Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - The “WAP” Video, Dave Chappelle and Louis C.K. on Stage, and Biden’s Potential Running Mate

Episode Date: August 11, 2020

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay discuss Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s new music video “WAP” (6:17), Dave Chappelle’s recent decision to invite Louis C.K. on stage at his comedy show (23:29), the importance of Joe Biden picking a Black woman as his running mate (38:27), and the college football season being in jeopardy (53:28). Lastly, they discuss Azealia Banks's recent Instagram post and taking mental health seriously (1:04:25). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Higher learning. I am Van Laithen. I am Rachel Lindsay. Van, it feels so good to be doing this show on time. We're on time. It feels good for me.

A whole three hours early and it feels so good. I got a whole new energy for the show today. I know. Last time we pushed you all the way to your bedtime. It was time for Rachel to go to bed and to sleep. You and the glass of wine pushed me there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you're drinking again, you're drinking wine again.

I don't know what you're talking about, man. I'm asking you. That's not on the topic list. There's not on top. Are you drinking a piece of, look, I got something. I'm drinking too, baby. I'm drinking too. I got that H2O, that aqua.

Lemon water. What if this whole thing was vodka? What if this whole thing was vodka, though? I was drinking that much. I would be concerned. Because you die, right? If you drank a gallon of vodka, you die, right? Yeah, you might not make it through the podcast.

I don't think you pass a way. Oh, oh, speaking of the last podcast. Hold on for a second. Oh, whoa, whoa. Did you get any of the backlash? People were getting at you about you giving me shit about taking my health seriously and going to get my fixed shit. Oh, wait, let me not laugh. I saw one person say something to me.

One person said it to me. See? I guess they felt the need to tell you. That's what I'm talking about. The thought war was scared of you. So wait. Gang of people. People really were mad at me?

Oh my God. It was a gang of people. Both on Twitter. If it was that bad, I feel like you would have retweeted it or something. Or were they in your DMs? They were in my DMs and some of them were like on the regular Twitter timeline. But it was a gang of people like there was a woman and I don't want to, this very serious

that told me about the fact that her husband had had testicular cancer. And by the time he felt the ache and all the symptoms, that it had metastasized, and she commended me for going. She wouldn't have anything bad to say about you, but there were people that reached out like, Van, you did the right thing. And Rach over there was trying to make you feel bad about yourself. How dare she?

How dare you, Rach. I would just like to say a disclaimer. By no means was I trying to, I guess, take away from the fact that you had a medical scare. You have to understand the energy that Van brought in coming into the start of the podcast where he was like, oh, I got to tell you all what happened. So, of course, I took it more lighthearted. Now, at the time for all I thought warriors, because I don't want you to think that I don't take it seriously,

when Van said he had a medical emergency, I responded immediately and I was like, yo, take care of yourself. Did I not? No, you didn't. Then once we realized that it was a false alarm. What did I say? Oh, what did I say? You said, suck it up, princess.

No, I didn't. You got a podcast. That's what you told me. I got the... You said, suck it up, Princess. And at this point, can we please put the email chain right now, put it on the video? She was very sweet. Like, seriously, very sweet.

Like, oh, no, go take care of you. I'm good. I would never make light of cancer or anything someone's going through. By the way, I want to say something real quick. I did not say that I had a medical emergency. I said I had medical shit going on. And you said pretty urgent in all caps. It is pretty urgent.

I know. And that's why at the time I was like, whoa, the whole team was like, do what you need to do. Like, don't worry about the time. Just do what you need to do. So then when we come back and you're like, I've got to tell you all the story about this. I'm like, well, damn. How was your weekend, Rach? My weekend was so relaxing.

I haven't had a relaxing weekend like that in such a long time. I never go to my pool. I went to my pool with Brian. We just laid out, chill, guys. got in the water. Because both of us have been having back issues. I've talked about this before. Yeah.

So we just did nothing. I mean, hung out. I don't even remember Saturday. Yeah, we were just chilling. What about you? Chilling, moving. So went and spent some time in a new place. Yeah.

Moving. But yesterday, I went to hung out with my man, Tommy. Shout out Tommy Alter. We went and we talked a little bit. And then I got in. my sauna suit and took a walk in the heated day. And I was able to successfully sweat off eight pounds. That doesn't sound healthy.

It wasn't. This was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life. Like, literally, people are looking at me crazy, right? Because we're in the middle of a global pandemic. And, you know, you're not supposed to get near anybody and people's body. And I'm walking down the street, lifting up my sauna suit, sweat pouring off of it. That is so gross.

As people eat on outside restaurants, I'm like, ah, ah, ah, you know what I mean? And by the way, I got like, I like, it's dripping, like all down because there's no pocket, so I got to hold my stuff. It's dripping all over my phone. My audio book is stopping and all of that stuff like that. That's not healthy. Look, I'm trying, I'm serious about it.

Like, you have to have been so dehydrated after that. I was. Yeah, that's not okay. Nobody else do that. That's not okay. That's not the way to lose weight. Lose weight quick. No, I mean, it's not real,

you don't even lose real weight when you do that. I just felt bloated. And I was like, let me go take a, because normally I run in the sauna suit, and it's a shorter run. It's like 30 minutes. You know, he doesn't really even bother you. But walking in the sauna suit

is much tougher than running in the sauna suit because the walks take such a long time and you just drop sweat. Sweat just coming off your body. It was amazing. You're a hater, man. It's gross. No, it's nasty. Like, especially during these times, like, just, I just think diseased. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis,

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Restrictions apply. See terms at Fandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash herms. Well, hopefully I have no disease, so I couldn't infect anybody. But there's something else that made me sweat this past weekend. What's up? Cardi B and Meg the Stallion, Wizzity Wop video. Is it Wop or Wap?

It's, I say Wop. That sounds better. I don't like that. Wap. Wap. Wap. Yeah, Wap. It's Wap. So did you see the Vop?

video, did you see the... First of all, what does WAP stand for? Don't you just want me to say it, and I... I'm not... I'm asking you. You know what it stands for, and you just want me to say it. You, anybody who has listened

to the song or seen the video, use context clues, and you know exactly what it stands for. Your thoughts of the video. I mean, listen, we... Normally, you don't start your podcast with the discussion of a music video, but I want to... Yeah, I'm shocked that you that you started with this.

But I'll tell you why, though, because I saw on Twitter and in various different places, a lot of bigger conversations start from this music video, all kinds of conversations, conversations from, you know, decent or indecent men's place in judging what it is that women do with their bodies and how they express themselves with their bodies, the appropriateness of it. All of these different things, there was politicians getting involved in the video. And of course, something that I kind of got my ass kicked on Twitter about

was the Kylie Jenner aspect of the entire. People were upset that you said, because I saw what you tweeted. So you tweeted, like, why does she have, basically why does she have to be in the video? Like,

why do we keep giving them? What I tweeted was, I am sick of sharing my culture with the Kardashians. Right. And most of this is crazy. Most of the sisters was like, he ain't lying. I'm so sick too. But I'm not going to lie.

My fellows was like, yo, fam, you worked at TMZ. It's your fault that this entire thing is happening. So it was a lot of that. A lot of people shot directly at me. And by the way, the TMZ point, kind of a fair point. You just own it. You just own it. It is what it is.

You know what I mean? Kind of a fair point. I mean, I mean, I know you probably expect me to come in here and just like dog Meg the Stallion and Cardi. And I say that because I feel like, remember last podcast you're like, who do you not have beef with? So I feel like that's the, you know what I mean? Like that's the precedent that I've said it when it comes to set when it comes to this podcast. I don't understand why people are all up in arms.

I don't understand why people are that bothered because I wouldn't expect anything else from these two artists. This is a part of their brand. If you don't like it, then look away. If you don't want these women to be your role models for your, the role models for your children, then don't show them the WAP video or anything else that has to do with them. There are plenty of other artists to choose from that they can look up to and listen to. I just don't understand why I know that there were a couple of politicians that really decided to insert their, their nose into it. And the two that I saw. One is a failed politician. She lost and the other one is running for a Republican seat. I think in California, I don't know if it's state or U.S. Congress, but my thing is, is he was just trying to go viral. I feel I can get attention. And he ended up looking dumb in the first place when it came to it anyway. But my thing was, listen was, Meg the Stallion, raps about stuff like this and so does Cardi B, especially Cardi B. Would I let my children listen to it? No. Did I think the song was popping like that? No. Did I like the video?

Yes. I thought the video was popping. And what I liked even more about it is who they included in the video. I liked that they gave a shout out to other female artists and rappers in it. Kylie? What did I think about that? I thought, I don't get it. I mean, like, a part of me is, like, I do get it.

You're trying to tap into a certain audience. You know you'll get attention if a Kardashian slash Jenner is a part of whatever it is. that you're doing, but it didn't make any sense to me because here you're giving an ode to other women who are artists, rappers, singers, dancers. And then there's just Kylie, just walking. That's it. We just, we had a moment of silence literally in the video

for Kylie to walk down an aisle. I think that was the thing that kind of got to me. It was like, they took a moment to, they showcased everyone else and then they praised her. She had a moment of silence. She had like, oh, my God, here, comes a big ass fucking star. Here comes a big fucking deal.

And it's Kylie Jenner. Listen, I don't have any individual problem with any individual member of the Kardashian-Gener clan. But it is just getting sick the way that we heap worship and praise on them. If you watch the show keeping up with Kardashians, no lie, man. It's a cute little show. They're funny. You know, at least back in the day, like they're funny.

I haven't seen it in a while, but at least back in the day, it was funny. you was like whatever, whatever, but why the moment of silence acting like it's some big deal when Kylie Jenner shuts down the hall, when you have all of these super accomplished performers, you know what I mean? And so look, the only thing is like, we doing this whole thing, WAP, it's a celebration of beauty and wet-ass pussy everywhere. That's what it stands for. It stands for wet-ass pussy, by the way, which is, you know, if you listen to the lyrics

of the song, yikes, they're out there. It is what it is. It's raunchy. It's nasty. It's raunchy. It ain't for kids. It ain't for kids. That's what I'm saying.

It's like, why are you so upset? This is what's called just censor your children from listening to this. There's plenty of other stuff out there that your children shouldn't consume. This is one of those things. Now, there were some people who were saying like, oh, we're getting mad at the female politician. Sorry, people don't like what I say female. The lady, the woman. politician who they were saying,

how can you knock down these women? That's not women empowerment. I don't think that that's what this song was about. The song wasn't about empowering women and women taking back anything. Like, you know, when it comes to like saying, bitch or something like that, I thought that this was just a situation where sex sells

and they were trying to sell you something and they were selling you sex. But isn't anytime a woman uses her body in a sexual way with, no regard for societal standard. Isn't that a revolutionary act every time that it happens? Like, I mean, seriously.

Now, though? No what I'm saying? In today's times? No. Yeah, still, because we're still having the conversation about it. All of these sort of structures or constructs that we have about sexuality and expressions, the expression of sexuality,

all these rules that we have about it, they're all arbitrary. They're all made up. So anytime a woman kind of puts out there in defiance of that, I look at it as really being a revolutionary act every time that that happens. I think it depends who's committing the act. So maybe initially when Cardi B was doing it, but now it's like that's just her brand

is who she is. So to me, it's watered down a bit. I don't look at it as revolutionary when I see Cardi. That's Cardi B. That's just who she is at this point to me. I didn't see it. I don't look at it as impaliener. I'm not knocking what they did.

That's them. That's their brand. That's why I wasn't bothered by it because I wouldn't expect anything else. Like the moment that I saw people going crazy on Twitter over the video, I was like, oh, let me watch this and see what it was about.

And I watched it. The only time I was like, oh, was when I watched Normandy, because I thought she was so talented. Nothing, nothing. So she's still talented. What difference does that make? No, I'm just saying she impressed me.

No, there was nothing in the video. There was nothing in the video where I was like, oh my gosh. it was everything that I would expect to see watching this video with Meg the Stalian and Cardi B. The only time I was impressed or I was like, whoa, was when I watched Normany,

because I just think that she's just fire. Excuse me, I meant Normani. Normani. She's dope. Yeah. She's dope. And she doesn't get the credit.

I mean, we recognize, you recognize her, but she's not like. Right. You love her. She's on. She's still going up, though.

I guess she's still, no, she's a young kid. She got some, some ways to go up. But I guess, and she's kind of new to the solo thing after coming from Fifth Harmony. Right. Like, I guess my thing, what I'm really saying is Cardi B and Meg the Stallion, they're still triggering people.

People are still holding on to their commonly held notions about female, about, excuse me, women's sexuality and how, and when it's appropriate to sort of display it. and when it's inappropriate, whether it's their brand or not. To me, personally, if Taylor Swift popped out like this, to me it would be no less revolutionary. I wouldn't be, if Taylor Swift decided to go that route, which would be fucking hysterical. Now, if you really wanted to burn the Internet down, if you really wanted to burn the Internet down,

you miss an opportunity, Cardi B and Meg, because if it is slowed down and Taylor Swift would have walked down there, that would have set the fucking everybody everybody's brains with a scramble. Why? Why? Because you don't expect that from a Taylor Swift. That's revolutionary. I almost think that when it comes to a lot of black female rappers,

you expect them to sexualize themselves. It's not revolutionary anymore to me. Personally, it might not be, right? It might be on brand for them. But I'm talking about revolutionary in terms of larger society. I still think there are huge parts of larger society that still are prudish and restrictive when it comes to women's sexuality.

So there are definitely people, if you look at this guy, by the way, I'm going to read the tweet that this guy put up. This guy said, Cardi B and Megan Dostal, you know, what happens when children are raised

without God and without a strong father figure. Their new song, The Whap, which I heard accidentally, which I heard accidentally. That man calls it the whap. The whap, which I heard accidentally, made me want to pour holy water in my ears. And I feel sorry for future girls

if this is their role model. First of all, I can tell you guys right now that this tweet was written right after this guy had masturbated to the video. I can tell you straight up because that's the type of clarity that you have. She's not guilty. Exactly.

Right after you got 50 tabs up on Pornhub and it's all over and you catch yourself in your own computer reflection, and you go, why did I do this again? Like, what's wrong with you? Like, stop, stop doing this to yourself. You got a problem. This man's black, right?

Yeah, he's black. And then he went to his Twitter and self-flagellated himself by tweeting this so that he doesn't feel accidentally. You accidentally heard the song. The shit ain't on radio yet. Not like talking about you, how did you accidentally hear it? And if you heard the radio edit,

you wouldn't be that offended because they probably had to take mad shit out. How did you accidentally hear it? No, you went to see that shit. You press play. After the coconut oil adventure was over, then you came here to try to make yourself feel better about yourself. You're not James P. Bradley.

You're not changing anything, dog. He was repenting in that suite. But here's the thing too. That man is running for office. All he did was politicize it. If he wasn't ready for office, this man was trying to get attention. He was trying to go. viral and he was trying to do what he thought would reach the audience that he is trying to get,

the vote that he is trying to get. That's all that was. That's all that was. That's hilarious though, man, because that is what happened. That's what happened. You're like, damn, why? Again, I told myself I was going to, you're like, I told myself I was going to take Thursday off, man.

Why did I do this? I can't stop myself. That's hilarious. But I will say this, though, just on this, I also saw a lot of talk from some brothers on online that just all over Twitter that seemed to still have a problem

with women talking, behaving, and expressing themselves this way. I saw a lot of stuff like there are female rappers out there like Gene Gray, like Rhapsody, that don't sell sex and they're like, this is why they can't

never come up. This is why they can't get this. How is there truth in that, though? I think Cardi said it. Cardi literally tweeted and she since deleted it said there are a lot of people there are a lot of rappers out there

female rappers who are legit and who are very talented but don't rap about stuff like this. I put out a record where I wasn't rapping about stuff like this and all of y'all were like, what is Cardi doing? What is that?

This is what y'all want to hear so I'm giving the people what they want to hear. So she as a female rapper is basically legitimizing that point by saying nobody wants to, That's not what's selling. I'm giving you what you want to hear. She said it herself.

Well, my thing about that is Rhapsody is an amazing artist. Shout out to Rhapsody from out there in South Carolina. Shout out to Snow the Product. Shout out to, I mean, you know, Gene Gray. Shout out to all these different types of artists. And, you know, Gene Gray has been doing it for a very, very long time. It's kind of like almost to reach back and bring up Gene.

Gene is a pioneer. But shout out to all of these female. artists that are really out there, Flo Millie, who is kind of in the middle of that. Like, shout out to all of these female artists out there that are doing their thing. But the reality is that if you want to listen to them, then go listen to them. If you want great music, then go indulge into the great music that they have uploaded on every single streaming platform. Okay, but if you're not into music, let me play devil's advocate for a second,

and you don't know how to, like, deep dive and find people who aren't mainstream, then how do you do that? Because the mainstream artists that we're seeing are like a Cardi B. Meg, Nikki. Right. Cardi B's first hit that got her here was Bodak Yellow. Yeah. The Bodak Yellow video, Cardi is sexy, but she completely covered.

Like, she had a hit song. She had a hit record, a mainstream hit record. and that hit record made people into Cardi B. Now, Cardi is wild and she was sexy before that. She's going to be sexy after. Meg, the first time I ever saw Meg, the first time I ever saw Meg, right, was she did a cipher back in Houston in 2017. And the way she was carrying on even then she was body rolling up,

but she was spitting. Like, Meg can rap. Like, she can act. She can, Meg can go. So I get it that people, on the, the other side of things. Everybody like, you know, I don't want to have to rap about AK-47s and strippers and drugs and all of that stuff like that.

If you, there's the full gamut of music is out there. If you have a problem with it, go listen to something different. It's out there for you. But ass, and nobody's going to convince me that there's something wrong with a little ass. I just, I can't be convinced. And I would rather see a Wop video of them dancing and talking about that than I would be watching verses and watching two women showing their ass.

ass dancing to Rick Ross. Oh, you didn't like that? You didn't like that part of the versus battle when Rick Ross brought out the ladies? I didn't like where they brought them out and they were dancing and they were and two chains was throwing money at him. No, I'd rather see somebody make money off of it

in the sense that Cardi B and Meg the Stallion war than I would see that. I'm not knocking neither hustle. I'm just saying, if this was a game of would you rather, I'd rather that. But what about the fact that the women that are in the Rick Ross, any women that are in any videos or dancing on any stages or performing in any videos, they're grown and they're getting paid too.

A lot of women in music videos do not get paid. They do that for free now. Well, some of them get paid, but even the ones who don't get paid, they do it to push themselves. I mean, they're guys that box that don't get paid. Like, some of it, they do it because that's a part, their, my point is they're doing it because they think it's going to be beneficial for them. Either it's going to blow their... To get shows.

It is going to blow their Instagram up and get them more Instagram or it's a credit. It's like an unpaid internship where you got to shake a little ass. You know what I'm not done? I'm just saying. With the conversation. I don't know why we got to come down

on people that's doing this shit. They growled. I said I'm not knocking either hustle. I said, would you rather? Now, it's interesting. Something I saw, Another thing I saw this weekend, which unlike the wide video, I was not shocked at the wide video, but something else actually shocked me. I saw a photograph of Louis C.K., on stage with Dave Chappelle out in Yellow Springs, out in Ohio, where Dave Chappelle is basically doing one of the most fantastic comedy experiments ever.

They have different people coming on stage. Michelle Wolf's out there. Shout out Macelle Wolf. I saw Julele White out there. Shout out to the homie Jal White. Tiffany Haddish was out there. And right there with everyone else was Lewis C.K. Now, in case you guys were hiding under Iraq and do not remember,

Louis C.K. was buried a couple of years ago with numerous allegations of really inappropriate conduct around women that had worked for him. Some women had alleged that Louis C.K. masturbated in front of them. there were rumors for a long time about the way he had been acting. Even some blind items had been written that didn't want to name him for fear of reprisal from Louis C.K. And his management, at one point,

he was the biggest comedian in the world. Yeah. So there were a lot of women that had worked with him that said he had made them watch him masturbate or asked if he could masturbate in front of them and treated them in different ways in all kinds of ways. And it had seemed

that Louis C.K. I guess had been canceled. But apparently, Louis C.K. has not been canceled. He had come back, I think, sometime last year and done a couple of shows to, I guess, some people were okay with it. Some people weren't. But now,

kind of being this close to Chappelle, who is the far and away reigning king of comedy, you have no really choice, no choice to look at it, but any other way, Louis C.K. is back. What does this say about cancel culture? Were you surprised? Do you have any problem with Dave doing this?

I wasn't surprised to see him on stage with Dave Chappelle because Dave Chappelle has come out and said that he is a very good and long-time friend of Lewis C.K. And I even think it was at the Stix and Stones comedy special where he talked about Lewis C.K. And he actually took up for him and said that these women ruined his life and that now he's coming back and he's playing at comedy clubs and they're acting. like that he can't do that. Like he's hurting women by doing that. And he questioned what the agenda of these women are by still going after Lewis CK. It should be known that Lewis CK. has admitted that the accusations against him were true.

And he has also said that, you know, like, of course he's given his reason as to why he did it, not excusing it by any means, but he explained that he was in a dark time. And he didn't realize that what he was doing, even though he was asking permission and they were saying yes. that because he was in a position of power, they felt compelled to say yes and they couldn't say no. And he admitted that he realizes how wrong that is now.

So am I surprised to see Dave Chappelle with him? No, because Dave Chappelle has openly stated that that is his friend. And he's doing a comedy show. So why would his comedic friend not be there? How do I feel about it? The same way I feel about Meg the Stallion and Cardi B. people do make mistakes and they do things that are wrong.

And I think that what Lewis CK did is absolutely wrong. We have talked about cancel culture before, and I believe that people should be held accountable for their mistakes in what they do. But I'm not a fan of completely annihilating somebody, period. And so if Dave Chappelle wants to give him an opportunity, that's on Dave Chappelle. Now, it's up to us as consumers to draw our own conclusion.

Is Rachel going to buy a ticket and support Lewis C.K. And put money in his pocket? No. Am I going to attend one of his shows? No. And that's a personal decision that I have made that I'm not going to do. But if Dave Chappelle wants to do that, that's on Dave Chappelle. And I'm not faulting him for it.

I also think that there's a different level of things. So Dave Chappelle has openly said that Louis C.K. is a friend, a long-time friend of his, so he knows him on another level that we don't. We as consumers know him as a comedian, and we know what he has done to these women and how he is wronged them. Dave Chappelle has a deeper level of understanding and is probably willing to forgive him in different ways that we cannot because he calls him a friend. He knows him beyond being a comedian and masturbating. We don't. So I can understand how a Dave Chappelle could do that. If I knew somebody who did what Lewis C.K. did, I don't know how I would respond. Would I forgive them and give them another chance? Maybe, or maybe I would cut them off. It's hard for me to say.

So I think that should he be canceled and annihilated and no longer do anything, for me personally, I will not support him monetarily. But I can't say what the next person's going to do. Yeah, I think that's well said. The whole concept of cancel culture and someone never coming back assumes that, everyone is going to agree that this person shouldn't have the opportunity to go out, make a living, be with his friends or whatever, whatever. You should say that's not just Dave Chappelle

in the picture. It's Donnell Rawlings, Tullip Klee, Common, Tiffany Hask, Sarah Silverman, a lot of people in that picture with Louis C.K. So it's not just Dave Chappelle, right? Really, to be honest with you,

I think that Louis C.K. situation is very, very interesting in it of itself. Being that, like, he had to be culturally educated. Now, I'm going to be honest with you, there should be something inside of you that tells you, hey, if you have a subordinate or someone who works for you or with you in a room and they're a female, asking them if you can masturbate in front of them should probably jump

out to you that that's something that you shouldn't do. And not only is that something that you shouldn't do, that that's something that puts that woman in an impossible place. I think those are the parts of of the Me Too movement that kind of got lost at the margins that it wasn't always about rape or sexual assault outright. A lot of times it was about men

abusing their power in order to make women consent when they really didn't feel like they had the power to say no. Yeah. For example, if Harvey, if you just moved out here from Toledo, Ohio and you want to be Mirro Sorvino, or Gwendo Paltrow, and Harvey Weinstein asked you for a massage in his hotel room at the peninsula,

you're probably not going to say no because you don't feel like you have the power to say no and still be who you want to be. So even though Harvey Weinstein went further than that actually raped people, it's the behavior of trying to exploit and use your power against women in that way that we have to kind of have to root out, right? Yeah. And so all of that stuff is wrong and as part of a culture that leads to, you know, women having their lives ruined. And if you're participatory in that, then that's what that is.

I think the thing with Louis C.K. is that the question then remains or the question then kind of comes up, is there anybody that participated in that that is worth rehabilitating or can grow? from it or can learn from it or do they all have to get burned to their sneakers? For me, it's not a question that I can ask or answer. It's not. It's a question that I have to listen to women and then sort of follow their lead on. So basically, if the ladies say Lewis C.K. is okay. He's okay. If the ladies say Louis C.K. is fucked up forever.

then he's fucked up forever. However, that's me. And it's not Dave Chappelle. If Dave Chappelle has decided that he looks at this in a different way, his friend has grown out of a place that he was in, and that's on Dave Chappelle, then people can make up their minds about, you know, how they feel about Dave.

I don't feel any crossway about Dave at all because I understand their relationship. And as far as my deal on Louis C.K., I enjoyed his comedy before. There was mad problematic shit about him before. I used to use the N-word on stage, all kinds of stuff. So, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know if it's worth, if I like Louis C.K. enough, if it's worth me, like, disrespecting or driving a wedge between me and so many women who I would respect is not worth that.

But for some people, it might be worth that. And like a Dave Chappelle, because he knows him. Now, for the record, I think that Louis C.K. is a sexual deviant. I just would like to put that out there. But, again, like you said, Van, I think it's up to each. person how they want to handle it. Like I said, I'm not going to put any kind of money in his pocket. Right.

And that's a decision that I've made. And it's kind of like on all the lines of a Hulk Hogan situation. If you guys remember what happened with Hulk Hogan and the whole Gawker thing, Hulk Hogan was caught on tape. Hulk Hogan is someone who I absolutely worshipped growing up. Really? Did you wear a bandana and everything on your hair? Are there pictures?

I am a real American. Like, yeah. Are there pictures? Sure, there's picture somewhere of me being a hoaxer, baby. I went to see, I never forget this. My dad got so pissed off. So we had these cool-ass white neighbors that lived upstairs. We lived in Bruce R. Plaza, Coy Avenue, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

We had these cool-ass white neighbors that lived upstairs. They were two brothers, or maybe they were brothers. Maybe they weren't brothers. They lived together, and they were very close. And one of them worked at. at Domino's, and then the other one just just to come down and talk wrestling with me, right? And I remember one of the guys, like, they were just nice guys. One of them delivered a pizza to us one time.

He just brought the pizza. I remember, like, for us, at that economic time, like, actually getting a pizza from Domino's was a big fucking deal. I remember this guy, one day I answered the door and he's standing there. He's got a pizza. And I was fucking freaking out. I was like, oh, my God, it was just nice dudes. And then one of the dudes, he was, he was talking to me about a Hulk Hogan movie called No Holds Bar that had came out in theaters.

And he was telling me about everything that had happened in movies because they had been, they had been promoting the movie on the WWF, uh, fucking telecast. It was him and it was Debo. This was Debo's first film role. And they were, but I couldn't go, like my parents, we couldn't afford it. We weren't going to the movies like that. And the dude was telling me all about the movie. And then he just looked at me. He goes, yo, did you want to see it?

And I was like, yeah, of course. And he goes, come on, let's go. Go ask your mom if you can come. I didn't ask my mom. I just went to the movies with my upstairs neighbor. And it was fucking amazing. When I came home, my dad whooped my ass. Don't you ever, ever go someplace with somebody that I don't know like that.

What's wrong with you? but it was worth it. It was worth it. That's what I was about to say. That's how much I loved Hulk Hogan, right? Okay. So picture later on,

I hear Hulk Hogan talking and saying that he doesn't want his daughter fuck with any black guys. Using the N-word saying, yo, if you're going to fuck with a nigger,

fuck with like one of those rich basketball playing, why you always got to get a broke nigger. And I'm listening to this, and I'm like, like, yo man, Hulk fucking Hogan, too? Is there anybody? Hulk Hogan, too?

So when that happened, you know, I was like, fuck it. I'm done with Hulk. Fuck Hulk. I felt betrayed, whatever. Later on, the W.W.E. Let Hulk Hogan come back. And the reason why was because one of the things was, you know, they went and they talked to different wrestlers,

some of whom were black, and they asked them. And a lot of these wrestlers were like, We're okay with Hulk Hogan coming back. I can't be mad that they're okay with it. I can say that, yo, I'm not fucking with Hulk Hogan anymore. Right. Hogan, Hulk Hogan told me what he thinks of me. He told you he ain't messing with you.

You're not fucking with me, so I'm not fucking with him. And not only that, but he had some kind of restaurant down in Tampa where he had all of these weird rules about who could come into his restaurant. Like, no bandanas, no white t's. Like, he did the whole, no black guys. Yeah. Yeah. Pot kettle.

You know what I'm saying? And so I'm not fucking with Hulk Hogan, but if Virgil and Booker Tee and the rest of all the old black wrestlers, if they want to be cool with Hulk Hogan now, I don't know if Booker T is. I know that Virgil was. If they want to be cool with them, fine. That's on them. So that's the thing with canceled culture is that there's always going to be some people varying in power that either don't cancel you or let you come back. So, you know, that's why ultimately there's really no such thing as cancel culture.

It only exists in small pockets on Twitter. It's just a trending term. That's all it is. But, I mean, look, it was people that was pissed off about the Dave thing, though. Dave lost some people with it, but that's his man. And he doesn't care. You can tell from his stand-ups, he doesn't care if he loses you.

The moment he touched Michael Jackson, I mean, come on now. Dave is on a quest. They got quiet. I don't know what you're talking about, man. I don't know what you're talking about. Dave, Dave is on a mission to actually himself kill cancel culture. Dave wants it gone. Like, Dave thinks it's terrible.

It's terrible for comedy. It's terrible for society. Yeah, it's not only is this kind of a, um, seem to him standing by a friend. It's also a very, very, very obvious fuck you to a lot of the people who believe in cancel culture. That's what Dave Chappelle is doing right now. So.

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Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Now, big week, Joe Biden this week is most likely going to pick his running mate. And there's a lot of hand-wringing over this. There's a lot of hand-wringing over this decision. There are people that, you know, want specific people to be chosen. There's people that want specific types of people to be chosen. I, myself, am on record. I want Joe Biden to pick a black woman.

do you have any preference in who the vice president picks? Well, I definitely want a black woman. And I feel like, listen, and maybe Joe bit off more than he could chew because he said at a debate, one of the debates said it was going to definitely be a woman. So bam, now you've committed to that it's going to be a woman. With everything that started to happen in the world and things even that he said, good or bad, it was, listen, the only way that you're going to reach a certain audience and to let us know you are serious is if you pick a black woman as you're running mate. It's the only thing that makes sense at this point. That's how a lot of people feel, whether you're black or not. So for me, I definitely want to see him pick a black woman. I feel like it's what's necessary to address the concerns in this country, especially because of some of the things that Joe Biden has said, where it's, it seems like he just doesn't get it.

And we addressed that on the last podcast, so I don't really need to get into it, but it seems like he doesn't understand black people, maybe their needs, and what it is that they're going through by certain slip-ups that he keeps saying on a public stage. So I feel like the best way for you to understand that

is if you choose somebody who can understand it, and the only person that can is a black woman. I feel like it's a huge statement. It's a historic move. We haven't seen it done. And it's necessary. Yeah. And there was a little bit, he flirted with some other choices.

There was a time when some people thought he might choose Klobuchar. He 100% would have chosen her if her record hadn't come out. Right. There was a time when some people thought that perhaps Elizabeth Warren had a shot at it. And just recently, I think it was Whitmer. Gretchen Whitmer. Gretchen Whitmer. He had flown up.

And that got a lot of people sort of riled up because it seemed as if, wow, you know, he's really talking to, he's flown Gretchen Whitmer out there. He's not going to go with a black woman, which leads us to, you know, this letter. I'll be honest with you. I am a part of this. There was a letter that came out with me. I signed it. And a hundred other black, quote unquote, leaders. By the way, they said leaders.

I didn't say leaders. Sign this letter. Can I just say something before you get into the depths of it? Sure. I was not familiar with the letter as we are referring to it. And I would just like it to be known that as we were narrowing down our topics for today's podcast, it was, oh, we can talk about this or should we talk about simply the letter? And I said, what letter? What is it that we're talking about?

It wasn't until right before the podcast that I was. was informed as to what the letter is and Vans' involvement in the letter, which is now I'll let you move forward. Okay. And talk about the letter. The point of the letter. Say, the point of the letter is this, okay? More than 100 black male leaders signed statement of solidarity requiring a black woman vice president.

I'm going to read a couple of excerpts from the letter. It says, as someone who has said throughout the campaign that VP Joe Biden needs to choose a black woman VP. The urgency for that pick has gone from something that should happen to something that has to happen. It discuss us that black women are not just being vetted in this VP process, but unfairly scrutinized and criticized. Was Joe Biden ever labeled too ambitious because he ran for president three times?

So President Obama not have made him the VP because he had to worry about his loyalty when he clearly had ambitious to be president himself. Why does Senator Kamala Harris have to show remorse recording? for questioning Joe Biden's previous stance on integrated busing during the Democratic primary debate. Have Democratic Party Party leaders, allies, or donors ever required Joe Biden to show remorse for the 1986 or 1988 anti-drug abuse bills, which established mandatory minimum sentencing and subsequently crack cocaine sentencing disparities and by his own admission led to mass incarceration? What about the 1994 crime bill? Blah, blah.

It goes into the fact that too long, black. Black women have been asked to do everything, to rally the troops, to put out fires. And now we want a black woman to share this ticket with Joe Biden. It is signed firstly by Sean, then by Charlemagne, Michael Bennett, you know, Ben Crump, Van Jones, Chris Paul, all kinds of people. And myself, I also signed the letter. Okay. Now, all right. Since then, there have been a lot of people that have hit me up and said that it is racist for us to demand.

that specifically a black woman be chose. We're no longer suggesting a black woman. We are demanding a black woman. Let me add to this. Another reason why this has to happen in my personal belief, not just because of what's in the letter, there's something else. Joe Biden has put across, or he has proposed, shall I say,

a comprehensive black agenda, right? with a comprehensive black agenda to me is only as good as the people that you have implementing this agenda. What I want is power as part of the executive branch to make sure that this happens. Also, I want Joe Biden in this pick to acknowledge the fact that black Americans saved his political life and that it was black Americans who turned out en masse in the polls in this primary when Joe Biden had lost momentum, when Joe Biden had lost any sort of a narrative, and elevated him to the point where he is now the presumptive nominee for his party. To me, this is the way politics work. We delivered for you. You deliver for us.

and there is no shortage of overly qualified, absolutely genius, hardworking, and with its sisters to choose from the trope that in some way choosing a black woman excludes some more qualified candidate that exists out in the shadow somewhere is a racist trope, because we have an unbelievable amount of black women who would kill it in that position,

and might I add, in the highest position of the land, if given the choice, excuse me, if given the opportunity. And based upon what we've seen, Joe Biden needs to, has to give that opportunity to a black woman right now. Yeah, a hundred percent agree. And I love what you said about how things turned around for Joe Biden because of black people.

And you can follow that because Joe Biden lost three primaries, maybe four, Carolina. And it was the encouragement of black politicians telling black people to go out and vote for Joe Biden. And it was our support that garnered that attention and that drive to and gave the momentum to the Joe Biden campaign. It's not racist because when you look up the definition of racist is discrimination against people because you believe that a particular race is superior to another. That is not the reason that you're saying. and I agree with you that a black woman should be the vice president.

If you look at this country and you're really talking about unifying the country, I'm not quite sure what Joe Biden's slogan is, but it's about unity. And if you're talking about unifying what is happening right now in the country, you need somebody who can speak and is the pulse of exactly what is happening in this country. And there's nobody to me better to do that than a black woman. And that's why I am so much like, if you're, up serious about everything that you stand for and you're fighting for and these agendas that you have, then you have to have a black woman in place who can help you achieve that, period.

That's the only way I see it. Black women's time to lead. Black women's time to lead is now America has, I mean, by the way, sisters have still broken through. You know, we've had amazing black ladies that have made their impact felt in every sector of American life. But now- Condoleezza. Condoleezza, huh? You like her?

I mean, look, I got to be honest with you. I just wanted to see her face. Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no, I mean, look. I'm not saying she didn't break through, but I know that's not who you were speaking of, so I just wanted to say it. Look, she, I don't agree with the politics or the, the, the bedfellows that Condoleezza Rice might have. All right. But the fact of the matter is, it was a big deal for Condoleezza Rice.

I just wanted to see your face. I just wanted to see your face. I just wanted to see. Look, I don't agree with Condoleezza Rice, but Condoleezza Rice was doing a thing. Condoleezza was up there buying shoes when New Orleans was underwater. Go ahead, Condoleezza. Condoleez said it was black people, like, black people got no food down in New Orleans. Condoleezza was like, fuck it.

I'm going to Manolo Blonick. Let me hear like, remember when Manolo Blonix were a thing? Why did Manolo Blonix become such a big thing? Where did that come from? Because Nellie said Manolo's Manolo's. No, no, no's. I can't tell. Is that true? Or was it sex in the city? Sex in the city for a different crowd, but for the urban crowd.

The urban. You had the Manolo's with the Thames looking like with the hills, remember? They had Manolo Blonis that looked like Tim's? He said Manolo's Minotos. That's what he was referring to. That's shoe. I'm pretty sure was a Manolo Oblonic. You know what I'm talking? Because I had the fake ones. Mine was Steve Matt. I had Steve Madden. Steve Madden, yeah, I had Steve Madden's too. They were the fake Minotos. You know what I had?

I had a fake up. It was like a Mark Jacob watch, but it was a fake Mark Jacob watch. I called it a faker. That shit was hard. That shit was hard. To mean, nigga? You're like, it had like the big, like, what you mean?

Like, it had the big, you remember the Mark Jacobs watches that had the big multicolored face, the faces and stuff like that? I remember, like, shout out to my homeboy, Ian. Ian was at the, ah, he had the little Mark Jacobs on the tuck-tuck, I bought one. And even after it broke, like it did not tell time anymore. And I probably only lasted a couple of days.

I still would wear it around. And I'll be like, yo, I'm bringing a fake up out. I have a no-nows. I have fake Gucci purses. I had to put it down when it started to fuzz up. It starts to get fuzzies. And I was like, oh, a little roller can't get it down. Okay, people can tell this is fake.

No, I got to put this down. No, I was all about it. So much fake shit. When did I, it was when I got out here to L.A. I'll tell you why I stopped caring. Wait, you had fake stuff in L.A.? No, never.

Never had fake stuff in L. When I got out to L.A., I stopped caring about fake stuff because the thing about L.A. is that I never even care about, like, what kind of car I drive in L.A. And I'll tell you why. Yeah, you, you shamed me. What did you do?

What are you, what are you doing? You shamed my Cadillac. Yeah, well, you had the catalog. That was, you know, you're talking about, I don't have a catalan. You're driving around in the Cadillac. It takes my mind off the pandemic. This is crazy.

This is a crazy thing. Like, oh, 1,500 dead in an hour. I'll tell you what makes me feel better. No, stop. That's not. Because I definitely talked about higher learners. So go ahead and dress that too. No, the thing about L.A. is this.

So being from Baton Rouge, if you have a Range Rover in Baton Rouge, like, nigger, you on. if you have a range rover, I mean, we got a couple rappers from there now, Boosie, Kevin Gates, that might stunt in a Lamborghini or something like that every once in a while. Or a young boy, I haven't been home to see what young boy driving.

But if you have a range rover in Baton Rouge or like my mom used to have a navigator, everyone knew me as van with the navigator because I used to drive my mom's navigator around. I mean, the whole deal towards the end. But in L.A., your range rover doesn't mean a fucking thing. It doesn't soccer moms out here drive range rovers, right? So you might as well get whatever car you want.

If you want to get the trusty and dependable Honda Cross Tour as I drive because you think it's cool and it's affordable, you might as well get it. Because you're not stunting until you get a Ferrarian. or a Bugatti, maybe even, you see the G-wagon everywhere. Everywhere, yeah. Or you come through with a drop-head phantom or a wraith or something like that. Until you get to that level of car, nobody.

You're not making a splash. So it doesn't make any sense to stress yourself to go for a $75,000, $80,000 range when you could save all of that and no one's going to give a fuck about it anyway. That's why I drive a Lexus. But see, the Lexus is still slightly stunted. It ain't that level. Don't even try to put it there. It's still slightly stunt tabby.

But I get it though, but it's something that... It's practical. It's luxury. It's practical. So, like, for me, you're not about to make me feel bad. Not when I'm driving down the PCH and it's a Bugatti next to me. You know, it's a Bugatti. And I'm not spending $200 million on a car.

I'm not trying to. Yeah. Well, look, if you're out here in L.A., stop wearing the fake shit because it doesn't even make. matter. It doesn't matter. Just come out here and do you. Plus, all the really rich people you see out here, they don't have none of that shit on. There's somewhere, you know, in the soulhouse wearing a t-shirt and some jeans. So just chill. When you come to L.A. stunt at home, at home stunt, though. I'll go back to Baton Rouge. I'll stunt in Baton Rouge. Now,

the college football season, Rachel, is in deep, deep, deep trouble. It's a rap, fan. I know you love college football. I love college football. Yeah. The college football season is probably not going to happen.

It's being reported right now that the Big Ten presidents are going to, or have already voted, to not play college football this season. It's being reported. They won't make an official announcement until tomorrow.

This is going to affect a lot of young black athletes that were, some of them were looking to make a run this season, established some draft stock to get drafted next year. Joe Burrow, LSU's quarterback, who had a record-breaking season last season, said that had this happened last year, he would probably be looking for a job right now,

so he feels for those athletes. And, of course, fellow Texan, a guy's not a fellow Texan, but he lives in Texas now, Dion Sanders You see what Deon Sanders said about this? Yeah, I saw him. Dionne Sanders basically, what do you say basically

that he thinks it's that these players should go out? It's like the game will go on without you. The game is bigger than you. Like what are you basically shaming people for opting out? What you opting out for? The game's going to keep going

even if you're not here. Basically shaming players for not wanting to put their health at risk for going out there, getting near everyone and playing football with the deadly virus out there that you can't see and can't really avoid. Now, here's the thing. Do you think that there should be a college football season this fall?

And do you think that what Dion Sanders said was reckless or in any way irresponsible? I think that it's upsetting to see how this is going down because it's almost like if you, the NCAA did nothing to prepare for this. And so now it's like you're facing the inevitable. This was going to happen because you took no steps to make changes, to make student athletes feel safe and that they weren't risking their health and safety in order to play sports or college. It's not just college football, play sports to generate billions of dollars for your school.

The NCAA makes so much, they could have built bubbles for every single conference. And they sat back and they just watched and almost wished that this would go away, rather than being proactive to do something to prepare for this because this disease, the virus, is out here and it's been here. So do I think football is going to be played? No. I think that people were just scared and no one wanted to be the first to actually say it. No conference wanted to be the first to pull the trigger.

But now that the MAC has pulled a mid-Atlantic conference has pulled the trigger and said that they have canceled all fall sports for their schools, you're going to start to see a domino effect and other people are going to start to do it as well. If they were serious and they cared about the well-being of student athletes, they would have built bubbles for each conference. They would have taken some type of precautions to make sure that these things didn't happen or they didn't end with the fate of college football or just fall sports in general. So no, I don't see it happening. I know that there are players that are rallying together saying that they want to play and they've put a list and I think they too van. put a letter together.

Mm. Oh, it's a week of letters. It's a week of letters. Now, I'm not sure if it was a full-out letter or just a statement. So I, excuse me, apologies, I can't compare it to the letter that you signed. But I know that there were a statement of prominent athletes like Justin Fields and Trevor Lawrence and others that college football athletes that said that they wanted certain things to happen so they could play.

And I just want to point out that one of the things that they said is that we all want to play football this season. And they said that they wanted the NCAA to establish universal mandated health and safety procedures and protocols to protect college athletes against COVID-19 among all conferences throughout the NCAA. And they did a list of other things. But I just want to stop there because how are they going to do that? They haven't done anything. COVID-19 has been with us since we've been recognizing yet at least since March. We're in August and the NCAA has done nothing.

There is nothing at this point that they can do because they've waited so long to implement health and safety protocols to protect these student athletes. There are so many unknown factors when it comes to this virus and the long-term effects that it can have on athletes, especially when it comes to the heart. There's a lot of research, the fact that it can have on the heart from cardiologists when it comes to people in general, let alone student athletes. So that's out the window at this point. There will be no college football season, and it hurts for me to even say. that as a fan and as a person who works in college football. As for what Dion Sanders said, I think that he felt comfortable saying that because he's not affected by it. He's, I know he has aspirations to be a head coach specifically at his alma mater, Florida State. I feel like if he was

a head coach, he'd be singing a different tune. It's easy to say things when you're actually not involved in it. And I do think that it's reckless for him to make these statements because you're sacrificing the health and safety of student athletes and not putting the proper procedures and protocols in place to protect them. So to me, he's just talking out the side of his neck right now because he's not directly affected by it. Yeah, love prime. He's wrong on this one.

We have to put things in perspective here. Everybody breathe and take a step back. Listen, the NBA bubble has been fantastic. The competition has been fantastic. Actually, the NBA bubble has, in my opinion, illuminated some things about the NBA game that I hadn't really, the NBA bubble in a way is a superior brand of basketball.

You know, like eliminating the travel, and it's a different brand of basketball, but it is fantastic in and of itself. It reminds you of going to. to Peach Jam or any other kind of tournament type of scenarios where these guys play back to back to back to back and these little storylines develop and they're all around each other, you know, four games a day.

It's a really cool energy when you get a chance to go to those events. The problem is it's not recreateable in every sport. Basketball is a very simple sport in that you need a ball, 10 guys, two hoops. You know, the broadcast situation is a lot different. Football has a lot of different moving parts. baseball even has a lot of different moving parts, even though there's much less contact in baseball

than there is in these other two sports that we're talking about. I think a college football bubble in many ways is harder to pull off. Number one, you know, you're asking these kids to go out and play a sport where when a lot of the kids that are going to the schools that they represent are going to school from home.

So you're essentially for money or for competition or for Nike or Adidas, whoever asking these players to go out there and put their livelihood, excuse me, put their bodies on the line when they're not getting paid. Okay. We've already discussed the disgusting disparity between how much money the NCAA makes and the lives of the students. Now, you're having a lot of students that are saying that they want to. to play. I hear those guys as well. They're playing, they want to play so that they can increase their

stock to make millions next year in an NFL draft, a guy like Justin Fields, who had a fantastic season last year at Ohio State. But this particular year is looking to make a Heisman run so that he can secure big dollars in the next NFL draft has been actually preparing for this moment his entire life. So it fucking sucks that he might not get that chance this fall. Some people are talking about perhaps a spring season, maybe something to be figured out with a vaccine or better treatments at that point. But then even that starts to get a little bit weird. Right.

People talk about all of this stuff is wacky. Man, the world is wacky. They haven't canceled the college football season ever in a long, long time. I think even through the last pandemic, they played. Really? They did. They played. So I get the situation, but I want people to consider live.

and lung function and who you might spread it to. And a part of me always is interested and curious about the fact that these are young black athletes that are being asked to make these decisions. And America is not always good at prioritizing the needs, the health,

or the long-term viability of the young and the black. Right. And Trevor Lawrence, isn't black, but a lot of the guys, 60 to 70% of them that are going to be participating in this probably would be. I'm not sure of the exact college numbers. I know the numbers when you get to the NFL, but, you know, there's a lot of brothers out there. So I just wonder how much, how commodified these players are actually being right now.

They're being commodified to a, to a large degree, I would think. Well, that's what I was going to say about Trevor Lawrence. I can't, I look at you differently if you're the one leading the charge and being so outspoken, no matter what happens, even if you did contract the virus and it affected you a certain way and you had symptoms, you're a first round draft pick, whether you catch the virus or not. You know what I mean? So like your circumstances are totally different from the player who's teetering on that third, fourth round pick and one thing could knock him completely out of the draft.

So it's, you have to put things in perspective when you look at who's leading the charge with this. You're really not affected by it, no matter what. happens to you, Trevor. You know, and I'm not knocking Trevor. I'm just saying when you talk about COVID in college sports and you look at who's leading this charge with this statement, you have to put it in perspective as to what is he really sacrificing versus the player who's not on a Trevor Lawrence level. But he loves football.

You know what I mean? I know he does. I know he does. And it's going to be his last year. Yeah. You know, and I get it. And I, but you're also not in the same. position, frankly, as any other athlete, really.

You're Trevor Lawrence. Okay. Somebody we talked about a little bit earlier, maybe the first or second episode of Higher Learning, which, by the way, I want to take the time right now to shout out everybody, all of the Thought Warriors right now, because you guys are so engaged and involved. The podcast is doing so well, and we're really appreciative of you guys. Every time I get a DM from a Thought Warrior or a message from a Thought Warrior about the things that we're talking about,

things that you would like to see us talk about, critiques of Rachel. Those are always things I love. So we really appreciate you guys of support. Couldn't ask for a better start. Now, somebody we talked about very early on in regards to Dave Chappelle was Azalea Banks, because Azalea Banks had said some time ago

that she had had some sort of sexual relationship with Dave Chappelle. We talked about it here. But he acknowledged in his standoff. Did he acknowledge that it happened? He just mentioned her name. Right. Like, as in, like, I know what's been set. Right.

Like, he, you know, I'm sure it got back to that. Now, if you don't know a lot about Azealia Banks, Azalea Banks has been very open. First of all, she's insanely talented. And like a lot of talented people, and not to be very broad with that, but like a lot of talented people, she's had struggles with her mental health.

And people who are in the spotlight, She's been very open about some of the mental health issues that she struggled with in the past. This past weekend, these past couple of days, she went to her Instagram and posted several messages where she basically said she was sick and tired of living on Earth. She's going to finish some of her music and then she is out. obviously this alarmed many people who look at someone like Azalea Banks and don't want to see her hurt herself, harm herself, or be gone from Earth.

And people reacted. It's a serious, serious thing. It's almost like even right now, you hear me, Him and Han, and going back and forth, how do you really address a topic when someone has basically said that they are planning to hurt themselves,

maybe even kill themselves, else. Now, we have talked about her and some of her antics in the past. She has had various antics. She's been called out for various things. Some of the things have been violent. Some of the things have been insensitive. Some of the things have been homophobic. Some of the things have been racist, they'd say. But she has never run from the fact that there are things that she deals with. When you heard about what was going on with her. being that you, you know, had some pretty strong criticism of her when we talked about the Dave Chappelle thing.

And so did I. What went through your mind? Well, when we talked about the Dave Chappelle thing, it was, okay, here is, I don't remember exactly what we said, but I do remember thinking this is her trying to get attention, trying to do something to stay in the media. That's not the thought that I had with this. And the reason is is because I don't want to play around with this.

When someone makes statements about their life and their mental health and suicidal statements in these terms, I will never take that for granted. I will always take that seriously. And so it was sad to me when I saw her make these comments because, or these statements, because I felt like when she took such a public, way of doing it, it was a cry for help. I felt like she felt like nobody was listening and she wanted people to hear her. She wanted to be seen. And so she took to a very public platform to do that. And I think that it brings to light a bigger issue that's happening in the pandemic that there's so much that's going on right now when it comes to the economy and just the fear and the anxiety of this virus and the unknown effects and what does life look like after this and will I be employed and

you know will I what what does my money situation look like that what seems to not be talked about as much and it should be is mental health and I think that the way the country took drastic steps to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by the infection I think they also need to embrace, I think, the coming wave of behavioral health needs that need to be met as a result of not having the virus and just the effects of how it's impacting you. But also, there are several studies and articles about people who get the virus and the mental health effects that it has on them from going through this. And it's something that, you know, we talked about in a very surface way at the beginning of this. Oh, hashtag quarantine.

life. Hashtag social distancing. Oh, I'm living my best life in my apartment because I'm baking bread and I'm, you know, like playing games or, you know, you know what I mean? Like you tried to be more positive about it, but there's also another layer of it where people are truly, truly impacted by the effects that this is having. I mean, we weren't, we weren't meant to live like this. We weren't meant to be trapped in our four walls and not having any human interaction and intimacy, which is exactly what she expressed in her statement. The lack of social interaction and no intimacy. Those are quotes that she said.

And I think that it speaks to what a lot of people are going through. So when I saw this, I thought, this is a bigger issue. She's not alone. She just has a bigger platform to where she can bring attention to it. and more people can see it, but there are thousands of people who are going through these same feelings right now. And it's truly sad.

Because no political leader is really talking about mental health. Nobody's talking about that. Yet so many people are affected by it. Yeah, well said, like, I've lost two friends to suicide during this entire time, one of which I talked about here on the podcast. The other, was almost a week or a week after, you know, we lost jazz.

For me personally, prior to the start of this podcast, I do another podcast for The Ringer way down in the hole, the best wire rewrites podcast in the world. Although there's some other good ones. Shout out to the wire stripped. They do a great job. But, you know, we're doing our thing right now. I remember while we were recording that podcast

when this whole thing first started. I hit Bill and Jamil and everybody up and I was like, yo, I need a week and a half, two weeks off. And the reason why I needed a week and a half, two weeks off, I think I've talked about it here, is because I had a complete nervous breakdown. And for the first time in my life, I contemplated suicide. I have a shotgun in the other room. And the shotgun, you know, big Benelli M4 shotgun, I go out and shoot it and stuff like that, been wearing around guns my entire life. And I remember I was laying in my bed.

And this was probably my 10th or 11th sleepless night in a row. And if you've ever been through insomnia where you can't stop your body, at a certain point for me, I don't know how it is for other people. At a certain point, my entire body felt like he was on fire at all times.

Like I was laying down. I was awake. But my body would try to shut down and go to sleep and it just wouldn't. And I would just lay in the bed all day long. I would try to sleep. I couldn't. I would roll over.

I couldn't. I would put something on. Just time after time after time. I would wake up in the morning and walk around. And then things started blending together. And it started getting to a point to where I would break down and cry at weird times. Like we were driving out to Palis Verdes to take a drive to try to calm me down. I'd just burst in the tears.

I'm laying down on the ground. My heart's beating crazy. I'm having palpitations. All of this stuff, boom. And I was in the room laying down. And I thought, yo, like, what if this never changes back? What if I never get back to a point where I can sleep, where I can run, where I don't feel intense fear, where I don't, what if it never shakes back? Like, I cannot live like this.

I really can't I can't live like this and despite everything that I've ever dealt with with anxiety and everything I've dealt with with my mental health I had never ever in life had that thought like never

never one time had I had the thought I love life I love a brownie I love a good show sometimes like I you know sometimes I run after a run I get the runners high and I'm thinking God damn I'm lucky to be here

you know what I mean I've always, the zeal, you know, porn hub on a Tuesday night, all of those things, like, love it, right? And I just couldn't find joy in anything. The air felt like it was weighty, like I wasn't eating. I lost 20 pounds, the whole nine.

There are simply people, and I had a great, everyone at the ringer was insanely supportive. She was right here with me the whole time. but there were my friends were there there are people who for whatever reason just do not have that or even if they do have it

they cannot connect with what it is that they need to be able to connect with in order to get themselves out of that and you know Azalea Banks saying what she said people have to understand just how much of an anecdote, society, human interaction, and contact is. Like, if you're having a stressful day, right? Something like that, you go to a bar, people are playing in a part.

One of your friends meets up. You hug someone. You give somebody five. Or for me, I used to, nice guy all week, I go to the basketball court. And I'm being aggressive. I'm yelling. I'm the old, you set a pick, pass me the ball. all of those things help me keep the balance in my life.

Like going to box, hitting the heavy bag. And then one day, they're all gone. Like literally, you can't do any of them. And you're trying to invent new ways to live. And for certain people, it's a tougher struggle. I, my heart goes out to her. And for the people that are around her, to the feeling that she felt like I get it and it's concerning.

And for any other stuff that Azealia Banks has done in the past or things that she had said, I'm imploring people to make space for her right now. Because the only way that she can't grow from anything that she's said or done in the past is if she's in a box. And so, you know, make that, make space like, you know, I saw a lot of stuff on the internet about things that she's done and things that she said. And, you know, everyone runs to make space for Kanye West. They don't want to make it for her. I kind of don't get that.

That's out the window for me. I'm only focused on what she just said. Yeah. But for me personally, like, find it in yourself to make some space for this sister who's being honest about what she's going through. and talking about the fact that at such a young age, she feels like she's come to the end of it. It's, I feel for her. I really do.

And I believe that she has since come out and said that she's doing better, which is fantastic. But I do have a question for you, Van, because of what you just shared with all of our thought warriors, what got you out for like for somebody who's listening, whether they're going through it or they know somebody who's going through that exact feeling, what got you through it?

What got you to the other side? So a couple of things. Number one, therapy. I started seeing an amazing therapy named Colie Williams and I started to be able to sit down. And for me, just being proactive about it. So I would have intense anxiety in the morning. Like when I say intense, it was so weird how your body is.

Like, I would, in the morning time, if I was able to maybe squeeze in 20 minutes of sleep or 10 minutes of sleep, right, whatever. Whenever I did come out of it, just intense anxiety, my stomach was like on fire. And then as soon as the night would fall, whether or not I would be able to get to sleep would also cause me overwhelming anxiety. I'm thinking it's going to be time to go to sleep. I'm not going to be able to go to sleep. So I was just very scared. So I started doing a couple of things. Number one, I went to the doctor and made sure that cardiovascularly because I was having heart palpitations and stuff like that,

there was nothing wrong with me. I saw my cardiologists. I always want to know if something's changed. Number one, I got that. Number two, I went back on my lexipro, which I had weaned myself off of. So all of the anxiety in my body was there was nothing to kind of level. me out. So I had to go back on my Alexa pro. And that was just coming from the fear of what was happening in society. Remember, I had lunch with somebody who had had the coronavirus.

And after I felt like that, I, you know, I freaked out. I didn't get it, but I freaked out. And then just making a tremendous amount of space for myself. Every morning, I would get up and I would feel that anxiety. I would walk it off. I would walk around downtown LA early. We're talking 6.45, 7 o'clock. come back in here, meditate. It was like a two-week boot camp of me leveling myself off. I would walk, come back here. And after the walk, I would meditate.

Shout out to the Headspace guy. Count your breaths in, out. Feel your body falling into itself. Shout out to the Headspace, dude, bro. It worked. And then one real big moment was I was turning 40. and it was a deal. It was supposed to be a big birthday.

And I didn't think that I was going to be able to do it, like, having fun. And Kalika comes out here. She's like, yo, your friends want to. She goes like, you know, we're going to take a picture or whatever. We're going to do all of this stuff. And like when she turned the camera around, it was all of my friends on my 40th birthday. It was Charlemagne. Mero, Alicia, Nick May, Tracy, all of these people showed up on my 40th birthday.

And for like a moment, like, I had like real joy and I felt normal. And I was thinking to myself, yo, man, you got to get through it. And then just I didn't put any pressure on myself to feel better like right away. because for a long time after that, I still couldn't run. I still wouldn't, I still, but then after a while of just staying in tune with myself, grounded myself, I was doing it all, taking my shoes off,

walking in the park. I was sitting down, watching the sunset, listening to Sean Stockman. I was de-stressing and pulling at the things in my body that were pushing on me. And after a while, one day I'll never forget it. I fell asleep.

And like I, I like without Xanax, without anything, I fell asleep. And then after I could sleep again, I came back. And I fell asleep. I went to the lake. We went to Lake Arrowhead. We were up there. Oh, yeah, that's when, yeah, the fish. Yep, the fish and the whole day.

I fell asleep. And after I could sleep, I was good. I think that, you know, we say testimony. I think that that's something, that that is your testimony. And I think that somebody needed to hear that. Because I know someone listening is going through that or know someone who is. The only thing that you forgot to add was, of course, higher learning was also a release as well. I was just waiting.

I was just sitting on the edge of my seat. Just waiting for you to say. Me and big rage. Getting at it. Me and Big Rage getting at it twice a week like really, really helped focus me because I also get to look at somebody like yourself who's so inherently flawed.

But pushes through it to excellence. You know what I mean? Pushes through it to excellence. So inherently flawed, but you still do it. So I feel like I can do it too. Forget it. Forget I even mentioned it. Forget it.

No, but I'm so glad you're better because I, you know, I didn't even know the full story. I just knew something was going on and I didn't know what you were doing to work through it. So I'm glad that you could share your story with other people, you know?

So they know that they're not alone. Make, like, make space for yourself and make space for other people, man. I, you know, and just as I was coming out of it, we lost jazz, then we lost my man Shaq. And it was like, You know what I mean? And you almost fall right back.

But that's where the therapy and to be able to talk to people and to having the outlet and having the people in your corner that care how you're doing, that's where that comes in. So, you know, I hope sincerely that Azalea Banks has that. And I know she has a lot of people who care about her. And on a human level, fuck celebrity shit, fuck anything. I hope she's okay. Hope she's okay. Yeah. Now, she did, and I will say she did post something to say that she is doing better.

So that's good. And by the way, I'll say this, if you are not feeling okay, you can DM of me about that too. I am a weirdo. Like when y'all send me these DMs and I start arguing with y'all, because a lot of times they send us to the Do you respond to a lot of people? I do, because they'd be getting at us, Rachel. I feel like I should do better. See, that's why you get, that's why people write you.

I don't. So I need to start responding to people. I respond. I'd be sending people too sometimes. People hit me up like, y'all were wrong about this. And I'll respond back, fuck it. Let it fly. What you're talking about?

You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, but, but Rach, do you feel like, wait, do you feel like that you're too big of a Cadillac model not to respond to people? Just the shape. No, I just don't. I'm not a big social media person. I'm really not. I don't enjoy it that way.

I try to do better because I really do want to stay connected to people. because I appreciate them. Whatever, whatever way they listen or watch what it is I'm doing, I want to show appreciation. So I try. But I'm just not good. I don't scroll. If I like something, it is very, I might be on social media 10 minutes and I'm off.

Twitter, it, Twitter gives me anxiety. Like, I can't, I can't. I got to get off Twitter. I think social media, I think social media in general gives me extreme anxiety. People are very rude to me. Just look about calm. People are very nice. mean to me.

Yeah. And so it gives me, I need that I have to, you talk about space, I have to give my space, myself space from social media to stay sane and to stay grounded. It really can take me to a bad place. But I'm jealous that so many thought warriors hit you up. Maybe they're hitting me up and I still see it. All about to say. No, one person I saw, one person I did see and I should write the back said,

I heard you say that none of the thought warriors ever hit you up. So I just wanted to show out to whoever you are. I saw it in passing. All right. Thought warriors, you heard it here, Rachel. Her d'ems are open. We about to get out of here. Look, we appreciate y'all.

We love y'all. We want you all to be safe and healthy. So wash your hands, but also wash your spirit. Make sure you get all that negativity off of you. You know what I'm saying? We need y'all feeling good because we need these views. All right, now. Oh.

Love y'all. Seriously, though. I am Van Lathan. Hi, I'm Rachel Lindsay. We'll fuck with y'all next time. You guys, if you know anyone out there who is suffering, who needs some type of support, please give them the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline phone number, which is 1-800-273-8-255. That's 1-800-273-8-255.