View the full episode transcript.
West Oakland’s Loove Moore is a superhero. His power? His ability to participate.
He’s a talented musician, dancer and community documentarian who interviews people about topics ranging from current events in the Bay Area to their idea of love. Plus he can get down behind the camera, producing all of his own stuff.
He’s active online, interacting with thousands of followers across platforms. And he’s in the community, never shying away from small stages or big events. He has no problem with creating his own platform, either, as he did during the height of the pandemic with his open mic series Loove At The Lake.
One of Loove Moore’s many monikers is “Dr. Do-A-Lot,” and he lives up to that name.
Known for his interview series The Loove Moore Show and for making songs that sample classic Bay Area tracks, Loove Moore’s affinity for culture and dedication to his community is driven by a deep-seated spiritual conviction.
This week we talk about how that spirit guides him through his struggles with codependency, and inspires him to talk to random strangers, hip-hop icons like MC Hammer and even local wildlife — like squirrels.
Rightnowish is an arts and culture podcast produced at KQED. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts or click the play button at the top of this page and subscribe to the show on NPR One, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
Episode Transcript
This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors
[Music playing]
Loove Moore, Guest: Love to me is… it’s everything. It’s the motivational force in, in our life. And that’s why I’m trying to get people to like, giving people the opportunity to cut through to that love. And if you knew better, you do better.
Pendarvis Harshaw, Host: That is the voice of the one and only, Loove Moore. On top of being a rapper, Loove Moore has become a fixture in Oakland for his man on the street interviews that he films by himself, edits by himself and posts to his social media platforms.
Each interview is a unique glimpse into the interactions that Loove Moore has as he runs around the Bay Area. And every conversation results in an uplifting message. True to his name, everything he does is about spreading more love.
I first caught wind of his work just over four years ago while he was recording these videos at Lake Merritt called “Love at the Lake.”
Loove Moore: So I basically would just go out there myself and set up my tables, set up my microphone and like interview people to ask them, like, you know, how they feel about current things happening in the Bay. And then, eventually people would just come pull up and it’s like 5, 10, 15, 20 people out there that don’t know each other! And they get to learn how to play dominoes, share stories, then gave people a platform to perform if they never performed before.
Pendarvis Harshaw: What I love about the “The Loove Moore Show” is how he absorbs the energy of the Town and transmits it to the larger public. He brings the care-free persona with the highly evolved lingo from the soil, and wraps it all up in his fly fashion.
At our interview, my guy showed up in a fresh bucket hat adorned with hella Oakland themed pins, a paisley button down layered over a t-shirt that says ‘Bring Black Oakland’, paired with corduroy pants, hiking boots, and a copper ring that features Goku from Dragon Ball Z.
Loove Moore: It’s just real life experiences that I’m wearing and it’s very intentional.
Pendarvis Harshaw: Whether it’s bringing different threads together or uniting folks of different backgrounds, Loove Moore can do it all.
He’ll talk to us about the intention behind his work, how it’s deeper than spreading the Oakland-ism, it’s a spiritual calling. Our convo, after this.
Pendarvis Harshaw: I want to start with you as a person. Like you present with this… the fashionable attire and the clothes and the pins and the rings and everything that you bring to the table. For folks who don’t know, who is Loove Moore?
Loove Moore: Loove Moore, I mean, I always say, I’m an out-here-specialist, you know? I just be out here. I mean, just one of my superpowers is participation. We be needing icebreakers to connect with each other. We love to connect with each other, but sometimes we have anxieties and fears when it come to connecting with each other and I always was brave enough to do it.
So I just took it on myself to just like, man, let me just… let me just get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And I got to see how that inspired other people.
So many people be walking up to me now like, “Oh, you that one positive dude!” or “You had the chipmunk on your head!” People be saying the wildest stuff so I be wanting to get what others people’s perception is like, because for me, at this point I’m just doing. [Laughter]
Pendarvis Harshaw: I love it man! bring me back to the origins, the start. Like when did you first start getting out there?
Loove Moore: I mean I’m from West Oakland, so I was in West Oakland first, and I moved to San Leandro. I went to McKinley in San Leandro, and that was kind of a good start, like I was outside of like, my main core people. I had to learn how to put myself out there.
And during that whole time, I would go to the Boys and Girls Club, San Leandro, and then eventually going to Camp Mendocino. And Camp Mendocino that’s where I like…. it’s crazy. I really just learned how to just flourish and just embrace all of my talents and gifts: swimming in a river, jumping off the rock, talking to girls and talent show! It was just, bruh… it was just so much things to to get into…International Day with so many different people from all around the world. “Pick up your trainers!” We up here trying to clean up the cabin, talking ‘bout pick up your trainers. I’m like, “These are shoes, bro. What are you talking about?”
So just having those type of relationships with people growing up and coming up, bruh. That was just, man, just God wrote because it ain’t like came up with the most resources and stuff like that but I came the most resourceful.
Pendarvis Harshaw You were absorbing it, you were a sponge to it. It sounds like, like all those things you just named. That obviously means that it left an impact on you and you took note of it. And at the start of it all, you mentioned where it started, specifically West Oakland… Acorn. What role did that community play in who you are?
Loove Moore: Definitely had a sense of pride, sense of belonging. My grandma was one of the first families to move into uh Acorn. Ya know it’s so many different families that come from, Acorn that’s like my family too. You know, my aunties and uncles and they all grew up with each other.
So that showed me how important the sense of community was for me to just feel like I don’t have to be threatened by you, by you personally, whoever this person is, but I could love you, and you could love me because you may love somebody that I know that we are family with.
And that was just very important to me. And I think that’s what, just West Oakland and just the Bay area and that is exactly what it gives me. So that’s why I love on it back because it be loving on me like that everywhere I go.
Pendarvis Harshaw: Running through streets with your tripod, with your camera, interviewing people. I’ve seen you, you have the series were your interviewing people about the concept of love,
[Clip of Loove Moore interviewing a man about love]
Loove Moore: What’s your perspective of love, man how important is showing love to you?
Person: L-o-v-e
Loove Moore: Hmmh
Person:…living on vibrational energy
Loove Moore: Woo
Person: …meaning when one person’s vibration
Loove Moore:Woo
Person: …finds its vibrational match
Loove Moore: Hmm
Person: …that’s when you experience this euphoria called love!…
Pendarvis Harshaw: Why love?
Loove Moore: I think that people get things misconstrued. So you got the light side and shadow side with the duality. So some people say it’s gentrification; I look at it as integration. The balance of that is people coming together.
My art was to be like let me interview people so you stop judging people like, let’s see what they really think. You know, like you might see somebody like, look, he look like you go to school at Berkeley and like, bruh, you don’t even know this, bruh.
I take the time to talk to people. I’ve lived in Oakland, San Leandro, Tracy, you know, I’ve been around different, at least there, so I know the different like, depths and diasporas of people. So I’m like, let me give people a window into that.
[Music playing]
Loove Moore: So I started interviewing with people on that hype and once I start seeing the different answers, I’m like, okay… I go to CoDa, which is a 12 step for codependency. I would say, like, ‘I just want love!’ And then they was like, “Well, what do you mean by love?”
The fact that somebody could ask me what love was like, “what is the love that I want to receive?,” and I wasn’t even able to describe that. I couldn’t even describe my emotions at one point.
People may not necessarily go to CoDa and stuff like that, but how can I create an experience for people to actually dive deeper into their own consciousness and self-reflect on something that’s important to everybody?
Even my bruh, Brother Peace, he kind of was just like “Hey, brother, you know, you should ask people about what their perspective of love is.” A bruh actually asking me that, a younger bruh in my life, saying that, that means that it was a need there. So I’m just like, let me let me do that.
And I started asking the question at “Love at the Lake.” So I asked them, “What does love mean to you?” You know, so it was because of not being able to identify and communicate how I like to receive love. That’s what made me to say, oh, I think other people may could benefit from asking them what is love to them?
Pendarvis Harshaw: It was between the experience of CoDa, uh codependent anonymous,as well as the conversation with Brother Peace and all that informed you on that path, not that it happened like dominoes one after the other, but like all of it, the combination.
Loove Moore: Yeah Yep.
Pendarvis Harshaw: There’s one clip that you posted recently, within the past year where you had the opportunity to interview legendary MC hammer.
[Clip of Loove Moore interviewing MC Hammer]
Loove Moore: Aight bam! It’s me, A to the Miggity, Loove-Moore. And I’m here with…
MC Hammer: Hammer Time
Loove Moore: Hammer Time man! This the Loove Moore show so I’ma ask you two questions: first question is, what is your perspective on love?
MC Hammer: Love is unconditional ya know what i’m saying, it’s like when you love somebody, you gotta love them from the storm, you gotta love them on the good days and bad days, love is unconditional.
Loove Moore: On love! Bam! And second questions is…
Pen: Bring me into the process. How did that unfold?
Loove Moore: We had a turf dancing group and we danced with Hammer like back and then like maybe 06 or 07 something like that. But it was like a group of us, so he didn’t necessarily know me out of everybody. He know me, but you know what I mean?
It was actually Tupac’s unveiling of his street sign by the Lake Merritt. It was just a potluck of Bay Area-ism in there, you know? So it was cool and um I just went over there, tapped in with him. Him and Little Dee was over there. Right when he seen me, hugged it up and he just juiced, you know, I aint seen him by a couple of years, so he hugged me hecka tight, you know, and that was just good and reaffirming, reaffirming, and like, you know that the genuineness in our connection. And I always respect MC Hammer because it’s a different type of peak that he reached, you know, what I’m saying? Going diamond and stuff like that. Breaking down so many barriers, a TV show!
I went to my auntie house, it’s a doll of him, I’m like is that Ken? No, that’s MC hammer. Like what, with the parachute pants and everything like, so you know, it’s always just an honor to like, you know, he tapped into me, be so personable, not have all these security and stuff, and just tapped in, gave me a good embrace, like, “Man, good to seeing you,” you know, whoop. And I didn’t even put two and two together, the questions I’m asking, you know. Everybody be on some Hammer and money and stuff like that, like, he broke and all that type of vibe.
He more solid than most. He gon’ trust me to know that I’m not trying to play him and stuff like that. That was definitely a beautiful moment and definitely some more to come of that.
Pendarvis Harshaw: Hammer doesn’t make too many public appearances, nor does he do interviews. And so for you to have that moment with the background of all that, the Bay area luminaries, with Tupac looking down on everybody smiling I’m sure.
Loove Moore: That was an epic moment.
Pendarvis Harshaw: Epic moment indeed. Um on the other side of the work that you do, the multimedia that you produce, there’s a video, a series of videos I’ve seen you post where you’re interacting with squirrels.
Loove Moore: [Laughs] Yeah, there’s a series of em.
Pendarvis Harshaw: Feeding squirrels, like, close. I’ve never been that close to squirrels. What…why squirrels?
[Music playing]
[Sounds of squirrels chittering and chewing]
Loove Moore: I’m over there working out at the park, Lowell Park in West Oakland. Then a squirrel ran up to me and I pet the squirrel. I’m like, [click] picked it up, come on, we on. And it just just crawled on me and was cool. And just walked around with the squirrel for like, a good, like hour or two. And just to have something that you connect with so genuinely from the gate, you know, just relationships with people is like, we got so much trauma, so much hurt. It take a, like a, you know, that acclimation period for people to actually tap in. So I just really, that was just a very precious moment. I shot a video there with him, sat there with him for a little while.
Pendarvis Harshaw: What do they represent to you?
Loove Moore: You know, I’m Doctor-Do-A-Lot. And I like to be out there with the animals, you know, and just,…animals is special because they… it’s a different language that they speak. Don’t have to say nothing to you, but then, you know, you kind of get it. It’s kind of like when you look out the, outside in a window and you see the, the, the leaves blowing in from the tree and you look outside, oh, ‘I got to wear a jacket cuz it’s cold outside. It’s windy.’ It’s like it didn’t say nothing to you, but you still got it? That’s how animals are like they don’t really speak to you, but it’s like this line of communication. But it still has this like unconditional love when you tap in.
Pendarvis Harshaw: Your social media is through the roof. You know, people see the work that you’re doing. They leave comments. There’s a lot of interaction but behind the scenes so much energy is invested into it. You’ve told me a bit about one experience specifically where you were on the AC Transit bus on the late night, and you had an encounter with a person who was showing early signs of Alzheimer’s. Can you bring me into that story?
Loove Moore: Basically my grandma is 82. I take care of her like I was bringing her up. She’s getting early signs of dementia and stuff like Alzheimer’s, whatever that is and just memory loss, so I’m familiar with the signs.
I left the house at 12:00 at night to go downtown Oakland to film a video, because I just finished this song, “Go Crazy on Citas” [Singing]. I’m filming and then there’s a lady walk up to me and just like, “Oh, can you uh, the bus?” As I kind of like, was talking to her, I could recognize, like this lady… this an old lady!
I finished the video, did my part, and then when I was telling you, I recognized it, I’m like, “I’m going to take you. It’s good,” because I told her the route. She got the address and I’m like, “I’ll take you. So don’t worry about it. I’ll go the whole route with you. “
[Music playing]
[Sounds of bus breaks and door opening]
Loove Moore: When we get on the bus, the lady is getting on the bus and then the bus driver says, she didn’t say specifically this, but she’s like ‘Meemaw?!’ like some type of name, like some grandma name like Meemaw. And she like, “ohhh, oh…” She’s like “That’s my son’s grandmother!”
I’m like, what is happening? Okay. But I know the divinity, it happens in so much of my life at this point. But I don’t panic and I expect it, you know. It’s not…when you doubt something it’s a coincidence, but when you when you believe in it and you know it, it’s like that’s divinity! It was supposed to happen.
Pendarvis Harshaw: I love it. I love it because you stressed the divinity, the divine, the higher power, the higher purpose. And I feel like a lot of people gravitate to you because you’re so, so Bay area, so Oakland, you, you know, the culture, you know, and there’s something underneath all of it. It’s the love and the love is tied to religion, no?
Loove Moore: It’s tied to God. Spirituality plays a big role. You got to take care of yourself, mind, body and soul. The mind takes in information, the body takes in nutrition, and the spirit takes in inspiration.
I just knew this world was filled with so many illusions, and people make it look like they this and that, and it’s like, that’s not what it really is, you know? I just knew in this world what was going to anchor me to life and makes me want to be here was like my spirit, making my spirit shine through.
You know cars, possessions, like, If you don’t got none of those, you, you have no value then basically to most people in the world. So if you got a strong spirit and a strong mind, you going to have value anywhere.
Pendarvis Harshaw: It emanates definitely from, like I said, from the media content, but also from your rings, the pins in your hat, your fashion. You got that glow, that Leroy glow.
Loove Moore: On love, Okay. Sho’nuf.
Pendarvis Harshaw: Sho’nuf
And I also know that, recently you’ve experienced some loss in your personal life, and I don’t want to bring you too deep down that rabbit hole. But I do want to ask you, as a person who has that benevolent glow when you are experiencing hard times, losing loved ones, how do you navigate that?
Loove Moore: Changing my relationship with, transitioning, like, you know, it’s a celebration, a celebration of their life. It’s still sad. You know, I’m going to feel like…it’s a beauty. It’s beautiful to even feel sad for somebody that passed. Did you want to see them? You can not care at all. You know what I’m saying? So the fact that I even can be sad, I think I see how beautiful it is. And I feel good that I even had the opportunity to be sad over over them passing
[Music playing]
Loove Moore: Like, that’s what prayers are, really it’s just remembering to stay connected to the oneness of all of us in prayers can show up in so many different ways.
I look at healing as like, it’s painful like popping a pimple or something. It’s painful, but you got to get it all out. If you don’t get it all out, it’s gonna come back and grow back harder, you know what I’m saying? So when, you when you go there, you know, just think of that when you ready to do it, you know, like make sure you get the full procedure and get it out, you know, so that, you know, you can fill that back up with the spirit and some new fresh glow.
Pendarvis Harshaw: Back to the glow. That’s admirable to see the personal growth behind the scenes as well as the professional growth.
How does your work combat this narrative about Oakland being such a negative city?
Loove Moore: For me, Oakland is known for, like the Black Panthers, sideshows, um just hippie type situation. So it’s all these different things, but it’s so much more. You got skaters, you got people that, you know, graffiti and artists, and it’s all these different stuff. So my thing personally, is just like, instead of people just thinking that it’s just this mob music and that I’m just like, let me just show other things that be, that happens out here. That’s literally what I do. I’ve been doing it for a while.
So now that there is this negative narrative going on out here, I naturally combat, you know, that narrative because I’m like, well, I’m doing this, it’s all these positive things going on in Oakland, too. You just choosing to look at the negative side.
[Music playing]
Loove Moore: Whether people like me or not like me, rocking with it or not, I got a purpose bruh, and I’m sliding on that because who knows what…God connect the dots I’m just doing me.
Pendarvis Harshaw: Loove Moore, we can’t thank you enough! Not just for spreading culture and for spreading love, but for doing what you feel in your heart the creator has sent you to do– that’s a reminder to all of us. So thank you.
Loove Moore can be found on the streets of the town and on your social media dials, his Instagram and youtube pages can be found by looking up theloovemooreshow. All one word and to be clear that’s love with two o’s and more with two o’s.
This episode was hosted by me, Pendarvis Harshaw. Marisol Medina-Cadena produced this episode. Chris Hambrick held it down for edits on this one. Christopher Beale engineered this joint.
The music that you heard was courtesy of Audio Network.
The Rightnowish team is also supported by Jen Chien, Ugur Dursun, Holly Kernan, Cesar Saldaña, and Katie Sprenger.
Spread love, it’s the Oakland way.
Rightnowish is a KQED production.
Peace.
