Latest / Earn Your Leisure / The Secrets to The Wealthy

Transcript

The Secrets to The Wealthy · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So like I started my career straight out of high school.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: So I was nineteen years old when I started working
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: at the bank. Did everything tell a personal banker, private banker,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: branch manager, was a ceover Credit Union. And for me,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I kind of, I mean, I'm always sort of like
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: been a hustler. Like I always knew that I didn't
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: want people to tell me what to do and things
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: of that nature, Like I wanted to be an entrepreneur.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: But like you said, that security is what kept me
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: in the game as long as I was in the game.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: But for me, that transition it is difficult though, right,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: It is that up and down because I know, I remember,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: you know, I retired from banking when I was thirty
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: years old, right, retired, Right, I threw you know, I
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: even threw myself a party, retirement party at forty forty club.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I was just about to turn thirty, and you know
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I was I was making money, right, I was making
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: six figures at the bank, wound up quitting becoming an entrepreneur.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I almost fell on my face though, right, to be
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: to be honest, right, I almost got to a space
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: where you know, I wasn't making as much money because
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I was used to that lifestyle, and so I had
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: to go back into the working world figure some things out.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: And then now I was like, all right, now I'm
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: gonna jump back back in there. And so partly what
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: worked for me was being able to create that multiple
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: streams of income. And that's why I tell people that
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: whatever you do, make sure that you're not only relying
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: on one source of income. Because having multiple streams of
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: income was what allowed me to say, okay, you know what,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: now I could jump out and be comfortable. But being
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: on the institutional side, it was tough, right because I mean,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: you know, as being a licensed financial advisor, there's certain
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: things that you like, you're highly regulated, right, and so
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: you know what you know, even when I wrote my
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: first book, mind Right, Money Right. So my real name
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: is Ash Exantis, right, and the reason why I write
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: under Ash cash was because back in two thousand and nine,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: when I wanted to write my first book, mind Right,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Money Right, Tenlods of Financial Freedom, I needed to ask
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: permission from, you know, from the institution to see whether
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I can write the book. Because I was a licensed
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: rep with them, it was a conflic of interest and
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: they weren't they wouldn't let me write the book, right,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: and so ask for forgiveness, not for permission. So I decided,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna write this book
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: under ash cash. If they find out, they find out,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: but I'll be ash exanswers from nine to five and
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: I'll be ash cash, you know, every other every other time.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: And that worked for me because I was building both
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: simultaneously to the point where ash cash got hot enough
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: where I was able to leave my nine to five
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: and you know, create some some income by doing it.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: And that's something that I always encourage people to do
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: as well. But you don't have to do it all
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: at the same time, right, everything at the same time,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: so you can still work a regular job while building
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: up your entrepreneurial business. And then when that gets to
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: a point where it can support you, then you take
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: the leader.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Right like like people, I don't know where this anti
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: nine to five thing come from, Like stop watching social
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: media if they lion. You know, you know how many
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: people who out who's who's out here acting like they're
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: independent and then you bump into them at they nine
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: to five and they don't trying to say like right,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: like stop listening to them like it's a lie. Like
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: your job is your investor, it is your first investor.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: You quit your job. So so the reason why so
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I have a company called mind Right Money Management. The
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: reason why it's mind Right Money Management because it's a mindset. First,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: money is mindset. If you don't have the proper mindset,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: I don't care if you make one hundred thousand dollars,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: a million dollars, ten million dollars, you don't have the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: proper mindset, You're still going to be broke right. And
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: what people don't realize is that that's if you have
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: to struggle the brain space that it takes for you
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: to be creative, you're not going to be as creative.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Your entrepreneurship venture is not going to be as successful
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: as it could be had you had the proper brain
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: space to not have to focus on the basics. So
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I tell people, listen, keep your nine to five. It
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: is your first investor. It is investing in your business.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: It removes you having to think about the basics, where
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna live, how I'm gonna eat, and then the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: rest is how you invest your time period.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Well, the key, the key to that is that you
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: have to be willing to put in overtime. Oh absolutely.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: When I say overtime, not overtime at your job, overtime.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: As far as to say, okay, I work from nine
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: to five, from six o'clock to eleven o'clock at night,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: not a lot of people are.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: Willing to do that. Right.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: That's the thing that and weven we talk about the
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: social media.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: It's crazy.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: It's like, that's what stops a lot of people is
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: to say, Okay, I can still work a job, but
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna work another job that I'm not gonna get
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: paid for because you're entrepreneurial. The first year, first two years,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: first five years, whatever, you might work the same nine
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: to five on the night in and not get a
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: dollar for it. That's the sacrifice that a lot of
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: people is not willing to make. But let me ask
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: you this because I wanted to you. All right, So
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: you said that one position in general kind of change
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: your whole way of thinking. Right when you the CEO
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: of a credit union? Credit union in Queensbridge, right, projects?
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: So all right? So Queensbridge is the largest projects in
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: North America, if anybody's not familiar. Also home to hip
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: hop Royalty, Yes, Noses mob d Project, Yeah, Home Artest Cormega,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: a bunch of people.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: They ran Queensbridge in the nineties late nineties. I forget them.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: We got forget, but we can't fit.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: I was just having this debate about like rap, right,
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: And in the nineties it was like Queens Date.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: The borough just was un stock.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: It was a research resurgence and it's like Queen's Bridge,
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: and specifically, if you think about it, like for one
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: project to have that much talent come out of it,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: it's crazy. But it's ninety six buildings six. So they
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: had their own credit union in the projects, right, Yeah.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: So Urban Upbout is a nonprofit that provided services within
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: that that area, and so Bishop Taylor, the CEO of
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: the nonprofit, it decided that he wanted to open up
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: a credit union to serve those members. And so, you know,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: we had a mutual friend. When I was working at
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: City Bank at the time. We made a mutual friend
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: and he was like, listen, you're the perfect person, right.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: You grew up in the projects. You're a VP at
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: a bank. You understand our people, but you also understand
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: how to run a branch from you know, p and
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: LS and all that stuff, and so he tapped me
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: and was like, listen, I want you to run this
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: credit union. And so I was thirty one at the time,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: and so at the time, I was one of the
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: youngest CEOs of a federally chartered bank. And that really
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: kind of changed my perspective on just what we need,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: you know, from from a from a financial education perspective,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: because a couple of things I realized is that when
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I was working at City Bank in the same type
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: of environment, right, I was running a forty five million
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: dollar branch right on one hundred and forty fourth Street
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and Seventh Avenue in Harlem, same demographic public housing. It was,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: you know, low income, but because we had the capital,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: we were able to provide the products and services that
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: the that the that they needed. Working at the credit union,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: I realized that, yeah, you know, Jay said this, right,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: he says, I can't help the poor if I'm one
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: of them.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: So I got rich and gave back to me. That's
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: the way whin.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I didn't understand that until I became the CEO of
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: a credit union and realized that in order to help
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: them one, we needed to educate them first, because they
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: were so used to using check cashing places and giving
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: their money away that there was an education part first,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: But then there was a capital thing as well, right,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: meaning that a lot of people were going to the
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: check cashing places, were going to the pawnshops, were taking
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: payday loans, or doing all of those things because they
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: needed access. Right, I, as a CEO of a credit union,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: could not give them access because there's a balance between
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: between taking risk as a as an institution, right. And
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: so let's say, for instance, I had two million dollars
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: in deposits. That means, you know there's a there's a reserve, right,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: I can't lend up the two million dollars. I have
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: to keep a reserve. And so let's say I can
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: lend one point two million dollars, But now I have
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: to look at the risk like as a credit union,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: the people who put their money in own the credit union, right,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: your owner of the credit union. But I can't lend
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: five thousand dollars to somebody who has not demonstrated that
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: they will be able to pay it back, even though
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I know that they needed and that that I can help.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And so it made me realize that yes, access to
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: capital is important, is very very important, but that financial
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: education piece is more important because again we've seen people
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: who come from places who they don't have any money.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: You give them money, they will lose the money. They
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: will go back to square one because they haven't changed
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: their mindset. They haven't you know, recalibrated. And that's what
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: changed my life. I said, you know what, I have
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: to be on a mission, not only locally, right. So
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: so prior to that, you know, I was working in Harlem,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: I was working downtown, I was working in Queensbridge. But
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I said, on a netational level, I want to reach people,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: and that's why I continue to write books. That's why
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: you know, I started to reach out and become a
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: national voice for financial education because our people most importantly
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: have been shut out, right shut out of this information
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: for so long, and not just like we didn't do it,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: like these are Like if you read the book Color
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: of Law, you'll realize that there were government sanctioned laws
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: that shut us out of this, you know, shut us
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: out financially, and so now we have to take back
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: control and re educate.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: Now it's dope because like from an education standpoint, right,
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: and the same thing from the financial world. You're inside
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: the system, right, so you can see that the customers
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: and your clients really don't have knowledge. And it's the
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: same thing that we're kind of doing where I'm in
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: an education system. I know it's not being taught in school,
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: so we have to go out and give the financial education.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: But one of the things that you said is that your.
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: Culture respond to and that is so powerful because, like
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: I said, culture always changes right down to the name
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: of your company. Right, money right manage me. Like when
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: I heard money right, automatically I thought Memphis Bleed. Sure,
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: And when I was like, yo, is there something now? Yeah, absolutely,
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: without doubt.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: And so it's so funny and this is a testament
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: to why be your authentic self and do not care
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: what people say.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna you tell your quick story.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I wrote my first book in two thousand and nine, right,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: it's going on ten years. It was called My Right
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Money Right, based on the Jay Z and Memphis Blee song.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: When I wrote the book, though you know, I did
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: not write the book as if the influence was hip hop, right,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: like I tried to. You know, at the time, you
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: had the Dave Ramsey, Susie Orman's out there and people
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: were advising me against using hip hop and money. They
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: were like, yo, it's a serious topic. Do not blended too.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: How can you possibly do it? And I listened to them,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: and so I said, you know what, Nah, I'm gonna
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: write this book.
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna do it the way I want to write it,
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: whatever the case may be.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Fast forward, right, you know eight years later where I
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: finally was like, nah, I hear the jay Z four
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: forty four album.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: We're hearing it difference.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, nah, I gotta mix hip hop and
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: you know and finances together.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: And it became my most successful book.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Howd I listen ten years ago and said, you know what, Nah,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling this hip hop and money. I'm mixed the
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: two together. But to your point about being culturally responsive,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: it's that, right is that a lot of times? And
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: this is not just financial education. This is a lot
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: of things that we're trying to teach people. We tend
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: to teach people based on our level of understanding, but
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: we don't realize or we forget that we had to
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: go through a journey to even get here. And so
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: as the educator, let's stop trying to reach people from
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: where we are, but let's reach them where they are.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: And I think that now that we look at hip
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: hop as being the great equalize of where. You know,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: when I listened to my first jay Z track, I
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: was fifteen years old, right, and so throughout those years
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I've grown, Right, people who listen to hip hop have grown.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: We have homes, now, we have kids, we have families,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: you know, we have something to have grandchildren, and I'm
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: thinking about legacy.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: Buildings that we are growing up. It's like it's like
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: it's like.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's Eric Falcon, very Falcon where he said,
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: you know, we didn't new neon entrepreneurs, whereas we don't
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: necessarily have to wear suit if we don't want to.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: We can wear vapor Max and we can wear that
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: doesn't discredit the information because it's like, Okay, we grew
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: up in the hip hop era, we grew up playing sports, and.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: It's just what it is, right.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: So it's like, you know, as opposed to trying to
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: water it down be something that we're not, we could
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: deliver the message in the language that the people understand.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: And that's what That's one thing I like about you
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: because it's it's in line what we do as far
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: as with the podcast is like you know, it's it's
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: always easy to be yourself as.
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: I think that's one of my favorite Drake lines. He
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: said that line. He was like, you could be anything
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: you want, even yourself.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Right, You're brilliant even even with a Z when he said,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: still do me because it's easy to do, Because it's
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: like that really is easy, Like you know what I'm saying.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: It takes a lot of effort to try to beat
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: somebody that, but a lot of times people do that
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: every single day in the work world and just life
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: in general. And A never works because you're trying to
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: duplicate somebody else, and b it's just not even comfortable.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: So the message is the message is never going to
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: get delivered because the people that you're trying to be like,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: they know you're not them, right, And the people who
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: you really are like they looking.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: At you like you not even you talk sounds like us.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: You turned your back on us.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: But I wanted to ask you something because you said
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: something that was very key. You said when you was
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: on the institutional side working in banks, you realize that
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: like wealthy people like they have a team and we
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: even said bringing it back with the lyrics, But Nipsey said,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: I don't need the ID in my bank. I walk
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: and I got a team in my bank. And you
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: was like, that's one of the things that motivates you
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: to just educate people, because like, we're so far when
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: I say we are community, we're so far behind the
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: eight ball. We don't even know what's on the other
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: side of Oh my god, can you just explain, like
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: what's on the other side.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Of the day. So for two years, right, I was
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: a private banker and I managed assets. I had a
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: book of business four hundred massive fluent clients. Right, So
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the term mass affluent just means two hundred and fifty
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars in investable assets, right, So you have to
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: have liquid two hundred and fifty thousand dollars or more
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: to even qualify to have a private banker. And so
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: my richest client was worth twenty two million dollars. I
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: was part of a team, though I wasn't. I wasn't
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: the only person that worked on that wealthy person's portfolio.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: I managed the banks and the mutual funds, and there
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: was somebody who was the mortgage guy. There was somebody
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: who was the banker. There was somebody who you know,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: worked on you know, the investment banking side. That like,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: they had a whole team of people who not only
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: worked for them, meaning that this wealthy person didn't have
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: to think about their money. Like this wealthy got up
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and did what they did every single day to keep
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: their wealth. And there were people working around the clock
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: to manage their money to make sure that their money
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: grows right, meaning that from a banking perspective, there were
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: no fees, they weren't charging anything. From an investment perspective,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: they had someone watching their portfolio.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: From a mortgage perspective, they had somebody if rates dropped,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: would So these were all people working proactively to maintain
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: or build this person's wealth, while us, you know, people
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: in our community, people who don't have access to this team, Like,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: we're trying to figure out how to how to do
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: stuff day to day, and we got to think about
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: our money. We got to think about how to make
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: the money, We got to think about how to manage
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the money. And so that's why when they say that term,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: you know, the rich get richer, is because they have
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: a team, They have things and systems and processes in
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: place that keep them at that level. And so for me,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm a big Jay fan, so I'm a
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: quot J all day, right, Right, So Jay said, there's
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: much bigger issues in the world, I know, but I
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: first had to take care of the world I know.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: And so for me, I'm like, Yo, I'm from the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: I'm from the projects. B I'm from you know, d
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: see the holloway, right, I'm from the projects. I'm from
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: one Hunt, twenty ninth Street and eighth Avenue.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Old Hall, right, and so you know what I mean.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: So I'm from Old hallm So I understand what it's
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: what it's like to be from the bottom. But then
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I've done well for myself, so I also understand that
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: other side of it. And I'm like, nah to say it,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: like my people need this, right, So there's much bigger issues.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I could be doing so many other things, but I
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: first had to take care of the world I know.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: And I think that you know for us, and this
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: is why I appreciate what y'all do as well, is
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: because we're credible messengers, right, like you can't like, Yo,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I've been to Rikers Island and I've been in the
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: corporate boardroom right, talking the same it's the same language,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: and there's nothing nobody could tell me about this be
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: because I've been on both sides, and I think that's
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: what makes us credible because we got receipts, and I
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: think that's important, right, having those receipts, but reaching people
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: at a level that they understand and hip hop money,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: they're not.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: They're not mutually exclusive.
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: It's important because it's like we said this before, it's
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: like the messages for everybody, but the people who need
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: it and are going to be impacted by it most
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: are going to receive it.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: Sure, you know what I mean.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: And that's something that we prod ourselves on, right because
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: like you said, we are the messages of this and
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: we have receipts to prove it.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: But you know what, it's interesting because it's people say
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: that hip hop is not finance. Hip hop actually is finance.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Everything about it is money, right as far as the lyrics.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: It's a business, a billion dollar business, and it always
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: was about education. At its core was educating. Even if
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: it's not educating you on the right thing to educated,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: there's a thing about it is like even for me,
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: like you know, I pride myself on having a very
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: good memory. But one of the things I think keeps
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: my memory so good as I have so much rap
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: lirics that I remembered, right, And like I said, a
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: lot of the things that I learned from rap, they
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: weren't necessarily positive, but it was still an education, right.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: So it's like now, if we can teach people using
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: lyrics and music as something that they can relate to culturally,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: to me, that's a win win