Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Kai Ca$h Talks 'Bars Not Dead.,' Rap Career, Industry Collabs, Signing With DJ Drama, Anxiety, Fasting & Discipline + More

Transcript

INTERVIEW: Kai Ca$h Talks 'Bars Not Dead.,' Rap Career, Industry Collabs, Signing With DJ Drama, Anxiety, Fasting & Discipline + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hold up. Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: The Breakfast Club. You all finished or you all done? Morning, everybody.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: It's DJ Envy, Just Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club. Lawn LaRose is here as well. We
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: got a special guest in the building.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: The dopest lyricist in New York City right now. Dopest
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: young rapper in New York City. Stop playing with him.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: There you go. Podcast. Welcome, brother. How you feeling? Great.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I'm glad to be here. How y'all feeling? Happy that
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: you here, brother. Thank you for having me. You got
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the merch on, Balls Not Dead. Pushing, campaigning. Got to.
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: You went to Del State?
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I did.
• 0:33
  Speaker 4: What year did you go?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, you were like... What year?
• 0:35
  Speaker 5: He didn't go with you?
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I know. I just said you were like... I literally whispered.
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: I said you were like younger than me.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Nah, I went for one year. I went to... I
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: went 2014 and then I went to Hampton.
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: Can you tell them Del State is lit?
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Nah, Del State is lit. Like, they be playing. I
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: ain't gonna lie. But don't act like... They act like
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: we don't have nothing.
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: Like, Del State is lit.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: So you went to both the alma maters? Yeah, yeah.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: That's crazy. Where'd you graduate from? Hempton.
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: Hempton.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: All right. Unfortunately. Unfortunately.
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: All that extra money for nothing.
• 1:04
  Speaker 5: Let's start from the beginning. It's the first time Kyle's
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: up here.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Facts.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Of course, Kyle gets busy with the bars. So let's
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: talk what got you into rapping.
• 1:10
  Speaker 5: I heard a story.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:12
  Speaker 5: That when you were five years old.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: I guess in school, everybody said what they want to be.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: And kids were like police officers and firemen. And you
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: said you wanted to be wordy like Lil Wayne.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know where you heard that story from. Is
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: that true? I'm going to say fire.
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: That's a lot of words.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: No. Who the hell told you that story? Yeah, that's
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: a crazy story. His pops told me that story. His pops.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I call his pops and say, tell me some questions
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: about that. You're so old. You call people that? I
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe he remembers better than I do. Really,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: it's from the upbringing, for real. Like, as you know,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Pops is just like a behind-the-scenes guy in the industry.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: And just coming up and being privy to what the
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: lifestyle was, for me, that was the eye-opener. Because it's like,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I know y'all got some money, and it's from this thing.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: And who doesn't like music? So it's just like, I'm
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: around it all the time. And I always express myself
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: through art. Like, I hated sports. I wasn't trying to
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: be a firefighter or a police officer. I'm not doing
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: none of that. Like, rap. I always been good with words,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: and I just took it there, and I kept going.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: And now, I'm here.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: When you call a project bars not dead, are you
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: defending lyricism? Are you challenging the people who keep saying,
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: this generation don't care about lyrics anymore?
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I think it's just a bit of both. I'm defending
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: it because I like to rap a lot. And it's like,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: it gets frowned upon sometimes, especially now. It's just like,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I don't want to hear all that rappy rap. It's
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: just like, damn. Why do people say that? I don't know.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: To me, I don't know.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: I look at the last 15 years, the guys who
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: really thrived are rappity rappers.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: The Kendrick is a rappity rapper. Drake is a rappity rapper.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Even the Legacy X, it's just like they're a lot
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: more booked than the newcomers. That's right. Because of what
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: they did. Cole is a rappity rapper. Cole is a
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: rappity rapper. Yeah. His shows look crazy every night. Yeah.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: So it's just like, I don't know. But yeah, it's
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: a little bit of both. It's like, I want y'all
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: to stop saying this thing. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then I'm
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: challenging everything else at the same time.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: But you came up in an era where, I hate
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: to say the rappity rap, but the rappity rap wasn't
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: necessarily as big as some of the other stuff that
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: came out.
• 3:16
  Speaker 6: You can point to a lot of major, I mean,
• 3:18
  Speaker 6: besides like a J. Cole, like it was few and
• 3:20
  Speaker 6: far between.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: But look, this is the thing too, because it wasn't,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: but at the same time we had it. And it
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: still was like something that people look to. Like I
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: had an argument with one of my peers and he
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: was just like, In 07, Laffy Taffy was number one.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, but T.I. was still. Little Wayne was
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: just going into the card of three. It was balanced.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Now it's just like there's no balance. Hov was still outside.
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: How old was the person you was going back and
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: forth with?
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: We the same age. So in 07, I'm 29. In 07,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I was what? 10? 10?
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: Because I feel like it's a taste level.
• 3:58
  Speaker 6: Like, there are people that probably were listening to Effie
• 4:00
  Speaker 6: Taffy that weren't listening to, like... If you did hear T.I.,
• 4:03
  Speaker 6: it was like, you had to skate and ring.
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: Nah, it was a gumbo move.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: But I'm not going to lie.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: T.I.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Was lit. 100%. Kanye West's graduation was out of no sense.
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: Jeezy was lit.
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: It's a taste level thing.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: It has to be.
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: It has to be.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: But, hey, And that's my whole point. Lupe Fiasco.
• 4:19
  Speaker 6: But not everybody listening to Lupe Fiasco and a lot
• 4:22
  Speaker 6: of people that would listen to Kanye West and would
• 4:23
  Speaker 6: listen to like a Laffy Taffy. There's a lot, a
• 4:26
  Speaker 6: little synergy there. But a lot of people, if somebody
• 4:29
  Speaker 6: said to you, point it to Laffy Taffy first, that's
• 4:31
  Speaker 6: a whole different, like.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Mind you, the person I was talking to is a
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: rappy rapper. Oh, wow. Exactly. Case in point. It's just like,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: how do we, okay, let's just bring it back to
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: a space, a place where everything can coexist. I'm not
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: trying to say like, Nah, it's over for that. Who
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: am I to dictate that? It's just like, let's not
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: shy away from this thing as well because this is
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: how we got here.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: And what got you into rapping?
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: Because you got your degree from Hampton. And what was
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: your major?
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Business management. To be honest, I went to school because
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: it just seemed like the right thing to do. I'm
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: not even going to lie to y'all. If I could
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: have went to school for hip-hop, I would have went
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: to school for hip-hop. So you knew this is what
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: you wanted to do, regardless of you going- Yeah, I
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: never had a job. This is just my only thing.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: It's crazy, because I asked my pops for a job
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: one summer. He had reopened World on Wheels in LA.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to make some bread.
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: I used to go there.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I was just like, yo. I just need
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: a job. And he was like, you got a job.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Keep doing it. I was like, wow. All right. Wow.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: That's great. Yeah, word. I was like, all right. But
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: that's what you want to do with your kids. All right, bet.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: You just like, nah, do this. You got a job.
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: Do it.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: You figure out how to make some money. You do
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: it the right way.
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: Now, we're speaking to your pops. Salute to BK Rube, too.
• 5:48
  Speaker 6: Salute to BK Rube.
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was going to say, can we talk through, like,
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: who is that?
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: For people who don't know. His dad is BK Rube,
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: of course. one of Biggie's best friends.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I'm a pseudo-Nepo, baby. That's right. And there's nothing wrong
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: with that. At all, no. I used to look at
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: it like, nah, I don't want, nah. Now it's just like, yeah. Yeah, period.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: He was the first person to play me a record.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: I am who I am. Long time ago. You see
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying?
• 6:08
  Speaker 6: But also, too, I feel like you, like, When you
• 6:11
  Speaker 6: say you're a pseudo-Nepo baby, it's like, but I know
• 6:13
  Speaker 6: because of the type of cloth that that means you
• 6:15
  Speaker 6: came from that.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: Like, you still worked. Like, you still had to work
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: for something.
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: And you know how to fight.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I worked for everything, exactly.
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: And you know how to fight.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: I worked for everything. Yeah. That's what a lot of
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: people get confused. Like, I can speak for myself. I
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: worked for everything. But that's also how I was brought up.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: It's like, I'm also a person, I don't like things
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: handed to me. Just naturally. I don't want you to just.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: come with your hand out like oh yeah here's this
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: thing go do it because it's just like people can
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: tell like oh he i don't even know who this
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: kid is where he came from at least now i
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: got a little bit of a history people can go
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: back and be like oh he's been doing this for
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: a little minute and it's just now finally clicking with
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: people it takes a long time.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: That's how i felt because i didn't know rude was
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: your pops yeah you know i mean i had heard
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: your music before but over the holidays you know nala
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: was just letting.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Me hear charlamagne was not a fan in the beginning.
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: Tell us about it. Everybody has an experience with Sean May.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I think Nala might have played the last tape and
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: he was just like, it is what it is.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: But you got to admit, you stepped up literally. I
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: feel like you was making records that you thought were
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: going to be, I guess, that radio would want to hear.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: I did do a lot of that.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: A lot of conforming. You were dumbing down your pen.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I did a lot of that. Yeah, it's just like,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: I've completely stepped out of it. That whole person that
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: was doing that is gone. I don't even know.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: The first time I think Nala played it, it was
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: May 2025, right? And I remember listening to it. I
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: remember hearing, I was like, yo, this kid is dope.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: And that's when your pop sent me. It's like, yo,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: you know what?
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: That's my son.
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: That's the kid I've been telling you about.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: That's the soul to the plane with you. May 2025
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: was lyrical.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Did your dad want you in the industry, seeing that
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: everything he's seen through Biggie and Bad Boy, did he
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: want you in the industry?
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: He never told me he didn't. More than anything, he
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: just like, this is what you asked for. Like when
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: I call him like, yo, I'm, I'm cooked. I've been
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: out five days. He's like, and like, yeah, you're going
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: to be out a lot more days. You keep doing
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: what you're doing. So my mom's was more so like, Oh,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: you don't want to, you don't want to go.
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: Get a job.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: You tripping. I got, no, I'm sorry. I don't knock
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: nobody that has a job. I just, I'm not doing it. Yeah.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I just, yeah, I gotta do it. But pops was
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: always like, yo, no i see it like you can
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: do this keep doing it.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Just go what'd he tell you the most difficult thing
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: was and the reason i asked is he seemed big
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: when nobody believed and big had to go to rounds
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: of rapping outside and freestyle and and to the world
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: court so what was his advice to you just.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Keep the most cliche advice it's just like keep keep
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: going because you just exactly like you see it all
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: you see from one day it's just like your man's
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: is just a hustler on the corner and then he's
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: the biggest thing in the world before he passes away.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: And then when he passes away, he's even bigger. It's
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: just like, I've seen this with my own two eyes.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: You can definitely do this. You just keep doing what
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: you got to do. So I'm just here doing what
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I got to do to the best of my abilities.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: What made you say, you know what, I'm going to
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: be a straight lyricist? Because like I said, you weren't whack.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: You was just making, like I said, you was dumbing
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: down your pen. That's how you talk. You wasn't whack.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: You wasn't whack.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: You wasn't my cup of tea. You was just dumbing
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: down your pen. What made you be like, nah, I
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: got to show these dudes I can really get busy?
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: I started just paying attention to how far I've come
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: by being myself. And more than anything, I think just
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: being younger, it's just like you get somewhere and you
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: see so many things happen for other people and how
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: it worked. And it's just like, maybe if I tried that,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: it would work for me this way. And it's just
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: like most of them people got there just doing what
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: they was doing. Somebody in the world is going to
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: like what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. So
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: it's just like, why not continue to push that forward
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: rather than trying to figure out, oh, let me jump
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: on this wave. or do this thing. And then it's
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: just like when the wave is gone, it's gone. I'm
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: just somebody that got caught in the wave. Now I'm burnt. cooked.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I'd rather be, if I am going to be burnt
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: or cooked, I'd rather be burnt and cooked doing what
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: I was doing.
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: What was the ball for you? What was the person
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: that you said it was like, that's the lane I
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: want to go through?
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: It's always been Jay-Z for me since I was a kid.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I didn't like Nas.
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: Damn, tell them how you feel.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how biased I was. Jay-Z was just like,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: he's the guy. But getting older, it's like Kendrick and Cole.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Kendrick is somebody that I feel like never conformed to nothing.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: And he figured it out. It's mad people that don't
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: like Kendrick. Even before the Drake beef, it's like, we
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: don't want to listen to that. It's too many words.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know what he's talking about. It's a pimple butterfly.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I don't get it. Whatever the case may be. And
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: it's just like, look at him. Why not? Just do
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: what you got to do. Because everybody that's super successful,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: even though the legacy acts that we were just talking about,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: it's like, they all did their own thing. And that's
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: why they're still here, 50 years old, selling out of stadiums.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: It's like, we got four or five of us my
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: age that could do that right now. And they being themselves.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: So it's just like, all right.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: There's a difference between being able to rap and being
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: able to make people care that you can rap.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. When did you learn that distinction or are you
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: still learning it? I think I'm still learning it. I
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: think now I'm more in tune with it than ever
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: before though. That's why I'm just locked into it. Like, okay,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: it's people in the world that do care. Especially when
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: I see women caring, it's like, oh yeah, nah. Ooh,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: this is a bag. Because that's like the you got
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: to sell it to the women. I found women and
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: they like, yo, I love this song. I'm just like, what?
• 11:40
  Speaker 6: But I feel like most time women with songs with us,
• 11:42
  Speaker 6: it's like, if you can, if you can talk through it,
• 11:45
  Speaker 6: like we, we with you, like it's just.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I've gotten to that point now where I can, I'm,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: I'm so good at this thing that I can talk
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: through it and, affect y'all in a greater way than
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I've ever done before.
• 11:57
  Speaker 6: That's how I used to, when I used to watch,
• 11:59
  Speaker 6: or not used to, when I be watching the interviews that, like,
• 12:00
  Speaker 6: a lot of the, like, OG artists you're talking about, like,
• 12:03
  Speaker 6: LL Cool J and, like, all these people, they talk
• 12:05
  Speaker 6: about how when they would get through and break through
• 12:08
  Speaker 6: with the women and the records there, how that would, like,
• 12:10
  Speaker 6: take their career to, like, a whole different, like, place.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's where I'm at. I'm going that way. What
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: made you a believer?
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: What was the moment that you said this could really happen?
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: What was that moment?
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: You want to know what's crazy? I dropped my first
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: song on like all the DSPs in 2018, right? By
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: the third song, I went viral. I dropped a song
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: called The West with King Combs and O3 Greedo. That
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: went up. That was like it. Because after that, I
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: got a feature from Chris Brown just because he liked
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: the song.
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: Just out of GP, he just heard it.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: You feel me? Just being around the right people. They're
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: playing my music. I was in Hampton, stressed. Just like,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh. My man Ralph calling me like, yo, CB,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: he wants to get on this song. I'm like, stop
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: calling me about this. Do it. I'm not going to
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: say no. I don't want a Chris Brown feature. And
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: it just kept going from there. I got a Pusha
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: T feature after that. But this is all out of like,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the respect of how I'm operating in this space. Like, okay,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: this kid is actually nice. Yeah, we do know who
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: he is, but that's not everything. That's just extras. So
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: for me, it's just like, it's always been little points
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: that I made that just shows me like, all right,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: You got something. If you keep doing what you're supposed
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: to do, whatever's supposed to happen and click is going
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: to click and you'll be straight.
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: Who from Chris Brown's camp called you?
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Somebody called you or did they call you? My man
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Ralph is actually from my camp. But he, on some
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: just L.A. hanging around, he got cool with CB. So
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: he started hanging with CB's camp. Hanging with CB's camp.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: He's playing. Your music. You feel me? He's playing the
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: back home stuff. And CB is just like, yo, I
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: already know this nigga. Like, I know him. I know
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: his pops. I know the whole crew. I like this song.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: And CB's one of those people. Like, if he likes
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: a song, he will get on your song if he
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: likes it. He did it. And me being in school,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: he's like, yo, let's shoot the video next week. I'm like, ah, bro, like.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I got class tomorrow. Class tomorrow.
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: And business. Every Thursday, you got to wear the suit
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: on the top.
• 14:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: I clashed. And now I look back like, damn, I
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: should have left. Definitely. You should have left. Like, what?
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: I swear there wasn't a video.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: I was following the rules so much. No, there was
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: no video.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: I thought that there was a something.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: You bugging. But I understand. Yo, I tweaked. You bugging.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: You could have said you were sick. I could have
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: did it. Failing emergency.
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: You could have missed a day or two.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I could have did anything. Yeah. But what was.
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: Like, at that point, it's like you knew you had something,
• 14:43
  Speaker 6: but you didn't know that you had something enough where
• 14:44
  Speaker 6: you was like, I got to go shoot this video.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Now, let me tell you what it was. I was
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: about to graduate. Okay. I'm so close. I'm just like,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: if I leave now, I'm never coming back. I think
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I respect that.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: I get you.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: That was my logic behind it. You could have took
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: a day. I'm like, if I leave... No, let me
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: tell you something. If I left for that day, I
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: was never going back to school.
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: Got you.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Never going back. And it's just like, I've already wasted
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: this much money and time. I barely wanted to be here.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I'll be damned if I don't finish and I'm right here.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I respect that. You feel me? So it's just like, that's...
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: It wasn't a dream deferred, but it was kind of
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: a dream deferred because once we put it out, it
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: was just like, well, that's that.
• 15:25
  Speaker 6: Did you understand, because you was on a college campus
• 15:27
  Speaker 6: and it can be such a bubble, did you understand
• 15:29
  Speaker 6: the virality of the song?
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: Did you feel it?
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: I dropped the song with CB during COVID, so no.
• 15:36
  Speaker 6: Okay, because I remember that was a first. It's crazy
• 15:40
  Speaker 6: because that song, they would play it a lot in LA.
• 15:42
  Speaker 6: I was living in LA at the time when y'all
• 15:44
  Speaker 6: dropped it.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: The Tank song or the West? No, the West. Oh, no,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: that song? I experienced that virality.
• 15:50
  Speaker 6: That was my first time hearing it, but I didn't
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: know you were the same person when Nyla started talking
• 15:54
  Speaker 6: about you.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: This is how crazy it was, right? The song was
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: so much bigger than me, and I was in school.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: I wasn't about to graduate. This was like primetime school.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I would escape every other weekend or so. The song
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: was so much bigger than me. They would perform it
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: at Live in my man's V. He used to be
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: my manager. He's one of my best friends. He would
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: perform for me because nobody knew what I looked like.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: That's crazy. So the people that I would go to
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: school with, they know it's my song because I go
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: to school with y'all. But outside in the world, I
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: would be just outside and people are listening to the song.
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: I mean, we would be at hookah bars, everything.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: That song was going crazy. People didn't start recognizing what
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I looked like until this year.
• 16:29
  Speaker 6: Wow.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, yeah. Not this year. I forget the first
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: time I mentioned you and I asked her.
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: I literally said to her, I remember being like, is
• 16:37
  Speaker 6: that the boy that did the song with Christian?
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Is that the boy that did the song? Yeah, because
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I didn't know.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: I didn't know that you had this whole lyrical. I
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: just remember that song.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I remember the vibe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: whole collective. Man, it's just a lot. But I witnessed
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: that virality. Like, I was outside, active. I remember the
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: day we played it, it might have been like, what's
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: that club in L.A.? It's like outside, but it's inside. Nah, nah.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: It's closed down. I think it might have been a
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: supper club or something like that.
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: They used to do the Toxic Day Party. Y'all wasn't
• 17:12
  Speaker 6: coming for the Toxic Day Party. That was inside, outside.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: I was outside. I was outside very early. And we
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: played that song out there, outside, and L.A. just went up.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: And from that point, it was just like, oh, okay.
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: What club are you talking about? It was a Hollywood?
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: On Hollywood Boulevard?
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: But that was a lot of New York people that
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: went to that club.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: That's a fact. Yeah, and they would play.
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: That's what I'm saying.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: They would play the song so much. That's how I
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: knew it was going to go up. And then by
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: the time we dropped it, we was on like a
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: press run. We dropped it. Christian was promoting Love You Better.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: This is so crazy. We dropped it, and Bad Boy
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: had called me, and it was like, yo, we want
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: to figure out how to get a deal going, so
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: on and so forth.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Chris Brown was supposed to post the Love You Better video.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: We on a plane, we land. He posts the West video.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: I was just like, oh, yeah, we going somewhere with
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: this one. Christian was tight. He was like, yo, we
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: just dropped Love You Better. I'm like, hey, word.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: Y'all did have that pocket of a run, though. Now
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: that I'm thinking about it.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Nah, for sure.
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: Yes, like it was, so y'all shot, there was one
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: of the videos, what was the group called that y'all had?
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: CYN.
• 18:21
  Speaker 6: Yes, okay, y'all shot a video in between, it was
• 18:24
  Speaker 6: in New York, but it was like in between the houses.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Like it was like, kind of like a- It might
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: have been paid in full.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: I just remember y'all were running around for some time.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Nah, we was running around for a minute. And the
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: music was moving.
• 18:35
  Speaker 6: It was like, we were younger, so I don't know
• 18:37
  Speaker 6: if radio knew it and stuff, but y'all had a wave.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: It was more so, I'm not gonna lie, we was
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: like the first group of young niggas, I don't know
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: if I can curse, but we was like the first
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: group of youngins with the three-letter click. We did the
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: CYN thing, and then you started seeing the YBNs and
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the other Ns, and it's just like, okay, that's... That's
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: way before the Migos. Migos had the YRN.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: Migos was the Migos, though. They were huge already.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: They was out of here. I'm talking about young. I
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: felt like I might have found.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: Y'all song maybe on SoundCloud. It was like you had
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: to really... I thought it was just like.
• 19:14
  Speaker 6: We was outside... Christian and his friends just running crazy.
• 19:17
  Speaker 6: And then the song started getting played places. But do
• 19:20
  Speaker 6: people not connect you to that time period?
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: No, they still do. But respectfully, I'm so far removed
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: from that time period. You've grown from that, yeah. It's
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: just like... You got tired of hogging chicken? If it.
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't really connect them to that.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: You feel me? It's crazy because I would have never.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: And I'd be letting it go. Like, you don't connect.
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: Cool.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: If you do, we can talk about it, but let's
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: keep it to a minimum. But I'm so far removed.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Y'all talk about it now, remember, but I've never, like,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: because that was a time when they had fun and
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: they would do, but I don't remember it like that.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: It'd be like one, two, three, jump.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Y'all would do the one, two, three, jump. Y'all would
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: do the one, two, three, jump. We was outside. Y'all
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: were running through a lot.
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: It's like, damn, how come you didn't sign a bad
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: boy there? Because if they try to do the deal.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Nah, that was cool. That was cool. It just wasn't
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: for me. Respectfully, I just was like, nah, I'm cool
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: on that. And this is the first- And even back-
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: In my brain, I'm just like, I'd never take the
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: first deal. That's just in my brain too. I don't
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: care who it is.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: So what got you to drama generation now?
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: Because they are a Southern label.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: You are East Coast rapper.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What do I mean? So now, look, I ended up,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: after I graduated, I was like, I don't really know
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: what else I can do in New York. I was
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: born and raised here. It's time for me to spread
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: my wings and fly. Atlanta was like the next best thing.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: I moved to Atlanta December 20th, 2019. I kid you not.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I had a sold-out show at SOB's. Then I drove
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: down to Atlanta, started working. You know, the studio in
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Atlanta is like the stoop in New York. Everybody's here.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: You can catch anybody at any studio.
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: Hookah, wings, everything.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Literally. So, you know, me and my manager, we just...
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Jigging around Atlanta. We finding studios to record in for free,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: just building, doing all that. And by, I say, 2022,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: one of my uncles moved around with Lake and him
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: a lot. And he was just like, yo, I know
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: y'all looking for like a real rapper. I got to
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: check out. Like, I got to check out. And even
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: my pops would double down like, yo. Who's this? 2022, right? 22. Damn,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Jack Harlow, they was looking for a real rapper. That's crazy.
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: That's a fact.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: They like, when they don't switch their hats and cosplays.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: They was looking for a real rapper.
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: And Lake's like, Dan, don't put me in this.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Nah, yeah, Lake is here right away. Lake told me
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: to come to the office. And this is how I
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: knew I was going to Janelle. I went to the office.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I played 15 songs. Have you ever been to a
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: label meeting, guys? They'll never let you play more than three. Ever.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: You never get more than three. I played 15. And
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: they just locked in. Like, word, okay. And then after
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: the last song was done, Lake was like, yeah, I
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: want to sign you. I started recording. And he was like,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: the last person you got to get to is Cannon.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Cannon is a tough critic. He doesn't like anything. If
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: he likes you, we're good. Cannon came to the studio
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: one day. He was like, yo, what up? Here, this
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: is a beat. He gave me a beat. It was
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: like a rendition of Song Cry. I might have did
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: the whole song in 20 minutes. He was like, oh, nah,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: all right. But the craziest thing is, a year before that,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: I had DM'd Cannon. Like, yo, I got a song.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: He opened the DM. He was like, this shit is trash.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: He was on some Charlamagne. He was like, bro, this
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: is terrible. This is terrible. Nah, it is. It is.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Did you tell him that during that? Yeah. If he
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: was here, he'd be like, yeah, I did.
• 22:58
  Speaker 6: You wouldn't have wanted what you were doing then to be, like,
• 23:01
  Speaker 6: I think where you are right now and how it's
• 23:03
  Speaker 6: happening is like, this is you. Like, it's so crazy
• 23:06
  Speaker 6: putting you with that song, those other songs though.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: You really are like a whole different person now.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Cause now I remember. I remember.
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: I was like, out, like, in L.A., I'm like, it's
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: so different.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: I never put two and two together, though.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: But it's so, I think, so.
• 23:22
  Speaker 6: When you were doing, before you were here, right, where
• 23:24
  Speaker 6: you're focused on, like, you know, Bar Is Not Dead and, like,
• 23:27
  Speaker 6: lyricism and finding that, and bridging that gap, did you all,
• 23:31
  Speaker 6: if you always knew that this was it, why didn't
• 23:32
  Speaker 6: you just start here?
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: You gotta go through the motions. That's what it was
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: for me. It was just like, I'm young. And like
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I said, the person that The other version of me
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: is so just gone. Like, it was a lot. This
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: interview would have been hard for me if I'd have
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: got it in 2019. Yo, I was just such a timid, like, soul. Like,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: I just, oh, I'm just to myself. I'm introverted. I
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: just don't want to, I want to be out the way,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: but I want people to know who I am. I
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: started just, like, just isolating and recognizing what I was
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: doing wrong for myself.
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: You still speaking to Christian and all that?
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I spoke to Christian yesterday. Okay.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: What is something that canon or leg or drama corrected
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: in you that initially irritated you?
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: But you realize like, damn, they right.
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: Why the hell is Lake laughing?
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: So that must have been more than one. More than anything,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of, because he met the timid soul, the
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: one that's like, I don't want to do nothing. You
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: feel me? So a lot of that, I feel like
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the grand scheme is artist development. I really wasn't a firm,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: I didn't think it existed. But being with them, it's
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: just like, okay. I could still be developed. I even
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: thought I was at that. When I dropped all them records,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't need no coaching, no nothing. I've
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: been here before. It's like, no, you have not. It's
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: a lost art. You have not been here.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: But that's what I think Generation Now does so well.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: What other labels don't do. You can see the work
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: they put in Uzi. You can see the work they
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: put in Harlow. You can see the work that they
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: put in artists that most people won't do. I think
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of it, too, is they are producers and DJs,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: so they hear a different sound.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And for me, it's just like, Why not listen?
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Because in the beginning, it's just like, nah, I'm not...
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: I don't even care what they're saying. I might not
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: have vocalized it, but it's just like, I'm not doing that.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Fuck them country names. I'm not. That's crazy. But now
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: it's just like, nah, they right. Nah, they are. Nah,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: they right.
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: They got an ear for it.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. They know what they're doing. They right. No, art
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: development is a lost art. You know what I mean?
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: So for your generation, it is a lot of people
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: who didn't get that. Yeah. You know?
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: And I mean, you can see the difference. I mean,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: look at Jack Harlow. Look at the Monica album. I
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: can tell that Generation Now had.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Nothing to do with that. Okay? All right? None of
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: them will admit it. But I can just tell. There's
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: something about that project. I'm like, I don't think that
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Generation Now had nothing to do with this one.
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: So that R & B rollout wasn't them?
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: No, no, no. The hats? I don't think so. I
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: don't think so.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: But I want to talk to you. I've heard you
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: talk about dealing with anxiety.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Because you wrote a book called Tranquil. Tranquil. Yeah,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: overcoming the experience. While I was at Hampton, I was gone.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: through it.
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: What was so bad? What was difficult?
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I had went through something before getting there at Dell State.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: It was crazy. It was like an experience I never
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: went through, especially being from Brooklyn to go through something
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: like that in Delaware. It was just like, this makes
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: no sense. Something that traumatized you? It wasn't really traumatic.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: It was just something that I really never go through.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: And it almost got a little bit too real, realer
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: than I ever would have seen it coming. But in
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: the moment, it's just like, I'm dealing with it head on. Like,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: I'm not... I'm not tucking my tail for nothing.
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: What was the moment, if you don't mind?
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: I just got into it with a bunch of people
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: that I didn't even know I was getting into it with.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: It's like, it's just coming from angles. And it wasn't
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: just me. It was just a group of my peers.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: And it's just like, people we thought we was cool with,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: they did something shady one day. And now we're just
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: at odds with niggas from Philly, niggas from Delaware. And
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: it was just like, all right, I don't even know
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: what's going on. But I do know I'm protecting myself
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: by any means. So whatever it is, it is.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: I left, and that's when the anxiety started to crack
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: for me. And I'm just like, yo, what's going on?
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: I'm having heart palpitations. Panic attack. I go straight to
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: the hospital. I'm like, I'm about to die. It's over.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: It's over for me. I get to the hospital, and
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: they're like, you're having an anxiety attack. It's a panic attack.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh, okay. But it happened after the fact.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: So it's just like, okay. I didn't know what was
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: going on. So I only left Del State because I
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: initially wanted to go to Hampton. Straight out of high school,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: my grades, I just didn't meet it. I didn't meet
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the requirements. So I went to Del State first. I
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: had like a 3-3. Went to Hampton. I got to Hampton.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking it's going to be just as like, in
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the beginning, I'm like, oh, it's going to be just
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: as fire as Del State. Because Del State is the ghetto.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: I loved it there. I got to Hampton. It's like... yeah,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: y'all got to be inside at 11 o'clock. I said, whoa.
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: Curfew until homecoming.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I said, whoa, who did that? Yo, my first roommate
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: used to have seizures. My RD didn't tell me. It
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: was just like, I just... You thought he liked your music.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: But the craziest thing is... I don't even know if.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: We should laugh at that.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not even laughing at that.
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: Is he okay?
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: He's good. He's good.
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: But nobody told me.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: So one day... One day, I'm just chilling in the room.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: It might have been the first day. I don't even
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: know what to do. And I'm not even laughing at it.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I'm laughing at Charlemagne. Charlemagne did this. I don't know
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: what happened. He started. I'm just like, whoa, no. Hold on.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: The R.D. was like, oh, yeah, by the way. I'm like,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: by the way? This is not something you by the way.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: You're supposed to tell me this. I was like, cool.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: I might be able to deal with it. He might
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: got to like the third, fourth joint. I'm like, all right, bro. Respectfully. Like,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: we cool. But I don't know what I'm going through
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: right now. And I'll be damned if we both in
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: here and we just bugging out.
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: What hall you was in? You was James Hall?
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Harkness.
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: Harkness Hall, okay.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, cooked. I was cooked. And he was like, nah,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I respected it. I ended up moving downstairs. Everything was,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I wanted to, and in the beginning, I kid you not,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: I wanted to transfer the week I got there. I
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: was like, yo, I got to get out of here.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in prison. can't, there's no visitation.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what is this? I hit Pops, I'm like, yo,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: can I go to Clark? He was like, no, you
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: not leaving. You're going to thug it out. And then
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: as time progressed, it got better. I think it gets
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: better once you realize. I did things.
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: Discipline just opened up more.
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: That's what it is.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: It's about discipline.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: You got to think, when people go to college, a
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: lot of times they lose themselves because Because they never
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: had that much freedom.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: So what Hampton does is it guides you to get
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: to that point.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: But imagine having the freedom.
• 30:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah, because at Del State, you just- Del State, I
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: got my car. You better be smart about life. I'm
• 30:06
  Speaker 6: in a co-ed dorm.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: My RA is damn near my age, so it's like
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not ever listening to you about nothing. And it's
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: just turned. I get to Hampton, it's like I'm in
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: an all-boys dorm. Mm-hmm. 11 o'clock. Can't have your car.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Can't have your car. You will get out by five.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: And I'm just like, wait a minute. Hold on. It's
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: a lot. I didn't even have this back home. It
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: was never this strict. So for me, it's just like
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: with the anxiety I already had and then just dealing
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: with that. I went to therapy. That's the first time
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: I'm going to therapy at Hampton. And it was just like.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: That's good. I'm tonight. It wasn't good for me because
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: I went and I'm just like, miss. I'm bugging out
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: every day. But that's what, I deal with anxiety too.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Coming to you once a week is not efficient. You
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: got to go more.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: Because once you realize it's something happening to your mind
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: and not your body, it's able to put it in
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: proper perspective.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: And then I just started, like the idle mind is
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: really the playground of the devil. I started just getting
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: out more. Like, all right, let me go tap in
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: with people. Let me go work out. Let me go
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: to the cafe. Let me just do the student center.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Whatever I can do to just, ease my mind. And
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: then it helped. And then I ended up writing a book.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: So I'm just like, I know it's not going to
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: only help me or the people that's in school. Everybody
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: deals with it at some point. That's right. So this
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: is something that I can just share with the world.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: But you know what? That's what, when I went to Hampton,
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: that's what put me tight with the locals.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Because what I would do is, First of all, I
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: would be out on the weekend, so I would get out.
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: Or I would sneak out. And I would walk.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: Down the back by the parking lot behind the cemetery.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Using Harkness?
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: That wasn't James.
• 31:45
  Speaker 6: James?
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: And I would sneak out.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: But that's what got me cool with the locals, because
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: you couldn't come after 10. So I'm hanging out with
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Pusha T at 10 Montgomery.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: I'm with Allen Iverson. I'm with all the locals there.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: You was in the 75.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: I was in the 75. So I knew more people
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: locally than the actual school.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Because of all those.
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: Because you wanted to be outside.
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: I was DJing. I had to pay the bills.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: That's a fact. And me, I also, I was jaded
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: in a sense. I was like, I got a little
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: bit of Instagram. I got more followers than everybody here.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: I don't care about nothing. Y'all gonna know me. That's
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: really what my mindset was.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: So what got you to the point where the anxiety
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: slowed down and you would be able to control.
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: It a little more, I should say?
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Just the process of just doing things. Like, I realize,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: like what Charlamagne just said, once you realize, it's like, oh,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: this is a mind thing. I started doing things and
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: I started going outside and laughing and having fun and
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: just chopping it up with joints and all that. It's
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: just like, it's not even there no more. Then I
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: go back home and it's just like, oh, back is
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: against the wall. And I'm just like, oh, okay. This
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: is a mind thing. I can get over this as
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: long as I just continue to do what I... And
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: by the time the next school year, it's just like,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I'm cool right now. I ain't tripping about nothing. You know,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: anxiety is largely about uncertainty, right? Yeah.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: But then when you a rapper, you got to have
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: like this irrational confidence. So how do anxiety and ambition
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: coexist for you?
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Now, I kid y'all not, I don't be anxious about nothing.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: I think that experience allotted me this, to be this person.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: So for me, it's just like, I'm overly ambitious now.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I'm super confident because back then, even a part of me,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: like when I did drop the West and all that,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: like I was not confident and I think a lot
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: of people seen that and I didn't realize it but
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: I think that's why a lot of things went over
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of people's heads because it's just like I
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: never really had nobody tell me that I didn't have
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: it everybody always told me like oh you got it
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: you got it you nice this that and the third
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: but it's just like for myself everybody seen the potential
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: but I didn't it's just like I'm just like I
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: don't know like I it's a lot it's a lot
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: of competition out there I don't think I miss whether
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: it's I knew I could rap Everything else might have
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: been off for me. So now it's just like, I
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: got everything. I'm all out in a bag of chips.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Can't nobody can't hold a candle to me. That's really
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: how I feel about myself. And that's, I think I
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: just had to grow to that point because like I said, if, if,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: if y'all was interviewing me in 2019, this, this shit
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: would have been over a long time ago. You wouldn't
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: have nothing to say. I ain't had nothing to say. Yeah.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you one thing though. You about to have
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: a baby.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: That parental paranoia, the anxiety of being a parent, I'm
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: telling you right now, it's going to come back.
• 34:28
  Speaker 6: You already kind of set your boundaries, though, it sounds like,
• 34:30
  Speaker 6: because I know on a project you talk about, you know,
• 34:31
  Speaker 6: your kid is about to come, you're not playing with people.
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: Congratulations.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: He hit you with the... And I'm having a girl.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: All my anxiety right now literally is all... I got
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: four girls.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: All of my anxiety is rooted in my family and
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: my kids.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Everything.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: I be chilling because I keep my family with me.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: I'm the one that's like, we will move together. You
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: know what I mean? My daughter, before she go, we
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: all on Life 360. I go on vacations with her.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: She's 24 now, so we go to the club with
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: each other.
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: We go to the hookah spot. I keep them close
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: because I am concerned.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: But I'm just telling you right now. It's balanced.
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it really is.
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: My daughter went to NYU so I can make sure
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: I can sit there too.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Okay.
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: I'm that dad.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: He was dealing with the anxiety. Yeah.
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: But the crazy thing is my son went to the
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: University of Miami. I'm like, all right, my nigga, see
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: you later, man.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: You feel me? It's so much different. Because I wanted
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: a boy initially. And when I found out it was
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: a girl, I was just like, ah, bet. At first,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, all right. But now I'm just like,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to meet her because she would have
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: been right here.
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: When's the baby due?
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: October. Wow. When you old? Right around the corner.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: If you can hear me, you can hear me.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: I didn't even hear what you said. Were you a
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: hoe in a past life? I did my, you know.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: That's right. I did my dirt on by my lonely.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: And that's what the girl is for.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Who's not? That's right. That's right. Look at me. You
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: did say journaling helps with your anxiety though. Yeah. Okay.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: And I'm a rapper, bro. It's like, why not use
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: my words? But yeah.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: Now, when Joey Badass was going against everybody, you jumped in,
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: tagged in.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Yo, y'all want to know what's so funny? I told
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: this story before, but I never told it on The
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Breakfast Club. So, boom, I got into it with my
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: now wife, right? She had got me so mad. I
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: forgot what I was pissed off about. I heard somebody's stomach.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: It wasn't mine.
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: I ate half my sandwich.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: It was over there. Don't play with me.
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: You're only as mean.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: By the way, he's African, too. That doesn't make it
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: even funnier. Why would you? He's crazy. Why would you
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: say that?
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: Why would you say that?
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Yo, nah, but real quick. So my lady, right, she
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: got me so mad one day. It was mad to
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: a point where I wanted to hit something. But I'm
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: just like, come on, we're not ever doing that. So
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: we go to sleep. And my whole thing has always
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: been like, never go to sleep. We never go to
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: sleep mad. To that day, I didn't care. I was tight.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: But it's just like, I got to take this Aang
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: out somewhere. I kid y'all not, I was drunk in
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: my bed. She's asleep. I'm up. Lights out. The whole
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: house just pitch black. I picked up my phone and
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, somebody's going to get this Aang. I
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: started writing my Nixon six verse, right? Mm-hmm. This was
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: before I knew I was about to do this. I
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: was just prepping myself up because Cannon was already in
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: my ear like, if you don't do nothing, you not nothing. Like,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: you not him. And I'm just like, ah, whatever, bet.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Reason drops the Dead Apple song. I'm just like, I
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: hear it. I hear a little bit of it. I'm
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: just like, ooh, that's crazy. He's kind of talking. Crazy
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: about New York. Somebody needs to say something. And then
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, somebody.
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: Somebody needs to say something.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: I already started writing a verse about this whole thing.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: So now it's just all playing into my favor. I
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: go to the studio the next day. Kid you not.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: But I didn't finish the verse. The whole idea is
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: just in my brain. This is how I knew it
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: was going to be something. I'm like, I'm going to
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: rap over Murder Was The Case and Little Ghetto Boy.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: It's L.A. I was real strategic. I was like, I
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: don't know who I'm going to get to make this beat.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know how I'm going to do it, but
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get this done. I go to the studio.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: I call my man Luca to the studio. He pulls up.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: We make the beat. Off rip. Time to take the
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: drums out, all that. My engineer's in there. I go
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: straight in there. I do the first half before the
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Tupac section and before we go into Murder Was the Case.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: While he's building Murder Was the Case, I'm right in
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: the second half. I send it to Cannon. Cannon is like, nah,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: this is crazy. We need to drop this. I'm like, yeah,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: I'm about to drop. Like, I'm going to do this.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: I don't care about no label logistics right now. This
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: is urgent. J. Juan was about to, me and J.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Juan was already talking. He was like, yo, let me
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: know when you're about to drop. I'm dropping two today.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: I'm about to drop it this time. I was like, ooh,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: I got to get out before J.
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: Juan.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I told Cannon. Cannon was like, yeah, we
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: got to mix it. I said, bruh, J. Juan is
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: dropping in 30 minutes. He was like, oh, no, no, no.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Put it out. My cameraman, he came to the studio.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: He walks in the studio like, you ain't into the
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: chat with this? I said, bro, you came in here
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: thinking you had a good idea. It's done already. You
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: need to do the cover art. He does the cover art.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: First person I text, Wayno. Wayno was on a live stream.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: He had 1,300 people in his live. I said, I'm
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: going to get this to Wayno. If Wayno can play
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: this right now, we're out of here. I text to Wayno.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Wayno's mid-live. He's like, oh, I just got a joke
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: from Kai Cash. If y'all don't know who Kai Cash is, da-da-da-da-da.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: The whole bio. Press play. I'm watching it real time.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: It's gone crazy. I had just met Gina Views and
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: DJ Head. You named all my folks. It worked out
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: so perfectly. We had just came off the Cash Rules
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: press run. Maybe like a week before this. And it
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: was regular. I went up there and then the drum
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: was in there and they asked me one question because
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: drum was there and I'm just like, okay. One day.
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: But they got the record.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: One day I'll get my respect. Right. Today's the day.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Today's the day. I sent it to DJ Head and
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Gina Views in the Twitter DMs. They posted after Wayno.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Maybe 30 minutes. Flooded. Everything just flooded. Because I'm really
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: talking crazy. It's from L.A. But I used to be
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: in L.A. so much. I know so many people from
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: out there. It's like my whole thing was the only
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: worthy thing outside of Joey and Ray. Some dude DM'd me. No,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: I was playing Twitter games. I'm like, I see people
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: for Joey follow me. Lloyd Banks follow me. Just mad. Right.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Rappers started following me. I'm like, okay, these are the
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: guys that I want to rap with. So I just
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: tweeted like, I ain't going to lie. I got a
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: song for Joey. Somebody DM'd me. His name is D-Dot.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: He DM'd me. He was like, text me.
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: Text me the song.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: He said, text me the song. I text him the song.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: He was like, Joey said he got one better for you.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: He sends me an open. I get the open. I
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: sent it back in 10 minutes. Joey FaceTimes me. He's like, bro,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to lie. I ain't never get a
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: verse back this good that fast. He's like, but I
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: was overdoing it. I did like 24 bars, 16 slot.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: I'm rapping over hooks, everything. He's like, I need you
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: to just bring it down a little bit. I brought
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: it down, and then he dropped Brooklyn's Finest, me, Rome Streets,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: CJ Fly, Joey. But yeah, I just... It was like,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: I just stepped into this. Like, I'm going to keep
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: going back to it. If this was five years ago,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: I would have not done that. I kid y'all not.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: I was not doing it. Now it's just like everything.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: I feel like my back is against the wall a
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: lot now as a grown man too. And I like
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: being in that space because it's like fueling.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, now I have a point to prove to myself
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: more than anybody else. I have a point to prove
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: to myself and I'm going to get my point across.
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah. I saw an interview, man, that you did
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: from Hampton like a decade ago. And I think you
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: said that within five years, you wanted to be wealthy,
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: not just financially, but you wanted to be wealthy in health,
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: wealthy in the mind, wealthy in the spirit, right?
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: So it's been almost 10 years. It grates yourself. Yeah,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: I'm getting in there. I'll tell you that much. I'm
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: probably at like a 97.
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just waiting for this one record
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: to crack. Two at 100. And I feel like I'm
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: on my... We're there. We're... We're at the cusp of it.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: I got Lake. I got Lake, so I know we're
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: at the cusp of it. You feel me?
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: The most important thing, I think, is just getting a
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: handle on everything you were dealing with mentally.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the craziest thing is, and thank y'all, by
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: the way, for always supporting. Y'all big me up a
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: lot over here. I just wanted to say thank y'all.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: The Make Them Pay joint. That's when it, when I
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: got to that point, That's when I really started feeling
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: like how I feel today. Like, oh, yeah, nah. I'm here. Like,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: I don't have no time for no nonsense with nobody. Right.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: I'm demanding my respect. I'm going to get it either way.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: I'm staying out the way, but I'm also in your face. Mm-hmm.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: And that's it. Like, I'm going to get this other 3%
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: from 97 to 100 by any means.
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: That cleared all the road for the rest of the project.
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, okay.
• 43:25
  Speaker 6: He letting y'all know, don't even come over here.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Please don't.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: See, I love when rappers do that. Like, I love
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: when people start talking about a rapper being a rapper.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: And then when you point them to a new record, like, oh,
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: listen to that Make Them Petty.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Like, oh, yeah. I hear that. I understand that. I
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: hear that.
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: You feel it.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: I understand that.
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: I ain't even know all the things. I'm like, oh, yeah,
• 43:42
  Speaker 6: but it was some things that he let y'all know.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I knew because literally it was like a whole
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Nixon six moment. Again, I wrote it. I did a
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: three day fast in my third day. I'm just drinking water.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: No social media, no nothing. I'm drinking water on my
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: third day. Iceman might've just dropped two days before. I'm like,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: make them pay is so me coded. I need to
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: rap to this beat. I found the remake. I drove
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: to the studio at 11 in the morning. Nobody's in there.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: So Sunday, I, I, I'm in my brain. I picked
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: the whole image with him wearing the, with Big's Jesus piece.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Cause I'm like, that's what I feel like. I feel
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: like Jay-Z wearing Big's chain. And I just dropped it
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: and I deleted Instagram. Like I posted it. I deleted Instagram.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: By the time I was on the way home and
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: it might've been 20, 30 minutes. My bro V had
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: hit me and was like, yo, what you on? I'm like,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: what are you talking about? He's like, I don't know.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Like you've been just in it. Like I feel that
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: he was in LA. I'm in Atlanta. He's like, I
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: feel like you're just in such a different space right now.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: And why did you just do this? Cause right now
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: this freestyle you just dropped is going digital. And by
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: the time I logged back on Instagram, it's at like,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: might've been like a hundred thousand views. Charlamagne is talking
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: about it. I'm getting repostings in my comments talking about something. Oh,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: he's not better than Drake. This, that, and that. I'm
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: just like, oh yeah, this is great. Because I proved
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: the point. Y'all are in the comments talking about that.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Or his rollout.
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: They're having a conversation about me.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And then from there, I'm just like,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: it's time for me to get back into the groove
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: and just letting the music fly. The Swap My Remake
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: was dope too, though. Like, it was the same. I mean,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know who did that beat, but it... Oh,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: my guy Harrison Gilbert. Yeah, that's a producer I've been
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: working closely with. Yeah, they wasn't letting us upload that
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: version to YouTube.
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: I was going to ask, you said you fast. How
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: often do you fast? And how often do you.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to lie, that was my first time
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: ever fasting. It was the most difficult thing I ever did.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: But the clarity I got from it, it was like
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: being on drugs.
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: What was the most difficult? The eating and food or
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: the social media delete?
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Hmm. At first, it was social media. At first, I
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: was like, oh my gosh, I feel like a junkie. Like, bro,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: I'm in the crib watching The Sopranos. I binge watched
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: The Sopranos. I finished all six seasons. By the second day,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: I was starving. Hungry as hell. I wanted to do
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: five initially. I was like, I'm not doing five days
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: of this. I got to three, and at midnight, on
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: that third night, I got some soup, and I was
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: just like, all right, let me ease back into it,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: you know? But it was definitely eating. That was the
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: biggest thing.
• 46:27
  Speaker 6: What's some of the things you saw in the clarity? Like,
• 46:30
  Speaker 6: what was more clear for you? What were you able
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: to see that you didn't see before?
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: A lot of things just be noise. Like, I don't
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: know if y'all seen F1 with Brad Pitt and Damsom Idris.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Where he was basically telling Damsom, like, put the phone down. Like, bro,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: that's noise. Like, good, bad, indifferent. It's just noise. Like,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: we came to drive these cars. If we don't drive
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: these cars well... We're not doing our job. For me,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: it's like I used to be so jaded by just
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: socials and opinions and numbers and analytics. And I'm that
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: kind of person. Like, I'm checking everything. And then I
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: just started to realize, like, okay, when I finally got
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: over it all, how much noise it was. It's just like,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on in the world. I
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: feel better about everything not known because everything is everywhere
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: all at once. And it's just like, now we're just
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: so desensitized to we see death, we see death. Porn,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: we see everybody got money, but nobody's rich. We see
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: everybody's healthy. AI is just crazy right now. I don't
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: even know what's real. So when I got off, it's
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: like it was a whole new world. I'm not answering
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: my phone for nobody. You can't tap in with me.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: I downloaded Substack. I just started writing. And that was
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: really the most clarifying thing for me. Like, okay, we
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: succumb to a pitfall when it comes to these phones
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And I'm addicted. I was addicted
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: to notifications. I would be in a booth checking my
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: notifications while I'm rapping, just pulling my screen down. Nobody's
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: texting me nothing. I just keep checking, keep checking. Me
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: letting go of the phone, that's what really gave me
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: all the clarity. It's just like, bro, all right, life
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: is bigger than this. And in order for you to
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: be who you want to be, you have to realize
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: you hold that power. You can't let nothing else externally.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: Hold the power for you. Which slaves are our smartphones, man? Man, what?
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: If you listen to Silicon Valley whistleblowers and then listen
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: to like tobacco whistleblowers from back in the day, they're
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: like having the same conversation.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Preaching the same preach. Just different drug. I still got
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: my phone, though. I got two of them. Let's get
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: into the record. Let's get into the record, man. Let's
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: play Make Them Pay. Let's play the swap out edition, though.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: Let's play this one.
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: All right, well, let's get into it right now. Kai Cash,
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: we appreciate you for doing this.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Hey, and you know, Kai Cash is one of the
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: featured artists on Nyla Simone's Honor Roll project. That's coming out, man.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: That's right. I have already said it.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: I said that the big three of rap right now,
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: the new big three to me is- New Generation.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Ruben Vincent, Marco Plus, Kai Cash. I'm honored to be there.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Chris Patrick. Because I'm here. I had you
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: in there, but Kai- He.
• 49:12
  Speaker 6: Talks about y'all at least like three times a week.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Nah, I love it. I'm happy. It's about the bar.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: I seen it. He was not, I'm telling you, he
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: was not a fan.
• 49:22
  Speaker 5: Well, it's Kai Cash.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: It's The Breakfast Club.
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: Good morning.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: Hold up. Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: The Breakfast Club. Y'all finished or y'all done?