The Breakfast Club - T.I. Reflects On 'Trap Muzik' 20 Years Later, Claiming 'King Of The South' + More
Episode Date: August 14, 2023T.I. Reflects On 'Trap Muzik' 20 Years Later, Claiming 'King Of The South' + MoreSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
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Morning, everybody.
It's DJ Envy, Charlamagne Tha Guy.
We are The Breakfast Club.
We got a special guest in the building.
Yes, we do.
T.I.
Yo.
This is a monumentous occasion.
Yeah.
Because August 19th, 2003,
the South and hip-hop shifted forever.
Indubitably.
When trap music came out.
20 years of trap music.
Goddamn, we that old? Hip-hop is 50 and trapubitably. When trap music came out. 20 years of trap music. God damn, we that old?
Hip-hop is 50 and trap music is 20.
Lord have mercy.
Wow.
How did that feel, man?
I feel like a lot of hard work paying off.
And also, I think it feels like a lot of stories and experiences and lessons that were shared by so many people.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, you know, you have to be relatable
to sustain for so long.
So, I mean, I'm just happy to be able to speak
for people who needed to be spoken for.
When did you get the deal, right?
Because Trap Music was actually your second album.
I'm serious, it was the first album. You was on The Face, then you went to Atlantic. When did you actually get the deal right because you this is trapping was actually your second album
then you went to atlantic when did you actually sign the deal which deal to go to atlantic to put out trap music because i'm asking that because i remember you coming to columbia south carolina big
dm 101.3 i might have been doing 10 p.m to 2 a.m and it was you you and C-Rod. And you had on a great champion hoodie
and you had white labels on 20,
you had 24 on a white label CD.
And I remember playing it off the CD like,
damn, this hard.
I think you was in between deals at that point.
I believe so, man.
I think that was 2002.
I think I probably would've been working independently
in 2002
and going into the deal with Atlantic like 2003.
Did they get it?
Yeah, did they understand what you were trying to do?
I mean, absolutely.
I think the beauty of it is when we actually came into contact with Atlantic,
we already had motion like we were already kind of
moving around as you as you just described uh getting our records played um we had you know
mixed tapes that we were pushing around circulating through the communities and um and we
was you know we was we was on the road you know working doing shows consistently like three two to three times a week
so i think it was uh it was a no-brainer by then now talk about how it's it changed atlanta music
change music around the world talk about that was that the mindset and why well well i can't
necessarily say we went into it with the definite intention of such.
I think, okay, so when the first album dropped, I feel like what that did for us, it allowed us to collect data.
You know what I mean?
Because, okay, so LaFace was dissolved, and L.A., he came up here to New York and took a seat as the president of
Airstrip that left us in Atlanta you know kind of like okay what we do now
but what we what we realized was they still left some you know a lot of
resources and assets for us to use so we went to the storage unit got
all those promotional use only cd we had about 20 boxes of those and all of the snipes and you know
the posters and the stickers and stuff took them got in the car got on the road flooded the auc
with them fam you you know i'm saying going going to Birmingham, Montgomery, Columbia, South Carolina, Tennessee,
you know what I mean?
And what we found was everybody who heard it liked it.
Everyone who heard I'm Serious fell in love with it.
We just had to get more people to hear it.
So what I would do is go to the mall on Saturday go to the clubs
go to the college campuses
and
I know it said
promotional use only
but we were selling them
and
and so the deal was
I had a
you know I had a little
a little motto
I said hey listen man
I'ma sit here with you
and listen to it
and if you don't like it
I'ma give you your money back
so we'll roll one up
smoke
by the time we get through about the second one they're like oh yeah you it, I'm going to give you your money back. So we'll roll one up, Schmoke, by the time we get through about the second one.
They're like, oh, yeah, you hard.
And I never had to give nobody money back.
So we went through all those, you know, those hand-to-hand FaceTime kind of acts.
And the data we received was the three songs that people responded to the most.
Oh, let me name them.
Okay, go ahead.
Dope Boys in the Trap, Do It Baby, Stick It Baby.
That was probably a close fourth. That was one
in the clubs. Do It Baby, Stick It Baby, and
Panty Poppa. Panty Poppa number one.
You got two out of three. Okay, what's the third one?
Still Ain't Forgave Myself.
Dope Boys in the Trap,
and Panty Poppa number one.
Do It Baby was probably a close
fourth. So we learned
that that was like, you know,
that was the vibe that they were responding to.
That's what people were gravitating to on the album.
So with that information, I said, okay, well,
I could do a whole album worth of this and call it trap music.
And so going into that next album, that's what we did.
Oh, that makes sense.
So something like Still Ain't Forgave Myself spawned.
What records for trap music?
I Still Love You. I Still Love You still love you okay yeah that makes sense and make all the sense in the world all right so after after after I'm serious what you
think went wrong when I'm serious if anything um I think it was I dropped
within a transitional period I believe you know the face was a institutional culture
like a real a musician's University so and it was in Atlanta you know I mean so
it was real boutique you know you could go in there and have a have a
conversation with LA about needing more money
for your budget on a video,
needing to get more spins on your record,
just things that artists need to communicate
with their label about on a regular.
You could actually go in there
and talk straight to the decision maker
without any interference or no red tape.
And when that transition happened
and everything was in New York now,
that was, you know, a bit more of a commute.
And I'm sure L.A. was in a position where, you know,
he went from being the boss and really answering to no one
to now he's in a position where he got to put up numbers
and answer the people, you know, to justify his position.
And so the first thing he looking to do is, I'm sure,
go to the guaranteed hitmakers that he already had.
I think Outkast was on deck, Tony Braxton, Usher, you know what I mean?
So, you know, this new kid, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's cool.
Yeah, sure, sure.
And let's get to the numbers.
And I understand that, you know, at the time, not so much.
But I appreciate that because the lesson I took from it, you know,
we had it going the way we anticipated,
the way we wanted to.
I don't think we would have, you know,
been the businessmen and gained the independence that we did.
That was really difficult because at that time,
I know New York was heavy, right?
That's when DMX was out at that time.
Sure.
I think Ja Rule.
50 was smoking.
Was 50 smoking in 2001?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's when all the G-Unit mixtapes came out. The album came out, too.
Rockefeller was real big at that time. Was that very
difficult to break in during that time?
No, I don't think so.
I think the South's advantage was
always we could do numbers
just in the South.
Of course, what we needed
you know what we needed to to broaden our reach to new york for was more like visibility but once
you became known and and and sought after in the south and then the mid the midwest right there
so um you know you got artists like you know ghetto boys Ghetto Boys, UGK, you know what I mean?
Like 8-Ball, MJG, you know, certain people that just did numbers only focusing on the South.
So I never felt, you know, it would have been difficult to really make a dent.
I just knew, you know, in order to kind of like, you know,
get MTV or get covers of The Source
or, you know what I'm saying, stuff like that,
that's what we kind of needed New York for.
And what made you do that?
Because back then, doing the clubs in New York,
a lot of Southern artists you wouldn't see.
Like, a lot of those artists that you just named,
I've never seen in the club, but I would see you in the club.
Right.
Years later, I would see, like, your Jeezy's in the club but I would see you in the club right years
later I would see like your Jeezy's in the club but what made you say now I got
to attack everywhere and attack every club and attack every that wasn't that
wasn't a strip I mean I never really made a conscious effort to do anything I
just I just I just went and reached the people wherever we was at you know what
I mean like if we had meetings in New, and there's a club going on in New York.
I don't have, I have a familiarity with the city.
I got a dual citizenship.
You know what I'm saying?
So, I mean, you know, I come up here and move around,
you know, effortlessly.
I ain't really, I wasn't really tripping off of it.
Because your father from here, right?
Well, he moved here.
You know what I mean?
He's from Atlanta, but he moved here when he was like 20, in the 50s.
Yeah, and he had been up here all my life until he passed.
You know, man, the reason I love this conversation,
because the older we get, we really got to start preserving culture
and start really putting the proper narratives out there.
Trap music is so important, and it's one of the reasons
I got you on the Mount Rushmore of the South period
because there was no, people was using the term trap,
but not to say this is trap music before trap music.
When it comes to people like, you know, drama
and just the way even Jeezy did the mixtape thing,
you did that prior, you know drama and just the way even Jeezy did the mixtape thing you did that prior you know I had some I had I mean I laid some some fundamental work yeah in
the Screech volume one through what one through three you know and there is no
Jeezy there's no Gucci there's no future there's not that shift in Atlanta
sound without T.I. and trap music.
And I think that needs to be stated.
That's, you know, I'm humbled by that.
I'm humbled by that.
I mean, I think, man, you know,
everybody plays a part and has a position.
And I just did my part, you know what I'm saying?
I had no idea that what I was doing
would mean so much to
so many so many people would be able to relate and correspond with their own
contributions that would reach the masses and turn into what it's turned
into today it's just you know it's just a blessing to be you know to be a piece
of such a magnificent machine.
Do you think you're the first to do what we know as trap music or the first to label it as trap music?
I mean, well, definitely the first to label it as trap music.
And, of course, we've all heard songs about drugs and drug dealers,
but with the extra special attention to the details of the nuances,
I think, you know, that's kind of, I'll give you an example.
You've heard about, you've heard records about rappers rapping about being hit men
or carrying out homicides and so on and so forth.
But we have never heard like the attention
to detail of the nuances the way we did when Scarface said never seen a man cry till I see
a man die like that like getting into like you know going scratching beneath the surface and
you know lifting up layers uh to find out like what's in the heart and the mindset and you know what
level of consciousness are these people on when they making these decisions and
how does it affect them and their families you know I'm saying like all of
those things I don't think you know with the extra special attention to detail I
don't think it has been kind of presented that way i was gonna ask you know why did you see
it so as important to make sure people knew about it right because you know 50 years of hip-hop was
a couple of days ago and there's so many people that don't know about hip-hop how it was created
where it was created or anything like that how to first sound the first group to go platinum and the
first group to be on the top 40 but you thought about this years ago which is probably why you created the trap museum where people can actually see the history of what it
is and they can actually know the knowledge why did you see that so early for people to
to make sure they have that knowledge they understand it they know i mean well a few things
so one we were we were uh my man may know hey hey, for what we was brainstorming
and collaborating on ideas of how to celebrate the 15th year anniversary
of trap music.
And, you know, we wanted to do something different,
not just a show we perform and this, that, and the other.
We wanted to really, really commemorate it
with something substantial.
And one of the over-the-top ambitious ideas in the room
was a museum, a trap music museum.
And I love the name.
It just has sort of a ring to it.
But I couldn't wrap my mind around it.
When I'm thinking of museum,
I'm thinking of Smithsonian.
You know what I'm saying?
I'm thinking something a lot more grandiose.
And then I started looking at other types of museums.
You know they had these pop-up museums.
You know they might just go to a storefront
and do a pop-up museum.
And so at that point, simultaneously,
I was also acquiring commercial real estate in the city.
So I just bought this building.
I didn't know what to do with it.
I bought it because it was so close to the stadium,
the Mercedes-Benz dome, and the Super Bowl was coming.
And I figured, okay, we could use this building,
probably lease it out to ESPN, Fox Sports, NFL,
something like that, get some quick money.
But then as I started walking around, I was like,
nah, you know what, this could be a museum.
And, you know, I think that's kind of when it came to life when i when i heard the idea and i dismissed it it was like i that i never have it then i i i walked in the building after i
just bought it and the idea was just in my head and i was walking around kind of envisioning
okay yeah we could and and i think that's and and also it was around the time where there was a lot
of questions and a lot of you know speculation floating around in the air about who did and
didn't you know have you know the the a hand in creating trap music who who was and wasn't
responsible so i felt like it was a teachable moment.
And, you know, and then, like, only a fool disputes facts.
That's another thing you was early on, real estate.
It was a new finish.
It was called New Finish, right?
And I just know that from hearing it in your raps.
And I remember it was something you did on MTV one time when you was showing people all the...
When I walked them around and showed the houses and whatnot.
Yeah, yeah.
How did you know that you wanted to invest in Atlanta way back then?
Man, to be honest, man, in Atlanta, you know, the one thing that we have,
I feel like that probably sets us apart from a lot of cities is examples of
entrepreneurship in our communities.
Not just famous people, not just rich people,
entrepreneurship in our communities not just famous people not just rich people but we have examples of entrepreneurship and how to uh take uh take funds uh instead of most people say okay you
put this much in your checking this much in your savings and well the money deposed to go in the
savings we go put in we buy a house and flip the house and take the profits and do some more stuff with it.
You know what I mean?
And, you know, we learn from people like Q-Ball.
We learn from people like Cherry, my pops, his brothers, my uncles, you know, Derek Diles.
My uncles, you know, Derek Diles, there's so many people in the community that, you know, just laid the fundamental groundwork of what to do when you get the money.
You know what I mean?
And when I first got my piece of paper, my first piece of paper, my uncle, he was getting out of prison.
And, you know, he just hit me up for $,000. I ain't have a 60, you know,
but, uh, he was just coming home and you know, I, I didn't even think about it.
I gave it to him.
Just gave it to him to give it or he was going to invest in his own.
Well, he just asked for it. He didn't tell you. So I gave it to him and, uh,
I went and took the rest and did what I needed to do for myself and then
like I say maybe four to six months later he took me to a house I used to see a dope out of
and you know I looked at it I was like damn they got off they got off the dope
and he was like man nah nah they ain't in there no more. I bought that house with that money you gave me.
And we, this is what we did.
You know what I mean?
We renovated it, sold it.
Now it's a family living in there.
And it made me feel good.
And he said, well, now I can give you your money back.
And I reached for it.
He said, or we can get another house, you know.
And he said, I might be able to get two houses in there.
So we got two houses after that, and then we started doing duplexes,
triplexes, and before you know it, we had done built 100 houses.
Wow.
Yeah, before the crash of the market.
The thing is, though, after I seen that house, you know,
it was renovated and the family was in there, came back maybe, I guess,
maybe 10 to 16 months later and the later and how back dilapidated
ran down again I say man we're gonna have to we got to work faster than this
so I mean that's you know that's what got me into commercial real estate
multi-families and so on and so forth is it hard to celebrate the 20 anniversary
of trap music without having two pillars around you like
phil and like clay i mean it's it's it's hard not to celebrate it yeah i mean because you know all
the work we put in and everything that that that we that we that we hustle for and fought for uh
that we hustle for and fought for,
you know, is commemorated with the celebration of Trap Music.
They'll be memorialized with the celebration.
Let's go through some of the songs, man.
I just wanna, when I say these songs,
I wanna know what you think from the album,
"'I Can't Quit."
What was your mind state when you recorded that?
I wrote that song, I think I wrote that song
like around the time that I left, that I left Arista.
You know what I mean?
And you know, it was, I was really, you know,
just speaking to myself, you was, I was really, you know, just speaking to myself.
You know what I mean?
Sometimes, you know, bravado was just self-reassurance.
You dig?
So I was just putting out the proper energy in my self-talk.
You dig?
And I think it was delivered
as a masterful message.
What about No More Talk?
No More Talk.
With that,
I think, man,
if I'm not mistaken,
there was a lot of,
I was watching like some,
I was watching some
conspiracy documentaries and reading.
I was also reading Behold the Pale Horse at the time.
Oh, yeah.
And you know what I'm saying?
I was just sharing some knowledge that I had gathered for myself.
And it was a dope-ass beat.
You know what I mean?
What's your favorite song on trap music?
Man, it's hard to pick favorites.
I'd say at the very top of the list, though,
would have to be just doing my job.
Doing my job.
What was your mind state when you was doing that one?
Man, Kanye.
Yeah, I want to break down,
because you got a lot of producers on that.
Kanye produced that one, of course.
Yeah, Kanye produced that one.
You got a lot of classics on that.
That's why I keep telling y'all,
stop playing with him when y'all be mentioning
these New York artists in the verses against Tip.
Okay? Tip will embarrass a lot of these people. We haven talked about the verses i know i just want to put that out there we just said that didn't fit
i'm just saying yeah i mean uh oh and i went to the show last night did you go to show last night
50 yeah it was dope it was dope yeah um but i think that the mind state with just doing my job.
So he already had the beat with the hook playing.
And just doing my job, to me, it immediately took me back to
when I was trapping in apartments, me and my partners.
None of us live in these apartments.
We had just come here to conduct our business.
And a lot of the tenants of the apartments,
you know a lot of them very cool with us,
you know majority, but you had about four or five
that'll walk by and they'll just look at us like,
with a sigh that I will speak, they won't speak back.
You know what I mean?
And they just had a disdain for us.
And you know, I kinda could understand,
but at the same time I was like,
if you just really got to know any of us
and had a conversation,
you would probably realize that we ain't no different
from your nephews or your little brothers or sons
and so on and so forth.
We just find ourselves in extremely dire circumstances.
And, you know, are we trying to do it or find a way out?
And I just never got a chance to have that conversation.
And I felt like there were other people in my position
that probably felt the same way,
and they would probably benefit from the conversation as well.
the same way and they would probably you know uh benefit from the conversation as well uh and the beat felt perfect you know for for the for for the delivery of dialogue how was it working with
a young kanye back then kanye were cool to hell man i ain't even gonna care uh kanye was he was
how can i say like like
How can I say?
Like, he was more conversational.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, he read the room a lot better.
It feel like Ye, you know, he got to a point where he just stopped reading the room and just gave everything everywhere.
You know what I mean?
But he was very excited.
That was the first time he played, like,
Through the Wire and Jesus Walks and All Fall Down.
So he played all those records for us,
and he was just so excited playing it.
Like, now, this is what we're going to do with this one.
And, you know, and I'm listening,
and when I heard Jesus Walk, I said, man, he's going to either do very well or extremely bad.
Why? Because of the religious aspect to it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And obviously the former rather than the latter.
But, yeah, I just felt like, you know, man, religion and corporations don't tend to mix.
Right.
You know, man, religion and corporations don't tend to mix.
Right.
But, you know, he put his mix on it and it went there.
That's also, we took Kanye to body tap.
Lord have mercy.
We took Kanye to body tap, man.
He lost his mind?
He ain't never seen nothing like it.
He ain't never seen nothing like it. I was glad with seen nothing like it. I was going to ask, with all those producers,
with Toomp and David Banner,
break down Jazzy Faye,
break down working with some of those producers at that time.
With DJ Toomp, man, that's, you know,
that's my mentor.
That's your Dr. Dre.
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Dre to your Snoop.
That's definitely my mentor.
And, you know, most of the beats that I got from Toomp,
I got from my, they came straight out of the house.
Cause Toonk used to cut my hair out.
And so I'd go get a haircut and he'll be having beats
playing at a-
That's the best way to do it.
You stuck in the chair for an hour,
you gonna listen to these beats for the next hour.
Well, nah, he wasn't really playing the beats for me.
You know, he was making beats.
And you know, like, you know how he might,
he would be
working on the beat i come to the door he'll come answer the door the beat still playing and while
he cutting my hair you know the beat just still playing and you know i remember that's how i heard
24 and uh and be easy too and you know i was like hey man what's that and he'll say man that ain't
finished i said yeah they'll get to me and i And I take it and I whip it up the next day
and the rest was history.
You put your flag down too on that album
as the King of the South.
Yeah, that was on the first album actually.
Actually, the first time I even mentioned
or made mention of the moniker was
the song
with me and Benny Siegel,
Two Glock Nines on the Shaft soundtrack.
Yeah, and you know, it never really,
it never really, it wasn't as personal to me.
It didn't mean anything for real
until people started saying I couldn't say it.
You know? But yeah, yeah.
But nobody had said it before.
Exactly.
So it's like nobody ever laid claim to this beautiful region.
That's right.
You know what I mean?
That we call the South.
Yeah, I mean, you know what?
That's what brought about the epiphany that came was when I was listening to I believe Mystical's album.
He used to call himself the Prince of the South. So I looked at KP, I say,
if he's the Prince, who's the King? And then we just had like that a silence as we both were
thinking then we both looked at each other and he said i bet you won't
i say the hell i won't was there a debate in the studio about who actually was at the moment
it was a debate about who would actually have a problem with it being said yeah you know what i
mean but did you know everybody was gonna have a problem with it at one time yeah oh you know it
yeah yeah i mean you know i mean that man that intrigued me
you know what i'm saying because i i i always felt like well first of all
in my heart of hearts i just didn't want it to be somebody that i really respected
you know what i'm saying i didn't want i didn't want to offend scarface, you know what I'm saying? I didn't want to offend.
Scarface.
Yeah, you know, OutKast, Goody Mob, UGK, A-Ball, MJG,
you know, Luke and 2 Live Crew.
I didn't want to offend people
who I actually had an affinity for.
But anybody in my class, I wanted all the smoke.
And so I had conversations with, you know,
my predecessors, you know, I spoke to Big and Dre
from OutKast, I spoke to Face, I spoke to Bun,
I spoke to Ball and G, you know what I mean?
Everybody who I had access to, I spoke to them.
And you know, and all the OGs told me the same thing,
man, do that shit.
Now, I think Dre said something like,
what does it really mean to be king?
You know, FaZe was like, man, I don't wanna be king,
you can have that shit, bro.
And Big, Big, Big said, well well you know now it sounds like some cool
to say but to be king put a bull's eye on you you know the object of the game of chess is to
kill the king which is where i got the title for my last album by the way and he said you can't be
looking for no favors i said but you ain't got a problem with it though, right?
Shit,
I went on,
did my thing from there.
That was all I needed.
Yeah.
And also too,
you had the song T.I. vs. T.I.P.
on that album,
which is,
you know,
that's like a lot of,
what's the word,
foreboding?
No, not foreboding.
Come on,
you the vocabulary guy.
I don't know what you're
trying to describe.
Yeah, we don't even know
where you're going,
foreboding.
You came out with an album
later called T.I. vs. T.I.P.
Foreshadowing?
Foreshadowing. Foreshadowing, prophesizing. There you go, yeah, yeah, yeah. What the hell is foreboding? I don't even know where you're going. You came out with an album later called T.I. vs. T.I.P. Foreshadowing. Foreshadowing.
Foreshadowing.
Prophecy.
There you go.
What the hell is foreboating?
I don't know, man.
I didn't know what to answer.
You get around T.I. and you start pulling out the words.
I thought he was talking about motorboating.
Floorboating.
I'm going to let you figure it out, bro.
But you knew back then there was a duality.
Yeah, man. Well, to be honest with you, there was a conflicting nature in the world I was leaving and the world I was entering.
and treat situations in the world I was exiting and the way I had to learn to carry myself in the world I was entering.
So a lot of times those things contrasted,
and a lot of times they were conflicting,
and a lot of times I was torn, you know what I'm saying?
A lot of times, you know, to... There's some things that I would have to do coming into this world.
And I feel like, man, this is the exact opposite of what I learned, you know, in my teachings.
But I caught on fast to the things I was taught,
I had acquired sets of skills
that I would no longer be able to use.
You know what I mean?
And so that calls for a duality or juxtaposition
that I think that narrative,
it makes for great conversation
and great dialogue in music.
I don't feel like you learned that lesson
around trap music though.
It took a while for it to really-
I would, but that's the beginning of the lesson.
Okay, okay.
Got you, got you.
How's the standup comedy going, man?
It's going good, man.
It's going good.
You know, we selling that.
We just sold that, I think it's Jacksonville Comedy Zone
for what is it, two, four, six shows.
We going to Helium in Philly.
Gonna be in Philly doing some more comedy.
We got offers for tours.
You did Comic View, right?
Oh yeah, just did Comic View.
Yeah.
In Vegas.
I'm enjoying it, bro.
It's a high level of peace.
It ain't the same doing it without Clay,
but it's still
dope.
Have you dealt with that? with the loss of Clay?
What you mean?
Just as far as grieving.
Well, I mean, the question becomes,
when do you really completely finish grieving?
Yeah, especially with somebody like that who's right-hand man.
Yeah, we had day-to-day interaction.
When do you say it's over?
When do you say, okay, it's complete?
I feel like that's an ongoing process.
Cause it's like you probably reach for your phone,
probably certain things pop up,
like man, somebody called Clayton,
and you like, oh shit.
Yeah, I've done that several times.
You know, but you just try to remember as much
as you learned from that person.
Remember as many memories as you can of time shared with that person.
And remember the things that you all intended to do together.
And you got to be very intentional about carrying those things. One of the things, so, you know, Clay and I, we out, man, all of us,
but he and I especially, we had a pact,
and it was whoever died first,
they would get in front of the church over the casket
and say, the upper room.
And that's what I did.
You know what I'm saying?
And I think... How did that go over?
Because I saw everybody in the circle knew and laughed.
Yeah.
Like the rest of the church was like, what?
That's right.
But no, man, I think, you know,
but that's how we was, man.
You know, our sense of humor, we kind of laughed our way.
I remember, like, when Phil had got, when they just announced he had passed,
and, you know, me and Clay, you know, we was joking.
You know, we was, like, laughing about, you know, just how he, you know, we was like laughing about,
you know, just how he was,
he was probably looking at us right now,
you know what I'm saying?
Now, I think we say, yeah,
he probably in the room right now,
you been that cry, been that cry straightened up.
And we started laughing,
and I think once you have experienced
so many tragic moments,
you know, you got to find some humor
to deliver yourself some form of peace.
And that's what we always did.
So, you know, in his honor,
we're going to continue to do that.
I was wondering if the PSC collective,
I guess you call it a reunion.
I was wondering if y'all coming together
to do a new album, I was wondering
if that was because of Clay's passing, or
were y'all working on that before?
Nah, man, it was really, man, to be on it
with you, bro, DJ Holiday, man.
Sleuth Holiday?
Yeah, DJ Holiday came to me
and he asked me about doing a
PSC show
to commemorate
an anniversary of 25 to Light and you know I was like
man I don't think I don't think nobody want to do it you know I see then I
start you know I just kind of put it in a group chat that we get and you know
just slowly everybody just starts saying well I don't know you know, just slowly everybody just started saying, well, I don't know, you know, we'll see, perhaps.
Then it came around like, you know,
Dro had really, really like did a transformation of himself.
And that made everyone feel good.
Everybody was proud of that.
And I think that probably was the key component
that made everybody say, you know what?
Let's do it.
Let's try this again.
And you know, it's been going well.
You know, we got a lot of dope music.
Everything is, everything coming together.
You gonna put out an in the streets?
That's gonna be an album?
I think so.
Drummer said he wanted to do a gangster grill,
so I believe it, I think it would be an In The Streets.
That makes sense.
Now how are you with your sons doing music?
Yeah.
Do they wanna hear Dad's game,
or do they just wanna figure it out on their own?
I mean, man,
it's different decisions for different situations.
Uh,
I think they listened to me,
but they may not put it into action immediately.
You know,
I think they still stubbornly tried their way.
Just like daddy.
I ain't had nobody telling me nothing.
You know what I'm saying? That was a little different.
I don't think anybody that was around me, especially at their age,
could show me how to do what I was trying to do.
But I probably wouldn't have listened anyway.
I feel like a song like Be Better Than Me,
that was for them even back then.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
I think that they do the best they can and i think they get better
at it as the years go on you know because i listened to the money some of his songs things
i told him i thought he wasn't listening at all and i hear hand in the music yeah yeah i hear it
in the music and i you know that that puts me at peace and let me know okay so he he can hear
right you know we had busi up here and he said that you guys spoke we were grateful for that
you guys been partners for a long time yeah we spoke man we spoke uh i mean man i don't to be
honest with you but i don't take much personal you know i mean i don't really take a whole lot
personal and i think that's the reason why, you know,
like a lot of stuff just ain't important to me.
Like in the moment, if I consume myself with it, you know,
I have some momentary reaction.
But like when I really like just, how can I say,
when I meditate on it and like really, really get off the phone
and get into my real life, it dissipates.
It don't have any true value at all.
And there are no stakes.
You know what I'm saying?
There is no consequence.
So it shouldn't really be no emotion behind it.
However, you know, once we did talk and I shared with him, you know what I'm saying,
with the validity of the facts, you know, I think he kind of reached his own conclusion.
And that was really enough for me.
I wasn't tripping off of it.
You know what I mean?
I feel like you've disconnected from the social media the way you were.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is that intentional?
Semi.
So my phone broke, man.
My phone broke.
And I was without a phone for about two and a half. Okay, so first my phone broke, man. My phone broke and I was without a phone for about, you know, two and a half.
Okay, so first my phone broke.
And, you know, if your phone break like around, it broke like 6, 630.
So it wasn't no phone.
No stores open.
So I had to wait.
And then the next day I had to go to canada so i
couldn't get a phone in and uh i believe then i had a phone but i had to go to anguilla so i got
so i had a new phone but i needed my old phone to get the chip out of it so i had like two weeks
without a phone and you liked it yeah by the time i got back i had a phone and i seen like you know what i'm saying it uh when i
go to so this is my new phone when i go to uh instagram it don't oh got you got you got you
got so i gotta go through the trouble of fixing it and getting in it and i don't i ain't gonna do
that so i'm just you know i'm just living with what's around me at the time. I love me some damn Anguilla, man.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, they told me.
I stayed right there where you stayed.
You know what else is crazy?
Yeah.
When was this?
This was July 14th through the 20th.
Oh, this year?
Yeah.
Oh, I just left.
I know.
I told you that.
I left on the 10th.
You just said it three times.
Yeah.
You listening?
You know what's crazy, though? Also this year, I was in St. I left on the 10th. He just said it three times. Yeah, he said it three times. You listen. I was like, all right.
You know what's crazy though?
Also this year, I was in St. Lucia.
And then one of the car services me and my wife got in,
it said Grand Hustle on the back.
And I said, man, Tip would love this.
He said, I just dropped him off.
I'm like, what?
Or the day before.
We island hopping.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
But the spot you stayed at, man,
it was already gone. I had to get the one behind you.
Man, let's buy it.
Let's do it.
I'm dead serious.
You know it's for sale.
No, I didn't.
They didn't share that with me.
Yes.
They didn't share that with me.
I want it.
I just need somebody to do it with me.
You want to buy, you talking about the one that you was in?
Either one, they the same thing.
It's just one up.
We talking about that up there.
Not quite, not quite. No, you know what I'm saying? Because the one up on got a master bedroom. Nah, but I mean, same thing. It's just one up. We talking about that up there. Not quite, not quite.
Because the one up got a master bedroom.
No, but I mean, all of them have a master bedroom.
I'm talking about yours.
The one you was in, it's more, the architecture is much different.
They changed it a little bit.
It's a little traditional, a little more family style.
Yeah.
But the second floor got a whole master bedroom.
The one in the other one, all the rooms are individual. This one got a big,
you know,
they knocked out a wall
and they combined two rooms.
And the sliding doors.
Some of them are gonna listen to this
and buy the front of y'all.
They don't know what we talking about.
They do.
We talking about it.
They don't go there and be like,
what's the house that
Charlie made at TI?
They don't know what we talking about.
They don't know what we talking about.
For 20 years.
We had a blast, man.
20 years of trap music, man.
We appreciate you so much, brother. Man, thank y'all. No, I really, we really gotta start preserving history, man. 20 years of trap music, man. We appreciate you so much, brother.
Man, thank y'all.
No, we really got to start preserving history, man.
The 50 years of hip-hop made me think about that.
But, you know, just also what I saw them do with Hov,
with the book of Hov,
and I just feel like there's so many false narratives online
and people trying to rewrite history.
It's like, yo, we really got to let people know
who started what.
Absolutely.
You know, who's the foundation of a lot of this stuff
that we love in this culture called hip-hop. Yeah, that's true. Who's the foundation of a lot of this stuff that we love in this culture called hip-hop.
Yeah, that's true.
And how long y'all been doing?
How long has Breakfast Club
been in existence?
13 years.
13 years.
13 years this year.
So what's y'all
anniversary date?
December.
December.
December what?
Going on 14.
December who?
December 21st.
Damn, right around
Christmas time. Right around Christmas time.
Right around Christmas time.
Okay.
You got something in mind?
What y'all do to celebrate?
Nothing.
We've been thinking about some stuff, though.
We want to do something called the Young OG Ball.
Okay, what would that consist of?
Just a bunch of people our age who get together
to have some good grown folks fun.
You know what I mean?
Like a big party where people dress up.
Like really put it on.
Man, I know that this may be
a little overplayed.
It may sound somewhat
cliche, but to
commemorate the Breakfast Club,
I'm thinking a dope-ass brunch.
I'm with it.
That'd be dope. Why not? A dope-ass brunch.
The Breakfast club.
Oh, you know what?
I'm with it.
Now, Hannah.
Move to Hannah.
Now, Hannah had, this was before you guys.
Hannah had a party that she did for me every year for my birthday.
And it was basically, we'll go out, you know,
and do like the invitation only thing then
we'll go to you know Magic City or something like that after that she'll
like get a presidential suite and put brunch tables in it and from like 3 30
in the morning to noon we'll have brunch and it'll be called the breakfast club
nope you know I mean Hannah let's do it maybe you know y'all contact Hannah and and then to noon, we'll have brunch, and it'll be called The Breakfast Club.
Okay.
You know what I mean?
Hannah, let's do it.
So maybe, you know, y'all contact Hannah
and see if she can, you know, reinstall The Breakfast Club.
But you know what I wanted to do, too?
For my car show, what I do is I recreate the room.
Okay.
This room?
This room.
Okay.
With the chairs and the background,
and people love taking pictures.
So I wanted to do something like that
where people can actually come and do their own Breakfast Club thing, you know, whether I wanted to do something like that where people can actually come
and do their own breakfast club thing,
whether they tape it or something like that.
I mean, we ain't part of trap,
but we would love to do like a little,
maybe like a little section in the trap music.
We done had mad trap artists all day.
I would love that.
You know, we got, they do Big Facts. They do Big Facts.
They do Big Facts at the Trap Music Museum.
But I think that we could find... As a matter of fact, y'all just gave me another great idea.
You own real estate.
One of those buildings you got, man, just do a podcast room.
You know what I'm saying?
Dress them up however y'all want to dress them up.
Let folk pay y'all hourly rates, daily rates
to come in there.
Maybe you can have some classes.
You know what I'm saying?
Salute to my guys, Big Facts, man.
They on the Black Effect, iHeartRadio podcast network.
And y'all got 85 South too, right?
85 South, yeah.
We partnered with 85 South and Big Facts.
And you know, we are at All Def Digital,
you know what I'm saying?
We kinda optimize the cpns that people
get for their streams on youtube so you know we work hand in hand cohesively on a lot of things
together yeah okay well ladies and gentlemen it's ti yeah man appreciate you guys going on
it's the breakfast club one more thing are going to do some type of show for trap music? Yeah.
I think King.
King is doing something, man.
And so far, he got Boosie and Tootie, and he's asking me to come.
I'm thinking about it.
It only makes sense for you to do it.
I'm thinking about it.
You got to perform trap music in its entirety. I told him you got to make sure you got some insurance, man. You know what I'm thinking about it. It only makes sense for you to do it. You got to think about it. Yeah. You got to perform trap music in its entirety.
I told him you got to make sure you got some insurance, man.
You know what I'm saying?
But, yeah, he said he wanted to kind of take over the celebration
for the anniversary.
And you know what I'm saying?
All right, cool.
So I'm going to see what he put together.
I feel like you've got to perform it in its entirety somewhere.
Man, we're going to see, man.
But the Ha Ha Mafia will be in Philly, man, at the Helium.
Get your tickets right now online wherever Helium's website is.
And, you know, catch the Ha Ha Mafia wherever you can
because it will be going down.
That's right. You did. It will be going down. That's right.
You did.
It's the Breakfast Club.
It's T.I.
Had enough of this country?
Ever dreamt about starting your own?
I planted the flag.
This is mine.
I own this.
It's surprisingly easy.
55 gallons of water, 500 pounds of concrete.
Or maybe not.
No country willingly gives up their territory.
Oh my God.
What is that?
Bullets.
Listen to Escape from Zakistan.
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Mike Tyson's journey to recovery reminds us that no fight is easy.
With every bump he started,
each setback and moments that could have broken him,
he kept pushing forward.
I never knew what the spiral was coming up in my life.
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And how so many millions of people feel like that but have no help.
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Open your free iHeart app and search The Cito Show
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Hey, Beau.
Hey, Matt.
Can you believe we have a whole bunch of wicked episodes coming up?
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Listen to Lost Culture East on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max.
You might know me from my popular online series,
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That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about.
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Hello, my undeadly darlings. It's Teresa, your resident ghost host.
And do I have a treat for you.
Haunting is crawling out from the shadows, and it's going to be devilishly good.
We've got chills, thrills, and stories that'll make you wish the lights stayed on.
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