Latest / The Breakfast Club / Started From The Bottom: Charlamagne Tha God - How He Turned Anxiety and Failure into Success

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Started From The Bottom: Charlamagne Tha God - How He Turned Anxiety and Failure into Success · The Breakfast Club

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. For me growing up, it was oh, oh, oh,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: it's the time join the morning show because you know,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: my mom was a school teacher, so we was up early, early,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: so I was listening to the time join them. And
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: then you know, Z ninety three played such a big
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: role in my life because you know, their original morning
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: show that I remember was The Breakfast Club, Baby Jay
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and Tessa Tessa Spencer. My guest today is someone I've
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: wanted to interview for a long time because of what
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: he's meant over the last decade to the culture, black culture,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: hip hop culture, internet culture, youth culture, all the cultures,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: you name it. But if I'm being completely honest, the
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: real reason I wanted to sit down and talk to
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Charlotte Magine the God is to see if some of
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: his confidence can run off on me. Most of my career,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I've been terrified to bring my self to work out
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: of fear of rejection or fear that I wouldn't be enough.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm working through it with my therapist.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: But what I admire about Charlemagne is that he seems
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: to not care at all about being rejected by his peers,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: his co workers, his audience, anyone, and that confidence has
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: led to some of the most impactful and sometimes controversial
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: interviews over the last decade. As co host of one
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: of the most popular radio shows of all time, The
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Breakfast Club, Charlemagne made time to sit down with me
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: in New York City to discuss all of this, plus
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: his upbringing, parenting, and the criticisms that have come with
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: his success and more. This has started from the bottom,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: hard earned success stories from people like us. First time
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I ever saw you was it was you on the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Wendy Williams radio show going toe to toe with Andrew
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Dice Club. Yeah. Yeah, that was like two seven. Yeah.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: It was one of the most amazing things ever. And
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: even though you kind of got uh, I don't know,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I feel like Andrew kind of put it on you
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: that day. It was the way they edited it too,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: But it was like, yeah, I had some I had
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: some good ones, but they didn't put all of them,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: and they put the one about me calling them a
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: fat fanzie. But that's right. Looking back, you actually did
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: a lot better than I remember. At the time, I
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: was a dang like Andrew still got it. I remember
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: been like, oh man, but then I kind of put
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: you on my radar, and then I remember when the
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Breakfast Club came, I was like, oh, makes sense, like
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: this guy clearly clearly had it. But yeah, I want
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: to run through your radio trajectory. But first I thought
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: it'd be good to start with growing up in Monk's Corner,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: South Carolina. Um, it's interesting, right, because you know, I've
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: been thinking about that a lot more lately, only because,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: like you know, when I'm in therapy, I'm doing like
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of um in a child work, you know,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: because I feel like a lot of the issues that
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: you deal with as an adult, most of them directly
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: connected something that happened in your childhood. And so I've
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: been thinking about, like what was that upbringing, like growing
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: up in Monst Corner, South Carolina, and the word I've
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: come to realize that it is associated with that that upbringing.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: It's simple. You know, Monst Corner when I was young
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: created a sense of ease in my life that I
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: feel like really helped me growing up because I didn't
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: move too fast and I didn't move too slow. That
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: still is a big, big part of me. So when like,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: you know, that anxiety that I've been feeling my whole life,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: sets and I feel like, Okay, I might be moving
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: too fast, but then I don't want to move too slow.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: But then it's just a certain ease, like like baby
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Bears part just just it's a just right level of
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: ease that growing up in Monst Corner gave me that
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I tend to tap into whenever, like things get really hectic.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: You mentioned some of the anxiety that you have. When
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: did that start? Really, Yeah, as long as I know.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, the first panic attack I remember having was
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: first grade, my mom dropping me off, Like I can
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: feel it right now, my mom dropping me off first grade,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: first day of first grade, and like I just cried uncontrollably,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: like like I just felt like abandoned, lost and just
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: scared like that that that same, you know, unexplainable feeling
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: of fear and panic and worry. And I think my
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: mom even says that I might have cried for like
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the first week. I don't remember the first week. I
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: remember that one particular day, but it's like, yeah, that's
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the first time I remember ever having like a panic attack,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and I had him throughout my life, like I've been
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: going to the emergency room thinking that I'm having a
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: heart attack. You know, thinking that I'm dying, you know,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: and then you get there and the doctor's like, oh,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: did you have an energy drink today? And you're like,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I did drink a red Bull earlier, and it's like, oh,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: that's probably why your heart is doing that. That's the
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: worst feeling, you know. So it wasn't until twenty ten
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: that a doctor actually said to me, sounds like you
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: have anxiety. He was literally was like, it sounds like
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: you had a panic attack the things that you're describing.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: And he was like, has this happened to you before?
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: And I'm like all the time, And you know, he
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: asked me what I stretched out about anything, and I'm like,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: hell yeah, Because at the time, I had just been
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: fired for the fourth time from radio, and I'm back
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: living at home with my mom at like thirty one,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: thirty two years old. My daughter's like one or two.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: My wife is back living at home with her parents,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, in mom's corner. So it's
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: like I was super stressed out collecting unemployment checks every week.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: So in my mind, all I had to do was
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: get back in position and get me another job and
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: all of that would go away. And that wasn't the case.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: You know. I ended up getting the breakfast club gig
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and having the most success I've ever had in my life,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: and it felt like all of those issues I had
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: historically dealt with were magnified times a hundred now. Yeah,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: you know, And so that's when I decided to like
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: finally go get some help and like go to therapy.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: What do you think do you see that? Do you
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: see that same anxiety in your kids? Yeah, I haven't.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen it show up as bad as mine
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: was when I was at age. And I think the
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: beauty of life now is not only do I have
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the language, I have the experience. So it's just like that,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and I wish that, you know, somebody had put me
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: in therapy when I was thirteen fourteen now me, I
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: definitely needed it because I was getting sexually abused at
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: eight years old. I didn't realize that at the time.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that was molestia until I was twenty
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: something years old. You know, at the time, I just
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: thought I was eight year old kid. The neighborhood. Yeah, yeah,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: we we would all were a bunch of young men.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: We all be around having conversations about older women that
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: we were messing with, you know, in the neighborhood, Like
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: we all thought we were lying, but clearly we always
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: like telling the truth in different ways. Right, So, Um,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: when I was fourteen, I definitely needed to unpack some
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: of that. Do you think you would have had it
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: at that age? Do you think the trajectory would have
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: been the same, Like you think you would have been
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: ended up in the streets the way you did? Probably not?
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: And the reason probably not, just because you know, even
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: with the screetch, Right, it's like a lot of that is, Um,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: you trauma bond with people, yeah, because it's all a
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: bunch of individuals that are missing something, and like we
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: all want camaraderie, we all want family, we all want
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: a crew. And it's just sometimes men, we trauma bond
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: over bullshit, you know. So we trauma bond sometimes over crime,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: you know, we trauma bond over drugs, We trauma bond
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: over alcohol, you know. But most of the time it's like, yeah,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: we're all trauma bonding to do the wrong thing, Like
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like let's go rob this
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: you know individual, or go rob this store or break
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: into this house, and let's go you know, figure out
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: a way to get some a pack the hustle. But
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: it's like what we're all lacking is like together this
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: like everybody, we're all tribal, and we all long for family,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: right And I think that's what that's what a lot
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: of guys do when they when they click up in
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: that way. So I think for me, I definitely was
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: longing for like some type of family structure. Even though
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: I grew up in a house with an older sister,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: two younger brothers, and a younger sister. I was the
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: second oldest. My oldest sisters like ten twelve years older
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: than me, and my younger siblings are like ten twelve
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: years younger than me, So I was kind of I
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: didn't have on an island, yeah exactly. So I ended
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: up kicking it with brothers and who are around my age,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: and we all ended up doing a bunch of dirt.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: And I don't even like to call it pear pressure
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: because I don't believe there's anything. I don't believe peer
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: pressure exists. I believe we all just want to be accepted,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And I think that when
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: somebody pushes you to do something, you do it because
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: you don't want to let them down. So it's a
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: lot of people pleasing that goals and the age, especially
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: at that age man. And it stays with you though,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: That people pleasing stays with you, Like that's something that
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: I had to unpacking therapy, like stop being a people pleaser, like,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: you know, because sometimes you'll be a people pleased to
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: your own detriment. Yeah, you know, I can't believe anyone's
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: ever accused you be the people pleasing man. No, I
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: think that a lot of that. Man. That's because you
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: seem you have strong opinions, not scared of voice even
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: if it alienates you. Yeah, well, no, you're right, I've
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: always been that way. Um, But no, there's there's been
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: plenty of times in my life where I just wanted
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: to be down. Literally, I just wanted to be down.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be embraced,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: And you know, I can think about you know that time,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: at that moment, like I just wanted to be embraced
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: by you know, my peers. You know. So that's why
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I started doing what a lot of my PIDs was doing,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: which was a lot of bullshit. You know what I mean,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: because I wanted to be accepted some of that early stuff.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: A couple of couple of drug cases. U. The last
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: one was you were around the shooting the first one.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: The first one. The first one, I was in the
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: backseat of a car and my homeboy was in the
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: front seat. Somebody was driving, and we was in this
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: neighborhood like like like a two neighborhoods over from where
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: we are in Mongst Corner, two towns over rather from
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: where we are in Monst Corner. And we were just having,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: you know, some conversations with some young ladies. Then some
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: guys in the neighborhood didn't like that we would there.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: And you know, I'm on my fake tough guys ship,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: my fake hardcore shit, so I'm acting like doughboy and
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: boys in the hood. I got my hand under my
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: shirt was up up yo, sup, because like the fuck
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: that means like what's up a problem? You know what
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I mean? And they, you know, drove off. Then we
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: went to like I think it was Burger King McDonald's.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I remember, I think it was Burger King. So he
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: went to Burger King. As we're leaving, I see the
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: truck that those guys were in pulling up behind us,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: and I say, I say tell him. I dude like, oh,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: that some guys from the neighborhood. And so they pulled
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: up on the side of us. So I'm in the
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: back seat of the car, dudes talking shit out the window.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: One of my guys pulled out and shot from the
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: passenging seat, and you know, luckily nobody was in the
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: fourth seat, so it was the driver passenger, and then
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: somebody was sitting behind the driver with the bullet hit
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: the headrest in the fourth seat behind the passenger seat,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Yeah, all praises do to
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: God because you know, that could have been a situation
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: where somebody got killed. Now were all in jail for
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: twenty thirty years, you know what I mean. So so
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: even now when I think about stuff like that, I'm like, oh, yeah,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: you know, because I'm a big back to the future guy.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: You know, you watch those those time heist movies. People
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: go back and little things change here and there and
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: change the whole trajectory of everything. And so yeah, that
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: was the first time I ever got arrested. Did it
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: change your relationship with your parents? It didn't change my
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: relationship with my parents. That actually made me realize my
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: dad was right, because my dad was always telling me
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: if I don't change my lifestyle, I'm gonna end up
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: in jail, dad, or broke sitting under the tree, you know.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: So when I came home, I really was just looking
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: for positive things to do. Like, you know, I started
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: working at a warehouse called Industrial Acoustics Company, and you know,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: from that point on, I wanted to keep a job.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: But I worked there for like two to three weeks,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: got fired from there, you know, to supervisor and never
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: forget her name, her name was Gail cop Supervisor was like, like,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: you don't fit in here. You're not what we're looking
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: for now, mind you up. My job was literally like
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I was clearing out an area, like a wooded area.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, oh god, damn, I'm not fit to
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: clean out a wooded area, you know. But she was like,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: you don't fit in here. So then I started working
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: out of Flower Garden just because I was looking to do,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: you know, something positive. And the flower Garden literally, and
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: now that I think back on it, it was literally
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: a bunch of like migrants working there, Like you know
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: what I mean, It was clearly a bunch of people
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: who you know, weren't from this country, who were just
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: looking for work. Now now looking back on it, that's
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: what it was. It was literally just a bunch of
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: like Mexicans and you know, who knows what else, like
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: just working there, right, And so I was there for
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: like two weeks to His name was Dominique, the same thing.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Me and him got into a shouting match because I
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: was just like it, shit feels like it was a plantation.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: It literally was a flower garden. It was actually called
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the Yeah, it was called just something playing taition flower garden.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: But it literally was just we were out there in
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the hot sun picking flowers and you know, other types
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: of shit. So I quit that and then that's when
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I started like flirting with the screet you know what
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I mean. That's when it was like, man, I gotta
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: figure out some ways to make money because you know,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I still got to pay my probation officer and shit
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: like that. And it was just a stupid mentality, right,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: because when you're on probation, you got to keep a job.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: That's number one, and you got to pay your probation fees.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: So I started just saying that I was working with
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: my dad and I was doing tempt services but also
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: had got a fifty dollars slab. Fifty dollars slabs when
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: you're getting fifty dollars worth of rock, and you know,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I think you posted be like I think its supposed
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: to be one hundred dollars off each gram. So I
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: think a slab was one gram that you paid fifty
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: dollars for and you cut it up and you posted
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: it cuts up into like one hundred dollars worth a rock.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: So that was the first time I liked dabbled in like, yeah, hustling.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: So yeah, did I left my Did I feel like, well,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: how to my relationship my parents changed? Yeah? I thought
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: they were right, but I still was young and had
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: to figure things out for myself, which led me, which
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: led me back, which led me into actually hustling. You know.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: After the break, Charlotte Magne's gonna take us on a
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: ride through his earliest experiences with radio and how that
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: helped build his foundation in the business. When did radio
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: enter your life, like, not only not as a career,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: as a listener, Like, what's your earliest experiences with radio?
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Like forever forever? And the reason I say forever because
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: like when I said, small town monks going to South Carolina.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: So the radio station was Z ninety three Jams. We
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: were always around the radio. If it wasn't Z ninety
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: three Jams, it was another station called wpa L one
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: hundred point nine, and one hundred point nine was like
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: more underground with it, so they were playing like underground stuff,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: not the mainscreen stuff. And like you know, there was
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: always like bone boxes around like my cousin and you know,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: my cousin tis to my cousin Tye. He was the
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: first person let me hear like a real hip hop record.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Like prior to that, my sister had her radio in
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: her room. So my sister was listening to like Kidn't
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Play and Salt and Pepper, you know what I mean,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: stuff like that Hammer all the pop stuff, you know
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: what I mean. But my cousin let me hear Eric
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: B and Rock Kemp paid in full. Wow, and that
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: changed everything. Wow. That was like I don't know what
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: this thing is called hip hop, but I love it.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: It felt like rock Kim was saying stuff like he
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: was telling stories, like you know what I mean. Yeah,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: just just that is what introduced me to radio and
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: always wanting to be around a radio. It felt like
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: we might even have been around radio more than TV.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: You know, back in the day TV it was certain
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: shows we were watching, but we weren't just turning the
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: TV on and keeping it on all day. If it
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: wasn't like Nintendo or you know the radio. Man, we
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: were outside, yeah, like you know what I mean, running around,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: playing around. So it's like, for me, radio has always
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: been in my life as a listener, like who are
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: the personalities are? Because like I know, like in LA
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: and later I came to us, it was like syndicated,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: but you know, in LA always felt like it was
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: like Big Boy was like was huge, you know, and
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I felt like our guy. For me growing up, it
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: was oh, oh oh, it's the time Join Them morning
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: show because you know, my mom was a school teacher,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: so we was up early early, so I was listening
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: to the time Join Them. And then you know, ZE
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: ninety three played such a big role in my life
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: because you know, their original morning show that I remember
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: was the Breakfast Club Baby Jay and Tessa Tessa Spencer,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: and then you know, in the afternoons, it was like,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: um a man, y'all need a rude boy. But then
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: it was like you know the night shows, the Top
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: nine at nine, you know, you want to call in
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: and request the song and hear your voice on the radio,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: shout out your school whatever whatever. But yeah, those were
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: the people like growing up like Sean, people like Sean Dobe, Like,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: those are the personalities that I would hear. Reggie c
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: You'd hear these people and they were just like regular
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: voices that you would hear all the time. Ken Moore
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: like I don't even know if Kim was Ki on Z.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know if Ki was one. I just did
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: the voices I remember. Yeah, you know, growing up like
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: those voices, those local radio voices. Are you growing up
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: a famous as anyone in the country. Absolutely? Do you
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: remember your first time on the radio. I don't remember
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: the very first time, but it definitely one of the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: first times was my man Willy Will. There was a
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: guy named Willie Will. He was the night jock there
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: at the ninety three jams in Charleston, South Carolina. Me
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: and him used to wrap together. I met him at
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: you know, a couple of recording studios that were in Charleston.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: When I got my internship up there. I would always
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: just be up there and I'd be sitting in on
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: his show, and you know, he would definitely, you know,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: call me to the microphone, you know, and I'd be
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: on the mike talking. So definitely my first time on air,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I'm sure was with Willie will And in some way,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: shape or form, because I remember wanted to remember the
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: program director telling him like, you know, you need to
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: get a cardboard cut out of Charlemagne and put it
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: in the studio because your energy goes up, you know
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: when he's in here, you know, with you. I remember
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I remember him saying that to him, and yeah, which
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: which probably ultimately led to me being on air because
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: my man Ron White, you know spootha Ron White. Me
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: and Ron still talked to this day. Round. Was like
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: he just asked me one day, like, Yo, do you
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: want to be on the radio? And I'm like, sure,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: why not? And so they started putting me on Sundays
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: eleven am to three pm. When you say sure, like,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: was there a part of you that had was that
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: just you playing the cool or were you really not
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: even sure you wanted to be on the radio like that? Yeah?
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I never had thought about it, you know what I mean.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: I just was really happy to be working at Z
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: ninety three Jams because it was like the most corporate
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: thing I had ever done. Yeah, you know, it was.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: It was the place. It was a place where, like
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: in South Carolina, people saw you at ninety three, They're like, oh,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: he must be he must be doing something, you know
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: what I mean, Like he must be doing something with
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: his with his life, you know what I mean. And
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: for me being like a guy who was in and
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: out of jail at the time and was getting in
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of trouble and graduated from high school in
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: night school, had gotten kicked out of two high schools.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Like for me, that was a big deal for me
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: to be like pulling up in a most corner driving
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: this station vehicle like the big white band with the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Z ninety three Jams on the logo, you know what
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, pulling it down my dr road, you know
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: what I mean, hoping that some of the girls that
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: lived on my road saw me, you know what I mean.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Like that was a big deal for me back then.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: So yeah, just to be there felt like you did, ye, Yeah,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: I just was just happy to be there. Like so
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: when he asked me to be on air, like hell, yeah, yeah,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: whatever's gonna keep me here yea. And of course when
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: you think radio, you think on air personalities. You're not
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: thinking promotions or programming or anything like that. So hell yeah,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I'd love to be on it. Now I can really
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: say I work here and now I'm a personality, and
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: um yeah, I really loved it and appreciate it. How
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: was that first show that you had? I was scaring
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: all the church folks because it was what they had
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: me do. They had me do something called voice track.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: And when your voice track is when you record your voice,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: and you got to record your voice, and you know,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: it's like it's a time slot from like eleven to three,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: so you're talking like three four times an hour, introducing songs,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: time temperature and stuff like that. So I didn't know
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: how to do radio, you know, I really didn't. So
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I was just going in there talking like yeah I was.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: I was actually screaming. When I go back and listen
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: to my old voice tapes, I was screaming. And it's
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: funny because they all were telling me I was screaming,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: like I'm not screaming. I was just old you, I
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: don't understand how we talk about I was really yelling
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: like nine three jams are being hip hop. Go my
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: go boy. The name is Charlemagney. God. I was yelling,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: like screaming at people, and so like, you know, when
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I finally started listening to the people who actually do
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: this for a living, I started to acquire a more
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: conversational tone. You know when in the beginning, I was
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: just yelling, like yelling, like literally yelling at people on
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: the radio, and that's what I was doing. And I
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: did that. I think I might have voice tracked a
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: few Sundays, and then Ron was like, all right, enough
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: of that. You're gonna have your voice track on Saturday
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: nights now seven to ten, and then you're gonna go
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: live from ten to midnight. And I was everything because
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: it's Saturday nights so I can have this high energy.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: But then when we go live or I could take
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: phone calls. Now it's like I'm taking phone calls and
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: I'm working with people when they're calling then making jokes
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: blah blah. So it's just like for me, the best
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: thing that ever happened to me was I didn't know
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: how to do radio. Nobody taught me how to do radio.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I wasn't a person who came from, you know, doing
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: college radio, or nowadays you can have a podcast or
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: a YouTube page. I was just fresh off the dirt
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: road in Monks Corner, South Carolina, getting on the air
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: in Austin, South Carolina on the biggest radio station at
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the time, Z ninety three, and that rawdness showed. I
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: sounded different than everybody else because I didn't have that announcer,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: you know, background. So it worked for me. Yeah, you
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: didn't have the announcer broadcast, yeah or whatever. I was
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: just coming at it with your own angles. What was
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: your journey after that? After zm SO, I worked as
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: an intern in ninety eight, started there in ninety nine
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: from the promotions department to um being on there, and
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: then a news station came into market, Hot ninety eight nine,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: much smaller station ran by a guy named my Man.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: George Cook was the program director. I was doing part
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: time at z SO. I had some conversations with Hot
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: ninety eight nine. They wanted me to come over there
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and do nights. They wanted me to do Monday through Saturday,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: seven to midnight full time, and I was I think
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: the pay was like nineteen grand a year, and at
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the time. That was a lot of money, and it
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: was a dollary. So just to be able to say,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: first time on salary that I didn't go to college,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I graduated from night school
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and like, so I didn't just oh I got a salary. Now, yeah,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: I'm just happy to be making nineteen grand a year.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Like that sounded like some shit, And so yeah, I
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: started working there every night and it wasn't even about
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: to check. It was about the opportunity to be on
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: every night. And my man, George Cookman, who's still a
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: great mentor to me to this day. He actually George
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: is not only the first person to give me a
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: full time position on radio. He told me some information
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: that just changed my whole life. And the information was,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I want you to have a morning show at night.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: I want you to treat this night show that you
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: have like a morning show at night. Parody songs and
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of sketches and a lot of topics and
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of interaction with listeners via the phone and
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: you know, playing new music and all of that benefited
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: me so well in the future because that's what I
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: ultimately treated every single show like I treated every single
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: show like it was a morning show. So no matter where,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: I went from High ninety eighty nine to the big
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: DM in Columbia, and then it was Hot one of
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: three nine in Columbia, then it was Wendy Williams show,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: then it was my own morning show in Philly. By
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the time I got to my own morning show in Philly,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: I had approached every single one of those situations like
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: it was a morning show. So by the time I
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: was ready to do my own morning show, I was overprepared. Yeah,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: you know. So it was he planned to seed early
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: on that basically stuck with me throughout my whole career
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: and ultimately led to me being the morning guy I am.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Now let me come back. You'll get a chance to
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: hear what Charlemagne learned from the legendary radio host Wendy
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Williams and lessons he had to teach himself to achieve success.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Tell me about meeting Wendy Williams, man Man, I met
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Wendy because I was doing radio in Columbia, South Carolina.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Columbia had a really dope station called Hot one with
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: three nine. So Hot one with three nine started syndicating
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Wendy Williams in the afternoons, and so Wendy and her
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: husband would come down for station visits, like they would
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: come down to like see the market and stuff like that,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: and so I just would break bread, you know. And
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: I remember the first time I even tried to break
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: bread with Wendy. Wendy was in the studio trying to
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: do her show, which I totally understand, now, you know
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: what I mean. But I came in there with mixed
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: tapes and parody songs, all of this stuff I wanted
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: her to hear and while she was doing her show, yeah,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, but she was in between breaks, you know
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: what I mean. But now, when I under now understanding
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the hecticness of a syndicated show, it wasn't like breaks
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: like us. But we break for twenty minutes, thirty minutes
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: and got time to bullshit. She's on like on on
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: on on, Like it might have only been like three
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: minutes in between songs. Wendy goes, look, yo, yo, take
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: that mixtape shit out of here. I'm trying to do
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: my fucking show. Take that mixtape shit to my husband.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: I didn't feel offended by that. Yeah, I was just like,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: where's your husband? She's like, I think if he's in
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: that fucking room somewhere, like in the conference room across
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the hall. Cool. So I went across the room, gave
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: him the mixtape, started pitching ship to him, you know,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: pitching shit to him. And then we started talking and
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: we you know, kept in contact from there, you know,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: and I used to like give them the heads up
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: on things that were going on at the station. So
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: he invited me to come up to New York for
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: a party. He was like, yeah, want you to come
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: up to New York. We're having a party, blah blah.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: And I'm like all right. I went to the party
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: just to kick it. And in the party, Wendy was like,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: oh shit, Charlemagne, Yo, wan't you come to my show?
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: How long are you in town? Like, oh, just a
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: couple of days. Come to my show tomorrow, Like come
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: to your show tomorrow. Can't tell me shit like that.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: I'm going I'm going to be like, yo, all right,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: the who do I call? What do I do? And
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: so I'm hitting keV like yo, keV. Whendy said, come
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: to our show. He was like all right, I bet
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: So he just told me that he told me to
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: go up there, went up there, sat in the pink
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: room to paint the office for a while. Then she
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: invited me on the show and I was there for
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: like twenty five minutes, and literally that evening they were
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: offering me the position as her co host sidekick, and
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: they was like, look, we can't pay you, but we
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: can give you a place to stay. And I'm just like,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: all right, just let me go back down South and like,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: you know, figure some things out, like just you know,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: let my girl know what I'm about to do and
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: everything else. And that's what I did. You knew the opportunity, yo. Man,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: you gotta recognize the opportunity even when it's not a
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: paycheck attached to it. So my mindset was never I
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: never I never once was like how much I'm gonna
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: get paid. It was like, we cannot pay you, but
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: we can give you a place to stay. I'm out
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to be on Wendy Williams Show Monday through
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Friday in the afternoon, nationally syndicated show. What are some
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: lessons you learned on the Wonder william Show? That Wendy's
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: a legend no matter how you feel about her, matter
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: how you feel about her, bona Fire legend, one of
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: the most talented people, one of the most talented media
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: personalities of all time. You know, one of the people
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: few people who can like literally sit down in front
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: of a TV camera and just go. Yeah, person who
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: could just sit down in front of a microphone and
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: just go. And you realize the reason she's able to
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: do that is Number one, she does have just the
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: natural gift to gab. But one of the lessons I
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: learned that everything is showprep. Like a lot of times,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: you know, back in the day, we would think that
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: show prep is like just picking up the latest magazine
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: or picking up the latest tabloid and just downloading what's
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: in there. Wendy taught me that your whole life is showprep.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Every single experience that you go through can be brought
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: to the radio. You know, every single experience that you
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: go through can be bought, you know, the television. I
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: would watch her, I'd be out with her during the day,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: watch these things happen to her, and then watch her
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: get on the rad and talk about these things like, oh,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I was there, and of course he's making me part
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: of the story because and Charlemagne said this. Charlemagne was
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: right there and Charlemagne acted like he didn't see it
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: and it isn't that like, and I'm like, god, damn,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: she's incredible, you know what I mean, Like he's just
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: an incredible storyteller. So you know, um, she taught me
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: how to tell stories via radio, even though I was
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: already doing it, but I was doing it more so
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: through sketches. But now just to make your life a story,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: to make the things that happened to you throughout the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: day a story. That was like one of the biggest things,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: like everything is show prep. And the other thing was
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: like you're either gonna be of the people or of
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: the industry, because when you're of the people, you're always
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: going to speak like for the people and you're gonna
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: speak how the people speak. When you're of the industry,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: like you're gonna try to protect relationships and you're gonna
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: try to you know, protect people. You know, so you're
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: not gonna have those opinions that you that you probably
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: once had that was good advice at the time. I
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: think that there's an adjustment to be made in that
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: rhetoric because it's gonna come a time where like you're
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: going to be industry. Yeah, you get too big. Yeah,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: and everybody around you is gonna be industry too. I've
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: been in the game for twenty five years. So not
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: only have I grown as a personality and a businessman,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: a media just everything right, people around me have to Now.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I got people who run record labels. I got people
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: who are in rs. I got people who work at
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: these social media platforms, you know what I mean. I
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: got friends that are artists and big celebrities. We all
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: I've been doing it for twenty five years. We all
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: came up together. And not only just the people I
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: came up with, those next generations of people that now
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: I'm in position. But oh, I see this person coming.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Let me embrace this in the VILDI embrace that individdle school.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: We're all industry, you know what I mean. So your
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: authentic self has to change. It's like reasonable doubt was
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: authentic for jay Z or for its authentic for jay
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Z today. What you just said hit it on the
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: head because people don't pay attention to that. Like you
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: saw me when I was one version of myself. If
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: I had stayed that version and never grown into anything else,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: it's no way I'm being authentic. Yeah, Muhammad at last said,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the person who's doing the same thing at fifty that
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: he was at twenty wasted thirty years of his fucking
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: I ain't I believe that, you know what I mean.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: It's just like you're I'm never going to be that
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: version again. But the only thing I could do is
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: be the best version of my authentic self, whatever that
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: may be, whatever I grow into, you know, And like
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: that's why me at forty four, you god damn right,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not the same way I was at thirty one.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: I better not be. I mean, I'm my true authentic
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: self right now. And you know, you realize like the
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: power of the platform, and what I mean by that
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: is like, man, this is certain things that we got
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: to protect people from because we have these platforms, and
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: sometimes the wrong information is fewed over the platform, you know,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: and people get hurt because of that. Yeah, you know,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: And I'm not in the business of hurting nobody. I
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: don't want to hurt nobody, and I don't want the
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: person putting out the information to be hurt. Yeah you know.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: So yeah, well that's interesting because and I don't know
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: if this was necessarily this person being hurt by you,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: but after Wendy Williams. You get your own show in
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Philly and you get fired because you bring Beanie siegal on,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: who's a who's a Philly rapper? Yeah, tell me if
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I'm not getting a story right. But you bring on
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Beanie Seagull, who's a Philly rapper at one point was
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: signed to Rockefeller Records, came up under Jay jay Z.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: And you do an interview with beans on the show
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: and he said something about Jay that makes Jay madd
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: and you get get fired that. Yeah, that's the story.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: The story is that I got fired because Beanie Seagull
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: got on the air and aired out Jay Z. And
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: I'm the one who recorded it and I'll put it
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: on air. That's the story. I don't know if that's
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: true or not. Jay never has confirmed what Jay has
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Jay never confirmed or denied on air. Behind the scenes,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: he has said to me like that, that really gets
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: you fight, like you know what I mean? And that's
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: the story, right, I don't. I doubt that's highly the case,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? When I think back then,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: I think um I had a new program director was hired,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: and I think that new program director just wanted to
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: bring in his people and that new program director like
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: he don't know. He had his chest out a little bit.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: I remember the first time I met him, he was like,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: oh me, and you're gonna be able to get along.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: So he came in there on some like snapping the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: whip ship, let me get this guy in line type thing,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: and I think that, um, it was a combination of
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: just him being new and wanting to bring in his
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: own people, but also a combination of people thinking they're
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: doing the right thing for jay Z. But jay Z's
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: not even thinking about this ship. He's you know what
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I mean. It's one of those things like I know,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: I know Charlotmagne did it, but we got rid of
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Charlomagne and you let Jay know I did it whatever.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: You know, So I don't. I don't know. I do
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: feel like maybe a higher up might have might have
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: just pulled the trigger on that firing just to get
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: in Jay's good graces. But I don't think that was
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: a Hey, I'm jay Z, I'm offended by this get
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: this guy off the airthing. No, I don't believe that
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: at all. Okay, okay, but that does get you fired,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: and that was your own show. I mean, that's like
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: your own show in Philly. That's like and if your
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: first time happened like your own show, that's like, yeah, um,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: that's that big that I was killing. I was number
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: I think two in the market. I was number two
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: in the market at the time, and that was in
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: a PPM world, So I was I was doing great.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: And it was literally just me and my homegirl, Sasha.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: So I should suit to Sasha Katie, that's the homie,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. She we used to work
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: together when I used to work at Wendy at WBLS,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: and so when I got my own show in Philly,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: just asked, yo, you want to be my producer and
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: she was like hell yeah. So we literally would drive
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: from New Jersey every morning back and forth the Pennsylvania
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: like like an hour and a half away. We would
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: drive back and forth every day three I have to
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: get up at three in the morning, pick her up
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: by like four three thirty four o'clock to be there
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: on time. And we did that every single day, wow,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: for like six seven months. The funny part is I
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: got fired the day I was supposed to move into
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: the townhouse because I was still living in Jersey. So
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: me and my wife had got a townhouse, and I'm like, yeah,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: this is gonna be great. Now, I gotta wake up
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: sore early, like I won't have to drive, Like I'm
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: in my basket. I'm processing all this in my mind.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: We was living in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, on the
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: outskirts of Philadelphia. Go and roll my daughter in school here,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: all of that type of ship. And the day I
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: got fired, I literally had all my stuff in the
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: fucking I had a two thousand and two escalated with
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: like one hundred and fifty thousand miles on it, and
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: I had all that in the car, ready to move
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: into the townhouse. And I got fired on that day,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: literally that day, and went back to South Carolina, back
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: in Most Corner for a year. And what was going
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: through your head at that point, Oh, yeah, I failed.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: I gotta go back to the Mons corner. After being
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: you know, on Wendy Show, after having my own show
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: in Philly, after having these viral moments, after being on
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: VH one TV with Wendy. Now I got to go
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: back to the man's corner and collect unemployment for real,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: because I don't know when I'm gonna get another gig.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: And now I got a daughter. So I literally was
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: in South Carolina from November two thousand and nine to
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: November two and ten, so I was able to collect
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: the year of unemployment. You know what I mean. I'm
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: living at home with my mom, depressed this shit, you know,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: anxiety through the roof, just trying to figure out what's
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: gonna happen. But you know, I used that opportunity to
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: m There was a new station launching in Charleston, South Carolina.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: It was called The Box. I think it was like
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: ninety two five The Box or something like that. So
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I was there with them, helping them launch the station,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: helping them write promos and create an imaging for the station.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I did the voiceovers for the station. Like in my mind,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I'm gonna end up getting a
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: shift on ninety two five. I'm gonna make my twenty
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: grand a year here in South Carolina, and we're gonna
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: live a great life. Yeah that was my mindseting. But
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: you know, clearly God had other plans because the Breakfast
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Club came shortly after that. How did that come? When
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: I was in Philly, there was a there was a
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: time where I had met with my man g Spend.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Before me and g Spen met in a restaurant or something.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: It was me and at the time my then uh
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: my then manager named it was Kevin, Wendy's husband, and
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: you know, you don't have the best reputation in the
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: business man, and so even though we met, g Spen
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: wasn't really feeling it. And then later on that turned
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: into a meeting with my man Cadillac Jack and cad
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: was with me then and it was the same thing.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Like literally I found out that after we left the meeting,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: mad people came from like the sales department and was like,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: you cannot Charlotta, Agne's great, but if as long as
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: you know Kevin is his manager, you know we can't
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: hire him, and YadA, YadA, YadA, the energy will be
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: bad and terrible all of this type of stuff. I
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: didn't know that, you know. And then you know, me
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: and Kevin ended up having a fallen out parting ways.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: And so I was in New York because I had
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: moved back to South Carolina, but I was in New
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: York for a couple of days, and I remember just
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: texting g Spend like, yo, you know where you at
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: And he was like I'm in New York where you at, Like,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I'm in Jersey right now. I was standing in Fort Lee.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: I was at the Double Tree in four League, and
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: he was like, yo, man, he was like, yo, come
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: to the station. I'm like where He was like, yeah, yeah,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: come to the station. Come to the station right now.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: And so I got in the rental car drove seem
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: it took me like three hours to get there because
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: it was like four o'clock in the after Yeah. Yeah.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: So we was at the GW Bridge for what seemed
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: like an hour and trying to get down the West Side,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: creeping down and Tribeca. But I finally get there and
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: g spinn is like, yo, um my, boss, Cadillac. Jack
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: has been watching your stuff all day long, watching you
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: and Duval with the Hood, State of the Union, and
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: listening under like some old interviews when you was on
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: the radio in Philly. So I sit down with Cadillac,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: and me and Cadillac just have a great conversation. And
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: one of the first things he says to me is like,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: you know, is cass still you're managing I'm like, nah,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: you know. And that's how the relationship started. So like
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: a few months later, I got high on probably one
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: or five one. I remember Cadillac saying like, how long
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: can you wait for this job? And I'm like, for
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: this job as long as it takes. And so like
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: five six months later, you know, the wheels really started
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: to move and where you want him that whole five
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: six months like yo, like, oh yes, yeah, you couldn't
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: just sit back and no, no, no, definitely stayed in touch,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: would send him new episodes of me and Duvall show,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: you know, just just anything anything that I was doing
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: in that space, I would because we was early on
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: social media. We was all over my Space and Twitter
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: and everything else. So yeah, like I was definitely keeping
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: in real touch with him and g span, you know
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: what I mean, and sometimes popping up, popping up, you know,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: and be like because I knew kind of like the
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: gig might be mine, So I was kind of like
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: popping up. And it felt bad because there was like
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: people who I was like really cool with that work there,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: and I couldn't say anything, you know about the conversations
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: me and Cadillac we're having, you know what I mean,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: And I had to like lie to some of these people,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: and it felt bad, you know what I mean because
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: I just couldn't tell the truth because this business still
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: to be handled, you know, so, but yeah, that's how
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: I got there. It's amazing, man. And then basically from that,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, from that point, are you still there obviously
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Breakfast Club, Yeah, thirteen years later, man. And what's so
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: interesting is that any of them would tell you. Angelie
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: will tell you, and Bill tell you. Our radio consultant,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Dennis Clark g Span Catillac, I was the guy saying
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: We're gonna be one of the biggest nationally syndicated shows
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: in the country. Like, like, I just I knew it.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: I saw what this show had the potential of being.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: And like from day one, me N V. Angela, we
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: always recorded our interviews and put them online. That's how
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: I was aware of what Angela was doing. I was
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: aware of what you know, Envy was doing. You know,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: people like my homegirl Kendred g deVie Brown, we were
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: all utilizing the internet. And so when we got with
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club, that's all. We didn't have no money
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: from marketing. They didn't have no money from marketing, no
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: money for promotions. This was kind of like a last
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: ditch thing to see if something will work to even
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: keep the lights on that power one oh five one.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: And so all we asked for was a cameraman every
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: day to come in here and record, you know, these interviews.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: And that's what we did. We started recording these interviews,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: putting them up online, recording these interviews, putting them on websites.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: And then at the time all these blogs and the
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: world Stars and all of these different platforms, these websites existed,
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: sending our interview was out, they started posting them. Yeah,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: next thing, you know, it took off in a real way,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: and here we are. How do you how do you
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: manage that? Like, how do you manage the expectation of
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: how do you manage the success? How do you manage
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: what is just out of reach at the moment that's
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: that's gonna be coming up for you. I manage it
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: just by like realizing what my daddy always says, You're
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: never as good as it say you are, and you're
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: never as bad as it say you are. Like I've
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: already had my moments of like ego, I've had my
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: moments of like being that narcissistic, arrogant person that you know,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: you can't tell anything too whether people realize that or not.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that they did, because I'm sure I projected it,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But I went through that,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: and I went through that at a time where, like God,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: knew I had to get over that in order to
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: be where I am now. So I knew that I
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: had to start doing some work on myself. I was
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: really becoming everything that I said I didn't like. You know,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: I was looking in the mirror and really becoming my father.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: I loved my father, but I hated how my father's
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: infidelity ruined his marriage with my mom, you know, and
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: ruined our family. Right. So for me, I didn't want
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: to do that, and I felt myself going down that
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: path in a real way. So it was just like,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: let me check myself before I wrecked myself. You know
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: why let you go? Man, last question, if you can
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: pick out one thing that's helped you be successful, that's
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: sort of been with you through every period of your
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: of your career, what do you think that thing would be? Man?
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: For me, it would like to really be authentic. And
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: what I mean by that is you're not authentic when
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: you're being a character to yourself. You're not authentic when
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: you see something working for you and you're getting rewarded
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: for it, so you start double and trippling down on
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: that thing. You're not authentic when you're being a second
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: rate version of somebody else instead of a first rate
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: version of yourself. And one of the things that hurt
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: me to most is when they started calling me to
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: hip hop Howard Stern. I love Howard Stern, right, but
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't even start to think why they were calling
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: me that. I just took it and ran with it,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: you know, and started giving them like all of the
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: examples of Howard that Howard might not even be proud
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: of now, you know. For me, it was like a
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: lot of the the frat boy, creepy ass, overly sexual humor,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: you know, like the low vibrational energy is what I
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: was really doing, the limbo with how low can you Go?
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like literally like how low
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: can you go? Like literally, And that's the type of
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: shit I was doing. So like when you go online
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: and you see like videos of me like sniffing chairs
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: or like tyeing poem orange stars up and all of that,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: it was literally for the shock. Yeah, And so like
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: that stuck with me for like man, maybe maybe a
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: year or two I was on that and then just
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: started to eat me up, Like, Yo, this ain't making
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: me happy. This shit is whacked. And you got your
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: you know, your wife. You know I got married in
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, so you got your wife on your head
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: at the time. She's my girl, Like what the fuck
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: are you doing? Like, you know, you out here wilding,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: you cheating on you like me and you you're on
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: the radio and you're, damn it bragging about word of
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: the ball like it was that type of conversation. I'm like, man,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: are you tripping? Like you know you it's just entertainment.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: That was my life. It's just entertainment. But it's not. Yeah,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: it's really not, you know, because you know, but when
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: you're influencing mad people, and in this case, I'm hurting
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: somebody and hurting the person that's the closest to me,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: and you can start to believe your own bullshit. That's
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: the worst. When you get in the character and you
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: start believing that you really are this dude. So it's
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: like for me, man, that's what made me like really
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: start like going to therapy and like doing the work
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: because I did not like the version of myself that
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: I was becoming. So my advice to anybody would just
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: to just be authentic, always leave yourself open to growth,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: and don't be afraid of where that growth takes you.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: I don't give a fuck what people like about you today.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: If you're growing into something else tomorrow, follow that shit,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Because if you don't, you know,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: you're really just stunting your growth and you really don't
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: know how big you could possibly be. You're putting a
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: cap on you, like you're literally putting a limit on
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: how far you could possibly grow, how big you could get,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: because you're like, Nope, that's what they like about me,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna keep it here as opposed to just
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: leaving yourself open to see what else is out there
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: and how much more you could continue to grow. So
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: that's what I tell people. Be authentic, man, and just
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: don't be afraid to grow. Yeah. Yeah, man, thanks for
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: bringing your authentic self to everything, man. I appreciate thanks. Man,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: appreciate Charlemagne, who the ups and downs are building a
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: media career in one of the most cut throat of
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: mediums radio, has shown up ready to bring his full
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: self to whatever it is he does, and the brilliance
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: of that is he's been impossible to ignore. I want
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: to thank him for that confidence and for taking the
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: time to talk with me. I plan on spending more
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: time working on my fear of being rejected just for
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: being me. Thanks for listening to start it from the bottom,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: I'm out. Started from the Bottom is produced by David Jah,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: edited by Keishaw Williams, engineered by Beentaliday, Booked by Laura
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: Morgan with production help from Lea Rose. The show's executive
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: produced by Jacob Goldstein, who's not all up in the
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: videos for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music is by Beentaliday
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: and David Jah, featuring Anthony Aggs and s Vannah Joe Lack.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: If you like her show, please remember to share, rate
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: and reviewers on your podcast staff. I'm just Richmond H.