Tag: Keith Henry Brown

Maurice Cherry:
All right, so tell us who you are and what you do.

Keith Henry Brown:
Hi, I’m Keith Henry Brown. And I am an illustrator, graphic designer and a writer.

Maurice Cherry:
How has 2022 been going so far?

Keith Henry Brown:
It’s hot. I could tell you that. Other than that, I stay busy. In a lot of ways, I’m juggling two different careers, a career where I am a, I guess, full-time illustrator, but then I’m also a full-time art director, graphic designer for an advertising firm. I try to find some way to do both of those. I’m also a dad. Both my kids though are men now, but you got to deal with the craziness. Just juggling. But I like being busy. That’s what it’s all about. The minute I slow down, then I start feeling complacent.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. You mentioned being an author. I wanted to congratulate you on your book that just came out a couple of months ago, Because of You, John Lewis. Is that right?

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah, I didn’t write that one. It’s Andrea Davis Pinkney wrote this beautiful script about a story about this young man named Tybre Faw, who was I think 11 or 12 at the time, who was obsessed with civil rights leaders, which I think is pretty extraordinary in itself, from Tennessee. And he asked his two grandmothers to drive him to meet John Lewis. He met John Lewis, came in the back door, All these reporters came up to him and said, “What are you doing here?”
“I want to say hello to my hero.” They opened the back door. Mr. Lewis came out. Never saw the kid before in his life. The kid started crying. He held up a sign telling him about what he thought about him, which was basically saying, “You’re a hero of mine.” Lewis gave him a big hug. He later invited him to march with him on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and then they became friends. When Mr. Lewis died, he did his eulogy at his funeral. They became friends for a short time while John Lewis was alive.
So the book is about their relationship, but the book is really about how leaders inspire each other, like Martin Luther King was John Lewis’ mentor; not at first, but his person that he fancied and that he was interested in and wanted to be like. And then he finally got to meet him and work with King, Mr. King, which you probably know. And then the same thing happened again with Tybre and John Lewis. So it’s sort of a succession of future and past civil rights leaders.

Maurice Cherry:
Wow. Sounds like a great book. I’ll definitely put a link to it in the show notes so people can check it out.

Keith Henry Brown:
I give most of the credit to Andrea. They found me. Scholastic Books is the publisher. And I hadn’t done anything like it yet in my career. And it was just a huge honor that they thought that I could do it. And I was intimidated because of all these amazing people that were involved. And it was a learning experience. But the book is out, and people seem to like it. We’ve gotten starred reviews from Kirkus and Library Journal. And people seem to like it. I’m excited that people know the story now.

Maurice Cherry:
Is there anything you want to try and accomplish before the end of the year?

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah. I mean, I have a lot of projects coming up. So I’m a job-oriented person. So in my mind, my whole life is a series of tasks that I have to achieve. And I break it down from year, and I break it down to week, and I break it down to month. And I know what I got to do the rest of this year. And there’s a lot of stuff I got to do.
So it just was just announced that I’m doing a book about … there’s a story of Raymond Santana, who is one of the Central Park five, the exonerated Central Park Five, if I may add. You may know the story about these five African American young men who were wrongly accused of raping a white woman in Central Park in the ’80s. They all went to jail for this crime that they did not do. They were all eventually exonerated, but they all suffered horribly. In the early 2000s, they were awarded an apology and some money from it, but the story itself is scarring. Ava DuVernay did a really beautiful film about it that I think is still on TV, on-

Maurice Cherry:
On Netflix, yeah.

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah, on Netflix. And also, there’s a beautiful documentary by Ken Burns and his daughter about it. It’s an extraordinary and heartbreaking story about not just these specific young men’s lives, but also how Black men are treated. Matter of fact, I love the title of DuVernay’s film, which is When They See Us. If you’re a Black man living in America, you know exactly what that means. Anyway, I’m doing a graphic novel based on his memoirs. That is something I have to start working on this year.
I have a book that I’ve already written and finished, and it’s coming out next May, that I wrote. This is the first book that I’ve written, so that’s why … I’ve written a lot of articles about music and things like that, but this is my first book that I’ve ever written. And that one is about … it’s called My Dad’s a DJ. It’s about my relationship with my kids. And after I divorced my ex-wife … Well, she divorced me [inaudible 00:08:55] put it, we went on and had this relationship through music. And you know how the music that I like, old school, ’70s, Prince and Stevie Wonder and all that, and they liked the hip-hop cats … And then we used to have these sorts of agreements and disagreements about music. And then we finally connected. So the book is really about staying together with your kids after a divorce. And that book is coming out in May next year.
So all these things are going on. I also have another book that I’m working on. I could keep going on about it. So I guess to answer your question more succinctly, I have a lot of assignments. I’m going to try to get as much of them done as I can. And I’m going to try to get some rest too, because I don’t want to lose my mind.

Maurice Cherry:
All right. I mean, it sounds like you’re working on a lot of stuff. And I want to dig more into your illustration work, but let’s talk a little bit about your day job. We don’t have to spend a whole lot of time on it, but you mentioned working at an ad agency. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah, I’m pharmaceutical advertising designer. That means that I’m designing ads and product packaging for different brands. One of the last ones that I did that had a pretty big campaign that went on to get well known was called Taltz, which is a type of drug that helps with people who have eczema. And I first came to the agency to work on testosterone trucks, which was interesting, but then it was changed to work on this. So it’s been something I’ve been doing now for a number of years because, as I said, I have children. I was married at the time. And I was trying to make a living doing that, even though my main goal all my life was to be an illustrator and to be an artist and to draw. But then you have to do what you have to do to take care of your family.
So I had a friend who was into advertising and said, “You should try this. This would be something you should do.” And I had dabbled in advertising because I had worked on some small magazines, so I taught myself things like Quark and Photoshop and a lot of Adobe Creative Suite. So I knew how to do those things. And I just figured it just takes a little creativity to lay out an advertising. And then I started out small, working for a small African American agency, when I was living in Louisville, Kentucky for a few years. And when I was there, I got a job working at Churchill Downs. And then after Churchill Downs, I decided that I was an art director and I was a graphic designer. And I decided to put aside illustration for a while, although I was still doing it on the side for myself and for small publications.

Maurice Cherry:
How do you balance your illustration projects with your day job projects? I mean, doing work for big pharma, I mean, given the current climate that we’re in, pretty stable. I mean people are always going to get sick. But how do you balance that with your outside illustration work?

Keith Henry Brown:
I think I’m in a fairly unique situation in that I’ve been doing it so long that I’ve reached sort of a senior position where I don’t do as much of the nuts and bolts designing as much as I do in leading teams. And so that means that I don’t have to necessarily be there in the office, be part of the day-to-day, because I’ve just been doing it, when you have a certain amount of knowledge of the business and understanding what is expected of you. I work with younger designers, so I don’t put as many man hours as maybe somebody who’s just getting into the business. And so then I just schedule and balance my hours with book projects, magazine projects, album cover projects.
And also, I’m pretty fast with my illustration. I work very quickly. So if I get an assignment, I can turn it around relatively quickly so that I have time to stay with my day job, which I’ll probably stick with for a little while longer. But eventually I want to, and I’ve told my employer this, so I’m not saying anything I don’t want anyone to know, phase it out so that I can focus entirely on the illustration work.

Maurice Cherry:
It sounds like you’ve, I guess, found a pretty happy medium, then?

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah, because you want to have that security. You’ve got to be able to take care of your mortgage, and all that stuff. But at the same time you have to have that happiness. One of the things I’ve learned from being around a lot of jazz musicians is they’re the happiest people I know, and they never die. They live forever. And I think it’s because they’re doing exactly what they want to do. I know jazz musicians that are pretty well-known and really talented, who struggle financially, especially when the pandemic was going on. They didn’t have anywhere to play. And there are some that are so well established, they’re okay. I don’t know, Ron Carter, the great bass player, I don’t think he worries about that. But there was a lot of young musicians who are quite brilliant, who weren’t working.
I see it the same way. It’s like I have to eventually take that chance that working in the corporate world and stepping away from it so that I can do the thing that I really love, because I want to be happy. And not saying that doing design just makes me unhappy. And I’m happy this skill gave me and it got my kids through school and it bought me a house and all that stuff. But it just doesn’t fulfill me in a way that illustration does.

Maurice Cherry:
I mean, I think that’s fair. As a creative, I mean, the things that sort give you that inspiration may not necessarily be the job I think that you work at. But I would also say, and this is for anyone, I think, that just does other projects on the side, sometimes you have to do the thing you don’t want to do in order to do the thing that you want to do. I feel like that’s sometimes career advice that people don’t really get told a whole lot. But no, I mean it sounds like you found that balance, though.

Keith Henry Brown:
I totally agree with what you just said. I sometimes teach classes at schools, about art design, or I come in or do workshops or stuff like that occasionally. And a lot of kids, they go to where I went, like Parsons, or SVA, School Visual Design, or FIT. And they come out and they think, “Okay, now I’m going to be this amazing designer, and I’m going to do fashion magazines, and I’m going to do all this super slick stuff. And I’m going to design for Beyonce and I’m going to design for” … whatever it is they think they’re going to do. And they think it’s all going to be glamorous.
But sometimes you got to do stuff that’s not so exciting, because there’s all kinds of design out there. There’s everything from … I started off, at one point, I was doing catalogs, which I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. And not to criticize anyone who’s doing it, but I found it very difficult. And certain types of design is not as glamorous, or even you find out it’s not as glamorous as you thought, which is what my experience was with doing comic books.
All my young life, I always thought, “Oh my God, I want to draw Marvel comics.” I mean, that’s all I wanted to do. And I drew comics by myself in my room when I was eight years old or seven years old. And I drew comics with my friends. And I went to the school I went to, thinking I’d get to do it, and I got to do it. And when I was actually there doing it, I realized, “Wow, this is a job. This is work. I have to be adult, because I have to meet deadlines, and they have to put out a certain amount of pages, and they have to be a certain level of quality. And I have people looking over my shoulder telling me what’s good and what’s not good.” So a lot of things are like that, right? It’s like you got to put the work in, you got to put the time in. And you have to figure out, “Do I want to break through to do this thing?” I think I heard an interview you did with Ray Billingsley?

Maurice Cherry:
Oh yeah, yeah.

Keith Henry Brown:
The great cartoonist. And he was saying something similar where he was saying that he’s one of those guys who really learned his craft. I mean, we know him from his cartoon strip, his comic strip, but actually, he could draw all kinds of things. And he tried everything, and he worked on it, and then he honed it down to this project that he has now been doing for a lot of years. But it was a lot of work and thought behind it. It wasn’t something he decided one day, “I could draw pretty good. I think I’ll draw a comic strip.”
I do think we all have to pay our dues, in a certain form. And my paying my dues for a long time was doing graphic design. Now having said that, I know a lot of people, that’s all they do, and they do it way better than me, and they’re beautiful. And they’re excited about it every day and they love doing design. And I still love graphic design, to a certain amount, but it doesn’t give me the same high that drawing does, because I think I started off wanting to draw, more than anything.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. For folks who haven’t heard that Ray Billingsley interview, it’s episode 370. Go check it out. It’s a really good interview. When you have a new illustration project that comes in, whether that’s a book or whatever else you might be working on, what does your creative process look like? Take me into that process.

Keith Henry Brown:
I could talk about a book or I could talk about an album cover or I could talk about a magazine, because some of them are different lengths of time that you immerse yourself in it. But I’ll just mention the one I just did for a magazine called Rethinking Schools, which is a wonderful magazine that is for teaching teachers how to teach children. Teachers write articles in the magazine, and they explain the techniques they used that were effective, so other teachers could use it. It’s a great magazine. And they used a lot of illustration. I did a full-page illustration a couple of months ago for them. And the process was the art director came to me and said, “This is an article. I’m sending it to you. See if you want to do this, see if this is something you think you would be interested in. This is how much we pay.” And basically, the article was about how this one teacher wanted to teach children about Black Lives Matter through dance. She was a dancing teacher, and she wanted to teach choreography to these kids in a private school.
And so, I came up with these drawings of the kids dancing to this sort of music that they sort of describe in the BLM article. And I just came up with sketches first. They approve them, and then you start to paint them in. And then they’ll say, “Well, this figure, we like better than that figure.” And you take them out and you put them in. So my thing is I do a mixture between digital and traditional, with the accent on the traditional. I draw everything out by hand, on paper usually. And then I scan it in and either I paint on it or I use digital colors, like out of Photoshop, or something like that, or sometimes it’s a combination of both things.
As we go to the final art, I do watercolor because I like the spontaneity of it and I like the fact that I can’t really control it 100%, and that it can just some suddenly do something that I didn’t expect it to do. And that could be scary because it might not be something I wanted to do, but it also means that something exciting can happen. And whenever I do something and it feels static to me or it doesn’t look interesting or it’s not moving, I always miss the watercolor element, which is the thing that makes it to me feel spontaneous and alive, which is also connected to why I like jazz so much.

Maurice Cherry:
See, I was just about to ask, because I noticed that theme of a lot of your work being done in watercolors. But it sounds like you like to have a little bit of that unknown element in the work?

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah. I mean, I appreciate a lot of illustrators’ work where they spend a lot of time planning every single illustration out to an nth degree, and the colors, and they have palettes, and they do hundreds of preliminary drawings and sketches, and things like that. And I do do some of that. But I like the idea of, I don’t know, just kind of going with the feeling. I mean, I’ve even had times where I’ve done a book, where I didn’t even finish reading the book, the whole script or the manuscript of the book, and was doing the illustrations without even having read it all. I probably shouldn’t say that out loud, so if anyone who wants to hire me. But if I like the basic idea, I’m like, “Okay” … Like the first book I got published was in 2019. It was called Birth of the Cool: How Miles Davis Found His Sound, which could not have been a more perfect first book for me, because I love Miles.
And I just thought the idea of doing a children’s book about Miles was kind of brilliant, even though I couldn’t figure exactly how they were going to do it, because Miles was not always kid-friendly. But I read two or three pages of the script and I said, “Ah, I see what she’s doing.” So I just started doing it. And I actually read the book as I was doing the illustrations, which anyone would tell you is insane, because you should plan the whole thing out. I just read the descriptions of what the action was, and not the actual dialogue, or even all the text. But I wanted it to feel like jazz and I wanted it to feel as spontaneous as he is, and how he takes a moment. I mean, that’s why jazz is so important to see live, or live recordings are the best, in my opinion, because everybody is not actually sure of what they’re going to be doing that day in that performance. And it could be brilliant and it could be not the best thing they ever did.
I’m lucky enough to be in a position where it’s just the way I do things. I don’t really know any other way of doing it. And I think that if I drew the whole thing out and knew exactly what I was going to do, it would feel too much like work. So this way, it feels like I’m just doing art. It just happens to be following a specific storyline, because I also like storytelling, which is why I wanted to get into comics in the first place. But in comics, it’s way more structured.

Maurice Cherry:
What would you say is the most challenging part about what you do?

Keith Henry Brown:
I think just finishing, for me. It always seems incredibly like, “How can I ever finish this? This is huge. There’s so much to do.” And there’s that famous quote someone said, where, “I don’t like writing, but I like having written.” I do feel that way. It’s like I could see the book in my head completed, but I don’t particularly like the process, in the sense that I can’t wait for it to be done. I want to see the book in my hands. I want to see it all drawn, but I know that that means many hours of work.
I just got a project recently that I’m very excited about. It hasn’t been announced officially yet, but we’ve already kind of signed everything. So it’s a book about this relationship between Malcolm X and this Japanese woman who was also an activist, and their friendship. And it’s very unusual, it’s a true story, in the fact that most people don’t know about this. Also, the fact that the famous picture of when he was shot in the ballroom, there’s a woman holding, cradling his head. It was this Japanese woman. And so the writer saw this picture and decided to find out who this woman was. And she ended up writing this kid’s book about their relationship. Some of her activism comes out of the horrible story of the internment camps during World War II, they put Japanese in after Pearl Harbor. And she started off with that kind of activism, and then she folded into other kinds of activism. And they became friends, mostly correspondence, with Malcolm X.
Anyway, I’m working on this book now. We were having a story conference with the publishers the other day, with my agent. And we were talking about what the book was going to look like and what it was going to sound like, and what kind of tone. And I could see the whole book in my head in five minutes. And I was like, “I just wish I could just snap my fingers and it was done,” because I want to see the book more than I want to make it, because it really comes down to work.
I think Alfred Hitchcock said once that when he came with a story like, I don’t know, Psycho, or something, or The Birds, once he had the storyboards and he had the script done, to him, that thing was done. He said all the work of having to get the actors and go on set and shoot everything was the least interesting part to him. And I really relate to that because that’s the mechanics of it. It’s the conception of it that I think is the most exciting. But I do have a lot of fun in the midst of painting, when I’m actually doing it, too. So I always say that I don’t want to do the work, but when I’m really in it, I kind of forget I’m working. So it works both ways. But I do want to see the thing done, but usually before I can finish it.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, I’m interested to see that too. Yuri Kochiyama is the activist that you’re talking about?

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
I’d be excited to see that book when it’s done.

Keith Henry Brown:
Oh yeah, I’m going to put 1,000% in that one. I think it’s a beautiful, beautiful story. And I think it’s a story that should be told. I love the idea of people of different cultures, races coming together in a cause. I mean, I don’t want to exaggerate their relationship, it was a short one, but it was significant to Malcolm. It was significant to her, and their families. And then I think we don’t do enough of that. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything like that, or any story about an Asian person and a Black person together on a common cause, in a huge sort of undertaking like human rights or activism. So I want people to see this book so bad. I want it out there. I want it in stores now. I just got to get it there. I felt the same way about Miles. I felt the same way about John Lewis. I felt the same way, My Dad’s a DJ. I want people to see it.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, let’s switch gears here a little bit and learn more about you, about your origin story. You live in Brooklyn right now, but you’re originally from Staten Island, is that correct?

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah, it was an interesting place to grow up in.

Maurice Cherry:
What do you remember growing up there?

Keith Henry Brown:
Actually, I lived in a pretty diverse neighborhood. My best friend who lived next door to me was Jewish, and we had Filipinos living a couple of doors away, and we had Irish and Polish, and we had Latinos, Puerto Rican and Dominicans, all in the neighborhood. So the attitude, I think a lot of people think of Staten Island now, especially from recent events, that it’s like this totally red part of New York, full of Joe Plumbers, and stuff like that. But it wasn’t like that when I grew up, although there was also a really strong Sicilian community of Italians that we didn’t really connect with as much. But we had this one little thing, it was called Stapleton, Staten Island. Also, this is the same area where Wutang started their thing.

Maurice Cherry:
Oh yeah, that’s right.

Keith Henry Brown:
Their projects was probably about a quarter mile from the little neighborhood I grew up in. I grew up in a house, and my dad was a physician, my mom was a bank teller. So I guess you’d call it near middle class, because I had my own room, and I had a house, and I had everything I needed. But we weren’t rich or anything, because my dad was still a student when I was growing up, and my mom worked full time at a bank.
But it was a pretty nice upbringing in terms of how I saw the world. It until I get older that I realized that there was things like severe racism and things like that. So I was able to fantasize and not worry about my place in the world as much, and dealing with things like that. So I plunged into the world of Marvel comics and fantasy books and science fiction, like Isaac Asimov, and people like that. So that was the thing that I was into when I was a kid, and also music, The Beatles. And I liked The Beatles the same way that I liked Stevie Wonder. I didn’t have any boundaries in how I saw music and art.

Maurice Cherry:
So it sounds like you grew up around a lot of music, but you also kind of grew up around a lot of art, too?

Keith Henry Brown:
No, that’s the interesting thing. My mom was a singer, but she sang in the choir, and she had a beautiful voice. She even got accepted to Juilliard at one point and couldn’t go, because my grandfather couldn’t afford to send her there. So we always had a lot of records in the house, so I was always listening to music. I would read every word in the liner notes and read everything on the back 15,000 times. And I was a fanatic about LPs and music.
Art really wasn’t there. I think I came by art almost completely through comic books and wanting to draw comic books of my own. And I didn’t really know anything about art history or anything like that until I got to high school. I went to a high school of art design, which was in Manhattan. And it still exists, obviously. It was a great school. I started to learn about painting and drawing. Then I got interested in things beyond comics at that point. But before that, I don’t know if anybody else in my family even drew.

Maurice Cherry:
I think comics was probably a good gateway for a lot of people. I mean, especially if I’m thinking about the time that you grew up, and especially with starting to see more Black people in comics too, I would imagine that probably was really inspiring to see back then.

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah. It was huge, huge, huge. Trevor Von Eeden, who created Black Lightning, who’s a little bit about the same age as me, there’s a legendary story about how he sent his drawings to DC Comics on loose leaf paper, because he didn’t have any other kind of paper.

Maurice Cherry:
Oh, wow.

Keith Henry Brown:
And they sat down with him, and started giving him gigs. But the big one for me was a guy named Billy Graham. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him. He did a lot of the early Black Panther comics. He basically was the writer that created Killmonger, the characters in the movies. He did these magnificent stories, one particular one called Panther’s Rage. The same story that’s basically in the movie is in that story, which is that Killmonger, the character [inaudible 00:29:45] played by Michael Jordan in the film, kind of takes him down as being prince, and challenges his leadership of Wakanda.
That was a Billy Graham thing. He was one of the very few Blacks that were in the business. Brilliant guy. He was also a playwright, a painter. He was just this amazing guy. I only met him once for a few minutes, but I was in awe of him. But most of the people that I liked, if I’m being completely honest, were like Jack Kirby and Neil Adams and Stan Lee, and those guys. I mean, they were all like gods me. I mean, if I had a choice between meeting Paul Newman or Tom Cruise or Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, I probably would’ve done the latter. I mean, those were the guys who were the big heroes to me when I was a kid, that were the comic book artists.

Maurice Cherry:
So you were inspired by comic books. You went to this art high school. And then after you graduated, you attended Parsons. What was your time like there?

Keith Henry Brown:
It was good, but it was less about comics. By then, I had done a little time working in comics, and decided it wasn’t for me. So I wanted to learn to paint in a different way or draw in a different way, and not be just in comics. I mean, the comic influence is there. It will be there till the day I die. And I still draw comics sometimes, or cartoons, but I don’t draw superheroes or things anymore; not that I have anything against them. But my thing when I was at Marvel and also in general about superhero stuff is that a lot of times these things are … even then, before the movies came out and became this massive thing, a billion dollar company, is that they’re all copyrighted characters owned by somebody else. So there’s not much you can do with them. You have to stay with the continuity that you’re given. You have to be explained what you can do, what you can’t do. Even you and a writer have to follow a larger storyline that maybe is being planned throughout the company.
And I always had this itching feeling to want to have my own characters and have my own thing. So I wanted to learn illustration because I wanted to express myself more as an individual and less as just a sort of a cog in this massive machine. I mean, every month, on the dot, you had to have a new Marvel comic. And I think only the very, very best guys got recognition for what they did. But I don’t think I was the best at that. I was okay.
So I really wanted to express myself in a different way. I still love comics, especially independent comics. I’m more interested now in people like the Hernandez Brothers, Love and Rockets. I love it. It’s probably my favorite cartoon, is Jaime Hernandez … than now, than superhero stuff, because these guys are independent. And they own their own characters and they create their own worlds that are basically coming from them. And they’re not in it for the money. They’re in it because they just had to do it. And I admire that more than being just another person drawing Spider-Man, out of the thousands that have done it over the years.

Maurice Cherry:
So Parsons, it sounds like, opened your eyes a little bit to the reality of what the industry was like?

Keith Henry Brown:
Precisely. Exactly. I started getting interested in modern artists. I started getting interested in abstract artists. I love Rothko. The Expressionists is my favorite type of painting, so de Gaulle’s my favorite painter. I began to appreciate art for what it is and the endless limitations that art can provide, and not these sort of commercial concerns of just trying to sell something or sell a character.
Now, I don’t have anything against people who do that. There are some brilliant kids and artists doing this stuff now. I love them. I love looking at the drawings. I love looking at Greg Capullo or Jim Lee or Frank Miller, when he was doing it, and David Mazzucchelli. These were all comic book artists. These guys are freaking awesome. I just don’t think that I’m built to do this stuff, myself. But I love to look at their work.
There’s a guy named Bill Sienkiewicz who does comics, but he also is a great, great illustrator. And guy like him, he’s like a god to me. So all these guys are great. I just know that I can’t do comics, because it’s just not, unless I do a personal comic, like doing this graphic novel about the Central Park Five. I’m working on now one about a jazz musician. So if I can find my way in, then it’s absolutely the greatest, but if I have to just … I don’t know. I couldn’t be one of those people who’s doing, I don’t know, SpongeBob comics, or something. I got to do something that I got some kind of skin in the game.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, yeah, I mean, it sounds like you’re in it for the storytelling medium. It’s not just so much like a way of telling a story in terms of, “Oh, here’s SpongeBob. And we’re going to do it via animation.” It’s more like, “What’s the story we can tell that animation can provide sort of,” I don’t know, “that bit of oomph to it,” I guess. You know what I mean?

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah, exactly. Somebody was telling me the other day that they had a gig at some Pixar. And they said, “Dude, they’re looking for artists, illustrators to maybe come in and work with Pixar movies.”
And I’m like, “I mean, that sounds great in terms of financially and also prestige and stuff, but I don’t really want to get bogged down working on some massive project where a hundred other artists are working on it.” Even if it’s good, like I thought … What was that one about the jazz position that came out?

Maurice Cherry:
Soul.

Keith Henry Brown:
I thought it was real good, but I don’t know that I’d want to have worked on it, because it requires years of work, hundreds of people. And I’d rather work on my little book, where it’s just me alone in a room and a writer writing a script, and then five, six months later, it’s in a bookstore, and it’s got our names on it.
To me, it’s like I’d rather do that, even if it means I’m making less money or not part of a huge, famous organization, that I could tell everybody, “I work at Pixar, or I work at so-and-so.” Even when I worked at Marvel, I mean, people would be impressed when I said I worked at Marvel. But I didn’t care about that part because I knew that I was doing stuff I wasn’t even really that inspired by. So it doesn’t matter that people were enamored by it. It was more about the fact that I had to still sit down by myself at some point and try to meet a deadline for something that I didn’t love. But having said that, there are people I know who do love it. And God bless them, because they do some beautiful work.

Maurice Cherry:
So you did eventually, I don’t know, I guess maybe fulfill that childhood dream. You did do some work for Marvel.

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah. And then I saw what it was. Everybody finds out what the reality of things is and what things really are; like a lot of people think they want to be movie stars. A lot of people think they want to be pop stars. And then they find out what it’s really like. And sometimes the stress is so much they can’t handle it at all.
My son is an independent musician. He has a band, and he has albums out, and he goes on tour. And one of the things we often talk about is if it ever happens that he blows up, get ready, because it might not be what you want. And even in the little bit of brushes of stuff that he’s seen, by just opening for bigger acts and things like that and seeing how these guys live, they say a lot of it is really difficult, because once you’re famous and people know who you are, or even if you’re just known by people to be successful, it gets to be more about that than about the music, which is what you came in there to do in the first place.

Maurice Cherry:
I relate to that so hard, I mean, for two reasons. I mean, I think, one, from the musician standpoint. So I might have said this on the show before, but before I got into anything, design, whatever, I was a musician. I grew up playing trombone. I played it all through middle school, through high school. I played it in college. I played it a few years after college as a session musician. But I loved it. I still love music. I was a jazz trombonist. But it’s not making any money. You’re not making any real money. And the hours are wild and crazy. You have to do it because you love it. You’re certainly not doing it to get rich or to get any sort of financial stability, unless you really get a deal with a label, and then you record an EP or an LP or something, and you blow up that way.

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah. And I’m going to be honest, I mean in jazz, I don’t see anybody getting rich. I actually [inaudible 00:37:46]-

Maurice Cherry:
Not in this country. Absolutely not.

Keith Henry Brown:
I work for one of the most successful jazz musicians there is. And he does well. I don’t think he’s hurting, but he ain’t rich.

Maurice Cherry:
He ain’t rich, yeah.

Keith Henry Brown:
He ain’t no multimillionaire. I do all of his covers, and he and I are friends. But I know he’s very well known in the jazz world, but outside of the jazz world, the guy’s won like six Grammys. I mean, he’s a genius. But it doesn’t matter, because there’s a limited audience for that type of music, unless you’re somebody like Herbie Hancock who’s become a legendary figure. And not only is he legendary figure, but he’s also even done pop hits, like Rocket, and everything. So he’s a guy who’s transcended jazz in order to have the success that he has. But also, he’s a legendary iconic figure, so he’s almost beyond human. I mean, he’s like this person who’s been doing it so long and has become so famous that people just give him money just for existing.

Maurice Cherry:
You’re talking about Wynton Marsalis, right?

Keith Henry Brown:
Well, I was actually just talking about Herbie Hancock.

Maurice Cherry:
Oh, okay. But I mean, when you mentioned this artist that you’ve done covers for, though.

Keith Henry Brown:
Oh no, that’s Christian McBride. Christian McBride. Do you know Christian McBride, Maurice?

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, I do. Yeah.

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah, I’ve done his last eight covers. He’s a friend of mine. One of my best friends was his manager. Some years ago, he started a new band called Inside Straight. And instead of getting a photo shoot done, my friend, knowing that I was an illustrator, asked me to do the cover. And then he and I began a creative sort of partnership [inaudible 00:39:19] the visualization of his music.

Maurice Cherry:
Wow.

Keith Henry Brown:
So a lot of his album that I’ve done covers for, also LPs, vinyl LPs, he has won Grammys for. And I never know if I’m going to get to do it next year, because that’s one of those things that I wait for him and I hear Christian’s voice say, “Hey, Brother Brown, I got another cover for you.” But I never know if he’s going to call me. But I’ve done eight so far.
So people who don’t know Christian is he, he’s a bass player, composer, band leader. When Sting started his first band, Sting the pop singer from The Police, he was his bass player. Sting’s a bass player, so that tells you something about the greatness of him. But he’s also played with everybody who means anything. He’s played with every single musician there is. He’s a genius player. So I consider that to be one of the proudest things that I’ve ever done as an illustrator, is do his artwork. He also heads the Newport Jazz Festival. He has a radio show on NPR, called Jazz Tonight. He’s just an incredible human being, and one most talented people I’ve ever met.

Maurice Cherry:
I mean, I think it sort of speaks to sort what you said earlier about jazz not being super popular. You kind of end up having to do a lot of different things just within your musicianship in order to make that happen; like with Christian, you said he’s heading up this jazz festival and he does a radio show. You almost have to have your hand in a bunch of different pots, instead of just focusing on maybe performing or touring or something.

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah, if you want to make money.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. Look. Yeah. Hey, that is the truth.

Keith Henry Brown:
[inaudible 00:40:48] And as you know, the only way to make money nowadays is no longer in recording. It’s in …

Maurice Cherry:
Merch.

Keith Henry Brown:
… merch and touring. And so, going back to what I was saying earlier, when the pandemic went down, I mean, a lot of these guys weren’t making any money. If you’re in jazz, it’s particularly painful because that’s the only way you make money, going on jazz tours to other countries, because jazz obviously is appreciated in Asia and Europe. So, that’s where they make their money. If you can’t go anywhere, then you can’t depend on the recordings. Even in the best days of jazz, they never sell anything like the way pop music does. So I mean, a flop record by Ed Sheeran still sells 100 times more than [inaudible 00:41:32]-

Maurice Cherry:
Than a jazz record. No, that’s the truth.

Keith Henry Brown:
… and that’s just the way it is. But I like being connected with someone with so much integrity. And he also gives me an incredible amount of freedom in what I get to do on his covers. That’s why it works for me, because even though I’m illustrating, in the true sense of the word, which is that I’m doing a drawing based on a previous idea and telling a story, he’s not looking over my shoulder and saying, “Do it like this.” I mean, sometimes he’ll have notes or something, but he trusts me to know what I’m doing.
That’s a lot different than doing other kinds of commercial illustration, where you have to do everything precisely the way you’re being told, and if you don’t do it that way … And also, for me, in children’s books, I’ve had the same experience. I mean, I interpret the words that are in the script of the books that I do. And I may get feedback and editors talking to me about it, but we can usually discuss it. It’s not something where somebody says, “You have to do it this way, or you’re fired.” It doesn’t work that way. And that’s a little different than the real world is, including in advertising.

Maurice Cherry:
I mean, you just touched on so many points that just hit me just personally in terms of-

Keith Henry Brown:
Go for it, brother.

Maurice Cherry:
… musicians and design, and all that sort of stuff. I mean, yeah, yeah, wow. Wow. I want to talk about your work with Churchill Downs, your work with Jazz at Lincoln Center. I know I mentioned Marsalis earlier, but you got to work at some pretty prestigious institutions, early in your career.

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah, I consider myself incredibly fortunate. The reason I was in Louisville, Kentucky was because my former wife was a professor at the University of Louisville. So I showed up there with no real skills, and didn’t know what I was going to do. And I had to get a job. I got a job at a small African American-owned advertising agency. And I was still learning my craft at that point. And an African American woman named Cindy Cook, who was a supervisor at Churchill Downs, asked me if I’d be interested, because she said, “We want to start a graphics department in Churchill Downs. And there’s no Black people working there at all, doing anything, except me. I wanted to bring somebody else Black in there. And we don’t even know how to use computers or know how to do anything. So you’re going to have to order the computers and find the programs.”
Basically, it was to do the marketing for the park, and the programs and the posters, and everything like that. It was challenging because I was just new to it myself. And this goes so far back, I don’t even think there was InDesign yet. I think it was Quark or something, if anybody’s old enough to remember that, listening to this. I did it. And then while I was doing it, I made friends with a gentleman named Andre Guess, who was a really good friend of mine when I was living in Louisville. And he got a job at Jazz at Lincoln Center, because Wynton would come to Louisville and do concerts. And we were such big jazz fans, after the show, Wynton Marsalis is the type of a guy, he would sit around after every concert … I don’t care if it was a four-hour concert, he would stand around and meet everybody and sign every autograph.
So we’d go talk to him. And after a few years of doing that, he got to know who we were. And he would have dinner at Andre’s house, at one point. We became friends with him. He said, “Well, listen. I’m building this thing. It’s never been done before. It’s a whole venue just for jazz. It’s going to be called Jazz at Lincoln Center, and I’m going to run it.” And so he hired my friend to be an administrator. I think it was a financial officer, or something like that. And then my friend told me, “Okay, I’m going to go up there. And I’m not going to leave you behind, though. In a year, I’m going to bring you there.” Almost a year to the day, he calls me and says, “Come to New York. You’ve got to come back to New York now.” And he [inaudible 00:45:12] he wasn’t from New York. My friend was from Kentucky.
So I came to New York, they interviewed me. It was a very intimidating interview because it was at a table full of the board of directors. A lot of famous people were on the board of directors, including the boxer, George Foreman, and Judith Jamison, the great dancer, Al Roker, the newsman. They’re people who contributed money and were part of the board of directors. And they interviewed me. And I was leaving out of the office, the place. And the receptionist, Mel, who’s still a friend of mine, she said, “Wynton’s on the phone.”
And I was like, “Oh, shit. He’s going to tell me not to come back, because I didn’t get the job.”
And handed me the phone. And he came on and he goes, “You’re a bad motherfucker.”
It was like, “Really?” And I was like, “Wynton?”
He goes, “Yeah, get your ass back here in two weeks.” So I got the job. And I worked for them for about five years. And from there is when I started doing advertising, because after a while, I felt like I did as much as I could do there. But through there, I got to meet so many incredible musicians, jazz and otherwise, because they used to have amazing musicians come there to do benefits. So people like Stevie Wonder came and Ray Charles came and Paul Simon came, and it was just an incredible, incredible experience.
And they’re nonprofit. So the whole point of view of Jazz at Lincoln Center is to teach people about jazz and [inaudible 00:46:34] jazz still lives, and that it’s in existence, and you should go see it. You should appreciate it. It’s not what you think it is, and all that. So it was great. And I got to design for them, and I got to meet a lot of incredible other designers, and be part of the community of graphic designers in New York, the whole time thinking in my mind, “I really want to be an illustrator. But this is great.”

Maurice Cherry:
I mean, to me, that sounds like a dream job. You’re doing design, you’re surrounded by jazz. That sounds like, for me, that would be perfect.

Keith Henry Brown:
Oh, it was, for a while. All good things come to an end; like any organization, there’s changes, and things happen, and it’s not what it was when you first started. And new people come in and they have their own ideas. I have nothing bad to say about it. It was a decision I made, as well as something that I loved. But you can’t stay any one place forever.

Maurice Cherry:
That’s true.

Keith Henry Brown:
And ironically, after working in advertising for a few years, I ended up going back into the music and being the art director for Blue Note Jazz Clubs.

Maurice Cherry:
What?

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah. I was there for about four years. So Blue Note Jazz, people think of the one club in New York, but they actually have clubs all over the world, in Madrid, Milan, Japan, Hawaii. I was their art director for several years. So again, I was in this club. I was back in my jazz world. I was in heaven, because I love jazz musicians. Jazz musicians are some of the most even-keeled people, artists there are, because they don’t make any money. They don’t get rich. They’re just doing it because they love it, and they’re happy to be doing it.
If you can make a living doing something you like doing it, then you’re a happy person. So they tend to be not arrogant, tend to be happy, tend to be hardworking, tend to be very committed and focused, because to be a good musician, as you know, it takes an incredible amount of concentration, rehearsal, practice and focus. And they’re always thinking of what they’re going to do next. So being around those people makes you better at what you do. So it makes you better at your art, because you see the commitment they have. I said, “Damn, I need to get serious about what I’m doing, because these motherfuckers are kicking ass, what they’re doing.” You see somebody play, you see Herbie or Chick Corea come up there, sweat their ass off and play, and they get off and they’re like, “What you going to do now?”
“I’m going to go get some chicken wings.”
I’m like, “Damn, man. This guy just killed himself. But now he’s done, and now he’s going to go do something else.” And I’m thinking, “Oh my God, these guys, I want to be like them. I want to be like them.” So that’s why they’re the constant inspiration to me. It’s like total commitment and highest level of achievement, mixed with this sort of chill, like, “Yeah. Well, we’re here doing it,” type attitude. It’s beautiful, man.

Maurice Cherry:
What advice would you give to people out there? They’re hearing your story, they’re hearing all this about you. What advice would you give to people that want to follow in your footsteps?

Keith Henry Brown:
I just think you have to be honest with what you really want to do. I mean, listen, I understand practicality. I totally know that that is. I mean, I spent a lot of my life doing jobs. I’ve had all kinds of jobs. And I’ve done whatever it took to take care of myself or my family. But there also has to be this part of you that doesn’t lose the eyes on the prize. What is it you really want to do? What is it that makes you the happiest? And it doesn’t matter what it is. If it’s riding a unicycle backwards or being the world’s best juggler, whatever, you have to focus on that eventually, because you don’t want to spend the rest of your life just doing something that you just feel like you need to do in order to make a living. And I know that’s not always everybody’s path, but you have to work towards it, I think.
I would say I spent a good half of my life doing things that I had to do. And now I’m having a half of my life where I’m doing things I want to do. And I think it’s worth doing that, whatever it is, whether it’s being a doctor or being a hedge fund manager or being a fireman. It’s the passion behind it that I think is important. And you shouldn’t deny yourself of that.
Both my sons and musicians. Now, any parent will tell you, you don’t want your son to be a musician, for all the reasons I’ve already stated earlier. It’s hard to make a living, and you’re never probably going to be rich. But I can’t imagine them doing anything else, because they’re so deeply committed to it. And that’s all they want to talk about. I did a book about it because it’s such a focused commitment. Even more so than me, they knew what they wanted do before I did, in terms of their lives. So I guess my advice is always do what you have to do. No one’s going to fault you for that, but don’t forget what you want to do.

Maurice Cherry:
Do you have a dream project that you’d love to do one day? It sounds like you’ve already touched on so many of your passions with your work.

Keith Henry Brown:
There’s specific things. Right now, I’m trying to get out a coffee book on jazz portraits I’ve done over the years, which is tougher than you would think to get printed and published. And the other thing is, some years ago I wanted to put out a book about Eric Dolphy. And I did a lot of preliminary work. I even did a Kickstarter. I could not get the book published, I could not get it finished. And I wrote a script, and I illustrated over half of it.
And Eric Dolphy is a saxophone player, composer, who I actually am totally enamored with, in terms of his life trajectory. He was just a really nice guy who was committed to his art. And he died very young, in a very sad way, actually on a gurney in Germany from a diabetic shock. And the people that were there did not realize that he had that problem. And they thought he was just a Black musician who was on drugs, and didn’t take care of them the way they should have. But his life before that, he brushed against all the great musicians, Charles Mingus and John Coltrane, he played with for a lot of years, who loved him. And I wanted to do a graphic novel about him. And I did a lot of work on it, and I did a lot of things. But it’s one of those projects that keeps getting away. It fell through a couple of times. And I am just starting to resurrect it now. And if I can get that book done, I’ll die happy.

Maurice Cherry:
When you look back at your career, is there a particular moment or an experience that really stands out to you the most, in your mind?

Keith Henry Brown:
Can I break it down into two?

Maurice Cherry:
Sure.

Keith Henry Brown:
Okay. The first one is the one I just told you about, which is Wynton Marsalis telling me I was a bad motherfucker. The second one is, and it’s almost the opposite of that, but it gave me a motivation. I went to a comic book company early on, soon out of high school. I was starting to get small jobs to do things, but I didn’t really get anything major yet. And I won’t tell you which comic book company it is, but it’s a major one. It’s one of the big two. I showed them my portfolio, and the editor, the white editor looked at it and he said, “Yeah, this is pretty good, but we already got a colored artist. We already got one, so thanks for coming in.”

Maurice Cherry:
Damn.

Keith Henry Brown:
And I just said … Can I? I won’t say the word … “F this guy.” And he ain’t stopping me. And I can say, even in this world, and I’m 60 years old, and I’ve seen racism of all kinds, but I’ve never really been held back when I really wanted to do something. I’ve had all kinds of opportunities, despite my race. I just don’t accept that as a reason for not achieving anything. My father was a doctor. My mother was the first Black woman to work in this bank that she worked in. I feel like if you really want something, you cannot use that. So I guess to answer your question, it was important to me that that that guy told me what he said, because I said, “F this guy. He’s not stopping me because I’m Black.”

Maurice Cherry:
Wow. Before we wrap this up, and I meant to get to this earlier in the interview, you love jazz, I love jazz. Who are some contemporary jazz artists that you like?

Keith Henry Brown:
Oh, that’s an interesting question. I like a lot of cats, man. One of them just passed away, but I still consider him contemporary. That’s Roy Hargrove. He’s an awesome cat. I think Christian’s pretty contemporary. There’s a young cat that’s out now called, named Joel Ross. He’s fantastic. Kamasi Washington is pretty awesome. I mean, I’m trying to think when. You’re 60 years old, you’re thinking, “Well, who’s contemporary,” because [inaudible 00:54:50] say Brad Mehldau, but Brad Mehldau been around for a minute, so maybe he’s not so contemporary. But you know what I’m saying. It’s like I hear cats all the time, man. I want to hear it. I want to hear the young guys. Joey Alexander is kind of a phenomenal young guy.

Maurice Cherry:
Oh yeah, young kid.

Keith Henry Brown:
Really young. I mean, he could play his ass off, though. There’s a lot of them, man. I mean, there’s so many. I occasionally write for a website called allaboutjazz.com, and I do do reviews. And I just did an interview with a cat named Croker, Theo Croker.

Maurice Cherry:
Theo. Theo Croker, yeah.

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah. And we did a nice interview. I painted him many times, too. He’s real good. Oh, my favorite young singer is Cécile McLorin. She’s a brilliant jazz singer.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, she’s great.

Keith Henry Brown:
She’s modern. At the same time, she got the old school thing going on too. There’s a drummer I really like named Makaya McCraven. He’s pretty hot. Man, there’s so many cats out there, man.

Maurice Cherry:
No, there is. There is.

Keith Henry Brown:
Vijay Iyer. He’s a little bit on the older side, but Vijay could play, could play, could play. Tyshawn Sorey. Yeah, I feel like I’m having a conversation with my son. We’re always talking about music. He’s a little more on the edge than me. He always knows what’s going on more than I do. He’s like, “Dad, you never heard of this guy? Man, you old.”
And I was like, I said, “Buddy.”
He said, “He been out about two, three years.”
I said, “Son, I don’t [inaudible 00:56:13] two, three years. Two, three years is still new to me.” But yeah, there’s a ton of them. Anybody you like, Maurice?

Maurice Cherry:
You mentioned Cécile. I like her. There’s actually a jazz singer I first found on TikTok, who’s really great, Samara Joy. She’s a jazz vocalist.

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah [inaudible 00:56:35].

Maurice Cherry:
Oh my God, her voice is so good.

Keith Henry Brown:
She’s incredible, yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
And then I like-

Keith Henry Brown:
I’ve seen her live.

Maurice Cherry:
Oh, oh. I want to see her live. I hope she comes to Atlanta one day. I know she’s playing at Blue Note next month in New York. I’m trying to think who else. I like a lot of bands, like Incognito. There was a time in, I would say, I don’t know, maybe mid to late ’90s to early 2000s where you started to see this mix of jazz with other genres. So you would have jazz and hip hop, or jazz and R&B, “neo soul.”
So that’s how I started to find out about … well, that’s not necessarily how I started to find out about jazz artists, because I’ve been playing jazz through … I was in a jazz band in high school, and everything. So I had always kind of known about it, but it’s just interesting diving more into learning about other artists and just sort of the … I don’t know. I feel like for a while in the ’70s there was just sort of a fine line between jazz and I guess what could be considered R&B, where someone like a Roy Hargrove or a Roy Ayers or someone would tow that line a little bit.

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah, totally. I mean, my son’s favorite musician is D’Angelo. And if you have D’Angelo, you can take your finger and bring that to Erykah Badu, and you bring that [inaudible 00:57:47] and then to Robert Glasper [inaudible 00:57:49]-

Maurice Cherry:
Oh, he’s so good. Robert Glasper is so good.

Keith Henry Brown:
And Robert Glasper, by the way, we were talking earlier about popular success, he’s probably the most successful jazz musician, if you call him a jazz musician. I don’t even know if I’d call him that anymore, because he works with so much pop. But he’s the epitome of the kid that grew up listening to hip-hop, but loved jazz, but also has jazz chops. So there’s always that element of hip-hop with jazz. So you got Robert. He played at Blue Note a lot recently. And he’s up there on a stage with Mos Def, Yasiin Bey, rather, and cats like that. So he’s doing that. He’s bridging the gap. So I do think you’re absolutely right that there’s a bridging the gap between old school jazz, Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis, and more contemporary music, hip-hop, funk, R&B, mixed in with what could be called jazz, like Kendrick Scott, Nubi Garcia, who’s an English saxophone player.
There’s just so many people who, for whatever reason, they got exposed to jazz, and they appreciate the musicianship of it. But then they also connect to where they’re coming from, which is their music. My music is R&B from the 1970s. Their music is that. But they like the elements of both things, and they kind of put them together into this other thing. There’s a label called Jazz Is Dead, which is run by a guy named Adrian Younge, and a guy named … I forget his name, but he was one of the original members of A Tribe Called Quest. I can’t remember [inaudible 00:59:22].

Maurice Cherry:
Oh, Ali Shahid Muhammad.

Keith Henry Brown:
Exactly. And Jazz Is Dead is a project that basically takes … they’re constantly playing with either old established jazz musicians, jazz musicians that exist now, or up-and-coming people, mixed in with their R&B funk, hip-hop sensibilities. It’s a perfect mixture of all this. And to me, they represent what jazz is right now, because they look back and forward at the same time.
I think the most common thing that they probably want to see is just great musicianship, being able to play. So you’re not going to hear just somebody playing off a computer or synthesizers and loops, although that might be an element. But there’s people playing live bass, there’s people playing live drums, there’s people playing a horn, a saxophone, or a trump, so that you have all these things in it. You got raw singing and you have other things. And to me, that’s where the music is right now. And I’m really excited about it, because I love all that.

Maurice Cherry:
I had a designer on the show, I don’t know, this had to have been a couple of years ago, Aricka Lewis. She was a designer in Arkansas, and now she’s in New York. And I had her on the show and we were just talking about her work as a designer. She’s like, “Yeah, I’m a UX designer,” et cetera, et cetera. And then I ran across this group, I think it was on YouTube, and she was the lead singers. It’s this group called Calle Soul, C-A-L-L-E. And they’re, I don’t know, I guess sort of a jazz samba sort of … not samba, because samba’s fast, I would say.

Keith Henry Brown:
Like bossa nova?

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, like a jazz bossa nova sort of band. And she was the lead singer. And I was like, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She’s like, “Ain’t nobody want to hear about that.” She’s like, “It’s just a thing that I do with some friends.”
I was like, “That is amazing. That is amazing.” I would say … Oh God, I’m trying to … I mean, we’re going off on a tangent. We’ll wrap the interview up. But I’d say probably my favorite jazz artist now is one that I sort of found by accident. I had just come to Atlanta in ’99, and I had went to … There’s a neighborhood here called Little Five Points. There’s a music shop there called Moods Music, which is still open to this day. And I remember hearing this single called Ghosts from this band out of … I think they were out of Norway, called Beady Belle, B-E-A-D-Y B-E-L-L-E. And I was like, “Oh wow, this is really good.”
And Darryl, who runs the shop, was like, “Yeah, I got their CD right here if you want it.” And that started, to me, a 20-plus year love affair with this band. I have all their albums. They’ve only performed in the States once. They performed in Rochester, New York, in 2007, I think.
And when I heard about it, I was like, “Oh, I’m going, I’m going.”
My friends were like, “What’s in Rochester, New York?”
I was like, “Beady Belle is coming to the United States for the first time, and they’re playing at the Rochester Jazz Festival.”
And they’re looking at me like, “Okay, go for it.” And I went and I heard them perform. I was sitting in the front row. There weren’t a lot of people there, because I guess people didn’t know the band. But I was just giddy. I got to talk to them afterwards. They signed all my albums that they had up to that date. The band has since broken up, but still the lead singer, still goes by the name Beady Belle. And she still performs and puts out work, and stuff. But that’s probably my favorite artist, my favorite jazz artist.
And then that opened me up to … I’d say contemporary jazz artist, probably my favorite contemporary jazz artist. But her and that band opened me up to Norwegian jazz and Finnish jazz. And I mean, they’re all pulling from Black American roots. But it’s just so interesting how jazz in other countries is just received, as opposed to here.

Keith Henry Brown:
[inaudible 01:03:05] a lot of DJ elements and hip-hop elements too, and electronics, in a lot of the Norwegian jazz world. So they do a lot of interesting things there. Do you have any other bands that you really like from Norway? I just want to know if I know any.

Maurice Cherry:
I know that she had a background singer on her fourth album named Jarle Bernhoft, who went on to become a solo artist. And sort of to that thing you’re talking about with the sort of mixing with electronic, he would do this live mixing on stage where he’d do some beat boxing or some other vocal sounds, and then mix it all together on stage while also performing, singing and playing guitar. I like a lot of his work.
There’s a lot of UK jazz, like Quantic Soul Orchestra, Alice Russell. Oh God, there’s one in particular who I’ve mentioned on the show before. Zara McFarlane. Yeah, there’s a lot. There’s a lot. Now I’m getting overwhelmed, trying to think of all of them. But yeah, wow. Wow. Where do you see yourself in the next five years? What kind of work do you want to be doing?

Keith Henry Brown:
As I said earlier, I think I’m going to try to make a situation for myself where I am focused mostly on illustration. I want to do more writing, I want to write more books. I like getting assignments because you get brought great stories, like the one I was talking about with Malcolm X, or John Lewis. But I also want to create more stuff on my own. I do like doing magazine stuff. I like doing newspaper stuff. I just think if I just get assignments to create art based on subjects that I’m interested in, I’d be really happy, and if I’m able to do that.
And I always fantasize about not staying in one place, like traveling around the world, because when you do what I do, you can be anywhere. So you can be in Berlin, you can be in Paris, you can be in London, you can be in Mexico. And I want to start doing that. I want to do these assignments, but be in different countries, set up a studio, and just illustrate books from different parts of the world. Live somewhere for six months, live somewhere for a year, and get to see the world, which is something I’ve never really been able to do much of for most of my life. So, that’s my goal I hope to do someday.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, just to wrap things up here, where can our audience find out more information about you and about your work and everything online?

Keith Henry Brown:
Well, my website is keithhbrown.com. My Instagram handle is @iamtheleopard, which I’m actually on hiatus with it right now, but I’ll be getting back on in a couple of weeks. I decided to take a break from social media, just because I was doing it every single day. And I just think I got addicted, so I wanted to see if I could unaddict myself, if there’s such a word. Yeah, those two places. Instagram. And I’m also on Facebook, at Keith Henry Brown. But the easiest way is probably just go through my website.

Maurice Cherry:
All right, sounds good. Well, Keith Henry Brown, I want to thank you so, so much for coming on the show. I was so excited, putting together what I was going to talk to you about, because I was like you’ve done illustration, and it’s jazz. I’m like, “This is going to be a great conversation.” And you did not disappoint with that. I think if there’s anything people can certainly take from this conversation, it’s that you can do what you want to do, if you set your mind to it. Don’t be afraid to go out and do it. And you found a way to meld your passions together in a way that lets you live the life that you want to live, which I think is what all creatives strive for, at the end of the day. So thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it.

Keith Henry Brown:
Yeah, and if I may, I just wanted to say one more thing really quickly. Can I, Maurice?

Maurice Cherry:
Sure. Yeah.

Keith Henry Brown:
It ain’t about awards, it’s about doing what satisfies you. A lot of times in design and even in illustration, people are always saying, “You should put yourself up for this and get that. And you should tell everybody you won that award and this award.” It ain’t about that. It’s about what makes you happy. And you can win 10 awards and Golden whatever, but you got to satisfy you, or it’s not really going to mean anything.

Maurice Cherry:
Wise words. Again, Keith Henry Brown, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it.

Keith Henry Brown:
Cheers, brother.