Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Vic Mensa Talks New Show, New Album, Fatherhood, Independent Artistry, Sobriety, Controversies + More

Transcript

INTERVIEW: Vic Mensa Talks New Show, New Album, Fatherhood, Independent Artistry, Sobriety, Controversies + More · The Breakfast Club

0:01
Speaker 1: Wake you up.
0:02
Speaker 2: Wake up, program your alarm to power one oh five
0:05
Speaker 2: point one on iHeartRadio.
0:09
Speaker 3: Every day up, wake, wake your ass up. The breakfast Club.
0:13
Speaker 4: You don't finish for y'all, dumpy morning.
0:16
Speaker 5: Everybody is the DJ Envy just hilarious. Charlamagne and the
0:19
Speaker 5: God we are the breakfast Club. Long the roses here
0:21
Speaker 5: as well. We got a special guest in the building.
0:23
Speaker 4: We have big men.
0:25
Speaker 3: Indeed, yeah, blessed man.
0:27
Speaker 4: See, how's everything good?
0:29
Speaker 3: Everything's blessed?
0:29
Speaker 4: Good good good.
0:30
Speaker 2: Game is in no vitamin see we got an o
0:33
Speaker 2: orange tree.
0:37
Speaker 3: Almost every day? Man, okay, good? What is that in
0:43
Speaker 3: the videos?
0:43
Speaker 6: And you be picking like you really be picking to
0:45
Speaker 6: eat the like I do.
0:46
Speaker 7: Man, I feel like it keeps me from getting sick.
0:50
Speaker 7: And Loki pushed me to like start being vegetarian, like
0:52
Speaker 7: I went vegetarian vegan top of the year, just to
0:56
Speaker 7: be eating.
0:56
Speaker 8: So much fruit when the last time you was sick.
0:59
Speaker 3: Never, I never can say damn for real now I
1:02
Speaker 3: cap yeah right now was too clozy.
1:08
Speaker 1: Why an orange tree though? Like did the house you
1:11
Speaker 1: bought come with the tree?
1:11
Speaker 3: Already? You had a house I bought?
1:13
Speaker 1: Got you got you got, you got?
1:15
Speaker 3: But you know low KEI.
1:17
Speaker 7: My first song that really got to prominence was called
1:20
Speaker 7: Orange Soda. So it's like my first album had an
1:23
Speaker 7: orange theme. It was kind of like always within the
1:26
Speaker 7: DNA and my ship.
1:28
Speaker 2: I often wonder when I see you now, I'm like,
1:29
Speaker 2: who is the vic Mensa today? At the VIC Mensa
1:32
Speaker 2: from ten years ago wouldn't even recognize.
1:35
Speaker 7: Oh, man, you know, I'm not the same person at
1:37
Speaker 7: thirty three I was at twenty three at all.
1:40
Speaker 3: You know what I mean. I'm I'm releasing a new show.
1:42
Speaker 7: It's called a vic Missa Show on August twenty sixth,
1:45
Speaker 7: and I think a big thread of it is growth.
1:48
Speaker 7: I'm five years sober on September first graduation. Hey, thank
1:52
Speaker 7: you man. And you know, like I said, leaning into
1:56
Speaker 7: vegetarians my father, I think that's been a major shift.
1:59
Speaker 3: I see.
2:00
Speaker 7: That's why I was excited to see that you wrote
2:02
Speaker 7: this book. You know, having my son has been like
2:06
Speaker 7: one of the largest changes in my life obviously, and
2:09
Speaker 7: put so many things into priority and perspective. And I
2:13
Speaker 7: mean decisions are made before they even get presented to me. Now,
2:17
Speaker 7: you know, if it doesn't feed my family, then it's
2:19
Speaker 7: not of concern to me.
2:21
Speaker 4: They talk about being sober. Do you miss it at all?
2:23
Speaker 5: I know it's a lot of people sometimes where they
2:25
Speaker 5: might not miss the actual taste, but they missed the atmosphere.
2:28
Speaker 4: Do you miss it at all?
2:30
Speaker 7: I mean, you know, shit, I love alcohol, That's what
2:34
Speaker 7: I do. But I love clarity and focus more, you know.
2:39
Speaker 7: And I think in time like I've fallen in love
2:42
Speaker 7: with discipline too. Like I don't feel right if I
2:45
Speaker 7: don't hit the gym in the morning. I don't feel
2:48
Speaker 7: right if I don't meditate. I feel like I kind
2:50
Speaker 7: of replaced drugs and alcohol and shit with like meditation
2:54
Speaker 7: and fitness and that, you know, things like that.
2:57
Speaker 1: Or did you drink your choice?
3:00
Speaker 3: Man?
3:00
Speaker 7: First, my drinking choice was I used to have this
3:02
Speaker 7: thing in Chicago, the bumpy face.
3:04
Speaker 3: That's the secrets, you know what I'm saying as a child.
3:09
Speaker 7: Gin then like you know what it was like Bombay
3:13
Speaker 7: and Hendrix Gin and literally I like alcohol, So I.
3:17
Speaker 9: Was, you know, is one of the strongest spirits ever.
3:22
Speaker 1: You gotta be.
3:25
Speaker 3: Going on fighting demons. Pay that's a good argument.
3:37
Speaker 2: When when did you realize so many things you were
3:40
Speaker 2: calling living were really you slowly killing yourself?
3:43
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
3:45
Speaker 7: Man, I got in a terrible car crash right before
3:48
Speaker 7: I went sober, and it was like I was drunk
3:53
Speaker 7: on Molly. I had a dirty pistol in the car. Damn,
3:57
Speaker 7: I was going to prison, you know what I mean.
3:59
Speaker 7: I wasn't gonna be able to like frame my weight whatever.
4:03
Speaker 4: You know, you're the only one in the car.
4:04
Speaker 3: I was the only one in the car.
4:05
Speaker 7: And it's crazy because a week before that, I had
4:08
Speaker 7: been in the mosque for the first time, and I
4:11
Speaker 7: was going through it. I was like flat broke, less
4:14
Speaker 7: than flat broke. I had negative fifty thousand dollars because
4:16
Speaker 7: I had credit card debt.
4:17
Speaker 3: I had lost everything.
4:19
Speaker 7: I was driving my mom's Prius around the South side
4:22
Speaker 7: of Chicago, and the mom he was given what was
4:26
Speaker 7: called the cook box, like the sermon, and he was like, yo,
4:28
Speaker 7: it's two types of people in this world. It's people
4:31
Speaker 7: that's on the dean that means their relationships with their
4:33
Speaker 7: family is strong, the relationship with self is strong.
4:36
Speaker 3: And there's people that struggling.
4:37
Speaker 7: They struggling in the street, they struggling financially, they're struggling emotionally.
4:40
Speaker 3: I had a friend.
4:41
Speaker 7: Trying to kill me at the time because I was
4:44
Speaker 7: doing dumb shit hustling, you know what I mean, trying
4:46
Speaker 7: to put a couple of dollars together. And that was
4:50
Speaker 7: like my first time praying. I didn't grow up religious,
4:55
Speaker 7: and that was my first time praying because I was like, look, God,
4:58
Speaker 7: you get me through this, you know what I mean,
5:00
Speaker 7: Like I'm gonna turn it around. And a week later,
5:03
Speaker 7: I got in that car crash, and you know, by
5:05
Speaker 7: the grace of God, I didn't go to prison and
5:08
Speaker 7: I didn't kill somebody. I didn't hurt myself. And so
5:11
Speaker 7: that's when I was like a cool you know. I
5:13
Speaker 7: stopped drinking, I stopped doing drugs. I start practicing Islam,
5:17
Speaker 7: you know what I mean. And that was like the moment.
5:20
Speaker 3: Though.
5:21
Speaker 1: So you weren't like an atheist or anything, right, were you?
5:24
Speaker 2: No?
5:24
Speaker 7: I wasn't an atheist, I would say. I mean, I
5:26
Speaker 7: grew up in church, but it was more of something
5:30
Speaker 7: for my family to like do on the weekends. Jesus
5:33
Speaker 7: Christ was not mentioned in my household. It wasn't like
5:37
Speaker 7: fear of hell, you know what I'm saying. Like these
5:40
Speaker 7: things weren't concepts that I was raised in. But I
5:44
Speaker 7: think I did kind of start to have a disdain
5:46
Speaker 7: for God and religion. At a certain point, I felt
5:50
Speaker 7: like the Western white Christianity was false and like forced
5:57
Speaker 7: upon me, and that gave me a disdain for really,
6:00
Speaker 7: you know, I think being in such a violent environment
6:01
Speaker 7: in Chicago and just like seeing what felt like so
6:05
Speaker 7: much godlessness pushed me away from it. But you know, shit,
6:09
Speaker 7: you go flat ass broke, you'd be like God.
6:21
Speaker 3: Any kind, but definitely one of those.
6:24
Speaker 2: I love these conversations because I always wondered, like, what
6:26
Speaker 2: did getting the healthier force you to confront getting a
6:29
Speaker 2: high allowed you to avoid?
6:32
Speaker 3: Man?
6:32
Speaker 7: I was in a twelve step program. Actually, in two
6:35
Speaker 7: thousand and nineteen, I was in a twelve step program
6:38
Speaker 7: called Slock, Sex.
6:39
Speaker 3: And Love Addicts Anonymous. And you know, it's like.
6:43
Speaker 7: You go through these twelve step programs and it makes
6:45
Speaker 7: you rigorously analyze all of your behaviors, all of your actions,
6:50
Speaker 7: and there's something called the Fearless Moral Inventories to four
6:55
Speaker 7: Step where you make an inventory of all the experiences
6:59
Speaker 7: that you know relate to the program you're and in
7:01
Speaker 7: your motivations. When I'm going through this shit and I'm
7:04
Speaker 7: like really looking at this, like sex addiction, which is
7:07
Speaker 7: intertwined with the drug addiction. It's intertwined with the alcoholism.
7:12
Speaker 7: All my motivations were validation seeking, All my motivations were escapism,
7:18
Speaker 7: Like all my motivations were just trying to get away
7:20
Speaker 7: from sadness. And being in that program, it made it
7:26
Speaker 7: harder for me to just keep perpetuating the same behavior
7:29
Speaker 7: because I was like, this is coming from a kind
7:31
Speaker 7: of like.
7:32
Speaker 3: Pitiful place, you know what I mean.
7:33
Speaker 7: It's like it's not empowerment, Like it's not genuine.
7:37
Speaker 3: Whatever I'm doing is like.
7:40
Speaker 7: You know, it's it's eating away at me and changing
7:45
Speaker 7: it around and coming to a place of discipline, coming
7:47
Speaker 7: to a place of sobriety, coming to a place of
7:49
Speaker 7: like uh, committed relationship. It low key felt boring as
7:57
Speaker 7: fuck at times, Like at first. Now I learned about
8:01
Speaker 7: this concept called anhedonia. It's the inability to experience pleasure.
8:06
Speaker 7: And so basically like thrill seekers niggas is always jumping
8:09
Speaker 7: out of planes like me, I love fucking skydiving.
8:12
Speaker 3: You know, you work your your brain's.
8:13
Speaker 7: Pleasure receptors so deeply, like you overwork them, and you
8:18
Speaker 7: have to like allow your body time to renew, you
8:22
Speaker 7: know what I mean? To be able to find joy
8:23
Speaker 7: and the simple things of life, you know, being a parent,
8:27
Speaker 7: Like there's.
8:28
Speaker 3: Nothing more joyful, you know what I mean?
8:30
Speaker 7: A lot of ship I was doing, or I considered
8:32
Speaker 7: to be fun, was like the absence of joy.
8:35
Speaker 3: Though it would take, it would steal my joy.
8:37
Speaker 4: Are you still that way? Are you still jumping out
8:39
Speaker 4: of planes even even though you have your.
8:42
Speaker 7: Riding my motorcycle ship? I used to ride a motorcycle
8:44
Speaker 7: all the day on time. That was like my main
8:46
Speaker 7: mode of transportation. I just left it at my old crib.
8:49
Speaker 7: They still be calling me, like, then you.
8:53
Speaker 10: Do the jump off the car thing with the guitar
8:54
Speaker 10: at one point up the plane with the guitar.
8:58
Speaker 6: It was to promote some music or something.
9:00
Speaker 7: Remember I was like Scott died, you know with the guitar,
9:05
Speaker 7: crazy thrill around.
9:06
Speaker 3: You didn't do that kind of ship with a kid,
9:09
Speaker 3: Like what if my parachute? Exactly?
9:11
Speaker 4: I did it one.
9:11
Speaker 5: I did it one time, and when I had two kids,
9:14
Speaker 5: my first two kids, And then I started looking at
9:17
Speaker 5: videos of people not making it, like the parachute not
9:20
Speaker 5: opening the power lines them.
9:22
Speaker 4: This that and the other.
9:22
Speaker 5: But you start power you start seeing like nah, I
9:25
Speaker 5: never did it again.
9:26
Speaker 9: Well, when you see remember the video a few months
9:29
Speaker 9: ago where they just threw the girl down, like didn't
9:31
Speaker 9: even check put a parachute on her anything.
9:34
Speaker 8: I don't know if you saw that, you've seen that ship.
9:36
Speaker 8: It was like what happened? I think it was like
9:37
Speaker 8: what were jumping off the cliff that.
9:39
Speaker 9: She was thrilled seeking bungee jumping or whatever, but they
9:42
Speaker 9: forgot to put her parachute on and to attach her
9:45
Speaker 9: to the line.
9:46
Speaker 8: Then when they pushed off, like basically and and and
9:51
Speaker 8: she got damn.
9:53
Speaker 3: Yes, it's on camera.
9:55
Speaker 9: Literally it was all over the place. But yeah, now
10:00
Speaker 9: real quick, I'm sorry. You know I love music.
10:03
Speaker 8: I love I even acted with you in Rome. We
10:05
Speaker 8: did the Roial episode three. Yeah, what happened on the Shy?
10:09
Speaker 5: She'd been asking this week straight was as soon as
10:11
Speaker 5: your name was on the motherfucking Oh.
10:14
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm asking about Jamal. What happened to jam.
10:17
Speaker 3: On the moved away? He went somewhere, okay, because.
10:20
Speaker 8: You got married to her character and the Shy and
10:24
Speaker 8: then you just left.
10:25
Speaker 7: Your sister, like abandoned my family, abandoned.
10:29
Speaker 8: The first time came over, Jail turned.
10:31
Speaker 3: Like I just can't stop a bed in his family. Man, yeah, then.
10:34
Speaker 9: You almost died because we know we saw what's the
10:37
Speaker 9: name Alicia, she shot you or whatever, but you made it,
10:40
Speaker 9: made it through and then god damn and then got married.
10:43
Speaker 3: Stepped over me.
10:44
Speaker 8: And I know Bart definitely stepped over here.
10:47
Speaker 3: Crazy, didn't even give a fuck, didn't give a fuck.
10:49
Speaker 7: He just had his daughter ass and just right, thank you, Like, yeah, man,
10:55
Speaker 7: I'm something. I'm probably living in Gary, Indiana or something.
10:58
Speaker 7: They had me move away.
11:00
Speaker 8: Okay, because I'm like, damn, how you.
11:01
Speaker 3: Leave your sister again? You know it wasn't me.
11:05
Speaker 9: Though, Well okay, all right, I know I did.
11:08
Speaker 8: I'd be looking at everybody like this is their real life? Okay, cool,
11:11
Speaker 8: all right, good?
11:12
Speaker 9: But do you feel like, since we're on the subject
11:14
Speaker 9: of the shot, do you feel like that was a
11:17
Speaker 9: great way to depict the city, Like how is that
11:21
Speaker 9: how the South Side of Chicago is?
11:23
Speaker 7: Or you know, I think The Shy first of all,
11:26
Speaker 7: needs to be applauded for being one of the longest,
11:29
Speaker 7: the longest running black show like on television, one of
11:33
Speaker 7: my favorites eight seasons like shout out to lean Away,
11:36
Speaker 7: just in the whole team, like all the act and
11:38
Speaker 7: all all the cast producers they killed that.
11:41
Speaker 1: They was like the longest running drama or something like that, something.
11:44
Speaker 7: Like that, and some like Real Accolade eight seasons. You know,
11:48
Speaker 7: so clearly like struck an emotional chord with the people.
11:52
Speaker 7: Chicago South Side is it's a complex place, but I
11:55
Speaker 7: think there's a lot of truth depicted in the Shy. Obviously,
11:59
Speaker 7: we know the Chicago go is most often associated with
12:03
Speaker 7: gang banging and violence. What Lena was very intentional about
12:09
Speaker 7: doing and Shy is like painting an empathetic human.
12:12
Speaker 3: Picture of the city.
12:14
Speaker 7: I mean, we know that Chicago ain't so different from
12:18
Speaker 7: New York City or Baltimore, Like these are the realities
12:22
Speaker 7: of the black community. But you'll never find a black
12:25
Speaker 7: community where that's the sole reality of it, where people
12:28
Speaker 7: ain't loving, where people ain't like LGBTQ, where people ain't
12:35
Speaker 7: building businesses and.
12:37
Speaker 3: Coming up and falling off and going.
12:39
Speaker 9: Yeah, corruption of politics, like it's always a bunch of
12:42
Speaker 9: It's complex.
12:42
Speaker 3: It's human.
12:43
Speaker 7: That's why the Shy is so dope. It's because it
12:45
Speaker 7: doesn't paint the city with like a binary brush. It's like, yo,
12:49
Speaker 7: these are human beings, they are just living life. I
12:53
Speaker 7: go to Paris sometimes and like people all stop me
12:56
Speaker 7: and bestros and shit and be like we.
12:59
Speaker 3: Love this shot, you know, because it's just it's just.
13:04
Speaker 7: A human story, you know. And what I love about
13:07
Speaker 7: that too, for it to be on TV for so long,
13:09
Speaker 7: is that it does show that our stories relate to
13:16
Speaker 7: all audiences. We try to they try to pigeonhole black
13:19
Speaker 7: stories to be like, yo, this is a niche you know,
13:22
Speaker 7: it's a niche audience. It's like, nah, man, Like our
13:24
Speaker 7: stories relate to fucking everybody.
13:28
Speaker 2: Chicago has produced with dope ass artists. We know that, right,
13:30
Speaker 2: But like you said, it's also a city and it's
13:33
Speaker 2: produced a lot of trauma, right For how much of
13:35
Speaker 2: your ambition came from wanting to represent Chicago and how
13:40
Speaker 2: much came from wanting to escape it?
13:42
Speaker 3: Man, to escape it? You know, I didn't really think
13:46
Speaker 3: about escaping Chicago maybe until like.
13:52
Speaker 7: Around the time I start to consider like having a family, Like,
13:55
Speaker 7: I wasn't thinking about escaping Chicago. Chicago has given me
13:59
Speaker 7: so much, and so I'm super grateful for the way
14:04
Speaker 7: that people put their arm around me and like uplifted
14:07
Speaker 7: me from a child.
14:08
Speaker 3: It was like older artists and.
14:13
Speaker 7: People their own businesses shoe stores, my Man Brian and
14:16
Speaker 7: Autumn Soulmates and Corey Gilkey at Leaders and Joe fresh Goods.
14:20
Speaker 7: You don't know if y'all know about him, but Joe
14:23
Speaker 7: Freshcoods is like all of our big brother you know.
14:26
Speaker 7: I mean, I remember being thirteen years old and coming
14:28
Speaker 7: into the store where Fresh Goods worked Leaders at the time,
14:33
Speaker 7: and like I thought, I had got my my girlfriend pregnant, you.
14:38
Speaker 3: Know, and he was like, I couldn't buy Plan B.
14:41
Speaker 3: You know what I mean. Fresh Goods brought me the
14:42
Speaker 3: Plan B.
14:43
Speaker 7: You know what I mean, Like these people all poured
14:46
Speaker 7: into me and like really believed and pushed me. So
14:51
Speaker 7: escaping Chicago wasn't really on my mind in the same way.
14:55
Speaker 7: And also I come from I come from like a
15:00
Speaker 7: community on the Cusp. It's called Hyde Park, so it's
15:04
Speaker 7: like it's really an enclave in the south Side. It's
15:07
Speaker 7: two blocks from the Honorable Minster Lewis Farrakahn's house, a
15:12
Speaker 7: handful of blocks from Obama's house, also across the street
15:15
Speaker 7: from Section eight, and maybe five blocks from like a
15:19
Speaker 7: pretty notorious project building called Fox six. But I say
15:23
Speaker 7: all that to say, like I wasn't in abject poverty
15:26
Speaker 7: where I'm like, I must escape. But the years start
15:30
Speaker 7: passing though, and just lose so many people that when
15:35
Speaker 7: I started to like consider having a family, and then
15:39
Speaker 7: my son became a reality, all that shit I used
15:42
Speaker 7: to fantasize of all my son to be a Chicago
15:45
Speaker 7: niggas like the other woman was to be a nigga
15:47
Speaker 7: likes not the way I think about my real son now,
15:54
Speaker 7: Like safety and peace are the things that matter most
15:57
Speaker 7: for me.
15:57
Speaker 5: You know, miss it at all though, because it's outside
16:00
Speaker 5: of that, Like Chicago's a beautiful place.
16:02
Speaker 4: Restaurants, the shopping, the dance.
16:05
Speaker 1: Chicago, Chicago at all.
16:09
Speaker 7: You know, I'm in Chicago all the time. Like I
16:11
Speaker 7: got businesses in Chicago. Ninety three Boys is a cannabis
16:15
Speaker 7: business that I found. Is the first black owned legal
16:18
Speaker 7: cannabis business in Chicago. So we've been doing that about
16:20
Speaker 7: five years now. So a month doesn't pass when I'm
16:24
Speaker 7: not in Chicago because I'm they're doing work. My parents
16:27
Speaker 7: are in Chicago, so I'm always home. But you know
16:31
Speaker 7: how it is when like you got kids too, I
16:33
Speaker 7: can't be gone long. She's damned mad at me right
16:36
Speaker 7: now because it's been it's been a few days in
16:39
Speaker 7: a row, you know, and my son is so young
16:42
Speaker 7: that it's like a lot can happen in a couple
16:47
Speaker 7: of weeks time. So I'm in Chicago a lot too
16:50
Speaker 7: much to really miss it. You know, it's true too.
16:54
Speaker 8: Oh okay, yeah, I see why she like gets your
16:57
Speaker 8: ass here?
16:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, and wow, Lott.
16:59
Speaker 8: No, I'm a soldiers over here. Need you come back there?
17:02
Speaker 2: Come?
17:03
Speaker 3: And he didn't bust my nose, you know what I mean?
17:06
Speaker 3: Like he wild. I gotta keep eyes on him, like man,
17:10
Speaker 3: just like he had but the ship out of.
17:16
Speaker 7: My friend told me his son did the same thing,
17:19
Speaker 7: and like or maybe his daughter, and you know, girls,
17:22
Speaker 7: it's just more empathetic. You know, his daughter was she
17:25
Speaker 7: was sad that she busts his nose. I was like, man,
17:27
Speaker 7: my son was happy.
17:29
Speaker 9: What's the challenging part of fatherhood that nobody prepared you for?
17:33
Speaker 7: Man, I think the challenging part of fatherhood is a
17:36
Speaker 7: nervous system regulation having to be emotionally regulated in the
17:44
Speaker 7: midst of like the crying baby and the way that
17:47
Speaker 7: that's impacting, uh Melanie, and the way that you know,
17:51
Speaker 7: the dog.
17:53
Speaker 3: Is exacerbating the situation.
17:56
Speaker 7: And I really do make an for daily to be
18:02
Speaker 7: the cool head, you know, because like I can't have
18:05
Speaker 7: a tantrum with him, like I can't respond to his
18:09
Speaker 7: like tantrum with my own, you know. So that's why
18:12
Speaker 7: I get up mad early. I get up at four
18:14
Speaker 7: point thirty. I be in a gym at five, workout
18:18
Speaker 7: till six, do like a meditation thing before I even
18:21
Speaker 7: wake him up, because I'm like, you're in a while out.
18:24
Speaker 3: I gotta be regulated, you know.
18:27
Speaker 2: Emotional regulation is so important, not even just in fatherhood
18:30
Speaker 2: but just in general, right, And I think about that
18:32
Speaker 2: with all of us, because you can be mad about
18:34
Speaker 2: something and take it straight through your platform and project
18:38
Speaker 2: that hurt or that ain't good or that pain onto
18:42
Speaker 2: other people. So you think about emotional regulation before you
18:44
Speaker 2: pick the orange and run.
18:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do.
18:51
Speaker 7: I definitely do, man, you know, I try to. I
18:55
Speaker 7: try to make sure that I'm being guided by like
18:58
Speaker 7: a genuine inspiration to add something of value. I do
19:05
Speaker 7: try to make sure that I'm guided by that. And
19:09
Speaker 7: you know, I tell my little baby all the time.
19:11
Speaker 3: Man.
19:12
Speaker 7: It's like, on the subject of emotional regulation, the only
19:15
Speaker 7: thing that will ever change is how you respond to
19:18
Speaker 7: the world. The world ain't gonna change, you know what
19:20
Speaker 7: I mean. Like Nigg's never gonna stop testing you. They're
19:23
Speaker 7: never gonna stop pissing you off. It's never gonna stop
19:25
Speaker 7: being events that happen on a daily basis that can.
19:29
Speaker 3: Push you off your square.
19:30
Speaker 7: The only thing that can't evolve is how resistant you are,
19:35
Speaker 7: how not even resistant, but.
19:37
Speaker 3: How like water to it you can be, how much you.
19:40
Speaker 7: Can not respond, Bruce Lee, be like water man, Like
19:44
Speaker 7: I think about that ship all the time.
19:47
Speaker 1: How is becoming a father changed your definition of being
19:49
Speaker 1: a man?
19:52
Speaker 7: I was telling my guy yesterday that one thing that
19:56
Speaker 7: changed a lot for me in being a father is
20:01
Speaker 7: the nature of friendships, you know what I mean? Like
20:05
Speaker 7: I got love for all my friends. I got a
20:07
Speaker 7: like tight knit friend group really that all been solid
20:11
Speaker 7: since we were kids twenty years ago, like me and
20:14
Speaker 7: Chance and all of our guys. But it be times
20:17
Speaker 7: when you know, certain things go left and friendships go left,
20:22
Speaker 7: and I'm like, man, having a family to provide for
20:25
Speaker 7: and having a kid to provide for.
20:26
Speaker 3: I'm like, bro, that shit just don't matter to me.
20:28
Speaker 7: Like if if somebody that I love is not on
20:32
Speaker 7: the on the right page, something that I think is
20:35
Speaker 7: like an honorable way to be a man. Then it's like,
20:38
Speaker 7: I don't I don't even want to litigate it anymore.
20:40
Speaker 7: I don't even care to really discuss it because I'm like, man,
20:43
Speaker 7: I just have more important things, like people relying on me,
20:48
Speaker 7: you know what I mean?
20:49
Speaker 5: How do you make sure that your trauma and everything
20:51
Speaker 5: that you dealt with does not go into how you
20:53
Speaker 5: parent your son?
20:54
Speaker 3: That's the biggest fucking thing, man. That's that.
20:57
Speaker 7: And that's why I think what necessitates growth and why
21:02
Speaker 7: I'm always scanning myself to see am I growing?
21:08
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
21:08
Speaker 7: Am I evolving from the ways that I've been because
21:10
Speaker 7: y'all see me in a lot of different ways, you
21:13
Speaker 7: know what I mean, y'all y'all see me in a lot.
21:15
Speaker 3: Of different ways.
21:16
Speaker 7: And I recognize though that I can't pass my faults
21:21
Speaker 7: and flaws onto my son. I have to make an
21:23
Speaker 7: effort not to anything that I don't transmute, anything I
21:27
Speaker 7: don't heal is he's one hundred percent picking up. So
21:31
Speaker 7: if I'm short tempered, you know what I mean, if
21:33
Speaker 7: I'm like loose tongues, if I'm doubtful, like if I
21:40
Speaker 7: if I'm self critical anything like, hell, he'll inherit that,
21:45
Speaker 7: you know what I mean.
21:46
Speaker 3: So I don't allow.
21:47
Speaker 7: Myself to like express doubt in front of my son.
21:52
Speaker 7: Not that I wouldn't be vulnerable and I mean show emotion,
21:55
Speaker 7: but no, like, oh man, I'm no good at that,
21:59
Speaker 7: you know what I mean.
22:00
Speaker 3: You know, just I just didn't make it, you know
22:02
Speaker 3: what I mean.
22:02
Speaker 7: It's like I can't do that because I need my
22:05
Speaker 7: son to have different problems to me, like you'll have
22:08
Speaker 7: your own problems, but I pray you have different ones.
22:11
Speaker 10: But you perfected that though, were there times where you
22:13
Speaker 10: had to catch it and be like, oh son, I'm sorry,
22:16
Speaker 10: or like to yourself, be like I don't want that
22:18
Speaker 10: to happen. Like what was the experience trying to perfect
22:20
Speaker 10: getting to that point where you weren't Were you new
22:22
Speaker 10: to be accountable enough to not pass down certain things?
22:25
Speaker 3: Oh man, I mean shit, I'm far away from personal too.
22:28
Speaker 10: Yeah, but I mean this is new for you though,
22:31
Speaker 10: so I'm sure you're kind of like learning as you're going,
22:33
Speaker 10: Like what are those womens like where you don't get
22:34
Speaker 10: it right?
22:37
Speaker 3: You know? I think sometimes I have to catch myself
22:39
Speaker 3: in the moment.
22:40
Speaker 7: For sure, you know, and I'm so far from perfect,
22:42
Speaker 7: Like I never want to ever portray a perfect portray
22:46
Speaker 7: that I think of myself as perfect. I just know
22:48
Speaker 7: I try, like I try every day. I'm intentional about it.
22:52
Speaker 7: I stick to the routine, you know what I mean.
22:54
Speaker 7: It's like I wake the baby up real early. I
22:56
Speaker 7: stick to the routine. I'm really solid before. You know,
22:59
Speaker 7: that was a time though recently when I noticed That's
23:02
Speaker 7: why I got this. I ain't gonna promote them, but
23:04
Speaker 7: I got one of these things that like helps you
23:06
Speaker 7: regulate your sleep.
23:07
Speaker 6: My fringes got that.
23:08
Speaker 7: Wow, I help you regulate your sleep and like you
23:11
Speaker 7: could track your sleep. Because it was one day, man,
23:14
Speaker 7: when I was putting out a project or something, and
23:18
Speaker 7: so I'm working mad late every every day and I'm
23:23
Speaker 7: still getting up as early in the morning. So I
23:26
Speaker 7: wasn't getting to sleep, and I didn't make it to
23:29
Speaker 7: the gym. I didn't do the meditation before I woke
23:31
Speaker 7: the baby up. So the baby's having.
23:34
Speaker 3: A tantrum, the dog probably barking, and I'm trying to
23:39
Speaker 3: like put his his diapers on.
23:40
Speaker 7: I'm looking for something that that my my girl didn't
23:44
Speaker 7: put in the same place.
23:47
Speaker 3: And but I wasn't like.
23:49
Speaker 7: All z in and shit, why you ain't put you
23:53
Speaker 7: can't talk to her like that. It's not it's not
23:56
Speaker 7: going down from that, you know what I mean. So
23:58
Speaker 7: it's like, so she meets me with that same energy,
24:01
Speaker 7: and you know, and I don't win arguments with her.
24:05
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. It's not it's not really
24:07
Speaker 3: a thing like that's what.
24:08
Speaker 1: You just apologize.
24:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just apologize.
24:10
Speaker 7: I just shouldn't start them, but I did, you're saying,
24:13
Speaker 7: but I did notice that. I was like, oh, when
24:16
Speaker 7: I don't take care of like my emotional regulation, my routine,
24:22
Speaker 7: I get off my square and now I am arguing
24:26
Speaker 7: all in front of the baby. I'm like barking at her,
24:29
Speaker 7: Like I said, I know, I can't win no argument
24:31
Speaker 7: with her.
24:31
Speaker 8: Like who if you talking to you know what, IMMI, because.
24:35
Speaker 9: That's how you came up and why you ain't put
24:37
Speaker 9: the damn and yeah, and she ain't used to that. Yeah,
24:41
Speaker 9: she used to when you wake up at four thirty
24:42
Speaker 9: being a Jeffery five or six such your little meditation, now.
24:45
Speaker 8: You yeah, and then now you regulated.
24:50
Speaker 4: I'm sure she said, they don't pick your arms leaving
24:53
Speaker 4: that tree.
24:53
Speaker 8: Ain't working to day.
24:55
Speaker 2: I do wonder what you said about not telling your
24:58
Speaker 2: child like when you when you can't do something.
25:02
Speaker 3: I'm just not expressing fear to him and not expressing doubt.
25:06
Speaker 3: But is it self doubt.
25:07
Speaker 2: Isn't that that mask or that lack of vulnerability that
25:12
Speaker 2: the generations of men before us wouldn't display, Like, I
25:16
Speaker 2: think it's okay to show that vulnerability to your child
25:19
Speaker 2: and let them know you I get things wrong sometimes.
25:21
Speaker 7: I think it's absolutely necessary. I agree to show vulnerability
25:25
Speaker 7: to your child. I think I'm talking more about self
25:28
Speaker 7: doubt and self criticism. You know, we mentioned Bruce Lee earlier,
25:31
Speaker 7: you did. Bruce Lee famously said never say something negative
25:38
Speaker 7: about YOURSELFLF.
25:39
Speaker 3: I mean, it's of course.
25:40
Speaker 7: Completely human to admit times when you fell short or
25:46
Speaker 7: you know, I didn't I didn't, like I said, I
25:49
Speaker 7: didn't get it right that time, but to say, like
25:52
Speaker 7: to take it further, to be like, oh.
25:54
Speaker 3: I am not good at this, I mean, like you
26:00
Speaker 3: there right now.
26:00
Speaker 2: But my good sister Rachel Edwards, she always says, don't
26:03
Speaker 2: talk to my friend like that. So if you say,
26:05
Speaker 2: if you're saying like some negative criticism about yourself or
26:07
Speaker 2: you got some self that she'll be like, don't talk
26:09
Speaker 2: to my friend like that, And that always keeps that
26:11
Speaker 2: in perspective.
26:12
Speaker 7: You need them people around you too, like you need
26:15
Speaker 7: those people around you. It's gonna catch you when you
26:17
Speaker 7: do it, you know, because it's like one thing to
26:20
Speaker 7: think something negative about yourself, but.
26:22
Speaker 3: You really do have a decision about what you say, right,
26:25
Speaker 3: you know, right, Oh.
26:26
Speaker 8: My god, that is so true when you keep mentioning
26:28
Speaker 8: my book.
26:28
Speaker 9: When I was writing my book, right, I wrote my
26:30
Speaker 9: book by myself, but I had an editor, and so
26:33
Speaker 9: I was telling him I would get very upset when
26:35
Speaker 9: I couldn't do like an exercise. I couldn't get through
26:37
Speaker 9: an exercise because my brain and be all over the place.
26:39
Speaker 9: And I remember being on a FaceTime with him.
26:41
Speaker 8: We was editing.
26:42
Speaker 9: We was in chapter seven and I was like, fuck, yo,
26:44
Speaker 9: I'm the worst bitch ever. And he was like, what
26:47
Speaker 9: the fuck are excuse me, You're what And so I'm like, yo,
26:50
Speaker 9: I'm the worst bitch ever because I knew that answer
26:54
Speaker 9: because he had asked me like a several times and
26:58
Speaker 9: it wasn't until he gave me the answer. I was like,
27:00
Speaker 9: oh ship, I knew that the whole time, Charlomagne don't
27:02
Speaker 9: play with So it started pouring into me and immediately
27:07
Speaker 9: telling me like, yo, don't do that. Don't you're that
27:10
Speaker 9: this is extreme doubt on a whole nother level. All
27:13
Speaker 9: you did was didn't think too deeply about it because
27:16
Speaker 9: you got a whole bunch of it shit in your mind.
27:18
Speaker 9: Like just relaxed, deep breath and then you'll get it
27:20
Speaker 9: like it's not it's not that big of a deal.
27:22
Speaker 8: But yeah, that's that's, that's what that's.
27:24
Speaker 3: About, premise. I know you. I know you want to
27:28
Speaker 3: say that.
27:28
Speaker 2: Editor don't really know you, so I mean, you know,
27:32
Speaker 2: you know.
27:33
Speaker 9: I'm not the worst bit that was crazy anyway, So Vic,
27:39
Speaker 9: my book is it's a co parenting memoir or whatever.
27:42
Speaker 9: Right man, My my first son's dad, my first child's dad.
27:45
Speaker 9: We are best friends and it wasn't always that way,
27:48
Speaker 9: but after several attempts at a relationship, we realized like, yeah,
27:52
Speaker 9: we're not gonna be good together, but that doesn't mean
27:54
Speaker 9: that we can't be friends and raise our son, you know, effectively.
27:58
Speaker 1: So that's just what the book is.
27:59
Speaker 8: From chap the.
28:00
Speaker 9: One ten each is about each year of co parenting.
28:04
Speaker 8: Yeah, hardships and stuff like that.
28:06
Speaker 5: Now I want to ask you know you recently went
28:08
Speaker 5: independent on your music, right you left Rockmation. What was
28:12
Speaker 5: the decision to leave Rockmation and do it totally independent?
28:15
Speaker 5: Why did you want to take that route?
28:17
Speaker 3: You know, I've been making music a long time. Man.
28:19
Speaker 7: It's like, eventually you want to own the lion's share
28:22
Speaker 7: of your music. You want to own your masters. And
28:26
Speaker 7: the way the industry has evolved, streaming is such a
28:31
Speaker 7: minute calculation.
28:33
Speaker 3: It's like such a distant.
28:34
Speaker 7: Fraction from a dollar that like, if you don't have
28:39
Speaker 7: significant ownership over your music, is it's going to be
28:42
Speaker 7: difficult to like really see some money from it. And
28:47
Speaker 7: things are trending in an independent direction. It's taught me
28:50
Speaker 7: a lot, though, you know what I mean?
28:52
Speaker 3: What is it taught you? Man?
28:54
Speaker 7: I spent so much time filling out invoices, man, you
28:57
Speaker 7: know what I mean. I'm always feeling somebody invoice. But
29:03
Speaker 7: I'm actually grateful for it because now I'm cognizant of
29:07
Speaker 7: where the money's going, Like when it's being spent, I
29:11
Speaker 7: know how much it is. I can clock it when
29:15
Speaker 7: it's too much, like when you're inside of a label system.
29:19
Speaker 7: Oftentimes you don't have all of that transparency. You might
29:24
Speaker 7: not even realize that you need it, you know what
29:26
Speaker 7: I mean, Like you might kind of just toss the
29:28
Speaker 7: ball up and hope somebody Finn Alley oop the shit.
29:30
Speaker 3: You know what I mean. You'd be like, Damn, I didn't.
29:33
Speaker 7: Realize I overpaid like consistently and like significantly when doing
29:40
Speaker 7: these music videos, or when doing these marketing or this
29:43
Speaker 7: digital market and these ads. I mean, it's taught me
29:46
Speaker 7: about those things too. It's taught me about digital marketing,
29:49
Speaker 7: about the merch production, the video production. I went and
29:53
Speaker 7: got the camera when I start doing the Orange Tree shit.
29:56
Speaker 7: It made me lean into cinematography and like lenses and lighting.
30:01
Speaker 6: You shooting, edit all that yourself.
30:03
Speaker 3: For the most part.
30:03
Speaker 7: I have a friend named Sert shot my boy sirt Man.
30:07
Speaker 7: Cirt been helping me more recently, But most of it,
30:10
Speaker 7: I think I've done a significant part of it myself.
30:14
Speaker 8: You're really good at that.
30:16
Speaker 3: Yeah.
30:16
Speaker 2: I like what you said about we've seen different versions
30:19
Speaker 2: of you, right, yeah, So which version of VIC do
30:22
Speaker 2: you think people are still judging you by? And why
30:25
Speaker 2: do you think it's you in the Confederate flag dress,
30:27
Speaker 2: in the three years old.
30:30
Speaker 7: You know it had to happen, you know what I mean.
30:35
Speaker 7: Everybody don't need a podcast, Mike.
30:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.
30:41
Speaker 3: And by the way, I love Cam.
30:44
Speaker 7: I would love to have Cam on my new show,
30:45
Speaker 7: The Vic Mister Show, coming out August twenty sixth. We've
30:50
Speaker 7: talked about being five years so, but now on September first,
30:56
Speaker 7: just like how much I've grown at thirty three from
31:00
Speaker 7: twenty three or twenty six. And that's one of the
31:04
Speaker 7: things I try to illustrate in this show. I've done
31:06
Speaker 7: a lot of woldshit publicly across the board. I mean,
31:11
Speaker 7: my growth, my stumbles, my fuck ups, pretty much all
31:14
Speaker 7: of them been in public. Another thing I think, though,
31:18
Speaker 7: is that at a lot of times my messaging, whether
31:22
Speaker 7: it was effective, has been quite consistent. I mean, the
31:25
Speaker 7: things I stand for, the things I believe in. Even
31:28
Speaker 7: this conversation it starts because I really do believe in
31:31
Speaker 7: the collaboration of black people globally, like Malcolm did Or
31:36
Speaker 7: Martin Did, Angela Maya, Angelo, Marcus Garvey, our North Stars.
31:41
Speaker 7: They believed in our unity and that being how we
31:44
Speaker 7: really get free. One more thing I say, though, is
31:46
Speaker 7: that I actually love the lane in culture that exists
31:53
Speaker 7: for Cam and Mace and Budden and Joe and Jada,
31:58
Speaker 7: the elder statesman of hip hop to have a prominent,
32:01
Speaker 7: significant voice in the culture that they helped shape, Like
32:04
Speaker 7: you don't get to stumble in and comment on the
32:07
Speaker 7: NFL off the street, you know what I mean? And
32:10
Speaker 7: I think we got a culture that so often discards
32:12
Speaker 7: our elders that I love to see a place where
32:16
Speaker 7: these guys are still contributing on the mic, even if
32:20
Speaker 7: they don't want to make albums.
32:24
Speaker 10: Yeah, I'm saying here with with Cam and his comments
32:27
Speaker 10: back to you, right, what would your conversation be with him, Like,
32:29
Speaker 10: do you feel like he missed the point that you
32:31
Speaker 10: were trying to make in your video about the whole
32:33
Speaker 10: African not wanting to claiming African conversation.
32:35
Speaker 5: Well, at first he said that he felt that you
32:37
Speaker 5: misread what he was saying, that he was repeating what
32:39
Speaker 5: somebody said, and he thinks you took that out of context.
32:42
Speaker 3: That's where first was that the case?
32:45
Speaker 7: You know, I think sometimes we're not all having the
32:47
Speaker 7: same conversation, like nationality and ancestral origin and culture.
32:54
Speaker 3: These are all different things.
32:56
Speaker 7: I do see oftentimes that comments are made that back
33:00
Speaker 7: Americans have no culture.
33:01
Speaker 3: I mean that's just untrue.
33:03
Speaker 7: I mean, Black American culture is the most globally influential
33:07
Speaker 7: culture on the planet. Every corner of the planet is
33:11
Speaker 7: emulating Black American culture. And the truth is also that
33:17
Speaker 7: we've been fed an anti Black narrative on all sides
33:21
Speaker 7: as Black Americans people, we've been fed in anti African
33:24
Speaker 7: narrative as Africans. So often I see people fall into
33:29
Speaker 7: demeaning Black Americans because they think it's like their ticket
33:32
Speaker 7: to assimilation or proximity to whiteness, like all that should exists.
33:37
Speaker 3: I don't think any relationship.
33:40
Speaker 7: Of substance can be based on a lie, Like we
33:42
Speaker 7: can't brush none of that under the rug. It's all
33:45
Speaker 7: legitimate points of disagreement. But who does it benefit though
33:49
Speaker 7: for us to be separated is my big question, Like
33:53
Speaker 7: who makes the money from the disjointed African diaspora?
33:59
Speaker 3: People love the globe not being unified.
34:03
Speaker 2: And I do think we all generalize too much, right
34:05
Speaker 2: because if you listen to Cam's original comments, you can't
34:09
Speaker 2: make a broad generalization and say Native Africans do not
34:13
Speaker 2: genuinely embrace Black Americans. But there are a lot of
34:15
Speaker 2: Africans who do not embrace Black Americas.
34:17
Speaker 1: They look down on us. So I understood what Kam
34:20
Speaker 1: was saying, but it was just a broad generalization.
34:23
Speaker 7: I think a broad brushes is gonna miss detail every time.
34:27
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying, Man, I've been looking into
34:32
Speaker 7: some of the some of the knowledge, and like you know,
34:34
Speaker 7: these are a lot of type of things that I
34:36
Speaker 7: break down on my new show. There's a company called
34:39
Speaker 7: Geo Group. It's the largest private prison company in America,
34:44
Speaker 7: responsible for incarcerating thousands of black people here for a
34:47
Speaker 7: profit modern deck slavery. You know where Geogroup is also
34:51
Speaker 7: operating South Africa. They got thousands of beads and prison
34:56
Speaker 7: facilities incarcerating Black Africans on the continent for a profit.
35:01
Speaker 3: So it's like, Yo, we actually do share a lot.
35:03
Speaker 7: We share a literal common oppressive, we share a common enemy,
35:07
Speaker 7: and it benefits them for us to think we have
35:11
Speaker 7: no common ground.
35:12
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
35:13
Speaker 2: I do want to talk about the three Year Sober
35:15
Speaker 2: video though, because now it's a good time to just
35:17
Speaker 2: expound on it. You said that you it was a
35:19
Speaker 2: middle finger to a symbol of racism.
35:22
Speaker 1: Do you think people actually got the message or didn't
35:24
Speaker 1: get lost in the.
35:24
Speaker 7: Shot guy, Oh yeah, nobody got the message. It was
35:30
Speaker 7: an interesting way to come come at the message. You know,
35:33
Speaker 7: it was a lot of drug.
35:34
Speaker 1: It was okay, okay, okay, you were high.
35:37
Speaker 3: That was high, and it.
35:38
Speaker 8: Was like it was like a play on the two
35:40
Speaker 8: long food as well.
35:43
Speaker 7: You know, it was from the movie Too Long Fool.
35:46
Speaker 7: And you know, I meant for it to be a
35:47
Speaker 7: political statement of middle finger to a symbol of a
35:50
Speaker 7: and also like a statement of support for LGBTQ communities,
35:56
Speaker 7: but it was it was a strange way to come
35:58
Speaker 7: at it, you know, like.
36:00
Speaker 8: Lump three concepts that you know, you know.
36:08
Speaker 10: But that's why I think what you're doing with the
36:10
Speaker 10: with the videos you post now is like it's more
36:13
Speaker 10: clear and direct, like we can get the you.
36:16
Speaker 1: Don't want to see that as funny as hell?
36:18
Speaker 2: You put the dressing like I'm yea, look at me, like,
36:20
Speaker 2: why would you do that?
36:26
Speaker 1: Why did dress to put the solidarity to show too
36:29
Speaker 1: long fun?
36:30
Speaker 3: It was punk rock, That's what that's what I chalked
36:32
Speaker 3: it up to be.
36:33
Speaker 7: But like you said, like you said that, you know,
36:36
Speaker 7: clarity of messaging is something that has come to me
36:40
Speaker 7: in time.
36:41
Speaker 1: I honest, I never saw that video. Tell Cam said,
36:44
Speaker 1: I'm not even joking.
36:45
Speaker 2: When Cam showed, what the hell I've never seen that
36:49
Speaker 2: three years sold video, I'm like, what was Big doing?
36:52
Speaker 10: Then?
36:52
Speaker 1: In my mind like is that AI?
36:54
Speaker 2: And then I just kind of dismissed it because I'm
36:55
Speaker 2: just like, you know what, I like him picking arns
36:57
Speaker 2: just so I don't even want to.
36:58
Speaker 10: Think about that didn't move anything forward because you were
37:01
Speaker 10: trying to talk about a lot. It was like birth
37:04
Speaker 10: control stuff, right, it was like LGBT.
37:06
Speaker 6: That's what I thought, by the.
37:14
Speaker 10: Way, But you also, do you still want to stay
37:16
Speaker 10: on a camera brook something else? You also the Megda
37:20
Speaker 10: Stallion conversation you had sparked a lot of conversation around
37:23
Speaker 10: you defending her, and you said that Megda Stallion was
37:26
Speaker 10: the barometer, a good barometer of what people think about
37:29
Speaker 10: black women, and that sparked the conversation there. Let's talk
37:34
Speaker 10: a bit about because you know, on one side, there
37:36
Speaker 10: are people that will say he's right, let's have the conversation.
37:38
Speaker 10: On the other side, there are people there are people
37:40
Speaker 10: that will say that don't believe Megda Sallion or just
37:43
Speaker 10: feel like there's things that happen where it's like she
37:46
Speaker 10: should take accountability in certain situations. How do you have
37:50
Speaker 10: the conversation with people who are pushing back against you.
37:54
Speaker 7: One of the reasons why I wanted to start this
37:56
Speaker 7: show is to have a space for nuanced conversation. I
37:59
Speaker 7: think that that's something that's often lost in the short
38:03
Speaker 7: form content, is to be able to give the detail
38:09
Speaker 7: in the context to complex issues.
38:13
Speaker 3: You know.
38:13
Speaker 7: When I was talking about the mag Stallion essay that
38:19
Speaker 7: I wrote also in the video essay, it was more
38:23
Speaker 7: about the double standards that exist in hip hop. I
38:26
Speaker 7: mean in the ways that like a male artist can
38:31
Speaker 7: not only shoot a motherfucker in broad daylight and blow
38:35
Speaker 7: up from it, but even get shot and be like applauded.
38:39
Speaker 7: But like, man, that nigga rock solid, you know what
38:41
Speaker 7: I mean, he's super tough, you know, But that doesn't
38:47
Speaker 7: seem to be extended to a female artist in hip hop.
38:52
Speaker 3: It seems like there's much more scrutiny, you know.
38:55
Speaker 7: I was even thinking about in their Jannet Jackson situation,
38:59
Speaker 7: like it seems like things can you know, derail a
39:02
Speaker 7: super Bowl, derail a women's public image that made that
39:07
Speaker 7: they actually had no uh like faulting, and I think
39:13
Speaker 7: people can analyze the court case in every single way
39:17
Speaker 7: that they want to, and that was never really my point.
39:19
Speaker 7: My point was just to shed light on the different
39:24
Speaker 7: ways that we treat the actions of male artists and
39:29
Speaker 7: the actions of female artists.
39:31
Speaker 10: Do you think that that conversation, because I know you
39:32
Speaker 10: also mentioned Young Miami spend that too, or people started
39:35
Speaker 10: bringing that conversation into it as well.
39:36
Speaker 7: Yeah, because I said, that's like the Founding Father's theme song,
39:40
Speaker 7: were all my scamming ass negga, that's an American record,
39:44
Speaker 7: you know what I mean?
39:46
Speaker 3: You know, shit, hip hop is a reflection of the
39:48
Speaker 3: world we live in.
39:49
Speaker 7: So oftentimes we act like hip hop is coming up
39:53
Speaker 7: with the toxic, corrosive ideas, This is America, bro artist.
39:58
Speaker 1: A reflection of life.
39:59
Speaker 2: No, I don't think there's been an art form that
40:00
Speaker 2: has reflected America better than hip hop than hip hop.
40:03
Speaker 2: America is built on the theft of the land, the
40:06
Speaker 2: theft of the labor, theft of the people, false contracts, scamming,
40:11
Speaker 2: you know, like Young Miami didn't come up with it,
40:14
Speaker 2: George Washington did.
40:18
Speaker 10: I was asking, do you think will ever get to
40:20
Speaker 10: a place in hip hop where that's not the case
40:21
Speaker 10: for women.
40:23
Speaker 7: I mean in that regard to hip hop is definitely
40:26
Speaker 7: just reflection of America in the world we live in,
40:28
Speaker 7: you know.
40:29
Speaker 3: What I'm saying.
40:29
Speaker 7: I do think that it's a little disheartening to see
40:34
Speaker 7: that there's such a broad skepticism of a woman's perspective.
40:46
Speaker 7: I mean, if it's something that doesn't seem to me
40:48
Speaker 7: to be like rocket science. And I don't so I
40:51
Speaker 7: don't know that I see us being there now or
40:54
Speaker 7: that I know what's the perfect answer, the perfect place
40:57
Speaker 7: for us to arrive at. But it seems like maybe
41:00
Speaker 7: things are are progressing in ways though maybe just even
41:05
Speaker 7: the fact that the female artists got the game on Smash,
41:08
Speaker 7: it's like a progress I think.
41:10
Speaker 1: We're there, and we've been there.
41:12
Speaker 2: I think what we are trying to control is people's
41:15
Speaker 2: reaction to these women's rhetoric. Right Like something comple made,
41:20
Speaker 2: push it. There was backlash when Little Kim was out.
41:23
Speaker 2: She made the records that she made, and there was backlash.
41:25
Speaker 2: Now you got the young Miami's making the records that
41:26
Speaker 2: she makes, and there's backlash.
41:28
Speaker 1: What do we care.
41:29
Speaker 2: About women being allowed to have the freedom to make
41:31
Speaker 2: those records or what people think about you gotta stop
41:33
Speaker 2: giving a funk about what people think.
41:36
Speaker 3: For show that, No, for show that.
41:38
Speaker 7: I mean, you know, I think progress is made, but
41:41
Speaker 7: we also clearly though as a whole nation, are in
41:45
Speaker 7: a pretty regressive place too. I mean that there's been
41:48
Speaker 7: a lot of backsliding as well, But.
41:50
Speaker 3: I agree with you that like the ability to.
41:54
Speaker 7: Make the records and the records to be successful, it
41:58
Speaker 7: is like that's fully there.
42:01
Speaker 6: Well, she dropping AG three and hopefully we're gonna get
42:03
Speaker 6: that song.
42:03
Speaker 10: It was around that time, was like a couple of weeks
42:04
Speaker 10: after she dropped the snippet to that song where she
42:06
Speaker 10: was like, all the wifey ish is dead.
42:08
Speaker 6: And then then your video jobs So I was like.
42:10
Speaker 3: Oh, my homie did that video. I heard it hard
42:13
Speaker 3: for the song. Yeah, my homie did the music video.
42:16
Speaker 3: Yeah recently song crazy, I heard that giant.
42:20
Speaker 8: Are you working working toward a new album?
42:23
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, Yeah, I got a new album coming out
42:25
Speaker 7: like beginning of next year. So I'm gonna put out
42:30
Speaker 7: The Vig Misster Show August twenty six. Then I'm doing
42:33
Speaker 7: the re release of my first project that came out
42:35
Speaker 7: before streaming, and my new album will be coming at
42:40
Speaker 7: the top.
42:41
Speaker 6: Of no update on the biopic Prince joint.
42:46
Speaker 9: Yeah, ah, man, I love Prince man perfect.
42:51
Speaker 3: I just love Prince.
42:52
Speaker 1: She was trying to play friends.
42:53
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I've been my.
42:54
Speaker 7: Shot for ever though I've been saying I want to
42:56
Speaker 7: play Prince for like ten years.
42:58
Speaker 3: I believe you have the range.
42:59
Speaker 8: I think you should do it.
43:00
Speaker 4: Thank you about doing it?
43:02
Speaker 3: Possible too?
43:03
Speaker 4: Or he runs the estate?
43:05
Speaker 3: No, I've actually never met her.
43:06
Speaker 1: Would you way to parents with Jaz.
43:08
Speaker 3: Already?
43:14
Speaker 2: How you feel like activism has helped to hurt you?
43:17
Speaker 7: You know what, I don't really think about myself as
43:19
Speaker 7: an activist, man. I just like what I do see
43:23
Speaker 7: myself as a truth teller, you know what I mean.
43:25
Speaker 7: I kind of reserve the title of an activist for
43:28
Speaker 7: a grassroots organizer or somebody that dedicates their life to that.
43:33
Speaker 2: You're going to street fighting against the police in Minnesota,
43:36
Speaker 2: bro in Indianapolis.
43:41
Speaker 3: Forever.
43:42
Speaker 7: But I just see myself as like, maybe that's that's action.
43:46
Speaker 7: Maybe as an action. Yeah, I practice activism, but I
43:49
Speaker 7: don't see myself as an activist in that way, because,
43:52
Speaker 7: like like I said, I do kind of reserve that
43:53
Speaker 7: for it's people to dedicate their life to that it's
43:56
Speaker 7: not a journeyman sport for them, you know what I mean, Like,
43:59
Speaker 7: I'll step into it, and I got my ways of
44:02
Speaker 7: pushing the message. But I also think I come through
44:06
Speaker 7: a tradition of that because the artists that inspired me,
44:09
Speaker 7: like Common taught me about a Sada Shakur, he a
44:12
Speaker 7: song for a Soada, Lauren Hill taught me about capitalism,
44:18
Speaker 7: and Lupa and Kanye taught me about conflict diamonds. Like
44:21
Speaker 7: the hip hop that inspired me, that raised me is
44:25
Speaker 7: low key like activism, you know what I mean?
44:28
Speaker 2: Do you still believe artists have a responsibility to speak
44:31
Speaker 2: out about injustice?
44:33
Speaker 3: I think if you knew better, you do better.
44:34
Speaker 7: You know, I don't think that everybody needs to insert
44:37
Speaker 7: themselves into things that they don't have an understanding of
44:40
Speaker 7: or having study to be pressured to make public statements
44:44
Speaker 7: about black lives matter.
44:45
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, It'd be like it ain't
44:48
Speaker 3: gonna go well, you know what I mean, Like.
44:50
Speaker 1: Sometimes speaking without enough information causes its own damage.
44:53
Speaker 3: You gotta listen first. I'm always working on that.
44:56
Speaker 7: I'm constantly reading, just like trying to grasp the information.
45:01
Speaker 7: I've even seen that as I do, like you know
45:03
Speaker 7: these Orange Tree videos. Times when I spoke too soon,
45:08
Speaker 7: you know, like I was talking about the warring Iran
45:12
Speaker 7: and I spoke before I really had a robust understanding
45:16
Speaker 7: of it, and you know, I believe I kind of misspoke,
45:20
Speaker 7: you know what I'm saying, And then I had to
45:21
Speaker 7: come and get better information and change my perspective and
45:25
Speaker 7: change it again, you know, because I didn't do all
45:28
Speaker 7: the research, research and all the education before.
45:33
Speaker 3: Formulating an opinion in.
45:35
Speaker 1: The performative nature of what it is you do cause
45:40
Speaker 1: that to happen, Like I got to say something now.
45:42
Speaker 1: I know they waiting.
45:43
Speaker 7: On me to pick this orange if I let the
45:45
Speaker 7: pressure come to it, because people will be at me too.
45:48
Speaker 7: They'll be like, Yo, aren't you gonna speak about this,
45:50
Speaker 7: like speak about what's happening in my country?
45:53
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
45:54
Speaker 7: I've had people call me and be like, Yo, you
45:56
Speaker 7: know what I actually I think you are a grifter
45:59
Speaker 7: because you haven't spoken on this thing. You know what
46:02
Speaker 7: I mean that I actually just didn't have a robust
46:07
Speaker 7: understanding of you know what I'm saying, and wasn't trying
46:10
Speaker 7: to like pass over anybody's humanity or anybody's like trauma pain,
46:15
Speaker 7: but fuck up when you talk, when you speak too soon?
46:19
Speaker 9: But is that why you don't want to be an
46:22
Speaker 9: activist because then you have to you have to cater
46:26
Speaker 9: to all of those people.
46:28
Speaker 8: You know, that's that's a big hat.
46:29
Speaker 9: That's a lot of pressure to and you know, rather
46:32
Speaker 9: than just practicing like or having acts of act what
46:37
Speaker 9: what is it activists?
46:38
Speaker 8: Yeah, activism, ways.
46:39
Speaker 9: And shit, but like being an actual activist you would
46:43
Speaker 9: have to dive into all of that shit that that's
46:45
Speaker 9: they're asking.
46:46
Speaker 1: Oh, you're a grifter? Like is a grifter?
46:48
Speaker 3: Did you know what that means?
46:49
Speaker 7: I mean, what is it somebody that blows with the wind?
46:53
Speaker 7: I mean you're just saying whatever's popular at the time,
46:56
Speaker 7: like like Hotti's conservative podcasters and pundits are like all
47:03
Speaker 7: flipping to be anti Israel now or flipping to be
47:07
Speaker 7: critical of Trump.
47:09
Speaker 3: But then you see the New York.
47:11
Speaker 7: Times data set that shows that all of their views
47:16
Speaker 7: are rapidly declining as people are like realizing that they've
47:21
Speaker 7: been sold a lie. So now you know, now they're like,
47:25
Speaker 7: actually Trump's thinking it too far.
47:27
Speaker 9: It's grif Oh okay, okay, but that person calls you
47:29
Speaker 9: a grifter because you didn't cover what they wanted you
47:32
Speaker 9: to cover about their country or whatever, or you know,
47:34
Speaker 9: I guess their hardships or whatever they're going through. That's
47:36
Speaker 9: what an activist would do though, you know all of
47:38
Speaker 9: that shit. Take the time to research all of that shit,
47:41
Speaker 9: so you know, you you don't misspeak, you know, and
47:44
Speaker 9: as a human you do misspeak sometimes. But is that
47:47
Speaker 9: why you don't want to be an activist?
47:49
Speaker 3: Maybe the.
47:51
Speaker 7: I think maybe the world I was really looking for
47:53
Speaker 7: as organizer. Like my sister Ogemone is a brilliant poet,
47:59
Speaker 7: you know, who's been stepping into that role. She recently
48:01
Speaker 7: got nominated for the Grammy for Spoken Word Album for
48:07
Speaker 7: her last album, but she spent a lot of time
48:11
Speaker 7: as an actual grassroots organizer. So a lot of the
48:14
Speaker 7: things that I talk about they come from me being
48:18
Speaker 7: organized in intentional spaces, like outside of the internet. You know,
48:23
Speaker 7: she took me to Palestine back in twenty seventeen, being
48:30
Speaker 7: a part of the Standing Rock No Dapple protests in
48:36
Speaker 7: North Dakota, and like working with these people that have
48:41
Speaker 7: grassroots organizations that spend all their time doing that.
48:45
Speaker 3: There's no like commercial viability for it.
48:48
Speaker 7: So sometimes if I if I'm like rejecting the label.
48:52
Speaker 7: It's just because I don't want to cross the signals
48:55
Speaker 7: to be like, Yo, there's people that do this. They
48:57
Speaker 7: don't sell albums, they don't sell products. I don't sell
49:00
Speaker 7: T shirts, they don't have podcasts, they don't have commercial
49:04
Speaker 7: viability for it, and I do you know what I mean?
49:08
Speaker 7: Like I have businesses and you know I mean, I'm
49:13
Speaker 7: driven by like the things I believe in, But I
49:15
Speaker 7: never want to seem as if like I'm painting myself
49:18
Speaker 7: to be one of them because they do this On
49:20
Speaker 7: another level, what do you say to people who say
49:23
Speaker 7: what VIC does is just performative. I think inherently I'm
49:27
Speaker 7: a performer too, though, you know, like I've been performing forever.
49:32
Speaker 7: Performative I feel like sometimes I see that as a
49:38
Speaker 7: label that's given by people that maybe are afraid to
49:44
Speaker 7: like express themselves, to step into the light, or to
49:49
Speaker 7: say what they believe, you know what I mean? Like
49:52
Speaker 7: I think if I'm being authentic, if I'm trying my
49:56
Speaker 7: best to be well researched, if I'm being real about it,
49:59
Speaker 7: I'm not trying to paint myself as a perfect person,
50:03
Speaker 7: not you know what I mean, Like I said, y'all
50:05
Speaker 7: have seen me in so many different iterations, and that's
50:11
Speaker 7: all public knowledge, you know what I mean, Like everything
50:13
Speaker 7: is a fucking Google search a way, anything you want
50:15
Speaker 7: to know about me, Like none of it is hidden.
50:19
Speaker 7: So you know, I don't read into it much though,
50:22
Speaker 7: you know what I mean, because I'm like, I know
50:23
Speaker 7: that I'm coming from a genuine place and I'm not
50:28
Speaker 7: just inserting myself into conversations to get attention. I mean,
50:35
Speaker 7: I do believe that I have something to offer. It's
50:38
Speaker 7: one of the reasons I'm putting it into an organized
50:43
Speaker 7: format like the Big Mister Show.
50:45
Speaker 2: I had to question my own thinking recently because I
50:47
Speaker 2: saw somebody saying, well, it's just a group of people
50:50
Speaker 2: saying how they feel like Willow is performing. Right, of
50:53
Speaker 2: course I know Wyow, So I'm like, that's that's just
50:55
Speaker 2: how Wallo wins. But it had me thinking, like, but
50:58
Speaker 2: what if he is, wouldn't you rather somebody wake up
51:01
Speaker 2: every morning and perform positivity?
51:03
Speaker 3: Yeah? For sure, that's basically what That's what I'm saying.
51:07
Speaker 7: It's like, Yo, at the end of the day, it's
51:09
Speaker 7: like you have to low key performing positivity. You have
51:12
Speaker 7: to perform gratitude, like I'm deep in affirmations. I perform
51:18
Speaker 7: the motherfuckers all day long, like I intentionally do the
51:21
Speaker 7: shit I intentionally tell myself, like divine orders established in
51:26
Speaker 7: my mind, body and affairs, Like I perform being sober,
51:30
Speaker 7: like it's something that I have to perform often, you
51:33
Speaker 7: know what I mean.
51:33
Speaker 10: But you seem like you have a good line today
51:36
Speaker 10: talking to you between performative and perform meing like you're
51:39
Speaker 10: able to do both. But there's a line that you
51:41
Speaker 10: kind of draw where it's still authentic and it's things
51:43
Speaker 10: you believe, right, But what did music teach you about
51:47
Speaker 10: being a performer and being performative? Because I know, like
51:49
Speaker 10: there's been times where you, like I remember the Drake
51:51
Speaker 10: stuff and you came back and said, I wish I
51:53
Speaker 10: never threw shots at him, and then y'all patched it up, right,
51:56
Speaker 10: So in situations like that, like what do you learn
51:58
Speaker 10: about I want to draw this line. I don't want
52:00
Speaker 10: to go too far on something so that I'm not performative.
52:02
Speaker 10: I'm actually performing how I actually feel.
52:05
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think the line of performing and what people
52:10
Speaker 7: may consider performative, it is it real, you know what
52:12
Speaker 7: I mean? Like, do you really live what it is
52:16
Speaker 7: that you're portraying, Like is it authentic to you? Music
52:21
Speaker 7: I feel like has given me the building blocks. It's
52:23
Speaker 7: taught me everything. The thing about hip hop music, Yo,
52:27
Speaker 7: this medium actually contains.
52:29
Speaker 3: The seeds of all these others, you know what I mean.
52:32
Speaker 7: Like we learn about media as I'm building my own
52:36
Speaker 7: media company, but it's called Orange, you know what I mean,
52:40
Speaker 7: no pun attended.
52:42
Speaker 3: As I'm building that.
52:43
Speaker 7: It's like, well, I've been sitting here with y'all for
52:45
Speaker 7: ten years though, like seeing the way that you do this,
52:49
Speaker 7: like seeing the way.
52:49
Speaker 3: That you elicit like.
52:52
Speaker 7: The right conversation from people and you call him and
52:56
Speaker 7: him push back where the pushback needs to happen.
52:59
Speaker 3: So you're seeing that.
53:00
Speaker 7: You're also doing the music videos, so like you're deep
53:03
Speaker 7: in the production process. The same people that work on
53:06
Speaker 7: the music videos, they do Coca Cola commercials, they do
53:09
Speaker 7: feature films, they do TV shows. So as I step
53:13
Speaker 7: in the film and I'm acting and you know, writing
53:16
Speaker 7: my own films right now and have a show that
53:19
Speaker 7: a short film called African coming out later this year.
53:22
Speaker 7: I learned the building blocks from that, from for that,
53:26
Speaker 7: from performing in music.
53:28
Speaker 4: But African African whatever.
53:32
Speaker 7: Right there, you know what I'm about to start using
53:35
Speaker 7: that African American.
53:36
Speaker 5: But the performative part is really what hurts people because
53:42
Speaker 5: like let's say we mentioned Whiler before, right, let's say
53:44
Speaker 5: he was performative. The reason why would hurt people is
53:47
Speaker 5: because a lot of people might feel sad, they might
53:50
Speaker 5: feel down, and he look at his life like I
53:52
Speaker 5: want my life to be there. But if he's performative,
53:54
Speaker 5: and that's not really him, it's a fake dream, it's
53:58
Speaker 5: a fake aspiration.
53:59
Speaker 3: Like if he's dissing genuous.
54:00
Speaker 5: If he's disingenuous, you know what I'm saying. So that's
54:02
Speaker 5: what I think the performative things where people don't like
54:05
Speaker 5: it because if you are giving affirmations and you're saying
54:08
Speaker 5: I want to be better, there's somebody like that, I
54:10
Speaker 5: want to be better as well. I'm going on the
54:11
Speaker 5: same run as Vic. But I Vic is being fake
54:14
Speaker 5: about it, and he said I'm happy every day, I'm this,
54:16
Speaker 5: that and ever. But it leaves and it goes in
54:18
Speaker 5: his corner and cries every day. It gives fake hope
54:21
Speaker 5: for people that's trying.
54:21
Speaker 1: To get You don't change the impact of his actually,
54:24
Speaker 1: but it.
54:24
Speaker 7: Could if they find out that that's not this ingenuous
54:26
Speaker 7: is I feel like, yeah, maybe I'm understanding now that
54:30
Speaker 7: that's what people mean by performative, is that you're disingenuous,
54:34
Speaker 7: and you know, thinking about thinking about myself or thinking
54:38
Speaker 7: about Wallow. The people that might be calling us disingenuous,
54:43
Speaker 7: they actually don't have the context of the information.
54:46
Speaker 3: How could they know? Correct? Correct man, unless you can
54:49
Speaker 3: unless you could tell.
54:50
Speaker 7: But if you know, you ask the people in my life,
54:53
Speaker 7: like this is who I am, Like you said, this
54:55
Speaker 7: is who Wallow is, right, and Wallow is performing, But
54:59
Speaker 7: don't we all love it? Like to see I don't
55:01
Speaker 7: know about now, but when he started and he got
55:03
Speaker 7: out and he's running at the camera in the middle
55:05
Speaker 7: of the rain screaming.
55:07
Speaker 3: At you some positive as was so inspiring, Like I
55:13
Speaker 3: fucking loved it.
55:14
Speaker 1: I was like.
55:15
Speaker 3: And then to see him come up and now you
55:16
Speaker 3: got sports.
55:17
Speaker 7: Cars and like to see the whole thing, and to
55:21
Speaker 7: see him go to the block with little Dirk and
55:24
Speaker 7: like tell niggas in moments of like real decision, like yo,
55:30
Speaker 7: please don't do this, Like I've been there, I see
55:34
Speaker 7: where this is about to go.
55:36
Speaker 3: Like, man, you can't hate on that man.
55:38
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying, But somebody might call it
55:40
Speaker 7: disingenuous because they don't know him. Everybody got an opinion
55:44
Speaker 7: on you, But how do the people that know you best?
55:47
Speaker 3: How do they think about you?
55:48
Speaker 1: This is my last question.
55:49
Speaker 2: You've survived depression and addiction, and you know, industry expectations,
55:53
Speaker 2: your own self destructive tendencies. When you look at your
55:55
Speaker 2: life today, do you feel like Big Mensa is finally
55:58
Speaker 2: becoming the man he was supposed to be?
55:59
Speaker 3: Are you figuring it out? I definitely do. You know.
56:02
Speaker 7: When I look at my life today, I'm proud to
56:06
Speaker 7: have made it through a lot of shit.
56:09
Speaker 3: I'm grateful above all, like.
56:12
Speaker 7: Crashing out, going flat broke, needing to find God in
56:17
Speaker 7: those moments.
56:18
Speaker 3: That taught me gratitude.
56:20
Speaker 7: When you got a lot, big house and maseratis and
56:25
Speaker 7: you know what I mean, like chains and girls and entourage,
56:30
Speaker 7: sometimes you might not have gratitude for those things and
56:34
Speaker 7: you take them for granted.
56:36
Speaker 3: I know I did. But when I lost everything and
56:39
Speaker 3: a lot of.
56:39
Speaker 7: People didn't pick up the phone, you know, and I'm
56:43
Speaker 7: driving the Prius and I'm like, you know, just having
56:47
Speaker 7: to find self absence of material wealth, I had to
56:53
Speaker 7: find gratitude for real basic things, you know. I had
56:56
Speaker 7: to learn to be grateful for waking up in the morning.
56:58
Speaker 7: I had to learn to be grateful for having a
56:59
Speaker 7: sound by in a strong mind, I mean, for having
57:02
Speaker 7: breadth in my lungs, ten toes, ten fingers.
57:05
Speaker 3: Like I would just walk around my neighborhood.
57:07
Speaker 7: And I would count all the things I was grateful
57:10
Speaker 7: for and being able to do that when I didn't
57:14
Speaker 7: have no money. It has prepared me to be a
57:18
Speaker 7: version of myself that I feel proud of because now
57:23
Speaker 7: as I receive blessings and I receive money, and I
57:27
Speaker 7: have a family and I'm able to provide for them
57:30
Speaker 7: with said.
57:30
Speaker 3: Money, I don't take that shit for granted at all.
57:33
Speaker 3: You know.
57:34
Speaker 6: You know one thing I always think about when I
57:35
Speaker 6: think about you.
57:36
Speaker 10: I don't know if you remember we went to a nice
57:37
Speaker 10: guy in La think was the first celebrity I ever
57:42
Speaker 10: had a conversation with about how headlines and media affect
57:45
Speaker 10: their real life and you're talking about your real life.
57:47
Speaker 10: And that was the first time where ever was like, oh,
57:49
Speaker 10: this is like a job like this was It was
57:52
Speaker 10: so long ago, it.
57:52
Speaker 3: Probably was nineteen or something.
57:54
Speaker 6: Yeah, so that was a story.
57:55
Speaker 10: That came out that TMZ did, and I was I
57:59
Speaker 10: was really cool with his plot, and his publicist was
58:01
Speaker 10: just like, he wants to have a conversation with someone there.
58:03
Speaker 6: So me and one of my friends went. We sat down.
58:05
Speaker 10: The first thing he said to me was, do you
58:07
Speaker 10: know in my real life how much that headline, which
58:09
Speaker 10: isn't really the context of the story.
58:11
Speaker 6: It was hype.
58:12
Speaker 10: You know what you do with the headlines? How much
58:14
Speaker 10: it costs me in my real life? And he sat
58:16
Speaker 10: down and he broke it down, and I was like,
58:18
Speaker 10: I remember we left that dinner.
58:20
Speaker 1: I was just like, damn, like.
58:30
Speaker 3: You were so sweet.
58:35
Speaker 6: No, that's not true.
58:36
Speaker 10: I've gotten better and a lot, yes, but when I'm
58:39
Speaker 10: at TMZ, it's only.
58:40
Speaker 4: So much you can do.
58:43
Speaker 3: Jacket with.
58:46
Speaker 10: The acne shirt, the T shirt. They were talking about
58:50
Speaker 10: my jacket all day. I appreciate this, but I said
58:56
Speaker 10: that to say though, that a lot of people who
58:58
Speaker 10: performed for a living, they don't get a chance to
59:00
Speaker 10: get back intune with their real life. And if they do,
59:02
Speaker 10: you have all this other stuff, so it doesn't matter.
59:04
Speaker 10: So hearing you that you're consistently still there mentally, I
59:07
Speaker 10: think that's the part of the reason why people like
59:09
Speaker 10: that those fruit.
59:10
Speaker 6: Videos that you're picking.
59:11
Speaker 10: People are hitting different now because consistently we feel you
59:15
Speaker 10: in tune with like what's happening in the real world
59:17
Speaker 10: versus before where there was a lot of stuff going
59:19
Speaker 10: on and it may have been too performative. But now
59:21
Speaker 10: it's kind of like it hits the mark, and that's
59:23
Speaker 10: like the real moments that people need to see sometimes,
59:25
Speaker 10: like when people are talking straight to what's actually happening.
59:28
Speaker 7: I appreciate that, and I had a great time with
59:29
Speaker 7: y'all at at that Jenner, you know what I'm saying.
59:32
Speaker 7: I think like that that was a time when I
59:36
Speaker 7: was reassessing just the way I show up in the world,
59:41
Speaker 7: you know what I mean. Like I was in TMZ
59:42
Speaker 7: a lot, you know what I mean. I was like
59:44
Speaker 7: talking to Van later but just the other day, and
59:48
Speaker 7: I was running through some of my TMZ joints. It
59:50
Speaker 7: was like gun case here, gun case, they're arrested for drugs,
59:54
Speaker 7: you know what I mean, like international drugs.
59:57
Speaker 3: It was like it was a lot. It was a
59:59
Speaker 3: lot going on on, and so I take responsibility.
1:00:04
Speaker 6: Come on, now, he was going through an airport.
1:00:07
Speaker 1: I want you to know that it was the black
1:00:08
Speaker 1: people at that was reporting those stories.
1:00:11
Speaker 2: I know they cannot.
1:00:22
Speaker 3: I know, we know they did.
1:00:25
Speaker 7: Harvey was you know, I never had I never had
1:00:28
Speaker 7: no hate for TMZ because t m Z I felt
1:00:31
Speaker 7: was fair to me. You know what I mean in that,
1:00:34
Speaker 7: Like when I did something good, gave some shoes away
1:00:39
Speaker 7: in the hood and Chicago, TMZ will report on it.
1:00:42
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
1:00:42
Speaker 7: When I paid rent for local black business in Chicago,
1:00:47
Speaker 7: TMZ will report on it. And when I went to jail,
1:00:50
Speaker 7: I just had to hold my breath and be like,
1:00:52
Speaker 7: if TMZ find out about this is going on, my mama,
1:00:55
Speaker 7: gon know you know what I mean, broke, I mean it.
1:01:00
Speaker 7: Sometimes y'all didn't catch it. I'm not gonna tell them.
1:01:04
Speaker 8: Tell y'all y'all know I'm locked up for international drugs.
1:01:08
Speaker 3: The fuck.
1:01:10
Speaker 4: We'll keep growing, right, and I'm sure you'll be up
1:01:12
Speaker 4: here before the album comes out.
1:01:13
Speaker 3: I definitely will.
1:01:14
Speaker 4: Man, you appreciate it.
1:01:16
Speaker 3: It's twenty six show August twenty six.
1:01:19
Speaker 4: That's right, it's vic Mensa.
1:01:20
Speaker 3: It's the Breakfast Club.
1:01:21
Speaker 4: Good morning.
1:01:23
Speaker 1: Every day I wake click your ass up the Breakfast Club.
1:01:27
Speaker 3: You're finished for y'all done,