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by JR Valrey, The Minister of Information
The legendary revolutionary rapper from the Coup, the “Sorry to Bother You” filmmaker, and now television screenwriter Boots Riley has struck gold again, with his highly anticipated new television series “I’m a Virgo,” which has been premiering to explosive reviews at film festivals all over the world. The thing is, in true revolutionary fashion and in standing with the people, Boots is not promoting “I’m a Virgo” currently because screenwriters represented by the Writers Guild of America union are on strike and he is in solidarity with the collective bargaining strategy.
Check Boots out in this exclusive interview that we did on the strike. During the so-called 50th anniversary of Hip Hop, it is important to remember where we came from. It is even more important to know where we are going. So salute to Boots, the screenwriters, the Oakland teachers, the Banko Brown and Jordan Neely protesters and all banging it out for a better future for average people.
Check out the revolutionary artist Boots Riley in his own words.
JR Valrey: We could not do an interview with you about your new TV series “I’m a Virgo” because screenwriters are on strike. What is this about?
Boots Riley: The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has been in negotiation with AMP TV, which is all of the studios together and trying to organize around things like guaranteed minimums of how many writers are in the room, because right now a lot of those things are run like a machine for profit.
You might as well make sure that writers are not only getting the pay that they need, but that there are a certain amount of writers hired and they get the experience that they need to be able to run shows themselves. The WGA are demanding things like writers being able to visit sets, things like that, that should be easy to give in to but AMP TV is not.
They are also making a demand that (studios) don’t use A.I. to make films, because A.I. is just taking stuff from other writers and smashing it all together and coming up with something; and that thing is not greater than the sum of its parts.
So it is stealing, taking stuff from writers and saying, “Hey, here is this new thing.” Studios haven’t started using them yet, so they are demanding that they don’t use them. There is also a list of a bunch of other things like pay increases and health benefit things, and the WGA is shutting things down. So I’m not promoting anything from the studio right now. We are on strike.
JR Valrey: So you’re on strike until the strike is over?
Boots Riley: Yeah, yeah, of course.
JR Valrey: So I saw you host a panel at the Grand Lake on May 3. Is this just a one-off for your homie Fantastic Negrito?
Boots Riley: What we are doing is trying to create a place for a film scene to happen in Oakland. We got a good turnout today, we have some great films and that will develop into something.
JR Valrey: How could people tune into what you have going on?
Boots Riley: I’m on Instagram: @bootsriley and I’m on Twitter. I’m technically on Facebook but I’m never on there.
JR Valrey, journalist, author, filmmaker and founder of Black New World Media. He is also the editor in chief of the San Francisco Bay View newspaper. He teaches the Community Journalism class twice a week at the San Francisco Bay View newspaper office.
