Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Lecrae Talks New Album 'Reconstruction,' KDot Mention, Young Thug Comments, J.Cole, Faith +More

Transcript

INTERVIEW: Lecrae Talks New Album 'Reconstruction,' KDot Mention, Young Thug Comments, J.Cole, Faith +More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Every day up waiting, click your ass up. The Breakfast Club.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: You don't finished for y'all done more thing everybody.
• 0:09
  Speaker 3: It's the j Envy Jess, Hilariy Schela mean the guy
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: we are the breakfast Club.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Laila Roses here as well. We got a special guest
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: in the building. You got the good brother, lukra what's up? Brother,
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: was handing? Man? How you feeling, man, I'm good man.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: It's good to be here with y'all.
• 0:22
  Speaker 4: Good to see you, brother. I was in the reconstruction man,
• 0:25
  Speaker 4: and I told him earlier. I said, if if Lucre
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: wasn't a quote unquote Christian rapper, they.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Would have to put this in rap album of the
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Year category.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's big.
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: I truly believe that that's big. This is a phenomenal
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: body of work.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that. Man, Like, yeah, man, I mean, you know.
• 0:42
  Speaker 5: You live what you live with you you you know. However,
• 0:46
  Speaker 5: how they meet you is how they see you. So
• 0:48
  Speaker 5: it's like they met me in the four walls of
• 0:49
  Speaker 5: the church, so you know that's the box. But I'm
• 0:52
  Speaker 5: a product of hip hop, so you know what I'm saying.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: It's all love. But I appreciate that. That means a lot.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Bro absolutely that.
• 0:57
  Speaker 5: Well.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: I want to start off with diving into the album.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: First of all, how long wanted to take you to
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: do this album? Because this album is you could tell
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: you you took a lot into doing this album. I
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: mean even to the beat selection and it sounds like
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: a movie you ain't dropping.
• 1:10
  Speaker 5: A few years, right, Yeah, I ain't put out an
• 1:12
  Speaker 5: album album in a minute. Yeah, it took me a while.
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: I just you know, we pieced it together. You know
• 1:18
  Speaker 5: what I'm saying, We pieced it together. I was real
• 1:20
  Speaker 5: meticulous and just like, you know what I mean, let me,
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: let me really like push the boundaries and stretch stuff out.
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: I was giving s one.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Aheadache, you know what I'm saying, Like, hey, can you
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: add a little bit? Can you tweak this? Can you
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: do this? You know what I'm saying. So it took
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: me a little while, but it was worth it. Man.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: People rush music these days.
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: Man, they just make like disposable music, and I just
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: I just felt like it's time out for Audy.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Are you tired of being put in that box that
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: that you're I don't want to say people don't take
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: you serious, but they look at you a certain way
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: where they should just look at you as an artist,
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: a hip hop artist.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I would appreciate it. I would appreciate if they listen.
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: You call me what you want to call me, hip
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: hop artists, but listen. Yeah, just listen to the music.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: I don't care what you if you want to call
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: me whatever.
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: Gospel rapper, Christian rapper, Listen, that's it. Because I think
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: there's a misnom where people get it twisted and they
• 2:10
  Speaker 5: think that the music gonna sound like this or you
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: know what I'm saying. I'm still scarred from Like I
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: went to an NBA practice and like handed a But
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: when I did my first church closed mixtape and I
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: handed a player by joint.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: He was like, I don't listen to no gospel rap.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I was like, bruh, you know what I'm saying.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: You probably had a horrible season that season.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Listen. I'm not gonna mention that.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Like when somebody give you a Jesus pamphlet in the
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: street and you look at.
• 2:32
  Speaker 6: It, you can't throw it. You gotta give it to
• 2:35
  Speaker 6: somebody else you can throw it out. Yeah, man, So
• 2:38
  Speaker 6: I don't I don't like that. I don't like that
• 2:40
  Speaker 6: people say it's corny. I'm like, bro, you got I
• 2:43
  Speaker 6: don't know where you even got this, Like when's the
• 2:45
  Speaker 6: last time you just sat and listened to a body
• 2:46
  Speaker 6: of work to even create.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: This idea of it. So you know, as long as
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: you listen, I don't care.
• 2:52
  Speaker 7: When I listened to it, it was my first time
• 2:54
  Speaker 7: listening to one of your full projects. I definitely expected
• 2:56
  Speaker 7: something different because of the name Reconstruction. Oh yeah, especially
• 3:00
  Speaker 7: because I think of you as a gospel rap artist.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: And he just said it wouldn't be that.
• 3:04
  Speaker 7: I mean, I'm just saying like it just happens naturally.
• 3:06
  Speaker 7: So I thought reconstruction gospel rap artists. I thought it
• 3:09
  Speaker 7: was going to be very like kind of like wrap,
• 3:11
  Speaker 7: but alter call is it wasn't that.
• 3:13
  Speaker 8: It was more about your story, right, Why the name
• 3:16
  Speaker 8: reconstruction A.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Lot of different reasons.
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: So reconstruction is like it's a theme, it's thematic for
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: my life and what I've experienced. But it's also just
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: the eraror we living in. We dispose people, we throw
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: them away. So like you see what happened at the
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: Coldplay concert with the Hry you know what I'm saying,
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: And it was like social media was excited to destroy them,
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: like tear them down.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: They was wrong.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: For a lot of reasons.
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: First of all, anyway, I'm not even gonna get in
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: a while, they was wrong. But I mean, first of all, bro,
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: what is you doing while you got you wrapped up
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: at the car? I mean, you was wrong for cheating
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: on your wife, but you're really wrong. You wild for.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Like being bowed up hugged up like that in public.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: You at whole CEO you you tripping.
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: But the way social media was excited to destroy them
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: was is like that's what we get excited about. In
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: Mahamie Mike d he was tearing a part of a
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: treehouse in his backyard and he was doing it piece
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: by piece, like let me be careful because he didn't
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: want to just demolish it, because he wants to reuse
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: that would And that's what I feel like reconstructions about
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: it is like, God don't just want to destroy people.
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: He wants to reconstruct and reuse them. I work in
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: prisons all the time. I was in a prison not
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: too long ago, and it was a dude in there,
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: and I don't condone none of the stuff he did.
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: You know, he did some hainous things. They whooped him,
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: they beat him up when he first got there. But
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: over the course of his years there, like he's been influential,
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: He's changed people's.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Lives, He's done a lot.
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: And how long do we got to like be looked
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: at as this terrible human being before it's like something
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: different can happen with him.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of why I did reconstruction.
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: The second reason why is because you know, the reconstruction
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: era in American history is a time period where you know,
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: disenfranchised people where but to come up from the rubble
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: and make a difference in society.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: So it's like both both pieces.
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: You know, I've heard you also speak about deconstructing your
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: your faith before me.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: So what did you discover about God?
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: I guess when you script away religion that made you
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: want to do a reconstruction.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: I got.
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: I caught a lot of flak from the Evangelical church
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: when when when black bodies were being laid in the street,
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: and I was very open about it, and uh, and
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: you know, people was like really hated that I was
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: standing up for social issues and and and it gave
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: me a lot of tension with the church, with with
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: you know, the broader church, American church, and so I
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: was like, well, maybe this whole thing is wrong.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: So I was ready to throw it all away.
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: I went to Egypt and I got to see like
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: some of the Christians over there, and it was different.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: I got to read about Ethiopia and see how Christianity
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: was not started in America.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: It's not this white man's religion.
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: It's something that existed outside of the European narrative. And
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: you know, shout out to my white brothers and sisters,
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: but I'm just saying, they don't they It's a lot
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: of things have been co opted. It's not like this
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: European religion. So I had to tear down these like
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: American ideas of what God is, what church is, and
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: reconstruct from the perspective that the Bible really gives.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: It, you know what I'm saying.
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: So it's kind of like eating mom's spaghetti, Like if
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: you got the recipe from two twenty five years ago,
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: and now you're leaving out stuff that ain't the same recipe.
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: And I feel like the faith, so much stuff has
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: been left out. So I just wanted to rebuild on
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: the foundation. Jesus is my foundation and let's rebuild this
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: thing in a healthier way.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: And that's what what reconstruction looks like.
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: Now.
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: You know, in the first track, you talk about being
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: church heard, and it's so in threats because I was
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: just having a conversation with my good sister Debbie Brown
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: yesterday and she was talking about religious trauma, trauma people
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: have experienced, yeah, being in the.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Church, right, Like, what is church heard to you?
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: Church heard is you know when the people that you
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: expect to serve you well, the people that you expect
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: to become your family and love you well, let you down.
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: But it happens everywhere, right, every It's not just in
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: the church. It could be you know, I remember when
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: the Game was crying because he thought hip hop was
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: gonna be something that it wasn't, you know what I'm saying.
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: And it's like he was hip hop hurt, you know
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: what I mean. People have expectations and the expectations ain't met.
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: And I think the problem is we blame God and
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: it ain't. That's not a God hurt.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: That's the people hurt.
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: People let you down, God didn't, you know what I'm saying.
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: So I think people turning back on church because of that.
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: And I you know, for me, man, I love I
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: you know, I ain't getting sponsored by Chipotle, but I
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: love Chipotle.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: They're good, but certain Chipotle's they don't be seasoning that food. Right.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: It don't make me say I hate Chipotle. I'll never
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: go to Chipotle again.
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: I may not go to that one or I may
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: not go and buddy working behind, but I still love Chippotle.
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: So I think that's what people do with God and
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: with church, like oh, they had a terrible experience. I'm
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: done with God. My mom, you know, she grew up
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: in a religious world like that, she was done. She
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: didn't raise me in church because she was like, they
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: burnt me too bad. So you know, we had to
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: work through that trauma with her.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: So I get it.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for people that don't know, you know, you said
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: your mom didn't raise you in church, So how did
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: you become? And you've talked about a million one time, Yeah,
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: but how did you become the way that you become
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: if you weren't raised in church Because people to automatically
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: assume or he must have been born in church.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: He was on church on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: He did this on Thursday he did Bible study like so,
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: so to break that.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Down, I was a straight hippie. My mom was a hippie.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: She had a Buddha in the room.
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: She was blazing, like, no real thoughts of who guy was,
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: the universe everything. She was just a wild hippie. So
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: that's how I grew up. And then I just was searching.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: I studied Rastafarianism because I like to smoke. I studied Islam,
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: I studied you know, I studied a lot of things,
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: and I was really curious.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: I was.
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: I was seeking. I was kind of like gen Z.
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: Gen Z's very spiritual. They like, well, I don't know
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: what's up. That's kind of how I was. And I
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: didn't want to mess with Christianity because I felt like
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: it was rigid and it was like suits and ties.
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: But then I went to this conference in Atlanta and I,
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: you know, I'm like nineteen and I see like.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Dudes with cornrows. I see this group from Philly.
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: Named Cross Movement and they it was baggy jeans and
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: it was on the block. And I was like they
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: had that like five percent of energy, but they was
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: Christians and I was like, oh, this is crazy. I
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: didn't know this existed, so that intrigued me, and it
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: made me say, well, wait a minute, if these dudes
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: are Christians, maybe there's something to this.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: And then I.
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: Listened and I hadn't you know it, existential experience with God,
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: where you know, my heart got changed literally you know
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: what I'm saying.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: And I trusted in Jesus. And then I was like,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: now what do I do?
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean, I rap.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: I like to rap. So the first album I listened to,
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: that to me was like gospel.
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: I didn't listen to. Gospel was a miseducation Lauryn Hill.
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: So I said, I want to do what she doing.
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: And that was kind of like the impetus of me
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: moving forward.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: You stop smoking weed? Are you still enjoyed the burning bush?
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: From time to time?
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: Initially I stopped, then years down the line, I picked
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: it back up, then.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: I stopped again.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: It's medical now, I mean, it ain't that for me.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: It's a lot of other things, but it ain't that
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: for me.
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: It's not I mean, you know, first of all, whether
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: I thought it was okay or not okay, the way
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: my anxiety is set up, I don't need to ever
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: touch nobody.
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: That's why I hear where you go. I deal with anxiety. Okay,
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: I got really bad anxiety. But yeah, Tativa would always
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: make me have the worst paying attacks in the world.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but the Indigo does the opposite.
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: You know, you can get it to you can get
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: it's so medical now, you can get it to where
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: it'll take out the paranoil, take out the you know,
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: anxiety inducing effects.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: You can get it. Damn it customary the way you
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: want much.
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna just meditate, you know what I'm saying. I
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: would just siting meditated, enjoyed the sea breeze.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: But hey man, you know what I'm saying.
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: I don't want to. I don't want to devil. I
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: don't want to play with that. When you know I
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: don't have some bad panic attacks before, bro, I wouldn't
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: even want to. I wouldn't want to go back.
• 11:04
  Speaker 7: I mean, you talk about a lot of your life
• 11:06
  Speaker 7: stuff in the album, so I know some of the background.
• 11:08
  Speaker 7: But like church wise, like because you talk so different
• 11:11
  Speaker 7: than a lot of the church leaders or people that
• 11:13
  Speaker 7: are in faith, do you get anxiety from that? Like
• 11:16
  Speaker 7: when you put out interviews, I watched one you were
• 11:18
  Speaker 7: talking to uh, I forget his name is Mike. You
• 11:20
  Speaker 7: all were talking about like church nominations and that not
• 11:22
  Speaker 7: being a real thing anymore. Oh yeah, And I was like,
• 11:24
  Speaker 7: I could never watch this with my grandma.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Nah. I mean, I you just gotta know who rock
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: with you. You know what I'm saying.
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: I'm not afraidist to just tell the truth. Like I
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: just after you being in this game, been in this
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: game for so long, you realize like there's always gonna
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: be a critic. There's always gonna be somebody, and if
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: you don't stand for what you believe in, somebody's gonna
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: knock you off your pivot. I played the game too long,
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: you know, if that makes sense.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Like I danced, I was.
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: I remember my first time coming here. I was so nervous.
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: I was like, all right, what I gotta say. Let
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: me not mess this up. And you know, you start
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: feeling like I gotta represent the Christians. I gotta represent
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: the hip hop community. I gotta you know, and then
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: after a while you're just like, bro, I'm just I'm
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: gonna be who God called.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Me to be.
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: And I don't really got time to wrestle with all
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: these weird things. I remember being so like torn and
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: how do I navigate? Like my first time meeting j
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: Cole was such an embarrassing moment because I I felt
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: like you saw me.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what I'm saying. It was like, how
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: do I what was the story?
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Bro?
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: So we was at we was at a super Bowl
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: party years back, and uh, now I was I was tipsy.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: I was you know what I'm saying, I was indulging
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: a little too much.
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: But uh and I no longer drink, by the way,
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: so case anybody, it ain't a religious thing.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: It's a sobriety thing. But uh, I approached j Cole
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: and then I'm like, okay, what do I do? What
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: do I say? That's Jake Cole?
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: I don't And then what comes out of my mouth is, hey, bro,
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: do you believe in Jesus?
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: And it was just like not hello, now, what's up?
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: Bro?
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: My name is like nothing. It was just like who
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: is Oh my god?
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: You said it? Like what's that you claim?
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Press? Like for the Kingdom? It was like I was,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, Like I really tragicked me.
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: So he was like, I mean I grew up in church,
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: but I'm processing what I believe, and you know what
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: I'm saying.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: And I was like, all right. I was like, well
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: take my number down.
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: He took my number down, and then I was like
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: he walked away when and I said, hey, man, you
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: didn't even put my number in my name in your phone.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: How you gonna call me back? You don't know my name?
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: I really crashing out like an idiot. You know who
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: you are? I said that to him. He looked, he
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: was like, I know who you are, nigga. You know
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: what I'm saying.
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: I was like, oh, I felt stupid, but it was
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: that era. You know, this is like ten years ago, but.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: It was stupid.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: It like just nervous, not knowing who to be, not
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: knowing how to walk in my own identity, not knowing
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: how to be who God called me to be, and
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: just and I think it just took time for me
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: to get comfortable in my own skin. So I don't
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: really like you, like you was saying, I don't trip
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: no more when like the religious community may be mad
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: at me, the non religious came to be maybe mad
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: at me, but you met.
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: Since then, I ain't to me if I was I'm
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: not gonna front if I was called i'd be like
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: Craig fake and I really not say that I met
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: you drunk as hell. He couldn't tell though, if you're
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: talking like that, he ran, I believe in Jesus did
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: I deserved that one?
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Y'all haven't spoke at all. I wonder what he thinks
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: to you.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know, bro, I don't know. It was bad, crazy.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: It was bad, Bro, it was bad. But I mean,
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: but I own it. It's like I own it. You
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. I own my story. It's like,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: that's kind of what you did the Prince.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Same thing, Yes it is. What's the first thing you said?
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: The Prince? First of all? How it is Prince?
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: He one morning he was up here at the radio station,
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: like five in the morning.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Somebody was like your princess him, like Prince, why would
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: prince be hit?
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: And he we went, we put the station on all
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: over we went, and he was walking down the hall
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: with two old white women and he was nice as hell.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: He came up to us, spoke not nice as hell,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, he was nice as heaven. And he came
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: up to us. What's the first thing you said? I
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: that I grew up. Jehovah Witness too.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Didn even say hello, that's what I did.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: It's the same story.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Like that's what you did. You said it was awkward
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: and I got you hello. Yeah, six o'clock in the morning.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's religious trauma. That's a big what
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: are you.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Talking about that?
• 15:27
  Speaker 7: Let's take a minute there, legends, can we talk about
• 15:30
  Speaker 7: that forgion.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: That's that's such religious trauma. That's like, yeah, my brother.
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: That's coy Oh. Yeah, that's that's cult action. And I
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: know Jeova's winning is gonna come to me for that.
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: But that's a that's a whole cult.
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's a cult. I have to say
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: that because my mom is.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, you don't mean it.
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: I got to say because my mom, somebody's going to
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: send this to her. I don't think it's a cult.
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: But I understand what you're saying, because man, when you're
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: a kid and you growing up and everybody else celebrating
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: the holiday.
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: Religion, religion is the term religion. I mean Biblically, religion
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: is like it's a practice, right, But what we mean
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: in our society is like it is rules without relationship
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: in a lot of way. It's like religion to me
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: is if you love your wife, you come home with
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: flowers and you say, here's what I'm supposed to give you, sweetheart.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: That's religious relationship.
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: Is I was thinking about you all day, baby, I
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: got you some flowers and I just wanted to show
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: you some That's relationship. So to me, it's like I
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: came out to woman, I can't have birthday parties, and
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: I got to do all these things and button up this.
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: I don't even know if I got a relationship with God, Like,
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: why would I want to be connected to a God
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: who don't want to.
• 16:42
  Speaker 7: How do you raise kids in religion then, because I
• 16:46
  Speaker 7: think a lot of people would say that there's like,
• 16:48
  Speaker 7: I mean, you don't have that right because you said
• 16:50
  Speaker 7: your mom didn't. Really, Yeah, I got three kids, but okay,
• 16:52
  Speaker 7: so are you raising your kids in religion and how
• 16:55
  Speaker 7: do you do it?
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: Then?
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: In relationship?
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how I mean.
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: I don't like, Hey, kids, I'm bringing we're going to
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: church because I feel like this is the healthiest place
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: for you because I've met God. I don't My daughter's
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: the only one of my kids who's gotten baptized. Because
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: I'm like I don't want to force nothing on y'all.
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: Y'all gonna have to make this decision for yourself. This
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: was her decision that she made, and we celebrate that.
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: I've had hard convos with my oldest son, who was like,
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: I don't know if I believe this is would I
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: be a Muslim if I done live in this house?
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: And we have those dialogues, and I love those, like, yeah,
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: let's go there. Let's have these conversations so that he
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: can but I want him to see the consistency of
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: my life. He's like, nah, Dad, Like he talks about
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: gentle and self control, but then he lives it.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: He apologizes when he mess up because I.
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: Just passed, but then I come back and like he
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: sees that I have a relationship with God and for him,
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: he's made that decision on his own as well. But
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: it's like, I'm not saying you better, I'm saying this
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: is what I feel like is the healthiest way.
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: That's why I don't like the holdest fellowship at the
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: Kingdom Hall. You know, that's actually what turned me off
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: to it. Whether I whether I realized that or not.
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: But as I got older, I realized the reason I
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: was turned off to it is when watching my father
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: get this fellowship. The father needed help in that moment.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: He was with substance abuse issues. Yeah, you know this
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: fellowship of man for that, and then they make you
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: come to the Kingdom Hall, but nobody speaks to you,
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: and they announced to the whole congregation.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Such and such has been this fellowship from the Kingdom.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: I'm like, God, but your pops is in there and
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: they just cancel them might dinner from everybody.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: Nobody talks like they don't talk to you when you're
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: fellow and how you supposed to heal?
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: I see what I'm saying, Like crazy, that's what I'm saying,
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: Like like I don't get that. I was just when
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: I was walking down the street yesterday, a dude on
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: the block passed me the flyer and then he was
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: like a street preacher and he ended up being a
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: dope one. But a lot of times my issue with
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: street preachers too is just like, bro, you yelling at people,
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: you condemning people like you don't even know their names.
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: I got the one dude ran upon me as I
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: was leaving a wu Tang concert and he was.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Like, look right, what are you doing here? I was like,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: enjoying some music, you know what I'm saying, Like you know?
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: But then he was blasting me and blasting people around him.
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: So I walked up to this table and I'm like, bro,
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: he was in an argument with another dude, and I said, yo,
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: my man, what's your name? And the dude he was
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: arguing with told me his name. I said, where you're from?
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: You told me where he's from. I said, word, man,
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: you want to get together sometime, maybe get coffee and
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: talk about what you believe.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: He's like, I'm down. I said, how.
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: About you try that my guy, instead of yelling at
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: him and telling him he's going to hell?
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: But it's like, that's the stuff I don't I can't
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: fool with. Like it's like, there ain't no relationship in that.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: How do you maintain faith in a culture like hip
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: hop that often monetizes your trauma?
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: But resistion?
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Woo, that's a that's a that's a deep one right there. Bro.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: I think I think there's irresponsibility. I get it.
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: You a young dude off the block. This is an
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: opportunity for you to get a check. The industry, the
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: powers that be say hey, tell that story five more
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: times and you're gonna get more checks. And you don't
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: know an enough about who you are, your own identity,
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: your value, your self worth to even understand.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Like I'm being like, you.
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: Know, used, But I don't think that's how hip hop started.
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: That wasn't the the the how it initiated. It was
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: us as grits in the community telling what was going
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: on around us, not like trying to like capitalize off
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: artists trauma, porn, you know what I'm saying. So I
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: don't like that, and so that's why I do bring
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: the healing side. That's why even when I collaborate with
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: other artists, like you know, and I did a song
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: with Walker back in the day, and I was like,
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: let's talk about the other side of the game. Everybody
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: talks about selling drugs, but no one talks about the
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: like I done sold drugs, You done sold drugs, but
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: no one talks about the trauma that come with that.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: The what's it like sitting.
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: Behind you know, a cell, what's it like seeing my
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: daddy is you know, was a crack addict for it
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: for years and just to see that reality and live
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: live under that.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: So it's like, let's talk about the trauma of that
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: and in the healing aspect of it is I'm walking
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: and breathing as a healed individual.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: I think people want me to be perfect so many
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: times without understanding where I came from, what I came through,
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: and it's like, we'll be perfect, and I'm like, look,
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: I'm not as bad as you think I am. But
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: I'm not as good as you think I am either.
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: I'm a human being in the middle trying to walk
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: this thing out as best I can.
• 21:18
  Speaker 7: Yeah, dang, that was Yeah, people in church on talk
• 21:22
  Speaker 7: like that. I like what you and Tim Ross do
• 21:25
  Speaker 7: a whole lot because of that. But I guess one
• 21:28
  Speaker 7: of my questions, and maybe I'll stop asking you faith
• 21:31
  Speaker 7: based questions, is at what point when so you grew
• 21:36
  Speaker 7: up in this household where your mom is not pressing
• 21:38
  Speaker 7: you to do any right and then you find God
• 21:40
  Speaker 7: through your own journey, at what point do you because
• 21:43
  Speaker 7: you've said you hate the church.
• 21:44
  Speaker 8: You said it on this album.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: I said I hated, hated, hated, Yes, so what makes.
• 21:50
  Speaker 8: You bring people?
• 21:51
  Speaker 7: Because when people find God, they go find a physical church,
• 21:55
  Speaker 7: and a lot of times they can't separate the two, right,
• 21:57
  Speaker 7: what makes you bring people to a physical church to
• 22:00
  Speaker 7: expose them to what might become a.
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: Church is Yeah, I love the church. I love the church.
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: The big sea. The people who love God all around
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: the world is global. It's not American. The models that
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: we see for church are generally like sometimes it's an
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: industrial complex. Sometimes it's a system. The work still get done.
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: Like sometimes it's like I get it. It's like it's
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: an infrastructure. It's a system. There's lights, and there's cameras,
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: and there's these things, like it's an oratorial speech being
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: given in music, it's a Broadway production, I get it.
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: That's not what church is. That is a expression from
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: the people who love God. But what church is is
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: a gathering of God's people who come together to you know,
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: as a community, to live out, to celebrate God, to
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: navigate their lifestyle. So some of the other things that
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: get built up that we call church, you know, shout
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: out to my guy Carl Lenz and yeah, you know,
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: he was a part of that complex, you know what
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: I'm saying.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: And it's like they're made the pastors are made out
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: to be gurrules. None of them are Gur rules. They
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: giraffes on ice skates. They don't got it.
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: They don't got it figured out, you know. But everyone
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: sees them as gurus. So when they fall aslip, they
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: should be responsible. But they've been propped up to be
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: these gurrules, and it's like, bro, they fooling themselves thinking
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: they got it all together. So I don't hate the church.
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: I love the church. The expressions we see a lot
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: of times in America, I think are silly, you know
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: what I'm saying, But I navigate him and I.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: Deal with them because that's where we are as a culture.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying. It's like it's like hip hop.
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: It's like, I know what hip hop used to look like.
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: I know it looks like now. I think some stuff
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: is silly. I think having to make a TikTok go
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: viral for people to enjoy your song is silly.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: But it's where we are. So I'm not just down
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: in it. I'm like, not stupid y'all, dumb y'all. It's like,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: it's where we are.
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: I love Call for the same reason I love a
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: lot of your music is because y'all are not afraid
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: to show people that you made mistakes. Y'all not afraid
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: to show people that you flawed. Y'all not afraid to
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: show people that you still wrestle with the same things.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: We all wrestle with, the insecurities, Like I love on
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: to die for the party When you started off, he said,
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: I was wrestling, like should I write a verse? The
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: culture got enough cloud chasing bultures out here trying to
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: prove they work.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: They need attention.
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: They can't imagine me not trying to make myself look
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: bigger off of this Kendrick Mintion.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Like when you hear you rap that, I can hear
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: you wrestling with write man, you know what I mean? Like,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: but he did shout me out.
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: I mean, I can't just let this go by s
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: see man, I was telling you right, DOT will throw
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: you a He'll throw you a layup.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: And it's like, do I dunk this or not? Because
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: because I don't, especially for him, because he got so
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: many cloud chasers, he got so many just so for me.
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: For for Kendrick to for not to mention me in
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: the song and say, I wonder what La Cray would
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: do that first of all, you're paying homage to like
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: my lifestyle, my processing. It's not like he's a good craze,
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: a good rapper. He's saying, I wonder what cra would
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: do in this, yeah, this circumstance. And for me, it's
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: like I didn't want to say nothing my homie at
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: He was like, you need to respond.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: I said, nah, Bro, I ain't. That's lame, like eyes nasty.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: It just feels nasty. He was like, Bro, the world
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: is watching, the world is listening. The man said your name.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Asked you a question.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: He did ask me a question, and so I was like, ah,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: I try.
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: And I really didn't even like it when I was
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: writing it. And then I see I didn't even like it,
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: and it just you know, So I sent out the
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: whole album and.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: I said, you pick a song. Man, I'm waiting. I
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: ain't hurt nothing back.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: So I.
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: Love the last line on it. You said, you said
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: love his patience. So I'm trusting in the narrative. And
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: christ ain't watched the party die. He died in status
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: of it.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: What does that mean?
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: Basically, like you know on the song he was saying
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: his on his song, you know, watch the party die?
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: It's kind of like it's like, man, y'all, he sees
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: the dysfunction and he's like, ugh, you know what I mean,
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: And we all see the dysfunction, and we all like,
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: but if we really want to end all the evil
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: that exists out there, that means we gonna die too,
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: you know, because there's evil that exists in here. So
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: you got to be also mad at yourself. And Jesus
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: didn't sit back and say, yeah, y'all are disgusting. He said,
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna I'm gonna take that disgust on myself.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna lay my life down and let y'all walk
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: across my back to cleanliness and to wholeness. Instead of
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: condemning y'all, I'm gonna reach my hand out.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: To save y'all.
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: So that was the picture, was pain instead of just
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: being condemning. Because when you see something that you hate,
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: you're like, but then you gotta look in the mirror
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: sometimes and be like, and if I want it all.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: To go, I gotta go with it. So Jesus is like, yes, whack,
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: but I'm I'll take your ugliness on me, you know
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: what I mean.
• 27:09
  Speaker 7: So because Kendrick said, f these words up or showing
• 27:12
  Speaker 7: what prayer do. So you showing him what prayer do empathy.
• 27:15
  Speaker 8: That's how I got it. I said that earlier he
• 27:17
  Speaker 8: was like, I ain't hear that. That wasn't right.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Well, what Kendrick said, that is what I said.
• 27:22
  Speaker 7: I said.
• 27:22
  Speaker 8: What I said was from what I took from your verse.
• 27:25
  Speaker 7: You decided or you you self reflected, and you said
• 27:27
  Speaker 7: I can't watch the party die because if the party
• 27:29
  Speaker 7: had died, I would have died too.
• 27:31
  Speaker 8: Because that is what I said.
• 27:33
  Speaker 7: I said, because you felt like you were a part
• 27:35
  Speaker 7: of what people are saying is disgusting. At one point
• 27:38
  Speaker 7: you had to find your mission. Literally what I said,
• 27:41
  Speaker 7: and you said, I didn't hear that.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: She heard you say that eloquently.
• 27:49
  Speaker 7: Basically, that's what I took from it. He said something else,
• 27:52
  Speaker 7: but we're gonna let him ride.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: But I do have a question.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know record with Killer Mike and t I crazy.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Do you get people when you ask people for like
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: you send your album to cat out or you send
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: songs to other artists? Do you a lot of times
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: do artists not want to do it because they put
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: you in that box? Do they question themselves because.
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: You they won't say that, They've never said it overtly.
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: I'm sure that's an issue for people. I've never heard it.
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: When people get to know me, there's a level of respect.
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: So like me and Mike go years back, like killing
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: Mike and our good friends. You know what I'm saying,
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: Like that's my dog. But I mean we've had some
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: some conversations. You know, obviously we don't agree on everything,
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: but he respects me and I respect him, and so
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: it's like this mutual respect where it's like.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: I see where you at and I'm gonna come on
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: your playing field and rock with you.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: There.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: There might be some other people who like, now, why
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: would we do something?
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Now?
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Why would I fool with him?
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: They ain't never said it to me, but I'll be
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: feeling like in my experience, people people closet they faith
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: and they look for outlets to express it, and then
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: I give them the outlet a lot of times like
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: they like I want to like I remember when I mean,
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: I don't know about faith wise, but I know twenty
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: one Savage has said some somewhere along the line like
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: he wish he didn't have to rap about the stuff
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: he rap about all the time, and it's like, that's
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: what people expect of them. And I'm like, I think
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: there's a lot of people who feel like that in
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: the faith world. And it's like, yes, this gave me
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: a chance to say, well, what I really wanted to say,
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: you know what I mean? So, but yeah, I don't know, man,
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: they if they if that's how they feel, that's how
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: they feel.
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: I think people like that have never listened to your music.
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: When I listen to Headphones, that's not a gospel record, that's.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Not a faith based record. That's a record about grief, yep.
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: And there's three brothers that are dealing with various levels
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: of grief and different people that they're grieving, and they're
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: just expressing that. And even that same what you say
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: that I hope you got headphones and heaven? Yeah, oh man, Honestly,
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: it just gave me chills, Like damn, that's a dope
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: way of saying, y'all, I hope that d.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Can't hear me.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Yep, That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: I try to find common ground. That's what I try
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: to do. Where's our common ground?
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: Cause, like the Reconstruction album is not just like reconstructing
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: your faith, reconstruct your marriage, reconstruct your life, reconstruct your
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: finances like there's common ground. I may have a different
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: angle on, but I'm still living the same life you
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: live in, Like I'm still out here experiencing it. Like
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna lose people. You're gonna lose people. I'm gonna
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: deal with family issues. You're gonna deal with family issues.
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: So I'm like, let's talk about it in song. And
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: you know, I catch a lot of flak, Like, man,
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: I love my dude, big krit Man. When we did
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: a feature years ago, they blacked my Christian The religious folks,
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: the religious fans blasted him so bad. It made him
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: feel they was blasting me, saying, how dare you collaborate
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: with this like worldly artist. It made him feel a
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: way about Christians because they was on my head and
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: he was like, am I this filthy, ugly, nasty person
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: like dang? And I'm like, man, why would you not
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: want to welcome somebody into the conversation about these things?
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: You want to shun them and push them away instead
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: of welcoming men.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: To have conversations. So I want to reconstruct that.
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: I want to like reconstruct that type of dynamic in
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: relationship and redefine people's experience with Christians, because I think
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: it's it's a weird dynamic, you know what I'm saying,
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: It's just really weird in America.
• 31:17
  Speaker 8: Has that worked for you?
• 31:18
  Speaker 7: I saw your response to Young Thug when he tweeted,
• 31:21
  Speaker 7: if you're a rapper and you're a rat, you've got
• 31:23
  Speaker 7: to just go gospel twenty. You try to reach out
• 31:26
  Speaker 7: and kind of give him that like, Hey, it's good
• 31:28
  Speaker 7: over here. It's not a grave yard. It's a garden.
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: Have y'all spoke, Nah, but I'm down, Like Thug, holler
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: at me. I mean, it's not a graveyard, it's a garden.
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: Were thriving, were growing, I got health, I got My
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: life comes with the same hardship as anybody else's. Like,
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: you won't get wisdom without suffering, so you gonna suffer.
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: But I don't be worried about noe, you know, warrants,
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying. I go home to my
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: wife on a regular basis, I'm raising my kids. We
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: have great relationship dynamic. Like I got accolades, I got awards.
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: That's not what I do it for I pay my
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: bills on time. I'm fine, I'm not in a graveyard.
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: And I guess to me, I'm like, why do rats
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: have to go to gospel? Like?
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: What is?
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: To me?
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: It sounds like that's a lame place for lane? The
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: lane we send the lanes over there. And I'm like, okay,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: I mean in a sense, you're right, because Jesus makes
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: the lame walk.
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: They used to do that too, whenever like an artist
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: would get in trouble, like an artist would get in
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: trouble to.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Be like he got a gospel right.
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean yeah, I've seen that in my own
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: I've seen artists get in trouble in my phone, you ring, Hey,
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: you need to make a song?
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Cut it out.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: I'm dead serious.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: I ain't even no names.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: I ain't names.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: I love the Brick by Brick record too, because when
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: I saw it, I'm like, what look about to do
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: with this one?
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: What was the mindset with that.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Brick by brick?
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying is really just a song
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: about building. Man, if you're gonna reconstruct something, you do
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: a brick by brick, You know what I'm.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Saying, if you played it out like it might have
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: been dope.
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: I mean, yes, but you know what I'm saying, it's
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: a play on words. It's a double entendre. It's also
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: tapping into my you know, old ways. But then it's
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: like it's a different types of brick, you know what
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: I'm saying.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: And I'm moving these days.
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: And then I got this young spit of Miso, you
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: know what I'm saying. She out of Houston, and she five,
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: and I was like, yo, that's another thing. It's a
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: whole young crop of the you know, young cropper of
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: artists who killing it. And it's like, man, I'm just
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: trying to shine some light as an og. Now I'm like,
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: let me shine some light back on these young artists
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: and let them do their thing. Because when I first
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: came up, it was just me and I was like, man,
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: it's just me out here. You know, I'm doing the
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: BT cipher. Them jokers put me in an international cipher.
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: They didn't even know what category.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: To put me in, you know what I'm saying.
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: So I'm like, well, I don't know what. So now
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: it's like, nah, I'm not rolling solo no more. I'm
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: letting it I'm opening the doors for everybody.
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: He was in the street selling dope. And I know
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: you probably used to pray in but you can God
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: bless me? Can God really bless the trap?
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: He did?
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: You ain't.
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: I don't know if you heard my Bible story, bro.
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: I literally I was making a run. I'm trespassing on
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: school property. I was wild and I was at a
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: high school on school property. They say, called the police.
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: I thought I looked like a high school student, so
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: but I could didn't I was. They called the police.
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: The police came. I'm ditching. I'm running about the school.
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: I get back to my car. As soon as I
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: get to my car with work in my car, the
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: police snatched me up. And I didn't have a lot,
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: and that was no keys. I wouldn't know, you know,
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't jay z out here, you know what I'm saying.
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: But I'm not trying to put his business out here.
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: I'm just saying I wouldn't pushing uh. But uh, but
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: the police come and they snatched me up. Now, the
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: crazy part about it was I had a Bible in
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: my car that my grandmother had given me, and I
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: was at.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: This point, I'm a Christian but I'm just wilding. I'm
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: just on a downward trajectory.
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: But I was reading my Bible a lot, and I
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: had some phases where I highlighted a lot of stuff.
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: I got notes in that joint. I got it on
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: a dash. The police officer comes in my he I'm
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: sitting in the back of the car. He come searched
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: my car and he come back. He said, that's your Bible.
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: I said, yeah, that's my Bible. He said, you've been
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: reading that Huh. I said, yes, sir, I need to
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: read it more. He said, I want you to stay
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: in that Bible. Get out of my car. And I
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: was like, okay, I go back to my car. Work gone,
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: work is gone.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: Wow. I don't know if that was an angel or
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: real police officer. I don't know what. I don't ask
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: no questions. I'm here though. Wow, you know what I'm saying.
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: So when you're writing, how do you discern between what's
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: meant for, like I guess the booth and it what's
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: meant for, like the prayer closet.
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: For me, if it exposes somebody else's business, I try
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: not to rap about it unless I get their approval,
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: you know, because I tell a lot of stories, and
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: I got a lot of people involved in different stuff,
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: and you know, if it's too personal, if they like, hey,
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: you're telling my story now, bro, then I'm like, you're right.
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: I respect that. So then I try to respect that myself.
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: I don't mind being transparent, you know what I'm saying.
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: And shout out to my man, Jason Wilson, I say,
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: y'all had him on the pot too.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: Jason.
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: He my dude, he said, man, he said, stop saying
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: be vulnerable, be transparent.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. I was like, that's good.
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: So you know, I don't want to put myself in
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: a position where I'm my hands is up and you
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: can do whatever you want to do to me. But
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: I want to be open and transparent so that you
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: can relate. You can see my scars, because if you
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: see my scars, then you know your wounds can heal.
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: So I don't mind sharing some of the stuff that
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: I got, but I just try to keep other people's
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: business out of it. I take that to the prayer closet,
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: you know what I mean.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: So what does it mean to be in the world right?
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Not of it? But your job as an MC is
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: the move crowds in the world.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you be in it. You know what
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: I'm saying. I was of it for a season. I
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: have my season. I talk about it on my you
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: know I had. I've been. I've been like sober, like
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: eight years I've been.
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: You know, it's people don't understand this industry will get
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: you like they don't get it, like fame is fake,
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: it's a drug, it's not real. But boy, when you
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: you know, ten years ago I had a number one
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: album in the country, like over everybody, everybody calling my phone,
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: all my favorite artists. You get gassed. You start like,
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: oh man, I'm somebody, and you forget you. It was
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: already somebody. God God knew you before any of these
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: other people did. So I was in my you know,
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: I got absorbed, and what ended up happening for me
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: is I wasn't I was not in the world and
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: I was of it. But I was trying to fight it,
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: and I was trying to play tug of war. It
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: wasn't like I just gave up. It was like I
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: have moments I dip in, dip out. So you can't
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: play tuggle war by yourself. You know what I'm saying.
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: So now I'm out here, I'm more confident in who
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: I am. I keep people with me and I want
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: to relate, you know what I'm saying. I'm also not
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: tempted by the same stuff. And I think a lot
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: of times.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: People will be like, why are you over there? I'm like, bro,
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: that that's so ten years ago.
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: Like I ain't that don't do nothing for me, you
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: know what I'm saying, Like, I am not tempted BYuT
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: half of the things that used to be a temptation.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: Like I'm just I'm past that phase of life. I'm
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: sure you are. If you was to blaze up right now,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't be like, oh God, what do I do?
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: What do I do? Do I take it or not?
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: I just be like I'm not smoking, you know what
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: I'm saying.
• 38:39
  Speaker 8: So you say you keep people with you?
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Is it?
• 38:42
  Speaker 7: Because sometimes too, when people get into like the spiritual
• 38:45
  Speaker 7: realm of like having this relationship with God, they separate
• 38:48
  Speaker 7: from anybody that doesn't is not at the same place
• 38:50
  Speaker 7: in the journey.
• 38:51
  Speaker 8: So who are the people that you keep it with you?
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: No?
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: I keep I keep two types of people, or really
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: three types of people with me, I keep I keep
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: people who are a half a step ahead of me.
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: People are walking alongside of me, and people are half
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: a step behind me.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: So if you half a step ahead of me, I
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: can learn something from me. You know, I feel like
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: Jason Wilson half a step ahead of me. I'm like, man,
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: I can learn something from Jason three or four, you
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: know what I'm saying. So I keep people like that
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: around me, people who have a step, who walking along
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: side of me, like yeah, you we on the same page,
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: on the same mission.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: And people who have a step.
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: I gotta keep young, young, young hitters with me all
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: the time because I want them to see learn, grow, build,
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: So, and you got to know you can learn from
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: anybody as well.
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: So that's what I try to expose them to, is
• 39:35
  Speaker 5: like I want the youngins to see I'm not like starstruck.
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: I want the people who next to me to get
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: exposed as well, because I'm like, I'm sitting.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: In here with Entrepreneur podcasts guru.
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: It's like I can sit and learn from them, and
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: I want my peers to have access to that and
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: be able to technoledge as well, you know what I mean.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I love what.
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: You're doing, man, because I feel like there's a lot
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: of people turning away from like traditional faith structures and
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: they're looking for God and other things. And I think
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: it's the artists in the pastors because I give pastors
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: to you know, pastor Saturday robbing is so much credit.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: It's the past is like that that are meeting people
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: where they are.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Fact.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: You know that's going to really give give, reintroduce hope,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: yep to a generation.
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: I'm one hundred percent with it. And I mean, you know,
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: some are gonna be non traditional, some gonna be trad.
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: You just got to run in your lane, you know,
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: I run in my lane. I love different people who
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: got different applications. And it's not me against anybody else,
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: you know, it's me. I ain't trying to compete with you.
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: I'm trying to eat with you, you know what I mean.
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: So who, I want to see the church thrive. I
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: want to see people like find God and really be consistent.
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: And you know I got to be consistent number one.
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: But then too, I just I know everybody. I know
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: what I needed. I needed a group of dudes from
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: Philly with baggy pants and corn rolls to say I
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: love the Lord, and I was like, word, I needed that.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. I did. I would you
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: would have never got me with the traditional you know,
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: come on in son and meet the Lord. I would
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: have never came. So I just try to be what
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: I needed that.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: What did Kendrick say when you heard die for the Party?
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: Honestly, I ain't talked to dot like one on one
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: in a minute we talked. We got some of the
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: same friends. So the last thing I heard was Yo,
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: they rocking with it.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: And and they was. He was.
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: He was in the middle of doing Super Bowl stuff,
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: so you know what I'm saying. So it was like
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: one of them type of situations. But I did send
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: him the whole project, and I was, you know, I
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: put on him and like, redo the album. If you
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: send that verse in.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't care, just pick one, but die
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: for the Party would be hard, because yeah, it'd be hard.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm with it.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Let's get into H two. Oh I feel you?
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Okay? All right? It tapped in.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: What you want to hear? I want to play the
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: joint with t I N play.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Let's play here, let's.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: Get into it. We appreciate you for joining us. The
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: album comes out on the twenty second of August. Am
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: I right, yes, August twenty second Reconstruction, get it.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: I would love to have you at the mental Wealth
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Text Bowl, man. You know I do this thing every
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: year called.
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: The mental Wealth Text Boy, And you know I think
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: a religious trauma panel would be really man, bro say less,
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: I'm there.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: It's easy, it's light work.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, say let's all right, Well let's look craye.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: It's the Breakfast Club.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: Good morning every day.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: Up weak, click your ass up, the Breakfast Club.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: You're finish for y'all done it.