Chance The Rapper on Jealousy, Brotherhood and Black Liberation

The Vic Mr. Show is presented by text now. No, I was selling weed from day one. Basically, we was in a gang, you know? We're not a gang. We was this picture, Loki just helped me out in court. I had to call another high to solve. To then call an ambulance. I still get jealous of Vic. Vic's still getting jealous of me. No, no, no. I want you to win with or without me. I'm not African because I was born in Africa. I'm African because Africa was born in me. ♪ Pick the boards from the tree ♪ ♪ Put the layers back on the world's strange food ♪ ♪ They still swing your bodies and ate them ♪ ♪ Or you know it's solid when they got ♪ ♪ Don't let me decide to sell ♪ ♪ Divided by black and white, like ♪ ♪ Car like a fell for the dollar bills ♪ ♪ For us to produce for corporate suits ♪ ♪ Blood on that orange, like ♪ ♪ O.J. Simpson, juice ♪ ♪ President's a symbol, troops ♪ ♪ For a slice of the pie ♪ It's the first episode of the Vic Mr. Show. It's showcasing the life after stopping afraid to speak my mind. All greatness is on the other side of fear. I was kind of canceled quite a few years ago for speaking my mind. And naturally I resolved to do something I had never before done. Shut the fuck up. It was tough. It's not like my thoughts got canceled. It kept popping up like Starbucks in the hood and white people with Yorkies. It just didn't matter 'cause I was afraid to speak out and even if I did, I was canceled. Nobody gave a fuck. From there I felt frozen in many ways. Like the dawn of Israel's genocide against Gaza, I was silent, radio silent. I had lost so much money and opportunity. I felt shameful though. About a year ago, I decided I would stop hiding and express myself in whatever way I could, which meant bouncing a phone to the dashboard of my car and just talking about mental health. I probably should have parked first. I have a lot of mailboxes, but low and bold, a lot of people actually gave a fuck. And turned out that all of the insecurities that had led me to blow up my life, once examined from place of sobriety and humility and humor, they really painted a very compelling picture of a story worth telling. And this show is telling us the way. This show is me expressing my most deeply held beliefs, my contradictions, my perspectives on the world, on myself, through conversations with brilliant people that have their own complex human experiences. In this first episode, I'm going to be talking to my brother of 20 years and one of the greatest living artists, Grammy Award, Winning, Diamond, Certified, and the first person I ever saw accidentally smoke a black and mal backwards. (birds chirping) When a welcome to the Vic Missed Show, chance to rock. Buffalo soldier jacket on. (laughs) - I knew you was gonna try and flame me. (laughs) - Buffalo soldier, Dreadelock Rasta. (indistinct) - Lil Wayne and O7 Dreads. - Raj Mowry looking at it. - Mustache, yeah. - You did that, you got on a muscle shirt. - You ripped the sleeves off that bitch. - Oh, then by that shirt, 'cause they come and live it, boy. - Come on now. - You got this one on this head. - No middle part. - I have on baggy leather pants. - Disconnected beard, go to the tee, mustache. - You bought that beard. - That's why you feel this way. 'Cause you bought that beard, boy. - Lil Wayne Dreads. - No, these bitches look like a coss. - Where are you drivin' that? - What are you drivin'? - Look at this, look at this, boy. - Real dumbass. - This is Ronald. - This is a very wrong brother. - You did your thing. - Thank you, man. - Thank you for comin' through, man. - This orange juice is from the tree. - I did it on the juices. Thank you to the tree. - I was thinking though, a lot of people don't know that we met when we was 13 or 14, freshman year at high school. And it was a talent show at show school that the best rapper from my school took me over there on some like presenting, you know. - Shout out to Nate Marshall. Shout out to Luminate Mike. - You gotta say something Nate Marshall, and shout out to Chris Slime, too. - Damn, Chris Slime was there? - Yes, bro. - That's crazy. - What do you remember that day? - What I remember is that originally it wasn't supposed to be a talent show. It was supposed to be an open mic. It wasn't supposed to be a concert show. - No, it turned into a talent show, 'cause did I tell you what was happening? - So I gotta tell the story. I've told you this before. There was a slam team at my school. The Jones Poetry Club had a slam team. I wanna be on the slam team. I wanna be a poet. So I tell them I wanna join. They say, "You gotta audition." Which I thought was crazy. Like, nobody was that good. Like, I didn't think I should have the audition. But they was like, "Your audition is gonna be at the open mic." And I came to the open mic, ready to wrap my shit. And when I got in there, Sean, the senior at my school, who was the president of the poetry team said, "I want you to meet this kid." It was you. It was you and Nate Marshall. He was like, "I want you to meet this dude." He wraps, "You can learn a lot from him." - Which was crazy, too. - 'Cause we were the same fucking age. So he was glazing. But then after the whole, well, I don't know if I ever told you this. After we both performed, it's an open mic, right? He told me that my audition was good, but Vic did better than me, so you can't be on the slam team. Vic didn't go to my school. Like, they didn't choose you over me. They just didn't choose me. - So, making sense. - 'Cause you did good. (laughing) - But that was crazy, though. - That was crazy. - It was crazy, though, 'cause I remember we're in the basement of Jones and going up and I spit my rap in this white girl. She was like, "Do your thing, Shorty, do up." - I do remember that. What does that mean? - The fuck did she mean by that? But I had to skim past that 'cause I had a verse to get off. You know, but it was my first time like using a mic for real. So I'm like, the mic, I ain't know what to do with it. No freaky, you know what I mean? (laughing) No clue how to use mic, you know what I'm saying? And I, but I do remember like, I felt like I seen you and you was like, in the cut, you know what I'm saying? - I'm like, "This is gonna take my spot here in real life, cool." - Now, they was telling me about you, though, 'cause Reese and-- - Yeah, yeah, yeah, from the guys. - Yeah, Reese and Niko, you know, are mutual best friends from middle school. When Niko's, my best friend from age five and Reese-- - Reese, I know since fifth grade, but also with you. - Yeah. - And we went to school together today, was telling me, I feel like we were the first two rappers. - Yeah, from Save Money for sure. - For sure, yeah. - Just from our general-- - Yeah, 'cause I'm our age group. - First like the first guy. - This is what I do. - We do this. - I have a profession. - You know what I'm saying? - I'm 14. - Man, I think about it sometimes that, um, when I first started writing, I had this rap. It was one of my first reps. It was like 93 and a child is born on a south side shot in the eye of the storm. And I had this vision of this man that used to push a shopping cart across 47th Street, like just full of the accumulated debris of poverty. (all laughing) You know what I'm saying? And he used to push this shopping cart. And, you know, I'm here, and I'm like in this gated community, but then across the street, a section eight, they selling drugs out the window. They was always like, "Broom!" And then they would drop some out the window. And I felt like I could see so vividly, this disparity of halves and have knots, but I didn't have language for it before hip hop. You know what I mean? Like I didn't understand how to comment on it, or even how to process it for myself. So music was like my way of decoding what I was seeing. What was music, what role was it playing for you at that time when we first met? - I think music was expression for me in a lot of ways. Like it was expression for myself to be able to say, like, "This is what I'm going through." Even though they were all first world problems, 14-year-old problems, like anything that I was dealing with, I was always like class clown type. Like I used to just make jokes. I didn't talk to people about my feelings, but I would share my poetry with people, or my wraps with people. And it would always be about, you know, this was going on between me and my dad. This is my family member that passed. I was always writing emotional shit, you know? And then I feel like my favorite artists were all people that made emotional music. Even all the way back to Michael Jackson, but especially with, you know, Kanye was always making emotional music. Lupe was making emotional music. Like Pock, that was probably my first introduction to rap with my mom used to have all these two Pock cassette tapes that she had playing the car. So I feel like it was always about, like, letting people know how I really feel. And the words, like you just said, in natural conversation, don't always hit, but like when you could put it poetically or to a rhythm, like, it feels, for me way real it. - I'm trying to remember that first studio session. - That first studio session. - What was the name of that place? I'm trying to remember the name of that place. - My first time? Yeah, the first time I ever went to a studio, was with you and your pops bought the session. You're shot out to Mr. B, man. - Sounds good, man. Like sometimes I have conversations with your father and I feel like he's my father, you know what I'm saying? I feel like he sees me at his son, you know what I'm saying? And he like, just speaks so much life into me. And when I think back to say like, yo, the first time I had an opportunity to do what's become my life in a serious way was facilitated. - Maybe cry, I'd never thought about that. - That's crazy. - I don't even think about thinking my dad for that. I mean, and it was like, it was like, now, but 20 years ago, you know what I'm saying? Because I remember I had my verse and we made a song, "Lord Release." - "Lord Release." - Oh, we got to put that in. - "Lord Release." - That beat was hard, didn't you make that beat? - I mean, that beat. - Oh, shit. - That beat. - That's crazy. ♪ Lord Release, you're all precious ♪ - Lord Release, and I had a, I don't know how to rhyme. - That was like something is barely there and stairs with eyes harder than a teddy bear. - Teddy bears got hard-ass eyes. - Oh my God. But I remember being like I gotta do my thing though. 'Cause like chance raw. You know what I'm saying? I gotta really do my thing. And it's interesting too, 'cause I think that was a little before. I had no anxiety yet. I didn't even know what anxiety was when I was a kid. But I did know that like you were cold, that you were talented, and I wanted to like do better than you. - I'm gonna say it again, 'cause I've said it a million times on camera. That's the first time I feel like I ever heard Vic say that. But I always say I'll wrap my best when I'll wrap with you, 'cause I have to wrap good. Like I do out wrap other news, but it's a thing where like I don't really have to think at all, like I'm just like I'm glad for this opportunity. Whenever we work, I'm like, let me make sure I got the right subject matter. Let me, I think that's really what I learned from you too, is like I feel like our structure. We both always had slick lines. We always had metaphors. We always had references to stuff. But the way that you structured stuff was always like meant to sound good to the ear. Like I'm seeing the shit on paper all the time, and then just reading it basically. But you writing it in a way that's like it just, I don't know how to say it, like just the intonations, like the way that you verbally putting it out, everything rhymes in the right place. Everything is pronounced in a certain way. So I feel like being slick, like trying to make some shit sound good, you know? 'Cause you always had the bars. We both always had the bars, but sometimes I don't wanna listen to my shit. 'Cause I know what it means, but it don't necessarily sound how I wanted to feel. That makes me remember, man. It was a time when we was in the trap. You know, the kids these days, this original studio, round the corner from high school, from when he, which was crazy, to have a self-contained music studio in high school where you could trap, too. Yeah, it was a trap. And so you had a song off maybe 10 days, and you was singing and you was like, (laughing) Oh my God. And I remember telling you, I was like, I was like, bro, like, I think you could sing better than that. And you know what I'm saying? And you told me something that I didn't understand at the time. And you were like, you were like, nah, the imperfections of it are what's gonna make it special. And it's something that I feel has come to define your style in a lot of ways. It's like, it's so highly contemplative and it's so meticulous and it's so dense and melodic and all everything. But you don't put a lot of tune on vocals, you let the voice crack and break and like, Billie Holiday, I didn't get that at the time. I was like, you can surely sing better than this. I know you can. My dad told me the same thing. I know exactly what track you talk about. You talk about a long time, too. ♪ Long time, long time now ♪ I feel like I've learned to embrace it definitely around like the pandemic. We was doing all the virtual concerts when we started filming. We did one for Shelter, too. And I started, when I first started doing them, I would try and go back in in the edits and like replace audio 'cause you know, I always go my words. I can never remember my words and shit. So we have film it and I have parts where I have flubs where I like mess up the words or like you said, my voice cracks or something happens and I would go back in the edit and try and replace the audio to make it seem like I didn't fuck up. And I realized that the more polishing I did, you know, in post-production, the less raw it felt. Like the less real it felt. And I'm saying raw to me, like good, but like the less, like, it didn't feel human anymore. I think that's what makes us feel like superhumanism when people could be like, damn, that's just a man. He's doing all this. So it's like, if I can have a moment in a live performance where I mess up my words but then I smile and I keep going, people feel that like, oh yeah, this shit is just happening. This is just his real voice. - Three, three, four. - Finish the verse freestyle. - You gotta go for the freestyle. - You gotta fuck it up and finish the verse freestyle. - People respect that so much, you're getting applause. You might as well purposely fuck up. - You know what's funny though, is that like, as a human being, you will know things intrinsically and spend the rest of your life trying to cognitively figure them out. Like, you told me at age 15, it sounds better when I'm imperfect and when I fuck up. But until age 30, you're still trying to like, fix the fuck up, even though you told me that back then, you know what I mean, you was dead, right? - You're so right. I feel like we learn it, we learning every day. Like, fatherhood especially, like, I love what, I've known my whole life. So it's like, I've seen you at all these different stages of Vic. And you always been Vic, but I keep seeing you in different stages. So my favorite Vic is fatherhood, Vic. 'Cause it's like, but you was clear minded before that. You made a lot of like, discipline decisions. Our whole life, you know, I always tell you this. Like, your superpower is how disciplined you are. Like, people can't beat you at that. So when you got to fatherhood, you already created the man that you wanted to be as a father, without even knowing he was gonna be a father. But then, once you became, man says, "Dad, it was like final form." Like, Super Saiyan God mode. Like, I have to wake up at 4 a.m. every day and do 10 things and work out and meditate and hit the sauna just so that I could be the first person to greet my son in the morning. So Mel don't got to deal with this. And then for the rest of the day, I'm gonna teach him this and then I'm gonna show him this and then I'm gonna take this time to take it. Like, the way that you, you know, ration your days to be like, this is how I could get the fullest extent and give the most of me without taking too much from everybody else is like, that's, once I get to that point, then I could fully be chanced. Like, right now, I'm literally moving and shaking. But once I get to that disciplined mode, I feel like, and I learn that better. Like, every time I spend more time with you. Like, we get so many songs done too. Like, do you think about that? Like, I'll, we'll go somewhere and we want to speak these that time. We left for like 11 songs, 11 ideas. Like, four or five of them ended up being on Starline. Between then and the next time, probably like three months between that time, the next time we did a lockout, I probably finished like, or started like three or four songs. But then we'll get back together and then knock out another nine songs. But that's 'cause when you get in the studio, you like, oh, we're only in the studio to do this. Like, I can play video games. I'm getting on the game instantly. Like, what the fuck are we up to, yo? Like, I'm getting on two games, I'm getting on two games. Undisputed, I'm doing, I'm doing, I'm doing. What if we could democratize communication? Text now is doing just that with wireless. It's a phone service delivered through an app that gives you free and unlimited talking text on nationwide 5G for zero dollars a month with no carrier locking you in. If you want data on top of that, they got monthly and weekly plans that you control. Stop getting texts for your phone service, man. Download text now today and start your service in minutes. - I think about this shit that I heard from some account of Black Star, the album, you know what I'm saying? And quality would be like, he would be in the studio meticulously and he would have to be there. And Yassin would come in and like, just do the greatest verse ever. And then like not show up again for a long time. And sometimes I think about that in like our dynamic as we work on bigger projects. 'Cause the way that I, the way that I write in the way I always wrote, honestly, it was just like, hell of meticulous, like, hell of persistent. Like persistence. You know what I'm saying to be like, man, I'm gonna write five hours. This was my rule to myself when I was a kid. It was like, I'm a right at least like three, four, five, six hours a day. And then it's gonna unlock something great for me. So I used to sit there in my parents bedroom and just like write endless wraps with no beats. And at the end of the week, something great would come from it, but it would be 'cause my creative like, now you know, low key, somebody that somebody put the battery in my back for real at that time is our shared mentor, brother Mike. - Oh brother Mike, yeah. - Yeah, brother Mike, man, tell me about brother Mike from your vantage point. - Brother Mike was the, you know, he was our youth mentor at digital youth network and at Umedia. I was at Umedia, I used to go to DYN. But then you came to Umedia too. From my perspective, brother Mike is the reason why there is a living and breathing Chicago music scene. Like, and I'm including everything that people know nationally about the drill scene and everything. I think what we brought to 2012, 2013 was a certain legitimacy and not because of the content of the music, but because of like, we were self-sufficient and believed in a purpose beyond like getting on, right? - I think of him as a superhero, but when I really like look at him in my mind, he's like kind of unassuming. - Compassionate man. - Compassionate man and very like, pointed in terms of like, he always wanted us to be talking about something of substance. So I remember he used to like walk into a room with the camcorder and be like, y'all debate reparations right now. Like, he would just make us think about [BLANK_AUDIO] 14 and 15 years old, and we were in this after school program, and he just fathered a lot of us, like fathered us through this passion that we had it as young as no name, you, me, Lucky. Lucky's huge now. Lucky is. >> I realized Lucky was in-- >> He was our biggest fan. >> That's it. >> I remember the first time I met Lucky, like the alley behind leaders, and it was a snowy day. He was saying that he, like, wrapped for me in the alley. >> He's a huge fan. >> But I never even knew. >> Lucky was the biggest artist in the world right now. >> Yeah, for sure. >> And he came from under Brother Mike. Mick Jenkins, myself, Nico. That's a Sabah, like Sabah, John Doe. >> Mick Jenkins' new brother Mike. >> We were all his kids. >> Everybody got serious into him, yeah. >> Brother, I didn't know that. >> I think about it all the time. My contemporary was a great artist in the world, and a lot of them was all in the same building. It was all in the same after-school program. But Brother Mike was the emphasis. He was the person that put the battery on all of our back. I tell the story all the time, because we was just talking about forgetting words, and you never forget your words. You don't even forget freestyle. But I used to come to the open mic day he threw. And he would do this Wednesday. This weekly Wednesday thing is called lyricist loft. His big, open mic, like 200 kids would pack into the library. And everybody would come up and do, you know, new works, so they had dance, or do comedy, or rap, or sing, or do poetry. But it was always new works, because it's an open mic. We all knew each other. I was about to come in and sing the same song every week. I was saying a song called brain cells, and everybody knew it and loved it, because we were kids, and it was about we. >> It was a hit. >> And it was about we, it was dangerous. So, motherfuckin' you stand up and they hands up. >> I burned so many brains out. >> Too many brains out now. >> Too many brains to be worried about my brain cells now. >> People loved it, and he pulled me to the side one day. And it's probably like my 12-weeks out of brain cells. They ain't got none left to burn. >> I don't ever perform that shit again. I'm like, 'cause it's cursing, he's like, no, because you came a few weeks ago, and you tried to do a rap about your prom, but you kept stumbling over the words on what you looked defeated and leave, and then you came back and kept rapping the same song. Learn your other song to the point that you could say it with some fervor and conviction in front of the crowd. And then if that goes well or bad, then come back next week and do brain cells. But you've got to learn that shit. And he told me if I didn't do it, I couldn't perform it the open mic anymore. So I went and memorized that rap and I came back and prom night ended up becoming the new favorite that I ended up being on 10 day, both of them did. But I feel like there was an investment beyond, this is my job, I just got to show up here. >> That's the thing with the investment is like, more than money is the value of investing a vote of confidence in a young person. I learned that from brother Mike, because one time I had a rap that emulated this Nas song called I gave you power without a gun, personifies a gun that's been stashed and passed and blasted. I mean, I'll be rapping. Now, but I wrote my own version, you know what I'm saying? It was called sneakers and it was over a ghost face, but you have something like that. And brother Mike, he told me, he was like, man, like, your version damn there, better than Nas shit, you know? And I was like, how could you mean that? But really? Tell me more, you know what I'm saying? But it gave me confidence in myself, like there's nothing more valuable that he could have given me than the vote of confidence to help me believe in myself, to think somebody that I respect. So I think about that a lot, like in my interactions with people, to speak power and speak life into them, you know, at any opportunity, because you never know what a conversation you have with someone will do for them. People tell me all the time, man, at one time, I met you outside of a show and you told me this, this and this about my path, it actually changed the whole trajectory of what I chose to do. And like now that I'm less of an asshole, I try to do that like intentionally, you know me? Yo, put in that vote of confidence in somebody, it could change their whole life. Tell me about, put in that vote of confidence in arts programs and CPS, man, which you recently, you gave $1 million to CPS for art programs, well, dirty dick, Donnie and the White House, is snatching funding from our education, snatching the books out of our schools, you know me. I felt man in history, you know, like that's a real robber. So what did that mean to you to be like, they want to take, I'm a gear. I feel like the, everything started with him, like everything, like if you remember when he passed, we started open Mike at the library. So we brought back, it wasn't called lyricist laugh anymore, but we started doing and you came, you brought Kanye. You brought Kanye to the, that was beautiful. That was, that was so, that was so raw, bro. That was so raw. I was like damn, bro, like to bring Kanye to the South side. We grew up on the South side. You never had a thought or belief that you could meet Kanye West at all. It wasn't like new. I feel like that would be for him to speak, yeah, I was before you knew him, I think. And it wasn't like L.A. when he's like, oh, yeah, Pock pulled up. We seeing him in the drop top bands. I hear this story all the time. Right. Chicago, you didn't think you was ever going to see Kanye. I don't know. Common loop a fiasco. You wasn't. Yeah. But that one day when I was able to bring him to open Mike, that shit was super cold. Well, that shit was, I think we, we got a sense, and actually I'm, I'm mistaken. The open Mike came later. The first thing that we did, and I got a shout out, no name again, we organized the field trips for Chicago Park District. So we found out it was a bunch of Park Districts, like summer camp programs that didn't have field trips. And so we organized busing and field trips for them to go up to the museum campus to go see, like, feel museum, the shed aquarium and all that shit. And, um, and we got to ride the buses with the kids and just being around them, we was still young too. Like, you got to think, like, this is damn near before coloring, but it came out. So I was probably like 21 or something, everybody. We're all young adults, but we get this mentorship opportunity to be around young kids from the south side and just got to, like, talk to them and recognize how hilarious these kids are. Like, these kids is funniest ill, and, and I think that grew into the open Mike, and then open Mike grew into, uh, into eventually into the support CPS. So I feel like the, I think what I really learn each time also, we was just talking about investment is you could put some money somewhere and do a photo opportunity and everything, but you'll really never get to know what it does unless you stay there on the ground. So I think what, just, shout out to Justin, kind of him as a Smith social works day, like, made sure that with each year, because I think we're on our seventh year of school. So we've done, I think, over six million, I think seven million dollars for CPS and each one of the schools gets a hundred thousand dollars, uh, over the course of three years to implement some sort of new program and we get to hands on, choose what the program is. So there's last one that we just did was trade programs. So we went to all the vocational schools in Chicago and was like, okay, add, you know, a carpentry program, an electricity program, or some of them add like a barber school or a beauty school. But like, given people the opportunity to work towards entrepreneurship, I know entrepreneurship not going to save us, but like, given them opportunity to be business owners and have their own trades that's not just like working in corporate or working for a bar. All of a shit is a part of it, though, there's a part of liberation, so that's one thing about ferecon is like, man, ferecon, ferecon, I've been spitting that like since the '80s, like, yo, we need to own the grocery stores. How crazy is it that they don't own that one grocery store before there's no one in on the west side of Chicago. There were no black grocery stores, black owned grocery stores in our time for real, you know what I mean? And we all must shop at the grocery store. Now, I was just thinking about it the other day, like the food desert shit, like, I really never even realized that it's a crime to have to travel as far as we had to travel to go get groceries when we were a kid, like, if we didn't have a car, you know what I'm saying? The corner store was closed, but like, it keeps there like a real produce store. Man, no name is one of the best MCs of all time, and the thing with no name is that it begins and ends with the word, like when I first saw no name spit at the library, you media, she was a poet. She wasn't considering herself a rapper. She had punchlines, like, but it was no beats. It was all spoken word poetry, and I remember like when she got off, I would always be like gas in her up because I just thought she was so fly, but she's also like so humble that she would be like, oh, no, I'm not fresh, but she said she had that same style that she has now, like that ill kind of, like, stop. You know what I mean, preppy kind of dainty, but like, you know what I mean, revolutionary and shit, and I was like, bruh, I was like, you're a rapper, like, you're really cold. You have to say, but she wasn't rapping at the time. You get the right thing. I ain't never talked about this on camera, but I might as well say it. I still feel like me and for team, me and no name would be closer if I had embraced her, stepping into her artistry as a rapper sooner. So, you know, me and Fatima are super close, like, we basically live together on point. So when we were, what was it, it was Assarap, when I got her to get on lost, after that she was like full-blown rapper because like she'd body me on lost. So when, when it was time for her to be like this, what I'm on, I didn't take it seriously or jump as far in as she jumped in to help me when I was like my dream to become a rapper. And I feel like if I had did that, definitely we were kids, granted, and I feel like she's forgiven me, you know, or probably doesn't even think about that anymore. But I think about it all the time, like she is, even when she was just a poet, she was always my favorite rapper, you know what I'm saying? Like she always put together words and understood my words in a way nobody else did. She would pull me to the side and be like this line where you said this and when you mentioned this, like, and she just, I could talk all day about Tima. I think I'm gonna see her. She says she's in Chicago right now, but she's coming back on Monday. She poetry and motion, or like she living breathing that shit because it's real liberation. That's what I'm saying. Like I feel like more of her work is physically being educated and like liberating than even like music, sending books to prisons is like all a part of the, it's all a part of the same mission, you know what I'm saying? I got some photos from when we were shorties, I'm gonna tell you what, tell me what you remember it. Wow. I remember this like it was yesterday. This is it. Whitney Young, this is it. Vicks high school. I'm trying to remember what the name of the thing is, it's not spring playing in some shit. I wish I could remember the name of the event. It's a big event. You got the fidelity shirt on. I have no swag. I have no swag. I have no swag. Like when we was in high school, Vick was always fresh. That was like a thing. He had the S.B. Like I just remember you just had hell of shit. That's an A life shirt. I'm wearing a free shirt. The hell? I didn't have shit. I didn't have anything. When I was growing up, I just started getting money. He just had talent. I had talent to go off of. Big hat, hell of hell of shit. Like all. That's cause I was selling drugs. That's true. You was one of the first. I only had money. No, I was selling weed from day one, bro. I was selling weed before. I can't Joey have money, though. They have real money. They were selling me. Yeah. But I was like, I was selling weed before I was rapping for real. I mean, I was, I was rapping, but before rap was making any money at all, I was selling weed, making money. And then when I had a mixtape, it was easy to convert because I just went to the same people I've been selling weed to. And I was like, here's the mixtape and the weed, you know what I'm saying? Package deal. Package deal. All right. Here's another one. Wow! This picture, Loki, just helped me out in court. I just had to mention this event. This is at all. This is, this is when MTV came down a day. Beauty bar, I think. Yeah. This is, this is at Beauty bar, but do you remember why we was performing there? No. This is so hard though. So when Keith and them first blew up, MTV came to Chicago and did a show called My Black Chicago and they went and interviewed Treat It Crew. They went and interviewed Keith and them and they went all around the city and show all the sides of hip-hop. This is in 2012. This one, all the labels started coming to Chicago and they filmed us performing at Beauty bar. It was really you performing at Beauty bar and he brought me up. What's this one? That's Reggie's. That's Reggie's Rock Club. Look at like all my fish suck and the necklace I have even have a fish. It's just a bunch of teeth. I mean, certain that's not polo. Like, that's probably a good fellow shark. Because I had the polo hat with the f***ing polo flannel. I was concerned with those things. How do we look? We was drunk and hot. Yeah. Definitely. We look drunk and hot. That's me trying to get myself together. For sure. It was buzzing off of something. Yeah. Just to do all types of drugs, man. But you know what though about the drugs, man, it's like, um, there was a creative force to it. Yeah. For sure, man. Something I was thinking about is like, people know you to be such a symbol of peace and love. I'd be having to tell f***ers also, like, China where I ask a scrap. You know what? We used to be also getting beat up, too, though. We didn't even get beat up, man. I just think about like the convoluted, but perhaps evolutionary dimension of male friendships that they're often built around blood. Yeah. And like, a lot of our earliest experiences, and the times that like, we really bonded was like, was protecting each other. Yeah. Because ultimately it's a dangerous environment. For sure. For sure. So I think, I remember that time when the m*** was playing with you because you was outnumbered at Jones. And I brought an army of m***s from with the young. About 20 people, and we showed up, you know what I'm saying, outside the school to do was like, oh yeah, well why don't you come in here and fight me on school property. I'm like, get your way out of that m***. Get your way out of that m***. And now I told his ass, I said, all right, we're going to go to the park. Man, he was doing the money python s*** where they was like, they was like, we're on our way. And they was rotating the walk. They were saying, they never showed. So we caught him at the bus stop. I remember that. So he was trying to run off through the middle of the street. And he caught his ass. And I instantly rocked his ass. He said, be easy for a rock. What do you remember that day? I'm not saying no names because everybody cool, we all still, we grown now. But yeah, it was a time when, basically, we was in a gang, you know, but not a gang. We was in Chicago. It's like, it's clicks, right? We had our little s***, we was called Bo Squad, and we used to do stuff. I was, I was basically the only person from my click at my school. And so when somebody started, it was sweet because I was by myself at my school, they started trying to play with me. And so I called my brothers that go to all the other schools because everybody was at Kenwood, Whitney Young, King, Lane, like all other schools like had multiple s***s at it. And I was the only person that jumped. And basically, like he said, they came up to the school. We tried to run it. This was acting like they didn't want to, so my school security came and kicked us off of the property. Remember, so we all had to disperse, and then we was getting on the phones, they didn't want to link, or they kept saying they was going to link us, and then we started walking up and down Michigan. Because that's right of us. I remember Cory used to still have dreads, like I remember that was my first time being Cory. He was so thirsty to fight. And then, and then, yeah, then I went, but everybody ended up being pulled in the suit. No, I **** with them. What about, what do you remember about when, when Dooh had robbed me, man, when Dooh had as a young weed dealer, you got to learn, you got to learn, so I served this repeatedly. I was a high schooler. He was about 22, had a, you know, a newborn baby. He used to come to get the weed from me, like sevens only. He would only get sevens, but he was getting it to sell, and he had his baby with him. I would sit there. I would hop it up with him. I'd give him some little shake, you know, and so, understandably, after like three, four times a bar on weed from a 15 year old, he robbed me because, and so, understandably, eventually, he robbed me. I had to learn the lesson that you don't get in the backseat of his cars when circumstances have changed, too. It's another **** in the car. I'm getting the car, you know, I got the weed. I give it to him. Oh, yeah, here's the other thing. The man called me in school, he like, yeah, man, let me get like four ounces. And this is a **** and it only been buying course, I mean, he wouldn't call you and he want to buy a whole massive quantity after small, don't do it, but so they get down on me, you know what I'm saying? Who off the bed? He took the weed. They was like, man, you know, in Chicago, when they robbed you, they just start mumbling. They were like, man, you know, you might as well just come and go and just go ahead and know how. And I looked around like that, like, wait, I don't know, there's nothing to get out on me. Kisely. Somebody stole on me. They drove around and pulled me out the car. I'm hanging out the car. You basically kidnap them. They peeled off with me hanging out the car like this. I called you and you pulled up. We came up like 50 deep. I remember we went to Nichols Park because I was at school and this is the second year. So now my **** is at school with us. So I feel like **** was damn near who told me about it and we rode down to Hyde Park. We all met at Nichols and then I remember we was calling around for a gun for a long time. How much of the story am I supposed to say? You could tell. I mean, we was trying so hard, but I'm so glad that I didn't get a gun. I mean, I had called. I think we got a gun for ****. Oh, we didn't get a gun. I don't know what it was. But it was the wrong gun. It wasn't a 50 body. It wasn't a 50 body. It wasn't a gun. It wasn't a 50 body. It wasn't a gun. It wasn't a gun. And we didn't even know the **** that came with the gun. He bleep out the names any time I say a name and I'm sitting there in this car. And it's just me and the homie and his two nefarious comrades who had this duct tape gun. And I'm looking at him like this is going the wrong direction. And we get there. And I start to do the math because it turns out that the guy who robbed me sells guns. So when eventually he said, I'm going to come up there, but it's not going to be good. You know, eventually I was like, damn, you know what, mathematically, no one I know can either shoot or defend himself. All we could do was get shot. No, it was so I called it off and we walking away and the homie who brought the guys that had the gun. He was like, yo, yo, bitch, yeah, sometimes we in a hole and keep you alive there. Sometimes the **** that will call you a hoe for will be the thing that allows you to see another day. No, we've made a lot of great decisions. We've made some points. but I don't think we made any wrong decisions. I think everything got us to where we are right now. And I feel like, I'm grateful too, 'cause when you think about all the guys, like, you know, except for people that passed away, like everybody for the most part is Gucci, even though even, you know what I'm saying? And I'm gonna stop saying names, but just like, everybody's gone through that shit. - Yeah. - My cousin is way better, you know what I'm saying? I'll be saying folks. Everybody is like, in a good place, and it's 'cause, at the right time, we might have been some hosts, but like, in all the times when we had to show what it was, we definitely partyed on top of the ass before. And I'm glad everybody sees me as a good person now. Nobody wants no get back on me. I feel like nobody has anything good. - People don't really actually believe when I tell them, like, how we were, I mean, they usually believe me, but they'd be like, "Chance?" I'd be like, "Yeah, folks was out here." You know, man, you know, it's another thing that I actually had wanted to mention was like, in those early moments, creativity before commerce is introduced. I think part of what made our music scene so infectious and just change so many lives globally was that it was art for the sake of art. There was no imagined possibility, at least for me, oftentimes, like, you didn't see the possibility of great wealth tangibly. It was like, just how good can my product, my creation be? You know, like, how do you think the creative process has changed for you when it becomes the way that you feed so many families? How do you find your way back to the little room to me, they're always separate? Like, I feel like it wasn't until I just had to spend all this money on this court case, fighting the lies and shit that I really was ever like, "Oh, I need to, like, make another business model "so I can make more money." But I feel like I've always created with no real expectation of a monetary value. I always be thinking about, like, damn, is people going like this or not like this or people going to be able to understand this, or not, but never really ever have I created a song and been like, "This is $70,000, I can see it." Like, I never, like, ever thought about it in the monetary. But now what I'm starting to understand more is like, people do want to invest in being able to show that they support something. So if you love something, if you have a niche TV show that you used to watch in your childhood, and you see that shirt at Urban Outfit as you might buy it, just to say, "I used to watch Rugrats." But, like, Rugrats wasn't thinking about Urban Outfit as a selling a t-shirt when they made the episode, it's just somebody figured out a way to commercialize it and make it a product that somebody could invest in. So now I'm just figuring out now, physical consumption, like, people want to have, even if they don't have a record player, they want your shit on vinyl. So, luckily, because I own my masters and I could produce this stuff, I could just be making stuff to make sure that somebody could say, "I love covering a book in 2016. This was a part of my identity. I want to buy that record." And I didn't used to put the time into, like, trying to figure out how to sell shit to people. I was just trying to make reps. - When I think about a lot of the blood sweat and tears of our early days, it formed two of the most beautiful creations we've ever made, acid wrap, in an intake. - Yes, sir. - So that day when you came into my manager's apartment and you had just the verse and hook of Cocoa Butter Kisses, what was fueling you? What was your mind frame like on that day? But what do you remember from that day? - Do you remember how Cocoa Butter Kisses came together? - I'm sleeping on my manager couch. I was living there kinda on Cody's couch. And you came in and you had beat, verse, and hook of Cocoa Butter Kisses. - But it's not the candy, though. - No, it's not the original. - Okay, okay, okay. - It's the O-G, man. - Oh, thanks, man. - So that was O-Bonjure. - No, thank you. - O-Bonjure. - That was the O-Bonjure BA, like, don't do it. - I ain't on there, but I just always think about it. Like, that's a lot of people's favorite song. So let me just put that part of the story out there. So there was a beat, I remember it was called, babies, what was it called? - Babies and gunshots. - That's funny, too. - Why, why, why, I feel like you came up with that name. I was high. We made the song Cocoa Butter Kisses. I don't remember the part of, like, when I first came to you with the beat, I just remember that we made it together. And then, when I was about to put it out, the bitch said, hey, I already gave this beat away to Big Vic, to Vic Spencer. And I was like, that doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense. Like, we already wrapped on it. Like, that doesn't make sense. He was like, oh, I'm sorry, my hands are up. So then we had to go to Cam Obey, who was one of your producers. One of my favorite collaborators. He made "Blessens 2" and so much other shows that I worked on. - The genius. - He made the new version of the beat for Cocoa Butter Kisses. And to this day, like I was just saying, that's a lot of people's favorite song by me. Like, maybe the only song they know by me. - The way I remember, you came in the Cody apartment. You had been up all night. You had this verse and a hook for Cocoa Butter Kisses. And I started to write a verse. No, it was the first time I took mushrooms. So I took the mushrooms. And I'm like, I don't know what's going to happen here, but I start rapping. And it just started getting wild. Like, I was like, oh, this shit is making me go. Absolutely haywire, bananas. That's why I'm like, uh, uh, uh, uh, farmer, field, uh, uh, these kids these days, they get so hot. - My mushroom trip was climbing as I was rapping. - I had never experienced anything like that before. It was like the synapses in my brain. - How was that your first time? Do you remember when we did, when we made, um, - We did that afterwards. - On the kids' day and time. - We did that after a couple of butter kisses. - After we started it. You came and you had been up all night, bro. Like, you used to had, you used to had these like, I don't know, it was like, you disappear and just like come from somewhere and you'd be like, you know what I mean? This shovel's like hair to the side. Teachers pulled out with an amazing rap. And I listened to it and I was like, damn, because some of the things you were saying, you were like, you know, my afro looked just like daddy's. He taught me how to go hunting. It was just like this scatterbrained bohemian, like left field way of commenting on our young black male experience in the environment of Chicago. And you had this really kind of simple playful cadence. You were doing a childish thing. You were, you know, okay, don't key, okey. Keep it low key like Thor, little bro, or he'll go blow the loud. It was like, it was like a child's song basically like a child. What do you call that? You killed me on that. I always think about that. That's what I was talking about earlier when I was saying like, the way that it sounds, like the cadence all the way through and how it dynamically shifts is like, for me, I love the words of it. But when you just brought up the flow, like I don't like the flow, I really like it though, but you know, you know what here's the thing though, is that yours is very repeatable. Like you always have had in mind what the crowd can sing at a show. And mine, I was just like, I'm just going to spaz. It's like, I'm just going wild out like, yeah, like it's a whole solo. Whereas yours was like the carrying melody of the song. And obviously the chorus is crazy. But I was going to say I felt like Acerat was like obviously an LSD album and the internet was like mushrooms album. I always have kind of thought about them in that way. I do feel that. I never got to the acid more recently. I started microdosing acid, which is really dope. The acid I'm probably like, 15 years. I never really did acid, except for that one or two times. I did it with you and I like, you looked so weird through the fucking glass of the recording. Do you remember the one to take this shit no more? This is what I thought you were going to say when you brought up the Coco Butter Kisses. Do you remember when I came to you and my mouth was all bloody? And I was like, I don't know what happened. My gums bleed and you called the police. I mean, you called the ambulance. One time I was, I went to a studio session at classic. And they used to have a little side room for me. I could just sit in with no mic, but I could sit in there and write. I took some acid. I was writing everybody something. All I got was the hook. And once I got to, I got everybody, somebody's everything. Nobody's nothing. I was like, you're reekin. I got it. I ran out the studio. I went to go tell Chris. I'm like, Chris classic. I got a hit. He was like, you know you're all bloody. And I don't know what happened if I had like, was like, you know, like, my teeth was grinding. I don't know what the fuck happened. But it was like, all this blood in my mouth. And so I freaked out and I called Vic. And I'm like, I don't know what to do. My mouth is bleeding. And he was like, I don't understand. You come over here. And I came there. You were off-stroms. We tried all the drugs. He was at the trap with a shirt off of shrooms. And I came in and I was like, I don't know. It just keeps bleeding. And I remember you called the ambulance lady and he like, "I don't know, I'm just saying my mouth bleeding." She was like, "Sir, please stop cursing at me." I just remember that was such a crazy ass time 'cause we were kids. We didn't know shit about drugs. I thought that the ass was making my gun. I'm definitely trying to find it just. Let's leave it to a high get a call and another high get a solve to then call an ambulance. Like, I should have, I should have just chilled. I should have brushed my teeth or something. I went to, I went further away from the hospital for you to call an ambulance and we didn't go to the hospital. I say it again. Man, it feels good to expose these fools. Seeing straight through the B.S. they thought was going to slide. Hear that wireless company? 'Cause we can shave you loud, text now, cuts the foundry. Nationwide 5D, instant activation, and a data plan that moves how you good. Pay what you want or not at all. Show these (beep) carriers we ain't paying for stupid. 'Cause we're way too smart to pay dumb. ♪ Shuttin' 'em down, it's just how we years ♪ As our success started to grow, our friendship started to fall apart. And I think we rarely have ever talked about our falling out. Yeah. You had a lyric on acid rain where you said it took the team off my back like that's not your jersey. And I just remember feeling like I felt so hurt, you know what I'm saying? 'Cause I think that was the line that you was going to say. I thought you was going to say it. I still get jealous of Vic, Vic still get jealous of me. No, no, no. The team off my back, yes. When you had that lyric about, I took team off my back like that's not your jersey. I feel like I felt so hurt, you know what I'm saying? Because I felt like I had invested so much in your success and that you had invested so much in my success. And you know, watching you ascend so fast and it not feeling like you wanted to bring me with you in that way like it hurt me. And then kids these days broke up. That was my band. And when Nico and Greg and sometimes Macy like came to play with you, I was just like, I was heartbroken, you know what I'm saying? 'Cause I was like damn like, that's my sweat, you know what I'm saying? I was heartbroken like, how was that for you? Like what do you remember about that time? Man, I never really thought about the band part like that until right now. 'Cause I was always getting that, we should just reform kids these days. Like I feel like I said that a million times, we should be kids these days. 'Cause I feel like your fans already know but for the people that's just watching us on Instagram, kids these days was like, how many of y'all seven, eight of y'all? And so I always wanted to be in the band. Some of my biggest moments was when you would bring me out on stage and I would rap with y'all. So I always wanted to be in kids these days. I always wanted to play with a band, but I was always, you remember for a short period of time, I had Marcus Prince and talent in them to be in a pseudo band for me. Like they didn't even really play instruments and I was trying to get them to do shows with me. But I always, always like really respected how professional everything that you was doing was from way before anybody even had like reckoned with the idea that they could be successful in it. Like past kids these days straight up. We used to straight up. That was the first time I seen somebody make a mix date and have all the kids at every different high school known what was up and having a lease party. So I always wanted to be on your level. There was not really a time where I thought that I was surpassing you by any means. I always felt like I'm trying to do something different than Vic is doing. So I remember when you first got the Rock Deal and you had saved money, incorporated, all the guys, including me, always looked up to you in a certain way to be like you're pushing this in a certain direction. But then there came a certain point where I was like, I wanna be signed, I wanna be nobody's artist, I wanna be under saved money, I wanna be under Kanye, I wanna be under nobody. I just wanna be myself. And so I feel like there was a point of reckoning within myself that happened probably while I was making a asset wrap where I realized like I can just be myself, you know. I didn't really, I feel like when I wrote that line, I didn't really mean to say it in terms of like, I'm not taking my people with me, but I wanted to play for my own team or damn their start my own team. And I think over time I was like, I don't even necessarily want a roster of rappers around me. I really just wanna be chance, you know. And maybe that's not fair 'cause it was a long time where like I was getting looks off of being saved money. I remember the first time I met Tony Bans and a bunch of people who I thought were like, and not to say Tony Bans, not a big Tony Bans religion. But there was a point where I would meet people in playing at subterranean, playing at Reggie's playing different shows and being around the nation that were our big homies at the time and being like trying to talk to them and then not really paying me no mind. And I'd be like, you know, big mess with my brother, I'm saved money. And they'd go, oh shit, yeah, get you some beats. So there was a time where it was beneficial for me. But then we also gotta look at it at the reality, which a lot of people don't know like, again, that she was a gang like everybody didn't rap. Everybody didn't love save money 'cause she's had shit going on. So I feel like I felt a certain weight of carrying save money especially as I became one of the front runners of people with visibility where I was like, I don't wanna be a save money artist. I just wanna be a chance to rap them. And I feel like, or fallout, I didn't even really, I never really pinpointed it around that time. I always think of it as something that happened more so like around coloring book. 'Cause I feel like during the ass rap, we still, that's when we made internet tapes. That's when we did, on soda, that's when we did so much stuff. So, but I do remember, I mean, we've fallen out a million times. We brothers like, remember we fell out on the kids these days, too. It was still, I was in a fallout. - Then what did you see at coloring book? Where did you see us fallout around there? - When you blacked out my picture, I went chasing Beyonce. I was like, damn, why is folks mad? - So you never even knew? - I hadn't had no idea. When that picture came out, I was trying to defend that shit. I was trying to tell people. - That's so crazy. - Like, you know, I'm like, he artist, like, he just wanna picture with them, 'cause he signed with them, and he don't need me to be in a picture. And I was like, yeah, I'm not gonna make it. - Here's the way, here's the way I saw it. I felt like you had came over there. It's like my 23rd birthday. And, and Jay-Z and Beyonce was there for my, for my birthday. And then, once you came in a section, we might have all flicked up or something or, but then he was like, let me get one with just me, Jay-Z and Beyonce. - Did I say that? - I didn't even remember that, that's crazy. That was how I saw it, but you know what I think, actually, man, it's funny that like, sometimes, the problems you will have with somebody will be in your own head. - For sure. - For me, and like, coming into success, coming into fame, coming into money, young, and addicted to drugs. (laughing) And like, emotionally unstable. You know, I feel like I always had an emotional instability, which I'm sure has fueled a lot of creativity. But that coupled with the, like, the intense rivalry of our creative process, you know what I mean? And then, like, seeing you in so much success, it grew jealousy in me, you know what I'm saying? And a place that I think I had to come to, well, actually, first, I wanted to say that, like, there were things I did and things I said at that time that I apologize for. - I know, I already know. I mean, and I apologize for those things. - I had to get over it, or I wouldn't be with you right now. So I already forgave you for those things wholeheartedly. And I had to get to a place where-- - Let me say sorry for someone to stop. - 'Cause there was something that was on my mind while you was just talking that I always wanted to apologize for it. And I think we talked about it before, but if we didn't, I still need to apologize. One thing that I did that I always felt bad about was, this is around Acerap. It was like, I don't even know if the tour ended up happening, but I remember Carol was trying to book me a tour, and she was like, you should have Vic open. - Yeah, that was when it hurt me. - And I was like, no. And I said at the time that I didn't want to do it, 'cause I was like, Vic's not opening for me. We at the same level, he doesn't need to be opening for me. But in reality, I was just like, I don't want to have to split this. I don't want to have to share this stage at this point. And that was definitely worth it. - That won't hurt me. That won't hurt me bad. - I'm sorry. - I appreciate you. You know what, too, bro? 'Cause it was like, you was having money, bro. And I remember that time, I was back living with my parents, and I was flipping the cushions on the couch, man. Like, looking for quarters of shit. And when you didn't want me to come on that tour, I was fucked up for real, you know what I mean? And like, I wasn't fucked up, 'cause obviously my parents have a home, and I have a real family, but I was-- 'Cause I was like, "Damn, I'm sticking shit out my sisters. I'm a piggy bank, man." He was like, "I was in the piggy bank." And I was like, "I knew I was right there. You know, I knew I was right there, and I have motion. I knew I have motion, and I was right there, but that really hurt me, you know? 'Cause I was like, "Damn, I actually really need this. But you know what, though? What I had to come to? 'Cause obviously, I played a million parts in that. What I had to come to was like, "I want you to win with or without me." And that was a science that took so much experience for me to understand holistically as a man, as a human being, that the desire or the need for reciprocity from something is not necessarily conducive to the benefit that you get from giving. Like, when you give without needing to get it back the way you think that it's supposed to come back to you, you open yourself up because I learned that like the energy, the energy that you are putting towards covering someone else's success, "Oh, I wish that was me. I wish I was on this tour. I wish I had that magazine covered them. "Looks, man, that energy is invaluable energy. It could be used to go on turning up." You know what I'm saying? You could be using that energy on building yourself. And I think in time, it's been such a valuable lesson for me to be like, "Man, real love, bro, real love does not require that it be required. Like, real love is selfless and the love that I've grown for you is just a real love that when we were working on Starlight even. It wasn't until the last week of the album that I had a verse on the album. Like, I was working with you on the album for like six years. And a lot of the songs we would do, it would be like, "If it was good enough, you'd be like, "Okay, I'm going to use this." You know what I'm saying? I'm going to get Wayne, I'm going to make this a wreck, I'm going to figure it out. You know, but I had come to a point where I was like, I had alchemized my internal experience to be like, "I love Chants, and I believe in Chants, and I believe in the power of this moment and this album for Chants, and me working with him on this album is not about me getting a look with a feature and getting some streams or whatever, some royalties or something like this is because I love broke and I really don't care if I'm on this album or not because I want to see you win. Like, I want to see this album be what it needs to be for you. And like, when I started to think in that way, man, my life has just like, it's elevated like it's improved. Like, when I stopped being like, "Oh, like, I got to get something out of everything." You know? I felt that though before the end of the album. I knew for sure, no matter what, that I needed you to have a verse on that album. Regardless of like, what you poured into the album, it wouldn't have felt right if we didn't have a record together on it. But I feel like since 2021, I've told you this before and now it's so long ago, you might not remember it, but I had a conversation with my dad in 2020 when everything first started like, really, I started to understand where shit was falling apart. This is when Pat first sued me. This is when me and Kirsten first started being on the rocks. I'm starting to see all of these things fall apart and I'm realizing like, "Oh, I have to make music. If I stay paralyzed, I'm going to fall from this shit." And I went and broke down talking to my dad like, "I need to do something, but I need help." And he was like, "You have to call your brother." Like, "You have to call Vic." And so I called you and I told you what I was going through. I probably cried. And then we went and had dinner at that Morton's place, remember, and we brought together the team of people. And I say it all the time. I made a little speech at that shit where I said, "Over the next, however long it takes me to finish this project, I'm going to have to reach out to all of y'all and need help." Maybe two or three of those people that was at that dinner came up, but the person that showed up every time was you. And even when I wasn't calling you, you was hitting me up and saying, "Where are we at with this?" And when can I come over to the house so we could get like, 'cause it shouldn't have taken six years to be honest. Like, I'm glad we had that time to make the project. But like, you kept the battery in my back to be like, "Where are you at with this?" Like, "You have so many songs. Why haven't you put it out?" I think it's ready. And I feel like I knew from the jump. Because I think before we worked at HOK, we worked out here. We just speak easy first. That's where Tree came out of. That's where a lot of songs came out of. It was the first writing trip out here. And I was just like, me and Vic have a whole new friendship. Like, our friendship was always good. Yes, we protected each other when we was fighting. And we went and put some holes and did all the young shit. But like, caring about each other's success in a way that's not just defending each other from the world, but for being like, "I want you to succeed." I felt that in 2021 when we first started really getting close. And I try and say it every time that I can. I couldn't have done what I did, which is not just storyline. It's beating a billionaire in court. It's figuring out a righteous relationship from me as a co-parent with Kirsten, which is, you know, being a vessel for everybody around me. I watched you do so many things in that time period that made me be like, "Oh, this is the right way to do it." And I feel like this is, I'm going to say it again, the happiest that I've ever been with our relationship because I know that we actually love each other as men as adults should. Like, without the, like you said, what can I get out of it? Because I think I always was like, if I wrap with Vic, like I said earlier, I got to wrap my best, or people are going to be able to see all the, you know what I'm saying, faults in my armor. They're going to be able to notice what I don't do well if I don't go as hard as I can with Vic. And I feel like now it's like, it's not even about that. That's my God son! Come here, man. What up, boy? Come on, guy. Come here. Come and say hi. Come here, baby. What up, boy? Come here, baby. You got your shirt on? You got your man some moves to shirt? You woke up? Hey. Say, hey, baby. Say, hey. Hey. I heard you was reading. I got you some books. Hi. I don't know if people know that you're man some moves to God. It's my guy son. Yeah. I had to, I had to call you, man, because you've made being, you've made your journey as a father such a recognizable element of your character. As it should be, you know what I'm saying? But people don't always do that, you know? Yeah. And you've always leaned it, hey, babe. I don't want them to, you know what I'm saying? What's up, fam? What up, B? Talk to me, man. What? Yeah, you did this shit a few times already, you know what I'm saying? So I had to call you on the godfather side. I'm gonna come back around to that, though, because I did where we was at. I want to talk about, when you came to visit me in Ghana, man, I felt like that was when our new relationship like our adult, like our adult relationship as brothers really like cemented, you know what I'm saying? I think about being in Ghana because as an African person, a person of African descent, there's something that return to the soil of your, of your origin does to like your molecular composition. Like how did you feel coming out there that first time? For one, like I was in a really delicate part of my life. Like we was just talking about the end of 2020. That's when the lawsuit came out. That's when, you know, my money started getting funny. And that's when me and Kirsten first started like really, like kind of like having our shaky, like realizing like this might not be what we gonna be doing forever, you know what I'm saying? So I remember I called you and I was just like, man, I'm seeing you in Ghana, but it looked like you in clubs and shit. Like what's to Ghana? He was like, come on, come on. I came I think like two days later. Like got on the next plane I could find and came down. And this was me and Vicks first time like really being out the country just the two of us. Like me having to depend on you. And you showed me everything. Like I got to meet your family. Like I got to see the things that you had been experiencing for your whole life. I had never been to West Africa. So it's 50 things coming at me at the same time between this new cultural exposure but also being exposed to my friend who I know my whole life. But now I'm getting to see you in this state of like full like manhood. Like I felt like you was a developed man. Like showing me a whole country, you know what I mean? And I think the thing that I always try and like highlight or specify is do you remember we had the second day that we was there, we had schedule to ride up to them. to the slave castles. We was gonna go to El Mena and Adra was pushing it. She was like, we gotta go, like we gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go. And you and Nyla Opeanga, shout out Nyla Opeanga, were both like, you know, I really gotta go to the slave castles. What we gotta go see is the Kwame and Krumama's on you. So you took me to go see the burial place of Kwame and Krumama was the first president of Ghana. And I learned all of this, like, you know, decolonial ideology, like, all this understanding of how recent, you know, some of the movement was and how global the movement was. And I feel like once I got tapped into that, that was the birth of Starline. Like, I had known about Garvey. I've been learning some stuff from my grandmother, but once I got tapped into in Krumama, I feel like that was when it all was like, oh, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it. So it was like, black folks, like African Americans, like, we don't, we, at least when I was growing up, it might be a little bit better now 'cause Afro-Beats and shit exists. But when I was growing up, like, it was, like, so separate from my existence. Like, nobody ever talked about going to Africa to retrace our roots or being African and transically. Like, it was always like, yeah, we might be African Americans, we might be black, but it's not like, it didn't feel like a part of my existence until I went out there. And that existence wasn't based in me going to do some ancient African tradition, which would be dope, or going to see the slave castles, which would still be dope. I still never meant to the slave castles. But it was like, no, this is a contemporary history. This is a nation that's founded on the idea of pan-Africanism. This is a place that recognizes your humanity. And all of the struggle that was happening in the '60s on the American side was deeply influenced by what was happening here in Ghana. Pan-Africanism is the ideology that all Africans should be united. The Kwame and Krumah said that I'm not African because I was born in Africa. And you don't know that Marlota King and Coretta Scott King was at the commencement ceremony for the time when Kwame and Krumah was given the speech announcing this new nation as the first nation to achieve independence from colonialism. That Marlota King was there. So when you look at a lot of the diaspora wars that's be having right now and the ideas are, oh, we're not African. And you know, a grandized versions of real genuine concern. This points a contention between Black Americans and the diaspora as what human beings, but we're a family. And we've been locked in. You know, Sam, so I felt like when you got there and you saw that and you realized how locked in. Like we've been on the shoulders of our forefathers and forebears and foremothers. You was like, oh, shit, that click. 'Cause isn't your grandfather, was it your grandfather? - My great grandfather was a part of the UNIA. My grandfather. - He was a Garveyite. He was a Garveyite. - Garveyite, yeah. - So he had a laundry mat. Like Garveyism a lot was about black nationalism and entrepreneurship. So they were all about having businesses. They had syndicates of like, or national networks of businesses of laundromats, or you know what I'm saying, store owners, shop owners, print price. - And it was like, how do we build up the black dollar? And then what, and Chroma did that even intensified and it made greater the original ideas from Garvey was he added scientific socialism. So it wasn't all about capital wealth. Or like creating a dollar as much as, you know, creating resources for the people. And so I feel like when I got to see that, that understanding of pan-Africanism. Like Garvey was always on some like, yes, we are Africans around the world. We got to get our dollars together and buy a ship and I'll go back to Africa and then we'll be the new white people. Like, he didn't, he didn't, but I mean, - He didn't know the way to see it. - He was a product of his time. - But one of the most brilliant organizers of all. - Absolutely. And there's limitations like those contradictions within any revolution and Garvey's idea of being the new colonizer of Africa was a contradiction within his revolution. But the fact that he mobilized millions of black people across the globe without Twitter or Instagram is like unbelievable. And as with every revolutionary, they had to make new laws and new rules in order to shut him down. But it's crazy to me that your grandfather was a Garveyite because it's like your bones intrinsically knew this. - Yeah. Your DNA already knew all this. And it just took the experiences of real life and like pain at home that made you seek and find other parts of home for you, you know what I mean? And like how you go, like as human beings, the compass is internal, like you find your way. When you move with love, you know what I mean? - No, that trip changed everything. Like literally I feel like I'm a different person. If I've met myself in 2020 prior to going to this trip, I would be yelling at me. Like my understanding of the world was so limited. And I think like, and it wasn't just going that one time. It's the fact that we, that remember we went and saw the president. - It was to get the independent square. - Yeah, it was your fearlessness to go and talk to the president's office who had invited us. And there was people telling us like, you know, we don't have the idea fully realized. We don't need to talk to them about this festival, but you knew that it was going to happen. So we went and saw the president. We got the letter of intent to have that space. And then when another festival tried to come and take the space, we had a letter that was like eight months old that said no, we got this space. So it was like, I love that you move on stuff. Like when you have an idea or when you feel strongly that something's going to work, you like let's just do it. Let's just knock it out. And if we didn't do that, we wouldn't have had Starline Festival. And I think that that's going to be a timeless like forever thing. - Black Star Line Festival sure is a classic event. I think about Festack, like Nigeria's Festack '77. Somebody's seminal events in black history, or Summer of Soul, that's what's loved at the documentary about these seminal events that happened once, maybe happened again 10 years later, you know what I'm saying? But that were like real bastions of like, liberatory creativity in the black tradition. And that's what the Black Starline Festival was. I mean, it was one of the largest festivals in Ghana history. Like 50,000 people for San free. - Free is the crazy. - You blew my mind with that one to do the, like I don't know that people recognize or realize sometimes the amount of personal investment that you put into things for the people. You know what I mean, like you paid for that festival. You know what I mean, like I brought a lot of relationship and the on-ground experience of being able to find the right people, you know what I'm saying? But like you actually paid to put Dave Shapale in "Badu" and "Sakodian Manifest" and "Quali" and "Caspurnio" from South Africa and "Toby and Weakway" and like Jeremiah and like, "Teepee" and "Pain," you know what I'm saying? In Africa, like for a free concert for the people. Like I remember who's on stage and that fucking confetti was falling and I was giving you a hug, man, at the end. And I was like, I hope you realize how much you've grown. Like how selfless this shit was, you know. Whenever you do something big, obviously you're like, "Okay, I want everybody to know that like I snapped," right? You know, but to put that amount of personal investment into something for people. For people that are often discarded and for people that are often forgotten and disenfranchised. Like to do that was a massive statement and step of growth. And yeah, we had to go meet with the president. You know, the president was a crook, you know what I mean? There's other people in the president's office that was, you know, the president was what he was. But it's like, we're trying to do some big shit, you know. We did, like I said, like we did some big shit. We did some big shit and if we hadn't gone, we wouldn't have that letter of intent. When they came and said that they had the grounds, there was like, I feel like there was a second when we just thought we wasn't going to do the festival because we didn't have a space anymore. And it was like, no, we have a letter already that says, nobody, no matter how much money they spend or how big of a company that they are, that they can't just come in and take the shit from us. And I feel like the personal investment is like, I don't know, I never look at money. Like I think the way that people look at money. Like I always just think of money as what it could get me. How much of a, I like have towards that at that time and eventually something's going to happen and I'm be Gucci. And if I never have no money ever again, like, I don't know what's going to happen, but I ain't seen that yet. So I'm just like at that time, it felt like there's no like, there's nothing that I would, you know, there's no resource that I wouldn't use in this moment to get to what I believe could come. And I feel like everything that we believed it could be, it happened, plus more. Like I think we spend so much time talking about the actual show that we don't talk about the fact that it was a week long festival. We had the, well, we had all the parties, we had the markets, we had literally like, like we activated an entire city in West Africa for a lot of people during that December where they don't get no education. - In that, in that, I do wanna also, I wanna send a major shout out to Aja Mone. Because Aja Mone is a guide in life in my life and a very pivotal piece of that particular moment and festival and pretty much everything me ever. Like really the person that organized me, a lot of time, like I've been doing all this, shit I've been doing right now. And I think the reason it rings true, a lot of times is because I was actually organized by like real grassroots organizers, not just like TikTok videos, people that poured into me and took me to Palestine and traveled with me to Ghana and like informed, gave me Angela Davis and Hughie Newt and Bell Hook, see what I mean? But Dave, man, so what was the Dave, what did he do there? Was it a set? - It was like a sit-down interview. Like it was basically like a fireside chat. So the University of Ghana is prestigious internationally recognized space for scholars and my partner is a gong. And I knew that I wanted speakers throughout the week so we had a bunch of different people that came, some of them just ended up doing the Pan African conference. But Dave did a fireside chat one-on-one with me at the University of Ghana and he talked about everything. You know, I always think it's deep that not just Dave but also Richard Pryor, both of them had life altering you know, attitude changing trips to Africa at the height of their career, you know what I'm saying? Richard Pryor famously burnt himself up and he went to Africa and he came back and he said I'm not saying no more. Dave Chappelle got called crazy and black ball when he left Chappelle show, went to South Africa, got called even more crazy and more work things. Said he smoked crack even though he was a devout Muslim and he came back and became a bigger star than he's ever been. And I think like when I think about those two as how prolific they are, how much they mean to their actual community and race and then also how in such high regard people outside of their community view them as how their thought leaders, what their medium is when I think about how going to the continent changed them is just always remarkable to me. So when Africa changed me, I'm like, we have to have Dave speak here 'cause he has a perspective that, so he went deep into when he left the show. I never knew he went to South Africa. I thought he went to West Africa but I found out that he was in South Africa. He was an essay. He talked about Stevie Wonder. He talked about his experience being in Ghana. But I think one my favorite thing about Dave is in this last in this later part of his career, you know, and he gets a lot of flags. Some of it deservedly for how he discusses trans people, but there's something about the fact that these last, I think, a six or seven specials are really like an anthology. Season of Job. Before I let you go, we've all had a moment where we needed a new number. My number got leaked online. My homegirl needed one 'cause she got blocked and she needed to let him know that was the wrong decision. Text now handles that and a lot more. Their phone service delivered through an app that gives you free and unlimited talking text on nationwide 5G covered by ads. So you could say data plans available when you need them, no commitments, no carry a lock in your way. Download the text now app today and take control of your service. - We had a conversation the other day. - Yeah. - Let's talk about the season of Job and just those times in one's life when misfortunes, right? Seemingly just pile on, you know what I mean? Like you're getting sued by Pat over some bullshit. Talk about a handshake deal. You know that has no contract relationship with your wife is falling apart. This is Hayton on the album. How have you alchemized all of that trauma and like found the ways to repurpose and like rebuild yourself? 'Cause when I look at you and I think about this album, I feel like this album, the time it took was like the complexity of rebuilding yourself. And the work you put in it and I listen to some of the verses and I'm looking at, it's genius work. Like how have you put the pieces back together? It is definitely a product of what I was going through. Like what I was going through to create the idea for it but then also what I had to live through as I was making it and dealing with court procedures even before the trial went on and going through, you know, thank God me and me and Kirsten never had to go to court for any of the shit we ended up being able to just figure it out between ourselves. But like all of that shit was taking a toll on me and I think what made it the beauty of a project that it is because though it's limited by the circumstances also built by the circumstance, I think I always talk like this Dave quote that he told me. When I put out the big day and I came, I went and visited him on high, I was going through it, man. And I went and talked to him and I was just like, man, whoa, whoa, people shitting on my shit and I think this and I think that he was like, what you have to be proud of is that at least your project is true and he said that albums, whether it's a music album or a comedy album, albums are just yearbook photos. They're not the portrait of your life, they're not everything that you've been through and the defining true care. It's just who you are in that moment. It's just who you showed up as that day in seventh grade and we got a snapshot of it. But the beauty in it is that it's true and no matter what you could look at and say, that's who I was in seventh grade. So with the big day or star line, I get to look at it and say, this is who I was at that moment. This is everything that I believe in true. I believed in this marriage. I believed in how I understood God at that time when it comes to the big day. When it comes to star line, it's like, I had to realize that I don't get to paint the picture. I get to snap the photo. I get to be the actual subject. And the truth of the time wasn't necessarily what I wanted to write at first, but then once I realized the beauty in who I was and who I was becoming, even the beauty in what I was surviving was all like fodder for the music. It was like, oh, I could just write this out. Like what's happened to me is beautiful. Even if it's painful, it's hard. Like I gotta, I have to, and so once I started to like create star line under the understanding that like, this is who I am right now and I'll never be able to recreate this if I don't do it right now, then it just became like, it became so much easier. And I think another thing shout out to Aja Monet 'cause Aja was a big part, just like you were a big part of my writing process and like, and getting back into the mode of like creating something. Aja came to me and told me, I have to, you have to write everything, even if you don't record it. Even if you don't put it out, like you have to record everything. You have to, I mean, you have to write everything and you have to write every day. And once I got to a point where I wasn't trying to write to a piece, an image of myself that had existed prior, but rather just write what was true on that day and how I felt in that moment. Then it was like, you know, and all that shit didn't make it to the album, but it made writing easier and it made it more clear and I didn't have anything to be fearful of writing. She told me that I was scared of writing the truth down sometimes and that, you know, because it didn't sound right or because it might admit to who I am in a moment that I was cheating myself out of great art. And once I started looking at it like that, I was like, okay, I could do that. So of course shout out to the beautiful Aja Monet. She always knows what to say. The ideological base of this album. So vast, so broad, you know, I think that that was one of the things that I was most proud of. It was like some of the ideas and just like, the focus on knowledge that I think I was able to help walk in. But the ways that you sowed and sought and soaked up so much information from all your life experiences and being in Africa. Like the way you brought it together, like, you say, you referenced Chairman Frey Hampton a few times. And I mean, it's like Chairman Frey Hampton had the Rainbow Coalition where he united the Black Panther Party with the Puerto Rican young lords and the poor white young patriots. So when people have this idea that, oh, the Latino struggle has nothing to do with the black American struggle, you can't, in the same breath, say I respect the Black Panther Party or I respect Huey P. Newton or I respect Angela Davis because the Black Panther Party exemplified by Chairman Frey Hampton was about solidarity, the coalition. I put that shit in the bars, even when you had a (beep) - The ice bar. - Yeah. - I got a diamond on me to cross the line. I got a new chain that's safe. - It's like, it's one of the strongest bars on the whole album, and, you know what we're trying to say. - That's another thing that I feel like I learned from Ajamo Ne from debating her over and over again, because I had a very black self identity, even if it expanded out into like this African identity or this global identity of blackness, I still have like this black solely black, and I think the black supremacist. - Oh yeah. - You're a black supremacist. But I also, I understand now that it all does, it is all on a spectrum, and there is an intersectionality where black people have a cute understanding that a lot of people can't get of not just immigrating here, but being a product of theft and having to assimilate when no one wants you to assimilate, but at the same time needs you to assimilate. There's a very specific understanding and identity there, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't reverberate or have versions of it with all the other oppressed peoples out there, and so, once I got a better understanding of that, it made me realize like, oh, this music is for everybody, and there's certain songs that I kind of still wish were on there. All my people should have been on there, you know? - All my people is. - I'm putting on the deluxe, I'm putting on the deluxe, but I think-- - All my people is one of your best songs. - It's my greatest song I wrote, and I just gotta figure out the first original verse. - There's seven different original verses. I don't know what you're even talking about, man. - I think the first one was so simple, and it was so strong. I mean, the newer one was crazy. I remember when you A and B, I was kind of like, okay, I hear you on the new one, the new one could be better, but there's something about that first one, like how you say the verse on Cocoa Butter Kisses, you think it's too simple? - Yeah, the original. - I think that original first verse was so simple that I think you're gonna have every member of the crowd singing it. - I haven't heard that phrase for so long. I remember how it started. - I'd be trying to find one for that. - Because, but you gotta do a deluxe, because there's so many records that, like letters, man, like you as one of the most Christian-- - Front facing. (all laughing) - So I'm like, Christianist, to have a scathing, critique of the black church. I thought that was a real interesting angle, you know what I'm saying? - Yeah. - Like, my grandmother-- - So I told you this, right before I went to link you in Ghana the first time, my grandmother gave me a phone call and she was telling me all the stuff about how they had been to Ghana and who to go visit there. And then my great grandfather was a Garveyide and all that stuff. And one of the things that she had given me right before I went on the trip was a book called "God of the Epress" by James Cohn. And James Cohn was, he's the inventor of, or the, he invented this theology called Black Liberation Theology, which interprets the gospel as a gospel of liberation. And task the church makes the definition of coming into God's kingdom. It makes it, we have to defeat white supremacy. That is the enemy, that is the soul enemy of the church. That is the devil on earth is white supremacy. And so once I started reading his book, "God of the Epress" of red and the cross in the lynching tree is the one that made me write letters. It made me challenge the church 'cause we never really get to talk about, maybe we do talk about it outside of Christian spaces, but within the church, very seldom do you hear a sermon that's about Jesus the disruptor. Like how his whole existence was him coming into places and saying, y'all doing everything wrong. Walking into the church or to the temple and saying, y'all doing everything wrong. Going to the Pharisees or the people, anybody, even the government is saying, this shit is wrong. That was his whole existence. That's like his whole ministry. And I love with letters that I got to attack it at every point. It wasn't just from, this is the racial disparity. It wasn't just from, this is what's wrong in the black church. It was also like, the starting verse is my home church. This is what y'all do wrong. Y'all gossipin' this bitch. Y'all don't support it or fund any of the programming. Y'all don't do fellowshiping or outreach in the community. We got homeless people, kids that need a church, all these things. And to be honest, a lot of my people's was not f---ing that shit. 'Cause they love my church. This is how, you know what I'm saying? What you know with all women said though, was that precisely because I love America, it's why I must critique it. And that's why I thought that that choice was an evolved choice because to really love someone or something is to free yourself to be honest about it, you know what I mean? And to love it through its flaws and seek for its betterment, you know what I'm saying? And that's how that song feels to me. And the last place I'm gonna go is no more old men. When I moved out of Chicago like a year and a half ago, it was after we had back to back summers of late side vigils. For Jordan Day, one of our brothers who passed away in a horrifically f---ing graphic way. In a f---ing gun battle with his blood brother and his mother's house to an AR-15, we letting off balloons. Next, some little dance got killed. I mean, that was my little man and I'm back at Lake Michigan, you know what I mean? For the balloon releasing. And I was just like, I'll never be able to escape this because these are my loved ones in my home, but I cannot be intimately witness to this all the time, you know what I'm saying? And the song, no more old man, it just feels like it puts that whole dynamic into lyric, you know, to be like, yo. Hey Tom, I just turned 33, and I'm for like a senior, since I'm in Chicago, you're like, what's up, OG? Like, big homie, what's up, OG enough for real, 'cause it's like a lot of our closest friends, man, they stuck at 17, it's lost their life at 19. And they'll be 19 forever, you know what I mean? Like, in the song, no more old man. How do you feel like you captured? And what's the like, what's the thesis? The thesis, it comes from a poem that my cousin Nikki wrote that was, I think it's called The Day Where There's No Grandfathers in Chicago, and it's talking about because of gun violence, poor diet, environmental racism, whatever reasons. One day, you know, there won't be any old men to be grandfathers to the babies that are born. And she laments on all these things that she wishes that these kids would get to experience, that you get to experience having a black grandfather in Chicago. And I always thought that poem was so hard, so I wanted to try and do something to that effect, but I think the goal of the song is to paint all of these like beautiful experiences that I got, not just from being, 'cause my grandfather's past, but they're old men, whether they were at the barbershop, or the things that was friends with my dad, they were older men in my life that played mentorships. - I had uncles all up in there. - Now, 79, you feel me like I thought these was my dad's real brothers, they was not, they was just, they lived by my house, that was friends. You know what the hell is that my dad grew up with? But I am the man that I am by all these different mail role models that I had, and we've gotten to a point that like you was just speaking to where like, a lot of that mentorship isn't around as much anymore, and I'm starting to slowly realize that that's gonna become my role sooner than later. Like, I mean, in certain ways, we already try and pour into the youth, but like there's just certain things that we know through experience that we have to pass on. And so, I think the first verse I spent a lot of time just talking about those essential things that you learn in the barbershop. Like, I was around Playboy magazines when I was young 'cause it was in the barbershop. I was hearing conversations about relationships with women about shootouts, about fights, about all of this shit, learning about leg bone, fine CD. - All of that shit is happening in this one space of just men, of a man's man, like a room full of them. I'm going in there with my dad and just hearing these people talk. And a lot of those, you know, a lot of those men passed away. A lot of them for health reasons, you know? And not even like violence, you know what I'm saying? And then I think the second verse just talks about how important the relationship was with my father, how I watched certain things that you did. One of my favorite lines in the second verse is they sleep in separate rooms for years. Just so somebody's there in case they have a stroke. - And the way you said have stroke. 'Cause my aunt and my uncle, I used to always question why my uncle's room was in the basement, you know, and my aunt's room was on the top floor. And we all go over it. This is like the house where she would cook for 50 people, like every Sunday she'd be frying fish and all my whole family would come and pile into her house. I was like, why does Uncle San live in the basement? And it was because they weren't together. anymore, but they weren't getting no divorce. They were still together. They just didn't sleep together. They weren't romantic with each other, but they had they had four kids. They had a house that was the communal space for our whole family. So they stayed together. And that, you know, I'm not saying that that's the right way to do it or the wrong way to do it, but that's how important keeping this space interlocked was for them. And so that's a lesson that I got from them that I still hold inside my heart, even if I couldn't try and convince my ex-wife to do it, it's like that's an understanding I have of the world that I might just have to tell a young, young man one day. Like, you know, back in the day, well, at the band, they used to just live together, like, you don't got to do it this way, but that's knowledge that I have that I have to pass forward to another young man or needed to say out loud for just for me to understand or reckon with how my situation but I think the idea there is like for at least from what I was writing was like we have a wealth of understanding and survival tactics that have to get passed down through mentorship. Close it out for me with the, was it the four? Is that the song with the four Black Commandments? So the four Black Commandments, how they go? These are four Black Commandments. One, watch your health, that's your wealth. Two, watch your brother, that's yourself. Three, watch your home, that's your door. Four, if they want it, we go to war. That's where we're going to close, man. Thank you for being my first guest. This was just great. We needed to just do that. This was awesome. That's what I got a lot. Did you know Jesus Christ was lynched? Damn, you're going to do it like that? Yeah. I mean, Black men strung up from a tree, state sanctioned violence, crowd out, angry white people. That's a lynch. You remember that time on Christmas when I told y'all Christianity was given to you with slavery? Yeah, we all fell out for like three days. I do remember that. To my defense, that was a group chat that never needed to exist. That was all the guys and their girlfriends and wives in one chat. Yeah. Got to keep the girlfriends and wives in a different chat. That was my audition for Islam actually. It was when I hit y'all with that harsh truth. No, you was being a great Muslim in that moment. And what was I going to say? A lot of whack bar. A lot of whack bar. Bismillah. You like JZ on that J-electronica album? Just to be on the J-electronica album? On the first episode of "Vigmastershow" I've converted the chance to wrap it up Islam. Bismillah. The "Vigmastershow" is presented by text now.