looking at that and seeing poverty and going, not on my watch, it's not happening. And I feel like I've always been born into this world saying that.

And the other thing about coming to this work, when I went to college, I was in Athens, Ohio, involved in anti strip mining movement against social justice. Then I built a community clay center on Honky Tonk Road and Sugar Creek, and, you know, for the kids and.

And just combed the whole neighborhood saying, there's a community clay center opening. And people say, you're gonna feed them, okay, you keep em. And. But one day, the kids would always smash in the windows.

And I was just in college, I was 18, and I'd fix it again. And then the next weekend, it'd be smashed, and I'd go to the store and fix it again.

And then finally, I looked at them, and I took the key, and I said, here's the key to this place. You do it. And I put it down on the table. And that was my one on one lesson about community. You give it up and you get it.

Because I came back, and the place was swept all ready, and they were running it. So my work has always been about communities empowered to run what their needs are, what they think, and how do you collaborate with them?

So one of the most interesting things about that story, here's a strategic change agent that learned the most important lesson right off the bat, which is you give it up to get it.

But one of the other things that I know that you've confronted is that there are forces in the world that actually don't want that equation to work, that the hoarding of it, whatever it is, the power, the influence, the agency is a part of the world we live in, and in particular these days. So I'm assuming that in addition to giving up and getting it, that there's also a certain amount of struggle in the work that you do.

There are. It is.

And one other story that comes to mind, and I'll back into what you just asked, is I read, when I was in college, a book on drama, and it said, what? It's a blind person? And you could say, it's a person who cannot see.

But alternatively, you could say, close your eyes and find your way out of this room. And that blew me away. It was like, oh, I want to do that. That's my life. But what that does is give that form to feeling.

And what that does is say, wherever you're showing up, you're listening deeply. You are feeling your way out of this room. You are seeing where the people are.

So even in the worst adverse scenes that I've been in, I always find that I have to breathe deeply, listen deeply, and then see where we go from here. It's really a ninja dance, isn't it? It's like aikido. You're working with the energy of the people.

I mean, my background was prison work, but you couldn't say, hi, would you all get in a circle? It was like, no. Are you leaving? What are you doing here? No.

But then when you say, if you think about one thing you'd like to do, the minute you get out of here, come stand by me. And boom, a perfect circle. So it was always that kind of creativity on your feet to move where you needed to go with a group.

I love that.

The podcast that's up there right now is wonderful, incredible woman named Cynthia Cohen, and she's at Brandeis, and she has been working in the realm of arts based conflict resolution for decades and decades. And so when I asked her what her street name was, she said, well.

Maybe "the listener," or maybe the street name would be "the ear."

Which is what you just said, which is this incredible superpower of listening, which is very similar to giving that key up. Right. It's like the answer is not going to just come from you at the center of a universe you invented. It's going to come from the universe that you're in. Right?

That's funny, because when you asked me, like, what was my street name, the thing that came to mind was cobalt. Because back in the day, that's what my nickname was with kids when I was working in high risk neighborhoods, and I wore a lot of electric blue eye makeup, and cobalt was my name.

Yes.So now, story time a little bit, and you've already talked about some of those critical moments on the path, but how did you come to this purpose in your life?

It's crazy, but sometimes I think I'll ask you, like, did you know who you were when you were a child? Like, did you feel your path? No?

No, not at all.

I actually was lucky to feel that there was a path at all, actually, the interesting thing is that because my path was invisible to me, I guess you might say I became a pathfinder because there was nobody with a flashlight.

Yeah.

Well, I always think that about our adolescence and going through the pain, cross cultural pain we all walk through is so deep because there aren't flashlights. And community helps and surrogate families help. The work I did at city kids health.

But I asked that because I always felt like, Laurie, throw yourself on the universe and ask where you're supposed to be next. And somehow, like, I'm a startup girl. No, it's not an option.

I have done so many things in my life that have caught my passion, but a lot of times I go, wow, I'm in awe. Isn't this amazing how this just walked in my life?

And I just worked for a year with Israel and palestinian nurses and doctors on the ground that do health diplomacy, healthcare diplomacy.

So you'd see a group of palestinian women in a Bedouin village, and they're on the phone with the israeli doctors, getting direction when they need it. And again, what a gift.

Hard one during this time, but what a gift to learn and be part of communities that are moving social justice forward like they were. So I always find that I'm surprised at what comes. And I've been blessed with lots of things always appearing.

So there's a skill set here, and it didn't just emerge when you were nine or twelve or whatever. What did you learn along the way that gave you your toolkit?

To be able to shape shift around the world with all these different circumstances and cultures and opportunities comes to mind.

I've been able to speak in Bangalore and in Hong Kong and over the years globally, in Japan. And what I think about when I talk to young entrepreneurs, I always say, think creatively, but create differently.

Like, I just look at issues and I go, okay, we could do this, but what would be that? And what would really work again? And the second piece for me was, art is art. It has to hold up.

I mean, any of us walking through a church or a museum, when your breath gets taken away, you go, what was that? That just hit me. So that's where I relate so much to you and your work and what you've done all these years. Art really holds up.

The other piece is, this is funny. It's if the doors are locked, climb out the windows, which was a city kid phrase when you couldn't have any distribution, how will you get seen?

How do you navigate? And what, I love that my friend Joe Routledge once said to me, he said, laurie, you're pushing create the pole. And it's such a fun set of things.

And the biggest one is find the elegantly simple idea. When I worked in cancer with Fran Drescher as her CEO, she's very concerned about carcinogens and day to day products.

And one day my staffers said, I just want to trash cancer. And I felt like someone had put a gold nugget in my hand.

And the next thing I knew, we got corporate sponsor humana, and we did 38,000 trash cancer parties and detox your home. But a lot of that is where you find something that resonates. Where do you listen deeply?

How do you find something that resonates and then move into action on it? And I think that's been my secret sauce, is I do get, and I have the production shops and I build teams around projects.

Part two, listen, learn, and speak.

So one of the things I think that is interesting, you talk about that clay studio and then theater and then this whole wide world of animating ideas and issues and people to move them in a particular direction or help them manifest the story that they were telling you, you don't go to school for that. And there are more and more people, I think, in the world that, number one, want to do that and want to know how to do that.

And the world we're living in calls for that. I think when you and I started, that was unique and interesting.

It was all these things crossing borders and boundaries and putting them together and making something incredibly beautiful and compelling out of it. But now we're in a place where, I'm sorry, that's not an option anymore. We have to do that in order to move the ball.

Well, it's funny you said about you don't go to sort of learn that. I actually did, because I did my master's degree in educational theater at NYU and then in London.

And what I loved in London, a man who wrote the book improvisation, John Hodgson, had us studying medieval drama and then renaissance by wearing costumes, by gathering people around beer, by actually living again, giving. What I said is, find your way out of this room. We acted. We did the McWake field mystery cycle. We went and lived the times.

We were studying in dance, in theater, in literature, in gregorian chants after lunch.

And it blew my mind because that kind of visceral understanding, when it gets in your bones, you get, wow, this is what the people were doing when they discovered the mystery cycle plays. They were just trying to teach the Bible. And so I loved the immersive feelings of and the education of that.

And I think the work in the CityKids Foundation and to date, myself billed city kids will be 40 years old, even though I'm still 26.

But that family dynamic, sitting on a floor for 40 years with a group of diverse young people talking about things we care about and deciding where we want to go about what to do, is so powerful, and those relationships are intact 40 years later. I mean, now the alumni run city kids, but my influence was Jenny Harris, who ran the Albany empire in London, and she was my turn left.

And here you're sitting there and you're talking about what you just said. Linear kind of thinking is a boundary so often.

And she was going, H"ere's the daycare drop in center, and here's Curtis Mayfield doing a music workshop. Here's Whoopi Goldberg teaching comedy. And here's the pensioners program." I'm going, "What? In one place, servicing one community. And that's that.

Integration about culture is where we move. And I'm a junkie for culture and what's growing, where times in our life, we all have pain, we all have sorrow. But if we are wise we know.

That there's always too far lean on Me we are strong I need a friend I love you carry on oh, it won't belong till I'm gonna need somebody to lead us I just might have a problem that you understand we all need somebody to lean on lean on me now...

These are through lines for so many of the chapters in your life's work. Thinking about it all over more than four decades, it can be kind of hard to take in.

I'm wondering if there's a story or two that you can share that captures some of the essence of your work.

Yes. So after I left the CityKids Foundation, I was honored by a Rockefeller fellowship with Jacqueline Novogratz at the time.

And I was around the world looking at issues of globalization, like leaving my three kids going, I'll be back, I promise.

And I was in South Africa, and this is before Skype, and I saw a tv set in Soweto at nighttime with kids talking to kids in Philadelphia, going, what kind of dances you do? Two groups of 20 somethings in two different places of the world. And I got blessed. I met Cheryl Leach, who created Barney, the purple dinosaur.

And she said, Laurie, you tune into 20 year olds. I tune into two year olds.

And with a million dollars, we did eight half hour chat the planet television shows linking young people around the world in dialogue. Two film shoots in South Africa to New York, Australia, Jordan, and then in Baghdad.

Here is a taste of a chat the planet conversation between young people in New York City and South Africa on.

Racial equity with saying, camel jockey, a sand nigger.

Those are terms which have a history of oppression and discrimination. Being PC is liberal bullshit.

So how do they feel seeing that we're a nation that has all this racism going on and we freely throw around the nigger? How does that...How do you feel?

Some way I think it's good because it disempowers the word. So now it's like you laugh in the face of the word.

Does PC ness really change anything?

Political correctness, for me, it's really just a wall that blocks people off from really getting to know me and who I am and my beliefs.

I want to know, like, how do you guys feel about your future? Because it's different here we are minorities here, but over there you're not. I think that it's more progressive there.

Like, wouldn't things move faster? Because you are the majority. We are the majority, but we have very limited access to resources economically.

And we all know that that is where the power is economically. We are disempowered as a people.

Now, you asked me about this story. That is a defining moment for me.

A group in Baghdad, a group in America at the height of the war, the kid in Jordan, because my grandmother was killed by an israeli soldier. She was just trying to save a five year old.

And the kid in America said, yo, ma'am, my brother's in Kuwait and every time the door opens, I believe he's going to blow up and there's dead silence. Can you imagine, like nothing said. And I realize that there's a visceral feeling thing called humanity that walks in the room and sits down.

And that's where I feel I have beared witness to.

And anyone can, if you take note, you know, when you're moved deeply by something or something blows your mind, when you have the discussions with people, worlds department and you really provide that opportunity, something shifts when humanity pulls up a chair. And I've witnessed that over and over.

Yeah.

And the power of that moment to put you into that place that I think you described at the very beginning, which is to be the ear and to try and be in service to the story. Cynthia Cohen just talks about that.

There are these stories that need to be told, and one of the great services in the world is to create, as you have often said, a safe space for those stories to manifest for the people telling them and the people who need to learn from them.

Yeah, I saw the other day on tv there was a project called one small step, and they were matching similar Republicans and Democrats to spend an hour together.

All over America, strangers with different political views are coming together to talk about their lives, not politics, and discovering they actually have a lot in common. Because even if we don't see eye to eye, we can still talk heart to heart. So let's talk for a change.

But it was so beautiful because these people were listening and they weren't fighting and they were hearing each other. And it was a whole other space of understanding.

And with mental health at an all time scary high, we have to create new surrogate homes and families and people of difference to honor similarities and be okay with our differences. So I guess that's been the theme of a lot of my work.

Part three, city kids.

So one of the things that keeps jumping up at me, and that is whatever you want to call it, the sharp edges we're experiencing now that seem indelible and impervious to the traditional elixirs that people use to bridge difference.

And I think that you and I have been working our whole lives with another type of elixir that does seem to have the power to do that if used respectfully and with great care and with integrity. It's a powerful thing. So the question I have is, what is it about art making that transcends the story that produces the US them universe?

Yeah, I love that question.

If I could break in here just to say, for folks who have never seen this amazing piece of art, when I saw it back then during the Statue of Liberty Centennial, it was like a giant tapestry hanging down on that ten story building with words and phrases and images rendered by a thousand young artists responding to the question, what does liberty mean to you? That massive testimonial was and still is a really big deal. In so many ways.

It is huge. And the torch was left empty. And I'll circle back to that, but it's really interesting that he didn't have anyone fill in the torch.

And Keith was amazing. Worked for three days.

Here is the late Keith Haring from a short documentary on the project.

I'm approached by this group called City Kids. We come up with this brainstorm of an idea of making a banner and letting kids come and paint their own things. Inside of my lines,

the buses just. unloading, coming from all five boroughs. In New York City, bringing kids from everywhere. Every single person that you see represented on this banner had a voice, but somebody feeling like your statement was important at 16, that changed everything.

Herbie Hancock came and painted and Philip Glass painted and played while this was going on.

But it was a real amazing art piece of collaboration at a point of time. So last week I was in Chicago at a group, and this answers your question brilliantly, I think. And they're called TaskForce U.S..

And Task Force is an incredible agency that used cultures to change viewpoints and everything. And they did an art exhibit of people from every walk of life and it was nonpartisan.

And one thing that Yossi said that I just love, he talked about that artists, and it's just what you said, what can we do in turbulent times? He said, "they're the holder of history. They're conveners, truth tellers. They challenge us when we're not pushing hard enough.

They ring the alarm when injustice is the state of the day. They help us see past the current crisis we're in and help us dream of a future in which we sometimes cannot see ourselves."

And there I... thank God I filmed it, because I was like, what? He said it so articulately. And I think that is what I just watched in Chicago.

Groups of people from all over doing an incredible art exhibit that you were moved. You saw, like, a piece somebody did. That was a leather bag that used to be the mailbox for voting. It was a vote box with two pigeons attached.

It was just the artwork. Again, safe space for artists to take a look. And the other example for me, I'm part of a group in Africa called Take Back the Mic Africa.

And they use culture into turn, culture into currency. And they've had three seasons of Take Back the Mic Africa.

And when you hear these young people and see where they live and see how they're thinking, your world changes because you experience worlds outside your own.

Now, Take Back the Mic is an interesting twist in the music world.

It's an app based, interactive, competitive platform for exposing and generating fan support and income for new musical talent across Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa, Rwanda, Mauritius, and Kenya. Here is a tanzanian educator and rapper who calls himself J 93, sharing his Take Back the Mic aspiration.

Yo, this is J 93. Welcome to Kiwala. This is my hood, and this is Take Back the Mic Africa. Season Three. Come with my city and see what we got.

I'm primary school teacher. I do teach mathematics, but also science for their primary children. That is what I do apart from music.

I rap about the experiences of different classes of people. You can't rap about joy to a struggling audience. I have to talk to them about their struggles.

Then there are those who may not know what it means to struggle. So I'll talk about what is relevant to them.

Okay. What I want to do, I want to positively influence the public's mindset on how to liberate themselves financially, scholastically, and in other spheres of life. That's the legacy I want to leave behind.

And so Derek Ashan and the Mike Africa is another extremely powerful example of artavism. To me, the use of the arts and combination of activism is my new passion. The next 40 years of city kids will be a new school of artivism.

And I'm just so honored that I keep on being blown away by different artivists that are moving mountains through their work.

And there's a full circle to this conversation, because that description that you gave of the art exhibit and the multilayered, multivalent qualities that are possible when people encounter those things, depending on who they are, where they're coming from, why they're there, to me, that's another way of describing the alchemy of healing. Oh, yes, all of those things are needed. It's more than just the band aid. It's more than just the antibiotic.

There's a whole set of things that need to take place in order to manifest those qualities, those healing superpowers, and that is patience and reflection.

And back to the thing you talked about before, a sense of safety, to be vulnerable enough for those things to rise up for you from the artwork or the... or your participation in even just making a pot.

It's funny that you say that, because I always feel as a startup girl, like, I'm always at ground zero somehow. Like, I'd be rich if I kept on chat. The planet reached 380 million people worldwide. Once I learned how to do that, I was like, okay, got that.

What's next? How do I learn something else?

But the feeling of vulnerability, like you say, is really intense, especially as an artist navigator, because you are vulnerable. But that fear of just going deep inside yourself and coaching however you can is really helpful and hard. I have to say. It's been hot.

Part four, artivism. Well, if you were a Broadway producer, you're the kind that would start a show, get it on its feet, and then move on, right?

And my sense is that reinventive quality, that vitality. We have a mutual friend, Lenny Sloan.

Oh, my God.

Same thing. Pick a letter in the Alphabet, and there's a project that he's involved in and you know, his street name.

But I'm a gun runner for the arts, that's what I really am.

So let's flip the calendar forward a bit and just ask you what's jumping out for you, what's sparking you right now that you're excited about?

So when I read a piece that Asante wrote

now that's the writer, musician, and filmmaker M.K. Asante.

Yeah, it clicked for me. It was called use of art as a form of activism.

And what was written as the artivist activists and artists uses their artistic talents to fight against injustice and oppression by any medium necessary.

I love that the art of this merges commitment to freedom and justice with the penniless, the lens, the brush, the voice, the body, and the imagination. And here's the line that changed my life. The artivist knows that to make an observation is to have an obligation.

And that's what is the theme to me over and over again.

Because when we sit with a group of people, when we share our observation, when we commit to changing, that, it's so powerful, and it is the key to organizing. And so I might have to die and come back to pull this one off.

But the school of artivism globally, and to me, the Keith Herring as a model, right now, the herring light the torch is in Japan with young people in Hiroshima lighting that torch and writing their thoughts. But again, it's not just artwork, it's dialogue, and it's deep dives into what you're creating together.

So it's very important that you're addressing community and radical connectivity in it. So that I'm very excited about. And I work with an incredible group of different projects around the world.

One that's a game changer is a friend of mine asked me, did I know why more people of color died during COVID And he said the oximeters didn't read the blood oxygen levels. Did you know that?

No. You mean that it has to be calibrated differently?

It doesn't go through a darker skin. So I know people were turned away from the hospitals because they didn't see the oxygen level was at a very low thing. It's unfreaking believable.

And this is true about oximeters.

And so the Chinese and a group of scientists with my friend Neil Friedmande, created a sensor that got FDA approved that literally takes your blood oxygen level, et cetera, every second. Not like a wearable, but this group is called body metrics. And I'm determined to get them everywhere.

I'm determined to help them go from Africa to the veterans administration.

So important. Just to mention here, we'll put a link to an article about Neil Friedman's work in our show notes for folks that want to follow up

Neil Freidman talking about his oximeter project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAkMhttInzs

So what turns me on is innovation at its highest ground, creativity, solving real situations in whatever form. If it's regenerative soil, who's doing that? If it's things in health and disparities, who's leading that? I'm really.

And with city kids, how do you take all the knowledge we have, partner with all of those other groups like we did back in the day when you and I and Lenny worked together and really create a movement again out of this fabric of artivism of making an observation into an obligation.

Yeah. And another word for observation is witness, which actually, in my mind holds an intrinsic obligation. And moving from seeing and leaving, okay.

Which is a pattern that is rampant in our society to seeing and doing, which is exactly what you're talking about. You can't unsee certain things. And if you are a change agent, then you are. You're activated, your superpowers start to bubble. Right.

And the great thing, Laurie, is that you've had enough experience seeing, asking, what's the question here? Okay, how do we start to answer this? And then actually moving to the point where something real happens.

Yeah. Lasting impact in the world. That's right.

Yeah. You believe that?

I know that, yeah.

Yes, exactly. Which is an incredible gift to have had enough of those experiences so that your muscles are just. They're raring to go. Part five.

What you gonna do about hate? So Laurie, your work, I think, is known for its forward tilt, its inherent optimism.

But you have never shied away from the hard questions either, have you?

But I think another card in there. Where do we take our pain? I find that the hardest.

Like, I think I started city kids because I would be driving to the city and I'd hear, oh, a four year old was killed today. And I wanted to pull over to the road and scream, did someone hear that? Did you hear what happened?

And now with the onset of social media and interrupted everything every 2 seconds with the most horrific things. Where do we take our pain? Who do we share it with? How do we go through it? How do we move that forward?

And I remember Malik Yoba is part of city kids and was my vice president for years. And one time we had an article where some black kids were painted white in Harlem.

And Malik just started a song in the basement of city kids with 60 people going, what you going to do? About eight? And then it became this whole anthem for us.

I look at this country and I see the struggle we all go through to make it a better place. But I also see our history of hatred and how it's passed on to our childrenI look at this world and I see the fires of injustice. I see the way we treat each other and I see pain. I see a lot of pain. But I also see visions.

Visions and dreams. Struggling to overcome oppression. Whether it's oppression against a large group or against an individualWhy do we destroy ourselves? What are we afraid of. Where there is fear, let there be understanding. Where there is hate, let there be love.

About hate what you do? What you gonna do about hate? Hey, what you gonna do about hate? See what you gonna do about it? What you gonna do about it? What you gonna do about it?

What you gonna do about it?

The hate is over. The hate is over. The hate is overT he hate is over....

But that idea about finding a line or something someone says, or someone saying, I want to heal the rainbow, which they will play at my funeral, by the way.

So when you hear something that people say that can resonate in you in a deep place and address that pain, how do you then take that out and make that move people forward? So that's another thing when you were talking. It is about that listening, and it is about action.

But there's this step of like, oh, gulp, I have to swallow this. I have to process this.

Yeah, but we live in a society that is really given short shrift to what it takes to do that processing, particularly for the most complicated of those painful stories, the recurring atrocity of gun violence, the assault on the humanity of women, the wounded earth. We take it and we leave it.

Meaning that the sharing or even the selling of those tragic stories is kind of like fast food or those little bags of soba soup. You know, you just put it in hot water and it's ready and it's consumed. End of story. Next. But nobody has reinvented what it is to be human.

I mean, as individuals, as families, as communities.

So the time it takes to generate trust, the time it takes to heal, the time it takes to address and solve really intrinsic problems, the time it takes to change minds and move people to action. You know, it's not governed by Moore's law. It's not governed by processing speed.

In fact, given the proliferation of made up realities, the time and space we need to make a difference is, you know, it's likely increasing. And most importantly, I think good intentions is not good work.

What matters really is only every time we think we've done a good deed, we have to ask, will this good deed still be doing good in, you know, five years, ten years? Will these kids in this school still have access to that thing that turned them on and change their lives?

No, it's hard work. Good intentions is hard work. To mobilize and to give form to feeling. That's the deal I cannot cope with. The committee after committee.

Yes, let's get into action together, but then let's move out of this room into the streets, into the field in some way or another. And I think what you're saying is, you know, you've been doing this kind of deep dive into arts community for so many years since I know you.

And this, to me, is the future.

Thanks, Laurie. Means a lot. So, last little question, and it's the second half of the, what's turning you on here? But what are some creations?

Performance, music, books, whatever that really sparked you lately?

One is, I heard her speak. It's the rabbi who wrote a book called the Amen Effect.

Rabbi Sharon Brous B,r,o,u,s.

And one of the stories she told is that back in the day, on a very high mountain and near Jerusalem, thousands of people once a year would gather and they'd all walk clockwise. But if you've had a heartbreak or if you've had a pain, you'd walk the other way so people can look at you and say, you're not alone.

And that just blew me out, because that is what I feel we have to do. That was it. You're not alone. And then, this is a very funny.

When you asked me about performance, the city kids repertory recently have gotten the sons and daughters of the alumni working there. So many of them are the third generation, second and third generation.

And the other day, for family and friends, they performed and they did pieces that the parents wrote 40 years ago. All sorts of very impressive. And they updated it.

And during the performance, one of the parents whose kid was in there got up and said, I just have to say something. I am so sorry. I thought this world would be better when I wrote this so many years ago.

And then Kian got up, he has two kids in rep, and he goes, and I want to apologize. He was in tears. I too, am so sorry, because I thought everything would be different. And one of the kids in the performance, she goes, oh, cut it out.

The kid goes, "Cut it out. We're fine. We got our music, we got our safe space, we got our artivism, we got our voices." It was so freaking cool the way she did it.

But it was so great to laugh like this and just open the doors. But that kind of realness just was so, so phenomenal.

Yeah, that's what they're there for. Slap across the face.

I was like, "Are you kidding me?" Yeah.

So, Laurie, Meadoff, I want to go to camp, Laurie. And sit around the campfire and tell stories.

Definitely. Come to camp. Come to Laurie camp. And again to you. I just love that you stay committed to lurking and learning and teaching all of us about this amazing movement of art and community. So thank you.

That's what it's all about.

Amen. Honored to finally do this with you. So thank you so much.

You are absolutely always okay.

Okay, bye.

Hey, goodbye. To those of you who've joined us on this rollercoaster of a journey into the past and future on the Laurie Meadoff and team Express.

Thanks for listening and thanks for passing this on. If you are so inspired, please also be aware that links to the resources mentioned in this episode are available in our show notes.

And as always, you can refer to the transcript of this episode for a double dose of our conversation. Also, if you have some comments, questions or ideas about people you think we should be talking to, drop us a line at csac@artandcommunity.com, "artandcommunity" is all one word and all spelled out. Change the Story / Change the World is a production of the Center for the Study of Art and Community.

Our theme and soundscape spring forth from the head, heart and hands of the Maestro, Judy Munsen. Our text editing is by Andre Nnebe. Our effects come from freesound.org and our inspiration comes from the ever present spirit of UKE 235.

So until next time, stay well, do good, and spread the good word.