The Breakfast Club - Started From The Bottom: Charlamagne Tha God - How He Turned Anxiety and Failure into Success

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

Introducing Started from the Bottom. Every week on Started from the Bottom, host Justin Richmond interviews successful people who grew up on the outside – people of color, people who weren’t part of the old boys’ network, people who grew up in a world where almost nobody went to college. How did they do it? How did they beat the odds while also beating away the feeling of being an imposter? Over a 25 year career, Charlamagne Tha God clawed his way to the top of the radio industry. In this episode of Started From the Bottom, a new podcast from Pushkin Industries, the long-time host of The Breakfast Club tells us what it took for him — a young man suffering from anxiety, constantly in and out of jail — to become an icon of modern media. Catch new episodes every week, everywhere you listen to podcasts. To check it on on the iHeart App, https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1297-started-from-the-bottom-108123736/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. was up early, early. So I was listening to Tom join him. And then, you know, Z93 played such a big role in my life because, you know, their original morning show that I remember was The Breakfast Club, Baby J and Tessa, Tessa Spencer. My guest today is someone I've wanted to interview for a long time because of what he's meant over the last decade to the culture, black culture, hip hop culture, internet culture, youth culture, all the cultures, to the culture. Black culture, hip-hop culture, internet culture, youth culture, all the cultures, you name it. But if I'm being completely honest, the real reason I wanted to sit down and talk to Charlemagne the God is to see if some of his confidence can rub off on me. Most of my career, I've been terrified to bring my full self to work. Out of fear of rejection or

fear that I wouldn't be enough. I don't know. I'm working through it with my therapist. But what I admire about Charlemagne is that he seems to not care at all about being rejected by his peers, his co-workers, his audience, anyone. And that confidence has led to some of the most impactful and sometimes controversial interviews over the last decade as co-host of one of the most popular radio shows of all time, The Breakfast Club. Sharlene made me time to sit down with me in New York City to discuss all of this, plus his upbringing, parenting, and the criticisms that have come with his success and more. This is Started From The Bottom, hard-earned success stories from people like us.

First time I ever saw you was it was you on the Wendy Williams radio show going toe-to-toe with Andrew Dice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was like 2007. It was one of the most amazing things ever. And even though you kind of got, I don't know, I feel like Andrew kind of put it on you that day. It was the way they edited it, too. But it was like, yeah, I had some good ones, but they didn't put all of them in. They put the one about me calling him a fat Fonzie. That's right.

Looking back, you actually did a lot better than I remembered at the time. I was like, dang, like Andrew still got it. I remember being like, oh, man. But then that kind of put you on my radar. And then I remember when The Breakfast Club came, I was like, dang, like Andrew still got it. I remember being like, oh, man. But then that kind of put you on my radar. And then I remember when The Breakfast Club came, I was like, oh, it makes sense. Like this guy clearly, clearly had it. But yeah, I want to run through your radio trajectory. But first, I thought it'd be good to start with growing up in Monk's Corner, South Carolina.

It's interesting, right? Because, you know, I've been thinking about that a lot more lately, only because like, you know, when I'm in therapy, I'm doing like a lot of inner child work, you know, because I feel like a lot of the issues that you deal with as an adult, most of them directly connected to something that happened in your childhood. What was that upbringing like growing up in Monk's Corner, South Carolina? And the word I've come to realize that is associated with that upbringing is simple. You know, Monk's Corner, when I was young, created a sense of ease in my life that I feel like really helped me growing up because I didn't move too fast and I didn't move too slow. That still is a big big big part of me so when like you know that anxiety that I've been feeling my whole life sets in I feel like okay I might be moving too fast but then I don't want to move too slow but then it's just a certain ease like like baby bears porridge it's just it's a just right level of ease that growing up in Monk's Corner gave me that I tend to tap into whenever things get really hectic.

You mentioned some of the anxiety that you have. When did that start? Since early? Yeah, as long as I know. I mean, the first panic attack I remember having was first grade. My mom dropping me off. Like, I can feel it right now. My mom dropping me off first grade, first day of first grade. And I can feel it right now. My mom dropping me off

first grade, first day of first grade. And like, I just cried uncontrollably. Like, like I just felt like abandoned, lost, and just scared. Like that, that, that same, you know, unexplainable feeling of fear and panic and worry and i think my mom even says that i might have cried for like the first week i don't remember the first week i remember that one particular day but it's like yeah that's the first time i remember ever having like a panic attack and i had them throughout my life like i've been going to the emergency room thinking that i'm having a heart attack you know thinking that i'm dying you know and then you get there and the doctor's like oh did you have an energy drink today and you're like i did drink a red bull earlier and i was like oh

that's probably why your heart is doing that oh yeah that's the worst feeling you know so it wasn't until 2010 that a doctor actually said to me it sounds like you have anxiety he was literally was like it sounds like you had a panic attack, the things that you're describing. And he was like, has this happened to you before? And I'm like, all the time. And he asked me, was I stressed out about anything? And I'm like, hell yeah, because at the time I had just been fired for the fourth time from radio. And I'm back living at home with my mom at like 31, 32 years old. My daughter's like one or two. My wife is back living at home with her parents, you know what I mean, in Monk's Corner.

So it's like I was super stressed out, collecting unemployment checks every week. So in my mind, all I had to do was get back in position, get me another job, and all of that would go away. And that wasn't the case. I ended up getting the Breakfast Club gig and having the most success I've ever had in my life. And it felt like all of those issues I had historically dealt with were magnified times 100 now.

Yeah. You know? And so that's when I decided to, like, finally go get some help and, like, go to therapy. What do you think? Do you see that same anxiety in your kids? Yeah. You do. I haven't seen it show up as bad as mine was when i was that age and

i think the beauty of life now is not only do i have the language i have the experience so it's just like and i wish that you know somebody had put me in therapy when i was 13 14 now me i definitely needed it because i was getting sexually abused at eight years old. I didn't realize that at the time. I didn't realize that was molestation until I was 20 something years old. You know, at the time I just thought I was eight year old kid getting lucky. Older girl in the neighborhood. Yeah. Right. Yeah. We would all, we were a bunch of young men. We'd all be around having conversations about older women that we were messing with, you know, in the neighborhood. Like we all thought we were

lying, but clearly we all would like telling the truth in different ways right so um when i was 14 i definitely needed to unpack some of that do you think you've had it at that age do you think the trajectory would have been the same like do you think you would have been ended up in the streets the way you did probably not and the reason probably not is because you you know, even with the streets, right, it's like a lot of that is you trauma bond with people. Yeah. Because it's all a bunch of individuals that are missing something. And, like, we all want camaraderie. We all want family.

We all want a crew. And it's just sometimes men, we trauma bond over bullshit. Yeah. You know, so we trauma bond sometimes over crime. You know, we trauma bond over bullshit. Yeah. You know, so we trauma bond sometimes over crime. You know, we trauma bond over drugs. We trauma bond over alcohol, you know. But most of the time it's like, yo, we're all trauma bonding to do the wrong thing. Like, you know what I mean?

Like, let's go rob this, you know, individual. Go rob this store. Break into this house. Let's go, you know, figure out a way to get some a pack the hustle but it's like what we're all lacking is like togetherness like everybody we're all tribal and we all long for family right and i think that's what um that's what a lot of guys do when they when they click up in that way so i think for me i definitely was longing for like some type of family structure even though I grew up in a house with an older sister two younger brothers and a younger sister

I was the second oldest my oldest sister's like 10 12 years older than me and my youngest siblings are like 10 12 years younger than me so I was kind of I didn't have an island yeah exactly so I ended up kicking it with brothers and who are around my age and we all ended up doing a bunch of dirt. And I don't even like to call it peer pressure because I don't believe there's anything. I don't believe peer pressure exists. I believe we all just want to be accepted. You know what I'm saying? And I think that when somebody pushes you to do something, you do it because you don't want to let them down so it's a lot of people pleasing that goes that age especially at that age man and it stays with you though that people pleasing stays with you like that's something that i had to unpack in therapy like stop being a people

pleaser like you know because sometimes you'll be a people pleaser to your own detriment yeah you know i can't believe anyone's ever accused you being a people pleaser man no i think that a lot of that man that's because you seem you have strong opinions. Yeah. I'm scared of voice. Even if it alienates you. Yeah. No, you're right. I've always been that way. But no, there's there's been plenty of times in my life where I just wanted to be down. I literally I just wanted to be down. I wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be embraced. And, you know, I can think about, you know, that time at that moment. Like I just wanted to be embraced by and you know i can think about you know that time at that moment like i just wanted to be embraced by you know my peers you know so that's why i started

doing what a lot of my peers was doing which was a lot of bullshit you know i mean because i wanted to be accepted some of that early stuff couple couple drug cases um the last one was you were around a shooting that was the first one that was the first one. That was the first one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The first one was you were around a shooting. The first one, I was in the backseat of a car, and my homeboy was in the front seat. Somebody was driving, and we was in this neighborhood.

Like two neighborhoods over from where we are in Monk's Corner. Two towns over, rather, from where we are in Monk's Corner. And we was just having some conversations with some young ladies there, and some guys in the neighborhood didn't like that we were there. And, you know, I'm on my fake tough guy shit, my fake hardcore shit. So I'm acting like Doughboy and boys in the hood. Like, got my hand under my shirt. What's up?

What's up, yo? What's up, cuz? Like, I don't know what the fuck that means. Like, what's up? I got a problem? You know what I mean? And they, you know, drove off. And we went to, like, I think it was Burger King or McDonald's.

I don't remember. I think it was Burger King. So we went to, I think it was Burger King or McDonald's. I don't remember. I think it was Burger King. So we went to Burger King. As we were leaving, I see the truck that those guys were in pulling up behind us. And I tell my dude, like, oh, that's some guys from the neighborhood. And so they pulled up on the side of us. So I'm in the backseat of the car. Dude's talking shit out the window.

One of my guys pulled out and shot from the passenger seat. And, you know, luckily nobody was in the fourth seat. So it was a driver, passenger, and then somebody was sitting behind the driver where the bullet hit the headrest in the fourth seat behind the passenger seat. You know what I mean? Wow, yeah. All praise is due to God because, you know, that could have been a situation where somebody got killed.

Now we all in jail for 20, 30 years. You know what I mean? So even now when I think about stuff like that, I'm like, oh. Yeah. You know, because I'm a big back to the future guy. You know, you watch those time heist movies. People go back and little things change here and there and change the whole trajectory of everything. And so, yeah, that was the first time I ever got arrested.

Did it change your relationship with your parents? It didn't change my relationship with my parents. It actually made me realize my dad was right because my dad was always telling me if I don't change my lifestyle, I'm going to end up in jail, dead, or broke sitting under the tree. You know, so when I came home,

I really was just looking for positive things to do. Like, you know, I started working at a warehouse called Industrial Acoustics Company. And, you know, from that point on, I wanted to keep a job. But I worked there for like two, three weeks, got fired from there, you know, to supervise it. I'll never forget her name. Her name was Gail Cobb. The supervisor was like, you don't fit in here. You're not what we're looking for. Now, mind you, my job was literally like, I was clearing out an area, like a wooded area. So I'm like, well, goddamn, I'm not fit to clean out a wooded area. You know what I mean? But she was like, you don't fit in here. So then I

started working at a flower garden just because I was looking to do something positive. And the flower garden literally, now that I think back on it, it was literally a bunch of like migrants working there. Like, you know what I mean? It was clearly a bunch of people who, you know, weren't from this country who were just looking for work. Now, now looking back on it, that's what it was. It was literally just a bunch of Mexicans and who knows what else, like just working there. Right. And so I was there for like two weeks. The supervisor's name was Dominique. Same thing. Me and him got into a shouting match

because I was just like, this shit feels like a fucking, it was a plantation. It literally was a flower garden. It was actually called the- In the South. Yeah, it was called the something plantation flower garden, but it literally was just, we were out there in the hot sun picking flowers and you know other types of shit so I I quit that and then that's when I started like

flirting with the street you know what I mean that's when it was like man I gotta figure out some ways to make money because you know I still gotta pay my probation officer and shit like that and it was just a stupid mentality right because when Because when you're on probation, you got to keep a job. That's number one. And you got to pay your probation fees. So I started just saying that I was working with my dad and I was doing temp services, but also I got a $50 slab. $50 slab is when you get $50 worth of rock. And, you know, I think you're posting big, like, I think it's supposed to be $100 off each gram. So I think a slab was one

gram that you pay fifty dollars for and you cut it up and you posted it cuts up into like a hundred dollars worth of rock so that was the first time i like dabbled in like yeah hustling so yeah did i let my did i feel like well how did my relationship with my parents change yeah i thought they were right but i still was young and had to figure things out for myself, which led me back, which led me into actually hustling, you know? After the break, Charlamagne's going to take us on a ride

through his earliest experiences with radio and how that helped build his foundation in the business. When did radio enter your life? not not as a career as a listener like what's your earliest experiences with radio like forever forever and the reason i say forever because like when i said small town monks corner south carolina so the radio station was z93 jams we were always around the radio. If it wasn't Z93 Jams, it was another station called WPAL 100.9. And 100.9 was more underground with it. So they were playing underground stuff, not the main screen stuff. And there was always boom boxes around. My cousin Ty, my cousin Ty, he was the first person to let me hear a real hip-hop record.

Prior to that, my sister had her radio in her room, so my sister was listening to Kid N Play and Salt-N-Pepa, you know what I mean? Stuff like that. Hammer. All the pop stuff. You know what I mean? But my cousin let me hear Eric B. and Rakim paid in full. Wow. And that changed everything.

Wow. That was like, I don't know what this thing is called hip hop, but I love it. Wow. It felt like Rakim was saying stuff. He was telling stories. You know what I mean? Yeah. That is what introduced me to radio and always wanting to be around a radio it felt like we might have even have been around radio more than tv you know back in the day tv with certain shows we were watching but we weren't just turning the tv on and keeping it on all day if it wasn't like nintendo or you know um the radio man we were outside yeah like you know what i mean running around

playing around so it's like for me radio has always been in my life as a listener like always who are the personalities there because i know like in la and later i came to realize it was like syndicated but you know in la i always felt like it was like big boy was like was huge you know and i felt like our guy uh for me growing up it was oh oh oh it's the tom joiner morning show because you know my mom was a school teacher so we was up early early so i was listening to tom joiner and then um you know z93 played such a big role in my life because you know their original morning show that i remember was the breakfast club baby Baby J and Tessa, Tessa Spencer. And then, you know, in the afternoons, it was like, my man, Yanni the Rude Boy.

But then it was like, you know, the night shows, the top nine at nine, you know, you want to call in and request a song and hear your voice on the radio, shout out your school, whatever, whatever. But, yeah, those were the people, like growing up, like people like Sean Dobie. Like those are the personalities that I would hear. Reggie C, you'd hear these people and they were just like regular voices that you would hear all the time. Ken Moore, like, I don't even know if Ken was, was Ken on Z? I don't know if Ken was on Z, but these are the voices I remember, you know, growing up.

Like those voices, those local radio voices in growing up. Absolutely. As famous as anyone in the country, in the world. Absolutely. Absolutely. Do you remember your first time on the radio? I don't remember the very first time, but definitely one of the first times was my man, Willie Will. There was a guy named Willie Will.

He was the night jock there at Z93 Jams in Charleston, South Carolina. Me and him used to rap together. I met him at, you know, a couple of recording studios that were in Charleston. When I got my internship up there, I would always just be up there and I'd be sitting in on his show. And, you know, he would definitely, you know, call me to the microphone, you know, and I'd be on the mic talking. So definitely my first time on air, I'm sure, was with Willie Will in some way, shape, or form. Because I remember the program director telling him, like, you know, you need to get a cardboard cutout of Charlemagne and put it in the studio because your energy goes up, you know, when he's in here, you know, with you. I remember him saying that to him and um yeah which which

probably ultimately led to me being on air because my man Ron White you know Sleuth and Ron White me and Ron still talk to this day Ron was like he just asked me one day like yo do you want to be on the radio and I'm like sure why not and so they started putting me on Sundays 11 a.m to 3 p.m when you say sure like was there a part of you that had, was that just you playing it cool? Or were you really not even sure you wanted to be on the radio like that? Yeah, I never had thought about it. You know what I mean? I just was really happy to be working at Z93 Jams because it was, like, the most corporate thing I had ever done.

Yeah. You know, it was the place, it was a place where, like, in South Carolina, people saw you at Z93. They're like, oh, he must be doing something. You know, it was it was the place it was a place where like in South Carolina, people saw you at Z93. They're like, oh, you must he must be doing something. You know what I mean? Like he must be doing something with his with his life. You know what I mean? And for me, being like a guy who was in and out of jail at the time and was getting in a lot of trouble and graduated from high school and night school, had gotten kicked out of two high schools like for me that was a big deal for me to be like pulling up in most corner driving this station vehicle like with the big white van with the z93 jams on the logo you know i mean pulling it down my dirt road you know i mean hoping that some of

the girls that lived on my road saw me you know what i mean like that was a big deal for me back then. So, yeah. Just to be there felt like you did it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just happy to be there. So when he asked me to be on air, I'm like, hell yeah. Yeah. Whatever's going to keep me here. Yeah.

And, of course, when you think radio, you think on-air personalities. You're not thinking promotions or programming or anything like that. So, hell yeah, I'd love to be on on air now I can really say I work here now I'm a personality and um yeah I I really loved it and appreciated it how was that first show that you had I was scaring all the church folks because it was what they had me do they had me do something called voice track and when you voice track is when you record your voice and you got to record your voice. And, you know, it's like, it's a time slot from like 11 to three. So you're talking like three, four times an hour, introducing songs, time, temperature, stuff like that. So I didn't

know how to do radio. You know, I really didn't. So I was just going in there talking like, yeah, I was, I was actually screaming when I go back and listen to my old voice tapes, I was screaming. And it's funny because they all were telling me I was screaming like, I'm not screaming. Y'all just old. Y'all don't understand how we talk. But I was actually screaming. When I go back and listen to my old voice tapes, I was screaming. And it's funny because they all were telling me I was screaming. Like, I'm not screaming. Y'all just old. Y'all don't understand how we talk. But I was really yelling like, T93 Jamz, R&B and hip hop. How am I going by the name of Charlamagne than God?

I was yelling, like screaming at people. And so like, you know, when I finally started listening to the people who actually do this for a living, I started to acquire a more conversational tone. But in the beginning, I was just yelling, like yelling, like literally yelling at people on the radio. And that's what I was doing. And I did that. I think I might have voice tracked a few Sundays.

And then Ron was like, all right, enough of that. You're going to have your voice track on Saturday nights now, 7 to 10. And then you're going to go live from 10 to midnight. And that was everything because it's Saturday night, so I can have this high energy. But then when we go live, oh, I can take phone calls. Now it's like I'm taking phone calls, and I'm fucking with people when they're calling in,

making jokes, blah, blah, blah. So it's just like, for me, the best thing that ever happened to me was I didn't know how to do radio. Nobody taught me how to do radio. I wasn't a person who came from doing college radio. Nowadays, you can have a podcast or a YouTube page. I was just fresh off the dirt road in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, getting on the air in Charleston, South Carolina, on the biggest radio station at the time, Z93. And that rawness showed I sounded

different than everybody else because I didn't have that announcer you know yeah background so it worked for me yeah you didn't have that announcer broadcast that's right yeah pedigree or whatever that's just coming at it with your own angle that's right what was your journey after that, after Z? So I worked as an intern in 98, started there in 99 from the promotions department to being on air. And then a new station came in the market, Hot 98.9, much smaller station, ran by a guy named my man George Cook was the program director. I was doing part time at Z. So I had some conversations with Hot 98.9 they wanted me to come over there and do nights they wanted me to do Monday through Saturday

7 to midnight full time and I think the pay was like 19 grand a year and at the time that was a lot of money and it was a salary so just to be able to say salary I didn't go to college yeah you know what i mean i graduated from night school and like so i didn't just oh i got a salary now

you're not thinking about an hourly like how much you're making an hour you're like yeah this is i'm just happy to be making 19 grand a year like that sounded like yeah some shit and so yeah i started working there every night and it wasn't even about the check it was about the opportunity to be on every night and my man george cook man who's's still a great mentor to me to this day. He actually George is not only the first person to give me a full time position on radio. He told me some information that just changed my whole life. And the information was, I want you to have a morning show at night. I want you to treat this night show that you have like a morning show at night. Parody songs and a lot of sketches and a lot of topics and a lot

of interaction with listeners via the phone and playing new music. And all of that benefited me so well in the future because that's what I ultimately treated every single show like. I treated every single show like it was a morning show. So no matter where I went, from Hot 98.9 to the Big DM in Columbia, then it was Hot 103.9 in Columbia. Then it was Wendy Williams' show. Then it was my own morning show in Philly. By the time I got to my own morning show in Philly, I had approached every single one of those situations like it was a morning show. So by the time I was ready to do my own morning show, I was over

prepared. Yeah. You know, so it was he planted the seed early on that basically stuck with me throughout my whole career and ultimately led to me being the morning guy I am now. When we come back, you'll get a chance to hear what Charlemagne learned from the legendary radio host, Wendy Williams, and lessons he had to teach himself to achieve success. Tell me about meeting Wendy Williams, man. Man, I met Wendy because I was doing radio in Columbia, South Carolina. Columbia had a really dope station called Hot 1039. So Hot 1039 started syndicating Wendy Williams in the afternoons. And so Wendy and her husband would come down for station visits.

They would come down to see the market and stuff like that. And so I just would break bread, you know? And I remember the first time I even tried to break bread with Wendy, Wendy was in the studio trying to do her show, which I totally understand now, you know what I mean? But I came in there with mixtapes and parody songs, all of this stuff I wanted her to hear. While she was doing her show?

Yeah, I mean, but she was in between breaks. Oh, right, right. You know what I mean? But now understanding the hecticness of a syndicated show it wasn't like breaks like us but we break for 20 minutes 30 minutes and got time to bullshit yeah she's on like on on on on like it might only been like three minutes in between songs wendy goes look yo yo take that mixtape shit out of here i'm trying to do my fucking, take that mixtape shit out of here. I'm trying to do my fucking show. Take that mixtape shit to my husband.

I didn't feel offended by that. I was just like, where's your husband? She's like, I think he's in that fucking room somewhere, like in the conference room across the hall. Cool. So I went across the room, gave him the mixtape, started pitching shit to him, you know, pitching shit to him, and then shit to him and then we started

talking and we you know kept in contact from there you know and i used to like give them the heads up on things that were going on at the station so he invited me to come up to new york for a party he was like yo why don't you come up to new york we having a party blah blah and i'm like all right went to the party just to kick it and in the the party, Wendy was like, oh, shit, Charlemagne. Yo, why don't you come to my show? How long you in town? I was like, oh, just for a couple days. Come to my show tomorrow.

I'm like, come to your show tomorrow. Can't tell me shit like that. I'm going to be like, yo, all right. Who do I call? What do I do? And so I'm hitting Kev. Like, yo, Kev, Wendy said come to our show. He was like, all right, I bet. So he i do and so i'm hitting kev like yo kev when he said come to our show he was like all right i bet so he just told me that he told me to go up there went up there

sat in the pink room to paint the office for a while then she invited me on the show and i was there for like 25 minutes and literally that evening they were offering me the position as her co-host sidekick and they was look, we can't pay you, but we can give you a place to stay. And I'm just like, all right, just let me go back down south and, like, you know, figure some things out. Like, just, you know, let my girl know what I'm about to do and everything else, and that's what I did.

You knew the opportunity. Yo, man, you got to recognize opportunity even when it's not a paycheck attached to it. So my mindset was never, I never once was like, how much i'm gonna get paid it was like we cannot pay you but we can give you a place to stay i'm out the opportunity to be on wendy williams show monday through friday in the afternoon nationally syndicated show what are some lessons you learned on the wendy williams show that Because Wendy's a legend. No matter how you feel about her. No matter how you feel about her,

bonafide legend, one of the most talented people, one of the most talented media personalities of all time. You know, one of the few people who can like literally sit down in front of a TV camera and just go. Yeah. A person who can just sit down in front of a microphone and just go. Yeah.

And you realize the reason she's able to do that is because number one, she does have just a natural gift to gab. But one of the lessons I learned is that everything is show prep. Like a lot of times, you know, back in the day, we would think that show prep is like just picking up the latest magazine or picking up the latest tabloid and just downloading what's in there. Wendy taught me that your whole life is show prep. Every single experience that you go through can be bought to the radio. You know, every single experience that you go through can be bought, you know, the television. I would watch her. I'd be out with her during the day, watch these things happen to her, and then watch her get on the radio and talk about these things.

Like, oh, I was there. And of course, she's making me part of the story because Charlamagne said this and Charlamagne was right there. Charlamagne acted like he didn't see it. And I'm like, God damn, she's incredible. You know what I mean? Like, she's just an incredible

storyteller. So, you know, she taught me how to tell stories via radio, even though I was already doing it, but I was doing it more so through sketches. But now just to make your life

a story to make the things that happen to you throughout the day a story that was like one of the biggest things like everything is show prep and the other thing was like you're either going to be of the people or of the industry because when you're of the people you're always going to speak like

for the people and you're going to speak how the people speak when you're of the industry like you're going to try to protect relationships and you're going to try to you know protect people you know so you're not going to have those opinions that you that you probably once had that was good advice at the time I think that there's an adjustment to be made in that rhetoric because it's going to come a time where like you're going to be industry yeah you get too big yeah and everybody around you is going to be industry too i've been in the game for 25 years so not only

have i grown as a personality and a businessman a media just everything right yeah people around me have to now I got people who run record labels I got people who are A&Rs I got people who work at these social media platforms you know what I mean I got friends that are artists and big celebrities we all I've been doing it for 25 years we all came up together and not only just the people i came up with those next generations of people that now i'm in position but oh i see this person coming let me embrace this individual embrace that individual so we're all industry you know what i mean so your authentic self has to change it's like reasonable doubt was authentic for jay-z in 1996 yeah authentic for jay-z like today right four four is like authentic for jay-z like

today right man what you just said hit it on the head because people don't pay attention to that like you saw me when i was one version of myself if i had stayed that version and never grown into anything else it's no way i'm being authentic yeah muhammad ali said the person who's doing the same thing at 50 that he was at 20 wasted 30 years of his fucking life i believe that you know what i mean it's just like you're i'm i'm never going to be that version again but the only thing i could do is be the best version of my authentic self whatever that may be whatever i grow into you know and like that's why me at 44, you goddamn right, I'm not the same way I was at 31.

I better not be. You know what I mean? I'm my true authentic self right now. And yo, you realize like the power of the platform. And what I mean by that is like, man, it's just certain things that we got to protect people from because we have these platforms and sometimes the wrong information

is spewed over the platform, you know, and people get hurt because of that. Yeah. You know, and I'm not in the business of hurting nobody. I don't want to hurt nobody and I don't want the person putting out the information to be hurt. Yeah. You know, so, yeah. Well, that's interesting because I don't know if this was necessarily this person being hurt by you. But after Wendy Williams, you get your own show in Philly.

And you get fired because you bring Beanie Siegel on, who's a Philly rapper. Tell me if I'm not getting the story right. But you bring on Beanie Siegel, who's a Philly rapper. At one point was signed to Rockefeller Records, came up under Jay, Jay-Z. And you do an interview with Beans on the show, and he says something about Jay that makes Jay mad, and you get fired. Yeah, that's the story. The story is that I got fired because Beanie Segal got on the air

and aired out Jay-Z, and I'm the one who recorded it, and I put it on air. That's the story. I don't know if that's true or not. Jay never has confirmed. Well, no, Jay has. Jay never confirmed or denied on air. Behind the scenes he has said to me like, did I really get you fired? Like, you know what I mean? And that's the story. I doubt that's highly the case. You know what I mean? What I think back then, I think a new program director was hired and I think that new program director just wanted to bring in his people. And that new program director, like, I don't know, he had his chest out a little bit.

I remember the first time I met him, he was like, oh, me and you going to be able to get along? So he came in there on some like snapping the whip shit. Let me get this guy in line type thing. And I think that it was a combination of just him being new and wanting to bring in his own people, but also a combination of people thinking they're doing the right thing for Jay-Z, but Jay-Z's not even thinking about this shit. Jay-Z's not, yeah, yeah, he's not.

You know what I mean? It's one of those things like, I know Charlamagne did this, but we got rid of Charlamagne, and you let Jay know I did it, whatever, whatever, you know? So I don't know. I do feel like maybe a higher up

might have just pulled the trigger on that firing just to get in a good graces but right I don't think that was a hey I'm Jay-Z I'm offended by this get this guy off the air thing no I don't believe that at all okay okay but that does get you fired and that was your own show I mean that's like your own show with Philly that's like your first time having like your own show that's like yeah that's that big to that level. And I was killing. I was number, I think, two in the market.

I was number two in the market at the time. And that was in a PPM world. So I was doing great. And it was literally just me and my homegirl, Sasha. Sasha, Suta, Sasha, Katie. That's the homie. You know what I mean? She and I, we used to work together when I used to work at Wendy at WBLS.

And so when I got my own show in Philly, just asked yo you want to be my producer and she was like hell yeah so we literally would drive from New Jersey every morning back and forth to Pennsylvania like like an hour and a half away we would drive back and forth every day three I have to get up at three in the morning pick her up by like 3.30, 4 o'clock to be there on time. Wow. And we did that every single day. Wow.

For like six, seven months. The funny part is I got fired the day I was supposed to move into the townhouse because I was still living in Jersey. So me and my wife had got a townhouse and I'm like, yo, this is going to be great. Now I'm going to wake up so early. Like I won't have to drive. Like I'm in my, that's what I'm like yo this is going to be great now I don't got to wake up so early like I won't have to drive like I'm in my investment I'm processing all

this in my mind we was living in Cherry Hill New Jersey on the outskirts of Philadelphia going to enroll my daughter in school here all of that type of shit and the day I got fired I literally had all my stuff in the fucking I had a 2002 Escalade with like

150,000 miles on it and I had all of that in the car ready to had a 2002 Escalade with like 150,000 miles on it. And I had all of that in the car, ready to move into the townhouse. And I got fired on that day, literally that day. And went back to South Carolina, back in Monce Corner for a year. What was going through your head at that point? Failure. I had failed. I got to go back to Monce Corner after being, you know, on Wendy's show, after having my own show in Philly, after having these viral moments, after being on VH1 TV with Wendy.

Now I got to go back to Monk's Corner and collect unemployment for real, because I don't know when I'm going to get another gig and now I got a daughter. So I literally was in South Carolina from November 2009 to November 2010. So I was able to collect a year of unemployment. Wow. You know what I mean? I'm living at home with my mom. Depressed as shit. You know, anxiety through the roof. Just trying to figure out what's going to happen. But, you know, I used that opportunity to, there was a new station launching in South, in Charleston, South Carolina.

It was called The Box. I think it was like 92.5 The Box or something like that. So I was there with them helping them launch the station, helping them write promos and creating imaging for the station. I did the voiceovers for the station. Like in my mind, I was like, okay, I'm going to end up getting a shift on 92.5. I'm going to make my 20 grand a year here in South Carolina and we're going to live a great life. That was my mindset. But you know, clearly God had other plans because the Breakfast Club came shortly after that. How did that come? When I was in Philly, there was a time where I had met with my man G-Spin before. Me and G-Spin met in a restaurant or something. It was me, and at the time, my then manager was Kevin, Wendy's husband.

He don't have the best reputation in the business. Even though we met, G-Spin wasn't really feeling it. And then later on, that turned into a meeting with my man Cadillac Jack. And Kev was with me then. And it was the same thing. Like, literally, I found out that after we left the meeting, mad people came from, like, the sales department and was like, you cannot. Charlemagne's great, but as long as, you know, Kevin is his manager, you know, we can't hire him and yada, you cannot, we, Charlemagne's great, but if, as long as, you know, Kevin is his manager, you know, we can't hire him and yada, yada, yada, the energy will be bad and terrible,

all of this type of stuff. I didn't know that. Shit. You know, and then, you know, me and Kevin ended up having a falling out, parting ways. And so I was in New York, because I had moved back to South Carolina, but I was in New York for a couple of days. And I remember just texting G-Spin, like, yo, where you at? And he was like, I'm in New York.

Where you at? I'm like, I'm in Jersey right now. I was staying in Fort Lee. I was at the Doubletree in Fort Lee. And he was like, yo, man, he was like, yo, come to the station. I'm like, where? He was like, yeah, yeah, come to the station. Come to the station i'm like what he was like yeah yeah come to the station come to the station right now and so i got in the rental car drove seem it took me like three hours to get there because it was

like four o'clock in the afternoon yeah so we was at the gw bridge for what seemed like an hour and trying to get down the west side creeping down to tribeca but i finally get there and g-spin is like yo um my boss cadillac jack has been watching your stuff all day long. Watching you and Duval with the hood state of the union and listening to like some old interviews when you was on the radio in Philly. So I sit down with Cadillac and me and Cadillac just have a great conversation. And one of the first things he says to me is like, you know, is Kev still your manager? And I'm like, nah. You know, and that's how the relationship started.

So, like, a few months later, I got hired on Power 105.1. And I remember Cadillac saying, like, how long can you wait for this job? And I'm like, for this job, as long as it takes. And so, like, five, six months later, you know, the wheels really started to move. And were you on him that whole five, six months? Like, yo, like, oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. You couldn't just sit back and.

No, no, no. Definitely stayed in touch. Would send him new episodes of me and Duvall's show. You know, just anything. Anything that I was doing in that space. We was early on social media. We was all over MySpace and Twitter and everything else. So, yeah, like I was definitely keeping in real touch with him and g-spin you know what i mean and sometimes popping up popping up you know and be like because i knew kind of like the gig might be mine so i was

kind of like popping up and it felt bad because there was like people who i was like really cool with that work there and i couldn't say anything you know about the conversations me and cadillac were having you know what i mean and i i had to like lie to some of these people and it felt bad you know what i mean because i just couldn't tell the truth because it's business still to be handled you know so yeah but yeah that's how i got there that's amazing man and then basically from that i mean from that point on you're still there obviously breakfast club yeah 13 years later man and what's so interesting is that i any of them will tell you angelia will tell you envy will tell you our radio consultant dennis clark g spin cadillac i was the guy saying we're going

to be one of the biggest nationally syndicated shows in the country like like I just yeah I knew it I saw what this show had the potential of being and like from day one me Envy Angela we always recorded our interviews and put them online that's how I was aware of what Angela Yee was doing I was aware of what you know Envy was doing you know people like my homegirl Kendra G, Debbie Brown, we were all utilizing the internet. And so when we got with The Breakfast Club, we didn't have no money for marketing.

They didn't have no money for marketing, no money for promotions. This was kind of like a last ditch thing to see if something will work to even keep the lights on at Power 105. And so all we asked for was a cameraman every day to come in here and record you know these interviews and that's what we did we started recording these interviews putting them up online

recording these interviews putting them on websites and then at the time all these blogs and the world stars and all of these different platforms these websites existed sending our interviews out they started posting them yeah next thing you know it took off in a real way and here we are how do you how do you manage that like how do you manage the expectation how do you manage the success how do you manage what is just out of reach at the moment that's that's going to be coming up for you i manage it just by like realizing what my daddy always said you're never as good as they say you are you're never as good as they say you are you're never as bad as they say you are like i've already had my moments of like ego i've had

my moments of like being that narcissistic arrogant person that you know you can't tell anything to whether people realize that or not i'm sure that they did because i'm sure i projected it you know what i mean but i went through that and I went through that at a time where, like, God knew I had to get over that in order to be where I am now, so I knew that I had to start doing some work on myself, I was really becoming everything that I said I didn't like. You know, I was looking in the mirror and really becoming my father. I love my father, but I hated how my father's infidelity ruined my his marriage with my mom, you know, and ruined our family. Right. So for me, I didn't want to do that. And I felt myself going down that path in a real way.

So it was just like, let me check myself before I wreck myself. You know? Yeah. Won't let you go, man. Last question. If you could pick out one thing that's helped you be successful, that's sort of been with you through every period of your career, what do you think that thing would be? Oh, man. For me, it would like to really be authentic. And what I mean by that is you're not authentic when you're being a character to yourself.

You're not authentic when you see something working for you and you're getting rewarded for it. So you start doubling and tripling down on that thing. You're not authentic when you're being a second-rate version of somebody else instead of a first-rate version of yourself. And one of the things that hurt me the most was when they started calling me the hip-hop Howard Stern. I love Howard Stern, right? But I didn't even stop to think why they were calling me that. I just took it and ran with it, you know, and started giving them, like uh all of the

examples of howard that howard might not even be proud of now yeah you know for me it was like a lot of the the frat boy creepy ass overly sexual humor yeah you know i got the low vibrational energy is what i was really doing the limbo with how low can you go you know like i got the low vibrational energy is what i was really doing the limbo with how low can you go you know what i mean like literally like how low can you go like literally and uh that's the type of shit i was doing so like when you go online and you see like videos of me like sniffing chairs or like tying porn stars up and all of that it was literally for the shock yeah and so like that. It was literally for the shock. Yeah.

And so like that stuck with me for like, man, maybe a year or two I was on that. And then it just started to eat me up. Like, yo, this ain't making me happy. This shit is whack. Then you got your, you know, your wife. You know, I got married in 2014. So you got your wife on your head. At the time, she's my girl.

Like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, you know you out here wiling you cheating on me and you you're on the radio and you're damn it bragging about where it is born like it was that type of conversation i'm like man are you tripping like you know you it's just entertainment out of my line it's just entertainment but it's not yeah it's really not you know because number one you're influencing mad people and in this case, I'm hurting somebody. I'm hurting the person that's the closest to me. And you can start to believe your own bullshit. That's the worst when you get into character and you start believing that you really are

this dude. So it's like for me, man, that's what made me like really start like going to therapy and like doing the work because i did not like the version of myself that i was becoming so my advice to anybody would just to just be authentic always leave yourself open to growth and don't be afraid of where that growth takes you i don't give a fuck what people like about you today if you're growing into something else tomorrow follow that shit you know what i mean because if you don't you know you're you're really just stunting your growth and you really don't know how big you could possibly be you're putting a cap on you

like you're literally putting a a limit on how far you could possibly grow how big you could get because you're like, nope, that's what they like about me, so I'm going to keep it here. As opposed to just leaving yourself open to see what else is out there and how much more you could continue to grow. So that's what I tell people.

Be authentic, man, and just don't be afraid to grow. Yeah, yeah. Man, thanks for bringing your authentic self to everything, man. I appreciate it. I appreciate you, brother. Thanks, man.

Appreciate you, brother. Appreciate you man. Appreciate you, brother. Appreciate you. Charlemagne, through the ups and downs of building a media career in one of the most cutthroat of mediums, radio, has shown up ready to bring his full self to whatever it is he does. And the brilliance of that is he's been impossible to ignore. I want to thank him for that confidence and for taking the time to talk with me. I plan on spending more time

working on my fear of being rejected just for being me. Thanks for listening to Starter From The Bottom. I'm out. Starter From The Bottom is produced by David Jha, edited by Keisha Williams,

engineered by Ben Talladay, booked by Laura Morgan, with production help from Leah Rose. The show is executive produced by Jacob Goldstein, who's not all up in the videos, for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music's by Ben Talladay and David Jha, featuring Anthony Yags and Savannah Jo Lack. If you like our show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. I'm Justin Richmond.