A year after ending the long-running The Walking Dead comic series after 193 issues, Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard — the creative partners behind the comics — have resurrected the comics franchise for a limited time only. Negan Lives #1 is a 36-page one-shot centering on the comics’ all-time greatest villain (and later, antihero), played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan in the AMC series.

The issue will be available on July 1st in comic-book shops only and at no cost to the retailers. It’s all part of an effort by Robert Kirkman to kick comic-book stores back to life after so many of them were shut down during the Covid-19 pandemic:

“I’ve been inspired by Steve Geppi and Diamond’s efforts to shine a light on how essential the Direct Market is to our beloved industry with their #backthecomeback campaign,” Kirkman said. “While Charlie Adlard and I had laid the series to rest, this felt like something special we could do for the store owners who made our series a success to begin with. To that end, I’m happy to report that 100% of the revenue generated from this book will go to the stores selling it. The retailer community does backbreaking work to get comics into the hands of our loving fans, we should all be doing more in these trying times to show them how appreciated they are.”

It is a very generous effort, and one that other comic-books may also benefit from, including Robert Kirkman and Chris Samnee’s new comic book, Fire Power, Vol. 1: Prelude, which arrives in comic-book stores on the same day.

In the comic series, Negan exits the main action after The Whisperer War, which will also be ending in the pending tenth season finale of the AMC series (Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan is expected to continue to be heavily featured on the show in the 11th season and beyond). Negan is not seen in the final issues of Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comic, but we are left to understand that he is still alive, living in a small house with a tombstone for his wife, Lucille, and that Carl visits periodically and brings him things.

Presumably, Negan Lives #1 will follow Negan after the events of The Walking Dead, and though Kirkman says that it’s a one-off, who knows what its success may bring? With Negan now the nominal lead in the comic series (along with Daryl and Carol), I’m sure that showrunner Angela Kang would appreciate some more ideas for future episodes, whenever the series moves back into production.

Check out the cover.

(Via THR)

There seemed to be a bit of infighting with Public Enemy earlier this year, as there were questions about whether or not Flavor Flav had been booted from the group. Whatever the case was there, he is back now, as he appears on the group’s latest track, “State Of The Union (STFU).”

The song is an aggressive take-down of Donald Trump and how things have gone in the US during his presidency. Although the POTUS’ name isn’t mentioned directly, it’s clear who the subject of the song is. Lyrics include, “Orange hair, fear the comb-over,” “White House killer / Dead in lifelines / Vote this joke out / Or die tryin’,” and the hook, “State of the Union / Shut the f*ck up / Sorry-ass motherf*cker / Stay away from me.” Trump is also clearly depicted on the single art, alongside a Nazi soldier with his knee on a person’s neck.

Chuck D said of the track, “Our collective voices keep getting louder. The rest of the planet is on our side. But it’s not enough to talk about change. You have to show up and demand change. Folks gotta vote like their lives depend on it, ’cause it does.” Flavor Flav added, “Public Enemy tells it like it is. It’s time for him to GO.”

Public Enemy, of course, are known for their iconic protest song, “Fight The Power.”

Listen to “State Of The Union (STFU)” above.

When it was announced that Search Party would be moving from TBS over to HBO Max (premiering on June 25th), I felt an inkling of hope that HBO Max might one day resurrect another phenomenal TBS series that was recently canceled after four seasons called Detour.

Detour is one of the funniest, most underappreciated comedies of the Peak TV era, and it manages to be exactly that without relying on a high-concept premise or an overly clever conceit. Detour is a meat-and-potatoes comedy, a supercharged, half-hour version of National Lampoon’s Vacation crossed with Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Created and written by husband and wife team, and former Daily Show correspondents Jason Jones and Samantha Bee, Detour is a road-trip comedy that delivers jokes, physical comedy, and gross-out gags at breakneck speed. But it’s also a family comedy with an occasional dose of real heart.

Jason Jones and Natalie Zea (Justified) play Nate and Robin Parker, and in the opening season, Nate surprises his wife and children with a vacation road trip from Syracuse to Florida, after he refunded their plane tickets because he needed the money (due to being fired from his job for attempting to blow the whistle on a defective product). The story of his termination — and subsequent arrest — plays out in the non-linear storyline over the course of the first season.

Zea, meanwhile, is much funnier than I anticipated that she’d be based on her work on Justified, in part because she has an unexpected gift for physical comedy and in part because I like to think she’s playing a version of Samantha Bee. During podcasts, Bee has mentioned that, in her younger years, she was criminally wild, and I get the sense that Robin is what might have happened to Bee if she’d followed along on that same path and had never had kids, only here: Zea plays that role and has kids. They are Griswold-like children: Clueless but curious about sex and drugs, but also wiser than their parents when it comes to most parenting decisions.

You’re the Worst debuted several years ago as the sort of anti-romcom romantic comedy. Similarly, The Detour is sort of an anti-family family comedy: Robin and Nate are very bad at parenting (in fact, they lost their daughter for nearly an entire season), but there is something often endearing and sweet about how bad they are as parents. Even four years after its debut, the writing and the perspective felt fresh, and while it did trade in dick and vomit jokes, it’s a lot smarter than it lets on.

‘The Detour,’ which ran for four seasons from 2016 to 2019, is currently available to stream on Hulu.

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When you first talk to Jacob “Jake” Lyon, you are almost surprised at how calm he is. The energetic and excitable former Overwatch League player turned caster is well known for his energetic outbursts. When you tune into an Overwatch League match and see him on the broadcast, it’s shocking to hear the absurd amount of information he can fit into short periods of time. In a single team fight, he will have broken down both team’s entire strategy of that fight, what is happening on the screen at that moment, and what might happen because of that result of that fight.

You would figure someone like this has to be the kind of person that can’t go through any aspect of life without excitement, except he’s really the opposite. Lyon is very calm and gives off a relaxed energy. Maybe that personality is part of what made him one of the top DPS players in the world, good enough to spend two years in the Overwatch League playing for the Houston Outlaws and facing high-pressure situations without fear.

“As soon as you start thinking to yourself, ‘this is a pressure moment, this is so important,’ then you’re going to fail,” Lyon said. “So you have to just discard the pressure and I think over time it was like I didn’t really worry about that stuff so much, having the experience of it and knowing that the best way to succeed in those moments is to disregard the pressure. As soon as you acknowledge that it’s a high-pressure moment and you start thinking about it then that’s the moment that you’re going to like slip up and fail.”

However, when you start really getting into a conversation about Overwatch with Lyon, that same energetic person you hear on broadcasts start to come out. You can hear the enthusiasm and the love he has for this game that has completely changed his life.

“I’m super happy to see the game be this way and it is the reason I’m still continuing to play [in my free time],” Lyon said. “I don’t have to play anymore if I don’t want to but I really do like playing the game. I’ve tried other FPS games, I play other stuff now, I’m not so hardcore on only Overwatch, but I still play Overwatch far and away more than anything else because it’s my favorite game”

It’s clear that Lyon’s connection to Overwatch comes from a very real adoration for the game. It also doesn’t hurt that he was really, really good. By age 21, he had played for Team USA’s World Cup team, joined the Outlaws, and established himself as one of the top players in the world. A frequent name at the top of Overwatch‘s competitive leaderboards, it did not take long for Lyon to become known in the Overwatch community as a top player. When you’ve been close to the top for that long, and you are part of the Overwatch League’s inaugural season, you know you’ve made it. What pressure is there to feel when you have already taken the steps to reach this point?

The biggest surprise with Lyon was how quickly his time as one of the top DPS players in the Overwatch League ended — he decided to retire after only two seasons in the league.

Of course, it didn’t take long to see him back in the Overwatch League, this time in the booth. Going from player to eSports caster can be a difficult transition, as casting and doing commentary is a different world from playing. You need to be energetic, bounce off fellow commentators, and be able to articulate your thoughts in a concise manner while the game is happening. That said, some of the skills as a player certainly translate and are part of what make Lyon as good as he is, as reacting to what’s happening in the moment and being ready to adjust to changes at moment’s notice are just as integral to casting as playing.

“Casting doesn’t really feel high pressure to me actually, compared to playing,” Lyon said. “I feel like it’s a lot more creative and there’s no real pressure on me, right? The pressure is on the players’ and the only thing that I have to do is explain the intensity that the players are feeling, but for me, that’s really natural because I just put myself right back in their shoes and it feels really easy for me to express that viewpoint.”

It’s extremely interesting how simple casting is for someone like Lyon. The idea of it even being a challenge for him seems like a foreign idea. After all it’s just talking about Overwatch, which he’s passionate and exceptionally knowledgeable about. He fit into the mold of the weekend broadcast seamlessly and has already found someone he has a great rapport with fellow caster Andrew “ZP” Rush. The two bounce off each other perfectly with ZP bringing the high intensity moments and Lyon providing an eye for the details that only a former player will notice.

That’s a lot of what makes Lyon as a caster so entertaining to listen to. Being a former player, so recently removed from the game, he knows the game on an extremely technical level. When a team is setting up for a play he is able to recognize the plan of attack and then quickly provide insight into why the play went down the way it did. A large part of this is that, unlike when he was a player, he now has all of the information available to him. He knows both teams ultimate economy situation. He can see a Tracer setting up to flank so they can isolate a Zenyatta alone. He’s isolating stories so he can share them with the audience and he’s using his experience as a player to isolate those moments.

“What you do as a player is figure out how do we win? Do we have the right ultimates? Do we just (use ultimates) at the right time? That’s good, or do we need to make a big play? Do we need to go aggressive? That’s literally your job as a player is to be correct about those things,” Lyon noted. “So as a caster it’s just easy mode of like you just have all the information. There’s no fog of war as it were.

“When somebody goes above and beyond I think that that’s the most important thing to communicate to the fans. The way I look at it as is basically how different was your performance from the expected performance whether that’s positive or negative. If you’re in a really advantage position and you lose it, usually that’s like a combination of your team not playing perfectly but the other team also makes big plays and seizes the moment and doesn’t play defensively when they’re at a big disadvantage and they just go for something crazy and that small percent of the time that it pays off. It’s worth highlighting and showing that this is important.”

Given that Lyon likes to highlight the extraordinary, then its worth mentioning what is maybe his most spectacular moment as a caster so far. During a recent match, his co-commentator in ZB was facing technical difficulties, which resulted in Jake having to cast a large section of the match by himself. The results were pretty good.

“I think it was lucky that it didn’t happen until the end because that sort of cast is really not sustainable. Afterward, my throat was definitely pretty sore,” Lyon recalled. “I didn’t really think about it too much. I just sort of went off because I knew I had not too far to go. So it was fun to just go a little bit crazy, but definitely not something I want to do consistently.”

It’s a moment that can fluster even seasoned pros, but he faced it head on and came out the other side with an incredible highlight casting moment. He may choose to downplay it himself, but no matter the sport esport or traditional sport, doing commentary for both spots at the same time is incredibly difficult, particularly when it’s not something you’ve prepared for.

Lyon sees it as his responsibility to tell the story of each match from the perspective of the players and highlight the things the competitors would want seen and heard.

“Everything for me stems from that idea of putting myself in the shoes of the player and telling their story the way they would want it told,” Lyon said. “It’s like the way I would have wanted it told as a player. I can now do that and be part of sharing that narrative with the fans.”

Lyon truly loves Overwatch. He loves playing it. He loves being a part of the game’s biggest stage, and can talk about it endlessly in detail, creating this overwhelming desire to share everything he can about the game. That kind of appreciation and passion can’t be faked or manufactured, and it’s why Lyon has become a fan-favorite in the booth so soon after his playing days.

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — Listen to me

It is my opinion that Fast & Furious 9 should be released as soon as possible. This weekend. Today. Before I finish typing this sentence, if someone out there has the juice to get it done, which they apparently do not. But soon. For the people.

This is a tough time, man. We’ve all been mostly quarantined since March. Unemployment is through the roof. Our national leaders are bickering like children and taking part in performative stunts meant to whoop their supporters into a frenzy at the expense of the rest of the country. It stinks. It is, to use an official term coined by historians, puke city. The people need a break. The people need something to take their minds off of the multiple heavy situations weighing down on them every day when they wake up in the morning. The people need to see Charlize Theron with an unfortunate bowl cut flying a magnet plane and scooping an airborne car right out of the sky like a hawk capturing prey in its talons.

That GIF is from the trailer for the movie, which came out on January 31 of this year, in the Before Times, somehow only six months ago despite feeling like many lifetimes in the past. Back when the film was supposed to be released this April, before it was delayed an entire year until April 2021. That’s the frustrating thing about all of this. The movie is done. It’s finished. It’s sitting in a vault somewhere in Hollywood, ready, waiting, and yes, as I am typing this I am realizing that I would also watch a documentary about someone trying to steal this movie. I’ll do it if I have to, steal the movie or make the documentary. But it shouldn’t come to that. They should just release it now to soothe a troubled nation.

There are so many options, too. They could put it out as a VOD exclusive for like $25-30 a pop. We could create a massive government program to put people back to work building drive-in movie theaters all over America and then screen the movie for millions of delighted Americans who can watch from the socially distanced safety of their automobiles. We could hang massive projection screens from every Chinook helicopter in our military and have them fly around the country playing the movie for anyone who pays $25 to stream the audio that is synced up to the picture. We have options. That’s my point.

It’s madness, really, the fact that the movie is just sitting on ice as the world crumbles. The people need this. The people deserve it. You can just go around re-introducing Han — a character who has died in 25 percent of the eight films in the franchise to date, and whose body Dominic Toretto flew to Tokyo to collect for a funeral — and then make people wait 16 entire months for an explanation of how or why it happened.

That’s just cruel. You can’t do this. You can’t do this to me. It was unfair before when there was only a three month lag between tease and payoff. Now, with everything else happening, with multiple historic events taking place at once in a summer without blockbuster movies or sports and a dwindling number of television shows to help distract us for a brief moment here and there, well, it’s just mean. This is a solvable problem. We can heal the nation, at least temporarily, for the film’s stated runtime of 135 minutes. We can all sit back and watch the world get saved yet again by a diverse team of former street racers and DVD thieves who have inexplicably become part of a highly classified government organization that has an unlimited budget and no oversight. We can bring the country together, hand-in-very-sanitized-hand, one magnet plane at a time.

Do it.

Do it now.

Release Fast & Furious 9.

For the people.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — Finally, at long last, a good idea

There is a very reasonable argument to be made that Dolly Parton is a top-five living American and top 25 all-time. All the woman has done is come from nothing, write stone-cold hits, and help people in need. You know about Dolly Parton’s charitable giving, right? How she has donated over 100 million children’s books to libraries all over the country? How she funds multiple scholarships through her Dollywood organization? How, after a fire devastated huge chunks of Tennessee and North Carolina, she set up a fund that gave anyone affected $1,000 a month for six months to help them through the aftermath? Well, if you didn’t, you do now. And she wrote “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” on the same day. That last thing isn’t charity, technically, but it’s still impressive.

So, yes, there should be statues of Dolly Parton. Everywhere. All over America. Thankfully, a Change.org petition is suggesting just that. Even better, it’s suggesting that the Dolly Parton statues replace the ones honoring Confederate generals. Find a single flaw in any of this.

An online petition asking the Tennessee governor and legislators to erect statues of the trailblazing singer-songwriter in place of Confederate soldiers has gathered more than 14,000 signatures and the enthusiastic backing of Parton scholars.

“Tennessee is littered with statues memorializing Confederate officers,” the petition on Change.org says. “History should not be forgotten, but we need not glamorize those who do not deserve our praise. Instead, let us honor a true Tennessee hero, Dolly Parton.”

This is the best idea I’ve seen or heard in weeks. Dolly Parton rules. Listen to “9 to 5” again if you haven’t recently. Listen to the lyrics. Dolly has always been for the people. It’s time for the people to reciprocate.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Look at this, another great idea

I’ve kind of backed myself into a weird spot here by going from “let’s honor a great American” straight into “a soap opera is using blow-up dolls for love scenes to prevent the spread of Covid-19 on set,” but a good idea is a good idea, regardless of where it comes from. This one came from the producers of The Bold and the Beautiful, and buddy, you really have to read the full story at Forbes to get a handle on what’s going on here. This seems like a very silly story. This seems like a joke. This seems like maybe it’s a fake story that was floated by some rascal and got legs on social media.

No. It is none of those things. It is a very real story about ingenuity and overcoming adversity and facing down a crisis with creative solutions. It is also filled with quotes that will twist your brain into a lumpy soft pretzel. Like, for example, this one.

“We have some life-like blow up dolls that have been sitting around here for the past 15 years, that we’ve used for various other stories — (like) when people were presumed dead,” says [executive producer Bradley] Bell. “We’re dusting off the dolls and putting new wigs and make-up on them and they’ll be featured in love scenes.”

You can’t possibly imagine how much I love this. I don’t think I’ve wrapped my own head around it. I have never watched a single second of The Bold and the Beautiful that wasn’t featured in a clip on The Soup, but you have lost your entire mind if you think I won’t check in at least once to see what this looks like, just to satisfy my own curiosity. I work from home. Watching television is technically my job. I almost have to do it, really.

Also, and this is mostly beside the point but still worth noting, I will pay up to $25 for a recording of the Zoom meeting where this idea was first floated. I want to see the faces of the other people on the call. I want to see everyone roll from laughter to disgust to dismissal to acceptance. I’m picturing like nine people all doing the Alonzo Mourning GIF in unison in their little Zoom squares.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — What I imagine the new SVU spinoff will look like now that NBC has promised noted hothead detective Elliot Stabler will “adapt” to the current “reckoning” in the justice system

[Detective Elliot Stabler and his team pull up to a house and beginning fanning out to surround the premises]

STABLER: [kicks down door] All right, listen up! Has anyone in this house ever had their rights infringed upon by a systemically oppressive judicial system?!

RESIDENT: Uh, what?

STABLER: Don’t play dumb with me, punk! Has anyone in this house ever felt threatened or targeted by a police officer who is acting outside the range of acceptable behavior? Answer me!

RESIDENT: I mean, you just broke my door…

STABLER: [puts fist through wall] This punk is stonewalling me!

RESIDENT: Hey, my wall!

STABLER: So help me God, you’re going to tell me whether a police officer has attempted to intimidate you through force or manipulation, even if I have to haul you down to the station and pry it out of you with my bare hands.

RESIDENT: But you…

STABLER’S NEW PARTNER: Step outside and cool off, Elliot. He’s not worth it.

STABLER: [kicks chair, spits on rug] Remember, chump. I’m watching you. I’m always watching.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — Credit where credit is due

Spike Lee’s new Netflix movie, Da 5 Bloods, is really good. Delroy Lindo is really, really good in it. So is everyone else, especially Isaiah Whitlock Jr., who can still draw out a “sheeeeeeeeee-it” better than anyone living or dead. You should check it out when this weekend. That’s not the point of this section, though. Not the only point, at least. The main thing I’m getting at involved the GIF up there and this tweet from ESPN’s JA Adande.

This is another one of those things that seems like it might be a joke. Like it might be something someone tweeted for a laugh. That would have been more likely if it had been tweeted by someone other than a journalist who works for a major mainstream organization, but still. I wanted verification. I wanted to see this for myself. I checked the credits after reading the tweet and, yup, sure enough, two dap consultants.

This is awesome. I agree. There needs to be some way we can recognize this. Let’s all write letters to the Academy about it. If there aren’t enough candidates to fill out an entire category, let’s just give the trophy to whoever we have. Have the presenters try to recreate the handshakes on stage. Do it all, I say. Make a montage at the very least. Greatness should be recognized in all of its forms.

ITEM NUMBER SIX — Warrior Nun!

I love it when a show tells you exactly what is right there in the title. Gilligan’s Island was about a dude named Gilligan who was on an island. Dog With a Blog was about a blogging dog. The Young Pope and The New Pope were about a young Pope and the Pope who replaced him, respectively, as the show made very clear in actual lines of dialogue in addition to the title.

And so, I am pleased to present to you the trailer for Warrior Nun, an upcoming Netflix series about a nun who is a warrior. It looks cool as heck. I can’t figure out much of anything that’s going on, but who cares? We have a nun and she’s a warrior and that’s enough for me.

Warrior Nun.

WARRIOR NUN.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Brandon:

With the release of Artemis Fowl and subsequent dunking on it from all directions, I have a theory: the word Artemis associated with a movie is cursed.

1) Artemis Fowl- popular YA series spends a decade in development, finally gets made, never goes to theaters because of a worldwide pandemic, gets terrible reviews, sets up a sequel that will absolutely never happen, would be the worst thing to happen to Judy Dench if Cats hadn’t existed.

2) Hotel Artemis- a great cast, Drew Pearce’s directorial debut, mixed reviews, doesn’t make back it’s budget, reaction seems to be a collective “eh”

3) Wild Wild West- Kevin Kline is “Artemus” (close enough), Will Smith summer movies are guaranteed money at this point… movie bombs, reviews are terrible, and South Park completely ruined the ability to take a Will Smith tie-in song seriously on any level.

I love this email for two main reasons:

• It is a fun theory that ties together multiple pieces of pop culture with a similar theme in a way that doesn’t necessarily seem obvious until you read it, at which point it becomes undeniable
• It is so thorough and comprehensive that I don’t have to do anything but post it in this column and look smart by pure association

Thank you, Brandon.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To “Española “!

Diego, a libidinous giant tortoise credited with saving his species, has finally retired to an uninhabited island off the coast of Ecuador after decades of service in a breeding program.

Let me tell you something, and I swear this is true: I don’t know if I’ve ever been more intrigued by a lede to a news story than I was upon reading “Diego, a libidinous giant tortoise credited with saving his species…” There’s a lot going on there and all of it is fascinating. I have two notes already:

• It’s fun to picture a scientist flying back out to this island next year and telling Diego he has to come back and produce more offspring, and then Diego saying “Why me? I’m retired,” and then the scientist saying “Because you’re the best there ever was”
• Make this R-rated Pixar movie at once

Yes, I will continue reading this article. Please, go on.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) also marked the occasion, posting on Twitter on Monday that Diego had returned home to his “natural environment” in the Galapagos Islands.

“The giant tortoise is over 100 years old and produced around 800 offspring,” the UNEP added.

I’m no science man and I’m notoriously bad at math but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that 800 children is a lot. Can you even picture 800 turtles? Really. Stop what you’re doing right now and try to get a mental image of what 800 turtles looks like. It is so many turtles. Turtles as far as the eye can see. All Diego’s offspring. Our very horny champion.

His unstoppable libido was credited as a major reason for the survival of his fellow giant tortoises on Española.

When he arrived there were just two males and 12 females of his species alive on the island, but Diego helped to boost the population to over 2,000.

Happy Father’s Day, Diego. No man or beast alive has earned this holiday more.

As artists get more and more creative with their stage names, some monikers with unconventional spellings emerge that leave fans wondering how to even say it. A primary example is 6lack. He has stated a number of times that the name is pronounced like the color “black,” but there are still those who insist on saying “six lack.” That conversation again made the rounds this morning, as HotNewHipHop notes the rapper was trending on Twitter earlier today.

It began was a viral tweet from June 17, which has over 245,000 likes as of this post and reads, “6lack: it’s pronounced “black.” Me:….anyway six lack.” 6lack responded to it last night, “this tweet is anti-black.” He later added, “every year i blow one of these up to keep the convo goin.”

From there, plenty of Twitter users weighed in, with a lot of them saying they still can’t get the “six lack” pronunciation out of their heads.

This is a topic 6lack has addressed on multiple occasions. He even brought it up on the remix of Jessie Reyez’s “Imported,” beginning the song, “Hi, my name is 6lack / And sometimes people call me ‘Six Lack’ / I don’t mind because they stubborn / And my bank account is looking mighty fine.”

He also wrote in a Genius annotation of the lyric, “The thing is I don’t care. Doesn’t matter, checks cash the same, pronounce it right, pronounce it wrong, my name is still my name. It’s been my name since middle school. The more people talk about it, the more merch I’m going to sell, and it’s doing pretty good.”

It’s certainly good timing, and perhaps even a calculated move, for 6lack to revive this conversation, as he just announced a new EP that’s coming out soon.

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When Tef Poe and Phillip Agnew tell you they’re collaborating on an initiative, called Black Men Build, you listen. Though they’ve operated in different lanes, the two men are both widely known as fierce intellects, tenacious organizers, and big-hearted leaders. They met in Ferguson after the killing of Michael Brown, and have each earned a place at the forefront of the modern protest movement in the United States — Poe working with HandsUp United and Agnew with The Dream Defenders.

Poe and Agnew are also both poets in their own ways. As a musician and rapper, Poe has added significantly to the “conscious hip-hop” genre, while simultaneously helping expand the conversation about what that phrase even means. His latest release, Josephine, offers a series of bright, optimistic, reflective raps spit over the sprightly guitar of Daniel “Monkh” Horrell. Meanwhile, his solo albums skew harder and darker — lyrics sizzling with the MC’s clear-eyed distrust for our failed systems while also reflecting his sincere belief that things can improve.

On the flip side, Agnew has defined himself as a once-in-a-generation orator — his words brimming with the potential he sees in humanity. He was a national surrogate for the campaign to elect Bernie Sanders and his speeches across the country often went viral in progressive political circles. Though his passion is always on display and his delivery is powerful, it’s the delicate nuance that Agnew captures, the turns of phrase that open the door to higher levels of solidarity, that make his addresses resonate so deeply.

Together, in launching Black Men Build, Poe and Agnew are developing a platform for black men to “engage this country as an organized force.” Their first major piece of content in the initiative, Wartime: Black Men’s Survival Guide, offers vital advice for navigating both the coronavirus and the current protest/ defund movement. On Saturday, June 20th, they’re hosting a national kick-off call to discuss the role of Black men in the current socio-political moment.

In advance of that call, I spoke over the phone with Poe and Agnew about Black Men Build (social media toolkit here), the “dismembering nature” of white supremacy, and the push to make Juneteenth a national holiday.

So let’s get right into this initiative that you two are rolling out, Black Men Build. You have a national call on June 20th and — for people in the social justice community, this is two legends combining. This is the Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star album. This is Voltron.

Phillip Agnew: Black Men Build is at least five years in the making. The seeds began when I traveled to Ferguson, trying to get down with the uprising that had already kicked off, and was then fomenting in St. Louis and in Ferguson. And Tef and I have been in contact and been friends and comrades — traveling to other countries together — since then. Black Men Build is based on an accumulation of our individual and collective experiences — being community organizers and strategists and artists for our entire adult lives.

The beginnings of Black Men Build recognize that there is no place right now where black men can engage this country as an organized force that is in service of our community and the global community. Tef and I are both internationalists. So we know what happens in the United States, what happens in Ferguson, what happens in Miami, what happens in Chicago has serious repercussions for what happens in Brazil and in Haiti and Palestine. And so we’ve baked a lot of that into Black Men Build. It’s a place for black men to engage the country as an organized force, and it’s not a self-interested group. It’s not black men for black men, but it’s really based on the understanding that a black man needs to be taught to reach out, to challenge, to question, and even, frankly, to listen in a different way if we’re going to actually be able to win something in this country and around the world.

Tef Poe: Yeah, man, what I can add to that is when I realized that this was going to go from being an idea to being a reality, I quickly shifted into how dangerous of a concept this was as well. Because what we’re quintessentially talking about doing with this prospect is building actual, organized collective power. And we already have collective power, black men, in the United States of America and the global diaspora at large. But what we don’t have is organized collective power. That’s a totally different concept.

People have been trying to accomplish that since Fela Kuti. He was pushing the United States of Africa. Or Patrice Lumumba. What we are, in my opinion, is just another extension of the baton. Some brothers kicked off the race a long time ago. Centuries ago. Those same men who stood with Queen Nzinga when she went against the colonialists and supported the women’s armies. We come from that same lineage. I’m only in the United States of America because my people was most likely a rebellious person within the village that got sold to the white folks. So I’m linking up with the rest of the rebels with this project and trying to build something. I think it’s just an extension of that legacy.

And as far as how that’s going to manifest in the day to day, what effect do you want the project to have? How would you see it? You know, shifting conversations and shifting culture and what do you see the rollout looking like, essentially?

Phillip Agnew: There’s a lot of content out in the world, but there’s not a lot of context. There’s not a lot of people who could combine the historical moment that we’re in, the present moment that we’re in, and a vision for where we go forward.

This is a collective effort, right? It’s us bringing in our creativity, but also our knowledge and our skills of communication to break down this moment and put it in context. There are so many people sharing information, sharing videos, sharing headlines for our young brothers, our young sisters. For anybody who is coming across any of our information — you’re going to get the context behind it. You’re going to get an understanding of how we got to this moment and understanding of all of the factors that are influencing this moment, currently. And then once you have a clear assessment of that, we’ll talk about how we go forward.

That’s what you’re going to see manifested in our content, through our social media, in our national kick-off call that we’re having on Saturday, June the 20th at 2:00 PM Eastern with thousands of brothers from around the country. A plan that’s rooted in history but also a clear analysis of the moment, not just one slice of the pie.

Tef Poe: And you know, also for me I’m kind of like the MC Ren of the crew. You know what I mean? That’s kind of how I view my position.

Phillip Agnew: Cube, bro! Cube!

Tef Poe: I’ll take Cube! And not disrespecting Ren, just saying Ren was the cat that wasn’t a rapper. He was the shooter for real, you know what I’m saying? So it’s like a part of me in revealing this rollout — outside of the schematics of the actual rollout — is revealing the relationship and the textures of the relationships within the network. I think what makes BMB really different than a lot of spaces where folks are doing similar organizing is that we’re really not calling favors in from people that we don’t know. We really are leaning our brothers we know, and that extends itself from me and Phil all the way up to Cornell West. We’re not going through Cornell’s PR team. We’re not talking to his assistant. We’re talking directly to him like, “Hey, we’re trying to shake the country up. If you want to sit at the table we for real, we serious. If you don’t, then this ain’t for you.”

That’s really how we’re coming at it. It goes back to the deeply intentional organizing and the deep revolutionary principle of being brothers at arms. I stepped to the table knowing that if Phil got opposition and obstacles and enemies, well guess what? His enemies are my enemies now, too. You know what I’m saying? And I put that hat on and those shoes on completely knowing that that’s what time it is. And I think that the call on Saturday, outside of the politics, culturally, is going to reveal to the country that we’re ready for the smoke.

Is that a response to how white supremacy has attempted to divide black people and, in this case, black men?

Phillip Agnew: Absolutely, but let me actually broaden that out. White supremacy is a divisive ideology in every way. It divides up the mind, the body, the soul. It divides up people by race, it divides up people by language. That is why white supremacy is the ideology of conquering and exploitation — because it teaches you that there is only one way to be. Right? It teaches you that your mind, your body, and your spirit always have to be in separate domains.

That is why we always say that it is a “dismembering.” White supremacy is a dismembering ideology, right? And so when you re-member, when you bring the different pieces… that’s what we’re doing with Black Men Build, that’s what the larger movement is doing. When you bring in the different pieces — the dismembered pieces of black people that have been thrown across the country, thrown across the water, thrown across the South, thrown across the world — and now we are re-membering. That reconstruction of identity is one of the crucial strategic ways to fight against a white supremacist ideology. Yes, it is about race. It’s absolutely about racism, about the racial dominance of white men, but it is also inherently a divisive and a dismembering ideology.

That’s why we think Black Men Build is important. Because we have been taught and instructed that men, that women, that people of other identities, that people of other sexual orientations all have to be at odds and that the self-interest of one group is at odds with another. And we’re saying “no.” As Tef said, we are actually from the lineage of men who followed the leadership of women, who followed them into the battle and when they called us to be generals, those men were generals. When they were called to be soldiers, they were soldiers. When they were called to be agents and covert agents, that they did that. That’s what we’re recalling — that memory, now.

That re-membering that you’re talking about — the unification of black people — has historically, obviously, struck a lot of fear in the hearts of people who have a vested interest in white supremacy.

Tef Poe: Definitely, definitely. That’s partially because white supremacy is a straight-up patriarchal stronghold. So it’s expected that we, as black men, would replicate the patriarchy or seek to aspire to be in alignment with the patriarchy. And part of the reason why we’re able to have this coordination and be so honest with each other is because we are eliminating the liberalism and the patriarchy, even amongst ourselves. Even within dealing with each other, we’re trying to address it.

Phillip Agnew: At its most core level, Black Men Build is seeking to reassert a “new man.” And it’s really, as I said, we are recalling the pieces of us that were already there and were already present, that were beaten, enslaved and churched, you know, via religion. All of these institutions that were built from the root of what this country is, took those pieces away from us. That’s why history is important. A lot of the things you hear brothers talking about today as “inherent to Africans” or “inherent to black men” are actually European ideas. And so the a-historic nature of even the composition that we have around manhood is debilitating and it’s foolish. And it’s just reinforcing actually, a European form of manhood. And so for us, bringing history to bear is a part of what moved us forward. We’re redefining what a man is, as we move forward.

Tef Poe: Also, I want to offer that this isn’t solely a program to “save the black man.” This is also a program that will straighten up humanity. Because as we’ve seen throughout history, through the work of Elijah Muhammad, through the work of the Black Panther Party, in its initial conception… before the government comes in and tampers with these things, these are vices that straighten the black man up. And, in consequence, also straighten humanity up because humanity can’t straighten itself up until the original man and woman are able to stand up and walk with full pride, full honesty and full transparency about who we really are within the context of not only this planet but the entire universe,

Bam. You guys just took it from the microcosm of a kick-off phone call to the entire universe in how long? 8 minutes? That’s the fastest I’ve ever had a conversation go that wide and I’m here for it.

Phillip Agnew: That it, man. That’s what we do!

Your kick-off call is the day after Juneteenth. There’s been a vocal push over the past few years to turn this day into a national holiday. This year it has particular heat behind it, with businesses declaring the day a holiday and giving people time off. Do you see that as the next step for America — reincorporating some of its painful history and learning to reflect on the past while moving forward?

Tef Poe: I think that this is the problem with the United States, man. We’re the country that wants to get credit for the bodies that we don’t collect. And we don’t want credit for the bodies that we’ve actually accumulated, but we want credit for the bodies that we didn’t do on our own. And that’s what Juneteenth is kind of like for me. When I witnessed what happened at large with the, I guess the grand reveal that this is the day that we got to walk off the plantation. I feel as if people aren’t doing the work to repair the relationship before they start celebrating.

I personally can’t protest with white folks who don’t believe in reparations. Because you can’t come to my house, steal all my stuff, and then I leave and come back with 150 people and say, “Hey, can I get my stuff back?” And instead of giving me my stuff back, you come outside and join me in yelling at the house. This course is backwards. Can you go back in the house and get us our stuff? Then you can come out here and celebrate with us all you want, because we got our stuff back.

That’s what I see happening with Juneteenth. We haven’t had any repair, but white folks want to be out popping fireworks and balloons talking about “yay, yay, yay!” I’m confused.

Phillip Agnew: This is a country that has given national holidays to murderers of Indigenous people; given national holidays to destroyers and slaveholders and murders of black people. So maybe a national holiday means something, but it’s not far enough toward where we need to go.

Here’s where I will say a national holiday for Juneteenth means something. It’s based on what Dr. Angela Davis says, which is essentially that, “White supremacy requires national amnesia. You are supposed to forget the wrongs and the things that happen to you and the devastating things that people did to you and your family and your descendants in the service of building this national American project, this beautiful land of the free.” So a reassertion of Juneteenth as a national holiday, in some segments of society, will force a reckoning with what the country did. And if that is one thing that it accomplishes, it will accomplish a great thing. But until there is a legitimate attempt at truth, at reconciliation, and at recompense — for the people and for the wrongs that have been done — then a national holiday is a satisfying thing, but it’s very, very insufficient.

Tef Poe: It’s a finesse job, man. I’m in the ghetto right now. I’m literally — my feet are touching the soil in the hood. I don’t give a damn about no damn national holiday if I’m still poor bro. Especially if the holiday is in service of poverty. And it’s in service of capitalism to begin with. All they want to do is dangle this national holiday in front of my face, and then all the Negros go out and buy Nike’s and bratwursts and sodas, and then we catch the Coronavirus and you go, “Well, guys, you got health complications, it’s attached to the shit you’re eating!”

No, it’s attached to the shit you’re selling me, not the shit I’m eating.

It’s such a large, expansive, inclusive philosophy that you two bring to this.

Phillip Agnew: There’s a bigger picture. If you don’t have a consciousness that encompasses race, gender — that is effectual and understands all of these things together. If your consciousness isn’t about reuniting the mental, the spiritual, and the physical world that we’re in, then you’re only doing a half thing. Then me and Tef are only playing games with y’all.

We have to give people the full picture. We’re going to talk about how the Indigenous people were slaughtered alongside the black Africans in this country. We’re going to talk about how the white man was created. That Irish people, and Italian people, and German people, at one time, were hated by Americans. We’re going to talk about how people, white people who have no dirt under their fingernails, are getting these poor white people to do all manner of things for them, just because they taught them that they’re just like them. So we got to talk about that.

Tef Poe: That’s why I say this program is a program for all of humanity. We have a right to organize ourselves because we are black men, and it’s quite painful for people to tell you that you have no right to take ownership over the political destiny of your own identity. That’s the most painful thing about being a black man, to me. So I think this project within me internally will help eradicate a lot of that energy, and I hope a lot of other brothers do try and do that as well.

People have their own unique mixes they throw on when they’re — ahem — doing the deed. That said, some artists tend to pop up on these playlists more than others: Pour Moi poured over the data and came up with the songs and artists that people listen to the most during sexy times.

The publication made their lists be analyzing over 300,000 songs appearing in Spotify playlists containing the terms “date night,” “getting it on,” “sex playlist,” “shagging,” “Netflix and chill,” “touching myself,” “solo sex,” and “masturbation playlist.” What they found is that The Weeknd (apparently a virgin), Rihanna, Jeremih, Trey Songz, Usher, Drake, and other artists came out on top.

They concluded that The Weeknd is the most-played artist while making love, and that he is followed by Trey Songz, Usher, Drake, Jeremih, Rihanna, Beyonce, Miguel, Two Feet, and Partynextdoor. Meanwhile, Jeremih’s “All The Time” tops the “most popular songs for seduction,” while The Weeknd has five songs in the top ten.

For those going about their sexual endeavors by themselves, there’s data for that, too. The site’s “top songs for self-satisfaction” is led mostly by tunes that are thematically appropriate, including Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself,” Nicki Minaj’s “Feeling Myself,” and Hailee Steinfeld’s “Love Myself.”

Check out the lists here.