Designing the ‘kinté cast’

As early as 2006, the intent to develop a “podcast” for kintespace.com was expressed. There were many other things that still remain to be done that did and might possibly prevent the kinté cast from getting out there. However, there is enough with me now to actually lay down some constructive limits and guidelines:

• The “podcast” is called kinté cast.
• The first distributed format of the program will be the MP3 format. What? You haven’t heard of it? A ‘companion’ duplicate of the program will be released on YouTube.com as a one- (or two-) frame video.
• The length of the program will be 30 minutes.
• The primary purpose of the program is to remix the streaming audio presentations already on kintespace.com. There are about 40 streaming audio presentations running now, these are broken into multiple tracks with the correct ID3 information and XML metadata. The kinté cast will make big tracks out of these small tracks.
• The secondary purpose of the program is to introduce new “ambient”-style music beds made by me and others that compliment the spoken words of most of the streaming audio presentations.
• The tertiary purpose of the program is to provide a “radio friendly” version of kintespace.com that could actually be broadcast as a complete show (on real, college radio stations). I’m assuming that radio stations will still be needed in the world—especially in the so-called “developing” world.
• The quaternary purpose of this program is to revitalize my speaking voice (and the voices of others—you know who you are) and expand/strengthen my award-nominated audio production skills. It’s time for kinté space to submit itself to iTunes. There is a whole world of people out there who are functionally illiterate because they can hear English but they can’t read English very well—especially when they are trying to relax. This is a problem (obviously) for people all over the world who do not write or speak English as their first language. And this is a problem for my urban and suburban homies who are supposed to know English but… you know… “Whatever”…

Another important idea behind the primary purpose of the kinté cast is the re-release of content (which might also be called re-purposing). There are excellent passages in essays like “Trey Ellis: The New Black Aesthetic,” “bell hooks: Postmodern Blackness” or “Dr. Ernest N. Emenyonu: Achebe and the Problematics of Writing in Indigenous Languages” that people—even people who consider themselves my personal acquaintance—will never read. So would it not be cool to have a “guest reader” (or me) on the kinté cast reading a few lines from this written material during your morning commute? I think so.

I could also use this format to test the waters of full-blown “audiobook” productions (think of old-school radio dramas—think of Joe Frank). And, by the way, I mentioned that MP3 would be the ‘first’ released format. The means I would re-re-release the same 30-minute program again in an MP4 or video format. What this implies is that these audio programs will be re-purposed into soundtracks for motion-picture shorts. I’m beginning to see what me be doing here: in the Web world you can’t just have one great feature-length extravaganza. You need several small pieces scattered all over… You feel me? No? Okay… I’ll keep working at it… from your friendly-neighborhood experience maker… it’s out of sight, baby… it’s really out of sight…

More notes to self:

• The libsyn.com release can be presented in the kintespace.com monthly cycle.
• There are notes at libsyn.com for releasing on iTunes. Doesn’t look hard…
• Collections of the YouTube.com programs can be re-re-released in the kintespace.com monthly cycle. It appears that I developed kintespace.com “backward” because I released “deep” and small content first (which took years of healthy personal development but little commercial profit)—only to build ‘big’ features on top of it. What “normal” people do in the entertainment business is release a huge feature (often under military-like secrecy) and then build a “community” around that cathedral-like hugeness with the “deep” and small content. We can see this in DVD extras and Web sites that act as companions to feature films. And, of course, we know how the music business did the Web wrong. There will ne no throwing cigarette butts out the window…

One of the most time-consuming and least-respected activity of the development process is working seriously to integrate past work with future work. Finding it impossible to achieve this coherence is an indication of just how terrible the management of a project can be. This is one of the many, calm, cool reasons why I have very little respect for how “advanced” technologies are implemented in the world today. I find it very rewarding to cohere work across several years into one harmonious healthy body. But I have also been stricken with impatience and periods of imbalance—so many of these years of development were quite painful. The assumption here is that the years spent in the fields with kintespace.com since 1998 are about to produce serious harvest. My work here has enriched me personally (and financially) as an IT professional and as an isolated human being but this movement could actually grow beyond that…

Producing high-quality content in vast numbers is very difficult to me. Stevie Wonder is a name of a person that I can remember who capable of such decades-long power. So, for the rest of us, this re-re-releasing concept helps us “buy time” to let us work on our next release (especially as they get bigger and more complex) and still appear active in the public eye at the same time. Also, I understand, very, very, very well that I do not have any significant direct impact on the public—my work is very easy to forget among billions—so what may be a re-re-release to me is a brand new thang for you…

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