Julian Dorey Podcast - [VIDEO] - Trap Lore Ross on Diddy Allegations, King Von’s Murder Spree & Cancelling Kanye | 211

Starting point is 00:00:00 This new rapper that was coming up that had beaten murder cases and supposedly had more bodies. At that time, it was kind of like a lot of rumored stuff with like a couple of murders. It was rumored he was involved in these things. After he died, you know, the Chicago police released some paperwork to say that he was, you know, prime suspect in a couple murders. That allows them to close those cases after Vaughn had died. He had an official murder charge that he beat. It's Fluky Man.

Starting point is 00:00:20 So it was him and a guy called Big Mike. And Big Mike has just come out of jail recently. So he's been doing interviews talking about this case von and a guy called big mike they were turned up to like a barbecue house party type thing ended up opening fire on three people that were there one of them a guy called malcolm ends up dying two of them are hit but they survive and von and big mike end up being charged with a count of murder and account two counts of attempted murder or as von would put it a body in two attempts he said he'd say that a lot what ended up happening was uh when they sat them down for interview von didn't say a word big mike said i

Starting point is 00:00:48 let off shots but von was the one that killed him so there's this thing of like ah he was trying to snitch here's the crazy thing because von said nothing they had nothing on him but the other guy said i let off shots but it was von that killed him so he's let everyone know that he let off shots so as far as the jury is concerned we got a statement of you saying you let off shots so we got you on this case. So they offer Big Mike a deal to say, well, tell you what, if you fully flip on Vaughn and say Vaughn did the murder, we're going to give you a deal. What's up, guys? If you're not subscribed, please subscribe.

Starting point is 00:01:19 Also, please smash that like button on the video and enjoy the show. Trapper Ross. Welcome, sir. Thank you, man. Thanks for having me. All the way from across the pond, too. What brings you to to america man i'm here for a bunch of different things uh you know mainly adam 22 from no jumper who's a good friend of mine's doing a pop-up shop uh so got the clothing brand i think he's got a collab with uh i don't know the brand awful lot of cough syrup

Starting point is 00:01:39 but they go i don't unfamiliar a lot of the rappers be rocking it and uh they got a pop-up so i kind of mainly came out for that but i've ended up falling into just a bunch of podcasts while i'm out here and it's been lit man the city's been showing me love oh that's great man i saw you're doing vlad when you were here yeah that was the first thing i i think the very first thing i did when i got here was vlad right i had a little studio session i went to see vlad but that's super inspiring man vlad someone i look up to man in this kind of hip-hop media space like he's one of the greats so oh it was great to just sit and chop it up with him man like that was inspiring absolutely he's i mean he's been doing it a long time and like it's the thing about him

Starting point is 00:02:12 is he puts out so much content he's so consistent like that old quote like you just got to show up and do the work like it's kind of oversaid but i mean he's a living example of that for sure yeah and he was giving me advice and that's almost you know close to what he was saying as far as just being consistent don't stop you know you gotta keep pushing just keep chasing that next next piece of content and uh but yeah man super inspiring i look up to blad man so obviously you know adam's a friend of mine doing pods with him uh did a pod with academics so oh cool it's been it's been non-stop man i'm losing my voice a little bit but you know yeah you got the you got the nice sunday grouch yeah yeah we just need to record a couple songs i need to throw the auto tune on this and voice a little bit, but you know. Yeah, you got the nice Sunday grouch. Yeah, yeah. We just need to record a couple songs.

Starting point is 00:02:45 I need to throw the auto-tune on this and make a little hit. Can make a couple hits. Can you get that? You guys need to load up the auto-tune. I might have to smash it now. I'll start EQing you over here while you're talking. What's the story with the Mafia, though? You were saying you wanted to look at some content while you were here on that as well.

Starting point is 00:03:01 Have you always been into that? I'm not going to say too much, but I'm going to, I'm kind of putting together a project that's like, you know, a lot of people know me for the gangster rap, drill music, kind of gang history stuff. But I'm, like I said,

Starting point is 00:03:13 I linked up with Vlad. Like I'm trying to do something maybe a little bit more on the Italian American mob history, kind of mafia story. You know, you've got a poster of the Godfather right there. Stick with us, pal. We got you.

Starting point is 00:03:21 Yeah, you guys are connected. I've heard, man. You're talking about all the people you're going to put me in touch with but um now shout out my guy gene barello you know he's a he's a kind of ex-mob guy that uh is doing the content game right now we did a couple of days shooting with him really interesting man we had a crazy interview and uh he was breaking a lot of stuff down for us with the mob history but that's something i'm working on just on the side

Starting point is 00:03:39 you know the main thing i'm into is sort of hip-hop drill music gangster rap um and that's like a bit of fun but you know a lot of italian american mobsters kind of inspired rappers you know a lot of people with capone and gotti and their rap names and stuff you know it's kind of it's all connected with the history so yeah man i'm excited for that it is connected i always tell people if you look at this skyline here on the wall and i mean you've been looking at it all week from the outside too every one of those fucking buildings there went up with the permission and express financial backing of the u.s italian america mafia yeah which is a crazy thing to think about i'm not saying that's like all a good thing or whatever but it is true like they you know between the concrete contracts and the unions and everything

Starting point is 00:04:18 that skyline was kind of built by them it's this weird dichotomy of like i guess american capitalism that sometimes i think about yeah i'm doing my research on it at the moment it's interesting i'm trying to put together like all the different rackets that the mob were involved in like obviously like you say construction's a big thing you know gambling loan sharking but it's like like i'm doing my research just just it's crazy you you look into it a little bit closer you're like damn the mob had it locked down in a lot of places. They were making money from a lot of different things. Obviously, Michael Franzese is a big mob guy that does a lot of interviews. He was doing some scam with gas, rebates on gas.

Starting point is 00:04:54 Gene was telling me he was making something like $8 million a day or something crazy at his height. So he gets deep with the mob, man. Like you say, they built that shit. That's crazy, man. And actually, Alessessi gene is friends with tiff tiff's been doing a lot of content with gene tiff fun yeah he was like locked up with sbf yeah yeah he was telling me all about that man he was having some crazy stories about being locked up with rappers as well he was in there when he was telling me about sbf like people trying to extort

Starting point is 00:05:20 him and he was saying he was like he was like he said he was he was sticking up for sbf man he was trying not to let some some of the some of the gangsters in there play too hard ball with him man crazy story but the crazy thing about gene is i i linked up with him i'm trying to tell him to like get in the sort of hip-hop media space because he's done time with a lot of famous rappers but he he's on a lot of these mob podcasts where they might not know who k-flock is right but he's popping up with with you know my people talking about i was in the hole with k flock and you're like tell me like yo that's like that's crazy and and he's going to the mob podcast they're not really they don't know what that's all about right so it's like he's got a whole bunch of

Starting point is 00:05:57 stories that are relevant to like my side of the internet i'm trying to tap him into this stuff because he was telling me about he's doing time with fetty wap casanova k flock rowdy rebel you know we went to the bobby schmurda uh show on 420 eve and and he'd done time with bobby schmurda too so it's just his stories are epic but that's the thing that goes to show you how much crossover there is oh yeah absolutely the fetty wap thing is so sad what happened there my buddy luke servino was managing Remy Boy Monty for a while back in like 2018, 2019. And I got to spend some time around Mont. And the backstory, this is where it just breaks my heart with like some of the bullshit that happens in the industry. The things you don't see about.

Starting point is 00:06:40 You don't see or hear in the back rooms where people get fucked and then it ends up trickling over into their mental and then into their real life and it's like it was really sad when when fetty wap got clipped but i mean we saw that coming i never hung out with the guy i don't know him but like from the other guys like saw that coming three years before that happened you know it's really a shame but anyway we're here to talk about you and all the stuff you've been doing. Your channel is fucking awesome. We will have the link in the description, of course. And chances are a lot of people out there, you've probably seen it before.

Starting point is 00:07:13 Maybe a lot of you probably know Traplore Ross. Others maybe don't realize this is the guy. But the most famous documentary you did was obviously the King Von one. We will get to that today for sure. But you've been doing these for like five six years something like that what first of all you're from you're from the uk and you're a hip-hop head what how does how does this happen yeah it does make sense man people look at me and i'm the last person you'd expect to be you know the guy that knows everything about this this genre and this history you look like you just wrote a philosophy book well you know

Starting point is 00:07:44 what i feel like it's funny because it comes in handy in a way i feel like people look at me and they're like this dork doesn't know anything but it's like people say i look smart but it's like they don't look hip-hop smart but it's like i know the right stuff but they're gonna learn yeah apparently you know what it is you know sometimes i feel like not looking the way you're supposed to look that helps you because people people look at me and they're like he's not gonna know about hip-hop and i'll start talking and they're like okay he's not going to know about hip-hop. And I start talking and they're like, oh, okay, I should know what he's talking about. And then they kind of win them over. But, yeah, how did I get into this, man?

Starting point is 00:08:10 Ever since I was a little kid, I had two older brothers and they were super into hip-hop. So I was born in London, ended up moving to like a small town on the coast of England called Bognor Regis, which is very not hip-hop. But you would never know this area. But I had two older brothers that had spent more time in London growing up. They were super into hip-hop. One of them was'd never know this area but um i had two older brothers that spent more time in london growing up they were super into hip-hop one of them was you know trying his hand at rapping the other one was making beats oh shit and so i was like i'd have been like five or six first even listening to understanding what music was all about it was nothing but hip-hop you know jay-z nas listened to 50 eminem um and that's all i listened to growing up and i've never really

Starting point is 00:08:43 listened never listened to but i've never really listened, never listened to, but I've never really gotten into any other genres of music. You won't catch me listening to the Beatles or rock bands. I can't even tell you any rock bands. It wouldn't happen. I don't listen to anything but rap ever. This is just not on the table. I don't like hearing it.

Starting point is 00:08:57 Not trying to hear that. Not trying to hear your indie band that you think I'm going to like. I'm not trying to hear that shit at all. I'm only listening to hip hop. That's what I'm into. I just love the way the music's constructed. love the storytelling just my whole life it's all i grew up with and i know i don't look like it but that's that's just the way it is who cares it's great man hey whatever music's such a special thing how people connect with it or why it hits them where they're from what they're about doesn't matter i mean somebody should i've

Starting point is 00:09:23 connected with in my life it It's like, how? And I'm sure everyone listening right now can say the same thing. It just does something to us. It's so cool. It's powerful, man. I feel music is really one of those things that has the power to really change your state. Sometimes it's like drugs. You take drugs and it changes your state.

Starting point is 00:09:42 Certain music, like for me, if I'm tired in the morning, I throw on the right song. And again, we talk about drill music, gangster rap rap i'm not living a gangster murderous lifestyle but if i'm tired in the morning and i throw on a king von song i'm ready to go kill it in the gym you know i'm ready to go kill it at the office so but but for real that that stuff changes your state and you know gangster rap can put you in that that zone of getting shit done and really getting it and music's always been like aspirational to me you know you had like the bling era of hip-hop it's all about cash money getting money and like you know what it's like like sometimes you need to throw something like that on and throw in some work and i find music's just super super powerful uh as far as how it changes

Starting point is 00:10:17 your state and also the storytelling like yeah look i'm from a million miles away from o block or the hood or whatever, anything like that. But this music's given me a window into understanding places and, you know, people's backgrounds that I could have never maybe appreciated, right? Yeah, I don't know what it's like to grow up in the Marcy Projects, but from listening to all of Jay-Z's music throughout his entire career, I have an understanding of what people like him are going through. Guys, if you're still watching this video and you haven't yet hit that subscribe button please take two seconds and go hit it right now thank you and uh like i said the music's powerful it's powerful storytelling and my my job is really to just try and like listen to those stories that you hear in the music and just make it easier for people to understand what's really going on oh yeah you do a great job with it but you had mentioned a few of the names you got into, like Nas, Jay-Z, 50.

Starting point is 00:11:05 Was there any one artist or one song even when you were little that, like, it hit you and it just changed it and suddenly, like, that really set off the path? I mean, I was huge into Eminem, I think. Like, I guess it's kind of like Eminem's thing was like he was an angry white boy. And I guess I was probably a bit of an angry white boy when I was a kid too. You just kind of like, you know, growing up, I was listening to Eminem way too young,

Starting point is 00:11:31 to be honest, but it's like growing up, becoming a teenager, dealing with bullies at school, you know, a lot of that stuff spoke to me. Eminem's got, you know,

Starting point is 00:11:38 he got that song about, what was it? Brain damage, where he's talking about the kid that beat him up in school. And he was having all these issues and fighting this kid and just you know i'm just going through shit at school i'm having bullies at school getting fights at school and it's just that stuff really connected with me on a deeper level as far as like it felt personal you know eminem was this sort of trailer trash white trash eight mile trailer park guy he wasn't a gangster like you know jay-z's thing was

Starting point is 00:12:01 drug dealer mafia rap kind of thing which i couldn't really relate to even though i loved it and it was like an insight into a different world but the eminem stuff of just being an angry kid not fitting in you know that resonated with me and like those songs like that early eminem stuff you know his uh his slim shady lp marshall mathers lp that just them feelings like really spoke to me a lot oh yeah um so so i'll probably say eminem i i wouldn't i don't know if i could pick out like a specific song but like slim shady lp i had that way too young because again i had older brothers so i would be sneaking taking their cds and their records and stuff listening to them trying not to let my parents know what what sort of content i was taking in i've been like six or seven um you know like listening to this stuff but

Starting point is 00:12:44 it just had a huge effect on me had a profound effect on me you know and uh it's funny it's like now looking back it's like it made so much sense like i was listening to all of this hip-hop and it's like it all came in handy for this career that i had but before i was doing this professionally you know it was just like i was just this weird kid obsessed with hip-hop and i didn't really fit in you know it was like it probably took took 20 years for that shit to kind of come back around and be handy for what I was actually doing with my life. But I've just always loved hip hop.

Starting point is 00:13:11 And if this career wasn't there, I'd still just be listening to hip hop and, and just obsessed with the genre. So that's how it would be. That's beautiful. Cause that's your passion. And when people, I love when people make their careers into their passion,

Starting point is 00:13:23 do a great job with it. But you know, did you, did you kind of, how did it start? Like, when people i love when people make their careers into their passion do a great job with it but you know did you did you kind of how did it start like did you just say i'm gonna make a video one day and not think anything of it or were you like oh i know all the history on this stuff i want to start sharing that and let's figure out how to how to scale this up nah so it happened randomly man like i was even i've wanted to be a rapper since i was a kid right you want to be around i wanted to be a rapper because i was so into this stuff i wanted to be a rapper so what was your rap name man at the start i'm gonna say no no i can't say because

Starting point is 00:13:53 i've kept i've managed to keep my failed rap career a secret how was the white preacher we can all share the white preach is crazy the white preach is wild that's a wild name no i wasn't moving like that but uh no i don't want to say i I'm not going to say, it's like an Easter egg. People that know that are really, really deep in the trenches of my history will know. But no, I was trying to rap under a few different names. But even since I was a kid, like I was a kid in probably like, I want to say like the third grade. And there was like a school prom disco thing. And like me and my friends got together and made like a rap song.

Starting point is 00:14:20 And like my older brothers who were rapping would help me and my friends when we were,'d been like nine or something make this rap song and they like played it at the school disco and it was lit and we were like yeah it's just this crazy thing but um you know i was making songs and making music videos and shit wasn't really going anywhere but i was with a camera you know making music videos making songs just being creative just trying to do this thing i was into um and it's it's funny how when I got a little bit older, I wanted to just get into the industry. So I started like filming rap videos for like local rappers, you know, London or in my area, you know,

Starting point is 00:14:53 when I wasn't living in London and just trying to get, I just wanted to be in the game with rappers doing stuff, right? So I was making them music videos for no money. It was slightly a waste of time, but, you know, it was kind of like fun. I was enjoying being in the mix, with rappers being on a shoot but um on the side of that i also ended up for a period i was doing like stand-up comedy like in london there's like a big stand-up scene like there is out here so i was doing open mics and filming sketches and just just being creative

Starting point is 00:15:18 with it anything to do with a camera and comedy and music and just messing around it wasn't going anywhere i was getting no views i'd started my channel i would drop little skits and get 20 views 30 40 50 views how old are you again when you're doing this when i was doing that this would have been like any time between like i was 17 and like 23 this would have been like end of college university kind of time um and i was just messing around but no one was fucking with it basically i was getting no views i was doing stand-up comedy i was dying on stage but just oh you're doing stand-up comedy in there yeah just i was just trying to be creative and just get into anything nothing was working at the time and then like it

Starting point is 00:15:53 was just random like i was doing i had a friend of mine that was trying to do youtube as well both of us just not really getting anywhere but he'd said to me he was kind of like yo you do all of these you know you're so into hip-hop like when you're at a party i'm the guy that'd be telling i'd be hearing a song and telling people like, yo, you know this song? Like, you know, when he says this, like he means this. And my friend was like, why don't you do a video about like that kind of stuff? And I remember I was kind of like, I don't know if anyone wants to hear like a white kid from Bognor talking about the hip hop history. And he was like, I don't know, maybe give it a try.

Starting point is 00:16:19 And I started doing a couple of videos in that genre, these sort of mini documentary type things. And I did one on Jay-Z shooting his brother when he was 12. and what happened there that just went viral straight away so this is like a famous there's a bunch of lyrics from jay-z's like early career he's talking about he had to shoot his brother when he was 12. his brother was like a crackhead stealing from the family um and you know jay-z was like very young sort of you know getting into drug dealing getting into the streets kind of had something to prove. He ended up shooting his brother. He didn't die.

Starting point is 00:16:47 But, like, it was something that he'd referred to in a lot of his lyrics over the years, just this situation that happened. And it was just one of those things that, like, I knew about from the lyrics and from reading, you know, a book about Jay-Z and reading shit online. And it was just like, oh, let me tell that story. Like, that was the most interesting rap story I could kind of think of at the time. I made a list of stories, and that was my favorite but i think i dropped that and it got like 20,000 views in a couple days organically and i've never seen anything like that like i was dropping sketches on youtube for like ever since i was doing i had a youtube channel since like 2015 but it was like four years no one was really rocking with it but that it was in january 2019

Starting point is 00:17:20 i did the jay-z thing she went kind of viral on its own and from then i just knew i was like i think i've got something here. I'd never seen anything that I just put on YouTube just organically just get hits like that. You know, I'd never seen anything like it. I also don't think there's a, there are channels that obviously cover hip hop history, but I personally haven't seen anything

Starting point is 00:17:40 that goes into the depth you go into doing it. Like I was showing Alessi some of these docs I'm like dude he's making like three and a half hour five hour docs and like you're to and you talk fast and eloquently and it's all scripted as well to make sure it's all organized like we know how much work goes into that kind of thing it's unbelievable and so I often think about like the people who are really into stuff that's like popular, in your case, like hip-hop music, which many billions of people around the world love. But they're looking for certain type of content on their hobby and they can't find it. So then they do it.

Starting point is 00:18:15 Yeah. And that's kind of what you did. Yeah, that's definitely it. To be fair, you know, I want to show some respect. Like there were other channels doing sort of – that were doing well in this space at that time. And, you know, like channels – you know, another one that was great, Diverse Mentality, a guy, Quake, that runs that channel. You know, he's a good guy. But, you know, he was doing the sort of more like hip hop beef histories early.

Starting point is 00:18:36 Again, scripted, really well put together, really well edited. And so he was definitely an inspiration. Other channels, there's a guy, Blackie Speaks, who kind of was more doing like hip-hop news commentary type stuff. Yeah, diverse mentality. Yeah, we got it on the screen. He'd been doing it for a minute, man. His stuff's sick. But if you go on videos, like if you hit videos and hit most popular,

Starting point is 00:18:56 like scroll down just a little. Diddy Responding. Of course the Diddy one's most popular. We're going to talk about him today. He's been plugged in. He's got like the Nipsey Hussle documentary. That's like a damn near damn near two hour documentary oh shit or he does the who really wants about other people um you know 50 cent versus jar rule that was a

Starting point is 00:19:11 classic video so so he really inspired me that's cool blackie speaks his is more the like short um you type in blackie speaks um short like commentary videos about like hip hop news and stuff yeah that's him there see the first channel yeah so I've seen that thumbnail yeah yeah so he's been doing his thing channel you know there's a lot of people hello you're seen is another good channel that was kind of

Starting point is 00:19:37 you know he'd been doing it before I was really really popping but yeah you know it's a whole ecosystem but I feel like in the last I don't know four or five years since i've been big a lot of you know a lot of copycats been doing the same kind of thing but that's what youtube's like it's you know it's like there was already a style out there when i started doing it i tried to kind of add my little spin to it go longer go deeper and then you know other people have now popped up they're kind of like doing their thing and and creating this documentary style content but you know i just love this space like any new channels that

Starting point is 00:20:08 pop up i love watching them i'm trying to consume as much information about this space as possible because i'm just really into this stuff so yeah and you're branching like you branch the worlds together so you're not just going through the rap side of it you also do separate content on by the way like a lot of the rap is tied it's still tied into gang culture and everything so let's look at some of those docs as well which had you ever before you got into doing this had you ever studied that side of it as much or were you more focused on like what they you know translating what they were saying in hip-hop at the start it was more hip-hop beef like it was more 50 cent versus rick ross the beef you know what happened in the beef um jay-z what happened with his brother. It wasn't

Starting point is 00:20:46 really gangster content. It was more just like that was a crazy story. You know, you had like Gucci Mane with his self-defense case. You know, they tried to kill him and he killed somebody and it was he got a murder case and it was self-defense that he beat. It happens. It happens

Starting point is 00:21:01 in hip-hop. It does be happening, unfortunately. But like, it wasn't like gangster content it was more just like real crazy situations that popped off with hip-hop um so i was probably doing it for a year or so really the Takeshi69 situation that sort of was maybe the first foray into the gang content more because he was a guy that he'd you know he positioned himself as a blood he was a gang member 69 sort of the fake blood ends up snitching on everybody but that was like you know i was reading paperwork about six nine's case and obviously the bloods and all the stuff that he got involved in it's very gangster content but his his story was interesting

Starting point is 00:21:38 because it was like he was a fake blood that got sucked into the lifestyle but then after that story you know i'm moving on to other things finding about out about more real gangs real gangsters that are involved in the music and uh obviously chicago is a big part of that but um it just kind of happened naturally i think early i was doing more the rap beefs and then it kind of got got towards more like gang rappers that were popping off and also drill music and gangster rap really came back in a big way during that period of time yes like i know i've been spending time with adam 22 from no jumper while i've been out here and like his thing was it was like chicago drill really popped off in like 2012 2013 when chief keith really first came out but then after a few years that gangster rap stuff kind of died down and it became like the soundcloud rap era you

Starting point is 00:22:19 had people like xxxx tentacion trippy red Lil Pump. And that was what was the most popping thing in hip hop. We're talking like, I don't know, 2016. Even Post Malone was coming out for that. Post Malone came out through that era, like 2015 to maybe like 2018. But really, gangster rap came back in a big way around the King Von sort of times. 2018, 2019, when Von was really bringing that gangster Chicago sound back with his storytelling type raps. It wasn't just him. You had people like Pop Smoke also bringing the kind of gangster street stuff back with his storytelling type raps. It wasn't just him. You had people like Pop Smoke also bringing the kind of

Starting point is 00:22:47 gangster street stuff back in New York. I'd say like 2018. God, he was so good. Yeah, man. Such a loss when he passed, you know, because he would have been huge. But gangster rap came back in a big way during that time and I feel like that...

Starting point is 00:22:59 I wasn't chasing that type of content, but it just got to the bit where you couldn't ignore it. Like the biggest artists out that you were talking about, whether it was Dirk, Pop Smoke, whatever, they were in gangs and gang was a big part of their music. So you couldn't ignore it.

Starting point is 00:23:12 And then the content just kind of evolved. You know, we had the guys like Young and Ace with the Who I Smoke song. I don't know if you guys were that into that, but like that was a whole big thing. And then I did a video breaking down like the Jacksonville rappers and their gang politics and stuff there. And it's just – Gang politics?

Starting point is 00:23:26 Yeah, just kind of like how deep there's – every city's got a different set of gang politics. Every city's got a different set of gangs. And there's always some rappers in each side of the gang war. There's always some songs going back and forth and sort of breaking it down. And I feel like that's just where hip-hop's ended up these days. Like gangster rap came back in such a big way. And now every city's got a gang culture that the music sort of is uh circulating around well it kind of felt inevitable too because like i i was an enormous enormous old school hip-hop guy growing

Starting point is 00:23:53 up i mean that's my favorite artist of all time is right so i came up on that stuff like you know it was before my time but i had a kid who moved in across the street from me when i was in sixth grade he was four years older than me. He was a hippie from California and his eclectic music taste was across the borders. Everything from Buffalo Springfield, Rolling Stones to Bob Marley, Tupac, Nas, Biggie. Like he was incredible. So he really opened up my world. Shout out Kyle.

Starting point is 00:24:19 But I remember myself getting really into the history studying that because you had this whole east, west, beef and whatever. And you've seen as you just laid out there really well the eras of rap based on kind of what goes mainstream has changed so many times since then. But it always – it's like a cycle. It always ends up coming back to some sort of the gangster culture and then you know not to be cynical but you see some of the guys who are pulling the business string so to speak on this stuff over the years and they last and it's it feels like it's kind of inevitable and of course i mean the 500 pound elephant in the room is diddy you know the guy the guy's been around since like 93 94 somewhere in there starting bad boy records when he literally came out of nowhere

Starting point is 00:25:06 working for yeah how did he how did he get those connections man how did he get that going so he was a nobody suddenly he's got he's running shit you know are you making a doc on this uh i want to do it soon i want to do it eventually a lot of people are kind of piling in with the the diddy documentary stuff at the moment we need you to make one i want to do it but also like i know that it's going to be really deep and long and complex, and I'm kind of waiting. He's not been charged with anything yet. Sometimes I find it's timing so important with these documentaries, and it's like, I

Starting point is 00:25:33 know a lot of people have done really well making the Diddy documentary, and I respect that, and there's been some really good videos about him, but I'm waiting for something deeper to happen. All of his homes have been raided. I'm waiting for the charge. Where's the charge? I need some paperwork to read so I really know what's going on do you think they're coming the charges i think so i mean look at the raid was serious that was a serious raid it wasn't like

Starting point is 00:25:53 we're just gonna like have a little sweep of your apartment like they're serious and they're not just doing that because they just felt like it because they had a feeling like i've i personally i think the timing's very interesting man just with uh kifi d with the whole two-pack murder charge people say biggie put up a million dollars for the hit and all that kind of stuff it's interesting that that guy got locked maybe he's gonna flip on diddy i don't know yeah i mean you've seen obviously i'm sure the the vlad interview they did with him where, I mean, he's borderline bragging about it. And I had heard years ago from someone really good. I'll just leave it at that.

Starting point is 00:26:34 That Diddy was behind that. Yeah, a few people have said that. That's made its way into a few lyrics over the years. You know, the question mark was always, you know, the story goes that Did he put up a million dollars for the hit but then the money never ended up getting paid and a lot of people talked like oh that saved diddy the money not going to the person who did the hit save diddy i don't think that's how the justice system works bro i think if you if you put a hit on somebody for a million dollars and they do it and then you don't pay up i don't think that means it's got free so i never paid so it's cool yeah ah ah the the fbi just like you're free to go he didn't he

Starting point is 00:27:09 didn't pick up the check for the he didn't pick up the check for the hit so we just got a leaded slide damn he loophole now i think i think i don't know i wouldn't be surprised if uh kifi d was flipping on diddy and then this was all wrapped up and then it's the whole cassie situation and i'm waiting for just a little bit more of uh like consolidated info on the case before i cover it but also i got a bunch of stories my difficult thing is i do these two three hour docs it takes a month or two to put them together i can't if something's popping off in the news i can't just jump on it and make a quick video you know i gotta turn the whole ship around spend a month or two decide what that topic of that video is going to be go deep deep deep into

Starting point is 00:27:46 the research so it's not easy for me to just turn around and just be like fuck it let's just do diddy now but i'm waiting for like some real big info on it to come so that i can tell the full story because again we we were trying to do the ymw melly case which obviously has been big news the ymw melly double murder case you know we were working on that's back in court now again right it's just been really slow he waived his right to a speedy trial um which i probably ain't really a great sign to be honest but the case before we were trying to put together the documentary in time for the case to be finished but then it was declared a mistrial so he got put on the back burner now melly's saying he's waving his right to a speedy trial so who knows how long that could take but i don't want

Starting point is 00:28:22 to cover it until the right until the verdict is out there because at the end of the day every month someone's doing a new ymw melly video and they're just there's no new info there's nothing really to say right so i'm waiting for the verdict and then we're going to go back and get all of the information and lay it all out so you know exactly what happened but right now there's no point well have you read the daily lawsuits not all of them but i've watched a few breakdowns and it's just crazy. Dude. What do you think it was? When you say what do you mean?

Starting point is 00:28:51 Because there's so much we don't know right now, but do you think there's something deeper to this? I mean, this one is so, but usually when you see these things, I mean, not that you've seen a lot like this, but usually when you see accusations and whatever, it's just someone's a scumbag, like they're bad, this feels very intelli to me very very intelli the cameras everywhere like i don't know what your beat is but this is all just my opinion yep i'm

Starting point is 00:29:20 not trying to catch a lawsuit from diddy there you go all my opinion i don't know what the hell i'm talking i'm just a hip-hop historian. I don't know what I'm talking about. But it seems like what was going on was he was on some... It won't take long to tell you Neutral's ingredients. Vodka, soda, natural flavors. So, what should we talk about no sugar added

Starting point is 00:29:51 neutral refreshingly simple jeffrey epstein type shit but the gay way yeah well he went every way right kind of i mean there was some stuff in that lawsuit talking about he was having bringing the guys in to smash his girl and he was filming it and watching it and putting on a show for people they're saying that he was you know the one of the documentaries that i've seen again once again this is just my opinion of some shit that i've seen on YouTube, but I hear people saying that he was basically groomed by an older executive in the industry got executives doing funny stuff to young guys and then they're keeping a secret and then they're giving them opportunities in the industry and people say that diddy took that model and was doing that to other people they're saying he was doing that to usher and meat mill some crazy shit um and you know he was using this as like a whole control mechanism for

Starting point is 00:30:58 running in the industry that's the crazy thing because there's been the rumor that diddy was gay for years and years and years but it seems like actually that's that's a gross grossly inaccurate way of describing the extent of like what he allegedly was involved in but again i'm waiting for a little more consolidated info to come out because there's a lot of speculation and like a lot of speculation i don't know people saying the meek mill thing man it's just it's hard to believe that meek mill and diddy were freaking off like that no but it was did you see andrew schultz's stand up on oh yeah yeah i did see a little piece where he's like we believe you bro yeah you're doing a really bad job of telling us he's doing too much man he's doing too much he's like i'm so not gay i'm

Starting point is 00:31:34 so not gay i love pussy i love pussy it's like all right dude yeah bro we get it me uh meet mill's been on some funny stuff for a minute man i don't know i don't know i mean do you think part of it is it is he kind of feels a little bit nomadic in the last couple of years? His music doesn't have the same direction. It's almost like the years and years of his criminal case going through the system that was really fucked up almost took a lot of energy out of him.

Starting point is 00:32:06 Man, I feel like that's a very generous way of putting it i feel like meek just ain't been putting out good music for a minute and like that's why the diddy thing's so crazy because it's like i've always thought how has meek managed to stay so rich because he's always flexing new money new jets new planes new cars ain't really never really the music ain't never really hitting like that so i've always wondered just how's he still on i don't know the diddy thing kind of was sort of giving a explanation as to how this guy managed to stay on top without releasing music but at the same time i'm not sure i believe the ditty thing but like i'll be honest like i've never been the hugest fan of meek mills music like back in the day like championships kind of era meek's music was

Starting point is 00:32:41 slapping yeah but like past few years he didn't really have anything like he's been dining out on that one song like hold up wait a minute you thought I was finished like he's been dining on that song for years it's a banger Meek Mill's got songs in his catalogue that are hard but like he's one of these rappers that in the past few years been more known for his antics

Starting point is 00:32:59 and the weird shit around him rather than his music I'm a good friend of DJ Academics and he goes to war with Meek on a regular basis. So it's a hard one as far as Meek. I don't know. Maybe the Diddy situation is what kept Meek in the headlines. I don't know. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:33:14 Meek's not necessarily my favorite. But that's also the problem with these types of stories. We, the public, all of us, we start running with things before we know anything anything and to your point that's why i respect you wanting to see some more things play out before making some because you know someone will show a video and then say yep you know what justin bieber definitely got diddled too you know maybe but like we don't know we don't know what's going on and obviously like you said it's really sinister shit in that lawsuit they are i guess just accusations or

Starting point is 00:33:46 whatever but the a lot of these maybe not quite as bad as what we saw in the lawsuit in the detail but a lot of the little rumors on things around diddy whether it be street violence whether it be you know being in the closet and doing weird stuff with guys and whatever this this is not new this is this is stuff that's been floating around for a long time but what why do you do you think it's just like he's so forgetting like an intel angle or something right now like the epstein type idea do you think it's just like he's so powerful in the industry that not only do people you know notice like powerful people know to shut up and never say anything in the past but they also feel like they have to go to his parties when he has

Starting point is 00:34:24 them yeah i think a lot of people felt like they had to go to a diddy party like i ain't gonna front if i got invited to the diddy party i might still go and just wear a wire and scope that shit out but uh you know i i i don't know what what's going on at those parties man it's crazy but but i think with diddy man it's just a case of uh if you're on some weird shit like this you can't keep it a secret forever look at someone like Harvey Weinstein that guy was doing all sorts of madness in the industry for years it was like he's never going to get caught he was sliding forever you can't hide if you're doing if you're doing awful stuff like that's just evil like Harvey Weinstein predatory

Starting point is 00:34:57 evil the stuff they're accusing Diddy of if it's true you can't keep that you can't keep that secret forever people eventually you can't affect so many people negatively and harm harm bring harm to their lives and just get away with it forever you know whether it's cosby epstein that shit gets out eventually so i feel like this diddy thing is just on a long enough timeline it's all going to come out and that's why i'm waiting because i know that if it's the real deal, six months, maybe a federal case drops. We're going to find out everything. So I'm waiting for that info to drop. But if he's really, like, bro, there's no, I don't know, man.

Starting point is 00:35:32 I want to just say there's no smoke without fire. All the shit they've been saying about Diddy for years. Now this lawsuit stuff's dropping. I don't really see a route to anyone turning around and being like, oh, the Diddy thing was all fake and you all owe him an apology. Like, bro, look at what's there. I don't know. But like I say, I'm waiting for more paperwork to drop so i don't know but it seems seems like he was doing some crazy shit and everyone knew about it for years all these guys that you just mentioned be it epstein diddy cosby whatever they were all they all had a long period of time pre-social media where they were doing this yeah and that's the other thing like

Starting point is 00:36:05 they weren't sitting there in 93 96 realizing you know that some lady in fucking iowa can hit upload in 15 years from now or something or put their opinion out in a comment section and so these powerful people cultivate these ideas in behind these doors of silence and now the doors are blown open in this era. And the best example is guys like you who can then go fuck a studio, fuck anything else. Like you're going to go make your own content, hit the upload button, and millions of people are going to watch it because it's put together. It's researched well, and I want to talk with you about this but you also have access to the internet to do a lot of your research from you know sitting in the uk doing research on wherever this stuff's happening yeah man it's uh it's an interesting time you know this is definitely something i want to get

Starting point is 00:36:53 into because i feel like people i feel like your platform is a good place to get into this stuff because my side of the internet knows about this already but you'd be amazed how much information you can get on the internet if you know what you're doing like my whole thing really like i try like my thing like i've got a deep knowledge of hip-hop hip-hop history i know what's going on more than way more than the average person but it's because it's not because of it's partly because of my love of hip-hop but it's also partly because like i'm a g when it comes to using google and reddit like i'll find anything like i'll i know where that info is hidden away if someone's deleted a page i'm a g when it comes to using google and reddit like i'll find anything like i'll i know

Starting point is 00:37:25 where that info is hidden away if someone's deleted a page i'm gonna find an archive of that page i'm gonna find someone's deleted a video some crazy shit's happened and it's they're trying to take the video down i'm gonna find a backup i know all the tricks and cheat codes to find shit hidden away on the internet whether it's the rap is just the area of interest that i'm interested in but it's like there's a million subreddits on like i was telling gene like i was saying well i was with gene barello the other day i was explaining to him i was like bro you know about the mafia subreddit and he's like no i was like you know i was like bro let me show you the mafia subreddit where they're talking about you like anytime you're exposing one of the other guys they're in there talking

Starting point is 00:37:59 about it and he's like well he's like really and i'm like bro showing him showing him pictures of himself in the mafia subreddit being like, this is them talking about you on there. And like every gang, every area of hip hop, there's a subreddit. There's a subreddit for No Jumper, and they're talking about everything that's going on with Adam's show. So it's like there's these little hidden communities hidden away on the internet that know everything that's going on, and I'll be tapping into all these different places,

Starting point is 00:38:24 finding information for videos. But it gets deep, man. There's a lot of – that's going on and i'll be tapping into all these different places finding information for videos but it gets deep man there's a lot of you know that that's my thing man i'm just google google master with it and that's where it sounds like that's where all the research starts pretty much yeah you know that's the thing between google and reddit and youtube and facebook and twitter you can like all that shit together you know yeah and it's and it's tough sometimes to synthesize it because that's the other thing we have so much information overload now that we also have to then make calls and and i you know i deal with this in my job too just just like you in a different way but like you know all right what seems like gossip or like fake internet accounts talking about

Starting point is 00:39:00 something versus oh maybe that's real right there like how do you how do you make those calls is that just kind of judgment gut decision my thing is like i i i'm not i'm not ready to believe something until i've seen a couple sources for it so for example like if we're talking about a murder in chicago you know we're gonna find the shiracology subreddit which is like the hub for shiracology if you don't know about this oh i'm about to educate you guys let's go you're gonna love this if you guys don't know about this let I'm about to educate you guys. Yeah, let's go. You're going to love this. Chiracology subreddit. Let's go. Yeah, anybody that knows MySpace, you'll know all this.

Starting point is 00:39:29 But if you're not into this, you're going to have your mind blown. So when it comes to the Chicago gang drill community, Chiracology on Reddit is where all of that activity is going on. So anytime somebody gets shot in Chicago, a Chicago drill rapper, anyone connected to that um this isn't live is it you guys aren't going out live no because sometimes with this stuff you'll scroll through here and you might see someone's getting you might see a dead body it's like sometimes if i'm on live and i'm reacting to stuff on here i'm like go to go go sorry go back to the top and change uh see where it says hot hot down hot yeah put it to like top this month so look this is everything that's going on they're following everything to do with the Chicago

Starting point is 00:40:13 drill community anything in the streets with the drill rap gang rap in Chicago they're keeping up with anything so in this you know but it's not all negative stuff look that's an interesting one but they're talking about okay this one's a negative one this is tay savage at a party and someone starts shooting right but the whole subreddit anything that goes off anything that pops off um is all going on in here they're taking throwback tweets look that tweet seriously the tweet scroll back up

Starting point is 00:40:38 like that tweet is chief keith's reaction to little jojo getting killed again if you don't know the whole story we gotta blur that when we put this live, Elasi. Go ahead. Yep. We've got to blur the N-word. Yep, we've got to blur that. Yeah, I don't want to create too many problems because there's a lot of stuff in here you won't be able to show.

Starting point is 00:40:53 But, you know, it's just this place, this is where anything is going... Like, this is front street for anything going on in the streets of Chicago. And who do you think's posting this? Like, people who are literally in it? It's a mixture between people that are in it, people that are super fans,

Starting point is 00:41:06 that just are obsessed and follow everything that's going on and they know everything. But, for example, like if you keep scrolling, they'll be kind of, you know, say anyone. Actually, tell you what, go back up. Like you see that one of the, this is the shooting with Tay Savage, right? If you go to the comments on that post, there's going to be a bunch of theories about who was responsible, who was there, what was going on. Yes, I'm over it. Now you go into the comments,

Starting point is 00:41:31 and it's going to be all different people. You didn't have to plug that. But you know what I mean? So I'm going to be on here. Anything that goes on, I'm going to be here. Then I'm going to be in the comments. Usually, if it's a murder or a shooting, there's usually a couple of comments to be like, oh, it was these was these guys it was this it was that right and i'm not i'm not

Starting point is 00:41:48 just going to put that out there but that's a lead for me to go okay well let me look into a little bit more if they're saying in the comments it's this guy or this gang that's responsible i can go and look into their social media see what's going on see if it cooperates i can go listen to their songs and see if there's any lyrics that where they're saying that they're claiming that this thing's happened that like we thought but again this is the hub right but every community there's one of these for the new york drill scene there's one of these for the uk drill scene this is the chicago drill scene there's a mob subreddit this is just one of many sources for this information but this was crazy this this was crazy news for the last month yeah so you're so you just

Starting point is 00:42:23 you're you're an internet god pretty much and you're going in there and and then how do you like even when you make a three and a half hour documentary like the king von one i can imagine as far as things that could go into that script you probably have 60 hours worth of stuff you could put in there maybe not that much but you know what i mean like a lot a lot more than three and a half hours how do you synthesize it down to to get it because like when your final products they tie together perfectly so you're really good at figuring out like okay this is exactly what we need it's going to get everything we need in there yeah i mean really that's just my own writing process my storytelling process you know i will yeah we'll create a script or a kind of timeline it's like a research timeline

Starting point is 00:43:07 where we'll find anything you know say we're on there shire ecology you know there's a shooting that happens okay that shooting happened on the 12th of june 2020 we'll put that in the document it's a chronological uh timeline of everything that happened right but then once i've kind of got all of the facts got the information that's there i'll then write that up into a narrative that i think makes sense and helps is the way that people are going to understand the story the most clearly, I guess is what I'm trying to say. So it's like I'll write that, and I might find big chunks of information. I'm like, you know what? This doesn't fit or this isn't relevant.

Starting point is 00:43:35 Let me put that – that will go on the cutting room floor. That will go at the end of the document separate of like that. That piece of information wasn't relevant, so that didn't make it in. Are you still your only writer? I'm the main writer. I have two researchers that help me but it's like that's pretty amazing the words that end up on the in the video that's that's me like they'll help me find stuff like the way that we work now is it's kind of like like i decide all the stories and all the narrative and exactly what every story is going to be and how it's going to go but for example i might have those guys go ahead now for example we're doing a story it's in a few months time about this gangster rapper from india this one's

Starting point is 00:44:08 kind of like a slightly different from india indian this is new this guy's the indian tupac that's what they say for real they've got the indian tupac what's his name uh sudu muswala sudu muswala he's popping let's try to pull that up go ahead um yeah so like we're doing that and so like well you know that and so like you know i've got one of my guys on my team like i've kind of laid out how i want the structure of that story to go and the things that i want to touch on and i know his story um but like um you know i've got one of my researchers now he's out just you know he's translating songs and he's finding lyrics and stuff like that and it's like we're all doing a different thing so it's like i'll

Starting point is 00:44:43 build a narrative build the story i might go and watch a bunch of ig lives and go on reddit but he's dead he's dead yeah he passed away yeah he was killed assassinated the crazy thing about him is it's like he was like one of the first rappers out of india doing this kind of drill gangster thing he'd he'd had he'd been involved in the streets in india and uh he ended up becoming really big really famous he was trying to get into politics and they didn't like that oh famous. He was trying to get into politics, and they didn't like that. So he was trying to get political. Oh, this could be like some back office assassination. In India, yeah, he was getting too

Starting point is 00:45:14 big, and they ended up assassinating him. When you say they, who do you think it was? There's a research saying it was. There's an organization that claimed responsibility for it, but the crazy thing about India is it's like there's sort of this overlap between the streets and the politics where it's like you got these guys from sort of different communities in india trying to become the representative for their area he was trying to get into politics because he had all

Starting point is 00:45:35 of this clout and rap and uh they ended up not really liking it and there was a whole thing where he he was already into politics so he had a security detail and then the he was trying to sort of uh get deeper into politics and the government a security detail and then the he was trying to sort of uh get deeper into politics and the government didn't like it so they like got rid of his security clearances so he had like no he was right then he couldn't roll with security and then he was outside and they shot up his car and ended up getting killed but it's a deep story this is something we're working on so this ain't dropping for a few months but again just goes to show you this stuff's going on in every country every city even in india you've got a drill rapper that's coming up and getting assassinated you know but

Starting point is 00:46:08 it happens everywhere you know i just did a video about the sort of gangster rap uh street scene in sweden and they go sweden they got gangsters they got gangster rappers they're dissing each other making songs about each other people getting killed like white boys and stuff a lot of like guys that are middle eastern immigrants or like second generation middle eastern from over there you got like syrians and libyans and somalis it's interesting you know you have this in every country but every city it's a different flavor maybe it's a different group different sort of racial makeup of people in that area if you know what i'm saying i did i did a big story about uh gangster rappers in london and a lot of those guys are like somalian it's like a smart there's like a gang

Starting point is 00:46:48 famous gang like the camden malis and like the somalians there's sort of like a somali gang that would be from with another another gang in london but again it's sort of like they might be second generation in the country they're sort of you know londoners by culture but then they've got these sort of ties the somalian ties and that's how that gang sort of you know londoners by culture but then they've got these sort of ties the somalian ties and that's how that gang sort of will stick together the somalians against these other people but again it's sort of like there's the actual streets gang connections that sit above the rap connections and then these guys are making songs about each other going to war with each other but it's just crazy how this culture you see it in every city whether it's chicago or jacksonville india or london the pattern of gangster rap and the gang music kind of being

Starting point is 00:47:31 used to diss each other and it's it's it's a layer removed from the actual gang violence it's just it's really fascinating and that's that's why i kind of i love what i do because look at looking into the gang situation in india and being like yo this is similar to chicago but it's a little more political and it's a completely different group of people and they're from a completely different background but they're going through the same issues like in a lot of ways what i do is almost like i study conflicts you know in different areas but every city's got a conflict and then there's music around it and there's sort of similarities and differences so fascinating so fascinating that music's at the middle of that.

Starting point is 00:48:06 And so obviously it's fascinating to you. You're covering it. But does it ever make you sad too that it's like endless cycles in all these places? Yeah, man. This kind of work, I try to make people understand this really affects me. This isn't a laugh. I'm not just like in Chiropractic just having fun seeing people get shot. It's funny.

Starting point is 00:48:24 This stuff really affects me. And there's a lot of artists that I've covered where, you know, the footage of the murder is online. You know, FBG Duck, obviously, he was a rapper that, you know, I liked his music. I really liked FBG Duck. I liked his stuff. How is the guy King Von? He was the biggest, yeah, he was the guy that was beefing with King Von, right? And, you know, King Von's crew killed him.

Starting point is 00:48:43 And, you know, they say Von put up the money for that murder to happen and then you know that case ended up happening and you know the guys that did it von was dead by that point but i think von would have been wrapped up in that case if he was alive but um you know i was a fan of duck and you know i was just talking to dj vlad i did an interview with him the other day and he was he did an interview with duck and he was friendly with duck and he told duck to move out of chicago and duck wasn't trying to hear it and duck gets killed in chicago and it's, this stuff affects me, man, because these are artists that I listen to and I really enjoy. You know, the footage of the Duck murder became public after the case finished. And it was sad, man, seeing that footage of Duck getting killed.

Starting point is 00:49:17 You know, he went from being alive on the street to just being dead on the floor within seconds. You know, it's really tragic stuff. And seeing those videos, they affect me, man. You know that that stuff really sticks with me and it makes me sad and and you know sometimes it's like it breaks my heart when you see a young guy from chicago that's like duck he'd been involved in the streets he'd been come out of one of the most dangerous and serious situations that you could imagine a young man coming up through and he had all the opportunities to change his life and get out of chicago and he couldn't he didn't in time and then you know i'm just seeing that footage of him being killed and laying there dead and it's just it honestly it breaks my heart man and it

Starting point is 00:49:52 it does affect me on a deep level because i want to see all these young guys win man i don't want to see people die people that talented young artists coming up that have their whole lives ahead of them you know i it's not something i can ever change but i just wish there was something that i could do or some way that i could help in a way that just i mean i try and cover these stories responsibly and i try and if you watch what i do a lot of people don't really catch this but like i'll always try and get to the root cause of like well why are things so bad in this neighborhood like what are the historical you know socio-economic circumstances that that have made chicago so violent i'm not somebody who

Starting point is 00:50:26 sits around saying you know rappers are just violent and they just want to kill each other because they're bad guys like a lot of these guys are victims of circumstance being placed in these kill or be killed situations and i've said it in videos before just like look it's tragic being on either side of the gun if you get shot and killed in the streets because of a song you made or because you're involved in the wrong gang, that's fucked up. But so is you're a young guy that kills somebody because you've got this broken mindset that you're killed to survive in the streets. And you feel like you've got to kill someone or they're going to kill you. And then you're going to jail for 50 years.

Starting point is 00:50:58 That's tragic, too. You've lost your life, too. Because all the guys that were involved in the hit on FBG Duck, a lot of them have kids, a lot of them have families. They're gone. And that's tragic. They were born into that situation. I'm lucky enough that I wasn't born into a gang stronghold, a gang situation. I don't have to – realistically, I know I don't have to have those worries.

Starting point is 00:51:19 I don't – I've not had to worry my whole life of stepping out my front door and somebody going to kill me, right? So I try and put myself in those shoes and just try and empathize. But, you know, this stuff does affect me deeply, man. And sometimes, you know, it does. I felt depressed before when I find out an artist that I've been enjoying their music has been killed, you know, and that, I mean, I just remember when, where I was when I found out Pop Smoke had died, or even King Von, but I remember where I was when I found out Pop Smoke had died. And at the time, he was my favorite artist. I wasn't, he was the guy i was listening to the most and i felt i was like this guy's going to be a star he was 20 years old too right she broke my heart man that he lost so young

Starting point is 00:51:54 and like he was one of them once he was about to be huge he was changing his life he was getting out of the streets yes and so to see that and to see what happened just completely senseless the way that he died it wasn't anything to do with his beef yeah yeah he's messed up man this is the last thing that i want to see so you know i want people to understand like this isn't just fun content for me like i know these are real people real circumstances like real consequences and uh man i wish i wish there was something i could do to change it but i'm not i'm not in a position to change these things you It's bigger than me. Yeah, and I'm going to keep saying this line, but Tommy G, when he was in here, had such a great line that I love

Starting point is 00:52:31 where he's like, look, you can't boil the ocean, but you can boil your pot. And that's so, so true, and it's great to hear that a guy like you seems to have that perspective too. But it's tough because you want to hold the world on your shoulders when you know you get to meet a lot of these guys too and just be like come on like can't you see this but there's something very strange in human psychology where when it comes to like think like more masculine you know basic animal masculine forces we have where we can have people who come from something that's hard. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:53:09 Do all the right things to get out of that situation, go somewhere where they don't have to live that. But something pulls them back to be like, ooh, I'm not going to have the respect if I leave that because the people who are still there, which I was trying to get away from, there's something that like makes us have to feel like we still have cred with them in that case. if I leave that because the people who are still there, which I was trying to get away from, there's something that like makes us have to feel like we still have cred with them in that case.

Starting point is 00:53:34 And like, I'll be goddamned if I try to sit here and explain that I know what that's like. I don't, you know, I grew up, I'm a middle class dude in America, like upper middle class dude in America, like I grew up great. So I didn't have that kind of, you know, like, oh, you switched up pressure, but it's very hard for some people to understand that that culture could exist because then they just see the end result which is like gang violence people shooting each other and stuff and they're like oh fuck this like these people are crazy obviously all that's wrong but i mean it who am i to judge how they feel among their peers? Yeah, it's difficult. Like you say, I'm not from that background, so I'm not going to pretend I understand.

Starting point is 00:54:15 Like I know what that's like, what these young guys are going through that are involved in these gangs. But I just try and empathize and put myself in those shoes. But there are, you know, I see other channels that have this very unempathetic approach to things where they're like yeah this this guy's dumb these you know i've seen channels or videos and it's like yeah this guy's you know i'm not trying to call out anyone specifically but it's like you know they'd be like yeah dumbest criminal ever or whatever you know and it's just like bro you need to have some empathy like some of these guys that are crashing out you know it's like oh guy jumped on instagram live and shot his up and he crashed out or like k flock they you know say yeah he caught a body in broad daylight in designer drip like he's dumb and on the one hand yeah it's pretty dumb to catch

Starting point is 00:54:53 a body in in a designer fit but on the other hand i try and empathize with what he's going through he's walking around in his nice outfit and he doesn't know who's trying to kill him and he's he's unfortunately he's a young guy he's 19 he's on edge and he's just shooting somebody because he thinks they're going to kill him now that is pretty dumb but at the same time if you have the empathy it's it's not because it's like what he's going through he he's just on now he's had nothing he's walking around in his designer fit and somebody's approaching him and he's feeling in danger of his life how old was he again when that happened i think maybe he was 18 or 19 when it happened. Yeah, he was like 17, 18, something like that.

Starting point is 00:55:27 He was super, super young. He's been in there for like a year, maybe two years now. Yeah, he's got like a 50-year sentence or something. I don't think he's got a sentence yet. I think he's waiting for trial. Okay. But it's not looking good. Right.

Starting point is 00:55:36 Basically. And it's New York. You know, you can't be having a gun in New York and stuff. But like what I'm trying to say is like I try and have that empathy. I try not to look at that as like, yeah this is this is the bronx's dumbest shooter but at the same time it's like bro what he's going through is tough you know and he he is he does literally have people trying to kill him and he is now one of the most at the time he was probably the most famous guy coming out of the bronx right so it's like i got sympathy for that situation he's rolling around he's become

Starting point is 00:56:02 this known face card in the bronx and everyone's trying to kill him of course he's always going to be on edge and unfortunately that day that guy approached him and he was felt in danger for his life and he opened fire and now he's going to have to face justice and that's right the courts are going to decide whether or not that was okay but it's uh i think it's messed up when people do that when they're like oh this guy's a crash dummy he's crashed out and he's ruined his life and he's an idiot dumb criminal it's like bro have some empathy man like i don't think people are just one or two people are dumb criminals that are just crashing out but like a lot of these guys they're dealing with a situation that like if you put yourself in those shoes you might you might have found yourself behaving

Starting point is 00:56:35 similarly i mean i was an idiot when i was 18 i was an idiot when i was 24 right now put yourself in that socioeconomic situation the people you're, what other people respond to that you may try to play to. Yeah, dumb shit can happen. I agree with you. I think that my issue with this stuff is the patterns that we as a society got to figure out here. I love studying history one of the things i've i've started looking at right now i gotta get deeper into it but i've really started studying was like the reconstruction period right post-civil war and you know i look at it not just from a black white perspective i look

Starting point is 00:57:17 at this from beyond that like years and years later from a socio-economic perspective because at the time the freed black slaves represented the lower the lowest socioeconomic situation you could be in but you know you look at abraham lincoln getting killed in 1865 that the reverberations of that were insane because his successor andrew johnson basically took his reconstruction plans and went crumpled it up and threw it away and so there were things like you know they were going to give land to freed slaves and whatever he said no fuck that we're not doing that and it created this almost like free rush right afterwards just

Starting point is 00:57:56 to try to pay your bills and so what ended up happening is fast forward years later where we have hundreds of races or whatever within this country where some are socioeconomically powerful, others aren't, depending on when they came here, what they came here with, what opportunities that they had from their culture to monetize here, whatever this case, like in some of the genre you're looking at in American rap, if you will. These are guys who are born into poverty-stricken situations, usually with maybe one parent at home. We've done a bad job with our education systems in the inner cities, so maybe they're not even in school by the time they're in eighth grade. So they don't have much else to go on. Now they access to the internet at least so they can see their heroes who maybe

Starting point is 00:58:48 have a similar socioeconomic background that they do and then they respond to the culture that those guys may glorify in that way and i think about that a lot because like i love some of this music right and i also empathize with where the basis of it comes from but i'm also wondering like all right how much are we going to continue to you know even as someone who's listened to this his whole life like how much are we going to continue to maybe accidentally glorify all this because so many of these guys could be so successful at so many other things because like you know you look at some of these rappers that come up i mean look at jay-z prime example these guys are not stupid i'm sure there's a few that are stupid but you know what i mean like

Starting point is 00:59:28 there's some dudes who like if they were put in the right situation and make the right moves like they could be fucking billionaires how do we how do we more glorify that you touched on so many interesting things there i got so many points that i'm trying to hit but um go for it go all the way back to the first thing you said about like lincoln you know the crazy thing that i found like i i was doing a story the other day and i i was doing my research about kind of like the culture in the american civil war and both sides of the civil war they were making songs you know you'd have a marching band and they would make songs to get the troops charged up to go into battle right and it's just so interesting how you know there would be like this songs like there would be like abolitionist songs that were going at the other

Starting point is 01:00:07 side right and they would march in playing these songs and it's it's so interesting like how i've covered this like i said it's almost like conflict research music has always been a part of conflict like you would have marching bands and you would have these these songs that were being played you know in my young boy video i kind of talk a little bit about how in the Civil War, both sides, they were making songs about each other. So music and art and this kind of communication method has always been part of conflict. And it trickles all the way down to these gang wars.

Starting point is 01:00:36 You've got gangs, you've got the BDs and the GDs or the Bloods and the Crips, and they're making diss songs and they're rapping about each other. And these songs are getting each other hyped up to go into battle. Hey guys, if you have a second, please be sure to share this episode around on social media and with your friends whether it's reddit instagram facebook twitter doesn't matter

Starting point is 01:00:53 it's all a huge help it gets new eyeballs on the show and it allows us to grow and survive so thank you to all of you who have already been doing that and thank you to all of you who are going to do so now they you got these guys in the bronx they're making songs, and they're sliding to their own music. And it's interesting. Again, it's this whole thing of people want to be like, oh, black music's violent, and, you know, gangster rap's so bad. Like, that's what a lot of these, like, you know, I don't know, maybe like articles, very closed-minded, very ignorant articles. Yeah, might do. And they do it in the uk they're

Starting point is 01:01:25 trying to ban the music they say drill music's making kids violent but it's like violence has always been a part of history conflict has always been a part of history and so has like music and art around conflict and the idea that they're blaming that community and the music for what's going on i think is so wrong and back to what you were saying a minute ago i think um it's really important to remember and i try and put this into my documentaries that like you know if we're talking about gangster rap you know rap is a black genre of music it's an african-american dominated genre of music even though other people do it and i feel like there's so much oppression so much of what rap music is about is about speaking up to oppression and talking about your experiences you know gangster rap when it first

Starting point is 01:02:03 emerged in the 80s in los angeles you got people like Schoolie D, Ice-T, NWA. Those first gangster rap songs weren't about being gangsters. They were about the consequences of being identified as a gangster. NWA had songs, Fuck the Police, talking about police brutality. For the first time, they were creating a window into, hey, we're the black community in LA, and this is how we're being treated by the police. And fuck the police and it's like the music has always been a been a like a

Starting point is 01:02:30 representation of the um of the kind of the negative way that the black community is being treated right and that's why it always bugs me when people are like oh drill music's so violent they need to stop making that music but that music's just a representation of what was going on if you were a young guy growing up in 2012 in chicago you're making drill music's so violent, they need to stop making that music. But that music's just a representation of what was going on. If you were a young guy growing up in 2012 in Chicago, you're making drill music about we're killing our ops and we're smoking people, because that's what actually was going on. But that's not their fault.

Starting point is 01:02:55 I feel like the worst and most ignorant thing you see people saying is, you know, black people are violent, these gangster rappers, they're violent. But it's like, no, when you look at the socioeconomic situation in chicago these are people that have been the most marginalized pushed together pushed together in these project buildings being forced into situations where they're that's right there's no there's no opportunities in the hood if you were growing up in one of these project buildings in the 80s in chicago there aren't opportunities for you you know the gangs the black disciples they run your block that's your opportunity that's what's what's going on and if you trace gangs all the way back to their first origins like if you look at groups

Starting point is 01:03:28 like the black peace stone nation in chicago that you know these organizations that emerged in the 60s and 70s these were community activist organizations that were organized to protect the black community from other groups that were going to cause them harm so it's like this music and these gangs the purpose for them existing is is to protect the black people in the community and it's unfortunate that over decades of of uh under investment and under representation in those communities that that it's like they've become a scapegoat for the circumstances that they have foisted upon them by the government if you get one that's an interesting way to put it yeah i i agree with you i i because it's the guys we're talking about are the guys who have

Starting point is 01:04:09 attention right we're talking about guys who become big artists and then they're rapping about this stuff so people know who they are so you know someone who wants to win some brownie points for a tuesday in november can say look at what this man here is saying and look at what he's got what have you done about it what what how have you helped this situation well when chief keith first came out right and he was making this gangster violent music in chicago you know gangster rap had always been a thing but drill music in 2012 when chief keith first came out that was the most violent rap type of rap music anyone had ever seen but for p i'm sorry to cut you off for people out there who aren't as for who are listening who aren't as familiar with the different genres of raps can can you just explain drill music just so they have a little background

Starting point is 01:04:47 yeah drill music is like an ultra violent offshoot of gangster rap that emerged in chicago in 2012 so if i give you the full history of gangster rap man we go all the way back to like i had probably like 1985 in in uh los angeles when gangster rap first came about and you had people like schoolie d ice t nwa making songs about their experience in los angeles in the streets uh and you know i think one of the first gangster rap songs was the batter ram and it was all about how the lapd would use these battering rams to smash in your door and you know turn over your crib um and so the music was about police brutality and the the experience of being a gangster in L.A., right?

Starting point is 01:05:26 But over the years, gangster rap's kind of evolved, and you've had really big people. Obviously, there's been a lot of gangster rappers out in New York. People like 50 Cent was like he was living that life, and he got shot nine times, but he survived it. But things were always kind of ambiguous. It was always just about what was going on. It wasn't necessarily about, like, 50 Cent's got this famous lyric where says uh about the guy that shot him nine times he says he got hit like i got hit but he ain't fucking breathing right and so it's like what he's saying is the guy that shot me is dead like we killed the guy that shot me but don't worry

Starting point is 01:05:53 it's it's ambiguous right whereas nowadays with chicago it's like we shot him we shot steve on this at this address and now we're smoking him we smoked him and so like it was around 2012 when it's like chief keith you know the guy that really started drills a guy called pac-man but um you know chief keith was like one of the first people to popularize this ultra violent ultra specific type of gangster rap from chicago and then over the years a lot of other places like brooklyn and the uk they've kind of borrowed this sound it was almost it was like an evolution of like trap rap from atlanta so like you know yes after someone like 50 cent in new york you know he's getting shot nine times and

Starting point is 01:06:28 he's telling that story trap music kind of emerged from atlanta it wasn't about violence it was about selling drugs so you had people like ti gucci main young gz talking about trapping and selling drugs and people like the migos they're talking about being in the bando in abandoned houses selling drugs and again it's all just a representation of what was going on in their community. The things that, you know, this group of people were forced to do to survive. At this point, it was selling drugs. Yeah. But like trap music, that sort of sound of those kind of beats that people like Gucci Mane and Young Jeezy were using.

Starting point is 01:06:57 It was sort of like trap music that you could sort of hear it. You could listen to it in the club. You could dance to it. But it was also gangster and street. That evolved into drill music that was like just very aggressive very hard beats and then all the lyrics are about real violence that's going on real people real situation real names that kind of thing you said at the outset of this conversation the word you used several times storytelling right and you were attracted to that in the music they're telling the story of their

Starting point is 01:07:21 experience and that's what attracted me right you hear reasonable doubt for the first time you listen to that album i didn't grow up with marcy projects i feel like i have some understanding i can't fully understand i wasn't there but like jay-z put that shit lyrically for me to get it when i listen you know i listen to every lyric tupac has ever done a hundred times over i get i get his life i get what what it was about you know again wasn't there can't fully understand it but like there's a part of him that how he became what he became how that character was formed through you know to borrow his words like the rose that grew out of concrete in a way you understand that because these guys are putting it across so what else would you have them do like they like you you talked about music like that's amazing like the

Starting point is 01:08:09 whole civil war thing and war before that where they're literally using music to this each other but you talk about music being like a always this this concept at the middle of conflict or whatever it's the concept at the middle of culture too it tells it paints the picture of what's happening at the time you could listen to some composition mozart wrote it's got no words to it but like you know some motherfuckers and wigs are sitting there going tell you you know and it's like everyone gets it they're on the same page so it's it it's a powerful thing but you're getting into this talk like we got into the silo talking about drill and how that was coming up in chicago and you're saying like these guys are rapping about what they see.

Starting point is 01:08:45 I mean, look at our mutual friend Brandon Buckingham's video. That's what they're seeing. Yeah. You know, like I don't know what else you want them to do. And if they're going to express that through music, hey, maybe some of the things aren't themes you want people glorifying. But like this is what they know. Well, that's the crazy thing because it's happened in the uk and they try and do it here too but you guys have got a bit more freedom than we have in the uk but what do you mean they try and ban they tried really hard to

Starting point is 01:09:13 ban drill music in the uk you know they they tried to ban it the authorities the government basically had this thing with youtube where they could take down any drill drill music they wanted type in uh i think it's called Operation Domain. There was like a police operation to basically take down as much drill music in the UK as possible. We ain't got the freedom of speech like you got. So a lot of songs got taken down. But this is the thing I try and say is the music is a representation

Starting point is 01:09:36 of what's going on. And to the authorities, they're trying to stop drill music because the drill music shows just how bad they've let communities become. Because at the end of the day, it's not Chief K keith's fault that a million people are getting killed every day on chief keith's block he's making music like you say storytelling he's showing a representation uh yeah any of these will work he's making he's showing a representation of how bad things have gotten in society in his area in the south side of chicago and the government they don't want people seeing that like the same thing with the uk so they've been trying to censor drill music and the way i see it

Starting point is 01:10:07 is it's like the government and the police are doing such a bad job of keeping these communities safe they don't want this music being out there because that's letting people know how bad that this stuff's getting can we go to the vice article alessi that one looks like the most yes so the met police is the sort of you know the main the main police uh organization in london and uh they've had a whole thing where they basically have the backdoor to take stuff down on YouTube. And so if you're a big artist. How do they have a backdoor? Because we don't have the freedom of speech like you have.

Starting point is 01:10:32 But when you say backdoor, like they can block it like North Korea blocks stuff? They send paperwork to YouTube and YouTube have to do what they say, basically. So there's a whole thing with freedom of speech where they had Meta take down a bunch of videos by this rapper called Chinks. And he was, like, trying to fight it. But they were basically, like, they were saying that the way that the police got Facebook to take down his music video was, like, beyond what the law would even allow. Like, and then they had to those i think there was uh i don't think it went to court but they basically had some back and forth where facebook like had to fight against the police to let this guy release his music on the platform and facebook were basically arguing

Starting point is 01:11:12 like you can't just pop up and tell us to just take down this artist because you don't like it he's not even said anything so the main thing that happens in the uk right if you hop on a freestyle and you diss somebody and you say you know big t is a and we stabbed him and we're gonna get him they'll take that'll be down the ple the met police will take that down immediately but at the same time if you make a song and you're talking about violence in your community in in uk drill but you don't say anyone's name technically that should be allowed to stay up because that the way they get you in the uk is if you if you dis are up by name it's like incitement to violence and they'll take that song down. And they'll be within their rights to take it down.

Starting point is 01:11:47 But if you don't say any names and you just say, yo, we're out here doing stabbings and selling drugs and it's crazy, you've technically not broken any rules. But they still try and take those down. They still try and get them. And a lot of the artists that have been through these situations in the UK that are on probation, you've got artists like Digger D, where because they're on probation, or we have life it's called license

Starting point is 01:12:06 there'll be certain restrictions on the license they'll be like you can't make songs about these these things or that things like i say we don't have the freedom of speech like you guys have but if you're on probation in the uk and you're a rapper they'll be telling you yo you can't rap about these things you're not allowed to talk about these things you can't make a skit about these things this area you can't be seen in this area all of these restrictions that they put on people it's crazy but that wouldn't slide here because i feel like you guys have got more freedom of speech you can't be telling people what to say well but they'll give them a list of things that they can't say and they can't talk about and take down their videos

Starting point is 01:12:34 it's it's messed up man well let's i want to respond i want to read this article though that that you were saying to pull up so youtube is where this is from 2022 it was on vice news which i think isn't a thing anymore, but YouTube is working with Met police to take down rapid drill videos for London's rapid drill artists. Releasing music is something that happens under the watchful eye of the metropolitan police. According to new data obtained by freedom of information laws,

Starting point is 01:12:57 the London based force referred 510 music videos to be taken down from YouTube in 2021 in 96.7 percent of cases the clips were removed let's scroll down and so the crazy thing about this that i think right you've got these young guys that coming out really difficult environments the music's one of the only ways that they're able to make legit money and get out of these situations yeah and the met police are coming in saying we're going to take all your shit down this is not an option for you find some other way of making money whoa and that's pushing them back to behave in those ways that got them in trouble in the first place. So they really don't care about policing the communities that they're talking about.

Starting point is 01:13:31 They just don't want people even talking about what's going on there. That's right. Okay, this marks a significant increase in previous years. In 2020, there were 125 referrals made, resulting in 124 removals a year prior to that. 110 were referred and 107 removed the 2021 figures mark a year-on-year increase of almost 300 a separate report from the new york times puts the 2020 removal figure at 319 which still presents a significant 60 year-on-year increase and there it is all that stuff you just mentioned about diggity and i'm trying to take it

Starting point is 01:14:01 down so they've had artists be sentenced for performing so the skingo and am a couple of really good rappers out of south london um you know they were given a suspended sentence for performing a song so they were they were literally in court given suspended sentences for performing songs yeah because they've been banned they basically were banned from performing this song so they put restrictions on them to say if you cannot you cannot perform this song anywhere you can't be out you can't be your song that you wrote about what you're going through all the situations that you've been through you cannot perform this and they performed it and they got sentenced and uh i think i think one of them's still one of them's still in jail i think one of

Starting point is 01:14:37 i think am's out that see now look you're talking about the uk and you keep on saying like well you know we don't have the same laws over there it's not as good and objectively speaking you're you're right about that from what i know at least but this is you know we we have some of these problems here in america too i have not really seen anything with music if there's people out there want to correct the record in the comment section go ahead but i haven't really seen that it just gets scary to me when you start getting to like art which is the oldest human expression known to man since the caveman we're drawing fucking clay on the stone you know and you start to say oh this can go and this can't we're getting towards this like ai world i'm not trying to get too meta here now but like how is this going to be policed and and that question alone is

Starting point is 01:15:21 already a problem because it you can't like i think if there's one thing we've proven throughout the course of human history, it's that whenever we decide to put control over what people are allowed to not even say but think in a way, it never ends well. And listen, nobody wants to go walk out in the middle of the street right now and see a KKK rally. None of us want to see it. Well, I mean if there's a crazy person out there, they they do but like no normal people want to see that we we think that's like the worst thing ever the problem with stopping it from happening though is actually worse than the problem of it happening believe it or not like i i remember there was there was a tweet it's maybe four or five years ago now where i'm like oh this is it working there was some bullshit kkk rally in it was in georgia somewhere but it wasn't atlanta and there was a video on twitter that went like kind of viral of

Starting point is 01:16:12 them taking a video of this rally and the whole internet was laughing at them and i'm like that's how it's done because you're like look at how awful these people are let's draw attention they want attention great we'll give them attention we'll show them what scum they are. And we'll all, we'll do the worst thing that makes people feel the worst about themselves, which is we will literally laugh at them in the middle of saying what scum they are. That's free speech working, right? So if you get to a point where like, even the art where people are expressing things now becomes a no, no, you can't say that. We are, we're fucked, man. There's something that crazy that happens when you stop people talking. Like if you shut down the KKK rally and you tell no you can't say that we are we're fucked man uh there's something that crazy that happens when you stop people talking like if you shut down the kkk rally and you tell them

Starting point is 01:16:49 they can't talk that amplifies it so much more because it's it's proving that you're afraid of what they have to say and you know if some racist kkk guy wants to try and convince me that to be racist that's never going to work because i'm going to most people are going to see that and hear that and think it's bullshit they're going to think those people are stupid they're going to think they're ignorant and sometimes the best i feel like the best way to to convince people of that kind of thing is to let them put that stupid shit out there everyone's going to laugh at it or they're going to disprove it and that's that's why the like in this situation you got the met police they want to stop these young rappers that are coming out of these circumstances from talking about what's going on because they know they're scared of the truth

Starting point is 01:17:28 about how bad they let these communities get is right so it's like it just goes to show you how powerful the music is that the police are like we don't want we don't want anyone knowing how bad we've let these streets get we don't want anyone to know how bad these things are going on so the idea that they're gonna they're gonna censor the rappers is just crazy but it's exactly what you say it's a lot of stuff going on right now with like protests and oh we need to shut down certain opinions you just gotta let all that be out there you just gotta let people talk it out like we're not gonna get anywhere those racist guys from the kkk we're not gonna convince them to not be racist if we're not allowed to have a debate with them that's right and that's the you always hear things like this of people that are super ignorant super racist

Starting point is 01:18:04 and they actually sit down and have a conversation with a normal black dude and they're like oh well That's right. situations where i'm from there's like where i'm from originally there's not that diverse there ain't that many you don't say yeah yeah it's like that not london london's very i know london's diverse but that's not where you grew up but it's like you always hear people say that i've had my black friends they tell me if they if they have an interaction with those sort of old racist white people but they have a good interaction those people they're like oh you what is it they always they always say some shit like oh you're right like you you're right you you're good we don't we're racist we don't like the rest of it you're you're a good you're one of the good one type shit but it's like but that just goes to show you when you sit down with normal people a normal person like the situation i've just described it's like oh you gotta let that happen you can't those kkk members or whatever i

Starting point is 01:18:58 mean this is gonna sound ridiculous but it's like they need to just sit down with a normal chill black guy and have a normal conversation and then they're're going to be like, oh, you know what? Maybe I ain't going to think all of this. Because they're on some shit where they're probably never even sitting down with black people. And they're afraid. You know what I mean? They're afraid to have those conversations. They're afraid of this group of people.

Starting point is 01:19:16 And if everyone sat down and actually hashed it out and just as people. And that's the thing I feel like as well. It's like America, you've got a lot of these divides, whether it's racial or political or social class. But the great thing about America is everyone's an American. If you've got a black American and a white American, they sit down. It's like you're American. You've got that in common.

Starting point is 01:19:35 And I feel like the world would be a better place if everyone just got on a map. Oh, fuck yeah, bro. And Alessi over here on the spot read my mind. I was turning to him to tell him to pull something up, and he already had it. You ever seen this guy, Daryl Davis? I don't think I have, you know. He's amazing. Okay, what he's amazing okay he's fucking amazing he was on my friend danny jones's podcast i know he he did at least he did a couple podcasts

Starting point is 01:19:52 with joe rogan right i know he's done one well i the one whatever i i think there's a couple but there's one of them like i guess it was the first one he did it was incredible. This guy collects KKK robes. No shit. Yes. So he has among his friends a ton of former KKK members where he did exactly what you just said. He would just sit – he was an actor, musician. And so he would play in this one restaurant somewhere like I guess where there was near some KKK people. And one night, some guy was like dancing along. He said that. He's like, you're all right or something like that. And he's like, what do you mean?

Starting point is 01:20:29 He's like, well, I don't really hang around you people. And he's like, what do you mean you people? And he's like, well, you know, I'm in the KKK. And he started laughing. He's like, no, you're not. The guy whips out a card. They carry cards. And he had a card.

Starting point is 01:20:42 They have a KKK business card. That's wild. Yeah, I think that's right. I hope hope i'm still right i'm remembering that right but he whipped out like some form of identification that was like that he was in the kkk and daryl instead of being like yo fuck you or whatever i'm sure in his head he was like come on yeah but he was like all right let me understand why this guy feels this way and pretty quickly he realized he had just he had he was not from much he didn't grow up around him much he grew he grew up rural there were no black people around and so he was taught at a young age like that's the problem or whatever and then once he got to know him he was

Starting point is 01:21:16 like damn and so he said hey if you leave the kkk can i just have your robe i want to stick it in the closet and collect them like you know i guess like that's it nazi war crimes yeah it's the same shit yeah but he does and he goes and converts people and it just shows you like to have half the problem 95 of the problems we have in society probably 99 are a lack of proper not just communication but proper communication that's so true man you know like you say you're describing this guy and it's like if you grew up and you've not been around anyone black you're going to be scared and you're going to have these ridiculous ideas and it's those conversations that can turn things around i would hope you know and uh

Starting point is 01:21:58 it's it's a crazy thing because for me yeah i grew up i grew up in a place realistically i was born in london but i grew up in this place bog Bognor, very, very quiet, not very diverse. Don't think there was any black kids at my school, to be completely honest with you. But I grew up idolizing black people from the music. I grew up with a 50 cent poster on my wall, even though there were no black kids in my school, I had a 50 cent poster on my wall and I loved rappers. And it wasn't even a thing. It wasn't some shit I was thinking of, like, are these black people? It was just like, I just love the music.

Starting point is 01:22:25 I loved Eminem. I loved 50 Cent. I loved Jay-Z. I didn't think about anything of the sort, even though I was in a place where there weren't many people of color. But then I moved to London and met unlimited people of color

Starting point is 01:22:37 and, you know, made tons of friends of all different backgrounds, you know, black, white, Asian, all kinds. And it's just kind of like, I felt like hip hop really educated me growing up as far as like just having kinds and it's just kind of like i felt like hip-hop really educated me growing up as far as like just having understanding and empathy of the struggle of people from different backgrounds even not even necessarily just racial someone like eminem you know i didn't grow up rich but i didn't grow up poor i grew up in a pretty nice normal family in

Starting point is 01:22:57 the countryside but like eminem is a guy growing up in eight miles in in the gutter of detroit right and jay-z this guy growing up in marcy project so to me it's 50 cent and jay-z that's like the same kind of similar experience they're both growing up rough in their city and they made something out of themselves through their art so i'm looking up to these people with no real bias or judgment i'm just looking up that these are just great men you know like someone like and that's the interesting thing is like for me i just happen to have that experience but like they were racist kids at my school you know, like someone like, and that's the interesting thing is like, for me, I just happened to have that experience, but like they were racist kids at my school, you know, never had never met a black person.

Starting point is 01:23:31 And, uh, it's just interesting how these different influences kind of affect you over the years, but it's like, you know, you, these KKK members, had they grown up with somebody playing some 50 cent in their house, they might have just a completely different idea of the people that they're talking about and the people that they're scared of. And, uh, it just goes to show you how powerful music can be for me at least that that music gave me an education of people that were a million miles away from the lifestyle that i was living but i felt like i had an understanding and appreciation and a respect like someone like 50 cent and jay-z that's a super when i was a kid that was those superheroes to me as far as just like great men and uh you know i just didn't

Starting point is 01:24:05 have that ignorance that maybe some of the other people i grew up around had but um collecting kkk robes is crazy man i never get into daryl davis man that guy's amazing he's so cool love hearing him talk but like you also you're to your point you're guys like you and me even we're a product of of having access to the mass media generation because we can get access to these things like if we would to your point like if we walked outside you know growing up we wouldn't we wouldn't know some of this stuff but then you know through the internet and even before that you know when there was at least some mass scale like people could get access in the 90s to hear what tupac shakur had to say yeah and like actually have some education on that i think

Starting point is 01:24:46 that's powerful but you know we got into this talking about the met police yeah cracking down on stuff with music and you know i do try to like even when i completely disagree with actions that are taken in that case like the government doing something like that i try to understand where they're coming from and i could see if it's not sinister in that way like oh let's tamp down on free speech which it usually isn't i could see how they may look at a case like in america like a king von and say okay there's a literal gangster who was actively a gangster got into rap while still being a gangster rapped about doing it and was killing all these people leaving bodies behind him we're going to

Starting point is 01:25:31 talk about this now but like leaving bodies behind him and everything and it then set off an example to other kids maybe even from his same place but in other places like this is still cool therefore oh my god if if what was the name what was the guy name start with d in uh in london uh dig a d yeah oh my god if dig a d is rapping about this thing in you know the east london projects or whatever like we can't have that i can see where they're coming from with that i completely disagree with the action taken but sometimes to our point with the kkk guys of course people take their their rights of speech way too far beyond like what's acceptable but to get to king vaughn actually alessia can you pull up that video

Starting point is 01:26:17 real quick king vaughn documentary this is how i found you because i guess you put this out a little over a year ago this way yeah yeah right it's interesting because it's like i'd covered him before in the past um and you know i'd covered i'd had a lot of viral documentaries sort of from around chicago but obviously this is the thing that really blew up and put me on the map you know it was just about just over a year ago that this video dropped yeah i really wasn't expecting it to be as big as it was but i think um you know in hindsight i think just the the idea of like labeling him as a serial killer really caught people's interest and i think that ultimately i just felt like i just felt like this guy was different on another level to anything i'd seen as far as chicago gangsters and uh the

Starting point is 01:26:56 situations that that i'd come across um you know there's never been anyone like von in hip-hop ever how much of him because he to bury the lead here he was he was killed in november 2020 so this video is coming out two and a half years after he died when he was alive how much were you aware that he was quite literally doing this stuff so i i did three videos on him, shorter videos on him when he was alive. And in one of those videos, I didn't know the extent of it as far as the seven murders, but I knew there was a couple. In one of them, I talk about some of the leaked tweets between him and another girl, K.I., who he allegedly killed.

Starting point is 01:27:41 And he wasn't happy. Him and his team copyright strike the video they did a fake copyright claim on the video on the videos they were going to delete the channel because it was three videos and they said you need to trim out any mention of the murder of ki from these videos and we'll let you have the channel back basically and they reached out to you they reached out to me personally who's reaching out to you like some dude in a suit somewhere or like some of his homies an anr from empire records who was working with Vaughn. So very official.

Starting point is 01:28:06 Okay. Very official. I would say that's, I mean, damn, like a real record label with their real employees, like threatening people with violence to remove references of murder from pieces of journalism. That's pretty crazy. That is crazy. But I don't know, Empire Records, I guess that's how they roll. But yeah, that was wild.

Starting point is 01:28:24 I did what they said. I removed all the references from the KI murder guess that's how they roll. But, yeah, that was wild. I did what they said. I removed all the references from the KI murder from the video, and they let me have my channel back, so I do appreciate that. But, you know, I was on. You could see it. I could see what was going on. Like, I was making this little piece.

Starting point is 01:28:38 It wasn't just me. There was another channel called Trap Geek. He made a video called The Soft-Spoken Assassin about the same shit, basically, with Von, this new rapper that was coming up that had beaten murder cases and supposedly had more bodies but um anyway at that time it was kind of like a lot of rumored stuff with like a couple of murders all this rumored he was involved in these things after he died you know the chicago police released some some paperwork to say that he was you know prime suspect in a couple murders that allows them to close those cases after von had died he beat a charge too right he had an official murder charge that he beat um how did he beat it it was fluky man so it was him and a guy called big mike and big mike

Starting point is 01:29:15 just come out of jail recently so he's been doing interviews talking about this case but uh von and a guy called big mike they were turned up to like a barbecue house party type thing um ended up opening fire on three people that were there one of them a guy called malcolm ends up dying two of them are hit but they survive and uh von and big mike end up being charged with a count of murder and account two counts of attempted murder or as von would put it a body in two attempts he said he'd say that a lot um what ended up happening was uh when they sat them down for interview von didn't say a word uh big mike said i let off shots but von was the one that killed him right so there's this thing of like ah he was trying to snitch here's the crazy thing because von said nothing they had

Starting point is 01:29:56 nothing on him but the other guy said i let off shots but it was von that killed him so he's let everyone know that he let off shots so as as far as the jury is concerned, we got a statement of you saying you let off shots. So we got you on this case. Vaughn didn't say anything. So they offer Big Mike a deal to say, well, tell you what, if you fully flip on Vaughn and say Vaughn did the murder, we're going to give you a deal

Starting point is 01:30:17 and we're going to let you out on this thing. So Big Mike says, yeah, I'll take the deal. I'm going to flip on Vaughn. I'll take that deal. Going to take on the deal. I'm going to flip on Vaughn. And then right up when it gets to the trial big mike changes his mind he says no deal i'm not saying anything about i could get hit with it himself well but he didn't because von didn't say

Starting point is 01:30:34 anything the whole time they they didn't have anything on von so von gets out big mike gets 18 years for the murder because he said i let off shots and in the end he didn't want to turn on von so big mike didn't do 18 years, though. So he ends up doing 10. He came out just recently. This was 2014. Got it. And Vaughn goes on to write a song called Why He Told,

Starting point is 01:30:54 all about Big Mike turning on him and going to snitch on him. But the way it all played out, Big Mike ended up sitting down for the whole thing, and Vaughn ends up getting away scot-free, because he didn't make any statements. So Vaughn comes out December 2017, beats this murder. He's just scot-free, basically. And he does a famous interview on The Breakfast Club with Charlemagne

Starting point is 01:31:14 where he's basically saying, like, I got a body in two attempts. I just came home. This was, I want to say this is at, like, the one-hour, 45-minute mark of this video, Alessi. Go check that if it's Dirk and Dirk. That's a hell of a memory if you nailed that yeah but yeah dirk and von at this interview am i on it um good go here oh let's get i have to give him my premium i think i've said this on seven podcasts now when i when i see anyone without premium i'm like damn because i have the pre i have the premium but for some reason it doesn't populate the second account yeah play this yeah this whole this whole breakdown is crazy 45 yeah you nailed it let's go hold on let me turn this on go ahead charlemagne he wanted to sign

Starting point is 01:31:53 von because of the backstory behind him was charlemagne not being this was crazy bro when von started talking about beating his murder charge i mean what's not king von because he got a whole story man what. What's the story? What's your story? My story? I just got to jail for beating a body in two attempts.

Starting point is 01:32:09 So you was in jail for two murders? Yeah, one murder in two attempts. I just beat... How do you beat that? I mean, you didn't do it. What a question.

Starting point is 01:32:20 You know, Jerry, yeah, look, in the interview, you can visibly see That's what's crazy about that is it's like... You can tell von's proud like i find like people didn't watch this interview close enough it's like you can tell von's proud when he says you didn't do it obviously and he's like a lawyer i beat it because of a lawyer he's not saying i'm innocent i didn't do it he's saying i beat it because of

Starting point is 01:32:38 the lawyer and the jury the coughs though and that's coming up the cough play this the cough sent me i i heard this i'm like oh no most people didn't clock this that's the thing i looked at this stuff so closely you got that like that's like when i saw it i'm like all right this dude does his homework yeah that shit was wild play this if he actually did the murder with dirk butting in saying that von beat it because he didn't do it you're gonna beat it you're gonna be he's like trying to help him yeah to say that he can't get a normal job in chicago because he's done so much dirt in the streets that if he was seen working a normal job, he would probably be killed on sight. It's like, I can't work no job in Chicago.

Starting point is 01:33:12 You see what I'm saying? Is it? Why couldn't you work a job in Chicago? I got a face card. Oh, I got you. I can see it from behind the counter. I may have done somebody coming out here, do something crazy. Yeah. I can say it from behind the counter and make it down to somebody coming out here and do something crazy. Then at the end of the interview, as Von was explaining to Charlemagne that he had no plans after jail because he's got no experience doing anything,

Starting point is 01:33:30 suddenly Dirk begins to cough, seemingly giving Von an indication not to say anything incriminating about his former life as a killer. What other plans did you have other than rap? I ain't had no plan. That's the thing. You get out, you got a lot of shit on your mouth, so you're getting that. What the hell is he doing? Back to the streets. no experience is doing nothing i ain't you know he's like come on stop that's good just a little moment you know but people don't clock that kind of stuff but that that interview is so creepy when you think about it because no one knew what von was about back then charlemagne's got no idea what he's really dealing with but when you look closely at what's going on in the dynamic you can see it's deeper than this on the surface you know oh yeah yeah i mean it's because again

Starting point is 01:34:13 he the crazy thing about his story is that he didn't even want to be a rapper it just it was like oh this is business friendly to do this while I'm doing this. Actually, Alessi, can you go back to like 30 seconds? I think what would be good for people, we're going to put the link to this full three and a half hour incredible documentary in the description. So I want you guys to all watch it. But if you can go back to the very beginning to 30 seconds, Alessi, like, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like after the Patreon thing. Let's just watch the intro so that people can get a feel for this, for how you put this together. Go a little more, a little more, a little more. Right there is perfect. I've got to go hard on the disclaimer nowadays. All right, let's roll it. and hit that subscribe button. Ever since the 1980s, Gangsta Rap has been one of hip-hop's most fascinating sub-genres. From the mean streets of gang-infested Los Angeles that were brought to

Starting point is 01:35:09 life by early Gangsta Rap pioneers like Ice Cube and N.W.A. to Tupac and Suge Knight taking over the music game with vivid tales of gang-affiliated rappers who would bully their way into the music industry. And then you have legends like Jay-Z and Phineas and Phineas and Phineas over. For decades now, rap fans have been looking for the realist artists, whose lyrics paint a picture of a real life of crime that isn't embellished or fabricated. But when it comes to rappers who truly keep it real, the Chicago drill scene has dominated for the last decade. First popularized by Chief Keef, the Chicago drill wave was characterized by rappers

Starting point is 01:35:41 that grew up on the most dangerous blocks in America, with these up-and-coming artists rapping plainly and honestly about what they experienced growing up. Shootings on the block, disrespecting dead enemies, and constantly being chased by the police. Chicago drill rappers took gangster rap to raw new heights, where the stories behind the music could be matched up with the local news reports on the latest homicides. However, what happens when the people doing the killing start making the music too? Because in the years after Chief Keef popularized the violent stories

Starting point is 01:36:09 of Chicago gang life, one of those gangsters killing people in the streets picked up a microphone too and started rapping in the first person from the perspective of the actual killer. King Von had a reputation in Chicago as a fearless killer

Starting point is 01:36:21 before he'd even started rapping. And it's why he believed based on the statements he made in his own self, that he himself could have killed as many as seven people in his career as a gangbanger. With more murders even taking place after he got rich and famous, with it being rumored that

Starting point is 01:36:35 Vaughn used his money and influence from the rap game to have old enemies in Chicago killed. And going on a journey which, in my opinion, takes him far beyond a street player who had to kill to survive in the mean streets of Chicago. Because if King Von's tweets are anything to go by, he simply loved killing people. And the sheer amount of people that King Von allegedly played a role in killing has led to intense speculation as to whether he was a full blown serial killer. A title which King Von's enemies even said that him and his friends took

Starting point is 01:37:03 personal pride in. Now, the FBI defines a serial killer as a person who kills over three people with time spans in between them of more than a month. Furthermore, serial killers tend to have an element of psychological gratification which plays a role in the motives of their murders. The FBI also state that a serial killer might seek various kinds of gratification through their killings, such as anger, thrill-seeking, financial gain, or simply for attention. I personally believe that over the course of his career, King Von demonstrated all of these characteristics and can indeed be classified as a serial killer. King Von frequently exhibited behavior in public that conformed with these rules, tweeting regularly about his desire to kill, bragging about having committed specific murders

Starting point is 01:37:43 in his music which attracted him international attention, billboard charting songs with his drill anthems about murdering rivals making him a rich man with millions in his bank account the fbi also point out another characteristic of serial killers specifically that their victims may all have something in common for example a demographic profile appearance gender or race and it would appear that king von only killed young black men and women from the community he lived in he said this was like jeffrey dama that's the point i'm gonna make when i was uh after i made it from his victims i really wish i'd thought of this before because people have been saying he believed a lot of people compared him to like the zodiac killer yeah. Yeah. Because it's like how the Zodiac Killer left letters and clues and writing and stuff, right?

Starting point is 01:38:27 It's like the whole thing I say with Vaughn is like he left so many clues. He really wanted people to know that he was doing this stuff. And he would leave clues in his music, in his tweets. And it's like, again, I didn't think of it when I was writing the documentary. But it was only afterwards that a lot of people were like, oh, I see. He's like the Zodiac Killer. Kind of wish I'd had that in there, because I feel like a lot of people have come at me with the whole,

Starting point is 01:38:49 oh, he's not a serial killer thing. Like, a lot of people, they try and hit me with like, oh, he wasn't a serial killer, he was just a gangbanger. And it's like, he went beyond that. And as I just break it down there, it's like, there was an element of like personal gratification and thrill-seeking to his behavior. And he continued doing that after he became a millionaire. i think it's like if he'd have killed those

Starting point is 01:39:08 seven people and never got famous and rapped about it and left clues and kept trying to have people killed he would i would have you know you could have called him a gang assassin but um i think it was more about the psychological element where he wanted everyone to know what he'd done he wanted to put it out there and he wanted to have it hidden in all these songs like there was like a there was like a thrill-seeking element where he got off on wanting people to know what he'd done in the way i feel outside of the fact we already laid out that he grew up in tough circumstances what do we know about his childhood like what was what was what was his home life like and and what how did how did king va become before he was king von like the 18 year old king von where he was first like getting arrested for serious shit when he was 17 18 years

Starting point is 01:39:51 old yeah i talk about this in the doc so i basically break it down that like he had a very tough tough upbringing you know his father was killed by he was shot dead by a sniper when when von was 11 and so that's how serious it got in in chicago where before they knocked down the projects in the 80s they would have these big buildings like you know calumet building robert taylor homes these famous projects and each block was controlled by a different gang right so you might have the black disciples stronghold block and on the top of that project building would be snipers looking out for rivals and or even the cops so that's how grimy and serious the chicago streets were in the 80s that's the era

Starting point is 01:40:25 that his dad his father was a guy called silk um and he ended up getting when von was 11 he ended up getting shot by a sniper in one of these buildings so that's what he's growing up around and again i say in the video i say look i got sympathy for von because you're growing up you're 11 and your dad's getting killed by a sniper that's different that's gonna that's that's that's what creates a demon all right and he's got a song called demon where he raps that his friend white white i think it was his 17th or 18th birthday um his friend white white had bought him a pill for his birthday and you know von goes into a convenience store and he comes back out and white white's been killed on the street right by there's another guy called

Starting point is 01:40:58 50 shots who did it but von says in his song demon it was like when he came out of that store and saw what his big homie white white killed that's what turned him into a demon. And basically, he says seeing his best friend, seeing his friend laid out like that is what turned him into a demon and made him want to start killing people and catching bodies. So again, I have sympathy. And he's a victim of his circumstances in a lot of ways. But unfortunately, he became very good at killing people. He became very good at getting away with it. And then he became very good at rapping. And like I say, Va getting away with it and then he became very good at rapping and like i say von was a one of a kind

Starting point is 01:41:28 there was never anyone like him i don't think there ever will be anyone like him in hip-hop ever again i hope not yeah i mean in all seriousness but you you had the pictures there at the beginning of the potential i think it was 10 or 11 people that he was tied to when was i guess the question is when was the first time he allegedly killed and how good is the evidence for us to be confident that he had something to do with it yeah so I get involved in every one of those cases in the video and kind of break each one down specifically um you know it's 2011 when his friend white white got killed as he says that that turned him into a demon from what I understand you know the murder started in 20 2012 i think i think it was four or five murders um in 2012 sort of back to back um once he got involved in the streets he

Starting point is 01:42:12 got involved very deeply his best friend t roy was kind of the most known shooter for o block in that area that he was from that was his best friend who kind of taught him to navigate the streets i just did a kind of short video well short for me but like a video breaking down the history of t roy so king von's best friend and all the they say it was you know nine or ten murders that he was involved in so i just did a little video about that about t roy's history the guy that sort of taught von how to navigate the streets but so it would have been 2012 there was sort of like a few murders back to back von ends up getting put in jail for a period of time between 2012 and 2014 and then when he comes back he hits the streets running again i think there's three more murders at in jail for a period of time between 2012 and 2014. And then when he comes back, he hits the streets running again.

Starting point is 01:42:46 I think there's three more murders at that point for a total of seven. He ends up going inside for the Malcolm Stuckey murder, which is the one I just talked about with Big Mike, 2014. He's awaiting trial between 2014. He goes to trial, ends up beating that case based on the situation where Big Mike said that he'd shot and Vaughn didn't say anything. So Vaughn beats that case. I think December 2017 he gets out and it's in the documentary. He famously says he was friends with Lil Durk. Durk's neighborhood, Lameron, was a sort of black disciple neighborhood

Starting point is 01:43:13 that was friendly with Von's neighborhood of Oblok. They were quite close to each other. And when Von came out, he said he was just trying to hang out with Durk and rob rappers. He wasn't trying to be a rapper. He was trying to rob the rappers and hang around Durk and use that to kind of infiltrate the rap the rap game to just rob people that was that was von's idea and it's only he ends up getting thrown in the studio with uh thf bezu who was another one

Starting point is 01:43:34 of dirk's friends who also beat a murder case and uh you know that's how the career kind of started dirk put you know von and bezu in the studio together to make a song called beat that body they both just beat bodies they both beat murder charges and that song was you know super viral and kind of one of the first introductions of von as a rapper and clearly he had a talent for it right oh yeah yeah i mean he was good but like what had he wrapped it all like when he was like 16 17 like just in his house did he ever talk about this or so he's had natural talent no but the funny thing is so around 2012 that's when von's catching his first bodies and that's when chief keith is releasing his first songs and becoming

Starting point is 01:44:09 really famous so von during that time he would often tweet lyrics that chief keith was rapping about the streets and von would tweet i'm the real guy doing the stuff chief keeps rapping about so when chief keith was talking about oh block bang bang we'll catch the ops we'll do this and that we're smoking this and that person Von was actually doing that stuff so Von was the, Von and T-Roy and the people they were rolling around with were the catalyst for what was going on in that hood

Starting point is 01:44:34 in Oblock that Chief Keef was rapping about but I think Von took a lot of pride in being the real guy that was doing the stuff that was in the music, right, like I think Von well he tweeted it a lot, right he tweeted, he was was like i'm the real deal i'm out catching the stuff sosa's rapping about that's me i'm really doing it and uh von even had tweets where he said if you von was so deep in the streets where he would tweet if you

Starting point is 01:44:55 catch me rapping about this stuff kill me like there's old tweets of von saying if i start being a rapper you need i need to get my head checked like check me and then later and then later he starts no one's checking von ever but you know what i'm saying it's like later on when he actually decided to start rapping like he's you know he's got tweets where he's like i ain't a rapper i'm just i'm just using rap to make money i'm a street guy i ain't into this rap stuff but yeah that's the ironic thing is i've said this before is like it's actually a crazy coincidence that von had so much talent for both killing people and rapping yeah He was actually good at both of them things. That's one way to put it.

Starting point is 01:45:29 I mean, he, you know, obviously there was just something very natural there for him to do it. But, you know, the Dirk thing also is interesting because Dirk's career is fascinating in the sense that he had a little blow up when he was like in 2012 2013 like oh he's going to become a thing get signed to one of the major labels i forget which one you said it might have been def jam i'll recheck that i think i think it might have been i think that was the deal that he was trying to get out of but i don't want to get it wrong but yeah right but he had a deal whoever it was essentially he was coming up during the chief keith time out of the same neighborhood so he was doing drill rap that's why it was good

Starting point is 01:46:08 goes to a label they try to be like oh no you're gonna do like this fun little old school rap songs and it wasn't good deal runs out he's not even selling like like 2 000 units on a drop like he was he was left for dead he was down bad man duck was down bad you know the fake relationship with dead loaf like they were trying anything to get moving back then yeah so then he comes back he's on his own no one signs him and he's like fuck it i'm gonna go back to what i know this is the era where king vaughn comes up that also helps him because then king vaughn obviously like kind of blows up because of his notoriety and you know one of the things that's followed around Dirk is this whole Vaughn thing where there's there's all kinds of rumors with

Starting point is 01:46:51 Dirk being involved in the same in in the same world that he was I should say and you know they had a case together I think in 2018 or 2019 where they were exonerated and not charged well but like but all right what what do you say, kind of? Well, this has always been a big rumor, right? They said at the time that they had, there's four guys in a car, right, in Atlanta, and someone ends up getting robbed of $20,000 and shot in the leg.

Starting point is 01:47:18 And the police are saying they got Dirk on camera shooting out of the car, and they got someone else shooting, running around on their feet shooting. And, you know, Dirk and Von caught that case they were famously in court together on TV footage of them in court together in the jumpsuits it was super viral

Starting point is 01:47:35 and Dirk and Von weren't allowed to associate with each other after that so 2019 Dirk's kind of put Von on in the industry they've caught this case together and they can't even associate with each other they're still doing songs together well that's the thing they're doing some stuff but they can't meet up but there's a there's a few ig lives where you can kind of see that they probably maybe are spending a better time together anyway what ends up happening is that case von gets killed that case ends up getting dropped against

Starting point is 01:48:01 dirk and a lot of people have said spread this this rumor, that Dirk snitched on Vaughn while he was alive or after he was dead. But when Vaughn died, the case disappeared. And one of the other guys that was in the car was also killed randomly. Now, if you want to be conspiracy theory about that, whatever you want. But one of the guys that was in the car when they ended up catching that case got killed in Miami on a random, fluky other situation. You know, other guys, Bezu is obviously a really close friend of Dirk's. And Von, who ends up dying.

Starting point is 01:48:30 Then the case gets dropped. So some people said that, you know, there's been this rumor. And I don't think this is true for the record. But there's been this rumor that people said that song, Why He Told, that Von wrote about snitches, that was about Big Mike. Some people said, oh, that song's really about Dirk. Because behind the scenes, Dirk was finna snitch on Vaughn. Now, anyone that knows Dirk, Dirk ain't snitching on anyone.

Starting point is 01:48:47 No one hates rats more than Dirk. So I'd say that story's got to be kept. Well, they also try to, there's rumors out there, and I think they're bullshit, but they try to say like Dirk was behind Vaughn being killed. They say Dirk sacrificed Vaughn or Dirk got rid of Vaughn to make that case go away.

Starting point is 01:49:02 Anyone that knows those guys and their relationship, that's obviously never going to be true. they they were brothers really like they were like brothers i think and i don't know dirt at all my my cousin matt did live with him for a while back in 2021 doing work for him and then live with moneybag yo doing work for him afterwards so he had he had an amazing experience with dirk and just thought he was such a fucking good guy but from the outside looking in i want to be careful how i say this but it seems to me like in a way king von dying you know could he will talk about it but obviously he was killed died on the streets that he kind of lived on. I think that was probably like a blessing in disguise for Dirk because being around him and having that re-blow up start to happen when Vaughn came on and Vaughn's doing all the things he was doing. It pulls you into that world that you're – again, we talked about earlier that you're trying to leave and there's a part of you that never leaves that.

Starting point is 01:50:08 But if you're too much in it, that you're like trying to leave and like there's a party that never leaves that but if you're too much in it then you actually become involved in it and what it has seemed like to me since then again completely from the outside here so take it with a grain of salt is that dirk has now kind of removed himself from that in so many ways and his focus on the music and you know 2021 2022 were great years for him as far as it goes i mean that little baby album did the one they did together the voice of heroes was incredible but like you know it's weird to think about because it's like a friend of his that died but his friend was kind of a scumbag like let's call it what it is he was a total scumbag von was a blessing and a curse for dirk man because it's like von brought that street energy back to dirk when dirk was kind of going mainstream commercial it wasn't really working for him. Von really brought that

Starting point is 01:50:48 gangster energy back around Dirk's music, and Dirk was able to use his talent, because Dirk is incredibly talented with the singing, with the way that he creates melodies and sort of uses the auto-tune, but to also talk about the gangster stuff and the pain music. I feel like Von brought that street credibility back to Dirk, even though D duck had been certified from way back but also he brought that street energy around dirk's personal life because they're catching cases together and creating legal trouble and ducks having to go and turn himself in so it seemed like it was a real gift and a curse for dirk you know the whole sacrifice storyline that people say about dirk and vaughn is kind of messed up you know that's obviously but at the same time it's like i it does make you wonder, if Vaughn was still alive,

Starting point is 01:51:26 he probably would be the kingpin of the FBG Duck hit and he'd be on the Rico case with all of those guys. What happened there? Well, FBG Duck got killed. Five guys from Oblock, well, six guys affiliated with Oblock end up going down for the murder. But it's in the legal paperwork

Starting point is 01:51:42 that King Vaughn might have put 100K hit on Duck. He was the ringleader of the thing, but he was dead by the time that the uh that the charges that the charges actually dropped but if von was alive there's no thing maybe they could have tried to wrap dirk up in in the thing because the thing is dirk was unfortunately hanging around with a lot of those guys that were the killers after it happened there's there's shots of uh muwop on lil dirk's jet and they're hanging out together on the plane after the duck murder after the duck murder but before the charges dropped right so they could have tried to wrap dirk up in it had they arrested von von is the last person you would think would snitch on anybody but had they arrested von and

Starting point is 01:52:20 maybe more people around the situation i don't know maybe they could have flipped some people tried to drag dirk into it it could have been bad so it's you know i think it would be wrong to say like oh von dying was a great thing for dirk but i think you know the way that everything played out in the end i think as sad as it is i think dirk probably got some benefits of the fact that von was really out there moving wild and had they ended up arresting von and he'd been still alive and he'd have been on that case i think that would have had a big repercussion for dirk and it would have been difficult so it's it's messed up but the the way that von was living and the way that he was uh bringing that gangster killer energy to the industry you know unfortunately that's how he

Starting point is 01:52:58 ended up losing his life and i think i don't think that you can survive long term if that's how you're moving if you're running around having fistf fights with people who are real gangsters, people want to say what they want about Kondo Rondo. He's really certified in Savannah. And that guy, Lil Tim, who ended up shooting Vaughn, I did a documentary about that. What happened with Vaughn's death? So Lil Tim shot him, but what was the official story there? Well, Vaughn had been going back and forth with NBA Youngboy.

Starting point is 01:53:23 They'd kind of had a beef. You know, Vaughn was really – That was over a woman, right? Over a woman, but I think that was just – Vaughn was just trying to press Youngboy's buttons by getting his baby mama in a studio session. I think Vaughn was really trying to have a hip-hop beef. I think Vaughn felt like Youngboy was the hottest guy.

Starting point is 01:53:38 Because you've got to remember, in that period of time, we're talking like August, September 2020, that's when Young boy was on top young boy had i think three number one albums and one number two album yeah he was huge in a like 18 month period so he was biggest out when it came to street stuff von i felt saw young boy as a target as far as like i'm really street i'm really killing people and getting away with it you're fake so young boy von famously came out and said young boy's cap his his raps are fake it's bullshit he took aim at young boy so they started beefing they were having this little

Starting point is 01:54:11 back and forth online von's popping up with young boy's ex young boy's popping up with von's ex they're going back and forth using women as kind of a toy but quando was signed to young boy so king von caught quando rondo outside this nightclub. And if you, you know, I've seen the surveillance footage, it's floating around out there a lot. You know, Von basically just seen KwonDo, he'd had a whole beef, they're friends with Youngboy, just start swinging on him. And he didn't count on the fact that KwonDo's guy, Lil Tim, who I did a video about him, he's a serious guy. He's like King in savannah right so quando didn't even know it was king von swinging on him exactly and when you watch the footage king von just basically just

Starting point is 01:54:51 runs out starts swinging on quando this ain't even a second to think about that tim probably didn't even know i mean he said it in songs that he didn't even know what he who he was shooting he didn't know anything about these guys he just saw somebody beating up his guy the the boss of his thing you know quando's like a like quando's entourage you know they're all affiliated with the rolling 60s crips and savannah so they're on some street gangster stuff nice little tim was just ready to roll he didn't know anything you're beating up the boss man like yeah wasn't he didn't he get like the stand your ground law or something yeah a little tim beat the charges charges. And not only that, but after all the bullets started flying, King Von's guys pulled out a gun and tried to shoot Tim, but the gun jammed.

Starting point is 01:55:30 So they're on camera trying to shoot them. So the whole self-defense case was cut and dry in the end. And that's unfortunate because to think for all the stuff that Von was involved in, and he was a killer, and he was kind of getting away with everything in the streets, it ended up being a fluky situation that wasn't involved with his gang war. It wasn't revenge for any of the people he'd been killed. He was trying to have a fight in the industry,

Starting point is 01:55:53 and he didn't bank on the fact that the industry guy he punched had real shooters behind him. Honestly, that's one of the craziest situations, I think, the whole Vaughn situation. It's like Vaughn and Dirk and Youngboy and Quando, their whole beef. That's like the Tupac and Biggie of young boy and quando their whole beef that's like the two-pack and biggie of this generation to me well that's a heavy statement yeah for sure that shit was crazy that was the stuff i studied a lot growing up that that shit was gang stuff behind

Starting point is 01:56:15 that but you know how long did you spend researching this video probably three months probably that's actually faster than i would have thought holy shit yeah december 22 to like january to like probably like february march 23 and then it dropped in april so it probably took about a month and six weeks to edit got it uh three probably three months of research okay so did did you get backlash for this because like the claim itself like you're not just saying as you point out earlier oh he's a gangbanger he's killing claim itself like you're not just saying as you point out earlier oh he's a gangbanger he was killing people for that you're like you're defining it right at the beginning no no i think he was a literal serial killer like he you know got off on this

Starting point is 01:56:55 shit and targeted people what what kind of backlash did you get for that yeah i've got a lot man people saying i was racist people were saying that you know they were gonna kill me all that kind of thing because i think the thing a lot of people have put to me and I get where they're coming from but it's like they're not really listening to what I'm saying is they say well you're trying to vilify like a black guy that came from the hood that was in a kill or be killed situation you're trying to put this horrible serial killer jacket on him when really he was just trying to defend his life in his hood that's cool that's fair enough but I'm making the argument that the reason von is different was because he got off on it so much he wanted the world to know about it he was leaving clues he was leaving songs and the average guy that's in the hood that's

Starting point is 01:57:32 defending himself and defending his him and his family's life is on some completely different shit to von yeah so i get that i'm not trying to put the serial killer jacket on everybody that's ever been in a gang and has had to defend themselves i'm just putting it on this one guy that made a bunch of songs about the bodies he had and kept trying to have people killed when he was famous so if you if you get that through your head you get that i'm not trying to put i'm not trying to put anyone down because of their circumstances or anything like that von was really out here doing this stuff and rapping about it and i feel like it's um so i got a lot of hate on that front i also got a lot of hate just from people connected to von you know like who well von's cousin was

Starting point is 01:58:08 very upset he tried to get the video taken down a few times was uh wasn't the video taken down at one point yeah yeah i got a video taken down a few times and i got it back up on patreon and then i had to re-edit it i had to blur out anything blur all the guns all the joints all the swearing everything and it managed to stay up again after that wait so a question on that just behind the scenes when you say re-edit it is it the initial is it the original file and you go no no this tools you had to do you had to upload this is a re-upload yeah so the original version i actually uploaded got i think it was got taken down like 700k or something okay so this is the re-upload 10 or 11 i've never i've done re-uploads before i've never seen a re-upload do better than the first upload but this one

Starting point is 01:58:47 was different yeah it was crazy because it went up people were talking about it and then it went down no one could watch it so everyone was talking about this crazy documentary but it wasn't up for a few days this was all on like easter so it was last last year with in easter easter weekend so i was trying to get help from youtube i was like they've taken my video down people are flagging this video no one would help me so I had to take it down re-upload it re-edit it I spent the whole day editing all the see see there we got this image of KI we're holding the gun right I never used to have to do that but because they kept demonetizing they kept flagging the video kept getting it taken down I had to go to town and blur everything and I do that now but I I just had a video demonetized yesterday.

Starting point is 01:59:27 Like just yellow or full demonetized? This one was just yellow. But that's still good. You make long. I know I speak your language with long content. When you make long content and it gets demonetized, you're fucked. Yeah, exactly. That's what I mean. It really threatens the business model.

Starting point is 01:59:40 So the way that I do it is when that happens, I take the video down and try and find out what's going on. But it's messed up because they're saying the video's got swearing in it, and it doesn't. It sucks. I mean, and if you don't know little nuances or whatever, like two years ago, I had Meek Mill and Bill Cosby's lawyer in for a podcast, which is a wild podcast. That's wild, yeah. Hell yeah. And no one's ever seen it because in the montage I made at the beginning he said said the r-word Like eight seconds in and so it got the yellow signal to three hour video

Starting point is 02:00:10 it went from doing whatever views it was doing an hour like a Day into the video or whatever it was when they demonetize it to like one They be doing all sorts of fluky stuff that's like Beyond what they even say like I had a video my Eminem and Kim I i did a video about the whole history of eminem and kim and their toxic relationship oh yeah how it inspired a lot of his music and obviously she's got history of self-harm and she tried to kill herself a few times and you know it's a two and a half hour video that's like such a minor part of it but they didn't demonetize it but it got a suicide warning put on it and the like the the views just tanked.

Starting point is 02:00:45 I was going to say that. That's the crazy thing is that it says it's monetized, but the way it behaves in the back end is like a demonetized video. You see the CPM day one. That's right. So it's crazy how they lie to you and say videos are monetized and then they do stuff like that. I just wish it was more transparent,

Starting point is 02:01:01 and I wish you had reps there who actually could have a real conversation with to plan out content correctly yeah the rules it's like why i i hate that they have this whole system where it's just like you just got to do guesswork and just guess what they're gonna like it's like just tell me what i'm allowed to do and i won't do it if yeah if if there was a rule this is the thing that's so shady with it if there was a rule that was just like you can't talk about suicide ever like it's just crazy it's like that video the eminem one is like that's such a footnote on what the story's about that she tried to kill herself at the end two and a half hour video it's like one part and it's like that's a minor thing but there's no rule there's no there's no in communication and again i love being a youtube creator i love youtube i love the platform on the whole i think it's just amazing i'm so grateful

Starting point is 02:01:48 that they give me this opportunity to do this but it'd just be great if they were just a little bit more transparent with just what you're allowed because if they just said look these are the things don't even bother making a video on certain topics like that'd be great you know i just wouldn't do that but it's the guessing and it's like i've got a video and now it's demonetized and they won't tell me why and it's like oh we're not going to tell you why what's wrong with it and it's like well i blurt all this or blurt all the guns i took out all the swearing i don't mention suicide like what's actually wrong with this and so we're not going to tell you like like if it was tv they would just tell you like you can't you know these are the words you can't

Starting point is 02:02:20 say on tv these are the things you can't put out in your video great i won't do those things but isn't it weird though how we're in this internet age we're literally like a fucking eight-year-old can go find a murder video if they wanted to i hope they're not doing that by the way but like everything's out there but then like a platform that exists on the same internet i'm not even talking about the dark web just like regular shit you know a platform like youtube is out there and because it's a publicly traded company that has to answer to some stock traders or whatever you know they have to like put these and i empathize with like it kind of sucks like they have to put some of these bars around how they litigate what can and can't go when it's like you know i always use the example the sopranos came out fucking 25 years ago

Starting point is 02:03:01 man you know and that wasn't even on the internet that was on hbo but they said yo tv but you can say fuck shit and whatever you want right and now the internet was like that on steroids and yet we still live in this world where on the actual tv which no one watches they still can't say fuck and then on the internet where there's things that are monetized like on youtube or whatever you know if you do certain things like sometimes as simple as saying fuck in the first 30 seconds or something it's like oh no that can't be monetized either like what what do we think these brands are all these people are saying this stuff we're all looking at this stuff it's an open world like what are we doing you know what's stupid i just feel like they should just they should just censor our videos they should just say it with their chest

Starting point is 02:03:41 and just censor our videos if you don't want fuck in in the first 30 seconds, they have systems to just flag that. Because the word fuck comes up in the auto-generated subtitles. So they know the fuck's there. They can blur the fuck. If you don't want the fuck, just blur the fuck. Let me keep monetizing. But it's this weird system. It's almost like they get off on punishing you.

Starting point is 02:03:57 It's like, yeah, you're demonetizing. You said fuck in the first 30 seconds. We could just censor that fuck and keep you monetizing. But fuck you. Your four-hour documentary said fuck one time no money out no money you're gone what like what like even the thing with the guns it's like you know you can't have guns you can't have guns depends what environment you're showing them in just just do they need to just have it so it automatically blurs the guns this is why the copyright thing is such bullshit, right? Oh, you've used 10 seconds of a song. All of your money is going to some record label.

Starting point is 02:04:28 And, like, you want to take the song out of your video? Sure, just press a button. It'll just trim it out. But, like, what? I have to check my YouTube every day to check to make sure I haven't had a bullshit claim. Why can't they just have it? If a song's in there and the song's not allowed to be in there, just take it out. Don't even tell me about it.

Starting point is 02:04:43 Yeah, easy. Just, like, they have the technology to do that but it's like maybe it's coming why not like i hope not i hope like if i can't use music they just should have it set up they should just have it set up so that if i can't say if i can't say a certain word it just mutes just mute it when i say that word like it's all this check you've got to be on the back foot constantly checking your content. Like I've just had a video demonetized, and it's like it's a four-hour video. We went through it.

Starting point is 02:05:10 There's no swearing. There's no guns. There's no knives. There's nothing. And they won't tell me. So it's like I've got to watch this four-hour video through again, try and find maybe there's one gun that I forgot to blur, and I'm going to have to re-upload it with zero views again.

Starting point is 02:05:23 Like how is that good for anyone? Because there's so much. That's the thing. you have to put so much work into making the video and doing stuff and whatever but then all the quality control that's the worst part i mean i put out two episodes a week i mean he knows like my the day before the episode's a fucking 14 to 16 hour day and a lot of it is spent on quality control i go in there i have to on just the youtube version not the spotify version but i have to go blur out curse words in the first 20 minutes you know and then i gotta go through and check questionable areas to see if i have to blur something there you know and and i live on stress of it because people like you take time out of their life and their day sometimes from across

Starting point is 02:05:59 the pond to be here and it's like when something gets demonetized i take that personally not just because like it's not good for me but like no one's gonna do it that's what i'm saying someone comes in here they spill their guts they whatever it is then they don't get the proper attention that they should get for it i just actually had that happen on a video with someone who did that and it's like it's so annoying you know but to your point like they have the tools come on youtube like let's let's make this a little easier for creation that's what's good that's what makes no sense because it's like if you don't want swearing on your platform just have it so that if anyone says any we just can't hear it just mute it just have you like this they want to they want to act like there's no rules it's okay we're not censored

Starting point is 02:06:38 we're not censoring you but here's some guidelines where if if you say if you do any of the shit you can't make any money we're not censoring you we'd never it's just no money we'd never tell you what you can and can't say we just take away your money if you say something we don't like and you have to work it out on your own so it's a bit messed up but at the same time in spite of all of that the headaches that come with it i'm so grateful for youtube as a platform so grateful to be a youtuber i love it it's just the the some of the rules i just wish it was a little more clear. Because this is my thing with YouTube. It's like I want to follow all the rules.

Starting point is 02:07:12 Just make the rules easier and clearer to understand. And I'll follow all of them. Like I'm a good boy. I'm a good boy, YouTube. Like whatever you want. No guns. We're going to blur the guns. But it's this thing of just like, oh, it's gangster content.

Starting point is 02:07:29 Well, there's loads of like who says we can't talk about gangs and and the music and these things billboard charting songs just make it clear if it's no guns there's no we won't have any guns if i can't have the n-word in the video i'm gonna have an ig live of two guys going back and forth and they're saying the n-word every other word we're gonna mute the n-word every single time that happens just let us slide we're just trying to just trying to communicate some information here have you have you talked to brandon or tommy about this at all uh i think we touched on it a bit i was talking to brandon he was telling me about some demonetizations but like yeah i know it's hard i i didn't talk with brandon about this as much off camera but he and tommy are really close i think they're in a similar spot but like you know not like tommy has it figured out with with what where and as you know he does both of them do very

Starting point is 02:08:06 edgy content as far as like you know dangerous topics going in dangerous places so maybe talk with them too because they they know that was actually it's funny before i ever knew brandon i figured out the problem with the cosby video yeah was the r word because i didn't know that and then i watched his sneeko video and i saw every time in that two and a half hour documentary that word was brought up he bleeped it i was like son of a bitch well putting sneeko anywhere is probably gonna get you demonetized so yeah yeah that that too i think that i actually think that documentary still did get demonetized no matter what all the work he put in but anyway real quick i just gotta go to the bathroom we'll be right back

Starting point is 02:08:41 what's your favorite video you ever made you made so many now one of my favorites was this london one i just made but it's not there anymore it's just got demonetized a couple days ago so i took it down trying to get to the bottom of it that's one of my favorites what was that about it was about uh it was about this crew called active gang and a rapper called suspect so it is a uk kind of gangster rap story with a guy that basically stabbed two people, caught two murders, fled the country and hid out in Kenya. In Kenya. In Kenya. But while he was hiding out there, no one knew where he was.

Starting point is 02:09:11 He kept releasing music. So he had body doubles in the UK pretending to be him, trying to make out that he was still in the hood in the UK for like 18 months. What's his name? Suspect. Suspect. Can we pull him up? I want to see him. But go ahead.

Starting point is 02:09:24 Yeah. Like he became really famous he was sort of becoming like the king von of the uk if you type in suspect agb or sus yeah this is the guy um so i did a big big story about him but anyway he was hiding out in kenya became one of the biggest rappers in the uk but in the end he started posting his picture and his location and stuff on on it started posting pictures of himself in the kitchen wherever he was hiding out and people on reddit started saying i see i see that oven that looks like my grandma's oven in kenya that this this look in kenyan and so they worked it out and the craziest thing is kenya they got an extradition treaty with the uk so once they

Starting point is 02:09:59 located him they brought him back but the crazy thing is the murders he him and his gang were involved in there were six guys so two of them tried to escape they they got caught in the uk got life um two of them suspected another guy went to kenya they hid out for nearly two years then they got caught but another two guys they went to somalia never been seen again and they got away with it so they all went different places and got treated a different way but there's no extradition with somalia you you disappear into somalia you're gone you're done so so they they made it out but suspect got super famous but ended up giving away that he was in kenya and they got him back um the crazy story but i did a four-hour documentary on this did that in february

Starting point is 02:10:36 but it just got demonetized like a couple days ago so it's um i'm taking it down while trying to resolve that the thing is we censored everything they the thing they sent us said it, swearing and violence, but there's no swearing in the video. We took out all the swearing. We took out all the violence. I took out even the descriptions of violence. In the Patreon version of the video, I explain in a lot of detail how the incidents

Starting point is 02:10:55 where people got killed played out. I removed all of that for YouTube, and it still hit me, but it's like a month from. It's crazy that you can have a video up for a while get it demonetized take it down and it still does amazing because that's how good they are well i hope so with this one you know i'm hoping i don't have to re-upload because the thing is sometimes i get hit with it a lot and sometimes youtube are kind of reasonable and they'll look a bit close and they'll be like yeah this was a mistake you know a shout out to youtube but like i've had a couple

Starting point is 02:11:20 mistakes i've got demonetized by mistake and i talk to them and eventually quite often they'll be like they'll be like okay like i had a ralo my ralo documentary called mr dog food which is about he was one of the biggest drug dealers in atlanta at the time ralo who was also rapping about everything that he was doing and he ends up getting caught but that video has been demonetized a bunch of times but it's not it's not even any violence he was a drug dealer that got caught and has been must have been demonetized four or five times. But every time I speak to YouTube, I'm like, hey, this happened again. There's nothing.

Starting point is 02:11:50 This video is super clean. And to their credit, they've given it back. So they've been making mistakes and sometimes they're very reasonable about it. But I'm kind of sad because I would have said that was probably one of my favorite documentaries. It's on my Patreon. So if anyone wants to go, patreon.com.

Starting point is 02:12:03 You can watch that all uncut. You can find out all the deep, dark history. And to be fair, on my patreon so if anyone wants to go patreon.com you can watch that all uncut you can find out all the deep dark history and to be fair on my clips channel i upload the different chapters from the videos on my clips channel so you can if you want to learn about suspect go on my trap law clips and you can learn all the little pieces from that documentary but hopefully i'll get that full doc back together because that's what i'm most proud of the full four hour feature documentary about this topic where you're going to learn everything. It's your masterpiece. Yeah, to lose that, it kind of sucks, to be honest. With stories like that,

Starting point is 02:12:31 we were talking about your research earlier, but do you have inside sources too? No. You don't get access to any? You do this purely from the outside? I don't want inside sources. People always hit me up like, yo, I've got secret info on this rapper, that rapper.

Starting point is 02:12:43 I do not want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. My thing me up like, yo, I got secret info on this rapper, that rapper. I do not want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. My thing is I'm a researcher. I'm showing you. I'm trying to show you everything that's out there on a topic. I'm not trying to show you hidden info. Some guys told me that this guy shot. I'm just what's publicly out there.

Starting point is 02:12:56 Anything you see me say is backed up by public sources. I'm not out here just making shit up or spreading rumors. I don't want inside sources. I'm a secondary source researcher. That's what I do. Are you a journalist journalist i'd say so okay yeah do you think that might change at some point because like you're entrenched now like you're extremely well known you're respected by i mean some people don't like the like king von's family or something of course you're gonna have haters like that but like you're respected among the industry as someone who knows what they're talking about with this stuff.

Starting point is 02:13:25 It's putting out stories that are, again, based on a lot of research and put together to present the facts. Like you're I'm sure, as you were saying, like people are hitting you up and it's only going to get more and more and more. Do you think is there something that would need to happen for you to change that stance? No, I mean, for me, I like the way I go about things is like how I like to do things. Like, I like to learn everything there is about a rapper. Like, I'm gonna watch all of the King Von interviews. You know, that's what I'm gonna do. Like, I like watching interviews with rappers. I don't want, I actually don't want inside sources. I see myself as a researcher and like a filmmaker, you know, a director. Like, I'm focused on trying to make my videos look better

Starting point is 02:14:02 and more detailed. I'm not focused on trying to get primary sources. And people always come at me and they're like, why aren't you in the streets interviewing people? Like, that's like what Tommy G and Brandon does. And that's not really what I'm trying to do. I might go to a location and film a few shots and get a little bit of B roll and get a little bit of ambience. But I'm not really trying to have sit downs with people and trying to do talking head interviews for my staff. Like that's not my approach. My approach is I'm me as the central, I'm like a filter for the information i'm going to learn everything about the topic and i'm going to show you what i think is relevant for you to understand and appreciate what's going on like with the young boy video i feel like that was a thing of like i was such a

Starting point is 02:14:37 fan of young boy i wanted to take everything about him and lay it out in a way that so that if you didn't like or if you didn't know anything about Youngboy, you could understand where he's coming from with all of his music. And that's, I do that with the information. I don't want to be sat down doing interviews and shit. So even when you're doing some of the videos that are just on, say, like, gang wars and stuff like that, you're still doing it strictly from the outside. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't want inside info. And again, it's like, I feel like when people say I'm a snitch or that kind of thing.

Starting point is 02:15:05 Who says you're a snitch? All the rappers said we said I'm a snitch. Why? Because they think that what I'm doing is snitchy and I'm kind of telling on what they're up to. Guys. But it's like. Guys, come on. You know what it is.

Starting point is 02:15:18 I feel like it's just like, it's a lot easier to say Ross is a snitch rather than to say it's dumb for rappers to be rapping about real crimes. Same with the Young Thug trial. People are talking about... I released a video on Young Thug and his gang six months before he caught his case. When he caught his case, they were like, that's your fault.

Starting point is 02:15:35 You aired out all of that stuff. But when you actually look at the indictment, they were surveilling his phone. They had the rental car somebody got shot in. They have so much more than the stuff I have. But at the same time time it's dumb that young thug has rapped about all these crimes so much in his songs he's got this lyric where he raps i shot at his mom now he doesn't mention me anymore dude's mom really got shot and that's out there and and so it's like to act like i'm a snitch when really i'm just reading thugs lyrics and then looking up did somebody's mom get shot sure

Starting point is 02:16:02 enough there's there's the there's the newspaper article there's the interview with somebody's mom getting shot saying them guys did it is there what do you think of this is this is a state by state legal argument that's been happening in the united states about the permissibility of song lyrics in trials because to be fair there's a lot of guys who are studio gangsters, right? They rap about the things that are based on third person experience or, you know, generally where they're from, but they rap about it maybe from first person and they weren't there. And then those words can be used against them. It obviously it's been a big argument throughout this never ending young thug trial or whatever. Like you do you think that they should be allowed to use lyrics against people absolutely this is a

Starting point is 02:16:49 this is one of those things i know people are going to be pissed off with this one because it's not what you'd expect why not why can't you use lyrics and here's the thing this is the dumbest thing the guys that are trying to say oh my music's are you shouldn't be able to use it against me they're the guys that are doing the most crimes and talking about it young thug i i thought it was incredibly disingenuous when young thug came out with this uh movement of protect black art when he's getting arrested being implicated in a murder and he's saying we need to protect black art they're using this against me i feel like that's a disservice to all of the great black artists who made art without doing crime uh so you're saying yeah so it's like young thugs on songs talking about,

Starting point is 02:17:25 I shot his mom and now he doesn't mention me anymore. And he was actually having people's mother shot, right? Allegedly. Allegedly. Free thug. Allegedly. But then there's the lyric. There's the lyric.

Starting point is 02:17:36 He's talking about, I shot his mom, he no longer mentions me. Why FN Lucci's got a vlog where he's at his mom's house saying, they shot at my mom's house. Here's the bullet holes. And again. Could have been someone else. No, but here's the thing holes and again could have been could have been someone else no but here's the thing that i people always use this example they say well bob marley had i shot the sheriff i shot and they don't use that against

Starting point is 02:17:52 him because there wasn't a dead sheriff that's right but with the young thug thing he's talking about i shot his mom and there's a bullet hole in somebody's mom's house but there's a lot of moms out there of course there's a dead mom, but like there's fucking 340 million people in this country. Well, listen, we know whose mom he was talking about. We knew exactly whose mom he was talking about. How do we know? Because the mom's son is in a vlog over there pointing at the bullet hole saying they shot up my mama's house. Yeah, but what if it was they like someone else?

Starting point is 02:18:21 This is the thing. There's a lot of people trying to shoot. We're doing mental gymnastics to try and protect a mom shooter yeah i mean i'm halfway joking as you can tell no but this is how people get with it where it's like we got to protect the music and it's like if you're not really doing crime the music doesn't need protecting they're trying to use the music and the art as a smoke screen for you to get away with crimes because realistically this is the thing with thug right people want to say protect him because of the music because they like his music but realistically if he's out here arranging for people to get killed and having people's mothers that's not

Starting point is 02:18:51 cool and then to try and use the music as a defense to be like oh you can't use my lyrics against you why were you rapping about shooting people's mothers if that was a real thing yeah yeah it's certainly it it's it's gray area but for some of the guys it's not and i can see why prosecutions would want to use that and i think it's one of those things that can be a slippery slope because again how do you make the determination which guys are real and which guys are just doing it for attention right which isn't a crime to do that you know obviously like it's disingenuous for sure but it's not a crime to do that but that case has been like never ending man i mean holy shit i've never seen something drag out so long it's complicated man there's a lot of people involved you know a

Starting point is 02:19:35 lot of situations involved they've been going back and forth i mean the main murder from that case i think was in 2015 right so yeah that was the rented car one yeah so we're dealing with a nine-year-old murder but again people been knowing about this people been talking about this there's a bunch of lyrics you know there's a bunch of stuff and again it's like let's try let's not use thug's lyrics against him okay well let's say we'll set aside the lyric what about when his boys went to the dead guy's grave and sprayed slap on the headstone right that's not a lyric but it's like you want to try and get out of holding responsibility like young thug if young thug really did pay for the murder to happen and if young thug really did pay for the guy to shoot up the dude's mom's house he should face justice for that it's not cool yeah this is the thing is like i talk about a lot of

Starting point is 02:20:22 this gangster stuff but it's like people try and understand it's like i don't condone it i don't think murder is cool like this people act like this is some shocking is like I talk about a lot of this gangster stuff, but it's like people trying to understand It's like I don't condone it I don't think murder is cool like this is people act like this is some shocking thing But right, but if a rapper kills another rapper, that's not cool to me I'm not a fan of murder sure people act like I should I should be like Somehow it's like you're a snitch and it's like bro if someone murdered if someone shot at my mom in real life You'd be best believe I'll be snitching. Okay, you know It's not it's this idea if people are a fan of a rapper and they feel like we just got to defend this guy to the end

Starting point is 02:20:48 of the Earth and I love Young Thug's music don't get me wrong but if he really if it transpires in the courtroom scenario that he really did pay for that murder to happen and for dude's mum to be shot bro he needs to be in jail that's not cool yeah and as sad as that is to say people want to stick up for for different people and protect the art, that's a perfectly fair point. But don't protect the shooters. That's right. It's a perfectly fair point. And I'll retweet that.

Starting point is 02:21:11 I agree. I mean, we can joke about it or whatever. But, you know, I thought some of that case seemed like when it was first coming out, some of it certainly seemed a little suspect. But, like, at the same time, you don't do yourself favors. Knowing what I know now with some time passed time you don't do yourself favors let no knowing what i know now with some time pass you don't do yourself favors when you take like the gang name and you literally put it in the studio too this is the funny thing is it's like you got a lot of these gangster guys again it's that thing of like we got to protect the music and it's like you need to protect yourself from jumping in a vocal booth and talking about all the nobody made you talk about those crimes right if i like i

Starting point is 02:21:48 met a young drill rapper the other day and he played me a song and it was a fire song and but then there's a bit where they're talking about this guy that got killed and what they'd do to him and i said to the dude i was just kind of like hey man like you ever think about taking that little bit out like i'm what do you say i know who you're talking about so what do you say it's just just just talking about a murder that happened you know just rapping about a situation a murder that happened and they're making fun of it and there's sort of a thing it's but and it's come up in other songs but it's like at the time i was just trying and i'm trying to do that on some positive shit to say to the guy like yes yo like i love this

Starting point is 02:22:21 this is a fire song like you're not gonna hit the billboard with those those little lyrics in there you know yeah you're not gonna hit the charts with if you leave that little bit in there i get but again it was like i was trying to gain an understanding because he he broke it down to me he was like yeah but he was like those guys they're dissing my guy that's dead i feel like i gotta put this out there and say that and i'm kind of saying to him like i was like i was like don't you feel like you're maybe bigger than that like don't you feel like you don't need to diss yeah they're dissing your guy but these are young guys you know and they're and it's like i'm not i'm trying to i'm not trying to tell him what to do but i'm

Starting point is 02:22:53 just trying to give him some advice but then he's explaining to me why yeah but this is why i feel like i gotta diss these guys and i gotta say this and i see where he's coming from but it's like i'm just trying to give him that advice of like in a couple years' time when you're a really big superstar, you might maybe think, maybe I shouldn't have gone so hard on that stuff. Because in the grand scheme of things, all that street stuff is minor if you can become a superstar. And this is where it gets odd because – and I don't know him well,

Starting point is 02:23:17 but I was hanging out around him like a few weeks ago. He's a kid, the guy we're talking about. Yeah. And like when he's not in front of the mic, he's like the sweetest guy. Yeah, yeah. Like he's such a – but there's something where it's like, no, well, I have to turn into this character now in there. And again, he's rapping about some experiences too, but then it actually – like the mic becomes the streets

Starting point is 02:23:42 and then it transpires to the streets. And I kept looking at that because I'm like, he's got great talent actually like the mic becomes the streets and then it transpires to the streets and i i kept looking at that because i'm like ah he's got great talent and he's so young and i was so stupid at that age too and i'm just like someone could slow him down but you can't like you said you can do it i think that's great that you were talking with him that's that's awesome well it felt at the time like that's probably some energy that he's maybe not used to having around him as far as like i'm not putting anyone down but it's like when you got people around you and you're saying some crazy shit on a song and then everyone's like gassing you up like yeah

Starting point is 02:24:14 that's good yeah from where you're from that might be normal but it's almost like i just felt like you know this is an opportunity it's like someone you know i'm older than him even just just not just to say to him like bro just just want you to i'm just letting you know like talking like this on this song this might this song might go mainstream but the way those little touches you put on there that's super violent that might be a barrier to you going mainstream or a problem down the road like you said yeah and and like he might not have anyone in his ear saying that so even just if that makes him think like maybe not this one maybe down the line he you know he might reflect back on that and think like hey you know what like maybe i ain't gonna diss crazy on this song because this song might be a hit and like you know i just hope you know

Starting point is 02:24:54 i just think so much it got a little through maybe a little bit i felt like it was a good conversation but at the same time he didn't turn you when he broke it down to me i can understand where he's coming from yeah i'm not thinking about the fact that last week they done some foul on a song against him right i'm just thinking i'm here with him now i'm thinking about his future i'm not thinking about last week when they were saying some awful about someone that he lost right so it's different for him i like that he didn't shut you down be like do you know i yeah i like that that's that's that's a good sign yeah it was like it was like some real man it was like a real conversation you know and. Yeah. It was like some real shit, man. It was like a real conversation, you know? That's good.

Starting point is 02:25:25 And I feel like it was like we were both seeing where each other was coming from. Yeah. And I know Brandon talked about this when he was in here on the podcast. But, you know, he has a lot of these conversations with some of these guys in the places he goes to cover. And he's not afraid to at least bring it up. But, you know, they're going to do what they're going to do. And sometimes the reaction is bring it up but you know they're gonna do what they're gonna do and sometimes the reaction is the fuck do you know white boy right and that's i get that that's yeah and i get that that's how it is you know but it's it's interesting that like

Starting point is 02:25:55 someone like you can be a fan of this stuff and then make these videos and then get in the middle of these guys too and actually be there like it's pretty cool right being like in the studio when these guys are actually making the shit and you hear it before it's happening no yeah yeah well that's that's why it's like i felt like almost like i had a responsibility of just like i'm hearing some shit that's foul and just just trying to be like i just want to let everyone know like you're putting your what you just said is crazy that's normal to you but like you just said some foul shit so just making sure you guys are like cool that but at the same time that's what they do but it's just like i said this to people before it's like the last thing i'd want

Starting point is 02:26:27 to see is you know i meet a young guy that's coming up in the drill scene and he's got a lot of talent and to hear something bad's happened to him like that would you know i'm seeing it as an opportunity just just a little positive influence into this space because i really i feel like people get it twisted like i love the violence and i'm stoked in the violence like that's good you could i would love i would love to over there not to be violent i want to just see everyone make music do you think it would be great music without that world though 100 because this is the thing we're everything is looked through through this specific lens of gangster rap drill music and realistically there's people making hit songs that maybe started on the

Starting point is 02:27:02 gangster side of things but then went mainstream and have done a commercially successful without having to do all of that violent stuff. So it just goes to show you there's all these different lanes that people could be taking. But it's just like, unfortunately, right now, there's a big spotlight on the gangster violent side of the music industry. And I think that for better or for worse, for whatever reason that is, people are just trying to understand why things are like that. Well, we're looking at it from the angle of the gang side of it and all that. But the other side that still has to be put in here is that these guys are creatives too. They're artists. And there's a realm of thinking that goes with that.

Starting point is 02:27:37 And also when you're – you know how personal the creative process is. You are as well. So like when you and I are creating stuff and doing edits like we want it a certain way i mean i know alessi sits there and he hears me say i want it this way he laughs his ass off right but that's just you know when he edits something that's how he wants it his way too it's it's a beautiful thing but i think the bigger guys get to there's that realm of like the the barrier that can kind of come around them and then you talk about like can you really get through to someone can can you really can can you really approach them and

Starting point is 02:28:11 and and try to make them understand something when they're so in their world and i mean there's no better i don't know if better is the word but no more like extreme example of this than like kanye west now when you look at him because obviously you know kanye from a audio visual standpoint is an absolute genius he's one of my favorite artists of all time he's incredible but he also you know he has some severe mental issues i i was at least happy to hear him finally like kind of admit out loud that he had autism because that was always very obvious to me. But, you know, obviously he's done a lot of crazy shit. Let's call it what it is.

Starting point is 02:28:51 But so much of him is like he is his own worst enemy and won't listen to fucking anybody about stuff, you know? And it just – it feels like you're watching yeah he's gonna make great art but like you're still watching a train crash in slow motion yeah now that's true man he's to be honest i feel like that's one of the most tragic things like when you see like someone who would have been like a hero grow up to just do some foul stuff that's right you know all the stuff that he's been saying it's crazy all the jew stuff the hitler stuff is you know i don't with that you know all the course all of that and it's just embarrassing i'm i'm not jewish but i don't i got jewish friends you know i don't appreciate that puts me down obviously i know there's a lot of stuff going

Starting point is 02:29:34 on in the world right now but i don't think you should be hating anyone just based on like i agree who they are where they're from how they identify and i feel like yay has been one of the most disappointing ones to see where he's taken it. And the influence he's had as well. I mean, you mentioned him a minute ago. I bumped into Sneeko in Miami. How was that? Not good, man. What happened?

Starting point is 02:29:54 We were out for dinner. I was out for dinner with some other creators, and he popped up. He just started talking a bunch of foul shit about how much he loved. This is when the Kanye-Hitler thing was going on. Sneeko talking about how great Hitler is, talking about W. Hitler, witler and i'm like bro shut up i'm like bro bro allow that and then he's like oh what is he was i remember sneaker he says like oh apart from you might want to cut this out for demonetization but sneaker was like oh well apart from the jews what did hitler do that was so bad and i was like bro i'm british he bombed my country you don't know what the

Starting point is 02:30:21 fuck you don't know shit about history shut up and like god he's such an attention whore but that's just from him clout sucking what yay was saying at the time dissing on jewish people and it just goes to show you how this influence these people don't know anything about what they're talking about and yay because of his position as a genius in the art he's so influential when he spouts this dumb shit that he doesn't think about people are out here spreading these these opinions acting like hitler was a good guy like you are americans you were at war with this guy how this guy killed your grandparents probably you know how are you running around saying that you got your little mini me saying shit like that so people are so influenced these days like and we're all susceptible to it but like the streamer

Starting point is 02:31:03 culture you know i don't understand it because i haven't really been in it but some of it like i've seen some videos on youtube of like some opinion streamers going back and forth and there's some good stuff like there's some good little debates and stuff like that but so much of it is like yeah chat w chat all right go chat and all day they just wake up they take a fuck ton of vivance and adderall right or maybe they rip some blow if they're down in miami or somewhere where they're getting good stuff like that i'm sure he does but i don't know if he does but you know what i mean like they're on some shit and they turn on a camera it's so unnatural like you talking to a camera to record your documentary but like

Starting point is 02:31:37 scripting it out you got your thing i know that's right they turn it on and they have all these people behind keyboards that they can't see going like yeah yeah go go go and they and it's and it's like it's like money to the clown show the more the clown claps on stage the more the elephant moves the tambourines like the more they're going to throw on there almost like like a stripper in a way on video right and you see you see how unnatural that is and how it becomes like we throw around this term online echo chamber all the time they literally are living in their own echo chamber they hear the echoes of their voices around them it's not like this it's not like where we are not live on the internet right now we were outside the studio all day we plan to come in here and have a conversation like real

Starting point is 02:32:19 human beings so many of these streamers they they're not doing it with someone else they're just yelling at their chat who can't talk back other than text, and they're in full control, and it changes who they are mentally. I mean I discovered Sneeko maybe like – it was a little while before Brandon put out his video in August 2022. And since I discovered Sneeko, I guess that's like two years ago, two and a half years ago, he's had like four or five eras yeah he's one person it's been like two years like like he he's been in every era from like oh yeah jewish is the religion of god i actually am jewish partially and yay mr beast or whatever and then you know suddenly like he's rolling around with nick fuentes and kanye well i feel like that's just sign of somebody i'm not trying to diss on him too hard i mean you know he he definitely said some shit that like made me not really fuck with him when i met him but you know he wasn't i don't know he really said that w hitler he really said w hitler

Starting point is 02:33:17 he said what did he do that was so bad and i was like bro you know i'm english and he's like you know what it is you know when it's someone's talking you know when someone's talking and they you can tell they don't know a fucking clue what they're talking about it's like what's so bad i'm like you don't know world war ii do i'm like you don't know world war ii history you know i'm english do you know what you know he bombed england you know he bombed my country like you know my grandparents had to move because of this guy like you know you're anyway forget that but like that's just a sign of somebody that i don't think you can say has any real true like core principles or morals

Starting point is 02:33:45 They're just hopping on whatever this week. They're hating on this person. They're hopping on this opinion They're gonna hop on this religion Whatever they feel like and then when it where when it stops having the motion they'll hop on to something else because I feel like For me, I'm really about my principles. I feel like the way I look at shit and see shit doesn't change like I'm I'm grounded in my principles. I don't just hop on some shit. It it's popping or like i'm trying to look cool or i'm trying to ride a wave um but yeah how old were you when you made your first upload on youtube my first ever upload would have been 2050 and i'd have been like would that be 22. okay so better question when you uploaded the jay-z video how old were you because you didn't

Starting point is 02:34:26 do any views before that no i wasn't really doing views before that would have been 29 start 2019 so i'd have been like 26 26 i think about this a lot right i got on youtube when i was in my 20s and i think about if i had discovered this when I was like 17 or 16 different story I might be dead you know what I mean I was such a moron back then I was still a moron in my early 20s it's like you know that's the one

Starting point is 02:34:56 we talk about like empathy with some of these guys these kids were coming up when they were fucking 14 on the internet streaming and stuff it programmed who they are and i'd love to see like some psychological studies on that see what that does but like i think that's kind of the advantage of us not doing it necessarily when we were babies with this and having any kind of attention we didn't we didn't we were our brain was able to develop without that so we can have that perspective of

Starting point is 02:35:25 like yeah what the fuck is this idiot talking about yeah and they don't have it they can't see that i mean anyone who comes around and says things like that like to anyone in in public you know it's not just like okay you clearly haven't studied history it's like okay what went wrong you know you know it really made me think as well it's like it was some internet shit it was like when you're hot when he's hopping on the stream and yay has just said something really anti-semitic and you're joking around you're saying w chat w hitler whitler that's funny in the internet maybe to a dumb audience but it's like he was trying to do that like it's funny to my face and i'm just like bro you're talking about a dude that rocked like

Starting point is 02:36:01 bombed my country and my grandparents and shit like that's not funny that's it was one of those moments was like some internet shit popping up in real life and it ain't running the same stunning he's saying that like that everyone was going to be in hysterics about that shit and i was just like bro what the fuck whose man is this yeah like what the fuck are you talking about it was awkward as fuck man did he just roll up with the camera rolling or no he wasn't recording to be fair but this was like when this was like the week he was linking up because i was there i was in miami i was i popped up on fresh and fit and i know people hate with hate on fresh and fit but i don't know much about him so i mean i popped up on the show um you know they've shown nothing but love to me i know they get a lot

Starting point is 02:36:35 of hate on the internet but they've been nothing but kind to me and you know i wouldn't i would never say i agree with all the things that they say but i agree with their right to say it um and i popped up on the show but obviously sneeko popped up after he's in that circle but it was just a crazy it was just a crazy experience man it's just sort of like i don't know man just and i get what you're saying because i feel like had i popped off on youtube or even when i was trying to be a rapper when i was 16 17 if i'd have popped off as a rapper i'd'd have been on... Just, like... I popped off on YouTube at a point in my life when I was very level-headed, and, like, I'm consistent now.

Starting point is 02:37:09 Like, my morals and my beliefs had been cemented by that point. So when YouTube popped off, I'm navigating this in a very level-headed way. Had it popped off when I was 17, when I didn't really know what I was trying to do, and I feel like that's the best benefit of the doubt I could give Sneeko.

Starting point is 02:37:23 He's a bit younger than me. He's trying to fit in, whereas i'm at a stage in my life now where i'm very comfortable in my own skin i'm not trying to fit in with anyone or fit in anywhere like i stand on the things that i say and the things that i produce and the things that i put out and i'm just me like unapologetically me i'm not trying to be some cool hip-hop guy from the hood i'm a dork i'm a nerd i'm into hip-hop and drill stuff that just is what it is i am who i am but you know you meet these people that popped off on social media early they don't know who they are they're trying to find an identity they're trying on identities trying to like work out who they are

Starting point is 02:37:53 and where they fit in you know yes that's a great way to put it do you worry about like confirmation bias and what you do though too right like you start working on as you said you'll work on something hardcore for a month two months three months but you you look though too right like you start working on as you said you'll work on something hardcore for a month two months three months but you you look at a story like okay let's just use king von king von might have been a serial killer and now you start doing all the research on it and you worry about like having that confirmation bias to get to that end result that you might have looked at as the angle before well ironically the von thing happened the opposite way around i'd never i never had the serial killer idea until i started working on it i was just

Starting point is 02:38:29 going to do the von life story and i was really trying to prove or disprove because it's like oh he raps that he's got seven bodies numerous lyrics where he says i got seven bodies four so talk about bodies i got a few four plus three um and so i was just trying to prove or disprove it it was only once I start looking into him and I'm like oh he looks like he was involved in all seven here that I then looked up the definition of a serial killer and I was like I think he matches this so that kind of came about the other way around but that I've had that in the past sometimes where it's almost like I'll go into a story I'll start researching it and maybe a certain rapper has like a certain reputation or

Starting point is 02:39:03 even just a case of like other videos have been done about them and i might be going into it with a certain idea but often it's like because i'm i'm dedicated to the facts so if i start reading stuff that doesn't fit in with what my preconceived biases were i'll take a step back and i'll be like you know what this might not be the story i thought it was this might be a story about something else great you know i was trying to do the eminem and kim thing this is not a gangster this ain't a gangster story right but or even no you know what a story i did that was really opened my eyes i did the kanye kim kardashian oh that video is incredible yeah right i've watched that entire thing but it's like that was super interesting because it was just like let me really dig deep into this crazy relationship and just how crazy these two are but as the more

Starting point is 02:39:42 i looked into it the more i almost understood how this was like, like Ye had gotten to a point where he was so famous, it was like one of the only people he could relate to was this Kim Kardashian, right? Of like the lifestyle that he was living. And it's like, you go into it with this preconceived notion of like, oh, Kim K's evil and she finessed him and all this stuff.

Starting point is 02:39:59 And then you start learning about all the things that they'd been through and the things that she'd been through in their family history. And it kind of opens your eyes a little bit to like, oh, there is actually a bit more understanding as to why things are the way they are here. So I try and go into a story with a fairly open mind. But sometimes you think it's going to be one thing and you look a bit deep and you're like, oh, it's actually something different. Like the Vaughn thing for sure is a good example of like, I didn't set out of like, I'm going to put the serial killer documentary out.

Starting point is 02:40:22 That came later. But obviously, once I realized that he met that definition i started continuing to write the script yeah then i leaned into that angle a little bit more but that wasn't it wasn't like i had this preconceived notion of how i wanted it to go and then i've made it fit that i'm very focused on the facts if i find a fact that contradicts some shit that i want to say or that i'm trying to say i'm gonna have to revisit the whole structure and turn it around you know there's stuff of like people that i've wanted to look into and it's like you just find out what you thought you knew was untrue and it's kind of you gotta take a step back and be like okay maybe he ain't a killer like that or maybe he is this guy's actually is really what they say he is

Starting point is 02:40:59 type thing um but like i'm focused on the facts man i really i'm just like so grounded in like i don't want to put out in like i don't want to put out anything false i don't want to put out misinformation like if you watch one of my videos and every now and then i'll get something wrong and i'd always throw up my hands and say like i was wrong about a few details but like my thing is it's like if i make something four hours it's going to be the facts it's going to be the most factual documentation of an artist of a story that you could possibly find like that's my goal yeah and you do a great job with it but I was not the celebrity like relationship drama and stuff is I mean I'm very behind on that stuff like

Starting point is 02:41:35 that's not really my cup of tea what I do I was not intending to watch your Kim Kanye video this was earlier this week but I'm like okay oh i made three and a half hours on this i clicked it and within five minutes i was going for a walk i listened to the whole fucking thing i think i maybe i have like a half hour left in it but like it was very interesting to hear the psychological ties that you put there with them because you do you think of them from these totally different worlds and you actually pointed out your like here's Kanye came from nothing had a had a stroke a genius worked his ass off blinded didn't even get his real come up to 28 or 29 years old

Starting point is 02:42:13 then you got Kim dad was a hot shot lawyer grew up with a lot of money around everyone in LA was it really famous for anything other than being famous because then she was famous for having sex or whatever but then you know was able to the two of them like find this common ground it's and and you know the cynic and you could be like oh anything the kardashians do is like a sham relationship i i don't think it was i i i think i think it was i think it was very real with those two people and i have heard i'll say about kim i've heard some behind the scenes

Starting point is 02:42:46 stuffs about her that she's like kind of a real person believe it or not i haven't heard that about some of the others i don't know how good that information is but like i've heard that and and you kind of see it when when you see this relationship of the way you laid it out yeah and that's a fascinating story as well because it's like the as i started looking into it it's like to me it seems like things really fell apart when kan started looking into it it's like because to me it seems like things really fell apart when kanye got into politics and he was trying to run for president and and all that kind of thing and kim was kim was getting involved into politics but from a different angle she was trying to do the prison reform stuff and it's just so interesting

Starting point is 02:43:17 to see how that relationship really fell apart with yay throwing himself out there for the trying to be president and just how much negativity that brought to the family and like it's through the research it's like i'm researching this trying to piece together what i think of the story and it's like i'm learning about this aspect and that aspect and kim's working with trump and she's trying to she's trying to um get people out of jail and she's trying to do this prison reform thing and just how they both kind of like work together but then also against each other. It's just fascinating. And again that's from me being a true fan.

Starting point is 02:43:49 Like I'm researching that project. Reading every interview that Kim is in where she mentions him. Or every article that's written about their wedding. Every appearance on Keeping Up With The Kardashians where Kanye popped up. And it's just like I'm trying to get a complete picture of like anything to do with their relationship. I want it to be in that video. And I want you to understand how it came about how it fell apart. And I'm just obsessive. But that's what I love to do. Like research. I remember researching that video and just how interesting it was every day. There'd be some new interview, some new clip, some new article about their marriage that I'd

Starting point is 02:44:20 never seen before. And it's just like, I just love doing this i just love this like i'm obsessed with the info it's genuine and like it's just a blessing to be able to do this as a job honestly like uh to to be able to dig so deep into the stories that i think matter the most and like it's uh it's a blessing but i'm glad you liked that because i think sometimes i get put in this box of this true crime gangster stuff which i'm deeply invested in i really care about drill music and the history and the scene and the young guys coming up but at the same time like i'd love to jump on for a month and do a kanye kim kind of history you know the eminem kim kim mathers history even uh you know in the way in the past like i've done just so many different types of videos of like different people's careers you you know, the six, nine story.

Starting point is 02:45:06 There's just so much more than just the drill gangster stuff. But that's what I've become most famous for. I think because I think because that's a topic area people really want to know about. And there's not enough information out there really breaking down the history of it. So I feel like that's caught on in a way bigger than maybe the relationship drama video. And it's crazy because their lives are like her life and that family's life is literally covered through camera yeah but it's this it's a facade because it's like well it's a reality show right but then you actually get together all the things

Starting point is 02:45:36 that you can say are real and that did happen and then you can see some of it on video you know when like when kanye was filmed at his opening thing in charleston for the 2020 election where he kind of lost it and then you see okay this is where this is going off the rails because he's also going off the rails you know something you know what what are you obviously i'm completely with you i did the shit he was saying was just really sad to me like when when you're going on shows and saying things anything like nice about hitler it's like dude yeah stop but like what do you what do you think like he's he seems to be uncancellable and still somehow despite it like in a weird way lovable

Starting point is 02:46:21 like i'd love love's a strong word but like reach for me yeah like um like you get you get a laugh seeing him say random not the stuff not that stuff you know what i mean i think he's one of those cases where unfortunately or unfortunately his art is so good it's been so good over the years that and you know he's he it's when he goes off on his rant and he's like i'm the picasso of this generation he's kind of right he's kind of right and it sucks that he's out here saying horrible stuff about jewish people and he's picking up hitler it's embarrassing and it's it's sad to see somebody that artistically is so smart but like from a self-awareness point of view he's so nothing so dumb but you know he's coming out saying he's got

Starting point is 02:47:03 autism now there's certainly not an excuse but also it's not an excuse he definitely does it's like a point of understanding of like okay maybe that's explained some of this stuff but it's really sad to watch someone i mean i grew up listening to khan i remember college dropout coming out being a kid and just really loving this this new rapper that i'd found that was kind of smart like his early bars compared to the other guys that he was around people like jay-z that were on you know his label as far as the people that he was around coming up he was completely different he was this backpack rapper that was kind of cool and commercial not street but from chicago so it's been sad to see as far as like the things that he's put out there over the last couple years being kind of embarrassing and sad

Starting point is 02:47:43 and just you know offensive to people but it's his artistry that always saves him he's such a good artist and he's made so much good art over the years that it's like you can never really count him out people are always going to be interested in what he has to say as much as i hate the stuff that he says publicly when he drops an album of course i'm going to listen to it and give it a chance i've not really felt the donder stuff that he's released recently to be honest ain't too many kanye tracks i'm putting in rotation but like you can't ignore the guy he's going to be as long as he's alive people are going to want to hear what he has to say we really you know there's compositions obviously of famous composers that we have today so we can see like what beethoven did and mozart

Starting point is 02:48:21 did and stuff but when you look at history it's really been since like the early 1900s where we have a real audio history. So you have to take what I'm about to say in a grain of salt. But in the history of the world, Kanye West is without a doubt, I don't think there's even a question, the greatest combination of audio-visual genius to ever live. You put those two together because, again, the audio side of it is really only about 120 years old, 110 years years old so you look at that and you look at what he can do from a visual

Starting point is 02:48:49 creation perspective and then you look at what he can do in music and it's unbelievable and like his stuff I don't mean to be like dramatic about stuff but like he's one of those artists and there are a handful of them that literally can make me emotional just not him hearing what he has created and and at some stuff you you'll i'll listen to a song i've listened to a thousand two thousand times before and i'll hear new things that he didn't just be like god damn holy shit and so there's a part of me that's like you know oh my god yeah i just don't say that stuff but then there's another part of me that's like well he is mentally sick as well and then there's another part of me it's like well everyone who's ever

Starting point is 02:49:28 been evil is mentally sick so am i gonna write them all off for that too and then there's another part that's like i think he's just saying things sometimes like when the cameras go off and once he's like gotten his little ran out does he even think some of this stuff maybe does he does he think all of it though probably not he's just one of those guys like he he's on the spectrum he's got rapid narcissism that is definitely partially a result of that he has all kinds of other mental issues and he grabs a microphone whenever he can see it i mean that's that's a train that that's a train wreck yeah it's always going to be that way it's a mess and uh you know it's a shame that but no one's perfect you know what we can only hope for oh he's this great amazing artist if only he would just not say these insane

Starting point is 02:50:14 things but it's like he is what he is you know he's uh it's probably some of the whatever the chemicals he's got floating around that make him a genius probably what partly why he's got no filter partly why he says such crazy shit and it's unfortunate because he's somebody that i would have looked up to but now he's said a lot of stuff that's sort of like you're just like i can't really rock with that right it's just unfortunate but yeah i couldn't deny his artistry i think in 100 to 200 years people are going to look back on him like they look back on beethoven and and people like that you know he's a genius when it comes to art and creation and just vision. But a lot of geniuses are flawed.

Starting point is 02:50:51 So that's how it'd be. I have a saying that I'm sure someone else had to say at some point, but whatever. When you look at the highest level of genius, there's a price they pay. And it comes in different forms. For him, I think we've laid out what those prices are. And obviously it doesn't condone some of the shit he does. But you look at geniuses across time, there was always a price.

Starting point is 02:51:15 Elon has a price. Elon is also someone in a different way. He's on the spectrum, right? And it doesn't have to be like, oh, they're on the spectrum. There are different levels to this thing. And it's just something about the equilibrium in the universe when people are just gifted with something so beyond the comprehension of pretty much everyone else they ever come into contact with. There are just things that then, you know, maybe in their life or that the universe balances out and says, well, fuck you on this. And I've always felt that

Starting point is 02:51:44 way with him, but I've never felt it more than looking at it over the last year or so in the aftermath of this stuff. It's messed up, man. We'll find another genius, man. Yeah. It's unfortunate that he's gone so weird. We're looking

Starting point is 02:52:00 for another yay, man. I'm waiting for the next yay. This yay is kind of fucked up now. I'm waiting for the new yay to come through, man. I'm looking, scouting for that new genius. You see any candidates? Artists are really, really genius. Thinking on another level. Man.

Starting point is 02:52:15 Who can I think of? No one's emerged. Like the impact Kanye had when he first came out. And he was like, it was like, yo, this guy's speaking like, even just things like his song, like Jesus Walks. Oh, it was incredible. There'd never really been a hip hop record like that. It was like it was like yo this guy's speaking like even just things like his song like Jesus Walks like oh it was incredible there'd never really been a hip hop record like that

Starting point is 02:52:27 it was like a gospel hit record talk about God and it won't be played but it got played yeah he broke the mold he changed that

Starting point is 02:52:34 with that song closest thing was Tupac but he none of his songs like that went hardcore mainstream like Ghetto Gospel wasn't playing on Q102 man

Starting point is 02:52:43 I don't I couldn't I couldn't point to anybody that I feel has come out that's even got a shred of the potential Ghetto Gospel wasn't playing on Q102. Man. I couldn't point to anybody that I feel has come out that's even got a shred of the potential that Tupac and Ye had. I mean... No, I can't think of anyone that's really on that level that's come through. I mean, I don't know if anyone comes to mind for you, but I think who's really respected as an artist

Starting point is 02:53:03 who's about to be the next big thing? Yeah, we're talking next i don't know yeah i'm not sure like who who's who's your your goat list it doesn't have to be in order but you know you're five that you're like in in the history of rap for all its broad sub genres put together if you had to say five right right now young boy would be number one for me previously my number one would have been lil wayne but having done that documentary about young boy i felt like i really got an understanding of like his story and where he's coming from and his artistry um you know and i feel like uh young boy is now for this generation what wayne was to that previous generation and like to me lil wayne was kind of

Starting point is 02:53:45 one of the greatest when it came to rap really authentic i mean you know from from new orleans like the real just authentic he'd been through this he'd been you know wayne became famous very young but he'd grown up in real tough circumstances right in the streets of new orleans and i feel like him as far as his artistry the way that he was able to just like tell stories. And, you know, he really he wasn't the first, but he was one of these rappers that really pioneered not not writing stuff down and just jumping in the booth and just freestyling and just having these authentic, beautiful, smart, funny lyrics that he would just come out with on the spot, just in the booth, just freestyling. You know, you listen to a Lil Wayne album and it's just like he just hopped in that booth and just whatever came to him was just fire. And it's laid down there for you to enjoy. So Wayne's like my number two.

Starting point is 02:54:29 I probably throw number three to Drake because I think as far as artistry goes, Drake's really speaking the language of the times. Like the songs Drake makes about relationships, the things that he talks about, despite him being at the top of the mountain, he's damn near a billionaire. He makes stuff that's relatable. When Drake raps about relationships, you really feel it. And you're damn near a billionaire he makes stuff that's relatable when drake raps about relationships you really feel it and you're like man i know what that's like and what it's like to be going through that and to have those feelings so drake's drake's definitely number i put him number three you know new york just as far as new york rapper i love who just really brings their lyrics to life like action bronson's always been a favorite of mine just love the way that he kind of tells stories and paints pictures and uses just

Starting point is 02:55:05 words and vocabulary that you just wouldn't expect have you met him yet i've never met him now but a huge fan i met him years ago years years years ago i think it was one of his first ever shows in the uk before he really blew up so i met him backstage i was rolling to that show with a guy he's done some beats for him the purest big guy in the uk but um i met him way way way way back at that event in london but i ain't met him since he's been the big name i'm a huge fan of him and i respect him a lot um and then lastly on my number five i'd probably put king von because i just feel like nobody ever put the street stories put them down as as coherently as von did as far as like really doing that shit in the streets and then

Starting point is 02:55:45 actually having the talent and ability to to tell the stories of what he did as a real story like storytelling damn near like I don't think we had a storyteller as good since like slick Rick back in the day but then King Von was really killing yeah even though as sad as it is and as messed up as it is and I don't condone what he did I don't think as far as gangster rap no one's ever done it like Von as far as really doing it and having a true talent for telling those stories so I put Von on my top five for that as well so that's my five that's a hell of a five that was a bit of a messed up five the box five I like it people don't like hearing young boy at number one but that's just I don't care it's on the list it's all it's all personal taste and like you have a that group you put together is a very different group yeah across the board too it's not your average top five for sure

Starting point is 02:56:28 no most people they go you know there's the obvious the jay-z's and the and the nazis drake's on a lot of top people's top fives but i don't put so drake and kanye separately two different types of people there i don't and i'm i mean this is like an ultimate sign of respect I don't put them in the rap category I I cannot compare it because they're their own thing they both invented their own things they transcended the genre yes 100% and it's not like maybe when they first came up like it was more like a little bit of pure rap but if you look at the greatness they've done over the years so much of what they do it's it's not it's it's genre bending it's it's around different genres so like it's impossible for me even to put like let's compare kanye and tupac there's no comparison yeah like they do way different things

Starting point is 02:57:15 at extremely high levels differently than each other same thing pock and drake right but then you look at these other guys where it's more even if they're doing it differently they're doing it drill or they're doing it old school gangster rap where they're doing it more like mainstream rap like there's there's a similar there's at least a similar pattern that i can tie together there to kind of compare like okay do i fuck with that but at the end of the day it's still art so it's like what mood are you in are you in a little way mood or are you in like an action bronson mood? Like, these are very different speeds. You know, I have to be in the right state to listen to Drake or listen to Kanye or listen to Tupac. Like, that's the strange thing about it.

Starting point is 02:57:55 We change up with what we want at a certain time. Well, I think all the people that you mentioned, they're all people that really changed the game as far as different ways that we view the scene. And yeah, it's hard to compare Kanye toke as far as like what they actually did but then you can compare the impact as far as like yay what yay really did was almost like he kind of reset hit the reset button on kind of the street rap in the sort of early 2000s people like jay-z and 50 that had really been running things and and kanye made it cool to be smart and nerdy again like he said it before as like he's the nerds are in the building like kanye brought the nerds back i think he's got that line i can't remember the line but he kind of brought nerdy backpacker think guys that are thinking about

Starting point is 02:58:31 their bars back from where things were there where they were very gangster and it's very street and it was all about like looking tough the same with drake he kind of made sensitive guys rapping about their feelings pop you know how many times of you wouldn't want to have a rapper rapping about being in their feelings about a girl being down bad about a girl that's embarrassing drake made that call doing marvin's roman of like you know i'm down i'm hurt i'm hurt by what happened with that girl making that call and so like all these people you're talking about are people that i feel like changed the game and made it okay to be a certain way that it wasn't before and i feel like that's really the time you know even talk about t about Tupac, you know, like, he was really kind of bringing that thug life shit to life before.

Starting point is 02:59:06 Obviously, gangster rap was a thing. But then his was like a gangster that's thinking about shit. You know, like, Brenda's had a baby. He's a gangster talking about this shit that's going on in the hood. But in this thought-provoking way that nobody had ever really done before. Whereas N.W.A., it's probably a lot less thought-provoking, a lot more emotional. Just fuck the police. We're coming straight out of Compton.

Starting point is 02:59:24 Fuck the police. Tupac makes you think about that shit. Well, he was another one. He was an absolute genius as a human being, like intellectually, and paid price. He had some severe bipolar issues. He had all kinds of trauma from his life or whatever. And you look at Pac, like like i don't want to make it

Starting point is 02:59:46 let me be careful i make this this comparison like i made the joke about sneeko having four different eras pock and rap had a similar not on like actually on a good level of like making actually great shit not just saying w chat to fucking a bunch of 12 year olds so you're saying sneeko is a two-pack streamer that's what you-pack that's what you're saying yo i'm out of here i'm out of here i didn't want that but i'm saying like that multiple personalities thing pa could go for i love that you said brenda's got a baby but pa could go like from keep your head up to hit him up like that and it happened snap of a finger like same session there's a guy i know who was extremely close with him and like when he tells me some of the stories of behind the scenes

Starting point is 03:00:31 and what he could do and and how it would just flip and and it's like two different people i mean that was the price that's what it was and he also you know he would make he could make eight songs in an hour and they were all good i mean mean, do you know how many songs he made? I mean, it's like in the thousands that we'll never see the light of day because he didn't want them to. Yeah. It's crazy. His workhorse shit was fucking crazy, bro. But that's the thing.

Starting point is 03:00:57 I think the truest artists are the people. They don't need a lot of time to sit down and craft something. It's true to them and it's all about them communicating their truth. That's right. And you can do that if if you are somebody that has that artistic talent where you can take them feelings inside that they got no there's no labels on that's just a feeling but then they can turn that into communicating to that into words into their world view and you know there's there's only there's very few artists that you can really look to that you can say they really communicated a lot and that's what it's all about like rappers are basically seeing what there's got going on in

Starting point is 03:01:28 their hood or their background or where they're from and communicating that and you know that's how it's sort of like it's like they're you know as people say like pressure makes diamonds it's like a lot of these rappers the more shit they've been through if they can articulate themselves just the more beautiful art that they've got that they can give to the world it's unfortunate but some of the people that have been through the worst stuff they make the greatest art because they have a lot to say and they can communicate something that a lot of people maybe wouldn't have been able to understand had they not been here so you know we've got to be grateful for we even have people like tupac here on this earth for a period of time where he could help people help contribute to the understanding of what his people are going

Starting point is 03:02:01 through and that's what hip-hop's about to me you know it's all about that storytelling and like hearing about where people are from that's a million miles where i'm from but i'm getting an understanding through it through their their art and like i don't know hip-hop's just so inspiring to me man you know that's why i love it i truly love this shit it's not fake i love this stuff oh i can tell and like i mean people should be able to tell watching your channel i mean my god but like it comes through like you light up talking about this beautiful thing. So, dude, I love your channel. As I said at the outset, I want everyone to go check it out. We'll have the link in the description.

Starting point is 03:02:32 Thanks so much for getting this in while you were over in America. But what anything you got coming up that you want to promote? I got a big Chicago documentary coming up. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but it's going to be crazy. That's one of my favorite videos that I've been working on. It's a famous, big, famous Chicago story that, that you know but you didn't you don't know the full extent so that's something i'm working on it's about to drop hopefully by end of the month but um okay and then just from there just non-stop videos man i'm just trying to trying to keep it

Starting point is 03:02:55 going and are you looking to do anything beyond like do you have thoughts on like five years from now like stuff you want to do beyond just making documentaries i mean i'd love one day to do a netflix show like to get the netflix deal um that's always been like a holy grail of mine but right now i love being a youtuber i love youtube i love the platform like i just want to keep growing and be the better version of me love it man love it all right well thank you for coming brother we'll do it again sometime everybody else you know what it is give it a thought get back to me peace thank you guys for watching the episode. Before you leave, please be sure to hit that subscribe button and smash that like button on the video. It's a huge help. And also if you're over on Instagram, be sure to follow

Starting point is 03:03:32 the show at Julian Dory podcast, or also on my personal page at Julian D Dory. Both links are in the description below. Finally, if you'd like to catch up on our latest episodes, use the Julian Dory podcast playlist link in the description below. Thank you.

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