Gaming While Black

Gaming While Black (GWB) is a content series launched in June 2021 by entertainment studio 3BlackDot. The company's CEO, Regi Cash, explained the series' goal: "With GWB, we want to champion diverse creators to have every opportunity to showcase and do their most inventive, creative work on the broadest possible stage. This extends from in front of the camera clear through to the executive production, producers, creative directors, etc."Natividad, Angela (October 6, 2021). "'Gaming While Black' Puts BIPOC Gaming Greatness at Its Core". Muse by Clio. He added in another statement, "Clearly there is something missing, from just a representation standpoint, if half the adult population on earth says, 'I'm a gamer,' and you can't think of any diversity, that's a pretty massive problem."Beer, Jeff (October 1, 2021). "New Content Series 'Gaming While Black' Aims to Spotlight Creators of Color". Fast Company.
They have conducted an interview with American rapper Lupe Fiasco, the video premiering on April 18, 2022, to their YouTube channel.
== Gallery ==
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|-|Keep It 100 Ep. 1=
|-|Keep It 100 Ep. 2=
|-|Lupe Fiasco Is Amazing at Street Fighter 2=
|-|Lupe Fiasco vs Azerrz: Rap Cypher Freestyle=
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== Transcript ==
Title 	Date 	Video
"Lupe Fiasco Plays Street Fighter, Freestyles, and Reacts to NFTs" 	April 18, 2022 	
What does hip hop legend Lupe Fiasco have in common with our Gaming While Black Creators? Lupe Fiasco and Eutel Wallace go head-to-head in a Street Fighter match, and Lupe gives an update on his latest NFT project.	What does hip hop legend Lupe Fiasco have in common with our Gaming While Black Creators? Lupe Fiasco and Eutel Wallace go head-to-head in a Street Fighter match, and Lupe gives an update on his latest NFT project.	What does hip hop legend Lupe Fiasco have in common with our Gaming While Black Creators? Lupe Fiasco and Eutel Wallace go head-to-head in a Street Fighter match, and Lupe gives an update on his latest NFT project.
Lupe Fiasco 	I don't like Dragon Ball Z, I'ma just put that out there.
Eutel Wallace 	I like Dragon Ball Z, I'm not gonna let you do that. But it's not the best anime.
Music plays. 	Music plays.
Eutel Wallace 	Welcome to GWB, a variety show about gaming. Kind of like a who's who for fly shit. I'm your host Eutel, and today we have none other than the goat himself, Lupe Fiasco. He's going to talk to us about the 15th year anniversary of The Cool, his NFT project, and then we got my homie Arif, he's going to spit some bars as well as much much more. You won't want to miss this is Gaming While Black, let's get it.
Arif 	What does passive sticks mean? it means give me the controller, so I can beat the boss.
Kason 	For me, it means I got necks.
Dee Moe 	For me, it just means passing the torch.
Marcel 	No, it definitely means you're trash.
Arif 	No, no. It means just give me the control.
Marcel 	I know what I'm doing, what you're saying--
Kason 	No, it means that once I get it, it means I get now.
Everyone speaks over each other. 	Everyone speaks over each other.
Dee Moe 	Chill, chill, chill, chill. This is Gaming While Black.
The interview. 	The interview.
Eutel Wallace 	Lupe.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yo, yo, yo. My man.
Eutel Wallace 	Peace, peace. Doing great, man. So it's the 15th anniversary of The Cool, you know what I'm saying? Where was young Lu at 15 years ago when he was recording the album? What headspace was you in when you recorded that?
Lupe Fiasco 	Okay, you got your freshman out the way, that was the sophomore jinx, right?
Eutel Wallace 	Yeah.
Lupe Fiasco 	If you can get past the sophomore jinx, you're good. If you don't, it's a wrap.
Eutel Wallace 	They're gonna pack you up.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yes. You're done. You know your audience, people expecting it. There's a whole like 'oh, he proved himself on the first one so his value was there.' And The Cool was such a big album, it was all over the place. You know, so many different sounds and we had came off tour so I seen big pieces of the world. So I was like, I want to kind of incorporate that in there. Just recently, we were able to perform The Cool in its entirety, right. So we're going, you know, for the whole year, we're going to be going around different places just doing that album front to back. And my reflection was like 'yo, this isn't a rap album.' You know what I'm saying? It got punk rock on it, it got like some weird, you know, retro dance, like weirdness to it. Then it got like some big you know "Superstar," big anthem pop on there, and I was just like where's the rap, right? So it's interesting, you know, 15 years later to know that back then you was all over the place.
Eutel Wallace 	Do you think that if it came out today, would they still have the same type of impact? You think it was just a moment, it was just divine timing for when that came out?
Lupe Fiasco 	I think everything has this place and time, you know. People go back to when they first heard Food and Liquor and the experience that they had with it in college. And as they were in a formative years, figuring things out, they get this soundtrack to that experience, then it becomes a part of them; as a part of their memory, right? So I don't think you could have the same experience of The Cool that people had in 2007. I mean, The Cool is still kicking ass. Do I think it would have the same impact if it came out today, nah. I don't--I think it'd be a completely different album.
Eutel Wallace 	It'll be received differently, it would've come out different.
Lupe Fiasco 	Musically, yeah, it'll be a whole other thing.
Eutel Wallace 	You seeing what I'm sayin', bar k82 it's like. You got some great gaming bars.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, I had some.
Eutel Wallace 	You had some great game bars throughout your career, but you have the infamous iconic ones on "Gold Watch."
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eutel Wallace 	Referencing, I guess is one of your favorite games of all time, Street Fighter 2.
Lupe Fiasco 	Ken and Ryu. I find it hard to beat Blanka. For me, it's like so many layers, right? One of the layers is the street, one of the layers is, you know, coming up in the ghetto. Another one of the layers is coming up in a household where your dad's an engineer, you know. And you're surrounded by robots like in real life. My dad had a little collection of robots that he kept, literally in our basement. We had these games, we had stand-up arcade machines in our basement, right? You're living on top of a arcade, you know. You go down to your basement it's arcade. it looks like this--
Eutel Wallace 	Looks like this in the crib.
Lupe Fiasco 	We would go to karate school, right, so you got the martial arts. We had Street Fighter game there. I mean, we had Ghosts 'n Goblins there too, but it was like games for people to play as they waiting on their kids to pass the time in between karate classes, and stuff like that. So I have all these influences, you know, and gaming was always one of the ones that was dead in a serious way. I remember being a little kid, going to school, when we had a corner store, like a bodega up the street from the school. And we people go there get their penny cookies and candy and stuff like that. And it had the Street Fighter machine in there, Street Fighter 2, right? And I'm sitting there, we're just going there just to watch like how this screen is just playing. So I'll just sit there and watch that like, yo.
Eutel Wallace 	Just watching two people playing like round after round.
Lupe Fiasco 	Not even playing, like just that like it--
Eutel Wallace 	Just watching like the little loading screen.
Lupe Fiasco 	Loading screen, right, so I mean it had an impact and an influence on me in a major way. And I always want my music to represent if not every facet of my life, at least give you a little look into the things that I'm interested in.
Eutel Wallace 	A lot of things you represented also was a relationship with anime. How important is that for you? What you did for me when you made records like that, was you made me feel more comfortable with like the expression that I liked that type of stuff.
Lupe Fiasco 	Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eutel Wallace 	If that makes sense, like I was walking around like I like Dragon Ball Z, like I'm saying it to girls like I like Dragon Ball Z.
Lupe Fiasco 	I don't like Dragon Ball Z, I'ma just put that out there. I am not a Dragon Ball Z fan.
Eutel Wallace 	No, we can get into that. I like Dragon Ball Z, I'm not gonna let you do that. But it's not the best anime. It's not the best anime ever, I'm not gonna let you do that.
Lupe Fiasco 	I don't want people to think like 'yo, he likes like...' it's cool.
Eutel Wallace 	It's not the best anime obviously. It helped raise me, though.
Lupe Fiasco 	Take too long to get to them. I don't care, B. I don't care. I raised you wrong, maybe a little bit. Nah, but I mean I grew up on like hardcore anime. There's a video store called Russells, we was called 79th street video, you know, we've been in a martial arts. We had a massive martial arts [?], that was one of the places you can go to in the city. Maybe similar in New York, got that one spot maybe uptown. They got the company but I remember having you know as a shorty like giant Robo, Fist of the North Star.
Eutel Wallace 	Yo, you know it's crazy that you mention that.
Lupe Fiasco 	--Like slightly there in the periphery.
Eutel Wallace 	I told somebody about that the other day, North Star. And she was so raw.
Lupe Fiasco 	You wouldn't think that Voltron is anime. I bring that up because like you wouldn't think Transformers is anime. But it was, so a lot of us was kind of predisposed to kind of anime culture but we just didn't--it wasn't presented that way, right. It was just a licensing deal from some company that translated it, you know. Localized it behind, but I think a lot of us have been primed. If you watched Saturday morning cartoons, you watched anime, you know, it's just different levels, you know. So when I was able to get into the different levels is when I went crazy you know so from Wikicity to like uh Doom Megalopolis to like the early kind of that style of anime. And that's why I don't like Dragon Ball Z, because it's like kiddie.
Eutel Wallace 	You feel like it's, yeah. It's kind of like that version right there like what's the not Westernized version like when it's like not really like in the ones you mentioned, like the Evangelion or you know, Gundam.
Lupe Fiasco 	So anyway, all that to say like the anime is there as well, you know what I'm saying? A lot of inspiration for anime.
Eutel Wallace 	So let's talk about something. Today was a very big day for you, let's talk about LFTs.
Lupe Fiasco 	Yeah, man. See how this act, The Cool part is the cool part. The LFT is the extension of The Cool, right? It was--something that I was always kind of looking at like how to get into it what to do with it. Um, so the decision was like 'yo, let's do LFT, you know.' Lupe Fiasco Tokens, right, NFT, LFT, my idea like. You know I was like so what do we do for the first kind of look. First piece of art, what did we dig back into to kind of re-represent or kind of modify to fit that space and it was like The Cool. You know, those kind of iconic characters iconic forms or Michael Young History, but let's do it in the format of an NFT. And what does that look like what does he look like NFT is a space where, you know, as a platform you as an artist like for me, it's just another canvas you know. And figuring out what can be done there with the same intention that I put into music, you know like. Or concepts, or fashion, or whatever. Like what can I paint on that canvas to make it interesting for that space? So we launched this week, but my fans want that who live in that space who are interested in the kind of cutting edge stuff you know. Like how can we make it super interesting, super impactful. But my mind is thinking like, as I'm learning it and watching other people work in the space, and things that I want to do in it if we tell the story of The Cool. There's a new way to tell it more interesting, more immersive. I'm still figuring it out, you know, I'm still letting it kind of be democratic and flow. But the idea is to kind of like, here's this new platform, let's go all in and see what happens.
Eutel Wallace 	For sure, that's dope, that's dope. Well we talked about it, this is Gaming While Black you know I'm saying? We're here in a barcave, let's get it popping.
Lupe Fiasco 	Oh, you want some hands?
Eutel Wallace 	Yeah.
Lupe Fiasco 	You want these hands.
Eutel Wallace 	Yeah, trying to box real quick.
Lupe Fiasco 	Let's go.
The two play Street Fighter. 	The two play Street Fighter.
Eutel Wallace 	Lupe, LFTs. They're out now.
Lupe Fiasco 	nft.lupe fiasco.com, you gonna each pick--it's still me?
Interview segment with Blanka. Reporters clamor for his attention.	Interview segment with Blanka. Reporters clamor for his attention.
Interviewer 	Do you think you're past your prime?
Blanka 	Am I past my prime? Eric, am I past my prime? Yeah, I would say I'm past my prime, man. I mean, did you see me out there? I mean Ken whooped my ass, I mean I could barely get a--I had, I had five kicks, three punches, one electricity vault. Honestly, like I barely even got that off. I'm old, okay? I'm old, I'm older than your parents, I'm older than my parents.
Interviewer 	Blanka, how does it feel knowing you were on the cover of Street Fighter II almost 30 years ago?
Blanka 	Um, how does it feel? That was a long time ago, and I'm just not the same fighter as I was then. You know I was on the cover, I was a cover athlete, right, I used to just jump around and roll and just roll over people. I mean, I was springy but now, you know, I can't even roll out of bed.
Interviewer 	Last one. How does it feel being mentioned in Lupe Fiasco's classic album The Cool, which turns 15 this year?
Blanka 	I mean, Lupe's a good dude, you know. You know, fantastic rapper and everything. But I got some mixed feelings right now because he, he really. He really took it to me today. And you know I didn't take too kindly to that. I mean, I only got a few fights left and so yeah, you know, nice bars. I appreciate being in there and back then we know we used to party all the time, it was shocking. It was shocking so um, I'm not, I'm not really appreciating what he did to me today. I'm in pain, I'm in a lot of, a lot of pain.
Interviewer 	How do you plan to bounce back after losing today?
Blanka 	So I'm gonna bounce back, but this is looking pretty pitiful at this point. I mean, this is--how many Street Fighters has it been? I mean it's not, it's not just been five. You can't forget the Alpha series and the spin-offs. I mean, it's been a lot Marvel vs--you know, I'm not even gonna get into it, you know what I mean?
Interviewer 	What kind of toll does this have on your body?
Blanka 	I mean, I feel like. You guys see it, right? I mean, it's an amazing toll. I mean, you know we put ourselves out there every single night to fight, and I've been doing it for 30 years, you know. What kind of toll do you think when you fall off your chair, you know, trying to grab a potato chip off the ground? I mean, what kind of toll does it do to your body? I'm sorry, you know Phillip, you know you're my guy. I'm sorry about that.
Interviewer 	Is this the end of your career?
Blanka 	Is it the end of the road? So it's a good question, I mean, I had lunch with with Tom Brady um the other day. LeBron came as well and a little bit later Ellen DeGeneres. You know it's her last season and all, and I was asking them you know how did you do it? You know Tom, he's a vegan now right. You know LeBron, he's doing the exoskeleton thing, you know he's got a lot of cyborg parts nowadays. And Ellen DeGeneres, I mean did y'all know this, that's not even her really anymore? She has a stand-in every time, it's it's Tiffany Haddish. I do, you know, think it's kind of the end of my rope here and as a green athlete, it's just been. (gets emotional) You know it's been, it's been, it's been hard and.... no, no more questions. No more questions, back to you telling Lupe, back to you Lupe.
Shifts back to Eutel and Lupe. 	Shifts back to Eutel and Lupe.
Eutel Wallace 	All right y'all, that's a wrap for this episode of Gaming While Black. I want to thank our guest, Lupe Fiasco. I appreciate you my brother. Make sure you guys check out Lupe's LFTs on the way, any music as coming down the pipeline. Lupe, appreciate you for being a legend in the culture and stopping by, man.
Lupe Fiasco 	Thank you bro, thank you. I really appreciate you.
Eutel Wallace 	Appreciate you. All right, to wrap it up man we gonna have my boy Arif drop a freestyle for us. As for me and Lu, we out. Peace.
Freestyle segment. 	Freestyle segment.
Arif 	I said I'm on the horizon / On a different plane without psilocybin / Come from the forbidden west and I wear that on my chest / Override the machine, yeah, that's the mission / No Bob Belinda listen / Cuban link on my wrist, I call that twisted metal / Pit boy with the fit, they got a diamond bezel / This ain't Minecraft, it's my craft, I rhyme fast / I turn heads I spit gas
Lupe Fiasco 	Everything glistening, stay in your position / You gotta listen / Spit it like antihistamine in the face of my enemies / And spit mad energies, I got tendencies / See, ain't no friends in me / It's all hardcore raw to the floor
Arif 	Irregular, that's how I be doing everything, I'm the cure to this like Ellie but I still be feeling green
Lupe Fiasco 	See it's all over top of the dome / Like bullets that come out the top of the chrome / You thought you were somebody but to me you're not known / They knock on the door, I'm not home
Brandon Gas 	I'ma say lines that always rhyme because it's easier / I'm so fly I'm like the wind, I'm kind of breezier / Y'all see me on any Marvel versus Capcom, I'ma cap him, I cap Com / I put my cap on then strap on and Black on / Woo, I'm back on!
== References ==
Category:2022 interviews
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