Will AI Ruin Music? with Wyclef Jean

(soft piano music) - Lemonade. - Thanks for listening to Hussam Minhaj Doesn't Know. Listen to and follow Hussam Minhaj Doesn't Know add free on Amazon Music or just ask Alexa. Alexa, play the podcast Hussam Minhaj Doesn't Know on Amazon Music. Also with Amazon Music Unlimited, you can now listen to your favorite music, podcasts and audio books, all in the Amazon Music app. Listen to Hussam Minhaj Doesn't Know on Amazon Music. I am the master of AI, AI is not the master of AI. Let's get into it. I flipped the language. I could go from English to the Spanish. Like, (speaking Spanish) (speaking Spanish) (speaking Spanish) (speaking Spanish) We nerd now, friends. I speak French like (speaking Spanish) (speaking Spanish) Why cleft? I flip it. I'm the one. I know what you think, right me too. And my game of numbers, they could only be a few. I am the Trinity. Guest the riddle kids. One man on two sticks, what's that? The crucifix, at least that's what they taught me in Sunday school, forgive my foes, files. Pointed at Pinocchio's nose. Skip the six, go to seven. That's the number of completion. Adam, eight, the apples, so they cast them. From the garden of Eden, jealousy. God, I'm waving his nine. King kills Abel. He, a 10 man, his heart, pump soil, two ones. Ain't enough to make it rain. My microphone, check one, two rap, lives in my vein. I'm from the ever dudes scrap with their hands. Play Friday, the 13 get Colbert clutch or body slam. But my nephew say from Haiti, they don't use their hands. In 14s, in 15s, guns and roses pointed at your sweet 16. I was born on October 17. That's the day they killed the leader. (speaking Spanish) And my mama told me there's monsters under my beard. They 18 think Malcolm X, the 19th hour by any means. 2020 vision, they said, the good die young. I am the master of AI. AI is not the master of AI. I just did that bar to show you how I made it past 21 bars. It's been 30 years since Wycliffe John and the Fuji's released the score. One of the most influential albums in the history of hip-hop. 30 years, I'm old. Back then, music was all about CDs, radio, music videos, and IRL word of mouth. But now, we are now living through one of the most disruptive eras in music history. Streaming and social media have given musicians access to fans all across the globe, but that reach has also significantly devalued their work while also creating immense pressure to constantly create, making them like all of us slaves to Lord Algo. So I sat down with a music legend to talk about these changes in his unusually positive attitude towards artificial intelligence. I'm for anyone that used the tool in a creative way and not in a lazy way. We also talked about three of the wildest moments of Haitian history. We kick Napoleon's ass. That time he ran for president of Haiti. If I was president, I'd get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday, buried on Sunday. And his most famous lyric, I'll give you a hint. It's Shakira. Twice. Shakira Shakira. ♪ Hurry right away, lonely days don't fit ♪ ♪ Make your daddy glad to have had some trouble ♪ One of your most famous bars is an ad lib that I've heard and it's two words. Do you know what I'm talking about? One time, two times. No. Which one? It's someone's name twice. Shakira Shakira. Do you know the bad thing about when you have ad lib and that becomes the hit? Do you know what happens? What happens? Your name becomes the ad lib. Like literally you feel me like you walking down the airport. It's like Shakira Shakira, like Shakira. Yo, let me get out. I have a burger and Shakira Shakira. Like Shakira said. So shout out to Shakira, one of the most amazing humans that I know. All I could do is tell you, the coolest thing for me is like being in a studio with Shakira. And you know, that Colombian energy and that Haitian energy, you know what I'm saying? And we cooking. You know, we cooking, we cooking, you know? And Shakira is like, you know, I just remember something like, you know, the record's not a hit if my hips don't move. You feel me? When I heard that, I started cooking, baby. I'm cooking. Yeah, you know what I mean? Okay. Then she started talking about Colombia, the Cumba. Like now we started incorporating. 'Cause I think like what made that amazing between me, her and Jerry Wunder, of course, was the collective of information of like the different worlds, right? To me, one of the Ellis lives is like, you know, it's the Colombians and Haitians we ain't selling cocaine a day. You know what I'm saying to you? Like again, like you said, like conveying like real message inside of a sexy joint. Everybody that comes on this show treats AI like it's Terminator in Terminator 2 Judgment Day. They think it's gonna be Arnold Schwarzenegger. The robots, lasers, it's gonna come kill us. You've actually been pro AI, tell me about that. Well, I think, so let's start with the term. I said, I am the master of AI. AI is not the master of idea for I am I. That's always how I start my students. Now, I think that I probably have a cheat code that I could just explain to the average person. So when we are creating music, right? What happens is you just listen to the music but you enjoy it and you vibe in. Of course. But you never say, how is the music being created? Like what are they using, right? 'Cause any of your interests, like, but what if I told you like one of the tools that I was using to do music, what if I told you there was a board called the Neve? You know what the hell is that, Clev? I said, well, this is actually what it sounds coming up. Guess what, there's another cool part to the Neve. I don't even have to touch it. I can program it and tell it what to do. And then it'll be putting this button up, it'll know when to bring the vocal down. You'd be like, Clev, I really interested in all that, man. I just, you know, I just enjoy the music. I'm just vibing with the music. So that part is important, because if you can understand this part, and let's go even further. So whether if I'm playing the Atari, I'm playing Sega, I'm playing Forty, I'm playing chess, I'm playing Pac-Man. Have you ever noticed there's a time where when you're playing the machine, you start to figure out, how does this machine know what I'm doing? It's called machine learning. So what I want you, hey, everybody out there to understand this, you and the era, where it's the most amazing era, there's not in the fear, but fear itself, long before we were, the pyramid was, there's no way that you can think that a machine can outsmart you or be better than you. What it is is you have to think like this, whether if you wanted a not gentrification is coming. As gentrification is coming, are you going to be one of those ones that's casualty of war, sitting on the side talking about, I could have, I should have, I would have. Or are you going to be like, oh, let me, my daughter, you 13, okay, you're going to learn coding. Oh, and you're going to learn this part. And I need you to invent an AI, because as these houses are being built, you have to be owners of this new invention in order to be owners and creators. That means that you got to be part of the game. So the part that people fear is that the AI is going to take a lot of jobs away, right? We can't argue with that, right? But as the AI takes the jobs away, there's still new jobs coming in, right? Where's the machine learning? Someone's still got to train the machine. So we, as we went from the vinyls, guys, to the CDs, to remember how horrified record companies were in the beginning of streaming, to the streaming, guys, to this new era, right? And here's another part. Can you imagine? Were you scared during those errors? Remember with Napster, Limewire, 'cause I was-- Because I could never be scared, 'cause I'm a creator. Are you a creator? If you're a real true creator, you should never be scared. The people should, that should be scared, is the people that have been extorting the creators, right? Think about that. Ready or not, how much did that video cost? 1.2 million, Fuji video. It's a lot of money, I didn't know. You ask me, I was like, I don't know, you know, you actually just worked, though. What's up? Generative AI, today. I can do the same video for $25,000, right? And I only say that, because the pros, now let me tell you about the cons. Sure. The plagiarism. The idea of like somebody being able to take your shit, put it back out, and act like it's their shit. Remember now, in the hood, if I-- And I always go back to the hood and that, like you said in the barbershop. We're talking about biting. It's biting, biting, biting. So in the barbershop, do coming in, do not bring these DVDs, man, that a bootleg. Do not bring that because you are going to go to jail. So at the end of the day, I do feel that law has to be implemented. And we don't have people don't feel like they held accountable. So it's like the Y Y West right now. And policies got to be put in place. And people have to be made examples of, if you're taking other people's shit, 'cause if you don't do that, then it just becomes the normality. So when it comes to laws, encryption, I wanna see more inventions of like what I call AI police that are literally can detect when people are stealing shit, when bad things are happening, right? So again, policies have to be put in place. I think that's the area as we should be working on. Man, you're putting a lot on me right now, but I wanna, let's break this down into steps. Okay, you're an artist with deep domain knowledge. I wanna play you a clip, you're a consultant for Google DeepMind. Let's take a look at you talking about Google DeepMind, and then we can talk about the music. As a hip-hop producer, we dug in the crates. We playing these vinyls, and the part where there's no vocal, we pull it, we sample it, and we create an entire song around that. So now I'm virtually digging in the crates, right? Because it's spitting it back to me, and I'm able to look for the get down. And now I cut the part that I want, and I incorporate it inside of a song. So right now we digging in the infinite crate, it's endless. What is sampling, digging through the crates? What is sampling? All right, so literally I want everybody to understand that. Let's pick, let's pick like a record that every generation would know. Okay, yeah, I got one. Earth 25. ♪ Body, uh, um, September. ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah. ♪ Do you remember? ♪ Yep. Right? You know what I'm saying? Of course. Let's just do a little part one, two, three. ♪ Do you remember? ♪ ♪ Don't even stop a September. ♪ Yeah. There you go. So now me, I would say, ♪ Do you remember? ♪ Do you remember? Right. Right. Yeah. So sampling literally is you're just taking a piece of a record. Yeah. We call it like the get down. And now you're literally going to take from that piece and you're going to create a whole other song, so now you're going, do you remember, "Bad Deepa Baseline"? Yeah. Yeah. Look, man. I can't not think, man. They're like, "Ah, do you? Do you? Ah, okay. Right. So literally in art, the biggest artist. In the world, inspired by something on the wall. Sure. Right. Because they say, there's a term where it's like, it's flattery to actually take a piece of something. Now, when sampling happened, there were two camps, right? There were people that were pro-sampling and then were there people that were against it that were like-- You jammed real. People were like, "What you doing messing up my music like that?" You know? Yeah. Yeah. I think still to today, I think one of the people that was anti-sampling is one of my greatest heroes, Prince. No way. Yeah. No, for real. Have you ever heard of Prince's song, "Sample"? I don't know. No, I don't think I had. No. Like, as a purist, like, it just didn't make sense. Like, why are you going to take a bit-- again, right? There's two sides to the argument. And Prince is like you, too. By the way, it's a plagiarism-- music played every instrument. Everything. You get what I'm saying to you. And so-- But what made you for it? You were like, "I'm cool with it." Because right now, you got a Delphonic song. You got a Anya sample. Like, you're-- you're taking elements from-- Right. But I'm from a different generation. Okay. Right. I was literally, right? So in my generation, I came up listening to, like, all these producers and all these, like, amazing records. Like, when I was here, L. L. Kooj is harder. I don't-- you know what I'm saying to you? So I grew up like-- and I was like, how are they creating this stuff? I mean, Rizza. What? How are you just-- Oh, I see. You know, Tribe Called Quest. So at the end of the day, I studied. And I was like, "Okay. I like this because it's a new art form." And every time something's going to be a new art form, you're going to give it a-- This is going to be a test back then. I'm going to. For sure. But look where we are today from that art form. You know, it's so cool, though, that policy, what you're talking about earlier, caught up to the art form. So-- Yes. With sampling, whether Kanye is doing through the wire, he's got to pay that fee to Shaka Khan. Everybody. Yeah. You guys had to obviously pay Delphanix or-- Yeah. And there was a structure to say, all right, you're C-seed on the email, I'm a Venmo you the money. That's kind of a-- Yes. You know, egalitarian way to explain how sampling works. How does it work with AI now? Kind of, in that video, it looks like it's getting trained on everybody's music and everybody's collective consciousness. How will it work with AI? No such thing. It's not. That's pure creation. So let's talk about DJ Khaled, wild thoughts, that sample boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, that's Maria Maria. Right. Right. So it still works the same way. You have to pay the copyright. Yeah. This kid-- no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, my man G Herbal, the 9-1-1, that's still part of a copyright, right? You can't-- it's illegal to train an AI model on existence, right? Because at the end of the day, the key is to bring in musicians, right? So what you seeing in that I'm creating, it's not from no AI, you know, I'm getting a plethora of information, this is pure creation. So again, we need more creators, more musicians, more cats to hit the studio, more people recording live stuff. In these sessions, and now you turn around and saying, this is what you want the AI to do. Again, in the era that you end, licensing music is still low. If you sample a wild cleft song, you sample a Kanye song, you sample the baby, little Wayne or whatever, you got to pay for that copyright. So as a cap is a real thing, BMI is a very real thing. Do you feel a certain way knowing that Google DeepMind is being trained on your own copyright music? No, because Google DeepMind is not being trained on my copyright music, my copyright music, it's not being trained on hips don't lie. It's not being trained on the Fuji's, Google DeepMind has hired a producer, right, who's a creator, right? And if I am the master of AI, AI is not the master of I, right? Now I am going to train the machine on a whole new set of tools that I feel that when my niece is coming, when my daughters are coming, they decide to DJ, it's just going to make it easier for them to use that. Did you see that video that Timberlin uploaded? You saw nothing on Instagram? Which video? Timberlin uploaded this video on Instagram where he was listening to a complete AI song that was, the vocals were done by an AI artist. And then we're in the comments, and Timberlin don't do this. You guys are all Jedi of the craft. What's the conversation that's happening amongst the Jedi about this whole thing? Because I really think it's a conversation around, do we need the humans? Do we need the artists anymore? What is this doing? Is this devaluing the artist? You need the human. The human is the key to everything. Without the human, it would not happen, right? So you have someone who's doing a beat and saying, yo, I would rather use this human to sing that hook, right? And you have another producer that's like, I don't have the woman there. I'm trying to get to this voice right here, right? So for example, right now I'm working on an artist and I need to do a demo just for the idea. Just a temp. A temp. Yep. Right. I'm going to use the temp that I need. I'm going to write it out for the vibe, right? But it's the same way if I was to write a temp on a keyboard or on a guitar, right? So again, I think that the conversation is up for debate. It's not right or it's not wrong. But if you're going to ask me who's going to win, the person that's going to win is the person that understands, I am the master of AI, AI is not the master of I is, are you being, are you, are you lazy, right? Are you being lazy because you know you have all these tools and you buy stepping 10,000 steps? Or are you using the tool in a creative way? So I'm for anyone that used the tool in a creative way and not in a lazy way. It sounds like, you correct me if I'm wrong. I'm just hearing you and I'm kind of thinking about it this way. It sounds like there was one wave of musician and let's talk about you, Prince, we talk about older bands and musicians that would literally play multiple instruments. They would do the composition, the composing and the singing and they could practically play the instruments. That was almost one wave of musician that still exists today. Yeah. Then there was this other thing that we talked about just previously sampling. You got Pete Rock. You got so many incredible DJs that use Sam, Kanye West obviously, Timberlin yourself that would use sampling as a way to combine those things without having to play the live instrumentation. But do you think we're living through a third wave, and that will be this kind of of AI. I live hybrid. Yeah, but you hit it on a diet. I lived in both ways. Yeah. Now, you you ever say why Cleff wrote, my loves your love for Whitney Houston. Have you ever said, um, who demoed it? So Whitney could hear it. So me, if I was living in this era, I would have probably having AI demo what I already wrote to get it faster for Whitney if she needed it in four hours. And I couldn't get someone to do it. You see what I'm saying? Right. But that's me in, you know, using the AI in the right form. So I think that you hit it on the dot, we are at a hybrid era where the AI can meet you in the middle. And again, I'm going to stand by what I'm saying. If you're using the AI in the most creative way, you should not be threatened by it. If you're lazy, we ain't for that. Like at the end of the day, if you were being lazy, you're going to make the next generation lazy. But if you are being creative with it, then somebody is going to get on a whole nother math that you not only keep saying lazy. What do you mean? Who's being lazy? Lazy means like, you know, you just take the tools and you put them and you let this shit create a song for you. I ain't with that. Like, you need to write this song, create your best piece of art. I get what you're saying. And then ask the AI to contribute to what you want. You talk about a bunch of kids. This is the equivalent of a bunch of kids that are in college that are doing the chat, GPTSA. You're like, come on, bro. You straight up copying off of it. Yeah. I'm just saying I need you to just keep being more creative. That's it. What do you think streaming is done to music? I feel that for the artist, you're in an era. Where it has to be, we have to now, I have a term called the jig is up, right? Yeah. The jig is up for this. Yeah. Yeah. The jig is up. It's like, okay, how rich are you trying to get, man? Right? Because the artist, man, who puts the time, the effort, the energy, they have a family too, right? They are not as savvy as we nerds might be, right? And I put myself in a nerd category too, right? Understanding intellectual property, understanding how data mining work. They ain't into that. They just want to put out their music, make some bread, feed their family and do what they do. So we have to reshuffle the cards, right? I think every part of technology that comes is a great part as far as like the fact that my daughter can just go and she goes and stream whatever she wants, when she wants, is an amazing way for her to find music. Every song that was ever created. Every song that part is great. The part that we have to fix is how do we make you fear for the creator, right? How do we make you fear so that the people who are creating the music now are part of the actual business, right? So in order to do that, we just have to come up with new models where it's directly like to consumer to the artist, like directly, directly, because now in artist future depends on building a brand, right? Because once they build the brand now, because now you want to age the festivals, the merchandising, you know, the little apps that they create, that's going to get them to a couple of million, you know what I mean? And again, what I say with a thousand, right? So without platform, the open wave platform, we tell people like, all you need is a thousand people. Don't even, if a thousand people give you 100, 100 bucks, think of it like that. That's 120,000 per year. Like if you can figure that out, you got a business. So this is sort of like what we preaching without being anti any streaming without being into, it's just that I feel like we need more. So I often talk about politics with guests, but I have never had a guest from Haiti. No, no. Can we talk about Haitian politics? If I was president, I get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday, buried on Sunday, they go back to work on Monday. If I was president, go ahead. You know, you ran for president of Haiti in 2010. I did. How does that work? You didn't live there at the time. How does it work? How does it work here? Hey man, that's a longer discussion. Well, first of all, you just said something. How does it work when you don't live there? Yeah. So that literally means that let's start off by what are the constant, what constitute you running for president of Haiti? Yeah. Right? So the first part is the reality of it is I did not need to live in that country for four years or five years to actually run. The reason why is because I have a Haitian passport, I have a green card and I have a diplomatic passport at the time. So the job of an ambassador at large is not to stay in Haiti. It's to literally travel or over. So just so you know, this rhetoric of what was planted in the papers to say that I have to live there for five years was a narrative that they've ran with, which is still running today. What made you go like, I want to be president of Haiti? Something had what happened in your life that made you go like, I have to do this. Well, when I look at history and I see like Tucson, Lovature, John Jacques, this Italian, who was killed on October 17th, the day that I was born, when I spoke to you about the village where I come from. And then when I look at the odds of me in this era and in this time, what am I going to do with that, right? At the end of the day, am I just going to sit back, shake my hips with Shakira, talk about all of this big music and all of this tech stuff when you have 80% of a population living on less than a dollar a day. And at the time, I took this engagement because I felt like I could do more than what I was doing. And it was a sacrifice. And I used to look back at history and see like Martin Luther King, like different people. And I'd be like, don't go there. What makes you go there? There's a divinity. There's a divine order. This is real shit. And it checks you and it goes, what you're going to do now, right? I've given you all of this. Now, what are you going to give back? So for me at the time, I felt like I could have given back to my country. Can we talk about Haitian history? Go ahead, go ahead. Let's nerd out, bro. Go ahead. If you don't, if you don't, there's three, there's three iconic moments from Haitian history that I'd love to get your take on. Cause the people who listened to the show and watched the show, they nerd out about history. But very rarely do you get to go deep on Haitian history. So let's go through these three hits singles in Haitian history. I like that three hits. 1791 Haitian revolution. How did Haiti kick Napoleon's ass? Yo, it's so crazy. I'm right now. Oh, rap about the revolution right now. Well, I think like there, I mean, it's pretty fire. A slave army fought Napoleon and won. Yeah. Pretty incredible. Yeah. So I think like there's a few, we've seen like these stories and mythology, right? And in different ways through our different books, though like, but I didn't learn this. I didn't learn this in America. I didn't know. But did you learn this in Haiti? Did you learn about this in Haiti? Of course. You have to. Okay. You know, I have no choice. Like that's one thing about the Haitians. You see one thing you say, whatever they pride level, it's like you could say whatever they be like, about we kick Napoleon's ass. You know what I mean? Spiritually, the level of them was like when you watch that movie, like 300, you know what I'm saying? Like that endurance bookman, right? So you have like several like cool, cool figures, like bookman, bookman. I want you to remember that when we dig deep into it, right? So bookman was a different type of energy, right? Because at the end of the day, he was a rebel. And this is one thing people don't know about bookman. Bookman's from Jamaica. Oh, interesting. Yes. Came to Haiti at a very, very young age. So you can't talk about the Haitian revolution without talking about bookman. And so there's something I want to clear up right now while you're here and people are watching. Is this mystifying devil, voodoo, serpentine, a rainbow type bullshit that they always. inserting in the Haitian Revolution saying oh they applied voodoo. This is you know I bom bom bom bom. People aren't serious about that though. Yeah, bro. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. They oh you've seen ministers say oh Haiti is going through what they're doing because of the voodoo and the devil like you could check it on line. Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and the people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and soar a pack to the devil. They said we will serve you. If you'll get us free from the French true story. And so the devil said okay, it's a deal. And they kicked the French out. You know the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other desperately poor. And I'm just saying. The reason why I'm saying that is because science is part of the real world. When you are attacking me with a cannon and I don't have a cannon. But I understand the science of if I take these fish bones, put them together in a certain way. Right. And swing it at you. Right. The automatically I take your eyes out or you smell something. You pass out. Right. This is called science. It's not called whatever devilish or black magic or whatever you want. Again, like we could get into that. But again, I think that the spirituality. The science and the conviction of these folks is what made them take Napoleon. Is it wrong that when I read about the story, it makes me low key. Hey, France. Just just just to give them context. A slave army fought Napoleon. Haiti wins. France then forces Haiti to pay billions of dollars to pay them reparations. Which is. Clef, this is, we talk about French reparations. This is crazy. So they went from slavery to debt slavery. That's right. And then most of its wealth got Venmo over to France. Yeah. Well, it wouldn't make me low key hate the modern France. It made me low key hate the Napoleon France. For sure, 100%. All right. This one was crazy. This is another. This is another single from Haitians from Haiti's history. This is single number two that we're going to get into. This is the second piece of Haiti history, 1915. The United States of America, Marines invade Haiti. In December 1914, US Marines, they walk into Haiti Central Bank. And they just straight up stole 17 boxes of gold bars. And they took them back to Wall Street here in New York City. So that just casual jacking destabilizes the Haitian government. Then there's a military coup. Then a mob dragged the coup leader into the street and then killed him. And then president will draw Wilson uses this murder as a justification to go in and invade Haiti. Are Haitians taught about this in school? And Haiti, it is part of what you talk about, right? Because Americans are definitely not taught this in school. No, of course not. How would you be taught that here? Right. Can you imagine I'm in America, I come to America and I'm in black history. Hey, you know, the first thing they tell me in black history, you know, they they're going, they telling me about Martin Luther King. We shall overcome. And you know Malcolm X, you know, I'm saying, and I'm like, yeah, we, I know that Malcolm X and I know the Martin Luther King, but anybody heard the two son knew, right? Those, those are not things that are taught. So 1915, the Marines occupied Haiti. And I think that what teaches us is occupancy within the United States of not just Haiti of a lot of places just do not work, right? Because what happens is after you occupy and then you leave and then what, you know what I mean? So I think that in moving forward, it's important that the Haitian problem finds a Haitian solution. The occupation lasted 19 years, by the way, a lot of people don't know that. Yeah, I think that history is very important. And I think like we, we shouldn't shallow from it. And I think that when you look at Haiti, you can't just freak out and be like, yo, man, how did this happen to Haiti? So you look at this and then you say this and then we go, well, is anybody watching know like the Louisiana purchase would not have happened if the Haitians had not stepped in and helped the Americans fight, right? And I could keep going and giving you different fun facts about this place. So Haiti is within the Americas, and we're in 2025 going into 2026. The Haitian problem needs a Haitian solution as we move forward because we have seen through the course of history, yeah, that no form of interventions have worked, right? Yo, why does the US and why do foreign governments love intervening? Let's just talk about America. I think America loves hosting an intervention. So one of my uncles, his name is Raymond Joseph, okay, and he was the ambassador to the US. He has a book. It's called for whom the dog spy. He was one of the dudes that helped get baby doc, like kicked out of Haiti, gangster. I was calling my gangster, but what what's ill when she always told me is there's always a trade for a trade, like what do you mean by that? Well, we in the US, the US for them to for them to intervene for them to come in your space, yeah, it's it's a it's of natural interest, like they always have to be some form of a natural interest at times, right? So when you look at you say, Oh, man, why do they envy here? What they envy here? Like you look a little deeper and you will see what are the natural resources, right? In the place that you, you know, that you come to help, right? So what is going to be the trade for trade? So what I tell leaders is you can't be puppets, right? Because if someone's coming to do a trade for trade, you have to make sure that it is as good for your country as it's going to be for their country. So a lot of times leaders back down and from that we've seen what assassination at times, right? But at times we've seen the people have have risen and saying like, you know, we're not going for this. It has to be fair trade. It's weird because sometimes I feel like the United States, they love to intervene. They love to host an intervention almost like alcoholics anonymous, where they will tell another country they're like, yo, your shit is fucked up. You got to get your shit together. But the other countries are like, but you gave me the booze. You're the bartender. You gave me the booze. You gave me the weapons. Who are you to claim the pretext that our shit's fucked up? Yeah, it's messy. Yeah. It's definitely messy. I've traveled the entire world. But let me ask you a question. Sure. You've been all over the world. You've done comedy, different places, all over and have you identified a place that the possibilities of success, whether someone come from India, Haiti, Jamaica, Crenshaw, is there another place besides the United States? That gives us this right. And I'm saying where Snoop could come from where he come from. I could come from where you could come from. And I've traveled the world. And I'm saying like that sense of like even look at the mayor that we have today, right. That's right. Through the voice of the people. Is there another place in that we have identified us like that? It's just me asking you that question. The United States is one of the few places in the world that is defined by I call them Mavericks and immigrants that are Mavericks. It's a very unique place. Other places that I've been to around the world. I've been to Egypt, India, South Africa. You can feel the history. The United States is very interesting in the sense of the way it's a magnet for people from around the world to come and imprint their Maverick like nature. You're a Maverick. And I only said that because that's where I wanted to get to. So based on everything you're saying, people taking my gold, moving it around and interviewing in different parts of the world. We're going into 2026. So as the new Mavericks, we see what happened in the past. So we need more of us to speak to understand that. And with this opportunity, we have being here. Yeah, and how we write a new story. That's not repeating. So how will we plan to write a new story? So I want to be part of that new story with you. Can't tell you the last this last one. Haitian piece of history. This was while we were both alive in 2004. In 2004, the United States kidnapped Hades president and rendered him to Africa. This is a crazy story. in 2000. Am I pronouncing this right? Jean-Parton. Jean-Bétran Alistead. He was elected president. Then in 2003, he demanded France to pay $80,21 billion in reparations. In 2004, he gets forced onto a US jet and gets rendered to the Central African Republic and the US military invades Haiti again. Are those two things related? Like him asking for reparations and then him having to go on a plane and then getting sent to Africa? Within my conspiracy theory. Sure. Let's get, let's get, let's get what's happened? 100%. Like, you know what I'm saying? I think, you know, one president talking about reparation, you know, with the ambassador there and all of that. And then next thing you know, you know, that, that call, that call, you know, get them out of here, you know what I mean? Am I definitely think there's no coincident of how that happened, you know what I mean? And then you saw like, once that happened, the whole country erupted into a whole other energy which produced something else. Now again, the narrative that people constantly want to use is whether presidents did the right thing or they did the wrong thing with their people, right? Now, this is always up for debate. But the part that's not is you cannot legally go into another like sovereign country and take the leader of a country and put them on a plane and be like, you know, I'm getting you out of here. The U.S. carried out large-scale strikes on Venezuela overnight. It's president Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, had been captured and flown out of the country. Because once you start to do that, it's like a domino effect, right? Then other people thought, well, if you're doing that, we could just go in here and get out of here. It reminded me of that scene in the dark night, where like Batman straight up was, pulls that executive out of the meeting out of a goddamn building. And then it's like, yo, you aren't a jet. We're extra-iding you out of here. But you know that president is back in Haiti. Oh, he's back. Yeah, yeah, he's back. Okay. Like years later, you know, I don't know, what deal was made, but he definitely got back a year's been. Hey, it's Giulia Louis Dreyfus from The Wiser than Meat Podcast, among other things. And I've got a little holiday wisdom for you. Hosting during the holidays means lots of cooking, and that means your trash is going to be full of smelly, rotting food yuck. So here's the wisdom. Get a mill food recycler. I did. We've had ours for years, and it has totally transformed our kitchen. It's unbelievable how much cleaner everything is now. Plus, it's so easy to use. You toss in basically any food you don't eat. Peels, pits, meat, dairy bones. Last year we put in a whole turkey carcass, really. While you sleep, mill automatically dries and grinds all your food waste down to about a fifth of its size. That means at night, you can fill it after a big elaborate dinner. And by morning, they'll be room for breakfast. Nothing rots, nothing stinks, no fruit flies. And my favorite part, no more of those gross, dripping mid-dinner garbage runs. If you want a cleaner, calmer kitchen this holiday season, go to mill.com/wiser for an exclusive offer. That's mill.com/wiser. Happy hosting. Do you think France should pay reparations to Haiti? I think that the new form of reparation in 2026 would be an exchange of purse. And what I mean by that is the new reparation that I would like to see is Haitians can leave Haiti, go study in other places and come back and serve their countries. So yeah, so I think like that form of reparation would be kind of amazing. Back in June, the president ended the temperate protected status for about 500,000 Haitian refugees. And then you start seeing this insane, the Haitians are eating the dogs narrative. Why do you think Trump was specifically targeting Haitians? Or why do you think Haitians were being targeted as part of this discourse that dehumanized them? Well, the thing about me is I never get into the rhetoric of they eating the cats, they eating the dogs, right? Because for me, in the book, The Art of War by Sun Su, it's very important when we're focused on narrative to not be distracted. I think that there was an election coming up. And within the scope of the election, at times, there's distractions. That's just how politics work is diversion. But I think that if you look at it like this, it's just the idea of the whole part of the election, the big narrative was the immigrants and the idea of the border control, right? So the border immigrants can't be trusted. What are they doing? So this was the biggest part of the whole thing, right? Kamala and Biden dropped the ball on this immigrant policy, right? This immigration policy. Now, we both know this immigration thing was there before Trump, right? It was there. And so if now we, because we've got to talk real now, and if we're talking deportation, like when we look at the Obama administration, we've got to be really hard in the paint. They went harder. They went harder in the paint, right? So my thing is like, whether someone goes hard on the paint and they don't say verbally, and then another dude is like, yo, so at the end of the day, where do we meet? So I think like the way that we meet is in the space in the middle. And the space in the middle is like pass all of this distraction and all of this noise, us as immigrants, which is these United States of America, which is all of us. As we move and forward, how do we protect people in the sense of making people don't feel fear, making not let alienating people and making people feel like that idea that we talk about when we talk about the American dream, making everybody feel that they're one. So in order to do that, I look past the rhetoric of, oh, this is happening and that's happening. So the focus is, what do we do to unite? Because in order to move forward, we have to find some form of unification unless we're going back to red and blue, right? If we're not going to do that, then where is the space in the middle? So, for example, the meeting at the White House, the other day, yeah, just the other day, right? Because remember, before the meeting, it was Wu-Tan Clan, ain't nothing to fuck with. Like, Wu-Tan Clan, right? Turn the volume up, yeah. Turn it up. So, Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, for works for you, turn the volume up. Right? And of course, and that's respected, right? And now, and I call them the big homie in New York, right? The big homie in New York gets to DC. And again, right? Now, he's representing all New Yorkers, right? It's that thing that we talked about. So, are we going to turn up the volume now or at the end of the day, how do we help New Yorkers as a team? So, I think like, so this is sort of like, it was a surreal thing to see. It was a surreal thing to see. But I'm just saying, it's sort of like, if you can ignore the noise, then you're able to penetrate. What's the main mission, though, right? What do the average person care about? I know my mom's immigrant, health care, you know, your kids going to school, education, right? Right, right. And then, so at the end of the day, this is sort of like, what I'm focused on, on how we move forward. And the last thing I'm going to say about the Haiti thing is, the politicians in Haiti suck at the moment. You have like nine leaders that you just don't know what the hell's going on. So, a lot of times before you blame somebody else, let's start off in 2025 going into 2026. How do the Haitians solve a Haitian problem? One of the things that you, I think, will definitely have a great perspective on is NGOs. You're an immigrant, you're from Haiti, you've obviously made your way here in America. People have mixed feelings about NGOs. Some people think, look, this is the only way I can donate. Some people have been critical of NGOs of like, man, this van pulls up, they walk out, they give some designing water bottles, they keep it moving, quick little photo for the gram and they're out. How do you look at NGOs? How should we look at NGOs? I mean, this is a great question. I feel like I was part of a conspiracy. What? Because at the end of the day, when I started, when I started a yellow Haiti, and I felt like it was infiltrated because at the end of the day, there was a time there was like, oh, cleft took $16 million in funds, right? Which I never did, and I denounced that. But the reason why I felt I was targeted is because of this very question that you're asking me today, right? The question is, me as a Haitian, would all of the NGOs that are coming into my country and all of this billions in billions of dollars that are going I don't see one university. I don't see one hospital. I don't see an education system, right? As we move forward, I'm going to stick to exactly what I said is that NGOs is a bandaid for third-world countries and for third-world islands. It's a bandaid and once the bandaid comes out, the wound gets worse. So as we move towards the future, you have to look at these people in these rural areas. We don't, I was in the village. I don't need a hand down from you. I told you, when you're leaving, can you leave the seed, can you leave the fertilizer, can you leave the machinery? Little man's over here. He's doing clippers. You know, invest in him. He might start a little barber shop. Take these 3,000 farmers that are making tomatoes. Don't just be like, oh, I'm going to, here's another, make some more tomatoes. Why don't you teach them how to trade? Teach them how this is how the international law works. You know, for these tomatoes, if you wanted to get out of Haiti, this is how we have to get doing. So as we move towards the future, I do feel that there's a few NGOs that are doing amazing. So this is not towards the honey, but what I was preaching was that that non-governmental organization. One of the things I stepped up and said, bro, was like, why do we wait for a natural disaster to already have the helicopters, to already have the boats, to already have all of that in place, as people that when the disasters happen, there's billions of dollars. Where's all these billions of dollars going to? So, in saying that, I conclude by saying that the new world that we're going into, these NGOs, and they have to start looking at how do you look at people and start to make them partners, right? Because the biggest thing you can give me is not food. The biggest thing that you can give me is intellectual property to economical freedom, right? Because if you give me the information, then you allow me. And then you say, okay, well, now this loan that I'm going to give you is not a debt. It's because I'm trusting you as a business man. And then saying all like, we're not saying like when disasters happen or people come in, don't apply NGOs, but I'm just saying, and then geo is a band-aid. You're saying there's a, there's a bigger problem. There's a bigger underlying problem. The bigger underlying problem is, I remember when I was a little, and then the commercial come on, and we in the village, and it's like, yo, don't you want to help this kid? He look hungry. He in the village. Yeah. I was in the village, and I just told you, I might look hungry, but I told you, lead us to the fertilizer in the seed. So the bigger problem is to start to look at these people on how do you give them intellectual property, economical freedom. Don't look at them as handouts, treat them like partners, treat them like they have minds, treat them like they can actually help build their countries. You know, February, 2026, it'll be the 30th anniversary of the score. Where was music at at that time that you think resonated so deeply with people, and I think changed popular culture and popular music as we know it? I think like a lot of people trace back to the score, but I think the DNA of what produced that was actually more important. So you have a situation where there's an article that speaks about 25 years before Hamilton. There was a musical called the 12th Night Shakespeare, a hip-hop musical, 25 years before Hamilton, Wyclef Shun, Lauren Hill, MC Light. The reason why I'm bringing Shakespeare up, and I'm bringing this. We did off Broadway. We did off Broadway. Yeah, it was a play that was supposed to show on you. 25, we're not talking about the score here. We ain't talking about the Fuji. So there's an article. And after this, I'm going to share it with you with your friends. So what happens is a lot of people see the end, but you don't see the beginning. So it's like, so understand coming from that mindset of understanding how to paint a canvas, right? Entering the score for me as one of the composers. It was just like painting a Shakespearean play, like whatever's going on in the hood, we're going to paint it real life. So in a lot of people talk about the Fuji's, but there's another group. It's called the outsiders. Now when we backtrack and you'll do a little history, you'll see that M&M was with the outsiders at a certain amount of time, right? So it was two crews from Jersey. It was the Fuji's and it was the outsiders. And at times we would trade, we would trade information. And this was like, so what was making this amazing? It was like, for the first time, the suburbs and the hood, I'm saying like, where the fiends is at, the crackout, exchanging information and conversation. Just air-dropping each other. It had dropped in each other, sparring, boom, boom, boom, boom. So the lyrical massage that you hear in that score was like a conversation between both sides, you know, I'm saying to you. So that's like some of the stuff that people might not know when you hear that. So where was we at in music? You down with OPP? Yeah, you know, hip-hop array. Oh, you went out TY, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Early 90s. It's like early 90s. So we're trying to find ourselves before the score was blended on reality. That's the Fuji's first album, blended on reality. So before you had this, what we're doing right now, the original, this is college radio. Oh, right. You go to studio. Yeah, that's right. You get a call because you're not going to get that yeah, because if you're trying to get to the people, you got to go locally. So, so we went to now, we're trying to find our sound, right? So can you imagine? Now, this is early days, right? Yeah. It's like, oh, who are you stretching Barbito? Of course. That's Big L, right? Going through Colombia. Who are you? That's Nas. I'm showing you early, early days, right? So, oh, Fuji's, we're going to open up for Biggie Smalls and Puff, right? I remember like Biggie coming in the room like, you know, you're going to be teen, you're going to start playing all these instruments on stage, you know? Like, so all of this energy is brewing. So it was like, and then there was a term at the time, right, called alternative. When they couldn't figure out who you were, right? They can put you in a box, put you in a box, they'd be like, you're alternative. Now, when you alternative, you went, it's like, you're in a borderline of credibility to the streets and not, right? So it was like, we was like, okay, we're going to settle the score. So this whole thing going into the score, like we knew, like, because what was we trying to prove at the end of the day? We was like, yeah, we're not going to do music. We're going to be a movement. Like, the music is always going to be the music. But if we become a movement, then we become for the voice, voiceless, right? Refugees. Like, so it doesn't matter if someone's in Somali, if they're in Haiti, wherever they are. Right. When they hear the score, they're going to relate to it. Listen, bro, I nerded out with you about music. Obviously, your discography, you walked us through this new era of music. We're going to live through. We nerded out about Haitian politics. Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about? Let's get into it. I could go from English to the Spanish, like, mira, amiga, buenos días, señorita, como esta, usted y su familia. Estoy and doi bien en la microfo. No, espeto, quito, dors, estang, bea, como jo, we nerded out. Friends, I speak French, like, como esta, le voo, como se llama, is Spanish. Why clef? I flip it. I'm the one. I know what you're thinking, right? Me too. I am the Trinity. One man on two sticks. What's that? The crucifix. At least is what they taught me in Sunday school. Forgive my foes, foes. Adam, eight, the apple. So they cast them from the garden they eat and jealousy. Can't kill zebo. He, a ten man, his heart pump soil. Two ones ain't enough to make it rain. Microphone check. One, two rap lives in my vein. But my nephews, they from Haiti. They don't use their hands in 14s and 15s guns and roses pointed at your sweet 16. That's the day they killed the leader, Jean Jacques de Saline. And my mama told me there's monstrous under my bed. They 18 think Malcolm X, the 19th hour by enemies. 20, 20 vision, they say. The good guy young I am the master of AI AI is not the master of I I just did that bar to show you how I made it past 21 bars If you haven't subscribed to lemon out of premium yet Now's the perfect time because guess what you can listen completely ad-free Plus you'll unlock exclusive bonus content like Halle Berry on how to be a good partner during menopause or Mady Hussin on the dumbing down of media clips you won't hear anywhere else Just tap that subscribe button on Apple podcasts or head to lemon out of premium dot com to subscribe on any other app That's lemon out of premium dot com. Don't miss out