Boots Riley wants to 'compel and repel' you

Summary

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Fresh Air: "Boots Riley wants to 'compel and repel' you"

Date: May 13, 2026
Host: Tonya Mosley
Guest: Boots Riley (filmmaker, musician, organizer)
Main Focus: Exploration of capitalism and community through Riley’s new film "I Love Boosters", his personal history, politics, artistic choices, and family legacy.

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Fresh Air, host Tonya Mosley sits down with Boots Riley—filmmaker, rapper (The Coup), and lifelong organizer—to discuss his new film, I Love Boosters. Known for his incisive and often surreal critiques of capitalism and power, Riley delves into themes of community, class conflict, the use of "contradiction" in art, and how his personal and family history have shaped his creative trajectory. The conversation blends Riley’s filmmaking philosophy, reflections on his upbringing, and candid thoughts about the intersections of art, politics, and identity.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Origins and Meaning of "Boosters"

• Definition: A "booster" is someone who steals retail goods and sells them at a discount in underserved communities.
  • "A booster is a person who jacks from the retail and sells it in the hood for dirt cheap retail. In these hard times, they press on lightly…" — Boots Riley (00:57)
• Contextualizes the social and economic need that gives rise to boosters, and how this connects to style, culture, and access within marginalized communities.
• The ongoing debate over the term’s origin—variously claimed by New York, Chicago, Bay Area.

2. From Personal Experience to Art

• Riley’s familiarity with boosters stems from lived experience as a "broke rapper" and member of a community reliant on alternative forms of access to fashion and culture.
• The film centers the perspective of those often criminalized from the outside, inviting viewers to embody their reality.
  • "We were able to see from the inside how they're interpreted from the outside and what's really happening." — Tonya Mosley (03:10)

3. Art Theft and Cultural Appropriation

• The film’s protagonist, Corvette (Keke Palmer), is both a booster and a designer whose work is appropriated by a famous fashion mogul (Demi Moore’s character).
• Riley reflects on realizing that communities often have their work and culture "stolen" and rebranded as innovation by those in power.
  • "What is being stolen is actually maybe yours in the first place?" — Tonya Mosley (04:44)
  • Riley traces this awareness back to his activism as a teenager during the Watsonville cannery strike, linking personal empowerment to broader systems of power.

4. Early Political Awakening and Media Representation

• Riley’s political consciousness sparked during labor organizing as a teenager—realizing he could affect real change, not just be a passive observer.
  • "I went in that one trip from wanting to get with these girls to wanting to be them." — Boots Riley (07:10)
• The discrepancy between lived experience and mainstream news portrayal, illustrated by his high school walkout:
  • "So that was a quick lesson..." and "My first real lesson, yeah. Yes. About that perception." — Riley and Mosley (13:12–13:28)

5. Art, Capitalism, and Class Struggle

• I Love Boosters and all Riley’s work aim to make visible capitalism’s contradictions and inspire class struggle from within the system.
• Riley discusses the necessity—and inevitability—of working "inside" the system to reach wider audiences, rather than retreat to the margins.
  • "We're all inside the system... there's no getting out of it until we have a movement that creates a whole different system." — Boots Riley (18:00)
  • "My goal with my art is to instigate class struggle." — Boots Riley (18:47)

6. Casting, Star Power, and Specificity

• Riley initially avoided casting "big names" for fear of losing character specificity, but now sees value in "making them forget what they know about that person."
• Praises Keke Palmer’s versatility and underappreciated range, intentionally casting her against type.
  • "She has this whole skill set that people were under appreciating." — Boots Riley (17:06)

7. Physicality in Political Art

• Riley’s films externalize political arguments through bodily transformation (e.g., Sorry to Bother You’s "horse" workers, the physical rituals in I'm a Virgo, and in Boosters).
• Draws a connection between this visceral approach and his musical background—art should be felt, not just understood.
  • "My whole style... is about creating a viscerality through cinema. And so it's how the camera moves... making you think about something physical." — Boots Riley (25:27)

8. Jankiness, Grotesque, and Artistic Texture

• Riley embraces the "janky" (imperfect, rough) qualities in his films as a metaphor for lived experience and artistic integrity, not as a flaw.
  • "The jankiness of life... I want something that makes you think about that jankiness and see the seams and see things." — Boots Riley (28:49)
• Aims to both compel and repel the audience, fostering critical engagement rather than passive consumption.
  • "I want to have that push and pull. I want people to feel things, to know this is made by someone." — Boots Riley (27:00)

9. Family, Mothers, and Creativity

• Deep reflection on how his mother’s unfulfilled creative ambitions and sacrifices shaped his perspective on women’s possibilities and desires in a constraining world.
  • "Watching her life taught you that many women don't have a chance to realize they are." — Tonya Mosley (30:30)
• Connects the theme of unrealized dreams in his mother’s story to the women creators in I Love Boosters.
  • "This is a movie about women who are creators, and their dreams are happening against a system that won't let them." — Tonya Mosley (35:04)

10. Art as Political Tool: “Star Wars for Radical Politics”

• Riley describes I Love Boosters as "Star Wars for radical politics," emphasizing accessible storytelling with a class message.
  • "'Are you kidding me? You're making Star wars for radical politics? When can I see it?' ...That's how you describe this film." — Tanya Mosley, Boots Riley (35:49–36:08)
• Notes George Lucas’s original intent for "Star Wars" as an anti-imperialist story centered on the Viet Cong, paralleling the need for subversive, popular art.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On living contradictions:
  • "You've said that you love stories that live inside of a contradiction. And what strikes me... is you might have the most contradictions of all that you are living in this moment." — Tanya Mosley (17:38)
• On bodily art:
  • "Every one of your political arguments is something done to a body... why is it physical for you?" — Tanya Mosley (23:01)
  • "It makes you engage with it in a different way... I don't want people to be on automatic." — Boots Riley (27:23)
• On optimism and jankiness:
  • "The art that I make is optimistic... I'm trying to make things that are janky and with this beautiful clutter." — Boots Riley (28:27)
• On family legacy:
  • "My mother was born to a black pre-beat poet... and a German Jewish mother... she was a round artist. She was a round musician...but it was...very much I could see, like she wasn't making things in the way that she wanted to." — Boots Riley (30:32–35:03)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:57 — Boots Riley explains who boosters are
• 02:15 — Tanya Mosley introduces Riley’s career trajectory
• 05:07 — Riley recounts the awakening political experience during the Watsonville cannery strike
• 13:12 — The lesson on media misrepresentation after the student walkout
• 18:00 — Discussion on operating inside the system
• 22:22 — Conversation turns to political metaphor and physicality in Riley’s films
• 27:00 — Boots on compelling and repelling the audience
• 30:26 — Reflection on the influence of Riley’s mother and family creative legacy
• 35:49 – 36:08 — Riley describes his film as “Star Wars for radical politics”
• 39:02–39:06 — Episode wrap-up, thanks and closing thoughts

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Overall Tone & Takeaways

Candid, intellectually lively, and rich with history, the conversation captures Boots Riley’s ongoing commitment to radical politics through art that is both accessible and subversive. Riley navigates the push-pull contradictions of making anti-capitalist work inside mainstream systems, and emphasizes how personal and communal stories—especially those of marginalized women—can drive profound social critique. His invitation to "compel and repel" is both an artistic strategy and a political project, encouraging audiences to feel as much as to think.

If you missed the episode, this conversation offers a window into both the mind behind I Love Boosters and the broader context of Black radical thought in contemporary film.

Transcript

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[Tanya Mosley]

This is FRESH air. I'm Tanya Mosley. My guest today is filmmaker, rapper and community organizer Boots Riley. His work for the last few decades has circled the same argument that capitalism produces the contradictions we live with and that art can make them visible. He made that argument as the frontman of the Oakland based hip hop group the Coup and in his screen work with his 2018 film Sorry to Bother your, a surreal satire about a black telemarketer who finds success after he learns to use his white voice. And he's making the argument again in his latest film, I Love Boosters, which was first a love song he wrote 20 years ago about shoplifters, or boosters as they're called.

[Boots Riley]

A booster is a person who jacks from the retail and sells it in the hood for dirt cheap retail. In these hard times, they press on lightly, nails and all of my experience that sex has been female. Back in elementary my shoes used to wrap. Every time my souls hit the street they would flap. Then in high school, Langston Anderson were capped cause my jacket didn't have a brand name on the back. Years later, this lady took me to her apartment. It looked like the Macy's sportswear department. Clothes on the chairs on the couch and the carpet. A20 had me icy like in the Arctic. If it wasn't for the hard work of a booster, most couldn't go to the clubs that were used to if you don't fit the dress code, they'll boot you. Like people who get dressed up won't shoot.

[Tanya Mosley]

I love boosters. The film stars Keke Palmer as the leader of a crew of women shoplifters in the Bay Area who steal from luxury fashion stores and sell the goods cheap to people who can't afford retail. Demi Moore plays the fashion designer whose stores they're robbing from. And Lakeith Stanfield plays a figure who threatens the whole operation. As you heard before Riley made films, he made music. The Coup released their first album, kill my landlord in 1993. Before that, he was a labor and community organizer, a UPS worker and a telemarketer, a job that would eventually become the subject of Sorry to bother your Boots. Riley, welcome back to FRESH air.

[Boots Riley]

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

[Tanya Mosley]

You know, I have watched I Love Boosters twice and both times I was thinking, what does boots know about Boosters.

[Boots Riley]

Well, I have been a broke rapper for a long time. Having to stay fly, you know, just a job requirement. And so I've definitely had to deal with a lot of boosters. When I wrote that song 20 years ago, it was a lifetime of experience, so. And also just saw how much of a service it provided a community whose. In my case, the black community. I don't think they only exist in the black community. A community whose style is inspiring. These things that are costing more than people can afford with the income that they have.

[Tanya Mosley]

That is the interesting. It's not an inversion, but it is the thing that we sit with as the audience because we are living this world through the boosters themselves. And so we were able to see from the inside how they're interpreted from the outside and what's really happening. But, you know, that term boosters, I had never heard that before. I think I heard like, okay, in Detroit, I know somebody with the hookup, or, you know, I know a guy. Yeah.

[Boots Riley]

It's funny because online there's this whole debate about where that term came from. There's people in New York saying, we came up with the term. There's people in obviously in the Bay Area saying we came up with the term. And there's people in Chicago saying, no, no, boosters. We did that. And such and such. So there's this whole debate. And, you know, obviously I can come from the Bay Area, so I'm gonna, you know, shoot shots on that behalf. However. Yeah, I think it was all over, so. And definitely people had different ways of calling it, but, you know, I have no idea where it came from. There's somebody that could probably call in and tell us. Etymology of that.

[Tanya Mosley]

Exactly. And I obviously am out of the loop, but I wanna talk a little bit about what you were saying about the boosters place and how they serve the community. And let's talk about that a little bit through the character Corvette herself, who's played by Keke Palmer. And she isn't just a booster, she is a designer.

[Boots Riley]

Yeah.

[Tanya Mosley]

And Christy Smith, the fashion mogul that she admires, who's played by Demi Moore, steals one of her designs. And basically this woman is Haile as a genius, but she's stealing from black and brown communities. When was the first time you kind of realized that idea that, like, what. What is being stolen is actually maybe yours in the first place?

[Boots Riley]

You know, I think you'd have to back it up to when I was 14 or 15, you know, and I got involved in supporting people who were organizing A cannery workers strike in Watsonville, California. So I got invited to a youth event based on that. And you know, they, they, someone was like, hey, you know, we're gonna have this thing we'll be by on, you know, we'll be by at noon on Saturday. And back then there's no cell phones, there's no anything, so you could totally ghost somebody a lot easier. And I planned on it. So I was like, I'm just, yeah, come by. I'm not gonna be there. And so, but I forgot about it. And so they came by with a van full of 14 year old girls.

[Tanya Mosley]

Yeah.

[Boots Riley]

And they, and they, they were like, hey, you want to go to the beach? And I was like, oh yeah, I definitely want to go to the beach with y'.

[Maureen Corrigan]

All.

[Boots Riley]

And they were like, but first we're gonna stop and stop off and support the Watsonville cannery workers strike. And then. So that's kind of how I got hoodwinked into it because I entered the van with, you know, flirtatious goals and, and then I met these girls who were like, they were talking about things that were on the news, think world events, these sorts. And, and, and things that I purposely was trying to ignore because I didn't have a sense that I could have any effect on it. Right. I didn't have a sense that like it didn't matter if I paid attention or not because what am I going to do? These are just things that, that happen. And they were talking about it and I realized that they felt that they could have some, something to do with

[Tanya Mosley]

they had what happened.

[Boots Riley]

Yeah. And that, and it was connected to this cannery workers strike that we were going to. Right. That this was not only about someone trying to get higher wages, but it was about how you might be able to create a movement that has the power to, to affect those who are in power. And it started to me talking, started the conversation about what power actually is under this system. So I went in that one trip from wanting to get with these girls to wanting to be them.

[Tanya Mosley]

Yes. To wanting to be them and understanding because they're opening up your world. But you grew up in a household with a father who also was teaching you through his actions, being an organizer and working in Detroit on behalf of the auto workers. And then.

[Boots Riley]

Yeah, but the thing is, is that you don't. One thing that I think was good is my parents didn't like say here you have to learn this and blah, blah, blah. Cause I probably would have later thought of it as their stuff and not Mine. I don't know if they did that intentionally or that's just how it was. But yeah, they'd have. When I was, when we lived in Detroit, we lived there till I was six. They'd have meetings, but the meetings would always, and I didn't know they were meetings because they would always end in like bid whist parties or like, you know, playing records and dancing. So I just knew people were around sitting on couches, talking to each other and they end up having fun. So I just thought they were having parties. But it did shape what I thought community was

[Tanya Mosley]

something you do in this particular film. I love boosters. The news is always there. It's the radio, it's the tv, it is like. But since we're sitting in the world of the boosters, we are the boosters. We are seeing what is just such a short distorted view of them because we see their whole worlds. When did you start to also understand that? And you know, I'm super interested in this as a journalist that oh, what I am seeing is just a very small part of what is my reality here.

[Boots Riley]

Yeah, well, okay, so after the Watsonville cannery workers strike, then I was helping to organize something called the anti racist farm workers union. And we did all this stuff and

[Tanya Mosley]

you know, you're what, you're 15 by this time?

[Boots Riley]

At that point I'm 15, you know, and you know, they're giving us assignments like, you know, you guys gotta run off the flyers while we're in the fields. You gotta make signs, you gotta make a skit, you know, all these things. You gotta plan the caravan thing. We're doing this door to door thing. So it was like, you know, and I was willing to do more because I wasn't where anybody knew me. Like you know, 15 years old, you're trying to be cool and you don't want people to see you doing certain things. I would have never like walked up to someone, someone and pass them a flyer because maybe they'll think that's nerdy or something like that, I don't know. But I, I got involved doing all that stuff. So then I get back to school and one of the first thing. And so I'm totally, I'm a revolutionary at that point. I'm a communist by then. And I'm like, okay. So I, so I start using these ideas of how to get people involved. And there was a bunch of students and me started this walkout against year round schools and Oakland. It's pretty easy to get high schoolers to walk out against the idea of going to school year round.

[Tanya Mosley]

Yeah, yeah. So you get 2,000 students to walk out.

[Boots Riley]

Get 2,000 students to walk out. And, you know, this is very different than what I'm doing because I'm invest. I know everybody and, you know, so I. So I have the bullhorn, and we're in front of the school, and I'm saying things about what we're going to do. The plan is to march down to the school board and the principal, Mr. O'. Leary, he was an ex cop buff, like. And walked around, like, in a pose with his arms out. So you knew that he. His biceps were. Were too big for his arms to go at his side.

[Tanya Mosley]

I see it.

[Boots Riley]

And. And he walks out there and he says, riley, give me that bullhorn. And so I was like, okay. And everybody was like, what are you doing? And as I was handing it to him and trying to take it back, like, a good 15 or 20 students come and help me to try to pull it from him. And we eventually get the bullhorn back from him. And. But it. This guy Navin, it cuts his arm and it splurts out onto Olyri's shirt.

[Tanya Mosley]

Wow.

[Boots Riley]

Right. And we all march down to the. We. We all marched down. They were. So. This was the 80s. This is 86. And so in my lifetime, my conscious lifetime, I had never seen anything like that. But I think it scared the school board to where as soon as we got there, they came out and announced they were reversing their decision.

[Tanya Mosley]

Wow.

[Boots Riley]

And so we were drunk with power, basically. We're like, what is this?

[Tanya Mosley]

Easy, Right, right, right.

[Boots Riley]

And the next day was the first time I ever saw a color picture on the COVID of the Oakland Tribune.

[Tanya Mosley]

And what was it?

[Boots Riley]

It was a color picture of Principal o' Leary with blood all over him, saying that students attacked Principal o' Leary on the way to. You know. And so that was a quick lesson.

[Tanya Mosley]

That was your first real lesson. Yeah. Yes. About that perception there. I was really fascinated by that news component in this film, too, because we see that dynamic about protests all the time, where there's a particular part of the protest that becomes the news story versus the protest itself. In many instances, it's because of the looting. The looting is the thing that we see the most, more than anything else.

[Boots Riley]

So also, I want to put this in the context in the movie, because what you're making is a great point that I think. But what I'm setting up in the movie has to do with when I would be watching TV a lot. I Was, like, addicted to tv. And my father would always be like, you know, why you think it's interesting? Why you think those people's lives are interesting? And he would say, because they're not watching tv. Because the reality for many of us is we're spending so much time watching these screens. And so I'm, like, trying. And so for me, what we do see on these screens is a huge part of our life. It's a huge part of what affects us. And so I want that representation on there. Not only the interpretation from what happened in real life to what's happening on the screen, but how we are affected by all these things.

[Tanya Mosley]

It's interesting about the casting of this film because you've got some real big heavy hitters. You've got Don Cheadle. You've got Demi Moore, Keke Palmer, who's been around since she was 11. She's been famous.

[Boots Riley]

Oh, yeah. Lakeith Stanfield.

[Tanya Mosley]

And Lakeith Stanfield, part of whom you made famous with, you know, sorry to bother your, but he's since gone on and done so many things. And what's interesting is I interviewed Tessa Thompson a little while ago, and she told me the story of how you almost took her out of the cast of Sorry to Bother your, because she had gotten a Marvel movie, and you felt like she might be too exposed and too well known.

[Boots Riley]

It wasn't just the Marvel movie, to be fair, but.

[Tanya Mosley]

Yeah, but the fact that she was well known. So what has changed for you in this idea? Because in this film, I mean, you've got all these heavy hitters.

[Boots Riley]

I think maybe just more confidence in myself. Like I saw with Tessa, like, how we made that very specific thing. You know, I'm saying. And I was like, it worked. Yeah. And. And that. That I can write it in a way that we can shape it in a way where it does have its own specificity. And so. And I think maybe I was more reacting to how a lot of movies do. Like, it's the George Clooney. It's George Clooney breaking in the banks. It's George Clooney being a sniper. It's George Clooney. And I was like, I don't want the George. It's George Clooney doing this thing. I want it to be this character. Right? And I think that what I've realized is that even though the star of it all stars, the how big someone is, can make people come to a movie for that, then it's my job to make them forget what they know about that person. Right. What they know about that actor. And it's also the actor's job. So I'm picking people that can pull that off.

[Tanya Mosley]

Why was Kiki the person that had to be Corvette?

[Boots Riley]

Oh, I saw how in other movies they were like, okay, she does this one thing or these two things, this certain cadence. And they were like missing this whole other piece of her.

[Tanya Mosley]

Of Kiki?

[Boots Riley]

Yeah. And not in all things they did that. She's, she's. She's shown herself. That's how I knew it. Right. And also I met with her and I could see this thing and her willingness to go there, you know, and in the same way that often I'm trying to cast against type in that way I saw with this, like, this is a chance to see someone do stuff that they haven't done before. And that she has this whole skill set that people were under appreciating.

[Tanya Mosley]

You've said that you love stories that live inside of a contradiction. And what strikes me about this moment now in your life is you might have the most contradictions of all that you are living in this moment. I mean, you have produced a $20 million film. You're inside the system, critiquing the system. But I'd like to know, how are you thinking about that?

[Boots Riley]

Yeah, well, I think that we're all inside the system. I think if I had a job, I've had many jobs at retail. I've had many jobs, you know, doing stuff. I've constructed redwood decks, all sorts of things like that. And I'm inside the system like there's no getting out of it until we have a movement that creates a whole different system.

[Tanya Mosley]

But in particular, though, I mean, when your first movie, Sorry to Bother your came out, it was like a breakthrough of, oh, he is really speaking to the system. He's talking truth to power. It's very anti capitalism. But now you're like, you're entering the seasoned, successful role almost to the point where you are the system. You're part of the.

[Boots Riley]

And I think what my films and my music has always said is that we all are the system. And my goal with my art is to instigate class struggle. So the reason that people know about me, for instance, is because of originally because of the music and now because of the movies. But from day one with the music we were on EMI Records, no longer existing corporation, but they were maybe one of the most owned by a lot of heinous multinational corporation. Multinational corporation with investments all over the place. Right. The reason is, is because I want this out on a platform to talk to people who, you know, they're not seeking out alternative things. They're not going to the punk DIY spots.

[Tanya Mosley]

So you got to get inside in order to get to the people that you want to talk to.

[Boots Riley]

But I wouldn't even put it that way because we're we're inside already. Like, there's no getting out of there. There's no make. Even if you make a commune in the woods by virtue of you not actually changing the way things are, you're living inside capitalism.

[Tanya Mosley]

Our guest today is filmmaker, rapper and organizer Boots Riley. His new film is titled I Love Boosters. I'm Tonya Mosley, and this is FRESH air.

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[Tanya Mosley]

This is FRESH air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Boots Riley. His new film, I Love Boosters, is a satirical look at a crew of women shoplifters in the Bay Area. Before Riley was a filmmaker, he spent more than two decades fronting the political hip hop group the Coup, whose albums include Kill My Landlord, Steal this Album and Party Music. Before he was a rapper, Riley loaded packages onto airplanes for ups. And before that, he was a teenage labor organizer. He came up alongside radical politics. His father, Walter Reilly, is a civil rights and criminal defense attorney in Oakland who organized auto workers in Detroit before going to law school. I want to talk a little bit about your use of the body and all of your bodies of work. So I'm not spoiling it because I'M sorry to Bother your has been around for many years. So I can talk about how like the workers, the workers turn into horses.

[Boots Riley]

I haven't seen it yet. That's on you.

[Tanya Mosley]

Right, exactly. But in Sorry to Bother your the workers turn into horses and I'm a Virgo. Cootie is like this 13 foot tall presence in a world that, you know, doesn't make space for him in Boosters. I can't talk about you. You know, there's a spoiler there. But Lakeith Stanfield's character, it is very much in the body. So every one of your political arguments is something done to a body. So in your films, capitalism doesn't just show up as a system, it also shows up in like the very physical manifestation.

[Boots Riley]

Yeah. That's interesting.

[Tanya Mosley]

I mean, why is it physical for you?

[Boots Riley]

Well, I think it might be connected to my work in music. Right. No matter how, you know, like. So when I started, when I decided to become a rapper, I was not good at all. I wasn't just not good, I was bad. Not only did I know that. Yeah, my friends knew that.

[Tanya Mosley]

Yeah.

[Boots Riley]

So it was surprising to them that in what sense? I was just not good. I had to learn, you know, how to not be corny. I had to learn, you know, all sorts of things. And it is, you know, it is a skill, it is a talent. It is something that you build and you hone. And only because I was, I came from a disciplined party did I know that. I did. Did I have the philosophy that I could get better? Yeah. That I could just work on it and figure that out.

[Tanya Mosley]

Why was rapping the thing you wanted to invest in to get better?

[Boots Riley]

I was first. I saw it around me and so I thought that it was a cool thing to do. But when it solidified that I'm going to do this was we were working in the Double Rock projects in San Francisco. This is 89. And there was a case in which a woman named Rossi Hawkins and her two twin sons got beat down. Her two twin eight year old sons got beat down by the police. And the neighborhood of Double Rock came out and started charging the police. And the cops shot in the air. The crowd ran away. And the story that everybody tells, the thing that made everyone turn around was someone started chanting, fight the power. Fight the power. And that was 1989. Do the right Thing, the song from do the Right Thing, Fight the Power and was all over the radio. And that was a unifying rallying cry. So I started seeing what music and now art in General how it could have that place. So I started doing that now. Started doing music. I taught myself. Blah, blah, blah. What I learned from music.

[Tanya Mosley]

Yes. About the body.

[Boots Riley]

Yeah. Is what I learned from music is that it doesn't matter. Because I got known as a lyricist, right. So it didn't matter how great someone's lyrics were, like. Except to a couple, like, rap lyric nerds or whatever, right? It didn't matter. People like, what does the beat sound like? What does that. How does that beat make me feel? And a lot of that for. In the particular way that we. It was a visceral thing like that. 808. You feel it. The. The way the music might drop out or something come in. It makes you. It makes your heart pump in a certain way. It makes you feel connected. And so my whole. My whole style, even when it's not sticking to the body, is about creating a viscerality through cinema. Right. And so it's how the camera moves. It's everything. And so part of what I'm also doing is making you think about something physical. Right. Something like, how do we touch the system? We don't just think about. It's not just these theoretical things, because I'm starting my art from a very personal place.

[Tanya Mosley]

And sometimes it can get grotesque. Yeah, it can get grotesque. Like in sorry to bother you. And they turn into horses. I mean, it's a very disturbing thing to feel.

[Boots Riley]

Thank you.

[Tanya Mosley]

And some disturbing things in this movie too, I will say.

[Boots Riley]

But yeah, definitely, definitely. So what I want to do is compel people and repel people at the same time. Right. I want to have that push and pull. I want people to be able to feel things, to know this is made by someone. This is made by hundreds of people.

[Tanya Mosley]

Because feeling does what in that way? Yeah.

[Boots Riley]

It makes you engage with it in a different way. So let's say a very. Let's say a very basic thing. If I'm like, this person is sad and therefore we're playing the violins, you know, like, you'll be like, okay, they're sad and you won't even question it. Like, they're sad and blah, blah. But you go on automatic. And I don't want people to be on automatic. I want people to be understanding. You know, it's like seeing the brushstrokes, right. In something like it doesn't take you out of the painting to see the breaststrokes. It brings you into it more. And so I want people to think about, engage with this work in a different way. And so that goes from so that the grotesque part is something that I think is connected to, you know, what we might the horrors that we see and atrocities we see happening in our real life. And how do we get a hold of that? And to do that in the midst of something that is ultimately optimistic. Yeah, yeah.

[Tanya Mosley]

When you say ultimately optimistic, I think

[Boots Riley]

the art that I make is optimistic. And to put that in this context is something that makes you think about what's in front of you in a different way. Like, I show the seams and stuff, and that has to do with I'm trying to make things that are janky and with this beautiful clutter. And it's very inspired to me, you

[Tanya Mosley]

use the term janky, you know, which is typically a negative term. Like it's janky. It's busted.

[Boots Riley]

Yeah.

[Tanya Mosley]

It's not.

[Boots Riley]

So is punk is a negative term, too.

[Tanya Mosley]

But you're not using it that way. So you're not using janky in a negative way.

[Boots Riley]

No, I'm like, this is like the jankiness of life. And obviously I'm choosing what's in the frame. And it's very made right. And it's heightened. But I want something that makes you think about that jankiness and see the seams and see things. So I can say, like we have and it's about textures. We have miniatures, we have stop motion. You know, we have all sorts of stuff.

[Tanya Mosley]

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is filmmaker, rapper and organizer Boots Riley. His new film, I Love Boosters, arrives in theaters on May 22nd. We'll be right back after a break. This is FRESH air. This is FRESH air. I'm Tonya Moseley, and my guest today is Boots Riley. His new film is called I Love Boosters, out May 22nd. You know, Boots, you have talked a lot about your father, and there's so many parallels between you and him. But, you know, we're recording this the day after Mother's Day, and it had me thinking about your mother because there's something that you said years ago about your late mom that has stuck with me. You said that she put her hopes and dreams aside and that watching her life taught you that many women don't have a chance to realize they are.

[Boots Riley]

I don't remember saying that, but it sounds right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tanya Mosley]

Can you tell me about your mom?

[Boots Riley]

So my mother was born to a black pre beat poet named Lawrence Patterson and a German Jewish mother named Anita Pinner. And in New York, and she was born in the 40s, so just even then being. It wasn't something that is as prevalent as now. And she got pregnant with my sister when she was 15 and kind of was left alone to care for her. Yeah. Yeah. And before that time, she was part of the Children's Theater workshop that became Sesame Street.

[Tanya Mosley]

How? In what way?

[Boots Riley]

She was one of the cast members.

[Tanya Mosley]

Really? What was her role?

[Boots Riley]

I don't know. I just saw a picture and she told me about it, because this would come up all the time about. Because she then had four kids, and so she would sometimes let folks know. Not just sometimes. A lot of times let folks know what she gave. Well, what she gave up.

[Tanya Mosley]

Oh.

[Boots Riley]

And I didn't find out till after she died. She wrote a lot of poetry by reading her journals. Don't read your mom's journals after she dies. You'll find a lot about other men and very specific things that you don't want to know about your mom. But.

[Tanya Mosley]

But you also found out that she was a poet.

[Boots Riley]

So, you know, and her mother also, though, was a poet. Her mother also was involved in theater and was the director of Oakland Ensemble Theater. Cause she then later came, even though her mom move. When she was a teenage mother, she came to be like, no, you're gonna help me with this. And she moved to Berkeley. That's how she got to the West Coast.

[Tanya Mosley]

So your grandmother, your mother's mother is what introduced you. You know, when you talk about these stories about the theater in Oakland, that was your maternal grandmother.

[Boots Riley]

Yeah, yeah. But it was. It definitely did not make me want to do theater.

[Tanya Mosley]

That whole experience.

[Boots Riley]

Yeah. Just like, in the sense that it was boring old people stuff, you know, like somebody sitting on the couch, arguing with each other. There was always a slap. Like, I think the actors of a certain age, they always want to slap.

[Tanya Mosley]

Right.

[Boots Riley]

They'll be like, should they slap me? You know, something like that.

[Tanya Mosley]

That's the action, right.

[Boots Riley]

Or that's like the emotional thing.

[Tanya Mosley]

One of the things I'll say, Boots, that struck me, though, about that quote that you don't remember that you said about your mom.

[Boots Riley]

I mean, it sounds true.

[Tanya Mosley]

When did you realize that, though, that, wow, my mom maybe didn't have a fully realized life. Was that something that you were. Had the emotional intelligence as a child, or was it when you were older?

[Boots Riley]

Well, I think, you know, she told us. And also that was what she was doing later was like, okay, I'm doing this now because I've had this other life. Right. She was a round artist. She was a round musician. I was around jazz musicians, John Handy, you know, like all great ones.

[Tanya Mosley]

Really?

[Boots Riley]

Yeah. Oliver Johnson. One time she took us to France and we were with all these jazz musicians who were from Oakland. You know, that was around the same time. I was 15. So I saw all this stuff. At the same time. I did also see like, oh, these people don't grow up. Like, I had this idea about artists and musicians specifically, like there's a arrested development compared to the rest of the rest of whoever I knew. Right. And so I was like, I definitely don't want to be a musician because

[Tanya Mosley]

I want to grow, I want to evolve.

[Boots Riley]

Yeah. I felt like it was just. And it was maybe the particular people she was around. Right. So. But my point is, is that she wanted to be around the excitement of creating things. And so it took, you know, all of these things about art and music that she was exposing me to. And so there was definitely a huge artistic influence from that and from her. Her whole side of things. But it was. Yeah, very much I could see, like she wasn't making things in the way that she wanted to.

[Tanya Mosley]

Maybe not fulfilled.

[Boots Riley]

Yeah.

[Tanya Mosley]

Which it strikes me with. I love Boosters that this is a movie about women who are creators and their dreams are happening against a system that won't let them.

[Boots Riley]

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that story is just so prevalent around just people I know. And you're right, you're pointing out some connection that I didn't think about. But I think for the same reason that I wrote the song I Love Boosters, I wanted to spend time with those characters and they seem interested. The real version of those characters, they still do exist.

[Tanya Mosley]

How do you think your radical 15 year old self or 25 year old self would look at yourself today?

[Boots Riley]

They'd be like, are you kidding me? You're making Star wars for radical politics? When can I see it?

[Tanya Mosley]

That's how you describe this film. Is Star wars for radical politics? You feel like this is the Star wars for radical politics?

[Boots Riley]

Yeah. Well, I mean, but to be fair, Star wars was supposed to be the Star wars for radical politics, George Lucas. And I've confirmed this with him in person and you can find him online talking about it. I just want to drop the fact that I have met George Lucas.

[Tanya Mosley]

Right. And that you've had this conversation is

[Boots Riley]

that he originally was supposed to do what became Apocalypse Now.

[Tanya Mosley]

Yeah.

[Boots Riley]

And after American Graffiti, he had this hit. He figured he could do whatever he wanted. So it was based on Heart of Darkness. So he was doing Heart of Darkness. But where the main Characters were the Viet Cong.

[Tanya Mosley]

Yep.

[Boots Riley]

And the person that they were going to get their version of Kurtz was someone who had betrayed them and started working with the United States and became evil in that. They were like, it's too radical. You're not gonna. You're never gonna make this movie. Nobody's gonna fund it. And he couldn't get funding, and he was like, how about if I put it in space?

[Tanya Mosley]

Yeah. And that is a story that, like, I can see why you hold onto that. I think that's really interesting for you, though. I just wonder, you know, that uses, like, space and science fiction and things, and your art is much more on the nose. It's much more on the head. It's much more. It's using metaphor, but it's telling you.

[Boots Riley]

Yeah, here's my thing. I feel like as long as I can keep you. So I've just done a tour since south by Southwest. I've played this movie 35 times, maybe, and I've sat through it every time. Boisterous laughter. Sometimes I'm worried people aren't getting the dialogue because they're laughing over certain parts. And, you know, it's crazy. So my thing is, in the same way with my music, if I keep you dancing, I got you. Right. In this case, all of that stuff. Whatever. If I keep you laughing and keep you interested and keep you on the edge of your seat and feeling surprised and engaged, then I have license to do almost anything. But it ends up being a balance, because if I'm gonna do this thing that says, hey, it's like A, B and C, I have to have something that's still pulling you in. And so that's actually been the thing that I've honed for 30 years. This is my second film, but it's not my second thing.

[Tanya Mosley]

Right.

[Boots Riley]

And I think what makes the film work is that it just works on a basic level. And then you think about, like, oh, this is what he's saying. But it's very clear what I'm saying. It's not. It's not ambiguous, and I like art that does that.

[Tanya Mosley]

Boots Riley, thank you so much for this film, and thank you for this conversation.

[Boots Riley]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Tanya Mosley]

Boots Riley's new film is I Love Boosters. It opens in theaters on May 22nd. Coming up, book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews two new novels that are worlds apart, but united by the bond of loneliness. This is Fresh Air.

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[Tanya Mosley]

This is FRESH air. Our book critic Maureen Corrigan says although the main characters in new novels by Nigerian writer Pemi Aguda and American writer Elizabeth Strout are worlds apart, they're united by the bond of loneliness.

[Maureen Corrigan]

Here's her review in Beloved, Toni Morrison writes of a kind of loneliness that is wrapped tight like skin. I don't think Morrison's taught simile has been topped, but two new novels attest to the inexhaustibility of language to describe a state we all unwillingly experience. Peek at the multiple categories that Peme Aguda's debut novel, One Leg on Earth, is shelved under and you'll start to understand how distinctive her writing is. Amazon, for instance, sells the book under horror, occult and supernatural, city life and literary fiction. It's all those and more. Aguda's shy main character is a 23 year old Nigerian college graduate named Yosoye. A communications major, she feels lucky to have been assigned to an architectural firm in Lagos for her year of national service. Determined to shuck off what she thinks of as her inward tilt, Yasoye walks into a local joint shortly after moving into her one room apartment. She convinces herself to sit down and order a beer, and when a man approaches, she goes off to a cheap motel with him and has sex. Then she discovers she's pregnant. In addition to all the mundane reasons why this pregnancy comes at a less than ideal time for Yasoye, there's also something weird happening in Lagos. Pregnant women have been walking into the ocean, jumping into lagoons and drowning themselves. Some force compels them to be one with water. Agata has linked motherhood and the supernatural before in her 2024 short story collection Ghost Roots, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Here. It's not only the mass suicides that render Yosoye's Lego sinister. It's also the locale of the building project where she works churning out promotional materials. Omi City will be a preserve of the wealthy, built on a peninsula reclaimed from the ocean. Right now, though, it's just miles of empty sand, occupied only by the architectural firm's rough headquarters. The self important employees there barely acknowledge Yosoye's existence. Her lifelong loneliness motivates Yosoye to keep the pregnancy here's her thinking. An outline. That's what Yosoye had always felt like, a hollow outline of a person moving through space. It explained why people looked at her and looked away. An outline had no mass, no grounding force. This baby was now a dark little spot. Inside that outline, Yosoye felt its weight as it grew. She would be shaded in until she became a real person. Through uncanny language and images, Aguda enchants her readers into an intimate connection with Yo Soye. Talk about Enchantment Every time Elizabeth Strout brings out a new novel, which is often I think to myself, she can't pull off another great book again. And then she does. Strout's signature subjects of loneliness and class humiliation reappear in the Things We Never Say, although Lucy Barton, a mainstay of her recent books, is absent. Instead, we meet someone new. Artie dam is a 57 year old high school history teacher, the kind of teacher who genuinely cares about his students and changes some of their lives. That said, Artie finds himself leading a secret life of sadness. He even contemplates suicide. A puzzling separation from his beloved adult son is one cause. But there's also Artie's low level feeling of isolation. For instance, arriving home after a cocktail party, Artie says to his wife, Evie, I wonder why people never said anything real. Evie, a therapist, dismissively tells him not to be an idiot. We're told that Artie, as he walked to the closet with their coats, felt a dismalness returned to him. There's a major secret revealed in the course of this story, an Artie's special area of interest. American Civil War history allows the novel to make some profound commentary about our own contemporary civil wars. But Strout readers know her most overwhelming epiphanies sneak up in throwaway moments, fragmented short paragraphs. I'll leave you with one of those paragraphs, courtesy of Strout's omniscient narrator. So blind. We humans are so blind to each other and to ourselves, moving through life as though through shadows, putting out a hand in the dark and thinking we have touched someone. And maybe we have. But mostly we travel through life unsighted, grasping only the smallest details of one another's selves, including our own, thinking all the while that we can see.

[Tanya Mosley]

Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed two novels by Pei Mi Aguda and Elizabeth Strout, tomorrow on Fresh air As President Trump heads to Beijing for his summit with Xi Jinping. We speak with China expert and former national security official Rush Doshi. He says events of the past year show that China now faces the US As a true peer as they square off over trade and tariffs, the Iran conflict and the future of Taiwan. I hope you can join us

[Boots Riley]

to

[Tanya Mosley]

keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram NPR Fresh air Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Stanischewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Meyers, Anne Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Bea Chaloner, Susan Nakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show with Terry Gross. I'm Tonya Moseley.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

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