Van Lathan Jr.: Revolutionaries at Equinox

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Do you ever wonder if people will forget that you're nice? ♪ Pick the orange from the tree, put the layers back on the world's strange food ♪ ♪ They still swing in bodies and ate the oil you know it's solid when they got ♪ ♪ Done living inside a cell, divided by black and white like ♪ ♪ Car like the fell for the dollar bills ♪ ♪ Force to produce for corporate suits ♪ ♪ Blood on that orange like O.J. Simpson, juice ♪ ♪ President's assembled troops for a slice of the pie ♪ ♪ When they've seen the bomb ♪ My guest today is an Oscar-winning producer, CNN panelist, and a co-host of Higher Learned with Rachel Lindsay. One of the sharpest voices on what's happening in America today, Van Lathen, Jr. The big mess of show is presented by The New York Times. ♪ It is you love ♪ You share a first name with another man who I like to call. John. What's up with that brother, man? Get up on that TV screen, make a mockery of dead Palestinian children. Yeah. Dead Palestinian baby, dead Palestinian baby. Walmart. Dead Palestinian baby. Queue applause. Oh, man, sick. You know what I'm saying? But he took that $100 million check, though. That's come with terms and conditions. Part of terms and conditions of being a part of that club is that you have to accept the notion that there are groups of people whose lives are lesser than. I mean, like that's the whole equation of the state of Israel is that one Israeli life is worth 1,000 Palestinians. Human animals, all the things that they say. But it's the same thing with America, though, 100%. Which is why the struggles are related. It's difficult, man, look. To all my brothers and sisters that I taught to at Gov. And I got focused on what's going on around here. I really do. But there's really only run struggle. There's really only one struggle. We're fighting in different fronts, different times in our lives, in different languages. But the one struggle is the struggle to be a full free human being. And that struggle is against domination and hierarchy. And a lot of times people, you know, I saw that clip about Van Jones. And obviously there's been some back and forth with the fact that we had the same name. And this is producing, and the people are tagging me. It's like, "Van, I can't believe you." I'm like, "I don't know what you're talking about right now." I'm in a gorilla. Like, "Why are you hitting me? I didn't do it." What you saying I did, I didn't do it. But when I see that, I respond to that in the same way that I think everybody else does. But I also respond to it in a different way. And I wonder how you feel about this. So we have, so there's two choices there for me. One is to believe that the person that is saying that is just outwardly, even incarnate. Because you'd have to be. You'd have to think of a dead child, nothing. When I was a kid, like a white baby fell into a well. And I remember like she, like a little girl, she fell into a well. And they didn't know if there was going to be able to get her out the well. I had to do all kinds of stuff. Her name was Jessica to get this girl out of the well. I remember my mother, it isn't Louisiana where obviously we have a tenuous racial past and present. My mother is going through the aisle at the grocery store. The woman behind the aisle at the Piggly Wiggly, the cashier goes, "They got the baby out the well." And this white woman and my mother cry together, "It's a child." Right. Like we were all holding our breath together because a child fell in a well. Simple. What do you get to a point to where you say, "Dead, God's a baby, dead Palestinian baby." And you don't stop and go, "Dead baby." And are you just evenly carted or have you fallen victim to such a systemic degradation of human understanding?" My saying is right, that you don't even know what you are at this point. And this is something that I struggle with. I'm not taking the intention away from anyone. But what I struggle with is when I'm trying to have a basic conversation about people and I get so many things back that don't make sense, I think a lot of times how have we fallen victim to systems or how powerful are these systems that they rob us of our basic understanding of human dignity. And the only reason why I have to believe that or have to look at it that way is because if I don't, then I'm just, I'm out getting scalps all day. I don't believe that any human being is just evil incarnate. I surely don't believe that about Van Jones. I just think that when you align yourself with empire to a degree and you take certain checks, like my homie, our homie, butch wear says, "Who funds you, runs you?" I mean, I mean, and I was thinking about that a lot in my creation of this show, because I had deals that were like kind of shadowy questionable organizations, not that they were like outwardly misaligned with my politic or something, but it was like, you know, people I didn't have 100% faith in our alignment, you know, and that did concern me because it's like man, you take a certain hundred million dollars, you take that check. So I say that, I say that to say that, I don't pretend myself to be a Lord. Like my mom always would tell us, do not judge others as if you are a Lord. And I do subscribe to that. And when I think about those, I mean, my critique is really in the lengths to which you will go to please your master. Right. I mean, it's not that I'm thinking myself lofty enough to pass the judgment on, you know, whether you are deserving of humanity. I mean, that's not for me, you know, but I do think there's some responsibility to call it what it is, you know, shucking a job and on grand stages to an extreme degree. I mean, low keto, I kind of also feel like the democratic party is, is that to so many degrees? And what do you mean? Our participation, like so much of black participation in the democratic establishment is predicated upon the denial of certain humanities. We see that all across the board with the Palestine thing. Is that like to be a part of that club? It's kind of predicated on your denial of the of Palestinian humanity. I mean, I'm just, I don't know, I'm just dissolution with the democratic party and you know, like how you feel about it. I'm dissolution with the, I'm certainly dissolution with the democratic party, but I'm also dissolution with the idea of even being wholly in critique, I'm dissolution with even thinking about it. And I'll tell you why. So a lot of this stuff, I get it, I understand, like I understand why a lot of black people find safety in a democratic party. So sure. Completely understand. There's a deeper thing that I believe, I believe that we no longer believe in human transcendence, and because we don't believe in human transcendence anymore, we're looking around in a lot of the things, which is made by human transcendence, meaning we don't believe that we're greater than this earth, meaning that we don't think that there's anything that connects us to the metaphysical for sure. And when that belief takes hold, then other things will become religion. And for a lot of black people, the democratic party is religion, it's religious. Because if I were to tell you right now that something's not working for you and show you that it's not working for you, or show you that it's working in the capacity of harm reduction. And like if we talk about a specific candidate, and I say, well, hey, this candidate told a lie. This is a lie. This thing is a lie. This thing isn't true. And you're like, yeah, but even if it's a lie, I still have to be on the side with it because this is where my salvation lies. That's now religion, because that's how you feel about God. and something terrible happens to you. and you believe in God, you say, "God got it." Even this terrible thing-- - I'm a shoe. - Isn't, it's a lesson for me. - A blessing. - So it's a blessing because I have submitted in belief to an Almighty Creator, and the will of that Creator is beyond question, right? Part of my job as being a son or daughter of that Creator is not to question it, to take it to understand it and to find the lesson out of the bad day. - Every single time. - I believe that it's celebrity in politics, we're starting to treat people like that more than we ever have. And it'll probably pretty soon happen with AI where AI hits that perch to where, whatever the AI says, we'll believe it. All it is oriented back to what we're talking about is because trying to pierce through that. The Van Jones situation is the same situation. I see with a lot of people who I really love and trust when I hear them talking about things. I hear them talk to me one way on the phone and then talk about what they have to say in public. I hear them discuss issues and talk about those issues through tribe, through political tribe, and not through the actual utility of the argument and what's happening. And to me personally, that phenomenon almost, it's made me, I've actually, it's made me, because it's so widespread. My hatchet isn't as sharp for people as it used to be. Like, I want to bust that up. - Yeah, that's the place to land. I think I oscillate, you know, me and like, I know that the most valid critique is, and the most useful critique is of the systems of power. And yet, like, sometimes I just see, show that in a certain kind of way. You'd like, there's this conversation between Ezra Klein and Tana Hossie Coats. - I saw it. - They're discussing Charlie Kirk. And Tana Hossie Coats basically says, "Fascism is nothing new to Black people in America. This is our entire existence on this continent." From chattel slavery to Jim Crow, to mass incarceration to crack cocaine, fascist attacks on our bodies and our community is what we've always known. Ezra Klein basically responds, "I don't like to look with such a broad historical scope, but I don't think it's productive." And that's my problem with the white liberals. They don't actually want to see who's get free. You know what I mean? Less than half of Democrats support reparations for Black people. If 18% of the Democratic Party is Black, then you probably land in it like sub 30 of white liberals that even support reparations for Black people. It's a kooky non-reality for most of them. And like, oh, you don't want to see get free. That's not on your bingo cards. You're not interested in that. That's how I feel about much of the Democratic establishment. So, earlier in my life, I was fascinated by that same thing, especially the more you get into the case for reparations and like how obvious it is that Black Americans deserve should be played reparations, right? And, you know, there was a real movement that's led by a lot of people. But his name's like, I gotta say, you gotta say in vet Carnau, you gotta say, say dirty, you gotta say tone talks, you gotta say all of the people that people can't agree on. But well, at the forefront of this movement. And so what they did was in their talk and movement on Twitter and other social media apps, they pushed reparations to the forefront to where if you went on a breakfast club and you were a politician, you had to be asked about reparations. And what you saw was a lot of politicians and Republicans were straight up gonna say no, but then the Democrats are gonna say no too, but they're gonna say no in a nicer way. They're gonna say, you're right. Do you know what it made me fascinated with? Not the white people who are against reparations, but the black people who are against it. I ain't even saying them. And not necessarily that they're against it, right? But because no one would really be against it, right? But that they actually seek to not make it a political issue because they think making it a political issue is damaging to the party overall. Because if you ask a white democratic politician about reparations, they have to say no, right? They can't say yes. If they say no, if they say yes, then it's such still for a lot of them. It's such a fringe political issue for a lot of them. Still that your white democratic moderates aren't gonna vote for it, right? Those white people still don't feel like deserve it, right? And so even the conversation, a lot of black, the black democratic voter base is like, we can't get who we need elected with this even being a thing. That starts to fascinate me more than anything. Because I'm fascinated by the freedom you can express about what you're willing to sacrifice really for a religious belief in something that's not working for you. But the reason why most of my critiques are systemic is because that's the only thing that's actually powerful enough to mold generation after generation after generation. The system remains even after our heroes are dead after our intelligentsia has turned over. It's the system that remains. And for me, I can continue to look throughout a society and pick out who the warriors were, who the good people are, who the bad people are. And the only thing that that makes is the people I wanna have coffee with while I'm still here. While I'm dead, the system that we didn't break will just subjugate a new generation of thinkers. - There's another ton of Hasse piece recently that really discusses that exactly. And he says that God's a cost-combo of the presidency. He recently wrote this lengthy piece for maybe a variety or something. And it's sometimes funny to me how it takes the most genius author of our time to say the simple thing that all regular people know. We didn't order for it to be widely considered. But he was speaking about Kamala and speaking about how like there was a movement of black women that mobilized during Biden's presidency to put the first black female Supreme Court justice in position to put like the first black women chair at a fad or something in position. Like to do a lot of magnanimous good, like a lot of great things. - I don't think there was a black woman shit fed Chibin, Drowpuck, just in the fed, or something like that. But they were putting black women in all these positions of power. And then ultimately when it came to Kamala, they were able to take that momentum and use it to push forth the idea of a black women president. And Tanahashi had this interest in perspective where he was like a black president is an inherent contradiction because they must at once disavow state violence at home against black people while supporting state violence abroad against all people but a global South, you know what I'm saying? And like I think in Kamala's campaign, they were going hard like using Fannie Lou Hamer as their like patron saint of sorts, you know what I'm saying? But then you look at what Fannie Lou Hamer was saying about the Vietnam War, you know what I mean? The way we use Martin Luther King, but then you look at what Martin Luther King was saying about the Vietnam War and violence against darks and people around the world. It's just a complete like misuse of those people's legacies 'cause to what you were saying before, man, that system to wield that power, you gotta be at the behest of that system. I mean, you wielded it in the system. Right, the contradiction is just, it's so difficult. That's why the most important thing to me is to have conversations that can change what people's expectations are. The system killed Martin Luther King Jr. and then shout out to F.D. Signifier who I talked to on the phone with this, about this replaced Martin Luther King Jr. with made him into an American Santa Claus figure, made him into a holiday care. Sure, and it's definitely that man. That's right, made him into this Santa Claus. And then when the system sees something that can destabilize it, you're wearing a shirt. and it says the matrix was a documentary. Can I, do I have the latitude on this podcast to talk about the matrix? - You can say anything. - Okay. - About anything. - I want to talk about the matrix real quick. People fundamentally misunderstand the matrix. - Yeah. - In a real way. So like, I was having a conversation with a brother one time, and he was talking to me, this is a great brother, he's a great brother. He was talking to me about something that he had, and the thing that he had, it was called Zion. And he goes, "Well Zion is the free city in the matrix." And I told him Zion is actually part of the matrix. - Does that say Zion was outside of the matrix? - No. When they had that function, they got that function as Zion was, it was crazy. - It was crazy. - Everything getting cracked, and the whole deal. That's the type of thing. He was freaked out, or freaked out, everything was getting cracked, they farted from him. - Whenever white people start doing like this, load us kick to hell. - White people that could dance, they're not gonna fuck you. But white girls are doing like this? You're like, "Yeah, I like her." Anyway. But, so here's what people, this is what, and I hate to nerd out right here. So, this is what the, this is why Zion is a part of the matrix. The matrix itself is a computer program, but the computers have a system. That system extends beyond the matrix. This is how. Neo is an anomaly. Why is Neo an anomaly? Neo is an anomaly because the first matrix that they built, they built it as a utopia. Asian Smith says this in the matrix. They built it as a utopia, people rejected it. Then they built, they built another, what? - The imagine Smith though. - What he's describing is how's like Elon saying, "basic high income." But listen, this is what happened, this is what happened. So, they built the matrix, I'm gonna try to be succinct. They built the matrix, it was utopia, human beings rejected it, okay. They came back and they built another matrix with a little bit more, I guess, strife in it. They accepted it better, but they still rejected it. Then, they built something, they built the Oracle. The Oracle is an intuitive program that exists inside of the matrix. And what the Oracle does is it looks at human beings and negotiates their needs or wants. And what the Oracle found out was that human beings in order to believe what they're seeing is real, they have to have even the subconscious belief that they are choosing it. So, everyone in the matrix, the matrix that the Oracle ended up helping them come up with has a subconscious choice. They subconsciously choose to accept or reject the matrix, which is why some people rejected, but there's a problem. Every time Morpheus would take somebody out of the matrix that persons code would leave the matrix. They would cause an anomaly. After a while, what the matrix would do is they would take all of that code, right? That people, from people leaving. Every time Morpheus took a Trinity or somebody like that, they take all of that code and they dump it into one person. What a one person that they would dump the code into was the one that person could rebuild the matrix at their will. Here's the problem. The matrix needs that code back. So, because the matrix needs that code back, what they do is 100 year cycles, this was the conversation that Neo was having with the architect. In 100 year cycles, they get the one to a place and they say, "Hey, if you don't voluntarily reinsert the code that you have to the matrix and reboot the matrix, "we'll destroy Zion." The people in Zion are hostages. Anything that's having a good goddamn hell. Right, so Zion is allowed to exist. Because what Neo does, what the one does, is this is what the architect told him. He says, "I would like you to take 23 people." This amount of males, this amount of females, you restart Zion. But in 100 years, we have to come back here. - But even that is an illusion of freedom. Even that is the illusion of freedom, all of your fucking, all of your revolution, all of that. That is an illusion of freedom. - All your killing robots. - Killing robots, the guy who can move the matrix around, all that that stuff, you think that you are free. The machines are allowing you to think that you're free. Then they put one person in a trick back and they go, "Hey, if you don't reinsert your code, "the whole matrix dies." And then at that same time, we attack Zion, all of the people die. So this person has no choice. The thing that happened different with Neo is that he was in love. So when they put Trinity on the screen, and they put Zion on the screen, Neo chose Trinity and looked at the architect and said, "You better hope I never see you again." And that's what broke it. What broke it was our humanistic need for each other. That's the actual thing about the story. Zion isn't free. And no one will be free until they put how they feel about people over the systems that they don't even see working behind the scenes at them. So that means sometimes, not only can you not take the check from Amazon, it's a lot of checks you can't take. You gotta put, you have to be violently in search of human connection in order to exist outside of the system. 'Cause if not, you'll be in Zion thinking you free. - And you won't be free at all. - That's one thing about, that's one thing about who funds you runs. You was that like man, ultimately, we're all entrenched in like these systems. - Yeah. - Saying like we are. And just this year though, it's been like a lot of flagrant shit that I couldn't do. You know, a lot of checks that came my way that I was like, okay, that's too far, you know what I'm saying? 'Cause most of the people wanting a fund, they're like gambling and just like corrosive elements on society and the community. But I can't be under any false pretense that like. - There's purity. - That there's purity. - Right. - I mean that I get that. - Hold on, I want to cheer as you with the staff. - What is yours from the tree? - Oh, okay, I thought this was a candle. Now, I was like, the candle not, where's the weak, the weak has fallen through the candle. I was like, I was wondering. - You should make a candle though, that would be hard. - You should make a candle out of it. I thought this was a candle, like 100 million views and one blast right here. Saying all that, if we get back to what happened with Kamala Harris, it's very difficult sometimes for us to discuss it. 'Cause even coats had to admit that there was tension there because he voted for Kamala Harris. - Yeah, me too. And he incurred, and so did I. - I went from one minute, I was like, fuck Kamala Harris. Like literally, I was campaigning with Bernie and they told me that our one rule is like, we don't disparage the other candidates, you know? And it was just like bubbling up inside me. I'm performing at his fucking rallies and shit and then I'm talking to vanity fair. And I'm like, Kamala Harris, oh yeah, she had a top cop. She had a representation of white supremacist. - Remember now. - It was mad at her. - What? - Fuck Kamala. - Yeah. - It was like, bruh. - All right. - And one rule. - Right. - I didn't have much like self-control at that time, but I did come around to ultimately, you know, voting for Kamala Harris. - Right. And look, once again, what we're talking about, like, our belief that we're in Zion. - Yeah, that's the thing. - The Zionist ain't free. - The toughest thing is, man, what did Mark Twain say? He's like, it's not the things that you don't know that get you. It's the things that you're sure about that just ain't so. - For sure. - Right, so like, for, I'm not going back and forth with particularly black women who see themselves in their ascendancy in political figures like Kamala Harris. I'm not going back and forth with them because that's above my pay rate. Them sisters undergar our community. Them sisters want to see themselves represented in American power. Them sisters want to see themselves ascended in America. And the conversations I've served them and deserve to. The conversations that I have with them around Kamala Harris or Jasmine Crocker, anyone else. - I was going to ask you where you're going. - Have to be, they have to be in love. They have to be in love and understanding. And they also have to be in part of it, part of loving someone and living in community with them is going, I disagree with you. I don't understand, but I still love you. And I still understand. And not only that, let's go and let's say we don't agree here with it, whatever. And I'm not necessarily, I voted for Kamala Harris. And I had no problem with voted for Kamala Harris. And what we were up against, once again, to the people that are to the left of me, butch is never voting for Kamala Harris. - Yeah, he don't feel me. - Butch, Brianna, they're never voting for Kamala Harris. But like the reality of the situation is, is like, everybody has different jobs. Butch's job is to pull me left. - Yeah, for sure. - Brianna's job is to pull me left. - Right. - Right. - My, my boy, Jibril, his job is to pull me left. but I have to stay. Like, I have to have the support and support the aunties and the grandmothers and the sisters and everybody like that that I still want the best for and I know they want the best for me, but we might not be on the same page with the level of our political advocacy. So where do you currently land on the lesser of two evils? I mean, obviously, as Black people, elections are almost always that in that presidents were created on our destruction and the first ones had slave teeth in a mouth and most elections. The homie Joshua Dahls, he had an interesting point about this that I definitely resonate with him. I know butch doesn't that for Black people, elections are a negotiation and it's a negotiation of who do we feel that we will be most able to accomplish our agendas with. Now, we know damn well we ain't getting no motherfucking where with Trump and then you think about those Black women that ultimately put Kamala in position and how they actually were able to implement like the child tax credit that Black child poverty in half, you know, saying like that's significant. I don't know where you land with the lesser of two evils. So I no longer will vote for harm reduction, but I also won't vote for harm. And that puts you in a really weird position, meaning I can't vote for harm, which the agenda of the right is clearly harm. It's clearly harm and like their legitimate, you know, Donald Trump wins and then there was an environmental justice program that the Biden administration had. Like the Wednesday or Thursday after he wins the election, yeah, that's done. Now I'm from Louisiana. And so like where I lived in guardier, right down the streets of sewage plant, right? If you go to North Louisiana, it's plants, polluting the stuff. I have new kids, 13, 14 had throat cancer and stuff like that. Like we, the environmental justice. Same way South East, South Chicago, mountains of like unidentified white powder. Yeah, it's like, right, they put stuff in there to kill us and to drive us crazy. So environmental justice is a gigantic part of what I believe to be the freedom of black people. Like our bodies are health and stuff like that. And you just never going to get that from a Republican administration because they don't believe that there's a specific problem. And Donald Trump actually, he, I don't believe is a problem. They just think it's okay to kill Nick. Certainly. So better way to say that I appreciate the correction. But they, um, and so knowing that and knowing that the only way to kind of get that, get that type of stuff past, get that type of is through the Democrats. You have to vote for that. But what I can't do is hold my nose and vote for harm reduction. I am not going to vote for anyone who doesn't give me anything to vote for. And it doesn't matter if they have a deed by their name. I'm not voting. And when I have the opportunity, I'm going to vote to the left of the Democrats. I wrote in butch wear. I wrote in butch wear because I had the opportunity to do that here in California. A lot of people did not like the fact that I did that. Democrat is going to win governor of California. A Democrat is always probably going to at least in the near future, or going to be a strong and strong position to win that. Here, I have the opportunity to vote for someone who says the things that I feel like need to be said. And so that's what I did. But I will say this, if there, there's a cost, right? So we just have to be honest about that. There's a cost. So if a Kamala Harris had one, you don't have somebody, I skipped somebody this week. Two. Two people. Two in the last week. So you don't have that happen if Kamala Harris is president. Kamala Harris is president, despite what people say, I don't believe that you're at war with Iran. Kamala Harris is president. Like maybe like a silent proxy war. We'll just continue to proxy war. We're going to continue to do that type of shit until we change the system that makes it beneficial. Obama is Jason. The cost is fucking tremendous. Right. And so the question that we're really having is whether or not we should do politics with our soul. And we probably shouldn't. Like we should, the things that we do with our soul should be about community. Like you do. The things that you do with your soul really probably shouldn't be politics. Politics should be like like Doss is saying. It should be a negotiation. And you should negotiate based upon what you think freedom is. I think a lot of this chalks up to whose dead bodies matter. Just saying like, I've been reading this book by M.A. Cesar called discourse on colonialism. And in it, he basically says that the holocaust is just a replication of the genocide that have been impacted upon dark skinned people towards white Europeans. That's why it takes the cake for the greatest crime of humanity until maybe recently at the U.N. But it's contemporary nature. And it's contemporary nature, but not only it's contemporary nature, because King Leopold killed 12 million in Belgium 50 years before Belgium. King Leopold of Belgium killed 12 million in Congo. In a similar time frame. Not too, yeah, I get what I get. Not too far off. I mean, actually 1912. 1912. So like 30 years before. Like a handful of stones throw. But he killed 12 million people. And you'd be hard pressed to find probably people in this room that know that happened. Obviously, we're, you know, we're not in Belgium. But his statue is rocking. My home girl was just in Belgium, taking pictures of his statue on the horse. Like, that's a fucking holocaust. Holocaust are happening consistently to dark skinned people. I think the holocaust in Congo still happening. It ain't stopped. Yeah, I mean, and like that, that's where it gets so difficult. Because it's like the negotiation. Because the negotiation also involves a determination of who's dead bodies matter. But as you said, there's real life consequences as well. You know, immediate consequences for us. There's immediate consequences all the time. Yeah. For us, it's like, there's immediate consequences in the break with the Democratic Party too. Let me, let me tell you what I mean by what I say, like what I, what I mean by it is like, so when I'm having a conversation with people, specifically about politics, the first question I asked is like, what type of society do you want? And I leave that. I ask a grand open-ended question. Like, what type of society do you want? And I think what happens a lot of times is people who are harm reductionists are in negotiation with people who are societies. And what I mean by that is like, if you're a socialist, then like a lot of white men that I know, they know what tax rate they want to play. They know what they want the foreign policy to be. Not in a grand scheme, but in an intimate one. They know exactly, they don't know how they want shit zoned. The reason why they support candidates is they're not like supporting people. They're supporting people's ability to get them the things that they think society should, how they feel like society should run. So like, what would you want the tax rate to be? What do you want investment into AI to be? Do you want checks on it? Do you want a wealth tax? Because you start talking to a lot of people, you'll realize that if you get into the details of some of this stuff that you guys don't even agree. Like, I talked to a lot of my homies from back in Baton Rouge and I go, I believe in a wealth tax. I believe that. So you mean, tell me, you believe that I'm a $500 million is just a tax moment. Yeah. Like, what they don't, like, they, what they don't, what happens is that they're more American, they're more capitalist sometimes than I realized that they are. So the first negotiation has to happen, that has to happen is what political structures, beliefs and policies are important to you. And I would say that the main thing that's corrosive about thinking about harm reduction is you're not thinking and moving in power. You don't think about a world the way you want it. You think about how to create a world that hurts you less and if you think about a world the way you want it, you'll investigate that world and you'll come up with those ideas for yourself. So the negotiation is never to me over people's lives, right? Because I look at healthcare as being a basic human right, housing as being a basic human right. These things are basic human rights and I can make an argument that there's just as much carnage and genocide in America's failed healthcare policy, then there is, and it's failed police policy. Yeah. It's failed policing policy. So when we talk about that, we should, to me sometimes, the negotiation Politically, it's about knowing how politics affect your life and having an understanding of what you think a good society is, what you think a tax rate is, what you think about social security, what you think about municipalities, what you think about education, what you think about environmental justice, those are things that you have to know. What if we could democratize communication? Tax now is doing just that with wireless. It's a phone service delivered through an app that gives you free and unlimited talking texts on nationwide 5G for $0 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. Imagine setting your makeup then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Maybelline New York. Sell to miss technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue, just plump, dewy hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting mist from Maybelline New York. Maybe it's Maybelline. So how do you see us landing at black conservatives? What the fuck society do you think it is that they decide? Well you know what the reality with them is? A lot of them I think that the black people, I think black conservatism as a school of thought is not at all unique. Black conservatism as a political project is black conservatism as a school of thought. A black community is conservative but I mean the political affiliation. That's different, which is kind of intertwined in ways though, because well what I would say is ideologies low key you be in a hood and you come to realize that so many of my niggas hold so many conservative beliefs, I mean they not down with LGBTQ rights and not really down with women's rights, a lot of niggas in hood and elder people as well are actually very pro police interestingly, I mean I think it's the dynamics of I had some people like black of safety, I saw you talk about that, I had some people in my neighborhood say hey stop saying that you want to take, we need to pull these around here, you know what I mean look, this is the way I look at it, let's say you outside of a club, right you outside of a club or a building and you saying inside this building there's not going to be no LGBTQ people, men are going to run the place, we're going to involve ourselves and break neck against the capitalism, which a lot of us believe in, and there's not going to be any talk about speech or whatever, might make right inside of this room, there's a lot of brothers that I know that are going to walk into that room or what to be in that room. And there's another type of brother that when they like when they walk in that room they're going to say your table's right here at nigger, there's only a couple of type of brothers that's going to walk into a room of policies, even if they like them and going to get called a nigger inside on the way inside of them, those to me or your black republicans and I'm sorry, you can say what the fuck it is that you want to say, I'm not saying that there's I'm not, I'm not, I don't have any misconceptions about structural racism inside of the white liberal, I don't, but what I'm saying is the, the, the, the republican party has to be viciously and virulent, virulent anti black, they have to make D.I. boogie man, they have to make CRT a boogie man, they have to make black history a boogie man, they have to do this to feed a base, you have to be their nigger to be a part of their thing, you have to like Byron Dolls did say that, hey, maybe we're a bit off in Jim Crow, like we had our families, you have to do that type of shit to be a part of it because the party trades in direct anti-blackness, there's a soft anti-blackness that the democrats trade in because they have to deliver something to a community that's been so loyal to them. So I'd be thinking about how the line from gangster rap, gangster capitalism to the conservative parties of very thin line, like that's why Trump rallies and Donald Trump, junior private fundraisers, they have no trouble getting rappers, they always going to find a few hip hopmas, because if you look at it like the line from, from, from that significant thread of hip hop over to Republican party, it's so motherfucking thin, I mean, it's like the, the uber capitalist thing, it's the ultraviolence thing, get richer, doctrine, encapsulates the whole thing. And I mean, I'm, I'm as much of a lover of the album as anybody else is, you know what I mean? I can sing every goddamn lyric, but it is incredibly anti-black, not just that album, but, but the entire fabric of our music in so many ways, you know what I mean? It's like it's all based off of killing niggas, you know what I'm saying? It's like if you just put a white face on the ship, you understand how they don't have no trouble. Like it, it plays, you know what I mean? You go to a Trump rally and sing songs about killing niggas, it's like, it fits. You know how I know I'm getting old, man, get rich, you die trying and came up and like I, you know what I'm saying the whole shit, it's one of the best albums of all time, niggas. No skips. So when I hear it now, I hear something different. For sure. So let me tell you what I hear, I might fuck you up a little bit with this. It starts on G unit, boat, we in here, boat, we catch a drum and pop, we know, ta, ta, ta, it's going down, 'cause I'm around 50 cents, you know how I get down. The first thing he says, they say I walk around like I got an S on my chest, now that's a semi auto and a vessel on my chest. When I was 25, that lyric or that line was about gangster. But now at 45, it's about safety. They say I'm Superman, I know I'm not Superman. I know I'm not Superman. They say I walk around like I got an S on my chest, that's not what I have. I'm not the man that's still, but what I do have, man, with steel, the man with steel, I have a semi auto and a vessel on my chest. Now I hear that stuff now, I hear young men's asserting their safety through dominance. I hear young men saying, "Hey, fuck with me if you want, I'll kill you." They're in a world that challenges you. In a world with constant, in a world, exactly, in a world where that battle for, in a world where they have talked to believe that the only thing that gives you safety is power, is dominance, right? It's a very European way of looking at thing. And not safe through community, through sharing, you're safe through nobody wanting to fuck with you. You're safe through consequence. You're safe through the ability to hurt other people. My, I was a kid, told my daddy I'm having a fight, he laughed his ass off, laughed his ass off. He's like, "Now, how are you? You pre-meditating your weapons now. You're going to go, "Whoops, I'm about to pre-meditate." I'm like, "No, man, I had enough of this shit." All right? Like, there was a chip party, because we got good grades. And I had my chips, do came over, and he tried to take one of my chips, and I pushed them, is like, I said, "You don't get chips, nigga, you didn't get an A." Right? I'm sick of this guy. Tomorrow, I'm not going to say nothing, I'm just going to beat him up. And my dad goes, "Why are you telling me this?" I said, "Because I'm probably going to lose." I'm like, "Damell, he big, he'd be fighting people. I'm just letting you know that I got to do this." He laughed again. He said, "He told me this. He goes, "Son, your only goal in a fight is to make that person. I'm not going to fight you again." He was like, "Tomorrow, don't think about winning. Think about letting him and everybody know that you are not the one to fuck with. That they might be able to fuck with everybody else, but they can't fuck with you. Because if they fuck with you, you're going to rip their shirt, you're going to bust their eyes. You're going to gouge their eye. If they fuck with you, the tax is going to be high. I walk into the world that way. Yeah, you got it, guys. I walk into the world expecting to extract a tax from people if they even think about fucking with me. That's severed you from community. That's severed you from even thinking that you can find safety in people. That's severed you from even believing that you can find safety in stuff. When I hear those records now, what I hear is people who have been so warped by their version of Americana that they don't believe in their own people anymore. Oh, for sure. Think about the ways in which white supremacy has poisoned our humanity, and that our domination has had to be upheld through force for centuries. And now it's so deeply rooted that we like toy soldiers with a battery, and our back point the web is at each other's program and to to attack, it was like a verse I had, you know? 'Cause I see us as being wound up, you know what I mean? Like a toy soldier pointed at each other and there's no need for Jopetto anymore. 'Cause that's our reality, you know what I mean? I feel like I'm always kinda working to even mentally break free of that shit 'cause that's completely my upbringing in Chicago. That's just what I know. I was talking about therapists about this this morning, you know what I mean? Like the immense violence of my life, which to most people would be like a greatest, like it would be crazy, you know what I'm saying? Shit is like work, till like my niggas, the people that I've grown up with, the people that I love most. Like I was on a Zoom call this morning, one of my brothers is, he'd been down, like 15 years now, 12 years, you know? And he, you know, he shot somebody, it was like going through a mental health crisis. I mean a lot of this, that's one of the main ways I think that they wind us up and just a result of us being wound up is the constant mental health crisis that we be in. That's why when a nigger is always ready to snap, they'd be like, oh man, dude, he crazy. You're saying he can lose, he can just lose it. Yeah, I mean, and you wear it as a badge of honor, but really it's like a perpetual mental health crisis that you end, and that shit is absolutely commonplace. You know what I mean, like there's a movie, blind spotting that the homies made. Fossot from the Bay. Yeah, yeah. The V-Dicks, W-Dicks, Lafayette Cassal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Super dope brothers, they had this one moment in the movie when Lafayette Cassal's character, the white boy who he sets it off. Like he flips the whole thing on his head, but he's in his fight outside of a party, and he's like beating somebody, you know? Like fucking violently, like fighting this man and his blood all up and down his arm, and you know, you could tell he feels powerful. You know what I mean, obviously we are carnal, and this is a very violent society, and many of us have grown up, determining our value from our capacity for violence. Sure. So he feels like the man, but you can see everybody's faces around him start to like reveal how grotesque he is, you know? And I think about the way that I grew up, and the things that were shown to me as being those that determine my value to be not fuck with. Like one time, there was this fake ID. I actually fake ID, I was 15 or something, I ordered a fake ID from this white boy, and it was like $140. That's a lot of money, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're a 15 year old inside order this fake ID. And some weeks pass, you know, it doesn't show up. Some weeks turn into some months. He not responding, he not, you know, picking up the phone. So me and the home, we rode the train from the south side, drinking a fifth of a bumpy face, bumpy face vodka. That's like the, the secrets of something. I could just tell that shit tastes like shit. The worst shit, you know what I'm saying? Like a drinking, drinking the whole fifth of the train to go up north, and he come out, or we arrive at the place where we had finally, you know, gotten, got him to meet us, or we knew he would be or something like that. And I, you know, I came up out the cut and I had this bottle, you know, and I was like, remember me, you know. And like, you know, crash his dome, you know what I mean? I was astounded that he didn't fall, you know what I mean? Like, I was like, that doesn't make it. We'll not go down, you know, crash his dome. I'm just like, I'm beating him mercilessly, you know. Me and my home, we beating him mercilessly. And I leave, and there's blood up to my elbow, like my whole arm is coated in blood. And I felt so like proud of that, you know what I mean? I felt like this shows you, like, don't play with me, you know what I'm saying? But in the, in the inverse has been, being an adult, and having like perspective, I'm like, man, I was poisoned as a kid. Man, I think that like, that's a real, that's a reasonable response. Like, yeah, you got out on me for 140 bucks, like, to do that, you know what I mean? And it's like, but I felt from everything I saw around me that this was the only way I could show that I have some value. Right. Because I'm constantly a target of like police violence. I'm constantly a target in the school of the emotional violence, the microaggressions and macroaggressions of the school system. Like they're constantly lobbed at me. And I can't do nothing with them. The thing that folks me up now is that it is reasonable. And this is why I'm focusing on the system. 50 talking about in that, in that, in that, in that, in that song. He's not wrong, that's how he has to be. That's the ethos that's been accepted. That's the ethos that has been found. He's not, it's not like he's wrong. It's not like if it make it up, he's not making it up. If you, if you, if you let yourself get fucked over, you will be, if you are in Ben Rouge, and you let yourself get fucked over, you get fucked over every day. Yeah, for sure. You like, you will get fucked over anyway. Not just there. Sure, Chicago. I'm sure at Beverly Hills High, like where it's fucking beautiful. I don't know if you've been over there. Like it's, it's, it's at Beverly Hills High, if in this society that we have, if you allow yourself to, to show weakness to a lot of the particular at that age, the people who have these sort of warped sensibilities, they will fuck you over. My thing is, it's reasonable within an unreasonable society. So my thing is, since we know this, right, since we know that there's a bunch of people that got called a bitch on the basketball court and they feel like they got to kill someone. Right. So like, man, I knew a guy who was born lethal. We all know this dude, a guy who just in his fucking DNA was the ability to put his hands together and just fuck people up. I remember one time, we was in club upscale. And we talking, we dancing, I'm like, all of a sudden I turn around and I see him see someone. I'm like, bro, who you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I remember going back to Brian. I'm like, bro, I'm not going to say his name. He's not with us anymore. I'm like different, bro, we all know that guy and he knew it and everybody knew it. Man, first week I'm in LA. He, at this point, was a little older, he cut off a funeral procession. You got to fight with the cop and apparently he gets in a fight with the cop, he starts doing this to the cop. Somebody walks out the auto zone and kills a bystander because they're fighting the police officer. Man, God rest my, God rest my nigga's soul and God rest my father's soul. My father saw that coming, my dad said van one time, bro, he said van one time, son. He was like, I can't, I can't keep you in this house no more. You out there. That's the thing. But I just let you know one time, son. He was like, your friends, these guys, these guys are going to die. This is the way he used to talk to me. He was like, man, these guys are going to die and they did, Elvin died, Tefer died, George died, Jason died, like they died, too many of the name. Like I'm sure you have too many of the name, but they didn't kill themselves. They didn't wish this. They didn't even earn their deaths, a death, well understood is a death that is earned. They didn't even earn their deaths. They are young men, sometimes brilliant, sometimes average, sometimes below average that are living and expected to live with such drastic dysfunction that nobody besides the ones that are born six foot eight, the ones that are born with with the ability to rap, the ones that are born with a 4 340, there's a genetic lottery to even give those guys an opportunity out of it. We've been doing this for so long and I'm like, how long do we have to do it? And if me criticized in the politician or me getting involved in the situation where I get too into myself, makes you think that you don't have to live like this anymore, and I'm going to continue to do it whatever it costs, it costs, but it's not about trying to be better than somebody else. It's just be like, y'all not sick of this? And it's like, I don't know what we could have. I really don't know at this point. Like I get to them, I don't know what the best version of this is, because nobody has an after plan. Like you listen to it. You mean after we? Oh yeah. I can listen to it. Right. I have to. Nobody has an after plan. It's always put into like the context of imagination. It's like that we're supposed to have a radical imagination about what can come next, but I think about something that you said when we were kicking it with a butch the other day. And you were like, I guess that my lofty aspiration is just like that the kids in Baton Rouge would be able to play at the park like that. - Is that too much to ask? - That's kind of the most. And so I heard of this term before that I don't all the way know the definition for it, but Afro pessimism. - Oh, you know what I mean to that reason. - I feel like that's kind of in that space. And I find myself there, you know what I mean? I find myself there for sure. If I understand it correctly, in that like, I don't have this tremendously hopeful outlook for the inevitable end of this society. That's not to say that I don't have an immense amount of hope in general. I mean, I think I'm purely fueled by faith. That's the only thing that keeps me believe in people. - Smiling, laughing, I have a lot of fun. I have a lot of joy just in my life. - But remember, you yourself are in a life. - You yourself are resilient. - Have to be, have to be. But pessimism about the future of all of this, I got a lot of it. - Now can I tell you something about Afro pessimism? Afro pessimism is one of my favorite things to talk to black people about. And I am Afro pessimist dumbass. - To the core. - No, no, no, no, no, I'm not. - Afro pessimism is actually, so it's mean something else. - Yeah, it's actually Afro pessimism. It's actually pessimism about being called black. - Really? - Yeah. - Like in a way, have an Afro pessimist, hold on, do this, don't take my, 'cause I'm gonna give you the crow magnet, Neanderthal version of it. Have an Afro pessimist on, but man, I listen to, 'cause like my mama's birthday earlier this year, we going out to dinner, me, mom, and Khalika, we going out to dinner. And I played this Afro pessimist video for them, and for this girl on TikTok. And what she was basically saying was that like, the designation of black, this is a very loose, the designation of black is of property. So if you're black, you can't be alive. And if you're alive, you can't be black. So the Afro pessimist, really doctrine, that they were talking about was not necessarily, - That's kind of like, for none, no. That's kind of like, for exactly. - Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's, yeah, for sure, sorry, my friend's for not landed in black skin white mask, he was like the ultimate end of the black man is to become the white man. - Those are, yeah, I was just talking about that. Those are like, I guess, pre-textual, like, phenomenon, like those are things, those are Afro pessimist foundations right there, precisely when people talk about it. And so the reason why I sometimes like to incite people with that, because what would you be willing to change to win? What if freedom was on the other side of blackness? Would you still want it? Or have we done so much to be black and to establish blackness that that's actually more important than being free? To finance point, do we want to be free or do we want to be white? - Freedom's death, that for sure freedom was on the other side of blackness, but this is a conversation that is not often well-received. - No, my mother was black means everything. - So much, we worked so hard. - So much in support, so much into it, but the reality is that it's a flattening. It's a flattening of so much culture, and we put you in its meaning to it, but it's in a Morpheus concept. It changes where you're at. To be black here is not the same as being black in Ghana, it's not the same as being black in South Africa. I mean, I'm squarely black here. But when I go to places and I try to tell them I'm black, they like, man. - It's different. - No to fuck you not. Like even you, they would be like, you're more American, you're not straight up black like us. - Right, you're a different thing. - Yeah, and then there's us, look, I love chairs. And my lifetime is not gonna happen that I'm not getting to be a black man. It's just impossible, right? But the reason why I remember I played the video, we went to Mother Wolf having a very non-black experience, Mother Wolf was delicious though, we went to Mother Wolf, and that's all we talked about. All me, mom and colleague I talked about was the only thing that we discussed was this Afro-Pessimist video. And this young woman had offended them so badly. - Okay, we gotta play this, we gotta put it in there. - All afternoon, I have been getting tagged in a video by Jules E. Shout out to the big sis, asking whether or not it was Afro-Pessimism, that stated that we would never be free if we clung on to iterations of blackness. That video will be linked in the caption, but the answer is yes. And as a second generation Afro-Pessimist and public educator, I'll give some resources about it as well as a quick primer so people can see how we come to that conclusion. Let's get out the whiteboard. - This young woman had offended them so badly. I thought that what she was talking about was so subversive, it was almost freeing me. I felt almost like she was evangelizing to me. So 10 minute video where she's talking about just like literally Afro-Pessimist, Afro-Pessimism 101. - Okay, say that. - And I'm not necessarily saying that I'm capable of the things that she was talking about, but it felt like going back to the Matrix. It felt like I was in Zion and someone was telling me that you think that you're free, yeah, but you're still in the Matrix. It felt like I'm not saying it necessarily was happened, but it felt like somebody was going, "Hey, just to let you know, you'll never get out of the matrix." - With this type of mindset. - Such a good one. - And I always wonder if there's something like that. - That's my last thing on this, but you said your mom said the Afro-Pessimism woman was a (beeping) I was wondering, what's your (beeping) amount rush more, you're (beeping) - Oh, come on, man. - So let me tell you something. Like, I don't (beeping) I got Claire's Thomas for sure. - Well, okay, all right, so look, let's just do, so if I put you on his list, then you basically gotta be evil because I actually don't believe, I don't like to call people (beeping) just 'cause it's such, it's like the worst thing. But you gotta put Claire's Thomas. Really, he don't, he's on the top of the rush more. Like, he's achieved singular (beeping) from status like nobody else. 'Cause he's actually trans. - I know boss of (beeping) - He's a trans-sendant, (beeping) - Yeah, he is. - He's a trans-sendant, (beeping) and he's hurt us, he's hurt. Women, he's hurt black women specifically. He's been utilized and deployed as a (beeping) better than most other people. He's actually the only man that I probably would call a (beeping) it's probably more of 'em out there. But the other ones, I feel like maybe I could still talk to him. Count, it's a cleanest time to say that. - They make 'em knock 'cause anymore, I got (beeping) - Doesn't make 'em knock. - Who, like, it doesn't make 'em knock. - I got Ben Carson on my. - You got Ben Carson on, even though he split the kids. - I also got a (beeping) - Rest in peace, Harmon Cain, but I got him up there. - That was tough. - Yeah, Harmon Cain is a difficult one. - Harmon Cain gave his life to the game. (laughing) - He did. - It was crazy, that was so crazy. - Harmon Cain, when day was like, COVID is not real, went to the Trump rally, got COVID. And that, like, that's hard. It was like, he went in, dap the nigga up, the last, the last, dap. - Yep, he gave his life to the game. - He gave his life to the game. (laughing) - And it's so funny, 'cause I'm too southern to, like, I just still got, you have to call him. - Yeah, but that nigga gave his life to the game. - I don't even know who ends up back on there, man. 'Cause some of the others I might wanna put, it's more of a grift. I'm putting you in there, if I really feel like, you really believe this shit. - That's the heart that you live is shit. Like, what Nicki Minaj is doing? - I don't, I think it's just a grift, like. - Because she's got some legal problems. - Yeah, but that's the tough part about the whole black, mega dynamic is that you'd be hard, you'd be hard to press the throw stone and not hit a nigga that need a pardon for something. - That's a tough name, family member, that need a pardon for something. - The, like, part of this experiment is to put you in this incredible dysfunctional situation and then weaponize that dysfunction against you. Tell you that if you're not good enough to beat it, then it's your fault. Then when you do beat it and you got some smoke on your name, you have to come to them for it. Like, everything is the dope game. Everything, the reason why some of these, we were talking about earlier, the reason why some of these brothers that come out of the, the way they look up the Trump, is 'cause they recognize a good dealer. They recognize somebody that holds their blocks, they see some of what they want, and they see that. So everything is the dope game. - To act with impunity to. - Right, right, there's certain guys that sell you enough until you fucking die. And then there's certain guys that have such a variety of customers, some people that are functional users, some people that are fainted. that burn themselves up, that it don't really matter. But then there are certain people-- - So they could cut extrafetti and they shit. - Yeah, there are certain people that like, without, you know, talking about anybody, certain people that they'll sometimes be like, nah, you all will right now, gotta go get it from somewhere else, 'cause they wanna keep you alive and coming back and all of that stuff like that. All of that is the way it is good. There is nothing more capitalist, you're not gonna find more capitalism than you will watch in the wire. Or watching the corners where you at, where you from. You're not gonna find more. That is absolute, that is the purest form of capitalism to me that's left. - I say it again. - Man, it feels good to expose these fools. Seeing straight through the BS, they thought what's going to survive. - Hear that wireless company? 'Cause we can shave you loud, text now, cuts the counter. Nationwide 5D, instant activation, and a data plan that moves how you do. 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. Hey, you see us. - So I heard that you've seen Theo Vaughn at Equinox. - I did. - I'd be at Equinox, by the way, too. Which one was it? - It's the pole for the first club at LA. - Man, this is in that motherfucking cold plunge yesterday. - Yeah. - Yeah, they got some shit. - They got, it's a good place. - A cold shower shit? - Yeah. - Outrageous. - We just went from capitalism to talking about how we love to go to Equinox. That's a man. - And I'm not going back to LA Fitness. - I'm gonna keep it a buck with y'all. I was planning Fitness. - I'm gonna keep it a buck. - I never, never been there before. - Six months ago. - Six months ago. - I was, I had my girl at Equinox, 'cause they had a kids club, they had childcare, you know what I mean? And so, but for me, I was like, I would never spend that on a fucking gym membership. My $10 planet fitness has been good enough for me for a long fucking time. But then, you know what I mean? For next one, got a, got a comped membership to Equinox and started steam rooming every day. And it should change my whole fucking life. Like, I do this Wim Hof breathing method in the steam room. - Right. - It disintegrates the negativity in my body. - See, this is the thing with me. It's not that I don't want to experience the Equinox. I just want everybody being able to experience it. See, that don't work out though, 'cause it ain't, I mean, sports club is big, but it ain't big enough for everybody to go. I'm trying to get to a point where everyone, I don't want less of the good thing, I want more of the good thing for everybody else. I'm going to Equinox, I'm shooting around, I'm doing the thing. They have towels in there, I grabbed the towel, I went to talk with my face, I'm like, - The eucalyptus? - Is this eucalyptus? - The gold eucalyptus. - The frozen. - The frozen towel. - The frostbite of like, is this eucalyptus? - I'm not king of the North. - Game of Thrones. - And then you see these guys over there, and there's Theo Vaughn, right there. - Theo Vaughn's there. - And now you see Theo Vaughn. - Saw Theo Vaughn. - And so you give them a, you smell this eucalyptus, they can get some of this eucalyptus. So this is what happened between me and Theo Vaughn. And what I don't want to come across is that this was unpleasant, because it wasn't unpleasant. I think before when I described it, it maybe it came across like I ran up on Theo Vaughn. What's that shit you've been talking with Trump? It's not how it happened. How it happened was Theo Vaughn is an incredibly affable guy, a training that I work with at E.G. - It does seem like that. - He is, like a training that I work with with Equinox had no Theo Vaughn. Me and Theo Vaughn, part of this, goes back to what I was talking about before, because when I'm talking to Theo Vaughn, Theo Vaughn, me and Theo Vaughn are exactly the same age, right? - No doubt. - Yeah, he is from Louisiana, not too far from him, he's from Man de Ville. - Wow. - Right outside of Ben Rooch, right? So he was at LSU at the time that I would have been at Southern Attack or like whatever. So it's like, it's kind of like, the lot of commonalities, right? And so me and him are talking, we're talking about that stuff like that. What happens to me in a lot of ways is I feel like, if I talked to Theo Vaughn and I don't bring it up, I feel like a bitch has negative. - Oh, for sure, right? 'Cause like, now I feel like-- - I struggle with that. - I struggle with it big time. Because this is kind of the shit that I was talking about before, I feel like if I'm talking to you and there's something like that with you being down with President Trump and doing all of that stuff and I don't bring it up, I feel like I'm either son of myself or I'm son of you, I'm teaching, going alone to get alone. People can say whatever they want about whoever you can see me with, it's been brought up. It's been discussed and it will be discussed. And so I just like, hey, I'm gonna be honest with you, bro. Been pissed off at you, huh? I was like, yeah, I've been pissed off at you. This is with, I'm not checking Theo Vaughn. It's like, yeah, you, all of the support for the President and stuff like that and then you see how Donald Trump is being and he goes-- - He's going to backtracker. - He goes straight up, he goes, I know he was going to be like that. Now, this is the deal. This is the deal, didn't know? He already was like that the last time though. - That's what he said. - He was already like that before. - That's what it is. - And he made, he stated clearly, this is how I'm going to be. - But think about a life being able to go through life and protect-- - I didn't know, I couldn't do that. That's like that day. - The day's a penalty. - With a nigga speeding craze, hud and mouth for a hour, get pulled over, tell the cops. But the thing about that is in the same scenario. As Dave Chappelle's white friend with the cops, I didn't know I couldn't do that. And then Theo Vaughn telling you and us, I didn't know he was going to be like this. It's a lie. I don't think he cared. I don't know if he knew how Donald Trump was going to be. I don't know if he knows enough about politics. - But he said what he was going to do. - Right, he said-- - He said what he was going to do. My thing is that-- - The court, I'm going to, that we think that the difference, sometimes me, I think the difference is so much of this existence in this world is about what you have to care about. You don't have to care because now you can, I can't have it both ways. If I go and support something, this room, my audience will completely lose faith in me. My audience is in go-mo. My audience, the people, my community, should I say, I don't have an audience, I have a community. My community is in go-mo. My community-- - Their lives are in state. - Absolutely. So they're going to hold me accountable for shit that I say and do. Sometimes we're going to have disagreements where I think I'm right, and they're going to be like-- - It's lives in a state. - Yeah, so with him and everybody else that's involved, in that situation, they can interview President Trump and be all down with it, be all with it, be all with it, be all with it, and then ruin their credibility and just-- - I didn't know I couldn't do that. - Change. - Change. Now you see him on there, he's rantin' about Israel and Joe Rogan has to ask him, "Are you okay?" Like Tim has gone to, excuse me, not Tim, Tim Dylan has too, but the Obama is going to the complete other side. But I see a lot of discourse about how conservative elements have begun to criticize Israel and how they've crossed the line on that. Often like, what's my man name, Tucker Carlson? - Carlson here. - I mean, they don't take a motherfuckin' rocket scientist to read it right on the wall and see the timber of the people and to align yourself with something that's more popular. Israel is not popular amongst civilians. - Right. - It's where those popular amongst paid-off politicians, you know what I mean? But I think about the affability that you said, 'cause I was watching Joe Rogan talk to Eli. And there's a masterful way in which they trojan horse in very destructive and evil ideas. And shirts through affabilities, through inquisitive, this asking question, curiosity. Saying, I've went through a lot of life feeling like damn, I'm interested in the things that Joe Rogan is interested in. Maybe he's interested in the things I'm interested in. I love plant medicine. I drink ayahuasca for the last 10 years. I might go through Bufo in the jungle of Mexico, in Poyote, and I love combat sports. And I'm curious and inquisitive about all these same things. And then I watch them turn that, that affability through the course of the conversation into like a very corrosive lie, which is when they trojan horse in this idea through Elon's perspective that mom Donnie is a grifter for pushing these socialist policies and the only thing that's actually gonna bring around about the communist utopia that socialists or democratic socialist politicians voters seek is the benevolence of tech magnates like Elon who are gonna use robotics and AI to deliver us a universal high income. And then Joe Rogan is just sitting there like, oh yeah, like oh, okay, that's interesting. He's like this nigga is telling a bold face, goddamn lie that has no basis in any possible projection of the world we live in, the past we've experienced. One day our robber baron overlords are just gonna like create a good enough technology that they give us all a perfect life. Fucking please, but the affability opens a dough for it. - Right. - You know, it, you're never gonna, you know, just be I feel like you don't because you really can fight but you don't ever just be one whoop these niggas. Yeah sometimes it like when you're primal when your base instincts come out you just want to like shove them around a little bit. You can really fight though I'd be watching videos how long have you been boxing? About 15 years. Long damn time. Well I mean before that my father my father boxing. Oh your father's a boxer. But when did he start teaching you? You would just me he would just mess around like be around and stuff like that but for me probably about 15 years and even that was more so like the disposition of fighters not all fighters but the disposition of fighters sometimes is really interesting to me like people who are confident in situations and other people are really afraid of and I wanted that disposition more than any day. That's the thing we were talking about the other day that screening was like I find in inspiring that it's the best training for my nervous system. You know what I mean like I've been a martial artist my whole life maybe since age five I started practicing a martial art called Tung Su Do a Korean martial bar. I think I know it. Similar to Taekwondo. Yeah yeah. Came to be about the same time. So I practiced in that very young doing competitions you know what I mean and sparring competitions and forms and all of shit. I kind of fell back in high school because nobody wanted to do this. And then I also saw my man that's my nigga shout out to mr. Fitzgerald but one time he got whipped by some bikers and that kind of fucked me up because it was like damn nigga like you're not supposed to. She did work. She knows it wasn't supposed to happen. I started fighting a lot outside but I found my way back to I found my way back to training through Muay Thai and and and others but when I landed on boxing and I really started like sparring consistently I found that it was the best training for nervous system regulation because I get immensely anxieties every time. Doesn't matter every time I'm about to support you. The whole day like just driving to the gym. I just I have anxiety and and and I have fear you know me and and and it's and it's a great fear. I'm doing box breathing just for the hours leading on but when I get in that ring and the mother fucking in the bell rings I know that there's no where to go but through my fear right and you were telling me about how you take them first couple rounds to get your nerves out. Yeah like it's about striking real so like if if um if let's say we go in six if you're going four you can't do it as much but if you if you if you go in six that first round I'm just feeling you when I say feeling you I mean I'm feeling the shots you get hit hard you're trying to see what you got you like you're getting into it I'm it's not it's obviously people call it feeling out but I'm feeling the opponent but I'm also like hey there it is that's the shot to the gut that's the shot to the head you're still here you're still standing you're in it taking shots take taking shots taking shots moving around like when I give you a little bit of this do you move like if like if I move to my right can you get there before me I move to my left can I get there before you like when I back up do you lunch right do you lunch to find me or are you or are you patient you said traps in your first in your first first round nah not in the first round and in the first one I'm trying to see what is it you like to do like sometimes like it'll get to the point I remember one time I was born and all of a sudden my opponent goes to the middle of the range is you know stop come to me let's go are you trying to do it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah like see I watch it a little bit see I niggas be trying to copy the max hollow way thing yeah and they'd be like trying to start the fight and be like yeah that's an end of the fight right like come and but so for me boxing was became this thing that was counterintuitive because it's a fight where rage doesn't serve you I swear to God it doesn't so you in a lot of times we fight you think okay I'm gonna get as pissed off as I possibly can my adrenaline gonna be going crazy these shots not gonna phase me I'm just gonna blow through the when you are in an actual fight that has expertise your rage doesn't serve and rules rules like when there's something there can't bust together with the with the bumpy face so what but what can but what can you can't but what can happen to you is you can get your ass what yeah I mean that that for a half hour the anger you can you can just be in the ring with someone that can hit you when every day want can't hit them back then you can't hit them back you out of gas and you can get be in the room with someone that you can hit them and they can be like shit high cool so so what you have to do is focus on you're in a fight this is what it is how can I learn in the middle it is fire and be effective what do I do well you can lie to yourself you can go out there and act like you've fasted in them if he's faster and you're trying to outspeed him you don't get your ass kicked you can go in there and act like you're stronger than them if you're trying to outstrip them and he's stronger than you you don't get your ass kicked you have to live in your truth inside of the ring it's a very honest place absolutely you know Marcus Aurelius he has this passage in meditations that I love where he says that you will go into the world and you will deal with spiteful jealous people that will betray you that will seek to harm you it's your duty to treat them like sparring partners in the ring you might have a sparring partner who tries to gouge your eyes out who tries to hit you with the low blow hit you in the back of the head and you need not go through the rest of your life hating that person thinking that they're an innately violent person because it was in the ring it was a you're sparring partner just keep an eye on them just keep an eye on them and let it be that you know me like because being in a ring is such a metaphor for for all of life like I I was drinking ayahuasca one time I love drinking ayahuasca but when ayahuasca ceremony that I had ayahuasca gives you very clear directives for things to work on in your life you know homework and one directive that this ayahuasca ceremony gave me was that I need to get back sparring because that's how I develop the skill of emotional regulation sparring is is that exercise in having to face your exact reality like you got to face it even being inside the gym is there to be the gym got so many different type of people in it bruh the gym got people in it I don't have political similarities with I don't have racial similarities with you know it there was a cop in the gym one time and the cop was in the gym boxing he started saying some cops shit and Phil goes man come here Phil conservative guy been my boss and teacher for a long time a man come here he's like he just knew what's about to happen he's like hey this guy's talking about the police man talk to him real quick and now I was like I'm taking on my shit up like y'all want to do this right now he was like yeah yeah yeah hold on cops getting the bad rap by the end of it the whole gym was like god damn and this dude came up to me he he afterwards he came up he's like where do you like what do you do like what's like what's your thing because I'm a big dog a shit about these nicks yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah like what I do is do my second nicks yeah so but but even like in the boxing gym yeah there there are so many different life stories in there too I gotta come to your gym with you now you would love it like it's very diverse to be a part of a boxing gym and I and I won't lie I do think that there's there's something lost in the amount of control that I have over the people I come in contact with what you mean well since I came here I mean I'm I'm insulated inside of my space you know like in Chicago there were a handful of people that I ended up spending a lot of time with that were pretty conservative like some of them like Donald Trump conservative a couple you know and as he came into a new presidency that shit just couldn't fly with me no more I was like man I can't hear you talk about this shit no more like I don't want you to have access to my like my emotional well being in shit either because it I kind of get tired of either educating you or like cussing your ass out whatever it is it's awesome you know it's fucking exhausting but there's also something to to be said for life. like seeing a world as it is and not just what you want it to be, you know what I mean? Like being able to be around people that don't agree with you. That's tough because those disagreements in this context have to do with like the safety of my life and my sister's lives and that's tough for me, but also I'm like hearing you talk about it is also the real world too, you know what I'm saying and I think there's value in that. Like I've always wanted to be a part of a boss gym because it's the watching. It's the watching that teaches something that like just a one-on-one sessions or sparring to watching teaches you something entirely different because you're watching, like I remember watching my boy Kenny Sim Sparring and it was only in that that I really was peeping the way that when he's shadow boxing, his hands are instinctively, I didn't understand why niggas be like tapping their temples while they shadow boxing until I sat and watched him for a while and I was like oh it's just an instinctive, like your jab is incomplete without you bringing your glove back to guard your don't mean shit. But I didn't get out. I was like man why is niggas steady tapping niggas today just trying to look cool but just in being in the boss gym for one day watching him I was like oh shit, I get it, it clicked for me in a way that I only didn't click with my coach. It's like you're in there and your jab feel goes bring your jab hand back and stop dropping it. All right, your jab again, you landed the jab. You were successful in your endeavor, feels like van, bring your jab hand straight back to your chin, stop dropping it. And then you do it again and feel goes okay, rose. When van does that again counter that and you're in with a guy like Lewis Rose, Lewis Rose is another thing you see in boxing. Lewis Rose is a guy that boxes around here pro boxing. I think rose was about 23 rose is a perfect sparring partner at any level because he can spar high level fighters. He can also push you to levels. He's also just a great guy like this Lewis, but it feels says, hey, you know what I mean? Hey, the next time van does that make him pay for it, you learn your lesson immediately. Because that's the kind of guy. Me and him are not the same way. He might be three or four weight classes under me rose might have fought 54, 60, so like maybe even, maybe even 47 at a time, I'm not sure, but I can't reach you, nigga. Well, he got to be better than that, like he likes if you talk, but he's so slick, right? He's so slick. Well, it's ultimately one of the most talented boxes around the gym that I've seen. And even that, the talent doesn't always mean that you're going to make $100 million doing it. Sometimes your gift in boxing is being in the gym. Man, what was that a month ago when you guys invited me out to your film screening of Mo Better Blues? Yeah. Or I'm in a real. What an amazing movie. I feel like one of the beautiful things about that film is that it's an array of black characters that are dealing with so many situations other than financial hardship, like that's not a piece of it, you know, and I remember you speaking, like really beautifully about that movie because it was, like, was it your favorite movie ever, yeah. Talk to me about it. Oh, bro. So, you know, uh, Mo Better Blues is masters at work, right? Spike Lee has told a lot of stories about a lot of stuff. But in Spike Lee's career, there are not very many stories that are just about a man or a woman in their think. He's a concept movie guy, right? What happens on the hottest day of the year in Best Dog when racial tensions are up, do the right thing. What happens when a black man has an extramarital affair with a white woman, jungle fever? What happens when they bring a, uh, a missile show back and put it on television, uh, bamboozled, right? But this one is about a man and his trumpet, two women that like trying to, he's trying to find love, the purity of art about jazz. It's just a beautiful movie about something that we all experience to one degree of another or another when you thought that you wanted one thing, but there was something else that was going to save you. And the time movie bleak thinks that it's trumpeting his music and his art is going to save him. But it's not, that's not what's going to save him. What's going to make his life is find a fulfillment outside of himself. And those and the types of stories have always resonated with me. And then the people that everybody in the movie is just beautiful, like send the Williams beautiful, like dizzle washing at his most dizzle Spike Lee, like everything is a gorgeous film about black people that is not in any way based in the struggle against the white man, you know, and I like movies like that because we sometimes just laugh and we sometimes just love and live our lives. You know what was crazy, I came back the next day and I was like so inspired by watching that movie again for the first time in probably 20 years. Yeah, it's been a while. They don't play it that much. And I wrote this verse. I want to wrap it for you. Okay. Fun. I might have to read this one. I usually don't, but this was random. Like I walk through just a bunch of different Spike Lee movies, you know what I mean, like let me see where the beat drops. Okay. Yes. So this was inspired by your movie night. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Let's do it. All right. My core changes like Denzel and Mo Better Blues. I seen a spike in my price. I went from highest to lowest in Shaw Rack and no 48 cuz in them you. We get juvenile detention centers instead of better schools. Oh, I know five bloods and crookling can't do the right thing so they end up in central book and or get ready or right, he aimed on a shuttle to Jesus as if he got game. I peep the finale scene. I know how to plot unfolds. I peep the data codes. I'm from where the clock is strolling the rock is sold and the Detroit Red could become a Malcolm X to end up like Q.E.P. Newton and dyro addicts death. Yes. Plus in my environment the films that inspired it, plus wet tears, pain, love, trauma, violence. It's like a spiked lead joint. I think of that when I write these joints. I got it right. I got it right. I got it right. Oh. Can't ask you a question about that. Yeah. I want to ask you this for real. I'm an interview for all questions. Forget. You know, I don't think I can serve myself with what people will remember about me that much because I'm awesome. I'm talking about right now. Oh, yeah, right now. No, I feel like I'm always so in the present, you know what I'm saying? And people forget I'm nice all the time. Like I know that. I feel those responses. But I have been rapping so long. I know I'm so nice. Yeah. And like what I've also seen as somebody that does a lot of things is that you're not the center of everybody's world, you know, man, I'm the center of my world. So it's always very presently important to me that I'm a super nice MC. But for other people, when I go do TV, you know, me and I go through the airports and fucking Milwaukee or like be at a coffee shop in Paris and they'd be like, man, I love you on the shot. Yeah, yeah. I know the shy. Like I love what you did there than when I was on Bel Air. That was what people were thinking about. Now that I've been doing this, they'd be like, oh yeah, the orange tree. Although most of my life, it's been like music, man, I love your music. But I realized that like whatever I've been doing for the last year, if it's visible is what people are going to primarily be associating me with. But it never changes what I associate myself with. How do you see yourself? You see yourself as a rapper or you see yourself as an activist? You see yourself as an actor? I definitely don't see myself as an activist. I see myself as an artist. Of course, I see myself as a rapper. Like that's a core tenet of my identity, like it is not. I mean, I do try to make a separation between what I do and who I am because I think it's such a slippery slope. I mean, what you do is everything that you believe about yourself and who you are, if that album or people don't like your album, then you think, oh, I'm a bad person. People don't like me, but also that's how fandom works, too, in a lot of ways. So I do try to make a separation between who I am and what I do. So rapping is something I do, and I do it tremendously well. But who I am, it supersedes being a rapper or being an actor or being an activist, that's not a title that I hold because I feel like I leave that to people that dedicate their lives to grassroots organizing. I'm really in the field. - Yeah, I feel like that's you, you know? I'm still, hey, I'm still like that's me. - Oh, no, that's you. - Oh, that's definitely not me. - That's what I'm saying. - Yeah, that's you that does that. - Right. - I'm in capitalism too, you know what I'm saying? I'm knowing that, I'm selling products, I'm selling weed, I'm selling, you know, t-shirts, got damn it, you know, I got that on me. So I don't see myself as an activist, but like, I also know my plans, even though nobody else does. So even the whole time I've been doing this, I've been having my album, you know? I just didn't have a deal. - Right. - And it's a big album, like it's like really big samples, you know, sampling like Bowie and Fela Kuti and like shit that's gonna cost some money. - Right. - My visions for it are large and not having a deal. I was like, I don't really want to just throw this out without the resources, I don't want to pay for it all myself. - Right. - What can I do that can express who I am to people, just being me that can help to bring people into the world that is me and my creations in a meantime. I mean, but then in doing that. - Struggle. - Yeah, it's created new avenues for me, which I know is something that you completely understand as an Oscar winning producer. And did you set out though to beat out or was it like? - No, I mean what you like you, well you always have ideas of what you can do. - Right. - And sometimes you have to kind of make these decisions about what you will do. So for that, you know, you know you want to produce stuff, you know you have stories that you want to tell. And so you actually do the work and the great thing about doing the work is you don't know what the work gonna take you. - Yeah. - You like you have no clue what the work gonna take you. And the work took us, you know, all the way to the Academy Awards. And that is like, and so for me like just get out there and try to shit. - And do it though. - Do it. - That's what I've been seeing now is like. - My way, you're not in capitalism. - I'm in commerce. - I'm in commerce. - I remember Bush explaining that to us. So like, I don't want everyone to feel like capitalism is like hoarding the means of capital and then exploiting the producers. - Exploiting the producers, right, right. Now if you could be doing that, I don't think that you are. - Not much cost too much. - Right, so like, I don't want people to think. I like, I don't want people to think. I mean, you might be participating in something. I don't want people to think that you are a capitalist, just because you have a corner store. A capitalist is also, the capitalist is a very specific guy. - Yeah, right. - Capitalist is usually the one on the monopoly board standing in front of the fucking factory that's blown the smoke stacks that's destroying the planet, ran by a bunch of proletariat mass. But so Spike Lee movies, I want to do like a this at that. - Okay, let's go. - Shah Rack, a black class man. The first, the worst first. I'm gonna go with Shah Rack. - You know, I was in that movie and I got shot after five minutes. I actually watched it after you, I had never seen it. I watched it after I talked to you. - And I said I got shot. - Yeah, like Shah Rack is not better than black clansmen. I'm not here to throw so despite black clansmen some bullshit. - Some straight bullshit. - Shah Rack is a straight bullshit, too. - It is, it is. - Just make it a grand solution to violence in Chicago. - I fuck off in the-- - It's a retelling of a Greek, so but like-- - Take milling out whatever the fuck you do. - There's no doubt that as a movie, there's no doubt that as a movie, black clansmen is better than Shah Rack, but black clansmen is-- - It's some bullshit. It's some bullshit. - Okay, so Shah Rack or the five bloods. - Five bloods. - Five bloods or 25th hour. - Oh. - 25th hour. - Oh, that's right. - Yeah, 25th hour. - Five bloods is good though. - It's good. - 25th hour or she's got to have it. - She's got to have it. - Or school day. - School day. - School day is a he got game. - He got game. - He got game of Mo better blues. - Mo better blues. - Mo better blues or bamboozle. - Mo better blues. - Mo better blues or do the right thing. - Do the right thing. - Do the right thing in Malcolm X. - Do the right thing man. It's do the right thing. That's the single best one that spikes ever done. My favorite is Mo better blues. But do the right thing is the single best one that spike has ever done. But I encourage you guys right now to go back and watch Malcolm X. It gets better every single fucking time you're watching. It gets better every time you watch it. It's a perfect performance. The movie, especially in like when we saw it then, there's a gigantic huge biopic, but now that's the way they do the biopics. So the movie has chased a tale contemporary, in a contemporary sense that where the movie is actually better now than it even was then. 'Cause back then the biopics were a little bit different. Of course they did biopics and all that big ones and stuff like that, but it was in a bit biopic at that time. So I spike needed so many resources to get it done. It actually plays better in a contemporary biopic space than it did even then. It's a brilliant movie. But do the right thing is slightly better. - The right thing is, that's the pinnacle of his canon. And you know what I will say? When we watch Mo better blues, it illuminated to me things I have forgotten about. Spike Lee's movies that is just like so brilliant in that he carries the same like exaggerated mannerisms through eras, like all the kids. - Oh man, the certain style of walking like in Malcolm X when Malcolm X and Spike Lee's character and he was like their flow shorty. - Oh yeah, no, not that. - 'Cause he walked the lean right. Like he'll carry that into Denzel doing it damn near in he got game, not exactly, but he carries that lean walk. And you know at the time, when I got up out of shot rack, when I got shot, you know what I'm saying? Which just sound like real life, but this was in the movie. And then I showed up, you know, I showed up to the set. And I kind of felt like bamboos with no pun intended. 'Cause it was like kind of yay was gonna be in the movie. Common was gonna be in the movie. Chance was gonna be in the movie. It was a thing we all talked about, you know what I mean? And then I'm running around with kind of yay in Europe. I'm not really paying attention. One by one, Nick start dropping out. Chance dropped out, common dropped out, kind of yay dropped out. I'm talking to Spike. Spike is like, yeah man, I'm gonna let you come in and like help make the, you know, help make the slang accurate and you know, put me in touch with some music people. So I'll put them in touch with a young chop, you know what I mean? Like got them a studio, the studio that I work at. I mean, Spike Spike, but you know what I mean? Put them in real Chicago environments. And man, none of that shit happened. I'll show up to the goddamn set. Didn't think it was this wave in orange and purple flags for the different gangs, you know what I'm saying? Like doing synchronized dance and gang banging in the club. And so I got back to my dressing room after that first day. And I was like, I'm just gonna leave. Like I didn't sign the paper. (laughing) I was like the paper works right here. It was on the paper with my first time being on a movie and I said it was it. I'm like, I'm just gonna leave. I didn't sign it, they'll have to take me out of the movie, you know? And so I go back and I tell Spike like, I can't do this, you know? Spike cussed me to fuck out. Spike like, man, oh you Chicago niggas, you coming, y'all gon' see it. Yes, that's me to fuck you. What? I talk, he said what, he said, he said what? Oh, Chicago niggas, fuck y'all. Basically, what the fuck? Y'all, why was on that? Like why? I see, 'cause Spike being that he is like the go of black filmmaking, just one of the goats of filmmaking, he's one of the greatest of all time. You know, obviously there's an amount of arrogance that comes with that. Of course, it was the downfall of Shy Rack is that you think you can just come to a place that is incredibly particular in a powder keg moment in history and not care about the truth of the story. Just tell what you want to tell, you know? And so he cussed me to fuck out and I talk to my lawyer. My lawyer's like, yeah, Niggas, you can't like go head up with universal. You're saying like you're in this movie, you know? Like they spent hundreds of thousands that day. And so I was, Chicago, we was disenspirically for a while. There was like a lot of like, you know. I think it was warranted. Yeah, for sure, because like when I saw the movie, so I had never seen movie before. Like when I wanted to do that to yourself. But like when I saw the movie, the movie had absolutely nothing to do with even if he would have made a movie, look, Spike is a great, is a finale during the not a deity. If he would have made a movie that in some way explored what was happening in Chicago, that would be one thing. Honestly, it seemed like to me, What happened was the movie was Shahraq and title only and that title was kind of the wrote people in so he could do a story that he had wanted to do. Yeah, which bottle which I mean look it's some Chicago in the movie but I kind of felt it movie had nothing to do with that like I thought I always I never had seen the movie just because Spike was a little down during that time anyway he wasn't high on a list of people that I was running out to see it I had missed it. And when I watched it I was like this ain't this is I'm just doing what the movie was about. Yeah, it got nothing to do and to use that title that was a title that meant I'm sure I'm not going to speak for it is your shit but that was a title that meant like death and like it was war and all that stuff. Yeah, so that was it's not what the movie was that's not really what the movie was about. When I was writing this rap though I went back and I looked and I was like damn Spike Lee has put out a movie pretty much every year you know like yeah they were the eight assumption whenever his first film doc or like yeah he he put out a film almost every year from then up to shywreck and still like most years he doesn't take more than a year to gap and it gave me like a different level of just respect although I have a tremendous respect for him to be like you go miss when you drop a full scale movie it was like maybe it in a respect for not only his like his craft his persistence but also like the ability to just say like I'm just gonna keep I'm gonna make some create create create create and not even concern myself with whether it was great whether it was ask because that one was asked but he had another movie the next year and then the fact that y'all couldn't that nobody he hasn't I did nobody tell them nothing can talk a lot of it nothing can talk a lot of it that's that you should call go niggas shit it's funny though because that's how old black niggas talk old black niggas talk they don't just talk to you they're like you make a man you go you know you niggas from south bad Rouge y'all gonna get y'all shit with me exactly yeah it's our own that's how old black niggas they don't say like I don't know what the age is I find it happening to me sometimes I don't know sometimes I'll be at the grove and I'll be like girl you want to like god damn noise and I'll be like oh shit what the fuck is happening yeah stink meaner just spoke yeah I see kids like run up to a trolley I'll be like hey the trolley is moving wait till the trolley stops to get on the trolley god damn kids and I'm like what the fuck is happening right but spike is old and I was I've only interacted with him like one time I sat for the Colin Kaepernick documentary I hope y'all get to see that one at some point cuz it's brilliant and I was trying to talk and spike will be like don't say it quite like that bring it back until the full story the whole scope of it as a matter of fact your office is no good move your desk change the shot get closer I'm like yo it took us legitimately we in my office it took us legitimately like 40 minutes to set the shot for him it is every part of it he cares about and you gotta respect that because when you're so when you give yourself so much to the work and you're not afraid to be an asshole for it I actually this is where I start to get toxic cuz I feel like I respect people that are not afraid to be assholes to get the art out that they want they're not gonna be accepted by everyone everyone deserves kindness and you should always try to be kind but at a certain point when you go like I never forget this producer one of the first things I ever watched this young pa can't to producer and they go okay at some point I want to produce and make movies and make television shows and do all of that stuff and like whatever as I what do I do and she looked at her and she said what's your job on this it she goes it's really nothing so my job on this it is really to like carry the water bottles out of the thing that she left and she goes well then you carry the fucking water bottles carry the water bottles you better not never miss carrying the water bottles carry the fucking water bottles unload that bitch perfectly every single time if you do that I'll know you can do that I'll give you something else to do if you do the next thing right I'll give you something else to do if you do next thing right maybe one day you're sitting beside me and then one day maybe I'm carrying water bottles for you but until then don't worry about producing the next great American feel carry the fucking water bottles out of the truck and bring them in here cuz they empty right now out when I was first there listening to that man I thought that was the biggest asshole move in the world guess what now I understand I get it so like the Chicago nigga's thing is crazy cuz he not from there so like maybe there's some New York shit going on I don't know or maybe he was just pissed off that everybody dropped up this shit it's like it's like some I know best I'm gonna go yeah man like but it's really what you said it's like an unwavering commitment to your vision which sometimes will lead you wrong of course it will sometimes it definitely will times it'll lead you wrong but in a in a life spent with unwavering dedication to your vision I do believe that you'll come out on top yeah I just can't like I sometimes try to like you know in the endeavor of art or something else I've tried to like be the type A or I'm just not I'm not just not me it's not me it's like yo man do this shit like a I kind of just okay all right man you see like tell somebody afterwards like I'll say it all but then afterwards I come back and I check on everybody like you need you need me to do something for your apology I come back in in politics yeah sorry bro yeah like you know bro this is what we supposed to do with the podcast everybody to be on time y'all for sure that's me let's then I come back around and I apologize I'll be like man my bad I'm sorry bro yeah I just want you to be able to talk to me I appreciate you bro no problem man always hey I got to tell you bro we proud of you man you making a difference it's working I appreciate it's it's it's cutting through like you're you're taking this serious and it's it's important for people to see somebody like you that they came up with taking an interest in their world before I let you go we've all had a moment where we needed a new number my number got leaked on line my homegirl needed one cuz 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 cover by ads so you can save money data plans available when you need them no commitments no carry a lock in you with download the text now app today and take control of your service you see me on the other side I do where you were you at TMZ like you just when I was like steady getting arrested yeah you said like all the time see you coming out of the club wait I got it my out of the club I got to learn the jacket I got a couple of them right here there's one uh-huh bus to oh I remember bus to for gun possession I might have wrote that let me see let me see let me see what what year is that this is March 7 2017 I definitely did the opposition this is another one felony possession of brass knuckles that was a random so do you remember you know I remember that story why is that what what year was that this is 20 20 okay so I wasn't around for that one but that's not the one what which was the one is this is rooms which one is what year is that that customs this is 2022 oh gosh damn that's nigga you didn't miss a truck bus nothing wasn't that recent this was one time you guys gave me a nice picture well excuse me anything after 19 I had nothing to do with it I didn't leave I left TMZ in 2019 so I don't know oh but there's some good ones too they had like me you know sleeping outside raising money for the homeless giving out giving out free gas there's one thing oh that that was not that good but TMZ was fair to me man you know TMZ was TMZ was fair to me in that I knew when I would get arrested that if TMZ caught wind of it that it would be a big story you know and I knew that that wasn't always really under my control but when I did good shit TMZ played ball with me too but like I tell people all the time and there's a lot of shit that was wrong in TMZ that is what it is but but they are probably the most fair they're not fair in so because TMZ writes headlines that have conflict in them that means if you were working at NBC or CNN or New York Times or something like that it's sometimes difficult it still happens but it's sometimes difficult for the implicit bias in a headline to be evident now you see it sometimes particularly with things like geopolitics it like you'll see you can tell that it's in there but they try to be so down the middle they try to sanitize the headline so much that they that you don't see it sometimes TMZ is the opposite of that the headline has a lot of conflict and a lot of culture and a lot of snart in it so their bias becomes immediately it means arrested for gun position. Rapper faces two to five years. in prison. Right. So like, there was a specific case where somebody's a husband had passed away. A black lady, her husband had passed away. She was a celebrity. I can't remember who it was. And TMZ described a husband as a baby daddy. Uh, so that is the way the bias comes through. Yeah. Baby daddy is a term that you use to feel cool to law like baby daddy is that your baby daddy. This is this like bubble. It's a term. It's a pop culture term. So you're describing a woman's husband as her baby daddy. I can see that because it's it's you're trying to lean into that. You're trying to be cool. And whatever like like a lot of laces. Yeah, you're trying to be cool and salacious. And all of that shit, you're trying to incite people. So whenever you're trying to incite people, the way that you would naturally think to incite them like bubbles to the forefront in the news gathering though, like in the, the, the, the, the, the intelligency of TMZ and the way the stories are presented, you can see it in the news gathering. No. I be god damn. I'm not going to lie to y'all. They gave a fuck about being here. They cared. They cared about. They cared about being. I was about to be arrested. I knew. But also when I did some good shit, they were fuck with me. Right. Cause we had slow new days, news days too. So we needed to put some good shit out there about me sleeping outside. It would be, it would be like, you know, it would be like, like a, like a Wednesday, probably like three o'clock. We don't have a lead for Thursday. It's no Thursday lead. Everybody's like, yeah, fuck, it's like, fuck, did anybody do something good? Call somebody and see if they gave out backpacks. Okay. We'll run that the morning. Shit. I was the one giving up. So you and so my friends started knowing that man, I got all kinds of shit from my, my friends started knowing that. And so like even in my phone right now, I still got like, like random picks are like shoes. And they'd be like, why are these all of these shoes in your phone? I'm like, because these are the shoes that was given out in Wattson 2017 when I was working at TMZ. We did a league classes. Malone did a giveaway topping them. Did a giveaway. People did a giveaway. They went there and they talked because people would also, once they realized that I started to care, they would also guilt trip me. They'd call me up and they'd be like, yeah, man, you know, you'd be talking that shit on the show and stuff like that, but you'll never show the good shit that Niggas do. And I'll be like, damn, if I don't show me something right now. Tell me something good and I'll put it on the site right now, right and right now. Anyway, but yeah, they, they, as far as the news gathering was concerned, they really tried to be right and they tried to be fair. If you get in trouble, they're not going to run your story without calling you. They never called me before they ran my story. They called your lawyers. They're almost certainly dead. No, they, they're almost certainly dead. No, I actually got through one time, too though, because there was one time I got arrested for a gun as an airport. Yeah, at the airport. You know, I used to see them niggas that would get arrested for guns at the airport and I'd be like, how could I want to know from you? How the fuck did you get arrested? Explain it. I've never heard anybody break it down. Oh, cat, well, you slide it back. Okay, how did you get arrested before a gun at the airport? Cat William said it best. A lot of guns, a lot of bags. It was simple math, but I could walk you through it. I mean, it's what really happened was I had a music video shoot the day before. And there was a prop gun. I mean, it was a real gun, but allegedly the prop gun, you know, yeah. And and I'm doing this crazy music video. This is just when I was all dark. I was all drugged out like in the fucking middle of the woods with like two wolves and like covered in blood and a bunch of like rock and roll girls, like half naked around me. And you know, that ended up how those types of things end up. And it was also Halloween. So I went out later that night. I had an assistant who was, it was his first day on a job. And so we got to this party where I was in the middle of the triple X stuff or maybe academics. I had a lot of beefs at the time. Oh, yeah, I had a lot of, I just had a lot of drama. A lot of people were dissing me. I was dissing a lot of people. And I went to this party. It was the first time anybody had ever came to me in my face with the things people were saying about me on the internet. And and so this kid, we've recently made a man's, but he came to me. He started saying some shit about the shit that Nick was saying on the internet. Oh, you this, you that you didn't fell off or you this nigga say you a bitch. And so I grabbed a nigga and I'm just like ragdolling his ass around his party. My fucking assistant, he trying to match my energy. He start booking up with the guy who I'm ragdolling his partner. And I'm like, wait, he sold me the gun. He's the gun seller. Right. Like don't fucking fight him. Right. Not only is he a mutual party. Like he's a mutual friend of the two of us. Right. He must have more guns because he sold me the gun. Right. Say this to say that assistant later on also put that gun into my travel bag because I had a flight. I want to like 6 a.m. Oh, so I'm trying to get you back type shit. I mean just as a mistake just as a fucking dumb mistake. Yeah, put the gun in the wrong bag. I get to the airport. And I'm so hung over and tired that uh, you know, I go through a security. I fucking walked at LA X to them benches at the end of security. I fucking sat down on a fellow sleep. You know, I mean, I fell asleep. They woke up. They said, sir, is there a firearm in your bag? I said, it can't be like no fucking way. You know, it's so not long after I found myself in jail. Right. But recently I was at a, I was at Melrose flea market. And um, and somebody came up to me. He was like, "Yo, man, I haven't seen you in a long time, man. Last time I saw you, you're getting arrested for having a gun at LA X." And I was like, "Damn, I was in a different, I was in a different over the eights in time." And TMZ didn't catch me that time. So my mama don't even know about about the gun in the airport. I might take this shit out the episode. My parents, my parents found out shit I did because TMZ posted. My mom thought I was going to jail for two to five years because TMZ said jail looms for Vic Mensa two to five years. Right. I tell you something in the office every time, every time somebody would, uh, would get, get caught with a gun in the airport. We would just be like another one. We just did not understand how that was such a common thing, especially with niggas in the NBA. What's happening to niggas in the NBA that they put the guns in the shit? What chump caught one, two, right? It was like, it's like, it's a gun in the back. And then, then, then, that's what I thought at first. We could, we could talk about this forever. Then I thought I started to realize is that, then brothers be moving around getting robbed and shit. Yeah, look, I can give you like the larger, that's the actual like play-by-play situation of mine. But in the larger framework of things, I know we got to be done. It's going to be the end of it. But in larger framework of things, there is a general sense of unsafety that comes along with being a black celebrity, being a black man, a black woman, being a black person in America is an inherent level of unsafety that is added to when everyone knows who you are or many people do. And in my specific case, not only did that impact my mental health, but my already fraught mental health would lead me to act out in ways that would further my unsafety. So like, I'd be dealing with a magnifying glass on my already fragile mental health, then somebody might, somebody close to me. This is another time when I got arrested for a gun in TMZ. It broke the story. Thank you for that. But somebody close to me, closest person to me actually. You know, cracked my car, robbed me for like 15,000. He didn't bought like hotel chains for my jeweler, shopped with on Rodeo with me, all type of shit. You know, did that, robbed me in that way. So then set up another nigga that was close to us. So I was only nigger around us with money, me and chance, but we wouldn't even together at that time. And so I went, did what I knew how to do at the time. Did something extremely violent. And now I had a gun, all the time, because I had done so worry about, had done something very violent because my, like my proximity to wealth or the wealth that I had had made me a target from my own family. And so now I had a gun all the time. And I also was dealing with the paranoia. So I'm also overly self-medicating. And when you own drugs, it's hard to remember your gun. All right, that's it. Oh my god. Why can't you use that? I can't be me. I feel like it's their jerk chicken leaves something to be desired. Yeah, but like, are you ready to go and shit? Are you vegetarian now? Yeah. Well, the caliber was good over here. I don't know if they make-- I never had the caliber. Yeah, I don't know if they make me, but it's really, really good. They got a lot of vegetarian shit. I fuck always have enough. Yeah, it's good. Benjamin's really fucking good. What's that? That's the Taiman Paula keyboard. So that's what Taiman Paula used? Not Kevin Parker, he made his own synth. Who is Kevin Parker? He is Taiman Paula. So Taiman Paula is not actually a band, it's really a single person. Like, it's like a pseudonym. I mean, I'm sure they play as a band live, but it's one guy. What does that nigga's name is not Taiman Paula? That nigga's name is Kevin. The Vic Mr. Show is presented by TechSnow. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Maybe it's Mabling.