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DON BENJAMIN - No Gluten, All Grit · Eating While Broke

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Colleen Witt, and today we have model, actor,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: entrepreneur in the building, Don Benjamin.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: What's going on? I'm here.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: How are you?
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: I'm great.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Great.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Doing good.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Great. So just to start us off, I haven't eaten breakfast, guys, yet,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: just like a couple bites of a donut.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I hope you're not waiting for this food.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: We are waiting. We are waiting. We are going to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: be judging, but I'm hungry, which is good for you,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: because you know when you're hungry and the you kind
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: of just, everything tastes kind of good.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: That's how much faith I have right now.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Okay. That's a lot of pressure.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: But what are you going to have us eating today?
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Okay. So I'm going to be cooking.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: This was what I like to call my hood classic
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: or my childhood classic. However you want to put your
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: spin on it, but good old hamburger helper.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: But gluten-free.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Gluten-free.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: I attained some kind of allergy to gluten as I
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: got older. It might have been too much regular hamburger helper.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: But like 26 years old, I became allergic to gluten.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: So I had to start mixing in gluten-free noodles.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, at 26, you found out.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: 26, I found out.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: So just a little backstory. We went back and forth
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: on what Don ate. And you were saying fast food
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: and all this stuff. But he was like, I can't eat.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: None of it. And I was like, substitutes? But then
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: when he said fast food and ramen, I literally hit
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: you this morning. Let's go back to mama.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: What was mama doing?
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because my diet, literally, I couldn't eat much other
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: than Taco Bell, McDonald's, Hamburger Helper. My diet was things
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: that I'm not allowed to eat nowadays.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: So could you imagine you were probably, first, you're broke
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: at that time, right? And so you're trying to survive,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: but you're allergic to the things that are supposed to
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: give you Nutrients. So you were probably, I don't know
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: what the side effects of gluten is when.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: You eat it. I was going to the hospital. I
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: felt like I was about to die.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: Literally my intestines were inflamed. So I was like in
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: the hospital every day trying to figure out what was
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: going on with me. And then the doctors didn't even
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: figure it out. My aunt has full-blown celiac disease. And
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: so she told me to cut gluten.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Out of my diet.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: And when I became allergic, I was still broke. So
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: gluten-free for anybody that knows is expensive. And so I
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: was trying to figure out what I could eat, what
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: I could, I didn't know what gluten was. So as
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: I started to figure it out, I still was not
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: making enough money. But then right around that year is
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: kind of when I, something took off.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Thank God.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: God knew. He was like, I can't have you be
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: gluten free too long. You ain't gonna survive.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Oh my God. So what'd you do? Were you eating
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: just celery sticks or something?
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: I was literally, I dropped from, I went from 185
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: pounds down to 150 pounds.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Wow. But it was like unhealthy.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: And I was just eating salad every day because I
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: didn't know what... I was like, what's gluten? And so
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: I just cut out everything. And then I started to
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: understand what it was. And then as time went on,
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: more people became allergic. And so they started to have
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: more gluten-free options.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Now it's normal.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: It's more.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: normal to have people talking about vegan, gluten-free and all that.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: But still, when I go into the grocery store, you
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: still see the vegan sections be tiny. You're like, damn,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: could you imagine going grocery shopping as a vegan? Just
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: hit that one corner.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Vegan is super, super tight. Gluten-free is starting to get
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: expanded a little bit.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: A little bit. I have one gluten-free friend and I
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: made sure this past weekend I had a party. I
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: made sure to get her gluten cookies. And then people
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: were looking at me like, well, I'm like, you never
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: know they exist.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: Listen, as a black person, it's not too, everybody makes
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: fun of like gluten, what's gluten?
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: So yeah.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I had to, it was only because I had a
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: friend and I would just hand her a box of something. Oh,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I got this. And I'd be like, is it gluten?
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: And then eventually I was like, what is it we're
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: looking for?
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Wheat.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: But then I'd still miss it. But once you become gluten,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: you know what to scan for.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I still don't really. But, you know, I still
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: kind of have to test the waters. And luckily I'm
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: not like, I won't die. But if there's any trace
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: of it, like I'll be sick for a few days.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: It takes my body to reset.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Dang.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: But I still don't really know, honestly, what it is.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I'm praying that the hamburger helper sauce doesn't have anything
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: that can mess you up. But in the interim, for
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: all y'all listeners, Don, you can walk us through the
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: ingredients and the substitute you made if you are broke
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: out there and you're gluten-free.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: The main thing in Hamburger Helper is the noodle, right?
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: So to replace the gluten-free noodle, the sauce packet, look,
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: don't listen to me if you full-blown do your own
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: due diligence, but I'm going to risk it today. So
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: I'm swapping out the noodles for gluten-free noodles. We got
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: the ground turkey, which is Obviously, gluten-free is just a
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: protein meat.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: And then we're going to add in the good old
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: hamburger helper sauce packet. Let's go.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: So when was the last time you ate this?
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: I haven't had this since I was like 15, maybe.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: So maybe I'm going to age myself, but.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: 25, 30 years. What am I, 39? 25. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: It's been a long time since I had this one.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: So guys, we're going to give Don a pass because
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: he hasn't cooked this dish in forever. And I'm guessing
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: at 15, your mom probably made it.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: My mother made this.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: I did make this when I lived in Long Beach
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: with my five roommates. So yeah, maybe 20 years old.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Get to cooking.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. Here we go, y'all.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to turn on the stove. I'm going
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: to put this joint on. I'm going to put it
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: on the what? A one heat, you think?
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: It's my first time on your stove. Medium.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Medium.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: What's medium on your stove? Is that two?
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I think I just go the middle.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Okay. There you go. Yeah, there.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Good. And then all you got to do is ground
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the meat first.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I believe we just put the meat up on here.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I just toss it in.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Just toss it in?
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Don't touch it. I've seen people on the show actually
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: touch meat and then go like this. And I'm like, oh.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Grab the meat. I'm like, yes, sir.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they do it. And we always will put plastic gloves.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: But every once in a while, people still do it.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: And then you got a little meat chunk in here
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: while you're talking.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: I guess we just going to break it on up,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: break it on up.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: You cook at home.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: I really, chef, I have a cooking show. What?
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: I got a cooking show out. It's on the Zeus Network.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: It's called Shirtless Chefing. Shot it when my six pack
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: was popping.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Are you joking right now?
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: I really do got a cooking show, yeah.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: When did you, is it out? You still taping episodes?
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: Nah, I shot, I think I did 10 episodes. It's
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: on the Zeus Network. I did it for Daystorm.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but that was back.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: This was a while ago.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: A little while ago, right?
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: This was pre-pandemic, but I did 10 episodes. I did
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: a whole bunch of dishes, gluten-free. Brought my guests on
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: with me, so yeah.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: What?
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: But you said shirtless.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: I was shirtless. I did the whole show shirtless.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: That's dangerous.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Some grease was popping. It messed me up a little bit,
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: but I survived. Okay, okay.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: So you can cook?
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: I can cook, yeah. Okay. I can cook.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: All right, so take me back to 15-year-old you. Paint
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: me the household. Kids, moms, dads. Who's there?
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Me and my mother.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: My mom raised me pretty much by herself. My dad was...
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: in and out of my life, in and out of jail.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Street life.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: And so it was pretty much me and my mom.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: We just, we lived in a, I was raised in
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: So we had a little one bedroom apartment and mother
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: worked with homeless shelters and stuff like that. So she
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: would work, I'd be in school playing ball and we
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: didn't have much. So hamburger helper, my mom cooked a
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: little while. Then when she would be gone, I'd have
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: to figure out how to cook things myself. But yeah,
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: it was just me and my mom all the way
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: until I turned 18.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Graduated.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Did you know other siblings?
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: No, just me and my mom.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: I have a brother and two sisters, but they're with
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: my father with a different woman. So I didn't grow
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: up with them.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Did he have, not trying to do the dig into that.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Did he have a whole family and you kind of
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: were like watching that?
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: No.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: So my dad, unfortunately was addicted to crack. And so
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: like he was with my mother and then they separated
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: when I was young. And then he was with another lady.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: For a little while.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: They had three kids together. But it wasn't a healthy
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: situation even for them. They were actually raised by their
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: mother's mother. So they were raised by their grandparents. My
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: father was kind of just like in and out of
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: all of our lives. He'd be clean for a little while,
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: try to be in our lives and then mess up. So, yeah,
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: they were raised not even with their mother.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Wow. But are you close with your other siblings now?
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: I'm close with them now. Yeah. But growing up, we
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: weren't that close. But as we got older.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I'm getting all the tea. Did the moms get along?
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: They did.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: They got along for the most part from what I've seen.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: One thing about my mom is she didn't want to
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: make my dad look bad or anybody.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: He was with.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: So she would always keep it cordial. So yeah, there
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: was no real beef from what I've seen. However, my
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: dad didn't mess with none of my mom's boyfriends, though.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: So the drama was with him and them. Not really
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: with my mom and the other women.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Now, I got to point out the obvious. You're biracial.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: So your dad's black?
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: My dad is black, yeah.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you grew up same timeline as me. So
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: this is pre-everyone's mix kind of era, or did you
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: grow up seeing more mixed people?
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: So I grew up seeing mostly, when I was a kid,
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: it wasn't too many biracial kids growing up. As I
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: started to go into my teens, I started to see
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: more biracial. In Minnesota, there's so many biracial kids. And
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: then because of the struggle, there was like a year
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: where we had to go live with my mom's sister
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: because we weren't making no money.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: So we lived with her in the suburbs.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: And I remember I went to a middle school in
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: the suburbs and there was like one other black kid,
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: but he was biracial. So it was me and him
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: and the rest white kids. And then I went back
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: to the city.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Did you have any issues with that growing up or no?
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: At the middle school, I did. I didn't live in
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: a city. I didn't really have no issues. It was
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: all black kids. But when I went to the suburbs
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: is when I realized what was going on and I
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: started to deal with some racism and I started to
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: feel like the odd guy out. And so I remember
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: I told my mom, it was like eighth grade. And
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: I was like, y'all want to go back to the city.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: It's weird here. I don't really feel like I fit in.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: And so We went back to the city, but yeah,
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: definitely sheltered in the suburbs.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Being biracial.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like we have a code.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as a biracial kid, it's like, am I black?
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Am I white? Where do I fit in? Not really.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: It hits you as a teen and you start to
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: really see the mix.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like for the blacks, you're not black enough.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: And for the whites, you're always being... Literally, I have
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: to say the N-word. For whatever reason, the whites can
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: see it and the blacks, there's just for whatever reason
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: that you're going to hear the jokes all day about
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: how you don't really understand.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: You don't know this.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: But I just like to touch on that because we're
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: 80s babies, right? So we got to see the adjustment
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: or what have you. But it sounds like your mom's family,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: did they receive you well or was that kind of
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: an issue at all?
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: From what I've seen, it was fine.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: I didn't really have no issues with the family. The
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: family received me well.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: But from stories I heard, like the older generation wasn't
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: the happiest with my dad, when my mom was with
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: my dad.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: But I'm sure he had also the extra baggage, no
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: telling of what.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: It could have just been his mess-ups.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: It couldn't have necessarily been black. Yeah. Yeah.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know growing up, there was a place where
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: family would be like, who do they identify with? What
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: are they? They got to stay with the blacks. They
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: can never date outside. There was all these debates and
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: conversations happening where you're like.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Minnesota is just such a biracial state
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: that I didn't really face it too much.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: So you were into sports?
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: So you started out with sports. Modeling wasn't on the
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: horizon at all?
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought I was going to the league, honestly.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: Like that was my goal, play basketball. And then it's
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: funny because my mother tried to get me in modeling
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: as a kid and she tried to get me with
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: some agencies and I didn't get signed. And even coming
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: to L.A., like the first few years I was trying
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: to get signed, I was going to agencies and I
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: just wasn't getting no representation.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: So I didn't think modeling was even an option.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: What was their feedback?
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: It was weird.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: They were like, your look is too commercial or it
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: just doesn't make sense for the agency or the tattoos
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: are a problem.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: I can't really have tattoos as a model.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: So those were like a lot of the main things
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: that I kept running into.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Did you come out here on your own or with
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: your mom?
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: I came out on my own.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: So 19, I went, I did a semester in college
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: at a city college in Minnesota, tried to play some
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: ball and it wasn't really working. And so I came
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: to visit some family out here in LA and And
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: I was just, I fell in love with the city.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: And I was like, maybe entertainment is my passion. And
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: so I just packed up, took a student loan out
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: for $ 3, 000 at my college. And I took that money,
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: bought me a little hoopty car and drove out here
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: to LA.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Smart.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Smart.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: But what other money did you have outside of that?
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: That was it.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: That was it.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Three bands.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Did your mom try to slip you dollars to get it?
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: No. At the time, my mom was not.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Feeling it she didn't have she was supportive but she
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: didn't have money I was like look I'm taking the
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: student loan out I'm going to LA and I'm gonna
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: figure it out and like when I came to LA
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: my mom was starting she still didn't have a lot
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: of money she would send me a couple.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Hundred here a few hundred here when she.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: Could like yeah enough to like I said eat some
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: ramen noodles and oatmeal cream pie for the month did
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: you say what I had ramen noodles oatmeal cream pies
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: that was like.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: My oatmeal cookies yeah remember the oatmeal cream maybe we
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: need to okay yeah i was gonna say this meat
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: should be cooking fast.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: I know i turned it up but maybe i need
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: to put it on super high.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Watch this is how we burn stuff here don't put
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: the lid on it too just keep it off like.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: The lid making it faster right maybe i could be wrong.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Actually since you the chef i should stay out.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: Your kitchen i'm just gonna put it on high okay
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: let it cook quick.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: And keep an eye on it yeah because uh the
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: meat should yeah.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Did you ever season your hamburger helper? Because I feel
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: like it just feels weird seeing meat with no seasoning.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I didn't prepare you, so there is no seasonings on
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: this set.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I thought that the seasoning is in the packet.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, so they don't do no seasoning. See, I feel
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: like naked meat with at least salt and pepper is weird.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: I think they figure if you ain't got money, you
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: don't got ingredients.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: So they're just going to give you everything in one.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: We're just going to simplify it for you.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: So you moved to L.A. Now you're saying at this
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: point you're like, you know what? We're going to go
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: from sports to modeling.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: So what's your first play?
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: So.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: And who are you staying with?
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: I stayed with a cousin that had me come out
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: to LA and test the water.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: So he let me stay with him for a little while.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: And then I ended up meeting a girl.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: I went out to a nightclub by myself and I
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: met this girl and she was like, well, you know,
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: you can come stay with me.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: And so I moved right in with her.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: And so now I'm staying with this girl that I met,
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: got my little $ 2, 000 car that I copped and. I'm like, okay,
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: I don't really know how to get in the entertainment business.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: And so I needed money, so I got like a
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: regular job. But I think I was getting paid. It
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: was pennies, honestly. It was next to nothing. And all
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: I was doing was taking staples out of documents. So
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: I was in the back office taking staples out of
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: documents for a couple hundred dollars.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: And so I finally found out about background acting. And
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: so I went to an agency and I got hired
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: to be a background actor.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: And so I was on set.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Just crossing in the background of these shows and movies,
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: get my $ 50 check. And so that's my introduction to
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: the entertainment business. And then I met some friends while
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: on set and I ended up leaving the girl's house
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: and moving in with a couple of buddies that I
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: met on set. And so when I first moved out,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: I was living in long beach with this girl in
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: an apartment.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Met my buddies. They were like, yo, we're living over
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: in Inglewood.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: It's for them, but they were super cool. So I
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: was like, look, I'm going to go try this out.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: So I moved to Inglewood and was living in this
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: little one bedroom apartment in Inglewood.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: With four dudes?
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Four dudes.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, I thought you were going to say something a
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: little bit more sweeter than that.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: No, it was honestly a worse situation. Yeah, I was
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: going to say. It was a worse setup than with
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: the girl.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Why was it worse, you think, mainly?
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: It had its pros and cons, but the apartment was
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: run down for one. Super rough. We're sleeping two beds,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: head to foot. Like one of the dudes, his feet
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: is going this way and my bed is an angle.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: So we're sleeping head to foot.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Did you commit before seeing?
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Honestly, I was just like, yo, they're cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: It seemed like you moved off vibes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: I moved off vibes. And I was like, listen, we're young.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: We're bachelors, whatever it is.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: And so I just moved off the vibes. And so
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: I was living with them. But yeah, that was my introduction.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: And so me and the guys were on background. We
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: was literally doing this every day. So I was looking
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: for agents to try to get representation. And I was
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: just on set doing background work. That was literally it.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: My job. That was it.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: And while you're doing the background work, are you really
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: feeling entertainment at this point? Or are you seeing things
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: that you're like, I don't know?
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Honestly, I fell in love with it being on set.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Doing that and seeing the lifestyle and the energy and
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: then watching the main actors and being around stars that
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: I'm used to watching on TV and now I'm in
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: the room. And for me, I've always been like, If
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: I can be around somebody that's done something, I feel
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: like I can do it.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: That's always been my energy.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: I'm like, look, if I'm in the same room as
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: you and you've reached this goal, there's no reason why
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: I can't. So for me, when I started doing background
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: and I started seeing them, I'm like, yo, if they
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: can do this, this is showing me that I can
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: do it too. Yeah, it really kicked my passion up
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: a notch, honestly, being in that position.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: So what do you do to move the needle past background?
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: So it's really, you got to get an agent, right? Ultimately,
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: in the industry, it's like You go to acting classes.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: You get an agent. They start sending you on auditions
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: until eventually you.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Book a role.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: That was the blueprint. For me, it wasn't working that way.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: So then I got an opportunity to go on America's
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Next Top Model in 2013.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Because you were knocking on all the doors.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Of the agents.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: Everybody was saying no. Acting agents, modeling agents, everybody was
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: saying no. And then a buddy of mine was like, yo,
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: you should go on America's.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Next Top Model. And so.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: This was like when I became allergic to gluten.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: And so I- So you got skinny.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Is that good?
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: So I got skinny, but it worked in my favor
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: because I had my abs.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: I wasn't eating. So it was like borderline anorexic abs,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: but it was.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Like- He was like, I had the 16. Forget the abs.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I had like the abs because I wasn't eating.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: So everything was just no body fat. So I was like, okay.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: So I went to this audition and it was weird
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: because it was a lot of everybody just- looking for
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: sob stories, right? Like, oh, I'm depressed. Oh, my life
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: is so hard. I need this to turn my life around.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: And I could kind of see in the judge's faces
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: that they were like so tired of hearing these sob stories.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: And mind you, I'm living in a crib with my
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: buddies and we're turnt up and all this stuff. And
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: so I was like, look, I'm going to come on
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: the show. I'm going to be a good time. I
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: took my shirt off and I'm like, y'all need me
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: on the show. And so Tyra Banks called me personally
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: and And told me that I made the show. And
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: so that was like the turning point for my life
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: was when I went on that show.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Now, in that moment, the turning point or the tipping point?
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Is tipping point good or bad?
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: No, because sometimes if I achieve something, people will be like,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: oh man, everything's up from here. So I call it
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the turning point would be like everything went up from
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: there or... Was it the tipping point? It was like
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: kind of more of the roller coaster started to go
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: up and down a little bit better.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: From there it went up because after I went on
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: the show, yeah, after I went on that show, then
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: now I'm a celebrity.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Now I have a name.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Because you were a top finalist.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I made it to the third to the last episode, second.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: To the last episode. Because they were doing double eliminations.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: So I didn't win it, but I made it to
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: the very end.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Did the agents start coming?
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so then after the show, I left the show
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: and I was like, okay, I got to restructure. So
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: I went, got a publicist. I went back to all
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: the agencies that told me no.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Did you have money at this point?
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: I still didn't have money at this point.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: How did you get a publicist?
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: I went and met somebody and I was like, look,
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: I'm coming off a top model.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Let's work out a deal. You know what I mean?
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Let's see what we can do. And then as things
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: start to go, then I'll start to, I can be
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: able to pay you. And so I found somebody, wasn't
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: the best publicist, but it was enough to get me
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: at some events, X, Y, and Z. And so they actually,
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: hold on, let me figure this out really quick. So
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: half a cup of water. I can't mess this food up.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: I know you're hungry. I got to get you right.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I think you got to drain it first, but yeah.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: But I don't think there's nothing to drain. It said
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: to drain it, but. Okay. You must have got a
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: good meat because there's not a lot of fat on
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: the meat.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I got the ground turkey.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, probably. So I'm going to do like this. So
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: I'm going to add the water first.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Is that half cup?
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Stir, water, man. Boom. That's a half cup.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: This is a half cup, right?
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: You filled it to the line?
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: I did, yeah. You don't trust it? I'm going to
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: put a little bit more water. Don't. I'm going to
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: put a little bit more water.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Go ahead.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: You questioning the sauce.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Look, I'll be honest. You shouldn't be listening to me because.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: You don't even, like, you don't bring people on to cook?
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: I cook, but I don't cook hamburger helper. I cook, like,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: without measuring cups, you know, season of taste.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, one. Two and a half cups of milk, it says.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, you got this.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: So two.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Watch it come out bomb.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Wait, two and one-fourths, it says. Oh, that's good, that's good.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: So a fourth of a half is a dash. Let
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: me just try it like that. We'll see how it goes.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: It looks good, man.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: So you stir in, boom, mix in, mix, sauce, pasta.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: I put a lot of pasta, so you may not
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: have to use the whole box.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: I'm only going to do a little bit of pasta
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: because they only put a little bit up in here.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to do like that.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: We trust in you. You know what I'm saying? Just
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: a little bit of pasta. That's about right. A little
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: bit of pasta, and then we're going to add the sauce.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Tee hee. There we go, there we go.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Do it the real way we open things.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Right, eat. Yeah, don't judge me. I didn't use my teeth,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: all right? All right, so there we go. So that.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: All right, cool.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: So now I'm going to mix all this in. The
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: ingredients are all mixed in. Dang, that's bringing back memories, right?
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Yo, this looks like it's going to be good.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: I think I've had it once. I'm Jewish and Jamaican,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: so the Jamaican, I have the black mom.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, so y'all was going different.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I ain't trying to judge your mom because we
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: have jokes about whether you have a white mom or
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: a black mom internally.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: By the way, just for anyone that.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: So your mother was black.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: My mom was black, so we grew up with Jamaican food.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: We didn't grow up with... Look, I'm going to make
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: a joke. One joke is going to be forgiven.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Go crazy.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: You probably grew up with the caucasity side.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: My mother was a hood white mom, so she wasn't
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: the regular. She had to be the culture.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: My pops, she was living on the south side of
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: Chicago with my dad with some wild stuff going down.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: So she cooked soul food and stuff like that for me. What?
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: A lot of times we couldn't always have the good
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: soul food, you know what I mean? And then Minnesota.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: So Minnesota is famous for doing things called hot dishes.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: So what they do is they just throw a whole
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: bunch of stuff together. So they might throw, they got
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: one called a tater tot hot dish. And they just
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: tater tots, ground beef, mushroom sauce. So it's random things
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: and they'll just throw it together and see.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: How it hits. That sounds pretty good. Sometimes it works,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: sometimes it don't.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: That today.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: You probably could have done that.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you could do that.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: I could do it.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: I don't know how to cook it. That would have
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: took too long. We need an oven and stove.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: We need under, on this show, just so you guys know,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: guests have to cook in under 20 minutes. That's the goal.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: So they can't be doing the most. But that looks good, Don.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: That looks good.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: It's probably going to hit.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: It looks like it's going to hit. All right.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: So now cover and cook for about seven minutes. All right.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Now you can come get up on the chair, even
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: though it looked like you spilled a bunch of.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: So yeah, let me wipe it. Some sauce.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: There we go.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Now we're going back to the agents and you.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Yes. Okay.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: So now came off top model. The agents are messing
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: with me. You got a publicist, got some, some notoriety. Honestly,
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: I didn't know what the show, like how big the
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: show was going to be, but I was just like,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: this is my opportunity.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: I'm going to, I'm going to jump on top of it.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: I'm going to make sure I've been in LA now
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: for seven years.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, this is seven years now.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: This is seven years now of being in LA. Wow.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Of struggling, getting denied.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I thought it was like, damn, he did good his
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: first year.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: No, this is seven years of things not working the
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: way I needed them to.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, so it is definitely the turning point.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: So this is definitely a turning point. And now, since
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: I've been in LA for so long, I'm like, I
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: know how to take advantage of this. Come off the show,
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: get signed to, I ended up signing with Wilhelmina Models,
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: which is one of the top modeling agencies.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Now, did they start to call you or were you
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: still trying to approach these people?
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: I still had to approach them.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: And I think that's the difference was like, when I
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: went on the show, I was like, look, I'm going
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: to come off and take advantage. That's why a lot
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: of the models and people on Top Model, you may
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: not see them because they came off and they were waiting,
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: expecting people to hit them and come looking for them.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: But it's like, you have to go and make it happen.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, so I went and signed with Wilhelmina,
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: started booking like major campaigns. I did Calvin Klein, guests. Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom's.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: I was doing like all the top brands.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: How did it feel to go from rejection to almost like,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I told y'all. Y'all could have.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: For me, I don't know. I've always just been like
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: a humble person. I've never told.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: But it felt good internally to be like, I knew.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: What was going to happen. I always knew that something
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: was going to pop off. And I knew, I never
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: let them saying that this look doesn't work. I never
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: let that be the final decision.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: So there was no doubt lingering in you that maybe
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: this wasn't the path. You just thought maybe they just
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: couldn't see your vision.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: I didn't think I was going to be a model,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: but I knew something was going to happen. And then
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: Tyra was like, oh my God, I love the tattoos.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: It's so fresh. And then I went back to the
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: same agencies that said the tattoos didn't work. And they
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: were like, yeah, we do love the tattoos actually. And
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: I was the first model for guests with tattoos, the
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: first tattooed model.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: And I think I could be wrong, but I feel
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: like I was one of the first black. They didn't
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: really have black models either for guests. So it was
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: like a new thing. But for me, it was just,
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: it was cool to, I was just thankful to be
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: making money.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: That was going to be my next question. On America's
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Top Model, were you getting paid? And how long was
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: that shooting for?
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: So on Top Model, we weren't getting paid. It was
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: like a per day. So you don't get paid because...
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: It's a contest. So the winner of the show gets,
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: I think you get like $ 100, 000 if you win the show.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: So you just get like a per diem to get
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: food every week. So I didn't make money on the show.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: So I didn't really start making money until after the
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: show aired. So even when we finished, it was like
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: another six months before the show aired.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: So during that period, were you... preparing for war as
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: in like I'm about.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: To get it so those six months that's why I
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: went to the publicist I was going to all the
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: agencies like just showing up with my what I was
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: doing I was going to different events and I was
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: kind and then I was a club promoter before as
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: well so like I was promoting at the club a
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: little bit so I had a I knew what like
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: they would always hire celebrities they would pay celebrities money
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: to come out so then I had these relationships so
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: I was like look Now y'all got to pay me.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: Pay me a couple thousand. I'll come out. Y'all can
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: use my name to be at the club. And so
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: I started doing this for a while. Yeah, so I
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: started getting money just to show up to places. So
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: for me, it was always been like a business mindset.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I was just about to say, you definitely have more
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: of an entrepreneur mindset. They say, for people that are
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: wondering about that entrepreneur mindset, they say entrepreneurs... naturally can
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: find opportunities. So how you were like, okay, this can
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: lead to the next step, but more opportunities. It's definitely
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: an entrepreneurial mindset.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: And so for me, again, I moved to LA for entertainment,
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: mostly for acting, right?
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: But I couldn't get hired for nothing. I couldn't book nothing.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: And so for me, it was, okay, now that I
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: have this platform and I also built a social media
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: following in the midst of all this. So I've garnished
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: millions of followers on social media and I was like,
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: instead of waiting on agents to give me acting jobs,
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: I'm going to go and figure out how to make
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: my own movie, put myself as the actor. And so
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: then I went and got with a screenwriter. We wrote
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: a script together. And then we went and got with
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: some producers and raised the money and shot the entire film.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: How hard was that?
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: It was extremely hard.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: So you wrote your own. But how did you know
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: where to look for the investors for your movie? I
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: remember this actually. Didn't you shoot it in Dubai?
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: So we shot half of it in Chicago and then
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: we shot the other half in Abu Dhabi.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: And yeah. Yeah.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: So how did it feel closing your first investor? Did
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: you have any type of imposter syndrome? Do you experience
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: that at all?
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: I do at moments, like, but I don't at the
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: same time. I just, I have a vision of who
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be and where I'm going to be.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: So for me, every time something happens, it's like, okay,
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: it's part of the plan.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: It's part of the plan. I'm getting closer.
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: But with, with that one, I was kind of hands off.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: So like, I just went and found producers that have
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: made movies before and I let them just run with it.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: And they're like, yo, we're gonna go raise the money.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: But as soon as he as soon as like, I
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: would get messaged back and like, yo, we got this.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: We're almost there. We raised the first million. I'm just like,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: I'm low key shook. I'm like, it's actually like happening, right.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: And so when we got the call to finally go
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: fly out to shoot, I'm I'm like, bro, this is
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: crazy that we're actually going to shoot the movie that
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: I thought of the idea. I put the pieces together
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: with the people. And so it was a surreal moment.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: But I think as entertainers, we're always, and I got
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: to do better with this for myself, is be.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: Appreciative of the moment or live in the moment.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: Because I'm so focused on the next step to where
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: I could be shooting this movie. And I'm already like,
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: what's the next movie that I got to try to
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: line up? And It works in a business sense, but
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: as a human, you've got to take in those moments.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: I feel like too, even on the entrepreneur side, it's
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: once you realize you can accomplish a goal, then the
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: goalposts just keep getting higher and higher and higher. And
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: it's like the never, it almost becomes, I hate to
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: say the word, but it almost becomes an addiction for
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: the next high. It's not a high, but the next,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: how can I challenge myself even more, right?
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: And for me, again, and for most people, it's once you've,
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: come from a life of nothing it's almost like I
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: can't go back to that life yeah and you understand
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: that especially in this industry you could be replaced any
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: day you'll see somebody that's popping one day and the
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: next day you forget all about them and so for
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: me it's like I can't go back to that lifestyle
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: and I know I have to be focused on what's
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: next because I could easily get caught up here and
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: then it could all be gone and I can't let
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: that happen.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Now, accomplishing the movie, you control the narrative on a
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: lot of different angles, but mainly the fact that you
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: got to say yes to you acting, right? You got
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: to control the whole narrative.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: What happened after the movie distribution? Can you walk me
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: through all of that?
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: So after the- That looks delicious, by the way. It
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: actually might come out fire.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Are you low-key excited? I'm excited about it.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: I'm hungry, but- It actually might be fire. It looked good.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: I hope it tastes as good as it looks because
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: it actually does look good.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: It's called what? Lasagna helper?
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Three cheese? The four cheese lasagna.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: I ain't gonna lie. I'm hyped.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: What was the last one?
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: After the movie, the distribution, what was that whole process
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: looking like?
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: So, you know, unfortunately, the producers that I lined up with,
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: I'm not trying to throw people under the bus or say,
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: but it didn't work out.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: It still was released.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: We did a deal and it came out on Paramount
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: and it was on BET. But I learned a lot
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: even in that as a film producer and stuff like that.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: But it was still exciting to have the premiere, go
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: to the premiere, watch my movie on the big screen,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: see it come out on a platform. But again, because
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: of my mindset and where I see, it's like chess, right?
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, I know that if I do this move,
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: it's going to put me there. And if that move
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: doesn't work out, then it kind.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Of, it could.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: So for me, it was like chess and then The
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: moves didn't line up the way I wanted them to,
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: but it still was a great position in play for me.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: And just seeing it was like an unreal thing to
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: see an actual movie that we had actually.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Come get released.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: But then the business side comes out and you start
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: to deal with all the stress. And when things didn't
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: happen how they're supposed to, it falls on you as
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: a film producer, regardless of how big of a position
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: you played in that.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: What were the three, just three snapshot takeaways that you
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: think you walked away the most from that project?
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: The main one is you really can do whatever you
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: say you're going to do. You really can do it.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: Another one is make sure you really have your business
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: affairs in order when you're doing business things.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Is that before the deal starts or in the beginning?
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: This is like before because a lot of times you'll
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: just move and then you start to without having all
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: the things in order and then businesses collapse, right? So
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: that was another one. And then another one is I
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: guess just All of my friends supported. So it's really
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: nice to have a community of friends that really support you.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: That was a big one for me. It was like
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: all of my circle that I mess with, when it
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: came time to see if they had support, they actually
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: did support.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I feel like your crew, I'm familiar with some of them.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: It's like what indirect, I didn't know how to say
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: how I kind of know you, but I will say
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: that crew in particular is like family. It's really like
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: There's no other way to describe the energy and the love.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: And even down to your wife, just is like a natural,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: loving environment, supportive.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: Not really judgy. Someone could not have money in this
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: group and someone can have money in the group, but
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: everyone's the same. There's no gossip.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. We definitely been blessed in that sense with
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: our circle. So.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I know we're inching closer to dramatic, but before we
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: get into it, should we try a little bit of this?
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Should we try this?
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: It doesn't look, does it look?
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: It's supposed to cook for seven minutes.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: You're hilarious. Does the noodle, just test one noodle. See
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: if it's, that's the only thing we're testing, right? Here's
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: a fork. Here. No, don't use that plate. Use one
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: of these. That had the raw meat on it.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, true. Just take a little.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Is it soft? Don't burn yourself.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: It's good? All right, serve it up. Serve it up.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Hold up.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Serve it up. Is it good?
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: It ain't bad.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: It actually ain't bad. Do you like your noodles al dente?
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: How do you usually eat them?
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: I'm open, as long as they're not too soft.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: All right, there you go.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: All right, thank you. Ooh, we should have had some
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: of that Parmesan sprinkle some on top.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: I know, right?
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: This looks good. Look, you know what? If this dish
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: is good, guys, I encourage you to go to the shirtless...
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Cook on the Zeus Network. Are we pro-Zeus right now?
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Don't watch that, Shirtless.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: Are we pro-Zeus?
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Listen, it's a weird... Daystorm is still a co-founder of it.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: He's still to this day?
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Daystorm is still a co-founder. He's dealing with some
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: legalities that he's dealing with, but he's still a co-founder.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: So I still support Daystorm in a batch. And eventually,
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: there's some things that we can't talk about. But yeah,
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: Shirtless Chef is on Zeus Network.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, so they can still look it up.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Power of Daystorm, yeah. So go watch that. Okay.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: We're going to test it. Here we go, guys.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: Is it alright?
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: I ain't gonna lie. I'm gonna have to get into this.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: It's like a healthy hamburger helper.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Now do you feel like you can go home and
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: break out the OG classic?
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: I can break that out. That's not bad.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: See, because it got the seasons already in it. So
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: it do the work for you. It makes it easy
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: for you.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: I ain't gonna lie. This works. Yeah, it's pretty good.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: And as affordability, even though... Everything here is very expensive. Guys,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: you can feed your family. Hamburger helper. I love that
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: we switched out the noodles.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just switch out the noodles. That's the sauce.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: Honestly, the most unhealthy part of this is probably whatever
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: those noodles are they put in there.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: I feel like it would be the sauce, but maybe
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: you're right. Maybe it's the noodles. The unhealthy noodles. Yeah.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: The wheat noodles.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Probably, I'm making the sauce probably the best.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Wait, did the noodles have wheat in it?
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: The noodles in the box do.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, it said it on the box? Yeah. Oh, damn.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Cause it's just regular noodles.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: So if you swap out the noodles for the gluten-free,
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: but again, I don't know the ingredients within that, the packet,
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: probably a bunch of additives.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: But honestly, it's a super win.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: All right. So model, entrepreneur, movie producer, actor. Next phase.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: What goes next after this chapter?
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: So next phase is I've been doing more film producing,
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: getting into more film producing, acting in movies.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: I was just in Jordan Peele's film, Him.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: And so after these movies that I've been doing, I've
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: been getting approached to be in vertical dramas. And I'm like,
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: what's a vertical drama? I didn't really understand what it was.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: And I know me and Daystorm and Batch and all
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: of us have been doing vertical content on our phones
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: for years. But then I found out that vertical dramas
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: are like one minute episodic series vertically so i was
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: like i was and then i saw i'm talking to
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: daystorm i'm like hey man i keep getting approached to
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: act in these vertical dramas do you know anything about
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: them and he's like man my cousin back home is
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: addicted to those things.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: I'm addicted to country wanes country i don't even like
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: saying that only one part of his series i watched
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: but yeah i started to kind of And I don't
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: even know how it happened. I started to get hooked
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: into one of them. And then I follow the storyline.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: And honestly, what I do is I wait till there's
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: an accumulation because I'll be breaking up and making up
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: with social media. And when the accumulation, that's great because
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: you'll be sitting there for an hour, catch up on
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: all this. But I know what you're talking about.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: And so I started to do my research on them.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: And I was like, it's interesting because... majority of them
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: all are just, they're led by white actors. They might
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: sprinkle in some black actors or they might have some
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: Latinos and some plain maids or something, but they're not
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: really like leading these stories. And so me and Storm
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: were talking and we were like, he was like, well,
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: you know, I was one of the founders of Zeus.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: He's like, why don't we just create our own platform?
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: And then we can tell our own stories and create
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: the narrative.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, that's a great idea.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: And he was like, and so we were like, We
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: really dove into what it was, what it would take,
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: and we mapped it out. And we were like, look,
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: this is our next phase is owning our own platform.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: But within our circle, right? We created that with people
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: that weren't really in the circle. So we were like,
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: if we do this with just us, we're all friends.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: We've all been working together for so long. And so
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: we created Dramatic, which is our vertical platform app. And
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: it's mostly led by black and Latino people.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Talent. It's diverse. We have some Filipino stories and we
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: still have Caucasian. I'm half white, right?
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: But we want this to be the home for that
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: diverse led content.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: I like what you said at your grand, your release party,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: which was the For Us, By Us.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: I think that's important. Yeah, that's really important. It's for us.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: We created it.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: And so we teamed up with Tony Oskitz and a
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: Mexican comedian named Concrete. And they're kind of leading the
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: way with the Latino content and the Me and Day Summer.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, tapping into black content.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: Which is also cool because especially here in LA, you
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: don't see a lot of black and Latino people like
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: really kicking it or coming together. It's kind of separated, right?
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: But we have a group of friends to where we
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: all organically hang out. And so we were like, it'd
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: be cool to do a platform together and do content
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: and mix these genres in. It took us seven months
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: to build it all out. We launched it last month
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: and we launched with 12 original series.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: So not only are you playing businessman, but you're also
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: playing the role of creative director slash... Yeah.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: On this one, I'm more the business.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: And then Daystorm Antonio are coming up with their... I'm
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: kind of pitching them ideas of what shows can be,
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: and they're going and writing them.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: They're directing. They're casting the talent. I did act in
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: one of them as well. I was a lead in one.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: But for the most part, I've been more on the
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: business side with Dramatics.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: What were some of the hardest challenges with getting this
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: business together? Because an app traditionally costs quite a bit
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: of money.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: I think the biggest thing was first the money, like
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: getting the funds for it. Then finding the right CTO
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: who can actually build a platform that understands how to
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: build it and sustain it. And then maintaining, like how
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: are you going to maintain, right? How are you going
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: to create series that are actually good, interesting, And then
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: how are we going to market this to the world
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: to get people? So it's like phases and it's never
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: going to stop. But for the most part, it was
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: like we were like, first things first, let's find a CTO, right?
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: Let's find somebody that we know can build this for us. Okay,
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: we got that. Now let's go get the money. How
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: do we get the money to actually do what we
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: need to do? Okay, we got the money. Now let's go.
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: So we kind of, we didn't want to overwhelm ourself.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: We were like, let's just take it step by step.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: And then once we knock off one step, we'll get
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: to the next. And that's been the approach with it.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: But we know we know we're up against juggernauts. These
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: other platforms are unlimited funding.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask with your guys group following millions
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: and millions and millions, millions, millions of impressions.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Why? And you kind of covered this. So give me grace. But.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Why was it so critical for you not to adopt, say,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: a TikTok or Facebook and utilize kind of the traditional
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: route of what, honestly, black and brown folk do is like, hey,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: we don't really fully get to control the algorithms. Why
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: was it so important for you to control your own house?
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: For us, we've been, every platform we've stepped foot on,
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: we've gained millions of followers and At any moment, I
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: look at what happened with TikTok when they were going
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: to pull TikTok, right? Imagine we've grown millions of followers
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: and if they want to shut down the app, then
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: we're at their luxury, right? And so for us, we're like, look,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: if we can control our own space, have our own platform,
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: and we can approve what we want, why let somebody
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: else make that decision for us? And so that was
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: a big one for us. And then just going beyond
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: having things on every other platform what's something that we
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: can build and own ourselves and help other people in
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: our network because as we started to find out there's
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: so many people with series that they're creating that they
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: can't get it placed nowhere and you can't really monetize
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: these things on instagram or tiktok so to be able
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: to take something you work so hard for and actually
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: monetize it is even better than just putting it out
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: on instagram and tiktok and just getting Because it's like
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: you can get 20 million views, but if you're not
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: making income, how are you going to take care of yourself?
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So how are outside creators able to get into Dramatic?
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: What does that process look like?
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we're approaching it like a streaming network to
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: where people can pitch us their ideas and their content.
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: And then we can decide if it aligns with the
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: content we have. And then we can publish it on
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: the platform and then do a rev share deal where,
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: you know, The creators of their projects, you make money
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: as long as your show's making money. And it's cool
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: because we can track it. So it's not, if I
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: bring something to Netflix or something, I know they have
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: it back in analytics. But since we have paywalls on
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: every series, we're able to track what shows the paywalls
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: are hitting.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: So when people download Dramatic, if I want to see
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: the BBL killer.
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: I pay for the series?
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: So you'll get to watch a few episodes, decide if
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: you actually like it.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: And then once you're hooked.
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: And then once you're hooked, then you got to pay
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: to continue watching it.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Smart.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: So we at least let you watch some to see
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: if this is something that you mess with. And if
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: it is, then you pay to watch the rest of it.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: I like that.
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: Or we have something on our platform called the Founders
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: Club to where you can pay a monthly subscription and
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: you can watch everything.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: Unlimited, similar to any other streaming platform. I like that.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: But the cool thing that we're doing is, which as
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: a user ourselves on other platforms is like, we're trying
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: to make it like you're really a part of the
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: growth with us. So if you join the Founders Club,
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: there's cool perks to where you can maybe come to
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: set and watch us film something. Maybe you can come
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: be in a vertical drama. If we have, we had
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: our launch party and one of the Founders members got
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: to come and be at the launch party with us.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: So there's cool perks there.
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: That if you join this Founders Club and there's only
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: a certain amount of spaces available. But it's kind of
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: like a thank you to people that believe in us
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: early on. Because once you become a Netflix and you're huge,
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: then it's cool to be like, yo, I was one
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: of the first people to believe in this platform.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: And I'm part of their little special group.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: So we wanted to kind of do that because I
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: don't know if Netflix or anybody has ever done that.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: No, but I'll tell you this. I believed in Airbnb
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: before everyone.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: See?
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: And I wish there was a... Because I remember when
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: they came out, I was like, this is going to
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: be you.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: You get a crib every once in a while. You
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: know what I'm saying?
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Every time we go on vacation, look it up. But
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: I like that you incorporated that. That also ties more
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: into the forest bias. My last question would be, how
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: hard was the raise to go and say, okay, not
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: only do we have this application, but now we got
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: to go find investors. How strenuous was that project?
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: You know, for me, I just trust God's time and
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: what God does in my life. And We just happened
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: to be having a conversation with a friend of ours
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: that is financially good.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: Okay. And as soon as he heard the idea, he
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: was like, yo, let me.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, nice.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: Let me put the money. So we didn't have to
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: really go look. Yeah. God literally was like, here it is.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: And then same thing.
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: And again, because what we're building, we're gonna have to
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: continue to raise, but that initial raise came. And because
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: we're at the forefront, I feel of these vertical dramas
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: coming to America and with it being black and Latino led,
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: I feel like as we need to raise, I feel
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: like the right people will continue to.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: Come along the path that we want to be aligned with.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: That's also important. You don't want to be aligned with
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: the wrong money or the wrong people.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Because that's when it gets sticky. And you probably learned
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: that from your other lesson.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Lessons you learned.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: For everyone that doesn't know. Spell out dramatic, because I
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: know dramatic has a unique spelling. I only know this
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: because when I Google and do stuff, I just want
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: everybody out there, listeners, to know what they're looking for.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is dramatic with a K at the end.
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: So D-R-A-M-A-T-I-K instead of C. Dramatic with a K.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Got it. Anything else we are not covering that we
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: should be looking forward to in relation to Don Benjamin?
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: Just be on the lookout for movies and really support
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: the platform. Share it, go to the app store, download
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: it and rate it even if you don't watch a
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: lot of series eventually. Because the thing too with platforms
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: is not every show is for you, but eventually a
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: show is going to come out that is for you,
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: that you like. What's happened on every platform for most
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: people is like, I never really watched this network, but
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: then all of a sudden a show comes out. So,
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: you know, get on the board early with us, become
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: a founder, grow with us. And all the support means
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: a lot.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: And how important is that rating and those reviews?
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: The rating and reviews are very important because that shows
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: the app store that we're actually getting traction. And again,
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: as an American, Black, and Latino-owned platform, it's really powerful,
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: especially in today's day. So those ratings and downloads mean
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: a lot for us.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: You heard it here first. All right.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: And if y'all need that hamburger helper gluten-free recipe.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: Yo, he killed it.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: 10 out of 10. Thank you so much for taking
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: time out of your hectic schedule to come cook for us.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: No, for sure. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Peace out, y'all.