Nostalgia & Noise Weaves Art Scenes Together With Pop-Up Events

You never quite know what to expect from a Nostalgia & Noise event.

You could walk into the “living room” of the W Hotel lobby while Soul Train plays on a TV as you’re advised to choose from a selection of classic vinyls to paint. You might select Diana Ross’ "Theme From Mahogany" as your canvas while a DJ lights up the room with funk deep cuts so buried in the crate that even Shazam can’t recognize the song.

This is just one glimpse of the pop-up events the Nostalgia & Noise team curated. They say they aim to provide a “digital and physical gathering place, platforming art, music and culture.”

Founders Robert Grass and Ra Kazadi are on a mission to weave the various artistic interests of Dallasites on a near-weekly basis, one event at a time, to keep the arts scene thriving.

“We just wanted to provide a platform where you could find everything concerning art, music and culture, and consolidate all the really cool things happening in Dallas," Kazadi says. "And imagine a world with art and creativity everywhere readily accessible.”

Grass and Kazadi are former Southern Methodist University football players. Kazadi says being teammates naturally translated from the sidelines to timelines.  “There's connected tissue to our experiences," he says. "We ended up in post grad [and] I was working with a venture capital firm, and Rob was working in financing with the entrepreneurship program at SMU. Then, when this idea of Nostalgia & Noise came about, I couldn't really think of anybody else I would rather do this with than a younger, hustler type of guy.”

While Kazadi is an artist passionate about painting, Grass is more left-brained and admits that their different backgrounds are the secret sauce to the brand.

“Ra and I have very different backgrounds; he's an artist, and I went to my first art show after starting a company," Grass says. "It's kind of like a benefit in the sense that we’re able to combine our brain power and curate events that would be conducive for individuals like Ra, who are very tapped into the creative scene and the art world and love art shows and wanna go to them, but also, individuals like myself."

Fine arts can be intimidating, but Nostalgia & Noise finds a happy, approachable medium for art enthusiasts and novices alike.  "When we first started, we hadn't really been to any art shows or exhibitions or galleries or anything, but I still find our events really unique and really fun,” Grass says.

Though they weren't regulars at gallery openings, Kazadi and Grass took inspiration from various art forms. Their vision for building the brand is inspired by the late fashion designer Virgil Abloh.

“We are heavily influenced by Virgil’s 3% rule; nothing has to be new, but it does have to be edited and have to have a point of view," Kazadi says. "So, we try to have personal reference and a real thesis and a direction for what we're trying to say.”

At its core, Nostalgia & Noise is sustained by collaboration. The duo curates DJs, spaces and activations for every event based on fully realized concepts.

“We have a ton of artists and DJs that we work with, so it's honestly not so much with us having favorites but more about who we think makes sense for the event at the time," Grass says. "We have a W Hotel collaboration [where] the whole idea is 'We Want the Funk,' so obviously we have to tap into Willy Dutch and his crew about the whole 'Funk is not dead' concept that they run with [the] kind of parties that they throw.”

In July, they collaborated with Dream Girls Social Club and took over a studio in the Good Coworking Space for the Shades of Pink event, a mixer for women looking to connect on creative endeavors. The event offered an open bar with a variety of wines, as well as specially curated matcha drinks by 333 Matcha Cart. Grass DJ’d as women turned blank canvases into vibrant creations.

As summer comes to a close, the Nostalgia & Noise team is leaning full force into their fall events lineup as they continue to demystify and democratize the arts space.

“It sounds so elementary, but at the end of the day, we want them to really enjoy their experience," Grass says. "Because every event is so different. ... The spray-painting event where we had the guests become the canvases at Ruby Room at Greenlight Social, and we literally had artists spray-painting on them, creating one-of-ones on every single person's clothes. That’s something where I want them to re-wear that because all of a sudden they have a story for life.”

Nostalgia & Noise's next event is on Sept. 26 at Dallas Urby (1930 Hi Line Drive). The full schedule for other upcoming events is on its website.