No Jumper - Van Lathan on Losing His Father, Sharp’s Temper, No Jumper Drama & More

Episode Date: July 8, 2022

Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code SHARPTANK at http://www.Manscaped.com Van Lathan made his way to the Sharp Tank, for a very enlightening, inspiring, and deep conversation with Sharp! ----- 00:00 Intro 0:30 Van congrats Sharp heavy! "You're the most entertaining dude on the entire internet gigabytes" 4:04 Van used to love visiting his uncle in prison when he was a young kid 9:42 Sharp wants to know if people really get rehabilitated after doing time 10:00 Van thinks people don't get rehabilitated and furthermore, that's not the way the prison system is designed 10:57 Van explains how many ways the prison system is a GIGANTIC BUSINESS and breaks down how it should be handled 15:55 Manscaped 20:18 Van's fitness journey started with him wanting to be better...and for girls 22:00 Sharp explains why he can be hard during some interviews: passion and caring 22:29 Van thinks that Sharp went too hard on Tucker the Toe Sucker 23:25 Sharp explains why it wasn't the case and how why the interview actually happened 25:00 Van says No Jumper has been super lit lately, like a soap opera 27:41 Van cracks the Sharp mindset! "You don't like to see people not using their full potential" 28:11 Sharp expands on how we should all tap into our gifts and all go hard and prosper 29:09 "I use every bad thing I went through and turn it into a fuel" - Sharp 32:45 Sharp pays respect to Van's father who passed on last year, says he raised a fine smart man 39:40 Sharp says people are afraid to raise kids these days, especially the school system 48:52 Van also wants to partake in the fuck shit that's going down at No Jumper 49:41 Sharp says that was Van's interview and might possibly call him back for future things LOL ----- Shout to our Partners at Gamer Supps! ORDER YOUR FREE SAMPLE TODAY with our Promo Code NoJumper https://youtu.be/UUwcj1YC-NE Gamer Supps offers esports athletes, gamers, and podcasters the most effective and healthy energy choice to help them perform at the highest potential especially during their most crucial moments. Try it today 100% Free with our Promo Code NoJumper https://gamersupps.gg/ ----- NO JUMPER PATREON http://www.patreon.com/nojumper CHECK OUT OUR NEW SPOTIFY PLAYLIST https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5te... FOLLOW US ON SNAPCHAT FOR THE LATEST NEWS & UPDATES https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_... CHECK OUT OUR ONLINE STORE!!! http://www.nojumper.com/ SUBSCRIBE for new interviews (and more) weekly: http://bit.ly/nastymondayz  Follow us on SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ENxb4B... iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/n... Follow us on Social Media: https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_... http://www.twitter.com/nojumper http://www.instagram.com/nojumper https://www.facebook.com/NOJUMPEROFFI... 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

We all, hell yeah. Let's go. They didn't open the gates for us. The Sharp Tank. No jumper. Sharpest, coolest podcast in the world. And today, I'm going to call him a scholar. Oh, man.

Come on. He a real scholar, man. You know, and really does look out for the black community. Man, I got Van motherfucking Lathen in the building today, man. You know what's going on with you today, church? I'm good, bro. First of all, before you even get started, bro. Before we can start it, man.

Come on. You might be the most entertaining motherfucker. I appreciate you. In the entire unlimited gigabytes. I appreciate that. Of the fucking internet. You know what I mean? Shout-outs to everybody up here on No Jumper.

Yeah. I don't know how I first saw. I don't know how I first saw it. But I'm like, yo, this nigga is wilding, but sensibly. How do you sensibly be on somebody ass? shit that makes sense, bro. Yeah.

So I fuck with you, bro. Been watching your shit for a while now, man. I appreciate that because I'm gonna tell you this, man. You know, I'm not gonna say I don't get a lot of good vibes back from a lot of people, man, but it'd be some people that be on some straight bullshit, you know? So to hear people that I really respect, you know, and people that I know of, man, because, you know, I watch you, man, and I set you to a higher stature. I watch what you really try to do for us, man, and for the black community, man.

So, you know, to hear that from you, it's an honor, you know, and even give my Rowe's is in that sense, man. But we got to dive in. Let's do it. And, you know, fucking with you, I really want to just, I want to go through this, man, just one level at a time and just talk to you, man. You know, so I believe you are from the South. You come from the South.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Baton Rouge, man. Tell me what that was like. Shit. In time you can remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Baton Rouge was, you know, you never know what, what the situation that you're living in is like

when you're living in it, right? It's a beautiful place. It's my favorite place in the world, right? I go home, and Louisiana is different even than other places in the South. I go home, I feel the humidity. I smell the river. You know what I mean?

I hear the animals and all of that stuff. And when I say, hear the animals, New Orleans is, they call it the city. That's a city place. Baton Rouge, we got a lot of ghettos and a lot of hoods there, but the reality is, when I was growing up in Baton Rouge,

you can still drive down Nicholson, Highland, places like that, and see cows on the side of the road, right? Right, right. It's a lot of people there, but there was still a lot of land, a lot of space, and, you know, see snakes and all that kind of things like that, like where I live, stuff like that. But it was a beautiful place to grow up, but just hard living.

Hard living. Yeah. Hard living, especially if you're black, especially if you're from certain places in the city. Beautiful culture, beautiful people, give you the shirt off day back, but a lot of it's hard living, and now it's even worse.

Yeah. How was that like for you? Like what was some of the experiences that, you know, you had to overcome, man, you know, growing up in a place like that? Well, so, you know, one thing that was really important for me is I had an intact family. So I grew up. It's good. Yeah, my parents ended up divorcing when I was in college. But for my whole life, it was father, mother, sister, brother.

Like, I had an intact family. Yeah. And that shielded me from a lot of things. that I think otherwise I might have been a little bit more susceptible to. Yeah. Because all my favorite uncles was in and out the pen. Most of them more in than they was out. Right.

A lot of drugs, you know? A lot of drugs, a lot of... Sad, man. A lot of... I never forget, man. We went to, because my Uncle David, he'll talk about it, so I'll talk about it. My Uncle David been locked up a couple different places, right? my uncle Mark who's now passed away

my uncle my uncle Ray was in the feds all of that stuff but I would always like to go to the prison because it was like an adventure for me you know you go there you wake up you drive out there wherever it is

you got to go get checked in then you got to sit in this other place then a van got to come then the van got to drive you to this other place and then you got to sit there you know what I mean and wait and you're playing around and it's all kinds of and then after an hour hour and a half two

hours or whatever here come your uncle walking out you know and you don't get to see him all the time so it's like you see them and you're like oh shit and depending on where you locked up you might get to do different things sometimes they'll let you maybe go shoot a couple of baskets or something like that or yeah there'll be a ping pong table you know angola wasn't none of that shit but I would go and I would have time with my uncle. My dad would talk to him a little bit my mom would talk to him a little bit

but we would hang out, we would chill. I didn't really see I understood that he was in prison but I didn't even know what that was right I don't know what was going on back there. You know what I'm saying? And he was and you got such short time with them that they

are exuberant the entire time they're out there. They don't want to talk about at least my uncles. They didn't want to talk about. Nothing that was going on inside there. I was bullshit, whatever, they treat me fine. How you doing? How your grades? You're playing sports. You got big. Tradition. Yeah. Same thing.

So I go there and I leave and I'm ecstatic, right? I didn't just visit it. And I look, I leave. I'm like, yo, I was just seeing Uncle David, blah, blah, whatever, whatever. And I look at my grandmother. And every single time we would leave, I'm looking at my grandmother

and her face is just destroyed. She's crying. She's upset. I asked my mom, like, we just got a chance to chill with, oh, like, why is she upset? And my mother's like, it's just hard

for her. You know, it's just hard for it. And because I had people to translate that for me, I never heard this person is a piece of shit. I never heard this person did all of this. I had somebody to explain to me as a child should be explained

to the realities of, Say that again for the people in the back, how a child should be explained to. Yeah. You know, I don't need to know at eight, nine years old what he did. Right. Or whatever he, my uncle, he loved me. People are sick today.

You know, they do that shit, man. It's nuts. It's nuts. These are kids, man. Like, these are kids. Like, I don't need to know what this man did. I don't need to know. By the way, not that it would change because these are the same guys who taught me how to shoot basketball.

But they put it to me like that. So I get to, like, love and still have my uncle. But my grandmother who knew the realities. It was hard. So this is going to sound so corny. I remember talking to my mom, and I'm talking to my mom, and I'm like, you know, I don't want to see her cry like that. I don't want to see her that upset.

I did things to make her upset. But it's just my grandmother loved her loves, should I say, her son. And it was just hard as fuck for her to see him locked up. Right. Yeah. It's got to be crazy, man, you know, because people don't really understand, man, like what motherfuckers really go through, people being locked up,

you know, how it really affects the families. You know, it affects the family, man. Things change, especially when they're doing 10 years plus because, you know, every decade, that's a decade, correct? Every 10 years is a decade. So every 10 years, the world changes. Yeah. You know, the world changes, man, you know?

And then when people get to actually come out, man, I don't think they really know how to adapt. you see people shit they've showed even in movie Shawshank Redemption he just wanted to do something just to go back because he spent his entire life in there. I had become so, I had a homie that was getting transferred

from Angola State Penitentiary to Hunts. That's a Angola is one of the worst fucking places in the world for anybody to be locked up. He's going to Hunts, right? He's done his time, he's been good, so they go transfer to him a place where it's just a lot different, it's easier. I remember talking to him, him and he went to jail when we was 16.

He stayed in there maybe like 30 years. Like he got out when I was, yeah. So I remember talking to him, it's 25 years or something like that. I remember talking to him. And I was like, oh man, you're going to hunts. That's dope. He was like, no, not really. I was like, why?

He was like, yeah, goal is rougher, but I'm used to it. Yeah. Like I got, it's like I wouldn't, I don't want to go. And we thought he's going to a less harsh prison, like to a prison where the rules are a little bit more lax. Shout out to Nelson, shout out to Mac and anybody else who down there who'd been locked up at Hunts. But he didn't like it. He was how the most fucked up thing about human beings and the best thing about human beings,

sharp, is we can get used to anything. We can get used to how fucked up something is. We can get used to how amazing something is. And then that stops us from being able to relate to people that are in fucked up situations. But we can get used to anything. And if you put somebody in that type of situation, they're going to stop. stop thinking about how fucked up it is every single day and they're going to start figuring out how to live and that's what being institutionalized is at least the way I saw it.

Do you, and I got to ask you this question because as an intelligent black man as you are, do you feel like prison, do you feel like there is actual a real, do you feel like people really get rehabilitated by going to prison because that's supposed to be the whole idea of prison, right? It's rehabilitation. Yeah. Right? It's supposed to rehabilitate a man.

And it's not of color. It's just to rehabilitate a man or woman. That's why they have women correctional facilities. They have men correctional facilities. It's supposed to rehabilitate. Do you feel like more people that actually get to go to prison come out and do you feel like they're rehabilitated? Do you feel like they're more fucked off or they're worse than what they were before they went in? Not only do I think that people don't get rehabilitated, I don't think that's the point of prison as it currently exists in America.

because it just wouldn't make any sense if that were the point, right? So, no, obviously people don't get rehabilitated. Number one. Two reasons. Number one, the reason why recidivism is so high is because when you come out, if you've gone in for a little while,

you got a scarlet letter on you. You can't do this if you've had a felony. You can't do that if you've had a felony. You can't do this if you've been convicted of this, right? So society wants everybody to know all the worst things that you did and all the mistakes that you've made, so you have no choice but to go back and get it how you lived before.

Number two, I just saw, I think it was, and I can't remember how much money it was. President Biden sending tens and tens of billions of dollars to the Ukraine. What's happening in the Ukraine is a fucking tragedy. It's a fucking tragedy. Yeah, it's a fucking tragedy. But speak, man. I know where you going.

Come on, man. Bring this shit. But guys, we get into the point to where I'm starting to feel personally insulted. It's Ukrainians everywhere. I grew up in the Ukraine. I grew up. It's Ukrainians in South Central Los Angeles. It's Ukrainians in Richmond, Virginia, as Ukraine's in Jacksonville.

It's places everywhere where the people there are under siege by entities around them that seemingly are trying to kill them every single day. This is not at all me saying that what's happening over there is not a huge tragedy in the United States. What I'm saying is

you know who needs that money? People who need that money are people inside of communities to stop them, to give them better options from committing crimes. And also, I'll be honest with you. I would rather see us incentivize brothers and sisters, people, period, that come out

of prison after they have come out of prison so that they don't have to make the same decisions to go back in. But the real problem with that is, it's like anything else. It's a business. It is a multi-billion-dollar, nearly trillion-dollar business. There's a woman named

Bianca Tilek who works at a place called worth rises. They tell you every single way that somebody is benefiting of all people being locked up. The phone calls, the food, the commissary inside, the transportation. It's a gigantic

fucking business. And I'm not even talking about just the private prisons. Prison has already been privatized. The moment that you have to pay three times as much for a phone call, going from Angola to Baton Rouge, that's privatized. Like somebody's making money. Aramark. I've talked about that before nobody believe me. They tried to say

no, it's not, nobody has private jails. I said, there's private facilities. People own private facilities. Absolutely. And they're big and they're more lucrative down south. You see more of them down south than you see them anywhere because people own land. Yep.

And with land you have power. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. You drive up, Angola is in St. Francisville. It's called the farm. You drive up there. There's this long road that leaves up to the prison, right? It's Long skinny road. When you get up near the prison, you look out both sides of your fucking car.

It's a motherfucking white man on a horse with a hat on. And it's niggas outside fucking tending to the field. You have no idea what's entry you're in. And you're saying it's like that till this day. It's the last time I was there. Yeah. Like the last time I seen it like it's dudes doing work. For it to be in your lifetime, it's still something wrong.

It's weird. It's something wrong. And it's like, and the reality is that's all free labor or labor at such a low cost that it doesn't even make sense to call them getting paid. You know what I'm saying? So it's a gigantic business. And I think people, like anything else in America, capitalism is driving this. That's why, and that's not to not people who want to make money, but I'm saying we have to care about people. That's why the people that have to care about what's going on in these communities is us.

Because it's too much money to think anybody else is going to care. Well, you got to think about this, van. It's a mind fuck, right? You strip you of everything. You take everything from you. And you've had nothing but next to a tray, a cup that you can go fill your, refill your water with, something like that.

And then they tell you you can come work in the kitchen. After being eight, nine months in there, you haven't really had any phone calls. Your commissary's been low. And they tell you, well, you can come work for eight cents. It's going to make you feel like you're doing something. because they have already stripped your mind mentally. Right.

They have stripped you from the dollar. They have stripped you from the high brand clothes. They have stripped you from the fancy meals. So now once they have broken you all the way down, they know they can get you to go and work for eight, nine cents, ten cents. And I feel like it's sick, man, to do somebody like that. If you're going to really rehabilitate a person, rehabilitate them. Give them the wage that you.

you would give anybody else that's even working at a McDonald's, a Burger King, okay, cool. Don't let them get rich, I understand. You know, but when you're already making $300 a day per head, you're telling me the people that you got working or doing things for you, you can't give them a $5 to $8 salary. When they get out, they can actually take some of the money that they earned and they can go and do something with themselves, or they want to continue to work because they're like, man, what should I've been used to working, not sitting there making 10 cents, 20 cents to get by? What if you have bread that you had accrued once you got out that would give you the opportunity

to even go buy something to clothes you would need to go on a job interview to start a business? You know, it's just they, the way things are set up and look, it's going to be a lot of people that's going to watch this that's going to go, yo, Van is talking like this because he understands this because he knows a bunch of these guys and has him and his family. family, but what about the people that they robbed and herding all of that shit? Tell you something. I know people who robbed Popeyes and then dropped their fucking wallet in the friar. And that's how they got caught.

I know, I'm not talking about master arch criminal here. I'm talking about fucking poor people, bro. That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about poor people. People that when they're doing things, they're not, it's not premeditated. They're just doing it. They're just doing shit. People get hungry, man.

People get hungry. And like, shout out to be. Big You because Big You, I've said this every time but Big You has an initiative out here in LA. It's called Developing Options. That's a powerful fucking name because you have to manifest

some of these options for people. For me, I had that. For me, it was, everybody knew don't call me with the bullshit. I got books to go to, I got things to do, I got football to play, I got basketball to play, don't call me with the bullshit. But do you know what the real reason with that for? I wanted to hang out, but

My potts just wouldn't, he wasn't going to have it. The options that I was given, the options that I was given was, this is what you're going to do. You're going to figure out a way to go to school, achieve, and then go to college, and then after that, you can do whatever the fuck you want to do. But like, I had to do that, right? And so people need to understand that a human being is as good as their set of choices. That's what society is. It's a choice matrix. And so when we figure out how to give people more access to different things, I'm telling you they're going to make better decisions.

I see that you did something like that as well by taking a fitness journey. I see that you were, you know, you were of 400 pounds at one time. And you decided to take, you know, a fitness journey. What was that like for you to take that down and to get fit? Well, it was, so I've been in much better shape than I am right now and I'm trying to work off the way. from the pandemic because if people don't look at me, they're going to be like, van, gained a lot of fucking races first time he was on no jump.

I just, but no, you know what it was like, but, but no, you know what it was like, it's like, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's for two reasons. Number one, man, one is, I just got sick of, of knowing that I could be better and not, better for me.

I'm not hating on anybody out there who feels happy and healthy and beautiful or whatever way they're at, whatever. I just, I have a problem in anything and knowing I could be better, smarter, and then not trying to achieve it. If I have a vision of myself in a certain way,

I want to try to make that happen for myself. And it's just for me. And number two, you know, I had just moved out to L.A. And I was trying to see what was going on with these hos. You know what I'm saying? Talk that shit, you know, for real. Hey, no, for real.

I mean, I was trying, like, I just moved out of that way. I was trying to see what was popping. I'm out here, and I wanted to dip and dabble and see what was up, and the reality was, I want to change my body and get ready for the new situation. You know what I'm saying? These ladies, these females, y'all know, we are in Clowning.

We aren't cloned. People like me and you, man. People like, you know, because I watch a lot of your stuff, you know, and I watch you, people think you attack. Or people might think they're like, oh, well, here goes Van again, saying something, but they have to understand something. Like, we go, they call us going hard on people, but we care. Yeah, we actually.

We actually care for people. It's passion. So, you know, when I hear people say, like, you're going too hard on me. I always go back to think to myself, well, like, how do you think I treat myself? I got to live with me. I got to live with me. Do you ever think you have gone too hard on someone? I'm going 80 times harder on myself than I am on you.

You have no idea. Like, I got to really live with this, nigga. There's only one time I thought you went too hard. One time. Went. Tucker to toe sucker, bro. I feel bad for him. He went, he went on himself.

I felt bad for Tucker to toast us. Listen, loved one. Because Tucker was here. Yeah. He wanted to be friends with Sharp. Yeah, he did. He did. He did.

But you know what? He wanted to be friends with Sharp. Go ahead. He wanted to be friends with Sharpe. Obviously, you could tell. Like, the funniest part of that interview, and I'm not trying to make this nigger mad wherever he's at. The funniest part of that interview is that I'm at home, right?

Me and my brother are watching this shit. I'm my brother, this shit is hilarious. Look at this shit. And my brother's, so this shit. says almost the same time that you said, my brother says bro, she gonna lead this nigga. Yeah.

My brother's, my brother's for Van Lathen to say that. Like damn, brother's like she'll need this. And you go, and you go, she don't even want to be with you. I can tell. I'm like, oh shit. What the fuck.

You know, I'm a, you know, you're a friend of mine. So I'd rather, you know, if I'm going to clear the air on it, why not clear it on the Van Lathan interview? Right, right, right. So I'm going to clear it with you real quick. Okay, long story short, this man, he asked him, he sent through the grapevine, or, you know, he was telling a, you know, somebody that runs it here, he was like, yeah, you know, I want to sit down with Sharp. You know, I think I can tell him, you know what I'm saying? His game is outdated.

So he's talking shit. So he's sending this through the grapevine. You know, he's saying this already. And at first I was like, I didn't want to do the interview, man. I'm like, I'm trying to skip the controversy. I'll skip the drag because, man, somebody who's asking is begging. To me. You're asking like that and you're moving like that.

You're begging because you bringing it already in a negative pretense. But you know, I talked to Josh. Josh said, man, you know, no sharp. I think this will be a great. When I said, oh, yeah, okay, well, then come on. Let's go ahead and go sit down. So the way that he asked for me, man, it was just the way, like, it came through the grapevine.

So when I came and saw him, I said, you told me or you sent to the grave, you're going to teach me what the new school is versus the old school. Yeah. And you taught me nothing. What the fuck you're going to teach me? Digital era, baby. We're living in that right now. I'm interviewing Van Lathen.

We sit here right now. You know, and I'm doing my thing already. We was fucking with the digital age, man, back in with Craigslist. So to hear somebody even say that to me, man, I was like just shame on you. Oh, see, I didn't know that point. I didn't know he challenged. But it was like, yeah, it was like, I'll just, we watched that interview. So, you know what?

I'll tell you something about, like, no jumper. Yeah. Sharpest coolest podcast in the world. I got to give y'all y'all credit. I have to give no jumper y'all credit. As far as just like entertainment factor. Yeah. Just what type of wild shit is going on?

Like Adam knows this. I hit Adam and be like, hey, bro. I hit Adam and be like, like, recently it was because Flaco, when Flaco was on here and Wackaw, right? Yeah. I hit Adam and be like, I'm into, I watched. no jumper like it's a fucking soap opera bro, like, I hit Adam and be like, bro, say, what's going on over there?

Like, what's the real situation with AD and O girl? Are they cool? Like, what's up? What's popping, bro? Like, you'd be getting the insights. The back end. Bro, I'm hitting because the shit. The shit is so funny. Sometimes you would think that the shit is scripted. Y'all sold Blue Girls Club. I subscribe to the shit.

I had to see the shit after y'all had the girls on here. It's not my thing. I thought it was just a bunch of People in there. It was just a bunch of... Hey, man, you know, it was just a bunch of hurt souls, man. They just... They was looking for a home. And I just thought I would politely let them know

that this is not your house. You pay no rent here. So, you know, it will be time for you to vacate the premises. Yeah. I posted you on the ground with the girl and the... Did you? What happened? What she said?

She had the three-month-old baby or the baby was... Yeah. No, 10-month-old. 10-month-old. The baby was 10 months old. You know, I've seen a lot of people giving her backlash for her saying, you know, she want to have fun. You know, she deserves to have fun.

You know, the baby's 10 months old. She can go for three weeks. But I agree with somebody going for three weeks if you're making money. If you're going like, you know, or you're already up. Yeah, sure. You're already up. Your money's already up. You're having the time of your life.

You can do that. You're paying for top-in babysitters. Hell, you're paying for everything. Nothing's a problem. But when you sit there and you get excited, and I'm not talking about no names, But when you sit there and you get excited over $800 and you know your baby going to cost at least six of that out the month, what are you really doing? What are you really doing? You know, like this is the wrong setting for you.

You need to really reevaluate your situation, you know, and your priorities. Can I say something like, number one, I put it up there and I just like to ask the question because I like when people go out in the comments. Talk about it. I like to see what people. I really have no opinion because I don't know, you know what I'm saying? Man, we all know you. People fuck with your opinion, man. You're like, you know, and I like how humble you are about it,

but people do fuck with your opinion. They do. And on that one, I just really wanted to see what people was going to say. But you know what it told me, and I think a lot of interviews that I've watched what you tell me, you hate to see somebody hustling backwards. Like, you hate to see somebody like not living up to their potential or not doing, where does that come from?

Because we all have it. We all, because I feel. like this man like uh and this might sound crazy you had said something like that earlier he's like i know this sharp this might sound crazy and i'm like never but i'm in a moment right now where this might sound crazy i feel like man we all superheroes in a sense we all have a power it's just you got to tap into your gift whatever that is you got to find it you got to find that gift everybody you're you're here for a reason man god did not put your soul here for nothing. Now, some people just give up.

They give up and they die off. Right. But you have to understand that you just, you do, you have a purpose. You have a purpose of being here. Now look at this. Look with me and you. We come from next to nothing. Yes, you came from a good household, wholesome household, but damn, your parents didn't go by, you know,

AMG fucking bins when you turn 16. You know what I'm saying? So we didn't come from situations like that. We had to tap into a, our gifts to find these things. Yeah. This is what we really saw for our foreseeable future. You know, so when I look at some of the things that I've went through, you say, where does that come from? Sharp, I didn't answer your question.

Where does that come from? I used every bad thing, every bad thing I've ever went through, and I turned it into a fuel. Oh, what? and I put it towards positive energy. I made a fuel for positive energy, man, and that's what fuels me is to keep me moving.

You know, to be able to sit here with you right now in the Sharp Tank and to keep us moving, to keep us having logical conversations, man, coming eye to eye. Yeah. You know, mind to mind. Because a lot of people will sit there,

man, they'll talk about a whole bunch of bullshit, man, for an hour, two hours, but they never teach the people how to leave, man, to just move on. Yeah. You cannot live like me. They cannot live like you, man. They can't live like you. They can't live like me.

They can only live like them. And that's not even about like a rich or poor thing. Yeah. That's just you. A mindset thing. It's a mindset thing, man, because that's why I always look at people like they, they want to go have what the next person has. They envy the next. And I said that out there earlier.

I said, man, people have a hard time. trying to prove to the next person what they are. That's what the whole world has been based off of. I got to prove myself. Yeah. Yeah. To who? Yeah.

Other than you and God. Right. Yeah. Who the fuck to you? Who said in anywhere on your birth certificate that, oh yeah, by the way, you got to prove yourself to such and such as you get older. No, man, you prove yourself to you. You become a better version of you tomorrow for the next week. That's so my, yeah, man, give it up for that, bro.

But seriously, because, but seriously, you know, I got that from my dad. My dad, I remember I'm looking at some shit on TV and I'm watching this dude hit the baseball. I don't mean interrupt you, but I got that from mistakes. Okay. I got that. I learned that from mistakes. I learned that from the street. I learned that from just going through life, man.

Bumping my head, getting tripped by the same foot over and over again. And that made you want to do better the next. until I got tired. People have to get tired. That's why people always look at crackheads or meth heads or people who be on drugs. They look at people like that. They be like, man, you can give them all the help in the world. I've said it before.

You can put them through a $100,000 rehab facility, man. You can do all that. But this person will not change until they are ready to change. They get sick of it. And you know what? That also had to do when we're talking about losing. Waste your money if you want to. We're talking about my weight loss earlier.

I just got sick of it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But that's the motivation. See, people, some people have to find ways to motivate themselves to be the things, to be better, right? Yeah. And so what my pops told me was, I was looking at this guy who's hitting home runs.

I was like, I want to hit home runs like him. My dad was like, nah, you want to hit home runs like you. Yeah. He's like, you want to. He's like, you want to. He's like, you want to. He's like, you never want to be. Proud of yourself.

You don't want to be like the next man. He's like, if you see someone and you get inspired, that's one thing. but you don't want to be like nobody. He says, I don't want to hear you say. You want to be like me. It's like, I'm your daddy. He's like, you got to be like you. He's like, you don't even know me.

He told me he said, I was on this. He passed on last year. Your pops, yeah. Rest and peace, man. Your pops, what was his name? His name was Van Terry Lathen, Sr. Yeah. Rest and peace, Van Terry Lathen, senior, man.

Yeah, he passed on. We love you, man. And you raised a fine man. Yeah, I appreciate that, dog. Raised the fine. You're about to get me emotional in this. No, I'm just saying, man. You raised a fine, smart man.

Like, he's a fine man. Pause. No homo, no, no. He's a fine man in the way that he moves. You know what I'm saying? And the way his intellect is, man, because there's not a lot of brothers like us left. I'll speak on the hell.

I throw myself in the boat. You need nobody else because I know where I didn't came from to this shit, man, to even be able to get here and I know what you've came from. This shit's hard because people come through. I've said it before, man. There's so many temptations out in this world.

With money, they create them daily. Temptations are more now created with money. Sure. You know what I'm saying? So now, even when you go to Vegas, man, you can go out to Las Vegas, you can go to places like that. And there's always a place to spend your money. They give you a choice. So you better be a great choice maker throughout your life when you go to certain places

because it can make you or break you. What makes people make bad choices to you? Because people make them, because like I see people all the time, right? And I see, especially coming from where I came from at TMZ, it got hard to work there. We just don't get to that. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah.

Coming from where I came from, I would see people all the time. And it ended up, I ended up knowing some of them that would just fuck up. Didn't matter what situation you put them in. Sheltered and hindered. They made the wrong choice. Being sheltered all their life and hindered. people hinder other people people like to shelter other people

keep them from what's really going on outside that's the problem sometimes you got to let people bump their head that's what it is I've had to bump my head got a few knots

all on my tobogginnogging I don't got a few knots about this shit it'll make you cry to make you drop to the floor to make you want to throw up some of the choices that you make because they really do matter in your feet That's why I tell a lot of women that don't come on to my show.

You know, watch what you, I try to help them watch what they say, well, maybe you mean this. No, they don't. They mean exactly what they're saying. Right. Because they know no better. They know no better, man. You have to understand something, man. I'm senior to their junior.

A lot of the chicks that come on here. And the chicks that do come on here or that I do get along with be older women. I've seen that because they've experienced certain things. they've seen certain things, they know how to respect certain things, they don't really know who they're sitting in the room with. Do you feel like you treat the younger women with the same respect and gravitas that you treat the older women with? I try until they start to act like children.

I have children. So I'm going to treat a child accordingly. And then when you want to try to get the cussing at me, well, guess what? I know that you understand something a little bit past your childish-ass ways, and maybe it's time to check you. Right, right, right, right. You know, maybe it's time to get to that point. You know, a lot of these girls, man, and a lot of people out here, man, they don't have children anymore. Let's really look at the hard cold facts here.

Okay. You ready to go down the list? Go down the list. You ready? It's kind of like a podcast, me and you. We're just kind of podcast. Right, right. So let's go down the list, right.

A lot of people, it's less marriages. Of course. Okay. It's less households with men and women raising the children in them. It's a lot more single moms and single dads. You know, you saying that you came from a background that was with your mom's. Two parent household. So it was more traditional.

Yes, sure. You had more of a structured mindset. You know, your parents structured your mindset because I do believe that with children growing up, you are what you see. Even if you did hate it when you were young, you'll catch yourself as you grow up doing certain things that you didn't like, why am I doing it like the person? I didn't like. A childhood, my mother would say a childhood has to be curated. Yes. She would say you have to curate a childhood.

Yes. I mean, you have to take all of these things. You have to give them to a child just like you would curate a room or a work of art and stuff like that. And she goes, the reality of the situation, she's like, you give it to them in doses when they can handle it, right? So when my Uncle Markey came home, my dad was like, it's time for you to really know who your Uncle Markey is because if people see you around town, he might have a different

reputation than what you know him as, right? Right. So it was like, it's time for you to know, you know, just who he might be in South Bad Ruz or who he might be over here. Nothing bad, I just want you to know. And you know what I mean? By that point, I love the man.

I mean, nothing you're going to tell me about my fucking uncle's going to change my opinion about him. Period. Period. But, like, yeah, like, does the fuck matter. But, like, what, but they were, they made sure. And look, Sharp, sometimes that's not possible. Sometimes if you grow up in certain places, they can't do it.

Like, you're going on. Like, it's just too much going on around. But my thing is, and this was the situation, I just had a homie in Chicago who I met. I didn't know him long, but we're doing the television show. I go out there, I meet some kids from Chicago. Everybody knows what's going on in Chicago. Yeah.

Rest and peace, FBC Cash. Yeah, man. Yeah, tragic. Yeah, super tragic, right? I'm looking at that situation, and I'm calling the people that I met in Chicago. I'm like, is there... I might sound like a herb.

There's got to be something. we can do. I mean, like in Chicago, in Baton Rouge, there's got to be something we can do. Like, what are,

my thing is, I want to make sure that I've done everything I can. Like, what can we do? Like, what can we do? Do we have to go down there? I know that Pastor Brooks is trying to build a community center.

Do we have to take the babies and start them up from when they're two, three teaching them and keeping our arms around them and making sure that they don't see certain things and they're like, what do we have to do?

I don't know what the answer is. But this can't be the way. It can't be the way that this dude that I meet, me and him start texting. He cool as fuck. Like, he's smart. He's funny. He's all of this stuff. A cool little guy.

I mean, he was 30 years old. I'm a lot older than that. They're afraid to set a structure for these kids. Why, though? They're afraid. Because, you know, they're afraid of these kids because these kids threaten these older folks. I beat your ass. I do this to you.

When we were young, people set. structure for us. That's why we understood something. And it didn't even have to necessarily be your mom and dad. You could have went to somebody house when you was young and guess what? And guess what your mama and daddy used to tell him, you got all rights to whip my son ass if you get out of control. And then when you called me and told me that you had to whip his ass, he

going to come home. You're going to get another ass whoop. It's a difference. These kids don't go through shit like that no more. They don't understand that because people be like this. They didn't taught these kids even in these schools. The school district has failed our children. To tell these, you know, y'all won't sit there with them for two, three minutes and

try to teach them their algebra, teach them their math, they subtraction, teach them things to how to read. But you know what you'll do? You'll sit there and try to put these kids in a whole different situation to where they feel lonely and they feel lost. And they feel lesser than. They feel lesser than.

And you know, I don't have time for this. It's a problem with what's going on out here, man. Nobody's really raising these kids. I remember, man, I used to go to school with kids, man, that they came to school to eat. Yeah, no, right up. They came to school to eat, man, because their parents couldn't feed them. And they had to free lunch and free breakfast.

During the pandemic, that was a gigantic fucking problem. The fact that we had to donate money, we had to start food banks. We had to start food banks during the pandemic, worked with a lot of people because during the pandemic, the fact that schools weren't open meant a lot of kids were not going to be able to eat. So we had to donate money. We had to start food banks. We had to have delivery services to go around and drop food off the kids or have stuff at the school where they could come up there and get some lunch or some breakfast. It's just all fucked up.

How can you go out and be a good person if you're hungry? If you're hungry, you're going to eat the first thing that's right in front of you. Let me ask you a question. Do you have kids, man? I do not. Are you, and that's a, so this would be even greater question for you. Are you comfortable? Are you comfortable with having children in what you've seen today's society become?

Society become. Well, the only reason why I don't have kids is because I keep coming up with that $500. So, you know. You did not have to say that, bro. You know what I'm saying? He said I keep coming up with that fire. Well, you know, I'm joking. If it's a joke, here's a bigger joke.

You know, you can go get something for $70 to make you go all the way. I'm joking, I'm joking, I'm joking. I'm joking, I'm joking. In all actuality, in all actuality, if you were to have a child today, you know, you having a woman, let's say you're in love with a woman, you love her, you all have decided to bring a child into this world. Would you feel comfortable in today's stuff? status, in today's status of what it is, of what you've seen. I've watched you talk about politics. I've watched you talk about, so you're very well aware of what's going on around you.

Are you comfortable with bringing a child into today's world? I'm comfortable with bringing one in. I don't think that this is my thing. I don't know if there's ever really a right time to have children in the world. I think that sometimes if you look at the world in a historical perspective, every single time a human being has ever lived has been simultaneously the best time to live and the worst time to live. So every single time that we've been alive, there's been the most technology we've ever know, right?

We didn't know. And every single time we've been, the world has been in this worst place. Or did we not know? We didn't. No, but did we really know because they were showing that people were talking to each other back in the day on the Jets? Right, right. So I mean.

So could we say that's a fact? So I can't say that's a fact. This is what I'll say. I've always been, I can show you a video. right now of a futurist, right, in 1961. In 1961, the futurist guys saying, hey, there's going to be a device one day. There's going to be a device one day where you're going to be able to do all your banking,

all of your communication, buy a home and do all of that right in your hand. So there've always been people who could see into it. I'm talking about for the general man and woman right now, if I was to pull somebody off the street right now and ask them, what is singularity going to mean to the human experience in the next 100 years? They probably couldn't tell us, right? But they know damn well that they can FaceTime, that they can do all of this cool shit.

And they think these things are amazing things to do. Or whatever, the Tesla or whatever, right? So my cousin on a ride and the Tesla, he's like, oh, shit. I'm like, yeah, nigga, it's a Tesla. You know what I'm saying? I want you to experience this. Well, this is no longer become fantasy or something to joke about. This has become reality.

Reality, right? You know what I'm saying? It's actually happening. And so what I'm saying right now is two things happen simultaneously. Number one is technology changes our ability to do damage to one another gets exponentially worse, right? Social media is an amazing thing, but it makes it so easy to fuck over somebody that you never have to see, that you never have. Pimsy used to say, you're going to smell my cologne. What the fuck did Pimsy mean by that? That meant when you got into it with him, you were going to be so close to him that you were going to smell him and fucking feel him.

You don't have to do that anymore. So those things are different. But so what I would say is this. What I would say is for me personally, if when I do endeavor to have kids with my girl, I feel like I could only have one because there are so many things that you have to shield a child from

at this particular time, I don't see how I would be able to responsibly be the person that I want to be and have multiple different children. Number one is because I haven't done it yet. I'm sure when you become a parent, you figure out how to do that, right? But for me, I think the world is a precarious place, but it always will be.

You never figure out, I'll say it as a parent. Okay. You never really figure it out. I got three. Okay, cool. So you never really figure it out, man. You just kind of go with the flow. You learn as you, go.

Okay, I see you. You know, you go with the flow and you learn as you. I'm going to be honest with you. It's scary to me, like, because. Beautiful thing. Beautiful thing? Beautiful thing. I mean, I'll be honest with you, man.

Those are going to be the best fucking friends you ever have in your life because guess what? They don't know nothing but you. You don't have to ever worry about them looking at you in a malice standpoint. They're part of you. They don't look at you like that. Man, they love you unconditionally. They're going to look at you with innocent eyes all the time.

Yeah, my mom, when my dad passed, when my dad passed, I learned more things about my dad, right? My father was a family man. More of a family man than I thought, put it that way. my family is a little bigger than I thought it was, right? Right. And at first, for some members of our family, that was hard. It was hard.

It was hard knowing that he wasn't perfect, right? And my mom said something. My mother said, she's like, who passed away last July 4th? July 4th, there'll be one year. And I was like, my dad. And she was like, no. She said, I didn't say who to you passed away. She's like, I'm saying who passed away.

I'm like, my father died. She goes, no, Van Terry Lathen Sr. died. Like, he's your father. That's who he is to you. He was like, what I'm trying to tell you is, your dad is all of these things to you, but he's also a lot more. He lived an entire lifetime before you were born. And during the entire lifetime that he lived, while you were here, there were parts of him that you didn't know. And you wouldn't have wanted to know them because every time you look at your father, what do you see?

It would have altered it. Yeah, it's protection, his love, his responsibility, you know, he used to, he had this way of looking at you and being like,

like he was going to fight you, but it was like, I don't know how he explained. He'd look at you like, he'd be like, come on now, like he was going to fight you, but that meant I love you.

That was his way of showing affection. That was his way of saying, look how big and tall my son and got. Like my son is this, he's like, and he looked at you and like, you just felt protected. You felt like he loved you.

You know, I do that to the world to everybody that I interview and you know what? You should tell them that. Because all I try to do, man, is just show love. I do the same thing, man. I try to show love. It's just in a different way, man,

because sometimes you've got to be serious with people. People don't understand something. It's like children, right? It's like children, man. You could tell a kid like this, stop touching that. Stop touching that. You tell them 100 times.

Stop touching that. Won't you tell him, stop fucking touching that? Yeah. They see so. He's serious. Yeah. and get away from it. Yeah.

I'm just a person that's not going to go through the hundred times. Once I understood that, I engaged and I moved on that. You know what I'm saying? For real, man, we got to do something in the future. We had a time, church. Okay. We got to do something in the future.

I can't, uh, I don't want to keep you away from here. Like, for real. I'm fucking with you. I need to have you back on some of the, because I sit into serious topics sometimes, you know. So it would always be good to have an extra mind like yourself sitting there and engaging with me to see some of the things that really go on. I want to show you what's going on with America. Can I say something real quick?

Go ahead. So I want to come in and I want to do a serious topic with Sharp. I want to do more serious topic. But you know what I want to do? Bring me in on some of the fuck shit too. I want to be here. I want to be here when Crip Mac here. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? Oh, I know it might not be all good. It's all. I want to be here when everybody's sitting around. Just to be, just to see some of this shit. Because some of this shit don't seem real. This is like a legendary room. I love no jump to.

So I want to come through for some of that shit too. I'll tell you this, man. Crip back good, man, no problems. When we just, certain people, we just don't cross when we ain't supposed to cross. So, you know, if you ever want to cross with him, hey, man, I'm sure he'll be here for you. But you want to come to the Sharp Tank shit, man. You know, at the end of the day shows like that. Hey, man, we always around, man.

And we have, hey, love to have. But I need to have you back, church. I will, brother. I got some things in the workforce. Okay. I got some ideas. How many? This was kind of like your pre, this was your interview.

Oh, okay. I had your resume right here. Okay, cool. Oh, okay. I had your resume right here. So I want to see. I don't know yet. This motherfucker right here.

The company will get back to you. But we do like you. I appreciate you. We do like you. We do love you. Hey, man, listen to me, man. The Sharp Tank. No,

Jumper. Sharpest, coolest podcast in the world, man. Hey, hey, baby. Look at it. Hey, hey. You know how to do it. Shoot this out to motherfucking jam.