The Daily Signal - Rapper Zuby Urges Young to Stay Positive Because America Worth Saving

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

When you turn on the TV these days, you're bombarded with negative stories and talking heads claiming America is a no-good, very bad place. It can be hard to grow up in an environment where it seems like everyone thinks America's best days are behind her. Many young Americans believe such dark prognostications about the evil of America, and are convinced that their country is a lost cause. But rapper, podcaster, and life coach Zuby disagrees. "You should be hopeful, because what is the alternative?" Zuby asks. "The alternative is being pessimistic and negative and black-pilled, and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don't think you can win the game, why would you even play?" He adds: "If you live in the Western world, you're American, you're British, you're Canadian, and you exist in this time period, in 2022, you have it immediately, off the bat, better off than at least 90% of people who have ever walked the face of this planet." Zuby joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss why it's so important to remain hopeful about the nation's future. We also cover these stories: Food prices surge even as gasoline prices fall at the pump. FBI Director Christopher Wray condemns threats made against him and other law enforcement officers on social media. Twitter introduces new moderation policies designed to combat so-called misinformation on the social media platform before the midterm elections in November. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, August 12th. I'm Samantha Rank. And I'm Doug Blair. When you turn on your TV these days, you're bombarded with negative stories and talking heads, claiming America is a no good, very bad place. You'd be hard to grow up in an environment where it seems like everyone thinks America's best days are behind her. Many young Americans believe these dark prognostications about America's evil or convinced that the country is a lost cause.

But rapper, podcaster, and life coach Zubi, disagrees. He joins the show today to discuss why it's so important to remain hopeful about the future of the country. But before we get to Doug's conversation with Zubi, let's hit today's top news. Attorney General Merrick Garland broke his silence just days after the FBI raided the home of former President Donald Trump. In a Thursday press conference, Garland said he personally approved the search warrant on Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, a decision that Garland said the Justice Department does not take lightly. Let's take a listen to some of what Attorney General Garland had to say per WCNC. First, I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant

in this matter. Second, the department does not take such a decision lightly. Where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken. Third, let me address recent unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the FBI and Justice Department agents and prosecutors. I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked. The men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated patriotic public servants. Every day, they protect the American Department.

people from violent crime, terrorism, and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our civil rights. They do so at great personal sacrifice and risk to themselves. I am honored to work alongside them. This is all I can say right now. More information will be made available in the appropriate way and at the appropriate time. Garland spoke for a little less than five minutes and did take any questions. For the first time since March, average gas prices around the country have fallen below $4, but only by a cent. AAA reported on Thursday that the national average price for gas fell to $3.99 a gallon.

While lower than the recent highs around $5 per gallon, gas prices are still 25% higher now than they were the same time last year. The average price of gasoline has fallen for 58 days straight. But while gas prices have been on a steady decline, other parts of the economy have continued to maintain higher than usual prices. On Wednesday, the Department of Labor published data revealing that overall food prices have climbed 10.9% from last year, marking the biggest increase since 1979. Cereal, frozen fruits and vegetables, soups, and baby food saw the biggest annual increases ever, while eggs saw the biggest increase since 2007 at 38%.

Month over month, food cost rose 1.14%, marking the highest change since April of 2020. FBI director Christopher Ray condemned threats made against him and other law enforcement officers on social media. Fox News reported that the threats are related to the FBI's raid of former President Donald Trump's home in Marlago on Monday. Ray called the threats from supporters of the former president both deplorable and dangerous while speaking at a news conference. in Omaha, Nebraska, per NPR. He also said, I'm always concerned about threats to law enforcement, and that violence against law enforcement is not the answer, no matter who you're upset with.

The director did not answer any questions about why the FBI rated the former president's home on Monday, per NPR. On Thursday, FBI Cincinnati tweeted, on August 11th, 2022, at approximately 9.15 Eastern Standard Time, the FBI, Cincinnati field office had an unarmed, subject attempt to breach the visitor screening facility. NBC reported that the man was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and fired a nail gun into the federal building. The subject's motives are not known at this time. Twitter reported on Thursday that it was introducing new moderation

policies designed to combat so-called misinformation on the platform ahead of the 2022 midterm elections in November. As part of what Twitter calls the civic integrity policy, the site will now label harmful misleading information about elections and civic events. Additionally, Twitter will move to prohibit posts that could be perceived as suppressing voting, prevent tweets containing misinformation from being recommended to users, and provide special protections for accounts owned by political candidates and journalists. In a statement announcing the new policies, Twitter said, we aim to enable healthy civic conversation on Twitter,

while ensuring people have the context they need to make informed decisions about content they encounter. but some were critical of Twitter's announcement and skeptical that the company would be able to neutrally handle this responsibility. Heritage Foundation policy analyst Will Tebow told the Daily Signal, Twitter has shown countless times they are an unreliable arbiter of truth. Their recent announcement outlining efforts to purportedly safeguard our civic process does not change that fact. The Daily Signal is the Heritage Foundation's media arm. That's all for headlines. Now stay tuned for my conversation with rapper and life coach Zubi.

as we discuss keeping positive in difficult times. Before we get to that interview, though, we just want to let you know that we recorded this conversation with Zubi at the Young America's Foundation National Conservative Student Conference here in Washington, D.C., so it might sound a little bit different than you're used to. As I approached the walkway from around the back of the building, they had taken crowbars to almost all of our windows, two of our doors, and just shattered all of the glass.

That's the voice of Susan Campbell. Executive Director of Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center. In the early hours after Roe v. Wade was overturned, vandals, smash windows, and spray-painted threatening messages outside the center. I'm Virginia Allen. The Daily Signal has just released a documentary about what happened to the Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center. Plus, we take a deep dive into the violence and attacks against crisis pregnancy centers across the country. Make sure that you're subscribed to the Daily Signal's YouTube channel

so you can watch the new documentary and never miss our new content. My guest today is Zubi, a rapper, podcaster, and life coach. Zubi, welcome to the show. How's it going? Good, good. Thank you so much for coming on. And I just want to say, one of the things that's really wonderful about you is you're a big proponent of keeping things like positive with your lyrics and a lot of the coaching that you do.

How do you keep so upbeat when it looks like the country is going through the video? will really cut off time right now? Perspective and gratitude at all times. I practice gratitude consciously, daily, and I have done for years. I am a very blessed and fortunate individual, and so are most of us, so are all of us, in various ways. If you exist in this time period and you even have the capacity and ability to listen to the this message right now, whether it's an audio or written form, you are blessed. If you are an American citizen, you live in the Western world, you're American, you're British, you're Canadian, and you

exist in this time period in 2022, you have it immediately off the bat better off than at least 90% of people who have ever walked the face of this planet. So whilst we all have our concerns about where society is going or culture and politics and this and that, which always exists, by the way. This is not a, it's not a new thing. We've seen in the past, if you take a very cursory glance at history of many, many times I'm sure you're pretty happy that you're not living in, then it gives you a sense of both gratitude and perspective if you travel the world, if you go to different countries. So I was born in England, raised in Saudi Arabia. My family background is from Nigeria. I've been to, I think, 37 or 38 countries at this point in across various

stages of development, developing countries, so-called developed countries, and so on. And, man, there are billions of people in this world who are really still struggling. Like on a very, very basic level. I'm talking access to clean water, plumbing, having working toilets, electricity, internet access, like stuff that we completely take for granted. I mean, you. We lose Wi-Fi access for a little while. Your phone battery dies, and people are like, oh, my gosh, this is, right? I mean, so many of the issues that we even have in our society and culture, if you think about it, they stem from comfort. They stem from comfort.

They stem from excess, right? Nobody is starving in the USA. Obesity is a big problem, though. I had someone in Nigeria tell me they want to move to the USA because even the poor people are fat here. Right? I mean, that's historically, that's unheard of. It's unheard of. So the reason I'm able to stay in such a positive state is because these things are always very conscious in my mind.

And whenever I start complaining about my own life or my own position too much, I kind of laugh at myself. And I'm like, dude, like so many people would trade positions with you on so many levels. And also, I structure my life in a way that I do what I love for a living, which is important. And it's taking a long time for things to get to the stage where they're at now. I mean, I released my first album when I was in university in 2006. I left my corporate job in 2011. So it's taken me 11 years to get to where things are now. And as far as I'm concerned, I'm still just getting started.

But I've structured my life in a way where I maximize doing things that make me happy and at least avoiding doing things that I hate. And that's important, right? We spend about a third of our lives asleep. we spend a third, oftentimes more than a third, say a third working, and you spend a third in the meantime, between time, having leisure. So the first one, we can't negotiate too much. We all got to sleep.

But then if you're spending a third or half of your waking hours doing stuff that you hate, then you need to make a change. And there might be short periods where you've got to go through, no matter what you do, You're going to have go through a grind and some low lights at some point. But you don't want to, for decades, you don't want to spend decades living a life that you, that you don't like and you don't enjoy. So one of those is more philosophical. And then the second part of that is more practical in terms of just structuring your

life in a way that is positive. It's also important to your lifestyle. I'm healthy. I mean, you can't always control every aspect of your health. We know that. But in terms of the foods you put into your body, how much water you're drinking, are you exercising regularly, the sleep you're getting? These things affect your mood.

These things affect your mood. People are, man, how do you have so much energy? How are you mood? I'm like, I'm in shape. I'm in shape. I'm healthy. There's people who are my age. I'm 35.

Right? There's people who are 35 and they've just run roughshod over their body for the past 15 years. So maybe they were healthy when they were 20. But now that they're 35, they're looking like they're 55. Right? I'm 35 and I'm still looking like I'm 25. and functioning in the same way. And I plan to maintain that for many more decades.

So that keeps your energy going and having that mental attitude. And then also, if you structure your life in that way, I think those things keep you as happy, positive, and motivated, and so on as you're going to be. That's wonderful. And I think I also should have added to your description that you're an author. You're working on a kid's book right now called the Candy Calamity. Where does come up with the idea and sort of what do you hope to,

to freaking sky out. Yeah. So the candy calamity is out right now at bravebooks.com. And in 2019, I wrote a book about health and fitness called Strong Advice, Zubi's Guide to Fitness for everybody. And it's sold about 10,000 copies now completely independently, helped a lot of people. I've met people in person who have lost over 100 pounds after reading my book. And that is powerful in itself. But the candy calamity, I wanted to put out a message for young people, make a fun, adventure-focused kids' book, but with a powerful moral message in there about the importance of taking care of your body. Exercising moderation, making sure you eat enough, but not too much, making sure that you exercise, but you don't exercise so much that you stop eating and so on,

just living a healthy, balanced lifestyle. We only get one body, and one of the craziest things in our time is that so many people, if you think about it, treat their material possessions better than they treat their bodies, right? You look at how people treat their shoes, their cars, their clothes, their house, their sofas, right? Like so much, so much care. So much care. These things are all replaceable. Right.

Right. They might be worth money, but they're replaceable. If you ding up your car, you can get it fixed. Even if you smash a car, as long as you're okay, right? If you get an accident, who cares about the car? Are you okay? Are you okay, right? Because you are not replaceable.

So it's kind of crazy to me that it's been normalized to, fill your body with crap. From terrible foods to poisoning it with alcohol all the time, people abusing substances, legal and illegal, just not caring about it at all. And to me, that's crazy because once your body stops working, I mean, once it completely stops working, you're dead. But even prior to that, there are so many diseases and issues

which both the incident rate and the severity become increasingly worse, the worst shape that you're in. And it gets more and more costly in every way, not just financially, including financially, but it gets more and more costly as those things go along. So I'm a big advocate for when I'm talking to young people, people at any age, but I think especially for young people, it's important to recognize that. I mean, at five years old, you're not going to be thinking so deeply. but the body you have at 5 is it's the same but different as the one you'll have at 75. Right.

Of course you're going to grow and you're going to mature and your old cells are going to replace the new one. So you sort of get a new body, but you also don't. You've got the same organs, right, your hearts, your kidneys, your liver, and so on. We all know people who, you know, you have heart failure, you have liver failure, you have kidney failure. And then these things stack up against each other, even certain viruses. I mean, look at the past two and a half years, right? people who were in a rough shape health-wise already, be it their fault or not. If you get certain diseases or ailments, you're going to most likely have a much rougher

time with it. So we can't control everything in life. So I'm a big fan of the things that we do have some control of, let's do our best to control that within ourselves. You can't control other people. You don't have, you've got nature. There's so many random things in the world, but what you can do is be like, okay, I'm going to take care of myself. I'm going to make wise decisions.

I'm going to do my best to live righteously and treat other people with decency and to pursue the things I want to pursue and to do this and to do that. And that's the best we can do. That's the best we can do because there's 8 billion people in the world. Even if you could control them all, you probably wouldn't want to. It would be pretty complicated. but there's one person and it's even really hard to control yourself.

We all know this, right? Just controlling that one person that you have control of is hard. We all have thoughts in our head and we're like, wait, I want to not have that thought or we have certain behaviors and habits and patterns and some people have addictions

and this and that. And it's hard. Just self-mastery is extraordinarily difficult. And so I find that again, we live in this age of performance activism and many people wanting to like their life is not in order at all you know Jordan Peterson talks about this right clean your room first before you fix the world but there's

so much there's so much truth in that I mean if you yourself can't get your just basic things in order you can't keep your room clean you can't keep get your body in shape you can't do this and that what gives you the audacity to think that you have the solution for the world right and that you can go out and now lecture everybody yeah on the things that need to be done. It's like, well, if you want to make a change, how about you start with yourself? And also, other people see that.

If you make that change, people around, you see it and it inspires and motivates them. And also, it puts you in a position to help other people. The more, the better I get at doing what I do, the more people I help, right? There would have been a time where, I mean, I guess even as a kid, I was relatively articulate. But the better I get at speaking, the better I get at speaking, the better I get. at using my voice, the better I get at making music, the better I get at writing books, all of that, great. I can now inspire and help more people. So me getting better isn't just about my own ego or wealth or whatever.

It's like, actually, the more I improve, the more people I can help and the more people I can inspire. And that's one of my North Star goals. Absolutely. And I'm really glad you brought that up, specifically the Jordan Peterson thing, because I think a lot of young people in particular are with people. for that structure and that guidance. Do you see that maybe movement towards looking for something like a North Star as a result of what the culture is sort of pushing them towards?

Do you see that as sort of the human condition to want to better yourself and to improve? I think it's some of both. I think that what's weird is, as I alluded to earlier, we live in a very prosperous time. And if you think about it, so many of the problems we have and so much of the conflict, I mean, you have to be in a really prosperous and comfortable society to even be having some of the conversations that are happening in the West, to be debating all these conversations about gender and about, you know, this theory and that theory. I mean, around the world, people don't care about any of that stuff, right? It's a man's a woman's a woman, period. Right?

You don't even have the, you don't even have the capacity to, like, you're still in survival mood, right? There's no debates about this and this and this. It's just like, look, we got us arrive, right? We can't just be sitting here and having these discussions about, right? And people didn't used to do that until things got so. So I think it's important. I think people recognize, I think there's something within us that recognizes, okay, I want to live a decent life and have some degree of success in the things that I do.

And I think also that message, There's positive messages that are out there in society, and I try to add to that. And there's a lot of negative ones, but I think even with the negative ones, I feel optimistic that it's creating a pushback. If I think of what I myself am doing personally and what other people are, we're at a really unique time, where we have this combination of technology and weird societal, cultural stuff going on and people seeking truth and seeking authenticity

and not getting it from the channels that they used to. Yeah. Right? And having so many options. So whether you're doing a podcast or you're an independent writer or an author or you're a musician or you're a social media influencer, whatever it is, this is so brand new.

So we're seeing this new age of, if you think of traditional celebrities, it was always like it was quite manufactured. It's like what's the music industry giving you? What's Hollywood giving you? What who's on the big corporate news channels and stuff? If you talk to young people now, they care and know more about YouTubers and TikTokers and Instagrammers. Like those are their celebrities now.

Even if I look at what I do, it consistently blows my mind because I'm at this weird level where like millions of people know me now. but I'm still I can be in some areas and territories I'm kind of like very famous and then elsewhere I can kind of be anonymous and I'm at this sort of weird I have this weird type of fame which is new

I have like this new type of fame which is kind of niche and so many people know you but you're not like just this guy who's on TV all the time or whatever and so that's new and it's strange and I don't know exactly what to make of it. But that's where the world is going. I think we're seeing the rise of like micro-celebrity

and micro-influence and it's kind of more democratic in a way. It's not just like, hey, look, these are the people and ideas we're giving you. I mean, people roll their eyes now when these Hollywood actors go on and they start lecturing people about climate change and politics and so. And they're just reading from a script. even the people who are on so called on their side kind of roll their eyes at it now and are like yeah dude you're flying around you to private jet and lecturing everyone like it used to be more impactful right and now people are just like you know it's people like every day every year the

viewings go down and people aren't interested in that and then you have people you we mentioned jordan peterson you've got you know jo rogan is the most listened to man in joe rogan is the most listened to man in the u.s he's like a dude with a podcast yeah like he's a he's a He's like a gym bro, like he was in the MMA and all this weird stuff. He's created in 12 years. He's become the most listened to man in America. I mean, I know him personally. And he's like, dude, I did not expect this to happen.

Right. When he started his podcast in 2009, he wasn't like, yeah, this is my goal. He didn't have some huge plan of investment. He's never spent a penny even advertising. And you've got corporations that spend billions, billions. And he's beating him. Yeah. And so that is crazy.

You're seeing this on all different levels. You've got the independent YouTubers. You've got new little organizations popping up. You have independent media. Just the other day, I was with a Tim Pool. And I mean, he's got like 30-something staff now. And I'm just like, man, I remember he was just going around with his GoPro. Yeah.

Filming in the war zones and stuff. And it's just like, yo, we're at the, as concerning and weird and scary as it can be sometimes, there's so much optimism to me there because I'm like, okay, it's not very. yet, but we're at the beginning of this new era where there's so much more, so many more opportunities and options. You know, if you're an 18 year old right now, or let's go even young, you say a 12 year old right now, I mean, the job you do in the future, the job you're going to be doing in 10 years might not even exist yet.

Right, right. Right. And that's pretty crazy. It's fascinating. I mean, if I had to explain to my, you know, a dead. relative, great grandfather or grandfather, what I do for a living, they wouldn't get it. They'd know, what? Like, no aspect of it would make sense.

But I'm like, oh, I'm a musician. And they're like, oh, so you're with a big company or whatever? I'm like, no, I just do it myself. They're like, you can't do that. That doesn't make sense. Right. Oh, I run a podcast. And what?

You write my own book that like, like, what? Like, none of it makes sense. I have followers on, like, I have one and a half. million followers on the internet. Wait, what's the internet? Who's following you? Should I call the police? None of it even makes sense. And that's where it's going. There's people now who streamers and people playing video games and people just commentating on social stuff and whatever and making a living from it, making a good living in many cases. It's all new, man. So it's very exciting. It's very exciting. The tools have

their dangers and of course a lot of bad stuff can be pushed with them as well but I'm as you as you probably observed I'm an optimistic person so I recognize I consider myself an optimistic realist I don't shy away from the concerns and worries and dangerous things that are going on in society but I think we can I think we can win sure I mean as we begin to wrap up here I would love to sort of get in your own words maybe in like a couple of sentences why should you young people be hopeful about the future in America? Well, you should be hopeful because what is the alternative? Right?

The alternative is being pessimistic and negative and black-pilled, and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don't think you can win the game, why would you even play? If you think that everything, if there's no hope, human beings always, we always need to have hope. If you don't have hope, it's game over. It's game over, right? That's when people kill themselves or kill their societies, quite literally.

When the hope goes to not, it's completely gone. And they're like, okay, the only way out is, and you don't, that's dangerous. That's really dangerous territory. So you always have to have hope. And with optimism, it'll make you play the game, right, and try. And there's so many games that can be played. It's not just one game in this life. and you also have the potential for greatness.

If you don't like the way things are going, do your little bit to do something about it. Because again, you can't control the entire country or the entire culture and society, but you're a very small part of it. So even if things are on a great wider scale, not going that well, they can be going great for you.

They can be going great for your family. They can be going great for your future children and for your neighborhood and for your community and so on. And so that's where I think your point of focus should be because all a society is is a collection of individuals. And what is the USA? It's the 340 million or so people who live here. So everyone is a part of that. And if everyone, in theory, were to do their part and just do 10% better, then you're going to get a 50% better.

This is random math here. right but but imagine if everyone like you know imagine if all every single person in the country just like put in 10% more effort in improving themselves right and being a little just being a bit better right right like that would have such a seismic seismic impact right let's just treat each other a little bit better right right let me just drop let me let me do this a bit more let me do this a bit less it would have a very very significant impact overnight like if you could somehow magically do that, it would have a big impact. So I think that's why you've got to be hopeful. Good. Well, that was Zubi, a rapper, podcaster, author, and life coach. Zubi, I very much

appreciate your time. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. If you have not done so already, be sure to subscribe to the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, IHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcast. And please leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and, of course, encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening

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