The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Mel D. Cole Photographer Interview on His Photos Of MAGA Coup

Episode Date: January 15, 2021

Mel D. Cole Photographer Interview on His Photos Of MAGA Coup Meldcole.com Mel D Cole is one of Hip Hop's most accomplished and celebrated photographers with a career spanning almost 20 years. GREAT includes both behind the scenes and live concert shots of Hip Hop and RnB superstars such as Kanye West, Drake, Sade, Lil Wayne, Rihanna, Erykah Badu, Common, Tyler the Creator, Pharrell, Trey Songz, Kid Cudi, J. Cole, Mos Def, Mac Miller, The Roots, Wu-Tang Clan, A Tribe Called Quest, Mobb Deep, and much more. An extraordinary visual history of Hip Hop and its evolution through Mel D. Cole’s lens, GREAT is a one-of-a-kind coffee table book for hip hop lovers, collectors and lovers of photography.

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and hiss from your listening experience check out their new incredible lineup of dax and audio enhancement devices at ifi-audio.com recently i joined clubhouse in the last week if you haven't checked out the clubhouse app it's only available unfortunately on the itur i mean the iphone uh the iturk. And so I've been on there, and it's been an incredible experience to hear and experience different speakers. And it's kind of like if you would imagine going to a show like CES or South By, and you go to panels events, and there's panel speakers that sit up on kind of a dais or a stage, and they impart whatever their sort of knowledge.

And usually there's Q&A, and then sometimes there's interaction with the audience. Sometimes people are brought up in the stage to talk or introduce themselves. And so that's kind of what that is in an audio-only format. And it's really cool. You network with a lot of different people. And I fortunately was in the audience of one of these rooms when a gentleman came on to what they call the stage of the clubhouse and began to talk about his experience of what he'd gone through at the coup. I'm going to call it a coup, the fascist coup riots there at the Capitol just last week. And the beautiful thing about beautiful thing about a clubhouse is you can

go see people's links on, um, on, uh, Instagram. You can see their photos that they're a photographer. And so I wanted to get a chance to see what his experience was once I heard he's a photographer and I was just blown away. And part of it was the story. I love people, uh, that go into different experiences and they have a perspective and a story to tell and not only from their interviews but from their own thing and I just found that just incredibly intriguing with this gentleman. So I'd love to bring him on now with us and invite him on the show and he was graceful enough to want to spend some time with us. His name is Mel D. Cole and he's an incredible photographer and a brilliant thinker.

Let's put it that way. Mel, welcome to the show. How are you? Thank you, Chris. Thank you. I'm very well. We're tired, but very well. Yeah, you seem a little tired.

I think you're a couple hours ahead of me. You're probably getting at the end of the day. So thank you for coming on. We really appreciate it because first was just i was first you had me floored with what you talked about in clubhouse and your perspective and then i saw your photos and i just my mind just went uh so mel uh if you could give us your dot coms plugs a place you want people to check you out and get to know you better yeah you can check out the more uh immediate work you know things are fast on instagram i'm at mel d cole pretty much i'm at mel d cole on every social media app uh there is

even on myspace and there you go all the way back to black planet i'm mel d cole on there too so yeah check me out there and also my website meldicoleode.com. And, yeah, that's pretty much it. That's where you can find me. There you go. I heard Donald Trump's trying to find his MySpace password because that's probably the place you can get on. So there's that. Yeah. I don't think that he's allowed on there either.

Probably not. Tom's not going to allow him on. So let's get some background on you. Do you want to tell us about your upbringing and what brought you into photography before we get into some of the details of the event? And you covered Black Lives Matter as well. Yeah, I did. So originally I'm from Syracuse, New York. She's upstate New York.

Born and raised there. All my family's there and i'm a graduate of stony brook university on long island new york and i currently reside in jersey city which is two steps away from new york city i look out my window and i can see uh freedom tower aka world trade center um so yeah this is this is home new york area and yeah i've been a photographer for about 20 years um i started shooting on a disposable camera at a little place called sobs in manhattan and yeah this is the love of music that brought me to to wanting to document as a fan and that grew into you know the person i am now where i have a book

that's out that i released last uh february 2020 to uh being able to call people like trace songs and quest love and black thought you know some of my friends and not just my friends those are my brothers so yeah i shot uh all just about every protest it seems like imaginable in New York City during the summer for Black Lives Matter. And next thing you know, that leads you up into shooting election stuff. And here we are. I shot the infamous day, January

6, 2001 in Washington, D.C. And a day that will live in infamy. As we discussed before the show, this is going to be around for a while, I think, the news on it, and probably your photos too. And I think you're in talks with some book deals possibly to put some of the photos into a book and tell the story.

Yeah, there's a small competition out there trying to sign me, so we'll see how that goes. Pick the best one, the one with the right offer the one that fits you know well for my brand as well and their brand so yeah lots going on man it's a lot so uh not only was it the story that you told i mean i'm a i've been a photographer i bought all the lenses but i didn't have the talent and or the patient for doing the settings so i know what good photography looks like it's just never mind so i i tried that for a few years and gave it up and so i have a lot of respect for the work that goes into it and i've

got some good photographer friends that are that are they're talented than i'm not um and so when i saw your pictures it was quite extraordinary uh but there's but there was a lot of different storytelling you did at this event and you know you've you've you've done hip-hop artists you've done uh black lives matters uh events and i imagine sometimes there's the fear of the police but what made you want to decide to go do this event i mean you're doing a confederate sort of event where it's uh there's a whole lot of bad people there. Yeah, I mean, I think what you're trying to say is it's not the safest place for a black person to be necessarily. Well, they're waving Confederate flags,

and we know a lot of them are racist white nationalist people. Yes. And there's, you know. What it comes down to, man, these days is that you know being a white nationalist doesn't necessarily mean that you're white um yeah that's true there's this i mean the leader of the problem is it's not a white man so you know and that organization is deemed you know white supremacist organization so i mean uh there's plenty of black people i wouldn't say plenty but you see black people there.

You see Asian people. You see, you know, Vietnamese origin and Japanese, like, coming straight over here, you know, to support Donald Trump. But, yeah, it's crazy, you know. And, yeah, I do fear for my life. I fear that, you know, somebody might want to take a cheap shot. Oh, here's an easy, you know, way to stab a black man in the back you know literally you know my back is turned but um ultimately i'm there because you know if not me then who who's gonna do it and i put myself in danger because it's an important event you know to document i want to document it i'm fascinated by um politics right now especially

the donald trump and his movement and um it's just a pivotal time in american history that i feel like you know it's just super important i have to be there i'll be at the inauguration as well you know whatever and not whatever that's gonna look like it's looking like it's not gonna be much this year but i'll be there it's like it's gonna be a lot of military i guess but yeah it'll probably be great for photographs because it's going to be the most unique thing ever hopefully it'll be the most thing ever in the future too um that we don't have to see um but you know as we talked before the show i grew up i was born in 1968 i grew up through the 70s you know even as a child three and four years old i'm watching nixon and the tv and you know the vietnam riots and and

the replays of the 1968 democratic thing uh convention you know the uh i'm trying to think of the college where the kids got shot you know just to was that time yeah kent state yeah yeah uh kent state bobby kennedy martin luther king right the just just a horrible fucking time to be yeah and you're just sitting there going this is my world and so when i looked at a lot of your photos and a lot of the interviews you did it really reminded me especially the beautiful photos you did in that nice grittiness and that beautiful texture of black and white so uh why don't i quit talking and let you uh tell us tell us what your experience was like that day i'll let you just walk right through it so my experience is i woke up at five o'clock in the morning i get to uh the the media entrance because i'm i got approved for press press

to actually you know shoot the event because you know people kind of forget like there was actually an event where there were speakers you know and donald trump spoke behind bulletproof glass you know to get in you're getting your bag searched by the secret service and getting patted down by the secret service and getting wound by the secret service you know and you're being escorted in uh by not by the secret service but like a pr person so they give you you know press pass they give you a white house pool press pass but i was like oh this is cool definitely keepsake uh but then you're in there man you're you're in there and slowly but surely everybody starts trickling in a lot of trump supporters and all the vip trump supporters there were nuns there were uh priests there was alex jones who you know i'm not a fan of but all you know a fascinating figure in

you know radio and podcasting you know youtube which he doesn't have anymore all those things but you know it's fascinating i listen to howard stern a lot and one of his guys does this amazing impersonation of him and uh i i basically i was like oh man i would love to get on howard stern so i went and asked alex jones a question asked him what do you think about howard stern's impersonation and he was like oh i think it's funny and he's like I gotta go and I had a follow-up I was like oh man this is so funny it never makes all right this will never make Stern but you know it's funny to me but um you know just you're there just listening to all the speeches is Donald Trump Jr. Rudy Giuliani there's uh you know all these different people and they're all

saying the same thing about how the election was stolen how you know they don't believe you know what is happening is true and we got to fight fight fight do this fight this and we're gonna go down to you know the capitol building and demand answers and trump got on stage and basically as most of you are listening now you know like he was saying the same things about we're going to go fight. And he said himself that he was going to go down as well. So to me, you know, that was basically giving the green light to, you know, the extremists in the time because i got fixated on taking photos of uh these nuns that had on maga scarves and signs and stuff and i was like oh this is a fascinating photo and at the time i thought that that was going to be my photo of the day i thought this is it you know

and whatever else happens this is unique little did i know you know walking down the street i believe it's constitution avenue you know you get there and it turns into you know one of the as we all know the day one of the days i live in infamy in in american history and world history yeah did you do you know you can watch the thing with donald trump but you can't feel the crowd you were in the crowd did you really feel like an amped up you know once he got on you the emotion of the crowd see i i don't i don't know because i was in like uh like a vip area excuse me so they had you know people that had tickets where is where i was where the press was um everyone else was far back so and there's this big gap in between they

had it all blocked up so you couldn't even walk up and talk to anyone you couldn't even cross as soon as you went underneath the rope the secret service was like where are you going and you know kind of situation no nowhere wherever you tell me to go that's where i'm going i don't want any problems sir that's how i am with golfs yeah so don't shoot me right so it wasn't after i took the photos of the nuns that i walked out in the crowd and that's where you really got a sense okay everyone's walking in the same direction you know same thing everyone's hyped up you know you got people you know playing the drums and you know everyone's chanting and you see some you start

to see some confederate flags people waving them proudly you know and you get to the capital building basically you're like holy crap this is going down right now did you think that that they would really do what they ended up doing or did you think okay well i'm gonna go and it's gonna be rowdy and they're gonna yell and scream yeah i thought i thought it was gonna be just rowdy yelling scream um quite possibly you know some pepper spray uh you know getting in cops faces maybe the cops would rough up some people i thought it would be your you know uh it sucks it's kind of like your typical you know crazy protests you know like i've seen before like i've seen cops you know you know do their thing the protest is where the protest the other fighting back but they're not you know kicking butt they're not whooping ass

so you know that's what i thought was going to happen and i was all game to get those you know those type of photos because it's very i haven't seen cops versus, you know, back to blue people, you know, usually what I've seen is back to blue giving fist pump to cop, you know, the kind of situation, you know, they felt like they were on their side this time. It was like, no, the cops are traitors. Yeah. So we are going to show you no the cops are traitors yeah traitors so we are going to

show you what we do to traitors that was it was quite extraordinary you're just like wow um so you know the the i watched one ap reporter uh who was uh doing some camera work and he has camera there and i could tell it looked like it was one of those nice, that nice Canon DX one or whatever. It's got the big body and, and he gets thrashed on. They think he's in Tifa for some reason, which I guess that was their thing. They start beating the hell out of it. Yeah.

Yeah. Or beating them up. They push them back and they just keep throwing them back and they're swinging at him and they're screaming at him. Are you a, you're a Tifa and and he's an ap reporter and i think at one point they strip his camera from him because he finally gets it back and i'm not sure if they broke the uh the 7200 that he had on uh because that wasn't on there at the time so um but uh did you ever feel like i mean you walked around and if you if you

go to mel's uh instagram and his website you're going to see the video and the interviews he did and spectacular photos but you're actually you know you're talking to people uh did you ever really was there any moment where anybody tried to turn on you or anything where you're like holy shit it's going down uh not not really you know just moving like how i move you know just being confident um being respectful of you know the space that i'm in um and when i mean the space like all of it so you're not you know you're not rushing through people if you bump somebody you're saying excuse me you know you're sir ma'am all of those things you know you want to

show that you don't want to be messed with but also um you know you're not trying to intimidate anyone either you don't want any problems you know so like i said like it's just you know by the way you know moving and shaking doing what i do you know yeah that's how i can explain it and then you know you can't see my face but it's just like you know because i have a mask on and but i'm just not really trying to be messed with you know that's the attitude that i have like you know just blank face like i'm i'm trying to be invisible you know, but I had, it was only one instance where this man turned around. I had my press stuff on as well. And he turns around and he looks at me and he was kind of like soft-ish.

Like, he's like, oh, get out of here. And I just said, and I just got finished talking to other people around me. This is like right at the entranceway to get into the you know to the capitol where all the fighting was happening that you see on the tv mostly all day is uh is right there and i just say turn around everybody's like yeah he just told me to leave they were like i said this one lady it's like it's okay honey just come over here i said okay yeah you know the point of that is like i just wanted to let them know that you know i'm I'm not, you see, I'm not doing anything wrong. I've been here all day, you know, for two hours already, and now this guy is messing with me.

So I just kind of let everybody know, and they were just like, okay. So at that point, you know, it's like, if something happened, I would hope that they would, you know, try to intervene. Yeah. And that was my hope you know well being a good photographer like you are i mean you want to blend in the background and be incognito because you're trying to capture the real moments right right and if some people see you have a camera then they change to something else exactly exactly yeah they do and so that's a that's a talent skill that you have one of the photos that you took that i've seen you know know, a lot of people have seen on websites,

it struck me in the story behind it was the photo you have of the cop who was dragged into the crowd, and they're literally beating him. Tell us a little bit about that, if you would. Yeah, I mean, that really happened so fast. You know, I'm on the right side of the door and then you know i'm standing up a little bit and then you're up on something uh ledge and you just see everybody him coming down and everyone's cheering yeah yeah beat him up kill him you know uh kick his ass yeah yeah yeah traitor traitor traitor and you hear usa usa usa and then um you know he just had this when i snapped you know snapped a bunch of friends but the one that

everyone is seeing the one that you're referring to is just like he just has this look of fear on his on his face it was like you know i felt like the look was like i'm about to die don't kill me please come save me help me and yeah it's like i've never seen a police officer look like that before you know usually they just have this this calm about them they're confident you know they're they're they're in control and at this point you know this man was not in control of anything um you know and later on you find out even more tidbits about the story that i didn't know at the time like they took his his badge they talking about killing with his own gun you know and he you know screaming out i have kids

you know so it's just it's heartbreaking you know to know that that happened and luckily a few people around him you know were not all about you know whooping the police's ass they were you know i think if i had to assume just caught up in the moment it's like looking at a fire they were there and they couldn't turn around because it's like why would they um you know they intervened and you know kind of put a stop to it everyone came in their senses because you know they backed the blue that that's not what they do so they allowed him to go back up and some other officers to come back down and they you know rescued him so to speak and moments after that his game back on wow it's a sobering photo you can see his his back jacket that i think says metro call some police yeah you can see the horror

and terror in his face and then i think you posted a thing from his ex-wife who tells who gave the background on the story uh which was just just oh, my God, it just floors you right into your soul and heart. Yeah, yeah. If you don't feel for that, even if you don't, you know, like the police or you feel like you want to defund the police or reform them or whatever, you know, if you don't feel that, I feel that, you know, where's your humanity? You know what I mean this this person

is a human being you know he's alive and breathing you know and might not approve of his job and career choice but i mean the man has kids and you know i wouldn't wish death or harm on any man or person for that matter yeah and you you there was some also some other stuff from your work that day that struck me like i have a lot of discussions with my black friends about when i see black trumpers or a you know like we talked about all the different people that clearly you know i i know the agenda of stephen miller and donald trump and they're white supremacist white nationalists they they have no interest in anybody who doesn't look like them uh in fact if they they do it's

evil um and stephen miller's an embody of that um and and so when i see people like even i think in one of your videos there's even a gay guy dancing or when i think is the gay guy and and i'm just like do you guys understand like this you're seriously on the wrong side and radicalization has been like a word that's really been banging around my head the past two or three months and the conversations we've been having uh trying to understand it because i was trying to understand what people do and it was really you had a gentleman who was uh in your feed that you interviewed and he's a very young guy in fact i think there was a couple different uh black guys yeah yeah there was one that was 21 and one that said he was 19 yeah and your discussion with him really

um i thought was really interesting i don't know if you want to talk about that and his his his his perception or his take on things. Yeah. Let's just back up with the gay guy. I think you're referring to in the video. I mean, either he was gay or he was holding someone else's megaphone. He just said you had the LBTQ. I believe I just messed that up. I'm sorry, everybody. The rainbow flag um it had the

colors on there and it said it as well uh so I assumed it was gay but also I've met a few gay men uh that are down and love Trump there's one uh specifically in New York that goes around he comes to all the events and he wears a gays for Trump shirt and when I have this one photo of him holding a can of Goya beans and this is when everyone was going protesting Goya beans and it was like

honestly I was just a bit confused but fascinated as well I was like man this guy is you know freaking amazing but you know so we fast forward to what else you said about uh yeah interviewing uh black men that are trump supporters interviewing black people in general uh that are trump supporters is another uh focus of mine when i see them i just can't help it it's like you know please bear the honey it's like i gotta know, bees bear the honey. It's like I got to talk to them.

And lo and behold, you know, they want to talk to me. They want to get, you know, things off of their chest. But this time in particular, this is my first time talking to young black men that are Trump supporters. And this one guy is 21 years old. He's from Princess George County, which is, I believe, in Maryland, right outside of D.C. It's where a lot of African-American population lives these days, from my understanding. I haven't been there, but this is what I've been told. And I just speak to him.

I see him, and he has this giant big hair, big headed dreads. And, you know, he has a red MAGA hat on. And I walk past him and I say, oh, my God, this guy is super interesting. So I take his photo and I say, thank you. And I walk away and then I say, oh, my God. Light bulb went off. I said, I have to talk to this person. I'm so far away. There's thousands of people.

So I go back on that side. And I'm crossing my fingers in my head. I'm like, please, please. I hope I said it. And then he just appeared. Because he stands out like a sore thumb. Dredge, red hat, black. I was like, I'm going to see him.

So there he is. And I asked. I was like, hey. I was like, hey, bro. Can I talk to you for a second? He was like, yeah so we walked and talked usually i film i'm not on camera but since we were walking i'm holding my phone and talking to him at the same time looking at it so you know you got to do what you got to do to get to get the job done so um you know we just talked about you know why are you here and what's going on? And,

you know, why are you supporting Trump? And he gave him his answers, you know, what he, you know, thinks that is his truth. And yeah, I left it at that. You know, I go in and when I talk to people, I'm just super respectful. I let them, I give them the stage, as you say, you know, like in Clubhouse. And, yeah, it's like I try not to steer it, you know, too much in one direction or another, you know, and just let them talk is to show my followers that there are people that you least suspect in walking down the street that may not just automatically agree with you just because you share the same skin color as them the same heritage the same you're the same race that is not true and you know this guy looks like he could be an up-and-coming rapper like he's supposed to have a song a song on sound class like he's you know trying to make it out in the world look like he does poetry and burns incense at home and you know all of a sudden saying all your stereotypical

things but no he's a trump supporter yeah you know what's funny is i look like a trump supporter and if you do if you look sunglass on me i look like a cop i remember You do. If you look sunglass on me, I look like a cop. I remember the first time I had Eddie Glaude Jr. on, he looked at me like, what did I just walk into? Yeah, I'm not going to lie. I got over here and I was like, huh. I probably shouldn't be wearing the red shirt. It's the red shirt right now.

That's probably a bad choice on my part. It's like the one shirt I normally wear, these big baggy shirts that look like I slept in them because I'm a fat guy. And this is like a small tight shirt, but it's the only one I have. So but it doesn't make me look as fat. But the only thing that you get is a starter shirt. If you said Under Armour on it, there was my other problem. It's a starter.

So I'm like, all right, cool. Under Armour is like a telltale for police officers. You might live in Staten Island somewhere, something like that. You know, years ago, one of the companies we used to own was a franchise. And it was called Cool Cats with the two Ks. And we had Sean John Rockwear, state property, and all these clothes, the clothing lines. And we were partnered up with a friend and uh sometimes i would dress up in their outfits and like like the dumbest looking

thing ever with me uh you gotta send me some photos of that i i don't i do have a photo with me with uh who did the crossroads song from bone thugs bone thugs yeah he came we host we sponsored him and he came to the mall and but that's a group though crossroads it was the it was the one of the gentlemen bones yeah it's bone thugs and harmony is a group though who was the it was one of the guys from the the thing it's been like 15 years so yeah i'm not but i do have a photo of that so that was cool i would love to see that you guys show me um so uh what was interesting to me about the gentleman though was when you when you asked him why he was there the first thing he mentioned was like energy i love the energy of donald trump and and you could tell that that that energy is really like the real emotion

you see that a lot of fascist movements i've seen that a lot of young people regardless of of what their background is or race is they they don't really know about politics as much or have a good grasp like right i don't know about you but i you know i sit and watch msbc or cnbc all day long i study politics oh man i'm not chasing chicks anymore and so it was it really spoke to me i don't i still don't know if radicalization is the right word yeah i'm not sure i'm not sure if that's the right word as well i think that i think that a lot of them are just i hate to say loss loss has been a big buzz word lately on my instagram and you know everyone's saying oh, oh, he's lost. He's lost. And I'm like, I don't think he's lost. He's found his way. This is his way. It's just not your way. Uh,

in particular, like he's doing his thing. Um, and then a lot of people are like, oh, he's young. He'll come back, you know, uh, come back to what? Like, this is what he wants to do. Just because he doesn't believe in what you want to believe in, you but then it's like you know is he radicalized you know he's not he's not a terrorist you know he's you know a part of this movement you know called you know namaga the make america great again movement but you know his reasons you know, were very basic to me. It's like, you know, it's like one of those things on my friends. This is kind of cool. Let me do it.

You know, let me experience it. And that's what I felt with the 19 year old. I mean, this this guy told me that he didn't even vote in the last election. He could have voted. He just didn't turn 19. I thought he was going to be like, oh, no, I just did blah, blah no i just did blah blah you know but no you know even if he did just turn 19 no that wouldn't work the mask duh and uh i asked he's like no i didn't vote uh but i learned my lesson i'm gonna vote in the prime uh the local elections and i asked him why he was here, and he said, I'm not here for Donald Trump. I'm here for America. And underneath my mask, my mouth was like, oh, okay.

You know, so you just went and got pepper sprayed multiple times, and he told me that it was the second time he said it in the same eye for America. But, okay. the second time he said in the same eye for america but okay and i and i just turned around and on the camera i repeated it back to myself what he just said so i can really just ingrain it in my brain and then you know you just get really distracted because there's a million things going on but i was just like wow and i just knew that at that time that that clip was going to be gold and people were going to have a huge discussion about it on my Instagram, for better or for worse. They were going to talk about it.

I had the same reaction you did. I was just like, I'm lost, man. If people go through your Instagram, which I highly recommend, there's other great documentation of just the extraordinary amount of violence, vandalism, just a sea of people. But you capture it really well, especially in those, like I said, those gritty black and whites. One of the funniest, maybe I should also say one of the saddest, but also one of the best documentations Of white entitlement

Was the crazy guy with the glasses Who talks about how He got pulled over I think one time Oh yeah Yeah yeah yeah And he had on a jacket I think it says LaShawn I didn't capture that then

If you look at the date It's from outside of a trump rally in redding pennsylvania uh for you know election re-election rally and i saw him and dressed up like he's dressed up this after the rally and we're on the side of a highway and we talked for like eight minutes and you know maybe like around in the six minute marker. So I forget exactly, you know, ask them about Black Lives Matter and, you know, racism and, you know, all of the all of the things that, you know, you ask a Trump supporter, you know, because, you know, Trump goes on to tell me this story. You know, I was harassed by the cops. I was pushed. You know, I was beat up. And, you know, they broke my glasses.

Right. I shit myself. And then, you know, he looks me right in the face and says, yeah, I know what it is to, you know, how it feels to be black. And honestly, listen back to it. I don't know how I didn't go mother fuck what the fuck get that like but i was just like you can hear in the video i was just like you know at one point he says he breaks his glasses something i say oh no just but yeah he's got cool glasses on yeah you know he's really you know yeah he was a really nice racist you know he's nice to me and he he allowed me to talk to him and you know get his story and you know tell his story which

was you know important to me but um ultimately man like yeah the white people and other people that are not black if you're not black you know and some people i think it passes puerto ricans and some hispanics and so on and so forth i mean ultimately do you do not know what it is to be black you just don't you know and don't ever say that to anyone don't ever say that to a black person uh and you know and also you know don't tell me how cool it is to be black as well i've had someone tell me that before in australia and that was just a crock of shit as well really pissed me off but that's a whole nother story i can't blame you you know and to me that's what a lot of you capture a lot of what a lot of you what you can a lot of what you captured

i'm dyslexic in the brain evidently uh a lot of what you captured, I'm dyslexic in the brain, evidently, a lot of what you captured was that white entitlement, that white, you know, their ability to just think, well, I can do whatever I want if I want to go storm the Capitol and all that good stuff. And, yeah, I was floored when he said that. I'm in the middle of reading Cast. We didn't get her in time, but when she was starting her book tour to come on the show, and so we got a little late of it.

But I'm reading Cast right now, and it's a really hard uh read but a necessary one i'm telling all my friends to read it and then you know this year we've had a lot of authors about james ball went on uh and talking about white nationalism of course in the churches and different things and so to see him make that statement at the end where just because he got pulled over once to slam him against the car i know what it's like to be black is just shocking it's just it's absurd yeah yeah it's absurd uh but i think you know i never really realized this before i started doing this work because i didn't set out you know to document the uprising black lives matter you know this all started because of covid you know and there's nothing else to shoot all the music you know tours and all that stuff obviously it was done it's still done you know so when george

floyd died you know i dedicated myself and my career and my platform to making sure that the stories and, and the streets and what's happening out outside during these protests are shown, you know, in the, in the best and most truthful light as possible. You know, like I said earlier, that turns into, you know, the election, that turns into all these other things that, you know, overlap and intersect and you know so on and so forth and here i am you know talking to people and interviewing people and what i've

learned you know is just to you know pretty much keep my personal opinions out of it i think that's you know what they call journalism so to speak you know one part of it and i just really get what they're showing what they're saying and i just have this i've learned to have this calming effect and make people comfortable and he was comfortable enough to to tell me that you know and i was like after listening back to it you know i really gave myself a big pat on the back from it because you know obviously it's it's fucking gold you know it's but at the same time you know it pisses me off personally. Yeah, and it really speaks to the problem.

I hope something like that is something that white people will look at and go, wow, that's how fucking awful we really are. We need to work on this. We need to stop this. My big thing in the next four years is to make sure we don't forget how much we got to fix in this. Because a lot of people sat back with Obama and were like, whoa, we fixed racism because there's a black president. No, actually, we, you know, backlash city with the racists. One of the other examples of that was the gentleman in the blue shirt with a Q on it.

Clearly a QAnon supporter. I hope he is is if he wasn't he better be the way he was screaming and yelling at me i mean not at me but just screaming and yelling the capsule that you capture him at is extraordinary he's spitting he's drooling and he's screaming about our country, which I had to learn when Donald Trump was elected, is the heritage code of, you know, doesn't mean you're me and everybody else's country. It means their country and fuck the rest of us. And and they want to run roughshod rule, whether it's from a from a religious right wing religious sort of between uh theocracy is the word i'm looking for um but his his thing like you you captured uh i think in those two moments like the trump

voter in a bottle like you just put it in there um and just he's spitting and drooling and another like a rabid animal another uh piece of that was a money shot you know it was ah extraordinary to walk up and see him screaming and yelling like that to spit i was scared as hell you know my god god covid covid oh god i didn't think about that too oh shit i think about it the whole time i'm there man no one's wearing a mask like you barely see anybody wearing a mask so i mean him screaming on this just wow coming on and it was like i've been to you know back in the day i used to be a big wwf fan and that's what i felt like he was in the middle of the the wrestling ring and he was the evil villain and he was trying to hype up the crowd and except for the crowd you know they were all his fans and they were screaming and yelling back at him this is our country. And yeah, come on.

They're like, yeah. It was like whatever movie scene when it's time to go fight the war. You know, they needed that motivation. They needed that speech to go out there and die. You know, in the back in the day when the Roman Empire, then they're fighting, which is, you know, to me, one of the stupidest ways to fight. Okay.

Yeah. We're just going to walk up to each other and just clash heads. You know, that's what I felt like he was giving the speech to everybody, like what was going to happen. And yeah, don't tread on me. Don't tread on me. This is our country. You know, yeah, I heard he's from around New York, around these parts. You can hear his accent.

But yeah, that was just a very memorable moment. I'm happy that I was able to capture him. Hopefully he'll be at Rikers soon. Yeah, probably. Visit him there. Yeah. But, no, that was an extraordinary moment. The black and white pictures of you that you took of the people who got in tear gas

and they're getting their eyes watered out. I mean, just really beautiful, grit, black and white photos. And then, of course, the different stream that you had there. Was there anything you wanted to share? Any other perceptions of that day that you want to share? Things that you took away from? Yeah, I took away from it like now what's been really important to me after the fact is making sure that my mental health um was taken care of because you know that whole day

just pumped up on adrenaline you know and i didn't realize how you know i guess really really chaotic it was until i got back to my hotel room like i knew that was crazy i'm super excited to edit and everything and to show the world what i saw you know and you know i was scared the death you know at the end there you know the flash things or flashing whatever it was loud ass noises which scared the shit out of me um that kind of stuff was like you know you realize what it's like wasn't until the next day that it just really hit me where i'm like oh man like i need to fucking cry yeah i need to let this shit out because i'm you know i'm hurting inside what i saw hurt me. And then it wasn't just from what I saw that day. It was just, you know, accumulation of, you know, COVID and isolation and, you know, not being able to do

my regular everyday life, you know, missing music, you know, and live music. I mean, you know, it's just a bunch of stuff. So that's one thing that, you know, I want people to understand that it's important, you know, if you are working out there, if you're a photographer, you're a journalist, you know, to heal, even if this didn't happen. But this just made the healing process, you know, we haven't even begun it. So whenever we begin the healing process, this just added years on top of it because, you know, this isn't stopping anytime soon. You know, the extremists are just becoming more uh bold they're becoming more organized and you know the hate is you know they're wearing it right on their sleeve on their tattoos and they're proud they're the proud boys um so you know biden and you know his his his presidency is going to have a lot on his hands.

And, you know, I hope that, you know, within a few years, we'll start to see some sort of process where things, you know, sort of change. And whoever is the president, the next time after him, the next time. Because I think this is, you know, 20 years plus of undoing. I'm not the most political person you know you know i just really started getting into politics you know this is you know like i said it's never been my avenue for my whole life so you know now you know you start to pay attention more and you're just like holy shit like this whole thing is just it's just out of control like look at the inauguration you can't even have a real one not even a socially

distanced one it's going to be distance distance they close down the mall and you can't even you go like this with the tele you know can't even get a whip you might you might even get a fingertip of them waving or something they don't have the screens up or anything you know it's horrible but you can get one of those telescopic lens that are like this yeah i don't have the screens up or anything you know it's horrible but you can get one of those telescopic lens that are like this yeah i don't even think that matters i don't even think it you it would not matter you're not getting anywhere close then they are they shut shit down so but i'll still be there do you think there's hope if we take you know i mean trump has definitely fallen hard from this and uh hopefully he'll stay off his, you know, Twitter will keep banning him.

I've called for that for years and other things. And maybe if he goes down to disgrace and there's enough oxygen that we take out from his bullshit that a lot of this stuff will tone down. A lot of this maybe will die off. I don't know. What do you think? What do you think a lot of this maybe will die off um i don't know what do you do you think uh what do you think about that that it'll die off the will it'll maybe come down i don't know is it will it will help i don't know no we're fucked yeah no i think we're fucked for a little while like we're we're fucked for a little while like this we are not no no no now being in the thick of it absolutely not like they are this is not going away yeah well you witnessed something you documented something uh i i there's a couple

photos you have that are beautiful photos where you have the skyline of i think the washington monument or or the outlay of that that area and then you have the skyline of, I think, the Washington Monument or the outlay of that area, and then you have the mob and the fighting. And, you know, it's just one of those beautiful – well, it's not beautiful, but it's one of those picturesque things that really like the Smithsonian. So I think, from my opinion, what you've done, some of the work and the beautiful photographs and interviews that you did, some of this stuff really needs to be in history books in the Smithsonianithsonian so i'm really honored that you came on the show and

spent some time maybe someday i don't have grandkids but maybe someday if i do or i'll be able to tell somebody i had mel call on my show to talk about these photos that you're seeing maybe 100 years from now and we'll be talking about this for what 200 years or something like that forever yeah like you said, forever, man. It would be an honor to have something in the Smithsonian or have something in a history book that is public, out, published to whomever. It would be amazing.

So we'll see. I hope so. I hope a lot of people are watching. My life has changed. My life changed when i started shooting you know the black lives matter protest and then you know it changed again last wednesday you know so you know i've never had you know i've never done this much press in my life so i'm just hoping that you know the powers that be that make the decisions are watching and listening and, you know, paying attention because that would be an honor. And that's definitely one of the goals, you know, because my little guy is right here behind me. He's two and a half, you know, and like he's going to have all my stuff, you know, leaving it to him, of course.

But, you know, for him, I could just imagine, you know, being in school, if there's books when he's in school, who knows, looking through whatever digital copy. And he's like, oh, man, my dad took this photo. That to me is, you know, worth it all. I haven't seen any photos like yours from the show or from the coup. I haven't seen any photos that that have that sort of quality and there were a lot of professional guys there yeah yeah there are a lot of guys there's a lot of women i mean uh not that many when i say a lot i didn't see a lot of photographers but there were some good photographers there i've seen some good photos but i mean yeah i feel like mine are some

of the best to be honest i'm speaking well you're much braver than I am because I wouldn't even done it the way I am and if I see Confederate flags I just go I'm going that way my dad said the same thing he said shit I wouldn't have had my black guys in there no way I wouldn't have gone myself shit

I've had white friends tell me like shit you crazy as hell for doing that I'm like am I crazy somebody see me somebody see me like, shit, you crazy as hell for doing that. And I'm like, am I crazy? Somebody see me and be like, did you do that? Fuck Donald Trump video on TikTok. No, that's somebody else, man. So there you go. Give us your plugs, Mel, before we go out.

So people look you up and I'll be looking forward to seeing your future photography, especially if you're shooting if you're getting anywhere near the inauguration I'll be interested in that perspective too I probably won't get near but you definitely will see some photos Instagram story or you know whatever but you can go to my Instagram

at Melody Cole you can go to my website MelodyCole.com if you want to buy my book it's called Great Photographs of Hip Hop 2002-2019. You can buy that on Amazon or you can buy it directly from us, a.k.a. my publisher at GetHaymaker.com. That is GetHaymaker.com. And, yeah, besides that, I'm at at mel dico on every social media platform available

that's known the man like i said earlier all the way back to myspace and black planet so yeah i'm there holla at your boy let's chat yeah i try to read all my messages but i'm still trying to catch up because i think i probably got over 5 000 messages over the last week and yeah yeah it's been a lot so yeah yeah so if you're listening yeah if you if you wrote if you're reading it and watching this or listening to this if you wrote me trust me i received it and i'm trying my best to get to it but it's it's tough well hopefully we get your book deal and you can get a publicist and they can take care of that stuff for you there yeah yeah yeah yeah i'm gonna look forward to seeing a book deal and you can get a publicist and they can take care of that stuff for you there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm going to look forward to seeing a book from you. I'm going to be telling everybody about your artwork and I've already been sharing it with so many people. And I was just blown away. I just think it was great. And I'm just in honor to have you on the show today, Mel. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it, Chris. It's an honor to be here. Thank you for asking me to participate in your podcast.

I appreciate it. You're going to be one of these guys, and I'll make this bet now, that you're going to go on to just rocket ship stardom, and I'm going to see just more great photography from you. So I'm going to be real excited to see that. Let's hope you're correct. Yes, yes. I don't think there's hope, man.

You got talent. You got it good. You're going to kick ass. You're going to take names. You're going. Thank you. I appreciate it appreciate it there you go bro uh so uh to my audience be sure to watch the video version of this at youtube.com for just chris voss hit the bell notification button go to goodreads.com for chess uh chris voss go also to uh facebook.com the chris voss show and linkedin as well thanks to mel for being here and check him out online. Follow all his really cool

stuff, and wear your mask, stay safe, and we'll see you next time.