Boots Riley on The Moth

I caught the end of The Moth Radio Hour today on NPR. I found out later the day's show title was "Under the Gun."

The part I caught was the last third or so of a story told by Boots Riley. When it was recorded and was first broadcast, it must have been in the mid-2010s. He's described only as a hip hop artist, part of the group The Coup, when what I (and perhaps you) know him for is being the writer and director of the 2018 film Sorry to Bother You.

His story is called "Treasurer Island," because it takes place on that island in the bay between San Francisco and Oakland. It's a story about driving while Black, and thinking you're going to be shot by police. It's also about a particular time, the early 1990s, in the Bay Area, which I didn't know anything about.

It's worth listening to in general but the reason I wanted to post was The Moth host's comments that followed as the show concluded.

She said that night, after his story was finished, she and Boots "talked a lot about guns and violence in our popular culture — in movies, in music. And Boots said something that really resonated. He said, 'Fishing villages inspire fishing songs.'"