SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm Alejandro Rusi, and this is the Russi Hive. Conversations with people who treat their work and life as a creative practice. Today I sit down with Alejandro Triana, my nephew, millennial brother, and the artist behind Dude with the Ood to talk obsession as creative fuel from ninja turtles and childhood world building to skateboarding, subway musicians, and the ancient instrument that changed his life. We follow plays, practice, and play into self-invention, musical discipline, and a life built on your own timeline. This podcast is presented by Rico Moresca. Thank you for joining me, Alejandro Triana, and welcome to the Rusey Hive podcast.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

Yay, I'm so happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Yay. You are the first guest to travel across country to be here. And I am just kind of continually amazed by your generosity and so proud, really, to be sitting here with you. So just as a bit of background, it is because of you that I have been called an aunt since the age of four. We have a peculiar kind of family that created this intriguing situation. But even though you are technically my nephew, we really grew up more like siblings.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

I always associate it as more like a sister.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

And I have no idea. I was just thinking about this today. I have no idea why they gave you my name. Do you think they named you after me, like as an homage?

SPEAKER_03 1:29

Well, well, well when you say they, uh the person to blame is my dad.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Oh, it's your dad? What happened there?

SPEAKER_03 1:37

He intercepted the name that I was originally given by my mom.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Uh which was what?

SPEAKER_03 1:43

I think it was like Juan David.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

Um apparently that's what my mom put down on the birth certificate or whatever, the papers. And once my dad found out that he was gonna his son, his firstborn son was gonna be called Juan David, he apparently thought that was a farmer's name, or he was not into it, and so he went and changed it and argued with the lady, and he came up with Alejandro. And I don't know how he chose that name, but um, I'm kind of thankful for it. That's probably one of the best things my dad's ever done for me. Yeah, changed my wow in all reality. That's probably the best thing he's done for me.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Amazing. So, yeah, it was always very interesting that we were Alejandro and Alejandra growing up. It was like a thing.

SPEAKER_03 2:28

It was cool.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Yeah, so here's your hive card. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_03 2:32

My hive card.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Yeah, the year, 1994, The Place, Disney World, Orlando, Florida. The object of contention, a Mickey slash mini mouse autograph book, The Desire, Four Ninja Turtle signatures, The Offense, The Next Morning, Turtle Pages are missing, torn out, the theme, passion, manifested early. The culprit. So maybe you can fill in the blanks here and tell the story as you remember it.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

You're never gonna let me live this down. It's been what over like 20. Yeah, it's been like 30 years.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

And we're laughing about it.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

And and and and and it's it's you have not been able to forgive me for this. I I really put some trauma in you there.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

So what's the story?

SPEAKER_03 3:36

The story was I was an obsessive kid. It still am an obsessed obsessive individual, and and I had an obsession with the Ninja Turtles. I thought that it was very rude of them to not want to give me their autograph because I didn't have a notebook. When I was looking at how they were, you know, distributing autographs to everybody with a notebook, they just had a stamp and they were just stamping it on pages. I didn't see why they couldn't stamp it on my hand. Well, I didn't And I was a bigger fan of the Ninja Turtles than you were at the time.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

I was I was not a fan at all.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

More reason for me to to feel jealous and and and and and have to, you know, take matters into my own hand to get these autographs because they turned me down and and and I I really wanted one. And so I was little and and not thinking clearly. I and I remember I think vaguely, or maybe I'm making it up just because it was so long ago, but want just ripping the pages out of out of the uh the notebook I had.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

I think maybe you were more mad that I ruined your notebook than than the actual I was about to say, like it's kind of funny to me that I'm still a little bit upset about this because I you being you were an obsessive person, obviously, and you felt very passionately about the Ninja Turtles, but for me I get very precious about my things.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

You've always been also a notebook person.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

I don't know. You didn't just take the Ninja Turtle pages, which I don't didn't care that much about. You kind of ruined the whole object and the other autographs that I actually cared about, like I don't know, the Lion King, Little Mermaid. You left those, but you probably the notebook was, you know.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

Well, it's also like um I I you know, it's like you you're breaking into somebody's like almost diary. It's a very personal thing, and you know, it's it's it's a very violating act, you know, that I I I can see why you still help hold the trauma.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

So anyway, we have been processing, we are healing, we are moving forward. Forgiveness is also and jokes aside, I singled out that memory uh because it's the earliest I have of you where I picked up something really specific, and that is that even as a kid, and you were four years old, um, you felt things so intensely. Um, you would latch onto a world, the characters, the details, the whole alternate universe, and it wasn't casual. And looking back, I get it. Like you couldn't not have those autographs, and that level of obsession and commitment to something is actually the perfect way into what I want to talk about today, which is how everything is connected, how passion starts early, um, and how it turns into a creative life. And a creative life is exactly what you lead in every way. So let's start with the center of it all, the ood, your instrument, which a lot of people in this part of the world are completely unfamiliar with. So opening with the basics, tell us what the ood is, what it is not, how you found it, or how it found you.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

So the ood is an Arabic guitar. I call it the grandfather of guitars. It is one of the oldest instruments in the world, and it is really common in the Arab world. It's very common in Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Morocco, North Africa, Turkey. Yeah, it's one of the first strings instruments ever. And it's microtonal, which is a huge element to it, because you don't have that in the European lute or in the guitar. And it's the shape is just like kind of round, you know, pear-shaped body, very hollow, lots of resonance, natural reverb, and the neck is kind of like bent backwards, almost looks like a broken tennis racket. And yeah, to me it sounds, it was it's it's like a it's an instrument that has a lot of history and and it has in them and a lot of in the Arab world in the Arab world that instrument is kind of like a huge part of their culture. It has a lot of it carries a lot of memory and and it means a lot to to people in the Arab world. And when I first discovered it, it was just I the sound. I saw one of my favorite bands playing in the Lower East Side, maybe like 10 years ago now. And this guy was playing electric ood, and I was already a guitarist, so I I was hypnotized when I first heard the ood and and it became an obsession. Yeah, um, and the that's the only other time I felt that like so obsessed over something, like f after just first seeing it or first hearing it, was skateboarding. And and I and yeah, I just knew right away that I have to learn this instrument, and the next day I literally went and bought one online.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

Um yeah, yeah, when I want something, I just go for it. And and yeah, it's probably need to sometimes it's a little impulsive sometimes. But I was just certain that this is what I wanted to do, and this is what I wanted to chase. And that's kind of how that started, and I've been chasing it for almost 10 years now.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

So if you were a guest at a dinner party, would it be charming, moody, high maintenance?

SPEAKER_03 8:57

It would be very passionate, very emotional, and it would be a storyteller. Yeah, it would be a storyteller, it would tell you stories from different walks of life, from history, from traditions, from Arab customs.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

But the ood isn't always recognized in Western programs. Um has that felt like an an opportunity or a challenge?

SPEAKER_03 9:24

I wouldn't say it's a challenge. I think, I mean, I love talking about the ood, and especially when people don't know about it. I have no I've you know, one of my favorite things is to educate people about it. And because I was I came from that world, I didn't know much about it until I heard it. And so yeah, if somebody, if I I find if I meet somebody that has a general interest or has like, what is that kind of like look on their face, then I will gladly kind of like you know, to tell them about it because yeah, I was I I didn't know what it was before, and it changed my life and shaped me to who to who I am now and took me on a whole different direction and a whole different path musically to and opened up many doors and introduced me to a whole side of the world and and new music that I had no knowledge whatsoever about because I grew up here in the States and so I was very westernized and very Americanized, and so yeah, it definitely opened up a lot of exposure to the eastern side of the world and countries that I didn't I knew very little of.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

So, coming from playing the guitar, what were some of the things that you felt you had to unlearn?

SPEAKER_03 10:23

Oh, so many things. The main thing is the uh the fretless aspect to it. Guitars have frets, you kind of know where to put your fingers. Um, with you it is all microtonal, it's all fretless, kind of like a cello or an upright bass, a violin. So you have to rely more on your ear, and you have more notes on a nude than you do on a piano uh because of the microtonal element. Um, and that's really where you get the richness of the sound. Uh, it's similar to like the human voice, you know, you you have so many notes, so if you go up and down a scale, you can uh just go all the way up. So I think that's why it resonates to a lot of people, is because of that microtonal element. Um, so that that was a big one. Also, just holding it, it's like this big round-shaped belly thing that like slides out of your lap from time to time. And that that took a little some getting used to. Holding the pick that they use is this thing called the Risha, which is like this plectrum thing, it's like long and very, very bendy. It's not like a guitar pick, and you don't really finger pick it like you have in Spanish guitar. Those two elements for sure, but also the other big one was just understanding the vocab and the language of like macams and Arab, you know, melodies, which is something that I wasn't exposed to growing up. I was exposed to different kind of music. So though that was probably the main thing. And I remember when I was first learning, I would fall asleep to toxin music, which is like instrumental ood music, which is almost like a very loose rhythmical, kind of like improvisational, uh melodic flow that people fall into. And I would fall asleep, I think, for like two or three months with that every single night, because I felt that if I did that, the melodies would somehow fall into my subconscious, and then when I would play, I would they would just come out naturally, and I'm I'm pretty sure they did. It worked because like that's people tell me I sound very authentic for a Westerner. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

So who was your first real guide into the instrument? Was it was it a teacher? Was it recordings, um, YouTube rabbin hole?

SPEAKER_03 12:21

Yeah, well, the first, I mean, the guy that I first saw play in it was uh he goes by the the spire from Cairo and he's this Italian guy. Um he was in this band called the Brooklyn Gypsies, which is the band that I saw in the Lower East Side. And yeah, after seeing him play, I became obsessed with his music, that kind of music. But then yeah, I studied. I uh I tried to teach myself for a little while, but I realized that I was going at it through a Western approach, which was only gonna get me to a certain point on my own. And eventually I had to take some, I took some private lessons with this great player here in New York. Uh his name is Brian Punka, and he's actually from New Orleans, but he has been studying Arabic music for over 20 years, and he was a teacher at uh in Boston at Simon Shaheen's Arabic retreat for a little while. And Simone Shaheen is like the master, one of the living master oot players that we have in our time right now. Palestinian guy. He's a he's a beast. And yeah, I studied with him for three years and went to college for it. Um and it was great. I yeah, I I really enjoyed it. And Brian is very knowledgeable, and he he does a lot of great things here for the community of people that listen to this kind of music and attend these kind of shows in Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

So we will circle back to music. Okay. Um, but I want to travel back in time uh for a l for a moment. Uh you were born in Florida to Colombian parents. You lived there until about the age of twelve.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

I think yeah, 11 or 12, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Yeah, and then you moved to New York City and then to LA about three years ago. And now I just found out three seconds ago that you moved to Portland.

SPEAKER_03 14:00

Yes, yeah. There's there's a few more changes that happened between there, but more or less that's that's the route. I moved back to Florida a second time on my own just because I felt like I wanted to.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

So a lot of back and forth, and now you're planning to head off to Spain.

SPEAKER_03 14:14

That is the plan.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

So I want to talk about how those places shaped you and how they show up in your creative practice. So starting with Florida, what did it give you as a kid culturally, socially, musically?

SPEAKER_03 14:27

Honestly, Florida I don't think gave me anything of that. And like, I like when I when people ask me where I'm from, I don't even say Florida. I tell them I'm from New York. I don't identify with Florida in almost any way.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

You know, um, and like yeah, I usually just tell people I'm from New York because I my you know I had my coming of age, my the most formative years were here in New York. Yeah, like when I was when I was living in Florida, it was I was very young, like up to age 12. Like I was, you know, just doing like little kids stuff, watching TV, playing video games, and I was into sports. I played a lot of tennis. Um and uh yeah, I really started to form my I think identity or and discover the things that I really like moving to New York. And at first I hated it. My mom had a big big part of it making that decision, but I'm glad she did because yeah, it definitely shaped everything as to who I am now. If uh growing up here in New York, it was a great experience, you know, as a as a kid, as a teenager, a preteen, like the freedom you have, like, and and that's right around when I got into skateboarding and and and yeah, traveling around the city as a kid and skateboarding with a group of friends. That is that was the coolest thing ever, I think, for for me up at least, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah, that that's also when you really seriously started um playing the guitar.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

Yeah, well, yeah, around around then I picked up skateboarding and guitar like around the same time. But my uh the main obsession was skateboarding at the time. And the guitar I kind of had it like in the background, but I wasn't really taking it too seriously at the time. I was still more into skating, but I one of my fondest memories was traveling around New York City, different boroughs with my friends and getting on the train and seeing all the street musicians on the subway, and that really impacted me. I remember like there was this one guy that would play guitar and sing, and he would post up somewhere on like Grand Central. Sometimes we'd see him, and other times on like 51st in the subway. And he would always recognize us because we'd always be kind of, you know, just some some kids with their skateboards passing by, and we'd kind of talk to him and he'd talk to us. And I remember one time he was just like, give me a list of uh some skateboarding tricks that you guys know, like some names, and I'll write a song. So next time I see you, I'll sing it to you. And and yeah, I remember that being really cool. We never ended up like seeing him again afterwards, but but just the fact that he offered was pretty neat.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

New York moment for sure.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

But yeah, but yeah, but seeing all the buskers on the train, that had a huge impact on me. And I still like, you know, when I lived here, I would miss my train just to see people perform. And you would see all different kinds of musicians on the train. I would see people from Mali playing the African Kora. I was really obsessed with this one guy that was playing banjo uh off Bedford Avenue for a little for a little while, and you would just see some great acts, and I think that's really what kind of like started sparking my curiosity towards musicianship and just busking and that kind of lifestyle. So they kind of slowly kind of skateboarding and music kind of like grew together at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Now, LA is a very different nervous system than New York. What shifted there in your pace, your sound, your day-to-day creativity?

SPEAKER_03 17:36

Just until recently, like I started to be able to make good money from gigs in LA, and there's better paying gigs over there, I think. Um not to say they're not in New York, but I don't know why it didn't really happen for me in New York. I was in school and I was busy, you know, studying and and working and doing other things. And when I moved to LA, and I kind of like all my, I guess, all the hard work and all those years that you're like putting in work in silence and like not really showing off what you're building, it finally kind of manifested when I moved to LA and fell into a great community of like diaspora people and Arabic people. Also, I think the fact that I was maybe one out of five ood players in LA that had a big part to do a big part of it. And also, like, there's ood players, but like I think I'm a very unique ood player because I have a different background and I kind of blend ood with like other things. It's not just like very, it's not like just traditional music. I blend it with my own style and I come from a you know a Western background, and so I approach it in a different direction while still trying to honor its traditions and keep and be honest with it, but still like want to like add my taste.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

What did Colombia represent to you as a kid and has that changed over time?

SPEAKER_03 18:50

Colombia, you know, like I I I feel like I'm a fake Colombian, you know. I have like why is that I I don't know. I just I just I haven't really fully like like found my Colombian identity. I don't think I've really tried too hard to look for it either, though. You know, I like I would go there during this during the summers as a kid and hang out with you and and have a great time. And and yeah, I went to school there for a little bit. We went to the Newman School. But yeah, I like I say I tell people I'm Colombian, but I don't I don't really feel like I know my culture as a Colombian too well. I don't I don't I haven't really like emerged myself in that identity. I think I should. I think it'd be healthy to do it, you know. I love like cumbia music and stuff like that. I've even tried to incorporate that into my music as well. Maybe the elements of like some musical forms like cumbia, I think that's kind of like a way in. A way in. Yeah. Like instruments like the guero and and la gaita, yeah, yeah. Those are beautiful sounding instruments, and I would love I try to incorporate those into those sounds in my music, but yeah, I haven't fully dived into that identity yet. I'm I I have like a stronger identity towards Spanish culture for whatever reason. I'm really interested in like Andalucía and like that mix of like Arabic and flamenco and and North African. And I feel like by just by being Colombian, it makes sense that I have an identity towards that side of the world because you know, we were conquered by Spain and the Moors ruled Spain for many years. And I'm pretty sure if I looked into it, I probably realized that I have some Moorish blood or some Arab blood just from being Colombian. You know, when I go to Morocco, when I went to Morocco, everybody thought I was Moroccan. I'm like, no, I'm Colombian, and and yeah. So yeah, I guess that's a long way to say that I I I need to honor, I haven't quite honored my Colombian identity as much as I should.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

I think part of it maybe, I don't know, when you came there as a kid, you were always like the little kid with the American accent. Yeah. Um yeah. I still am. You you even worse. I feel like your Spanish has gotten worse.

SPEAKER_03 21:07

You're probably right. You're probably right.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Or or no, no, I should say it's probably like it stopped. It stopped at like eight years.

SPEAKER_03 21:14

I I my vocab of Spanish stopped at like a sixth grade level.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Which, you know, it's kind of cute. But I I mean I get it.

SPEAKER_03 21:22

Like in terms of like blending in and and being part of the culture, it's and like just like you, I go there and people can know they know instantly I'm American without even saying a word. They take one look at me and they just profile the hell out of me. They're like, Yeah, this guy's American, look how he's dressed. Exactly. You know, and I don't even think I'm dressed too American, but like they just it's I don't know, I'm a light skin complexion.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

I mean, everything is like so cookie cutter there. I feel like anything that deviates, even when I go back, like people know I live abroad, just by what I'm wearing.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

So yeah, it's it's very, very obvious.

SPEAKER_03 21:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

I get that.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

But I I definitely would like to spend some time there and now as a Older as an adult and try to associate more of that identity because it'd be it'd be good good for me. You know, you never know what what side of myself I will discover.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

So when you used to land in Bogota as a kid, what was the first Alejandro ritual?

SPEAKER_03 22:15

Oh, easy, yeah. Go to um other like uh get like go to Kreps, that restaurant, or go to Viva and get the Carazonas de Pollo.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Um you have to explain that because people don't know what the hell that means.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

The Carazonas de Pollo, they're uh chicken hearts.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Right. So my mom has a restaurant.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

My mom, your grandma, has a restaurant in Bogota. It's a Brazilian restaurant, and I guess uh chicken hearts are like part of the menu. And you loved them. Yeah. You still do?

SPEAKER_03 22:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

And I I have a great memory of us both being obsessed with chicken hearts and eating them together.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

I wish you wouldn't say that, you know. Now everyone knows, but I actually don't I don't love chicken hearts. It was a very big mistake.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

Well, I mean, the second I think your mom told us both that they were actual hearts from the chicken. I don't think we comprehended that.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

No, we thought they were like chicken shaped, like a heart.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

Yeah, like like like chicken dinos, you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were fine with it. I was not. I was very disgusted. And then I've never had a chicken heart since then. That's so when you think of home nowadays, what's the first place that comes to mind?

SPEAKER_03 23:27

Wow. Um fuck. I think I'm still searching for that right now. Right now I'm in like in between in this weird like limbo transitional period of my life where I just left this great life that I had for myself, that I built for myself in LA for three years and saw my dream start to flourish there and come to true, come to life, and decide to just practice detachment and give that all up in pursue of this new idea that I became obsessed with about living abroad in Spain and doing. I I told myself if I can live in the two most expensive cities in the States, New York and LA, and be able to do what I was doing in LA, why can't I do that in Spain? That's kind of how that started. And and yeah, right now I'm in Portland trying to manifest uh this dream of moving to Spain and start a life for myself there. So right now, yeah, I feel like I am almost like homeless right now. I don't have like a center.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

I mean, it's either pick a place or just keep traveling and see what clicks. I don't know, maybe it's a balance.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

Maybe it's a balance. I mean, I I've always romanticized this idea of like this like nomad traveling musician that like just it's almost like a uh a traveling bard, you know, the mystical like idea of um of this like image of this like musician that just goes to troubadour. Troubadour, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like just goes around to different countries and picks up stories and travels around and then tells people different stories of their of their encounters. I've always romanticized that that idea. And so I feel like me going to Spain is me doing that.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

So moving on to your day-to-day life, what routines and maybe even little rituals get you into your best creative wavelength?

SPEAKER_03 25:21

Fallen into a healthy, disciplined day-to-day routine helps me if I'm like too up and down with how my day goes, then I feel like I have ADHD, and so therefore I need things to be like almost like regular, you know, like regular activities that I know that like are happening every day. I need I need structure. I can't function without structure, which is weird because I feel like I have no structure at the same time. I feel like I'm most creative early in the morning. Um and for me it's just like I just have to start doing something, like either record something, record anything, and then mess around with it, play over it, play around with it. And the biggest challenge for me is to just allow myself to just experiment, you know, don't overthink whatever it is that you're doing, just experiment, just go with the flow and kind of touch on it a little bit each day. So I'll start off with one idea in the morning and just let everything come out, even if it makes no sense, just put it all out there, and then the next day I'll kind of like revisit it and listen to listen back on it and kind of give it some form or maybe add things to it. And it's just like every day that I kind of like just nudge things a little bit here and a little bit there, then I start to kind of see like the structure of like an idea start to kind of like reveal itself, just trying to like push yourself to make something every day, even though it may not make any sense when you're doing it.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Do you call it practice?

SPEAKER_03 26:50

For me, practice used to be just with my instruments learning the ood or learning a song or learning a piece or or or practicing some kind of exercise. Um, and that's great, but I feel like in terms of like creating like a song or or or something new or a musical idea, like you just have to allow yourself to just let everything you know go and just just like whatever comes out comes out and not be super judgmental about anything that you do and just let it kind of like over time evolve and kind of reveal itself. And that's been that's been tough because I I think I like was paralyzed by perfectionism for a little bit going to music school and and and studying music, you know, I think a proper way, kind of like you kind of fall into like that almost like perfectionism craftsmanship type of thing because you're trying to like get good at your instrument and you're trying to like you know perform at uh really high level of musicians musicianship. And when it comes to creating and and making songs and and and creating art, that has nothing to do. That's not gonna help you in in many ways, I think. Yeah, um, it's more just kind of like just remember how to play. Just like just go back to like when you were a kid and allow yourself to just to play and have fun. And then if you find something that you liked and just go with it. Go with it.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Well, I played piano for many years, as you know, and um I feel like my relationship to practice was like literal repetition, like getting it right, getting the notes right, getting the fingers right, getting the tempo right. Um, and it like it's so much more. I was reading the other day in another context that repetition can actually be a little more creative than that, that it can be meditative, that you can enter kind of a trance where you inhabit the music. So there are other ways into that space. Oh, for sure, for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:39

I mean, repetition I think is is a big part of any kind of like art, you know, just getting in the habit of sitting down and practicing your instrument and understanding a new piece that you're working on. Yeah, I mean, if you can do repetition is is key to kind of just getting better at anything. Playing as like enjoying the act of playing is for me is a very meditative state that it puts me in, and it kind of like eases my mind. I'm focused on what I'm doing, and I kind of like forget that anything is happening around me. And so it kind of clears my head, it censors me. I used to get the same feeling from skateboarding because you're like you're very focused on what you're doing, and it's almost like an escape, you know. It's almost like for me, it's an escape. And so when I when I'm constantly doing it, if I I could spend I used to spend 12 hours a day, six hours a day, eight hours a day just playing, you know, and and I'm realizing like holy, I'm not doing anything. I'm not I I didn't do anything today, I just played today, and like it's not that there's nothing wrong with that, but like I think what what I should be doing is recording myself and like making something out of the plane, not just playing just to play.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:45

That's nice and that has its time and place, but if I'm doing it every day and it's consuming my entire day and I'm like forgetting to feed myself.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

The ood is an ancient instrument, as you mentioned, about 1300 years old in its documented medieval form. But your very millennial persona is doed with the ood. And you also very much inhabit the urban influence of skateboarding culture. How consciously are you playing with that contrast? And what does it let you do?

SPEAKER_03 30:25

I'm not playing with that consciously super hard right now, but I am aware that I'm not just like any other ood player, like I definitely add way more to it than your average ood player. I'm playing electric ood and I add effects to it, and I have a loop pedal, and I layer my ood, like five layers of ouds going or going, you know, in sound. And I have a drum machine and and I have a sampler, and sometimes I'll record the sounds from my skateboard and add like the sound of the wheels or the sound of the the the ollie from this from the snap when you pop the board on the concrete and use that as like the kick drum to a track. Um so I'm just trying to experimenting, and like I said, I'm allowing myself just to experiment and be me, and I'm kind of like finding my own sound and and developing my own my own thing. That's what the dude of the ood is. It's it's kind of just like this persona that I've kind of built up trying to find out who who I am by based on the things I like.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

And the name just came to you?

SPEAKER_03 31:26

So the name came from when I first was learning how to play oood. I was in this band called Espejismo, and we were doing some shows around Brooklyn, and there was this photographer in this music scene that I was a part of at the time, and I think his name was Thomas, Thomas Ignatius. It's been a while, I haven't heard from him in a long time. But yeah, he took some photos of us one day, and he just happened to just, you know, baptize me with that with that name.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

You're the dude with the ood.

SPEAKER_03 31:49

That's what he said. That's perfect, and it just stuck it's perfect. Yeah, it really just stuck, and people really seem to like that name, and it's become like my whole identity. And it's kind of scary a little bit too when something becomes your whole identity because it's just like, well, now you stick with it. And if you if you're not that, who the fuck are you?

SPEAKER_00 32:08

I think it's just a part of you, it's not your whole self. I also feel like in performance contexts, we all have to kind of have that persona, whether it has a name or not. Yeah, it's a performance. So you know, something else comes out, it's not just your regular, you know, day-to-day life, yeah. So when you release music under Dude with Oude, what's the world you want listeners to enter?

SPEAKER_03 32:30

I'm still tweaking and kind of like seeing where it goes, but ideally I want it to be. I have some dance elements to it, I have some hip-hop elements to it, I have some flamenco elements to it, I have the Arabic elements to it, um, and I have some very ambient synth drones elements to it. I want it to be like like a like an experience in terms of like um you sit down and I take you on this journey of Andalusian roots and this like fusion of flamenco-Arab like musical forms, and and I think of like the gypsies that came from like um Rajasthan, India, and they migrated all the way down through uh Morocco, through North Africa into the south of Spain. So I wanted to kind of like replicate the journey that Los Gitanos kind of did and and tell a story of of its ancient roots, but also like with a modern twist, which is me and my skateboarding identity, and and for me it's not so much what how I want somebody to interpret it. I like I'm trying to not think of it that way because when you start trying to make something for somebody else, I think you tend to tend to make the worst kind of stuff. Just make whatever that is that you like and if it feels right to you, and and if it resonates with somebody, that's great. And if it doesn't, so what? That's fine. Yeah, so what? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

So what's your relationship to the internet and social media as a musician? Is it a tool, a necessary evil, or creative playground?

SPEAKER_03 34:04

I think it's a necessary evil, maybe. It's definitely a tool. I mean, it's all those things, it just depends how you you know frame it for yourself. To really get discovered these days, you have to kind of be a content creator. Um and when I first moved to LA, I was doing a lot of that and very little music. I was just making videos and not really focusing on music, and I burnt myself out that way. And result, I got I met all these great people and I had people reaching out to me, and I got booked all these gigs through that those, like that year that I just did content. When it came time to play, I was like, the music is not there. Like, I can't.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

You're exhausted.

SPEAKER_03 34:40

I was not only exhausted, but I wasn't happy with what I was playing because I hadn't fully developed my music yet.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:48

And because I was making content, I was like just making like 30-second ideas to satisfy the algorithm, you know. But then come a live show, I had to fill up an hour and a half, two hours, sometimes even three, and it's like I don't have the material for that, you know. And so I stopped doing content, and I just have been focusing on live shows and developing my live performance. And it's it's I'm gonna start, you know, doing the other now, doing the opposite now, now doing the content because now I have some music. Now I have the music, now I have the sound, now I have a better image of how I am, you know, I want my music to s to sound like and and and be fully developed. It's it's tough because I I you know it's I it's I don't think anybody is you know comfortable speaking in front of a camera in the very beginning and and you're exposing yourself and you're being very vulnerable. But yeah, we live, we live in the in 2026, so you have to kind of if you want people to hear your music, you kind of have to, you know, make that that kind of sense.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

You have to find the balance too. Yeah. Also between like what you put out there and your expectations of how it will perform, and there's all these things, right? It's all those things. So once you put something out there, then you're like on the platform and then you're kind of looking at the other stuff and you're wasting a little bit of time. It's like impossible almost. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:11

Yeah, and and if you're doing it all yourself, then it's even way more work and it's all it's all me, really. I don't have like a team or anything.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

All right, so to round things out, I want to go back in time again and share something else that I remember about you as a kid. Something that expands our little hive card incident, but in a good way, I promise. Yeah. So when you were little, your toys weren't just toys, they all had names. They all lived in this ongoing, evolving universe that you would bring to life every time you would sit down to play alone for hours.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

Yeah, I'm a sepsis person.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

You'd make these elaborate plots and the voices and the personalities and all the real drama between all these toys. And it always struck me because I didn't play like that. I would daydream for sure a lot. Mostly put my creativity into writing, writing stories that I could go back and edit and make them perfect. But with you, um, it was more like the imagination was the point. It lived in the moment and then it vanished. But your kind of world-building muscle was getting stronger every time.

SPEAKER_03 37:30

You know, I yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

And I think that was a start of your creative practice. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_03 37:36

I I yeah, I I've never heard it like that, but like, yeah, that makes a hell of a lot of sense. Like, that's yeah, a hundred percent, one hundred percent. Like, I yeah, world building is totally accurate. That was my form of daydreaming, and that's that was my form of kind of like I guess making my ideas into reality was was was plain of these stuffed animals that I had and giving them all identities and characters and and having plots for them, and and every day every day was a different episode.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Yeah. So but you would sit down and like you didn't think about this in advance. It would just kind of happen.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

Yeah, I didn't ha yeah. I mean, I I think there was maybe a couple like themes, stories that like I had already, you know, plotted out and plotted out or or did, and that was just that was just a continuation of that, you know, kind of like uh almost like a telenovela, like you know like a soap opera.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Like a soap opera. It was very soap opera. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_03 38:33

Well, you know, at the time, I we when we were in Columbia, like we know so your your your mom and my grandma, they were all watching soap operas. And so I remember getting some of my ideas from those soap operas. Like there was one, oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

And they were so dramatic.

SPEAKER_03 38:46

Because the soap operas are dramatic. Yeah, you know, and so they were and there's all these guns and there's killing, and so I added all those elements to my my trail. Yeah, to the puppets. And you know what's funny about that is that years later, like this is maybe like five years ago, like I was I I used to run a DIY music venue out of my apartment in Bushwick, and we had a puppeteer act come, and it was great. And he rebuilt this whole stage and he had these puppets, and then when he came, he's just like, I need uh uh somebody from the audience to help me for one of the sessions, and nobody wanted to do it. And I don't want to do it either. I mean, I'm just like I forgot all about this side of me. I totally forgot that I had this side in me. Wow, and since nobody did it, I'm like, I I guess it has to be me because it's my I'm the host. And so I when he calls me, I go behind the stage and he gives me the puppet, and I'm like, so I'm quiet, I'm shy.

SPEAKER_02 39:33

But the second I like put the sock pop it out into the into the face of the world, the second I emerge, I emerge with like the scream, yeah, and I just start going.

SPEAKER_03 39:48

And like the I hate to say this, and I'm not gonna say it, but like his act was so bad, it was pretty bad. But then the second my character was introduced, oh my god, laughed. A whole new like people got invested, and I stole the show, I stole the show with my with with my my sock character, and and we just had this like we were just riffing back and forth with each other, and I remember just being like upset with him because his puppet wasn't even facing my puppet. And I I was just like, What do you look at me when you when you're talking to me? Yeah, and like and my buddy who's like in the audience who like studied theater for years, he was just like, dude, you like outperformed him.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Calm down.

SPEAKER_03 40:31

Yeah, and and I had so much fun doing it, and I was just like, oh my god, I missed my calling. I should have been a puppeteer.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Honestly, like, I don't know, you should think about this. I'm not, I'm just saying. I am just saying. I could be part of the picture. I could be I remember your games, I used to watch, and I was never part of them, really. Like it was you sat down alone with all like the toys. Sometimes you would borrow one of my dolls.

SPEAKER_03 40:56

I needed, yeah, I needed a couple of dollars.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

You needed a girl character, I guess. And yeah, it was fascinating. I've never seen anything like it.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

I remember I needed a mermaid, specifically my I had a mermaid.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

I have a big mermaid, remember?

SPEAKER_03 41:06

And I was using your mermaid for a while, then I think I moved back to the United States, and I remember like having my dad take me to the toy store and like shopping for a Barbie mermaid, and him being so concerned that like his son is playing with dolls. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

Did you get one? Did you get one?

SPEAKER_03 41:26

I think, I think, yeah, I did get one, but like, but my mom had to like kind of like intervene and and like calm him down because he didn't want to buy me the fucking mermaid.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 41:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

You had to explain, you know, it's actually, you know, I need to How could I explain that?

SPEAKER_03 41:39

I was like six years old. You know, I'm just like, I need I know what do you mean? I gotta have this this mermaid. Like, what is there to explain? Like, I didn't know better.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Do you still cultivate that no outcome space now where you just play uh and it's just exploration?

SPEAKER_03 41:55

Now I'm at the point where like, well, okay, well, if I want to take my music to the next level and keep on developing my crafts and keep on evolving uh and and uh uh and discovering who I am as a musician and artist, then I have to start thinking more in terms of like having structure and I guess an outcome. And for me, the outcome is my life performance. So I'm really putting a lot of attention into my life performance.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

You could answer that question a whole bunch of ways and like play and ephemeral exploration, all that stuff is very positive. Obviously, it has its place, but it's also very satisfying to have a product sometimes, to have something that you put out and it's there, you know, you have something to show for your design.

SPEAKER_03 42:39

Of course, of course. I think yeah, that's important. Especially, I mean, if you want to just be a have music as a hobby, then yeah, then it's fine. You don't have to need any of that. But I'm trying to to go a little more than that because yeah, I I I I I have some big dreams and I have some some goals that I want to do. But and when it comes to the creative element, then you have to just allow yourself to just play. Just play, but like record everything. Yeah, record it, play and just allow yourself to have fun. And then now it's recorded, you can go back, listen to it, dissect it, be like, oh, this makes sense over here, and then none of this is all this is nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. Oh, this makes sense over here. Let's try to develop these two things, maybe even glue them together and start to kind of like carve out, you know, a shape and a form, like almost if you were a sculptor. Yeah. And and that's been that's been my approach right now. And I've been really hyped and excited about it. And so that's I've been I'm falling into my obsession stage again. I didn't realize how obsessive I was until we started talking about my how obsessive.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

Yeah, I'm sorry to tell you. Yeah, you're very obsessive. You have a history. Yeah. Well, you start it with your obsession with Ninja Turtles, you know, it's everything is connected, as I said. You know. So finally, you had a birthday three days ago. And I've been asking millennials lately how they are feeling about aging. I'm actually kind of obsessed with the subject. Because as an aging millennial myself, I'm still figuring out what it means.

SPEAKER_03 44:05

But you don't age.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

Me?

SPEAKER_03 44:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

Well, I mean, on like in on the in the chronology of time, I do age.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

It doesn't seem like it.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Yeah, well, you don't. You don't either. But that's again what they say about millennials. So I'm still figuring out what it means to be on a wildly different timeline than my parents, for sure, but also my older siblings as well. Um, it feels like my world and the world of a lot of my peers, like you're four and a half years younger than I am, and people my age, we're kind of moving at a different rhythm. We are redefining what it means to be at a certain age while at the same time we're also trying to metabolize all these expectations. And it's kind of a wild ride. So, how are you feeling personally, creatively, as you step into this new year of your life?

SPEAKER_03 44:59

Oh, I have so much fire in me. Like, I feel like I'm just getting started.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:03

Like, I yeah, I I mean, I've since since since I've been in my 30s, my 30s have been the best years of my life. And I think that there it's all it's only been getting better.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:12

So I I concerns about the future? What concerns? Everything's going great. Um, and I just feel like if I'm consistent with the things that I want to do and I'm happy doing the things I want to do, then why can't I have all the things that I want?

SPEAKER_01 45:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:26

Um, so I'm I I think the future is looking bright. And I think that like, yeah, these, these, these crazy timelines that like I think society and parents and family kind of like impose on you are just like so unrealistic and so like you live on your soul's timeline, not on somebody else's or on society's expectations that you gotta have these things. I don't think that I hate that bullshit. And I I've I do my hardest to kind of escape that narrative, and and that's why I think I have always tended towards like most outcast activities like skateboarding and even flamenco music is like that got accepted as an art, but before flamenco those were like these like you know, street musicians that were like thieves and gypsies and like really frowned upon. And I somehow identify with all that and really like it. And and so I yeah, I try to really not be a part of that that whole kind of narrative and society, societal form. I don't think that's that's healthy, and I don't think that none of that is true. I think I think you have to live live to what makes sense for you and the lot and the what you know and live the life that you want to live. You can, yeah, everybody's life is different, and there's no and why would you want to be like anybody else? Like when I hear advice from people that like I are living lives that I wouldn't ever want to live, it's like why would I why would I take your advice? Like you're doing things that I would never want to do. Like, no.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

And why are you giving me unsolicited advice? Also, like why?

SPEAKER_03 46:49

I hate that. Like I said, it comes back down to people imposing their own fears onto you because they're not really because they didn't have the courage to kind of go after what they wanted to do, it seems like to me. That's what it seems like to me. And so I I'm gonna continue this lifestyle that I have, which is a very radical lifestyle because to an outsider's perspective or to a normie's perspective, it's it's it's there's there's no safety. There's but I think I think safety is an illusion. I'm very happy and I feel very secure and and and I hope that my lifestyle inspires people to kind of like go after what they want to do and not be conformed by other people's opinions.

SPEAKER_00 47:33

Well, and with that, Alejo. It was a pleasure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you again for being here today.

SPEAKER_02 47:39

Thank you for having me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

If this conversation resonated with you, follow the show wherever you listen and find me on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Substack at Rusey Hive. If someone came to mind for the hive, send guest suggestions to guests at rusihive.com. And if you just want to say hi, it's hello at rusihive.com. Original music and sonic identity for the Rusey Hive by Ant Food. Until next time, let your life be a creative act.