The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Crack Cocaine To Stand-Up Comedy: How Ali Siddiq Went From Teenage KINGPIN To Superstar Comedian

Episode Date: May 18, 2024

Ali Siddiq is a famous standup comedian that headlines and sells out comedy clubs and theaters around the world. But his path to success in comedy is not a common one. He grew up in Houston's Third Ward surrounded by drug use and crime. At a young age he began selling drugs and quickly built an illegal empire, reaching kingpin status. He was busted by law enforcement and served time in some of the worst prisons in Texas. It was in these prisons that he discovered his talent for speaking and making people laugh. He turned his life around, got out of prison and has created a wildly successful career for himself as a standup. Ali joins the show to talk about his experiences as well as his regrets and lessons learned from his earlier life as a criminal and how he's encouraging people now to live a more positive life. Go Support Ali! YouTube: @AliSiddiqComedy Website: https://alisiddiq.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/alisiddiq/ This Episode Is Sponsored By: PRIZEPICKS Visit https://www.prizepicks.com/ or download the app today and use code CONNECT for a first deposit match up to $100! Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We say in Texas is three things that's locked up. Lions, lambs, wolves. And the stopping from being a line, you have to dismantle him. My guest today is comedian Ali Sadiq. Ali is one of the most successful independent comedians in America. He sells out theaters all over the country. But when he was a kid in Houston, he was a crack dealer and drug kingpick. He has insane stories.

about growing up in Houston during the height of the crack boom, and then later, while he was serving time in Texas prisons, where he began doing stand-up comedy. He's got a new comedy special out on YouTube right now. It's called The First Day of School. Go watch that and go see him on the road. Comedian Ali Sadiq, right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell. Texas prison system is the worst prison system.

Whatever you can get your hands on, You better get it. Get a knife, a broomstick, a locker, the top of a can. Because this is a savage place. That's when I see the lights behind me start to flash. And I didn't even think. I just hit it. I was driving like my life depended on.

Then I parked the car, popped out, closed the door, and I started running. And he pulls out a burner. Shang, it's like six inches. And he passes it to me. And he goes, here, that's yours. Don't ever leave the cell block without this. He was the reason I've made it out of a place a lot. Well, I was in Houston last year, and I went down to third ward, and I think it was third ward, second ward.

It was a ward. It was a rough place. Third Ward is not rough. Well, whatever it was. Did it? Okay. What were you by? South. We were just south of downtown. So you could have been on the east end. of third ward, if you're on the south,

which was by freeway, like 288 in the downtown area. Yeah, but it was a place where, like, in the 80s and 90s, you could see that, like, it used to be, like, dilapidated. This is where I grew up watching MTV videos with, like, Butchwick Bill,

Bushwick Bill in front of, you know, like it looked like it used to be a slum. And now it's new houses popping up and a lot of new development. Like, do you see that happening in Houston? We really never had any slums. They had bad areas. Real slums.

You got to, like, New York, they have a slum or... Mm. You got to go to somewhere like that and have a slum. I just grew up listening to so much Houston rap. Being from the West Coast, it was, like, Bay Area rap. It was E-40, Mac Dre. You know, obviously Dre and Snoop from L.A., but then, like, the sister, the cousin.

to that rap are Houston. You know, we made a lot of, Texas made a lot of that, Texas made a lot of East, that West Coast rap with D-O-C. D-O-C made a lot of those beats.

And Mike Dean, we have a, we have a real connection between West Coast and third coast. Yeah. What we call it. I think if you was on the south end

of it, you may have been Fourth World. Okay. Fourth sounds right. Four Ford. Fourth Ward. My boy, Marcus Lee Wally from Fort World.

Fourth Ward is where they really, they bought it. Because it was so close to downtown. They just bought it and they redid it and put all these high rises. But you can always see somebody who's really from Fourth Ward, like, fuck all this bullshit. The holdouts. They don't really like the Starbucks. They don't go get a latte, you know. Yeah, no, this wasn't a Starbucks.

area. So I'm not exactly sure where it was. Like, I was with a guy from Detroit and he was like, yeah, no, I put this at like a five and a half for ghetto. So I trust a guy from Detroit to tell me I know. Detroit has nothing. They, they don't know what a ghetto looks like Detroit. Because they, Detroit, I almost bought Detroit last week. Like, I almost bought the whole place. It was what I had on me. You know, just. Detroit is ass. Detroit is horrible. Yeah.

No, I'm not a big fan. But then all of the, you know, the Pakistanis have bought Detroit and bringing it back. But inside that, it was burnt down.

Like, we've never had a burnt down area. Okay. Yeah, the city not going to allow no shit. Well, Houston has been buoyed by oil money. Oh,

yes. For a long time. Long time. What was, Third Ward like growing up? You grew up in the 70s and 80s, or the 80s, I guess, right? Yeah, I'm 70th. I'm in 1973, so when I was born.

So I had a good stretch in of the 70s. Third Ward was, let's see, a lot of black independent businesses in Third World. Like still to this day, like, I'm even a part of the Al-Mita business group. I own two businesses on Alameda, which is like, basically like if you was in Queens, Queens had a real renaissance of black businesses and Queens. So my daughter runs now the historic El Dorado Ballroom, which is in third ward, PABA, which George Foreman came out of,

let's see you have Mickey Leland you have both you have what four colleges in third ward you have the University of St. Thomas

you have Rice University you have University of U of H you have TSU Um Arbor Jordan came out of Third Ward

Um out of third ward um out of third ward you also have Debbie Allen. You have Felicia Rashard. You have Scarface. Rappala Records. Scarface is from actually,

Scarface is from the south side is what my formative years are with the southwest side. He is actually from Jersey. Oh, boy. Faces from Jersey. Is he really? Raised in Houston,

but he's from Jersey. Bushwick Bill is from Bushwick, New York, raised in Houston. Willie D. is from Fifth Ward. That's the only ghetto boy that's actually from Fifth War. That's from Texas. But most of them was raised there. Third Ward is a Renaissance place, you know?

Yeah. So. But you have the bad end, which is Dennis. Yeah, that's like almost every, Well, you got Dennis, you stay away from Dennis. Still to this day, you stay away from there. I don't, I go play chess on Dennis, but that's not why I kind of hang out at it. You know, it's always moving.

You are different, man. You are like this theater selling comedian now, but you're just, you don't move like most comedians. I don't think you ever lived in L.A. Got a lot of cousins here. My mom's from Compton. No. It just didn't interest you? Like most comedians, when they set out on their journey,

they come to either New York or L.A. or now Austin. And you never felt like you wanted to do that? Not at all. Not. Like, I didn't see the point. I didn't see the point. I didn't think L.A. or New York had the,

I didn't think they had the end all to be all to what stand-up is or entertainment. You know, and realistically, I just didn't see a lot of comics. that was from L.A. that was really doing it for me. Well, not from L.A., but back when you started, you know, you started in, I think, 97. Yeah, 26 years ago. So back then, there was, there was no way to get on unless you went through the industry. People thought, people, I never, I never really felt that. And I think I had a disdain for it because when people would tell me,

man, you got to blow up, you got to leave Houston to go to L.A. New York. It just didn't make sense. Then they would give me this, what was the saying that used to piss me off all the time? Oh, you know, a prophet is not welcoming his own home. Well, that's just stupid. Like, why wouldn't you be welcoming in your own home? Why wouldn't people gravitate towards you from where you from first?

Why do I have to start over, come to an other place and start over? Because once you leave wherever you're from, you come to LA or New York, you're starting over. Yeah. You're not, oh, well,

come on in. No, you're back, low man on the totem pole, then you start all over again. Why not make your way where you are, get good where you are, and then start venturing and out,

venturing out, going to do other shows, other places, and then still go home and you don't have to live in your car. Yeah. You don't have to live in a room with no other people,

or your cost of living. You're tripling your cost of living when you go to either place. New York or L.A. Or now, Austin. Austin is an expensive place to live in. You know, so why do it like that when there's other comedy clubs and it's other...

No, I agree. Well, now that's very feasible. Now you see people making it blowing up and becoming headliners out of Nashville. It doesn't really matter as long as you have state. time and you can Nashville has a great scene.

I think that I think the scene is so LA typical time for a comedy to get on stage. Say you're a new comic. What's your typical time? Three minutes, five minutes, seven minutes. Yeah. And you're doing that

what? Every night? Are you doing that once a week? I mean, to get real stage time in L.A., you're lucky if you're getting on stage in front of real people, not at an open mic, once a week. Once again in front of real people, people who actually would be buying tickets to see you.

Okay. So once a week, New York is even worse because there's no real places where they're developing comics. You're just going in doing spots five to seven minutes. Versus me in Houston, whether I'm at improv, secret group, or one hour just spots ruggles, I'm doing 25 minutes to an hour seven times a week.

You're going to get good real fast. Two times a night? Yeah. I'm going somewhere two times a night doing 25. For you to catch up to me and talent-wise, it's going to be hard. Yeah, for sure. It's going to be extremely hard.

And your comedy is not, like it was, is not three minutes comedy. It's not stand up, stand up, boom, boom, boom. You said a punch, set up punch. Really? Used to be. When I first started, man, I was set up punchline, set up punchline, set up punchline, set a punch line.

And I was very physical. Like, I was, like, I was insanely physical. I used to do this joke about me getting body slammed in a fight. And it was like, yo, man, if you lose a fight, if you get body slam, I don't kill damn, what happened? If any time in the fight, both your feet come off the ground. and then you on your back, you lost. If you got up and won,

all I'm going to talk about is you getting body slam. I'm like, yo, did you see you ain't get body slam? That man picked you up and body slammed you on the ground like a wrestler. You lost, fam. And if your shoe come off, you damn show lost. Because I'm going to talk about it, you knocked, you body, he slammed your ass out your shoes. So did you actually slam yourself on the stage?

I would do breakdance move. It's two type of suicides and breakdance. The one to the side. then the one when you flip over on your back. I would do the one when I would flip over my back and I would just be on the ground

for like 30 seconds somebody turned out the lights because I'm doing this whole thing about getting body slam because I've been body slam before in a fight. Like, I fucking lost. Even though I won the fight at the end,

but that's all everybody talked about. Just the embarrassment. Yo, my cousin, Like, yo, remember that man, body slam, girl? Like, but I won, though. But you got body slam, fam. Give a damn if you won. You got body slam and your fucking shoe came off.

I've been in the fight where my shoe slipped off. I was winning the whole time. But all my cousins brought up, man, man, knocked you out your damn shoe. Like, he did, my shoe came off. He was like, no, you lost. Your shoe came off. Today's episode is sponsored by Prize Picks, our favorite. Prize Picks is America's number one.

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or back in the day when you used to fight? Weren't you being that you're from Houston where everybody's got a gun, church-going people have a gun. Back in the day. When's the last time you got in a fight where you got body slammed? Oh, no, I haven't been in a business. That was when I was a kid. But I mean like

Oh, when I last time I was being in a fight? about, yeah, getting in a fight in the South seems scary because if you, the guy, if you beat up a guy, he might pull out a gun and shoot you. Was that not a consideration? Like, I don't even, when I'm in the South, I don't even honk at people. Like, I'm real deferential, you know. Okay. Last time I had a fight a month and a half ago, but we, we. Aren't you 50?

Going to a 51. When it comes to guns, everybody got them. So I'm more concerned about a knife than a gun. Because I'm really good with a knife. And that's what I usually have on me is a knife. For me, you're going to get my gun. For me, put on my gun, this is a whole other situation.

We never, it was never going to be no fight. I see. We've been talked about. Yeah. This is a situation. Most people in Houston, to get shot, to get shot, you really have to be doing something because most people have guns. Right. And the fact that we know that most people have guns is a deterrent for you to pull out your gun first.

Because now I don't know, nobody knows who you shooting at. And there's a bunch of people. Say if you put a gun on me and I'm in my neighborhood where I live at now, you're going to get shot by multiple people. So you think this white lady who comes by with this baby carrier is not going to shoot you? You pull the gun on her neighbor. Yeah. I'm her neighbor.

She's going to like, no, she don't know what's going on. You're going to get shot. Yeah. You come to somebody's house. You're going to get, we, it's a very, it's legal for us to carry. most people hunt we have them whether it's a shotgun

most people have shotguns in their house rifles or you have handguns concealed handguns on you the gun but you don't see a lot of people in Houston Ginger we don't have a lot of shootings because we have guns you have more fights

right even with our rappers our rappers I entertain they rather fight you don't hear about us shooting each other in Houston. You hear about us fighting. Right. You hear about shooting each other. Right.

Oh, because we, we, we, we, we, we ain't no problem to fight. Right. If it's a shooting, oh, this has been brewing. Right. For a long, right. Now, even the shootings that's now, we know that there are people from other places. We, when we hear about somebody shooting up something, like, and I know the place, I'm like, out of town, ass people.

So I'm talking about, like, we have what, what's going on now. We're for, for, maybe a month it was a lot of road rages people getting shot on the freeway for a month it was on the news for a month

and then it was over because it's like everybody clicked like also it's people shooting on the freeway cool I don't even got nowhere to go let me get my car and just ride on the freeway and see who fuck out here shooting

wow wow so this is an argument this is a pro Second Amendment, this is like an argument for gun ownership. You're making a compelling case for why it actually lowers violence if everybody has guns. It's the same way countries say like if we all have nukes, if Iran had nukes and China had nukes and obviously Russia has nukes, then the United States is not going to get us into a situation where they could cause nuclear war because they know everybody could get it. So therefore, everybody

lowers the temperature. I think everybody has nuclear weapons. They're just not saying it. But I think the most thing about Houston is this with the guns. If we didn't have them, if nobody had them, it would lower, it would lower it as well.

Because now we would just all have to fight. Yeah. The problem with it is that things happen and get escalated with people who have guns. no matter what they are. When people have guns, it gets escalated, right? This just natural nonsense that people,

when you out in the street with a gun, it gives you something else. Like, I remember being with friends that would have guns on them. And I can tell. I'm like, yo, you got your gun on you. Because your chest is real big right now. But my chest is like that with no gun.

And most of my friends' chest is like that with no gun because we can actually fight. So now this was the thing that changed me when I was in prison. When I noticed that everybody in here could not fight, it didn't matter how big you were or whatever. I never had any sense of fear while I was in prison because I knew I could fight. No, it's no guns now.

Either you got a fines on the pickup, but it's no gun. But if you can come from here, what's up? It don't matter. It's no, like I used to tell people, man, I've never had a weight class. I've never had a weight class. If you want it, you can get it. You got to prove to me that you can win.

Your stature, how big you are is not going to. I used to fight this dude named Eric Williams all the time. I used to work the shit out, Eric. Because the only reason we fought three times was he was trying to win. Eric is 6'5. I've been 5-7 since the 8th grade. I would whooped the shit out of Eric. We stood on Wilcrest.

We stood on Wilcrest. Bel-in Wilcrest. His house was right down the street from my house. He called me out. I walked down there with my boy Chad. Chad and Danny O'Neill. I walked down there. Whoped Eric's ass.

Walk back home. Walk back past Eric House to go play ball. Knocked on his door. I knocked on Eric's door. I said, you lucky. I don't feel like whooping your ass again. I don't know. He's like, he fought me.

Man, that man, he'll still fight me right now. Green-eyed Eric. Wow. He'll still fight me right now. I whipped his ass several times. The South is different, man. You got to be able to fight. I didn't have these.

I didn't have lost. I didn't have these all these right there. I didn't have this shit broke. Yeah. This dude hit me and crack both of my teeth at the same time. The Vigil was right in the middle. I said, oh, shit. And I knew was bad.

I knew it was bad because when I got hit you know I had an you don't want to open your mouth because of the air it's like my nerves is open.

Yeah, you feel it you feel the breeze. I was like, I can't even breathe but I came back. Got my teeth fixing and came back. So what was growing up like?

You know, you came because obviously you're from this family well I don't know your family. Your mom's from Compton. Is your dad from Houston? Louisiana. Okay, so he's from the dirty south.

Mm-hmm. She grew up in like a pretty affluent or at least like an educated like upwardly mobile area of Houston. This was crazy. My father, father, very, very intelligent man on his own company. He started to carry a service downtown Houston, him and his friend, Ivory. My mom educated herself after she had me and my sister. my mom is a professor at a university history. Everybody in my family on my mom's side has gone to college, graduated.

I think I'm the only person that did not finish. He was saying on my mom's side. On my dad's side, no college, no formal education, but my dad, very good businessman, did his thing. My two uncles, his brothers, American-Afric career street people. Full-on career street people. I have no idea how I became this perfect mesh of both.

I mean, fucking genetics. Like, I'm a real even blend between my mom and my father. Who got you? Did your uncles get you into dope dealing or anything like that? My dad sold powder cocaine. forever, but it's how you add the carrier service. So I see how he ended up selling it once I analyzed it. So at the time, he's doing where he would carry these legal documents in between the buildings for attorneys.

And then they had all these little bank bags. He would carry money and everything. They'd drop them between the buildings, right? No fax machines and all this stuff. They just drop in between. He would go to one building, pick up something, drop it off his next building. So mass majority of these attorneys, in business men were doing

cocaine at the time. Yeah. So there's no crack. It's all powder. So the first time I ever see cocaine it's these little brown vows. My dad was a little spoon scoop them else. I'm talking about

hundreds of these joints. And he had them in little bags, zip lock, boom. And he would put them in the blue lock bags with the paperwork. So it's all powder. Yeah.

So it was no crack at this point. So he's delivering at my dad was, it was booming. Yeah. It was booming for him. Was he selling to these white collar people, his lawyers and all these people on his career route? That's the first people I ever seen, dude. Because there was no crack.

It was all powder. This is what, this was, I think that people kind of get crack, because crack was such a huge epidemic. They literally, kind of cross out how cocaine, how big cocaine was and how expensive cocaine was.

At this time, this is like $60 to $200. For a gram. Yeah, this is not, you can't go buy no dime rock. Yeah, you're not selling $200 grams in the south side of Houston. This is, the fourth ward.

This is downtown. Yeah. Where people are doing like this. It may, you know, in between, you know, meetings. Yeah. And Houston's always had a big cocaine scene because there's a lot of money there. A lot of money there.

Yeah. So he was started off selling powder to white folks. Yeah. So office people. You've got to think. It's, yeah. I'm, what? Eight.

Yeah. I'm eight. And he's, my pops was rolling. I probably had like four or five cars. He lived in this. He, man, I never forget when I first. came to his crib and he had a townhouse that the windows was like 20 like 20 feet like from the thing it's just all glass and I remember him coming down because it was this is the first time I ever seen a loft he had a condo with a loft and he's coming down the steps and he's like hey it's my new place was your dad also a pimp no he just talks like fly my dad was my dad was I'm

just like my pops. I don't wear other people's suits. I just get my suits made because my pops never wore anybody else's a suit. He would pay $1,000 for three suits. He made and he had a... I never knew what this meant when people saw advertising apartments

when I was older. It's a walk-in closet. What other kind of closet is there? I've never seen any other kind of closet because my dad's closet was on one side is just all suits, color coordinated. He owned one pair of jeans that he that he wore when he drove his motorcycle and he owned two pair of khakis.

Yeah. And khakis is what his was his uniform in downtown. Cackies, rope of boots, white pressed collar shirt buttoned up to the top. I've been buttoned up my shirt all the way to the top since I was a child because of him. He never wore a tie. All his suits tailored. And he had, my father said, man, he would tell me, look, you got to have boots, loafers, lace-ups. And he said, yeah, because all your stuff got to match.

So his, it was suits that were strictly for boots. Because the pants were wider, so it would slide down the boot. Then he had pants that was slimmer that was only for lace-ups. He wanted his pants to fall right on the top of his shirt. then his loafers, he had pants that was tailored strictly for his loafers. So in my closet, you have suits that are for sneakers, suits as for shoes, suits as for boots. That's why my closet, and everything is coordinated. And I generally don't wear any other shirt besides a white shirt.

Hey guys, come see me doing comedy on the road this summer. June 20th, I'm going to be in Phoenix, Arizona at the Tempe Improv. and then June 21st and 22nd, I will be in Dallas, Fort Worth, at the Big Lafs Comedy Club. That's in the city of Fort Worth. Go over to linktree.com slash johnny Mitchell for tickets. Again, that's linktree.com slash johnny Mitchell. You can also hit the link in my Instagram bio. Okay, back to Ali Sadie.

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Drink responsibly must be 21. So you've always had affluence in your family. Like this is this is not a, this is not a ghetto operation. I tell people all the time, I never had this cell droves. My mama had a job. Yeah.

My dad had a job. And my dad had a job. Wow. Your mom must have been. Did your mom know that eight-year-old Ali was looking at, you know, vials of cocaine? My mom would have killed my father and she would have known. Because they was at, they were at odds.

anyway. But the fact that if she would have known, I never got my dad left me at home, right? And he told me not to tell my mom because he knew my mother would have lost it. She would have fucking lost it. It's like my mom never wanted me to be anything like any,

in any type of street activity. So then when did you get in the game? Full-fledged. My own operation? 14. Okay. I saw my mom. dad's situation, but my own operation, 14.

And is this crack now? This is crack. This is a crack error. And is, did you just, how did you get into crack versus powder? Is that just because what the market was? That's what it was at the time. Yeah. You know, it was crack.

It was the epidemic. Now, you know, crack hit real hard at 85. Mm-hmm. You know, it started bubbling in 84, but 85, it was jumping. So you're on the ground floor. I'm on the ground floor. And that's when anybody could just have a corner. Like a 14-year-old kid could just set up a house.

You had to have a section. Like you had to be out there with everybody else. Like, it was a who's going to come up the most out here. It was places that I didn't sell dope at because it was just, it was too volatile. Like, why do that when you can have a place of your own? And we, you know, we have a lot of apartments. So on the south side, side, if you're in an apartment complex,

you have access to everybody that's in an apartment complex just doing drugs. But now you have Kirkwood, Browardt's apartments, the Greens, but where I come from is alfondering. You have, on both sides of the street, you have maybe 13 sets of apartments. So you can just hustle between the apartments.

Right. We used to have spots where you would, the cops couldn't even come in but one way. Yeah. You come in the apartments one way. I'm looking at you. And there they go right there. And then we could just wait.

And then jump over the back fence and be gone. They couldn't catch us. Then they came up with a plan for that. We're going to put people over the back fence. We're going to put people on the other side of apartments. You ever seen an apartment in apartments they have, we have, it's like a carport, basically. cars pull under the thing.

It's 10 at the top. So you're a cop and you're trying to catch me. I'm running. I'm just on the 10, just running down the 10 and can jump over this way, run all the way to the end, jump over that way. So you had to come up with a plan for that. Or you try to catch us off the bayou. You catch us off the bayou, I don't know how, that's going to be hard

because you got to bring a car. How are you going to do this? There's a lot of places to run in Houston. It's like it says built on a swamp. So there's just. Bayou City, baby. Yeah. There's so many different little, I don't even know what you call them.

Allies and goys and yeah. Looks and crannies. It's all type of. Exactly. You might turn and then you run into like a cement factory that's right next to a Denny's. Like there's no zoning. It's chaos. I think it's the worst.

The thing that I know that I did, that was the crazy is that cops couldn't find me. We had what they called the jump out boys. They pull up in a van and they just crashed the whole thing. And they pull up in like three or four vans. Boom. They jump out and everybody scatters. Everybody's gone. So in a ditch, you know, they put a cement like cylinder in a ditch so water can flow.

Right. So everybody's running. I go in the ditch and I'm under the cell. I'm in the cylinder. And I can hear them. We don't know what they're trying to catch a. But it's enough water in there that you can't see me. And my face is just right above like this.

That's so gross. And I'm not coming out. So you're in rainwater. It's just rainwater, mud. But whether you be, what would you rather be there or jail? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, fair enough. I'm under there.

I'm like this. This. And I'm literally. And I'm under there like this. And I hold up my breath. And this dude that we know smokes, he under that tooth is like, man, they're changing everybody. Because they would arrest everybody. Yeah.

They arrest the fiends and us, you know. Yeah. And they get you, everybody on possession. Yeah. But what's a 14-year-old, you know, you're not going to prison for selling crack? You're going to juvenile on chimney rock. For how long? Until you go to court.

And they send you to whatever you're going to do. Texas is a weird place. You know, they'll hold you. They'll hold you until you. you become a into you come vague. Wow. You know how crazy it is to keep getting set off. Push his court day back.

Put his court day back. Then you age up. Yeah. Now you 18. Oh, look at that. Happy birthday. Yeah. Here's five to 10.

As an adult. Yeah. But then, you know, it's down now to like 16. Wow. Yeah, a lot of states are like that. So I met guys that from that got caught up in Texas with like hundreds of pounds of weed. And they were like, thank God I got caught with huge amounts. Because now I get to go do three in the feds. Whereas if I got caught with a pound of weed, I'd be doing like five in the state.

Yep. You know what I mean? Yeah. Wild. And state and fed is two different, totally two different things. So you get on, did your dad hit you off with powder? My dad would have lost his mind if he Okay, so your dad never enabled you. Charles. My dude's in my neighborhood. Dude name. I was buying from Rinell, but Charles was the main guy. Did you know how to cook, or did he teach you how to cook, or did you buy it already cooked?

I didn't learn how to cook until maybe 16. Okay. So you buy it already bottled up. See, that's what cracked it. It democratized drug dealing. Like, because you couldn't, a 14-year-old doesn't know all of these. lawyers and accountants in downtown Houston to sell powder to. That was like a grown man's game. Crack, whether it was in New York or L.A. or Houston, which these were probably the three top

cities that really exploded the market. I think people underestimate how crazy Houston was. I know for facts, a lot of people who were upstate was getting their drugs from Houston. Yeah, exactly. because of the price difference. There's a huge hub. Even when I got up in the game, I noticed the price difference. Between Houston and like taking it up to Tennessee or New York.

Houston's the cheapest. Yeah, New York was getting right field. You're paying 36. I'm paying 15. On a kilo. 15,000 on a kilo. That's $15 a gram. And that's for powder.

That's for stuff that. Non-processed. Yeah, exactly. And then I'm a step on it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So were you buying birds by the end? Yes. I got busted with five keys.

Oh, so you had success. Oh, yeah, we had a real operation. Oh, for sure. Like, I'm not proud of it, but yeah, for sure. I'm proud of it. I'm proud of you. Like, man, you know, it was detrimental to my, to my community. But I was, I wasn't, yeah, I didn't stay on the corner long. What a phenomena, right? Like, did you guys, what was the sentiment? it. Like, you weren't hood. You weren't really ghetto. You weren't poor. But a lot of people had

gotten to the game. A lot of young black kids, these are children, saw this like huge flow of money into the hood. Crack. Crack brought millions of dollars into the ghetto. Man. Did you, did they, was the feeling like, oh my God, this is like a lottery ticket? Yeah. Did you feel like God had just showered this community with money? I felt crazy because I knew what this was doing. Like, I was never, like, disconnected to my morals when I was selling dope. It was crazy. I still, I never sold the children, never sold the pregnant women.

It's like it was a still, I'm still under the old school way of honor amongst these. I don't want my neighborhood to be a crack neighborhood. I just want to make money, but I don't want to live. in a crack neighborhood. You know, my apartments, you know,

it was a lot of, I didn't want to live in the Carter. You know, I'm not living in the Carter. I'm, and I'd rather. New Jack City for all you Tykes.

I don't know what he's talking about. Check it out. So, and we, you know, I think at this time, people, I think people understand,

people were still working. And using. Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't, to epidemic proportions at that time. It was like, this is new.

Right. I'm still sad that my man Keith started smoking and people who I knew they got caught up on it. Because I'm like, yo, you still, I mean, you still got your name tag on your shirt. You still work. Right.

Well, I think crack, the difference between like hair on or even meth is that you can't function for very long. Like, it turns you into a zombie pretty quickly. But crack is, cocaine. It's just smokeable cocaine with, you know, whatever you, whatever joj you put on it to make it really hit, right? And that's what it is. So you can, you can function for quite a while as a crackhead before it takes you. And that's, and that's what Freeway Rick, you know, we had him on this show. He, he would tell, he would, he told that to us. He was like, yeah, it didn't, I didn't

really understand the implications at the time because like, I would give it to, you know, a school principal and she would go light up and it just didn't it didn't dawn on us till a lot later the uh the effects what it really did to the community yeah i saw my man go down like he was yeah he was healthy functioning dude we called him brooklyn that he was from and i never forget when i when I noticed it because he was selling at first. And then I noticed that he came and bought a 50 pack from me.

And then he bought another one, like really fast. And then I'm outside. And my man, like, yo, man, you seen Brooklyn? I said, no, he just bought two Jones from me. He said, yeah, that boy that's smoking. I said, what? So when I saw him again, I asked him, I said, yo, Brooklyn,

are you fucking smoking, bro? Nah, nah, nah, I got this white girl. And that's when I knew some bullshit because everybody who started smoking, I always told me got some white girl on the line that they're selling to. What's she at? Why she ain't coming together?

Why we ain't never seen her? So he, and then we did see her, she was a smoker. Yeah. He's smoking with him. And it started with him doing premos. Weed with, you know, crack. And then I'm like, when I started seeing dudes do premos,

I knew this was, this was, man, this is, man, what y'all doing? So you think a lot of people that were selling in those early days turned into smokers? Yeah. Yeah. Like, man, I never, I knew I wasn't going to do it because of my pops. So did he become a fiend? Fucking right And my mom

Man I never In all of my days Bro I will never forget Coming up the street My boy Young boys

I knew Yeah man we just Robbed these motherfuck Took all this shit From me Doffin And I'm like shit What y'all take So it's in the bag

Right He got all this Little Bush in the bag And I'm looking in the bag You get this Damn, I was you going to take our bag? Didn't you just take it for somebody? Fuck out of here, man.

I got this. Walk back up the street on Woodfell. And I see my pops. And I say, yo, hey man, he go your shit. It's him and his friend. Stuff was in that bag. I saw my daddy ring.

I threw the bag in my pops. Like, yo, man, you're a friend. fucking out here smoking and he, my dad with the most honest face, he's gonna tell me, I'm gonna this motherfucker right here, he got me out of here, this bullshit said he was his man.

Right? For some strange reason, I don't know, I don't even know what it was to this day. I told my mom. I say, yo, my dad got robbed on woodfell, my mom said,

he probably doesn't smoking that shit I said what I said yeah the dad's probably that smoking that shit I said no he said it was his other this other dude he said somebody yeah that's what he said last time I put his ass in rehab yeah

what so I went back I'm pissed in my pop I go back over there on Woodfield I'm like yo man you fucking smoking bro my mama says she put your ass to rehab that man said me you're always running

her goddamn mouth. So in the years that they had been separated, my mom had put my pops in rehab twice. Wow. Divorced. Yeah. Separated. Mm-hmm. Still looking out for him.

Wow. Like, and I remember when I'm 40, 44. And 42 or 44, what up in there? My mom calls me hey, I need you do something for me. I say,

what's up, I got you, whatever it is, I got you. Come to my mom's house. My mom wants me to take the divorce papers to my pops for him to sign the divorce paper. I say, yo, y'all not divorced?

Y'all been opposed to, I was like three. I was like, yeah, this movie will never sign the papers. I go down to my pops. I say, You got to sign these divorce papers, man I say,

man, tell your mama to get off that shit. I say, yo, you live with another woman named Joanne. He said, well, Joe Ann, bring me a coat. He's saying Joanne

bring me a coat but won't sign divorce papers for my mother. I said, man, sign the papers. I finally give my pops to sign the papers.

Take him back to my mom. She says she won't be divorced just in case he passed. And she didn't want to have to be responsible for burying him. Oh, it costs, right? Okay. These are the things you think about as you get on in years.

My mom is straightforward with it. My pops did a bunch of unknown shit that I didn't know. So did he get off that shit finally? Or is he still smoking, you know? My pop's dead. So it is a, it is unknown. but I know he was doing my pops was really doing really well

in what he was at in his like my mother had just passed and then I went down there we and him played chess about six hours six hours we played a lot of games and I stayed an extra day to play with him

right so he did six hours for two days months later I land in LA and normally I'll answer my phone until I get to my hotel so my pops call and pick up

hey man what's going on and this is in 18 because the specials was getting ready to come out bigger than these bars right Comedy Central and I remember talking to him about it

because he called to ask about my son's chess game. My son probably six at the time. He's like, that's what I learned to play because he, like, you know, teach him at six. Hey, man, what's going on with Hassan's chess game? I said, out of my mouth, I say as soon as I get back,

I'm going to tighten his game up because I hadn't been playing with him. I go to Viacom for a meeting. Right? That's the 13. I remember walking out saying, man,

man, everything is and I remember as soon as I said it I said, oh shit something bad for it happened. Now, why do you go there? Why does your mind go there? Because every time something really, really good has happened to me, something really fucking bad has happened right after it.

Every single time. Like, I wish it was not like that, but that's what it is. And as soon as that, as soon as I said it, I need to say, oh shit. So I know my alarm was set, I'm asleep. My alarm is going off.

But I'm thinking that my alarm is going off, but it's actually somebody's calling me. Then I'm like, oh, shit, my alarm going off getting me get up, but it's actually Joanne calling me. So I had the phone, like, hey, Joanne, what's happening? Said, babe, I need to talk to you about your dad. I said, shit, what's good with you? I just talked to him.

What's up? Say, man, your dad had a heart attack. And he passed. February 14. 2018? Yep. I called my sister. I said, hey, you're going to have to come back from Africa.

And take care of this because I'm on the road. I'm doing, I'm on this tour. I'm doing all this promotion. I said, I can't come off the road and handle it. You have to do it. My sister flies down. the whole thing. So when I get down there,

after the premiere of the special, whatever, to go and tend to my pops, paying for everything, getting his self-situated, I keep hearing these discussions about what happened. And it was his heart, right?

Wasn't taking his heart medicine. I know for fact he wasn't taking that. But something spared his heart up. Real fast. The implications that he had been chilling, not doing nothing, he's getting ready to move out of this spot. Everything's going well for him. He decided to do some cope.

Is that a fact? Did they do the toxicology on him? I didn't ask for it. Didn't want him. That was just the, boom. I'd rather left it in my mind that he, heart went out, that's it. I don't need to know no more.

But the rumors about that he had celebrating. Right. And I was like, y'all, y'all trying to lend bias my pops? It's a bullshit, but you know, I don't know. Yeah, lend bias. That's interesting.

That was a, man, you're lucky I get all these old school references. You're lucky I wanted to be black when I was a kid. Len Byas was the number one draft pick back in like 86 and... That she was hard breaking, man.

Right. He was about to be like the goat. He was going to be whatever Akima Laijuwon was. Whatever Akeem was, like he, Len was going to be at least that good. He was a center out of what, Maryland? Nine of four.

When he forward, what was being about? He's a power forward. Power forward. He was out of what? Alabama. Maryland. Maryland.

Maryland. Maryland. Maryland. Maryland. He was out of Maryland, and it was the night before draft night? Yes. I think it was the night before draft night. It was NBA draft weekend.

We knew that Lynn Baez was about to be the man. We're about to be the man. Oh, this was like Jordan. If you can imagine Jordan. Charles Barclay. Charles Barclay and LeBron rolled up until, because he was big. He was bigger. Man, this dude was from the man, Lynn Bias, bro.

Yeah. He had like LeBron's, yeah, he had that stockiness. That's the first one we would have saw that stock, that speed and it was crazy. Yeah. So anyways, they're in their, I think it's like a dorm room or in the hotel room. And they're all, and he's with some of his college teammates. Doing too much. And they're passing around lines of Coke.

But according to the eyewitnesses, he wasn't like, he wasn't, you know, Ray Leota and Goodfellas with it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. he was doing a couple of lines casually and he just put his head back and he died and just his heart stopped so but of course the government took that and ran with it they passed the lend bias law and if you sell drugs to somebody and they die you're charged with murder this is still on the books to this day so that's a guy with a bad heart in my opinion I'm no doctor but to me that's a guy that's got something sensitive

with his ticker and then it's this external factor that puts it over the edge. So that was the LEM bias reference that you just made about your dad. So you're right. But I think a lifetime or decades of abuse, right? Even if you

kind of kick that somewhat, and he's probably got the Southern diet, let's be honest. You know, so he's got, he's an older guy, he's got a bad heart. Yeah, it could have been one or two lines that put him over the edge. Sorry about your pops, ma'am. How old was he? My pops was 70.

So we're talking about somebody who fish and vegetables. Yeah. Not too. Not eating. Still thin. Still in great shape. Just, you know. And we're talking about someone who played chess.

I'm talking about when we say all day. all day. Yeah. From the time he'd get up in the morning, it's a chess game going on somewhere with him. You know, he, and he was very good at it. But that, my pop had these vices, man, that he never let me really see what I kind of, my mom. Well, he lets you see the business side of it since you were eight. The business was different.

I don't think he could block the business from me because when I live with him, it was too there. Like, it was too there. Exactly. He used to keep it in a whipped bowl, in a cool whip bowl, in the refrigerator.

Yeah, yeah. And then he says, don't do this. Don't sell it. Don't sell it, but it's not really what he says is what you see. So you got, clearly you got his business acumen. So you start out at four,

just buying it already bottled up. Are you buying 50 packs? Yeah, 50 packs. Got to cut it up. Tell us what a 50 pack is real quick. You know, a little piece of cocaine. You can make by 120. You know, you got to keep flipping.

Yeah, this is what we call flipping. You got to cut it, you know. I was really aversion to all this. Like, when I bought the 50 pack, I thought that you buy the 50, then you sell the 50 to somebody else. for 60, you just make $10.

My boy was like, now you got to cut it up. Yeah. And it's very, it was very early on. Yeah. But how long did it take you to get off the corner? Can you walk us through that?

How you really went from like vials to powder to hitting other people off? The, the corner thing is more like a Baltimore East Coast thing. I meant, you know what I meant, hand-to-hand sales to wholesale. So you kind of, what I'm what, maybe 17. Until I started selling, so I went from 50 packs to buying ounces, breaking down an ounce, buying two or three ounces.

Breaking down two or three ounces. And then Charles was like, yo, you want to be part of this team. All right. What's the team? And by the way, back three ounces doesn't sound like a lot, but at 87, you could take three ounces of powder and stretch that out into 10 and 20 pieces. The cookies already. Oh, cookies already made. It's already, yeah.

You got it. You cut that joint down. Yeah. And say you bought a cookie for $600. Oh, $1,000. Yeah. $14,000. Unbelievable.

And you can make that before lunch. Before. I'm talking about you can make. So this thing. I'm going to buy three ounces. And that's all you. It's all made in you. No front.

This is coming from a 50. Yeah. Coming from a 50 pack. So you know about saving? Yes. You're just a good business guy. It was crazy. This is how good I was with saving.

I remember when I had some dope on consignment. I remember first half ounce. I had a half ounce on consignment. I lose. the shit and had to go to my stash and pay for it because I had lost it

but I was so good with keeping my money because I didn't this is the other part I'm not going to just attribute it to just having business having I lived in the house

with my mom too oh it's nice so you can't you can't be having a whole bunch of money like you ain't got no fucking job like what you do no new sneaker

Right. Them sneakers I'm buying. I'm keeping them my friend's house. Yeah. My mother didn't even know I had a car. And it just think

I'm praying nobody ever breaks in my car because all of my good sneakers and shit are in the trunk. I had, I never, I forget I went to this club and I was with my boy Smoothie,

GT, and um, probably somebody else was there. At this time, I used to drive this Brown Monte Carlo. By the way, were you driving before you were 16? Oh, yes. Something gives me the impression that you already had a car

by the time you were 14, 15. How are you driving? So, man, I'm in this, in this, Monica, we go to this club called an Underground and North Side, right? And we park smooth. You're like, man, you can park right here. So I parked my car in these apartments. They break in every car that's on this particular side of the apartments.

Because they know everybody that's in this park right here is probably in this club. Yeah. They break in everybody's car. I'm walking over there slow. I can see they left the doors open on these cars. And I'm, my mind is like this. I have probably about anywhere from 50 to 60 grand in the trunk of my car. Oh, Jesus.

And I'm like. And by the way, you're what, 15 years old? At this time, I'm about 16. $60,000 on you. That was the crack era. I am walking towards his car. And went right. to that trunk

move that tire in the box over the box I see the rolls of money still rolled up I said but I got mad because I used to wear these shoes

called Travel Fox they were like ballets they were awesome I said all these motherfuck stole my Travel Fox because I remember changing shoes I remember changing shoes

before I went to the club because I didn't want with my travel Fox, I just bought some Nike meltdowns, Andre Agassiz's shoe. I just bought them... Those are fire. Those were the joint. But they're not sweet.

I just bought them Andre Agassiz's joan the Nike Meltdown and I wore them in the club. So, my boy's like, yo, man, what's in the trunk? What's in the trunk? I see, no, I'm straight. My money's in the trunk. Yeah. But at this time, you got to... Pam Ross.

Pam Ross. I tell everybody... I tell you everybody, this is how much bread I have. at Pan Ross, I'm 17. Not only do I have the Monte Carlo, we got the drop top jack, blue with the rag, we have the Astrovan, and then I went and bought this shit,

the 533 IBMW. This is my car car. This is the car that I'm, this is my joint. So hang on, so you're 17th, you got four whips, two of them, you got a jag and a beamer. The jag I got.

from Charles. Okay. And your mom still doesn't know. You're still living with moms? No, I'm away from moms at this point, but I still go home. Right. Are you in high school or have you dropped out? I'm in high school. Okay. I'm getting ready to drop out. Okay. Sure, that's coming. But I really knew how to figure that out. I was going, I was going to go to school until, you know, I went to college, which was, which is crazy because my friends were, I was the only one of my core friends that was selling drugs. Okay. My friends wasn't drugs. So what did you, Did you see a future in it? Like you got all this money now.

You have life-changing money. Business. We still, I was, you know, when I got busted, that was my last run. Mm-hmm. And I should have never did a last run. Put a pin in that. We're going to get to that. But, so did you know that you had life-changing money at 17?

Yeah, I had a bunch of money. I mean, Rouse had 84,000, 85,000, ones and fives in a garbage bag in a house. Wow. Who's Pam Ross? That's my girlfriend at the time. Okay. Then Kendra got another 12, 13, 14,000 in her crib. I have money buried at my mom's crib.

Yeah. He was saying, like, she has no idea I'd have to bury money in her crib. I got my own house. I got money in my car. I got money everywhere. And this is just from selling cookies. Just from drugs. But retail drug sales

You're not even powder at this point So yeah Take us to when Charles put you down with The crew Because I was selling So much Because I was selling so much

Because I was greens I was winning It's like four sets of apartments Right Everybody has these three sets apartments But This gay guy named Tink I never get when he asked

Ron there I'm talking about why we got to keep coming over here to buy cracks. And it tickled the shit up because he said cracks. And his outfit, Tink always,

his outfit, I never forget Tink because of his outfit. He's the only person I ever knew known besides Richard Simmons to wear leg warmers. I never even seen anybody else. But in Pat Benetton he was in the video, he got on leg warmers, man.

and he always had this shirt on that said, Thriller. Like, oh man, Tink was crazy. And so Tink in the Greens, he said, man, we're over there. So I would go to the Greens. And I would just be in the Greens at the pool.

And it was like I was a vending machine. All day. I don't have to go on it. It was all day. Then you got a lot of, other people, since I'm buying, there's other people they're trying to get their thing off. And I'm,

instead of you going to Rinell or Charles, I'll shoot you the 50 pack. I'll shoot you the half the house. You got $50? No. We're here. Make this. Pay me the 50.

So Charles is like, yo man, who is this kid buying all this? dope from Rinal because I'm working and my mom that's how crazy my mom

the worst thing my mom would do at that time was send me to the store go ahead send me to the store what took you so long to come from the store man I'm out

first of all I'm outside now I was supposed to be inside you send me to the store to get some cigarettes for you cool I will grab your money

and my dope and I'm going outside and I'm selling all the way to the store I'm going to be yeah winning. So it's like, yo, send me to the stove.

Yeah. And then I'm taking ales though, too. I'm taking losses. That happens. You get robbed? Yeah. Yeah.

Did you have a gun? I didn't have a gun until the first gun I ever got was me and his dude. I'm in his apartment. I'm selling to him. And he blew crack smoke in my face.

Like he talking to his lady and then I V, yeah, youngster and I immediately got mad. I'm like, yo, you fucking trying to get me addicted to this shit. We end up tussling in his apartment. He tried to pull his gun out on me. His gun fell out.

It was a 25 automatic with a wooden handle. had wood, it's crone with wood. Wow. I picked the gun up. This is the first time I've ever had a gun in my hand.

I picked the gun up. I don't know how to hold it properly. So my finger not on the trigger, my finger's on the outside. And I'm like, yo, you're gonna get the fuck back. I don't even know.

I don't know shit about no gun. This first time I ever had a gun. So when I left, I took the gun with me. Yeah. So he backed the fuck up? Yeah. I'll pop his ass with his own shit.

My shit now. So I take the gun with me. I got the gun at school because I don't know where to put it. So every time somebody see me, I really got this gun on me and they just don't know. When I run into Charles,

Charles trying to talk to me, but I'm not, I don't, Charles is like Nino Brown in this city. I don't want to talk to you. I deal with Ronnell. I don't have nothing to do with you. Charles, I'm going to talk to you.

And everybody's scared of this dude. And Charles is a pretty big, intimidating dude. And he talked to me, and he said, yeah, you're going to join my squad. And I'm like, nah. But I'm not making no eye contact. I'm cool. And he said, man, you hear what I said? And I'm,

Charles is grown. He's a grown man. I'm like, no, I'm straight. And he pulled his gun out on me. At the time, I don't know that this is what this gun is called. But I found out latest, it was a Desert Eagle. Because it was a huge gun. I remember it was, it was triangular in the front.

I was like, damn, it's a big ass guy. And he pulled his gun on me to my head. Now, you hear me, you're going to sell for me. To this day, he'll tell you, Ronnell, he'll tell you anybody to say, my, I'm a very, it's hard to intimidate me. Pretty brave person. I reach for the 25.

And I said, no, I ain't for the self of nobody. Charles started laughing and said, oh, this little motherfucker got hot. And he snatched a gun out my hand. He said, look, motherfucker, you got a heart. You pull the pussy on me. There's a little bit of the motherfucker right there. Gave me the gun back.

He said, man, anybody ever fuck with you over here, man? You hit me up, man. Yeah, he got a heart. Now, like, son of you, motherfucker. You only got a heart. So I'm over there doing my thing, and then he came to me. He said, man, I'm dead serious. Man, you want to get out with the team, man.

Yeah. man, bub-ba-b-b-b-b. So I rock with him, but he wasn't bringing me in like no underling. He's like, yo, man, come rock with me. Right. So does that mean he, did you go in on a pack with him? Or was he just supplying you? He was the head.

So he was the leader of the team. Is he giving you kilos now? Half. So it's still a lot of Coke. You know, it's 18 ounces. And now you're cooking it. Pops is cooking. So now you have your dad cooking for you?

No, dude named Pops. Oh, I'm sorry, of course. Do a dude named Pops is cooking. Silly me. That's the cook man. You go to Pops to get any of, we had cook apartments. Like, even for people who wasn't a part of the team, you didn't know what you was doing. He was cooking for you.

Yes, that's a thing. I was a thing back then. There was a guy in the hood that made his living exclusively from cooking up. for other dealers. Wow. Pops was cooking. Because the worst thing, I remember the first time

I tried to cook before Pops. Yeah. So I'm trying to cook this shit, right? And it's like it's gone. It's like it disappeared. I'm like, yo, this shit is gone.

Pops, like, you need ice. You need ice. So I learned how to cook with Pops. But, man, in the Pirex, the Pirex game, was crazy. Once you start cooking in pyrexes in the microwave,

but first it was... Right. You spinning it. Cain and Feminaceous society style. Man, you... It was... And I'm talking about Pops was cooking pots of this shit.

Like, it was... So could you cook a... Could he cook a half key and one Pyrex? Yes. Really? I'm talking... He was... This is when it came from

no bullshit. This is... This is when you was really in this game. You know the difference when the Pyrex era came. Yeah. Because it came from a round cookie to a slab. It's just a triangle slab. It's just a rectangle slab.

Because it's coming out the Pyrex now. You're cutting in chunks. It's not a circle no more. Right. So you got to learn to cut different now. I'm not even got to cut. I just got to just drop it in the slab. ounce, ounce.

I'm just selling houses. Right. Selling no pieces no more. Just sell an ounce. Yep. Okay. So you're not dealing with dope fiends anymore. You moved up.

No, you're dealing with people who sell dope now. You move and then I moved up from that to I wasn't touching nothing. So how did you pick up money? So how did you do that? So now you've graduated. Did you, are you, who's the connect? Charles. So Charles is the connect the whole time.

Charles been the man the whole time. Okay. So you never. were dealing with Mexicans. No, Guatemalans. Oh, so they were the plug at the time. They were the ones to bring it in it in. Man, you had, oh, man.

So you got some people who dealt with Mexicans, got some people who dealt with Guatemalans. You got some people who just dealt, got their dope strictly from black dudes because the way that this shit was coming in was crazy. I remember most people would never, went what they call going through a drought.

I remember the drought. So you go through a drought where there's no dope to sell. I want to tell you on no dope. Like they bust 286 kilos out this mud pump. There was a mud pump coming in. Across the border, you mean? Yes. Yeah.

And then it get popped. Yeah. Charles says this. We're watching the news. It gets popped. I never forget. Charles leaned over and said somebody didn't pay the money.

Hmm. Yeah. And I said, what? You said, yeah, somebody ain't paid the money. He said, it's going to be fucked up around here for a minute. So at this time, just imagine an ounce. Just an ounce. Going for 1800.

It's crazy. 2K. Yeah. For an ounce. Yeah. So brick was 60. 60. And Houston is so close to the border that any disruption to the flow is felt directly in the city.

So all these dealers are waiting to get hit off from the load from 300 birds. And now that's gone. And so now the fiends are scratching. People are getting robbed. Brough. Yeah. It's going. It's going mayhem.

Yeah. And if you sit on dope, if you're sitting on dope the price goes up oh the price is insane 25% yeah yes yeah and you gotta do it

because you got a man you got a apartment complex you got four apartment complex no drugs right so then would you if you were a powder

wholesaler would you then go back to cooking it yeah and just so you could stretch it out stretch it Yeah. Step on it. You make a lot of money, though. B-12.

Yeah. Step on it. Right, right. And then this is when you, when people, when people start dying. Mm-hmm. Because now you're selling gold medal flower. See, people, when. You're literally reciting lyrics from my childhood.

Like, that was like a scarf. That was a, Willie D. Yeah, exactly. It's a Willie D. Is it food. It was, but this is all real life stories. Because you got to, you got to know this. When people say gold matter of flower, if you know this life, you know,

somebody sold you some sheet rock, some fucking soap. God damn gold metal flower. You got a goddamn bag of flower. Thought he had came, but it was gold metal flower. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, yeah. And so if you ripped a guy off with fake dope, he'd come back and, come back and shoot you.

Because this is the thing. it was an era where there were no it was on amongst these we wasn't shooting at each other you was like man if you came to a drug deal with a gun I'm never probably dealing with you again because why would you there's so much money around what you're doing? Like well why you have a gun

what happened? Oh you were trying to rob me that's the first thing of my man you must have been trying to rob me yeah yeah which you've had people try Yeah, people try to rob before. Did you ever have to bust your gun at anyone? What? Sorry, can we talk about that?

Yeah. But yeah, it's a thing. You didn't, I never wanted to because I didn't come from that air. I come from my pops didn't own a gun. He gave, he had a two-shot Daringer. That's not no gun gun. I love that gun. That's such a cool gun.

He got a little cool that black and white. You know, violent person like that. Man, I got a tech nine. That's a Uzi, right? Yeah. So you know, do you know Charles, if you ever heard of, you know, the Miami Hurricanes, you know,

so Charles forms of safety that play for the Miami Hurricanes, right? Play for the Oilers. I remember, big shout to Harvard Love Harvard Love father

had a safe full of guns and he would sell you guns right and I remember when Charles forms got the

M16 military machine so we get the M16 we shoot the M16 out of the apartment window so I got to have this shit I got to get one

I got to get one this is it I mean we got We got the tech nines. Yeah. Charles, I don't know how Charles came up. This is regular Charles,

not phones anymore. Charles came up and had like a box of fucking tech nines. Holy shit. And now those aren't legal, even in Texas, I don't think. We got fully automatic tech nines. It's crazy.

But still, my gun of choice at the time. 30-snub nose or 3.80. These are the guns that I loved. But everything else we had access to, but we came for you. It's a mixture of shit. Now, did you think about the consequences of having to use it? Like, you know, because it's one thing to get robbed.

It's another thing to, even if you're getting robbed, you're selling dope. and I try to rob you and you shoot me, you're still going to do it, that's still a charge, right? You got a, it's manslaughter, and you got an illegal gun, and they'll probably get you on the dope if they find it. Did that thinking come into play, or are you just thinking, I'm not going to die? Like, if somebody tries me, I don't give a fuck, it's me or him.

Was that kind of the mentality? Straight up and down. Right. I wasn't that cold-hearted when I started because I was a kid that's not where I'm at But as life goes on And shit happens to you

You get a little more cold-blooded Oh yeah I fucking blow your brains out if it came to me towards you But at the time I'm thinking in my mind It's gonna be hard for You to find out that I did it Yeah I kill you in an alley

Who is I'm not gonna turn myself in Yeah no for sure And this is why the revolver was so important. I like 380s or 357s because I can keep the shells. I wasn't a automatic guy like that. You know, it shells everywhere

when you shoot them. But if I'm up on you, boom, and I'm gone, shell with me. I'm not coming back to the crime scene. coming to tell on myself. I'm not coming to do that. Hey, who killed Rick? I don't want to fuck kill Rick. Who was Rick? So you could just shoot a guy and take the shell with you? No, when you revolve, you ain't got to take no shit. It's in the tune.

You just run off. The shell don't come out of revolve. It comes out of automatic. Oh, interesting. I didn't. Oh, of course. Right. Yeah. I'm just thinking the movies. Yeah. Falls out, right. I never was the, I don't want to leave no evidence. Did anyone in your crew ever get pop? for a body. Yeah. Yeah.

His boys went down for bodies, but I'm not... Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of unsolved homicides. There's a lot of

Houston back in those days, I'm sure. A lot of unsolved homicide. Yeah. And I'm... And I'll tell people, man, you could, man,

it was a lot of... There's a lot of mistakes made. Did you ever worry? Like, when I was locked up for drugs, I would, wake up in cold sweats at night in my cell thinking that they had caught me for, you know, other things. Like, you know, you'd hear about people in prison getting re-arrested on robberies or murders,

and they were only there for dope charges. Like, did you, when you went down for drugs, did you, were you ever worried that other stuff was going to come back on you? I'm worried now. Okay. No, I'm, in my, in my heart of hearts, in my mind, I'd be like, man, it is, it's been some, it's been some, it's been some, it's been some, it's been some things that, you know, it's just like with me, it's people who I have come across that I thought I was okay. with something that happened in the past and I wasn't

but I'm not bad as I used to be but I did so much wrong stuff that I would be anywhere and be like oh shit they're bringing this shit up I was in the bank and I tell this as a joke now but I was dead ass serious I was in the bank

one time check with my name on it gave him people my ID and everything. And as soon as this man said, oh, we got to take this to the back. And in my mind, oh, no, no, no, y'all have 10 Mississippies and I'm the fuck out of here. And I left.

I left. I was like, no, no. My mind has clicked into like, oh, hell no. This is going to be. I don't see people who I'm like, I hope he passed. this. Wow. I've been places where I was in the club and dude wasn't over it. Yeah. And I remember, hey, bro,

this happened when I was 18. Yeah. You was a part of a situation. I was a part of a situation. Guns were fired. Your people didn't survive. Let's not Let's not do this now, bro, you got children, I got children. Yeah, we survived. We survived. But make no mistake, I still got to go home today, too. So I generally don't go to that area. Yeah.

How do you, have you made peace with, you know, if you've had all this success, you got this beautiful family, a bunch of kids, you know, this great career. do you feel like if whether it was like a cold case or you know an old beef have you mentally prepared yourself with being okay if something happens to you? Nah. Hell now. You'd be pissed. That would not be good. If something happened to be for some bad shit, I was like, man, come on.

Look at this man. God damn, Benny Blanco. Yeah. It bees like that sometimes. Yo, man, I got a rip. But you were saying, but you were saying, like, whenever something great happens to you, that something really bad happens.

Yes. But selling out a theater, the hardest thing to do in life is to sell out a comedy show. And you're selling out theaters all over the country. Like, do you worry? That's a great thing. that happens. So how do you balance yourself? Do you, does that keep you grounded? You said, this is pretty fucking awesome, but it's something bad could happen. Does that keep you neutral?

I think, um, I think of my, my dad passed, right? That's why I was at in life with that. Because I, at that time, in 2018, I didn't think that I had paid the universe back. back yet. Because people would add out with that, man, when you think you're going blow up,

you're going to get to the next zone. And I would always say whenever I pay the universe back for the savagery that I had been a part of property. I owe my neighborhood a lot. That's why I never left Houston.

I owe them. You know, you can't take, because I think about the shortening of the life of people, of people's achievements. The drug epidemic,

even now, I still feel the ramifications of it from now. I was in Frisco and the homeless drug situation is so hard when Friscoe, I'm at this festival and I keep trying to walk down a street that does not, that I don't have to engage with this many.

Yeah, fiends. Yeah. And I remember walking Chris Cotton Chris Cotton was still alive Roy Woods I was walking to this festival and I was so

depressed I was so sad like people didn't realize that I was crying going to the festival and I would the only way I wasn't crying when I would perform

then I would leave and I would cry all the way back to my hotel room. Wow. Because I felt so bad about whatever my part in this shit was. You still feel it like that. Yeah, because it's 30 years later. Because these are the, these are the offspring of the chemical dependent people that I produce.

Uh-huh. So crack error is one thing. Then you got the crack error. Then you got the children from the people who use the crack error that, chemically dependent children that was born on this shit. Right. So then you got this era

which is... And those are like millennials. Those are people my age. 80s babies. Yeah. Born in 86, 85. And so these kids out here taking everything.

Right. It's way worse to cocaine now. They're taking everything. San Francisco now. The fentanyl era makes crack cocaine in the 80s

look like good times. It's there. taking everything. I didn't know one rap song that ever growing up that ever said drugs was good. Not one. Not one. Even the people who were selling

that was rapping about this shit, they were like, yo, this is horrible. Yeah. It was saying like, well, you look down on the dope fiends. Like that was the thing. Like there was them, right? These are like lesser people. And then it's, you can't be a person if you use drugs. That's what rap was about. Bro, strawberry was a woman who was selling herself for crack.

I didn't want this shit. It was saying, they the dope fiend shooting up, who don't know the mean of water nor soap. I don't want none of this. Because people who, this is. Although, let's be honest, everybody was getting high in the 80s. A lot of kingpins were brought to their knees. Yeah.

So that was a little bit of a myth. but it was at least taboo. Do you realize that I was at a say-no to drugs thing with dope in my vehicle and people paging me? Yeah, that's... I was so... In this, they could probably find this. Because when the presidents write letters to people,

they keep them, right? Don't they do some type of thing where you... Barbara Bush wrote me a letter. Wow. Because I wrote a letter to the way. White House. They can find it. While you were locked up?

No. I was in high school. I was in the streets actually actively selling drugs. And I wrote a letter to the White House about the drug epidemic. Barbara Bush wrote me back. They can find it. Wow. I guarantee it's in their archive.

They can find it. You haven't saved the letter? I'm kid. I'm, you know, things transfer. But I know they have it because anytime the president, And in them write letters, they keep that shit in the archive. Barbara Bush didn't write a lot of letters to no damn black children in Houston. They can find it.

They can find it. Look it up, people. Barbara Bush has always been 95 years old. Always been 95. She always had white hair. We're talking about Bush's dad. We're talking about the original Bush. Yeah.

His wife. He was a smart one. Not like Junior Bush, but his fine-ass wife. Right. Or his daughters or his daughters who could have got it. Man, what was Bush's wife? Laura Bush would Laura Bush was fine as hell

Yeah And she was the only one That we knew that Yeah Man shit Laura Bush is fine She did you Have you ever seen

I mean I remember Laura Bush Like I If I was in prison Doing life When she And she offered me some pussy I would take it No in prison

In prison the prison lady Anybody who was in prison In Texas The prison lady Who everybody Love Everybody And I do me

Everybody Denise Auster Denise Austin shout out no when were you when were you in jail 2010 to 2012

yeah you too young yeah you too young man let me tell you so in prison if you want to get your ass killed if you want to get killed

behind a white woman you let you come in and touch that motherfucker TV and Denise Austin is on or Telemundo we're gonna kill you Denise Austin is a workout lady, a fitness lady.

Oh. Do you know what a fitness outfit looked like in the early line? Yeah, yeah. It was soft porn. Pink, pink fucking pink jumpers and yeah, yeah. With white, white, leitoll soft porn. Denise Austin's so goddamn fine with two other women

behind her doing aerobic shit, man. Get your ass killed. In the 90s, you turn out Denise Thompson. Tell me he's dead-ass tears. So, wow, that, for you to feel the empathy even now from what you did back then, you must have done a lot of bad shit. Yeah. Because I don't look at, I mean, white guys that grew up in the 90s, consuming all of the rap that came from the streets in the 80s, you know, we thought drug dealing was cool. still do.

From people who wasn't telling drugs. Correct. Right. We didn't have to feel the consequences of it. Do you feel like, what do you think is better now about the black community, about America, what do you, about Houston, what do you feel is better now than from the 80s? What's improved? I think people, this far as the black community, I know for sure. we make money a lot more,

make a lot more money different ways now. For sure. So even though then we were always creating and making money, but my children's friends and my children, they don't think to hustle, like street hustle. No. They think internet and,

and making something. And it's back to, they're back to being creative. I don't, I don't make people like, oh, this internet, but as long as they're being creative,

going back to creativity versus street behavior. Yeah. Well, I feel like the, I feel like rap, rap and hip hop really did a lot for like race relations.

For one, thing. I think it brought people together way more even than the civil rights movement in certain ways. So I feel like there's a lot less racism now. I really do. I feel like there's an elevated consciousness amongst black people, especially the black community. Yeah. And yeah, I don't see people going to the streets anymore. I think probably because there's less crack money too. It's like, what are you going to go out and there's just less business around drugs? Like you just, you, Your generation just came up in an era where you were lucky or unlucky enough to be at the boom of this gigantic illegal trade. Where it was just money pouring out the sky.

So I think there's that element too. It's like why would I don't even. I think our influences were weird too because you had. I don't think we look up to the mobsters as much anymore. No. It's not a, I know some people still on this street. have street cred. Street cred to,

I don't have gangsters telling me that street cred was stupid. But now you have gangsters and people that's from the streets telling people and getting to understand

that, hey man, dumb. Because most of us that street dudes, children go to private school. Most of us that's supposed to be street people,

kids go to very good school. Yo, man, I don't believe you are in the streets when I just saw you at a violin recital. I just saw you. Yeah.

You haven't. I said this the other day, I said to myself, I said, man, I must really be losing my edge. Because when I'm out walking in the morning, white women keep speaking to me. Mm-hmm.

Just, just, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. I'm like, man, I'm black. everything, shades on, black hoodie, everything, man. I didn't lost my age. And then I noticed, I said, no, I didn't really that. It ain't not really scared of me no more.

They see my footwear. You really can't really be intimidating with own clouds on or hokers. You have dad shoes on. It's like, you know, I got a hokers or own clouds. They're like, nah, he's with us. You got dad's shoes on. Yeah. It is what it is.

But also, you know, it's not just you're losing your edge. It's that people don't really care as much about race anymore. There's just less racism. I think the internet is broken down the myths of the scary black guy. It's broken down the myths of the gangster, the mobster. What's crazy is I've never been concerned about the scary, because it was never the scary black guy. It was always the white guy who said some weird shit that I was just.

doing or not doing or mistaken identity type of shit. It's like I'm more fearful of the Zimmermans of this world because I would kill it like I would kill it wouldn't be

it wouldn't be to this to right now my street would not allow me to let a dude like Zimmerman or any one of these goofy ass white boys kill me behind some you stand your ground shit

well I'm standing my ground too and I don't shoot to the side I shoot from the way I go to the range with this shit so it's not I've always been more scared of the Emmett Till type shit

yeah the mistaken oh he did this yeah because in my neighborhood they know what I'm doing and they're not out there pointing at me unless the cops go who's you trying to do this

No, it's always the old man. The old man is telling you in your face. You selling the drugs right there. Damn, oh, Mr. Charlie. But I'm more afraid of, and I always been, I'm more afraid of the lie or propaganda. You know, because I'm still looked at

in a certain way. And it has nothing. And this is when I'm 100% legit. at this point. Because it's not me getting killed in the hood. It's me getting killed on the fucking freeway. I'm me getting killed when I'm getting pulled over.

That's what's changed. You pulling me over. Hey man, I am in a $200,000 vehicle. I'm not being threatened to you. What do you think I'm doing? So, hey man, my wallet happens to be a black

Gucci wallet. I don't know. no Gucci guns. This ain't no, this is not a, it's not a gun. I don't even carry cash, sir. I have a bunch of credit cards. So the fear for me now

is something happens to me when I'm totally legit. Like I'm not even that, I'm not even that person but I'm not going to let you step on me either. Have you have you

found ways of dealing with that you know, because you got champagne problems now right? You're not worried about a cat in the hood with the tech nine trying to rob you the stash. You're, you know, you're worried about losing all this good shit you have.

Have you reconciled your mind? Like, do you meditate? Do you, are you Muslim? Yes, all day. Are you guys? Yeah, I actually wanted to ask you about that. quick. And then I want to wrap up. I want to figure out we need to know what happened with your case and what sent you to the joint and began this amazing journey into comedy. Who's Muslim in the family? Everybody. Your father and your mother? Dad and mom. Where did that come from? Are you guys? I have no idea. I wasn't born yet. Are you guys recent African, like East African or anything like that? When I was born, my dad was already Muslim. I don't know how he got there. But I don't know why he stopped being. My mom took shahada maybe, I'm going to say 15, 20 years ago. Okay.

So every, every, all of my kids, Muslim. So does that help you at all? Like, stay grounded. Grounded. Yeah. Maybe let, doesn't that help with the fear of death? Like, aren't Muslims? You guys are supposed to be not scared of the afterlife.

I don't have no fear of death. I just have a fear of getting killed in a certain way. I hear you. The death part is because this is why I am like I am now. People don't realize this. I probably spend more time in a day thinking about death than most people. I forgive fast. Even though I'll argue with you, I get into it your head's fast, but I forgive fast.

I don't really hold grudges with people. I don't have that type of story space in my mind. I'm going to say whatever I've got to say at that particular time because I understand this. I do not

have the type of time that people in this world think that they have. I think about death every single day. That's why I live a better life now. Because I know I don't have that type of time.

Yeah. I don't want to argue long. Yeah. I don't want to be mad long about nothing. I'd rather be mad today, forgive you tomorrow, or you forgive me tomorrow because I'm wrong to. I'm not for the harbor this shit with you. Right.

Because then what happens when you pass within that time frame? Yeah. You think I'm going to live with the regret of damn, I should have said. Yeah. I should have told. I'm not in that, I'm not in that space. Yeah. I'd rather you waste my money.

than waste my time. I can make more money. Sure. Can't get no more time. Yeah. You don't worries me is like when I'm on a plane and I feel those bumps, ask Brian. I don't fly well.

You know what I mean? I don't even like when I'm on a cross country flight. I don't watch TV. I don't read. I just stare at the back of the seat. You know what I mean? I pray and all that shit. You know?

Because I still got a lot to do. I can't die on this fucking in economy, you know? I'm like, I'm never going to cheat on my girl again. I'm going to double up on going to church, you know? It's when I'm like my best self is when I'm on playing and I'm scared.

And it's like you're like, you're looking into the right now. You're like, no. I just need to look right in. Think about my woe. Exactly, exactly. Just say sorry. And it was like when you used to go get a HIV test back in the day.

We used to go get an AIDS test. It's the same, you know what I mean? Yo, the AIDS test was horrible. Do they still have to do that? I don't think it matters anymore. You can't even like, the bug, dude. Oh, because you know they got stuff on TV that,

hey, you just take this, you ain't got them. I don't, I don't want to go with it. No, but we're not from that era. We're from the era where it's like, okay, you smash once raw. You're like, oh, I'm definitely, I definitely got AIDS. I'm fucking dying. Yo, man, if you smash a dick raw and, oh, and you feel anything. You feel anything.

Ah, ah, it's over. But I feel bad for the kids almost because they don't know. that rush when you're in that clinic and the moments when they're coming back with your test, they can't feel the rush of the bungee jump adrenaline and then getting that negative. They can't, you can't feel the new, I'm just out of jail again. Freedom. Do you understand? You know what I mean?

That now, a kid, if you got HIV in West Hollywood, they're like, oh, I'm not canceling my Coachella tickets for this. I'm still going to concert. You're going to fuck about being sick. Yeah, exactly. And I'm hooking up that night. Yeah. Did you take your, a brevo, whatever that shit? You can't catch you when you take that, right?

Yeah. Well, anyways, my point is, like, when I feel the fear, I'm like, okay, I need to live better. That was the point. I'm like, okay, I shouldn't be so scared of death if I'm living right. You know what I mean? So that's how I see it. But anyways, go on. It's going to happen.

It's the only. guarantee. And I got to tell my children, hey, man, you got to take advantage me why I'm here. Yeah. Because you're going to wake up one morning. I mean, I'm not going to be here.

And it's not like I'm out of town. I'm not coming back. Just like I, I think I lost a son. I lost my sister. I've lost a lot of, friends and me just compartmentalizing death and how it's going to happen, how certain it is to happen. Even with my friends, man, I'm really hard with my friends.

Love them hard, fight them hard, do all that. I got to get everything out of you before you're not here no more. Right. because man, I relish the day that I could I can fight with my partner to Fuddy again. You know? Right. You know, like, you know, I could argue

one of my boys and over nothing. Right. And, and Carl's, man, you old bullshit. I relish them days and I generally don't make this mistake. If somebody, if I think about somebody, I call them right away. I don't let it pass. And in comedy

I generally take Even when it's uncomfortable to me I generally take The opportunity to do something with somebody Man Patrice O'Neill right Patrice I'm supposed to do a show with him For some strange reason

There's an ice storm It's an ice situation in Houston Like the freeways are Frozen over It's 290 36 wrecks this particular day Right

Patrice comes to town He's like Yo are you coming out to the show And I'm like Patrice I'm not fucking risking my truck To come out and see you I'm not

Not doing it Oh no I know how this is gonna end Yep No way So you never You never talked to him after that And he passed I'm in Mexico

David Arnold hit me yo thought I had your number he'll go my number call me I need to talk to you I say yo I'm going to hit him when I get back stateside I sit down my face and me hit David on when I get back to state side

and he was gone when you got back yep he was a great comedian too yep wow yeah well in comedy, I think it's really easy to lose touch with people. Because everybody's off in their own universe. Everybody's just traveling.

Everyone's always on the move. And it seems like that. But then it'll be people that have let you know that it's easy than you think. I call Roy Woods to mess with him, just to mess with him to ask him, could I open for him? We're in Portland. He's such a great comedian. I call him. I'm like, yo, hey, man, I see you in Portland, man.

want to know, can I come and before I can even get it out. You're important on the other side of town. He didn't hear that shit, Ali. He knew where I was at. He knew I was in town too. And you generally can keep up with the people

in common that you want to. Because you actually, once you were actual friend, not a comic that I know, not a comic associate or, you know, I work with you one time in passing. I'm talking about somebody who I Actually, no. Yeah.

That I get on the phone and call. Like, I don't come to L.A. much, but when somebody calls me, I'm going to get on a plane and come. There's no way in the world earthquake could call me and say, hey, man, I'm having a birthday party. I would like for you to come and me not get on the plane and come to Quake's party. Well, you know, it's going to be a fun birthday. You know what I'm saying? Bill Bellamy and Tony Roberts having the thing at Pool Hall at the family billi. they hit me

I'm coming you're famous now bro you know that no I'm just you got some juice bro you're up there with these guys really willing to come and hang out with my friends that's in stand up

if Ari called me is Bert called me I'm going to come and fucking hang out because in my mind it's not a lot of it's not a lot of people in this business that that's genuine.

So the ones that are, you make every effort to, you man, like, if D.L. called me for anything, I'm coming. Yeah. Anything. That's, that's, that's, man, that is the,

he's the pinnacle of support for me. Yeah. Like, right, it's, I don't have a mentor that I can't get on the phone and call. You know, my influence are the people

who I'm actually around, I can still call. Richard Pryor, yeah, you got me to laughing in comedy, but also Don Rickles did too. Right, yeah.

Carol Bennett was a fucking huge influence on me. Yeah. I'm saying in comedy. I'm going on the comics that I saw on TV first versus what I heard

on the albums. You know, I'm watching he-ha and all these things and thinking that these things hysterical. So

and when you have a mentor like D.L. That you can actually call and somebody can navigate. Like Dick Gregory, I could call him and ask him real quick. You know how many times

Dick Gregory stopped me or D.L. stopped me from whooping the shit out of a comic. Like I'm going to whip the shit out of somebody who I was a fan of for disrespect. Wow. Who?

Paul Mooney. I'm going to beat the shit out of Paul Mooney. That would have been gay bashing, bro. And this is when he was younger, Paul Mooney. He did say some disrespectful shit to me, and I didn't get it. I was like, yo, I mean, you know, I'm going to stop the shit out you. And I called D.L. And he said, you cannot beat up Paul.

I said, why? He said, because he's old. Yeah. So it's been other people. Was it difficult for you when you came home? You got out when? 1997, October 21st. Okay.

So you come off of like a five-year... Six-year stretch. So that's a lot of time in prison. Did you find it hard when you first got into comedy and you started to navigate the politics of comedians? These motherfuckers are the opposite of criminals and prisoners. They're phony. They don't understand respect or deference.

Did that? Like when I came, I remember like threatening when I first came to L.A. After getting out, like I remember just threatening hosts all the time because they would bring me up as like, as I was doing jokes about like black people in prison and my influences were like Chris Rock. I have no political correctness. but I would go up and then I would bomb because I'm in front of 21 year old white liberal arts kids and I'm doing jokes about the different I mean it's all suck I sucked right but like I would be called racist and homophobic and feminine you know misogynistic and I am all those things but I I would tell I would tell hosts like I'm gonna choke the shit out of you like I'm literally going to kill you did you have similar like how hard was that bro it's still hard now but I'm better now

you know I was I was I was a bit much yeah how long until you got the prison off of you like it's still there yeah because it it pops up in certain instances in instances

because of you do know inside them walls everything is fucking in proper order it is people don't realize that it is in proper order you're going to have respect. You're going to, it's shit that you're going to do.

Because there's real consequences. It's real consequences. And it took a long time for me to understand that people out here don't understand fucking consequences. And it's, you, man, and it's, I used to do this a lot. This is my hand just like, yo, what the fuck is happening right now? And because, like, even with all these, quote unquote, beefs.

I know that this is like what we call made for TV. Right, right, for sure. This is really not no beef. Right. Because if you want to do it, you're going to get at it. Yeah. Because I'm from a place that's going to get at it.

Hey man, I'm not going to do all this talking with you. Yeah. Not for doing all this tongue wrestling. We're going to get at it. We didn't lose a draw. So, and then I was, this is what was really a problem for me. the respect of men had lowered from the time I had went in to the time I came out. Yeah, yeah.

I was never called out of my name in the neighborhood. Ho-ass, what's up, bitch? None of this shit was acceptable. No. And then in prison, it was definitely not acceptable. So to come out and to hear something, somebody even refer to

one of my friends or somebody I knew this whole ass motherfucker right here and I'm like so okay who's getting something's about to happen and then nothing's happening and then the day

somebody decided to address me we in just choking comedy cafe and you know dude talking and he in reference said just like this and it happened in all the same motion so he's talking blah blah blah blah and he said this whole motherfucker right here

and when he said it I slapped the shit they banned me from the club because it's like as soon as he said it I slapped the shit out of him wow instinct because of who the fuck are you talking to yeah I just saying it man it's it's like why I wouldn't play dominoes when you were locked up when I was locked up hey man

can y'all play with watching your mouth because I don't play these I don't play these games these these these games I don't play them so I'm playing dude everybody say

they got they got their mouth on watch school I'm playing boom I remember I called team dude called 10 right behind me but he said follow that 10 inches 10 inches in you oh I immediately just threw my dominole down and walked up to myself and everybody kept telling him

hey man you beg open on your motherfuckin' boots man what I say you know what I say you just said 10 inches in you to Ali Hey man You better go put on your goddamn boots Because black people Old school black guys don't play that gay shit And in prison

They really don't play that gay shit It ain't Yo man Titty in your mouth No no no no no Because now The prison world is watching Yeah everybody

And you're listening And you said what What happened to you What was it? I don't think that people understand the politics and the dynamics of what happens in this position. He got to pay for that. And he paid for that severely. And I'm not the type of person.

And I tell anybody they want to know who I really am, like my real heart of hearts, who I really, really am. if they watch Arish and Fia this is not happening they watch the Mitchell story Mitchell is the only thing

that I can explain to people how I truly am because I don't have once my mind has said there are no consequences there's what I'm going to do

and then what you're going to do I was going to kill that CO behind fucking disrespect and I was gonna go back to my cell I wasn't trying to get away it wasn't no oh you're gonna kill him

then you're gonna kill this man and I'm gonna walk back to my cell and whenever they come get me I'll be my shit'll be packed up because this man violated something I told him Yeah. And everybody's home that besides Mustafa,

the people who really saved me in that instance, Leslie Davis is home, Alameen is home. He lives in Dallas. You know what I'm saying? Jihad is home. He lives in Houston. Did you start to interrupt you? No, go ahead.

Did, were you in state or federal prison? State. So, yeah, state prison, that's when, because when you're in the feds, usually you don't get, you got, you're around a lot of rich dudes, around real criminals, which is what I like about the fed. So you never hear, you don't hear a lot of popping off at the mouth. You know what I mean?

Somebody just ends up dead. How did you, how did you get pop for five keys and stay in the state? This is what you call having a pending case. Okay. So I already had a case. Okay, I'm on judifer probation. Okay. Okay.

So by the way, let's bring it all home. You're, when did you catch your first case? Yeah, and then just. Only case. Okay, gotcha. And you're real quick. I'm sorry, I just want to set the stage because we detracted a little bit. You're now making money.

A lot of money. And you're basically wholesaling keys or what's your, what's the hustle at your pinnacle? The team. Yeah. Okay. So this is, this is Charles' deal. Okay. This is not my deal.

This is Charles's deal. And I make emphasis on this. He had this deal. We bought this, true enough. I didn't come up with this shit. He called me, hey, man, got this bird. Oh, like, cool. I wrote with you.

Because, like I'm telling you, I'm on the way out. This is my, I got enough money. Right. I'm straight. He got this little dumb-ass deal that he's trying to do for this dude named Kevin. Shout out to Kevin. He's still. lie, I just saw him.

Kevin needs this deal. I'm going to get these bricks for my boy. Cool, cool. I help you go with it. My, my best friend, G.T. He's still alive. G.T. said this. He said, hey, man, I don't feel good about this one.

I ignore it. I'm rolling with Charles. Packed the shit up for him. We're rolling. Packed what up? Packed the dope up for him. Okay. How much dope?

Five keys. Got in the bag. I don't think Charles got this play all the way together. The whole time. The whole time, I keep saying shit. I've been rolling with you, bro, a long time. You should listen to me. I'm like, yo, man.

So we get, never forget, we get an Ashvan. It's me and Moe in Ashvan. We leave. I keep saying police. the whole entire and I keep saying I'm like that's a

that's a cop car right there that's weird and this is we got the old school on Houston police calls I see another one

saying it's weird we get to the spot we're going to make this drop pull up sitting in the national van

and I'm doing this I said both what time is it? It's 12. I said You don't see nothing strange

with this? He's like what Nobody's checking out for this hotel Nobody The cleaning lady She doesn't look like a cleaning lady to me

This is the I'm sitting there Because she She's been on the same room I'm just sitting there I'm like there I'm saying man this. It just seems odd.

We get out, we go into this restaurant what Kevin and Psycho and a dude named Richard are in there. Talking. I'm like, man, it don't seem like people eating. It seems like they're in here, but they're not eating. Go get back in the truck and we're supposed to go in this room

because the dope is not with us. It's in Charles's beings. He's not on site. We are on site. Going to the room, count the money. We're in this hotel room. I know most people,

Muslims keep their door closed because of the gym. We believe the evil spirits are in the bathroom. Good and genes ain't in the bathroom. We keep the door closed. Mass majority of people keep their bathroom door open. Yeah. And you never met this guy

that you were selling the kilos to. I don't know. Kevin, this is Charles' friend. I got you. Okay. Me and Mo together. And what are you making on this deal, by the way?

Oh, I'm making a grip. What are you paying for keys at this time? No, they're paying for them. We got them. That's what I mean. 92 grand is the whole, is the whole spill. Okay, got it. So you know what I'm saying?

About 16, 15 of a brick. Okay. Something like up in there. So you make about 10 a kilo. Yeah. I'm going to make half this shit. Okay. Mo is going to be,

He's going to be a low man on the totem pole. But Moe is, this is what Moe problem is. And it's always been like this. This is one, once again, this is somebody that Charles brought into our organization. This is his friend. Mo's not my friend.

I'm being forced to work with Mo. And I don't like working with people who money hungry. For the money hungry person to kill you behind money. That's why I never like working with this dude named Lawrence that Charles tried to bring in. never so we get there we walk into his room and i'm very cautious man i'm looking at everything i notice the bathroom doors closed i asked to go to the bathroom oh man my girl in there hmm god is my witness i say well let me see the money they bring the money out black dude

nice skin freckles, put them on the table. All hundreds and fifties. All hundreds and fifties. And crack money, there should be some tens and fives, ones, 20s, for sure. And in the streets, nobody's changing it over for cleaner shit.

Yeah. I grab one stack of the money and just flip through it like that. I say, yo, what's these numbers on the money? his exact words I'm in the bank numbers we just got this money from the Franklin Bank

they were supposed to be coming from New Orleans right the Franklin Bank of New Orleans I just left New Orleans I ain't said I'm a New Orleans native but I ain't seen no motherfucking Franklin Bank while I was there and I was there for a while Franklin Franklin Franklin Franklin Franklin Franklin Franklin

What fuck is Franklin? 1301 Franklin The county jail Houston, Texas That's the address As God is my witness I knock I give the sign

Random three knocks on the table Is the fucking sign Been the sign We're outside I say And the fed's got this On camera They got it

I say Mo, this the feds. Man, I, you just nervous. No, bro. I've been doing this shit a long time, Mo. This is the police, bro. Getting asked your van. I say, hey, walk down to where Charles is

and tell him, do not come to this parking lot with that dope leave. My exact words. Had you discovered, while you were in the hotel room, anything about kilos, anything like you hadn't said anything? It said shit to do.

I just need to see the money. I'm sitting in that. As soon as I'm standing here, I'm sitting in the ashr van. I'm in the passenger seat. Wait no more. Come back. As I'm sitting there,

I see Charles's Benz pulling into that parking lot. I run to the back through, because the Asher van, you can just run straight to the back of the Ashvan, and I run straight to the back of the ass van, and I put the gun in, The side, on this side thing that we had.

Boom. A little trap. It's, we're backed up into the, into the fence. Yeah. I get in the drive seat. I'm about to pull off. Boom. I can't go this way because Charles and them, yeah.

So, the informant was a dude from Fitwood. He had got shot in the jaw. He had a, he had a, a, um, a deep gash in the jaw. when he got shot in the jaw, right? Charles is too far for me to say anything to him. I can't get to him. They get out.

This shit like this is in slow motion. Charles get out to go. He come around. He popped the trunk. The dude does this. And I'll never get this shit like it was, like it's happening right now. This is an unnatural move.

And I knew it was crazy. And when he did it, I ran through the back of the ass fan and went out the back you know, dope door and jumped over the fence. I'm gone. It's like this.

Trunk opens. Dope is there. He does this. Take his head off. Like, wow, look at all this dope. Yeah. No. This is the signal

the feds. If I tell you, just imagine this is, so we in this, we in this park out of his hotel. Just imagine. Now, I clap my hands and 15 people are peering this room. This is what the feds came out of everything. Didn't I tell you that cleaning lady?

Right. Not a cleaning lady. And people in that restaurant, they're coming out of cars. It is like a mad rush on this parking lot. And there, they got some dealings to do with me. I'm fast in a motherfucker. I'm over this fence. And I'm gone.

To use that, you know, we're a Bayou City. All these bayous connect. I'm running and I'm running fast in the moment and I heard them. We got one over the fence. You got a runner. I'm gone. This is my whole mindset. I need to get to Braves Bayou.

Because this is the Bayou that's close to me. I need to get the Braves Bayou. If I can at least jump in the Braves Bayou, they're going to have hell trying to catch me because this floats. This floats all through Houston. Back to swimming. I am in. I'm in the trenches. Once I get this by you,

they're going to have, man, I don't know how you're going to find me. Yeah. Because I'm going to be, like a log. I've already had my mouth above the water. Man, this is it.

And so I'm running, right? And one of the guys, one of the fed does this. And he grabs my shirt. and I cut real hard Barry Sanders' and he is I know he's pissed

because he got all this shit and I see him fall and his rifle and him just rolling and I'm gone this is when I thought I got away and I thought I was ready

because I'm about the it's a cliff I'm gonna fucking swan dive off this cliff into this bayou I'm gone so I'm running running and I must have took my eye off of what was actually going on.

I couldn't see everybody. So when I cut and I see the by you and I'm running and I'm like, oh, I'm out here. I'm worn. Oh, fuck it. I saw it. The butt of a rifle just. Oh, fuck. And I'm rolling.

And before I finish rolling, these motherfuckers had me hog-tied and everything. Yeah, yeah. Like, they were the rodeo. I was like, oh, shit. Like, never, never again. And for six years, I was gone at the end. And I remember they brought me in that, remember the same bathroom that this girl was in?

They brought me back in that room, that same hotel room. Yeah. And beat the shit out of me in that bathroom. Wow. Because I wouldn't tell them who was in the car. Charles is on a high-speed chase. He's got to be.

back in and he's going. I can hear them on the radio. And they're like, who in the car? Who in the car? Who are the pound? Oh, fuck. No shit.

Old school ass whooping, by the feds, too. That's pretty wild. And they got Mo. They got Kevin. They got Psycho. They got Richard. It's on low life.

So you know, you listen to a lot of huge rap. So you know Fifth War Boys. Yeah. Yeah. So low life for the Fifth World Boys is Richard. Oh, no shit. They're getting pot with me.

Fuck, dude. He wasn't making a lot of money rapping. Yeah, from the Fifth War Boys, right? So, man, they got everybody. We got his aunt, too. I won't tell him, because I'm thinking, if Charles get away, oh, he's definitely going to come bomb me out. And he's got all the product.

He got the product. And long as he, what I'm looking at, fucking conspiracy, what I'm looking at is. I mean, I'm smoking drugs, man. I'm just one of the counters. Right. Man. That's all I'm going to say.

I got this year down. Man, I am a dope thing. They send me here to count his money and who do. Yeah. That's all I. They just said I'm going to toss you. Here's a rock just to go pick this up and bring it back. Hey, man.

I'm going to sell it. Mm-hmm. I'm from to sell it, man. And why would you run? I don't want a crack. What do you think? I'm about to sell it. You know, this is why I'm at with it.

Yeah. No dice. They catch Charles. It's heartbreaking. I don't go to court with them the first time because I'm on monoxicillin or some shit. I think I got burnt or something. I don't know. And that's why I didn't go.

I had medication and everything on me. It was in. So I had to go to the doctor first. So the next court day. I went. We were signed to this, this judge called named Ted Pope. If you look at anything about Ted Pope,

Ted Pope, sentenced his wife and his son to prison. Like, he's a fucking crazy man. And you're in the Fed still. You still charge in federal court. So then we get bumped down to state. Because the fed's like, ah, whoa, whoa.

Yeah, so there's five keys. It gets bumped down to state. which is fucking worse. So in certain ways, yeah. I got a, I got an open case because I'm on judith for a probation. So they had to shift everybody to Woody Denson's court

because I'm the person with a fresh case that opened. They got to take us to Woody Denson Court. In Woody Denson's court, this is the first time I'm seeing Charles, Mo, Psycho, Kevin, everybody. Right?

We ain't hold then. Come in there. I ain't called. Charles says And man What the fuck happened Mo's not in the tank yet In the audience

I say your boy Mo What did he tell you I said what I said what did Mo say to you When he came down there He said man

That she was Nervous and tripping But the shit was all good Moe coming to that hole then and I'm about to lose it. I say, Mo. What did you tell, Charles? Ah, man, I told me, man, you're near it.

Because you're so busy, you so hell-bent on whatever bullshit has money that you're going to get. That you, you think that I'm nervous. You're over-skipping what I'm saying. I'm not nervous, bro. I'm seeing this shit for what it is. Charles, I always regretted not listening to me. Because like, when had you, since you teamed up with me, when had you not listened to me?

Because I'm the person who is more cautious than everybody else. I don't want to get caught doing what we're doing. That's why I look at it. I remember Charles Fenn to kill somebody. And I called him. We had the brick phone. Yeah. I called him.

I'm like, yo, you don't see them people on that fucking balcony. I've always I was a trap I've always been the person that saw something different Yeah Like with Lawrence I'm gonna kill this dude named Lawrence

And he was down I'm gonna he made He made me sit in the front of the car Because he'd know if Lawrence would have been in front of me I'd or shot him in the head while we was driving For over $10 million dollars so Oh wow Because he's

he's a low, Lawrence was a fucking petty criminal that Charles was cool with that wanted to steal a five CD disc player over getting the money, getting to the money. And that's how we almost got busted because he wanted to take a five city

disc player out of something instead of the money. So did Moe end up telling? I mean, I assume, look, the fed's got five keys. I'm assuming they're trying to squeeze you to figure out where it came from. Did they flip anybody in the crew?

Everybody got time. Right, but you could still flip and get time. If you're going to flip, you might well flip for free. You can get out. But everybody got time. It went from, it went in order. 10, 15, 20, no, it went 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40. Years.

That's how the years went. Oh, shit. Who got 40 years? Charles. Because it was his, he had the dope. Charles 40, Kevin, 35. Oh, fuck. 15.

First one to sign. You got out of there. First one, my attorney, Rio Harris, he said, man, y'all not going to win this shit. Yeah. The, the, the, what I can do for you is get you the least amount of time. I ought to got 10, but it started at 15. But they ran my 10 because I had a previous case,

Judiford, they ran the 10 and the 15 concurrent together. Right. My girl thought I got 25 years, and she flaked out on me, but it's only 15. Now, Rio told me I was going to do 18 to 21 months to come home. Because, you know, in Texas, they was giving two for one and all this shit. The best thing, I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad I didn't because I probably would have so dope again. Gone back to it, yeah.

So I got caught up in a political, what they call a political year. Mm-hmm. Where the new mayor, the new governor, they come in, the first thing, or do we get tough on crime? Yeah. So we have a new mayor right now. Kathy Whitmire, John Whitmire is our new mayor. First thing.

You know, if they get tough on crime. Yeah. That's what they do. So especially back then. Ann Richards was our governor. if Ann Richards would have won I would have got out sooner. Bush won. You're asking going nowhere.

Nowhere. So you, but you won't, but you got out, you know, the ironic thing though is you got, you got 15, but out of the state you can get paroled. The feds you would have done most of that time, 85% of it. You just wouldn't have got as much time. So it probably, it probably evened out. You probably would have got five in the feds. day for day or you get 15 but you're out in a third in the state.

The feds are weird because we went to the first federal court. They say they try to trick you. Are we going to give you 300 months? Yeah, yeah. It sounds low. 300 months sounds like, ah, because in your mind like 300 months, it sounds like days.

But you know math. It's 25 years. You know math. You're like, hey, man. Get off there. That's a quarter century. You're crazy. So did Charles, is everybody out now?

Yeah, Charles is out. Everybody's out. So were they able to get paroled? What's the most time that a person from your case did? How much did Charles do, off of 40 years? I don't know. I lost contact with them. Okay.

Like, the next time I even had any guy with contact with Charles, he had called me and some bullshit it. like some playstations on a on a truck or some shit I'm like still doing fucking crime foolishness damn damn still doing bullshit I don't know what Mo's doing I don't know what Mo's doing

I ran in the cycle he he's like a counselor something Kevin he owns like a club does like promotions and all they still doing like you know low life and still fifth world boy Yeah.

I think he got, I think he was the one that got off with probation or something. Because he wasn't directly involved in it. Yeah, he was just there. He was just there. I wish I would have been just fucking now.

Yeah. Well, look, it's led you to where you are now. And you've got to get out of here. You got a hard out now. But, I mean, I could do another four hours of this shit. You know what I mean? This is absolutely a treat and an honor, man. Thank you.

So since you've been home, you know, I mean, it's been decades now, but you've, you've got a half hour on Comedy Central. That's amazing. You were the first person to do the prison special. Yeah. Go check that out. That's like your first introduction. He has so much work, so much work. Comedy Central's, I did really good with Comedy Central. Yeah. I did the half hour.

Then I did the full hour. And then all the features. Yeah. You know, Ari's show really turned it around for me. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's when the internet started overtaking all that shit. So, look, Ali Sadiq, all over YouTube. I mean, what should people that are just finding out about you watch first?

Do you want to watch this newest special first? I would prefer them go back to Domino Effect, the first one. Yep. Then go to two. Then three will be out, Mother's Day. And then venture into four. Okay. You know, but then, you know, Compt Central has bigger than these balls, which is a good one.

They have the half hour. Epix has an hour. But everybody's bought everybody now. So Paramount owns. Yeah. I don't know what all the stuff is. But if you go on YouTube or you go on Internet, I say any of it, man. Just start with you.

What's the new special? Tell us what was it called? It is called the first day of school. and it's Domino Effect 3 and this is the first three years of me being incarcerated like me going to intake

and like this is you know if they would have showed me intake as a youth I probably would have never went to prison ever like intake is intake is

the worst it's it's the worst And this walk through and just being incarcerated period, just having to get acclimated to this new life. Yeah. Because it's definitely a different world. As you say, and to me, the bit that blew you up,

Mexicans got on boots about the first prison riot you were ever part of. Nobody tells you the rules. They just throw you in here among, like with grown men and say, figure it out. Figure it out. I'm 19.

I just, you know, I just turned 19. Like, you're a kid. 40 days after I went to, you know, I turned 19.

I went to prison, you know. And you have no idea. And like October 17th is my birthday, right? October 21st, I'm locked up. No rules.

No handbook. No, nothing. There's a lot of prison rules, though. A lot of, there's a lot of unwritten prison rules. Unwritten prison rules. Like, where is this written down at? You should fucking just know. Like, but then you see it.

And the longer that you're there, you understand. Because these are actual, like, the laws of nature. This is how nature runs. Yeah. And, like. Yeah, yeah. It's very animalistic in many ways. It's primitive, I'll say.

You know? But it's fair. It's not supposed, if prison was easy, what would deter you from doing crime? Mm-hmm. I have no problem with coming up and, I remember when we was getting ready to do the prison special

that most of these guys were from California and they thought that San Quentin was it. And I was like, hey, man, let me explain to y'all something. I don't care about Attica, Sing Sing, San Quentin, Cook County. You know how I know that's different because they give you access to see it.

To what? They give you access to see it. Oh, to see it. Oh, right, right. You have access to those. People, they're very well-known prison that people have access to. Yeah, yeah. You don't have any access

to a prison that's in a small town that everybody from this town works there and their relatives. Fuck. And there's a reason for that. You can get killed by the officers and get put in holding and nobody knows that you dead.

You can get... Texas prison system is the worst prison system. This is third world shit. Mm-hmm. Like this is, I don't give a damn, but like everybody, oh, man, man, we is doing, we was doing places. We're going around looking for places to do this special. Texas said just like this, that man said, no, we don't do that here.

You ever notice the show lock up? A lot of prisons been on there. Not ours. We're not going to show you what goes on behind these walls. Yeah, yeah. And he was, he was here. glad you survived. That was it.

Yeah. They was like, no. You take that Hollywood shit to San Quentin. And the man said, go, go play basketball. Mm-hmm. Right. And at that time, they had just let the Golden State Warriors

going to San Quentin to play basketball, safe as shit. Right. Yeah. They would never let the Rockets come play basketball in Texas prison. You crazy. So you were in places like,

that? What? Darrington, Michaels, Bill Clemens, Bito, man, the county. And that's a place where you just get a knife just for showing up. You got the guy that gives out. A broomstick, a locker, the top of a can.

Man, whatever you can make something sharp out of, a fucking pencil, anything. You can melt plastic down and make it hard. Whatever you can get your hands on, you better get it. Because this is a savage place. Man.

And, man, I think I've been, yeah, I've been my worst self there for maybe two years. So you think you were worse in prison than you were in the street? Yeah. Oh, man. For sure. And is that because you thought you were going to do the whole 15? Did you feel like your life was over? I didn't know what I was going to do, but I know what wasn't going to happen.

You weren't going to talk out of turn to me You weren't going to take nothing for me I wasn't going to give you a fucking inch Right Because man bro I'd already been told by my uncles Amen Whatever you think is civilized

Get that shit out your mind So When you get there You You may not understand that first But you understand You become who you Actually need to become

for this. And I tell people they don't really have a whole bunch of cases of me doing something. They just know what I was capable of

in the instances that I did something. Like the movie Life. This is why I tell people who I was in prison. So on life, people think that tiny, when Eddie Murphy got beat up,

they think that he was the toughest person in the prison. You're going to eat your cornbread? never realizing that when he was whooping Eddie Murphy ass, somebody said this, hey, that's enough. And he stopped. Right. Yeah.

That's the most powerful person. Yeah. And those guys wield extreme power. It's so crazy. I'm like, why are you listening to this guy that is ordering you to go kill somebody where it's probably going to get him another life sentence? or you keeping the peace. Right.

Right. Yeah. I was the, hey man, what we're doing? No. Yeah. That's not what we're doing. Yeah. Did you roll with the Muslims in there?

Do they have a car in Texas prisons or is it just black guys? I'm Muslim period. What you can't do is jump in the car with us if you're not us. Yeah. But you, you, it's the thing about Texas. We say in Texas is three things that's locked up. Lions, lambs, wolves. A lamb is going to be a lamb.

A wolf can become a lamb. Because they need a pack. A lion is a lion. No matter where you go, you're going to be a lion. A lion can never be a lamb. A lion's not going to be a wolf. And to stop him from being a line, you have to dismantle him.

Yeah, he has to cut his tail off, rip his mane off, cut his paws off, take his teeth out. And at that point, he's not a line anymore. Yeah. He was saying, yeah. I rode by myself. I came here by myself. I'm going to leave by myself.

When you get transferred from Torres, you get transferred by yourself. You go to another unit. You're going to Bill Clemens. Nobody know you from Torres. Got to stand there on your own. Go from there, you go to Michael's. Got to stand there on your own.

You know what I'm saying? Go to Justin Robbins. Wherever you go, you got to stand on your own. Lambs are always different. Wolves are always scared. This is how I've always been. Every time I'm transferred somewhere,

I look just like this. And when I get there Hey brother Hey man Listen to me Don't know you Don't want a whole bunch of conversation with you Well man

I'm just telling you how it's going to go With me Can't stand my can't stand in cell with you One of us got to go I don't feel like leaving And the difference is I can't be threatened with being locked up

because I'm already locked up so that's another thing to try to hold I will put you in lock I've been in lock a month's time right that ain't nothing

did you do hole shots did you go to the hole while you oh hell yeah hell yeah because you couldn't I don't need the wreck I don't need TV

I need nothing that shit I go to the hole I do 3,000 4,000 5,000 pushups you know what I'm saying roll my bed up

and do another bunch of pull-ups with the mat Maybe dips if you got enough of them Just on the tithe of the bunk with a towel And This is when I knew Something was In my head

And I could tell stories I would be in there Talking to myself And Then I could make a chessboard I'm in the hole I made a chess board Took pieces

Put You know Rolada all the stuff on piss. Sit it down, two doors down. Me and this dude playing chess under the door. He got a board, I got a board. This is, and this is you in there. You acclimate yourself to what you got going on. At what point during the six years did you decide on comedy?

Or had you at that point? I was more of a sarcastically jovial person. I think my wit about myself came from me being very sarcastic. Dude's about the fight. I always want to know, hey, who's willing to lose this fight twice? I believe what the fuck you're talking about? Let me explain. Y'all may be new to this.

So y'all going to fight. Somebody's going to lose. Somebody's going to lose that one. then the officer are going to come in, CO's going to come in, whoop the shit out of both of y'all. So that means somebody has lost two fights today. It made sense to them.

I was always the... Yeah, and that's a comic's mind, right? That's the seeing the angles that the other civilians don't see. Ain't nobody going home, but that was my favorite one. What y'all mad for? Ain't anybody going home today on a Saturday.

Nobody's going on. Yeah. It's just one of them things. So you started, you got out in 96, 97. And you started comedy pretty much right after that. December, 97. Wow. December.

Yeah. And you've kind of done that. Your comedy careers mirrored your experience on the streets and certainly in prison. You've never been a follower. You know, like when I asked you at the beginning of the episode, why you didn't move to L.A. or New York, it was like, well, because I'm in Houston and I'm doing my I'm doing my own thing. Like you never felt

and I do that a lot. Most comics want to follow like the trends because they think they need to. It's very difficult to like exist. It's easier now that it's ever been because of social media but like to exist in your own

universe and know that you'll find your audience it's an exceptional thing. Home under independent. Yeah. Everything about Houston is independent. Right. Of course. We're the beginning of the independent rap labels.

Right. Independent artists. That we never screamed labels. We only screamed. Right. Bram cruise. So you have the Swisher House and you have the rapa lot and you have Slim Thugs crew. Wats, Mike 5,000 watts and screw.

We have our own, we have our own sound. When you have somebody that's signed. to a label and he making whatever he's making, but you got somebody that's independent is making $300,000 a month. What? You got to pay the label. Like now, I don't have an agency.

You don't even have an agent now. No. No agency. I used to be on UTA. I used to be on Innovative. I'm not on anybody's label. Wow. Yeah, you just need somebody to book the venue

and you'll sell your tickets. So the Times, caught up to you. That's really what it was. And that's what so interesting is like rappers, now every comedian is independent and they have to have their own ecosystem, their own social, their own YouTube, their own

everything. Rappers have been doing that for years. Modeled myself at the the rappers, right. The emcee that I saw. But you were just way ahead on it, man. And it worked out fabulously because every single one of your specials has multi-million

numbers. And, and And I mean, look, the proof is in the ticket sales. Yeah. So, look, we got to go. I know I've kept you too long. Ali Sadiq, where can they find you one more time? Man, hit me on YouTube or hit me on, that's Ali Sadiq coming on YouTube, or go to my website, Ali Sadiq.com.

Or hit me on Instagram, Ali S-I-S-I-Q-D-I-Q. That's how you spell S-D-I-U-C. Make sure, you know, check me out. I'm here. Yeah, everything will be in the description, all the, links. A bunch of clips are coming out. One of the best in the business. Thank you so much again, man. It's been a honor and a pleasure.

Hell yeah. Appreciate you, dog. Thanks, guys.