Drink Champs - Episode 406 w/ FUBU

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

N.O.R.E. & DJ EFN are the Drink Champs in this episode the champs chop it up with the iconic team from FUBU! FUBU changed the fashion game and influenced millions when the brand impacted pop culture. For Us By Us was created by Daymond Jon, Carlton E. Brown, Dr. Keith C Perrin Jr., and J. Alexander Martin. The team joins us to share their journey, the evolution of the brand and much much more! Lots of great stories that you don’t want to miss! Make some noise for FUBU!!! 💐💐💐🏆🏆🏆 🎉🎉🎉 Sign up for Underdog Fantasy HERE with promo code DRINKCHAMPS and get a $100 first deposit match: https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-drink-champs *Subscribe to Patreon NOW for exclusive content, discount codes, M&G’s + more:  🏆* https://www.patreon.com/drinkchamps *Listen and subscribe at https://www.drinkchamps.com Follow Drink Champs: https://www.instagram.com/drinkchamps https://www.twitter.com/drinkchamps https://www.facebook.com/drinkchamps https://www.youtube.com/drinkchamps DJ EFN https://www.crazyhood.com https://www.instagram.com/whoscrazy https://www.twitter.com/djefn https://www.facebook.com/crazyhoodproductions N.O.R.E. https://www.instagram.com/therealnoreaga https://www.twitter.com/noreagaSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Yes, really, probiotic pillows. We're breaking down what's legit and what's just brilliant marketing. With expert insight from gastroenterologist Dr. Roshi Raj. Listen to Dope Labs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And it's Drake Chess Motherfucking Podcast. Make some noise! He's a legendary Queens rapper. Hey, hey, Segreta, it's your boy N.O.R.E.

He's a Miami hip-hop pioneer. Together, they drink it up with some of the biggest players in the most professional, unprofessional podcast and your number one source for drunk facts. It's time for Drink Champs. Drink up, motherfucker. What it good be? Hope it is what it should be. This is your boy, N-O-R-E.

What up? It's DJ E-F-N. And this is Drink Champs. Yappy, how we make it? Make some noise! These brothers that I'm about to introduce changed the world. It made us proud to support our own. Before this time, I didn't know of any brothers from the hood

owning a clothing company and it being the shit. They are still here and they're still friends to this day. I thought the money would have brought them up a long time ago. They still here. They legends. And we are giving them their motherfucking flowers today.

In case you don't know who we talking about. We're talking about For Us, By Us motherfucking. What? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I name this, I try to not name Queens because I can't call y'all, like, even though y'all from Queens, the brand is too big to just be called Queens.

And I'm from Queens. Trust me, I want to claim everything in Queens. I even claim Citi Field sometimes. You know what I mean? So, for the people that don't know, right? Me and you was talking earlier, and you said that you started from selling shirts and hats Is this how this started? Fubu?

Yeah, man Standing on the corner selling tie-top hats At that time, De La Soul had made a video And they were wearing these tie-top hats I think we got inspired from 5'5 Soul, right? 5'5 Soul? Yeah, and they were like 5'5 Soul

Yeah, and they were like It's like a sleeve Instead of having a ball on the top. It was a little skull. The skull, like the scully ones, the ones that hung back. Exactly. Right. And we would make a couple. We would sell. Actually, before that, you know, before we had the FUBU name on it, we were selling super soakers.

We were selling all kinds of shit. Super soakers. I wasn't ready for that. I wasn't ready for that. We were selling them a greek at the greek picnic what department of food was this the reality of this we were businessmen so we were selling whatever we thought would turn up up so it was coming super soakers when those things were hot um we had damon had a van we fill it up with all kind of merchandise and go to the Greek Fest, all those things, and set up shop and just sell whatever was hot.

That's dope. So that's how we started being in business without the fashion part of it. How did y'all come together? Was it through the gear or did y'all do each other? I mean, they were selling super soakers. I moved from Baisley Projects to Farmers Boulevard in Queens. I'm at four or five years old. I was peeking through the fence

and that's what it's do with no teeth. I'm like, man, I want to play with you. That was it. We met Keith. Yeah, I didn't meet y'all until high school. Keith came in the school. You came in class and you had had a car accident or something.

And he had a big bandage around his head with mad blood on it. Really? No, a little bit man blood on it. Really? No, a little bit of blood on it. With man blood to me because I don't like seeing blood. Right, right. I remember the teacher said something to him

and he was like, ran out. I was like, yo, that's an ignorant. I was an angry man back then. I was an angry man back then. And then Jay, our partner, we met, he lived two blocks away. So we met him around when we was probably about.

In high school. But 12, 11 or 12. Childhood friends. One thing that's very unique. You know what I'm saying? Like people don't stay together for two weeks. You know what I mean? And especially business.

How do y'all maintain friendship but still have business? Well, the friendship... By the way, I was in this interview as a guest because I'm so close to it and I do so many interviews

that I didn't say the normal shit all the time. Keith, you know, he liked to smoke the devil's lettuce and I never understood how he... Well, it's God's lettuce, not devil's.

Tell him, Norman. You got a farm sitting right there. But he has the best memory of anybody I know in there. So my partner, I'm going to be sitting here like, oh, your word. So because, you know, like, I know I'm a little over there. Like, a lot of times when I look at me and Capone's relationship, I kind of wish we never did business. Like, I kind of wish we was just friends. Like, now that we don't do business, we're back for like real, real friends. But it did affect us.

You know what I'm saying? Because we couldn't hang out to a certain extent. We were business partners. So if he... I always say this. I say my relationship with Pone made my relationship with EFN iller because I used to try to change Capone.

I wanted Capone to be on time. And he never complied. But when I let that go, when I let that go, I was like, alright, cool. I'll let him be him. So that's like with E. I learned that through Capone. I don't try to change the EFN at all. This guy won't buy nothing.

This guy got all his money. He ain't making shit. He don't make shit. I don't buy the same shit you buy. I'll be one, but I just let it be. Is that something you guys relate to? You think? I mean, one, but I just like let it be. Is that something you guys relate to? Absolutely.

You think? I mean, for us, I mean, we grew up as friends. We was friends. You know what I'm saying? We did everything. We was going on tour. You know, we backstage with backstage passes on 13, 14 years old. So for us, we were cool.

So when we got into business, it didn't change it for us because we we were already cool you know what i'm saying like and we did everything together and we also went out and took that friendship from a friendship to a business and keep it the same you know what i'm saying we was able to stay the same you guys had a foundation yeah it wasn't like everybody starts he start tripping i'll check him i start tripping. He started tripping. I'd check him. I'd start tripping. He'd check me. We got in the fights. Oh, yeah, I know that. It wasn't like just everything was rosy.

You know what I'm saying? That's my thing. So many people let the money change them, especially childhood friends, especially people you met in high school. And as soon as that money Gets involved Somebody's big headed The other one Is not big headed enough So how did y'all maintain Like we ain't letting

This business fuck with us I'm going to let them Speak on that I got to say though There's two things That are different than us And most people If you were a rap group

Or a music group Or you were various Other things You can potentially Have people pull you away to break off to do your own thing fubu is way bigger than us and anything that he does does negative or i do negative and break off fubu is gonna exist right it ain't gonna be damon right right damon can't i mean could have probably no i think we even had contracts within ourselves. You can't break off and do another brand.

So anything that I do, if he asses out and I make him look bad, it makes the brand that I'm getting paid off of and he's getting paid off look bad. So we couldn't do that because we also had hundreds of people working for us. So we had to save each other ass too sometimes when we didn't want to save each other's asses. Like just even keeping our nose clean. You know what I'm saying? They never heard of no shit come down the pipeline like these dudes involved in this or that. Because we had to keep the image and everything. You know what I'm saying?

Also, one other thing. Did you just say y'all had a contract with these people? Like a non-compete type of contract? Why can't you tell the world about that? That is genius. I have never heard of that. Yeah, neither did we.

It was famous out there. That's what the motherfucker said. It was famous out there, God damn it. You know what the reality is? FUBU was... And is.

It is. It was something that we wanted to protect. So we were willing to do and put our egos aside to do what's best for the brand. Right. At all times. And to keep it 100, there was times where we didn't either make money from the brand, we had to put money back in.

Somebody said, I told you that was a bad decision and now I got to pay for it, where we were really mad at each other or mad at the overall outcome. That anger could have taken years. Like we could have sold the brand years ago when everybody said, yo, keep it real. Don't sell it.

It was those same people that stopped buying it. And we had a massive offer on the table from Kmart, I think it was, at that time. And we would do too. Come table From Kmart I think it was At that time And we would do too

Come on Kmart But they were like How many hundreds and hundreds And hundreds of millions of dollars Are you talking? That was how it sold out I'm about to fight I'm about to fight one of y'all

When we get outside of here I remember And then one last thing is that Remember unlike your business You got to work with this artist You Uh huh You gotta work with this artist You gotta go on tour With this artist You gotta do this and that

When we were coming up Our friends are the ones They wrote Belly about And various other things When we were coming up And we were doing clothing Uh huh Hip hop very homophobic

Right And prior to us coming up Of course Kalkanai Cross Colors Prior to that The idea of a clothing designer Was some flamboyant person in Europe So when we were

We were being almost harassed By some of our friends like Yo, what's y'all doing with that clothing? Y'all lie? And so we came up by ourselves Because nobody wanted to talk to us Imagine you out there One of our boys is moving kilos

The DMX of Of belly Of belly Right And we up there talking about You don't mind to go make A strawberry pattern son You got to see this

This hoodie is going to make We came up realizing Nobody wanted to mess with us For a while Until they started hearing We doing $350 million a year So that was some of the things Yeah and The bottom line is Nori Nobody wanted to mess with us for a while until they started hearing we're doing $350 million a year. So that was some of the things. Yeah, and the bottom line is, Nori, you know what I'm saying?

You fell left, right. No, we come the same way. So we all had our different stories. I mean, like for me, I know that I found them because I knew that Damon, especially at that age, he had some unique qualities about him that Dele Cash didn't have. When I would say I'm broke, that means I ain't have shit. Damon said he was broke, he probably had five or six hundred dollars back.

You know what I'm saying? So that was a quality that I liked about him. I said, I'm fucking with him. You know what I'm saying? He's the same way. There's certain qualities I loved about my partners. And I say, you know what? Whether we selling clothes or selling fucking bananas, we're going to make some money together. There's certain qualities I loved about my partners. When I say, you know what?

Whether we selling clothes or selling fucking bananas, we're going to make some money together. What's a quality you liked about Keith? I hated Keith at the first. I hated him. It's a real back yard of shit right here. The storyboard he's about to tell you. I didn't even know him and he was hating on me.

My girl like, yo. So then I met him through him. This dude, he's sitting in the car looking at me sideways. I'm asking Damon, I'm like, yo, what's up with your man? Like, why are you always looking at me crazy? So one day Damon's like, yo, we're going to go pick up cars. I'm like, fuck cars, man. Yo, we're going to be in a party, man.

So he says, so he tells me the story Why he was looking at me It was over some girl His man Oh so crazy You know what I'm in motherfucking Springfield Garden

Okay okay My girl at the time Was like yo This dude fucking with me man So I said yo What the fuck Let's go see who this dude is I go

My man We go There's a block party Yada yada And I see this motherfucker He look like a Stone cold Like He got this look on his face Even at that age man we go there's a block party yada yada and I see this motherfucker he looked like a stone cold like

he got this look on his face even at that age to scare the shit out of you so I told my girl yo you know maybe

what did you do what did you say to him I'm making an excuse he looking at me like screw face but um that's when we didn't

we didn't do nothing that night. The next time I saw him, this motherfucker introducing me. I ain't going to be so many more motherfuckers

in the chat. I'm like, yo, this dude, really? But at that, obviously, I think I know him.

I tell you, looking at me sideways, man. He became my man. One, two, three. Oh,

my man. I'll tell you what I love about him I was home one day Minding my business Shirts Crazy Sam from Video Music Pop up Old Dirty Bastard walked into my house I don't know O.D.

But I know the Wu-Tang Oh shit I'm like yo Wait, tell me Did you just say O.D. Walked in your house? Walked in my house You're going too fast

Wait a minute Wait a minute Start over So what happened Old Dirty Bastard just walked in your house This're going too fast Wait a minute Wait a minute Start over So what happened Old Dirty Bass This was like 1991 Or something like that And I think I took out

We took out a little ad In the write on magazine We put the name in there And we got mostly The orders were from Japan And Seattle, Washington It wasn't black people It was a fax machine

Right right We got a fax machine Somehow Old Dirty Bass Oh he I guess he wanted a bit of music box because we stalked was he old dirty but he was old dirty but it's super early in and because we we stalked ralph mcdaniels of uh you know to help us with the stuff and ralph

being that i think so many artists owe their career to him yes he crazy sam basically wants some free shit. Right. Come out, Old Dirty Bass come out. I'm like, yo, this is Old Dirty Bass. First of all, I'm a fan. Second of all, I'm hiding whatever kind of, whatever kind of something I have worth anything.

My transistor radio, because Old Dirty Bass isn't out. But when Keith was the kind of partner, though, that we were all different. I have my kind of conservative way of trying to come up with this idea. Carl was always like my, anybody's voice of reason. My partner, Jay, our partner, Jay,

who's still with us. Keith would be the one who'd be like, oh, is that right? He'd go to the studio for three nights and be like this in the studio.

Yo, what up? All the ghetto hood, hood, hood dudes? They love Keith. They love Keith. They thought they were hood. I remember one time Redman was like, yo, Keith, hood dudes? Right. They love Keith. They love Keith. They thought they were hood. I remember one time Redman was like, yo, Keith, I wore the same pair of pants the Fuba ones, the same one, 17 days straight.

Yeah, that story was crazy. And Keith is the hood, hood, hood dude. They be like, yo. They vibe. They were like, I don't know about that dude, Damon. He kind of funny. He kind of quiet. I don't know about him.

I fucks with Keith. Yeah. Keep the icebreaker. So let me ask y'all. You touched on it a little bit earlier. How hard was it to break into that fashion world?

Because I remember going to fashion shows and saying to myself, I'm never going back, right? Like, I remember I just went back there and they had me on the runway and I just related this to,

like, this is how all fashion is. And everybody was getting undressed in front of each other. I was like, to like this is how all fashion is and everybody was getting undressed in front of each other I was like oh this ain't for me but I credited that to the fashion world right and people say how hard it is to break

through like remember how Kanye and Sway so how hard was it for y'all to get in that world for me it was I mean it was hard work don't get me wrong it was a heavy lift but we were doing something that was so natural to us

that we were going against the normal progress of a fashion house so whatever we did came naturally you said you wouldn't walk a runway that made you uncomfortable we didn't do shit that made us uncomfortable we did shit that made us uncomfortable. We did shit that was real to us.

Right. Whatever it was. So in that form, it was easy because we were doing what came natural to us. Right. But obviously,

all the late nights, the early mornings, all that shit was hard. But the actual building of the brand, that was in our DNA. But I'm assuming you guys didn't try to break

in the traditional fashion. No. You guys were doing the work around knowing the audience you were going to. We broke the system you guys didn't try to break in the traditional fashion. No, not at all. You guys were doing the work around, knowing the audience you were going to. We broke the system because they didn't actually allow us in department stores. They said, they literally told one of us that, four of us on the hang tag, they said, we don't want people coming in that look like that who steal clothes or getting in the shootouts.

So they wouldn't put us in there. But the reality is, if was on a nori set or keith was on a nori set they're kicking everybody off the set and but if we had a way to like yo now we dressing the artists over here we we wasn't dressing no artists we just wanted to be on the set right so we make a shirt well now we get to holler at the girls on the set. We get to eat the free food, the crap. I get to see an artist like Nori perform. So what we was doing, we were spending night and day on sets. If you really look at the first set was Miss Jones, Where I Want to Be. And then it was Ice Cream.

You'll see Method in the truck going, Ice Cream, man. Come on a FUBU hat. Then you'll see Biggie, One More Chance. I'm in the background with a little hat, just always trying to place the hat in it because I just wanted to be on the set to watch artists. I just didn't want to get kicked off. And everybody else was like, I'm doing this. I'm doing that. No, you won't get out of here.

No, you won't get out of here. I think that was the first way we started. So people started demanding it. They didn't go to the, these are cats who like, I was a van driver in Rockaway. I know cats in Rockaway that never been to the city. Forget any place else in the country. So we now go to a specialty store in Rockaway and we start selling to the specialty store. The mom and pops, the everyday store.

We didn't go to the apartment store. So it was really almost like we were putting on sets where we love and then giving it kind of like to the cast we know just in the hood. And you said something earlier about not knowing how the work you're doing, that's getting out there, that you're not getting like the instant likes and all that shit. We were putting in that work as far as product placement goes when product placement wasn't really a thing. So we didn't realize there's kids

in Atlanta, Alabama, Cincinnati, you know what I mean? Japan, seeing our stuff on video sets until we went out and actually go to the trade show. And these retailers told us there's kids in my town in Michigan asking for your shit because so-and-so

is wearing it. But we didn't get to feel that momentum until we started talking to retail. But if you knew the stores, it's a hood thing. And I'm not saying this because everybody here has to be hood. Everybody here knows this stuff. If you knew the stores you want to select, you know where we're going to go in Manhattan? We're going to put that stuff in the stores on 145. Why?

Because everybody moving weight all the way up and down the Eastern Seaboard is going to that area to go and do whatever they do. And then they're going to stop off at 145 and go shopping. And they're going to take clothes down the Eastern Seaboard.

Right? So it's just thinking, if we're thinking about advertising. Those stores were the influencers of the time. They were the tastemakers. And you think about advertising. They're charging the influencers of the time. They were the tastemakers. If you think about advertising,

they're charging $10,000 for 30 seconds on MTV. They're charging $500 on BET. Why? Because the amount of people that watch. No. Ain't nobody in the hood filling out no Nielsen rating. Right.

And everybody that's watching BET and the project has got 10 other people watching it. For $500, we're getting the same amount of value that would be $10,000 on MTV it's just common sense about knowing who you who you're messing with you know who your market is right so let me ask you this at one point right we receive food product was in rap videos all day right

but then at one time labels start requesting that you block out the label. You block out the... That was early on, though. That was early on. So that wasn't... That was when MTV was doing that. MTV was doing that. They didn't know what the FB was, but it was in all these videos, and then you just started seeing us.

I can see how they can... You know what I'm saying? FU. I can see that now. I didn't even peep that then. No, it is. But you know what we did? Remember what we did?

What's that? Your man got one on right there What happened was It was 97 They started doing that We realized though That they wouldn't block out Jersey numbers So before

We own 05 right So before 05 ever existed The year 05 We had always wanted FUBU to be five of us We created the number 05 To be synonymous With FUBU to be five of us. We created the number 05 to be synonymous with FUBU.

We're the only ones in clothing that ever owned a number, a trademarked number from 97 up to 05, and then they couldn't ever blur it because now you would have to be blurring 23, 48. That's how we started to place the stuff. It was us,

and I think BMW owns 323 I think there's very few That own actual numbers It was a lot of It was a lot of The real marketing shit we did You know we didn't do the basic The basic route

We learned a lot from our mistakes And what we did And You know we just grew from there You know what I'm saying But we always kept it Like everything that we wanted to do Is what we did with our brand You know what I'm saying? But we always kept it, like everything that we wanted to do is what we did with our brand.

You know what I'm saying? We didn't have to go this route because so-and-so was doing that. We didn't have to go that route because so-and-so was doing that. You know what I'm saying? And look at the labels at the time. You remember when LPN Collins,

the street teams, we had street teams as a fashion house. That was unheard of back then. We kind of ran a lot of our marketing and promotion. Gorilla marketing. A lot of gorilla marketing. A lot of in the face of our consumers. And that just spread like wildfire, man.

Was it... Because once people find out the name means for us, by us, some people would take it as hip-hop, or some people would take it as black people. Right, right, right. Did that ever have a backslash? Like, if you tried to get into department stores, they're like, we don't cover black clothing.

I think it affected us more on the consumer side. Right. Because in a way, we are, obviously, we are black men with a black-owned company, but Forrest's bias to us at that time was more than just a,

it wasn't a race thing. It was more of a hip-hop cultural thing. We from New York. We got Dominican friends. We got Cuban friends. We got white friends. We dressed MC Surge.

We dressed up Beastie Boys as just as wild as anybody else. When it came to hip-hop, it wasn't a color thing. So our thing, Forrest's bias, was more of a cultural thing for the hip-hop community by the hip-hop community. Obviously, being black men, black-owned company, we couldn't ignore that fact because a lot of people were saying, yo, don't wear our shit. And we knew that that's something that we wanted to address in our clothing.

But also to keep it 100, though, you hear somebody who has so much pride and gold. Man, you finally made something for us. It's hard at that moment to go, yeah, it's true. And it is powered by an African-American culture that came out of the Bronx. And we are represented. But you got to allow everybody to touch this because I think our I think I think hip hop and country all give me the most powerful music ever because it's the voice of the have-nots. But you can't exclude somebody from our beautiful life or our struggles.

Don't think like that. You can't say that to somebody at that time who just like, with so much pride. You know what I mean? You're just like, all right, cool. Right. You know? Because you know, it's a saying.

Like whenever somebody is doing something good, they say, oh, we the football of this shit. Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. We've said it here. We've said it here. No, we've said it. I take pride when somebody says that, and you know what's the crazy shit about it is?

I immediately know what they saying when someone says, oh, we the football or this shit. And I say either they mean, you know, the team or we in control of our own shit. By the coach, it's both of those things.

Yeah, it's both of those things. But the reality of it is that it was never like black, it was black owned but never black only. Yeah, black only, yeah. We never like thought of it as, because first of all, it was black owned but never black only. Yeah, black only, yeah. We never like

thought of it as, because first of all it's bad business to say, you can't buy my shit. Right. This is bad business. And we created it

because we felt that, we felt that Timbaland at the time said that about us. Right. You can't buy our shit. That was energy. That was energy.

Remember when they wrote that campaign? I remember Timbaland, yeah. They don't sell our boots to drug dealers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we were buying all, we were buying three pairs of Timbaland a year when a construction worker That was energy. That was energy. Remember when they wrote that campaign? They don't sell our boots to drug dealers. Yeah. And we were buying all, we were buying three pairs of Timberlands a year when a construction worker was buying one pair a year.

And so we would be guilty of that. We would become the same thing we're fighting against if we decided to be that ignorant. Right. Right. Now, there's this famous LL commercial. It's a Gap commercial. Right, right. But he had a full woo hat.

I thought that was the hardest shit in America at the time. That was gangster. That was gangster. Was that done on purpose or that was a mistake? I'll tell you, he's going to remember it all. Nah, he went down to do the commercial and my boy Roundtree that was holding him down at the time called back to the office and was like, yo, L's going to wear this hat. Can he wear the hat?

He asked first. He said, can he wear the hat in the commercial? Right. So I was like, hell yeah, but hold on one second. Put him on hold. I go in there to these guys. I'm like, yo, L won't wear the football hat in the cap commercial. Everybody's like, hell yes! I go

back around, yo, it's a go. We didn't know he was going to rap about it, but you know, they just didn't have a hat to fit him, but he changed the game with that one. How many people from the gap had to get fired, bro? It kept going!

I'm telling you, there was like 16 people that got fired from that. How long did that commercial run? It ran for like about a year and a half. Wow. It still runs. It ran for like four or five months, six months, and then they stopped it. They stopped it.

And then they re-ran it. Think about it. What's good, Drink Champs Army? If you like this show, you've got to check out The Midnight Miracle. If you don't already know about The Midnight Miracle, it's the legends Dave Chappelle, Talib Kweli, and Yassin Bey co-hosting this indescribable podcast. It's music. It's convo. It's debate. It's a million other things. It's really dope. It's so dope to hear these legends chop it up about everything from wild stories to debating what's going on in the world.

I mean, it has it all. Season 1 was taped at The Shack. That's Dave's spot in Ohio, where we had the honor of filming our Dream Champs episode with them. They had guests like Questlove, Cat Williams, Michelle Wolf, Q-Tip, Radio Raheem, and a lot more Season 2 though Was taped on the road with Dave Talib and Yassin Bringing the magic that rises up When they're live together Check it out

That's the Midnight Miracle Listen wherever you get your podcasts There is no social media at the time The Gap runs an ad They spend $30 million on every network. He's in the ad, acapella. Forrest Byers, on the low.

It's running. They don't have anybody culturally relevant in the company. Black, white, I don't care, yellow, who said, yo, there's no hashtag Gap fail. Yo, dudes in the mirror, I'm like, yo, yo, the motherfuckers.

You know what I mean? Over the gap. Nobody tells them. No. How many weeks, King? For a while. But the illest story was when we first saw the commercial. We were all in the office watching it. He said, oh, yo, here go the Gap commercial. We sitting there, watching

it. You don't know here about the Chiatchi a lot. We know he got the hat on, so we make him see the hat. Get in right there. We make him like this. He said, put us by the on the low. He was like, oh. We were like, what did you just say?

What? Oh, say where he just said? What? Really? Yeah. Oh, say where he just said FUBU in the Gap commercial. Yo, it was crazy. That day was crazy. You know what it reminds me of? LL had vested interest in our company. Right. So we worked this situation with him where he was incentivized to go the extra mile.

He was invested in our company. And he really just, once he got to a situation where he felt like, I can make this much by making this shit this much harder, and I got these platforms, he was off. His sitcoms, you know, at that time, he wouldn't take the shit off. He is so underrated as a partner, a pioneer, a legend through so many transitions.

Even what he's doing Rock the Bells. But he, he to me is one of the cats who you, this was not his brand totally. He was a part of the brand.

Right. He got paid off the brand. He went so hard. Right. It wasn't talk to my manager. It was just, he went above and beyond doing that. He always thought he owned sudden. He always thought he owned it.

He always thought he owned it. And I got to tell you, I don't think. After that commercial, not only did we thought he owned it, but after that commercial, we thought the Gap bought y'all. Yeah, we thought the Gap bought y'all. And then that's what happened. The Gap did their numbers. They realized the target market they were trying to hit increased 300%. For everybody.

The kids thought they can buy food with the guy and then l goes back to them and says why don't you do a deal and let and and just get over it i know i'd lick your wounds re-air the commercial and then they re-air the commercial listen the commercial was so powerful when i watched it today i had the same exact feeling that i had back then. Right, right. It didn't go away. It didn't go away. You're like, yo, he's casual. I was like, ooh!

I was like, and I wanted to ask you. I wanted to ask you this for a long time. I haven't been seeing y'all, but I wanted to ask y'all this for a long time. So you mean to tell me that Elle asked for the hat, went in and laid the lyrics, and then split it in half and they had no idea. No idea. No idea. What's crazy is we've had all angles of the story because we've had Elle talk about a hat went in and laid the lyrics and then split it up and they didn't even had no idea what's crazy is we've had all angles of the story because we've had l talk about it you've been on the show before we spoke about it and it doesn't get old it's just it's such an epic moment in hip-hop and in clothing and you know and the wild part is he said the way he said

it in the rap only you if you was in hip hop, only you would understand that. So those people called me like yo, you heard Al? But nobody if you didn't understand that language and that language at that time. It was good. It was rebelling within the system. You ready to quick travel?

Oh my god, that shit is so quick. So what made y'all go on tour? Because I heard y'all saying that earlier. That was... A lot of the other things that y'all said wasn't traditional either, right? But I remember

seeing that. I remember seeing y'all... You know what I mean? What made y'all say we're going to be a part of it that much? Because you could just clothe the rappers and y'all guys had to go Physically yourself That was before we But what tour You talking about?

We were on tour As guests on tour And then the good old days When we started doing Cancun And we just Rattled into a city And we just Buy out a bar

For three hours For everybody That sounds like The good old days That was the good old days That was the club Fubu tour That was social media.

That was Instagram back then. Until you got your crew, right? Until some cast started going, no, no, no, no, no, the bar's on me. I'd be like, yo, yo, homeboy, this is on the company. No, no, the bar's on me. I met one of my dudes like 20 years ago. He said, I just paid off that credit card from the night I bought out the bar in Detroit. He'd be like, yo, you got caught up, homeboy.

But what you, I mean, because that's the type we would do. Before social media was out, some of you were like, did you, let's say Live happened on Sunday night 25 years ago.

You would hear the DJ go, FUBU just bought out the bar for the next three hours. I don't care what you're drinking, it's on FUBU.

You guys were BMFing it back then. Yeah, but we were doing it right at all. That's marketing now., it's on FUBU. You guys were BMFing it back then. Yeah, but we were never right at all. I don't know. It has marketing dollars. And it's fine. Right,

because, because like you said, like you guys said, y'all went at it like a, a hip hop promotion. Right, yeah. But this is a clothing line,

so I had never seen, like we heard of cross colors, but we didn't know how cross colors people look. We didn't, we thought they was lying to us. You know what I mean? We thought cross colors and damage was the know how cross colors people look we didn't we thought they was lying to us yeah we thought the colors and damage was the same people like we like so like this is like the first time we see the owners of the brand we see the brand and we see the owners of the brand out right and they look like me and they look like me. So who are the other people in the space at the time?

Was Rockerware out yet? Nah. Had Echo launched yet? We advised Dame Dash on how to start Rock. We put the president, Jeff Tweedy, over at Sean John when he wanted to start that brand. We advised Mark Echo. Here's the ones who we came up with. Who we came up with?

Maurice Malone. Maurice Malone. April Walker. Kalkanai. Kalkanai. Kalkanai. The Bad Brothers. The Bad Brothers.

And at that time, when we would go to our trade show, there was nobody else in the trade show. Was that Magic? Yeah. Of color. There was nobody of color in the trade show. Wow.

So we would just be us. We'd get together in a little room and talk about what we were going to do. Wow. But we also We also ruined the Magic Tradeshow Because we started to throw The wild parties We would get six

We would hire six busloads It seemed like it was a hip hop trade show At one point We would hire six busloads Greyhound busloads of models from L.A. We would have them all come to the trade show for one party, one night, all wear FUBU. Come in, and they would be Cinderella. They'd have to get right on the bus right after and leave.

And all the buyers and everybody started hearing about this party. There was all these beautiful people. You would never see them again. Imagine walking into a party. It's like five guys and like 200 women. Wow. And we sprinkle them in there like five at a time. And very classy women.

And we made sure that everybody was safe because they had to get right on the bus and leave, not stay in Vegas, not get in trouble. So we do methods like that, you know, Super Bowl, we would buy a beautiful space for just three days. It'd be called Club Fubo, and you had to get a pass by one of us to literally get in, and it would be DMX performing, that cat, that cat, you know, and Cancun, same stuff.

All the same mentality. It's just a hood mentality, you know what I mean? Yeah, strictly hood mentality. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been those days. I've been those days. What's the difference of an everyday person

when we were talking before, an everyday person in your store and you say, you know, thank you for coming so much. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show

from the Meat Eater Podcast Network hosted by me, writer and with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Ranella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here and I'll say it seems like the ice age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday,

May 6th where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

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AT&T, connecting changes everything. Take that home, man. How's your mother doing? Yeah. It doesn't have to be in that form, but when somebody feels like you care about them and you took that moment, they will never forget that in their entire life. Ever. You know?

I remember, I remember Nelly, Nelly telling me, yo, give me a fubu party at Daddy-O's last year. Why?

I was Cornell back then. I wasn't there yet. He said, but that party was crazy. And it's funny because we were on stage. What was that thing they do, Wet n' Wild or whatever? Yeah.

We was on stage and he was telling, this is when he was telling it to me. And it was just crazy to hear him say it because we was vibing on his music, yet he was vibing on us. I remember 50 used to be online there when he was a young artist coming up. Or it was LeBron. Remember when LeBron did? Yeah, LeBron was out there. It was him when he first, he didn't get drafted yet. That's why Fifth shot his first video at one of our parties out there.

If it wasn't for hip-hop, if it wasn't for hip-hop music, football wouldn't exist. Not at all. Not at all. Not at all. Hell no. Let's fix the noise for that, God damn it. You can tell. You can tell.

At one point, the brand did go commercial, right? Yeah. It was just everywhere. It was just everywhere. Was that hard? Because you know how they say it. When your records get played on the radio too much, they're all, you pop now. You know what I mean?

Did you ever feel like that? We, you know, we was just having a conversation about that because we thought at that time we were going to have no more than three years. Right. Like,

yo, we got three years. We got to get as much money as we can because it ain't going to last that long. Right. And then here we are sitting 32 years later. Right. You know what I'm saying?

Right. Saying the same shit like, damn, we here. Like, this is, you know, legendary.

But listen, end of the day, I'm glad that we had a previous conversation about analytics. Yeah. We want pop and I love it, right?

Oh, I do pop. I pop. He's a keep it real nigga. I'm selling out. Yeah. All that, right? I'm here to sell out. Yeah, I'm selling out. Yeah. All day. Yeah, I'm selling out. I'm here to sell out. Yeah, I'm selling out.

Inventory's sold out. Yes, I sold out. Makes it strange. But a hot fashion man last five to seven years. Where is United Color? Benetons? I don't know.

Where's LeTigre? Where's Lacoste? Where's Alessi? When I came into the market, Levi's doing 18 billion. They went down to three. They're back up to six. When you really think about the brand,

a lot of people have fell in love with their brand so much. But you know what? If you would love Fugu, loved it to death, and you were in high school, that was the only thing you want. When you went to college,

you want to feel a little different. And that's when we started to expand the brand. Like I'm going to do with you with Drink Champs. I think Drink Champs could be a whole bunch of licensing and I think there's a lot of things. I think that's what we going to do it with you with Drink Champs. I think Drink Champs could be a whole bunch of licensing, and I think there's a lot of things.

We am. We am. That's what we want to do. I think you could be the Coco Bongo of our community. Our IP is ready to go. You know what I'm saying? We'll get that licensing on our way to call you. Yeah, I'm already thinking.

Putting the wiring for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, of course, it went pop, and you know what? It went like this. Right. And for many years We took the brand overseas A lot of people said

Tell them I mean cause one of the biggest issues Was It was in Japan right Yeah Well It was like 1998 We was hot as fish grease

You know what I'm saying We was hot as fish grease Like You probably know what I'm saying Every year You don't know that Y'all giving me chills Chills

So The brand was so hot That people couldn't figure out how to stop us. So they created this story that we sold the brand. I heard that story. No matter what we did, it just stuck for some reason. Wow. You know what I mean? Even what? It's 2024.

It's stuck that you sold it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, even what, it's 2024. It's stuck that you sold it. Yeah. And who created this idea, this rumor? It was, I feel, I'm going to speak for myself, it was the competitors

because they were like, yo, let's throw a monkey wrench and they, like, we was getting $350 million. Your competitors being the peers, your peers in hip hop clothing?

We don't, we don't know, I'm not saying, it's a little deeper than that. Yeah, I'm not saying, not necessarily, Carl can lie. Right. It's other entities that. I'm not saying that necessarily car can lie.

There's other entities that own these brands as well. Right, right. People started buying out these brands and then it's them. Like you don't do business with a person and then you want to throw a little. You know what I'm saying?

Before you say something, because I'm going to tell you the reason why the rumor was a little bad because this was a company that said they for us, buy us. Right, right. How you going to sell it? Then they sold it. Well, that said they for us by us.

How you going to sell it? Well, you can sell us by us. See, we did sell. But what we did do is we sold the region. We sold China, Korea,

and Philippines. Roughly about $30 million. We sold three regions. We sold China, Korea, and Philippines. For roughly about $30 million. We sold those territories. We can't touch those areas. And Korea was more skate, and we didn't know how to relate to skate. So we just sold those areas. You can break up your brand. And you see enough Shark Tank, right?

That's amazing. But I'll give you an example. I got to ask you something. I'll give you an example. Yeah. I think publicly, we were so open about our world. So we were like, yeah, we got a distribution deal with Samsung. Same as you may have a distribution deal.

You own your brand. You may be on whatever platform it is. Today it's normal. Then people are like, oh, you're owned by Samsung. Right. No, we have a distribution deal by Samsung. People think we're owned by Revolt.

You're owned by Revolt, right? They'll be like, well, then who owns Revolt? Well, who owns it? That person owns you. Right. And that was easy to say. Again, no social media.

It's a licensing deal, right? It's a licensing deal that we're owned, but it's a distribution deal. For laymen, they're renting you. It's a distribution deal. There's no social media.

We can't answer immediately. Somebody can't go to the FUBU or hear the FUBU Instagram or TikTok to go, yo, let me break it down. Let me show you the paperwork. No way to get out of it. It keeps spinning. You can't spend time on negative. We even do the commercials. Hey, we own it.

We own it. The kids don't care at the end of the day they care what's cool what they want to rock right you know so that's some of the things we have the challenges so so let me ask you because that was very interesting what you said um so you said you showed the korea the territories the territory so and then then so that means you guys wasn't designing those clothes that came out and here's how it started usually we start with a licensing situation let's say a company in korea and yes we were So that means that you guys wasn't designing those clothes that came out in those periods? Here's how it starts. Usually we start with a licensing situation.

Let's say a company in Korea. And yes, we were guided with all the branding and all the direction to go, quality control. But once they get up and running, they may say, you know what? We want to buy this territory from you guys. We don't want to license it no more. What's your price? And that's what you look at. So if you did a license of Drink Champs in China.

Right. We want to. You can create whatever your, a license is basically you leasing it to somebody. Or you're renting your home to somebody. You can say, listen guys, here in China, here's what I want you to do. I'll allow you to do 24 episodes of Drink Champ. But because we understand that China wants some portion of it to be China related, speaking that language, for a half an hour or an hour, you can either go a half an hour as us. Or we can go one segment as us. One segment is your version. One segment.

Or you can go every other episode. So what we would do is say, here is the package. Here is all our logos, identity, we're making a military set, da, da, da, da. They'll go,

okay, we'll use 50% of that. But in Japan, they used to like to dress and they still do, so I'm not like characters. They would say, we want to do that. We're not going to do

your double X's because nobody's a double X over here. And 50%, we're going to create our own with your logo, but they're going to look like a dog, literally,

a Rockweiler with FUBU on. Whatever's trending in that. We gave them the DNA to it. So that's how you do it. And you can license a territory. You can license, well, I'm going to give you suits.

I'm going to give you bags. I'm going to give you boots. And that's how you see Mickey Mouse, Nike, Apple, all these brands that are gonna scale and everybody listening to us right now if you want to scale your intellectual property it's all about licensing because if we knew the we knew how we knew we knew what we knew we knew how to make for hip-hop that's Males between 18 to 35 that love to pay 20% more in quality goods. We knew that. You want to make ladies and you're a ladies manufacturer, we will license you because you know ladies.

I don't know how to design like a lady. You want to make for makeup? You want to make for this? It's like right now, Carl, he does. If you're as the baby boomers, primarily the African-American baby boomers, their children now have wealth. But their parents don't necessarily have in the multicultural housing a place to retire that they feel that African-Americans are sold up to. So if you want to go to Carl, because he runs the real estate division, you want to say, hey, I want to create a community for affluent african americans who kids are lawyers doctors whatever the case is but nobody's selling them i want to create a fubu community well then you go to call and let me

explain that to you real quick that's a license and it's like you said it's expanding the brand so we're moving into real estate which which consists of anything from hospitality, housing. FUBU real estate? Well, we call it FUBU. We call it a FUBU community. Whatever you want to call it. You may call it this community. Oh, go ahead.

But the reality is when you're dealing with developers, they're always looking for a way to upsell whatever property they have. So we feel our brand can give them the leverage that they need to get into certain markets. So we partnered with housing developers, retail developers, commercial developers to build these communities that we're working on right now right outside of Atlanta

that consist of housing, retail, hospitality, restaurants, hospitality, restaurants, sports, what do you call those things? The things where you do all the sports things. So we basically go into these communities that need these things and developing them for them.

And if we're going to have some medical, and if you think like you're in retirement, we want to have experts who understand heart disease. adult care living adult care for african-american blood high blood pressure cholesterol and and be experts in that so that our so again it's a license of of people that we vet and the same thing if we want to do frozen soul food well we're going to say well african-americans suffer from a lot of you wanted the african-american taste or caribbean or you want that, but you want it to be maybe not as much salt in it, not as much whatever.

So bottom line is when you license Drink Champs or whoever here talking about their bakery, their lotion, their whatever, if you are able to find great partners to say, I will take a three-year license on that. And if I hit all the numbers and do it the right way, I'll do what I really do best. I believe in your brand, and I'll take it there, and then we'll keep it going. Some license screw you, but that's how we got to grow. And for the young people that's going into building their brands, it's all about the brand. You build a brand, you capture your

market, now you have an asset that you can go out and work these deals. Isn't that what Mr. Beast does? Right? I think he just signed one of the biggest mean, isn't that what Mr. Beast does? Mm-hmm. Right? I think he just signed one of the biggest deals in history, right? Yeah. Mr. Beast. Beast Burgers and all that kind of stuff like that.

Yeah, YouTuber. YouTube, right? He buy an island or some shit? Yeah. They learned to license their brand, you know? No, that's something that from year one we knew, build a strong brand and we wanted to- That's why we wanted to own it. To license it. We wanted to be the food board. Yeah brand and we wanted to license and we wanted

to do the territory thing as well I looked at it as franchising drink champs to these different countries our idea was

find the equivalent of Nori and EFN in your country that's credible and we'll give you the full franchise model of how that will work

and back it from our end and license and do it that way you make money from the royalties from the advertising. Whatever you may do, you're working on royalties. And your job is to keep the DNA of it because

if Drink Champs doesn't do what they're supposed to do, then everybody suffers. Hence, going back to our partnership. If you don't do, if you don't do, if I don't do what I'm supposed to do, the whole thing collapses. Is it true FUBU owns Coogee? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We ended up buying Coogee. We had who else did we have? We had Kappa USA but we gave that back because Kappa soccer didn't

take off till last year in the damn country. Some ownership in Etonic sneakers. We have Etonic sneakers. We have Etonic sneakers. Willie Esco, obviously our partner. You're a runner too, so you understand. Yo, I don't know

none of this shit. We're saying Etonic. We had a company called Heather Red. We had Drunken Money. Married to the Mob. Married to the Mob. And we had,

oh, what's that other, Ted Baker we had for a little while, but we licensed that from them. We didn't, We failed at that. We didn't know how to build retail stores. We were never experts at that.

We love to know what we're experts at. So we failed at Kappa. We failed at Ted Baker. We reinvented Coogee because we bought that out of bankruptcy. And the old cats would say to the young kids, you don't know about this. And then we ended up making jeans that Coogee never made. And the young cats would say to old people, you don't know about this. This is not Coogee.

So, yeah. Man, let me tell y'all, man. Our show is about giving people their flowers while they alive. Not while, you know what I mean, something happens and you pass away. So, we wanted to make sure that we tell y'all how much y'all mean to the culture, how much y'all mean to the society, how much y'all mean to us personally. So we wanted to give y'all flowers.

Thank you, man. You know what I'm saying? You got real flowers. Oh, man. And we got the other one for your partner who didn't make it. We got the other one to take. I always say to Snoop Dogg,

give it to them. Might as well just give it to them. Put it on the table. There you go. Make sure you represent him that he's not here. All right. For J.O.

Yeah. Big up my partner, J.O. Wait, wait, wait. J.O., we got another one. So we're going to play a quick game.

Can you explain to them? I know the fans hate me when I tell you to explain. Who's drinking? We got to find out who's drinking for them. Oh, yeah. You want any of your friends to be a designated drinker or you want one of our

dudes to be a designated drinker? I'm not even drinking tequila from my heart. Oh, damn. You got bad information, Mr. Lee. You want me to drink it? You want me to drink it? Come on, come on. Who going to be drinking?

Put them back. Somebody can't. Who's going to be drinking? Come on, Keith. Come on. I think everybody needs a designated drinker, right? Oh, we do? Really?

Come on. Designated drinker. Come on, Keith. I think everybody needs a designated drinker, right? Oh, we do? Really? Come on. Designated drinker. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on in.

Do you hear that, folks? This is the only place in the world. There's designated drivers, but on Drink Champs, you get a designated drinker. All right, designated drinker. There we go.

All right. I need somebody to drink for me. Yeah, we need one more designated drinker. Come on, comeer. There we go. All right. I need somebody to drink for me. Yeah, we need one more designated drinker. Come on, come on. There we go. I'm going to call a son. Okay. So we're going to give you two choices.

If you pick one of these two choices, nobody drinks. Right? Nobody drinks. Hold on. You get what? We're going to give you two choices. Okay. You say one over, you know, you pick one.

Nobody drinks. But if you say both or neither, which would be the politically correct answer. Okay, got you. We all drinking here. We're all taking a shot. And please dive into any stories with anybody we mentioned. This is about, you know, bringing up any stories with these folks. Let's start with you.

Let's rock. Let's rock, baby. Carl Canai or Cross Colors? Carl Canai. You knowolors? Carl Canai. You know why? I would like to know why. Because I had a dream of owning a Range Rover one day. You had a dream?

I had a dream of owning a Range Rover one day. That was one of my goals. And Carl Canai made an ad in a ski hat. And he had some skis on sitting next to a Range Rover. And I said, that's going to be me one day. Wow. How can I with a big fucking encouragement to me to go hard.

How can I for sure? For some reason, I knew to ask you this, that question. That's my guy. I'm going to ask you this question. Wait a minute, you don't drink. Nobody drinks. Nobody drinks. No, he picked one. If you don't pick, if you don't drink. Nobody drinks. Nobody drinks. No, no. He picked one. He picked one. If you say if you don't pick. If you say if you don't pick.

Yeah. Nas or LL Cool J? Ooh. LL Cool J. No. No. Nietzsche or Esco? Esco.

Because we own a little bit of that. Shout out to Willie Esco, man. Shout out to Or Esco Esco Cause we Own a little bit of that Shout out to Willie Esco man Shout out to Willie Esco He's the best partner ever Jay-Z Or Biggie Smalls Big This is pretty easy

They answer it Wait wait wait We don't do We throwing it at you too or no? No no It's just for you guys Yeah yeah yeah Big all day baby

You got it? Yeah Fat Farm Or Rock and Wear Two or no? No, no, it's just for you guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big old day, baby. You got it? Yeah. Fat Farm or Rock and Wear? Fat Farm. Okay. Tupac or DMX? Gotta be DMX, fam.

Damn! Yeah, that's all I'm saying. That's all? That was close, though. You want us to drink?X, fam. Damn! Yeah, that's a hard one. That's a hard one. That was close, though. You want us to drink? We'll drink. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll drink. You want us to drink?

Both of them? Either? There you go. There you go. Yeah, that was a tough one. Okay. Any interactions with Pac or... I know XU.

You know what? One of my regrets, I don't think we ever had an interaction with Pac that way. I said what's up to him once. You said what's up to him once? Passing in the club. I don't think I ever even seen him, man. Really? I don't think we ever had an interaction with Pac that way. I said what's up to him once. You said what's up to him once? I don't think I ever even seen him, man. Really? I don't think I ever seen him, man. I never met Pac either.

I heard he was in a club one time when I was there, man. You know what I love about Pac? If you ask 10 different people anything about Pac, 10 different people will give you 10 different stories. Really? Which I now know because I'm married to a Gemini. So I know that. It's different.

It's Gemini shit, bro. It is. It is. Tommy Hilfiger or Nautica? Nautica. Okay. Yeah, you want to go with this one? Walker Ware or Maurice Malone?

Walker Ware. These guys ain't making us drink at all. That's my homie right there all day. I mean, don't disrespect Maurice. Love him too, but... April is my homie. Versace or Gucci? You drinking?

That's what you think, though? Yeah, man. That's a tough one. Both of them. Cheers, cheers, cheers, cheers. Yeah, both of them are legendary. Both of them got the M. That's a tough one.

That's a tough one. Yeah. Tribe Called Quest or Brand New Beer that's a good one Linden Boulevard Linden Boulevard nah Brand New Beer is on that polo shit

I'm going with Tribe Called Quest come on Grand Pooper it wasn't Grand Pooper Tribe Called Beer on that polo shit. I'm going with Choco. Punch him up to get big. Come on, Graham Pooper. Who was it, Graham Pooper? Graham Pooper was

rocking top of his figure. Okay, so I'm still going to go with my guys from Linden. Okay, Linden Boulevard, baby.

Salt-N-Pepa or J.J. Fag? No. Salt-N-Pepa. Salt-N-Pepa. Yeah, that would be you, baby. No. Sucked. A couple of things. I'm going to ask you. I'm going to ask you. I'm going to ask you.

That would be you, baby. Coliseum or Gertrude Moore? I'm going to ask you. He wouldn't drink it. He's like, let me drink some. Guys, drink it, man. Let me drink some for you, man. Go ahead.

We going to Coliseum. You know how it go. That's the first time we go over you, man. Go ahead. We going to the Coliseum. You know how it go. That's the first time we're going over there, man. You know, earlier when we spoke about you guys selling shirts and hats, in my mind,

it was on the Coliseum. Let me tell you a story. It was? It's a quick story. I'm here! Yo, it's two stories to that because me and Damon worked in the Coliseum

Get the fuck out of here. with popcorn stand together. Yeah. That's how we, that's how we won our first jobs together. Wow. Before Church's Chicken. Wow. That's right.

But we started, Easter Sunday was the first day we went out without hats in front of the Coliseum Mall to start our business. Because I would. That was it. Damn, we just. You know, I smoked a lot of weed. Anniversary. Yesterday.

That's the anniversary. It was 35 years ago That's crazy That we stood outside On the corner, Carl and I And I always say this story I tell everybody I always tell this story

About myself But I wasn't Because you know Back in the hood You don't ever go nowhere by yourself You don't even go to the corner And say, yo, take a walk with me Right

Right And I needed Carl And he needed me Because if we We didn't know We were going to sell anybody But I had 800 We had $800 together

And now all of a sudden We think about Who's going to rob us Right It was a good And then Good Friday, right Good Friday, 1989 We didn't know we were going to sell any, but we had $800 together. And now, all of a sudden, we're thinking about who's going to rob us. Right. It was a good Friday. Yeah, Good Friday, right. Good Friday, 1989. Because I remember, and my memory is fucked up.

So I remember going to Shirt Kings and thinking I saw a FUBU shirt there. Key Cousin worked at Shirt Kings. Yeah, big typo. That shit is fucked up. That's way back then. Yeah. Key cousin worked at Shurkings. Yeah, big typo. That shit is fucking on fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm telling you guys. That's way back then. Yeah, like back then I was like, you know, Coliseum for me. And I know this is going to really sound like, that was like, I didn't know no other fly.

Right. Yeah. That was it right there. That was it. Downstairs with the sneakers. Come on. The jewelry. The gold pads. The jewelry.

Everything. The sneakers. That's all I knew. That was it. I mean, when you really think about it, it was Coliseum Shirt Kings, right? It was Mr. Lee, if you want to get some pressure on oil. You didn't have money for Dapper Dan. Right.

Yeah, Dapper Dan was the special. Dapper Dan. Yes, that's him. My Tico Bay. Yeah, my Tico, yeah. Yeah, when I moved around the world, they called their spot flea markets. Right. But that's what Coliseum is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, yo, I don't know. It's like, are you going to say flea market out here? What are they calling it in LA? Swap meet? Swap meet in LA. If you say, the crazy shit is, if you say to me the Coliseum, I'm like, yeah, I'm with it. But if you say to me, come with me to the flea market, I'm like, nah, I ain't doing it.

No, it's the same fucking thing. I got my first fat gold chain from the Coliseum. I think it was $2 a yard. You remember to get the rope chain and turn it green like the same night? Oh, okay. Tell me nothing, baby. But you got to remember, the Coliseum didn't sell fake shit. No. They had real 90s, real Adidas. nothing, baby. But you got to remember, though, Kyle Seam didn't sell fake shit. No.

They had real... They had real Adidas. Real Adidas. Yeah, everything. So it was a flea market sometimes. That's the difference between that and a flea market. You have a real store right here

in the flea market, and you got... It's bootleg. You got the real football here, and then the real football here, right next to it. Big difference. Okay, you said I got the next one?

No, no. Podcast or radio? Radio. Okay. Come on, got the next one? No, no. Podcast or radio? Radio. Okay. Come on. Fubu radio, man. Fubu radio. What are you talking about?

You got to go hard, man. Fubu radio. That's what we talking about. Let me get a license over here. Drink jam. Echo or Sean John? Let's drink. Yeah, you got to drink that. You got to drink that. You got to drink that. You got to drink that. Yeah, you got to drink that. You got to drink that.

You got to drink that. You know, Mark was so edgy with his finesse side. And Sean John. When Echo had the tapes that came with it, that was it. Yeah, Echo had that. And then Sean John, it took it to a higher level with a lot of the furs and a lot of all this stuff. You know, they kept it going. You know what I mean?

And, you know, man. And this is style-wise. But you can answer it the way you want. Dapper Dan or Groovy Lou? Oh, what? Groovy Lou. Groovy Lou. Groovy Lou all day.

Groovy Lou all day. Yeah. Yes, sir. Really? Yeah, Dapper Dan, whatever. Yeah. I'm taking a shot because I'm shocked. When we fuck with Dapper Dan like that?

Really? No. Is there a story behind that? We don't know the story behind it, but it's just like little jabs that we don't understand. We always show respect, but I know Carl has something to say on that, too. Yeah, I think they know it is. It's not even about Dap. but I know Carl has something to say on that too. It's not even about Dap. It's about,

I think, even when it came to, I think, what's his name? What's my man's name? Jim Jones. He said something not so long ago about how

Cass and Harlem didn't fuck with FUBU. And at that time, I was in sales with FUBU. I was head of sales so I knew the numbers we were writing with Sammy's and all the cats

145th I knew they were making millions of dollars off our brand and I knew I knew what bass is wearing now shit

I knew Cameron's wearing now shit and for him to come and say that Harlem didn't fuck with FUBU it just

it touched me the wrong way so when you come to D, he never showed us much love. Jim never showed us much love, even though he tried to do the same thing we tried to do with that vampire shit. He should know how hard this business is and how hard it is for us to maintain what we're doing. To try to say we ain't shit, it kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

But with that being said, though, we love Harlem. To try to say we ain't shit, it kind of rubbed me the wrong way. But with that being said, though, we love Harlem. Harlem always loved us. And we'll be back in stores over there soon. You know what's crazy? You know, rap is like so competitive, right? And everyone is always at each other.

And the other day I had lunch with Dave Chappelle right and I kind of like I kind of like that's a slight floss I kind of laughed at I kind of laughed at him because I was like finally comedians is going through what we and I'm like I'm sorry but I'm sorry, but I kind of like it. Yeah, get the heat. The fact that, because rap, we didn't see human at first. You know, you're getting money and then you start

beefing. That shit don't make no sense. But to see it in other worlds, a part of me was like, damn, that's real. Y'all go through it too. I didn't think of it like that I thought I

this is what I thought what you thought swear to god I know I'm mad naive so forgive me but I thought y'all all cool y'all can kumbaya and see each other

in Cancun and party I think I think the whole fashion right right the whole thing because I heard of y'all beefing you know what I'm saying

and there's no beef it's just that it's just a lot of a lot of shit we've been through behind the scenes that people don't know about. Like, they see the story, you know,

Damon mortgages his house for, you know, $100,000 and we did deal with Samsung and all of that, but they don't know the extortion plots. They don't know

the deep shit that we be going through behind closed doors and why we talk about putting out a document. Yeah, let me tell you. So let's talk about some of that shit, right? Okay, cool.

Because by the way, we've been holding back the doc and the series, right? Because every time Hollywood talks to us and they go, they always do docs and series about stories that somebody ended up dead or in jail or a crime family, African American, whatever. And they always go, when we tell our story about what happened, they go, so one of y'all are in jail. Nah. Somebody getting weaned off a pedo.

Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Y'all are all still alive. Yeah. But what happened was when we came up, as I said, homophobic culture, nobody's thought we were making money. So what happened is nobody grabbed on to us from the streets. None of the Supreme. Remember,

we come up with Supreme Team. Right. We come up with Tommy Montana in Queens and like, we come up with all these guys who you... We was in Encore.

Where they usually try to grab on to you before you come up, but we come up silently. Right. All of a sudden, $350 million are going through a system.

You got now the Yakuza in Japan and China going, you better make the clothes over here with us. Wait, they're telling you this? Yeah, or something's going to happen. You got a buyer at a store who's like, I'll buy $10 million worth of shit,

but I need a house. Right? You got the mob going, there's $100 million coming into your warehouse. Just claim insurance on $5 million. Don't worry

about it. It's not going to be there when you got there if you don't. It's a washing machine. If you don't, it's way worse than that. You got the street seeing us coming out Going $350 million Must be under your mattress

So now we got to Hire the dudes We got to hire The personal bodyguards Who used to run Who used to deal with The tunnel And Union Square

To know that they Going to be able to Deal with the streets You got to start Trying to move your family Out of there Because they ain't Going to get to you

Well you know The worst person To ever get kidnapped Ain't the person getting kidnapped. It's the friend next to them because those are the fingers that are going to show up at the house. Right. We have all this coming to us at the same time, right? And we're trying to push this away because we're just trying to make clothes. You're just trying to run a business.

Right. You got to deal with all this shit. So when you got that kind of system happening, there's a lot of things that happen and there's a lot of hate that happens too because your clothing brand is not working because ours is. And we're not trying to do anything. It's just not your time, son.

I want y'all to tell y'all story so bad because... We're going to tell that story one day. Because it just looked like... It just looked like there was no nothing. It just looked like y'all just... I was four cars away when Biggie got shot. Wow. I was four cars in front of him.

We was partying with him tonight. I had just said what's up to him. Yeah, we sent him a bottle of Dom, and he raised his bottle up. We raised our bottle up. We got story. 20 minutes later, party ended. Everybody's trying to fight and all that stuff. We just trying to dress everybody, man.

We in between everything, East Coast, West Coast. Suge shows up at one of our parties that we're throwing for Lennox Lewis after party. The promoter was a promoter from LA, so he had to let Suge in. But then my bodyguards had to go to Suge and say, get the F out of here because Puff's coming in. And so now, we got to beef in the streets with Suge that we don't got a beef, but my dudes had to settle it because now they had, you know, they're deep. My dudes,

our dude is our ex-Navy SEAL. We got all kinds of stuff, but we just trying to dress people, man. Yo, you want a shirt, homeboy? You had me at Yakuza. The wild thing, Norris, is one story about FUBU,

but it's four different stories. We tried to stop the counterfeiters on 27th Street. And we tried to stop them, and we found out that a lot of those are these organizations overseas that don't do well for the world, I don't want to say their name, 300 people come out of those buildings and start chasing. We have off-duty cops.

They start whipping the cops. Keith got caught up in it. I was in a hospital. They just caught me. Kicked me in my kidney. And that's written up in the paper because you have all these counterfeiters coming out. You know, if FUBU did, let's say we did $10 billion over the years, counterfeiters did $50 billion. Wow.

So it's a lot of stuff in our world that, listen, there's nobody going to do $200 million worth of business annually without a lot of people wanting to get paid. This is the reason why y'all got a really, really, really. And we got all the tape. We're going to tell them stories. Oh, yeah. No, we got stories for days. What about the Fatty Girl set? Who walked onto the Fatty Girl set?

We couldn't put that tape out. We got OJ Simpson and Fatty Girl video like. Dancing with Superhead. Yeah. With handcuffs on. What was the story? Who had handcuffs on? Go to the story.

Ludacris had the chain. You know Ludacris' chain with the handcuffs? That's what I'm telling you. The jelly? Tell them the story. And OJ just popped out of nowhere. He came there, him and Superhead dancing. He got the chain.

No, he looks at Ludacris and says, I know what those are. And they were handcuffs. He put the handcuffed gold chain around him. Superhead Corinne Steffen starts dancing with him. He shoots the video. I got it still locked up because as soon as Hype Williams put the video together, we grew up with Hype too. He was on tour with us. Of course.

We show it to the store. They go, you can't put that video. Why? We showed it to Universal. We showed it to Universal. They said said no store Will ever carry your stuff Because you are promoting

OJ Simpson So I'm assuming This is after the Yes right Oh this is after This is after he came home This is after This is after he's clean

We locked that tape up He was fresh out He was fresh out We locked that tape up For ever Right Holy shit Anyway we've been through a lot, man.

Academics or LRG? The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian, Dr. Randall Williams, and bestselling author and meat eater founder, Stephen Ranella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here. And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves.

So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked

all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. And it's going to take us to heal us. It's Mental Health Awareness Month and on a recent episode of Just Heal with Dr. J, the incomparable Taraji P. Henson stopped by to discuss how she's discovered peace on her journey. So what I'm hearing you saying is healing is a part of us also reconnecting to our childhood

in some sort. You said I look how youthful I look because I never let that little girl inside of me die. I go outside and run outside with the dogs. I still play like a kid. I laugh. You know, I love jokes. I love funny. I love laughing. I laugh at myself.

I don't take myself too seriously. That's the stuff that keeps you young and stops you from being so hard. To hear this and more things on the journey of healing you can listen to just heal with dr j from the black effect podcast network on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts at&t connecting changes everything it's the same you gotta drink to drink that. Same to me. Same style. Same thing. I didn't think I know the owners of Arby's.

Where we at? Polo or Perry Ellis? Fuck Polo. Fuck Polo? Yo, you said fuck Polo twice. Yeah, I'm going to keep it real. I'm going to keep it real with you. Cats that wear Polo, it cringes me, dog.

Why? Because the bottom line is... Make sure I'm good. The bottom line... I feel like this. There's so many black-owned brands right now that are so... Let's forget FUBU on this thing. But to put that much energy and influence and effort behind a brand

that literally does nothing for your community. It's real. It runs me the wrong way. I look at this. When we started, we built a company based upon young black and people of color

hiring them giving them jobs opportunities and without companies like ours without supporting companies like ours a lot of these kids would never had the opportunity that we gave some of these kids that are now some injections have ad Puma. They're doing things that they would never have the opportunity to do without FUBU. Right. So we need more. Like JC said, we need more FUBUs.

Right. Because a lot of kids just won't get those opportunities without it. So when I say fuck Polo, nothing personal to that cat, Ralph, whatever his name is, but it's just to that energy

that you give those brands as opposed to where you can really put your resources. Well, here's where I, and This is why we're all great partners. Whether we're talking about if we feel some cast have said something negative or not, I'll always come and he'll do the vice versa. I'll be the devil's

advocate. Well, maybe Jim, the group he hung out with never rocked it. That was his experience. Maybe that, this and that. Maybe Ralph Lauren made Tyson Beckford. And Tyson Beckford was the first African-American male supermodel that I know. Right.

And maybe Ralph Lauren inspired it ain't Ralph though to step up his game. And so we'll always have these healthy debates. And I think that that's what makes, that's what creates innovation. I don't disagree with Carl and I don't agree with Carl. Right. And vice versa. Take a shot for that. You see what I'm saying?

And can't forget that a lot of the polo thing was people were boosting it. And in a sense, that was a protest. And a lot of community, it was a protest. And they made some money. But, you know, there know, people were boosting it. I'm just talking from an economical standpoint. The bottom line is, if companies like ours don't survive, young, creative people don't have the chances that they would have if we do something. I agree.

Well, you know what? I like what we're doing now is we're spreading the business out. It's just not clothing. It's radio. It's TV. Things of that nature. I've been doing FUBU Radio for the last eight years. Wow.

You know what I'm saying? And it's interesting. You know what I'm saying? It's a challenge. It's not easy. But we've turned the corner and did a deal with U42. My people at U42, we're building an 18-stage theater, an 18-stage studio in Atlanta.

Right. So, like, we working on some other things. You know what I'm saying? Not just clothing. Yeah. And there's no limitations. With the revenue, with the capital from your supporters. I mean, the bottom line is you're going to spend your dollars somewhere.

I'm in the middle. Just be conscious of that. And going to spend your dollars somewhere. I'm in the middle. Just be conscious of that. And I'm going to tell you why I'm in the middle. I'm going to throw it back in drink champs. I see your production crew and I see everybody here.

It's a healthy mix of beautiful people of all colors. And I think that what happens is when I look at a lot of the production crews, they only look one way. Yeah.

Right? I think that the beauty of what you do right here is everybody comes up with, they get the best out of both. You show these major companies right here that you can make money keeping it real with a real crew. And I think that collectively, I think sometimes that's where Carl and I may disagree because maybe it was the fact that it was, you know, that maybe don't do as much of a community in this way, but inspired a community this way. So, you know, you know, but because, you know, I don't want to tell you to tell you to you. I remember we had Shaquille O'Neal sitting right here. Right? And I say to Shaq, like, how much I like Audemars, right?

I'm like, I like Audemars. And Shaq looks at me and he goes, I know Audemars cares about me. Do you think they care about you? And I had to think. Holy shit. Like, I was like, because it's true sometimes. It's not just Audemars. It's like Rolex. Like, people don't really know. This is my favorite watch right now. And which one is it? It's not just Audemars. It's like Rolex.

People don't really know. This is my favorite watch right now. And which one is it? It's a Fubu watch. Fubu watch. You know why? Because it makes me money. God damn it.

It pays my bills. God damn it. You know what I mean? There's no valuable watch in this watch. I don't even know who the militant one is. But the reality is it's creating wealth for me. It's creating opportunities for me. You know what I'm saying?

So this means more to me than any Rolex I can have. Shout out to Shaxx, the king of licensing. Yo, he's ill. Let me ask you. I saw, I can't say this brother name, right? But I saw a dude and he was really trying to just wear just black-owned shit, right? He picked the worst brands, right?

I'm looking like, man, you need to go back to selling out. Like, right? I said that all wrong, man. He going to know exactly how to think about him too. I think he knew exactly who you were talking about. Yeah, but... Yeah, he knows.

He knows who I'm talking about. He said the people? Yeah, the people know too. Okay. But sometimes the quality is not the same when you want to just support your people, right?

Like, let's suppose if I wanted to eat Puerto Rican food, like today, I call my engineer, we always eat vegetarian Jamaican food. Don't ask me why. We just like it, right?

But today, I purposely knew I was going to a Jamaican stew, and I knew I was going to be disrespected. Right, right. You got to think of the winner. Boy, I want. Yes. I knew it.

You're going to get the abuse. I knew that. I knew that was coming out. Right. But it's like, damn. Like, when I sometimes go to our people, I know that it's like, yo, you supposed to be here. Yeah. And it's like, nah.

So my wife ordered the food, right? And she was like, yo. And I was like, can, you supposed to be here. And it's like, nah. So my wife ordered the food, right? And she was like, yo. And I was like, can you order it for me? I'm about to get a haircut. I'm going out. And she was like, yo, if my employees talk to me the way this, because my wife owns the juice bar, so she's like, if my employees just talk to me

and I have to tell her, no, man, that's the Jamaican shit. Like, I'm used to it. You brace yourself before you walk in the door. So sometimes this is the point I'm trying to make. Right. Sometimes when you support just the culture. Some of the some of the products aren't that great. Agree with you 100%. Yeah. You know, the foundation of what, when some of the things we created was, prior to that,

besides cross-color, you had to wear kente cloth colors to support African-American businesses. And then cross-cloth came out and they broke them all and they inspired me.

But I don't want to wear no orange or yellow denim suit. The characters, the characters too. Or the little character shirts were out and they're gone after one day. Wasn't they wearing them backwards

and back then? We always, and you're right. I don't care what organization, color, da, da, da, da. You got to step up your game and you got to prepare. And we should not support

those companies that do that because we should, give them a shot. Give them a second shot. Put them on notice. Support somebody else because there's somebody else who's trying to make it better for them. You know what I mean? But I do want to, you know, instead of like, you know, I do want to talk about the people who do support FUBU today.

You know what we realize people who support FUBU today? Let's not talk about the people who don't. Let's talk about people who do. The ones who do. That's right. Highly educated people or highly educated people or with people with a lot of money because they can pick from anything and they don't just do food so you'll see uh like old school people in their 30s 40s they'll buy the shoes whatever because they can

pick from anything and they say hey i'm gonna make 10 of my wardrobe that also you'll see like a lot of the young artists who are very pro, they have a silent message to everybody. I know Drake supports it a lot. What are the other artists, younger artists? SZA for sure. SZA? Oh, SZA supports it all the time.

Who else? Yachty. Yachty. Who else? Oh, girl. So a lot of the music artists today who are trying to do a Kind of like a little like They're doing the LL Cool J They're doing their

Like a subliminal And what's dope about it Summer Walk Let me just Sorry for a second What's dope about it If they're discovering it just now But most of them

Want to pay homage Right Yeah They want to pay homage They want to say They want to rock What they favorite rappers rock When they favorite rappers rock it

Right So I see that a lot Like when You know i'll go through the malls or something like that and i'll see like my sons or somebody like this and they'll and they'll pick up and i'm like i want to say you don't know no fubu and he like but but he does know he does yeah he's he's seeing these videos and that's what it is so when it's older people who know what it is and they have a choice of anything And everything They choose that

The younger artists Who are trying to do the subliminal And then a lot of times It's the younger kids Who are saying This is mine I'm going to reset this thing off Because I'm creating an identity

That you don't know about They're very pro-conscious And those are the people That we Again like We've always tried to do We've always tried to appeal to those And not talk about the negative stuff

And I want to make sure Yeah but those girls The people that you Go ahead No I was going to say The key to all that Even being successful Is that there has to always be quality

You want to pay homage The quality's got to be there The new cat wants to come in And discover it The quality's got to be there The thing about what we did Was we made sure We put the quality in our clothes

So people, how we actually relaunched, you know, because everybody was doing their thing, off doing their thing, but how we relaunched

was people started thrifting and the clothes was, they were fine and looked brand new. Yeah. So then they started like posting, I'm bringing FUBU back,

I'm bringing FUBU, but I'm looking at these clothes like, damn, this jacket looks brand new. This sweatshirt looks brand new. One of your brothers, I mean, obviously my true guy,

because, you know, and a lot of this stuff is not, we did a collaboration with Pullman, various other things, but one of your brothers on set, he got a jersey. We didn't make that.

We made that jersey 20 years ago. Yeah. Yellow jersey. He made it yesterday. That's 20 years old, man. It looks like it's brand new. You know what I'm saying? That's what I did from

vintage shirt. It's the quality. We was kids and we said, how are we going to make this the way we wanted to make it? Wait, hold on. I'm just catching on to what you just said. Hold on. You're saying that shirt's 20 years old?

Yeah, he bought it at a vintage store. That's a testament to quality. That's crazy. It's actually a little over 20 years old. And by the way, shout out to our partner, Jay. When Jay first used to come home with clothes that he spent all his money on, I used to look at him. He was

crazy, and he said that's an investment, and he always pushed the quality. Our partner who's not in the podcast. He had $600 Gucci pairs. And he only had $500 a week. A month. But his pairs was crisp. Wow. Okay.

We still have a quick time. Yeah. Video music box or you're on TV rap? Video music box all day. Video music box. I love that. Shout out Ralph. The Source Box. I love that. Shout out, Ralph. The Source or XXL? Anybody. XXL had bad bitches.

I say XXL. You say what? Yeah, he said bad bitches. Yeah, man. You just giving 100. A different magazine. That's a different magazine, man. But it was in the magazine.

I caught on immediately. I knew exactly what you were talking about. You know they didn't have Little Bunny in the magazine, man. But it was in the magazine. I knew what you mean. You know my king or something like that. I caught on immediately. I knew exactly what you were talking about. You know they had a little bunny in the magazine? A little edgy in the magazine. Man, I say Source, man. Source, I say Source. The original Source, man.

Okay, Lost Boys or Onyx? Ooh. Ooh. Don't get in trouble. You may as well take a drink for that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me find out your sticky feet. You know what? Mr. Cheeks was on our album. I'm going to go with that one. Yeah, I got you. I'm bugging you. Let me find out your sticky feet. You can't.

You can't. You know what? You can't go to North Point. You know what? Mr. Cheeks was on our album, but Onyx used to be our barbers before they went. I just interviewed Cheeks. Really? Yeah, they were the Gert's Smalls.

They used to be barbers. Yeah, Fred wrote with my barber before he made it. Yeah. Right there by the Gert's Mall. The Gert's Mall. That's wild. Now, we don't know your shit. I heard Onyx take a queenie sit down. That's too much. That's wild. Now, we don't know your shit. I heard.

I understand the story. That's my joke. I understand the story. I've never heard. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West.

I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Rinella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here. And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated

itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. And it's going to take us to heal us. It's Mental Health Awareness Month. And on a recent episode of Just Heal with Dr. J, the incomparable Taraji P. Henson stopped by to discuss how she's discovered peace on her journey. So what I'm hearing you saying is healing is a part of us also reconnecting to our childhood in some sort.

You said I look how youthful I look because I never let that little girl inside of me die. I go outside and run outside with the dogs. I still play like a kid. I laugh, you know, I love jokes. I love funny. I love laughing. I laugh at myself.

I don't take myself too seriously. That's the stuff that keeps you young and stops you from being so hard. To hear this and more things on the journey of healing you can listen to Just Heal with Dr. J from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts AT&T connecting changes everything. Holy shit That is so dope Shout out to Onyx man Check out the archive Drink chance Yo I'ma tell you Listen like Waka Flocka's mom Deb

Who discovered Nicki Minaj They four house away From us right And Bimmy So Bimmy You know Bimmy Of course

You've been on the show So when Bimmy was When When I was about I was about I was about seven I think Bimmy was about four I hid him in my garage Cause I didn't have no brothers or sisters.

And he was about four, and I hid him in my garage. And my mom was like, who is this? That was Pop. No, it wasn't Pop. It was Bimmy's little brother. Oh, they were like, yo, what? She was like, you got a pet in the garage, mom. She was like, what, you got a pet?

Now, Bimmy and Joe and all them, they got like 100 brothers and sisters. And my mother was like, you got one of the Antneys in the garage? But Deb, who's Waka Plaka's mom, we all grew up with Waka Plaka. We all grew up with all these people, man. Wow. Wow. I was on the other side, too. Karis, what are Rakim?

Who are Rakim? Rakim, baby. Are you kidding me? I used to see. That was one of the first joints I've seen word for word. Which one? Seven holes in my face, and I'm looking at the window. Come on, man.

The God. The God. The God, Rakim. Rakim is a game changer. Seven holes in my face And I'm looking at the window Come on man The guard The guard The guard Rakim Rakim is a game changer Take seven And seize for the Minute line Paid in full

He's still the same Paid in full He never cursed Which is crazy Cause you swore he cursed You know I went my whole life Without not realizing That Rakim did not curse.

I did not. Yeah, that's the illest shit. He never cursed. But that was the most gangster's music you ever heard. I don't know how I even discovered that recently. I was like, and I'm like, you're a liar. Rakim cursed. And I went through and I was like, holy shit, this motherfucker didn't curse.

Not just that he not cursed, it was gangster without him saying any gangster shit. Gangster shit, yeah. You know what I'm saying? That part is awesome. You know what we had on Black On Renewal Day that I never realized? I never realized that Flavor Flav played 14 instruments. Oh, he's a savant.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's the illest. I shot a video with Flavor Flav, yeah. Flav, we need you on Drink Chance, man. We had Chuck D, but we need Flav. Huge Swifty, kind of broke open reality shows with Flavor of Love. Oh, yeah. One of the first people to go.

I think he went platinum, right? Fear of a Black Planet. Public Enemy. Oh, no. Yeah, Public Enemy. Yeah, they sold mad records. And what's crazy about Public Enemy, they were speaking like they speak the most black pride shit ever.

You ever been to a Public Enemy show? You know how many people was there? Most of the people was there. White audience. That shit fucked my childhood up. Believe it or not,

there's a massive amount of people who are not avid members of Bifu these days. It's kind of like it's mad like we're one of the

top in Manila and in Philippines. We're one of the top in Europe and stuff like that. Yeah, it's fascinating how they love our culture. If you ever look at the Bob Marley movie, the first crowds, they went to Europe, remember? We watched it together. They went to Europe, and they were hanging out with the crazy, banging each other on the head, CBGB-like crazy.

They were getting ill fights to the white kids. It's a lot of times those cultures when you look at them they adopt each other first let me just tell y'all the fly shit that this guy did rented out the whole

movie theater I'm trying to I gotta support Bob right so I'm trying to buy something they're like no sir

it's winter everything is free I was like fly shit so I say that to say i still went out and seen the bob molly story because i felt like that wasn't supporting more molly it was like getting their screening you know private screening but i still had to go back and by the way i cried both times yeah man yeah shout out to bob man i don't work for the family or nothing i guess it is amazing Yeah, shout out to Bob, man. Yo, that movie. I ain't seen it yet. Oh.

I don't work for the family or nothing. But listen. It is amazing. Listen. That shit is. And what's crazy, like, to hear your story, to say that y'all dealt with hate, y'all dealt with all this shit too.

All I hear is Bob Marley's beautiful music. Mm-hmm. And I realize I didn't know nothing about Bob, like, personally, until I was interviewing... Rohan. Rohan. So I went and had to do that. And I was like, when I found out all the shit that Bob went through... He went through a lot, though.

...and made beautiful music... It was revolutionary what he was doing. He was supposed to make Bobby Smyrna music, the shit he going through. He was supposed to be making... It felt like that's the powers that be it did feel that way and he was like

hey I love you I love not the shit that you going to do it's the not more than one love people are scared of love people are scared of unity

that's the thing and you know it's so ill our generation is so ill my oldest daughter's 30 and I show a picture and that was the second time I saw it because I had the joy of seeing it at the thing and I show a picture and that was the second I saw cuz I had the joy of seeing it at the thing and I have a picture

with the young man played Bob yeah you know my daughter says that's Ken from Barbie yes another Ken you like who? That's not. That's wild. That lets you know. Shout out to that brother Kingston. One minute he Bob Marley, the other minute he Ken. Yeah, he's a good actor. That's a good actor. You know right now we talk about him, he's going to be whoever he is. He already.

He out of here. And he's Obama in another movie. No way. Yo, he looks a little bit like him. He's Obama in another movie. I saw it. Or, um, uh, um,

uh, uh, not a reality show, but like something. I've seen him play Obama, so when I see, I see they got Obama playing Obama. That's how old I am. I thought that was

his big shocker. When I took a picture with him, his hair was bald. I said to myself, if I was him, I'd be working that Bob Marley shit.

I would've been like this walking around with a long hair. I'd be like, ting, ting, ting, ting. I'd be like that Bob Marley shit. I would've been like this walking around with a long hair. I would've been like, yeah, man. Ting and ting and ting. I would've been like, you know me? By the way,

by the way, you fucked me up because since that day, I've been running around with a Jamaican accent and I've realized that people don't find that funny.

Don't go fucking up that day. You've been doing it on Drink Channel. Who don't find it funny? I hear you right. No, no, no. I turned it up. I went to Turk from Bob Marley to Turk. Who don't find it funny? I heard you right. No, no. I turned it up. I went to Turk from Walmart and Turk's.

Who don't find it funny? I got a question for you. Okay. You just went to Paris. I saw you. Life is good. Hip-hop's been really good to us, man. And I appreciate that because you show us how we have that work-life balance.

That's right. When I'm in Paris, my wife says to me that I'm culturally inappropriate when I'm like, how do you say it? Oh, you show off. You show off. When you use that accent? Oh, you show off. You don't use that accent when you say it. Dude, but I'm not, it's not like if I'm in an Asian country and I'm not saying the word,

I'm going, you know, like, I'm going. I can't help it. Z, Z, cookie, we call it Z. Macaron? That's not disrespectful. No, I ain't going to. Ziz, ziz, cookie, we call it a ziz. Macaron? That's not disrespectful. No, I ain't going to lie to you. He's not lying. I can't help it.

You do the same shit. I actually caught what you rock right now. What are you doing? Every country we go to, I try to settle like this. I was outside of town. I bought a red beret. I was out there. And this French dude said, yo, ain't nobody left personal war.

That was like 200 years ago Yeah yeah yeah You know I got I love Paris And I got an accent man Am I being cultural Yes you are Yes you are

I'm telling you What is it I do it too We We are actually Trying to show love But we're being offensive So is it like

Somebody coming up To one of us going Yo homeboy Yo homeboy Yeah it's exactly that And they happen not to be a homeboy. It's exactly that.

All right, honey, honey, honey. You're right. Don't do it in the left country. Don't do it in the left country. I do it everywhere. I'm sorry. But the French don't like us anyway. Yeah, they don't like it.

I got some hard stories about France. If like us anyway. Yeah, they don't like You know, I know I know the people to call We know Let me just tell you something a drivers. They don't like Americans. That we know. I mean, by the way, let me just tell you something. A lot of places don't like Americans. That's true. But they were the first. They were first.

Okay. They were first in the conference. I would think England was the first who didn't like Americans. If you were in France, you walk in a hotel and you say something in English,

they would act like they don't know. I know. I ain't gonna lie. No, no. Depends on which hotel. Yeah, back in the day. Now.

Maybe now, yo. Yeah, yeah, now. Depends on which hotel. Yeah, back in the day. Now. Maybe now, yo. Yeah, yeah, now. Because I just came, I just went there in November, and I was kind of apprehensive. I had the little app trying to translate. Right. I was like, you speak English? Right. I sure do.

Yeah. I heard they like it because they like tips, and Americans are the only ones that really tip. No, they just started liking tips. But that's why I heard they like it. They start to speak English now. I remember one time I tipped a guy, he says, what is this? You bagged my money, motherfucker. You can't call me an employee.

You should have been a faculty. What is this? What is this? Why are you doing this? This is the one I'm speaking for. You're taking it. It's such a sexy. France is not going to license drink chance.

It's such a sexy language, you cannot help but do it. Not the way we're saying it right now. Yeah, no, we fucking it up. Well, then how come every time the people from overseas imitate American, they go, hey, y'all. Brother man. Brother. Yeah. What's happening, brother?

All right. We're going on track here. The heads up. It's perfectly on track. NWA or Wu-Tang Clan? Ooh. I'm going to go with Wu-Tang. I knew your New York was going to stand up for you.

No, it is. I mean, you got Raekwon. Go ahead. Come on, man. Let's be real. No, you got Ice Cube, though. Don't disrespect the ECE. You got Ice Cube.

And then when he joined P.E. No, I love Ice Cube. He only did one album. Scarface or Ice Cube got Ice Cube, though. Don't disrespect ECE. You got Ice Cube, and then when he joined P.E. No, I love how he only did one album. Scarface or Ice Cube? Ice Cube. Ice Cube all day. Core Mega or Nature? Core Mega.

Mobb Deep or M.O.P.? You can drink. You can say both or neither. You let them drink or not? I'm not kidding. It is what it is. I like that. Heavy D or Chub Rock? Heavy D.

Rest in peace, man. Yeah. He loves heavy. Juice or New Jack City? Nah, New Jack City. New Jack City. All right, and this is the last question for Quick Time of Slime

and then we go back. Not a trick question. But it's not a trick question, but this is for all three of y'all. I'm going to start with you. But I want individually answer you. Individually.

Loyalty or respect? Respect. Any reason why or no? Respect. Any reason why or no? No. Loyalty, come and go. You know what I'm saying? Like,

respect. If somebody really respect you, that respect should always be there or will always be there. You know what I'm saying? Loyalty won't always be there. You know, people change and shit. You know what I'm saying? Soalty won't always be there. You know, people change and shit. You know what I'm saying?

Oh, yeah. Loyalty. Explain why. I just been through so much in my life to where I realized that the loyal people in my life that really stuck me through whatever the situation was, those are people that really matter. Now, I can get disrespectful with a motherfucker anytime, but if I'm loyal to you, you know what I'm saying, that kind of oversees it. That kind of overlooks everything.

If I trust you, I'm fucking with you forever. The purpose of loyalty is loyalty. There is no come and go. It's to be loyal. That's it. I respect what

Genghis Khan did as a leader. I would never do it. I would never rape and pillage. Loyalty is to be loyal. That's it. I'm taking a drink to that. I'm taking a drink to... By the way, I agree with all three answers.

So me and EFN, we always say... We just say, why not both? That this is the only time when we play QuickTime with Slam that we should say both because I think one washes the other, but I agree with what everything that you just said. I mean, I just want both at the same time.

All right, let's go. There you go. Now, at one point, Fubu... I think it was you who said it went like this, right? Me, this is what I say. Thank you, designated drinkers. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Me, I always say, my career is like that right

there's been times where rock bottom like whatever as norby right and I call it I call it rap purgatory has it ever been a time where y'all felt like y'all was in

fashion purgatory where it's like, all right, cool. They ain't fucking with us no more. Did y'all ever feel like that? Yeah, we saw it coming. If you're shipping a million dollars a season to a certain retailer and they come to you next season and order half of that, the next season they order a quarter of that, the writing's on the wall. So we had a sense of knowing that the shit was, that things were turning around.

Because they ain't even told me, yo, Carl, we got to do something about this. We got to do something else outside of this clothing shit because this shit is about to hit the fan. This is like five years before it hit the fan. So the signs are there, but you just got to make the adjustments. I want to, though,

bring up a point of I don't want to make it a big sloppy wet kiss about FUBU. Because we didn't know what we didn't know also, we got cocky, too. We would sell

what they call a prepack. I dealt with that. I had a store. It was the worst thing for a small business Right right We were saying I don't know what prepack is

I talked about it with April You gotta take You gotta take these 12 pair of jeans There's 232s 234s 236s Up to

I'm selling to high school kids Who are skinny And I was getting Triple quadruple X Of these And I'm like I can't do nothing with these I don't know what y'all talk about

So let's say his box Yeah way over my cost $500. Okay. He just wanted $500 worth of size 32 and 34. Right. But we said to him, screw you. We're not breaking open the box. I got the whole box from China or wherever it's from.

Right. It's 12 pairs. You take the $500 worth because we're so hot or you don't get it at all. We give it to your man across the street. It's 12 pairs. You take the $500 worth because we're so hot or you don't get it at all. We give it to your man across the street. It was rampant.

It wasn't just obviously you guys. No, but yeah. But I think that's cannibalizing our own industry within itself. No, but here's, I'm going to tell you what happened. Guys like this, man,

would say, I ain't got no choice. Let me take him. Let me take him. Let me take him. So now what does he have to do? He takes them all. All the jeans are $100 a piece,

supposed to sell at $100 a piece. Yeah. He got 100 pair of 42s and 40s that he can't sell. He puts them in a bucket over here and says, buy them for $25, kids. Right. You a kid, you walking the store, you can't tell the difference of the $100 And the $25

And then guess what The new one The new hungry company Come up Go I'll give you Many 32's You want

Now all of a sudden We have a bunch of inventory And we got him He's pissed off Like yo Why so forth Why you buying for so forth He like

Remember me Mister you gotta buy The whole box homie Right Yo matter of fact mister? You got to buy the whole box, homie. Right. Yo, matter of fact, I don't want to buy shit from you no more. Wow. We did that for a certain amount of years and not knowing any better because we didn't know what was about to happen. Right.

Now, we build up all this inventory because we didn't know any better. Then all of a sudden, we're like, no, no, no, that was a mistake, man. We break that box open. He's like, too late, homie. Yeah, we moved on to something else. Too late. Or our doors had to close. Right.

And another retailer's gone. Now, the independent store, I missed the story Bruce told me recently. There was a time where an independent store couldn't get credit. That's what it was. That's exactly how we were told we get credit by buying the prepaid. Right. So what happened was Republic is the bank that gives independent stores credit. Right.

So what Republic told us is, yo, we get so many calls to buy a food booth. What we're going to do is we're going to give everybody, every store that calls us, we're going to give them $20,000 in credit. Whether they get good credit or bad credit, we're going to give them that shot. So, with that being said, with us as sales, that made us go from $10 million to $20 million. It also gave us the power to give neighborhood stores credit.

That never were able to happen. With that arrogance, we said, in order for you to buy our stuff, you got to buy it in these packages. And it kind of caused some... And we couldn't sell those. And it shows that no matter who you are, no matter who you are, if you don't treat your customer right,

and if that was our customer, and you don't treat them right sooner or later, you're going to put them out of business or they're going to put you out of business. Because then what happens in return is they put other brands in- And because somebody else comes and says, yo, somebody's not fulfilling

this man's needs. And I'm small and I don't even have 12 packs. I'm going to give you the size that you need. So, like, I remember me going in Costco's, right? And I remember me looking for a product

and not being able to find it because it was all the way in the back. Is that something that happens in the fashion world? Is that something that actually matters? Yeah, retail. The placement. That is real estate. That is real estate.

It all depends. Merchandising and real estate. Right. So it all depends. You're talking about grocery. Grocery and Costco is different, right? Because the whole purpose of what's going to be in the back. Right.

What's going to be in the back? Milk, eggs. Right. Meat and things you need because you got to go to the back so you can pass everything to buy everything else and then you're going to pass it all to buy that. But what you're talking about is merchandising and all that kind of stuff. When you see, so like big department stores aren't, you don't make any money off of big department stores. So a big

department store, they're not selling clothes. A big department store is selling real estate. So if you were to go look at the Ralph Lauren section in there, Ralph Lauren paid for all that wood. They paid for the person selling it to you. They're paying for the people

in there. That's how that goes. Ralph Lauren is paying for everyone. Ralph Lauren is paying for the windows. Every time you see the stuff in the window, their job is to sell real estate. You don't make money in there. So when you launch a fragrance, you got to pay $22 or $25 per person

you see going like this in the store, going like this, hey, smell this, smell that. The motherfuckers. They're selling everything. So what happens is, and that's why they say, that's why they say clothing company, I mean, they say, you know, retailers like that

get really religious because what they tell you to do is spend a million dollars on putting stuff in the window, putting stuff in the circular, people there, put your stuff on wheels because if your shit don't sell, we're going to mark it down and roll that shit right out of the back door. And that's where they make their money on all of that. They don't sell, we're going to mark it down and roll that shit right out of the back door. And that's where they make their money on all of that. They don't care about the clothes.

They make this selling to us. We're going to buy the real estate. And that's why we tell everybody here who's watching the show, be your own distributor online, direct to your customer. Because even when you want to be in those stores, who bought it? Once they go past the register, who bought it? Was it a mother buying it for herself? Did she buy it for a kid?

Was it a gift? You don't know who they are. So now we want people here who watch this to sell their own shit themselves online. You don't have to set up no stores. Direct to consumer. So you can say, how did you like it?

How did you not like it? What should I do better? And that's the important part that that's why technology has democratized this entire world. Collect the data of your customers. Right. Like, me and you was talking about it earlier. I had Kanye on the show, right? And I went and hung out with him.

And then I brought him to a place called ZZ's which is ironic right um there was a whole big space open next to ZZ's and yeah he just looked at it and was like Balenciaga I swear to God I swear to God and then he put a Balenciaga in there two floors I had never seen no dumb shit like this. I mean, this was some because he stopped and was just like That's Kanye shit. By the way, there's nothing there. There's absolutely nothing there.

I just described ZZ's to him like, yo, this is a place where we're safe. There's no hood shit going on. I'm a member of the club. You know what I mean? And he's seen it and it it made me say, like, damn, why don't we do things like that? Like, what I mean by that is FUBU, right now, if we go to FUBU, we have to go through somebody else, right? No, you go right.

No, what I'm saying is, like, if I wanted to go to a store, why isn't FUBU stores? Those are, that's a great point. Those are different businesses. So you have to have an operator. Okay. Because we're not good retail operators. That's like saying to, I don't know, what you do here. That's like, I don't know how they do the carrier of the broadcaster.

Right? So a store is a different, you know, like, we know how to make clothes. We know how to make them good. To own a retail shop, you have to know how to put it up there.

The software, they're shipping the goods in, shipping goods out, taking goods back, customer service. Never mind the lease of the place. The lease of the place. So they're different. The retail is so different.

So what he did was probably he already knew the Balenciaga because they have different divisions. And it's licensing, like we said. That's exactly what we did. We had FUBU stores, and we still do in certain countries. But it's somebody who's an expert operator. They have 10 Donna Karan stores. They have 10 FUBU stores. They still do in certain countries but it's somebody who's an expert operator. They have 10 Donna Karen stores. They have 10 FUBU stores. They have 10 this, 10 that.

That's why because you don't want to get the way to... Disney does not own all of the... They license it. When you see Mickey Mouse... The stores? A lot of them would be Disney. Some would be Disney stores but they'll license out... Think about all the licenses Disney have.

You can get keychains all the way. They're not making that stuff. They're licensing that out. You can get Star Wars everything. That's because they're licensing. That's Disney. Even when you saw Damon with Marvel, that was a licensing deal we did with Marvel. Yeah, because I helped license that to actively black right um you know so it's all about licensing is the quickest way to grow your

brand extend your brand and uh and revenue can i ask a quick this is gonna be a little bit of a veer off but talking about licensing marvel for the average let's say there's a there's a person creating their own brand and they want to license a big brand like a Marvel or a Star Wars. How difficult is that? Extremely difficult. You got to come to me. You got to come to somebody like me who can talk to them

who say, give this young person a shot. You got to have sales and all that. You got to be popular to even have that conversation. And a lot of times you're not even communicating

with Marvel. You're communicating with someone that already holds the license. But let me give you something that you got to do. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West.

I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Ranella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say, when cave people were here. And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. And it's going to take us to heal us. It's Mental Health Awareness Month month and on a recent episode of just healed with dr j the incomparable taraji p henson stopped by to discuss how she's discovered peace on her journey so what i'm hearing you saying is healing is a part of us also reconnecting to our

childhood in some sort you said i look how youthful i look because I never let that little girl inside of me die. I go outside and run outside with the dogs. I still play like a kid. I laugh. You know, I love jokes. I love funny. I love laughing. I laugh at myself.

I don't take myself too seriously. That's the stuff that keeps you young and stops you from being so hard. To hear this and more things on the journey of healing, you can listen to Just Heal with Dr. J from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Think about George Lucas when he sold his brand. He sold Star Wars, the George Lucas brand. He sold it to Disney.

To Disney, right. We love his story. Content, right? Star Wars, right? How much do you think it sold for? Anybody want to Google it? Was it a billion? 3.8 billion.

Right. Right? Which he regrets, kind of. You know how much Peppa Pig sold for? 4.2 billion Wow Shit well Bluey better I don't know what Peppa Pig is

Handle it cause Bluey's bigger Than Peppa Pig now I don't want to be I don't want to be culturally Inappropriate and talk like Peppa Pig No please don't like Peppa Pig It's okay

Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey

Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey

Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey

Hey Hey Hey Started on YouTube All of Star Wars Darth Vader Obi The whole family

The whole IP 3.8 billion Future stories Pre-stories Peppa Pig On YouTube For A cartoon

Of a pig Cause of licensing All the toys And everything 4.2 Billion dollars I don't see how That was smart though

Cause Peppa Pig Lang And Legoland Is terrible Actually that's the only thing Good about Legoland and everything, $4.2 billion. I don't see how that was smart, though. Because Peppa Pig Lang and Legoland is terrible. Actually, that's the only thing good about Legoland. I don't even know who Peppa Pig is. I got kids. I got little kids, so I'm in it. I know you. I'm lost right now.

I got little kids. You're going to know who Peppa Pig is. And you're going to... But Bluey's got himself a $20 billion. Bluey's off the chain You would be out of Peppa Pig I was completely lost You don't know

about Bluey either No Bluey No Bluey Bluey's off the chain Disney bought Bluey though So anybody here has an IP an idea

something else like that the idea is to do the best you can of it and create a core audience and go to somebody else and say let me tell you something. I know exactly what 18 years old to 25 years old want, who make about this amount of income, who watch this amount of time.

You have the analytics and then you can say to somebody, once you give them that information, you can say, now you can replicate this in the other areas that they like and they love. And that's exactly what we've been able to do with FUBU and have great partners. And you got other people who say, you know what? I make the best. I make the best peanuts in the world, but I don't have something like a drink champs to say. Do you want when you're drinking some great salty snacks? Peanut champs. I want the drink champ peanuts. Whenever you're drinking, whenever you're drinking,

what you going to need? Fat Joe, let's just take the car. I'm going to take a... I'm going to go back. I'm filming drink champs with FUBU. I'll be there tomorrow. Oh, my God. Damn, Joe.

Rewind, rewind, Fat Joe. Rewind, rewind. I'm about to. Not rewind. We'll be there. We'll be there. We'll be there. We'll pull up on you. I'll hit you as soon as I finish. Fat Joe's one of the We'll be there We'll be there We'll be there We'll pull up on you

I just I'm not finished Fat Joe's one of the first stores To ever buy our stuff And we were We were bringing it We were bringing it We were bringing it

To his store in the Bronx In the back of our trunk And Fat Joe I used to I used to Take them to our warehouse Pick out the clothes for them And count all the money in cash

It'd take me like Freaking Eight hours We only sold We only sold The eight stores in New York. In fact, it was the fourth store in New York City to ever buy our stuff. And we were still in the house making it at first. And he used to come out and just, he was a legend and still is a legend to me.

And be like, yo, man, all right, I'll buy your shit. Let's just buy it. All cash, no credit. All cash. All cash. I guess I was a con man. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. All cash. buy it. All cash, no credit. All cash. Let's make some noise and jokes. He didn't have a problem with credit. He didn't have a problem with credit.

He's definitely still street money. I'm just playing around. So you guys just said something. For a person that's trying to be the next FUBU, right? And what I mean, I don't mean it like the statement FUBU, like owning and being independent, but actually trying to make clothes. You guys don't make the clothes yourselves, do y'all? We make some of them. We still make some

of it now. We always make... Like by hand? How does this work? I'm asking. I ain't going to go knit you no blanket in the back. We still make a portion, but we have like maybe 35. We have a great we have a great suit division. That's right.

We get to the point to where we hire people to get it to different stages of approval. So we had the cast come in first. OK, we like the general look of the season. Right. Then you get the samples come in. OK, we like how these samples make these changes. By the time we get to production, then we ship it to the season. Right. Then you get the samples come in. Okay, we like how these samples make these changes. By the time we get to production, then we ship

it to the stores. So we kind of oversee the whole process until it gets shipped to the stores. But to simplify for people watching, if you have an intellectual

property and you have registered your name, not just on a website, you registered, you went to the United States trademark of the USPTA, United States Patent Trademark Office.

You put your name in a category. So your name would be Drink Chance and it could probably be in liquor. It could be in everything else, right? There's a category. Don't just say your website because if you say, well, I got the Drink Chance website or you go, listen, my son's name is Todd. I'm going to name my clothing brand Todd. Well, I always say, well, my next son is going to be named Apple and my next son after that is going to be named BMW. You can't just say that. Once you get the category,

whoever you are, you can license your name to somebody. You can go to middle America right now. All this, you look up and down the street, like Main Street everywhere,

it's empty. Nobody's buying stuff. Nobody's going to those stores. Those stores all have inventory. If you were a kid and you know that you're super fashionable, you're going to say, hey hey my name is whatever it is i got it this is who my ip is intellectual property i'm going to do a tiktok with all your inventory in my store and

you know on my site i know i know you already got the goods you're going out of business give me 50 of what i sell and you start naming it your brand. That brand could be the new century forever 21, that brand, right? And so what I'm trying to tell people is they can license their name as small as they are, create a name for themselves with their following, and make money. You can do it on Amazon too. You ever see when you put in some name and it says sponsored? That's just somebody who sees that you're making this and they take

it and they get an affiliation and then they direct their traffic to you and you get that cigarette or whatever the case is and they make money. So I'm trying to explain the best way that everybody watching this, they can do exactly what we did.

They can start off today and be the next I don't know who you want to call it, you know, target. But don't get it twisted. Licensing and like Damon said, covering these categories is expensive. We spend close to $300, maybe half a million a year just protecting our brand legally around the world. So it's not like you're going to just have your um brands protected everywhere choose where you think your best markets will be and grow as you can i'll give you can't protect it everywhere you know how you can't protect the rental world remember the show we used to love in living color there was a band

called in living color that the rock band the rock, In Living Color, the TV show, didn't want to, because In Living Color, they were entertainment. In Living Color, the TV show, is entertainment. In Living Color, the TV show, didn't want to pay, and they got into a fight, and they said, shut it down. Who had it first? In Living Color, the band. And they had a fight over the name? Yeah, and that's why they had to cancel In Living Color. Oh, that's terrible.

I didn't know that. They had to cancel because of that?. Oh, that's terrible. No way. They had to cancel because of that? I'll give you another example. No. Let me give you another example. This is legal. This is legal Eagle stuff.

Our buddies, the ones who created the company, Jordash and Gas and stuff like that, they come to us. They license our ladies. They come to us

and they show us something and it's two horses. Two horses. I'm like, what is that? They're like, this is a U.S. Polo Association. We said, well, that's Ralph Lauren. Ralph Lauren goes, you're intruding on my mark.

I'm going to take you to court. They go to court. Judge looks at them and goes, all right, one of you can no longer do business. You're done. Get out of here at them and goes, all right, when you can no longer do business, you're done. Get out of here. Ralph Lauren goes, good. See, get out. He says, no, Ralph. They bought

United States Polo Association from the United States Polo Association that's 100 years old, who've been making clothes for 100 years old. They can cancel your mark. So what happens now is U.S. Polo Association doesn't have to advertise

the market, do anything they ever want to do. And they do $6 billion a year. People buy that shit? Yeah, they buy that. And Ralph Lauren does all the advertising. So it's whoever has it longest. Boy, you can play with it. The judge don't care about advertising so it's whoever has it they said go ahead homeboy

you can play with the judge don't care about his fly whoever has it all the longest they take that in consideration yeah same thing happened to seven of all mankind somebody had it I feel like we got to dumb it down for layman's us. Yeah, me. Meaning us. That shit was too deep. Can I just throw something real quick? Hold on, Paul. Does a poor man's copyright work in that sense for timestamping? Remember the poor man's copyright, you just send it to yourself? Yeah, that kind of worked, but not as much anymore because what had happened years ago

was there was a guy who looked at every type of movie and said, wow, air brakes, wow, this, that, and sent in a whole bunch of trademarks. And that was earlier on, many years ago. Trademark these titles? He trademarked everything he saw in a movie. And he just sent in a letter and said, oh, lightsaber, oh, this, oh, that. And what happened was that's why, it depends on you talking about a patent, a trademark,

and you have to prove that you're actually using that. So was he successful, that person? He was. He ended up making billions of dollars off of trademarking. He saw in every single movie for the next 50 years. And no court could see through that through that scam. It wasn't a scam at first. The law changes against this and that. And that's why you see that a lot of brands have expiring patents and trademarks. Now, there's a difference with copyright.

There's a difference with trademark. There's a difference with patents and everything else. But the bottom line is I've seen it even on Shark Tank. One or two of my companies on Shark Tank, they could never, after all the advertising, all the marketing, all that name they had, they didn't have it protected. Somebody else said cease and desist, and they took all the traffic they got onto the shark tank. And they made millions of dollars. So what's the ultimate protection in your opinion? The protection is exactly what Noria said in the past.

It's to make sure that you cross your T's and dot your I's and understand the fundamentals of when you build a business that you have your contracts in order as we talked about. You can be in there with the family but keith knows his his uh his deliverables in our deal carl knows and i know right in every relationship you cannot be 50 50 one has to uh make a decision 51 49 you have to

have all of your stuff trademark and patent because. Because they say that for African-Americans, the number one organization that puts them out of business and not intentionally is the IRS. Because you don't understand what the fundamentals are and the basic of taxes and barriers to other things. So if you start off a business, you're already African-American, so you're getting discriminated against,

so your loans are higher cost, right? Plus, you're getting paid less. And then if your stuff is not in order, well, the government can't discriminate. They just have to do what they have to do. So everything from your trademarks, all that, we learned this the hard way. But what you described before is an operational agreement, right? It's an operational agreement, a DBA. Whatever you want to call it, you have to have these things in writing.

And you had said it in some other past stuff that you learned the mistakes you had made. You went in and got an attorney. And today, Rocket Lawyer and various other companies, you can look at these agreements and get them online. And don't go spend all your money with your man who's just giving you advice. Right, right. Go online and look at this shit and set yourself up from the beginning and then understand how to dissolve it and various other things i always say 51 try to keep 51 and try to be um uh management hold management position in your company, which means you make the final call. If you sell it, you still run it.

No, the bottom line is when there comes a situation where a decision has to be made, you get the final call. So that's you. How do equal partners do that? You do it in an operational agreement. Because an operational agreement can be like this. Listen, you're going to fund all the clothes, and I'm going to be able to sell it on even at that young age negotiate or

had advice to negotiate a position where they couldn't get rid of us, our investors. The bottom line is we're still around because we have to be around. They wanted to get rid of you. They were open to it. It was out of ignorance though.

They were ignoring us for a couple of calls. And when I finally got on the call, when they finally had called us back, I was like, yo, what you been doing? And they was like, listen, calm down. We'll do a deal that we'll make sure is good for you. And the funny thing is I brought my mother in the room with the deal. And a lot of people laughed that I brought my mother. My mother.

But my mother is very brilliant. And a lot of us, you know, we have significant other mothers. And I was like, so what about my mother? Why can't she be a brilliant woman? What's wrong with that? Right? But we have great partners, but you're right. And vice versa.

A lot of companies aren't around because they didn't own that company. When that entity decided to sell it, they had no say so. It's kind of like being a rapper. Yo, man, I just want to get the deal done. I want to get my shit out. That's it. and the wrong people will dangle the wrong things in front of your face and so a lot of us are so busy you've seen on shark tank they're so busy wanting to do the deal that they're not thinking about like but what's in

it for you what's in it for me what's the end game i just i just want to get it past this point and as us as african americans who don't come from wealth, we often are just so happy that the hustle may be over and we're getting to this point that we don't look backwards at how did I get here and what could I risk? What am I giving up? The bootlegging.

How bad was that at one point? Bad. The bottom line, we was hot. So it was on one end of the spectrum, it was a blessing because you're that hot. Well, how is it a blessing? Explain to me. Well, because the bottom line is that ass was with that guy on 28. But the bottom line, if you, that guy, Kevin. But the bottom line, if you hot, people are going to top you. He was the blessing. He was the blessing.

He blessed you. No, that wasn't the blessing. But the bottom line is, when did they stop bootlegging us? When it wasn't hot anymore. They never did. So the bottom line is. I didn't hear that part. What are you saying?

When they stopped bootlegging us, that was the problem because we weren't hot no more. Oh. The thing about it is you can get Louis Vuitton anywhere in the streets. Right. Right?

But you know, there's no one... When people bootleg you, there's no one bootlegging. Right. There is... The factory you're working with is making an extra 10 million.

They make an extra good... If you order 12 jeans, they're going to order 20 for themselves. When they put us as rappers, we just think it's Mohammed from 125th Street. No. They're recording your real records, right? They're duplicating them. That's what they're saying.

I think they're ignoring this ass-whooping I got on 28th Street. You know ass-whooping? Yes! He said, yo! He said, yo. I didn't know you got that. No, he said, yo.

Literally. I hired some correction officers to go down there and take our bootlegger stuff down on 28th Street. I'm like, okay, cool. Get our stuff. Half an hour later,

yo, come get me. Come help us out. They got us surrounded. So he said... I feel like these are Africans. I don't know. These are not. My man said, They got us surrounded So he said The Africans I feel like these are Africans I don't know who they is Nah

My man said Yo We gotta go help The guys man They down on 28th street We go down there We go down there My cousin is down there

And one of our other boys Is down there Your cousin down there Who took a bag Out of the room So you keep saying that I told you That's not the story.

But listen, they down there with 250 people, at least 200, 300 people surrounding them. My dumb ass go over there because my cousin over there, I got to go make sure he's straight. I don't know what happened to them.

I ain't never looked back. Apparently, they stayed there. There's a lot going on. I goes over there. Next thing you know, there's rocks. There's bottled water. Are you in America? Nah, you guys.

I'm telling you. I'm in Eastern California. By the way, Penalty Recklessness was on 28th Street. He's jumping around. I'm going to tell you a story. Okay. He's right. So what happened?

So we had about 20 off-duty correctionals we go down 28 7th street every every way coming out of that building is from middle east because we we start packing up about two three trucks we have the woman we have a an order that says you're supposed to surrender surrender these goods because they're all counterfeit we're packing up the trucks something goes bad in that building and And just like uptown, these people all start pouring out. I'm like, yo, Keith, we're in the Empire State Department. That's where our office is.

I said, come down the block. We need somebody to help drive the truck. Keith is like, alright, I got you coming down. We have 20 correction officers. These dudes are coming out of the building. Correction officers pull the gun. Yo, freeze! This dude, like Arnold Schwarzenegger side said,

shoot me! And I put hands on my chest. I just blocked dude! Keep coming down. Keep coming down. I said, yo, I got you, I got you. He doing all this shit. I'm like, yo, keep, we paying these dudes with guns. These big dudes, let's get out of here.

No, no, no, I'm going to keep it real. I'm going to keep it real. He's about to do blood storage and stuff. What happened to him? You haven't seen the days, your pal. We're keeping it real. The LeBron. Yo, I'm sorry.

That's what happened. He was like this. He got his ass. Yo, yo, yo. He said, I'm going to stretch it down. He said, I'm going to hold it. I'm going to hold it. That's what happened! He was like this! He got his ass beat! He said it like this! Yo! That's what happened!

Y'all, we're done here to help my people, man. That's how it's built, man. We got my ass beat. Somebody whipped his ass. What you do with the 52 Vickers and Rayne? I got this big dude. Sorry. Oh, shit. You're doing the 52 pickups and raising it the way you're doing it. I got this big dude. Sorry.

The Taliban. Oh, shit. Anyway. You ain't do the crane, right? You ain't do the dinosaur crane. No, no, no. When I was crazy, I'm going to tell you what's crazy. The dude that hit me, I was handling my business.

The son of a what dude? I was handling my business. On anybody else, I was handling my business. And I went to step back. And you know that turn where you step back and then you go to turn back? Yo, this dude called me from the back. I didn't even see him. Boom.

He hit me, right? So I go down like this, and my head come back up, and he hit me on the other side. So my feet, my feet just start moving like this. I'm like, oh, shit. What hit me? So I go over here, and I turn this. I'm like, oh, shit. What hit me? So I go over here and I turn around. This dude like 6'7". I'll never forget.

I swear to God. This nigga got on a yellow Gold Gym t-shirt with the titty out. He got them nipples out over that hair. And he got on some tight ass fucking jeans. He look like he's playing fucking pocket pool with his nuts in his jeans. In cowboy boots. But I'm looking at him. He's a dude from over there somewhere.

I never see him dressed like that. I never see. I swear to God. I looked up. I said, oh, man, you didn't knock me out. And yo, look like he be in the gym all day. So one eye one eye bloodshot red so i'm gonna fight now because i'm like okay let's get it on you can't knock me out

prove that what let's go then his little minions start coming all the little minions so i'm like oh man i see a band on the block i see a band on the block i run yo i run down the block i say i get my back to this van. I'm good. I turn around. And I turn around. There's like 20 people just swinging. I go down. They start stomping and kicking. Next thing I know, police.

It was like a riot, bro. It was like 200 police out there, everything. They come lock me, put the handcuffs on me. I went straight Hollywood. I don't know what happened. I just came down here. Straight Hollywood. They took me out of handcuffs. I go back.

These niggas. They in the office like this. Yeah! What the fuck happened to you, son? I told you don't go over there. I'm like this. Yo, but it was crazy, man. The moral of the story.

It just so many- We came in the arena for a while. But why did they want to fight, yo? What was the reason? Because somebody stole some- They were making a lot of money from counterfeiters. They were making a lot of money from counterfeiters. They were making a lot of money from counterfeiters.

They were making a lot of money from counterfeiters. They were making a lot of money from counterfeiters. They were making a lot of money from counterfeiters. They were making a lot of money from counterfeiters. They were making a lot of money from counterfeiters. They were making a lot of money from counterfeiters. They were making a lot of money from counterfeiters. They were was a story. It just so many people. We came in a real brawl. But why did they want to fight, yo? What was the reason? Because somebody stole some. They were making a lot of money from counterfeit goods. Right.

We had permission to go confiscate those goods. And that was a brawl. But we're not in service. Counterfeit trade operations. Right. Wow. And they started pocketing them. And oh boy, it was behind the curtain.

Like, yo. It's an organized system out there. When they got downstairs, it was a riot. They make a lot of money. Counterfeiting is a huge business. So to say about the counterfeiting stuff, factory is running 10 million more, throwing it out the back. Another factory competing is making more goods. Then you got people who bring in a million white

t-shirts and they got a line going like this and they're going, Tommy, Fugu, Nike, Donna, Donna. It's coming from all places. And when you spend all your money and time trying to fight it, you can't even put a dent in it. But when you look at somebody like Louis Vuitton, who's the biggest company in the world, LVMH, they're counterfeited all day. And actually, a lot of the people buying the counterfeit would never touch the brand anyway because they don't have the money for it. They don't have $2,000. So is that the moral of the story? Does it really matter?

You cannot stop it. What you can do is make your goods a quality that differentiates from that. And you can't stop it. That's what helped us out. Because it kind of sucks to say that you're Louis Vuitton and your price point is up here and the regular folks can't get it, so they have to go bootleg. That kind of sucks. That happened because what happened when we grew up as kids, remember, we can wear a blank shirt and not get full, you know, and not whatever. But when you started to, you know, all the brands and labels and we became so label conscious, you couldn't go to school without something on. Right, right.

Absolutely. And that's what it is. So, you know, it is a compliment, but it's a challenge. It's something that you would have to spend a lot of your profit going after something that would stop. If you're getting your shit bootlegged all over the street, you're doing something right. Yeah. Once they stop, you're doing something wrong. But let me ask you, because we spoke about it a little bit earlier.

I just went to Paris, right? And one thing that I noticed is it seems like if Louis doesn't sell a shit, they give it away. Do they give it away? They burn it. They burn it. Right. You'll never see Louis on discount. Oh, no, I never did. But I I remember times of me looking and seeing ladies with Louis garbage bags and everything with Louis. I'm talking about bums out there. Like, out there. And I'm looking, and I can almost tell the real Louis or the fake Louis.

I can almost tell. Everybody got Louis out there, and there's no way everyone is rich out there. That's right. Is it easier for it to be like that like just in new york because you know fubo is the new york-based brand and say you know what fuck it instead of y'all bootlegging my shit why don't we just give it to y'all at a lower price no that's that devalues that devalues the bottom line is it devalues the brand so you ain't because you got remember you sell them to mazes at a certain price to Macy's at a certain price.

They got to keep it at a certain price to make their margins. And you got somebody right outside in the street. Yeah, like when he was a retailer, why would he then invest in and buy it? Right. Right, yeah. Because I would think that that would be easier, right? To like stop the bootlegger. It's like, you know what?

Fuck it. You got it? Let me give you the real shit at a discount. Nah. Nah. The discount that they getting it is you can't even touch that. And it's discounted because they do less production. We put too much quality in our clothes.

I'm imagining you have to equate all of that into the business model. The equivalent in our world of that is people taking our content, ripping it, and posting it, and monetizing it. And we have to play a game of whack-a-mole

to say, no, copyright, copyright, copyright. And you can't really get everybody. You can't stop them. You can't stop them. And at the end, if you're popping, you kind of want that to happen

because the minute you're not popping, they're not going to go ahead and put out your content. Same thing. Same thing. Yeah. It's like a double-edged sword.

It is. It is. It's crazy. What'sedged sword. It is. It is. It's crazy. What's one thing, besides 28th Street shit, but what's one thing that you could... That's pretty wild, man, by the way. You wish you would want to do as Fubu? One thing I wish I want to do as Fubu? Redo.

Redo. Something like a mistake that you made that you wish that you could do over. I would go and do the 106 and Park job I got offered. It was supposed to be me and Free. Wow. Oh, you were supposed to be Bobby Brown early. You were supposed to be in the group early. Yeah, early.

But I chose, you you know it was the time frame for me because we was just building FUBU and I was from we used to go to work from like 10 to 8 BET wanted me from 11 to 7 so I was like well damn how do I I mean couldn't have worked for the brand as well for you to do that

I don't even remember that I mean you went FUBU every day on the set it could have but I just chose not to do it and stay with my dudes. But if I had the chance all over again, I definitely would have did that. You know how much we paid Terrence Shea to wear us?

Yeah. Man, are you kidding me? We could have taken that out of distribution. You's a wild one for that one. I love y'all, man. But I didn't want to like we was building

something and we've been working on this shit for so long so now when we made it then it's like it's easier than hindsight I'm going to be there

I'm going to get second hand knowledge but I'm not going to get that feeling that we're doing it together and that's why I kind of say you know what

I'm going to stick with my guys and pass that up you know what I'm saying? And plus, the money was good at that time. We was taking, so it was good. But I wish I could have did that because then I would have played it for our advantage. You know what I'm saying?

Right. Yeah, because you would have been essentially helping the brand. Yeah. You could have partnered with them every day. You know, I didn't have that knowledge back then. Right. But years later, I was like, damn. Yeah. You could have paraded that every day. You know, I didn't have that knowledge back then. Right. But, because years later,

I was like, damn. Yeah. You know? Yeah, I can see that now. Yeah. And especially if you

would have been wearing FUBU every day, it would have just totally made sense. Yeah. So, what's the one thing that you would think

that you would do that you regret? I think, because I was always one that really felt that FUBU could exist in different areas, industries. But I think that moving into more investments earlier, when you really had the resources, to do it earlier. I think time, I would have gave myself a little bit more. I would have acted earlier when it came to real estate, when it came to acquiring it earlier. I think time, I would have gave myself a little bit more. I would have acted earlier when it comes to real estate,

when it comes to acquiring other companies. Use those resources sooner. Other than that, though, I think that we're only a 30-year-old company. The company's been around for hundreds of years.

Hundreds of years. But then there's some companies that have been around for no years. And they got six months. We've been improving our ability to stay here. So now I think it's a great time for us to really move into these places and deal with. I didn't know about investment capital groups, investment bankers, and all these things like that.

I know that our brand now can be leveraged in these arenas to bring in this revenue to do these things. So I would have liked to do it earlier, but I think right now is a great time to do it. Ask Fubu. I somewhat agree with Carl because I didn't have financial intelligence. None of us did.

I almost went bankrupt twice before we had Fubu and once when we had FUBU. When I made the first bulk of money in FUBU, you know, I spent it. And straight up. Say that again? I spent it. I didn't even spend it on just straight leverage.

I just didn't know how money worked. And the biggest thing in this world or in this country, the way that you get wealthy in this country is to understand tax codes, tax, and what to do. And what I learned later on is that as I was running the company, we have great partners and distributors who were trying to teach it to me. But as a young man coming into money, where I started really making my money is all the things I bought with all the homes all everything else later on when I get rid of it in 06 and money that I kind of put away a little bit in investment that scaled crazy and I had seven times that amount prior that I blew and so you look as I talk to a lot of billionaires and people we know well you'll look at a billionaire and a billionaire will and they used to always walk around with those old sketch pads you remember those things those school those pads we have in school they're black and white you feel out you gotta fill out the cover I used to always say like a billionaire friends like even Mark Cuban

I'll be like what are you writing down I just heard about a new tax code I've got that many billionaire friends I'm sorry you know I've been fortunate enough, and we've been fortunate enough. Not even a billion. They were right down. They were right down. So I said, what are you writing down? Oh, well, I just heard about this new tax code. So just give me a quick example. You know, two years ago when COVID happened, right,

when we were getting out of COVID, the IRS had passed for that COVID act that if you go to a restaurant and you support a restaurant for a business meal, that's a 100% tax write-off. Nigga, where I was at? You ain't tell me. Let me show you how the tax code works or the tax code. If you go to a hotel at that time and you put your food on the key, on the room key at the hotel, that's only 50% write-off because it's under the hotel. But if you took out your credit card separately and laid it down on the room key at the hotel, that's only 50% write-off because it's under the hotel. But if you took out your credit card separately

and laid it down on the restaurant, it's 100% write-off. So you just probably realize, yeah, you probably realize that if you spent half of that... I got in debt yesterday.

No, tell us about that. It's about... I don't even think our accountants can tell us this. Only... But... It's like, I need AI to help me get this. No, no, no. But you got the point right there.

When I first and we first made money and we were talking, we were just like, we were so happy we're making money. The accountants don't tell us that because they think we know. They're just trying to do it. And because, you know, when all of us talk about accounting and stuff, your eyes get glossy. Oh, am I going on extension? What are you talking about? I never said what's up, and they never said, hey, or did they used to say something like, hell, you need to know that.

I'd be like, ah, whatever. I was putting business expenses on personal cards. So when I talk to billionaires and really wealthy people, they go, listen, if I made a half a billion dollars this year or $500 million in my businesses this year, now I can either be under these tax implications implementation i can't even say the word implications and you have yeah yeah exactly but i'm but i'm just like they said if i do a half a billion dollar 500 million dollars i can either spend 250 million dollars and give that back to the irs i can try to start a new business or I can try to save as much taxes legally where I only give them back $150 and I keep whatever, right?

I already made the money. Why am I paying it in taxes if I utilize these tax codes? You want me to start a new business, get new employees, hopefully market it, maybe make money, or instead of paying 250, I pay 150, I made 100. It's not about how much you make, it's how much you retain.

And when you have businesses and stuff like that, and earlier on FUBU days, the money in the operation is called to acquire more stuff and do more things. $350 million is running through a system. Let's say we more things. $350 million running through a system. Let's say we're distributing 20, 30 million of that a year and we're paying 15 million in taxes. We could have maybe paid 5 million in taxes and taking that other 10, roll it into the business. It's almost like somebody here, anybody who knows real estate, if you sit there and buy a certain prop, sell a certain property, if you do a 1021 exchange or something like that, you don't have to, right? If you have

stocks right now, if you sell your, if you went into Apple and you sell your stock and it went up two times in the last, I don't know how many, if you sell it under a year, you pay a normal tax, right? 45%, 50%. If you sell it in a year and a pay a normal tax, right? 45%, 50%. If you sell it in a year and a day, you pay only 20% because that's capital gains. All these are just basic fundamentals that as African-Americans and yellow and black people and brown people, a lot of us don't understand. That's where the difference of wealth is because if you do that over 20 years, and if I would have learned that earlier when we had FUBU, we could have been LVMH. Going public and all these other things that we just understand. It's always about, and the people who have this knowledge are willing to tell you.

We're just so busy trying to buy cars when we were kids. Shit. And we didn't know any better. Shit. But the good side of it is we have gone through that. FUBU is still here. We still have a consumer base. And I think even now, the meaning of FUBU is bigger than when we started. So leveraging that, I think, going forward and dealing with the knowledge that we have and dealing with real bankers and investment groups and really

bringing in, you know what I'm saying, projects that's going to last a lifetime. We should have had a billion dollar fund of FUBU to acquire and or partner with all emerging brands in any category and give them our back end. And thank God that our partners ended up

showing us and we learned off each other because once I started learning this, I got so excited. I was talking about it so much on television. Some guy named Mark Burnett called me from Shark Tank and said, yo, you know about some stuff that people don't know. But it was exciting when we learned it, you know,

and that's why we're still here. And an emerging, I mean, I'm sure you guys have probably done this, but in emerging markets as well. Right, yeah. Absolutely. Like out of this country, I mean, I'm sure you guys have probably done this, but in emerging markets as well. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Like, out of this country, I went to South Africa, and their streetwear

brands are out of control over there. Yeah, but great part in South Africa right now. Yeah, like I said, it's unlimited. It's just really growing at a scale that you can control and not doing too much too soon. I met Nelson Mandela in South Africa.

Yeah. Building the FUBU store in the mall. Really? That's dope. Oh, we got a story, man. Wait, what? That's dope, man. We went to Africa for the store opening. That's an ill part of the story, man.

Yeah, we went to Africa. So y'all had a FUBU store in South Africa. Yeah, we had several. I asked y'all that earlier. What did we have? Google FUBU store. Okay. We were taking this around and doing the whole parties and all that that's like that's like their ny that's like new

york city yeah yeah and then the licensee was like oh just got off the phone with nelson mandela's people you want to meet y'all i'm like come on bruh don't play with me like that he was like no i'm serious we went to go meet him somehow some way he had to go fly out to meet a dignitary. They called us. Oh, he's not going to be able to meet you. I'm like, oh, we was disclosed. Right. We was disclosed.

We went. The rest of the trip did our thing. Two, three days later, he calls us back and says he's home. He wants to come back by his crib. And we went to his crib. We got so much history with stuff like that. I went to Nelson Mandela's crib? Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Went to his crib and we got so much history with stuff like that I went to Nelson Mandela

You know the camera Got lost Some guys You know Karma's a mug But He came down the steps We went outside Talked to him for a while

We went outside In front of his door We took pictures My biggest regret in my life Is I didn't take that trip I was I was Him and Jay

Took that trip But You can always look at You can go to Our Google Instagram See that We were the last brand To work with And license and Jay took that shit, but you can always look at any, you can go to our FUBU Instagram and see that. We were the last brand to work with and license

and partner with Muhammad Ali before he died. Wow. And the most photographed man in the world in history who was never seen in a brand at all was seen in FUBU three times. You met Muhammad Ali?

That was Michael Jackson I'm talking about. You did a brand deal with him? No, he wore, he was the only brand with any label on it in history That was Michael Jackson I'm talking about. You did a brand deal with him? No, he wore... We were the only brand with any label on it in history that Michael Jackson ever wore. And we have the three pictures, and you would see that. Yo, that's incredible.

We've had a lot of great success in our life, man. So we're blessed to be here, man. That's amazing. It's an honor. Now, we met some people, man. And by the way, nobody's done the story yet, still. Nobody's done the documentary, because Pookie ain't died. Now, somebody got their ass whipped in the story, but he ain't died.

I think that qualifies as a tragic ending. That was exactly the day you were doing it, but that motherfucker got in your ass. Yeah. No, but, like, again, I know I somewhat asked this earlier, right? And I know you guys alluded to like you guys being friends since kids and you guys being friends since high school but how is it to be friends

for 32 years like again you said it earlier you was like man you won't hear none of the bullshit about us no I've been friends with him for 50 years yeah it's it's it I'm like 38 39 I know they like, what, 50, right? 40, 48, 49.

It's like brothers, man, like to listen. We have fought. I don't think we've ever had a physical fight, though. We've never had a physical fight. That's a fact. Hold on, hold on. Let me just be clear. Let me be clear.

I want to reiterate what I'm trying to say. There's friends who just met each other And then there's friends The minute they got money together It deteriorated So I want people who is Inspiring to be friends for as long as you guys Been friends and as long as you guys been friends

Like I need y'all to tell me Because I Witnessed this, this rap game friends and how long you guys been friends like i need y'all to tell me because i witnessed this this rap game it's probably one of the most disloyal i felt more honor and drug dealing at one point i don't know we understand that makes sense you know what i mean because it's like it's an honest like yo don't do that i won't do that harsher consequences but in hip hop sometimes it's like you know if he ain't gonna do it I'll do it yeah I get it what

why did you just do that you know you were wrong for doing that and then you guys are this long relationship there's so many people that's gonna watch this show and gonna say

I need to know how the fuck they kept it together we know that y'all had times, but how did y'all keep it together? Through the bad times, good times, up and downs, whatever. How did y'all keep it together? Let me start with you. How you doing? No, no, no, no, because you loosened up. Come on. I always credited to us knowing each other before the business. Like, we were super cool.

That's important. Since we were young. You know what I'm saying? We grew up together. We experienced a lot of different things together. We experienced a lot of firsts together. So, even when we were doing FUBU, everybody was kind of doing their own thing. Separately.

This dude is... no, we're doing the brand, but we got different projects we working on at the time. This guy recognized that Cass wasn't 100% focused, so he was like, yo, listen, read this book. This is how we're going to get out this whole yadda yadda. It was

Thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. When I read the book, I was like, damn. What name of the book is it? Thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Oh, that's the best. When I read the book, I was like, damn. I'm sorry. What's the name of the book? Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. And all the volumes that he has. All the volumes, yeah.

But Think and Grow Rich, it is attributed besides any religious book, being the number one book that is attributed to him. It's amazing. I'm going to go back to reading. No, it's a great book. I ain't been reading it for a while. And it just got everybody focused. So for us getting together and then going down this road and seeing this thing mature year after year after year. But we're enjoying ourselves the same way.

We're having fun. We're partying. We're doing things we ain't never did. We're seeing money we ain't never seen. We're traveling all over the world. So it just made us closer. And then by the time, you know, years later, when it wasn't doing anything,

we was already like brothers. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, okay, it's going to be hot one day. The next day it won't. And we still going to have the love for each other that we have.

You know what I'm saying? Even though one day I might want to kick his ass or I'm going to kick his ass. But then the next day after that, we like, yo, what you want to go to dinner?

It's very rarely gotten to the point where we even want to lay hands on each other. When then next day after that, we like, yo, what you want to go to dinner? It's very rarely gotten to the point where we even want to lay hands with each other. When I was, I mean, I've gotten extremely mad at him. He's gotten extremely mad at me. I don't know if I could ever pull my, well, first of all,

I ain't no gangster. I ain't no, I don't try to play like that, but I don't know if I could ever strike one, even if, I know brothers, little, little brothers,

they beat each other to death at that time and love each other. I don't know if it even got to that point when I say we've had problems. Right. I always took that to the big picture. But hold on. I want to keep it to the question. Go ahead.

What made y'all keep it together? What made you, on your part? That's what I'm saying. On your part, what made you keep it together? Big picture. I knew that I was with a couple of cats. First of all, I love. I'd be with them for free.

We had that much fun together as just friends. That's so fire. However, I knew that I was with three of the smartest cats that I could find in my network. Fire. You know what I'm saying? And I said, whatever it is,

if we can work together, we can make it successful. Either a FUBU store, FUBU, whatever it is, we can make it successful if we work together. So my whole thing

was always looking at the big picture. I knew he was the boss. He put up most of the money. He took most of the risk. So that's the boss. I knew I needed a key for certain things,

needed a J for certain things. My whole thing was to try to make sure that besides my ego and besides trying to do everything my way to work together, because the only way we're going to make this shit happen is we work together. And at this point, even now, as successful as Damon is, he still acts about FUBU. Right. FUBU is still a part of his story.

So the more successful FUBU story so the more successful fubo is the more successful damon is okay so we still gotta we still have that bond together to make this whole brand successful in my opinion and that's just my goal for the next you know decade yes same question you know i i think that first of, we've had a whole lot of really hard discussions with each other when somebody's falling short and then like, yo, we can replace what you're doing. You can still get distribution, but you won't have the job. You won't have the title. We don't like what you're doing. You're going wrong or you're not stepping up.

And that's after years of faults. No, but I meant the, oh, my bad, I'm sorry. I meant the relationship with you guys. Yeah, but I'm saying that the business, the business part creates the relationship. Okay, okay, okay, my bad, okay. But second of all, I guess the best way to say it is it's each of our job.

We've never exploited a weakness. I will never exploit his weakness and vice versa. And it's our job, I think, as brothers and partners to protect each other's faults. Because if he looks fucked up, my candle don't shine brighter if his is blown out. You know what I mean? We all look fucked up and it's my job. Now, if he wants to listen to me or not, that's cool, but now I got Carl as the backup, and I got Jay as the backup. And sometimes they don't want to listen. Like, one of us go, we ain't fucking with you on that.

Go ahead, man. But it's my job to protect him, my job to protect him, and his job to protect me when I'm assing out because it hurts us all. So I think that we never exploit a weakness, and we protect each other. We may not agree with you. We may not co-sign on what you're doing. We say, yo, man, I ain't fucking with you on that. Like, yeah, you want to fight those cats and keep it real?

I told you we hired these people to do so. And that dude looked really big. I told you we hired these people for that purpose. But the bottom line is I got to protect him. I got to protect him. got to protect him even if he stabbed me in the back we'll get over that he stabbed me or vice versa which we don't do

I got to protect him that's what it has to be and it's been a fun ride the start of business build it up to whatever it is 350, 100 million whatever it may be, with your best friends and ride that ride.

Come on, Noy. Who else is going to do that? Who else is going to do that with us? We've been through, you've lost a wife. We've been through divorces. We've been through new births of children, parents dying, cancer. Who else am I? I've been on this planet 55 years i i may last 10 i may last 15 more i may last 21 but who or 100 more but who else am i

going to start that relationship with besides these cats who know every single aspect of my life you know what i'm saying it's the investment so let me ask you, did Shark Tank help the football brand? Yeah, of course. Of course. Okay. You know, this is another funny story. We were going to be the first one, the first reality show on BET.

This guy ain't going to do it. We ain't know why he ain't going to do it. I'm ready. We ain't know why. He was, you know, contemplating on his next move. But his next move was Shark Tank. So I understood why he didn't want to do it. You know what I'm saying? But by him doing that.

But what was the reality show? What? What is it? I remember that one. What's going on? It's Revelations right now. Listen. We shot that show. Let me tell you. I'm listening. These niggas on? It's Revelations right now. Listen. We shot that show.

Let me tell you. I'm listening. These niggas told you they was fried, right? That I had the best delivery, right? Yes, yes, yes. I'm telling you. We shot that show at Lionsgate. No way he picked it up.

No, I'm talking about the BET joint. Was I there? Huh? What are you talking about, man? The BET. I'm going to go ahead. See? Listen.

Nori, let me get back to you. I'm listening. Anyway, go ahead. If we shot it or not, I didn't know all that shit happened, but I know that shit ain't go through. He went to Shark Tank. He did his thing on Shark Tank, and that just opened the doors for everybody looking at FUBU again.

You know what I'm saying? Because now, once again, we're on the national platform with the CEO of FUBU, which he's always going to be remembered first. You know what I'm saying? And then I think they talked about it in the opening. Wait, now, you know what happened with FUBU and Sherftang? America started to say it's not just for a segment. It's not of ignorance this guy who's on here who they all must be the same you know he's not a dumb guy they're not coming in the room they all want to hold every one of us are held in a box and they

used to think when we came in the room we were going to have gold teeth break dancing baggy jeans yo and i'm like no no this is business man you business, man. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, you know what I mean? We didn't do Oprah because she wanted us to stand on her car and do all kinds of crazy shit. We turned down Oprah. Wait, what? That was the biggest,

so what happened with Oprah? That's wild. So here's what happened with Oprah. She wanted to come into our houses and at that time we didn't want to show our family.

She wanted us on cars and doing all that other shit. And then, what did you say? On cars? Yeah, I don't understand. You know, like all that. The producer. I'm not saying Oprah herself. Oh, okay all that other shit. And then- What did you say? On cars? Yeah, I don't understand. You know, like all that. The producer.

I'm not saying Oprah herself. Oh, okay, okay, okay. And I remember there was a girl who was working at our company. And she was either an intern or she was working there. And they said, by the way, that's Oprah's niece working in your company. And I was like, I don't think- Working at FUBU? Working at FUBU.

And this is when we had about 300 employees. We would show up to red carpets and we'd go into a movie theater at an event. She's sitting in the front row. We're sitting in the ninth row. We started going, okay, I think maybe this girl works for me. You do work for me. She ended up coming in later to act in Fly, and I think one of us, I'm not sure who was fired. We told the girl working for us who was going to fire.

We said it's okay to fire. And I remember this big time publicist called us. You are going to fire Oprah's niece? Are you crazy? This is the most powerful woman in the world. And I remember one of us or the woman, Leslie Orfra, said Oprah would want us to fire her ass. And then all of a sudden, we didn't get on Oprah no more.

Oprah said, I don't want to have that. Oprah didn't want you to fire her. There were one of you producers around here behind the scenes who didn't let Oprah know whatever the case is. But how do we get to Oprah?

That was your doing. How, none of y'all smoked or drank and y'all lit. I'll take another pee pee. No, listen, man. I'll be honest. That FUBU story is so...

And his was crazy. I think so. I thought it was a documentary. Then I thought it was a movie. But now that I'm thinking about it. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network. Hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else.

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That's the stuff that keeps you young and stops you from being so hard. To hear this and more things on the journey of healing, you can listen to Just Heal with Dr. J from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. It's almost a wire meets power. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's definitely one of those. It's an entourage. Somewhere in that too. This is, yeah. It's a Soprano. You know about entourage. You want to know if you knew about entourage. You know what I mean?

It's Soprano. What? I think it's Soprano meets Sex and the City meets wire. No, it's the wire. Come on. Let me get this. Let me get this. Let me take it. Let me take it. Go get it. Get. Come on, let me get this. Let me get this. Let me take it.

Let me take it. Go get it. Get at that, baby. Get at that. Let me take this. Get at that, baby boy. It's the Wire. Maybe a little bit.

It's the Wire entourage. That's what I see. It's the Wire meets entourage. Ooh, this is a great fucking story. But you realize, when me and Damon started the idea of FUBU, I had just came home from Rikers. You was in jail, too. Make some noise for Rikers. You know what I'm saying?

And I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. Nah, real talk. This is not even celebrating that shit. Not long. Less than six months. That's that C-74 era.

That's the toughest shit ever. But the bottom line was I didn't want to go back. That's six months is six years. In today's time. I ain't never going to go back. That's the bottom line. Now, let's make some noise for that. And meeting...

You never want to go back. Yeah, that's the point. Here you go. And me and Damon, I had my first child at the time. And meeting him at that moment, you know what I'm saying, was me either trying to figure out how to be a better criminal or you was just... Because we kind of stopped hanging just because, you know,

he was moving to that side of the world. And so when you came home or whatever, I even really forgot about that. Yeah. Wow. So it's a lot that, like I said, it's four different stories in one story. Yeah, that's the reason why. He's got an amazing story on his own. That shit is dope.

You know, I think what you said at another time we were talking, you said when you didn't realize how your impact was and you never went outside your world and when i was going on the tours as a roadie on the tour i think keith was also a street dude i don't think he i don't know if he was doing i don't remember if he was doing any of that stuff but i remember keith saying to me he was on the road to nowhere and when he went on that road with me and he saw that there was a bigger world where LL was doing what he loved and people were screaming and shouting and he didn't have to look over his back. He said, I remember you said something like,

yo, that's when I said, yo, I'm going to leave that behind. I'm going to leave anything behind and roll with you because you can live. You can come out of the hood and do what you love and live and make money. I just had that i had the wrong friends i had everybody that was selling crack getting them football numbers going to jail dying and then i had these dudes where i was going on tour and doing different shit going out of town

at 15 i was like ma can i go out of town she was like i ain't got no money i said this guy just need 50 let me get 50 we gonna share a room Four to a room $50 I'm good But it was like Doing things like that That opened my mind To like wow

There are other things Than what's going on In my hood You know what I'm saying And you know So that's how I want people To listen to us

Whatever we're talking about Whoever listens to us now Get with that little crew That they're on To talking about money And see I don't care how man, get with that little crew that they're on to talking about money and see, I don't care how corny it sounds,

if you love what they're doing, man, don't go to those streets, man. Don't go to those streets, man. There's so much, man.

We're a great product of our environment of people who got out because we just wanted to make shirts and make people happy. You wanted to make people happy. You wanted to make people happy, man.

Man. Man. Yeah, I can't wait to hear this story. Like, man, I'm going to be honest because, and I'm from Queens, so the reason why, like, we didn't know about nothing wrong or nothing, you know, crazy with F FUBU FUBU came out we were

proud of it we proud of it to this day so for y'all to have like I love this that four different stories thing because um shit I'm tuned in let's go so so so what is next for FUBU expansion no we know the real estate part yeah so there's this brand expansion So what is next for FUBU? Expansion. Oh, we know the real estate part. Yeah, so there's this brand expansion. Just identifying new partners as far as licensing agreements. Growing our business here. We just started manufacturing our own goods here in the States again.

Thank you very much, guys. We got FUBU Radio. Yes. We got Sports Live Network. Yeah. And We got FUBU Radio. Yes. We got Sports Live Network. Yeah. And we got FUBU Village coming. So it's just really a brand expansion and trying to make this a situation where it's here long after we're gone. Did you say FUBU Village?

FUBU Village. Like I told you. That's the real estate that they were talking about. Yeah. But it's- Housing, manufacturing, sports, entertainment, and retail. And we're looking at 200 acres. I can't say where, but right outside of Atlanta at this point.

Yeah. That's the right place. And with me, with FUBU Radio, I'm building, like I said earlier, with my partners down in, in actually Roswell, Georgia, 18-stage creative space studio with 500 car parking lot, 300-seat theater, restaurants. And, you know, it's going to be a creative spot down there. So I'm going to be doing a lot of things down there. Got an office station in North Carolina, Atlanta, in New York now, Times Square. So we're just trying to do it.

And I'm also working on, you're probably going to love this, the Tommy Mickens story. Trying to work, develop, and getting that done. So me and my man, Tommy, have been talking about that. So that's going to be crazy. Let's make some noise for that. Is everything connected, though? Everything FUBU Village? Like, you guys are all partners in each other's ventures.

So go ahead. Say it. Exactly what we've been talking about. It's licensing. Like, I will, let's say at FUBU Village, it's my project, but I get permission, a licensing deal from my partner. So I pay them a royalty. So you're licensing deal from my partner. I paid them a royalty. You're licensing from your own entity.

Just because he's a partner, he would get a license and have 75% off what anybody else is because you want your partner to be able to grow the business. FUBU was always four of us, so we could be at four different places, four different times, four different businesses,

and four different minds. EFN could open up Drink Champs different businesses, and four different minds, right? Like, EFN could open up Drink Champs Bowling, and I ain't going to necessarily agree with that. And I could license it at a discount from my own IP. And you can say, here's our rules, man. Just don't do this. And because you're a partner, you'll be like, absolutely, I got you. But then go run it, and then you don't bother me. Now, question.

That's hard. From what you're licensing, that excludes them as specific partners only from the license part of it. Well, it depends. If we decide to come in as, let's say, a monetary investment, then that puts you in a different position. But if they're just a licensing partner, my partners license it to me, they get a royalty

off of the overall sales revenue that's generated from this particular property. So I don't want to make things too complicated. The basic form of a license, when you think about it, is if you sold $100,

a million dollars worth of goods, a million dollars worth of anything, if you had a 20% net, that means that you pay everything, you pay for everything, the 20% net, that means that you pay everything. You pay for everything the 20% profit. Profit. Right.

But if a license is 10% that you give to somebody, you do all the work. Finance, everything. Advertise. Market. And I don't do anything.

You take 10%. I take 10%. We're splitting it. Of the profit? Of the profit. Of the profit. And I didn't have't do anything. You take 10%, I take 10%. We're splitting it. Of the profit? Of the profit. And I didn't have to do anything. So that's why licensing is so powerful. And we usually put in a place where there's a minimum.

A minimum guarantee? A minimum guarantee. You're supposed to do X amount of business over the years. And that can get complicated. And that scales up as... That's what I usually see a license. Minimum guarantee. You're supposed to do X amount of business over the years. And that can get complicated. But in my- And that scales up as- Because that's what we're- I usually see a license as a minimum guarantee.

As a minimum guarantee. That's what we do normally in our world. Because you want people to have some skin in the game to get your name in the first place. Yeah. And we don't want to go into too much detail to get people confused because licensing can be- But it's really, really simple. Right. It's like renting and or leasing your home to somebody.

That's the same thing. Right. So in my regards to what I would, you know, my job is I will be, you know, we will be FUBU forever. We've been fortunate enough to create something that was globally recognized that came out of our basement. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You know, I think that I will start sooner or later a fund, a FUBU fund,

where it will be deploying money to businesses and or whatever with our history. But my job still is to grow the brand and support my partners. Because my job as a partner here is my public access is to keep being hopefully the dignitary of our brand and to bring attention to our brand globally um definitely one day we'll we'll do the whether it is the doc or the series or whatever the case is um yeah and and i think that the job of us is that people have always shown the sizzle reel.

And I think if you hear us jumping, whether Keith's talking about the fight, whether I'm talking about being an asshole to customers or whether Carl's talking about counterfeit, we never want to sit back and say, look how fly this shit is. We want people to say, this shit is we want people to say this shit is hard and when you're doing this you've never i've never met an entrepreneur in my life who did something purely because they wanted to make money right i've only met entrepreneurs who want to solve a problem or bring somebody joy and then the money came the people who did it only because the money ended up in the wrong place so they blew the money once they got it and i think our job and our obligation as uh the people who created this brand who never sold it for the for the right reasons is that uh to extend this brand for people of uh of coming from all all colors or whatever coming from nowhere to say

i mean them them dumb cats did it like only thing i did notable in school is i i like the second the the seventh grade so much I took it twice. That's it. And I'm dyslexic. Carl went to jail. I'm just remembering it. I'm dyslexic. You're just like.

So bottom line, my job is to be the statesman of football, keep pushing it out there, keep building great brands and bringing great partners in. Maybe we do the movie or whatever the case is and stuff and just keep going. It's my life. You know what I mean? It's not just a movie. It's a series. It's an acted out series. It's a documentary

with the acted out series. Yeah, it's a whole series. It's a lot. It's acted out. It's like, man, you got to take your time. You seen the Wu-Tang Clan shit? On Hulu?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where that is. I killed that. And my newest agenda has been really, honestly, of all that is supporting emerging artists, especially as we're shooting in an area with art. Because what I found, unlike we had, we came up, we had each other, we had clothing, sports, athletes, all that.

I found that artists who create, as we all know, a lot of creative people, there's a lot of addiction in this community and that their joy and their pain, they don't ever know if they're going to get into the NFL or create a fubu, but their joy and pain, we benefit from it and there's a massive amount of addiction. So I'm starting to bring attention to fine artists and hopefully give them fubu licenses for free

and various other things like that because I think there's a lot of addiction of these people who have beautiful things that they have to share with us and we don't realize that community has no support. So there you have it. Let me ask you, would you do FUBU cannabis?

Yeah. I just don't smoke on TV I respect that I noticed that Yeah I noticed that But I've been smoking

Since I've been smoking I told you one day You was on to something Back in the days You know And you was on You was smoking weed And you was teenagers bro

Like But you know I keep it respectful You know You still smoke? Mm-hmm. I don't drink. You slow it down a lot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I slow it a lot down. You know, when you start, you know, when I turn a senior citizen, you know what I'm saying? He don't count. No one knows. He don't. But it's like, like I said, I don't, I slow down a lot of things that I did. Like, back in the days, I used to fall asleep in the club with these dudes.

They used to take my chain off, wake up. I'm wiling out. They're like, yo, chill, here's your chain. Like, you fall asleep like doing stupid shit like that. Teach you a lesson. Yeah, doing stupid shit like that. He was an angry weefer addict. You know, so.

No, I've never heard an angry weefer addict. Me neither. I've never heard an angry weef. Me neither. It was mixed with Hennessy. Oh, no. It was mixed with Hennessy back then. You know what I'm saying? I don't even want to say that time in the club. That time in the club.

Remember that time in your life? Remember that time? Tell us about time in the club. Why don't you tell him, Keith? I ain't trying to tell you business. What, he pissed in the club? No, he started peeing on people in the club. Why you telling me, kid? I ain't trying to tell you business. You want to tell me? He pissed in the club? No, he started peeing on people in the club.

Wait a minute. Yo, yo, yo. Yo, yo. Yo, yo. He said, I'm talking about there was some women sitting at the bar. He was at the bar and he

peed on, he just straight peed on their leg. When he mixed his weed with Hennessy. I don't know that one. You remember that one. I remember that one. I remember that one. I remember that one. Before they closed the Palladium in New York City.

The Palladium, that's my shit. The week before that. You remember when he peed on them? That's where the bar get big before. You remember when he was like a big peed I peed at the bar and hit the floor and then it sprinkled on they toes

and they shit listen man he said you need to yo it was the bathroom and the palladium what

way in the basement okay I wasn't gonna make it I wasn't gonna make it so I'd be damned if I piss on myself. You had to go. You had to go.

And now before that big dude loosened up his bladder on 28th Street. Oh, my God. I wasn't ready for that. Yeah, well, we need to cut this interview, man, because we can go here for years. Yo, man. We got 35 years. I'm not.

He let me say that one. You see, he got 35 years. I'm not. Oh, man. He let me say that one. I told you. See, he gave me permission. That's a crazy story, bro. I knew he was going to say that. I knew he was going to say the piss one. I know that.

The pee-pees in the club kind of guy. So, you know, as boys, as boys, listen. Yeah, I need to hear it. No, as boys, listen. These are the hard conversation we had. I said, listen, Keith, man. I got your back. I'll die for you.

Straight up. Like, if we're out of the club and something's gonna happen and I know that you know like you're you know whatever I gotta do man you're my brother I was out of people once he started all joking aside he went through this phase of doing that and we realized later it was you were mixing uh tequila it was something was happening with he went through the phase of pissing in the club? I was going through my early stages of my BDs. Wow, this is cool.

You know what I'm saying? I had that sugar running in my family. I didn't know that. So that was a diabetic reaction? Yeah, so when you're a diabetic and you drink liquor, it just come out. When it come out, it's coming out. You can't hold it. No, you can't hold it. I didn't know what it was.

I just thought I was too drunk to get to the bathroom. We were running around. If you're my man and I love you like a brother and I'm willing to die for you, and I'm not a gangster at all, but if I know that I got to jump in front of a movie, whatever the case, but at a point

where after a while it was happening too much, I can't justify. I was like, yo, Keith, here's two things we're going to do. I'm either not going. I'm not going to go out with you, man. I can't go out with you no more. Or if you keep doing that, I ain't got your back. I'm walking on you. We had to have a hard.

That's a hard conversation. You could have created the FUBU depends that he should have worn for people who got a business. You peed about six, seven times, man. I told you to tell one story. He put six stories.

I told you to tell several stories, man. He gets a good memory now. Oh, he's been re-. He gets a good memory now. I remember because he peed on somebody and that man was about to whip my ass. This dude's right. You peed on a man girl. I don't care if she had paintless shoes on.

You still peed on her. He was discriminately peeing on everybody, bro. What's up, Wild Nights, man? We had some Wild Nights. It happens, bro. It happens. No, it don't. No, bro. Yo. So, what's up, Wild Nights, man? We had some Wild Nights. It happens, bro. It happens. No, it don't. No, it doesn't.

No, it don't. You ever peed on somebody in the streets? No, no, but it happens. No, it don't happen. But this is Sonny's stepson's pee.

I haven't. I haven't, but I have peed. You never said, yo, turn that shit up. No, that's not it. Nah, but shit happens in life.

No, he ain't shit on them yet. That's what I was waiting for. I was waiting for... Whoa, whoa, whoa. Matter of fact, I'm gonna call you. They literally throwing chairs at one of the boobadoos and peeing on somebody. That's going to talk to her.

Lucky we ain't had social media. If they had social media. If they had social media, we'd have been canceled a long time ago, boy. Make sure to depict that in the film. Oh, we got... You got to have a long stream

on that motherfucker. If they had social media, we'd be here right now. Yo, what you want? You want me to go get that? You want that out of the stock room right now? Because we wouldn't be here

no more. So, this is something that I kept hearing repeated through this conversation. He said at one point, you was doing $350 million. Did I hear that correct? Worth?

No, like doing $350 million. Annual, yes. I can't lie. No, no, no. Hold on, let me ask you a question. How was y'all acting then? I know. Listen, I'm going to be honest with you.

I don't give a fuck if they say you guys worth $350 million. I already got $50 million. Hey, hold on. Before you answer that, add inflation. What is that today? Yeah, that's the question. Add inflation. Let's talk about how you was acting. What is that today? Yeah, that's the question. Add inflation. So in the- Let's talk about how he was acting.

What is it? Sounded like $15 million? Acting? That's cool. In clothing, technically, it's a great number, but Nike does $30 billion a year and a lot. Yeah, but coming from where y'all came from. Coming from where we came from. Nike.

You comparing? We were crazy Let me stop saying fucking Nike What the fuck No We was only We was almost homeless So we all moved into my house

And slept, you know, like We worked during the day I worked at Red Lobster And then we was so enclosed And having people so enclosed When we were homeless Where's Red Lobster? I worked in Baldwin

And I worked at Sunrise. And he worked uptown in Manhattan as a building manager and you worked in a factory, right? Yeah, so Why are you laughing at your odd job, bro? It was an odd job.

You were laughing at me when you said you was a sex worker or something. You want a family support. You were working a clean, good job, man. That's what I remember. I said a hot job. Okay, all right. It wasn't nothing steady.

It wasn't nothing steady. So all of a sudden, we're almost homeless. We get our deal. The manufacturing deal, we're supposed to do $5 million worth of sales in three years to keep basically our manufacturing deal. We do $30 million worth of sales in like three months. Wow. FUBU takes off. Immediately, we start moving and doing stuff.

I think at 29, I was almost homeless. That means you would have been almost homeless, but you were renting the basement from me, right? Then paying whatever he could. He had a job, and then we all quit. It just takes off. I remember I came out here to Miami the first time.

I remember standing at Jack the Rapper and I remember looking at some pink tall building what is now the Portofino. I was like, man, one day. Was it? How could I be down at Jack the Rapper? How could I be there? I was on the beach going, man, look at that pink building.

It was like 97, 98 and that pink building just got built. I said, man, one day I'm going'm gonna get thirty thousand dollars and afford an apartment i remember the next year i bought the second building in there for three a second apartment for three million dollars but i found out i didn't know any better i didn't know about um what they call marinas i had jet ski so i want to buy a jet ski i want to put a jet ski someplace so i go down to Venetian Causeway And I buy another house For five million dollars there Just to put a Jesse in it You wildin' man

I mean we bought each other We bought each other cars Your boy You bought me a boat Your boy You bought each other houses In the marina We bought each other cars

All kinds I mean we weren't just Spending money like But we Got me my first Benz You had the Corvette you had the boat we bought you the boat

we bought Jay the Bentley and these were Christmas gifts and birthdays so well yeah it was pretty good you know damn my friends ain't shit but how young were they

when you guys how old were you guys at that point 29, 30 that's the thing when we have a lot of these conversations, especially at Dream Chance, when we're talking about things that happened in the past, we're all older now. Right.

These are young people that we're talking about, young mentalities, young men, young women that were doing things, and we got to put that in that perspective. We were told that we're not supposed to live past 21. Right. That's what everybody told us. Even the people that we paid to protect us told us that. That we were going to be dead or in jail by 21.

My mom used to tell me that shit every day. She used to tell me that shit all the time until I almost died. 17. What did she say? She used to be like, you're going to be dead or in jail by 2021. I'd be like, yo, you're my mom. Like, how are you saying that to me? Because she's like.

Because you was acting out. She's like, the way you move and what you're doing. People you hanging around. She was probably trying to scare you straight. Is what she was doing. Yeah. Now she's a straight shooter. Yeah.

Him on 100. I mean, all of our mothers are actually. Yeah. The truth. Wow. Yo. Y'all fucked me up. But one of the best days, like when we made it made it i

think the one of the best days for us was seeing our product in macy's windows like we literally went to macy's windows windows like y'all literally got 40 ounces and went and stood in front of macy's and i'm talking about that that's too much that's's too gangster. Hold on, hold on. Wait up, wait up, wait up. All right, hold on. Because I know. Is this Macy's on 34th? On 34th Street. Okay, hold on. Let me take it. Let me take it there because I'm there.

I'm there even though I wasn't there. Right, right, right. I'm there. Y'all knew it was going to be on 34th Street? Yeah, because remember, like I said, we had to pay after a while, you know what I mean, for all that stuff. But what really happened is we grew up in Hollis, Queens. Hollis, Queens is right next to JFK. Our parents used to tell us, they used to say, well, there was a plane that shook the whole community when it landed called the Concord and it landed at a certain time.

And our parents used to say either you need to be, because when you heard the rumbling of the Concord landing, the whole neighborhood shook. I remember my mother used to say, or during the summer, the lights on the Empire Stable. My mother used to say, you better be faster than the Concord or quicker than the lights on the Empire Stable, because that means it got dark. Concord ended at a certain time, and whatever. So that's what happened. We finally made it. We had our first office, the 48th floor of the Empire State Building.

This is a building that was 30 miles away that took us 30 years to get to, and now we have the, we would end up owning the 65th, we own three floors of the Empire State Building, but the first time, and I remember at that time, the Empire State Building windows can open as high as from here to there. I remember the first time we made it, we— To the outside? Yeah, outside.

Actually, windows. And that's why people used to jump out of some of those windows. That's wild. By the way, we got our 40 doors. I remember sitting there at the 48th floor, and me and Carl and Keelan, we were looking outside of there. At the entire city, we had finally made it. The next day, we take,

I just got a brand new Lexus and I had the thousand CD player in the back. The thousand of them. It took me a week to open all those goddamn CDs to put them in there. And we sat outside of Macy's with the coldest 40s from Papa Ken's. And we opened up that trunk.

And I made sure every girl seen that I had every CD in there playing. And we rolled down the window and blasted that music as much as we could right in front of those Macy's windows. We would later on be the first people that would physically sit in the windows of Macy's for eight hours while doing a promotion. You guys physically sat there. And then next week I remember driving that car home and somebody carjacked

me. Sounds about right. The dude to my friend, our friends who used to rob people caught me on Long Island and they dragged me. Oh, they got you in your car? They caught me. They saw me driving that Lexus. They dragged me to the back.

I had tried to move as fast as I could out of the neighborhood. They dragged me to the back and they put the gun to my head and I thought I was going to die. And they took that trigger and they were about to pull it. And they just took the car and ran away. But what they found out is that we had made it and they said, Damon, get another car. Don't worry about it. And and they just took the car and ran away but what they found out is that we had made and they said damon can get another car don't worry about it and so they followed me and they and that and that was uh and that's that then that's that story so a lot of a lot of things happen going on so those guys believed in you they knew that you'd get another car i think that's a positive side i don't want anybody else to believe in me. I think that's a positive sign. I don't want anybody else to believe in me again.

But let me ask you, how did that feel, being a kid from Queens? Because that Macy's on 34th Street, that's a home alone, you know. It's a Mecca. That's everything to us. It is. A kid from New York City. Because I know a lot of people are going to watch this, and they're not going to understand that. But I understand that. So I'm going to be regional right now. How did that moment feel for you?

Honestly, man, that was a big day for us. But that wasn't my big day. Because, man, when we started the company, I had a child. I was married and had a child at a young age. So my whole goal was to buy a home for my kids, my wife. And what happened around that same time, Macy's, all that stuff, Damon said, okay, let's go

find a house. So we went to a house that was on auction out there in Brookville, Long Island. And he was like, yo, we ain't going to spend no more than $700,000. That's the highest we're gonna bid on it so we went out there to this house in brookville got to 700 and his ego kicked in 750 800 850 900 we went all the way up to i think a million two didn't get the house but we ended

up getting another house but what that told me was You know what I'm saying We in a different game right now And he got my back You know what I'm saying So It's times like that That I remember more than

I guess the Macy's thing Because Those are goals I was trying to set The home buying Taking care of my family Just getting a daily paycheck Not a weekly paycheck From some shit you build out of nothing

To me that shit was Monumental to me daily paycheck, not a weekly paycheck from some shit you build out of nothing. To me, that shit was monumental to me. That's what the things I remember the most, just really creating something from nothing and be able to pay my bills with that shit. I ain't going to lie. I got to make some noise for that. What was in that

moment, man? Because for me, being from New York City, on the 34th Street, it was 34th Street and 42nd Street. If you didn't, once you conquered the Coliseum, that was the next move. Yeah, 42nd Street, the next one. That was the next move. You got to conquer the Coliseum. You got to conquer Gertz. But then 34th Street is big, though. Yes, it is. Conquer the Coliseum. Got to conquer Gertz.

But then, 34th Street is big, you know. Yes, it is. Because there's a lot of more other people. This is kind of... International. This is going international

with going up the block. Yeah. How did you feel with having your motherfucking clothes in 34th Street at Macy's? No, I mean, it felt good.

At that time, we were still young, too, so the brand was still coming up. We used to do this thing where we'd say one time where we would walk down the block and still see people in our clothes and be like, one time, everybody be like, where, where, where? So it was still new for us,

but having it at Macy's window, especially even my boy Jay, he had got fired from macy so he always had this personal thing he worked for me he worked for macy so he had got fired for you know supposedly stealing like a three dollar tie and he never forgave him for that but you know what i'm saying and jay no thief but but to see us come back and see his face that night and see all of us there. I remember he said to the guy, I'll be selling to you. Yep.

So it was big. And then, you know, Macy's windows is historic, bro. Like, for us, it was the first time I think Urban Fashion Company graced the windows of Macy's. Nah, Carl Canai, I think, had done it. He did? Yeah, I think he did it initially. But we was in the windows, bro. That's right.

That's big, man. So this is pretty much my last question. There's so many other people that's from Queens or from black, four people that's together. What was the moment where y'all actually sat down and said, this is what we're going to focus on? Me and EFN been friends forever, right? I recorded his studio. He's been in my studio in New York. But we had invested in Drink Champs

nine months and kind of didn't make anything back. No, we didn't make anything back. Anything back. But it was so impactful. That's the only thing we got back was the impact. Just the impact. Right.

But no one knows that. So we just kept going. But there was times when we were like, hey, man, what the fuck are we doing? Really? Like me. This is not lucrative. Was there any time doing food where y'all was like, damn, bro, are we sure? What we doing is the right thing?

I don't think anybody's ever asked us that. So when Carl and I started in 89, we started it. We were doing this thing. Carl, like you said, he had a family. He had a child and he had a wife. She said, yo, what are you doing? You got to take care of us. And I think that we closed it down because we ran out of money. When y'all first started?

We closed down the brand. We closed down. We stopped. Three times. Dang. And then he- Wait, so I'm sorry, but is this before or after

the Super Soakers? After. After. After when we started putting the actual physical name Foodborne product. Okay, okay. Close it down.

Okay. We closed three times from 89 to 92. People didn't hear this. Carl says, I got to take care of my family. Can't do it. I'm like, whatever. Cool.

I ran out of money. $1,000, $2,000. You're the financier. I'm the financier. Whatever. This is no big money. People start seeing us. Yo, man, I saw you at a flea market.

Whatever, whatever, whatever. I need you. My boy Jay comes back. He's fighting Desert Storm. He's like. He's in Iraq. He's all right. He comes back. He's fighting Desert Storm. He's like. He's in Iraq. He's all right. He comes back.

He says, yo, man, what are you doing? I want to go to Fashion Institute. By the way, I got a little bit of money. He gives me $5,000. We started again. Call no longer the picture. Not necessarily. Cool.

It starts to get momentum. We run out of money. Close it again. People, yo, I saw this stuff. I like this stuff. Call comes back. Jay says, yo, let's rock. I'll move in your house with you.

I'll work during the day. I'll put some rent. Keith says, I'll move in your house. I'll leave in the basement. I'll put some rent. This is wild. Call says, I'll come back. I then go and live in the basement. I'll put some rent. This is wild. Calls, says, I'll come back. I then go and we mortgage the house.

I work at Red Lobster. We all are working off and on shifts. The FUBU brand then comes back again. It's not big. We get that call. For three years, up until like 95, 92 to 95. Hold up, hold up. This is a three-year span that this is happening.

This is a seven-year. This started in 89. This is a six-year span. So is happening. This is a seven-year. This started in 89. This is a six-year span. So right around 90, 90. 89, you said? 89, we failed the first time. Started again in 90, failed again. Started again in 91, failed again in 92.

Then we all just come together. We live off of shit beans and whatever the case is. Mortgage rent, the house. Chicken. What he asked is just 40 houses. People probably saying to you, you're failing again. Get a wife. I got a wife.

That's what I heard. They're all laughing at us, not talking to us. 95, we start to get some form of traction. 96, we start to get a deal. Wow. Millions of dollars in the bank by 98 97, 98 and we're globally Recognized at that time but that's how the story goes Yeah

Yeah I don't think I ever recapped it In that way and it was about Partners coming in and out and we all said Yo we got something bigger than this man Work your day job. Don't save money. Put it into this shit.

Move into my house. Sleep on the floor. Sleep on the ground. Get your wife. Your wife's mad at you. I don't care. Go ahead. Let's rock.

Sounds about right. They killed it. So then you wonder why we still brothers. What are we going to do after that, man? Y'all been through everything. Through everything. That was hard.

Thank you. Thank you. Y'all ended it great as well. Thank you. That makes sense. Drink Champs is a Drink Champs LLC production, hosts and executive producers, N-O-R-E and DJ E-F-N. Listen to Drink Champs on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Drink Champs, hosted by yours truly, DJ EFN and NORE. Please make sure to follow us on all our socials. That's at Drink Champs across all platforms, at TheRealNoriega on IG, at Noriega on Twitter. Mine is at Who's Crazy on IG,

at DJEFN on Twitter. And most importantly, stay up to date with the latest releases, news, and merch by going to drinkchamps.com. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why is a soap opera Western like Yellowstone so wildly successful? The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your gut microbiome and those healthy bacteria can actually have positive effects.

Your mental health, your immunity, your risk of cancer, almost any disease under the sun. This week on Dope Labs, Titi and I dive into the world of probiotics, the hype, the science, and what your gut bacteria are really doing behind the scenes. From drinks and gummies to probiotic pillows. Yes, really, probiotic pillows. We're breaking down what's legit and what's just brilliant marketing. With expert insight from gastroenterologist Dr. Roshi Raj. Listen to Dope Labs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.