Artist Profile: Rob Franklin

Rob Franklin, also known as Rob Dz, is the Media Projects Bubblerarian for the Madison Public Library. As a Kennedy Center certified teaching artist for the Making Justice program, his primary focus is on creating workshops on Hip Hop, Spoken Word and Personal Branding as positive forms of self-expression. Rob has held residencies with Madison youth in elementary, middle, and high schools, community centers, the Dane County Juvenile Detention Center and Juvenile Shelter Home, Neighborhood Intervention Program, Greater Madison Jazz Consortium and with The Black Star Drum Line. As a musician, he has performed with the likes of Nas, Eminem, Common, Talib Kweli, Black Eyed Peas, Morris Day and The Time and others. In 2017, he was inducted to the American Folklife Center at the Library Of Congress and The National Museum of African American History and Culture as a member of The Story Corps program.

1) How do you envision the events of 2020 will impact your creative process long-term?

Well, I think our values shifted....at least for me anyways. 2020 really made me take a look at what I value, whether it was through the pandemic or civil unrest. Both situations made me look even deeper at what really means something to me and has helped shape what I want to be involved with. Creatively it means really being even more impactful and intentional with the projects I create. I’ve always tried to create projects that have been reflective of my people and being forced to be at home really made me look deeper at how I can do that even more.

2) Describe what "artistic collaboration" means to you.

To me, artistic collaboration is working with others to get to the same beautiful place. It means sharing the journey, regardless of who’s driving and who’s looking up and sharing directions. For example, this is one of the first times that I’ve collaborated with a singer that I actually didn’t write the words for them to sing. I just trusted that they got what I wrote about and were able to share the same feelings. And the collaboration made room for that to happen. And we got to the destination. Together.

3) Any particular projects you are looking forward to finishing this year?

I am about five songs done on a seven song album that I’m working on. It is called “He Speaks So Well...”.

4) Fave writing, installation or exhibition by another artist that you've recently encountered?

I am really excited about a virtual multimedia exhibit that my intern is creating. His name is Artemas Wallace. The exhibit is called “Desires and Visions.” It will be on our Bubbler website at the end of this month. He did the visual art part of it as well as the score that goes along with. Super proud and excited. So that would be my fave of faves right now.