Rappers, Rebels & Armenian Cinema | Sash and Armen from AFS

This week on **Hye Jams: Between the Notes**, Paisan Kapitan sits down with two Armenians whose lives prove that the road you're supposed to take isn't always the one that gets you where you're meant to go. International recording artist **SASH** is back — but this isn't another “how did you get started?” interview. He's married, building a career in the world of McLaren and high-end luxury automobiles, thinking about fatherhood, and looking at his music — and the man who created it — through a very different lens. What happens when the chaos that once fueled the music gives way to stability? Would he want his future children hearing everything he recorded? And after spending his days around extraordinary wealth, does the materialism celebrated in hip-hop start looking different? Sash also gets candid about the Armenian music industry, why the business side needs to be handled more professionally, and his desire to see the next generation of Armenian-American hip-hop artists step forward. Then **ARMEN KARAOGHLANIAN**, founder of the **Armenian Film Society**, joins the conversation with one hell of a story of his own. He was kicked out of middle school, high school AND city college — then went to USC film school, became a college professor, and eventually returned to the same high school that once let him go… **as principal for the day.** Armen opens up about the wife who helped change the direction of his life, his battle with Familial Mediterranean Fever, his emotional first trip to Armenia, and how he and his wife built Armenian Film Society from screenings projected onto a bookstore wall into an organization connecting Armenian filmmakers and audiences around the world. We also look ahead to the **Armenian Film Festival 2026, September 16–20 in Glendale**, and talk about the future of Armenian cinema. How do we preserve our history without allowing Armenian storytelling to become trapped by it? Where are the Armenian comedies? The horror movies? The love stories? The completely unexpected stories that have nothing to do with genocide or trauma? And what will the next generation of Armenian filmmakers bring to the screen? Then, because this is **Between the Notes**, things eventually go completely off the rails with the **Rapid Fire Bonus Round** — including McLarens, pregnancy tests, Armenian family arguments and an attempt by Sash and Armen to create the worst Armenian movie ever made. **Music. Movies. Marriage. Culture. Failure. Success.** And figuring out who you're becoming while you're still becoming them. **This is BETWEEN THE NOTES.** 👍 **LIKE & SUBSCRIBE** and turn on notifications. Every click helps us continue growing and bringing Armenian stories, artists, entrepreneurs and personalities to audiences around the world. ━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎤 GUESTS ━━━━━━━━━━━━ **SASH** International Recording Artist Instagram:  ⁨@SashVerniss⁩  Y ouTube:  ⁨@SashVerniss⁩    **ARMEN KARAOGHLANIAN** Founder — Armenian Film Society Instagram:  ⁨@armenianfilmsociety⁩  🎬 **ARMENIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2026** September 16–20, 2026 Glendale, California ━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ PAISAN KAPITAN ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Instagram: @paisankapitan www.PaisanKapitan.com *Available for Hosting and Voice Over: [email protected] ━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📻 HYE JAMS RADIO ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Listen to **Hye Jams Radio 24/7** and watch **Between the Notes** through the Hye Jams app. Available on **iHeartRadio** and your favorite streaming platforms. ━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ DISCLAIMER ━━━━━━━━━━━━ The views, opinions, statements, allegations, and personal experiences expressed by guests appearing on **Between the Notes** are solely those of the individual guest and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, positions, or beliefs of Chummy Inc., Hye Jams Radio, Between the Notes, its hosts, producers, sponsors, affiliates, employees, contractors, or representatives. Guests are responsible for their own statements and characterizations of events. Any references to individuals, organizations, companies, productions, events, or public figures are presented as the guest's personal recollections, opinions, or experiences. Chummy Inc., Hye Jams Radio, and Between the Notes make no independent representations regarding the accuracy or completeness of such statements. This program is intended for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. ━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎬 PRODUCTION NOTES ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Featured music videos used in this production were provided by, approved by, and used with permission from the writers, producers, and performers of the featured songs, who also appeared as guests in this episode. Background Music: Morning Light Music License #: 2510-71789 ━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎥 PRODUCED BY ━━━━━━━━━━━ Wayne Lewis Chummy Inc. © 2026 All Rights Reserved.