Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Sifting Through Emmanuel Acho’s Perspective. Plus, Logan Explains the NBA Gambling Scandal! | Higher Learning | The Ringer

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

Rachel and Van start the show by rating Stephen A. Smith’s apology to Jasmine Crockett before getting into Emmanuel Acho’s latest comments and perspective on our past intense interview with him. Then, Logan Murdock from The Ringer’s Real Ones joins to talk about the NBA gambling scandal, celeb culture, and masculinity. Last, they talk about the backlash against Keke Palmer’s new fish-out-of-water show, ‘Southern Fried Rice.’ 00:00 - Welcome! 00:53 - Sneak peek of next week’s show: The AI problem 07:29 - Stephen A.’s apology 29:34 - Revisiting Emmanuel Acho 53:11 - Logan Murdock joins us! 1:40:51 - Keke Palmer’s new show 1:59:14 - Thanks for watching! Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Logan Murdock Producer: Ashleigh Smith Video Supervision: Chris Thomas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Highland is on and Zyvan Leighton Jr. It is me, Rachel Lynn Lindsay. Later on, we have Logan Murdoch joining us on the show to talk about the Chonty Billups, Terry Rozier, shocking news, breaking news that happened in the NBA. Gambling sweep, the mafia, is involved. Logan Murdoch, a ringer colleague, is going to join us to talk about the ramifications of this

for the NBA, NBA culture. We then get into a larger conversation about celebrity culture, which then leads to a larger conversation about masculinity and manhood and the fact that Logan likes a nice coat of paint on his nails. And we talk about all of it, talk about prints, talk about child uncles, talk about a lot of stuff. It's a great conversation. Logan's great.

We have a conversation about it. This is more of a culture-heavy show. Next week, though, we are going to get into the economy. We're going to talk to you guys about something that you guys should be very aware of, which is the fact that the American economy right now is a ruse. It's a ruse. It's not real. Are you invests?

Do you have stocks? Not really. Okay. It's not a real economy. I have like, you know, all those funds and stuff, you know, get like money market accounts. Oh, okay. I only asked because of the conversation we were having off mic and I started talking my financial guy about stocks and stuff and my investments and just an interesting conversation.

Let me tell you what I believe. I'm sure your financial guy. God's tell you different. We're in an AI bubble that is being driven by supernormal investment into one sector of the American economy. And on top of that, there are six different companies that are funding this, one in the middle, Invidia, all of them together, funding each other, making artificial revenue that has been leading to more investment.

And when this bubble bursts, we're going to experience pain. We're going to have people on to talk to you guys about this. Not just that, but I'm large language models and whether or not artificial general intelligence is even possible. They told us that AI would fly us to Mars and they can't even get chat GPT right. All of it might be a lie, Rachel. We're going to talk about it.

It's very important. All right, there's a lot of stuff to talk about it. We're going to start to show with Stephen A. We're going to bring an expert on, too. I just want to say that. We're going to bring an expert on a talk, right? I've been drilling down now. No, I know.

I know you are on top of your shit. I asked one question. He sent me like eight videos. Eight videos about it. And I was like, all right. I'm gonna get, I'm gonna. But I did talk to my guy about it. As I posed some of his questions.

What do you say? I asked him if you wanted to come on. He was like, you don't want me to come on. Why? Just say, you don't want me to come on. No, no. We're going to have an expert, come on. I don't know.

Tell me this. If he's going to make, because if he's going to talk about, is it humble? Okay, shout out to humble. If he's going to talk about capital expenditures and all of that stuff, Look, there are a lot of people who believe this. I'll say this before we go. I'll give the other side. There are a lot of people who think that the overinvestment into AI is actually a positive thing

because there will be technologies that we get out of this overinvestment period that's run by OpenAI in Nvidia. Open AI is the company behind Chat GPT. Nvidia is the company that makes the GPUs in order to power all of this stuff. So there are a lot of people who believe that this overinvestment will look. lead to technologies that we can use that will change our lives. A lot of people that say the technologies are not catching up with the investment. Nobody's turning a profit.

It's all a frugazi, frugazi, all that stuff. So we have to talk about that. There's the only thing that we have to talk about, too. AI data centers. Oh. I saw I was reading something about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys, that person that lives next door to you.

Yeah. Could soon be an AI data center. constant humming, using all the electricity in your community, using all the clean water, the clean water. Not just water, using clean water, constant humming, all of this stuff so that somebody can make a video of sexy red twerking on Martin Luther King Jr. They stopped those.

They came out and they said, no more Martin Luther King Jr. videos. That's crazy. I sense you one. I know. I said, don't laugh. I said, don't. Did you laugh? All right.

We got to move on. Somebody back there is laughing. Somebody back there is familiar. Soroslop sucks. It sucks, right? It sucks. It sucks. But, you know, the only thing that's funny about Martin Luther King, Jr.

in the trap or Martin Luther King Jr. in the strip club is that we don't see him that way. Of course. So it is something to where you guys. get videos all the time and you're not supposed to laugh at them. And then you go, oh, man, that's not funny. But the first time you see it is, it's funny. It's jarring. Like the one where he was at the microphone and he just, instead of talking, starts barking.

Yeah. I was like, that's the one I sent you. And I was like, this is like, I didn't, it just made me uncomfortable. What does it say about, what does it say about, what does it say about people, though, that the first thing, we get some kind of technology, a useless technology, by the way. And we do some racist shit with it. Yeah.

Yeah. I saw something the other day on SORA where it was like taking Pixar Disney movies and changing them into something. They had one called Fields. With niggas? He was in the field. It was like some racist shit. Like a slave in the field.

Stop it. Eddie was going to escape and on his way to escape it. He said, I'm going to be a basketball star. I'm sorry, man. Fuck that shit, dog. That's hilarious, bro. They're like, bro. That's fucked up.

See, everybody's laughing. This is all black people back here. That's all problem. You see what I'm saying? Summer from Disney and Pixar. Where are these knee guards? I have a dream that one day we will make it to freedom. I'll be a rapper.

No, actually a basketball player. Fields coming soon. I watched the video yesterday, and the video, this was actually not AI, but it was like about little people. And little people in a society where they dominated society, and they called regular-sized people biggers. and they called them biggers and they were like,

we don't deal with bigger lovers over here and the whole deal. And I'm looking at this shit, I'm laughing my ass off. Our problem, one of our problems is that we love to celebrate too much and we actually have a great sense of humor, great cultural taste, all of that.

So we get distracted by it. That shit you just described. That shit is fucking funny. I don't want to see it, Rachel, get it off. Rachel, Rachel. First of all, let you guys know that video costs a lot.

Why they electricity, a lot of water. It's ridiculous. It's terrible. Also, I'll say this. Open AI lost $5 on that video. Every time they make one of these videos, they lose money. Open AI is burning through cash because they're not profitable. And so they're not profitable.

And the energy and economic demand of making those videos, they don't really make that back. So they're just burning through cash and depending on investment from outside investors and the circular economy that AI has created to keep it going. And we need to make sure that you guys are paying attention to it, so we're going to put you up on it. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you?

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Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at Fandul.com. Let's start with Stephen A. Smith. He has apologized to Jasmine Crockett. This is a Rachel special here.

No. It is because I saw Rachel, I saw you in Stephen A. Smith's comments. So frustrated with him. You're upset. I saw you in his comments, like, fighting a war. Like, so, like, I'm going to let you. I was using exclamation points and everything. He keeps coming at her.

You were really into it. Let's listen to what he has to say. And then I want to get why you're so. You're so jennyed up about this one. Welcome to this special edition of straight shooter with Stephen A. That's what I'm going to call this straight shooter with Stephen A because obviously this doesn't have anything to do with sports. This has a lot to do with a whole brouhaha that's been going on with me over the last few weeks.

Now, I will tell you, I apologize for not speaking about this earlier. If you took a close-up of my face right now, you'll see the right side of my face swollen. I had emergency root canal, double root canal surgery. And so I've been down and out and drugged up and stuff like that over the last few days trying to overcome this stuff. But nevertheless, it is what it is. I'm here right now. I wanted to take a moment because I saw something disturbing in regards to President Donald Trump and how he came at Representative Jasmine Crockett.

And I wanted to take this opportunity to attack this issue as it pertained to me and Jasmine Crockett because I personally have had an issue with how things have been misconstrued and misinterpreted. But at the end of the day, I have to own it. And that's what I'm going to do today. And so when somebody says to me, Stephen, rather than point to her and her verbiage and her language and how she talked about the president, what about how he talked? I have no problem with that. I can understand that. And if that is the reason that everybody is in an uproar, that is fine. And I have no problem apologizing to that to my sister because, damn it, I want her to know.

I don't feel that way about her. Just like I didn't feel that way about Kamala Harris. Just like I don't feel that way about the marvelous, the wonderful, the incomparable, the greatest first lady ever and Michelle Obama, in my estimation, or anybody else. But what we're going to do on this show is understand who the hell I am and how it's going to be as long as I'm doing this show. I have no problem apologizing if I'm wrong. I have no problem apologizing if I've made somebody feel a certain kind of way.

That nigger said Stephen A line that bitch up and he shot that motherfucker straight. What you got to say? Listen, you know, y'all know how I feel about Stephen A. Smith. I don't want to talk about him anymore. But we have to address the apology because we've been. talking about it for the last couple of weeks, which I'll start from the top. That's bullshit about him having the root canal. Of course he had it.

I'm not going to deny that. But him saying he's down. Well, no, no, he's saying he was down and out. He said, I apologize. No, I'm saying he said he apologizes for not for just now having these comments because he had a root canal. But he starts off saying people have been, you know, talking about what he said over the last couple of weeks.

That was not a two-week thing. The reason that it took you two weeks to say it is not because you had a root canal. It's because you have been getting reigned in social media. You have been getting ripped apart for your take on Jasmine Crockett because you can't back up the things that you said. There's not one redeeming thing that he said. Nobody's agreeing with him. And it got to the point where he has to fall on the sword

and admit that he was wrong in what he said. He says, and he uses the basis of it, of Donald Trump saying something recently about Jasmine, Crocket, and he's saying if anything I said contributed to that, I apologize because that is not how I view Jasmine Crockett. My frustration, the reason I was in the comments, is because this is not the first time that Donald Trump has attacked Jasmine Crockett or another Democrat of color. It's not the first time. He makes it a regular occurrence. So for you to play ignorant and act like, oh, I wasn't aware that Donald Trump says nasty things about Jasmine Crockett, I'm sorry, I just can't let that go, which is why I was riled up

and I was writing in the comments. Prior to Stephen A. Smith making the comments he did about Jasmine Crockett, Donald Trump had said that Jasmine Crockett has a low IQ. She's a nasty woman. She's a low life. We shouldn't waste our time on her. He can't believe that this person is in Congress. If she ever had to pass an aptitude test, that's the one that she should take. And he said if she had to take one, she wouldn't be able to pass. it or it would reveal who she is. And then he uses her as a mockery, and he's like the Democratic Party's weak leadership.

It's because of their new star, Jasmine Crockett, and he says they're in serious trouble because she's their new star leading it. He has continued to put her down, as he has before. She's not the first politician that's a woman of color that he has continued to say negative things about because of what they look like.

So for Stephen A. Suss... You're talking about Donald Trump. Donald Trump. Donald Trump said all those things. Prior to Stephen A. Smith, saying what he said about Jasmine Crockett. And then people criticized him for attacking a black woman,

but also not holding Donald Trump to the same standard who has continued to lash out or unleash attacks on a numerous amount of people, including Jasmine Crockett and other women of color that are politicians in the Democratic Party. So now I'm not going to let it slide

that you want to come on here and say, that is not how I see Jasmine Crockett. You want to backtrack the things that you said because people are coming up. coming at you and you're using something that Donald Trump just said when he's been saying it. And for Stephen A. Smith, I just listened to him on first take today. For Stephen A. Smith to say, I'm a person who absorbs and talks about politics all the time.

Why is it that you have no idea the things that Donald Trump has been saying about Jasmine Crockett? You don't get to pick and choose which things you're going to acknowledge and which things you're going to not, which things you're going to play ignorant to and which things you're not going to. So I'm just frustrated with, again, I've said this before on the podcast, this circle that Stephen A. Smith keeps taking us to to fit a certain narrative or to win favor with the public or to go viral or to get people to tune into his show. I'm just over it. And all that to say, the apology rating is a zero. Jesus Christ. Zero apology rating. All that to say, it's zero.

Rachel is, she's typically very lenient and shows a lot of grace with the apology rating. So this one is a shocker. Listen. Okay, a couple of things. First of all, low life, when you put all Donald Trump's insults together, low life, nasty woman, low IQ. That's like some color purple shit. Remember the color purple? Of course.

Remember how they talked about women in the color purple? Like color, oh, man, I heard she got that nasty woman's disease. Yeah, yeah, they did. You watched the color purple and you just want to go out and punch a random man in his mouth. Like, how could you guys have been a part of this, right? but mom for years and years and years could not stand the side of Danny Glover. She was like, that's not Murtaugh.

That's Mr. Get him off my TV. That means he played his part well. He did a good job. He did a good job. He lost all this shit. He was just one nigga with a fucking mule at the end of the movie. Do right about me?

Okay. Back to David Smith. Okay, a couple of things here. On the apology, I think that the full apology, I would encourage people to listen to it's supposed to. Yeah, you should listen to the whole thing.

I saw D.L. Hughley respond to this. And what D.L. said was that he extends grace to Stephen A. Smith because he also said some things that were untrue about Kamala Harris. People got at him, and he came around, so he had to extend that same grace. Well, I guess my thing is this. There's a larger community here. We're about to talk about Manuel Acho, too, in a second. and both of the conversations that we're having,

Emmanuel Acho was on the podcast, he had some things to say about me, and so we're talking a little bit about that. I think both conversations that we're going to have are actually not about Stephen A. Smith or Emmanuel Acho. They're actually about the demands that we put on community. And a question that we continuously ask ourselves is whether or not we are in community with people.

Now, it is a part of community to stress it. Like, that is, like, when you are in community, with someone and you make an ask of somebody, you're stressing them. You're asking them to do something out of community that they would have not normally thought to do or something that is a personal sacrifice to them. And you're asking for community to be bigger than that, for that to be bigger than a stressor to you or an opportunity to you. Community means more.

It means more than that. That's what community is. It's, to me, people that are locked in together that have each other's big. best intentions and outcomes in the back of their minds and in the front of their hearts, in the front of their minds. And sometimes to really be in community with someone or to believe that you're in community with someone, you have to stress that a little bit. You have to test that community.

And what it seems like to a lot of people is from that standpoint that over and over and over again, Stephen A. Smith fails the test of community. it felt like he failed the test of community with Colin Kaepernick to a lot of people. It feels like he failed the test of community when it was about when there was a picture of him smiling with Cheryl Clark. It feels like he failed the test of community when it is him talking about Jasmine Crockett. That's what people feel like. They feel like over and over and over again, they're reminded that there's something other

than being in community with us that Stephen A. Smith is interested in. I don't know that all of those criticisms besides Colin Kaepernick, which I have deep, deep Colin Kaepernick and you know what? It's not true. I think all of those criticisms have been fair. I was going to say. I do.

I think all those criticisms have been fair. I guess the question is what he would say to those criticisms to me was that there are other ways I show I'm in community. I give back to HBCUs. I give back to my community. Sure, sure. I show that I am in. And I know behind the scenes he does fight for black talent.

Right. On ESPN. Right. There are plenty of people that would probably set forward and say, this is the way Stephen A. Smith showed up for me. There is a time that we're in right now. There is a time that we're in right now where we expect a lot of the tilling of the soil that has gone into building community right now to be very evident.

Things are very dire. Why are you fucking around with Jasmine Crockett? And so the question is not necessarily whether or not what he said is truthful, whether or not what he said is accurate. I think the question is why? I'll say a couple more things and I'll turn it back rate section. One thing. There are two reasons that people make up

in their minds. Both of them, neither one of them are any appropriate explanation, but they have different motivations that both lead you back to the same conclusion. One is that it's super cynical and just for the purposes of building out of this platform.

It's a capitalistic play. Stephen A. Smith has been a sports guy for 30 years. Can you be a sports guy for another 30 years? Can you be a sports guy for another 20 years? Is Stephen A. Smith okay with being Tony Korheiser and Michael Wilbon, these giants in these arenas that are known more as sports commentators than cultural critics, right? You know, he wanted to do a late-night show.

He has aspirations outside of that. What is one of the best ways to be taken seriously as a cultural voice? It's to get into serious matters. Stephen A. Smith talking about politics is the same reason why Disney stars start taking their clothes off as soon as they leave Disney. They're saying, I'm all grown up now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And look at me in this way. The second explanation would be that deep down, there is something enticing or luring about,

not just the right, not just their politics and their policy, but the cult of personalities that he sees on the right. Like that Stephen A. Smith, and this is a question we ask ourselves all the time, that he likes Donald Trump in the way Donald Trump acts, that he likes Sean Hannity any way Sean Hannity acts, that those are actually his tribe of people, and that he can't help but identify with them in his political analysis of things because deep down, he is more like them than he is like us.

that's the second concern. I don't know which one it is, but these are the questions that people are asking. They look at a situation and they go, when you're picking between Donald Trump and Jasmine Crockett, why is it reflexive for you to choose to side with Donald Trump over Jasmine Crockett? Shouldn't you be looking for reasons to protect her instead of him?

Isn't that what we're kind of, the question that we're kind of asking? I'm not sure that this apology gets to that, but it does get to the fact that he at least listened to community, does it not? One of the things you said is the question people have as to why you're doing this. So that same question I would ask towards this, why are you saying this now? You said this weeks ago. After all the backlash, I'm looking at, of course we'll never know his actual intention,

but I'm looking at the timing of why is it that you're saying it now. I'm also listening to his apology. Yes, he is acknowledging that he was wrong and how he went about it. But I'm also listening to you say, and I said this as we were playing it, I go, I hate when he does that. You said something about Jasmine Crockett.

You said something about Michelle Obama. And then you'll be like, the wonderful, talented, amazing Michelle. No, like, which one is it? To me, I don't like the, you said something and now you want to say, I think Jasmine Crockett, he says this later on if you listen to the whole thing.

I think Jasmine Crockett should be running for Senate. Now, you just said this woman has done absolutely, she's doing basically nothing but running her mouth. And what is it that she's actually doing for her district and community? And I said this before on the podcast. So my thing issue with you is, I mean, I agree with everything you said, but you talked about community part of it, more than it being accurate. And I have to lean to both. I think you're absolutely right about the community, but also the accuracy in what it is that he's saying. said this before. One simple search shows the things that, the initiatives, the bipartisan

bills, the other, like partisan bills, I guess you would say, that Jasmine Crockett has put through or tried to push through that represent the constituents in her community, going back to community. One simple search shows that. So when you pose the question of what is it that she's doing other than talking and coming after Donald Trump, a lot. It is why. It is why. her constituency backs her up. It is why she is so meaningful to the community because she's doing both. And I just have a hard time accepting or even digesting the things that Stephen A. Smith is saying because I'm remembering what you said before and the two don't reconcile together. You know what I would have liked to hear him say is? I was wrong in what I said.

And as somebody who now has a platform where I talk about politics, where I digest it, I consume a lot of it. I am a political pundit at this point. I should have done more research to determine what is it that Jasmine Crockett is actually doing for the community. And I didn't do that. I asked the question without ever even researching what the answer to it is. I didn't give her the benefit of the doubt of maybe she's speaking out of frustration because she is trying to push forward certain policies and legislation that is being ignored, but she is trying to do things on behalf of her community.

That's not what you said. You basically said, I feel this way about Jasmine Crockett, but how dare you say I don't respect black women when I feel this way about Michelle Obama? When I feel this way about Kamala Harris, you don't get to do the two. And to me, that's why it's not a full apology.

I just can't accept. It's not my apology to accept, really, but I guess I just can't be okay with the 12-minute speech that he just gave because I feel like it doesn't cover everything. I feel like I said a lot, but I hope that made sense. It does. It does.

This is essentially what I'm trying to say. As it relates to this. Once again, is there a thought in anybody's head that Stephen A's effusive praise of Michelle Obama or the fact that he liked Kamala Harris and he voted for Kamala Harris, that all of that is bullshit? Is there a thought that Stephen A. Smith, at his heart is not just a conservative, but a conservative that's, you know, he calls himself a centrist,

but he is somebody who actually believes in the cult of personality of Donald Trump. The reason why I asked that question is because what you laid out is seemingly Stephen A. Smith accepting Donald Trump's narrative about Jasmine Crockett. The reason why he might have not done research is because he believes what the president says. Right. And that, once again, is different.

It doesn't mean it's not something in and of itself to be debated or talked about, but it's different. Like, I've heard him say before that he understands why Donald Trump has it out for everyone. He understands the retribution that Donald Trump seeks against everybody because of the way they came at Donald Trump. I don't understand it. I don't buy that narrative. That narrative to me is not factual in any reality. Not at all. And even if I was to be able to emotionally understand somebody wanting to punish their enemies, the president.

So once you give the president of the United States, even an intellectual or emotional, even into like a shred of a green light to act in that way, you're fucking with the whole thing. And that to me demonstrates that you really don't have a fundamental understanding of how this should work. And he is sure, he makes sure when he's talking about this stuff to go,

even though I do kind of understand why Donald Trump, look, he's right, is his opinion, is his show, he'd be a straight shooter, the whole nine. But the larger question, The larger question right now for me is the DOJ in Alabama dropped a case where black people were fighting for clean water. Legitimately to get the shit out of the water. They're erasing black history. They're kidnapping people on the street.

There's one group that's fighting against that. And there's one group who isn't. I am not deifying any of the Democrats. I am not a Democrat. If you guys want me to explain why I'm not a Democrat, I will explain why I'm a Democrat. Maybe I'll do that later on. But there's one group that's saying, hey, leave the kids alone,

keep the military out of American cities. It's like dire now. This type of political conversation, this is 1996 shit. This is like the Beltway Boys, Crossfire, whatever. We're not in that realm. That's not what we're at right now. We're in the realm of legitimately right now, preserving the democracy,

we're analyzing our relationship to American politics and how that affects our everyday life. Your ability to move, your ability to go places, legitimately strikes taking place on vessels in the Caribbean, killing people where our government is saying their drug dealers just trust us. Legitimately, a genocide happening

that's being underwritten by both wings of the party, there's a ceasefire right now hope that it holds, right? Even though we see right now the far right in Israel trying to undermine the ceasefire. Like lives on the line, futures on the line. We've seen in the AI stuff, all of this stuff we're talking about, is there a strategy to affect people's lives that he is trying to affect? Or are you just yapping? I'm yapping.

We all yapping. But I'm trying to yap in favor of not zip time. children. Yeah. So, you know, that's kind of the thing. I can't, if somebody recognizes that they didn't done wrong and they come back and they like, or they recognizes that they were wrong, and they come back and like, yo, I'm cool, I got to give you that.

That's how I stay in community with people. Hey, man, you feel like you was wrong. Cool. You didn't listen to people. You didn't hurt. I got to give you that. But I understand everything you're saying. Hmm.

Intention is, we're going to get into attention when we're talking to that. Emmanuel Acho, but the timing. I feel you. I feel you. Get on the phone with that man. Like, that's your man. Get them up. No, after my... Oh. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away.

Trimfaya, guselcomab. Taken by injection is a prescription medicine. for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis.

Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about trim Faya. Trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business.

It keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit at Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. So, Emmanuel Acho was on 154 Africa. And he was talking with Godfrey. And he was talking with...

Akbar. Oh. Wasn't that Akbar? Yeah, it was Akbar. Before we even play this, I forgot almost everything Godfrey does. As a matter of fact, I think Godfrey is... is one of the voices that makes me believe in diaspora unity.

Called you Van Helsing. He did call me Van Helsing. He did. But once again, I've changed. You know what I'm saying? They were on 154 Africa. These are three Nigerian men, having a conversation.

And the interaction that we had with Emmanuel Acho was brought up, and this is what Emmanuel Acho happens. You recently had one that went viral with Van Lathen. Oh. That's the primary one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was that, how long ago was that, you know? January of 23 or-

Because you said what you said, and I know me, I like to do rants and all that. And I said, oh, you know what Acho said? I said, I like Acho, shit. I was like, I did Acho, Acho, Acho, A-O. Anybody ever go Acho, man? Oh, man, I'm several. Damn, I thought I was original.

But yeah, so I was like, let me see what he said. I said, ah, man, I don't know. Because being a Nigerian, I kind of know what he's saying. But I was like, I was like, let me. And I'm glad that you showed up. I said, oh, we get to talk about this. Because I was like, I'm not going to give my opinion on it. I don't want to say it because I support all the Nigerians that are on TV.

You know what I'm saying? So I said, I think people took it the wrong way what you were saying. If I'm right about how you deal with certain people because you're Nigerian. American. Yeah, I mean, I said there's a lot of things. And I don't really talk about that often just because yeah, I don't need to give it oxygen. But that that was the most disheartening interview conversation and response I've ever had for several reasons. Number one, what was your intention? When I asked what was your intention, the response to my knowledge was like, you know, well, I talk about you a lot off camera. So I didn't want to be like no BIA when you hear. And I'm like, who's, who's making you that?

Furthermore, like, if you wanted to attack me, I don't need to be present for this. Like, you can attack me when I'm at home doing something else. Because, bro, I don't really do conversations, right? I don't do podcast, rather. Like, I had vocal cord surgery, so I don't like to talk a lot. The only reason I did it was because my friend at the time,

Rachel Lindsay was on the show. So I see it come through, my dog, come through? Sure, I'll do it, whatever. As soon as I got on, I was like, oh, I see what type of time you want, you feel me? As soon as I got on, I was like, oh, this is a hit job. Right, right. This wasn't a, like, because I came on, I got my Emmys in my background and my back to

operate. I was like, okay, you got Emmys and band just looks, just looks mad. And then during the course of the conversation, I was like, I was really just disheartened and I wasn't as much disheartened for me as I was for us. Because I was like, if somebody's watching this, what are they supposed to assume? Where are they supposed to proceed? You just got black people arguing. Right.

This guy, you just got, you got black people arguing. Yeah, and it's like, pick aside. He was Van Helsing. What was this? What was the game? What was the gain? What was the game? Yeah.

If you got an issue with my approach, hit my line. You have my number and you can get my number from your co-host. So I'm very, and maybe because I'm Oprah trained, but I'm very intrigued always by what's your intention? And what was your intention for that? It's a lot of people I don't agree with in how they approach trying to reconcile peace in America right now. I've never once publicly undermine somebody. Yeah, yeah. Not somebody, Blatt.

So the issue? The things that he said aren't entirely wrong. Okay. They're not. I think this is probably a personality thing more than anything. Has it do with me, has to do with him. First of all, can we have a little real talk between us? Sure.

I called you before the interview. What did I say? I don't remember. I called you before. I think you asked me, does he know why he's coming on? I said, does he know? I said, I don't know that we should do this. Does he know?

I said, does he know? I said, I don't know that we should do this. And I said, I don't know that we should do this. Does he know why he's coming on? I'm talking to you because this is your friend. So, and what I said to you is, well, yeah, I don't know why he wouldn't. Because anytime we have talked about him negatively on the podcast, I have given him a heads up and said, hey, just so you know, didn't really agree with what you had to say. We discussed it on the podcast.

because at that time there were like several either tweets or positions that he had on his show where we took issue with and we discussed them on the show because they went viral. I had not said that to him right before our podcast, but any time previously we talked about him as a friend, I gave him a heads up. So I didn't talk to him prior to the podcast

because I just assumed, well, you know where we stand because we've talked about you a couple of times on the podcast, not knowing our booker because that's really what happened. We should be clear about what's being said right now. He had a different understanding coming in. We should be clear about it. And this is the clarity.

I'm not crawfishing back from the interview. And I'm certainly not in any way saying that, yo, I did tell Rachel. What I'm saying is that if he is asking what my intention was, the frame of mind that I went into the interview with was a frame of mind of being insanely displeasingly. please, borderline on anger. And the reason why I felt that way is because I had consumed a lot of his content.

So I had consumed in order to get ready for the interview, I watched a million episodes of uncomfortable white conversations. What was it called? Uncomfortable conversations with a black man. A comfortable conversations with a black man.

And in watching all of these interviews, they made me mad. Right. And the reason why the interviews made me mad is because of a difference in approach. He's right. It's a difference in approach in the way you react and confront white supremacy. There is a way that you react to white supremacy that makes white supremacy comfortable enough to talk about it. That's not my way. My way is here's a mirror. Here's what's happening. Here's why it's wrong. We can decide to have honest conversation about reconciling this or put your fucking hands up, best man wins.

That's the way I do it. But if you are a police officer or if you are an old white actor, I'm not going to sit down and make you feel comfortable and okay about the deep, deep, deep, ingrained, ingrained racism that you have inside of you. I'm not going to sit down with the police officer and try to understand the perspective of a cop who doesn't get that his job is to serve and protect citizens no matter what their race is, right? That's just not my way.

That could be somebody else's way, but that's not my way. So I'm having a conversation watching this and thinking not only is it wrong strategically, but it is harmful. Because in my opinion, when you do that, you actually give cover to them or to it. I don't want to say them, but you give cover to it

because they leave feeling like they had a conversation with a black man. They feel better about the lie that's being reinforced in them. And that to me, it's annoying. And so when I sat down, I was annoyed at having watched all it is. But that interview would not have gone the way that it was, but for one thing that was said. In the interview, at one point Emmanuel Acho says that he is in a unique

position to talk about the plight of black people because he understands black people and he talks to white people without the sting of generational trauma because he is Nigerian. He doesn't come from exactly, he doesn't have the exactly the same lineage

as black Americans. So when he talks to white people, he's, he's, he's, It doesn't bother him as much. Now, you know, he made that statement to a black man from the black blood-soaked soil of South Louisiana. I am bothered. I'm bothered by it all. I am intensely overwhelmingly and obviously bothered.

And all of you guys, as you watch this right now, Van is emotional about the way his people are treated. I'm emotional. My emotion focuses me on the life individually of black people in this country. Not when they marching, not when they go into college, not when they having their applications for their jobs read, not when they're wearing their dreads on fucking Wednesday. of a random month, of a random day, you should be able to have a good day in this country, regardless of the fact that you are black.

So if you tell me that you are in a unique position to have this conversation, and you have it in a way that's milk toast to me, and then you assert that to me, you're going to get pushed back. Should I have insulted Emmanuel Acho? No. since that moment

in my life I have endeavored and tried to create community with black people in a more direct and understanding way. I called him last night. Before we had this conversation, I called

him last night. And by the way, him and I had spoken before. He once said on Twitter that he didn't think that that Olympic athletes should be smoking weed because somebody could throw the javelin and kill someone. Yes, I remember.

And I made fun of that, and I laughed at it. And then he called me like, hey, if you have a problem with me, you could call me, right? And I've done that before, too. Particularly the people I respect, I get it. We should be able to have these conversations. Me saying, calling him an emotional butler, even though that's a cold-ass line off the top of the dome. Now, got to give me that. And they did.

That's a cold-ass line. It is something people say all the time now. That's a cold-ass line off the top of the dome. that's not the way that I would want to react at my best. But what I do maintain is this. If you are going to fashion yourself as someone that is going to sit down and have conversations, particularly with white people and white supremacy, white people who, I'm not saying that Matthew McConaughey is a white supremacist.

I'm not saying that the police is a different situation as far as what they protect and what undergirds them. If you are going to take that burden on and you're not going to. and you're going to exist in that situation. If that's what you're going to do, whether you do it, the Oprah way, whether you do it, the Charlemagne way, whether you do it, the Van way, whether you do it, the Stephen A. Smith way, don't matter what way you do it, have the conversation with the understanding that there are lives on the line. And that any weakness that you show in that will be eaten, digested, and shit it back on black people by white supremac. That I do not back away from. I do not back away from any of that stuff, that criticism, none of that.

I watched this and you know what I thought? I thought if he thinks that I said that I, that I, that he came in and I was like, I'm going to get Emmanuel Acho. That's not what I thought. What I actually thought was after watching all of this stuff, I probably wasn't into the right head space to have a conversation with someone who's work, not as a person, who's work on this issue. I do not respect. And we would have had the conversation and maybe got back to a place of understanding, but I got triggered.

You got triggered, and we've said this before, but I just want to reiterate it if somebody's new listening to this. He, despite me giving him the courtesy previously of telling him every time we've talked about him, I did not call him before the show because I didn't feel like I needed to. he knew what he was walking into, I felt, but unbeknownst to us, it had been communicated to him

that he was coming on the show to talk about The Bachelor and our going to UT together and that kind of interview, like almost like an update on what Emanuel has and what he has going on in his life and who he is as a person. That is the assumption he came into it with. So you having watched all that material and feeling a certain way, him coming in under this notion that he was talking, talking about himself and what he's done, kind of going down his resume and our friendship, those two things did not align. A couple of things I'll say about Emmanuel Ocho. Did he pick up the phone when you called?

He did not. Okay. By the way, me and him have spoken since then. Since that interview. Since that interview, me and Emmanuel Ocho have spoken since then. I saw him one night at Boa over and said, what's up? Yes. Since then, it was cool.

Now, I will say this, there have been other things that have happened since then. I mean, it's not just what happens on uncomfortable conversations with a black man that bother people. Emmanuel Acho has carved out a public persona that some people believe to be anti-black. And to me, that is, if we have a real conversations, like, I worked at a place that was anti-black. None of us, before you finish, just real quick, none of us is pure. none of us is without fail, without fault. None of us is perfect. I'm in no position to judge anyone else.

I'm not saying that at all. I'm not trying to pit one person against the other. I'm just giving you guys my actual thought. I don't think people think that. And if I'm going to say anything about what he did, other than him saying, at the time, I was friends with Rachel. Not friends on no more? I mean, let him say it.

Let him tell you that. Is he following you right now? He does not follow me. He don't followed you. I saw that and I was like, oh, he didn't follow me. A nigga took it out on you. So, I mean, he felt like I didn't have his back. I think we talked about that before.

He felt like I didn't have his back in the interview. But I didn't dis, maybe I wouldn't have said it and handled it that way. But I also, as I told him before, don't agree with how he's handling it. And I have a unique perspective. I think I've said this on the podcast. Originally, he asked me to be a part of uncomfortable conversations with the black man. It was going to be a different title. And things happened in COVID.

And it was like, you do it. And we were supposed to have different perspectives on it. I'm glad it happened the way that it did because we wouldn't have aligned on certain things. But my issue with him in what he's saying here are a couple of things. One, you know, he talks about I don't do podcasting. I've had surgery on my voice. I don't really do these things. But you do.

So I find it interesting that he has such a problem with you calling out something that he's done in a public way. that is what Emmanuel Acho does. He doesn't have his show anymore, but when he had his show, when he's on social media, he talks about an issue that's happened in current affairs with sports, pop culture, he talks about a tweet. He dissects things that people do in a public way. He doesn't always give them a phone call. He doesn't always say, you know, hey, that, you know, I'm just going to deal with it privately. He has made a career off of reacting to things that happen. And he is he's able to do that. He has the right to do that. So why don't you have the right to then question him on things that he has publicly said when he does that very same thing? It's the victim mentality that I don't like.

I didn't like that when I listened to that clip that he painted himself as one way and made you seem like this aggressive person who was coming at him when that's not what he was trying to do. You know, he said, it bothered me for us. It bothered me for us. It bothered me for us. because people were watching black people argue. Now, I'm not saying I agree with the approach and how, you know, emotions got raised necessarily, but you have built an entire show and a book off of conversations with a black man.

You have positioned yourself to be a representative of a black man. You have others yourself from the American black experience because you feel like you are uniquely positioned to be able to have a conversation with white people that they can digest, that they might not be able to, for a black person who was born here, establish communal hierarchy. Because, yes, because of what they've been through. You have determined yourself to be the black voice.

So why on earth would black people not get the opportunity to question you about that? Now, again, we can argue about how it was done. But for him to say, you don't get to ask me that. You need to pick up the phone and call me? No, you are publicly talking about the black. experience. You have yet to been questioned or challenged about the things that you have said on behalf of community. You don't get to separate yourself from that. And that's one of the biggest issues that I have. Again, he could have said it a different way where I would have been like fair,

but to once again position yourself as a victim where you were the angry black man coming at him. Again, he othered himself in his conversation. But the reason why I don't have a problem with that, I get what you're saying. Yeah. She's not wrong. I was angry. No, I said I don't agree with your approach. Right, right, right.

But he's playing on that. That's fine for him. To position himself. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. I don't care about that.

That's fine. Everybody, like, Van is mad. Like, Van Cry on the podcast. Van thinks about stuff. Van is mad. He gives, Van Lathen, third person. I get mad. I see, sometimes I just get mad at shit.

I don't know why it makes me mad. I have a very tough time dealing. Not how people just deal. I've said this before on the pocket. I was like, I'll see somebody in a wheelchair wheeling across the street. And this is not in any way to be able-less. But I will think from a universal skill, why does that person not get to use their legs?

Yeah. You know what I like that. And so it's, it's, I'm sure people have great lives or whatever I'm not saying. Yeah, no, I'm saying. What I'm saying is like, I get wrapped up into shit. I get all into it. Like, I get, like, I've been doing it. an AI thing for the past month, I'm like, how can I stop this? What can be done? Okay. And this podcast

is the vehicle to talk about some of these things. This podcast is the vehicle for me to alert people and maybe raise a signal. And the way that I do that is by trying to convince people that I'm so on fire about this that maybe you should be too. I do not make any excuses or apologies about the way that I do that, right? But what I will take accountability for in any situation, it is always my function to exist in safety with black people. I want you to be safe around me to disagree with me and for me to disagree with you. That takes some type of restraint. That takes some type of decorum on my part.

I cannot ignore when I disagree with anyone no matter who they are because all skin folk ain't kinfolk. That is a fact. And the reality is there have been people. that have had to come to me and be like, Van, that thing that you are doing or saying is not in the interest of community. That's not in the interest of your sisters.

There are black women that I still need to apologize to for the way that I handled situations that I thought I was handling in the right way. I was handling them in the wrong way. Black men, people, family members, all of that. I cannot be above a little tighten up or a little get right. So when I'm saying, hey, I want to be able to sit down in the table with everyone and find five things to agree with.

That's what I want to do. And that's the work that I've done on myself. However, having said all of that, there's a responsibility that people have when confronted with certain realities to treat those things like the life and death situations that they are. and if any of it looks like you're not doing that, people will assume, assume that it is a grift. Correct.

And that people will assume that it is a grift. And so sometimes when I am in tension with somebody, the tension is the opportunity, same opportunity that I've been given. The tension is an opportunity for, the ethos of what it is that they're doing to be made plainly crystal clear to people so that they can see it for what it is.

I don't want no beef or bad feelings with Emmanuel Acho or anybody else with Akbar, with Gawfrey. Like I said, Gawfrey I particularly fuck with because I'll tell you something about him. We can move on. Van Helsen, whatever the fuck I am. I can tell you something about him. He is a night.

Nigerian man, Nigerian lineage, but is a black guy, that is in total community. I've never seen Gawfrey do something that I can think of and been like, it seems like he doesn't understand that we all black. If I was to look at his content

and look at the way he positions things, I'm like, oh, well, he gets it. Like he understands that in this country, there is a specific condition applied to a specific skin color and you can't escape it even if you try. Like there's a oneness there. I'm not saying that, you know,

I know how to make the Joloff rice. I'm not saying to anything, but there's a oneness there. And I've always thought that. I just haven't felt that on this one that's when Emmanuel Acho. And maybe I'm not supposed to. He said that we are cut from different cloths and maybe we are. Yeah, he's other than himself.

But that's enough on the manual. That's enough. I could keep going. That was about community. It's time for Logan Murdoch to talk about basketball players and league and paint your nails and all of that stuff. We gave Logan the big part of the show in the middle on the other side of this break. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows Winter is the MVP and making a mess.

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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. You guys, we have to talk about something that's happening in sports. And that is the sort of intermingling of sports culture and gambling culture. It's something that we knew was going to come to a head at one point. It seems like it did come to a head right now. Chauncey Billups, Damon Jones,

have both been arrested by the FBI in part, as part, should I say, of what seems to be a pretty wide-reaching investigation or crackdown on illegal gambling. Now, I should say this. These are two different situations. Oh, I forgot to mention another one. Terry Rozier.

Terry Rozier. So those are two different. Terry and Chauncey are different. Terry, Chauncey, Damon. Damon is the link. Damon is the link. Choncy is caught up as part of illegal poker games. Terry Rozier has been arrested by the FBI in connection to the actual alleged manipulation of in-game shit based upon prop bets and stuff like this.

He's been being investigated for this for the last couple of years. This goes back to his time in Charlotte. Now, before we begin this, we have Logan Murdoch from Real One. NBA ringer star. Before you even get this, we should say, just so people know. Legal poker games connected to La Cozanocia, aka Dumafia.

DA, they've rebranded. They are dumb mafia now. Was that copyrighted? They copyrighted. Dumb mafia. All right. The prop bet stuff that we're talking about now, these are micro bets.

If you don't know what it is, it's like, hey, will you get 10 rebounds in the game? You can bet on that on various different sites. If you don't get the 10 rebounds, whatever player that you're talking about, then you lose your prop bet. If you get the 10 rebounds, then you win it. The reason why I bring that up is because we're going to have a conversation, and my part of the conversation is going to be about the idea of prop betting in and of itself.

But Logan is here, and it's a real big deal. We're talking about active NBA players and coaches being arrested by the FBI at the beginning of an NBA season. What kind of big deal is this in basketball culture? It's a huge deal because we were supposed to be talking about Wimby being like the next great everything. And talking about how, you know, Rachel's Mavericks are probably going to be asked this season.

But instead, we're talking about this, right? We're talking about something that can lead a real black mark on the NBA's eye right now in a time where, you know, sports gambling, in sports in general is a very polarizing subject. But I was just really fascinated by like what sports gambling has brought into the conversation since the Supreme Court decision in 2018. And what it's done just for the players, right? I think I read something recently where before the decision, I think about 1% of people

were participating in sports gambling. That's ballooned to about 56%. Yeah. And what does that bring? That brings a lot more scrutiny to refereeing. player performance and also player safety and coach's safety. J.B. Bickerstaff had just already talked about how people would be running up on him, talking about, hey, man, my parlay is this.

What's going on? Why you ain't coaching this, right? And it's coming at a time where, you know, we have, you know, so much uncertainty in the country and so much uncertainty going on in general. This is not something that the NBA wants when they're trying to be in this transitional phase where, you know, stars are transitioning out and they're trying to find a new star. There's so many different types of things going on in the NBA. And the Clippers, the biggest two stories are the Clippers investigation right now and in the sports gambling thing, which can, sports gambling thing is probably a bit more,

a bit more terrible because it deals with the integrity of the game. You know, people watch sports in general, and they watch football, they watch basketball, because they think it's something that a win can happen organically. And once you take away that idea, then it takes away the idea of a league altogether. So this is really important for Adam Silver. that he gets this right. And it has to be a harsh punishment. Like if Choncy did this, he's a coach of a basketball team.

If he did this, you got to get him out of the paint. And same with the players and stuff. But this is a real, all eyes are on Adam Silver at this point. How are they on Adam Silver? Can you explain that? Because I feel like I'm such a dummy when it comes to sports gambling, sports betting. Like, I understand the very minimum, the basics. But I guess, you know, with, with,

So this is an FBI investigation and now it's handed over to the feds. How is Adam Silver involved? Like, what can he do in regards to what's happening now? And I guess also, can he even get a handle on sports gambling and has it gone too far? I mean, I don't think you could put the toothpaste back in the tube and sort of in terms of sports gambling. I think it just is what it is. And it's not like, it's feeding on a lot of different addictions. You know, that's the reality here, right?

And it's feeding on the instinct of a professional athlete, right? Especially like retired professional athletes. I was talking to somebody before I came in here about like when an athlete retires, they still have the same instincts, right? They still have the same instincts to win. So it's not really about the money. It's more about the adrenaline rush and things associated with that. But the reason why I say eyes are on Adam Silver in this context is because he has to dole out the punishment, right?

I mean, in terms of like suspension and things like that, right? And also, he is overseeing a league that has already gone through something similar like this with Tim Donahey. So this is kind of his, I mean, at this point, he's defined by the scandal of Donald Sterling, but this can be a defining scandal that, you know, defines his commissionership. Now, obviously, there's going to be stuff that from a legal standpoint, people are going to get punished if it happens. But as for the integrity of his league and what it means going forward with, gambling in it, he has to make the right decision.

I have a much more cynical view of all of this. We know. I don't think any of this matters. What do you mean? So there's a couple of things that's happening here. Number one is the reality of late stage capitalism. Yeah. All right.

We're going to start covering it on this podcast, but I don't think people understand in America right now. The average American, I don't think they understand just what trouble the economy is in right now. there are essentially two American economies that are existing right now, one for rich people, and one for poor people. You might say, hey, Van, it's always been like that, but it's very pronounced now with all the investment at the top of the economy

into tech and AI and all that stuff and basically a recession happening everywhere else. There is overspending on AI, over investing into AI and all that stuff. Everywhere else we're seeing a contraction of the economy. Why do I bring that up? Because there are two things that are still really solid,

really solid money drivers right now, even in that contracting economy. That's porn and gambling. Those are two things that people essentially, be honest with you, what has happened is the proclivities and the industry of the mafia types, because that's what the mafia used to do.

The mafia used to do porn and gambling. That now has been corporate, And now the corporations are the ones that are doing the things that people in the last 100, 200 years, you know, obviously prostitution, sex work, whatever you want to call it, was in there as well. But the industries that they were controlling was bookmaking and that. That's what they controlled. They don't control that anymore, although you see the mob still involved in these poker games. Now that is corporatized. That capitalism controls that.

And the appetite for, from people is still as big as it's ever been. That is not changing. That's not going away. And the appetite for sports gambling isn't going away. I think there's also something that's changed in, and you can tell me if this is true, there's something that's changed in the sports fan. I think the sports fan is as much of a fan of the bullshit of sports than they are of the outcome of games.

Oh, yeah. I think specifically in NBA. I think specifically in the NBA. I think in all sports, but particularly in the NBA, very true. In all sports, I mean, baseball doesn't really have the narrative that lingers about baseball players and stuff when the season is not around. College football has it. College football has an endless cycle of college.

football news that has nothing to do with the actual game that has to do with what's going on culturally at institutions and coaching hires and who did this and all that stuff like that what nick sabin said what jimbo fisher said all of that stuff all of this stuff to me helps the nbaa and i know that that's really weird but the mentality of the fan has changed this is a post-reality show post-Cardashian TikTok content world. So now when people see the Asperian thing that Pablo was doing, it makes them then more interested in what the clippers are going to look like. Who's going to ask Kawhi Leonard the question, what's going to happen?

When they see stuff like this, now the next time the Trailblazers play and Chauncey Billups is not on the sideline, people are going to watch that game like crazy because they're going to know how the team is responding to a narrative that has nothing to do with basketball. I do not think that people care as much about the integrity of these sports as they used to. So I think you're conflating two different things when you're talking about the Kauai thing and what's happening right now. Because the Kauai thing touches on a couple different issues.

Whatever happens with the Kauai thing, it's basically about circumventing the cap. Which is a competitive imbalance. Yeah, but like I think for the average, a fan that's already kind of assumed that that's happening, whereas that doesn't, yes, it affects wins and losses, but they're talking about free agency. That's a totally different thing. When you're talking about somebody that's betting on a game, that's way different than salary cap circumvision. That's two different, two different things to care about. I disagree, and I'll

tell you why, because the fans already have, they already have very casual conversations about the competitive I can I say the competition in the league they already have conversations about who's going to win if Scott Foster is reffing the game they always have conversations about like openly honestly

I don't think that the league let me finish open honest conversations about hey it's game four they lost the league Adam Silver made the call we're going back to game They already have assumed a lack of competitive, competitive integrity in the game. And it's, it's, they've, it's almost been, it's,

they've colonialized it almost. Okay, but that's the fan base, right? The league in general, with, you know, antitrust laws and a lot of different things, they have to have the semblance that there is order and that there is fair competition in play. I don't, this is still, this isn't, I mean, in a lot of ways,

it is professional wrestling. but by the letter of the law, it's not professional wrestling. So I don't think that it would be a good idea for the leagues to play in and be like, oh, yeah, like, hey, we're about to fix game four. That's not, I don't think that that is. I'm not saying that they would do that. What I'm saying is that it seems to me that there's been enough talk about this. The Lakers Sacramento series from back in the day.

Sure. Everything that Tim Donahey said, right? there's been enough talk about the purity of the competition in the NBA to where I think we've seen deflategate, we've seen SpyGate. I just think that the fans are cynical to a degree. They're watching the competition. And of course, they would like it to be fair. They would like it to be at a, they were like a standard

where there couldn't be any meddling or anything like that. I just don't think they care that much. I think it's a black eye for the league. It is embarrassing for the league. But in the grand scheme of things, the only way to really deal with this would be to outlaw prop betting. Even if you kept betting on a spread,

bedding an under, bedding the over, the only way to deal with this would be the outlaw prop betting and nobody's going to go for that. Well, the other thing that's like the boogeyman here is like sports betting, and I know this because, you know, we're sponsors.

by sports gambling here. And so the boogeyman is, though, is that sports betting is now in a place where it's subsidizing all of this stuff, right? Because it's huge bread. It is a really solid and dependable income stream. In a time where we do not have dependable incomes. That's what I'm saying. And so that's why I say the toothpaste is out of the tube, and I don't think that we're

getting to another place, but that's two different conversations where you're talking about integrity that a league has to at least promote versus what fans, I think, expect or don't expect from a league. I mean, is there a way for the, you said all eyes are on Adam Silver. Is there a way for the league to

embrace this? Embrace, like, the perceived amount, like, they're embracing what, like cheating? Well, not cheating. But just, like, sports gambling, I guess. I mean, they kind of have embraced it. I mean, every time I go to an arena,

now. It's like, you know, I mean, not in, I don't, not in California, but like, if I go to a sports arena, like, there's live sports betting there that's happening. Like, there, it's everywhere now, right? And my point is this. Once you do that, there's, there's, this is my point. There's reasons why they did that. One reason why they did that is just because of the money, obviously. But also, there's a changing fan base now. There is a different way to promote your league, 1985, whatever it was. Pete Rose betting on baseball. You have to do something draconian.

You have to give Pete Rose a lifetime ban from baseball to where the hit king of the MLB is not in the Hall of Fame because he bet on games. Because it was that important. The pure competition of the game was that important to the fan. I just do not think that the league... So do you think the league doesn't care about the competition? I think that they do care, right?

I think that they definitely care, but they care about the competition of the league in a different way. I mean, the test, honestly, though, the test is when it's if a star gets caught. I mean, respect to Terry Rozier, he was before this happened, or watching him, he was one of my favorite players

to watch, honestly. But, like, if this happened to, like, a Steph, right, if he got caught up in something like this, and it was like a smoking gun and they have, like, Cass Patel doing, press conferences about Steph Curry.

That would be the real test for the league and how they think, because you just brought up Pete Rose. They had to do something, right? And Jante Porter, they gave him a lifetime ban a year ago. How many lifetime bands can you give if this continues to recur? Right. Like, that's the question.

I guess, I guess what I'm saying about all of this is and the Porter's an easy mark and your point is well taken. But what I'm saying is there's nothing that they can do. There's nothing that they will do. There's something that they can do. What is that?

Give a lifetime ban. There's president that's already been said. I know. But what I'm saying is they could give a lifetime ban. What they can't do and what they won't do is stop the commingling of sports gambling and professional sports. They can't do it. Like, they're about to be three teams in three professional sports teams in Las Vegas.

The A's are moving there. The Raiders are already. there. They have the aces. So they, so they, it used to be that one of the big taboos about having professional sports in Las Vegas was the proximity to gambling and what they thought their players would be into. It's over.

This will happen. The leagues will accept it. What they can do in order to not have this conversation dominate the start of their season is to, I mean, Chauncey's done, Damon Jones is done, Terry Rozier is done, All of that's cool. Those steps don't even matter. What would matter is the league saying, hey, or the league working with the gambling companies and saying,

hey, there's no probing. They can't have any prop betting. Because prop betting is the one thing, the micro bets are the one thing that the player is most enticed to do. Hey, you know what? It's one thing to change, Tony from Blue Chips, is one thing to change the spread of the game. You might have a power to do that.

You might not have a power to do that. To do that, you need to get to somebody that has a real impact on the competition of the game. So you would have to, if you want to change the spread of the game, you might have to get to Steph. Or get to a coach. Or get to a coach, somebody that has the ball in their hand. You might have to get to somebody who has power to call a timeout. Yeah, or a ref.

But if you're telling me that this bet is basically about five rebounds or four. Anybody can do that. Can you get five rebounds in NBA game right now? Is there a way? You don't think of a rebound? It's too hard on my body. Is there a way and this might be impossible? Is there a way to, I don't know, monitor the players in a certain way to where I don't even know if this is possible.

I've just tried to figure out a way. Stop looking at me like that. Put a chip in them? No, but just like. Anti-Christ rachel? They can't even monitor them to. I don't even know how. You heard of it.

I mean, y'all, hold on. You all. Let me tell you where my mind is going. Let me tell you where my mind is going. What I'm going to. Y'all lived in L.A. a long time. Y'all know the L.A. games. Are they monitoring their players in the actual?

Rachel is all to the left. She's all elected until it comes to sports. Now she wants to put the chip in the players. Big brother, big sister. She turned left. I mean, how did they catch? How did they catch? Wait, wait.

How did they catch Terry? Do we know? Like, what was there? There was a two-year investigation where they looked at the fact that sometimes a a nigger would just throw the ball out of the back. See, there's some player. But there's, see, here's the other thing. It'll be like, Terry Rozier, lines up a shot, and he just kicked that bitch out the

fucking sands. What the fuck is going on? What the fuck is going on? Like he would leave games because he was injured. He over here like, like, hey, take me and take me out. Terry did not do a good job. Terry did not do a good job of hiding it.

I have a question for you. Do you think you would have done a good job of hiding in the prop bets if you were doing it? Nah, not in that type of situation. He wouldn't have got that much playing time. Yeah, probably not. What's the most playing time you've got in any sort of regulation to ask? I was never not a starter in anything I've ever done.

So, yeah, I mean, it's just a fact. Like, there was, there was, I was, I was never not a starter or anything I was, you feel me? Yeah, so, all right, my bad. I'm gonna be out, I'm gonna be out there. I'm gonna be, I'm a factor, nigga. But, but, but no, but seriously though, and the, the reason why I'm, the reason why I'm approaching this like this is because,

and it, and this might be TMZ brand, I might be TMZ peeled on this. Mm-hmm. Yo, it's like, take the experience story of what you brought up. Pablo Walter Cronkite, Torre. Take that story. That story dominated the NBA offseason, right? Dominated the NBA offseason. There's a lot of things that are happening in the NBA off season

that are interesting from a competitive standpoint. Yeah. But what dominated the bullshit? Jordan Hudson and Bill Belichick, dominated the college football offseason. There were a lot of things, but what dominated the bullshit, we have changed.

And these things that are about the, everyone wants to go and watch these games and really be involved in the competition. They do. And there's, I'm not saying that that's completely and totally gone. But what I'm saying is, it's like,

people just have different appetites for this stuff and they use. Sports intersects with so many different things now. When did that change, though? Okay, because you have to, you know, you know a lot of shit that I don't even want to get. into with the TMZ life.

But, and you've obviously, when did it change? When did it change? Right? Because I feel, because, you know, growing up, it always was like the reality shows, the reality shows. And then, you know, there's the other side where it's like, oh, we're just buttoned up and we're above reproach. But now it's

like kind of, now it's together. Now everybody's with the bullshit. So like, when did, was it pandemic? Was it? No, it was before then. I tell you, I'll tell you what it was. I'm giving an example of something real quick. So do you guys know, you guys are now aware of the little crawl that runs underneath ESPN and all

that stuff. The ticker? The ticker. The ticker. The ticker. The ticker. It runs underneath there. So Fox has one. It runs the news is under there, right? The news is under there. Fox did not have that little news crawl that I can remember prior to 9-11. 9-11 happens. and then we are so shaken by everything that's happening. We want to know every single bit of news.

Have they caught these guys? Are there other cities? How is the cleanup going? Are they still finding people? What happens now? Wait, wait, quick. I know you want to talk. Do you think it was 9-11?

Because Bill Clinton comes in mind as well. Do you think that maybe a little bit before then? It's not. It wasn't that. So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, One story that demands near 24-hour news coverage, 24-hour news coverage, the 24-hour news cycle, to me, is born out of that type of coverage. The 24-hour news cycle, the 365 news cycle, 24-7, 365, you just cannot cover the game that much.

There's not enough in the game to cover. There's not enough in football to cover it. cover. In a player, if you take a Kobe or a LeBron or any of these guys, there's not enough basketball to run a 24-7 news cycle on these guys. You got to cover their business moves. You got to cover their relationships. You got to cover where they're going on vacation. How many times in the 80s and 90s did we see Michael Jordan on vacation with his family? Never. But we see LeBron and Anguilla. We know who LeBron's friends are. We know like the people he grew up in the whole nine. I think. But also, I think LeBron also feeds into that.

So 100% LeBron basketball. And I think it's also with the connection of Facebook started a year after LeBron. Yeah. Like Facebook was 2004. So I think the way we follow LeBron, the commercials that were out there, the way he's referred to as a savior, the way we were every single move of LeBron we knew about. I hadn't really seen that before also with the rise of social media, the internet, all of that. For football, but I'm going to say the Cowboys. The way the Cowboys.

The way they became superstars off the field, all their interaction, all the trouble, all of like the hoopla that Jerry Jones built around it, I'm going to say it was the Cowboys when things started, the way we talked about football changed. Sure, sure. I think, you know, it's funny. You brought up LeBron or LeBron was brought up. And I wrote a story on the ringer.com. I should go check that out. Where you're talking about Gen Z's relationship with the current NBA. And I was talking to a lot of like streamers. one of them said, you know, we love LeBron is one of our favorites. And I was like, okay, that's interesting. Why? Because he's literally the oldest player in the league. I was figured it would be like somebody young.

They liked Shea, but not on the level of LeBron. They love the two names were LeBron and Steph, but LeBron was number one for this particular streamer. And I asked like, why? He was like, because he meets us where we are. And he meets, he does the Instagram stories. He does the, now he's doing the Kaisonet, right? he puts himself where we are and comes on our home turf.

And it feels like we have that relationship with him because of that. Jerry Jones, I feels like, is the same way for a certain group of people. I remember watching the Cowboys Packers game. And Jerry Jones, every time there was a camera, he's like, yo, I'm trying to speak on this. I'm trying to speak on this Parsons thing. I'm trying to tell my side of the story, right? And there's a little bit of politics in that, right? Like, you know, you want to get in front of the story or make yourself, the Netflix documentary was perfect propaganda for Jerry Jones.

Whether, like, the full, it was the story versus Jerry Jones's eyes of the Dallas Cowboys. Yeah, made him very likable. And I think that that is something that for, you know, I know we started with gambling, but this is an interesting conversation to have. I think it started as a thing to get your narrative out there. But I think that that's going to be the new news cycle as we. going to, and the way it goes, it's like who gets in front of a camera first and tells their story first, basically is who's going to be believed right now. That's where it seems like it's going. It doesn't, it wouldn't have matter who it would have been. The appetite of people

changed. The culture changed. The reason why LeBron does all of that stuff is because he has to. He could choose to be Kawhi Leonard, but competing to be the number one athlete is not about the amount of commercials that you have anymore. It's about the immersion into people's lives that you can have. When we were at TMZ, it was about being quick, fast on top of culture, and realizing

something. I give you an example of a story here. LeBron James himself or somebody, I think it was LeBron. He's leaving an event and camera pulls up on LeBron. Ask him a question. He does not talk. He wasn't really into talking. talking to the cameras.

He does not talk. But he gets into an expensive car. I look at the story, I'm like, damn, we don't have a story. LeBron didn't say nothing. Evan, one of the most brilliant guys that I've ever worked with at TMZ, Evan Rosenblum, challenging to work for Evan. He was a tough manager, but he could look at a story and be like, people are going to care. He goes, no, there's a story in there.

The story is the car. He goes, what kind of car is that? we look up the car, the car was like $300,000 or something like that. The story then is LeBron James gets into that car. LeBron James in that car driving away, how fancy the fucking car is, is the story. The only reason why that story is a story

is because of the appetite from people about how he's living. It starts way, it starts, the 24-hour news cycle to me, I actually believe, begins. You could make, be safe, Monica Lewinsky. That's actually a decent point. But I really do think that it's 9-11. I think that the 24-hour news cycle kind of begins with 9-11. But our obsession with the lifestyles of

famous people has pretty much always existed, except we did not have the technology to keep tabs on them the way we do now. All of this affects how we relate to the thing that we're a fan of. But you just mentioned the Cowboys. The Cowboys are still one of the number one sports stories in the entire world. They have not won a Super Bowl since Tupac was alive. My Raiders got to the Super Bowl before you go. And the reality of that is that it doesn't matter if they get to the Super Bowl. It doesn't matter.

You don't have to win at this particular point. The game doesn't have to be pure. The drama, the fuckery, the story, all of this stuff. It matters more. It matters more than any of that stuff. That's why I'm pointing to, like, a specific time in sport. Yeah, but we never get a fuck about them like that, though. I'll be honest, though.

I never gave a word. The cowboys were a sports, but I don't want you to be like, everybody was around sitting there going. When Michael Irving got arrested and all the drugs, that was a huge story. It was. It was a huge. He went to trial.

Did you know what's funny about that? The strippers were testifying. You remember when he got off from it? This was one of the funniest. The cop tried to kill him. Come on. This is one of the funniest. Michael Irvin is a legend.

This is one of the funniest fucking news conferences, talked to reporters every time. Michael Irvin was like, he was talking about the fact that he was exonerated like it was a football game. He was like, now, don't lose intensity. I want you to deport it with the same intensity.

Don't lose the intensity. He was like, why the fuck am I wanting to go to the gym right now? I was like, yeah, he had to find out. He was like, don't lose the intensity. The same intensity. I was like, whoa. But we didn't give a fuck about it like that. No, I want to...

So I get what you're saying on, like, since 9-11, but the more I think about it, this phenomenon with, like, celebrity and celebrities feeding into the news cycle has happened for so long. I'm thinking about Michael Jackson and the hyperbolic chamber, right? When you get the picture dropped in the tabloid

of Michael Jackson, being in that hyperbaric chamber. Like, I remember, you know, stories about how, you know, his manager fed that to the, the tabloid. And so Michael can be like, that's not true. That's not true. But what did it do? It gave more attention to Michael when he was not on an album cycle. Like, these things tend to happen.

And we brought up the Cowboys. We're in Los Angeles right now. The Lakers are in the same breath when it comes to manufactured drama, right? where, like, they have the second most rings or second most championships in NBA history, but you would think that it was more of an impact than the Celtics because they are in LA in this media capital.

And Magic Johnson, another guy who was someone that loves to be in front of the camera, right? This is something that, and we were always intrigued with his personal life and what he was doing is in the goings-ons in the forum club, right? It's different. isn't, no, I don't think it's different.

I think the apparatus and means to finding these things is different. But I think the behavior and staying, because staying famous is a job, bro. It's not something that, it's not something that you just do. Yeah, it is a job. To be famous, right? Guys are fucking it.

Like, it used to be. But it always has been a job to be famous. It used to be, it's always been a job. To maintain it. But there used to be so much less that you had to do to actually do it. Of course. They're like, and so, and what I'm saying is they've always. But that goes to my point that the apparatus has changed,

but behaviors haven't necessarily changed. The behaviors have changed. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, thing, we're essentially saying the same thing, and I essentially said this before, like, the technology to keep up with a celebrity has changed. But because that technology has changed, that means you can't do the Barbara Walter's interview once a year and have it be a thing and then get papped a couple other times. And then another part of this was, and this is the last thing, we're kind of off the whole

subject. We'll come back to it. Another thing about this is that the stuff that you put out used to matter a lot, meaning that when you sat down and did Johnny Carson or did Barbara Walters or did some of this stuff, there was a movie behind it. There was a rock album behind it. Some of these people would go away during the, between the times that they had stuff out.

You wouldn't see them for a while. And then that gave them the opportunity to reinvent themselves, because when they came out, they were wearing different shit, they looked different, their hair was different. Like, if you look at the eras of Madonna, one reason why Madonna was able to continuously reinvent herself is because we weren't looking at Madonna every day.

So when Madonna popped up and it was Ray of Light and we're like, oh shit, she's on some weird, different type of shit, it was different. When Janet popped up and if it was velvet rope, we weren't seeing Janet Jackson every single day. So when we saw Janet Jackson again,

man, when that's the way love goes, came out, I was like, oh, shit. I hadn't seen Janet Jackson every single day. What was that? Oh, shit.

What was that oh shit? Janet all growled it up. The video came out. I was like, that's my one. That's my one. That's my one. You can't let them, you can't do that.

You need to post three times, four times a week. You can't let them do that. I don't believe. Only certain people can get away with that type of shit. And the ones that want the rock is going to stay in your face. LeBron is going to stay in your face. Like the ones that are out there and fame is a part of the liquor that they're selling you.

And the fucking, the products that they're selling you and all of that. Those people, they have to keep doing this. And this all comes back to the fact that capitalism has, I swear to God. No, no, no. I like this you brought it around. Capitalism has shifted our connection to competition, to leagues, to celebrity, and all of that stuff that only the story matters.

Only this fucking story matters now. Like nothing, man, they throw in the games. If we found out right now that the first five games was fake and the NBA had put the fix in, people would not stop watching the NBA. They would be more invested into what's going on with the league because of the drama surrounding it. For the, for the outside of the game.

Yes, yes. I understand what you're saying. All right. Logan. So what happens? Who's going to, like what happens now? Well, you are, Chauncey's done. Chonsie's done.

Yeah, Chonsie's for sure. Damn, Chances. Got it. Terry's done. Terry out. Yeah. That's what we already said what's going to happen. You just did the whole, I got to use that for real ones.

I got to scare the shit out of Howard. What? Just out of nowhere, just, ah! Just bang tables for no reason. Are you okay? Are you good? Thank you for asking.

How many years you guys been doing this? Oh, wow, now. Are you all right? I am hardened to it. Okay. Okay. How many years did it take for you to... See what I'm saying?

See what I'm saying? Rachel, putting chips in people? The first two years of our podcast was Zoom. Oh, same, same, for sure. Okay. Man, the first two years of our podcast, I was going... I was in and out of major depressive episodes.

I don't know if you guys... I want you guys to go back and look at... some of the time. I'll go back and look at some of the podcasts now. We were crying. Yeah. The pandemic was a wild time. I want you guys go back and look at some of the old higher learnings with me. And he'd be like, what's up, Thought Warriors?

Bro. My shit is all grown out. Rachel looked great because you were on the set of extra a lot of times. But I'll be like, what's up, thought warriors? How are you doing? I did. There's some shit in the pandemic, bro, that I just can't go back to. One night, like, I read some shit that I wrote during the pandemic that was hell of personal that I put out into the ether.

And I read it and I was like, yo, what the fuck did I just think? But we were all going through. We was all locked in. It resonated. We were like, we get you. But I was like, yo, I did this. This is here. Okay. All right.

Logan is one of my true niggas here. I want to ask Logan about something off the scope of this. I want to ask Logan about something that's off the scope of this. So, Logan, if y'all look at Logan right now, I'm going to give Logan an opportunity to talk to the whole audience right now. Because Logan is one of my young geez, right? If y'all look at Logan right now, Logan, he wears fingernail polished and paint. Show the people.

Logan wears that. That's a design. Yeah. That's nice. But this shit is crazy, right? So, for the guys that are my age and older that criticize athletes like Caleb Williams, that I can't think there's some other ones. Who are the other, the notorious?

You mean the ones that wear fish nets in 1982 and love prints and wear heels? Talk about it. Are we talking about them? Talk to him. Bro, I remember, I'm going to put him on blast, but it's cool. I love him. My Uncle Money, I got an uncle named Uncle Money. Okay.

Who among us does? He's one of my favorite people. He's like, you know, man's man, right? And I remember him during the Prince, during the Prince Super Bowl halftime show. Me and my little cousin, we just went outside to just go, you know, who, like, Like, you know, it was a break.

And to hear him go, yo, and like, you know, Prince had it, he had that shit on, but he had that shit on, right? He was androgyz. But to see this dude from Central California just fawn and be like, yo, I love Prince. I love Prince after all the stuff that he would say about, you know, like, you know, you know, the generation before us. How they were talking about masculinity. It was wild. And then I was just like, you, you, y'all, some. hypocrites.

They wore tight-ass leather. They did. How you wear tight-ass leather in the middle of August? And then talk about me and these fly-ass nails. Right now. It wasn't even just that, bro.

This is the thing. No, no, no. Here's the other thing, bro. Like, I feel like a lot of people would say, it's funny looking at it in hindsight how we think about sexuality and how we think, how men talk about sexuality in general.

But it was always there. Like, I was listening to Biggie, and he told the girl, you look so good, I'm going to suck on your daddies. You tell me. Biggie has several verses. This happens, right? But this was always in front of us, right? Big said that. Big said that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, look, this is what I'm saying. But like, it's always been there, right? But specifically about Prince, what I used to hear from my uncles and people around was like, hey, man, I'm to be honest with you. I said what y'all want about Prince. But they looked at vanity and Apollonia and Mytide.

My time. And, like, they looked at all of these women as these unattainable, really, light-skinned, these unattainable goddesses, these beautiful, gorgeous. And they also were surrounded by women who loved Prince so much that they made what I call the Prince exception to where Prince. But no, it wasn't even just that.

Jamie Fox has a stand-up where he talks about how, like, he kind of got attracted to Prince. Prince glared him. And, by the way, had the aura, couldn't even take it no more. And honestly, what I'm saying is Prince. I'm just saying it's always been there.

I know it's always been there, but there is, what I guess I'm trying to put my finger on is, it's not about who does get the Prince exception, because Prince gets it, and you can make the argument that Rick James got it, because when you see Rick James and some of the rock stars and some of the other people got it, the interesting thing is who doesn't get it.

And it's anyone who is directly connected to something that men feel like is masculine. You know what? It's football, rap, things like that that are hyper masculine, they sometimes hold on a little closer to those. You know, like, man,

the reason why I started painting my nails and it was during the pandemic, but it was just like more of, like, I'm a straight cis male, right? And I like my nails. I liked how it looked. You liked the way the shit look? But also it was just like

confronting the hypocrisy that like all my big homies would say, like, would say towards homophobia. It's like, I'm not that and I like this. I think that's one of the most masculine things that you can do. Be your own motherfucker. It is not care what people, how people label you. Because that's really what it is, though, right?

And just standing in who you are. To me, that is one of the most attractive things. And I think that that's what comes out with Prince. It's like, this is who I am. I know who I am. I'm not going to let you define me. In addition to all the other stuff you're saying, I think that that and his aura,

I think that that's what draws women to that. I would argue, though, when you're talking about masculinity, or you said you have, the excuse isn't given to someone who is attached to what is deemed masculine, like sports. And then you said rap, rap, rappers get away with wearing dresses and painting their nails and all of that too. Young thug? Young thug.

No, they don't. Young thug. He didn't get away with it. It was a non-stop, incessant conversation. But he moved past it. I understand. It's like Caleb Williams is, When you say get away with it, it had been like, oh, that's just thug.

No, it was a nonstop, ever-present, incessant conversation about the fact that Thug, like, like, Troy Ave came out, called all the guys weirdos. It was a non-stop conversation. But it also set up, like, when he did it and didn't let it phase him, then you saw people wearing pearls, you saw people wearing a lot. Like, he opened the door for so many, for it to be acceptable. He was like the first one to really do it with the album cover and everything,

but because he didn't let it bother him, and it didn't affect the music and people were still into it. It opened up the door for a whole generation of rappers to paint their nails, to wear their jewelry in ways that we hadn't seen like that before. So he got the prince exception. This is why I'll say about this.

Number one, I think that if you were really paying attention or even not paying attention, Young Thug, particularly Young Thug, because I could go back before when Wayne started wearing the tight pants and all of that stuff like that. Young Thub, particularly, Just beat people down with the quality of music.

He just continued. Beat people down with the quality of music. Beat people down with the quality of music. That's one thing. Another thing is when you would talk to people about Young Thug out of Atlanta and you would ask them, what's up with the guy in Atlanta

that wears the dresses? The people in Atlanta would tell you, hey, just let you know that guy is not one to be fucked around with. And that street shit goes very far in terms of that. I'm not saying that all of this stuff is true, but this stuff, the reason why we're talking about this,

stuff, this generation of guys is the reason why we're talking about it. Some of them don't, Young Thud doesn't really dress that way anymore, number one. Yeah, he does. But I will say that this was the conversation. That conversation is why we're having this conversation because Caleb Williams and Logan and some of the other guys. Jalen Green, those guys, these are the guys they looked up to. So the conversation hasn't stopped.

They might not be there anymore, but the conversation. Also, man, it's fucking fly, bro. My nails is popping. You know what I'm saying? Thank you, buddy. I'll wax my balls. I didn't want to... Why do I need to hear that shit, bro?

The audience, sadly has been... The audience has been subjected to it. But, like, why? You didn't have to do that, though. I was trying to... Was that your way of leveling with me? I was trying to be in community with you. It was.

Okay. Okay. I'm happy. Yo, man, I'm happy for you, bro. This is your truth. But see what you just did? I was trying to be in community with you. No, you were trying to have a shot.

What you were trying to do was be shocking. I was trying to be in community with you. I went, got a wax. And now I like the shit. We are so far off, which is the sign of a good conversation. Yeah. It's a good conversation with Logan. But once we get to the balls, we got to.

Please, please, free me from. Well, because we've already talked about it on the podcast. I know we've talked about it, but this is the fake shit that I'd be talking about. It's like, we can talk about with a lot of gumption and support when somebody wants to paint their nails and, dress androgynous and all of that stuff. And I support all of that. But a grown man, a 275-pound man

saying that he waxes his balls, that's too far. I like to feel pretty too. I'm thick. I'm thick. That's great. And my thighs is thick and they feel better. I'm a thick nigger.

Okay? And I feel better when my balls is waxed and y'all not taking it from me? You're not taking it from me? You said it took too. Nobody's taking it from me. You said it took two years. two years.

I don't know if I'm going to get in. Okay. If I'm honest. You got people, you got people in the background right now with their hands of their faces. I'm a thick nigger and I like my balls waxed. That's it. Hey, you want to,

I'm not moving off of it for Logan. For the antichrist. When you, when you come to the bat, you want to hit my nail lady, bro? You want to get your shit, puppy? I got you too. Oh, hold on. Let's go to the nail camera. I keep a fresh set of nails.

My dad didn't even understand the manicure. She was like, why do you get a medic? Well, no, here's a thing. Also, some other stuff, though, right? Which is hell of funny. The first person I saw what they nails like, like, was a pimp on international. You went for in Oakland. Like, that was the first, like, if we're being, if we keep it in a beam.

I'm going to be real with you. I think, I think pips get the prints exception. Oh, pimps for sure. Pips absolutely do. But once again, that, that exception that they get is because of their proximity to what guys think. This is like, with the women. Yes, for sure. The thing is, though, guys will say that stuff, right?

Like, Young Thug is a great example of this, right? Where guys will try to talk hell of stuff about you and then they realize they can't kick your ass, and then they'll be like, okay. Yeah, that's fine. Like, I feel like a lot of dudes also felt like... The way you dress or where your nails has nothing to do. All right, Logan, tell them where they can find you, bro.

You know, you can find me every Tuesday and Friday on real ones with Howard Motherfucking Beck and Rajabelle. We're about to go on Netflix, Brian. I heard about that. Tapping with that at the top of the year. Yeah. I'm Logie Boo, not the two. Logan Murna.

I will be here twice a week. And I'm going to be back here one day. You know what I'm saying? It was really dope. Yeah, we'd love to have you back. I mean, I'm about to be in the cut, taking notes, though, too, because we're trying to get our show popping and improve.

There we go. All right, peace. We're going to hit you out with some more shit. I'll talk about Manuel Acho. And talk about your balls, too. We're done. We're done. We're done.

We're done. All right. All right. All right. All right. What's that? Really interested in this. What?

So entertainment-heavy show. Kiki Palmer. Yeah. New Key TV series, Southern Fried Chicken. Southern Fried Rice. Oh, the Southern Fried Rice. Southern Fried Rice. She has her own,

Kiki Palmer has her own network, Key TV. She's a mogul. Yeah. She's got a show called Southern Fried Rice and the show seemingly centers on an Asian lady that's going to an HBCU. Right. And people were not,

they were non-plus about this, they didn't like this. they were like, why are you centering the Asian experience at the HBCU? What the fuck is going on? What about us? We've been stomping and shimmying and Delta Phi Delta action for a long time. It's Delta Sigma Theta. Please put some respect on our sorority.

Delta Sigma Rua? Delta Sigma Rua. Delta. Delta Pi? I'll let them come after you. Delta who? I've been with my deltas. I've been with the Delta. The wrong ones, it sounds like, because you ain't naming our sorority. I know what Delta Sigma Theta is. My numbers are really good with the deltas. That's all I'm going to say.

Ew. Okay. Anyways. Ew. Ew. What people were complaining about was that she's Kiki Palmer started Key TV and she did it because she wanted to promote creators of color. She wanted to push those stories, those people who may not be getting the opportunities in other places. And so people were like, oh, my gosh, they saw this trailer that dropped.

They saw that it centered around an Asian woman. in her story being adopted by black people and then going to an HBCU. And they just blew up over it. And what I would say to people, you gotta stop before you go in. And I have to take that advice sometimes too, right? Shut the fuck up.

Would you like for me to go in on you right now? Please, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. But we do have to stop before we go in. You have to do your research. Because if you would have, you would have known that this story came from a black creator. So yes, you might have to you might have to me.

might be watching where an Asian woman is at the center of it, but this is a story that came from a black creator, a black woman. And then Kiki goes on because Kiki responded to this. Kiki. Play Kiki sound right now. Hey, you guys, I don't want to take up too much of your time, but I wanted to chop it up real quick about this series called Southern Fried Rice that's premiering on Kee TV that is receiving some controversial feedback. Now, Southern Fried Rice was created by Nika Stevens. And while I can't speak to her inspiration for the show, I can speak to her dedication as a creative. I mean, IKEA has written, show ran, and produced four shows alongside her damn right originals team with

Key TV. And KeyTV has proudly invested over a half a million dollars on her creations. And I say that because it's not easy to obtain that kind of investment. In Key TV, this is the ethos of the company. It's a network not just because it has stars and shows or has talent, but because it's about the people who create the shows and connecting them. I mean, we have Alex King, a black queer creator that made the short film keep me in mind. We have Antoine Lachay, who created the horror story Blue Forest. We have Cousin M by a father and son, duo Roseiro and Eric McCoy, Chelsea Sanders, who created Make It Makes Sense and Unlabeled by Lawrence Murray. Chelsea also did Dear Keehee. Look, what you like is subjective, but the support of black creatives is not.

And it's a task that Key TV takes on with pride because if you want to be a creative, you have to be able to create. And that takes money. And it's KeyTV's mission to find the funds for you to be in practice, for you to experience trial and error and to take your projects off the page and get more than one chance to do it in action. So whether you like it all or some or none, I say give these creatives a chance to grow as we continue to grow in supporting them. So God bless you guys. And like I said, Nika has Southern Fried Rice that's coming out most recently, but she has Nepotista, Ho and Tales,

and Psychology of Fuck Boys. That's also some great stuff for you to check out. Take care. Thanks for listening. Holley's your girl. And it's a shame that Kiki even had to go here and respond to all of this and explain herself of who was behind it,

all the other black shows that she plans to roll out. And the money, like Kiki put half a million dollars behind this creator. Like, she's doing exactly the thing that she said she did. she was going to do. And I feel like sometimes people just look as beloved as Kiki is in the culture, in the community as we've been talking about on the show. I think sometimes people just look for a reason to hate on Kiki. Kiki is putting out black content. And I am not, I didn't go to an HBCU. I'm not familiar with this, but just because you might not be familiar with this

exact story about a non-black attending an HBCU, it doesn't mean one that this story doesn't exist. or that this story shouldn't be told. It just should. Like, I just didn't understand what the big deal was, especially knowing the money that Kiki is putting behind this black creator who might not otherwise

have been able to tell her story and Kiki is giving her the opportunity to do it. Or a story, I should say. I definitely understand the big deal. Thousand percent. So he's going to other himself because I don't go to HBCU. I'm not about to do that.

See how she jumped off this thing? And nobody, look at Hazel. Don't look for support. Don't know. Don't bring Hazel into this. You brought her in the wrong one. way last podcast. Like,

why? I walked in. Hazel had to defend herself when I walked in about the poor. Hazel shook her head at that bacon. She don't know.

No, no. She already explained it to me. So I do understand the big deal. But that doesn't mean, I mean, okay, let me get an example of something. This is just different.

So we come from a Diana Ross loving house. We love Diana Ross. Yeah. My mama think Diana Ross's best lady in the world. She's amazing. We love Diana Ross. But you know what else I heard?

I heard my mom. mother every time the whiz was on every single time the whiz played my mother would say Stephanie mill should have played dorothy in the whiz because she played dorothy on broadway and then when they made the movie motown made the movie and barry gordy put diana ross in the row so what i'm saying is that i grew up listening to my mom have a cultural conversation about what she thought was fair and right about the whiz. The only difference is that there was no Twitter. So if you put that on Twitter, 1985,

whatever the fuck it was when we was watching that bitch, 1986, then somebody goes, yes and, yes and, yes, and. Now you have a conversation about art and culture that is a big enough thing to where somebody has to address it. That exists now, didn't exist then. But these conversations about what we feel like is right and appropriate in the art that our artists make have always existed. Sure. And they are a part of the community self-checking itself as far as what we think we're deserved from the people that we've empowered.

Do you think, because she's, you know, the main person in it. And then it's a black cast surrounding her. Black creators, black, black, black, black, black. The story of a white woman. at a historically black college university. I mean, sorry, Asian woman, at an HBCU. Do you think that if Kiki had, so she goes on, in that clip, she says, this creator has so many other shows,

do you think that if this had not been the first one, that the reaction would have been the same? Is it the timing of it all? Like, we've been waiting to see what kind of content we're going to get from Kee TV. We know it's supposed to be all about us, for us, by us, and then bam, you released Southern Fry Rice. Do you think that that was the reaction

instead of if it had been a different show? And then people would have been like, okay, well, she gave us this. Is it this show or is it the timing? It's probably the show and the timing. I'll tell you, so I did a comment autopsy. Do you comment autopsy I do? And I went out to Kiki's comments. And I saw what I thought I was going to saw, see,

which is a lot of people with the blue checks that are in the industry going, Kiki, you do your thing, you go ahead and go, all these people do is look for something to complain and all of this. And a lot of the people that don't have blue checks going, wait a minute, use some discernment. This is a conversation that matters to us. And we feel like we feel. I'm not saying that it's 100% on one side and 100% on the other side. But what you saw was artists defending artists and people defending their portrayal, which makes a lot of sense.

What people don't understand sometimes is artists, people who make art and support art. they want the ability to tell whatever kind of story they want to tell. When I was having the conversations about one battle after another, what people would say is that, hey, they should be able to write a movie and write a character that is not exactly reflective of what you think the best traits of black women are. And that character should be able to exist. That character should be able to go out there and be portrayed by a black actress,

a brilliant black actress, and we should be able to live with that. You should be able to live with that portrayal. And it's not always about cultural responsibility and accuracy every single time. I get that and I understand that. At the same time, there are other things that have to be considered as well. For example, white people have these fish out of water stories, right? Where somebody goes into a different situation.

But they also have a different type of story. They have a fish into nigger story. Cadence. You ever see that movie? Cadence is with Charlie Sheen, Lawrence Fishburn, Michael Beach. Martin Sheen. Michael Beach. Michael Beach, the man.

Which, has he playing his typical role? No, Michael Beach is the man in Cateons. Michael Beach is the man. I know, we've talked about him, but, you know. Michael Beach. So I look at him and I get angry. He did two roles. I get angry when I see him.

Michael Beach is the man. I'm not denying it. But Cadence is, Charlie Sheen gets, he's in the military. He gets sent to military prison for something that he does and he meets a group of military prisoners that have their own off-kilter way of doing their thing.

You know, they do a, they dance, oh, don't you know, that's the sound of the man, get back, working on the chain, go watch Cairns if you have it. So it's a chain gang. They are, it's not a chain gang. They have military jobs

in the prison and they do their jobs and do their thing with a certain exuberance and it's really about their bond and their their thing and how Charlie Sheen's character gets in with them. It's a great movie. One of the types of movies they don't really make anymore. We've also seen other fish into nigger stories.

Say the Last Dance. Fish into nigger, right? She wants to dance. She's around a bunch of niggas. And then she becomes a fish into nigger dancing with them. What about Soul Man? Is that what it's called? Soul man.

Is that what it's called? Soul Man is kind of a fish into nigger story, but it's actually fish into nigger into white men. So we've seen these stories before. We've seen these stories where a black person or white person gets put into an all-black area and then the culture of that place, whatever they're in, gets litigated through the eyes of somebody that's not black.

What if we've just fucking had enough of that? What if what we want now or some people, Not everybody is black people centered in black places telling their black ass stories. What if we don't want to know what a white lady would do? I love the same last dance, y'all. Okay. I love that shit. What if?

What if, what is, she was dancing there that. What if there are some people that say, and not that they haven't been movies like that, not that they haven't been school days, not that there was one, there was burning sands. Remember that one? they've made movies at black colleges before and stuff like that. Yeah, think of the dance ones. I know, but what if what people are saying is...

Stomp the yard. Stomp the yard? Stomp the yard. What if what people are saying is, we would like to be centered in stories that are about us. We would like to be the main thing. That's their prerogative. That's their prerogative.

And look, if you are making content and this is your audience, And I think Kiki did this. Kiki didn't ignore that. Kiki engaged in conversation with those people. She engaged in conversation with people who might be off put by that. But there's a chance that we've seen fish into nigger enough. And that we don't want it no more. And that particularly in this time right now,

the larger question that people are asking is, why didn't you see that this would annoy us? Like why didn't you see that in a time where all of this is being turned down that this would annoy us? That does not mean the artists have to acquiesce. If you have a story that you feel like is genuine and authentic about this,

does not mean the artist, does not mean that this show should not exist. That does not mean that anybody should kowtow to any pressure. That just means that that criticism is genuine. and engaging with that criticism, once again, like I said earlier, is a part of community. And that's just what the fuck it is.

Yeah. And so... I get that argument. If I get the point, I should say, if the point is we just don't want to see this right now, fine. But what I saw a lot of was attacking Kiki and Kee TV and what it is she's trying to do there

without the knowledge of understanding who's behind the show. but I understand, that's why I say it's the prerogative of if this isn't the type of content you want to see totally fair. You can have your opinion on it. You don't have to watch it. But don't attack someone who is trying to create something

for black creators. Let me tell you why. It's not attack. It's not a tack. Well, they were attacking. So we made two-distance strangers, right? Me and the crew. Shout out to the crew. And shout out six feet under. Six feet over. I always say under. Six feet over, Nick May.

Nicholas. Nick May Trayvon Freet shout out Dirty Robber Martin Desmond Roe shout out Mickey shout out everybody that's involved

man shout out Jesse Williams shout out Lawrence Bender shout out everybody that was involved right shout out everyone yeah and people have criticisms people said hey Van this is trauma porn

that you guys made black man get killed thousand times in the movie whatever people said hey this movie is overridden overwrought is what it is it's

people had all those criticism about the movie. Y'all took a movie that was about black trauma, won the Academy Award with it, blah, blah, this is all they want to see. We're not trying to see this shit, all of that. Guess what I did every time somebody did that. My man, 19 Keyes. My man, 19 Keys. Shout out 19 Keys. My man, 19 Keys hit me up. He said, and I could tell what the, what it meant in the thing. He goes, yo, how come in two-distance Strangers, the black man did not kill the cop that was

trying to kill him over and over and over again. And me and him had a conversation. A quick one about that. Yeah. Right? Art. Artists. Black people. Thing. It's a whole deal. All of this stuff. It's all on the table. It's cool. It's fine. But, I mean, when I saw that,

you watch a different world. Marisa Tomey's character is not the main character. She's not the main character. It's a different show. Well, maybe people need to watch. Maybe she won't be, but it is It is called Southern Fried Rice. It is called that. What is she? It's on Key TV.

It's on Key TV. I'm going to watch it. What do you think the main character from Southern Fried Rice is going to play when she gets on the yard? Oh, she's clearly, she's going to be ACA. She's the AKA? Mm-hmm. Why you say that? I just, I just, are you saying that the Delta's would not accept her?

That's not what I said. I could just see. I know White Deltas. Sam White sister are Delta. I know Latina deltas. I know, I don't know. a white delta though. Sam White. You know Sam White, the Kappa, white Kappa from Philadelphia Temple. You have seen them? I don't,

but there was a white Kappa at U.T. Look up, look up Sam White. Look up Sam White Kappa Shemi. Sam White, White Kappa. I think his sister is a Delta. I mean, listen, you can pledge, you can pledge a D-9 sorority or fraternity and not be black. But why is the Southern Fry girl? Why is she going to be? I just picked for him. I could have said S.G. Roe. I could have said, and you would have said the same thing. You'd say, Why? Because I said Delta, you said why?

But I'm asking why do you feel like there's something to that? And I want to name it. I don't know. I just picked a sorority. That's not the case at all. It's not the case. There's something you feel like she's an A.k.a. Why?

Light skin? Skinny? That is a stereotype that exists. But I've seen that in deltas. I've seen that in deltas. I've seen light skin women in Zeta, S.G. Rowe. Those are old stereotypes.

Which is why AKAs just started first ever chapter in Puerto Rico. A.k.a. Puerto Rico? Rakeet tone? Picking Green? They just had their first chapter. What? El, a.k.a. Akas. El.

El. A.k.a. El. Let's go. We got to go. What is that? That's what they're going to be doing. Oh. They do. They're going to be doing. They don't make that noise. Who?

The A.K.A.s. No, that's what they would be doing if they was in Puerto Rico. Wow. We got to go. Take us out. This is how you know when we've been podcasting too long, it just goes off the rails. It's too much. Don't know.

Daddi Yankee. Woo! You ever see? No. Okay. Take the thing of the cops off the road. Watch on YouTube or the joke is not going to work. It doesn't work.

Okay. However you consume it. Watch on YouTube or the joke not going to work. You gotta watch on YouTube for the joke to work. Just to let y'all know. It doesn't work. I'm Rachel Lindsay. Take your thinking caps off.

Just throw him out the window at this point, because that's what band has done. I'm Rachel Lindsay. He's Van Leitha Junior. We gotta go.