Rapper Mickey Factz joins Panama Jackson to give a rundown of the online school for aspiring lyricists he founded in 2021. Pendulum Ink Academy provides a one-of-a-kind education in hip-hop that allows its students to learn from the best. Method Man, Inspectah Deck, Rah Digga, and Cory Gunz are just some of the guest lectures passing on their knowledge of the rap game. Productive mental health practices, finance, and criminology are also courses being provided that prove being a hip-hop success is about more than just rhymes and beats.
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[00:00:00] Panama Jackson: You are now listening to theGrio’s Black Podcast Network, Black Culture Amplified.
[00:00:07] What’s going on, everybody? Welcome to Dear Culture, the podcast for buy and about the culture. I’m your host, Panama Jackson, and it’s 2023. We’re celebrating 50 years of hip hop, which means we’ve had lots of guests and people who are on here talking about culture.
[00:00:22] Just talking about any facet of it, right? Like I’m a hip hop head. You know, I got my MF Doom mask in the back behind me. You know what I’m saying? That strangely nobody has ever mentioned yet. No matter how many people have had on here, nobody’s ever pointed out the mask, but you know, hip hop heads unite. And in that vein, we are joined today by Mickey Factz, who, let me see, how can I, how can I break this down?
[00:00:44] He is both an artist, he’s an entrepreneur, a producer, uh, 2009 XXL freshmen cover. Part of that class, uh, a prominent feature of a recent blog era podcast that was doing numbers. That was very, uh, like for people like me for whom the blog era is very significant. You are prominently featured in that.
[00:01:05] Uh, and you are the founder of Pendulum Ink, which is a rap school, which is what brings us here today. And I’m very excited to talk about that and all that comes with that. My brother, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?
[00:01:17] Mickey Factz: I’m doing great, man. Thank you guys for having me. I think it’s an honor and a privilege.
[00:01:22] You know,
[00:01:22] Panama Jackson: before I dig into my questions, like, you know, how does it, I wanted to ask this as I listened to the blog era pod, you know, um, again, you’re prominently featured in that, you know, your interviews are kind of spread out through several parts of that because you are one of those artists for whom, uh, like you made a name during that era.
[00:01:41] But when we think of that era, we think of you, you know what I’m saying? For those of us who were like really into. The genre and the not rights and all of that stuff. Um, what does it feel like to be such a prominent part of such a definitive era of hip hop?
[00:01:57] Mickey Factz: Um, again, I think it goes back to being an honor and a privilege to be involved in anything that has cultural impact.
[00:02:07] On, uh, Black society and, uh, human society in general. Um, the blog era was a very, very innovative, creative, and scary time. And we were just trying to, you know, find our way in an industry that was shifting and changing on a consistent basis. Some of us got lucky. Some of us didn’t and I was in the pan of the lucky and not so lucky.
[00:02:37] Uh, I kind of experienced success and failure in that era. And I think, uh, rising from the ashes like a phoenix is the best way to kind of, uh, think of my journey in the blog era from, you know, the rise, the fall, and then to resurrect and be here with what I’m doing now.
[00:02:57] Panama Jackson: When I think of you, I think of like lyricists, people who are like just really, really good at their craft, right?
[00:03:03] So. Um, which brings us to why we’re here today, which is Pendulum Ink, your academy, a rap school, you know, we’ll dig into that, but you know, what is Pendulum Ink and why did you start it?
[00:03:16] Mickey Factz: Pendulum Ink is a school for aspiring MCs to not only learn the business of music, but also to improve their craft in different literary devices, as well as songwriting, flow delivery, cadence and rhythm and style and multi syllabic, uh, shadowboxing and different techniques that we’ve started here at Pendulum Ink in our rap tech and advanced technique classes, as well as the mental health side and our rhymecology courses. We do everything here that you would want in a school. I know there are a lot of schools that have had courses that maybe one course in the entire, you know, uh, course track that’s just reflective on hip hop.
[00:04:03] Like, you know, Dr. Dyson, who did his Tupac course. It was just that one course at that entire college. You come to our school and you have the access to about 11 to 12 different courses for you to take here at Pendulum Ink.
[00:04:18] Panama Jackson: What kind of courses are those? I mean, I know you have classes on advanced techniques, but like, what, what are students at Pendulum Ink learning? And what are they, like, what is the goal for them to get out of it by the time we finish? Which I really want to talk about what it looks like to finish. you know, your courses or whatever, you know, you finish, finish your time at Pendulum Ink.
[00:04:37] Mickey Factz: Well, yeah, yeah, I mean we have, we offer a robust, uh, curriculum for our students.
[00:04:43] It’s eight months. Uh, everything is virtual. Um, we do everything on zoom. Uh, we save and archive all of our content via Dropbox. And we have advanced techniques, rap techniques. Rhythm and style, advanced rhythm and style. Uh, we have rhyme college, which is our mental health course. We have our song Pendulum songwriting, which is our songwriting course.
[00:05:09] We have criminology and hip hop taught by professor Mario Jackson. We have visual aesthetics and hip hop taught by professor Joe Stew. We have hip hop according to finance taught by professor Jean Luca and professor Chris Stevens. We have, the evolution of evolution of rhyme taught by Professor Jeff Walker.
[00:05:30] We have the content corner. Which teaches emcees how to, you know, do and put out content. We have debate teams and we also have battle rap 101 taught by Professor Jones. I also teach the business class and I bring in different people from different facets of the music industry to come in and give their expertise in that manner as well as a showcase class where we have different people from the industry that can come in and critique emcees music throughout that particular class.
[00:05:58] Panama Jackson: This is so fascinating to me. I mean, genuinely fascinating for a couple reasons and we’re going to get into some of that, you know, so I want to talk about the romcology class, which is the class that mental health is an aspect of that class. And I listened to the, the, it’s not the episode, but I guess it was a masterclass with Phonte.
[00:06:16] And I heard that they, that they use the, one of the verses from one of his songs. Is it on charity starts at home? I can’t remember what album it’s on, but they use one of that to kind of talk about like how in depth he gets with his discussion about his own life as a way of springboarding into discussing mental health, like mental health is such an important aspect of we talk about it a lot.
[00:06:37] Nowadays, it seems in culture. Like, everybody’s everybody’s interested in self care and ensuring like the best effort of self. Like, what does that class like? What is the focus of that class in terms of mental health? Like, what are the students? Aiming to get out of that. What are you all aiming for the students to get out of that class?
[00:06:56] Mickey Factz: Well, when you think about our core classes, right, which is the four main courses that we have at Pendulum which is rap tech, advanced techniques, rhythm and style and advanced rhythm and style. We break it up into writing and flowing, right? So we’re done style is obviously flowing and then rap tech and advanced tech is actually writing and writing at high levels.
[00:07:17] We don’t want people to come in and just be these people that just have this great cadence and that’s it, right? And we don’t want people to come in and just be these syllable robots. We want to actually have people come in and express themselves, right? And allow themselves to be vulnerable. And the only way we can do that is with a therapist who’s also actually an MC.
[00:07:38] And what he does in this class is groundbreaking. We bring in a legendary guest every single month. Last month, we had Rah Digga come in, um, and we broke down one of her records, uh, from an emotional standpoint. And we allow for us, we allow for a discussion, right? So that people can kind of express what they feel Rah Digga was trying to express in that particular record.
[00:08:01] And then we don’t emulate what she did, but we experience, we’ve experienced through her sound bit, right? So, for instance, when we had Method Man in class.
[00:08:13] Method Man: It’s a beautiful task. It’s like I get excited looking for that word. Or looking
[00:08:17] for that, uh, entendre. Or double entendre, and if I could make it a triple entendre.
[00:08:22] Mickey Factz: Then we had You’re All I Need, which is a very vulnerable, uh, record describing his love for his partner with Mary J. Blige, right? We would say, what are the things that we need to survive? Right. Is it somebody we love? Is it the air we breathe? Is it the home that we stay in? Is it a family member that we need to take care of?
[00:08:40] What is it? And we need to express that. And we allow for MCs to express that via writing. And then they get a chance to perform it in the class while writing it. A lot of our students cannot miss this class. It is a mandatory class for everyone to. take once a month. Uh, so it’s basically a therapy session that we give them through hip hop and they express themselves.
[00:09:04] We’ve stopped the divorce. We’ve stopped a suicide and we’ve helped so many people cope with the loss of family members as well as loved ones in their life.
[00:09:15] Panama Jackson: Yeah, that’s, that’s truly fascinating, especially because I mean, so many of the artists That I know, like I grew up in on 90s hip hop, right, like, you know, 44.
[00:09:23] So I grew up in the 90s, like on the, the Nas, Mobb Deep, the Jays, the, I’m a, I’m a Southerner. So, you know, outcasts and ghetto boys are kind of like my North star things. But it’s funny thinking about these artists nowadays in terms of what they’re expressing. Like, for instance, Prodigy from Mobb Deep. When I think of him and the way he spit, like, there’s a lot of pain in what he’s talking about.
[00:09:43] Like, there’s a lot of, you know, like, he’s obviously a master lyricist, but the way that he was putting those things together, there’s a certain under, underpinning of, like, Black male pain and youth and his own personal struggles.
[00:09:57] Prodigy: There’s a war going on outside no man is safe from you can run but you can’t hide forever from these streets that we done took.. You’re walking with your heard down scared to look.
[00:10:07] Panama Jackson: So that’s why I can apprecaite that kind of course because the more that I think about what my favorite artist are talking about, it’s really the mental health struggle, like Goody Mob, and I think with that entire Goody Mob first album, um, Soul Food, like, it’s like a, a masterclass in like what it’s like to be a Black man and the struggles that go along with it. So, I think that’s really commendable, not even just commendable, but I think it’s like really, like it’s innovative to be thinking about hip hop in that sense, enough to create a course around that.
[00:10:34] So kudos to y’all for that. Time for a quick break. Stay with us. And we’re back. Who are y’all students? And like, where do they come from? Like, how do people find the school? And I ask this because, like, are they younger or older? And I’m, I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’ll explain my question more after you answer that question.
[00:10:54] Mickey Factz: So currently we have about 70 students and they’re all older. They’re between the ages of 18 and 55. Uh, and we have students from all over the world. You know, they come in every weekend. They come in, you know, nightly to these classes. I think that the pandemic was able to show us that, uh, virtual learning and virtual communication was a way for us to stay in contact, you know, the same way social media did for us in the early 2000s to now..
[00:11:22] So currently, you know, we have those types of students here at Pendulum Ink. We just launched our nonprofit organization called pen pal kids. Which will be teaching 6 year olds all the way up until 18 year olds.
[00:11:36] Panama Jackson: Oh, that’s dope. I like that. I was going to ask you about that. I read an article about that.
[00:11:40] I read it. I read an article that mentioned that, um, the reason I asked about who your students are is because like, I hate to be that guy. But like, nowadays, I mean, I think most of us who kind of grew up in a certain era. And probably people like yourself who are known as lyricists, like it doesn’t seem like lyrics and the composition of verses is at the forefront of a lot of what we consider like the mainstream version of hip hop at this point, right?
[00:12:05] Like, you’re always going to have your rappers, like I just wrote an album review of No Name’s Sundial album because I think she just goes clean off on that album in various ways. Love her or hate her and her content, but you know, like The craft is clearly there. And of course you have your J. Coles and the Kendricks and Nicki Minaj, who, you know, whether love or late, like she can spit, right?
[00:12:23] But it seems like a lot of artists nowadays, that’s it’s vibes, right? Like it’s just vibe. So I was curious. Like what kind of students were there are they they’re learning how to become better lyricists and are their goals to release projects? Um, like what are the goals of the students that are at Pendulum Ink?
[00:12:42] Mickey Factz: Okay, so I’m gonna tackle your first question um, so we have we operate the same way the normal school system operates freshman sophomore junior senior if someone can’t rhyme on beat rhythm and style is the freshman class, and we teach them how to rhyme. If someone can rhyme on beat, but their writing isn’t as well as it should be, we send them to rap tech because that’s the sophomore space.
[00:13:08] Junior and senior varies, uh, which is advanced techniques and advanced rhythm and style. Uh, you have to go through those courses, uh, in order to. For us to define where you are. So we do have MCs that are vibing and we put them in advanced techniques to hone their pen. And we have MCs that are lyricists and we put them in advanced rap rhythm and style to make them vibey.
[00:13:33] Right. And have them understand what that vibe feels and sounds like. Uh, I like to help have, and help MCs be versatile, uh, because. It doesn’t make sense. When you listen to a Mickey facts project. Yeah. I can rap with ransom, but I’ve also done records with Tiesto. Yeah. I’ve done records with Fall Out Boy and Kanye West, but I can also do a record with an unknown artist in the underground and do what I do.
[00:14:03] You know what I’m saying? It’s literally from the vicinity of pun, got insufficient funds cause they giving me the crumbs. I found out that the industry is numb, so the world, and I learned how to give it to my son. I can also battle him. So it’s, it’s very important that an MC at least dips their toe into the different facets and styles of, of, uh, what it is to be an MC and a lyricist and a rapper, right?
[00:14:29] I think it’s very important. I don’t shun. Any style of hip hop, and I don’t think anyone should shun any style of hip hop. What Sexy Red does is just as impressive as what Nas can do, right? Because if you put Nas into the booth and tell him to emulate what Sexy Red do, it will be pretty darn difficult for him to do it.
[00:14:50] And that does not diminish her style, right? It’s all about being like water. Like what Bruce Lee said, can you adapt to the scenarios and situations that you are in when creating and crafting music, especially when it comes to making capital to live off of this music. Um, and now to answer your second question, when it comes to goals.
[00:15:12] So we have different, uh, finishing tracks for students. Uh, for one, they get me as a mentor in perpetuity. Um, and I think that above all is something that resonates with a lot of them, right? Mentoring artists that are coming up with no matter how old they are, right? Uh, one of our students, uh, actually three or four of our students was number one on iTunes last Friday above 38 special and ransom.
[00:15:42] Uh, and a lot of that came from my business class, letting them know how to actually get to that number one spot. Um, and I mean, everyone is not going to be successful. Everyone’s not going to be J Cole. Everyone’s not going to be Kendrick Lamar. Everyone’s not going to be Mickey Factz. However, there are multiple different ways for MCs to make money after leaving Pendulum.
[00:16:02] We just launched Pendulum Sync which allows for emcees to get into the sync licensing world, getting your music placed in video games, movies, television, and commercials. We also have our pen pals program, which allows for our students who graduate from Pendulum Ink to either come and teach here at Pendulum Ink, or teach at neighboring schools in their surrounding areas.
[00:16:26] I think having these different work tracks is important for people who sign up at the very low price point of what they’ll be learning, uh, to then further their career, whether in teaching or whether in music.
[00:16:42] Panama Jackson: When they show up or when they, when they apply, I know there’s an application, they have to send a verse, like they have to like a written verse.
[00:16:48] Like how do you, how do you apply?
[00:16:51] Mickey Factz: Well, you go on Pendulum Ink dot com or you can download the Pendulum Ink app, which is now available on the Google Play Store as well as the Apple Store. Um, you fill out an application and if you’re serious, we will set up a scheduled Zoom meeting with you. Um, we will walk you through the course track.
[00:17:07] We will walk you through the MCs that will be pulling up this year. And then we’ll let you know what the payment process can be for an MC. And then after they make that first payment, then we listen to the music and decide where we can place them. We’ve had over 2000 people submit applications and you know, it doesn’t make sense to listen to 2000 people if only 70 people are going to sign up. As soon as you sign up we listen to your music and decide where we’re going to place you. It’s very difficult to just listen to so many different artists and expect to place them if they have no uh, intention on signing up at school.
[00:17:43] Panama Jackson: Fair enough. Alright, we’re gonna take a real quick break here and when we come back we’re gonna talk more about Pendulum Ink with Mickey Factz. Touré .
[00:17:53] Toure: I’m Toure. Join us for crazy true stories about stars who I really hung out with. Like Snoop, Jay-z, Prince, Kanye. And the time I got kidnapped by Suge Knight. Don’t miss my animated series, Star Stories with Toure, from theGrio Black Podcast Network.
[00:18:18] Panama Jackson: We’re back here on Dear Culture talking about Pendulum Ink, a rap academy with founder Mickey Factz and, you know, we talked about how the kind of students that come to the school, and, you know, you made a really interesting point that I, I agree with, right? Like, you know, artists like, like saying Nas couldn’t do a sexy red, I think that’s very funny, like the imagery on that is hilarious in and of itself, but just, I think it’s a very good point.
[00:18:42] Now, I kind of wonder, was it an easy transition to go from, you know, artist to teacher for you?
[00:18:49] Mickey Factz: Yeah, uh, I think it was an easy transition for me. I think everything in life, especially when it comes to experience, builds you up to the next phase of life. And I look at it like a video game, right? When you go through a video game, you have to build your skill tree in order to get to the final boss.
[00:19:06] Uh, I’m not saying that Pendulum Ink is the final boss, but for a very long time, I worked with so many different artists, whether known or unknown, specifically the unknown artists. And the ability to work with artists who want me on their records, some of them were lyrical records, some of them were vibey records, some of them were conscious records, some of them were reflective records, some of them were party records.
[00:19:30] I had to adapt to that. And by myself learning to be able to do that because I’m being paid a service. I got to be able to be like, all right, well, listen, I need bills paid and they’re the ones that’s providing me this capital to do it. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure my customer is happy.
[00:19:47] So I’m going all out. learning the different ways to attack a beat, learning the different, um, cadences and pockets and deliveries and slang and, and, and inflections to be able to express myself properly on a particular record. And I think those are the artists that stick around for years and years to come after their light potentially may have dimmer.
[00:20:10] You have to be able to be fluent. And when it came to being a practitioner, I was nervous, right? The same way I’m nervous when it’s time to get on a stage. I was nervous when I cut on that zoom for the very first time to share what it is that I’ve learned. Um, but as I got comfortable in it, now it’s natural to me to be able to give back to a bevy of artists.
[00:20:33] And, you know, professors and teachers alike.
[00:20:37] Panama Jackson: How do you decide on the guest lecturers? I know you’ve had, and I listened to several episodes with Phonte, Master Ace, Inspector Deck. Uh, you mentioned Rah Digga. I think, was it Bun B was like the, the, um, the graduation, uh, speaker or like, how do you decide on the people to bring into the fold for Pendulum Ink?
[00:20:56] Mickey Factz: Well, is a, uh, we, we definitely like to go up. Uh, so the first year, which was last year, a lot of the emcees were people that were in my Rolodex that owed me favors, uh, and my other professors favors, right? So, Inspector Deck owed me a favor, uh, and he did it. Corey Guns and Sky Zoo owed me favors. Ras Kass owed me favors.
[00:21:23] And I was able to leverage that and promote it on social media so people could see that these people were actually coming to the classes. Uh, and that led to the following year and it was like, okay, I still got a couple of people that owe me favors. Let me use those favor cards as well as reaching out to people that I’ve never kind of had interactive conversations with such as an ab soul, right?
[00:21:44] The first time me and ab soul spoke was maybe two days before the class. And he was like, I’m a fan. I’ve been a fan. You inspire me. So this is. I don’t want to say that he said it was a dream come true, but it was more so like, yo, this is destined to happen, right? Um, and we’d like to go up, right in scale.
[00:22:04] So next year, you know, we have even crazier artists that are going to be pulling up. Jadakiss, Styles P, Cassidy, uh, Beanie Siegel, Freeway, T. I., The Game. We’re looking to go even higher in the totem pole when it comes to artists. Because we want artists and our students to learn from the best. Uh, how can you grow if you can’t learn from the greats and we choose, we want to make sure all representation is handled.
[00:22:33] So we have a woman’s month, we have emcees from the South. We have emcees from the East coast, the Midwest and the West coast.
[00:22:40] Panama Jackson: What is their, like, the artists that, that come into, that you ask to come guest lecture and they come and do it, like, their reception to it? Because it’s funny, like, when I think of Inspector Deck, right, I’ve always thought of him as kind of mathematical by how he puts his verses together, you know, just in general.
[00:23:00] Inspector Deck: I don’t know if everybody thinks that way. So, you know, some artists like Ras Kass, like, people like Ras Kass who are like, the people that I loved coming up that are just, Like when you listen to Ras Kass, you’re gonna learn something and you’re gonna like appreciate the way he attacks a beat kind of thing.
[00:23:16] Ras Kass: I’m he and he’s I, because you can’t spell d e without the word die.
[00:23:21] Panama Jackson: You know, like when I looked at the, the list of people when you asked them to come and kind of speak and share their experiences. are they jumping at that opportunity? Like, is it one of those things where they’re like, man, I don’t even know what to say.
[00:23:33] Like, what am I supposed to share with them? Because, you know, I don’t know how many of them think about their careers and the things they do academically.
[00:23:42] Mickey Factz: Well, a lot of times they don’t know what’s what to expect. Uh, when you tell somebody, you know, I own a school for lyricism. They’re like, okay, well, I’ll do it, Mickey, because it’s you.
[00:23:57] Um, and then, you know, I let them know what their honorarium is. They then say to me, okay, send me my flight and, you know, hotel. And I’m like, it’s Zoom. And then they’re even more shocked because the honorarium is so high. Um, and then, you know, they have no idea what to expect. And I think that’s the best way for them to kind of come into it.
[00:24:21] And when they finally step into the virtual class. You know, they’re blown away with not only the students, but the questions, how it’s handled, the gifts that we give them at the end, and the questions that they get to, you know, answer by the students who are basically fans. So it turns into this like appreciation class, right?
[00:24:42] As opposed to like a teaching class, um, obviously they’re sharing their experiences and what it is that they’ve done lyrically, uh, stylistically and emotionally, but for the most part, you know, they are shown their appreciation. for all of the hard work that they’ve put in over their careers.
[00:25:00] Panama Jackson: Good job. Kudos to you and your team for being able to put something together that is able to show and prove, you know what I mean? Like people, the rap school, when you bring actual lyricists into the building, not even just, but rappers in general, people who have made careers out of this and, and the ability to do that is, you know, it’s, it’s proof of concept.
[00:25:21] What does graduation look like? Like, how did, like, what is the, what is graduation for your students?
[00:25:26] Mickey Factz: Well, uh, our last graduation, which happened February 26th to February 28th, was a full weekend. Um, and we had in person classes. We taught with Rhymecology in person. We had Antonio Reed Jr. come in and teach our business class.
[00:25:42] And we had Grip come in as our legendary guest who was signed to Shady Records. He came in and also did that class. From there, we had a showcase that night sold out crowd 250 people in Atlanta and all of our students got a chance to perform one song. Um, it was incredible and then the next day we had our graduation at the gathering spot for our event students got degrees.
[00:26:08] Some students got glass awards. Bun B made the commencement speech and they all got hats and shirts. Uh, that they had to wear. Uh, it was a, it was a monumental experience. And, you know, this next year, which is the next graduation, will be in New York City at the New York Public Library. Um, and Black Thought will be the commencement speech.
[00:26:31] Panama Jackson: Yeah, that’s amazing. One more break here at Dear Culture. We’re going to come back and talk Blackfessions and Blackemendations. And have Mickey Factz explain to everybody how they can get more information about Pendulum Ink. And if you’re interested, how you can get down. Stay tuned.
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[00:27:45] Panama Jackson: All right, we’re back here in Dear Culture with Mickey Factz, founder of Pendulum Ink and he’s been explaining to us about, uh, the school, the courses that you can take, how you graduate, who’s been a part of this. And the hip hop head in me is screaming on the inside and wishes I had done something like this and maybe I have to sign up myself.
[00:28:01] Maybe I gotta get on here and try to, and try to, try to take some courses and do like the, the journalist, the journal, the inside scoop from a journalist standpoint of this.
[00:28:11] Mickey Factz: We down. Pull up.
[00:28:13] Panama Jackson: That’s it. You playin’, but I’m actually been thinking about it. I’m over here like, huh, maybe I might need to, I might need to get down with this.
[00:28:21] You know, the last question I’m going to ask you before we get to our final segments is what’s been your favorite part of this experience for you so far?
[00:28:29] Mickey Factz: Um, uh, that’s tough. You know, the first year was was everything was new. So, you know, seeing people shocked and awe and what we were doing has been a big kind of deal for a lot of us at Pendulum.
[00:28:52] Um, obviously meeting the students in person was a big deal. Uh, and then obviously, you know, having the legendary guests come in, like, it’s just it’s so many it’s so many different instances where great things have happened in that interim, uh, to kind of say that this was the best part. Every part of my job has been Inkredible so far because it’s never been done before.
[00:29:17] So every day is like a new brand new experience, uh, if I’m being honest.
[00:29:22] Panama Jackson: Yeah, no, that’s real. Alright, so the final segments we do here at Dear Culture, uh, are my favorite, which are Black fession and Blackemendation . A Black fession being a confession about your Blackness. Something people will be surprised to know about you because you are Black.
[00:29:35] Do you have a Black fession for us?
[00:29:38] Mickey Factz: Well, I mean, I guess I don’t know how to swim.
[00:29:44] Panama Jackson: So that kind of makes you just sterotypically Black.
[00:29:47] Mickey Factz: Okay. Okay. Okay. So Okay, here’s one. Here’s one. I never liked Fresh PrInke of Bel Air.
[00:29:56] Panama Jackson: That’s a Blackfession. That is 100 percent a Black fession. Why?
[00:29:59] I just never got into it. I never, I just could never, it never made sense to me.
[00:30:07] Just, I just couldn’t, I tried, I tried. I just can’t. It’s not just didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all. Actually. I love Will Smith. I love all of the actors, right? But it’s just it was never for me. It felt felt it was too much It felt felt like a caricature of the culture even though Will Smith is from the culture It felt it all even as at a younger age it felt dramatized. Because when I look at the video, parents just don’t understand. And then when I first saw the, the, the first intro to the, to the movie, to the movie, to the television show, I’m like, oh, this is just an extension of the video. This is going to be fire. And then it was a sitcom and it was like, nah, this doesn’t feel right.
[00:30:58] He ain’t rapping on here.
[00:31:01] You feel like culturally it just didn’t work or like you, you just had an issue with the way that I guess I’m not, I’m not trying to make it bigger than it is, but like the culture is being used to sell a product.
[00:31:15] Mickey Factz: No, culturally it worked because clearly people loved it, right? For me, I couldn’t get into it.
[00:31:24] I just couldn’t get, I tried. I tried. I just couldn’t.
[00:31:28] Panama Jackson: Listen, I feel that there are definitely shows that everybody’s loved that I didn’t, I haven’t enjoyed. So I get it. Have you watched Bel Air? Like the, the, the reboot? Have you tried to check that out?
[00:31:38] Mickey Factz: It’s on Peacock. I don’t have Peacock, man. You know, it ain’t.
[00:31:42] So I saw a post the other day about cable. Somebody was like, we got finessed. to pay these channels one by one instead of just having, you know, paying one, one bill and just having all of these channels. We got finessed. So now like I haven’t, you know, and I’m a big fan of The Office and The Office is now only on Peacock.
[00:32:04] I’m not paying Peacock cause I paid Disney Plus. I pay Hulu. I pay Netflix. I play, I play Max, pay Max. You know what I’m saying? So like, no, I haven’t, I haven’t watched Peacock. I’ve seen some of the snippets of Bel-Air, it looks great. But no, I haven’t, I haven’t got a chance to check it out.
[00:32:24] Panama Jackson: All right. Well, that was a Blackfession. I think that soundly qualifies. So thank you. Yeah, to, to, to counter the Black, the Blackfession. We also do a Blackemendation, which is a recommendation about Black culture. Something that you think people like our community should be up on, um, something for buy about Black culture. Do you have a Black emendation for us?
[00:32:46] Mickey Factz: Pendulum Ink , I mean, It doesn’t get more Blacker than being turned down by institutions. College institutions and even masterclass and saying, okay, I’ll just do it myself and have it all Black, you know, being at Pendulum Ink and, and, you know, before we got on here, Panama, you were saying you went to college with professor Mario Jack that brought that Grio is, is Black.
[00:33:13] That’s a Black, Black man. And he’s teaching criminology and hip hop. This is, this is the, this is culture in its essence. You know, learning about finance, learning about business, learning about, uh, the visual aesthetics of hip hop, learning about the legal system in hip hop. That’s to me, hip hip hop culture is, is the biggest export in America.
[00:33:37] So it’s like, and it’s our culture that is Black culture in its purest essence. And we’re teaching it come to school and learn it to me. That’s. That’s my Black amendation. And I’m sorry if that’s a, it’s a self promotion, but trust me, this is where I
[00:33:57] Panama Jackson: assume that was what you were going to have to Black them in that I was going to make that as a Blackemdation. In case you didn’t do that to like, listen, I mean, also make sure you mentioned that this is where you need to be. So tell people How they can learn more about Pendulum Ink. You know, you just, we mentioned the app earlier, you mentioned the app earlier, but how can people engage with Pendulum ink if they’re interested in applying, you know, how do we get there?
[00:34:18] Mickey Factz: Yeah. I mean, for right now, we’re looking to apply people for next year, uh, starting in March. So, uh, the tuition is about two grand . We cut it from three grand this year to two grand so you can sign up today. You can pay us to affirm monthly plan. Go on Pendulum dot com, fill out an application requests. A zoom interview with one of us and we will walk you through the process of what our new electives are going to be this year, our new professors that are going to be, uh, coming in to teach and how you can be a part of the Pendulum Ink family. Uh, yeah, Pendulum. com sign up today.
[00:34:57] Panama Jackson: Yeah, I love it. Well, um, I appreciate you coming on here sharing about the school, about, you know, how we got here, how you got here, uh, creating this space. And I completely agree with you about like the school kind of being an amalgamation of the culture at whole and the ability to, to give back in this way, I think is, uh, I mean, it’s commendable, but also it’s necessary.
[00:35:18] So, you know, shouts out to you and your team for successfully doing something that, you know, like again, showing proof, proof of concept is a hundred percent. You got 100 percent on that joint right there and I can, I can appreciate that. So, uh, you know, thanks for being here. Uh, tell people where they can find you.
[00:35:36] If they’re looking to get more information about Mickey Factz.
[00:35:39] Mickey Factz: Yeah. Uh, you could definitely, you know, find me on twitter. com backslash. Mickey facts. M I C K E Y F A C T Z. Find me on Instagram. at Mickey dot Factz and on Facebook backslash official Mickey Factz.
[00:35:53] Panama Jackson: All right. Well, thank you for being here. Uh, appreciate everything that you’re doing and we’ll make sure that, you know, you can amplify as many people.
[00:36:02] So as many people can find out about pencil make as possible. Uh, because I do think, I genuinely do think it’s necessary. Thank you to everybody who’s listening and checking us out. My name is Panama Jackson, Dear Culture, have a Black one.
[00:36:41] Maiysha Kai: We started this podcast to talk about not just what Black writers write about, but how. Well, personally, it’s on my bucket list to have one of my books banned. I know that’s probably bad, but I think, ooh, spicy. They were yelling, N word, go home. And I was looking around for the n word because I knew it couldn’t be me because I was a queen.
[00:37:00] But I’m telling people to quit this mentality of identifying ourselves by our work, to start to live our lives, and to redefine the whole concept of how we work and where we work and why we work in the first place. My biggest strength. throughout throughout my career has been having Inkredible mentors and specifically Black women. I’ve been writing poetry sInke I was like eight, you know, I’ve been reading Langston Hughes and James Baldwin and Maya Angelou and so forth and so on since I was like a little kid. Like the banjo was Blackly Black, right? For many, many, many years. Everybody knew because sometimes I’m just doing some Sam that I just want to do it. I’m honored to be here. Thank you for doing the work that you’re doing. Keep shining bright. And we, and like you said, we all
[00:37:51] keep Writing Black. As always, you can find us on the Grio app or wherever you find your podcasts.
