LEROY F MOORE JR.: So, Mr. Daniels, tell us about this movie called The System, and when did it come out?
IROC DANIELS: Well, this came out in the last, well, it actually went to select theaters September 5th to select theaters. But now it’s on Amazon. It just came out on Amazon like a couple weeks ago.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: OK. And I’ve been reading about it, and tell us about the storyline.
IROC DANIELS: Oh, the storyline is basically about a family with, they have a Deaf child, and he is profiled by a police officer and shot. And then after that, it just shows what process the family go through, and it just basically wraps up into like a thriller.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: So, I’ve been an activist against police brutality and people with disabilities since the ‘80s. Tell me why did you choose a Deaf character?
IROC DANIELS: Oh, well, you know, I have a friend of the family that’s Deaf, and I definitely wanted to show there’s been incident. There was a incident there was a police-involved incidentthat the guy was shot at that was autistic, and he had his hands up, you know. And so, I wanted to shed light on that community, the community.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: Yeah. Thank you for doing that. Usually, that topic doesn’t get speak about in the media, so thanks for doing that.
IROC DANIELS: Yeah, I have a few family members that are disabled, and I definitely wanted to shed some light on that community. And also just also show that although he was Deaf, he was just like any other kid, you know? He could do things, and I wanted to show that he had capabilities, you know. And so, although he was Deaf, he was really strong and vibrant and accelerated at a lot of things.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: Yeah, yeah. You know, the Deaf community is strong. Initially, did you go keeper into his character about Deaf culture and communication and sign language?
IROC DANIELS: Yeah, I did. He was actually taking a lip-reading class with a teacher at the time, and he was trying to learn how to read, he’d started to learn how to read lips. So, I just kinda dive into that a little bit.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: OK. Was the character, was he a real Deaf person, or did he play a Deaf person?
IROC DANIELS: He played a Deaf person.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: OK. How did you come to this topic? Did you study police brutality?
IROC DANIELS: Well, I mean I have, just with the system in itself, with Eric Garner, you know what happened with Eric Garner on the corner, being choked out by a officer. You know, that’s about when I started writing, and it was very much an inspiration for me to write System. And even like today with Cyntoia Brown being convicted at 16 for killing a guy that was basically raping her and having to serve so much time in prison till she’s 51. And so, what I wanted to do is pretty much shed light on some of the injustices.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: Great, great. What’s your future for this movie, and what’s your next movie you’re gonna do?
IROC DANIELS: That’s what I’m kinda debating right now. Definitely, another thing that I wanna touch on showing is about mental health, you know. That’s definitely something in the future that I’ll touch on.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: That’s great. That’s great. Tell me again, how can people order this movie and people can see?
IROC DANIELS: Well, they can watch it by going to Amazon, and they can order it at TheSystemTheMovie.com.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: Good. And did you reach out to Black Deaf organizations, bringing this movie together?
IROC DANIELS: No. No, I haven’t.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: It’d be really cool to give them a copy. There’s this national Black Deaf organization in DC.
IROC DANIELS: Yeah, that’s a good idea.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: Great. So, can you give us the website address and email?
IROC DANIELS: It’s TheSystemTheMovie.com.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: Good, good, good. Anything else you wanna share?
IROC DANIELS: No, I just wanna say thank you, man. I appreciate you for showing up and calling me, doing the interview.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: Yeah, definitely.
IROC DANIELS: Did you get a chance to watch the movie?
LEROY F MOORE JR.: I saw the trailer.
IROC DANIELS: OK, cool. You gotta check it out.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: I saw you in another interview, you say that your son is a Hip Hop artist too?
IROC DANIELS: Yeah, he’s a Hip Hop artist. His name is Marquel Deljuan
LEROY F MOORE JR.: And is there a soundtrack of the movie?
IROC DANIELS: He did the soundtrack cpoming out in Feb 2019.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: Oh, good, good. And it’s him doing all the songs on the soundtrack?
IROC DANIELS: Yeah.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: Great. Great, great, great. And where can people get that soundtrack when it’s out?
IROC DANIELS: It’ll be on Spotify, iTunes, all the regular places, pretty much everywhere you can buy.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: Great. Well, thank you once again for doing this.
IROC DANIELS: OK. I appreciate you.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: All right. You take care.
IROC DANIELS: All right. You too.
LEROY F MOORE JR.: Peace.