{August 2025}

Remember when finding good 📺 🎥 🎵 wasn’t a second job? 

We do.

We're your plug for Dope Art Here, served fresh monthly 😘.

PS - NO SPOILERS HERE. We got you 😏

Dope ART HERE logo

Welcome to the Dope Art Here experience: a quick mind quencher & snack for your artistic tastes.

WE CURATE ART AS DOPE AS YOU.

This month's spotlights:

Flower Icon

Phones measuring our screen time? All that stuff is scary: both the capability (that phones can quantify their own takeover) and the data itself (why can’t we stop staring at that thang!!). We’re anxious balls of passivity, productivity (we get shit done on that thang), and general overactivity. 

I was at a concert earlier this month. My phone died. You know where all of that nervous energy went? Into being in the moment? No. Nope. I wish. 

My brain became a less and more vivid proxy for my phone. Absolutely terrifying: I was so far in my head, that social scrolling, fomo, and drafting replies owed to people who won’t be at my funeral… just happened on the red side of my damn eyelids. Front row seats to Hot Trash. 

Unlike this month’s host… I know YOU live in the moment 100%. With your bad self. You’ve got balance, your screen time is at a minimum, and you spend no time in your head. Sheeeeeeeeeit I’m tryna be like you! 

But your cousin and your mama… yeah. I know. Tell me more about them. I know you have this one friend who needs to get out of their head. Poor them. 

We did something for them. Those poor, unfortunate souls (ahem, shout out Little Mermaid). We thought deeply this month about the media that helps instantly bring consciousness 6+ inches in front of the forehead. That’s where you want to be. I mean them : )  fuuuuqqq sry

~Justin

Flower Icon

A Love Supreme (1964)

John Coltrane's Love Supreme is the most important musical work in my life. If ever I'm having a rough day, rough moment...if I'm in my head or in my feelings or afraid or scared, or whenever I'm feeling emotional turmoil, I turn to A Love Supreme. 

I try to make it the first music I listen to every day, because it serves as a meditation and prayer to God. I find it a wonderful way to start each day, channeling the intention and energy that Coltrane poured into this masterwork.

It's an album full of heart. It is an album full of intention, an album full of love. It is John Coltrane's way of saying, “Thank you GOD.” And what I find really incredible about A Love Supeme… beyond the beautiful musicianship and the incredible sounds is the intention behind it is the fact that it is an album that has a message, and it is really a reflection of John Coltrane's spiritual walk. (Check out the liner notes!)

I think there's something really beautiful in Coltrane's testimony about his spiritual awakening in 1957 and his desire to use his artistic talent, to use his gifts to make people happy. It's a very pure intention. It's a very pure prayer.

I don't know that I've ever connected so deeply to an artist's intent. And it's funny because it was many years before I read the liner notes...so I fell in love with the sounds, I fell in love with the energy. I fell in love with that first, and then when I found the liner notes and I read his dedication, I was so moved, and the music became even richer and even more compelling and even more exciting.

LISTEN

~Andrew

Flower Icon

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

I don’t spend a lot of time in my body. It’s not always a fun place to be, and retreating to my mind is a go-to comfort (especially for a curious persevering only child weirdo). So I really had to wrack my brain (there I go again) to think of a piece that didn’t just set my mind on fire. I have landed at Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

Ok just wait.

20 minutes into the movie I leaned over and said to my dad: THIS IS WHY MOVIES WERE INVENTED. Frissons of electricity crackled out from my core and fizzed near my fingertips as I started bouncing in my seat with excitement. Ostensibly, this is a movie about regular humans, spawned out of a franchise that started with combination TV/DVD player theft (which, sure, why not have low level electronics felonies as the keystone for a billion dollar franchise? Life doesn’t need to make sense anymore). But the main characters in this movie have as much charm and even MORE superpowers (??) than you’ll find in any marvel movie. Do you want to watch someone lasso a helicopter with their bare hands from a moving truck? Yes, you do. Do you want to see a bunch of brown people use indigenous weapons to fight institutions that look down on them? Yes, you do. Idris Elba? YES, YOU DO.

When the movie ended, I told my dad the truth: I had to actively restrain myself from running back and forth in front of the screen, arms waving wildly and screaming I LOVE MOVIES I LOVE HOLLYWOOD PUT THE MONEY ON THE SCREEN PUT THE EXPLOSIONS IN MY EYES THANK YOU MR THE ROCK!

And I’ve felt that way every time I’ve rewatched it since. In my body.

WATCH

~dara

Flower Icon

Feminine Dance Energy

My instagram algorithm knows me. I don’t know if we’re friends, but at the very least she’s my therapist-slash-enabler. So between the rabbit holes of puppy videos, manifestation affirmations, and bikini fitness call outs that she shares to inspire and numb me, imagine my reaction when I saw a video course for “feminine dance energy.” I was intrigued but hesitant. After weeks of her insistence targeting, I finally capitulated and enrolled. The dance course didn’t include a soundtrack, but instead recommended one: Urban Flora, by Alina Baraz and Galimatias. Wow, does it get me out of my head and back in my body. The sensual movements flow with tracks like “Show Me” “Drift” and “Can I”. I don’t know that my algorithm always has my best interests at heart. But this time, she helped me find the rhythm in my body.

LISTEN

~Adrienne

Flower Icon

PURPOSE by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (2025)

One of the most inspiring nights of my life, one that shook deeply and completely overwhelmed me in real time, was a recent night when I was lucky enough to catch Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Purpose on Broadway before it closed. Despite it winning the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, two Tony nods, a bunch of noms, and more, it’s rare for me to broadly recommend a play. I try to cherry pick and be deliberate.

I don’t say this lightly: Damn. DAMN. I won’t give you a full plot synopsis or review, but I’ll just say… if you have family members, any remote interest in dysfunction, mental health, power dynamics, or laughing/crying your ass off, this is one for you. 

This show was at once the funniest, craziest, and most profound family drama I’ve ever seen – and I grew up going to shows. On one side, it’s an anxiety-riddled, heightened fever dream about generational trauma. On another, it’s an exploration of self identity, love, and growth. Woven in is impeccable dramatic and comedic timing that allows the play to achieve countless moldings, seamlessly, with the essence of American sitcom gold, thanks to director Phylicia Rashad. 

Record scratch – this is sounding a little stuffy. I’m honestly just gushing while writing this, and trying to give the piece what it deserves. At curtain, the mosaic of audience faces were mystified by what they’d just seen, and that’s how I still feel, days later. 

Most importantly, I don’t think I’ve felt that mentally present for 2+ hours in my entire adult life. What a gift. Though the show will close one day after you read this, It’ll surely be revived all over, if in waves. If you see it… see it.

PLAYBILL

~Justin

Flower Icon

This time around, the takeaway is that it's all about enjoying yourself and your experience. Is that truly cherished and celebrated enough? These pieces are vessels that help do that for each of us. We hope they'll help you find yours.

Got your own? Tell us. Hit reply, or...

Email us your picks at yo@dopearthere.com

Hit subscribe to join us for this ride.

~Justin + The Curators

DOPE ART HERE

We curate art as dope as you.

SUBSCRIBE NOW