How Poplock Parables Got Started

Telling the story of the lil journey from a collection of ideas to a realized product!

Transcript available at poplockparables.buzzsprout.com

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Transcript

Nicholas Sapp  0:00  
What's going on with yall good people man? Welcome back to Poplock Parables. You know what's going on. This is where I tell stories about my adventures in street dance. This is Episode Five. This episode is transcribed on Poplockparables.buzzsprout.com. We are also available on listening platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts along with several others. Now today's episode, I will be talking about how this podcast Poplock Parables came into being. You know I'm talking about it's genesis, how I came up with it. All that good stuff. It's no break this time, we just go straight through it. Let's get to it.

[INTRO BREAK]

So with Poplock Parables how it came out was twofold, right? This is the process of how I came up with it. The first was the stuff that I would naturally do. Right. So I remember telling y'all about how I was training with Chuck, that was my first teacher, right? And what happened was, I would go learn with Chuck. And then I'll come home to my dorm room. And I'd be sitting there standing, I'll be up in a dorm room. Pretending to teach people, right. I know, imaginary people in my head. I'm just sitting there talking to them like, "Oh, yeah, so what you do is you contract your forearm, and then you hold it for four seconds and then release. And then you contract it and you hold it for two seconds, then you release and then you get down to one second, you do that repeatedly. And once you get control of that, it's popping, right."

And for me, it was just a thing of making sure I understood what I was learning, right and the most natural way for me of understanding that happened to just be explaining it. Right. Aloud. So that would happen. And then the same thing happening, I'll be in my car driving, walking and talking a lot. And I'm just explaining dance stuff, right? I'm imagining having a conversation, you know, like, you know how you hop in the shower? Well, you might be mad at somebody and you replay a whole conversation in your head, like this how a conversation will go, right? It was the same thing, except it was dance stuff. And you know, you're not necessarily mad, you're just explaining how stuff works. So, you know, and it would just be any number of topics like, "Oh, this is how, you know, dance scenes happened to be structured. Okay, this is who this person is, this is their relevance, right? This is, you got a couple different techniques. And this is why this technique matters." You know, all kinds of stuff, stuff like that. Right.

So I'm like aight cool, so I'll do that. And then also, I believe it was influenced by my school background. So in college, I studied comparative human development, and it was an interdisciplinary major. I basically tell people, I just study how people grow up. And with that, you're looking at all these different perspectives and nuances and whatnot. So you end up getting to this place where, for a lot of things, you're like, "Okay, well, two things can be true at the same time," and you're like, "Oh, well, yes and no," or, "okay, well, this is mostly correct. Only key diff minor key difference is minor key difference, only minor difference is XYZ, right?" So you just get used to, you know, understanding things, understanding the nuance learning how to explain things to find things, so on and so forth. Right. And then with teaching, you know, you always find out what parts people find most interesting. Things like that. Right? 

So eventually it ended up being a case where if I was talking to friends that weren't into dancing, I had to explain things. It got to the point where I was like, okay, you want the short version or you want the long version, right? Because the short version, like I say, okay, Chuck. Okay. Here's Chuck. Chuck is my first dance teacher. Okay, cool, right. The long version is okay, Chuck, this is how I met Chuck, bla bla bla bla bla, like, you know, saying that, you know. So that ended up being a case where whenever I want to tell stories to my friends. I could go into such detail that it would be like, well, which one do you want to know? So that's how it kind of came about, naturally, from just from a behavioral standpoint.

The other way it came out was just like life events, basically. So 2020 I started out the year I was teaching dance classes, right. So just at a studio, I was teaching, popping, popping classes for a couple months, and then the pandemic hit. And it was like, Whoa, dang. So then I morphed into teaching online, right? I started teaching classes online. And I was cool for a little bit. And then ended up getting involved with a dude named Stacks. His name is Ashton Lites. But he goes by Stiggity Stacks. And so stacks have had a artist business development course that I took over the summer. And it was really helpful, right. And so there was one section in there where we were thinking about different projects that we could put, take what we just learned and put it in use, right. And so my thing was, I want to come up with dance tutorials, because everybody keeps asking me, Oh, what's this? What's that? What's this? What's that? And I would just give away free game. "All right, okay. A lot of y'all do this. You know, y'all might want to learn XYZ." "Okay, I noticed a lot of people in the scene do this. And they complain about this. You know what, you try doing this instead?" And, you know, he'd be like, okay, dope, I never thought about it like that. And so I was just, you know, I would just do stuff like that spontaneously. And so I was like, you know, I should do some tutorials. 

So I downloaded Final Cut Pro X, I used it one time. And then I got involved in other things in my life, and I never picked it up again. So tutorials was a cool idea. I just never actually followed through on it. And then from there, it morphed into wanting to do a podcast because I got involved in social justice organization. And with that organization, we you know, doing zoom calls all the time, right, because we now we in the thick of it, a pandemic. And one time there was one of my colleagues, he was like, "you know, every time you talk, man," I was saying something. And he put it in the comments. He was like, "Well, you know, every time you talk, man, it's like, you telling a story." And it was interesting to me, because people have said similar things beforehand, like people like "Oh, man, you need to do stuff with your with your voice, man, you need to be a voice actor, you need to get into ASMR man, you need to you know, you need to do you know, voiceover for like his cartoon or something. Because you just, you know, the way you talk is crazy. You're not crazy. But you know, the way you talk is really interesting. Your accent is really interesting."

Or, you know, I would do this thing again on Instagram, where, at my old job, I will walk to the office, from my car in the mornings and in the mornings, I would always you know, hop on and be like "What's going on with y'all good people, you know what I'm saying, happy Monday to y'all good people, brand new start to a brand new week, you already know what I'm talmbout? Yes, sir. You know, saying I just hope everybody have a great day. Have a great week, you know, brand new start to a brand new week. We already know, man, I see. That's all I wanted to say. Happy Monday to y'all good people, man. You already know." 

I would just do that, like kinda like radio announcements, basically. And I would just do that every day. And I did that for like, several months, on Instagram, just just freely just because I enjoy doing it. People would always hit me up and be like, "Oh my god, I love I love these, these make my mornings, you know, bla bla bla bla bla," right, and just a lot of positive reinforcement on me using my voice creatively. Right. So that happened. And then what really kind of like, put the nail in the coffin, so to speak was I think I was on Twitter one day. And, you know, they they had just recently come out with voice tweets. So I released a voice tweet. And I think the same org colleague, he was like, Man, you need like a podcast or something dawg. And I was like, okay, and it was something I hadn't really given a whole lot of thought to about. Like the voice acting and ASMR I was like, I could see that, but not right now. But with the podcast, I was like, we'll see. 

So I looked up, "Okay, how you start a podcast?" Oh, it's pretty. It's pretty easy. Okay, cool. So I was like, I might as well write me, I was like, What am I gonna talk about? And it was like, Oh, I would just tell stories about street dance. Cuz I do that normally. And everybody keeps asking. I'm like this. There you go. All right. Um, so that's kind of how it started. Right now. A couple other things I didn't mention that were pretty important as well. Right? One of them, well actually, this is pretty much it. But it was the fact that I throughout my dance history, so to speak, I've tended to keep my dance life and my non-dance life fairly separately, right? One of that one of those reasons being that a lot of times It was a case where we're dance folks, you know, saying y'all might be cool. y'all get along on a dance tip, right? But then it's like, no, y'all, you just see people, you just add people on Facebook, Instagram, and you start to see the other stuff that they into. And you're like, Oh, yeah, and I can't rock with you. Or you like, Oh, yeah, no, I don't. I don't, I don't think we don't get along too well, if we were to be friends, right? So it's just like, you just kind of like keeping people at distance like, Oh, yeah, I'm a, I'm a rock with you on the dance floor but I don't know if I want to be your friend in real life. Right? Um, and it wasn't always that drastic. Sometimes it was literally just, you cool, man. But you too far, you live way too far. I'm sorry, I can't, I would love to hang out with you outside of dance stuff. But you, you stay about an hour away. I can't do that. I'm sorry. You know, I'm saying. Um, so sometimes it was that too. 

And then, on the non dance tip. It was a thing where people in my life would always be like, "Oh, you know, I want to see you dance, I want to know, I want to go to the clubs where the dancers go clubbing, or I want to go. I want to, I want to know, when your next show is. Or Oh, you know, you keep talking about these competitions. I want to go to a competition. I want to see what it's like." And initially, I bet Okay, cool. And I had invited, you know, I invited several people over the years. And people never showed up or not, never, some people didn't show up. But most people didn't show up. And so for me, it was one of the things where it was like, Well, people don't, people don't be showing up. So I would invite you, but I just have a feeling that you're not gonna show up. So I might as well not invite you. And so I realized after a while, it's probably not a good way to go about things. Yeah, I was like, you know, I should probably change how I operate on that front. 

And then the other part of it too, was it was it being a case of me dismissing people, when they express if they had an interest in something, right in my life. So it'd be in a case, like people being like, "Oh, you know, I want to go to a competition, I want to see what it's like." And I would just be like, "Oh, you know, you know, jams, they take a long time. And, you know, a lot of times they run over, you know, you might get tired, you might get bored, you know, we've been in there till, you know, to one o'clock in the morning, you know, when the jam started, like six or seven. And, you know, it's just, I'm not gonna be able to stay around you the whole time, I might get tired, some people might be trying to talk to you, you know, saying just, you might not know what's going on, right?" It's a lot of stuff where I was just, I would just dismiss people basically, like they expressed interest in it. Like, you might not enjoy it. Oh, no, I am basically deciding for them that they might not like something without, you know, giving them the opportunity, giving them the opportunity to see whether or not they would actually enjoy it or not. 

And so with the podcast, it ended up being a case of a nice blend of things that was going on in my life, right. So one, me naturally wanting to share these details about dancing stories and events in my life and technical background of this, that and third, right? Wanting to and naturally doing that without any without any, any impetus, right? I'm just doing this, just because I enjoy doing it. So part of it was that I'm just sharing stuff because I like sharing them. But then also it being a case of me trying to change how I go about things. So instead of cut people that want to know more about my dance life, out of my dance life, right now, it's like, okay, like y'all keep you know, people keep saying they want to see and hear more about, you know, my dance like, cuz I mean, a pandemic, and I personally, am not really going to no events. And I'm not really linking up with nobody right now just because of my personal, you know, feelings and notions regarding safety and, you know, stuff like that, right? Who I happen to be around my family, you know, I just, you know, I'm just like, nobody right now, you know? So because of that, it's like, here goes a perfect opportunity for y'all to get connected. Right. Y'all can listen, and be like, okay, okay, cool. You know, when you get a little inkling get the insight into what goes on in my dance life in the dance scenes. Right. 

So yeah, that's that's how Poplock Parables came to be man. Started out I'm telling stories about street dance. Parables, got some lessons in there, you know saying and my background is in popping. Popping/poplocking, so Poplock Parables just kinda fit, right? It's also, you know, search engine optimization as well, but in general, I'm just sharing stuff, sharing dance stuff, dance stories, dance history as it pertains to me and my experiences and the people around me. And then also, you know, involving people in my dance life that, you know, how I wasn't beforehand and now I do have an opportunity to do so. And I'm trying to make good on that. You know, that opportunity can change, change things. So that's about it, man. appreciate y'all listening. You already know that. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. I just want to thank y'all for listening to Poplock Parables. You can find me Nicholas on Twitter at @PoplockParables, Instagram, same thing at @PoplockParables. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe leave a review wherever you happen to be listening from. If you got any questions, concerns, suggestions, you know, just things you just wanna say "oh you know, I appreciate listening to this. I just, you know, I love when you talk about anything along that nature," just let me know. Just send me an email at Poplockparables@gmail.com or again, you can reach out on most aforementioned social media platforms, @PoplockParables on Twitter, or Instagram. Thank you for listening. Peace. hope y'all have a great day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai