Speaker 1: M hm hm. Welcome back all the smoke, Day two
Speaker 1: in NYC. We had a good first show. Now we're
Speaker 1: blessed to have this man right here for our second show.
Speaker 1: Man the founder, the originator of the Wu Tang and
Speaker 1: several other things. But man, welcome to the show. Risen Man.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you, thank you, thank you. Thanks appreciate your time. Man,
Speaker 1: thanks for inviting me. So we were just chopping it
Speaker 1: up while he was getting freshen up with the cut.
Speaker 1: So you're working on episode what four or five of
Speaker 1: season three? You anticipating the drop? Thank you, thank you?
Speaker 1: Episode five were production and that right now. Um, it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's to be crazy this season, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: We're gonna really go into the successful. You know, we've
Speaker 1: seen the struggle, you've seen all the paperwork getting engaged,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Now we're gonna see how
Speaker 1: that unfold. What happens when you sign a five year contract.
Speaker 1: You gotta keep up to your joint, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. We're seeing the relationships men too. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. We'd be at that point now
Speaker 1: everybody getting along. Yeah, we actually, uh, you know a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't know that when Wu Tang do albums,
Speaker 1: we would come together and live in the same location.
Speaker 1: So we started out here. We did it in the
Speaker 1: l a um. At one point, we're just all living
Speaker 1: in oakwad apartments, you know what I mean. We turned
Speaker 1: the Oakwood into a project, what I mean. But but
Speaker 1: when we do that, it just keeps that energy close.
Speaker 1: So this season you'll see that. I think. I think
Speaker 1: it's a it's kind of like a basketball camp when
Speaker 1: you think about it in reality that everybody got to
Speaker 1: be together and go to go to the studio and
Speaker 1: come back. Yeah, so we're gonna show that this season.
Speaker 1: So what is it like? I mean, you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're producing, you cre aid, you written for But what
Speaker 1: is it like going down memorily Lane back to the start?
Speaker 1: Because we've been talking about a lot so often we
Speaker 1: don't appreciate what we've been through, the ups, the downs,
Speaker 1: the celebrations, to struggle. So now going back and kind
Speaker 1: of giving the world another look at you know, we
Speaker 1: all saw the outside. Now we're seeing the inside. But
Speaker 1: what has it been like for you personally reliving that? Wow,
Speaker 1: it's so good one Yeah, it's I mean, it's both
Speaker 1: it's beautiful and it's ugly. The beautiful things, you know,
Speaker 1: you kind of feel accolated, like, wow, I did that,
Speaker 1: We did that. But the ugliness is like, yo, we
Speaker 1: we definitely came from, uh, you know, a struggle, a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, violence, a lot of loss on
Speaker 1: the way, you know, so some of those things definitely, um,
Speaker 1: you know, hit you in the heart. But the beauty
Speaker 1: is if you live through a story or live through
Speaker 1: a part of life, and you're blessed to share that
Speaker 1: with somebody else. Hopefully somebody else would be inspired and
Speaker 1: they'll see that and they could jump over that land
Speaker 1: mine because you're like, yo, it's a land mine, right, um,
Speaker 1: real quick, before we change directions, can we do you
Speaker 1: have a date for the drop of season three year?
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna I think it's I think it's
Speaker 1: gonna be more like January. Let y'all wait a little
Speaker 1: bit on that, ye waiting on anything else you have
Speaker 1: going on television side? I mean, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I just stayed creative, you know what I mean. You
Speaker 1: might catch me on the movie Manya's coming out. That's
Speaker 1: kind of funny because my son's you know, when Manias
Speaker 1: first came out my son was young, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I mean I think it started with Despicable
Speaker 1: Me first. Then Yeah, so it's crazy that this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm one of the voices up in the joint,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, talking and whatever. But that's
Speaker 1: the blessing of our art. We just contendue to keep
Speaker 1: building and um, you'll find yourself in unique places. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how you like doing voiceovers? I mean voiceovers is like
Speaker 1: that's come on from the studio, that's like spitting dots. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean so voiceovers is like easy, easy work for me,
Speaker 1: you know, like I do it for free, you know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, you've been blessed to just stay
Speaker 1: busy since like we see on the show, since the beginning.
Speaker 1: But even though you weren't always out and about and
Speaker 1: always for Ford facing, you've always been consistently whether it
Speaker 1: be creating, producing, acting voiceovers. Um, do you ever just
Speaker 1: think about just man like, like I said, understanding and
Speaker 1: kind of giving yourself Like damn, I did a lot
Speaker 1: of great ship during this time because you have, and
Speaker 1: it's something you know, we all look up to you
Speaker 1: and just love to see you similar to Snoop to
Speaker 1: be just be able to stay in the game so long,
Speaker 1: to be relevant and continue to press you know, uh, give,
Speaker 1: give positivity and show people you know there there's a
Speaker 1: light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: when you kind of recognizing yourself that you are unique,
Speaker 1: you know, you each any posie, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: And then you realized as an artist or as a
Speaker 1: talent that you could take that talent and that mastery
Speaker 1: and apply it to other things. You know, you you
Speaker 1: it's your duty to do that, you know. I remember
Speaker 1: when I first started, when I wanted to be a composer,
Speaker 1: I was like, ye, there's no there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of black composers first of all, but it's definitely ain't
Speaker 1: no hip hop composers. And I got a yacht, a
Speaker 1: lot of kids that's buying drummers scenes and trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how they're gonna eat, and they can't all
Speaker 1: fit into the bucket we got already. So so I
Speaker 1: started to leave footprints, like, yo, you could go left
Speaker 1: and find some oil, you could go right and find
Speaker 1: some oil. You don't have to keep digging in the
Speaker 1: same spot. So I felt like that's that was one
Speaker 1: of my callings in life was always continue to show
Speaker 1: inspiration and the show that we got the power to
Speaker 1: break stereotype. You know what I mean. It's like, Yo,
Speaker 1: you can't do that, you know, because you're from the hood.
Speaker 1: You can't do that because you don't got a master's degree.
Speaker 1: You can't do that because you're black, or you can't
Speaker 1: do that because you hip hop. It's like, na, son,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna crush all of those stereotypes and I'm going
Speaker 1: best on the talent that I've acquired. To believe it
Speaker 1: is it? Is it true that you're working on the
Speaker 1: biopick d b Well, the bio pickure. I've been working
Speaker 1: on that for a minute. Um having some ping pongs
Speaker 1: on that because you got other people that's in his
Speaker 1: life as well trying to do the same thing. So
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, it's like me the best
Speaker 1: man win that we got a chance to see it
Speaker 1: from watching the show. But Ris represents Bobby Digital. How
Speaker 1: did they talk about that and and experience behind that?
Speaker 1: Well dropped as a character. Bobby Digital was one of
Speaker 1: my all the autistic expressions. I gotta um, I got
Speaker 1: a graphic novel coming out which I'm proud of you know,
Speaker 1: um whereas you know, we took and kind of mixed
Speaker 1: Japanese anime with hip hop culture u Z comics and
Speaker 1: I put a soundtrack to it. You know, music is
Speaker 1: my second nature. That that would be out like June
Speaker 1: and uh, something very unique. And that's something that put
Speaker 1: on yourself, y'all put that on yourself. Brownsville, New York
Speaker 1: in the seventies eighties. What was that like, Come on
Speaker 1: in Brownsville, hold on Riddick Bowl all right, Mark Greenland,
Speaker 1: I mean fighters, Yeah, you gotta fight. That's that was
Speaker 1: on the reality is the toughest streets I would walk
Speaker 1: in my life, you know what I mean. And and
Speaker 1: to get out of that, it's a blessing, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. We're talking about projects after projects after projects.
Speaker 1: One block away Tilden, Langston Hughes, Marcus Garvey, Van Dyke,
Speaker 1: I mean Stone the Avenue back before with mother Gas
Speaker 1: and it's like you could just be cool in this
Speaker 1: building and gets done in that building right next door.
Speaker 1: But it was m le say, let me say one
Speaker 1: thing about it, if I could elaborate a little bit.
Speaker 1: The crazy thing I learned years later, right that before
Speaker 1: was a black populated project. The Jews all populated there.
Speaker 1: And I learned that from my buddy Eli Roth because
Speaker 1: his father's like, oh, from Brownsville. I was like, from Brownsville.
Speaker 1: He said, yeah, but they got out right and they
Speaker 1: moved on to the suburbs and bought homes. One of
Speaker 1: the issues is the system. When Blacks got in, the
Speaker 1: system kept us there. And then also we became complacent
Speaker 1: as if this is the place to be. Projects is
Speaker 1: for you to start. It's low income, you don't got
Speaker 1: enough money, We pitch you here, but you gotta build
Speaker 1: up out of that, you know what I mean. It
Speaker 1: starts getting sad when it's like, Yo, your grandmother's there
Speaker 1: because she's been there since her mother was there, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a book called The Color of Law that I've
Speaker 1: read that I think it's very important to read. Whereas
Speaker 1: the system has kept us there systematically, but then it's
Speaker 1: also the psychological complacency that we've that we've yeah, we
Speaker 1: got comfortable with and uh yeah, but I'm from Brownsville.
Speaker 1: Never man, never will y'all. It was introduced to music
Speaker 1: and nine, what was what was going on in your
Speaker 1: life at that time. I means hip hop is my
Speaker 1: first musical love, you know what I mean? Then it's
Speaker 1: just my older cousin took me to a block party,
Speaker 1: right uh, New York. You know Bronx, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Yeah, Bronx, the you know, the birthplace of
Speaker 1: hip hop. And I heard it. I heard dip deep
Speaker 1: dives so socialized. Clean out your ears and you open
Speaker 1: your eyes, you know what I did. Cleaned out my
Speaker 1: ears opened and I left that and I never forget
Speaker 1: him and him and hip hop and falling in love
Speaker 1: with it and knowing that that was my calling. Who
Speaker 1: did you adolize at that time? Man, Cold Crush Brothers. Uh.
Speaker 1: We had Dr Rock in the Foursome Sees from from
Speaker 1: stat Island. We had Um Grandmaster Flash and Mellie mel
Speaker 1: Nephurious five. It's like it wasn't the records, it was tapes,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like you couldn't go to
Speaker 1: the store, like let me get that record. It's just
Speaker 1: like you had to go have a dub tape of
Speaker 1: of of it, Fantastic five or the Fantastic Freeze, Um
Speaker 1: Poison Clan Feelless four. Anyway, Yeah, those were those were
Speaker 1: some of the pioneers and saying busy be all of
Speaker 1: them had all those tapes. Seven is was your favorite
Speaker 1: decade of music? I mean, seventies is definitely my you know,
Speaker 1: my youth growing up and and and music being kind
Speaker 1: of new and expressive. Like you gotta think about in
Speaker 1: the seventies we went from the singles of three minute
Speaker 1: songs or two minute songs to seven minute songs. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean. You know, look at Pink Floyd
Speaker 1: giving you all albums that was more thematic, or The Doors,
Speaker 1: or or Marvin Kaye giving you What's going On where
Speaker 1: it's a whole thematic to the album. So the seventies
Speaker 1: opened up a whole world. But hip hip hop and
Speaker 1: music to me, I'm still in love with it no
Speaker 1: matter what. How did the time spending that you're spinning
Speaker 1: on hire with your mother shape you look, Ohio, North Carolina,
Speaker 1: all these different places of our country or got their
Speaker 1: own speed, and then each got something to offer to culture.
Speaker 1: I was blessed, you know, to travel like the CDs
Speaker 1: play races. Most people in my hood they're stuck in
Speaker 1: a four block radius. Um so just going down south
Speaker 1: and seeing corn fields and tobacco fields and I used
Speaker 1: to pick tobacco yo, you know what I mean, since
Speaker 1: that's doing that, or going out to Ohio and seeing
Speaker 1: that still mid culture in the Midwest, coach, all these
Speaker 1: things help help help spark me. You know, like they
Speaker 1: didn't have Triangle pizza, yo, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: they had the Square, they had the square slices at
Speaker 1: the Carlos or whatever. When obviously hip hop is your
Speaker 1: first love, when did you feel like, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: I want to make this my career. I mean, even
Speaker 1: if it wasn't, my career is what I do every day.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, I definitely had a you know,
Speaker 1: when I heard a sugar Hill Gang on the radio,
Speaker 1: I knew that I could be on the radio. I
Speaker 1: knew it, you know what I mean. And when I
Speaker 1: you know, eventually start hearing you know, the Pineer Grace
Speaker 1: before me, Rock Kim Cares One Daddy Chain and the
Speaker 1: content of their lyrics versions with my pin was doing
Speaker 1: and what my music was doing with Molly Marl Lost,
Speaker 1: Professor h Prince Paul, all the all this different energy
Speaker 1: was was was was just spark and be like, yo,
Speaker 1: I know I could do this too. I'm living it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And then even when when
Speaker 1: you think about when um you know, of course one DMC,
Speaker 1: but then when DRE and n w A and bought
Speaker 1: it from that side, you know what I mean, it
Speaker 1: was like, Yo, this is the country, this is this
Speaker 1: is real. It ain't like that's New York. And so
Speaker 1: you know, I not only knew I was to do
Speaker 1: it as an artist, I realized I could do it
Speaker 1: as a businessman. That's the last thing. I mean. Obviously,
Speaker 1: watching the series like you, you were always the business
Speaker 1: side of it. I mean, obviously before we hit you
Speaker 1: had your solos, a little bit solo stuff, had some
Speaker 1: smaller groups. But what in you kept you driving to
Speaker 1: bring everyone together, because we saw you had a hell
Speaker 1: of a time getting so many different personalities and egos
Speaker 1: and beasts under one building to create what you turned
Speaker 1: into history. You know. Also, I was blessed to, like um,
Speaker 1: you know, to be conscious of the Holy Koran, the
Speaker 1: Holy Bible and stories that men lived before me. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the one of the best stories is Noah.
Speaker 1: He's like Yo, in order for us is survived, we
Speaker 1: gotta or git on the arc, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And far as my crew Wull Brothers. You know, we
Speaker 1: was definitely at the point where street drugs, crime and
Speaker 1: poverty was was taken Brothers away, you know. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it was like, yo, we gotta use with naturally and us.
Speaker 1: You know, we said on the song Cream every week
Speaker 1: we made forty g s. You're taking forty z s
Speaker 1: to vide that between a dozen people ain't really that much,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Now you put wu tang
Speaker 1: on the show, right on a on a concert, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get you can get up to a half of
Speaker 1: them in one night. So as it says in the Bible,
Speaker 1: for every positive thing you do, I can multiply you
Speaker 1: by ten. And so understanding that multiplication, understanding that that
Speaker 1: my vision was clear to me. You know, that's when
Speaker 1: they say that to it to all your or your
Speaker 1: or your viewers. It's always gonna be somebody in your
Speaker 1: family or amongst you that have got a clear vision.
Speaker 1: I mean, whether or even even the culture of your team,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean the conductor of the orchestra. Somebody
Speaker 1: got to have a clear vision, and everybody gotta be
Speaker 1: a witnessed and fall into that vision in order ford
Speaker 1: to manifest and I was fortunate to have nine brothers
Speaker 1: who are Alpha. No chumps in woo alpha any one
Speaker 1: of them, it's dangerous as the other one, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: having noledge itself and saying that there's a common denominator
Speaker 1: and that Yo the Abbot, he's always been pure, he's
Speaker 1: always can't do on his word. And they've been witness
Speaker 1: to the vision, even though they couldn't see it clear,
Speaker 1: they believe, they believe um assembling all nine. Was there
Speaker 1: anyone early who to release stood out to you? Or
Speaker 1: they kind of took that first jump? You don't you know?
Speaker 1: It was a special remember I mean all special. But
Speaker 1: the first brother to sign on that doted line, his method, man, man,
Speaker 1: his loyalty is unquestionable. You shout out to Meth, shout
Speaker 1: out Davis for killing it, Davis slaying killing it. He
Speaker 1: killed it. I mean, if you were the same Dave
Speaker 1: yesterday on the on the footage we shot, uh, he
Speaker 1: had the whole motors like I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: seen that video triumph with Meth on the motor so Dave,
Speaker 1: Dave is on the motorcycle with the Stipe and the helmet,
Speaker 1: and I'm telling you, even for me, I was like,
Speaker 1: damn yeah. Look him and his manager, they was like yo.
Speaker 1: I was like, he's like, he's embodying the spirit of it, y'all.
Speaker 1: How important I mean, since we're kind of over there,
Speaker 1: how important for it was you? Because obviously this is
Speaker 1: a personal project to find people that really fit who
Speaker 1: your group was. I did a great job at that
Speaker 1: and not easy, yo, you know, but we you know,
Speaker 1: we called through a lot of talent. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: some talent was already on their way to success, like SHAMG. Moore.
Speaker 1: You know, I met think one of the best young
Speaker 1: actors in the game. He's going to continue to grow.
Speaker 1: That's what we went to dinner with, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: young man. Um the brother that's playing was a discovery
Speaker 1: out of Staton Allen and his career is taken off
Speaker 1: of that, and he definitely had that spirit. Um the
Speaker 1: brother playing Ghost, you know, he's a trained actors killing
Speaker 1: and he's he's so trained that it though. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: then the dude playing my brother Divine once again Juilliard.
Speaker 1: He's from Yale, you know, he's like a Yale graduate
Speaker 1: or something like that. Right, and we found them on Broadway. Um,
Speaker 1: but and Aston standards playing me. A lot of people was,
Speaker 1: you know, like why she was asking it? And I say, Aston,
Speaker 1: he has these odds of an artist that, no matter what,
Speaker 1: he's dedicated to being an artist. And I think when
Speaker 1: I when I interviewed him and I heard his story,
Speaker 1: he was like, Yo, why people was he's from He's
Speaker 1: from l He's not from New York. Why people was
Speaker 1: running around doing whatever they was doing. He's the dude
Speaker 1: that was up in the art school, up in the
Speaker 1: art classes and looking for something else to express itself
Speaker 1: versus getting caught up and what the what the neighborhood
Speaker 1: was offering him. And I just saw his eyes. I
Speaker 1: was like, y'all, you might not have been locked up
Speaker 1: shots bust statue, you know what I mean? But those
Speaker 1: odds of the odds that I had, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Knowing that, Yo, my art is period is
Speaker 1: gonna be my savior beyond everything else I was trying.
Speaker 1: And he's doing a great job as well. Love that. Okay,
Speaker 1: I kind of figured this out from the movie, But
Speaker 1: for people that don't know, how did you come up
Speaker 1: with the name Wu tang Oh? Wow, how we do that?
Speaker 1: That's yeah, that's let me if you don't know that.
Speaker 1: But but yo, we watched a lot of kung fu movies,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. There was a movie called
Speaker 1: Shouting Versus Buchang. Wuchang represents the sward technique, and uh,
Speaker 1: we said, our tongue is our sword, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, and with that you're going to chop heads off.
Speaker 1: So it was like Wu Tang Clan. First of wass
Speaker 1: Woutank Production. If it was like like Woutank Production, that's
Speaker 1: gonna be named my company, you know, I mean, then
Speaker 1: Wou Tang Records the name in my label, and then
Speaker 1: now we're gonna be the Wu Tang Clan, I mean,
Speaker 1: then Wu Tang Management. So we just kept going. But
Speaker 1: it was something about the spirituality of what that represented
Speaker 1: it and something about the strength of what it represented
Speaker 1: in Asian culture. I felt that I could, um, I
Speaker 1: could um you know, translate that into Western culture and
Speaker 1: you and you did first single protecting neck crazy says
Speaker 1: it all to experience the experience making that, I mean, yo,
Speaker 1: we um you know, once again, was never a symphony
Speaker 1: with that many mcs all in one group and all
Speaker 1: giving you bars. It wasn't like somebody you didn't give
Speaker 1: you bars, you know what I mean. And protect your
Speaker 1: neck was was our scrub. I'll scream out or cry
Speaker 1: out to the industry like, yo, protect your neck because
Speaker 1: we're coming for your head, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And at one point, you know what I mean, you
Speaker 1: couldn't even be in the club without turning it down
Speaker 1: because it was definitely a lot of the starts to
Speaker 1: own Aggressive Minutes thirty six Chambers with the debut album
Speaker 1: ringing number one of the charts, one of the greatest
Speaker 1: albums of hip hop all time. Going back and look
Speaker 1: at that album, Did you know it's gonna be this big?
Speaker 1: You know, it's a hindsight, but foresight is too, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? And I foresaw it being great, Yo,
Speaker 1: and I and I. You know, people I don't like
Speaker 1: to sound like as a grown man, as a father
Speaker 1: or that try not to be egotistical by nothing I
Speaker 1: say or do, But at that point in life, I
Speaker 1: was super egotistical. When I knew that the ru was
Speaker 1: coming through and was going to break down and change
Speaker 1: the game, and I had no I didn't have an
Speaker 1: inch of doubt. And whoever doubted it. I was like,
Speaker 1: he's stupid, you don't see it. I told the exact
Speaker 1: could have just that to their face, because then it
Speaker 1: was like nah, after the first album and everybody having
Speaker 1: success in the first album, guys started to get solo
Speaker 1: deals going through that time, Like what were you thinking? Like,
Speaker 1: I know, I know you was all four because you
Speaker 1: want everybody to to to to do their own things
Speaker 1: and stand on your own, but you also want everybody
Speaker 1: to stay as a family while doing that. But what
Speaker 1: was the toughest part of during that time where you're
Speaker 1: trying to keep everybody together but the solo deals are
Speaker 1: coming around. I mean, the toughest thing you're gonna faces
Speaker 1: before before it's money, because money sometime it's don't become
Speaker 1: a problem when you grew from the same cup, from
Speaker 1: the same cloth. But what happened is as you grow
Speaker 1: you also attracting other people. I think the biggest thing
Speaker 1: is other people coming around the crew and having their
Speaker 1: advice or their words put into you. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of times, a lot of influences in life come
Speaker 1: from outside and eventually, you know, I always give a
Speaker 1: story of my man who was who grew up with me.
Speaker 1: One of my best buddies, still want my best buddies.
Speaker 1: But he, uh, you know, we grew up. We said
Speaker 1: we need together and all that, right. But he joined
Speaker 1: the New York City Police Department, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And as years went on, he became more of a cop.
Speaker 1: I had to and that's when he's sup posted. He's
Speaker 1: spending and I was worried about our relationship. And I
Speaker 1: remember talking to my lawyer. I said, yeah, my buddy,
Speaker 1: seems like I wanted to my house. I shold him
Speaker 1: my gun and he was looking at it like like
Speaker 1: it was a collar, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: I said, you know, like why is that? He's like, no,
Speaker 1: he said, he's spending more time every day with police office.
Speaker 1: That's where his mind becomes. So when you look at
Speaker 1: our crew, as we growing and we become successful and
Speaker 1: we're spending the time apart, and all the people were
Speaker 1: taking that space, they started whispering, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Proverbs say something about the beware we are the whispering man,
Speaker 1: Like you know what I mean. Because they whispered things
Speaker 1: into it years and I became a problem. Ye know,
Speaker 1: it's still a problem. You know. I think people used
Speaker 1: that problem in their lives. People facing the social media
Speaker 1: and you look going there and you start reading comments,
Speaker 1: you start taking a comment literal. They start affecting what
Speaker 1: you're gonna do next. Because when somebody said yesterday, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So I think that was one
Speaker 1: of the biggest issues. The agent culture had a huge
Speaker 1: influence along with the martial arts. Um with you, when
Speaker 1: did you decide that you could, like you said you
Speaker 1: said earlier, you feel like you can merge that into
Speaker 1: the Western culture, Like if when did you kind of
Speaker 1: feel like, Okay, I really feel like I could take
Speaker 1: this and flip this into our vision. Man, we all
Speaker 1: grew up watching Saturday Afternoon Kung Fuut Theater, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember being a kid and when Kung
Speaker 1: Fut movies came on, the whole neighborhood was empty for
Speaker 1: like two hours because everybody went up to watch the
Speaker 1: Kung fu flick came back out throwing punches and kicks.
Speaker 1: That's why me and d scratched to the album called
Speaker 1: Saturday Afternoon Kung Fuu Theater because it happened in his
Speaker 1: neighborhood too. It happened in uh Kendrick Lamar was like Yo,
Speaker 1: That's how it was with his pops and things like
Speaker 1: God from Kenny right. So, Um, knowing that that's part
Speaker 1: of our culture, you know, I just knew that it
Speaker 1: was gonna resonate, Yo. You know the goodness of anything
Speaker 1: always were. You know, our show is called Wuchang and
Speaker 1: American Saga. You know what I mean, because in America
Speaker 1: you're gonna get all these chambers. You're gonna look right now,
Speaker 1: we we we lowered East New York City everybody, but
Speaker 1: you go a few blocks that way trying to towns
Speaker 1: right there, baby, you know what I mean? And trust me,
Speaker 1: some of that is spilling over, trying to the starting
Speaker 1: to come. This spill right over. The twenty five year
Speaker 1: anniversary of your second album, You Tank Forever is going
Speaker 1: to be celebrated soon. Um, what do you remember most
Speaker 1: about that album? That was one of Wuchang Forever was
Speaker 1: an important album for us, our biggest selling album. It
Speaker 1: was done doing tough times though. You know, we lost
Speaker 1: a couple of hip hop icons. We had lost Park
Speaker 1: in ninety six. We lost Biggie the same year while
Speaker 1: we was making that album. We you know, seeing him
Speaker 1: like moments, not moments, but days before this happened and
Speaker 1: all that, and it's like, uh, I think we was like,
Speaker 1: it's important for us to make sure what we do
Speaker 1: remains forever. It's important for us to put our capture
Speaker 1: our spirits at this youthful age and and and and
Speaker 1: leave it on this vinyl and this wax. And it
Speaker 1: was important for us. And I think we lived it out.
Speaker 1: You know, seven, it's a year. In mathematics, it means
Speaker 1: born God, right, because nine is born, seven is God.
Speaker 1: And if you add nine and seven together, it's gonna
Speaker 1: come to sixtheam or still give you a seven. And
Speaker 1: so it's like you gotta let God be born through you,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. We were talking like that.
Speaker 1: We gotta let God be born through us. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Let's let's let's go listen. It's don't
Speaker 1: let nothing take us here. Don't worry about if they
Speaker 1: like it, they don't like it. We gotta let it
Speaker 1: be Gon be known. And that's why you hear so
Speaker 1: many songs and you hear you know all the skins,
Speaker 1: what you're doing. I'm setting my lessons, call me back mathematics. God, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you hear you hear that. You hear the lyrics,
Speaker 1: you hear us you know, the five elopments to search
Speaker 1: for a higher intelligence. You know, you hear all that
Speaker 1: stuff because it's like yo, and you know, at that
Speaker 1: age and at that level of life, we had to
Speaker 1: capture that and recorded not for ourselves, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, for the youth coming up so they could
Speaker 1: have something, y'all. And so it was an important album
Speaker 1: when I'm I'm happy that it was accepted and it
Speaker 1: was the first time, to be honest with you, that
Speaker 1: Utang left the hood because when that album came out,
Speaker 1: it was the entire country responded to it. In fact,
Speaker 1: the entire world was the number one in multiple countries.
Speaker 1: And at one point we was like, yo, a lot
Speaker 1: of white boys here, so yeah, but started feeling like
Speaker 1: what's going on? But then we embraced it, like, nah,
Speaker 1: this is they love us. Yeah, And the truth is
Speaker 1: has no gender nor color. Fire plus five is that's
Speaker 1: not the mattice. It works for everybody. So is that
Speaker 1: kind of when you felt like that was kind of
Speaker 1: leading to my next questions that when you guys kind
Speaker 1: of feel like like your name is ringing around the world,
Speaker 1: you feel like that was kind of your your real
Speaker 1: footstep and you know, into the music space as far
Speaker 1: as like we're here now for real. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: the completion, you know what I mean. I promised, brothers,
Speaker 1: give me five years and we're gonna be number one.
Speaker 1: I said. I ain't saying number two, said number one.
Speaker 1: I said number one, And you know what it was,
Speaker 1: number one? You made it. How has your families You
Speaker 1: just touched on a little bit, but how is your
Speaker 1: fan base changed from when you first started to obviously
Speaker 1: the longevity you guys have had, have you seen a
Speaker 1: kind of different waves? And yeah, you know. The cool
Speaker 1: thing is that, especially based on today's outlet of music
Speaker 1: and internet and digital and on our social media, is
Speaker 1: it's like I go to a Wooltan concert and I
Speaker 1: see three generations there, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: see the pops, the sun and the and the and
Speaker 1: the and the grandsun, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: that's a blessing. And especially I say it's a blessing
Speaker 1: not because of the economic and the longevity stability of it,
Speaker 1: but it's a blessing because I know that within that
Speaker 1: product is something good there, something healthy there, Like that kid,
Speaker 1: that kid gonna He's gonna be all right because if
Speaker 1: he memorized some of this that we had a song
Speaker 1: where he was like, uh, casting stone was cracking the
Speaker 1: two hundred and six bones and watch it like it's
Speaker 1: two hundred and six bones in your body. You can
Speaker 1: take that data, you know what I mean. My brother said,
Speaker 1: ninety three million miles away from came want to represent
Speaker 1: the nation. Yeah, the sun is ninety three million miles
Speaker 1: away from the sun. It's like it's facts and jewels
Speaker 1: and and and and and and and ready to give up.
Speaker 1: But I seek my old earth. Seek your mother sometime
Speaker 1: who explain working hard to help you maintain this. It's
Speaker 1: jews in there, and it ain't just like pop that bottle,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Twerky twirk, you know, you
Speaker 1: get some of that, but it's real life stuff in there.
Speaker 1: And I love that a young man could get that
Speaker 1: in his life. You know, some some young people be
Speaker 1: depressed in their cribs, nobody to relate to, and then
Speaker 1: they hear weight they all in their comics and they
Speaker 1: feel like they're they're a widow and go wait method
Speaker 1: man v comics, you know what I mean. They're playing chests,
Speaker 1: feeling like a square. Wait, the justn't plays chess. Wait,
Speaker 1: old eb, You know what I mean, he's crazy. Look
Speaker 1: at look what he look at Look all the things
Speaker 1: he was into, you know what I mean. So that helps,
Speaker 1: and so that's how I feel about it. You got
Speaker 1: a chance to work with Big Fellawur, Big Brother, Shock
Speaker 1: and ninety four helped produce a few tracks on Shock Fool.
Speaker 1: What was that like? Come on, Shock, come on Shock?
Speaker 1: And super superhero Man. He's a he's always been a superhero.
Speaker 1: He yeah, he's always been a super hell yeah, yeah, man.
Speaker 1: He picked me up in that video. Right, But I
Speaker 1: wasn't getting a chance to work. It was it was
Speaker 1: it was in a different space. Now, I was incredible, y'all.
Speaker 1: We had a good time. We be many friends from
Speaker 1: from that moment, you know what I mean. Uh, until
Speaker 1: we see each other, we just smile, you know, and
Speaker 1: look he took a serious you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: That's let's talk about that for a quick second, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And it's want to compliment you too,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Because you mastered your craft,
Speaker 1: so as a master of your craft, you're able to
Speaker 1: join other things in master and get into it you're
Speaker 1: not you know, you know, you guys ain't on TV
Speaker 1: shooting at oh you know what I mean, you're on
Speaker 1: TV host and talking to loomen of hes building your mind,
Speaker 1: giving adding on the culture because you are coaching. And
Speaker 1: so Shock was that early he was able to come
Speaker 1: to the studio, get his pen and he wrote his
Speaker 1: own people like Shocked in right there. No, Shock wrote
Speaker 1: with that. You know what I mean, he cord he
Speaker 1: has some lines in there. I was like, yo, you
Speaker 1: had a couple of lines in there, y'all, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So so that's that's that's you know,
Speaker 1: it was. It was a beautiful thing to see that.
Speaker 1: And like I said, um, I think sometimes we don't
Speaker 1: just speaking on the outside and we as as different
Speaker 1: fields of artist me don't recognize the common denominator between
Speaker 1: other luminaries. And with Shock, he was one of the
Speaker 1: first ones to let me realize that. On the court,
Speaker 1: he's a big, strong dude, but we in reality is
Speaker 1: a fun loving, yeah, big kid, yeah man. And you
Speaker 1: don't think that never breaking backboards and sucking people up,
Speaker 1: you ever know? Yeah? Yeah, So it was a blessing
Speaker 1: to see that and a blessing to see right now.
Speaker 1: He's I mean, he's like a comedian. It could have
Speaker 1: been a comedian. It's funny, it's shocking commercial every single endorsement.
Speaker 1: Shock is just someone who's gotta protect Shock at all
Speaker 1: costs and a big com You guys first started traveling
Speaker 1: the world, um as a group. What was that experience
Speaker 1: like for you guys to kind of get outside of
Speaker 1: New York for the first time and really start seeing
Speaker 1: the world do what you love doing, which is music.
Speaker 1: That was crazy. You're traveling in the world. First of all,
Speaker 1: I'll traveling in the world. When I chose not to
Speaker 1: eat meat. That was a bad decision. I had a
Speaker 1: lot of cheese sounds, but it was a bad decision, yo.
Speaker 1: But um, you know it's cultural cultural differences. But the
Speaker 1: young people always got you know, find a way, right.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna have fun, You're gonna get you're gonna
Speaker 1: have good times. But the cultural differences I think, um,
Speaker 1: in the beginning was was was was WORRIOUSO, Like we
Speaker 1: wanted we couldn't wait to get home, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't wait to get home. But as
Speaker 1: time went on, maybe like let's say, by the time
Speaker 1: you get to the year two thousand and two thousand one,
Speaker 1: and and there's a shift in culture happening. You go
Speaker 1: back and there's a veggie Burger and McDonald's now, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, and the people who have got
Speaker 1: more hip hop into their system. It started to become
Speaker 1: a big joy, you know. Um, So in the beginning,
Speaker 1: it was tough. Germany was tough. Um Sweden was tough.
Speaker 1: Switzerland was tough. Norway and Copehagen, all those places was tough,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But now it's like a joy.
Speaker 1: I love. I love Cope cope Haagen a nice city. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Some time then you got a chance to work with
Speaker 1: Kanye on Dark Twisted Fantasies. Uh. Thoughts on him as
Speaker 1: an artist and the producer and just kind of what
Speaker 1: he's given to this space as well. I mean Kanye,
Speaker 1: you know, as a man who definitely moved our culture.
Speaker 1: Um took hip hop culture from one degree and multiplied
Speaker 1: it into you know, fashion art. Pure artist in all reality,
Speaker 1: So him being a pure artist, he plays in and
Speaker 1: dipping fields, but he still plays at the highest level
Speaker 1: of art and so he's he's successful in those fields
Speaker 1: and he brings awareness to feels that we wasn't paying
Speaker 1: attention to Um. You know, I spent some time and
Speaker 1: I'll consider the consider him a brother man and and
Speaker 1: very very um what's the word very? Uh? I mean
Speaker 1: I'm gonna use them. I'm as big brother, so I
Speaker 1: can say very proud of what do you doing? What
Speaker 1: do he becomes? You know what I mean? You know,
Speaker 1: let me say something that the abbot was. It would say,
Speaker 1: you know, a law works and they say, they say,
Speaker 1: a law works in mysterious ways, right the master planner.
Speaker 1: And it's mysterious because you just can't figure out the equation.
Speaker 1: But check out this equation. Fifty cent gets a floor
Speaker 1: and his jaw from a shot, and Kanye gets the
Speaker 1: floor and his jaw. But that floor gives them the
Speaker 1: ability to change the world. You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So that's from my floor. Hip hop was a DJ.
Speaker 1: The story is he held the record when his mother
Speaker 1: came in the room and what what what what what?
Speaker 1: And yo, wait a minute, I mean the break beasts
Speaker 1: we sampled talked to some of the producers who made this.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, that was the break because somebody in
Speaker 1: the somebody in the band took a break like it's
Speaker 1: he got tired and therefore you heard that it's like
Speaker 1: the floor and that's the mercy of it, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So I just wanted to say that
Speaker 1: when I when I see you and I see what
Speaker 1: he's he's achieved, and I see that it took off
Speaker 1: after a very life threatening situation, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: I could go back to myself. For me, it was jail.
Speaker 1: He's like, yo, they wanted to pick me in there.
Speaker 1: That was that was gonna be my life. And I
Speaker 1: was saying, Nah, that's not gonna be my life. And
Speaker 1: I turned but I had to turn a different direction.
Speaker 1: So proud of what he's doing, proud of what he's
Speaker 1: stands for in all reality, you know I mean, And
Speaker 1: the controversy we sometimes get with him, it's only fuel
Speaker 1: I think for for a mine like that, it's feeling
Speaker 1: for you to be great. Yeah, you produced a New
Speaker 1: Day and watched the Throne one of my favorite albums.
Speaker 1: Uh got a chance to collab with J. What was
Speaker 1: that experience like for you? Ja? What was it say
Speaker 1: about Ja like that? J? We was kids when we met,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean that? Yeah, it's just like
Speaker 1: you know, um, I told Jay this here. I said,
Speaker 1: you kind of inspired me one day. Um, he had
Speaker 1: did a remix. This is like ninety one, maybe, like
Speaker 1: I'm still a prince roking and not, you know, still hustling,
Speaker 1: not knowing, you know, hustling so kind of in the
Speaker 1: middle of going serious or whatever. And he's he did
Speaker 1: a remix with Glenn Jones or something like that, right,
Speaker 1: And wevana to him and he was like, yo, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like that remixing. Yeah yo. So it wasn't hip hop,
Speaker 1: but it was they you know, and they paid him
Speaker 1: Tim Rocks for it. I was like, you got Tim
Speaker 1: tim Geez for that. I was like where He's like, yo, yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, let me go back and make
Speaker 1: let me get back in the back in the lab,
Speaker 1: because that's a that's a that's a half a break back.
Speaker 1: And so I told him, I said, you inspired me
Speaker 1: when I when I was because I was because they
Speaker 1: gave me ten zis from my whole deal, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you got ten zis for the remix. Let
Speaker 1: me go back and we we calibrate this, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So that's one other thing about our
Speaker 1: business and about our culture. If we could share our knowledge,
Speaker 1: share our experience, which we don't know. We don't keep
Speaker 1: it to the hill. Look, and I'll expect you know
Speaker 1: Snoop had the album The game is to be sold,
Speaker 1: not told. I expect that. But you gotta tell somebody, okay,
Speaker 1: So tell, tell your PIDs, tell your culture. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean? This world is you know, this world
Speaker 1: is big enough. You know, even as Americans. You got
Speaker 1: three fifty million Americans, all right, that means you got
Speaker 1: seven point five billion, not Americans. All right, It's enough
Speaker 1: to keep our culture, if I would think tight, because
Speaker 1: the world becomes our consumer, not each other. So we're
Speaker 1: not against each other. Right, Any truth to you cleaning
Speaker 1: out your beat machine and instrumentals and giving away to
Speaker 1: the life of nas Buster. Yea, yeah, definitely yeah, talk
Speaker 1: to us about that. I mean, you know, just sometimes
Speaker 1: you know, you guys sitting on the abundance, right, you
Speaker 1: gotta let it go, you know. So Bus actually played
Speaker 1: me a couple of joints he did. That sounds crazy.
Speaker 1: I don't know what he what are he gonna do
Speaker 1: with it? But he played two joints that he took
Speaker 1: from the from the Yellow Machine. Um, that sounds crazy.
Speaker 1: And for Um, I mean Nas put out the that
Speaker 1: mix tape he did last summer. A couple of old
Speaker 1: was from that, you know what I mean? So brothers
Speaker 1: got it. It's like to me, it's like whenever you
Speaker 1: ready eat, play play with it, yo, have fun. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about I want to talk about fatherhood a little bit.
Speaker 1: Ye can we do that? Y? Of course? We all
Speaker 1: got a father got eighteen kids? So kids? No, I
Speaker 1: got seven kids. You know, we've got eighteen children. Papa,
Speaker 1: Papa who had eighteen children. They said, oh, dirty had thirteen.
Speaker 1: Haven't met all of them? Um, I got seven, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? And I like talking about fathers.
Speaker 1: Beautiful seven seven. It's how we do it exactly. I
Speaker 1: got six? You got one more more? Yeah? Now like no,
Speaker 1: I don't know, no, no, just gonna watch this episode two.
Speaker 1: Maybe don't listen to that ship. But you know what,
Speaker 1: that's fun. You're not know what's so crazy though? Think
Speaker 1: about a generation before when fathers could have had a
Speaker 1: hunt it and didn't care about one you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? We you know, I'm a you know, we
Speaker 1: were products are that in all reality? You know? Fathers
Speaker 1: you know that, you know, just just for the generation
Speaker 1: of fathers not knowing how to love. And I'm proud
Speaker 1: that we do have a generations or fathers that do
Speaker 1: know how to love. It's not shy to say I
Speaker 1: love you, you know what I mean? And and I
Speaker 1: will say, you know, as a as a father and
Speaker 1: as a full blown man, that you need the mother
Speaker 1: and the father in the household. And and a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, my father's said one day to me
Speaker 1: it was like rappers don't got no fathers. And what
Speaker 1: he meant was that most of us, if we got
Speaker 1: a father, we even talk about him because of the
Speaker 1: absentee or and it's you know, and the same thing
Speaker 1: with lot of ballplayers. You're here, yo, my mother my
Speaker 1: mother or mother my mother. I'm I'm glad that we
Speaker 1: have a generation that the father is a present. But
Speaker 1: I will say for for the fathers who have children,
Speaker 1: and it's and you're doing the co parenting picture time
Speaker 1: in you know. I mean, I've seen the difference from
Speaker 1: from the child that I had more time to give
Speaker 1: versus the ones I didn't. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's a security. It's a security a child feels when
Speaker 1: it sees both parents there and it has both Yin
Speaker 1: and yang to let it understand both sides of that coin.
Speaker 1: We when we're sitting there, you know, and you had
Speaker 1: these baby mothers, and and she gotta figured things out
Speaker 1: by herself, even though you may be mailing her check.
Speaker 1: It's beyond the checks. Beyond the check. It's a presence.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a comforting feeling. I know because I
Speaker 1: see that my youngest son, he had the blessings of
Speaker 1: drawing his whole life with his mother and father, and
Speaker 1: he's so balanced. He's so balanced. Yeah, So I just
Speaker 1: want to say it's important. I hope that you know
Speaker 1: this the Chork generation. You know, we got Larry saying, Yo,
Speaker 1: do me and my man? You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's you're young, You're gonna have fun. But
Speaker 1: I hope they realized that, Yo, when you start having
Speaker 1: these children and having these babies, Joe, dad takes man
Speaker 1: and to raise that child. And you don't necessarily not
Speaker 1: to cut you off, but you don't necessarily have to
Speaker 1: be together. Like you said, the co parent is is
Speaker 1: the new norm, and and it takes a lot of work.
Speaker 1: And I think at times we forget because sometimes we
Speaker 1: may be beefing with our co parents, and there's a
Speaker 1: beautiful creation or two in my you know instance, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, so to be able to and
Speaker 1: I saw it with my kids, you know, because my
Speaker 1: extive wife and I divorce was very public and got
Speaker 1: nasty at some points. And you can see that affect
Speaker 1: the boys. And then now we're on a better accord
Speaker 1: and they have two safe houses and and and and
Speaker 1: four parents now that love and care for them. You
Speaker 1: see them starting to obviously you know, come from that.
Speaker 1: So it's not always having them in the same home,
Speaker 1: but it's still having them on the same page. And
Speaker 1: that's what That's what I was kind of saying when
Speaker 1: I said my youngest because me and her mom not together,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't together with my other kids moms. But
Speaker 1: my youngest daughter, mom, let my let me be in
Speaker 1: my daughter life. She lives with me most of the time.
Speaker 1: I didn't get that from other kids because of different circumstances.
Speaker 1: But the relationship for her and and the and and
Speaker 1: everything she has, she's solid, right, She has the love
Speaker 1: from me, and she know we both presidents, you know,
Speaker 1: were there. She can call me like yesterday we're shooting.
Speaker 1: She calling me, you know what I mean. But you
Speaker 1: know I'm here, you know what I mean, And I
Speaker 1: know that means a lot because my dad Restupece, he
Speaker 1: lived five minutes from us, right and we barely see him.
Speaker 1: But I didn't hold that against him, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, because me having kids, a boy, different women,
Speaker 1: I understand how it could be harder than why it looks,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I just I still
Speaker 1: gave him that same love. But just like you said,
Speaker 1: just being there makes a world of difference. Because my
Speaker 1: grandfather had nine kids, you know what I'm saying. From
Speaker 1: that's what I guess, you know what I mean. So,
Speaker 1: but but it's it's, it's it's it's not normal now.
Speaker 1: But before we was born and we was kids, it
Speaker 1: was normal families, kids from eleven my moms. But but
Speaker 1: you're right, yo, it was if you know, if the
Speaker 1: relationship is not here between the mother and the father,
Speaker 1: don't that that relationship in fact the child, the child
Speaker 1: has no clue, nothing to do with you know, the
Speaker 1: sun moon is cars as the Holy Koran says, we
Speaker 1: give you signs. The sun shines to day, the moon
Speaker 1: shine at night. But they're both guaranteed to be there,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, we just kind of trust
Speaker 1: on it. But your thoughts on hip hop and stay
Speaker 1: in hip hop today. I mean, I love hip hop, man.
Speaker 1: Hip hop is feeding so many families. It's yo. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you're up into the Afro beat of
Speaker 1: it all, like you know, beyond Burner Boy and and
Speaker 1: and the brothers out of South Africa Ghana hip hop
Speaker 1: and started here where maybe five hundred people knew what
Speaker 1: it was, you know what I mean, the first generation
Speaker 1: didn't even get a chance to you know, to buy
Speaker 1: a house off it. Now it's spread around the world
Speaker 1: to so many families are being blessed off. And so
Speaker 1: the state of hip hop, I'm grateful for it. Uh,
Speaker 1: the content of it, yeah, we need more substances, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean the substance come. You know, you listen to
Speaker 1: the Kendrick's new album and he you know, he's he's
Speaker 1: speaking as a man now. His album five years ago
Speaker 1: he was still growing from from from I don't use
Speaker 1: the world boy, but still going from young adults to
Speaker 1: adult And so if you give the artists a chance
Speaker 1: to get there, I think they'll get there. I'm with
Speaker 1: little Yati was first out, and um, you know if
Speaker 1: I'm a lyricist, so I was like, there was an
Speaker 1: lyrics in there, you know what I mean. But then
Speaker 1: as his music went on, he started doing in there
Speaker 1: now and I just that, you know what, just give them,
Speaker 1: give us, give them time, yo, give the artists time
Speaker 1: to evolve. But also pushed them to evolved, right, don't.
Speaker 1: Some some men stayed in that cave, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, He kept eating the meat raw. But those
Speaker 1: who took fire days so so pushed them to evolve.
Speaker 1: When I'm I'm grateful for hip hop, I'm grateful for
Speaker 1: so many ways that is integrated into our culture. This
Speaker 1: is hip hop right now. I mean we're doing my
Speaker 1: heads hip hop, you know, I mean so bunk bunk.
Speaker 1: Any young producers out there, to remind you of the
Speaker 1: young hungry risin many that they had same circumstances with
Speaker 1: just two seconds on the sampler trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1: They can sample for two days and go to sleep,
Speaker 1: now you know what I mean. Anyway, but a lot
Speaker 1: of great talent, you know what I I man, and invest
Speaker 1: in peace. You know we don't I don't know Paris,
Speaker 1: but you know, let your boomate just lost. Yeah. Man, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know you're a big movie fan. Uh, how do
Speaker 1: you look at movies now? Because you're so entrenched? I
Speaker 1: know you you were telling me a story about I'm
Speaker 1: not forgetting this name now kind of your mentor in
Speaker 1: the movie space hitting Tarantino, Tarantino, talk to us how
Speaker 1: that relationship developed and just kind of have that changed
Speaker 1: your perspective of the art. I was fortunate to learn
Speaker 1: filmmaking from Quentin tian Team, who actually didn't go to
Speaker 1: school for it himself, but it's considered one of the
Speaker 1: greatest directors about about time. And what I noticed from
Speaker 1: him is that he was watched. He watched the films
Speaker 1: with a certain eyesight. He actually watched the films the
Speaker 1: way I listened to music, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And there's certain parts that that hits you a certain way.
Speaker 1: And when I noticed that about him, I saw a
Speaker 1: sort of common denominator, and so I asked him, could
Speaker 1: he helped teach me how to become a film director?
Speaker 1: And he did, and I am, Um, the thing is,
Speaker 1: if I could summarize that for anybody Hit or some
Speaker 1: game for you, I think every film ever made has
Speaker 1: something to offer. And if you are an artist looking
Speaker 1: for being a filmmaker in world, you should be able
Speaker 1: to detect that. All right, I'm gonna give you two examples.
Speaker 1: Of course, if you watch Star Wars and it's a
Speaker 1: galaxy far far far away, and you see them with lightsabers,
Speaker 1: but they're still dressed as if it was due to Japan,
Speaker 1: and instead of the sword being a sword, it's the
Speaker 1: light saber. But then if you go okay, that movie
Speaker 1: teaches you that time and story could be placed anywhere.
Speaker 1: But then there's a movie called Attack of the Chiller Tomatoes. Okay,
Speaker 1: this film is just a stop motion movie with tomatoes
Speaker 1: are moving and the guy must have kept taking it
Speaker 1: to me and those are moving them. Listen, the toughest
Speaker 1: film you may ever watch in your life. But what
Speaker 1: I learned from that film is that somebody still gave
Speaker 1: him a budget. You know what I mean. No, so,
Speaker 1: no idea can't be brought into fruishtion, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Keep going over decades, you work through different
Speaker 1: lanes out through song, video, film, more recently, talk to
Speaker 1: us about how many different ways and how much you
Speaker 1: enjoy just the storytelling. Could you tell it from all
Speaker 1: different components? Yeah. I think it's a blessing not to
Speaker 1: be able to tell stories. And I think we all should.
Speaker 1: I advise everybody, ex Wife, I write your book, baby,
Speaker 1: to write your book, write it because somebody else maybe
Speaker 1: learn from that experience. So to me, it's important, you know,
Speaker 1: and whether it's fiction, whether it's biographical, whether it's taking
Speaker 1: something I've read from the prophet job and being able
Speaker 1: to translate it to somebody else so they could learn patients. Um.
Speaker 1: Storytelling is is one of the probably one of our
Speaker 1: oldest forms of entertainment before the written word, and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm blessed to be able to play with it as
Speaker 1: the written word, as the spoken word. And now I
Speaker 1: get the good budgets and the screen yeah blow some helicopters,
Speaker 1: yeah uh, several cameos and shows and movies in particular.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to know what was it like working
Speaker 1: with Denzel and Russell Crow and American Gangster And that
Speaker 1: was super cool working with Denzel first of all. First
Speaker 1: of all, this if anybody could intimidate you as an
Speaker 1: actor is Denzel Washington. If it was a microphone or
Speaker 1: some hip hop whatever my name ever, d I would
Speaker 1: have busted to the side as a as a I
Speaker 1: would say, as a young man trying to be an
Speaker 1: actor against one of the greatest living actors in the world,
Speaker 1: I never felt I thought he didn't like me, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I thought, like, uh, my, Denzel store,
Speaker 1: you edited anyway? I saw y'all first thing, like, you know,
Speaker 1: he's on you know first, we want to set three
Speaker 1: weeks before him because they shot the movie that way, right,
Speaker 1: And so I'm cool with everybody. Now Denzel comes to said,
Speaker 1: and somebody come up hit on my my trailer. Hey, um,
Speaker 1: want to meet Denzel. I said, yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I'm a big fan of Denzel. So they
Speaker 1: take me over to its trailer and they knocked and
Speaker 1: you know, open the door and knocked the game open
Speaker 1: the door. They go, okay, we'll bring you back. So
Speaker 1: they take me back to my trailer. Thirty minutes later,
Speaker 1: the same thing. And now it's the end of the
Speaker 1: end of my day. I'm about to leave. I got
Speaker 1: my car waiting, and I'm like, let me just say
Speaker 1: peace for him before I go. And it don't happen.
Speaker 1: Isn't answer right. Finally, there's a scene in the movie
Speaker 1: that wasn't written with my character and his character. There
Speaker 1: was no interaction to my character and his character written
Speaker 1: in the movie, right. Um. But but Russell had insisted
Speaker 1: that this is the same where we interrogate him, this
Speaker 1: is the crew that brought him down. The police would
Speaker 1: all be there on his ass because this is the
Speaker 1: team that did it, and he want the whole team there.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't written. And so Denzel comes to the
Speaker 1: uh to the set and he kind of sees it.
Speaker 1: It's like it wasn't what it was written. So he
Speaker 1: walks away, right, And so I'm like, and I'm telling
Speaker 1: I'm so self conscious everything that's going wrong, I'm blaming myself,
Speaker 1: right because like I think at that time, Sam Jackson
Speaker 1: had an article out with Hodge Rappers doing roles, right,
Speaker 1: and so I'm like, nobody wants me here. So then
Speaker 1: we do the scene and it doesn't really smile and
Speaker 1: you know, doesn't even like you know, really kind of
Speaker 1: like didn't acknowledge me. And I was just like, you know,
Speaker 1: finished the saying. I just went back to my trail.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, it's crazy, right, um. And then
Speaker 1: there was the premiere and I'm on the line walking.
Speaker 1: I got my wife and somebody comes from behind and
Speaker 1: give me the biggest hug. And then and so I
Speaker 1: had a chance and said, yo, why like why why
Speaker 1: do you ain't smile at me? And that said, Yo,
Speaker 1: you're a cop. I was Frank Lucas to a whole movie.
Speaker 1: I was Frank Lucas, I can't give two cents about you.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's the master, that's the master. And
Speaker 1: I took that wisdom. Yeah, talk to us about your
Speaker 1: five year will plan in the past, and then what's
Speaker 1: your five year plan now? Yeah. So so five year
Speaker 1: plan the first one worked and on this on the
Speaker 1: second plan, it started close to five years ago. And
Speaker 1: you know, I told I gathered the brothers together. We
Speaker 1: do these Wednesday calls. And I was like, listen, this
Speaker 1: is the play here real quick. I don't mean once
Speaker 1: a week, once a month. Once the calls were once
Speaker 1: a week. Now they're bi weekly until a project go
Speaker 1: So there their weekly calls and currently their bi weekly. Um.
Speaker 1: And so the plan was documentary first, TV series second
Speaker 1: and then topped that off with a tour documentary Everybody
Speaker 1: here on Showtime, UH TV series Hulu, and we just
Speaker 1: announced a few weeks ago one of the biggest tours
Speaker 1: of the summer. Woutangan not us and me and nothing
Speaker 1: need to be right up there with Tolani when you
Speaker 1: guys come to the bowl. I think she got a booth.
Speaker 1: I gotta be there, come out a yeah. My homeboys like, yo,
Speaker 1: you know, yes man, I heard were in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I always I gotta be. I gotta make a confession.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to play the Hollywood ball. Never played it, yo,
Speaker 1: So this is gonna be uh something special. But once again,
Speaker 1: that's the plan, that's the that's taken the steps, you know,
Speaker 1: because at one point, yo, people was making hip hop
Speaker 1: documentaries and it was just producers making it or talent
Speaker 1: making it, but didn't live it. And I just said,
Speaker 1: nobody's gonna really be able to understand our story. We
Speaker 1: gotta tell our own story, you know. Massive Pill with
Speaker 1: Sassage jenkins Um, the director of of the documentary. He
Speaker 1: also came to me with a very compelling because I
Speaker 1: had all these different people like pitching to do it,
Speaker 1: and Sauce was like, y'all listen, you can get them
Speaker 1: to do it, but I live hip hop too, so
Speaker 1: let me and I told my wife says, uh sausage says,
Speaker 1: he's right. Let somebody who lived the culture tell the
Speaker 1: story of the culture. And that you know the you know,
Speaker 1: we got nominated for the Emmy. His work, his work
Speaker 1: showing and proved thisself. It's beautiful. But like you said,
Speaker 1: his hip hop, we're all telling. That's what we're doing.
Speaker 1: We're all telling our own stories, creating our own narratives.
Speaker 1: Given other people a platform and tell their stories because
Speaker 1: they've always told our stories. And although some have done
Speaker 1: it well, like you said that, none of them are
Speaker 1: really lived it. So he better to tell the stories
Speaker 1: and the people who actually lived this. So I'm glad
Speaker 1: we're at that place. Um, coming down to the stretch
Speaker 1: before we get to these quick hitters. One piece of
Speaker 1: advice you would give you a younger self, Um, just yeah,
Speaker 1: just don't never doubt yourself, never done. All right, quick,
Speaker 1: this first thing to come to mind. Let us know,
Speaker 1: stuck on the island. Three albums you bring with you?
Speaker 1: You bring Stevie wonder uh any one of those? You know?
Speaker 1: All right now, I want an island, you said, all
Speaker 1: right now. If you had asked me this a while ago,
Speaker 1: I would have said, uh, fank Sinatra. But I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go not King Cole because I've been listening to his
Speaker 1: music yo, and trust me not King Cole with tequila pineapple. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Life is good and I gotta bring something from my crew. Uh.
Speaker 1: It had to be a tough one, but um, just
Speaker 1: for the nostalgia of who we are, I'll probably bring um.
Speaker 1: Yeah'll bring changes. They don't even creating your music festival,
Speaker 1: right we tank headlining what we're hoping and actually bringing
Speaker 1: pastor president pastor president President. Let's get Kindrick Lamar in
Speaker 1: the building with the Wu Tang. It's just get the
Speaker 1: Kung Fu Kenny with the to see that at Hollywood Ball.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's up your sleep. You should
Speaker 1: expect to see that in l A and let me
Speaker 1: see and and let me pour somebody from the past.
Speaker 1: Um makes sense for the path, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna keep it a hip hop and I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm just go to the first concert pioneers of hip
Speaker 1: hop in my opinion one dm C. Yeah you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, you know who I was thinking. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's affects. That's a fact I rocked
Speaker 1: with them a few times. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was my joy. First thing you do when you
Speaker 1: wake up, last thing you do before you go to sleep. Wow,
Speaker 1: I mean you know, honestly, the first thing I do
Speaker 1: is I pray, you know, Um, And that's the last
Speaker 1: thing you do. Yeah, should be the last thing you do.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm in betting back with my wife,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, So I keep that personal.
Speaker 1: Exactly five films of all time. Five films on your list. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go film, ain't gonna even go. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say Godfather. You gotta have Godfather on your list.
Speaker 1: You gotta have thirty six Chambers on your list. Um,
Speaker 1: and all reality you gotta have. Um, you gotta have
Speaker 1: Malcolm X on your list. Uh, No, a reality you
Speaker 1: gotta have. You gotta have Star Wars on your lists.
Speaker 1: And did I did? I say thirty Chambers already? And
Speaker 1: you gotta let me give you one that you might
Speaker 1: not recognize. But I think a film, a film you
Speaker 1: gotta see in life. Uh, I'm gonna give you Calment
Speaker 1: go up with Dry Thing, which yeah, yeah, check that out.
Speaker 1: And if you haven't seen that, man, I wanna tell
Speaker 1: you iron Fish was good. We didn't get a chance
Speaker 1: to talk about that press was really great job. But uh,
Speaker 1: I was about to actually about another movie. He'll come
Speaker 1: back to me. If you could put one message on
Speaker 1: the billboard for the world to see, what would it be.
Speaker 1: I mean, it'd be one word. It would be peace.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Yeah, if they say I
Speaker 1: could do what I want, I'll put the twelve jewels
Speaker 1: on the on the build twelve jewels all knowledge, wisdom, understanding, freedom, justice, equality,
Speaker 1: full clothing, shelter, love, peace and happiness. Oh that's how
Speaker 1: did you like Jackie Chan's Drunken Master? That was man,
Speaker 1: that was crazy. Yeah, that director too was Yeah. So
Speaker 1: you got your Kung food love every type. No, no, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: let me see what's what's the new one you've seen? Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a new one right now with Donnie Yan and
Speaker 1: uh and Nicholas c. Hold on, look at the rage,
Speaker 1: raging raging fire. I haven't seen it. Check that out. Ye.
Speaker 1: They're breaking backs and now I've been, I've been. I've
Speaker 1: been running back back all three or four of them. Yo,
Speaker 1: Tony John might be coming to a Mamica next month. Hey,
Speaker 1: he is a problem, you know, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: you know what you're talking about. Come on, man, over
Speaker 1: to the knee all in your face. Ya. You know
Speaker 1: what Tony y'all did. I gotta shoulder injury today. From him?
Speaker 1: From him, he threw a move. Why did a movie
Speaker 1: with him? He threw a move on me, and I
Speaker 1: didn't kind of do the whole way I was supposed
Speaker 1: to be. You know, I was being a little extra,
Speaker 1: like I knew what I was doing. Crack never hell hello,
Speaker 1: hello ago, Yeah that movie had it's been over six
Speaker 1: seven years. You know he threw a move on me.
Speaker 1: It works, Yeah, it works. Oh man, I've been a
Speaker 1: little come from movie. Uh, last question, you already told
Speaker 1: us you watched the show. If you can, if you
Speaker 1: can pick a guest to come on our show, who
Speaker 1: would it be? But you have to help us get
Speaker 1: your guests on the show. Yeah, he already knew the question.
Speaker 1: The show here let me see, Yeah, I mean'll be
Speaker 1: having a great group of people on this show. Look,
Speaker 1: this is totally left field. Let me it's left field,
Speaker 1: but it's I just think. I mean, you haven't had
Speaker 1: Obama on your show? He smokes, Huh would do that
Speaker 1: would break the ind ofnet? If we can hold the
Speaker 1: smokes Um. Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna go big. Let's
Speaker 1: get o B here. Man, We're gonna, We're gonna push.
Speaker 1: That will be awesome. I'll be incredible before we got
Speaker 1: some one, you bro. Can't let you leave if they handed,
Speaker 1: because we're so we appreciate you being here. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. Can they get him Matt all the smoke
Speaker 1: Dot story, that's where you can get hooked up. We
Speaker 1: got to hook you up for pulling up and appreciate line. Yes,
Speaker 1: so make sure you guys chuck you out. Wu Tang
Speaker 1: American Saga come in January of twenty three, were all
Speaker 1: waiting good luck on the tour this summer. Man. I'm
Speaker 1: sure we can building, but thank you for your time.
Speaker 1: Thank you man. That's a rap with the Risa can
Speaker 1: cass Us our Showtime Basketball YouTube and the I Heart
Speaker 1: Platform Black Offense And that's today's mathematics. See you all
Speaker 1: next week. Peace you bitches. B