Chaud: The Magazine

They are funny, entertaining, enlightening, we had mentioned them in our Favourite Webisodes and so getting the opportunity to interview these guys had the Chaud team all kinds of excited! They are The Yak, Justin Credible, Don Kwelu, Maverick  also known as the Brothers With No Game, but do not let the name fool you these brothers aren’t novices to the game – they got game! This interview has to be one of the funniest we have so far conducted.

Brothers With No Game – how did you all meet and decide to start the site and then progress to the YouTube series?

The Yak: The ‘about’ section on our website, is actually a true story. Myself, JC and Maverick, have been friends since secondary school and in Year 9, we REALLY did walk around London one girlfriendless Valentine’s day and label ourselves Brothers With No Game.

JC: Sad times.

Don Kwelu: I acquired the no game label years later (obviously). I met the brothers through JC who I played football with and we just clicked as a team. We would always come up with hilarious stories and antidotes for random scenarios and friends would tell us we need to spread our ‘knowledge’ to the masses.

JC: As a reader of a few blogs I thought it would be a great idea to start our own, and what better name than the one we labelled ourselves all those years ago? So we just started writing and Brothers With No Game was born. The Web Series was a natural transition; we had been writing posts for about a year at the time and felt it was the right time to make our content visual. Luckily we had fans who were involved in filmmaking and producing who jumped on board and a few months later, the Web Series arrived.

Are you all involved in writing of the scripts for the web series as you are with the blog?

JC: Yeah pretty much. We sit down and run through what a particular episode will be about and create a storyline/timeline. Then I’ll write a draft copy and the brothers will tweak it here and there.

Are you invested in this on a fulltime basis?

Maverick: It feels like it! But no, we are all either working or doing other projects at the same time to help. Luckily there’s 4 of us, plus an extra member so we share different tasks to keep things running smoothly.

From shooting to editing how long does that take?

The Yak: It really depends on the episode. Previous episodes would take 2-3 weeks to shoot due to everyone’s different timetables, which would then give us 2 weeks to edit. However we are now shooting episodes in a shorter space of time. Episode 4 and 5 were both shot in one day! So we are hoping the turnaround is quicker. 2-3 weeks?

 How frequent are your episodes

Don Kwelu: Our episodes have been monthly but we are trying to cut them down to 2-3 weeks. The demand is getting higher and higher, which we love and we want to get things out quicker, pre and post-production are not plain sailing however. We’ve been through every problem you can think of from missing footage to sound problems, so to those reading, just know we always try our best to deliver but the powers that be are playing games with us!

 There seems to have been notable successes with US based web series like Awkward Black Girl, The Couple, Issa Rae getting to work with Shonda Rhimes  – however we in the UK seem to only just be starting to catch on.  Could this be put on the UK  slowly ‘catching on’ on to the whole ‘web series’ trend and do you see similar successes happening this side?’

JC: It’s a tough one because if we look at some of the UK Web Series, you’ll find that one or two of them actually started a year or two years back, but the wider general interest for web series wasn’t there because it hadn’t been established as a ‘trend’ or great alternative to TV/Channels online. I think from a UK perspective it took the emergence of more series this year to start gaining exposure to the rest. Our demographic is much smaller than the US so in order for people to catch on, it would have to be a trend or viral for everybody to take notice. I’m an optimist so I do see similar success happening this side as I have seen in the US.  We just need channels, producers, execs etc to take a chance on original programming from up and coming writers, directors, producers and/or content creators.

 On the note of the successes of other Youtube web series – what are the future plans for BWNG? 

JC: Our first goal is to wrap up Season 1 and bring you guys a nice quadruple cliffhanger. Ideally we’d love to continue the series and it is a long term goal, the question is in what capacity? Online is very much a medium we are in favour of but would also love to have the show on TV. Channels, Distributors, Ad Networks, you know what to do.

The Yak: As for BWNG as a brand, we plan to continue bringing readers and fans great content on the website and our youtube channel. We have started doing events also, our last one in August was a great success and we’ll be back again in the new year. There are other ventures in the pipeline but we’ll keep that quiet….for now!

With the growth of the BWNG web series and blog will there be a time when you will lose the aliases and you guys will show us your true identities? Or would that ruin everything in your real lives – misrepresentation lawsuits et al LOL ?

Don Kwelu: Haha yeah we figured Emile Heskey checks our site every day hoping to put a face and lawsuit to the name. We had this running joke that we’d do a big marketing campaign for a revealing of the brothers at 12am on 12/12/12. That or on the day the world is supposed to end, 21^st  December right?

The Yak: I think there will be a time for sure (when we’re rich). With some of the opportunities we’ve had and the ventures we plan to get into we’ve had/we had no choice. It’s been hilarious seeing people’s reactions when a face is put to the name

 On that point – how difficult is it blogging about relationships as there is a plethora of such blogs out there? 

JC: It can be difficult at times, you don’t really want to keep recycling clichéd topics. However at the same time I think our style of writing and way of approaching topics is very unique compared to other blogs out there (especially in the UK) so we find it easier to break down a specific subject without sounding like everybody else.

Maverick: Plus, without me revealing too much, we are all currently in different stages of relationships with women so we have a variety of things to talk about.

 Do you reveal to your significant others that you just might blog about them and if like us has there been times when you have written about a general topic and it has been misconstrued by those in your lives?

Maverick: I’ve made it a general to AVOID talking about someone I’m in a current relationship with; makes life so much easier haha. Unless it’s all positive…but who really wants to read ‘Why My Girl Is The Best In The World’?

The Yak: I’m single right now so I can say whatever the hell I want, but yeah I think we generally let our Mrs if we have one, know that we might blog about them (in a positive light).

JC: I remember I wrote a post called ‘Back The F Up…..I Still Love You Though’ which was basically about a guy needing space from his woman. Maaaan the backlash I got. Was the post about you? yes, but that’s not the point.

Don Kwelu: So yeah we avoid it all costs and if we don’t, we wouldn’t tell the significant other its about them 😉

Recession Dating  video got some interesting comments and had us here at Chaud talking about ‘wallet friendly’ dates. Our Editor mentioned that to her Ikea would be an ideal place for a date after all they offer food too! The episode did tackle a real issue and with Christmas around the corner – recession-friendly gifting ideas please guys?

JC: Ha Ikea. That’s Creative, I like that. Why do I feel like this question is for you and not for our readers? Think you’re smart! Hmm recession-friendly gift ideas. I’m hearing photo mirages are in; if you have a close friend, family member or even significant other that you want to budget on then get a poster, picture frame, sheets etc full of photos of memories with them. An album goes down well too, maybe Kendrick Lamar or compilation of old school tracks, jazz etc. You could get them a deal from Group-On or Living Social too.

Don Kwelu: As you can see JC, is an expert on cheap.

I recently watched Jim Jones crying and that just made me warm up to Mr Jimmy Jones more and I also recall Justin Credible told us about 5 Scenes that got him teary eyed (aka crying) – can the other 3 tell us what has made them teary eyed – scenes or songs? Matter of fact for Justin can we have his one emo song that has him feeling Drake if only for a millisecond?

Don Kwelu: The scene in the Pursuit of Happiness when Will Smith is sleeping in the toilet with his son was pretty emotional. No tears *punches chest* but plenty of emotion. That was a powerful scene.

The Yak: When Mufasa died in Lion King, that was a silent moment. You don’t usually get deaths in Disney movies so at the time that was emotional.

JC: By ‘at the time’ he means yesterday. As for Drake? Ha, the day he makes me cry through singing, I will revoke my male card.

Maverick: This song didn’t get me teary-eyed or even emotional but it did make me understand how much of a loss he was to those around him. That Diddy and Faith track I’ll be mssing you.

As mentioned this was one of our favourite interviews because the guys are genuinely funny and entertaining. We would like to see great things from the Brothers With No Game brand, please support and spread the word about them and make sure to watch and subscribe to their BWNG web series and follow them on Twitter and Instagram.

Youtube: BrothersWithNoGame

Twitter: @TheBWNG

Instagram: @brotherswithnogame