No Jumper - The Saigon Interview: Reflects on His Career, State of Hip Hop, Writing a Book & More

Episode Date: November 10, 2020

Saigon flew in for his first ever No Jumper interview! The legendary MC talks about the behind the scenes of the industry, his rise to fame, his past beef with Joe Budden, being on the hit TV show Entourage and more! https://www.instagram.com/saigon_nyc/ ----- FOLLOW US ON SNAPCHAT FOR THE LATEST NEWS & UPDATES https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_Jumper/4874336901 FOLLOW OUR NEW SPOTIFY PLAYLIST! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/529mn7of2HBKdLfrAMUzcK?si=rWVBWCuWSXeh0TFYb2P-dQ CHECK OUT OUR ONLINE STORE!!! http://www.nojumper.com/ SUBSCRIBE for new interviews (and more) weekly: http://bit.ly/nastymondayz Follow us on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/nojumper iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/no-jumper/id1001659715?mt=2 Follow us on Social Media: https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_Jumper/4874336901 http://www.twitter.com/nojumper http://www.instagram.com/nojumper https://www.facebook.com/No-Jumper-198283650194402/ http://www.reddit.com/r/nojumper JOIN THE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/Q3XPfBm Follow Adam22: http://www.twitter.com/adam22 http://www.instagram.com/adam22 and adam22hoe on Snapchat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No jump, coolest podcast on the world. Today I'm in here with the Yard Father. Yes, sir. The one and only Saigon. How you feeling, man? I'm good, man. Great. I flew way from New York for you, man.

I'm hyped. Yeah, man, you know, I wouldn't do that for most people, but, you know, this is, you the man, bro. Oh, I appreciate that. That's crazy. I like the BMX shit. I like, you know, I'm one of those kids that's into, like, you know, dangerous shit. And I see me doing a bite to BMX shit, riding up the ramps.

I'm like, eventually he's going to hurt itself, but I don't want it to happen. That's crazy. Because I remember my early days of moving to New York City and living in Astoria and riding around on my bike by myself at night in Long Island City and all that shit and just having my fucking iPod in my pocket. And this was like 2004 or 5, whatever. This was like right when you kind of came on the scene.

And that was like you, PAP, G-U and it dipset were pretty much like the soundtrack to my earliest days in New York City. So it's kind of like coming full circle right now to even be talking to you. And for you to show appreciation of BMX and shit. That's amazing for us. Just Blaze. A lot of people don't know. know, that's Just Blaze

Dang. You know, Just Blaze, he collects bikes, he rebuilds them. Right. He goes, he got like fucking old dinoes and fucking old GT performers and shit with pegs. Like, the shit I always wanted. As a kid, I used to fucking steal bikes. I'm not going to lie, unfortunately, because we couldn't afford them. So we'd steal them, spray paint them. Not even realize it looks so stupid

after he spray paint the shit. Steele a bike and spray paint it. Like, somebody don't realize it's their GT performer and shit. And we used to take our bikes and not even take them apart and just spray paint the fuck out of the whole thing, basically like hijacking the aesthetic of a bike that had been stolen, even though it hadn't been stolen. Yeah, that shit like that's shit like that's like we just thought it looked hard. If you had mags, you were like, that was like having rims and shit back then. Oh shit, he got mags on his shit. That's crazy.

It's a big deal. What's the relationship with just like right now? Awesome. You speak about him like you guys are still close? Awesome. Close, man. That's like my brother, man. I talk to his mom.

His mom calls me son. Really? And we haven't, well, we worked on some new music recently, like, hey, with him mixing and doing some other stuff. But, like, we haven't really went in like that in two, three years. But, you know, we just built over the course of doing Greatest Story Never Told and doing that deal, we established a brotherhood. Like, that's my brother, brother. That's dope. Rarely does that happen.

An artist signs to a producer or a guy who has a label or whatever, and then it doesn't work out, but then they somehow still remain close. And I, and you know what? Things happen for a reason because that relationship, even though it didn't work out, like, I would have wanted it to, like building that relationship and me, because I don't, I have very few friends that guys I consider friends. So for us to establish that kind of relationship was worth it all, you know what I'm saying? Not just because he's just blazing, because he's a genuine guy. You know, we both, he watched me have my first child, watched him have his first child. He was there. Yeah, he was there when my mom passed away.

he went through it with me. My sister went through some shit. Like, he's always been supportive of more than just, like, I call him to his day and be like, Josh, I need yada yada yada y'all. He's going to be there and vice versa. Wow. You know what I'm?

That's a beautiful thing. Yeah. Can you settle an argument for me earlier today? Uh-huh. I was talking about, okay, I have a friend, AD, that I do a podcast with sometimes, and I played one of your newest songs, the M.F. song.

Uh-huh. And I said, check this out of this shit is crazy as fuck. And he was hating, and he said, I'm saying as good as alphabetical slaughter. And I'm like, this is so much harder. And then I played him the fucking P joined, like the original version of that. And I was like, look, like doing the M and the F for the words, for those who don't know, it's like he's basically just using mad words that begin with M and then another word that.

And you got to make it make perfect sense. That's the thing. It made a lot of sense for such a tight constraint. Yeah, you have to make it make. It's one thing to use the letters and make them rhyme. But to make it make sense, like if you can say it and it's still like the MF motherfucking metaphor, I'm a historical fire. Most fear my flow.

My fashion is more flyer. Matter of fact, the mass is familiar with getting mine fucked but my family, when you can say it and not have to rap it to a beat,

that's when you can tell what's why. So you can confirm for me that it was more difficult to write the verse with the MF thing than just using a single concept? One million percent.

Boom. I win. One million percent. Even Kooji Rap, who's the cool genius of rap, he's like Saigon, bro. You got to stop this shit.

Every time you want to do a song, you got me jumping through fucking hoops. Right. You know what I'm saying? I can't be doing... I can't just do a normal verse. You gotta give me a...

It's like a calculus project. I gotta go backwards and forwards and shit like that. And, you know, so, yeah, I like... Because at this point, I've been in this game 19 years. I did... I've done a lot as, like, creative writing. Like, pushing my limits on what I could come up with. So you start to run out of fucking ideas.

You're like, shit, what can I do next? And, you know, so, yeah, that was a fun one. And the video's cool. With the video, I put the words there so people could read along. That's very 2020 of you nowadays. I say, yeah, these kids are kind of slow. They're slow gas. So let me put the words and show them exactly what I'm doing.

That'll help you out with the foreign audience as well as like the little kids. When you watch like YouTubers who end up making music videos and stuff, they always put the words on the screen. And now I'm starting to notice more and more real rappers fall in line with that too. Tech 9. You know, I just did a situation over there with them. And when he makes his lyric videos, I love it because sometimes I get lost. He rap so fast. Almost nobody can tell what he's saying at times.

Yeah, but when you read the shit, you're like, this shit was fucking genius. Like, did he really just say that? Like that? He's one of the most underrated fucking artists of our generation. And I guess it's because, you know, I guess because Kansas City and Midwest and like the paint, the face paint and all the other shit that made people go, what the fuck? Is it demonic shit or whatever the fuck people thought? Right.

And they just overlooked how talented he is as art. He's fucking phenomenal. He is. He's incredible. When I think about your career, it feels like you maybe were kind of like one of the last of a dying breed in the sense that lyricism was really still kind of treated as like the number one priority when you were coming out, when you were signed, when people started to get excited about you. Would you say that that's accurate? Obviously, there's still tons of rappers who their primary thing is that they're lyrical. Yeah, that's 100% accurate.

You're kind of caught between two worlds. I got caught up in the ringtones. You remember the ringtones? when your phone were ringing and it'll be a fucking flow rider or some shit that I got caught up in that and I was on Atlantic Records

which is fucking that's all they cared about at the time was a ringtone or a jingle and I'm like I'm not a jingle writer like my first single was called pain in my life

and betray songs and the song had a lot of fucking you know substance in it and I'm like their whole shit was nah we need we need jingles this is what we're on so it's kind of like

once you it's like being in a bad marriage. Right. Just like the, oh, fucking marriage is a contract. A record label is the same shit. If y'all don't see eye to eye, shit ain't going to work out. You're going to get a divorce. And that's what happened. Like, we just got

a divorce quit. I knew within two, three months I was in the wrong place. Because I'm like, y'all not going to support me. And they wanted me to do, they go, oh, be like Lupe. Right. And they wanted me to fucking. I said, fuck it. First of all, Lupe don't even skateboard. He's tricking you, motherfucker.

You give Lupe a skateboard right now. that motherfucker's going to fall and bust his head open. But he was smart enough to trick it and go, if you watch Kick Push video, you'll never see Lupe Fiasco on a skateboard. Right. Not one scene. They wanted you to do skateboard music?

They wanted me to do something. Something gimmicky a little bit more? Yeah, something like, yo, we need something more gimmicky because they didn't even know kick push was going to work. Right. He just tapped into a market that was brand new. Right. And it started to work.

And that was like the early days, like a couple years after that, would have like soldier boy rapping standing on a skateboard lupé kind of way even wayne even way went through the skate lupay wayne is still on it wayne still will put us skate parts like to this yeah yeah yeah wayne's he's a freaking nature that kid is uh he's special yeah he's special he's very talented and i remember one time i did radio in alana with wayne i did i only knew about the wabilly wabily little way so i'm like they want us to freestyle i was like i'm about to kill this little motherfucker. I ain't a lie.

It was a DJ drama radio show. And I'm like, I'm about to work this little nigga right here. This nigga little wing from the hot boys. He wants to freestyle with Saigon. So he had this cocky attitude. He's like, yeah, I go first. So I'm like, oh, this nigga really

You think this exists online? Like the video of this or is it just a song? It was a free. We were a radio show. Right. If this is online, we need it. Or if it's not, somebody needs to put it out. Somebody needs to because I didn't even want to rap. Really?

It was that intimidating. His shit. Yeah. He intended. Yo, I was like, I wasn't ready, bro. I didn't know he could rap that good. Do I'm saying? I just known from being in the hot boys and shit.

I didn't realize how fucking, how much he had evolved at the time. And this was early on. It must have been like 05 or some shit 15 years ago. And he said some shit. I get money all day like the toll. I'm thinking like, oh, shit, the toll does. make money on fucking day I'm saying

I'm like Dan he has so much witty so many witty lines I'm like I don't have none of that shit and he got so many ooze and ahs

ooh ah when the niggas he gets that many ooze and ahs and your terms next you're like right fuck

because if I don't get that many ooze and ahs I didn't he won yeah I mean that was an unbelievable like career evolution to witness because if you were paying

attention a little Wayne in like 97, 98. Like, there was not a ton of evidence that would suggest that he was going to become what he became by, like, 2005. Yeah, now people arguably say he's one of the best lyricists ever.

He was definitely number one rapper in the world for a couple years. He had a, he, he, Wayne's career is crazy because even if you look, he gave us Drake and Nikki Minaj. And those, a lot of, a lot of big artists brought out other artists, but not that, not that you said, not got bigger

than the actual guy. credit for that because they became so big. Like Beanie was never going to be bigger than Jay. Right, but they became so big that it's like it's not even, you don't think of that as part of his narrative. Exactly. You forget that those are his artists and shit. When you think of your early hip-hop education, what was it mostly about?

What made you think that it was the coolest shit in the world? I was born, the thing is my mother used to rap. So my mom's with her little freestyle and sing. She was like the original Drake, she'll be rapping and then going to a song. And I thought it was so cool and shit. And then you got to stay, I'm born in late 70s. So that's when hip hop was born. So I was kind of like brought up with the culture.

So I remember watching video music box when I'm six years old, seven years old and seeing Ralph McDames and the vid kid and they're like, and they're showing fucking UTFO videos and shit like that. And I'm just intrigued by it. That's what a lot of it is in this book. Like I pretty much was like, there's not a time where I didn't know what hip hop music was in my life. as it was growing as a culture,

I was growing as a human. And I was like, this is just, I got to do this. I've been wanting to be a rapper since I was born, since I was like, when you ask a kid in kindergarten what he wanted to be when he grows up?

Right. I was a rapper. And then I wanted to be a gangster and then I got caught in between and shit. That's funny. I got caught between, you know? Definitely. But did you,

do you think that rap in a lot of ways kind of showed you that you wanted to become a gangster? Like, was rap the blueprint that made you think that you had to do that? Because when gangster rap evolved, I evolved with the culture. Because, you know, I remember the blackety black and I'm black.

I had the dashiki on when ex-clanted it because whatever rap was going, I was following it. Before the music industry decided that it's a lot easier to sell guns and violence than revolution. So I remember when the original MMG came out, it was a group from Harlem called Mad Motherfucking Gangsters across the 101, across the one-10. And this is way before, man. made back music. And these guys were just on some straight, like, Maher style. They was rapping about straight street shit.

And I'm 11, 10 years old. And I'm like, so as the like black and proud shit starts to fade, I'm like, fuck it. This is what's popping, NWA. The gangster shit, gangster. And then when Onyx came out, it was over. Like, those are the ones who took me over the top. Throw your guns in the air.

When that shit came out, I went got my hand on a pistol. I was like, fuck it. I'm going to be a gangster. This is rap. And that's why when I did get the opportunity to get a record deal, I understood the influence to this shit. Right. Because I'm like, kids, this shit is influential.

So when kids are looking up to this shit, that's why these kids all want to try drugs. That's why they want to do Mollies and Sip Lean and do all the shit they see the rappers do because, you know, they look up to. This shit had more influence than my father and my mother, hip-hop. And anybody around me. Onyx is crazy when you think about, like,

the early imagery that came out before I interviewed them I went back and I was just looking at all this shit and thinking about how that shit looked to me as like a nine-year-old, a 10-year-old and it was like shaved heads wearing all black boots. It really like, it was a lot of imagery

that was almost like the other side of the coin for like skinhead type shit where it's like these dudes were beyond intimidating. Facts. When Slam came out, I cut my head ball. I cut my head. I remember I was in a group home. I thought I was sticky.

I wanted to be sticky fingers, I wanted to cock eye and all at. Somebody fucked my eye up because I wanted the bad eye. I wanted to be this guy, you know what I'm saying? Just that image of like not taking shit from anybody like likely to pop off about anything? Facts, that's 100%.

I'm in a group home one time. We were having a fucking little group home softball game. And, you know, somebody hit a pop fly and, you know, I'm in the outfield and the shit hits my mitt and falls on the ground. Right. So some kid goes, oh, I thought you were sticky fingers. Everybody starts laughing.

I go over there and start fighting again. In your baseball uniform. Yeah, running over there. And the guy's on my team, too. Boo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo. Starts beating them up. So I'm like, yeah, I'm going to show you the other side of sticky fingers. This is what sticky would do.

I go over there and start pounding on the guy and shit. That's why I got caught up in between, like, love wanting to be a rapper and wanting to be a gangster. And I see a lot of these rappers are, you know, they want to be gangsters now. It's like, I'm not talking about. A kid, I was a child. These are grown men now who are 35 and start rapping and then be like, fuck it, let me get a gun. Let me go shoot somebody.

Let me catch a case. And, you know, as an adult, to me, that's fucking silly. Like, I did my time as a kid. When you learn, you go, okay, I'm not going backwards. A lot of these guys are college dudes, bro, who had the straight and narrow and then decided, fuck it, I want to be a gangster. I want to be a G when I'm 27, 28 years old, 29 years old. I hear about guys who actually have careers. They've made it partially in the industry.

They have something going on. And they want to get put on a hood that they're not from. And they're so stupid that they don't understand that you are the number one target to get extorted to go out and do some stupid shit. Like everything about that is mind-blown to me. And motherfuckers is trying. And people who are in that position want to be in your position. Oh, yeah. They don't want to.

The motherfuckers want to get out the hood. You think they, if they had a choice to say, you got to sit here. and live in the fucking 60s on Crenshaw and Slauson in the middle or on the jungle or live in this fucking nice suburban area they choose the fucking ghetto where they, you think that that's what they want?

No, they don't have a fucking choice and you choose, you want to be like somebody when they're trying to get to where you at and you want to move backwards. I never fucking understood that. I never understood how you could grow up in a nice household, grow up with sometimes two parents or even if it's one parent, a strong parent, a strong mom,

is sometime equivalent to both parents, and you choose to go backwards and go, nah, fuck that. I want to act like I grew up unprivileged and fucked up, eating fucking pork and beans and shit for dinner like me. And I never understood it. And that's why another reason why I wrote this book, because this shit details a lot of that. I'm very excited to read that, honestly.

Yeah, man, I can't wait. Because you know what it is? A lot of people just desperately want a hero's journey within their own life. And the truth is, is that if you grow up in a nice area and you don't, you know, a lot of times, like, I'll be watching documentaries about people and stuff, and it's almost like they don't make, you, you're not worthy of a documentary unless you're, like, addicted to drugs or, like, an alcoholic or had some crazy addiction that you had to be.

And in a lot of ways, I think that's what people do is that they grow up in an environment where there's nothing really, like, around them that is threatening their existence. It's not like a kid who grows up in the hood where they're scared, walking to school, they join a gang. to carry a gun because they're terrified. It's because they don't feel like they've really lived a life unless they go through this perilous journey that they can somehow survive. It doesn't even make sense.

It's almost like the Takashi kid, bro. It's almost like, bro, you didn't have to go and affiliate yourself with these street guys. These guys are really street guys. Like, nuke and these guys are gangsters, real gangsters. You already had your little thing going. You know what I'm saying? You had something going on, but you felt like, okay, this is going to validate me. me. But you didn't look at, like you said, there's a flip side to that coin. Because when the

shit went down, you wanted to disassociate yourself as quick as possible. No, I'm not part of the gang. No, I didn't. He used to even say, he said, like, you know, I had a wave going in terms of like the SoundCloud rap type fans, the weirdo rap fans. Yeah. He used to get millions of views before all of that shit. Right. But the crazy thing is, is that he's right. Like, he would not have been accepted by the streets in the same way if he didn't get to be in a video with 20 dudes with red rags. But the reality is, it's like, you could have stayed a version of you that was much, much closer to your real self. Exactly. And then had a sustainable career, probably a smaller, more moderate career. But I mean, take somebody like Tech Nine. If Tech

Nine early in his career had decided that he wanted to represent himself as this crazy super gangster, he would have probably appealed musically to a much larger audience, but he also would have been bullshit. Not to say the Tech Night is not really with the shits because, I mean, I believe he's a stand-up guy in many regards, but, you know, he could have put himself out there. It wasn't just like putting yourself out as a gangster. It was putting yourself out there as a caricature of a gangster. You're right. At 100%. Cartoon gangster. 100%. And this guy, he ran with it. And he had people in his ear telling him, yo,

surety, fall back, bro. Those same gangsters were basically telling him that this might not have been the best idea. Yeah. And now look, all of these guys lost so much. At that stage of your life, if you're in your 30s, you get sentenced to 15, 12, 13 years. That's a hit, bro. That's a fucking hit. Like, you got to start brand new. Who's the, who, with the way the world is going right now? Who the fuck's going to know what the state of the world is going to be in a decade?

With the shit we're going through now. Look, we're in a fucking pandemic. Donald Trump is the president. Fucking, they talk about a third wave coming of, who the fuck knows what's going to be in 10 years, bro. And you got to sit in this fucking cage because you decided to be around this little fucking kid who's not, who had a decent life,

who has a mom who loves him, who lives on a nice part of Brooklyn and Bushwick where, you know what I'm saying? Where he's from, you got to go looking for trouble. You know what I'm saying? Oh, Brooklyn ain't bad.

There's certain little pockets and shit. But there's nice areas in Brooklyn too. Right. Just like everywhere else. No, the area in Bushwick that he's from is not, you know, it's not an area where you're constantly presented with danger.

Not in this. day in age, probably in the 80s. I lived there about 2006, and I saw it changing so much during that time period, but I'm sure 10 years before that it was a different world. You go there now, they have outside cafes where motherfuckers is eating on the sidewalk. Nobody's worried about, no, there's a police on every day.

It's super safe. Yeah. Shit is so crazy that even, like, Ridgewood has been gentified to the point that that doesn't feel like a ethnic normal neighborhood. It used to be like, I don't know if there's Greek people or whatever. You got to go to Brownsville, East New York, to feel like you in Brooklyn. Definitely.

The old Brooklyn now. days. Even Crown Heights and Crown Heights is nice. Right. Crown Heights and Beth, they call Best Stars. It's been done for a while, which is hard to imagine. Stuyveson Heights. Stavis and Heights now, you know what I'm saying? Shit is nice. That's crazy.

Yeah, it's different. So, okay, when you think about your relationship with, like, New York City as a street rapper from New York City, like, how do you feel about that culture? I mean, it just must seem very different. And you're someone who figured out that shit was not quite what it seemed real early on. I don't want to feel like I'm, I'd be picking. on Ebro, because everybody would be like, oh, you're picking on Ebro? Like, I don't give a fuck about

the guy that much to pick on him, but it's just reality. When Ebro became the program director at Hot 97, that's when New York fucked up. That's when, because we had a thing going where, no matter where you were from, if you was fucking with hip hop, you paid homage to New York and said, okay, even if we don't sound like New York, New York's the Mecca, New York is, you know, and they loved our,

they loved the way our sound, they loved rock him, They loved Big Daddy Kane. They loved all of these artists. And then when he came from the Bay or wherever he came from and became the program director, he became just watching the charts. So he's looking at other regions where other guys is popping. And they go, fuck that. Fuck these New York guys.

Put these niggas on the radio at 13 o'clock. Nigel, everybody's sleep. You know what I'm saying? So me, Pat, Uncle Murda, a lot of us, Graf. We caught bad. That was the era when Ebro came around. And so then all you heard on the radio was DJ Unk, walk it out, walk it out. You heard fucking the franchise boys.

And you go anywhere else. Like, I'm driving through L.A. right now. All out here is Roddy Rich. Roddy Rich, I mean, because he's from Compton. And, you know, you hear L.A. It sounds like L.A. when you're out here. You go to Atlanta. It sounds like Atlanta.

You go anywhere else in that region. You go to the Bay Area. You're going to hear the Bay Area. You're going to hear other shit like top 40 shit, but this shit is going to be just as prominent. When he became, I guess he was just caring about his job and watching the charts, he said, fuck these the New York sound.

Fuck that sound. Fuck that boom-bab shit. Whatever's top of the charts, that's what we're playing. And that's what rhythmic radio is about. And then that killed us. And then we lost our edge. Then we stand, New York artists start to feel like, I got a sound like this to get on a radio.

Then you had New York motherfuckers, like, no disrespect to memes in that era. They started trying to sound, this is why I'm hot. This is why. This is why. Started simplifying the shit. And then it became like, we got to sound like this to get on the radio. And then we just got to look. That's why I love what Grisel.

Look what Griselda is doing. Griselda came back and bought the essence back of boomback. They shit is 86 beats per minute. They rap over slow shit and lyricism and they emphasized that. And they went in. And it's crazy because they've actually managed to get the giant corporations of hip hop on their side. Shady and Rock Nation are actually supporting them and realizing that long-term brand building. They deserve it. I love it. I love seeing that.

You and a lot of other people from your era really like deserved that same understanding and treatment. And it wasn't the stars in the home. Because now what changes the internet, you don't need to, you don't need a radio like you did when we was coming up. We depended. We had to go kiss ass for a spin. Yeah. Yo, I get a spin. Now the internet will take your shit. Nobody, people can go, we don't, nobody has to wait for your shit to come on the radio

no more. Right. If they want to find you, they can go Google your name and, you know what I'm saying? And go listen to your whole catalog. And I've heard Ebo kind of like try to defend why, you know, you only put songs on the radio that will be, you know, continue to keep X amount of people listening and stuff. That's not hip-hop, bro. Then you might as well go to pop.

That's pop shit. Right. Hip hop is rebellious. Because we see what happens when. everything is based on what's the most popular. Like, if Facebook only allows the stories that are the most engaging for the viewers to rise to the top, we've seen what happens.

Then a bunch of conspiracy theory shit and a bunch of racist, like, pseudo-propaganda ends up becoming the top-ranked stuff because bullshit will always be more appealing to people than things that are a little bit more measured and rational. And that view of the world is kind of short-sighted because in reality is, like, if you have a song that you believe is hot

and deserves to be played, played X amount of times on the radio to at least try to get the audience to appreciate it. I mean, isn't that kind of your, isn't that your duty as a person whose job it is to spread music to the community? That's what a DJ is supposed to do. And that's what a program, you're a program director. So you're the one formatting the program on what gets played and what don't get played. Right.

But a lot of these guys need job security. So they go, my job's on the line. And I got to play what, you know, the high. hire-ups want me to play because you know we got to sell advertising and it's a business so when you look at it from a business standpoint you look at it from a hip-hop standpoint the people that win is the people to go against the grain the master peas of the game the fucking babies the people who say fuck it we're gonna do it all way those are the guys who win big and know i'm saying even guys like dame dash i know you and dame got your thing or whatever

but but shout to dame bro but dame was one of those innovative guys who when everybody's saying jz trash he'll never get a deal or He's whack. He said, fuck that. No, we're going to keep pushing. We're going to do it ourselves. And they cut through. And now Jay-Z's the biggest artist ever in the world. Look how many people would have missed that on Jay-Z? Because

he didn't sound like who was hot at the time. He didn't sound like Nause or he didn't sound like this guy or that guy. They was like, fuck it. And then they went and did it their selves. And they worked. But, you know, one thing with Jay that I would say is different than you

in the overall career trajectory is that Jay was willing to make a lot more compromises in a sense. Like, you know, he's acknowledged in his in his rap's that he could have been a much more lyrical, much more conscious version of what he ultimately chose to get the public. And that he, you know, I read one of his books or a book about him at one point that really broke down a lot of his bars and said, like, you know, he's saying so much while saying so little in a way. And a lot of, a lot of people from, you know, throughout rap history have kind of like given the people too much and not been willing to sort of dumb down a little bit.

You have to. Do you look back at that and think that you were a little too hardheaded with not being willing to compromise on? Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. 100%.

Because it's like, think about it. And somebody broke this down to me after the fact. But in hindsight, I got a huge record deal with major label, major Atlantic Records. I'm talking about, you name it, from Aretha Franklin to like the biggest. artist ever was on Atlanta Records and I get this opportunity and they go okay you could work with any artists and on the label you have you know I had a lot of energy going in and I want I want my first single to be pain in my life and they're saying this is and then they said this is not smart and I go nah fuck

that pain in my life young Felicia was only four which I need to be teaching the world so somebody broke it down to me later on they said if I don't know who you are, why the fuck would I care if you got pain in your life? I never looked at it like that. Like, if I don't, if I don't know you, I don't give a fuck of your happy, sad, painful, having a good,

who are you? Right. And I didn't look, I'm like, hmm, so what a lot of people got to do, you got to reel people in first and get them to pay attention to you first before you start to give them the deep shit. To you, that was your mixtape run. To meet out, yeah, exactly.

But the fans didn't necessarily, Like the more mainstream fans didn't necessarily know that version of you. What happened was the mixtape room, the mixtape room was all like gangsters shoot them up, bang, bang shit. Right. And it was working. That's what got me the deal. But I made a deal with God before I made a deal with Atlantic Records. You know what I'm saying?

When I was sitting in them penitentiaries in themselves and in 23 hours a day, I wasn't in there like, this is the shit. I was in there like, I don't want to go home. And if I get another opportunity, I'm going to do shit differently. Right. So when I did get an opportunity, to get, had that big stage. And I'm like, because when I was doing the mixtape shit, honestly, I didn't know if it was going to work or not.

But when I did get to the point where I got a deal, and they're like, okay, we're going to put you through the masses of people. And I'm sitting there, I said, and, you know, I said, I got to, I got to attempt, I got to do what's right. I got to say it was right. And that's why, and Atlantic didn't want me to do that kind of shit. They was like, yo, do what 50 cents was hot. We need another 50 cent.

You got this nigga scorching hot. They signed me thinking to compete with 50 cents And I go look, I'm going in a whole other direction I'm like the anti-50 cent kind of Because he's saying shoot then motherfucker And I'm saying nah, shorthy don't shoot him If you shoot him you're going to go to jail It's gonna fuck your life up

And it was the exact opposite And then once they seen that they was like Oh shit this nigga And then I'm getting in the fights with rappers I'm doing shit because I was really living the street shit for real And so a lot of these niggas are like you said cartoons And I'm like nah I do this like So, soon in the day, they look at the mob deep fight.

I had fights with a lot of other people that never, we vowed to keep it private because, you know, I was the victor. And they're like, yo, we homies like, this shit stays between us, right? So, but long story short, it's like, I was out there really. So the label started to look at me is like, not only is this guy not making the kind of music we want, he's becoming a fucking liability. So it's like, and I knew it was a bad marriage.

But one thing I love about Just Blaze, Just Blaze was like, man, fuck it. If it don't work out here, we're going to just keep persevering. And we understand, I put out, The Greatest Story I never told. The album, seven years later. We recorded it 2004. It came out on a label called Suburban Noise. The same album.

You didn't do anything to spruce it up? All we did was, clear, fix some samples. Same exact words. Same exact everything. Seven years later, the album comes out on a label called Suburban Noise. A label who had, like, Cotton Mouth Kings and not even really a fucking hip-hip label

from LA, a label from out here. Well, Kevin Zinger and him. And, you know, he was like, you know what? I believe in it. I believe in the fact that you stuck. I like the fact you stuck to your guns and you sticking with it. For seven years, I was trying to put this album out.

I was like, I'm not giving up on this album. I had to threaten the suit Atlantic to get the album because they paid to make the album. They paid over a quarter million dollars to make the album, but they just didn't want to spend no money to market it or put it out. Do you think that if they had put it out, that it would have been commercially successful at that time?

what I wanted to do, it would have been my Elmatic. Right. You know what I'm saying? Illmatic didn't do crazy numbers. It would have been my foundation. The thing was, they wanted to hit a home run out the gate. And I'm like, why am I not allowed to build a career like most artists? You know what I'm saying?

How does that sit with you when you think about that, that image? Like, you were taking it back by it at that time, but it's a bunch of white people basically telling you that you need to spread a terrible message to your community. To my community. Yeah. Exactly. Like glorify killing your own people. glorify selling drugs it's almost like telling a motherfucker who has AIDS or HIV to go out there and promote unsafe sex right it don't make sense and that's what I said I said yo do you know what that lifestyle did to my life like if I wasn't smart enough to figure shit out and say I can't live like this I'd have been a recidivist I'd have been coming in and out of prison like all my uncles and all the people I know what I'm saying all my family members who's in and out of jail since they're teenagers and now they in their 50s they can't get no job

job. They don't even know how to function in the real world. They don't know how to function. They're so institutionalized. They don't know how to function. One thing prison gives people is food, clothing, and shelter. The three, the hardest thing it takes for a grown man to do while he's free in the street

is the biggest responsibility is food, clothing, and shelter. If you don't have a safety net, then it knows it's going to be pretty hard to pull up. Exactly. Especially somewhere in New York. Exactly. Where it costs so much to live. The cost of living is so high. How long you think somebody going to let you crash on the couch. Right.

And that's if you're lucky enough to have somebody to lay, sleep in the couch. Exactly. Exactly. Grandma died years ago. Like, grandma's the only one. I love you, baby. I'll take it in regardless. Once grandma goes, you're fucked. A lot of people that you see homeless in downtown LA and shit, that's pretty much, there are people that could have had normal lives, but then at some point they just sort of ran out of

people to rely on. And that's the main dividing thing between a street person and regular person. And it's easy to get a habit because what drugs do, drugs help you escape reality. That's why a lot of people turn the drugs because when you're drunk and you're high and you're that, you don't think about your problem so much. You don't think about your reality.

So the second you sober up and you realize how fucked up your life is, you're like, oh shit, it's time to get high again. Because when I'm high, I'm in a euerford state. I'm not here. And that's why drugs are so, you know, people rely on drugs. And then next thing you know, you become dependent on it. And that's why I was like, man, I have a responsibility.

A lot of artists don't, they want to run from that responsibility. And they go, fucking, I got money. I'm getting money. I don't give a fuck about my responsibility if I'm getting money. I'm just, I can't, I'm, I don't know. I got a soul. Right.

You know what I'm saying? I got a soul. I got to sleep at night. I like looking in the mirror of smiling, loving who I am. There's no voice in the back of my head go, yeah, you got a nice big house, but look all the people who died. Look at people who you had to kill. It's almost like being a fucking prostitute or a porn star.

Like, if I was a porn star, even if I made it money, I'd still be like, I saw. a lot of jiz. A lot of jiz went into this house. Like there has to be some point where you got to feel some kind of guilt or something unless you just an empty soul, bro. I feel you. You know, because I'm about to pop out a kid right now. Yeah.

And you're having a girl. That's why I asked you. I said, I said, what you have? You know what you having? Yeah. And you say, yeah, baby girl. And I got two girls, man. That shit changed my life.

Like it changed the way I deal with women. women altogether. Right. Like I'm saying? Like, it deals the way I look at women in a whole other way, because sometimes I meet a girl and I could almost tell when their father wasn't in their life, like right away. Or even if there was in their life, being in your daughter's life don't just mean,

I mean, doesn't mean you were there or weren't there. It's interact. I know guys who live, girls who live with their dad, they just don't have no relationship with them. Right. And then it goes to work and come. There's no dynamic. I got friends like that. They're not even affectionate with their little girl.

It's like, how you doing? Go, go, I'm going, go about my business. Hey, how you doing? Go about their business. And that's why I was like, shit. That's why a lot of these girls grow with daddy issues. A lot of them go to any man that tells them they pretty or a man with a nice car and go,

if you can get a girl because you got a nice car, then a nigger with a nicer car can come take the bitch. Oh, geez. You got this shit nicer than yours. She's going, you know what I'm saying? It's a duty, man. Congratulations, though. I appreciate it.

It's a blessing. Now that I have this kid thing floating around in my head, it's like I listen to a lot of rap lyrics and feel like I would have a hard time justifying or explaining and contextualizing them to a kid when some of them are just so brazenly anti-woman and there's almost no way that you could paint a version of certain lyrics

that would not be like horrifically. like just the number one things that you would not want a girl to believe about herself. That's the whop song. Like my daughter's mother is driving around and she goes, it's the clean version. I said, so what do you, how do you explain when she goes, mommy, what's wet and gushy?

How do you explain that to her? Like, for this wet and good. Like kids are smart. Like, my daughter's eight years old. Like, she's not a fool. Like she's gonna, she's, she understands. That's why I said, just keep it. And you know what?

It's urban until it gets so big. where it's making so much money, they go, fuck it, it crossed over. And, you know, it crossed over to mainstream. And now you hear it on fucking K-pop station or Z-100 because this shit is just so, it's like wildfire. But the difference is, it's like, when we come from, we're more,

this is, this is stigma and rap with being real. Like, this is real. You know what I'm saying? Like, we're not allowed to say, I'm not really a gangster. I was never really a drug dealer. This is just, we got to be like, I keep it real.

That's the shit with rap. I'm real. This is my, this is, I'm a real nigga. This is real. So you can't tell a motherfucker in one sense is real. And then another sense,

it's not real. You can't, that's a fucking contradiction. But when you look at the Wop song, like, you know. I hate that fucking song, bro. Okay, but like, you know,

we want to be saying, they be like, there's some hoars in this house. Like, they talk about you, bitch. But you don't think that... You don't think that... Don't you think that women should be, you know, able to,

like we all love Foxy Brown, we all love little Kim, it's basically women singing about their own sexuality. Do you don't think there's a place for that? It is. But maybe it shouldn't be so readily available to children. Right next to the sex shop. Exactly. It should not be marketed to little girls.

That's my whole argument with it. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to do that, but don't market that shit to children. The same way they, with cigarettes, when they used to put Superman on a marlbor and they're like, you can't do it. The Camel Man had to go. Because it's a cartoon They go, you don't fucking show a cartoon to somebody when you're marketing, Kent, cigarettes.

So all that shit, Superman used to be on a marble trucks. They had the dead all of that. Because people raised hell about it. That's the same way we need to be raised in hell about these little girls who are being introduced to this adult content. This shit is adult content. Well, there's a lot of messages that are being spread to kids that you might not even really think about. I have a friend who's got like a four-year-old daughter and she spends a lot of time looking at TikTok. And she said to him at one point

She goes, I want to go on TikTok And watch the girls with the big booties That shit is crazy And he was just like he confided About me about this like how the fuck Am I supposed to feel? He got into it with his baby mom about it I just show somebody some

I say yo go to go to your Instagram right now Or go to your phone Or go to your what do you call it The Google Play or your app store When you download Instagram It's rated T for teen as a rating. So this shit was invented for children,

for kids. You know it is. It's teens. So when you go and look on Instagram right now, it's a bunch of ass clapping. It's a bunch of shit that you look at this shit and go, this ain't for teens. This should be rated mature. This is mature shit.

So it should be marketed as this is not for kids. You should be able to be 21 or older to even be on this shit because all the shit that's on there. I told my daughter, delete that TikTok shit. Delete that Instagram shit. I don't care. Yo, it's all the kids are doing it. Not you.

Not you, Jack. I feel like my kid would have to be at least in their teens for me to even think about them having social media. Because I don't want them to think, I just don't want them to have their worldviews so shaped by everybody else's opinion of them and shit. Exactly. And these girls are thinking they're putting on these eyelashes to fucking stick out to here. Yeah, these young fucking snuffalo off against. When the fuck did that happen? Some of those little love against and shit.

Most of those things are now. Yeah, I'm like, what? And it's a thing. And they pump and their lips up with shit and they all look the same. And I go, do they not realize? And it's a mind fuck. It's almost like a girl that's bulimic

and thinks she's fat when she's not and she's eating and throwing up because it becomes a sickness. And that's what social media is doing. We have yet to see the act of long-term effect of social media. We're going to start to see it in about 10 years. We're starting to see it now, like you say,

with these young girls who are looking at themselves like my value is in how I look. Not what's in here. Not how smart I am. Nobody brags about being smart on fucking Instagram or TikTok. They brag about, like you said, how big the ass is. If your kid's sole way that they judge themselves is shaped by the Explorer page, then, you know, how are you going to convince your kid that's important to go to college or learn to play an instrument or do anything that doesn't immediately provide you with this huge rush of people commenting and giving you their thoughts on it?

I made this thing, man. I made this thing, this song on my last song, called Promise Ring with me and my daughter. And we just shot the video. I sent you a copy of the video. I don't know if you got a chance to check it. No, that was fire, yeah. But it's me, it's more than a song.

What it is is actually her giving me a promise. I gave her a little ring. And I want every thought, even you, when your daughter's eight years old or around that age, I want you to give her a promise ring and make her promise you that she's going to, you know, hold herself to a certain standard. as a woman, as a female.

Because with all this shit, the way it's coming, like I said, the music they did out there, the way they represented, the booty, like, I'm all ass. My ass is more important than my brain. This is the shit that's being... So, I want every father to see this video and go, damn, yo, I got

to play a bigger role in my kid's life, because look what I'm up against. I'm up against society. I know you can't child-proof the world, but I'm up against only fans. Oh, my gosh, she made how much? what sticking cucumbers in a butt I can do that

who needs to fucking go to college all I got to do is suck a cucumber and put her on OnlyFans and I can make $60,000 a month but with the like the way that social media is just everything now it's crazy it feels like there's no divide between like adult content and just regular all

content the line has been so good there's nobody in charge of it it's fucking up mankind it's a free fall it's that's why we like I said you can't you don't want to be that fucking asshole dad either. So you want to just teach them and let them understand and go, look, your value is not in your sexuality.

Your value is in your brain and how smart you are and how you represent yourself. That's where your value comes in that because nobody is teaching it. We grew up in a different era. We grew up. If a girl was a stripper, she didn't want you to know. She kept that shit a secret. That was top fucking secret. Like, don't ever turn nobody you see me in here.

Now it's kind of like. Oh, yeah. Represent. Your Instagram is an advertisement for your stripping career. Exactly. The shit, and so what do we do when we're up against this?

What do we do? Do we just sit there and go with the flow? Or do we be somebody who tries to change the dynamic? Especially when you have a voice. Especially when you got, even if you got a small fan base, you never know, man. That little, you might spark something

in somebody that changes the outlook of people. But if you're going to sit there and say, fuck it. everybody else is doing it I'm gonna go with the flow but it's it's pointless the thing that's happening to women in that regard right now

where they're sort of like having this message spread to them through music is very much identical to the thing that happens to young boys where they listen to rap music and they get that thing built into their head if you have to be tough you have to be braggadocious

uh you have to move around in a way that maybe isn't you know terribly well thought out for the long term same shit that that's that's a point I've been that kid I've been that kid. And the beauty of hip hop, like I said, I was in it before the gangster shit is when like the big word rappers was out, like the rappers who's extra smart, I went and wanted to, I wanted to learn those words. So I go pick up a dictionary and go, damn, what does he mean?

What is, what is a metaphor? What is psychological mean? What is this? So I was actually learning from the shit. It was teaching me how to read, how to reading comprehension. It had a value. It had value in it. It had value actually. And it's like we just stripped it of all of that and made it a fashion show made it about who got the most money, who fucked the most girls, who got the most

meaningless fucking jewelry. And it became something that was so, so beautiful and powerful and it's like been and now it's like, okay, let's strip this fucking music of this culture of all this power and just say, throw it out there and make it a free for all.

And now we're watching all these kids overdose on drugs. When I grew up, rappers wasn't overdosing on fucking drugs. I can name like 10 rappers that overdosed, bro, on fucking drugs. I can name like 10 rappers that overdosed and another 10 that got the little pin

before he, you know what I'm saying, before he kicked it. I'll listen to rap records from the 90s and be like, like, 3-6 Mafia like listening to as an adult. I'm like, they were talking about doing coke. Yeah. But I didn't know at that time.

There's other rappers as well. I had the same experience where it was much more coded and you didn't really know that they were talking about party into such an extreme. But you think about Melly Mell, he was talking about Coke, too, on white lines, but he was talking about the danger of it. Right.

He was talking about how this shit's going to destroy your life. But you were doing that too, where you would have, like, during your mixtape run, like hard-ass gangster songs, but then you'd also be... You're going to be fucked if you take this route. Yeah, that's what I would slip it in there for sure. So it was like, there were signs that you were trying to, you know,

better yourself and have a certain message. early on. It's just that I was in the middle of it. I was growing. I was in the penitentiaries because I started getting locked up when I'm 12 years old, 13 years old. I started going. So I'm growing. I'm around a bunch of other fucking kids

like me, hooligans, kids who this shit was fun to us to be cutting and stabbing each other and doing shit like that. The shit became like a normal thing until I realized this shit is not normal. This shit is, we're dysfunctional. And it took me to really be around some

normal kids, they'd be like, damn, it's not a problem if you look at me. Like, fuck you look at that, man. Like, damn, bro, nice shirt, bro, fuck. Like, chill out. Like, relax. I like your shirt. Fuck, you look in that. Yo, you got a problem?

Like, that's the, when we develop these mentalities that are not normal. And instead, there's no elder statesman and there's no leadership in hip hop. There's nobody saying, hey, that's not the way, young blood. That's not the, the older people we got in our fucking generation of fucking old niggas trying. and hold on to their youth and try not to grow old gracefully. Like, bro, it's okay to get older, my name. It's okay to grow up and evolve

and become a man and start to hold yourself accountable. Motherfuckers be 40 years old. I'm in my 40s. If I'm rapping about the same shit I'm rapping about when I'm 20, something's wrong. Right. I didn't grow. The pill thing is really fucking sinister

because when you... You have guys who are like rapping about doing drugs that they're not actually doing because they think it sounds cool on a record or maybe it's something that they used to do or even if they do do it, I mean, either way,

you have to be a total fucking idiot. If I got a Coke, if I got a habit and I know I'm sick because a fucking addiction is a disease. The last thing I'm going to do is have an audience and be making it seem fucking cool. Like, you know, man, guess what? I'm a drunk who gets, go home and throws up

and the fucking wake up over the toilet, fucked up, and hip hop for some reason it's become a cool thing. Yeah. Like, I drink five, I'm an alcoholic You know And it's

It's like We glorify our own destruction And this shit does not make any sense But it sells So motherfuckers is like It sells Like I own a website Right called Hip Hop My Way

This is how I know This is when I knew There was a disparaging shit With sex and violence I'm trying I looked at There's a website called similar web.com

A lot of people don't know about this And you heard it first here You could see the traffic that any website in the world gets. Similarweb.com. It would tell you the traffic from any, you put in any website, it tells you their monthly

how much traffic they get. When I put in XNXX or Pornhub and that shit, motherfuckers get billions of hits a month. Now, you think of a big world, like World Star. World Star, sort of big, like, in the urban world. That's, like, the biggest, right, right?

In the past couple years. World Star might get 40 million Uniques. Pornhub gets about 5 billion or some shit. Sex sells. It is what it is. And it's something that's so natural

and it's so amazing because you're like, sex is as natural as fucking eating. We have sex to procreate as human beings. But somebody was able to put a twist on it and make it taboo to where people want to watch

other people fucking all day. You know what I'm saying? That's like, in the U.S. She said, hey, oh, uh, uh, she's like, hey, that's me. No, it's funny. We've got to search her on there. So then you go to fucking, like, like, now you look at YouTube and you got these YouTubers where people sit there and watch kids open gifts and they get millions and millions of fucking hits.

You've had to watch some of this with your kids, I'm assuming? Oh, hell yeah, bro. I'm like, I'm not about to sit here and watch kids open gifts, man. Right. Or a family just doing normal shit. Yeah. Like, they'll sit there and watch that shit for, Hours and hours and hours.

Like, I love this family. Right. And I'm like, what's so special? What do they do this out of the ordinary? You're like, no, I just like them. The kids are cute. And I go, damn, we live in a different time. Right.

This time is, we live in a different time. And I can't call it. It's to the point. I consider myself, no, I'm not a remotely intelligent guy. And I can't put my finger on this shit. Right. Well, but it's something about people just wanting to observe a nice normal family. like that maybe is better looking

than the average family. I know because at first when I saw the Ace family, I had no fucking clue how anybody could watch this. And my girl kept watching and she's like, well, you know, I like watching the kids and they see what the kids do. And then once in a while I'll see a thumbnail that kind of like, oh, fuck, I want to see what they did.

Like they got another kid coming like, fuck. And then you realize because those are the videos that have millions and millions of views are the ones about the new baby coming out or whatever. And it's like, I don't know. Somehow people just sort of get tied into this mentality of wanting to, and you know, I think it's because a lot of people have fucked up family

lives and stuff, so if you could have a fucked up family, yeah, yeah, which is interesting because during our time, we were, you know, when we were younger men, we'd be looking at rappers basically doing superhero shit, you know, you listen to a 50 Cent album, he's telling you about shooting a number of people that he could never possibly

shoot and get away with it, talking about selling 50 kilos, all this shit, like, that's superhero shit. Now people want to see stuff that's very relatable and easy for them to imagine, like, this is, my family life, but with a couple hundred thousand dollars extra a year income so that they can afford nice things. Copy.

You know? Well, you gave me some insight, but I still be like, I couldn't sit there and dedicate this much time of my life to just watch another family. And meanwhile, it's lucrative for them because the more eyeballs they get the more money they're making. You're spending, we're wasting time and money watching another family. and I don't know, man. I guess it's kind of like the new TV, like

when you watch the coffee show, but that was like a half hour fucking week. But think about TikTok. TikTok is mostly just good-looking people dancing on their iPhone to like eight seconds of a song that sounds kind of good. And I don't understand TikTok. Very confusing.

It's like we have access to all this technology now. I remember Gary Vee about two, three years ago, saying TikTok is going to be the next. I'm like, you might be. off on this one, Gary. Usually you're right, but I can't see an eight-second dance fucking videos being the thing.

I was right. He was right. He was like, whoever's not getting in this TikTok shit now, you're going to be behind, you're going to fall back. And I'm like, Gary, you're usually smart, man. I usually follow the shit you say. But no way is TikTok going to be the way of the future. This shit's for kids. It's a little

kid thing. I think kids now lead adults. it seems like the kids it's like the tail wagging the fucking dog there's all truth to that yeah we follow what kids want to do

and there used to be like we set the standard and kids wanted to be like us now it's like the adults want to be like fucking kids but it's like there is a counter to all those sides though because on one hand

you could point towards a lot of like TikTok friendly music and stuff and say look at this garbage that is just becoming huge but then also in the music world you have somebody like Jay Cole or Kendrick who are like objectively the biggest artist in hip hop

and they're pretty much some of the artists who you would look at as being like the most true to what hip hop is really about and that they're actually spreading you know positive messages they're very lyrical what does Jay Cole and Kendrick Lamar have in common that they're so big right now or that they have largely white

fan bases too I would say that's one thing and they both came through juggernauts this is true one came through Dre and one came through Jay Z you dig what I'm saying there's a million Kendricks out there but they're not going to have that opportunity

to have somebody like Punch who has a bunch of drug money. Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly, allegedly, allegedly street money to say, okay, let's take this kid and invest in him.

Like, I remember Jay Cole when he was a fucking intern at Def Jam trying to give me beats. And I'm like, no, thank you. He was a producer. Yeah. And he'd stand in front of the baseline and one day somebody gave him a shot. Like, these guys are like lottery winners.

You know what I'm saying? They're lottery winners. And they just happen to have that talent to succeed and to really, but there's a lot of Jay Coles and Kendricks out there who never going to get that break, who's never going to get that opportunity. And the good thing is, and I notice because a lot of them, when I meet these guys, they grew up under, they grew up looking up to me because that's how long I've been in this shit.

So a lot. Then it's just, I meet so many talented artists. And I go, damn, man, if you do get a shot, it's almost like Benny. Benny the butcher. I knew Benny, seven, eight years. I told Benny, I said, Benny, if you get in, you're going to be a problem. I said, they're going to have, you're going to be a prize. You can ask them to this day.

I used to tell Benny all the time. I said, Benny, if you get all it's going to take before you get your foot in the door and you're going to be a fucking problem. You're going to come in a wreck shop. But imagine if Griselda didn't get that energy. Because Benny's been nice for a long time. He's been super good. You know what I mean?

He got a chance to like lightning is lightning in a bottle. Like, you know what I'm saying? He got an opportunity to where Griselda struck at the right time. The void is missing. West side's a genius. He's a marketing fucking genius. And they're related and it all culminated at the right time. Like a lot of people don't get that.

You know what I mean? A lot of people don't have that. Having corporations like they have that are willing to back them in the long run while they build something that is going to have this enduring popularity. I mean, that's definitely an underrated effect. West size of, he's a genius. All those guys are geniuses, even Benny. Benny's so much of a genius.

He built BSF while being in Griselda. So he's like, I'm looking long term. These young rappers these days, you can't convince them to just be part of a crew. They want their own crew, too. He's one of them, for sure. Yeah, he's smart. He's like, you know what? He already got a fucking label deal already.

before his debut album came out because he's a smart case. There's a new thing that you can do as an artist where instead of like really focusing on just having a hit or a giant song you could really focus on building this impeccable long-term brand which is what Griselda is doing. But there's been times,

I'm not even going to mention specific examples, but then there's been little things that might have happened with specific people in Griselda where I started to realize like, yo, they're vulnerable. If they do something whack, it's going to have a huge impact on the brand. It's the fact that you've never seen them do anything whack that makes the brand so

strong. So it's even more pressure on them. If they do, if they do some corny shit, yeah, that could fuck the whole thing up. It's just that they haven't done that. I don't see it happen in the time. Yeah, they, they, they, they, they, they, they just have to stay full quality and never make that crossover to doing some bullshit. Because if they do that, it ruins everything. It does, it does. You got understand when EPMD made the song crossover. It used to be a bad, Look at how much shit we gave MC Hammer for just for being big. Now everybody wants to be Hammer.

You know what I'm saying? We gave Hammer, you, the gas face. You trash. Hammer now that I know so much more about him was like more street certified than almost anyone of his era. He was a straight G.

He was a straight gang from Oakland stepping to his business. Everybody who dissed him, when he met face-to-face Hammer was like, yo, what's up? You have something to say? And it was the fact that he got so big and we became, oh, he went commercial. he went commercial.

Now that's like the goal in hip hop. I got to go commercial. I got a... PMD had a song called crossover about not crossing over. Now that's the goal. The goal is to cross over. And you're right.

If they stick to what they're doing, they'll be golden. They can rock out forever. That's what happened when Wu-Tang got so big. It's like, so big. And it's like, then they start doing a dino with the video. with the fucking Barney Rubble and shit.

That's exactly what you're talking about. And that was the first blow to the Wu-tang where the shit said, uh-oh, exactly what you just said. If they do some corny shit, it's gonna hurt. My friend Jeff Weiss just wrote this amazing article about Vanilla Ice and talked about how, you know, before he became mega-famous,

he was like pretty much the most respected white boy rapping in Dallas. Like he had really carved out his niche for himself as like a fire rapper, a cool-ass dude. everybody fucked with him he comes out blows the fuck up they make fun of him on the saturday and live sketch and like a couple other things and he became a punchline so fucking fast and then you compare that to somebody like m&m m&m comes in with the draco sign by that point they kind of realized that if you're going to take like and that's eight years between

vanilla ice and m and m was such a genius he came in kind of clownish so he came in with the height my name is making fun of himself so it was like bro and then he let us know how great he was lyrically. My name is, was cool lyrically, but it was just so different. But the whole thing is that when he's standing next to Dre, then any risk of you being a joke is just kind of mitigated.

Like how, because then Dre has to be a joke and nobody's willing to make that leap. Especially at that time. No way, you know how Dre was, Dre was everything. Dre still is. Dre is Dre. But a lot, I love hip-hop. I love the culture. It's just, like you said, it's become a free fall. But there's

a lot, a lot of young talented guy like Corday Corday is hot like I like Corday I like a lot of these young guys and even what's going on with the New York Young movement with the only thing I don't like is they're trying to be like the Chicago artist and with the drill shit but them

motherfucker when they mean drill they mean drill like when I see you motherfucker I'm going to kill you like them Chicago that's why they're dying at that rate so many of those Brooklyn Rabbers got killed though because they're trying to emulate in Chicago this is because we don't have our identity anymore. Our closest thing to our identity

is Griselda and they're from Buffalo. They're from six hours away from New York City. Right. They're from Buffalo. They're closer to Detroit than they are to New York City. But kids see how it happens. Kids realize like, oh, like that drill shit, like you could be a kind of whatever-ass rapper but you take on that sound, you have guns and

lean in your videos and that's like, that's going to do a lot of work for you. You got to live it. You got to be willing to, when I see you, I got to kill you or you got to kill me. I don't want to be a part of no shit where I got to die over this shit. I'm saying no thank you. I've seen some of those drill type rappers get beat up one time and it's like the end of the

career. Oh yeah. You're done. You just can't really go anywhere from that. Yeah, you're done. Nobody wants to hear no tough shit after that. Yeah, when you build your whole brand on me and the toughest guy in the room. Facts.

You're done. Even like when they shot at Chief Keefe is like, oh, Chief Keeve got shot at. He didn't kill nobody. Next. Who's next? He didn't kill 20 people. But it's so much, it's so much we could do. Like even when we use hip hop, like when Puffy was doing the voter die shit.

And he goes, oh, let's rallies, get the hip hop. Even politicians are doing it. You see, Bernie Sanders had Cardi B in every fucking interview. Yo, Cardi, tell them why they should vote for me. Like, you see it now. Even Trump just went and said, yo, I'm in mad rap songs. He just said that shit. Black community, love me.

Listen to the rap music. So it should pushes fashion. Think about hip hop has been one big-ass commercial for Mercedes Benz's, man. and Louis Vuitton. Think about how many motherfuck. Think about the cars they wouldn't have sold

and rapists didn't rap about pushing the bins and make it seem like, I went to Germany and fucking Benz's was cabs and shit. I was like, damn, I was willing to die

for a cab. Every car was a Benz. Every single car. And I'm like, we got it fucked up. And I mean, like, literally the cab you wave was an S-Dool.

It's an S-class Mercedes. Right. And we're over here giving this shit so much value we're giving a value and I'm like I was talking home girl today I said yo do you think if any of these kids who would die

for Louis Belton even knows what Louis Vuitton looks like right she's like I don't even know what he looks like and his girls that will want a bag they'll go strip for a bag for a guy's initials on a bag and they wouldn't even know they don't even if I showed a picture of him and go

who is this they'd be like I don't know right but you'll go shake your ass to get a bag because his initials are on there you don't even know what he looks like? The fetishization of designer shit and jewelry and whatnot. It's one thing that...

Hip hop did that. Oh yeah, but it's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that it persists when there's so much information out there that could tell you that this is not the best way to spend your money. Think about all the money Timblein made. Hennessy.

Oh, yeah. Hip hop is a big advertisement. That's why Jay-Z got so smart. He's like, fuck that. I'm not going to be rapping about all this shit. I'm going to create my own and then rap about that. Right. If every Jay-Z verse you hear from the past 10 years,

you're going to say, do say in it. He's going to say Asa Spade in it. He's going to say title. He's going to say some shit that he owns because he realized the power of his words because he say, oh, go wear a throwback jersey. Mitchell-Lennesse sells out.

Go do this. That shit sells out. Like, the power of this culture has been as far as commerce goes, Ben's, Hennessy, Conyack, fucking Timberlands, you name it. All of those companies have probably

I couldn't even fathom to put in the how much fucking money that we pumped into them companies and none of it into our communities. When you look at Rock Nation, what do you think of the moves that Jay's made with that? Because that seems like kind of the biggest

example of a rapper really taking control of his culture in a lot of ways. Jay Z is, JZ, I love Jay Z, man. I'm one of the only artist who wasn't signed to Rock Nation or Jay Z to have him

my debut album. Right. You know what I'm saying? And I'm not saying, of course, they had a lot to do with the Just Blaze connection, but it was more, but when we met, we had like a little bit of a connection. And Jay said it in one of his saying, he said, Raps my new hustle, I'm treating it like the corner. Fuck with me if you want to.

When he says that, when, Jay whole thing was, I'm the boss, man. New niggas is my workers in the streets. I'm the guy. I'm the plug. Niggas worked for me. And if you sign a Rock Nation, you work for Jay. Right. He's treating this shit like the street, but he's doing it in a corporate way.

If you manage by, if you sign a rock nation, if you manage by them, if they got anything to do with your career, you work for Jay-Z. And that's who he told us that's who he was when he came in the game. Yeah. And he's living it up. He's living up to it. That is crazy. It's crazy, bro. You work for Hove.

Like, you got to look at it. And there was guys who at one point thought they was competing with him. Right. You know what I'm saying? There was guys at one point, oh, I'm nice. in this nigga. You might have been, well, that was your opinion. I doubt, I doubt you feel like that now.

Right. How do you feel about, because that's one crazy thing. Nas put out his album a couple months ago and Jay dropped a song for the first time in however long on the same day. Like, how is there still a thing there? I don't think, I think there's people be just adding fuel to that. But it was. It was the same day that he put it out.

It's kind of ordinary. Because it's happened a lot. Yeah. But I don't think Jay really sits there and go, I'm going to just try to dim his light. because, you know, who knows, man, who knows, who knows? If that is how he's thinking about it, that's crazy. That's crazy. That's that Michael Jordan shit.

I don't feel like anybody's really like. Did you watch the Michael Jordan documentary? How he'd make up shit in his head that didn't really happen. Right. Like the guy was a good game. He's like, what? So you'd have a reason to play hard. Yeah, reason to go harder.

Some people just got that competitive spirit no matter. Like, we could be friends. I just feel like those are the guys that excel. Those are the Floyd Mayweathers of the world. Those are the Michael Jones. Jordans, the guys just win, they just got this thing that a lot of us don't have. And it's a competitive spirit. It's not even a negative thing.

It's actually a good thing, you know what I'm saying? Unless you let it get to that point. But it's a thing where you just like, I got a win. I got to win by any means. And, you know, I don't knock it. I think the Nause and Jay shit is a little bit far fair. I don't think Jay since then calculates the win. Because, you know, far as I know, they're friends and they cool.

And, you know, now, you know, you up here. now, bro. Right. He ain't no need to keep, ain't no need to fuck with Daz at this point.

You know? Like, not on that level. That's what I would think too, but it just seems like it's a weird consistent thing. It's hip hop too.

Like hip hop is and you know he got one up on you still because of Ethan still. So who knows? He still might be like, fuck that. I never really all the way got over that shit.

That's hilarious. You never know. You never know, man. I can see it. Okay, what else do we have here to talk about shit? Oh yeah.

Okay. So you've watched your former mortal enemy, Joe Button, do the transition from rapper to podcaster and whatnot. Does that appeal to you at all? Like how did you guys ever really come to a formal resolution there? Yeah. Like the thing with Joe Button, man, Joey, Joey has had, he just wants rap beat. He loves to rap.

I was listening to you guys dissing each other. That shit was great. It was fun. It really brought me back. And the thing was, I still had that street mentality. So when he started throwing my name, he was just baiting me. So I'm like, yo, when I see this guy, I'm going to approach him on some street shit. And then he hit me and was like, yo, would you scared to battle?

Like, I'm not a street dude. Like, he admitted it. Like, I don't want no street beef. But what you scared? Why I got to be some street shit? You're a rapper, right? You scared to battle me like, want some rap shit? That made me be like, oh, he thinks I'm scared of him.

And that made it. So he actually outsmarted me into battling him. I didn't even want to do that shit. I'm like, that's not my lane. Leave me alone, me. And he was like, oh, if you're scared, man, just say you're scared, it's all right? I'm like, what?

What you're trying to say? I'm not scared. And so that's how we end up going with the back and forth shit because even right after the battle, like, I would call him or he would call me and be like, you know, there's no way this is end good, right? Like, I'm about to come with some crap.

I'm like, yo, joke, stop, man. I don't want to keep doing this shit. But you got to think he's beef with G on it. He's beef with. Drake, he even tried to bait Drake. Drake just wouldn't answer him. Like, he's Jay-Z. You name it.

If he thinks, if he respects you as a lyricist, he's going to try you. Right. And I like that competitiveness in him. But it never got so personal with you in it. But I mean, he did. He said stuff about girls and shit. His son just came out and said, yo, Saigon Corrador. Right.

I was just thinking about that too. Yes. So that shit went deep. Like, this kid was like nine years old. It was making me laugh because when I first heard those disc songs, I didn't know the names of Joe's. kids. Now I know his kids' names from watching the podcast. And then when I heard you say it,

it made me laugh so much harder. Yeah, I was saying, Trey, you little faggat. And then he's like, I grew up and I was Googling and then I heard some guy called me a faggotting. So that made me. So his whole thing was like, I'm going to avenge my dad type shit. This is like a karate movie type shit.

To where he's like, when I grow up, I'm going to write some shit for this guy. And that's what got, that's what sparked his rap career. So something good came out of it. That's crazy. Was there anything that he said that like really stood out to you as like particularly offensive that really like got to you absolutely my my my son my daughter's mother dated game before me and I didn't even know it until his rap came out wow he said games old bitch that I'm like games old bitch I called

I'm like yo you used to fuck with games you look that was a long time ago I'm like I got songs with this guy like I'm doing songs with this nigga I'm like yo why why wouldn't you tell me this shit? Like, oh, you got me out here. Right. I'm exposed. And she was like, I didn't see that. It was a long time ago.

I said, yo, and I'm like, how the fuck did he know this? That's crazy because Game did that to Joe recently too. Well, not super recently. It was a year or two ago, but when Joe was still with Sin Santana. It was funny. I did that with Tahiri because nobody know that was Fab's chick first. Right. So I thought.

You were the one who brought that to like, I thought I was up one. And I was like, you got fabs old man. He was like, nigga, that's games old bitch. Right. I said, holy. And I called her, and I was waiting for her to go. I never even met that guy. That's the reply I wanted.

It just rhymes because he said, you speak to her, I'm going to speak Austin. That's her name. The one that a blah, blah, blah. He said some disrespectful shit. I don't even repeat it because she, you know, she's married and that, all that now. Right. So it's like, that shit just fuck me up. I'm like, why wouldn't you tell me that?

You know, I'm engaged. You're paying attention to what's going on. You pay attention. Why wouldn't you pull me to side? Like, yo, I'm going to put you on with some shit. Like, you know, I used to fuck with Jay C.on back in the day. I used to fuck with game. So, you know, say it first.

In a relationship, you would want the girl to confess every lit dude that you might know. I do that with girls now. Once I see, I'm like, especially if she's in a circle, I'd be like, did you fuck any rappers, man? Let me know of the rip. No, I used to ask girls that, like, straight-ups. Yeah, let me DJs, producers. Anyone you think I might know,

just let me know right now because I don't want to find out in six months. Exactly. And I do that. And then that's a reason I go even harder with it now. I'm like, yo, just tell me who, where are you for, oh, where him to? Oh, no. Lie detector test. Yeah, I can't, him too. Oh, that thing is the DJ.

You did a manager, a manager? The merch guy? Yeah, the merch dude. Yeah, you know the dude that's merch for, oh, no. Oh, no. Security guard? Ah, what the fuck? So I love, but back to the initial question, though,

but I love what Joe Button is doing, man. Like, that shit is inspirational, bro. Joe's smart. He's a very, very smart guy. He's an asshole, but he's smart. He's a smart. One of those guys in school, you just want to give him a wedging and shit.

But he's a fucking smart kid, bro. Yeah, he's a nerd. A lot of these rappers are nerds, he saw the podcast revolution coming kind of early because sometimes I think about the fact that, like, for me, interviewing rappers early on, it just wasn't that many other people on YouTube. He's seen the internet early.

But now it's like every rapper has become an interviewer who interviews other rappers, a lot of whom they're just like friends with, peers with, etc. Like, you know. He's seen the internet early. Joey knew the internet was going to be the thing. Years ahead. They used to call me and him internet rappers. Like, yo, because I learned from him.

I'm not even going to hold you. He used to go in them forums and talk to his fans all fucking day. And you said he was getting punchlines from him. Yeah, he was, bro. He was. sucker-ass thing and some good ones too some good ones he went in a

look how good of a line this is Joey you didn't make this line up and I know it's for a fact because everybody know I've been he went in a tight end and came out a wide receiver I'm glad you said it's I'm like that's jean when I thought he came up with that shit I was like but it's these little

fucking nerds who just sitting there go say this he went in a tight end came out a wide receiver I'm like that and it's so funny because a good rap lyrics like that, it's like nobody even gives a fuck if there's any truth to it. I mean, he's making a pretty bold statement right there. Nobody was questioning

on. Did you really get raped in prison? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just such clever. It was just bad clever. I was like, and then when I found out he was in the forums and he used to, he had this thing called Joe Button TV. And it was early. This shit was like 2006.

And, my, what the fuck is a forum? What the fuck is that? And it's just like a chat room. with oil he interacts with his fans and they love him to this day Joe Button got like a cult following boys like the mood music so whatever the I never heard one mood music CD in my life I just listen to a bit there's guys who swear up and down like I heard a few songs like like making a murder like certain songs I went and listen to because he's he's a phenomenal artist bro he's I'm kind of wish he was still rapping because Joey can compete with any in any genre any you know

And I'm not going to say I don't like the guy, but I don't particularly like the guy, but I'm an honest guy. But there's a lot of people who are a lot worse at talking on camera than you are who have their own podcast and shit. Does that stand out to you or something you might want to pursue? You know what? Now that I put out a new project and I've done like I did Vlad, I did Queens Flip, I did drink champs. I did like, and everybody was like, yo, why you don't fucking, you got a lot to say and you're articulate and It's just working on the book and being a dad is like, and then running the hip hop my way, which is a website,

which is a lot of work. I'm like, I'm not gonna do it unless I really have time and the passion. Like, look at this, look at No Jumper. Like, where are you bringing this to? And that's because you're focused and it's obvious, you know what I'm saying? Like this is, like, I remember earlier No Jumper.

It didn't. Like in the bike shop. Yeah, it was looking phenomenal. I'm looking now. Like, this shit looks, this is a production at this point. It came a long way and you put it like that. Yeah. And so I can't, I'd rather focus on one or two things than do five.

If I had the time and effort to do it and the energy, I would love to do it because I just try to find my own lane and do something that everybody's not doing because, you know, you got Gilly. I love Gilly and him doing. I love what, you know, what, I love what Norrie's doing, getting motherfuckers drunk making them spill the beans. How much do you drink on there? Oh, shit. I don't know to drink anymore. I don't even know if I want to. that shit to come out.

Sometimes I'd be like, yo, when is it coming out? Then be like, do I really want it to come out? Because I got drunk up there. Like, I got drunk. You were saying wild-ass shit? I was whaling, bro. Like I said, I had a fight with a lot of rappers and we're friends. So it became to the point where, like, we're never going to let this get out.

It's going to be between us, no what I'm saying? And it came out. A few of them came out on drink champs. Wow. Because I was drunk. And I was like, yeah, I fucked this nigga up. Like, you beat up such or such? Yeah, I fucked them up.

And then my man later, like, I got drunk drunk to where my man was like, yo, son, you know, you said anything up there. I said, for real? Oh, man. So you were drunk like that? Like, you don't remember. Yeah. No, I remember, but I just, I didn't know that I thought I was, you know, being politically

correct. Right. And I'm saying? I thought I was dancing around shit good when I really wasn't. Yeah. No, there's been a few times. Like, even when you said the thing about Dame, it's like, I was just on Vlad and he just, like, said something about, about Dame, and I wasn't even really thinking

about it. I was just basically like, yeah, you know, like I just elaborated on a little bit. Boom, Dame hates me forever for that shit. And in that moment, I wasn't really thinking that those words would be taken so seriously. But, and I wasn't drunk. And that's the thing about the sensitive side of these motherfuckers. Like, come on, man, we're men. Like, first of all, if I got an issue with somebody, I'm going to find a way, especially

in this day where you could just reach out to somebody. And they say, yo, fam, like, what was that about? Because if you could communicate with somebody, sometimes it'd be something that's not even there. You'd be thinking if something is not And the person will be like Yo, my bad fam I didn't mean it like that And you can move forward

But niggas be so sensitive And taking shit the wrong And you know I think sometimes people like being angry and shit Like I don't like to be angry Like I'd rather I'd rather work it out And be like yo

I've had issues with every DJ In the fucking world Because you used to pull up on I used to pull up on him I used to pull up Nick Yeah you better play my shit Like if you don't play my shit We got a problem

Like asking for my my CDs back. Like, he gave me that shit eight months ago. With my CD I gave you. Yeah. Just to start trouble with shit. Yeah. And guys would be like, what's wrong with this fucking guy?

And then the words start to get around that I was a troublemaker. And that shit stifled. It stifle me. When I could have just been like, man, if you could play it, please, man, not. Fuck it. You know what I'm saying? But it got to the point where even when I start to get a bus, people was like, I'm not fucking with it.

I don't like him. I love the music. The song's hot. but I don't fuck with him. Right. He's an asshole. He threatened me. It's crazy to think how much that Prodigy fight or the Mobb Deep fight could have affected you

because it just doesn't feel like it would do that now. I'm going to tell you how bad it affected me, right? These motherfuckers have a... Once that happened, whoever was a Mobb Deep fan didn't like Sign on. So it's like I lost all that potential fan base. And that's your whole audience right now. That's your exact audience. I don't fuck with him because Mom Deep don't like him.

And I'm like, damn. I didn't look at it. Like, no what I'm saying? I'm thinking, motherfucking fans take sides. So I'm like, shit. Damn. So I lost a whole Queenbridge, whole queen, all that whole. And they were big.

It ain't like, these are some fucking local guys. These guys were fucking legends. Right. And I lost that shit. It took me years and years and years and years and years to even for people to forget about it. Some people still, I put up a post. Yeah, that's why Mom Deep Chase your ass up. the club, nigga, prodigy.

I'm like, bro, let the man sleep in peace, number one, number two, that's fucking over 15 years. It was 12, 13 years ago. And they won't let it go. And that's where it hurt. Like, you divide, when, them guys had cult cult, cult followings, man.

Those guys had, those guys were big, man. That hurt, that hurt me. A lot of shit hurt me a lot. That's why for me to even still be here is a testament. Because I've been kicked around I've been dumped, like, nobody's fucking with me to the point where I felt like,

damn, like, nobody fuck with me? Nobody? Like, nobody at all? And there's certain people that just stuck by me and, like, Vlad's one of them. Vlad's one of them people with no one. Nobody's fucking, the thing was nobody's fucking with Saigon. That's when Vlad was doing mixtapes.

This was before Vlad TV and all of that. I remember Vlad came to me about the idea of doing Vlad TV. Yeah. I heard you got saying that on his interview. Yeah, I remember when he came to the idea, I'm like, yo, I think, think that's a cool idea. He was just doing fucking mixtapes, like with some DJs. That really trussed

me out, too, because I wish that I had understood that early on, that just the video content, like, people would talk shit about Vlad, but Vlad, to me, like, I take what I do way more serious because of conversation as I've had with Vlad, because he's done interviews that 10 years removed. He's

seen crazy. It's only because he's white, man. I don't like that. It's crazy. It's only because he's white, bro. That shit is whack. It's corny, bro. But doesn't think some of academics gets it crazy, and he's, I guess he doesn't do interviews. fucking dickhead, though. He's a fucking dickhead, bro. He's not a dickhead.

Academics is a fucking dick. We squash our beef. He's one of those guys who's never going to pull. He's like a ground hog, you know what I'm saying? He's going to go in his little hole and talk shit and never see him in the street. There's so many guys that want to beat up academics, bro. And I don't even know this guy. He never said nothing rad about me.

But it's just when I watch him and he's just, he's like one of them guys likes to poke people with, he's like that guy that gets on your nerve. Like, bro, stop. Like, leave the, you know, I guess it's because he dabbles more in the young, new generation shit. And that's all over the place. But they're like, and he gets it because he kind of deserves it. Like, Vlad and academics are two different things. See, okay, somebody said to me the other day, they said, Vlad kind of scared, like, Vlad definitely got a lot of heat for the Rick Ross lawsuit.

But could you imagine if academics had done that? What? I don't think academics would still have a career if he had sued or rapper would beat him up because he's black. because I think he would be judged by a totally different standard. This day and age, he would, bro. Yeah, these days, actually. He probably be bigger. He probably said it and started thinking about six-nine.

Yeah, he probably would show up with the black eye. Like, you fucking going down for this, buddy. He's judged by a very, like, different set of standards because of the fact that he's black, like. And I think that somebody like me or Vlad, we get to skate on some stuff. I think Joe Buttons made academics hot, though. But that whole little dynamic they have. had on that show where they went like skip bail us and uh they they took the format from like

the ESPN shit people forget the academics you hadn't really seen him that much till then then all of a sudden he's on camera every day and you kind of had complex like like setting him up to basically get pumped by someone like Joe who had been in the game way longer and putting them in front of the megos like that like they sort of set him up you know in a lot of ways and you notice you notice since that since that show hasn't been popping his shit been on the downside. It wasn't like he was like everybody thought academics was going to be the guy. Now it's like then he aligned itself with the Takashi guy and that he's like are these guys in a relationship? Like what the fuck's going on? And then and then when Takashi did what he did, it became like,

oh, you, then he came home and you still aligned with him. And now Takashi's like, fuck, I fucked up. Like I really, that kid's got. Somebody needs a kid need counseling. He needs counseling, bro. He's a kid. This is the thing. He's 24, 23. 24 years old. Those are children. He's a baby, man. And going through some real shit, to the point where he can't go nowhere. Like, how long do you think you're going to be able to maintain this lifestyle? Because now your music doesn't move.

You can't be, you're not going to be able to make enough to pay these security guards for the rest of your life. Yeah. And now you don't put yourself in a position where there's guys that would want to do something to you just for the points. Oh, yeah. Just for the fucking, just to say, I'm the one who got to Katte. There's nothing to do with you.

But when he was out here rolling around with 10 security, guards, it's like, oh, ha ha, like none of these gang members can get to you, but I mean, how long you're going to be able to roll with 10 security guards if you're not streaming? You can't do shows right now. Exactly. Exactly. And that's why he should, I think, if he had some elders around him, who would be like, man, you made a mistake.

You got to come and say, yo, man, I was not ready to fucking do no time, bro. I folded under the pressure. Not, eh, ha, ha, you motherfuckers. Like, that was the wrong, wrong, wrong move. Because he came out and went to Chicago, cloned all these dudes dead homies and stuff. And then the album fails. And now it's like you already used up all the things,

all the cards that you had to be. Already that quick. Yeah, because now you can't do anything more disrespectful than that. That quick. You better make some great investments with that money they gave you. You got to make some super good because now you looked at, this is the thing about hip hop fans. They'll flip on, look at what they did, the J-Roo.

They'll flip on you overnight. That was some crazy shit. I've never seen no shit like that in my life. Jaru went from being the guy to, oh, look, it's Jaru, like, to being clown. Literally over and I've seen girls. When girls started doing it, I was like, bitch, you was just loving this. I'm real, dude.

Yesterday. Now I was like, I don't like Jaru. Bitch, you loved them yesterday. Right. And that's how hip-hop fans are fickle. They'll go to the next guy. Yeah, I mean, if the hottest rapper at that time tells you that you shouldn't fuck with another rapper, I mean, it's very, very hard to get past that. It's very hard to get past, man.

I don't think, have we seen that happen since then? You know, honestly, the closest thing I can think of right now is Tori Lane's in terms of somebody sort of like losing their stature in a really short period of time. His album is good and nobody cares about. He put a good piece of... I mean, the industry's kind of like blacklisted him in like a very real way by not putting him on playlist and all that shit. You have a huge percentage of the media that wants nothing to do with them. That shit hurts.

Because you fuck up somebody's life like that. Yeah. But it's crazy because it still feels like there's a shitload of people that really fuck with them and do, like, we'll listen to the project and shit, but when the industry's hating on you that hard, the media is hating on you that hard, and now the law

that suit is actually going through? Now you got to spend the money. And the money's not coming in like you used to. And now to fight, what the system does, the celebrities is fucked up. Because You look at Wayne, right, when Wayne caught that gun charge, they found the gun was licensed to Cortez, right? So he had a permit for the gun.

Just because it was in Wayne's bag on a tour bus, they didn't find a shit on Wayne's person. All the money Little Wayne got there, millions and millions of dollars, he could spend on legal fees. He still had to do a year in Rikers Island. You know why? Because he's Little Wayne. That's it because of who you are. If that was a regular Joe. He would have got 90 days if he could afford a $15,000 lawyer.

But that was New York City gun case. Isn't it always a couple of years, especially at that time? No, no, no, that's bullshit. I lived my life always hearing about that. No, that's bullshit, bro. That's bullshit. Okay. You could get, I know guys have got 90 days for a gun and five years probation.

But you saw it where... You're just going to get a felony. There was a period in your career where everybody was so excited about this new rapper and everybody wanted you to win. And then at some point, they just, once they've seen enough of you, they decide like oh we don't need him anymore let's let's break him down that'll be fun build them up build them up to break that's that that's the name of the game they did it they did it with 50 they tried to do it with 50 cent but 50's so smart he went to television

you know what saying he's like oh oh y'all nica i'm a fake laugh and go right on your motherfuckers i'm gonna go kill this tv shit the film game g unit films fuck music greatest internet troll of all time so yeah man he he's smart he's marketing genius he's a marketing genius he he said I'm going to put Irv Gotti and niggies out of business. He said that shit and they were top of the food chain and he really takes that 40 laws of power and he

applies it and it works for him. It works for him. It works for. He's killing the TV game, the film game. This guy got shows on ABC. He doesn't turn stars into a reputable fucking who the fuck was watching stars before power

and all that. He didn't give a fuck about stars. That shit is hard to pull off. That shit is damn near showtime. Making people care about a TV show at all in 2020. A whole fucking network. It's tough. Yeah, that's very tough, bro. And he pulled it off. So he said, nah, y'all can't get rid of me that easy. You know what I'm saying?

A lot of guys don't know how to transition. Right. You don't know how to transition. Like, me, even though I never blew up and I never had no, I never had a fucking song that charted in my life on radio. Ever. Never. But I was able to sustain. I was able to get on television. I was able

to even get on fucking ratchet Ratchet Mondays or whatever the fuck, loving hip hop when it was popular. I was able to always, for 19 years, figure a way out to make a living. I've never had to go get a 9-5 since the year 2000.

Without a hit song. That shit is a testament in itself, you know what I'm saying? It's an anomaly for sure, but is that a regret for you that you never had that one, like that kick push type moment? Because, you know why? I could have been one of those artists, like they had that hot, trendy song.

And it went like this. I'd rather go like this and sore than go up and down. I've seen it happen. Think about it. I can ain't. Where's fucking, I don't want to talk about the guy

who passed away. But where's, where's, Hey, babe, Hurricane Chris. Yeah, didn't you just catch an attempted murder charge

or a murder charge? What was that? Where's fucking, DJ Unk speaking in? Where's he at? Where's the franchise boys? Where's D.F. down,

the Lefer, Taffee? Yeah. These guys who do, who did, label was telling me to do like look look look and these guys couldn't they if they put out music right now nobody's going to give a shit I'm not saying I'm the hottest shit in the world but I wouldn't just do the whole new deal with tech nine and a rep you know what the stage of my

career 20 years later you know what I'm saying to where they're investing money in my career what's the key to push in rap as a elder statesman of the game because I mean the whole game is built around like propping up new artists and shit like what you got to you What is key to making it work? You got to hold your position is who you are. I'm elder statesman. I'm big homie. I'm the big homie, bro.

I've been around. Everything ain't nothing you could do that I haven't done. You know, I've been on the biggest TV shows in the world. I've been fucking standing next to Jay-Z doing records. I've been, I've done it. I've done, like I said, I never had big songs on the radio because I made the kind of songs that I wanted to make. I didn't falter.

I didn't go drink the Kool-Aid. I refused to drink the Kool-Lade. And this is why I'm somebody you can come learn from. And this is why I can write books now where people want to, there's so many people requesting, y'all, I want to read your book. I want to, if somebody's willing to take six hours to sit there and read about my life, I did something right. I already sold a few hundred of these books.

They didn't come out yet. Right. So I'm doing something. I did something right. You know what I'm saying? I don't look back. I don't have, only regret I really have, honestly, was really, what's my main regret that I would say?

My main regret, excuse me, is not playing into the bullshit a little longer until I had a bigger audience. I went left too quick. I went left as soon as I got my record deal. I should have said, fuck it, you know, let me give Julie what she wants. Let me, long as it's not something where I'm, like, compromising who I am, I could have found a happy medium to make her happy and still felt like I wasn't, you know what I mean, playing my stuff. myself and played the game a little longer. But I was, I was stubborn. I'm a cancer. I was like, fuck that.

I'm doing what I want. You know what I'm doing what I want? And that's what made it be like, okay, you don't have our support anymore. And when you need, when you have the ability to have that kind of support, because not just the money, but the connections. And when you sign to a label, so many more doors open than when you're independent. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, like you're, you know, it's weird too because it's like that's a similar fate to a lot of artists from that time period, like Marta and Papoose, where they didn't even

get to, like, put out those albums that really, like, represented what they were capable of, but at the same time, I feel like a lot of it has to just do with where the music industry was at that time, because it was in that weird time where the internet was creeping in, all of a sudden CDs weren't selling, but streaming wasn't a thing yet, buying MP3s wasn't really a thing yet. It was a very weird era. We all got big deal. Papp had the biggest deal of all of us. That was on job with a million-dollar record deal.

And he got caught up in that time. It was a time frame. As talented as he is, it was like, nobody's caring about lyrics right now. Go write me a jingle. Go write a jingle. We got this T. Payne guy with this voice box. Go get a fucking voice box, homie.

We need that electronic sound. You know, T. Payne, there was a time where T-Pain could do no wrong. You know what I'm saying? Now, look, T-Pain can't give his shit away. You ever thought about doing a slaughterhouse-style group? Yes. But I want to do it with young kids. Yeah, I want to find, yeah.

You and a crew? Me and, yep, me and a couple young, young hungry, young Saigon's where I could teach them the way they're do's and don'ts. I don't want to go grab a bunch of old niggas that they make it. It's kind of crazy, though, because I see it with Gucci where... And I don't mean that, no disrespect, to slow down. Gucci is, like, consistently trying to sign artists, and it feels like the artist always want, like, more independence and like end up moving in ways that he doesn't agree with. And as a fan watching, it kind of strikes me as like, well, if you're Gucci

and you can't get these artists to just fall in line, then I don't know. But the thing is, all you got to do is be fair with them. Because if they were smart, you notice none of them actually, only one that really probably popped is Waka out of all of them. Yeah. All of them artists' Gucci side. Yeah. Waka's rich as fuck.

So all of these other artists that he signs that don't, they want to be like, fuck it, I don't want to fall in line. They don't go nowhere. Like, if you can stand next to Gucci, man, even though he don't put out music as much as he used to, but, that's a way in. Just don't sign, just be like, treat me fair. Don't put them in a bullshit deal. But if you're willing, I would never grab some guys up and be like, let me take your publishing

and do this and do that. I'd be like, nah, own all your shit. You should own your shit. You don't hear about that as much now because these artists, they realize that they have so many more opportunities before they already have signed everything away. That's why you got to get a guy who's ripe who's fucking nobody with six followers. And that's why when you talk to the labels,

you see them trying to sign artists that have like a couple thousand followers. Like the artists that when I speak to labels that they have their eyes on versus the artists that I'm interested in interviewing that maybe have a couple hundred thousand followers or whatever, it's so different. So different. They're trying to sign them early on because then they can get them for 10 grand, 20 grand. Because once a guy got a million followers, he's like, I'm lit.

You know what I'm saying? Like I got more followers than the guy on your fucking label. And it's all about The thing about followers Followers is a figment of your imagination too Because people could be following you for the wrong reasons You know what I'm saying You're thinking oh I got it

You just look at a number And like like you look at a guy like fucking What's his name? Ice J.J. Fish Right? He got bad followers shit But people follow him to clown them You know what I?

Like like the A town Like people sometimes they follow you Just to laugh at you Yeah It ain't like they want to support you. A supporter and a followers two different things. This guys with a million followers, if they put up a T-shirt,

they might sell three T-shirts. Right. What good is these million motherfuckers if only three people are going to go to your merch and go buy a T-shirt? Yeah, no, 100%. So I was just going to say that it was weird for me because I didn't actually watch Entourage until 2014.

Oh, shit. So I was very, like, fall removed from like the period of which I was listening to you when you were coming out. And then seeing all those years later, like when you look back at that, like, how do you remember that experience? That shit was amazing, man. That was, you told my feeling like a rock star. That's what I said, like, I've never had, like, a hit song on a radio, but that was so much bigger than a hit song.

You know, I was saying, being on the number one show on HBO for a couple years. That shit was, it was like, you're talking about opportunities and doors opening up, and you, like, I used to be in Hollywood at a party, fucking Sagoni Weaver's drunk in the corner. Tara Reid, like shit where rappers can't get in. Like, they got this shit where rappers cannot fucking, they be like, he'd be like, oh, I'm gonna got a platinum singer. They're like, get the fuck out of it. Who the fuck are you?

Like, they don't, like, parties around here in Hollywood and shit, they only let A-listers in. And because I came with Mark and Wahlberg and these guys, and we got the hottest show, I was able to rub elbows with these guys and party with them and drink and hang out with them. And so this shit is just like, it was unreal. Because I went from the underground,

to where my shows got three girls in it and this bitch is break dancing. The three girls in there got sweatpants on and they're spinning on their head. Everybody else got army jackets and shit. And I'm like, damn, I need my shit to look like a Drake show. Ain't no high heels in this motherfucker? I was just watching the Come Again video

and there's a white girl in a Yankees fitted and there's a dude pointing a gun like over her shoulder at the camera. Yeah, those are the kind of business doing. That's the Saigon fan right there. Those are the kind of girls I had about shows. And I went from that to fucking the biggest show on HBO, literally overnight in a matter of months. And so it was like, this shit, it felt surreal. It felt so surreal.

I had to be like, damn, I had to reel myself in. And how it really fucked me up. The show got so big when I wanted to continue with my music shit. My fuckers was like, oh, this niggas trying to be a real rapper now. Oh, God. So I'm like, they're like, oh, the kid from Antwery. trying to really rap. The guy's Saigon from the show.

Wow. He's trying to be a rapper. I'm like, nah, they found me rapping. What the fucking do? Like, the storyline is kind of, yeah, so kind of was like so. That shit was huge. And when you're in it, you don't realize how big it is because you're part of it. But then when you step away from it and you look because my nigga, like to this day,

I go and I go meet people and I introduce myself for Saigon. They were like, oh, like the guy from entourage. Right. They don't care. You don't even put the name with the face. And I'm saying? I guess I had braids. But they were like, oh, like the guy from entourage me.

I'm like, oh, yeah, that's me. Right. No way. This fucking, that show, that show, that was like sex in the city for men. You know how women, there's certain generation of women that sex in the city was they shit? Yeah. That's what entourage was for that generation. taught you how to be a douchebag in Hollywood, yeah.

Yep. 100%. Which were all at some level basically kind of doing. Yeah. That's beautiful. Nah, but that would, like, the, like, the, experience was and that that's one of the highlights of being in an entertainment world because I got to learn how production work I got to see how they produced the

shit and how much goes into it I used to be arguing with Doug Ellen like I do a take and I'd be like I could do it better Doug he's like we got what we need I'm like nah trust me I can nail it he's like Saigon we're good nah man I'll argue with the guy for Tim he's like yo check this out if I if I didn't have what I needed we'd still be doing takes bro yeah i got what i need man can i can i direct like and then and so i you know i ended up doing my own uh tv show and it never came out yet but i i learned how to produce i learn how to really direct i learn because i'm one of those guys like to learn while i'm doing shit and so so much came from that man and um though i'm still got a great relationship with with

jerry turtle like that's my guy like turtle when i put out a project he you know he he promotes it He does all of that. When he comes to New York or he'll go to L.A. He just had a little boy. He's like, yo, your nephew. He calls his son my nephew. We're like brothers, man. And that's a relationship that came from that TV show.

That seems like one thing you're really strong out is, like, maintaining the relationships with people you actually give a fuck about. It's positive energy, man. It's good. Like, Kay Slay did my first mixtape. Kay Slay could call me anytime, like I said, every DJ hated me.

He's the only one guy sat me down and said, yo, you're doing it wrong, shoddy. Let me, let me, and I've respected him for that I've respected him so much I told him I said yo man thank you and I changed

he made me he's like yo you're not going nobody's going to dismal why nobody's fucking with you because they don't like you because you're thinking you could bully and come like and he's like that you're going about it because I try to bully him he's like yo shorty you can't bully me man like no I'm gonna tell you why you're fucking up

I'm gonna tell you what you're doing wrong nobody else stopped to set me down and that's what I mean about being an elder we're supposed to do this to the younger generation we're supposed to sit down and be like yo sure Like, nobody did that to this Takashi kid. Well, Fat Joe tried to. Right.

See? And Fat Joe's one of the real ones. He's one of the guys who's a real dude. You know what I'm saying? Fat Joe, Fat Joe sat him down and said, Shorty, you bugging. Like, you're going to get yourself into some shit. You can't get out.

Nah, I got this. I got this. That's a good point. I got to rewatch that. I haven't thought about that long time. He told him. He said, Shorty, slow down, you know. It's funny because the 6-9 thing is such a big story in rap over the past few years,

but it's also the easiest lesson for, Us to like give some kid is like if you happen to be blowing up as a rapper, don't align yourself with a street gang. Yeah, because you're going to die or go to jail. Like that, this is what you sign up for when you join a gang. What gangster, real gangster, goes and retires on a fucking beach? John Gotti died in prison. Right. This is what you son.

Gangsters die and go to jail. There's a fake-ass dream that they're selling. It's a bullshit. Exactly. And it's so easy to sell because it seems like even Scarface, that's a movie. That's a movie. But what happened to Tony Montana at the end? He got shot the fuck up a thousand times.

And it's funny, though, because there's still so many people who see that movie and think, I want to sell Coke. Exactly. The end part, that ain't happened to me. You know what, when MTV Cribs was on, bro, I used to watch that shit. Every rapper had a picture of Scarface in the Cray. It was like, you know you got to have a Scarface picture. First of all, it's a fucking movie.

Second of all, Scarface died. More people who had pictures of him than Jesus. Like, no fuck. I'm like, yo, why does everything? Every rapper feel like they have to have a picture of Scarface. And the fucking... This is a fucking film. Yeah.

And it resonated to the point where we thought it was real. Motherfucks wanted to be drug dealers. That's what I mean about the influence of entertainment. It shit is very, very... You came out in the era of motherfuckers wearing leather jackets with scarface on the back of it. Yes. Remember that? Yes. That's how bad it got.

I lived in Astoria and there was mad stories selling those on the blog. I'm like... And the shirts were all the nines all over in this shit. Yeah. Gino Green with the nine. That kid came in and made a lot of money and went away. And that's the power of this shit. Like, if you figure this shit out and you figure this shit out, it's very lucrative, man.

It's like, like, who would have, I remember Kanye. I remember Kanye, if you would have told Kanye in 2004, he's going to be a billionaire, a fucking billionaire, not a millionaire, a billionaire, he would have been like, I might do well, but a billionaire, come on, bro, that's fucking far fat. like you know what I'm saying that's far fetch and the fucking guy made a billion that fucking dollars like this shit is if you do if you play the game right and it did disguise the limit in far as my making money yeah because you know not to say money brings you happiness but far as if your goal is to get

get money that there's there's a lot of upside and and in this culture and hip pop is so much these guys have made a lot of guys have made a lot of money Like, it's unheard of for guys to become billionaires Or fucking rap I would say it's more from sneakers for him Yeah, but without the right You couldn't sell a sneaker Yeah

You know what I'm saying? If people didn't love you They wouldn't care about your sneaker like that You know what I'm saying? That is crazy to think that he owns Like a relatively small percentage of that And he's still worth that much off of it Fucking like he sells them shit

Sell like hot cakes I mean hey, selling sneakers My friend took me up the other day He had three He said you all I got the new Yeah like four pair of Yeezes He's brand new I said, how much did you spend?

He's like, oh, like, $1,500. I said, on fucking sneakers? Yeah. Oh, shit. People don't normally knock on that door. It's kind of surprising. Well, she's going to look through the fucking mail slot. Nice.

I never had anybody come to that door. Uh-oh, they found your hideout. Imagine? Imagine a shootout right now. Don't worry. I'm here, bro. I'll jump in front of it. If I got to shoot somebody in front of Saigon,

I love it. This shit would go viral like a motherfucker. It's so funny because do you guys remember a rapper than Gravy? Oh, yeah. Shot himself in the ass, yeah. No, he didn't shoot himself. Oh, yeah, he didn't. Oh, wait, no, okay, he didn't.

But that was the rumor for a while was that he shot himself in the ass on purpose to get some clout going, right? That's what they were saying, but I was there with it happened. Oh, really? Yeah, because we was freestyling on flex that night. Right. And his whole shit was, I'm still, after he got shot, he was like, this is my shot. Right. No pun intended.

Like, I got to go do this freestyle with the blood leaking out of his ass. I'm like, bro, go to the hospital, man. He got shot in Manhattan? Yeah. Over what? Like on the street? He got shot right in front of Hot 97. Right.

But then they banned him for that, right? Yeah, for getting shot. Yeah. Because he still went upstairs and did the freestyle. Right. So I'm staying there. With a bullet in his ass. How was it in his ass?

You ever heard of a gaming like this people? Check this out, though. This is what made me, this is why this might have been my worst freestyle ever. because the setup looks similar to this. Like, everybody got their mic. So I know he's shot. I see the little hole in his ass in his jeans and the powder burn

and all that shit. And he's rapping and he's like this. So I'm just waiting for him to collapse. It was just like, because I kept telling him, yo, go to the hospital, homie. Because you know him know if you hit a vein. I know it's an ass shot.

How many seven is going to let you come back, realistically? Yeah, that's what I said. Yeah, you could explain that. They don't have that much going on. Bro, you could explain that. Yeah. I know last time, you know,

I got shot. That's a great excuse. He went up there and Flex is like, oh, my, what the fuck is going on, man? Flex is like, yo, Flex is like, yo, bro, man. Flex wanted him to leave. Right. But fuck, he was like, yo, do your rap and go to the hospital. And the nigga, uh, oh, they're dropping off food.

Everybody want to go to this door. God damn. We're going to put a sign that says, do not knock. Fact. They're a great idea. Yeah, so that's that. So I'm like, that's when I was like, yo, I want to shine too. But if I get shot in the ass, I'm going to make sure I'm okay first.

Like that, my life is more important than this shit. You know what crazy thing? When I left New York and moved to LA, I basically like when I was at the airport, Gravy's just sitting there across from me. And I'd never like really even in all my years living in New York, like riding bikes and stuff, I never really seen that many rappers and stuff. And I remember Gravy was just sitting there. And I remember he had like a really gay, like, stylist with him.

Yeah. It just kind of blew my mind. I didn't know. A lot of these guys, that's a lot of their stories, man. Like, if you need a stylist, period, like, you might want to. It might have a stylist, I might have a manager or a P. I don't know, something. But either way, this guy was flaming.

Gravy, Jamal was one of the cooler guys. Okay. The rappers that I met. And, you know, a lot of these guys start to believe that character. And I go, you're not that character, man. Just, like, snap out of it. Some of these guys, you know, be a social setting

you'd be at a restaurant and you'd still be like this world do motherfucking world like fam you could smile bro you could smile it's not a video shoot there's nobody around judging you you could be right

you could be even the toughest guys I've been in maximum security prisons I've been with guys who got three fucking bodies and they're happy and they smile they don't then I that shit is that's theatrical

right and these guys sometimes don't know how to turn it off especially when there's an audience I feel like I've met so many of those guys but I also have seen them turn it off relatively quickly so the idea of them just not being able to turn it off sounds crazy I guess this is who they get around because when they got an audience

like your fam it's okay to be a regular person who smiles and happy and you know you don't always have to be in character and they start to believe that they're this person and there's a lot of them a lot of them a lot of them And that's why I get around these guys and I just be like, whoa. Because when you be around that element, for real, like being in a fucking penitentiary for seven years, you start to see the most dangerous motherfuckers are quiet as shit.

They walk around with little glasses on, briefcase, trying to go in the lower library, trying to find a way to beat this three triple life sentences they got. They're not running around like this. Those are the guys who are scared. Because they try to scare people off with the face. They call face fighting. Those are the guys who really don't want no problems. Those are the scare guys.

That's real. I feel like I see such a different version of people because people are always like, if I meet like that angry face, like everybody's trying to be a rapper now. Everybody's trying to be something. So I feel like I get to see the presentable version that they want to show, which is like, yeah, maybe I'm gangster, but also like, look how talented I am

or look at this thing I have going for me. Because they, like, you got a platform and I need, I don't want to. scare you away yeah yeah I don't want to do yeah what it shapes my worldview a bit yeah nice it's a lot of shit man what else uh what do we need to know about sagon in terms of 2020 and beyond 20 20 and beyond man i like uh Travis O'Gwen and tech nine and he put me in a good situation because even though i wasn't putting out music i never stopped recording so i was sitting on like fucking volumes and volumes of music and i was like damn man like as i was co-parenting raising

and my three children, I was always, my creative juices was always flowing. So I'm like, damn, man, what am I going to do? Am I just going to let this shit sit here? And just out by chance, you know, I reached out to tribe

and I'm like, yo, man, we should do something. And, you know, he flew me out to Kansas City, played the music for him. He was like, y'all, you got a lot of shit. He's like, just promise me you're going to be consistent, man. We don't start and stop over here, bro.

You know what I mean? If we're going to go, we're going to go. And because I had said something And I thought I was being cool. I'm like, you know, I'm getting older. I don't feel like doing this shit for much longer. He said, well, if that's the case, then I'm not the, I'm not the, this ain't the place for you. I'm like, huh?

What you mean by that? He said, bro, tech nine is one of the, he's the elder in this game. And when you get around this guy and you see the passion that he has for this game, it's almost like the fucking first day he started. And when I got around him and seen it, it just sparked something to me. I was like, damn, bro, you like. this shit like you was brand new he loves this shit like he's just starting to do it right he loves he loves it and that's why he's successful he's like when you when you have your skill set he said you got the skill set that i know you have everybody knows you have never been your music

has never been a problem if you got this skill set and you're consistent there's that's a recipe to win there's no way you're not going to win you just got to keep it's like chopping down a tree right you got to keep you're not it might not fall the first 100 300 swings but if you keep hitting that motherfucker Eventually, you're going to yell timber. So you put a lot of time in on tour with Tech Nine already, though? I went on tour with Chris Calico with Strange Music. Tech wasn't on the tour, but it was the rest of the artists. Like five years ago.

Oh, okay. So that's how the rapport started. Right. So when I had, I'm just sitting on all this music and I'm doing all these albums and I'm like, damn, am I just going to just sit on this shit forever, you know? So I, you know, we did the deal. So that I got another album coming out this year Another one I just I put out out out in August

I got an album coming out in December You like the road though? Like would you go do three months on tour With Tech 9 if you could Or is that too much? Once it's a lot Three months is a lot It's a lot

It's a lot Because it sounds good But at this stage Like when I'm in my 20s Yes because it's fun Fuck around groupies girls and shit At this stage I have Seeing a fat ass is like seeing the tree

You know I mean It's like, fat ass, whoopty-do. You know what I'm saying? But when you're young, yeah, but now it's like, it's business, so it's good to make the money, you know, and I love to perform and get, you know, to see the reaction. But that road is grueling, man.

Going to fucking showering at truck stops and shit and all that on that tour bus living in a bus with a bunk with 12 guys. Nigger fart above you, you smell it. You're like, oh, shit. It's like, yeah. I'm like, yeah. One person farted the whole bus.

Clear the bus. boss. It's a nasty one. Somebody let a net. Nobody wants to claim it and shit. It's like, yeah, that shit gets annoyed. You want to go home quicker than you think, bro. Home is like, and then it's funny because soon as you go home, you're like, damn,

I miss the road. You know what I said? So, but those guys work hard, man. Those guys work really, really, really hard. When you see that merch operation, how they do merch, how they do. Travis O'Gwen is the most meticulous human being I ever met. If there was a piece of length in this floor. and it moved from when he walked in,

he'd notice it. He'd be like, yo, that little blint was over there when I walked in. The wind must have blew it a little bit. That's how fucking meticulous this guy. He could tell you every angle from every show,

from every camera, the Technine every day. He has it. He's like, if I want to go to this angle from this camera, it got all of this shit and computer. I said,

yo, what the fuck? I've never seen. If I want to go to the show, 1999, the show in Denver, I want this angle. It's right here. That's the benefit of being

100% focused on the shit that you're doing. I feel like somebody like me, I'm always like thinking about like, all right, like this is dope, but like maybe I could do this. Maybe I could do that. Some people, they figure out like, we're rapping, we're going on tour,

we're going to do this to such an extreme. It's like OCD on steroids with this guy. Like it's, and he only wears black. Really? Every day. He doesn't, he wears black every single day. All black. same khakis

t-shirt or shorts I respect that too every single day So you don't have to think about it You don't have to think of it Yeah, that's the thought that's going And I'm like, why do you guys I asked him?

I didn't even say it I noticed it I'm like yo every time I see you You got black on He said that's all I wear It's black man And I started trying to find them Like Googling them

Trying to find some shit Where it wasn't black And I couldn't find nothing I was like this is kind of different I've never experienced No shit like this Well that's why Marks Zuckerberg who owns Facebook and shit.

A bunch of those guys in the tech world, they do the same thing because to them, it's like, that's wasted time and energy. You've got to think about what you're going to put on it. Yeah, that's some, he has this little, I can't, oh, I'm not going to tell all the secret. He might be like, yo, you're giving up fucking secrets. But, you know, I got that going on.

I got a fucking web cycle, hip hop my way that's generated to new artists that's really trying to help new artists because, man, the shit is going on with these new artists getting duped and shit. This shit's not cool. So I started a website a couple years ago called Hip Hop My Way So it's like if you go up there and build a profile

It's almost like having your own website Like you can put all You can consolidate all your socials to one place So if I wanted to go up there and find the next guy I can go up there and let's say I heard of him Type his name in I can go to his fucking Facebook His Instagram if he got videos If he wants to start his own podcast

And it all lives right there And we host every thing for them and we don't charge them nothing zero we make our money on the advertising side with the traffic because the my business partners are out that's what they do there's a big multi this is one tech guys right who got a company called digital remedy we did a joint venture with them and how long so people can get the book oh this comes out no the physical copy comes out November 13th okay and you could pre-order you could pre-order it now if you go

to Amazon you can pre-order it and yeah this is book one my My life was so long, I couldn't even put it in one book. So I had to, I went to a fucking publisher or editor with like 200,000 words. They're like, fam. You wrote the Bible, digger. You just wrote the Bible. You better break that shit up. So I had to break it up into different books.

So this is book one. And this comes out. And it really showcases my life from like the prison shit to the industry to really, like, bossing up. And then starting companies and learning about LLCs and the shit we should learn in school. the shit they don't teach us how to be self-sufficient. They teach us how to be employees. Definitely. You know, you don't learn about business management until college, you know what I'm saying?

That should be the basis of what you learn, you know? But I guess everybody can't be a boss, right? Then there's no workers. Definitely. But yeah, man. It's been a hell of a ride, Adam, man. It's been a hell of a ride, man. And I look back and I wrote this book so my children could say my children,

of my grandchildren could know my story, God forbid, I'm not here to tell it. You know what I'm saying? It's hit nobody, because what happens is once you're not here to tell your story, everybody else starts to tell your story. Yeah. So I put it in black and white just in case, and I want my, that being I have children, I want them to know who I was, what I stood for, why I stood for it, where it came from, where they came from, even how they were conceived, you know what I'm saying?

Because it wasn't the actual normal way, like, that it usually happened. Like let them know like me and your mother might not have been in love, but you were definitely born out of love You know you were loved from day one because you never know, you know I even I even got life insurance, you know what I'm saying? Like that's some shit I would have never thought of like what happens to my kids if something happens to me, you know what I'm saying? A lot of you guys running around flashing money doing all this shit down got life insurance Yeah, the kids is out there exposed somebody claps them Some something something nothing comes from it bro. Your shit ain't even in your name you only own your master So somebody's going to own all the rights to go to you. We got to learn how to set ourselves up. Because we need elders, man.

We need the older generation got to step up. Stop trying to fucking be young and pick your fucking pants up. You know what I'm saying? And start, don't be afraid to grow old. Not even grow old, but to mature. To mature. And a lot of us don't want to mature. We want to be kids.

Like, motherfuckers, if the clubs was open now, I can name 10 rappers that are being in a club 3, 4. a week. Oh, yeah. Facts. At least. Yeah, three, four days a week. And, like, wasn't we here in when our 20s and shit?

Like, this shit is for the kids. Let them enjoy this. Like, they're 19, they're college. They want to hang out and have fun. We shouldn't be partying with 21 and 22 year olds. I worry about how over the club I am because I feel like I'm never going to go to the club again. I will never go to the fucking club again.

I will, that, I was over it before the pandemic. And then when I see guys like, yo, look, We're doing the same fucking thing. I'm like, you're fucking, Nas made a song called Second Childhood one time. I think these guys are in their fourth, third and fourth childhood. It's like they don't want to give it up.

Like, grow the fuck. Some of them got kids that's old, they be partying with their children in the same club. Like, this don't sit right with me. That's so weird to me that that's just a thing for them to do. It's just a normal shit. It's backwards, man. But, you know, somebody got to,

somebody got to take the bull by the horns and say, you know what, fuck it. I'm going to be the example for you motherfuckers who don't want to grow up. And, you know, but, you know, it's a lot of opportunity out there in this world. And especially now that we all had time

to sit and think. This thing, look, this doesn't happen if this pandemic didn't happen. You're making me feel bad. I didn't write a book. You know what made me write this? I couldn't get my daughter to read a book. I said, yo, check this out.

I'm going to write a book. And I was, my goal really was to write like a couple paragraphs and make a little folder and be like, look, I wrote a book and you act like you don't want to read you know, it's hard to get kids to read. And now

I could go look, see? I did my part. I wrote, not only I wrote a book, I wrote a real fucking thick book. So now... And there's another one on the way. I shouldn't... Yeah, and there's another one. I should never have a hard time getting you to fucking read a book again. And now, it worked already.

Now she called me, Dad, I read a book. I read another book. I read another book. I read another book. so I'm leading by example, you know what I'm saying? That's right now. My mom forced me to read so much as a kid, and I really kind of thank that for so much that I eventually, you know, just given you need to instill that hunger for learning. They say, but it's funny, us is black people,

they got this saying, yo, if you want to hide something from a black person, put it in a book. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And that's a fucked up stigma and a fucked up stereotype to have. And a lot of it is true. Like, I was one of them guys. I would buy something. and it comes with a little instruction booklet.

I'm sitting there finger-fucking the thing for hours when all I had to do was just read what the fuck to do. Instead of me reading them four pages, I'm sitting here like, no, I'm going to figure this dumb shit. I didn't waste it mad time when I could have just read the instructions and put the shit together.

I've definitely been there. And I've watched my friends put together IKEA furniture without using the fucking manual, and it's just like, how could you possibly live like this? That's why that shit falls apart, man. The IKEA is the cheapest shit. See, do it, yeah. Facts.

Yeah, man. Yeah, I appreciate you coming through, man. Thank you, man. It's an honor to pick your brain and everything, man. And keep, keep rising, man. Keep growing, man. Keep growing. A lot of people paying attention.

And when you got their attention, you just got to go harder. You got hit them over the head with good content like this, right? Facts, facts, facts. And, yo, pain, peace and prosperity. Go get the book. Go get yours. Pre-order it. Book 1.

It got pictures in it. I didn't go to cheap route. I didn't spare no expenses. and I self-published it, so support the real. You know what I mean? Much love to everybody. No Jumper. Coolest podcast to world.

Check us on YouTube, SoundCloud, iTunes, like, comment, subscribe. No Jumper, if you want to support. Y'all Father, baby. Hit up Saigon. I'm going to read this shit for real. Yeah. I'm going to take notes, so we have something to talk about next time, too. Facts.

Facts, facts, facts. Facts. PAU. Love.