Craig Brewer

It's great to be here.

Thank you for having me.

Well, I think that I've just always been really fascinated by people who have really big dreams, almost dreams that when you hear them as someone just listening on or a friend or family member, you almost feel bad for them a little bit.

You feel as if like, oh, no, it's just it's too big.

And yet there's still something I think in every human that when they hear those kind of dreams coming from out of somebody, you could be bitter about it because it's probably tapping into something that's in your own soul, really something that maybe you let go of.

And particularly with artists, you're dealing with the elements of their life that are informing their art.

and informing their sound or their point of view.

So especially with like Hustle & Flow, I always felt that whenever I was talking to rappers that I knew here in Memphis, especially in the early 2000s, late 90s, like there was a big movement of being dismissive of rap, that it wasn't truly like an art form.

Right.

I'm glad you said that.

And I mean, now everything kind of sounds like Southern rap.

But around the time that I was trying to get Hustle & Flow going, it was definitely not something on the radar.

And definitely plenty of people that would be.

very dismissive of rap as an art form, but I just couldn't help but see them to be completely incorrect.

I mean, I was with friends of mine who had taken elements of their life or elements of their dreams, like wish fulfillment, and put it into the music in a way that I just felt was fascinating and empowering.

And so when I look at Songs in Blue, I kind of see the same thing.

There's that dreamer element that you kind of look at their life and they're saying, yeah, I'm going to be playing on Broadway.

I'm going to be playing in big casinos.

And you're just like, no, I don't think that's going to happen.

And yet their journey in it, the family that they kind of create around it is something that is aspirational.