The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Montell Jordan Opens Up About Prostate Cancer Battle, His Journey From Music To Ministry + More

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

Today on The Breakfast Club, Montell Jordan Opens Up About Prostate Cancer Battle, His Journey From Music To Ministry. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, terrorism. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System

On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Wait a minute, Sam. Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, luckily, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend's been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her. Now he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone.

Hold up. Isn't that against school policy? That seems inappropriate. Maybe find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hunter, host of Hunting for Answers on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Join me every weekday as I share bite-sized stories of missing and murdered black women and girls in America. Stories like Erica Hunt. A young mother vanished without a trade. after a family gathering on 4th of July weekend, 2016. No goodbyes, no clues, just gone.

Listen to Hunting for Answers every weekday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, my name is Enya Jumanzoor. And I'm Drew Phillips. And we run a podcast called Emergency Intercom. If you're a crime junkie and you live,

love crimes, we're not the podcast for you. But if you have unmedicated ADHD... Oh my God, perfect. And want to hear people with mental illness, psychobabble. Yes, yes. Then Emergency Intercom is the podcast for you. Open your free IHeartRadio app. Search Emergency Intercom and listen now.

Hold up. Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up. The breakfast club. You're all finished or y'all's done? Morning, everybody. It's DJ. NV.

hilarious sholomaine de guy we are the breakfast club lola rosa's here as well we got a special guest in the building yes indeed you want to the intro you want to sing the intro this is how we do it martel joining ladies and gentlemen welcome what's up y'all man i'm great this morning man you look good i feel good it's good to be here oh do you if you don't mind me asking yeah i'm 56 god jesus you're something to look forward to man absolutely how does it feel have one of the, a record that will never go away. It plays in pop culture, in hip-hop, in urban, in country, and all types of things. Your record always get played.

Do you know when you did that record, that was that record, it was going to be that way? I knew we had something special. Like, I go back to college days, and I knew that even long before I was in the music business, like, I would go to the fraternity parties or whatever, and any DJ that was really doing this thing, right around that, you know, last call for alcohol, that, that last hour to club, that's when they would drop Slick Rick's Children's story. And that was just already like a timeless record. But I always said, even back then, I said, if I ever get the chance to get a music business, I'm going to sing over that record. So I did know that it was

already a hit, but the journey of taking that hit and then turning it into a classic, you know what I'm saying? I could not have known that, but that was what the goal was. Correct me if I'm wrong. Because I was thinking about it when they told me you was coming in. You were you were Def Jam's first R&B star, right? I think they had Allison, well, when you say R&B stars. So they had Allison Williams was there. They had Orange Juice Jones there. So they had some R&B stuff there. Yeah. I mean, we were the first, well, not only were we the first, I think, successful R&B, like we were there, their first number one record that Def Jam had. Ever? Yeah. In all general. Yeah. Wow. That's the first number one. Wow. That's amazing.

But I think you know, you think of Deft Jam, you think of it being a rap heavy label. You know what I mean? Especially around that time. You were even sampling one of their classic rap records. Absolutely. And the cool thing, though, even with that relationship of doing the Slickrick, the children's story kind of pairing on my second album, me and Slick Rick got together and we did a song called I Like that was on my second album. And we're friends to this day, him and his wife and me and my wife, we all do life together. Well, tell us how you wrote that record in the process of getting into the music industry because you said you were in college and you go to party. So what made you say, you know what, I want to do music? Well, the making of that record right there was literally like capturing atmosphere. So I would study guys like Marvin Gay in a song like Got to Give It Up. If you listen to that song, Got to Give It Up, even before Marvin starts singing, you hear crowd, you hear atmosphere, you hear energy, and all that is transformative into music, especially when music was more analog than digital. And so when you hear this is how we do it before the song ever comes on, you hear a party because that's what we did.

I put people in the studio, put a microphone in there, games and drinks, and they were all standing around having a party. And then, you know, the engineers, we click play and we captured the energy of the room before the song ever kicked in. The actual studio, like live in the studio. Like live in the studio, they were just kind of, we just captured everything, the flirtation, the conversation, everything that was happening is the undergirding of the track and the lyrics of this is how we do it. So people don't know, it's more than hearing the record. They actually feel that record, which is why, you know, we're talking 30 years, almost 30 years later. A record like that is a gift and a curse, though, right?

Because, you know, a record becomes such so bigoted in life, kind of overshines, shines the rest of your catalog, right, in a way? It was a gift because it's around 30 years later. It was a curse because it was the first record. And because it was the first record, everybody always wants to put everything up against that record, you know? And that was a phenomenon record. And so even though I've had records that have probably sold more

or that have done extremely well, everybody always goes back to that as the first. Yeah, what they're sold more? What's that? You got a record that sold more then? Well, get it on tonight, did good. I had some records that did really, probably not sold more,

but I mean as far as just that has some legs. I got records that have some legs to him or whatever, but that record was, so when something for the honeies came out, that was a song that had some legs to it, but it could never reach number one because it was like 10 months later, we're like, hey, this is the next single. They're like, no, we're still playing.

This is how we do it. And so stations, oh, but this is a pretty cool thing that a lot of people don't know. The reason why this is how we do it got to be so big was because, you know, in the song I say South Central does it like nobody does. I remember coming to New York City getting with all the, the Angie Martinez, Wendy Williams, all that. I got to hot 97 and no stations or whatever. They're like, we love you.

We love Debcham, but we're not really kind of playing that record. because, you know, the whole South Central thing. So I was like, okay, well, let's try and fix that. So we went into the editing booth, and I re-sang, this is how we do it. But I said, oh, New York does it like nobody does. And why I normally do, you know, because I was a rapper before I was singing, you know, I would do like, this is how we do it is Friday night. I feel all right.

The parties with Angie Martinez. So I reached for the old school and I turn it up, funk, Mr. Flats. And so I started throwing names into the songs and changed it to New York. And so when I did that, now New York, they're playing that song every hour on the hour. And then D.C. hears and D.C. is like, yo, we heard you did that in New York. We want a D.C. version. We want a Philly version. And so I end up singing the song probably a thousand times just so that every station had their own customized version of it. That is weird. Artists don't put that kind of work in. No, no. No. No.

I was going to say you talked about you being a rapper a little bit to get into that part of it. Even in that song, you kind of have verses where you're, it's like you're singing it, but it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you're, it's. It's like a lyric like you're rapping it. Like, now I understand kind of where that comes from. Yeah, I was Russell Simmons rap singer when I got signed to Deptje. That was one of the reasons why I was documenting street life in Los Angeles. And I was finding ways to, you know, the R. Kelly's were out there. There were other artists out there.

The guy was out there. And, you know, I wanted to do the New Jack thing. I wanted to, I was a fan of Aaron Hall. I was a fan of a lot of different things. But the only way I was able to carve my own space into who I would be musically, was I had to take rap lyrics and then I would sing them. So if you were to look at this is how we do it and you say, I reach for my 40 and I turn it up,

designated driver, take the keys to my truck. Like, lyrically, that's like rap pros, but that I would take designated driver, take the keys to my truck and say, designated driver, take the keys to my truck. And so I literally would write rap lyrics, my entire first album, I wrote rap lyrics and then I figured out how to sing them.

I just love the fact that you were moving, you know, having a designated driver. Back then, right? Yeah. I was very conscious. Very responsible early on. And you went from R&B, you know, superstar to pastor. Like, what was the breaking point that made you step away from the industry?

I was brought up in church. I was a church kid growing up. And so from that standpoint, it wasn't like, you know, I had this great big epiphany and then, you know, flew to the gospel. It was like literally I was brought up a church kid. And a lot of musicians and a lot of artists have that training ground. It's like a farm league almost for, for the music.

music business where people are growing up, they're listening. It's the difference between, you know, between rhythm and blues and soul music. Soul is a little more attached to feeling as opposed to just sonic hearing. And so me going back into ministry wasn't like a, oh, I'm ready to do this. It was more of a God move of saying, hey, man, you've done it this way for so long, you know, why don't you try and do it my way and give me the opportunity to show you that what accolades and what verification and validation I'm looking for in man and in people that God's like I've already verified you I've already validated you and so you know so I don't have to work for God's grace I'm working from his grace and by me stepping away to do ministry

I found out who I was because you know in the music business I didn't know who I was outside of music if I'm not I don't have an album if I'm not on the charts that people aren't playing on the radio then who I am I and so God was like you know well I'm gracious enough to show you who you are if you never pick up a mic again. So it was during that time, I found out, man, I'm a son, and I'm a father, I'm a friend, I'm a giver, I'm generous, you know, I'm all these different things. I'm a teacher, I'm a communicator, I'm a bunch of different things. If I never pick up a microphone again, I found out who I was and I learned that, you know,

music doesn't define me. I define music. And that was like a pivotal, you know, a pivotal part for me to understand that music doesn't define who I am. I define who music is. And then that's when God says, okay, now I can trust you with music again, because now you know who you are. I was going to ask you, what did you find in ministry that music couldn't give you? And I guess it was just a sense of self?

What did I find in ministry that music couldn't give me? I think that with music, I was in an abusive relationship. I love something that couldn't love me back. And so literally, you know, I would say, man, I love music so much. I love music so much. I do it for free. I love music, and music never loved me back. Even when I was leaving music to go into ministry,

music wasn't like, no, Montel, don't leave, we want you. It was nothing. It was just like, bye, then. I was like, okay, cool, whatever. And so I learned that God did love me, and he did care about me, and he was there, you know, in those spaces. And so I think what I got from God is I got someone and something that could love me back.

And then, now I understand that music is something that I can enjoy, I can appreciate and I can create, but it doesn't create me. When you got into being a pastor, did you, when you went back to performing, did you feel like I had to take some lyrics out or had to change things up or anything at all or no? 100%. I literally, you know, the story goes of, you know, when I left the music business, I literally, I burnt the plow, meaning I'm like, I'm not coming back. I got all my instrumental tracks.

I got rid of everything. I was full ministry for like four or five years. And during that time period, there was a, a promoter. who kept calling my wife like every single year several times a year he would call it hey i need montel i need montel i need monta and we didn't even take dudes calls like we are done with the music business and then about four years in she finally you know takes the man's my man's call uh she's like hey you know kind of frustrated you know what do you want he's like yeah i need montel for this concert i got a key sweat silk i got this whole big thing and we need montel and she's like you know montel's

retired he was like yeah yeah i know i'm following his career and she was like you know he's a minister He's a pastor now. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a Christian too. I know that. And so he's like, well, why do you keep calling in? He's like, because my shows are really dark and I need some light. So when he drops that, now we have to circle back and we're like, okay, is there a way that? Well, first it was like, okay, well, God, you told me not to sing that song no more.

And God said, no, you told you not to sing that song no more. I never told you that. And I was like, oh, my goodness, maybe it was me. You know, I had to get rid of my own idol. I had to sacrifice my own idol that I made it. But God never told me not to sing that song anymore. So I did have to say, okay, what can I sing and what can't I sing anymore? Can I give people nostalgia without giving them something that compromises who I am?

And that was the journey of going back and finding the songs that I could sing, changing some words, changing some lyrics because I'm a changed man. And then that became something that was acceptable. And it's very welcomed actually out, not only. only for the audiences, but even like the artist that I'm out on the row with, I'm like a pastor to the unpastored in a lot of spaces because I'm speaking truth and I'm loving them and I'm out on the road with them. I understand what they've been through. I've been doing this for 30 years, you know what I'm saying? And so I think that was part of the journey of, yeah, I'm able to

change lyrics. I'm able to customize something. Quick story. Like when it comes a less ride, I do let that was, you know, pretty nasty song, masterpiece, Silk the Shocker, Strip Club, anthem, big, big, number one record, you know, and I'll do that song, but I don't, really sing that song. I'll sing the first verse of that song. I literally do about 45 seconds to a minute of the song to instill nostalgia in people. And then with MasterPie's going, I get to that part in the song, like, you know, right in the verse. And I go, don't do that song no more because it's nasty. And the crowd laughs or whatever. And I'll tell him, yo, I told you I'm a pastor no more, you know. But I can do this song and then I just

kind of shifts. I'm giving them the song and just that much makes them feel like they've heard the entire song. And then, you know, I keep it moving. I love that. So, So it was, so did you feel guilty? You felt guilty before, you know, performing those songs after you had stepped away and did ministry. And they wanted you back when that promoter called your wife. It was the fact that you would feel guilty when you did the songs before since you got closer to God. I never felt guilty, which is, which is wild. I felt, I maybe felt conflicted, but guilt, guilt is, I think is a strong word.

I felt like I know I love the Lord. I know I'm in, you know, this is before ministry. I know I love the Lord. I know God's got me. I know he's giving me a lot of ideas and I took a lot of those ideas and I made them more customizable for different audiences and stuff like that. You know, and from that standpoint, I had to be two Montels, if you will. And it probably was three or four. You know, I call it spiritual schizophrenia.

It was like literally, and I'm not making fun of any diagnosis. I'm saying that I had to be different Montel. for different audiences. When I'm home with my wife, that's one Montel. When I'm at my church, that's a different Montel. When I'm with my moms, that's a different Montel. And so because of that, I was trying to keep up with a bunch of different personalities. And so, yeah, I think I could feel guilty from the standpoint of not being authentically who I am.

And ministry allowed me to step into a space that is like, it doesn't matter if I am on the breakfast club. It don't matter if I'm in church. It don't matter if I'm with, you know, in any setting, I'm going to be the space. the same Montel authentically me all the time. And that's liberating. So how do you reconcile the Montel Jordan who's saying about the freaky stuff on the weekends with the Montel Jordan who preaches on Sunday morning? Yeah, that dude had to die. That guy had to die. And I'm okay with that because now who I am, it doesn't mean I can't look back and show the world who I was. Even in my shows, I do a ministry. I do ministry during my shows. Anybody that goes to a Montel show,

I don't care people drinking, getting high, doing whatever they do with a show, whatever. I'm literally almost like comedically weaving a story into, I'm just going on and sing songs. I'm communicating with the audience, we laugh and telling jokes, and I'm talking to them. And I get to a point in the show where I actually tell them, hey, you know, y'all know I'm a pastor. Some of you don't know. And I'll let them know. I said, hey, music is part of the soundtrack to our lives. If you got a good memory in your life, there's probably a song attached to it.

If you've got a tragic moment in your life, there's probably some music attached to it. And I said, what I'm doing is I'm giving you nostalgia, but I'm also here to show you what it looks like when God gets a hold of a man's heart and then changes them and puts them back in front of people with great influence. And people that know that there's something different about him,

but they don't quite know what it is. And I say, it's Jesus that changed my life and transformed me and made me a different person. And so in that audience, I'll tell them, so I know some of y'all don't do the God thing. I know some of y'all don't do the church thing, but I'm here to tell you that God loves you, And God misses you, and God is not angry at you.

And even if you wouldn't come to a church, he sent a 90s R&B artist to you, wherever you are, to let you know that your life is that valuable to him. And so I literally get to minister in every space that I go to and people get an encounter with God, not even expecting, you know, I just came to here, you know, color me bad saying, I want to sex you up. And Montel's in there talking about Jesus.

Wow, how did that happen? You know, it's unassuming. And you never know how many people, will actually go to him. You know what I mean? We'll follow that at work because that's what he wants, acknowledgment.

Every now and then I get a God kiss where somebody will pop in the DM and they'll be like, yo, you were talking to me last night and, man, God, you know, pray for me and for my daughter or their sanity either. So, you know, I'm pastoring,

but I'm just outside the four walls of the church. I just, I'm on the expansion program. As an artist, did being tall hinder you? But I remember with Teddy Riley, I promise you, Teddy Riley told me this a long time ago. Teddy Riley said, there's no such thing of the tall superstar in the industry. To think about it.

Yeah. No, I think it's, you know, the 680 stood has allowed me to stand out, you know, head and shoulders above. I think in Guinness, I was like in the Guinness Book of World Records at what time for the tallest R&B singer or tallest with a number one record. I can't see nobody tall or who that's what I'm saying.

You probably still in it. I got it. Teddy Riley told me that years ago, he was like, yo, you got it. He said, no such thing is a tall superstar. I'm like, Snoop. Jay Z, and he's like, those are they stashions to the rules.

Yeah, I've been a long time ago. Yeah, tall, you know, other than shopping off the rack, you know, height is, height has been an advantage for me. And you've been married for how long? 32 years. Congratulations. Congratulations.

To the same woman. I'm 24. I bill with my wife for 27. We've been married for 11. I'm 24. I've been married 31. What took so long with that? You were young.

You were kids. He's like, man. He was kids for like 10 or 15 of those years. I don't know. Go ahead, my dad. And kids. You know. What was the secret sauce to keeping that bond alive?

Especially in an industry that eats relationships. Yeah. Yeah. I think recognizing that marriage wasn't something that humans created, I think marriage is something that God created. It's meant to be a covenant. And a lot of people going to marriage with an exit strategy as opposed to having an eternal strategy, they go in thinking, well, if this doesn't work, then I'll, and that automatically is to set up for the enemy to be able to know what your then I'll, I'll do this or I'll do that. That's the strategy that the enemy will use to take out your marriage. And so we know that we are going to be married to each other forever.

We're going to make it the best forever possible. We're going to be happy. We got family legacy on the line here. By doing that, I recognize that our marriage ain't just for us. Our marriage is for other people to be able to see and be like, man, if they can do it, they can do 30-something years and still be grabbing each other's butts in the elevator and still, you know, excited about each other, whatever. It can be done.

And a lot of people don't want to get married or they're kind of shy away from it simply because they don't recognize or see enough that it can be done. So that's what we're doing. We want to be an example to, we help a public marriage is healing private. So a lot of couples, when they go into, you know, some challenges of this or that, we have a spot called the Jordan River down in Atlanta, and we take, we provide marriage and family therapy, we're licensed marriage and family therapists, private chefs, all of that. They get a chance to come in and, you know, they can go to Montelanchristin.com or I'll go to

marriagemasterpiece.com, P-E-A-C-E, if people need help with their marriages. But, you know, that's something that we do to keep us, it keeps us tight together because we recognize other couples need it. God bless you. that one point? Yeah. How was that mixing, like, what's the pros and cons of mixing the marriage with the business? That was hell. That was hell. That was hell. That's why I became a path. Well, no, you know, it was a front end and the back end. You know, it was one of those things where, you know, the label had come in and in order to help be successful, they were like,

well, Montel, if nobody's going to want an unavailable married R&B artists, you know, you got to understand. We, you know, we're talking 95. 94, 95, you know, if you're not available, they're not going to want you. And I would always heard that if you want to be successful in the music business, guys have to want to be you and women have to want to be with you. If you can do those things, you could be successful. And so I had to keep the persona that I was this single available R&B artist. And for her being in Def Jam, and then, you know, 160 Verick,

those days being in that building was a, that was a tough building to be in. And she's a woman manager or whatever. And it was like, well, if you are the wife, then people are not going to respect you. So as opposed to being Kristen Jordan, she was Kristen Hudson, and she was the manager. And being the manager is tough because it's kind of like, is the manager telling the artist what to do? Or is the artist telling the manager what do we do? And then when we're not artist and manager and then we go home, because remember, there's different Montel's at that time. There's Montel to artists. And then there's Montel to husband. And Montel the artist takes presence over Montel to husband. When we get home, like, then what does that look like? How did we submit to each other? How do we, you know? And so it was, It was very, very tough. And so at some point, something else had to die. And in that... December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport.

The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently, the explosion. actually impelled metal glass. The injured were being loaded into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay.

Terrorism. Law and Order Criminal Justice System is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. That's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Law and Law. order criminal justice system on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts my boyfriend's professor is way too friendly and now i'm seriously suspicious well wait a minute sam maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit well dakota it's back

to school week on the okay story time podcast so we'll find out soon this person writes my boyfriend has been hanging out with his young professor a lot he doesn't think it's a problem but i don't trust her now he's insisting we get to know each other But I just want her gone. Now, hold up. Isn't that against school policy? That sounds totally inappropriate. Well, according to this person, this is her boyfriend's former professor and they're the same age.

It's even more likely that they're cheating. He insists there's nothing between them. I mean, do you believe him? Well, he's certainly trying to get this person to believe him because he now wants them both to meet. So, do we find out if this person's boyfriend really cheated with his professor or not? To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, my name is Enya Umanzor. And I'm Drew Phillips.

And we run a podcast called Emergency Intercom. If you're a crime junkie and you love crimes, we're not the podcast for you. But if you have unmedicated ADHD... Oh my God, perfect. And want to hear people with mental illness, psycho babble. Yes, yes. Then Emergency Intercom is the podcast for you. Open your free IHeartRadio app.

Search Emergency Intercom and listen now. Hi, I'm Janica Lopez, and in the new season of the Overcover podcast, I'm taking you on an exciting journey of self-reflection. Am I ready to enter this new part of my life? Like, am I ready to be in a relationship? Am I ready to have kids and to really just devote myself and my time? I wanted to be successful on my own, not just because of who my mom is. Like, I felt like I needed to be better or work twice as hard as she did. Join me for conversations about healing and growth.

Life is freaking hard. doesn't happen in comfort. It happens in motion, even when you're hurting. All from one of my favorite spaces, The Kitchen. Honestly, these are going to come out so freaking amazing. Be a part of my new chapter and listen to the new season of the Overcomper podcast as part of the My Cultura podcast network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. My artistry and her managerial capacity, all those things had to die in order for our marriage to live because whatever you feed grows, right? And so if we're feeding the industry side of us, that thing was crazy.

She was managing doing fantastic. I'm doing my artist thing, da-da-da-da, and we're hemorrhaging at home. We bleed now, you know. And so we had to figure out what we wanted to live and what we wanted to, you know, to sacrifice. Now, one thing that I think makes me nervous, I know, makes Charlemagne nervous, you would diagnose with prostate cancer. Yeah. That's something that I think we started, and this was a great thing, we started early checking everything. I mean, we didn't went to damn near every scan you could possibly imagine because I have six.

He has four. We want to make sure we're there as long as possible. He would get his prostate check like every week. Just for fun. With the same, doctor? You know, just for fun. See where I work at. See what I work at.

See what I'm going to see. Were you sick? Was it just a test? or how did you find out? Yeah, never sick, never sick, never felt sick. Literally, about when I was in my early 40s is when I started going to get checked. And, you know, the whole taboo thing about the rectal check,

you know, the finger check and then the blood check. Even when I was diagnosed, it wasn't rectal check that found anything. It was literally in my blood from 10 years of getting blood checks. You know, I could see 10 years ago. It was like 3.1. It was 3.3. And then 3.9, 4.2, 4.5, 4.6, 5.1. And then it was kind of like, oh, okay. And then go from 5.1 to 6.1.

I was like, oh. And then so it was the journey of looking at my blood at that PSA levels because I had a history because of early detection. Because of that, it allowed me to, when I did get diagnosed, it allowed me to have options because they caught it early. and prostate cancer is 99% treatable when caught early. They have almost 100% success rate of treating it if it's caught early enough. But a lot of men, particularly disproportionately black men, do not go and they do not get checked. And because of that, they normally are finding out too late in the process. What made you decide to share it publicly instead of keeping it private? That was a God thing. That's 100% of God thing because it is very private, very personal.

and I think part of it was what it called a holy discontent, that thing that just makes it something difficult. You can't sleep at night. It was like I watched when Chat with Bozeman, it wasn't, I don't think prostate cancer, but when Chat with Bowman passed away, I was like, what is that? Like, how do you do all the movies? How do you do all those things? And nobody know, like nobody can tell me nothing, you know, about that.

And then when I got diagnosed, I didn't have a template. I didn't have anybody that I could look at that was telling, you know, that was telling the story to be able to say, okay, when you get diagnosed, do this. Or even though it's not cancer, not the same for everybody, but when this happens, here are the steps, you know, that you can take. I couldn't find nobody. And so even right after we got diagnosed, my wife and I,

I felt like we had, the Lord said to us, film it, tell everything, film it. And so we started filming this documentary that eventually will be called sustained. I'll tell you more about that in a moment. But this movie, this film and this documentary is literally us telling this entire story from diagnosis all the way up through how we vetted doctors, how we fedded treatments, what we chose to do, how I chose to have a radical prostatectomy surgery and have my prostate removed November 5th of 24 election day. And from that process, the journey afterwards, how I got clear margins and how that journey is and what it is today with a recurrence

or emergence of cancer, which is I would love to be here. telling the story about yeah i got prostate cancer i beat it i'm on the other side of it i'm actually right now in the mud you know i'm saying of this thing right now and i know i'm good i know um god's got me i know my wife's got me my family my children my grandchildren like i know that i am good i got great organizations like zero uh zero prostate cancer who i've come along with they're trying to help 100,000 men be saved from this prostate cancer and in that journey and I do want to say this because they're part of the reason why I'm here to talk about all this but people that need to get screened I want to encourage the wives the mothers the sisters

the aunts the daughters out there the men in your life need to be checked they need to be screened it is not a it's not a game it's not something you want to you want to you want to play around with And I know they can go to zero cancer.org slash September because this is officially prostate cancer awareness month. I hope I got that information right. But in my diagnosis and in the journey that I'm in right now and to think of it, I don't want to tell. But if I don't tell, I don't know who else is going to say it. I've watched and I watched Dwayne Wiggins from Tony Tony Tone had bladder cancer and he died. I don't know what his story is. I don't know if he got diagnosed. I don't know if he got treated. I don't know. I don't know

anything about that. The world heard, oh, Randy Moss has liver cancer. And it was like somebody leaked it and then he had it or he's fine from it now. And then they had a week in the NFL what they wore Moss cancer jerseys. But I don't know how he told his wife. I don't know what his kids navigated through. I don't know. I don't know anything when it comes to. D-Wade, you know, with a kidney cancer. I think he's got 60% of his kidney. I don't know what him and Gabrielle went through. I don't know how he told his kids or his family.

Like there's not enough data for me to make the right type of decisions and the thought processes that go behind any cancer and in particular prostate cancer, which is treatable. There's not a template there. So I'm the template now. I'm the template. So I'm partnering with zero. And I'm telling the, I'm snitching, I'm telling everything that I can, you know, about this, about this process from diagnosis to when I'm crying and snotting and when I'm shaking my fist at God and when I'm thanking God for life, all of these bits and pieces, man, I'm capturing it all.

And this is the crazy thing, though. Last year, from diagnosis up to surgery, I'm out on the road, I'm singing, I'm performing, I'm doing all these shows, all these concerts. and all the money that I'm earning to do this, I'm gathering it so I can tell a story about cancer. I got cancer and I'm working to tell a story about how I'm going to defeat cancer. And so now, even on the other side, thinking now I'm about to do this documentary, sustain, and go to sustainthemovie.com and help partner with us to help take some of this load off of me because me and my wife, we've been carrying this thing

for a year and a half now. You know, it's been completely, you know, on us. And now I'm still, you know, I got film crew. I got people with me because now that this reemergence of whatever is back, I got to continue this story. Thank you for sharing your story first. Thank you so much. Because there's so many brothers, I'm sorry,

there's so many brothers that have so many questions. And a lot of times we don't have anybody to talk to, right? There is nobody. We say this all the time. You never go to the barbershop and you be like, Hey, what's your prostate like? You don't talk about things like that. I'm just saying.

I'm just saying, but you know what I mean? But we don't have those conversations about names health. So the fact that- We do, though. No, we don't say, well, what's your prostate like? No, we don't do that in the barbershop. We encourage each other to get our prostheties. No, we're doing the radio, but in the barbershop,

that wasn't a common conversation. We'd have conversation about sports. We had conversations. I've done more funerals the past years than weddings. God, damn. And not just funeral. of people that people don't know, like, known people. Like, I was there for Biz Marquis.

I was a Biz Marquis funeral. I was there for DJ Mr. C. I eulogized DJ Mr. Se Alvin. Like, I was there the night that Fat Man School, you know what I'm saying, was in the hospital up in Connecticut. Like, somehow I'm around this, and these ain't like 70, 80-year-old men. These are dudes in the fifties, early 60s.

And so there's a problem with that, not just in the hip-hop and the, urban, there's a problem in the community, especially in the African-American community, black community, which is twice likely, you know what I'm saying, for people to not survive from this because of the not getting checked and because not having conversations about it. How do they come back if you got your prostate removed, though? Had it removed? Normally when you have your prostate removed, your PSA levels are supposed to go to zero. My PSA level did not go to zero. It went to like one point something. And it was kind of

like, well, sometimes it takes a couple of weeks for it to go down. And so it did go down after a couple weeks, 1.9, 1.7, a couple months, 1.5. I'm thinking that's cool or whatever, but actually that's not what the case is. It just is a situation where even though the prostate was removed and everything seemed like it was isolated and confined in the prostate, there was some bad actors that had probably, you know, like I said, when I got diagnosed, it was early first stage Gleason 6 prostate cancer. When they pulled it out and they biopsy it, it was like, oh, it's like stage two aggressive prostate cancer. And so, you know what I'm saying?

The little dudes, I got their fighters. And so they apparently, you know what I'm saying, wanted to try and hide out or whatever. But because I still get screenings and I still go through my regular checkups or whatever, I was able to detect, hey, there's something in your lymph nodes and something kind of in the prostate bed. Those things don't need to be there. You need to go for some more treatments. Monta has to go, guys. So if you got a little question. Yeah, I saw that you are going to be.

radiation? Yeah, yeah. Or will you be documenting that process too and talking people through that? Because that's also a fear too once people are diagnosed, they're scared of the treatment. Yeah, I don't want to, but I feel like I have to. So I'll be going through proton therapy in Atlanta. It's seven and a half weeks, 37 treatments, which is like five days a week, an hour a day going in and getting a very targeted form of radiation on my lymph nose and in my prostate bed. I'm not radioactive but nothing afterwards. It's all that radiation is taking place when the machine is on and don't want to do it, but that's the, that's how I get cancer. I am a cancer survivor, but I didn't know there was a such thing as a two-time cancer

survivor. So now it's like, you know what I'm saying? This is the second bout and I want it to be the last one. We got two quick questions. All right, real quick, because I haven't asked anything about this yet. Okay, so to Envy's point, no, guys don't usually talk about it, right? Like, my dad, he is like he knows something is wrong, but he don't know how to, relate to his kids. Okay. So, like, how do you, like, how did you tell your wife? How do you tell your other family members?

That's a, thank you for asking that question. Hearing it for the first time for myself, you know, just me and the doctor, that was hard enough because I'm trying to figure out how do I tell myself, first of all. Then from there, there's also this thing that you realize, okay, I've got this. You know, cancer doesn't have me, but I've got cancer. Now in this process, when I start to share. do I give cancer to other people? Meaning, do they now carry the weight of what I'm carrying?

So, in telling my wife, I became freer because I now got somebody to take this journey with me, and a lot of people don't have that, but I got a, you know what I'm saying, I got a G riding beside me to help me do that. But then, even after I told her, it took us about five months that it was just us not knowing who to tell, who to share it with, because we didn't want them to have to carry the weight. of that as well. And so eventually we told my son, my oldest son, and then my oldest son was like, yo, you got to tell my brother and sister, you got to tell everybody. I told everybody. I had a 12-year-old daughter at the time. She's the last one, you know what I'm saying? How do I tell her, which is a, you know, put that weight on her. She has school. She has a other stress.

You know, how do you tell her who also lost her grandfather to cancer the year before, a different form of cancer? And so now how do I make cancer palatable for a 12-year-old? I don't got a rule book for that. There's no template. So I become the template. And it's another story for another day. I hope you'll have me come back so I can tell you how I told my 12 year old because it's hilarious. But in that process of telling them and then letting more people know and more people know that we're just in our insulated circle of influence, those are the people that were going to be our tribe to help us because everybody don't need to know because everybody ain't praying for your health and everybody don't want to see you win. Everybody don't want to see

you healthy. I know it's going to be tons of people that this or that, you know, but I can silence all that noise because I knew who I am. And in this process, I'm telling my story because it's important for you and for your dad. Yeah. I'm telling the, and I don't even know what your dad is going to, but it's important that your dad knows that Montel, the artist, the million selling this or daddy other is saying, it's saying, please go and get yourself, or share. Or just tell your kids. Or tell them. Tell them. Tell them, because they're stronger than you think. Right.

And it would be worse for you not to know and then be wondering, oh, what happened? Oh, you know, they kept this all to themselves. It would be selfish. And I understand the reason why. But like I said, this is kind of where I am now. And I had to ask permission for my kids to be able to go and publicly start sharing this story in the mud in the middle of the story simply because it's personal to them. Like, yo, you know, Dad, we appreciate that you're sharing this with the whole world. You could save other people's lives and get men checked and this or that or the other.

But you're our dad. You know, you're our dad. And we want to keep this, you know, personal. But they understand they've allowed me to share my music. They've allowed me to share ministry. And now they're allowing me to share my medical journey with the world. And I probably wouldn't have done it without their, their co-signed to be able to say, yeah, dad, you know, you've saved people's lives through music. people's souls through ministry and now you can you can do this too this is my last question i know you

got to go you you talk about god's plan in your life how is your faith specifically guiding you during this you know stage of your life the treatment yeah recovery to read diagnosis everything i'm unshakable i'm unshakable i recognize that um i know where my soul rest in this um I know that this earthly journey is one that my story is not done being told. So from that standpoint, all I can do is look and be grateful of how good God has been to my life. And listen, it ain't just words. Like, you should be able to feel being in my presence, the same way I'm with y'all. You can feel that I know what I'll shout of a doubt how good God is to me and to some of y'all in the journeys that you've been.

through that he's that he's kept you and so that's the that's the foundational piece that has me rooted and grounded that I already know I know God's going to heal me and I know he can do it supernaturally I know he can do it through doctors through medicines he can do it through treatments he can do it however you want to do it if it was up to me I'd be like God you know I'm one of your favorites you know just you know just get it over with so I can just be able to tell the whole world yo Jesus healed me supernaturally and that's not the story that he gave me he said I'm not going to I'm not going to do it that way I was like well Lord let me just get through it and come on the other side so I could be able to say hey I had it I did this

and God brought me through through doctors and technology and now I'm on the other side of it and I would have loved that testimony and God said no you're not going to get it that way either and so in this journey that I'm on right now I'm great I'm really really grateful to be with y'all today it's like because I'm not on the other side of it I'm right in the mix of it and I want people to see that God ain't just on the other side of it he's right with me in the mix of it so while I'm in the midst of it God is with me in the he's not waiting for me on the other side of it other side to come through. Like, he's with me in the midst of it. And so from that standpoint, that's where I can walk with authority. I can walk with boldness. I can walk in a place

with my family. I can walk with zero prostate cancer. And I can tell the story because they're giving me a platform, you know what I'm saying, to be able to share in these spaces where my R&B or pastoral voice may not have the reach that it could have. Partnerships and things like that allow us to be able to save some lives. It's saying there's no money grab here. This is literally, I'm trying to grab your pops. You know what I'm trying to get your dad. I'm trying to get your uncles.

I'm trying to get your brothers. I'm trying to get your husbands. I'm trying to tell them if you thought Montel Jordan was cool or you liked his music or you thought he might have had, you know, brought something to the game. Now I'm bringing this to the game. And I'm saying it's important for you to not leave a legacy of your family, of secrets and of death and of misinformation and of neglect.

Don't neglect your family. Don't neglect your body. Find out what's going on. Because I've had people say, I'd just rather not know. No, no, that's incredibly ignorant to not want to know what's going on in your body, especially when it comes to prostate cancer. Because I keep saying this, man, it's treatable when caught early. So why not catch it early before it catches you?

I don't know you like you just got another ministry brother. It was music and preaching now you know you're going through all of this just to have another ministry. Well I didn't want this one. But that's why God can trust me with it though. He can trust me with this. I don't want this. I don't want to tell this story.

I do not want to be the one to tell this story and that's why God says great. So I know that you know you'll do whatever you have to say and do you do what you have to do you'll say what you have to say because I know it's not something that I want the accolades for. It's a lot to come along with prostate cancer. You know what I'm saying? That journey or whatever and the

stigmas and the stuff that comes along with that, very personal. But from that standpoint, you know, I got a lot to share, a lot to talk about. A lot of it will be in that documentary. Like I said, I care, you know, I'm the shameless plug. I need help. Sustain themovie.com. That's a space where people can partner and be a part of coming to help us get this documentary told and get your names on the, credits on the screen and all that type of stuff. I got to get the story told. And I'm either going to tell it. because people are helping sustain the movie.com. Make sure you log on and donate.

But we need to close out with a prayer, brother. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. All right. God, thank you. Thank you for your sons and your daughters. I think that you have given them this space and this voice to be able to speak to this generation.

God, I pray over their lives. I pray over their health. I pray over their strength. I pray over their families. I pray over their marriages. I pray over their future marriages. I pray over their children and their grandchildren. God, I pray that what they speak,

speak, even as they entertain, Father, that at the heart of what they do, that somehow somebody would hear what they say, and it always points back to you. Father, no matter what they are navigating through personally, I pray that you would be there with them. Let them know you're not on the other side waiting for them, that if they've received you as Lord and Savior, that you are there with them in the trenches. In the good days, you're with them. In the bad days, you are with them. And I thank you for the Breakfast Club. I thank you for this space. And I thank you for this platform. I thank you for my life and for my wife and for my children and my grandchildren. I thank you for everybody under the sound of my voice that you know you've heard Montel, but you weren't hearing

Montel. You were hearing the Lord speak to you today to be able to say your life matters, your soul matters and more than your soul mattering in heaven, which is extremely important, your life here on earth matters. And so do something to make sure you are preserving your life here in this earth so that the beautiful things that we get to listen to and experience, God, you are the one that I allow that to happen. And we just thank you for this opportunity. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Man tell joining, ladies and gentlemen. It's the breakfast club. Good morning. Thank you so much. Hold up. Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up. The breakfast club.

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December 29th. 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged. Terrorism.

Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Wait a minute, Sam. Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, luckily, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend's been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her.

Now he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone. Hold up. Isn't that against school policy? That seems inappropriate. Maybe. Find out how it ends by listening. to the OK Storytime podcast and the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Hunter, host of Hunting for Answers on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Join me every weekday as I share bite-sized stories of missing and murdered black women and girls in America. Stories like Erica Hunt. A young mother vanished without a trace after a family gathering on 4th of July weekend, 2016. No goodbyes, no clues, just gone. Listen to Hunting for Answers every weekday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast.