Speaker 1: What's going on y'all? This is Vic Mensa and I'm
Speaker 1: on a bootleg cav podcast.
Speaker 2: Bootleg CAB podcast special guests in here, my guy. His
Speaker 2: new album is coming out September fifteenth. I can't even
Speaker 2: believe that this is only your second album full length, yeah,
Speaker 2: which is crazy, because Jesus, it's been a long journey, man,
Speaker 2: Vic Mensis here.
Speaker 1: Peace, peace, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir man, it is kind of crazy to think, like,
Speaker 2: I know you just did like the internet tape in
Speaker 2: its entirety with chance.
Speaker 1: Was it two shows you did? Second show is in
Speaker 1: la or September twenty.
Speaker 2: One, Okay, so that's still coming. How many years ago
Speaker 2: is that? Ten years now?
Speaker 1: It was ten years this year, crazy, September thirtieth will
Speaker 1: be the ten year. How are you feeling right now? Though?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 1: You've had feeling good, Man, feeling good. I'm feeling super blessed. Man.
Speaker 1: It's just grateful, inspired, motivated, a lot of clarity focused.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: You've had one of the more interesting journeys in rap.
Speaker 2: You've been obviously you know, a part of an amazing
Speaker 2: group that I feel like kind of kicked down the
Speaker 2: doors of a lot of what you know, that early
Speaker 2: Chicago wave that you and Chance were a part of.
Speaker 2: Shot the kids these days fast forward.
Speaker 1: Because it was on tour with Asher Roth. Was that
Speaker 1: when I first.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I first met you, you guys came in
Speaker 2: freestyle at the radio.
Speaker 1: It was that Phoenix. That was the middle of the
Speaker 1: night too. It's like after after the show, Yeah, Phoenix,
Speaker 1: we was mobbed up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who else was there was a Chuck English?
Speaker 1: Chuck English was there too? Maybe Buddy, I old Buddy
Speaker 1: was on the tour, but from l A, Yeah, Buddy dude,
Speaker 1: I don't know if he was.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know about him back then. So that's
Speaker 2: crazy because I.
Speaker 1: Come to think of it like he was definitely with us,
Speaker 1: and I don't think I all the way put it
Speaker 1: together later down the line, when I reconnected with Buddy
Speaker 1: in the studio with Pharrell, you know, because he was
Speaker 1: signing for real for sometime and but I had first
Speaker 1: gotten a normal tour with Asher, he was just like,
Speaker 1: you know, they're crazy young homie, know, I mean always
Speaker 1: smoking and crip walking.
Speaker 2: I think was that the Paps and Jazz tour?
Speaker 1: That was Paps and Jazz shout to shout out to
Speaker 1: Asher Roth, that's my boy, man.
Speaker 2: Great guy. But you just had such a crazy journey, man.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, obviously to only have like you
Speaker 2: have to meet classic bodies of work, but to like
Speaker 2: actually think, like damn, you really only have two full
Speaker 2: length albums, like this is your second one coming out
Speaker 2: on the fifteenth. Why Victor?
Speaker 1: And why why now? I called it Victor because it's
Speaker 1: a very personal album and I think it represents me,
Speaker 1: like as a human being, and that's that's me before nicknames,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And I had a revelation
Speaker 1: about my name when I was doing Mushrooms in the
Speaker 1: Woods Amazing, always a great time. You know. I took
Speaker 1: my moms to do Mushrooms in the Woods Amazing recently.
Speaker 1: That was fire nice. And I had a revelation about
Speaker 1: my name just in that, Like I realized, man, it's
Speaker 1: so much in a name, and oftentimes the names that
Speaker 1: were given almost predict the lives that we lead. You know.
Speaker 1: I was named Victor in honor of my most famous
Speaker 1: ancestor on my father's side. My father's from Ghana. My
Speaker 1: entire family lives over there, and the most famous ancestor
Speaker 1: in his lineage. His name brotem Noma from you know,
Speaker 1: many centuries ago, and he fought against British invasion into Africa.
Speaker 1: And I was named victor in honor of his victories.
Speaker 1: And I was sitting there in the woods and I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking about it, and I was realizing, man like,
Speaker 1: he fought for freedom all those hundreds of years ago
Speaker 1: and I was just named that and fast forward here
Speaker 1: I am like freeing people from prison and helping get
Speaker 1: people off death row. And it was almost like just
Speaker 1: a revelation that this path was laid out for me.
Speaker 1: And I think even in reflecting upon the ups and downs,
Speaker 1: the struggles, the fight, you know what I mean, just
Speaker 1: a sense of perseverance is that like I'm programmed to win.
Speaker 1: I'm programmed to live through things because I am victor.
Speaker 1: I'm the victor, you know what I'm saying. But to
Speaker 1: be the victor, you have to have a fight.
Speaker 2: You got to have a fight to win, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean.
Speaker 1: You have to have a fight to win. And I
Speaker 1: would characterize, you know, my time in music and the
Speaker 1: music industry much in that way, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: It has been a battle. I think our first battle though,
Speaker 1: as human beings is with ourselfs, you know, so eight
Speaker 1: and coming into music, predating me meeting Bootleg keV when
Speaker 1: I was a teenager, you know, that battle with myself
Speaker 1: on that tour. I was seventeen. Jesus Christ. I have
Speaker 1: more of a beer than than that.
Speaker 2: Sure, a lot more hairy, scruffy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for real, I don't think I've changed my clothes
Speaker 1: that whole tour like crazy. It's on YouTube watching, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, predating all those things that battle with self existed,
Speaker 1: and I think coming into music, I say that whatever
Speaker 1: you got going on is just going to be magnified,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So the talent, the genius,
Speaker 1: the charisma, the creativity magnified. Also the insecurities, you know,
Speaker 1: the depression, the addiction, like the addictive personality, all those things,
Speaker 1: it's just magnified. And coming in to this industry that
Speaker 1: is so doggy dog chew you up and spit you out.
Speaker 1: For sure, I think everything was just everything was just magnified.
Speaker 1: So it's really been a fight. But I named the
Speaker 1: album that because the album is like really a story
Speaker 1: of redemption and me expressing a lot of gratitude for
Speaker 1: being able to live through that fight because a lot
Speaker 1: of young rappers don't get that chance.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, did you have like because I
Speaker 2: feel like so not just artists, but specifically artists because
Speaker 2: you guys are under a lot of public scrutiny. But
Speaker 2: did you because you're You're so much more than an artist, right,
Speaker 2: And sometimes fans will just look at you through like
Speaker 2: the music lens as opposed to like who you are
Speaker 2: as a human being? Right? And I think a lot
Speaker 2: of us get so wrapped up and associating our identity
Speaker 2: with our refreession.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And there's some people are like, well, what are you
Speaker 2: if your profession goes away? What are you if radio
Speaker 2: goes away? What are you if hip hop goes away?
Speaker 2: Did you have like a hard time getting because you
Speaker 2: had a lot of eyes on you in terms of
Speaker 2: like the you know what I'm saying, Kanye Co signs
Speaker 2: the Rockefeller shit that you know, was there a point
Speaker 2: in time where you like kind of came to like, yo,
Speaker 2: I got to kind of like remember who I am
Speaker 2: and separate who vic Men's is and what who like
Speaker 2: hip hop sies me as and who I am as
Speaker 2: like a human being?
Speaker 1: You know, what I'm saying, I think that's a constant
Speaker 1: thing is to recognize that my identity as a human
Speaker 1: being and as like a spiritual being is not the
Speaker 1: same as my Instagram right, right, right, right right. I'm saying, like,
Speaker 1: this thing does not represent me in totality, and I
Speaker 1: think that our propensity as people that live in a
Speaker 1: public eye can be to place all weight in that.
Speaker 1: But type of music I make and the art I
Speaker 1: create that I strive to create isn't something that's based
Speaker 1: on fame or clout or money or you know, anything
Speaker 1: like that. That's never been my north star. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's never been why I started to do this. I
Speaker 1: think oftentimes in today's hip hop, especially like it's a
Speaker 1: means to an end, you know what I mean, people
Speaker 1: are like, man, I wanted to do this because I
Speaker 1: saw they was rich. I wanted to get rich, right,
Speaker 1: you know, which is great, But that was never and
Speaker 1: has never been my mo That was never why I
Speaker 1: started doing this. You know, I was inspired to do
Speaker 1: this because the way Common talked on records spoke to me.
Speaker 1: It gave me perspective about myself, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: the way Tupac talked on record helped me through tough shit,
Speaker 1: you know, as a child and as a man, and
Speaker 1: those are the reasons why I started to do this.
Speaker 1: So getting in that position, you know, to be there
Speaker 1: with the people that I idolized coming into this. Although that's
Speaker 1: amazing and that's like a dream come true, that's still
Speaker 1: not the main reason why I ever did this. But
Speaker 1: you could get caught up in that though. I was
Speaker 1: out of a convo with no Idea the other day. Man,
Speaker 1: you know, he was like, He's like, yeah, you got
Speaker 1: tossed into the motherfucking like the whirlwind. No, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, jay Z Beyonce in the mix of that.
Speaker 1: But like I said, it's like you still got that
Speaker 1: magnifying glass on everything that was there before, you know.
Speaker 1: So something I've been exploring in this album and speaking
Speaker 1: about a lot is the power of my words and
Speaker 1: the power of my thoughts, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And from the time when I was five years old,
Speaker 1: I found a notebook that was full of suicidal writings,
Speaker 1: you know from me that you wrote that I wrote
Speaker 1: when I was five years old, And so I kind
Speaker 1: of always had a certain programming towards depression, and you know,
Speaker 1: those things will inevitably, if allowed to fester, come to pass,
Speaker 1: you know. So at the same time as I always
Speaker 1: wanted to be great, you know, I always was feeding
Speaker 1: this voice in my head that wanted to destroy me
Speaker 1: at the same time. So even though I achieved greatness,
Speaker 1: I still had no sense of how to calm down
Speaker 1: that innate urge for self destruction that was in there,
Speaker 1: you know. So I could be, you know, on a
Speaker 1: tour with jay Z, you know what I mean, in
Speaker 1: front of thirty thousand people a night, and still be
Speaker 1: like depressed, you know what I mean, and not living
Speaker 1: in the moment, not living in the moment, not knowing
Speaker 1: how right, and being like I never even thought it
Speaker 1: was possible to impact act those thoughts, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So a lot of the things I think
Speaker 1: that people might have seen, you know, and the behaviors
Speaker 1: that what happening simultaneously, that was just the manifestation of
Speaker 1: that other side of my brain, that voice in my head.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people experience, like, man, you
Speaker 1: don't deserve this, you know what I mean, you might
Speaker 1: you're not worth it. In imposter syndrome, that's a real thing.
Speaker 1: You could be really who you think you are, have
Speaker 1: a voice in your head telling you that you don't
Speaker 1: deserve to be here real, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And I was experiencing that shit constantly, So I think
Speaker 1: in many ways I had to experience the culmination of
Speaker 1: all of that and all the controversy and the drama
Speaker 1: and you know, being ostracized and outcasted to really get
Speaker 1: the moment to reflect and understand like, okay, so here
Speaker 1: I am. I have been blessed immensely in that I
Speaker 1: ain't have to die behind this, you know. So now
Speaker 1: let me reapproach this with intention. Let me not just
Speaker 1: let my mind say whatever it want to say all
Speaker 1: day long and be beefing with this person and outwardly
Speaker 1: expressing whatever frustration I'm feeling internally through all these other things,
Speaker 1: because it ain't about that, you know what I mean. Man,
Speaker 1: About that policeman get up today shoot a nigga with
Speaker 1: his hand in his hoodie. Man, he probably having a
Speaker 1: bad day in his own you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But he's finding someone else that he might perceive as
Speaker 1: being the problem to express whatever problems he has going
Speaker 1: on with himself.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like a lot of your conflicts were
Speaker 2: similar in terms of you kind of dealing with whatever
Speaker 2: you were going through by maybe lashing out at certain
Speaker 2: individuals or think.
Speaker 1: I think it was always complex, you know. I think
Speaker 1: I've been dealing with a lot since I was a
Speaker 1: child identified that I've also been very politically minded, for sure,
Speaker 1: and I've also stood on what I believe in, and
Speaker 1: the combination of those created a lot of conflicts. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you look back at all these different conflicts, ninety
Speaker 1: percent of the time, controversies, whatever it is, they were
Speaker 1: rooted in some principle. You know that I felt I
Speaker 1: was standing on that most oftentimes, if you were to
Speaker 1: write it down would be something that people would agree with,
Speaker 1: they'd be like, yeah, but if you just write down
Speaker 1: the issue and the stance the position.
Speaker 2: I remember, I remember very vividly, like when X was alive,
Speaker 2: I kind of remember why you took the stance you took,
Speaker 2: And I wasn't mad at it because I think it
Speaker 2: was like because some of the allegations that he had
Speaker 2: against him, And I was like, I mean, I get it,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. But I think in retrospect, obviously,
Speaker 2: you know, not every battle is your battle and.
Speaker 1: This is what I came to learn, really, and what
Speaker 1: I came to understand is that like, not all truths
Speaker 1: need to be told all the time, and the judgment
Speaker 1: is for god, you know what I mean. But I
Speaker 1: don't think I've recognized and through that situation was able
Speaker 1: to learn was that judge not lest you be judged, condemned,
Speaker 1: not less you be condemned. You know, point a finger,
Speaker 1: you got three fingers pointing back at you. And also
Speaker 1: your message is sometimes less important than your delivery. My
Speaker 1: message was so often lost in my delivery delivery because
Speaker 1: I'm coming from a brash, like Chicago perspective when I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't give a fuck the ship true, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, tell me it ain't true.
Speaker 2: Or you also force people at that point. I feel
Speaker 2: like there was some certain pointance in times when you
Speaker 2: kind of like force people to kind of whether it's fans,
Speaker 2: people to kind of just choose sides.
Speaker 1: And that's tough for people, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And it's also it it's also like eventually all the
Speaker 1: bickering and beef and whatever it's about a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of it would boil down to you see
Speaker 1: two fools arguing from a distance. Kid, tell who is who? Right?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? And if I'm just getting
Speaker 1: into it with this person and this person funs with them,
Speaker 1: so now they're into it with me, and I'm into
Speaker 1: it with them. Now I'm in It's like now, it
Speaker 1: just adds up that people just think I'm combative. I
Speaker 1: would come down sometimes and sit down in the interview
Speaker 1: and I'll be me and you know me, I'm kind,
Speaker 1: I'm cool, I'm funny, I'm nice, and people be like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm so surprised. How cool you all thought. I just
Speaker 1: want to come in here and try to punch somebody
Speaker 1: in the face. And I'm like, okay, I need to
Speaker 1: change my behavior because people are mis understanding.
Speaker 2: People are gonna get They're gonna they're gonna create the
Speaker 2: narratives that, you know, from whatever information they have that's
Speaker 2: out there, and not not enough.
Speaker 1: People are and the thing is too headlines.
Speaker 2: That's how they come up with their narratives. They see
Speaker 2: the headlines and they're.
Speaker 1: Like this, talk me a lot. You know, people don't research.
Speaker 1: There's so much information out there, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: There's so many things that we're being bombarded with constantly
Speaker 1: that It's like people ain't going to check sources and
Speaker 1: see what was really said. They're seeing a headline, maybe
Speaker 1: a couple images, and they're like, cool, Okay, I guess
Speaker 1: person is associated with that word, that action, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: You know, move on, Oh, I see it again. This
Speaker 1: person is now associated with that one.
Speaker 2: I see it happening so much, especially nowadays, it's like
Speaker 2: it's just crazy, Like when it comes to politics, when
Speaker 2: it comes to artists, it's like people just have their
Speaker 2: mind made up over whatever blips they see on their algorithm.
Speaker 1: On ignapshot. Just the headline, that's what That's what most
Speaker 1: people use to formulate their opinions. And so I think
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, gotta be intentional at this point
Speaker 1: in time, Like how do I make all my interactions
Speaker 1: to the best my ability represent me as a human
Speaker 1: being in totality, right, you know what I'm saying? And
Speaker 1: how do I stand for the things I believe in
Speaker 1: without having a stand against everyone, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like it's not really necessary for sure.
Speaker 2: I think it's crazy too because just from like a
Speaker 2: fans perspective, being like such a big fan of you
Speaker 2: early and chance really early, like to see you guys
Speaker 2: reconcile after all those years where I just feel like
Speaker 2: they were like years lost of like of like peak
Speaker 2: like greatness, you know what I'm saying. And it was
Speaker 2: just dope to see you guys. You doing internet tape,
Speaker 2: He's doing acid rap.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I think you guys are both so important to Chicago
Speaker 2: until a lot of these kids in the last decades.
Speaker 2: So for you, was it like a for you guys
Speaker 2: to kind of put whatever issues you had behind you
Speaker 2: and move forward with positivity and you know, I mean
Speaker 2: kind of pick up where you guys left off, because
Speaker 2: you guys kind of came into this shit like literally he.
Speaker 1: Definitely did before the shit even you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: like age fourteen. You know what I'm saying, before rap
Speaker 1: was anything more than a dream. And I think like
Speaker 1: when he came to visit me in Ghana and you know,
Speaker 1: we started to build this festival and really just that
Speaker 1: moment in Africa, like that return. I think that really
Speaker 1: just helped to solidify cement our relationship, our friendship as men,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like the things that we
Speaker 1: went through ups and downs as boys, you know what
Speaker 1: I meaning? Like just that happens. Brothers fight, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, And don't let you get rich and
Speaker 1: famous and be super young, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Like that's that could be a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 2: And to be fair, both of you guys had kind
Speaker 2: of like meteoric quick rises in terms of like from
Speaker 2: being like kind of like mixtape underground blog darlings to
Speaker 2: being like what the fuck, like You're you're with Rockefeller
Speaker 2: or you're with rock Nation and he's you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: acid just kind of changed things. Yeah, it just got
Speaker 2: got crazy quick with both of your guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, shit got crazy real quick, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And I really can't stress enough though, like how much
Speaker 1: of a blessing it is to be able to learn
Speaker 1: from those things and grow from them. Man, Like that's
Speaker 1: something I speak about a lot in this album. It
Speaker 1: was like two years ago, I believe Juice World Day,
Speaker 1: and I was in the studio with Bongo Bongo by
Speaker 1: the way, he's the executive producer of this album, and
Speaker 1: we're in La but I'm looking at social media things
Speaker 1: of Juice World Day and I was just overtaken by
Speaker 1: a sense of gratitude because I'm looking at them, considering
Speaker 1: the factors that led into that situation, and just realizing
Speaker 1: that a lot of young artists don't get the chance
Speaker 1: to evolve, to evolve and learn, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: And we're all oftentimes so caught up in the romanticize
Speaker 1: and the drugs, and you know.
Speaker 2: Like we never got to see the juice real, like
Speaker 2: he didn't even have chance to mature, and like we
Speaker 2: like he was a kid, people forget like he's like, actually.
Speaker 1: Really what happens with so many artists though, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: It's like like even X, like we didn't we don't
Speaker 2: sex have that, you know, because I feel like he
Speaker 2: was moving a lot of positivity before he died, you know,
Speaker 2: and I was like, damn, we didn't even get to
Speaker 2: really see his like legacy play out, like him really
Speaker 2: growing up, and and like you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Like it's really a blessing. It's just a blessing. Like
Speaker 1: I can't overstate that, because a lot of young artists
Speaker 1: don't get that chance to like stumble, fall and get
Speaker 1: up and learn from it, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And it's almost like being a hip hop artist is
Speaker 1: like an endangered species sometimes, like being a young rapper.
Speaker 1: You know already, being a young black man is a
Speaker 1: target on your back. Being a young rapper is magnified tenfold.
Speaker 1: And you know, all I could all I could really
Speaker 1: do is really try to express the lessons that I've
Speaker 1: learned through all of the tumultuous time.
Speaker 2: And you were literally throwing in the in the world right.
Speaker 1: In the mix, you know. But it's a big blessing though,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Even starting this album, Like
Speaker 1: beginning this album is when I've really turned things around mentally,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like cut out all the
Speaker 1: drink and all the drugs everything, like went sober, just
Speaker 1: got focused layers of focus to a point where I
Speaker 1: feel like I've been clearing my spirit out and transforming
Speaker 1: my energy. So I really feel I feel limitless. I
Speaker 1: feel like I've been gifted to achieve magnanimous things at
Speaker 1: a very young age, and now I'm gifted once again
Speaker 1: to take it first further, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: take it further with intention and from a from a
Speaker 1: place of clarity and focus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think I think you can, Like
Speaker 2: have you ever reached out to any of these young
Speaker 2: artists and just like, hey, I see what you're doing,
Speaker 2: like you know, or maybe try to give them some
Speaker 2: advice because you've, like you said, you've kind of been
Speaker 2: You've you've you've had to live through what it's like
Speaker 2: to be like thrown in the middle of this machine
Speaker 2: that is the music industry. It'll eat you up, it'll
Speaker 2: spit you out, and it'll you know, it'll stop answering
Speaker 2: your calls, you know what I'm saying, Like, if you
Speaker 2: see somebody making mistakes, whether there's somebody close to you
Speaker 2: or like, do you reach out, do you try to
Speaker 2: give them any advice? Or is it really not your place?
Speaker 1: You feel? Like? You know, I think I just try
Speaker 1: to lead by example and let my actions speak for
Speaker 1: me at this point in time, you know, And if
Speaker 1: I can inspire or influence somebody with something I'll say
Speaker 1: on a podcast with Bootleg Cab or something I say
Speaker 1: on a record of just something that they see me.
Speaker 1: Do you know Vic Mensa does this for the homeless
Speaker 1: in Chicago or you know xyz Freeze somebody from prison.
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, let let me let my actions, you know,
Speaker 1: speak for themselves, because in the midst of in the
Speaker 1: midst of so many things that we've discussed. It's also
Speaker 1: like just this mountain of positive impacts I've left on
Speaker 1: the planet, which was has always been the conflicting thing
Speaker 1: that I had to realize, Like you can't have it
Speaker 1: both ways, Like you can't have it constantly in beef
Speaker 1: and drama and getting locked up for this and still
Speaker 1: be giving away a million point five dollars worth of
Speaker 1: shoes in the trenches in Chicago, sleeping underneath the viaduct
Speaker 1: in the dead of winter to raise money for the
Speaker 1: homeless build and water facilities in Africa. I mean, like
Speaker 1: I let those things speak for themselves. But it's not
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the history of hip hop
Speaker 1: that have at this stage like had the level of
Speaker 1: impact on people in a humanitarian sense and that I have.
Speaker 2: Also, that's not the ship that for whatever reason, will
Speaker 2: get that's not viral. It's not going viral, bro.
Speaker 1: But that's the human nature though, is like sit and
Speaker 1: turn on news right now, you know what I mean, Like.
Speaker 2: There's nothing positive on the.
Speaker 1: There's nothing about because bad news travels fast. It's all
Speaker 1: de vice. People shot here to people overdosed on and all.
Speaker 1: You know, Ukraine is being bombed because bad news travels fast,
Speaker 1: and we're in a culture and a moment in society
Speaker 1: that prioritizes sensationalism because it's all about the Internet, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's all about impressions, engagement, likes, comments, and you
Speaker 1: get a lot more likes and comments on arguments, controversies
Speaker 1: and thing and fear than you do on like love.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of like our whole news consumption cycle
Speaker 2: is like it's just fear driven, like just like what
Speaker 2: do we got? What are we gonna be scared about today?
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: For Really, it's all feel mongling.
Speaker 2: Like even COVID showed us that more than anything, because
Speaker 2: like we were all just like watching like at home,
Speaker 2: just watching CNN, and they would just have like the
Speaker 2: death numbers just it's like a ticker at the bottom,
Speaker 2: like it was an NBA score or something. I don't
Speaker 2: think we really realized like damn, like that like like
Speaker 2: that was a really I was like fucking freaked out
Speaker 2: to go outside, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like, And you know.
Speaker 2: A lot of us got it and survived, a lot
Speaker 2: of us passed away. I had COVID like twice. At
Speaker 2: least I might've had it twice too. You know, I
Speaker 2: had COVID before we even knew what COVID was. I know,
Speaker 2: I had a lot of homies who were like right
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Speaker 1: January, December, they were up. I was in bed for
Speaker 1: like days. I just it was like a fever dream.
Speaker 1: I just remember like rolling around in bed for days,
Speaker 1: you know, didn't even get up to eat. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: for sure.
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Speaker 2: the interview. So was it last year you did the
Speaker 2: ice protest show?
Speaker 1: Oh no, that was a few years back. Man.
Speaker 2: Was that did you end up going because I know
Speaker 2: you did something downtown LA, but did you end up
Speaker 2: going to like the border you were doing like a
Speaker 2: show outside of the border in San Diego, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I went to Mexico, so you were,
Speaker 1: but I went to uh yeah, I went to TJ
Speaker 1: and I went to an actual like ice detention facility
Speaker 1: and performed outside of it on a truck. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say it was on a truck, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've never seen that. And I DJ in San Diego
Speaker 2: all the time and I go get all my medicine
Speaker 2: from Tijuana. So I know how crazy that border, especially
Speaker 2: because what year was this was this twenty twenty nineteen
Speaker 2: maybe Yeah, that border during the Trump years was fucking
Speaker 2: raz It was crazy. There were so many people, yeah,
Speaker 2: like nuts. And I think when we went over there
Speaker 2: to get in like one of the what was the
Speaker 2: big like immigrant like uh there, like there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people trying to seek asylum in the US and
Speaker 2: they were stopped at in tij One and.
Speaker 1: To a lot of African people that was African that
Speaker 1: I didn't until I went there. Yeah, I mean just
Speaker 1: the way that they were running that situation was just
Speaker 1: like super inhumane. And I was really surprised to see
Speaker 1: so many African people, like West African people. I think
Speaker 1: they were from like Cameroon or Congo. There was some
Speaker 1: French speaking Africans, and it was like, you know, hundreds
Speaker 1: upon hundreds of people, and the way that they would
Speaker 1: get contacted was like they get to the front of
Speaker 1: this line of thousands of people and then they give
Speaker 1: them a number on a piece of paper and then
Speaker 1: they call that number sometime within the next month, like
Speaker 1: weeks on weeks, and you literally have to be within
Speaker 1: earshot to hear.
Speaker 2: Your number called at the border at the border, so
Speaker 2: you kind of have to just hang out there for.
Speaker 1: Months like to proceed.
Speaker 2: So we're going to sleep on the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: Exactly what they were doing. It was like it was gross.
Speaker 1: Definitely see the way that they were treating human beings.
Speaker 1: Like I was, I was really taken aback by that.
Speaker 1: But that's also in the midst of like all the
Speaker 1: things happen with the kids in the detention facilities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just cages blankets that were like like metallic
Speaker 2: aluminum foil, and I think a lot of that stuff
Speaker 2: is still going on right now. It's definitely still going on, yeah,
Speaker 2: Because I mean, you know, I was I'm definitely a
Speaker 2: fuck Donald Trump type of guy, but I think a
Speaker 2: lot of that ship was going on before him too.
Speaker 1: And after and after. I'm not making any excuses for
Speaker 1: him in particular, but you know what I'm saying, the
Speaker 1: hypocrisy of like American oppression doesn't begin or end with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Donald Trump is just the one to put
Speaker 1: it on Front Street. He said, this is actually what
Speaker 1: I'm on. I'm paying all my niggas, I'm here for
Speaker 1: the bag straight like that. Fuck y'all, this is what
Speaker 1: presidents had been doing. But he just told you, just
Speaker 1: said what he was on.
Speaker 2: You know, he just let y'all know what was going.
Speaker 1: Down, said what he was on. That's why you know.
Speaker 2: It's crazy too, because like I've been like a lifelong,
Speaker 2: like you know, liberal Democrat guy, like you know, I
Speaker 2: voted for Joe Biden, But this last fucking few years,
Speaker 2: I just been like, I just don't know where we
Speaker 2: go from here, Like I don't know, like, how do
Speaker 2: you feel about this next presidential election, because it really
Speaker 2: feels like somehow we're gonna end up with the same
Speaker 2: two guys, And I don't know if either of them
Speaker 2: are great for our country. And I just don't know
Speaker 2: neither of them. No, they're definitively terrible. Joe Biden has
Speaker 2: been a terrible president, and I voted for him. He
Speaker 2: just hasn't been great. But the guy before him was
Speaker 2: terrible for his own reasons, terrible for the racial division,
Speaker 2: the normalization of a lot of things.
Speaker 1: Like him getting locked up and having that hard as
Speaker 1: a mugshot too. I think that only helps his case.
Speaker 2: Bro. I'm like, it's gonna be a Griselda album cover
Speaker 2: event like West Side Gun's next album might be the.
Speaker 1: Trump much Unfortunately, that's only help in his case.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm telling I'm like, Yo, these guys, if
Speaker 2: they're gonna go all in, they better make sure because
Speaker 2: if he don't go to jail, he's gonna be the
Speaker 2: next president.
Speaker 1: He can't even run. He can run from jail, and
Speaker 1: he will.
Speaker 2: But I think he'll lose the primary because I think
Speaker 2: there's enough.
Speaker 1: I think he'll lose, but you'll be there's I can't
Speaker 1: call it, yeah, you never know, Okay, call it. I
Speaker 1: mean like Joe Biden too, I'm not gonna forget that.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is responsible for the nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: Four crime crime, people creators.
Speaker 1: And the system of mass and conserration. As we know,
Speaker 1: it is millions.
Speaker 2: He also nipped the HPCU bill that was supposed to
Speaker 2: fund a lot of the HBCUs. That was I think
Speaker 2: I think Trump put that through. Yeah, Biden is listen, man.
Speaker 2: That's why I'm like, I don't know where what do
Speaker 2: we do?
Speaker 1: Do we?
Speaker 2: I'm like I told everybody else. I was just talking
Speaker 2: to my wife's mom and I said, if it's Trump
Speaker 2: versus Biden, or if it's like the Santas versus Biden,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to vote Corner West and fucking sleep.
Speaker 1: While it was no Cornell, what corn West and Kanye
Speaker 1: West ran on a double bill.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Kanye, who was definitely just getting blown
Speaker 2: in the middle of a boat in Italy.
Speaker 1: And that's what That's what That's what we thought it was, right, Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: I didn't see that part. I didn't see that part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this next this next election, I can't call him. Man.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I would vote for Biden again.
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, I think that it's always a lesser
Speaker 1: of two evils situation, but sometimes it's hard to really
Speaker 1: determine what the less of the two evils are a
Speaker 1: lot of the guys. The guys want Trump because he
Speaker 1: gave him PPP loans, but.
Speaker 2: The was going crazy.
Speaker 1: Shows you how simple niggas be. Man, It's like you
Speaker 1: dangle that carrot in front of him, gave him them
Speaker 1: p P P loans, and you know they they want
Speaker 1: him back for real.
Speaker 2: It is crazy because a lot of my homies, who
Speaker 2: you know, like, I think he's gonna do well with
Speaker 2: black males in a collection because a lot of my
Speaker 2: boys are like, man, we're fucking with Trump, and I'm
Speaker 2: like really.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I mean I think overall he won't, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like.
Speaker 2: No, overall, but I think compared to like whatever he
Speaker 2: did last.
Speaker 1: Time, yeah, he might get like that two percent, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. But in mass he's not gonna
Speaker 1: get the black folk. I mean, like, black people are
Speaker 1: not stupid. Some of the guys are very greedy. But
Speaker 1: in mass he won't get the black folk. But he's
Speaker 1: not relying on that, He's not leaning on that. His
Speaker 1: base is just as fired up as they ever been.
Speaker 1: I wonder at this point how it escalates, because the
Speaker 1: last escalation was was them trying to destroy their own capitals, like,
Speaker 1: which is crazy. I'm like, I don't claim this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how are you supposed to be patriotic?
Speaker 1: This is the thing you love? You don't want that
Speaker 1: runs around with the American flag on your pickup truck
Speaker 1: and you know your jacket in.
Speaker 2: This is what I tell everybody. I'm like, yo, anytime,
Speaker 2: like if if you know, Like I had to kind
Speaker 2: of come to a realization in the middle of his
Speaker 2: presidency because I was to the point where, like, if
Speaker 2: I found out you were like a trumper, I just
Speaker 2: couldn't talk to you, and I'd like.
Speaker 1: Family that way. I had family members that he got
Speaker 1: that way, right, he got that way. I'll still be
Speaker 1: trying to get past that.
Speaker 2: So I had to kind of come to the realization that, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: not everybody who voted for this guy is a bad person,
Speaker 2: right right. But then I'm like, okay, but if you're
Speaker 2: out here with a fucking MAGA flag on.
Speaker 1: Your trucks, pretty brazy.
Speaker 2: That's that's just a crazy, like that's some cult shit.
Speaker 2: It'd be like if somebody like I'd judge the same
Speaker 2: type of human being if there was a giant Joe
Speaker 2: Biden flag on your truck, I'd be like, yo, are
Speaker 2: we going to be that fanatical about any particular politician.
Speaker 1: Not everybody who drinks the kool Lead is the devil.
Speaker 1: But I've had to come to a place where I
Speaker 1: can recognize that just because someone is conservative or might
Speaker 1: be racist or prejudiced, that it doesn't serve me to
Speaker 1: judge them and be upset with them for it. Like
Speaker 1: I was in this Russian like spa the other day
Speaker 1: in Chicago, got the amazing It's got the hottest suna,
Speaker 1: the coldest cold plunge.
Speaker 2: And it's hard to find a spa in LA with
Speaker 2: the cold plunge and.
Speaker 1: The cold plunge is so crazy. But you know, the dude,
Speaker 1: he's got a racist vibe to him. You know, I
Speaker 1: can pick up on it. And then I went in
Speaker 1: most recently and I saw he had the he had
Speaker 1: conservative news channel just playing in the common area, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I properly interpreted, you know, this guy's energy.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's like, man, that's between
Speaker 1: him and God. Man. I was leaving mosque one time
Speaker 1: and I seen two brothers on the corner talking. There
Speaker 1: was a bunch of Nigerian guys who were loudly debating
Speaker 1: something as Nigerians do. And one of them was like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm Nigerian. Brothers. They be deep man. And the other
Speaker 1: one was like, man, but they be racist. And then
Speaker 1: the first one was like, that's between them and our law.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was so deep because there are
Speaker 1: a lot of misunderstandings between us as black people and
Speaker 1: Africans that I see both sides of it. Because I'm
Speaker 1: gonna end and I'm Black American. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: racism that goes both ways.
Speaker 2: I don't think a lot of people are hip to that.
Speaker 2: That that's a thing that exists.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's that's that's that's a reality. But that
Speaker 1: exists for us wherever we go. There's psychological propaganda that's
Speaker 1: used to devalue Black Americans. It's used to devalue Black Africans.
Speaker 1: That's used to pit them against each other because the
Speaker 1: moment in time when we realize that we have a
Speaker 1: unified front, we have a common enemy, it would be
Speaker 1: too dangerous and too powerful. I mean, that's why Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King was killed. That's why you know Malcolm X.
Speaker 1: Once he started to move away from a black separatism
Speaker 1: mind state and embrace people of other cultures, things get
Speaker 1: really dangerous. Same thing for Martin Luther King. Once he's
Speaker 1: moved his focus from the March on Washington to Poor
Speaker 1: People's Movement, then he gets smoked because when you put
Speaker 1: those dots together, you connect those dots, then you get
Speaker 1: a red dot on your head. That's how it goes.
Speaker 1: But for me, I had to realize, like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: dude might be racist. Yes, he might be looking at
Speaker 1: me with a certain prejudice. I can interpret it. That's
Speaker 1: between him and God. Like, as long as he doesn't
Speaker 1: try me, what does it have to project that on
Speaker 1: to you? You know he's projecting it. But as long
Speaker 1: as it's not impeding my ability to do what I
Speaker 1: have to do, what does it have to do? What
Speaker 1: does it have to do with me? So I feel
Speaker 1: the same way about trump Ism at this point. Lot
Speaker 1: of people that maybe drinking that kool aid and caught
Speaker 1: up in either the hateful ideology or rhetoric and racism
Speaker 1: and anti Semitism and a mixture of the two. But
Speaker 1: that's between them and God. I'm not walking around mad like, right,
Speaker 1: I see you you fuck with Trump and now I'm
Speaker 1: like fuck you. Yeah, I mean, I'm not doing that
Speaker 1: just it's.
Speaker 2: Not worth What do you think is like the answer,
Speaker 2: because like you said, it's always a lesser too evils conversation.
Speaker 2: And to me, it's like, to me, like trying to
Speaker 2: figure out how to break up the two parties is
Speaker 2: you know, cause I look at like with like like
Speaker 2: when Bernie was running in twenty was it twenty twenty, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and he he won the first two or three primaries,
Speaker 2: and then once Biden went South Carolina, all the other
Speaker 2: DNC people just dropped out and it was like all
Speaker 2: the energy was behind Biden changed the election. But like
Speaker 2: for me, it's like no matter what, whether you're Democrat,
Speaker 2: you're Republican, both parties are extremely corrupt. Both parties are
Speaker 2: in bed with special interest groups, a lot of the
Speaker 2: same special interest groups, you know what I'm saying. And
Speaker 2: that's why I was like, man, if I vote third party,
Speaker 2: a lot of people say I've don't my vote away,
Speaker 2: But I'm like, at least it's like the beginning of
Speaker 2: like trying to like maybe it's three percent this time,
Speaker 2: maybe in formal years it's twelve percent vote third party.
Speaker 2: Like to me, like trying to figure out a way
Speaker 2: to get out of that two party system is like
Speaker 2: got to be the answer eventually.
Speaker 1: I don't know if the answer can be found in capitalism.
Speaker 1: You can't dismantle the master's house using the master's tools,
Speaker 1: and the power structure of this nation was built on
Speaker 1: the literal backs of people that look like me, right,
Speaker 1: and I can't see how our liberation, our freedom is
Speaker 1: going to be reliant or dependent upon them finding a conscience,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I think the answer has
Speaker 1: to be in collectivizing our power. The ANSWER's got to
Speaker 1: be in the artists putting their heads together and putting
Speaker 1: aside their differences, unifying and to restructure what the economics
Speaker 1: of our communities look like, and the athletes refusing to
Speaker 1: play ball until they get ownership, collectivizing their power and
Speaker 1: reinvesting that into their communities. Our communities aren't going to
Speaker 1: get the boost that they need and stop being exploited
Speaker 1: or oppressed because the Democrats decide so, or because the
Speaker 1: Democrats split into and.
Speaker 2: It starts at the ground level.
Speaker 1: For shit, it's got to be among the people, man,
Speaker 1: It's like, that's that's how power arises from the people.
Speaker 1: It's not going to be top down. That doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense to me, because they all eat off us. That's
Speaker 1: why I don't consider myself a Democrat or you know,
Speaker 1: anything like that, because I know that the Democrats are
Speaker 1: just as responsible for putting my nigga James and jail
Speaker 1: as the Republicans. They wrote the law too, they actually
Speaker 1: are the ones that put the law into effect, and
Speaker 1: they're in the White House now that shit is still
Speaker 1: reverberating through our community. So I don't consider myself as
Speaker 1: a part of them, But that doesn't mean that I
Speaker 1: don't take value from the things that they do well
Speaker 1: and the intervention of socialist policies into it. And I
Speaker 1: think Bernie was a great and has been a greatne
Speaker 1: uh you know, idiator in a political space to really
Speaker 1: push some necessary things forward. A dude like Bernie, he's
Speaker 1: so ill because his receipts is there, you know.
Speaker 2: His whole life, his receipts, he's been pushing them.
Speaker 1: He getting locked up with the black people in the sixties,
Speaker 1: you know, chained to it, and.
Speaker 2: He's still going and like pulling up a killer Mike
Speaker 2: to Amazon warehouses and like, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: That type of dude I stand behind. It's not a
Speaker 1: party or.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. That's how I felt because I was like, Yo,
Speaker 2: who's like the consistent, Like who's just a good guy?
Speaker 2: Like to me, I thought Bernie was like obviously a
Speaker 2: good person who's never like kind of straight away from
Speaker 2: his mission, you know what I mean. So shout out
Speaker 2: to Bernie Man for you as somebody who is an activist,
Speaker 2: as somebody who's done so much for your community. Would
Speaker 2: you ever consider getting into the political space locally?
Speaker 1: No, not a chance, Man, Never, No, definitely not. I'm
Speaker 1: political twenty years from now. I'm politically minded, but I
Speaker 1: would not want to be a politician. That's not where
Speaker 1: my heart is at. You know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: think politicians by nature have to lie too much. And
Speaker 1: I think we all know that. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: be hold of my tongue like that. Hey, but that
Speaker 1: might work in your favor, But there's so much lying
Speaker 1: and compromising with people's lives that comes along with politics,
Speaker 1: and you just have to accept that. Like, you can
Speaker 1: be the most values driven, progressively minded politician, but in
Speaker 1: order to be effective and get things done, you got
Speaker 1: to cut the deal with the FOP. And that's not me.
Speaker 1: I'm not cutting the deal with the Fraternal Order of Police.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing it, you know. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be in that position because that's just not that's not me,
Speaker 1: you know. So people ask me what I ever step
Speaker 1: into pol.
Speaker 2: I never would, never would consider it.
Speaker 1: No, I wouldn't even think about it. I think you
Speaker 1: could be Maryor in Chicago. Man, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be mayored.
Speaker 2: What was the last Maryor?
Speaker 1: Is it Lori Lightfoot shout out to Brandon Johnson. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's my boy. Is he the new mayor? He's the
Speaker 1: new mayor and.
Speaker 2: The previous mayor. She was a hilarious person to watch online.
Speaker 1: Her suits were really she was like mean.
Speaker 2: Yo, there was that there was Did you ever see that?
Speaker 2: There was like the interaction between her and some like
Speaker 2: some guy on YELP.
Speaker 1: I ain't see that.
Speaker 2: It was so funny.
Speaker 1: She just wasn't She didn't have a constituency and she
Speaker 1: wasn't open to addressing what was really going on. Like
Speaker 1: when she had a conversation set up with me, she
Speaker 1: found out, you know that I was very critical of
Speaker 1: the police.
Speaker 2: That's her name, right, Lori l floryd Life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she found out it was so critical of the police,
Speaker 1: and so she just canceled the conversation because she wasn't
Speaker 1: willing to like actually discuss what's going on in the city.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. Chicago is a city with
Speaker 1: so many harsh realities that it's like, how could we
Speaker 1: ever move forward if we don't face those realities. I
Speaker 1: think we have a lot of subcultures and ideas and
Speaker 1: all culture that are destroying us too, like op culture.
Speaker 1: The idea of OPS is one way that we've been
Speaker 1: brainwashed in Chicago and in every hood and in rap
Speaker 1: music to believe that we are innately against or enemies
Speaker 1: of ourselves. It's almost like we're staring in the mirror
Speaker 1: pointing the gun at ourselves because we've been taught that
Speaker 1: you're from this block, I'm from this block. You would
Speaker 1: inherit that we are ops, we are enemies, and so
Speaker 1: we romanticize it. But I think in many ways we've
Speaker 1: been misled and it's just a manifestation of our own
Speaker 1: self hatred. We've been taught to hate ourselves, and so
Speaker 1: we turn it into you, my op, even though you
Speaker 1: look just like me and you're from the same circumstances
Speaker 1: as me, but you're from a different block two streets away.
Speaker 1: We don't own these projects, we don't own these Section
Speaker 1: eight houses, we don't own these vacant lots, we don't
Speaker 1: own these liquor stores, we don't own these gas stations,
Speaker 1: but we die for them every day. It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: There's so much mis education and misinformation. So I'm saying
Speaker 1: we need to dispel and dissipate the whole op culture,
Speaker 1: the whole idea.
Speaker 2: It's exhausting, man, And I'm like a you know me,
Speaker 2: I'm a huge hip hop head, but like, I am
Speaker 2: so disconnected from so much of the politics in that world.
Speaker 2: I know there's other platforms that are notable that like
Speaker 2: dive more into that shit. And I'm just like, like,
Speaker 2: when a guy from Chicago comes on my show, like
Speaker 2: I don't usually I don't know what the fuck.
Speaker 1: I'm not even interested in talking about any of that stuff.
Speaker 1: But that's good, bro, That's good because a lot of
Speaker 1: people like man, a lot of guys I see the interviews,
Speaker 1: and you know, they they like just try to stand
Speaker 1: on that and try to force these artists to speak
Speaker 1: about their ops or who they've bickered with and who
Speaker 1: they have beef with and then if they don't want to,
Speaker 1: you know, like either take a fence or you know.
Speaker 1: It's like I think that the role of a journalist
Speaker 1: or a steward of culture as you are and people
Speaker 1: that are your contemporaries, is one that has to be
Speaker 1: treated with a lot of respect and a lot of reverence, man,
Speaker 1: because there's so much influence and it's like this music
Speaker 1: that we make that we aspire to rise from out
Speaker 1: of the gutter with and we put our heart and
Speaker 1: our soul into it, and oftentimes it's a reflection of
Speaker 1: good and bad everything that's around us. Man, it can
Speaker 1: bring a lot a lot of murder behind it. And
Speaker 1: it's the people that sit in that seat that can
Speaker 1: either help us to transcend and express, you know, what
Speaker 1: is important to us and what's valuable to us, or
Speaker 1: try to chain us to where we came from. And
Speaker 1: it's like, man, I know it's clickbait, I know it helps.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I means yeah yeah. To me, it's like yo,
Speaker 2: there's real like lives on the line dying from this stuff.
Speaker 2: To me, it's like I got to be able to
Speaker 2: why do you want me to talk about it?
Speaker 1: And why do you want me to talk about it
Speaker 1: on record. That's the thing I think is crazy about
Speaker 1: hip hop is like I think that we've reached an
Speaker 1: era and an age when snitching on yourself and self
Speaker 1: incrimination to all time people encouraging you to incriminate yourself
Speaker 1: is at an all time How you get on here
Speaker 1: and they want you to give a detailed account of
Speaker 1: what crimes you've committed.
Speaker 2: I don't have to stop artists in the interview sometimes,
Speaker 2: and I don't have to hit them with the allegedly allegedly, yeah,
Speaker 2: allegedly because like I'm like, allegedly whatever.
Speaker 1: It's such a catch twenty two though, because we've seen
Speaker 1: that those things go viral. So if you're young artists
Speaker 1: or a young nigga in the street aspiring to be
Speaker 1: an artist and you see somebody catch a murder and
Speaker 1: that skyrocket their.
Speaker 2: Career, yeah, that can keep your career up if you
Speaker 2: came about it, or you.
Speaker 1: Can really excite somebody to think, Okay, well maybe this
Speaker 1: is a way that I can change my life, my
Speaker 1: family's life, because it's working for being on front street
Speaker 1: about some street ship or going to do some street ship,
Speaker 1: making the music about it for sure, and the record
Speaker 1: labels profit from it, So.
Speaker 2: You're you're incentivized to do that because it's good for
Speaker 2: your career what was your life. It's not good for
Speaker 2: the bigger picture.
Speaker 1: But you know what was super wild to me, man
Speaker 1: was like realizing that everywhere is not like this, like
Speaker 1: not even in hip hop, you know, being in South Africa,
Speaker 1: which is also a pretty violent, explosive place in its ways,
Speaker 1: but learning that their hip hop scene is like that
Speaker 1: doesn't fuel your career, that doesn't help you. Then you're
Speaker 1: seeing it's harder to market, and I was like, it's
Speaker 1: crazy because it's the opposite in America. It's like, if
Speaker 1: you're stamped and your criminal history is volidified, then this
Speaker 1: can be the main.
Speaker 2: It can give you a career. But I do but
Speaker 2: I do think it also puts a ceiling on you
Speaker 2: because there are certain like like shit rolling loud, Like
Speaker 2: now you know they'll they'll not book an artist because
Speaker 2: the hip hop police of New York is on their ass.
Speaker 2: You know, some of these droll guys in New York
Speaker 2: that have issues. And my whole approach to the whole
Speaker 2: situation is like I've had very few situations where I've
Speaker 2: had any sort of conversations that were like beef driven
Speaker 2: and if it ever gets brought up, it'd be because
Speaker 2: like there was two there's two guys from Jacksonville that
Speaker 2: have like Jacksonville's crazy and I in our interview because
Speaker 2: I know both of them. I know both of the
Speaker 2: guys Fulio and Young and Ace, And the only time
Speaker 2: we touched on the subject was like, how do you
Speaker 2: guys like squash this because you guys are from the
Speaker 2: same city, Like, is there a way to ever put
Speaker 2: this behind you guys and set an example?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like that that that you guys could be bigger than
Speaker 2: whatever has already happened, Because I think that's really the
Speaker 2: hardest thing is like one convincing artist that like, yes,
Speaker 2: when you're on YouTube and the algorithm is feeding you
Speaker 2: these weird ass hood documentaries that these faceless.
Speaker 1: YouTube make so strange that shit is.
Speaker 2: So there's a whole mega micro economy on YouTube of
Speaker 2: faceless YouTube creators that just do hood commentary, street beef.
Speaker 2: It's crazyrew, it's insane. You don't know what these guys
Speaker 2: look like.
Speaker 1: Maybe somewhere in Utah.
Speaker 2: You don't know what they look like. They're making millions DONI.
Speaker 2: They're making millions.
Speaker 1: Dollars off the shit. It's real shit. It's like hip
Speaker 1: hop is in that way like trauma porn for people
Speaker 1: outside of our community. You know, we don't need to
Speaker 1: sit and watch that because that's going on in our
Speaker 1: real lives.
Speaker 2: But like you said, if you're an artist and like
Speaker 2: you're trying to get a buzz, it's like almost like, well,
Speaker 2: how do I make people give a fuck? And well,
Speaker 2: I know that this is what people will care about,
Speaker 2: but then there's real life consequences to that. You might
Speaker 2: lose your life, your friend might lose your life.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: To me, it's like, yo, how do we try to
Speaker 2: get passed? Because, like you said, the op culture, to me,
Speaker 2: it's like a cloud over hip hop the last like
Speaker 2: five years. That's just like, oh, it's just too much
Speaker 2: sometimes man, Like I'm exhausted by it.
Speaker 1: Bro. Like, I just feel like we as black men
Speaker 1: have to normalize conflict resolution. We have to normalize peacemaking.
Speaker 1: We have to normalize letting things go. Letting things go
Speaker 1: is the important We have to recognize that oftentimes the
Speaker 1: real strength, the real power, is in letting something go.
Speaker 1: That's much more difficult I had to learn that it
Speaker 1: takes a lot more out of me to let it
Speaker 1: go than it does for me to take it to
Speaker 1: a violent space, because that's the way I.
Speaker 2: And you're carrying conflict with you at all times, use
Speaker 2: you don't even realize it.
Speaker 1: I had a situation in Chicago where, you know, something
Speaker 1: from my past came back and someone that had robbed
Speaker 1: me and was very close to me and you know,
Speaker 1: ultimately popped back up with like a real disrespectful, aggressive
Speaker 1: attitude and approach. And in that moment, I decided to
Speaker 1: give it absolutely no power to respond, not at all.
Speaker 1: So when he was as close to me as you
Speaker 1: are now telling me what he gonna do, see me
Speaker 1: here there, I just said, man, God bless you. Bro
Speaker 1: got up and left, you know, started to hit my phone.
Speaker 1: I said, God bless you blocked it. Move on, hit
Speaker 1: me from different numbers. But what I learned was in
Speaker 1: exercising that restraint, which was so difficult for me, and
Speaker 1: putting it to a space of God and prayer and
Speaker 1: just letting it go, the situation fell a part of
Speaker 1: its own weight so much more easily than if I
Speaker 1: had engaged it in a violent way. But we're not
Speaker 1: taught that that conflict resolution and nonviolent conflict resolution is
Speaker 1: ultimately more beneficial because a lot of times in the
Speaker 1: past I will handle something differently and I would go
Speaker 1: handle it in a violent way. And now look, next
Speaker 1: thing you know boutleg KFC is me on TV with
Speaker 1: a gun case because I'm in a spiral of revenge paranoia.
Speaker 1: I'm keeping this on me all the time because somebody
Speaker 1: might come and retaliate for something that I've done. I
Speaker 1: can't create the right way because you're always when you
Speaker 1: got beef with.
Speaker 2: Like this my studios, it's a subconscious shit because you're
Speaker 2: always on like kind of your guard's always up.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing that we experience, man, is it's
Speaker 1: like we live in a constant state of survival mode
Speaker 1: and the brain reacts to that like we're in the
Speaker 1: wild at fear of lions attacking us. Are Amygdala is
Speaker 1: responsible for the cortisol that keeps us in fight or
Speaker 1: flight mode, and in our communities, in our neighborhoods, we're
Speaker 1: always in fight of flight mode because you're always ready
Speaker 1: to either kill or be killed. So, especially while you
Speaker 1: beefing with people and experiencing the op shit. It's like
Speaker 1: you're a migdala and your cortisol is overactive, so you're
Speaker 1: constantly tense, you're constantly stressed. You're ready to go at
Speaker 1: any time. And for me, it's hard to like move
Speaker 1: from a place of peace and like really be focused
Speaker 1: on what's important when I'm doing that, and it just
Speaker 1: ultimately it fucks the money up, It fucks the spirit up,
Speaker 1: fucks the energy up for you know, find yourself in
Speaker 1: a jail cell or you know worse.
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Speaker 2: Let's get back to the interview you talked about going
Speaker 2: to the forest.
Speaker 1: And doing shrooms with your mom. Yo, that was the best.
Speaker 2: You have a very highly documented incident at an airport
Speaker 2: where you got that almost happened to me once and
Speaker 2: the dude was cool enough to just throw them away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, too many of them?
Speaker 2: Was it the TSA guys that hit you?
Speaker 1: Uh? Man? You know I've been on a extra security
Speaker 1: list for a lot of years.
Speaker 2: Okay, so then you already you already were flagged kind of.
Speaker 1: I was flagged since the time I was like nineteen.
Speaker 1: But you know it's funny because I was actually I
Speaker 1: was cutting my anti depressants cold turkey. I've been on
Speaker 1: fifteen anti depressant medications.
Speaker 2: You were medicated pretty simply since I was age.
Speaker 1: I've been on a Lexa, Prozoloft, defectsor well butrim, prozac,
Speaker 1: you name it, probably about ten to fifteen medicines over
Speaker 1: a span of about ten to fifteen years. And I
Speaker 1: realized that those medicines were making my mental health worse
Speaker 1: if I stopped taking the medicine. They were making me
Speaker 1: suicidal at times when I wasn't that when I began
Speaker 1: taking the medicine. So I said that those are very bad.
Speaker 1: So I decided I'm gonna cut the medicine basically cold
Speaker 1: turkey and replace it with microdocin like a non psychoactive,
Speaker 1: very small doca mushrooms. And I figured, man, going to Ghana,
Speaker 1: this would be the perfect time. You know, I'll be
Speaker 1: in a more beautiful environment, in a more peaceful place,
Speaker 1: and it'd be a great time. And you're going out
Speaker 1: there for your festival. This was the year before that.
Speaker 1: This was the year before that, but we were laying
Speaker 1: the groundwork for the festival. And yeah, you know I
Speaker 1: had all these micro does things because I reached out
Speaker 1: to different companies to send me stuff. They sent me
Speaker 1: way more than I asked for. I threw it in
Speaker 1: a bag, was bringing it back with me, and you know,
Speaker 1: boom got slammed and I'm all over the news and
Speaker 1: x y Z. But you know what was ill about
Speaker 1: it was like I was so deep in my meditation
Speaker 1: at the time. I was used to meditating for hours
Speaker 1: on end. So the moment I realized I'm getting locked up,
Speaker 1: I didn't start stressing. I started meditating. I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: like in a cell like, oh you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: And mentally I was light years away. I was back
Speaker 1: on the beach in Ghana, and I was like manifesting
Speaker 1: my freedom and just my blessing from the moment when
Speaker 1: it started to go left. So when they called me
Speaker 1: and they're like, okay, the lawyer is going to be
Speaker 1: twenty k just to start a retainer. You want the
Speaker 1: good win or do you want to you know, cheap
Speaker 1: a lawyer, I said, man, just give me the lawyer,
Speaker 1: you know, because I told myself, I thank God that
Speaker 1: this money has been returned to me in a perfect time,
Speaker 1: in a perfect way. And the day I got out
Speaker 1: was a Wednesday. Thursday. Dj Oreo brought me to come
Speaker 1: and do a club performance at Tower in Chicago, handed
Speaker 1: me twenty thousand dollars cash. The next day, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this shit really work. You know. Whatever I was trying
Speaker 1: to do before and you know, trying to scam this
Speaker 1: and trap that, you know what I mean, I could
Speaker 1: just move in an upright way with intention and with
Speaker 1: a positive energy and the universe that give me that shit,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I don't have to ppp
Speaker 1: that shit, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: App the boys was eating bro I was gonna say,
Speaker 2: would you say shrooms? Because I'm a big shroom guy.
Speaker 1: I love shroom.
Speaker 2: I think that you know, I know it. I think
Speaker 2: in organ year that therapy for therapeutic purposes there's like
Speaker 2: full legalization. They're they're doing like psilocybin therapy in organ
Speaker 2: for like people with PTS.
Speaker 1: Well, that's basically the way I do it now. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm sober except for the psychedelic stuff, and I use
Speaker 1: it in a healing capacity like its original purpose, like
Speaker 1: an indigenous medicine. So I peeped those psychological clinical trials
Speaker 1: that they're doing, and it's about an eighth adjusted for
Speaker 1: your body masks, and they'll put you in a in
Speaker 1: a room like basically a hospital room with like the
Speaker 1: my mask and ambient music in your ears. And that's
Speaker 1: the way I started doing the shrooms. And I'll be
Speaker 1: either in a dark room with an eye mask and
Speaker 1: the earplugs or ambient music and just go into my mind,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and use it to like
Speaker 1: deconstruct a lot of the fear and just like negative
Speaker 1: emotions and confusion that naturally comes from living the way
Speaker 1: we live.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think what people don't understand is like if
Speaker 2: you eat trooms with intent, you'll get something out of it. Now,
Speaker 2: if you're partying and you're like, I want to eat
Speaker 2: some fucking trooms at the club, you're gonna get that
Speaker 2: out of it too.
Speaker 1: You also might freak out. You might freak out. But
Speaker 1: that's what I realized too, is like, since I started
Speaker 1: to treat it in the way that I treat it, like,
Speaker 1: with respect and reverence, I don't have bad trips right
Speaker 1: because I'm not running from anything. I'm not just taking
Speaker 1: this to try to have just a jolly old time.
Speaker 1: I'm taking it because you.
Speaker 2: Want to confront something.
Speaker 1: I want to confront something, and I wanted to reveal
Speaker 1: things to me. So there's not really such a thing
Speaker 1: as a bad trip if I'm not afraid to confront
Speaker 1: whatever is coming, and if I'm not trying to dictate
Speaker 1: the way that this would work. Like, my problem with
Speaker 1: mushrooms in the past when I was a kid was
Speaker 1: that I started to lean on them as a crutch creatively,
Speaker 1: and I got to a point where I felt like
Speaker 1: I had to use mushrooms to make dope music. That's
Speaker 1: when it stopped working. That's when I started having bad trips.
Speaker 1: So that's when I moved on.
Speaker 2: Because you're using it as a crutch for something and
Speaker 2: it's not. That's not what it's supposed.
Speaker 1: To be for. And for me, that had that had
Speaker 1: an expiration date each time. I remember right when the
Speaker 1: mushrooms started to not work. So then I did some
Speaker 1: MOLLI and wrote an amazing song, you know, and I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, this is my new crutch, and that
Speaker 1: stopped working, started snoring. Adderall that stopped working, started doing coke.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know what I mean. That never worked in
Speaker 1: the first place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never done cocaine.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you're not missing out on That's what
Speaker 1: I've heard. Though.
Speaker 2: You know, it's crazy to addall shit. I don't think
Speaker 2: a lot of people talk about it, but like yo, man,
Speaker 2: in the music industry, that creative industry, adderall is running
Speaker 2: rampant because a lot of these guys who have to
Speaker 2: stay up at it, engineer, a lot of dudes, they
Speaker 2: kind of depend as Adderall as a crutch because it
Speaker 2: really is like it keeps. I mean, you could speak
Speaker 2: to it, you've done it. I heard it's kind of
Speaker 2: like what's that Bradley Cooper movie where he takes the
Speaker 2: limitless limitless? I heard it's like a like a like
Speaker 2: a limitless type of situation, because if you want to
Speaker 2: get a bunch of shit done, you know, I got homies,
Speaker 2: so edit a whole fucking complex music video and like
Speaker 2: one night because they're off of an adderall. But like
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of creatives are depending on
Speaker 2: that right now.
Speaker 1: All that shit just doesn't work forever. It's the thing,
Speaker 1: and it fries your neural pathways.
Speaker 2: And like you're gonna burn out on that ship.
Speaker 1: That's what I mean. The colmdown is crazy, from the
Speaker 1: Mali to the adderall, which are really two sides of
Speaker 1: the same coin. It's an amphetamines, it's synthetic serotonin. It's
Speaker 1: pumping your brain full of dopamine and feel good chemicals.
Speaker 1: But when you're off the drugs, now your body's not
Speaker 1: able to produce those things in the same way. So
Speaker 1: you get what they call suicide Tuesday, and you just
Speaker 1: be mad depressed because you've used all the serotonin and
Speaker 1: it's just not sustainable. Like, so I started to seek
Speaker 1: out natural ways to spike my serotonin. So I got
Speaker 1: deeply into meditation, because when you meditate, that makes your
Speaker 1: serotonin levels spike like thirty percent. You know, crazy massages
Speaker 1: give you serotonin. Spending time in nature.
Speaker 2: Have you done the deprivation tank in the water.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did that a while back.
Speaker 2: I heard if you do that, like you could kind
Speaker 2: of like trip balls low key, if you're in there
Speaker 2: long enough, just with.
Speaker 1: Nothing, you can straight trip off breathing. Yeah, I'd be
Speaker 1: doing like deep breath work, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: There's one I do call the whim Hoff breathing method,
Speaker 1: and like you know, it's a lot of deep breath
Speaker 1: and then you hold your breath. You do that for
Speaker 1: thirty minutes, like you'd be high, Like you could trip
Speaker 1: with absolutely nothing, just off your breath.
Speaker 2: Have you fucked with ayahuasca at all?
Speaker 1: Hella hella, hella, hella. Fuck with that shit. Yeah, I've been.
Speaker 1: I've been doing ayahuasca since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: You're going to do you? Have you have a shaman?
Speaker 1: Like? Yeah? Almost every year. I got a few shimen
Speaker 1: that I shamans shamen. Yeah, yeah, I got a feueral.
Speaker 1: I think it's shamans. Yeah. I've been doing ayahuascar since
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, so I think I've probably done like about
Speaker 1: seven or eight ceremonies by this time, and that has
Speaker 1: been super impactful for me. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I know people who's done it like a weekend and
Speaker 2: it just like changed their whole trajectory of life and
Speaker 2: like they got rid of habits like immediately almost Like.
Speaker 1: I think that has been super impactful for me, going
Speaker 1: sober show and just like developing a new mindset and
Speaker 1: like mastering my thoughts.
Speaker 2: I want to do that, and I'm really I mean,
Speaker 2: I have access to d MT. I'm just scared to
Speaker 2: do it. I'm just like, I don't know. If I
Speaker 2: just hear about I heard t shirt is crazy. It's
Speaker 2: like fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's quick, man. I did. I did one called
Speaker 1: the five M e O d MT. It's called the Toad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's the ship Mike Tyson talks about. Is
Speaker 2: that the ship you have to freebase?
Speaker 1: That's what you could call it. It doesn't look too different.
Speaker 2: It looks it looks crackheadish for sure, but I heard
Speaker 2: it's like crack cattish.
Speaker 1: Yo. It was ill. So I'm gonna tell you the truth.
Speaker 1: The last time I did the Toad, I was already
Speaker 1: kind of primed for the experience because it was my
Speaker 1: second time and I was in a good mind frame
Speaker 1: as opposed to like a depressed place. I'm sure it
Speaker 1: changes you. So the moment when I inhaled it, you
Speaker 1: blast off. But from the jump, I was telling myself,
Speaker 1: I'm releasing myself from fear. I am releasing myself from fear.
Speaker 1: I'm releasing myself from fear. And I just had this
Speaker 1: blissful experience where I really communicated with my grandmother, who
Speaker 1: I never spoke to with words because she didn't speak English.
Speaker 1: She was in Ghana and she spoke twee. I didn't
Speaker 1: speak twee. So this was probably the first conversation conversation
Speaker 1: I've had with her. And she told me that I
Speaker 1: should not be inspired by her fear, but by her love.
Speaker 1: And it was deep to me because I'm not directly
Speaker 1: descended from slaves in America, so it didn't click to
Speaker 1: me until she told me, like, yes, I carried fear
Speaker 1: and I gave you fear. I was enslaved, We were enslaved,
Speaker 1: we were dominated and oppressed, you know, as African people.
Speaker 1: But when you think of me, do you think of
Speaker 1: my fear or do you think of my love? And
Speaker 1: that was it's so pivotal to me, not only because
Speaker 1: I felt like I was having a conversation with my
Speaker 1: grandmother that I could never speak to, but also because
Speaker 1: it gave me context that a lot of the fear
Speaker 1: I've carried in my life predates me, is not just me.
Speaker 1: Like we're walking around with generational trauma. You know, there
Speaker 1: are things that happen in your bloodline before you that
Speaker 1: are passed down to you. So now the question is
Speaker 1: how are you going to deal with it? You know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Are you going to unconsciously be guided
Speaker 1: by the fear in your trauma bloodline or are you
Speaker 1: going to learn to identify it and to transcend it.
Speaker 1: So the toad helped me to work towards transcending it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've had people tell me my boy John John
Speaker 2: said he lived like a six month.
Speaker 1: Life in that fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: No, he said, He's like, Bro, I had a girlfriend,
Speaker 2: I went to a job in job.
Speaker 1: I was like, and when he told me, what did
Speaker 1: that nigga do? Hey?
Speaker 2: When he told me that, I was like, yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think I want to do that, gang.
Speaker 2: I think I'm good like I want to do it.
Speaker 1: My ship was a proper fifteen minutes like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just like kind of rock and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fucking crazy. I was gonna ask you, uh talk
Speaker 2: about just like obviously you know you got the Black
Speaker 2: Star Festival which is in Africa, which is dope.
Speaker 1: That's you in Chance.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah what what what inspired you to do that?
Speaker 1: Man? You know it was really being on the podcast
Speaker 1: in South Africa, Okay, and I'm talking to these dudes.
Speaker 1: They got a dope platform called Sobring podcasts. Hip hop heads.
Speaker 1: They know everything, bro, they're knowing versus from when I
Speaker 1: first met you. Yeah, kids, these days music, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? All my Ship, all Chance Ship, Shoey perp,
Speaker 1: Like I haven't heard that game for a while, my
Speaker 1: click my uh. You know, all the people that come
Speaker 1: up at the same they're knowing all the music. And
Speaker 1: it just struck me, like, how is it that we
Speaker 1: don't come and perform for these people, like and they're
Speaker 1: huge fans of the music, they love the culture. You know,
Speaker 1: there's got to be something that can be done about this,
Speaker 1: because world tours happen. But he thinks that the kids
Speaker 1: in Ghana and Nigeria and South Africa are oblivious to
Speaker 1: the fact that they're never on the list. That's real,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. You call it a world tour.
Speaker 2: People go to Germany, people go to Brazil.
Speaker 1: But you're leaving out a whole continent that not only is,
Speaker 1: you know, the birthplace of black people, and hip hop
Speaker 1: music is the most ubiquitous form of communication. Black art
Speaker 1: form is taken a world by storm, and you know,
Speaker 1: we're often just completely out of touch with an entire
Speaker 1: continent of people. So that's when I just started thinking about, Yo,
Speaker 1: there's got to be a way that we could bring
Speaker 1: the black artists to come and perform for the fans
Speaker 1: in Africa and to meet the land and experience the
Speaker 1: continent for real. And it's going to take favors, it's
Speaker 1: going to take friends, it's going to take mission and
Speaker 1: people buying in to that mission. But it's doable. And
Speaker 1: when Chance came to visit me in Ghana, I just
Speaker 1: started to kick it to him and he was just
Speaker 1: immediately on the same wavelength and in that same mind frame,
Speaker 1: and it happened quickly.
Speaker 2: That's dope, man. We'll look The album's coming up September fifteen.
Speaker 2: September fifteenth Victor album Any Features, Yeah, you got on
Speaker 2: the album.
Speaker 1: You know one that I'm really excited about is Jay Electronica.
Speaker 2: Ooh, shout out to jail elect He gave me a
Speaker 2: crazy verse. I bet. I mean, I don't know if
Speaker 2: he's ever not given someone a crazy verse. It's be
Speaker 2: hard to it'd be really hard for him to wrap.
Speaker 1: Like he can't do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like yeah, shout out to Jay elect Yo. It's crazy. Uh,
Speaker 2: I just I was just having this conversation with somebody
Speaker 2: and I just educated somebody on crucial conflict.
Speaker 1: That's crazy because we're working on sample and crucial conflict.
Speaker 2: Right, you guys sampled telling him these days.
Speaker 1: We used to play. We used to play that.
Speaker 2: That fucking Traphouse rock album when they used to come
Speaker 2: out with us, like I would have Cold Hart was
Speaker 2: it never never was in the group. I remember I
Speaker 2: used to know all the wild Style.
Speaker 1: Wild Style. Yeah, that's shown it was.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: It was really cold Heart and Kelo that would that
Speaker 1: would rock with us.
Speaker 2: Shout to the Final Tick a classic album.
Speaker 1: Yo. They would come out and crowdsurfer. When we were seventeen,
Speaker 1: they come out with us at the Metro in Chicago,
Speaker 1: be crowdsurfing. These guys like Keilo is a big guy,
Speaker 1: two hundred plus pounds. You know, CrowdSurf.
Speaker 2: I remember those guys with their leather overalls on the
Speaker 2: cover of that album, and I had the bookletud them
Speaker 2: guys is legends, So also shout trying to do or die?
Speaker 1: To do or Die also another very undoing appreciated legends
Speaker 1: both West Side of Chicago. You know, legends that brought
Speaker 1: a style just to the world.
Speaker 2: Have you chopped it up with Twitch? I know Twist
Speaker 2: is doing like it was a Twist about a week ago,
Speaker 2: he's doing a lot of Twister.
Speaker 1: Came out at the APT Oh Dope, Well.
Speaker 2: I know he's like doing a lot in the like
Speaker 2: trying to like properly show people how to use guns
Speaker 2: in Chicago, do it the legal way so that it
Speaker 2: is dope super dope man. Well, look, go get the
Speaker 2: album on the fifteenth. I can't believe it's your second album.
Speaker 2: I mean technically it's like you're like sixth right, fifth
Speaker 2: CPS and all this internet tape we're not considering an album.
Speaker 2: Basically is hey, shout out to this guy for people
Speaker 2: who don't know, I did a mixtape called Empire Business
Speaker 2: and you gave me orange Soda before Orange Juice. I
Speaker 2: didn't My graphic designer fucked that up.
Speaker 1: So was it? Because I was trying to remember the
Speaker 1: other day, I was like, was it me or was
Speaker 1: it you?
Speaker 2: I don't remember. I just remember when I put the artwork.
Speaker 2: If you hit me, you're like, it's Orange Soda, bro,
Speaker 2: So it must have been. But it was on my
Speaker 2: shit like well before it in.
Speaker 1: That tape drop. Yeah it was. That was like before
Speaker 1: it came out. Yeah, shouts to man, Damn, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: I didn't even remember that. Yes, and then semtexs put
Speaker 1: it on like BBC Radio.
Speaker 2: Classic Classic record. I appreciate you pulling up the alas.
Speaker 1: Man, my god, that's love.
Speaker 2: Boom fire. Hey, what up?
Speaker 1: Man?
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