Podcast Interview: Sticker Giant!

 

Yo, this is a recent interview for Sticker Giant, a vendor who I work with frequently to produce some of my stickers like these:

Self care sticker sheet which has gotten a lot of love over the past year and a half!

Pause from a recent series!

"Blasian" from this sticker pack!!

In this interview we talk about why I do what I do and a little bit about the many stickers I make. If you like this interview you can peep this one I did from the Not Real Art Podcast w/ my sis Erin Yoshi

Podcast interview: w/NOT REAL ART

 

Whats up fam, I got a chance to be a guest on the "Not Real Art" podcast w/ my TYS sister Erin Yoshi. I wish I could embed it directly here, but please check out this LINK to listen. 

This show was recorded last month and I talk a bit about kids books, illustration, of course the "Art of Rob" campaign on kickstarter, and our crew "Trust Your Struggle". If you're not up on this podcast please give them a listen, Man One and Sourdough have been doing it for a minute and they just brought Erin Yoshi on as an official co-host. Here are some of the folks she's interviewed that I admire!

-Ashara Ekundayo

-Brett Cook

-Nancy Hernandez & Cece Carpio (TYS)

If you would like to hear or see more media features please check out my press page here.

Podcast: Etsy Conversations Interview!

 

Hey fam, I'm juiced to share that I'm a featured guest on Ijeoma Eleazu's wonderful podcast "Etsy Conversations"!! Yawl, she has over 300 episodes of game and I have definitely learned from the many sellers on her show about what has worked for them. Case in point the episode about digital goods from Paper Sphinx and the episode about what content marketing is from Chi Odogwu.

Tune in on youtube, whichever podcast app you use, or check out her site and see all her links.

Did you catch the interview I did with YBCA?

Video Feature: YBCA 100

 

So in 2019 I was nominated for the YBCA 100 (2019) and this is a video interview we did with them shortly after. I started going to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in the mid 90s to see a graffiti show featuring TDK, Spie, Dream, Twist and others. And then I went back to see a Twist solo show there. Imagine my honor at being chosen as one of 100 amazing artists for this event. 

They started doing these YBCA 100 awards to honor people, groups, crews, and organizations doing really dope shit in the realm of arts of course, but it expands into organizing, political work, and more. As I wrote before, I was and still am extremely humbled to be one of the 100 from last year. I have a few friends who've been part of this group and this year its my sister Cece Carpio. Check out the video and this year's YBCA 100. If you get a chance, check out YBCA's mission and visit them if you're in the Bay and we're not on quarantine lockdown. 

Merch feature - Buzzfeed

 

So this happened in December of 2020. My sticker sheet got featured in Buzzfeed along with some other stocking stuffer ideas. Shout out to my homie Angela Dalton who told me about this article because I didn't know until she told me. Shout out to the journalist who included my sticker sheet in this post as it definitely drove some sales. I hope to get some more features like this in the future intentionally. 

If you missed this sticker sheet you can cop one HERE.

I also made one for librarians, bilingual language teachers.

Interview throwback - Tandem Early Learning

This was last summer in Oakland at the Tandem Early Learning office. The cool thing about this org is that they study and encourage early literacy. They are one of many organizations nationally that do this and here in the Bay Area they go out to a bunch of school and read to kids. They also lend books to families and give them free books. So that is how a bunch of families have gotten a copy of "Furqan's First Flat Top" a book I wrote and illustrated. It was great talking with Tandem!

Support of literacy in a child's life early has been proven to help them later in school in so many ways.

Podcast Interview- Papa Culture Pod!

Yo! Been listening to this laid back podcast run by two fathers. They talk about hip hop, sports, pop culture, dad fails, and dad triumphs! I was lucky enough to be a guest on their show. Check it out on Itunes, Stitcher, or whatever podcast app you listen to. 

Here is the link if you want to listen to it on your desktop. LINK

If you'd like to hear another interview check out The Stoop Podcast where I talked about Black Hair and kids books.

Audio - Podcast feature: Gimlet Media/ Lyft

LINK TO LISTEN

This is awesome. This brother named Marcelis is a budding children's book author and drives Lyft in addition to working at a library (means we need living wages). I get a chance to offer him some advice for publishing his own children's books and theres a surprise towards the end of the episode. If you're listening you can hear me at the 10 minute mark I believe.

Here's another time I was interviewed about Kids books at Tandem Early Learning in Oakland.

This is the illustration I created for Marcelis :)

Podcast Feature - The Stoop

Hey y'all, I was a guest on this amazing podcast called "The Stoop" with Leyla and Hana who have been talking about a whole lot of issues in the Black community for over a year now. Not only that, they just won an award from the National Association of Black Journalists for their work.

LISTEN

Latin@s in Kid Lit Guest Feature- Furqan's First

Today a blog post I wrote a few weeks back was published on the wonderful blog Latin@s in Kid Lit. It's about the social media campaign for my first self-published children's book Furqan's First Flat Top! If you are not familiar with their blog, please check them out. Not only do they invite a cool series of authors, illustrators, and book lovers to do guest posts; but they also make some pretty awesome lists of books for kids. In particular I like their list of Picture Books , The road to publishing series , and Resources for Latin@/ diverse lit

Go follow their blog and share some of what we've all been missing, more diverse books and more of a variety of Latin@ voices in children's literature.

LINK

Interview w/ Bevel Code

Cassidy and Tyler (from Bevel) came by and did a quick interview about "Furqan's First Flat Top". The company Bevel makes shaving products specifically for men of color and has spearheaded a blog to focus on creatives, barbershops, black hair, and style. Go check it out at BevelCode.com
I'm working on the book yall!

Craft Noire: Blog feature for "Affirmations"

Check out this blog yall, They did a feature on my Affirmation paintings awhile back. They have a great eye with a lot of artwork, DIY Projects, and crafty business there. I saw Goldi Gold and Afya from ATL there which was nice; as well as Octavia Butler.

SITE LINK

Blog features

Was blessed enough to be featured by two blogs. One who I reached out to, the other who reached out to me. Both connections made. Thank you so much to Jules and Avy!

 7 Impossible things before breakfast
Electric Storm 1 and 2

Please go check out their blogs and explore what else they have to offer, which in terms of art and artist appreciation is great! More posts coming soon, been working on a new mural project

Featured on "African Digital Art"

I happen to be browsing through African Digital Art and saw that one of my character's was on there. Wow! Been trying to get featured on this site since it started! If you are unfamiliar with ADA, please check it out. It's one of the few high quality sites that feature illustrators and other artists of color worldwide. The two pieces featured were on the Weekly inspiration pages for WEEK 66 and WEEK 56. They were "The golden Child" and "Our Daily Bread".

Lowrider Arte Feature

This my friends is a truly GREAT honor! I don't think the editors of the Lowrider Arte magazine could have pictured me jumping up and down with excitement when I found out that I was a featured artist last (December/January). There are lots of prestigious illustration magazines and competitions (especially now days). But lets face it. I'm still a big kid and I started reading Lowrider Arte in 1990, I've wanted to be a featured artist in it since then. 21 years later dreams do come true. A very small success to some, but a huge smile for me. This is one of the first places I saw a positive reflection of brown artists creating. The original painting is of my son, my Dancing Lion.

I AM THE NU BLACK :Feature

If you follow African music, artists, films, fashion, or culture you will probably enjoy I AM THE NU BLACK's weekly posts that run the gambit of creativity through Africans all across the world. I found out about this London based cultural hub through Society HAE and have been following them ever since. At the time they were having an art contest, for which I missed the deadline. So I decided to hit up Gabi from Nu Black and she asked a few questions. Check it out here I mention a bunch of people I know, and a bunch of people I'd like to work with. Peace, love, and humble light. Shout out to Leo Docuyanan for the dope photo!