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Shaka Mitchell didn't set out to become a bridge-builder. He's a lawyer by training and an education-reform policy veteran by trade, spending two decades in some of the most contentious debates in American politics. But when COVID hit and he watched the connective tissue of community start to fray around him, he didn't reach for another policy paper. He started getting together with friends once a month to listen to music and talk about why certain songs mattered to them. That habit became the Come Together Music Project - part podcast, part live event series - built on a simple bet: that a song can get people to open up in ways a debate never will.
Shaka Mitchell is a Nashville-based lawyer, facilitator, and national leader in education reform policy. He's a Senior Fellow at the American Federation for Children and a member of the Aspen Institute's Civil Society Fellowship. He's the creator and host of the Come Together Music Project, a podcast that uses music to find common ground between people from divergent political, ideological, and socio-economic backgrounds, and he co-hosts the “Quality Matters” podcast. His work has appeared in print, TV, radio, and academic outlets, and he's a multi-time TEDx Nashville speaker. He's the past chair of the federally appointed Tennessee State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and he teaches American Government and Constitutional Law as an adjunct faculty member at his alma mater, Belmont University. He earned his J.D. from Wake Forest University School of Law, where he sits on the Board of Advisors for the Journal of Law and Policy.
Website: https://cometogethermusic.org
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cometogetherpodcast
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaka-mitchell-2b04931/
X (Twitter): @shakamitchell
Instagram: @shakamitchell
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[00:00:00:00] Wilk Wilkinson: Shaka Mitchell is a lawyer policy guy and by his own admission, not a crier. Not big on romcoms, not the guy who fits the stereotype of a typical bridge builder. And yet he's built something that gets total strangers, including a conservative state Supreme Court justice and a progressive appeals judge who'd never met to sit down, listen to a song together and open up in ways that years of reading each other's opinions never could. Today we get into why music does something that politics can't. Welcome back, my friend, to the Derate the Hate podcast. I'm your host, Wilk Wilkinson, your blue collar sage calming outrage and helping to navigate a world divided by fog and those who would spread that fear, outrage and grievance. The Derate the Hate podcast is proudly produced in collaboration with Braver Angels, America's largest grassroots cross partisan organization working toward civic renewal, this podcast amplifies the mission that we share to foster a more respectful and united America where civic friendship thrives even when we disagree. Each week, through the power of story, conversation, and connection with incredible guests, we work to build bridges instead of barriers, not to change minds on the issues, but to change how we see one another when we differ. Because friends, it really is about bettering the world one attitude at a time. We did not create the hate, but together we can Derate the Hate. So be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast, share it with a friend and visit Braver Angels to learn how you can get involved in the movement to bridge the partisan divide. Friends, I am so incredibly grateful that you have joined me for another powerful Derate the Hate episode. So let's get to it. Shaka Mitchell is a Nashville lawyer who spends his working life deep in education policy. He's a senior fellow at the American Federation for children and has been in the school choice fight for two decades. But that's not why he's here. Few years back, as the world went sideways during Covid and everybody's sense of community started fraying, Shaka started doing something simple. He'd get together with a handful of buddies once a month. Everybody would bring a song tied to a theme, a Favorite Springsteen track. a song from senior year, and explain why they picked it. That simple habit turned into the Come Together Music project, a podcast and a live event series that since brought together friends, strangers and, memorably, two judges from opposite ends of the political spectrum who found more common ground in 40s of a Billy Joel song than most people find in an hour of debate today. Shaka and I get into why music can crack people open faster than almost anything else. Why he thinks it works best when it stays upstream of politics instead of trying to solve it, and what the rest of us can borrow from this approach. Next time we want to actually get to know someone instead of just labeling them. Let's get into it with my friend Shaka Mitchell. Here we go. Shaka Mitchell, Welcome to the Derate the Hate podcast, brother. It's good to see you again.
[00:03:54:05] Shaka Mitchell: Hey. Thanks, Wilk. Thanks for having me on. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
[00:03:58:05] Wilk Wilkinson: I'm absolutely looking forward to this conversation. Shaka. we had a conversation a while back when I found out you joined the Pro Human Foundation Board of advisors. Got to know each other a little bit there and have really, really been enjoying learning a little bit more about you. And now I'm looking forward to bringing a little bit of what you do to the Derate the Hate listeners. So, so very grateful to have you here, Shaka. we've got a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time, so I want to get right into it. you are a lawyer by trade, but somebody who has done some, some incredible bridging work through the medium of music and I remember when we first had that conversation, you started talking about your, your come together music. I don't know if we want to call it a program or I know you've got a podcast around it about surrounding the concept of of bringing together people through music. And so, so first, one of the things that I always love to do, Shaka, is, is just find out, you know, what brought people, especially people who, you know, kind of are not in or were not naturally in the bridging space by trade. But what brought you into this thing where you wanted to to bring people together, become a Bridger, so to speak? So how did you how did you get there?
[00:05:31:23] Shaka Mitchell: Yeah, yeah. Thanks for asking the question, Wilk. Yeah. I'm happy to share with the, you know, rate audience and and, you know, I've enjoyed reading your stuff too over the past few months. So. Yeah, glad to have this conversation. So how did I get into kind of this so-called bridging space? Let me tell you, I am not like a woo woo. I'm not a I don't really enjoy rom coms. I don't I'm not a big crier. Like, that's just not my jam. Yeah. And I think personally when I, I, I think if you had asked me what I thought of the bridging space, I would have associated with all of those things, you know, a couple of years ago. Right? Yeah. And I think that's probably a little bit true of you just, you know, based on what I've read and what I, how I've gotten to know you a little bit. Yeah. But I think that regardless of who you are, regardless of whether or not your disposition is maybe more serious or more, you know, affable or you're more emotionally sensitive or not. I think all of us were made to be in community. And I think that that community piece is something that really drove me. And I just saw the community, our sense of community just eroding, really like ten years ago, probably when I started paying attention to it. But I would say especially when Covid hit, it was just like all sudden the connective tissue just started eroding. And and that was was, I think, really something that motivated me to go, okay, what's what's my place in this? How am I going to deal with it personally? Because I want to make sure that I'm still in relationship with people. And, you know, when Covid hit, I mean, you we literally weren't even in physical proximity with people. And so I started getting together with some guides. We started listening to music. And at the same time, there's all this political polarization and kind of merging these two streams ended up becoming the Come Together music project.
[00:07:37:12] Wilk Wilkinson: That's awesome man. That's awesome. I like the way you phrase it, that, you know, the connective tissue and what is the connective tissue when it comes to community and, and how we can work together? I mean, there's a lot of different organizations doing a lot of different things. And, and how we find each other, how we show up for one another can be so different. But but ultimately it is trying to figure out that connective tissue. How do we as individuals come together to be part of something bigger than just ourselves? And, I think music is, is is an incredible way to do that. You and I were just talking before the conversation about a couple of my Braver Angels colleagues and friends, Ben Caron, John Carroll with the Braver Music Program and Braver Angels has had a beautiful understanding of how we can use the art and music to bring people together. And then then obviously, when I found out about the the Come Together music project that you're doing, that was that was something I'm like, this is a this is a great thing. I mean, the arts have always been something that, you know, whether it be music or whatever kind of art you want to think about. It's a it's a great way for individuals to look at things, find their own place in it, see themselves in it. But tell me how. Tell me how you saw this thing working, Shaka. And and how are you using music to to bring people together at the, you know, come together.
[00:09:17:08] Shaka Mitchell: Sure. Yeah. Okay. So as I mentioned, when I first started doing it, it was really just a couple buddies we would get together. These are, you know, guys that I'd known for years. I live in Nashville. So in Music City. So, you know, I like to say that the sort of always a song in the air. Right. We would get together on a monthly basis beforehand. We would send around some categories, and everybody would pick a song that matched the category, and we would then we'd get together, we listen to the music, somebody would explain why they pick the song. So the category might be your favorite Springsteen song. That was a category one, and I really, I don't, you know, somebody might get mad about this. I'm actually not a huge Springsteen fan, so it forced me to listen to a bunch of Springsteen songs and go, okay, what do I, you know, what do I dig? But your favorite Springsteen song? If you could produce a record, what would it sound like? A song that takes you back to senior year of high school? Just stuff like that. And what I found out was it was cool to hear music that I didn't know, but what really stuck with me was the stories that these men were telling. Right? Somebody would tell a story. You'd say a song about a certain instrument, and all of a sudden a buddy of mine tells a story about his dad because his dad played that instrument and their relationship has gone through. It's it's twists and turns over the years. Right. And so that's really the thing that stuck with me even more than like, I don't actually remember what the song was. Right. But now I know something about this guy that that experience, it's like an unlocked this different level of vulnerability. And, and I thought, boy, we're I'm doing this with friends. So maybe it's just that we're friends, we know each other. And I just kind of wondered, like, I wonder if I could do this with strangers. And and it turns out the answer is yes. You can totally do this with strangers. And some other friends encourage me. I was part of this thing through the Aspen Institute. It's called the Civil Society Fellowship. And some of my fellows there said, yeah, you got to you got to see what you can do with that, like run with it. And so I did I was encouraged to do that and started doing it. Podcast format have now done a bunch of live versions. So with a live audience and and every time, you know, music, it it deepens relationships where they already existed. It creates new ones and it builds bridges across these generational divides, socioeconomic, political. It doesn't matter because, you know, music's been a part of every known civilization. So I just think it's deeply embedded in who we are.
[00:11:54:02] Wilk Wilkinson: It is. And so there's a few things I want to talk about there. And, you know, when, but I'll take the last one first, because when, when, you know, you say that that music has been embedded within every civilization for all humankind. One of the, one of the things when I well, one of the things in one of the times I went to college, I never did graduate college, but I've been to college a few or a handful of times. And one of the questions, or one of the courses that I took for an elective course in college was it was like music through the ages or whatever. I don't even remember what it was, but but it was one of these classes that that broke down all the way back to the, you know, just after Addie and maybe even before then. But the the different styles of music and the different kinds of instruments and, you know, and and it wasn't, wasn't specific to any one continent. So, so it was kind of giving you this, this timeline of, of things and, and different kinds of music and what people used and how they used music to communicate and, and relate to one another. And and it was, it was actually that it was actually that course that that gave me an appreciation for, like classical music, like like Bach and Beethoven and Mozart and stuff like that, which I never had before. But I actually started to listen to it in the context of, you know, that they explained it. I say that to say this is, you know, that is one of those those threads, right? Those I don't know if you want to call it a through line or a way to to stitch together people stories because. Music, music does take people to a different place, Shaka, it it it brings back memories for people that, that they might not normally think about. Or, you know, I may have a story related to something based on a song that that you never would have guessed. And that's why I love this so much, is because when we think about how people connect, what is that connective tissue? we think about what is it that I need to know about this person or, or how can I better understand who this person is and what makes them who they are? I mean, I think anything that we can do to see another person deeply is awesome. But I think the great thing about music is it elicits. a different place within that human being that we might not otherwise see in any other way. For sure. I'm into that a little bit deeper for me.
[00:14:46:09] Shaka Mitchell: Yeah, yeah, I think, I mean, you're you're totally hitting on, you know, some of these things that I think makes the experience so, so special. And so in some ways it's both special, but it's also universal because I've seen this now work so many times and have really had the honor and the privilege of seeing this in real time with people. So I think it's doing a couple things. One, I mean, just like music's been a part of every civilization. Well, so, so of stories, right? We're humans are storytellers. Yes, because we remember the past. We've we've got the capacity and the the imagination to think about the future that really sets us apart. And so what do we do with this? We we tell stories and music allows us to tell stories. And it like you said, it's really, really sticky. And so what I mean, there is that if I you can do this in, in one of two ways, I can say, hey, what think about your, you know, senior year of high school, give me a song from that era, and you can do it that way. You can think about a time and then lacks the music on or. And I bet this has happened to you before. I bet sometimes you're just walking around now, at our age now. It's like we're I'm walking through the grocery store and I hear Nirvana and I go, wait a minute. How is that on like, the golden oldies, you know, it's also Nirvana became grocery store music, but that instantly takes me back right, to high school because that's that was the era. And so it kind of works in both ways. And so music is just super sticky there. And if you ask the right questions, have the right prompts. You can learn so much about someone. And I'll say I'm also always very surprised. So in some cases I think I know where something's going to go. But you know, I'll give you an example, I asked, I did a session at Arizona State University and with two judges, one is an Arizona state Supreme Court justice who's very conservative libertarian. The other was a progressive court of appeals judge. He had just been appointed to the bench. They had never met one another. First category was what's a song that reminds you of where you grew up? All right. That that was supposed to be like low stakes entry point kind of song. Sure. From the jump, the Supreme Court justice, you could see he got sort of emotional even just hearing the song. So we listened to about 40s of it, you know, and in this case, it was a Billy Joel song called Allentown. Yeah. And he didn't grow up in Allentown, the Justice, but he grew up in a place that was a lot like that. And he said, it just reminds him so much of where he grew up. He starts talking about how he grew up. And this is a man again. He's a a state Supreme Court justice. This is a highly intelligent guy that's like the the peak lawyer. Right? That's what lawyers, other lawyers aspire to. He is doing all the things. And he grew up in from such a like, modest background, you would never have known this very much working class. And he got emotional kind of talking about it. I have read books by this man, and I did not know that history. All it took was 40s of one song and boom, where we are at a different level and now, you know, like, hey, this guy isn't you can't just typecast him as some conservative judge. No, he's a real human who grew up in a way that might not be too different from how you grew up, and that informs even his jurisprudence. So, you know, music's been a really special thing that way.
[00:18:31:01] Wilk Wilkinson: Oh my gosh, this is that example right there. Shaka is one of those things that that I try to point out to people all the time that, you know, we there used to be a phrase that that I think it was I think it was fairly popular probably when we were growing up. But you don't hear it as much anymore because everybody and this is kind of an overgeneralization, but so many people have become so judgmental. But but we used to hear all the time, never judge a book by its cover, right, right, right. And, and until you actually dig down deep into something or who somebody is, what made them who they are, you know, don't be so quick to to judge them without actually knowing who they are. And this is this is one of those things that that drives me bonkers today. Shock is, is so many people think they know somebody from, you know, a couple of tweets that they put out on X or, or you know, this the title that's in their LinkedIn profile or, or you know, what they put on, on, on Substack on a regular basis, but do you really know who they are? Unless you're actually digging in and, and asking those those follow up questions, like I said, without music, in the case of the, you know, the Come Together music project or, or, you know, doing the kind of things that that you and I know the importance of, and that's actually digging into who a person is. Yeah, I mean, I recently, I recently did a, did an episode of The Enemies Project by Larry Rosen. If anybody has not seen the Enemies Project, make sure you go to YouTube. Check it out. He has a way. He's this world class mediator, lifelong bridge builder, somebody. But that's what he does. He brings together people who who think that they're, you know, probably enemies or certainly have a very strong disagreement on a particular thing. Yeah. He says, okay, we're going to dive in. And you guys are really going to learn who each other is. You know, we're going to sit down for a whole day and actually go through all the aspects of, you know, what you find beautiful and what has what has shaped you and how do you how do you define your values, and then how do you prioritize your values? I know that's something that you've also talked a little bit about, but I don't think you can really understand Shaka, how somebody prioritizes their values and tell you dig deeply into who they are.
[00:21:29:05] Shaka Mitchell: For sure. Well, and it takes time. And I think that's something that I didn't anticipate would be such a benefit of the way that coming together music works. I didn't plan for it. It was just kind of happenstance. And then I realized like, oh, I think, you know, sometimes better to be lucky than good. And in this case, you know, I, I think we were lucky. But the element is that, you know, when we, when we do one of these sessions, whether it's podcasts, whether it's, you know, in person, at a conference, whatever, we are actually. So if you and I did it, we would sit down and we would pick a song and then guess what we had to do? We actually have to be quiet for, you know, half a minute, three quarters of a minute and listen together. Listen to the lyrics, listen. Feel the the, you know, vibrations, feel the percussion, you know, and then I've got to stay quiet while you explain why you just picked this song. And I actually think that the listening piece is something that we are so bad at. Again, broad strokes here, but we're just in this instantaneous performance culture. And listen, I realize I'm saying that and I'm like, we're doing a podcast right now. So we're we're putting our conversation, you know, we're broadcasting what could be a 1 to 1 conversation. But nevertheless, I think that we're so accustomed now to already thinking, oh, Wilk said this, I've got to leave a comment. I've got to like it. I've got a post about it that's rather than, hey, what if we just actually paused for a minute, listened. I learned that he's not just this one dimensional caricature, and it turns out there's something deeper there. And so when we're forced to do that, I think really good things can happen. And and listen, like you said, there are so many other organizations doing really good bridging work. My sense was one I, I wasn't. My day job is in school choice policy, education reform. I spent a lot of time and has spent a lot of time for 20 years now in these policy and political debates. So frankly, in my passion project, I didn't want to do that. Sure, sure. So with the Coming Together music project, I view it as being kind of upstream of some of this bridging work because I think, like what I love for people to reach some kind of consensus on the Second Amendment. Sure. Or on, you know, immigration or like pick whatever your issue is. Sure. Yeah. I'd love for people to, to reach consensus, but when you have those meetings, I think that the people who come to those meetings, I think there's a lot of self-selection. Yeah. And with music, I think the self-selection is much lower because I think people come in and they're like, yeah, whatever, we'll come. I mean, who goes to a concert? Not just Democrats, not just Republicans, people who like that artist go and you don't. You have nothing. You know, nothing else but that about them. Right. And so my thought was, oh, I think we can do this music thing kind of, again, rebuild this muscle memory on like how we engage with one another. And then I hope it actually makes some of that bridging work a little bit easier for the people who are doing that, that deeper, like content rich bridging work.
[00:25:05:22] Wilk Wilkinson: Oh, That is so important. And you and I, you you and I can remember a time Shaka before before everything was made political, you know, when music was. I mean, I think there's probably always been a small element of, of, of politicized politicization, politicization, whatever that word is to music. I mean, back to like Woodstock, right? It was like this, this crazy, peaceful, protesting kind of thing and, and whatever. So, so there was there was always an element of, of people politicizing music, you know, you know, thinking, thinking back to the 60s and 70s and the hippies and the and the stuff like that. But in our era, in our time, I mean, I remember when I first started going to concerts, I mean, I know one of the one of the first big concerts I ever went to was like, guns N roses, Metallica and Faith No More. I mean, they were on.
[00:26:07:13] Shaka Mitchell: Tour.
[00:26:08:08] Wilk Wilkinson: Together back in the early 90s, right? Yeah.
[00:26:11:10] Shaka Mitchell: And Faith No More. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:26:13:18] Wilk Wilkinson: It was it was one of these things where, you know, I had no idea what their politics were, and I did not care. And I had no idea what the politics of the people in the crowd were. And I did not care. There was none of it there, you know, and then later, as as you know, and I was I was always like a guns N roses fan and and poison and Metallica and, and and Def Leppard and all those, those guys, you know, throughout high school. And then after high school, I really got into country music and, and stuff like that. There was never in my mind anything political about that. I didn't care what the, you know, the politics of the particular artists were and everything. It was just something that I, you know, I felt because I felt the music and I and I liked the music and stuff like that. One of the things that that has changed, that I don't think has been great for music and I don't think has been great for society and our communities and stuff like that, is how people have started this, this thing of, you know, our artists really start to wear their their politics on their sleeve. I mean, I think about during the the Iraq War and George Bush and some of the stuff that that like the Dixie chicks, who then subsequently, after culture kind of took over, changed themselves to the chicks because they didn't want the Dixie on there or, or like Lady Antebellum took off antebellum and changed their self to lady A and and stuff like that. I think these artists who have who have by rights, put out some incredible music have done themselves a disservice by interjecting politics into into what they do. What do you think? Maybe that's too much to try and dive into when we don't go time left here. But but it's like it's like I think what happens there and then I'll let you answer this. I think what happens there is they do themselves this disservice because by hanging that flag or, or pinning that to their sleeves, what they've now done is they've they've slammed the ears shut of so many people who might otherwise enjoy and take something away from the music that they're they're putting out there. And I think that I don't think that that's a positive thing for society.
[00:28:41:22] Shaka Mitchell: Yeah, I think I think about it, I think about it maybe a little bit differently in that I think, I think some artists are for sure doing that. But meaning, I think that they really aim to, to use politics and even like policy debate as a springboard to selling more, to selling more records or selling more shows. And I think that that's a negative thing. But I guess I give grace, I, I maybe am apt to give grace for, you know, artists who over time decide that they want to change something a little bit like I why why is John Mellencamp now John Mellencamp? Why did he decide to go? He he was John Cougar Mellencamp.
[00:29:36:04] Wilk Wilkinson: Grew up the cougar. Well, he was just cougar right then.
[00:29:38:11] Shaka Mitchell: It was cougar. Yeah, he was cougar. Then it was John Cougar, you know. So I think musicians, like all of us are going to hopefully mature. And so in the case of like lady A, I get it. If they kind of came to a point where they went, you know, that just doesn't actually reflect what we want to reflect anymore. I sort of go like, okay, that's cool, that's your thing. And in some ways, because I didn't I didn't see them putting it out there so much and like going, hey, and if you liked all of our old CDs, you got to, you got to burn them or throw them out or something. You know, to me it was just kind of like, hey, we've had this change. This is how we're going to be known, by the way, it actually caused them some headache because there was another artist named lady A.
[00:30:27:05] Wilk Wilkinson: Oh, is that right?
[00:30:27:22] Shaka Mitchell: Yeah, that they had to then like, you know, wrangle.
[00:30:31:10] Wilk Wilkinson: Over the.
[00:30:32:06] Shaka Mitchell: The the rights to. But but here's where I really think the trouble is, I actually think the trouble is that now things have gotten so politicized and partisan that your party's tried to co-opt artists. Yeah. And in a way that, you know, for the most part, like when, like I said, I'm in Nashville, so there's just musicians everywhere. The musicians, by and large, do not care about what is happening. I mean, they care as people, right? They care as human. What's happening to to real people? Like there's wars happening and people dying like that's a and that's a tragic thing. They care about that. The musicians are not like trying to get in the middle of congressional debates. They're not, by and large, trying to insert themselves. They're trying to figure out how do you make a living, you know, playing doom. Yeah. Right. And but I think that a lot of politicians end up trying to latch on to their celebrity and, you know, and it gets all it gets really sideways. And then all of a sudden, you know, to your point, it's like, and I, I know I won't, I won't share the names, but I, I will say, I know of artists. Well, I know of, of artists who have been uninvited to things like to various events and prayer breakfasts because, you know, they are it's assumed that the people who support them must mean that they're affiliated with one party or not. And it's like, boy, guys, I really think we're missing the point on all that.
[00:32:14:10] Wilk Wilkinson: I do too. I do too, and I want to go back to something that you had said before. I kind of went off or took us down that that line of thinking. But but you said, you know, it would be great to get back to or and I'm not sure how you said it now, but you said it's, it's upstream of politics. Yeah. You know, in the sense that, that the, you know, that the music can bring us together with I mean, in this is the way that I heard it. And you can see you can tell me if I heard it. Right. But but if, if our, if our music is, is upstream of that and then the politics just stays downstream of it, we can we can all be we should all be able to rise above what, what divides us and focus on music as what brings us together. It's kind of the way that I heard it. Is that the way that you.
[00:33:14:21] Shaka Mitchell: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:33:15:13] Wilk Wilkinson: I think.
[00:33:16:09] Shaka Mitchell: It it it largely is. And I think that the, the music, it's not even that we have to agree that we like the same music. It's that we can sort of agree that you as a person, that music is allowing you to reveal some of the same things that that resonate with me. Yes. Right. So we talked before, before we started recording. We're talking a little bit about our kids. Well, I suspect that if, you know, we were talking about our kids, we were talking about our wives. I suspect that if I said, hey, Wilk, write a song about your family, I bet that would be pretty intimidating, right? If if I had to do that, if you asked me, I would go, oh, that's kind of intimidating. I'd be sure that I would not write the perfect song. But if you said, hey, what's a song that expresses how you feel about your family? Okay, that I can do, right? That I can do much more. And and if you do the same thing, when I hear you talking about that, I go, oh, I have some of those same feelings about my family. Turns out that Wilk, this guy who does not look anything like me, this guy who lives in a totally different part of the country, we've had really different life experiences, actually. We just found some commonality. How about that? You know, and and we found it. And I just don't think that we're going to get that way if we walk in. And the first thing we say is like, here's the color that I vote. Yeah, I think I think it's much easier if we kind of come in through a side door and then, you know, again, it takes time. We got to be patient. But I think the music helps with that.
[00:34:52:12] Wilk Wilkinson: I think it absolutely does. And that that is such a good point. And that's exactly what I was thinking when you said it the first time. I was just trying to. We've covered a lot of ground, and I was trying to get back to where it was. And I'm like, there was a point there, and that's exactly the point that I wanted you to get to Shaka. Because you're absolutely right. If we if we walk in the front door and immediately try to say, okay, this person's that, and I am this, and there's this big gap in between us, we might it's going to be a lot tougher than to say, let's go in this side door. let's start with something that is that we know we're going to find some, some points of commonality on. And then. We work from there. We work from our points of commonality instead of working on from all of our great, great points of difference and how those have developed this great chasm in between who we are as individuals. Shaka, this has been an incredible conversation. We had a lot, lot of things to cover and and we didn't get to most of them, but we got to the important stuff. And it's been fantastic. So the website again, tell everybody where they can find you so they can find out more about the Come Together music project.
[00:36:09:23] Shaka Mitchell: Thanks. Well yeah. You can find us at ComeTogetherMusic.org. And from there, you know, you can listen to the podcast audio versions or on Spotify on Apple Music. You can find the video on YouTube and whatnot. And then I do some writing at Shaka's Substack as well, and write about both the music and just other, you know, issues as they come up.
[00:36:36:15] Wilk Wilkinson: Very cool. We'll we'll make sure that all the ways to connect to you are in the show notes for this episode. Shaka Mitchell it's been a great pleasure and I look forward to many more conversations in the future. Thank you so much, my friend.
[00:36:49:06] Shaka Mitchell: Absolutely. Thanks, Wilk.
[00:36:51:06] Wilk Wilkinson:
Friends, I want to thank you so much for tuning in. And if there's anything in this episode that provided exceptional value to you, please make sure to hit that share button. If you haven't done so already, please be sure to subscribe to get the Derate The Hate podcast sent to your email inbox every week. We really are better together. So please take a moment to visit Braver Angels and consider joining the movement towards civic renewal and bridging our political divide. This is Wilk wrapping up for the week saying get out there. Be kind to one another. Be grateful for everything you've got. And remember, it's up to you to make every day the day that you want it to be. With that, my friend. I'm going to back on out of here and we will catch you next week. Take care.
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