Black Enso

Why do your best ideas come in the shower, never at your desk? Maybe you're approaching creativity backwards. In this episode, Mikaal discusses why your creativity isn't hiding inside you, but is circling you, waiting to be invited in. Learn why you don't possess creativity but should be possessed by it, and how artists like Rick Rubin and John Coltrane mastered this ancient secret....

Artists are understandably worried about being replaced by AI, but the real threat isn’t artificial intelligence, it’s your fear of your own idiosyncrasies. In this meditation on rigor, imitation, and presence, Mikaal dissects the quiet resistance we build against our most original selves. From Move 37 and James Brown to Elmyr de Hory and Spike Lee, this episode is a manifesto for artists ready to...

JJJJJerome Ellis is an interdisciplinary artist who has an incredible capacity to create as a musician, writer, and actor. Yet the best way to describe JJJJJerome is as an enigma. Not because he is so mysterious but because his brilliance is so difficult to truly understand. He and I talk through what inspires him to make art that acts as a healing balm and how he wears his stutter like a crown on...

Amir Sulaiman, Mikaal’s older brother, is a world renowned poet, screenwriter, theologian, and abolitionist. Amir discusses his brief and bitter crisis involving an Emmy nomination for his screenwriting work on Hulu’s Ramy show. He also breaks down his unique point of view on reality and how we might be living in a screenplay. Amir's short poem you'll hear at the end of the episode is fr...

In this first episode of the Black Enso podcast, Mikaal Sulaiman, the Black Enso host, works through his thoughts on Agoraphobia. His stream of thought essay relates Agoraphobia to his health, his blackness, and his ego. link to post-accident photo: https://www.blackensomedia.com/episode-1