61: Massive Attack and Saci Lloyd Are Creating Eutopia

00:36:49.087 --> 00:36:55.787

Christiana Figueres: Making us feel just a little bit uncomfortable enough to make us think rather than just entertain, right? Did you just nudge us over that little bit? You have to, you know, nudging us into making us just a little bit squirm in our seats as we listen or as we watch.

00:37:09.927 --> 00:37:11.267

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): That's the best sort of geek.

00:37:11.567 --> 00:37:18.607

Christiana Figueres: And then, okay, then you engage brain, you engage brain, you go like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what is going on here?

00:37:18.607 --> 00:37:19.067

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): Totally. That's exactly it.

00:37:21.267 --> 00:37:27.587

Paul Dickinson: Well, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to like come out as a bit of a fan here and say, I see it a little bit differently. You know, I actually adore melancholic music. You know, I'm really basically a very kind of happy person, but I adore melancholic music. It has a kind of righteous beauty to it.

00:37:36.967 --> 00:37:51.847

Christiana Figueres: And you know, since I have known Paul, which is a long time, he has always told me that and proved himself because every single piece of music that he chooses to share is always on the melancholy side. And it's always been a question mark for me. So now, Paul, now you're going to explain to us.

00:37:56.267 --> 00:37:57.207

Paul Dickinson: Well, I will explain to you. Actually, Christiana, there's nothing wrong. You know, we all live different ways. But my own experience of preparing for this podcast was listening to some lovely Massive Attack, even listening to one of the people who have been on the show, Aurora, doing a cover of a song. And yeah, I've got tears running down my cheeks. And I think there's a sensibility in some of the music you've produced, a sort of empathetic feeling. I think there's an intensity in the music that makes me not at all surprised that you campaign, actually. I think there's a restless heart in there. And people are little, but music is big, and that heart has been so absent from contemporary debate. And what I really love about it is, the funniest thing I think I've ever heard is Christiana saying, oh, nobody really takes us seriously. And then the musicians saying, nobody really takes us seriously. And you got together, and you made a piece of music together. And I'm taking you together very seriously. It's so wonderful.

00:38:53.667 --> 00:38:54.447

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): That's good to know. That's good to know.

00:38:55.367 --> 00:38:56.927

Christiana Figueres: With tears rolling down your cheeks.

00:38:56.927 --> 00:38:57.287

Paul Dickinson: That's good.

00:38:57.287 --> 00:38:58.567

Clay (podcast producer): With tears.

00:38:58.567 --> 00:38:59.007

Paul Dickinson: Why not? That's good.

00:38:59.547 --> 00:39:00.607

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): That's a winner, man.

00:39:02.087 --> 00:39:04.587

Mark Donne (guest, collaborator): He's chopping onions, isn't he?

00:39:04.587 --> 00:39:06.167

Christiana Figueres: Maybe, maybe.

00:39:06.167 --> 00:39:06.747

Paul Dickinson: No, I'm not. I'm having my heart ripped out, actually. I'm glad about it, and I'm sad about it. And that's possible at the same time.

00:39:13.967 --> 00:39:24.507

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): No, well, you know, I totally, I totally, you know, I am emphalized with that because exactly that's, that's to me, you know, trying to make a piece of music which has that effect on yourself initially. When you're making it, you know, if you're making something that you feel that way about and the other people you hope will sort of share that same feeling. And of course, because over the years, we've, we've worked with so many different collaborators and artists, you know, from, obviously, Sharon Nelson back in the day, Sinead O'Connor, Elizabeth Fraser, the Young Fathers recently. And everyone's got their own voice and their own personalities. And they also bring their own personal history with activism and their own culture with them, you know, where they've been, what's been important to them historically and politically over the years. So it's an evolution for us. We're always changing. We never, you know, we don't have the kind of the, I guess, the convenience of just having our sort of place and knowing our point of views and our opinions. They've been challenged by the people we work with all the time, which keeps, keeps the ground really fertile and keeps you, keeps you honest and keeps you pushing for more because you're learning all the time.

00:40:13.367 --> 00:40:21.587

Christiana Figueres: Well, I tell you, joining you on your latest EP, Utopia, has definitely been an evolution for me. If you think that you're in evolution, it's definitely been an evolution for me. And quite a delightful one, I have to say. So thank you. Thank you again. I know that I have thanked you in private, but thank you again in public for the invitation to join you. But let's talk about that, because I actually don't know the story. Why? This is your first release in four years. You chose three topics, climate change, closure of tax havens and universal income, as the three topics that you really wanted to not just say something about, but actually make very strong political statements with music that backs it up and very strong visuals for all three. I would love to know where did the idea germinate? Was it in Rob's head? Was it in Mark's head? Was it you were both out drinking a beer one night and you both came up with it together? How did it come about, even just the idea? And then I would love for you to walk us through how do you produce that? Because that is not something that happens overnight. The detail that goes into the visuals, the symbolism, the rhythm, the music is just unbelievable. So I would love you to A, tell us about the genesis of the idea, but also just the intricacies of this, the collaboration with the other bands, the animations. I mean, it's just incredible.

00:41:56.887 --> 00:41:57.327

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): Well, yeah. Well, that's a great analysis of it. And, you know, thank you. Thanks. Thanks very much for kind of feeling that it has that impact, you know, and you're noticing all that detail because you're definitely right. There's so much detail that obviously that we often all take for granted when something's presented, you know, as finished. But it kind of came about, I mean, me and Mark, you know, were speaking like a couple of times a week during the start of the lockdown period. And obviously, because we were speaking a lot about our work with the Tindal climate change research group up until that point, because we had a tour planned and we'll talk about that later. But obviously everything, you know, it was just, that was it. Everything stopped overnight, as you know, and we had to rethink. And I totally accepted everything that was happening. We thought, wow, this is a moment, you know, not only for the music industry to maybe re-evaluate itself and the live music industry to re-evaluate the way it sort of, the carbon it produces. But the main thing was the anxiety, the underlying anxiety for what was going to happen next. Not only, not only through the climate change, the climate emergency, the kind of anxiety of that, but through the economic shock that we're about to experience and how to, how we perpetually seem to never resolve these issues. How, is there a way of looking at freeing up money, which is locked away in tax havens that could pay for something like basic income? Are these things real? Are these things, you know, as Mark would say, they just sort of live in the fringes of arguments as if they were slightly radical, but they suddenly seem certainly central. And, you know, I'll let him expand on that.

00:43:29.207 --> 00:43:33.747

Mark Donne (guest, collaborator): No, I just, you've covered most of it actually, but just to say, I mean, we were having conversations. I think we managed to get into a position quite quickly, Rob, where we were sort of sinking our kind of our exercise every day. We were simultaneously sinking it and wasting it by just sort of chatting about everything. And, you know, that kind of feeling of on one hand being quite frightened and insecure and worried about what was going to happen. And at the same time realizing that all of the things that we've been we've been talking about and others have been talking about for at least 10 years, especially in relation to climate emergency and climate change. Well, this moment had arrived where this sort of international hiatus had been imposed on everyone. Everyone had to stop and think and listen. And then simultaneously, you know, the skies are clear and the roads are empty and I can breathe again. And that sort of, I think we were sort of immediately meditating on two things simultaneously, which actually is where the Thomas More, the sort of seminal text comes in, because it's the duality of feeling hope and, oh my God, is this the moment? Is this the kind of, you know, miraculous hiatus that's going to allow us to communicate and change and everyone's going to see the error of their ways, tinged with we generally forget to do the right thing at the right time as a planet. So how do we fuse this moment into something where we can or can we? It's always, I think I'm right, if I'm right in saying this, Rob, we never sort of feel, well, I personally never sort of feel, oh yeah, this is what we will do. It's always an evolution. It's always maybe this or maybe, you know, which is why, you know, I love working with Rob and Massive Attack is because, you know, they're sort of, to me, they're heart, they're sort of, they're collagists, you know, they're collectivists. And so it's just sort of soaked in opportunity.

00:45:14.147 --> 00:45:15.367

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): Absolutely, no, you're totally right. And, you know, I mean, you know, the Thomas More, kind of framing it with Thomas More was something Mark came up with, which really intrigued me because we were talking about these very modern sort of situation, this new situation, this freezing of time and the uncertainty and the anxiety. And then the framing in this something much older and something that was equally as interconnected. And we were like, wow, you know, this is something, isn't it? And as an idea, as you pointed out, collaging is something that we've always done. And so, but it is a question. It's like, can we do this? Would this work? Is it something we could get away with? Is it going to have an impact? Will it be effective? Is it going to be successful as a piece of music, or as a piece of communication? How would it look? And you kind of just, you speculate on it until you start to convince yourself. And then you think, yeah, let's go for it, let's try it. And that's really, I find that's the most exciting moment of any artistic endeavour and any kind of idea of getting involved in something to try and to make either a very small intervention or just to speak up, you know, it's that moment you know it's the thing to do. So we, these things have been in our heads and percolating and materialising all the time and re-evolving. But what was really important here was recognising that we just wanted to be the messengers at this point. You know, we didn't want to deliver it. We could be the delivery mechanism in which people with much deeper thoughts on this could actually send the messages out and transmit.

00:46:38.507 --> 00:46:39.947

Paul Dickinson: That's what Jane Fonda said to us. She said that the famous and great artists are the repeaters. But I do think you're letting yourself off a little bit lightly. I think that you have this, there's some channeling of an intensity of the human spirit, empathy and then need and prioritising that, you know, amongst all these issues. I do salute it.

00:46:59.827 --> 00:47:12.387

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): In terms of the depth of it, I do really defer to Christiana and Guy and Gabrielle and Mark, in fact, for a lot of the concept that went into the words that were used and spoken. In fact, it was one of the reasons why I want to put the animated titles in there, because I felt it had to be, because working with Mario Klingerman, who's the AI coder, who builds what you call these generative adversarial networks, which you feed data into. In this sense, we wanted to do skulls and maps and faces, and try and kind of echo the Thomas More texts. But it had to be hypnotic, and the words had to be drawn over that into the visual. So you were constantly drawn, magnetized to it, to what was being said and never distracted. And that was probably the trickiest part of it, to try and, with all those, you've got music, with lyrics, you've got the words of you guys speaking, you've got the visuals and, you know, it could, in one sense, you could make a mess of that and it could be completely distracting, but I think we just about got away with it.

00:48:02.367 --> 00:48:04.607

Christiana Figueres: Well, I think you more than got away with it. I think it's just so effective.

00:48:07.287 --> 00:48:20.167

Paul Dickinson: Okay, so Rob, Mark, a kind of final question, unless Christiana ends up asking you whether you're Outrage or Optimistic, but my question is this, just looking ahead, you know, what do you see, what are you most excited about? Where do you want to go next with this incredibly fruitful collaboration you've got? What's catching your eye?

00:48:28.587 --> 00:48:40.887

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): Well, I mean, to be honest, we have started rethinking about our work with Tindal and like taking this moment of pause and reflection to think, well, how do you restart our industry alone, you know?

00:48:40.887 --> 00:48:45.487

Paul Dickinson: I mean, sorry, with the Tindal Center, which is just a bunch of brilliant scientists in Norwich.

00:48:45.547 --> 00:48:46.627

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): Exactly. And it is so complicated. It really is. You know, if you start to sort of look at every single layer of it, you know, from audience participation and travel and consumer behavior and then band travel and then the energy requirements and so on and so on, and the waste that's produced, and you start to sort of try to lay that all out in front of you. So, how do you make something like that work? It's really complex and that's why we went to Tindal because they're experts at this stuff and they will, through being able to sort of like help us map out our kind of behavior really and be able to guide us and help us modify and make corrections, hopefully we'll be defined some way of correcting the way the industry works. And one thing that Mark had drawn on very quickly from this when we started researching this is that a lot of this stems, it comes from licensing. You know, you can't really force change in, I mean, we're talking about what we call the Festival Industrial Complex. It's a massive, massive industry. And to try and change that, it's such a stubborn thing with so many barriers because obviously there's lots of vested interests. The first things we try and do is try to remove all the sponsors that shouldn't be there, do you know what I mean? And we've always done that over the years. There's always been a battle to go, well, why are these people got the name of the door here? It's not right, it's not relevant, it shouldn't be taking money from them. And that's always been a challenge. But now the challenge moves into a more, I guess, slightly more targeted approach, looking at how do you license an event if the carbon emissions are at legal levels? How is that possible to license that event? Why is that event getting a license? And we're very aware, and I'm very aware, that there's an industry which I've done very well out of, and we've had a long career, and lots of bands are starting up, and I'm very aware that you don't want to bite the hand that feeds you or seem ungrateful, but I think all the other bands, the newer bands, would be very, very happy to be inheriting an industry which behaved in a much more responsible way. Which had a much better impact. We would have been. If we'd been given the opportunity, when we started out, to look at things in a different way or to be given the opportunity to choose, do you want to do it this way or that way? This is the better way, you know. And obviously, a lot of it is about how you afford to tour and travel. And it's always going to be something to do with the bottom line in a lot of areas. But there are different ways of making really meaningful changes in our industry. And that's what I guess we're looking forward to doing.

00:51:20.027 --> 00:51:22.227

Christiana Figueres: Well, so I thought that I had the closing question. But now you've tempted me to ask a previous to the final question. Because I just wanted to ask you to go a little bit further into that from both of your perspectives. We do know that you have been working quite a bit on the carbon footprint of music making and certainly of touring. So I guess the question is, you know, why the Tyndall Center? What are you planning to do? Do you think that there truly is an opportunity to basically revolutionize and I wouldn't say even just music touring. I mean, it would be all kinds of travel and all kinds of events, basically events, right? And we have come down incredibly, not because we wanted to, but because we were forced. We have just dramatically reduced the carbon footprint of all events around the world, either because they were canceled or because they were made virtual. And now there is so much technology that has been developed for this. But of course, all of that technology has its limits. So where do you see the creative space between the limits of the technology that we're all using now, whether it's Teams or Zoom or Blue Jeans or whatever, and the kind of events that we used to do, which are fantastic for our souls but irresponsible for the planet. Where is that creative space in between? Have you found it? Do you have it in mind?

00:52:59.647 --> 00:53:00.307

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): Well, it's interesting. I mean, I'll pass this on to Mark on Tindall, because he's got a lot of good things to say about what we're hoping to do. In terms of the technology and in particular, the virtualization of gigs and events, that's obviously evolving all the time. But of course, there's something to be taken to account that all that data and all those servers take up a lot of carbon too. If you look at this whole period of lockdown where massive amounts of adoption of social gaming platforms, streaming television and music platforms, all that sitting on servers, and it's all using fossil fuel energy. That needs to change. That's something which we're talking to renewable companies about in the UK, particularly Ecotricity, about how we can create a new server systems and a whole new server data centers which run purely on renewables and actually create legacy infrastructure for other sort of music industry server systems.

00:53:57.887 --> 00:53:58.887

Mark Donne (guest, collaborator): That's brilliant. Yeah, and just a note on the Tinder project itself. I think we realized quite quickly that we couldn't start with where is the festival or who is the promoter. We had to start with a much bigger concept. So we immediately went to the Tindal Center Climate Scientists to evaluate where these emissions are mostly coming from. And then within the first kind of month, it's very clear when you look at, you know, the first sort of bigger events, it's estimated 80% of emissions are coming from transport. So you can't go to a festival or a promoter, you have to go to a city. So we went to Liverpool being a sort of innately political city and said, come on then, if we are going to test out a kind of, for want of a better term, an exemplar event, a kind of pilot by behaviour, are you going to come with us? And so really the plan is that simultaneous with the analysis that's conducted by the climate scientists as they reach new conclusions, for example, or having a ticketing system which is tied to a train ticket, which is tied to an electric bus, or I guess for me, what Tindall specialises in is getting different sectors to talk to one another rather than trying to autonomously find a solution to something. So by starting from the macro and saying, okay, then city authorities, then we speak to the transport people. And we have to do that, you know, because the music industry is particularly, it's a kind of, it's very monopolistic, it's all kind of sewn up. So you have to do it in the cracks. And then when you get somewhere, you're able to go, ha ha, here we go. This is, we're going to try this out. And that's really, in fact, if anything, the proposition for both the Tinder report and the show in Liverpool, which will now be next year, if anything, the scope has got more radical because of COVID-19. In fact, we're now in a dialogue with transport companies, power providers and the city authority to say, well, let's dare it further. This is a moment of opportunity. Let's dare that much further. Let's have more cross-fertilising conversations and see if we can pull off something which feels fun and exciting and engaging. And again, going back to not being hectoring or sermon, something which is actually familiar to you and really, really enjoyable. But actually it's so compelling that this is the model now and there's no way back.

00:56:17.147 --> 00:56:30.287

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): And in that sense, what would be great about that is that if that model is recognized by that particular, say Liverpool, Liverpool Local Council Authority, then there'd be no reason why any other local council authority in the UK wouldn't say, well, that is the model. That's the way forward now.

00:56:31.507 --> 00:56:33.367

Christiana Figueres: You've established the standard.

00:56:33.367 --> 00:56:34.047

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): Exactly.

00:56:34.347 --> 00:56:35.247

Mark Donne (guest, collaborator): Exactly right.

00:56:35.247 --> 00:56:38.987

Christiana Figueres: Well, I totally love that phrase that you used, dare it further. May I quote you and steal it, but I will always recognize the authorship. But dare it further, it's such a fantastic phrase that encapsulates what we have to do now.

00:56:50.267 --> 00:56:51.007

Clay (podcast producer): Dare it further.

00:56:51.007 --> 00:56:51.747

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): That's why I work with him. I'm always stealing things like that from him.

00:56:53.467 --> 00:56:55.247

Clay (podcast producer): Oh, okay.

00:56:55.247 --> 00:56:58.027

Christiana Figueres: Do you recognize his authorship, though, in public?

00:56:58.027 --> 00:56:59.327

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): Of course I do. Yay. Especially after a few drinks.

00:57:02.267 --> 00:57:03.967

Paul Dickinson: Very honorable people both. Look, what I've learned so much today is not just, you know, an appreciation for your extraordinary artistry, but the degree to which your social activism is incredibly well thought through and effective. A last question. This is the Outrage and Optimism Podcast. You've been very kind to give us so much of your time, but we must ask you, are you more outraged or more optimistic?

00:57:27.827 --> 00:57:29.487

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): Can you oscillate between the two? A bit like permanently?

00:57:30.427 --> 00:57:31.667

Christiana Figueres: We all do. Good.

00:57:31.887 --> 00:57:32.647

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): But that's me then. I'm afraid I'm the eternal oscillator.

00:57:38.687 --> 00:57:42.067

Mark Donne (guest, collaborator): What's happened to me in the last six months is I've lost outrage. I've always been an optimist and I've always been very, very outraged. But I think for me, I was thinking about this a minute ago, outrage has been replaced by insult. So I either feel optimistic or I feel insulted. Just because my view is now that everyone, this is incontrovertible, the evidence is clear, we all know what to do. So unless you are doing it, unless you are acting it, without sounding too severe, you are prevaricating, you have to act, we now need to see actions. So if I see any identity, be it an obvious one like a fossil fuel company, saying they are going to do a sky scenario or whatever it's called, which is hopeless, or I see a media outlet, or I just feel insulted now. And I deal with it the way I would always deal with insult.

00:58:28.927 --> 00:58:29.767

Christiana Figueres: Wow. Well, you're challenging us to at least consider changing the name of the podcast.

00:58:34.227 --> 00:58:36.447

Clay (podcast producer): Yeah, exactly.

00:58:36.687 --> 00:58:51.527

Christiana Figueres: I think we would all, the whole team would agree with you that, yeah, that we're going beyond outrage to feeling individually and collectively insulted and just absolutely furious. Guys, thank you so much. Thank you very, very much for taking the time today. It was a very short notice for you to make the time on your very busy calendar. So thank you for doing that. Thank you for the release of the EP. I have to tell you, my daughter's estimation of their mother has gone through the roof. Thank you to you. So thanks very much for that.

00:59:14.967 --> 00:59:16.167

Paul Dickinson: That means a lot to Christiana. That means a lot.

00:59:18.087 --> 00:59:20.667

Christiana Figueres: That's where I measure myself constantly. So thank you for that. And thank you for everything that you've done. And especially because, you know, through this conversation, we realized that you are keeping your nose here really to the stone and will continue to work through so many of the difficulties, but you know, no stubbornness and will keep us moving forward and dare us further. I totally love it. Thank you very much.

00:59:51.987 --> 00:59:52.747

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): Thank you for having us. No, thank you. Seriously.

00:59:54.007 --> 00:59:54.427

Clay (podcast producer): Cheers. Bye Mark.

00:59:55.747 --> 00:59:56.327

Mark Donne (guest, collaborator): Take care.

00:59:56.327 --> 00:59:56.727

Rob Del Naja (guest, Massive Attack): Bye guys.

01:00:03.901 --> 01:00:06.921

Christiana Figueres: Okay, you guys, so that was a fascinating conversation. I really enjoyed it because it took me out of my usual thinking box into, for what me, is outer space, which is precisely the space of art and culture where we were with Saci at the beginning, and now even deeper into this conversation. Well, what do you guys leave that conversation with?

01:00:30.561 --> 01:00:37.281

Paul Dickinson: Well, you know, I kind of revealed myself to be a little bit of a fan, I guess, of the music. I mean, I love all music, but I love the music especially. And just one little thing, I've developed this thing that I'm calling Paul's Poetry Corner, where I use other people's poetry as my own. And I did that on a recent episode with a little poem about extinction. And here, I want to talk about a song called Protection by Massive Attack. And I was just looking at the singer, actually, Tracy Thorne. She wrote the lyrics for it. And she'd got the music. And she said she had to listen to it for days before she could handle anything. And then she said, suddenly, she wrote the lyrics in 10 minutes. And she said it's the favorite thing she's ever done. She's never changed a word. She said that it was like a hole into which my voice slotted like a key. So here is Paul's Poetry Corner. I'm not going to sing. I'm not trying to try and... But I'm going to evoke that those lyrics in the song Protection, for me, speak a little bit to the work, for example, of you, Christiana, dedicating your life to these things. Let's see if I can get through it without blubbing in the heaps of tears. So a few little extracts from the song Protection under the name Our Planet. I know you want to live yourself, but could you forgive yourself if you left her just the way you found her? I stand in front of you. I take the force of the blow, protection, and I've leaned on you for years. Now you can lean on me. And that's more than love. That's the way it should be.

01:02:09.641 --> 01:02:10.841

Christiana Figueres: Nice.

01:02:10.841 --> 01:02:14.121

Paul Dickinson: Well, the key of my poetry corner is I'm not actually writing the poems. I'm reading other people's, but okay. Thank you.

01:02:16.981 --> 01:02:20.281

Christiana Figueres: I'm kind of getting to like your poetry corner.

01:02:20.341 --> 01:02:21.721

Paul Dickinson: Saci.

01:02:21.721 --> 01:02:24.401

Saci Lloyd (guest co-host, filling in for Tom): Yeah, I think those guys are dudes, you know. It's the same as I said about Journey Mitchell. They're artists, you know. And those songs are so profound and melancholy and beautiful and all encompassing. And they take you, they're not sloganeering. They're not taking you from one thing. They're taking you, allowing a really broad resonance of emotion and, you know, time and space. You know, the new pieces are obviously more focused with the speeches, but even then, within that, you know, you have all those lyrics and the other, you know, the music around it. I mean, they're true artists. They're geniuses. They're amazing. You know, they really are. And, you know, like I say, you know, you know what they stand for in there, they say what they stand for very clearly, you know, they're public supporters of lots of very left-wing causes. But in their music, mostly, that is the artistic realm, I would say. And I think that their work is all the better for it. They're amazing, you know.

01:03:28.741 --> 01:03:49.741

Christiana Figueres: Well, now, Saci, I have a little, I'm going to push the envelope a little bit here with you, because before the interview, you know, do you remember that you were saying, well, using art, whether it's music or painting or writing, as a political tool for activism has not become primetime. And when you said that, I remembered that when we interviewed Ellie Golding, she said that when she became political, and she has about several issues, including climate, she lost followers. And she said, you know, if she loses followers because she's standing for issues that she really believes in, then so be it. She's not going to sacrifice her standing on issues because of losing followers, which I thought was a very courageous position of hers. But if I put those two things together, you're saying that we're not on primetime yet. Ellie's saying that she has lost followers because she became political. And now Massive Attack very courageously, you know, with a very sharp musical sword coming in to make their statement. Are we moving forward into primetime with the role of art in political activism?

01:04:51.361 --> 01:04:52.721

Saci Lloyd (guest co-host, filling in for Tom): You're asking me this?

01:04:52.721 --> 01:04:55.101

Christiana Figueres: Yeah, I'm asking you, Saci.

01:04:55.101 --> 01:04:56.621

Saci Lloyd (guest co-host, filling in for Tom): I don't know. I think in the end, artists write about what's inside them and they produce work based on what they must talk about, what they must paint, what they must write, what they must sing. So if those political feelings they have are superficial, then they can produce some work from it. But it's not visceral. I don't think it's so powerful. But when it's something that's at your very core, but you cannot live without speaking about it, then you must produce that work as an artist. Now, of course, some artists are better than others at expressing those things. Some people will have the ability to be able to make it universal. I was watching Dolly Parton yesterday, and she was singing loads of songs about her Tennessee family and the kettle boiling, and then they're like, don't sing a song about kettle boiling. Nobody cares about your kettle boiling. Sing about love, and then bam, she goes back and she writes, I will always love you, and that became the song really, and it's exactly the same song about her mother, the kettle boiling was about her mother, and I will always love you was her in Port-au-Wagon. But it's a different way to express the same thing. In the end, you're going to write and sing about the things that you cannot be silent about.

01:06:30.281 --> 01:06:31.581

Paul Dickinson: That is so beautifully put. And I think there's just one other dimension to this that I want to kind of share that, you know, where I live in Brighton, we'd have thousands of starlings flying over the pier. And I was very interested in their movement. I would love to listen to a string quartet and watch them. And a friend of mine said, Your eye will find the dance in the starlings. Your eye will find it. And I think that's what's happening here. You know, Saci, you talked about the Gulf Stream shutting off. I mean, actually, that's what got me into climate change. Somebody said the Gulf Stream is going to shut down. And I'm like, I could see my own childhood taken away from me. And that's when these words started to mean something. I don't know if it's what Tracy Thorne was thinking when she wrote it. But I'm like, could I forgive myself if I left her just the way I found her? You know, I've leaned on her for years now. She can lean on me. You know, it's more than love. It's the way it should be. It's something about duty in the heart and the soul. And the music just touches it and the eye finds it.

01:07:24.841 --> 01:07:25.901

Saci Lloyd (guest co-host, filling in for Tom): Yeah, it's limerence. It's a beautiful thing. I mean, you know, it's when crazy kids get into their basement and cook something up. That's when the great stuff really happens.

01:07:33.041 --> 01:07:34.261

Paul Dickinson: That's so true. That's so true.

01:07:35.241 --> 01:07:42.701

Saci Lloyd (guest co-host, filling in for Tom): That's when it gets weird when you got a kid dressed head to toe in recycled plastics singing shit about climate change, but not mentioning it at all. That's when you know, whoa, this has just happened. I think the one thing I would say about kids and climate change is that I think we come from a generation where we, you know, a lot of the early, well, you know, early climate people were, came from a very nature loving childhood. And I think now a lot of children come from a very nature anxious childhood. So I hope that there's enough rich soil for them, you know, anger and fear and frustration are great starting points for creativity. But there must be a wellspring of of like love and like, oh, I just want to tell you this, this, the way, you know, this thing moves me. And I hope that the younger people who are into climate activism have take time to let nature take care of them, to fall in love with nature themselves, because I think that's another really important ingredient. Anger is great reason to write a song, but love is even more powerful to write a song.

01:08:41.421 --> 01:08:42.201

Christiana Figueres: Yeah.

01:08:42.201 --> 01:08:43.601

Paul Dickinson: Wise words, Saci. Thank you.

01:08:44.521 --> 01:08:53.801

Christiana Figueres: Saci, how beautiful to hear you speak, that anger is powerful and love is even more powerful. And the two actually interact so incredibly with each other, don't they? And I actually have the sense that there is a lot of that realization happening now with COVID, that we are all, not all, but so many of us are realizing, oh my God, what we really need in our lives is direct contact with nature. We have to go out there. We have to hug a tree, for heaven sakes. And especially those who are cooped up in four cement walls are just absolutely so thirsty to go out there. So maybe, you know, of the many different transformations that will come out of this very weird time in human history is a deeper closeness with nature. But because you talked about both anger and love, I cannot but avoid the question that we usually like to close our episode with here as Saci, which is the reason why our podcast is called Outrage and Optimism is because we believe that we have to be outraged about everything that we haven't done yet. And at the same time, optimistic about what we are doing and how much more we can do. So, there is either a short or a long distance between those two. And I would just love you to place yourself. If those were the two ends of a stick or the two ends of a little rope, where would you place yourself?

01:10:29.081 --> 01:10:31.901

Saci Lloyd (guest co-host, filling in for Tom): I would say I'm 51% optimistic. I'm the 1%. That's all I can manage is the 1%. But I refuse to ever become 49% optimistic. I will always be 1%. I'm like the shareholder, the person who has to control the optimism. Shares. I will not lose my 1%. Because if you lose it, if you lose the optimism, what's the point? You might as well give in. You got to keep on fighting. You've got to keep... In the words of Harvey Milk, you've got to give them hope. And in terms of outrage, you know, I think it's a spectrum. And I always have, for me, my personal heroes are the Arctic 30, those people who went up to the Arctic and they got arrested and stuff. And I have their picture up on the wall all the time for me. It's to remind me to be braver and bolder. And you know what really touches me about those people, this whole bunch of them had children, really young children, the same age as mine, and they still went up and they still got thrown into the Russian gulag for that. So they're my outrage-ometer for like how to be angry and act. But in the end, you know, and I find myself very, falling very far short of them, but I like to have them there as a kind of vacuum to move me towards more anger. But in the end, it's got to be about love and hope. Those are the things that really, really move me.

01:11:55.341 --> 01:11:56.321

Christiana Figueres: Wow. Well, the 51% woman, I totally love it. Saci, thank you so much for jumping in here and really being so generous with your insight and your humor and your knowledge of the arts world. Thank you so, so much. Paul, do you want to take us out? Well, how do we finish the episode?

01:12:19.521 --> 01:12:24.761

Paul Dickinson: Well, in a rather special way, alongside me thanking you also very much, Saci, thank you for your time. So we have Massive Attack and actually an extract from their extraordinary new three-part EP, Utopia. This is Massive Attack with lead vocals from Christiana Figueres.

01:12:39.721 --> 01:12:40.401

Saci Lloyd (guest co-host, filling in for Tom): Yeah.

01:12:40.401 --> 01:12:43.181

Christiana Figueres: Who cannot sing from the wife.

01:12:43.181 --> 01:12:44.501

Saci Lloyd (guest co-host, filling in for Tom): She can talk though.

01:12:44.501 --> 01:12:45.161

Christiana Figueres: She can talk. She can talk.

01:12:47.021 --> 01:12:49.521

Paul Dickinson: It is a very beautiful and very magical thing. Please look in the show notes for the video, but we hope you enjoy this extract now. It is a wonderful piece of music. Thank you so much for listening and we will see you next week.

01:12:57.861 --> 01:12:58.161

Saci Lloyd (guest co-host, filling in for Tom): Bye-bye.

01:13:43.930 --> 01:13:49.290

Christiana Figueres: deepening economic disorder and accentuating social suffering. In emerging from this, everyone can play their part, individually and collectively. The future we choose should be one of resilience, starting with aligning the food system to the four principles set out by the FAO. Availability. Access. Utilization. Stability.

01:14:29.190 --> 01:14:33.150

Clay (podcast producer): So there you go, another episode of Outrage and Optimism. The music you just heard is a teaser of the first track off of the latest EP titled Utopia by Massive Attack. The song was done with New York City rock band Algears, and it was co-written and produced by Robert 3D Del Naja and Mark Donne, featuring lead vocalist Christiana Figueres. There is a stunning music video with the full song you can check out, with visuals done by AI visuals pioneer Mario Klingerman. I could try to describe it to you, but you really just need to experience it for yourself. I put a link in the show notes for you to click, so go check that out, and when you're done, there's two more videos and songs for the Utopia EP you can indulge in. So again, link in the show notes. Go check it out. Okay. Outrage and Optimism is a production of Global Optimism and is produced by Clay Carnell, an executive produced by Marina Manzillier-German. Thank you to our team this week, Sarah Law, Katie Bradford, Laura Richardson, Sophie McDonald, Fran Newman, Sarah Thomas, and Sharon Johnson. Special thanks this week to Mark Picken for making our interview with Massive Attack happen. Thank you to Robert 3D Del Naja of Massive Attack, and Mark Donne as well for being our interview guests. Of course, a huge thank you to our special guest co-host, Saci Lloyd. Saci has some Clifi books that you need to purchase and add to your summer reading list. Titles like The Carbon Diaries and her latest work 72 To Save A Zoo. On a personal note, she is one of the wittiest and most funny people I have ever met. I cut out a lot of it in the episodes you can't hear, but I was laughing constantly in the background of our recording session over Zoom. Link is in the show notes to her books. Get reading. And yes, we love to see your digital self on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at Global Optimism, where you can read, share, check out what we're doing, and communicate with us. And if you love the podcast, please hit subscribe and leave a rating.

01:16:29.410 --> 01:16:30.430

Christiana Figueres: Thank you.