The Power of Storytelling with Shad

Shad:
It does something to our brains when we hear a new story. One of the joys for me in what I do is trying to come up with new ways of saying things because that’s what can sometimes flip a switch in people’s minds.

Mathieu Yuill:
Good day and welcome to the Leading with Nice interview series. My name is Mathieu Yuill, and we want to help you inspire others, build loyalty and get results. Now I’m doing this intro a bit after I’ve done the interview. And it’s because when I got our guest today, Canadian rapper, Shad, on the line, we just started talking and the conversation went from there. So we’re going to dive right into it. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Shad. And if you aren’t familiar with his music, definitely check it out. He has a new album coming out, but his most recent, A Short Story About a War, is a great storytelling learning experience.

Mathieu Yuill:
One of the reasons I wanted to chat with you is so my company is called Leading with Nice and I do a couple of things, but the main thrust is often leaders like CEOs or directors or VPs will call me in because they’re having trouble with their team. Usually it’s a trust issue, to be honest, but it could be any number of things, a clarity issue, communications. And so this podcast, what I do is I think of anybody as a leader who has influence. So, you could be a manager, you’re still a leader. You could be a coordinator, you still be a leader. What I feel is that the most common way we approach these things is from a very, what they would teach you at an MBA. Like, oh, here’s step one, step two, step three. So what I like to do is I talk with people who I think who are demonstrating leadership and there’s real learning there that aren’t approaching it in that traditional way.

Mathieu Yuill:
And what struck me about you is, so I’ve been listening to your music for about two years now, and it might be three years now, and I was doing some work and I was listening to A Short Story About a War. I have a 10, 13, 15 year old boys. And I’m like, I need to talk about this with my boys. There’s some real learning here. And that was like, oh man, how fortunate am I that this artist created a way for me to have a discussion with my kids-

Shad:
That’s cool.

Mathieu Yuill:
About war. Yeah. And so dude, that’s why I emailed you because so let me ask you this as first question.

Shad:
Sure.

Mathieu Yuill:
Is it an intentional process for you when you’re writing and creating your art that you’re like, “Okay, I want there to be discussion around this,” or are you just like what’s on your heart or is it just like, “Man, I just want to have some fun,” where is it for you?

Shad:
Yeah, that’s a great question, man. You said a lot of things that I think are really interesting to me and first of all, thanks for saying that. It means a lot to hear that my music’s touched your life in a positive way. That’s everything I would want as a artist. Where the songs start for me can be any of those things. I do like to have fun. The thing that made me fall in love with music was entertaining my friends, spitting some rhymes and then having them go, “Ahhh,” really reacting to a punchline or something like that. That was really what made me fall in love with free-styling, with rapping was just that, just helping people enjoy themselves and being a part of that. That’s really my greatest joy, I would say with music, but I started to take music more seriously when it became a place for me to work out ideas. That’s when I started to take it seriously. When I was free-styling for my friends, that was a lot of fun, but I didn’t really put too much time or energy into it because I don’t know.

Shad:
I just didn’t take it that seriously. When I got a little bit older and I started processing things in my own life and music became this way to process, but also have fun and spark some thought and some conversation, that’s when I really started to take it seriously. That just added a level of depth to it for me, that really captured me. That’s when I really caught the bug, so to speak. So, yeah, I think I’m interested in sparking conversation. I’m interested in putting ideas into my music that are a little bit unique in the landscape of music maybe. That’s part of what really motivates me is trying to have some kind of unique contribution to culture. And I do think that my music is also very much about ideas, about sparking thought and sparking conversation. There’s artists out there that are excellent instrumentalists or producers. That’s not my expertise. My thing is coming up with some interesting, hopefully some interesting ideas and new ways of saying things or new things to say.

Mathieu Yuill:
One thing you said right off the start is that you were happy that your music was impacting somebody in a positive way. And I found it really fascinating on your website. You have two quotes from media. One of them is you’re Canada’s nicest MC and the other one is a new standard bearer for positive rap. So to have these on your website would indicate to me that you’re proud of these or that you agree with them. Is it surprising to you that somebody might reflect on your music this way and who you are?

Shad:
I’m glad. One thing that I’ve realized with music from the time I started putting out music because especially with those first couple releases, it’s nerve wracking. This is the first time you’re introducing music to people that aren’t your family and friends and aren’t in some way obliged to lie to you about how it sounds.

Mathieu Yuill:
As a small business owner, I’m 100% there with you. Yeah.

Shad:
Yeah. So, but one thing I discovered that was really cool is that people don’t really often hear all the details that you’ve labored to put in the music. What they hear is the heart of it. If you’re lucky, they get a sense of you and if you’re lucky, they listen to you with an open heart and they just decide that they like you and that they trust you. I love that you said trust at the beginning of the podcast, I think is just such an important word right now. And I think that’s something that’s been a pleasant surprise is I’ve noticed people go, “Yeah, I think I just get what this person is trying to do or who this person is at their best.” And that’s what they hear in the music. So yeah, it’s been a pleasant surprise my whole career, but I guess it shouldn’t have been because that’s the level on which music communicates to people is on a pretty deep level.

Mathieu Yuill:
Well, some music does. And then some, I was joking with some colleagues the other day, when I was, I don’t know, probably about 20 years ago, it seems, this artist, Vitamin C put out a song called Graduation Day and it was really catchy and pretty light. I always get it wrong. My son corrects me. Juicy World or Juice World. He’s put out a remix that is very different than the original messaging. And I’m not sure that either of those really make you think too hard, but some music does. And I think yours is a great example of that. And another great example, your music holds up, I believe, is there’s always a story. And just when you talked about the labor of love, as my wife and I were talking about your music the other day, we really admired the layering.

Mathieu Yuill:
There’s the initial pass where you get a message and then there’s another path where you get a message and there’s always a great story being told. It’s a question I have for you this is this storytelling and this layering, I imagine it’s been influenced by your pursuit of education, your graduate degree and your work at Laurier, but there must’ve been some family influence there as well. Is there a bit of who you grew up around, did that influence the way you approach your music, your storytelling, your layering?

Shad:
I’d say the biggest influence on my approach in terms of storytelling is the artists I grew up listening to, Common, Lauren Hill, Outcast. That’s still in my musical DNA, these artists because those were the first ones that I heard. Like I said, I was always having fun with music and I liked entertaining people, making people laugh and smile and enjoy themselves. But when I heard those artists go a step further, this is around 14, 15, 16, and start to talk about personal experiences, start to talk about really deeper stuff in life, or start to do things in their music where they’re really creating other worlds. Outcast did that a lot, just bringing you into a whole other world with their music. That was a huge influence. And I think to some extent, I’m still just chasing that, that feeling that I got at that age from those artists and the way that they did that was something that I guess later, in my studies and stuff, realized great artists have always done, which is this layered, it’s connected to history.

Shad:
It’s spiritual, it’s specific, but at the same time, universal. In my studies, I think I learned that this music I love belongs to just this larger world of what you could call great art. And then in terms of my family, my mom loved poetry and loved drama. And she was a lab tech by trade. But I would guess my upbringing was a little bit different from a lot of immigrant families in the sense that my mom encouraged that stuff, she encouraged the arts. She really thought it was beautiful and loved it. And obviously they had their practical concerns like other immigrant families and wanted us to pursue an education and things like that. But at the same time, the door was always wide open for me if I wanted to get involved with drama at school or creative writing or something at school. She really encouraged that. So I was influenced by her in a positive way, in that sense, but that love of craft when it comes to storytelling, that really is rooted in the artists that I heard growing up.

Mathieu Yuill:
I wanted to, as we approach this conversation, I don’t interview musicians and artists often and so I wanted to avoid cliche questions, like, oh, what’s your influence? Who inspires you? But I wanted to ask it in this case because I’m hoping listeners who may not define themselves as an artist themselves, I believe and I think you would agree, everybody has creativity. So I’m hoping they hear your reaction to this and say, “Oh, you know what? In my business in my work, I’m a human resources director. I can actually think of a story to tell that illustrates why we’re approaching hiring this way.” Storytelling is such a powerful vehicle of communication. I feel so bad, Shad. I don’t remember which song it is, but I bought A Short Story About a War book.

Shad:
Oh cool.

Mathieu Yuill:
I’ll tell you my approach to the listeners here. Maybe this can be a 2021 goal for you if you have kids or if you have other people in your life. And I’m a dad. So I speak from my viewpoint a lot. So if you’re not a dad, you could still take this as useful. So my plan is this. I have a 15 year old and he’s watched V for Vendetta, which for him is a very cool movie. I don’t know if he thought too deeply about it, but the famous line from that is ideas are bulletproof. And then in A Short Story About a War, there’s a song where you’re narrating a character and they make the same statement that this idea is bulletproof.

Mathieu Yuill:
And what my plan is between Christmas and New Year’s when there’s a bit of a downtime for work, for school, that we might sit around the fire and say like, “Oh, hey, that movie. Hey, I want to play this song and read along. And what do you think about this?” Connor is my son, Connor. When you think about ideas are bulletproof, what does that mean to you? And just, it gives me a chance to use media and culture that is agreeable to him to have a conversation about stuff. And Shad, you have kids as well, that desire to connect with your children, having tools to do that is so great.

Shad:
Man, that really touches me, man. Yeah, it is. And my gut tells me that the way that we teach literature and communication is a little bit backwards. We start with teaching fourteen-year-olds, Shakespeare. And I think they’d be more interested or I would have been more interested in Shakespeare if we would have started with analyzing the cultural texts that I was already interested in. And maybe if I had access to the good stuff of my moment in time, and then I would have been interested in the origins of that. Oh, this is where these kinds of stories and these story arcs come from and this kind of writing. And anyways, yeah, so I think connecting with young people around the cultural texts that they’re already taking in, the music and film and TV is such a powerful thing and trying to expose them to stuff that can have a good impact in their life.

Shad:
And is speaking to these universals that artists have been speaking to for as long as we’ve been writing and telling stories, I think that’s awesome. And it’s an honor to be a part of that in someone’s life. Storytelling is, when I think about it sometimes, I think it’s the only way we understand anything. Maybe experience as well, but experience, you could say is a kind of storytelling. Graphs is a kind of storytelling, mathematical equations are a kind of storytelling. It’s so powerful. And one of the joys for me in what I do is trying to come up with new ways of saying things because that’s what can sometimes flip a switch in people’s minds. It does something to our brains when we hear a new story and it might be getting at the same old thing, but hearing it a different way.

Shad:
If people are used to hearing it in a serious way, if there’s some way to do it in a comedic way and vice versa, it’s just a joy for me as a storyteller, but there’s an effectiveness to it. And I agree everybody is creative. Every human being is creative in the sense at least that we’re problem solvers. It’s what we do, no matter what we come up against constraints as human beings, we’re limited. And we just think of ways to overcome those constraints. So, absolutely. I think everyone should be empowered to know that we’re all creative people at the very least in that sense, but also as storytellers. I love to tell the story of my grandma in Rwanda, she passed away a few years ago, but she thought it was hilarious that I had a career making music because music is so intuitive to her.

Shad:
It’s like having a career at duck, duck, goose. This is what everybody does. How can one person be a singer? That doesn’t make any sense. Even in a lot of languages, the word for music and dance and being in the audience is the same word in a lot of cultures because it’s like, it involves all those different parts and all those different parts involve creativity. And everybody has this capacity to participate in storytelling. So yeah, I really hope people would feel empowered. I think it’s kind of a unique thing in our culture where we say this tiny minority of people are the storytellers and the rest of us, we don’t have that capacity somehow. I just think that’s totally not true.

Mathieu Yuill:
That picks up on a theme. So if this is the first time you’re listening, there is an episode with Jack Armstrong who is the Raptors’ color commentator and Latif Nasser who hosts a podcast called Radiolab and a show called Connected on Netflix. They both spoke about what you just spoke about, which is this curiosity. And so I want to take you to Hip Hop Evolution because if you haven’t seen Hip Hop Evolution and you’re listening, it’s okay if you just stop this podcast right now and go watch a couple of episodes because Shad is the host, does the interviewing and what I want you to pick up on, it’s not necessarily the questions he’s asking, but the body language. So there’s this one episode, it’s in season one with Schoolly D who may not be that familiar to a lot of people, but this guy, he’s a different dude.

Mathieu Yuill:
He’s not sitting down to interview somebody who’s a polished TV presenter, but I watched your body language. You were sitting forward, you were leaning. You were like, your arms were open and just the positive body language that you were giving him, I think really made him feel comfortable. And what it told him is that you were actually curious, you gave a crap about what he had to say, and I’m not sure if there’s a question there, but just some reflections on how you approach because you interview, there’s a wide range of people, but yet you are always approaching it with the same openness and curiosity. Just I’d love, not a question, but maybe a few tips on how you cultivate that or how you do it for those who may not have that same innate ability.

Shad:
Yeah, totally. It’s great to talk about interviewing too, being on the other side of storytelling and receiving stories. And again, there’s a participation. It’s not completely passive at all. So yeah, I always wanted to, with every guest, well, I’m the host. So to me, I take that word literally like I’m hosting this person. It’s my job to make sure they feel welcome and comfortable and let them know that I’m curious about their story. That’s why I’m there. Hip Hop Evolution was a real… We’re done now. We made four seasons, but the whole time, we felt a sense of responsibility in a good way. No series had been made like this for hip hop. So this was going to be the thing. This was going to be the document as far as a high level, not all the details, but just high level overview of the history of hip hop.

Shad:
This was going to be the document on Netflix so for the whole world and for, who knows how long? So there was a sense of responsibility there. And I think I tried to approach each guest with that same level of respect. This person is a pioneer. This person is offering their story to this document that we have the privilege to steward and create for the culture and for music fans everywhere. So yeah, I guess my approach was really rooted in reverence for what the project was and what it meant. And taking that title of host very literally and saying this person is my guest. I want them to feel comfortable. I want them to feel respected. I want them to know that their story is going to be received by someone that can follow what they’re saying. So bringing a level of preparation because that’s a big thing. People like to tell their story, but they don’t want to tell their story if they’re not going to feel like they’re understood at all.

Shad:
So just demonstrating that base level of knowledge so that the person feels like, oh, okay, I can actually go into detail about this and I won’t be boring this person, or it won’t be over their head. They’re tracking with me, they’re following. You don’t have to know everything, but just enough that they feel like they can open up. I just think that’s a truth about, and maybe that’s the most relevant thing for your listeners, is people actually like to open up and tell their story. They just want to feel like the person receiving that is listening and cares and is curious and has the base level of understanding, awareness, background information, and context, to be able to follow and grasp what they’re saying.

Mathieu Yuill:
I want to pivot just a little bit because this is really important. I think it’s an important message. We’re in the middle of 2020, or not middle, we’re towards the end of it now, but still the middle of COVID. And there is a new awareness around equality that was sparked by the murder of George Floyd. You posted a handful of really compelling thoughts on social media. And the first one was that I thought was really compelling was you broke down the Judas theory, which I’ll let you describe a little bit of what that means. And then we’ll talk about another one. But if you could just share with us why you felt it was important to post these and what the Judas theory is.

Mathieu Yuill:
And the reason why I want to talk about it is I don’t think a lot of people who are leaders understand their ability to influence and my impression of you and I could be wrong so correct me if I am, but I think you do understand your ability to influence, and I think you use it intelligently. And so if I’m wrong, correct me, but that’s my estimation. So I’d love to hear why you felt it was important to post these and just some of the thoughts around the Judas theory, maybe explain it for listeners that did not see the post.

Shad:
Yeah, well, man, there’s a lot to say there because in the time of social media, social media confuses this question of influence, I think, because we can all feel a level of pressure to participate in conversations that maybe we don’t feel like we have influence in or shouldn’t have influence in. So it does get complicated, but I’ll talk specifically to this instance and post George Floyd. The first thought that comes to mind was what we talked about earlier in terms of trying to tell a different story, trying to put a different spin on things because that makes people receptive. So what I was thinking with these posts, I didn’t really feel pressure maybe to say too much. My first post on social media after George Floyd was just actually a verse that I did recently for another artist called Toby. And the verse just happened to be basically on theme as far as what was going on. And I think I communicate myself best through music.

Shad:
So that was my first post, just some initial emotional thoughts and that verse because music is really how I express myself best and where I have a relationship with my audience for the most part. And then after that, just was naturally started thinking through things and what came to mind were stories that I felt like were different than what I was seeing and reading and hearing out there and maybe introduced a different way of thinking about anti-racism, different ways of thinking about how we participate in that project. So Judas theory was something that I’ve thought about a lot, actually just as a artist and as a semi-public person, is this idea that when I put my work into the world, I lose a little bit of control as far as people’s understanding of me. People are going to interpret my work and they’re going to interpret my career however they might interpret it. And I have to submit to that. I have to say that’s okay. I can’t possibly control everything about the public perception of me. I have to surrender to that and just offer my best to the world.

Shad:
So the way I think about that is something that I just call the Judas theory, which is it’s a little complicated to explain, but basically I look at Judas as this archetypal, he is this archetypal traitor and evil character in culture when someone says so-and-so was a Judas, we know that means they’re bad, they’re a traitor. So, but when I think deeply about that story, I think, wow, well, I think, was he so bad? Yeah, he did something bad like we all have. He just happened to have done something bad at a particular time and a particular place and to a particular person that raised him up as the emblem of bad and being a bad friend and being a traitor. All of us have betrayed a friend, all of us have lied and all of us have had compelling reasons to do so. I’m sure Judas did as well. So that’s the crux of the idea.

Shad:
And then I was relating that to what I saw a lot of non-black folks struggling in terms of this really heavy label of racist and racism and white supremacy and their role in the story of now, the story of dismantling racism. And so I guess I was trying to communicate this thing that I have to wrestle with, that I have to submit to, in terms of my role in a larger story of what’s happening in culture and the perception of me and what a lot of non-black folks might be wrestling with. And so I was just trying to put a different, again, a different spin on an old story or a new way of saying something that just maybe opens people’s minds up and opens people’s hearts up. When I think about that Judas theory, I think about, well, it expands my empathy a little bit and expands my imagination a little bit.

Shad:
And that’s what I was trying to give people is an expanded empathy, an expanded imagination for themselves, for other people when it comes to this really heavy thing of what we witnessed with George Floyd of what we know is going on in North America and has been for a long, long time in terms of inequities. So yeah, that’s what I was trying to do with that. And again, it comes back to what we were talking about earlier, which is telling different stories or old stories in a new way. I really think this is what unlocks possibility inside of people and unlocks empathy inside of people.

Mathieu Yuill:
Man, that’s some great insight. Thank you for sharing that. I read a study like 10 years ago out of the University of Virginia and they were researching can empathy be taught and there’s this whole scientific study where they had scientific-y stuff if you read it. And then their conclusion, they have three suggestions and two of them are this and you just summed it up perfectly. The first one was to daydream and to daydream in a way that you imagine yourself as somebody else. That alone can increase your empathy. They proved it with science and research. And the second way that I thought was fabulous because you’ve talked about this on social as well, is actually recommend you attend a faith service that is not of your own. So if you’re Christian, go to a mosque. If you practice Islam, go to a Hindu temple, et cetera, et cetera.

Mathieu Yuill:
And the six things post, I’ll summarize, is you lay out these six different arenas where you can actually, it’s not necessarily an action you do physically, but more of a way you think and look at something. And so if you’re hearing this and you’re like, man, I want more of this, definitely check out Shad’s Instagram and Twitter. It’s Shad K Music. And it’s easy to find. It’s public. And dude, famous. Man, you hosted Q and played Massey Hall. You’re more than semi-famous. My mom knew who you were. So there you go. If Pat Yuill knows, you’re famous. So listen, I asked for 30 to 40 minutes, so we’re coming there. So I want to land this plane on a couple of lighter things because I never miss a chance to talk ball.

Shad:
Nice.

Mathieu Yuill:
And you [inaudible 00:29:20] with John Paxson, for goodness’ sake. So I just got to know about what are you looking forward to in 2021 NBA ball? What are you excited about?

Shad:
I think it’s going to be the best season ever, if I’m totally honest. You have LeBron and AD coming back, running it back, they want to win. You have Giannis with a chip on his shoulder now, has been knocked out prematurely a couple years in a row and he wants it. You have the Clippers that got embarrassed, they’re hungry. They want it. You have Golden State coming back healthy with the number two pick.

Mathieu Yuill:
Yeah, I know. It’s unfair. That’s unfair.

Shad:
That’s very, very, very unfair. You have Brooklyn coming back healthy. You have Denver with another year of experience and some confidence now making a deep playoff run. It goes on and on. Miami’s just another year older and more experienced. I just think the league is so stacked. I’ve been following basketball since I was eight or nine years old. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen more talent in the league, more skilled players. It’s unbelievable. I think these playoffs were so great even without an audience. I don’t know how the players manage that.

Mathieu Yuill:
Could you imagine doing a whole tour to nobody?

Shad:
It’s impossible. To me, it’s completely impossible. But yeah, the competition element, it was just there. You saw those real playoff performances, where guys just get in the zone and so the competitive element was definitely there and the talent is just unbelievable. I’ve never seen the level of talent like there is now. You almost need two all-star games. There’s just so many great players. A guy like Jamal Murray. He’s not even an all-star. It’s absurd. Jimmy Butler was probably not even considered a tier one basketball player and look at the performances he put out there. So yeah, I’m really excited about the next season. I think it might be the best ever.

Mathieu Yuill:
Did you grow up a Pistons fan being from London?

Shad:
I did. Yeah. London loyalties are very split. In hockey, it’s very Red Wings, Maple Leafs and a little bit of Montreal split. Baseball, we had a Detroit Tigers farm team. I don’t know if we still do, but we did when I was growing up. So those loyalties were there. And then yeah, we had the Pistons just a couple hours away before the Raptors even arrived.

Mathieu Yuill:
Yeah, because it’s pre-Raptors days. Yeah.

Shad:
Exactly. And they had a couple of championships, so, they were an exciting team to follow. So yeah, I was a bit of a Pistons fan, but I think what happened with me is I just became a fan of the game and just followed different players and stuff like that. I think my real fandom started a little bit late as far as following a team, that started a little bit later. I became a Raptors fan, a Spurs fan. That happened a bit later. Yeah.

Mathieu Yuill:
For sure. Well, listen, I want to share with you. There’s two other people that really help this podcast come to life. Jamie Hunter is going to take this. He’s going to write a blog post and make sure it gets distributed. And Austin Pomeroy is the audio tech who’s going to edit this down, make it sound great. Shad, thanks for taking time today, man. I can hardly wait to share some of the insights with the people that I work with. And if you’re listening for the first time, go check out some of the past episodes because this is what we do. We just talk about learning and insight. So Shad, thanks so much for your time today, man.

Shad:
Yeah, this was a pleasure. Thank you.