The Right Time with Bomani Jones - Van Lathan on Hunter Biden's Crack Comments, Malcolm-Jamal Warner's Impact, Prince's Death | 7.23

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

On today's episode of The Right Time, Bomani Jones is joined by Van Lathan, host of the Higher Learning podcast at The Ringer. The show begins with Bo asking about Van's lasso behind him that belonged to his father (1:28) before a brief conversation about Angola Prison in Louisiana (5:00). They react to the Hunter Biden interview with Channel 5 (21:35) and discuss Biden's crack use, including why he most likely got many others addicted to crack (27:11). After the break they reminisce about the life of Malcolm-Jamal Warner (30:27) and emotions that are evoked when a celebrity you loved dies (38:19). The show rounds out with Bo saying how immersed he was in Prince's death and how that was only three months after David Bowie's passing. (53:45) . . . Subscribe to Supercast for Ad-Free Episodes: https://righttime.supercast.com/ Buy 'The Right Time' merch: http://therighttimebomani.com/ Subscribe to The Right Time with Bomani Jones on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts and follow the show on Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok for all the best moments from the show. Download Full Podcast Here: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6N7fDvgNz2EPDIOm49aj7M?si=FCb5EzTyTYuIy9-fWs4rQA&nd=1&utm_source=hoobe&utm_medium=social Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-right-time-with-bomani-jones/id982639043?utm_source=hoobe&utm_medium=social Follow The Right Time with Bomani Jones on Social Media: http://lnk.to/therighttime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time, a wave original. My name is Beaumani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. It is that time a week where we have a guest join us.

Check him out at the Ringer. Podcast is higher learning. He appears to have a lasso tied up on his wall. Van Lathen, what's going on? What a, what a, what I, what a, what I? All right, so you only wear the ridiculous hat when you go to work, but not at your house? I wear it all the time. I wear it all the time, but I'm in, I go through different hat phases now.

Now I'm in a bucket hat, dad hat phase, but I wear my cowboy hat all the time. That's my strength right there. I didn't know the last time I saw you without the cowboy hat. So, like, once I saw you, like, inside your house, I thought that maybe you had some rules. Like the old time to say you don't wear a hat like that indoors. It's disrespectful to the ladies, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. I mean, for me, the hat is like a crown, the cowboy hat.

And so I feel like it's a ceremonial thing. When I want to show my power, I put the cowboy hat on, you know what I'm saying? Wow, that is a lot of words for the word gimmick. Could be. But, I mean, everything that you see up here, everything that you see up here is like that lasso right there. That's my father's lasso. Oh, that is an actual lasso.

I thought, I didn't realize it was an actual lasso. Oh, yeah. No, that was my, so that lasso that you guys can see in this shot, that's my dad. So like, that lasso right there has been used in rodeos going back to, I don't know, at least the 80s when he would use it. And so when I went home after he passed away, like, I brought his lasso back with me. I brought his not, I brought his lasso and his knives with me. The guns I tried to bring, but it was very different. in California. So this whole side of the wall, this is the Louisiana wall, the

Percy Miller Jersey. That's the lasso. The cowboy hats are also from my dad, but the men of my family wear them. So, you know, that's the whole deal. You know what I'm saying? Did you ever go to the rodeo at Angola? Yeah. I don't know how regular, like, and for those of you who do not know, the state penitentiary in Louisiana is Angola State Penitentiary, and it is a touch dangerous, but they also know for two things that could be helpful to the general public. They make impeccable leather goods at Angola,

and they have a rodeo every year. They have a rodeo, and they also have football. I did not know that, and that sounds terrified. The different camps have football teams. So, I mean, Angola, which is definitely one of the worst, the worst places you can be, in America. They do have some things

where they let the inmates express themselves to a degree. But I've definitely been down the rodeo. I've been to rodeos all throughout the South and the Southeast. Letting the boys at Angola play football does not seem like

the best idea. Like with pads all? Yeah. Yeah. They just call like the crack bowl. Not the crack bowl. It's called like the smash bowl or something like that is, but you have to remember now, I'm not saying that they play football with a ton of skill, but, I mean, obviously.

But there's insane athleticism because it's Louisiana. So their guys running around there that were ex-high school players, you know, the skill will come in from all of this advanced coaching and all of that stuff. But there's some crazy athletes running around down there. it's the physicality that I am curious about and makes me a little worrisome because I know everything I've heard about pick up basketball at a prison is a daunting level of physicality.

And now you're talking about they letting them actually play football. Yeah, yeah, they've been doing it for a while. It's actually such a mixed bag when you think about it, like philosophically because you're in a place. When you drive up to St. Francisville, obviously I've known well not obviously I don't want to say obviously in my lifetime I've known a couple

of residents of Angola State Penitentiary very well and when you drive up there there's a long road that leads you up to the prison and when you start getting in on the way to this road I mean you see like a prisoner's working and the guy on a horse and it's you know just right out of 1835 1860

the prison and the way that it is run is a historical relic of that time in American history. But there are different ways when you talk to inmates, particularly some of the inmates that were involved with the rodeo that make some of the goods and the crafts. There's art there. There's an art show. There are ways that the inmates find freedom inside the walls of Angola. That's quite inspiring. Now, they should have to live in, they should be able to live in different conditions,

but there are ways that the gentleman there find themselves that when you get into their stories, it's actually pretty amazing. No, we turn it into something inspirational. I did not expect that to be the direction that we would go in when we talked about that and go look at you, boy, you-happens, when we get together, bro.

You out here, broadening minds, you know what I'm saying? Like, I didn't realize it was an actual lasso, and you're like, yeah, it's my dead dad's lasso, a hearty-ha-motherfucker, And I'm like, oh, okay, you're right. You know. Hey, look, look, look, like, whenever you endeavor to try to be an asshole, there's always a risk that comes to me. But I wouldn't even be an asshole.

I just couldn't, I just couldn't understand. I was like, I couldn't tell if it was a lasso or an extension cord. I couldn't figure out why I was on the wall. I've always told people, I've always told people this. Like, hey, man, like, that shirt fucking sucks. You suck. Hey, bro, my mama gave me this shirt. Ah, ha.

Now look at you. There's always a chance. You take, no, no. See, my mom gave you that shirt. That ain't going to really do nothing for me. That's like, duh. That's how we wound up making fun of you.

I wouldn't even make fun. I just couldn't figure out. Well, if the mama dead. Like my daddy, then you, why are you wearing that shirt? Because it's the last thing that my mama gave me. And now, and look at you. Now, not everybody looking at you. Like, yo, what the fuck?

Why are you talking like that? You know what I'm saying? So the problem is. is you got to really be deep into sociopathy to follow up because the follow up is very easy. That's the last thing that my mama gave me before she died. Why are you sad then? Why are you sad that she died? Once again.

If that's the kind of love you, that's the way your mama shows you love, you know what I'm saying? But that's just you have, you got to really be willing to go all the way in that moment. You have to. And it has to land. because if it lands,

then everybody going to be like, oh, shit, man, look how he came back from the depths. But if it don't land, people are going to be looking at you. Like, do we want to be around him? He made fun of that man when his mama died. Especially in the white neighborhood. In white spaces, oh, you kill with that. You kill when you come back and you go,

oh, your mom must have hated you. You killed. But in black spaces, they're going to be like, we can't be around this, nigga. He didn't make fun of that. guy did my daughter. Like when you make an ambitious opener, you know what I'm saying?

Like, it's a risk that I'm generally unwilling to take. In this case, I didn't think it could have been as risky as it proved to be. But I was at a wedding one time, and this dude pulled up on me. And it was a white dude, and I think it may be Jermaine giving some of the explaining that you was doing. And then white man pulled up on me, and he was like, he shakes my hand.

And it was a wedding when it was like other people, like industry type people there. And this guy was not an industry person. And so he put up on me and he shake my hand. And the first thing he says to me is, you know, I've hated everything that you've ever said. At which point I took my hand back because I'm not sure what we about to do. Right.

And it went into some whole roundabout, but the groom is really a big fan of yours. And I thought you should know that. And maybe I don't hate everything that you've ever said. And I'm thinking in my head, It's 1230 and you don't know that I don't drink, right? All you know is that it's 1230 and you pulled up on me with pure orificous approach, right? Straight orifice. Only a white man could have the audacity to do such a thing.

I'd only say that to you because I knew you. But there's something else about white dudes in those types of situations. They are, there's a difference culturally. that I've seen. Black men form bonds by inviting peace. White men form bonds by inviting combat. See, black men, hey, you good with me. We could tamp things down and play the game

and talk about this and do all of that stuff. Like, we turn the shit down. when we want to, we share peace with one another. We make little treaties. White guys, though, they like to get into it. And that's how they form their bonds. They like to get, they like to come to you and needle you. That dude is so weird when he came up to you,

that was his version of showing you love. His version of showing you love being like, hey man, I'm going to come over here and introduce myself despite the fact that I hated when you wore a Caucasian shirt on ESPN. I was not fucking with that. But that invites us to sit down and go back and forth

for like 10 to 15 minutes and then I know that you're smart. You know that I'm smart. And now we can have that type of back and forth or relationship with one another. He thought he was coming over with us. We don't look at it like that.

Like, yo, why are you coming over him, you tell him how much you don't like me. Get away from me. But he was inviting conversation. He wanted you to say, oh, which thing did I say that you particularly didn't like? Well, let me tell you about this. In the next 15, 20 minutes, you guys spend vying things back and forth. Now he can call his friends from Cornell and be like, yo, man, I met Beaumonti Jones. He's as smart as he seems on TV. We should invite him up to the Cornell Club and see if we can get him involved in Blackwater or

or whatever. I got another one. All I felt was disrespect. Of course. I all I did it. But the thing was, it was done in such a like way where I couldn't have seen it coming

and I wasn't braced for it. Right? Like, have you ever had somebody hit all your girl in front of you, but you're not even thinking about that? And then it's just like, wait a minute. And now you can't, like I had a dude once where I was at breakfast

with my girl and he'd a waiter. and he almost poured coffee, like, missed my cup. And he was like, oh, my bad, I got a little distracted. I'm not paying no attention to that. It's because he is sitting dead red in her grill. But I ain't realized until, by the time I realized that all I could do was not give him a tip. Like, it was just a little bit too late. Like, by the time the disrespect had registered to me, I quickly, I just took my hand back.

That was the only thing I knew was that the handshake, portion of the program was over. I was so discombobulated, like, I can't believe this is actually happening. And I have no actual recourse at 44 years old. There's nothing I can really do about it. Yeah. I mean, you got to, at that point,

I like to just let it breathe. I'm more interested now that my, the era of, so growing up in Baton Rouge, the last thing you wanted to be was the one who got fucked over, right? Just for whatever reason. And if you got fucked over, the question you have to ask yourself is, why do they think they can fuck over me?

So that question of why do they think they could fuck over me would sometimes drive you to rage. It wasn't even that you took offense, so much offense, at what was going on. But you're thinking, what am I doing to make this person think that I'm the one to fuck over. Yeah. What makes you so sure

that I won't shoot you? Yeah. Like, it's something about me? Yeah. And so that makes you feel unsafe because to move around in those spaces, you kind of have to have people feel that you'll fuck them up.

That's gone within me. That's one thing that has died within me now. What's out within me now is like, I think getting older, going through some stuff, I have a little bit, I have confidence now to where I know. Some people are just blissfully unaware of the infractions that they commit against others.

And also, some people just don't give a fuck. So now in that situation, if my girl is getting hollowed at, I'm actually more interested in how she reacts than anything else. Like, I see it happening, and I wouldn't do anything but smile and just see, one, if she peeps it, and two, if she deads it. So that's more what I'm interested in now, just in any situation like that, because I think that I've come to a certain level of control

and understanding about myself, right? Very confident. Now I'm just kind of looking like, hmm, what's she going to do? And I'm not even going to get mad what she'll do. I just want to see what the waiter is hitting on you. He's doing all this. How are you going to react? Interesting.

Yeah, I see the argument because this happened like 20 years ago, right? or somewhere in that zone. So I'm in a completely different place. At that time, though, it's not even so much that I felt emasculated or anything. I felt I had no tools at that point. Like, I was old enough to know what I'm going to do, fight this man at, fight this man at the restaurant. I don't even live in this city.

You know what I'm saying? Like, like, what am I going to do that? No. All I can do is just sit here and then be like, oh, wait a minute. At least he didn't pour the coffee in my lap as he was doing it. Yeah. But once again, this last thing I say, I got to give him props, though, because...

No, you don't. You don't have to do. I do. I do. I disagree. Because I give props to anybody that shoots in that situation. That's called... So, me and the homies, back in the day, you say,

when you shoot from the compromise place, it's easy to shoot from Ohio, right? It's easy to shoot when you roll up in a bins. and you see a girl at the bus stop, it's easy to be like, yo, you want to ride? Like, I'll take you where you're getting to go. Like, that's easy. That don't take nothing.

But when you shoot from the bus stop to the girl in the bins, oh, you're the man. When you shoot as the waiter to the dude from ESPN and his girl, I commend that man. Because that man said,

fuck it. No, no, no, no, he did not. When you shoot, when you shoot from the, he did, he did not say, fuck it. He said, fuck you. And in this case, I am the you. And we are not commending. We're not commended. This is what I'm trying to explain to you.

I do. No, like, the fact that you respect, disrespect is honestly making me lose respect for you in this very moment. No, like this is, this is, this is. No, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't.

Bonani, come on, man. You know that you respect disrespect. You got to respect disrespect. Like, you, like, okay, I give you an example. Just real quick, Bumani, just real quick. We can get off this. This has been a blissful tangent, by the way. Let's say Kobe walking a gym, right?

Rest and peace, Kobe. Because the only reason why I think about Kobe is because he was the one that everybody wanted to be like. Let's say Kobe walking the gym. We all playing ball and equinoise Kobe walking the gym. Everybody going to be respectful of Kobe, right? Everybody going to be like, oh, my God, Kobe's out here.

Can I set a screen for Kobe? Can I rebound for Kobe? Can I get an assist to Kobe? Can I get an assist from Kobe? But see the one nigger that walking this bitch like, this is my chance? This is my chance to son Kobe that get like a flicked layup and goes, yeah, nigger.

Fuck, I'm talking about. That's the nigga I respect. I respect the one that said, fuck him. This is my chance to be better than... You know who you're saying you respect. That's the one I respect. You know, you know who you're saying you respect with that analogy.

You ride for Carl Malone. Ah, come on now. No, no, no, no, no. You ride for Carl Malone. There's some other things. No, no, no, no, no, no. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Oh, Moni, there's some other things.

Hold on, hold on. Hold on. Let me talk now as I let you go through that totally nonsensical spiel. Carl Malone pulled up on Vanessa at that game. Vanessa asked him if he was going hunting because he had his country-ass clothes on in L.A. And Carl Malone said to her, yeah, I'm going hunting for Mexican girls. Apparently since we respect and disrespect, you respecting the dude that disrespected Kobe and his queen. That's you.

That's you. That's you. That's you. That's you. Understand what I'm saying now. I understand clearly what you're saying. You understand what I'm saying. You, you, what you're doing right now is you're reorienting. I'm saying that the type of person that you respect is called alone.

Like, that is your teammate. And in that situation, I'm not saying respect breaking brotherhoods, right? I wouldn't respect my brother hollering at my girl. Like, I wouldn't expect my father hollering at my girl.

Like that, these are, you're breaking covenants. But if that situation, if that would have come from one of the catering guys that worked at the party, I would respect it. Like,

if it comes from Carl Malone, that's your teammates girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's your teammates girl. But if it comes from one of the guys that's like,

should not have the hubris to try that, I would respect it. Plus, Carl Malone, he is known for trying to get at women. He should not be getting at him. Hey, Van Lathan. A.k. A. K. A.k.a.a. The mailman. That's where we have with this. A. Mailman. Have you ever thought about smoking crack before? Have I ever thought about it? No. There's an interesting conversation that I had with one of my uncles about smoking crack.

Do tell. So, he's passed away now. But I remember I was talking to him one time. And he had had some issues with crack. and issues were crack the niggas smoked crack was into crack and I remember he was sober at this point

and so I asked him I was like man why are you why crack why would it be crack man like why crack and he goes

that's not a question for me the question is not why we are smoking crack the question is why y'all are smoking crack. And I was like, what do you mean? He goes, well, crack, when it came out, was a new drug for us. It was something to try.

Like, crack come out, 83, 84, 85. It's like, yo, we was getting high of cocaine in the 70s. The crack come out. And now we're trying to crack because that's a new drug that hit the street to cry. We had to try. We had no idea. He goes, y'all and y'all generation, y'all, know and y'all still fucking with it.

So the question isn't why we tried it. We were to crack guinea pigs. The question is why y'all see us and are still doing it. And I never forget that. That's a fairer point that I ever imagined. It leads us to a very convenient segue into Hunter Biden doing his interview for three hours

with some people I'd never heard of. Apparently they seem to have some measure of legitimacy because they got Hunter Biden to sit down for an interview. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I was trying to figure out what city it was in. You know what I'm saying? And then I was like, oh, okay, y'all got something completely different going on. The YouTube News Network, I ain't that familiar with that world. Now, first of all, it takes two minutes to listen to Hunter Biden and be like, oh, I see how you are trapped through this world. This man is incredibly charming. Like in that trial, when that woman was like, yo, the first time I met him, he was smoking crack, but I really liked him. Like, it all, like, shines out. He also says, something that I had never considered about crack smoking. And I'll be honest with you. I heard him pop some shots at like Axelrod and Carville and all of them, but the stuff that's really got the streets on fires him talking about crack, right? He was talking about he himself cooking

up crack. And, you know, as a student of rap music, only people I ever here talk about cooking up crack is the dudes that sell to crack. I had never considered the idea of people buying the cocaine and making their own crack at home. I had never really, like I imagine that's a great way to save a little money. Yeah, or to control be how pure your crack is. The Hunter Biden interview just told me that anything

can be elevated. You can elevate anything. You know how, like, people get into food down and chefs and they go, hey, this is a taco, but it's an elevated taco. Hey, this is Chitlins, but these are elevated chitlins.

Right? You can elevate anything. Hunter Biden sounded like, and maybe there's a racial component here because he's a rich white guy that's talking about it. Maybe you could have got this same crack dissertation from anybody that was walking around in any of these places like this, but maybe the optics of it changed because it's him. But he got into the purity of crack. He got into the ritual of crack smoking and why it's so he really kind of in a way opened up a gateway to talk about the actual addictive nature of it and why. it might have the hold on people that it has other than I just can't shake that crack.

And part of that has to do with the fact that he's a white guy, a rich white guy, but still it was very interesting to listen to. Well, I felt like a couple of things, right? One, I thought that he offered plausible explanation as to how it is that somebody gets addicted to crack, right? Because basically, here's the thing, right? there aren't that many people that we think of as being strung out on crack who are pop who who who get into a position to clean up and come talk about it right

white black or otherwise okay right you get the occasional uh glen lary i don't know if you're familiar with him he's a economist he's a doctor yeah fairly uh conservative sort of cat he was had a job lined up with the cabinet man but they caught him with cocaine and he'd be out there smoking crack glen is somebody who could probably explain to you what the crack situation is but the only crack smokers that we see are the crack smokers. Like, we only see the heads, right? I tried to explain to somebody once that there was a such thing as the occasional crack user, which I didn't believe back in the day,

but then I realized it's more people smoking crack than just the fiends that's on the street, right? So Hunter Biden became the rare person who had lived the life that allowed him to tell the world that he had smoked crack because as he pointed out in the interview, you can't just be out here telling people that you smoke crack. They're going to judge you. And you're goddamn right, we are. We are absolutely going to judge you for smoking. in his crack. So when he was talking about how, you know, he had like a flow chart basically,

like the oral fixation stuff and everything else and it goes in a circle and the ritual of it and the hand to mouth and how you start as a child and you're brought into this whole situation and everything else. And I was like, damn, this man got all the game. Like, this just ain't about you being no white man. You are a different white man. Like you, you are your father's son if your father, you know, smoke rocks. Yeah, it's, he's got the charm that comes with the seasoning that American aristocracy can give you almost fumbled that word.

But you know it's funny, my boy, and I'm not going to mention his name, my best friend in the world, he was a long-time drug dealer. And he would always say crackheads don't make you rich. You don't get rich off crackheads. Crackheads ain't got no money. Crackheads ain't never got no money.

He was like, what keeps me selling crack? is the person that work at your job that has a job and has income coming in that can continuously buy crack and not just continuously buy crack but introduce crack to other people like people that like

they'll smoke crack at a party and people be like well oh my God if Hunter Biden is doing this think don't think about Hunter Biden think about how many crack heads Hunter Biden has made think about that like Hunter Biden being a crackhead

is one thing right but picture this think about Hunter Biden being the rich son of the vice president or a senator or whomever you go to Hunter Biden's house to party

or to his boat or whatever you think that you own you like oh my God I'm partying with the top of the top of American power, wealth, and influence. He break out the crack. You're going to try it. He break out the crack.

There's a lot of people out there that's going to be like Hunter Biden and broke out the crack. I'm going to try it. Hunter Biden has made a lot of crack heads. And he's a crack evangelist. He's somebody that can get out there and tell you about it and get you into it and the whole nine. They stole the virtues.

The virtues of it to a degree that's out of this world. So he's probably made so many crackheads. It's somebody right now that's watching that someplace and they fucked up because their daddy would never have in the president and they go, oh my God. They're still on that same shit. So that day, those type of crackheads is what actually keeps the drug dealers rich because they spread the word of crack around. And they're to a small degree inside of communities as well.

So you're saying that like crack heads don't get you, don't keep the drug dealers rich, but the crack heads, they keep your wheel wells clean, right? Like they keep your oil change. You need somebody to change out the small block that they got you on that one. That's what the crack heads do,

odds and ends. He said crack users keep you rich. Yes. So that's what I'm saying. Like the people like, we always hear about the crack heads all the way. They always try to barter. is so form of fashion.

This is why this happened because and this people are going to be listening to this are going to be outraged, but I don't know what to tell you. This is the conversations that we used to have. He would tell me he would be like, he would be like there was one guy and it was a guy in Denham Springs, a white guy in Denham Springs.

Dism Springs is a white enclave, very racist white enclave on the outskirts of what would be considered Bad Rouge proper. And he would be like, the guy had to sell his television to get money to come bring him money for crack. And I was like, first of all, bro, you got to change your life.

And I was like, secondly, what do you care? He goes, that just lets me know that he's not going to be a good customer for too much. He's running. He's bottoming out. He's getting towards the end of it. It was like, I would rather him be functional and be able to do this every week, every couple of days, a couple of times a month to where I knew that money. but if he's starting to sell shit, that just tells me that he's bottoming out.

He's like, those aren't the guys that keep me in business. The guys that keep me in business are people that somewhat, somewhat have control over it and can keep coming back and keep coming back and keep coming back. This also wasn't a guy that was catching a corner. So he wasn't on the corner dealing to people on the corner. He was more of an upscale guy to go to your house and all that. Oh, no, no, okay, okay, not a wholesale. Not a wholesale, no.

We don't get to that point. Yeah, yeah. Different clientele. The more you know, coming back with more next. All right, we're back on the right time with Van Lathen. On Monday, I was supposed to do a hit on CNN, talking about Donald Trump trying to change the name, back to the Auras over there.

And as it happened, Malcolm Chabal Warner passed away. And it was kind of interesting because they were preparing to figure out, like how to tell me that they didn't want me to be on the show no more, but I was already like, so like when I sat down for it, TMZ had the report, but CNN hadn't been able to confirm. And so they were waiting until they got their confirmation. And then I think at some point, somebody realized, wait, he's black in his 40s. Maybe he can talk about this. So they had already called on some other black person to talk. But then they're like, well, would you like to stay on for the conversation? They didn't mention that they were killing my other shit, right? They just asked,

would you like to stay on? And I was like, look, I'm here. I'm budgeted this time. We got it on and we talked about it. And blessed their hearts, man, because they only have so many questions, man. The first question that bad asked me was, you know, after, you know, Bill Cosby and all the things that happened,

Malcolm Chibald Warner had this to say about that. How do you think about, what do you think about the way that he handled it? I'm like, damn, that's question number one. The man just drowned accidentally. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I had to, I had to, I figured out how to like, hit a little L1 on him and get that to read the end of the other.

But I was like, hey, man, that man right there is in a pinch. Like, you know, a lot of people, you know, when they go, they got the old bits ready. They got the questions going. This is one they had not prepared for. And that man hit me with that question. And I was like, man, I got to figure out how I'm going to do this. Yeah, it happened live on higher learning. And it was pretty shocking.

You know what the, I'm coming off real cynical this morning. But when accomplished people die, it is always. a shock because whatever their accomplishment it is, you feel connected to it. In this case, if Bill Cosby was the dad of the 80s, then, you know, Malcolm Jamal Warner was the son, right? But there's something else that also compounds this.

Why I think people have seen so much from the response is that he was decent. And that's tough. For somebody to have been, And it shouldn't be, but for someone to have been in the industry as long as what he was, to have had the career that he did and not become jaded, not become cynical, not become a jerk, right? He was a curious guy. He was an artistic guy.

He was a guy that looked at the world through the purview of art, but used art to affect the world. was a good guy. Like he was a good guy. And you go 54 on vacation with everything, survived being a child star, survived the scandal that whoever that guy was tried to connect him to. He didn't have anything to do with that, right? What difference does it make how he responds? Like, oh, we interviewed him on higher learning. We asked him the same questions. You kind of have to about what he thought and how he would react to that. But even when we did, he talked about. He talked about. his parents and what they did for him to keep him safe as a child star in the 80s as a man growing into himself in the 90s and, you know, on from there. He was just a decent good guy.

And it's one of those things that feels like a kick in the gut because you lost an artist that you could connect with and you just also lost somebody that would have been responsible for making more good people. Well, you say something interesting on the child star front that I really hadn't thought about, which was as big as the Cosby show was and as famous as they all became, it ain't different strokes, right? Like, we don't have the stories about the children of that show that you had from other, for whatever reason, right? Like, I hadn't really thought about that, but given the magnitude of how big and famous, everybody really became off of that, it's interesting that none of them really went down their road. And I think with Malcolm Jamal Warner, what I find kind of

interesting is that it feels like he wound up living the life that you would hope that somebody could live when you make the ridiculous decision to allow your children to participate in Hollywood at a high level as children, right? Like you get some bread, it can set you up for a future that from there you can do the things that you want to do. That if somebody, if they can keep you out of trouble and it doesn't wind up going too far, you got a pad that lets you be the artist that you want to be later. Like, I had a meeting once with a dude in L.A. and he sold me the best advice he ever got for somebody was, if you're going to sell out, do it early, right?

Like, it's a lot easier to have principles and stuff after you got some money in your pocket. And so if you can get the money that you get off of being a child star and then from there, you know, there's Malcolm and Eddie and the things like that, right? But hey, you know, like that, I don't think that's, that's not at the top of the resume, but it ain't nothing to be ashamed of, right? But you get that money early and then you can do all this stuff that he did for the rest of his life. Yeah, he was a poet.

he was a musician he was an activist a thinker all of that stuff and i think that he was having i don't want to say a resurgence right now but he was finding himself creatively in this part of his life in a way that from my discussion with him seemed to be very uh satisfying for him and that also for people that have been following some of the stuff that he had done recently is probably very hard for people to come to terms with. When we grew up, kids on TV were stars. They weren't ancillary parts of these productions. Plucky Brewster had her own show.

Different Strokes was about those kids. Webster was about the kid. Silver Spoons was about the kid. Fresh Prince of Bel Air even getting into later on, the children were the centerpiece of those stars. That's not as big of a deal as much as it used to be. be, you know, Netflix does bring back the teen drama and stuff, but I'm talking about the sitcom where America's tuning in for the cute kid. That thrust a lot on those kids all at once.

Even the movie ones, like the two quarries and all that. That put a lot Robert Downey Jr. on those kids all at once. And with the fact that the 80s were kind of a free-for-all, I mean, Bumani, have you ever thought about the fact that everything that we do to keep children safe now is actually a reaction to our childhood. Every single thing that we do to keep kids safe now is like because we realized in the 80s it was kind of just a free-for-all,

your parents would be like, don't talk to strangers, don't get into the thing with a white van, because people was talking to strangers and getting into weird vans with guys giving them candy and stuff like that. So all the protections and stuff that they had for us that exists for kids now where because our childhoods

were so in the wilderness and then when you are a child star you were in Hollywood with it but he maintained to live a life with dignity where he continued to explore himself and then he passed away in an unexpected way

so I think a lot of people were just in shock yesterday. It is interesting to me to watch the ways that people respond to celebrity deaths because I have, like, I got a lot of friends that's been to a lot more funerals than I have, right? But I feel like in my life, I've been to a disproportionate amount of, like, natural causes, funerals or like, like, innocent bystander bullet funerals, like things in that way.

And I don't, I don't think I have the same reaction or the same relationships with people on screen that a lot of people have. So I can often feel a little bit on the outside when people would be like, you know, it feels like a family member died. No, it doesn't. For me, at least, right? That's not to judge anybody else on their reactions. But the Theo Hustible character reminded me of what my brother was when he was younger, very much. My brother always talks about that the relationship between Cliff and Theo was the most realistic representation of fatherhood on television, right? Because it was always a cat and mouse game, almost in how it was played. And I think I've said on CNN that I think was interesting about like the quality of acting on the show is he was acting as

that character in the age range of that character, right? Like he's not that much older in life than he is on screen. And I think it takes a particular level of self-awareness and like an understanding of the world to be able to grasp, call it 16, how a 14-year-old acts or at 15, right? Because at 16, you think you're growing and you're not. To be able to recognize, like, no, this is the way a teenager would handle this sort of thing. Like the scene where the regular person scene, the all-time classic, no one, do you make D's and everything, right?

I just want to be a regular person. But when he tried to get his ear pierce and so his dad wouldn't recognize, which is only something a stupid teenager would come up with. And they're sitting on the bed and they're going like this because Cliff is trying to get a peek at it and they're doing that guide around. It's like, oh, no, you nailed what it is to be a stupid-ass teenage boy in a much different way that I can recall anybody having really gotten on a show like that. Yeah, I think that two things.

One, that was really well said, but two things. The first is that I think people sometimes feel connected to people on screen because they have an idea of what they will want their family to be. So when a actual family member dies, you have to wrestle with a lot of things. And a lot of them aren't so. There's a part of it that's just like, man, I don't get to hunt. hug this person anymore. But then there are so many things that are left unsaid. There are so many things that you have to deal with. You wonder if you could have done anything. If there was,

like there's so much, there's so much emotion there. There's sometimes guilt. There's sometimes shame. There's sometimes anger. There's all of that. When somebody that's like family dies, it's just adulation and love that you have for them. So it's just like, oh my God, they're not saying that Malcolm Jamal Warner died. They're looking at them as if he were Theo, Huxable. They feel like this is the end of the life of Theo Huxbull. They felt that close to him because they only, they never had to have any complicated feelings about it. And it's just a reminder that what they saw wasn't actually real. So there's a lot of these parosocial relationships that people have with people that are on the screen sometimes exist because fantasy is a very potent part

of the human experience, how you would want things to be. Secondly, with His portrayal of Theo, you nailed it. Those kids felt like real kids. They didn't have answers. They weren't doing ridiculously stupid things like in the movie war games where you almost start a thermonuclear war. They were doing real world stupid kid things. They wrote them like they were kids.

Like, I'm going to a concert. I shouldn't have gone to. And the concert goes crazy. Like I want an expensive shirt. I buy the shirt. The shirt is too much money. I got to take it back. Now my sister makes the shirt.

The shirt looks crazy. They wrote them like they were kids. They didn't give them too much. They gave them just enough for it to be really believable. And then Cliff and Claire were there to remind the world that it's their job to take these people and make real world citizens out of them. And it was very effective. And for Cliff and Claire, regardless of how professional you are, no matter how well you have it

together, no matter what you're provided these kids, they're still fucking idiots. It doesn't matter. There's nothing that you can do to stop the fact that they're idiots. And that's a lot of like, there's a longer story to be had about how our childhoods, that the current childhood is a response to our childhood from people who are the people they are that they are very proud of being because they had the childhoods that we have and have them stripped them away for like that's that that that that's a whole different discussion right but i look back on it and i'm like look you know my parents are professors um i i am very familiar with that world of like the two

parents who got it right well also i know their kids very very very well and their kids already mixed bag and bags like we're ever mixed you know what i'm saying i would ask you this though because the thing about the parisosal's relationship i think is interesting because i'm i realize this part about myself, and I'm wondering if anybody listening can relate to this part, which is, and maybe this is a little bit selfish, right? Mm-hmm. I don't listen to Domingos, but it really hit me when Takeoff died, in part because they were still current. Like, they were still doing it. It's like, who knows what else may have come

if this had not happened. I think Nipsey Hustle is a very similar example when he died. I wasn't like a super fan of his, but I can recognize. It lands differently with me. Like you say for them, it's like Theo Huxable died. But for me, Theo Huxble stopped being a thing in 1992. You know what I mean? Like when people are far removed, like it was wild when Prince died. And look, you know how, I mean, I talked to you that morning to make sure that what I was reading was not crazy. Right. That was a big one for me. But I was still for me kind of like what I loved about Prince, I had and would always have. And so from there, it got to the, we all going to die someday territory. And it was a rest in peace. I mean, I remember me and my brother talking about it that night and it was crazy,

but it didn't feel like, I didn't feel that immediate shock and grief that people have. And I think it's maybe because like the utility of those people played in my lives had already been served and it would always, it would always be there. Like that was how I saw it. So it's interesting for me to watch people and the relationships that they have where to them, Theo Huxable continues to be a living, breathing being as opposed to me where it's like, oh, that stopped 33 years ago. Interesting. I think it's

that is actually incredibly interesting. I think that a lot of people probably feel that way. But there's also a way that I think sometimes people feel to where they look at these figures and people as everlasting and then their death, the death

of the people is a reminder that they're not. Right? So Prince's music, like just take Prince, for example, The morning of Prince's music is the thought that Prince had created something that is eternal. That Prince as a force, there's a, I can't remember which movie it was. I think Michael Madsen delivers the line. I can't remember which movie it was. And it says John Wayne dead.

Oh, it's in Donnie Brasco. And he's looking at the thing. It says, John Wayne dead. And then he goes, how can John Wayne die? Now, if you had read some of John Wayne's interviews and got some of his thoughts, maybe you'd be pleased that John Wayne kicked the bucket. But whatever. I think sometimes these people become institutions and their death is a reminder that everything is sort of temporary. Like the death of Michael Jackson, people look at Michael Jackson, they think of Thriller, I Want You Back.

They don't even think about some of the other more controversial aspects of his life. they think about their connection to someone and the fact that that someone can no longer enjoy being who they are. The relationship that people have with celebrities is really interesting because it's not just that

they want the celebrity, that they want to be that person. They're happy that that person is that person. And I saw this at TMZ. It's like, you like the fact that Leonardo DiCaprio can be on a boat. You like Michael

Jackson being Michael Jackson. You like Prince being Prince. You want them to enjoy them being who they are. Like that's why people are so investing into that stuff. So part of it is that you can't enjoy them anymore. But part of the morning was that Prince doesn't get to perform Purple Rain anymore. You don't get to see it, but he doesn't get to do it. And because that connection that people feel to them is like there's a oneness there that is really interesting about the human experience. Yeah, like, you know, look, I would have seen Prince play purple around every tour at the, toward the end, right? And it's interesting because I didn't quite view it that way with him because you're right.

Like, I think with Michael Jackson, and I'm not really a Michael Jackson guy, but I always felt like from people with Michael Jackson, they felt like he might still have one more in him. Like, you know how it was in Mike Tyson, Fallenix Lewis, and we just kept thinking that maybe for one night, Mike Tyson could dial it up one more time, right? He was clearly not this dude anymore. But we always, and I think Michael Jackson in particular

was the one that people felt like one more time he might be able to dial it up. And I do think that maybe that's part of the effect from person to person is whether you think that like one more time they could dial up something for it. The Mike Tyson of it all, I hate that when people say of it all, but I just had to do it.

That needs to be studied. Because that feeling about my time, has been one of the most enduring things in sports culture. That happened like earlier this year or whatever it was, maybe last year. Whatever the Mike Tyson, Jake Paul thing was happening, people were like, yeah, Mike's 57, yeah, he's had a ton of injuries, yeah. But, you know, it's Mike Tyson. It only takes one shot. And I was telling people, this is not going to go like y'all think it's going to go.

Like reality is real. And he's old. but Mike Tyson lived off that it is Mike Tyson thing for years. He literally had to have his shield ripped off his body in the ring not by Lennox Lewis by the way, by Danny Williams by guys that we were like, okay, it's really over, right?

And even when that happened, we mourned the death of Mike Tyson dominant boxing. People just need something and someone to believe in. And the one thing that really stops you more than anything from believing that the people that you admire are superhuman is when they die. Because when they die, you are reminded. They are just humans capable of super things.

They are not super humans. And I think sometimes that's a little bit of a mind fuck for people. Yeah, I wrote after Prince died, I was like, dying is the only ordinary thing you ever did. Right. You know what I mean? Like it was impossible to believe that that man could do something so ordinary. And I'll ask you this question kind of as we get to the end here.

Is it better than we waited to talk about Malcolm Jamal Warner and get to the places we got to after talking about the crack? Or should we talk about the crack after? Like, you know, should we have gotten people to this like heartfelt emotional place and then got us to the crack? Like I'm taking inventory. I'm doing this right now for us for the people. Like as I thought about it, I was like, wow, we just had an excellent like, excellent 20, 30 minutes of this, right? And I'm like, damn, maybe I shouldn't have got us to the crack, you know, so quick. Maybe I shouldn't have been out here talking about the prison rodeo and everything else.

Maybe I should have got right to the emotions. But I wanted to talk about crack. And your insights about the crack and the market research and everything else was all so, fascinating, but I just wondered if I had done this wrong. You know what I'm saying? But you know what, Bo, every,

there's so many people that are that are casted in the role of the black Larry David. But I'm not so sure that Larry David isn't the white

Bommon. What'd be going on? I'm not so sure that he's not The white Bumani Jones. Nah, man, the conversation. I'm just saying, I'm just saying. Like, like, so, so this is the thing with me. You know what I'm saying?

When it comes to those things is every now and then, you got to figure out a way to, like, to put a pit in it, but you don't want it to be down. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes you got a, you got to scratch into some heat. Worker, work out. And then get it right there. And then the people be like, oh, yeah, that,

I forgot about that jam. Yeah, he played it earlier. It was hitting, yeah. We can listen to it. more time, you know what I'm saying? Word, word. No, I think it rolled out the way it was supposed to because the story about you being on

CNN when he passed away, it's the same thing that happened on Higher Learning. Like, I legitimately, me and Rachel are talking about Stephen Colbert or something else, and you can see it on the recording. Higher Learning on the Ring of Podcast Network, by the way, go check it out. You can see me go. And then, I mean, it's me and her,

but we've had them on the show, We've talked to them. We have to figure out how we contextualize his life real quick. And I think a lot of people are still kind of struggling and dealing with that. Doug, I think people, do you know that the Prince thing? If I remember correctly, I don't think Prince got his just due for his death. And I'll tell you why. I think the Prince thing, if I remember correctly, and I always blame Charlemagne for this,

I'm going to blame him for it right now. the Prince thing happened the same weekend as Birdman put some respect on my name. Wow. And so I think Birdman put some respect on my name actually muted some of the discussion and the talk about the life of Prince. Because I'm pretty sure, because this was a, I remember how TMZ broke the story of Prince passing away. I remember how we got the story. I'm pretty sure that Birdman put some respect on my name was either a couple of days after or that weekend

and I always thought, man, Birdman owns, owes the Prince's State an apology for making everybody talk about put some respect on my name for five, six days in a row when we should have been talking about Purple Rain. Timing is so interesting, right? Farah Fawcett dies right before Michael Jackson dies. Same thing. Yep. Right, like there's that one.

There was another one that I just thought about. But I was in Paris and Prince died. I went to Paris to interview Tata Hasi for Playboy. And so I was... Talk to shit. I was immersed in it, right? And, you know, my social media feed was all of it. Like, I...

It... How the news cycle... Oh, this is what I was thinking about. James Brown died on Christmas Day. Oh, shit. I don't even remember that. Yeah. Exactly.

Right. James Brown died on Christmas Day. And then, by the way, later we find out that James Brown may have been murdered. And that didn't even, like, make tracks. James Brown, the baddest motherfucker never lived. And that never really got the traction. But Prince died. Prince died three months after David Bowie died, right?

And like with Bowie, in line with what I was saying, Bowie had a set that when he died, a new album would come out. And it was good. And the one he had put out before that was also good. But it was like your friendly reminder that David Bowie is still a bad motherfucker and he died. You know, like those hit like differently.

Damn, I had just figured out how to get us out on a happy note talking about crap. So, man, lay. Van Lathethe. Check him out on the Rangor. It's been the 11th Crack Commandment here. Don't, don't, by just saying, once he sell his TV, he'll get no more rock from me. Because, you know, it's about to be bad news, you know what I say?

My brother, I appreciate you. Always, man. I appreciate what you doing, brother. Keep it up. All right, man, be good. And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on the right time. We do this three times a week. Ryan Brumley handled everything behind the scenes.

Thank you, sir. remember follow the right time subscribe like rate us review us give us five stars you only give us four stars i'm inclined to believe you are a hater and we'll talk to you guys in a couple of days take it easy