NO GPS: Recent Episodes
Soker
Soker presents the NO GPS podcast with Mez and Aharon formerly of DummyMen infamy. Slinging hot takes, analysis and meta-commentary on a wide range of topics spanning from Marvel/Star Wars to African History, the NBA to psychoanalysis and Hiphop to Geopolitics. Sure to make your head spin with glee and wonder. The fellas are back to stay!
The Mariner Hospitality of the Coffee Ceremony is a cinematic scripted audio musical that moves across oceans, memory, and myth. At its heart is a long lost ancient Eritrean folk tale (recovered by the poet Ribka Sibhatu) about Emperor Merso and (with his two sons Miren & Gemel) the moment power split the visible world into the purely visible and the purely invisible. From that rupture, the first African spirits were born.
Blending narration, immersive soundscape, and an original score woven from Eritrean, Yemeni, West African, African-American and European musical textures, the work travels from the Red Sea to the Great Lakes, from maritime empires to modern migration patterns borne from war and climate crisis. It asks: What did we carry when everything else was taken? What survived the crossing?
The answer arrives through the coffee (boon) ceremony. Here, fire meets water. Bean becomes liquid. Strangers sit. The act of pouring becomes an act of remembering and forged kinship. Coffee becomes more than drink—it becomes a bridge between worlds, a method of listening & rebuilding community in a time of planetary loneliness.
This is not simply a story about migration. It is about what migration reveals—about power, about memory, about the illusion that anyone survives alone. It is about how a people once shaped by empire and sea learned, through loss, that dominion fractures but relation endures. How exile becomes encounter. How the crossing becomes classroom. How the coffee ceremony becomes a quiet rebellion against a world that trains us to remain strangers.
Here, hospitality is not etiquette. It is an ethic learned from water—an understanding that we move as currents, not islands. That what is poured is also what binds. That what rises as smoke carries counsel from the invisible.
This is an epic carried by smoke, sound, and sea—where the mariner remembers that survival is collective, and every cup is a crossing.
Produced by Aaron Joseph, Matthew Joseph, and Andrew Kozyn for TrethWest & Soker.
After a long break, NO GPS is back! Aharon and Mez return with their characteristic mix of unconventional takes, plebeian cosmopolitanism, and incisive long-form conversations. This episode, we catch up on our trip to San Francisco (Bay Area)—where we saw each other in person for the first time in 23 years—and dive straight into the ideas and tangents you’ve come to expect from us.
Produced by M. Joseph
Since 1986, when Zapp & Roger wired romance into Computer Love, and 1995, when the first online dating site flickered to life, we've been spiraling deeper into a Love Apocalypse. The heart’s been hacked, the game’s been gamified, and love? Well, love's been left buffering.
In this Valentine’s Day special, Aharon charts the digital contagion—how swiping right became a reflex, ghosting turned ritual, and trolling one’s crush became an advanced flirting strategy. How did we go from checking for tender-roonis to tinder-roonis? From waiting nervously at a café for a blind date to being catfished for a calendar year (apologies to Manti Te’O)? People can’t even tell if it's Valentine’s Day or Halloween anymore—ghosting got them shook.
But don’t worry, love warriors. We’ve got strategies to debug the heart and reclaim romance from the algorithmic abyss. With live performances from Aharon & the Love Savers, poetry from our own A. Love, and deep insights from Professor Jemer, the Love Anthropologist, this episode is a survival guide for those still searching for a signal in the static.
Love may be absent, but that doesn’t mean it’s forgotten.
Produced by Soker.
Music provided by TrethWest.
In this episode of NO GPS, Aharon and Mez throw the Uberized world into gridlock, pulling apart the topological thinking of Anna Kornbluh’s Circulation, the opening chapter of her book entitled 'Immediacy: The Style of Too Late Capitalism'. Kornbluh warns us about the flattening effects of disintermediation—the way late capitalism compresses space and time, eroding the critical structures that once made meaning possible. We no longer experience culture so much as we are immersed in it, drowning in immediacy, stripped of the distance necessary for reflection.
Aharon and Mez situate us in the murky waters of the post-to-the-postmodern moment—a time with no clear shape, no distinct historical texture. A horizon-less now, where everything—people, ideas, services, products—is reduced to raw exchange value. We don’t live in a society with an economy; we live in an economy that barely tolerates the presence of a society within it—an insight drawn from decolonial thinker Walter Mignolo.
But if the world has become one seamless, frictionless circuit, the guys propose a way out: the jam (a show stopping jam a la Michael Jackson & Michael Jordan). Whether physical or informational, they argue that disruption—traffic jams, logjams, algorithmic slowdowns—is the last available tool to fend off the anxiety, stress, and manic hyper-acceleration of contemporary life. The jam, they suggest, might be the only way back to something like a meaningful social life—a move away from Fred Moten’s blur and toward a space where mediation and thought can flourish again.
From psychoanalysis to political economy, geopolitics to future options trading, dream analysis to the gig economy, Juba, Sudan to hip hop’s origins in money-making Manhattan, and even Tenet’s time-twisting metaphysics—Aharon and Mez map out the contours of a world that is always moving and is always stuck in the now.
Produced by Soker
Music by TrethWest
Cover art (as always) by Matt J.
In this NO GPS After Sunset episode, we reimagine Weston-Mount Dennis not as a neglected periphery, but as "The City of Our Dreaming"—a title borrowed from the radical insights of Christina Sharpe's 2024 Alchemy Lecture Series. This is no ordinary retelling; it is a sonic and spatial Black history, reassembled and resurrected to defy the dictates of Empire.
We dismantle the colonial narratives that reduce this territory to urban blight, flipping the script to unveil an emancipatory geography rooted in care, community, and the audacious brilliance of radical imagination. Each act of the episode layers scholarship, music, and storytelling to craft an interconnected vision of the future—one where education, architecture, and economies of reciprocity form the bedrock of liberation.
Guided by Saidiya Hartman's critical fabulations and the transformative power of utopian dreaming, this episode doesn’t just tell history; it remakes it. Absence becomes presence, melancholia transforms into resilience, and Black life transcends the constraints of Euro-modernity to flourish as it was always meant to—unbound, unapologetic, and alive with possibility.
This is NO GPS After Sunset at its most daring: an offering of liberation and renewal for a territory that refuses to be forgotten. Tune in, and let us build a world where dreaming itself becomes a radical act of creation.
What if Home Alone is more than just a holiday staple, more than the merry slapstick marathon we’ve come to cherish each Christmas season? What if Kevin McCallister’s battle for survival—armed only with his wits, an arsenal of improvised 1930s innovations, and a rebellious spirit—mirrors the existential loneliness of our age of hyperconnectivity?
In this updated version of my Christmas scripted audio musical podcast, I revisit Home Alone as an unlikely metaphor for self-tutelage and self-mastery in the face of abandonment—by parents, by the state, by society. From the haunted yet hopeful nostalgia of my childhood in Apartment 710 on the Southside of Jane Street to the barren streets of a Mike Harris-era Toronto, I connect Kevin’s lonely yet inventive struggle to our shared navigation of a neoliberal world where we’ve been left to fend for ourselves.
This is not a tale of mere survival. It’s a story of transformation. Of Hip-Hop’s birth in the ashes of abandonment. Of finding harmony in cultural difference. Of using metaphor as the royal road to the collective unconscious. It’s a story of the mind’s ability to grasp itself, and the promise of a future where our minds can grasp each other’s.
Join us as we uncover the hidden genius of Home Alone—a Christmas classic that resonates far beyond the snow-globe fantasy of the McCallister mansion. And remember: the connection is already made. My mind to your mind. Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.
Produced by: Matt & Aharon
Written by: Aharon
Music provided by: TrethWest
Recorded during the heat of summer, Mez, Matt, & Aharon bring you a special NO GPS episode that’s been waiting for just the right moment to hit your ears. With the NBA Finals and the U.S. elections on everyone’s mind, we thought—why not bring the worlds of sports and politics together? From game-deciding shots to culture-shaping trends, this episode is a snapshot of our collective anticipation and excitement. Now, as election day nears, our playoff analysis and predictions resonate with a new meaning, showing just how much the game on the court mirrors the game off it. Tune in and see where the Celtics’ victory and our “election forecast” collide in a blend of basketball insight and political intrigue.
In this first episode of a three-part series, we take a unique and innovative look at how city life, professional sports, and popular culture intertwine to shape narratives about citizenship, individuality, and community. Through the lens of the Toronto Raptors’ rise, this podcast explores what it means to belong—both as a fan and as a member of a city that’s finding its voice. In preparation for Vince Carter’s jersey retirement at Scotiabank Arena, we reflect briefly on his legacy, but the real focus is on reimagining these themes in fresh, novel ways. Stay tuned for the next two episodes, as we continue to unravel these stories in ways you’ve never heard before.
Produced by Matt J.
Written by Aharon
Music by TrethWest
Art by Matt J.
Originally set to release in January, this episode of NO GPS dives deep into the biting satire of the film The Menu, unraveling its critique of class, capitalism, and the art world. Mez, Matt and Aharon explore how the movie captures the widening gap between the rich and the working class, a world where the only time the "haves" and "have-nots" interact is when the elite are being served. It’s no wonder that the restaurant becomes the perfect scene for a class reckoning. The podcast also touches on the profound shift from labor exploitation to societal neglect—today’s workers aren’t merely exploited; they’ve become invisible, marginalized by a system that strips them of value.
The guys also discuss how The Menu mirrors our world’s obsession with scarcity and exclusivity, particularly in the realm of food and art. The film’s critique of hustle culture and capitalism's hollow promises is clear: the rich have time to become specialists in meaningless pursuits, while those who serve them struggle to survive. Both groups struggle with the same issue: a lack of meaning and purpose outside of production, circulation and consumption. Ultimately, The Menu offers a chilling reflection of the current Euro-American soul — a soul that has gotten itself lost in a Maze of profits and cheap thrills, leaving art, creativity, and human connection starving for meaning.
Time stamps for The Menu:
0:50 - Intro
2:33 - Ralph Fiennes is in this movie?!
3:00 - Spoiler Alert
3:35 - A post-Covid era movie that got turned into a cult classic
4:10 - A critique of the uneasy critique of the relationship between art & commerce
4:40 - Aharon is an artist? Yup, one that does it because he loves it, not because he receives sustenance from it
5:15 - The writers for the Onion wrote this? Everyone is a performance artist now, even New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
6:00 - This movie gives insight into the world of super scarce food that the global rich enjoy. Things like molecular cooking.
6:50 - the mega wealth and cultural gap between the super rich and the rest of us is symbolized in the movie by the austere and monastic lifestyle of the workers/servers and the restaurant’s patrons who live lifestyles Robin Leach couldn’t even fathom
7:57 - Fanboys are killing the mystery of art by exposing all of the secrets to greatness
8:50 - The consumer eventually becomes the consumed
9:20 - Scarcity creates value in this era of too late capitalism. The world is becoming a dessert
10:34 - This is a film that gives you insight into the current American soul
13:40 - Artist’s need the basics of life to be covered to create good art - but do they need the type of capital that big studios provide for this?
16:40 - Hustle culture - the global rich have an excess of time, hence they become specialists in things that do not give society, on a whole, value, at least for humans. And the meaning they derive is taken from those who must work endlessly for their daily bread
17:25 - We all need to get a life - we work to live we should not live to work
18:08 - The film examines subjects, both rich and poor, who live without meaning
18:50 - Working to enrich the soul, not one’s pockets (Poiesis)
19:08 - The people that serve the global rich live nowhere near the places they work. They exist on the edge of the cities - hence, the only time they can address a class conflict is at the site, the work site, where one works
20:35 - Economic segregation - and why is Chef Slowik quoting Martin Luther King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham City Jail’?
22:00 - The workforce, the cooks, are themselves a cult because it is the only outlet of meaning in a world that stripped them of value so ruthlessly. The sacred has been stripped of meaning by capital
22:40 - The service class themselves are going through their own delusions and mythmaking to give themselves meaning - even if it deals with them getting revenge in the most heinous way against their elite overlords
23:15 - The situation the film reveals is one where workers are no longer workers but are serfs that pay rent and receive none of the value they create. Hence, the horror that is revealed is that Capitalists are no longer capitalists, but are rather feudal lords
23:45 - Venture Capitalists can get wicked with it. No angels in their investments
24:50 - Margo aka Erin figures it all out. The oldest profession and its practitioners see the truth and hypocrisy of the world before we all do
26:40 - Cheeseburgers with American cheese will Make America Great Again
28:00 - The Chef comes back to his roots - the place that makes America possible: Waterloo (Iowa). Historical link to the battle of Waterloo that ushered in a century of peace in the Euro-American world. A cheeseburger is the symbol for this return to the thing that makes one Great, again
28:50 - Losing the American soul
29:50 - Aharon gives his advice on how to make art that has soul
30:30 - Who will pay for good art in a middle-classless world? The real customers for elite art are the elites
32:00 - We’ve entered a truly Gilded Age - the public can no longer support art made by artists that make art for the public
33:30 - The difference between the performance, the labor and the work
34:35 - Shout out to the show ‘The Bear’
35:10 - We live in a time when a lot of popular media being made these days makes fun of the rich - the rich laugh at us laughing at them..
36:15 - Cultural anhedonia has taken hold - pain, in a world filled with fake smiling faces trying to sell you something, is the only thing that can mark you as being real. This is the real function of horror as a genre in this era of too late capitalism
39:00 - With this film Mark Mylod shows us the emptiness of his subjects
41:10 - The guys dream of returning back to Eritrea and making chic exclusive food from cactus pear
42:10 - The guys finally admit they are looking for venture capital to make their art full time lol
43:05 - Outro
"You run to Atlanta when you need a check balance,
Let me break it down for you, this the real nigga challenge" - Kendrick Lamar
"See it's no in between: you're either free or a slave" - H. Rap Brown
In one of this podcast's favourite articles, On the Question of Nigga Authenticity, Ronald T. Judy writes:
"The nigga is constituted in the exchange of experience for affect. This is not identical with the bad nigger who jeopardized community by insisting on having unmediated free experience. Such an insistence requires an essential innocence of identity, a way of understanding experience that is simply impossible right now. A nigga forgets feelings, recognizing, instead, that affects are communicable, particularly the hard-core ones of anger, rage, intense pleasure. One can belong with millions of others in an asynchronic moment of consumption of the same affect, the same passion. This is not empathy. The possibility of the nigga rests on the twofold of experience and affect, and the fact that experience is essentially unfungible; it cannot be sold as is but must be abstracted and processed by the formulaic functions of transnational capitalism. Knowing this, the hard-core gangster rapper traffics in affect and not values. In this sense, hard-core rap is the residual of the nonproductive work of translating experience into affect—it is pulp fiction, drawing into its web all the real nigga experiences it can represent in the affective constitution of niggaz."
In the decades since its publication, global capitalism's wholesale consumption of Judy's harcore nigga has been completed. Maybe many times over. Processed and reformed to the point it has achieved a smooth exterior. A cutting edge that glows in the dark. Caramelised product that goes down better than ever before. But in order to keep reforming and fine-tuning itself so as to be the perfectly malleabe ready-to-eat sedative, it has to keep returning to take a dip into a real that is inexhaustible in its output of authentic experience. An endless reserve of curdled black experience that it can whip into affect to sell back to the consumer as narcotic pleasure. Drizzy Drake knows a truth about authenticity, namely, that it doesn't need to pass for the real thing as much as it needs to pass for passing. Black (in)authenticity performed long enough, repetitively enough, has become browness' rite of passage and Drake understands that if black experience is unfungible, black affect is the gold standard of the cultural foreign exchange market. Drake isn't so much driven by, and driving forward, the question "what is it like to be black?" as much as the question "what is it like to act black"? Hence the modern day consumer reads the couplet black+rap as ontologically stitched together, and therefore takes it for granted, while being eternally kept from asking the perhaps more pertinent questions : What is brown authenticity? Where is the line between the unfree and the not-a-slave? How would "rapping like freeing the slaves" look and sound like in brown and how would it fare in a free market of exchange when there was no taxes levied on the very concept that is rap's likeness? What is the residual affect of the non-productive work of the non-white and non-black translating black experience? What is the upshot of a double negative that shops down south? How do they rap in H-Town? Say Drake! What is it like to rap brown? Produced by Matt J.Music by TrethWest Art by Matt J.
Today's episode is the one you didn't know you were waiting for! Mez, Matt, and Aharon do an in-depth analysis of the rap beef between Compton's "home is not where the heart is" Kendrick Lamar and Toronto's "placeless" hit-making global superstar Drake.
This seemingly juvenile rap beef has laid the foundation for an audit of Hip-Hop after over 50 years of its existence. Surprisingly, this audit—or rather, revelation—has emerged from the unlikely places of Toronto and London, England. German philosopher G.W. Hegel tells us that the philosopher arrives at the end of an epoch to make sense of its many paradoxes and ironies, not before or midway. This person, akin to Athena’s Owl of Minerva (it seems Toronto is home to more than one kind of OWL), can interpret the world of meanings often lost to us. For this instance, we call this person Hip-Hop’s Last Philosopher.
This rap beef has signalled the official end of George Bush Sr.'s New World Order and a return to history with its many geopolitical fault lines—apologies to Fukuyama. The era of prioritising interests over ideology is officially over. This was a period where the individual was fashioned to be a jet-setting, the-world-is-my-backyard, free agent of infinite possible identifications. Now, the lines are being drawn in the sand, brown sand, once again. Apologies to Rakim, but it's no longer "where ya at"; it's back to "where are you from?" Like the rise of ancestry tests, the worlds of culture, politics, sports, and entertainment are increasingly concerned with where your allegiances lie and what your values are.
Additionally, the guys discuss the disastrous effects that globalisation had on local LA and Toronto neighbourhoods post-NAFTA. This rap beef has cast Drake as a rootless and feckless agent of extractive globalisation, with his parade of accents and affiliations, while positioning Kendrick as the local agent of neighbourhood revitalization and grassroots advocacy. To understand this better, let's take a historical journey.
In the 1980s, downtown LA and the West Hollywood movie studios were pivotal sites for post-Cold War globalisation, particularly focused on receiving investment from the Asian Pacific, particularly Japan (the second biggest investor in the LA county region at the time were firms coming from Canada). This led to the global economic integration of various industries on the West Coast and the American Midwest, resulting in deindustrialization and joblessness for many white Americans, who now suffer through the opioid crisis. Meanwhile, on the other side of town (Word to Tony Toni Tone - and does rain in southern California, figuratively speaking), globalisation took on a different form.
The introduction of the globalised trade of crack cocaine marked a black market integration into the world economy, starting in LA through figures like the real Rick Ross. This not only exported dangerous street drug commodities but also the vehicles for selling them—namely, the set formations of local LA street gangs. Ice Cube's 1991 song "My Summer Vacation" perfectly describes this late 80s to early 90s phenomenon of exporting brother-on-brother violence and its associated Scarface cocaine dreams. By 2005, this form of integration in the global economy via crack cocaine, originating in South Central LA, was distributed through Crip and Blood sets across America and eventually the globe.
A street documentary entitled "The Real Toronto," released in 2005, showcased the interrelated relationship between these distant geographies. A similar sense of boundedness and territorial identity formation was developing in Toronto's black neighbourhoods, even as a global ethos of borderlessness and openness was being embraced. This culminates when a young black Toronto tenn states in the documentary: "If you take a good look around the block, it’s like two squares and a square on that side, and then a square on this side. …The government, that’s how they control us. They box us in.” We highlight this not to sow division but to make our interconnectedness clear.
Come take a ride with the guys from NO GPS, with NO GPS!
Mez, Matt & Aharon are back again with commentary and breakdowns of the first two games of the NBA Finals featuring the Dallas Mavericks and Boston Celtics.
They talk about what went right for the Celtics, who are up 2-0, and what went wrong for the Mavericks. The guys even discuss Boston sports culture and Aharon's weird connection to it this particular year (he lost a bet and had to forsake his beloved Toronto Blue Jays and watch 50 percent of the Boston Red Sox's regular season games for the 24-25 season). As a long time Boston and New England sports hater he has come to appreciate the sports fluency of the region and has learned a thing or two about dynasty building (no joke). At the end of the episode Mez reveals that the guys will continue to cover basketball into the summer - with a special focus on the WNBA. He gives Aharon 2 teams to watch (one from the east and another the west). So look forward to the guys covering the W! Time Stamps: 00:46 - Intro03:56 - Jrue/KP - Luck of the Irish05:23 - Dallas off their gameplan09:39 - KP's Value 11:20 - Dallas' Defense13:33 - Boston's Greatness/Boringness on their Way to Victory17:45 - Love for Boston?20:13 - Game 3 Expectations26:58 - Jaylen Brown. the Boston system & how players fit into it28:32 - Boston's Very Long Journey to the 2024 NBA Finals29:59 - Closing Remarks & Predictions Produced by Matt J.Music by TrethWestArt by Matt J.
Mez, Matt & Aharon are back with another doozy of a NO GPS Podcast episode! Back and in rare form the guys discuss the NBA playoffs in the only way they can: with novel insights and off-the-cuff jokes that end in boatloads of laughter. From analogizing the play of teams and players with current political and cultural trends to offering up deep analysis on game schemes and game-by-game adjustments, the guys give a lot to ponder on and discuss. They talk about the 1st, 2nd and 3rd round of the playoffs respectively and end the podcast by giving an overview & predictions of The Finals matchup between the Dallas Mavericks and the Boston Celtics. Two things to watch out for: JJ Redick is discussed as a possible candidate for the now vacant Lakers head coaching job - the guys did not know that at the time of the podcast recording that Shams Charania broke news that the Lakers were zeroing in on JJ as the future head coach of the LA ball club. Of course, Mez & Aharon give a scathing critique on the Hollywood like character of the LaLa Land franchise. The second thing is Aharon's outlandish Finals prediction at the 01:14:26 time stamp (take a listen, really, you should, it's an interesting take - not a First Take, but rather a Last Take!) - he uses a geopolitical analysis to discuss the political stakes at play in The Finals. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Podcast Intro0:46 - Show Intro 02:54 - Bucks vs Pacers (It's always fun talking about Glenn Anton 'Doc' Rivers)06:54 - 76ers vs Knicks 12:35 - Cavs vs Magic15:44 - Celtics vs Heat16:10 - Lakers vs Nuggets20:48 - TimberWolves vs Suns25:50 - Mavericks vs Clippers32:34 - Thunder vs Pelicans 36:58 - Thunder vs Mavericks41:56 - Timberwolves vs Nuggets46:29 - Knicks vs Pacers54:34 - Celtics vs Cavs57:52 - Celtics vs Pacers01:02:02 - Mavericks vs Timberwolves01:04:35 - Finals Preview01:11:44 - Celtics vs Dallas01:14:26 - Aharon's 13 Colonies Theory & Predictions 01:16:29 - Outro Produced by Matt J.Music by TrethwestCover art by Matt J.
In this episode of NO GPS, Mez & Aharon discuss the Oscar-nominated film 'American Fiction,' directed & written by Cord Jefferson, featuring Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Sterling K. Brown, Leslie Uggams, Issa Rae & Myra Lucretia Taylor. The guys delve into the artistry of the film. They question the reasoning for making a film like this in 2024. Given that the film deals with similar themes and tropes of one-dimensional portrayals of Black characters in the mold of Robert Townsend's Hollywood Shuffle & Spike Lee's Bamboozled.
What we see in the film is the Obamesque desire for a type of negritude display of Black elite life. That is to say that the film gives in to the new Black(ish) want to be disabused of the notion of race, to be SEEN as they truly are. Yet this bad faith effort to escape the facts of life leads to many false starts and misunderstandings in American Fiction. The main character Thelonious Monk Ellison gets no respite in either his professional or personal life because of his resentment of the book publishing world as well as academia. The family melodrama, though, that the film is ensconced within shows the complexity of Black life that Black millennials have been starved to see reflected on movie screens. This is where we see the true genius of Cord Jefferson at work; namely, his ability to create portraits of Black family life that are discordant yet redemptive.
Lastly, the connection between Jeffrey Wright's Thelonious Monk Ellison and his portrayal of Basquiat was crystallized in the (paraphrased) line shared between the two films: "His art gives voice to the gutter." This line connects the two films intertextually - showing the full circle connection between the two characters and the artistic drive of Jeffrey Wright to play roles that are self-agental and not bound by societal conventions. This gives much deserved light and shine to the magnificent and often underappreciated film oeuvre of Jeffrey Wright.
Recommended films to watch: Hollywood Shuffle, Bamboozled & The Inkwell.
Intro and outro song: Tequila No Chase by Aharon, https://open.spotify.com/track/03gfonQpnThqb1ONS52wAu?si=B5JuFKiiTCmySGtvUT5gKQ.
Recommended reading: In Defence of #blackaf's Celebration of Mediocrity by Aharon Joseph, https://nsjcp.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/default/article/view/95/37.
In this intellectually stimulating episode of NO GPS, Mez & Aharon engage in a profound discussion with special guest Professor Daniel McNeil, delving into the nuanced themes of his seminal work, 'Thinking While Black.' This conversation transcends the ordinary and navigates the complex waters of the Black Atlantic, touching upon its historical, cultural, and philosophical underpinnings.
The groundwork for this enlightening dialogue was laid in the thought-provoking 3-part series, 'The Soul Rebel Generation,' which is available on various platforms including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Throughout this series, Mez & Aharon wrestled with the rich and deep meanings laden in 'Thinking While Black,' setting the stage for this episode's deep and immersive conversation.
Mez, Aharon, and Professor Daniel McNeil explore the depths of Black Canadian expressive cultures, seeking out the authentic and transformative experiences that lie beyond the confines of institutionalized multicultural events like Caribana. Professor McNeil's profound insights shed light on Canada's cultural landscape, offering a perspective that transcends the conventional narratives.
The conversation also touches upon the imperative of carrying forward the cultural legacy of previous generations, translating their political struggles into contemporary contexts and building upon their foundations of freedom fighting. Lastly, we hope this discussion leaves you with a renewed perspective on Black Atlantic cultural productions, politics and histories.
And yes, Professor Daniel McNeil does know Canada better than Canadians!
Produced by Soker.
Music provided by TrethWest.
We have been living through the throes of a Love Apocalypse since 1986, when Zapp & Roger released Computer Love, and 1995 when the first online dating site was created.
In this episode of NO GPS After Sunset Aharon talks about catching the lovebug via social media and online dating sites. Catching a lovebug that brings on cravings to ghost and troll one's love interests. Strategies on how to de-bug-ify and battle the Love Apocalypse are discussed in depth.
We’ve got special performances from Aharon & the Love Savers, our resident poet A. Love and the Love Anthropologist himself, Professor Jemer.
Lastly, We never thought we would go from checking for tender-rooni’s to tinder-rooni’s! We went from being stood up on blind date’s to getting catfished for a year (sorry, Manti Te’O). People can’t even tell the difference between Valentine’s Day and Halloween anymore because they’ve been ghosted so many times!
Enjoy this episode of NO GPS After Sunset. And remember never to forget Love, even when it is absent.
Produced by Soker.
Music provided by TrethWest.
Mez & Aharon are back for their first pod of 2024. The guys get into the thick of things when they start out with the recent trade of Pascal Siakam. They speculate to the effect this trade and that of OG Anunoby to Atlantic Division rivals the New York Knicks - yes, the Raptors have finally went all in on a rebuild (our hope: that it is done with taste, Indiana Pacer style) - will have on the Afro-Diasporic formation of the Raptors squad. Could Toronto be the new San Antonio? Spreading a more multicultural and liberal model? A new system of player and coach development that spreads its DNA to the rest of the NBA for decades to come. And lastly, is this the end of the Golden era of the Golden State Warriors? The guys think so and are deflated at the thought of it all being over. They have some interestingly off the cuff insights on the team or teams that can take the mantle. Welcome back to NO GPS! Produced by Soker.Music by TrethWest.
The John Hughes produced 1990 film Home Alone is a Christmas Holiday classic. A staple in the holiday film diet of millions of people, maybe even billions. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the film is not simply a feel-good spectacle meant for the anchor spot in Christmas movie marathons. I think it speaks to our present life situation in very interesting and revelatory ways.
But why is it such an apt expression of our current plight of loneliness in this age of hyperconnectivity? Why is it the perfect analog for our times?
In this episode I describe why...you filthy animals. And oh yeah, Happy Holidays from us at Soker!
Produced by Soker.
Music provided by TrethWest.
This episode of NO GPS After Sunset has Aharon recounting his very strange and weird Toronto Raptor fan experience (like seriously, I did not think a podcast on the Raptors would ever make mention of the film The Land Before Time). Part 1 of I Bleed Toronto Raptor Purple gives insight into the more personal and formative experiences mediated by the play of the Raptors that shaped Aharon's perspective on life. This 3 part series is going to showcase 3 things: 1. The way a personal coming of age story is paralleled with the Raptors rise to Championship glory. 2. How the play of pro sports teams like the Raptors reflect the values and spirit of the city they represent. 3. How the Raptors' reluctance to go full-blown rebuild is characteristic of the city of Toronto's reluctance to rebuild its decaying and bloated (amalgamated) municipal governance scheme - and why global cities, such as Toronto, are a thing of the past. Produced by SokerMusic by Trethwest Recommended reading: https://open.substack.com/pub/soker/p/i-bleed-toronto-raptor-purple?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=17h7cm
In this episode Aharon delivers commentary and deep analysis into the current world zeitgeist via the innovative, albeit sometimes troublesome, play and post-game analysis of Draymond Green. In a very discreet way Aharon shows what casual forces may be behind the current crisis in personal and group identity - and why choosing your identity, not simply going by what the world determines you to be, is the norm in the world today. At the end of the episode Aharon explains why we are all becoming more and more like Draymond - who Aharon has dubbed The Raging Intellectual. Recommended reading: https://open.substack.com/pub/soker/p/draymond-green-reaching-for-infinity?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=17h7cm
In this inaugural episode of NO GPS After Sunset Aharon is going in on our new Techno Feudal Lords. He figures out, in episode 1 (the gall of this guy!), that the meaning of life is to find meaning in life - in his usual roundabout way.
A Podcast related article to read is: https://open.substack.com/pub/soker/p/re-post-around-the-world-in-a-day?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=17h7cm
Show produced by Matt J.
Music by TrethWest (Aharon - All In: https://spotify.link/lAqnp3XU8Db)
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.
Time stamps: 1:05 Detroit & the genius and formative years of Armond White
8:15 Armond the rebel outsider
13:48 Armond's & Pauline Karl'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.
41:32Mez 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.
Music provided by TrethWest.
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
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 spans continents and decades of rebellion and revolution.
Join us as we take a journey through the Black Atlantic!
Podcast produced by Matt J.
All 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).
Although Andor's 2nd season is still in the works we are considering putting Andor in the same vein as shows like The Wire - namely, as one of the greatest shows of all-time. Email us at nogpspodcast@gmail..com to let us know what you think of that hot take. Seriously, the guys for this episode stay true to having NO GPS - they go as far as using the conversation between Mon Mothma and Davo(s?) to go into the nature of financial capitalism (11:54) and use Maarva Andor's eulogy to get into the depths of a proto-revolutionary's mindset (37:10).
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!
You are going to have to use your little grey cells to understand the grey side of the force for this episode of NO GPS. Mez & Aharon talk about feeling like tourist's in the world - not belonging to a specific place, and the mania that feeling produces. Further, what happens when people don't have a relationship to the past or to their indigeneity? They become rebels and fight to become newly rooted in what was before seen as alien worlds. Also discussed are the managerial strategies of the carceral and democratic-capitalist states. The similarities between both managerial styles are highlighted. And the critical question must be asked: will the manager take up for the worker against the forces of oppression? Lastly, the societal outcasts that fill up the ranks of revolutionary forces and fund & catalyze them are the very ones forgotten after final rebel victories. Mez & Aharon center their contributions and give analysis to them. You can find all of the featured music in this podcast at: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1xub7I9nszNj8hdB9Ezihm?si=sI5nwoG0SL6wjuQEPq46ow
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.
In this weeks episode Mez & Aharon (with the help of producer-man Matt) talk about music. Everything from the deep meanings laden in the fast raps of the Heavy D's & Bone Thugs n Hamrony's, to Luther Vandross' extraordinary rendition of Burt Bacharach's 'A House Is Not a Home', and to the transcendental Blues of Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure. Peep this treasure of obscure facts and philosophical insights into the true cultural functions of black music in the New World.
*Correcting Mistakes:
Aharon mistakenly refers to Tevin Campbell as Tevin Brown.
He also mistakenly refers to Robert Johnson as Randy Johnson.
For more information on some of the topics discussed on the podcast you can check out the Soker substack page for part 1, 2 and 3 of the article 'Why do I RAP so fast':
https://open.substack.com/pub/soker/p/why-do-i-rap-so-fast?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
https://open.substack.com/pub/soker/p/why-do-i-rap-so-fast-cce?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
https://open.substack.com/pub/soker/p/why-do-i-rap-so-fast-5c3?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
To hear more of Aharon's music featured on the intro and outro, go to:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/1xub7I9nszNj8hdB9Ezihm?si=pMhf6FjZQmabxcsMfVdH4A
In this episode of NO GPS Mez & Aharon, with the help of producer Matt, talk the global reach of the NBA, their issue with sports data science, the Toronto Raptors (or as they affectionately call them: The Toronto Africans), Nick Nurse and all manner of things interesting in the world of culture and sport. Hold tight to your seats for this ride! And remember, it's about the journey and not the destination.
All of the music in this episode is provided by TrethWest and performed by Aharon. You can hear more of their music at: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1xub7I9nszNj8hdB9Ezihm?si=PD0vC3oPQYGgP-QX3de3bQ
In this episode we have Mez & Aharon talking about the latest episodes (5-6) of the show Andor. They discuss far ranging topics like the disappearance of the middle class in the global north, the revolutionary thought of the character Nemik, the Indigenous fight for survival amidst environmental destruction & how the global supply chains of transnational corporations in the West are changing in lockstep with the vertically integrated governance system of the Empire in Star Wars.
Step into the cypher with Aharon, Mez & Matt with this nifty introduction of the NO GPS podcast! Where we focus on the journey and not the destination.