(laughs). My opinion is…well I’ll tell you what’s lacking in those shows. The
producers of those shows aren’t tattoo artists. So I disagree with having
people who are not in the culture produce something about the culture because then they can control the image of the culture. Like what they did with
hip hop or rap music. I don’t want to sound crazy but you know that most labels aren’t owned by black people. They’re owned by someone who is not in
the culture…right? And they control what type of music they put out. They’re
not in the culture but they feed the people whatever they want to feed them.
They can make it negative, they can make it positive, they can make it whatever they want. You can turn on the radio right now and know that every
artist is not on a black owned or run company so that means it’s owned by
somebody else outside of the culture controlling what they play on the radio.
Which results in what? Bullshit. That’s how I see TV shows. The artists that
are on the show are good people. You can’t knock them for taking an opportunity and running with it. Who else is going to do it? People will still watch
it. So I don’t knock the artist part of it. I’m helping with things behind the
scenes. I do my best to make it less fucked up than it is. I only have but so
much say so in it. I can say this is not the way you should do it but they’re
going to do it the way they wanna do it. At least there’s somebody there to
try to smooth it out a little bit. I think the only way it’s going to be better is to
have tattoo artists as the producers of these shows.
Do you feel that these shows can still help to inspire up-and-coming
artists of various ethnic backgrounds?
There’s a difference. For example if I was looking at Miami Ink or LA Ink I’d
be motivated to become a tattoo artist. If I look at one of the black shows I
may be more attracted to the fame they get. I hate to sound stereotypical
but most of us grew up without a father figure so what the producers will do
is they’ll feed you attention. The same attention you lacked as a child they’ll
give you as an adult and they eat it up. And while they make all the money,
the artists get the little checks. They give you fame but they don’t give you
the money part of it. Fame is really attention. So that’s all they’re doing on
that aspect, it’s just a good hustle. You know what I’m sayin? But it can be
changed in a positive way. I’m helping out with Black Ink Chicago. What I
was there to witness with my own eyes was only positivity. I hope it stays
that way. I see what Ryan is doing and they seem to be some standup guys.
It looks like it’s going to be something completely different from the New
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