-
Not Synced
My name is Jon Gray.
-
Not Synced
They call me the Dishwasher.
-
Not Synced
I cofounded Ghetto Gastro,
-
Not Synced
a Bronx-based collective
-
Not Synced
that works at the intersection
of food, design, and art.
-
Not Synced
We create experiences that challenge
people's perceptions of the Bronx,
-
Not Synced
the place that I call home.
-
Not Synced
It's a funny thing.
-
Not Synced
I just touched down in Vancouver
from Paris a few days ago.
-
Not Synced
We took over the [?]
with the Bronx Brasserie.
-
Not Synced
Oui, oui, cherie.
-
Not Synced
(Laughter)
-
Not Synced
It's wild, because in Paris,
they have this saying,
-
Not Synced
"Le Bronx,"
-
Not Synced
which means something
is in disarray or a problem.
-
Not Synced
That's the ??
-
Not Synced
We shut it down on time.
-
Not Synced
(Laughter)
-
Not Synced
This lingo came into play
when the Bronx was burning,
-
Not Synced
and movies like "The Warriors"
and "Fort Apache"
-
Not Synced
still make an impression.
-
Not Synced
Some may disagree,
-
Not Synced
but I believe the Bronx
was designed to fail.
-
Not Synced
The power broker was a joker.
-
Not Synced
Robert Moses, instead of
parting the Red Sea,
-
Not Synced
he parted the Bronx
with a six-lane highway
-
Not Synced
and redlined my community.
-
Not Synced
My great-grandparents had a home
on Featherbed Lane,
-
Not Synced
and contrary to the name,
-
Not Synced
they couldn't get a good night's rest
-
Not Synced
due to the constant blasting
and drilling that was necessary
-
Not Synced
to build the cross-Bronx expressway
-
Not Synced
a block away.
-
Not Synced
I consider these policy decisions
-
Not Synced
design crimes.
-
Not Synced
(Applause)
-
Not Synced
Being a resilient people
that we are uptown,
-
Not Synced
out of the systematic oppression,
-
Not Synced
hip-hop culture rose from the rubble
and the ashes like a phoenix.
-
Not Synced
Hip-hop is now a trillion-dollar industry,
-
Not Synced
but this economic activity
doesn't make it back to the Bronx
-
Not Synced
or communities like it.
-
Not Synced
Let's take it back to 1986.
-
Not Synced
I was born in the heart
of the AIDS crisis,
-
Not Synced
the crack epidemic,
-
Not Synced
and the War on Drugs.
-
Not Synced
The only thing that trickled down
from Reaganomics was ghettonomics:
-
Not Synced
pain, prison, and poverty.
-
Not Synced
I was raised by brilliant, beautiful,
and accomplished black women.
-
Not Synced
Even so, my pops wasn't in the picture,
-
Not Synced
and I couldn't resist
the allure of the streets.
-
Not Synced
Like Biggie said,
-
Not Synced
you either slinging crack rock
or you got a wicked jump shot.
-
Not Synced
Don't get it twisted, my jumper was wet.
-
Not Synced
(Laughter)
-
Not Synced
My shit was wet.
-
Not Synced
(Applause)
-
Not Synced
But when I turned 15,
I started selling weed,
-
Not Synced
I didn't finish high school,
-
Not Synced
the New York Board of Education
banned me from all of those,
-
Not Synced
but I did graduate to selling
cocaine when I turned 18.
-
Not Synced
I did well.
-
Not Synced
That was until I got jammed up,
caught a case, when I was 20.
-
Not Synced
I was facing 10 years.
-
Not Synced
I posted bail, signed up
at the Fashion Institute,
-
Not Synced
I applied the skills
that I learned in the streets
-
Not Synced
to start my own fashion brand.
-
Not Synced
My lawyer piqued my ambition,
-
Not Synced
so he suggested that the judge
grant me a suspended sentence.
-
Not Synced
For once in my life,
a suspension was a good thing.
-
Not Synced
(Laughter)
-
Not Synced
Over the course of two years
and many court dates,
-
Not Synced
my case got dismissed.
-
Not Synced
Both of my brothers have done jail time,
-
Not Synced
so escaping the clutches
of the prison industrial system
-
Not Synced
didn't seem realistic to me.
-
Not Synced
Right now, one of my brothers
is facing 20 years.
-
Not Synced
My mother put in great effort
in taking me out to eat,
-
Not Synced
making sure we visited museums
-
Not Synced
and traveled abroad,
-
Not Synced
basically exposing me
to as much culture as she could.
-
Not Synced
I remembered how as a kid,
-
Not Synced
I used to take over the dinner table
and order food for everybody.
-
Not Synced
Breaking bread has always
allowed me to break the mold
-
Not Synced
and connect with people.
-
Not Synced
Me and my homie Les,
-
Not Synced
we grew up on the same block in the Bronx,
-
Not Synced
two street dudes.
-
Not Synced
He happened to be a chef.
-
Not Synced
We always discussed the possibility
of doing something in the food game
-
Not Synced
for the benefit of our neighborhood.
-
Not Synced
Les had just won the food show Chopped.
-
Not Synced
Our homie Malcolm was gearing up
to run the pastry kitchen at Noma,
-
Not Synced
yeah world's best Noma in Copenhagen.
You know the vibes.
-
Not Synced
My man Petey had just
finished training at Eataly,
-
Not Synced
Milano to be exact.
-
Not Synced
We decided the world needed
some Bronx steasoning on it,
-
Not Synced
so we mobbed up and formed Ghetto Gastro.
-
Not Synced
(Applause)
-
Not Synced
While I'm aware our name
makes a lot of people uncomfortable,
-
Not Synced
for us "ghetto" means home.
-
Not Synced
Similar to the way someone
in Mumbai or Nairobi
-
Not Synced
might use the word "slum,"
-
Not Synced
it's to locate our people
-
Not Synced
and to indict the systems of neglect
that created these conditions.
-
Not Synced
(Applause)
-
Not Synced
So what is Ghetto Gastro?
-
Not Synced
Ultimately, it's a movement
and a philosophy.
-
Not Synced
We view the work we do
as gastrodiplomacy,
-
Not Synced
using food and finesse
-
Not Synced
to open borders and connect culture.
-
Not Synced
Last year in Tokyo,
-
Not Synced
we did a Caribbean patty,
-
Not Synced
we do jerk wagyu beef,
-
Not Synced
?? konbu.
-
Not Synced
We remix the Bronx classic
with the Japanese elements.
-
Not Synced
And for Kwanzaa,
-
Not Synced
we had to pay homage to our Puerto Ricans,
-
Not Synced
and we did a coconut charcoal
cognac coquito. ??
-
Not Synced
(Laughter)
-
Not Synced
This here is our black power waffle
-
Not Synced
with some gold leaf syrup.
-
Not Synced
Make sure you don't slip on the drip.
-
Not Synced
(Laughter)
-
Not Synced
Here we got the 36 bricks
plant-based ??.
-
Not Synced
Strawberry fields, you know the deal.
-
Not Synced
Compressed watermelon,
-
Not Synced
basil seeds,
-
Not Synced
a little bit of strawberries up there.
-
Not Synced
Back to the Bronx Brasserie,
-
Not Synced
you know we had to hit them in the head
with that caviar and cornbread.
-
Not Synced
(Laughter)
(Applause)
-
Not Synced
We also practice du-ragdiplomacy.
-
Not Synced
(Laughter)
-
Not Synced
Because, we don't edit who we are
when we do our thing.
-
Not Synced
Due to our appearance,
we often get mistaken
-
Not Synced
for rappers or athletes.
-
Not Synced
It happened here last year at TED.
-
Not Synced
This dude ran down on me,
-
Not Synced
and asked me when I was going to perform.
-
Not Synced
How about now?
-
Not Synced
(Applause)
-
Not Synced
So you see,
-
Not Synced
we've been bringing the Bronx to the world
-
Not Synced
but now we focus on bringing
the world to the Bronx.
-
Not Synced
We just opened our spot,
-
Not Synced
an idea kitchen
-
Not Synced
where we make and design products,
-
Not Synced
create content,
-
Not Synced
(Music)
-
Not Synced
and host community events.
-
Not Synced
The intention is
to build financial capital
-
Not Synced
and creative capital in our hood.
-
Not Synced
We're also collaborating
with world-renowned chef
-
Not Synced
Massimo Bottura
-
Not Synced
on a refettorio in the Bronx.
-
Not Synced
A refettorio is a design-focused
soup kitchen and community center.
-
Not Synced
You see the vibes.
-
Not Synced
(Applause)
-
Not Synced
The recent outpouring of grief
about the murder
-
Not Synced
of rapper and entrepreneur Nipsey Hussle
-
Not Synced
is largely due to the fact that he decided
to stay and evolved in place
-
Not Synced
rather than leave his hood.
-
Not Synced
After his death, some may see
this decision as foolish,
-
Not Synced
but I'm making that same
decision every day,
-
Not Synced
to live in the Bronx,
-
Not Synced
to create in the Bronx,
-
Not Synced
to invest in the Bronx.
-
Not Synced
(Applause)
-
Not Synced
At Ghetto Gastro, we don't run
from the word "ghetto,"
-
Not Synced
and we don't run from the ghetto,
-
Not Synced
because at the end of the day,
-
Not Synced
Ghetto Gastro is about showing you
what we already know:
-
Not Synced
the hood is good.
-
Not Synced
(Applause)
-
Not Synced
Thank you.
-
Not Synced
(Applause)
-
Not Synced
Yeah! Yeah!