Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - RIP John Lewis and Breaking Down Kanye's Presidential Campaign With GLC | Higher Learning

Episode Date: July 21, 2020

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay discuss the life of John Lewis and why he’s such an important figure in the fight for social justice (2:58). Then they do one final deep dive on Kanye West’s presidential campaign with the rapper GLC, a longtime friend and colleague of West’s (13:19). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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A couple of things. Before we even get started. Oh, you got something you want to jump off with. No, no, I don't. Go ahead. No, no, no. I know what kind of big rage that was. That was like contemplating big rage right there.

You were thinking about saying something. I was thinking about it because I'm usually anticipating you commenting on my mood based on how I say my name, but you didn't. So I was like ready to jump. Right. My bad. You didn't. I was about to say something collectively about us.

We did, we did our first collective interview this a.m. We did our first interview this morning, me and Big Rache. In the, in the, in the, in the, in the, we're in the trades. Is that one of the trades? It's not one of the trades. It's like a big time paper. We're big time now. How are learning is big time.

Thought Warriors. Thank you. We thank you. Thought warriors. If I can just take you for a second into the interview real quick, I came in like, okay, let me put on. on my media training voice. Let me make sure I answer these questions in a certain way.

And Van was like, hold up, hold on, hold on, hold on. Let's just be for real for a second. And I was like, oh, okay, we're having that kind of conversation. At one point, I really was like, okay, yes. And higher learning is A, B, C. And you were like, cut the shit. No, I'm like, I'm like. Without cursing, but.

Yeah, they're asking questions. They're like, why are you guys so excited about the video portion of higher learning being more accessible? And I'm like, because we want to go viral. We're trying to get these. We're trying to get it. I want everybody right now to put quotes around the term get it. That's what we do here in higher learning.

We're trying to get it. It. And Rachel, we've been getting it. We've been getting it, but we got to get it at a higher level. And you, I don't need, we don't, when we're talking to these people. It was like lawyer, Rach came in. I mean, I was in a mode. Right.

You thought it was the last. Roll Ceremony or something like that. And I'm like, no, we need to talk to these people. We're trying to get it. All right. We are going to spend, we normally don't do like one topic shows. We don't. No.

But we're going to spend a lot of the show today talking about something that probably in the grand scheme of things is not very important, which is Kanye West. We're going to give you guys a sort of comment. Kanye West-centric show because I think there are multiple storylines and multiple factors to what's happening with Kanye and what Kanye is doing right now that reflect larger issues that we can discuss. Before we do that, though, we have to, as a family of thought

warriors, as a family of concerned citizens, as a family of people who love people who fight for freedom, say goodbye to somebody. And that is John Lewis. Yes. Over the weekend, we lost someone who is so monumental, so important to both Rachel and I being on this podcast today and being able to use our voices that it is difficult to articulate to the audience what this gentleman meant. And that is, of course, John Lewis. Now, I want you guys to do the reading yourself about why this man is so important. and you're going to be so amazingly, amazingly enriched and happy to do it. But we're just going to take the time right now to tell a little bit about what John Lewis meant to us. Rachel, do you have anything you want to say about?

I think you hit the knell on the head with, I don't want to give, you know, his biography. I want people to, like I said, I posted this on social media. You've probably seen him. you probably knew that he was in politics, but you didn't know his story and what he did for, not just black people, for this country in general.

A man who fought tirelessly, who fought, who could have been the most bitter person in the world and decided instead of looking back, he was going to look forward and he was going to keep going. And he encouraged people to do that as well. I think when I was thinking back on his legacy

and what he means, just to us, I almost got sad, sad, of course, because he's passing, but sad because his work is so not finished. And when you look at what's happening right now in our society, the work that he started 60 years ago, you know, the Voting Rights Act was 55 years ago, that is being challenged in our courts right now. And this is a man whose blood is in our streets, who was arrested, beaten, bludgeon, threatened, all of these things just so we could have these rights that are. are now being threatened in our Supreme Court. There are the Voting Rights Act right now has been sitting on Mitch McConnell's desk for over 200 days. It's just been sitting in the Senate. There are still things that need to be done. And it saddens me because if you watch his documentary,

good trouble, which is on Amazon Prime. You should watch it if you hadn't. He talks about what it meant to him to see Barack Obama elected as president, to see a black president for in his lifetime, said he never thought he would see it. Talks about it. about breaking down in tears. So to have that progression and then digress the way we have with the election of Donald Trump in 2016, then to see the things that he fought for being challenged still in 2020, it had to have been so disheartening for him. And that is why you should watch the documentary. You should do the research and realize that his work is not done yet. And it is up to us to carry it on. Well said, I had this conversation with my grandmother, my grandmother who

was going out and voting and being really, really incredibly, incredibly active in organizing for Vice President Biden. And I asked her, I'm like, why is that so important to you? And she told me, she was like, I want my life to mean something. And when your grandmother said something like that to you, you think, of course your life means something.

Look at all you've done. Look at the fruit off your tree. you're beautiful, amazing black woman. You've set a spiritual and political example for the entire family. And she goes, no, I mean, I wanted to have meant something. I don't want everything that we did to be in vain. Because remember, she was involved in those sit-ins. And she was a part of those marches.

And she saw those police and she saw those dogs. She was right there. And she thought, like you just pointed to, this was a conversation. We had some time ago. She thought. that they had accomplished something, which they did, by the way, with Barack Obama. But for her to be in her 80s and to look and to see where the nation is right now, it troubles her spirit and troubles her soul to feel like maybe when she leaves here,

and my grandmama going to live for 20, 30, 40, I call longevity on her, maybe when she leaves that it will feel like we were in the same spot. And that was, what you just said about John Lewis, I hope that he knows that we are better, that America is better, that everyone who believes in freedom, justice, and quality has been empowered by his existence. And I hope that nothing that just recently happened, nothing did any Dana Sauer that for that brother when he went on to me, Jesus. Yeah.

So for me, that's why we have to carry on the work. And that's why we have to remember that despite the conversations that we had, have, shall I say, the visions of America that we are trying to bring forth, the reality of the country that we're trying to build, it's worth the fight. I think the life of guys like John Lewis, it reminds us that it's worth the fight. Us being here talking, Barack Obama, all of these things,

it's worth the fight, and we got to keep on fighting it. And at some point, we got to win. So that's what we have to concentrate on. That's doing the most for the legacy of John Lewis is actually not just fighting the fight to fight, but fighting the fight to establish,

to create and to empower the version of America that works for all Americans. And can I just encourage thought war, something you said, Van, about how you talk to your grandmother. When it happened, I called my dad. My dad was born in 1951. And I just wanted to get a pulse on having a conversation with someone who lived during those times to where we are now. And I suggest that you do that too. Go talk to someone, but whatever you look like.

You don't want to be black. Just go talk to someone of what it was like during those times. We all know somebody who was born during those times. Why are you like? Because all the reason I say that is because, wait, wait. It's going to be a different story. No, I'm going to say something though. Talk to somebody black and I'll tell you why.

You just thought words. Talk to somebody black. You might not want to ask some of your older white grandparents what they really think. No, you need to ask. No. Oh, well, look, if you want to ask. to know, true story, I had a friend, and I'm not going to say his name because I don't want to embarrass him, but his granddad was one of the coolest dudes I ever knew.

World War II veteran used to tell me all about how to break a man's neck and how he killed guys in France and all. I'm like, yo, your grandpa's is amazing. This fucking guy's the shit will come down and watch shit with us and movies and all that stuff like that. And one day I came there actually helped me get a car. Like, was a good guy. And one day, there's a big bowl of Brazil nuts that are sitting on the big bowl of Brazil nuts.

It's sitting on like the little window seal thing, kind of like a window, whatever. And he goes, Van, come on down here and talk to me, man. He loved me. He loved conversing with me. Come on down here and talk to me. But stop and grab that bowl of nigger toes. No, he didn't, Van. Absolutely.

Van, what did you do? He said, stop. Grab that bowl of nigger toes and bring him down here with me. I looked at him and he looked at me and it was one of those moments where you freeze. And so I just walked out. You had to. I just walked out and I go to my dad, my dad goes,

then what year was this man born? He said he was born something like 1911, 1912. He was like, adjust your expectations. He's like, don't ever tolerate any of that. But adjust your expectations. And I talked to this guy, I didn't get any twinge of racism off. He used to go crazy about what the Tuskegee Airmen meant to the war. He used to go insane about it, nuts about it.

But in the back of his mind, he was probably like, but know your place. Nigger toes was in the back of his mind. I never even heard that for Brazil. They call it. They called Brazil nuts and nigger toes. I was like, yo. Never hurt that. No, but my point is, is that you should go.

I didn't say that you should go to your grandparent. you're white and talk to them and then go back and tell your black friends what they said, I think it's important for you to know where you came from. I think it's important for you to not be ignorant as to how your grandparents might think about black people, brown people. And it will give you a pulse as to how it was during those times. And I just think it's important to talk to your elders, period. I agree.

They don't hit you out with the niggotos, though. After they hit y'all with that niggotos. Can we get a picture of Brazilian nuts? Put the Brazil nuts in there. After they hit y'all with them niggotos, though. toes, you're going to be like, yo, Papa. What do white people call their grandparents? Is it Papa?

Is it Papa? Grandpa. Grandpa? Grandpa. Grandpa. Is Grandpa? Grandpa? Grandpa's so, that's grandpa so stale, though.

Grandpa. Grandpa. What do you call your grandfather? I called him granddaddy. Granddaddy. Okay, it works. The other one passed away when I was really young, but they called him Paul Paul. We called my and Papa.

Papa, Ma-Paw, Momo, my mom. my, okay. All these are good names, but that granddad. Or mama so-and-so, right? Like my great-grandmother. My great-grandmother was Mama Bessie. Mama Bessie. I was, okay, okay, okay, all right. Plus one?

Plus one? Plus one? Plus one? Plus one for Rachel. Now, rest in peace, John Lewis. We will remember you and honor you in everything that we do, my brother. rest in power. Say hello to Dr. King for us. Now, this past weekend, Kanye West held a rally in South Carolina.

Charleston, South Carolina, he held a rally. I don't know what the purpose of this rally was. I think it was centering around his presidential run. Am I correct on that, Rachel? It was supposed to be for, yes. It was supposed to be a presidential rally.

Now, if you watch the video, which I did in its entirety, did you get a chance to watch this video in its entirety, Rachel. Where could you watch it in its entirety? YouTube. There's a place called YouTube, and sometimes you can type in

different search criteria, and things will pop up. How long was it? It was about an hour and 35 minutes. Oh, wow. He stood, oh, wait, but he brought people on stage. Okay, keep going. He brought different people from the crowd on stage.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, while this was going on, I didn't really know what was happening with it. I didn't get the memo that this was going to be happening or that Ye was even still in. The last thing I had heard, yay was out. Yes. But during this, several things happened that are leading people to question both the political

direction, the intellectual capacity, and the mental health of Kanye West. We are back again doing what it is that we do. as a black family, which is worrying about Kanye. Now, specifically, Kanye said something that we're going to start off talking about. What he said was, actually, we don't normally do this on the podcast, but in this particular case, we are going to run the sound of exactly what Kanye West said about Harriet Tubman. When Harriet Tubman, well, Harriet Tubman never actually freed the slaves, Jesus had the slaves go work for other white people.

Okay. There you have it. That is the flashpoint moment that most people seem to have a problem with. Do you have a problem with that statement? How could I not have a problem with the statement? Now, I did not watch the whole video like you did. So my initial thought was, I'm sorry, how did we transition into this topic? How did we get to talking about Harriet Tubman?

So before I talk, was there a lead-in or did he just switch on to? Oh, and Harriet Tubman, by the way. There was a lead-in, but I think what he said after was more important than actually the lead-in. Okay, what did he say after? For those who did not listen to it like me. What he said after was that he feels like athletes, entertainers, rappers, they still are slaves to the American corporate dollar. So while he feels like Harriet Tubman free people, we're not really free. Kanye West's eyes until we are economically free to where we own the platforms that we do business

on, therefore we don't have to take orders or be muted or be silenced by the white capitalist corporate power structure. That's not a bad statement. That part isn't, no. That's not bad. But again, for those of us who didn't watch the whole thing, you just see this clip. But my first thought was, I don't understand why you're saying these things. This is what we have Candice Owens for, right? Like we, Candice Owens is the one who's going to pop off and say these off the wall things.

We don't, we, that role is taken. Okay? We don't need you for that. But then I just thought, Kanye, what he said after it makes a lot of sense and there is a lot of truth in that. However, it gets lost, it muddied in the waters when you start attacking not only someone who is a black hero. She's a woman. She did a lot for black people. And it plays into the narrative. And I don't even want to go into that about not uplifting black women. But you already have this track record of denouncing things that happen to black people in history. So now here you are taking one of our heroes and saying, actually, she didn't do what we credit her for. She was part of the problem. You can't do that, Kanye. You can't do that. You cannot be. And we've talked about this time and time again on

our show that if you have a platform, you have a sense of responsibility. You cannot be reckless with the influential power that you have. There are too many people that follow him, that revere him for his musical genius. And there is the word genius when you apply it to him in the musical sense that will take what he's saying and apply that to truth. And it is just a very dangerous territory that we're entering into. And I was just so disappointed to hear him say that. I was so confused. I was disappointed. I just, go ahead. Go ahead. No, listen. I don't want to get into another topic. Like, I want to hit because there's so many layers to this rally. Right. Okay. So people, when you hear the whole thing, when people hear

the entire thing in contest, they're going to say, okay, he's making a great point. I want people to understand something. There's a point on the back end that he's making for sure, but understand what Harriet Tubman did. So when you say that Harriet Tubman only free people to be slaves in a different way. There's, as we continue to ascend in America, we're having different understandings of what American freedom really is. So American freedom is not just freedom of movement. It's not just political freedom.

It is economic freedom. It is intellectual freedom. It is freedom of your body. It is sexual freedom. It is all of these freedoms. The first freedom that you need is freedom from bondage, which is what African Americans didn't have. Right. So she didn't free anybody else to be a slave to anything else.

She took bondage away from their bodies. And in taking bondage away from their bodies, like you niggers pick cotton, you niggers get raped. We're not talking about deals with Gap and. Adidas now. That wasn't her focus. Her focus was making sure that we didn't get horrors and mutilation done to us by the state. Right. So what Harriet Tubman did and then what she did symbolically in representing freedom and fighting back from oppression to black people is invaluable.

It's invaluable. and it is disrespectful to her and to the plight of our ancestors to take the feeling that you feel like as freedom now, which I'm not disagreeing with, and then spit in the face of Harriet Tubman, who put her life on the line

so that your black ass could stand up in South Carolina and say whatever it is that you want to say. Humble yourself. But, Van, isn't there hypocrisy in the fact that he's saying that all these athletes, and this are slaves to corporations,

but does he not work hands in hand with some of these corporations? I'm not understanding. He talked about that as well. He said that he needs to be on the board of Adidas. He said that he needs to be on the board of Gap, and that that's kind of what he's fighting for. All of that's fantastic.

Right. The question I ask is Kanye West ashamed of our ancestors? Because he always finds a way the same way he worships whiteness, right? The same way he bigs up Walt Disney and Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.

And Trump. And Trump, he can't go anywhere without putting whiteness in his mouth and worshiping in it. At the same time, slavery was a choice. Our ancestors didn't do enough. Harriet Tubman only delivered people to more afraid. Is Kanye West ashamed? of the beautiful, brave and brilliant black people who freed us from our circumstance?

Are you saying he has internalized racism? I'm asking. I don't know. I don't either. But when you break it down like that, it kind of sounds that way. Is he uplifting black people in the same way that he is non-black people

or white people? Because that's who he's uplifting? It doesn't appear to be that way. To me, he can revere whomever he wants to. And I'm not going to put a social on who he can think is dope. But how can you be a black man in America

and not think that Harriet Tubman is dope? How can you be a black man in America and question the intestinal fortitude of the ancestors that braved middle passage that sweated in the southern heat and humidity so that show ass could record records survivors

thrivers people built out of steel and obsidian wild shit to me but is this where we start to enter into another territory where we start we have to start questioning his mental health it's another thing

yes like when you when we don't get it when it doesn't make sense when you keep saying how could you or why would you then you have to start saying is he okay and I did not watch the whole thing

I keep saying this because I feel like I need to keep putting that out there I didn't watch the whole thing but from what I saw for me it got to the point where I got uncomfortable man did were you not uncomfortable I was uncomfortable

watching it And I thought, I shouldn't be watching this. It's not funny anymore. It's not, I don't want to see any memes about it. I don't want to see, I don't want to see people making fun of it. It's alarming at this point. Don't talk to me about it in a group chat. I feel like it's what you saw when you saw the breakdown with Britney Spears.

And people were laughing and they were joking and they were making fun of her. And at the end of the day, she was not okay. Right. And that's how, that's why I say I felt uncomfortable watching this man implode before us on stage. It's sad. I don't want to, I don't want to, I'm not diagnosing him. He's been very public about the fact that he is diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

And he also has talked about he doesn't like to take his medication. Now his recently, right before we got on this podcast, there was an article in People Magazine that said that the family, again, is concerned. And I don't believe that they're concerned. I don't think they give a fuck. I don't either. That's a, that's a, that's a topic too. Right away, I am putting it out there right now.

Kim Kardashian, Chloe Kardashian, Courtney Kardashian, Rob Kardashian, Chris Jenner, you don't give a fuck about Kanye West. I'm telling you right now,

I'm asserting it. I'm not in your house. Y'all don't give a fuck about Kanye West. No fucking way. You can't make me believe that. No, I don't believe it. I'm just telling you what the article said.

I agree with you actually 100% because there is no way that my husband would be out here making a fool of himself on such a public platform, and I'm just sitting at home posting pictures on my Instagram and stories, like everything is okay in the world. There's no way the love of my life would be able to do that. And also, speaking from the attorney perspective, why is no one so concerned that you're trying to assert some sort of power of attorney over him?

because he is suffering from a mental illness. It doesn't make any sense to me. That's what they did with Britney Spears. That's what her father stepped in and did. So why is no one doing that for Kanye? If you cared, this would look totally different. I agree with you. Right.

So we actually have something very special for you guys. We have the first guest in higher learning history today. We have never yet had a guest on the show. but we felt like we could sort of conjecture in our minds what's going on with Kanye West. We can talk about the mental health ramifications of it. We can talk about how confusing it is to the culture sometimes. We can talk about the distraction that it is. We should probably on this podcast right now be talking about what's going on in Portland,

be talking about so many other things, but we have to dig into Kanye West, which will never do again after this. I can promise you and assure you we're going to put it to bed today. But we have someone who can actually speak to what's happening with Kanye, someone that has known Kanye for a long time, a brother who himself is a fierce activist. He's doing so many things in Chicago and has been integral in so much of Kanye West's musical career. A lot of the legacy that was built came straight out of the brain and the pen of

this man that you guys are about to hear from. So if you want to know what the fuck is going on, there's nobody better to talk to. Welcome to higher learning thought. Warriors, GLC. G.L. What is up with you, my brother? How are you doing?

Welcome to the show. Oh, man. Thank y'all very much. I'm doing blacktastic. I feel powerful, prosperous, peaceful, and purposeful. Hmm. So I'm going to start off with this just real quick. a lot of our listeners are may not be so familiar with your history with

how you've known him and how integral you were in his success. So before we even ask you about the present or even the future, talk a little bit about the past and your relationship with Kanye West. Okay. I'm known, uh, yay since we was 15. We met here in Chicago. We both were in high school. I went to Simeon.

Shout to Dadd Rose, Bobby Simmons and to Bobby Park and all the greats that came out of that school. Kanye went to a school in Oakland that was called Valeris. But we met through a mutual friend, a friend that went to my same grammar school who ended up transferring to his school

and they became friends. So at that time, I was like 15 and I was pursuing a rap career. That's so I thought. And Kanye was making beats and he was pursuing a rap career. And man, we, that's how we begin to bond. But then from that point on, we had a lot of common interests. Like when I first went to his crib, it was super blacktastic. It looked like an

African history museum because of his mom because she was 100% with and for other people. She was all about the fight and the fight for what's right, you know. She was all about ending economic, social, educational, and political deprivation as well as exploitation. And she liked music. She was into that. So I bonded with his mother very well. Another bond that we had was the fact that we were very young men and we just loved females. You know, that was something that made us cool. You know, we praise women. We loved y'all. Women was everything, you know what I'm saying? Thank you. Still it is to this day. Another thing was we liked the hoop, you know what I'm saying? And it was things like that that kind of brought us together. But he grew up in a nicer environment in

which I grew up in. I came from 87th Street, a area called Arben Gresham. It wasn't that nice over there. But fortunately enough, his mother, she allowed us to come out to his crib on a weekend, sort of like a rest haven. You know what I'm saying? Like an escape from what we were in doing in the community. GLC, can you first let everybody know how blacktastically dressed you are today? Because not everybody watches the video and I want them to know. I don't know I got to show it, man. Shout out to Harriet Tubman. Long little, babe. Go ahead.

GLC, okay, just so you guys know, GLC is wearing a Harriet Tubman T-shirt. Just in case you guys thought that he shared any of the same opinions as his homeboy. He's saying, fuck all of that. GLC's wearing a protest shirt

on higher learner right now. Oh, yeah. I love Harriet, man. She means everything to me. And with the Harriet Tubman thing, man, what Kanye said was completely out of context. So when Harriet was freeing the over 300 brothers and sisters that she led into Canada, yeah, when they got there, they were able to get work. But this work, they were able to get paid for.

They were able to enjoy the liberties that they weren't able to enjoy another Americanized slavery. It was super bogus. You know what I'm saying? If I was Kanye, what I would have said was Harriet, freed 300 that way. She freed like 700 more, another way. And she was one of the main conductors of the Underground Railroad, which liberated us. And I seen that he said that my father, my mama saved me. Well, Harriet saved your mother. Harriet saved all of us. You know what I'm saying? And with that being said, more so, and this is not to knock anybody's religion, but I know for a fact that Harriet Tubman lived.

And due to the fact that I know that she lived, and there's no question or whether or not she's a fictitional character, fictitious character, or a mythical character, I know that she lived. And I know that she sacrificed her life so that I may live, you know? So with that being said, it ain't nothing but love for Harriet. Now, what Kanye did to continue her legacy, which he may not even be aware of, just due to the fact that he's going through mental illness at this time. He's going through like a manic condition. But Kanye actually carried on Harriet's legacy because when he went to go sit down with Donald Trump and everybody was opposed to him, I gave him a list of the black agenda. I gave him certain demands to present to the president. One of those was prison reform, which led to the First Step Act being passed, which led to over 3,000 incarcerated African Americans to be released from prison off a drug conspiracy.

Now, the only reason that I had the idea to even think of, like, presenting this to the president was because of Harriet Tubman. All right. Yeah. So let me ask you this. Just a first question, very direct question. It's Kanye, you know him. You were just with him. You were just with him.

You worked with him throughout the entire time. Roe rhymes with them. You've been in the studio with them. You've known since 15. But I wasn't just with him before you went to South Carolina. Not what I would. Not what I would not with in South Carolina. But you were just with him some months ago.

You guys were marching in Chicago together. Yes, he were. Okay. Is Kanye West okay? Easy question. Well, this is the thing. After you saw yesterday, you know the answer to that. You know that he's not okay.

But he does have a heart and his heart, man, it's really in the right place. Because what he really meant to say was, although we are liberated as far as out of bondage, Well, bondage still exists in America due to the 13th Amendment, which shows that slavery never was really emancipated. It never ended. Slavery was never abolished in America. In order to make you a slave, all I got to do is label you a criminal.

And if I want to have five brothers standing outside on the corner, right now today, the police can ride up and say, that's mob action. And they can lock all five of us up just for standing outside on our block right now today. The same slave laws that were implemented. minute during slavery. They exist right now today. And not only that, black people in America, we only control 1% of the nation's wealth.

So how free are we? Because after slavery, we could have controlled 1% of the nation's wealth. And in 2020, we control 1% of the nation's wealth. Yeah, we still out here fighting for freedom right now, today, in 2020. Right. I would agree with you that

we have not access American freedom as our white counterparts have. That's absolutely true. We definitely have it, right? Because the average white household, their net worth is 10 times the amount of black family. But what I would say, though, is it is important. It's not important. It's absolutely necessary to almost deify the sacrifices of the African Americans that were made before us.

Look at my shirt, baby. You know I'm saying. right? So as we push, I know. You're not the problem, GLC. As we push for freedom, we don't want to look back

on our ancestors and say they didn't get the job done. They set the foundation for us to build the skyscraper even higher. That's what we're doing. Rachel, you got something else? Well, something that you said,

you said growing up with Kanye used to go to his house and it looked like an African museum. And there was all this culture in it. So are you shocked by the things that you're hearing him say in regards to Harriet Tubman or even when he said that slavery was a choice? How do you explain that?

Well, I explain it with being mental ill and being on drugs. Like he told everybody when he was on TMZ that he was on meds because he had plastic surgery. And now he told me that he began to start using drugs as a healing process. from having plastic surgery. Now, during the time of him having plastic surgery, I was not in his life. We hadn't talked for years, and that was something that I would not have condone,

but that was not my choice to make. Now, he made a decision to get plastic surgery in order to fit in with the music and the look of L.A. and how you're supposed to look, you know, quote, unquote. And from that being said, it led to an addiction. And with this addiction, I grew up in the midst of crackheads.

Like, it was popping where I was at, where I'm from. It was popping like a mug. And if you ever tried the reason with somebody why they were high, it's a lost battle from the beginning because their mind's not right. Now, due to the fact of him, beginning this drug usage that was prescribed, even though, you know, percocets and the heavy peals that they give you, they say that those drugs are equivalent to, like, heroin and crack and cocaine. Opioids.

That does damage to a person's brain. And losing his mom and all this things that he's endured over the years on top of drug usage, man, you know, it is surprising when it's your friend. But due to the fact that you growing up in the midst of drug users, this is expected from people who are on drugs. Okay. G.L. you're not with them every day, right? A lot of people that start off with them aren't with them every day. But he's got a family. He's got a mother-in-law and a sister-in-law and a wife and a bunch of people that he rides with.

Do you feel like the Kardashians, the family that Kanye has married into? Do you feel like the people around him are properly caring for him? Well, this is the thing, ma'am. I really don't know them, to be honest with you. From the whole time that I've known Kanye, I may have been around them less than a handful of times. How is that possible? Because I've seen you guys have been. together a lot recently.

Like, and you guys worked on music together a lot, like recently, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have. So how is it possible that, like, those people are so close to him and so immersed in his life and you haven't really been around them? Man, I guess we were around at different times, you know, because he's in Wyoming.

They live in LA. They live in two different states. So if I go see him, even though I'm going to, I'm going to Wyoming this week, because that's my friend, and I'll love him and I realize everything that he said is extremely hurtful. It brought pain to our ancestors. It brought pain to our present to us right now today. It hurt. So now when I see him talking like that, I know that he's not getting a proper nourishment that he needs mentally. Like somebody,

I don't know who it is. I don't know who's influencing, his thoughts, his actions, and his words, but they bogus. And I'm going to go see him. I think that's important that you say that, because I hear a lot of people asking the question. Van brought up family. Everyone's like, where are his friends? Where are his friends right now? So was this a trip that you had planned already? Or is this out of concern after what you've seen with this behavior? This is out of concern. Well, actually, he's been reaching out to me, asking me to come out there. But I have a vegan dessert company here in Chicago. Like, I'm in whole foods and different restaurants throughout the city. And I'm also working on an album with no ID. So I've had my hands full.

And I'm also doing it work in the community as well. So with that being. said, I just didn't have the window in order to leave. But now, anything that I have going on, I just got to put it on hold because that's my friend. How long do you plan to stay in Wyoming? I'm going to stay as long as I need to in order for him to get right, because I don't like to see him like this. So I guess my question is this then.

We talked about this before. Yes, sir. When we did the Red Pill, you told me that Kanye West wasn't ever going to wear the MAGA hat again and then he never wore it again. Absolutely. I hadn't seen him in it. Right. That you guys had talked about that and told him you had to take the hat off. I got all the hats. You got all the MAGA hats.

I jeezed them. You took the MAGA hats from Kanye. That's what I'm talking about. Well, the thing is, after the conversation that I had with him, I didn't have to take him. He handed them to him. Like, please mistake these. I don't ever want to wear these again. Please keep these away from me. So.

I made a mistake. So I guess my question is we have, because of the work that Kanye West has done in the past and because of the outspoken voice and I've talked to you very candidly about what it meant to me being from South Louisiana, but we were underwater to have Kanye West say that George Bush doesn't care about black people and all the things, the music that you guys were making,

the music that all of y'all made, you, Kanye, Rhine Fest, no ID, that you guys collectively made because all of that stuff was collaborative. right? It was revolutionary pop rap that I hadn't heard before you know what I mean? So the

cultural weapon that Kanye West is the megaphone that he has it's well deserved the fact that we care so much about what he says he earned that. The question I'm saying to you is based upon what you just said is it time for us to

take back that megaphone Is it time for us to ignore, to sort of shun, to push Kanye West's thoughts and his influence to the side? Because it doesn't seem like anymore that he's capable of doing good for us. Well, I like to go back to what you said about when he said George Bush doesn't care about black people. Well, you know, a lot of times people say things, but then they're actually. show otherwise. Not only did he say that, but in the middle of us being on tour, we got on a plane, and we went to the Reliance Center down in Houston.

We donated all the money that we could. We went to churches. We passed out full. We were there at Ground Zero with the survivors of what took place, like the actions, you know, on top of just the words. And just like what just happened with Brianna Taylor, Mr. Arbery, and Mr. Floyd, as opposed to Kanye just saying,

this is wrong, this is wrong, he put his money where a lot of other people's mouths were. You know, he put up an X amount of money to pay the legal fees to make sure that Mr. Floyd daughter is paid to go to school. Like, the families are straight. Like, he stood up,

and he also came to Chicago and donated money that will be funneled to local black businesses in Chicago. Like, his mind in his heart, he wants to do the right thing. But when a person is going through like the state of being manic from like bipolar disorder

and things of that nature, man, it's like they really not their self at that time. So at this time, I just asked that people attempt to bear with him in the midst of aiming to get him healed

from what he's going through. And I don't don't know if people heard it, but he also mentioned something about if my wife divorces me. Now, when he said that, I was like, oh, man, so, you know, it's certain things that can trigger a person during mental illness. And if he is going through something like that with his wife, which I am uncertain of, but I will find out when I go out there, man, he got triggers right now. And he's in a dark place. And my thing is, I want to go out there and try to share some life. on it, you know, because it pains me to see him say the things that he says, you know, because I know that's not him. You know what I'm saying?

I don't know who's feeding him with this information and why is he talking like this. And they feed it to him when he's not in a proper mental state that he gets on the national stage and he repeats it. Do you think that he should drop out of the presidential race? Oh, at this point, definitely. And then my follow-up question will be there are a lot of people who, who are saying that this is just a PR stunt, because he did tweet and then deleted the tweet

that he has a new album coming out called Donda, named after his mother. Do you, what do you say to the people who are saying that this type of behavior is a PR stunt? Well, this is the thing. I, I don't, I've never seen him go to this extreme for a PR stunt. It's a PR stunt every album rollout though. Yeah, but I never seen him go to this extreme.

I've never seen him say I'm running for like, actually going to somewhere and be like, yo, I'm ready to be president. And then when I saw the, man, when I saw the rally and I saw the things that he was saying and the facial expressions that he was making, I knew that my brother was tweaking. I know that there's something not right upstairs.

So as a true friend and as a brother, I'm going to hop on the plane and I'm going to try to fix the situation to the best of my ability. I don't, man, I don't, I don't, I really hope that this, nobody geeked him up to make this a PR stunt, but I haven't had the conversation with him. So I can't speak on the things that I don't know. When I talk, I like to speak from a place of factual information as opposed to emotions and assumptions. Would you vote for Kanye West for president?

No, you know I wouldn't vote for him if I just said he shouldn't run. I just said he shouldn't run. Now, this is the thing. This is the thing now. Right. See, this is one thing. When I had the conversation with him about Trump, he came around. I saw in a GQ interview, he said, the Forbes interview, yeah, I'm taking, this is me taking off the red head.

I'm not with Trump because he went ahead in a bunker. That's not why I told him not to be with Trump or why he shouldn't be with Trump. I talked about the issues facing America right now, especially the issues facing my people. and I spoke on behalf of my people because that's my first love. Now, I love all people, but my people, through all these years of America, have been established.

We need to help. We have been marginalized. We are at the very bottom of the total pole. So, therefore, that's my first love. And having love and speaking truth is not equivalent to speak in hatred. But we can't be speaking from a place of misinformation and stupidity.

So with that being said, I hope that it's not a publicity stunt, but I truly, in all honesty, I believe that there's something not right up here. It's a certain look that he has in his eyes. And I saw that look when he came on TMZ. And I got up with him immediately, man. You remember?

I do. We talked. Yeah. I was like, what's going on? You know what I'm saying? I just saw that same look again, man. By the way, he did kind of throw a shot at me at the South Carolina rally, by the way.

I don't know why. He did. That didn't go viral. What did he say, Van? Like, there was one girl that, like, after, like, she wanted to say something, then Kanye goes, you're going to be just like what that homie did to me at TMZ. And, like, you can cover in your face. I'm like, yo, what did I do at TI?

I thought we was cool. Yay. I thought everything was good. I mean, I'm not fucking with you now. No, you did at TMZ. You just spoke the truth. Word. And that's all it was.

You spoke the truth, man. And I don't really know who has the biggest influence on him right now. but whoever it is, it seems as if they are loading him with misinformation. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required.

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Real ingredients? Zero shortcuts. Everything you love in one hand. Think green goddess chicken. garlic aoli, crumbled bacon, corn salsa, 40 grams of protein, made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweetgreen wraps hit different. Order now at order.com. But is it concerning to you that we haven't heard from his in-laws, that we haven't heard from his wife, hasn't there? There's been no statement, there's been no, not even a tweet, nothing to show that there's some type of concern coming from their camp for him.

Well, the thing is, I don't, when there's a situation involving my loved ones, I focus on my accountability. I don't worry about what nobody else ain't doing. I just know what I have to do. I don't know them. So I really don't know anything about them, really, except for it. They know how to get some money. I've seen that. And I know all the stories that we see on the Internet.

You know what I'm saying? The same stories y'all see. But I don't really know them like that. but I do know my friend. And I'm going to take the accountability to get on a plane. If anybody else should be there, they should be there. They know they should be there. If they're not there, I can't speak for them.

I can only speak for the love that I have for my brother. And the reason why I'm going to go see about them. So the vegan desserts that you have, right? Yeah, yeah. You got the vegan desserts. What? I'm not going to lie, bro. I'm be real with you.

You're my brother. Yeah. You're solid. You might be like, well, you, like, I don't fuck with that vegan shit. Like, tell me, what is the, what is the, what is the, you got,

what's that? These are vegan cheese, man, look at these. They're cheesecakes. Show me the vegan. Open it up. Open it up. We want to see what it look like. Oh, it looks cheesecake.

Oh, shit. Oh, it fell. You dropped the cheese. That's not a good side. GLC. JLC, the cheesecake was running towards some real dairy right there. Let me see it. But it's good, though. It tastes like cheesecake?

Bro, I'm selling out twice a week out of all the whole foods that I'm in in Chicago. By the way, I'm the first Grammy Award winning writer and rapper to have a dessert in old foods. I'm only going to give it up to this. Yeah. Congratulations to you. Yeah. This man got Grammys and Cheesecake.

What is it called? What's the name of the dessert? Oh, it's called Isam Cakes. And I'm also in multi-black-owned restaurants all throughout Chicago. I go, like, can't believe it's not meat, Flays, Wendy City Ribs, Lighthouse Grill, Jerk Villa, man, I'm in a lot of restaurants. Forgive me if I forgot any of them, but I'm in a lot of them, and they're embracing the concept. And the reason why I came with this dessert is I'm a type 1 diabetic. And being a type 1 diabetic, I used to go to a certain dessert spot.

And they had vegan desserts, but the vegan desserts were very high in sugar. And then they had sugar-free desserts, but they were very high in dairy. So I made a dessert that's low in sugar, low in calories, and it has no dairy. And I'm selling cheesecake with no cheese in it, and the people are loving it. They eaten it up.

Bram, let me tell you something. I'm a person who does not do dairy, so I got to get to Chicago and get my own. I'm going to have to tip y'all some out there, man. Y'all got to get right. This brother, like, let me tell you something. something wrong with both you and Kanye. This brother's selling cheesecake with no sugar.

I got to try it. It sounds good to me. It sounds good to me. I got to try it. Oh, but before we let you get out of here, because on the hip hop front, you try to slip something in there as if I wasn't going to care. What I say, man.

You said you got an album coming out with No ID. I do got an album coming out. Executive produced by the great No ID, man. Pause real quick. Case you guys don't know who No ID is. No ID is when our architects of this entire sound. one of the guys that is very instrumental into actually us having the Kanye West

one of the first guys to put Ye on he produced, I think, no death of the ring toned, the auto tune joint. What was the name of that joint again for Jay-Z? No auto-tune, I believe. Death of auto-tune, D-O-A. Death of Auto-Too. Like, Noah D-D is a legendary

producer, and you got a whole, album coming out with him. Is it done or close to being done or what's up with you? We are 90% done, man. And we also have local producers straight here from Chicago. Like my man, Chris Muhammad, my man, Excel, who produced Follow God for Kanye. He's actually one of the producers on the album. My young homie by the name of Quincy Farmer.

We got Rayquine from the Wu-Tang on the album. We got Wiz Khalifa on the album. And, man, it's coming together really well. I'm really excited about it. But another thing, too, as we spoke earlier, about Justin Moore. Justin Moore is the lawyer that is, man, leading a charge to free the honorable Mr. Larry Hoover. Now, you have a lot of people that have a misconception. They're like, yo, but he's a gang leader.

He did this. He did that. Larry Hoover is in federal custody. And when you're convicted on a federal charge, they are supposed to present what is known as a bill of receipts. for Mr. Hoover, there has been no bill of receipts. Everything is off speculation. What is the bill of receipts? The bill of receipts is actually like if they say, hey, this man made $10 million,

they want to find the money and they want to find the $10 million worth of items that he bought. And they didn't find none of that. It wasn't no items that he bought or none of that because he was in prison. Also, if they say he moved X amount of drugs, they got to find the drugs. They got to find the money. But it just wasn't there. This whole conviction federally is based off of witnesses, people that was trying to get their time cut. And they built this man up to be this super, super criminal, which he was a leader of a street organization.

But he's been in jail for 47 years, man. He's about to be 70. When he comes home, he's not thinking about, I want to be a gang leader. He has grandkids. He has a wife that Justin just helped him marry his wife for the first time. is that he's been in jail since 1973, he was just able to get married earlier this year.

You know, and all he wants to do is enjoy life. The thing is, imagine if we would have gave up on Malcolm X when he was 21. Imagine if we would have gave up on the Kennedy family. John F. Kennedy and his father was a jeezed.

Joe Kennedy, yes, he was a rum runner. He was a big time. He was a booedger. He was a booedlegger, yeah. You know what he would be? It was a big time. In today's turn, he was a rum. he would be called a street nigger.

That's what he was. He was in the streets. Joe Kennedy, without a doubt, Joe Kennedy was, I mean, essentially he was dealing illegal shit. He was a drug dealer, basically. You know, he was doing prohibition. Yeah. Yeah, so the thing is, if every other ethnic group can reform,

then why can't we reform? Larry Hoover had showed reform from prison. He made anybody that was 18 years old, you call yourself a part of his organization, you had to register to vote. And he was very instrumental in getting certain alderman elected. And also in 1992, he said his best friend who was a former enforcer for the organization, Wallace Gator Bradley, he went to the White House and sat down at the over office under the street reform street peace movement

where they were trying to kill all the gang violence and all the genocide. But we got bamboozled because we had a brother like Biden. and the Clintons who came with this three strikes, drug law, and made the prison population go up 600%. So it kind of put us in bad shape. Question, real quick. Two questions following up on Larry Hoover. We're going to let people research Larry Hoover

and make their own sort of like, you know, there's a lot of cultural information, but they can make their own assessment of that. Would Chicago be a safer place if Larry Hoover came home? Well, this is the thing. I don't think that Mr. Hoover has the same influence that he had on the streets because he's a 70-year-old man. It's been gone for too long. Yeah, and a lot of people, they don't really, they may not even know who this man is.

But I do believe that he has the power to influence those that are in business, those that came up in the organization that went on to do better things in life. I think that he has an infinite amount of wisdom that can help elevate everybody on a mental level. And if we get elevated on a mental level, and the spiritual level, there's a good chance that we can get elevated on an economical level. Because the main thing that, like, when people talk about Chicago, they say, oh, man, there's so much crime, blacks killing blacks. Well, throughout history, we know that high crime has always been related to high poverty. So if our neighborhoods are impoverished, if you took away all the industrial jobs and replaced them with service jobs for brothers and sisters that came from the south as sharecroppers, and then you left us without anything in the community. A lot of those abandoned buildings are still there, you know, and the education that we received, man, it's a huge miseducation. And then the diet, the food that's available in the community, man.

It's all the city. So we have a lot of things that we have to do structurally. in order to make it better. And I think Larry may be one of the best voices for that due to the fact that he played both sides of the game. He was in the streets. He'd been in prison. More than half his, three quarters of his life he's been in prison.

And now if he comes home, it's just like when Malcolm X came home, a brother who was in the streets, went through the system, got some knowledge, came home and elevated the people. I think he has the ability to do that. All right, my brother. We're going to let you get out of here. We really appreciate the insight. and we hope.

I do. It's my first time meeting you. I know Van knows you. It's my first time meeting you. I have thoroughly enjoyed you. As an artist, as a businessman, to making a difference in the community and most of all just being such a good friend.

Oh, man. Thank you. Thank you. Go get your friend. Go get your friend. Go get your friend. Go get your boy. Go get your boy.

Go do my best. I promise you. Let me tell you. Is there a possibility that you go down to Wyoming to help Kanye, but you also come back with not just a.

healthier friend, but also a couple of songs and some verses and shit like that. Well, that's what he said. He was like, man, I knew he'd come out here and like some of us. I was like, I was like, all right, I'm going to lay some versions. I'm going to come out there and write because, you know, I wrote on two of the Grammy and World winning albums, man, that we did. You know? And the thing is, I feel as if I go out there, my main objective is we'll be to uplift him.

But if we get the work done in between, I'm with that. But my main concern is. My main concern is healing him, getting them back on the right track. All right, my man. Send me some of them some of them cheesecakes. I'm going to eat them one day. And I'm really going to be into it. GLC.

Love. Bro. You're so centered. You're so blessed, man. We appreciate having you on Empire Learning, brother. Yeah, shout out to Harriet Tubman, man. They got to see you. Shout out to Harriet Tubman, my chief.

Oh, yeah. Love, y'all. Power to the people. All right. So we talk to these. GLC, you heard it right from someone who really knows, Yay. Yeah. Do you remain, is there anything, be the thought warrior, be the viewer right here.

Oh, okay. Are you changed at all in terms of what you thought before or after? No, because I wasn't in a place where I was making fun of Yeh. I wasn't in a place where I was always coming from a place of concern. When we've been talking about this for a couple of weeks in a row right now, and I've always said something is not okay, something isn't right. We need to be helping him, not advocating him, not promoting it in a certain way. We just need to be advocating for help for him. We don't need to be supporting anything that he's doing in regards to the presidential talk. We need to be supporting help for him, whatever that looks like. And GLC confirmed that. I mean, off the jump without holding back, he said he is not, he's in a manic state. From what he has seen, before to being around him to where he is now, it's that same look in his eyes. So at this point, I'm feeling bad for Kanye that he's just out here all by himself. GLC says that he doesn't know who's surrounding him right now, but it doesn't sound like he's

got good people in his ear. It sounds like he's out there by himself. And so I'm happy that he's going to go out there and be with him and maybe give him some sense of normalcy and get him back on track. I'm expecting an announcement that he will no longer be in the race. I am expecting that in the next week. We'll see. I'm not so sure what's going to happen with that.

I'm going to do the hugest favor to Kanye, to GLC, and to all of our listeners. What is that? I am going to completely, from now on into forever, I am making a pledge. I am going to completely ignore Kanye West. Okay. Completely. If tomorrow, yay,

does something else like he did Sunday, if it's talked about on higher learning, it will be Big Rache, Rachel Lindsay, who is discussing it. I will, I pledge right now until we know

that he is in a better mental state, a better emotional state, to not be a part of legitimizing what he's saying or be a part of the downward spiral that might be happening with him. I'm over it. I'm out. I agree with you. I won't say that I'll never talk about it, but it has to be something nuanced. It has to be something that, like, what happened, what we just saw, we've seen that in some other form before. I don't want to talk about that again. It has to be something like maybe him doing an interview saying he's healthy again, maybe him discussing some of the things that he was going through while he was in this state of mine. Something like that. Um, nope, no, yeah, nothing to do with

the family, the Kardashians, nothing like that. I agree with you. But I think that this podcast was so important because, not because we're just big Kanye fans, but because what he did was detrimental in so many ways, even ways that we didn't even touch on. We didn't even talk about how what he could possibly do. There was a really good article in the Washington Post about this, about if he continues and he is able to get on the ballot in some states, he could be a Ralph Nader. He could be a Ross Perot. We've seen that that candidate muddy the waters and take away votes.

And let's be honest, those votes won't be taken away from Trump. They'll be taken away from Joe Biden. So there are so many things that he's doing that have consequences, which is why I think that it's necessary to have this podcast to address everything and then put a pin in it. And then have a guest who knows him way better than we do. I had a conversation with somebody not too long ago. And the conversation, they said they were downplaying Kanye West's ability to split the vote. And he probably doesn't have.

It's probably not too much of a threat. He didn't, he actually failed to get the amount of petitions, the amount of petition signatures that he needed to get on the ballot in South Carolina. Yeah, he didn't turn in any. It didn't turn in anything. So it probably is more of a PR stunt, but something that was interesting in the conversation that I was having.

I was actually having this with Kalika. And we're talking about it. And she said to me, she said, it, there's not a lot of people that are going to go from voting from for President Obama to voting for Kanye West. That's not a lot of people that are doing that.

And I said there are a lot of people who might vote for Kanye West that were too young to vote for President Obama. So. Yeah. And so like there is, it's not a real threat. Okay. It's not a real fear. There's too much in the middle. It's not a real fear about Kanye West really splitting the vote.

It's not. But had he gone about things in the proper way, it could have been. the biggest fear for me is the spectacle and the distraction. And we are going, I am going to take full responsibility for this. Because I know Charlemagne going to be so pissed off because me and him went back and forth about how much attention we paid a yay yesterday. And now we did a whole podcast on it.

There are things we should be talking about right now. We should be talking about Portland. We should be talking about maybe President Trump's interview. with Chris Wallace. Oh, definitely. We should be talking about that Fox News is just named in a lawsuit for another sexual assault. We should be, we should be every single podcast right now. I want you guys to take the next X amount of seconds and think about the fact that

Brianna Taylor's killers are still at large and not just at large, but living it up down in Florida. these are all the things that we should have been talking about on this podcast, but we dedicated a podcast to Kanye West. So we are both distracted. Can we stop saying that? And we fail for it. No, can we stop saying that? We didn't dedicate upon.

No, no, no. It's not a dedication to Kanye West. It's a dedication to talking about how problematic what he did was. It's like a trickle-down effect, right? We're talking about different issues in what he said. We're not talking about him. We're talking about what he did. There's a difference.

You don't want to take, you don't want to be accountable, Big Rache. You don't want to be a part of the bullshit. Well, I'll also note this wasn't my idea. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Think about the things we've covered, though. We've talked about the things we've covered in this podcast. We talked about the men. We've got to change it now. We've talked about mental health. Is it, is it? Question, is it fair for anyone to even be angry with Kanye West if we know that he is not in the best mental health rights? No, it's not fair.

It's not fair to be angry with him. If you know someone who experiences this, who has bipolar disorder, then you understand what it is to see someone in a manic state. So no, I can't be angry with him if he's going through an episode. He can't help himself. It puts yourself in a real figure four leg lock, right? you can't be angry with him. Okay, Rick Flair. Wow, Rick Flair.

Rick Flair is the figure four, but you know what I would go with? Who? Like, I would, it's, there's a lot of people who do the figure for, the figure four. But it's safe to say Rick Flair made it famous. Yeah, it's probably Rick Flair. But I think Bobby, not Bobby DeBrain, Haney, who else did it? Like, there was a guy that used to take his shin pad and turn it around and do the, oh, Greg Valentine or somebody like that used to do it.

I don't know. Yeah, but Rick Flair does the figure four leglock. Yeah, figure four leglock. It's great. It's inescapable. I remember I hurt my sister doing it. You can't get out of it. Let's say, inescapable.

But you're in a figure four leglock because the sentiments are actually dangerous. The sentiments are distracting. The sentiments are disrespectful to the ancestors. We talked about this before. You hear Kanye West worship in whiteness. This doesn't seem to be a black American that he really. really, really, uh, celebrates. You know, it's Disney and it's Leonard, like, uh, it's Da Vinci and it's jobs and it's all

of these people. But you never just hear him go, you know what? I want to be like George Washington Carver or Barack Obama or W. Dubois or any of those people. It's always white people that he worships and seems to be black people that he excoriates. But if he's unwell, what do you do? like, then who's responsible? You have no choice but to ignore him.

No, you should ignore him. You should recognize what he's going through and then ignore it. That's why the best thing we could do is to not pay attention to him right now. Not this. I'm talking about the people who went to his rally. I'm talking about the people who are retweeting him, who are liking what he's doing. That's problematic.

The best thing you can do is ignore him and hope that he gets the help that he needs. Okay. A couple of things he said during the rally. He said that, and if you watch the whole video, it's not like the video wasn't entertaining. If you watch the whole video, at one point, Kanye West, he rails about abortion. The crowd comes back. There was a girl on stage, and she was talking about the fact that, you know, there's a lot of reasons why they need to be abortions.

And then what are you going to do for women who can't afford to have babies or might want to have abortions for any number of social or economic reasons? and Kanye West said he proposed something called the maximum increase. Have you seen this? I've not. I've not. Okay. This is a proposal I can actually get behind the maximum increase proposal. I agree with him here.

So if you get pregnant under Kanye West's maximum increase proposal, you get pregnant. And you're thinking about having an abortion. But then you decide to not have the abortion, the government gives you one. million dollars. Oh, this had a name. I only saw the maximum increase. It's a maximum increase. The million dollars. Now, I will say, I have always said, for Republicans, or maybe not Republicans, whoever

believes, whoever is pro-life, you can't force people to have babies, you know, exert these, these forcing women to do certain things and then leave them out to dry and they have no resources. They have no help. So maybe not a million, but I definitely agree that there should be some type of compensation. or some type of help given to women. Here's the deal. If the maximum increase would have been around when I was in my 20s,

especially in my colleges, I'd have had 35 children. And that's the problem. Because even if me and her going half on it. Me and her going half on it, we're going half on it, right? Million dollars, you take 500,000, bang. I take 500,000, bang.

So that means that you got to say. 30 kids, I got 15 million. I'm literally, I literally got 15 million. million dollars just for having these kids. Okay, and you don't. You got to split it with the mother. Let's be fair. I know the right.

I have 30 kids and 15 million. I got my math is right. I at least know how to subtract. Don't think the children don't get some of that money. No, the children, I don't know. See, that's what I'm talking about. That's how I know you grew up as a Cosby kid. The children, you know what I used to tell my-

This term, Cosby kid. Do you know what I used to tell my parents I want something? You know what my mother would say to me? What? You ain't got no wants. You ain't got no wants. 15 million. And you ain't got no money.

I bought you a power wheel. Take your ass out back. Play with it. You got nice things. You got all the iPads and whatever you got. What I'm doing right now is called bawling. You sound like a Cosby kid. Kanye West maximum increase.

That I can deal with. Now when we asked how he was going to pay for it, how he was going to pay for giving everybody a million dollars for having kids. He obviously had no answers. He started talking about things on different continents and there are African continents and there are different continents that you can pull together

and pay for. I'm not making fun of it. I'm just saying. No, see, I don't want to laugh. No. It's not funny. It's not funny. I don't want to laugh.

It's not funny. I'm not making fun of it. I'm just saying that it went to a place to obviously he's emoting. He's talking about, and it's a weird thing because there were moments when he talked about the fact that he looks at his daughter and even the thought of having had an abortion, him and Kim, now makes him feel incredibly guilty.

Then he cried about thinking that his father wanted to abort him. It was very human moments. But in that moment of Kanye West crying on that stage, there was no one even there to console him. I know. I know who were those people on stage Did he have a campaign man I kept wondering

Is somebody gonna go up to him And they just let him cry The audience was from a distance But there was nobody Who's that Nobody there was nobody on the stage To even walk over Put a hand on a shoulder

And be like yo it's okay Nobody to be like Yeah man like cool Take your time If I'm on stage and I start crying It's gonna be a million people That's gonna be around me hopefully as if you van take your time bro we with you we love you it's just none of that was up

there but this is what makes me so mad this is gLC was being nice this is what makes me mad i went before i did this podcast i said let me go look at kim kardashian's instagram and see if she has any type of activities since conier west has had this public downward spiral it's a picture of herself yeah she's posting about armenia but nothing about her husband she's posting about a friend's they, they don't care. And so when it comes to, you know, nobody was surrounding him, it should have been his wife. It should have been, not the rest of the family, but it should have been his wife. And I think this, and GLC said this, and I really wanted to keep poking, but I know he doesn't really know the answers, but when he talked about Kanye mentioning the

divorce and then saying, I wonder if he was alluding, basically it's saying, I wonder if he was alluding to something else, maybe that's what's kind of set him off in this way, because you don't just really just say divorce like that? I've heard that things aren't great there. That's what people magazine said. I have not, I did not hear these things from GLC. GLC kept it all the way, gangster. Because GLC is like, I'm not about to talk about my homies girl.

That's something you don't do. You don't do that. You don't talk about, you don't do that. You don't talk about your homies girl. Ask me about like, hey, Van, What do you think of so-and-so's wife? She's wonderful. Well, he didn't say all that.

I know, but that's what I said. She makes the flakiest pastries ever. And I think they're amazing. I wouldn't say, I don't talk about my homies girl. You guys, don't ask me, I'm not going to tell you. Even if I talk to him about it, I'm not going to talk to nobody else about it, bring problems in their home. But the reality is that I've heard that things aren't going well, and not that they just

aren't going well, that there might be, they might be at a critical mass. of being super fucked up. Well, then that's why they're not saying anything. This is the perfect reason. You're giving them the perfect scapego to say why you want to leave. And that might not even be the reason. But look at what's happening.

This gives you the perfect excuse to blame it on. And that's probably what, if that's true, that's probably whether they're not saying anything. Okay. Thought warriors, we are done. I am done with Kanye until I'm wishing my brother,

GLC, all the success in the world. I know that my career is going to be linked to Kanye West for the rest of my life. You guys know what went down with me and Kanye West back at TMZ in 2018. Okay. Me and Kanye had communication after that. Thought we were building all of these great things. Yay disappeared. I've talked about that before.

I have a relationship with GLC. I have a relationship with other people around, Ye. I hope that they are successful in not getting the Popsar back and not getting the rapper back and not getting the producer back and not getting the sneaker designer back. I'm hoping, shall I say, that they're successful in getting their friend back because they love Kanye West.

That's well said. And I hope that Kanye West goes on to be okay, better than he's feeling right now. But I tell you what, I can't let him pull me into the place that he's in any longer. I'm done. I get it. Kanye West is your bachelor.

What? As in he's, it's like me. I'll always be tied. I'll always be the Bachelorette, the first black bachelorette, the black charrette, as some people call me. That's what I'm saying.

I will always be tied to that. It's your bachelor. It's your bachelor. I thought you were about to say, you're done with the bachelor. You got something you want to get off your chest? I've already said that unless they make changes, unless they make changes to be more inclusive for people of color, black, brown. I can't just say black. They don't have any kind of color.

So they just need to be more inclusive of color. If they do that, then I'm back. Then you're back. All right. Thought words, we are out of here. We will be back to our regularly scheduled rundown of amazingly necessary topics to discuss on the next episode. Oh, I just wanted to say, like, send love and prayers to Tamar Braxton and her family when we're talking about mental health and things people are going through. She was in the news.

I don't know for sure. I haven't seen an update on the report, but it's been reported that it was a suicide attempt. I haven't even seen an update on how she's doing. I don't know if you have Van, but I just want to send her. You have not? I just want to send her, let her, like, acknowledge that, pray for her. and her family and hope she makes it through out of this. Hope she makes it through too.

Hope that Nick Cannon also, who has some very troubling Twitter posts over the last couple of days, he's going through it in terms of it seemed as if he was hinting or intimating that he might do something to hurt himself. Listen, I myself have a pretty debilitating anxiety disorder and so far be it from me

to pile on somebody who has mental health issues. That's why it's very, tough. But sometimes, even for me, I know that I need the space. I'll tell my parents this. I tell people around me this sometimes. I need the space to work with my therapist, to work with my doctors, to work with the people who care about me getting my head right to do that. So what I'm going to do is rather than harp on his every word, rather than get caught up in his every action and every deed, I'm going to give Kanye West the space to heal. himself. It's great.

And if that lasts infinitely, then so be it. All right. Thought Warriors, thank you, take your thinking caps off. But don't stop thinking. I am Van Lathen. I'm Rachel Lindsay. And we are out.

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