NO GPS After Sunset

NO GPS After Sunset is a bi-weekly show hosted by Aharon. It will work as a compliment to the flagship NO GPS show with co-host Mez. This show will take a look at current world affairs and the hottest topics of the day. Aharon will be discussing everything you think he shouldn't be discussing! Hold on to your seats and enjoy the ride.

Intro: 0:00-0:28, Paid Promo (Spoof): 0:29-1:31, AfterSunset Promo: 1:35-2:29

Produced by: Matt J.

Music provided by: TrethWest

In today's episode Mez & Aharon get into the last part of Daniel McNeil's magistral book 'Thinking While Black'. McNeil's book does away with the binary Black progressive vs. Black conservative conceptual framework while discussing both Armond White and Paul Gilroy's work as cultural critics. What we get is an expansive overview of Black thought that is elucidating and instructive.

Join us as both Mez & Aharon nerd out on a vast array of ideas that make the Black Atlantic, well, the Black Atlantic.

Podcast produced by Matt J.

Cover art by Matt J.

Music provided by TrethWest.

Today's NO GPS episode with Mez & Aharon has the guys discuss the NBA playoffs, the Draft Lottery, the head coaches playing musical chairs with each other and the NBA Finals. Enjoy this one! The guys were in rare form.

Podcast episode produced by Matt Joseph.

Music provided by TrethWest.

In part 2 of The Soul Rebel Generation Mez & Aharon talk about the intellectually provocative cultural critic Armond White in great detail.

(8:15) Armond the rebel outsider

(13:48) Armond's & Pauline Kael's uncommon common American Americans and their humanism

(18:54) Armond's grand philosophy: Art isn't about seeing yourself, it's about seeing other people and how they are like you!

(23:14) suspicious liberal foxes lurk on every ghetto corner - again, Armond won't be bought!

(27:12) Armond the outcast black intellectual that never gets invited to the cookout

(30:04) Gilroy & Armond both call out the black careerist who use the gains of the civil rights movement for their own profit gain. Armond calls them race hustlers (the Chris Rock's, Cornel West's and Spike Lee's of the scene).

(35:39) The bad but good American movies that Armond loves and thinks that you should love too

(40:17) The issue with Marvel movies for Armond is they have no finite endings and therefore cannot give people a moral worldview to embrace.

(41:32) Mez pushes back against this idea and reveals why Marvel in fact brings people together in the way Armond suggests good films should do.

Corrections: Aharon refers to Armond White's The Resistance: Ten Years of Pop Culture That Shook the World as The Resistant Years. He pleads mea culpa and tells us he was in the throws of battling the flu when recording this podcast episode. Aharon, do better! Hahaha

Podcast produced by Matt J.

In this episode of NO GPS Mez & Aharon talk about Daniel McNeil's fascinating new book 'Thinking While Black'. The book is a unique interdisciplinary study of Black cultural critics Armond White and Paul Gilroy that spans continents and decades of rebellion and revolution.

Join us as we take a journey through the Black Atlantic!

Disclaimer: Aharon's microphone blew in the middle of this recording. Due to that the audio for this episode is not up to the usual standard we ascribe to. But we thought the content was just too good to scrap. Enjoy and apologies from the NO GPS crew, namely Aharon!

Podcast produced by Matt J.

Music provided by TrethWest

Mez & Aharon, with the help of producer man Matt, talk about who won and lost in the most eventful NBA tradeline ever on this latest episode of the NO GPS podcast. They discuss the Hollywood antics of the now better equipped Los Angeles Lakers (2:01), the now disbanded Basquait painting Brooklyn Nets squad (11:23) and Aharon’s beloved & underperforming Toronto Raptors (14:54). 

Everything from how restless and perpetually unsatisfied elite NBA players (free agent - 33:47) persistently seeking out greener pastures is analogous to the digital nomadic lifestyles of privileged Millennials & Gen Z’ers who roam the world searching for idyllic landscapes and the most plaint of populaces to satiate their fantasies & libidinal desires is discussed (consider this a knock on the passport bro movement). You’ll love this episode of NO GPS because the guys are bringing you novel takes, comedic segues and seering cultural analysis.

0:00 Intro

2:01 Lakers

9:35 Basketball Styles/Preference 

11:23 Nets

14:54 Raptors

22:13 Phoenix & Dallas 

29:38 Denver, Playoffs and the West

33:47 Free Agent Nomads 

44:58 Popular Justice 

56:57 Golden State

1:00:00 Closing

Art by Matt

Music by TrethWest

The revolution has been televised?!

In this episode Mez & Aharon, with the help of producer man Matt, talk about the last 3 episodes of Andor. The guys discuss the nitty gritty and less glamorous aspects of a revolution (17:55). Everything from the epic prison break in Narkina 5 (2:27) and Andor's critique of mass incarceration to the skulduggery of Luthen and the necessity of his morally questionable tactics for the success of the rebellion (52:05). 

The Indigenous and Afrocentric dream of reviving ancient civilizations untouched by modernity and colonization come to life in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Mez & Aharon (with the genius guidance of producer man Matt) talk about what happens after this dream is shattered and the world happens upon it.

How is insurmountable grief dealt with? For the first time the Wakandans deal with the unrelenting wave of disaster and pain visited upon the black-African diaspora. The way they surf that wave of grief is instructive for all of us. Mez & Aharon discuss how Princess Shuri, the new Black Panther, learns how to swim through the pain and grief, not as a means of escape but as a means towards self realization.     

They talk about how the film treats righteous anger with the due respect it deserves. Emotions of this caliber are usually discarded in productions of this quality and size. But in Wakanda Forever, Princess Shuri, the Black Panther, becomes a synthesis of both her nobel brother King T'challa and her militant cousin King Killmonger. But one has many rivers to cross before this level of black consciousness is reached. Mez & Aharon act as ferrymen in this podcast episode. Enjoy!

Correction: the Year of the Elephant is the year 570 not 1626.

Artwork by Sham & Matt.

In this short episode Mez & Aharon give their initial takeaways from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. They talk indigenous mythology, the guiding ghost of Chadwick Boseman and the romanticism of the precolonial past.