On June 26 inside National Southwest Recording—the hideaway studio attached to 11th Street Records—Las Vegas creatives Siril Beil, Ryan “Petit” Alexander and Amiri Hutchinson hosted a live taping of their new podcast, 2 Dudes & A Girl.
Around 40 people gathered at the Downtown location for the premiere of Vegas singer Rayven Chanelle's latest music video—a clip for her upcoming single, “The Rose and the Wheat.” Directed by Beil, the video served as a catalyst to get people together and talking about art, music and life—three topics that come up regularly on 2 Dudes & A Girl.
Beil, a local director and man of many hats, says the music video came together after conceiving the film’s concept with Alexander, a photographer and videographer. “The Rose and the Wheat,” Beil says, was all about celebrating and telling the story of Black love and fashion through modern imagery and inspiring visuals.
“We were really trying to navigate how to create something more uplifting, as far as everything going on in the world with coronavirus and the [Black Lives Matter] protests,” Beil says. “We wanted to [make] something with joy and hope.”
Despite the pandemic, the intimate screening was a success, and helped the trio find new listeners and fans, according to Beil. During the first episode of the podcast, Beil explained how the idea for 2 Dudes & A Girl came about.
“We spent all of quarantine together, [and] one of the things that we did was come up with a podcast. Instead of overthinking it, we came straight to Petit’s crib [and recorded it].”
“We like to have a little system,” Hutchinson tells the Weekly. A singer-songwriter with an upcoming EP in the works, Hutchinson also hosts another podcast, Curl Talk. But on the new show, Hutchinson says, the trio comes up with a few topics “and after that, we take it from there. We want it to be as raw and familiar and comfortable as it possibly can be. We want it to be free and open, [where you can] tell your side of the story and opinion without feeling like you can’t say or speak up about anything.”
Although levity and humor run throughout the show, it isn’t always fun and games. Beil, Alexander and Hutchinson have also used their platform to talk about the Black Lives Matter movement, the protests in Las Vegas and more. But, in the end, it all comes back to the trio’s desire to promote the work of their fellow Las Vegans.
“It’s just really us hanging,” Alexander says. “We were already having conversations without the camera on, so we just decided to share it—current events and stuff that’s going on in the world, music, political stuff or whatever. That’s just what we do. We sit there and we crack jokes.”
