There’s a moment, somewhere past the hour mark, when Trinidad James leans back and drops it without drama: “I’m not fighting for my life. I’m fighting for my flow state.” It’s quiet, almost offhand, but it lands like someone who has spent years stripping away noise until only the essentials remain.
In the third episode of the High Times Podcast, Josh Kesselman sits across from the Trinidadian-American artist, songwriter and creative architect for a long, open conversation about smoke, discipline, vulnerability, work, and the strange ways people learn to live with themselves.
Watch the full podcast here.
A Conversation That Moves
James shows up the way he sounds on his best records: present, grounded, funny, observant. Josh opens the door and, instead of a Q&A, the episode settles into something slower and more lived-in, like two old friends comparing notes in the middle of the smoke.
Early on, they slide into the emotional weather report of the times: anger, frustration, this feeling that everything is at a boil. James cuts through it: “Anger is really just aggravation,” he says. “If you’re not going to do nothing, you’re not fed up.” It’s a small line with big consequences, especially in a world where everyone feels pushed to pick a side and start swinging.
Josh responds with a family memory instead of theory. He talks about his grandfather, shot three times fighting Nazis, once in the head, and how he came home without hate, even going back after the war to visit the people who had once been “the enemy.” Then he quotes his grandmother: “There are no good people. There are no bad people. There’s just people.” It doesn’t need unpacking. It just sits there, like a joint in the …
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Author: High Times / High Times
