Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Capitalism, Beef and Jay-Z, Usher Praises Diddy, Plus a ’Beauty in Black’ Conversation

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

Van and Rachel react to the latest from the LaRussell controversy before discussing Jay-Z’s interview with GQ and Usher’s comments on Diddy. Then, actresses Taylor Polidore Williams and Crystle Stewart from Netflix’s ‘Beauty in Black’ join the show. (0:00) Intro (9:05) Social media addiction ruling (21:47) NBA salary cap (30:48) Druski’s “conservative women” skit (49:04) LaRussell controversy (1:02:44) Jay-Z, capitalism, and beef (1:29:15) Usher on Diddy (1:53:10) Taylor Polidore Williams and Crystle Stewart join the show Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guests: Taylor Polidore Williams and Crystle Stewart Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Jade Whaley Social Producer: Bernard Moore Video Supervision: Chris Thomas and Jacob Cornett This just in, the Comcast Business Price Lock Guarantee is back. For a limited time you can lock in the same great rate on gig speed internet and advanced security for 5 years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Carl Learning is on is I Van Lathen, Jr. And it is me, Rachel, and Lindsay. So there's a movie that's coming out, and you have to, and everybody has to go see it. Okay. All right, is everyone listening? You have our full attention.

Is, there's a movie coming out, and everybody has to go see the movie. I'll tell you what the movie is. It is with Hallie Bailey. Oh, the Tuscany movie? You have to go see the Tuscany movie. Did you see it? No, I haven't seen it yet. But I haven't seen it yet, and it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter how good the movie is. I'm asking everyone to go see the movie, and I'll tell you why. I've seen, first of all, the great Will Packers behind this movie, and you guys know. Oh, I didn't know that. That whatever Will does forever, I will do it. I'll tell the Will Packer story again. I am fired from TMZ in 2019. Will Packer makes it a point to put me back on television every time I think about it.

I get a little emotional just because he believed in what I was doing and thought what happened was bullshit. And that is, to me, the way we should be looking out for each other when we can. So shout out to Will Packer for that. But more than that, I saw a tweet by a sister named Nina Lee. Okay. Now, she has done a rom-com. And that rom-com has, I think, Country Wayne and Coco Jones in it. Okay.

And what she has said was that there are a lot of studios that are watching for this movie. You, me, and Tuscany is the name of the movie. Reggae John Page is in this as well. Okay. So it's Hallie Bailey and Reggie Jean Page. A lot of studios are watching this movie. To see. To see how it does to gauge the near future of the black rom-com.

I'm going to be real quick on this. black rom-coms insanely important insanely important because the rom-com as a film is a celebration of the love and fun that two people can have a rom-com is in a way

the most humanist of movies so black people being out there just loving laughing, having ups, downs. Nobody's chasing anyone with the whip. We're not trying to get out of the hood. It's not love in the crack era. It's not love on the plantation. It's just love.

That's important for us to support and celebrate. Well, I can't remember if we talked about this here, but we used to have that in the 90s. There are so many funny, beautiful 90s black rom-coms. And then it just disliked. And so, yeah, I mean, that's a really good point. We should, I know, I feel like we talked about this podcast about the disappearance of them, but if, which it's crazy that they're looking at this one movie for this. But if this is what it's going to take to bring that back, which is something that we grew up on, which I feel like was a part of my upbringing and my childhood, then, yeah, like, let's get it.

I don't know if they're looking at one movie for the whole, but what I'm saying is, is that when creative say stuff like that, it's actually true. Okay. Now, I hit Nina up to see what I, and I actually hit Will up, just to make sure that I was talking about this. But look, you guys, for example, the drama is coming out next week. I couldn't be more excited for the drama. That's Zendaya. That's Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. I don't, what's that about?

Nobody knows. Okay, so I'm not in the dark. It's not just me. Okay. Some people are trying to spoil it, but no one really knows. Okay. I got excited about this movie. Then I thought.

this could be a part of a biracial jihad. You know people want you to let this go. I don't care what they want. Well, I do. I didn't ask them. We should take a higher learning vote. He said, you see how I said, I do? And he goes, I didn't ask them.

He doesn't want to pay attention to what I said because he wants to keep going. We're going to say, well, first we're going to bring Tracy on and then we'll retire it. We're going to hear from an actual biracial person on how we should handle this, and then we're going to move on. Hold on for a second. Wait a second.

Reggae Jean-Pageeage. Hold on for a second. Oh. Oh, my God. I think Rayge Jean-Page, I think he might be a part of by racial jihad. He is.

Oh, shit, bro. See what I'm saying? Y'all don't, but I'm making it up. Wait, is he not? I'm saying. I always, what are you making up? Oh, so,

are we forward or are we against it, Van? No. Are we forward against it? Well, I mean, we have to go support the movie. We have to go support the movie. but we do eventually have to make love between niggas. That's the movie that I want to see. Two dark-skinned people are love.

But we have to support it because they don't like, don't. It's like, no. No, I'm being, nah, I apologize, guys. That's not how I want to be. I'm changed, no, don't, that's none of that's true. Oh, yeah, he definitely is in it. We're going to see this movie as a family. Everybody, we're going to see this movie.

It's still black love. Tuscany. It's black. Black love. It's black love. I don't like that smile. That's what I love about it. That's all my favorite things about this movie. That smile, do it again.

Zoom in on it. I don't trust it. If Van ever calls you, that's what pops up. What? And it creeps me out every single time. Every single time. I believe in this movie and I'm going to go see it. I'm going to go see it.

It's going to be great. I'll buy popcorn. Day night? Huh? Date night? Date night. Get out there, do it. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals

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Very excited about it. I'm glad that I could bring you in to the Beauty and Black world. It's just wild It's wild I've never seen anything like it I've never seen Tyler Perry do anything like it It's number one for a reason And we get into it with both

The Stars Crystal Stewart And Taylor Palladour Williams Also known as Kimmy and Mallory Kimi and Mallory We talked a little bit about Some of the criticism of the show Critisms of Tyler Perry as well You guys hang out for that

They were very good with their time We talked about Houston Two of Texas finest And I didn't get a chance To drive the wedge between AKA and Delta, but I'll get to that. We kept it light, because I was actually going to bring something else up that I didn't really want to talk about.

One of the stars in the movie, like, has this really controversial Instagram Live where he basically condemns the LGBTQ Plus community, and he plays someone... He condemned them on a Tyler Perry show? He condemned them

on his live, and on his show, on the show, he very much so, he is not, but he plays, he has to play into it. I don't want to give anything away, but like he has to be a part. So it's there, and you have queer co-workers. There are other

people on the show that are queer. So for him to make this statement, it was really controversial. Now he's since come out and he's apologized for it and said that he's learning, but it's a pretty, it's a pretty recent statement, but I wanted to keep it light and not go there and have them, you know, we're celebrating the fact it's number one.

It's a big, it's a huge thing for them. I didn't want to bring all that into it. But it is a thing that people are talking about that are in the fandom. I get that everybody has to learn on their own time. Let me. It's not an old statement, by the way. It's an old statement? It is not. Okay.

I know what everybody learned. I'm not holding myself out to be better than this brother at all because everybody has to learn in their own time. And here's what they have to learn. Gay and trans and non-binary people are people just like you that, get all of the same rights, opportunities and experiences that you do. That's the whole lesson. Class dismissed.

See? It's very easy to learn. You go to a restaurant? Gay people go to a restaurant. You get married? Gay people get married. You have a cartoon? Gay people have a cartoon.

You have a show. Gay people have a show. You dance. Gay people dance. Like, it's the same thing. And you know what else? It's funny about gay people? They're black.

I wish, I wish. They're black and they're gay and they're just as black and they're black and they're a part of us and we are them and they are us. Yeah, they deserve. They're human. It's just like they're actually black and sometimes biracial, which. Somebody clip that and send that to Xavier. Um, okay. Uh, um, quick hitters, Donnie.

All right. Let's start on the legal front. A, uh, LA jury found meta and YouTube liable. in a landmark case over social media addiction. The lawsuit was brought on by a 20-year-old woman who said that she became addicted to the platforms as a child. They awarded $3 million in damages with a meta responsible for about 70%

and YouTube responsible for 30. Jury also found the companies acted with malice, meaning additional punitive damages, could follow. What do you guys think this means for the future of social media platforms? I think it's huge. And I'm not against it, Alvan. grow up. I think it's, I think you haven't seen anything like this because it's not that it's the first time that someone has tried to sue these social media companies.

It's the way in which these lawyers decided to sue meta and YouTube, which is why it's like, oh, this could set a precedent for cases to come. Because this definitely won't be the last time. So basically, these social media companies have been able to get away with, with, with, continuing what they're doing and not be subjected to these lawsuits under a federal act, which basically says that you can't sue tech companies and they're not responsible. Well, tech companies are not responsible for what their users post. And these lawyers said, all right, well, what we're going to do is basically go around that and say it's the product that's the problem. It's not what people are posting because obviously these tech companies aren't in control

of that. it's how the tech company platforms their social media company or their outlet. So like the infinite scroll, the constant notifications, beauty filters, all of this. And so what this plaintiff is saying is that she basically suffered personal injury because she'd been using social media since she was six. And it added to her body dysmorphia and all these other things. And so she said she has been harmed by them. She said that these companies were negligent.

The jury said, you know what? You're right. A couple things here, I think. The first thing I think is I watched an interview with Peter Till. It's very interesting. You love to watch a Peter Till interview, don't you? I like to watch all different types of interviews. I watched Coleman Hughes and Glenn Grinwald earlier today.

I watched Coleman Hughes, Dave Smith. I can actually learn a lot from Coleman Hughes. You want to have Coleman on here. I would like to. I don't think Coleman would do it because Coleman is a very different type of. He maintains his emotional pitch very well. Oh, you don't think you could do that? No, I have to sing a special song

to maintain my emotional pitch. Have we heard it? No, no. I never told you about this? I never told you about the Mickey Mouse Santa Claus MLK song? I think I'd remember that. Oh, no.

One day, when I get really mad, I sing a song, Mickey Mouse. Literally, if you've never said this to me. These are people, you know, imagine. These are people who call me down. Peter Till interview. Peter Till interview. Peter Till says the crowd asks him

or he gets asked by the interviewer, how much social media, how much screen time he lets his kids have per week? What do you think his answer was? None. One hour and 30 minutes from Peter Till. Yeah. Now, Peter Till invested something like $200 million,

maybe more into Facebook. He has been a part of the tech oligarch revolution, the power grab from these types of guys. He essentially is an algorithm himself. When you watch him, it's like, this is for him to be. But he realizes that too much. of this stuff is harmful. Now, I'm the wrong spokesman for this. People know I am chronically online, except for our Reddit, where they posted my mom, a bunch of low-lifes. But like,

I am chronically online, right? But the interesting thing about this conversation I had on the podcast called the Escape Hatch podcast is I'm interested to see where this can go in terms of tying direct harm to social media usage. What do you mean? Okay. Think about other industries that we've highly regulated. What you were able to do in these industries is tie direct harm to the usage of set product. If you think about tobacco.

That's what they're comparing this case to. Right. At one point, you smoking cigarettes everywhere and stuff like that. How did we really win that? the war against cigarette smoke. And I haven't people smoke on a plane and stuff like that. We not only regulated cigarettes, smoke and cigarettes in terms of usage, we also sort of culturally regulated them.

Hey, you're not going to have billboards with people smoking. You've come a long way, baby, Virginia Slim. You're not going to have commercials with it. You're not going to have any of that stuff smoking in movies sort of went away. And when that happened, there was sort of a cultural regulation of that because you could tie tobacco directly to this outcome, which is either cancer, emphysema, heart disease, all of that. If you're talking about alcohol, you can directly tie to being impaired and then driving.

So the alcohol company has to in some way. Now, we haven't really put the genie back in the bottle with that. But the alcohol company in some way has to say, hey, drink responsibly. They have to limit their liability in getting you to do this thing that is. bad for you and dangerous. And so we're able to put an age limit on it. We're able to say in some places you can't drink on this day. You can't drink here. You can't walk around drunk. There's going to have to be a robust effort to tie social media usage not to a litany of possible harms, but directly to one or two harms. You're going to have to be able to say that it somehow

decreases your cognitive function. Or it's somehow, I'm not saying that people can't do this, I'm saying this is the project. Like it somehow decreases your cognitive function. It somehow makes, gives you body dysmorphia. It leads to depression. It leads to, there's going to have to be something at the end of this that is very actionable to get the type of reform that people are going to want. And then we're going to have to also ask, last thing I say, is what do people want?

If we are to regulate social media, are we regulate social media, are we regulating the algorithms are we regulating how what age you should be able to go on there? These are the conversations that are going to happen. Well, that's what I think that this case is happening. Well, this case did connect it, right? Like to prove negligence, you have to show there was a breach and then that breach caused harm. So there was an injury, which is what she presented and they said, you are in fact correct.

Now, of course, they're going to appeal this. But I think that some of those questions I think were at least answered in this case. Now how meta, because they awarded her like $3 million. And a couple of the jurors spoke out and said they didn't want to do this large sum because for them, it's not just about this person getting money. It's about an impact, like making change. And so what I do think you'll see, of course, meta and YouTube will probably appeal this. So that's a long ways away. They're fighting it.

They maintain that they are not creating an addictive product. but, you know, the plaintiffs had evidence that showed conversations between, I don't know if it was meta-yutuber both, that showed that they were very aware of this addiction that can happen because of the way that they present this. And, I mean, you even just talked about Peter Till. I mean, that's not direct, but, like, that's evidence that he believes that it's harmful.

So I think that you'll see maybe a warning. Like, you know, cigarettes have a warning label. There could be a warning. It could be what maybe some other countries have done after a certain age. You can't get on social media. It might be that the algorithm isn't so addictive. It might be that they don't have constant replays.

I mean, I think there are small changes they could make that don't make it so bad. Because think about when Instagram started versus now. I was not using it to the level that I was when it first started. I don't think it was as addictive as it is now. Well, they didn't have the algorithm yet. Exactly. So I think that if they can take away some of it,

of these things or maybe like constant notifications or whatever it may be take it back dial it back a bit that might be the answer so I think in this case they were able to prove that in this instance in this instance that it affected this person like that right right a couple of things happen you know if you compare it to cigarettes drug driving and all that stuff like you can compare it to or alcohol usage and all of that there were direct diseases that they could then say, hey, you drink enough, your liver turns to stone. You smoke enough,

your heart goes kaput and your lungs fail. Like there was, it's because these things are physical, there was an easy scientific explanation in the harm of the product. In this case, they were able to do it for this one person.

The problem is, there are scores of people they're going to be like, I use this stuff all the time and I'm fine. What they're going to have to do, because there are a lot of people that smoke, they're fine. What they're going to have to do is prove that on average, you are less healthy if you use social media in some kind of way.

On average, in terms of the general population. What do you mean they have to prove that? For what? In order to actually regulate it, they're going to have to prove that it's... Well, it's going to be their choice. Otherwise, they can keep getting sued and having to pay out. They don't have to prove what you're specifically saying. Like they could, this is precedent.

No, I'm not talking about like they can, they can, if they want to, like, they can keep it as is. Well, three million dollars is a drop in the bucket to Facebook. Correct. That's cost of doing business. So like it, but like what I'm saying, like what I'm saying is if we want societal regulation, which is what I want, if we want societal regulation on social media, which I think it should be regulated at this point. If we want that, then the investigation in. to it is going to be, is going to have to be able to demonstrate how exactly social media is hurting and harming us.

Who would do societal regulation? Like who are you? The government. Okay. Yeah. I don't think that will happen. Why? I, well, it won't happen under this administration.

Well, not under this administration, but yeah, like governmental regulation, like it's government, they regulate all different other type of media. Yeah. You can't be, we got Beauty and Black coming on later. If Beauty and Black was in a movie theater, you wouldn't be able to be, seven years old and going there and buy a ticket to be like, I want to see beauty in black, I want to see some asses shaking vagina. I'm not

saying they can't do it. I'm saying well, one, we both agree. It wouldn't happen under this administration. I'm more so looking at it from a, well, the legal pressure of this case, because now you have a roadmap. You have a blueprint of, all right, well, now I know I could sue

and possibly you do exactly what they did and then get money. And that jury may award a hundred more times what this jury awarded. You know, like, they don't have to stick to this exact thing, but the point is, is that something happened that's never been, has happened before, and will this legal pressure, because you're right, $3 million is nothing to them. Even this attorney and his closing argument had like a jar of M&Ms and showed like this is

a drug, like was demonstrating how much money it would take to actually impact these companies. But if it keeps happening, will Facebook, on Facebook meta or YouTube say, you know what? we're going to do this, and then that might be the regulation that happens. Everything's based on money, right, for them. So I don't know, but I just, this was really interesting to me because it hasn't been done before, and I think you're about to see a bunch of people. I mean, there's another case going on right now in New Mexico with this with like,

where $375 million, META was hit with for a different reason, but still, because they said that META fails to protect young users from child predators. They just were hit with $375 million. So I just wonder if these legal cases may cause them to tighten it up. I'm skeptical. I think the only way you're going to be able to, the only way you're going to be able to get them to change it is through actual government regulation.

You're probably right. I mean, like, well, but maybe who knows? Who knows? Look, do you care about the NBA salary cap? Well, you do. of course go for it I don't think the audience cares

why was it interesting to you because I looked into this I was you know I was like okay Van wants to talk about it let me not be a crumajun it's not actually you know it's it's a million dollars lower than earlier projections this is the client in local media

revenue and when you have things like fraudulent 83 point games people decide that they don't want it anymore do you think that that's what what You think people aren't watching or is it because like that the company who I guess was over local stations went bankrupt. So now people don't have a local place to really watch it. So that's why you were.

I think that this is a direct response to the 83 point game from Bam out of bio. That people turn their, they turn their televisions off after that happened. It turned them off. They were like, we don't want to, this product is trash. And so it hurt the league financially. And until Kobe is respected, that will continue. to happen. If I could do a community note, it would say that is in fact absolutely not true. You can't prove that. It's not why viewership drop. They don't have like a local. No.

There's local media revenue. Like Rachel is right. The more interesting conversation here is will there be a changing in the guard in America's second sport? Baseball is on a heater. Major League Baseball has actually been able to do something that's different for the NBA. The NBA is like a nationwide sport with all of these nationwide brands. We talked about this a little bit, but Major League Baseball has been able to transform itself

into a regional powerhouse and is now getting to a point where obviously the salaries in their league are going to have to get checked and stuff like that, but they are really growing in a real way. And people believe in the competition besides the fact that the Dodgers have this

unlimited amount of money to spend it can go buy up all of these players. The competition in Major League Baseball is looked at as a product that's getting better. They have introduced a pitch clock to baseball. It's moving the games faster.

Some of the competitive things in baseball have worked to change the product in a way that is more palatable to the fan. It makes it better for the fan to watch. It's better. The NBA is moving, I don't care what anyone fucking says in the opposite direction.

I will agree with you. The rules that exist in the NBA right now, some of the things that you're allowed to do are eroding people's like love for the actual game itself. If you love basketball. And I think you're starting to kind of see that along with the media stuff and the local media rights that you're talking about. Also with the fact that watching these games means I go to, I go to league pass and it's click on this to go to Peacock.

I go to Peacock and Peacock like, psych, nigger, go to Amazon. I go to Amazon and Amazon. It's like, we don't have a game today, Van. You got to go to Spectrum TV Sportsnet, BallySports.com. And I'm like, I'm not doing all that to watch the fucking Clippers.

I just wanted to see what Kauai looked like for three minutes in the second quarter. Yeah. So there's a lot happening at the same time with basketball. And that's not to take anything away from some of these studio shows because I think what Amazon is doing and for basketball is fantastic.

No, everybody loves things. A lot of different places to watch basketball right now. But I, no, no, no, no. I will agree with that. Like, you don't know. And you, I would say, if football had more games, it would be the same thing because it's on spread out so much, but it doesn't. But you're absolutely right.

I think that it feels disconnected. You don't get to just, like, turn on your TV and, oh, there's the game. Or maybe certain institutions that you were tapped into have disappeared. Those shows aren't there anymore. So it's, it's, yeah, it just feels disjointed. Just so people. No, they still made more. The cap is still going up.

It's just not going up as much as they expected it to. So the players are still making more money. The cap is still going up. I don't want any of the thing. So that's why this is a crazy story. Broke-ass basketball players. The cap is still going up. It's just, it was a million dollars off.

And the NBA is not used to taking even small little, like, microscopic Ls like that. But now I know what your motivation was. It was to get the BAM comment out. I was looking at this and I'm like, okay, they're a 155. They had projected what, like, I don't know, 166 and now it's 165. They're still going up. I was like, what is this really about? As soon as that happened, they lost money.

As soon as that happened, they lost money. I need somebody random to go break that record, man. What my young book at? But see, no, I got young books in this mind. That would not. If a random person did it. Not a random. It would be how the person does it because that's your issue with bank.

It's not who did it. It's how he did it. I fuck with Bam, man. Bam is one of the top. He's got one of the top. Bam in Asia, I love that. Shout out to Bam. But I need one of my young bucks to get it.

Tyreee Murphy, go get the record, man. But it's really sad that you just can't take this win and just enjoy it and bask in it. I mean, you worked hard to get here. You've been in the league for a long time. Who bam? Yeah. And you got this 83-point game. And then you got people like this that want to rain on your.

your parade. You want a random person you just said to beat that record. What is the D.H.O. In basketball? No, no, we don't. That is literally, no, let's go back,

you know what, let's go back to the previous topic and let me start throwing out some legal terms for you. I don't know any of them. Okay. I don't know any of torturous. What is it?

What is the tort? It's tort, not torturous? Torturous. What's the difference between tortures and tort? Don't they say torturous, nigg? Why are you looking to me? like that. I don't like feeling stupid.

I don't like being talked down upon. Like the case we just talked about, that's tort law. So that's tort. Yeah, like it's a personal negligence. It's like a personal injury case. That's tort. What about what's tortures then? Tort and torture is not the same thing? What's tortures interference?

Y'all never heard that? I heard that on one of these shows, man. Tortures and interference. Wait, wait, wait. They don't have that. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Jay, stop eating random slices of beef. A Jay came into, did you see what Jade had to eat today? Jay came in today with a whole She always has a little snack

Jade is on the paleo diet Jay came in with a whole Who snacks on Jade had cut up pieces of state She'd eaten them Like she's Ukrainian What? I'm sorry

Okay I do want to bitch of something too Yes torturous interference is a real thing But you don't just say You don't just say torturous What is it? Tortures Torchus

Interference Not torturous It's not tortuous It's torches It's torches It's, so it's tort law. Yeah. So it's tort.

Okay. I-O-U-S. Torturous interference. And that's when you torture somebody while you interfere with them. It's like a breach. But wait. A breach.

This is something that came out on, came up in our interview and I just, I was shocked when you said it. We're going to play the interview at the end of the podcast, obviously, but you watch the beauty? I watched that. I watched that scene.

I don't know anybody else that watches that show. I saw that scene. I watched the whole. Do y'all watch the whole? It's gonna watch it. Anybody watch the beauty? It's called beauty, I think. And that's what I was gonna tell you, I don't think anybody's watch.

I think I'm the only person who watches that show. Well, I saw the, we're gonna talk about a scene that I saw where a fat brother with great, with a great jawline, like, committed a mass shooting in a plastic surgeon's office. I'm like, what the fuck is happening? And we're gonna talk about this later on with the ladies when she comes out on a sport. And he turns into Jeremy Pope. And then he, he, that shit is wild. And, and the- That's just the beginning. The question that we're talking about is it doesn't seem as if Ryan Murphy gets the smoke for doing some of that stuff that maybe Tyler Perry does on Beauty and Black.

And is there a component here that gets back to what we were sort of talking with Jamie Lawson about? But I watched that one scene and I was like, I don't know if I can fuck with this. Yeah, I don't think people are watching it. That's why they didn't talk about it. But that show is wild. It is. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Cream. The day doesn't ask for permission.

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Drewski doing better numbers. I feel like we wait for the next skit. Like it's like a movie's dropping. Like a song, an album is dropping. We're like, oh, Juski dropped it. Because how many, well, Donnie actually just play it. We're praying for all the soldiers and troops. That's great that you're praying.

I've got all of the kids that died when the USA hit the towers. It broke my heart. That is the, oh. In what ways have you grown closer to Jesus? I serve a righteous God. And that is why we say our prayers. We are all his children. But when I say children, I mean like the holy blessed Trinity, which is why I hold the Bible.

How many views does it have right now? 4.1 million he dropped yesterday. It's got to be more than four. That's on one platform. Yeah, because I saw, what is it on? That's his personal feed. But what about on Twitter? Anyway, it's going crazy.

A couple of things. 74.3 74.3 million views on Twitter. A couple of things popped out at me about this. Number one, Drewski's impacted who he is, it almost can't be measured at this point. No one close.

No one close. He's clearly, he's one of the, those numbers, the numbers are phenomenal. Yeah. Like the amount of interest in what Drusky is doing is phenomenal. But then also, Drusky is starting to, Drewski is the most brave,

to me, Drusky is amongst, how can I say this? Drusky is maybe the most brave cultural commentator like that we have going right now. Like, Drusky is starting to, in a direct way,

make his politics and his worldview pretty plain. Right? When he says, skits first started, they were these really relatable skits about interpersonal relationships, you bring a girl to a party, a guy is jealous and all that that stuff we could all agree on.

And you could tell that the stuff is coming from out of his mind. I don't want to make this directly political because he kind of gives it to everybody, right? It gives it to a black guy, at the frat house, all of that stuff. But when you think about his opinions on the black church, when you think about

what's going on here with Erica Kurt, when you look at a part of this, this obviously a send up of Erica Kirk. When you look at a part of this, he has reporters asking Erica Kirk, who he's playing, direct political questions, and she's responding with platitudes. That's a criticism. And religion. Yeah. So again, it's, well, that and how these are also titled. So you have the black church, right? But then this is specifically titled how conservative women act in America. Now, he's done other skits that are related to the Asian culture, the Latino culture, to black culture, to be in the token, like directly a certain type of person. And that's

what this is. But to your point, it's controversial. And these are becoming more controversial. Like, I didn't laugh as much as this one, but I was entertained. And I definitely was like, wow, he's going directly at Erica Kirk. And so when I looked at or did the autopsy, as you like to say, there were a lot of people, I looked at it on Twitter, a lot of people criticizing him because I think maybe this one, similar to what the black church was for the black culture, this one for white people made them feel uncomfortable

because a lot of people were saying, hey, you're mocking her and she lost her husband. You're imitating her emotion when she lost her husband. Even more than her holding the Bible. It was, well, she lost her husband. This is a bit too far. Yeah, so it's interesting. I was fascinated here.

I'm always fascinated. I'm fascinated as well in that same way. Specifically, though, this particular situation in a time where, and you got to think, Drusky is amongst the most accessible celebrities that we have out there. He legitimately was just at the fanatics thing, the flag football game. It's going to be Drusky and Kevin Hart and all the people who have the most cultural penetration, right? I was at WrestleMania a couple of years ago.

And WrestleMania, I don't know if people know it was in Philadelphia and it was brick out that bitch. Shout out to Cass, man. me and cast were sitting there with next to the ring at WrestleMania and we're going yo it's cold in this motherfucker I couldn't do it I left first night at WrestleMania went back to the hotel

I left couldn't do it it was too much very cold but of all the celebrities that were there Drewski was the one that people were most interested in and there were a lot of famous people there rappers actors a lot of people love wrestling WrestleMania as a big

celebrity event Drusky was the one that they cared the most about. So knowing that he's beloved in that way and has this type of audience, but seeing that he doesn't shy away. By the way, he won't argue with you about these skits. Push these skits out, that's it. I think that helps.

Say more. Well, because you talked about how brave he is, right? And it obviously is brave to put this out. But if you just put it out and you move on to the next thing, I'm not taking away from his bravery. I'm just saying it doesn't allow people to know, So it's open to interpretation. That's how I put it out there.

And so it could be that Druski's like, hey, everybody can get it. No, I'm commenting on exactly what it is that people are talking about right now. Now, I think the most controversial thing in this entire skit is the question about Iran. That's the most direct thing that I've seen him do in that sense. But I think that it's brave to do it. It's brave to leave people up to their own interpretation of it because you're allowing people to create their own narrative, but he moves on to the next thing.

And I think that helps him because you actually can't speak with specificity how he feels about a particular topic. He could say I'm just creating a skit on what the social commentary is. Well, I mean, I think, and there will be a lot of people that talk about Charlie Kirk's death

and like you said, whether or not it's appropriate. Here's a deal. And everyone knows this and should know this. I did not know who Erica Kirk was, not really prior to Charlie Kirk's death. Same. Since then, Erica Kirk has become a national political figure,

a national, social political figure. She's taken up the mantle of running Turning Point USA. People are going to talk about it. It's the way that it goes, right? Like they talked about her husband. Like they talked about her husband. It's the way that it goes.

If there was anything that directly in this skit was involved in, had to do or there was a commentary about Charlie Curse assassination. If this skit were in any way making fun of the death or the assassad. I could see people having a problem with it, but it doesn't.

He's talking about conservative women and he's using Erica Kirk as the mascot for that. And by the way, this skit aside. The fact that Drusky

at this point in his career has reached this sort of I don't even really know what to say but I would just say to all artists like yeah, he has a lot of brand deals, he has a lot of stuff, there's a lot

but when he has something to say he just fucking says it. He says it in the art, he says it in the sketch. He just fucking says it and he leaves it there you guys talk about it that's what you do like and the black church was mad at them now the conservatives are going to be mad at them it'll be interesting to see what they try to do because this right here just to let you know is going to be peds like ben Shapiro clay Travis whomever is going to take this and inject it into their veins

veins. Yeah. Like injected into their veins. But I saw this. I was like when I watched it, then I saw, I was like, I was like, oh shit,

Drewski, talk your shit. Do your thing. And we do need to have a conversation about people taking relevant, geopolitical and social issues and then responding in the most milk toast platitudes, really in intellectual

and emotional lives to people when we're in this type of. a situation. Oh yeah. I mean, that's coming from the top. So relevant conversation. Relevant conversation.

Also, I'll say this, just so people know before we go, get off the topic. Anytime, I'm just let you all know, I'm not entertaining a white face thing. If you're not smart enough at this point,

just fucking get over it. I'm not entertaining a white face thing. I'm not entertaining it. I'm not entertaining it. I'm not entertaining it. If you can't see the difference, God bless,

go with him. Mm-hmm. But anytime this goes from white chicks to this, anytime a black man takes on the mantle of a blonde-eyed, blue-eyed, blonde-haired white woman, it is terrifying. This is scary. This is like, y'all don't watch white chicks.

That don't scare y'all? Yes. That shit is fucking scary. I'm afraid of it. Like I watched this, the nails, the eyes, the whole, The nails were crazy. Yeah. Like any time this happens, I'm terrified.

The feet in the ballet shoes. Yeah, it's scary as shit to me. It's scary. The close-ups were terrified. About white chicks or this? I'm talking about this. I mean, white chicks is one thing, but this was... I think Drusky was playing with horror a little bit.

Because, nigga... Well, that was Erica Kirk. She did that. Yeah. But, you know, I'm looking at it. She don't really scare me. Oh, when she does that stare? you get scared.

Stop it. You're scared of her. Stop. Oh, you know what I was, can I ask you a question? What? What? ABC needs a Bachelorette. You got to be, let's go.

You got to be fucking kidding me. What do you mean? I would only do it if you hosted. No. I'm not talking about you. Oh, I was like, come on. I would definitely host it, by the way. Yeah, if you hosted it, I'd be so down.

I'm talking about Erica Kirk. Can you imagine? I saw somebody say that online, because people are throwing names out there. It would get views. It would. I probably watched just out of pure curiosity. Question.

But they got another show, that traditional marriage show. That's for her. That's for her. You don't have anything to do with picking the guys that are on your season when you're on The Bachelorette, right? No, they'll just be like,

is there anything that's off limits? Oh, they ask you that? Mm-hmm. So they ask you about the guys and they go, so what? Is there something, like, you can't, nobody goes in there and it's like, no, this. Like, no, you don't say like no particular race. Nobody does that. I would hope not.

I don't think so. Let me tell you what the, like, what? I said, like, no athletes. You said no athletes. Mm-hmm. Interesting. You were over it at that point. I was over it.

Taped out. If Erica Kirk was on the best, Bachelorette. Mm-hmm. This is an easy one. Oh, let's do it. Erica goes to O'Block. I'm talking Erica

all niggas. The fuck I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the ones. I'm not talking about, shout out to Coleman Hughes. We talked about them on the podcast. I'm not talking about Coleman Hughes. Coleman Hughes is somebody. I'm talking about, nigga, Erica Kirk,

fuck, I'm talking all the people. Six W.A. Six W. Erica Kirk. 6 W.A. I'm talking Big X. Rosson. I'm talking Eric Kirk.

Like that, that they would get me to watch. Who wouldn't watch it? Like that they would get me to watch. Actually, I wouldn't want to see. I don't. Actually, I wouldn't want to see that. Yeah.

But I'm just letting people know that if you guys think that someone is going to enter into this realm of politics and visibility and not have anyone send them up, make a parody, do a thing, you're crazy. conversation is so intersected now. It's almost like if you consider yourself a part of a cultural commentator, how do you get away from it? You know, these are the conversations people have. Who's next for Drewski?

That's a great question. What would be Drewski's next skit to you? Imitating our politicians. Really? You think so? Drewski as... That's Pete Hegg-Seth. Jusky is Pete Hegg-Seth?

I... Can you imagine being like, oh, oh gosh, What's the new guy's name for DHS? Mark. Mark. Yeah. Like doing like crazy moments from Congress. I mean,

not Congress, from like hearings. Hearing committees. Well, would really be funny is if Drewski. Or he's just Trump. If he did an Iran one. You can't.

Like if you did it in the wrong one, and he played them. The time has passed. That would be funny. The time has passed. But I could see him doing Trump. Yeah. I can see him doing Trump.

I think it's going to be. He's slowly creeping that way. Politicians. But I tell you, there is a calculus here. The calculus is what do you know that people have strong opinions about and what can you make funny? And to me, that's what good subversive art is. What do you know people care about?

And what can you take from that and make funny? So Drusky doing it at a level right now that, I don't know, man. as far as he's showing the he's showing what you can do uh with social media in this era and before you get before you get out here before you have the subject shout out to kai senat too like shout out to him like i'm watching kai senat's evolution and everything that kai sanat is thinking about and everything that is on his mind and how he doesn't want to be pigeonhole with great interest yeah like emperor palpatine said about Anakin skywalker i'm watching your career with great interest do you know why he said that to him come no i don't i don't i don't

I really don't even know who. If you can guess why he said that to him, I'll give you a thousand cash. What did he say? So Palpatine at that point. I'm interested now. Who is not the emperor. He wasn't at that point.

He looked at a young Anakin Skywalker and he goes, I shall watch your career with great interest. And we all went, oh shit! Why did he say that to him? Because he knew he was going to be Luke. You almost had the money.

But he says, he knew just gonna be no no you almost had I was I actually freaked out a little bit hold on for a second I thought I was gonna have to give up a thousand books that that literally just fuck with me he was he he knew he was going to be Vader damn okay okay that actually my my shit is like I thought I was gonna have to give racial a thousand dollars who I wouldn't have you did yeah I was like you know you know I thought I was gonna have to get my jzy capitalism shit that I'm your father you all you he knew that he But I hurt the Skywalker and I got, I was like, Luke, it's like, no, he's his, I'm your father.

That's the last time I'm doing that shit. Fuck it. She almost fucked around and came up on a nice weekend. That goes so quick for Rach. $1,000, Rache go to three spas. It's out. I'm kind of right, though. I'm kind of, you're not right.

I kind of had, I, 500. No, you're not right. Because he knew that he was, he knew that he was going to try to tempt him later on. And maybe he didn't know at that point, but that, if you would have said he knew that he was going to be Vader, every Star Wars person knows that I would have had to accept that and that would have been disastrous both in my job down I'm getting good

you're getting too close six years in I've kind of learning you know this isn't who's in the what was it the what league justice league this isn't who's in the Justice League anymore I look how you say the Justice League like it's some obscure group of superheroes from motherfucking

Boise Idaho is Batman Superman Wonder Woman Wonder Woman I think I said Wonder Woman and you told me it didn't count. I love how you. That pisses me off that you just did that. I love how you act like the who, the who? That's like saying who, who, who, the Beatles. It's a whole other world.

I don't know D.C. I don't know Marvel. So it's a whole other world to me. But I did do well in naming people just the wrong thing. Yeah, you did. And I made up my own character. Yeah, it's tough. May he live on.

Who, uh, Rajah Binx. All right. Let's get into Jay-Z and Usher. Okay. Now, also, people want us to touch back in on the LaRussell entire debate, the whole thing with LaRussell. Do you, so LaRussell is reacting to like what's going on with the Heaven Sent situation. We had some fun with the Heaven Sent song and the video.

for it here on the podcast. What do you think of La Russell's reaction to this? Have you been seeing it? I did. I saw the interview that he did on Effective Immediately, I believe is the name of the show. And I appreciated the woman kind of pushing back on the things he was saying.

I guess if his engineer told him not to do it and he decided to do it anyway, I didn't think that the response from everybody and how viral it went in such a negative way would get him to change his mind. I figured he would double down on it, which is what he did. But him saying fake outrage to me, like sometimes you just have to take the L. Sometimes you have to just say, I understand why people are upset.

They misinterpreted what I was trying to say. But for him to then push back and be like, that's just fake outrage, as if people weren't genuinely bothered or disappointed or upset by what you said. because you didn't say something like, hey, I don't like Anita Baker. That's not what you said. Tough. You said, or Anita Baker doesn't move me, right?

It's not personal. Her music doesn't move me. It's not like you said something like that. It's that you said something that defends, I mean, that upsets a group of people. And the fact that you don't even try to understand where you might have fans that are Jewish. You might have, I forgot who all did,

who else city name other than, Hitler, Donald Trump, and Jeffrey. that have been assaulted. You might have, I couldn't remember everybody that he, that he named. Say them, say them three names out loud, Doc. Oh, Epstein. Epstein, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Donald Trump, and Jeffrey F. Like, it's just so, it almost is, it's, it's worse.

It obviously, it was bad when you said it. And then for you to just be like, oh, that's just fake outrage. As if people don't mean it, it makes it worse. Because you genuinely aren't considering. Like I understand he's I understand I do not agree But he's like oh this is just me being an artist Well you have to understand that art can be offensive And so there's a consequence to what you do and that is people being upset by it

So I didn't expect him to take it back but watching it I thought Now this is even more upsetting For me at least So I will say that the effective immediately show that you're talking about I want to give them props Yeah they did well that lady that woman that you're talking about is the one want to know you, Gina Vuees. Fucking rising star, Gina Vues. I got so much nice to say about everyone.

Gina Vuees is one of those people. She's great. You know where I first started seeing her at? Where? No jumper. Oh. And she left and she didn't boss up. Well, that's because she knows what's up.

She's fucking sense. Gina Vuees is doing her thing. And of course, DJ Head, you guys know that's my guy. DJ Head and Gina Vuees are crafting this fantastic platform. It's already actually crafted voices out here on the West. So I want to make sure I give them their shoutouts. This is, you know, I'm going to pick up on something that you said about the La Russell thing. First of all, the Russell's a good brother, right?

La Russell's a good brother. But something that you said, I'm a pick up is you said sometimes you got to learn how to take the L. All right? That is always going to be hard, particularly for a young black man that's in the spot that La Russell's in. I actually don't think gently and respectfully this is about taking the L. I actually think this is about taking

the W because there is a win here. The win here is this. We're going to talk about some performers and people in a second. I'm going to talk about celebrity and community and all it. The win here is this. The win here is the

opportunity to deepen your connection with people that are open, to that. There are plenty of people that see the opportunity to jump on something that wasn't said right or something that's gone wrong for their own platforms. You can't even worry about them. But there are also other people who legitimately are living in the world where we're trying to figure out how we deal with the Epstein class, where anti-Semitism, anti-black racism is at an all-time high, right? Where Donald Trump is getting us in war.

wars in Iran, where Donald Trump has ICE agents shooting people in Minneapolis. These represent existential threats, like you said, to people's existence. And perhaps having a conversation about the inherent goodness of those people, while I can understand the goal there, perhaps it's not the right time. Perhaps it's insensitive. Perhaps it doesn't take into consideration how people feel in need. this moment right now. And what we really never talk about is somehow, sometimes how an apology, not an apology, or a clarification, not a clarification, or more communication with

people after you've wronged them, how it can deepen your connection to them. How that's sometimes how you get the deepest connection to somebody is to be like, hey, you know what? I can't apologize for my art. I can't even qualify my art. But what I can do is try to understand you. I can try to understand what it is that you're saying. I can make a legitimate effort to go, hey, maybe I did not think of that. And for anyone that's going to have any type of lasting influence in anything, that is the number one trait that you have to have. The number one trait that you have to have is the ability to try to deepen

your connection or your relationship with someone during a time when it's not easy to do that. And that's harder to do when you're young. And it's also harder to do when you are living your life on the internet. When you're living your life on the internet

and the internet is a gigantic part of what LaRussels been able to do. Sometimes it feels like any attempt to be like, whatever I feel y'all I'm with y'all whatever it either feels scripted notes app apology an apology directly at a video screen or it feels like you're backing down to them man I know what it feels like not to want to back down I'm 45 and I'm still dealing with that I know what it feels like but the

worst thing you can possibly do is act like you're above a conversation yes that is the thing that insulates you from people. That's the thing that makes people go, wait a minute. Are you with us? Because like that's the thing. And if there was anything for me to say, I don't think that this is the end of him. I don't think it's even,

I think it's a blip. But what it could be is a learning experience. Could be. And how to be in conversation, like really useful conversation with people that you will want support for. from. So right now it's an L, but it could be if he does, if he gets to what you're saying, there's space for the W. Well, what I'm essentially saying is sometimes we have to identify

Ws in situations where it feels like an L. Y'all all know that I wilded out on the podcast earlier this year. Got on here and acted stupid, was disrespectful. to this platform, like embarrass my mother. When I thought about that, you know, the opportunity for me was to, number one, explain to the audience why my feelings are so raw about that. Like the trauma that makes me reflexively defend black men, like why that's important to me, you know. But also try to even in.

the staccato, long-winded, oftentimes an artful way that I communicate, try to make people understand that it's out of love. Like that, it's out of toxic, misplaced, un-evolved love. It's out of love. It's out of me wanting. It's out of love and personal trauma. That I'm not trying to hurt nobody.

and anytime you're not trying to hurt nobody, there should be an opportunity for people to coalesce around a set of ideas and behaviors that you have and be like, let's make small tweaks. That's a W. That gets me closer to the audience. That gets me closer to you. But more than anything, it gets me closer to myself.

And sometimes we have to be able to identify when it's time to do that. Sure. Sometimes it takes a little ego death. Yeah. Right? But sometimes we have to identify that it's not actually an L. It's an opportunity to further connect.

It's tough. But it takes too. Well, yeah. I mean, in this situation, it's like this is a lot of people I know are like more upset with the reaction than they even were with the heaven sent. You're not wrong. Because there was an opportunity, like you said. Yeah. And it got worse.

Yeah. I mean, look, but once again, I just. man, it's we, you're trying to, it's trying to be positive and trying to be a light, it's harder.

And the reason why I give, it's, it's more difficult. It's more difficult to come out there. I listen to rappers and my favorite record right now. What?

6W.A. Have you heard this record? It's one of the hardest records that I've heard in a while. Got to listen to this. This is coming from... 6W.A. This is coming from your neck of the woods.

Well, clearly not, because I don't know it. It's big X to plug. It's big X-a-plug, Rosama. Who else? Younghood. I want to make sure I shout out everybody on the record. Hold on. 6W.A.

And I'll tell you how I heard this. Nick Cannon. Nick Cannon put this up. So it's big ass to plug Rosama, Younghood, Murder Gang, PB, 6WA is the record. It is just an insanely hard record, right? It's an album?

No, just this one song is what I'm talking about. It's an album. I think they got a whole album out, but this one, Rosama Rosama turned into a different being on the verse. Rosamma evolved into some different type of rap entity on the earth. But they're out there, and they're

They're rapping, they taking on the imagery of NWA, and they talk and they shit. And there's a hell of a lot of talent that is being displayed right there. If that song was about the war in Iran, the bar of what you have to say and how you have to say it in that record is higher. It's higher. It's harder to do. It's like, whatever you're doing, if you're rapping about the love of your mother, it's harder. it's harder to do. It's harder to take them feelings

and put them in, it's more difficult. And along with that comes, this is a lot. There's a lot of, you have to make sure that what you're saying has the depth and rhetorical power

that your emotion behind it has. And the bar is going to be higher for the Russell or anybody else that's trying to have any substance in what they're doing. That's not me saying that the rest of this shit, I'm not fucking with it.

I listen to all of that shit more than I listen to the other shit. But just know that you'll have a different set of, of, of expectations. Anyway. So you don't fuck one of them. You like, fuck you. Oh, no, I didn't really listen to La Russell anyway before.

Oh, my God. See what I'm saying? No, but I, so I'm definitely not the person. It was fucking before. No, it was not that. I just wasn't into his music before. I knew who he was. I don't like that smiling shit.

But I don't, I don't feel, I'm going to keep the same energy I had before. I really wasn't listening to him before. But I'm also like, I'm not like, fuck him. him. I'm not like this is over for him, but I do wish that he could recognize what people are saying, right? I'm not even saying how they feel, just even what understand what people are saying. But like, I feel like we've stayed on this too long. I just, I'm, and there might be a day. It might take a year or two. Maybe he'll come around and reflect on this moment and be like, have the same perspective that you just gave with your own situation. Maybe he will. And then at that time,

it'll be a dub. But. Also, just come with some high records. Okay, so we're going to now talk about Jay-Z and Usher. Yeah, it's tough. The whole stuff, not tough. I thought it was very interesting.

Yeah, I was like, what was tough about that? The Usher thing is tough. That's a tough one. It's a tough one. But it's kind of like goes, it's tough. All right. Jay-Z sat down from an interview, Frazier Thorpe.

is the gentleman's name that he sat down with. Shout out to him. You might see me and him doing some stuff pretty soon. Shout to Sean Dickerson. But Donnie, get into it. Yeah, like you said, Jay-Z sat down with GQ, marking the 30th anniversary of reasonable doubt, hit on a bunch of different topics,

including the lawsuit he faced last year, capitalism, rap beef. Y'all heard it. Well, we all's takeaway from Jay-Z sit down. Okay. We got Jay-Z on capitalism. We also got Jay-Z on rat beef. Rachel, where you want to go first?

Capitalism. Let's do Jay-Z on capitalism, Donnie. So I wanted you to talk a little bit about this idea of like, like you said earlier, like the things that you do for the culture, the ways that you put on, the ways that you try to protect and move forward. But kind of the pushback that you get sometimes about like people throw capitalists at you in a derogatory sense. Yeah, I think in that verse specifically, the only thing I heard coming up was the American dream.

until we started being successful. And it was like, wait a minute. You're selling out because you make it money. That was the first thing that was put on musicians. People had this a law for the struggling artists. That's a mind game. What we were called back in the day, for tricknology.

It was like, no, I'm not going for that. Like, no, no, I make art first. And then I make sure that I'm compensated for my art. I didn't take advantage. I didn't get here by taking advantage of people. I didn't take it. No one. No one.

not my reputation. That's not what I do. I didn't get here by taking advantage of people or taking advantage of, you know, the loopholes in the system or some wrinkled in a capitalist structure. That structure exists, you know, and I just see the world for what it is, not for what I wanted to be. I'm a realist, not ideal. It's not idealistic. People speak about the world how they want to see it. You're never going to win like that. So he's a capitalist. He just confirms it. He said, and he basically says at the end with his last sentence, like, that's the world that we live in. And you're never going to achieve certain things if you,

basically if you're not a capitalist. He's like, what was the, what was the line? If you, what was the line about the world you want to see versus the what? Yeah. He sees the world as he is and not how he wants it to be. Yeah. And he says if you see the world as you, as you want it to be, then basically you're never going to have success in that way.

in this way as a capitalist. I wasn't shocked by that. I thought, you know, he goes on to later talk about being a billionaire and is that bad. And he kind of answers it in a similar way. He basically says it's not. He doesn't pay attention to that. He doesn't think that it's a negative thing for him to be a billionaire. But, I mean, what were you surprised by anything that he said?

He basically says, I grew up being told about this American dream. I grew up in this system of capitalism. I grew up that this is what it is to be successful, what it is to achieve success. I didn't take advantage of anybody. I worked my way through a system and I have success through it. I guess I just,

I didn't expect him to say anything different. I'm going to say something. Just before I say this, this is for earlier. By the way, black films should not have to continuously show every time, just so you guys know, like we should be able to write a movie, get the movie financed.

Go see you, me and Tuscany. Like, go see you, me in Tuscany. Go see it, go see it. But just know that that rubric is unfair. Like that, that set of circumstances, just dawned on me to say this, that set of circumstances where in order for a black film to be made or green lit six months

from now, they have to look at every other black film and make sure that the movie is possible. Yeah, that's what we said. I know. Just make sure, but I want, go see the movie because we don't have to exist in the world like it is, like Jay-C, but just know that that's bullshit. Yeah. Fair sure. So, you know what? I don't think I've ever understood

Jay-Z more. From that. Yep. You didn't feel like you had that understanding of him already. When it comes to capitalism. No. I took the Jay-Z out of it when I was looking at this. And who did you put in it instead?

So many people that I know. Black man? Yeah. Okay. And because everything that he said is 1,000% correct. We are educated in the language of Oprah, Jordan, Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson. We're educated in the language of there's an opportunity for you to change. your

designation in America. Like you can buy your humanity. You can make enough money to where the water that you drink is clean, to where your housing is immaculate. You can buy, you can buy, you can get to an economic perch in America where your blackness can be overcome.

If you can make enough money. If you can make enough money, then you can get out of the situation that you've been put in. You can hobnob with people that wouldn't necessarily give a fuck about you. There is a way out of your birth circumstance as long as you can buy it. That is the central operating thesis of capitalism. You buy your way to being human. You buy your way to getting things that human beings should have.

and that there's no obligation for anyone to even care whether or not you can have them unless you can produce. And so that's what we do. So what we do is we engage in this capitalism and this competition. And it becomes our whole thing. And then imagine getting there and someone's saying, now you're bad because you did the thing that society told you to do. I think the break for me and just the grand break is that JZ is saying we in that, but there is no we. What should be saying, what should be being said is I.

I got money. I made it. I did this because the pushback on capitalism, right now isn't about who made money fairly or who made money ethically. It's about whether or not the system is inherently fair or ethical. And every time I hear somebody talk about this, that is missed. What people are saying is that they're looking around and they're seeing insane income inequality.

They're seeing the eroding of living standards for average Americans. They're seeing even sometimes the life expectancy change, right? They're seeing fucked up food. It's seeing declining infrastructure. And they're not saying that Jay-Z isn't working. They're saying this isn't working. They're saying this thing that everyone was told to buy into and that this would be the saving grace, not of the billionaire class of the people who are doing fantastic, not of Trump

and Hove and Robert Kraft. And Michael Rubin, yeah, it's working for them. What people are saying is it's not working for us. And when we have this conversation, it always gets personalized. It gets personalized by people who go, hey, now that we didn't make the money, now they're telling us that we're bad. We're saying the thing is bad. We're saying the thing is inefficient. We're saying the thing is grotesque.

We're saying the thing creates winners and losers. It manufactures that. And we're saying the thing that we were told was the saving grace of our American existence is, it's an illusion. And we're trying to have that conversation, even with the people who have been able to make the thing work for them. We're trying to say, you're rich. I might be rich. You might be rich. But we're trying to say everywhere else, there's a tremendous amount of immiseration.

there's a tremendous amount of systemic failure and that systemic failure isn't getting better the more money he makes. That systemic failure isn't getting better the more money the people at the top make. That's not what's happening. And the reason why I connected to what he was saying is because, man, this religion,

this religion of capitalism, what I come from, yo, it's all niggas have. Like it's legitimate. The idea of capitalism. The idea that you can get rich and change your life for yourself, your entire family, all your generations behind. They get picked. It's so, I wish I had the words.

I wish I was better at this. It's like, 4.340, come with us. Seven feet tall. Come with us. Good rapper. Come with us. And every time they come along with us, they bring along a little forest of people. their cousin get to go to culinary school

somebody get to do the video and then when one of them falls that entire forest burns the fuck down but if not for that my nigger you're going to eat Ulu's and noodles for your whole life until you go to Angola and then you fucked so when we're trying to have a conversation about

what we're doing we're not having a conversation about whether or not somebody should make a lot of money that's not what we're fucking talking about what we're talking about is whether or not there should be extreme wealth inequality, this hoarding of resources at the top, this ridiculous approach to the humanity of people.

Like, if I was sitting down and I was talking about, I'd say, hey, you know, I understand what you're saying, but you know, a lot of people lost their homes in 2008. And you would think that the people that engineered that entire thing would have got punished. They didn't get punished. They got rich. Those people who had to go back to the poorhouse. What the fuck are we on right now? And so I think a lot of people are going to look at that and they're going to say,

hey, he's wrong because he is like raging against any type of criticism of capitalism. He's actually saying I don't have the capacity to come to terms with the fact that I was lied to.

And it also doesn't feel like I was lied to because everything they said came true. Like I got money. And when I got money, my shit was better. And I was able to not only do that, but build the force for everyone else. It all worked. Now you're telling me is wrong?

You're not wrong. Oh, I know. And what you said, but I don't think that that was the conference. That's not how the question was asked. And I don't think that that's, I don't even know if I think Jay-Z would disagree with you about a broken system.

I don't think that that's how he took the question or how he answered it. I think he took it personal about being a capital. right? Like technically, I'm a capitalist, right? And I wouldn't get offended if somebody called me that, but I also believe in everything that you just said about a system, right? And when I listen to Jay-Z answer this particular question, to your point, I understood his mindset of how he grew up and the age we grew up and who we looked at as our heroes that look like us and what they had and what they attained. Jay-Z goes on in that interview.

Frazier's talking to him and he uses the phrase aloud because something you said about Jay-Z and you were, I was trying to write down what you were saying because I was trying to remember it but you were talking about, you said he's talking about buying your humanity. You went on something like that.

And it made me think of later in this conversation where Fraser uses the word aloud and he said, don't do that. Don't say the word aloud. He said because allowed makes it seem like somebody has authority over you. I could also take that as in, you're saying a system has authority over you. And his response was, nobody does.

It's the idea, this idea that you need permission to do something should not exist. You should just do it, right? Don't operate in a place of I can only go so far because this is what they've told me. I can go beyond that. I don't need your permission. I can just do it. And when I listen to him say that and kind of the way he conducts himself in the whole interview, It doesn't mean that I don't think he thinks that there is a broken system.

I felt like he took this interview as an opportunity to say, this is who I am. And these are certain mindsets that I, a mindset that I've had to achieve the things that I have. And I'm not necessarily letting somebody criticize me for saying I'm a capitalist or criticized me for saying I'm a billionaire. I understand the other side of it. But what I'm telling you is don't allow certain things to have authority over you that you can't achieve greatness, that you can't achieve these things. I looked at it as the whole interview he was trying to be more motivational

and more encouraging and more like a mentor than he took it as an opportunity to maybe call out certain systems. So I can't say, so it's just interesting how we took it because I agree with what you're saying. I just took this interview as something else and I wonder if other people did as well.

So it's hard for me to say, well, Jay-Z doesn't, you know, should have said this. as if maybe he doesn't think these things because he's a capitalist or because he is a billionaire, I just think he just responded in a completely different way. So, well said, interesting, this is what I'll say. He said that to Frasier about being allowed,

but then he rhetorically contradicted that. What did you say? Later on in the interview, he also talked about how he knew that they were going to try to kill him, or these forces are trying to kill him. that's the allow. So like, so Jay Z's point in that was that like, later on he talks about he goes, well,

we know that when we get here, when we do this, like they're going to try to kill us, they're going to try to do all that. That's the allow. So either what he's not seeing, he understood when it was articulated to him that the term allow should not be used because he feels like it sends him

minimizes him. But then he also admitted that he was under what it felt like was uncommon pressure and criticism and scrutiny because of who he is. That's the allow. The allow is whether or not somebody like him is not just not able to make money, but whether or not they're able to make it peacefully, whether or not they're able to make it like in a way that doesn't compromise who they are, whether or not you're able to do what it is that you do and you don't have to change your ideals because there are other people that start off capitalists, they start off in a certain way, they start off and they're able to make money and be that same person. A lot of times if you are black, the allow part comes in from the point to where we have to make

sure that you are predictable before you get into this room, that we know what you're going to do. and I think what people say that sometimes they think there's so many black people that are unpredictable that make a lot of money those people are predictably unpredictable like you know you're taking a chance on them what white America hates more than anything

is for them to think that they know a black person and then they get into the room and then have this nigger start talking about Malcolm X right so what the allow portion of what Jay-Z is talking about, he actually addresses that later on when he talks about some of the scrutiny and the tax that he's faced for being black and being rich. My point is not that he doesn't understand his place as a capitalist. My point is I don't think he gets what the conversation

around capitalism is. He thinks the conversation around capitalism is around his capitalism. He thinks the conversation around billionaires is about the fact that he is a billionaire. That is not the conversation. The conversation around capitalism is at least from where I sit and who I talk to,

an interrogation of capitalism writ large, an interrogation of the existence of billionaires writ large. Elon Musk has $850 billion. Guys,

Come on, man. Like, for real, come on, guys. Price is going up everywhere. People can't afford a house $850 billion. We're going to have a conversation. It's not going anywhere. We're going to talk about this. We're going to talk about what we're going to talk about tax and wealth.

We're going to talk about this. It's not going anywhere. And so, like, what I'm saying in this situation is watching him, these attacks, I'm sure, and the reason why I see it is I'm sure they feel personal to him. I'm and I and a lot of times they are personal. But also the same shit that he got, we all got it. They told all of us that.

They told all of us that black, white, red, green, whatever. It's like they, they told all of us. I get it. I understand the frustration with what shit. Now I'm on top. Now it's wrong. I get that. But what's actually being said is,

while it worked for you, it's not really working for a lot of other people. And we are at an inflection point where the decadence and the inefficiency of our society threatens the whole thing.

You need to give some out. You need to spread it around. And if they don't fucking listen, the torches are coming out. And I fucking mean that. That's a real thing. If these people don't fucking listen, if they don't read the tea leaves. All right.

I agree with you. I'm just, I'm literally limiting it to the interview. I think that if he had pressed him and widened the conversation, I would be really curious to see how Jay-Z responded. He was right about the battling. About how specifically to Kendrick and Drake? Or? He was right about the battling, man.

He was right about the battling. That's the only thing that exists in hip-hop now? Donnie, play the sound. We heard the sound. Whatever. he's right about that. Social media has changed the battling. So you think social media

was too hard on Drake? That's not what I'm saying. See what I'm saying? That's what I love about Rache. No, I'm not saying at all. You know who I think social media was really hard on? Who? I think they were hard on Meek. I never saw.

Oh, yeah, they were hard on. It was brands. What the fuck do Waterburger have to do with the Meek versus Drake? Like, Waterburger's like, ha-ha, wait. We got the beef. And we're better at beef than Meek Mill. And I'm like, why are you dissing them? That's the difference.

Like, in 2003, like, Hove could lose to Nause, and he didn't have to worry about McDonald's dissing him. Ha, ha, look at J. What the fuck. 2001. So, like, whatever, 2001. Oh. You know I love the blueprint.

Oh. So that era, I know. Catch me up, Rach. Catch me up, now. Hmm. How do you? Clock it. This one.

Is this one? It's not. Clock it. Clock it. No, no. Duran said that the straights need to stop doing this. And it's this. Like you eight, like sign language, the number eight. So, Duranne, whatever Duran Bada, Duran's coming on the podcast. It's this.

So is this? This is how you do clock? That's what he said. This is how you do clock it? So it's not like this. Well, why all your fingers moving? It should just be this. This is my more better blues situation. You never seen this before?

I do my more better blues. You never said, you never said, Denzel's a more better blues. You love that movie so much. He's like, Buh de, do it's my better blues. He's like, B'u de de, do it. crazy. But no. Now,

Jay-Z and Nas had their beef. Two things changed directly. One is this whole, you got 24 hours to respond. That's the internet. The internet needs things fast. Takeover comes out. And then, you know,

when still Madic drops, that's, you know, that's some time after. Ether comes out. We could not, I could not wait to hear Ether. Then when a blueprint two came out, I could not wait to hear the blueprint two.

then when Godson came out I could not wait to hear Godson there was at least for me I was in Louisiana I'm sure it was different in New York and stuff like that but I did not have a field tea to either rapper to where it was like

this rapper represents saving hip hop this rapper represents the end of hip hop you could listen to both of them when Pock and Big had they think that one was a little bit more dramatic Yeah, that, I mean, people. Like, I'm not going to lie. People died.

Yeah, I know, but when I'm, they didn't die over no beef. Well. They didn't die over no hip-hop beef. These got killed on some L.A. street shit. Depends which story you believe. Okay, cool. I don't want to get into it. Yeah, like, it all went through.

Yeah, it was related. It was all related, but go ahead. I'm not saying nothing. I love all hoods. Whatever hood you in, that's the hood I love the most. So right now, if you're in Compton and you wonder, and I wonder if that nigga Van fuck with you. Yeah, yeah, we do.

We. We, us. Right now, if you're in the Jordan Downs and you're like, I haven't heard Van mention the Jordan Downs, you just did. And I love you. Wherever you are, the essays too, Viva La Rasa. I'm just trying to play basketball. Just don't come up to me when I'm at the part.

Like, just leave me alone. I'm like, I got nothing to do with it. it started before me I wasn't a part of none of it and he just walk up to me and they'll be like hey who you know around here and I brother I know Jesus

brother that's who I know you know we're a grandmother state Baton Rouge I hope she's happy and doing well I have nothing to do with that ever happened in 1987

I got to tell you though when I watched this interview though it was the first time I looked at Jay-Z and I thought he's 56. Oh. I thought you was about to say something else. No.

He felt, and he, like, he jokes. He's like, I'm old. I'm in, but, like, it, it hit me in this interview. It just, I was like, wow.

Jay Z 60. He's a six-year-old guy. He'll be 67 this year. Like, Jay-Z is six. How old is? He's 1959. Yeah, 57 this year. 57 this year.

It really hit me. You going to go to the concert? No. But I don't, but you know. I'm definitely trying to go to the blueprint one. But you know I don't like concerts though. Yeah, I'm definitely trying to go to the blueprint night. If I can.

Blueprint night? I'll ask you for the hookup later. I don't have any hookups over there. I know you don't. I know you don't. Like not one fucking. Oh, I know you don't. I know.

Was if I, if I, if the fate of the world was hanging on the fact that I had to get somebody from Rock Nation on the phone to have a conversation, we did. Well, I hope that don't trickle down to me. I've tried to go. I have no problem with anybody, by the way. I'm just saying it's not a thing. I don't have any hookups over there. I know.

You know, I got them everywhere else, but like, not there. But yeah, I think the beef thing was correct. I don't know if we need to stop. I don't know him saying that we need to stop the beef. I don't know if I can really. Did he say stop? He says he thinks that it should probably stop. He's talking about whether or not it should stop.

I don't know if, I mean, that's not, I'm not in. the hip hop, I don't know, we have to get like some rappers. It's the way the beef is now is basically, like, I think he would be a fan of keeping it if we took away the way that people beef now. Yeah, because that's basically what's his complaint is the negativity surround, like, it wasn't like, to your point, like people wanted to destroy one or the other.

It was like you're either this or you're this, nothing. Like you couldn't, I'm not saying that we necessarily did that, but that is how it was on social media. Everybody's always had their favorites and sometimes this stuff did turn into real actual violence but I'm talking about just the way the fan bases are able to do it

and social media it can extend vitriol you know indefinitely before we get to the ladies from Beauty and Black Usher Usher did an interview with Forbes Donnie like you said he did an interview with Forbes

he sat down with them and said that he has quote, nothing negative to say about Diddy and claim that his personal experience doesn't match the public allegations against the man. This might be a bit controversial, but in the same way, I think many people choose to look past the reality of what our country is, the standards that we now stand on. We can't ignore the reality of the history. But in many ways, I think certain people are prosecuted and maybe not recognize. for the greatness, you know, that they offer.

I don't have anything negative to say about Sean Coles because my experience was not what the world has seen and how he's been, you know, misrepresented. I'm not saying that every man is perfect. I'm not saying that all of us don't have flaws, but I can't, with any sense of humanity, not recognize the valuable contributions that this man made for us as black entrepreneurs, for us as businessman,

for us as people who transition, you know, culture and ideas into something that's tangible and becomes business. So many people benefited from what he created. And I acknowledge that. And that's why I see him as legacy. You told Shannon Sharp you learned a lot about business during that era. Absolutely. What'd you learn?

Puff was a mentor, a bump. But he was like a, you know, you had that really, really hard teacher, you know, but you're watching something in real time. time. You know, I think that the idea of the level of discipline that came with that time in business, especially in an era that was trying to prove itself culturally in hip hop. Now, you can't turn on the television and not see the influence of hip hop. But the people who actually made that appropriate and are the forefathers are people like Sean Combs. And not just in the great times that they had musically, but in the idea of being able to find ways to monetize culture

and create something that was not just black or white. It was colorless. It was green. That's who I see that man as. And that's what I choose to remember. I put respect on his name because I realized that, you know, what I learned as a businessman before I even understood what business was, came as a result of seeing the incredible things that he was able to do

and the way that he positioned himself as a businessman. There are trials and tribulations that come with pressures of, of success and power. But what we choose to do with it is what I hope that you see with me and hopefully all the people that I'm involved with, right? He said, but what you choose to do with it? Well, what did he do with his power?

What did he do with his money? Two things can be true. He might have mentored you. You might have learned business from him, but what else did he do with his power and his money? He was a monster. He was an abuse. user. And I guess similar into the way that you talked about Jay-Z as a capitalist and he talked about

his personal experience and that doesn't change that it's a messed up system, I guess that same logic applies to usher here in the sense that you might have had a certain experience with Diddy, but it doesn't change the other system that existed within Diddy land as well. And that has come from evidence that has come from a jury, that a jury's verdict that has come from testimony and stories of countless women. And I don't, I, I, I, I, I'm not shocked, which is sad. And I'm not surprised that I'm seeing an usher take up for him, but I will never understand how you can totally dismiss the other side of it. I'll never understand how you can, you can reveres somebody so much that you can't acknowledge the bad side of him. They did so much good for you

that it waters down or makes the other side disappear. And I'm thinking of the person that I revere the most. And if I still learned that there was this other side to him, I couldn't, I couldn't see it another way. And maybe because I'm a woman, I don't know. But I will say, this is all I'm going to say, because this is so disappointing and the thing speaks for itself. But you know why Usher said this? Usher said this publicly because he knows it won't impact him.

Usher can say this and it won't have any bearing on who Usher is as an artist. It won't affect his pocket. It probably won't even affect the image that people have of him. And he knows he can get away with saying this. So I

I think I have an understanding. I think I understand celebrity. Okay. Not saying that you don't. And it's one of the things that I continuously try to get people to do on the podcast is understand celebrity. The last thing that you said, so they can't. The last thing that you said, it's not going to hurt Usher. Nothing's going to hurt Usher in the long term unless there was a similar situation to like, Usher has done what he's done for like so long and it's the way people are.

Usher has done. we've known Usher since Usher was like 14, 15 year old guy. Watch Usher trials and tribulations, all kinds of different stuff. It would take a lot to take Usher out of his perch. And also, long after Usher is gone, the music will live on. The music will, the shows will live on. Man, this whole thing that we talk about all the time, it's very sticky. Because memories are sticky.

And if you have good feelings to orient memories around, they're even stickier. And talent is such a commodity amongst human beings. Tell you how I understand celebrity. I always talk about like the comment section autopsy. So I just keep telling you guys to do it again. Celebrity does something and it's wrong. Go into the comment section and look at the responses of the people with the blue checks and then look at the responses from the people who don't have them.

The people in the blue checks, the people with the blue checks are going to have responses. a keep your head up this two shall pass we with you love you bro call me all of that stuff now a lot of people think that those people have

those responses because they've completely surrendered their humanity and their sense of morals I do not believe that is why they have those responses I believe they have those responses because of identity what you see yourself

ass and what you see the rest of the people that you share your society with ass now remember what being a celebrity is being a celebrity is not going to Ralphs anymore you don't do that got different Ralphs being a celebrity means

I don't go to the beach that you go to I go to a different beach I don't go to the restaurant on the night that you go to it I go I might go to the same club, but I'm in a different place. Celebrity is a group of people who say we have a different set of standards, not just for our lives, but overall.

And if something happens, we're kind of prone to close ranks. Close ranks. Never know when it's going to be you, when it's going to be your turn, when people are going to find out what you did or how you were or the thing that you fucked up on. So because of that, an attack on one of them sometimes feels like an attack on all of them. This one is actually exacerbated because of the personal relationship the Usher and Diddy have had. But when you want and then also all of these people like to that, they know each other. So if you see somebody that's done something fucking crazy and you don't know them, shit, we fall into that.

Like when you see somebody that has done something crazy and you don't know them and you go, man, I didn't hung out with their kids. I didn't been around their mama. I'd have been at a table with everybody eating. I'd have been down on my luck. They didn't gave me an opportunity. My underlying thesis for all of it when it comes to this part of it is the only thing that people can do is set a standard and make the famous and wealthy people adhere to it. That's your only move. So if you don't like something, if you think something is wrong,

if you rely on celebrities and people who are insulated from the real world to make the rules, they're going to make rules that benefit them. The only way to deal with this is to take that power and say, we don't like this. And we're not going to give you God status. It's like the book and the show American Gods. In that show, the gods only have power if what? Neil Gaiman, another person that fucked them, that, you know, it was a fucking crepe.

See what I'm saying? In that show, in that book, the gods only have power if people believe in them. So the fight in that book is between the old gods, Odden, Thor, all of those, and the new gods, the new gods, which are technology and

the internet and fame and all of that stuff. That's the schism. Because in that story, the gods only have power if you believe in them. and that's up when people see stuff like this and they go hey

we're not trying to live in the world where people can act with a punity and then we got to have a conversation about how many number one records they had and what they did for the business world last thing I'll say before we get to the ladies I watch something that shocked the fuck out of me and I had never seen it

and I don't see how I did not see this this conversation about Usher took place on Twitter and then someone and I would love to give this Twitter handle I would love to give them credit right now.

Someone said that they go KRS 1 pioneering hip-hop artists look down productions KRS 1 once said that African Bombata who is

as big of a pioneer in hip-hop as you can possibly get KERS 1 says African-Babata invented the whole fucking thing he goes KRS 1 said the Africa Bombada should not be held accountable and was infallible

for the accusations against him. I'm sure you're aware of the accusations against African Babata. A bunch of different people. Young men have said that African Bambata took advantage of them, sexually assaulted them when they were kids, molested them sexually assaulted,

molested them when they were kids, raped them when they were kids. A bunch of different guys have said this. And I was like, that can't be true. Guys, y'all be going to be pissed off at me. I missed this. I was at TMZ. And I watched this interview with KRS1 saying that African Bambata should be infallible. He used the word infallible, that our leaders should be infallible, that Africa Bombada is too important to hip hop to in any way re-examine his legacy because of the Zulu Nation, he invented hip-hop, all of that stuff.

and I don't know if since this was like 2016 I don't know if there's been more about this I went back and watched it I actually had to pull the car over I was like yo what the fuck I was like I was like I was legitimately y'all I know I've

Mr. I see everything I miss this one and I'm like yo and then made sense to me made sense to me the only thing people can do in that situation and be like, nah, Africa, Babbata,

nah, Usher, nah, whoever, we're not fucking with that. But it's going to be you. Yeah. Because like I told you before, Puff is going to get out of jail. There's going to be a party.

There's going to be an interview series. There's going to be a whole deal. And in the space of one year, Puff will have regained a lot of the stand that he had before he went in. Of course. That's why I said. said Usher knew he could say it. Of course, I'm pointing to when I say none of it will be touched. It is due to his celebrity. And when I saw this, I thought about the conversation we had and you saying that. And I thought, this is planting the seeds. You're already trying to get people to think of this in a different way. And to be very honest with you, I don't even know how many people saw this interview to respond to it or saw the back and forth on social media regarding this is a Forbes interview. But Usher is planting seeds. And I saw, you know,

saw it and I wasn't shocked because we see this all the time where celebrities have each other's back. They separate themselves. It's as if they do enough to where they almost become godlike and the bad that they do it doesn't mean anything because they've done so much and been so influential

in society. But I, that's why I'm not shocked. I'm disappointed but like but I mean, be honest with you. That's not going to stop you from fucking with usher, right? Well, what am I going to do? I get it.

What do you mean? Like, am I right? I see it now. Right. But I, that's me how I respond. Like, if I wouldn't go run to an Usher concert, right? I'm not putting a cherry in my mouth or whatever it is that Usher does at his concerts. I'm not doing all of that.

I think, I'm going to think about this. This stuff, it impacts me. Maybe because it's my age. Maybe because we're so tapped in and we're talking about it. Maybe, I don't know. But it does impact me. Yeah. I just think

number one I look at you different This is like also Sorry No no no no it's just also like I don't want to say I get an ick But I look at you as less of a man Oh

I really do I really do Like you fucking know this shit is wrong Let's just be honest You know it's wrong You know but you're looking at him In a different way For whatever reason

It could be because Like you said They're on a different level and it could happen to me or it could happen to somebody else. So like we can't all go in because, you know, we have to protect whatever this is. But like, you're not stupid. You know it's wrong and the fact that you just can't say it. You could equally say, I know him differently. He means a lot to me. He did this for me. I've known him since I'm a kid. It's really hard for me to hear the stuff that he's saying, and my heart goes out to the women who have suffered at the hands of him,

like, that's wrong. I saw the video with Cassie. I saw him beat the shit out of her and drag her by the hair into the room. But the fact that you can't call it out, I'm looking at you as less of a man. I'm sorry. In that situation, I will say this. First of all, that was a good sit down with Usher. That was a great interview, right?

I'm sure it was. And I watched the whole thing. But also in that, in that, I wonder what Usher would have said if. A woman had been interviewing him? No. Well, that's also interesting. But you know, I don't think about women in positions of power or any type of, you know, influence. Oh, come on.

A woman, do women talking. What is this, the Golden Girls? He would, well, I wouldn't say that. But, like, I totally think. We got the ladies from Beauty and Black coming up next. That's good enough. Like, come on. But, like, that interviewer should have, and maybe he wasn't allowed to, who knows.

But he should have, there should have been follow up. and it shouldn't have been about business. But in that situation, it would have been interesting to know what Usher would have said if he would have been directly asked about the casting video. Like directly asked.

It's possible he's too close. He has too long-running relationship for Diddy for his actual feelings for Diddy to ever change. Like if it's like, you know what I mean? That's possible. But speaking to powerful people and how they set up their life to exploit harm and abuse people,

once again, that's a conversation that forces you to step out of your own experience and have a conversation about a grander experience and people who might be more vulnerable to that type of thing. I just don't understand how people can't hold two truths. Nobody's telling you to not remember the good that he's done in your life. Nobody's saying that. Also, just be quiet.

if you can't if you can't do if you can't just shut just don't say anything but you keep but even that right there would have that's better than this I know but it would have been like usher refuses to you know this is the same thing well just like you got to be clear you got to like but look as far as I'm concerned uh once again this is why I like to as far as I concern this is why having conversations about these things in a grander scale is the way to go because you get back to the point that what people, whatever, I've always said it. You say Usher's not a man.

You don't want to watch him skating. I look at it. I look at him as less of a man. I didn't say he was not a man. But the fact that, whatever, I don't want to be a job. A TMZ. Is that what y'all do? So you just miscategorized my words?

Like, what are you talking about? I wrote headlines at TMZ, and people were like, Van, there's not enough conflict in that headline. I was like, oh. So funny, I saw page six picks up our conversation about Taylor Frankie Paul. Who did? Page six? The fuck I'm talking about.

And you know how I was like a white felon? They said that I said in like in the comment, so I guess this is what y'all do in these type of publications. Y'all. Did, did in these publications. It was like, she says she was a violent felon or like a violent criminal. And I was like, I don't even use the word violent, but cool. All right. That's what y'all think.

I did say that. We're going to start doing something where... But it was domestic violence. You gave me like TMZ a headline. And I wasn't even the best. Like, people know in the office who was the best. But like, in that situation when you said that, like, this is the headline. Now, what I don't know is how I would attribute you.

Because I think you could just be Rachel Lindsay. In the past, I would have been like, Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay. I would orient the audience to the reason why what you said matters. Sure, sure, sure. You have to do that for everybody. But sometimes it's like, If you, if you, LeBron James, I put LeBron James. But if you like, I don't know, if you, Jared Vanderbilt, shout out to Vando.

Then I will go, NBA star Jared Vanderbilt. The first thing to do, orient the people to who's saying this. Secondly, take the most incendiary part of it, big part of the headline. So it would be like, Rachel Lindsay, Usher is not a man. Damn. Nigga, I win. What the fuck? That's not what I said.

Oh, Rachel, Rachel, Lindsey. Maybe not that because I got you. I got a quote from you. Yeah. Ah, this is it. This is better because I got a quote from you. I wouldn't use the quote because the quote is not going quite far enough. Okay.

Rachel Lindsay. Questions ushers manhood. Wow. Ladies and gentlemen, that is nine years of TMZ right there. I can go with that. That's nine years. Like, this is the, that's sick, man. Like, like, Rachel Lindsay, questions usher's manhood. Dot, dot, dot, dot over ditty defense.

I'm at the top of the board. I'm actually not mad at it. I'm at the top of the board. And then this way the story goes, hey, hey, Bricks. shout out to my man Bricks shout out to John Bricks by the way Bricks I need a gallery of Usher I need Usher on the beach

I need Usher we need as many clicks as we can get We gotta put Usher's interview in there All this is got to have in the five minutes We got to put Usher's interview in there Bricks got to cut the gallery We got to put a video of Usher Performing at the Super Bowl Just because send people back to that story

The whole thing I'm not going to do 80 words I'm probably going to do about 120 words I need to get this up in about 5 to 10 minutes Because everybody's got their own thing boom, link it,

send it out, up on the site, we're going to the top of the board. Fan. What? Fan. Come on. You miss it.

Nah. I don't miss it. Look at it. Yeah, felt it. No, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no. No, no. I don't miss it. I don't miss it. But I will say, though, I don't miss it at all.

I don't. The hours were brutal. Like, you go into a room, people like, I don't miss it at all. But what I will say, though,

he's just got a second win. What I will say? Just a little bit. Just a little bit. No, I don't miss it. But what I will say, though, is the challenge of crafting that was something that they could get you hooked on.

I don't miss it, though. I really don't. I'll let y'all be the judge. I don't miss it. I don't miss it. Boom, but it was fast moving now. Van Lathen. Desires to be back at TMZ.

That's not good. That's not good. Greatest nine years of my life. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. Greatest nine years of my life. You'll get sued. You'll get sued. I said desires.

I didn't quote. Yeah. Like, I used the verb there. Does he desires to be? How would you write it? Van Lathen. Still has a lust. Dot, dot, dot for TMZ Newsroom.

Nine years later, still has. All, see that? Or not nine years later. Like, get them. Lust, sex, money. Greed. Fuck you. You're dead.

The whole thing. Van Lathan has a lust. Like something like that, like big for TMZ Newsroom. Then 30 words are straight to the video. Fantasy. Fantasizes about his days back. Fantasy, another one. Fantacizes.

Van Lathen fantasizes. Fantacizes. Fantasizes about TMZ years. Yeah. Dot, dot, dot. A big, you got to go. Hi, Harvey. Nah, see.

We got the ladies from being. Rachel, we got the, we got the, we got the, We got the ladies from Beauty and Black. Taylor and Crystal coming on. They both from Houston. One of them is an A.k.a. We talked about the show. We talked about spring break.

We talked about Sperbred. We talked about Vans possible future in the Tyler Perry universe. Yeah. Put a fat nigga on there. It's a lot of muscles. I don't see enough male tits. I'm ready. Okay.

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I bet they want to see it. You know what I'm saying? So we'll get to this interview on the other side of this breath. All right. Joining us now on higher learning, this is a treat. We told y'all we were going to be talking beauty in black. And today we have Crystal Stewart, who is an American actress, model, and beauty queen. And we have Taylor Palladour Williams, who is, well, both of you guys are from Houston, I just might add, Texas in the house.

Right, right. And Taylor, actress, filmmaker, and a graduate, HBCU. You'll love this. Yeah, of course. And I have to say this, AKA. We have a lot, we have a lot of, we have a lot of, we have a lot of D9 talk here, Taylor. A lot of Z9 talk. I love that.

Which one of, which one of you guys is the A.K.A. just so I know. I am. You're the A.k.a. just let, just I'm going to check back in with you every now and again. Because there are things that I know that Rachel tries to gaslight me about different aspects culturally. She asks like there's no, like there's no robbery. Like, y'all don't, you know, but so she's, she's a Delta. I know that there's a little thing here and I'm going to check back in every once in a while to make sure that you guys are getting alone.

Thank you. There's no thing? Wait, what? It's all D-9 love. It's all D-9 love. But he loves to do this. Okay, so we have the stars from Beauty and Black, which first off, I want to say, I love seeing you guys here in smiling. Because you guys are so intense on the show.

It's such intense characters. And you have these beautiful smiles. I'm so glad you're here on Higher, learning. I just want to start. We were talking offline. The show is number one on Netflix. It always is whenever it drops. The ratings show that the show is a success, but also just so many people are talking about it. Why do you think people connect so strongly with your show? And this is for either one. Go on Taylor, go for her. I feel like you want to. I personally think that people are connecting. and you know when you talk about it's number one

or like the global reach that the show is having I think that it's because one we have to discuss the Tyler Perry effect he has an extremely strong and loyal fan base but I think we've even broken past that because the themes that are in it are just so entertaining and it grabs people and they want to stick with it

and they want to see what's happening and it like takes all the best of all the dramas Sophie feels and combine them into one. And I think that's why it's, it's, it's so popular right now. I agree. That's the clip hangers after each episode. It just keeps them going and binging. Yeah. So Rachel told me we were, we're, we're doing something. We're going to start covering the show here on higher learning, right? We're going to start covering the show. Yeah, we're going to start covering the show. I brought van in because I'm so tapped in. Yeah, she's very tapped in. But the way she's, she, she, she sold the show.

is the way that a lot of people sell it is, sometimes you can't believe what you're watching, right? That's kind of like the way she sold it. For you guys, have you ever got the pages and been like, I can't believe we're going to do this? Or have you ever been never? Yes? 100%.

Okay. A hundred percent, right? Oh, yeah. In the beginning for me, you know, getting the scripts in auditioning for it, I come out and I'm very nice at the convention center and welcoming everyone. I'm like, oh, I can do this.

This is mine. And then you flip the script. I'm like, I'm saying, I'm cussing out people and kicking them out my car and all these one-liners. So, yeah, we're always shocked. So I've seen other Tyler Perry shows, but this show is one that I'm, like, hooked in.

Because, like, Taylor, you were saying how, you know, it's the Tyler Perry effect, but this show reaches new audiences, someone like me, the show has sparked controversy just for different reasons but I want to know what you guys thought about because I don't know if this is what's drawing people in too

but when I was describing it to Van when I first started watching I'm like this is the most explicit I've ever seen Tyler Perry do something I mean he wrote it directed created it all the things for you guys like

how do you process some of like the the fodder that's online with some of these like really explicit scenes? That's a good question, because I don't think I've ever had that question about the explicit nature of the show. It goes down. I mean, so one, I think it's two different things.

It's layered. The processing of the explicit nature of the show as an actor and myself, that's the justifications I feel like of the work that we did as actors. Like, why are these people so heinous and crazy to each other? But processing the conversations online, I personally don't engage with them. That's not something that I feel like is my duty to chime in on. I appreciate the people watching. I appreciate the conversations, good, bad, in between.

But it's kind of like once that is out in the world, that is for them. And like, I will see stuff and I hear stuff or see random things. But I'm like, I can't even chime in on that. And I love chiming in on, like, I'm a kid of the internet. So it's very hard for me, but I've had to change my relationship with the internet since the show came out because I have to have a point of like, that's for them, not for me. Do you think any of the criticism is fair? Do you think can you see when people, some of the stuff, because it's not just this particular show. There's sometimes Tyler Perry himself in the way that he makes shows and the way that he gets into stuff.

people talk about it and we talked about strong here. It's not always a celebratory of what he does. Do you see where people are coming from or do you think it's just a bunch of hating internet talk? I think he's hating Taylor. I think they hate him myself. People are going to support or hate any project. So I think people are entitled to their own opinions. You could feel however you feel about it, watch it, don't watch it.

Again, I don't know. That's a very personal, it's an opinion. Every piece art differently. So welcome the conversation. That's what it's for. Yeah. I'm only lots of words. Like Taylor said, I don't quite read the comments because I'm like, if you read the good,

you have to read the bad as well. So I just stay away from it and stay on my high of being number one, you know, on Netflix. But, yeah, Tyler sometimes get these hits, but he's a strong guy and has wonderful shows. His shows are always number one. His movies are always number one. one and I think it'll continue that way. I also feel like to the conversation about like some of the criticisms, I think that is very important.

Like, even if we're looking at some of these things, I know especially in season one, like with the human trafficking theme, there were so many women who were messaging me like, I see myself in Kimmy. I've been in this situation. So it's like maybe to some people, it seems like, oh, this is far fetched. There's certain criticisms for the images that are out. but there are people that do resonate with some of the themes that are going on. Obviously, we're in a heightened sense, but it's too far.

It's too much. I don't judge it that way. You know, interesting. I don't want to put you guys in the click here, but I have to ask, is the criticism ever racist? And let me tell you what I mean by that. I popped in and was watching, this actually happened if people are going to, I actually saw this. This happened on television. So I was watching the show, and it was of this bigger guy.

He was a fat guy, who was a bigger guy, he was having drinks with these girls. The girls ran out on the tap. They ran out on the tap. So then the fat guy went to his plastic surgeon, killed everybody in the plastic surgeon's office. Yeah. Listen what happened. He killed everybody in the plastic surgeon's office. Went on a mass shooting spree.

Then it was about to kill the plastic surgeon. The plastic surgeon goes, no, don't kill him. me, I got one more thing that could make you beautiful. They then send a woman into him. He has sex with the woman. She gives him an STD. The skin melts off of his face and he becomes beautiful. The beauty show.

It was totally ridiculously wild. Like, I watched the whole thing and it was wild. And I don't see exactly the same type of criticism of some of the stuff that exists in the Ryan Murphy verse. some of this other stuff that I watch I happen to catch, as I see in you guys' this show. Do you ever think that there is a specific feeling that people might have about some of the things because he's black and you guys are black and sometimes we hold on a little

too close? Absolutely. Yeah. So like some of the themes, I think there are very similar intersections of Ryan Murphy's themes and what goes on, at least on our show. in the TPS world. And I think it is rooted in racism. And some of it is in self-perception of black representation on screen.

And I know that's something that I feel like as black people, I deal with it too. Like, is this an image that we should have out in the world for the world to see? And, you know, that's complicated. It's very layered and nuanced. And I think the criticisms, some of the criticisms are because it is a, black show and a black man. You know, I think some, and I'm wondering what you guys think about this, I think some of the criticism, particularly with Tyler Perry doing it and what this show, the way this show is,

is I think people also relate Tyler Perry to religion. And so when you see a show like this, that, you know, you're dealing with very heavy themes, you know, a lot of it is around a strip club in the parking lot and in, you know, within the club. I think sometimes that's also where the criticism comes from because I think people have this perception about Tyler Perry and then maybe you watch something like this or what was the movie we discussed with the uncle? I can't think of the title right now where it's a little bit more. Joe.

Joe's College Road Trip. Joe's College Road Trip. We watched that too. That I think maybe that's why where some of this is coming from. Do you guys think that it's rooted in that as well? Well, I think they put him in one lane. You know, when he had originally started out. It was, you know, theater and his root was based, was religion, was Christianity.

And when he tried to steer away from that, I feel that's when the criticism came. And as he got bigger and grew more, there was more and more criticism, you know, after that. So, yeah, no, I feel he started in that lane. And some people didn't want or see him getting out of that lane of religion. But we're still watching. Whatever lane it is, we're still watching. Religious or not, right? But I think that's kind of the allure, though.

Even though that is his fan base or what his fan base was rooted in, the church, the church has a lot of under, I mean, the Bible is one of the most salacious books I've read. I read it. So, you know, you have these people that present like, oh, I don't want to watch these things or support these things. But like you said, they are watching. Yeah. You're watching it. So they're watching.

The response to the show, like, first of all, we should say this. Being number one on Netflix is that's not a small feat. That is a gigantic feat. That makes you a legitimate television star. Like legitimately, being number one on Netflix, the biggest stream, like, get the smile. That's what I'm saying? You know, you know in the back of your mind. You know, I see you smiling, sister.

Y'all know, y'all are legitimate TV stars. How has your life changed due to the success of this show? Either one of you. I think going places. For me right now, I feel like I live two different lives. I live between L.A. and Houston. So in L.A., it's events and red carpets and all these great, fabulous, glamorous things, and star, whatever you want to call it.

And at home, my mom, you know, with my two little kids. And I kind of just focus on them. And sometimes, honestly, I forget. So I'm going to the store to, you know, you know, pick up a toy with my kids and someone stops me for a picture. And I'm like, oh, shoot, yeah. You know, like, yeah, yeah. And then another person, and then my son's like, Mommy, why are they taking pictures with you?

And I'm like, you know, I'm like, you know, buddy, mommy's on, she plays on television and they like me on television, trying to explain this, you know, to a five-year-old. So it's been life-changing, but it's still something I'm adjusting to as far as moving back and forth and with the family as well. Yeah, it's definitely been life-changing. It's something that I have dreamed about for a very long time to have a project that kind of thrust you into, to the spotlight, to have access, you know, to continue acting and to keep telling stories. But I don't think anything can really prepare you for that many people seeing your face or like knowing your face. So like Crystal said, it's kind of like a disassociation. Like you see number one, but like it's really hard to conceptual. billions of minutes watched of a show.

And, like, people recognizing you to the point, like she said, when you're out and I'll forget, I'm just moving about to stay like normal. And you see people smiling at you and wave. Like, wow, everyone's so nice here. And then someone's, get me. I'm like, oh, that's why. Hi, I'm Taylor. And then disassociating the character, right? So I'm playing this horribly mean person.

which I would think of completely opposite from that. So at first, I'm like, how are these people going to react to me? They're going to try to run me over. But fortunately, it's been, I think, a love-hate relationship for Mallory. Yeah, that's what I was going to be different than the characters. I was going to ask you that because, I mean, we're talking, we talk about the Tyler Perry effect, but obviously the show is successful because of what you guys bring to your characters. It's what, like Taylor, you were talking about how people write you and say that they connect

with Kimmy and they've been through a situation. I'm sure Crystal, you feel the same thing. How do you separate? Because one of the things I said is... Right, so they ain't saying Mallory. They don't say anything about Mallory? I'm just kidding. Well, you're running a company.

You're running, I mean, like, you're running, without giving too much away. Yeah, like, you're running a company. You have to hold your own. You build, like, you talk about your past to where you are now. It's like totally different, both of you. But, like, how do you talk about being recognized

and, you know, people see you on screen. one way, but how do you separate your personal identity when you're preparing for some of these emotional and physically vulnerable scenes? How do you separate your personal identity from your character? I completely separate. I'm not a method actor. That's not something that I, that doesn't serve me to kind of like, oh, I have to commit and be in this moment. I think all the preparation before analyzing the script. I journal to learn and know who this person is and justify the actions that they do. And then on set, I'm completely there.

I give it my all. And when we rap, I come back to myself. I listen to music. I take the makeup off and I leave it there. So for me, I do feel a very clear, distinct difference between Taylor and Kimmy. And I feel like I have to. Like, that's one of my biggest things I want to disappear in every role. it's not anymore.

So that is very clear difference. Well, my process is a little different. I go bathe in some holy water after all the curse. It's killing and Jim Crow lines and all that stuff that I give. So I go detox after Mallory. It's something because I don't really curse in real life, to be honest. Sometimes I even slip up. I don't, really.

Yeah, I don't. And like one time I slipped up and said, darn. And they're like, cut. They're like, Chris. So, Mallory. She's not going to say, darn me. Like, what are you doing? So, no, like, not at all.

So it's a complete difference for me. And, again, like Taylor said, I go in and do the job and really sulking who Mallory is. And why is she? That was something I had to come to. I'm like, why is she so mean? Yeah. Why is she so me? You know, where's he's coming from?

So once I found that, I was able to jump into Mallory and then jump right out after they, you know, cut. Have you found that because. when I'm watching these shows with my mama is always the Mallory types that my mama gravitates to and that's because she can't be Mallory in real life

she has to be affable and accessible and she has to dry everybody's tears and stuff like that and every once in a while she would just be like she'd like to say fuck you bitch and my mom curses

but like not to people who you know what I mean? So do you ever feel it liberating to be able to get on there and get that side of you off since you're, you know. Oh, shoot you. Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. Almost got you to say. That's what I wanted you.

Almost. Almost. Almost got me. Yeah. No, really it can be. It was almost therapeutic for me. It was two years ago I went through a very traumatic situation in life in general. And I felt I handled it pretty well.

But when I have like the crime scene, to be honest, was really. something, me letting out something that was deep down inside of me doing that traumatic experience and being able to release that cry out, you know, friends that really know me. It was like, I think that was therapeutic for you. And I was like, actually really was. So, but yeah, I do, I do have people reaching out saying like, how do, you know, I wish I was more like Mallory. And I think they just like her assertiveness.

I don't know if it's the cursing or whatever, but how assertive and bold she is with her delivery. And she's not putting any corners. And she means what she says. Yeah. sometimes we don't want to, sometimes sisters don't want to have to apologize. You just want to get their shit off and whatever happens.

We're going to get to reasonable doubt in a second because I know Taylor, you know, reasonable doubt, it's a big deal for you and we're talking about that. Before I get there, I want to ask you out something about Houston. Because I don't know if you guys have been seeing what's been going on down in Houston. Spring Breakers took over your city.

Like, it was thongs, tities is out. It looked like beauty and black. Houston looked like beauty and black the spring breakers came down. They took over Houston. I saw Slim Thug. Slim Thug put up, shout out to Slim Thug. He put up what his visions for,

New Houston that could engage the Slim, like he wanted a man-made beach, all kinds of stuff. We're about to change Houston. It's about to be the spring break destination. No, it's not. For every hood all over America, Moka Fest, April 24th through 26th in Houston.

I want to know how y'all feel about that. How y'all feel about thongs? asses, tities, labias, everywhere in Houston. What's the thought? It's just like Beauty and Black. Beauty and Black. I could give a politically correct answer

and I could give the answer that actually makes a lot of sense. Get that one. Okay. It was already there. All of that was pretty there. Now, I blame Miami because a few years ago,

they said spring breakers do not come. South Beach do not come. So the kids need somewhere to go and Houston is the best. city in this country. Yeah, yeah. It is friendly. You've got some good food. The price is right. So I get why the kids want to come.

But they need some rules and regulations. Yeah. What are those rules and regulations? Like, you're, y'all are welcoming other kids. It's good because they're going to come to your crib. Like, so it is what are the rules and regulations? What, tell me, tell me what they would be. Like what?

The rules and regulations. I feel there needs to be a, what is it, a time limit. So basically a cutoff time, maybe, you know, 12 a.m. or something to where... Well, 12. 12 o'clock, terrible. Bring the thongs home. Crystal. At 12 o'clock.

These kids are out to the sun. Yeah. Like, you know, the strip, the after hour spots, the strip clubs, that's so part of Houston. Some of the best strip clubs are in Houston. Yeah. Yeah. I think as long as they respect, you can't mess with Texas. People have guns all around the place.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't play with Texas. Just be on your best behavior because this is. You ain't playing in Texas now. You ain't act right. No. No, no, no. One last question for Beauty and Black for me.

You both are in wild, some wild scenes. Just when I think like, oh, they're done. Nothing more left. Something else happens that I couldn't even think what happened. Is there a scene? One, what's the most wild scene you feel like you've done? Or a scene where you were reading it and you were like, I don't know if I could do this.

This is a little too much for me. Oh, a little too much? Oh, wow. For me, Mallory, nothing is too much. I had a couple that seemed a while. A wild scene for me. I'm like all of us was wild. I think I went from grabbing a cup of coffee,

a cup of coffee, to the whole, you know, the whole tub of coffee important on Felicia and Roy I think that was and then when the girls jumped in that was probably my favorite scene for me from Valerie from this past seat that was wild for sure but I feel

like that was more fun because that was vindication I loved it happened I feel like I think the wildest one I have was back in season one when Kimmy killed the club owner Delinda Ah she went Rambo

She lost it I think that was pretty wild because she blew her head up. We had pirate that, all of that there. And then it ended. It just ended. Yeah. I was like, wait a minute. That's what I was like, okay, I'm tuned in for whatever, whatever they're bringing me.

I've never seen a season in like that. Yeah. Next time y'all talk to Tyler, tell him he got to represent for the fat brothers, man. Like, we could dance too. Like, we could be in the strip. I don't see any fat. I don't see any, I didn't see any tities on the other side. I didn't like we weren't well represented

So tell them to put some of the high BMI brothers out there We got we got to work too What has it been like working on reasonable doubt Like what what has that been like for you Yeah joining this new season joining this new season Working on it Carrie Washington posted you Like things are happening like What has it been like working on that show?

Shout out to Sean Holly by the way It's been a great experience this far I know they are keeping the plot and everything very much so underwrapped, so I don't want to say too much, but I'm very honored to be there. It's going to be a great, a great season. What they have planned, they also announced that Megan Good and Tank are on this season, so I can't fit that much. But it gives all the drama, everything that the show already had, but the team behind it, Romola, and like you said, Carrie, just everybody there has been so welcoming. So I'm really happy to be there. Amazing.

No, yeah, yeah. You've already been greenlit, season three. We know it's coming. It's the final season, which I really hope. That's not true. Because now it's almost like a soap. I need it all the time. I need it every day.

I need this to be a soap opera. What do you want? I know you can't give us what season three is, but what would you like to see? If this is really the final season, where would you like to see Kimmy go? where would you like to see Mallory go? Good question, Rachel.

I would love for Ms. Kimmy to have some peace and joy. I know that's not what the show is about, but even if she could have this a little bit, a little bit of lightness to her day because she's been stressed since episode one. Yeah. Yeah. I think for Mallory,

she would want to keep the reins in the company, you know, probably with her new counterparts, Kimmy, and the rest of the crew as well. But she's worked hard for the company to sustain it, to keep it up there, to grow. I think she would want to keep that. Okay. All right. Well, we love the show.

And we're so glad that you guys could come through. Thank you for being here. Tell everybody, I mean, we already said on Netflix, but just where they can follow you guys and everything that you're doing. Okay. You can find us Beauty and Black Crystal Stewart. Mallory on Instagram at

C-R-Y-S-T-L-E-S-E-S-E-S-E-R-E. And I'm on Instagram at Taylor-P-L-A-D-O-R-E and I'm on TikTok too. TikTok and Twitter, but Instagram and TikTok. I can't tweet TikTok. Yeah, I can't.

Like, I found the limits. You know, that's how I knew I was unc. I tried it. I can't do it. Right. You know, but tell Tyler what I said. Think about it. You know, fat.

Fat niggas. Let's tell him, Taylor. Yeah. Tell him what, you know what I'm saying. Yeah. Won't even see the thong on me. It'll completely disappear.

All right. Thank you ladies. Congratulations to you both. Thank you so much for having us. Bye. All right, guys. No more podcast. We've ruined all our relationships.

John to Austin about to hit me up. Shout out to Janta and Brian Michael Cox and everybody in Atlanta. Shout to all my people. I love it. Man. Man, if anybody's upset at the fact that I'll speak, I am disappointed about what Usher said.

No, what the fuck are you talking with them? Them my niggas. But I'm like, yeah, I don't even fall into that. The thing speaks for itself. It's the loggist up Groova, original gangster hoover. That's, man. Shout out of real sima. You're on your way, dog.

Keep doing the thing. Take your thing caps off, but do not stop learning on Van Lakin Jr. I'm Rachel Lynn Lindsay. Bye, guys. Did you know if your windows are bare, indoor temperatures can go up 20 degrees? Get ahead of summer with custom window treatments like solar roller shades from blinds.com and save up to 45% off during the Memorial Day Early Access Sale. Whether you want to DIY it or have a pro handle everything, we've got you.

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