Modern Wisdom - #1009 - Bugzy Malone - Harsh Lessons in Unorthodox Strategy

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

Bugzy Malone is a British rapper, actor, and entrepreneur from Manchester, England. From gang life to greatness, Bugzy Malone’s rise is a story of struggle, survival, and self-belief. As one of the most defining voices in UK rap, his journey is equal parts pain and power. Expect to learn why being a role model takes it’s toll on some people, the life altering accident that changed Bugzy forever, how Bugzy deals with pressure, fame and his recent tussle with his ego, how to stay hungry even after you achieved your goals, the story of Bugzy’s upbringing and how it shaped him as a person and an artist, what it was like for Bugzy to work with Guy Ritchie, how Bugzy survived an armed robbery and lived to tell about it, and much more… Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get $100 off the best bloodwork analysis in America at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D, and more from AG1 at https://ag1.info/modernwisdom Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Timestamps: (0:00) Pressure is a Privilege (6:48) Surviving Chaos (14:38) We’re Not Alone (19:28) Bugzy’s Crash Was the Wake Up Call He Needed (31:07) Was Guy Ritchie the Key to Recovery? (37:03) Motivation is Constantly Evolving (49:01) How Resilience Kept Bugzy Alive (58:23) What Has Bugzy Learnt from Guy Ritchie? (01:01:24) Money Can Only Take You So Far (01:13:54) Is Fame a Cage? (01:25:04) Why We Should Focus on the Fundamentals (01:29:57) Fame Controls Perceptions (01:37:10) Diving into the Chaos of the Robbery (01:50:28) Fighting Through Life’s Tests (01:55:21) Where Bugzy Finds Inspiration (02:01:32) What Was the Turning Point? (02:14:55) Is Rap Beef Genuine? (02:19:21) Self-Belief is the First Step Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You've got a line that says being a role model is taking its toll. Yeah. How so? How does being a role model take its toll? What song is that from now? That's a freestyle. It's from the Charlie Sloth original 10 years ago. Sorry, no, it's from the second one that you did, or the most recent one.

It's from number two or number three. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Being a role model is taking its toll. I mean, look, so, as I was just telling you there off camera, I've just not long come back from Miami. and I'm flirting with the idea of writing something, a bit of a book. And I get this message off a woman and she's like, you know,

my eight-year-old autistic son wrote today in school that you're his superhero. I'm flipping sat there in this little quirky hotel room that's got like a record player and like Bob Marley Records and stuff. and I decided to just you know get her contact and give her a ring

they've actually came to like meet and greets before to meet me and I just wanted to speak to her about it and just see what it is that these kids and these you know people in general and I know seeing me and where they're actually taking strength

so I guess when you understand that things like that are going on you start to take your job description more serious because you know people are some people are living by the things that you say you know and i find it keeps me sharp through an additional type of pressure that comes along with that it's kind of one that you didn't ask for right it's a byproduct of doing what you do it's a a beautiful benefit but it's a huge cost as well yeah i think so um and actually i think i appreciate the pressure because it's this weird

like paradox right of like you want to be the best version of you you know you want to grow into this individual that you see yourself being. But without the pressure, it's too easy to just not do it. You know, I'm running off not much sleep today. I've been to the gym. I've been boxing. But the pressure of knowing I've got this and I've got the things I've got coming next means that I'll keep rolling. Keeps you sharp. Yeah. If I didn't have them things, I'd have for sure laid in bed today. There's a bodybuilder called Chris Bumstead and he was sat in that seat yesterday. Six-time Mr. Olympia. He's kind of the Arnold of our era. And a good friend, and he had for a very long time, I think for almost all his career,

his caption was pressure as a privilege. It is, yeah. Yeah. Honestly, bro, I've done things in my career that I had no idea I was capable of. You know, no idea. I had a bike accident four or five years ago. On the hospital bed, I get a message from Guy Richard. would you like to be in another film?

I'm like, yeah, but I need to learn to walk again first, you know? But the pressure pushed me to being maybe the fittest I've ever been. So it's definitely a privilege for sure. Is it hard to stay hungry when you've achieved 10 times all of the goals that you ever thought that you would have done? That's interesting to say really because, and it's a big conversation that's coming up at the minute. in my life in particular and how i sort of planned it was i sort of planned the bigger picture

and because i used to box i see opponents dotted about so i'll try and sprint past them you know i'll try and win certain battles um so the bigger pitch is not done yet and actually the picture revolves the more that i learn more stuff You know, so I'm not actually quite there. So some of the achievements that I get are a surprise for me, some of the time. You know? So I think in terms of actually staying hungry, as I was saying to you then off camera, I've been listening to motivational videos and your voice keeps popping up.

But that's because when I was about 2021, I experienced depression for about two years. I couldn't even get out of my bedroom almost. and that's when I started to learn about the law of attraction, listening to motivational videos and sort of creating healthy habits to shake off this dark place that was in, you know? So now I'm not in a dark place, but I could easily get comfortable. So you've got to act with the same urgency, I find. I've heard you say that depression occurs when you're lying dormant.

Yeah. When you've not got anything better to do, I think an interesting challenge there is the difference between keeping yourself so busy that you don't wallow, that you don't slow up so much that dark things creep in, but also not just over-scheduling yourself out of being able to hear the important insights

that your brain whispers to you. Because when you're very, very busy and you're in chaos mode, you're not paying as much attention. Is this really what I should be doing? And how many artists, and business owners and career people have spent so long just in the chaos. Decades later, they turn around and realize not only did they get to a place that they didn't want to get to, but one that they didn't even mean to be in.

I was just on this set of train tracks. I didn't realize it wasn't train tracks. It was a car. And I could have turned left or right at any time. Yeah. I mean, look, I think there's a time and a place for the chaos, which is the come up. I think on the come up, there's like a. a glass ceiling that you're going to have to

break through and by hook or crook you've got to get through it. So the beginning 10 years of my career was chaos. I'm still putting things back together and in the correct place like now. And then I actually put on my Instagram story

the other day that balance is the answer to the majority of your questions. And what I mean by that is like you say you can go over into chaos where you become like a work alcoholic to get away from the sort of the darkness or um or you can sort of wallow in the darkness you got to find a middle ground with that you know and what I found with dark thoughts or you know

things that horn you is you got to lean into it but you can't lean into it all the time over the top because it will it gets heavy so yeah it's such a talking point, I think, I like the fact that you call out the first 10 years of your career was chaos. And now the answer to you is balance. But if you had told you during those first 10 years to have balance, it wouldn't have worked. And I've come up with this insight with Chris, again, the guy that was sat there yesterday, model the rise, not the result. Because if you try, if somebody at the beginning of their journey tries to do what you now as a veteran is doing, that wasn't how you got to where you are. That is how you are coping with your current position and how

you're, uh, it's a more advanced technique. It's someone walks into a boxing gym. Okay, let's learn to throw a jab. Let's not try this really complex footwork pattern here. You'll do that down the line. So if someone that's a world champion says, well, a lot of what I'm doing at the moment, my competitive advantage is my amazing complex footwork. Okay. But that's not what got you there. What got you there were the basics done really well. And the basics for most people at the start is chaos and not sleeping much and working really, really hard and no work-life balance. There you go. And look, let's face it, like, my come-up was in the rap game. It's the youngest genre of music, you know. Only the Americans have pushed it over to a place

where you've got Jay-Z and 50 cent. And, you know, you start getting over here. It's an embryo. Right? So you're looking at a situation that really lacks. structure and demonstrations so a lot of it you're having to figure out as you go along and then when you talk about rap music it is well essentially we're looking at a guy and he's come up right we look at a rapper we're interested in you know you're looking at a guy that's come from a difficult beginning I can be quite articulate about that bit and he he talks about it and then we relate we think I like this guy I relate to what he's saying and then some label signs him or his career starts taking

off and then he goes on the come up and he starts talking about what he's spending his money on this country's not really got past that stage yet we're still evolving from that sort of stage so the first for me the first 10 years was um establishing you know coming from outside of where the industry was sort of based it was establishing like a foothold in the game as an independent you know and um it was chaos because there was no road map you know you're walking in undriven snow yeah how therapeutic was that process before we started you were talking about the fact that you worked through a lot with your music yeah do you ever think about the like therapeutic usefulness people this might not be where most people go with the rap game right oh yeah I went

there to alchemize the first two decades of my life into something that made sense to me and construct a timeline. But it kind of seems like that happened. So the first, this is interesting, by the way, because I was on Instagram me over day and there's a Manchester guy and he's incarcerated as we speak and he's doing lyrics to camera. He's looking. He's looking for his come up, he's looking to get into the rap game and get a start in his life going to the next sort of level. And what he's done is he's took

sort of the structure of my lyrics from a song called Beauty and a Beast where I say tell her that I'm coming home and he takes that and he takes the sort of structure and does his own thing and tells his own story. Now when I first started music five, there was five years

that nobody cared right and in that five years I can say this now and sort of to look back in retrospect I was using it to transcend depression and me sort of vocalising the way I was feeling was the quickest way for me to get an understanding of actually that's not my fault

and I shouldn't be embarrassed about that but in the mix I sort of turn them into songs right and it's funny now because them songs have just become a part of the business we've published them on iTunes and whatever before there was just this like underground archive of music that was just doing numbers and I'm like how does anyone even know them songs then my career takes off this is where a lot of people get me twisted because then I have a big rap battle with a big famous rapper and a lot of people think ah this is the point that like

you know this is this is it but there was a full sort of lead up to that point that meant when the spotlight was on me, I was five or six years in with five or six projects under my belt and I'd been working diligently in the shadows. So when I got my opportunity, I was more than ready. I was starving. You know, so what I'm getting up with the rapper there that's using the structure of my lyrics is when I first sort of got exposure and my first fire in the booth or whatever, and I'm telling my story, it's foreign to everyone. No one's really doing it. And actually, I'm talking about men's mental health,

which now is a really popular category, but it wasn't then. And not as a rapper. I thought you was a tough kid. What do you mean? You was depressed. You know? But for me,

I, I, the nature of me being interested in rapping is that like, originally I was introduced to artwork, painting, art history and all that. so and I'm a bit bone idle so I find it like taxing to draw and paint but I'm decent however I figured I can paint pictures with words in people's minds

and I find that more fluid it just comes to me fast right and yeah I just I feel like art is vulnerability it's truth truth resonates that's essentially what you're trying to do as an artist is speak your truth regardless to where society is at and what people think is cool or right or and I'd done it and for years I was I was shunned for it.

Why? Just because like I say, men's mental health is a big topic now. I was talking about it years before it was interesting to anybody. Is it a big topic in the rap world yet? Still not. You've not noticed. you know but that's that's what um i think the reason that you get in an eight-year-old young autistic guy looking at me and being like he said what did he say in his description he said i'm his

safe space he says i understand him you know and we've only had little conversations at meet and greets but in him saying that i understand him it's because i'm speaking in the frequency of truth and sometimes truth resonates on levels that you can't even verbalize you know it turns out the young boy's dad is in jail and so that young man's going through things but with his condition he's experiencing them differently to other people so in me just being open about my struggle I'm offering another human being a place to feel understood which I think is quite important you know hearing somebody say something And it resonating in the back of your mind and telling you the lesson,

fuck, it's not just me, is one of the best. I don't know whether we have an emotion for that. It's like recognition, sort of resonance, a sense of being seen. Or is it a sense of feeling human? Maybe being, at least for me, it's less broken. I think we spent, for me, I spent so much time. I have spent so much time in my head. I'm an only child.

I grew up in the northeast of the UK. I don't sound like I come from there. I went to state primary, state secondary, state sixth form college. Like, didn't do the things that the people in my school were doing, and that meant I was always on the outside. Plus being an only child, you spend a lot of time in your head. Oh, really? And that means you can get yourself into a situation

where you feel like any challenges that you're facing are a personal curse. that's just you like only i feel this thing yeah yeah only i have this thought only i criticize myself in this way have this shortcoming and when you hear someone that has the same fear or uncertainty that you do you go it's not just me mm-hmm thank fuck it's not just me I'm not cursed by the gods. This isn't some unique designer disease that I have, this weird pathology of one. It's not that.

It's maybe I'm not quite as strange and broken as I thought I was. However, I'll for a component on the table here. The more that I've sort of grown into my success, the more I understand that, like, as a spirit, I have a purpose there's something that I'm here to do and we all feel it in us that there's a purpose, there's a bigger meaning

there's a, you know and I've been really trying to get to grips with that and I think when you have real potential to do something special in terms of like contributing back to the planet I think you get individual challenges

and I think that my life was quite hard pretty early on and I could see lots of people that didn't have that particular challenge at that particular time but that was my individual journey so you know although you're saying yeah it's not like this personal attack from the gods they are your set of challenges for you as an individual that give you the opportunity to become your higher self And the reason I say that is because if I didn't have the bike accident that I had, for an example, that for me was a huge challenge. You know?

And then I was coming back from that. I'm thinking, yeah, I'm bouncing back. The rap games, youngness will be like a comeback, the biggest UK comeback in history. And then I was hit with a blood clot. And then there's a bigger challenge than the bike crash. And then you realize like, no, no, no, this is for you to sit down and really. reflect and, you know, really be broken and rebuild. And although I come flying out of the gates, looking confident and looking strong,

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Can you tell me the story of the bike crash and what happened after that? For sure, for sure. I was in a relationship at the time. And the relationship, dude, it was, it wasn't right for a long time, but the girl was a really nice girl, and it was love for sure. However, we were sort of just slowly but surely growing apart bit by a bit. And so I didn't know it until, like, I, the night I'm sat in the hospital

and I know that I've got this blood clot and it's in my leg and blood clots famously travel I knew I was potentially in trouble that night and I had this moment where I'm like I have to there's some difficult decisions I need to make in life

there's some friends that you know this isn't it's not a true friendship the relationship although it sort of ran well and And it was a great girl. It wasn't necessarily right. You know, so there was just big decisions that needed to be made in terms of the actual crash. I was just flying up the road and flipping...

What was it? What's the vehicle? It was a three-wheeler, probably inspired by a Batman. And a cannon, so it's fast. Off the line, it's fast. And I was... Yeah, I'm going through like a sort of a junction and a car. just sort of pulls out on me but like slow so you know you're crashing for about 10 seconds 15

second you're like smash unconscious woke up on the floor people's feet around my head you're all right mate you're all right me and like noise comes back slowly like muffled and then and it's a really strange situation to be lay on your back in public right if you've not chose to lie on the floor. If you chose to lie on the floor in public, you wake up on the floor in public, it's weird. And I was like, I was like, lay there and I've tried to get up and dropped. And I'm like, oh, I'm in some kind of trouble. So it turns out I snapped my patella kneecap and I'd fractured my skull in three places.

So I had bleeding on the brain. But my head's open. So there's a puddle of blood next to me that's just growing. And that was a weird process because, and head blood is different to other blood, I think, because it was thick. It was a deep red. And it's coming.

You can see it's coming from my head. And I'm sort of later. And then people are talking to me and people are filming me. And in this weird moment of a guy being like that with his phone, I realized like, oh, like, this is one of the first times in my life as an adult. felt helpless because I can't even ask that guy to stop filming so you're just being filmed you know and um people are like you should be contact I'm like let my girlfriend know I've wrapped up she comes she sees my face she panics like horror starts to cry and I was like don't cry

because of the nature of my background I always said to her if anything really bad happens to me and it's a bit bloody and a bit gory, you know, don't panic and just get yourself somewhere safe. And so there we were in the situation. So I said, don't cry. And you're seen a snap out of it and realize like, let me, you know, usher people out of the way and that was that. And then her dad turned up. So she got there before the ambulance. She got there before the ambulance, yeah. And then at that turn, but he's seen me burst out crying. That's another weird one because people are seeing you and then you see their reaction right and when someone looks at you and he burst out crying you know you're in some trouble you know so this this blood keeps growing

the patch next to me the puddle next to me and then when the ambulance guy got there he was like all right mate we're gonna get you onto the stretcher and then as my ex-girlfriend and people like step back I've gone, am I dying? Like, do I die here? You know? And he was like, don't worry, mate, we're going to get you on. I think legally they're not allowed to tell you. Yeah.

Yeah. So. I don't know whether you can be sued by somebody who you say isn't dying that then dies. Yeah. I think they're not allowed to, because that's, you know. So, and that was that. And then you're in the back of an ambulance. That's a new experience.

Blue lights. Lots of bumping around. And then you get your head sort of flipping boarded. the stretcher and then you sort of rushed into hospital i was in solford royal so that's like an old sort of stomping ground so the nurses was really kind and like endearing he was spiritual so he was doing rakey over me while i was um relaxing you know so i was just in there having having good fun but also like morphined up you know and doing a lot of sleeping so Yeah, I mean, it was a profound experience in that it needed to happen.

For me to dig into why it needed to happen, it's a funny one because when I was coming on to this podcast, the reason I said to you over there I'm a bit nervous is because I respect your work, right? And I respect it because it's sophisticated. You can go on to many levels with many different types of people, which I'm capable of doing it also. But I heard a thing the other day, because I'm trying to study some literature. I think the fans want me to write a book. All right. And I was looking into J.K. Rowling.

And the interviewer said, do you think you're one of the people in the world that's got one of the largest understandings of the class system? Because you was in a situation where you was just before being homeless. You were so poor. You was just before being homeless. And now you've climbed up to being a billionaire. her. And she was like, I mean, yeah, you could say that. And to some extent, you know, she's within

her rights to say that. However, that made me think, what must I understand? Because I'm from the place beneath what people deem as to be the bottom. There's also the minus, you know. So the bike accident had to happen because things were potentially getting dark, you know, and sometimes there is sort of divine intervention it was better that I hurt myself than you know I end up in a crazy situation what would have happened

if you hadn't gone through that bike accident what could you envision I mean good question right but what I just what I know is you know people in music refer to me as the king of the north the first one from

the north of England to get into the music industry and make sort of leeway in the rap space that comes with ramifications you know if you're going to be turning up in a new car every couple of weeks and a new watch and flipping you know and your family infrastructure fell fell to bits and you ended up in sort of gang culture

and a gang becomes your family and you're as good as them and you're the one that's winning you know it just it gets small it gets intense and I'm easily provoked so it was just a recipe for a disaster so it was just chaos

a part of chaos and you have to just lean into it I've heard you say I put a lot of my identity into being a guy that could look after myself so when I was smashed to bits I didn't know how to react so you've got this very classic

came from the bottom self-sufficient Hansi had to be able to defend yourself and not only defend yourself physically but philosophically what is it that I stand up for what does my virtue look like and if somebody crosses a line and maybe the line can be a little bit further away from you people can cross it more easily than they might do with other people to then I have the eyes of the world

on me now which is more pressure and I'm back to square one I'm now dependent again something that I spent most of my childhood and all of my adult life trying to escape from dependence needing anybody i've got agency i've got independence now fuck i'm back there was that humbling's going to be too basic of a word what was that to you like um scary is a bit of a more appropriate word i remember in in my manchester house you was sort of in the on the outskirts to towards the countryside right and um i'd had this these guys try and break in i had a big fight with them that's to do that that's to do with exposure and then all of a sudden you sort of sat there

as a sitting duck flipping and i had this little like outhouse i called the bat cave right and i'm sitting there watching a film and the film was called bleed for this i'll never forget this night and I'm sat there my legs sort of up on the chair broken knee cat I get dizzy if I go like that because my brain's been bleeding so you'll just start to fall

How long is this after the crash do you think this is maybe a month afterwards but for three months after the crash I'm dizzy if I raise my head so I was sat there watching this film about a boxer it's a boxing film I love boxing I want to get back like fit and strong

and I'm going to make this big comeback right and then partway through the film smash you just as the craziest car crash. And my ex-girlfriend, at the time, she'd jumped up awake. And at that point, I'm having, like, this mad sort of PTSD from the car crash. Because you do experience that in the beginning. And when I first got in cars, and cars would go over 40 miles an hour.

You started getting a bit nervous. It's weird that I had to surpass that. So there was little simple sort of challenges that I think some people, it sort of stays with them and they stay nervous forever but you've got to get back on the horse so to speak anyway in being like

in my adrenaline going in that moment I sort of thought about all of the crazy situations I've been in in my life and that every one of those individuals that there's been problems with or altercations

or are jealous of me or I've not been completely polite with you know if there was ever a moment where they could get me it's no and you just like freaked me out and then i yeah i realized i was probably too heavily reliant on physicality but look that's that world you know if you're going to drop beneath you know into the minus and you're going to exist in that world then it's a it's a huge currency being able to you know look after you so what did recovery look like to get yourself back to fully functional you look like a message of Guy Richard you fancy being in

a film again and me saying yeah that right I'll get it done was that more important than some of the rehab in some ways um probably because I remember pulling up outside rehab one day and I had a Scottish friend who was a boxer and um he'd committed suicide you know so I was outside dealing with my own, I'm writing an album by the way, so I'm writing like the resurrection through these stages of recovery and I have up days because of the sort of life that I come from, I learn to laugh through traumatic situations. So I'll have up days where I'm just laughing my head off and then have days where it catches up with me and I feel quite long. And then it's topped off with, you know, such and such as hung himself. I just remember being like sat outside

I did physiotherapy and a little tear roll down my cheek. And I literally just had to suck it up and get in there and get it done because you're going through pain. Like every session, these crazy pain, you know. But in my head, I could see Jason Statham because I knew he was going to be in the film. So this is the second one? This is the second film, yeah. I'd done the gentleman and I'd been offered this like action sort of.

Bigger role. Bigger role. Jason Statham. notoriously known for his ability in sort of combat sports and his physique he's you know so i've got to try and keep up in it he's a man's man and yeah i just felt like i'm not turning i'm not turning up there to be like the the tag along like i'm going to try and on screen fit the bill so i think the comparison between the first your first role which was uh not simple but at least you were playing an analogous character to yourself in the gentleman

right not too dissimilar to you're not for all that you've got talents you're not a weapons expert right like with sniper rifles and bullshit like that so you're okay i'm being really really ripped out of the world that i know and um i think at least what i take away from from that is that somebody who's got a lot of self motivation and discipline and is powered by what they want to achieve still needs a goal to be moving toward in order to drag them through a very difficult time because had you have not had this new challenge,

this new outcome, this new peak that you're aiming toward, how much harder is it going to be for you to go through? Where is the motivation? It's purely self-generated, as opposed to every single training, session, every single rehab session, Jason Stathen's there. Yeah, like having a goal for sure changes it.

If there was no goal, it would have just been a more thorough process of healing because I'd have got it done just off the back of discipline. And some of the motivational videos that I said I've been listening to and your voice is popping up, like, that some of the points it's making is that like motivation's not always there. But like, I'm going to get the job done regardless. Yeah, like I'm getting it done regardless, you know. My favorite lesson from Jocker Willink, Navy SEAL guy. Uh, people think that discipline is when you want to do a thing or feel like you're going to do a thing, but doing the thing in spite of not wanting to do the thing is discipline. That is what discipline is. Yeah. If you want to do the thing, it doesn't take any discipline to do it. Did it take discipline to eat the cheesecake? No, it took discipline to not eat the cheesecake because you have to force yourself to do the thing that you do not want to do.

That is what discipline is. He's got the same thing around bravery. So it's doing the thing in spite of not wanting to do the thing, in spite of being scared, is what bravery is. If you're not scared, there's no such thing as bravery. There you go. And by the way, you've said that before, right? In another, I'm sure that's the line.

He keeps coming up in this motivational video. You got a live round of it? Yeah, I'm having deja, but no, it's true. It's true. And there are some of the things that were sort of resonating with me in times where, like you say, you get to a place in your career. you successful, you know, sleep starts to feel a bit more comfortable. You know, the cheesecake starts to look a bit more interesting and you really got to start to figure out what it is

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that you're working through at the start of your career, writing, inspiration, motivation to go and achieve things, is it a different skill to keep working hard without the pain to push you forward? Yeah. Yeah, it's transferring

I mean there's always some pain in life right these little bits of pain and these big bits of pain so it's sort of yeah it's sort of making them it's a transferable skill I think that just feels uncomfortable at first you know because if you're if at first you're motivated by pain

and stress and in my early career I was motivated by sort of competition with you know not very legitimate characters and it was just a world I understood

and the sort of fear of there being a potential problem would make me think I'm not living like this forever I'm not getting trapped in this I need to refine my approach to go into where I'm going because right now it's a million miles away

you know and it's interesting actually because I remember I remember before being in a gentleman film and being sort of parked outside the boxing gym and ending up in a physical altercation with a guy that had just got out of jail for he killed his cousin, killed his own cousin. This is me bringing you into Manchester.

All right? There's no rap. these rappers but they're not earning a living from music you know substantially and there's some talented guys but they're not making inroads into the game right and i'm sat there i'm a couple of years into being a bit famous and making some music and there's this whole sort of inspirational thing building up and this guy that's just flipping he killed his cousin nine years ago he does nine years in jail so he bugs him alone sighting a car he's banging on the door long story short me and him end up in a fight.

I'm outside the boxing gym. I'm going to the boxing gym to do some sparring because I'm, that's the way I stay on the straight and narrow. You know, because I'm not signed to a major label or like I go into being in a really sort of famous situation to just having free will.

And that's where a lot of rappers or famous people fall to bits because they don't fill that middle bit with anything productive. They go to the clubs. They see different women. in you know there's no structure to it so they fall to bits so boxing has played sort of a role in just sort of keeping me focused until sort of the next assignment anyway i get into this

flipping big cuffle with this guy and then i come out of the situation and because of the way that the situation went he wanted retribution or whatever you'd call it and it was it was i took motivation from that fact that this guy says when when i see you i'm going to do whatever but I would take motivation from situations like that. You're sort of climbing your career and then situations subside. And you're right? And you're just dealing with your own ambition,

your own sort of goals. And you're no longer fueled by fear or, you know, anxiety or whatever it is. Chip on your shoulder. Yeah. And I found that difficult. And that's where the whole sort of, be inspired, Motto sort of came from.

Because if I see people that have done well for themselves, I want to study the history. How did he do well for himself? Why did he do well for himself? Where did it go wrong? Did it go wrong? You know, and in studying different people, the Roman Empire, emperors, kings, you know, I sort of seen the people that failed and the patterns as to why they failed. and the people that sustained and remained impressive throughout the life.

What are some of those patterns that you've noticed? Vices. Vices. And that's why I say, and what I sort of seen is that some of them people didn't come from the streets or the minus. They had good parents and nice life. But life still presents bits of pain, right? And I think that undertone, Garbo-Matte is quite good around this topic. I think the sort of undertone to any vice is like a sort of low-level pain.

It's like having a headache all the time. You want to suppress the headaches, you want paracetam all right. But then people do it by way of vices, gambling, drinking, drugs, smoking, all of the vices. And I feel like them vices grab people. seven deadly sins lust gets people greed gets people and I think

you're attacked by them things I think the higher you're sort of climbing towards doing something positive for the world and sort of instilling love back into a world that's always like battling and battling each other I think the more you're attacked

by these you know lust greed oh that's interesting that's interesting that it is a counterweight as you put things into the world that you think are good. You're tempted by ever more seductive and ever more advanced. Let's give it biblical framework, right?

We're in the right place. We've got these stained glass windows. You know, if you look at it from a position of if you believe you're a soldier of God, you're doing God's work on the planet, and that's just being a good person, you know, helping, contributing, you might be a teacher, you might do charity work, you might do a podcast and inspire people, music, whatever it is. And your intention is to be as helpful to the planet as you possibly can. And we're using this biblical framework and seeing it like it's a film. Then, you know, it's as if demons are now triggered by you and the light that you carry and they're like,

how can we stop him seeing his highest potential? Because if he sees it, he's going to create more light and a shadow can't exist in the light you know so you're a threat so you get attacked from all different angles you know and if we're talking quite spiritually there in the sort of physical world that comes by way of lots more girls approach you know but it's not girls with good intentions lots more friends want to be around you know but they ain't got good intentions either you know like I say the cheesecake looks a bit nice so the nightclub seems a bit more interesting you know and without saying any names we've we've all seen people that have fell that's throughout history and if you look at it it's the same thing that over and over again

that grabs them and pulls them so on the flip side of that coin we're talking about the people resilient enough to transcend the urge to give in to vices and in the process of that You've got to lean into the pain, whether it's old situations you went through or family situations, whatever pain it is you feel, you've got to face it. And that's what anybody that's been interested in my music is a sort of witnessed, has been the process of me looking my traumas in the face and becoming comfortable with them. Yeah, and understanding that I'm strong enough now to withstand. the pressure that that makes me feel or the sadness it makes me feel

and understanding that it's okay to feel sad about a traumatic event that happened. That's how you should feel because you're human. So they're the people that I'm impressed by. So when you're talking about Matthew McConaughey, at Denzel Washington, these people that have just sort of figured out a job description and become really good at it and then just kept climbing and building and refining themselves And I think I've seen McConaughey's talking about how he used to drink a lot or, you know, he's human and he's been through his stages to them for him to get to where he's landed. He's double impressive to do that.

That's the unique challenge, I think, of being somebody who's started to achieve some success and then has a pullback. Because at the very beginning, there's nobility. there's every single underdog movie in history is some guy coming from nothing

and working hard to win the goal free his family from poverty fix whatever the problem is when you have something that involves there's a guy who's got it

lost it okay now what are you going to do because that feels very different for But glory kind of only exists in retrospect. It doesn't happen in the moment. And if you are somebody that is currently on a pullback, well, I thought you said that you'd stop drinking.

Or you're drinking again. Or you're back there. Ah, so by a pullback, you mean like a relapse type. Yeah, or a crash where you start to self-do. Oh, I thought I'd overcome myself doubt. Well, you've been thrown a heavier challenge. Yeah. You've been given something that you in the past would not have been able to get over.

but looks from the outside, like kind of a similar situation. Okay, we're back to something close to zero. How are we going to deal with this? Well, if I don't come back from this, this is the footnote. This is how it ends. This is the final chapter of the story. If I don't overcome this. And that's the difference between being the person who did continue and did stay resilient

or the one who gets added to the much bigger pile of people who were caught by their vices. and fear is certainly one of those big vices. Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree, by the way. And, like, so I've been doing some writing at the moment, and I'm sort of doing, I don't know if I should be saying this, because it's very early on in the process, right? But it's like a sort of a biography,

but it's sort of self-help in that. What I'm basically saying is that life is a set of battles, it's a set of fights. And all you can really do is be prepared for, them fights when they when they turn up so a lot of people will see me boxing to quite a high level and they're like why is he boxing so much is he going to fight but for me the framework of boxing when I'm performing well in boxing I know I'm physically and psychologically and spiritually ready for whatever lands on my desk you know and and that's just that's just the way that I feel

life is structured I feel like no matter who you are and how you live in what world you come from. Life is going to challenge you. And I think it's the ability to be able to overcome each one of them challenges with a bespoke strategy each time, which separates the champions from the, like you say, the people that fail essentially. I think my favorite idea I've learned from you since doing my research is it's easy to be inspirational when everything's going well. You can talk about how important discipline is and that motivation is fleeting. It comes and goes. Discipline is always there, doing the hard thing in spite of not wanting to do the hard. It's blah, blah, blah, blah. That's like being generous when you're rich.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. When things are going badly and you're suffering, how tough is it to put your motivation where your mouth was, to put your discipline where your mouth was? Oh, you said, that this was important. You said that overcoming hard things was important. Okay. Game time. Let's see how well you can do. Yeah.

And that's been my experience of the success journey because one, at some point it's, you know, the boat's floating and it's fine. And the next thing, there's a storm. Bailing water. Right. You know, and like in that sort of happening, it's game time at that point.

Are you who you say you are? Or did you lose it? you know have you gone soft have you got the silk pajamas on now you know and and you find out about yourself so the bike accident taught me about myself i used to judge myself on these sort of small situations that i'd overcome in the streets and then you have a blood clot pass through your heart and you survive that because your artery is a clean because you've et well and you've continued training for many years and and you've got the resilience to survive the two or three hour process that it takes to sort of go through your heart you you you

understand you've got a different kind of strength you know and you sort of respect yourself more because it's not a it's not a bravado it's not it's not it's nothing to do with anything like that it's just a resilience and a a passion to live and i didn't know that about myself and actually i think to go on a deeper level with you i think i think the bike accident happened to me it was if it was if i was being asked do you want to live or not i think the the sort of past that i've come from makes you so self-destructive that in moments of madness you're like i don't care what happens and actually when i fell off my bike and i was lay on the floor and this little puddle of blood keeps growing there was a part of me that was like this might be

easier, you know. If that's just going to keep leaking until I'm fading out and then I'm gone, it could be easier than the complications of family situations I've had to go through and pains I've had to live through and, you know, that was my attitude and that's why I'm sort of just lay on the floor accepting it because I'm like, we'll see what happens. And then when you get to the blood clock going through your heart and it's lodged, it's like, there's a question being asked. Do you want to live or not? Before I bless you with all these great things that you've imagined happening in your mind, you're going to do all these great things and contribute back to the world. At first, you have to commit to loving yourself. And that's what I think I'd lost

the ability to do through all the abuse that I went through growing up or whatever. Abuse is like between the lines says that you're not lovable. Do you get me? I'm. I don't. You get And I sort of embraced that thinking. So it was all bravado. My self-esteem was bravado, like, deep down, you know, I was like, I sort of don't care what happens to me. And the crash brought that to her head. It's like, now we're going to have to have this conversation.

Because you have nothing to be, to base your bravado on. How are you going to flex if you can't move your head without feeling? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's game-set and match. And what do you want? Because you're talking big like you want to be. be this motivation to the world you want to earn yourself someone you want to bring you want to have a functional family a functional wife functional kids and a beautiful house that's a creative space and

all these mad ideas and plans but you've not yet figured out how to love yourself but if you can't love yourself who can you love and and that's what I learned about like trauma trauma sort of chips away at the ability to to love yourself and in losing the ability to love yourself you're lose the ability to love anybody else or the world or creatures in the world. You know, you see people being cruel to dogs. It's all coming from inside. They can't love themselves. So that's what happened when the night of that blood clot.

What was this? Was the blood clot due to the crash? Something related to the crash? So I'm in Solford Royal Hospital, right? And the nurses are a great laugh. We're sitting there. I'm like, nurse. She's like, what?

I'm like, I want to watch a film. She's like, click on the film. Then I'm like, it costs money. I've had a crash You being a diva I've got no dough She's like Do you want me to lend you some dough

I'm like let me some dough So we're laughing our heads off all day And I'm on morphine Turns out I'm a great laugh On morphine I've never took it before So I didn't know So I'm just laughing my head off

Right And then it's COVID So Loved ones aren't allowed Into the hospital Right And When I was getting discharged

They said You should put weight On your foot Because I've got This broken knee cap and I'm in a cast, like a brace. And I forgot because morphine is one hell of a drug, you know. So I'm not, I wasn't better.

I just thought it hurts. I'm not going to put weight on it. I've got crutches. I'm not going to put weight on it. Didn't put weight on it. And then I changed my diet a little bit. I started eating things I wouldn't normally eat, right? I was the guy training and eating salmon and eggs for breakfast and all that.

All of a sudden I'm having like scons, clotted cream, jam, cup of teas and the morning that I'm going mad and like it's thickened my blood you know and it's resulted in a in a clot and once a clot's there it does one or two things you know either lies dormant and and sort of dissipates if you like dilutes or whatever or it travels and with me because I had bleeding on the brain they couldn't give me the full dose of blood thinners so it was two weeks There was two weeks that I knew I had a blood clot in my leg. My girlfriend at the time, her uncle died from a blood clot in the leg because it went through his heart and killed him.

So I know what I'm up against. I've got two weeks of that where they put me on half the dosage of blood thinners I should be on because my brain's bleeding. And if my blood goes too thin, I'm in all sorts of trouble. You know? And through that stage, it was Guy Richard that sort of living. in closer to me and he said me and you'll speak every day until you come through this and he just used to chat to me at some point and I'd have my dinner and flipping the guy

chat to me what you're up to and we just have a little chit chat and it was a it was just a strange period of my life and the weirdest thing is it was bliss the only way I can describe that to you is it's out of your hands it's like it's imminent death or not you can't manipulate it you can't run from it it's not like someone's going to turn up and beat you up and you can run out of the back door it's like this you're you're condemned and in feeling condemned i just felt bliss it's hard to explain it's happy i was like i was free because all of a sudden it didn't matter whether i failed do you know what i'm saying you surely you understand the the sort of climb of like building i think

and the pressure that you put yourself under to achieve the things you believe you're capable of achieving. All of a sudden, that was just out of window. So I felt relaxed about the whole thing. Yeah. Before we continue, you are probably not eating enough fruit and vegetables, and you know it. And this is going to help. Good news, AG1 just released their next-gen formula. It is a more advanced, clinically backed version of the product that I've been drinking every day for yours.

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and 5-free AG1 travel packs, plus the 90-day money-back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. That's drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. What have you learned from your time with Guy Ritchie? Um... I mean, look, I've done a film.

I spent some time with him off set. and I guess what you saw witnessing is just is excellence is just somebody that I could relate to and somebody that I um somebody that makes you sort of understand that success in what we deem as success we look at his brand right and we see success it's it's the result of years of sort of work and refinement and when you understand that it breaks it down because it's such a big brand that if you're not careful you just see a giant and then when you speak to the human being behind it you're like oh or like you've really worked your ass off for years you know so I learned that and there's lots of other little sort of details I saw

learn but like that was the the sort of main thing that I understood especially given that guy makes very British films. That feels like a very British philosophy, very British sort of takeaway. Yeah, I guess so. Not getting too big for your boots. It's sort of keeping your feet on the ground. And that's difficult.

You know, this, it's a double-edged sword with British culture that we like to take the piss. There is a little bit of tall poppy syndrome. And that's good for keeping people humble and for making some people driven. But it's also disincentivizing for people that want to take risk because they're worried, well, what are people going to say?

In America, it's got a lot of problems, but they're very supportive of people being exploratory, adventurous, trying new things, aiming for the stars. We don't quite have that same. Bit different. Positive some influence in the UK, maybe because it's a smaller country. We're waterlocked. The weather's not as good. That's just the culture.

I'm not sure. but to think that you've got like England's Christopher Nolan and he is still focusing on the basics and still turning up every day and doing the hard thing yeah that's inspiring yeah it changes you're thinking because you think you've gone to a different level and at this point you can like kick back chill a little bit and you know but you sort of see someone that's probably outworking

the common man that turns up and, you know, goes to work or whatever, somebody that's putting in, like, hours into the craft. You understand that it's time to just sort of double down and go again. Also reminds you that there's problems that money and fame can't fix. There's challenges that money and fame doesn't overcome. For sure. Given that you're in an alternate universe, like, it literally is. different universe from the one that you started in. Yeah. Were the things that you thought the right amount of wealth and the right amount of

attention would have just, oh, you know, that's not going to be, that's not going to be an issue for me anymore. I'm going to be, that is a byproduct of my situation, not of myself. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you, you know, it's a blur, right? you grow up in a household that's chaos and it's falling to bits

and the finances are low and the morale's low and you know it's chaotic and violent and stressful and the blinds are closed because the bailiffs knock on every day

like it clouds what the answers are because the answers are actually quite sophisticated but for me it's interesting I've got a song called the 10 Graphics

commandments, you know, and I say stage one is make it, maintain it. And what I'm talking about is, you know, in society, if you've got no money, you're just going to come unstuck. Just because it's the way that, it's the way that things are sort of built up. You're just not going to get much free time. You're not going to get time to think. You're going to get time to be yourself. You've got no social mobility. You can't go to the places you want to go. And, you know, some people need to heal, man. And that's why I've tried to make songs that touch on certain topics because people sort of are out there desperately needing to heal. But without the freedom that money can bring, you don't get the time to address certain situations, you know. So, yeah, in my calculations, which I'm quite accurate, by the way, a lot of the time.

I feel like even when I'm wrong, I was right. And in my calculations, I thought, first of all, I need some don't, point blank. And I'll get more sophisticated when I get there. You know, so when I got to a place where the dust had settled and I wasn't like new money anymore, and I didn't feel like I was going to go tumbling back to level one, which he probably felt like that for 10 years. I started to study on a sort of deeper, deeper level because these facets. rule two is protect protect your energy right it's interesting when you're right it wasn't everything

but it was the first thing it's the launch velocity that gets you off the the launch pad right it's that initial start and without that there is a cut there's multiple costs that you pay and you can't do much without it. But I think assuming that that was good and got me here means that that is all I'll ever need and is what will fix the remainder of the problems in my life is where people get stuck. Oh yeah, because you do. And like look, by the way that's why I say sort of

be inspired because if somebody comes from a two-parent household where the parents done well and the kid was able to go to university and whatever, like it don't make that person any of a person right they're still going to have their challenges and and you got to sort of respect the parents for building a platform but that child has still got his own challenges moving forward he can still fall to complete pieces you know so it applies no matter where anybody sort of starts but if you've got no um financial intelligence there's no one to teach you about money then you just think that money changes everything you just think that it's the answer to

And it's not until you achieve them sort of financial goals or certain car, certain house size or whatever, that you like, because you can see the trophy, right? It's there. And then you pick it up and it's completely hollow. And you're like, oh no. Because I thought inside that trophy was going to be the answers to all my trauma or my pain, all my fractured and damaged relationships with family members that are dysfunctional and haven't transcended. ended it. And I thought he was going to really, and it's like, no, no, no. What this does is gives you the freedom to do the work. And you know, slightly. You're telling me that this money is the entry ticket into the assault course, which I now have to go and do it. You go invest in yourself, self-investment all the way through. And that's what, that's what had to happen. I remember I remember I'm buying a Lamborghini off the showroom right I'm say five six seven years ago I'm much younger and I'm brash I need rappers in London to know I'm serious you guys think you're serious like we're not playing so I'm big and boisterous about it I'm filming myself on Instagram I was

one of the earlier doctors of like doing dumb shit on Instagram to like have people take notice so I'm in the bank like yeah I need to put 200 thousand down please so i buy this car and i get it all blacked out so everybody knows like it's paid for you know my name on the wheels and stuff i remember like as i go to drive off the showroom i don't know what i thought was going to happen i probably thought i was going to take off and fly to mars and like the rest was history i come off the showroom and i was like oh oh like nothing's changed not only has nothing changed now i actually understand financial gain isn't going to change certain things like I'm still stressed out about that

thing I was stressed out about this morning I'm excited because I'm driving a Lamborghini but like that's going to fate the novelty will wear off in 10 minutes and we're back to square one and at that point by the way I've only really ever in the come up of my career I only really spent money on investments that was an investment in the brand to show people that like you know I'm not just saying it. I think a lot of successful people are just sort of saying it and they're telling you how to,

you know, I've been around people where, or these like females that will have a BBA, but they'll sell a workout plan. It's not the real thing. So I was trying to put my money where my mouth was and just be like, look, man, I'm saying I'm big and boisterous

and I can back it up. So there was all self-investment. However, then I had to invest time, energy and finances into sort of healing and understanding what the other great people that have existed on the planet understood. You know, people say I'd rather be sadding a Lambo than sad in a fiesta.

Yeah, they're not thinking straight. I think that that's completely backward because if you're sad in the fiesta, you still have the pipe dream that the Lambeau might fix it. So, Will Smith's memoir, he says, when I was poor and miserable,

I had hope. When I was rich and miserable, I was despondent. The point being that when you think the thing that was going to fix your problems is in your possession and your problems are still there,

you ask yourself much deeper, much more difficult questions. And that sucks. So it's interesting, right? Because one night, I end up sat with Jordan Peterson. He's around a table that I'm sat out. And I was able to tell him, like, I'm hundreds of hours into your work.

You know, because I'm hundreds and hundreds of hours into psychology. Because, you know, a lot of people will go to a therapist and perhaps that works for them. But then a lot of people are trying to find somebody to, or something to depend on, to give them the answers. And I think that's going to null and void any process. me i just started doing the work and and getting an understanding i needed to break it down into sort of basic framework where i could get to the essence of what i was trying to figure out because the money didn't make it go away and then the sort of keyword that i figured was functionality

you know functionality what's that mean to you you know it's what we're looking for right so when you're saying that what will smith is you know rich and sad Well, it's because you've not focused on functionality. It should become sort of the main focus in your journey once you've got some finances. Like some people want a billion pounds. They're not sure what they want a billion pounds for. And then they get there and they get sad.

And some of these people commit suicide, it's bad marriages, divorce, it's just a mess. And that's because what you've got to do is you've got to get some dough, park up for a minute. and start your march towards functionality. Because if you've come from a bit of a broken background, you're going to be dysfunctional.

The people that brought you up are going to have been dysfunctional, the people who was brought up around dysfunctional. So you've got traits and habits and neurological pathways that need reversing and breaking and snapping and half. And at that point, it's for you to understand

this is a bigger job than getting some dull. Because actually you shouldn't be greedy. You should earn in, enough to be financially free, right? And once you've got to that stage, you've got freedom. So what you do with it is up to you. So if you want to build a business that sort of runs itself and keep some money coming in, good for you because you're clever.

But if you're going to invest your full-time energy and everything into being more rich, then, you know, it's the tortoise and the hair. Like the tortoise walks past you in the end. Was this something that you learned from Jordan in person that you hadn't picked up online? Was there anything you took away from your time with them? I'm like an obsessed person, right? So when I'm researching, I'm going all the way.

I'm reading the books. I'm listening to the podcasts. I'm looking for the things that aren't there to be easily found, you know? So there was, there wasn't really, the conversation didn't go down that route because it's like me meeting you outside. of sort of your work for me to pull you into a conversation about your work can just put a damner on a conversation because i'm objectifying you as that guide it does that podcast instead of seeing you as a human being right so i was able to have um just conversation with jordan

with the understanding of a lot of his sort of philosophy and you know and he's sort of one of many people that have studied, you know. A quick aside, you've probably heard experts like Dr. Rhonda Patrick talk about the benefits of omega-3s. They support brain reduction. They support brain reduction. They support brain function, but they reduce inflammation. They improve heart health and are backed by hundreds of studies.

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slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom. A check-out. I love the idea of objectification. I've been thinking about this a lot. I sat next to Tucker Max. No he is? No.

So he wrote a book called I hope this of beer in hell. He was a, it was called Fratire. So it was 10, 15 years ago, he was a young guy drinking and partying and fucking women and writing about his exploits. It was like American Pie, the book, right? Kind of like that. It was like semi-memoirie stuff. And he was really fantastic. Then he went away, did a ton of five years of daily psychotherapy and came back a change person, much more alive. mind, still very confident, but much more aligned.

And I sat next to him at dinner in Austin, where I live now. And we were talking about objectification, and he was saying, to become successful as a man is to agree to allow the world to see you as a resource to be extracted from, or a human to be objectified. So that women have it in a different way. Women get objectified because of what they are, how they present. how people see them in the world. Men get objectified because of who they are

and what they can offer you and people see you as a resource to be extracted from. And just that idea whenever I think about male objectification because we think about McConaughey or Brad Pitt or, you know, but I don't think that that's most objectification that happens toward men. I think it's somebody that has fame and you want to be in the blast radius

of that you want to be in the containment zone that's a good way of putting it yeah um trickle down effect of somebody that has wealth and you want the opportunities or they get first access to investment deals or maybe they can give me some advice and it's not reciprocal and it's transactional and transient and disposable and um i like the idea of sitting with somebody and not even necessarily having to talk about their work, not having to talk about the thing, but just seeing how they operate. And you can learn just as much from that as you can. Matthew McConae mentioned before we started, he's coming back on soon. I learned as much from watching the way that he talked about his tennis shoes. He wouldn't fucking shut up about these tennis shoes.

These are the fastest tennis shoes on the market. I go straight from here to the tennis court, but just passion, commitment, charisma, kindness, open to the room. So he wasn't. bothered about sitting straight. He decided to come in and he putt his chair right out to the side. He sat like this. He's like, these tennis shoes? Fastest tennis shoes on the market. He's just talking to everybody that was sat there. And I just thought, so fucking cool. Nothing about how you do a movie. Nothing about how you act. And he's there and he's got nothing in his mouth. He's like, the way he does. Like does this. It's like, so cool. But yeah, to become, to be successful as a man is to agree to be a resource to be extracted from or a human to be

objectified yeah and it's a that's a difficult position to to existing especially if you're street smart you know they say the terminology you can't kid a kidder and people are trying to warm you up and you know they've they've got a goal in mind of what are going to extract from you and what you're supposed to be is you're supposed to be um blind to the fact that that's what they're doing and if you're not and if you do come from a situation where you're street smart no or sharp you see it coming every single time and it's problematic because it changes your relationship to to people much more skeptical yeah well just I mean, you don't have to be, you can withdraw a little bit, right?

And yeah, actually, much more skeptical because exposure means that everybody can, people can sort of see, people can see you more, you're more, but actually you can see them more, and that's what they don't take into consideration. They're forgetting the fact that you're experiencing, if they're not creative, six people just used your same approach today. right and you're supposed to you're supposed to act like you can't see what they're doing okay we're going through this again that must be you know to fly the flag for the other side i imagine that's what it's like to be a really attractive woman that i always thought this uh hot girls on the

internet complain that they struggle to get guys to uh treat them well treat them normally and i think that's because there's this weird reality distinctions I'm going to try your drink. Get this in, come on, if you're lagging. Let me see what's happening. No, I'm not lagging. I don't know. I don't think you're lagging.

Don't normally do caffeine. Okay. Well, just a little, just a little. I'm just, I'm very interested to see what it takes like. All right, okay. First sip review. I mean, yeah, it's nice. Good.

And I'm not just saying it because you sat across the table. Thank you. Yeah. Well, like, you've, and that, and that fuel your focus. So I'm going to get more focus now. A little bit. Could I potentially change? change here as the yeah well if we start seeing you levitate we'll know you've had too much oh is that

what that does what happened yeah yeah vocabulary could increase and things like that well yeah well if you start rapping we'll know that it's well but yeah that must be what it's like to be a uh to be an attractive woman your value to the world is immediately available for everybody to see and you have how are you able to discern whether or not this person who's talking to you and seems nice and seems like they've got your best interests at heart, what do they really want? What do they really want from you? So I guess on the same vein as that,

have you found that fame has brought more freedom or more cages in that way? Do you know what? I don't take it too seriously, you know, because I'm independent, you know? So the actual term fame, I just don't take it too serious. I'm just who I am and I'm exposed

Sometimes I lean into it Do a bit more And sometimes I take a step back and relax And I guess I've I've been sort of magnetic Since I was a kid I've always attracted a lot of attention For no particular reason

It's like for my spirit or something Just people gravitate towards me And it's been like that since I was young So it's always been the same process so getting famous was just the accelerated version of that like i'm like used to it do you know what i mean so interesting yeah yeah that's just the way it's sort of been and i think when i see people that take fame too seriously you know i just know that they're going to come unstuck it's like you're going to come unstuck because you're taking a thing serious that doesn't take you serious

fame doesn't take anyone serious man it's just not it's just not going like because these time and there's changes in trends and there's you know so one minute you're famous and you're popping and you've done that last thing and now people are treating you like this and then the thing you've just done everybody hates and now people are treating you like that you know that's gonna it's just going to run right with your mindset if that's something that you identify with being a famous person so i always sort of say i'm not a celebrity but that's because that's how i'm framing it to myself. I think if I sort of walked around thinking I'm a celebrity and X, Y, and Z, if I walk in a

room and nobody has a clue who I am, which happens a lot because you're in different places in the world and whatever, then you're going to be like, you know, your identity has been messed with, you know, but if you can, if you can derive a sense of identity from from who you actually are, you've got to get in tune with your spirit, you know, and when you start to sort of get in tune with your spirit then no matter what changes around you the environment the surroundings you you know what you are you know where you stand you know so me coming to do this podcast today i told you before i'm nervous but it's because i i know that it's different you know it's a different situation however i also understand that i deserve to be here as much

as a guy that might be 54 and has way more experience than me has has way more accolades than me you know you there comes a point where you start to understand that like you're you're enough and it's like a shame because society doesn't encourage that thinking you know so when i i bump into a fun and he's like bro like you're my idol or i'm trying to be like you he's like no no you're You're trying to be like you. And that's what you should be trying to do. Be the best version of you. Because for all you know, the best version of you is better than me.

Well, where are you? The best that you can hope for if you're trying to be somebody else is being the second best in the world at something. No one's going to beat you at being you. Exactly. Exactly. The best you can hope for is to be the second best Bugsy Malone. Yeah. Yeah.

No one can beat you at your personal set of skills. So before when you were saying, you know, you're a. a single child and you start to talk about the components that sort of make you as a whole in terms of psychologically and physiologically that these are your these are all of your specialities man you know and and and that's how I sort of feel I feel like you bolt on discipline to all of your quirks you know I'm sure I'm on some end of the spectrum I'm sure I've got ADHD you know I'm sure I've got a load of these labels right but if you if you bolt on discipline to that and you get the mind under control then all of a sudden the hyperfocus in ADHD just becomes

a superpower you know and so so that's that's my thinking and I think that like when I see people that become like they feel helpless because I think society encourages that helplessness because then you're dependent on a drug or a certain chocolate bar or Whatever it is, they can sell, yeah. You know, I think you're in trouble when you become dependent and you don't understand that, like, actually, like, I'm enough. I can be whoever I want. I looked at this really interesting study about bariatric surgery and gastric bands.

Okay. So, less popular now that Ozempic exists because we've got a pharmacological replacement. Yeah. But when people who are overweight and want to stop eating so much, they get a gastric band fitted. Now, there is an increased suicide risk after people have the surgery. Why? It's a very serious surgery. A lot of the time, there can be complications.

It's a big open wound that can get infected. There can be general complications. People can struggle with just the pain and the recovery. But the big underlying psychological reason, typically, is in the past, people had an issue that they were coping with through food they now no longer have the ability to eat the food and the issue persists

so the coping mechanism has been taken away from them and the problem that they were coping with has not so their ability to sedate themselves with food to hide from whatever that challenge was has gone away and the problem's still there so again functionality

that's a dysfunction and you really got to be eyeing them out And by the way, I'm saying this from a position of being the most this functional man on the planet. You know what I'm saying? Like, these times in my life where I'm sure it was psychosis, these times where it's been depression, flipping. Like I've gone through in my songs, you hear me talk about borderline personality disorder. And that's because I'm Googling away. And I'm looking at all of the explanations. Got that, got that, got that.

Yeah, it's that. I'm experiencing that. I'm experiencing, you know, and if you're not carefully and you start taking them labels serious, Seriously, you know, we've all got everything to some different extent. But what are you going to do? Are you going to accept the fact, you know, there's a point where you just have to stop accepting the fact that you're not the fact that you lose control of your emotions. Get it under control. Build discipline, like these ways, you know, and that's what I sort of had to study.

figure out and actually when you actually break it down it's all quite it's all the basics it's doing the fundamentals well and she started doing the fundamentals as well things just sort of drop into play you just have to do that on repeat really what are the fundamentals to you I think diet's a big one um gut health again you hear people talking about it problem is with people talking about things like that is then people turn up to capitalize on it being a popular category and people going to sell crap that I was going to make not to deviate I'll get back to it in a second my fundamentals but like I was going to make a protein brand um with a guy and what I sort of figured out is he wanted to make um like a like a prime type drink um what I was interested in is

making something um more beneficial in terms of people's health just because when you've got a job that involves exposure when you say to someone buy this thing they're trusting that you've done the research and this is going to help their life right so at that point i feel guilty if i'm selling somebody something that's not helpful so i had to pull out on the business venture anyway so one of him is diet it's a big deal training um it's not it's more more than mind, exercising the mind, you know, and the body. I just think that, like, as we all know, it's one of the biggest deals. Expanding your understanding.

I think if you're naive to history and what's gone on in the world before you was here, and you're just existing in this day and age blind and not knowing that, like, the pattern of history the cycles sorry you know things reoccur um so yeah in that respect study you really got study and um when i say protect your energy again i don't i don't think i don't think everybody's got the best intention for you you should probably understand that you should probably probably try and pick people with the correct sort of morals and integrity and sometimes it's that people don't have control of themselves do you know what I mean they're they give in to their impulses it's a a challenge as well successful guy attractive woman successful woman attractive guy

you warp reality around you and it makes it harder for people to treat you normally even if They're trying. I see this with Joe Rogan in Austin. He has this comedy club, super popular. And sometimes after the show, they'll kick everybody out. And then all of the comedians and their friends will go to the bar downstairs, Mitzis. And there is, it's almost like someone flicks a switch and a frequency comes on that changes the whole room's behavior. I get you. If he walks in or if he leaves. because it's this very specific niche where somebody just changes the dynamic and the people that know him well and are his friends typically don't change that much this frequency only affects the people who don't yet know him and they're like I'm trying to be normal it's like a really any guy trying to talk to an unbelievably hot girl like like she's so hot just stop thinking that she's so hot why can't you just say something

like you're in your own head about it And it's kind of the same in that regard. And that was my point, I think, around fame bringing more freedom or being more of a cage, that it makes you an object to be looked at. It gives people difficulty in treating you in the way that they might even want to. And then you've got to work out, is this person honest and awkward or contrived and conniving? Are they trying to get something and extract something from me? these and the um you mentioned before about shame i think the shame of dealing with a problem which only comes as a byproduct of now privilege is a real challenge yeah yeah because who's

going to give you sympathy for that no oh i'm so sorry that your fame is causing the amount of attention where you need to discern between people who are simply nervous conniving and actually good friends like what a what a challenge i'm so sorry that you need to deal with that and that causes you shame because you think I shouldn't feel discomfort at this problem because there are much bigger problems and I have had much bigger problems in the past what would previous me think of me thinking of this is a problem you go well as you move up through the grades of whatever art you're trying to do the challenges become more refined and this is a more refined challenge

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's nuanced. It's not simple, no more. And that's why you've got to learn to rely on your, you got to learn to rely on yourself, man. And really, you know, I'm somebody that believes in God. And I've recently understood that it's not my own strength that I'm relying on, you know? It's the strength of, and whether you call people, some people understand God as the universe, but it's source. That source of, like, love. right and I've found myself reliant on that as opposed to my own I thought I was this cool guy that was strong but depending on where your belief systems are you sort of understand there's there's something more going on here and I found that I've been taking strength from from the source if that makes sense and when you was just talking then I was thinking I'm making fragrance, right? I'm doing my second fragrance. I've got it on. I've got the first one. I've got the first one. Fortitude. Fortitude means strength. And with the second one, I've called it intention. I love that one. So when you're talking about before the

the way people change around Joe Rogan or, you know, you're talking to a hot girl, you know, I remember when, you know, my career exposes me to types of people that I've not been exposed to you before, not the type of people that are walking around the estates, how I was walking around. And it's your intention that defines the way you're going to treat them people. Because if you're talking to a hot woman, your intention is to try and get her in bed by the end of the night, obviously you're going to be stuttering your words. You're trying to negotiate a pretty serious deal.

She's not trying to say. Who's to say you enough? or she's interested or, you know, if your intention is just the same as having a conversation with the next person at the bar, you know, then all of a sudden it's a more natural interaction because at the end of the day she's going to like you or not and you're, you know, you're saying she's a hot woman, you're going to like her or not. But I think if you become a man in a certain position and you don't feel like you're... you don't have options, so to speak,

then you're going to look into who she actually is because a lot of hot women aren't what they look like. It looks like a great... Pretty on the outside. Yeah, it looks like a great person that can bring great things into a person's life. And I think some of them may neglect their other attributes, you know? And it's dangerous.

It's dangerous for anybody who has an outsized capacity anywhere because Paul Graham's got this wonderful quote where he says a lot of people look at those who are successful jerks and assume the reason they're successful is because they're a jerk but that's not true the reason they're a jerk the reason that they are a jerk is because their success allows them to get away with it yeah yeah yeah and it's the same as not being a very nice person or somebody that's rich and an asshole or a girl who's hot and has no loyalty isn't very kind their richness or their hotness

is what permits them to get away with it that's not why they have achieved the things they've achieved well it's like being a boxer that's got a big punch right very powerful and he leans on that attribute and he wins the area title

and if he's lucky he gets the European title but to be a world champion and to compete at world level like you need to have rounded off your skill set it's as simple as that So, you know, I meet a really pretty girl And she's relied on that Up until this point that I'm speaking to her

It's just so uninteresting Because it smells of that That's what it is You know? And like you say, you become successful You get some money or fame Or whatever it is If you've sort of leaned on that

And just you're identified with that And that's who you are now And you've not gone and studied And you've not tried to heal And you've not tried to It just becomes a very unimpressive interaction you know I'm not interesting I'm not regulated I'm not kind I'm not self-aware yeah I'm not giving you mentioned that story of the guys who

tried to rob your house oh yeah we talk about that if you like I do want to yes what happened I mean look there was There were some, like, teenagers. I've just moved into this house. I made a big thing online. I'm getting a new house. Because this is the game, right? This is the rap game.

You're going to get to a place where you're doing well. And people want to know if it's true or not. Have you really transcended the bottom? Is that really possible? Because it's like in the Batman film, right? And there's that prison. And to get out of the prison, you've got to escape and jump out of the hole at the top.

And that's crabs in a bucket. We're all looking at the top of the bucket thinking, can we get out of there? And once you're in the process, it's interesting really because you've got to fake it till you make it, right? So you're sort of demonstrating that like here's where I'm at. You know, some people are less honest about it. I was trying to be sort of accurate. So like, it's like, I've bought this house. And I've not really built up the walls on the outside or there's not blinds up at the time.

and he's like a group of like teenagers up on the wall and the shower with me. Bugsy, boxy, boxy, boxy. And I'm flipping thinking, whatever. And then my girlfriend at the time gets out of shower and he's walking through the house naked and they're looking in through the window. She's like, the kids outside have seen me naked, right? And I'm like, yeah, just give them time to go because I'm thinking I've not moved here. to then start like going out and just even chatting to the kids

do you know what I mean like I'm going to try not to get too involved at where I live right so time goes by and time goes by and then eventually they just come a situation where I'd sort of left the house

I thought the coast was clear left the house on this particular day I was trying to get my little sister to make friends with my mum and so we're doing a bit of domestic healing or whatever you call it

and I go and collect my little sister I've not seen her in it a long time and I'm going to take her to town first on the way to town and at this point now the kids are trying to like terrorise the house my ex-girlfriend phones me up on the wall again

and it's all going on so then I drive back to the park and the house and the park I pull up and I see the kids and they see the car and they just want to see it's me I get the situation, I get, I'm a famous guy, I live in the area. So then, as I, like, pull up, they start to jog off through the park, looking. And whoever they must have been in the area, their brothers and family were tough guys.

And they've come back and broke into the house, broke onto the land, smashed the windows, was telling when he gets back he's dead so that was the that was the situation and with my little sister in the car and we had to we had to fly home i drove home nervous because you don't like you're just in a situation where you're not sure and by the way there was a few little things happening around the house of like it was a big house and you don't understand the ramifications of living in a big house but it attracts a lot of attention you know and that to be honest has put me off like them kinds of luxuries because people see you as something different so now i'm like doing a lot of traveling and opening my mind and being in places

with just a backpack you know to go back to basics anyway so the yeah so the they um i went back i was nervous you're driving back to deal with this issue i'm flying back flying back my mom's on the phone to the police in the background when my ex-girlfriend's screaming on the phone and my heart's just beating, I'm just like, oh my days, because you don't, I'm saying to my ex-girlfriend, do they have balaclavas on, do they have gloves on, do they have weapons? She's, I don't know, and you're breaking in, right? And, yeah, I sort of pull up and you're straight into the chaos of the situation. And I think luckily, at that point

again I've just kept up boxing for so long that as I was getting into these interactions with these guys I was able to gauge distance enough to make one move and then threat nullified what's happening next

you understand what I'm saying and and that was that I mean these deeper detail I don't know how much I should go into but they sort of barricaded the road off it's like a country road that takes to the house and me and my sister are in the car. It's been the first

altercation. We get into the car we're driving down this country road. He's barricaded off with big boulders like that. So I know there's an ambush coming. So I look in the bush and there's a big guy with a brick. So I put my sister's head down like that.

And really what he should have done is he should have just thrown that brick straight through the car. Created panic and attacked me. But what he's done is he tried to play Mr. Intimidation. and try to have me a fight with this brick but what he doesn't understand is what I understood is

you have to jab me with that brick because if you start swinging it out of me it's going to end up knocked out of your hand it's the nature of a heavy you know weapon of whatever description so he stood there and put my hands up in the air and psychology says that if I say to you

what t-shirt's that again exactly your brain starts to answer the question your nervous system starts to answer the question before you get a chance to think so I jump out of the car and I've gone no way is it you is that blue t-shirt fuck off you cut

and I'm asking him these questions and you can see his brain doing but I'm closing the distance and I'm sparring every day and I know how close I need to get and he won't think I can touch him but I can and I'm getting closer and closer and he's not getting the time

to get his feet in place to swing the brick properly and when by the time he realising I'm close enough and he tries to do something with the brick I've managed to hit him and it just skimmed him and he spun around and dropped the brick

so then it all goes to court obviously he doesn't try and press charges because me and him had a decent fight you know to be fair to him we had a decent fight but I won the fight

and then I'd get in the car I move the bricks boulders I get back to my house and that's the video that surfaces online of me flying down the drive I'm taking your top off well the reason I'm taking my top off

is because a van then comes screeching onto the path of their back up so now there's a van full of guys to come and back them guys up so I'm taking my top off because I'm going now to get back involved again

and honestly like when I turned up for the second time like I just turned up and was just shouting my head off like a lunatic frothing at the mouth and I was just like what I was explaining to them

He's like, you're at my family home. My mum's in there. You know, you guys have turned up to beat me up. I've turned up here to die for my family. This is two different situations, you know? And you think I'm like a celebrity. I really come from the dark, you know, and you look like a bit of a plumber.

You look like you go to the pub on a weekend. It's like you're at my family home. I ain't got nowhere to run. And it weren't as articulate as that, by the way. But, you know, that was shouting and screaming. I was shouting my head off, yeah, because, you know, I didn't want to hurt anybody else. And it was getting out of hand, you know, because boxing allowed me to be able to deal with it clean cut. But if I didn't have boxing, then I'd have got into a fight with the first guy thrown onto the floor and maybe beaten up outside my own house.

You know, so boxing was able to get me through the situation. That was that. There was a... situation then they tried to phone the police you know and there was so there was a court case and um there was this moment in court at this point the court case was a couple of years later and at this point i broke up with my ex-girlfriend and she had to come and give evidence which was this mad situation for me and there was just this point where I had to speak to the jurors you know that are going to judge or this like a panel of people that are going to judge and you know what I'd done

I just told them who I was because I understand that people look at a guy that looks like a tough street guy and he's a rapper and all these sort of stereotypes go with these people look at things in categories right because sometimes people are too lazy to understand that everyone's just an individual so I just spoke to him on a really human level and explained. who I am and what my intention was going into that situation and I was simply to protect my family and I could have lost my temper and I could have tucked that over the top but I feel like I dealt with every situation perfectly. There's many a man that would have pulled out a weapon and it would have been a different story in the news you know but I risked I risked it I risked having a fair fight and luckily by the skin of my teeth well maybe not the skin of my teeth but I I come out on top, you know, and I feel as if I was blessed because, yeah, I was put, my back was up against the wall, you know, so I got not guilty.

Do you know what I've never really spoke about with this, yeah? I am sat in the room with my lawyers and that. And they're like, right, today's the verdicts you're even going to get guilty. Bro, if I get guilty, as a kid, I was a persistent young offender. I was in lots of trouble all the time. That was something I had to overcome and get out of the habit of being. so I'm thinking it like for the criminal record I had when I was young like if I get a guilty here this is looking like jail.

It felt like you were back there. Oh man what did it feel like because it's all over social media and the paparazzi are coming to my hotel I'm not signing to a record label I'm independent you know so for the newspapers to be turning up when I fell off my bike is in the newspapers when I got engaged it's in the newspapers he's sort of unheard of i'm independent i'm not a record labels cash cow right so you're going in past paparazzi every day it was just a bizarre experience um and on the day when he's like today you get the not guilty or the guilty or not guilty my heart's beating shit in my pants a little bit and um and he's like we've got a prepared

statement for if you get not guilty i said that's the one i'm interested in because now i'm doing the law of attraction in my head i'm like there's no way i'm getting a guilt today right he reads it to me i said okay it's covid we're just coming out we're sort of in covid i'm doing a tour tour tickets aren't selling because people aren't sure whether to put the money into concerts because they might get pulled inside do you yeah do you remember that stage so i'm i'm putting a concert on in the most controversial stage right i said at the bottom of that statement just right the bugsy is going to go away now and concentrate on the on the ticket sales of his UK tour.

You used your statement as an ad read for the tour. Listen, it's turning a negative into a positive, right? And in my heart, I believed I was righteous. What the judge was going to believe on the day is, you know, who knows sort of thing. But they did, they judged me fairly. And I got this not guilty. And then I was on the stairs,

stood there in this pinstripe suit that I got made after John got his suit when he got off his court cases I quite liked it, it was tailored well I'm like stood there and I remembered oh yeah we've got all the news in front of us and he goes

and Bugsie is going to go away now to concentrate on the sales of his UK tour and bro the tickets just sold out so I'd fell off my bike I'd come back from the bike accident I had this big court case from these guys that smashed my house up and I ended up selling out the tour

you know so it was a triumphant it was a triumphant moment it was a negative into a positive you know the number of guys who hear stories like that some dudes break into the grounds of my house and i would have had the top off and i would have had it and that would have been me i think it says an awful lot about what someone does when they're backs up against the wall like that because we were talking before about velvet prison silk pajamas uh i have a i have a friend who went through a rough time a few years ago and uh he was explaining to me he said uh all my life i thought i was a coward so that i i spend my time around hard men you know i like i like fighting i like um being around operators special forces people but

all my life i was worried that i was a coward that i'd never fully test I'd been tested myself. I'd done hard things. I'd chased after stuff. It was always kind of on my terms. Yeah. It was always I was electing to step into whatever the challenge was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I wondered, he used this line, it's so fucking brilliant. He said, I wondered when my better self was going to stop clearing his throat in the room next door. so he could just hear him coughing next door like his better self his best self

and then he went through a really really rough situation he's like okay I'm going to work out whether or not he's going to stop clearing his throat or he's going to kick the door down and come in sure enough he kicked the door down and he was there I just love that idea and I wonder how many people never get the blessing of being tested folly

no here's the thing I think we do get to the blessing of being tested, but I think the test starts small. And I think if you fail on the small tests, you don't even get to the big tests. If the small test made you depressed, make you think, oh, it's not working and make you give up on your dreams and you sort of become a victim. It's harder for me. It's easy for them. And you just end up sort of stagnant, then you don't get to the bigger tests.

I think the bigger test came for me in life because the little tests, I was plowing through them. You know, so it's like a boxer. in his career or a jujitsu practitioner you know he's building up building up he gets his blue belt and then he gets to brown he gets to a black belt it's the it's that you get to the black belt of challenges and that's the interesting challenge

because they're the they're the ones that are like make or break you know and that's when the opponents get harder oh that's when the opponents are also world level you know because you do like once you've overcome certain challenges you start to think I'm getting pretty good at this like I don't think life can beat me up you know and then bike accident court case pandemic no ticket sales you know yeah yeah like real real you know you wake up on the floor with a in a puddle of blood it's like there's the moment but there's the like this the like this the transcending the moment

there's the fight you've got a 12 round fight ahead of you and the people don't talk about the details of that they just they'll see someone like me on a screen they'll be like oh he's bounce back well. It's like, no, that was every single day for months and months and months and and you want to know what the main fight? What I find is, is the ability to believe in yourself and the bigger picture every single day. You can't take your eye off it. And the moment you've sort of took your eye off it, it's like the momentum slows. If, you know, you're in a car crash and you break your legs or whatever it is and you think i'll never be that person i said i was going to be now it's like the momentum's like slowing and slowing and slowing and before you know

it's like a stand still and you got to start all over again sort of seven years you've just been climbing for to get to that level of momentum can go so when i'd fell off my bike that's what i was fighting against it's like every day when i woke i used to crack a joke every day when i woke up i was like oh i'm achy-breaking i make a big laugh first thing in the morning because i thought it's not changing my morale it's not putting me in a bad mood you know and I just kept so that's the first trick that I use is laughter I make a joke out of whatever's bad is going on and it has to be a funny joke by the way can't be a shit joke because it won't work and then once you've and once you've done that then it's having in your mind who you are and where it's all going to go and again the new

fragrance intention these are all the things I'm talking about with intention you have to have the intention of becoming your higher self or I don't think it will happen. When it comes to finding inspiration for your art form, for rapping, I've heard you say, for me to find inspiration, I have to live some life and almost forget about writing lyrics. One of my favorite lines around this is,

in order for art to imitate life, you have to live a life. The comedians that spend a lot of time on the road, all of their jokes are about airports, hotels, and dinner, because that's all the other. Okay, okay, okay. I'm interested when it comes to creativity and the well that you're able to draw from, how you still try and give yourself enough silence and enough slowness in a very chaotic life with lots of opportunities and the fragrance and the clothing and the shoes and the tour

and the shows and attention. How do you continue to create something that is honest and resonates when there is so many distractions and potential avenues that you could go down? I mean, it's a good question and I think it's a case of the pursuit of excellence.

There comes a point where you have to forget about money and financial games. there comes a point where you have to forget about accolades and fans and you know screaming supporters and you have to really figure out what you're doing it for and if you're an artist you better be in it to make the best work that you can make because essentially this is what I'm going to be judged by when it's all said and done if my if my life is a book when it might have been Kevin Hart that I heard say that your life's like a book which your book, going to be like, if my life's like a book, in the end of it, what's that, how is it

actually going to look? And if I've not dug deep to do my best work, then I don't know how happy I'd be with myself. And in terms of the well that you talk about, I've just figured that you have to absorb in order to radiate. So for me to... for me to create on the next level I have to go away and absorb have to watch lots of films I have to study whatever it is I'm interested in studying at that time

live lots of life you know I have to just absorb and forget about being creative and then all of a sudden a switch will just flick one day and you go back into creative mode and you've got all of these sort of inspiration

and I'm you know influences that are being filtered through your outlook on the world, you know, and then you're able to, you know, I'm a storyteller. And that's what's mad because I'm not, I'm not a rapper. I'm an artist. Um, rap music has been my way up. It's one medium. It's one medium. And at this point in my career, I'm interested in a more credible job description, one that uses my full array of skills. So people look at the brand that I've built and my business and I can tell that they can't really wrap the mind around what they're looking at. Who is this? Yeah. What is this? Yeah. I'm a very diverse person. That's just the way it's become. I've been through lots of

different things. I've been through lots of hardship, lots of trauma, lots of abuse. You know, I've witnessed areas of life that you only read about in the newspaper. And that's been my reality. And, and then on the flip side of the coin, I've had the discipline to be a legitimate person, to run a business, to, you know, so you become a really sort of diverse package in one. And it's hard for not even just people, but for you to understand, like, what category is it that I sort of sit in here. That makes people nervous. Not being able to easily categorize someone makes a lot of people nervous. Yeah. It's the reason that we have archetypes when there's movies, right?

The hero has big shoulders and the villain wears black and the maiden has big eyes and the nerd wears glasses because, oh, that's a shortcut. I can work out who this is. I don't need to do as much thinking and I can box that up and you don't need to do as much exposition. I need to ask myself. It's not as effortful, cognitive shortcut. And we in many ways love people.

people who have depth and are interesting and unique. But on the flip side, it's very effortful. It's a very effortful thing to, okay, so it's, it's, it's rap, but it's art, but it's got this sort of self-reflective thing and it's growth, but then it's film and then it's like this fragrance over there. I don't really. Impossible to understand at this stage in the, in the trajectory. Impossible.

You know, it's one of them things that, consolidates as time goes by but actually I think it's new I think what I am is new I think people that come from the place where I've come from

don't necessarily survive the initial stages of being famous coming into lots of money I think it plateaus you know and a lot of rappers they get shut they don't even get through the stage of being a rapper they don't even get to diversifying

and because they're too busy with having them same vices that they had in their old life that worked in their old life it's like you can't come into the light and have bad vices it's going to cause you it's going to cause you problems you need to do the work before you get that you got to do the work you know look at this is something when doing the research which involved listening to a lot of freestyle from you which is good um that first fire in the boot that you did with charlie sloth over 10 years ago now yeah yeah just uh did you realize at the time or this is a moment this is a real the door has just been opened a little crack and i can wedge myself in was that did you sort of

feel the gravity of the potential opportunity on the other side of that i mean look so so i've been writing this book like i like i see and i talk about this sort of moment and it was a stage where I'd been making music for five years but in making the music I was trying to make something that was palatable and for a record label to sell so I was trying to make something that I deemed as good generic and universally commercially yeah so I was softening my stories right and then they just come a point where I'm like I'm exposing myself like with no reward you know I've just done five mixtapes and I've invested in more and no one's listening i put it on youtube and a tumbleweed goes by and i'm just like

there just come a point where i thought i have to throw caution to the wind and i remember in the book what i talk about is the turning point and the turning point was my my mom had been evicted from very new road that i talk about in the fire in the booth she was living in a little um flat at one bedroom flat with her ex-partner, it was going wrong and she was stick thin. My mum was about five stone and on the verge of death. And I was having these reoccurring nightmares that even my mum or her boyfriend hit one another with an ashtray. I just just have this nightmare and sometimes my mum would get hit and sometimes she'd hit him and someone would die because the arguments between them was getting that bad

and I'm driving around in this blue Audi A3 that I loved and I'm a bit of a street guy, I'm in the mix and I'm making music and I've got this dream in my head I'm going to be a millionaire, I'm going to be a multi-millionaire because that will fix everything. I'll be able to pay for my mum's problems to go away and I remember seeing my mum and I was sitting in a house and it was a bit like this.

It was derelict, there was no carpet on the floors and this was my mum's like reality and I remember taking her out for a little bit of food and her boyfriend had let himself back into the house and locked her out and when we came back she was locked out and he'd rang the police and when I understood that the police was coming

I've gone and sat back into the aisle there because I was a bit of a street guy at the time don't judge me and as I'm sat there the police come they picked my mum up and slam her into the floor and as I sat and watched that it was out

I've never felt so helpless because what am I going to do now I'm going to jump out on what is to start beating up police man you just sort of sat there she's on the floor getting wrestled and her arms twisted up her back like she's a football hooligan

and then I had a little pit bull at the time Krueger he was called he jumps over the fence and he runs over and he's capable because he grew up with me through my troublesome days he's very capable however his relationship with my mum was different to his with me

I was like one of the boys my mum was like an authority figure with him so he like licks her face and she's like it's okay at this point I've got my hand on the door ready to open the door because if that dog starts attacking police it's going to be a mess

and I'm going to be the only one that can fix it and the police were able to usher him. I brought him up well the police was able to usher him back into the garden my mom gets wrestled into the back of the police van

I go home from that situation shaking and then that's when I roll a freestyle on a platform called JDZ JDZ Media Spitfire and it was the first time that I just through caution to the wind and I was like, do you know what? Like, you know, fuck these

songs that like, I'm trying to be a nice guy. I'm seeing like Ed Shearer on the television and I'm like, how do I act like I'm employable like him? But it's like I'm not. You know, when I'm flipping nine, ten, eleven years old, I know of when a man was murdered in my uncle's house, I used to stay over it. My uncle was holding his head together until the ambulance got there shot in his face these are my realities you know and it's hard to sort of get your mind around you know what i'm saying so i was i was attempting to try and be something that i wasn't and in this liberating moment of fuck it because i even need to i even need to start taking making money more more seriously because my mom's going to die in this mess i can tell that's what's

going to happen i used to wake up in these cold sweats my mom had dying these mad nightmares and my ex-girlfriend's I was like, what's up? And I'd be sweating. I didn't have the courage to tell her, my mum's died in my dream again, you know, because I knew the violence was getting worse. I've seen my mum got a nose broken. A big gashing her arm. She needed stitches down her arm because he'd threw her for a table. You know, things like that had to wrap your mind around without going and overreacting. That's another thing I'm proud of myself for because my step that actually died about a year ago. They've called, the lawyers have called me to give me some money that his mum has tried to leave for me. And I was like, I feel like I can't accept it because I didn't see her in the later

stages of my life. I didn't make the effort as a teenager that thought he was a bad boy to go and see her. I sort of forgot the fact that she's shown me so much love or whatever. Anyway, so, you know, he died and I was just proud of myself that like I didn't take it over the top. I was a boxer. I had a reputation on the streets. And he was, he broke my mum. knows. And I didn't, I didn't try and take retribution. My strategy was to succeed. I'm going to succeed. And I'm going to change this situation. You know, so I drove home that night. I'd done that JDZ media and I just exposed the truth. I'm like, here's the way I'm actually. And actually, I can't be bothered smiling because my head's fucked. You know, and I just sort of let it fly.

And that was the first video anyone give a shit about. Is that your Audi A3 behind with the door open? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it. So that's that. And then off the back of that, that started to do numbers. And then a manager from London message me. I think he used to manage Ed Shearer in the early days. He's like, come over to London. I went over to London. He's like, by the way, we'd have to change your accent. Like, you can't let people know you from Manchester. Right. So I'm like bamboozled, you know. And he had this really sort of snobby thing going on where he's like, mate, you're just some guy from my. Manchester. You want to get in the music industry. It's kind of not going to happen. And he was treating me in that way. And I'm not used to authority. I'm in jail when I was a 16 year old kid. So it's like, the way he's treating me is not going to work. So when the freestyle, I remember posting the freestyle. And I was like, tell that guy that used to manage me, just being boisterous, that I'm from Manchester. And I'm coming to put money on the map. And that's where it sort of come from was the attitude in London towards someone that's from Manchester. And I knew that attitude. personal to me as an individual, it was like, you're from out of town. And I thought, I'm going to break that door down. So at that point, sort of became my challenge. So then in the freestyle after that, I'm like, tell, you know, because Stormsie was signed to a label and he was doing good things and X, Y, Z. And I'm like, tell Charlie Slough, it's not just Stormsy that can get a reload. It's not just, and I'm just, like, letting them know, like, I'm, like, a silver

back gorilla just, like, crawling towards the fucking booth. Like, let me in, if I can get that opportunity and actually that was the nature of the um the clash between me and chipmunk was he he'd done the fire in the booth before me or a couple before me and i was so passionate about this um platform and the opportunity that that was to me that in his one he was at a different stage in his career to me he'd made it he was like a star right i was growing up watching him quite liked his music right and but he sort of got to a stage where he must have been a bit like at a lost stage in his career so he was like doing he had points to put across he was doing a lot of talking in the fire in the booth which i seen as boring you understand

like if he he would have gone in and just spot his lyrics he's a talented lyricist i would have just liked it but in him talking and all that i thought you've lost that thing you forgot that it's still an opportunity firing a booth i'd kill for that opportunity i can't even get it so by the time i got the opportunity i was saying um you know fuck chipmunkin his aze and beats I didn't think I'm going to have a clash with him That's just me thinking When I was in a position to get my A's and B's And I went to school with people that got A's and B's

I was sat in jail You know, my family are addicts You know, I don't know what's going to happen to my mum in the end And you know, I'm sat in solitary confinement As a 16 year old kid And so there was probably a resentment to people That got the GCSEs Because I didn't get to

There was no way it was going to happen You've done what I didn't Yeah, there was just no way I could have made it happen I couldn't make it happen, you know. So I was just, it was an observation that, like, fucking got out of control, right? But I knew going into that fire in the booth that like, this has to be the turning point for me. If I don't kick this door off now, then I have to take my other life more seriously. And it just wasn't going to end well.

You know, so that, you know, that was that. I went in there and I let my soul bleed out into the microphone, man. The frequency of authenticity. And I was nervous in life. I was worried. I was scared. I was angry. I was pissed off.

I was six years into making music that no one cared about. Like, you know, I was starving. And I'd looked at the guys that had done their best firing the booths. And it's weird because this was the moment that like the law of attraction really kicked in. because you think you're doing the law of attraction right but it's not until necessity kicks in that you'll pull it off and you will you sort of vibration comes up so because it was a real big moment when I'm looking at you know rappers like nines rappers like flipping kate coke and these sort of pioneers in London that had got big numbers on the fire in the booth I was telling myself I'm going to outdo these guys in fact I'm not the most viewed fire in the booth of all time it's just it's just little dreams that you've got in your own head but that that's what that's what happened because of how much i needed it and how much i wanted it you know so that was that that gave me a start and and yeah here we are 35 million views on just that one video later no no i mean so look if

we're looking at British rap music, it's young, but I think things like my career take things forward. I think there's a whole generation of kids that can see a documented journey of me going from the miners to having things in life and being able to pay my mum's bills and, you know, I don't have a relationship with my family, but I'm able to look after certain people regardless, you know. Is there a verse or a lyric of yours that still gives you goosebumps when you say it live yeah there's lots of those um i think when i done the tour in manchester sold out the arena it had not been done before in the in the rap space and um i think i made friends with my mom at the time and and brought her over to the to the situation the

the tour sorry and um yeah in mhm free where i'm saying that there's i told the nurse that there's no way i'm dying on this bed fuck that and it was a moment where when when the when the when the blood clot started going from my heart i went to get the nurse on my crutches she was very blasé about the whole thing because it's just their job right like people are dying all the time and i'm like no no no nurse like i'm you know what i mean and she was just looking at me as if to say, like, this is, this is what it's like. And I'm like, no, like, I need the doctor. I'm going to need like, you know. And, and yeah, that moment happened. So on tour, yeah, there was a few goosebumps moments. There's a few little geeseful moments,

yeah. Is rap beef genuine? How much of it is just marketing in disguise? Yeah. I think what was happening at the time, yeah, is that I was coming from being a street guy into an industry that I don't understand and I'm just trying to bulldoze my way through it's like I need some dog I need some attention I need yeah because I need my career to take off I need these songs I'm I feel like my story's like worth listening to feel like the music I'm making is interesting especially compared to what's going on and um so I was trying to just bulldoze my way through and um and in doing so I was just being I was just being clumsy and not caring was what it was right and so then when I remember and chipmunk dissed me back I was like um I was a happier body and in a sense

I was like like I remember being at my mum's house actually and and I was like mom chipmunks made a distract and she's like she's listening to it she's like who does he think he's talking to but I'm like mum you don't understand I'm a hustler you can't give me numbers you can't give me numbers because I just know what to do with them so I just I just From that, what I think people don't understand is, you know, when you watch a boxing match and one fighter, say Mayweather, he just wins the first seven rounds.

And then the other fighter is desperately trying to come back and he wins a round, and Mayweather's sort of backing off and moving and slipping and being neat because he knows he won. Like, I was never interested in the back and forth of calling names. I sort of respected Chipmunker's a lyricist. It was like the last thing I wanted to happen. I couldn't be bothered with someone calling me names because I wasn't a rapper.

I wasn't a music guy. It's like, I take it personal if people say things about me. So I wasn't playing that game, really. I was strategically making my way up because I had a goal. And with all due respect, I couldn't give a fuck about Chipmunk or any or the industry or it's like, my mum can't die in this stage that she's going through and I don't give a fuck. I don't care what I have to do to get up. You understand?

And that was the nature of me turning up to Tottenham. And, you know, I was doing things that my whole heart was on the line. You know, when we was out, people say, oh, you went to Tottenham far for now. It's like, no, we wasn't. We was there all night. And it was a serious situation. Tottenham's not a joke place, you know. But, you know, we went there and anything could happen.

It was, it was dangerous. You were turning those things around really quickly as well. I seem to remember you, I'm stamping. Yeah. When different, when things were posted, things were responded to. Yeah. It's like, I'm using boxing analogies because it's a thing I understand, right? But it's like fighting a dangerous fighter with a big punch.

Sometimes, sometimes you've got to try and get him out of there early. So I was just firing back quick. That was my strategy for the situation, was just bam, bam, and knock him off. Putting pressure on him to do it quickly. I was just applying pressure because it was like, if I can put this to bed early doors, Connor McGregor Aldo If the fight would have gone on More than 13 seconds

More than two minutes Would it have been the same fight When fatigue starts to kick in And everyone's sweating And the punches are less impactful You know But Connor got in there And got it done early doors

And that's what goes down in history You know So I was going in to try And take the win early doors So then the end Bit of the situation That was like All a little bit confusing

I was just sort of playing chess then because at the end of the day, it's like, I've got a career. Like, I've got numbers enough to build, like, a future. At that point, I'm not interested in calling names. I like Chipmong, I think he's a nice guy. Who cares? Doesn't work on a disc track, though. Like, who cares?

Yeah, like, you call me names and we're going to do it. Like, whatever, but who cares? I don't care. These real shit going on. You understand what I'm saying? And this is an opportunity to fix it. Yes, I had to focus on the real shit. I was doing three or four festivals.

week and I was just banking the cash. And that's why by the time it comes to getting the Lambo, I was just focused on building the brand. You understand? And unfortunately, this day and age is Instagram and exposure. I don't necessarily like it. But when it's a part of your job description, you better get it done. How much was the solutions that you came up with? How much of them were emergent? I just trust my taste. I trust my ability to make decisions now and to principles and how much of this was a plan, how much of this was I have goal, I've reverse engineered the direction. Does that make sense? How much you're sort of making decisions as you go and how much of it is prescriptive and prescribed in advance to help you get through

things? In terms of sort of that particular situation, all of that. It seems, in retrospect, life makes a lot of sense. You can string a narrative together. I knew that I needed to do this. The bike crash helped me to get over. But at least in the beginning, these first opportunities, you understood that okay this feels serious this feels like it's worth putting my entire heart on the line for i have nothing else to lose here i need to do this or i'm going to go in this darker more difficult direction because that's the only other one that's available to me yeah how much of that were you aware of while it was happening so so so so this book that i'm writing is on unorthodox strategy because that's what it's been all the way through

Because you come from an unorthodox situation, you've got a plan. I believe strategy is at the foundation of all victory, no matter what game you're in. And I think if you're just walking into something blind and, like, hoping it goes well, it's like it's unsustainable and unrealistic because at some point you will come unstuck and it's snakes and ladders. And once you've gone down one of the snakes, you've gone backwards. So for me, I boxed for four years pretty seriously And what I realised during boxing Is at the time I was emotionally unstable Because of what I had going on at home

Which would mean some days I'd go in And be the sort of biggest amateur prospect in the gym And some days I'd go in Have a quick cry in a changing room And just get my head punched off all day So I could understand that like I've got a journey to go on In terms of like healing

And dealing with this sort of family situation I've got going on So then I decided to step into music because I felt like I had a skill set. Essentially, I'm a storyteller. And I felt like I'm good with language, descriptive language or whatever. But I always just had the bigger picture in mind of where I'm going. So therefore, when opportunities to propel me towards my bigger picture turn up, I take them without hesitation. And that's why I'm faster than a lot of people because a lot of people don't have their intention set, clear in the mind.

and then when an opportunity does arise they're too busy like laughing with the mates about it or they've not even prepared, they've not even tried to become the person that is ready to receive the situation. Does that make sense?

It's the old adage of you don't have to get ready if you stay ready. You've got to be him before it happens. So by the time I had limelight and you know I'm a rapper that's doing the most numbers I set the record and this and the record. And I was, I was, I was him walking into that.

Because in my mind, I was already living it every day. I was looking at, like, you know, I've, I had nothing to say nice about any of, any of the rappers because I come from boxing. I just seen them all as my opponents. So I'd watch what he was doing. I think, I think, he ain't like me. You can't do it like I've done it. And, you know, he makes a gangster song.

I think he's not lived the way I've lived. When it comes to that self-belief. how do you have like what is the evidence if you don't already have proof if that makes sense like you are believing that you can do a thing that you haven't yet done and don't have any reliable evidence you can do yet other than I think I got this yeah again it's the small things so when before when we spoke about the small challenges lead to the big challenges not coming if you don't overcome them it's overcoming the small challenges that sort of give you the confidence to know that you can do it.

So I just started small like a driving license. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to get my driving license and I'm going to get a car and I'm going to be driving on the roads. Simple thing, right? But what people don't take into consideration is if you're in jail when you're 16, you didn't get your GCSEs. When you go out into the world, into like, you know, official situations,

you feel like you're a jungle creature in the zoo. right you're a wild animal so you know studying for a driving test every night before bed is foreign like it's not your remit so i've started with simple things and believing i can study for six weeks straight turn upon my test ace the test and get myself a car i just started with little things like that and then i take the confidence from that i put it under my belt and then and then you start dreaming bigger and bigger. And then eventually I just had the minerals to design the bigger picture in my head. I thought if all these little things are working here, it means that I can sort of design my own future. So I just started to picture it and these big ones like your house, where you're

going to live. I explain it as a description box that you've got to fill. And if you don't fill in a box on the description box, you leave it to random chance. Do you know what I mean? So if you leave the house box unthinging, then whatever house you're going to live in, you've just left that to random selection. That's intention.

Intention, but it has to be, you need to be pinpoint accurate. I was walking past the guy in London the other days, like, you know, the up-and-coming guys now, they respect me because I've done good or whatever, and he's like, bro, I'm trying to do well. And I'm like, where are you going to be in five years? and you just couldn't answer the question

it was a bad answer that he gave me I said it's a bad answer so you need to know you need to really know it needs to be in detail and that's who I was I knew in detail

how I was going to live you know what car I was going to drive you know what life I was going to live how that I'd be functional I would be my higher self you know

and it's all just things that like I've just spent time designing so when it does drop into play I'm like, yeah, I always believed that that's what was going to happen, you know. Speaking of opportunities, you don't do that many collabs. No. Why, TD?

TD is this guy that was sat in his mum's house in his bedroom, at his computer desk, at the exact same stage where I was when I had five mixtapes that no one gave a shit about. right and that's not to say that like nobody give a shit about what he was doing at that time but i related to his situation you know i mean he's he's he's about to transcend and he's from sherfield sheffield it's the north and people saying up to me king of the north or whatever like it's that journey of there was a snobbery in london for anybody outside of london coming into the industry and breaking bread and someone had to kick that door off because that's not fair right and so for me TD was a direct representative of the guys of the people I was representing

you know and I seen and by the way like he'd done the work do you know I mean and he'd he'd made a beat and he'd like call me out and enough people used to get uh his fans to tag the person he wanted to do lyrics over an existing beat yeah in the car he was like tag bugs him alone in the comments or whatever. So I just respected that work because, you know, by the time I got on firing a booth with Charlie Slough, I'd done the work to be there. I was five mixtapes in, five years in, and however many freestyles, so I deserved my opportunity, you know, so by the time TD had done the work, and I heard the beat, I was like,

oh, right? And I seen his energy. I just leaned into it because I thought, you're the exact type of. individual that like I relate to you've been sat at that desk in your mum's house in your bedroom for years you fallout four blue chair yeah yeah yeah and you've been doing the work and you've you've had them moments where no one believes in you and you're starting to stroll to believe in yourself so I just relate you know so I leaned into it and then I'd done the track and then I went to the mum's house

you know what I'm saying and just like went and I'd have chat to him and looked him in his eyes and you know just had that moment that allows him to feel that flipping it actually I'm enough you know what I'm saying it's funny that it comes back to that

you know we're giving ourselves I think everybody is trying to find a good enough reason externally to believe that they are enough internally It's like I just want to know that I'm enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All of us, that's like the human condition in it. I think that's the thing that we all struggle with.

I definitely did and do at some point. I think when I get into new territory, I still suffer with doubting myself. Yeah, and I think that's the challenge of climbing to the next level. I think it's interesting with authenticity and what it means to remain authentic when that treadmill of fame switches on. Authenticity is an interesting challenge when you're living in a different universe

to where you started, keeping perspective about what that was, keeping your eye on the ball, not getting distracted from what the main thing is, and then also not trying to continue climbing a mountain that you're already at the top of. I've already done this thing. I don't need to do that thing again. Yeah.

yeah and it's um it's evolution i always talk about like um crocodiles and they're from the dinosaur days man they're like the only creature to have evolved all the way through to like modern day you know that level of adapting to the terrain it's unheard of the t-rex has gone they're all gone um and that's how I look at any game in rap music, I'm the one that just kept evolving, evolving, adapting, evolving to the new terrain, it's snowing now or whatever it is, and diversifying. I just think it's a big deal. I think if you don't have the ability to evolve, then it's game over at some point. I think it's that simple. dude i really appreciate you i think you are a really fantastic role model for the north and a fucking fascinating human i'm so so glad that you came through today thank you i appreciate you having me on i feel like um yeah this is a moment in my career that i'm happy about you know because i'm on the other side of the camera in a situation that i've been sort of watching and

respecting yourself and respecting the types of guests that you get on. So for you to sit, hopefully I've shared something of value, you know, hopefully I've shared something of value. You absolutely have. Bugsim alone, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you.