No Jumper - The Van Lathan Interview: Surviving COVID, Mental Health, Joe Budden Break Up & More

Episode Date: June 6, 2021

Van Lathan is back on the program! They go in depth on the importance of therapy, how they handled 2020, new business moves, give their take on Joe Budden Podcast and more. https://www.instagram.com/vanlathan/ https://twitter.com/VanLathan ----- CHECK OUT OUR NEW SPOTIFY PLAYLIST https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5tesvmDS8h50LkjnSAWMOs?si=j6sJD6DkR4mk5NZZWnlK7g FOLLOW US ON SNAPCHAT FOR THE LATEST NEWS & UPDATES https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_Jumper/4874336901 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/NOJUMPEROFFICIAL http://www.reddit.com/r/nojumper JOIN THE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/Q3XPfBm Follow Adam22: https://www.tiktok.com/@adam22 http://www.twitter.com/adam22 http://www.instagram.com/adam22 adam22hoe on Snapchat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No Jumper, coolest podcast on the world. And today we're in here with someone I love to speak to, someone who's one of my favorite people that have conversations with Van Fricken Lathen. What up, what up, what up? And of course, I got A.D. Grizzly with me. Yes. Yeah. So I wanted to start with a question.

Because I'm a fan of the platform. Yes. I'm a fan of the platform. Are y'all good? Who's your who? He's pointing at Yassi. Yeah, we good. Y'all good?

Yeah, yeah. I'm going to be honest with you. Because you called me, too. I did. I did. I'm going to be honest with you. I was watching that shit like it was a so. Bob.

Y'all had me. I don't know if it's because it wasn't too much other shit going on, but I was I rewatched the interview like five times, right? Whatever. As much of it as I could watch. Then I watch all the reactions. Then I watched

the follow up. I was like on some housewife shit with the drama going on over here at no jumper. I'm glad that I was able to piece shit up. Yeah. When you called me, I was like, oh my God. During that OT Yassie period, there was a part of me that was like,

damn, like, there must not be that much other good shit to pay attention to right now because people are really talking about this. But I feel like a lot of times in rap, like there'll be some shit like that going on, but then meanwhile, there's like a bigger story that people are paying attention to. I was like, this must be kind of a dry moment

because people are really into this at this moment. And it's weird because people that I used to talk to like actual important shit about, like people that would hit me up like, man, what's going on with like Israel and Palestine and man what we got to do about this I was like yo man did you see this shit though and we was talking about it but it was dope it was dope man that's what happens sometimes when you're making content yeah no signals get crossed well but that was a weird moment where

you know we've always wanted to do more podcasts on this channel and stuff and for me you know typically when I do a show like with the no jumper show or whatever it's kind of like let's just put people together and maybe we'll mix and match we'll remove somebody we'll add somebody new etc but we don't do a lot of pre-planning for the streams and with ad it's kind of like oh we want to give you a podcast and when he like was suggesting different people they want to do the podcast with i went missing well but from my perspective it's kind of like how much do you want to police that if you're me like how much do you want to get in there and be like you know like do an episode together and then let's really look at it and see how we think the vibe is and stuff ad just jump in

And he's like, I can do the shit with anybody. I'll just hop on with. So I feel like him and Yassie maybe, there could have been more work done before that to figure out that they were going to hate each other if they continued to, if they did a podcast together. See, this is my standpoint on the shit, right? Is hate a good word there?

Nah, because my thing is that... It's a strong word. The media and everybody else had opinions when, like, off the camera, like, I'm talking to this girl every fucking day, and we're discussing all type of random shit. So it's just like, I feel like, more people put pressure on us than what me and her was talking about.

You know what I'm saying? Because you know what happens when you're making content? I'm sure y'all know this. Number one, I thought she conducted herself really, really well. I just did. And keep in mind, she was brand new to, that was like the very beginning of her doing anything on camera as far as I know. But what happens is when you make content and when you hear,

you're not like a person anymore, right? You become an avatar for people's feelings. So when they are angry, they then plug in with you being angry. When they are turned up about something, they plug in with you being turned up about something. And then when they see so much of you and you get in the position and you react differently than the way they would have reacted, they go, oh shit. Is this person really worth being sort of a spokesperson for my feelings and my emotions and my thoughts? because here's a situation where I would have clearly done A

and now they are doing B. The thing with that is like, and sometimes it's hard to remind people, but I'd be like, you know, I'm a person too. Right. You know what I'm saying? So sometimes, like if you saw me with the Kanye thing, it's like, oh, my God, he said everything I would have said.

Well, sometimes I'm going to say shit that you wouldn't have said. Sometimes I'm going to say shit that you won't like. And sometimes I'm going to say shit, that's wrong. wrong. But if you fuck with me, you fuck with me. And you got to fuck with me through all of that. You know what I mean? And so when I saw that, it's like, that's what happens. That to me is when you

lean into that. And that's kind of what, because like, that's what people want to see. People want to see people who go through shit and figure shit out. Because believe it or not, it's not on the internet, but we do that every day. Right. Because we all want to be the Joe Button. Like, when we do podcasts, because this is someone that people, his fans have stuck around

for a lot of mental illness, a lot of moments in which they, you know, clearly a large percentage of the fan base was not in agreement with him and they suck around. And that's the kind of fan base you want. I want to be able to have a mental breakdown on here. And I want you all to watch and laugh and be amused by my suffering and then still tune in next week where my head is screwed on a little bit better, right? You did last week. I tweeted out of the last week. I didn't see that. What happened last week? I'm behind. It was a lot of shit going on pieces. There was a lot of shit going on Fusi and Keemstar pulled up and we did the podcast with them. And then what happened is that there's another rapper that we're all cool with that we all are like friendly with and stuff.

But I haven't seen him in a long time. Somebody gave him the address. He pulls up and we're trying to like actually do the podcast after these guests left. We're trying to get back into it and stuff. And, you know, there's just like miscommunication where he thought he was pulling up. And actually those people had already left. We didn't even know why he was pulling up. And I kept trying to like get back into the conversation.

And like when you do a podcast, you really need to be, especially a live podcast, you need to be in an environment where nobody can bother you. You know, you need to like not be hearing people talking in the background. If people show it. And that really got me fucking flustered to the point where I probably overreacted because I felt like

I was having my ability to like get focused on the podcast kind of robbed from me. And it wasn't his fault because I ended up figuring out that, you know, whatever. We talked. It's whatever. but yeah, I tweaked that a little. Well, I mean, look, you're the top guy.

There's only so much you can tweak, Adam. You can't really tweak. That's what really happens when you get in the position. Like, A, you know this. When your homies are, like, dependent on you, your ability to tweak becomes minimal because then your tweak is then fucking exacerbated and exaggerated.

Put under the magnifying glass. Right. Let's figure out what's going on here. But that's what's weird. And sometimes it feels like a double standard. Like LeBron can't tweet. Alex Caruso could tweak. But, okay, there's a lot of examples I can think of.

Like, you know, rest in peace. But when Nipsey punched that security guard, everybody fucking loved it. It's like a historic moment in hip hop because everybody's impression of Nipsey is that he's such a good dude that he had to be right in that situation. If I punched a security guard, people is going viral for sure. I don't think I'm going to get the benefit of the doubt. Well, yeah, probably not. I'm just saying that. Also, it depends on the security guard.

Definitely. That's true. Right. But who are? If they're trans? Oh, that's over. But whoever your identity is, that's what you leave with, right? You know Nip was solid.

God bless him. We know Nip was solid. So, shit, I'm going to air on the side of whoever fucked with him was in the wrong. You know what I mean? Poor security guard. That guy's got to live with everybody thinking that's the best clip ever. It is. The victory slap?

Can you imagine that security guard having a deal with that coming up every couple months? They should say that as an NFT. They should. By the way, I am completely and totally anti-violence, but that was a beautiful slap. It was so well-performed that that was a big part of it. He reached back. It was almost like a loving slap because you know when your mama slap you, she don't do it with malice. She does it with intent to straighten your ass up.

And that's why she comes all the way back because she's accessing her emotions before she come through and slapped the shit out of you. That's kind of how Nip did it. nipples just like, yo, get right. But you seem like you speak about child abuse kind of lovingly there. Speak about child abuse. This is a white thing. For me, I'll never slap my kid.

To me, that just is totally off limits. But you know what else? You need that shit, though, bro. As a kid. Parker don't need to get slapped. Not yet. She said, fuck you, dad. You could go kill yourself.

Let me take something else, though. It also depends on the stakes, right? So where I'm from, my parents say, hey, Van, like, I'm going to stop bad. rules. My parents say, hey, Van, be here at this certain time, right? What if I say no? I might get really fucked up for real. You know what I'm saying? Isn't that a bad thing? Like, I don't want my kids to think that a verbal dispute can just like logically elevate to a violent dispute. I don't want them to think that's even an option. I mean, but as a somebody who doesn't hit their kids, I needed that shit back then, especially where I grew up at. You know what I'm

saying? You need discipline because what it teaches you is you have respect for authority figures. Like without that, you're going to go around telling everybody, fuck you, I don't have to listen to you, and you might get hurt in the process because you didn't get taught at home how to handle yourself around authority. My pops used to say, you got to be, you have to be more afraid of me than you are the streets.

You know what I mean? Like, because he, because the stakes were so high. Now, obviously, you know, I don't have any kids, but I couldn't see myself, I look at the kids. Now, I don't even want to discipline my fucking dog. I got the cutest dog in the world. And I, you know, my girl would be like, oh, you got to make him do something for the treats. Whatever I eat, I give them half.

He's just look at me. It's like, whatever. But when we grew up, like, they were afraid. I'll tell you a story real quick. My pops, my pops is in the car one time, and my uncle who passed away, he had come home from jail, and my dad is, like, on the phone with

him. And whatever is happening in, whatever is happening in this phone call, it's obvious that my uncle is back on crap. Whatever's happening. So he gets off the phone, hangs the phone up. He looks at me like, yo, man, back on that shit, man. Fuck.

And I'm sitting in the car, 12, 13, actually a little bit older than that, maybe 14, 15 years old. He looks at me and he goes, yo, if I ever catch you fucking with drugs, if I ever catch you fucking with drugs, I'm going to beat the living shit out of you. If I ever catching you bringing that shit

in your mama house, like I'll kill you myself. And I'm sitting there like, yo, I didn't do nothing. Like, I'm sitting here, I'm on the little game boy or whatever. Like, I didn't do nothing. Why are you getting at me?

He's afraid. he's looking at his brother, somebody who he loves, and he's like, he's seeing what could happen if you don't listen, if you go astray, if you play in a certain way. And I love my uncle to death. I'm not trying to just, you know, besmirch his name. He's passed on now. But, you know, that's a lot for a man to kind of keep his kids away from.

So they don't always do it the most elegant way. And to be honest, when I think about drugs and how I might one day talk to my kid or kids about drugs, that is the one thing that it immediately just pops into my head that I would want to basically threaten them with violence to let them know how serious that is. Like this is actually a big enough deal that, you know, and there's other things too. Like in general, like just being a bad person in general, but with the drug thing, you know how dangerous it is. You know how unprepared they are for a kid as a kid. It seems to be like that's one of the few things where you really want them

to be that scared to you. I guess the question is, given that everybody gets basically told not to do drugs throughout their life, and then everybody ends up at least experimenting with drugs, a large majority of people, is making it that taboo actually beneficial to your goal of keeping them off drugs for their entire life? Yeah, with the fentanyl and everything it is now, I tell my little brother all the time.

I'd be like, nigger, smoke your weed, I don't care. I don't even care if you drink, don't overdo the shit, but when you're getting into these powder and you get into this crystal and all this shit that these kids is doing now, all these pills and shit, it's like, nah, and I'd rather fuck you up, Then see you in the goddamn more because I'm going to feel bad that I could have intervened and doing that shit. And it's the same way like my mom when it comes down to gang banging. You feel me?

My little brother that's in the room right here, she took him to, made him go to totally different schools. You know what I'm saying? Took him totally different out of the way because guess what? You have a son that's in prison. You have a son that's a gang member. You have a, he has a brother that got murdered that was also a gang member. You take him out of that element. You don't want that no more.

And she's threatened him all the time. He couldn't go. I can go out to the park. for 10 hours and come back home and it's cool. He can't go to the park for three hours as a kid because she's thinking that he's getting into something, that trauma right there. But she wasn't thinking that about your childhood? She didn't really know that it was going to be like that for you.

I was, I was a first generation. I was older. You know what I mean? They grew up in a community that everybody knew each other like family. They played cars together. Everybody hosted stuff. You know what I mean? There wasn't no gang members and stuff like that.

And then come gang members and things that nature that my grandma has to deal with that shit. and then me and my homeboys are like the first generation of our neighborhood who making the neighborhood go crazy and then my little brother is the second generation is doing all the bullshit and then it comes to him. It's not foolproof by the way. You know, the sort of societal conditions that certain people exist in, sometimes they win.

Sometimes they win a little bit, sometimes they win a lot. Sometimes people dabble. Sometimes it's a way of life. But I think for the generation, especially, where I'm from, I think for the generation, my father, my uncles, all of them, they were trying to figure out how they changed outcomes.

With me specifically, with my sister, with my brothers, with some of the, they're trying to figure out how they change outcomes. And they look at it and sort of, when you just let people decide, you have to look at the matrix of options that they have. And I think that's what people don't really understand about society as a whole, right?

So look, if, and we talk about, about this in terms of a difference between maybe how you grew up and how I grew up, and I'm not going to, I don't know exactly what your story was, but I do know, I'm in the crib with my homeboy Gray one time. Gray is a white dude. Gray's mom comes home. She's like, she's about to take Gray to go do something, right? And she says, well, look, we need to go ahead and go and get ready now because when we start going, it's going to be too chaotic. I'm going to have to get with your little brother. He goes, well, it's not until 630. Why would we have to do it now and he asks his mother why and i remember thinking to myself this motherfucker is crazy

i was thinking to me i'm like oh shit gray put your head down it's about to happen to you you know what i'm saying and and she looks back at him and oh shit somebody's that's out of oh my god oh shit Connecticut who the fuck do i know in Connecticut all right sorry about that so anyway so looks back at him and then they fucking negotiate it right and I thought about that I thought about the fact that like a lot of these things like don't talk while grown folks

is talking like don't because what are the grown folks talking about? They're talking about some shit that your little mind probably ain't ready to fucking you know what I mean like it's when you have different circumstances you have different conversations and so I had there was a narrow

path growing up in Gardier Lane South Baton Rouge for you to kind of to like stay out of all of that shit. And you have to thread a certain needle. So there was all of these other options, right? And it's so easy. You could play basketball all evening and somebody could be like, hey, Van,

take this up the street for me. And they like 50 or 100 bucks and you're like, why wouldn't you want the $50 or $100? So of course you're going to do that, right? When they came to me, I would be like, no, I was scared. What if I take it up there and then I see my pops? Or what if somebody sees me doing that and then they tell my dad? Or what if, God forbid, I get Pop doing it?

And now he got to come get me. I was actually afraid of that moment. And so I never fucked around. Yeah. When I think about my childhood, I'm not sure to what extent I should have been scared of my parents having that reaction. Like, I knew my parents were going to have that reaction if I got caught doing something illegal. And then I proceeded to get caught doing illegal shit, like over and over and over. And the fact that they kept getting more angry at me and my dad kept beating my ass worse and worse, somehow like my.

my brain was disconnected from that. I still felt like I'm going to just do the shit that I want to do and who gives a fuck about the repercussions. You white. That's how y'all look at life. It's like, it's my fucking country. I fucking do whatever the fuck I want. You don't tell me shit.

And you know what? Your parents was probably, they were probably torn because they were probably like, damn, he keeps fucking up. But God damn, he's got his own mind. I don't know. I think it took years for them to start to think that. To start to be like,

maybe this is a good thing that he's got so much. Spunk. Pause. Spunk. Yeah, I mean, it's weird because I'm still in very much like the honeymoon stage of my child rearing, where my kid is six, almost seven months. She just does cute things. Like the worst thing that she does is, like, shit her pants or, like, throw food at the wall.

Can't really get mad at her about anything yet. Well, you'll never be able to. Yeah. You'll never be able to get mad at her about anything. Yeah. Because your life has been so well documented that when she starts to test you, she is going to have so much actual shit. It would be like Prince having kids.

Think about Prince having kids. It's like, don't stay up late. What the fuck are you talking about that? Protected sex only. You know what I'm saying? Like, Dad, what are you talking about? Hey, don't stay out late. Hey, you're like, you know what I mean?

So it's going to be, what would you be disapproving of? I don't know. I mean, she's going to have to get much older for me to actually start to get upset about things that she's doing. But, you know, a thing that comes to mind for me a lot is, okay, she's going to know that I fucking love all these rapper guys, right? Yeah. And, like, we had one of, a guy that stopped by the other day, and he was so fucked up.

Like, we love this guy's music. But even if my daughter was, like, eight, I probably would have had to basically explain to her, like, he's fucked up. Like, there's a reason why he's acting like that. Right. But, like, what is that going to say to my... At some point, doesn't my kid have to have a record? of like, why do you fucking love this shit so much?

But you're also telling me that the stuff that they're doing is really, really bad, and you would potentially beat my ass for doing it. I mean, how do you make sense that at a certain point, you know? I think... That's a good question. I think it just happens, right? Because I remember one day when, like, it materialized in my brain, like,

who Mick Jagger and Marvin Gaye and all of these guys were, some kind of way who they were and, like, everything that came with that, it just, you just know it. You just know that these are rock stars and these are people and that society looks at them with a different set of rules. I personally think people, everyone who fanes who clutches their pearls when they see rappers and celebrities acting up, I think they're telling an emotional lie.

I think there is no possible way that platforms like this, platforms like TMZ where I used to work, all of these other platforms would exist if people did not like that. they love that and the reason why they love it is because it is freeing to them the reason why tony soprano the sopranos is the number one television show of all time the reason why the godfather is the number one movie of all time if you watch those movies they have very clear sort of almost religious sermons in them about why those guys don't follow the rules like the veto corleone says hey you think that i'm going to be another pesidivante i'm going to be another guy who just some schmuck up here following the rules, going to work, going home, coming in like that.

These are my morals and this is my family and I don't want to do it this way. Tony Sopranos, same guy, guy who has all of these family problems, all of these issues, right? But at the same time, lives by his own code. And people, that is an aphrodisiac to them. They like that. They love to see that. So when they see rappers and shit tearing up shit or rock stars tearing up shit or all that, they, I promise you, they love that.

Don't you think it's irresponsible for the media to basically like create these films propping up these guys who when I look at a lot of that stuff as I get older I'm like Tony Soprano supposed to be the fucking protagonist in this show and he's staying out all night fucking whores every fucking night Ignoring his family ignoring his wife putting his wife through hell he's clearly like if you were gonna warn your daughter about the types of guys that she doesn't want to end up with yes he goes out and gets his money, but he does all kinds of abhorrent things. I don't know if he actually kills anyone on the show, but he's clearly ordering. Yeah, yeah, he kills people. Yeah, he kills people. I mean, but don't you think it's kind of disturbing that, like, a lot of the greatest

American cinematography focuses on these kind of things? And is it irresponsible for them to continue doing that, given just how much we know about people? But he was, like you said, he was flawed, but the fact that a mob boss would go to therapy, and it was, like, looked down upon as well, too, was just like, like, man, like, that's real. Like, what's more real than that? But, like, in American TV, that's, like, the start of, or a start of us taking a more

introspective look at these, you know, because, like, you're viewing him through the therapist's eyes on the show as, as, through her eyes, you're doing a lot of terrible antisocial behavior. And it's clearly going to destroy your relationship with your kids, with your wife, etc. And, and that, that is important show for that reason. But could you just have a real, like, mob TV show or series? like that really just props these guys up and doesn't also call attention

to the fact that they're horrible people. I don't know if you can really make a show like that in this modern arena. Nobody will watch it ever. But they have to acknowledge how flawed there because that's what the Sopranos was is that you get to look at him through her eyes and see how flawed he is in her eyes.

Let me tell you about a scene in the Sopranos specifically that talks about exactly what we're talking about. So remember when Melfi was attacked? Yes. So Dr. Melfi was attacked, right? It was like an attempted rape or something like that. Or maybe she was raped.

I can't remember. I think she was. Yeah, I can't remember what happened. It was in a parking garage, right? In a parking garage, right? So, you know, it goes down. She's sitting there with Tony and you are watching them, right? And the whole thing is, is he's asking her what's wrong?

And the whole thing is, is she going to tell him what happened? the audience wanted her to tell Tony. If you go back and you watch that scene, the audience wanted her to say something, right? Because they knew what was going to be the outcome when she did, that Tony was going to call whoever he needed to call and whoever needed to get dealt with. You wanted that.

So as bad of a guy as Tony is, he represents something that's primal. The question is, why does the audience, resonate with Tony Suprano. Forget about the responsibility just for a second about making the show. Does that mean that people want to fuck whores all night? Does that mean that people want to skirt the law?

Well, we're fascinated by people who push all of their worldly concerns aside and just sort of live that life because it's like Tony Soprano or fucking, you know, push-shasty. They're the most extreme versions of ourselves. Precisely. So the question is,

all of these societal constraints, like we've created them, you know, and people like it. I mean, that's civilization is essentially like a pact, right? It's like, I won't kill you. I won't steal your car. I won't do it. It's a bunch of little treaties, a bunch of little treaties that we make with people, right? And that's why people get upset when there's injustice because we say, hey, we're living up to our part of the treaty. We're not doing this.

We're paying taxes. Then why the cops killing us? Like, it doesn't happen to Adam. So why are you sort of valuing and, you know, holding up one agreement and the other agreement, you're not even recognizing it. So what is it about us? We're doing the same thing. Not everybody wants to do that.

People look at that sometimes as limiting. They wonder, what would my life be like if I just said, fuck it and did everything that I wanted to do? People love people who just go off and break rules and push lines and testing. right because some people look at some of the rules that we've made in order to have society and they go hey it's like not as much fun this way and there have to be some people who don't live by this and they take solace in that i mean i think you can draw a direct line between the sopranos and breaking bad because breaking bad is different because it's less that he's taking part joining the society

that has been passed down through the years where there's a structure no this is like a guy who's going through shit and he decides that he's going to break the law and then throughout the show you're forced to record with the question of why is he doing this? And over time on the show, he admits, I told the world the lie that I was doing this for my family. But the truth is, is I was doing this for me. I like it. And I think that that's a really important thing to reckon with. And I think a lot of people tell themselves convenient lies about why they live their life the way that they do. And I think it's always, you know, important for people to sort of try to dig a step deeper, like for me with even just doing interviews. Like, I'm always kind of trying to figure out in my head,

like what is the thing that's driving you to do this? Like what really, as you break down your, you know, worldly concerns, what is it that's getting you out of bed in the morning? Like, what drives you? It's important. And a lot of people never even get to the point of thinking about that. And bro, that's like the Joker is just as popular as Batman. You know what I'm saying?

And from one standpoint, you can look at the Joker and say, you're right. You know what I mean? Batman, yeah, you may be a moral and you may take the moral high round. The Joker was like, you give this in front of people and they're going to act crazy the way that they want to feel. fucking act. And if they were real, Batman would be in prison just like the Joker. You know, like, they're both breaking the law

pretty much in equal amounts. Enough to send you to prison for life. Both totally insane. One just is, you know, empowered by a tremendous amount of privilege. Right. Batman, broke the moment he saw his parents. He's got the cops fucking with him. Yeah. He's doing press conferences with him

and shit. The Joker never gets that ability. You know what's interesting, though? Are you still in therapy? I am. When I decided I wanted to do therapy, and I started thinking about who do I know that is, you know, conscious of their emotional state that I could ask for a recommendation. So now I'm in the position where me and Van are essentially seeing the same person.

It's not even say man or woman, but we both dump our thoughts out to this person, and then that person can never, ever legally or, you know, whatever, say anything about what the other person has said to the other person, which is kind of interesting to know that. Because if we were fucking the same girl, we would be in a constant state of worry. Like, what is she going to reveal to, et cetera?

But we have, like, this relationship with the same person, and we don't know. I've mentioned him once or twice, like, in my sessions. And there's not even any acknowledgement. Like, oh, Van called me the other day and said this. There's not even any acknowledgement that she even knows who that is. Yeah, just completely, I really haven't heard about it since the moment, since the moment

I made the rent. Interesting. Just totally professional. Yeah. One of the best in the business. Yeah. But therapy, I wouldn't have made it through the pandemic

without therapy. Let me say something this was like weird. So during the pandemic, I went, I think three and a half, four weeks without sleep. Really?

Yeah. Why? So, We didn't change our lives almost at all. So like, I was scared. You know, I have an anxiety deal, right? And I was scared. And then the fear, so this is what happened.

So me and Jamel, me and Jamel Hill, shout out to Jamel Hill. We went and we met with this guy. And this guy was like, he was a producer who was thinking about doing a television show or something like that. Jamil's like, come meet the guy. So we went and we met with the guy. this was maybe like March 5th or 6th. Early days. Early days.

Now, so early enough that we knew what the coronavirus was and we were watching it because I had hand sanitizer on my keys, but everything was still open, right? It wasn't shut down until the next week. So, you know, I got the hand sanitized on my keys. I'm using it and all that we meet with this guy at the Kingsfield Cafe. We sit down and we have dinner. Excuse me, we sit down. We have lunch.

And when we have lunch with the guy, the guy is like sweating. in his eyes or whatever. And I'm like, yo, man, are you okay? He's like, yeah, I just came back from Mexico. I got a cold or whatever. And I'm like, yo, this is not the, he's like, ah, fuck that. That's thing.

That's not a big deal. That's not anything. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we sit down, we talk about the show or whatever. Jamel leaves. I get my food. I'm so scared that I don't want to eat. So I get my food to go.

And so I get the food and I leave. Next week, cool. A week after that, cool. I get a text from Jamel and Jamel says, hey, just to let you know, this guy tested positive for a coronavirus. And I was there with them the whole time. So at this point, we didn't know anything. Remember, this was the black plague. This was certain death.

This was the end of society. I fucking lost it. I called my manager. I call everyone. I'm like, yo, I had lunch with somebody who had the coronavirus. So it was like, when was it? I was like 14 days ago. My manager, when you're fine, like you're okay.

I could not shake it. I started washing my hands to the point that my fingers were bleeding the whole night and then one night I was on the phone all night with a friend of mine and I thought that I was

going to fall asleep after I got off the phone and I didn't like if I could just all night or whatever then the next night I didn't and then the next night I didn't and then the next night I did it my body did this weird thing to where I would try to fall asleep

right and as I was falling to sleep just when my body started to drift off, I would jolt back awake. And it would do this over and over and over again all night. And I never forget, there is one night, and I have a Benelli M4 under my bed, like a shotgun. And there was one night to where I went. I literally can't do this anymore. Like my body was on fire.

I would walk by people in downtown L.A. and they would be homeless people and they would be sleeping. And I would want to switch places with them. You know what I mean? and I'm and I'm like I like literally I can't do this like this is this is like no possible way to live right and I started laughing I was like I'm fucking need help like I'm crazy so I reached out and I started doing therapy started doing therapy I scaled things back I got into my sleep hygiene and like after a while I started sleeping a little bit and then one night slept wow

Do you think that you just were holding it all in and just letting it all build up to the point where you just ended up with this irrational-ass conclusion, like your body not being able to sleep? Or how do you account for that? I think that the body mind connection is a complicated thing. And I think as we get older, you know, things that we had to work for in our youth that we didn't have to work for in our youth, we have to work a little bit for them. You know, it didn't. When you was 24, 25, 23, 21, 22, you put your body through anything and it just snaps right back. But now there's a balance and a piece that you have to find. And sometimes you've got to redo the roadmap a little bit.

And for me, somebody who's always had like an anxiety disorder, being in the situation to where I'm thinking that society is going to crumble upon itself, it was a lot for me. Yeah. So I just had to find ways to cope and deal with it, you know? Yeah. Like, there was a moment. where one of my employees kind of came to me and they were super stressed out about the pandemic and everything and like, you know, from a very practical reason because it really looked like maybe we're not doing any interviews for six months or a year or whatever. Like what is the

business going to look like if we're like really fucked by this thing? And on one hand, I kind of knew that that was a reasonable concern. But at the same time, I'm just so used to having a fucking Superman this hoe through this shit. Like I just, I feel like I can't really like worry publicly. I can't like be that, that, I can't show weakness, at least in this one part of my life because there's so many people that depend on this. And if I, like, were to let it show that I'm like really worried. And I really wasn't worried because I just didn't even feel like it was an option for me to be worried.

I don't know. I just, I felt like I really wasn't worried because I knew that I would do whatever it took to make sure the shit was all right. up to and including things that I shouldn't do. And I guess that kind of was my attitude going into it. If this needs to be a heroin trafficking operation for a few months, maybe we got to do that. Let's get out there. Let's get out there. I got AD with me.

I know. And speaking like what you said too, man, like I used to have very, very, very bad anxiety as well too, bro. And that's kind of like nowadays, I have like, I don't give a fuck attitude because it's like when you, your mind, like that shit can really fucking. drain you and like I remember I lost my homie Dany B he got killed on my porch

like that happened I didn't have no no one told me go go to therapy or something like that it was just like niggas told me like nigga that happens in the hood get over it then I lost my homie D-Mack then I lost my homie uh-uh-uh-treaten I lost Marvin I lost solo and the list goes on and I'm just taking shit on and I'm thinking

that shit is normal and it really wasn't normal and then you know I went to the doctor and they gave me these little what it called beta blockers or something like that. I take those. I've always wanted to try those. I didn't like that shit. I take those. Because you were, they probably wanted to slow your heart rate down a little bit.

Yeah. And bro, it got to a point too. Like, like, you get the adrenaline out of your blood. Bro, I had, it was a girl that I was dealing with at the time. Every time, like, I only felt safe in my own home. Right. And like, we would go to the movies and out of nowhere, like, it'd kick in. I'd be at the movie theaters. I'm thinking, oh, I got heart problems or something. Heart beating like crazy. I feel like I'm about to pass out. I remember one time. attack. Yeah. I remember one time I ran to the fucking ambulance. I mean, not the ambulance. The firefighters I've seen across the street. And it got to a point, the girl I was dating at the time, she was like, I'm tired of this shit. Like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. No, for real, for real. Yeah. She's like, she can't do it.

Yeah. I'm just like, man, something is like physically, like, something is mentally wrong with me because I'm getting a test and they're saying that I'm physically fine and shit like that. And I didn't want to think like, oh, okay, it's mental. And I went. They said, oh, you have anxiety. and I'm like, you know, you need to just let shit out. And then that, like, changed my whole approach on everything. Like, I just stopped shutting up after that. I don't give a fuck no more. You know what I mean?

And since then, life has been way better. I haven't had problems since then either. Gets me in trouble sometimes, though. So there was one point in my life where I was calling the ambulance so much that, like, I was sitting outside one time, and I got the same crew again. And the guy, like, and I remember I'm sitting outside. I'm like, this time is the time is fucked up and the guys are walking up and I saw them and I knew the guys

because they had come out to my job before and the dude was like Van do you want to go to the hospital? And I'm like I don't want to go to the hospital because if I go to the hospital they're just going to tell me nothing is wrong with you. And the guy goes okay I want you to concentrate

on something. It's not that something that there's nothing wrong with you. That's not the thing. It's like you have an anxiety is a disorder. It's like the only thing is the prognosis is better, right? Because there's nothing wrong with you inside of your heart inside of your body. But as far as what you're dealing with right now, this is a mental dysfunction that will progress. So stop looking at it as if there's nothing wrong. There's a lot of times they tell people that there's nothing wrong because

they can't find a blocked valve or, excuse me, a blocked artery or a floppy valve. Or a floppy valve. or something like that, but there is and you just got to deal with it. So for me, it was like there'll be years, years where everything is okay. And then one day at TMZ passed out in the office was gone

a whole month. It'll be years when stuff is okay. And then sometimes it's not. But that's life. Like what he's talking about right now? We never talk about that. We never talk about the fact that I get to 19 and niggas just start dying. Hey, Jason's dead. Hey, George's dead. Hey, Tepfer's dead. Hey,

Drew is dead. Hey, and they just start dying. And then you look around, you're like, what? I remember my homeboy, Gino, shout out to Gino. Like, we talking one time, and Gino asked me, he goes, Van, what do you want? I was like, man, I want to go to L.A. and I want to do all of this stuff. He's like, you know what? I want to live. He's like, bro, I want to live, man.

And then you expected to just move on. Right. It's just part of it. Yeah, I mean, I talk to people in here all the time who, you know, maybe had like 10 or 20 other friends killed by the time they're at a high school and people who've seen you know people like blow their heads off with guns accidentally like just in their house in front of them or they're sitting somewhere and people pull up and shoot their friend right in front of them and so many people in rap or in the streets whatever they have never thought of this as something that is

traumatic enough to warrant something like therapy whereas if you if you go over the other side of the fence you know if some kid gets killed in the average like uppity like you know high income bracket white community if someone gets killed in your high school the whole school might be in therapy for it or at the very least their friends are going to be doing grief counseling all that kind of shit and yeah just feel like there's a big extent to which that's just not really dealt with last night I was watching that illmatic documentary on Netflix I'm not sure if anybody else has seen this but there's a picture of not sitting on the bench in Queensbridge with a whole shitload of people and some of are little kids like 10 years old and one of his friends goes through the whole this

guy's facing a murder this guy's doing life this guy's doing life this guy got killed this guy got killed this like it's it's fucked naz is like the only one on this bench who still has a good normal life and do you know why because he had to get out of jail free card he had a uh a singular otherworldly talent and that's kind of the thing right that rescued him as a young young kid that pulled him away from all that because he saw his friend ill will get killed him yeah he didn't i don't think he was there but his brother was there for his brother got shot in the shooting and after that they said we barely saw naws around after that he just wasn't hanging out outside the apartments anymore yeah we a lot of times it's just like waiting for uh waiting for waiting for waiting for a lottery ticket

to cash in like you've been living here at six seven generations three four generations right we just hope to god somebody six eight we hope to god somebody six eight we hope to god somebody can sing. We hope to God somebody could rap. And if that don't never come, because then, and then sometimes it comes, like when Pop died, you know what I think about? So, first of all,

Pop Smoke human being. It's a human person. So everybody thinks about Pop Smoke dying based upon, like, his ability to entertain them and what he was going to become and everything that didn't happen, right? I look at the fact that the life is over and he barely got to live, you know what I mean?

What are we talking 20, 21 years But when somebody at that position in their life dies, there's a black hole that is created. Because especially in our communities, like that person brings just so many people with them, even if it's just tangentially. So like when we're talking about pop or King Vaughn or any of these guys, like this shit, look, I'm not about to preaching nobody, but this shit is like, this is over nothing. This is really hurting things. It's just getting wild. And the reality is that there are so many

victims that are created outside of just the person themselves. Every life is valuable. Every life means something. But in these communities, man, if people have the ability to move outside of that, it changes lives around them. Then your cousin, I remember Ludacris had a verse one time to where

he said he sent his cousin to culinary art school, right? And then his cousin becomes a chef. Well, fuck. Now, they kids, go to a good school. Now their kids get to go, now they live and they got a better school system. They got all of this just because your man can rap. But if somebody takes him out of 21 or

22, 23 over some dumb shit over something that don't even matter, then you really rob the entire community or something. Because the main thing, the most dangerous thing I think for the hood or whatever is the hopelessness. Because once you teach

a whole generation of kids that there's not even a reason to try. the difference between selling drugs and getting a job or staying on the block all day or really trying to do something to yourself, it doesn't matter because your life ain't worth shit and this is all hopeless. That's the scariest thing that whole community is going to accept that. And when you see somebody like pop smoke becomes so successful and then still get killed over nothing, I can't help but think that some significant percentage of the kids who worshiped

him get that further engraved in their brain. Like, oh, there is not a lot else to life besides this gang banging shit. And that even if I did make it out or even if I did manage to get that one in a million luck of becoming a successful rapper, that they're still going to take me out of this world from my fucking watch. And, bro, that's how I feel even like working with no jumper, bro, is like, my brother gets out of prison and you guys hire him here. Like, you know how dope that is? Like, y'all stop so much shit that Kiki can be doing right now, too. and, you know, like you were saying, too, with the trauma and shit,

my house got shot up 24 times. My best friend got killed on my porch. I had to go to sleep in that same house the same night. And you can imagine the type of things that was going through my head. My uncle telling me, oh, this is your fault. You'd be hanging around and have people hanging around. And then when you figure out why that happened, you know what I'm saying? It's just like pointless.

He just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. And when you see that mentally and shit like that, bro, It's a lot of shit that don't bother you as much. And when you see it happen over and over and over again, even like recently, one of my homies called me, he's like, hey, what's the car house just got hit up? I was like, my nigger, niggas is sturdy now. Why is we still, you know what I'm saying?

But I can't, you know, I was blessed to be able to travel and, you know what I'm saying, make careers and make hustles out of myself that my homies can't. And I can't sit there and act like, you know, like, oh, I can sit there and say, well, that's bad to do that shit. It's not bad. You know what I mean? People don't have opportunities and shit too. So it's up to people like us to

put that out there and let people know, you know what I'm saying? A nigga told me the other day like, damn, I never thought like street niggas should be doing podcasts. Like you make it cool. I want to start a podcast now. I'm like, shit, I'm doing my part for my community for niggas that look like me and they grew up like me. Framing it in terms of good and bad is, it doesn't work. You have to frame it in terms of what works and what does it.

And we have to define for people what the definition of it working is and what the definition of it not working is, right? The best thing about human beings is also the worst thing about human beings is that we can adapt and get used to anything. So that makes us very resilient in terms of how we're going to do stuff, both environmentally and physically, but it also means that something can become static and habit for a long period of time and we can adjust to it.

So you talk to somebody, you go, hey, well, what do you want? Like, what do you want? Because there's a way to get what you want. If what you want to do is to have a home, have a car, have a good family, and then die a grandfather, well, there's a way to do that. If what you want to do is ride it to the wheels fall off, throw caution to the wind and do that, well, there's a way to do that too.

The question is, at what point do you decide what that is for you? What works for you? I'm not going to tell you what's a good life to lead. And I'm not going to tell you what a bad was a bad life to lead. I can't do that because to do that to me is minimizing the situation that you grew up in. I can't say that to you. I can't say this is the right choice. This is the wrong choice.

I can tell you this is a choice for longevity and prosperity. And this is a choice that is counter to that. Right? And that is empirical. We know that. We've seen that. Tony dies at the end of the scar face 10 out of 10 times. Don't matter how you watch is going to end up the same.

So the reality is If that's kind of where you are Then that's kind of where you are But you have to show the other side of it You have to make that accessible The other side of it Hey, this is working for me Hey, I'm good

I'm not corny I'm not lame I'm not this, I'm not that And you don't have to take these chances anymore And there is a way to that But you can't do it by vilifying someone Who has no choice But to live in the circumstances

That they were born in And to figure out a way to live. He's got to give better options. That's shout out to Big U. Big U's, the name of Big U's platform or the name of his deal is developing options. That's the really shit, developing options, like adding options to the table. You know what I mean? It's a big deal. I'm never surprised when I see somebody, you know, who was like in the streets or whatever and now they're 35 and they just want to live a good, safe, clean life. They got a family, etc. You know, at 35 it doesn't surprise me. But when you, when you're, when you're just, you know, they're not,

When you meet a young dude who's like 19 and he already like has that vision for himself that he wants to have a career and he wants to build his way up and he wants to really have something, build something for his family, maybe it's a selection bias because so many other people that were around in terms of the rap shit are the people who have these dreams that they're going to like sell percassettes until their rap career becomes this big thing. I was about to say that. It happens every day. You know, kids make decisions to go to college.

They made decisions to be pharmacists. they make decisions to, you know, sell my little cousin, 18s, like, I don't want to go to college. I want to go ahead and start my business and, you know, sell audio, visual equipment so you could drive down the street and not people, pictures off their walls and all of that.

So, you know, it just depends. But the reality is that it, sometimes it becomes about what it is that, to your point earlier, like what it is that we highlight and what we show and what we glorify and what we talk about, you know? And to be honest, what you, more people with the internet, more people have choices than ever before.

Right. You know, people, people are understanding that you can get into other things other than what's right in front of you. The internet homogenizes the human experience to a degree, you know? But like, the most gangster shit will always be the most eye-catching shit. Of course. At least in terms of rap, it's, it's so goddamn easy for us to pay attention to who I smoke and, you know, all that other crazy-ass shit. It's just, that's where your eyes go. You wonder how much good shit. that isn't eye-catching enough you sort of miss out on and yeah when we say like that when

i think about you i'm like van is a guy who comes from whatever upbringing and at a certain point decided that he wanted to make it and he was really just going to do it and not in a entertainer well like you became an entertainer or whatever but i don't think you thought that you were going to necessarily be on camera or that you were going to be the star of the show or whatever but i i mean it's interesting to me because i don't really feel like i meet enough van lathens in terms of young people because if you have your head on your shoulders and you're really dead set on making a good life for yourself that does that sound like a hot up-and-coming rapper no not as much well they well they they all want to make so they they all want to make something out of themselves they all want to dream that is a different way see me and that's kind of an interesting thing that's why i why i gravitated to Kanye so much is because i had an epiphany one day that a lot of the rappers that i listened to were insulting me you know So I'm listening to the rap and it's like, if you ain't a thug, you ain't shit. If you ain't a soldier, you ain't shit.

And I'm like, God damn, that makes it hard to do your history homework. You know what I'm saying? Like, all y'all niggas sending birds down south? Like, it got to be somebody who ain't, right? And when Yey was, when Ye came around and he was like, yo, man, these double ships at the gap is killing me. I was like, me too. Right. I was like the college drop I'm like oh shit me too look there it is

like there it is and since then you know rap is gone to different places you got all kinds of guys talking about different experiences but the reality is even in that struggle even if you're not living that lifestyle you understand what they're talking about which is the harder thing to like divorce yourself from you understand because essentially when they're telling you about how bad things are they're essentially giving you a sermon or a dissertation of what it is that they're overcome and what will happen if you threaten what they already have.

And people feel that way. People feel like, hey, fuck with me and mine, this is what happens. My dad feels that way. Straight up, me too. Like, fuck with me and minds, this is what's going to happen. Don't care who you are.

Dude came to our house, our door one night. It was late at night. It's like 2 o'clock in the morning. Comes out of the house like, yo, these guys are behind me. Like, do me a favor and call the police. My dad was like, you know what you need to do? need to go to the Circle K over here

and use the pay phone because if these niggas run up here like on my family whatever the guy goes fuck you I ain't going to no pay phone my dad goes oh okay pulled pulled out on them you know what I'm saying like no this is a random guy who stopped by the house saying that

random guys were going to kill him in the middle of the night General Jackson Garter Barter-Battir Lane Baton Rouge guys knocking on the door boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom I'm on the couch sleep I wake up dude's like oh shit man do me for call the police call the police niggas is after me this is after. My dad comes in, because I was too afraid to answer the door. My dad comes in. He has it on him when he comes to the door, right?

Big 357 Magnum. And he goes, and the dude's like, yo, will you call the police for me? Will you call the police? My dad's like, no, I'm not doing nothing. Take that off mine. Take that away from my door. Dude is like, no, man, fuck all that. Like, seriously. Dude's like, take it away from my door. My father goes, look. And he pulled the gun out on. Dude ran. Did that strike you as heartless as a kid? Did you understand?

It didn't strike me as heartless. The only thing that did kind of fuck with me a little bit is he ran a couple of houses down and a white dude called the cops for him and stood out there and waited with him while the cops came. Wow. And when I saw him standing out there, I was thinking, damn. but once again my pops had seen too much he wasn't he wasn't going for it do you think that that was your dad choosing self-preservation over doing the right thing it was absolutely him doing that

i also don't know that i consider taking him into your house the right thing because i honestly think you're introducing so much risk and danger into the situation right there that guy could be a fucking crackhead he could have just killed five people you really don't know what's gonna or a guy could to shot the house up, you know? Or they could have, like, or they could have, if they were right behind him, right on him, as he said, they could have been coming up, they could have peeled up the block at any time.

And now they open fire on him for whatever was, I don't know if they were strapped on, but for whatever they was going on. But my dad was like, I don't want to be no part of it. I don't want to have no part of it. My son is sleep on the couch. So he told him to leave. Where you're from?

How do you think about it when you think about that young boy is the biggest rapper from the area you're from? I think it makes sense. Right. I think it makes sense. I think him and Fredo, I think that they are Baton Rouge. And Boosie was that before.

But I think it, you know, I think it makes sense. I think I look at those guys and I see Baton Rouge on them. Even the way they talk in their demeanor, kind of how to came up, like the look in their eyes and kind of how things exist where I'm from, it makes sense. But do you, like, what do you think that you would have thought of that shit if you were 17? you think that that would have ultimately made you less likely to live a happy, long, successful life? Thought of what shit? The music, but less the music and more so, like, kind of the ethos that is being put out

by somebody like Young Boy or Freda, where it's, like, very, and it's not like there weren't rappers at that time saying the same thing, but it seems to me that Young Boy is the number one rapper in the world, basically based on, like, you know, YouTube streams and shit like that. It seems kind of unique that he's had this cloud of extreme violence around him and he's that big. And a lot of his music, if you were a young kid and you listen to it, you might take it as like almost literal directions on how, like they love him for a lot of stuff besides the violence because I think young boy is a big part of why he's so big is just because of his emotional status, the fact that he's like really willing to just lay it all out there. Yes, he does

act like a super thug, but he also will really act in a way that is very far from that. And I think that is, you know, it's kind of hard for me to make sense of that when I think about just how I would view that if I was a young kid coming up with that. He's a product of his environment, bro. Like, he's literally telling

you he's going through pain. He's having problems of niggas in the streets, and when you grow up in the hood, that's what you really go through. But you can only be a product of your environment. So I feel like he's so big that he is now affecting and impacting his environment through his words as music, right? When he goes home, bro, that shit is not off.

It don't matter how big he is. He goes to his neighborhood. He's still a target. He's still whatever. If YG goes to his neighborhood, it doesn't matter how much money it has. It doesn't matter how much that he's seen. You put it right back in there because you're the poster boy now for this whole community of niggas that's doing all of this bullshit in the streets.

It's even not, you're right right there, but it's always with you. So when you're born to a certain point, you learn, and then, Maturing is actually about unlearning. Because even like what it is that you eat and how it is that you are, like your parents give you your diet. Your parents give you your religion. Your parents give you your ethics. And then you go up and you see the world for what it is for yourself and then you have to unlearn that. How old is young boy?

21 or 22? So the reality is that the process by which it would take for him to reevaluate what he thinks for his life and I'm not speaking for the brother. I've never met him, don't know him, would take a while. especially if he made it to where he is being exactly how he is. So it's just a second. And when I was coming up in Baton Rouge, I mean, we had rappers. We had none as big as the guys right now. We had Youngbleed.

So it's a slim. But that's New Orleans. But we had Youngbleed. We had Seleau. We had the concentration camp. We had a lot of guys that were doing it. And we wanted to be those guys. I mean, it was the same thing.

It's just what happened was Pee came through. And then a little bit after P, baby and them came through, and they broke the state as far as hip hop is concerned. They got us out there as far as that was. But it would have been the same thing. Like, I just said it a second ago. It was the high boys. It was Wayne. It was Youngbleed.

It was E.C. Nero. It was all of those guys, right? All of those guys. And they was talking to shit that we was used to. When, man, when Bow did hit, bro, that was like, that's an anthem for the way the whole state felt. if you go back and watch the video, just the feeling like you could, you can,

you can smell the reality in it. The basketball court one, right? What you're talking about? Is the, the, the bouted, about it video, the one that was on the basketball court?

It's him in the project. Oh, that was a different one on the basketball court. That was totally different. That was when they had, that was when they had made it. That was the shiniest video of all time.

Right, that was the tanks and shit. With the tanks and the tanks, that was the whole shit. That was hard too, though. But that was the whole shit. But, you know, It is what it is. Everybody got a different journey.

We just got to make sure that people got the right options and they got the right choices to make. That those choices are available to them. You do what you can. Yeah, definitely. The young boy thing that was kind of fascinating because he was in the position where he knew he was on probation.

He knew he couldn't be having guns and he still got caught up for basically holding guns. And they ended up getting the memory card from the filmer or whatever and they ended up seeing him with all these guns from there. But that very much, and, you know. How does it get rid of the guns, though? They killing members.

They shoot each other. How does he get rid of the guns? But he clearly has enough money to just hire security, not have to ever touch a gun again in his life. And that's like his brother has gone on record as saying, we get him security and he doesn't want to use security. He doesn't want to play by the rules, regardless of how obvious it is that he needs to play by the rules to not end up in jail.

And now he's looking at five, six plus years. But you said the ethos of it, the image like, we look down on niggas who get security. in this, even though it's not right. But, you know, like, there's certain rappers that once they got, there's a couple rappers, once they get robbed, you're like, oh, he ain't about to do nothing about it.

Your mind already goes to this guy is this way. Something's going to happen if something happens to this guy. So when you see a rapper get robbed, in your mind, you're like, I don't even listen to a nigga no more because everything that he didn't spoke about in my mind now was a race. So these kids are looking at young boy like, you're this, you're this.

Or somebody may say, Little Reese is the grim reaper. You know what I mean? And if he does something that goes against that, people are going to look at him and everything that he says or whatever did, it goes out the window. So security for a nigger like young boy, for his fan. It don't make sense. If there was one message

that I could give to rappers, please get security. Yes. There is nothing soft about safety. What the fuck are we talking about? What's soft about safety? You're saying?

You walk in some place? And if you know, if you got enemies or you got like what's the awful about safety get some security what good is the fucking chain around your corpse what the fuck are you talking about man look i don't i don't get the whole shit i never had to like i don't i don't understand that like look i know bro i believe if you tell me you tough i believe you i'm like all right cool turn the game on let's play you know it took me a long time in my life to realize that it was just totally okay to just be a pussy and just admit you're a bitch

hold on what's pussy hold on for a second though because I got to say because I got to define pussy right

what's pussy about having security is the president pussy uh huh hold on for a second I'm just asking you

is the president pussy so you go swim at a at a pool that doesn't have a lifeguard is that pussy is it no

is it pussy to swim at a pool with a lifeguard is it pussy Is it pussy to be safe? I just mean in the sense that... What do we do? Is it a seatbelt pussy?

As a young guy, it seemed like such a big deal to me to basically be able to fight. And as I got older, it just kind of became like, why would I even... But I guess like having a gun is like a big part of that over time that that doesn't seem like it matters. But when you're in high school, being able to fight, seems like it matters a lot more.

But that's just standing up before yourself as a man. You don't have to gang bang or do anything for it. And I tell people all the time, like somebody, like a lot of incidents that have been happening, that, right? They'll get mad at Adam, and I'll be right here with them, and I'll be like, nigger, why don't you have that same energy for me? I don't care if you're from a street or whatever situation is. As a man, you're supposed to stand up for yourself. You don't have to be afraid to fight or anything like that. Motherfucking soldiers went out to battle, didn't have

no choice and shit, put their lives on the line for this country, was little-ass kids and shit like that. Like, no, you don't have to do that shit. And like you said about the security thing, bro, the number one thing people glorify is you can't come back to your hood. You You know what I'm saying? Look at Dirk. You can't come back to your hood, huh? Like, that's how niggas talk. Niggas say rappers and shit now.

I'd be like, oh, you can't, oh, he don't go to his block no more. I didn't heard this shit about me before. Oh, that nigga, he's doing this now, or he's doing this now. And I've been intrigued and I've been back to the hood and did stupid shit that could have got me locked away, trying to get justification from these type of niggas. You know what I'm saying? Look, here's the thing. I hear you a thousand percent.

Look, man. This shit is really stupid. Like, so for me. me it doesn't even matter if you can fight it just matters that you fight exactly it it doesn't matter if you can fight right like my my uncle told me one time it's like yo um you know somebody somebody fucking with you just make them remember you just let him know he was like yo just let him know you not the one to fuck with just make him remember you but that advice seems a lot more pragmatic when you are not in an environment where somebody will shoot you well here's a thing

you have no control over that. So at a certain point, you have to understand, number one, who you fucking with, and you have to set limits and boundaries for yourself. So it could have happened. It's just luck if it didn't happen. And to a degree, it's just an incident when it does.

So there's no way to know. Like, everybody that's been in a certain, that grew up in a certain way has fought with dudes that two years later, they put some work in and you was like, damn. Like you had a fight. with somebody and then two years later, hey, you hear what happened to what's his face?

It was like, got 90 years for killing. And you like, shit. So, I mean, that is what it is. And even when I look back on my, you know, high school career, I might be saying, like, it's okay to be a pussy now. But every time I fought somebody in high school, every time I stood up for myself, even if I lost a fight, all of those are actually really important moments in terms of like letting your peers know that they can't fuck with you or at least that you are down to fight back.

You didn't die. And that, you know, it's important for your own mind state too. Yeah, you didn't die. I think about a lot of fights I had when I was a kid that like, you know,

basically turned into like weird rolling around on the ground biting and hair pulling matches. But, I mean, that's important to let everybody else in school know that they can't just pick on you. Yeah. And I feel like a lot of people,

these school shooters and a lot of these people that snap in life, it's because they're taught, look the other way. Don't do this and do that. And then mentally they can't take this shit no more.

One day, they just fucking snap. If they, If they started knuckling up early and start being men at the end of the day, a lot of this shit wouldn't happen no more. I think a lot of those school shooters, they're taught their whole life that they have to be tough, and then they're not. They're taught their whole life that life is all about fucking bad bitches.

And then at some point, you realize, oh, I'm never going to get any pussy, especially not anything that looks like the girls on the billboards. And then at some point, these guys are being fed all these messages about what the good life is. They realize that there's no possible way that they're going to get anywhere near that. And at some point, they're like, well, fuck this world. I'm going to just take as many people out on the way out as, possible. But bro, if I come here and I push you right now, you don't do nothing, that's sitting there telling the whole world that you can be pushed.

And somebody else comes to push you and somebody else comes to push you. And that shit keeps happening. Mentally, my nigga, you're going to react the way that you never reacted before. If you don't know how to handle that situation. If somebody comes here and push you, you knock them to fuck out, no one's going to come in here trying to fight you again, bro. And that's what kids don't, like, that's what the problem is now, bro, is that motherfuckers are so, oh, you should just turn the other cheek.

No, don't turn the other cheek. That shit builds character. Get your eye, get socked in the eye, get punched in the mouth. Sock somebody, if somebody bothers you, that's how the world works. Because if not, whether it's business, whether it's streets, people are going to walk all over if you don't stand up for yourself. Yeah. I mean, the main thing is, however you do it, just don't allow yourself to be exploited or used by anyone. However you do it, you know, whatever it is that you do.

People have different ways they fight different battles. I used to know, I used to know dudes who would do it with jokes. people would be straight up hard up ready to fight them step step come on come on come on and they just cut them down with jokes you know everybody has a different way but the reality is that it's just a lot of this stuff is just getting the internet has given people the ability to build themselves and build a persona that kind of like drains their humanity from them

so you don't really know who like who the actual person is now I think about this with like old dudes that's still talking shit, you know, still doing stuff like that. Now, like, we got grandfathers and we got like uncles and people that are still doing stuff like on the internet and everybody can do whatever they want to do. But the reality is, come on, man. Like, let go of the identity and just like be a person for a while. You know?

And that's what used to happen because you used to be able to detach from your fame. You would only pop up on the MTV rock and jock shit after your rap career was over. you would only pop up, but now you have to maintain this stuff in perpetuity, and it's just a lot of work. Yeah, I was talking to somebody the other day who was like, you know, Metallica used to like be on tour and then they'd be working at pizza places in between.

Yeah. And that was considered normal. No, like most famous metal band in the world, but it was all, and growing up, honestly, like being into all these hardcore and punk bands and stuff, it was like that. Like the singer of the most popular band in that world would be working at fucking friendlies on the weekend.

And it wasn't really considered to be all that, like, out of the ordinary. The thing I think in general that happens now is all these young, broke, normal-ass people decide that they need to basically measure up to celebrities. So they think you need to wear a new outfit every day. They think that it's normal for you to be buying designer and stuff, even if you're not even close to that fucking income bracket. They think that, you know, girls think they need to look like fucking Kylie Jenner

or whatever girl just got a BBL on the timeline. It's like there's no divide between what a normal person's life should be like and what a celebrity's life should be like. look like so you just have all these kids with a super warped perspective of what they're trying to live up to bars bruh real shit fuck them fucking watches and fuck all of that shit you got a nice watch though that thing's staring back in me they gave it to yeah shout out to tally and twine i don't know how i'm not so expensive it is but it's crazy they like and you make me feel bad shout out to tally that's a rolex oh look at this nigga you just want people to look at your watch

show everybody no i don't want to show everybody to watch i worked hard for that watch because you know goddamn right there's a little bit right there's a little bit of you know god damn right that watch look better than this, but the talent intertwined, black on. So my saying

it's like just, just be you. Because that, to be, at the end of the day, that's what it takes the most strength to do.

It takes the most strength. And if you really pay attention to it, the people who really win in life or the people who are unapologetically themselves. Right. And that don't mean

you're going to be perfect. If you want the watch, go get the watch. If you want the ass, go buy the ass. If you want whatever it is, go buy it. But do it because you want to do it.

Do it because it's what you want. Right. Don't do it because you feel like you're, you're, you have to live up to something else. Right now, I got two, two, two thousand ten Honda Accord cross tour. My shit got a hundred and fifty six thousand miles on it. Earlier in the pandemic, I went to go get this like big Mercedes. I was going to get the big Mercedes truck. We make a money.

We, we've been making money. I wanted to get the truck. I'm driving the shit around. I could pay for a cash. Like I'm driving shit. I'm driving the shit around. I'm doing the whole deal. I get to the point and I go,

I like my car. That car meant something to me. It's like a thing. I got memories to it. I'm not ready to give it up yet. And who the fuck do I need to impress? Fars. And how many people are ever even

see your car unless you post a fire Instagram picture in front of it? Well, I can pull up to beauty in Essex and stun or I can pull up to any of these other places and have that. could go to some place and have them put my shit in the front. But it's funny you said that's the last place I've seen you too. A beauty necessity, yeah.

Shout out. Like, I could, I could, I could do, but for what, so what? That's not me. That's not my thing. I don't, I'm the fucking egghead. So what the fuck do I need that for? As soon as you start playing those games, like, you know, as soon as I really got like a big ass check, I got a grill.

My girl bought me a chain for my birthday. It took me like a week or two to be like, I'm never wearing this. again. I'm never wearing either of these things again. This is not me. I feel crazy in this shit. I might get a chain because I have a friend that does like stupid dope-ass stupid dope-ass design. He came up with

his design where he took the Harriet Tubman coin and he put it in the middle. I might get that. But, you know. That's because you want it, though. It's because I want it. But you're going to frequently get mistaken for a rapper, don't you think? No. People know. People are going to see the chain. I see a chain and I almost like don't even look at the face. I started

trying to figure out what the chain says. what rap crew he's with before I'm I'm way too polite to people walk by me hey what's up sir how are you it's a beautiful day but when you go out your house to go grab a slice of pizza in the middle of the night you're gonna keep the chain on

no yeah me neither I don't know what the etiquette you're a chain ass nigga what's the edit you got three of them on right now like what's the what's the what's the etiquette

like what's the etiquette like when do you wear the chains Like, do you shower with the chains on? Every single chain even when I'm in the house, right? No, you don't go to the grocery store to chains and then, no. So what's, like, what's a chain level event? I mean, like, if you go to Beauty and Essex, if you go to some place that's like a lot of people are going to be at social gatherings,

that's really it. The mall? Only if you're going to go to a social gathering after. So if you're just going to the mall regular. No, you don't get it. No, hell no. Hell no. Basketball shorts, t-shirt,

hat, pushing, flip-flops. I wonder though, because when I had a chain for a very brief period of time, I've been taught by rap music that you don't tuck your chain in over my life, and during the brief period of time where I was wearing a chain, I frequently would think, like, I'm going in 7-Eleven, I'm going to chuck my chain. And I'm like, that feels kind of crazy

that I only had this thing for a couple weeks, and I'm already like, you know, why do I want to be showing this off in 7-Eleven to the fucking random as dude who works there and the one girl buying a lemonade. Like, I don't care what they think of me. But growing up, though, those are like hood trophies and shit because, like, I couldn't wait to buy a Rolex. I always wanted one.

I was just like, fuck, I'm going fucking grind hard so I can buy a fucking Rolex or get a certain chain. Like, those are hood trophies. Like, you know what I'm saying? The guys in your neighborhood that you idolize as a kid, they have a nice BMW. They come and do that. If you watch Payton Fool, look at Ace.

He looked at fucking Mitch. Oh, he got the new shit. Everybody got that. That's what you inspire to be. like and that you know yeah for sure i was really like rap music but for some reason in my head i never really thought like oh i'm gonna have all the things that they have right because you couldn't see the time in um you couldn't see the time in uh in life that where you would be able to mimic the rappers all i ever really wanted was like to have enough money that i didn't have to have a job or like

do anything that anybody didn't want like told me to do you know congratulations Congratulations. Thank you. As a kid, though, that was, that really was it. Like, in my mind, like, when I, like, dropped out of college and, like, fucking moved to New York and stuff, my mind was really on, like, how can I figure out how to make $100,000 a year without having to do a lot of shit that I don't want to do? See? It was a lot harder than I thought. Yeah. You end up having to do a lot of shit. Trade off, though. And at some point, you get addicted to working and being productive, and that makes it so it's like, oh, you were fighting to just have a lot of free time, and now you don't even want free time. time. Let me ask you something. How much, how much like money do you make? No. How much like fucking stock do you put into the fact that you are a quote unquote boss? I try to ignore it. I mean, I try to like figure out how to be a good boss, but I also like don't really want to like do all the things that you get to do as a boss. You know, I don't want to like be screaming and mad at my employees and constantly telling them like you're going to do

that i don't want to i'm saying you have to do some percentage of that you do you do have to do you have to because people fuck up constantly and i'm the fucking only person at times who really cares about the details but yeah i mean i don't i don't like want to walk around feeling like that but you have to like you really just kind of have to acknowledge that because otherwise who the who else is going to care about shit the way that i care about shit every last fucking detail Every single little tiny detail I consider part of how people are going to view me, even if it's like the business

account tweeting something. If there's a typo, this to me like the person who posted it doesn't really have to deal with that besides me yelling at them. Yeah, because if the shit falls, it's all going to be on Adam. Or if there's a typo, I'm going to look like I'm the one who doesn't know which they are to use. I remember learning that

when I was working at Best Buy in college. Like the sales managers and the managers of the store and all of these people who are like going up the best buy ladder they would yell at me about shit or they would say shit to me and I'd be like yo you know I don't give a fuck right

like you know I don't care so I was a good salesman so I was a really good salesman so they would but we would have these conversations but like man you got to be you realize that like this is for extra money like this is for I can go like out of town and play Marvel versus Capcom too like this is like I don't fucking care

but this was their thing. This was their life. They wanted to, and your performance basically was their performance. And it's just different. But it's just so much boss talk now and so much, you know, all of this stuff. Obviously, people talk about ownership and all of that. I just wonder if you take a great

deal of pride and all of that stuff. I mean, I'm definitely proud of, you know, starting my own business and having to work out and everything. This is an amazing thing. But I try not to like fetishize it in the way of, you know, I hate people who talk about like, oh, I'm a boss. Like, you know, no offense, Dame Dash, but he's had some pretty, like, epic rants about this that are basically, like, you know, somebody will say something about him, and he's like, I'm a boss. You work for so-and-so. You can't even, you're not building ownership in this thing or whatever. It's like, bro,

not everybody is meant to fucking have ownership in, you know, like, there's a lot to be said for being a good employer, a good worker. There just can't be five million fucking, you know, bosses. I will say something about Dame, though. When Dame does it, I think Dame is equating that to freedom. Dame is just he's to me the reason why Dame is an inspirational guy to me is because

Dame is just free like Dame is one of the freest people I've ever known and man people think freedom is easy. It's not as hard it's hard to be as free as Dame Dash is and so when Dame is talking about

Dame says it and it feels like Dame is using it as static It feels like Dame is using it to look down on somebody else. But what he's really saying is no one tells me what I can do. And I am going to make sure that the people around me have a similar outlook so that no one tells them what they can do. Dame is like, yo, if I want to do a cool art thing, I do a cool art thing. Yo, if I want to do a cool music thing, I do a cool music thing. If I want to do oil, if I want to do this, I want to do that.

I don't think he's ever talking down. And somebody that has that that really feels that way. they don't understand why you don't feel that way too. They just don't get why you would be okay clocking in and out because they feel like, hey, somebody's telling you where you can go and what you can do. And he always asked them. He's like, yo, you like that?

And the reality, the question is, yeah, some people actually do. Some people don't care. But what he's talking about is just freedom sometimes. But once you've seen both sides of the coin, like from my perspective, if you work in media and you make $100,000 to $200,000 a year. And if the business goes to shit, you don't have to deal with that. And if you do a really good job, you can go to a competitor and say, hey, give me more money and they'll hire you. And that that's a very great position to be in from my perspective, given that most of those people who are in that position couldn't just go and start their own fucking media company.

Most of those people are making more money working for someone else. I don't think working for someone else is you should never use that against somebody as a bad. thing because of the fact that if you are a boss I get you're not really a boss unless you have a whole bunch of people working for you you're not really well entrepreneur unless you've created a bunch of jobs for people so that then shit on people who just have a job doesn't really make any sense they just have a boss who's different than you bro I heard well I was watching you and Joe Button's interview he said he said that people don't know what the fuck they want and they

really don't though you could give somebody a position and they were a bitch about freedom and say whatever the shit and then they get in that position and they're like, I don't like this or it is what it is like, nah, that's just done. People don't know what the fuck they want. I see people say that shit all the time about the podcast about like, oh, if you take this person off,

it's going to be fucked. Oh, if you do this, whatever. It's like you have to be able to see the criticism and the advice and also know that some percentage of the audience doesn't really mean what they're actually saying. Like Joe Bunnan's saying that he thought they should serve breakfast all day

and then he never got it. I mean, that's why McDonald's never did it for all those years. they knew that's how I could tell Joe don't really have a fat soul because Joe that's how I could tell Joe Joe posts a lot of food and so sometimes I'd be thinking you know Joe is like me and that he has a fat soul that might be a fat boy in here the minute they put that all day breakfast up there you're on 630 give me two McGrittles five hash browns come on we out here I must not have a fat soul because I never touched it but I also feel like I'm at the point I'm at the point in my life where I look at McDonald's like, yeah, that's what I used to eat.

I don't want to fucking eat McDonald's anymore. I haven't eaten there in so long. Yeah. But when you do, when you do eat there for whatever reason, you'll be like, I haven't eaten there so long. But when you do fuck with you, you're like, it is slightly lit. Oh, hell yeah. I could go to Big Mac right now and love it.

But reality is, if I eat that salad in there, I'm going to feel a lot lighter. I'm going to feel a lot better. I'm going to fucking look a lot better over the long term. My problem for me right now, this is where I'm at in my weight loss journey. I want to share this. Me and you are brothers in the weight loss journey. AD has not really admitted to himself that he is a recovering

you know, fucking cheese-it, junkie or whatever it is. I don't know. What's your drug of choice? Right now? The terms of food. Golden Oreos, man. That's what's keeping you, Chubby. I love it.

And my girl had a box of those in the crib, and it was fucking me up, too. Bro, my son is addicted to that shit now, too. See, that's what's got me fucked up now is, okay, before the pandemic, I had at least a year or so there, where I ate almost perfectly, worked out almost every day. day and basically was doing extra cardio sessions.

I got to the best shape of my entire life than the pandemic hits. I get all fucked up. But now, like during that time period where I was doing really good, my girl was also on the same shit and she wasn't eating bad at all. Now my girl's attitude is different because she, for whatever reason, she's decided that she thinks that she's in a better mental state when she snacks a little bit and she has the food around and she can choose to eat a little bit of it. But as a result, I now live in a home where there are pita chips.

There are delicious cookies There are like you said The fucking Oreos With the yellow whatever they're called The cream Oreos And so now I'm trying to learn How to live my life And not become a fat ass

Even though my girl has all these delicious Fucking snacks there on it every night And see bro that's what alcohol And like On Friday streams When I sit here and we just get fucking high That's the root of all evil That's evil

And you know when you go to the clubs and shit And you bro The best thing to do At 3 4 in the morning Is stop it fucking Jackson in the bucks. You know how bad what you're doing is, but yeah. Because it's all a fucking slippery slope because then you're not sleeping as good.

And you eat. Man, the worst thing that happened to me in the pandemic is this guy who was a fan of the podcast. It's a great dude. He goes, yo, you know, I work at Kellogg's. He was like, yeah, we save some product. I'm like, yeah, it's dope, man. He's like, what do you like? He goes, he goes, what do you like?

I was like, ah, we like cheese hits. You know, we fuck with Pop-Tarts. We fuck with different things like that. I remember getting a call from a dude that was outside of the thing. It was like, do you have a palate? And I was like, why would I need a pallet? It was like, because you have a delivery from Kellogg's. The nigger sent a whole plant.

When I tell you, he sent, he sent like, when I tell you it was like 30, I ended up donating a lot of the food. I would too. Be like, I ended up donating a lot, he'd sit a whole, but if you sit in there and there are Pringles in there, and you think to yourself, I could be eating Pringles? it's like a blowjob think about it so it's really like a blowjob think about it the worst thing you can do is have the thought

that I could be getting my dicks up right now because if you have that thought and it's available you're going to go and get your dicks up that's like pringles the reality is that if pringles are there and you could be eating pringles it takes a herculean effort

not to eat them and I failed failed to the tune of like 25 pounds I was eating on that shit my girl would be looking at me like why are you eating it and be like get off because it's there That's the reason why I'm eating it. So it's just hard.

And that's what I hate knowing that about myself is that during that year where we didn't have any snacks in the house, it was really easy for me to be really, really strict. I'm like a heroin addict who, if they see heroin is going to do the heroin, but as long as you don't see any heroin, then you're good. I'm sure a lot of heroin addicts, honestly, are probably like that. But the problem with food is that everywhere you go there's food, it's kind of hard to find heroin in comparison. and maybe not Compton, but here.

And then, like, with the whole Oscar thing, is that everybody just sent you, like, liquor, everybody, there was always a party. There was always an event. Everyone was so generous and stuff. So it was just, it was tough. I think I'm going to buy a little lock and put it on my girl's snack drawer

and just give her the key and just tell her, like, girl, don't let me in. You might break it. Yeah. No, really, I might, yeah. Especially because what we do these streams on Friday we'll be on stream for eight, nine hours, listening to their music, smoking hell of blunts.

I mean, your fucking self-control just kind of dissipates. How many blunts is hella blunts? I'm gonna say at least one an hour for the entirety, and even that makes it sound like nothing. Ten blunts in nine hours? Hell no, it's way more than that. It's way more.

At least like 15, 16, 70s, probably like 20. I get to a point of... But it's split between like four or five guys, so it's not that bad, maybe. Yeah, I get to a point of being high where there's like weird fear kicks in every time. Like, I could get a little high. I used to be like that.

I just do it more. I told my girl that the other thing. It's like, last time I got high, I got way too high. I haven't smoked weed since. I'm like, it's like a muscle. You got to just build it up. I used to get super paranoid. Now I go to sleep, but now I don't go to sleep.

Ever. No one's talking about off the weed. Oh, yeah. It's not hitting you as hard. A lot of people have a story, though, about how they didn't smoke weed for a period of time or they got way too high one time and then that just stopped them.

Honestly, weed is that kind of thing, though, where it's like sometimes you just have to just get high as fuck over and over to just smash through your tolerance. I'm at that point where now I can I get eat edibles right now and just do a podcast and it'll be whatever. See, I don't like the edibles. I like mushrooms now. Yeah, that's some freak shit. Microdosal. Yeah, it's cool. I like this

a lot, actually. It's good for anxiety. Yeah. Maybe that's why I like it. Mushrooms are too intense. I feel like I'm in a German strip club. I got Pete. Or ask AD. Ask AD some questions. Or vice versa. Yeah. Well, I mean, what you got? What I want to know is,

for you as a rapper to me I look at all of these guys and they're putting all of these songs out and they're doing all of this shit like what is your goal like what's the deal

do you want to be the biggest rapper in the world is there something you want to say because a lot of songs I listen to now I don't understand what these guys are trying to say anymore like what's your goal of being a rapper like what's the point anymore bro And that was the thing, even like joining with no jumper and shit too. So I tell people all the time, shout out to Lil Dickie.

I fucking little Dickie hit me up. I did his television show and I fucking went to the premiere. And I went to the premiere and I watched in the movie theater with all of these fucking TV people, all these execs and shit like that. And I watched myself on a goddamn movie screen and see my name on the credits. and then all the fucking FX people come pat you're great pat you on the back and shit too and I'm just right then right there at that moment I was like I have way more to give than just doing music and just the rapping and stuff too and you know comparisons to me always have been ice cube you know I mean somebody who got into the game and went and did other shit to diversify your shit and you know like

like I'm a big fan of fucking Donald Glover child was Gambino I've seen him on a stand-up comedy on Netflix I've seen him on the Spider-Man movie. I've seen him in the fucking Star Wars movie. I've seen him directing Star in Atlanta. I see him drop music. And I was like, you know, I can do all of this shit because I have the personality and I'm talented enough to do that shit.

And I just want you to know that if the more you do in that world, the more you accomplish, the more that I will take credit for and be like, yeah. 80's a big actor. Yes, I brought him on no jumper. Before that, he was standing on the corner with a glizzy. And now he's a famous actor. and it was all because of me.

I'm just warning you. Yeah. Well, like I said, though, bro, and I feel like you put everything together, and that's what I want to be known for is somebody that came from the hood and did everything that he wanted to do and did it doeply.

Do you think Lil Dickie is hip-hop? Yes, for sure. We had a long argument on a clubhouse, rest-and-piece clubhouse. It's over? It's over. I don't fuck with it no more. But I talked to him,

and he said that his goal was always to have a television show. Like, that was his whole thing of taking rap and getting into where he wanted to get to. And if you look at what all other rappers do, like, somebody like Ludacris is like, yeah, your music catalog is amazing. But nigger, niggas might remember you more for Fast and Furious. Lil Dicky is actually one of my very favorite, like, TMZ success stories. Why do you consider him that?

Well, for me personally. But were you just covering him very early on and before he became successful? So I would say. I can't remember the year but if I looked at our DMs I might be able to point to the year that video he came out with white dude remember that?

You never saw that song? The Chris Brown one? No, no, no, this is way... Like the beginning stage is... Little Dickie had a song called White Dude and the song is just brilliant because it's like it's triggering

but it's funny because what he's basically talking about is how great it is to be a white dude you know what I mean? There's like actually a line the song where he goes where I eat at when I'm high is what you eat to survive and with a picture of a KFC or something

like that. So it's just he's just talking about like white privilege but it's a satirical look at it right it's not that he's saying it's so dope it's like he's critiquing it right and I thought it was really brilliant so I was like I'm going to get this on TMZ

I'm going to get this on TMZ so I had a friend of mine set up a shot at the grove with just a rapper that he was managing. And when I got this rapper, because he was a white rapper, I asked him if he had seen the Lil Dickie situation, if he had seen the video. So then we go from his thing to Lil Dickie's thing.

So when I came in the office, I showed Harvey the video, and obviously Harvey loved it. And so then they put Lil Dickie on TMZ Live. And I remember he did TMZ live from his cubicle from his cubicle at work. He did it. That was like the first time that he was like on like television or something like that. I don't want to speak for him or anything like that.

I don't want to speak for him. Young scooter. The schooler bronze. But imagine. But for me, that was the, that was really the first time that I realized, yeah, I could put anybody on TV that I want. And I started putting, I put my homeboys that I knew. Put me on there.

You was on TV? A couple times. I heard you suppressed evidence that could have been used against AD. Whatever it is. Not him. Somebody else did. Who no longer works for TMZ. Oh, I know who you're talking about.

I heard that they had content that could have potentially landed AD or some of his associates in jail and that they did not use it out of respect, which I was like, I did not even know that corporations would ever make a decision like that. But you know why? That's because he's smart. I'll tell you something else. people don't understand is that AD had a good relationship with the people at the office. So because he had a good, there's something I call an awe factor.

So there's two ways that people react to when the story comes in when you're at the office. One is, oh shit, this happened. The other one is, oh, man, somebody gets on the phone and call so and so and so. And the awe thing, that's the space for you to not get fucked if they like you. So if something happens and they pick up. the phone and you pick up the phone and you call you got two choices you go hey oh fuck you you guys fucking suck or you can go man

this is what happened blah blah blah if you do the second one it's going to be better for you in the long run and that doesn't mean that that gives them that gives them the right to be calling and asking about people's personal business I'm not over there anymore they do what they do but what I'm saying is they liked him so they treated him well I have a question what was the crux of the little dicky being hip-hop argument

because to me I'm just kind of used to saying, like, if they're rapping overbeats, it's got to be hip-hop, right? Like, even if they exist in a world that's way different than what you would traditionally think of as hip-hop, it's still basically hip-hop, right? The line is so fuzzy now because some people say that about Post Malone. They say, Post Malone is not a rapper. And it's like, nigger, yes, Post-Malone is a fucking rapper. And there's a shillot of people that we give credit for basically being rappers, like,

you know, non-white people who, you know, basically make exactly the same kind of, like, was Juice World the rapper? Of course he rapped But I mean he made a lot of music That wasn't rapping And we all still put that in the rap bucket Right To me

So I actually talked to a couple people about this Because I thought that Dickie was hip hop Right To me hip hop It's not anything that's really specific It's about are you dope What it is that you're doing And if you listen to Dickie rap

He is obviously nice right He's a very talented rapper But I would also argue You don't need to be dope Well fine You just need to be rapping You just need to be rap Okay cool

But if you're rapping about your own experience and what's real to you, the authenticity. But I actually talked to somebody who is incredibly knowledgeable about hip hop and he said, nah, that's actually not it. And he goes, because there's actually less people that are hip hop than you think there are. It's like

hip hop is a culture. Hip hop has to do with knowledge. Hip hop has to do how much you've done for hip hop. He's like, he told me, he said, Dickie is basically this white dude that taught himself how to rap and he's really nice at it, but that don't make you hip hop. So I think it could be on either side of it. I looked at it

is, yo, if you rapping about putting a controller on your dick and jerking off, and you really did that, well, then you're rapping about your authentic experience, and that's kind of hip hop. To me, the only argument against Lil Dickie being a rapper would basically just be to say he's too white for it to feel like hip hop. But I think if you're going to actually treat hip hop as like a label that really means something, I mean, you're going to have to include the whitest fucking rapper ever. Do you know what I realized in talking to these guys and talking to these guys about hip hop? Is that I don't really know anything about hip hop. It's like talking to these dudes and I didn't have the little Dickey

conversation with this guy specifically. I had it. This is a different guy that I talked to about this, like Ninth Wonder, right? I had a conversation, a two-hour conversation with Ninth Wonder one time. If you talk to Ninth Wonder, you realize you don't know anything about hip-hop. You have no clue.

Like he was able to connect current hip hop all the way back to like Lyndon Baines Johnson and the start of it in the Bronx and like why all of these things happen and the building blocks. And when you do it that way, it becomes much harder to exclude people, much harder to exclude people. So people who have actually contributed to it. But also the standard of it gets raised through the roof. And when these guys are talking about what like, Ninth Wonder and sway and all those when they're talking about what they consider it hip hop it's like It's a real cultural sacrifice that you have to make and I don't think people look at it like that anymore

They think you got a beat you got some rhymes now you hip hop and I think some of the other guys are saying nah is more to it than that Come for the struggle man yeah it's like the difference between a dunker and a basketball player They're guys on on the internet that make a living on the internet doing nothing but dunking All they do is dunk all they do is dunk and they they are amazing, better than guys in NBA at Dunkin. But if you put them in a game, they can't score. Right. So they're really not a basketball player. They're a dunker. They've been able to do

one thing. But they're still a basketball player. Kind of. You know, because to me, it's like, if you're going to use that definition of hip hop, it is so vague and so vast that it is kind of almost useless because at this point, it is completely disconnected from the root of it. Hip Hop is useless.

This guy. The term. The term hip-hop It's kind of useless because it kind of at this point encompasses so much shit that is so far away from the root of hip hop that you kind of like, like it, I don't think you get to say hip hop is only this because as a society, we've just gotten used to using the word hip hop for everybody who raps over a beat, right? But he said the basis of where it came from. If you stick to the standards of what hip hop is, then Van is right. Most things that people don't do is hip hop. Hip hop came from the struggle. It came of expressing your... He's rapping over the same beats as Benny the Butcher, and he's rapping arguably as technically well. What is the thing? Like, just because Benny the butcher is closer to, like, Mobb Deep than the Dickey?

I don't really know how that stands. So this is my thing. I'm actually honestly telling you that I'm not really qualified to break it down and those guys are. I would agree that I'm not qualified either. And those guys are. But what I'll tell you is that people are saying that there is a difference. Now, for me, I looked at it on the surface. What I looked at hip-hop as was feeling mixed with.

ability mixed with just kind of you getting it out there so I looked at Soldier Boy was the most hip hop shit in the world to me and the reason why was because that was a kid that just was making shit on his fucking shit putting it on his mind space very organically

and building the audience and to me that seemed like the essence of hip hop right and Dickie seemed to be the same thing if you work in a corporate job somewhere and you rapping and then you come and you come in there you beat doors down and you make a name for yourself for whatever reason. To me, I'm looking like, yo, that's hip hop. But people will say that there is a higher

standard and that there's a specific cultural definition. And one thing about that, and it gets tricky for me, is people inside of a culture, they do get to define what that culture is. And I think that's something that mainstream America tries to take away from people. If you're inside of whatever culture it might be, if it's Jewish culture, if it's black, if it's black culture, if it's Hispanic culture, or more specifically like Puerto Rican culture or Dominican culture, they decide what their culture is. And I think sometimes when black people share their culture with America, we get to a point to where America starts saying, no, this is that. And that's the thing that throws people off. So with hip hop, what I learned, and I actually

was trying to produce a show on it. You know what I'm saying? If you're a sway at 19th. could never get that. But what I learned is that people don't know shit about hip hop. If what these two brothers and other people around, and I, you know, Royce and all of these other guys, because those clubhouse rooms that we were doing had all of these people in it that had dedicated their lives to this, right, that really lived and died with this. I'm a fan of hip hop, but I don't really know shit about it. I mean, like, it's so deep when you start getting into these conversations that I think we take it for granted that people on mics rapping would be that that all it is hip hop and according to their definition it's not I think it does make a lot of sense to me that

there has to be a cultural component in it even though I just basically said that little dicky is hip-hop regardless of the cultural component but basically when I was you know 15 or 16 we would frequently have the conversation of Fred Durst and kid rock they rap but they're not hip-hop. Like, they're not making hip-hop music. Now, granted, like Fred Durs probably could make a hip-hop record or whatever, and there's certainly songs throughout the Limp Bizkit catalog. They're basically rap songs. You've got Rented Man on it. I would say it was hip-hop. It's a rap song, yeah. Yeah, but we would always, I would say there are rappers, but it's not hip-hop because culturally it doesn't fit into that box, which I totally understand that argument. And it is kind

of freaky because when I think about a lot of the stuff that I grew up listening to outside of hip-hop, like in metal, there's death metal, there's blood, there's, black metal, there's speed metal, there's grindcore, there's all kinds of, there's hardcore, there's punk, there's pop punk, there's, like, they're really religious about their genres. Hip hop really has, has never gotten into that in the sense that, okay, there is horror core, there is, you know, there was rap, there was gangster rap, there's gangster rap, but we don't really bother to make those distinctions very often. And we compare those people to one another, which is something that in these other things, they really don't, right? Like, like, uh,

the food fighters and Slayer or Slayer. It's not going to be that they're not going to compare those bands, but even though we have distinctions and hip hop amongst those people, we still compare them to one another because the skill that they're exhibiting is something that we feel like

is kind of the same. Comparing Food Fighters and Slayer is like comparing Young Thug and Jay Zee. They're both rappers, clearly, but they are very much competing in different ways where the Young Thug is not thinking about his art in the same way that many of the butcher is,

even though they could be on the same track. Well, see, I disagree. And it's different walks. Well, there's a lot of similarity, but I would argue that comparing them directly side by side, who's the best? It seems like kind of a useless conversation. You can't compare butcher and Thug, but I bet you Thug thinks he's the hardest nigga out.

And so the, and the reason why he thinks that is because he's just listening to, how good does my shit sound when I put it down? Like when my shit is on there, how dope is my shit? People fuck with my shit heavy. And Thug might say, People fuck with my shit more than they fuck with Benny.

So that means that I'm better than Benny. If you listen to Benny, you know that it's just not too many niggers, period, who rap better than Benny. And that goes for Con and that goes for West Side, too. But when you compare that to other artists who are selling out the ass, they might think, hey, because people fuck with me like this, that means that I'm better than some of these other guys. Now, I'm not saying that they necessarily have made these companies. But I'm saying hip hop is so competitive that we compare these guys. is different than that. Like, I remember I had a two-hour-long argument

about whether or not Smashing Pumpkins was metal. No. I think they are. I think they are. I think smashing, and we, I remember, and this is another one when I want to get to my... I don't think you'd find a lot of allies on this argument within the metal community.

Not a lot, but... It's rock and roll. But there's some, they have some metal songs. Probably, yeah. They have some metal songs. Yeah. But see, that's something that never really happens, because Smasing Pumpkins is on MTV,

and Danzig is not. And almost every metal band that you listen to, every song doesn't sound exactly the same, but they're very, very, very similar. And in that way, rock music is almost more like a craft, because to be a rapper, it's like you are this kind of free spirit who gets to float around between producers and you can just make music with whoever.

To be a good metal band, it's like mastering this skill that is kind of like passed down through the ages and you all have to be able to like work together to play this music at the same time. And that in itself, I think, drives people towards these specific genres, but also the fact that there are built-in fan bases for those genres as well that are gonna fuck with you

if you make those kind of songs. And there's a big, like, I've seen so many bands over the years basically go, because it always happens the same, where a band starts out very hard. Over time, they grow up, they get a little older, they decide they want to experiment with clean vocals or more melody,

and then their original fan base usually sort of ostracizes them. as they move away from that. But yeah, like, rap is very different. Do you, so you don't think that Thug has mastered a skill? Oh, I think Thug is probably, when I talk about like top five or top ten rappers of all time, to me Thug is like really probably the only rapper from like the last 10 years that I put in my top five or top ten. You think Thub. You think Young Thug is a top five rapper of all time?

I think for me, given that I'm extremely ignorant of like everything pre-Snewped Dog. I probably would do that and I realized that that might sound. horrible to like certain bits. But yeah, like in terms of my list and also just, he's the most important rapper the last 10, 12 years. Well, everything is regional. I think. Hold on for a second.

He's changed rap more than anyone else throughout that time period. Man, shout out to thug. That's wild. You can't, you can't. You really don't think that? To me, that is so self-evidently obvious. You think, okay, tell me how. He's one of them. He definitely is one of them. People just really didn't experiment with melodies and

with high-pitched. Like, him? Melody, that's Drake. Okay, and I agree. Drake is by far the most important rapper, but he's at such a level that I almost don't even bother to put him in, like, the top five of rappers or whatever. I agree that in many ways,

Drake had to exist for Thug to exist in some ways. And Wayne, too. Yeah. Wayne did it a long time ago. And Wayne, too? I don't feel like I'm not happy with the way that I'm explaining how amazing what the young thug brought to the table is, but I feel like he's definitely one of the most influential,

Like, as in like him and Drake in the last 10, 12 years, the most influential for sure. So Young Thug is the most unique talent that I've ever. He showed all these kids that it was okay to be weird as fuck in a way, musically, in a way that I don't think anybody else had up to that point. So I think my, I think he got that from Wayne. I think, and not even, not that he got anything from Wayne because young Thub, well, you know what? But Wayne is much more of a traditional rapper in comparison to Thug. Thug took all that and just went totally left.

fit with it. He is. I personally think when I listen to Thug, I am amazed at what he can do with his voice. That's why I say, like, when, what you talk about with metal is very important. Like, these guys are in there, and sometimes it's like a math equation, right? What, with the rhythms and how

fast they're going to go and what they have to do and what you, like, it meets a certain criteria to be metal, right? And I think Doug, if you listen to early Thug and what he's done, he's figured out his instrument, and of course his instrument is voice to where he does insanely

incredible things with his voice now. But the question is like when you're talking about a strictly hip hop thing and I once again I really, this is a good conversation like would that be hip hop? I personally think it is. I think it all is

but I'm telling you these guys they have I think the older hip hop heads or to anybody who's in the Zulu Nation or all of these guys they have very finite cultural sort of things that they look into it. And if you grew up in a hip-hop scene

in which it's important that you be able to scratch, and it's important that you can scratch and then spin around and scratch with your back to the turntables and stuff, a lot of times I think about those people's cultural experiences, and I'm like, it must be really weird and strange to see what hip-hop is turned into when you grew up in an environment

in which sampling and going and getting records from the store was like the most important thing in terms of your understanding of hip-hop. And let's not forget that when we talk about hip-hop, hip hop originally the rap was just the music there was the DJ and there was the graffiti and there was the beatboxing right the graffiti and the beatboxing got left behind like 30 fucking years ago like that that came back a little bit not the beatboxing but the graffiti and there's still graffiti everywhere and there's still

people who beatbox but in terms of like our understanding of what hip-hop is I mean nobody bothers to mention those things anymore which is kind of telling about how transitional this this genre is that it could and basically that these parts of it could be so important and then now they could be basically never mentioned. No, I still like, it still is mentioning stuff too, because the basis of it, if you look at somebody like NWA, that was their way of, like you're saying, fuck the police. That was their way of expressing their stuff of what they was going through through the community right now.

And rappers are still doing that today, talking about their struggles about where they're coming from. I mean, police are still fucking killing us. They still beating our ass. People are still speaking out against that shit. And, you know, like I was saying earlier, hip hop now was just way more accepted. of way more shit. You said somebody like Fred Durst earlier. I think if Fred Durst came out in 2021, he would be considered a rapper. Because now we accept more.

Besides for them being a band, yeah, but he probably would have been popping on all these records. He would have been rapping on a Bruno Mars song, and we would all be like, that's not a rap song, but Fred Durst is the rapper on that song. Because would Post Malone be considered a rapper if he came up around those times with the type of music that he's doing now? No. Well, there used to be an alternative. I listen to Hollywood is bleeding, and it's great music, but that's like an alternative record.

I mean, that's an alternative album. All his biggest songs are basically alternative songs at this point. And they used to have that. Like, four non-blons and all of that stuff like that where it was they're singing, but they're more like working their way through the melody. Not quite that song because she's really singing. But like there was a whole alternative way.

It went away. And if you asked me, Post brought it back. Post music sound good, but like I wouldn't consider it to be, he ain't rapping. He was rapping all white Iverson a little bit. He raps sometimes. a while a little bit. And that's the thing is that people kind of put you in a bucket as soon as you come

in the game. And I think when he came in the game with White Iverson, I mean, A, people forget that he was also like kind of lampooned for that because he really was kind of almost presenting himself as this like character of like black greatness. And it was kind of weird for a lot of people. But his music now is so far away from that. And like what's his role on like rock star with 21 Savage? You know, he brings in a rapper and then he basically sings on it.

It's like that makes me wonder like if Marvin Gaye. came out making the kind of like if Marvin gay existed right now would we think of him as an rb singer or would he have just like also wrapped a bit and sort of gotten the label of being a rapper he'd be rnb for sure nowadays he'd be rnb but he probably would be rapping a little bit too but it's so easy to just also rap that it's like somebody like juice world could have easily had a whole career making emo songs but he's also just rapping because it's just like how if you're great at making rm brm b song you could probably rap a bit too right like people don't really see the genres that clearly like it's useless to them bianzzi

be rapping. Beyonce can hop on a song and basically be the rapper and nobody thinks twice about it, right? Beyonce would be rapping and Rihanna was rapping on that. Rihanna snapped on that, that Farrell shit, that Lemon. You remember that song? I don't know. You get it out. You got to leave it.

You don't know that shit? Got to block a lot of the... Anybody's singing. It just don't really make its way in here. Who is the hottest little killer motherfucker that I'm not listening to right now? Yes, K-G. Okay, see? He always knows.

He's not like a little killer rapper, but he's like my favorite gangster rapper right now, in my opinion. I don't know these. The deepest I've been getting in my bag is obviously Push Isty, who's huge, who I love Kigloch, who's huge. But I'm more like guys that haven't figured it out yet now. Can I shout somebody out? Sure.

From Baton Rouge? It's like, I want to shout somebody. I love Fredo Bang. I love Fredo Bang all the time. Fredo is great. One of my favorite rappers. Frato out here, though. He is out here.

I want to shout out. I want to shout out because I just got put on this guy from Baton Rouge. His name is Caleb Brown. No. Is that him?

Yeah. Caleb Brown. I don't know. It's from Baton Rouge, bro. He might be thinking about a rap name. Caleb Brown, I don't know.

Caleb Brown, that's not a good rap man? I mean, traditionally I would say it's not a good rap man. Maybe if he's so talented that Caleb Brown becomes a big name,

that's going to say a lot. Caleb Brown from Baton from Baton. I like him. I fuck with him. I like, but I like, I like guys that, like, you can still hear that they're growing. Homie, like, fucking, the homie,

Dreebo, you know him? Dribo? Dribo. Dreebo. Damn. These niggas is right here from the West. Why don't you don't support the West Coast no more? Come on, I support the West for sure.

That's crazy. We're not that deep. Like, you say somebody like Draco or Blue Bucks or somebody like that, then you can, you got to hear. You all to play some Rumble songs? Oh, Rimbo for sure, too. Who is Rimble? He's a, he's a,

fool who basically got signed to Draco or not even signed technically but he just linked with him and they have a little thing going on but he got a couple of songs like he only has like five or six songs out I like a guy there's a couple of the Gordon Ramsey freestyle I really felt like

Gordon Ramsey is far and yeah and he'd be talking about going to Ruth Chris and shit in an interview just reveals that he's never been to Ruth Chris I know but he said basically go to every time he kill a I go to go to Ruth Chris so he's still at the point he's never been there So he's still at the point

But I tell you something, though That's why I like Because he's still at the point Where he thinks Ruth's Chris Is a nice steak Yeah, yeah I'm still there too though I mean

That's expensive as hell Well, it's good But if you were really rapping about a steakhouse You probably go higher than Ruth's Chris I say Mastros But Ruth's Chris

Taste better than Mastroos Not to me Yes it do No You know it do, Nive You're just saying that Because you like They lamb

Because you got them chains on Oh my God You want people to think you rich fucking rapper You're a rapper No I go eat there They put the shit in butter It's better

Listen we don't have a problem With rappers We don't have a problem Of rapping But we do have a problem With these thugs These thugs Oh that was so legendary

Wow No but I like that When you see a young rapper Who embraces something That you as an older dude Already don't think is cool Like when Chief Keef and them came out

And I'm a true religion fiend And I'm just like You wear a true religion Those shits have been whack as fuck for years. They thought it was so dope because it was like the most expensive shit in the mall. The religion is coming back though. Yeah, yeah.

And honestly, when I walk in there, I'm like, I don't see why this shit shouldn't be hugely popular right now. It's all this ridiculous. People always recycle and do the same shit. Always. But, you know, I remember back then, like, niggas was wearing Jabobos,

but niggas in L.A. wasn't rocking those Jibos and shit like that. Why I'm from, that was the fucking thing. See, but you said where you're from, right? But people used to, like, really doing that shit. like really like and even like what us we like platinum foo boo and niggas wasn't on that shit like yeah all right did you ever wear johnny blaze nobody on the west was wearing like johnny blaze shout out johnny blaze just interviewed her but the other no how did that interview though it was cool

johnny blaze that's your lane though you got the ladies troubled women i don't know if i don't know if i want to call them troubled but you know you know the ladies they come in here and they they talk you know that you did the show with Selena and with Eliza. I do feel like they gravitate towards me and don't try to fuck me and don't think that I'm going to try to fuck them, which is kind of cool, I guess. Yeah. Probably like a safe space for them

to talk about themselves too where they feel like, you know, they're talking to someone who understands, who gets it and who is not trying to excoriate them for anything that they've done or anything that they've been through. Yeah, I'm very pro-sex worker. Yeah. I mean, that's important. I mean, we were just interviewing these

YouTubers of the minorities who I think you would love, by the way. They're so goddamn funny. But they were sort of like shocked that people are out here marrying porn stars. And that was like, I was reading the comments on the Mike Maylack interview where he's talking about breaking up with Lana Rhodes.

And the comments are so singularly, what were you thinking dating a porn star in the first place? Of course this was going to happen. I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, Lano Rhodes is objectively extremely attractive. she objectively makes way more money than any of us and anybody in those comments. And you guys are looking at this guy, Mike, who is a friend of mine,

but realistically, he's a white guy from the East Coast in his 30s. And he dated that girl for like a year and a half, whatever. You got fucking 100 billion YouTube views off of putting her in his thumbnail. And you fucking dipshits in the comment think that the most important thing that he should be thinking about is the fact that she did porn a few years ago, even though she doesn't even do porn anymore. I'm like, you guys are so lost. This is, my opinion.

See, the same exact thing happened when I told him about the cashabing women and doing things like that, right? Niggers in the comments were saying, oh, no, that's simpish, that's simplest. I had Jason from the minorities come with me to the strip club, drink, see a whole bunch of women, and his whole perspective was like, oh, shit, I understand where you're coming from. No, the comments were right about that, though. You are a simpia.

Yeah. This is, this is, this is a, this is cultural, though. I remember, we went to, uh, we went to, uh, We went to Cancun back in the day, and it was me and all my homies, and we had one of my other homies with him, he was white. We went to Cancun, and we go to like a wet t-shirt contest in Cancun and stuff, and there's this girl up there. And she got, like, dark hair, and she had the most beautiful breasts that I was like,

God, damn. And we was all white, look at that white girl. She got to do this crazy, blah, blah, blah, blah. We were watching it. And he fell in love. After the contest, which she won, he goes. and he talks to her, they start going back and forth, and they're married now.

Wow. That's what they met. Yo, do you know how long it took my niggas to accept this? Really? Oh, my God. I remember when, because she had to transfer schools to come and like, and be with him, right? So she had to transfer schools from somewhere like in Maine or something like that

and come be with him. And the whole time my homeboys would be like, yo, bro, it's a dollar. you met this chick, you met this chick showing the tinnies to everybody and they would diss him about it and diss him about it until the point that were at their wedding, she joked about it.

She was like, yo, shout out to all of these people when we was having, talking after it because, you know, the first time they all saw me, like, I was flashing my breasts to them. It's just different. It's just different. Like, they couldn't, they never, I mean, it's cool.

Now they got like five kids, but like, so it's like whatever now, I never care, but like, it's just different. People look at that is a different way. They look at that differently. Right, because I can understand having your reservations about a girl that just shows her tits on stage all night or whatever. But at the end of the day, bro, getting into a relationship is, it's like buying a used car. It's like, you know that this car has been on the road for a while.

You know that all kinds of things might have happened. But if you could get that car at a low, low price because you realize that other people don't see the value, it's like, It's like buying a stock. It's like a crypto vagina. If you think that this coin is undervalued and that if you buy it, it might be worth and you put some elbow grease into it and two years from now, it might be the most poppinist car on the block that's making $200,000 a month off of Onlyfans. I mean, that's an investment that you want to get into.

That's what the game is about. I mean, my thing is, I just think the hate for sex workers isn't rational. because if we didn't like them, they wouldn't be sex workers. To me, it's just not rational to insult the person that you jack off to. It's like a stupid, weird thing. It's like a weird thing that we almost do

to make ourselves feel better. Like, at least we wouldn't do that. Like, we do some other things, but at least we wouldn't do that. That's one step before what it is that we would do. And it really has nothing to do with them. It has more to do with you. it's another job to me

and a girl a girl will meet a dude and the dude will be sleeping on his friend's couch at the bar trying to bum PBRs every night etc and they will still see some hope in you like a girl will still see that guy and think you know what he's got a nice

jaw line he's got a he could he's got low body fat percentage they always looking for the reason like you haven't seen this nigga sketch they want to soup you up yeah they want to fucking soup you up and then drive that shit around the block you need to be thinking about life the same way. Not maybe you, but other things, think about girls like that. No, no, no. How can you upgrade it? No, no. You're right when you talk about that. But nowadays, the

girls coming up now, they're not trying to see the potential in men nowadays. I'm talking about hipster-ass white girls who still will go for that. I agree that in your world, that's probably a little less likely. Young black girls now coming up, they're basically telling guys that if you work a regular job, you ain't shit and you're not getting no pussy from them. I don't think you can say that about all young black girls. No, I'm just saying, The, okay, the media, the ones that are pushing that. We have young black girls over there saying that that's not true. She's not giving niggas at working McDonald's a chance.

Okay. Because she knows that we would shame her. Well, casual question. I'm not going to shame her. Casual question, no, seriously, because this is interesting to me. What is the obsession with the nigger that works at McDonald's archetype? So why is it? I always say foot locker, but yeah, it's the same thing.

Why is it virtuous that you like somebody that? works at McDonald's and Foot Locker. Like, why is that? I'm asking, because this is a guy that worked at best by and is all of this. Because if she was dating a guy who worked at McDonald's, then we would all 100% believe that she truly was in love with them and that it wasn't based on anything besides his personality. I believe that.

Or maybe some free food. As a person that worked at Target before, like, I had a job before. But what does love me? And so when I mean, when I say what does love me and I mean, like, who somebody is, there's a lot that goes into that, right? So it's what you do, it's who you are, it's how you are, it's all of these things, it's whatever it is. So where you work is a part of that.

Because like, if somebody was dating someone who was a hitman, you look and you'd say, hey, how could you date a hitman? Right. And you'd make a value judgment. So to me, when I look at somebody, a girl that

is with a dude that works at McDonald's, I don't think that she's anymore, I mean, that's dope. People that work at McDonald's and work at best by all of these people have relationships by the way all of these people is fucking you know what I'm saying they all have relationships but if you say that if if you meet a girl and you and she says hey I have a certain outlook on life and I need the person that I would to have a certain outlook on life I don't understand like why that's demonized and like you said but see the thing is too is that okay in this industry you have the IG models and you

have the standard of that the girls that are patterned their cells behind that they're not giving guys that work at Best Buy and McDonald's a chance. They're sitting there. They want to get BBLs. They want to get tits. They want to do that. Why do they want to do that? They're doing that for Instagram, right? They want to be seen by somebody that has a big bag and to eventually take care of them. And if you go back and that's where the line draws where people like Kevin Sannios come, come into the middle of the shit, right? It's just that, okay, people don't call in there and saying, hey, he asks them all the time, what kind of guys do you want? Does he have to have, oh, I want a guy that makes over six figures and I want a guy that does this and does this. Okay, so if the,

if only 10% of men makes six figures a year, why is every girl calling in wanting a guy with six figures? What happened to them? Honestly, wanting somebody to fucking love. Where does the line draw with that? If my little brother works at Target right now and I bring him to the club, the girls in there are going to laugh at him because he ain't popping no bottles and shit like that. They're not going to give him no fucking ass. And that's where the media is doing. And you got girls like, like you said, the city girls are somebody else, or Cardi B, broke, Broke boys don't deserve no pussy. I know that's right.

That's what's getting put out there. But what's broke? So to me, if you got income coming in, I think that's the thing that's the fun. So what's broke? If you got income coming in, right? If you got a job, you ain't broke. But they're fantasizing that these lifestyle, these girls don't want, they don't want a Honda no more. They want a Mercedes-Benz.

They want a big-ass house. They want to go. They want to live. They want to go skiing in Aspen. They want to go to Dubai. They want to go to Turks and Kekos. If that's what you pattern yourself behind, you're not going to give a little nigger that's working at Target a chance

because you want to be taken out. You just said when I was 19, I didn't know existed. And I just want to say that I think that's a big part of why I turned out relatively normal was because I didn't even know that I had those things that I could aspire to. And that's something that's different about kids. And you also didn't have social media. And you also didn't have all of the outlets that show you that now because now girls are watching a show like basketball wives.

And what does that tell the woman? It'll tell them, well, you can have a baby by somebody successful and you can make a career after that. So my thing is this, though, we talk about, you know, Kevin Samuels and the women hitting up Kevin Samuels and asking Kevin Samuels, you know, what they feel like they deserve and special men. Well, if you work at Best Buy or McDonald's,

then what makes you think you deserve a beautiful ass? You know what I mean? Exactly. And to me, there's nothing wrong with working there, but I think all of this has to do with entitlement. Hey, go find somebody that likes you and be with them. Don't fucking care about the people who don't like you. Don't worry about the people who don't like you. I think we need to do more of that, period.

I don't want to hear no more this person told me I would never make it. How about you introduce me to the people that told you you were going to make it? Like, where are teachers that was like, baby, this fucking paper is full of red exes, but I know you're going to be something. The people that helped you out, the people that put you on. I'm telling you, the brothers out there, the sisters out there that's working at Best Buy and McDonald's, is somebody for you to fuck. Facts. Don't be pressed about somebody with 5 million followers. That ain't for you.

Maybe one day it will be. But I think everybody has their expectations inflated, right? I think everyone does. That's why you see dudes on there stunting, trying to be in a game that they go out there and just, Be a person. It's just getting weird, is my thing. All of these things, I don't give a fuck if you got a BBL. I don't give a fuck if you,

sometimes I think this shit is hilarious. You know what I'm saying? Some cartoon BBLs out there for sure. Sometimes I think the shit is hilarious, but if that's what you want to do, knock yourself the fuck out. That goes back to what you were saying earlier. As long as you do it, because you want to do it,

then it's different. Like, the narrative now is that, okay, if I get my ass done, if I get this done, a higher value of men are going to treat me or want to to fuck with me. And that's why a lot of girls are doing that shit now. You know what I'm saying? But it's working because the same four or five chicks. It is working.

It is working. It is working. It is working. I've seen girls get the BBL and they're in a young folk video like six months later. And then their only fans is cracking and they don't even want to talk to the fucking dudes that they were talking to before that they used to be pulling up to the shop with and stuff. I do want to point out, though, that it was pretty fascinating. when we were talking to the minorities about this conversation, because them being from Sacramento and not L.A.,

the way we were describing girls was so foreign to them that they clearly had not had much experience dealing with the kind of girls that we're talking about. But it's the same reason why we draw so much attention to a poo shi-stie or whoever, a gangster-ass rapper, we draw attention to the girls who are the worst, most toxic examples of girls just basically falling for this consumer as bullshit.

And we ignore the fact that, like, if I was single right now, what kind of girl would I be trying to get in a relationship with? Probably not that kind of girl. Probably a more normal girl, right? Do you have the nice girls on your podcast? No. Not at all. There's the thing.

You know what I mean? We always gravitate towards the most shocking version of any of that. Like, when we talk about black metal bands, we talk about the bands that fucking. killed each other and burnt down churches and ended up going to jail for eating each other and shit like that. When we talk about rap, we gravitate towards the most extreme examples of rap. And what does that tell of the youth? That they have to do that to be accepted by somebody like you or another platform. Because at the end of the day, it's all clickbait. It's all

something to get you through the door. Yeah, the BBL, the ass might look disgusting in real life. But if it looks good in that Instagram photo, it's going to get the guy through the door, they're looking for customers one way or another. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I think we all think pieces to death probably a lot more than we should, you know? We think about it, we talk about it, we get mad based on

experiences that we don't even have anymore. You know, and we put a lot of our emotions into our critical thinking. I'm guilty of it as much as anybody else is, but the reality is, man, concentrate on who fuck with you. Now,

concentrating on who fuck with you is harder to get somebody to fuck with you. Well, fuck it then it's harder. It's harder to find drill. Well, fuck it then it's harder. But I can tell you, if you open to it, you'll find it. It's like, sometimes shit gets harder. Things change. It used to be back in the day in 1900, whatever. You go to a general store, you see a girl. She's 16. You look at her dad, you go, I want to marry that there, girl. Imagine doing that these kids. You know what I'm saying? You were like, they was young like that.

Like, you go, I want to marry that there, girl. You get. Give her flowers for three weeks. And then after that, she has to stay married to yo ass for the rest of her life. Nah, it's different now. Now women put some, they got some skin in the game. They, they choose it up too. If you don't like it, then, you know, find somebody. But it's plenty of women out there that aren't like that.

Like, there's plenty of men out there that don't care about flexing on the gram. It's enough. Yeah. They just got to find each other and be ready to build something. build. Let me ask you this. Sure. Do you think that the Rory and Mall podcast will ever supersede the Joe Button podcast? I don't know.

I think it's going to I think when the Rory and Mall podcast comes it's going to be super hot for the initially. Yeah. But I don't, I don't I don't know. Who knows?

I like both of them a lot, but it also, you know, when you think about a podcast, you're used to there being the fucking Vladimir Putin leading the thing, you know? Did you just compare Joe to Vladimir Putin? And not with any reservations either. It's a pretty clear cut example, yeah. But I just wonder, like, you know, is either of them ready to be the lead MC?

And will there be a third added to the podcast? I wonder. I don't know. It's like you... They might get a third. I'll tell you one thing. I think they'll have a very successful podcast. I think, you know, when you say whether or not it'll be as successful to Joe Budden

podcast. That's a high bar. Yeah, I mean, not many podcasts are. If they end up at 20 or 30% of that, that's still a great business for them to happen. I think it'll be more than 20 or 30%. Initially, I think it'll probably be almost like 100%. But I think that over time, yeah, we'll see where it sort of settles. When you take pieces of anything away is never going to be the same.

So even for Joe, like, shout out to Issh and shout out to my nigga. What's my nigga name? Ice. Shout out to my nigga. That's my guy too, my bad. Yeah, but like, it's a whole different dynamic. and then those loyal listeners, they're like, we may go over there now. We may go over here now.

So it's going to be a divide for both parts. I think it's been a little bit more traumatizing that I'd like to admit, watching that whole thing fall apart just because of the fact that in terms of building out the No Jumper show and trying to create more shows and everything, I've always looked at their dynamic as that's what I'm trying to get to. I'm trying to have a friend rapport thing going on with a couple of, of my buddies and will be able to just really build like a consistent presence like the way that they have with the Joe Bunn podcast. To watch that all fall apart was was kind of upsetting and

has really made me sort of like reconsider everything at least in terms of like, okay, well, what do I have to do to basically make sure that we're not just building up a bunch of personalities on this show and then at some point it's all going to come crashing down because of, you know, some combination of business and personality. Yeah, it's just sad. You know, it's sad because it's sad for the listeners and it's sad for those guys because one thing is for the listeners

it's a dynamic that they were sort of tuning in for and Joe by himself is obviously super talented and Rory has his own energy and Ma has his own energy right but the dynamic between the three of them it would be little moments in the Joe Biden podcast

that would be dope you know what I mean because you could have those moments with anybody else other than your boys. And to be honest with you, people like narratives and the narratives of it's the three of us against the industry. It's the three of us against all of these forces that are trying to cook things and we're standing up for the creators and we're standing up for people that don't have voices in these rooms and we're doing it because we've done it. Like we're doing it. We know how to do this, right? We know how to tell you how to do this because we've done it.

That's what we're doing right now. We're doing that. We're actively doing what we know you can do. And to see that narrative more than anything fractured, to see that fractured for a lot of fans of the show is probably the hardest thing. Because then you start to ask yourself, well, can that be done?

So when you're saying that it's about a certain thing, if it's about creators, if it's about people being independent, if it's about people locking together in community and brotherhood and going up against all of these other things and coming out on the other side of it, winners, right? If that's what it's about and that's how it looked,

but that didn't work out, people start to doubt themselves like, well, no, it's the same shit. It's we're together, money comes in, we're apart. Like, we're apart. Same thing that happened to, the fucking temptations. Same thing that happened to new addition.

Same thing that happened. Obviously, you know, bringing up musical groups. Same thing that happened to a lot of other people. A lot of other people. Money come into it. This come into it. There's no transparency here.

I think this is the way this is supposed to go. I think that is the way that is the way that is supposed to go. We're not on the same page. Now we've got to all go on our separate ways. And so the reality of that situation is that as a community, of creators, of black creators, of whatever we are,

we definitely do want one time, one point in the future where that's not happening, where the money stops, where the fame stops, corroding things that we've built together. I think if you really care about those guys, and obviously I know Joe and me and me and Maul are actually close, you know, those are homies. More than anything besides the drama,

you're upset that that went the way that it went you know and it but it speaks to a lot of deeper things though I feel like in the culture right now I hate the people who said you know Joe Budden there's a lot of people I forget who was like most famously quoted saying this I think it was Charlaman but he basically said like Joe's good at starting things he's good at getting something off the ground he's good at getting it going but ultimately he'll always find a way to fuck it up and as somebody who's been paying attention to Joe his career for like 20 years now. I really liked seeing him be so successful at the podcast.

I think because it made you feel like, okay, Joe's done fucking it up. Right. And then from my viewing, my perspective, I do feel like ultimately the thing that killed the podcast was Joe letting his ego get too big and not treating the people that were integral to his business with the respect that they ultimately deserve. Like when I'm hearing Roy and all talk about not getting to see the financial statements and basically even if what they're saying is not real or it's not true, that the fact that they were able to get to the point where they felt so not seen or heard

in regards to what they felt like they were deserving from the business, that's a failure of Joe's. You know, like he, the fact that they felt that way, regardless of what the reality might be, if there's a different version, I'm not, I'm just trying to not discount Joe's potential narrative about their side of things. But if you're employed, if AD ultimately starts to feel like Adam's not,

treat me fairly and this shit's all fucked up, then, you know, we need to have an open and up dialogue that when he comes to me and says that, that we can have a conversation about it, you know? I mean, yeah. So when you look at it, I guess their side of it is that they were on a profit-based pay scale and they needed accurate accounting to be able to know how much money that they deserve. And if I'm clear on what Joe said, Joe said that he sent over accounting and they say they was on the Excel spreadsheet and what they want to see

is the actual language and the actual contract, right? That tells them how much they're supposed to be getting. And Joe says that he was contractually bound to not share that with anyone. So he can't share that with anyone. Let's say that all of that's true, right?

There's a communication breakdown there somewhere. Right. Like, even if all of that's true, right? Even if what he's saying is true and what's their saying is true, there's still at some point a communication breakdown to where they don't know what they're entitled to. And then even after they're told, right, they still refuse to believe it because the table setting around that wasn't probably as firm as it needed to be. And apparently they had tried to, whatever these issues are, they had tried to work through them for a long time and they were unable to.

And you'd think that if there was an out to it, if there was a way to figure it out, then they would have figured it out because they had the high. is hip-hop podcast in the world for X amount of years. So you would think that that would be the thing. And in the process, it seems like they ended up feeling so disrespected that there was just no repairing the relationship. Like, there wasn't like Joe was going to be able to just show them the books and make them happy at a certain point because they ended up feeling so disrespectful about the whole thing.

Well, look, people have different personalities, right? There's a certain way that me and my friends sort of go back and forth. There's a certain way that I'm sure you go back and forth with your homies. Do you go back and forth? So if it gets to a point to where nobody, well, we can't even talk no more than like, you know, what's the point? They're talking for a living. So if they can't talk anymore, anything that happens on the podcast, like would be fake.

So all of this stuff is a symptom. This is a symptom of a greater type of deal. And the symptom is of us getting on platforms and talking about each other as black men, as brothers, as creatives, as all of this, in ways that are derogatory and crazy. And the question is, like, why are we doing that? Like, why are we getting on platforms and talking about other people's deals?

Like, why are we getting on platforms? Because we don't know what's in other people's deals. Like, we really don't know. We can speculate and we can talk about who knows business, who doesn't know business, who knows this, who knows that. And all of this to me is corrosive, and I don't understand why we big willy and one another.

It's enough for everybody. And look, if I have political differences with somebody and I feel like someone is hurting people, then obviously you guys know that I'm going to be on my platform and I'm going to talk about it. If there's something, if I feel like there's harm being done, then obviously I'm going to talk about it. But the reality is that people are free to do business

in the way that they are doing business, man. People are free to do whatever they want. For me, I'm going to be honest. with you. The company that I have six feet over productions, we produce two-distance strangers, we won an Academy Award for it, right? That's me and my partners. We own that company. We own that company so we could exude creative control over that. That's why it's important that we have that. Other situations I do, I have partnerships, sometimes things, sometimes I'm employed places, all kinds of different situations. My career is diversified. I have a

movie production deal. I have a TV thing. I have my pilots in development where I'm working with people. Have a pilot. You guys saw 50 put up. A pilot hip hop homicides with 50 cent. Monscott Young. Something that we're

doing where I work for them. You know what I mean? It's all about what you want to do. And no one crafts for you how you should be doing it. And nobody's doing it right. They're doing it their way. they're doing it their way.

And I think the saddest thing about everything that happened with Joe and Rory and Maul was that people really looked at the podcast itself as a blueprint about how to do something. And it's not that they shouldn't look at it like that now. It's not like they shouldn't look at it like that now. You know, there's a different dynamic there now, but it's not like they shouldn't look at it like that now. But the reality is I think a lot of people's trust in the message was broken. Not so much in the people, in the message, you know? Right. No, definitely.

I think that to a lot of people, like that podcast was the most relatable podcast they could imagine because it's three or four dudes sitting in a living room talking about shit. They could very much imagine themselves doing that with their friends. It just turns out these guys are a little funnier, a little bit more knowledgeable, a little bit more influential, whatever. And, yeah, I think people love that. And to see it so quickly sort of evaporate and for it to be revealed, oh, actually, this is a business. I mean, you should have known that the whole time. But for the family nature of it, does just sort of fall by the wayside so quickly, regardless of who you might want to say is that fault.

Yeah, it was pretty upsetting to a lot of people. And this is one thing that I think is I think this with gangs all the time. I think this because I watched fucking Hotel Rwanda for the first time the other day, which in itself was fucking Trump. That was mind-blowing. Like, that was one of the most emotionally affected I think I've ever felt by a movie. But basically, if you leave motherfuckers to themselves and you don't attempt to sort of establish some rules,

some charters, some ways that you guys are going to be able to work proactively together positively, then this kind of like infighting is almost like inevitable. If you don't have that sort of conversation and communication between people, it's just so likely that things are going to end up this way. And that's why I just want to have, you know, with what I'm building now, after watching all that unfold, it becomes even more obvious to me. I don't want anybody to ever feel like there's stuff that they can't talk to me about here.

Right. Right. And once again, it's like it's about everybody defining what it is that they want for themselves. Obviously, it seems like things were working their way and people were in the dark about them. You know, just in the darker bottom, misunderstanding, whatever it was. but, you know, man, we can talk about podcasts and business and all of that stuff until we blew in the face, man. What about the fact that these dudes were friends? And that was the whole thing that we liked about the podcast is that it really felt like, oh, these guys are a real friend.

And also, just in a weird way to take pleasure or solace and watching somebody else go through something, it's weird the way shit goes for me, right? Because when I think about now, right? And it's funny because it's a story that, that, like, we have like a weird thing, like, one of my neighbors and I had a situation, like, we'll talk about that.

One day. I don't know if we got time to talk about that today. Right, right. But what I'm saying is, what I really realized in that situation, I had said something about somebody on TMZ. They ended up becoming my neighbor, right? Half of LA's neighbor living there, by the way.

Right. Right. They ended up becoming my neighbor. after years and years and years of kind of running into this person and ended up becoming my neighbor. So now they live on the fifth floor, I live on the first floor or whatever,

so you have to see somebody, now you have to say something. And you realize like the power of what it is is you're saying. Like these are people, human beings that got families. But everybody is like that. So when you spit a word at somebody,

when you say something about someone, you had damn well better mean it and it damn that well better be worth something. Like, because when you say this about people, you know, I see pictures with Joe and his son and stuff like that and that looks beautiful, beautiful house, beautiful that, beautiful this. You look at somebody that I came up out of all of the stuff that he came up out of if he winning, man, that should be exciting to me.

That should be like, I'd be like, yo man, look at this black man that they can't kill, you know? So if I was to say something, I would think about trying to undo that. And I think everybody has to kind of look. look at things like that. Everyone has a kind of look, okay, if you're going to shoot at somebody, the question is, why are you firing? Like, what's the point?

Like, what are we doing? Like, how are we going back and forth? Like, what is all of this stuff? By the way, this don't have to be the end. This could be a season. Don't be surprised in the future. And I'm not speaking for Rory or Maul. I know these are my guys. But don't be surprised in the future if you see everybody

sitting back down on that couch. And if that happens, if they all do, sit back, down in the couch, if they in some time in the future get over it and whatever's wrong gets made right, don't jump in the comments talking about who weak or

who lost or who won, just be happy about it. You know what I'm saying? Or if not, just fuck it. And if you don't want to fuck with Joe no more because Joe had done too much they don't fuck with Joe. But just my deal is I'm going to be less emotional about everything. Just less emotional

about it. Just less emotional about it. Just less emotional about it. It's about what works for people, what doesn't work for people. You know? It's funny you say that because I feel like so much of what I'm trying to do in therapy is trying to basically get more emotional. I'm trying to like feel shit more. I'm trying to be less hardened and tough. But you're feeling your feelings, not other people's. Yes. So that's the thing is. You feel your feelings.

Right? Like feel the feelings that you have. Be open to your feelings, right? Don't let other people dictate their feelings to you. Right. Don't let somebody get you out of whatever you're in, right? Don't let somebody come and make you and give you an emotion. You know, be emotionally strong enough, be centered enough to stand granted in who you are and kind of deal with the things that are coming and keep your logic and your analytical brain moving forward.

Don't let somebody else give you their emotion. And I think, and that's the hardest thing to learn. The hardest thing to learn is to not accept somebody else's hate and then meet it back with hate. And then take somebody else's pain and then meet it back with pain. That's very difficult to learn, especially when you turned up. Sometimes it's, sometimes it'll get you killed, you know. What you need to do is take whatever they're giving you, stand, collect it, calm, and respond. and respond and not react

and so, you know, once again, it's all love with everybody with me and I just hope it's all love with everybody else and, you know, that's the way it goes. Well, said. I hope Parks is okay in all this. Man, they're giving it to Parks the worst. Why, just for holding Joe down?

Yeah, they're giving it to Parks the worst. But, look, I mean, fuck, niggas. Who is that going to? Somebody playing fucking Candy Crush or something? Is that me? Nah. Everybody's straight, bro. Everybody's still making money.

Everybody good. You know. Yeah, because ultimately, like, as much as we all feel like, fuck. Ain't me. Oh, man. Oh, my dad. That was that Caleb Brown.

They're all just looking around like there's a fucking ghost in the room. Right. Fuck. Shit, I think that was pretty good. We were on here for almost three hours. I missed my meeting, but it was worth it. Really?

What was your meeting with? I'll tell you later. It's not about that important. Yeah. It was important. That's pretty important, too. You blew it off? It's cool.

Every day I get to see my homie. That's true. Yeah, I mean? Good talk, man. Always, baby. I appreciate you guys for real. And anything you want to tell them to go check out? Yeah, man.

Caleb Brown. Check out Caleb Brown. Check out, Ring Reverse, nerd shit, at Ringervverse. Check that out. Also, higher learning with Van Lathan and, Rachel Lindsay. You got to bring Compton AD on higher learning. Definitely got to bring Compton AD on higher learning. I want to play some video games too.

I'm with that. You know, I'm big into that. What you're fucking with on the video games right now? I like story games. I'm going to play Resident Evil. That's dope. The Village, yeah. That's dope.

Yeah. I have some fond memories of playing Resident Evil for PlayStation in like 1998. So that is a game that I could see myself dumping some hours into. It's totally different now. It was first person now. Yeah, but there's a lot of mysteries and scary shit. I could get into that. Yeah, I'd play with it. You know, I play with the Oculus.

Real quick before I go. The Oculus, like the fucking... That shit was giving you headaches, man. You like that? I like it. I got bad headaches from VR, bro. I like, bro. The Oculus, you know what you do?

This is funny. You get the Oculus and then you get somebody else to tape you while you're playing the Oculus. You look so fucking stupid. You have like, there's a game called Richie's Plank Experience to where, like, you're up on like the 99,000. And I did not go off. And like you're walking across a plank

and you're walking across, you're walking in your living room and you're like, oh, fuck. That's scary as fuck? Bro. I did that in Vegas. They got some shit like that. And it really looked like you're on a fucking building. Right.

It's crazy. It's crazy. Damn. All right. Next time we hang out, VR. Okay. Appreciate you. I win it.

No problem. Very rare. Van Lathan. No Jumper. Coolest podcast in the world. Check us on YouTube, SoundCloud, iTunes. Like, comment, and subscribe. Nojumper.com, if you want to support.

Friday we'll be listening to your music. Appreciate you.