We had the good fortune of connecting with Jeremy Norris & Rikesha Duriso and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jeremy Norris & Rikesha Duriso, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
We wanted to create a platform that served the community with positive raw progressive information on how to better their lives in a tangible and intangible way.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Our lives and our intent reflect our art. Other podcasts tend to exploit the nuisances in our society with ill intent in order to gain notoriety; while we instead take the path less traveled. We are mostly proud of the positive impact we are having on our society and those around us.

We both come from poetic and hip hop artistic backgrounds. In fact, we met on set for the music video of Ceemoe, a mutual friend and artist in Beaumont, TX back in 2005. But beyond the arts we both continued to evolve spiritually on a parallel journey unaware of the others. We continued to follow each other on social media, until recently in 2024 we made plans to begin tapping “The Disconnect Podcast”. Although we both faced personal adversities, the conceptual development of the podcast was very fluid with a lot of synchronicities that came into play. It is as though the stage was already set for our production.

Once we began production we overcame our challenges through trial and error. We began basing our insight and topics off our personal experiences and not just what we heard. We learned to remain authentic and tell the truth no matter what, thus developing the show motto “F’ them people toes”. If we can be utilized as instruments to bring awareness to the people to prevent them from making similar mistakes; then we have reached the goal of replacing subjectivity with objectivity. We are truly here to help raise the vibrations of the planet and connect with tribe.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
(Rikesha)It would be a week filled with various mood filled activities ranging from comedy shows, poetry lounges, karaoke, rooftop cinemas, night scooter riding, mudding, hiking and more. We would explore venues like ‘Lost and Found’ and ‘Phil and Derek’s’.

(Jeremy)All of the above and on a spiritual note we would connect with the community, visit ‘The Shrine of the Black Madonna’ and ‘The Shape Center’. We would attend Sankofa in Galveston, go to ‘Vegan Vibez festival’, eat at ‘Soul Food Vegan’, ‘Mo betta Brews’, and other great eateries.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
We would love to give a special thanks to Lil Ron and King Kato for allowing us to have access to their facility and providing a space where we could speak our truths. Shout out to Homestead Slim for giving us our first interview as “The Disconnect Podcast”. Shout out to J-Roq aka King Mullah aka Kill Shot for his support and being the 3rd host we didn’t know we needed at times. A special dedication to family and friends for all the moral support and believing that we could create a platform that healed the masses.

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Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/thedisconnectpodcast_

Other: Tik Tok: @thedisconnectpodcast

Image Credits
The Disconnect Podcast

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