The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Busta Rhymes: "His Death Stopped My Career!" Busta Rhymes Finally Opens Up About His Grief, Nearly Dying & How He Turned His Life Around!

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

If you enjoy hearing about inside the music industry and its artists, I recommend you check out my conversation with will.i.am, which you can find here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m-2QhqdlfI From Trevor to Busta, love of the rap game to global success, and rock bottom to rebirth. This is Busta Rhymes as you’ve never heard him. Trevor George Smith Jr. or ‘Busta Rhymes’, first reached fame with the hip-hop group, ‘Leaders of the New School’, and began his solo rap career in 1996, since then has released 11 studio albums and received 12 Grammy Award nominations for his work. In this conversation Busta and Steven discuss topics, such as: Growing up in the hood Starting out in music Becoming an MC by accident Using rap as a way out of work Becoming addicted to entertaining and the reaction of people to his raps Rapping to protect himself Selling crack at 12 years old Failure not being an option for his father His father standing in the way of his musical career Getting booed off stage early in his career His mother signing his record deal at 17 years old What lessons he would tell his kids to reach success Why you need to be selfish to reach success His manger dying in 2012 How his manager taught him ever he knew His emotional down turn How his whole life was going in a totally different direction Why he couldn’t figure himself out Being on steroid pills How his son thought he was going to die You can listen to Busta’s newest album ‘Blockbusta’, here: https://spoti.fi/40UxsvS Follow Busta: Instagram: https://bit.ly/3t0odO6 Twitter: https://bit.ly/3QT9YTc Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

Quick one. Just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly, to Amazon Music, who when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And

thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. This is the Busta Rhymes that none of us have ever seen before. Busta Rhymes says it himself. This is a Busta Rhymes that none of us have ever seen before. Busta Rhymes says it himself. This is a Busta Rhymes that nobody's ever seen before. You will walk away from this conversation understanding not only what it takes to reach the very peak of your powers, but to stay there for 33 years, to have the insane consistency, discipline, dedication, and in his words, addiction to something that will take

you to the very top. But then also you'll see the forces in life that take you from that peak to the deepest depths of darkness. And once you're in that darkness, how do you rise from it? How did Buster take himself from the darkest moment of his life that he's really not talked about ever before, back to the peak of his powers? This is a human story. It's one of the most inspiring stories we've ever had on this show. And it's a side of a guy that we've known for many, many decades that I have never seen before. Buster, sometimes I think that with maturity and with age, we're able to look back at our earliest years and connect dots that only our maturity and only our own growth and development allow us to connect. And those dots sometimes indicate to us why and how we became the person

we are today. And that's really what I'm so compelled to understand with you is what is that early context that you look back on now when you go, the reason I am the man I am today sat here is because of this early context and these things and these people. What is that? Honestly, I have to say it starts with my mother and my father. My mother and my father was strict, you know what I'm saying? And they also made sure that I didn't need for nothing. I was able to really enjoy what it was to be a child. And I don't have to sit here and mislead people. I come from some poor struggle, and I come from this hood shit.

Yeah, I was in the hood. I was in Brooklyn, East Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, and I was in the hood with enough of the goons and the hooligans. But the difference about our era and the way you mostly hear artists try to portray it now is even the guys that was the goons and the gangsters and the troublemakers in the street, they had respect and they had integrity

and they understood what it was to have proper manners. Like if my mother, as serious as she was, saw any of the other kids in the street, it was like, I'm giving you an example of how it really literally took a village to raise a child. Like none of the neighbors on the block would see another child that they watched grow from a little boy into becoming a teenager or something

and see that kid misbehaving and not reprimand them in the street, even if they're not his parent. So my neighbors had permission to bust my ass if I was misbehaving. And then they would tell my mother. And if my mother felt like I misrepresented her to make another neighbor have to discipline me, that was going to get me another ass beating. So you ended up getting two ass beatings for every one trouble that you caused. You know what I'm saying? And that shit was important

because I think that as a community, that shit is something that doesn't exist anymore. You can't tell nobody else kid nothing. Kids ain't trying to listen to you tell them nothing. They'll lift up something and fling it after you or go upside your head and disrespect you because there's just a totally different value in the way things are done in the community so it starts with my parents and the way I was raised in in the house to have respect for my parents, have respect for my other elders, even if you wasn't my

parent. And also, even if you was dudes that was in the street, you still an elder, we had to respect you as an elder. And in return, that same respect that came from the house, and you, whenever you went abroad and you conducted yourself in that manner, it would garnish the same respect in return. So even if it was a dude in the street on some street shit, the respect that you showed to that elder still warranted a certain respect from them. They wouldn't disrespect the respect that you was raised in your house to have for your family and for them. So that respect was upheld and that integrity was defended. And that was a real solid foundation that all of the other floors was built on, which eventually evolved into becoming a skyscraper for me. So I'm going to start there with the kids and I'm going

to go to the neighborhood. Because again, when my parents was around, I got the same discipline from the neighbors, the hardworking middle-class families, the less fortunate families that were still in the neighborhood. We all was on the same accord about discipline and respect. Was it easy to see when you look back how you could have gone another way in that context? Absolutely, because all of those things were still there. The drug dealing was still there. The shootings were still happening. The robberies were still happening. All of that was there, right? But the beautiful thing was there was a serious presence of balance that was just as impressionable as all of the things that was the negative

presence that was strong and that did get a strong hold on a lot of the youth in the community at the time too. How come you didn't go the other way? I did. I did. I just was fortunate enough to have something like hip hop that was able to be an alternative that saved my life, changed my life. And I had some incredible people that was around me to support me when I found this interest and I identified with my gift as an artist to be able to entertain people, perform, articulate my thoughts through song and rhyme form.

And I had an incredible support system with my moms. I had an incredible support system with just the other friends and family that I grew up with that was in the community. And then, last but not least, the determination that I had to want to be able to not disappoint the people that I knew that really was proud of what I was doing, good, bad, or indifferent. Who were they? It was all of them. All of them. Right? So, for example, I pissed my moms off when I decided I wanted to start selling weed and

selling crack, right? And the guys that was in the street that I was doing it with, when they realized, even though I was doing it and it was cool for us to do it, they didn't really want us to do it. When they started to see that we for us to do it, they didn't really want us to do it. When they started to see that we had potential to do other things that was going to keep us safe and keep us away from the street. A lot of the time they didn't have a better opportunity to offer us. So they made sure that they was as present as they could be to guide us through the shit that they didn't even want us to do in the first place, which was the stupidness we was carrying on with in the street.

So they did everything they could to minimize the bullshit that we would get into. So we don't get killed. So we don't go to jail. So, you know, none of that shit would happen. But once they realized they didn't have a better opportunity for us,

that is what they felt was the best that they could do. If we're going to do the bullshit, we got to be there to protect them and make best that they could do. If we're gonna do the bullshit, we gotta be there to protect them and make sure that they straight and we guide them so that they could do it the best way with the least amount of bullshit. As a younger. As a younger kid, right?

When they started to see that this rapping thing and this hip hop shit and break dancing and graffiti and DJing and all of that shit was something that we started to generate interest for, that's when they started to encourage us to do that more. Instead of cracking. Instead of selling the drugs, instead of selling weed, instead of stealing this and taking that.

So they were so happy to see we found another way. They wanted us to do that. So the more we did that, if we started to show them any indication as we was making progress that we wasn't continuing to be productive, now it felt like you was pissing off two sets of parents. I'm already pissing off my parents

because I'm with them in the street. Now they see me doing this music shit. They like that shit. They proud of me. So if I'm not doinging off my parents because I'm with them in the street. Now they see me doing this music shit. They like that shit. They proud of me. So if I'm not doing well in that, now I'm disappointing them too. What was the consequence of your parents separating at 11 years old? Because I think about me being 11 years old. I remember a conversation.

My mom's Nigerian. I was born in Botswana. My dad's English. I remember around that age, about 10 years old, my parents calling me and basically telling me they didn't love each other anymore and it was like the world had broken in half yeah it's like you can't comprehend the concept of these two people being separate it's like being torn into two pieces yeah how was it for you at 11 years old when you find that out it was disastrous for

me because um like you said you can't really ever wrap your head around that. As a child, you don't know how to conceptualize that. Like, obviously, there was things that I was able to do and there was enjoyment I was able to have when I spent time with my father that I couldn't get when I was with my mother. There was things that I was always able to get as far as nurturing and being cared for and being babied for my mother that I couldn't get from my father. And obviously divine order is mother and father to make baby. Right. So I definitely didn't want to lose neither one of them. Did you change? I definitely changed because, um, I wasn't, um, I couldn't figure out how to find my... The behaved kid that I was, even though I was still getting into shit, the bullshit

really started once my mother and my father got a divorce. The misbehaving really started picking up. The disrespect started to pick up and intensify. The anger was just a lot more. Why? It overwhelmed me more because I was just, I wasn't happy with my situation. And then I wasn't happy with

the way that I was directly impacted by their beef. So like, you know, there would be times when if my mother and my father wasn't getting along, fresh discrepancy between the two of them. Say like the day my father posted to pick up me and my brother, because I only got one younger brother, and say he posted to come and pick us up on this day, and particularly for his visitation weekend. If an argument started with the two of them that morning,

you know, my father would get to the house, and then my mother wouldn't even let us go. And we would look and see him in the front of the house from the window. And my moms would just be on some bullshit. How did you feel looking at him from the window? It was fucking crazy. You wanted to go, I'm guessing. Of course.

You know what I'm saying? Because there was things and there was other family that obviously was on my father's side cousins and kids from the neighborhoods of the cousins uh part of brooklyn or queens and different areas of new york that we would go that we had friends and with the family and with the neighborhood friends that we met through our other family and other cousins and things of that nature in the different neighborhoods, we wouldn't get to see these people until dad came to get us because moms wasn't cool really with that side of the family like that. My father's side of the family wasn't really rocking with my mother's side of the family

like that. So if that rotation didn't happen in the visits we didn't get to enjoy that we missed our dad we was only get to getting the opportunity to see him you know once a week once every two weeks or sometimes once a month if then they beefing with each other did your relationship with your father at that point kind of become a bit strained when because of that beef did you start to see him less and less and less yeah i think my conflict with my father it started to happen more and more because um you know obviously um the lack of a parent's presence has an effect in different ways, right? And as a son, I don't know what it is, but I just think instinctually, boys cling on to their moms more.

I don't know if that's always the case, but in most cases, that's usually what it is. I think my father's personality was a little conflicting for me with the way my personality was. And the contrast of my father's personality as opposed to my mother's personality, it drew conflict for me too because my father, he wasn't as interested in the shit that I wanted to do or that the shit that I was interested in as a child. He always was more serious about whatever he felt was best for my future was all that mattered. It wasn't about what I thought. It was about what he thought.

So I always started to feel like, and having the comparison and seeing the contrast between that and how supportive my mother was for the shit that I wanted to do. Like, you know, first time I got some pussy, I could come tell my mother. I could sit down and tell my mother about how that felt. You know what I'm saying?

I could sit and tell my moms about, you know, my first wet dream or some shit. I could talk to my moms about the music that I'm making in the studio with my crew, leaders of the new school at the time, and I could come home and I could play that shit in the house. I could turn up the shit. Just as long as I could do, just as long as I did what I was supposed to in the house, my mother was with all the other shit as long as it was productive and it kept me away from the trouble in the street. That was relieving for her. My father, he tried to talk to him at the time about some rap shit. He was like, I don't want to hear that shit. That shit is a bunch of bullshit.

And you're wasting your time with that shit. That's how I used to talk. You know what I'm saying? Now, at that time, I didn't respect it. And at that time, I felt a way, I felt real fucked up about that because it was just like, I could be doing some real

bullshit. Like I'm actually still one foot in because I'm not, I haven't succeeded at this. This shit don't make me no money. I do this shit because I love it. Like I just love it. So when I'm able to do shit that I love with with my friends that and with my people that i'm entertained by doing it with them it's because i have this thing with a crew that there's a collective enjoyment that we're getting from doing this music shit are you still trying

to prove him wrong to some degree did Are you still trying to prove him wrong to some degree? Did you find yourself trying to prove him wrong then? Nah, because I got my opportunity to do it. But before that moment? At that time? Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, I was trying to prove him wrong. I was so determined to prove him wrong

that it forced me to excel. Because the more that he wanted me to do what he wanted me to do what he wanted me to do... Which was? My father was a licensed electrical contractor. Okay, okay. So he used to force me to come to work. His way of keeping me off the street was bringing me to work with him

because he had his own company as a licensed electrical contractor. How did you feel about that? I was disgusted with that shit because we working in these nasty fucking buildings with rats and roaches running around and shit. And it took childhood time for me because I wasn't able to be outside and play. That's really what I wanted to do.

And how old were you then? 12. It started a little younger than that, but right around 12 is when it got serious. I would say like around 10 years old was when it started. 12 is when it got serious i would say like around 10 years old was when it started 12 is when it got serious because my mother used to send us to different countries every summer with my father just so we could be able to explore what it was like to live in jamaica for a summer with the family same shit with England. My mother would send us to England. So when I was

around, there was one summer we came out here. You were 10. I was like 10, 11. My brother was younger than me, like seven. I'm staying in Morecambe in them time and Preston. And we went to karate school here. We went to primary school here, and we was breakdancing, and I had these cousins that used to name Samantha and Michaela. They used to take me in Val. They used to take me to these little clubs because they used to bring us to this little area where it was like a, I wouldn't call it a downtown area, but there was an area like a downtown area, but there was an area

like a downtown area in the Morecambe area and in the Preston area and in the Blackpool area. And we would go and we would break dance out there with the young kids that was from England. And, you know, we had our style of doing shit from New York and we was getting, we was some dangerous little motherfuckers now. I mean, you know, we was getting busy. We was making it happen. We, you know, we're twisting up and popping and all of this shit.

So it was, it was something where we just became a part of this break dance community. And they was always looking forward to seeing us. We would go out there like three, four times a week. Other people, promoters, they would see us. They started to book us to come in their clubs. Obviously we're too young to go in a club. So they would let us come perform 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and then we would have to leave immediately.

So we made a little money that way, get a little 10 pounds here for a show, a little 20 pounds there for a show. But these are the things that we grew around. So when I was around all of this, and that started to slow down dad was like okay y'all ain't going nowhere this summer you're coming to work do i want to go to work no do i want to be an electrician no do i want to be fucking pulling bx cable through sheet rock? No. Do I want to be hammering nails and then bang my fingers?

No. Do I want to see rats and fucking roaches crawling over my shoes and my Timberland boots? And I don't want to do none of that. And I'm watching kids riding up and down and Papa Willie in on the bike and music playing outside. And I can't do that shit. I used to be super angry at that shit every day with my father. What did you want to do instead? I wanted to rap. I wanted to make music. I wanted to break dance. I wanted to do all the shit that hip hop consisted of. I became the

embodiment of hip hop and it was the thing that was my excuse to not go to work. Why did you want to rap? Well, number one, I wanted to be the DJ first. Okay. You know what I'm saying? The DJ thing to me, though, I never really got good at it to be the DJ. I was able to do it, but I was never nice enough to become the superstar DJ. And at that time,

the DJ was super important because all of the groups had the DJ name. So the Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Jam Master J, Run DMC, like the DJ was always the solo solo it was like he was the big shot so when i i couldn't i'm not really the technology dude you know what i'm saying so all of this

equipment shit like it was just a little complicated for me. And then I actually became an emcee by accident. And the interesting part about that was I caught two charges selling crack by the time I was 12. And fortunately, the laws was different and I was a minor. So I didn't see no serious trouble, but I was definitely on my way to getting into some serious trouble. If my mother didn't say,

all right, enough of this shit. We got to get you out of here. That's when she took me from Brooklyn and brought me to Long Island. When I got to Long Island, that's when I met Brown, C. Brown from Leaders of the New School, Dinko D from Leaders of the New School. Milo was my mother's sister's son. So he's my first blood cousin. But before we brought in Milo, it was, and even before we brought in Dinko, it was me, Dinko, and another dude named Mystery. Mystery was hustling in the street too. But when we went to Long Island now, a lot of

other families was thinking like my mother. They brought their kids from Brooklyn to Long Island, from Queens to Long Island, from the Bronx to Long Island. So we left the neighborhood, which is the hood we was raised in, we left the hood to come to the suburbs and still be around a bunch of kids from the hood. You know what I'm saying? So the same shit you was running from,

we found a way to do the same shit in these nice neighborhoods now. And here we come as the generation terrorizing these beautiful neighborhoods. And we fucked these neighborhoods up. When you say you became an accidental MC. This is what happened. I wasn't rapping yet.

I was only breakdancing. I was only popping. And I was DJing a little bit. And I was messing around with the graffiti. I wasn't rapping yet. So when I moved to Long Island, I meet Charlie Brown. I meet Mystery.

And what ends up happening is in this junior high school now, they got like these lip sync contests. They got rap contests. And, you know, we now finally getting a chance to experience what it's like to be in school where you have periods, different periods in classes. And you're in one class for 45 minutes to an hour, then the bell ringing and you switch. I got the hallway action, everybody talking shit. Go to the next class, flirt with a couple of chicks on the way to the next class.

So all of that interaction is starting now. Puberty kicking in crazy. You know, you're 13 years old, 12, 13. Now you're starting to get your hormones is moving different. So obviously you're going through the stage in your life now where you want to impress everybody. You five boroughs, it was a thing. Oh, that's the new kid from Brooklyn. Oh, that's the new kid from Queens. Oh, that's the new kid from Bronx. That's the new kid from Staten Island. So me being one of the new kids from Brooklyn, it created this talk. And

the rapping thing is happening. Charlie Brown was like the guy. He was like the number one rap dude in school at the time. So one day I'm coming out of the school and we get in the schoolyard

and you know some of the kids waiting on the school buses some of the kids is waiting to see you know the football game or the basketball game after school it was like a cypher that was formed in this particular day and it was a big one and it was C Brown rapping

and two other kids and then C Brown was getting most of the shine. I walked over to the cypher, and I started beatboxing, right? And Brown, he's doing his rap shit to my beatbox or whatever, and I'm keeping the beat going for him. And then everything was smooth in the beginning. He was just rhyming. Everything was cool, and he's sounding good. And then probably a good 30, 40 seconds into it, he just started disrespecting me.

So I'm beatboxing for him, and he disrespecting me. So I'm beatboxing for him and he dissing me and I'm kind of like torn between should I punch this dude in his face or should I just keep beatboxing and not be the party pooper of the party energy that we have in here? And you're how old? I was 12.

I was 13 now. And I'm saying to myself, I'm from Brooklyn. And the mentality back then was everybody from Long Island was pussy. You know, it's the suburbs. It's the green grass. It's the flower beds. It's the nice houses. We come from concrete jungle. We come from projects. We come from concrete jungle.

We come from projects. We come from struggle. So I'm looking at this dude, and I'm just looking at him like, I'm going to fuck you up in two seconds because you're a pussy to me, but you're disrespecting me in front of all of these people. And if I don't do something, then they're going to look at me like I'm a pussy too. So as I'm getting ready to do something stupid, the rhyme stopped. Like he was done. And everybody was bigging him up.

And I didn't want to look like a sore loser, even though there was no battle. He just chose to diss me for no reason. And I couldn't understand it because I'm like, yo, I'm'm here to support you right now i'm giving you the beat and the whole shit the fuck you're doing long story short that was the day i said all right i'm gonna go home and i'm gonna write a rhyme tonight and i'm gonna come back tomorrow and i'm going to write a rhyme tonight, and I'm going to come back tomorrow, and I'm going to fucking disrespect this youth in front of everybody, the same way he dissed me up in front of everybody.

And the next day, I came to school. I waited all day. I ain't telling nobody shit. We got back in that same yard. Nice big crowd the next day. He rhyming again. I started beatboxing for him again. Like, it's the exact thing happening like the day before.

So we going and I'm doing what I'm doing and everything is cool. And nobody ain't got no clue because I didn't say shit to nobody about having raps ready and the crazy shit is when I wrote my rhymes I was listening to a bunch of LL Cool J shit because at the time LL was battling everybody on record you know I'm saying battling Kumo, battle Ice-T, battle, you know, he was the one that was trying to take everybody's head off. And I was like, yo, I want to come like LL so I can tear this boy's head off.

So I ended up doing my shit. And somehow it went from me beatboxing to him and for him to me telling him, yo, why don't you do a beat for me? And he was like, oh, you got raps ready today? I'm like, just do a beat. Let me just try something. So he did the beat, and I started off the rhyme on some calm shit.

And then when I started to get into the disrespect lines, that's when the whole thing just started to happen on its own. Like, my frustration and then me seeing the people reacting to my shit the way that I wanted them to, it just made me more confident, more cocky, more charismatic. And that's when the whole Busta Rhymes thing started to happen. And my name wasn't even Busta Rhymes at the time. I had a fucked up rap name at the time. What was it? Yo, my name was terrible.

My name at the time, I had two. I had my name from being a part of the 5% Nation of the Gods and Earths, which that name was cooler. That was Lord Tahim, right? But somehow I abandoned that to become like the rappers that had three-part names, right? Is there a reason you're not telling me? I'm getting to it. I'm just trying to help.

I'm setting it up with the proper prerequisite. So LL Cool J is a three-part name. Jam Master J is a three-part name. All of the guys from the Fat Boys. Prince Marky D. Cool Rock Ski. Them dudes had three part names, right? I changed my name to Chill

Old Ski. Yo. that name is so fucking terrible i know i'm sorry bro name was terrible and you know what's so crazy i kept that name for a long time because i really thought it was the shit because i felt like chill oski chill oski bro terrible i know it's terrible but i i really was proud of like i i got a three-part name like my favorites and if you want to be like your favorites you got to do the shit that is a replication of your favorites and then i I destroyed Charlie Brown so bad that at the end of that night, the end of that little battle,

that afternoon after school, he just came over to the side and was like, yo, we should be in a group together. And that's really the day that I guess Busta Rhymes, I guess it's a catalyst moment the day buster was born you talked about how that kind of moment helped you develop your style and your charisma and the way you carried yourself and from then till when you get signed at 17 years old i'm curious about what happens in that moment because that's really you know a lot of people at 12 years old or 10 years old or whatever want to be hip-hop actors as hip-hop stars or they want to be whatever they want to

be musicians but very very few make it to the top table what happens between the playground that day and 17 years old you getting signed when you look back and go it was for that reason was it natural talent is it hard work is it it hard work? Is it all of the above? It's all of the above. But the first thing for me was the addiction to the reaction that I was getting from the people. And I was seeing it and how it felt in real time. And just looking at the fact that I came up with something in my crib by myself in my bedroom that was fueled by a determination of wanting to defend myself like a fight. And a lot of the times, I don't think I might've said it like this.

I've said it before, but I don't think I've said it a lot. I don't know if it would have been, I had the same desire to want to be in hip hop. I had the same desire to want to rhyme, DJ. But I don't know if that moment didn't happen, I don't know if I would have pursued being an MC. At that time, it probably wouldn't have happened.

I've sat here with a lot of people who are comedians and entertainers and actors in the biggest movies in the world. And it's so interesting to me that there tends to be an early catalyst moment where they perform maybe in front of the family at Christmas or on stage or whatever it is. And they get this reaction. And in that moment, that reaction does something to them on a psychological level, which becomes, as the word you used is the word I hear, becomes this addiction. And I often wonder to myself, because a lot of other people will experience that reaction

and not develop the addiction. Right. So the reaction, it appears to me, is doing something for those people that they needed at that moment. Yes. I needed it at that moment. I'm going to tell you something.

It actually happened before that. To want to be an MC happened in that moment. The addiction to entertaining people, that shit happened when I was like seven, eight years old. Maybe even six years old. Because where it started for me initially was, you know, at the time, and particularly like I was saying how the neighborhood was back then and how we was raised in our house back then, my mother and my father, you know, we had to go to bed at 9 o'clock on a school night. And on the weekends, when we was that young, we might be able to stay up until about 10 o'clock, but we still had to go to bed by a certain time. When my mother had company, or like my father, and they had like family and friends, or you know, they just had their little grown-up get-togethers, and they get to drinking a little bit. Sometimes, you know, they so entertained by each other's

company, they forget to send us to bed at nine o'clock. They playing music and shit. And I used to have to do things. I would try to creatively come up with ways to avoid being sent to bed at nine o'clock. So when they playing music, the first thing that I would always get into doing is reenactments of Michael Jackson and from the Jackson five and James Brown dance routines. So I used to do that shit and I was nice with the fucking split and spinning around and

shit and carry it on. I'm doing all types of shit and I'm up for hours until I literally would be sweating through my clothes. mother and my father they ended up cheering me on and rooting me on to continue and bigging up my mom's about how much talent her son has and was it not that feeling then that you were that's what it was first that's what i was saying like i i wasn't thinking about being a rapper then but i i knew what that feeling felt like, and I always wanted that feeling. And that feeling started in the crib, and then it translated into me trying to get that attention in the classrooms, which turned me into a jokester in the class. So I would do shit to get the attention of the crowd from the class and became like this class clown dude, and I would get in trouble and shit. And then it translated from that into me breakdancing

and doing all of this hip-hop shit because I loved hip-hop and I was starting to see what was being created as a movement and what was being generated as an interest that was taken over. Like, it didn't matter what else was cool at the time. When hip hop started to really become that shit, there was nothing more important than knowing how to do something that was a representation of hip hop. If you was a graffiti artist and you was fucking dope, you became something that was like on a celebrity status level. That's when motherfuckers started putting graffiti on clothes and everybody that

was involved with hip hop or some kind of representation of hip hop became some sort of celebrity. So for me, that's why I wanted to learn how to do everything in hip hop because I still didn't know what I wanted to do. The DJ shit, complicated. The breakdancing shit, I ain't like the fucking bruises I was getting all the time. You know what I'm saying? And the graffiti shit, I was cool with it, but it was really when that situation happened with me and C. Brown, that's now when I found that I was able to get the feeling of when I was this little boy dancing for my parents and their company,

and at the same time, I was able to have that spotlight on me being the rapper guy so it's like all of this shit became the thing that i started to grow not only this appreciation for it but i started to grow addicted to the shit that is what i was expecting in terms of like i was just trying to figure out the psychological reason why you became so addicted to this. Because listen, I come from a background where lots of my friends started rapping

and most of them fell off. And then there's like one or two of them that just became like their medication to some shit. And I've always wondered why they just, like that individual just stuck at it for all those years. But in that answer, we have the- I think the biggest addiction for me out of all of it was to be able to say to my father i wanted to be able to experience the day not knowing if it would ever come

but it was a serious, serious thing. Like I used to write this shit on my wall and just on a piece of paper and I would stick it on the wall and it would say, one day I'm going to get a deal. I'm going to sign a contract. I'm going to come home with so much fucking money

that I'm going to be able to tell my father I told you so. That's all I wanted to be able to do. And I wrote that shit and put it on the wall. And I would look at that shit every day. And there would be days still when he would tell me I got to come to work. And I would look at that sign. And then I would see him outside in the truck, and I'd walk out that fucking house, and I would be mad as hell.

Angry. And what I do love about my father as I got older is I understood what he wanted. He just wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting my time. He built this company. He wanted to pass it down. It was love. It's love. It was he need his son to succeed i'm his pride and his joy and failure is not an option with my father and i guess where he came from you know it's the same with my mother my mother when i

told her 18 i wasn't going to university wouldn't speak to me for years but she comes from nigeria she left school at seven years old she can't read or write today wow so i was the only of her four kids i was the only one that says i'm not going to university right now she stood in my way and said don't start a business etc etc but in in my maturity i go she stood in my way because she loved me absolutely at the time and everyone goes a lot of people go through especially sort of immigrant immigrant kids and stuff primarily yeah because that pain and that struggle that suffering that they come from, that shit ain't no, that's not this shit that we was raised in. That, you know, me and you, we obviously, even if you was born there, you wasn't, you

didn't spend your years there to experience the pain that they did. So you come here now, you still don't know they struggle. They know though. They never going to forget. And don't know they struggle. They know, though. They never going to forget. And they obviously want the best for their babies, man. My father came to the Apollo to see us. And this is what made him even more sure about disrespecting me and disrespecting the rap shit.

Me and my crew, leaders of the new school, we had an opportunity to perform at the Apollo, at Amateur Night at the Apollo. And we get up there and we got booed, badly booed. One of the first times, you know, when me and Charlie Brown decided to form the group, the guy Mystery that was with us originally, he got tired of the wait. There was no real light at the end of the tunnel if we was going to get an opportunity to get a record deal. He was selling drugs in the street too. He decided he wanted to go back to the street and do that. He ain't want to be in a rap group no more.

That's how room was made for Dinko to get in the group because we still felt like we needed to replace the third rapper. We got our three rap dudes. Now it's me, Brown, and Dinko. And then I said, yo, we need a DJ. Let me get my cousin. So Milo came, and we ended up doing this show at the Apollo. Got booed, and my father was even, he was hitting me with the I told you so that night.

See, I tell you, yo, you know, waste your time with this little idiot rapper boy shit. If it come on work, that's what I'm going to tell you. If it come to work, so you can learn some stability and stop waste your time with this rapper shit that's how he talking to me we still in the venue really we ain't even leave he just

beating me in the head with this total disrespect but again at that time I hated him for it as we got older and i that day came for me i got my my record deal when i was 17 and what was it about you though was it was it this was it the unique style and uh you had a completely different flow that people were just drawn to that raised the energy on every record you touched?

It definitely was that. And that came completely from dance hall influence. Right. So are you familiar with like Sting? Yeah. All right. So Sting clashes that used to happen from the 80s all the way down. The one thing that I saw in dancehall culture that I wasn't seeing in hip hop was the way

when dancehall artists was getting busy and clashing in front of 10, 15,000 people in that Sting audience, the energy that they had to have to make sure that they're portraying themselves in a way that was just more than the lyrics. It was a complete showmanship that was a collective of things. It was the outfit. It was the jumping around. It was the kicking of things. It was the outfit. It was the jumping around. It was the kicking the foot. It was the flinging your hand and the way you was coming through on the microphone

and the flow patterns and the cleverness of the lyrics and the punchlines. It was all of these things. And it was mind-blowing to me because I wasn't seeing that same thing in hip-hop. In hip-hop, you're seeing dudes just walking around. You know, they might hold their crutch and act like they're too cool to be that animated. Me, I love that shit.

I love kung fu movies. I love karate movies. So all of that shit, hype, hype, and the dancing up and the this and the that and the foot this, that. I just took all of that shit, and the dancing up and the this and the that and the foot, this, that. I just took all of that shit, and I said, I'm going to turn this into what I'm going to do on these stages. And I think that if I master this shit and I can master my breathing, and I don't exhaust myself too soon. Try to jump around all over the fucking stage going crazy.

I think I might become a dangerous motherfucker that's hard to compete with because dudes are not moving like this on no stage. I'm going to all of the shows. I'm being a student. I'm in the clubs. I'm in a student. I'm in the clubs. I'm in the street. I'm everywhere just to see and learn and pull inspiration from somewhere. And I pulled a lot of inspiration from different all of that that was out here tipper irie and all of them man like them dudes raised me it's so interesting because what you've described there is kind of like my understanding of what creativity is where you

you pull from so many different almost clouds of inspiration to create a new one yeah and i was thinking about i was thinking about i was thinking about your kids you said to me before we start recording you got six kids and they're around like 20 30 years old now right based on what you now understand about what made you stand out different that what it took in terms of your mentality to use the word student there if one of those kids comes to you now and says, dad, what are the fundamentals that I can take from your journey up until that point at say 21 years old, that would increase my chance of success no matter the industry? What are those fundamentals? So the fundamentals that I would

give my kids, which I've already feel like I've been given to them, is the first thing is identify with what you love. And once you love it, hone in on that thing until you can master it to the point where people can identify that there's no questioning your love for it. That's the first thing. Once you love it to the point where your actions speak louder than anything you could say about how much you love it, that is always the root of whatever success is preordained or destined

to come to you, no matter what it is that you choose to do. Because what is actually going to create the revenue is that you're not doing it from a place of trying to generate the revenue. You're going to do this shit regardless. So it's not about the money for you. You're fulfilling something in your soul, in your body. There's a feeling that even the money can't give you. There's people that have this money and they still can't find that feeling, man.

And there's nothing like it. This is a feeling that really exists, bro, that can actually make you the happiest person in the world. That happens to be my music because, and my children understand now, I love my children so much and I love my family so much. I'm not playing with anything that I know is going to allow me the opportunity to make sure that I can show them and I can take care of them and I can, without compromise, find a way and a means to securing of the well-being of my family. And I found something that I love that has provided me those means and the ability to do it.

And I don't have to question how I'm going to get to that on no day. I could be sick. I could be. I could be sick and in the hospital and write a song. And even if I'm too weak to say it, I could give it to somebody and work out whatever business I need to work out with that person so they still do that same song. God willing, the success of that song that hopefully is garnished reaches a level of success based on this creation

from a feeling that I was inspired by or from a feeling that I got that I can't explain and I can't give to nobody other than through this music that will take care of not just my family, but it actually might take care of

filling a space in the millions of people's lives that will hear this shit. That at some point, depending on the impact of the song, they fuck around and see you 20 years from now and become the fucking CEO of Google. And will tell you, I am a fan. I love you. What this fucking song did for me when I was 10 now I'm 30 and at this moment

when I was 10 I remember wearing this little t-shirt with a yellow fucking balloon face on it and I had my little bicycle outside and my mother let me play with my two friends two houses down we played this fucking song 10 times in a row until we had to go inside.

And that song changed my life. And it gave me the motivation to want to do this thing, evolve into this person, think a new way that allowed me to pursue something that I found that I love. And now I'm a fucking $200 million CEO in Google. I'm a fan of your shit. You're still doing what I love. And I want to sit down with you and figure out something magical that we could do together. Sounds addictive.

That's very fucking addictive. Fuck that. That's the most addictive shit in the world to me because it's like, that's greater than man. You can't teach somebody how to do that. That's not a book science. That's not school. You know what I'm saying? That shit is, you identify with this gift. We all got the gift. There's something that we've all been blessed with. At some point, if we listen to that fucking little thing that speaks to us inside,

some people call it instinct. Some people call it a vibe. Some people call it an energy. Whatever the fuck you call it. Some people call it a voice. Whatever that thing is, bro, if it sparks the thought that changes the whole trajectory to what your life can evolve into because you took a second

to listen to that shit you are identifying with your blessing you are identifying with your blessing. You are identifying with your gift. And at that point, you learn what the fuck it is and become one with it and walk in your purpose, bro. So you might instill this thing into the lives of so many people that you live forever through this thing that you've created. That's not a man thing no more. That shit is deeper than man. I am absolutely addicted to that

because when you really think about it, that shit is something that's godly. It's weird to me when people find it strange when we call ourselves gods and earths, right? Because I'm saying, what do you want me to be? You want me to be other than God? Anything other than its original form is the worst state of its own existence. Because you're not even functioning within the nature that you

was created to function in so you can't make me call myself devil-like because you think that it's a blasphemous act for me to say that i'm godly or i'm godlike or i'm made in the likeness of the most high that mentality is why I function this way. Because I refuse to think that there is nothing that I can't do beyond man. Beyond man. If I could sit down here and smoke a spliff and eat a bowl of cereal and fucking go, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya. When I step up in a place and when I step, yo, what steps correct? Woo-ha, I got you all in check.

And the whole fucking planet is doing it. It don't matter what country I go to. And then I get to Sweden and they telling me, ya, ya, ya, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I ain't from Sweden. I don't know that. I just was vibing and bugging out. The weed had me and filling away. Nice little spliff, little food,

a little bowl of cereal. And I just was joking in the crib and y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all. Motherfuckers was laughing in my house. I thought it was funny. I did this shit on the record. I like funny, but I also like serious. There's always a balance between the guys that we found the most entertainment from.

All of the dudes that was on TV that we liked that was the fucking criminals, they was always funny, right? Al Pacino in Scarface, he was a serious motherfucker, but he was funny. Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, serious but funny, right? We in the hood, we love the balance between serious and funny, right? We in the hood, we love the balance between serious and funny. I try to incorporate serious and funny in all of my shit. Bottom line is,

my children, the fundamentals I want to give you all, find it, love it, identify with what you love, become one with that thing, pursue it to the point where you become so engulfed in it, you don't know nothing else other than that. Walk in your purpose is what it evolves into.

What kind of human beings do they need to be? Character traits? All right, this is what it needs to be. Some of it might sound fucked up. First thing is you gotta be selfish as hell you gotta be selfish I don't give a fuck

it's the sacrifice but without great sacrifice and without great risk there is no such thing as great reward can't have one that doesn't that math will never math you know what i'm saying you have to have and i don't like this word but i'm gonna say it because it's true you have to

be a little maniacal with the shit maniac right that word isn't good in a lot of situations, but when you're pursuing your destiny, when you identify with your destiny, you have to be selfish. You have to be maniacal. You have to be uncompromising. move in a way when it comes to those three things when you function completely in a way where it's an unwavering faith like it don't matter how fucked up that shit might look it don't matter how much it feel like it ain't gonna work delusional complete delusion. You got to believe the delusion because it's only delusional until it works. So is it really delusional? A motherfucker only going to call it delusion until it don't work for nobody else to see, but for the whole world to see and then once the world see it there's nothing delusional about it now your delusion becomes oh he was a fucking genius we didn't see it when he

saw it we didn't understand it when he did we thought this motherfucker was crazy but he definitely always he always figured this thing was the thing to do. And he's, he's stuck by that shit. When you say selfish, obviously that word has got a lot of different connotations and meanings. But I heard from it that the selfishness is focusing on serving yourself and your dreams and your mission. Like you were somewhat selfish when you said, I want to be a rapper, even though your father's saying, I want you to come and be an electrical contractor. That was selfish of you to say,

no, I want to take care of me first. That's selfish. I'm meeting even more extreme than that. Yes. Selfish to my father because, and in a way I don't want to, I don't want to look at it as what's selfish to him. I was just on some, I don't want to do what you want to do. That's not really being selfish.

That's just having a difference in opinion, right? Selfish, when I say selfish, it means my children, right? I've had to miss moments that were never going to get back. I missed my oldest son's high school graduation. I missed one of my daughter's college graduations. I've missed times when I should have been there to teach my child how to drive or I should have been there to teach my child how to drive or I should have been there to teach my child how to ride a bike. I missed a lot of that, right?

And a lot of it had to do with circumstance and my circumstance, which I obviously contributed to creating for myself, I had to take responsibility for these choices that I made and these circumstances that I created for myself. And the situation that became a real life situation me, left me very few choices. So there was a choice where I could be there for everything, and then the money ain't where it need to be.

Or I'm going to do what I love, not just because I love it, and it brings me joy, and it brings me peace of mind because I would go to the studio and when I'm in that studio and I close the door and then I'm in those four walls, I don't have to argue with a child's mother. I don't have to argue with my woman. I don't get talk back from people that choose to have a debate about shit that ain't even worth debating about. All of the unnecessary distractions I can leave outside of that room. And when I'm in that room, I am fulfilling my destiny. I am fulfilling my soul and I'm making myself get to a place mentally where my peace of mind is so where it needs to be that not only am I allowed to become, feel, think, and evolve into whatever place my mind takes me,

I'm then able to get to that place emotionally, spiritually, mentally, create something, put it in a song, change the effect that I can have as an impact through this thing that I'm blessed with as a gift. And then I could come down off of that and be in a happier place so that when I do get back around the people that I got to argue with, I'm in a better place to deal with them.

Is there sort of guilt associated with that as you've sort of matured and understood and you know had time to reflect on missing those key moments I worry about this a lot because I'm a workaholic and I think my work is in many respects some kind of psychological escape and I'm concerned that when I do have a kid I've got a partner I've been together four years i'm 31 now that i might use my work as an excuse to not be there or i might not make the necessary adjustment to realize that i only get one bike ride moment so i'm gonna tell you something there is no right way and no wrong way when it comes to making that decision other than what you know in your heart.

I definitely live with guilt. I feel like there was things that I could have done without to be there for my children. But I also feel like that's me saying that now, right? I'm in a different place now in my life than I was at that time. And at that time, the mentality that I have now didn't exist then, right?

And the mentality that needed to exist then right and the mentality that needed to exist then for me to get to this mentality now was important and it was a part of the needed components to exist in my journey for me to be able to have this conversation now this mentality now was survival? It definitely was survival. When you're dealing with four mothers, all having you in court systems, all getting significant amount of money for child support, all not in the best place relationship wise with you. Sometimes business is up, sometimes business is down. You have to be able to be swift and changeable regardless of the circumstances in order to stay remainable. Because no matter if business is up or business is down, the courts don't care.

The child support that needs to come every month, the mothers need to see it because they don't care. When your kids need what they need, they don't care because they didn't ask for this. You can't create an excuse. That's how I was raised. Your kid didn't ask to be put in a situation that you cannot do what you're supposed to do for them.

So it's not their problem. You have to find a solution. It's a lot of pressure. It's a lot. It's a lot. But I also feel like when you identify what's your gift, that's part of the gift. That's what makes it the gift.

Because the most high usually don't give us more than we can handle. And with that being said, all of these things we're talking about, which is one of the best questions that I love that you asked, right? What would I give my kids? And I keep coming back to that because I want my kids to understand that focus on what you love is most primary, being selfish. And when I say selfish, not just my kids, but even my woman, there might be a lot of shit she want to do. Sorry. I can't do it right now. I can't do it right now.

I can't do it right now. I could do it later. And then there's moments when you can do it and you make the time and you do it, you know? But until there's another means of me being able to do what I love and find the fulfillment that I find while I'm doing what I love, this is also a part of who y'all fell in love with.

Moments in our life, I think, help us to see things a little bit more clearly. And especially when they're really significant moments. And one of those moments that I see in your story is in 2012, where I think you're 42 years old at the time and your manager and friend chris dies rest in peace to chris chris was all that i knew everything everything that i i learned after chuck d and hank shock and them, I learned it with Chris. I learned how to make my money with Chris. My tax brackets changed with Chris.

My lawyers changed because Chris. My booking agents changed with Chris. My touring experiences changed with Chris. My ability to tell my mother to quit her job and never had to look back to work for nobody from 1995 to this day. All of that, I did it with Chris. That day when you find out that Chris has passed, can you take me to that day?

That day was so fucking terrible, bro. Wow. His life changed when this woman came into his life. I'm not going to dive too much into that part, but I'm definitely going to say that Chris's life changed, not for the better, when she came around. So once that happened, it started to change the energy amongst the Violator family. And I really wish, because I don't want this to be heard in a way where it seemed like I'm shitting on the woman because I'm not shitting on the woman. I'm acknowledging the reality of the situation. As you can see, I'm not saying nothing bad about the woman. I'm just talking about, I'm acknowledging a time period where

a change transpired in a significant way and it happened after this woman came around. That's it. Long story short, I think his daughter was coming home from college and he had to go and meet her at Grand Central Station in Manhattan. So he asked me for a ride to Grand Central Station and I give him the lift

to Grand Central Station and that's the last day that I saw him the next morning I get the call from his assistant that something happened to him. And I'm asking what happened to him. And they just said he hurt himself. But they didn't say, you know, that he was dead.

It just was like he hurt himself. The assistant called this young lady, I forget her name, at the office. And when the young lady answered the phone, we're on the three-way. And she's crying and she's screaming on the phone. And she just kept saying, Chris hurt himself, Chris hurt himself. And the assistant is asking her, what exactly did he do to himself? And she said, she don't know.

He just hurt himself. And then we asked if he was dead and then she said she don't know so when we got to Chris's home we couldn't go in the house and it wasn't until you saw the coroner van come. And when you saw the van, and then they reversed the van into the driveway to get as close to the door of the house.

Because it was a downstairs door. And then there was the regular door to go up the stairs and you go in the house from the front. But whatever happened to him, it happened downstairs. Because that's where his body was. And they went inside and they brought them black bags with them, them body bags. And that's when it got real.

That's when it changed. Everything changed when you saw the bags. And we knew when they came out the basement with the bags and his body was in the bags. That's when you knew Chris was never coming back. So, you know, the crying started and a lot of arguing started. A lot of threats started. A lot of threats started. And my life was going in a whole other direction after that. And I didn't like it. Because I was confused about how to move. And I was confused about how to move,

and I was lost for a minute, because I never really had to manage my career without a manager, and he wasn't just a manager. He was my brother. So it got scary just a manager. He was my brother. So it got scary for a minute. I couldn't get it together. That's why I didn't put out no record for nine years. And I started to just do different type of business with signing artists.

And that's when we put out OT Genesis. And we had some really good success with him. And signed a few other artists. We had some really good success with him. Signed a few other artists. There's one artist by the name of Stove Guard Cooks, and I signed another young artist by the name of Murder Mook. I wasn't happy, though, with just doing it like that. And I just, I didn't feel comfortable putting out music until I got the right support system in place

and I couldn't get it together. When you say you couldn't get it together, what does that mean? That means like... Psychologically, you couldn't get it together. Psychologically, I couldn't get it together. Psychologically, I couldn't get it together because I didn't feel like I had a support system that I could believe in enough

to make me feel like I am psychologically able to move with the comfort, the confidence, and the support that I know I'm going to need. And the responsibility of trying to wear all the hats myself. I was doing it, but I wasn't doing it at the level that Chris Lighty was able to do it. And you were grieving at the same time. Absolutely. Because I lost my father two years after Chris.

The two most important male figures in my life. Chris was gone 2012. I lost my father 2014. And you'd reconciled with him before? I definitely reconciled with him before he passed. The problem is I didn't get to enjoy my time with him once we got good. So that was a horrible feeling too because it's like all of the time that was wasted fucking not getting along was stupid.

Fucking stupid. You know what I'm saying? That's part of the reason why I started to really get unhealthy and fucked up. I was trying everything to drown the pain and the frustration and the suffering of those losses by overworking, overdrinking, oversmoking weed and cigarettes. And it got so bad that I got to the weight of 340 pounds. I've never been that. I'm not even built to be that heavy. It's funny.

It's like I look back at certain pictures, and I looked at how overweight I was. I look at my skin. Yeah, there's certain pictures I had. I had these marks on my face. I hate those pictures. Like, I see the darkness in those pictures, yo. There's this book called The Body Holds the School, but the title is just the thing that I've actually gained the most from.

It just says that when there's things going on in our psychology, in our mind, the body will show it. Yeah, man. We'll eat, we'll drink, we won't sleep, but you'll see it in the body before you see it in the mind. our mind the body will show it yeah man we'll eat we'll drink we won't sleep but you'll see it in the body before you see it in the mind the mind is invisible obviously right the body is the first place to see it and i was reading through that phase of your life and you were on sort of breathing machines when you were sleeping and things like now i wasn't on the breathing machine i had sleep apnea yeah yeah yeah i had sleep apnea i was

um you drank yourself into a coma at one point? I drank myself into, not a coma. I drank myself into an inability to wake myself up. Oh, okay. I had to be woken up by my son and my security in LA. It took like 45 minutes. And we had just come back from hanging out at a club called Poppy's. He sat me down the next day.

He was like, listen, I don't want to hurt your feelings because you're my father. And I don't even know if I got the strength to say it to you now, but I had a conversation with the security. I need you to listen to them because I'm too scared to tell you how I feel that's how bad it was

my son ain't never speak to me like that in my life but I needed to hear it but he couldn't even say it to me because that's how much he still was trying to protect my feelings. But this is the first time that I knew I really disappointed my son. All that Busta Rhymes shit was cool up until this moment when he saw this shit.

And he's been seeing it, but this is when it hits the low. That conversation fucked me up. The next day, the doctors with the prednisone, and I went to the doctor. I'm breathing so fucked up that outside of the door, the doctor was like, yo, why are you breathing like that? And he wasn't even in the room with me. He's coming in the room.

And I said, breathing like what? Because I was doing it for so long over the last three years that it was starting to sound normal to me. The doctor said, I'm sending you to the hospital because he stuck this shit in my throat. And when he saw how big the fucking pallets was, it blocked 90% of my breathing passage. He said, if he sends me home and I take a shower

and the central air system is blowing and I catch a draft that can lead to me catching a cold and that last 10% of my breathing gets blocked up because of a swollen gland from a sore throat or some shit, I can die in my sleep that night. He said, I've got to call an ambulance for you. I'm in California, LA. He says, I need you to go right now to UCLA Medical Center into the emergency room. And I'm going to call the head person at the hospital to have them admit you immediately. You need to go into surgery tomorrow. I said, I ain't going in no ambulance. He said, well, then you have to sign this document

that will exemplify me. If you don't listen and something happens and you die between now and when you get to the hospital. I ain't never been spoken to like this in my life. This is when I knew this shit was crazy. My son now, I'm calling him, telling him to meet me at the hospital.

We get to the hospital and I'm in the doctor's office and they doing a little preliminary shit before they got to admit me into the emergency. My son is talking to me and he tells me,

I thought you was going to die last night. And I ain't never been this scared, Dad, but I'm scared you're going to die. I lost Grandpa already. I can't lose you too. Can you please stop drinking? Can you please stop smoking? Can you please get back to the daddy that I

know you to be finished me at that point I made up my mind I'm gonna get the surgery when I get this surgery I'm going to get in shape. I go home. On the way home, Dexter Jackson, bodybuilder competitor, used to compete in the Olympia. He became a Mr. Olympia champ. This man pops up in my stories, driving in his car in Jacksonville, Florida, and he's spitting the vocals to Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See. And then I hit him in the DM and I said, Mr. Jackson, I'm a huge fan of you as a professional bodybuilder. Is there any way that we could get on the phone? I need your help.

He hits me back. He sends me his number. I call him on the phone. I said, thanks for calling me. I salute you, Mr. Jackson. Can we please figure out a way to get me back in shape? That man said to me, you sure you ready, boss? And I said, absolutely. He said, you got to come to Jacksonville, and you got to stay here for 30 days. Tell your girl she can't come.

Tell your kids you'll see them in 30 days. I need to put you through something for 30 days before we continue this journey. You survived this 30 days. I know you serious. I rented a motherfucking mansion for like seven bedrooms. I went and got a cameraman to document it. My meal prep chef, my masseuse, because I knew that that workout was going to fuck me up every day

and I needed somebody to rub these muscles up. I got my recording engineer so I didn't need to leave the house. I got an assistant. And that was about it. Stayed in the fucking crib for 30 days. Lost about 27 pounds in 30 days. These dudes that I'm surrounded by, by way of my first bodybuilding competitor trainer, Victor Munoz, and my second primary trainer, the legendary Mr. Olympia himself, Dexter Jackson, I was able to get my shit together, bro. And once I got my health and once I got my mind and I got my spirit right. And I started to be proud of me when I looked at me and my kids was looking at me and they would say shit that you could only hear once you did what you

needed to do and put in the work you needed to put in so that it shows. They're not going to say it if it don't look like the way they need to see it so they can say what they need to say. When that happened, you're hearing the right shit. You're feeling the right love. That shit was lifting my spirit so much. And then I'm going to tell you something going through this pandemic was another serious challenge mentally and emotionally and spiritually

my brothers Pharrell Williams and Swiss Beats and Big Up the Timberland 2 all four of them is the executive producers of this new album, Blockbuster. Which is out right now. Absolutely.

The Blockbuster album is out, and I'm super grateful to everybody that participated in helping this magic happen and come together. This is the culmination of all of the experience and all of the life stories that we've talked about. But the thing that really stood out to me is you've made the decision to put people on this album who are young, up-and-coming, fresher artists

who you haven't really worked with previously. And you've worked with bloody everybody. Everybody. But you chose to give these younger artists the platform for some reason. Two reasons. The first reason is I'm never going to listen to the narrative of

this thing where I would hear it a little more regularly than I actually choose to hear it. I actually don't ever want to hear it. But it's this bullshit about how the elder statesmen or the older emcees don't really respect what the new guys is doing. That shit is bullshit. At least speaking for myself and the type of artists that I surround myself with, we don't feel like that. We don't move like that. We encourage that shit because when we was young artists, we wanted the big dudes to

put their arms around us and give us game and school us and teach us shit so we could be better. You know what I'm saying? Chuck D gave me my name. Big Daddy Kane used to let me come to his crib and ask questions. He put me on his albums. He used to help me learn, let me learn, bring me the shows that he was performing at. Fucking De La Soul, they did the same shit for us like too many mcs gave us the guidance that made me great i feel like it's only right that we do the same shit for the next

generation of motherfuckers especially if they dope and i'm a fan of a lot of these new artists and i want to work with them because they still inspiring me to want to go in a studio and stay razor blade sharp with my shit when I got to do my shit. You know what I'm saying? And I see a lot of them paying homage. There's a lot of motherfuckers walking around with their hairstyles like how I used to wear it with my dreads. There's a lot of motherfuckers that dress and they throw their heavy jewelry on that do it the way I used to do it and still do it. I just ain't got the dreads no more, but all that other shit, we still doing it.

But I just want to make sure that they know we're not only here to give them the answers and the mentorship and the guidance and the information so they could be that much more sharper when they're being creative or when they're sitting in the fucking corporate office negotiating a deal with their lawyers and their managers. But I also want them to know that we love them too.

We're fans of what they're doing. We see y'all paying homage. And we want y'all to know we're paying homage to y'all too. One of the things I always think is destined to own the future is when both the past and present come together. And I say that with all due respect because sometimes people see projects like this as you passing the torch, but what you're actually doing is sharing the flame.

Sharing the fucking flame. You couldn't have said it better because I ain't putting the flame out no time. Well, you're 33 years deep and you're still selling out the shows and doing the arenas and killing the game. And I'm so excited by this project because for those reasons because you have you have two sort of generations coming together to

create the future and that's what's so exciting and i have to say from this conversation everything you say and understanding the man that buster is put so much more meaning into the lyrics into the album in the record so everyone needs to go check this album out right now. Wherever you stream anything, please go check it out because it's one hell of a project. And you talked about that Google CEO who you inspired when he was 10 years old. You were that person and you still are that person for me.

Thank you, King. So it's such an honor to get to spend this time with you today. Thank you, man. Likewise, man, for real. I really, really appreciate it. The questions you asked, Thank you. Likewise, man. For real. I really appreciate it. The questions you asked, the places you went, I didn't expect it.

I'm glad I wasn't prepped. I'm glad I wasn't prepped. I'm glad. You know what I'm saying? I just was given a prerequisite of how important you mean

in this space, in your platform, and congratulations to your evolution and your success with what you've been able to create for yourself. Thank you, bro. And becoming a successful businessman.

I was driven and inspired by the story that I was being told about you, and I was like, oh no, fuck that. I got to come pull up. And I'm taking my time. I appreciate you for that. Because we're going to do this shit properly. And I've never done an interview in 33 years.

Never done an interview this in depth. Number two, I ain't never sat with nobody this motherfucking long and did no interview in Europe in my life neither. So you hold the record, bro. I appreciate you. Honestly, it's one of the greatest honors of me ever getting to do this is hearing that from you. So thank you so much, Buster.

Thank you. It's an honor and a pleasure brother appreciate you king