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Richard Brown and Franklin Leonard // Seven Aside (Live) - Nov 18, 2025 - Part 1
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In this first of back-to-back special episodes, Kit Magazine presents a conversation with acclaimed producer Richard Brown and Franklin Leonard, cultural commentator and CEO of The Black List. Brown’s directorial debut, Origin: The Story of the Basketball Africa League, a chronicling of the inaugural 2021 edition of the pan-African competition, premieres on ESPN in February. Their discussion, a foretaste, explores the project’s roots and inspirations, key characters and storylines and broader contours—economic, social and political.
The segment was recorded at Frankfurt Kurnit in lower Manhattan on November 18.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Origin' Docu-series
00:00:10
Speaker
It was United Nations General Assembly Week, a string of serendipities and the confluence of storylines we tracked for some time that conspired for our final live event of 2025. Anchoring proceedings was a conversation between Richard Brown, producer of defining series like HBO's True Detective, and Franklin Leonard, CEO of The Blacklist, both friends of Kit Magazine, diehard football fans, and industry leaders in their own rights.
Exploration of Basketball Africa League's Inaugural Season
00:00:32
Speaker
Their discussion dug into Richard's latest project, and no less than his directorial debut, a docu-series that explores Basketball Africa League's inaugural 2021 season and the stakeholders and narratives that came together to realize the long-simmering vision for a Pan-African competition.
00:00:46
Speaker
On the one hand, Origin, as it's titled, is the portrait of a nascent sporting enterprise, its homegrown talent, and the cities and countries where passion for the game runs deep. What's more, it's a lens on soft power, international development, cultural diplomacy, and a region amid profound transformation.
00:01:01
Speaker
Arjun, the story of the Basketball Africa League, is set to premiere on ESPN during NBA All-Star window in February. In this first of back-to-back special episodes of Seven Aside, we're very pleased to bring you a foretaste, recorded at Frankford Kernet in Lower Manhattan on November 18th.
Richard Brown's Directorial Journey
00:01:14
Speaker
And a quick note that Richard, who is fighting hoarseness at the outset, warms up just a few minutes in.
00:01:27
Speaker
Where to start? I, you know, want to actually start sort of deep into the doc if we could. um I'm curious, having made it and now sold sold it, and with the film, the series sort of, you know, making its public debut in February, looking back on it all now, is there a ah ah moment where that feels like it tells a lot of the story, like a kernel sort of, you know, fundamental part of what origin is.
00:01:57
Speaker
I don't know if there's one particular moment, think crystallized the whole thing, but, um, When we got to Kigali in Rwanda for the inaugural basketball Africa tournament and the 12 teams arrived and, you know, I think a lot of people in the West don't realize really fully understand that Africa is 54 countries.
00:02:21
Speaker
And each country is yeah very different culturally and socially politically and socioeconomically. And to have these 12 teams competing in this tournament at ah enormous stakes for the players, the teams for their countries, but also for the continent felt very significant.
00:02:41
Speaker
and um And to see them also greet each other and you know these kids These players are coming from completely different realities. You know, the players from Rwanda, the players from Angola, the players from Morocco, they're coming from different economic realities, different music, wearing different clothes, different gods, but they're all African.
00:03:06
Speaker
And the ambition behind the Basketball Africa League was always much bigger than basketball, um which is why I became interested in making the making the series.
Amadou Gallo Fall's Vision for African Youth
00:03:17
Speaker
I first heard that the NBA was building a league in Africa. I started to read about Amadou Callowfall, He's an extraordinary man who dedicated his life to creating opportunity for African youth.
00:03:30
Speaker
And this was sort a key key moment, if you will, and in his life, is convincing the NBA to get behind and support and launch an elite and African basketball league.
00:03:44
Speaker
And wind like when precisely, in the you mentioned that you sort of you know you'd heard you hear that the league is going to be launching. When in the timeline of the league sort of conception to inception did you get involved in telling the doc story? Like, how did it come to you?
00:04:02
Speaker
so How did you come to it? Maybe it's the better question. Well, you know, like all us, I was home, and during the pandemic and I was watching the NBA, um, playoffs in the bubble in Orlando. Uh, they ran that time. I'm um' a basketball junkie.
00:04:19
Speaker
And I heard about this, that this was happening from a, from a friend of mine, uh, Jokey, Jokey, Noah. I used to play for the Chicago Bulls and the New York Knicks.
00:04:31
Speaker
And Joe Keaton told me about the BL and I started to dig in and understand that they were going to go ahead and launch even during the pandemic and the original plan had been to launch across the continent.
00:04:46
Speaker
Instead, they were going to launch Kigali, bring all the teams to Kigali, create a bubble using the same methodology that you must have in Orlando. And so I just thought at that moment, this would be interesting idea to be inside that bubble in film.
00:05:01
Speaker
And then let's use that as a story point to see what we found and see if there bigger story even beyond that. And so we got in touch with the NBA and then got there blasting.
00:05:13
Speaker
Three weeks later, we were in were in Kigali. Now, you know, your career is sort of marked by ah ah number of sort of the big scripted series and sort of auteur-driven work. um You know, some of the best directors, true detective, these are all things that you've been involved with historically.
00:05:33
Speaker
But to my knowledge, this is your first directing job. And I'm curious why this became something that you said, I should i should be directing this instead of me find the director and both function ah as as a producer, which is ah ah a role that I imagine you're quite comfortable with and that you do quite well at this point.
Filmmaking Insights and Challenges
00:05:52
Speaker
It wasn't intentional. we were in now We were in the bubble and was I had hired a director, but it turned out that he wasn't available for as long as we were going need a director.
00:06:05
Speaker
He was also someone who came from shooting commercials and it was clear that he wasn't going to be able to map out the story. So we decided to join forces and direct it together.
00:06:16
Speaker
It just happened that way. There was no one else there but me, so I had to direct And then ended up being... It ended up being three years, but we shot for it. I'm curious what sort of you took from your experience as a producer that like applied well to the experience of being a director and like what, if anything, you had to unlearn in that process.
00:06:34
Speaker
I mean, as you know, Franklin, if you're a creative producer, if you have to be um ostensibly, theoretically, have to understand and have a command of all aspects of filmmaking. I mean, theoretically. mean, that's not true.
00:06:49
Speaker
In your case, it's true, i would say. I think producers definitely want to believe that they are. and i yeah And I guess that's what i'm curious about is, Yeah, you you go in believing like, look, I've got a pretty solid handle on all of this and I could have directed the things that I produced before. And sometimes the directors are just in the way. I'm curious that as the director this time, was there anything that made you say, but yeah, this is a lot harder than would have expected?
00:07:15
Speaker
I think of it being a fictional feature. um answer would be yes. Documentary is a very different methodology. And what I learned is, you know, as a kid, I always wanted to be an investigative reporter.
00:07:28
Speaker
And I think directing documentaries, what I learned is that there's a there's a real connection between investigative journalism and making a you know documentary. So in this case, you know, we shot everything we shot in Rwanda in the month-long tournament.
00:07:44
Speaker
And then we went to the editing room. And the joy of directing documentaries is that when you're editing room, you start to find the story. And when you find what you think the story is, you can then go and film what you need.
00:07:56
Speaker
So, okay, I need this interview. Let's go get it. I need this. Somebody from the Archive of Gov, go find it. So it's sort of an endless process, like putting together a chick's book. I think there are far more talented feature directors than i But I think if you know how to tell a story and you care about the story, when you're committed, you can probably write the documentary.
00:08:17
Speaker
And from production perspective, you started with the the bubble, or did a month there, came back. What version of the story did you put together at that point? Well, that was then really the story of, you know, the first tournament. Right.
00:08:31
Speaker
So, and we obviously, during that process, we'd isolated the most characters we thought most interesting to follow, players, coaches, et cetera. So then it became a question of going to, with those characters back to their own countries.
00:08:44
Speaker
learning the stories, telling the stories. Whereas we're telling two stories. It was story of the tournament itself and the players and, you know, who was going to win, who was going to lose.
00:08:56
Speaker
um and then there was a story of how the PAL came to be and the vision behind it.
Idealism vs Capitalism in African Basketball
00:09:01
Speaker
And that was the story of Amadou Califor and Masaya Jiri, both sort extraordinary men who, you know, with obviously a lot of help from Adam Silver and Mark Tatum and the NBA, they brought this thing to life.
00:09:17
Speaker
Yeah, I actually think that that there their presence as characters or hands over the entire ah series as almost this like point-counterpoint sort of thesis antithesis about what the BAL is. And yet you can essentialize it into sort of idealism versus capitalism, which I don't think is actually fair to either of them, to be clear. But, but you know, on a symbolic basis, that's sort of where they sit. And I'm curious,
00:09:42
Speaker
did that, like did you know that going in was that the plan narratively? Did it reveal itself over the course of it? Like, how did you think about those two sort of characters ah and and I would say sort of narrative symbols just functioning throughout this whole thing? Cause think that it,
00:09:57
Speaker
It emphasizes the individual character stories of the players and coaches as well because of their identities. ah Is there a question? Because i didn't know as much about Masai going in.
00:10:09
Speaker
I knew that Amadou was a an idealist and a visionary and someone was, you know, it's quite rare that someone is as, i think, ideal,
00:10:21
Speaker
as Amadou manages to fight their way through as of the corporate world and and achieve without sort of getting in her knocked down. And Amadou really is a ah ah guy, in my opinion, with a very pure spirit and vision and ideal.
00:10:36
Speaker
And um but that's not to say Masai is not. Masai has the same ideal, but Masai is i like operator. know He knows somebody who knows how to operate within the structure of the system.
00:10:48
Speaker
And I think they needed each other. It became, you know, really like essential partners. um Their stories are sort of oddly the same, but different.
00:11:00
Speaker
Amadou came to the States when he was 19 from Senegal to play basketball for in Washington. He didn't make it as a player, but he became a scout.
00:11:11
Speaker
And at some point he went to work for the Dallas Mavericks. And he was climbing any point during this journey, he could have been the first general manager, African general manager of an NBA team.
00:11:25
Speaker
And he he was offered that position and turned it down. And his daddy went to the Adam Silver, as understand and essentially wanted to go back to Africa and create NBA Africa.
00:11:39
Speaker
I was there in 2012. Masai had a similar journey. He went to the States to play basketball and didn't make it as a player. played in Europe for a while and then he was out for various NBA teams.
00:11:53
Speaker
And he was a general manager of the Denver Nuggets. And then he went to Toronto Raptors as the president. And as you guys probably know, he put together the Raptors team that won the NBA championship.
00:12:07
Speaker
And Adam Silver sort of semi-jokingly called him the Messiah. Because Messiah extraordinary charisma and ability to make things happen and and move forward. think so i guess what i'm saying is amadou went back to africa to build the dream and messiah state in america to build a dream and then they came together and like they they did it and it's quite a remarkable thing to see um there's a moment with former president obama um talking about sort of elder leadership and them fighting the battles of the past
00:12:43
Speaker
um I'm curious. i think that the other interesting thing to me about Amadou and Masai is I feel like they sort of sit in the middle of the sort of generations, right? They're not... They're not still players. They're not the kids.
00:12:55
Speaker
Um, but they're quite a bit younger than most of the leadership of the country. and Kagame, for example, I'm just curious, like what generational shifts you see between the sort of the, the, the folks involved in the infrastructure of basketball, I have with them who are a bit older, the folks in sort of, guess you were mine and Amadou and Masai's generation. And then, you know, these kids who I can probably think of the world very differently than the generations before though.
00:13:24
Speaker
You know, I think both Amadou and talk about hearing Mandela say in the you know in the early 90s that he felt sports was a could be a very important part of Africa's future. And that sports ecosystem could have enormous socioeconomic problems. social political benefits, and transformation.
00:13:45
Speaker
I think this idea stuck in both their heads. And, you know, they put in the work over the years to make it a reality. um There are 750 million, i think that's the number, people in Africa under the age of 24. And this is probably the first generation of Africans to grow up.
00:14:05
Speaker
not under the shadow of colon colonialism or post-clonialism
A New Era for Africa's Youth
00:14:08
Speaker
or post post-colonialism And it really is the case that you feel a vitality and optimism and energy.
00:14:18
Speaker
when you when you land in the con or na positive continent parts of continent the kami matamba used to say that and it really is true my experience in senegal cameroon rwanda was um transformative when i came back my family will tell you determined to move there and uh still deserves me there at some point anyway um it does feel like there's an energy to be tapped into and that and that people like hamadou and messiah dedicating themselves to creating opportunity for African youth that will be it could be explosive.
00:14:54
Speaker
do do Does that youth see everything as being open are they entering into sort of this process knowing that they still have a great deal of like overcomes?
00:15:05
Speaker
They always fascinated by this notion, Because think sports is one of the few places in modern life that you could argue is as close to a true meritocracy as it exists, right? Where you and I are both soccer fans.
00:15:19
Speaker
kind of doesn't matter where you live if you can play football you don't need a lot of money to do it but if you can play well people will sort of pluck you from any part of the world and drop you into the team you'll be making o lot of money and be globally visible i think basketball is now starting to offer that opportunity um but i've always curious about the perception of it for those who are trying to become the next great international superstar and i'm curious having been in and among these players for as long as you were what is what is their expectation about the world and what basketball can provide, though?
00:15:57
Speaker
i think the thing about the BAL is that people assume that the idea is to farm talent from Africa and bring it to the NBA. And obviously, you know, the best players will end up in the NBA. But, you know, as a statistical matter, there are 400 players in the NBA, 403.
00:16:17
Speaker
That's not really not the idea. the idea is to build a league across the continent that is fully functioning, where players don't have to leave Africa. They can stay in Africa and make a living and have a career playing basketball and yeah know other sports to build that in sports ecosystem.
00:16:35
Speaker
um I think, and I could be wrong, but I think number for every player in the NBA, there's doing like 460 jobs created. So if you scale that up, you can imagine what that could mean and kind of in a constant as big as Africa.
00:16:53
Speaker
and The BAL is also, it's more of the Champions League, right, than it is a sort of mono league. Yeah, structured currently as a tournament. So there's qualifying rounds and then there's the the playoffs, which are the elimination tournament. Yeah.
00:17:09
Speaker
Can you talk a little bit about the just the disparate resources and infrastructures that exist for some of these teams? i mean, it's wild, you know, because like, you know, the players in Mozambique, for example, who qualified, which was a great surprise to everyone. They, you know, they have jobs and they play basketball at the time.
00:17:27
Speaker
The players in Angola, where basketball is a pretty serious sport, are very well-paid and well-known and have, you know, real careers. So these guys are coming from a couple of these different realities and yet,
00:17:39
Speaker
um I mean, yes, it's true that it needs to level up. Over the coming years, going to see the infrastructure build and grow and develop, but it's wild to see what is possible with them the right motivation, passion, coaching, etc.
00:17:57
Speaker
It wasn't necessarily the richest countries that did the best in the PA, which was exciting. I mean, it's sort of mentioned in the doc, in the trailer, but i then you mentioned it as well, just the the sort of fundamentally non-monolithic nature of Africa.
00:18:13
Speaker
Fifty-four countries, know, I mean, just not monolithic. And I think, unfortunately, particularly Americans, but I think folks in the West, you folks outside of Africa don't really have an appreciation of that. And one of the things I really admire about this series is the extent to which you were laying bare, here are these completely different worlds. It wasn't just the sort of resources that were available, it was the texture, all of it. And I'm just curious, instead of just telling people that, how did you approach sharing and showing that in sort of non-traditional ways? Because it's one thing to say,
00:18:48
Speaker
Egypt and Angola are different. It's a completely different one to say, okay, now we're going to tell the the Egypt story or now we're going to tell the Angola story and how we tell them will be different. I mean, I think you just have to, if you're interested in people and you then you um pick the people you want to follow and they let you in, you know you'll you'llll you'll you'll find great footage. spent a lot of time with all these players, these individuals, and we got to know them all pretty well.
00:19:14
Speaker
So by the end, there was intimacy, I think, that comes across in the... in the film. It's not like Barbara, I'm to tell it because I meant, I might say this much about Masai. My first meeting with Masai Uhtiri, which I think tells a lot about him, is I met up in the lobby of the hotel in, uh, in Cali and, uh, Rwanda bears talking about, because it's very different from, I think, um, what people in America and the West think, um, I think it's fair to say Rwanda if not my favorite country, it's one of my favorite countries I've ever been to.
00:19:49
Speaker
It's certainly, uh, the most, the most coherent countries I've ever been to. Um, but anyway, I met Messiah and we were chatting and, um, he he asked me who I'd most like to en interview for the show. And I said, ah half jokingly, President Obama, and he literally pulled out his phone and he went, yo, 44, yo, 44. Literally, yo, 44.
00:20:15
Speaker
And they hung up the phone you know three minutes later and he said, we're we're going to DC in three weeks. And we did. that was a good moment. so so that was that that was a good moment I was, you know, just talking about basketball in Africa with the president.
00:20:32
Speaker
I mean, i yeah and i'd say all those being nervous some you know, from Scotland, it's an odd thing to find yourself interviewing President Obama.
00:20:42
Speaker
um But, you know, he's you guys will know Obama. He knows, you know, he walks in, I'm sure every room he walked into with us, 20 plus years, he's known that the expectation is that he actually cracks a joke, he finds a way to lighten the mood.
00:20:59
Speaker
He cracks joke at my expense, I think, at one point. i was just i was the rome in jamaica I was in Jamaica when I found out that it like we didn't know we date which day were going to interview. And I got the call on like a Wednesday, had to be there on Thursday.
00:21:13
Speaker
I left my family in Jamaica and flew to DC. i was being Scottish, I was rather than damn which Obama enjoyed. But, madame you know, he was, on yeah, of course he's incredibly eloquent, but he's always very careful, you know. When the cameras were off, and we started was talking about basketball.
00:21:34
Speaker
He wanted to talk about basketball for hours. in literally empower He could talk he talk about Cade Cunningham a jump shot for 30 minutes. It was wild, his passion for basketball. It was kind of fun. And we stayed in touch. He's been amazingly helpful throughout the soul process, actually.
00:21:50
Speaker
But we see him promoting the in February as well. Koubala at the NBA All-Star game. I promise. Rumor is remembers he's going to help us out.
00:22:03
Speaker
um One of the other things that I thought was interesting about this doc, it's obviously about men's basketball in Africa, but the the presence of women is substantial. And then you have Claire and Usher and and Kim. um Was that sort of, you know, representation always part of the plan? Or was it just like, as we started doing the research, we realized that these were some of the most eloquent voices about the subject? Oh, here's good fact,
00:22:25
Speaker
so um really. So 78% of the government agencies um in Rwanda are run by women. Um, and this started for tragic reasons. And after the genocide, you know, close to a million men had died. So Kagame, acquainted women to run the company agencies and it went very well. So he doubled down and continued. its So on one to one is Kisaki and how that happens. Yeah.
00:22:54
Speaker
right But you feel it. I mean, you really feel it when you're in Rwanda. You feel the care. This is a country that's largely run by women. um Claire, the one at the time that we interviewed her for the the series, she was head of the Rwandan Board of Development. In fact, she's the one responsible for putting Visit Rwanda on Arsenal's shirt.
00:23:14
Speaker
I'm an Arsenal fan, so I was very pleased to have that. um And she gave me one, too. She's now the head of NBAC. And are rumors, who knows if they're true, but there's rumors that she may end up back in Rwandan politics. Because, you know, Bo Gagami's been president for almost 30 years.
00:23:33
Speaker
He's an extraordinary job of rebuilding Rwanda after the genocide. But, you know, the I think the question where the leader is charismatic as he is, what's his succession plan? So the big question is what's going to happen when Gagami's gone?
00:23:48
Speaker
You sort of perfectly cheated on my next question, which is that I feel like Higali plays a very specific role as a character in in the series. And you and I have talked a lot about your affection for Higali specifically, but for Rwanda. And I'm just curious, again, as a filmmaker, how you thought about incorporating the setting of the place as a significant part of the narrative to explain what is happening here?
00:24:12
Speaker
Well, first, right, it's like, why is this happening in Rwanda? All the countries that they could have launched in wi Rwanda. And then it became so evident. It's incredibly well organized. It's all structured. It's clean. It's coherent.
00:24:26
Speaker
There's very little crime. There was very almost no COVID in Rwanda. ah hum So and there was an amazing stadium an incredible basketball arena which Borkagam built in less than six months after visiting Masai in Toronto He went for he went for the All-Star game in 2018 and he was sort of blown away by What's possible in the ecosystem around an NBA arena and he said to Masai You know how how would I go about building this in Africa?
00:24:57
Speaker
And, um, Masai introduced him to the people who run the Toronto Raptors infrastructure. And six months later, there was an arena. ring I saw the questions where was basketball or were there, was there a significant basketball audience in Rwanda at this point? Or it was, did he just say, Oh, we need one of these clearly. I mean, there was there was basketball. I don't think it was that significant, but it's not only a basketball arena. It's also, I lose five events and music and other sports and, It was built after going to the NBA Allstate. It was built as a basketball arena. if for like Literally, and if you build it, they will come. It's beautiful.
00:25:35
Speaker
I mean, you you see it. yeahundminant yeah It's as beautiful as any arena you're ever going to see in North America. It's really impressive place. And it really was a andnna was built in six months. and If you build it, they will come. And they literally did show up.
00:25:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it was I think when the NBA were deciding where to do this, we're going to launch the BAL during the pandemic.
Rwanda's Role in Hosting the League
00:25:54
Speaker
I think it was very important for Africa to not, you know, that it go well, you know, the world's eyes were going to be on on this.
00:26:02
Speaker
And so they picked Rwanda for a whole host of reasons, some of which I've named, in them and it went perfectly. It wasn't a single case of COVID. and The terminal terminal went off without a hitch. And i think a lot of people left, Americans left the first PAL with their eyes wide open.
00:26:19
Speaker
um We took, Joachim and I took Derek Rose to Rwanda the following year. further for the, for the BL for the second one. And, you know, Derek's an amazing guy. You guys, anyone who likes basketball, I'm sure knows who Tyrone Rose is, but Derek's from the South of Chicago and he grew up in a very tough, tough environment.
00:26:40
Speaker
And when we were flying to Rwanda, he was telling me how of his, of his high school, you know, 10 of the 20 kids he was in a class of good were dead.
00:26:51
Speaker
And, you know, Derrick Rose is 32 years old at that point. And with that said, Derek is very excited to go to the continent. He's very excited to go to Rwanda.
00:27:04
Speaker
He's very excited to experience Africa, as a lot of inner black Americans are. But you know somewhere in his head, Derek thinks he's going to Africa to teach. This is the sort of idea that I think the West has, we know more. And wherever we're going, we're going there teach.
00:27:24
Speaker
And it was incredible watching Derek arrive in Kigali Airport. And within an hour, he was a weeping. And within at the next day, he said to Cio Kimahe, I'm not here to teach him anything. I'm here to learn.
00:27:39
Speaker
I'm here to learn. And what I learn here, I'm going to take back to my neighborhood in Chicago. Because, you know, in Chicago, I can't fall asleep for the sound of gunshots. Here in Rwanda, I can't fall asleep because it's so quiet.
00:27:50
Speaker
It's so peaceful. Everyone's smiling. What's going on? And he did, you know, he did deep the high of the country and he found it a life-changing experience. And he's now been taking him and Joaquin, NBA players, back to Africa for every BAL now. And, you know, I think it's...
00:28:09
Speaker
it's been described as like a two-way bridge between the bi-directional bridge between africa and america obviously and africans can come and play here and fire the bridge but but also i think you know the diaspora can use this as a bridge to go back and explore the continent you know Well, and and also because there are roster spots for non-players from that country. mean sort of Famously, J. Cole, my weird alt-duckle-ganger.
00:28:39
Speaker
He's great and the ven in the duck. I know, that's what I'm saying. but it but But do you expect to see... particularly black American players who, you know, maybe you're not making any NBA, maybe you're not in the G league.
00:28:54
Speaker
Like there's, is there a version of them going playing in the DAL and taking one of those two roster spots as opposed to going to Europe or what? yeah as ive been Totally. i can absolutely see a world in which there are young um or or Or maybe players getting close to retirement, even going and playing in the BAL. The messy plan, if you will. For example, I think will be young players who decide rather than going the college route, they go play in the BAL. I mean, what happened with Jake Cole was fortuitous and kind of great in the sense that Cole would always want to be a hooper, and he was pretty good. i mean, he wasn't quite good enough to make it in the NBA, but he was pretty good.
00:29:31
Speaker
And when he heard about the BAL, he sort of put his hand up and said, I'd love to play. And the Rwanda Patriots were smart enough to see an opportunity to, you know, because the way it worked is there's two wild players on each roster.
00:29:46
Speaker
Eight of them have to be from the country. So the team is from, two of them have to be from the continent and two can be from anywhere. And ah so so the Rwanda Patriots signed Jermaine up to play in the first year.
00:29:59
Speaker
And, you know, he was very self-aware about it. You know, he said, look, you know, I wanted the life experience. They wanted the promo. It's a win-win. And, you know, because he was there, a lot of rappers, a lot of players, a lot of and NBA players were watching because they wanted to see him.
00:30:14
Speaker
But then their eyes were on African talent, you know? And we we started getting called after that from Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving and all kinds of wanted to know more. Yeah, I mean, I remember...
00:30:26
Speaker
doing a little bit of hating at the time. And yeah, I found myself watching it could either because you were like interested in what was happening, but there was also the bonus of maybe seeing Jake will be terrible at basketball.
00:30:38
Speaker
um But he availed himself well, like he wasn't like a dominant player, but again, he was, he played well enough that no one could really begrudge, I think his presence. And then, like you said, it was a win-win situation because all of a sudden, a lot of people that wouldn't have been paying attention were paying attention.
00:30:53
Speaker
I mean, I think there's a lot of eyeballs that wouldn't have otherwise otherwise been there. He knew that. He wasn't the starter. He didn't be the starter. He came off the bench, you know. i mean, he was humble in that regard. here He did arrive by private chats. That's a little difficult thing about players.
00:31:06
Speaker
But um at the same time, he was in the bubbles with, you know, he lived with the players and did his thing. And again, he's been really supportive since. and he's He's got to come out and help us run the things. It's terrific.
00:31:19
Speaker
um So talk a bit about promotion plans. We're almost out of time here.
Strategic Release of the Docu-series
00:31:22
Speaker
And so febu that it was it's now NBA All-Star weekend. Yeah, the plan now is to release it February 11th, sort of, when the has behind is going to be able to integrate it with Black History Month programming and All-Star programming. So and it gives us enough time to... The great thing All-Star is everyone's in the same place.
00:31:45
Speaker
We're ready to fly everyone anywhere told about this. What do you make of that, like as a choice by the NBA and ESPN, and right? was espn we you What is the statement of intent, I think, with that? Because they like but they could have put it down at any time. And sure, the Blackheads dream up, whatever, but like the NBA All-Star game is sort of like ah outside of the playoffs, a focal point of culture for basketball culture domestically and globally. And I'm just curious, do you have a sense that over the course of making this talk that
00:32:16
Speaker
the and NBA's thinking about the series, thinking about the BAL has changed at all. I mean, to be clear to the NBA, as supportive as they've been, they're not, you know, they're not producing the doc.
00:32:31
Speaker
So they're not sort of, it's not like a promotional item for them. We obviously do talk to them and consult with them about our plans. um this was more a decision that was made when originally espn wanted to release it uh soon like in two weeks and uh we had a conversation recently and didn't think we had enough time set it up properly everyone looked at their calendars and it just seemed like that was the ideal landing spot um yeah so We want to, we want to run into the screening at the, sometime around the NBA All-Star Weekend, we're to screen it for a lot of people and hopefully get them talking about it.
00:33:08
Speaker
I imagine that they will. And what's next for you as a director? Yeah, this is sort of done-ish. What's next? I shouldn't say this, but I do that. Kyrie Irving.
00:33:21
Speaker
That's my. Wait, so just like Kyrie Doc? Yeah, I'd like make doc about Kyrie Irving, yeah. I think he's fascinating. You'd like to or it's happening? I don't know. I'm trying to make you serious. I have no idea what's happening, but I'd like to talk about Kyrie Irving, yeah.
00:33:39
Speaker
I look forward to seeing him.
00:33:43
Speaker
Our second interview of the evening, Ambassador Martin Kamani of the Africa Center with TNN's Kevin Kajiwara will publish in the coming days. With immense gratitude to our partners, Frankfort Kurnit and the Africa Center, and to our speakers, our guests in the audience, and you, our listeners here, this is Evan Howell signing off for KIT Magazine and Studio Santiago.