Latest / Eating While Broke / LECRAE - A Journey From 'Beenie Weenies' to Grammys
Transcript
- 0:13Speaker 1: This is definitely a laxative.
- 0:18Speaker 2: Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
- 0:21Speaker 2: I'm your host, Colleen Witt, and today we have a
- 0:24Speaker 2: very special guest. Grammy Award winning Lecree is in the building.
- 0:29Speaker 1: I'm in the building, man, I'm in the building.
- 0:31Speaker 2: This is extremely cool for me.
- 0:33Speaker 1: I'm excited. This is cool for me too. Yeah.
- 0:36Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw you you start getting into it.
- 0:39Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm excited. This is cool. Man. I had to, like,
- 0:42Speaker 1: you know, get to.
- 0:43Speaker 3: Come back to my roots a little bit. Yeah, and
- 0:46Speaker 3: see how this tastes after all.
- 0:48Speaker 2: This time, after all, so how many years before you
- 0:50Speaker 2: tell us what the dishes? How many years has it been.
- 0:54Speaker 1: Man? Solid? Thirty years probably, geez. Yeah.
- 1:00Speaker 2: Yeah, Like for real, we're gonna see if your stomach
- 1:03Speaker 2: can handle this today.
- 1:04Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all good. You know what
- 1:09Speaker 1: I'm saying, I'm not gonna go crazy. I'm gonna just
- 1:11Speaker 1: have a little bit of it.
- 1:12Speaker 3: I'm like, this ain't really a cheat meal, so you
- 1:15Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, This is not cheating at all.
- 1:18Speaker 2: Fact, So why don't you go ahead and tell us
- 1:21Speaker 2: what you're gonna have us eating today?
- 1:23Speaker 3: Okay, what we're gonna have today is we're gonna have,
- 1:27Speaker 3: you know, some pork and beans with the hot dogs.
- 1:31Speaker 3: When you put them together, you get what's called beanie weans.
- 1:35Speaker 1: So we're gonna have the beanie weenies, you know what
- 1:38Speaker 1: I'm saying.
- 1:39Speaker 3: And then we got spinach, but not just any spinach,
- 1:42Speaker 3: the can spinish because my mama wanted to make sure
- 1:45Speaker 3: that I have my vegetables as a kid.
- 1:47Speaker 1: So I ate vegetables out of a.
- 1:50Speaker 3: Can can spinish and canned corn whole hole hole green giant.
- 1:55Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
- 1:57Speaker 3: So can corn, can spin and it was a whole
- 2:01Speaker 3: healthy meal.
- 2:02Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
- 2:03Speaker 3: You get a little you know, carbs with your beans,
- 2:05Speaker 3: You get your protein, you get your vegetables, a little
- 2:08Speaker 3: carbs with the coin.
- 2:09Speaker 1: Hey we in there. And then just to be fancy
- 2:11Speaker 1: for y'all.
- 2:12Speaker 3: I got a little brown sugar, just a little, but
- 2:15Speaker 3: it's that's something we wouldn't have did that.
- 2:17Speaker 1: We didn't have no brown sugar to waste on them.
- 2:18Speaker 2: Okay, well we're not gonna use a brown sugar. We
- 2:20Speaker 2: want to take it all all. We want to we
- 2:24Speaker 2: want to feel it. We want to feel it. With
- 2:25Speaker 2: your stories, go ahead, start whipping it up.
- 2:28Speaker 1: Okay, oh easy, So we're gonna start right off the bat.
- 2:32Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
- 2:32Speaker 2: By the way, I switch those out for turkey dogs.
- 2:35Speaker 1: Okay, well, you know that's your fancy you're doing fancy things.
- 2:38Speaker 1: So we're gonna just right off the bat.
- 2:39Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, You're gonna you're gonna cut
- 2:41Speaker 3: these down sides, So we gonna chop these down the
- 2:43Speaker 3: sides because you gotta, you gotta. It's gotta stretch so
- 2:47Speaker 3: you can't get a whole hot.
- 2:48Speaker 1: Dog in there.
- 2:49Speaker 3: You're gonna feel like you got a lot of food.
- 2:51Speaker 3: But you just you know what I'm saying, We gotta
- 2:54Speaker 3: stretch it and they'll cook. They'll cook a little bit
- 2:57Speaker 3: faster when they.
- 2:58Speaker 1: Cut up like this.
- 3:00Speaker 2: How often would you say you were eating this back then?
- 3:04Speaker 1: This is normal?
- 3:05Speaker 3: So this was I mean, just childhood, because you gotta
- 3:09Speaker 3: think one, I'm a latch key kid. So my mom
- 3:12Speaker 3: worked while I was at home by myself a lot.
- 3:16Speaker 3: So either a I had to be able to make
- 3:18Speaker 3: it myself or be she had to be able to
- 3:22Speaker 3: whip it up quick. She was tired. She came home
- 3:24Speaker 3: from work. So you know she's sometimes she worked two jobs,
- 3:28Speaker 3: so she just tired come home from work. She had
- 3:30Speaker 3: to just be able to whip something up real quick.
- 3:32Speaker 3: This is quick, and it's cheap.
- 3:34Speaker 2: Really cheap, so it's like super cheap.
- 3:38Speaker 1: So we're not gonna do it them all because you know,
- 3:40Speaker 1: eat those turkey dollars later, you know what I mean.
- 3:42Speaker 1: You men want to eat that a little bit later.
- 3:44Speaker 3: But then let's see here, this is the stove is
- 3:46Speaker 3: much faster than the one that I had growing up,
- 3:48Speaker 3: you know what I mean. But we're gonna we're gonna
- 3:50Speaker 3: just go low because I don't know how it goes.
- 3:52Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
- 3:53Speaker 3: And then we just gonna skill it these boys up
- 3:55Speaker 3: a little bit and and get them cooking, and let
- 3:59Speaker 3: those you know, cook while os is in there cooking.
- 4:02Speaker 3: Then we'll we'll move on to the vegetable.
- 4:05Speaker 2: Bles, okay, And do you mix your vegetables your spinach
- 4:09Speaker 2: in your corner?
- 4:10Speaker 1: No, separate, you know what I'm saying. Separate.
- 4:13Speaker 3: I don't want like, I don't want them touching. So
- 4:15Speaker 3: you got two pots, you know what I'm saying. Now,
- 4:18Speaker 3: generally there's gonna be a little liquid in those cans.
- 4:21Speaker 2: Yeah, to drain them for you.
- 4:23Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know you want.
- 4:24Speaker 3: A little bit, though you don't eat all of it,
- 4:26Speaker 3: just a little bit so you don't burn the bottom
- 4:28Speaker 3: of the food. You know what I'm saying. You don't
- 4:30Speaker 3: want it to burn. So I just took a little
- 4:32Speaker 3: water and just put it in there. Not too much
- 4:34Speaker 3: water because then obviously it takes the flavor out. But
- 4:37Speaker 3: you know you're gonna burn the bottom of the food.
- 4:39Speaker 3: And then with your spinach. So the way that my
- 4:41Speaker 3: mama got me was to watch Popeye the Sailor Man
- 4:46Speaker 3: cartoons yep, and then it.
- 4:48Speaker 1: Was Popeye spinach.
- 4:49Speaker 3: So I didn't like vegetables, but she got me to
- 4:52Speaker 3: like them because of the Popeye was on the can
- 4:56Speaker 3: of spinach.
- 4:56Speaker 1: So then I ate it.
- 4:57Speaker 2: And by the way, I did not know till today
- 4:59Speaker 2: that I always thought it was a cartoon and that
- 5:02Speaker 2: was just how they convinced us to eat spinach. But
- 5:05Speaker 2: I did not know till today that Popeye's is an
- 5:08Speaker 2: actual spinach brand. You're spinach. I did not know. Oh yeah,
- 5:12Speaker 2: learn something every every day.
- 5:13Speaker 3: Now see, unless you buy like certain brands, it's generally unseasoned.
- 5:20Speaker 3: So even though I don't know, still sodium in there
- 5:23Speaker 3: some some reason, I don't know why, but unless you
- 5:26Speaker 3: buy certain brands on seasoned.
- 5:27Speaker 1: So I got some season in the day.
- 5:30Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, But this is not this
- 5:33Speaker 3: is this is a little fancier, but it's still good.
- 5:35Speaker 3: It's to slap your mama. It's a little fancier. So
- 5:37Speaker 3: it's definitely gonna be tasty. So we were season that up,
- 5:41Speaker 3: but let's let it. Let's let it heat up a
- 5:42Speaker 3: little bit. We do some seasoning on that, and then
- 5:45Speaker 3: you got your can corn. Who ho, hold green giant.
- 5:49Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, Put that caned corn in there,
- 5:52Speaker 3: or we're gonna have us some meal.
- 5:53Speaker 2: We gonna we're gonna be good today. So take me
- 5:56Speaker 2: back to what was going on during this time of
- 6:01Speaker 2: pork and beans, spinach and corn.
- 6:04Speaker 1: What was happening?
- 6:05Speaker 3: So I would come home from school, just like elementary school.
- 6:09Speaker 1: I come home from school. You know, my mom and
- 6:12Speaker 1: my pops separated.
- 6:13Speaker 3: Really my pops, he he was he went down a
- 6:17Speaker 3: dark path.
- 6:17Speaker 1: He lost his job, so then he went.
- 6:19Speaker 3: Down a dark path, had some addiction issues. It didn't work,
- 6:23Speaker 3: and he wasn't able to be there for us.
- 6:25Speaker 1: So you know, when it's just me and mom.
- 6:29Speaker 3: She's young, she's in her twenties, so she's gotta kind
- 6:32Speaker 3: of figure it out. So she had it's like a
- 6:33Speaker 3: form of assistance, but not like welfare. But it was
- 6:36Speaker 3: like a form of of government aid c I. You know,
- 6:39Speaker 3: where they would allow you to get like a certain
- 6:41Speaker 3: certain things from the grocery store.
- 6:43Speaker 1: You take it in there or whatever, kind of like
- 6:45Speaker 1: what wick is.
- 6:45Speaker 3: So they don't know if they still have that, but
- 6:48Speaker 3: but up like food stamps kind of but not the
- 6:50Speaker 3: same because it's like for women with children type of vibes. Okay,
- 6:55Speaker 3: So she would get that and and then you know,
- 6:58Speaker 3: go to the grocery store. The unfortunate part about that. Fortunate,
- 7:01Speaker 3: but unfortunately some of the stuff was free from the government,
- 7:04Speaker 3: like powdered milk. Disgusting, you know what I'm saying, Like
- 7:08Speaker 3: powdered eggs. Discussed eggs, Yeah, disgusting. But then they also
- 7:12Speaker 3: had like this block of cheese that was amazing, So
- 7:15Speaker 3: I'm not mad.
- 7:15Speaker 1: A the cheese cheese was great.
- 7:17Speaker 3: You can hear a little sizzle, so I can smell
- 7:20Speaker 3: some stuff cooking too. So we in there, we're moving,
- 7:23Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying we're moving. Now, what I'm
- 7:25Speaker 3: gonna do to speak this process up just a little bit.
- 7:27Speaker 3: I'm gonna go ahead and add the porking beans, because
- 7:29Speaker 3: see I was trying to get them a little sizzle.
- 7:30Speaker 3: But we just gonna let it simmer. That's what we're
- 7:33Speaker 3: gonna do. Let it simmer. So we're gonna put the porking.
- 7:35Speaker 1: Beans in there. Oh yeah, this is gonna be right.
- 7:39Speaker 1: Oh this is gonna be right.
- 7:41Speaker 2: We need a little bring back real memories for you.
- 7:43Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean I haven't eaten like this and forever,
- 7:49Speaker 3: but I'm.
- 7:49Speaker 2: Sure, well you you have children now, you don't ever say, hey,
- 7:53Speaker 2: I'm gonna show you what it was like.
- 7:55Speaker 1: So let me tell you what's funny.
- 7:57Speaker 3: During COVID, every thing was like on short supply, So
- 8:03Speaker 3: the luxuries are just going out and grabbing whatever and
- 8:07Speaker 3: expecting it to last.
- 8:08Speaker 1: Forever was not always there. You didn't know. We didn't know.
- 8:11Speaker 3: So what I told my kids and my wife too,
- 8:14Speaker 3: I was like, Yo, I'm finna run and get all
- 8:16Speaker 3: the struggle foods that I got grown up, so we'll
- 8:19Speaker 3: have them in the worst case scenari Because we didn't
- 8:21Speaker 3: know what was gonna thought the world was gonna end.
- 8:23Speaker 3: So I got the can spinach, I got the can vegetables,
- 8:25Speaker 3: all of that type of stuff. But what I did
- 8:28Speaker 3: was I got the ramen noodles too. A lot of
- 8:30Speaker 3: people don't know how to do this, but I chopped
- 8:32Speaker 3: the ramen noodles up to what they like rice, and.
- 8:35Speaker 1: Then you put that in some oil, you let it
- 8:39Speaker 1: simmer up.
- 8:39Speaker 3: It gets a little soft, and then you chop up
- 8:43Speaker 3: like some chicken or something like that, and.
- 8:46Speaker 1: Add some cheese.
- 8:47Speaker 3: It's like you got like it's kind of like sturfries.
- 8:50Speaker 3: It's like riceeroni or something like that. It's amazing. I'm
- 8:52Speaker 3: telling a lot of people don't know about it, but
- 8:54Speaker 3: it's a little you get created.
- 8:56Speaker 2: They loved it, really, they loved it.
- 8:59Speaker 3: But I was like, it's it's it's it's too much
- 9:01Speaker 3: sodium in this, y'all can't y'all should not be eating
- 9:03Speaker 3: all of this.
- 9:03Speaker 1: It's too much sodium in here.
- 9:05Speaker 2: But now, isn't the sodium This is just a random
- 9:07Speaker 2: sidebar question, but isn't the sodium in the packet of seasoning.
- 9:10Speaker 2: It's not considered not in the.
- 9:13Speaker 1: You know, you use the seasoning though.
- 9:14Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but that's the key to the secret stirf.
- 9:17Speaker 2: I is it the seasoning I use.
- 9:19Speaker 1: I would use some of it, not all of it.
- 9:20Speaker 1: I try to use half of the seat. I mean,
- 9:22Speaker 1: my son still would eat ram noodles to this day.
- 9:25Speaker 2: Okay, who doesn't love ram?
- 9:26Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. I still eat them to this day.
- 9:28Speaker 3: Like I don't want my kids to feel spoiled and
- 9:30Speaker 3: entitled just because we have arrived outside of having to
- 9:34Speaker 3: eat the struggle meals. I still want them to, you know,
- 9:38Speaker 3: have an appreciation. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, Never
- 9:40Speaker 3: be too you, never too good for packingt Ramen noodles.
- 9:43Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, never too good, So.
- 9:45Speaker 2: Never too good.
- 9:46Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 9:47Speaker 2: Now I know your testimony. I know I'm familiar with
- 9:51Speaker 2: some of your testimony. Okay, but I want the real,
- 9:54Speaker 2: real passenger seat of this testimony. So you and you
- 9:58Speaker 2: grow up in a single parent household with your mother.
- 10:01Speaker 2: Your father separates from you. Guys, how often are you
- 10:05Speaker 2: seeing him?
- 10:06Speaker 1: Never?
- 10:07Speaker 2: Never? For how many years?
- 10:09Speaker 1: For all my life?
- 10:11Speaker 3: So? I saw him once when I was about ten
- 10:14Speaker 3: or eleven. He had gotten a made some money with
- 10:19Speaker 3: some pharmaceutical sales. He came to see me gave me
- 10:24Speaker 3: what took me shopping, and then I never saw him again.
- 10:28Speaker 1: And I was like, and I don't say that like.
- 10:30Speaker 3: I never sew him again, but I mean just the
- 10:32Speaker 3: reality is, you know, he comes from a different era,
- 10:36Speaker 3: different generation. I think they have different struggles and just
- 10:41Speaker 3: kind of like dealing with the reality what he was
- 10:45Speaker 3: dealing with.
- 10:45Speaker 1: I think he was.
- 10:46Speaker 3: You know, his dad wouldn't have come to him and
- 10:48Speaker 3: been like son, I apologized.
- 10:51Speaker 1: That his dad would have been like, well, that's what
- 10:53Speaker 1: life does. Keep it pushing.
- 10:55Speaker 2: So how did you feel as a growing up with
- 10:59Speaker 2: him and then him disappear? Did that crazy?
- 11:00Speaker 1: Some kid? I didn't really get to know him. So
- 11:02Speaker 1: he left when I.
- 11:03Speaker 2: Was like three, oh with three later.
- 11:06Speaker 1: Nah, I didn't really get to know him. He left
- 11:07Speaker 1: when I was three.
- 11:08Speaker 3: I saw him again at ten, and then I didn't
- 11:10Speaker 3: see him again until I have never sat down and
- 11:13Speaker 3: had a conversation with my I had my first sit
- 11:15Speaker 3: down conversation meal with him in twenty twenty, so like
- 11:20Speaker 3: five years ago. Wow, first time we ever interacted for real.
- 11:23Speaker 1: So that was it was eye opening, you know.
- 11:26Speaker 3: But you know, I'm at a stage in my life
- 11:27Speaker 3: where I'm not I'm not a boy who's missed out
- 11:30Speaker 3: on having a father.
- 11:31Speaker 1: I'm a man who had to become something that he
- 11:34Speaker 1: never had, you know what I'm saying. So you just learn.
- 11:38Speaker 1: It's a lot of wounds.
- 11:39Speaker 3: You learn to deal with those wombs and then you
- 11:42Speaker 3: know you you grow from it. And so I wouldn't
- 11:45Speaker 3: be able to sit here and cook Beanie Whenie's.
- 11:47Speaker 1: If I hadn't gone through some of the Yeah, the struggles.
- 11:50Speaker 2: But did you face that? INTI your battle of like
- 11:52Speaker 2: wondering what happened? Did your mom have those conversations with you?
- 11:57Speaker 2: What did that look like?
- 11:58Speaker 1: She didn't have a conversation. She didn't have But now
- 12:00Speaker 1: she's a brilliant woman. Back then she was young. She
- 12:03Speaker 1: just didn't have the tools and the skill set to know.
- 12:06Speaker 3: Put a little bit of this slappy my mom here
- 12:08Speaker 3: in the meantime you talk about MAMAE me think put
- 12:11Speaker 3: some slappy my mown and it's real quick. Put a
- 12:13Speaker 3: little bit on the corner too, just hit it with
- 12:14Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. But she didn't have the
- 12:17Speaker 3: skills to know how to talk to me about those
- 12:22Speaker 3: types of things. She was young, So I didn't deal
- 12:26Speaker 3: with the struggle that I had from not having my
- 12:28Speaker 3: dad in my life until I got much older. Like
- 12:30Speaker 3: it did cause a lot of trauma for sure, you
- 12:34Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, because I don't think I would
- 12:36Speaker 3: be successful if my dad was in my life, being
- 12:39Speaker 3: honest with you, because my success is really because of
- 12:42Speaker 3: the trauma. Like I wanted to be approved of, I
- 12:46Speaker 3: wanted to be desired, I wanted to be wanted, and
- 12:49Speaker 3: so I just kept achieving so people would see me,
- 12:52Speaker 3: people would accept me, people.
- 12:53Speaker 1: Would want me.
- 12:54Speaker 3: And I don't do that now, Like that's not why
- 12:58Speaker 3: I'm successful, but that's what was driving my success as
- 13:02Speaker 3: a younger person, you.
- 13:04Speaker 2: Know what I'm saying.
- 13:05Speaker 3: So it was that fuel in that well, I got
- 13:07Speaker 3: to become somebody, and who am I unless I'm approved of?
- 13:11Speaker 3: And so now you know, for me, I know God
- 13:14Speaker 3: approves of me, God loves me.
- 13:16Speaker 1: So I'm I'm good.
- 13:18Speaker 3: But as a kid, oh man, it messed me up,
- 13:21Speaker 3: and I didn't realize how bad it messed me up,
- 13:23Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
- 13:24Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So now let's go to the next pivotal
- 13:29Speaker 2: milestone as we inch towards where you're at today. Okay,
- 13:32Speaker 2: what was that next pivotal thing that happened in your
- 13:34Speaker 2: life that either led you towards music.
- 13:37Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, so I started rapping as a kid.
- 13:40Speaker 3: So the other thing about it was my mom because
- 13:42Speaker 3: she was a single parent and she had a lot
- 13:46Speaker 3: on her shoulders. I mean she had she you know,
- 13:49Speaker 3: she had boyfriends. She ended up getting married again that
- 13:51Speaker 3: didn't work out, but.
- 13:52Speaker 1: It was it was kind of chaotic.
- 13:53Speaker 3: So I would stay with my grandmother for months at
- 13:56Speaker 3: a time and stay with my grandmother. My grandmother's house
- 13:59Speaker 3: was like a hotel, you know, like all the family
- 14:02Speaker 3: members would come stay there. So every time I would
- 14:04Speaker 3: go stay with my grandmother, I would stay for like
- 14:06Speaker 3: three months at a time, four months at a time.
- 14:08Speaker 3: And when I was stay with my grandmother, people would
- 14:11Speaker 3: come and my cousins came who were older than me,
- 14:15Speaker 3: and they it was late one night, I was probably
- 14:18Speaker 3: about six or seven, and they were up watching TV
- 14:23Speaker 3: and I was like, what are they watching? I should
- 14:25Speaker 3: have been in the bed, but it was rap videos
- 14:29Speaker 3: and so I was like what is this?
- 14:32Speaker 1: And I was like blown away.
- 14:34Speaker 3: Watching it over their shoulder and they said, Hey, what
- 14:36Speaker 3: you doing in here? But then they said come on
- 14:39Speaker 3: in here, and I.
- 14:40Speaker 1: Just fell in love.
- 14:41Speaker 3: I stayed up after that every night watching rap videos.
- 14:45Speaker 1: So I fell in love with.
- 14:46Speaker 3: Rap music probably like seven eight years old, and about ten,
- 14:51Speaker 3: I was writing my own.
- 14:52Speaker 1: I was trying to impress the girls in the neighborhood.
- 14:54Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
- 14:55Speaker 3: I remember writing a song to this girl, Trina. It
- 14:58Speaker 3: was like training Trina. I won't dishha, I won't treat
- 15:03Speaker 3: you like aisha like it was.
- 15:05Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
- 15:05Speaker 3: It was just me trying to But that's really what
- 15:10Speaker 3: birth something in me to like pursue the music, you
- 15:13Speaker 3: know what I mean.
- 15:14Speaker 2: So what do you think about about the rap music
- 15:17Speaker 2: in particular that really pulled at you at the time.
- 15:23Speaker 3: I think it was like I could see, I could relate.
- 15:26Speaker 3: I saw pictures of myself. I saw like Tupac was
- 15:29Speaker 3: my favorite rapper as a kid. And the reason why
- 15:32Speaker 3: is because he told these honest stories about his life
- 15:34Speaker 3: and his life It felt real and authentic, and he
- 15:36Speaker 3: told stories about not having his dad, he told stories
- 15:40Speaker 3: about his pain, He talked about just the drama and
- 15:43Speaker 3: the trauma that he experienced. And I was like, man,
- 15:46Speaker 3: he's telling my story like somebody's telling my story and
- 15:50Speaker 3: I just connected, you know, in a deep way because
- 15:53Speaker 3: of that, and so I just feel like, I don't know,
- 15:56Speaker 3: you know, because of that, Tupac was like a hero
- 16:01Speaker 3: to me, like almost like the dad I didn't have
- 16:03Speaker 3: in a lot of ways. Yeah, I just wanted to
- 16:05Speaker 3: try to take after that and write music that was
- 16:08Speaker 3: from the heart I And that's Anotherother thing is Tupac
- 16:11Speaker 3: as a kid in er Kabadu as a kid. Strangely enough,
- 16:15Speaker 3: I remember both of them like spoke to like they
- 16:17Speaker 3: were speaking from like a deep place, even though I
- 16:20Speaker 3: didn't understand what it was, but it just made me
- 16:22Speaker 3: feel like, oh, they wanna change people.
- 16:25Speaker 1: Laurence Hill too.
- 16:25Speaker 3: It was like, y'all wanna help people with your music,
- 16:28Speaker 3: And I was like, I wanna do that.
- 16:29Speaker 1: But I did. I didn't know how, and I didn't know.
- 16:33Speaker 3: I didn't have a relationship with God really at the
- 16:35Speaker 3: time either, So I didn't even understand any of what
- 16:38Speaker 3: was gonna be my future.
- 16:39Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
- 16:40Speaker 2: Did you grow up in any type of religious type
- 16:43Speaker 2: household whatsoever? Mom, Grandma?
- 16:45Speaker 3: So the funny thing about it is my mom grew
- 16:48Speaker 3: up in church. She hated it because it was so religious.
- 16:52Speaker 3: She couldn't wear makeup, she couldn't wear pants, she couldn't
- 16:56Speaker 3: go to like sporting events like all of this.
- 16:59Speaker 1: I know it was crazy.
- 17:00Speaker 3: It's like religious cult like type of but you know,
- 17:05Speaker 3: she was raised like they were from the country. They
- 17:07Speaker 3: didn't know, like they're not really educated, so they just
- 17:09Speaker 3: like mixing like superstition and religion together. So my mom
- 17:14Speaker 3: just was like, I don't want you around all that stuff.
- 17:17Speaker 3: Be a free thinker, think freely. So I didn't really.
- 17:20Speaker 3: I wasn't raised in church. We didn't go that much.
- 17:22Speaker 3: I would go when I was with my grandmother. My
- 17:24Speaker 3: grandmother was big into the church, but I didn't understand
- 17:27Speaker 3: what was going on. It was just like shopping and
- 17:28Speaker 3: clapping and singing.
- 17:29Speaker 1: Yeah, but I did see her lifestyle and that was inspiring.
- 17:33Speaker 3: Her lifestyle was like feed the homeless, take care of people.
- 17:38Speaker 3: We would drive cause this is in southern California, so
- 17:40Speaker 3: we would drive to Tijuana and just go up into
- 17:43Speaker 3: Mexico in the mountains and she would like bring food
- 17:46Speaker 3: and feed people. I'm sitting here talking about the Messa's
- 17:49Speaker 3: food up.
- 17:49Speaker 2: Wait, I didn't know you were from La La.
- 17:51Speaker 1: I thought you, Yeah, so well, I saw.
- 17:53Speaker 3: So we stayed in southern Cali, but then I also
- 17:56Speaker 3: in Texas as well. So I would go, you know,
- 17:58Speaker 3: back and forth Texas, southern California, even Denver, Colorado, so
- 18:02Speaker 3: back to southern Caulty.
- 18:03Speaker 1: So so we would go to Mexico.
- 18:06Speaker 3: We would You know, my grandmother she didn't she just
- 18:09Speaker 3: she her character was dope, you know what I'm saying.
- 18:11Speaker 3: She wanted me to have a relationship with God, but
- 18:13Speaker 3: she didn't know. She wasn't like educated and all of that.
- 18:16Speaker 3: She just knew the Lord.
- 18:18Speaker 1: So she was like I was like maybe five, and
- 18:22Speaker 1: she was like, do you love God? I was like, yeah,
- 18:25Speaker 1: I think. So she's like, all right, We're gonna baptize
- 18:27Speaker 1: you in the ocean, you know what. I didn't know
- 18:31Speaker 1: what's going on, you know what I mean. So it
- 18:33Speaker 1: was an interesting dynamic.
- 18:35Speaker 2: Yeah, and then when would you go around your mom
- 18:37Speaker 2: and then ask like questions maybe per se not.
- 18:40Speaker 3: Really because to me, religion just seemed like Grandma's like
- 18:48Speaker 3: kind of like backwoods country.
- 18:52Speaker 1: Stuff, you know what I mean.
- 18:53Speaker 3: It was like, eh, my mom was like big on education,
- 18:57Speaker 3: made me read books and you know, stuff like that.
- 19:01Speaker 3: So you know, let me tell you something funny as
- 19:05Speaker 3: we're making this. I have eaten this a million times.
- 19:08Speaker 3: I've never I don't think i've ever made it. I
- 19:12Speaker 3: made it, I made a spinach. I don't know if
- 19:15Speaker 3: I've ever made this. I've eaten it a million times.
- 19:17Speaker 3: I don't know if I've ever made it. Maybe I did.
- 19:19Speaker 3: You know what I probably did in a microwave. That's
- 19:21Speaker 3: probably what I did. I probably put the hot dogs
- 19:24Speaker 3: in the microwave.
- 19:25Speaker 2: And now is that you're realizing that because you're looking
- 19:27Speaker 2: at it and you're like, I don't know if this
- 19:28Speaker 2: was is supposed to.
- 19:29Speaker 1: Look it don't look I don't remember looking like this,
- 19:31Speaker 1: but I'm thinking of it.
- 19:32Speaker 3: And I was like, you know what, because I didn't
- 19:33Speaker 3: really make it. My mom made it pretty most part.
- 19:35Speaker 3: But I think I put it in a microwave. I'm
- 19:37Speaker 3: pretty sure I put it in a microwave.
- 19:39Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean, especially if you said you've been
- 19:41Speaker 2: cooking it from very young. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I feel
- 19:43Speaker 2: like her trusting you with the stove.
- 19:45Speaker 1: Nah, I put everything in the microwave. I sure did.
- 19:48Speaker 1: I was a microwave baby microwave. But I can cook though, Okay,
- 19:53Speaker 1: I mean I can cook. What I can cook, Okay.
- 19:57Speaker 3: I'm not gonna say like, if if I know how
- 20:00Speaker 3: to cook it, it's gonna be good.
- 20:02Speaker 1: Ok That's what I'll say.
- 20:03Speaker 2: Because we had garlic powder back, that we had onion
- 20:05Speaker 2: powder backs all these seasons. He grabbed the slavy o mama.
- 20:08Speaker 2: Guys trying to judge, But that's like, if you can't cook,
- 20:12Speaker 2: trust in this, Oh.
- 20:13Speaker 3: For sure, Oh for sure, then that then that being
- 20:17Speaker 3: the case, I cannot cook because slapyr Mama does the
- 20:21Speaker 3: work for me.
- 20:23Speaker 1: For sure.
- 20:25Speaker 3: Slappy Mama doesn't work for me. Yeah, my wife can cook,
- 20:27Speaker 3: I'm not. I mean I can grill, though, play.
- 20:29Speaker 1: With me on the grill.
- 20:30Speaker 2: I love how you're slowly walking it back because.
- 20:33Speaker 1: I'm saying I can cook what I can cook.
- 20:35Speaker 3: I can fry some chicken, I can make spaghetti okay,
- 20:39Speaker 3: I can make burritos and tacos okay.
- 20:42Speaker 1: And then I can grill everything else.
- 20:44Speaker 2: Okay, you know what I'm saying, Some vegetables, some sides, gotcha.
- 20:55Speaker 2: So when you were first saying that you would spend
- 20:57Speaker 2: time with your grandma in between your grandma and your mom,
- 21:00Speaker 2: I just assumed they lived close together. No, so you
- 21:03Speaker 2: would get on a plane and.
- 21:04Speaker 1: Go for like since a little kid. So that was
- 21:07Speaker 1: a crazy thing too.
- 21:07Speaker 3: It's like I'll fly by myself, like she would work
- 21:11Speaker 3: two jobs and then pay half the ticket. My grandma
- 21:14Speaker 3: may pay the other half of the ticket, and then
- 21:16Speaker 3: I would hop on a plane by myself since a
- 21:18Speaker 3: little kid.
- 21:19Speaker 2: Like.
- 21:19Speaker 3: So I remember flying with the flight attendant, playing like cards.
- 21:22Speaker 1: With 'em, you know what I'm saying.
- 21:23Speaker 3: But I would stay for months at a time, so
- 21:25Speaker 3: it really wasn't like a couple times we drove, but
- 21:28Speaker 3: like very.
- 21:29Speaker 1: Few, you know what I mean.
- 21:30Speaker 3: But yeah, I remember that like and I loved it.
- 21:34Speaker 3: The only the reason why I didn't stay. I remember
- 21:38Speaker 3: around fourteen, the gang started taking over and the gang culture.
- 21:44Speaker 1: Started pulling me in a little too strong.
- 21:46Speaker 3: So my mom was like, hey, it's we gonna change
- 21:50Speaker 3: the scene up. You know what I'm saying, It's time
- 21:52Speaker 3: to change stuff up. And I kicked and screamed, I rebelled.
- 21:55Speaker 2: But was your attitude at home slowly starting to shift
- 21:59Speaker 2: a little bit? They were pick it.
- 22:00Speaker 3: Oh yeah, my attitude at home. I mean the clothes
- 22:03Speaker 3: I was wearing, the rags hanging out of my pocket,
- 22:04Speaker 3: the graffiti in the in on the streets getting brought
- 22:07Speaker 3: home by the police.
- 22:08Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, you and your grandma called it.
- 22:11Speaker 3: In No, I would get my My grandma was kind
- 22:14Speaker 3: of oblivious to it. So my uncle's my uncle was
- 22:18Speaker 3: like a a a reputable gang member in the neighborhood.
- 22:21Speaker 3: So I followed after him a lot. He was like,
- 22:24Speaker 3: like my dad. He's only ten years older than me,
- 22:25Speaker 3: but he was like my dad. So he's like, you know,
- 22:29Speaker 3: this is what this is, this is what that is.
- 22:31Speaker 3: I ain't gonna say all the things he showed me,
- 22:32Speaker 3: but he showed me a lot of things that you know,
- 22:34Speaker 3: you just typically don't show a kid. Yeah, And from there,
- 22:38Speaker 3: you know, I just started to move down that path.
- 22:42Speaker 1: And my mom saw.
- 22:43Speaker 3: That and she was like, this is not what I
- 22:46Speaker 3: want for you. So then she moved and then I
- 22:50Speaker 3: and it was like, I c I didn't go back
- 22:52Speaker 3: to California again.
- 22:54Speaker 1: For probably good gracious I was. I was in Texas.
- 22:59Speaker 1: I probably didn't go back from fourteen till nineteen.
- 23:02Speaker 2: Wow. She was like, this is not happening for you.
- 23:05Speaker 1: Pivotal time.
- 23:06Speaker 2: No fourteen, good job, mom, shout out to you. Yeah
- 23:10Speaker 2: for real, Yeah, so you go back to Texas? How
- 23:13Speaker 2: are you feeling Texas? Are you coming with that same attitude?
- 23:16Speaker 1: I tried. But here's the thing.
- 23:18Speaker 3: She got remarried and he got a good job, right,
- 23:23Speaker 3: and so we moved to a nicer area.
- 23:25Speaker 1: We didn't have a lot of money, we didn't have
- 23:27Speaker 1: any furniture, but we lived in a nicer area. So
- 23:30Speaker 1: it was kind of like.
- 23:32Speaker 3: That type of energy was weird, you know what I'm saying,
- 23:35Speaker 3: Because it was like, it's like, why are you trying
- 23:37Speaker 3: to be the toughest.
- 23:38Speaker 1: Dude in a nicer area? You know what I'm saying.
- 23:41Speaker 3: It's like, why are you trying to be the hardest
- 23:43Speaker 3: dude in Pasadena?
- 23:45Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? Like what's going on here?
- 23:47Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. So that's kind of what
- 23:49Speaker 1: it felt like.
- 23:51Speaker 3: And so I just I kind of started thinking about it,
- 23:54Speaker 3: and just I was around different types of people, like
- 23:56Speaker 3: folks who were trying to do something with their life.
- 23:58Speaker 3: And on a street narrow, a lot of the kids
- 24:01Speaker 3: were talking about going to college, and I was like, man,
- 24:03Speaker 3: you know, it was kind of like, you know, like
- 24:06Speaker 3: changing my perspective. So I started to mature being around that.
- 24:10Speaker 3: And then I had teachers who actually cared about me,
- 24:12Speaker 3: and they weren't, you know. So my first year I
- 24:14Speaker 3: failed everything almost I.
- 24:15Speaker 1: Had, like I failed almost every class.
- 24:18Speaker 3: But then as I kept progressing, I would do better.
- 24:20Speaker 3: Teachers cared about me, invested in me. And one teacher said, man,
- 24:24Speaker 3: you got a gift in you know, like acting, and
- 24:28Speaker 3: she was like, you should pursue this, and so I
- 24:31Speaker 3: actually I pursued it. I started, you know, getting involved
- 24:35Speaker 3: in like school plays, and which is weird.
- 24:37Speaker 1: I was embarrassed. I didn't tell anybody, you know what
- 24:40Speaker 1: I'm saying, because I was like, you.
- 24:41Speaker 2: Didn't tell anybody as in family members.
- 24:43Speaker 3: No, like people in my friends in the school, because
- 24:45Speaker 3: I was the plays weren't performed. We only did one
- 24:49Speaker 3: play in front of the whole school, and I was
- 24:50Speaker 3: embarrassed about it. But I was like, it's all good.
- 24:52Speaker 3: I just I'm gonna do it. But but I but
- 24:55Speaker 3: I knew I had something because everybody was like, you
- 24:58Speaker 3: got something. And then and they encouraged me to audition
- 25:02Speaker 3: for a scholarship and I did it on a whim
- 25:05Speaker 3: and got a full ride.
- 25:07Speaker 2: Are you serious? And just to backtrack with your stepfather
- 25:12Speaker 2: at the time being a provider, was your mom more
- 25:16Speaker 2: hands on with you. Would you say during that era she.
- 25:19Speaker 3: Still had to work. She worked a lot still, but
- 25:21Speaker 3: she was home more. For sure, she was home more.
- 25:25Speaker 3: She still had to work, she was home more.
- 25:27Speaker 1: You know.
- 25:27Speaker 3: He was really traditional. He was kind of like they weren't.
- 25:30Speaker 3: It wasn't like a healthy environment. It still was like
- 25:34Speaker 3: you know how they say you could take them out
- 25:35Speaker 3: the hoods, You can't take the hood out of them.
- 25:37Speaker 3: So it's like it's like, yeah, you went from Compton
- 25:39Speaker 3: to Pasadena, but you still brought Compton with you to Pasadena,
- 25:42Speaker 3: and so still like some stuff in the house wasn't bad,
- 25:45Speaker 3: you know, it wasn't good.
- 25:47Speaker 1: So that obviously that relationship dissolved. But yeah, man, I
- 25:51Speaker 1: think she.
- 25:53Speaker 3: You know, she's always been solid, just been stamped.
- 25:57Speaker 1: She's a fighter, she's a grinder. That the spirit of hustle.
- 26:01Speaker 1: She put that in me. You know what I'm saying.
- 26:03Speaker 2: Now, were you still doing rap music at that time
- 26:07Speaker 2: during like the whole acting error too?
- 26:09Speaker 3: I was, but I kind of put it on the
- 26:11Speaker 3: back burner, you know, and I put it on the
- 26:12Speaker 3: back burner.
- 26:13Speaker 1: I started.
- 26:14Speaker 3: I'm in school right now, so I'm acting and I'm
- 26:20Speaker 3: rapping on the side. I'm doing a lot of stupid
- 26:22Speaker 3: stuff on the side.
- 26:23Speaker 1: If I'm being honest with.
- 26:24Speaker 2: Let's talk about the stupid stuff just a little bit.
- 26:27Speaker 2: You're trying to get the whole testimony, and I gotta
- 26:29Speaker 2: story testimony with you.
- 26:31Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, yeah, yeah.
- 26:33Speaker 2: You can.
- 26:35Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna serve you up. Let me hold on.
- 26:38Speaker 1: Let me see my little business line out.
- 26:41Speaker 2: I was the whole time. I was like, I wonder
- 26:43Speaker 2: if no, no.
- 26:44Speaker 1: No, I take my business line out real quick. Okay.
- 26:47Speaker 3: So here's the thing, though, I gotta sample it, make
- 26:51Speaker 3: sure it's like I got sample it to make sure
- 26:53Speaker 3: it's right.
- 26:53Speaker 2: Because there's not too much a slap your moment.
- 26:56Speaker 1: I don't trust.
- 26:58Speaker 3: I don't trust that it's gonna be just right unless
- 27:01Speaker 3: I sample it myself.
- 27:03Speaker 2: You can't really mess with corn, can you.
- 27:05Speaker 1: I mean, you're not supposed to be able to. But
- 27:10Speaker 1: mm hmm, it's it's not slipping. But it's cool. It's cool.
- 27:18Speaker 2: I told him that I was gonna judge it, so
- 27:21Speaker 2: he's putting extra you know.
- 27:23Speaker 3: Now, this I didn't season at all. This is this
- 27:25Speaker 3: don't look like my mama's.
- 27:26Speaker 2: It looks is it too saucy?
- 27:29Speaker 3: It looks it looks very get hurt. No, I mean,
- 27:32Speaker 3: it just looks like it got too hot at the bottom.
- 27:34Speaker 1: But it's all good. We're gonna we're gonna burn it.
- 27:37Speaker 1: I didn't burn it, but definitely.
- 27:40Speaker 2: Here I'm gonna slide.
- 27:41Speaker 1: It's definitely not like you know what I'm saying me.
- 27:44Speaker 2: Get you it's hot dogs in there.
- 27:47Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know how hungry you are, giving you sample, give.
- 27:52Speaker 2: Me sample size. You want to save my stomach just
- 27:55Speaker 2: in case.
- 27:56Speaker 3: I mean, nah, I think it's gonna be straight, but
- 27:58Speaker 3: you know, you never know, you ever know.
- 28:00Speaker 2: There we go.
- 28:03Speaker 1: I had Beanie weenies at first.
- 28:06Speaker 2: And then cool. Now the stoves turned off. You can
- 28:08Speaker 2: getting closer to this, mica.
- 28:09Speaker 1: Okay, bam bam, make sure it's off. All right.
- 28:11Speaker 2: Here we go, guys, we're gonna sample spinach first.
- 28:14Speaker 3: Yeah, now about the spinach. Like I said, I didn't
- 28:16Speaker 3: put the butter on youre like I should have. But
- 28:18Speaker 3: you know it's all good.
- 28:22Speaker 2: That's good.
- 28:22Speaker 1: Yeah, what I'm saying. It gets a job done.
- 28:24Speaker 2: Your mom said it was it was better than the
- 28:26Speaker 2: Did you say it was better than by the way
- 28:28Speaker 2: he phoned his.
- 28:28Speaker 1: Mama, I did. I had to. I had to hit mama.
- 28:31Speaker 2: Spinach is good. Yeah, no, no, I think I like the
- 28:36Speaker 2: believe he spinach.
- 28:37Speaker 1: I do too. Year that up.
- 28:39Speaker 2: Yeah, because this is like extra muskey. Yeah, this is
- 28:42Speaker 2: the pork and beans, not baked beans.
- 28:44Speaker 1: Guys.
- 28:45Speaker 2: Mm hmm, good, great job. It's the only thing you
- 28:50Speaker 2: didn't season.
- 28:51Speaker 3: I didn't do anything to this, but I never have
- 28:53Speaker 3: season this my mama, and I don't think she sees it.
- 28:55Speaker 2: It's really good with the hot dogs, all right, corn,
- 29:04Speaker 2: But I would have put butter.
- 29:05Speaker 1: In that too.
- 29:06Speaker 2: Now I notice he doesn't mix his stuff up at
- 29:10Speaker 2: all in real life too.
- 29:13Speaker 1: Not no, not really, I can, but I don't. I'm
- 29:16Speaker 1: kind of like OCD like that.
- 29:19Speaker 2: Corn is phenomenal. All right, guys, look break and good.
- 29:24Speaker 2: You know, as long as you have slapped your mom
- 29:27Speaker 2: in the kitchen, he could cook. I'm just messing with it, right.
- 29:31Speaker 2: This is a great dish, and you know what, I
- 29:34Speaker 2: would just mix it all together on one four.
- 29:35Speaker 1: There you got. You can do that. I mean, that's
- 29:37Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that.
- 29:38Speaker 2: Look at that.
- 29:39Speaker 1: Yeah, what the funny thing about you?
- 29:45Speaker 2: This is a great dish. It works, and it's affordable.
- 29:48Speaker 2: So if you guys are pursuing your dreams out there.
- 29:51Speaker 2: They're going through hard times. This is a totally fine dish.
- 29:55Speaker 3: You know, It's funny because when I, like I was
- 29:58Speaker 3: telling you I was doing a bunch of stupid stuff
- 30:03Speaker 3: and I wouldn't. It's funny because I was. I was
- 30:07Speaker 3: I was fake rich because I was making money fast
- 30:11Speaker 3: the wrong way.
- 30:12Speaker 2: Oh that's what type of stuff.
- 30:14Speaker 3: Yeah, making money fast the wrong way and hustling and
- 30:18Speaker 3: doing dumb stuff.
- 30:20Speaker 2: But in a good neighborhood you were doing that?
- 30:22Speaker 1: Yeah?
- 30:23Speaker 3: Well really, really what happened? So this is the funny
- 30:25Speaker 3: part about it is I should have seen opportunity. Instead
- 30:30Speaker 3: I saw a lick.
- 30:31Speaker 1: I saw like, oh, victims, you know what I mean.
- 30:34Speaker 3: So it was kind of like I took advantage of that,
- 30:38Speaker 3: and it was like, y'all people, it's it's car doors
- 30:43Speaker 3: that are unlocked, Like y'all are crazy, Like that's my opportunity.
- 30:48Speaker 3: And then you know, I just saw I was just
- 30:52Speaker 3: always looking for opportunities. That's one thing I will say
- 30:54Speaker 3: is like I was looking for opportunity. I've always been
- 30:56Speaker 3: that type of person, like where's the opportunity for me
- 30:58Speaker 3: to do what I need to do. I just was
- 31:00Speaker 3: doing it in the wrong way, you know what I mean. So,
- 31:04Speaker 3: so I remember I moved out. I moved in with
- 31:07Speaker 3: my friend. This was I was going to drop out
- 31:10Speaker 3: of school and moved in with my friend and we
- 31:14Speaker 3: were doing some stupid stuff and I go, So what
- 31:18Speaker 3: I would used to do is I would throw these parties.
- 31:21Speaker 1: I would get a bunch of high school kids.
- 31:23Speaker 3: I'm fresh out of I'm in college, like my second
- 31:25Speaker 3: year in college or something like that.
- 31:27Speaker 1: So I'm like twenty out of college. Yeah, out of college. Okay.
- 31:31Speaker 2: I was like, what happened?
- 31:32Speaker 3: So I'm promoting these parties. And what I would do
- 31:37Speaker 3: with the parties was when you come to the party,
- 31:40Speaker 3: I will sell you some things when you get to
- 31:42Speaker 3: the party, you know what I mean. And that's kind
- 31:44Speaker 3: of how I would move. So I was, you know,
- 31:48Speaker 3: we were promote these parties. You make all this money.
- 31:50Speaker 3: You got thousands of dollars on you one night, we
- 31:53Speaker 3: made all this money. And then we get outside after
- 31:55Speaker 3: the party's over at the windows because we have put
- 31:57Speaker 3: the money in the trunk and somebody had smashed through
- 32:01Speaker 3: the window, opened up the back of the cars the
- 32:04Speaker 3: seat figured out how to do that and took all
- 32:06Speaker 3: the money out the trunk.
- 32:07Speaker 2: So, oh, I know what you do?
- 32:09Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
- 32:10Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I thought you were going to say they
- 32:13Speaker 2: the Nah, they.
- 32:14Speaker 3: Just came through the back and took the money out
- 32:16Speaker 3: the trunk. So now thousands of dollars are gone. So
- 32:18Speaker 3: now I'm like, man, you know that was really frustrating.
- 32:21Speaker 3: But I should have learned my lesson because at this time,
- 32:24Speaker 3: I feel like God was dealing with me.
- 32:26Speaker 1: But I just wouldn't listen. I wouldn't learn my lesson.
- 32:29Speaker 3: And then I go to the school that same week
- 32:32Speaker 3: and I'm going to pass out flyers. I got some
- 32:36Speaker 3: stuff in my car that I should not have in
- 32:38Speaker 3: my car, if you know what I'm saying. And I'm
- 32:40Speaker 3: in the school passing out these flyers and I see
- 32:44Speaker 3: the campus, like not the campus, but like the high school,
- 32:47Speaker 3: like security whatever you call the people that walk around
- 32:50Speaker 3: the high school. And they spot me, but I'm thinking
- 32:52Speaker 3: I blend in. I look young enough. I'm thinking they're not.
- 32:55Speaker 3: I'm blend in. But then he keeps walking toward me,
- 32:57Speaker 3: and I'm like, oh, shoot, let me get up out
- 32:58Speaker 3: of here.
- 32:59Speaker 2: Wait, this isn't you're going to high schools to do.
- 33:01Speaker 3: I'm going to high school. So school gets out, so
- 33:04Speaker 3: I'm trespassed. All I'm all bad that line, I'm all bad,
- 33:09Speaker 3: but I'm not. I'm just thinking I've done it a
- 33:10Speaker 3: million times, so you just you're dumb. You're young too,
- 33:13Speaker 3: you're nineteen, You're dumb. So I'm on the campus and
- 33:16Speaker 3: then I'm trying to pass out the flyers and then
- 33:19Speaker 3: I see the officer looking at me and he's walking
- 33:23Speaker 3: toward me, and then so I just I cut out.
- 33:27Speaker 3: Well apparently I don't know how they did it, but
- 33:33Speaker 3: he had radioed to somebody else. So as soon as
- 33:35Speaker 3: I got out the door, the police were just sitting
- 33:37Speaker 3: outside waiting for me. So they was like, hey, you
- 33:40Speaker 3: can't be on school property. You don't go to the school.
- 33:43Speaker 3: And I'm thinking they're just gonna kick me out. That's
- 33:44Speaker 3: all good, you know, just let me, just let me go, man,
- 33:46Speaker 3: I won't come back. I won't come back.
- 33:47Speaker 1: They said no.
- 33:48Speaker 3: They cut me up. They put me in the back
- 33:50Speaker 3: of the police car. So then they go search my car.
- 33:54Speaker 1: My goodness.
- 33:55Speaker 3: Now the crazy part about it is in my car
- 33:58Speaker 3: I have things I should I have, and I also
- 34:01Speaker 3: have my grandmother the Bible. My grandmother gave me so
- 34:05Speaker 3: she gives me this Bible and it was like a
- 34:07Speaker 3: good luck charm. But at the time I had really
- 34:09Speaker 3: been trying to learn more about God and I was
- 34:11Speaker 3: reading through it, even highlighting underlining some stuff.
- 34:15Speaker 1: So it was used, you see what I'm saying.
- 34:17Speaker 3: So the police officer he comes back to the police
- 34:21Speaker 3: car and he's like, he's like, that's your Bible in
- 34:24Speaker 3: the car. I said yes, sir. He was like, you
- 34:27Speaker 3: need to stay in that Bible. I see you've been
- 34:29Speaker 3: reading it. I said yes, sir. He said, I need
- 34:31Speaker 3: you to stay in that Bible. I don't want to
- 34:33Speaker 3: see you no more. And I was like, okay. So
- 34:36Speaker 3: I'm thinking, oh, he didn't find the stuff. Thank god,
- 34:39Speaker 3: I'm free. He lets me out the car. I go
- 34:43Speaker 3: back to my car. The stuff is gone, the car
- 34:48Speaker 3: is running through but the Bible is sitting out there.
- 34:53Speaker 3: And so to me, it was like, all right, that
- 34:56Speaker 3: was my sign.
- 34:57Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I'm just curious a bat. What was
- 35:00Speaker 2: causing that little bit of curiosity into the Bible to
- 35:03Speaker 2: begin with.
- 35:05Speaker 1: I think I was just going through a lot.
- 35:06Speaker 3: I was depressed, I was going through hard times, had
- 35:09Speaker 3: a pregnancy scare with my girl at the time, and
- 35:13Speaker 3: I was just in a dark place, you know. I
- 35:14Speaker 3: had gotten into some some fights and just the money's gone.
- 35:19Speaker 1: I'm thinking about dropping out of school. I was dealing with.
- 35:21Speaker 3: Depression and no, no, no, I didn't have pregnancy scare.
- 35:24Speaker 3: I got my girl pregnant and then I forced her
- 35:25Speaker 3: to get an abortion. Okay, you know what I'm saying.
- 35:27Speaker 3: So it wasn't even pregnancy scary. It was like I
- 35:29Speaker 3: forced her. I'm dealing with that. She was crying, she's
- 35:32Speaker 3: depressed about it. I was like, man, it was no
- 35:35Speaker 3: other way, you know. So my life just felt like
- 35:37Speaker 3: this is going downhill, you know, And it just felt like, man,
- 35:40Speaker 3: I'm just like what am I doing with myself? And
- 35:43Speaker 3: I felt like that was like almost like God saying,
- 35:45Speaker 3: I'm giving you another opportunity, you know what I'm saying, Like,
- 35:47Speaker 3: I'm giving you a second chance to like really turn
- 35:51Speaker 3: things around. And so I think for me, that was
- 35:54Speaker 3: a pivotal moment. I mean, now at this point in
- 35:56Speaker 3: time I had you know, it didn't all happen in
- 36:02Speaker 3: like order like this, but this whole season, Yeah, basically
- 36:06Speaker 3: what ended up happening to top it all off, Not
- 36:09Speaker 3: only does that happen, but then I just stumble into
- 36:11Speaker 3: a church. I'm like, young, I'm like, I don't know.
- 36:15Speaker 3: The people just started showing me love. I ended up
- 36:18Speaker 3: going back to the campus and then you.
- 36:22Speaker 1: Know, some young you know, Christian starts showing me love
- 36:26Speaker 1: as well, and I'm like, this is weird.
- 36:28Speaker 3: But it was just a beautiful time where people embraced
- 36:31Speaker 3: me and just were showing me love and they weren't beat.
- 36:32Speaker 1: Me over the head with stuff, and it was just
- 36:34Speaker 1: it was just love.
- 36:35Speaker 3: It was the family that I wanted growing up but
- 36:37Speaker 3: I didn't have because I was at home by myself
- 36:40Speaker 3: a lot of times.
- 36:41Speaker 1: My mom loved me, for sure, but she had to work.
- 36:44Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
- 36:45Speaker 3: No male figures ever showed me any love, said my uncle,
- 36:48Speaker 3: and he was going down a dark path himself. You know,
- 36:51Speaker 3: he's rehabilitated, thank the Lord. You know, he's on a
- 36:53Speaker 3: straight arrow now. And then my dad's not in my life.
- 36:57Speaker 3: So I just wanted a sense of belonging, you know,
- 37:00Speaker 3: to feel like I mattered. And this this community of
- 37:03Speaker 3: people show me that I that they loved me and
- 37:05Speaker 3: that I mattered. So I was open to listening to
- 37:07Speaker 3: what what y'all talking about? Like give me the God stuff.
- 37:11Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 37:12Speaker 1: Yeah, Now.
- 37:15Speaker 2: As you got into the church, more were you exposed
- 37:18Speaker 2: to there's I love love, love, love love this story.
- 37:22Speaker 2: I was a later Christian. I'm Jewish and Jamaican, grewup
- 37:25Speaker 2: Jewish and Jamaican later Christians.
- 37:27Speaker 1: So it's a lot of good food on your side,
- 37:29Speaker 1: both sides.
- 37:30Speaker 2: I don't know about the Jewish side.
- 37:32Speaker 1: They got that bread man. Bread is good.
- 37:35Speaker 2: Okay. But now, and I have to dig into this
- 37:40Speaker 2: a little bit because even when I first came to God,
- 37:43Speaker 2: there was like churches full of love, full of love,
- 37:45Speaker 2: and then you did have the churches that were very
- 37:47Speaker 2: rigorous in their like the upward Walk or whatever rules.
- 37:51Speaker 2: And then you get exposed to quote unquote you know
- 37:55Speaker 2: the I kind of compare the more to like the
- 37:58Speaker 2: the parent Pharisees and the and that that's a conflicting
- 38:02Speaker 2: thing to be exposed to. Did you get exposed to
- 38:04Speaker 2: all that in that in that error?
- 38:06Speaker 3: And I didn't because it was mostly just the love,
- 38:11Speaker 3: because it was a lot of young people who see
- 38:15Speaker 3: The thing that that made me say I didn't want
- 38:17Speaker 3: to like really follow God is because I didn't see
- 38:19Speaker 3: people who look like me, just young people who just
- 38:22Speaker 3: like looked like me, was dealing with the same type
- 38:23Speaker 3: of stuff I was dealing with. But when I saw him,
- 38:26Speaker 3: I said, oh, well, if y'all can follow God, so
- 38:29Speaker 3: goodnight in you know.
- 38:30Speaker 2: Oh, it went from like a grandma situation exactly like us.
- 38:34Speaker 1: Yeah, the grandma's stuff and shout out to my grandmother.
- 38:38Speaker 3: She's great. But I'm saying, like that idea of what
- 38:41Speaker 3: it looked like. I wasn't rocking with that. But when
- 38:45Speaker 3: I saw it meet me where I was at, it
- 38:47Speaker 3: was cool.
- 38:48Speaker 1: Down the line.
- 38:49Speaker 3: Yeah, I ran into more people who were like you know,
- 38:54Speaker 3: especially when I started doing music, when I changed my
- 38:56Speaker 3: music up.
- 38:57Speaker 1: So now I changed my music and I start rapping,
- 39:01Speaker 1: and I graduate school, I get a job.
- 39:07Speaker 3: It's crazy part I I couldn't find a job when
- 39:09Speaker 3: I graduated college. So I was a cableman, but I
- 39:12Speaker 3: was a hustler. So one time the vice president of
- 39:14Speaker 3: the cable company came in to talk to us all
- 39:17Speaker 3: and I said, hey.
- 39:17Speaker 1: Excuse me.
- 39:18Speaker 3: I got a degree and I was wondering this on
- 39:20Speaker 3: my off days, if I could just come in and
- 39:22Speaker 3: intern for free in the marketing apartment.
- 39:25Speaker 1: And they was like, oh, we like this guy.
- 39:28Speaker 3: So then I interned and it ended up hiring me
- 39:31Speaker 3: in the marketing apartment for this big cable company. Right,
- 39:34Speaker 3: so I'm working my nine to five at the cable company.
- 39:38Speaker 3: But then I'm also like making music and doing little
- 39:42Speaker 3: shows on the side. And every time I would do concerts,
- 39:44Speaker 3: you know, people would bring me out come to a
- 39:46Speaker 3: concert at my church or at this you center.
- 39:48Speaker 2: Whatever, And your music is now fully Christian at this.
- 39:52Speaker 1: Point in time, Yeah, absolutely fully Christian.
- 39:53Speaker 3: So now I'm like, I got little gigs here and there,
- 39:57Speaker 3: and I didn't know about the church because I'm I
- 40:00Speaker 3: became a Christian and started following God with a bunch
- 40:03Speaker 3: of college students, not like with a church group, you.
- 40:05Speaker 1: Know what I'm saying.
- 40:06Speaker 3: So so I didn't know how the church rules were
- 40:09Speaker 3: and all that type stuff. So then I would start
- 40:10Speaker 3: going to these little spaces and they, you know, coming
- 40:13Speaker 3: in dress like I'm dressed, my tattoos, I got my
- 40:15Speaker 3: hat cocked to the side. This is back in like
- 40:17Speaker 3: the dipset arrow with the do rag hanging down, you
- 40:20Speaker 3: know what I mean, And they like, you gotta take
- 40:23Speaker 3: the hat off of here.
- 40:23Speaker 1: And I was like, huh, what was you talking about?
- 40:26Speaker 3: You can't wear hatt in this building and then it
- 40:28Speaker 3: was like, hey, you said, God is not pissed off
- 40:31Speaker 3: at you. You can't use that type of language here.
- 40:33Speaker 1: And I was like, what you know? So I didn't.
- 40:36Speaker 3: That's when I started running into that like very churchy
- 40:40Speaker 3: religious world.
- 40:42Speaker 2: And did that provide any confliction in there?
- 40:45Speaker 1: Oh?
- 40:45Speaker 3: Yeah, but not immediately because immediately at first I was
- 40:48Speaker 3: like I'm wrong with y'all. But I think as I
- 40:52Speaker 3: got further in my career and I really started to
- 40:56Speaker 3: take off, I started.
- 40:57Speaker 1: Doing really well, you know.
- 40:59Speaker 3: And I think the reason why I started doing well
- 41:01Speaker 3: was because I wasn't from the church, you know what
- 41:04Speaker 3: I'm saying. Because I could connect with the average everyday people.
- 41:07Speaker 3: So church people like what I was doing, regular people
- 41:12Speaker 3: who wasn't following God like they was like, that's kind
- 41:15Speaker 3: of dope, Like it sounds like I had.
- 41:16Speaker 1: Even some of my homeboys would be like, you sure
- 41:18Speaker 1: you want to just do this for God? Bro? You dope?
- 41:20Speaker 2: Bro? You know what I mean?
- 41:22Speaker 1: You could really blow up. And I was like, Nah,
- 41:24Speaker 1: this is the path I'm on.
- 41:25Speaker 3: But as my career kept going upward and more upward
- 41:30Speaker 3: and upward, and God just kept blessing me. I think
- 41:35Speaker 3: I became so trusting because I didn't grow up with
- 41:37Speaker 3: a family. I became so trusting of all of these
- 41:42Speaker 3: quote unquote church folks, and I was like, oh, we
- 41:45Speaker 3: all are family. And I let my guard down, which
- 41:47Speaker 3: is okay, sometimes you gotta let your guard down. But
- 41:49Speaker 3: I let my guard all the way down to where
- 41:52Speaker 3: I started finding my identity and my worth and how
- 41:54Speaker 3: much they loved me and not how much God loved me.
- 41:58Speaker 3: So when they start tripping on me.
- 42:02Speaker 1: It got dark, really dark to where I was.
- 42:05Speaker 3: Like, maybe I'm done with God because they tripping.
- 42:16Speaker 2: And how far into your career was that?
- 42:19Speaker 1: This is like.
- 42:22Speaker 3: Probably ten years in so ten years I'm going crazy.
- 42:29Speaker 3: Ten years Like bam, bam bam. This is a build up,
- 42:33Speaker 3: you know. And I think it like we eating this
- 42:35Speaker 3: struggle meal.
- 42:37Speaker 1: This is like if you never forget.
- 42:40Speaker 3: Where you came from, you can go further. It's when
- 42:44Speaker 3: people forget where they came from. People forget how to struggle,
- 42:47Speaker 3: People forget the power of broke when you broke, and
- 42:49Speaker 3: all you got is this You got to figure out
- 42:50Speaker 3: how to make it work, you know what I mean.
- 42:52Speaker 3: So that was what was making me rise, was because
- 42:57Speaker 3: I would get to a certain level, and everybody was
- 42:58Speaker 3: expecting something differ and they be like, oh, you you
- 43:01Speaker 3: don't You're not gonna And I'll be like, no, it's cool,
- 43:04Speaker 3: we'll figure out, we'll make it work.
- 43:05Speaker 1: Hey, we don't have this, Okay, it's cool. We'll figure
- 43:07Speaker 1: out what make it work.
- 43:08Speaker 3: And people just was like, oh, we got to have him,
- 43:10Speaker 3: we got to use this, we got to do that,
- 43:11Speaker 3: and people want to work with you.
- 43:13Speaker 1: So I think that's part of what happened for.
- 43:15Speaker 3: Me was over that ten year span of time, I
- 43:17Speaker 3: just kept rising, rising, rising, because I never looked at
- 43:20Speaker 3: myself as having arrived, and I saw so many other
- 43:23Speaker 3: people they're like, oh, I made it.
- 43:24Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, especially in today's there if they get
- 43:27Speaker 2: like ten thousand followers have arrived, like your bank account says.
- 43:31Speaker 1: I still don't. I don't feel like I made it today.
- 43:34Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, Oh yeah, yeah, you made it.
- 43:37Speaker 3: Nah.
- 43:38Speaker 1: But I'm saying that's the power of broke.
- 43:39Speaker 3: It's just always I'm grateful, I'm content, but I always
- 43:44Speaker 3: feel like I think the other thing is if you've
- 43:48Speaker 3: been here, you're always afraid you're gonna be back here.
- 43:52Speaker 2: That's a real thing.
- 43:53Speaker 1: Yeah. Something.
- 43:54Speaker 2: Now, I've interviewed some people that are like, what's worse.
- 43:56Speaker 2: I've already done it. I've done the syrup sandwich. You know.
- 43:59Speaker 2: So I go back, you know, and I'm.
- 44:01Speaker 1: Like, I cannot be back.
- 44:04Speaker 2: I honestly think it's the entrepreneurs that more lean that way.
- 44:07Speaker 2: They're like a gamble again. No, you almost went back
- 44:13Speaker 2: during COVID.
- 44:15Speaker 3: I mean I could go back to trying it, but
- 44:19Speaker 3: I could if I have to, I will if there's
- 44:21Speaker 3: nothing else I can do.
- 44:23Speaker 1: Cool, but I will exhaust myself.
- 44:26Speaker 3: I will go work at the post office before I
- 44:30Speaker 3: go back.
- 44:32Speaker 2: Like where this is survival? I said, right, this is
- 44:35Speaker 2: where you're like, I don't want this to be. I
- 44:37Speaker 2: under I think a lot of people that have gotten
- 44:40Speaker 2: to where you've gotten to. It was like please please
- 44:42Speaker 2: please please, no no no, I would never listen.
- 44:45Speaker 3: Man. It was a couple of young artists. I remember
- 44:48Speaker 3: this like twenty eighteen. I'm on the road with these
- 44:51Speaker 3: young artists and they had a viral hits.
- 44:52Speaker 1: The song was big.
- 44:53Speaker 3: This is when I was signed to Columbia and we
- 44:55Speaker 3: was like on a radio tour. So you know, I
- 44:58Speaker 3: got the song out. Tie Dollar Sign is blown up
- 45:00Speaker 3: I'm on doing radio tours and I'm on a tour
- 45:02Speaker 3: with these young artis. Ain't gonna say their names, but
- 45:05Speaker 3: they had a big hit and were backstage and their kids,
- 45:10Speaker 3: you know, like, and I see them with this one
- 45:12Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars worth the jewelry on and so I'm
- 45:15Speaker 3: just trying to be big bro. I'm just like, I'm like, man,
- 45:19Speaker 3: y'all jewelry crazy, Like, yeah, bro, we spend one hundred
- 45:22Speaker 3: racks on this. And I said, oh, that's what's uping, man,
- 45:24Speaker 3: Where y'all stay at? Are we staying such as these
- 45:27Speaker 3: apartments and such and such and such and such. I said, okay, man,
- 45:30Speaker 3: y'all definitely should get y'all some property. Bro, you know,
- 45:33Speaker 3: buy buy something, because you know, you spend all your
- 45:36Speaker 3: money on the jewelry and stuff and then you don't
- 45:37Speaker 3: have anything to show for it.
- 45:38Speaker 1: And it was like, na, we just make another hit.
- 45:42Speaker 1: It never came. It never came.
- 45:45Speaker 2: Think is that? I think when you pawn in those
- 45:47Speaker 2: some of those jewelry, especially when they're custom, they're not
- 45:49Speaker 2: worth anything. Like when they do the custom, you know,
- 45:51Speaker 2: when someone has like their name.
- 45:53Speaker 1: And the colors, they lose value. Yeah, they lose immediately.
- 45:57Speaker 3: So that's what I'm saying. I don't like, I don't
- 46:00Speaker 3: want to go back. I'm not going back your money.
- 46:05Speaker 3: Who absolutely, I can't go backwards. Can't go backwards, like
- 46:10Speaker 3: not all the way back? Yeah no, Like uh uh,
- 46:16Speaker 3: I can't be on stages rapping.
- 46:19Speaker 1: For Beanie Weenie's. We can't. We can't do that. No,
- 46:22Speaker 1: it's not what we want.
- 46:23Speaker 2: So during the periods of where you're in a your
- 46:28Speaker 2: your career is doing well, but now you're starting to
- 46:30Speaker 2: question things. What is pulling you out.
- 46:32Speaker 1: Of that the darkness?
- 46:33Speaker 3: Good friends, for one, you just I always have friends
- 46:37Speaker 3: who kept usided with me.
- 46:38Speaker 1: Sometimes it was hard, especially.
- 46:40Speaker 3: When you know you win in Grammy's you're making a
- 46:42Speaker 3: lot of money. Your friends like don't know, it's weird
- 46:47Speaker 3: for them because they're like people want your autograph or
- 46:51Speaker 3: take a picture, and it's like that's weird.
- 46:54Speaker 1: You just you, you know what I mean.
- 46:56Speaker 3: But the good part about that was they never looked
- 47:00Speaker 3: at me like wow. They always just saw me as you,
- 47:04Speaker 3: just you. So when I was going through stuff, they
- 47:09Speaker 3: could keep it real with me and they could just
- 47:11Speaker 3: be there and they weren't like coddling me and being like,
- 47:14Speaker 3: you know, they would just keep it real, like, hey, man,
- 47:17Speaker 3: this is where you dropped the ball at, this is
- 47:19Speaker 3: where you tripping at, this is where you probably need
- 47:20Speaker 3: some help at. And good friends. My best friend is
- 47:25Speaker 3: my wife for sure. Without her, oh my gosh, man, I'd.
- 47:29Speaker 1: Have been cooked cooked.
- 47:31Speaker 3: So she kept it solid and she was like because
- 47:34Speaker 3: I told her, I said, Man, I don't know what
- 47:36Speaker 3: I believe right now. I'm not doing no Bible studies
- 47:37Speaker 3: with kids, none of that type of stuff. I'm just like, yeah,
- 47:41Speaker 3: I was like, I don't I don't know what I
- 47:43Speaker 3: believe right now.
- 47:44Speaker 1: Wow.
- 47:44Speaker 3: And to be honest with you, I was kind of like,
- 47:48Speaker 3: if God ain't real, marriage is just the institution.
- 47:54Speaker 1: Oh wow? And so why did I.
- 47:57Speaker 3: Even do this? You know what I'm saying. I'm like
- 48:00Speaker 3: trying to rethink. I'm just pulling up all the stuff.
- 48:05Speaker 2: So the relationship you had with the church folks or
- 48:10Speaker 2: whatever starting to cause this little these cracks, right, what
- 48:13Speaker 2: makes it go to the point where you start to say, well,
- 48:16Speaker 2: if God isn't real?
- 48:17Speaker 1: Though?
- 48:17Speaker 3: Because I felt like, because what it was was people
- 48:20Speaker 3: hurt me, but I blame God. You see what I'm saying,
- 48:23Speaker 3: God's people hurt me, but I blame them God instead
- 48:26Speaker 3: of his people, you know what I'm saying. So that
- 48:28Speaker 3: was really the thing is like I trusted y'all, looked
- 48:29Speaker 3: up to y'all. Y'all gave me all the right answers,
- 48:31Speaker 3: you pastors, you leaders, you told.
- 48:33Speaker 1: Me this was this and this was this.
- 48:36Speaker 3: But then when I got some questions about stuff, or
- 48:39Speaker 3: when I do something that y'all don't like or y'all
- 48:42Speaker 3: disagree with, you turn your back on me, or you
- 48:46Speaker 3: talk crazy about me.
- 48:47Speaker 1: So I'm like, well, what can I trust that.
- 48:49Speaker 3: Comes out your mouth exactly? You know, That's what I
- 48:51Speaker 3: started thinking. But then I was like, you know what,
- 48:53Speaker 3: even the clock is right two times a day. So
- 48:55Speaker 3: it's like, y'all were right about God. Y'all are wrong
- 48:59Speaker 3: about the way you're treating me in this season. You
- 49:03Speaker 3: know what I'm saying.
- 49:04Speaker 2: Oh, I like that in this season too. Yeah, So
- 49:07Speaker 2: that I guess that for forgiveness.
- 49:09Speaker 3: Forgiveness growth, for them to have they perspective, and a
- 49:12Speaker 3: lot of people to come back and apologized, A lot
- 49:14Speaker 3: of them have a lot of them are like, bro,
- 49:16Speaker 3: I was tripping.
- 49:17Speaker 1: I didn't understand it. I didn't see it. You know.
- 49:19Speaker 3: So a lot of people came back and some of it.
- 49:21Speaker 3: Some of it had to do with you know, I
- 49:24Speaker 3: feel like politics crept into the church and just turned
- 49:27Speaker 3: everything upside down. So if you didn't agree with somebody politically, it.
- 49:32Speaker 1: Was like, oh, you out of here.
- 49:35Speaker 3: Or if you cared about issues of justice, but they
- 49:40Speaker 3: felt like this is a political.
- 49:42Speaker 1: Thing, it's like, nah, I just care about people, you
- 49:44Speaker 1: know what I mean.
- 49:45Speaker 3: They're like, ah, that person's a criminal. You shouldn't care
- 49:48Speaker 3: about the let them. And I'm like, yeah, that sounds crazy.
- 49:52Speaker 3: So they're like you sound crazy, and now it turns
- 49:54Speaker 3: into a fight.
- 49:56Speaker 1: I was like, I can't deal with this.
- 49:57Speaker 2: What does your wife say during this whole period of
- 50:00Speaker 2: questioning that kind of helps you.
- 50:03Speaker 3: I think it's not what she said, it's what she did.
- 50:05Speaker 3: She just stay solid, you know what I'm saying. She said,
- 50:07Speaker 3: I'm just gonna pray for you. She's like, I'm just
- 50:09Speaker 3: gonna pray for you. And she just prayed, stay solid
- 50:12Speaker 3: and prayed and wasn't like. She was like, I don't
- 50:14Speaker 3: have an argument. I don't have the energy to go
- 50:16Speaker 3: back and forth with you arguing. I'm gonna pray. I'm
- 50:19Speaker 3: gonna talk to your friends. I'm gonna hope that, and
- 50:21Speaker 3: you know, my friends would come talk to me. And
- 50:24Speaker 3: then I think too, the other biggest thing was, honestly,
- 50:29Speaker 3: I feel like it was just sometimes you get so
- 50:33Speaker 3: close to the stove. You like, man, that stove ain't hot,
- 50:38Speaker 3: you know what I mean, It's not hot. It's definitely
- 50:40Speaker 3: not hot, and then you burn yourself so bad that
- 50:44Speaker 3: you're like, okay, okay. And I think that's part of
- 50:47Speaker 3: what happened to me too, is I burn myself so
- 50:49Speaker 3: bad because now because now I'm back, once I start
- 50:52Speaker 3: questioning stuff, all I know is to go back to
- 50:54Speaker 3: where I came from.
- 50:55Speaker 1: Where did I come from?
- 50:56Speaker 3: I came from drugs, I came from being in the streets.
- 51:00Speaker 3: I came from doing figuring out how to hustle. So
- 51:03Speaker 3: I'm now I'm thinking through, if I'm not gonna do
- 51:04Speaker 3: this Christian rap thing, what kind of hustling am I
- 51:06Speaker 3: gonna do?
- 51:06Speaker 1: You know?
- 51:06Speaker 3: And I'm depressed and I'm tripping, and I'm drinking now
- 51:09Speaker 3: a whole lot, and I'm popping Xanax.
- 51:11Speaker 2: And I'm just like spiral this whole period.
- 51:15Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my, I'm.
- 51:16Speaker 3: Just going downhill. So I woke up in a depression.
- 51:20Speaker 3: And that's when it was like a clinical depression. That's
- 51:23Speaker 3: when this stuff was too hot. It's like, oh, it's
- 51:24Speaker 3: too hot, and I'm addicted to these pills. And I'm
- 51:27Speaker 3: waking up in a panic and I'm like, oh, I'm
- 51:31Speaker 3: I'm tripping, and you know, I blame myself, But at
- 51:35Speaker 3: the same time, I feel like the enemy was just
- 51:39Speaker 3: putting stuff around me to make it worse. So it's
- 51:41Speaker 3: like I'm trying to find a doctor to go talk
- 51:44Speaker 3: to about a prescription.
- 51:47Speaker 1: I can't find one. But then I find like.
- 51:49Speaker 3: A pill farm on accident. It just so happened to
- 51:50Speaker 3: be a pill farm around the corner. And then this
- 51:53Speaker 3: is a doctor doctor and he like, yeah, take two
- 51:57Speaker 3: of these, man, you feel good.
- 52:00Speaker 1: I'm like addicted. Yeah, you know what I mean. So
- 52:03Speaker 1: it was just a process, man.
- 52:05Speaker 2: And how long did that process take?
- 52:08Speaker 1: I would say this was it was an ongoing battle
- 52:13Speaker 1: for two years. Wow, it's a two.
- 52:16Speaker 3: Year battle, from like twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen. I
- 52:20Speaker 3: was just in a battle, you know what I'm saying.
- 52:23Speaker 1: It would be like.
- 52:26Speaker 3: It would be like six months, I don't care about nothing,
- 52:28Speaker 3: nothing matters. And then one month, I'm like, all right,
- 52:31Speaker 3: I'm tripping, and then it'd be like three months, No,
- 52:34Speaker 3: I'm not tripping.
- 52:35Speaker 1: This is stupid, man. One month, maybe there is a
- 52:39Speaker 1: God and you know, so.
- 52:41Speaker 2: Just eventually you pick up the Bible again or yeah.
- 52:45Speaker 3: So what happened was in that depression, I'm in a
- 52:48Speaker 3: very low moment and I'm just like I can't snap
- 52:51Speaker 3: out of this.
- 52:51Speaker 1: I can't snap out of this. And I was like
- 52:54Speaker 1: I didn't want to pray because I was like, nah, God,
- 52:56Speaker 1: I feel like that ain't right for me to pray.
- 52:58Speaker 3: I didn't turn my back on you like I'm afectin
- 53:00Speaker 3: to come try to pray, you know, like I'm and
- 53:03Speaker 3: that's pride, you know, because God isn't sitting back like.
- 53:06Speaker 1: You better stay over there, you know what I'm saying. Like,
- 53:09Speaker 1: so pride kicked in. But then I was just so down.
- 53:13Speaker 1: I couldn't shake it.
- 53:14Speaker 3: Like one day, two day, three day, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
- 53:18Speaker 3: about five six days and I can't shake it, and.
- 53:22Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, help. So then i I'm sitting down.
- 53:27Speaker 1: I'm just like all right, man, I was like, God,
- 53:30Speaker 1: I don't even know what to say. But if you
- 53:33Speaker 1: got something for me. I'll take it.
- 53:36Speaker 3: I'll open up the Bible and it's on the story
- 53:39Speaker 3: when after Peter had denied Jesus three times and then
- 53:46Speaker 3: Jesus comes to him after he resurrects, and he's just like, hey,
- 53:51Speaker 3: you know, do.
- 53:51Speaker 1: You love me? Peter's like, you know, I love you.
- 53:54Speaker 1: He's like, do you love me? He's like, you know
- 53:56Speaker 1: I love you. He's like do you love me? He's like, yeah,
- 53:59Speaker 1: I know, I love you, and feed my sheep.
- 54:02Speaker 3: And what that said to me was this man denied God,
- 54:07Speaker 3: but God was still like I ain't tripping on that.
- 54:10Speaker 1: Just get back to work. I'll forgive you. And then
- 54:13Speaker 1: I just broke. I'm like, you know what I'm saying.
- 54:21Speaker 1: So that's what's spinning all on. And I mean from
- 54:24Speaker 1: there we just start building back.
- 54:25Speaker 2: Man shout outs to God.
- 54:27Speaker 1: Yeah for sure.
- 54:29Speaker 2: All right, Well, dang, this is this is just a
- 54:32Speaker 2: nice experience to hear your testimony from you. This closets
- 54:38Speaker 2: Why don't you told me and everyone out there listening
- 54:41Speaker 2: like how they could keep up with you. I know
- 54:43Speaker 2: you have a podcast right now and all that.
- 54:45Speaker 3: Yeah, you can definitely tap in on the podcast. The
- 54:47Speaker 3: Deep End with La Craze.
- 54:49Speaker 1: Make sure you tap.
- 54:51Speaker 2: In and share with everyone what you talk about on
- 54:54Speaker 2: the show, and they guess you have.
- 54:56Speaker 3: The deep end is where faith meets culture. So what's
- 54:59Speaker 3: going on in culture in society. I mean, it's not
- 55:01Speaker 3: like it's it's a conversation. It's not always going to
- 55:03Speaker 3: be like some it's not a Bible study, but it's
- 55:07Speaker 3: a conversation and faith gets weaved into it. We've talked
- 55:09Speaker 3: with Will Smith about his spiritual journey. I talk with
- 55:12Speaker 3: Nick Cannon about what it's like to have all them
- 55:15Speaker 3: kids and why you ain't stopping you no time soon.
- 55:18Speaker 2: I think he's I think he's stopping. I think he's
- 55:20Speaker 2: he's Hella's like pausing.
- 55:22Speaker 1: Yeah he needs he should have paused a long time.
- 55:24Speaker 1: I love you. Nick.
- 55:26Speaker 3: We talked to like, you know, some only fans creators
- 55:30Speaker 3: who got off of there and they're exposing like some
- 55:32Speaker 3: of the problems with it.
- 55:34Speaker 1: Man. It's just lots of different people from different walks
- 55:37Speaker 1: of life. You know. We'll talk to like pastors and
- 55:40Speaker 1: ask him like hard questions.
- 55:42Speaker 3: Like yo, man, what's up with the money in the church,
- 55:44Speaker 3: and like what's going on behind the scenes. And it's
- 55:47Speaker 3: just where faith and culture meet the questions that the
- 55:49Speaker 3: culture wants to ask and conversations the culture wants to
- 55:52Speaker 3: talk about.
- 55:53Speaker 1: But from a faith perspective.
- 55:55Speaker 2: When you say the culture, you mean like black audience
- 55:58Speaker 2: or youth audience.
- 55:59Speaker 1: I mean just the world. And I would say probably
- 56:02Speaker 1: between if you between twenty.
- 56:05Speaker 3: Five and forty, this is like the stuff that you're
- 56:09Speaker 3: thinking about.
- 56:10Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
- 56:11Speaker 3: So it's like the stuff that you're thinking about and
- 56:14Speaker 3: let's just let's talk about it.
- 56:16Speaker 1: But I hear like college students listen to it.
- 56:18Speaker 2: Too, so you know, it's interesting. It's interesting. The conversations
- 56:21Speaker 2: are deep. It's it covers all the all the questions
- 56:24Speaker 2: you'd want to know, and that like when I watch them, Yeah,
- 56:27Speaker 2: you're asking the questions that I'm thinking that you I
- 56:30Speaker 2: want you to ask. Yeah, so it's good your present.
- 56:33Speaker 1: I love when people say that.
- 56:34Speaker 3: That's like one of my favorite texts, Like, man, I'm
- 56:35Speaker 3: glad you asked them. I wanted to know the same thing.
- 56:38Speaker 3: I'm just gonna ask you what people want to know.
- 56:40Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
- 56:41Speaker 2: And then music, what's going on with that?
- 56:43Speaker 1: I got this collaboration project with Miles Minnet.
- 56:46Speaker 3: He's a younger artist. He lives here, but he's based
- 56:48Speaker 3: in the Bay. He is in LA but he's based
- 56:50Speaker 3: based in the Bay from the Bay. But anyway, Yeah,
- 56:54Speaker 3: so that project's out.
- 56:55Speaker 1: It's called Get Will Soon. You know.
- 56:57Speaker 3: We got E forty on air, we got Yellow Hill
- 56:59Speaker 3: on the air, we got Amy Zuko, we got it.
- 57:01Speaker 3: I'm missing somebody, DJ Moski, I'm missing somebody forgiving album.
- 57:06Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So it's a project that we put together
- 57:08Speaker 1: West Coast. Like nobody's business.
- 57:11Speaker 3: It's just I always wanted to really make some good
- 57:13Speaker 3: West Coast music and I felt like, you know, I
- 57:16Speaker 3: just didn't really make what I wanted to make historically,
- 57:19Speaker 3: so I always made a song here or there. But
- 57:21Speaker 3: then this is a full on West Coast project. And
- 57:23Speaker 3: then I wanted to get with a younger artist because
- 57:25Speaker 3: being in the game a long time, you just you
- 57:27Speaker 3: can hog the limelight and artist they stay one knows me,
- 57:31Speaker 3: you know, look at me, and I'm like, man, how
- 57:33Speaker 3: can I breathe life on somebody else who's already they got?
- 57:36Speaker 3: He has his own movement and momentum. But if I
- 57:38Speaker 3: can add any credibility, then let me do that.
- 57:41Speaker 2: So how did you guys link up the.
- 57:43Speaker 3: Funny part about it is he met me when I
- 57:45Speaker 3: was on tour years ago but I don't remember, but
- 57:48Speaker 3: he was a fan.
- 57:50Speaker 1: He waited outside my tour bus and he was like, man,
- 57:52Speaker 1: I just want to give you this ten dollars man, and.
- 57:54Speaker 3: I was like, I can't take this money from you, bro.
- 57:57Speaker 3: You know, it was like, he's the last ten dollars.
- 57:58Speaker 3: But I just want to sow. Wear want to go
- 58:00Speaker 3: and I want to be on where you are.
- 58:03Speaker 1: And I was like, Okay, you know what I'm saying.
- 58:07Speaker 3: You buy craylatte and then you never know what happened,
- 58:09Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
- 58:10Speaker 1: So but he did that.
- 58:12Speaker 3: But then years later he was bubbling, he was making
- 58:15Speaker 3: some noise and he hit me up and asked me
- 58:17Speaker 3: to do a song with him. And I did that
- 58:19Speaker 3: song and that was fun and I liked his He
- 58:22Speaker 3: was a humble dude. I liked his demeanor. Then after
- 58:25Speaker 3: we did that song, then it turned into me wanting
- 58:29Speaker 3: to put him on a song.
- 58:30Speaker 1: He worked so fast. Yeah, I said, we can, let's
- 58:34Speaker 1: do another one, Let's do another, Let's do another.
- 58:37Speaker 2: And by the time that work Ethic was there. Work
- 58:39Speaker 2: Ethic talent, persistence, and he planted that seat.
- 58:42Speaker 1: That's right, So the number one.
- 58:44Speaker 3: By the end of it, it was like we had it.
- 58:47Speaker 1: It's called get well soon, Get well.
- 58:49Speaker 3: Yes, you know, yeah, you know what I'm saying. So
- 58:52Speaker 3: when somebody's sick, you said, oh, man, I hope you
- 58:54Speaker 3: get well soon. And you know, we feel like a
- 58:56Speaker 3: lot of people are sick right now, a lot of
- 58:57Speaker 3: people dealing with stuff and you be coming to you
- 59:01Speaker 3: got everything from financial stuff to family stuff. So it's
- 59:05Speaker 3: like it's just it's just some joy and you put
- 59:07Speaker 3: some joy in you in your mix real quick.
- 59:08Speaker 2: On the project? What's your favorite and why?
- 59:11Speaker 3: My favorite is The Method hands down the songs called
- 59:15Speaker 3: the Method. It just it's just a West Coast, like
- 59:19Speaker 3: it's from I mean from the Bay to Sacramento to
- 59:26Speaker 3: La to San Diego. Like no part of Cali's untouched
- 59:30Speaker 3: in the song Wow. And you know we got e
- 59:33Speaker 3: forty the Mayor on there.
- 59:35Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
- 59:35Speaker 3: So it just felt right, man, It's just and we
- 59:38Speaker 3: just you know, just want to wake up the West.
- 59:40Speaker 3: So working on that and then working on my solo album, and.
- 59:44Speaker 2: We don't know when the date of that is coming out.
- 59:46Speaker 3: Solo album probably be sometime in the fall, okay, okay,
- 59:51Speaker 3: and then we'll do a world tour.
- 59:53Speaker 2: That's what we want. That's what we want to hear.
- 59:54Speaker 1: World tour is coming.
- 59:56Speaker 2: It is coming, it's coming. Well, thank you so much
- 59:59Speaker 2: for cooking for.
- 59:59Speaker 1: Me, hey man, struggle me.
- 1:00:01Speaker 2: And then before we sign out, I just got one
- 1:00:03Speaker 2: last question for someone that's going through that transition of
- 1:00:07Speaker 2: you know, Christian to maybe falling off course a little
- 1:00:10Speaker 2: bit to getting back up. What advice would you give
- 1:00:13Speaker 2: to them or what could you share with them to
- 1:00:16Speaker 2: kind of carry them through?
- 1:00:18Speaker 3: Yeah, Man, I would just say life is a journey.
- 1:00:20Speaker 3: In everybody's journey, I think every person realizes there's a
- 1:00:25Speaker 3: gap that we're trying to like feel right. No matter
- 1:00:29Speaker 3: what you believe in, you know, there's a gap. You know,
- 1:00:34Speaker 3: there's like, man, something's not all the way right, you
- 1:00:37Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. And I think a lot of
- 1:00:38Speaker 3: times we try to mend the gap ourselves, like well
- 1:00:42Speaker 3: maybe if I just get another job, or if I find.
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: The right guy or the right girl, or if I.
- 1:00:47Speaker 3: Reach inner peace or you know, and it's like, man,
- 1:00:52Speaker 3: I think that's a god size gap that only God
- 1:00:55Speaker 3: can feel, and a lot of us are avoiding God
- 1:00:57Speaker 3: because we're like, it's too simple, want easy answers and
- 1:01:01Speaker 3: answers that please us, but we don't want. And you know,
- 1:01:05Speaker 3: I think people are afraid of God because they feel
- 1:01:09Speaker 3: like he's going to invade on their their fund or
- 1:01:14Speaker 3: their privacy or whatever. And he wants to just make
- 1:01:17Speaker 3: that better. He wants to bless that.
- 1:01:18Speaker 1: So don't run from him.
- 1:01:19Speaker 3: Engage even if you're like, I don't know, like, lean
- 1:01:22Speaker 3: in because you can't the worst. What's the worst that
- 1:01:26Speaker 3: can happen by you leaning in to someone who's supposed
- 1:01:29Speaker 3: to be loving and peaceful and benevolent and good, Like,
- 1:01:33Speaker 3: what's the worst that can happen?
- 1:01:35Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. So this is not a
- 1:01:37Speaker 1: toxic boyfriend that's going to do you bad. It's like,
- 1:01:40Speaker 1: so I would just say.
- 1:01:41Speaker 3: Lean in, even if it's dark and ugly, lean in,
- 1:01:43Speaker 3: you know, let them, let them, let him work on you.
- 1:01:46Speaker 2: I like that gap to acknowledging that gap right there,
- 1:01:48Speaker 2: because a lot of people I do that. I'd be like,
- 1:01:51Speaker 2: this is little and then with social media, with the
- 1:01:53Speaker 2: seventy five and hard or whatever, I can fix it.
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: That's human nature posing about.
- 1:02:00Speaker 2: But no, you're right open the Bible. Yeah, you know,
- 1:02:04Speaker 2: and I think just also just on my own walk
- 1:02:07Speaker 2: is definitely like getting in the Bible versus just going
- 1:02:10Speaker 2: to church. It makes a huge difference.
- 1:02:11Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure, Oh for sure.
- 1:02:13Speaker 3: And just even just I'm a big audio person. I
- 1:02:17Speaker 3: just listen or ill I can listen to a podcast,
- 1:02:20Speaker 3: I have a conversation about the Bible.
- 1:02:22Speaker 1: I can, like, you know what I'm saying.
- 1:02:24Speaker 3: It's like, even if I'm not just sitting there reading myself,
- 1:02:26Speaker 3: which I think people should do, read with other people.
- 1:02:29Speaker 1: I don't know why we believe.
- 1:02:30Speaker 3: It's like thinking that you got to be in a
- 1:02:31Speaker 3: corner by yourself with the Bible, just trying to like
- 1:02:34Speaker 3: nobody does that, and like no kid is like you
- 1:02:38Speaker 3: know what, I'm seven and I.
- 1:02:39Speaker 1: Need to learn algebra. Let me just open an algebra book.
- 1:02:41Speaker 1: Got myself in the corner, you know what I'm saying.
- 1:02:45Speaker 1: It's like, give me some people who know algebra, you
- 1:02:48Speaker 1: know what I mean, and just bounce stuff off each other.
- 1:02:50Speaker 1: So I like that.
- 1:02:53Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much guys for tuning in, and
- 1:02:55Speaker 2: thank you with great for feeding me. Hey, you know
- 1:02:58Speaker 2: this Trio combo for all the listeners just mixed the
- 1:03:01Speaker 2: spinach with the corn and the the beanie whenies.
- 1:03:05Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, thanks y'all. Peace Up
- 1:03:12Speaker 2: For more eating while broke from iHeartRadio and The Black Effect,
- 1:03:15Speaker 2: Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
- 1:03:19Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.