Latest / Earn Your Leisure / Kirk Franklin Exposes the Truth About Gospel Music, Record Deals & the Black Church w/ Norman Gyamfi

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Kirk Franklin Exposes the Truth About Gospel Music, Record Deals & the Black Church w/ Norman Gyamfi · Earn Your Leisure

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  Speaker 3: All right, gosh, yeah, welcome back. We are here special guests.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: We have Kurt Franklin and Norman and business partners in Curt,
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: somebody that obviously everybody knows Norman. This might be an
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: introduction for people, So this is going to be a
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: good two sided conversation and we talk about a variety
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: of different things. But on a business aspect, I think
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: this is good because you know, everybody knows you from
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: your spectacular career as a musician and the inspiration for people,
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: so we definitely got to talk about that. But you know,
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: you're doing a lot in the business world as well,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: and new ventures that you have and different things, so
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: I think that that might be interesting for people to
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: have that level of the conversation. So first and foremost,
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: thank you guys for joining us.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: Appreciate it. To be here, man, to be here.
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: I told you when you walked in.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: For about ten seconds, I was like, that's really his
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: voice and in my mind melodies of Heaven is going
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: on right now. So I mean, icon it is an understatement.
• 2:47
  Speaker 6: Man.
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: We are happy to have you both, very very grateful.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: So how does this work and relationship come about? How
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: do you guys meet and how do you guys formulate
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: some level of partnership.
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, man, I am.
• 3:00
  Speaker 7: I have been doing music, especially in the space of
• 3:03
  Speaker 7: gospel music now for about thirty two years, and it
• 3:08
  Speaker 7: has always been deficient with a level of access to
• 3:13
  Speaker 7: professional information just because of the limited amount of professional
• 3:23
  Speaker 7: and financial growth in the space of gospel music. Historically,
• 3:27
  Speaker 7: it never was attractive to people that had higher levels
• 3:31
  Speaker 7: of understanding of business where the acumen was able to
• 3:37
  Speaker 7: really be depositing in people that were really very very
• 3:44
  Speaker 7: absence of knowing how to be able to maneuver, whether
• 3:47
  Speaker 7: it was music publishing or touring, or understanding contracts, understanding
• 3:51
  Speaker 7: the value of what they were contributing to a space.
• 3:55
  Speaker 7: So a lot of times in black gospel music, you
• 3:58
  Speaker 7: were just really left to just survive on your own.
• 4:01
  Speaker 7: And so just over the last several years, you've seen
• 4:05
  Speaker 7: more younger entrepreneurs, especially men of color, that have seen
• 4:10
  Speaker 7: areas that could be beneficial in these joint spaces for
• 4:15
  Speaker 7: themselves and also for the artists. There was just a
• 4:18
  Speaker 7: space of just lack of information, lack of accessibility. And
• 4:22
  Speaker 7: so over the last decade, I've had a chance to
• 4:26
  Speaker 7: run into this fine young gentleman named Norman Gianphy. And
• 4:29
  Speaker 7: Norman started out managing artists, bringing opportunities to artists, came
• 4:35
  Speaker 7: from this great space of marketing. And the more I
• 4:38
  Speaker 7: was around him, I understood that it was a secret
• 4:41
  Speaker 7: that was written from like like there was a gem,
• 4:44
  Speaker 7: there was a genius gem that we were not really
• 4:46
  Speaker 7: tap into, that we were not tapping into to the
• 4:49
  Speaker 7: best of our ability as a genre. And so as
• 4:52
  Speaker 7: he made himself more available, we just became friends and
• 4:56
  Speaker 7: we just started to try to talk and communicate. And
• 4:59
  Speaker 7: I would have never known that that that so many
• 5:02
  Speaker 7: things that I was aspiring to do, he had the
• 5:06
  Speaker 7: tools to be able to give me the resources and
• 5:08
  Speaker 7: the knowledge and information on how to be able to
• 5:11
  Speaker 7: diversify and really become better at that. So over the
• 5:14
  Speaker 7: last five years it has been a wonderful partnership and
• 5:18
  Speaker 7: I've been so impressed with his acumen and his business compass.
• 5:23
  Speaker 7: And so he started to reach out and to build
• 5:27
  Speaker 7: a bigger conglomerate with other men of color that came
• 5:30
  Speaker 7: from the space of of of of faith, curated content.
• 5:35
  Speaker 7: And so he he over the last two years, built
• 5:40
  Speaker 7: this this this this this type of new ideal that
• 5:44
  Speaker 7: was attractive to me. I was about to sign again
• 5:47
  Speaker 7: with Sony Records and and uh RCA Records and well
• 5:51
  Speaker 7: and and and and it was a really nice offering
• 5:54
  Speaker 7: that they were going to give me again because I've
• 5:56
  Speaker 7: been in the house for years. Uh But at the
• 5:58
  Speaker 7: same time, I'm looking at Cross the River and I'm
• 6:02
  Speaker 7: seeing these black men that are coming together and they
• 6:05
  Speaker 7: want to be able to really own the space and
• 6:09
  Speaker 7: really be able to give equity and to be able
• 6:11
  Speaker 7: to give voice to individuals like myself. And so I
• 6:16
  Speaker 7: had this incredible choice of going back with a house
• 6:19
  Speaker 7: that was already part of the institution that I knew well,
• 6:23
  Speaker 7: or to take a chance on something that seemed so
• 6:27
  Speaker 7: attractive and something that really looked like other and it
• 6:32
  Speaker 7: was an outlier from what I experienced, and it was
• 6:35
  Speaker 7: the best decision I've ever made.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: So this is Insignia Assets. Yes, So no, I'm obviously
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: we know your iconic career. Was your career always surrounded
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: about around faith based content and music or how did
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: you get to this point?
• 6:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a good question. So no, I had nothing
• 6:55
  Speaker 6: to do with music, definitely not Christian music. I'm an
• 6:57
  Speaker 6: economist and industrial engineer Georgia Tech.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Went to Howard.
• 7:01
  Speaker 6: My sister married a gospel artist, Travis Green, and so
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  Speaker 6: I started working with him. And from there I noticed,
• 7:09
  Speaker 6: as Kirk mentioned, a lot of arbitrage, a lot of
• 7:12
  Speaker 6: deficiencies in the marketplace, and the main thing I noticed
• 7:16
  Speaker 6: was that they didn't market music the way the mainstream
• 7:18
  Speaker 6: music did. So I started a marketing company. And then
• 7:21
  Speaker 6: as I started the marketing company, I noticed that a
• 7:23
  Speaker 6: lot of brands, a lot of television TV film corporations,
• 7:26
  Speaker 6: a lot of labels needed marketing. They just weren't capturing
• 7:29
  Speaker 6: what they were doing. So that's what we started. We
• 7:32
  Speaker 6: started just capturing everything that we did. You see Chris
• 7:35
  Speaker 6: here right now. As soon as we started working with Kirk,
• 7:37
  Speaker 6: so I told him you got to have a camera
• 7:38
  Speaker 6: on you all the time because people don't believe a
• 7:41
  Speaker 6: lot of what you say. Kirk was in Brazil. You
• 7:44
  Speaker 6: have fifty thousand people there. When you hear that, everybody
• 7:47
  Speaker 6: see something different. My brother in law Travis, when it did,
• 7:50
  Speaker 6: it shows one point one million people. When I say
• 7:52
  Speaker 6: that everybody has an idea of what one point one
• 7:55
  Speaker 6: million people, it's a difference when I show you what
• 7:57
  Speaker 6: it looks like. And so when you actually show people
• 8:00
  Speaker 6: and you give this POV of what it's like to
• 8:02
  Speaker 6: be Kirk Franklin, Travis Green, Tosh Cobbs, Leonard Lacraye, whoever,
• 8:07
  Speaker 6: you are showing people that in the Christian music space,
• 8:11
  Speaker 6: we're not all just walking around with choir robes on
• 8:15
  Speaker 6: jumping around. These are massive brands, iconic brands. I do
• 8:19
  Speaker 6: jump around them that are filling arenas stumps too, you
• 8:22
  Speaker 6: know what I mean. And so my main thing when
• 8:25
  Speaker 6: I came into space was to number one, aggregate and
• 8:30
  Speaker 6: galvanize the most loyal consumer there is, which is the
• 8:34
  Speaker 6: African American consumer one. But secondarily, the most loyal consumers
• 8:38
  Speaker 6: actually believers, people that believe in God are the most
• 8:41
  Speaker 6: loyal consumer in America. That just elected the president. Whether
• 8:43
  Speaker 6: you like it or not, that's what happened, you know
• 8:46
  Speaker 6: what I mean. And so when you can aggregate that
• 8:49
  Speaker 6: communicating community mobilized, and I hate to use the word,
• 8:52
  Speaker 6: but monetize that community, you have a unique opportunity to
• 8:55
  Speaker 6: do something special.
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: So what exactly isn't asset and signey.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: As a holding company.
• 9:01
  Speaker 6: And so one of the main things I noticed was
• 9:03
  Speaker 6: there was no vertical integration. So I didn't want to
• 9:06
  Speaker 6: have any outside partners. We have no outside partners with
• 9:09
  Speaker 6: not taking on any debt. We have a distribution strategic partner,
• 9:13
  Speaker 6: which is Torture. That's about it. I work directly with
• 9:16
  Speaker 6: Love of Nation and touring, AG and touring. I work directly.
• 9:19
  Speaker 6: We own our own publishing, we're on our own masters.
• 9:23
  Speaker 6: We own everything in house. So it's a record label.
• 9:26
  Speaker 6: It's not a record label. It does everything we do television.
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  Speaker 3: Film, so it's it's a record label's part of it
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  Speaker 3: a record label is one part that's tribal Records.
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  Speaker 6: It's one sole part, and we have a publishing division.
• 9:36
  Speaker 6: We have a publishing company. We have a TV film
• 9:39
  Speaker 6: company called Three Diamonds. That's if you're saying Dennis Kings,
• 9:42
  Speaker 6: it's doing really well right now with Kirk sat down
• 9:44
  Speaker 6: with DC Young, Fly Lou Young and.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Ellis and Conjay. That's still our company.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: So it's a three sixty offering of everything media and
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: it's solely based around Christian.
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: Faith.
• 10:04
  Speaker 6: That's the genesis. That's the genesis. That's our modus operandi.
• 10:07
  Speaker 6: But we work with everybody. We work with Tamar Braxton,
• 10:09
  Speaker 6: you know what I mean, we work with It doesn't
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: matter if you're faith based or not. It matters whether
• 10:13
  Speaker 6: you are a brand that can be multifaceted. Tour podcast,
• 10:20
  Speaker 6: create music, create a book, create an asset that we
• 10:24
  Speaker 6: can then monetize multiple verticles.
• 10:26
  Speaker 7: And then what is also interesting about what Norman is
• 10:27
  Speaker 7: saying is that even with your question is that the
• 10:30
  Speaker 7: unique space and the unique opportunity with this type of
• 10:33
  Speaker 7: platform is that people of color are very diverse and
• 10:37
  Speaker 7: nuanced in that space is that they go to the
• 10:39
  Speaker 7: club and they go to church too, So so you're
• 10:42
  Speaker 7: able to curate content that if it knocks, they'll listen,
• 10:47
  Speaker 7: and if it feels good, they'll come. And so it
• 10:51
  Speaker 7: inspires and aspires at the same time. And that's what
• 10:54
  Speaker 7: made it very unique for me.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: As you're watching him build it and at the time
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: you hadn't signed with them, you hadn't partnered with them,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: but you're on the other side with the traditional major label.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: He's watching and saying, they're not marketing it's right. What's
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: that complexity feel like?
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Like you're watching a friend do something that's really unique
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: and you're kind of on the fence about doing it,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: but you're stuck in a traditional kind of mindset of
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: marketing and distributing.
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: What is that time period? What was it like for
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: you trying to battle that well?
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  Speaker 7: For me, the only tension was my concern of the
• 11:28
  Speaker 7: possibility of there being any unknown challenges with the beautiful
• 11:34
  Speaker 7: personal relationships that were being built. Is because I didn't
• 11:37
  Speaker 7: have good experiences with doing business with people that I
• 11:40
  Speaker 7: fell in love with as brothers, and so that was
• 11:42
  Speaker 7: my trepidation.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: So you didn't have relationship, you didn't have good experiences.
• 11:46
  Speaker 7: I've never had good experiences working with individuals that were
• 11:49
  Speaker 7: also friends and family, like individuals, and so that's what
• 11:53
  Speaker 7: my trepidation was now when it came to when it
• 11:56
  Speaker 7: came to me being clear of the deliverables. My first
• 11:59
  Speaker 7: project that I worked with Norman on was a tour
• 12:02
  Speaker 7: and it was back in twenty twenty two and it
• 12:04
  Speaker 7: ended up being the biggest attended, biggest grossing Christian or
• 12:07
  Speaker 7: a gospel tour even history, and it was myself in
• 12:10
  Speaker 7: Maverick City. And so when I saw the level of
• 12:13
  Speaker 7: execution on that tour, that's what really sparked my attention.
• 12:16
  Speaker 7: Is because I've toured my entire life, you know, in
• 12:19
  Speaker 7: my space, by God's grace only speaking, I've done all
• 12:23
  Speaker 7: of the big tours in my space historically over the
• 12:25
  Speaker 7: last twenty five years. But I've never been I've never
• 12:31
  Speaker 7: been able to really crack the code on the diversification
• 12:37
  Speaker 7: that normally comes to other artists when they tour. And
• 12:40
  Speaker 7: so working with Norman and his partners, it was just
• 12:44
  Speaker 7: an eye opening experience and then we became closer through it,
• 12:48
  Speaker 7: and so that began to be the beginning of me
• 12:51
  Speaker 7: starting to question if it could be something that could
• 12:53
  Speaker 7: really survive in that level of duality.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: So let me ask both of you guys this because
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: you both mentioned that gospel artists don't get marketed the
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: right way. So, Kirk, from your standpoint, what did you
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: see that was the problem when you was in like
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: the institution, and from your standpoint on the outside looking
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: at what did you see that say, Okay, they're not
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: doing this correctly. I think that I can add this
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: level of exposure through marketing.
• 13:20
  Speaker 7: It is very much not being part of the culture.
• 13:23
  Speaker 7: Is that most individuals that work in major systems, they
• 13:25
  Speaker 7: don't go to a local hood church. They're not at
• 13:28
  Speaker 7: the barbershop listening to Sunday sermons. They're not sitting in
• 13:32
  Speaker 7: the missionary Baptist church. They're not from that space. So
• 13:35
  Speaker 7: you've got to remember that the origin of gospel music
• 13:37
  Speaker 7: was very much about the community and the engaging of
• 13:41
  Speaker 7: the picnic, the barbecues, the three o'clock services. And that's
• 13:44
  Speaker 7: why gospel music flourished so much than the seventies and
• 13:47
  Speaker 7: eighties and nineties because a lot of the labels that
• 13:49
  Speaker 7: were running it back then were still people that were
• 13:51
  Speaker 7: part of the community. They were going to church themselves,
• 13:53
  Speaker 7: they were very much engrafted in the space of the
• 13:57
  Speaker 7: ecosystem of church ideals.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: In the community.
• 14:01
  Speaker 7: But because when you are people of color and America,
• 14:05
  Speaker 7: especially during that period of time, either you or somebody
• 14:08
  Speaker 7: you knew, you were not far removed from the church experience.
• 14:11
  Speaker 7: Even if you didn't go, you lived in a house
• 14:13
  Speaker 7: with somebody that did. You knew somebody that did. So
• 14:15
  Speaker 7: you understood the language, you understood the respect, you understood
• 14:18
  Speaker 7: all of the tenets of that cultural experience, even if
• 14:22
  Speaker 7: you were not always privy to it every week. So
• 14:24
  Speaker 7: what happened is is there is more corporation began to
• 14:27
  Speaker 7: come and buy the smaller companies in the nineties, in
• 14:30
  Speaker 7: the two thousands.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: That.
• 14:33
  Speaker 7: Access of the real experience of the community of church,
• 14:37
  Speaker 7: the language of church, and the heartbeat of the foundational
• 14:41
  Speaker 7: elements of gospel us began to get washed and they
• 14:44
  Speaker 7: began to get quickly separated from what was happening. And
• 14:47
  Speaker 7: so the more you moved up the higher echelon, you
• 14:51
  Speaker 7: missed the heartbeat of what Christian and gospel music was.
• 14:54
  Speaker 7: And so I started to see it. Everyone started to
• 14:57
  Speaker 7: see it. And so what this what it created were
• 15:02
  Speaker 7: executives that were trying to work in gospel music, but
• 15:06
  Speaker 7: they could easily work in hip hop because they.
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: Were going to the clubs.
• 15:08
  Speaker 7: They knew what was happening industries, they understood all of
• 15:12
  Speaker 7: the all of the tenants of hip hop culture. But
• 15:15
  Speaker 7: then when they had gospel artists, they didn't know what
• 15:17
  Speaker 7: to do. And so it was a very divine moment
• 15:22
  Speaker 7: for Norman and his partners to really see that happening
• 15:26
  Speaker 7: and to see it as a great business opportunity to
• 15:29
  Speaker 7: be able to tap into those that really needed this
• 15:32
  Speaker 7: bridge of what was and now what was missing.
• 15:35
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, you hit on a couple of points
• 15:38
  Speaker 6: really well. I think the main thing is something that
• 15:40
  Speaker 6: he said is when you talk about the nineties, everybody
• 15:43
  Speaker 6: grew up. I think at that time ninety three to
• 15:46
  Speaker 6: ninety seven percent of people went to church. Today thirty
• 15:49
  Speaker 6: eight to forty one percent of people go to church.
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: Oh you said ninety eight percent of people.
• 15:53
  Speaker 6: During the ninety many women of color, people know in
• 15:57
  Speaker 6: the United States consider themselves Christian once somewhere at some
• 16:02
  Speaker 6: point in the nineties. That number was in the ninety
• 16:06
  Speaker 6: to ninety seven percent time in the nineties. Back then,
• 16:11
  Speaker 6: everybody consider themselves. It's just a thing. You go up
• 16:13
  Speaker 6: to somebody, you're Christian. It's just a yes. That was,
• 16:17
  Speaker 6: I wouldn't call it an enlightenment in America, but as
• 16:19
  Speaker 6: we come into today, that number is dwindled to the
• 16:23
  Speaker 6: low forties to the mid thirties.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: Oh, people that attend church that consider themselves Christian, themselves
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: Christians church, Yes, when can look it up fact checking.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: That has a lot to do with the marketing piece
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: because the way we market so there were things you
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: could just say in the nineties and we just accepted them,
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: like you.
• 16:48
  Speaker 6: Could just say God bless you. Nowadays, if you just
• 16:50
  Speaker 6: walk up to somebody say God bless you, they say,
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: what God, What do you mean by God bless you.
• 16:54
  Speaker 6: It's just certain things that impacts marketing because if I'm
• 16:57
  Speaker 6: a brand and I know I want to your consumer,
• 17:01
  Speaker 6: I may not use a Christian artist because it may
• 17:03
  Speaker 6: offend some audience that wouldn't necessarily be offended. Are there
• 17:07
  Speaker 6: are many communities currently of color, not of color, of
• 17:11
  Speaker 6: sexual orientation, or whatever the case may we talk about
• 17:14
  Speaker 6: Roe v. Wade that are offended by certain belief systems.
• 17:17
  Speaker 6: Whether or not those beliefs actually have oppressive intent is irrelevant.
• 17:22
  Speaker 6: As a brand, I don't have the opportunity to communicate. Oh,
• 17:27
  Speaker 6: I don't agree with everything Kirk Franklin believes, or I
• 17:29
  Speaker 6: don't agree with everything Xyz believes. You don't have that opportunity.
• 17:34
  Speaker 6: So I'm just going to shy away from the very
• 17:36
  Speaker 6: mere fact that he says he's a Christian because it
• 17:39
  Speaker 6: may offend someone. So what I noticed coming into the
• 17:42
  Speaker 6: space was that that was a There was a large
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: group of people that still didn't didn't mind to have
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: someone like Kirk be the spokesman for what they wanted.
• 17:54
  Speaker 6: That wasn't There wasn't anyone willing to come in and say, hey,
• 17:58
  Speaker 6: I'm going to put my money behind this space and
• 18:01
  Speaker 6: look at ways to correlate them with certain brands, certain companies,
• 18:07
  Speaker 6: certain products, and push that to just our base. Our
• 18:11
  Speaker 6: base is still, like I said's the most loyal base
• 18:14
  Speaker 6: you have period.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: When you say your base, what is your because there's
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: a lot of Christians in America. Yeah, but there's Evangelical
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: White Christians, there's Roman Catholics, Yeah, there's Southern Baptists.
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: What is your base that you're referring?
• 18:28
  Speaker 6: So the unique part of where we sit in the
• 18:32
  Speaker 6: marketplace is Kirk mentioned Maverick City. So I am one
• 18:35
  Speaker 6: of the owners of Maverick City, with one of my
• 18:37
  Speaker 6: business partner, Jonathan Jay. And the unique thing about Maverick
• 18:40
  Speaker 6: City was that we prioritize diversity and so we were
• 18:44
  Speaker 6: able to build one of the first groups that had
• 18:47
  Speaker 6: African Americans in it that was able to be played
• 18:49
  Speaker 6: on what we consider CCM radio. So much like pop
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: and R and B, in the Christians space, you have
• 18:54
  Speaker 6: Christian and you have Gospel.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: That means white and black. I mean, let so no
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: one Christians.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: Christian music is white. Gospel music is black.
• 19:02
  Speaker 6: Yes, so if you hear Christian music, you hear Christian music,
• 19:06
  Speaker 6: you're going to have a white.
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: Person and there's no ambiguity.
• 19:09
  Speaker 7: What he says, none, no, no, but but but but
• 19:12
  Speaker 7: but can I also do you mind if if I
• 19:14
  Speaker 7: can also celebrate What he was saying is that this
• 19:17
  Speaker 7: piece of marketing that Norman and his partners brought to
• 19:21
  Speaker 7: the table is what it did for those spaces that
• 19:24
  Speaker 7: were already biased, is that it humanized the voices in
• 19:28
  Speaker 7: the space.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 19:29
  Speaker 7: That's what it did. Is that is that it allowed
• 19:33
  Speaker 7: people to see themselves in us. Is because being able
• 19:38
  Speaker 7: to have the idea, you know, we're going to bring
• 19:40
  Speaker 7: cameras into every space, We're going to do intentional marketing
• 19:44
  Speaker 7: to humanize the voices in this space so that they
• 19:47
  Speaker 7: do not sound so iconoclastic, right, that they sound more
• 19:51
  Speaker 7: human humanized. And so that has been a great benefit
• 19:56
  Speaker 7: for not for not on other artists, but also for myself.
• 19:59
  Speaker 7: And I was always a very public person, but in
• 20:02
  Speaker 7: the partnership I have seen the benefits of being intrusive
• 20:09
  Speaker 7: in a very intentional way so that people can understand
• 20:13
  Speaker 7: the viability and the relevance of not only just these brands,
• 20:18
  Speaker 7: but also the subject matter.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: This is interesting because even this is revolutionary. This partnership
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: feels revolutionary, but it feels like pretty new, right, you're
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: talking about tour in twenty twenty two. Yeah, but most
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: people look at you as the icon in terms of
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: gospel music. I mean it changed even from like the
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: eighties to the nineties, and like when you came and
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: then it was like it's praise and worship. It's a
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: totally different sound. But gospel music is still part of
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the music business. Yeah, And so at what point did
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: did you feel like you've grasped the business.
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: Or you're still learning up to this point.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Obviously you learn some new things and find new ways
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: to market, and as you as a leader in that space,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I would say, how are you seeing other artists as
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: you're growing and you're brand is building? Are we treating
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: it like a business or we always talk about R
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: and B artists who signed these contracts that were so
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: negligent and yeah, you know they didn't know what to
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: ask and pride and the kind of naive in the space,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: but we never really hear it in other genres. Was
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: that an experience and that time as well leading up
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: to current day where we have more information, more resources,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: obviously great partners.
• 21:23
  Speaker 7: You know, the answer for me is very nuanced because
• 21:28
  Speaker 7: it has been the last decade and a half of
• 21:30
  Speaker 7: me where I've been able to understand the necessity of
• 21:35
  Speaker 7: leaning into longevity that that's going to require more of
• 21:42
  Speaker 7: me being more infused and informed and also having the
• 21:49
  Speaker 7: tools to realize that these are the errors that I
• 21:52
  Speaker 7: can be strong in.
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: See. See.
• 21:54
  Speaker 7: The difficult thing is that it's not once sis fits
• 21:57
  Speaker 7: off every artists, because there are some artis.
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: That or or that or maybe more They are not extroverts.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: They they they.
• 22:06
  Speaker 7: May not have the woodness about themselves where they can
• 22:11
  Speaker 7: deliver in front of a camera. What is necessary for
• 22:14
  Speaker 7: for his part of the business. But whatever it is
• 22:17
  Speaker 7: is that what I think is very important is that
• 22:19
  Speaker 7: we need more individuals to surround talent in the space
• 22:23
  Speaker 7: to be able to point out those strengths, maximize and
• 22:26
  Speaker 7: manage those weaknesses so that they can be able to
• 22:28
  Speaker 7: have the opportunity to tap into these these these new
• 22:32
  Speaker 7: tools or the tools that are now available to them
• 22:35
  Speaker 7: so that we can talk about diversification and even longevity.
• 22:39
  Speaker 7: And that has not always existed. But it's because once again,
• 22:42
  Speaker 7: we were not prived to the best entertainment lawyers. We
• 22:45
  Speaker 7: were not prived to the booking agents and to the
• 22:47
  Speaker 7: the the the the talent ages. William Morris, who's not
• 22:50
  Speaker 7: running down our space. And when they were running down
• 22:52
  Speaker 7: our space back in the day, it was only just
• 22:54
  Speaker 7: to collect the dollars just for booking. It was not
• 22:56
  Speaker 7: to really to diversify and get them a television and
• 22:59
  Speaker 7: film like a lot of always promise. And it's not
• 23:01
  Speaker 7: a slate with wm is because they're a great company.
• 23:04
  Speaker 7: They're just too big. These companies are too big to
• 23:07
  Speaker 7: be able to be in the minutia of how do
• 23:11
  Speaker 7: we speak, it's almost adjacent to the Tyler peri model
• 23:17
  Speaker 7: is that his voice is so wrapped into the experience
• 23:21
  Speaker 7: of the community. Is that Hollywood did not know that
• 23:23
  Speaker 7: that was a community that even existed, and so it's
• 23:27
  Speaker 7: kind of privy to that space that there is this community,
• 23:32
  Speaker 7: there's this island that has always existed. That now we
• 23:37
  Speaker 7: cannot rely just on Sunday morning to get the message
• 23:41
  Speaker 7: that we exist there. We've got to be able to
• 23:43
  Speaker 7: do it Sunday night, Monday morning, Tuesday, Wednesday at the
• 23:45
  Speaker 7: club and the streets, at the barbershop where we go.
• 23:48
  Speaker 7: We've got to be able to have talented conversations, especially
• 23:51
  Speaker 7: with the advent of social media, to let people know
• 23:53
  Speaker 7: that we're aware, reformed, and we're still relatable to whatever
• 23:56
  Speaker 7: space people need when they need to be inspired and
• 23:58
  Speaker 7: be reminded of life bigger than themselves.
• 24:02
  Speaker 6: I think you ask a good question, and Kirk, you
• 24:05
  Speaker 6: expounded on a number of things, but the straightforward answers. Yeah,
• 24:09
  Speaker 6: the deal sucked the deals in gospel like they did everywhere.
• 24:14
  Speaker 6: One of the most disruptive factors of what we did
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: was we were giving royalties to artists without deals, and so.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: We were able to really.
• 24:24
  Speaker 6: Aggregate some of the best talent in Christian and gospel
• 24:27
  Speaker 6: music at the time, because they didn't have to commit
• 24:29
  Speaker 6: anything to work with us, a tribal in Maverick City,
• 24:32
  Speaker 6: Maverick City Publishing, and so a lot of the buildings
• 24:35
  Speaker 6: didn't like what we were doing. We weren't Nashville base,
• 24:37
  Speaker 6: we weren't old white guys from the Midwest. We were
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: some young black dudes from Georgia. And so that was
• 24:45
  Speaker 6: kind of disruptive in and of itself from a racial standpoint.
• 24:49
  Speaker 6: But also we were trying to push for an all
• 24:51
  Speaker 6: white format at radio to also play black music. And
• 24:54
  Speaker 6: so when you talk about the deals, and when you
• 24:56
  Speaker 6: hear about the nineties, the R and B and those
• 24:59
  Speaker 6: horse mc kirk has a hard story.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: He might not talk about it.
• 25:02
  Speaker 6: I said it, but he had a bad deal at
• 25:04
  Speaker 6: a point, you know, someone took all of his publishing,
• 25:06
  Speaker 6: Someone took everything from him. And so in this lot
• 25:09
  Speaker 6: of part of his career, well I won't even say
• 25:11
  Speaker 6: the lot of part.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Let God decide that. But at this point in.
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: His career he is now leveraging and monetizing out of
• 25:18
  Speaker 6: way as an entrepreneur. You know, he's the chief creative
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: officer in my company. He makes decisions on what the
• 25:25
  Speaker 6: type of music we're going to put out. We need
• 25:27
  Speaker 6: great I'm gonna call him gate keepers, but we need
• 25:29
  Speaker 6: quality control in every genre of music.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: Not that we need these.
• 25:33
  Speaker 6: A and rs to say dis should come out they shouldn't,
• 25:35
  Speaker 6: but we also need for us by us still at
• 25:39
  Speaker 6: a point, you need people that are in the space
• 25:42
  Speaker 6: to understand his value, understand the artist's value. Everybody's making money,
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: but what happens when you're in one of these majors.
• 25:49
  Speaker 6: The money's going into this vacuum and out to these
• 25:51
  Speaker 6: people that we've never met.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 25:54
  Speaker 6: So as an indie label, I know what I need
• 25:58
  Speaker 6: to survive it and I can say yeah for real.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: So the artists need to be able to really eat.
• 26:04
  Speaker 6: They need to be able to really see the benefits
• 26:07
  Speaker 6: of the hard work they're doing. He's running around all
• 26:09
  Speaker 6: day promoting his single, his podcast, these things.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: He should have ownership in that. You know where the
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: traditional deal is.
• 26:16
  Speaker 6: An artist has they on fifteen percent of this master
• 26:21
  Speaker 6: work they created, and they took this loan essentially eighty
• 26:25
  Speaker 6: five thousand dollars to do this, their life's work, put
• 26:29
  Speaker 6: out their first album. It does amazing the labels making
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: millions of dollars. They're not going to redo the deal
• 26:33
  Speaker 6: for you. They're not going to come back and give
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: you a bonus.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: You agreed to it.
• 26:37
  Speaker 6: So you're paying you pay back everything you gave us
• 26:40
  Speaker 6: off the fifteen percent royalty that I've given you, and
• 26:43
  Speaker 6: I'm going to keep eighty five percent of every dollar
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: that we made, and then once your fifteen percent has recouped.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: I'll give you your royalties.
• 26:52
  Speaker 6: And that's on something you created all yourself, and they
• 26:55
  Speaker 6: just gave you the money to do it. I just
• 26:57
  Speaker 6: didn't think that was fair.
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: So, Kurt, when did you know it's similar?
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: Because obviously, so okay, you and YG on the opposite
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: sides of the spectrum in life.
• 27:09
  Speaker 6: Right and music theoretically right. I don't know why G personally.
• 27:14
  Speaker 6: I won't speak to his spirituality.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: Good God, but when somebody looks at what I know him,
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: I know him well.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: But the reason why I say that is because you know,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: we had a conversation with YG and he was saying
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: that when he signed his first record deal was it
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: was five albums for twenty five thousand offs. That makes sense,
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: and pretty much he didn't know what he was getting
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: himself into an he made mistakes, and he learned the business,
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: and he realized that he was in a bad deal.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: You said that you was in a bad deal, right, Yes,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: When did you realize that you were you were in
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: a bad deal?
• 27:47
  Speaker 7: Well, and and and I also want to be able
• 27:49
  Speaker 7: to to acknowledge it in a space that is that
• 27:57
  Speaker 7: I signed. I signed the deal, so it wasn't forced
• 28:02
  Speaker 7: upon me. I signed a deal that was not the
• 28:05
  Speaker 7: most beneficial for me, you know. And and and I've
• 28:08
  Speaker 7: had to learn how to phrase it that way because
• 28:12
  Speaker 7: sometimes it has been weaponized against me, even though it's
• 28:17
  Speaker 7: truth that I that one hundred percent of my publishing
• 28:20
  Speaker 7: was not given to me until almost twenty years into
• 28:25
  Speaker 7: my career, so you know, and that's and that is
• 28:27
  Speaker 7: very unfortunate.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: That's very unfortunate.
• 28:29
  Speaker 7: So it was me understanding and realizing as I continue
• 28:34
  Speaker 7: to matriculate in the space that the information that I
• 28:39
  Speaker 7: was not privy to at the very beginning other artists
• 28:41
  Speaker 7: and other situations is because what started to happening again
• 28:45
  Speaker 7: was also just the advent of independent individuals, people that
• 28:48
  Speaker 7: were doing it on their own, and people that were
• 28:51
  Speaker 7: doing on their own social media and social platforms gave
• 28:54
  Speaker 7: them a louder voice. And so what started to happen
• 28:57
  Speaker 7: is that the information that was that was fight years
• 29:00
  Speaker 7: away from us getting. Now there are artists that are
• 29:03
  Speaker 7: now giving you the information themselves. And as you see
• 29:06
  Speaker 7: younger artists that are now more empowered and now have
• 29:09
  Speaker 7: more of the tools to be able to to to
• 29:12
  Speaker 7: be strategic in the navigation of their own future, you
• 29:16
  Speaker 7: realize that that that you need to make some major
• 29:19
  Speaker 7: paradragmatic changes, right and and so in that you start
• 29:23
  Speaker 7: to have these divine, uh cosmic collisions that that that
• 29:29
  Speaker 7: I give you the information and the resources. One one
• 29:30
  Speaker 7: of one of the first individuals that that I became
• 29:33
  Speaker 7: blessed with that that that that really became a great
• 29:37
  Speaker 7: enlightenment for me. It was an individual by the name
• 29:38
  Speaker 7: of Ron Hill. Ron Hill was an individual that interned
• 29:42
  Speaker 7: with me when he was his senior in college and uh,
• 29:45
  Speaker 7: this was his space, this was his major, and so
• 29:48
  Speaker 7: he equipped me with the information that I did not have,
• 29:51
  Speaker 7: and he had the skill set like he's a he
• 29:54
  Speaker 7: he is a walking master class, like this individual like EJ. Gaines,
• 29:57
  Speaker 7: like Phil Thornton, and of these are the men of
• 30:00
  Speaker 7: color that that are that are kind of like the
• 30:03
  Speaker 7: wonder kinds that he's that he's pulled together, right, And
• 30:06
  Speaker 7: so with that, you are now able to have all
• 30:10
  Speaker 7: of this, all of this wisdom and information that you're
• 30:13
  Speaker 7: able to tap into. And so these were men that
• 30:15
  Speaker 7: I also found and in different parts of my journey
• 30:19
  Speaker 7: getting here as well. So the more I understood what
• 30:24
  Speaker 7: I did not have, and the more I was being
• 30:28
  Speaker 7: given the opportunity to understand what I could have just
• 30:31
  Speaker 7: with a couple of little.
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: Small changes, just some small changes.
• 30:36
  Speaker 7: But those small changes, the value in them has been
• 30:41
  Speaker 7: has been humbling and overwhelming and I can't even begin
• 30:43
  Speaker 7: to quantify what it's been for me.
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: It's been a miraculous journey.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: As I was thinking about, I remember when you came
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: on the scene in the nineties and this is like
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: when TRL and Yellow Thing and Cities the thing and
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: they were showing your videos. Yeah, I'm thinking to myself, like,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: this guy's made it to raps, Like how is this possible?
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Beating people on the countdowns? And I'm like, yeah, that
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: was a CE era, right, So you're making money and CDs.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you have a bunch of platinum records. I mean, yeah,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: ount lists and then music changes. Yes, and it's now
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: a streaming era. Not really your expertise. I would assume
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: you are probably familiar with this space. How do you
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: navigate the streaming era? Coming from an artist who was
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: prominent and thrived in a different era of music.
• 31:32
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean gospel act like many genres. I mean,
• 31:37
  Speaker 6: like like many different drivers and music. At that time,
• 31:43
  Speaker 6: gospel remained primarily physical for quite some time. I think
• 31:46
  Speaker 6: that really that changed in the past three to five years.
• 31:50
  Speaker 6: When I came into the space of something, I noticed
• 31:53
  Speaker 6: they were, you know, you would have artists posts, don't
• 31:56
  Speaker 6: don't go on out for music, don't go on Spotify,
• 31:58
  Speaker 6: buy my you know, download actually by and what they
• 32:02
  Speaker 6: were fighting was a tide that was going to overwhelm them.
• 32:05
  Speaker 6: I think, you know, one of the main things I
• 32:07
  Speaker 6: focused on was embracing change because the change was coming.
• 32:10
  Speaker 6: It was inevitable. It's like attempting to stop people from
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: using AI now like music, people are really anti AI now.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: The change is inevitable.
• 32:19
  Speaker 6: So either you're going to figure out a way to
• 32:22
  Speaker 6: adapt to change, or the change's going to move you
• 32:25
  Speaker 6: out the way. I remember when everybody used to have
• 32:27
  Speaker 6: a Kodak camera.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 32:28
  Speaker 6: I know everybody used their iPhone, you know, and you
• 32:31
  Speaker 6: know the same company also disrupted music iTunes. It's the
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: way the only way to purchase music now. One of
• 32:37
  Speaker 6: the sole ways to purchase music now was not created
• 32:40
  Speaker 6: by the billion dollar record labels. It was created by
• 32:43
  Speaker 6: tech company in Silicon Valley. Because disruption's gonna happen now,
• 32:48
  Speaker 6: you can adapt to it, or you can think that
• 32:50
  Speaker 6: you're going to stop it. You're not gonna stop convenience.
• 32:53
  Speaker 6: We're in America. People love convenience. It's no different than
• 32:56
  Speaker 6: when they were trying to stop Uber for happening from happening,
• 32:59
  Speaker 6: or door down, that's Airbnb. Imagine tellings some people twenty
• 33:03
  Speaker 6: years ago, you're gonna have random strangers living in your
• 33:05
  Speaker 6: house when you're not there. You're gonna get in the
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: car with some guy you never met before. He's gonna
• 33:10
  Speaker 6: take you to your next location, all right. Or imagine this,
• 33:13
  Speaker 6: he's gonna pick up your McDonald's and drop it off
• 33:15
  Speaker 6: to you at two.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: O'clock in the morning.
• 33:16
  Speaker 6: You're as gonna let strangers give them your address, come
• 33:19
  Speaker 6: to your house and give you your food that you don't know.
• 33:21
  Speaker 6: If you know we talk about back in the day,
• 33:23
  Speaker 6: you don't know if they spit in that, that's what that's.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Like.
• 33:28
  Speaker 6: Disruption and convenience are things that we're always going to
• 33:33
  Speaker 6: prioritize as Americans because that's the type of environment we
• 33:37
  Speaker 6: foster now, unless there's some socio socio physiological change amongst us,
• 33:44
  Speaker 6: which I don't see happening, convenience is the thing we prioritize.
• 33:47
  Speaker 6: And so when it came to music, it's easier for
• 33:50
  Speaker 6: me to just stream than this would be to go
• 33:53
  Speaker 6: to Walmart, buy your CD, put have a CD player, put.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: It in my car, then listen to it.
• 33:59
  Speaker 6: When I have to do that for every single artist
• 34:01
  Speaker 6: instead of just putting you all on one playlist, picking
• 34:04
  Speaker 6: my favorite song and listening to it.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: So I prioritize streaming.
• 34:07
  Speaker 6: When I came into the space, I was the guy
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: that actually figured out what the streaming record was in gospel.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: I went through all.
• 34:13
  Speaker 6: The charts for like the past thirty years to put
• 34:15
  Speaker 6: that together with my guy Phil Thornton, and to shout
• 34:18
  Speaker 6: out to guys that Kirk mentioned, we all have come
• 34:20
  Speaker 6: together with one company.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: They all work at Insignia.
• 34:22
  Speaker 6: They're the sea level executive team that does what Kirk
• 34:26
  Speaker 6: is talking about. We each sit down and eat every
• 34:29
  Speaker 6: division and we figure out how the best way to
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: monetize what Kirk is doing, what MAVI is doing with
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: our artists like Todd Gaber, Channel more Naomi Rain are doing.
• 34:38
  Speaker 6: And what that gives us a leg up on is
• 34:41
  Speaker 6: if you look at the charts.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: It's indicative.
• 34:43
  Speaker 6: If you look at the gospel trants, you'll see that
• 34:45
  Speaker 6: primarily seven of the top ten records are released by
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: Trivel or something we worked on. You keep going down
• 34:52
  Speaker 6: further than that eight. I think it's sixteen out of
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: the top twenty. It's because if you don't embrace change,
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: change is going to run you over.
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: How do you think all about the current state of
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: gospel music.
• 35:02
  Speaker 6: Personally, I'm very I'm worried. The main thing, man, it's
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: got to discuss all day is how do we I
• 35:13
  Speaker 6: would say this for him after the BT, it was
• 35:17
  Speaker 6: it was a lot of conversation. The first question this
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: man asked us say at dinner was how do we
• 35:23
  Speaker 6: take this opportunity and make it something that's for the
• 35:26
  Speaker 6: entire genre. And the problem with that is the KPIs
• 35:32
  Speaker 6: that major mainstream institutions look at many gospel artists don't
• 35:37
  Speaker 6: feel are important.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: And as long as you.
• 35:41
  Speaker 6: Don't position yourself in a manner to where you're attractive
• 35:45
  Speaker 6: to the very thing that can broaden the message that
• 35:48
  Speaker 6: we all want to reach everyone, you have to you
• 35:52
  Speaker 6: have to do certain things.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: It's the Bible. You gotta become all things to all men.
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: To win some If you need to be fly, if
• 35:58
  Speaker 6: you need to be able to articulate in a certain conversation,
• 36:01
  Speaker 6: you need to be able to sit down and have
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: a conversation with you guys and be able to articulate
• 36:05
  Speaker 6: and understand business to push forward the gospel, then be
• 36:09
  Speaker 6: ready to do that. Not being prepared for that conversation,
• 36:12
  Speaker 6: to me is no different than when they buried their
• 36:14
  Speaker 6: talents in the Bible.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: It's good, you know what I mean. That's how I
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: see it.
• 36:17
  Speaker 6: So when I look at the state of gospel vieus,
• 36:19
  Speaker 6: I look at a lot of people whining and complaining
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: about something they haven't prepared for.
• 36:23
  Speaker 7: And can I just jump in and say say that
• 36:26
  Speaker 7: that that that that that the the whining and complaining
• 36:30
  Speaker 7: also is the fatigue of not being able to have
• 36:35
  Speaker 7: the oxygen reach everyone. Yeah, that's what a lot of
• 36:38
  Speaker 7: it is also see the blessing and benefiting. The challenge
• 36:43
  Speaker 7: of my career is that it has allowed me to
• 36:46
  Speaker 7: have access I've been blessed to have access with with
• 36:50
  Speaker 7: with great minds and and and with spaces that challenge
• 36:54
  Speaker 7: my thinking, challenge me to want to be able to
• 36:56
  Speaker 7: push forward and have engaging opportunities and conversation too, to
• 37:00
  Speaker 7: not only enlighten but also be enlightened. Where most individuals
• 37:05
  Speaker 7: in my space, their ecosystem is the black church, it's
• 37:08
  Speaker 7: the black conference, it's the black events, it's the black
• 37:11
  Speaker 7: spaces where a lot of information never gets never gets.
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: To that level.
• 37:17
  Speaker 7: And so when you find out that there are other
• 37:19
  Speaker 7: conversations that are happening that you're not privy to, that
• 37:22
  Speaker 7: and it self can breed frustration. And so I think
• 37:25
  Speaker 7: that it is my passion to want to be a conduit,
• 37:28
  Speaker 7: to try to be a catalyst to get that information,
• 37:31
  Speaker 7: just to get this but even if it only impacts
• 37:34
  Speaker 7: one or two, at least we've been able to try
• 37:36
  Speaker 7: to do as much as we can to deposit and
• 37:38
  Speaker 7: invest in individuals that are able to keep the narrative going.
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's important.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: I asked the CD question because I was going to
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: church every Sunday and I was sitting the sound Upart
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: of Sound Industry and I'm making CDs. It's like twenty fifteen.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: I'm like, they don't know that. People don't listen to CD,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: but every Sunday I'm making the CD.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: And so it brings me to the point where I'm like,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: if the church doesn't get younger, where does it go?
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: And so when I'm thinking about the numbers that you
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: said right from the nineties, I don't disagree with you,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: like there was a large percentage of people that identified
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: as Christian and went to church to where we're at today,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: those numbers, I mean, if you're not declining, I mean,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: if you're not inclining, you're declining.
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: You're declining to me.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: So my question is like, how do we the state
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: of the I guess the Black Church, how do we
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: increase the youth participation in it?
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Can I say something about that, cause I don't know
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: if that's entirely true For me, from the outside looking in,
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: it looks like there's more young people.
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: That's that. It feels like a renaissance. As far as
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: from what Icy.
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: Now, it is from Icy like I said, I'm on
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: the outside looking at but like even like Spiritual Word,
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: it's not really a Christian based thing, but it started.
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: That's a long story. But long story short.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Wait, hold on, were talking about that's how it started started?
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: Like now, like that's how what started spiritual work.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: You know, Spiritual Word page. But Spiritual Word is a
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: big social media platform. Yeah, they have millions of followers.
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: If you watch their content, it's not Christian based at all,
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: but every now and then they'll throw a sermon, then
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: they'll throw some stuff. So I spoke to the owner
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: before and I'm like, your name is Spiritual Word, but
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: you're not really posting anything spiritually. And he was just saying,
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: like he started it as a Christian based platform, it
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: wasn't really gaining traction. They changed in the shade room,
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: but every now and then he tries to. But long
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: story short, I think that there's a lot of young
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: people that I see that are now becoming religious, embracing
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: that on social media at least that's what it.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Looks like they're spiritual.
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: That's the Yeah, there you go.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: I think that's the difference people like people will identify
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: as spiritually. I'm talking spiritual right, the people that are
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: going like the youth right. I was a teacher for
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: fifteen years. Churchill wasn't even something that students. It's not
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: even a place that they were going. And I was
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: in the community that I was teaching. I was going
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: to church there, and I never saw any of my students.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: I'm like, the church two blocks away, nobody's going. And
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: then it hit me, I'm like, wait, I'm looking at
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: it in New York City. I'm like, are people bringing
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: the children to church?
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: You used to have to go with your grandma? Right
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: then your mom's not going, so you stopped going. How
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: do we reverse that cycle?
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Though? One of the key things, and this is to
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: kind of come to what you're saying.
• 40:26
  Speaker 6: What you see and what you feel and what you
• 40:29
  Speaker 6: notice is what you see across the gospel Christian music
• 40:33
  Speaker 6: space is. And I talked to Kirk about this a lot.
• 40:37
  Speaker 6: The struggle that existed in the eighties and the nineties
• 40:43
  Speaker 6: that made our grandma make us go to church. I'm
• 40:46
  Speaker 6: not saying it doesn't exist anymore, but the way it
• 40:48
  Speaker 6: exists is different. When you think about Kirk Franklin's daughter
• 40:52
  Speaker 6: or my ive eighteen year old and you guys, now
• 40:55
  Speaker 6: you're talking about you, you're talking about young African American
• 40:58
  Speaker 6: men who likely a millionaires. The way we raise our
• 41:02
  Speaker 6: children is totally different than how we came up, and
• 41:05
  Speaker 6: so what we sought from the Black church in the
• 41:09
  Speaker 6: eighties and the nineties isn't the same thing my daughter's
• 41:12
  Speaker 6: gonna seek from church. They're seeking a different experience. And
• 41:16
  Speaker 6: when you seek that different experience, it's a different environment.
• 41:20
  Speaker 6: And so a lot of times now you have young
• 41:23
  Speaker 6: African American kids that go to what we would consider
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: evangelical white church because they want to hear a different
• 41:30
  Speaker 6: style of music. That's where their friends go. That's who
• 41:33
  Speaker 6: they went to college with, that's who uh, that's what
• 41:36
  Speaker 6: they're working with. So no, they're not going to go
• 41:39
  Speaker 6: to the Baptist church around the corner. They're going to
• 41:43
  Speaker 6: the megachurch over here. Because everybody likes the place. They
• 41:47
  Speaker 6: can't get in that, I mean even churches or watching
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: watch it online or watch it online. The thing that
• 41:52
  Speaker 6: happened with COVID is that Black churches with disproportionately unprepared
• 41:56
  Speaker 6: for streaming. When it came time to stream. We are
• 42:01
  Speaker 6: experiential people, so we ain't have cameras when they ain't
• 42:04
  Speaker 6: believe it is they weren't good. They was making CDs
• 42:07
  Speaker 6: still in twenty twenty, yeah, buddy, So they was making
• 42:10
  Speaker 6: these and selling the pastor sermon every mega or the
• 42:14
  Speaker 6: evangelical white churches.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: They were prepared.
• 42:16
  Speaker 6: They were streaming already that huge. They were having huge
• 42:19
  Speaker 6: numbers already.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:20
  Speaker 6: And that's why you start to addving to Mike Todd,
• 42:22
  Speaker 6: pastor Mike Todd, and that's why his church blew up
• 42:25
  Speaker 6: because he was one of the few black pastors at
• 42:27
  Speaker 6: the time that went tapped in, was taped in then
• 42:30
  Speaker 6: and ready to go in Manwick City at the time,
• 42:32
  Speaker 6: they were one of the only groups still making music.
• 42:34
  Speaker 6: They blew up at the time they became the worship
• 42:36
  Speaker 6: team for all of America. And so much like anything else,
• 42:41
  Speaker 6: what streaming was necessary. Then everybody's trying to catch up,
• 42:45
  Speaker 6: everybody's trying to get there.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: One of the foundations of.
• 42:48
  Speaker 6: My company was we were doing almost seven hundred services
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: for churches from my house every Sunday during COVID because
• 42:57
  Speaker 6: churches they didn't know how to stream it. They and
• 43:00
  Speaker 6: then at that point people starting to record early because
• 43:03
  Speaker 6: you had to be live and in Facebook was crashing
• 43:06
  Speaker 6: to was crashing that to.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: Have a way to have a.
• 43:10
  Speaker 6: Redundancy, and a lot of churches just didn't have or
• 43:13
  Speaker 6: could afford to setting it up last minute. So what
• 43:15
  Speaker 6: we're talking about and how when you're talking about things
• 43:18
  Speaker 6: are growing, it's growing. It's not going in the black church.
• 43:21
  Speaker 7: Well, and then I also want to jump in and say,
• 43:22
  Speaker 7: if you don't mind, it's growing, but it is not
• 43:25
  Speaker 7: growing in the traditional monotheistic, monothistic ideal that that that
• 43:34
  Speaker 7: that we were raised at. It is very much Jesus adjacent.
• 43:38
  Speaker 7: It's very much youth meaning that you have now younger
• 43:42
  Speaker 7: Christians that don't believe in Jesus and crystals that that
• 43:46
  Speaker 7: that that that that that that it's both and now
• 43:49
  Speaker 7: where where where there is this there is this pluralistic
• 43:53
  Speaker 7: ideal that is permeated Western Christianity in the younger generation.
• 43:59
  Speaker 7: And a lot of these churches that they go to
• 44:01
  Speaker 7: are almost like Christian's bars, the christ Christmas bos. Are
• 44:05
  Speaker 7: you gonna get your neck rubb, you're gonna figure if
• 44:07
  Speaker 7: you're gonna get your feet done, you're gonna get your
• 44:09
  Speaker 7: head done. You know, everything is about the better man.
• 44:12
  Speaker 7: It's almost like spiritual Ted talks so so so it's
• 44:17
  Speaker 7: not challenging people. And so you got to remember, you know, man,
• 44:20
  Speaker 7: think about gospel music, God's music, talked about the Cross,
• 44:23
  Speaker 7: talk about the blood of Jesus, and talk about you know,
• 44:26
  Speaker 7: you know God forgive me for my sins. Yeah, he's able.
• 44:30
  Speaker 7: I mean you talk to younger generation, what's sin?
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: What sin?
• 44:35
  Speaker 7: Sin is a man made construct to a lot of
• 44:37
  Speaker 7: these individuals. And so this is not to demonize the
• 44:40
  Speaker 7: next generation. I'm saying that these things begin to also
• 44:43
  Speaker 7: filter down to the music. It's going to impact the music.
• 44:48
  Speaker 7: When you are against the rapper. It's hardest to rap
• 44:50
  Speaker 7: like that when you move to Brentwood. It's easy to
• 44:53
  Speaker 7: rap like that when you still live in Compton. But
• 44:55
  Speaker 7: when you move, when you move to Beverly Hills, it's
• 44:58
  Speaker 7: gonna affect your music. It's going to facture, it's going
• 45:00
  Speaker 7: to affect the fire of your lyrical content. And what
• 45:03
  Speaker 7: has happened is that American culture has moved from the
• 45:07
  Speaker 7: and and I can't say, I humbly can't say all
• 45:10
  Speaker 7: of it is bad. It's because I think a lot
• 45:13
  Speaker 7: of what we were grouped into a lot of or
• 45:19
  Speaker 7: or or indoctrinated into was also dogma. It was also
• 45:25
  Speaker 7: the the the the residue of colonialism, you know, and
• 45:30
  Speaker 7: the residue of Puritanism. And because that's what that that
• 45:34
  Speaker 7: those are the tenets of Western Christianity, Western Christianity, the
• 45:37
  Speaker 7: tennis are colonialism and puritanism. And so those did not
• 45:42
  Speaker 7: really speak to the need flavery. Well, that that is
• 45:46
  Speaker 7: the birth of colonialism and puritanism, you know what I'm saying.
• 45:48
  Speaker 7: It's like the Mama of colonialism and the dad e
• 45:51
  Speaker 7: Puritanism birth slavery, right, and so we understand that that
• 45:55
  Speaker 7: that that that Western Chris, Western Christianity is rolled in
• 45:59
  Speaker 7: that space. And even what gospel music was at the
• 46:01
  Speaker 7: time was what how I got over.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: Lord helped me get through, Lord keep me strong.
• 46:06
  Speaker 7: And so now that we're seeing people being able to
• 46:09
  Speaker 7: be elevated from these spaces, it's going to impact the
• 46:13
  Speaker 7: music and it's also going to impact their idea of
• 46:16
  Speaker 7: who God is.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: Good.
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: Well, let me ask you this. You guys spoke about
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: tech a lot.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: Another one of our friends, Timbaland he got a lot
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: of heat recently saw that we're working with him on
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: So okay, he signed that, but he signed the AI artist,
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: and people were very disappointed.
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: They were let down.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: The artists said that he was betraying the art of
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: music and that some people even want as far as
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: say that this is demonic. I saw what is your
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: thoughts on AI's role in music?
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Anything can be used for the good of God. Anything
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: I believe that.
• 46:55
  Speaker 6: I don't believe anything under the sun it cannot be
• 46:59
  Speaker 6: used for the benefit of God.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: So, whether that's AI, whether.
• 47:02
  Speaker 6: That's whatever, I mean, there's certain things that are you
• 47:07
  Speaker 6: know people, Someone says, well, what about porn? Well, sex
• 47:10
  Speaker 6: was created by God to be in the confines of marriage.
• 47:12
  Speaker 6: So I'm just gonna come to that point and to
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: say everything has a purpose that God intended for as
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: it pertains the Timbland. Overall, I'm gonna stick to what
• 47:21
  Speaker 6: I said earlier. You can fight the tide all you want.
• 47:24
  Speaker 6: The tide is gonna overwhelm. Will people decide that they
• 47:30
  Speaker 6: don't like to listen to an AI generator artist?
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: We don't know yet. It's like being early to anything, right.
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: If you talk about being early and the streaming people say,
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: I'll never download Spotify, I'll never download Apple Music. The
• 47:43
  Speaker 6: artists don't get the money they're paying pennies on the dollar. Now,
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: you couldn't find a CD if you want it one,
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: you know what I mean. So to me, I believe
• 47:49
  Speaker 6: Timberlan is early. I was maybe too early. I think
• 47:52
  Speaker 6: he's going to be the one that bears the brunt
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: of the frustration of that artists existing because you're saying, basically,
• 48:00
  Speaker 6: you're taking publishing, you're taking royalties, and you're giving them
• 48:03
  Speaker 6: all to the person that creates this AI entity. But
• 48:06
  Speaker 6: I believe that's where music will go when you talk
• 48:08
  Speaker 6: about ten twenty years from now, I do believe many
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: artists will simply be AI creations from the minds of
• 48:17
  Speaker 6: the Kirk Franklins of the world, from the minds of
• 48:19
  Speaker 6: the Drakes of the world, from the DJ Callis of
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: the world, from the whatever.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Because it's just going to be more convenient.
• 48:25
  Speaker 6: I don't got to get a session together, I don't
• 48:27
  Speaker 6: gotta pay for studio time, I don't got to pay producers.
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: Whenever you can find a throughput to cheaper and hire
• 48:34
  Speaker 6: ore ROI. You cannot fight the tide of efficiency. People
• 48:40
  Speaker 6: are not gonna do something that is inefficient for the
• 48:43
  Speaker 6: feeling of it, even if they say that they will
• 48:46
  Speaker 6: on camera. Behind the scenes, They're going to figure out
• 48:48
  Speaker 6: a way to do it and mask it under some
• 48:50
  Speaker 6: different umbrella. And I've already heard and had those conversations currently,
• 48:55
  Speaker 6: So ten twenty years from now, I believe a lot
• 48:57
  Speaker 6: of music will be AI mood driven. Imagine being able
• 49:00
  Speaker 6: to pick up your phone and based on how you're feeling,
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: it creates music to make you feel and that I'm
• 49:06
  Speaker 6: getting ready to go to the club. Boom, you got
• 49:09
  Speaker 6: exactly what you want. I'm getting ready to go to church. Boom,
• 49:11
  Speaker 6: you got exactly what you want. My life's about to
• 49:13
  Speaker 6: have a baby. Boom, you got exactly what you want.
• 49:15
  Speaker 6: I need to get my baby to bed. Imagine having
• 49:17
  Speaker 6: the most soothing playlist ever to get your baby to bed.
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: No one's gonna fight.
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: That one thing that I can can can can can.
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: Can say to it.
• 49:25
  Speaker 7: Let me let me just give just a little let
• 49:26
  Speaker 7: me just give just a little small twist to if
• 49:28
  Speaker 7: you don't mind in my time. And you know it
• 49:31
  Speaker 7: is because on the in the conversation, I'm the og
• 49:34
  Speaker 7: at the table, right, you know, you know, you know
• 49:36
  Speaker 7: I'm eighty seven years old, right, I remember the advent
• 49:40
  Speaker 7: of the conversation, of cloning, and I remember how big you.
• 49:44
  Speaker 7: I can't get thinking, I think you know where I'm going.
• 49:46
  Speaker 7: And it was a big conversation and people had a
• 49:48
  Speaker 7: lot of anxiety about cloning.
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: You didn't know where was going.
• 49:52
  Speaker 7: One thing that I think that you can never ever duplicate,
• 49:54
  Speaker 7: and I think that the younger generation continue to speak
• 49:57
  Speaker 7: loud about this as well, is authenticity. One thing that
• 50:00
  Speaker 7: you will not be able to just manipulate is authentic voices.
• 50:04
  Speaker 7: Is because no matter how much information and technology continues
• 50:08
  Speaker 7: to grow, we are still with our species given these
• 50:12
  Speaker 7: these these these interesting dynamics of emotions and affections that
• 50:16
  Speaker 7: we still look for authentic voices to speak into. And
• 50:20
  Speaker 7: I believe that that that storytellers, even though the stories
• 50:23
  Speaker 7: may be told different, there still has to be a
• 50:25
  Speaker 7: certain level of authenticity to the story that I believe
• 50:29
  Speaker 7: that only our species can deliver. And that's why I
• 50:32
  Speaker 7: believe that you didn't see much of cloning continue to advances,
• 50:35
  Speaker 7: because people still want to be able to hold in
• 50:38
  Speaker 7: a time where the survival of our species is already
• 50:43
  Speaker 7: so questionable with the political tension that we see globally.
• 50:46
  Speaker 7: You know, when we see this geopolitical tension that we're
• 50:49
  Speaker 7: living in right now. People are begging and pulling for
• 50:52
  Speaker 7: something that is foundational, something that is rooted in, something
• 50:58
  Speaker 7: that they can It's almost like what's well. One of
• 51:01
  Speaker 7: one of my favorite movies is Inception, and I love
• 51:04
  Speaker 7: the fact that an exception he was able to go
• 51:07
  Speaker 7: into these different levels of these unrealities, but he needed
• 51:11
  Speaker 7: something to remind him of the truth, right, and so
• 51:14
  Speaker 7: he needed that spinner. Yeah, yeah, just to remind him
• 51:17
  Speaker 7: of true soul. So as much as technology and informations
• 51:21
  Speaker 7: and as humans that we advance, I believe that one
• 51:24
  Speaker 7: thing about art, and the reason why real art is
• 51:26
  Speaker 7: because you were even talking about, think about as much
• 51:30
  Speaker 7: as tech, technology information has continued to grow, a Picasso
• 51:34
  Speaker 7: still has its value. Is that because there's something authentic
• 51:38
  Speaker 7: about the narrative of where this individual was when he
• 51:41
  Speaker 7: painted it. And so I think the music and storytellers
• 51:44
  Speaker 7: are still going to have a place. We're going to
• 51:47
  Speaker 7: find these abbs and flows of AI in different levels
• 51:50
  Speaker 7: of technology. But I'm still comfortable that when people have pain,
• 51:54
  Speaker 7: they're going to need a real voice to speak to
• 51:56
  Speaker 7: that pain.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: You bring up a good point in terms of AI
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: and music, So I want to know your thoughts about
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: AI in the church, because we've seen augentic agents that
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: are now pastors. We've seen pastors who use AI to
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: help create sermon. That's a complete shift right when we're
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: talking about this obviously the story of the Bible interpretation
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: of it, but the autensity of the actual person who's
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: delivering the message. Do you see that becoming disruptive AI
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: inside of the actual church.
• 52:32
  Speaker 7: I still believe that as we continue to try to
• 52:36
  Speaker 7: push and see how far these barriers can go, or
• 52:39
  Speaker 7: these boundaries can go, I do believe that there still
• 52:42
  Speaker 7: will be a ceiling that will happen in the hearts
• 52:45
  Speaker 7: and minds of individuals, that they will still find the
• 52:48
  Speaker 7: space that they still want to be able to do.
• 52:50
  Speaker 7: It's like, for example, you know, and I say this
• 52:54
  Speaker 7: with great humility, great, great, great gratefulness, ten ten years ago,
• 53:00
  Speaker 7: fifteen years ago, would you ever thought that people would
• 53:04
  Speaker 7: have stayed up to twelve and one o'clock in the
• 53:05
  Speaker 7: morning to hear fifty five year old gospel artists and
• 53:10
  Speaker 7: a black.
• 53:10
  Speaker 5: Award show only if his name was Kurt Franks.
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: Well forget him anybody else.
• 53:16
  Speaker 7: I'm just saying that it still says that it still
• 53:21
  Speaker 7: says that for individuals, there's still something about voices.
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: That they still want to be able to hear and
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: hold on to.
• 53:27
  Speaker 7: And so, even though there's a myriad of voices that
• 53:31
  Speaker 7: have advanced far beyond Kurt Franklin, there's still something, by
• 53:35
  Speaker 7: the grace of God, I'm very grateful. I don't know why,
• 53:37
  Speaker 7: but it's still something that whatever. The music that God
• 53:41
  Speaker 7: trusted to alone me still anchors people some people, And
• 53:45
  Speaker 7: so I believe that no matter how much we try
• 53:47
  Speaker 7: to curate these ideas outside of humans, people are still
• 53:50
  Speaker 7: going to want that pastor, that social leader, that artist,
• 53:56
  Speaker 7: that storyteller to be the one to say, I'm telling
• 53:59
  Speaker 7: this because I live. This came from me being in prison.
• 54:02
  Speaker 7: This came from me being in jail. This came from
• 54:04
  Speaker 7: me having a cancer scare. And so I am. I
• 54:09
  Speaker 7: am aware, but I'm not afraid now.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: I only asked that because it goes back to the
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: first question of if there's less people actually going to
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: the institution of the church, right and they're getting more
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: influenced from.
• 54:22
  Speaker 7: They We're building new churches. We're building new churches. This
• 54:25
  Speaker 7: is church now, absolutely, this is church. Church is a
• 54:28
  Speaker 7: gathering of believers and there you go. I think we'll
• 54:31
  Speaker 7: have a you will have a unique concept on it.
• 54:33
  Speaker 7: I think with Jennef King's King Church.
• 54:37
  Speaker 6: Yeah, what we're talking about is it's two things, and
• 54:41
  Speaker 6: I don't want to conflate them. Is I don't think
• 54:43
  Speaker 6: you'll ever eliminate actual people making music. I don't think
• 54:48
  Speaker 6: we'll eliminate it. I do believe they will be AI
• 54:51
  Speaker 6: al rightist, it's no different. I used to work in banking,
• 54:53
  Speaker 6: and I remember when I first started working in bankings.
• 54:55
  Speaker 6: Probably i'm aging something forty years old. I was twenty
• 54:58
  Speaker 6: years ago. Basically I was young. I was in college.
• 55:00
  Speaker 6: I was one of the personal bankers, and they talked
• 55:02
  Speaker 6: about how people, no matter what's happening online banking, people
• 55:06
  Speaker 6: will always want to come into the bank to meet
• 55:08
  Speaker 6: with somebody, have a conversation. Okay, when's the last top
• 55:11
  Speaker 6: any of us are here been inside the bank. The
• 55:14
  Speaker 6: point I'm making is people still go inside the bank.
• 55:17
  Speaker 6: I'm not saying anything will be eliminated, but the way
• 55:20
  Speaker 6: we do it will drastically change. All of us have
• 55:23
  Speaker 6: a bank app on our phone right now, and back
• 55:26
  Speaker 6: when I started to bank, that was foreign people came
• 55:28
  Speaker 6: into the bank.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: To learn how to download the app log it.
• 55:31
  Speaker 6: I don't want to put my password into all. But
• 55:33
  Speaker 6: we relax all of that for convenience. And that's why
• 55:37
  Speaker 6: the only way I see technology slowing down and changing
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: our way of life is if we decide philosophically that
• 55:45
  Speaker 6: convenience isn't the thing that drives how we spend our money.
• 55:48
  Speaker 7: And that's where eye leaning exactly that that that that
• 55:53
  Speaker 7: little crack of light that he just said is I
• 55:56
  Speaker 7: believe that problems, challenges, sickness, true issues are things that
• 56:02
  Speaker 7: will force individuals to respond differently at different moments in time.
• 56:07
  Speaker 7: Is because we are wired to Is that one thing
• 56:10
  Speaker 7: that we cannot do is we cannot unwire the human
• 56:13
  Speaker 7: species and our experiences.
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: Well, Kurl, let me ask you this. As far as
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: you talked about off camera. You know, sometimes it's difficult.
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, you're looked at a certain way, right Like, Yeah,
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: if you're a regular R and b RS or a
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: rapper or you know, you don't have the same pressures
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: as somebody who's looked at as a man of God.
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you're held to a higher standard. Yeah.
• 56:35
  Speaker 7: Unfortunately, fortunate, fortunately fortune and unfortunately both I think so.
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: I would love to hear the fortunately.
• 56:44
  Speaker 6: I mean, the fortunate part of it is that people
• 56:47
  Speaker 6: honor you in a way that they don't honor certain
• 56:50
  Speaker 6: artists when they come in here.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: There's certain nights that come in here. These they have
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: not to speak for y'all.
• 56:55
  Speaker 6: There's a certain reverence for you because you maintain a
• 57:00
  Speaker 6: standard of living. Now, it's not to say you're perfect,
• 57:04
  Speaker 6: but it's fortunate also because God sees it.
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: That's one.
• 57:08
  Speaker 6: But two, there's a respect that you know they're not
• 57:12
  Speaker 6: in here, not to say you got to smoke. They
• 57:13
  Speaker 6: wouldn't be in here just smoking blunts when you come in,
• 57:16
  Speaker 6: They're not gonna be in here just with liquor. There's
• 57:19
  Speaker 6: a reverence and respect, not to say those things are wrong,
• 57:22
  Speaker 6: that's just a reverence in respect. That's why I been
• 57:24
  Speaker 6: fortunate and unfortunate.
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: There's a tie between.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: Like I said, when I heard your voice, I'm like,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: oh my god, I've heard that voice so many times.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: There's a connection in the home, this connection to the church,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: and this connection in real life. So when people see you,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: there's just a level of automatic respect outside of it. Yes,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: that's the og, but it's like, no that's a man
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: of God. Like, no, he's not Jesus Christ, but he's
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: a follow of Jesus.
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: Christ and found it.
• 57:47
  Speaker 7: I have found I have not found it in my
• 57:50
  Speaker 7: career and in my lifetime to be fortunate.
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: When I say I want to get that, I said,
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: even I do that.
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: I know he's gonna say why not, but that's why.
• 57:59
  Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, And I have not found it beneficial for
• 58:03
  Speaker 7: even those that also serve in that role as well.
• 58:07
  Speaker 7: It's I think that it is the greatest misnomer of
• 58:10
  Speaker 7: our human experience. It's once again going back to the
• 58:14
  Speaker 7: very much of the iconoclastic ideals. You know, it's I'm
• 58:19
  Speaker 7: not Catholic, and I know that they're beautiful people. They're
• 58:22
  Speaker 7: beautiful humans on this planet that subscribe to Catholic ideals.
• 58:26
  Speaker 7: But when you look at the corruption that has happened
• 58:29
  Speaker 7: historically in Catholicism for centrist full millennia and the Roman
• 58:33
  Speaker 7: Catholic Church to still maintain its power and influence on
• 58:36
  Speaker 7: the globe, it is because humans still want to hold
• 58:40
  Speaker 7: on to They still need an idea of a tangible
• 58:45
  Speaker 7: individual to usher them into the presence of God because
• 58:49
  Speaker 7: they do not feel worthy enough that in itself is
• 58:52
  Speaker 7: problematic on so many levels. That's what I'm trying to say.
• 58:55
  Speaker 7: I'm trying to say that if you respond to me
• 58:58
  Speaker 7: different than you do Lil Wayne, I'm saying I find
• 59:02
  Speaker 7: that extremely problematic. It's because God doesn't. God does not
• 59:07
  Speaker 7: view me different than Litla Wayne. And so those are
• 59:10
  Speaker 7: the things that I continue to be committed to deconstruct.
• 59:13
  Speaker 7: It's because it's problematic for the person that you do
• 59:15
  Speaker 7: it too, and it's problematic for the person that you
• 59:17
  Speaker 7: do it against.
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: Well, on that that's my soapbox.
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: Now that was that was that was insightful? Did Jamaica situation?
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: These are people that are Christians?
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: So how does that play because that's a whole different
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: conversation of like, Okay, it's one thing for people to
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: judge you a certain way because but it's like now.
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: You got religious people.
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: Yes, Yes, that's even more because you don't you don't
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: want to offend somebody, yes, and that's the same religion
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: as you.
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: Yes, how did that impact you? Well?
• 59:52
  Speaker 7: And I also think that it reveals even this conversation
• 59:54
  Speaker 7: because it wasn't all Jamaicans. It was some Jamaicans, but
• 59:57
  Speaker 7: there were other Jamaicans that would if you were into the.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: Comment section they were.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 7: They were having their own arguments about if there was
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 7: one you're making to say, y'all wanted him to have
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 7: a suit on it pass out and y'all know, and
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 7: they say, and you know.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: Our healthcare system not her son.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying. And I thought that was hilarious.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 7: So but it's but once again, I think that it's
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 7: the tension because dogma has led the narrative for our
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 7: species on the planet of how we process God and
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 7: what we think is God lee And so what I
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 7: have to do is I have to understand those nuances.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 7: I can't fight them. I have to pick and choose
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 7: when I fight them. I have to pick and choose
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 7: when I speak against them, and I have to pick
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 7: and choose when it's time to acquiesce to that reality.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 7: Because there is a reality that I exist in that
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 7: I understand that's the construct of a lot of individuals
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 7: that subscribe to monothistic ideals. And so because of that,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 7: I must digress in moments, acquiesce to the reality of
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 7: that and try to maneuver the best that I can
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 7: with truth and authenticity.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 6: I think, to your point, just to add is it
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 6: most often we read the Bible, but we don't comprehend it.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 6: You know, the same people they're ignoring that David danced
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 6: out of his clothes, they just ignore that whole entire scripture.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 6: He literally danced out of his clothes. But a was
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 6: an adulter at the same time, you know, and a murderer.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 6: He killed his best friend, took his wife, had a
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 6: kid with her. Yes, it's better than any real housewives.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 6: Yes yeah, man, Well but let's this is the man
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 6: after the gods.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 7: Yes, right, yes, that's what he That's what we was. Moses,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 7: the murderer, was the one that God used. But we
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 7: don't says the murderer. But Moses was a murderer.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 6: And this is the key to all of this when
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 6: you talk about believers disagreeing, and we all want to
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 6: see ourselves in the Bible as the heroes. Right when
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 6: people look at the Bible, everybody wants to be David
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 6: or Joseph or Jonah or Paul or we would more
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 6: likely be the people when the woman got called the
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 6: active adultery holding the stones of the stone.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 5: That's good.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: That's who we are. That's who we are as believers.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 6: Now we have canceled at our core, at our core,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 6: we are canceled culture.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: I'm more saved than you. I'm not as bad as you.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 6: Yes, I'm not having pride and being a prideful person
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 6: that has to whatever is as bad as being is
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 6: as bad as any other sin.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 7: And if we look at the biblocentricy it's also if
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 7: we look at biblocentrically, it is really the greater. I mean,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 7: there's not a greater, but but but but if you
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 7: look at how much it returns in scripture, pride is
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 7: the one.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: Pride is one.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 7: But you know, growing up in church, if you were
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 7: sleeping having sense ful maverage, you was going you know,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 7: that's it's something like you felt like that that's all
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 7: God cared about. You know what I'm saying, that's who
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 7: you was smashing in the youth choir behind me. It's
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 7: a thin line, but okay, there is a thin line
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 7: trend because one group of people say like, yeah, you
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 7: can't be judgment to everybody. Nobody's perfect.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: Everybody sends he without sending cast the first stone all
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: of that. But that kind of does lead to just
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: doing anything and just saying, well you know. God knows
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: my heart. God knows my heart. People just do anything
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: that's not my heart problem.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 6: I'm so ready to respond ahead, I'm I'm quick and
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 6: I'm gonna get it's quick.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: I'm passing straight to you. It's quick. I'm gonna pass
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: straight to you. It's not it's not that's not it.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 6: So people often believe if you if you don't slap
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 6: people with sining, that they are going to then trample
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 6: on grace. Yes, they're gonna trample on grace. We talked yes,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 6: but it's clear you give people grace and truth. Yes, okay,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 6: that's it's having sex outside of marriage or fortication saying yes,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 6: is it difficult to.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: Stay away from?
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: Yes, it's both.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 6: And and to to say that God.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: Knows my heart.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 6: He does, and that's a good at a bad thing.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 6: God knows whether you believe in him truly or you don't.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 6: So when you say God knows your heart, yeah he does.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 6: That's what I always tell someone. And at the same time,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 6: you should judge people. You should tell them the truth.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 6: You should say that your homeboy, hey bro, you gotta
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 6: stop smashing all them girls. But can I tell my
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 6: home I understand why he's smashing all those girls.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 6: And that's the part that gets missed, is that when
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 6: you go to church often, yeah, you hear you shouldn't
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 6: do that, but you don't hear the empathy behind. I
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 6: understand why, and here is how, here are how in
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 6: ways you cannot do that.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: That's the part that's missed.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 5: And please let me jump in and say this.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 7: The reason why on this planet the Protestant Faith has
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 7: so many different denominations is because of that issue right there.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 7: It's because people need to control the narrative of the
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 7: process of other humans. So the Methodist will say, okay,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 7: you guys are trying to take advantage, and so from
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 7: that then you get the Pentecostals. And then the Pentecostal say,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 7: well you got to live holy. Okay, well yeah, but
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 7: you're gonn only live holy on the Sabbath, so you
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 7: get the Sabbath of Pinecostal. It's like when you look
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 7: at Protestant. When you look at the Protestant faith in America,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 7: no other branch of faith has so many denominations, denominations
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 7: like the mono theistic ideal of Christianity, that's problematic. You've
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 7: got Pentecostal you've got Church of God in Christ. You've
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 7: got Apostolic, You've got PAW whis probably the same thing.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 7: You've got Methodists, you got Lutheran, you got BAPED, you
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 7: got missionary BAP. I mean so many branches and it
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 7: was all birthed out of this idea. Okay, well, y'all
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 7: are taking advantage of this where y'all don't do this
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 7: enough dos and it becomes so overwhelming they guess what
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 7: people do now Here we are twenty five years later,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 7: thirty four percent people of going to church.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: That's what's happened.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 7: Because non domination, no, no, well even non denominational once again,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 7: some of that is not becoming country clubs.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 5: Ted talkson becoming all these other frameworks.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: It really is.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 6: Non denomination is a reaction to all of the denomination.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 6: That's it's a denomination. And of this, beautifully said, the
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 6: beautiful reaction, say from God, nobody.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 5: Argues with you.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 7: If you want to go drink fourteen ninety two at
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 7: your club nine, I say that I.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: Don't know what.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 7: I just call it what exactly And guess what if
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 7: you wanted to drink fourteen ninety two, I would not
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 7: argue with you. I would allow you to drink whatever
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 7: nask they drink you want to drink. Is because there
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 7: is no there is no debate outside of the space
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 7: because people allow you to be you. But when you
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 7: come here, we think that we've got to hold people
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 7: to a standard that God does not even hold us to.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 7: And it's becoming overwhelming and we're missing people with the
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 7: great news and the simple because here's the simple message, kings.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: God made man.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 7: Man rejected God, and God won't stop until he wins
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 7: man back.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: Amen.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 5: Amen, it's that simple, Amen. Anything else is problematic. Norman Kirk,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 5: We must do this again as we wrap.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 7: I don't want to wrap. I want to come on.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 7: Give me some more, give me too old, Let me
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 7: too more? Man, I love I love the platform. I'm
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 7: super fans. Give me too more? Can me do two more?
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 7: You got my man off sharp? Coming up here a couple, man,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 7: Let us give us some more. He was on point.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 7: I was going to actually go.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, we could talk about doing it again before
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: we go, but I was going to talk about that
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: prosperity right and doing God's work and that that's fine balance, right.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: They see you achieving successes. Does he have that is
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: he really following God?
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: Is he?
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 5: I mean, he's look at what he's doing with his money.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: People watching that.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 5: How do you, I mean, how do you deal with that?
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: Outside of that from a mental standpoint, because the mental
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: health piece is important too inside the church, how do
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: you manage that?
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 6: I'll do the mental health part. You do, then the
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 6: prosperity thing. I think the easy way to look at
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 6: it is this. I've always held this belief. It's easier
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 6: to look at it from this vantage point. I think
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 6: we all can relate to the thing of a homeless
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 6: man comes to knox On. You do he wants one
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 6: hundred dollars right, or he wants money? And people always
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 6: saying I don't give homelessreeple money because don't know what
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 6: they're gonna do with it.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: Right. There's this idea as Americans that we have.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 6: It's Western, it's very Western that unless the person does
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 6: with the money, what I intend for them to do
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 6: is I don't want to give it. The truth of
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 6: the matter is the principle is about a heart. It's
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 6: about a heart issue. It's a heart issue. The truth
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 6: is we're selfish and.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: Instead of just saying we're selfish. We said he's.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 6: Gonna go by drugs. The where do you get that from?
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 6: Where do you get the notion from that? When you
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 6: give money to your church, they have to spend it
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 6: the way you would want them to spend it. The
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 6: biblical principle is about you giving to God first.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: That's it. Whether it's that's it.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 6: The biblical principle about giving to the homeless is about
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 6: giving to charity. Who cares what the homeless man does
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 6: with the money. The reward for you is that your
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 6: heart prostrust is in the right place. So this is
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 6: how I see prosperity and ministry. They're doing a job,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 6: they're making money. God walks on gold. The result of
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 6: being excellent at anything is generally success, and in America,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 6: in most cultures, success generally leads to wealth. If a
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 6: pastor is wealthy, it doesn't hurt me, It doesn't hurt
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 6: anyone that when someone looks at him they see okay, boom.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: Some people ask me, taking advantage of your color? There
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: are some people that do that happens, that's something.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 6: And their CEOs that take advantage of their customers see
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 6: and in no way of business or walk of life
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 6: is uh uh, I don't want to use turn perversion,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 6: but where it is, a perversion exists.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: So they're CEOs that take advantage of people.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 6: You have this Sam Blackman find that had FTX he
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 6: stole billions of dollars from people. Burn the mad off
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 6: was the head of the NATS that he stole billions
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 6: of dollars with people. Are there pastors that's still from
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 6: the Congression?
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 6: Are there passors that don't yes? Are the CEOs that
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 6: don't treat their workers right?
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: Yes? Or do people still work there? Yes?
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 6: So are you gonna throw away your iPhone because you.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: Don't like them?
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 6: Or did you stop getting at ubers because there was
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 6: uber culture and they were being mean to women?
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: Know, everybody still ordered ubers today?
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 6: So what I don't like people's disingenuous approach to how
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 6: they problem solve anything else. There's bad churches, the good
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 6: they're good churches. There's bad pastors, that's good pastors. There's
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 6: terrible CEOs, there's good CEOs. And we still we're on
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 6: the target boycot targets. Earnings have increased quarter over quarter,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 6: we're boycotting. I'm just saying that we disagree with something.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 6: We're saying we're against something it doesn't stand, but we
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 6: do hold it really tightly against the church. Yes, I'm
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 6: okay with a pastor being rich, just as just as
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 6: I'm okay with the CEO being rich.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 7: Well, what I can say, though, is that it also
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 7: is necessary to continue to teach people that that the
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 7: institution of church and the ones that run these institutions,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 7: we cannot model our pursuit of God through them. And
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 7: I think that those are the constructs that I'm always
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 7: committed to deconstruct with American culture and with global ideals,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 7: that a monotheistic is that we've.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 5: Got to get to people.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 7: And and that was the part of the of of
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 7: even the Reformation, right, is that Martin Luther at the
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 7: time was continuing to try to tell people we can
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 7: go to God now ourselves. And so that is the
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 7: narrative that Kirk is so passionate about. I'm passionate about
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 7: like like I can be on a plane and and
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 7: and and it's a little bit adjacent to this conversation.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 4: I can be on a plane, bros.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 7: And you know, I'm I'm blessed to sit in first
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 7: class and people are getting on the plane, and some
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 7: people will notice me on the plane.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 5: And I've heard people say.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 7: Oh, I know this plane ain't gonna crash now, God
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 7: on the plane. And I'm thinking, Nigro Christians die, Christians die,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 7: and plane crashes every day. People think that because I'm
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 7: on the plane, the plane can't crash.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 5: I've got to fix that.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 7: We We've got to We've got to fix that complex. Yeah,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 7: hey man, bro it happens on time. So many times.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 7: I'm in the store in the mall, Kirk where you
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 7: pray for men. You know it's I know, Kirk is
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 7: I know God hear your prayers. And I have to stop.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 7: I have to top constantly, have to stop constantly. Bro On,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 7: my sister, I need for you to know, first of all,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 7: I've been real happy to pray for you, but when
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 7: I do, please know God here's your prayers, just as
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 7: clear as he does mine. But it is such a
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 7: constant wiring of a That's why it's problematic for me
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 7: when people hold me to a higher standard. It's because
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 7: I know what it means. Intrinsically. I know it means
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 7: that you don't think you're worth enough to get to God.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 7: But I am, and that pisces me off that we
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 7: have already created that in individuals.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 5: And what also pisses me off.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 7: Is that we have religious leaders that are not joining
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 7: me in trying to debunk that ideal as well.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: I think has it always been that way, Like there's
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: no bit of ego on the ascension to where you're
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: at now that it wasn't that way?
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: Has it always been that?
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 4: It has always been a problem for me?
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 7: It has always been I intrinsically has intrinsically have always
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 7: been uncomfortable, and it has been difficult for me to
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 7: see the weaponization of leadership in my community and through
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 7: the space of the black church in the black community. Yes,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 7: I played for a church that was in a neighborhood
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 7: and for Worth where some of the biggest drug king
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 7: pings existed in America. In that small black neighborhood existed
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 7: thirty two churches in this one neighborhood, thirty two churches.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 5: But the biggest drug kingpins I'm.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 7: Crack cocaine in the eighties in America existed in I mean,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 7: you can look it up in Fort Worth, Texas. Some
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 7: of the biggest king pins in America lived in Fort Worth, Texas,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 7: in this community called Lake Como thirty two churches, but
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 7: drugs and king pins were able to exist with no problem.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 7: That's a challenge for me and it was a time
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 7: to me even when I had a Jeri curl. So
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 7: now going back to the issue of mental health, I
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 7: believe that religion does contribute to mental health. Religion can
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 7: contribute to the issues of trauma and our people. Is
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 7: because if people do not see themselves good enough, how
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 7: can they become healthy in their finances, in their homes
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 7: and their families, in their own mental space. If they
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 7: feel that they need something to exist outside of them,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 7: outside of their creator, to be able to be good individuals,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 7: to be able to see themselves as valuable. Is that
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 7: we need to continue to see church as a hospital.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 7: At everybody in there, including the man behind the pullpit,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 7: is a patient.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 4: No one is a doctor.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: Before we leave the last question, given the times that
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: we're in right now, this is something that I even
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: do you ever lose hope for humanity? We see what
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: happens and Israel and Iran and then Kansastan and the
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: Congo and Sudan, and it's just like we've been on
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: this earth for thousands of years and still can't figure
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: out how to live together peacefully, right, And it's like,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: after a while, do you just say, like it's almost
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: like doomed on a certain level, right, Like it's very
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: depressing where we just keep going through these things year
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: after year after year, and people are dying and babies
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: are dying, and it's just like Ukraine Russia. Like, yes,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: given the state of the times that we're in, Like,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 3: what's your thought process and what's the word for the people?
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 7: Man, let me say this, first of all, even as
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 7: you begin to talk, I begin to wail inside. Because
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 7: I can be very Kennist transparent. I feel you. I
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 7: feel you deeply.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: Brother.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 7: It's because again being I'm fifty five years old, I
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 7: mean I was raised in the space of faith, That's
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 7: all I know, and so it has always been problematic
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 7: for me too. I remember September eleventh and how that
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 7: following Sunday you couldn't I mean, you would think that
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 7: Drake was performing at the church because we standing line
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 7: only because people were trying to get in, because people
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 7: were so afraid. And then as that began to wear
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 7: often people begin to go. You know, I remember when
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 7: George Floyd happened like we all know, and people were
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 7: so adamant about trying to make change, and then it
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 7: just begins to go away. I believe that what's going
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 7: to make a greater change that can be more substantial
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 7: and more substantive that we can be able to see consistently,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 7: is that I need the help of other leaders that
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 7: will push the narrative of our broken humanity and the
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 7: fact that we are not perfect individuals. And I think
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 7: that as long as we have that, that as long
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 7: as we continue to celebrate and push our political leaders
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 7: like Donald Trump and other individuals that do not reflect
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 7: any attributes of a Christian character, is that we will
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 7: continue to become victims and slaves to these ongoing problems,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 7: because these problems have to do with the wickedness of
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 7: the hearts of the leaders. And until we acknowledge that
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 7: there is a that there is a seed given in
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 7: every human of choice, and when people have the ability
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 7: to choose evil, we must hold that decision accountable not
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 7: with creating other levels of evil, but with the level
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 7: of unified compassion, unified grace, unified love that has a
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 7: uniformity that collectively we say that this is the answer,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 7: is that this love and grace that they need is
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 7: the same love and grace that I because see, here's
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 7: the problem with the arguments of judgment. The arguments of
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 7: judgment is that people never include themselves in their argument.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 7: You are just as guilty as I'm because you are
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 7: just as dirty, even though you may then shoot somebody
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 7: you thought a bad thought, and in the eyes of God,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 7: it is just as equal as anybody else. And until
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 7: we begin to see ourselves as the needy and not
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 7: the ones that are always having is that until that,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 7: probably until that paradigm shifts, we will for millennia after
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 7: millennia after millennia, have this question in this conversation.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 5: I don't know the answer right now.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 7: I don't know the wind, I don't know the how,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 7: but I do know that the tools are there and
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 7: the answers are there.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 4: We just don't respond to it. We don't pick it up.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 7: We we you know you can, you can create the medicine,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 7: but how to get people to take it is the lifelong.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 4: Response of our species of how do we do that?
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 6: And my simple answer to it is that I don't
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 6: lose open humanity. It reminds me that God is real
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 6: as long as sin exists, will have death. As long
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 6: as there's disparity, we're gonna have war. And the answer
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 6: to it all is God alone. And so it gives
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 6: me hope. You use the perfect examples. I think oft
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 6: the time moments, all things work together for the good
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 6: of those that love the Lord and are called according
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 6: to his purpose. So a note eleven. There are people
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 6: that were saved from nine eleven. Yeah, when you look
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 6: at package what's happened in Palestine and Israel, they aren't
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 6: ways that we would have decided to do things to
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 6: draw people to God. But He knows and he does all.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 6: And then the perfect example for me is this. If
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 6: I had to save the world, I only have one son.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 6: I only have one son. If I had to save
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 6: the world, there's no way that if I could do
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 6: it any way possible, you got one. If I could
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 6: do it anyway possible, that I would choose to kill
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 6: my only son, put him on a cross, send him
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 6: through the most brutal, embarrassing death you could think of,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 6: for all mankind, for all mankind. So if that is
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 6: that's how God decided to save the world, I can
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 6: only imagine the things that we look at as evil
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 6: are bad and the actual and ten of those things can.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: Be something good because when we look at the struggle that.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 6: Jesus went through, none of us could imagine to say
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 6: that if my only son went through that, that that
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 6: something good would come up.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: The only way we know good come up came up it.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 6: Now it's supposed to have been centuries and the story
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 6: has been told, the story will be told of some
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 6: of these things we look at.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: It's calamity and there could have been some good in it.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 4: I honestly like his ass so much better than thank you, brothers.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 4: Appreciate the coppreciation.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 4: I do it again. Honored so much.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 5: And go pick up do it again.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 4: Right jan the Kings check it out.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 7: Get that it's on the YouTube, Kurk Franklin and it's
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 7: it's it's we are so grateful how people to responded
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 7: to it.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 4: It's really dope.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you, man.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: This is dope. Man.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 8: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 8: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 8: accused of murdering a Texas. Man of Venezuelan charged with
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 8: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 8: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 8: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman, the United States
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 8: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 8: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 8: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 8: are here illegally, your next you will be fined nearly
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 8: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported. You will
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 8: never return. But if you register using our CBP home
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 8: app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 8: Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 8: border and families will be protected.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 4: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.