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MK Asante Interview · The Breakfast Club

0:01
Speaker 1: Real celebrity join the morning. Everybody is DJ Envy Angela, Ye,
0:09
Speaker 1: Charlomagne the guy we are the Breakfast Club got a
0:12
Speaker 1: special guest author in the building with us this morning.
0:14
Speaker 1: That's right, my man, M k Asante. M k Asante.
0:18
Speaker 1: Now I read this guy's book about two three weeks.
0:20
Speaker 1: Going to funny because I had the book sitting up
0:21
Speaker 1: here for the longest a long time. It's called Buck,
0:24
Speaker 1: But I don't know what made me decide to read
0:26
Speaker 1: it a couple of weeks ago, and I really enjoyed it.
0:29
Speaker 1: So I'm like, yeo, we gotta have this guy up
0:30
Speaker 1: here to talk about his book. Buck. Well, explain to
0:34
Speaker 1: us what Bucks. I didn't get a chance to read it.
0:35
Speaker 1: I don't I don't really have much time to read.
0:38
Speaker 1: You know, I got four kids, right, he talks, He's
0:42
Speaker 1: talking about me over there. Tell us about Buck. All right, Well,
0:45
Speaker 1: first of all, it's really an honor to be here.
0:48
Speaker 1: I watch you guys all the time, so you know
0:49
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Much love, um d riding broke whatever
0:57
Speaker 1: ding his book? Well, yeah, you read the book and
1:02
Speaker 1: you you were thirsty, so you know what I mean.
1:04
Speaker 1: I had to come Yeah, exactly you know when you
1:06
Speaker 1: show interests that means thirsty these days. But you know, um,
1:09
Speaker 1: I'm just happy to be here. But you know, Buck
1:10
Speaker 1: is about the graceful survival against impossible circumstances. You know,
1:14
Speaker 1: It's like what I'm from Philly, you know what I mean,
1:16
Speaker 1: young buck, buck, wild, Buck, shots bucktown, slave buck, black Buck,
1:19
Speaker 1: make buck buck now buck encompasses all of those things.
1:23
Speaker 1: I chose the title because it really my life. It's
1:26
Speaker 1: a coming of age memoir. It's my story. It's my
1:28
Speaker 1: journey growing up through Philly, navigating my education, my very
1:32
Speaker 1: informal education, miseducation, re education, self education, street education, the
1:36
Speaker 1: difference in the distance between school and education. That was
1:39
Speaker 1: all me. And so it's it's about that journey. It's
1:42
Speaker 1: about my family, it's about my community. It's about how
1:44
Speaker 1: I became. You know, I was someone who got kicked
1:46
Speaker 1: out of every school I went to, Wow and then
1:51
Speaker 1: and then ended up being the youngest tenure professor in
1:53
Speaker 1: the country, you know what I mean. I'm thirty two now,
1:57
Speaker 1: but it looked nineteen. But when I became professor, I
2:00
Speaker 1: was twenty. I was twenty three, and I got tenue
2:02
Speaker 1: when I was twenty six, you know what I mean.
2:04
Speaker 1: So I've been at academia for a while, and um,
2:06
Speaker 1: so it's about my journey. I tell us about this
2:07
Speaker 1: journey a little bit. So you're from Philadelphia, you uh,
2:11
Speaker 1: Charlemagne would say you got kicked out of every school.
2:13
Speaker 1: So you were young thug, you know what I mean.
2:16
Speaker 1: Shout out. Shout out to all the kids that you
2:19
Speaker 1: know are being overlooked right now, Shout out to all
2:22
Speaker 1: the kids that are are labeled bad because there really
2:24
Speaker 1: were no I was. I wasn't selling dope, okay, but
2:28
Speaker 1: but there are, there are. There is some some drugs
2:31
Speaker 1: selling that goes on in the book. As a child, Um,
2:34
Speaker 1: in my life, you know, I think I was just
2:36
Speaker 1: rebell I was rebellious. I was rebelling against everything, you
2:39
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Um, I think first of all,
2:41
Speaker 1: the school system, right, it's it's it's redundant, it's boring,
2:44
Speaker 1: you know, wrote memorization, regurgitation. I wasn't actually learning anything
2:47
Speaker 1: in school. Plus my family situation was kind of crazy.
2:50
Speaker 1: My brother he was locked up, my mom. I read
2:52
Speaker 1: about mental health issues. My mom was institutionalized. She had
2:56
Speaker 1: severe depressions, suicidal. So my mom was in and out
2:59
Speaker 1: the institutions, you know what I'm saying, and so split Yeah, exactly,
3:03
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So all these things kind
3:05
Speaker 1: of created a perfect storm. Plus we had the corner
3:07
Speaker 1: boys on my block, you know what I'm saying. They
3:09
Speaker 1: were always out there and they introduced me to everything,
3:11
Speaker 1: you know what i mean. So by the time I
3:12
Speaker 1: was fourteen, it was on you know what i mean,
3:15
Speaker 1: like everything you could imagine everything you don't want your
3:17
Speaker 1: child to, your four kids, everything you don't want them
3:20
Speaker 1: to do. I was doing, you know what I'm saying. So, Um,
3:23
Speaker 1: I know your brother, your brother is locked up. It's
3:25
Speaker 1: two questions. I don't want to ask you about them. Yeah,
3:27
Speaker 1: it is your brother out now Yeah, my brother is
3:29
Speaker 1: is definitely out. What's up? Ouzi out? Big Ouzi too?
3:32
Speaker 1: That's that's my heroes. Well, he has to change his
3:34
Speaker 1: name from how many names? How many years did he do?
3:38
Speaker 1: Like he? I mean, he was you know, he was
3:41
Speaker 1: in and out, in and out, you know what I'm saying. Um,
3:43
Speaker 1: But when he was in Arizona, which is for most
3:45
Speaker 1: of the book, he was. The book takes place between
3:48
Speaker 1: the ages of thirteen and eighteen, UM, and so he
3:50
Speaker 1: was like locked up for most of that time when
3:52
Speaker 1: I was when I was coming, he shot somebody. No,
3:54
Speaker 1: no hit in the book. He definitely was in jail
3:56
Speaker 1: point zone. No, no, I remember the book. Ye. Now,
4:00
Speaker 1: he didn't shoot anybody, you know what I'm saying something. No,
4:04
Speaker 1: he didn't beat anybody else, but he did beat other
4:06
Speaker 1: people locked that he didn't get locked. What was he
4:09
Speaker 1: locked up for? Arizona? In Arizona, it was a situation
4:13
Speaker 1: with a young girl. And he was young himself. What
4:17
Speaker 1: I'm saying, um, but he was young himself. He was seventeen,
4:20
Speaker 1: the girl was like fourteen. He didn't know she was white.
4:23
Speaker 1: He's black obviously, and her she was a runaway. Her
4:26
Speaker 1: parents found out, and it was just you know, he
4:28
Speaker 1: got he got put in the system. So what what
4:30
Speaker 1: got you straight? You know from being on the corner
4:32
Speaker 1: with the d boys and being so rebellious. What got
4:35
Speaker 1: you to fix up? I mean there was a couple
4:37
Speaker 1: of factors. Man. I saw it first of all. I
4:39
Speaker 1: saw what that life where that life takes you, you you
4:41
Speaker 1: know what I mean, whether it was my brother, whether
4:42
Speaker 1: it was my one of my best friends. I'm here
4:44
Speaker 1: who got murdered while I was there? You know, a
4:46
Speaker 1: lot of things kind of shaped me. But also the
4:48
Speaker 1: blank page. Man, that's what this book really is about.
4:50
Speaker 1: It's about finding your purpose. That blank page saved me.
4:54
Speaker 1: America enraged me. Then that trick paid me new slaves,
4:57
Speaker 1: old slavery. Grandma told me streets far from holy. Now
5:00
Speaker 1: I'm lonely my homies bodies is holy. So basically, the
5:04
Speaker 1: blank page saved me. That blank piece of paper in
5:07
Speaker 1: front of me the first time I gotta create a
5:08
Speaker 1: write in assignment, the first time I was able to
5:10
Speaker 1: express myself. Things started flowing and I gripped a pen
5:14
Speaker 1: and something shot down my spine and set me straight up.
5:17
Speaker 1: You know, the pen was heavy, like it was made
5:19
Speaker 1: of stone, and that first class man, that first time
5:22
Speaker 1: I was able to express myself. It changed my life
5:24
Speaker 1: because then I from writing, I started reading. I wanted
5:27
Speaker 1: to be a good writer, so I had to be
5:28
Speaker 1: a good reader. And when I started reading, I had
5:30
Speaker 1: an epiphany, like, oh, now I realized why reading was
5:33
Speaker 1: illegal for slaves back in the day. Because I realized
5:36
Speaker 1: that we think in words we sub vocalize, so the
5:38
Speaker 1: more words we know, the more things we can think about.
5:41
Speaker 1: And so for me, reading became connected to my liberation
5:44
Speaker 1: and helps you. It helps you transcend your circumstances because
5:46
Speaker 1: they always seeing andy thing you want to hire from
5:48
Speaker 1: a black person, put it in a book, you know
5:49
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Yeah, then we just gotta, we just gotta,
5:52
Speaker 1: we just gotta give ourselves access to it. Now, you
5:54
Speaker 1: said something earlier about the curriculum of most schools, you know,
5:57
Speaker 1: and you said it it's boring and and kids don't
5:59
Speaker 1: get it. And I agree with that. And I'm a
6:01
Speaker 1: big definitely with my kids where I want to show
6:04
Speaker 1: them life like I like to take them out. I
6:06
Speaker 1: like them to teach it, to teach them what a
6:08
Speaker 1: mortgage is and how to invest money because I think
6:11
Speaker 1: with that they learned more and it's more interesting in
6:13
Speaker 1: real life. And I hated school. I didn't get it,
6:16
Speaker 1: I didn't understand it. I wasn't into it. So you know,
6:20
Speaker 1: during school, I always dreamed of what I wanted to do,
6:22
Speaker 1: whether it was music, whether it was play ball or
6:24
Speaker 1: whatever it was. Now you also said you're a professor. Yes,
6:27
Speaker 1: Now explain to us how you teach. What makes you
6:30
Speaker 1: different than all of the things you said you disliked. Okay,
6:32
Speaker 1: that's what's up. Well, I'm a professor at Morgan State University,
6:35
Speaker 1: which is in Baltimore. Manling you one thing about Morgan stay,
6:37
Speaker 1: I'm gonnay. Why didn't go okay? When I went for them?
6:40
Speaker 1: When I went to Morgan State to check it out,
6:42
Speaker 1: to go on a tour, they're playing dice. It was
6:46
Speaker 1: too no. They were playing dice on the actual dorm steps.
6:50
Speaker 1: And my dad was like, you're not gonna go ahead.
6:52
Speaker 1: It's black queens. And I wound up going to Hampton.
6:54
Speaker 1: It was between Morgan and Hampton, and I wound him
6:56
Speaker 1: going ahead. He would push your tea with selling bricks
6:58
Speaker 1: to coke, closed the guide, playing put the telling wait
7:03
Speaker 1: out to school. You didn't want to go there? Well,
7:12
Speaker 1: you know what Morgan is is it's right in the
7:14
Speaker 1: heart of Baltimore, you know what I mean. That's one
7:15
Speaker 1: of the reasons why I love it and one of
7:16
Speaker 1: the reasons why I teach their you know what I mean,
7:18
Speaker 1: because of it's right in the community. You know. But
7:20
Speaker 1: as a professor, Man, you know, I bring that experiential
7:23
Speaker 1: learning that you were talking about, you know, we bring
7:25
Speaker 1: real things in the class. So I teach creative writing,
7:27
Speaker 1: I teach film, and my whole thing is, you know,
7:29
Speaker 1: I found my voice, I found my purpose. And I'm right.
7:31
Speaker 1: This is my fourth book actually, you know what I mean.
7:33
Speaker 1: So yeah, this is my fourth so you know what
7:36
Speaker 1: what and this is the it's the only one that's
7:37
Speaker 1: on the best seller list, you know what I mean.
7:38
Speaker 1: So this is kind of my most recognized booth. But
7:41
Speaker 1: you know, I've been writing for a while. So my
7:43
Speaker 1: whole thing is helping other people find their voice, you
7:45
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So I work with students all
7:47
Speaker 1: the time to help them cultivate their own voices so
7:49
Speaker 1: that they can express themselves, you know, in the way
7:52
Speaker 1: that it different me because this stuff saved my life
7:54
Speaker 1: man reading writing, Um, yeah, you know what I mean.
7:58
Speaker 1: And what we and you know what we did was
8:00
Speaker 1: so crazy about this project is I didn't want to
8:02
Speaker 1: stop it just the book. You know, I got the
8:04
Speaker 1: Sundance Film Fellowship to write the movie, so I'm working
8:06
Speaker 1: on the movie. But then what we did was we
8:09
Speaker 1: decided to do something completely different, which was to create
8:11
Speaker 1: a soundtrack for the book. So we created an original
8:14
Speaker 1: soundtrack with original music. That's why he keeps busting out
8:17
Speaker 1: in the rhymes. Yeah yeah, but how do we get
8:20
Speaker 1: more of us to be professors because nowaday being a professor,
8:23
Speaker 1: being a teacher's not cool. You know what I mean.
8:25
Speaker 1: It's a rapper, it's a it's a DJ, it's a
8:28
Speaker 1: basketball player. We don't really I don't really see young
8:32
Speaker 1: African American professors, and if I do, they're usually teaching jim. Yeah, Jim. Yeah,
8:37
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I mean that's you're right.
8:39
Speaker 1: I mean, you're right, you're right. You me. I went
8:42
Speaker 1: to a couple of high schools to speak, and a
8:44
Speaker 1: lot of the African American teachers were doing jim or
8:48
Speaker 1: what they're called physical education. Yeah, a lot of the
8:50
Speaker 1: Spanish teacher, I'm scaring it's a lot of Spanish teachers
8:52
Speaker 1: were doing guess what well I mean or what I mean.
8:54
Speaker 1: Rappers and DJs have a have a dope market cool
9:01
Speaker 1: you know, but this whatever, what do you speak? What
9:02
Speaker 1: do you teach Spanish? You know? Yeah? But you know,
9:08
Speaker 1: like the thing is, um, I think rappers and DJs
9:11
Speaker 1: have dope marketing plans, and I think in a lot
9:13
Speaker 1: of ways for academia, for professors, I am part of
9:16
Speaker 1: the new marketing plan. I am the new model. I
9:18
Speaker 1: think that a lot of times. And that's why I travel.
9:20
Speaker 1: I've been over forty countries. I travel all around this country,
9:23
Speaker 1: and I want young people to see me. That's why
9:25
Speaker 1: I wrote a memoir, not a novel, not something made up,
9:28
Speaker 1: a memoir. I want them to see me. Well, I
9:31
Speaker 1: got a soundtrack to you know what I'm saying. Oh yeah,
9:34
Speaker 1: the only professor passing out the mix tape for the
9:36
Speaker 1: last that class. That's actually one of my class. I
9:38
Speaker 1: teach a hip hop class where we look at the
9:40
Speaker 1: social political issues that affect hip hop, that hip hop
9:42
Speaker 1: was birth from. We look at the evolution of it,
9:44
Speaker 1: we look at the culture of it. We really study it,
9:46
Speaker 1: you know, analytically. But you know, one of the things
9:48
Speaker 1: I try to do, man is to let them see me.
9:50
Speaker 1: So if they could see what a professor could look like,
9:53
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It doesn't have to be
9:54
Speaker 1: some you know, um, some archaic thing that they have
9:58
Speaker 1: in their mind. It could be something new, It could
9:59
Speaker 1: be something fresh. Your professor could be a rapper, you
10:02
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Your professor could be a rapper
10:04
Speaker 1: and could be a writer, and could be a filmmaker,
10:06
Speaker 1: and could you know, we I think we live in
10:08
Speaker 1: a world now where we're out. We're out of these boxes, man, Like,
10:12
Speaker 1: you have to be multidimensional in this in this currency,
10:15
Speaker 1: in this environment. And so I think part of it,
10:17
Speaker 1: how do we get more you guys having me on?
10:20
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. That's that's part of it,
10:22
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, because they see like wow,
10:24
Speaker 1: Like there's so many people, young people that I've come
10:26
Speaker 1: in contact with, who I've changed their whole model, the
10:30
Speaker 1: whole blueprint because they're like, oh, wow, you could do that,
10:32
Speaker 1: and you could do I didn't even know I could
10:34
Speaker 1: do that and have access to these things and have
10:36
Speaker 1: the resources and take care of my family and be
10:38
Speaker 1: able to do all these you know. So it's really
10:40
Speaker 1: like showing them. That's the thing. I think our whole
10:42
Speaker 1: generation is about visuals, right Instagram, So we have to
10:46
Speaker 1: show right when you show, it makes it resonates. And
10:50
Speaker 1: I think right now, you know, people will probably say, well,
10:52
Speaker 1: he don't look like a professor, with a question you
10:53
Speaker 1: should be asking is what does a professor look like? Exactly?
10:56
Speaker 1: But you know what, but that's what most people think
10:57
Speaker 1: that I was thinking to myself when he was said
10:59
Speaker 1: he was a professor. I was like, damn, does he
11:00
Speaker 1: wear that T shirt and hat in class? Yeah? I
11:03
Speaker 1: think it would be dope, but definitely, But it was
11:05
Speaker 1: exactly how I dressed in class. You could ask all
11:07
Speaker 1: my students. I come in fitted, snapbacks, tims, whatever, because
11:12
Speaker 1: that's that's who I am, you know what I'm saying.
11:14
Speaker 1: And just you know, when you become whatever profession you are,
11:16
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean you take away who you are and
11:18
Speaker 1: your core essence. Because at the end of the day,
11:21
Speaker 1: that rebellious thirteen fourteen fifteen, sixteen year old that stole me, right,
11:25
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And so what I've done
11:27
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways is and that's what Buck
11:29
Speaker 1: really is about, that whole notion of Buck. Now I
11:32
Speaker 1: become a lot smarter. You know. I used to be,
11:34
Speaker 1: I think, a rebel without a cause, and now I'm
11:36
Speaker 1: a rebel with a purpose and a cause, you know
11:38
Speaker 1: what I mean. So the rebellion is still there. You know,
11:40
Speaker 1: I was in Baltimore. I was out there with him,
11:42
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like, that's part of my Yeah,
11:46
Speaker 1: I live in Baltimore and I live in Chapel Hill
11:48
Speaker 1: in North Carolina. What did you see out there as
11:49
Speaker 1: you were down there for the Baltimore rides because you brown,
11:52
Speaker 1: you blew up from cause. The reason I say that is,
11:55
Speaker 1: you know me and Charlemagne. Charlemagne believe he doesn't agree
11:59
Speaker 1: what he said. He stands with what I believe. You
12:03
Speaker 1: can't keep pushing somebody expect somebody not to push back.
12:06
Speaker 1: I may not agree with the riots, but understand why
12:07
Speaker 1: that happened. And I feel like a lot of times
12:09
Speaker 1: when we when we get those riots, we hurt ourselves.
12:11
Speaker 1: In the loan room, we heard our own community. We
12:13
Speaker 1: heard the stores and the places that we shot at
12:16
Speaker 1: that we you know, own or purchase or have to
12:20
Speaker 1: do with it. I think we kind of hurt ourselves
12:22
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, you know, you know,
12:23
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I hate to see
12:26
Speaker 1: us get arrested and get felonies on our record. And
12:28
Speaker 1: then when we try to get a job, we can't
12:29
Speaker 1: because of a mistake or something that we did, foolishness
12:33
Speaker 1: or that we shouldn't have done. But the problem is
12:35
Speaker 1: they can't get jobs right now anywhere regardless of that seat.
12:39
Speaker 1: What we saw in Baltimore was like we saw the
12:42
Speaker 1: crazy what happens when you underfund the school system. Right,
12:46
Speaker 1: when you invest in the prison industrial complex, right, when
12:51
Speaker 1: your schools are criminal, when you don't invest in the neighborhoods.
12:53
Speaker 1: We saw all these things coming out, and so we
12:56
Speaker 1: got destitute poverty in Baltimore, right, we got under development,
13:00
Speaker 1: We got, like I said, an educational system that takes
13:02
Speaker 1: money million, hundreds of millions out the school system every
13:05
Speaker 1: year and they put that money into prison industrial complex. Right.
13:08
Speaker 1: And so we see now the illustration of what happens
13:12
Speaker 1: when you do that to a community, when the community
13:14
Speaker 1: is constantly beat and beat and beat and oppressed and
13:17
Speaker 1: oppressed and oppressed. We see what happens. And so I'm
13:20
Speaker 1: actually surprised that it doesn't happen more often, you know,
13:22
Speaker 1: but every city in America has the potential to do that.
13:25
Speaker 1: We tore up our communities, but it's not communities we
13:29
Speaker 1: don't really, we don't own that we shot. It's where
13:33
Speaker 1: we we do the next time over, you know what
13:35
Speaker 1: we're not gonna be welcome to the next time over.
13:37
Speaker 1: And a lot of people can't drive it. But it
13:39
Speaker 1: seems like the things that they care about was they
13:41
Speaker 1: cared about them Baltimore orials. In that game, they made
13:44
Speaker 1: sure that stadium would say, oh yeah, and you really
13:46
Speaker 1: got a chance to see the classism in Baltimore and
13:48
Speaker 1: in America with with the I don't even car riots,
13:51
Speaker 1: I carm rebellions. And I feel like these peaceful protest
13:54
Speaker 1: I feel like these rebellions have been happening since sixteen nineteen,
13:57
Speaker 1: since black folks basically got here in America. Has been
14:00
Speaker 1: If you look at the history, it's cyclical. Every ten
14:03
Speaker 1: fifteen years, you see these huge what they call riots,
14:06
Speaker 1: what I call rebellions in the urban cities in America,
14:08
Speaker 1: and they always are related to race. And this is historically.
14:11
Speaker 1: You can go back to the eighteenth century, nineteenth century.
14:13
Speaker 1: You see these same things happening. Whether it's Miami or
14:16
Speaker 1: Philly or Cleveland or Detroit or la or Watts or
14:20
Speaker 1: you know, Baltimore, it's always the same thing Newark, right
14:23
Speaker 1: and so um. You know, for me, it's it's a
14:26
Speaker 1: continuation of that, you know what I mean. And you
14:28
Speaker 1: saw the classism because if you went to the harbor,
14:31
Speaker 1: you saw a whole different story like they had. That's
14:34
Speaker 1: when you saw the big guns, you know what I'm saying,
14:36
Speaker 1: the tanks and all of that. And you know, you
14:39
Speaker 1: you you know, whole foods. Nah, none of that happened
14:42
Speaker 1: in the whole They were protecting all of that, you
14:45
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So you know, they value we
14:47
Speaker 1: realize in the society that property is more valued valued
14:51
Speaker 1: than people life. Because they're talking about violence in Baltimore
14:55
Speaker 1: with the protesters, but actually the only violence really that
14:59
Speaker 1: we saw violence against Freddy Gray's. The media can make
15:03
Speaker 1: it seem like it's so bad to write. How about
15:06
Speaker 1: make it make it seem like it's so bad for
15:08
Speaker 1: police to kill to kill and all black men, I'll
15:10
Speaker 1: just kill people period all the time. And we just
15:13
Speaker 1: saw in Wisconsin he just you know, no charges, right Robinson?
15:18
Speaker 1: Ye ye Robinson. Now just a quick little segment um
15:24
Speaker 1: the girl needed in the book. Yeah, are you still
15:26
Speaker 1: smashing that? You just you just kind of let that
15:29
Speaker 1: go in the book. I just want to know. I'm like,
15:32
Speaker 1: what happened to get married? You know? I mean, I
15:35
Speaker 1: gotta say, you know, like any any brother out there
15:38
Speaker 1: that's doing this thing, shout out to the queen that's
15:40
Speaker 1: holding him down or you know, because that that's so
15:42
Speaker 1: important for me when I was young. This is bookaus
15:45
Speaker 1: a coming of age. So this is between the age
15:46
Speaker 1: of thirteen eighteen. When I was young, there was a
15:48
Speaker 1: girl named nia Um and she really helped me down.
15:51
Speaker 1: She actually helped deter me away from some of the negativity.
15:55
Speaker 1: She asked questions, She questioned me, you know what I mean,
15:57
Speaker 1: in ways that I hadn't really been questioned, you know,
15:59
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Like she really she showed me
16:02
Speaker 1: a different side, and I always appreciate that about her.
16:06
Speaker 1: We're not together, you know what I'm saying. That was
16:08
Speaker 1: a long time, but you got your life together and
16:10
Speaker 1: didn't go back to get her. I found I found
16:13
Speaker 1: somebody else later on, and like she found somebody else too.
16:16
Speaker 1: She's good. We're both good, you know what I mean.
16:18
Speaker 1: We're still I still my friend. She's a psychologist and
16:22
Speaker 1: she's for the Navy, and she's doing her thing. How'd
16:24
Speaker 1: your mom doing, Because you know the book you talk
16:26
Speaker 1: about your mom's mental health issues. Yeah. What I do
16:28
Speaker 1: in the book is I interspersed my mom's journal. I
16:30
Speaker 1: used to read my mom's diary back in the day.
16:32
Speaker 1: We didn't talk a lot. She's still alive. Yeah, my
16:34
Speaker 1: mom's still alive, and so I used to read her journal.
16:36
Speaker 1: And in the book, I actually put her actual journal
16:39
Speaker 1: entries in the book. So yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact,
16:42
Speaker 1: my mom it was her idea because she struggled so
16:45
Speaker 1: bad with severe mental health issues. She felt like the
16:48
Speaker 1: black community, we don't talk about depression and stuff enough,
16:51
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So she said, because she
16:53
Speaker 1: talks about depression, suicide, all this stuff in her journal entries,
16:56
Speaker 1: and she said, you know, when I was writing my book,
16:58
Speaker 1: she was like, you should use it because even though
17:00
Speaker 1: it's personal and I don't want like I don't want
17:02
Speaker 1: the world to know all my problems. He said, it
17:05
Speaker 1: might be helpful in starting a dialogue and creating a
17:07
Speaker 1: conversation because a lot of times were just like, oh,
17:09
Speaker 1: it's all good, it's all good, but it's really not
17:10
Speaker 1: all good, and we self medicate, but we don't really
17:13
Speaker 1: Like when I first started understanding about what mental health
17:16
Speaker 1: issues are, like all the different I realized that every
17:19
Speaker 1: single person I grew up with has a mental health issue.
17:22
Speaker 1: Absolutely everybody on the block. Yes, when you just pull
17:26
Speaker 1: out a gun and start shooting something that is clearly wrong,
17:28
Speaker 1: that it's clear and you know, we might be like
17:30
Speaker 1: yo school crazy man, Yo, Scoopy Wilding, but school really yeah,
17:35
Speaker 1: like he really start using the clinical terms stoops, really, bipolar,
17:40
Speaker 1: really psychopathic, really a sociopath you start doing. Yeah, so
17:46
Speaker 1: my mom is doing a lot better now. I realized
17:48
Speaker 1: that a lot of the things that me and my
17:50
Speaker 1: brother were doing just you know, we were wilding out.
17:52
Speaker 1: It kind of affected her. You know, depression is chemical
17:55
Speaker 1: and balanced, so it's not just what somebody does. But
17:58
Speaker 1: we were exacerbating the problem by some of the things
18:00
Speaker 1: we were doing, you know what I mean. So my
18:02
Speaker 1: mom's doing a lot better now. You know, you think
18:05
Speaker 1: your father left her because of the mental health issues
18:07
Speaker 1: or did they really just grow apart? Um Man, I
18:10
Speaker 1: think like he doesn't really understand mental health. You know,
18:13
Speaker 1: I think some people in our community we still don't
18:15
Speaker 1: really we like just snap out of it, you know
18:17
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, But we don't really Yeah, yeah, it's'm
18:20
Speaker 1: acting crazy, but we don't really understand. So I don't
18:22
Speaker 1: think he understands like the gravity of the situation, you
18:25
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Um, you know, it's it's always
18:29
Speaker 1: been turbulent my whole life, so right now, you know
18:31
Speaker 1: what I mean, It's it's pretty much we don't really
18:34
Speaker 1: have it's not really popping you gotta be proud of
18:37
Speaker 1: you know, because I mean in a lot of ways.
18:38
Speaker 1: When I see you now and read about how he
18:40
Speaker 1: was in the book, you are him. Yeah to me, yeah,
18:43
Speaker 1: well no, I mean pro black, very conscious, you know
18:46
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Well, yeah, and that's that's a lot
18:48
Speaker 1: to do with my mom too. Like my mom, I mean,
18:50
Speaker 1: both of my parents. They I was born in Zimbabwe,
18:52
Speaker 1: like my parents. You know how at the end of
18:54
Speaker 1: Belly nas is like, yo, we should move to Africa.
18:57
Speaker 1: My parents actually did that. My parents are from America.
19:01
Speaker 1: They way before Belly decided to move to Africa. They
19:04
Speaker 1: change their names. So I was born in Zimbabwe and
19:07
Speaker 1: Hori Zimbabwe, you know what I mean, during the revolution,
19:10
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And so then they eventually
19:12
Speaker 1: moved back, and then I grew up in Philly. You
19:14
Speaker 1: know Philly is like from age three on, I was
19:17
Speaker 1: in Philly. But so they they both instilled that in me.
19:21
Speaker 1: So I always had that, you know what I mean.
19:23
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know, I think with me and him,
19:26
Speaker 1: I think the thing about life is you never can
19:28
Speaker 1: really judge a man until he's in the grave. You
19:30
Speaker 1: really don't know how things are gonna happen. I didn't
19:32
Speaker 1: know I was gonna be here, and I used to
19:34
Speaker 1: see my book right in the back over here. You
19:36
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Yeah, I gotta go on there
19:38
Speaker 1: one day, man, But you never really know what's gonna
19:40
Speaker 1: happen in life. So with that situation, I just try
19:42
Speaker 1: to do it day by day, you know what I mean.
19:44
Speaker 1: And you know, I think we both with all of
19:46
Speaker 1: our parents, we try to be better than they were,
19:49
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, And you see their weaknesses,
19:51
Speaker 1: you see their strengths, and you try to be better.
19:52
Speaker 1: And so that's what I'm trying to do, really doing
19:55
Speaker 1: with this soundtrack to Live Quality is doing everything. Man.
19:58
Speaker 1: This dude, he's a big part the book, just in
20:01
Speaker 1: the sense of when my transformation started to happen as
20:03
Speaker 1: a writer, as a thinker, as a person. I started
20:06
Speaker 1: that was around the time where Black Star was coming
20:08
Speaker 1: out and Raucus, and you know, I was hearing lines
20:11
Speaker 1: like at exactly which point do you start to realize
20:13
Speaker 1: that life without knowledge is death in disguise or lines
20:16
Speaker 1: like these cash drink champagne and toast death in pain,
20:19
Speaker 1: like slaves on the ship talking about who got the
20:21
Speaker 1: flyers chain? And that like I never heard someone rap
20:25
Speaker 1: like that, you know what I mean. I was always
20:26
Speaker 1: in the pocket and nas, but he took it to
20:29
Speaker 1: another level for me. And so the first song I
20:32
Speaker 1: ever did as a as a rap artist, as a
20:34
Speaker 1: hip hop artist, was called Gods in the Hood. Raz
20:36
Speaker 1: Cass reached out to me to live. Qualley was on
20:38
Speaker 1: the track, and that was my first song and we
20:42
Speaker 1: killed that John, you know what I'm saying. And so
20:43
Speaker 1: from there, me and Qualley developed a relationship. And when
20:47
Speaker 1: I told him, I wanted to do the soundtrack and
20:48
Speaker 1: send them some of the music I've been working on
20:50
Speaker 1: because I've been working on music because really, to me,
20:53
Speaker 1: like I want to I want to use all mediums,
20:55
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So to me, all of
20:57
Speaker 1: these things are languages. Like writing a book that's a language,
21:00
Speaker 1: making a movie that's a language, A poem is a language,
21:02
Speaker 1: all these different things. Music music is probably the most
21:05
Speaker 1: universal language. So when I told him, I sent him
21:07
Speaker 1: to music. Um. Actually he was selling the book this
21:11
Speaker 1: book on his website quality club dot com. He called
21:13
Speaker 1: me one day, was like, Yo, how much is the
21:15
Speaker 1: book that I we try to talking about the book.
21:16
Speaker 1: I'm like, actually, I got music. I sent him to
21:18
Speaker 1: music and he was like, Yo, like I gotta get on.
21:21
Speaker 1: It's like whatever. So his company, Javoti Media, is actually
21:24
Speaker 1: officially presenting the soundtrack. Um, he's been involved, like I
21:28
Speaker 1: mean every day, just you know, building strategic We were
21:31
Speaker 1: just in Baltimore. We went to a whole bunch of
21:33
Speaker 1: places in Baltimore. He was in the Community Reflection, Eternal barbershop,
21:36
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So he's just been a
21:38
Speaker 1: big part of like helping me, like shepherding me into
21:42
Speaker 1: hip hop, to the musical side of it. I wrote
21:44
Speaker 1: a book called It's Bigger Than hip Hop, which is, um,
21:47
Speaker 1: you know, used in hundreds of colleges and universities about
21:50
Speaker 1: about hip hop and you know, kind of like examining
21:52
Speaker 1: the social political aspects of it. But yeah, he's just
21:55
Speaker 1: been like he's been a big brother really in this
21:57
Speaker 1: whole situation. Bro. We appreciate you joining us, man, Yo,
22:00
Speaker 1: I appreciate y'all. Man, this is this is amazing. Man.
22:03
Speaker 1: Is it hard enough to smash any of the chicks
22:05
Speaker 1: that you're teaching? You know, It's it's not hard, man,
22:08
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. This discipline, man, discipline, man,
22:13
Speaker 1: you even get Man, they can get buck at mcare
22:17
Speaker 1: sci dot com, at Quality club dot Com, Amazon, Barnes
22:21
Speaker 1: and Nobles. It's a it's a best been on the
22:23
Speaker 1: best seller list for two years now. Um, it's available
22:27
Speaker 1: everywhere anywhere books are sold. Man, you know they can
22:30
Speaker 1: get the soundtrack Quality club dot Com, mcare Sciente dot
22:33
Speaker 1: Com is streaming on dj booth. Um, it's that okay, players,
22:38
Speaker 1: This is everywhere, man, but and it's free. And it's
22:41
Speaker 1: free and shout out to dupre Miller. Jam Man, you
22:46
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying My people too. That's MKA and
22:50
Speaker 1: Sign is the Breakfast Club. Goodbody