Netflix has removed some episodes of the outrageous sitcom, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia on the basis that they feature multiple characters doing blackface. Fans started to take notice earlier this week that the ninth episode of the sixth season titled "Dee Reynolds: Shaping America’s Youth" was no longer available for streaming on Netflix. In the episode, main characters Mac and Dee both wear blackface. However, some fans pointed out that it was strange how Netflix opted to take down this episode, but not the season nine episode, "The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 6," that also features characters doing blackface.

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

"Surely Lethal Weapon 6 is actually worse than the first one?" one user asked, before explaining why he feels that taking these episodes off the streaming platform was contradictory to the nature of the show. "Thing is though, It’s Always Sunny is not racist. The characters are," he explained. "The entire joke of the show is that these are horrible, terrible people who suffer for their sins. When Mac and Dee do blackface, it’s not glorified at all. It’s heavily shunned by every other character."

Netflix has added Black Lives Matter to its collection of 24 genres. The change occurred after last Saturday when the iconic film The Help became the most streamed title on Netflix.

The BLM category is providing easier access to “powerful and complex narratives about the Black experience.”

“When we say ‘Black Lives Matter,’ we also mean ‘Black storytelling matters,'” said Netflix on Twitter. “With an understanding that our commitment to true, systemic change will take time – we’re starting by highlighting powerful and complex narratives about the Black experience. When you log onto Netflix today, you will see a carefully curated list of titles that only begin to tell the complex and layered stories about racial injustice and Blackness in America.”

Unlike the other genres on the service which are organized alphabetically, Black Lives Matter appears first on the genre list. The BLM category includes Malcolm X by Spike Lee, the series Dear White People, Ava DuVernay’s documentary on racial inequality 13th, When They See Us, Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight, and Michelle Obama’s documentary Becoming. The Help, which has received criticism for its “white savior narrative” is not featured in the BLM category.

It is unconfirmed as to whether the Black Lives Matter category will remain as its own genre or eventually become a subcategory under the larger Black Stories genre.

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He may be a comedian, but Dave Chappelle is also respected as a commentator on the culture. For decades, Chappelle has used his talents, and his platform, in an effort to shed light on issues plaguing politics, entertainment, and social justice issues. In a surprise move, in the wee hours of Friday (June 12) morning, Chappelle's 27-minute special 8:46with Netflix was shared. The special was reportedly filmed on June 6 in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where Chappelle spent much of his childhood. 

Candace Owens and Don Lemon have both addressed what Dave Chappelle had to say about them in his new Netflix comedy special, "8:46," about George Floyd's murder and the subsequent protests, and neither of them are too upset about his comments. In his new special, which premiered at midnight on Friday (June 12th), the comedian discusses the police killing of George Floyd and everything that came after, all the while putting a few public figures on blast for how they've handled the situation. One of the targets of Dave's ire was right-wing pundit, Candace Owens, who sparked outrage recently after making disrespectful comments about George Floyd.

"Candace Owens, that rotten b*tch, she’s the worst. I can’t think of a worse way to make money. She’s the most articulate idiot I’ve ever seen in my f*cking life," Dave said, among other critiques he made about her. Candace heard that Dave had brought her up in his special, and insisted on Twitter that she wasn't offended at all.

Dave Chappelle returned to the stand-up stage in a new surprise Netflix special about the recent police killing of George Floyd, subsequent protests against police brutality and systemic racism, and everything in between. The special aired without promo in the early hours of the morning on Friday (June 12th), and sees the comedian laying into the media for how they’ve handled the murder of George Floyd and begging America to get on board with these protests.

Mike Coppola/Getty Images

Dave begins the special by describing why this police killing of a Black American in particular was the last straw. “When I watched that tape I understood this man knew he was going to die,” he said, noting that it took him a week to finally be able to watch the horrific footage. “People watched it, people filmed it and for some reason that I still don’t understand, all these f*cking police had their hands in their pockets. Who are you talking to? What are you signifying? That you can kneel on a man’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds and feel like you wouldn’t get the wrath of God? That is what is happening right now. It’s not for a single cop, it’s for all of it, f*cking all of it. I don’t mean to get heavy but we gotta say something.”

He goes on to ridicule CNN’s Don Lemon for famously calling out certain rich and powerful celebrities who hadn’t spoken out on this issue at the time. “[Lemon] says, ‘Where are all these celebrities? Why are you not talking?’ This n***a said, ‘Everybody.’ I was screaming at the TV, ‘I dare you to say me, n***a, I dare you!’ Has anyone ever listened to me doing comedy? Have I not ever said anything about these things before? So now all of a sudden this n***a expects me to step in front of the streets and talk over the work these people are doing as a celebrity.”

Mike Coppola/Getty Images

“Answer me: Do you want to see a celebrity right now?” he continued. “Do we give a f*ck what Ja Rule thinks? Does it matter about celebrity? No, this is the streets talking for themselves, they don’t need me right now. I kept my mouth shut. And I’ll still keep my mouth shut. But don’t think my silence is complicit…Why would anyone care what their favourite comedian thinks after they saw a police officer kneel on a man’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds?”

Dave also ripped into the right-wing media by calling Fox News’ Laura Ingraham “a regular-ass white b*tch with a platform” and “a c*nt” for insisting Drew Brees has a right to his opinion about politics while telling LeBron James to “shut up and dribble” in 2018 for his activism. Next, Dave targeted Trump-supporting “free thinker” Candace Owens for her insensitive and disrespectful comments about George Floyd.

Moses Robinson/Getty Images for Revolt

“I’ve seen Candace Owens try to convince white America, ‘Don’t worry about it. He’s a criminal anyway,’” Dave says. “I don’t give a f*ck what this n***a did. I don’t care what this n***a did. Candace Owens, that rotten b*tch, she’s the worst. I can’t think of a worse way to make money. She’s the most articulate idiot I’ve ever seen in my f*cking life.” He goes on to drag her for suggesting that Black America had “chosen” Floyd to be their hero despite his past.

“‘Why does the black community make him a hero? Why did you choose him as a hero?’ We didn’t choose him; you did,” he tells Candace. “They killed him and that wasn’t right, so he’s the guy. We’re not desperate for heroes in the black community. Anyone who survives this nightmare is my god damn hero.” Watch the full special, titled “8:46,” below:

Almost everyone in the world has been forced into a quarantine scenario thanks to the Coronavirus. Realistically, it’s not exactly ideal. No one wants to be locked in their home for an indefinite period of time but alas, here we are. In order to pass the time, people have been relying on entertainment services such as Netflix to give them lots of ways to pass the time. The platform always seems to come through in the clutch and during the month of June, they will be providing people with a ton of great shows and movies.

Whether you like action movies, comedies, Anime, or drama TV series, Netflix will have plenty of great titles for you next month. In the list below, you can see every single piece of media that will be added to the platform, as well as everything that will be leaving Netflix.

Let us know in the comments below which titles you are most excited for and which ones you will be sad to see go.

ARRIVING

June 1st
Act of Valor
All Dogs Go to Heaven
Bad News Bears
Cape Fear
Casper
Cardcaptor Sakura: Clow Card
Cardcaptor Sakura: Sakura Card
Clueless
Cocomelon: Season 1
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
The Healer
Inside Man
Lust, Caution
Observe and Report
Priest
Silence of the Lambs
Starship Troopers
The Boy
The Car (1977)
The Disaster Artist
The Help
The Lake House
The Queen
Twister
V for Vendetta
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
West Side Story
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
Zodiac

June 2nd
Alone: Season 6
Fuller House: The Farewell Season (Netflix Original)
Garth Brooks: The Road I’m On
True: Rainbow Rescue (Netflix Family)

June 3rd
Killing Gunther
Lady Bird
Spelling the Dream (Netflix Documentary) .

June 4th
Baki: The Great Raitai Tournament Saga (Netflix Anime)
Can You Hear Me? (Netflix Original)

June 5th
13 Reasons Why: Season 4 (Netflix Original)
Hannibal: Season 1-3
The Last Days of American Crime (Netflix Film)
Queer Eye: Season 5 (Netflix Original)

June 6th
Queen of the South: Season 4

June 7th
Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj: Volume 6 (Netflix Original)

June 8th
Before I Fall

June 10th
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow: Season 5
Lenox Hill (Netflix Documentary)
Middle Men
My Mister: Season 1
Reality Z (Netflix Original)

June 11th
Pose: Season 2

June 12th
Da 5 Bloods (Netflix Film)
Dating Around: Season 2 (Netflix Original)
F is for Family: Season 4 (Netflix Original)
Jo Koy: In His Elements (Netflix Comedy)
Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Season 2 (Netflix Family)
One Piece: Alabasta
One Piece: East Blue
One Piece: Enter Chopper at the Winter Island
One Piece: Entering into the Grand Line
Pokémon Journeys: The Series (Netflix Family)
The Search (Netflix Original)
The Woods (Netflix Original)

June 13th
Alexa & Katie Part 4 (Netflix Family)
How to Get Away With Murder: Season 6
Milea

June 14th
Marcella: Season 3 (Netflix Original)

June 15th
Underdogs

June 16th
Baby Mama
Charlie St. Cloud
The Darkness
Frost/Nixon

June 17th
An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn
Mr. Iglesias: Part 2 (Netflix Original)

June 18th
A Whisker Away (Netflix Anime)
The Order: Season 2 (Netflix Original)

June 19th
Babies: Part 2 (Netflix Documentary)
Father Soldier Son (Netflix Documentary)
Feel the Beat (Netflix Film)
Floor Is Lava (Netflix Original)
Lost Bullet (Netflix Film)
Girls from Ipanema: Season 2 (Netflix Original)
One Way to Tomorrow (Netflix Film)
The Politician: Season 2 (Netflix Original)
Rhyme Time Town (Netflix Family)
Wasp Network (Netflix Film)

June 21st
Goldie

June 22nd
Dark Skies

June 23rd
Eric Andre: Legalize Everything (Netflix Comedy)

June 24th
Athlete A (Netflix Documentary)
Crazy Delicious (Netflix Original)
Nobody Knows I’m Here (Netflix Film)

June 26th
Amar y vivir (Netflix Original)
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (Netflix Film)
Home Game (Netflix Documentary)
Straight Up

June 29th
Bratz: The Movie

June 30th
Adú (Netflix Film)
BNA (Netflix Anime)
George Lopez: We’ll Do It for Half (Netflix Comedy)

LEAVING

June 1st
The King’s Speech

June 3rd
God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness

June 4th
A Perfect Man

June 7th
Equilibrium
From Paris With Love

June 9th
Mad Men: Season 1-7

June 10th
Standoff

June 11th
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: Series 1

June 12th
Dragonheart
Dragonheart 3: The Sorcerer
Dragonheart: A New Beginning
Dragonheart: Battle for the Heartfire
Cutie and the Boxer

June 16th
The Stanford Prison Experiment

June 22nd
Tarzan
Tarzan 2

June 24th
Avengers: Infinity War

June 27th
Jeopardy!: Celebrate Alex Collection
Jeopardy!: Cindy Stowell Collection
Jeopardy!: Seth Wilson Collection

June 29th
The Day My Butt Went Psycho!: Season 1-2

June 30th
21
The Amityville Horror
The Andy Griffith Show: Season 1-8
Blow
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Brooklyn’s Finest
Center Stage
Chasing Amy
Cheers: Season 1-11
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Chloe
Click
Cloverfield
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Duchess
Elizabeth
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Ghost Rider
Happyish: Season 1
Here Alone
Inception
Instructions Not Included
The Invention of Lying
Julie & Julia
Kate & Leopold
Kiss the Girls
The Last Samurai
Limitless: Season 1
Little Monsters
Mansfield Park
The Mask of Zorro
The Matrix
The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix Revolutions
Minority Report
Patriot Games
Philadelphia
The Polar Express
Race to Witch Mountain
The Ring
Scary Movie
Sliver
Stuart Little 2
Tremors
Tremors 2: Aftershocks
Tremors 3: Back to Perfection
Tremors 4: The Legend Begins
Tremors 5: Bloodline
What Lies Beneath
Yes Man

[Via]

ESPN’s The Last Dance documentary on Michael Jordan came out just in time for the coronavirus pandemic. Needless to say,  it’s been a source of entertainment and distraction in the midst of the pandemic. Jordan gave the world an inside look into his life like never before, addressing a few of the myths surrounding his name.

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

The legendary flu game where Jordan put up 38 points after falling sick in Utah was debunked. Jordan, as well as others close to him, suggested he got food poisoning from bad pizza. Even his trainer Tim Grover said he had a bad feeling about it but the guy who made and delivered the pizza has stepped forth to address some of these claims.

Craig Fite, the man who claimed to have delivered the pizza, joined 1280 The Zone’s The Big Show On Monday, revealed that he was just hired to the pizza place and was apparently the only Bulls fan in the workplace or at least the only person willing to put down money on the Bulls. Fite said he delivered a large, thin-crust, extra pepperoni pizza by himself along with the driver — refuting claims that there were five people that delivered the pizza to Jordan.

“We go over and I knock on the door, and then this great guy who’s been saying all this crap lately — I’m sure that he’s a good guy,” Fite said, seemingly in reference to Tim Grover .“But anyway, he answers the door, barely opens up the door, and I said ‘hey,’ identified the company I was with, here’s the pizza delivery.’”

From there, Fite said that he asked if he could say hi to Mike quickly. “Mike’s in the room, sitting at the chair, he’s playing cards or whatever, and raises his hand, he said, ‘Thanks, man!'” Fire recounted. He quickly added that no one else got sick from anything prepared from his store that day.

Peep the clip below. 

Netflix has debuted the trailer for the new film Da 5 Bloods. The movie follows four veterans, Clark Peters, Norm Lewis, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and Delroy Lindo, joined by his son, Jonathan Majors. They return to Vietnam in search of the remains of their squad leader (Chadwick Boseman) and in pursuit of buried treasure.

Directed by Spike Lee, the action-packed movie trailer shows scenes of the four veterans dancing while “Apocalypse Now” plays in the background, as well as flashbacks as young soldiers in a battle scene. Vintage footage flashes between what appears to be the Vietnam War, U.S. protests, and Nixon’s resignation speech, concluding with a fist raised to the sky.

The soldiers are encouraged by Boseman’s character to bury a trunk of gold bars and return to claim the treasure later.

“We’ve been dying for this country from the very get,” says Boseman’s character. “We give this gold to our people.”

Lee produced the film with Lloyd Levin, Beatriz Levin and Jon Kilik as well as executive producers Jonathan Filley, Barry Levine and Mike Bundlie. He also co-wrote the film with Danny Bilson, Paul DeMeo and Kevin Willmott.

Da 5 Bloods cast includes Mélanie Thierry, Paul Walter Hauser, Jasper Pääkkönen, Johnny Trí Nguyễn, Van Veronica Ngo and Jean Reno and is set to premiere on Netflix June 12.

Check out the new trailer below.

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Snowpiercer, a new series adapted from the dystopian 2013 movie of the same name is coming to Netflix in Canada on May 17, hitting cable the same day. Netflix just released the trailer for Snowpiercer, the sci-fi series starring Jennifer Connelly, Mickey Sumner, and Lena Hall. 

Snowpiercer is based on Jacques Lob and Jean Marc Rochette’s graphic novels. The post-apocalyptic show produced by Joon-Ho, director of Parasite is about passengers on a perpetually moving train, the only living survivors seven years after the world freezes over and becomes uninhabitable to humans. “First, the weather changed. In the final days of the freeze, the rich retreated to an ark. This is Snowpiercer. This is how we survive. There are those who have, and those who suffer,” says main character Andre Layton in the series’ trailer.

The show follows the passengers and their struggle with class-divide as the wealthy live comfortably while the poor suffer: “The Earth’s remaining inhabitants are confined to [the] single train as revolution brews among the class-divided cars.”

In the current climate, viewers want exciting content now more than ever. Brett Weitz, general manager of TNT as well as TBS and truTV says, “We are moving up ‘Snowpiercer’s’ premiere so that fans can enjoy this futuristic series even earlier.”

Watch the trailer below, and let us know if you’ll be tuning in on May 17th.

“That violence, that poverty, that madness spawned a beautiful art form,” Mister Cartoon says in Netflix’s L.A. Originals. “Those guys sitting in cells that will never get out helped shape an art form. This rose out of the crack in the concrete.”

Estevan Oriol/Getty Images

Mister Cartoon and Estevan Oriol have captured the world of East Los Angeles and beyond for nearly 30 years. Cartoon’s stylistic choices merge the worlds of jail artwork and graffiti together while Estevan has captured still moments in some of the rawest and chaotic environments. Their work has influenced a generation of artists and photojournalists that followed but more importantly, it gave the world insight into East L.A. from their perspective. A world that balances the beauty and resilience of Chicano culture and the bleak reality of L.A.’s underworld.

The distinctive art style that comes from East L.A can be attributed to their work throughout the 90s and 2000s. Netflix’s L.A. Originals delivers a candid look into their illustrious careers with unreleased behind-the-scenes footage from their work with 50 Cent, Dr. Dre, and Eminem as well as glimpses from the S.A. Studios era in Los Angeles’ Skid Row area.

L.A. Originals has been in the making for a few years but its actual release arrived months after the tragic death of Kobe Bryant and days after the one-year anniversary of Nipsey Hussle’s murder. Kobe, who was interviewed for the documentary months before his passing, was tattooed by Mister Cartoon. A notable photo of a young baby faced Nipsey Hussle in the streets of Crenshaw has inspired murals across the globe. Estevan took that photo. 

Tattoos get carried to the grave while photos immortalize moments. And as much as Estevan and Cartoon carry on the legacies of others through their work, it’s their subjects that allow their artwork to live beyond the grave. 

“I’ll do like a back piece for my friend and you know, one of my buddies, he OD’d and they take your artwork into the box, you know what I’m saying? It lasts longer. They might have some jewelry on, they might have some other things — clothes or something to ‘em. But it’s a trip that your actual artwork is going to go back into the earth,” Toon told HNHH. “And you know, sometimes, Estevan captures these guys so we have their picture. It’s a little bit of our way of, kind of, putting our flag into the ground, you know what I mean? Kind of just saying, ‘we were here.’ This is tribal for us. Kind of like an Aztec Warrior carving on the side of a pyramid, you know? It’s our way of leaving our mark.”

Following the release of L.A. Originals, Estevan Oriol and Mister Cartoon chopped it up with us about the making of the documentary, Chicano artwork in the Trump era, and working with Kobe Bryant and Nipsey Hussle. 

This interview was lightly edited for clarity. 

HotNewHipHop: How’re you doing, man? How are you holding up in the midst of this craziness? 

Mister Cartoon: Well, I mean, I don’t wanna act like I’m having too much fun but if the government tells me to stay home and smoke weed again, I’m just gonna take orders from the government, you know? 

Bro, I feel that 100%. That’s exactly how I felt about this whole thing. 

MC: (Laughs) Nah I mean, what I do, my artwork, I’m in isolation. If I have my friends around, I can’t concentrate. They start telling stories. There’s time for that. And then there’s times for me to be in solitude and get work done. So, it’s actually a real positive thing in the midst of a lot of negatives for other people, you know. 

*Estevan Oriol joins call*

Hey, nice to talk to you, man. 

Estevan Oriol:Yeah, nice to talk to you too. 

Thank you guys so much. Estevan, how are you doing? 

EO: I’m doing pretty good. 

Excellent, so now that I have both of you here I just want to congratulate you guys on the documentary. It was really dope just to get an insight into the work you guys have done over the years. How’d you guys hook up with Netflix to bring this documentary to life? 

EO: We got signed to a production deal with Sebastian Ortega. He has a production company called Underground. He has one of the biggest running Netflix shows in Argentina. It’s called El Marginal, and he came up here to meet somebody and met with me along the way, and I took him over to meet Cartoon at this photoshoot we were doing. He has one of the only lowriders in Argentina. He might have the only lowrider in Argentina and he’s all sleeved down. He wears Dickies and a T-shirt and Chucks to work and he’s a film exec. I was like, “Man, this guy is perfect, he gets it.” There’s no pitch or anything like that. It’s more like he said, “Hey, whatever happened to that doc? You know, if you guys want, I’ll do it for you.” And he walked us into Netflix and you know, it got signed right then and there. 

That’s dope, especially since a lot of it is unreleased footage. How’d you guys, through all that 25 years of footage, skim through all that and decide what was going to be used and what wasn’t? 

EO: Well, that was probably the hardest part of making the film. To me, I think the hardest part of anything is the editing. And you know, because for me, I shoot so much, like, I don’t shoot a bunch of dead footage. I just shoot like selected good stuff. So, I had 25 years of good footage and you know, the same with the photos. Our original goal was to try to do something like The Defiant Ones. We wanted to do like a four-part docu-series cause we thought we had enough footage that big and that long. But, we got just the 90-minute deal, so we ran with that and we just had to pick the highlights of all the footage and all the photos throughout the years and that was one of the hardest parts. A lot of people didn’t make it and a lot of good footage didn’t make it, but you know that’s all we could do in those 90 minutes. 

Obviously this documentary goes through the highs and lows of your career, were there any scenes or footage that were particularly difficult to watch? 

EO: Hmm, not really. For me, I saw the movie about 20 times before it got to the point where it’s at, so I had seen that footage over and over and over again. Maybe, the first time watching something, you’re like, “Oh, whoa.” But after seeing it a bunch of times, you’re kind of numb to it. For me, we didn’t really put too much of the hardcore stuff in there. There was a lot of stuff we held back on for, you know, reasons of, like — if you put too much out there, then people are gonna be judging you and stuff like that. And we still have to work and we got families and all that so we didn’t want to just put it all out on the line and just be like, you know, “Here’s us, take it how you want.” There might be a repercussion of some kind of stuff like that if you’re planning to be out there in the workforce, getting work and stuff like that because might judge you and be like, “Oh you know, he’s the guy that was doing this or that.” So, there’s a lot of stuff, you know, [that] we just kept to ourselves. 

Fair enough. I guess my follow-up would be what was your favorite moment from the documentary that you were excited to have the world to see? 

MC: I think the type of footage backstage that, like, even my kids found out about me that they didn’t know. My friends probably thought they’d seen every picture of Estevan’s and they’d seen everything, [but] they hadn’t seen that footage. And one of the crazy parts to watch for me, too, was the part when Kobe came out. You know, it’s like fucking tragedy, you know. Tragedy in American royalty you know, in a way. It’s real personal to us and we’ve been sitting on that footage. It’s so hard with the days of social media where everybody just leaks everything, and you know what they ate and where they went on vacation, and that they bought a new house and all this s***. It’s important for us and that we drop this and didn’t tell anybody about Kobe, didn’t tell anyone about Em, like these newer interviews. We wanted to surprise people so it worked out good. 

When did the interview take place with Kobe? 

EO: That was about, I’d say, six months ago. What do you say, Toon?

MC: Yeah, around six months. It feels so recent, man, it goes by so fast. 

Damn. 

EO: Maybe it was eight months ago, cause he’s already passed away for a few months. 

Mr. Cartoon, you tattooed a Kobe Bryant piece and Estevan, you caught that iconic picture of Nipsey Hussle. Can you guys talk to me about what those respective pieces mean to you? What resonated with you the most about working with these individuals? 

EO: The fact that I even got to work with them is what resonates with me the most. The fact that I got to be in their presence and not only hear about them or read about ‘em but see them in person. Like, when you’re sitting there talking to Kobe, you’re kind of frozen. You’re kind of like, wow, you know. You feel the difference when you’re interviewing somebody that’s been interviewed thousands of times as opposed to someone who’s new at it. Every question, he hit us right on the head with the perfect answer and then he was just, you know, he was just dropping wisdom about success and everything else. And you’re like, man, this guy is like — you want to sit there for an hour and get like, a free motivational speech from Kobe. But you know, we got in there, we got our 20 minutes with him, and he said everything we wanted him to say. With Nipsey, I shot Nipsey in 2008. So, that was before he had come out with his first album when he had gotten his first record deal. I shot him for Rime Magazine, then I shot him for XXL, then I shot him for a foreign publication but the next thing was going to be his first album cover, and his deal didn’t go through. Something happened within him and the label, and we never got to do that but you know, I was fortunate to get a couple good early on photoshoots with him and hang out with him and see who he was. ‘Cause the way me and Toon think is pretty much right along the lines of the way he was thinking when he was doing his thing. It wasn’t about, you know, let’s get famous, let’s get rich, and buy a bunch of stuff for myself. It was like, let me use this platform to do something for my people, my community and my culture. And, to me he took that to the limit, you know. He went all out in the end. He signed a lot of people. He put a lot of people on. He bought property in his neighborhood. He opened his own business. He helped his homies open their own businesses within that property that he bought. To me, that’s like the ultimate good feeling to have. [When] you’re uplifting and empowering your community and then when that spreads out into the world the way it did. It can’t get no better than that. 

Definitely, is there anything you’d want to add to that Mr. Cartoon?

MC: These are guys, you know, we look up to. And you know, Nipsey’s younger but he had that old school soul. He grew up in a real hard neighborhood, so he had to grow up fast. But, just being able to talk to Kobe. Being around all those guys is just really inspiring. You just see that they’re human beings, but they just got that extra aura. They got some type of like — I guess any time you meet pro-athletes, man, they kind of look like they’re ready to spring up off the ground, you know? They’re like the closest to superheroes that we got. So, it’s an honor to work with those types of guys. 

Estevan, you were mentioning the parallels between what Nipsey did and what you guys do for the Chicano community. In these times of Trump, how important is it for Chicano artwork to be visible to the public eye?

MC: It’s really important for us. Like, Estevan and I, we did Anthony Bourdain’s [show] right before he passed away and he asked us a similar question. It was, you know, I was just able to say, well, you know, we had a great four years with Obama, you know what I mean? And even if he wasn’t a perfect man, he looked like it. He acted like it, you know what I’m saying? And now we have the orange racist in there. It sheds a big light on how a lot of people see us. Even some Latinos, family members I have, support this guy. I don’t know how anybody can look at him speak, step back, and be like, “yeah, that guy is the leader of our country.” I mean, he can’t even string a sentence together properly. You should have to take some type of high school entry history exam to become the president. Like, if you want to become a lawyer, you gotta do the Bar and it’s so hard. You can’t have the mouthpiece of a used car salesman, the best bullshitter in New York City, and be president. It’s disgusting. But, it’s important that we’re out there. When our president is calling our ancestors rapists. He’s calling our people rapists, right? It’s important that we stand up, like we’ve always done before this dude showed up as the president, and just help the community. We do free outreaches to the kids on how to become artists. We never charge for that shit. We never even post it. It’s just what we do. It balances out all that weirdo s*** and I’m not going to let that get into the way of what we do. 

EO: It’s very important. Because all he has to say is negative stuff, you know? So it’s important for somebody to have something positive out there for our community and our culture because this is something that’s happening on the ground on a daily basis, you know? The fact that we get to battle that with our artwork and using that as our voice. I’ve been out there when they’ve done those protests in the streets. I photograph all that. And it gets pretty heavy out there. There’s a lot of tension when you’re out there on both sides. And then, when the cops come, it gets pretty crazy. This is kind of like us doing that but without really going out there and getting maced by the cops and all that kind of s***. It’s kind of like a positive way to put our people and our community out there without getting zip-tied by the police and maced and shit like that. 

I wanted to bounce off of something Cartoon was saying earlier about hosting these workshops for kids in your neighborhoods. I know LA Originals starts off with your childhoods and how you guys developed your skills. How have your skills and talents have transcended generationally with your kids?

MC: Yeah, my kids grew up in an artistic household — classic soul music, classic rock, Mariachis, you know, my wife plays a lot of that. They’re all artistic in their own way. My son, little Estevan. He’s a carbon copy of me. He wants to do everything that I do. My girls, not so much. They like music, guitar. They can both draw but they don’t have the same fever my boy has but he’s a little bit older too. They’re all gonna shine in their own way, of course. I kind of make ‘em draw. I make ‘em sit there and do letters and s*** so that by the time they leave here, they’ll at least know how to write Script, Old English and they’ll know the basics. But hopefully, they carry this thing on. And you know, just seeing Estevan’s kids grow up, each one of them has their own thinI. It’s good to see these kids grow up in such a cool atmosphere and options to do whatever they want to do. 

Yeah definitely. Estevan, I know you mentioned in the documentary that you actually got introduced to photography through your father who is also a photographer. How have your kids carried on the legacy? 

EO: My son, he’s a sports type. He knows everything about sports that you could imagine. I could ask him about any player and how they do in their field and he knows. He’ll tell you the statistics, the games, and like, how many bats has he shot, how many touchdowns. He’s on it with that. So, to me, I look at that as kind of an art form. It’s in that same mindset. Like when you set goals and you go after them to achieve them. Depending on the level you take it to, that’s what I see as an art form. Like, you see a great athlete doing their sport, it looks like art. So for me, I feel like his art form is the whole sports world. I have one daughter she’s in school and the other one she just goes day by day on her daily life. I have another daughter who has kids and works in an office so they all do different things. They all took what we taught them and went in a different direction but nobody really sat down and is like you know, I’m gonna draw everyday or I’m gonna photograph every day.

For me, I didn’t even wanna do it either. I picked up the camera and was embarrassed to take pictures because I thought it was kind of goofy. The people that were taking pictures back then, if they weren’t all the way professional, it was like paparazzi and tourists. That’s what I thought were taking pictures — either the pros or the goofy tourists with the straw hats and glasses with the black socks or black penny loafers and plaid shorts out there. Or the paparazzi chasing people and running up in their face and being disrespectful of people’s lives to get a good picture so they can get a quick buck. That was kind of how I saw photography. For me, at first, I just was taking pictures here and there, little by little. And as people started responding to my pictures in a good way, that’s when I decided maybe I’m onto something and maybe I should take it more seriously and I did. I started doing magazines, art shows. Me and Cartoon did our first art show in Tokyo. A photo agent over there from a company called August organized an art show in Tokyo in an area called Roppongi. We had our first art show over there in 1997. For us, that was like crazy. Like, one, to do our first art show and to have it in Tokyo. That was mind boggling for us. And then we came home and did our second one at this place called George’s Gallery. That was co-owned by the Beastie Boys in East Hollywood. That was kind of how we started. It wasn’t in a traditional way but we felt like that was the direction to go into. Like, using our art to get into magazines and do art shows and go in that direction. Whereas a lot of people didn’t really go into that direction with photography back then like that. But we kind of thought we wanted to do it a little differently and do something that fit in our lane. 

Estevan Oriol/Getty Images

One thing that really stood out to me in the documentary was when you guys were talking about your friends who have passed away. In tattoo culture, a lot of people ink their friends or get portraits. But, Estevan for you, it’s like you’re immortalizing these moments when you go to these neighborhoods and photograph these people. Can you guys talk to me about that?

EO: Yeah, it’s kind of a given. They say in this lifestyle there’s kind of like three places you’ll end up — it’s jails, institutions or death. So, going into that environment and knowing that in the back of your head, you kind of are thinking like, yeah, I might take a picture of this guy and he might be in prison the next week or he might be in a rehab or killed. So it’s kind of like, you gotta go in there just thinking you’re just gonna take a picture. After that is when it’s when you start thinking, “Oh, that guy’s a hothead. Or he’s on a good one.” Or something like that. Or “he might not make it to next week.” And that’s what happens to some of the people. They end up passing away or getting life in prison or something like that. And you have photos of a time in their life that bring good memories to their families, which is a cool feeling. I always post people that have passed away and I put up, “RIP to my homie Trigs” or Spanky or these other guys. Their family and friends always comment and are in the DMs saying, “thank you man for never forgetting my loved one or my friend” or “thank you for keeping their name alive.” I think that’s one thing that’s important, they want to be remembered. A lot of people that I talk to, I’ve had friends that say, “Aye if something happens to me, just don’t let my daughter ever forget about me. Just keep me and my memory in my daughter’s life.” And you’re like, yeah, no problem. In the moment, you’re thinking, “Man, shut up Julio. You’re tripping nothing’s gonna happen to you.” Then when they pass away you’re like, “Damn, now I have that obligation because I gave my word.” Every time I talk to certain people’s kids, I’m like, “your dad was like this or your dad was like that.” Or tell them a good story about their family member or their friend to keep their legacy alive in their life. 

Cartoon, if you could elaborate on what Estevan said.

MC: I’ll do like a back piece for my friend and you know, one of my buddies, he OD’d and they take your artwork into the box, you know what I’m saying? It lasts longer. They might have some jewelry on, they might have some other things — clothes or something to ‘em. But it’s a trip that your actual artwork is going to go back into the earth. And you know, sometimes, Estevan captures these guys so we have their picture. It’s a little bit of our way of, kind of, putting our flag into the ground, you know what I mean? Kind of just saying “we were here.” This is tribal for us. Kind of like an Aztec Warrior carving on the side of a pyramid, you know? It’s our way of leaving our mark. We were a part of something. We added to our community. We love our community and we just draw this way and he shoots this culture and he shoots a certain way. So we’re not just that, cause we like other s*** like we like foreign movies. People would never picture me and Estevan in like a Bali, Indian restaurant ordering butter chicken. We might be in some crazy Thai restaurant in Thai town or we might be in East LA in a crazy taco spot. It’s having an open mind, it’s accepting all good things. All things that are quality in detail. To be able to go to other parts of the world, represent where you came from but also respect and take in people from other lands, other tattoo cultures, other car cultures, other people that are sickos like us you know what I mean? We’re everywhere. That’s one thing about being tattooed is your kinship with everyone else that has tattoos all over the world. We’re renegades in a way where we’re members of a society that is underground like for cars lowered. We used to be looked at as riff-raffs and low-lives and drug addicts. Now, it looks like NBA stars and professional artists that are in contemporary art museums. So it’s come a long way, you know? We did that art show in Tokyo that Estevan was talking about. We thought that was it. We made it. We got our lowrider art in a gallery in Harajuku. Can’t be better than that. And for that time, we maxed that time out. I don’t know anybody’s that’s done it since the way we’ve done it — out there at least. But we’re barely getting started, man. Me and E we’re fired up. We’re ready to take over the world, man. We’re ready to put our flag at the North Pole. We been to the South Pole now we’re going to the top so that’s it. We love to do it. 

That’s what’s up. Thank you guys so much, it has been an honor speaking to you legends. 

EO: Thank you, bro. 

MC: Appreciate you, man.