Crypto, AI and finance get treated like three rival religions. This conversation smashes them together and asks the only question that really matters: should normal people actually be putting money into any of this?

Kevin Rodrigues (TT | @shaikhkev) and Yuvir “Sketchy Bongo” Pillay (TT | @sketchybongo_official) sit with Andrew C (IG | @djenga_official), who went from chart-topping music and Locnville ties to building on Solana and living in the deep end of digital finance.

Andrew breaks down how he sees music, tech and money as the same game, while Kevin openly admits he sold all his crypto and refuses to hold anything he does not fully understand.

We get into:

• How Andrew moved from the music industry to crypto, and why that jump made more sense than it looks from the outside

• What crypto actually is beyond meme coins and signal groups, and why the boring “rails” of payments and stablecoins matter more than moon shots

• Tokenising cows, farms, buildings and other “real-world assets”, and the line between genuine innovation and Excel with shinier branding

• Bitcoin, stablecoins and Solana explained in normal language, plus why Kevin bailed out of crypto completely

• NFTs, bubbles, casino behaviour and why “my cousin made millions trading” is the worst story to model your money on

• Where AI belongs in investing (research, filtering, learning) and where it absolutely does not (telling you what to buy)

• What really changes for everyday people when money, credit and investment products go fully digital, and why UX and trust are now bigger problems than the tech itself

• The one habit Kevin thinks everyone should steal: using AI to digest information instead of outsourcing your judgment

This is not a “get rich with crypto” episode. It is a “stop being food for the system” episode.

Disclaimers

This conversation is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, legal or tax advice. Crypto assets and other digital financial products are highly volatile and risky. Always do your own research and speak to a qualified, regulated financial professional before making any investment decisions.

Nothing in this episode is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any asset, and past performance is not indicative of future results. All views are personal and do not represent any employer, organisation or partner.

In this episode, the crew - Niquita J (TT | @Niquitinha_), Kevin Rodrigues (TT | @shaikhkev), Yuvir “Sketchy Bongo” Pillay (TT | @sketchybongo_official) - stop arguing about AI music for a second and tackle the more uncomfortable question:

Is AI really the threat… or is it the people and systems that refuse to adapt?

From “AI for dummies” to “AI will cause mass unemployment”, they pull apart the lazy narratives and get real about what actually changes when you do or don’t use these tools in your life and work.

They get into:

- Why there’s already a huge performance gap between people using AI at work and people who refuse to touch it

- The wild reality that companies are literally buying non-AI businesses, adding AI, and out-competing everyone else

- AI as that overconfident intern: fast, helpful, and sometimes spectacularly, dangerously wrong

- How non-technical and older people can actually start using AI without a course, a bootcamp or a midlife crisis

- Whether AI is really “democratized” if the best features sit behind paywalls and opaque products

- Why the real risk isn’t “AI taking jobs” but how capitalism, regulation and wealth distribution respond to the tech - UBI, mass unemployment and whether governments will ever move as fast as the models

- Deepfakes, fake rocket attacks on real cities, and where the line should be between free speech and outright destabilisation

- The uncomfortable truth that your job title is not your identity – and why that matters when AI starts automating tasks

- Practical ways Kevin already uses AI for taxes, forms, creative work and research (and where he refuses to trust it)

- The most underrated take of the episode: AI is not the point. The problem you’re solving is.

- If you’re anxious about AI, bored of the hype, or quietly wondering if “I’ll learn it later” is going to cost you your career, this episode is your intervention.

All views are personal.

🎧 Watch & listen to Thinking Out Cloud here → solo.to/thinkingoutcloud

💬 Drop your take in the comments: are you using AI like a power tool, or still treating it like a threat you hope will blow over?

Hosts: Niquita J (TT|@Niquitinha_), Kevin Rodrigues (TT|@shaikhkev), Yuvir Pillay (TT| @sketchybongo_official) Show: Thinking Out Cloud – a conversation about how tech (especially AI) is messing with culture, music and the hustle. All views are personal.

In this first episode, the crew sit down in Dubai and ask the question a lot of artists are low-key panicking about: Is AI killing music, or just changing who gets to make it?

They get into: Why there’s suddenly so much mid AI music on the timeline? The difference between “press one button” AI songs and actually using AI in a creative process? How @shaikhkev has been making AI-assisted tracks from his own lyrics and family stories?| Where producers like @sketchybongo_official are already using AI (demo vocals, mastering, workflow)? What makes albums like To Pimp a Butterfly or Songs in the Key of Life feel “human” and if tech can ever touch that? The messy part: copyright, training data, major labels, and who should get paid when AI learns from recorded music? Access and education – from bedroom artists in South Africa to anyone trying to understand their rights in this new wave?

If you care about music, creator economics or just want to understand what AI is actually changing (beyond the headlines), this is the ground-floor conversation.

🔔 Subscribe to Thinking Out Cloud on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 💬 Drop your take in the comments: is AI killing creativity, or are we just seeing more of what was always there?