DOPE ART HERE: Love Is All Around

Remember when finding good 📺 🎥 🎵 wasn’t a second job? 

We do.

We're your plug for Dope Art Here, served fresh monthly 😘

Welcome to the Dope Art Here experience: a quick mind quencher & snack for your artistic tastes.

WE CURATE ART AS DOPE AS YOU.

This month's spotlights!

• START A UNIVERSAL LOVE TREND: Andrew has been listening to SAULT to tune his vibration + drown out the noise of the world.
• A NEW CLASSIC: Adrienne wants you to know about THE HALF OF IT, a film she believes should be a staple on every coming-of-age love story list.
• PEACH SYRUP + BERRY COBBLER: Dara reminisces on Gil Scott-Heron's A VERY PRECIOUS TIME and the memories it unlocks.
• VIBE CENTRAL: Justin puts us on to how he relaxes when alone...90s R&B vibes curated by Bobby Nsenga

Remember when it was easy to find really stunningly good TV shows, and it didn’t feel like an endless scroll?

We do.

We’re a producer, an actor, a comedy aficionado, a writer. 

(Most of us have worn most of those hats, so don’t bother trying to suss out who is who.)

We looked at the broken systems in entertainment and said, we want to see something else.

We want to highlight and promote the shows, movies, videos, music, books that show top talent and actually make us feel… transformed. 

To see a way forward when we feel blocked, or a perspective that we probably missed.

That’s what we’re here to do.

Where do you fit in?

When you join us, you’ll receive a curated email of art to transform and expand you.  

And you can hit us back with the shows, movies, music, and more that changed you. The ones you love. The ones other people might have missed.

Let’s cultivate an ethos-driven creative ecosystem for all art and create an inclusive, inspired global community.

With love,

The Curators (Adrienne, Andrew, Dara + Justin)

MUSIC: SAULT (START A UNIVERSAL LOVE TREND)

I don’t know how y'all are feeling these days…but I’m feeling the world needs more LOVE…in every facet of our lives. So SAULT has been on my mind and heart of late. And by of late, I mean SAULT has been one of my favorite musical groups of the last 5 years. 

SAULT (which stands for START A UNIVERSAL LOVE TREND) is an anonymous musical collective out of the UK. They are as prolific in output - they released five albums simultaneously in November 2022 - as they are versatile in style. Their music touches funk, soul, R&B, gospel, rock + orchestral…crafting a wholly original blend of sounds unmistakably influenced by the African diaspora. SAULT is unapologetic in their intention…to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, using their artistry in service of their Creator. 

This is what I turn to, when I need to drown out the noise and tune my vibration. 

My favorite SAULT album (currently): UNTITLED (GOD) (2020) / (Bandcamp / YouTube / Spotify / Apple Music)

Their latest release: ACTS OF FAITH (2024) / (Bandcamp / YouTube / Spotify / Apple Music)

I share with you in the spirit of peace and universal LOVE. - Andrew

Since it is the season of LOVE, we wanted to share a new romantic classic...it's an adaptation of a classic play for our modern age...showing once again, that everybody wants to dance with somebody who loves them...

FILM: THE HALF OF IT (2020) / written and directed by Alice Wu

This is not a love story. At least not one where anyone gets what they want. I’m not spoiling it - our heroine tells us so in the first five minutes of my favorite underappreciated film.

I have been raving about The Half of It since it came out in 2020, and now that I have an online platform, y'all gonna hear about it.

Ellie, a bright high school senior born in China but raised in Squahamish, WA, runs a side hustle writing essays for her classmates. Things get complicated when a jock hires her to write a letter to the girl he’s in love with—who Ellie's in love with, too. This clever adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac is smart, funny, and wholly unexpected. I'm baffled it isn’t a staple on every coming-of-age love story list. Missed it? It's worth revisiting. The film constantly surprises with its twists on who might win the girl's heart. This Valentine’s Day, it serves as a defiant love letter to our better selves, reminding us we deserve more than what's immediately in front of us (hello, 2025!). It may not be a classic love story, but it’s one where we get what we need—and feel good about it. - Adrienne

WATCH: THE HALF OF IT (Netflix)

Our teenage years are such a formative time, especially for our musical taste. According to Mark Joseph Stern, "researchers have uncovered evidence that suggests our brains bind us to the music we heard as teenagers more tightly than anything we’ll hear as adults—a connection that doesn’t weaken as we age." This month, Dara shares a song that unlocks some core memories for her...

MUSIC: A VERY PRECIOUS TIME by Gil Scott-Heron + Brian Jackson

Lots of people know Gil Scott Heron as the revolutionary poet and activist behind “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” People who did not grow up with him in his prime might be surprised to learn about his softer side, but it’s how I was first introduced to him: helping my mother slip off her boots at the end of a long day while she warbled about A Very Precious Time and little Bobby Smith. 

This track is a springtime crush. Misty-eyed longing and homesickness and warm love. 

I’ve always thought Gil (I saw him live once, so I call him Gil) sounded like my Georgia Grandpa if he sang when he was alive. 

This song sounds like peach syrup and berry cobbler dripping down my heart. 

It was the soundtrack to my first walk down the river when I went away to college. 

It’s the soundtrack to my very precious times. 

It’s track 3 on WINTER IN AMERICA (1974) (YouTube / Spotify / Apple Music). There’s some revolution there. Some funny. And some soft too. I hope you’ll check it out. ~Dara

LISTEN: A VERY PRECIOUS TIME by Gil Scott-Heron + Brian Jackson (YouTube / Spotify / Apple Music)

This newsletter is all about curation...we're sharing art that has made us feel in the hopes that it might do the same for you. For our final selection, we want to share with you a curator who vibe curation has proven invaluable to Justin's wind-down routine...

MUSIC: Bobby Nsenga

Oh, HOW to take care of you? How to send love to a reader? Well, let's start here... I'll be vulnerable about how I relax when alone: my favorite YouTube RnB playlist DJ, Bobby Nsenga.

Bobby, an ex-football player who radiates peace, is the chillest dude I've never met, and it shines thru the screen.

I discovered him in 2023, before he was certified fresh with 1M+ fans, and before it was absolutely normal to curate mixes on YouTube while filming yourself (he sells out chill tours now).

Mixing lingering, wide-angle shots of himself in idyllic, plant-filled apartment living rooms while drinking enticing beverages, bopping to music slowly while passively adjusting 808s and/or laptops, Bobby has been delivering bomb-ass curated playlists for awhile now. If you dream of blasting 90s RnB in a dope yet affordable AirBNB, this is your mf guy. - Justin

LISTEN/WATCH MORE: searching for peace of mind - RnB playlist

That is our spotlight curation this month...4 pieces of art that made us feel that we wanted to share with y'all.

We wanted to leave you with a quote that resonated with us. Author Ursula K. Le Guin speaks on the conflict between the profit motive and the goals of art. Something for us all to keep in mind, especially in this age of algorithmic curation and A.I. creation.

"Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art...Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words....the name of our beautiful reward isn’t profit. Its name is freedom." - Ursula K. Le Guin (2014)

So remember...you matter, your voice matters, your creativity matters. We need you to put your energy in the world, if only to help us make sense of ourselves.

This isn't a one-way street, it's a conversation. Email us at yo@dopearthere.com to let us know what you think of our picks, and share your unsung faves.

Hit subscribe to join us for this ride.

With love + respect, your friends...

The Curators