Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 660 | Self-Control in an Age of Self-Indulgence | Guest: Zuby

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

Today we're joined by British rapper and podcaster Zuby to talk about his new book, "The Candy Calamity," and what inspired him to write a children's book about health, fitness, and moderation. We discuss why some are incorrectly blaming rising rates of childhood obesity on climate change and why childhood obesity is such a dangerous pandemic. Zuby shares his perspective on the denial of personal responsibility and self-control and why racializing societal issues feeds into an unhealthy cycle of never finding real solutions. Then we discuss the Left's inversion of affirmation in "gender-affirming" procedures. It's easy to weaponize this twisting of language when most people aren't paying attention and simply want to be polite. We wrap things up by sharing the music that makes us nostalgic. --- Today's Sponsors: Good Ranchers — change the way you shop for meat today by visiting GoodRanchers.com/ALLIE & use promo code 'ALLIE' to save $30 off your order, get free express shipping, and donate life-changing food to kids in need! Annie's Kit Clubs — all subscriptions are month-to-month, & you can cancel anytime! Go to AnniesKitClubs.com/ALLIE & get your first month 75% off! Carly Jean Los Angeles — use promo code 'ALLIEBASIC' to save 20% off your first order at CarlyJeanLosAngeles.com! Patriot Mobile — go to PatriotMobile.com/ALLIE or call 972-PATRIOT & use promo code 'ALLIE' to get free activation! Blaze Socks — get your Blaze patriotic socks at BlazeSocks.com, use promo code 'ALLIESOCKS'! --- Show Links: Study: "Moving in a hotter world: Maintaining adequate childhood fitness as a climate change countermeasure" https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23328940.2022.2102375 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed. You can watch

this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Today I am talking to Zubi, the rapper, the commentator, the amazing person that has so much insight into everything going on in the world today and why. We are going to be talking about self-control, personal responsibility. He just helped write a children's book, which I will say is amazing, and you should go out and get it. We're going to talk about all of the craziness that's been going on with COVID. I don't know if you heard, but CDC just changed the standards. Again, we're going to be talking about a lot of the gender craziness.

And how do we push the pendulum swing back to go to a place of order from the place of chaos that we're in? And then at the end, we're going to end with a fun segment about the music that we love and helped kind of bring us through very, formative periods in our life. So we're going to get straight into it. But first, remember that this episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. That's American Meat delivered right to your front door. So go to good ranchers.com slash Alley for a discount. That's good ranchers.com slash Alley. Zubi, thanks so much for joining us for the first time. I'm a big fan. I know a lot of my audiences too. A lot to talk about. First, I want to talk about the new book that is coming out. I think it's available for pre-order with Brave Books, The Candy Calamity.

The Candy Calamity. Yes, tell us about this book. What's it's out? Yeah, sure. Well, it's out now. It came out in July. Yep, that's all good. It came out in July.

Oh, it says available for pre-order. Got it. It's already out. It's out now, yeah. So candy calamity.com or bravebooks.com. It's available there. So it's my first children's book. It's all about health and fitness and the importance of taking care of your body.

That's a topic I'm very passionate about. I've been working out now for about 20 years, which is. is pretty crazy. Yeah. And I've been on this journey. It's one of my keystone habits in terms of going to the gym and training. And I've learned so much. And it's just been so beneficial.

I actually put a lot of the successes I've had, not totally down to that, but that keystone habit, I've able to take the lessons I've learned from that and the resilience I've developed from it and put it into all these other aspects of my life. And it's been extremely beneficial. Yeah. So in 2019, I wrote my first book, which was called Strong Advice, Zubi's Guide to Fitness for Everybody. So that was a book for adults.

And then I had the opportunity, Brave Books contacted me last year and asked me about doing a collaboration with them. It wasn't previously on my mind, you know, let me do a children's book. And then as soon as that offer came, I was like, you know what? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. It's totally in line with, I have a simple filter. I run everything through because I know I'm very clear on what my mission in the

world is. So if something fits it, I'm quick to say yes. And if something doesn't, I'm just like, no, that's not in line with what I want to do. So we put that together. As a rapper, I made sure that the whole book rhymed. Yes, and it does. The whole thing had to rhyme. It's super cute. I was telling, Duby, before we started rolling, that we've been reading it all weekend with my three-year-old. She loves it. It's super cute. And you know that a book flows really well and rhymes really well when like your toddler will pay attention from start to finish and then wants to start over as soon as it's done. Awesome. Because they lose attention so quickly. It really is cute. It's not, I didn't know if it would have any kind of like political statement or political message behind it, but it really doesn't.

It really is just about one of the lines that I love in it. One of the characters, not to spoil anything, but she over-exerts herself and trying to get stronger. And then she ends up getting too tired because she's not, she's not fueling herself. And one of the lines is something along the lines of it's not just about getting stronger or losing weight. It's really about self-control. And that's really what I took away from the book, even though it's for kids. I thought that was a great lesson.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's important. I mean, we need moderation in our society. And that doesn't just go for adults. It goes for children as well. I mean, I think we're living in this. I often say we're living in the age of overcorrection.

Yeah. And things in so many dimensions have gone too far one way, you know. And health is so important. Health is so important. No matter what people do, you only get one life. You only get one body for your life, right? I mean, and people don't really think of it this way, that from your childhood, that one body you have has to last you as long as it does.

And when it stops working in a catastrophic fashion, that's when that's when it's over. And we, there are so many things in the life that we can't control. And so I think that the things that we, we can, it's important to be responsible about that. I mean, we live in a very materialistic and hyper consumer-driven society in so many aspects. And it's weird to me that so many people treat their personal possessions and their material goods better than they treat themselves and their own bodies in many ways. And that's completely backwards.

because the former is replaceable and the ladder is not. It's cool to have a nice house or a nice car or nice shoes or whatever, but you shouldn't be treating your shoes better than you treat your own body. And when I put it that way to people, it sort of clicks and they're like, actually, that's a good point. Maybe I do that or a lot of people do do that. So I wanted the message to be really just about health, fitness, self-control, taking care of your body, having discipline and moderation, right?

not don't just exercise and stop eating. And don't do the opposite either. Don't just eat and eat and eat and eat and not exercise. And I did explicitly want it to be apolitical. That was a point I made when I was collaborating with the guys are brave because most of their books have more of a political tone, which is fine. But with this one, I thought, let's just keep it totally apolitical. Let's keep the message on what it should be. And hopefully those lessons learned can also be applied to other areas of life as well.

Yeah, and it's very timely because I don't know if you saw this story over the weekend by CBS that childhood obesity is up. It's up. Okay, so it says the study found that children were 30% less aerobically fit than their parents and claimed hotter temperatures. We're preventing kids from exercising outside. Childhood obesity is up, certainly after COVID. And they're blaming this on climate change.

Do you think that that's the case? Is climate change causing kids to be fat? Climate change is not causing anybody to be fat. No, it's complete nonsense. This is what happens when they have an idea and they just want to shoehorn it into everything. They have a certain conclusion that they want to reach. And this one, it's climate change is the greatest existential threat to humanity. And it's causing all these problems from polar bears dying off to racism.

Right. Like they'll connect everything. They start with the conclusion. And then they're like, okay, the conclusion is climate change. So no matter what the issue is, we're going to find a way. So these are totally separate issues. Childhood obesity and that fact that that's rising is a problem. It used to be something that was incredibly rare, incredibly rare just a few decades ago.

And it's now in the double digits. And it's climbing and climbing. And that was exacerbated via all the lockdowns and stay-at-home orders and so on. Of course, they don't want to blame those policies on any rise. so they go to climate change. But it's a real problem, and it's something that people are uncomfortable talking about. And I understand that, but I think that it's a real, it's a pandemic.

Right? People want to keep talking pandemic. I'm like, okay, there's a real, there's a real, yes, there's a real glaring pandemic right in front of our eyes and has been for many years growing for decades, not just in the USA, but in across the world, but certainly in Western. countries especially it's a bit it's been a big problem and um i'm big on just the concept of personal

responsibility i'm not big on attacking or demonizing people i try to avoid that but you can be critical of or a behavior and critical of something in fact if you really love someone you care about someone sometimes you know you're a parent i'm not a parent yet but there's something called tough love right You can't just supplicate, you can't just be supplicative and bow down to every single demand. If your child wants to eat candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, you have to put your foot down and say, no, that's not what's good for you. As your parent, I can't allow you to just eat candy and ice cream all day, every day

because, you know, and that might sound mean from a three-year-old perspective or even certain adult perspectives, that might sound mean and tyrannical, but it's like, no, that's actual love and compassion and caring. Gosh, I have so many thoughts based on what you said. It really is so much bigger than how we as a society approach food and eating, whether you're a child or adult. It really is kind of this anti-self-control and personal responsibility philosophy or ideology that I think is so prevalent in mainstream culture today that you said that you know you're not attacking any particular individual you're just talking about personal responsibility in general and yet if you do talk about hey it's important to have self-control whether it comes to eating or whether it comes to

monkey pox or whether it comes to whatever it is whatever kind of like behavioral change that people are suggesting you are not just you personally but you in general are accused of while you're being bigoted or you're shaming them or you're creating stigma or you're fatphobic or whatever it is and so it's almost as if we want to blame all of our problems on some like on identifiable source society it's the system it's the patriarchy it's marketing it's advertising it's social media it's whatever it is we'll do anything except for just say well maybe it's my actions or maybe that person or I can change our behavior to get different outcomes. Why do you think that is?

Like where does that come from, this absolute allergy to personal responsibility and self-control? Yeah. I think it's one of the, I think it's perhaps the root of maybe not the deepest route, perhaps loss of faith and family structure is the real root. but I think it's one of the biggest roots of the causes of a lot of downstream problems in modern Western society is the denial of personal responsibility. Man, I think it depends on how far you want to trace it back, but this is why I refer to it as an overcorrection.

So from an actual system structure and institutions perspective, there's a clear case to be made that societies in general, used to be too harsh and restrictive and rigid and shame driven on certain things. And certain things perhaps were over-stigmatized to the point of being destructive for individuals or for society, right? And now we live in this age of over-correction. I think around, I want to say the 90s to the early 2010s, I think, an approximate good balance was struck between these things. It wasn't like there was a healthy balance between.

That's true about a lot of things. Yes. Somewhere around 2010, things went. Yes, there was a healthy balance that was struck. And for the past decade, we've been in the overcorrection of everything. Yeah. Right. So I agree with someone who says, oh, if somebody is, you know, if somebody is, is very overweight, you shouldn't, you shouldn't attack and be now.

and discriminatory towards that person. I'm with you 100%. I'm not with you with, you know, you can be healthy at any size and that it's healthy to be more, like, and glorify. And it shouldn't be glorified and promoted and so on, right? I don't know. Single motherhood, right? There was a time where that was so denigrated and stigmatized that, you know, people would

be almost cast out of society for that. And no, that's not good. Also, it's better to have two family. You know, you need both parents. Fathers are important. Men and women do need each other. Men and women do exist as well. All of these.

So everything's just overcorrected. And it's gone to a level where now the problem is this complete disdigmatization of everything and complete denial of personal responsibility. And with that, you actually really weaken people. It hurts people because it's so disdism. empowering, right? So even if it might be uncomfortable to accept that you are in control and accountable for your words, your actions, your behaviors, and you have that responsibility, even though that is, it can be uncomfortable. It's also very empowering, actually, because when you,

when you really internalize that and you act based on that, you can claim victory, you can claim credit for your wins. You have to, you have to kind of take your, take your losses as well and go, okay, you know what? There's something I could have done. they're better. That was on me. But I think people get really offended when you, people who deny personal responsibility. I think they get offended when it's talked about because you are taking away the alibi, right? So people like to have a permanent excuse. Yeah. Our natural human default thing, even people who, yes, even everybody, our natural default is to always find an excuse outside of ourselves. Yeah. Right. So if I am,

it could be minor, right? If I'm, if I'm late for, something, I'll, people will normally default say, oh, there was traffic or there was this or that. Thing is, you left too late, right? If you left earlier, you would have been there on time, but no one wants to say, ah, I just left too late, right? You'll immediately, your brain jumps to find there's someone else or something else that is responsible for it. And that's just a natural inclination. And I get where it comes from. But when people do this for their entire lives, and they do it with major things, if you're a woman and you just blame, you know, the patriarchy, and, you know, systemic sexism and institution of this.

If you're a person of any, you know, non-white race, ethnicity, whatever, and you, oh, there's this white supremacist superstructure and they're systemic and institutional and structural race. And you don't even need to define them. They're just these ghosts kind of floating out there, these apparitions floating out there. And that's the reason I'm not successful. So you have this permanent alibi.

So when someone goes, actually, you know what, bro, that's not it. It's just like you're not. making good decisions and you're not applying yourself in the way that you could. That hurts people. There's a type of person they go, okay, that's going to motivate me and drive me. And I'm going to take that and I'll take this extreme accountability. Other people will just attack the messenger and attack whoever it is. Attack the person saying that they should lose weight.

Attack the person saying that systemic racism or sexism or whatever is not what's holding them back in 22. Anyone who, if you push a notion of personal responsibility, you will get attacked. It doesn't matter what the topic is. It could be financial. It could be health. It could be cultural. It doesn't matter what it is.

Anything. It could be about sex. Anything. You're going to get attacked. You're going to get demonized because that is easier than people looking inward and going, hmm. Okay. Maybe I could do something a little better here.

Hey, this is Steve Deast. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this Steve Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Two thoughts. One is that this really goes back to the Garden of Eden. You talked about going back. We go all the way back when God came to the garden and said, how did you know that you were naked?

Basically, what happened? I told you not to do this and you did it. Yeah. Adam said it was the woman you gave me. And then they were like, actually, it was the serpent. But at the end of the day, I mean, she took the bite of the apple and Adam stood there. And he went along with it. And it doesn't, the personal responsibility doesn't, gate the trials or difficulties or obstacles that may exist in someone's life. Like the serpent really did tempt them. That's true. And yet at the end of the day, they still decided to do it. So someone might be facing obstacles that may make it harder for them to budget and save money or, you know, whatever it is that they need to have self-control in. But they still have a decision. Most of our circumstances are the product of our own choices, big and small, and or the product of other people's choices, like our parents. That's just the truth.

But I think that you're right. People are uncomfortable with that because it not only places blame on them, which is just uncomfortable. It's an uncomfortable feeling to have conviction and to have guilt. And I think part of the overcorrection that you're talking about is that we are so anti-shame now that we think all shame in all guilt in all conviction is bad. I don't think we're anti-sham. I just think it's been inverted. It's been inverted. Things that should be shameful are celebrated.

I mean, there's an entire month dedicated to pride. Yeah. There's an entire month dedicated to a sin. That's deep. You know, you don't get it. What else do we get a month for? You don't get a month for anything. Independence Day is one day.

Christmas Day is like one day. Black History month. Yeah. Okay, Black History. But that's not even celebrated. in the same way. It's not like you go into a store and they've got, you know, everything in African colors and traditional designs or they've got stuff for Malcolm, like, Sir Martin Luther King or Lerzer Parks or whatever. It's like, you know, so it's not even the same. And so I think there's this

inversion. I mean, if you want to see shame, I mean, look at the past two and a half years. Someone doesn't want to wear a mask. Someone doesn't want to inject something into their bloodstream. People are very, very happy to go beyond shaming, completely stigmatizing people. So it's just misapplied. Yeah. So it's just misapplied. It's misapplied. It's misapplied. So things that shouldn't be shamed are, and oftentimes things that are good and positive and actually wholesome are shamed and attacked. And then things that are shameful or things that should be stigmatized or certainly not promoted are being uplifted and celebrated. So that's the inversion going on. On another point with what we were talking about before, I think also there's there are two very distinct different worldviews that people can have and this is not new.

but I think that you could boil, some people have the, you know, free will versus determinism debate or that kind of thing. So I think some of it is deeper rooted. I think there are people who inherently understand, look, human beings are, human beings, firstly human beings have free will, for the most part. And we are great, but also sin inclined people, right, have been from the, from the very beginning. You talked about the Garden of Eden, right? So this is just how human beings are. this certain nature and we choose how we act. Yes, there can be all types of circumstances and we all impact each other, but ultimately, especially as an adult, we make our decisions and we live with the consequences. But I think there's this other worldview. I think it's the world view that was really

pushed by, I haven't read much Karl Marx, but I think it's the worldview that was really pushed by Marx and certainly been adopted implicitly or explicitly by a lot of other people, which is that human beings are really just victims of circumstance. And we, don't really make our own decisions and choices. And so that's why everything's about the system. Nature versus nurture. Yeah. Everything's about the system and the structures and the institutions.

And there's this idea that if you could just get those things perfect, if we can perfect the systems and the structures, then we completely get rid of crime. Then we completely get rid of certain wrongs. Like everyone, we get rid of poverty. We get rid of homeless. Rather than saying, you know what? I mean, my view, like I don't, I think poverty, home. homelessness, certain addictions and whatever, they're always there.

I don't, unless you get rid of human beings, I don't believe you can get rid of murder. Yeah. You can do certain things and to, to reduce the rate of it and to reduce the chance that people commit certain crimes and do certain things. But I think that there is just a very small percentage of people across eight billion people in the world. Yeah. There's a percentage of people who are going to hurt each other, who are going to rob each other,

who are going to murder each other. Like, I don't, I don't like that. I'd like to think that I understand the appeal. of this sort of utopian idea that the human being can be perfected. We just need to get everything right in the systems, forgetting that human beings are also running the systems. Yeah.

And as we've seen many times throughout history, when people aim for this utopia, it always ends up in a dystopia. Yeah, I always say that progressivism gets human nature wrong. That's why it fails. That's why communism fails. It's why socialism fails because of that kind of erroneous idea

that you're talking about, that if we just put the right people in charge and if they finally have enough money and enough power and enough conformity, then they really can make everything perfect. They can get rid of all disparities. They can make everyone have equal outcomes and basically force people to be happy with equal outcomes. And obviously I always knew that was wrong.

I've always been a conservative and have most of the views that I do today. But I was reading a book about North Korea a few years ago called Nothing to Envy. and the author was talking about how these North Koreans, who obviously have been under communist rule forever, have never been outside of North Korea, they developed these black markets of goods and services, the goods that were smuggled in from China and basically created this capitalist market of supply and demand and free trade among themselves. And what that told me is that even though there are flaws with every human system, the base. idea of supply and demand and the free exchange of goods is actually innate in human nature. Like that is why communism fails is because you are taking something away that is natural and human beings. They hadn't been taught that. They had actually been taught their whole lives that capitalism was bad and evil and wrong and that communism was good. And yet they were

faced with starvation, with famine, and they knew how to create their own free market in a communist this dictatorship, that tells us a lot about human nature and why leftism is so wrong. Yeah. Well, free market capitalism is the default human state because that's simply just about private property and free trade. So you don't need, capitalism is an interesting term because wasn't it, correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't it Marx who created that term? I believe Karl Marx coined the term capitalism.

So I was a French socialist? It was a French socialist, Dylan says. Okay. So the term was initially coined with a negative tinge. So a lot of people, when they hear the term capitalism, they don't just think of free market trade. They think of this crony capitalism or this very corporate, you know, profit driven in oppressive system. Whereas really it's just like, hey, look, you've got products and services. I've got products and services, even in the most, even in the most primitive state of humanity. Cool. Let's barter. Let's trade. Let's exchange. Let's. Let's. let's help each other out. So really it's just the default state. So you're right in saying that something like communism, where the state controls everything, it's not a natural state. Small-scale socialism is.

I mean, within a family, families are socialist, right? You can have small communes and things like that where, yes, okay, like we just share and everything works. Like the early church. They exchanged for each other freely, and people try to say, well, that's the biblical foundation for communism. obviously different. That was voluntary, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and they had a common goal, which was the gospel. That's not what happens in communism, which is why people are murdered in mass. Yes, because not everything is, here's another thing that people struggle with is to understanding that not everything scales. So just because something works within a group of five people doesn't mean

it's going to work across 340 million people. People even do this on nation levels, right? Like whenever people compare the USA to like Iceland or Denmark or something, I mean, Iceland has 300,000 people, the whole country, right? We have more followers than the entire population of the country. And or even with a Denmark or a Sweden, it's like, even the UK, I mean, the UK is 65, 66 million people. But geographically, it's smaller than Texas. And it's still a much, much smaller country overall. You know, even comparing Canada to the USA, even though size-wise, landmass wise, they're more comparable,

but Canada's what, 30 million people? USA is a giant country. And then you've got the 50 states and extremely diverse. Extremely diverse. You've got so many things that make it more complicated. So yeah, you can get ideas from different places, but it's not as simple as, oh, well, you know, this works in New Zealand. So it's going to be hyper-effective across the entire United States.

So I think people don't get that some things don't always scale. The way that things are done within a family, for example, you can't just take that and apply it to a nation as a governance system because it's not scalable. It's not scalable. It's why you even have certain problems that exist in cities that are very rare in rural areas. Because once you put that many people altogether and they all start affecting each other and people are living on top of each other and so on, you're going to get higher rates of crime. You're going to get higher rates of depression.

You're going to get higher rates of drug abuse. You're going to get higher rates of homelessness and so on than you would. Even in the same, you know, even just an hour outside in a more rural area, those two things are going to look very different. And you see this pattern. It's not a U.S. thing. It's everywhere in the world, right? Where's most of the crime? Where's most of the gang activity?

Where's most? Big cities. Big cities. Right? But when you scatter people across with much lower densities and people have more, feel like they have more in common. And people feel ironically cities. They're going to depend on one another. Yes, exactly. The trust is so important. Trust is important. For people to have trust, it helps to have some sense of commonality. I think that's one of the biggest challenges the USA's facing right now. I don't think it's clear across this nation right now. And I say this is a non-American. It's not clear to me what all Americans have in common right now. Yeah. I mean, you're literally living in a time where I'll be real. I mean, when I go around to different cities and states, I mean, if I drive past the house and I see an American flag, I'm like, yeah, that's probably a Republican.

Republican. Oh, yeah. Right. I shouldn't think that. I wouldn't have thought that in 1998. Yeah. Right? I wouldn't.

10 years ago. Yeah. I wouldn't have thought, oh, an American flag is some type of any indication as to someone's political leanings. But people can't even unite around the fact that the USA is good or that the USA is a special country or the USA is something that, you know, it's not, it's not a perfect country. But this is something we should be proud of me. You know, you've got people literally, oh, the USA is terrible.

you know, terror, they think the flag itself is this awful oppressive symbol of hatred and white supremacy and this and that. And it's, I don't think that's sustainable. It's not sustainable. I mean, people are going to have their disagreements and their polarization, but you need to have some common threads where people can be like, okay, we agree on. At least on this. We agree on this. And this is what we all have in common because people are going to be tribal. tribalism is just innate and it's not something that's inherently positive nor negative and one of the best ways to defeat tribalism is to go up a level right so when people are you can fraction human beings in as many different ways as you want right you can fracture it

across all these different lines uh you know sex races in ethnicities height eye color hair like you could fraction human beings however much you you want to but the best way to get people out of that is to go up a level. So, you know, if people are starting to get obsessed with this thing, it's like, okay, let's go up a level and see. And then you have that commonality, right? So in the UK, one thing I really like, straight up, one thing I prefer about the UK to the U.S. Is that we don't use terms like black British, African British, Hispanic British, white, no.

If someone said that I'm African British or that I'm black people, people, even sounds weird. I've never thought about that. It sounds weird, right? Why do you think we do that in the U.S. And they don't do that in the U.S. The racial history of the two countries is different. And the makeup is different. So I think some of it is historical.

And it goes back to these ideas. You know, there were black Americans and white Americans. Like there was this split and there was actual segregation. And there's a lot of history there. And I think over the course of immigration, especially in the 1900s, people coming from, you know, Italian American and Jewish American, Irish American, whatever. These, it's just in the mentality and in the lexicon, some through history.

But then I think also it gets propagated by media because the media talks in these terms. It becomes politically useful to. Yes, it becomes politically useful to fraction people off into these groups. And people grow up with it and they just think it's normal. Like I raised this point to so many of my American friends and they're like, huh, that's interesting. Like, I've never really thought of it that way because they think that happens all around the world. And it's like, no, that's really an American thing to break, to break it down so much.

It's like, in the UK, people just say British. Yeah. Right? People just say British. It's not like, oh, that guy is Asian British or this person is Jewish British or African British. It's just, it's just British. And I think that even though it's just a small tweak to the language, it matters. It matters. It matters because it, it, that's then how people see each other. Yeah. If you train people to see each other as by skin color or by, ethnic origin, then it's inherently divisive and tribal because then people start to, okay, we are this thing and we're now, this is our in-group and by default, now this is the out-group. Whereas if people just that American, American, right?

And the focus wasn't on, you know, interjecting race even when it's, you know, there can be times in places where it's relevant. But oftentimes it's more often than not, I'd say it's not. Yeah. And there's this focus on like, even when people look at certain issues, it's interesting. Because, I mean, in the UK, sometimes it'll be broken down. You know, sometimes they'll have race and ethnicity breakdowns on things. But oftentimes it's more like it might be class.

Right. U.S. UK is generally historically more class-based than a kind of race-based thing. But say if you were looking at, I don't know, any issue. Here it's like, okay, these are the breakdowns by race. And I'm like, who decided that that's how you should even do the breakdown? Right. Like, why is that the thing? Oftentimes it might be like, wouldn't socioeconomic.

factors be more important. So whether, I mean, a poor, someone, whether they're white, black, Latino, whatever, if they are of a growing up in a certain place and in a certain, in a certain class or certain economic structure. Yeah. That's more relevant than the fact, than their skin color. Now, there can be a correlation between these things, which is why I think people sometimes lazily default to it. But it's not a, Like there might be a certain problem and people will be like, oh, this is a, you know, this is a, this is a black problem. And I'm like, no, that's like an inner city lower class or like poor or poverty problem. Right.

And yes, there might be more people of a certain demographic who fit into this in this place. But it's not innate. No, but it's not. Yeah. But that thing's not the point, right. You could, if you go and look at a, you know, and then you look at a wealthy, you know, a more wealthy area. whatever the breakdown is, it's like, okay, so this is a, this is more like a money thing, a cultural thing, a class thing, a social thing. It's not a, it's not a race. Yeah, it's not a race

thing. It's like, okay. And so oftentimes I think when people are looking at, and I think some of these things don't really get resolved. Yeah. Because people are literally looking at the wrong way. They're thinking it's a race issue. Here's a great example. The whole, the whole thing that sparks, be it like, I'm not a BLM fan. I think of the organization. is terrible. But the whole the whole issue of police interactions with the public, racializing that issue is so dumb. It's a disaster. I think it's been a disaster making that a racial issue. Right? The police here kill more white people than they kill black people. Fact. Right. As a proportion of the population, yes, it's more, it's more, but like most people

don't even know that fact, like, because when it's reported and talked about it, most people can not name a single white person killed by a police officer. Right. In the past. decade right right there's been more of them than there have been black people kid but people don't even people don't even know that fact yeah right and why and I'm just like why why is that a racial thing like yeah everybody is a do do we all across the political aisle or does everyone agree we'd like less police brutality and less unjustified police killings right we'd like that to be ideally zero yeah right we're talking not just we're talking unjustified killing their situations happen that person should not that shouldn't have happened that's not

race thing. So making it a race thing, you're now making it almost impossible to solve the problem because now when this person is saying Black Lives Matter, this person saying all lives matter, and this is now what you're arguing. Yeah. You're not thinking, okay, look, you know what? We're both against police brutality. Yeah. No, none of us want to see people dying unnecessarily at the hands of agents of the state or of anybody. So let's just unite on that and let's just fix the problem. Thomas Sol, he writes about this and gosh, I break us up probably every episode. But his book, Discrimination and Disparities kind of bust this idea that is propagated by people like Ibermax Kendi and those race baiters that basically says all disparities between white Americans and black

Americans is proof in itself of discrimination. So you mentioned that a larger thing to say. Right. Like you mentioned like a larger proportion of, you know, based on their population of, of black Americans are shot and killed by the police than white. And so they would say, well, that in itself it's proof of the racism. So, but that conclusion prevents us from going up the line and asking, okay, but why is that? Okay, while we unfortunately know that black men are committing a disproportionate number of murders against each other every year, so that means they have a higher interaction with the police because of the crimes that are being committed. And so then we should ask ourselves, well, why is that. Why are these crimes being committed? You go to fatherlessness. But by just saying these disparities

are proof of racism, then you never even have the opportunity to get at the line and ask why. Exactly. And, you know, by the way, I think all this is intentional. But I don't think these people want solutions. I think there's too much money in a, there's too much money in clout in keeping these problems existing or acting like they exist where they don't. And the reason you also know that this is so dishonest is because you can find very easy examples where that jumping to disparity equals unfair discrimination here. And now you can find so many easy examples that show that that is completely ludicrous. Okay. So black men are about 7% of the U.S. population and make up over 70% of the NBA. And I think over 70% of the NFL. If someone were to say that therefore the NFL or

NBA is racist against white people or Jewish people, you'd be like, you'd be like, you. you're insane. Like what, like, it would be such a preposterous thing for someone to even suggest. But when they want, people do this with gender as well. Right. So if there's a, oh, you know, 80% of people on the executive board of this Fortune 500 company are, are men. So therefore, sexism. Yeah. Right. But they only do that when it's convenient. They're not like, oh, 90% of plumbers are, like 98%. Yeah. You know, I don't think I've ever in my life anywhere in the world and I've traveled a lot. I don't think I've ever seen a woman like working on top of a roof or doing like construction on highways. I don't think I've ever, I don't think I've seen one. And it's probably I don't think I've ever seen a female like lumberjack or tree search. And that's and that's okay. Right. But it's just funny how people pick and choose when to use this heuristic of disparity equals discrimination. Because you can find all these other examples and you're just like, dude, like you can see how silly it would be to apply this in other. areas, but they don't care. And I think also because people get away with it. Right. No one ever

checks them on it. Yeah. Right. No one ever checks them and goes, wait, hang on. I'd like to, I'd love to be in the same room as some of these people when they're making these claims because I will air them out. Yeah. Right. But no one, people just start clapping and they're like, yes, yes. And I'm just like, dude, this is how they're getting away with so much nonsense because they just say something. And instead of someone going, wait, hang on, hang on. Yeah. What you just said there. What about this? Well, I'll tell you how they get away with it, at least with white people. They, especially with white women. Guilt.

Yes, guilt. So Ibr Max Kendi, I saw him do this the other day. Here's his little trick. If you say disparities are, well, actually and a conservative, I won't even, well, a pro-lifer, we had this argument on Twitter a while ago. I said something along the lines of disparities aren't in themselves proof of discrimination. They will say to you, okay, then you're saying, the only other option then that you must be arguing is black inferiority. If it's not because of discrimination, you're saying black people are

innately inferior. And then people don't want to be put in the position to be like, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. It's X, Y, Z, blah, blah, blah. So that's people on the defensive. Yeah, that's how it goes. That's the false choice. Yeah. It's just so dishonest. And it's annoying because the thing is, I mean, if you wanted to even look at these issues seriously, the thing is, there are so many factors that go into it. Right. There are things that have happened in the past that have put, say, black Americans in certain situations and even certain localities where now there is less economic. The schools aren't as good. There's less, you know, the economy is not as healthy. There's certain things that happen. You know, there's so many factors. There's social factors. There's cultural factors. There's external factors. There's historic factors. I'm not someone who says like, oh, it's just this one. I don't shy away from. that whole conversation. You can't honestly deny that there isn't a lot of stuff that's happened in the past that's put people in certain situations which still affect certain communities today,

right? I'm not in the camp of denying that or diminishing it. There are other factors as well. There are social factors and cultural factors and personal decision factors and all that. But multiple things can be true as once. And I think maybe this is another problem we have, right, because so many things have become so hyper-partisan that it's like, Like, you know, you kind of have the left talking points and the right talking points. And both camps, shall we say, when people are really entrenched in them, are afraid to even entertain some of those other ideas. So someone who's on the, you know, a lefty is progressive is really uncomfortable to discuss the fact that, okay, you know, black men are committing a disproportionate amount of certain crimes. People are uncomfortable to discuss fatherlessness rates or broken family rates or, you know, the personal responsibility.

Like people, they're very happy to discuss the systemic things. Yeah. And the things historical that have led to. And then I think also to be honest, to be honest, I think a lot of conservatives are also very uncomfortable to discuss some of the things that are actually, okay, the government did. The government did do this policy back then or this did happen. And there is this overhang. It's not saying that's a different thing to even saying that right now as in 2022, the whole system is white supremacist and there's all this racism. Like that's not that's a different argument.

There's some people who believe that, but that's actually a different thing. But you can say, okay, well, 100 years ago, 150 years ago, there was all this. And obviously, you know, if you look at how wealth accumulates or doesn't within a family or within a community, like, yeah, sure, there's effects of these things. So I think both so-called sides have valid points on this, but it's rare for that conversation to just happen honestly and in a helpful way. And to me, that's a problem because how are you going to fix, how are you actually going to come to a solution if people are so uncomfortable to even honestly discuss it in a holistic fashion? We saw the same thing, by the way, happened over the past two and a half years with the whole pandemic response situation. situation, right? When was there actually just an honest conversation about, okay, what are the real, you know, number one, how does this thing spread? Who's most at risk? Who's not at risk? And, you know,

these different ideas and policies, how effective are they really? Let's bring people to the table. Let's discuss this thing for real. Let's not just focus on, okay, three things, you know, masks, social distancing and injections, right? Like that, those are the only three things and everything else We, we, it's like, what about other treatment options? What about the fact, look, this thing's not harming kids. Like, why are, why are the kids out of school? Right. Like, it was just this one size fits all, one size fits all.

And again, maybe this comes from the mentality of people not being comfortable with embracing the idea that people are actually different. You've seen the same thing happening with monkeypox right now. They're trying to pretend that no matter who you are, no matter what you do, you're all at equal risk. Yeah. It's this like bastardization of the term, concept of equality. Yeah.

And it's like, no, there's nothing. bigoted or discriminatory and saying, okay, all right, like there's a gigantic disparity here, which is based on people's activities and proclivities. And so because they're so afraid that that's going to sound homophobic or that's going to sound anti-LGBT or this is going to, you know, create this stigma upon gay men or whatever that they don't want to just flat out say, okay, basically all of the monkeypox is happening with gay men who are doing these activities. right they they're so uncomfortable to say it's it's obvious it's like glaringly obvious right it's like 98%

of cases or something but they're like no we we can't say that so let's instead just make like let's let's let's tear everybody let's let's threaten to lock down everybody let's it's like why yeah why not everything needs to be and this is just part of even medicine i mean my family background's originally from Nigeria, right? And there are certain, there are even certain diseases that are far more likely to exist in certain populations. So, for example, in Nigeria, sickle cell. Sicle cell anemia is a problem in Nigeria and other African countries. In Europe, in North America, there's, it's there, but it's not like a big, it's not a big problem. So, you know, I believe that there are, I can't remember the name of the, the name of the condition. There's a condition that's more

common amongst like Ashkenaz people of Ashkenazi Jewish origin and so on and it's like I think it's is it Tay Sachs maybe yeah and it's it's important for people to to know that yeah right if you're if you're black and you live in a West you live in a cold plate you're more likely to be vitamin D deficient right right like it's good to know if you're white you're more likely to get sunburned I've never used some I've never used sun lotion I don't need it so but people are so again people get so uncomfortable with all of these things and And I think ultimately the problem is that people end up suffering and problems don't actually get resolved because people are more worried about being politically correct than they're worried

about actually solving problems and helping people. I remember I was, I met a girl. She was a single mom and her daughter had sickle cell anemia when she was born. And I remember just looking it up to learn more about it. And the site that I was looking at, it might have been like the Mayo Clinic. I don't remember. but the fact that it almost always affects African-American children was so buried down at the bottom that it really made you think that while this could really just happen to anyone,

and it really is because of a fear of stigma. But as you said at the beginning of our conversation, like that's not really loving in the same way that enabling someone to make unhealthy decisions is not loving. So not telling someone the truth about something that could have a specific impact on them, it's not loving. I also think we have like a bastardization of the concept of love. We have forgotten like what it means to actually seek someone's best interest and instead just we just think it means acceptance and tolerance of all kinds of behaviors and choices, affirmation of all kinds of stated identities. I mean, there are a million different ways that that is showing up

and really damaging, damaging ways. Well, I think in this era we live in, you know, have you read the book, I haven't read the whole thing, but I'm in the process of it. Carl Truman's book, Rise and Triumph of the modern self. Yes. Yes. And I had him on to talk about that. He's brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. So he talks about we're living in this age of psychological, psychological man. And so the most important thing is really like someone's self-perception and identity, right? This notion of self-identifying. That's a very new idea, right? that you just self-identify as what you choose. And if that is the most important thing,

then any questioning or challenge or attack on that idea, people now conflate literally with violence, right? You've heard this rhetoric before. They always use the terms harm, harm, safety, violence, attack. Yeah. Right? So if I- You're pushing someone to commit suicide if you don't affirm.

Yes, if you don't affirm. And affirm, again, they invert the language, right? So they call a sex change surgery, a gender affirming surgery. Right. It's the opposite, right? They call if a little boy thinks that he's a girl and has some form of gender dysphoria, they call it conversion therapy to tell the boy that he's a boy. Right.

And affirm that he's a boy. The affirmation is to affirm that he's not what he is. So they invert at all. Yeah. So the way they use the language is amazing. Even the term misgendering. Yeah. Right.

So if I call a male, he. But that male wants to be called she. Yeah. They call me the one misgender. I'm like, no, you're misgender. If I called him she. Yeah. If I call a he, a she, that is misgendering.

Like I'm calling a male by female associated pronouns. But they invert it all and they hijack the language. And people don't. The problem is the average person doesn't think about this at all. Yeah. Average person doesn't think about this at all. So it's very easy to, in the language of politeness and niceness and being PC and being compassionate. Yeah.

To weaponize that against an entire population because the activists are very, very dedicated. And these people know what they're doing. When people are playing with language and they're twisting it right now, you know, they're trying to redefine recession right now. They know what they're doing. And most people don't, most people are just busy and they're just going about stuff and they don't think like, okay, why you're, look at the pronoun thing. Right? Some people are like, oh, like, why does that bother anyone? Like it's just, you know, it's just, it doesn't cost you anything. Exactly. It doesn't. It's just, it's just polite. It's just compassionate. And it's like, no, hang on. Why are you trying to hijack the language like this, right? Like, because if you can change the language, George Orwell talked about this in 1984, if you can change and restrict and limit the language, you can actually change the way people think. You can change the way people perceive things. You can change the concept they're able to express or they're not simply by change. the language. So whenever people are trying to force changes to the language, like language evolves naturally over time. But when people are trying to, trying to force changes to it, there's always

some type of, there's always a type of motive there. Yeah. Have you seen these videos that have been coming out? They're on YouTube, but people are now posting them on Twitter from Boston Children's Hospital. And I think a Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, not only saying that they are performing, And I talked about this on this show and on Instagram, gender affirming, as you said, that Orwellian term hysterectomies on minors, castrations, phalloplasties. I think that's how you pronounce it on girls. Yeah. And then also, I just thought this was so interesting based on what you're talking about. One of the doctors was saying, oh, actually kids know that they are transgender from the womb.

and some of the indications of that if you have a boy that doesn't want to that doesn't want to cut his hair or tries to pee sitting down or if they play with opposite gendered toys and I'm like, hang on, you people simultaneously say that there's no such thing as a gendered toy that there's no such thing as a gendered haircut.

There's no such thing as a gendered color or behavior that boys can do whatever they want to do, girls can do whatever they want to, and that's just beautiful and fluid. And we should just accept that. And you're simultaneously enforcing extremely rigid and strict gender stereotypes by saying, okay, if your daughter plays with a bus, then really she's supposed to be a boy. And I think once I realized that it was not even an attempt at medicine, but really a religion and an ideology

and a superstition, I realized, okay, well, like many superstitions, they contradict themselves. They're not looking for consistency because it's not based in logic and truth. It's based in feelings. and feelings often contradict themselves. And yet, I mean, that actually is leading to, it might be subjective, but it's leading to objective, physical harm, lifelong harm of children. Did you see those videos? I have seen them.

I have seen them. It's incredibly disturbing. It's really, really disturbing. And, you know, it's funny. I feel like I'm criticizing the West a lot, but it's deserved right here. I love the West. I love the USA.

But we're letting the crazies run the show. You're letting the most incoherent, most weird, most extreme, radical people set the rules and the language and the policy for everybody else. And this is a huge error. And I think people have gotten far too uncomfortable with challenging and dissenting against such people. We're living in this climate of fear. Because I can- Well, they'll punish you. They'll take away your kids. I get that. But the problem is that if it's not confronted, this monster continues to grow. One of the things I hear the most when I'm traveling and I'm talking to people is, how did we get here? How do we get here?

It all seems, you know, in the past seven or eight years like this is that. And it's like, man, I talk a lot about courage and cowardice. Yeah. And people don't like that. People hate it when I even insinuate that they could be being cowardly. but a lot of people are being far too cowardly. When I say that, it doesn't mean I don't understand some of the both real and imaginary concerns and potential consequences of addressing some of this stuff or questioning it or challenging it. I understand that.

My point, and I say this especially, because sometimes people go, oh, well, Zubi, you know, you don't have kids yet and you're self-employed, and you know, you've done, right? So you're in this position where you can talk about this. stuff with fewer consequences. Number one, everyone has something to lose. But number two, for people who are, for people who are parents, please think about the world you want them to inherit. What society, what culture, whatever country and what America? What world do you want them to grow up in? Do you

want them to have the same liberties and freedoms and rights, basic things, even freedom of speech that you had, or not? Do you want them to grow up in this world where gender is totally abolished and we're just, we've just got weird scientists running the show and you're not allowed to say this and you're not allowed to say that and it's very, you've essentially created a new form of secular theocracy? Is that, is that what you want them to grow up in? Because that is what the silence enables.

So if people think it's bad now, where do you think it's going to be in 2040? Where do you think it'll be in 2030, in 2040, in 2050, when those kids grow up and become adults, and we've allowed these people to butcher them and render them infertile. And this is a generational issue. Yeah. This is a generational issue, right? And that's why, I mean, if that doesn't motivate people to some form of action, I'm not saying people need, everyone needs to be an activist or everyone needs to start a podcast or this or that. But on a on the scale you can and the scale you feel comfortable, you have to address this stuff. If your kids are going to school and they're coming back and they're learning all this wacky stuff or whatever, you have to take action.

You can't just think it's not going to self-correct. I think that's something people need to understand. The pendulum doesn't swing back on its own. No. No, it doesn't self-correct. And you can't outsource your courage to a handful of people who are willing to talk about this stuff and take some action. You cannot outsource your courage because it's not enough. Right. The people who are really pushing the city, it's a very tiny percentage of the population, but they are dedicated. They are radical. They are really, really pushing. Right. What percent of the population is on those videos you talk about? What percentage of the population is like, yeah, that's tiny percent. Tiny, tiny percent. But they're very loud. They're very powerful. And they have the power to strike fear in the hearts of other people. Another thing that should motivate people is please just look at history. Look at the past century of history and understand that the worst atrocities and

worst things that happened didn't happen because most people were evil. They happened because most people were apathetic or passive or quietly complicit, right? So there comes a time, there comes a point where simply sticking your head in the sand and not doing anything, it's going to come to your doorstep. It's going to come to you. It will affect you. Even if it hasn't yet, it will. It'll come to you. It'll come to your kids. And by the time that happens, the fight is going to be harder, right? The fight is going to be harder. There are some fights that are very, this is not a difficult one. This is not even a partisan one because most sane liberals, all conservatives and most sane liberals, sane liberals, sane libertaries, like people are not on board with this, especially because the, this very

sacred line between adults and children is being violated. And that has your opening Pandora's box with this one. Yeah. If you accept that children, 12 year olds, 10 year olds, 11 year olds, they're three-year-olds. If you're accepting that they have the mental soundness and maturity to consent, to permanent life-altering change, which could rent-a-a-law of implications. Right. You're letting a 12-year-old decide whether or not they ever want to have children in the future. Right.

And some of these things you're rendering, you're sterilizing people, right? If, and if you're opening a door, you're opening a very obvious door to pedophilia. And people don't like to talk about this as well because the whole argument against it is that children cannot consent to such things. No matter what they say. Yes. No, exactly.

They cannot consent because they do not have the mental capacity to do it. Exactly. So if you erode that argument, you are also simultaneously eroding an argument that's keeping something else. It's very, very dangerous at bay. And people think, oh, like, you know, so many people don't practice like second, third, fourth order thinking. They just see like the immediate, right?

They just see the immediate and they're like, oh, well, this is okay. And so, but it's like, look, if you give up that, this is the next thing. Yeah. This is the next thing. And it's not a fallacy. People are like, oh, slippery slope. It's not a fallacy, right? Look at what we're talking about.

Right. Look at what we're talking about right now. This is the stuff people were warning about in the 90s or in the 2000s. We conservative evangelicals. We were told that we were conspiracy theorists. Like, it all happens, right? So, and it can happen very, very quickly. So for anyone who's still just on the sidelines or is feeling that feeling that

fear or what like I understand it I'm not trying to be unsympathetic but I'm also tired of being sympathetic because what also happens is it then falls on just a very small handful of people yeah right there's a handful of people who are talking and you're now now they're out there feeling lonely they're taking all the arrows they're taking all the metaphorical bullets for you for no thanks by the way in many cases yeah and you know the warriors get exhausted yeah warriors get exhausted right if the big fight breaks out and you're hiding behind the sofa saying like, yeah, I'm cheering you on. Like go for it.

It's like, no, you come and fight with me, man. Like, I'm doing all the fighting here. Someone else has to come in. Just because we have a podcast doesn't mean that we're really, we're the only ones on the front lines. No. I mean, in Republicans in office, most of them aren't going to fight the fight either. Yeah.

People have to, everyone needs to do, needs to do their bit. And some people are going to do more than others and are going to be able to. But you need to stand in it. You know, if people won't stand up for, man, you have to. up for your kids. Yeah. You have to stand up for your kids. And I'm not saying you have to do something that's going to, like, you know, get you immediately fired from your job. Right. Like, you don't, there, there's levels, there's levels to this. And if you're intelligent about it and you communicate and you voice your concerns in a good way, you know, most people are still

reasonable. Yeah. And people need to remember that, right? Like some people are like, oh, if I say this, I'm going to lose. Like, I think, in slang, like, I don't even believe that. I think what people, what people tend to imagine in their heads is worse than the reality. Right. So so many people want to say, oh, if I just like do this or I step out of lines, like, I'm going to lose my job, but this will happen. And I'm like, where are you working? Where are you working that saying that you're opposed to children being put on hormones

or being chopped out? Like, where are you working that that statement would get you fired? Public schools, big corporations. I mean, it does happen. But I mean, a lot of the people who listen to my podcast, especially the moms who listen to my podcast, they are the brave ones that are going to their school board meetings that are willing to lose their jobs and things like that. And so there is a lot of courage. I would say my audience is very courageous. But, yeah, of course, there are some people.

I always say that you also have to choose the hills that you're willing to die on. You can't die on every single hill. And you have to count the cost. You have to decide, is this worth whatever price I'm going to pay? Guys, this is the one to die on. Yeah. This is the one to die on. Yeah.

Right. There's no more. If you let this hill go, then, boy. You lose reality. I mean, this is the most fundamental part of human existence. And you'll lose your children. Yeah. In a lot of ways.

You lose your children. Yeah. Okay, we got to take a sharp turn because I've got to wrap this up. As much as I don't want to, I could talk to you for at least two more hours. But I did want to end on like a more fun note. We haven't even talked to. anything about music. You are a musician. You're a rapper. And I was thinking about this on the way in this morning. What is one album, or maybe an artist or maybe a song, that when you listen to it,

you don't listen to it that often, but when you listen to it, it takes you back. Like, it's nostalgic for you, or maybe, like, you listen to it at a formative time in your life. I have the one in my head, but I want to hear what it is for you. For me, off the top of my head, I'd say, um, the crossroads by Bone Thugs and Harmony. Okay. Can't say I'm familiar. Yeah, it was a song. It was a big hit in the 90s.

And it used to be my favorite. It was my favorite song for a long time. And why was like what was happening in your life? Do you remember? That's a good question. You know, I mean, I have four older siblings. Yeah. And they used to they, I wasn't really into music as a kid.

Strangely enough. And I ended up becoming a professional musician. But they used to listen to a lot of artists, including this group, Bone Thugs and Harmony. They're still kind of active, but not so much. And this, it's a song, it's really a song about the afterlife. The song's called, it's called The Crossroads. And it's about like questioning what happens when we die and kind of like

lamenting on some of their friends they've lost and so on. And I just think it's a, it's a beautiful song. And I don't know. I just remember that being the first song that I really, really, really liked. I remember, this is pre-intman, pre-internet days. I remember getting like a copy of the lyrics and we were, I actually remember this because they used to come in like the front of your CDs and you could take it out and it would have all those songs on there.

My parents would read all of the lyrics of the songs to make sure that they were appropriate. Make sure. Yeah. That's so funny. You know what? With my latest album, I did actually do a lyric book. That's awesome. Yeah, because I think I don't like it when people don't know my lyrics or when people miss them.

You put so much work into then. Of course. And sometimes I'll say something and I'm like, nobody got that, did they? And I'm like, all right, let me put it here. You want to make sure, yeah. And yeah, I remember with this song because one of my, I think one of my brother's friends tried to transcribe the lyrics and they got a lot of stuff wrong. But I always remember. So when I listen to the song, it's still funny because I remember like the incorrect, the incorrect lyrics, which they were just kind of going off.

what it sounded like, but some of the stuff just didn't make sense. So even when I listen to the song now, I still kind of hear the wrong lyrics. But yeah, that's the one that stands out to me. I love it. I'll have to listen to it. Okay, mine is so basic. I was just talking to my producer about this. And she told me she is a certified Swifty, Taylor Swift fan.

I would not call myself that. But I was, like a song came on the radio and I don't even typically listen to the radio, but on the way in. and I realized that even though I don't consider myself like a huge Taylor Swift fan, the songs from her fearless album. I think it came out when I was in 10th grade and I got my driver's license. So it was like the first CD that I would play in my car. And man, that takes me back. Taylor Swift, all of her albums have come out at very like formative times in my life.

I also gave the commencement speech at my college graduation and I quoted one of her songs in it. Wow. I'm very, very basics. So not as profound as yours, but very nostalgic for me. Is it a particular song or the whole album? Oh, probably the fearless song. Probably. Yeah, but the entire album, you know, there are just some of those like CDs.

I mean, that was 2008 or something like that. So formative time in life. Simpler times. Man, like you said at the beginning, something happened. 2010 to 2015, things got weird. And we haven't gone back, but hopefully we'll push that pendulum back. Thank you so much. Okay, where can people find you, support you, your podcast, your music, your book, all that good stuff?

Yeah, sure. So my music and podcast are available on iTunes, Spotify, all the usual places. Just search my name Zubi. My podcast is called Real Talk with Zubi. That's Zubi spelled Zubi. If you want to check out any of my CDs, merchandise, my books, go to TeamZubi. com, T-E-A-M-Z-U-B-Y.com. On all social media, I'm at Zubi-Music, Z-U-B-Y-M-Music. And for the children's book, go to bravebooks.com, and you can subscribe there and join their Book of the Month Club.

Or you can go to Candy Calamity.com and get the Candy Calamity. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Appreciate it, Ali. Thank you. All right. Final announcement. And that is that Blaze TV is selling awesome socks at an awesome discount. These are U.S. made socks. They've got Ronda Santa sucks. They've got MAGA socks. They've also got socks making

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Go to BlazeSox.com. Use code BlazeSub for 20% off if you're a Blaze TV, subscriber. Thanks for supporting America, American jobs, and American values. Go to blaze socks.com. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase

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