Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Affion Crockett On New Indie Film 'A Hip Hop Story,' Comedy Skit Vs. Sketch, Comedian Beef +More

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INTERVIEW: Affion Crockett On New Indie Film 'A Hip Hop Story,' Comedy Skit Vs. Sketch, Comedian Beef +More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club Morning, Everybody's DJ M V Jess hilarious,
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Charlamagne the guy. We are the Breakfast Club.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: We got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: be on Crocket. Welcome back. It's been a long time too,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: not that long, but long enough. You're here for a
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: good reason though, a hip hop story. Come on, brother,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: come Friday. Independent. You know what I'm saying. Independently, a
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: hip hop story. And I wanted to really emphasize because
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: people are like when they see a movie, right, they
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: always assume why it ain't playing near me? How come
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: it ain't at the theater right by my house? Well,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: because there's no big studio behind it, you know what
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I mean. This is me and my boy Domain. We
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: just put this thing out. But it just thank you, brother,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: it just happens to look great and it has a
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: great message, and it's it's for the culture, by the culture.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: It's amazing that Domain looks so tall in person as
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: opposed to how he looks.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: In the in the movie. Right because he plays the
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: frowayre a freewayway for you.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: I hope you'll them put in the call to let
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: him know it's all fun and games.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Now. We spoke to him on Live theother day. Freeway
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: is our brother. Man. He loves, he loves the energy
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: around it, and he's amazing if you need to love
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the energy around it before you. But he's seen us
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: do the impersonations before, man, so it's all love and
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: it's all love. Charlamagne, you're trying to start ship.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: I was just like, I was like, why free Way,
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: why Freeway getting all these shots?
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Because he saves the days, the hero. What are you
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: talking about? He got to go through a few trials
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: and tribulations and jokes. It's a comedy. We gotta we
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: gotta make fun of people. We all get some strays.
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: And when you said this is independent, it's completely independent.
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: Shout out to you for writing and producing it too, Like, ma'am,
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: that's amazing. I love saying it because I love seeing
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: us do things like that.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I like that.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: I want just to figure back what you said off of,
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: like how he's trying to start stuff with the impersonations
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: and people getting people to play them. Has anybody ever
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: like been offended by you like doing impersonations.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Or just nah, I'm the I'm the guy that they
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: I'm friends with all of these people first of all,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: and then you know I'm the guy that I'm the
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: hip hop weird al where I've become the guy that
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: they know. I'm showing love to them, and it's like
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: a it's like I'm giving they know I'm giving them flowers,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And so it's almost like
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: a badge of honor. Like NAS asked me, man, why
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: you ain't never did an impression to me? So when
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I when I hear a god MC asking me to
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: do an impression, that means I mean something to the culture.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: So this is a love letter to everybody in the culture,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: When when I was watching the movie, the thing I
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: kept thinking about was this is the only vehicle Avion
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: could showcase all of these skills that in one.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Play and placause you've been doing all these characters forever.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: But it's like, I don't know, Hollywood, wuldver understand exactly
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: what it is you do, Like you would have to
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: do this on your own.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Well, that's it's funny you picked up on that, because
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: that's why I originally wrote it. I wrote this back
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. So when I did it,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: that was at the time me and Domaine was doing
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: all of the the YouTube parodies and everybody every time
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I go, someone, yo, do jay Z, do this? Do that?
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: And I was like, I'm tired of doing these goddamn impressions.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Why don't I just put them all in one project,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: So y'all can have all the impressions in one one sitting,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: and I'm done with them. That's how I thought at
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the time, But now it's just like, all right, it's
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna use all my tools and to my advantage.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: You know, how many do you do in the movie?
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: How many impersonations?
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I still haven't counted, but it's probably twelve.
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: Russell, Jay, Jas, Luda Cornell, Web, Drakez, Joe, Joe Budden
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: h did we say.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Drake Ship, Will Smith Fresh Prince, Oh yeah. And
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I'm doing Biggie's voice for Cedric on the rat. Yeah.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: It's a lot. It's a lot, man, Dang we cooking.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: But when I say it's independent, I mean I literally
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: paid for this movie with stand up tour money, right.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: He demand had all the cameras in the film. Know
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: how we both know how to edit, we both know
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: how to produce, so this was really uh an effort.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So to see that when I dropped that trailer, to
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: see it spread around the Internet as fast as it
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: did within a day, and to see all the culture
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: from Snoop to Exhibit to Cedric to deon Cole Russell Simmons,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: like everybody was posting this joint and just rallying behind it,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So I'm just thankful to
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: the culture for seeing it for what it is. I
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: don't think it was real at first. Yeah, that's what
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I'm saying.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: You played so many games sometimes that I was like.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: What do you mean, I don't think it was real.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I was like, me, it's a funny trailer. Thought it
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: was like a sketch trailer. I did. I can see
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: that because you always playing rightfully, so I do play
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: a lot. But you know, I'm also very serious.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize it was a real movie about two
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: weeks ago. I saw the trailer and I was like,
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: that's a funny trailer. But then if I saw people
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: like Charlie Mack and everybody keep posting it, and I
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: saw the post I'm like oh this is really a movie.
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah, because everybody used to his parodies like nah,
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: but you see certain people posting it's.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Like, oh, I gotta be all the time. So yeah,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: you seeing Snoop. Snoop is one of the biggest fans man.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: He's like really championing the movie right now too. But again,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: this is my love letter to the culture. But we
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: put some production value into it too, Like it ain't.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: It ain't like some bootleg kind of cheesy movie. We
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: got lighting, we got cameras, we got the whole situation,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: and it's a it's a great story.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: We gave you the idea of him because you said
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: you started in two thousand and eight, but it feels
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: so timely because last year it was the fiftieth year.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah hip ho. Yeah. So I wrote it in two
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: thousand and eight, and because I incorporated so much of
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: hip hop history and the nostalgia that doesn't change, right,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: So the only thing I had to change reference wise
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: was some of the some of the newer references, like
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: in the original scripts when they were trying to go
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: around and get the message of hip hop back out
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: to the culture. We went to places like one O
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: six in Park and Tavis Smiley Show. So I just
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: swapped that out for you know what I mean, like
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Funk Flex and Joe Budden and all that. So you
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. Did you ever consider not playing
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: all those roles in the movie?
• 6:14
  Speaker 6: Uh?
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Not, the ones that I knew that I could play.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I never considered like switching them out. The only one
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: that I wasn't supposed to play was ghost the ghost
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Face character. But you know, we had a we had
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: a situation and I had to step in at the
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: last minute and to do do what I had to do.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: But no, I always wanted to showcase myself and my friends,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: like the main place three characters, Puff Freeway, who else?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Mo D? Yeah, oh my god, bodies D in the
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: in the flashback scene that we showcase some really historic moments.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: So the battle between Kumo D and Busy B, which
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: was the time when lyricism was now like the showcase,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: you know, even though we had Graham Astercas and those
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: guys doing it, that was the battle that made people say, Okay,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I want to go away from party MC into lyricism.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: And so we wanted to just showcase real moments in
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: hip hop history interlaced with comedy.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: How much homework did you have to do? A lot
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: of this stuff you grew up on and you knew already.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I knew a lot of it. A lot of it
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: was already living in my brain. What I did do
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: was research on like dates, times, people's ages so it
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: could be realistic to our portrayals of them. You know
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: what I mean. Theaters whit theaters. Yeah, we have a
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: deal with AMC. We have a close friend over there
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: that was like presented the idea to us, and I'm like,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: the streaming game is amazing, but a movie like this
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: you need to see in theaters. It's a difference between
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: looking at or listening to an album on your phone
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: versus listening to it in the studio or in your car.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Like this is a hip hop movie. It's a musical, right,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: so the beats in the in the rhymes, if you
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: listen to it in the theater, Like when we had
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: our premieeres the two screens that we've had, you see
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: people in the theater like doing this. They nodding their
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: head and they rocking and they're cheering. After the finale song.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: I won't say what it is, but after that finale song,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: they are cheering in the theater, so we wanted to
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: have that movie going experience, and because we have a
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: connection over there with AMC, it just felt like a
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: good look for us. You know, most movies have a
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: thousand to four thousand, those big budget movies, those superhero movies,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: they have four thousand locations. We were like, all right,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: give us one hundred and fifty and let us just
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: work with that. And that's plenty for us because again,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: we don't have big marketing dollars behind us. It's my
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: stand up money, you understand me, So call you called
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: in a lot of favors to this. Of course, man,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: this game is all about relationship absolutely. I mean even
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: me being here with y'all, Like I just put out
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the call Eddie, and you know, y'all show love to
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: me all the time. So I was like, yeah, I
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: want to promote this indie movie and that's why I'm here.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: So same with the movie. I called Cedric Little Real.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: It was all text messages. Charlie Max, he put in
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: calls little Mama, came out, she played the m C
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: light boy. But everybody was perfectly cast. It was it
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: was everyone that I had in my mind that I
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: wanted to play these roles. They all showed up for me.
• 9:14
  Speaker 6: Give us the sense of the budget, Nope, five million
• 9:22
  Speaker 6: like mine your own, god damn business.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: The sense of the budget is minya got damn Who
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: may want to do the whole independent film?
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: Nah?
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: The ball park range. They be shooting on their phone.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: You keep shooting on their phone. We got other things
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: we're doing over here. Charlemagne, I'm gonna come to you
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: next time. You're gonna invest He got it?
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: Oh, we got it, got we got you got them
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: to be in it, Jackson.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Fuck that charlam is gonna be an actor. I'm gonna
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: turn him into a Morpheus. Nigga. You get talk with
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: the perfect eyebrows, already got those.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: That's not you get tired of doing impersonations?
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Is it one of the things?
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Like it's like I'm tired of doing a goddamn pressice time.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: When I when I wrote the movie, that's when I
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: was tired of it because I was like, I want
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the world to see me for whatever. Now, I don't
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: give a shit. Love me for how you love me,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. However, you recognize me, have
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: you whatever you you take on if you just know
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: me from an Instagram post, it's all.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: What's your favorite one to do?
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I don't have a favorite impression to do. I just
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: I just do them. But my my favorite new one,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: because it's been so well received in these screenings, is
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Cornell West. I didn't I've never seen you do. I
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: never seen anybody hilarious. I've seen a couple of people
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: do it, but I just did my own take on them.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: But that was my first time doing them. I didn't
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: even know I could really do it. So I just
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: told my makeup artist, I said, just give me the wig,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: give me the gap and the teeth, And once I
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: had the whole garb on, Charlie Mack almost passed out laughing.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: He just couldn't contain himself. It was just so funny
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: to him. So that's when I knew the look was
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: right on. And then when the cameras game was, you know,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: I want to get down here into the breakfast cloud,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: even though they don't have no eggs, bakers, our vocado toad.
• 11:13
  Speaker 7: You see you see Charla Madney, Yeah, Charla Madney understands
• 11:22
  Speaker 7: what the eyebrows mean to the black people.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: You see, you see y see Now, why do they
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: have Jet sitting in a gender you see? I don't know,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: because she's the queen of the gender people. You see.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: It's just immortalized those characters forever. Like, do you even
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: do off? You do jay Z anymore? Do you do
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Russell anymore?
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: After that? Yeah? Okay, yeah you have to. I mean
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: the two that you just named, Jay and Russell, they're
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: fans of my impression of them. Rus love it. So
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: it's like, uh, and this movie is one of those
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: movies that's gonna live on forever, even though we set
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: out to do it with our our hopes and you know,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: let's see what it does. Let's let's see we can
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: make a movie. Now that we have it done and
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: you can see it, it's gonna live on forever. What
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: is hip hop culchy to you?
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: Because I always thought about this because even back in
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: the day when y'all used to do the sketches you
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: and Nick, it always kind of felt like y'all was
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: making fun of down South music.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Nah, what we made fun of is lazy music, okay,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: because that's that's the distinction. In the movie, the barbershop
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: scene shows you that this conversation between old heads and
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: young heads and old music versus young It's always been
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: a conversation. You know, that Barbershops scene was about blues
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: versus soul. So that's me pointing out saying, look, as
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: old heads, we gotta stop saying that the young generation
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: is trash or that they we just don't understand them.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Were older. We're not supposed to understand them. But all
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: of them are. Some of them are great. The same way,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: there's some garbage old niggas. Everybody in the nineties was
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: not fire, you know what I mean, So we can't
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: sit back and be like your hip hop always been fired.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: There's some garbage niggas in the eighties and the nineties, right,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: So there's some lazy young rappers. And then we got Simba,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and we got l Russell. We got some dope, dope
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: guys out here. UZI Vert is a bee boy, you
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. He chooses to do songs like
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I just want to rock, and that's him having fun.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: He has the creative artistic freedom to do that. But
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: that dude's really a bee boy. He will win mill
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: on your ass, he will do some flares, he will
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: top rock on you. So you can't say he's not
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: of the culture. So it's just to point out to say, look,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: we gotta stop bickering. We use the young people as
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: a device to get the backpack character, Jay Bum to
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: have something to be like, Yo, man, hip hop is
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: fucked up. And when he goes to the Rosco Russell character,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: that gives him the incentive to point Russell around to
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: say hip hop is fucked up. But as we start
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: going down the journey, black culture starts to be put
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: on the spotlight and the elites of the black culture
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: start to be you know, so we all are responsible
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: for where we are as a culture.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: Because it wasn't about, you know, just hip hop being bad.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: It was what the negative impact is having on people.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: More so about that, yeah, more so about you know,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: the deaths and you know, the drug overdoses. It's been
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: a lot more of that in the last fifteen years
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: than we've ever seen in hip hop. Chris Rock, that's
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: another character, you play, Craig, and he did the whole hell,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: but god, they do a whole, a whole I wanted
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: to do a whole stand up special in the movie
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: of Chris Rock just talking about hip hop. In the
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Brilliant way that he breaks down everything. You know what
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I'm saying.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I see you comedians are crazy in these rappers right now.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: You know I used to always say this in inter
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: of your other man comedians, we're not rappers, man, let's
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: let's not be let's not let's not beef with each
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: other and do all that. But it's it's really there
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: now get worse. Why though, I don't know. I have
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with it. I've never been the guy
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: that that brings his personal beefs into the public. If
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I say anything about somebody that's gonna be positive. I
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: have positive things to say about all these guys. But
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: you know that that's not a popular message. You know
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So I just stay out of it.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Has nothing to do with me. I don't I don't
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: ever get involved in that kind of stuff. If I
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: got a problem with you, me and you could talk
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: about it. It's as simple as that. Like we've grown
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: as fuck. Like why why am I on a microphone
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: talking about anybody. I'm gonna just call you and if
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: we could work it out, we can work it out.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: If not, I just don't mess with you.
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: Do you feel like it hurts or helps comedy.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: I think it divides the audience. It makes the audience
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: have to choose. And we're in such a we're in
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: a Dick riding society, so people who want to choose, uh,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: they want to rally behind whoever they think is whatever.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: And so yeah, it definitely can divide the audience. And
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: I think we're more We're just more of a beautiful
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: creative people that that ship. We don't.
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: I don't.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: It's not me, you don't not me.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: I agree with the Dick riding society and the best
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Dick changes from moment to moment.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Running back.
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: But over there, over there that you can't even impersonate.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Why that that's a new movie.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm trying to say, is whoever people think
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: trying to say that whoever said people think is hot,
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: they hot from Dick based on the moment whoa look.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Like it was in January then there was more nique,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So it looks like when
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: I said it's a Dick riding society, we could have
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: left the analogy we understood it Dick that was that
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: was something different. You could have came through with your
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: own addition to the same problem would be a consistent
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: dick ride, is what I'm saying.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, God, Yo, you want to talk about who Dick?
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Wow? He just went with it. Was got weird. How
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: involved with Charlie Mack into making of this? You're gonna
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: go from follow them dick? Don't make Charlie following them dicks?
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: How dare you? Charla Mane can come up with another question?
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Charlie his first out di limo, first out, the first out,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the port on, no matter where you go after that.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: So you can leave now? Can we got done with all? Right?
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: We're done with done with Dick. We delivered. But look,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: look I have a Dick. It's all good, Charlie. Charlie's
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: big bro's he's hip hop, He's the connector. There's not
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: a call that he will not make. You know what
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I'm saying. The first person that saw this movie in
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: full was Will Smith. Because of Charlie Mack, Me and
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Charlie went to Will's theater and screened it for him.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Will gave me forty five minutes of filmmaking gems after that,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: just wisdom, and he loved the movie. And we saw
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: him at the fiftiest celebration of hip hop where he
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: the first time he performed again and he was telling
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: people back said, yo yo Apion has this movie. Hey
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: it plays like forty people right, great, but yeah, that's first.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: I was just trying to move away from the dicks.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: Did you ever think about having the real characters in
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: because there's a moment where Fredro's in there.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: We wanted to have a mix of that just to
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: make it grounded, to make it feel valid, to make
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: it really feel like they were sitting next to a rustle,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: and then when you see Jay, you really want to
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: feel like it's Jay. So yeah, we did purposely sprinkle
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: in some real ogs just to yeah, give it that
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: real hip hop, grounded feeling.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Is there any character that you tried to catch that
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: you just couldn't catch? It was like I tried, but
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: it's just it's not fitting.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Right impression wise. No, everything that we that was on
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the page the movie is pretty much what was on
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the page, So we were able to cast it or
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: play the roles that we wanted. Shout out to my
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: boy Jevin smith Man, Jevin smith he played fifty or
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: forty five cent two short e forty that dude man.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: We all been rocking together for like twenty years YouTube
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: doing all of the spoofs. But yeah, he's one of
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: those guys that transforms also. You know, there's a lot
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: of people that do impersonations, but to be able to
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: transform your face enough to where it looks like you
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: really believe that that's the person, you know, he one
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: of them dudes.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: So that one scene when it's a is you playing
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: Cornell and Joe Budden at the same time? Is that
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: difficult to pull off? So my body double is my security. Carlos,
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: this is my god. We just happened to be the
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: same size. He's more muscles than me.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: But the for the characters that we were playing, he
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: was able to play the Roscoe when I needed him to.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: He was the second Joe Budden when I'm Cornell. So
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: it just all blended the right way.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: Were you concerned about portraying Russell because of like the
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: controversy surrounding him.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: I wrote it in two thousand and eight, so you
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, before all of that stuff happened.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: I just I made the movie about the culture, you
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: know what I mean? I was it wasn't a thing
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: to emphasize anybody's cases. I don't. I'm not in that world,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: so I don't know. So I just made it funny
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: enough and universal enough to where it's about the culture
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: and we're just telling a story about hip hop.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: And if you tell a story about hip hop, you
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: can't tell it without talking about fact.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, he can't tell it aout talking about did
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: you have to? He contributed? And then we also wanted
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: to do characters that we could convincingly portray. You know
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying. He's somebody that I've been doing impressions
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: of for so long. And then the whole yoga thing,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: like me and my my tidy whities. I just thought
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: it was a funny device to use, and then to
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: have a narration of him with the lisp the whole
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: movie why not.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: Moment?
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Do you think you want to offend the lip list community?
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: You mean like yourself? Yes? Did you? Were you sharp?
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Were you offended? Watching the movie? No? Listeners like the
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: listeners all over the place protesting he goes to the club,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: He'd be like, am I on the list?
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: So?
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Where where where can we find this movie? Off?
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: AMC No, it's very lim that it's only one hundred
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: and fifty nine okay, one hundred fifty nine. Go to
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: AMC Theaters dot com search a hip hop story and
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: just see where it pops up in your area. It's
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty nine locations. And uh yeah, the people,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the people will determine how successful this movie is in theaters,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: and then we'll we'll figure out the streaming deal or
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: the streaming platform that we want to go to after that.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: But right now, if you want to enjoy the movie,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: you'll see it this weekend.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: What's considered the success, like, well, you need to like
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: make your money back some profit.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: This is a bird going back to the budget situation,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: eighty million, eighty to one hundred million, that'd be fantastic.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: That would be great period. That'd be a big eighty
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: million Charlamagne. Bob Marley just did seventy. We love that
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: worldwide salute to the Marley film man. For sure.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: I'm about to ask to what you do is sketch
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: it so early? Did you get your yea necessary I
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: should say profit or check from YouTube because you were
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: doing it before it was cool man.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I wasn't. I wasn't. They didn't even have
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: the partner program when I was doing it, you know
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: what I mean, the only thing that I got at
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the time. We would get like some brands that'd be like, hey, man,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: we'll give you a couple of dollars to throw this
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: brand in here or whatever. But for the most part, no,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: we just got cloud props. And I learned the social
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: media game before a lot of people were on it,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: which is what makes me still relevant to this day
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: because I'm not the old head. I was never the
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: old head that was like, man, fuck these young niggas,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: fu fuck, just hilarious. She using her phone, that's cheating.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: I embraced it from day one because I if you
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: can use any platform, why wouldn't you use it? Why
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: would you be that nigga? I always say, like, that's
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: as dumb as when they put power windows in cars.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: You the old niggas. I'm man, I need to roll
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: that shit down. I don't want to push no buttons.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: I roll shit down. It made me more comfortable with
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: how I feel about things. You not a real nigga.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: If you're not rolling it down, you ain't real. Right
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: what use every platform and just adjust to the times.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Old niggas.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: Other than stand up sketches, the hardest comedy to me, though,
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: why it.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Is very good. I don't think miny artis. I don't
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: think many people are. In the history of comedy. I
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: don't think there's been too many people who are funny
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: at sketch where there's a difference between skits and sketches.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, Online is where you see a lot of
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: skits and a lot of it is, you know, rehashed.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: People are borrowing from this person that person, and it's
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: all good. Like there's nothing new under the sun, so
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: somebody's gonna think about the same idea. Right, But long
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: form sketch. That's why In Living Color was so impactful. Absolutely,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: That's why Saturday Night Live is an institution. Chappelle Right,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Chappelle Show, long form listen. Chappelle was so unorthodox with
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: sketch he did. He broke the mold right some episodes
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: he did traditional sketch three minutes, let's go to commercial break,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: then come back to another whole new sketch. The Rick
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: James and the Prince of Charlie Murphy story was the
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: entire episode. So he broke the mot He told a
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: long form sketch in thirty minutes, and it was funny.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Every time they came back and it just kept upping
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: the ante. So sketch is a whole different art form
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: and you have to know how to write. You have
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: to understand story, and it takes you to a different level.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Skits that's that's what people do on the internet, and
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: it's great, like it's making them money. But if you
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: want to entertain people and be able to hold their
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: attention and do a film or long form sketch, you
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: have to know how to write. You have to know
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: some old school principles. I never thought about the different
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: struct that makes Well.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: Why do you think you know early on you didn't
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: take off which sketch the way you should have. I think,
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: how do you remember I remember Short Circuit back in
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: the day that was like what seven?
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: That was before? Yeah, I don't know. I think I
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: think at some point there were sketch was oversaturated, you
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, and networks didn't want to take
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the chance on it. I mean, Fox gave me a
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: chance to do it, but they put me with all
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the wrong executives. When I had to explain to them
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: who Manny Pacil and Drake were at the time, I
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: was just like, Wow, this is the journey that we're on. Nah,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: So you know, it's just the wrong people doing this.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: So that's why I went to YouTube and just started
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: doing my own ideas, because it's like, why am I
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: waiting around for somebody to give me anything. We've always
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: been like, let's just do it, let's just go shoot it.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: So you know, I feel like sketch has gotten me everywhere.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean, how you might judge it
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: because you missed the numbers and want to no budgets.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: It might be a different.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: You've always been one of the best doing sketch, But
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: that just shows me that, you know, Hollywood don't know
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: what the they be talking about.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: All. That's why we do our own independent movies because
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: you know, you can't audition for the same casting directors
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: all the time because they want to A lot of
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: them like to hire their friends and you know it's
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: that thing too, But uh, when you show them what
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: it is you want to do, it changes the conversation
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: for you, you know what I mean. It's the same thing
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: that Ryan Cooler Michael b did with fruit Vale Station.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Like they made a movie about a very serious, real
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: life event, but they presented themselves as no, we are
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: those guys. We really know how to make these stories
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: come to life. And that's what me and Demaine did
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: with a hip hop story.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: And you've been building that based online for so long
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: that those same people will show up just Friday.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: That's right, man, Come on, say it again, Charlemagne, I
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: forgot what I said now.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: People, Yes, you've been building your based online for so
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: long that those same people are gonna.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Show up this Friday. There you go, right, you got
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: a real base, yes day.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: The hip Hop Story is out this Friday, and we
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: appreciate you for joining us.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Brother, appreciate are you trying Tomaine for bringing up Dix
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Dix budgets, Dix Budgets.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: It's the Breakfast Club wakes up in the morning, The
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: Breakfast Club