Shawn Ryan Show - #182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos
Episode Date: March 12, 2025King Randall, I is the founder of The X for Boys, and a mentor to hundreds of young men in his community. Randall's organization is a charter school in Albany Georgia that aims to teach boys the true ...meaning of masculinity, manhood, and how to be protectors and providers in their communities through various programs including automotive repair workshops, construction training, and a book club. The school focuses on traditional academics, trade skills, firearms training, and the science of family and manhood. Randall's work has gained national attention, and he continues to advocate for male youth development through his organization and school. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://ShawnLikesGold.com | 855-936-GOLD #goldcopartner https://tryarmra.com/srs https://patriotmobile.com/srs | 972-PATRIOT Head to https://lumen.me/srs for 20% off your purchase. https://ziprecruiter.com/srs https://ROKA.com - USE CODE "SRS" https://babbel.com/srs Upgrade your wardrobe and save on trueclassic at trueclassic.com/srs #trueclassicpod https://betterhelp.com/srs https://drinkhoist.com - USE CODE "SRS" King Randall, I Links: The X for Boys - https://thexforboys.org LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/king-randall YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@NewEmergingKing Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/newemergingking Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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King Randall, welcome to the show, man. Man, thanks for for having me glad to be here. It's my honor
I love love love what you're doing down in Albany and
I've been really looking forward to this interview. So yes, sir. I appreciate it. You got a lot of fans in Albany, too
I mentioned it to a couple of people and they were like you are where really? Yeah got fans down there. Yes, sir
Damn, that's cool to hear. That's cool to hear. Well, I'm going to start you off with an introduction here.
King Randall, you graduated culinary school at age 17.
You are a former United States Marine, a leader in your community
and a role model and mentor for many young men
and you're only 25 years old.
In 2019, you founded the X for Boys program
to fight back against the high crime rate
in your community by stepping up to mentor young men.
This is the only rehabilitative program
for juvenile offenders in South Georgia.
That's surprising, man.
In August, 2022, you founded
the Life Preparatory School for Boys,
the first free all boys boarding school in South Georgia.
The school's motto, Let's Make Men Reflect Your Vision.
You earned the 2019 Larry Sanders Legacy Award,
the 2021 B1 Education Award,
and the 2023 Dreamstone Award
from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's family.
Wednesday, tomorrow, you'll be going to the White House.
And most importantly, probably out of every,
not probably out of everything,
you're a father to three boys.
Yes.
So, man, and you're a Christian.
Yes, absolutely.
Born and raised Christian.
Really?
Yeah, my grandmother was a preacher.
Grandfather down in Florida, my dad's father preaching.
I played the drums my whole life.
My grandmother used to have church at home.
So we used to have people come to the house
and my grandmother had me this little drum set
and I started playing the drums there.
This was before my grandmother could afford to get us this little drum set and I started playing the drums there. This was before my grandmother could
afford to get us a church and I started out playing the drums there and I played
the drums all the way up until I was about 17 or 18 right when I went to the
Marine Corps. That's when I stopped but other than that I spent my whole life at
church. You still do it? Play the drums? Yeah. Nah, you know what I've been wanting to
get back into it. I've been considering buying a drum set. I've been missing it lately, apparently,
but cause I find myself still doing it a little bit,
but I played my whole life, man.
And it's weird for me to go to church now.
It's interesting.
It's so weird for me to be at church.
I literally spent every second at church
behind the drum set.
So it's so hard for me to actually just sit at church
and pay attention because I'm used to listening for cues.
Like we, we had to worship differently. We couldn't just sit there and just pay attention because I'm used to listening for cues. Like we had to worship differently.
We couldn't just sit there and just pay attention.
Like we paid attention, but we worshiped in our own way.
So I'm used to listening for cues.
I'm watching the musicians seeing what they're doing.
Watching the number chorus they're calling out.
Cause I'm listening, watching the bass player.
Cause that's the guy I had to watch, you know,
calling numbers out, calling hits, all that stuff.
So I'm used to that.
So every time I go to church, it's like super weird
cause I'm like staring at the musicians the whole time.
So it was just interesting, man.
It's very weird for me to be at church now,
but I love it.
I love it.
Do you take your kids to church?
Absolutely, yeah, they go to church.
So their grandfather on their mom's side,
he's a pastor in Cuthbert, Georgia,
and they love to go see him preach.
And he'll bring him on the pulpit
because they want to sit by him
before he's about to preach.
So his name Pastor Vaughn, and they love him.
I love him too, he's a great man.
But my sons love their grandfather,
maternal grandfather, they love him to death.
So they listen to him preach often.
Every Sunday on Saturdays, they're like,
dad, can we go to Magani's house
so we can go to church with them?
They ask every Saturday to go to church.
They ask, they beg to make sure they're going.
They get mad if she can't come pick them up
or something like that, so it's pretty neat.
Right on.
You know, we had a conversation downstairs
about fatherhood, and it sounded like maybe,
I don't know, maybe your audience or somebody sounds
It sounds like the way you raise your boys is maybe a little controversial. Yeah, man certain people's eyes. What what's what?
Why I wanted to save it until we were on the podcast. Yeah, man. So
My son's very good at baseball. He's six years old
But dude is like the best six year old baseball player you ever see but we spend a lot of time practicing
My sons are also homeschooled too.
They're homeschooled.
I have a private teacher for them also.
My mom takes turns teaching them different things.
So they're very intelligent.
He also boxes.
He does gymnastics, my oldest son.
My younger son does gymnastics also.
He's just not old enough to participate,
but he's already training in baseball.
And so they'll see our videos
I also posted videos where they're crying and upset also because I'm trying to show the part of fatherhood
They're just not the sweet stuff
For example, my son was about to get ready to spar for the first time
He'd been boxing since he was since he was four. He was practicing
He's just you know doing they teaching them everything all the numbers etc
So he's been doing that since he was about four years old.
And so this is the first time to spar.
He's going to spar this 10 year old kid.
And he'd never been hit in the face before.
Never been punched, never had any competition
in front of him.
So we got home, I put his gear on at the house in the garage.
I got on my knees and I put my gloves on
and I told him to put his hands up.
And I told him to remember everything
that Coach Dino had taught him during practice. So I hit him in the head, not hard, but I hit him to put his hands up. And I told him to remember everything that Coach Dino had taught him during practice.
So I hit him in the head, not hard,
but I hit him in the head.
And he was like, Dad, you're punching too fast.
He just starts crying.
He's just, ah, he's just crying.
And I'm like, put your hands back up.
Focus, I'm teary-eyed just thinking about it.
But I'm like, put your hands back up, son.
And he put his hands, I'm like,
remember what you were taught, son.
And so he started remembering the different,
moving out the way and throwing punches.
I'm like, this is why you were taught for this whole year.
You know, this is what you were learning.
This is to put into action now.
And so then he started getting confident.
He started getting aggressive.
Like he started punching back and moving out the way
and, you know, dodging and weaving.
So we get to spar the next day
and he got a couple great licks off the 10 year old.
He's a good 10 year old boxer.
Not saying he was like really fully boxing him,
but to get a couple licks off of him,
like some really good licks, I posted the videos
and he was so happy that he did it.
He was like, that was easier than I thought.
He was like, I didn't know I could do that.
And so I posted those videos and people just like,
oh, this is too much.
He just needs to have fun.
And oh, you're not letting him have fun.
And fun, fun, it's everything everybody says, just say,
fun, fun.
I'm like, but what if this is fun to him?
He enjoys baseball, he enjoys practicing.
Does he enjoy every practice?
No. Does he always want to practice?
No.
But I teach them also that I ask them a question.
I'm saying, son, when do we work?
He always say, when we don't feel like it.
Exactly, that's when we work.
But then we'll go to the baseball field and we out there with the other kids and he'll notice
that he's better than everybody else. He enjoys that. He is now proud. I teach my children not
about happiness but about being proud of themselves because being happiness to me, being happy to me
is word the devil resides because being happy is hanging out with your friends and going to do
little stupid stuff. It's fleeting, but when I'm proud of myself,
when I do something that I can accomplish,
you know, and I accomplish a goal,
like I'm like, okay, he's like,
I want to hit a home run this year.
Okay, cool.
This kid's six years old.
He's six, he's six.
Yeah, and he's like, that only-
When did you start this?
I mean, when did you-
Start baseball?
I think it's, I mean, it's intense.
Yeah. It's intense. Yeah. But I mean, I like it's, I mean, it's intense. Yeah.
It's intense.
Yeah.
But I mean, I like it.
I mean, you're pushing your kids to the limit.
You know, at age six and you're teaching them that,
hey, if you want to accomplish something,
it takes a lot of work.
And I mean, it sounds like we both can agree.
I mean, you just see people today
and they think everything's a fucking handout.
It's not.
And they don't want to work for it.
Very few people.
So I mean, hold on.
So when did this start?
Does it start at age six?
Did it start at four?
It started about three, four.
My son knows a lot of my, I call my quotables.
He'll tell people my quotables too.
Like for example, like we don't try, we do.
I always tell him, no, we're not gonna try anything.
We're gonna do it.
So he tries his hardest to do everything.
And also like do things like make him keep his word.
For example, I don't allow him to change his mind often.
If he said something, I'm like, well, you gotta do it.
No, that's what you said you were gonna do.
So you have to do it now, you know,
because you're gonna be a man one day
and your word is your bond. so you have to keep your word.
So that's what you said.
So he'll remember like, ah.
So he'll think about things before he say it now,
and that's important because you're teaching them
to think through things before you just say it.
And so now he's thinking about what he's,
he was like, hmm, nevermind.
He'll think about the things he says
versus just blurting something out or just saying anything.
And so that's very important to instill a lot of these
little character traits now.
So when they get older, they won't miss it.
Like he knows, like I said, a lot of my quotables,
he'll tell people my quotables and say,
well, my dad says, you know, X, Y, Z,
and this is why we do X, Y, Z.
This is why we practice.
I always ask the question every time we go practice
on the baseball field, is it,
you see anybody else out here, son?
No, sir, why? Cause they don't want to put that work in. You see anybody else out here, son? No, sir.
Why?
Because they don't want to put that work in.
That's what he'll say.
They don't want to put in the work.
At age six?
At age six.
He will tell you that.
They don't want to put in the work.
And so, again, he'll go out there to the field when everybody's there.
We just had evaluations the other day.
He destroyed evaluations or whatever.
And to me, he'll still critique himself.
I teach him about accountability also.
For example, he'll hit off the tee, right?
And I don't think it's a good hit.
And then he'll say, daddy, that was a thumbs down
because I hit the top of the tee a little bit,
so let's try that one again.
I taught him about critiquing himself
because I shouldn't always have to be here
to tell you what you did wrong.
You should critique yourself.
You know right from wrong.
So I put these videos up and people are just like,
oh, well what about fun?
I'm like, he has fun all the time.
Damn dude, most 25 year olds, which are 25,
most 25 year olds don't even get this concept,
I feel like it.
Yeah, but I tell them, I'm like,
I teach them to earn everything.
Are you a perfectionist?
No, I'm not.
And I wish I was, but I wish I was a perfectionist.
My chef told me back in school, he'd say,
man, he'd say, King, you'll be fantastic.
He said, you're good, but you'd be fantastic
if you learn how to finish.
Cause I'm just not, I just, like,
I'm just not a perfectionist, and I'm trying to get there
because I want to make sure that my sons see
that we gonna finish everything that we do.
So it's like, my sons are making me be better too.
I critique myself often, you know, with them.
Being, you know, just so young and they're remembering everything,
they're watching everything you do.
I'm watching him with my mannerisms and stuff.
So it's like I have to be almost perfect
to make sure that my sons are following
in the right footsteps.
So that's important to me.
So even teaching them to earn everything.
Like for Christmas, he got the shoes, the toys, et cetera.
Ask my son when can he play with that stuff.
When you give me something, you have to do something to wear those shoes. So my son, for example, I got the shoes, the toys, et cetera. I asked my son when he can he play with that stuff. When you give me something, you have to do something
to wear those shoes.
So my son, for example, I get up every morning at 6.30
and go work out in the gym every single morning.
They'll hear the music.
For the first couple of times I started doing it,
they would be like, dad, what you doing in the morning?
I'm like, daddy's working out in the gym,
early in the morning.
And so they were like, well, can you wake us up
so we can come watch?
I'm like, why not?
Okay, so I got out, I get up in the morning, I go wake them up, I'm like, hey, daddy's gonna go work out, and they'll get up, they go put their clothes on, they go like, well, can you wake us up so we can come watch? I'm like, why not? Okay, so I got out, I get up in the morning,
I go wake them up, I'm like, hey, daddy's gonna go work out
and they'll get up, they'll go put their clothes on,
they'll go brush their teeth,
and then they'll come outside
and come in the gym and watch me work out.
I turned the garage into a training gym.
And so then after a while, he started saying,
daddy, can we do the workouts too?
Why not?
So I have them doing things with their pushups
and pull-ups or whatever like that.
And so my son is pretty strong now.
He went viral on Instagram during he was learning how to swim.
And they were talking about his physique.
He got like a six pack and he looked like he's been to prison, man.
He's six.
And so people were talking about his physique.
They're like, how'd he get like that?
I'm like, bro, just like to work out.
He likes to do push-ups.
He can do more push-ups than I can like, bro, just like to work out. He likes to do pushups. He can do more pushups than I can.
So it's really cool to watch it,
but kids mimic what they see.
But it's fun to him.
He enjoys it.
And so when we go out of town
or we go to Chuck E. Cheese or whatever like that,
he just has to do something for it.
So he has fun all the time.
We just don't give, he always will tell you what I say.
We don't have fun for free, we earn it.
He always will tell you.
What age does that start?
What age do you start making them earn it?
As soon as they understand right from wrong,
and that's early.
Even my younger son, William, is three right now,
but he also understands right from wrong.
So when he wants to watch TV or play a little video game
or something like that, okay son,
you have to learn how to read better
because he wants the Nintendo Switch like his brother. And so he plays it with him sometimes, but he wants his own. I said, okay, cool, you have to learn how to read better because he wants a Nintendo Switch like his brother.
And so he tries, he plays it with him sometimes,
but he wants his own.
I said, okay cool, you need to learn how to read this book
by your birthday, which is May,
and I'll get you a Nintendo Switch.
So he's working at school, like trying to learn
how to read better because he really wants to learn
because he has trouble playing the game
because he can't read everything that's on the screen
or like, you know, play now, continue, whatever,
he's not understanding everything.
So he's working now to read better because he really wants that game.
So I'm just making him earn it all. I mean, I think that's important because if you just give them
things, I believe it's important for me to create hardship for my sons. They're not going to want
for anything. I do well, they do pretty good, they're not going to grow up in the hood like
with me, like I did or whatever like that. So I have to create hardship for them. So I do well, they do pretty good, they're not gonna grow up in the hood like with me, like I did or whatever like that. So I have to create hardship for them.
So I do that through sports,
I do that through making them earn things,
I do that through saying no.
I say no often, I say no for sport.
And I say that because no is a character building word,
you're not gonna always get what you want.
So I don't care what sad face you want,
I don't care if it's just something simple,
that can't get a bag of chips, no.
Like no, for what?
What you need a bag of chips for?
No, no, so I say no often and I used to cry and get upset
But now it's just like okay, that's it. No, whatever, you know like that or uh, dad can I get something to drink?
They try to trick me sometime when they ask for something to drink. They really want a juicy juice
I got the little juicy juice drink. So they'll be like dad can I get something to drink?
I'm like, yeah, and they'll go in there go get some juice
They're like you didn't specify which drink you were talking about. I'm like, you know, I may get some water son
Don't play with me, you know, so now I'm like, you know I meant get some water, son. Don't play with me.
You know, so now I'm just like, you can go get some water.
And they're like, never mind.
I don't want to drink anymore.
That's what I thought.
You know, like, but go drink some water anyway.
So it's a lot of different things that I do with them and it's very particular because
it's building those little small character traits even with training practice for baseball
or boxing.
If the coach tells us to be to practice at four o'clock,
I'm like, so what time we going to practice three?
Yeah, like he'll tell, he like, we have to get there
an hour before everybody else does
so we can get some extra warmups in
and get some extra practice.
He knows this already.
He'll tell his mom the same thing.
His mom take him to practice.
He like, coach said we got to be there at four,
but we need to get there at three so I can get out there
and hit off the tee a little bit
and I can get some ground balls in before,
before practice actually starts.
So he's already warmed up when everybody gets out there.
But he knows, he internalized it already.
So he doesn't understand it all the way,
but he's internalized that now.
So when he gets older, the work ethic is going to be crazy.
Because work ethic is in his system now.
I hadn't given him fun.
People try to wait until they're like 10 and 11
to just get on them.
I'm like, no, you need to get on them
as soon, as early as possible.
At one year old, nothing's cute anymore for me.
I start disciplining at one.
After that, nothing is cute.
Everything you do wrong is not cute anymore.
I don't do the, oh, he threw something, ha ha ha, no.
I'm gonna say, no, you don't do that.
Or he hit me today, no, you don't hit daddy.
You know, like, I discipline early.
Nothing's cute anymore. After one year old, start You know, like it's, I discipline early. Nothing's cute anymore.
After one year old, start raising your child.
That's what I believe in.
Damn, were you raised like that?
Uh, yeah, my grandmother was pretty strict.
Yeah? Uh-huh.
We'll get into that.
We'll get into that.
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How do you see your oldest treating your younger ones?
My, they love-
Is it rubbing off on them?
Yeah, so William and Baby King, which is my oldest,
William is very different from Baby King.
They like night and day.
William does not like school.
He's not fond of it.
He's his own child.
He does not get excited about things that Baby King gets excited about.
We go to an amusement park or something,
William's kind of just sitting there.
Like the other day, we went to this ice cream shop with nitrogen ice cream
where you can get like the dragon's breath and stuff,
you know, to breathe a little smoke and stuff.
He was like, I don't want to do that.
He does not like the pool.
He does not like the beach.
He does not like, he's super like,
he doesn't deal, like for example, Baby King,
he'd come in here, shake his hand,
you know, introduce himself.
William does not, he will not talk to you
if he doesn't know you.
Like he just, unless I tell him,
say son, introduce yourself,
and he'll say something, but he just like, mm-mm.
Like, so they like night in-
Very standoffish. Yeah, very standoffish their night and day
But I will say something different about them both. I've had to teach baby king what I call that dog
I have to I had to teach him aggression. I'm like son
You have to learn how to turn aggression on and off. So sometimes during baseball practice
I would purposely frustrate him so he could see how good he does when he's upset when he hits that ball when he's upset, I'm like that's the furthest you ever hit a ball. See how you're
using that aggression right now? He'll cry. I'm like okay now use that and hit
the ball. Get mad at the ball and hit it. And he's like oh I didn't know I could
hit the ball that far. I said exactly. So make your angry face and hit the ball
and turn it off. I said daddy could get angry right now and I could turn it off.
I said you have to learn how to control that aggression. So he's learning about controlled aggression early.
William hadn't had to teach aggression to him.
When he go hit the ball, he's angry already.
When he's boxing, bro is already angry about it.
Like he's in there practicing with his brother.
So he watches his brother often.
They get into it like normal siblings
about sharing stuff or whatever like that.
But for the most part, Baby King is always leading.
He's like, no, William, you need to brush your teeth right.
You need to make sure you're getting the back of your teeth.
You need to make sure you're doing this right.
William, put your shoes on the right foot.
Grant, William can always listen to him.
He gets upset with him like, no, leave me alone,
you know, whatever like that.
But he's always leading him.
I taught him about that.
I'm like, listen, your brother looks up to you.
He may not want to listen all the time.
He'll participate in the bad stuff you're doing,
but he doesn't want to participate in the time. He'll participate in the bad stuff you're doing, but he doesn't want to participate
in the good things that you do.
But what about, I mean,
are they observant of other kids?
Yes.
In the work ethic and six years old, damn dude.
He, so he does-
Taking notes.
Yeah, he watches the other kids at practice
not go as hard as he does.
So next year, Baby King will be playing up in baseball.
He's going to this eight year old team next year.
A team called about him
because they've been watching his videos online.
So he's going to play up next year.
But that's only because the kids his age
are not giving him any competition.
And so, but he watches the kids his age
and it's not no fault to the kids
and not even necessarily to their parents.
It's just that we all raise our kids differently.
And so like during the games, sometimes people will be like,
oh, why he going so hard about it or whatever?
I'm like, well, this is why my kid's great
and your son suck.
Because we believe in what we're doing.
And it's important to believe in what you're doing.
If we're going to do something, we're going to give it our best.
We're not just doing anything just for fun.
We're going to do anything. I don't care if we're making our bed.
We're going to make our bed the best way we could possibly make our bed.
If we're going to brush our hair, we're going to brush our hair the best way we possibly
can brush it.
Like, do it all the best.
I'm like, you want to be the best at it all.
And if you are the best, find somebody else that's better and then go after them.
So like last year during baseball, he wasn't the best on the field yet, or whatever.
Last year, because like I said, we've been practicing. And we found, we during baseball he wasn't the best on the field yet or whatever last year because like I said we've been practicing and we
found we want the kid who was the best and so he came to the plate I'm like
baby can't get him out and so he hit the ball he caught it he played second base
he caught the ball threw him out and he was so excited about it I'm like that's
what I'm talking about. I don't care about that like we don't care about him being that good.
We want to find the best and we want to we want to beat him that's what we want
to do. Damn, D.I. I love what you're saying already.
We're only like, what, 10 minutes, 20 minutes
into the interview?
Yeah.
I mean, so,
this is fantastic.
I appreciate it.
I'm serious, man.
But, you know, something that,
you're describing how I think all the time.
I think if I'm not working,
somebody else's, they're gonna be better.
I think it came from the SEAL teams.
If you're not training, the enemy's training,
and they're gonna kill you.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And I've carried this mindset into business.
I've carried it into my whole life.
And now I'm hesitant to,
with that mindset comes a tremendous amount of pressure that you put on yourself.
It can be debilitating.
It's very, it's a life of stress.
And so I've been careful on, I don't know if I want my son or my daughter to carry the amount of stress
and responsibility that I feel that I have.
And so, do you think about that at all?
Yeah, I can push back at that a little bit actually.
Stress to me is good.
And not necessarily saying like the stress you put
on your body or something like that.
Stress, worry, doubt, et cetera,
it causes you to work a little bit more.
When I'm worried about if I can't take care
of the light bill this month,
I might go do a little extra work to make sure
that I can take care of that.
But why am I not thinking like that all the time?
It's like we'll get comfortable
and then we'll stop doing what's needed or whatever.
We'll get comfortable and stop doing what we could be doing.
So it's like, I don't ever want to get comfortable.
I'm like, okay, if there's children, like for example,
again, talking about my son, there's this kid
that we interact with on social media.
His social media is called Sense Diapers.
His dad's been training him in baseball
since he was literally almost a newborn.
He's got the videos. This kid is five years old now and I
kid you not this kid is sliding doing all types of crazy catches. Like he's
world's better than my son. So when people see my son on the field
and they're like oh he's fantastic. I'm in my mind thinking about Malik. I'm like no
Malik is gonna destroy my son Like, he is great with it.
So we plan to have them practice together and stuff like
that to make each other better or whatever.
But I'm always thinking, like, just like you said,
the enemy's always waiting to kill you, you know?
And not just, you know, in regards to sports,
just in life in general, there's somebody making the money
that I want to be making.
There's somebody successful, more successful than I am.
You know, and-
You're getting happy.
Yeah.
The next guy's training. Yes. The next guy's training.
Yes, the next guy's training.
He's innovating.
He's developing.
The stress is important.
You need it.
You need the worry.
You need it because it causes you to want to work
a little bit harder.
And so even like working out in the mornings,
I ain't gonna lie to you,
I hate working out in the mornings,
it gets on my nerves.
But I do it anyway because I need to put myself
through something I can accomplish in the morning.
It makes me feel great.
I did this thing I really didn't want to do
and I know my sons are watching me too.
So even though I don't want to do it,
I do it anyway because I know they're going to get up
in the morning and look for me.
The morning that I don't get up,
like some mornings I may not do it or something like that,
maybe every once in a while,
I get upset at myself because my sons come and ask me,
hey, why you ain't wake us up this morning to go work out?
To me, I just told them that it's okay to
Not do something. I just told him it's okay to not do what you're supposed to do on yourself
Yeah, I do I do I critique myself
It's and it's important
But I don't mind it because I'm proud of the results in the end the results is what make it all worth it
And it makes me that's what makes me happy after see the results, after I see that I've gotten
a little bigger, or my suits are getting a little tighter,
I gotta buy new suits or whatever like that,
I'm getting training better, I'm doing better in boxing.
Yeah, it's annoying at the time,
but once I finally see those results, I'm like,
man, like, now I wanna do it some more.
But all that success you're looking for
is gonna come through the dangerous,
the treacherous going through the minefield.
It's gonna be the treacherous going through the minefield. It's going to be the treacherous going through the crazy river just to get to the other side.
So as a man, I like being Batman to my kids.
I like being Batman to those around me.
Like, man, King's always doing all this great stuff.
People think I do fantastic.
I think I could be doing more.
I'm just like, I just left Nigeria back in August and those kids are out working everybody
I know. You know, their dreams are to come to America, but those kids are out working everybody I know.
Their dreams are to come to America,
but I'm just like, when I got there,
it almost removed empathy for me,
for anything that people claim they're going through.
I'm like, these kids don't even got sewage
and running water, barely eat every day,
and they are working circles around us.
So it made me want to come home and do even more.
So when people are impressed with me,
I'm not impressed with me at all.
I'm like, this is nothing.
You know, I'm like, I could be doing a whole lot more.
I could still be getting up a little bit earlier.
Like I still critique myself about that.
Like, why am I getting up at six-thirty?
I could easily, I wake up at five o'clock in the morning
and I just sit there and scroll on my phone.
Why don't I get my butt up and go on the computer
and do something, you know, do something else
other than sitting here scrolling on my phone?
Like, you know, I could be making other things happen.
So Elon, et cetera, all these billionaires, et cetera,
we got the same 24 hours in a day,
and it's all what we decide to do with it.
And it's going to come with the pressure.
So, if I'm comfortable and sitting around
and nothing's happening, I feel like a failure,
because I'm just like, something needs to be happening.
Something needs to be shaking right now.
Something needs to be moving.
I critique myself for not training my son
as much sometimes.
I feel like we could train more.
We could train like an hour a day sometimes, but a day we miss training, he ain't thinking
about it.
But me, I'm like, dang, it's another kid somewhere training right now and we missing it.
It's interesting.
So who picked baseball?
Say that again?
Who picked baseball and boxing?
He did.
He picked it?
He picked baseball.
He asked me.
I had never played a... Listen, I had never caught a baseball in my life.
I had never played, I played football my whole life.
And I stopped football in high school
because one of my friends got paralyzed on the field.
I was very good.
But of course I was running back, I'm short.
But anyway, man, he asked to play baseball.
I remember he was four.
And he was like,
I want to play baseball because he got this little tee,
this little tee for his birthday. And he was like, they ought to play baseball because he got this little tee, this little tee for his birthday.
And I was like, sure, why not?
So I signed him up for baseball and me,
when we do something, we're going to be the best at it.
So I had to learn how to coach him
because I didn't know what I was doing.
Like I had to go watch videos,
because at first when I was just rolling them balls,
I'm thinking that, you know, he's catching the ball,
riding and stuff like that.
We was doing everything wrong.
So I'm watching all the videos, I'm doing it.
So we've traveled to different places
to get some coaching from other coaches.
So they'll coach him and I'm coaching myself, watching them.
I'm watching them coach him so that way,
okay, that's what we can do when we get home.
So I'll go train with these coaches,
in different cities or whatever like that,
we'll train with them.
And I'm subconsciously watching what they're coaching
so I can go back and coach at home.
Or I'll watch what the boxing coach is doing
and I can do it at home.
So now we don't necessarily need y'all all the time.
We can do this at home.
So it's very important.
The training is very important for me,
but he picked baseball.
And so I told him, if we're gonna do something,
we're gonna be the best at it.
Or boxing, he's had times where he said he wanted to quit,
no doubt, cause he asked me to play,
but he didn't want to do the work at first.
He's just like, oh, we got to go practice,
you know, whatever like that.
Now he wants to practice at six
because he understands that he's good now.
He likes being good.
So now he likes to practice.
But before, when he was like four and five,
he like, I don't want to play baseball anymore.
I want to play something else,
because he thought it was easier.
So I let him try another little sport out,
but we wouldn't practice a lot with that. And he like, dang, I thought this was going to play something else because he thought it was easier. So I let him try another little sport out, but we went and practiced a lot with that.
And he like, dang, I thought this was going to be easy.
Nah, ain't none of it easy.
Even gymnastics, I got him doing pull-ups in the house, you know, like, because he had to pull up on the bar and stuff.
All of it is hard work.
I don't care what sport you choose, whether it's school, whether it's reading a book, et cetera, you have to put the work in to be the best.
Because if you want people out here beating you because he hates to lose, I'm like,
well, if you hate to lose, you got to be the best.
You got to practice.
And the only thing that's going to keep you winning
is practicing.
And so now, you know, as he's coming of age,
he's understanding the practice now.
So he'll get in there like at 6.30 in the morning,
we got a tea in the net in the gym, made it for him.
And while I'm in there lifting, he got the tea
and he's hitting off of it before school, every morning.
And before he goes to school, he's in there hitting off got the tea and he's hitting off of it before school every morning before he goes to school
He's in there hitting off the tea in the morning times. Yeah, so I love it, but he picked baseball man
So I never played at all. So I just take I take him to the games let him watch the other players
He loves show a that's his favorite guy. He loves show a but we go to the Braves games
Etc. He loves it. So I just try to hone whatever he asked for he asked to do do that, so we're gonna hone it. Wow, that's fantastic.
That's, well, we're gonna get into your story too here.
So we got a Patreon account.
Patreon, it's a subscription account.
They're our top supporters,
and a lot of them have been with us since the beginning.
And it's turned into quite the community over the years.
One of the things I offer them is to ask each
and every guest a question.
So this is from Eric Alger.
How do you handle the unseen pressures
that come with being a young leader in a world
that often doubts people of your age and background?
For one, through God, and then for two, through the work.
At first, when I first began, it was a lot of,
oh, you're too young, how you gonna teach boys
how to be men, et cetera, et cetera.
I was 19.
So people had stuff to say, but once I started doing the work,
it's like, there's nothing you can say,
because I'm doing everything that I said I was gonna do.
I said I was gonna open a school,
I said I was gonna start an after-school program, I said it was gonna all be free, I said I was never gonna charge, I said I was going to open a school. I said I was going to start an after school program.
I said it was going to all be free.
I said I was never going to charge.
I said we were going to take care of kids.
We were going to make sure they got haircuts.
We were going to make sure they got uniforms.
We were going to make sure they got clothes, deodorant,
toothpaste, toothbrush, underwear, et cetera.
I said I was going to do it.
And people didn't believe it at first.
People were like, where are you going to get the funding?
Where are you going to get the capital, et cetera?
I don't know where I'm going to get it from,
but we're going to do it.
And I said it over and over again.
And as I've done it, people started getting quiet.
And as I'm working, I've really asked people,
name somebody else that's doing the type of work
that we're doing for free.
You can name the boys and girls clubs, et cetera, et cetera.
They're not doing the type of work that we're doing,
not in mindset changing.
Most other programs are aimed at giving children
something to do.
I'm not aiming for that. We're aiming at trying to change their minds. I could put
30,000 basketball courts in the city of Albany and they're gonna kill each other
and fight each other on the basketball courts because there has been no mindset
changing. So our goal is to actually fix and train the minds of the child. When we
say let us make man, making the man ain't about teaching them how to fix cars or
painting the house or whatever like that.
Sure, that's great stuff to know, but for us making that man is all entailed in their
character.
I always say we make habits with them.
We make them do things over and over again.
Just like when we're in Marine Corps boot camp, I always say habits build character
and character makes the man.
Routines build habits.
And so we make routines, which forms a habit,
which forms their character.
So that's how we make that man,
teaching them to hygiene, clipping their fingernails,
making sure they smell decent,
asking them why they didn't have this today
or why they didn't,
hey, son, why you smell funny?
I ain't got no deodorant at home.
Okay, cool, we're seeing you home
with a whole package of soap,
deodorant, underwear, et cetera.
I had kids, you know, had holes in their underwear,
holes in their socks.
What's going on?
My mom ain't been able to buy me such and such.
Okay, cool.
We'll take care of that for you.
People don't know, we help moms take care of light bills,
et cetera, but it's incentives for that.
If you make sure your son is coming to after school on time,
if you're making sure he's doing his work,
if you're making sure he's studying,
if we see you trying your best and doing good with your son and making sure you're raising him,
we will incentivize that.
And I'll say, hey, mom, we're going to take care of your rent for the month.
Easy work.
We do that through our donors that help us take care of that, but it's important for
morale too, because moms need to see that somebody believes in them.
Mom needs to see that somebody sees them trying and it helps them with raising their sons
because today she may not be as angry
when she gets off of work, you know,
and actually wants to come watch a movie with you.
You know, it's all these little tiny things matter.
We don't post that.
We don't say those things.
We don't, you know, readily post whose funeral
we helped take care of.
Like one of my student's brother passed away
in a cold murder, you know.
We paid for his funeral or whatever, but we didn't share that. We know, we paid for his funeral or whatever,
but we didn't share that.
We talked to the family about it,
but it took her to share that online, you know, on her own,
because she was just like,
this is what this program means to us.
Like this program is for families.
Like, yeah, we help boys,
but we've helped so many families.
I mean, I could go on and on,
but that's how we combat that. And to a point now, I've had so much families. I mean, I could go on and on, but that's how we combat that.
And to a point now,
I've had so much negativity said about me.
I mean, it just rolls off my back.
I'm used to people having something to say.
Even now, we record everything we do with my sons.
We record our whole lives.
Me and my mom, we have it out sometime,
and she's upset with herself
because she didn't take as many pictures growing up. So have a few photos and things like that but we don't
have many pictures of anything I don't have any photos from playing football
no videos or anything I played for my whole life my mom's just like I'm so mad
because my grandmother used to force her to take pictures all the time so she
thought she was doing me a favor by not forcing me to take pictures all the time
and things like that and she didn't realize what was happening so we have
footage of my sons
from when they were like one, two years old.
We record every single thing, so the guys posted online
the other day when we were out at evaluations,
you know, I got cameras taking pictures of my son
or video, and they like, imagine having some egotistical guy
out here taking pictures, you know,
and y'all out here trying to play baseball.
I'm just like, so when you go to the MLB game,
and they got cameras out, you can't watch it then
because they're recording it, I'm just like, it when you go to the MLB game and they got cameras out, you can't watch it then because they're recording it.
I'm just like, it's the same thing.
But people just want something to say.
But I'm just like, we post this stuff
and for my son's brand,
because this is going to help him as he gets older,
people are watching him already,
watching his content, et cetera.
So we're building on that early.
And plus we just record their content anyway.
So when they get older, we just got all this stuff
we could watch, you could sit down
and watch old family movies, whatever, just from conversations
in the car, I mean we have everything.
Sometimes my videographer will send me stuff,
I don't even remember he recorded it,
like he'll send me like old videos of me
holding them when they were babies,
he's like, hey man, I was just going through the vault,
looking at some old stuff, or old videos of us
in the after school program back when I was like 20,
you know, reading the Bible to the kids or something,
he'll send me that, I'm just like, man,
this is crazy, I don't even remember this day, you know, but the Bible to the kids or something, he'll send me that. I'm just like, man, this is, I don't even remember this day,
you know, but he's sending me, you know, this content
and it's important, but yeah, that's how we combat it.
We just keep doing my work and we let God do the rest.
Eventually people just have to be quiet
because I mean, what more can you say?
So, mm-hmm.
I guess, you know, they say if you don't have any critics,
you're not doing it right.
Correct.
Well, got you a little gift. I'll get you some more for your kids.
Sure.
Here are some of the John Slick gummy bears.
Love it.
I swear, some people just come on the show just to get those.
Really?
Yeah, I'm done.
So, like, are they like special gummy bears or?
No, there's nothing weird going on.
There's no cannabis.
There's no CBD.
It's just candy.
You know, it's funny.
I love, I love gummy bears.
Yeah, I got some in my bag right now.
I love gummy bears.
Nice.
So this is going to be a hit for me.
So if they good, I'm definitely just going to order some.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I am a gummy bear fan, man.
Cool, cool.
Well, let's get into your story.
So where did you grow up?
I grew up in Albany, Georgia, born and raised.
Born July 1999, so technically a 90s baby, almost made it to 2000, but July of 99 is
born in Albany, Georgia.
My mom had me when she was, I think, like 18 and a half.
Just real quick, Albany, Georgia.
Sure.
High crime rate, chance of being a victim of crime
is one in 43.
The neighborhood scouts,
the neighborhood scout ranks in the top 100
most dangerous cities in the US.
Yeah.
That's Albany.
Yeah, can you tell us a little bit more about,
other than just statistics, you know,
what Albany is like?
I love the city of Albany. I love the city of Albany.
I think the city of Albany is what you make it.
It's important to mention also that population,
it's only, well now it's only about 66,000 people
that live in Albany.
So when you hear about the high crime rate,
it's off of the ratio of people there.
So it's not like somebody's dying every single day
or anything like that.
But there is murder pretty often, I would say.
We do have a lot of murder happening,
stabbings, a lot of domestic issues.
And I tell people I attribute that to it being impoverished
because you got to think,
because people always talk about all the kids
that are in Albany and people just constantly
having children, but also the domestic issues.
I'm like, guys, let's be honest here with ourselves.
If people are broke and don't have any money and there are no jobs, there aren't any many
jobs in Albany.
If people are broke and don't have any jobs, what all they have to do all day?
Argue and have sex.
That's it.
So that's what's happening in Albany.
You constantly got a lot of children being had in Albany, but also a lot of domestic
issues because it's women, most of the time it's always some woman stab the guy,
or the guy shot the woman, or it's just some domestic stuff.
It's always domestic disputes.
It's never like a stray bullet or no, it's always domestic stuff.
Never, we get some gang related stuff here and there,
but it's mostly girlfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, girlfriend.
These guys arguing about something.
Like, it's always domestic stuff.
And I attribute that to, again, being impoverished, even mentioning how people raise their children
in the city of Albany.
If somebody, like, for example, me, I look at some of the things that I get mad at and
I don't get mad at based off of what I'm able to afford.
For example, like, my sons sometimes want to draw on their shoes.
I don't have a problem with that.
Have fun.
I don't care.
Draw on your shoes.
Whatever.
They want to make little...
I see it as them being creative.
Now, specific shoes, I don't let them draw on, but other shoes, I'm like, have fun at
it.
But then I can also understand why one mom would want to spank her child for riding on
his shoe because for one, she's maybe, to be frank, she's taking out a little frustration on him,
being for real, she's taking out a little frustration on him,
but also, dude, I paid 40 bucks for those shoes.
I barely had that 40 dollars and you drawing on your shoes,
like, oh my God, and she's ready to kill him,
you know, like, about that,
and it's just so much happening around her.
You know, she's doing it by herself,
dad's nowhere around, vice versa.
Maybe a couple of guys that's raising their sons by they self or raising their kids by
they self.
I know there's one guy, he got like nine kids, bro just got too many kids, but he raising
them all.
Moms are nowhere to be found.
He's frustrated all the time.
The moms make him upset, he goes to jail, he calls me, Mr. King, you know, it's one
of my students dad, his mom, he calls, Mr. King, can you help me?
You know, I went to jail, wanted kids' mom, you know,
made me upset and I did such and such or whatever like that.
You know, he's barely making it and I'm just like,
guys, like, this is why this is happening.
People need jobs here.
And so this is why I started getting into the politics
of the city of Albany.
Cause I, at first, people know me,
people hear me saying this now, but back when I was
younger I would say, man, bump politics.
I don't care about politics.
We just need to do for ourselves, do stuff for our community, and everything will be
fine.
Bump the politicians or whatever like that.
But as I got older I started realizing, notice, some of the stuff that they're passing, and
the mayor, and the city councilmen and the commissioners, they're passing stuff that's
directly affecting these kids, and not only passing stuff, but not doing stuff
to actually affect people having money here.
People need money.
I'm like-
How did you get involved in politics?
I started in Albany, maybe in this last year,
trying to figure out politics in my hometown,
because I'm seeing stuff not happening in my hometown
that should be happening, stuff that seems common sense.
And so I'm just like, okay,
let me just start going to these meetings.
You know, all the meetings are open
for the public to come to, nobody's there.
The mayor is in their meeting,
they're having meetings about all this different stuff
that's happening in the city.
67,000 people are up there and nobody's there.
The last mayoral election, only 7,000 people voted,
you know, for the mayor. And we have 67,000's there. The last mayoral election, only 7,000 people voted for the mayor.
And we have 67,000 people there.
And I'm just like, how exactly are we expecting
the city of Albany to change
and we don't know what's going on?
What are some of the things you see
that's affecting the community?
Well, for starters, mentioning the lack of jobs.
There are no jobs there.
And on top of that, they're not attracting people
to want to come to the city of Albany.
And I will mention that our city sucks at marketing
and just in general from,
and I'm a big fan of the school system,
but the school system does not do a good job at marketing.
The police department does not do a good job at marketing.
Fire department, the city of Albany, et cetera,
they do not do a good job at marketing.
The reason I say that's important is because everything you hear and see about Albany is
always negative.
If you go type Albany, Georgia in on Google, it's always negative.
It is important that people in the city know that these people are actually doing their
jobs.
I told you this before, our police department is doing a fantastic job, but all you ever
see online about people talking about them is just negative stuff.
But these people actually aren't
solving murders. They're actually taking care of things. They're making things happen for the citizens. They have these new equipment, etc.
They're really doing good, but I had to go take a private class to learn about our
police department. I'm like, why aren't you guys posting this stuff?
Like people should know that you guys are doing your job, that you are trying to make things happen.
Or our school system.
Our school system is doing a phenomenal job
and I have to almost apologize for the things
that I was saying about them previously
because I didn't know what was happening.
Not because I wouldn't go in to look,
but also because they wouldn't say anything about it.
Our school system has health clinics,
dental and vision clinics, et cetera,
for the students to go to for free
because the parents in Albany cannot afford
the insurance for those kids.
They've gotten the grants to make sure,
the clinics are at school.
They're-
You never hear anybody today
No.
Props to the public school system.
No, and I'm going to do that because they are doing,
they are trying.
I've had them tell us stories about kids who didn't even know,
this kid didn't even know what a toothbrush was going to the dentist.
These are real stories.
And so I'm listening to them tell us, I'm like, why aren't y'all talking about this?
So I offer it with my team to do a small documentary on the school system and the things that they've
changed in the city, especially since COVID.
They also have this program called Level Up.
The Level Up program is where they have parents
sign up for the program. They'll go pay for these parents to go to school to get their forklift
license, nursing license, bulldozer, whatever. They'll pay for them to go to school to get these
licenses and they'll say, oh well I don't have any care for my child. They'll go get your kid from
school and pay for the daycare and everything for your child while you're in school getting your license to go get whatever degree you're trying to
get or go get whatever certification to get a job.
So this in turn turns into these parents not being able to parent their children because
they don't have to work three and four jobs anymore and they don't have to keep sending
the kid to the auntie's house and send it to whoever's house to be raised by God knows what
when they can raise their own children now
because now they have a liveable wage job.
This is impactful.
Like I'm just like,
why aren't you guys saying anything about this?
Like where's the marketing team?
It's important that people know
because all people here is the negativity surrounding
the city of Albany.
And it's important that people know that
like the commission I'm on now, I just joined
the Historic Preservation Commission.
It's important that people know about the history of Albany and why these buildings
are important and what happened here and things like that.
And they're just like, we wish people would get involved with the Historic Preservation
Commission, et cetera.
I'm like, okay, well, you guys should probably make a Facebook page and explain what's going
on.
Make some TikToks, make videos, et cetera.
So me being the youngest person
on the five different boards I just joined
is gonna help the city out a whole lot
because they've been looking, they're like,
hey, how can we market like you're marketing?
Listen, let me help take care of those things for you.
So we're gonna show these different stories
that the Doherty County School System
has helped with these parents and their kids
and the free dental and vision.
I also didn't know that our school system has a hydroponics garden where they are growing all of the green vegetables for the entire school system
They are feeding these children and fresh vegetables from a garden that the students manage
Wow, and I'm just like why aren't you guys showing this stuff online?
Because all people do is talk trash about our school system
in Albany, Georgia, including myself at one point.
And I didn't know all these things were happening.
I didn't know that they were answering the questions
that people ask at the school board meetings.
I went to the school board,
and they're answering the questions.
They're in there saying, hey, no,
they're like, oh, the kids can't read here.
But what they're saying is, look, COVID stopped us.
These kids couldn't come to school
But as COVID has you know left or whatever like that they're showing the trajectory going up from the statistics
I'm like these people are trying these people are trying to do their jobs grant
Everything ain't perfect. But this is something that needs to be shown. Why aren't you guys showing it?
I've even spoken to the city about it. They're paying this company in our hometown.
I won't call them out, but it sucks.
I was at the city commission meeting.
They're paying this one video company six figures
over six months for marketing for the city of Albany.
I go on their city of Albany website pages.
The couple videos that they've done,
maybe got one like if any,
or some got no likes, no views, et cetera. I'm I'm like so they're older so they don't understand how social media
and marketing works so I'm like have y'all asked them for any deliverables
asked them how many people have seen this stuff y'all paying them six
figures and this is maybe our third time doing it and they've only done like
maybe two or three commercials for like the hospital or something like that who
who why are y'all paying them all this? My team don't even make that much money
and we're pushing out more content than y'all ever have.
Y'all are releasing one or two videos every couple months
and y'all paying them six figures.
So why haven't y'all asked them for any metrics?
How many people in the city of Auburn have seen these things?
You know, the regular person in Auburn
doesn't even know who the mayor is.
They don't know what ward they live in.
They don't know their commissioner.
Not saying it's completely the citizens' fault,
but I think it's the mayor's fault. I think it's the city
commissioner's fault. Why aren't you in people's faces? Because people still
thought that our mayor from two mayors ago was still the mayor the other day.
They had no clue that we had a new mayor. And I'm just like, why aren't you guys
trying to show people who you are? I talked to our city commission about
this because I think that you guys maybe are just doing stuff
that y'all don't care for the public to know about.
That's what I think.
I think you don't want people involved,
so you can just keep passing little stupid stuff up here
that's not causing the city to advance.
You're just giving contracts to your little contracting
companies that you know and passing little stuff
for people that you know and your homeboys
and your family and your affiliates
and people don't know what's going on.
So I've been at every meeting
so I can just keep jotting down notes.
Is that happening?
Yeah, it's happening.
So I've been at every meeting
and I've joined five different boards.
I am on the Historic Preservation Commission now.
I'm on the Planning Commission now.
I'm on the Southwest Georgia Housing Task Force.
I'm on the Albany Police Department Civilian Review Board.
So I know all things happening with the police department. Every, and mind you, every board I'm on, I'm the the Southwest Georgia Housing Task Force. I'm on the Albany Police Department Civilian Review Board. So I know all things happening with the police department.
Every, and mind you, every board I'm on,
I'm the youngest person there.
Everybody else there is extremely older.
But mainly because they don't even get applicants
for these boards and people don't know these boards exist.
So I'm telling people,
these boards are actually making decisions too.
The Historic Preservation Commission is so important.
They make decisions that the mayor can't make.
We make decisions to say,
hey, you cannot do this certain thing
in this historic district.
You cannot do anything over there
because you're gonna mess with the historic preservation
of this building or you can't do this thing to your house
because you're gonna mess up the historic district.
Like it's important.
The planning commission is important
because everything that comes through us
is what people wanna rezone something for.
Do I wanna open a liquor store over on this side of town or if I want to open up a new bar over
here or whatever we have to approve of those things but that's important
because we can think about then what's the demographic on that side of town
that you're trying to open a liquor store on. I don't think that side of town
needs a liquor store. We don't need another liquor store on that side of town. It's
already high crime over there. We're gonna give them more liquor over there
that don't even make any sense. You know whatever so they're trying to to monetize, you know people that's coming into town. They were trying to open business
They're monetizing the dubotri in our hometown. They're monetizing that people are drunks in all being there
Monetizing that people are obese and overweight in all been so they're opening tons of restaurants on
The worst sides of town because they know people can't afford to go buy healthy food
So they're got Popeyes and all these,
this stuff that's causing people to die.
I want to talk to the coroner.
Not too long ago, I asked, I said,
Mr. Coroner, why people dying?
He said, heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes.
He said, I'm picking people up every day for it.
He said, because of the food,
people don't want to get up and exercise
because they scared to walk in the neighborhoods, et cetera.
He said, this is why people are dying every day.
Nobody knows that.
Wow.
And I'm just like, this is stuff that needs to be talked about.
And so this is why I'm even having your platform when we share these videos and stuff, I'm
going to share it to our city.
Because people need to know that our school system is trying their hardest.
They are doing their job there.
And granted, some things could be better with maybe disciplining the kids in certain ways,
etc.
But that's free health, dental, vision, y'all giving kids glasses, etc.
Y'all trying to make a way for these kids to just even live, you know, for free.
Making sure their parents got forklift licenses, etc.
They graduating kids with truck drivers simulating all this.
I mean, it's crazy what they're doing and nobody knows about it.
driver simulating all this. I mean it's crazy what they're doing and nobody knows about it.
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What kind of jobs are there right now?
You mentioned there's not a big job market.
I wish I had my phone with me, but I mean it's gas station jobs, McDonald's, these
$10, $12 hour jobs for the most part.
And if you're like me, or maybe just a regular person who probably needs a lot more money
than that, you either have to drive an hour away
to go to another city that does pay a livable wage job
and then come back home or whatever like that,
or eventually just have to move to there,
which is why our population's declining.
Over the past 10 years, our population dropped 10,000 people
because people are leaving,
because there's no growth happening in the city.
But there's no factory jobs, no like, we got factories.
Have you ever tried the combos, little crackers,
little combos food?
Those are exclusively made in Albany, Georgia.
They are made nowhere else.
M&M Mars makes combos in Albany, Georgia.
They have a secret little recipe thing and everything.
I love combos, but they're all over the country,
but they're exclusively made in Albany, Georgia.
Why isn't that a thing?
Like, that's a, people eat combos all the time. I go and they're sold out. Why aren, Georgia. Why isn't that a thing? Like, that's a, people eat gumballs all the time.
I go and they're sold out.
Why aren't y'all talking about that?
But these are like the little small jobs we have.
Factories have left, we used to have Bob's Candy,
they left, we do have a Marine base in Albany,
the logistics base is probably one of the most important
bases for the Marine Corps.
But if lo and behold they ever decide to move
the command somewhere else, we'd be F'd to be frank.
We're one factory away from Albany becoming like
some real bad town.
We do have Procter and Gamble, like they make tissue
and things like that and laundry detergent and stuff like
so we do have a couple of factory jobs,
but most of those factories have people that work there
that come from other cities to come work
because they won't live in Albany.
So, I mean, you know.
What would you bring then?
I would think about, so this is long term,
what I would think.
I would think about trying to bring car manufacturing
or something like that to Albany.
The reason I would do that is because we have
so much open land in Albany, so much space for factories,
warehouses, whatever, even clothes factories.
We got just some just abandoned, just sitting there
or whatever like that.
But I would do that because for one,
we could bring a livable wage job
to some of these people that are in Albany.
But also these jobs require you to work a long time.
They require you to work at least nine to 12 hours.
These kids out here on the street that ain't got no job
and y'all could do the training on site,
you give they boy the job, they working nine, 12 hours,
making a livable wage, but also they ain't got time
to go do nothing stupid outside.
You working them to the bone and now they sleepy
and ready to go home and maybe eat some food and that's it.
They not getting into any trouble
because they sleepy, they tired.
Have you thought about how you would incentivize
an auto manufacturer to move there?
Only way I could do that is selling the city of Albany.
And at this point, if a manufacturer were to look at the city of Albany online, they're
like, absolutely not.
This is where relationships come in.
This is why I'm grateful for my traveling through the country, talking about the Extra
Boys and building relationships before I started working in the city of Albany like I am now.
I have so many different relationships now.
Right now I'm in contact with a professor from Yale.
And we were working on this private project
that he and I are working on
to bring to the city of Albany
because they're like,
Albany is the perfect pilot project.
But they would have never known
that Albany was a great place for this project.
I can't talk about it, but for this project,
unless if it weren't for me,
going to talk to them about it.
And I'm like, dude, Albany has so much potential.
I call Albany Potential Incorporated.
We have so many empty spaces, so many of downtown's beautiful, no businesses at all.
It's like all these empty buildings down there.
So much history, so much rich history in Albany, from Dr. King coming to Albany during the
Civil Rights Movement to all these other different things that happened in Albany from Dr. King coming to Albany during the Civil Rights Movement to all these other different things that happened in Albany.
Like they don't preserve a lot of things.
The house that Dr. King used to stay in Albany
is currently boarded up.
I'm like, why isn't that like some landmark
or something that y'all add to like some tour people do?
We have Radium Springs in Albany.
It's a natural spring in Albany
that has like this fresh water that comes out of it
or whatever like that. It's just, it's really cool. But I'm like, why this fresh water that comes out of it or whatever like that
It's just it's really cool
But I'm like why don't you guys do like boat tours or something down here like it's just my brain is turning
I'm just like why aren't y'all monetizing the true good history in a good life city Ray Charles is from there
We got a Ray Charles Plaza, but that's it like we don't really do anything for Ray Charles
You got a couple NFL players from Albany or whatever grant
They won't come back or do anything or whatever like that
But we got a lot of things that have happened good from the players from Albany or whatever, grant they won't come back or do anything or whatever like that, but we got a lot of things
that have happened good from the city of Albany,
but why aren't we pushing those things?
Why aren't we showing people
how great the city of Albany can be?
We have a lot of great mom and pop restaurants
who make great food, but why aren't we showcasing them
on TikTok and through the city of Albany website
or through the city of Albany social media pages
or whatever?
I've made this stuff mentioned, but again,
these people are older and they don't understand.
We don't even have an app.
Most cities got an app you could download
to talk to your commissioners or report stuff
or whatever like that.
We still got to dial 311 to call by the pothole.
What was it about your childhood
that just got you into this?
I mean, you started, was it 17?
Yeah, I started-
Professional chef?
Oh yeah, uh-huh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you're only 25 years old.
Yeah.
What was it about your child that motivated you
to kind of start turning the city around,
becoming basically a father figure to all these people?
Young men.
This is going to be a long-winded little part.
When I was younger, when I was a kid,
my grandmother, my grandmother's been very spiritual
my whole life.
She's been preaching, having Bible studies,
prayer lines, et cetera.
She's big, she's huge into God.
I mean, she does it.
When I was about three years old, I'll never forget,
we were riding in her car, she had this old green Lexus
she had when I was like three.
And I remember the car seats at the time
were these little things you had to pull over your head
and I had to learn how to strap myself in.
It was this little circle inside my car seat
I was to play with all the time.
I remember, just remember little things.
I remember we were riding on this street called,
I think it was Johnny W. Williams Road
and we turned to South Madison.
She stood on South Madison Street.
And we got to the stop sign.
I told my grandma, I said,
Grandma, I said, you know how it is, like when something's about to happen,
like you feel like something in your stomach, like that.
And she was like, yeah, I know, you know, what you mean.
I told her that I was here to finish
what Dr. Martin Luther King started.
And I told her, like as I got older,
that I don't know if we like maybe watch the Dr. King video
at preschool that day or something like that.
I don't remember anything from that day but that conversation. I remember it vividly. I'll never forget it.
But as I got older, my grandmama would always tell me that often.
And I'm like, grandma, like, can you stop saying that? Like, because she would like tell like people at the church what I said
and stuff like that because like as a testimony, I'm like, grandma, can you stop saying that? Like, I'm like, I was a kid.
Like, whatever. Like, I was maybe watching the Dr. King video or something. I'm like, girl, can you stop saying that? Like, I'm like, I was a kid. Like, whatever. Like, I was maybe watching Dr. King videos.
I'm like, I'm not trying to do that.
I want to cook.
Like, cause my biological father was a great cook.
He would cook at like different restaurants.
He, you know, he wasn't like a professional chef
or anything, but he would like cook.
So I wanted to cook because that's what my real dad did.
I just wanted to be like my real dad.
I didn't spend a whole lot of time with him.
My stepdad raised me,
but anytime I interacted with my father, I just wanted lot of time with him. My stepdad raised me, but anytime I interacted
with my father, I just wanted to do things with him.
And my mom, thank God for her,
she purposely fostered our relationship
to the point where I never hated him,
even if he wasn't around.
And so my mom would literally go buy me Christmas gifts,
go bring it to my dad, pick me up,
and then bring me to my father as if he gave me the gift.
Like my mom is, that's something special.
So I loved my dad.
I still love my dad, you know, my biological,
even if he ain't like just there all the time.
My biological father, I love him.
I'll call him, we'll talk maybe every couple months.
He's been sick lately.
I just visited him in the hospital.
He had an enlarged heart or something,
but I love my real dad.
So I started wanting to cook because of that.
And so I joined a culinary team at school.
We had a culinary team in high school
in this culinary class with Chef Sly.
He's gonna watch this.
He's a big fan of yours too.
But Chef Sly, he taught me everything I know about cooking.
And I started with him and I started cooking things at home.
I started baking different things.
I would sell like different things to bake at home. I would sell to the community. I made like cupcakes and
everything. I was really good at it. And then I also did this program called Move On We're Ready
where you could take college classes in high school. So I took the college classes at the
culinary school that we had in Albany, Albany Technical College. So I was there every day.
I was cramming classes. I went to high
school in the morning times. And then I would leave there at about 12 o'clock. My grandma
had bought me a car when I was younger, but she eventually started driving it. And I would
drive to the college and go take those classes. They would allow me to leave school to go
take the college classes. And I took those classes and people don't realize culinary
classes are long.
These are six to eight hour long classes
because you got to think, things have to bake,
things have to cook.
It's not a quick class.
Then we also did catering events.
I would sometimes come home at like one or two o'clock
in the morning at like 15, 16,
because I'm out cooking.
And my grandmother would just make sure I was okay,
make sure I had everything I needed,
make sure I ate food.
And I'll tell a little story about her later.
But yes, she would make sure I had everything I needed.
You know, since my grandmother, if I open my phone up,
I got prayers every single day.
She's sending me these long scriptures I read every morning.
I don't text back all the time.
She knows I read them.
She'll send me these videos, motivational videos,
but that's what she used to do when I was in high school.
Same thing.
She'd send me prayers, make sure I'm okay,
call, make sure I'm good.
And I graduated college before I graduated high school.
I walked across the college stage first
because he had spring graduation.
And then I graduated from high school right after that.
Wow.
Yep.
I mean, were you always a straight and narrow motivated kid?
For the most part until I got to eighth and ninth grade.
I tell everybody you have to go through your first heartbreak.
When I was in eighth grade, this girl,
I was dating in eighth grade.
I had planned my whole life out with her
after I started dating her.
And when we were about to get to high school,
she broke up with me this summer
when we were about to go to high school.
And I was confused.
I didn't know what she broke up with me for.
She was just like, well, I just want to go explore.
At that time, I didn't know what that really meant.
I'm like, what you mean you want to go explore? She was just like, well, I just want to go explore. At that time, I didn't know what that really meant. I'm like, what you mean you want to go explore?
She was just like, I just, you know,
I don't want us to just, you know, worry about each other.
Mind you, I had to, we just named our kids and everything.
I'm like, want to go live my whole life with you type deal.
She was all I thought about, you know, like,
that was my first like girlfriend girlfriend.
So I was, my whole ninth grade year,
she would like go in and talk to these other guys.
And I'm like, seeing this stuff, I'm just like, what? So my whole ninth grade year, she would like go in and talk to these other guys and I'm like seeing this stuff.
I'm just like, what?
So my whole ninth grade year, I chased her.
Like I just chased her.
I would just try to figure out what I could do to get her back and I'll get mad at the
guy she was talking to and things like that.
I'd try to meet her at her locker and like leave her letters and stuff like that.
I'm just this lover boy kid.
Like I'm just trying to get my girlfriend back.
I spent my whole ninth grade year doing that.
I lost all my grades. I was so upset. I just, I lost all confidence
in myself. On top of that, you know, I was, I was trying to find myself in the ninth grade.
Like I was trying to dress like everybody else. Cause when I was in middle school, I'll
tell this story too. I was in middle school and I'll get back into the first question
in a bit, but I was in middle school and my,
my sixth grade year, I wore a suit to picture day. I love suits.
I wore a suit to picture day.
I always did in elementary school too.
I wore a suit to every picture day.
I wore a suit to picture day in middle school in sixth grade.
I got to school, everybody picked on me the entire day
from front, like top to bottom,
cause I had on a suit.
And all they picked on me the whole day. Like, top to bottom, because I had on a suit. And oh, they picked on me the whole day.
Like, I mean, just picked on me.
I took my jacket off to just try and alleviate some of it.
They picked on me from my shoes, everything.
I had a decent suit on.
It was a pretty nice suit.
And oh, they picked on me the whole day.
I never wanted to wear a suit again, ever.
I just never doing it again.
So every picture day after that, I just wore regular clothes like everybody else did.
And people would pick on me still
because I didn't wear the different name brands
that they were wearing.
I would wear Beverly Hills Polo Club.
That's what I wanted to wear.
My mom wouldn't pour or anything
so she could afford to do things.
She drove trucks sometimes.
My stepdad worked at a Marine base.
So, it ain't like I needed for anything.
But I wanted to wear Beverly Hills Polo Club.
So everybody picked on me for that for a long time.
So then I started, I had my mom buy me some of the
merchandise that they were wearing.
I get to school, everybody's like,
well about time you finally buy some, you know,
this stuff, they still talking about me.
So I get to ninth grade, I'll never forget,
there's one of the cheerleaders, I still remember her.
I'll never forget, I always thought I was maybe ugly
or something like that,
because nobody ever wanted to talk to me.
She was a senior cheerleader,
and she told me I looked as sexy one day.
And I was like, you talking to me?
And she was like, yeah, you, you look good.
I was just like, thanks.
From that day forward, I got all my confidence back.
Never forget it.
She probably doesn't even remember that right now.
But I'll never forget, they say many remember
all their compliments, because we don't get many.
But I got all my confidence back.
I started back wearing suits.
I wore a suit to school every single day
from 11th and 12th grade year, every single day.
Every single day?
Every single day.
You wore a suit?
A suit.
And if I didn't have a suit on,
I had on some type of nice sweater with a tie on,
like if it was too cold or something,
and I had a briefcase.
I never had a binder, I had a briefcase.
All my school work was in my briefcase every single day.
I cut my hair off.
I had like a box, but I cut my hair,
so I had a low haircut.
And at that time, I was like the school mascot at the time.
Like my principal would allow me
to go speak at different schools.
Like they were so impressed, like just how I carried myself.
Like my principal was like,
hey, can you go speak at this you know, this elementary school on behalf
of Westover and things like that. So he'd always announce me over the end to come like, hey,
we're going to have King around to go speak at, you know, the elementary school, you know,
let's congratulate him for a job well done. So I would do that, be going to do my college classes.
It was great. So I found myself. So I left high school, I graduated high school,
and I got married to my son's mom. And we got married immediately out of high school, I graduated high school, and I got married to my son's mom.
And we got married immediately out of high school.
I went to the Marine Corps right after that.
I originally wasn't going to do that,
but I found myself not having anything to do.
I just didn't feel accomplished in life.
And my best friends at the time...
You didn't feel accomplished graduating college
before you graduated high school?
I didn't feel accomplished.
I was working at Chick-fil-A. I was working on trying to find a good cooking job, at the time. You didn't feel accomplished graduating college before you graduated high school? I didn't feel accomplished.
I was working at Chick-fil-A.
I was working on trying to find a good cooking job,
but I just didn't, nothing was hitting for me.
It just wasn't what I wanted.
So my best friends, all my best friends had
went to the Marines, every last one of them.
All of them went at the same time.
And so I'm just, they write me letters,
I'm writing them letters, but I'm just like,
let me go see what they doing.
So I'm on YouTube looking at boot camp, you know,
I'm just like, I could do that. Like, why like why not you know like I ain't doing nothing else so I
went to the recruiting office talked to the recruiter and off I went to the Marines I got married off I
went to the Marines I met so many brothers there that we are still you know super close to this
day I was a reserve so I was able to be stationed back home, a 3051 supply.
But anyway, I got back home after combat training
and things like that.
I get back home and my grandmother,
while I was in boot camp, was sending me those letters,
reminding me of what I told you previously
about me finishing what Dr. King started.
So I took a second to sit down.
I said, okay, let me just figure out
what exactly that's supposed to mean.
So I did research on Dr. King for like a month straight,
every single day.
I had deleted all social media off my phone.
I had no social media at the time, anything.
Like I was just studying, studying, studying.
I'm like, what exactly did Dr. King,
like I'm not understanding what's happening.
So I'm studying, I'm listening to speeches, I'm reading books, I'm not understanding what's happening, so I'm studying.
I'm listening to speeches, I'm reading books,
I'm going through stuff, I'm trying to figure out
what exactly did Dr. King not finish?
I don't get it, I'm not understanding this.
And I don't tell this story often
because people think it's weird,
but I always tell the story privately,
but I want to share this with you.
So I'll never forget, I was studying him,
I'm listening to speeches, I started listening
to Malcolm X, and I'm listening to Malcolm X,
like, this sounds like 2020, like, well, 2019, 2020,
like, this is crazy.
It sounds like now, he's basically advocating
for us doing for ourselves and opening up schools
and opening up banks and opening up stores.
And I'm like, why don't we doing that?
You know, so anyway, I went to the Dr. King Memorial
In Atlanta because I'm like, well, maybe I'll find something here. I went there
I'm looking at all his old cufflinks and they got old shirts and stuff and old letters
He wrote and I'm just and they're looking around just
Nothing's it's not nothing. It's
Hitting I'm just like I don't understand like I really didn't understand like why would I say that because I remember saying it
I can't lie. I say I did not remember saying it and I'm like, really didn't understand. Like why would I say that? Because I remember saying it. I can't lie and say I didn't. I remember saying it. And I'm like I don't understand. Like I don't get it. I'm going through the
museum still and I get to this room in there and my ex-wife at the time
she was with me and I'll never forget we I get to this room where the carriage
carried the casket that brought him through Atlanta, you know,
when he was in the casket.
And in this room, just like this one,
it has on all over the walls, newspaper articles
from when he was killed, all the headlines from Dr. King.
I was walking through there
and I was looking at the headlines
and I'll never forget, there was this newspaper article
from the Pittsburgh Courier, April 20th of 1968, it said,
will a new King emerge?
And at that moment, I realized that Dr. King
didn't train any replacements.
And that's where I had the idea
that we need to work with young people.
And before I ever decide to figure out what it is
that Dr. King was trying to finish,
as I'm still figuring it out now,
I'm in the city that Dr. King failed in for one,
and my name is King. If you look at all of my social media handles they
all say new emerging King and I reached out to the Pittsburgh Courier because
they're actually currently trying to find that original newspaper for me
because I don't put it up on my wall. But that meant something to me and so
that's when I started working with kids. I originally started taking them on
field trips. Now hold on, how old were you?
I was like 19.
19?
Yeah, I was 19.
Mm-hmm.
So basically the motivation came from your grandmother.
Yeah.
Telling you, you need to finish what Dr. King started.
Yep, I told her that and she never let me forget it.
I told her that I think I was about three years old.
Yep.
So I've known for a while what I was here to do.
And living in Albany, Dr. King mentioned Albany
and the failures that he made in the city of Albany.
And till this day, he mentioned the mindset
of the people of Albany, and still the same to this day.
And I mentioned on a video yesterday,
I hadn't released yet, but as I've been maneuvering
through the city as of late,
I've been going to different volunteer workshops.
I've been going to different smaller things in the city
to show my face.
The reason I've been doing that is because
ever since I've been maneuvering,
I used to not like go out to the grocery stores
unless it was early in the morning
or like never go out to eat,
because people would see me.
But I've watched people in Albany almost look at me
like they don't believe in anything else,
but they believe in me.
And it's been so special to see,
just going to the grocery store and people just like,
King, it's so good to see you.
I love everything that's happening.
You inspire me to be a better father, you know, to my kids.
Or, you know, moms is like,
I really want my son to join your program.
Or kids who are even recognizing me.
Like, that's Mr. King Randall.
Like, he be on Instagram, like, helping the kids.
Like, it's, I try my hardest.
Like, I've been all over the world.
I've spoken to the biggest celebrities, whatever.
And I never want people to feel like
that I've gotten too big for our small hometown, ever.
I still go volunteer at the smallest places.
I still go to all the mom and pop restaurants
that I've always frequented since I was younger.
I still give $100 to every waiter
that I run into in Albany, every last one,
even if they did good or bad service,
because I don't know why they gave me bad service.
They maybe having a bad day,
their mom could have died, anything.
And I do that.
And so people remember me for small stuff like that.
I never, speaking of the waiter thing,
I was going to get my, I got a pet snake,
my kids wanted a pet snake.
I was going to get him a gerbil to eat or whatever.
And the lady that was working in there,
she said, you look familiar
I'm just like, you know, of course, I mean most people, you know, ring me as King Ram
She was like you're that guy that gave me a hundred dollars two years ago when I was waiting at the fire grill
Which is one of our mom's pot restaurant. She was like, I'm she's like that like meant so much to me
She didn't even know my name, but she remembered my face. I'd have no clue. I did not remember who she was
I don't remember giving her the hundred dollars But I know I did it because I do that for every who she was. I don't remember giving her the $100,
but I know I did it because I do that for every waiter.
And even if I don't got it,
I won't go out to eat unless I got $100 to get a waiter.
Because I remember when I used to be with my ex-wife,
we trying to get pennies up in the car
to go just have us a little ice cream date.
Like just, we don't even have money,
like just go get some ice cream.
We getting $50, trying to figure some stuff out.
You know, so I remember all that stuff.
Or like now I give to local businesses now.
I do a scholarship now for kids in Albany
because they can't afford, you know,
like to go to school and stuff.
So I do my own scholarship just for kids
in the city of Albany.
The only condition is they have to remain
in the city of Albany.
You have to put back into our city
because that's what I believe in.
But I give to local businesses,
I've given to some of those mom and pop shops
or whatever that have fed me for so many times.
So most times people are trying to,
around Albany they want to give me discounts
on things like my tailor before I got here.
The guy who tailored these pants before,
he used HEMINTATE.
And so when I was about to put them, he used HEMINTATE.
And so when I was about to put them on, the HEMINTATE came off and I didn't have a hem
on my pants anymore.
And this was like one of the only suits that I could fit until my new suits come in because
I've been working out.
And so, and I had this new shirt that came in.
I was like, I need it tailored.
Like, I got to go tomorrow.
Like, I need to tailor them a couple of hours.
She's like, I got you.
But he tried to give me a discount.
I'm like, no.
I texted him.
I said, listen to me. I said, don't ever give me a discount, ever,
because I'm just like, I want you to have all your coins.
If you're going to charge somebody else,
that's not me, charge me the same thing.
And I still tipped him.
And I'm like, I told him to make sure you add
where they could tip you on your little Square account.
And I tipped him too.
The guy who washes my cars, or whatever,
he's a great guy, or whatever like that.
I tip him every single time he washes my vehicles,
and I tip him nicely.
And he's just always grateful for it.
And I do small things for so many people
I never just share, but I really love my city,
and people believe in me like no end.
People believe in me more than
I've seen them believe in themselves.
And that's a charge I got.
So it's like now I'm like, okay, let me do what I can
to help fix my own city.
Even this older lady, we're about to help her fix her house
in the historic district.
She called me when I got
an historic preservation commission.
And she was like, I've been trying to get somebody
to come help fix my house for the longest.
She's like 80 something.
I go to this lady's house.
It's the worst house I've ever seen in my life.
And she doesn't even have pipes under the ground.
The water she runs goes straight to the ground outside.
The house is so unleveled, like you're,
it's walking like this.
She's cooking in her foods like this.
Wow. It's insane.
So, and then she can't even get in her tub
because she's had a hip replacement, so she can't get,
so she's having to sponge bathe
because she cannot actually get in her tub because she's had a hip replacement. So she can't get, so she's having to sponge bathe because she cannot actually get in her tub.
And I get to this lady's house and I'm like,
how long you been living?
Like the house is sitting on some two by fours.
I'm like, it's sitting on some wood
and the wood's gonna rot.
I'm like, this house could fall in like at any time.
You know, and so I called my contractor friend.
I'm like, listen, can we get this fixed up in any way?
He like, yeah, we gotta start with it.
Cause at first he called me just about the bathroom,
just so she could have a walk in shower.
I'm like, sure, why not?
We get there, I'm just like,
the contractor was like, dude,
we can't do nothing until we like,
first of all, get some plumbing in here,
and also level this house out.
So, you know, he gave us a quote for that.
And you know, I was able to, you know,
share that on social media, like,
but when I get there, this lady like mr. King like it's so good
I see you on the TV sometime like on the news like doing the things with the kids and she was like
I didn't know you were so young you the commissioner on the historic president. I'm like, yeah
She's like I didn't expect you to be so young but these people believe you know in me
And it's heavy sometime. It is it It's a little pressure here and there,
but I don't mind it.
Bruce Wayne got a lot of pressure to keep the city fixed.
Everybody don't like Bruce Wayne either.
But my son loves the Batman and we love the Joker,
so we always use that.
But I have a call, and there's this old Baptist song
when I grew up in the Baptist church.
You may not know it, but it's an old devotional song
called A Charge to Keep.
I mean, it's a charge to keep that I have
and a God to glorify and to serve this present age.
Like, that's the song that we sung all the time growing up
and I never understood it.
But now it's like, I have a charge to keep
in this present age, you know, to fulfill for God.
How did you decide that you were gonna go after
the younger generation?
There's this one time where I did try to work with it.
I'll tell you what's interesting.
Go ahead, go ahead.
What's interesting is it doesn't sound like you grew up
in a poor, broken home.
No.
It sounds like you grew up in a very good home,
with good parents, good grandparents,
maybe surrounded by people that weren't as fortunate as you.
And so, where did the vision come in?
Is it who you grew up with that made you want to
go after the younger generation?
So going after the younger generation,
I'm going to mention what I started out doing.
When I first started working in the City of Albany, I originally started
working with older men, like actual men, not kids.
But then-
Like what age? 23?
Just men. I just invited men to come to these different barbershop events I would have.
At age what? 19?
Yeah, I was 19. Yeah, I was 19. And so I started out working with these men.
How do you start out working with men at 19?
How do you influence older men?
I mean, you're dealing with egos.
Yeah.
You're dealing with people that don't believe you.
I mean.
That's why I stopped working with them.
So originally it was, I was working at a barber shop
and I'm telling them like, look,
like we could do all these different things
to try and help fix the city of Albany. But for one, because there's this kid who's
telling us what we could be doing with the city of Albany. So I stopped working with
the men because they stopped coming to the events that I was doing, trying to, you know,
encourage us to go do things. I took these kids on a field trip to the Center for Civil
and Human Rights and African American History Museum in Atlanta. So here are these kids on a field trip to the Center for Civil and Human Rights and African American History Museum in Atlanta.
To hear these kids asking these questions, to hear them not wanting to be in their condition, that's where I knew I had to work with kids.
And immediately after that, I started working with them. I started doing oil change workshops.
I started doing brake repair workshops, teaching them how to work on cars, etc. And these workshops were a hit.
But I was still working, driving a forklift at the time.
And I'll never forget,
my job told me that I fell asleep at work.
I was working a graveyard shift.
They told me I fell asleep at work
and everybody was trying to call me over to intercom,
et cetera, and I wouldn't answer.
I don't remember falling asleep,
but they said I fell asleep, so they let me go.
I asked my wife at the time,
I say, can I do a summer camp at the house?
She was like, yeah, you can do a summer camp at the house.
I was like, okay, cool.
And mind you, Baby King wasn't even one yet.
My son was a couple months old.
So I posted this flyer online,
and I said I'm gonna be offering to teach kids
how to grow their own food.
And I learned that this is growing up, by the way.
So I'm teaching them how to grow their own food.
I'm teaching them how to work on cars. I'm teaching them how to work on cars.
I'm teaching them how to work on houses.
We're going to do math.
We're going to read, et cetera.
I found a couple tables.
I turned my dining room into a classroom.
And I got this little small dry erase board from Staples
for like $24.
And that's where I started teaching.
They brought their kids to me every single day. I was still 19. I had 20 parents brought their kids to me every single day.
I was still 19.
I had 20 parents bring their kids to me every single day.
20 parents?
Right off the get go.
Right off the get go.
And I'll never.
What's the literacy rate in Albany?
If you would've asked me, I could've been able to tell you.
I will say that our kids that came to work with me, maybe 17 out of the 20 of them could
not read on grade level.
And I had maybe like five of them who couldn't read at all.
And imagine these kids were 11, starting out at 11, 11 to 17 was the age group.
And I mean, I had a kid who couldn't read cat dog.
And I'm like, son, how exactly are you in the sixth grade and you can't read at all?
Who exactly passed you through school
not being able to read?
That's where I got the idea at the time.
I said, well, I'm gonna open up a school one day.
So I don't know when I'm gonna do it,
but I'm gonna open up a school
and I know where we're getting money from,
but we're gonna open up a school.
But that's when I started truly working with kids
after I discovered that kids
don't wanna be in their condition.
They just want somewhere in an atmosphere
where it's cool to do the right thing.
And how did you find 20 parents right off the bat?
Facebook, I just posted the flyer online.
People, yeah, I think when school's out,
we have a lot of poor parents and stuff.
They can't afford these summer camps.
They can't afford to send their kids out,
so the kids are just stuck at home.
So it was a summer camp.
Yeah, it was a summer camp.
So the kids were stuck at home.
So the moment somebody's online saying,
hey, you can bring your kids over here,
they don't really care at that point.
They just want their kids somewhere
where they think something constructive's going on
while they at school, I mean, while they at work,
or going to school, whatever they're doing.
They just don't want their kids just at home.
So that's where we got the 20 parents from.
How many hours a day were you spending on this?
Nine to three.
Nine to three?
Yep.
How are you making money?
Do you have an occupation?
Yeah, I was a skilled tradesman.
So my brother came to live with me when he was about 12
or 13, he was losing himself at the time.
He's in military school now in Marion, Alabama,
at a military institute or Marion Military Institute.
But with him, he and I would go around
and fix people's cars.
I learned how to do that off of YouTube.
I had previous experience working on cars,
but obviously, you know, working on different cars,
you have different things.
So when people would say, hey, I need my car fixed,
I asked them, you know, what exactly needs to be done?
I need my starter changed, send asked them, you know, what exactly needs to be done. I need my starter change. Send me the year making
model. I got a 2009 Chevy Malibu. Cool. YouTube. YouTube how to change starter on a Chevy
Malibu. I basically determined what I felt like the labor costed and I told them, I'm
like, hey, this is how much I'll charge for that. We'll go and do it. That's how I got
a light bill paid. Then I learned how to cut hair while I was in the Marines, while I was
in the barracks at Camp,
what was it, Camp Johnson?
I think I was at Camp Johnson.
But I learned how to cut hair in the barracks
because the base barbers were trash
and everybody got tired of their haircuts being janky.
So I was like, look, how about y'all just let me practice
on y'all head.
I'll watch a couple YouTube videos
and I went and bought some little cheap clippers
from Walmart and everybody would just come like,
I don't care if you practice on my head, to be frank,
because it looks like they practicing, so why not?
So I eventually got good at it.
I got really good at cutting hair.
And so that's what I started doing in the city of Albany too.
So whenever I went fixing somebody's car,
I would do house calls, I didn't care what time it was.
I would have to go out at 12 o'clock at night
to go cut somebody's hair.
And I would do that because I didn't have a regular job.
So I had to go put up somebody's door,
or go put in a window frame, or go change a regular job, so I had to go put up somebody's door, or go put in a window frame,
or go change a ceiling fan, or go paint somebody's, you know, wall, because that's how I made money.
That's how I funded our field trips to take the kids different places.
When I wanted to take the kids somewhere, I would find something to do.
I mentioned to Wyatt earlier, the way me and my brother made our first thousand dollars.
Granted, it was cheap at the time, but we made our first thousand dollars.
We were at Home Depot, and this lady,
while we were in there, we were actually looking
for some paint for someone else's,
the inside of somebody's house,
they wanted a room painted,
so we were looking for the color paint they wanted.
And this lady came up to us, and she said,
"'Hey, do y'all paint?'
We were like, "'Yeah, we paint like that.'"
And she was like, "'Well, do y'all paint houses?'
I'm like, "'Yeah, we paint, yes, ma'am, we paint houses.'" she's like, I mean like the outside, like y'all paint the outside and stuff.
I'm just, I looked at him, look at me.
We had never painted outside our house before and I was like, yes, ma'am, we paint houses.
We paint houses. You just come get you a coat. She's like, yeah, come by my house, this is the address, and this is my phone number.
I said, okay, cool.
We hadn't painted a house in a day in our life.
But we went out there because I wanted to make sure the house wasn't too big, like it wasn't nothing crazy. It was actually a nice, small, perfect home
that we could paint.
It was perfectly square, not no crooks and crevices,
it was perfect.
She wanted to paint it a completely different color.
So we said, okay, cool.
We'll charge a thousand dollars for it.
That's cause we didn't have no experience.
So we sat on YouTube for like three hours
watching videos of people
painting houses from all the equipment we needed, etc. We went and rented all the
equipment. So we had her give us a deposit. All the deposit went to all the
equipment basically. We didn't know how much equipment cost it. So we went and
rented a paint sprayer from Bob White Rents and Albany. They got to rent all
this stuff out. So we rented a paint sprayer, etc. We painted our house and maybe like a
week and that's how we made our first thousand dollars.
And from then on, you know,
we started pressure washing people's driveways,
because we had to pressure wash the house first.
And so I had to learn how to operate a pressure washer.
So then I started, hey, we can pressure wash the drive.
We can pressure wash the house.
I just made it work.
Me and my brother would just hop in my grandma's truck,
and we would figure it out.
Like, that's what we did.
My grandma would allow us to borrow her truck
to go put stuff in the back, and we figured it it out. Like that's what we did. My grandma would allow us to borrow her truck to go put stuff in the back and we figured it out.
So I never got a regular job.
I just wanted it.
And that's what I believe in.
Wow.
So nine to three, you're teaching kids how to grow food,
how to do math, how to read, how to write.
Yep.
And then three to whenever you're
Whenever.
Basically an entrepreneur.
Yep, absolutely.
Do whatever you can.
Yep, I did whatever I could,
because I didn't want, for one, my son was a baby baby,
and I never did my wife working or anything like that.
She had to go get a job, and I didn't like that.
Like, it just messed with my psyche.
You know, I was at home with a kid, you know?
So, it just kind of messed with me a little bit.
And that was for a very short amount of time
I literally picked up my business fast
I can start posting on Facebook about me fixing cars or whatever and people started booking me to come do their different things
So she eventually was able to leave that job after like a little while and um
So she could get back home and I was out with my brother. We were again, you know, just
Doing whatever we could to make some money. How fast did you get 20 people to show up to your program?
Originally?
20 parents.
How many kids?
Yeah, it was 20 kids.
So when I say 20, they all had parents.
So it was 20 kids.
But yeah, it was pretty fast.
I probably had that post up maybe about two weeks and we had everybody signed up in that
20, yeah, that two weeks.
Yeah.
Did you think it was going to happen that fast?
Nah.
Everything that you've seen happen for the X of Boys program, I've never thought would
happen as fast as that.
Did you have a curriculum lined up or were you just winging it?
I winged it for the most part.
I had an idea.
I had a layout.
Okay, I'm going to teach this today, and on Tuesday I'm going to teach this, and Wednesday
I'm going to teach that, and we grew squash and cucumbers and all that stuff
during that time or whatever.
I just did what I thought was best for that time
during that day.
Of course, I've matured a lot.
I've learned about everything.
I didn't have an LLC done.
I didn't know nothing about any of that stuff.
I'm just helping some kids.
It's strictly volunteer, right?
Yeah, it was strictly volunteers.
I just did what I could with the kids.
What age group?
What spread? It was 11 to 17 at that time. 11 to kids. Now we're here. What age group?
What spread?
It was 11 to 17 at that time.
11 to 17.
So you're teaching, I mean how do you, 11 to 17,
that's a big range.
I attribute, it is, but I attribute the discipline
that I was able to give them to the Marine Corps.
I believe if I never went to the Marines,
the program wouldn't be as successful as it is.
People have asked me, how am I able,
like I used to have, I had 40 kids at one point
and it was just me.
And people are like, how do you control them?
Like, how are you able to get them?
I said, you gotta think, we all have like
three drill instructors and like 90 kids.
Like, you know, but I remembered what they did
to control us.
And so I did the same thing with them.
So when we go out, they're just like,
man, they're so mannerable.
And they saying, yes sir, no sir,
they giving the proper greeting of the day, et cetera.
Like, how are they doing this?
I'm just like, I just attribute it to what I learned
in the Marine Corps.
I just talk them that.
I don't allow a lot of mistakes when they mess up,
they get in trouble for it.
High knees, mountain climbers, pushups, et cetera.
That's how we did it.
And they respected me, for one, because I was younger.
A lot of them didn't know I was 19 at first.
I didn't tell them to around the end of camp. They was like, Mr. Ken, you 19?
Your mentor and kids are only two years younger than you.
17 years old. One of them turned 18 while he was there. But they respected me so much
because they saw I had my own house. I had my own car. I was raising my son. I had a
wife. They saw all of that. So they obviously thought I was older. But then it became inspiration
to them because, man, I could be young and helping people
and doing okay for myself.
Is that uncommon in Albany?
Yeah, it is.
It's uncommon.
Yep.
It is uncommon.
How fast has it spread?
Thanks for Boys program?
Yeah.
Fast.
After that summer camp,
we became the most popular program in the city. Wow. To this day camp, we became the most popular program in the city.
Wow.
To this day, we're still the most popular program
in Albany.
Where'd you come up with the name?
The Extra Boys.
X equals unknown.
And so we're trying to give these boys the unknown variable.
What are some of the success stories out of there?
You know what?
This is, I was hoping you got here.
I probably have maybe a couple hundred kids
that I've worked with.
I probably only have like four success stories,
true success stories.
You only have four?
Absolutely.
This is why I dig into the failures of the program.
So, for the past six years,
I've worked with kids at ages 11 to 17.
And I'll dig into the success stories in a second,
but I have to talk about it
while I talk about their success. I worked with kids at ages 11 to 17. And I'll dig into the success stories in a second, but I have to talk about it while I talk about their success.
I worked with kids ages 11 to 17,
more teenagers than not.
But during my time working with these,
in the program, I had this rule,
like I was like, I'll never kick a kid out of the program.
You know, we're going to do what we can,
even if they don't want to be here,
we're going to try and make them do it
and different things like that.
I'll never turn a kid down, et cetera.
So during that time, I had many kids that I working with
that just didn't want to be there.
They were constantly unruly, didn't want to be there,
messing up the experience for other kids, et cetera.
And at the time I didn't realize, you know,
that that was actually affecting, you know, teaching
because I spent so much time disciplining versus teaching.
I didn't realize I was I was wasting a lot
of time of those kids who actually wanted to be there because they got to
get in trouble too because they acting up. They can't go somewhere because they
acting up. They can't get the teaching because they acting up. So I spent years
doing that thinking that I was doing the right thing like by just trying to make
them do it and trying to discipline them as much as possible, et cetera.
And I'll never forget when I realized it all,
I had a student named Bryston.
I had started allowing some younger kids to come in,
like just because.
And I was still having the older kids come in too,
but I had some younger kids start coming in also.
And I'll never forget, Bryston's a great kid,
on the road student, whatever. And he told his mom, he said, mom, I love
the program. I love Mr. King, but it's not, I don't know if I can stay that long because
I'm other kids so bad. And I thought about it for a second. And I realized that I got
a whole lot of kids in there in that room who want to be there. And I spent half of
this class period fussing that kids who didn't want to be there and I spent half of this class period
fussing that kids who didn't want to be here who were unruly who have said they don't want
to be here and I should just send them home from that point on every kid who didn't want
to be there I told their mom they didn't have to come back because I have children here
that we are messing the experience up. We're ruining the experience for those children
who could actually be changed.
Then I realized it hit me again
that I don't have that many success stories
because all these children,
they have had to get punched in the face by life
for them to call me and say,
Mr. King, I appreciate you.
But they have already made mistakes.
They have already had a child too early.
They already have went to jail.
I've had kids call me from jail and say,
Mr. King, I hadn't talked to you in two years.
Mr. King, I appreciate everything you're trying to teach me.
I realize it now.
Life had to hit them in the face first.
Our program is-
I would say that's a success story.
I can say it's success, but what I mean by success is-
You definitely impacted hundreds of kids.
Yes, I impacted them, yeah.
Now to the degree and what level they achieve in life,
that's out of your control, but you've shown them,
I believe you've shown them in,
I mean, look, you've rerouted the norm.
Yes. You've rerouted the norm.
Yes. You've rerouted the norm or shown them that the norm,
that the, you know, the normal path in Albany, New York
can be rerouted.
And there is a whole other side of life.
We have all the Georgia's.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
And so, I mean, I would say
that's gotta be a lot more than four.
Yeah, so impact and success.
Thank you for mentioning that
because I can start using that because that's important.
So when I mentioned success stories,
I have about four students who embody everything
that I've taught in the past six years.
The reason that they embody is because I had students
that I allowed to be blessed in the program
if they had older brothers.
So if they were younger,
the only way they could come into the program
is they had an older brother that was there.
Those kids started out maybe seven, eight years old.
Those children now literally live by the rules
of the extra boys because they started almost as a baby
in the program watching me tell them to get a proper greener today,
watching me tell them to keep their hygiene up
and making sure they're bathing, et cetera, et cetera.
So now these kids are like 13, 14 years old,
and their teachers are calling like,
hey, I just want to tell you I appreciate this student
because he said he's been in the S Voice program
and this is why he says yes ma'am and no ma'am
and comes in every morning and tells me good morning and you know does his work and tries to make
sure he's doing the right thing.
And it's four of them, I got one of them painted on the mural outside of our building, his
name is Bryson Pitts.
And he is the number one example of our program, Bryson Pitts.
He's a fantastic kid.
He's playing trombone at his middle school. He's about to go to high school soon.
But he is fantastic. He does everything correctly. He keeps everybody in line, etc.
I can't say the same all the way for his brother or whatever or even
Kendarius. He's one of my other success stories. Great kid. Can't say the same for his brother either or whatever because again
I started with him for so late and I can say that about him because I call their, can't say the same for his brother either, or whatever, because again, I started with them for so late.
And I can say that about them
because I call their brothers and tell them the same thing.
I'm like, you know you can be doing a whole lot better.
I taught you so much.
So why aren't you doing what I taught you?
But again, that's life.
But their brother's fantastic.
So those are some success stories that I could talk about.
But that's why we've shifted our age range now
to seven to nine.
So we begin again in March next month.
You've shifted the entire program from seven to nine?
To seven to nine, yep.
So seven to nine or seven to 17?
Oh, ages seven.
No, ages seven through nine, that's it.
That's it?
That's it.
No kidding.
Yep, we have switched it now because I believe that those children now, well, children now are losing themselves a lot sooner. That's it. That's it. That's it. No kidding. Yep.
We have switched it now because I believe that those children now, well, children now
are losing themselves a lot sooner.
I've had third graders smoking.
Like this is what's happening now.
And being in the city of Albany, these kids are learning so much from other children,
just from what's happening in their homes, even from molestation, et cetera.
That's a huge issue that I've run into that a couple of times working with kids even from molestation, et cetera. That's a huge issue.
I've run into that a couple times working with kids,
the molestation and family violence.
Huge issue.
And these children are losing themselves a lot sooner.
And I believe that, again, so many kids are hearing moms say,
make sure you do the right thing.
And everybody's saying, be good.
And the teachers are saying, be good.
But everybody's punishing you for it.
I'm being good and everybody's picking on me.
I'm being good and everybody's, no one to be my friend.
I'm trying to do the right thing.
I'm trying to do my work and everybody's being mean.
They need an atmosphere where it is cool
to do the right thing.
And so they need somewhere where they can come,
where they get praised for great grades.
They need somewhere they can come and be praised
for having intellectual conversation.
They need to come somewhere where they can be praised for making sure they keep their
hygiene up, etc.
Kids will pick on you for, because all the other kids don't know how to iron their clothes,
they'll pick on you for looking nice.
Again, we want to give them an opportunity in an environment where it's cool to do the
right thing.
And if a child does not want to be in our program, they don't have to be there.
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That's patreon.com slash vigilance elite. We talk a lot about generational trauma on the show and stuff like that.
And I think, I mean, you got to, you can't make light of showing people that there's
another option because people get, they get stuck in the same cycle.
They see their parents in it.
They see their grandparents in it.
They see the people, you know, younger than them in it. They see the people younger than them in it.
They see all the families around them in it.
And so even if you just have planted a seed
in that community that shows them like,
hey, there are other options out there
and I'm showing you, look at what's happening here.
This is another option.
This is a way out of that generational curse
that so many people are stuck in.
I mean, don't make light of that, man.
That's a big success story.
Even if it doesn't happen right off the bat,
when you look back, even if it's 10, 20 years from now,
I mean, you've planted the seed in there.
They know.
I know.
I just critique myself a lot, you know?
So it's just...
Not everything has to be a grand slam.
Absolutely, but you know, if we're going to swing the bat,
we're going to swing it hard.
So definitely, but yeah, I appreciate you even saying that
because I could definitely use that from now on.
Absolutely.
I mean, what's the response from the parents?
Response from parents is always great.
Granted, I ain't got the best reviews from all the parents,
because again, I discipline a different way,
and I hold kids accountable.
So I've had parents accuse me of lying on their kids,
like I'll tell them, hey, your son did such and such.
No, my child didn't, he didn't do that.
You're just lying on my son, et cetera, et cetera.
I'm just like, that's fine, man.
I don't see what reason I have to lie on your child.
I'm like, what does it benefit me?
But whatever.
But for the most part, parents adore the program.
Again, we've done so much for parents.
We've done workshops for parents themselves.
Parents in workshops, I had people come in,
help them prepare their credit, different things like that.
I just try to help parents as much as possible
because they have to go home to these parents.
So I could be giving them teaching all day,
then they go home and go right back into the stupid stuff.
So we try to incentivize parents also
teaching the same discipline at home.
We try to make sure we incentivize them,
making sure they're doing the right thing at home too.
Because even though we have them for quite a bit of time,
we want to make sure those kids
are doing the same thing at home
because we hate to have to keep reteaching the same thing
because you're allowing them to go back into
who they used to be.
But response from parents is always great.
We've had a lot of videos with parents giving testimonials
and different things like that.
So definitely happy about the parents
who truly support our program.
Are the parents pretty receptive
to the information you're teaching them?
You would think not, but they are.
I haven't had any parents that got mad at me
for telling them they should do better with their children,
because I will tell them, I'm like, listen.
Like I remember one time this parent came to me
about her son's attitude.
She was like, oh, he always turning his nose up at me and he doing this and that,
et cetera, et cetera.
But while she was saying that, I'm looking at her face
and she's doing the exact same mannerisms that he does.
I said, as soon as she finished, I said, hey, mom,
I said, listen to me.
I said, you were just talking to me about him
and you were doing everything that he does.
He gets that from you.
You should stop doing that stuff
and maybe he'd stop it
because he's only watching you.
And she didn't even recognize it until I told her.
And she was like, I didn't even realize that
because I am doing the same movements.
I am turning my face up.
I'm like, exactly.
He does that here and he does that at home,
but he's doing it because you do it.
And so it caused her to critique herself
and caused her to stop.
I mean, here's some stats that we got from you.
0.01% recidivism rate, 82% proficiency in general contracting,
86% increase in reading comprehension,
91% improvement in grades, and 93% proficiency in automotive repair.
I mean, dude, this is a huge success.
This isn't like four wonder kids out of hundreds that,
I mean, you got to give yourself more credit.
I will, I just.
Like what?
You know, I mentioned mindset earlier,
and like I said before, yeah, I mean, yeah, the kids,
we've done firearms training,
we've done all types of different training,
welding, et cetera, so yeah, they've. We've done all types of different training, welding, et cetera.
So yeah, they've learned how to do a lot of different things, I think, are beneficial
for their lives.
But at the same time, you know, I'm bigger on fixing their mindsets and the character
that they have.
Because I could have a kid, you know, who's, he could do all that stuff on the list.
He could go change the oil for you.
He could paint a house.
He could, you know, do firearms training, et cetera.
But he could still be a terrible person.
And it's important for me to make sure
we're creating the better people.
And that's what I believe in.
So yeah, definitely, you know,
we are big on teaching the trades,
just showing them that there are different ways
to make money, no doubt.
But we want to fix on that character.
That's the bigger thing in Let Us Make Man.
What do you think some of the problems stems? I mean, we talked about fatherhood at the very beginning. to fix on that character. That's the bigger thing in Let Us Make Man.
What do you think some of the problems stems?
I mean, we talked about fatherhood at the very beginning.
Do you think fatherhood is a major problem in that area?
Yeah, absolutely.
The lack of true male presence
is probably one of the bigger issues.
In order to be a man, you have to see a man.
That's it.
And people will try to say,
oh, well, my mom raised me by herself,
and I was a good man.
I said, if your mom raised you by yourself
and you became a good man
it's because you was on the football team,
you had a gym coat somewhere,
you had male presence in your life.
Your mom wasn't the sole person raising you completely.
You never ran into any other men
that had any impact on you.
And no, absolutely not.
And moms will be honest about that. But I'm like, do not sit here and tell me that your mom impact on you and you know absolutely not and most and moms would be honest about that but I did do not sit here and
tell me that your mom never put you on the football team never let you play
basketball you never had a male teacher anywhere you never had no male presence
at all and you became a great person I believe you have to have that balance any
single moms that have raised good men is because they put them around good men
too yeah they might have done it by themselves but they also put them on
football teams.
A lot of single moms will make sure their kids are in sports.
They will make sure their kids have some type of male
around them, you know, good moms anyway,
to make sure that they become something successful.
Because most moms who refuse to put their men,
I mean, put men around their sons,
usually end up some gangbanger, et cetera.
Like I guarantee it, and I've seen it,
and I can say this because I've worked with children
for so long, I can guarantee that that's what's happening
like every time.
And again, some parents, they don't want to parent.
They don't want to be a parent.
They just having sex and having kids
and don't want to parent.
Some people try to use us as a second parent
and so they don't have to do nothing.
Granted, I try to, you try to do what I can with their sons,
but it's hard because I need your assistance, Mom.
I really need your help with him.
You can't just throw him off to me,
because the program's free.
You can't just throw him off to me,
but coming now in March, we will have rules for parents.
And as much as I don't want to,
we will kick some children out of the program
because of their parents.
And because I want the parents to be accountable also.
And I have to be a little cutthroat like that.
As much as I may love that child,
and as much as I may have built a relationship,
if that mom does not assist us with her child
in a meaningful way,
we will let them go from the program.
Wow.
Well, I mean, with the lack of fathers,
where are the fathers?
Where are they at?
What are they doing?
Let's get into realness.
We got a lot of moms also that have fathers
that do want to be dads,
but they are so vindictive and bitter with the dad
that they'd rather their son fail
than have the father in a child's life.
Are you serious?
I'm dead serious. I'm dead serious.
I am dead serious.
I've had conversations with moms where they tell me,
I'm like, where the daddy at?
I'll make contact with the dad.
Dad say, you know, I live in North Carolina
or I live in this city, but she never wanted me,
they'd have moved on, got kids of their own
with their new wife or whatever like that.
She never want me to see him.
I'm like, mama, send that boy to go stay with his daddy.
He don't need the ace of boys program. He needs his dad. Send him with his father. What are you
doing besides sitting up here complaining about you doing it by yourself? It's like moms had this new
thing now where they proud. It's like they have to say, I'm doing it all by myself and I'm trying and
and I love my child and putting them on Facebook and pretending you was a parent at graduation
and they turned out to be some terrible person because you was too proud to keep their father in their
life.
I've run into that so many times with moms who didn't just want to just send the child
to stay with his father.
You don't need him.
You don't need to be trying to raise him by yourself.
Send him with his dad because he needs his actual father.
He don't need somebody trying to get the play father. He needs his real father.
But because they are so bitter and the court system,
which I hate, benefits mothers more
than fathers who want to be dads, it hurts kids.
It hurts children.
They send these kids to stay with moms or like,
I'll never forget, it's a few cases where moms will be
on drugs and they'll give it to the mom before they give it to the father.
Like I watched these court cases and I have said before that
custody court needs to be a jury. I have said that over and over again.
It does not need to be a judge because it's based off of how this judge feels today.
What if they don't like you today or what if they mad or whatever? It needs to be a jury.
I believe a jury of our peers needs to decide where custody goes.
We need to be able to prove why I'm a fit parent, you know, for my child. I have said if we have
enough custody battle, let's talk to the jury, a jury about it. It does not need to be one judge,
I'm trying to prove to this judge while I'm a good dad, etc. I don't understand why that isn't a jury
trial. That's something I want to fight for because I've, I ran into that issue, you know, in divorce
at one point or
whatever like that like the lawyer was telling her to keep the kids away from
me and so because she didn't have any knowledge she you know thought she was
doing the right thing because that's what the lawyer told her to do and she
told the lawyer she was telling me after it was over she was like well I told him
he was a good dad and everything I didn't understand what he was telling me
to keep the kids for but I was doing it because that's what he told me to do.
I said, don't you ever in your life
let somebody tell you to keep your kids away from the dad.
Like she said, that's what the lawyer was telling her.
And I was like, well, why wouldn't he be looking out
for the best interests of the kids?
Cause I had already offered multiple different things.
When I got a divorce, for her to be okay,
I left the house, left her the car, et cetera.
I just wanted out at that time. But I just, you know, I just wanted out, you know, at that time.
But I just wanted to make sure I had, you know,
proper custody with the children,
because I wanted to make sure I'm raising my sons.
And he was telling her to try to get full custody,
et cetera, et cetera, and so of course,
we ended up working it out privately,
or whatever like that, and we eventually, you know,
worked out our own custody agreement,
or whatever like that, but I'm just like, man,
imagine if I wasn't able to afford a lawyer,
imagine if I wasn't able to afford, you know, these different incentives for her, et cetera, like that, but I'm just like, man, imagine if I wasn't able to afford a lawyer, or imagine if I wasn't able to afford
these different incentives for her, et cetera, like that.
The regular guy get railroaded and can't see his kids
for no reason.
No matter what happens in a marriage, et cetera, et cetera.
If both parents are fit, both parents should be able
to see their kids at an equal amount of time.
It shouldn't be, oh, well, you can't see them
because this was the judge's society.
Like, that's insane.
You know, so it's a little delicate line to walk.
So who are these kids, who do they look up to then?
If fatherhood's a major problem,
who do they find as role models?
If they have any, they look up to whoever's close to them,
around them, whether that be mom or grandma,
you know how that turns out, or they look up to whoever's close to them, around them, whether that be mom or grandma, you know how that turns out.
Or they look up to their football coach.
They look up to the basketball coach,
as much as they can.
They don't have that, they looking up to the rappers.
They looking up to the gang members.
The gang members come around with the cool cars
and the nice chains, whatever like that.
Hey, how you get that?
And so they get them into their lifestyle.
Now they want to be gang bangers,
because they think this is the life to live or whatever.
Well, this is how I'm going to make money.
This is how I'm going to take care of my family.
You know, I got to sell a couple of drugs or whatever like that
to make some things happen.
I'm like, bro, do you see me selling drugs?
I'm like, because I had a red Corvette
I just sold a little while ago.
The reason I bought the car originally
was because I wanted the kids to see
that you could just be a giver and be a great person
and be a great father,
and get what you want still, or whatever.
And so I showed them that, and the kids were like,
Mr. King got a cool car.
You know, like, it was cool for them to see.
Like, it was interesting to just witness them, like,
have a, it's like their mindset shifted
when they saw me with the car.
Granted, I'm still the same person,
I'm still the same Mr. King,
I'm still the one who feeds you all the time,
but when I got the car, it's like, so I can make it.
So you're finding what these kids value,
what they look up to by possessions or whatever,
and you're showing them that they can get these possessions
by taking a different route in life.
By trusting God, which is we do Bible study, you know, all the time, by trusting God and giving.
I tell them, you're going to receive by giving as much as possible. Because that's what I do.
I give as much as I can. Like I never stop giving. I give every single day. But that's how I keep
receiving. That's why I keep telling people, I'm like, how are you so blessed? Because I give.
I give as much as I can. Like I never stop giving.
I just help random people.
I sometimes have to stop myself.
Like I'll help anybody who needs it.
And that's important to me.
But yeah, that's how I figure out what the kids love.
They look up to people, they look up to possessions.
Unfortunately, that was for the older kids.
And now the younger kids that I'm about to start working with,
they're not really interested in possessions at the moment
because they're just living life.
They're just alive.
They're not like, oh, I need to have a cool car
to look cool or whatever.
They're just elementary school young kids.
But teenagers, all they care about is the scat packs
and the cool cars and this and that.
That's all they care about.
Literally, that's all they talk about coming in.
Oh, I seen a scat pack yesterday, y'all.
It was cool, it was purple. They they come in there talking about that or some NBA
young boy or some beef.
They got some rappers they saw on YouTube or some streamers
or whatever like that.
That's all they talk about, the teenagers.
But the young kids, they just be talking about toys
or talking about playing.
Like they're young in the mind.
So it's like, I don't need a cool car to impress them.
I don't need none of that. They're not even trying to be impressed I don't need a cool car to impress them. I don't need none of that.
They're not even trying to be impressed.
They just want a cool environment to be in.
And so as I hone that, and I'm never talking about cars,
and never talking about the cool stuff,
they're not interested in it.
Like my son, they don't, I mean,
they've seen cool cars and whatever like that,
or they see, but they know every day,
they just wake up, put some T-shirts and some gym shorts on,
and they out the door.
Like, that's me.
I wear a T-shirt and some jogging pants every single day
or some shorts in the summertime.
Blank t-shirt, nothing on it.
I got cool shoes.
I wear them every blue moon.
And that's only for the kids to see, the cool shoes,
cause they like them.
So I'm like, okay, let me get some cool shoes
so they can see that Mr. King got on some cool shoes today.
You know, so they can understand
that Mr. King's not rapping.
And I got the cool shoes that the rappers got.
You know, like, so that's why I would do that stuff,
but I don't have to do that anymore,
because like the kids are younger now, so.
It's like I could be me, and I could show them like,
you know, this is a cool way to live life,
and that's what I believe in now.
How are you funded this?
You don't take any government funding.
I refuse.
I won't apply for any grants.
I won't do anything that's tied to government.
I won't do it.
Our donor base is completely private donors. apply for any grants. I won't do anything that's tied to government. I won't do it. Our
donor base is completely private donors from social media, etc. We have been exclusively funded from the inception from private donors. And I am wholly grateful for everybody that has watched us,
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Give a share, give or retweet.
This is just like giving.
Because again, everything that we've done
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Every single thing.
We have an Amazon wishlist.
When Elon Musk shared my video,
maybe like a couple months ago,
we had an Amazon wishlist.
They went and bought every single thing off the wishlist.
We got all, we got like 20 different tables and whole bunch of chairs and we got tools,
equipment we needed, etc.
They bought every single thing off the list.
Camera equipment, everything we needed, pencils, calculators, tape measure, markers, kit stuff
for the toddler classroom, etc.
They bought everything off the list.
So again, this is why we share everything we do.
This is why we always have a camera with us, et cetera,
because we want people to see where their money's going.
I wholly believe in, you know,
not being one of those nonprofits
that you never know what's happening after.
No, we post receipts.
When we were renovating our school building,
I posted receipts for the toilets.
Like I posted everything that people could see
because it made people want to give. And the wishlist is
different too because it's not like they're giving money, they're giving an item. So that encourages people to want to give too. So we have an
Amazon wishlist and we have just like people that can regularly donate.
Damn, man. All right, let's talk about the Life Preparatory School for Boys that started in 2022. Sure. This is a totally separate thing?
Yeah.
What is this?
This is the school that I opened outside of our after school program.
We originally opened in 2022.
We're completely boarding, completely free.
We fed them every day, obviously.
It was very, very particular what we did with our students at that time.
Every day I ran it almost just like Marine Corps boot camp.
Had to get up at a certain time of the day.
You had to make sure.
They live here.
Yeah, they live there.
We had to make sure they're brushing their teeth.
They had to make sure they iron their clothes.
I had kids who didn't even know how to pull on a belt.
Teach them how to pull on a belt.
We had to teach them how to brush their hair, et cetera.
Teach them how to bathe.
I had to show them, teach them,
this is what you do when you get in the shower.
What age group is this?
This was all sixth graders.
They were all age 11 at that time.
They were all age 11.
And so it was a beautiful thing when we first started.
I miscalculated how much funding we were going to need
to keep that operation going.
I did my best to fundraise and we kept it open.
Even with us being in the red, I kept it open.
But then the summer, after our school opened,
we had a summer camp going with more kids
and we came to the building to play basketball.
We had a big school building we purchased.
We came to play basketball.
I remember I opened the door and I looked in
and it was stuff everywhere.
And I'm like, what in the world?
Somebody broken in school? Cause we hadn't been there, it was the everywhere. And I'm like, what in the world? Somebody broke into school?
Cause we hadn't been there, it was the summertime.
So we hadn't been in there.
It was stuff everywhere.
I come in there, it was doors ripped off the hinges.
It was our uniforms were ripped up.
Our school shield on the wall was ripped up.
I mean, it was sinks torn out the walls.
Like doors were like beaten, ripped in half.
I mean, they had like took a couple of things,
but all the glass in the building was destroyed.
Like they pull all the wires out of the power box.
Like, so it was no power in there.
I mean, the destruction that was, I was floored.
So of course, I was gonna pull my weapon out immediately
cause I'm just like, what the world?
Like, this is crazy.
So I pulled my weapon out and I had my video
after it was recording, like it was insane.
Pulled my weapon out and we caught two people in there
at the time and I held them at gunpoint,
called the police, they got there extremely fast.
They took them to jail and they were just
trying to figure out like what was the reason in you know behind this like why
and at the time we couldn't get insurance on the building because the
building was old and we didn't have the funding to get certain things fixed that
they wanted fixed before they insured us. So we looking at a million, $2 million worth of damage
on top of the stuff that we already had to fix,
in general that we were working on by project.
And so right now the building's boarded up.
We ended up having to turn the afterschool building
into school, but we eventually closed,
we shut down the school portion last year.
We shut it down last year because we just weren't able
to keep it up as far as funding.
But this last year, as I was having an afterschool program,
after Elon shared our video,
we did have a donor reach out to us
and basically just ask what all did we need to take care of
for our afterschool program and the school.
And so I just told him everything. I was just like, this is what all did we need to take care of for our after school program and the school. And so I just told them everything.
I was just like, this is what all, you know,
we would need to really thrive.
I said, we need vans to go pick the kids up.
I said, I never had vans,
so we never been able to go offer pickups for kids.
Cause that was a big problem we had.
The kids weren't able to be picked up.
I don't have any staff.
I said, every time I have to go somewhere,
the program had to shut down.
Like I have to, everything has to close.
We can't do nothing. Everything's closed until I get back. Like I have to go somewhere, the program had to shut down. Like I have to, everything has to close. We can't do nothing.
Everything's closed until I get back.
Like I don't have any staff.
I don't have any, you know,
back of the house staff at all, anything.
So they were just like, look,
so they called me back and was like, look,
we're going to give you this small amount of funding,
small to them, a small amount of funding
to take care of everything for the entire year of 2025.
So we just hired a operations manager
to operate the program while I'm not there
and three new staff members.
They told us to get 25 kids.
They've already signed up.
They bought us two vans
and make sure they were completely fixed.
And they renovated the inside of our school building
to make it more school friendly.
And they're currently renovating it right now
while we're sitting here actually.
So they basically told us, look, you deliver on this year.
If you deliver this year, this will determine
whether I'll continue funding y'all more in the coming years,
but show me what you could do this year, give me the data,
show me what you're doing with these children.
Don't just talk about it, show me numbers,
show me what you could do.
And then this will determine whether we're able
to continue funding the program and reopening the school
and rebuilding the whole school in the coming years.
So, yeah, so social media.
25 kids you have?
Yep, we just signed up 25 kids.
They started March.
And they live there?
No, this is for after school.
Oh, this is the after school one.
It's after school program.
Yep.
Man, you got a lot of stuff going on.
Yes, a lot of stuff.
I just started head coaching my son's T-ball team now,
so that's going to be fun this year.
What's your daily routine?
I mean...
Sure, I love to go into that.
I wake up at about...
I wake up, my eyes open about five,
but I don't get out of bed, which I should though.
But I get up, my trainer gets to the house,
he comes to train me. It's a up, my trainer gets to the house,
he comes to train me.
It's a 19 year old kid.
Well, he just turned 20 actually, but he's a bodybuilder.
He trains me every morning at 6.30.
I get up, wake my sons up, they go put their clothes on.
Baby King goes in there, does a little baseball.
I live till about eight o'clock, go take a shower,
take them to their teacher at about nine o'clock.
They're in school from nine to three.
During the day, depends on which commission I'm on.
I may have to go to a Historic Preservation Commission
meeting, may have a County Commission meeting,
may have a City Commission meeting.
Depends on what's happening, may have a task force meeting.
I'm on the YMCA board of directors, may have a meeting.
Those meetings are in the afternoon.
But anyway, I go to whatever meeting I have to go to.
I go check our PO box.
I go deposit checks that, you know, donors may send.
I send over the addresses to those donors, to my assistant,
so she could send thank you letters to those donors.
After that, I may go get me some food.
And right now, I've been going to check on the building
right now every day as they're working on it.
I pick my sons up at about three o'clock.
We go do some training, whatever it is that we're doing,
whether it be gymnastics, boxing, or baseball.
We go do some training with them for maybe an hour or two.
I get home, make sure they got some food.
Remember, I told you I support everybody around me.
There's this new guy in our hometown who's been cooking,
and he cooks really well.
So I've been having him come cook for us
sometime during the day when I don't have time to get food.
I have him come cook for me and my sons
just to support his business
and it also gets him content too.
So he can share for people to continue supporting him.
So he'll come cook for me during the week.
And after that, I'll get the kids in the tub
maybe about seven o'clock.
The reason I do that is because we were big WWE fans so we watch wrestling on Mondays
and Fridays.
So if it's a Monday or a Friday, they get me in the tub about 7, wrestling starts at
8 o'clock and we watch wrestling until it's time to go to sleep.
And they got their own rooms and they go to bed and repeat just depending on what I got
to do for the next day.
And then I'll go over my calendar or whatever just to see what I got to do. the next day. And then I'll go over my calendar or whatever
just to see what I got to do.
So some days are busy, some days are not.
But yeah, for this past couple of days,
it's been extra busy.
So yeah, that's kind of what a daily schedule looks like.
And then right now I'm about to coach the D-ball team.
So that's about to turn into getting practices
together for them.
And on weekends, we do a lot of practice with my sons.
I take weekends to dedicate to my children.
So we'll go to the baseball field and we'll get it in.
We'll just out there just getting it in,
doing IQ, learning about the bases,
what to do, your different assignments, et cetera, boxing.
Wow.
They enjoy it.
Is your middle son boxing too?
He just started, yep, just started.
He's about to turn four.
But he was already practicing, watching his brother.
So when he was practicing, the coach was just like,
well, I'm just going to go ahead and get started with him
because he's already watching the punch numbers
and he would go practice on the little mannequin thing.
So he would just be over there,
just doing his own little thing over there.
And so he just started with him too.
I'm going to get them in jujitsu soon.
Only things my kids don't have a choice in is doing self-defense and
Yeah, any any self-defense they don't have a choice
Everything every other thing they have a choice with sports whatever they can they can choose but self-defense they have no choice
You will box you will do jujitsu. Yeah
I think earlier you had mentioned you traveled to Nigeria not too long ago.
What prompted that?
So it's a foundation called the Mega Impact Foundation.
They sent me an email originally and just asked me to do a little video because their
students had saw me online.
They just sent me an email and asked me to send a video over via Zoom so I could interact
with their students.
Something in me, I'll never forget,
was just like, go, ask them, can you come?
And I'm like, ain't no way.
I'm like, absolutely not.
I never just wanted to go to Africa or anything like that.
Not saying I wouldn't go, but I just never was like,
I'm gonna go to Africa or something like that.
But something was just like, go.
And my conscience was like, absolutely not.
No.
Anyway, I sent them an email, I was like,
is it possible for me to come?
So they thought that maybe they didn't reach
the right person, because there's no way
this guy wants to come to Nigeria,
so they wanted to set up a Zoom call.
So they set up a Zoom call with them
and the leaders of the organization,
and they were surprised it was actually me.
They was like, we thought this was going to be fake.
Like, so you want to come to Nigeria?
But they needed me there in three days.
So I was just like, look, this is what I'm going to do. I said if I'm meant to come to Nigeria
everything will go right in these next three days. My videographer didn't have a passport
and we need to give him a passport overnight and it's possible to do that you just have to go
to where one of the overnight passport place is. Only appointment it has Buffalo New York. We flew
to Buffalo New York to get him his passport.
Mind you, everything has to go right.
We cannot miss a flight, cannot be delayed.
Everything has to be done on time.
While he was getting his passport, we was in Buffalo,
we had to get overnight visas to even go over there.
Cause we had to get visas to even go get into Nigeria.
So we had to get visas, got those approved.
I forgot, we had to do some other stuff.
I can't remember, just off the top of my head.
But everything went right.
And I was hoping something messed up.
I said, please, God, something needs to mess up.
I really am scared to go.
Like I just, I was.
That's my first time really being afraid of something.
Cause I didn't know what to expect.
I'm like, why am I going to Nigeria, God?
Like why?
Oh, whatever.
So he got his passport squared away.
Flight was ready to go.
The only thing that happened was our flight was delayed
by like nine hours.
We was just sitting at the airport.
Other than that, we flew to Nigeria.
Everything happened right.
We was able to get straight through customs, et cetera.
And the stuff that I saw in Nigeria,
it changed my life, man.
It changed my life.
We were there 10 days.
I lit the whole little summer boot camp they had there.
The kids were so excited to see me
because to me, to them I'm famous or whatever like that.
So I got there and they were just ecstatic,
asking a whole lot of questions.
And they were so articulate, so well read.
And just the questions that they were asking,
it's like adults here wouldn't ask those questions.
Like they were really well thought out questions
that they were asking me
in regard to the sessions I was teaching.
And I posted those sessions online
for people to see on Instagram or Facebook,
but I posted all those different sessions
and just teaching them about character
and just proper greetings and how to shake hands.
Some of those issues they were having there,
like how to shake hands, looking people in the eye,
talking to people in a stern voice.
Confidence.
Yeah, confidence, making their presence known.
And so I taught them a lot of that stuff.
And as I left, they were sharing how the kids
were still are trying to do what I taught them.
So I'm supposed to be going back in May,
but I told them I would come once a year to come see them
and just interact with them
and do the little boot camp thing they had going on.
But man, we rode through Benin, Nigeria.
We weren't supposed to go through there originally.
We were supposed to take a flight from Asaba
straight to Lagos, Nigeria.
But our flight from Delta got delayed,
so we ended up having to drive two and a half hours
through Benin, Nigeria to get to Legos.
But Benin, Nigeria was probably the poorest thing
I have ever seen in my life.
I had, I felt like I was in a movie or something.
I didn't believe it.
But the one thing that was weird was I had every bar
while I was there on my phone.
I had servers the entire time.
Didn't understand how.
But so I was sitting in my family video and pictures
and it was scary.
And to the point where I'm like, how,
the roads were so bad, I'm like,
are we gonna make it all the way there?
They was like, yeah, we're gonna be fine.
It was crazy.
I had kids that are younger than my son,
like my middle son, out selling stuff
on the side of the road.
Wow.
Like actually selling, like trying to sell stuff
to get money on the side of the road. Wow. It actually selling, like trying to sell stuff to get money on the side of the road.
Wow.
It was crazy.
And I'm like, what they do?
Like, well, they selling things, you know, to get some money, you know, to go get food
and stuff like that.
I'm like, okay, what are their parents?
Their parents are probably working.
They probably won't see their parents maybe but seven days at a time.
I said, so they don't see their parents like every seven days?
Like, yeah.
So what they, so they just by themselves?
Like they just sleep by themselves?
Yeah.
They take baths?
They may, you know, try to bathe wherever they can.
They may or may not eat. They may see their parents, you know, in a week.
You know, because they got to go work to make money, to make really pennies. And I'm like, are you serious?
I couldn't even imagine my three-year-old
selling something to make... It was insane to me.
Riding through there, I mean, it was, I don't know how to explain it.
I just only could have videos, I got videos,
but I could only just talk about it.
It was insane.
And it made me so, so grateful.
Like when I got home, it took a minute for me
to even just register that I was back.
Because I was just grateful to just go get some water
from the fridge.
Like we had to organize to eat while we were there.
Like it wasn't just you could just go grab a snack
or go just go get an apple or eat a banana.
You had to, we had to organize to eat.
Like it had to be a thing.
Like we had to make sure everybody was squared away,
et cetera.
And of course it's not a lot to eat there either.
Like you have to kind of eat the same things
over and over again.
So it was, it was a little harsh, man.
Like it was, it was a little harsh there.
The beds were so hard.
Like, and we were at a nicer, you know, hotel for them.
I mean, I feel like I was sleeping on a metal box.
Like it was bad.
You know, like my back was killing me
the whole time I was there,
but I was just grateful to see those kids, man.
They made me so happy.
And we were racing, had a little barbecue the last day.
We were racing and having a good time
playing soccer with them.
I got all this on video. It was the most beautiful experience I ever good time playing soccer with them. I got all this on video.
It was the most beautiful experience I ever had, just interacting with them.
You think you'll be back?
Yeah, I'm going to go back. I'm going to go back once a year.
It'll be better this time.
I'll go with a team and stuff like that this time.
It was just me and my videographer last time, which was not the smartest thing,
but God told me to go, so I had to go.
But this time when we go, we're definitely gonna have like a full team,
you know, and stuff, you know,
just for protection and things like that,
you know, just to make sure things go okay.
But it was definitely an experience
and I'm actually excited to go back,
not because of the experience,
but because of seeing those kids.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm just, you know, we're wrapping the interview up here,
but do you plan on expanding your vision, what
you're doing outside of Albany?
You're going to stay in Albany?
People have asked me that so many times.
I don't mind giving advice.
I don't mind giving people inspiration, but my job and my goal and my duty is to fix the
city of Albany.
I never want to stray away.
I have been offered to come other places.
I've been offered money to open the program somewhere else and to move. I won't do it. The city of
Albany is my charge and I believe I'm responsible for fixing it. And so while I believe that I'm
responsible for fixing it, I'm going to do my hardest to make sure I do that. That's what I
believe in. People believe in me in the city of Albany. People have hope in me. People see me and
People believe in me in the city of Albany. People have hope in me.
People see me and they think I'm the hope.
And I believe in Jesus.
And so I guess God's working through me to help fix our city.
That's what we plan on doing.
It's amazing what you're doing.
And then, you know, I have another question.
Mm-hmm.
You know, we've talked a lot about being a father, becoming a man, it's the lack of male role models
in, actually everywhere.
And you know, and so I'm just curious,
you really resonate with me,
especially at the very beginning.
And what do you think are the most important attributes
to becoming a man?
We have different pillars in our organization,
accountability, courage, commitment, consistency.
We have, I think, three more,
but those are the main ones. And I think all of those are what makes a man, being think, three more, but those are the main ones.
And I think all of those are what makes a man,
being able to be consistent, being able to be accountable,
having courage, all those things are important.
And really just being able to have endurance.
Pain is gonna be a gift,
and I have to explain it all the time.
It's a gift for pain.
Pain is what teaches you.
You learn with pain.
What did we say?
Pain is weakness leaving the body.
So that's important to me.
And if we teach, I teach the kids that
when you're going through things, you're just being built.
And so it's almost like always looking
at the glass half full as a man.
We cannot afford to be sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves or not wanting to go through something.
No. What you're looking for is through that pain, through the stress, through the worry and through the doubt.
You have to get through it in order to be proud of yourself in the end.
And continuously setting goals. That's important.
I think not setting goals and just wanting to be stable. and I will say maybe everybody don't have a big chart. Everybody don't
have big visions and things like that. Some people do want to just live the
American dream, have their kids, you know, have a wife, barbecue on the weekends,
go on vacation once a year. Some people do want to live that life, but for those,
you know, men who are aspiring to do a whole lot more, there's gonna be trial,
there's gonna be tribulation, and I promise, a lot of those people that you believe in
and you have seen their successes,
they have more failures than you can count
behind closed doors.
They've been through a lot behind closed doors.
I have been through a ton behind closed doors,
especially just having this organization
from personal life issues, bad decisions I've made, et cetera.
I've had to learn on my own. Just what I'm doing now.
So, really being able to be teachable too.
And being able to look at the glass half full
because you have to learn that stress and pain is a gift.
I promise it's going to build you.
And I look for it.
I look for the pain.
I look for the stress because I understand
on the other side of that is the gift
that I was looking for, the goal that I was looking for.
So I know when I come up with a new vision, I already know, here we go.
It's about to be some hell I got to pay to get through there.
Because God has to teach you, you know, in that time, we'd be thinking we'd be ready
for something.
God knows we're not ready.
So He's going to put you through the trial and tribulation to get there.
We can't just put the meat in the oven.
You have to season it.
You got to beat it.
You know, so you got to tenderize it.
You got to season it. You got to get rough with it, you know, etc.
Same with a pizza, you can't just throw the dough in the oven.
You have to make the dough, you got to knead the dough, you got to beat the dough, you
got to toss it up in the air, you got to turn it all types of, you got to put it through
the fire, you got to put all this stuff on top of it, and then you finally get the nice
pizza.
You know, so it's very important to realize you just got to go through it.
People think you don't got to go through it, man, you live in the wrong life, but as a man that's what I believe in. just got to go through it people think you don't got to go through it man You live in the wrong life
But as a man, that's what I believe in you got a got to go through the pain. You know, it's a gift for you
Yeah, you know you said something else at the beginning
I think this is one of the most important at shoes
Attributes if not the most important attribute and you know be a band of your word
So you're gonna do something you do it
You got to do it if you're not worth your word, then you're not worth shit.
Absolutely.
And I think that is one of the main things,
if not the main thing, but.
Yes.
Well, King, man, you are a very impressive man.
I appreciate it, thank you.
I'm just so thankful we met.
Me too. And I hope to see you again. Yeah, I would love to. I'm just so thankful we met. Me too.
And I hope to see you again.
Yeah, I would love to.
I want to see you again.
I would love to come back and maybe when my son's a bit,
maybe like seven, probably, or eight,
he's done a few interviews before,
but I think he gets a little bit more competent
to be able to give an interview.
I would love for you to sit with both of us
and talk to us, because he's going to give some gems.
He's very intelligent.
That would be amazing.
I'd love to do it.
Yes, sir.
All right, King.
Best of luck.
Yes, sir.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
I appreciate it. The NFL is over him.
Scorching debates.
All the good, all the bad, all the ups, all the downs.
He's the Spitfire of sports smack. Sorry for what I said because it was appropriate when I said it,
but I can't say it anymore, dude.
You are killing the game.
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