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Alright. Today is June 22nd. I'm at Home Rule festival. My name is Daiki Tsumagari, I'm with the Humanities Truck. Can you please introduce yourself and tell us why—what brought you out here today? Yeah, my name is Marr Smith Omole, aka Nightwing, and I decided to come out here with my—my mom's and my stepdad to to the music festival since I heard a lot of great things are going on today, and I heard that there was this, uh, DC, like punk bands, uh, truck around here. And it really made my day because—I just love to hear like, like, like rock and roll music. Like going around, especially in the place where I was born and raised, especially the DMV. And I say that there are a lot of, like, bands out there, which I think are being ignored by, by the mainstream in music and these, these—these bands, especially the ones who are like African American, need to get back out there and and show the world that they're here. Because not a lot of people have known about these bands until I mentioned it to them, which is actually the really saddest thing to ever happen because. Because it'd be like quite useful to, like, to understand that that without African Americans, like, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zeppelin like wouldn't exist. And I have a lot of inspiration from like, the bands like out there, like Metallica, Slipknot, Disturbed, uh, Living Color, like, for example, even like the Ramones, Green Day. I grew—I grew up listening to them and growing—growing up as a Black kid is that I was called an Oreo, but I ignored it because because they're the—muddy waters is actually the one, like, responsible for like, everything that's been going on lately. And and we need the truth like world history because we—we got to do better about telling people the truth. And like, like when I was like—like artificial facts. And I will say it's that some some bands out there which really need a shout out, Unlocking the Truth, Conquering God, Tetrarch, that's how you say it. Like there's there's a Black woman there who's a lead guitarist. [Her] name is Diamond Rowe. Shout out to her. Uh, some other bands who really need some love. Uh, let's see who else. Well, I can't really think of top of my head, but it'll come to me eventually. But. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You actually got ahead of me because that's one of my questions, was to, you know, what bands do you like to listen to? But, um, what got you into punk originally? What got me into punk originally is it's as a kid in the early 2000s, I used to like, hear, like Linkin Park, uh, like some Slipknot's, um, All American Rejects. Like, for, like—for every, like, circumstance I'm having like fun. Or if I'm like, Black boy—like it gets me off my feet and like, like moves and it feels—and it feels like that I'm part of a community which speaking of which, I had I didn't, like, hear like a lot of, um, Black, um, musicians who were like into like, rock and metal or something like that. So until, until high school in twelfth grade, I was told by this really amazing guy that there was this guitarist named Jimi Hendrix, which I had, which really made my day and I couldn't believe it. Turns out I was actually part of a big community. I just didn't know it yet.

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What does the word 'punk' mean to you? I think like punk, like means to me, it's that you're like, representing like yourself, like as a badass. Is that allowed in here? Yeah, we can start [over]—What exactly like does punk mean to you? Is it a mindset, is it— Yeah. It can be like like a mindset. You don't have to like, like show it like physically because I don't wear my makeup as much. But it's the it's the mentality and spirituality.

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And what trends have you observed in the popularity and significance of like— I'm sorry to hear you— What trends have you observed in the popularity of like DC punk in the 21st century, especially into like, the 2020s? Well, I would say the biggest trends of them all is like Bad Brains, which I had no idea they existed until college and which like, really like, flabbergasted me because, like, why didn't I know about them? Like, like, uh, eight years ago?

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And then have you been to the DC punk exhibit at the MLK library? Unfortunately not. I've always been wanting to go, but whenever I get the chance to, I'm definitely going to go show my love and support because this is what the world needs. And then last question. Yeah. What would your reaction be to the phrase punk is dead? Yeah, yeah, punk is dead. It would actually, like, kind of cheer me up and makes me want to go to wherever it's going on.

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That's great. Yeah. Is there anything, uh, anything you want to add on your end? Any shout outs you want to make for special bands? You can look up too if you want. Okay. Yeah. Okay. One second. Okay. My shout outs is Avril Lavigne. Like I just mentioned, I just mentioned Slipknot. Uh, Living Color. Disturbed. Oh, yes. Body Count. Absolutely Body Count. Yes. Yes, I mentioned Metallica, right? Yeah. Okay. So who else? Oh, Nine Points, Korn, City Morgue, and, uh, My Chemical Romance. Oh one more is New Year's Day. That's great. Thanks for meeting with me. Thank you.