Hip Hop & Creative Flow State with JP1985

Up? Welcome back to STOKE Sessions. We're on season two episode eight. I'm joined today by Jorge Pena out of Mexico Mexico City, originally from Chile.

Yes, sir.

Dude, thanks for being here today. Really excited to talk talk to you about, what you're into right now, kinda how you got to where you're at.

For a quick background, we've worked with Jorge a bunch of times, for probably about ten years. A whole bunch in, like, the CGI space, three d space.

He produces some absolutely incredible work. Definitely check him out. He's working under a couple different business names traditionally, JP nineteen eighty five.

And, Jorge, I'll I'll love to get, like, just a little bit of a background on where you're at right now and kinda how you how you got to the spot where you're at, with some of the projects that you're working on.

Yo. Thanks, Matt. Hi, everyone. So, yes, I'm JP.

Easier to be to the name as JP.

Like, Jorge Pena, it's kind of tough even for Spanish people. We don't have that letter.

We talk about it, on the Internet, so we don't have that.

So when time I needed to create an a, it was difficult for me to be called Jorge Pena because Spanish Pena means you can be it it could be in being sad or being shy, so it's not a very It's not a very good language.

Translation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I went in with JP and just, in the year I was born, like nineteen eighty five, and, that was great.

People thought it was like a robot name, like R2D2 thing. I don't know. It was just my name and the year I was born.

But first year.

Yeah. And it all happened because what happens, like, my background is basically rap artist from, I mean, since I was five fifteen years old, and that's what that was my communication school. Like, basically, I always say I've always said that I don't know any, like, urban culture that's more, marketing wise as rappers. You know? They're all they're all putting their names everywhere. They're saying their names on every song, so it's always an up ramping and being there, you know, getting getting awareness and attention from people.

Which is what I need. Because I dude, I didn't know you were a rap artist until, like, I think it was last year. I remember being on a on a Zoom with you, and, and you were talking about what you you were doing with your, with your artist profile. And, I had no idea, but I love your music, man.

It's it's so dope. Yeah. It's a tonne. Bunch in the office. Yeah.

Thanks for that. Yeah.

Well, that that's how I started everything. I mean, the first time I opened Photoshop was because I needed to create an album, like a cover, like, art for my TV. And every time I yeah. And every time I open Photoshop, I mean, we I the the first setting you have was grayscale.

So one of my first images were just black and black because I didn't know how to do RGB or whatever. So that's how I opened up a fellowship. And when I went to college, I started in a very popular university, advertising school over in Chile, when I came in as a freshman first year, I was very ahead of my other classmates, you know, because I had this whole knowledge about doing events, like organizing events of parties or concerts and doing marketing for my music. So I was really three or two two or three steps ahead of my people.

And I was very creative at that stage, but I always knew that my real skill set was more, related to art direction and photo manipulation of Photoshop.

Yeah. It's interesting that that parallel that you can draw between, like, urban culture, specifically rap. Like, I grew up in San Diego. Right?

And, down by the beach, like, you go down to any boardwalk area, like, down in Pacific Beach, Mission Beach, any of that. And every weekend, there's young up and coming rappers that are out there, and they're handing out free CDs. And it's got, like, three tracks on it. But the, the parallel that you draw between, like, marketing yourself and getting your name out there and getting a a brand for yourself started is so, so cool to see.

And it's also rad to hear that you you started getting into Photoshop because you wanted to propel your you know, get some some album art going and propel your, your rap career.

Yeah. I mean, it was just about that, like, grabbing our lane through social networks. I mean, our we had this very huge fund base at Myspace. I don't know if you remember that place, Myspace.

It was the social network. Yeah. Myspace. We're like very We're, like, very well known in that social platform.

We also have used, a thing called.

That's like a software where you get in chat rooms with people, and you could see each month's folders so you could, like, dive into each user's folder. And it was very interesting at that. So when I started when I became, like, this advertising creative, I went, like, in the agencies for two, three years. So I do my I do my internship in BDO, big network.

But then I noticed that I really liked, doing photoshops. And because I wasn't so interested in doing creative stuff for brands I do not really like. And I I've always said that one of the one of the main reasons I am right now an entrepreneur, independent or freelancer or whatever you wanna call it, business owner, is because I I think I never had a good boss. That's the first main reason, like culture.

Like, all the places I, I worked inside, like all these places I used to be, like, I never met a very good leader that made me feel like I had a projection inside that company or whatever. So that's about the main reasons I started being entrepreneur. Like, if I can have the best job, I'll build build it. And that's one of that was one of my dreams when I started, like, before everything.

You know?

And, basically, that's how it became, how it became the better. And then when I started to get some projects at the agencies because I was, like, the spender, like, retoucher or image producer for different advertising agencies. A lot of the art directors and people that have worked in silos agencies knew it because of my rap career. So that's very easy it was very easy for me to get, known and to get projects because everyone everyone every all of those rappers wanted to work with me because I was, like, known rapper. So it was kind of fun and easy for me to get in the scene.

And yeah. But what happened is that I started to build my studio. I moved away from the capital city in Chile that's called Santiago de Chile. It's a very beautiful city.

And I moved one hour from that city to a place called Vina del Mart, like beachside city. And I started to hire people. I I I had my office, but also some of my peep people I knew from, like, the days when I got started advertising, came to me and said, hey, George, Are you be our could you be our creative director and you could also get some you could also do some some creative work for us? So I said yes.

So I I was I felt very divided, like, because I had this image producing company, but I also had this agency.

And I also was doing some pop test. I was two thousand and sixteen because I, we talked about I I I I knew Gary Vee. So he was very into creating content and everything, documenting everything. So I started to go to different colleges and university to give some some talks, like some speeches.

And I used to record everything. I used to interview people from the rap scene and also very big was going into the urban culture. I don't I don't know if you really know, but he's always saying that hip hop took the world. And and I I always shared shared that thought with him.

So Yeah. I started to interview some rap artists, but also I have these two companies, and I was doing a lot of stuff till until the pandemic came and it hit me really hard because I was just kind of playing around with all my talents. You know? It's that's why I I mean, I'm an independent entrepreneur because I just wanted to have a more professional work, creative work, but it's not it's like a lot of people start their their companies because they just wanna build a company, and maybe they just wanna sell it, or they have profit in mind.

But I wanna create it. We just wanna have a more pro work. That's why we establish ourselves.

Yeah.

But we're a beauty.

Know knowing you for a while, I mean, your your hustle and your drive, I mean, going back to, like, the Gary v train, and how influential some of his content has been on on the world and specifically the advertising industry. But, you know, your your hustle and your drive and your focus is unmatched. I mean, every time that we've worked with you, it's, it's amazing to see how quick you work and how focused you are on on getting the right end result and product. And I think, especially in big agencies, like, that culture is not always it's not always embraced. Right?

Yeah.

I mean, what happens is that we're I mean, you might have a you might have a boss that's like, hey, dude.

You need to slow down. You need to go through the right steps and the right process to get to the the thing, and, that can feel restricting. It can feel like super, sorry. I'm losing the word there, but it it it can make you feel like you're trapped a little bit. So it's been it's been around to see you grow. You also had, like, some, pretty pretty solid growth through Behance and through Dribbble too, didn't you?

Yeah. Yeah. Behance was the place where I was. Like, I had him.

We had ton of followers in times where I mean, even engagement in defense has come down so much. Like, you whenever you post a product, you don't get as much views or likes as you used to get in that platform. Like, that that has happened everywhere, of course. A lot of people just are online right now.

Like, in those days, they weren't as much. So that was a good thing for us because we had a chance of working with a lot of international clients. I mean, for us working with people from United States or London or China, we used to work with Dvio or Hong Kong or So for us, that's very, very great. And it also made us look like a very cool, important studio.

And in a moment, I just got away from the culture, from my country, and I just felt that I wasn't in the right place for me to grow and to thrive as a creative. So that's what and also, like, I don't wanna go back with that. I'm just gonna go back with him because he said that, like, you gotta be in the place, the best place for you to win and that's self awareness. You gotta know what that what I mean, what what's the thing that different that makes you different from the other people?

What is it natural for you? What and you're like, I'm naturally doing communicating.

I'm much better doing this at Spanish, you know, but I'm trying to express myself in English, but I'm just incredible because I'm a rapper. So I have I got the flow, I got the words, I have the art, I have the creativity, the concepts, I'm like a freestyle or some. I think I'm very good at that. What happens in South American countries or third world countries, these industry are not so evolved like creative or art or anything.

So you gotta move yourself like a salmon against the water. You gotta move up the river to get in the place where you can shine and thrive being yourself. And that's how I started this trip to

basically the United States. That's what I'm doing, like California, of course.

And I'm I'm attracted by the magnetic pipe.

We're gonna get you at some point, dude.

We're getting I'm doing it. I'm doing it. We're breaking the visa and everything, but I like being independent. I don't like, trying to get a visa from a sponsorship or nothing. So I'll be just trying to find how I'm gonna do it by myself because I'm all I've always done everything by myself. So I don't wanna lose that literally or more, but that freedom of being yourself and being your boss.

First.

Yeah. I mean, we, we talked a little bit before the pod too just about, you know, some of the legal stuff that you're going through to to get the Visa in place and how that's, you know, made you pause a little bit on some of the other projects that you're working on, whether that's your, your rap and your music, or some of your work. I know you're still grinding on work, and you've actually got some really fun stuff that you've gotten into, recently through your move to Mexico City, which, you know, by way of getting to, to beautiful California here. But, talk a little bit about how you got into the car industry and what has kind of evolved from that.

Yeah. Well, we car industry is always great for everyone that does I mean, much manipulation is just great, and we're very expert at it because what happens is that they're always telling you, like, we have this shot of this shot of this car in a white background. Please schedule your could you cut it from that background and add it to this scene? So it's always very fast and very narrow, workflow, like adding a car to a scene that you have to build about yourself.

And everything we did before was just retouching, like getting some sky from a side, at the ground or whatever you even needed. It was just like collage, you know, collage sampling, like also hip hop music. Like Yeah. You were just singing for the right image and just try to make a new composition with that and then add the car.

But, of course, what happened is I started to to see that that was very limited, and the future was was completely CDI. So the market, of course, in Chile, like my where I come from, is so small regarding the automotive industry. So I knew that I had to be in a better place to thrive in the automotive industry. And then once, when we worked during COVID, I got this representation from La Mexican producers.

These Mexican producers, they had some connection with some big advertising clients, big advertising agency like TBWA or BBDO.

And they all had these, they had Ford and one of those guys had Nissan and another. So they contacted me because they needed to create some CGI images because of course at the pandemic doing real shooting was kind of, it wasn't flowing. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't flowing very well.

They they did it, but it wasn't so fast. And so CI was a good opportunity for everyone that wanted to have a remote workflow. So that's what we did. And the moment I, you know, I added all of the people that work with me on the project and I added the price.

I really thought that what I wanted to be I mean, the amount I just thought that was a right payment for the project, I sent it to them and it was approved. And then in that moment, I noticed that there is a room for me in Mexico. I wanna move there. So I contacted people.

They we opened the office. We we started we created our our business here. And then I moved here, and I've been starting working directly with some automotive brands, small automotive brands, and also some agencies.

And what happened is that all of this new portfolio, this new work that I've been doing, just took over my other work on my side. So it's like you went you went inside j p ninety nine five dot com, and you just started to see so much of automatic work. And I thought that was great. Yeah. And I thought that was great, but also dangerous because I I was good. I was gonna lose my other side of things.

I I I do, for example, with magnetic, you know, like product rendering or creative images or whatever.

Goods. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Which is mainly what we've worked with you, and we Yeah. You a little bit through the Ford account that we had, but mainly on the product side. It was mainly, like, some of the, electronic products that we were doing, some of the consumer goods, like the grill brands and all of that. But yeah.

Yeah. So, basically, I I I understood that I needed to build that new platform just to showcase this work, and there are tons of other solutions or different services that are just focused on the automotive industry, like from scratch, like from modeling just a car and then doing AR or VR experiences, like immersive experiences for the client, or just some animations or maybe some creative images like a TV show of a car in a running shop, whatever you wanna create. Yeah. But also some very boring stuff that are very interesting to do for me, like catalog pictures, like white background pictures.

So there are a ton of services that I could really go turn vision with them, adjuster to providing the services to this booming automotive industry here because I I told you, like, right now Mexico is becoming a very important factory for Chinese brands. I wanna get in the US market, but they cannot get in because of commercial trades. They're not that they don't have right now, but Mexico has very good commercial trace with the US. So a lot of cars, for example, from Toyota I mean, Toyota is a Japanese brand, but basically, they are headquartered in right now, they're in in Texas, in what it's called, Plano Plano, Texas, near Dallas.

Yeah.

So they're required over there. They are building some of their trucks like the Tacoma, a very famous popular truck called Tacoma. They're they're building it here in Mexico.

And so there are very good commercial trades between Mexico and the US that the Chinese want to take advantage of that. So a lot of brands are coming here, and they're building everything from scratch. So for me, it's like a very sweet spot to be here in a place where the car industry, especially the EV industry, is moving in such a way that everyone everyone wants to produce stuff. But it's hard.

So so hard because, clients are just used to, doing everything the old way. And I that's that's what I need to do, like, show them that we can do it better, faster. I'm not saying that everything has to be CGI, but I think it's important for them to understand that at least some of what they do has to be CGI because just the future. And now with AI and all this AF drive thing we're building right now at our side, like the service that misses, you know, AI, generative AI that's related to generating big environments.

Also people that look very real, that look very good, and adding the cars on CDI. So there's there are tons of new things that are going out that are going on right now in the industry that for me is, like, amazing.

Yeah. Yeah. It's in it's it's super cool to hear just the pathway that got you to where you're at today, and getting to AF Drive. And I think the the big thing, we talked about this a little bit before too is that, like, the amount of content that's needed. And, again, referencing, like, Gary v, the amount of content content that dude produced for, that still produces for so long was just I mean, it's amazing. He just flooded the market with his content.

But, brands, whether you're, you know, automotive brand or not, the amount of content that's needed to be in front of people in all of the channels that are available today, It's hard to keep up with.

And I think, you know, going after the big large scale productions that, you know, quarter million, half million dollar productions, to fill your content pipeline is not realistic for most brands no matter how big you are.

So I think Yeah.

Using using the CGI, using the photo manipulation that you're doing. It's it's a really good way for them to fill the right content pipelines with the right content without breaking the bank on everything that they're doing. Obviously, you know, if you're doing a big TV spot, something something big, you're gonna wanna do a full blown production.

But, I think it's okay.

Of course. We are into it. Like, we are into having fun with people on set. That's of course, we're not boring, guys.

We don't we're not you know, we don't wanna be just behind the computer, but we understand that that, of course, we need to create a new workflow that, enables us to produce content at scale. And in a in a and right now, AI is just a very good answer for that. So I think we don't have to be scared of that because we've spoken about it. Like a lot of people that come from our background or creative background, they're kind of scared and they post a lot of things like, please Photoshop or please Instagram.

Don't get my what is it called? Like, because right now yeah. Because right now, right now, Facebook is starting their own Instagram program of, recollecting, learning data learning for their own AI, get gather information from what people post. So a lot of artists are kind of worried about it right now because I don't want they don't want the AI to steal their work.

But for me, I love it. Like, AI, like, the best you know me, the better for me.

Yeah.

The fact because right now yeah.

We had a we had a really cool conversation on a previous episode, with DC from Mag, who you know, and a and a gentleman named, Paul Drorin and talks exclusively about generative AI. And it's really interesting because I think the initial, like, knee jerk reaction that the the creative world is having is like, oh my gosh. My job's gone. I've gotta gotta go learn how to be a plumber, an electrician, or something like that. Right?

But, what's really cool is that when you get to a certain point, AI is just a new tool in your toolbox, and it allows the people that have that and it allows the people that have that true raw creative talent and the and the brain for it, to just absolutely explode the amount of work that they're they're able to produce.

So it's been it's been really cool to see people like yourself, people like DC, start to lean into it in a totally different fashion. And I know, you know, there's the whole tech side of AI too, the development side of AI, software development is what I mean. But, it's it's cool. It's crazy how fast things are moving. That's the one thing that is just mind boggling to me is that, you know, from GPT one to now GPT four has been a very, very small amount of time, and the amount of improvements that have been made are just it's mind boggling, but really cool. So I wanna talk a little bit, further about AF Drive.

And I I think, if you're down, if we can do a quick screen share and, show the the seven step process that you go through, I think that's a really good, encapsulation of what what you guys are doing there and, how brands can take advantage of that.

Yeah. Well, first of all, AF Drive is just a little spot we have here in this new brand we're working on. It's called Automotive Fantasy.

It's just about having visual solutions for the automotive industry, and these are playing right now, high performance. Visual, of course, like, very basic where we're trying to get all the expressions from the industry. So but basically basically, it's that, like, that's how of high performance production. That meaning better time, better

price, better performance. Right?

So here we have all the services we have. Here we have the AICGI content. I just put it here at the as the first service because that's the most interest interesting thing for me. But we have all the other classic CGI, services for our clients.

And Modeling modeling and digital twins is a big part of that too.

I mean, the Yeah. Digital twin term is something that's, probably more well known in, like, large scale corporate manufacturing facilities.

That was something that one of our clients, Schneider Electric Aviva, spent a lot of time on was, like, building digital twins for, oil rigs and oil production facilities and big, you know, big large scale manufacturing facilities, but it's cool to see that you're doing that in CGI.

Yeah. We call it also the when are d detail garage? Everyone who needs to have their their car in this detail garage.

Yeah.

So yeah. So here's the edge drive thing. I'm gonna just get into it. Just one moment. Just wanna show off my side, all of the good brands we work with. Like, these are real brands.

So we have experience working with high end automotive brands for sure. Here we have the group, meaning that our portfolio or some of the work we've done.

And here's the new stuff we're doing. It's called the AF drive. So what's AF drive? AF drive is, well, the idea of this image that was completely done with AI, but then it went to another AI called Magnific AI that made I mean, it gave so much more detail to this image.

Then it was of course, went through Photoshop where we added these logos and everything. So this idea if you might work this marketing head, and you're just gonna hop on right on this platform that is just full of strategy, full of speed. And, of course, now we have all the concepts here, repeated performance. So it's just this guy that's gonna ride on this platform, and it's gonna have the opportunity to choose from tons of different images.

That's why he's liking this kind of abstract room where he's he's seen all of these possibilities for his brand. Okay?

Yeah.

So, basically, this is the reason why, you know, in a never evolving data marketplace, keeping up comes in Excel, see, stay ahead with Aft drive. Traditionally, custom and time consuming production processors no longer an obligation. Of course, like, if you have the money and you wanna spend it, go do it. Like, it's okay. But it's no longer an obligation. We can have a better thing called aDrive that offers an AI manufacturing platform for scalable content creation by well, it's all here.

So we have the strategy, the speed, the defacements, the freedom, and of course, very important right now, that volume because, you know, detail demand is huge.

So it's yeah. So here we have this concept called the seven Labs process, and basically, it's just a streamline content creation with very basic steps that are just well explained for anyone. So here, basically, magnetic thing. I mean, magnetic can do, of course, everything here.

You could Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course, a full house three

d production team.

The first step, of course, is this. Right? Right?

We spend a lot of time in the brand strategy. That's obviously a big component of the offering that we've got. But, yeah, we've got the the creative services to to boot, and then I think the the marketing side is kind of like the finish finisher of our, service offering. But, yeah, the brand strategy, I think that's that's just, like, setting the foundation for the entire brand, let alone a project like this that would be, hey. We need to build out CGI Yeah.

Fix Yeah. And I'm scenery.

Yeah. And and there and that that's where we get our storytelling for what we're going to do. Like, kind of people that's gonna be, the kind of house architecture, or is is it gonna be dark night or whatever. So it's just getting to just getting all the details about what what what the ground has to be seen as.

Like, how does the ground has to be seen is the virtual is that. And then, of course, it comes here, the fun part or the beast part of this, like they created beast part, like just generating images with generative AI, like, going deep in my journey and just trying to create multiple multiple takes of different situations going on. And then we send them to the proposer as a proposal for the client. When then the client approves, we just get into more AI work.

And this is the step forward. It's just the image enhancement also called sometimes like upscaling.

Mhmm. So we just get a lot ton of more detail through also AI. So, basically, we have ours we had our few sketches here. You can see that how bad those faces are, and now you can see how faces became.

And, of course, it's just completely it's a completely new dimension. It looks completely I mean, it looks fine. You you see all the wrinkles over here, all the details, you know, this leg, how it appeared. Third, we didn't have that leg.

Now we haven't. So that's also you with AI. And also using AI, we take out the people from the scene and also the the original card that sorry for that. That came in the scene.

So here we have the original card that came from the AI, and, of course, it's great because it's telling us all the environment and all the lighting setup that the car needs to have, all the code. And everything. Yeah. Shadow.

So it's showing us it's showing us everything.

So then we with AI, we also erase everything. You know? Before AI, you know, creating this background was completely expensive, and it took a lot of time. No.

We did it we did it so many times, but it was just, I mean, complicated, and it was expensive, and it was just a simple need that that now is now with just a little bit of knowledge and a click, and it can get you a very a very good, like, background backplate also called. Then we have these two model of a car. Actually, this car was modeled by our team from scratch. You know, we had some blueprints, but we made I mean, that third wheel was so complicated, bro.

You know? That Yeah.

Those things. Yeah.

It was so complicated.

But what happened is that with that true model, we added this we added it to this final scene, and over here, we had it. So that's how our three d car integrated with our people, and it's a it it turns mean, it finally has a very, very good quality. Maybe if you do, like, some other process, like full CGI or, say, AI photography or some other services that could get, I think, much better in some kind of way, it could be better. But for what you need for a scale production and the time lasting of these images, we're getting a great, great, great product.

And of course this is just getting better. So it's very important to know that, like this is just getting better. So that's why we need to be here right now because it's gonna be every day. It's it's going to be better.

Yeah. And, again, I mean, that those images fully pass for anything web related, anything social related.

Yeah.

If you wanna put it like a if you wanna create, like, a performance marketing campaign using this mini, like, thumbnail shots for Google also or whatever Totally.

So this is basically our what we're doing right now, the automatic fantasy. And, of course, this is the the new star of the house, the AF drive. And this is why we're we're we're offering to but that's we're not just start we're starting to offer it in right now, but but the this site is almost finished. It's not completely finished. So I need to finish it first with the team, and then, of course, I will start, you know, flooding everywhere, all the marketing hits, trying to get meetings and all.

I love it. I love it. And, I mean, huge principle in business too is niche down to grow. Right? So niching down into that, into that space of just automotive, specifically leaning into EVs since that's such a huge trend right now.

Like, you're you're going in the right direction, dude. I'm stoked to see you grow.

Yeah.

I mean, we're we're we know that it's a big thing. I need to partner up with some other people. You know? It's all about getting with people that are the same I mean, that that have the same hunger as I I have because what happens is that I I have the immigrant hunger, you know, and sometimes that happens in United States that people are, get, are so used to being in a place like United States too much, too much. So beware is there a people from the state? Beware of me.

I'm going there to Yeah.

Jorge coming at you, dude.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With so much hunger and so much work ethic, like, such a good work ethic.

I'm very compromised with all of the projects. I'm trying to always give new ideas. I'm trying to help from where I mean, if there is a little for me, I'll try to get in there and just do what I know and just be part of the or part of the game. You know?

No. It's a it's an epic, personality trait and a skill set that you've developed over the years, and it's, it's always a pleasure to work with you for sure. That's Rad. So it's a it's a interesting it's such a rad story to hear how you went from, you know, young rapper to Photoshop, into photo manipulation, into CGI, now into the car world, and all on a trip to get you out here to California and continue both your love for, rap and music and your love for for the creative

world.

And the beach. And the beach. And the beach.

Yes.

I mean, I don't I've been here. I just went to Texas and it was fine, but of course, geography, like the land was so flat and kind of boring. Much respect to all my people that are in Texas right now.

Of course.

But, I mean, real thing is that California has this beautiful, beautiful landscape. You can go to snow, you can go to forest, you can go to the beach, you can go to the desert, you can have tons of different things to do. And I don't know. Maybe that's the reason why it's so expensive right now, but I'm aiming but I'm aiming to my boat. I'll just try to make my way up there, and I think it's gonna happen sooner or later, my friend.

I think it will. I think it will. Tell me a little bit, before we close off here about your, music career and your rap profile.

I don't think we've spent much time on that, but I wanna make sure that you give a a quick plug to your, to your to your rap.

Indeed, that's the, that's that's my where I have all my talents were born rap music, and I stopped doing music for a long time because I really got into my business.

But then I started to see all these new guys doing music, and they had it I don't know if they had it easier, but they had so many new possibilities like doing their own label or whatever, doing their own videos.

Like so I realized that I was thinking how lucky they were, but I wasn't thinking how lucky was that because I was still here. So I started again with my music, and it's been great.

I've been trying to get into new rhythms because my original music was very classic rap, like, like, very old school related, like, Rutan clan or the premier or Yeah.

So it's it's called the East Coast style.

East Coast rap. Yep.

Yeah. But then, I've been hearing some new music, so, like, I don't know. I love one zero six power one zero six. You know that radio over there in California?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Definitely know it.

Yeah. So we I every time I go to California, I listen to that radio, and I've I knew that I needed to create that same music and drive around downtown LA listening to my music. So I started to create new music that sounded more Californian.

So I've been doing this new music that is more like I don't know. They call it trap maybe, but new rhythms, trying to have a more melodical approach to the beats, you know, with some melodic rhythms. And I've been doing it. Where am I going with it?

Right now, I'm just trying to heal myself or take the stress out of myself doing music and also kind of do some magic. Like, I don't know if you heard about, you know, the the the crepe the crete I don't know the word. It's in English, the crete, crete, like, give giving statements to their reality. So I think music for me is very important in that way.

Like, I'm gonna rap about the things that I want to happen.

So because it happened to me. Like, I have a song that's called The Storm, and we have a really cool video that I did with an illustrator from Chile.

And this guy driving his DeLorean, you know, Back to the Future car DeLorean, he's driving. You can see that he's driving through LA, down to LA and it's raining and the song is about the storm.

And then, like last December, I went to Los Angeles with my family and we were driving through, well, we were driving to Yosemite, and you had the store that was coming from South Baja California, Mexico.

So we also we we had to drive just in that same day that the storm was happening. So we were just like running away from the storm. My wife said, hey, why just keep on dropping things about storms? Just drop another drop another thing. So we I had I had a new song called so blessed.

I mean, some some about how blessed we are because that, just fine. Like, maybe just try to take care of what you're saying and spreading out the air because maybe it's going back coming back. I don't know.

No. That's that's really cool. I love the story behind that. There was a there was a trip that I took.

It was actually a work trip, for a a client thing. And we were in Florida and got stuck in a hurricane. So we were there. We were out there for, like, a week helping out at a big, like, trade show convention type thing.

And, there was a hurricane coming in, and I didn't really know. I've never really, you know, experienced hurricanes being on the West Coast, but the hurricane was hurricane Matt. And so the big joke was that hurricane Matt was coming for us, and, you know, everybody here on the on the West Coast was calling going, are you guys okay? You guys good, like, safe and everything, and, it was really funny.

But Yeah.

It's it's But you you you were okay.

That's where hurricane. Right?

Yeah. It was it was fine. It was a little bit windy for a couple days, but the hotel that we were staying at was actually, like, an evacuation site for a bunch of different cities.

So, we got stuck there for, like, three or four days, stuck in our hotel room.

Did did you hide in a basement or something? No. Yes. Stayed.

Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't wasn't really too crazy where we're at. But, yeah, it's it's rad. I mean, we talk a lot about this on the pod too. We do, the designer the design team at Magnetic does a creative challenge once a month, and they, they do it as a way to take off all of the constraints that, you know, clients and deadlines and all of those things put on the creative process.

And it's really healthy for you to get into flow state with whatever your hobby or your outlet is, and it's it's just epic to hear how rap has been that influence on on you and your career.

I mean, being creative, just taking I mean, for me, it's just about I I I have that, like, that addiction and AI has helped me doing that, like, the amount of time it took for me to create an image, to post it on Instagram because I just needed to see something of my work there. Like, I need to see my work somewhere. Like, I need to hear myself. I need to have an image and look at it for, like, for thirty minutes and say, I like it.

This could be better. I get in that funnel doing that. And AI has helped me a lot of it with that. Like, if you go into my personal Instagram account, you can see a lot of of pictures I've done from of myself, you know, replacing my face with some other AI.

There's a very good AI called Pixi that is Yep. It's also connected, to New Journey, and it's also happening inside Discord. So I've been swapping my face with from I mean, I'm I'm look. I'm gonna show you just one small thing just for you to get.

You use that for a bunch of your, your album artwork. So Yeah.

Yeah. So I've not I've I've used it a lot.

Yesterday, I just went and shot a real shot for me from my from my side, like, a real photography because my wife's told me, like, stopped doing those AI things.

So here you can see, like Yeah.

That was the one I was looking at just recently.

Yeah. So it's completely AI, and I I I put my face there with another AI, and, of course, then I took it to Photoshop.

So anyone that says that AI is fabulous or is against our creativity, it's not it's not what happening to me. You know? It's like for me, it's just making me it's giving me more liberty to express all the ideas I had inside.

Right?

That's the that's the most epic thing about it, man. It it really does. It gives you a a a way to express yourself so much more in so much more detail. Like, we, I know this will resonate with you too, but, we used to spend so much time. Like, how much time would you spend on stock photography sites?

Yeah. Those guys are scared.

Yeah. They should be.

Yeah. Those are the guys that are scared. The stock guys.

Using other creatives as an arbitrage to to get paid. And, you know, it worked really well for a long time, but, it's limiting. You know? You might find an image that's sixty percent or seventy percent of the way that you want it when you're having that creative idea.

But with AI, you can go a hundred and twenty percent. You can go a hundred and sixty percent, get exactly what you want. Yeah. I have It's exciting.

At at at at at about section, I wrote with GPD, like a text, like a manifest of our, like, statement of our modifantasy. I mean, it's fun because I bought it, but also GPD bought it, but I I I I don't feel the idea to do it, you know, because every point I gave to EPD and everything we both talked, like, GPD and I, like, we we had this conversation about what I want to say. He gave me a lot of possibilities, but every time, it was just closer to what I needed to do. And I think it went very good for me. And I I had an order, so it says here that's an expression, like, about our modern fantasy. It says, it embodies the truth of high-tech visuals merged with the boundless potential of human creativity.

So for me, it's just that, like, we are just in a very interesting spot where we will see this boundless creativity, human creativity being exposed and magnified with AI. So maybe AI is going to magnify itself and it's going to be their own. Maybe they can't kill us. So I don't know. But I think for a time, it's going to be a tool for us to express ourselves in a better, wider range of possibilities. You know what I mean?

Thousand percent. Thousand percent.

Super cool, man.

Well, listen. I was hoping that we could close this thing out with some with some bars from you, dude.

I would love to get a little sampling of your music here, and I'll make sure to drop links to your, to your Spotify profile in the show notes.

Yeah. Those And just let me know if you're hearing the music.

Yeah. I can hear it.

Okay. So I have here all I have here all my lyrics. I'm just gonna open them because I don't wanna forget a thing. I know them, but, you know, one of the things that I've been that's been tough for me is that every time I go on stage, I get so nervous about forgetting lyrics.

And I know there are some people, you know, they can smoke a plant, they can drink like a whole bottle of whatever whatever, and they go on stage, and they perform, like, excellent, like, replica to the album. But I'm the guy that if I drink a beer or a smoke or whatever, I go on stage and I get, like, so, like nervous and I kind of forget everything. So every time I used to perform a live I mean, I mean, live, I used I I had to, like, concentrate as much as possible, so it was very tiring for me. You know?

I'm more like I'm more like a creative, more than a showman.

Performer. Yeah.

Yeah. Performer.

So let's go with this song called Chico Bueno. Good kid. Good kid.

Well, all these lyrics, they have a message. Yes. Yeah. And they are they are they are not like they're I'm not speaking about nothing that you don't want your kids to hear. You know?

I'm getting completely good facts and expanding conscious and And good good vibes.

Yes. This is what I wanna have.

Sick. It's so sick. I love I love your music, and I love listening to music, where because I I speak a little bit of Spanish. I I took Spanish for four years in, in high school.

I I can understand it a little bit, but I can practice it.

Yeah. Yeah. Of course.

Enough. But I absolutely love when I'm working and trying to get into a flow state on something. I love listening to music, specifically rap, where I can't understand the lyrics. So, like, there's a do you know MC Solar?

Yeah. Thanks.

Yeah. Thanks, Rapper.

Yeah.

Listen to him all the time, listen to your your music, listen to, like, Mala Rodriguez and, Peso Pluma and a bunch of that stuff. We've got we've got, yeah, a bunch of different languages.

How is it going with the how is it going with the Hispanic culture and Hispanic arts over there?

I mean, of course, in California, it's completely mixed culture. Right?

Yeah. Very mixed. Very mixed. And we're so close to the to the border in Baja California that it's how you grow up, you know? It's a huge part of it. California is complete with Hispanic culture for sure.

Would would you leave California?

Would I leave California? Yeah.

Would you leave it, like, would you move to somewhere else?

I've considered it in the past, but this is my roots, man. I'm I'm third generation San Diego, now living in Temecula, so I'm I'm just twenty or thirty minutes up north from, from where I grew up.

But it would be tough for me to leave California for sure.

Yeah. It's yeah. I mean, it's tough. Yeah. And it's a great place to be.

You have That's my roots, and my whole family's here.

And, obviously, you know, we've got a pretty big footprint with Magnetic here in California. So that has actually, you know, changed quite a bit over the last couple years just like yourself. You know, you moved kind of as a result of the pandemic. And, during the pandemic, we had the majority of our staff move out moved out of California. So we've got people in Texas, Tennessee,

Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, and the Carolinas, Florida. We've got people kind of, like, all over the US now.

But Do you miss do you miss that old workflow when when Yes.

You miss it?

Yes, dude. A thousand percent, I do.

DC and I have been working in the office and made a point to just, like, always be there.

I'm not there right now just to record the pod with you, but, yes.

But, yeah, dude, I I miss it so much. I miss, the thing that I miss the most is the collaboration that happens when you're in the office. When you've got We stand collaboration.

Yeah. It's it's just it's happening all day long. And when you've got, like, some of the best creative minds all in one room, and those people, you know, one of them sees something on somebody else's computer screen and then comes over and they start rapping on it.

It's Hundred percent.

It's just it's an undeniable force that is so cool to experience and be a part of.

Yeah. I would like to come back to that also. I I think it's great to have that instant, feeling. What I what I what another thing that I don't like much is, like, when you get into these big calls with everyone is with their camera off and you don't know if they're hearing aid or not seeing them. Like, it's weird to be, like, pitching something, for example, and you don't know if there are people are looking at you or whatever. Like I really miss that real vibe you had with real meetings and real people.

Yeah. We've we've obviously you know, our business is, is easy to do virtually.

But, yeah, dude, the the in person thing is a is a huge thing that I miss. But, I'm lucky and and blessed to know people like you and people like DC and get to spend time with with people in real life, and, and I take advantage of every chance I can get to to do that.

So Yeah.

Did did you move from the office you had? The other of I I knew I knew an office. Like, remember I I I Oh, man.

You know, we closed that.

We wanted to move.

Yeah. Yeah. We we left that one, and then we've got a, photo video studio.

And we kinda just, partitioned a portion of that. So it's still totally usable for photo shoots and video shoots. We do quite a bit of productions in there.

And then we've got, like I think we've got five five different desks set up in there.

So Great.

Hope you have hope you have a hope you have a desk for me if if when I get there, I need a space just for a few months. Okay?

I've I've already got your name on it, dude.

So good. Thanks for this, man. You know, great great experience being here with you and the Mac bag.

Likewise.

Yeah, dude. Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. We'll look forward to talking to you again. We'll have you back on the pod in a few months here and see how AF Drive is going.

And I'll make sure and link to both all of your, JP nineteen eighty five, AF Drive, and then ammonia skills, on Spotify.

Yeah.

Something so good.

Your Instagram. Yeah. Yeah. Well, dude, thank you so much. Cheers until the next time. Thank you, Jorge.

Bye. Take care.