No Jumper - Mistah F.A.B. & Adam Have an Intense, Personal Conversation

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

Legendary Mistah FAB has an in-depth conversation with Adam about his legacy in music, doing good in his community, helping the youth, being a supportive father, and more. ----- 00:00 Intro 0:05 Mistah F.A.B. on being imprinted into hip hop history, speaks on the his role in the hyphy movement and doing a commemorative tour 3:00 Mistah F.A.B. speaks on his upbringing, growing up in Oakland, and his perspective on the streets 6:20 Mistah F.A.B. tells a story about gaining a new perspective on life from a positive role model 9:20 Mistah F.A.B. explains what he means when he says, "Some people are so broke, all they have is money" and overcompensating when it comes to parenting 12:40 Mistah F.A.B. talks people hating on others for no reason and seeing the good in that sometimes 14:00 Mistah F.A.B. on his mother, speaks on her s*bstance use and losing his father to A*DS 17:30 Mistah F.A.B. on feeling like he finally became an adult when he had to say goodbye to his mother, plus battling his ****ction with lean and not sm*king weed for years 22:50 Mistah F.A.B. on NBA players coming to his basketball games when he was 15 24:40 Mistah F.A.B. on if he would be making a living illegally if he never found rap and the discipline he demonstrated when he was young 27:10 Mistah F.A.B. on participating in The Source battles, battling rappers at house parties and just loving the art of rap 29:00 Mistah F.A.B. on dropping an album every week and breaks down his love for making music 29:50 Mistah F.A.B. on owning a nightclub, a clothing store and opening up his own museum 32:30 Adam asks Mistah F.A.B. if he's a born entrepreneur and if he could see himself working a 9-5 job, Mistah F.A.B. speaks on mentoring the youth and the backlash he got for taking a picture with the police chief 35:00 Adam asks Mistah F.A.B. on how do you begin to stop the violence, says "It's all good until it comes to your doorstep" and how gang culture has infiltrated Oakland 38:50 Mistah F.A.B. on getting pulled over with a g*n with Chopper from Making The Band and says it was the luckiest day of his life 41:30 Mistah F.A.B. on if the police recognize his contribution to the community 44:00 NBA Youngboy turning over a new leaf when it comes to his content and having to explain to his daughter what a pimp is 47:00 Mistah F.A.B. on how hip-hop wants to keep you in a box and the need to allow artists to change for the better 49:30 Living in the "Opp Era" and you're not cool if you don't have opps and being blessed with not having to worry about people doing something bad to him because he's never wronged anybody 51:40 Mistah F.A.B.: "in our neighborhood, we know serial k***rs", and how it's normalized in the hood 55:10 Mistah F.A.B. on his daughter being a straight-A student, speaks highly of his daughter's mother and how social media can destroy the confidence of young people 57:45 Mistah F.A.B. on how you have to be careful with your words, how language shapes us all and how influential the story of an underdog is 1:01:00 Mistah F.A.B. on being supportive of anything his daughter does and her expressing that she wants to build something of her own 1:04:00 Mistah F.A.B. says that no little girl should be locked up for p****ion and there's no rehabilitative state for these young women that have been victimized by the system and their environment 1:07:00 Mistah F.A.B. says that child support doesn't support your child and the importance of being present in all aspects Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No Jumper. Coolest podcast on the world. And today I feel incredibly blessed to be speaking with the one and only Mr. Fab. How you doing, man? Man, it's been a while, man. I wanted to get up on here. So I'm happy to be here. Man, what's up, hey? Hey, man, I just, last night I was digging in the crates and just, like, watching all your old stuff and just really, like, doing a crazy review of just like a side of, because I'm from the East Coast. So it's like a side of hip hop history that I might not have been studying as intently as it could have been while it was going down. But it was just like a real. crazy walk through just seeing all these generations of rap that you've been creating music through. Right. Being able to stay consistent and have privy to the access of the people that I've in the proximity of those that I've had a chance to work with, work around and learn from. I've been extremely blessed. Yeah, because in New York, in 2006 or whenever, whatever year, we were like kind of becoming

aware of the Haifie movement, it was just kind of mind-blowing to us. Because New York was such a different vibe. It was like so serious. Everybody's like a fake thug or a real thud, but like, you know, everybody got a white tea and just like on some real cool laid back. And then we're just seeing on the West Coast of these guys who are just having so much fun and just taking it to a totally different level. Right, man. It's crazy that we speak on that. We're actually doing a commemorative tour, Haifa era tour, man, in May where some of the pioneers that kind of like spearheaded that movement,

keep the sneak, the team, the federation, and a few other guys, DeLo, myself, we're going to go out and go out and go. do about 15 dates, man, on the West Coast. And then during the summer, we have a couple of dates on the East Coast. Right. And so, as you said, man, to someone who may not have been intentionally watching and studying that, it may have seen a little straight. You were some of the stuff that rose above the surface to the point where the other side of the country because it's kind of like pre-internet where everybody was online where we had to take

notice and be like, what the is going on now? Right, man. It was crazy for me because even. Even as much as I participated and played a major significant role in the Haifie movement, prior to that, I played a significant role in the Lairous Lounge, like you know what I'm saying, and the wake-up show. Right. So a lot of people from the East Coast knew me from being a backpack rapper. Right.

You know, a battle rapper, backpack rapper. So it's kind of like swaying with best of both worlds, man. So I kind of feel like that's one of the reasons why I came up on a chosen few people radars on the East Coast because they was like, you know, no, son that's, no, sun can really rap, son. Yeah, you definitely had to name those ringing bells at that time on the East Coast in a way that, you know, that's kind of the criticism or like just the bucket that a lot of like up north rappers over here sort of find themselves in is that they're really popping in their city or their area, but they can't really necessarily like get attention outside of there, right?

Right, right. Regionally. Demographically, we definitely had, you know, our footprints in the sand. but when you begin to expand and expound outside of those markets, you know, some artists fail to have that full exposure. But it's all about networking and learning how to meet and shake the right hands, man, and be able to keep some air up on to yourself.

I mean, you've had such a long rap history that I feel like you probably end up doing the thing where you sort of generalize, like when you talk about your history because it's just so in-depth. And like you could tell me a 10-hour version of the first 10, 20 years of your career, or you could tell me a five-minute version, right? There's so many details

or so many ways we could go with it, but I don't know, I mean, like, maybe we'd just start in the early days of what it was like for you growing up. You were born in Oakland? For sure. Okay. Born and raised, Oakland native son.

And most people get up here and they, you know, overexaggerate their stories or they want to make it seem extra. I don't know what brownie points that you get because, you know, You talk about struggle and poverty. You know, you put extra emphasis on that.

And I think that style and that approach becomes redundant. We all go through our things. You know, we all go through our worries and our things in life. But my life was no different than anyone else that may have grew up in a, you know, inner city community pursuing his dreams, trying to find his way. Influenced by, you know, you had a multitude of influences where we came from. You were the pimps and the players, the dope boys. And then fortunately enough for us, we had successful artists.

You had the two shorts, the E40s, the MC Hammers, and people, it was like, what level you want to take it to. Right. And those are the things that I grew up, you know, playing basketball and rap. And we enjoyed it, man. It was, you know, equitimately good in both. But to be able to pursue this music career, man, it was just a journey. And all of these years later, I'm happy to still be here, still being able to say I can reap the benefits of great farm work that I did early in my stages of my career. Yeah, it's crazy because, I mean, your perspective on.

the streets must have changed a lot because you've gone all the way from, you know, you're talking about just being a kid in that environment and now I know you're doing the community activist thing and like trying to really make changes in the community and stuff. What was your perspective on what was all going around you when you were a kid? I'm sure everything just kind of seemed normal at that time, right? It's unfortunately, but you normalize atrocities. You normalize the things that have plagued several communities that we come from. We begin to normalize those things and we don't understand.

the impact that it has to us mentally. I talk about an impoverished mindset. Even once one ranks raises and rises out of the ranks of poverty, if your mindset is still there, no matter how much money you have, you're still poor. Some people are so poor, all they have is money. And those things are things that are, it's like hereditary. That's what's passed on.

And it's a cold situation, because systematically these things have been engineered to continue to produce what it produces. Moving forward, I thought everybody mom was on drugs. I thought everybody dad was in jail. I thought everybody, you know, because in my neighborhood and in my apartments, all of my friends had the same situation, you know.

But there's a crazy story, man. You got the highways in my city. You got 580 and you got 880. And above 880 you have Highway 13. And Highway 13, there's a city. It's two cities. It's Montclair and it's Pemont. And they're still Oakland, but they're like the Beverly Hills of Oakland.

Okay. When I was young, I had a friend who played for the Golden State Warriors. His name was Daniel Marshall. And this guy stayed on the other side of Highway 13. And he and my mom met. My mom ran a club, an adult club, of course. But, you know, if you read between the lines, you get what I'm saying. That all the players and all the ballers and stuff used to come to after hours and things like that.

And my mom would tell him, you know, I'm struggling, mother. I'm doing what I'm doing the best what I can to raise this son of mine. And, you know, we just don't have any positive male role models, man. If you have any room in your life, man, you know, pick up a little brother or come just show him a different lifestyle. And he agreed. he was like, man, I got a little brother your son's age and he come stay with me for the summer so I'll come get your son.

And that one summer that he came to get me, man, changed my whole life. I hear stuff similar to this all the time in these interviews, like a young kid from the hood who gets a perspective on what is out there in the world and it changes them forever. It broke the monotony of normal for what I viewed was normal.

Here it is a young dude who just graduated from college. He's drafted in the NBA. he's coming to get this dude from the projects. From the initial pull-up, I was like, bro, that's the bins. I just seen, you know, you're black, you're not a criminal, you ain't sell drugs to get it. You pull it up in the bins and the projects?

Then my block, 45th in market, to get to his house is literally 11 minutes. But in that 11 minutes, your world changes life changes and so going to his house that summer as I you know in the aforementioned

my normal changed now and I seen it was possible I seen the possibility to do something successful on a positive side and that's where I set out my journey to you know to break the monotony of what had been happening in my neighborhood so what's that look like for you as a really young kid because that's the

frustrating thing about being a little kid is that you are powerless to change your own settings of your life, you know? But you can plant seeds. Yeah. And I think that farmer work was implemented in my mind, and it was for me to inoculate the process by trusting your purpose. And I felt like this is what I'm meant to do. And I have to trust this.

I have to, no matter how tiring, strenuous and more so. This is what I want to do, and you got to stay on it. I want to go back to something you said earlier when you said some people are so poor that all they have is money. For sure. Is that your experience? Because I definitely feel like I see a lot of truth in that in the sense that when you're broke, you end up forming these communities of people who can help each other because you need all the help that you can get. Whereas once you get rich, I mean, especially in L.A. is a great example of it. What do you do?

You move away. You live behind a gate. You might know a couple of your neighbors. but you're not really, it's not really a community in the sense that when you're broke, I mean, you're pretty tapped into the lives of the people who live all around you because you live in very close quarters. But as you've gotten older and you got money, is that something that you almost need to, like, fight against?

The weird thing about it is when we grow up in those situations, the minute that we get money, we want to overcompensate. We spoke on parenting prior to this interview. with my daughter, I overcompensated everything. Just because I wanted to prove to myself that she wouldn't have the struggles that I had or that she wouldn't have to go through what I went through. So you have a four-year-old with a her mask bag

and spending $7,500,000 for her to put crayons in it. Oh, my God. Yeah. But that's the poor mindset that I talked about. No matter how much money you got, you still poor, because look how you thinking. And who are you doing this for? And what are you doing it for? So we begin to overcompensate for our lack of previously.

And until you're able to break out of that level of thinking, that trained, redundant thought process, then you'll continue to make the same mistakes. So when I say that you have rich people that are still poor, their ethics are poor, their mindset is poor, Their spirit is poor, and it's all what poverty produces. So in changing that narrative, one must live from, for when you have to come from it. And you have to understand and recognize what you've done.

A process that I like to call, you have to reveal to heal. I can't talk about your wrongdoings without admitting mine. So in that, once I reveal that, then that's when I can start the rehabilitation process. And that's what life is all about. There's a rapper from Detroit named PZ, and he has this one bar where he just says, even when I didn't have no money, I was still rich. For sure. It's not exactly the most complicated lyric or anything, but that shit always hits me when I hear it.

Because when I think about my younger days, when I was in my early 20s or whatever, I might not have known it. I might have in my head been struggling and fighting and thinking that if I didn't make something out of myself, then I was going to be a failure. But the emotional connection that I had with the people that I was around at that time and how passionate I was about what I was doing with my life, I was rich at that time in a way that sometimes now with fame and sort of like isolating myself away from like even going out in public and stuff,

it just becomes a lot harder. You ever had someone hate on you and in your mind you're like, you hate on me for no reason? Like, you're like, I don't even got nothing and you hating on me. they have an ability to see in you what sometimes we don't see in ourselves. My grandmother would always say that. She said, baby, your haters have a vision.

She said, they have a vision that sometimes you may not be able to see, but sometimes those haters are good because they can tell you things about yourself. There's truth in everything in life. You know what I mean? Even if it's along the lines, the playing fields.

Even a lie has some kind of truth in it somewhere because they had to make it seem like, you know, to believe it themselves. sales. So when you look at that, you're like, sometimes you were rich and you didn't even know it. And you was wondering why they was putting up these blocks because they knew that if you ever recognized it, then you'd be uncontrollable. It'll be tough to hold a person like you.

So I've always been rich, like you say, I've always been rich my whole life because I was enriched with love. I was enriched with morals. Right. And I carry those with me today. And it was hard for you to make it up about that situation. than think about the people who like really genuinely don't know what love is and their parents don't give them anything to really like base a sense of self on.

Exactly. I mean, that's an even even greater challenge. I give a big credit to my mother. Bless her soul. But this is a woman that through all the tumultuous times, she still dedicated her life to loving me and giving me an opportunity and being an advocate for me breaking the change. and not repeating the generational curse that has stagnated my family's progression.

What was it like watching your mother's struggle with drugs, and how consistent was that throughout your life? In the emphasis stages, it was very consistent. I think the breaking point was the recognition of me realizing that she had stole something from me. I was a young guy, probably about eight or nine years old. And I brought it to the four. and she was devastated, not devastated about the drug use.

She was just devastated that her addiction overrode her love for her child. Drop me off in my grandmother house and I didn't see her for about six months, six, seven months. And when I see it, my mom never used drugs again. You know, I'd never seen her use drugs again. But that was the plight to get her life back together. And it was a struggle. It was a struggle. A single mother.

My father was in and out of the federal penitentiary, and then my father died from AIDS. He was addicted to heroin syringe. What year? 94. My dad died. You were born in 82, right? 82. Yeah.

So my mom was, you know, my mom was struggling, man. My mom was struggling just. Tupac has a song, man. I'm looking at this book right here, seeing Tupac. Great book, by the way. Changes. I love Pock. You know, Pock was a.

are black Jesus. But Pock has a song called, and it's not really a very popular song by him, not like a lot of people know it, but he had a song called, Mom was just a little girl. And if I would have to describe my mom, that's who that was.

My mom was just a little girl. She was my superwoman, but life be lifen. And you see that kryptonite when it happens, you know, and poverty was our kryptonite, but she still was superwoman to the best if she could.

And she did a hell of a job. She did a hell of a job, man. I'm talking about, man, she was working with the scraps that was given. Like, you know what I'm saying? Every day she made Thanksgiving. I ain't just talking about, like, every day, man, three, four jobs, man, doing what she did. And the blessing that I can live with, man, you know, she got a chance to see me live some of my dreams. She got a chance to, I was able to do some of the things that I told her that I would do.

And for the last few years of her life, while fighting cancer, I took care of her. She never had to work. She never had to worry about anything. She didn't have any struggles for anything. And although that was short-lived in my mind, that's what keeps me going. I mean, that's like the inversion of her taking care of you as a baby. Being able to play that role in your mom's life, that must have been impactful. Once an adult, a baby twice.

That's life. You know, those are a proverb, an African proverb. Once a baby, twice. I mean, once an adult, twice a baby. When you're born and when you get older, you're going to have those infant-like type. things and you have to you know the blessing is to take care of our parents unfortunately in the communities that we come from our parents bury their children it should be an opposite and you know that's what we're working on how did you change as a person once you had to say bye to your

mom finally i finally became an adult it really felt like that yeah most definitely when you have crutches and cushions in your life you don't know what adulthood is and what i mean my crutches and cushions is i always have a crutch because my mother was always going to be my crutch no matter what I'm talking about if I'd be like, mom, these dudes just shot at me. She's getting in the car with the gun. Come on, let's go. Like, that's how she, it's right. When you say ride or die, it was nothing.

I never have a friend like her. Wow. Like, it was, it was that kind of like, my, huh, man, put this $50,000 up. I could put that money up and I know that nothing is going to get spent. If anything, when I come back, it's going to be more, but it'll never be less. Like, this was my dog. Me and my mother grew up together. She was young when she had me.

So my mother was like my sister. was like, you know, this is my best friend. So that was always my crutch, and that was always my cushion. If I fell, I could land on her. She'd sacrifice her body for me to fall to patent my fall. Once that was removed, I no longer have a crutch or a cushion, and I got to deal with life head on. So I talk about my mother's addictions, but as I said,

I can't talk about hers without revealing mine, me being addicted to syrup, addicted to weed, over-sexualized, you know, and things of that nature. Those were the addictions that I was fighting. A syrup addiction where you, we got a brick a day. Me and my brother G. Field, no capy. A brick is how many pints? Like 16.

And you are drinking how many? Daily. Me and him, easy. That's nothing. You were drinking eight pints each? Easy. What? Easy. This is, asks anybody in our hood.

We serve boys, bow boys for real. Like I'm talking about whole hood. hood and I had the access to it. Right. My mama worked in the hospitals. Now even the rich dudes are pouring up a deuce and it's like, it gets so expensive. Yeah, but it's so expensive now. Back then, you could get a brick for $50.

Right. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, you could get a, and this was serious. Like, Serb was serious. And, but those were the addictions that we were struggling with. We were struggling with, and we didn't know we was addicted. We didn't look at it as an addiction. We're like, bro, we just sip and serve.

It's casually past times. What year or when in your life did you start drinking lean like that? 04? Okay. 04? 05, 04? And what were the circumstances by which you had to basically quit? Because it always gets bad at some point for everybody.

Not necessarily for me. Really? It's recognition. Like, I've all, I've had a gift of cold turkey. Really? Meaning, and it's, sometimes it's difficult. It's a stern decision-making, but like I can be like, I'm stubborn. So I could be like, oh, I ain't rocking with them no more.

And I'll never talk to you again. Like I'm saying, in my older age, I'm learning to be more forgiving and more understanding and, you know, not so naive to my own perception. But I'd be like, I don't want to smoke weed no more. And then I'll just stop. I haven't smoked weed in years. but it just came off a day where I was just like, I'm cool. Nothing tragic, nothing happened where I was like, oh, I was in a coma and I passed out,

like, nothing like that. I just was like, I'm cool. I don't want to do this anymore. That's pretty impressive. Man, all glory go to God for my story. Yeah, definitely. So, okay, when you're talking about planting seeds of your rap career, when you didn't really have any kind of resources, what did that look like?

Most people just rap for money. Most people are always in search of an opportunity that has a monetary rainbow at the end of it. Me, it was just more so rainy days, cold days, night days, hot days, whatever. It's just about pursuing my dream. Writing, writing, writing, writing, going after it. Open mics, house parties. I just want to get heard.

I just want to be seen. And you knock at a door a long time. Somebody going to eventually open it. and if they don't you'll sneak through a window you'll find a way in and in my mind knowing that this is what I want to do and not plan B was plan A was going to work aggressively going after it with passion to be determined about this is where I'm going I'm claiming it and that's all I did I claimed it like I'm one of them dudes like I never sold crack I never did I never did did none of that. I wanted to be a rapper.

Folks get on here and they get the line about their childhood and all stuff like that. Like, oh, yeah, I was, I was little meatch in the hood. I was, you know, I was this, I was that. Yeah, my whole hood, no. Niggas know what's up with me. Like, yeah, we know. And you used to go to the store for niggas. Like, stop lying.

Like, I was a rapper. I was the artist in my hood. Like, I was the dude like, man, bro, the O geez, I would walk up on the block. They'd be like, spit something, Stan, let me hear you. You were good enough that the, community started to recognize you very early. For sure. For sure, because we was already popular for being

the cool kids. Like I was a you got to think, bro, at 14, 15 years old, I got NBA players coming to my basketball games. Like I got, you what I'm saying? You got folks coming to the games. They like, now give it, the Warriors were trash, so they had time on their hands.

But you got like, yo, the way dude play for the Warriors. Like, he just was at Yukon. He had the game. I'm getting dropped off of school and Benz's and like different type of stuff so I was getting a chance to I was a cool kid right I was like I said my mom my mom did whatever she had to do to make sure she was like man if I if it was at one point in my life where I gave a dope man on my money I'm gonna get my son everything so I was a kid that was ghetto spoiled and what I mean by that is if you didn't know me you

would think that we came from a good life you think we came from that middle class but shit, we was a check away from being... Your mom made it look really good. It looked great. A lot of people are good at making it look better than it really is. Like, it was great. Like, it was, it was Jordan's. It was everything.

It was, you know what I'm saying? Everything. It was everything. It was like, you know, every, whatever. Whatever was popular that kids had, the Tommy Hill figure, Hellie Hansen, well, all the fly stuff. Like me and my males were talking about when he was here. Your man's...

Jason. Me and Jason was talking about. He ran a store back in the day that sold like all the East Coast gear that you couldn't get nowhere else. DeMaris Malones and the Helly Hanses and I was there every week. Right. Like, you know what I'm saying? So, I was that kid. So I was embraced by my neighbor because I was like, man, that's, that's fly because, like, do we always, you feel me?

Do you think that if it wasn't for rap, do you think you would have found a legal creative output or do you think you would have been getting into the streets if it was? Illegal for sure. Yeah. Because I come from it. What other opportunities are there, really? I'm from Oakland. Like, really from it, really, really embraced, really born, and Daddy really was what he was. Moms really was what she was.

Like, you know what I'm saying? I'm real. Success was in the equation, whether it's from a positive success or a negative. But who I am was inevitable based off who I come from. It's in me. Like, you know what I'm saying? It's in me. So, yeah, it, it.

my dedication would have been to something illegal. Because I ain't had a dedication to get up four in the morning running laps and exercising for hoop. Like once you got, you know what I'm saying? Or baseball, like, all my coaches was mad at me. Like, my man, like, what's up? You don't want to go to school? I'm like, man, come on. Yeah, because now as an older person, I look at young dudes who fuck up their athletics career or whatever.

And I'm just like, oh, how could you not just grind and go to practice and train and stuff? But when you're young, that desire to just be yourself, to be independent, is so strong. And then as adults, we look at it as like, oh, you couldn't make $10 million for playing ball this year. You need to shut down everything else in your life and just focus on that opportunity. But when you're a kid, you think that opportunity is going to last forever. Yeah, it's tough, man. And you're dealing with what you're dealing with, you know, coming up. You're going home to the projects every day.

You're going home, you know what I'm saying? Family on drugs. You're sitting all your peers and your young homies. You're like, man, you think is getting money. Like the discipline that I distributed and demonstrated when I was young, it was paramount. Because Cass was really getting money in that era. Young dudes, young dudes pulling up to school. Like, it was a dude named, his name was Crittybow.

He was from this place called Ghost Town. Like, this was a young dude 15 years old pulling up with stacks of money at high school. Like, just, he was bawling and everybody wanted to be like, everybody was like, And this snick rich. Like, he was good. That'll motivate a lot of people that do some shit. We're going to school like, it's like our age. Like what?

Like, he got all the nice, the cars, all the girls love him. Right. Then you're seeing the old school dope, you know, the old school dope boys pulling up, knocking all the little, the young girls getting the, you know what I'm saying? Like, you're like, man, I got to sell drugs. I want to sell dope in my community. Yeah. But, you know, staying dedicated and discipline, man, I was able to say, man, I did it

my way and I'm happy the way it turned out. Right, 100%. So, okay, we got to like at least touch on like, were you immediately attracted to the battle rap or that side of things versus the, like, because I feel like I came to know of you from the Haifie movement and everything around that time, but like how long was this career and what was that like before that? Before and then, it was like, you know, the source would have the source battles where they would go to different cities and they would hold like source battles. And if you won the battle, you get an article and you get an article in the source magazine and stuff like that. Now, I didn't win.

When I went, I was like 17, they did a battle. But they liked me so much. They still put me in the source. Like, as a, and it was battle rap. Who won? I think just because won, T-Pup and Locksmith, like me and Locke come in the game together, Locke was, Locksmith is like a world-renowned battle rapper.

He's one of the greatest lyricists ever. He's like, I can't be that good. Like, he's that dope. You know what I'm saying? But I got in there from battling, and, like, I would always battle at, like, the house parties. It would be, like, I was the rapper from my hood, from North Oakland, and we would go other spots,

and we would just, it would be rapping, freestyleing. And that competition was always something that I was always, you know, I was enthused to do. And I loved the, I loved the competitive art of that, of battle rap, got into it, doing all that. Before the Haifie movement, we were doing battles everywhere. But you were already looking beyond it as well where you wanted to be like a real rapper? I just love the art, bro.

Like even today, bro, even at 40 years old, bro, like my life is not, it's like, I drop an album every week. When I was listening to your most recent project, I was like, this is not a dude who's just in cruise control. Right. I'm like, I drop an album every week. Like every other week I'm dropping an album because I love it. It's not like, oh yeah, we're streaming hundreds of thousands of streams. And I probably spend more money making music than I do making money off music. But I love it.

I love the art. I love being able to go in the studio, go create. I'm, you know, I love writing records for people. I love writing a record, like calling somebody like, yo, listen to this. Huh, go record it. Like, I love doing stuff. I love this art. I really love making music, bro.

So to me, it ain't about the money and won. I made some great business decisions. You know what I'm saying? I did some good things, man. So financially, I made a bunch of good decisions outside of rap. Yeah, like I own a nightclub. I own a museum. I own a clothing store.

I own nail shops. Like, you know what I'm saying? What is in the museum? It's, so there was a spot that existed before called the 90s experience. And the 90s experience was a place that it was like all exhibits that would, It would just rekindle the 90s. It would have a Simpsons exhibit. It would have the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

It would have, it's just a whole little, like a selfie museum where the people would go in there and take pictures and just relive those moments. So I bought that spot and I turned it into the Dope Air Museum. So I kind of like redesign, remodel things with things that were more so closer to our culture. And so the Dope Air experience, it's an experience now, but it's a museum at home where I've made it an edge. It's a detainment canvas where you'll go in and there's an exhibit about the Black Panthers teaching about Huey. There's an exhibit about two short, MC Hammer, you know what I'm saying? From the music side, there's an exhibit of, you know, and in it there's just exhibits that just

give you, you know, cultural references and teaching in a history point of view. And that's, you know, that's the museum. My clothing store, the dope era, we've been thriving for several years, man. We have one of the biggest retail stores in Oakland, California, man. And we only sell our clothing. We only sell dope era. So to be able to survive the pandemic and what the economy has done over these past few years to still be standing tall, that's a credit to what we've been doing. My team is an amazing support cast.

Yeah, running that many businesses, it must take a big-ass team. Yeah, for sure. I mean, not as many as you would think it would. Really? But. I just imagine a nightclub being like the ultimate nightmare. thing to run. Oh, it's crazy. This must be so many problems.

It's a headache. People go there to get blackout drunk. It's a headache, bro. And I was just like, God damn. Like, what do? The pipe busted? And, yeah. What the toilet is flat? What are we doing? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like,

don't let nobody use the bathroom, man. You can't let nobody not use the bathroom at the club. Like, what are we doing? So, you know, but that's what the boss is, man. You know, everybody wants to be the boss until you realize the boss eats less. Right. you know, until you realize that the boss is responsible for everything.

You're really the guy I needed to talk to right now. You know, that's what life is about. You realize that, and sometimes we were agitated and aggravated, but this is something that we yearned for. This is something that we asked for. And now we have to act accordingly to what has been blessed with us. For every gift, there is a curse that comes with it. Are you a born entrepreneur?

Do you think you could ever step away from all these businesses and just be a guy with a nine to five? Or is that just not who you are? I never had a job in my life. Right. Well, not a nine to five, but, you know, just have like a sort of basic way of making money that's maybe not going to make you a ton of money. Whereas you have all these businesses and I'm sure that there's ups and downs all the time. But you ultimately are the guy guiding the ship. You don't got to answer to anybody, right?

Not at all. Never have. The cops, I guess. Not even them. I'm working with, you know, community restorative justice programs to be able to do. deal with, you know, judicial systems to talk to our kids and mentor our youth. People always make a bad thing about local governing and what we tell people all the time. Listen, bro, imagine if we were able to elect who we would want as our belief chiefs and all of these things,

then we can kind of like control our neighborhood a little bit more. If that's what it's all about. But unless you want to continue to keep pushing the poison, keep doing your thing. My main thing is, dude, let me, I'd rather get pulled over by somebody I know than get pulled over by this dude that's got fired off the force. Montgomery, Alabama, and his punishment was to come to Oakland, California. And, you know what I mean? Nah, man, we got to be able to sit down and talk to our city council members or, you know,

our police chiefs, our judges, our lawyers so we can say, let's get a grip on what's going on in our communities. Right. And make a difference. Like, you know what I'm saying? Let's make a difference. I saw an interview clip where you were having to, like, defend taking a photo with the police chief.

And I'm like, this dude is so obviously at a very different point in your life and career where a cop doesn't seem like a threat. If anything, he's somebody you want to work with to make the city better, right? I don't do any crime. I'm not a criminal. I don't do crime. I'm a businessman. I own several businesses. I'm a community activist. I'm a philanthropist. And my community, my sole purpose at this age of my life is what can I do to better my community? What can I do to let these children see that they don't just have to succumb to the poisons that have been available to to us for generations. I'm going to encourage that young dude, young dude, go be a lawyer, go be a doctor,

go be a police officer. Like, oh, you tell a man, be the ops. Be the ops. What's the ops? Another black person killing a black person? What's the ops? We sell them more drugs and destroying our own communities. Or this young dude rising above the ranks going to get a job that pay $200,000, $300,000 a

year. And he's able to protect this community. He's able to say, man, we're not pulling them over. We're not arresting him. I know him. That's my friend daughter. We're not going to go after. We're going to protect our community because we come from this community.

We got victims, victimizing victims. So how do you stop the violence? I know this conversation is not going to be long enough for us to really get into that. But obviously, this weighs on you because I've seen clips of you on the news and talking about how you need to reduce the murder rate in Oakland and everything. But how do you even begin to address that? You'll never stop the violence. violence is a part of life. With life, there's death, with, you know, with good, there's bad.

There'll always be violence. There'll always be negativity. They'll always, but how can we tip the scale to where we're doing more good than bad? That's when opportunities have to be created. That's when we have to enrich those that are still being impoverished mentally. When we have to change the narratives, when the cool, stops going from, oh, my cousin is cool because he's been in jail 10 years. Oh, free my brother.

Like, free your brother, but your brother did three murders. Like, this who we yelling free about? This is what we own? But then a person like me, oh, you looked at, oh, you're a square-ass, nigger, man. You ain't representing for the hood. You ain't. Why, bro?

Because I'm trying to change the narrative of what we got going on in our communities, bro. How long are we going to keep pushing the poison, bro? It's all good. till it come to your doorstep. It's all good until your mama get killed. It's all good until your daughter start honing for this young dude. Like, you know, all of the things that plagued our community and poisons is everything that we all

promote. We all get up here and we promote it and we promote it so much that it becomes interested. Now we get folks from somewhere that's never been, they've never been involved in nothing in the streets. Now they're dying to get a part of that. Me and every rap fan I know know way too much about Chicago gang politics. And even if we didn't watch the YouTube videos, we would already know a shitload about it from the music. Like, bro, we listen to it.

It'd be like, bro, the internet has made the world one city. So now you got people who have never visited places using that city's lingo. That city's lingo. They're using that city's culture. They're dressed out. Like, the whole world calls ops. Like, bro, that's Chicago. Like, what are you talking about?

we've all influenced. Oakland has never had bloods and crips. But if a person tell you that there's no gangs in Oakland, they're lying. Gang culture has infiltrated Oakland and it is insane. So these are the things that we got to say, man, we have to create opportunity. And when I say we, I mean the influencers. I mean the people that these kids look up to. I mean, the people that are going to go put themselves in position, the wealthy, the successful, the voices.

And we have to go out and speak. Not I'm saying, I'm not talking bad about misguided youth. I'm saying how can we guide them? I'm not talking bad about those that have made mistakes. I'm saying how can those mistakes be forgiven and once forgiven, giving them a second chance? Everybody that's locked up in jail is not a criminal or not a bad person. they may have just made a mistake they may have just made a bad decision

you have a lot of good people that have made bad decisions that doesn't make them a bad person just like on the flip tide of the narrative there are a lot of people that made good decisions and they may be rotten scum of the earth type individuals but just had great decision making people tend to underestimate the importance of luck

for sure how many times in your life not to put any kind of judgment on you but how many times have you driven under the the influence where you didn't get caught? I got a crazy story. For me, it's a shitload. And that has very much determined the fate of my life, right? Like, if I had got caught

once or twice, I could have dealt with shit that probably could have ruined my whole life. Remember Chapa from making the band? Remember City, Chapa? Yes. Me and Chapa, Chapa came to the Bay to come stay in the Bay for a long time, and it was like, my little

bro. His birthday is January 22nd, mine is January 23rd. he's riding with me I'm talking about blitzed loaded drunk drunk loaded we're driving through

what would be Brentwood out here the nicest part of town where the police don't play when DWB driving while black we're driving through Alameda got it bro

we get pulled over I got the hammer right on like the side of my I got hammer on me right the police officer says get out the car now mind you we young I'm young dude I get up bro and the hammer falls

I'm talking about if it falls right between the thing and doesn't make a sound but if he opens the door, it falls out. It falls out. I'm either shot or I'm, you feel me? It's a pistol case. Right.

So when you say luck, man, till this day, that may have been one of the luckiest moments of my life that that gun didn't fall on that street when that police officer opened that door. And I was loaded as hell. But when I gave my ID, he's like, oh, it's your birthday. I'm like, bro, I stay right there, bro.

I drunk tonight. I did. I'm not going to lie to you. But I stay right there. and it just so happened that he knew who I was, man. He was just like, man, dry safe, man, be careful. And that shit was the luckiest day of my life. Wow, that's crazy.

Because my dad told me that back in the day, you would get pulled over for drunk driving, and it wasn't that big a deal, and they would, like, kind of let you go, like a lot. Whereas I feel like that almost never happens now. Not at all. They're looking for any reason to get us, man, for sure. Any drugs in the car?

License probate, they asked you, oh, kind of shit, man, license, bro. Anybody on probation? Like, man, what? watch out man but so at this point you feel like you've turned that corner and you're generally just accepted as an

entrepreneur and everything in your community and do you feel like you're the police fully like recognize your contribution? I think some of them do I'll work in the community and I tell people this I don't have a stain with selling out my community I've sat down

in city council meetings and I've always been on the side of the people right but I'm also aware that they got a job to do. We're not here to help y'all stop crime and as far as be crime stoppers and help people. We're here to say, man, we want people to have

a fair shot and a fair chance. And we represent fairness. MLK and a 60 said, you know, injustice to one is an injustice to all. And so we must stand firm on what we believe in for our people. Say, man, this was what we're doing. So when I see these officers, man,

I respect them for what they do. Man, y'all, police officers, do your police work. You know what I'm saying? Do your job. This is what we're doing in the community. We're trying to restore the community. We're trying to rebuild. If you go against that, then we got a problem.

But if y'all doing your job, we're doing our job, let's keep making this place a better place to be. Right. Like, you know what I'm saying? Because that's all we want to do. I just, like I say, my mission that I've taken upon the responsibility of is to change the mindset of the youth, not just in my city, but anyone that notices it, anyone that is viewing it, anyone that is watching this interview right now, this is where we

supposed to be at. We're supposed to be to the artists that have had a substantial amount of time in the rap game. As you get older, let's stop chasing the trends trying to, with the young guys, let them do young, and be embracive, be the OG, be the big homie, you know, show love. But we should be working on the second. end of our careers. And the second end is more so about taking our influence and opening up a school or opening up some other things in life that help the community, man. Open up a barbershop, opening up businesses, employing people. We should be worrying about utilizing our influence

to, you know, put influence in our city council's positions, our local governing. These are the things that we should be working at at our second wins of our careers, man. You know what I'm saying? and for some people's benefit on their behalf, some people just not interested in that. Right. Some people just don't give a fuck about nothing but money. I wanted to get your thoughts on this on that topic. So NBA Young Boy,

one of the biggest, most influential street rappers right now, and throughout his career has had, like, extremely violent content has been, you know, picked up on all kinds of gun charges, whatever. He's still young, and he's coming out and basically saying, I'm not rapping about this shit anymore. And, like, really, it's kind of weird to see, somebody it's weird but it's also kind of amazing to see somebody who's so young so popular and really deciding to sort of it seems like he's really dealing with the ramifications of how

how violent his music has been and he seems like he really wants to make a change now I'm open to the possibility that this you know a lot of rappers claim they're going to make a change in their lyrical content and then doesn't really stick but that has been pretty amazing to see especially with somebody like him where his ops are other famous rappers and he could have the Vegas records of his career if he were to make bloodthirsty records going in on them. And it would appear that he's actually got to the point even being young where he realizes that this is not the contribution that he wants to have to society. What do you think of that?

I think things begin to weigh on your soul. You begin to, I can't speak on an NBA young boy. I've never met him. But I commend him. I commend him for even an hour. the fact that there is needed change. I talk about it in my music when I said, I had a child

and everything is fine and dandy until your children begin to ask you about your content. And you realize that they're listening and you begin to think about all the other children that are listening and how you can wrongfully steer someone down a road that even you yourself may not be going. Or you yourself have come from

and you have no plans to return. I was shocked when my daughter asked me, Daddy, what's a pimp? My first album was called Son of a Pimp. And I put a picture of my father on the cover. And when your daughter gets old enough to read and she says, what's a pimp? And you have to explain to a five-year-old

or a six-year-old what a pimp is. How do you even begin to approach that? And then the attachment is, I'm describing who your grandfather was. And do you go, do you put a friendly face on it? Do you make it sound like it's all good? Or do you hit her with some hard reality? You'd be honest.

But to a five-year-old, they're not ready for full honesty, right? When you get older, she gets older, and then you take her down the street and you let her see what it is. You know, you see this is what it is. And that's when it clicks in your mind. I got to be more conscious about what I'm doing. every time I hear a rap song around my kid where they say something about you know bitches and women

there's a defining line some women are deserving of respect and some aren't and I just think of like how on earth could I possibly explain that to her right and you know parenting does that you know as I said I commend and be a young boy and I commend any other artists but one thing that I want to tell the fans

we have to allow the space for these young men and these young women to change to grow hip hop wants to keep you in an age group and they want to keep you into a a to-do list

and when you have done that they add you on the not to do list oh you can't grow oh you can't get into politics or you can't talk about change oh you can't spread love oh no you're not cool now

nah we have to give room and space to allow artists to do so because hey man if Malcolm would have died at a certain age we'd only know him for Detroit Red we only know him for fast talking con artist if Maya Angelou would have died

we wouldn't have known her as doctor Maya Angelo she would have been known as a dancer and whatever else she was doing to survive to get by in her life who are we to control when someone changes and when someone evolves Minister Farrakhan says who are you to condemn someone that may

eventually grow and be a better person than you. But you can't stop them in their growth and stop them in their tracks due to your judgment. And that's what we have to learn to stop doing, man. From media to artists and fans and all of that stuff and give somebody room to grow, man, instead of just giving them room to hang themselves. People would rather give you a rope to hang yourself than a rope to pull yourself out of what you've gotten yourself into. It's a problem of incentives too because you talk to like,

Any young rapper who sort of like comes up talking shit, dissing people, talking about violence, having guns in the video, whatever, they get a fan base in some ways based on that. And then inevitably, well, not inevitably, but a lot of them get to the point in their career where they want to pivot out of that and they want to make fun music or they want to make heartfelt music. And a lot of times the dudes who are really truly talented and really truly have a connection with their audience, a lot of times can do this pivot. A lot of guys aren't necessarily talented. and then you end up looking at their stuff and being like, this is kind of sad because I see the way you're just sort of filling in the boxes because you're so incentivized

to make songs where you talk shit about dead people or whatever it may be. I grew up in a dope era. We're living in an op era now. This is the op era. You're not cool if you don't have ops. You're not cool if you're not beefing with somebody. You're not cool if somebody don't want to kill you.

You're not cool if you, You know what I'm saying? If your music ain't about murder, murder, drive-bys, getting high, it's like, this is the op era. And it's cold, man, because what happens when that dude wants to go outside or take his daughter to the amusement part? Ride through his neighborhood. The beauty with me, man, bro, that I'm so thankful for in life is I could go to. the high school basketball game with me and my daughter

and not worry about that somebody gonna do something to me because I know I ain't wrong nobody I know I ain't hurt nobody I haven't even third party hurt nobody and what that mean is done gave something to somebody to do something I ain't put no, drop no bags on nobody's heads

I ain't did none of that I ain't you feel me I ain't I ain't wrong nobody I ain't lied on nobody I ain't told on nobody. I ain't did none of that. You know what I mean? So I'm able to go to the grocery store. I'm able to be at my clothing store every day. I'm able to be at my nightclub.

I'm able to go live where I'm at and not worry if somebody looking at me to catch me slipping. Now, I also know that I'm still in the jungle, so I always be mindful of that. I'm not going to be naive to my demographics and what we come up against in the life that we live. But I know I ain't wrong, nobody, bro. It's a lot of these folks who know they have intentionally wronged people and did people scurriless.

And they know it's going to come back one day sooner or later. So that'd be the tough day, man, when you see these doing like, damn, but you can't even go to the stove by yourself. Right. I mean, I was reading about, like, when they did the Brittany Granner prisoner swap with this, like, arms dealer who, you know, basically, I was reading about what this guy's life was like. And they based the movie, a god of war on him, I guess. And this dude's life, his way of making a living was to go to the most war-torn parts of the world. Doesn't give a shit. Has no skin in the game in terms of who he's going to sell weapons to.

But he's supplying, like, incredibly dangerous weapons to, and a lot of times the poorest, most fucked up countries, etc., like just supplying them with whatever it may be, guns, machetes, whatever it is. this guy has blood on his hands in a way that no rapper does. Like, you know, this is a very direct connection where he's fueling this kind of thing. And I was just thinking, like, I generally feel good about how I make a living. Come in, do some content, a couple hundred thousand people watch it. You make some money.

I mean, there's not much to feel bad about there, right? I was just thinking about that. Like, that's a different type of person who can cause that much evil in the world for money and apparently can just lay his head down and sleep well

Hey man you'll be surprised by it like in our neighborhoods now they may not have that much blood but in our neighborhoods we know serial killers right

we was joking at the barbershop this is like when the Dahmer stuff came out on Netflix and everybody was like bro he was crazy he was sick right he was

I say bro we know serial killers in the hood like regardless of all the stuff that he was doing you know somebody that has three or four bodies bro he's a serial killer yeah like we just don't give him that label like and you smoke weed with this dude every day

you drink and you feel like it's nothing normal right like I mean like it's just normal for that so we have to look I mean sometimes bro when you get older bro and you get honest and you start realizing and what life is, bro, you look at things way different. You'd be like, bro, this niggas is a serial killer, Gus. Like, you feel me? Like, bro,

bro, we know about some of your work that you then did. For me, as somebody who's not, like, from the streets, there has been a time or two in my life where somebody I was already close to either they revealed or somebody else revealed it to me, like, oh, you know he got a couple bodies. He'd be like, nigga, how do you sleep at night?

And it's, yeah, it really does kind of tint the way you think of them. I don't even really be tripping. You know, I really ain't never did nothing to nobody that didn't have it coming, though. You feel me? So just be careful how you treat me. Okay, nigga, I will. Like I'm saying?

Like, it'd be crazy like that, man, in times. But, you know, that's just where we come from. And as I said early, we've normalized this craziness. We got to be realizing how messed up mentally we are, bro. And, you know, you got to begin to paint the picture a little bit different, man, to show that. you don't got to be like that. Young homie, you don't got to catch your body

to be respected. You don't got to go to jail to have a record. You know what I'm saying? You could have a good record. You know what I'm saying? You don't got to pimp, man. You don't got to do,

you can go get married. It's okay. You don't got to do none of these things that certify you, stamp you. Nah, man, if that's what I got to do

to get stamped on y'all street credential record report card, I'm cool. You said you had a daughter that's 14? 14. straight-A student straight-A student science engineer

programs aspirations to continue to keep furthering her education field and engineering her mother's a wonderful woman man her mother's a super educated woman

like you know what I'm saying that comes from the field Cal Berkeley alumni actually going to go get her doctrine pretty soon and it's just a great balance her and her mother, with, you know, our whole, our trilogy, man,

meet her and her of working, of getting it going, man. And we don't even have to force our daughter to go to school. It's something that she loves to do. That's something I said to my girl before is we need to do everything possible to insulate her within the world of academics, sports, you know, anything we could do to turn into a nerd and close the door as much as possible on her. You know, like, I don't think social media is one concern, Even to me, like young kids, like there's tons of data and studies now about how especially young girls, social media destroys their confidence and their self-image.

Yeah, it's cyberbullying and a lot of other things, man. But we even have to take out titles, man, like, you know, nerd, let's take that out. Yeah. Because the derogatory context that have came, that have come with that word, it already makes she be like, oh, I don't want to be a nerd. By the time she's old enough to understand the negative meaning of the word nerd, I will have removed that from my vocabulary. Like at that time, but just going back, like, we just removed those things because those titles are the thing. We thought, oh, we thought square was a bad thing growing up. Nah, that's cool.

You go to school? You got a job. You got your own spot. You ain't in trouble? Because I'm going to tell you this. And this is a message to the streets. You talk bad about your square partners and all that and you, you know. But soon as you get in trouble,

The first thing you do is, bro, can you write me a character witness letter? And be like, damn, bro, you just, nah, bro, because I know, bro, your work, man, they're going to write me a character list. Embrace that. Protect those people. Those titles is what throw things out. When you tell the kid, oh, you bad, you're a badass kid, you're a badass kid, you a badass kid. That kid grows up mentally and gets to saying, I'm bad. I am bad.

Yeah, yeah, I'm bad. I'm going to do everything that bad is associated with. So we got to be careful, man. Spells is a hell of a thing, bro. Spells? We cast spells. That's why they teach us how to spell. When you're young, you know, Alpha, they teach you how to spell.

You're casting spells. So you got to be careful with your words. That's real. Yeah, my girl always tells me, don't say bad girl. Say, that was bad. Don't do that. Like, this is not an indictment of you entirely. You just did one bad thing.

Etymology. It's a little tiny. of language like that that could shape them, right? Bro, language shapes us all. We've all been shaped by it. Like, I'm a logofile, man. So, and being a logofile, a logofile is someone that is addicted to words, and I study words. I love words.

I'm a word smith and more so. But I've also, I've learned from where I come from, I don't want to make it seem like my childhood was all goody two shoes. And I don't want to make it seem like, oh, I've, I've never done nothing. I never, oh, yeah, no, no, no. No, no, no. Like, I've been very manipulative. You know, I've definitely, you know, I've talked women out of their belongings. I was influenced by my father's and my father's friends and peers and things to do the things that I did, you know? A street harem is what they like to call it.

You know what I'm saying? You know, and just an all in transparency. I didn't pimp before. But you only end up pimping yourself. when you look at it like you know what I'm saying this is just my transparency of understanding I didn't accept it money from women before being young but being manipulative casting spells running game

because what we're from that's what we talk we talk oh nika run game man get it about her man get it out the bitch man and we run with that we run with that until you just be like damn let I really just mess this whole woman life up and had no real true intention for it. And by the time you get old enough to have a different perspective, it's almost like

they don't want to hear it, right? They don't care. They're like, ah, nigger, how are you going to tell us something? Who better to tell you? Who better to let you know how much I understand than somebody that didn't went through it? Who better to show you a different example or a different way of living than somebody that live what you went through? That's why it's imperative that people that come from our ranks, we begin to utilize our influence to create change, to be those examples. Because we got to And I keep cross-referencing some of the elders, but the reason why Martin, I mean, Malcolm X was so effective is because the dudes that he was targeting, they knew that that was the life that he had lived. Like, oh, shit, if he could change, I could change. We see that.

We look at Jay-Z like, damn, this nigga sold crap. Right. Now you dictating who going Super Bowl and woo-who? Like, damn, it was influencing. We look at 50 cent like, damn, this nigga 50 that really got TV shows and it's possible. This is a nigga that just got shot right before our eyes

not long ago. We love that story. Those story, everything has, we love the story. They love to hear the story about the nigga that comes from nothing that makes it. But what about those that don't make it? They still got a story too. Right.

And you can learn from that as well. And as you get older, assuming your kids have more opportunities, than you have. You have to learn to empathize with them. How am I going to look down on the other kids that she's around or whatever just because they have the, look, she has this cushy existence. She's not going to ever understand a lot of the stuff that I had to go through. For sure. Yeah. My daughter told me some real shit the other day and we sat in a car crying. Like, you know what I'm sitting up crying because what's she telling me. Like she's like, look, dad, I love everything that you've built for yourself. But that's yours. She's that even when you die and you're leave it to me and you leave it to my brother, that's cool, that's still yours. I still want to go work for my own. And, bro, that was so dope to me because you know how many people just, they rely on nepotism to keep them afloat.

So for her not to be just anticipating that, for her saying I'm going to make my own way, I don't want to just be Mr. Fab daughter. I build my own name. I'm building my own name. I was humbled, man. Just because so many kids also would probably just want to coast by as much as possible, you know? She like, she like, Dad, this is your Lamborghini. This your woo-w-woon.

I'm going to get my own stuff. And I loved it because I'm going to be supportive in anything that she does. Like, no matter. Babe, she's like, I want to go get a summer job. I'm like a summer job. I felt like King Jaffe Jofi Yofi Yon coming to America. My daughter doesn't work. Like I said, my daughter doesn't work.

And then I thought about it. I said, maybe I'm going to support you. I'm going to pick you up and drop you off. Right. Like, you know what I'm saying? But you didn't have to try to get her to get a job. Not at all. This is what she wants.

Like she wants for her own self, her independence. And I love it. And as I said something yesterday in an interview, parents, don't just be a dad. Don't just be a mom. Don't just rule like that. Don't just, because I said, said so.

Now, be a listener, be a teacher, be a student, be a fault, steal, be understanding. Don't teach them what to think, teach them how to think. And that's when you become a problem. You become a problem when you teach someone how to think, because now you're creating solutions. You're creating solutions. They loved Martin Luther King when he was fighting for civil rights. When he started fighting for human rights, they got him up out of here.

There's so many things that I think about that with my kid. Like one day she's going to ask me about abortion. And I'm not going to be able to tell her what to think. Right. But I can tell you about both sides. Right. I can tell you where I'm at. But ultimately, like, this is a choice that is a gigantic, you know,

rift in our society. And I mean, it would be a tough thing to explain to your kid at some point that, yeah, like this is something that a lot of people feel like they have to do. Your body, your choice, though, you know. That's how I feel as well, yeah. And that's when I talk about. When I took my daughter to ride down the stroll where young girls are being solicited and things, I wanted her to see it. This is what's going on.

They asked me to speak at Juvenile Hall a couple months ago in the unit that I was requested to speak to. I do a lot of motivational speaking and things like that. I go to colleges and stuff. And this day I was asked to speak at Juvenile Hall and they gave me the young girls' youth. unit and it was 13 year olds 14 year old girls in there and I was like no I came to this that's like what you mean I was like bro y'all got these kids in here locked up like they suspects like they guilty of crime these girls are victims these are victims y'all locking these kids up that are 12 and 13 years old for prostitution and being and soliciting it's evident

that these girls are being victimized and y'all are adding to that I don't agree with that So what I come in here and say Y'all might not agree with me Because I'm going to be for these kids To get out of this situation I don't feel like no little girls should be locked up At 13 years old for prostitution and soliciting This is a system that is engineering them

To think that it is okay to do this All you're going to do is get caught You're going to get out, you're going to get on your record And now you can have something to brag about Where is the Rehability of State in helping these young girls get out of these situations? You didn't get the vibe that they give a fuck about that that there's room for them to be thinking about that.

But they got my vibe and I'm out of here. Y'all can have your money. I don't want it. I'm cool on this because I don't agree with this. I don't agree with these children that are, this is what poverty produces. I don't agree with this. And y'all not making it no better.

These situations are supposed to help these children. We're supposed to have re-entry programs. We're supposed to have rehabilitation programs to help these kids and these children that need help. Y'all not doing nothing but harsh. in their conditions. I don't agree with this. Crazy.

So, you know, that'd be the thing, what it is. Like, you know, and like even with my son and his mother is more so about I'm just giving him an opportunity

like when we grow for you to just, man, son, whatever you want to do, go do it. And I'm going to be supportive. And his mother's going to be supportive. Another educational one, you know what I'm saying?

Bachelor's degree and things of that nature, man. It's just, teaching our children to accept life and go after their dreams, bro. And unfortunately, people don't be, a lot of parents aren't that supportive to their children. They don't support their children like they're supposed to, man. And I ain't just talking about supporting your children by child support, don't support your child. You buy a person some gifts, like a present, it's nothing like being present.

Like, you know what I'm saying? I'd rather be present. Then flood you with presents. Somebody told me, this kid will slow your life down so much if you let it. For sure. You know? Some of us need it because we'd be moving.

Yeah. Just be the life, baby. And that's the challenge constantly. For sure. It's to stay present in that moment. And it's a pretty good metaphor for life in general, too, because, I mean, you could spend your whole life focused on hustling. But, you know, there's more to life.

That's real. Man, all right. I got another interview coming up soon, but I'm like super fucking thankful that we got to have this conversation. I've been looking up to you for years. And I really think you're probably like one of the best minds in this hip-hop space.

And it's really been pretty incredible. Watching old interviews last night and getting to see how much you've changed. And yeah, it's incredible. It was an honor. I appreciate you. Like I say, man, we may not do the interview that do millions of views, but because I don't, I don't hit people with Shockview. I don't do the headlines.

I don't do the cloud chasing. Like, you know what I'm saying? you won't catch me up here, disrespecting no other artists. I don't do none of that. I ain't on that. But when we talk about something that's going to hold the test of time

and years later they could look at it and this is one of them. And that's what I want to do. I want to put that content in the world where at this moment, it may not go viral, but it'll stay around. And it's something that's going to be informative

and hopefully the narrative that many people will follow in the blueprint. for us to continue to keep changing and evolving and letting people know that hip hop has growth and there is growth in and this is what it looks like. And like I say, I'm in the process of healing. I haven't said that I've healed.

I'm healing. So it's always a growing thing for me, you know? And I always try to continue to keep evolving and getting better and learning. And, man, I'm just appreciative of the opportunity. I know it was last minute, man, but for you to slide me in and get me in on that. Hey man, I'm humbled and appreciative, man,

and my team is appreciative as well, and we're thankful. Oh, for sure. I mean, this meant a lot to me. Man, thank you, man. Shout out to Tiffany for making a phone call for me, man, and Jazzy and everybody else, man. It was therapy with me and you today, man. You know, you don't know how much some of the things

that I talked about that was hitting on my chest that I needed to get out, and I didn't know how much I needed to get it out. We started good off camera by talking about being dads. Right, right, right. So I think that locked in this energy, man. Great frequency. I appreciate your energy, man, and I'll tell you this and leave you with this. No matter what people want to put on you, bro, you know, continue to keep standing your purpose, you know, of what you're doing and understand that any time that you begin to change frequencies and change the distance between you and them, they'll always try to do something that makes you look like a bad guy and make you look like a bad person.

and they'll do anything to disrupt that energy, man. Stay true to your purpose, bro. Keep going. Keep giving people an opportunity to get up here and tell their story. And that's the beauty of it, man. Let's keep going. Northern California, Bay Area. Let's keep working, y'all.

I appreciate everything that everyone up there is doing. And I do look forward to doing this Hafei reunion tour, man. And we're just going to have fun, man. I appreciate you, bro. For real. Thank you. It means a lot, man. My man.

My guy. Mr. Feb. Thank you.