Bourbon 'n BrownTown

Ep. 63 - New Years 2021: A Retrospective ft. Genta Tamashiro

Episode Summary

BrownTown on BrownTown. The gang reflects on 2020, unpacking the episodes that helped us get through a truly unprecedented year. From coronavirus to George Floyd uprisings to national elections to our everyday mental health, BrownTown and audio engineer Genta Tamashiro discuss creating the podcast against the backdrop of a tragic yet powerful year. For better or worse, here's to 2021!

Episode Notes

BrownTown and Genta methodically and chronologically detail the year's episodes with regard to COVID-19, quarantine, and transitioning from in-person to virtual recording. As the behind-the-scenes production changed, so did the episodes themselves, each leaning into how the pandemic and/or uprisings implicated the episode's topic. Even before COVID/quarantine in the early months of 2020, the episodes were packed with deeply relevant topics such as the Chicago city budget, the prison-industrial complex, and Black-centered, Black-owned media that were all heavily revisited in mass in the latter part of the year.

With 19 total episodes, the most in one year since Bourbon 'n BrownTown's inception, 2020 also brought 7 sequel episodes (1 third installment), only 1 with no guests, and 5 episodes with two guests at the same time. In addition to breaking down each episode, the team chops it out about SoapBox projects Chi DNA, Census 2020, and Obama CBA; the 8-week Instagram Lives during quarantine; and much more. For better or worse, here's to 2021!

Listen to all the episodes on your chosen podcast application or right here! For more information on the podcast, check out Bourbon 'n BrownTown on the SoapBox website.

GUEST

Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Genta Tamashiro is a creative devotee of the artistic community. He attended the specialized magnet school Denver School of the Arts for middle and high school, which gave him a solid foundation in musical performance and theory as well as an introduction into audio engineering. After spending some time at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Genta moved to Chicago to pursue a career in audio engineering where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Audio Design and Production from Columbia College in 2015. Through his freelance audio work, he has traveled around the country and the world with notable artists such as the Becca Kaufman Orchestra, The Way Down Wanderers, and Masego. When he is not running the sound for a band somewhere, you can find him producing his own music or editing podcasts for SoapBox and other creative organizations. Listen to more about this life, work, and perspectives on hip-hop in Episode 5 - Hip-Hop in the Age of Spin (2017) and all of Bourbon 'n BrownTown's previous New Years episodes.

CREDITS: Intro/outro song Karen by Yvie Oddly. Audio engineered by Genta Tamashiro.with assistance from Kiera Battles. Episode photo by Sean Kelly.