Speaker 1: Comeback Stories is a production of Inflection Network and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone for another episode of Comeback Stories. I'm
Speaker 2: one of your co hosts, Darren Waller. I'm joined by
Speaker 2: my guy, my friend, Donnie Starkins. Donny, how you doing man.
Speaker 3: I'm doing well.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: It's good to be here again. Good to see your
Speaker 3: face as always always brother.
Speaker 2: I'm super excited for the guests we have on today.
Speaker 2: You know me, I love to create music, just listening
Speaker 2: to music, just the overall energy, anything that has to
Speaker 2: do with music. And we have an artist on today
Speaker 2: who is really seeing the fruits of his labor.
Speaker 4: It really started to come to fruition.
Speaker 2: A lot of the listeners may know him as putting
Speaker 2: out an infectious single called Billie Eilish, but a man
Speaker 2: who has so much good work in his catalog and
Speaker 2: is really still just warming up. Love to welcome our
Speaker 2: Money White to the show. Our Money Welcome Bro.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thank you, Bro, thank you for having me.
Speaker 5: I appreciate you, yes, sir, Man, appreciate you creating time
Speaker 5: for us. What you went up to lately?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 4: What's going on in your life these days?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 6: Ducking from the sun.
Speaker 5: We've been uh, you know, like I take as much
Speaker 5: as you know, the time that I can when I'm
Speaker 5: home to just like sit down, work on.
Speaker 6: Some music, like be a human, play a video game
Speaker 6: or something like that.
Speaker 5: It's like, you know, like it's I only get like
Speaker 5: two days after the week to be home Tomorrow We've
Speaker 5: headed out for another festival, and then I think after
Speaker 5: that we running New York, Montreal back to LA So.
Speaker 6: It's just it's not stop running.
Speaker 4: I feel you, bro.
Speaker 2: I'm definitely on to dive in with you on how
Speaker 2: you stay human because I think some of the same
Speaker 2: problems myself. But I'd love to just dive right into
Speaker 2: your story and start about growing up for you and
Speaker 2: what was growing up for you, like where was it
Speaker 2: at and just painting a picture for the people.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, I think I think we were the last kids
Speaker 5: like that were outside. You know what I'm saying that
Speaker 5: we was like the we're like our generation was like
Speaker 5: the turning point of the internet kind of taking over
Speaker 5: people's lives.
Speaker 6: So like my like, you know, we we spent our last.
Speaker 5: Couple of days just like being outside, like you know,
Speaker 5: getting the only time I wasn't outside, I was on
Speaker 5: punishment and like those moments when I on punishment was
Speaker 5: where I kind of learned how to work then, and
Speaker 5: that work my space, work Facebook and Tumblr or whatever
Speaker 5: it was at the time. So but yeah, I mean
Speaker 5: for the most part, we was just I was just,
Speaker 5: you know, just just the little the little bad kid
Speaker 5: in the neighborhood that just couldn't stay out of trouble.
Speaker 5: And like everybody knew my parents, so anytime I did something,
Speaker 5: they told my parents and I just get back right rightment.
Speaker 2: I feel you, man, So you grew up in Philly, right,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of Uh. I think there's a lot
Speaker 2: of different images of phil You got like fresh Prince
Speaker 2: of bel Air, Will Smith getting out of West Philly
Speaker 2: and still representing. You got meek Mill, you got a
Speaker 2: little uzy and people painting a side of Philly that's tough,
Speaker 2: but they all love and have a sense of pride
Speaker 2: about it, and I believe you do as well.
Speaker 4: What it makes it so tough? But what do you
Speaker 4: love about it?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean that's what it is.
Speaker 5: It's like the fact that it's so tough and the
Speaker 5: fact that we came up in this city it kind
Speaker 5: of gives us that that sense of pride to say, like,
Speaker 5: you know, if you can make it out of here,
Speaker 5: you can make it anywhere. Even if you can make
Speaker 5: it and stay in here, you can make it anywhere.
Speaker 5: Like just because it's a very uninviting city, Like if
Speaker 5: I could, if I could describe it in any way,
Speaker 5: like if you're not from here, it's like, well, what
Speaker 5: you're doing here? You know, And that's that's kind of
Speaker 5: the mentality, the personality that just like the city has
Speaker 5: for you. But but once you you know, once you're
Speaker 5: kind of getting graceated into the culture, like it's a
Speaker 5: dope city, it's always something some way to be a
Speaker 5: part of something, you know, just something going on in Philly.
Speaker 6: There's always something.
Speaker 2: Is there any distinct memories of pain that you look
Speaker 2: back on early growing up as a kid that may
Speaker 2: have affected you in a way or affected the way
Speaker 2: that you just looked at the world or approached life.
Speaker 5: Well, to be all, to be honest, is as much
Speaker 5: as much pride as I have for Philly being from Philly,
Speaker 5: there was a big piece of my life that I
Speaker 5: had to just step away from Philadelphia, like because of
Speaker 5: all the trauma that I experienced in Philly, Like you know,
Speaker 5: just just growing up being outside, like all the trouble
Speaker 5: that we got into. But also in two thousand and six,
Speaker 5: there was a house fire when I was staying with
Speaker 5: my aunt. I was like back and forth between my
Speaker 5: aunt's house and my mom's house, and there was a
Speaker 5: house fire that my aunt had where she lost her
Speaker 5: life and my three cousins lost their lives. And from
Speaker 5: that experience on, it was like really hard for me
Speaker 5: to just be in Philly. One top of just a
Speaker 5: few other things like I like, like a few a
Speaker 5: few years following that, my uncle, her brother he was
Speaker 5: shot and killed, and the road rage incident. It was
Speaker 5: a lot of just trauma, like just a lot of
Speaker 5: trauma that I think that I experienced in the city
Speaker 5: growing up, and some things that like it's kind of
Speaker 5: like a hungry dogs keep running kind of thing, where
Speaker 5: like you you don't even really get the process some
Speaker 5: of this when it's going on, you just kind of like,
Speaker 5: especially for me as a kid, I didn't I didn't
Speaker 5: understand the concept of like, you know, my cousin who
Speaker 5: was my best friend at the time, like I'll never
Speaker 5: see her again. My aunt, who was my second mother
Speaker 5: at the time, I never see her again, like you
Speaker 5: kind of just have to keep growing, keep learning, keep running,
Speaker 5: keep like experiencing things, and you don't really get a
Speaker 5: second to kind of step back and just look around
Speaker 5: and say like, oh, this is what happened, and this
Speaker 5: is how I'm affected by this.
Speaker 6: You know, Like a lot of that, a lot of
Speaker 6: those things I took with me.
Speaker 5: I didn't realize how much of a shift it created
Speaker 5: in my life until I was, you know, maybe like
Speaker 5: like reaching like twenty twenty one years old, and like
Speaker 5: I'm starting to just like peel back the layers and say, oh,
Speaker 5: this was actually the happening.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: I read a quote from you that said, a lot
Speaker 3: of us in Philadelphia, when you just talk to someone,
Speaker 3: you feel like there's a lot of trauma, a lot
Speaker 3: of pain.
Speaker 6: There's just a lot of layers to that.
Speaker 3: City that we've all gone through, and if we haven't
Speaker 3: gone through it, it's it's the trauma's been passed down, right,
Speaker 3: and we find ways to make our trauma sound and
Speaker 3: feel and look beautiful, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: it's still trauma. When I read that, I was like, wow,
Speaker 3: because I'm watching someone like you that's transmuting that trauma
Speaker 3: and transmuting that pain into a greater purpose. And in fact,
Speaker 3: that's why all three of us are sitting here today
Speaker 3: with our own past and our own pains. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I always say like people were all the same. We
Speaker 3: all have pain and we're all just trying to find
Speaker 3: freedom from that pain. And a lot of people like
Speaker 3: myself and Darren back in the day, would numb that
Speaker 3: pain through drugs and alcohol. Other people will hide in
Speaker 3: their work and get busy, some will close their hearts,
Speaker 3: and then there's other people that find that greater purpose.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, I just found that fascinating in that
Speaker 3: awareness that trauma is passed down and sometimes we don't
Speaker 3: even realize it even if we haven't had it. It's
Speaker 3: that ancestral, that deep stuff that's just generational dysfunction more
Speaker 3: than anything.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, absolutely, I think I tried at the very earliest,
Speaker 5: I tried to just kind of understand the through lines
Speaker 5: of I guess, like how trauma and how like pain
Speaker 5: affected people and when they resorted to things, like you said,
Speaker 5: like drugs and alcohol. In my head, if I wasn't
Speaker 5: doing drugs and alcohol, then I was not like I
Speaker 5: wasn't taking my trauma out and in a toxic way.
Speaker 5: I was handling it in a healthy way because I
Speaker 5: didn't go resort to drugs and alcohol. But I think
Speaker 5: my downfall was I used to take that trauma out
Speaker 5: on other people and my relationships, and like you know,
Speaker 5: like when I said, like you know, we used to
Speaker 5: go outside and just try and like, I don't know,
Speaker 5: I wanted to be the bad kid. I wanted to
Speaker 5: be the tough guy in the neighborhood. But it was
Speaker 5: all because I had this feeling of misunderstanding that like
Speaker 5: I felt like nobody could understand who I was, what
Speaker 5: I was going through with pain I felt, and so
Speaker 5: I had to inflict that.
Speaker 6: Pain on other people. But it didn't even process to
Speaker 6: me how toxic that was because I wasn't doing drugs
Speaker 6: or alcohol.
Speaker 5: I was, you know, even in the moments when I
Speaker 5: was involved in the distribution of these things that it
Speaker 5: was like I didn't even think into the process of like, Okay,
Speaker 5: if this is not me doing it per se, then
Speaker 5: I can't be affected by this, I can't be actually
Speaker 5: dealing with anything.
Speaker 6: It was just, you know, it.
Speaker 5: Was almost like you said, it's just kind of like
Speaker 5: we all are just living in a world of trauma,
Speaker 5: and we're so like deeply tied and connected to the
Speaker 5: trauma that it just seems natural to us.
Speaker 3: That's that saying hurt people hurt people exactly. And if
Speaker 3: we don't, if we don't heal our own wounds, then
Speaker 3: you know we're we're we're sure to inflict it and
Speaker 3: and bleed on other people. If you will, if coming
Speaker 3: from somebody, maybe Darren, you can maybe speaking for both
Speaker 3: of us, but I can't. I would never understand how
Speaker 3: you didn't tap into to drug and alcohol abuse just
Speaker 3: based on the trauma and the pain, because I don't.
Speaker 3: I mean, we all have pain, even though my pain
Speaker 3: might look different than yours, but just hearing your story
Speaker 3: and everything that you went through, I don't feel like
Speaker 3: mine was on a level of yours. Yet I still
Speaker 3: went down that road. So how did you steer clear
Speaker 3: of drugs and alcohol?
Speaker 4: I did?
Speaker 5: I will say I drank alcohol until I was fifteen,
Speaker 5: and it wasn't it wasn't never.
Speaker 6: Anything related to pain.
Speaker 5: It was like I just thought it was cool because
Speaker 5: everybody else is doing it, and it was like, you know,
Speaker 5: you see all everybody would come back to school like yo,
Speaker 5: I was we got drunk and we did such and such,
Speaker 5: so I, you know, I used to try and do
Speaker 5: it and it just tasted awful to me.
Speaker 6: And I remember one time.
Speaker 5: I did it in California one of my cousin's house
Speaker 5: and I blacked out, woke up like didn't remember anything,
Speaker 5: and I was like, yeah, I don't. I don't like
Speaker 5: that feeling like I'm not really not really And that
Speaker 5: one and as far as like just drug related drugs
Speaker 5: and itself was so it was so embedded into my
Speaker 5: culture growing up, you know, like my my father, my
Speaker 5: father played a hand and distribution to drugs, my lot,
Speaker 5: a lot of other family members, a lot of friends,
Speaker 5: a lot of people in the neighborhood. Like I seen
Speaker 5: how drugs had kind of just derailed the course of
Speaker 5: people's lives so much that I've always just kind of
Speaker 5: just been you know, what's the word, looking like tunnel
Speaker 5: vision do on this idea that I want to be
Speaker 5: a success story, I want to be a musician, I
Speaker 5: want to be someone great. And I was like, I
Speaker 5: feel like, if I you know, if I ever let
Speaker 5: my trauma, let my pain put me in this pocket
Speaker 5: where I start to kind of abuse drugs, then I
Speaker 5: may be taking away from the larger picture, the bigger
Speaker 5: goul and that was you know, that was just always
Speaker 5: the thing that was hanging over me.
Speaker 6: That was like kind of keeping me in the right direction.
Speaker 2: That level of focus from a young man is impressive
Speaker 2: to me, especially with all the things that are swirling
Speaker 2: around on the outside of you and on the inside
Speaker 2: of you, with the violence and you know, navigating the
Speaker 2: also drugs and alcohol and everything else is going on
Speaker 2: in Philly. Where does your music passion come into the picture?
Speaker 2: When did that begin? How did that begin to sprout?
Speaker 5: Honestly, music was always music was before me. It was
Speaker 5: my aunts and uncles, my grandfather, like everyone everyone in
Speaker 5: my family played music, like played some sort of an instrument.
Speaker 5: So it just kind of became a thing that, you know,
Speaker 5: it just became a thing that was passed down for me.
Speaker 5: By the time I got to it, I was in
Speaker 5: a choir. My mom had me an choir early on, so, uh,
Speaker 5: you know, after I realized I was like, maybe I
Speaker 5: don't got the best singing voice, I started, you know,
Speaker 5: just started messing around with the ideas of like just
Speaker 5: I will watch all all the rat videos like you know,
Speaker 5: run back from school so I could turn on BT
Speaker 5: one of six and parking watch all the rat videos
Speaker 5: and like that just became a thing where I was like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I feel like I.
Speaker 6: Could do this.
Speaker 5: I feel like this is something that I you know,
Speaker 5: I could excel and I could be like really good
Speaker 5: at telling my story whatever the story was.
Speaker 6: At the time. You know, I was like second or
Speaker 6: third grade. My story wasn't that impressive.
Speaker 5: But like you know, over time, it just developed into
Speaker 5: like from a hobby to a I was trying to
Speaker 5: get all of my friends around me.
Speaker 6: I was like, y'all write your reps. I'll write your reps.
Speaker 4: I write your.
Speaker 5: Reps, like, you know, just trying to get everybody to
Speaker 5: be a rapper with me, so it wasn't just me,
Speaker 5: and and then it just developed more and more into,
Speaker 5: you know, just into a real life thing. It was
Speaker 5: like for a while, honestly, like as as the as
Speaker 5: the street culture, like the neighborhood culture and music blended.
Speaker 5: You know, you're talking about like the Lil Wayne era,
Speaker 5: like the mixtape era, like like everybody at that point
Speaker 5: was rapping, you know, like like my mom, remember my
Speaker 5: homie Keen, His mom bought us a microphone and we
Speaker 5: were just sitting in his room and just like you know,
Speaker 5: we take turns, one person in press record and the
Speaker 5: other person in press record. And that was my earliest
Speaker 5: memories of like, oh no, we could actually do this,
Speaker 5: We could actually make songs. We could actually you know,
Speaker 5: turn these in the MP three and download them onto
Speaker 5: our phones and show people.
Speaker 6: But it was always the thing that was embedded in
Speaker 6: my life span.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Can you take us through any moments that may have
Speaker 2: almost detourred you from wanting to pursue your passion? Was
Speaker 2: there any disappointments along the way from before from when
Speaker 2: you started to when you started to get on, like
Speaker 2: where you may have wanted to give up, or people
Speaker 2: were telling you that this wasn't the route, Like, are
Speaker 2: there any moments like.
Speaker 4: That your story?
Speaker 6: Absolutely?
Speaker 5: I mean you got understand like I've been rapping since
Speaker 5: I've been rapping since I want to say.
Speaker 6: In second grade. I've been trying to put words together.
Speaker 5: So by the time I hit fifth grade, sixth grade,
Speaker 5: that was when I was like, yo, I can actually
Speaker 5: take this serious. At that point, I remember it was
Speaker 5: a moment where we thought we was gonna get signed
Speaker 5: to State Property and Rockefeller.
Speaker 6: You know, we were.
Speaker 5: Kids and we're like, yo, we're gonna be the next ones. Like,
Speaker 5: you know, there was there was so many of these versions.
Speaker 6: I had to you know, I had to.
Speaker 5: Go through the experience because I wasn't like the cool
Speaker 5: rapper that was just rapping about drugs and guns and like,
Speaker 5: you know, a bunch of guns and the videos, a
Speaker 5: bunch of money, a bunch of girls in the videos.
Speaker 6: I had to go through the experience of like just
Speaker 6: being the.
Speaker 5: Quote unquote rapper and trying to explain to everybody that
Speaker 5: I'm a rapper. Nobody actually cares. And you know, by
Speaker 5: this point, you graduate high school, you graduate, you know,
Speaker 5: and everybody else got it is in college, got a job,
Speaker 5: and you're just like, nah, naw, I'm a rap, trust me,
Speaker 5: it's gonna work out, like you know. And and that
Speaker 5: was a you know, that was that was a real
Speaker 5: like awakening moment. For a while, I was just sleeping
Speaker 5: in my car in a garage, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: Like I was sleeping in my car in the garage
Speaker 5: behind the movie theater, and that happened.
Speaker 6: I want to say, that went on for about like
Speaker 6: two months.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think there was a lot of There was
Speaker 5: a lot of these moments that just played and played
Speaker 5: out for a long period of time until until that
Speaker 5: that you finally get that breakthrough.
Speaker 6: And for now now it's like a conversation on the internet.
Speaker 5: Where it's like, yo, it's an overnighte success and I'm like,
Speaker 5: overnight success took ten years.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying sounds like you've you've always
Speaker 3: no matter what, we're gonna fight for this stream and
Speaker 3: this vision of rap stardom, Like where does that Where
Speaker 3: does that juice and where does that fire come from?
Speaker 5: When I was a kid, my dad didn't let me
Speaker 5: quit anything, And I think that's a big root of
Speaker 5: like where a lot of it started from. It was like, yo,
Speaker 5: like it don't matter if he put me in some
Speaker 5: sports that I never wanted to be. And I remember
Speaker 5: I did karate for like a year and a half
Speaker 5: just because I could not quit.
Speaker 6: My dad wouldn't let me quit anything.
Speaker 5: I couldn't get up front the front of dinner table
Speaker 5: until I ate like eighty five percent of the plate.
Speaker 6: Like it was just like there was no quitting in
Speaker 6: the household.
Speaker 5: So at that point, even when it got like really
Speaker 5: really tough. It was like like you know, when I decided, Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm not going to do anything sports related, I'm not
Speaker 5: going to do anything, you know, like anything I don't know,
Speaker 5: college related and so forth, it was like I was
Speaker 5: so far down this path.
Speaker 6: It's like if I quit.
Speaker 5: At this point, like I didn't shot myself in the
Speaker 5: foot for literally anything else in life that I want
Speaker 5: to do, It's like I can't, you know, I can't.
Speaker 5: I can't turn back to the clock and you know,
Speaker 5: go back to high school and you know, like I didn't.
Speaker 6: I didn't.
Speaker 5: I skipped so many big milestones in my life too
Speaker 5: dedicated towards this thing that it was almost like, yeah,
Speaker 5: it has to happen. I don't know how, I don't
Speaker 5: know in what way, but it has to happen. And
Speaker 5: that was you know, like it was just something I
Speaker 5: fought for for too long for me to give up
Speaker 5: on it.
Speaker 2: That lesson that your dad shared is like people not
Speaker 2: really understanding that fully in twenty twenty three, Like when
Speaker 2: things get uncomfortable, people want to go to something that
Speaker 2: is easier or like that's not going to have them
Speaker 2: in fear or in doubt, when really like that character
Speaker 2: quality of you. Nah.
Speaker 5: I read this quote that was like my friend's Asiana
Speaker 5: voice did it, and it was, what's the point of
Speaker 5: having faith if you're going to lose it when you
Speaker 5: need it most?
Speaker 6: And that's like my favorite quote right now. That's my
Speaker 6: favorite quote right now, is like, what's.
Speaker 5: The point if by the time when you actually need
Speaker 5: faith to kicking, anybody can have faith when it's easy,
Speaker 5: when you actually need faith to kick and you just
Speaker 5: get rid of it, what's the point of having it
Speaker 5: at all?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: Well, I just posted a story on Instagram yesterday about
Speaker 3: that where I believe faith relieves us from the burden
Speaker 3: of excessive responsibility. Like whatever your faith is, faith in God,
Speaker 3: higher power, universe, like in my and my beliefs. Are
Speaker 3: you better believe in something bigger and badder than you
Speaker 3: because like when things do get tough and when things
Speaker 3: get too heavy, like who are you going to give
Speaker 3: it up to?
Speaker 6: How are you going to really be able.
Speaker 3: To trust trust the process and trust that life is
Speaker 3: always happening for us and not to us. And even
Speaker 3: some of the things that you went through, you know,
Speaker 3: it's like there's lessons there. I'm thinking back to the
Speaker 3: lessons that your dad taught you, and even the lesson
Speaker 3: of I heard the story of your dad getting getting
Speaker 3: you the bike and you were getting bullied and your
Speaker 3: dad said, whatever, do whatever it takes to bring that
Speaker 3: bike home. And it's almost like that lesson, right there
Speaker 3: is another one of those don't quit lessons where no
Speaker 3: matter what happened, you always you always brought your bike.
Speaker 5: Home exactly exactly, and that's that's that's always. That's that
Speaker 5: was just my dad. That was my dad, and any
Speaker 5: like any and everything. It was like I don't care.
Speaker 4: I remember.
Speaker 6: I remember when he had me in boxing.
Speaker 5: I had this far against somebody that was like two
Speaker 5: times my size, Like, well, look, this is what you
Speaker 5: asked for, Like don't you know.
Speaker 6: I'm like, yeah, you sure? It's nobody else in the gym.
Speaker 6: He's like, nah, listen, the person you're looking for is
Speaker 6: right there.
Speaker 5: And And that was always, you know, that was it
Speaker 5: just kind of gave it gave me that like fighter spirit,
Speaker 5: that fighter mentality, because that was that was exactly who
Speaker 5: he was.
Speaker 6: And he only wanted to train, you know, like.
Speaker 5: When I was a pup, he only wanted to raise raised,
Speaker 5: like you know Pitbull's bulldogs. That was like actually going
Speaker 5: to go in there and fight for whatever it was
Speaker 5: that you want it, no matter if you wanted to
Speaker 5: be a chef.
Speaker 6: He was going to fight for that, you know, that
Speaker 6: that that food plate. You want to be a trash man,
Speaker 6: he was going to fight for that trash can, whatever
Speaker 6: it is.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, so, so when did when did you
Speaker 2: start to reap the harvest of that faith that you
Speaker 2: just told us about.
Speaker 5: Honestly, the journey is never it's never just a linear path.
Speaker 5: And you know, I'm pretty sure everybody can attest to that,
Speaker 5: it's never a linear path. My first like the first
Speaker 5: moment when I really started to reap it. I remember
Speaker 5: I was in college. We had dropped a song called
Speaker 5: stick Up when I said, like we had no money.
Speaker 5: I was in college. I had I just bought a
Speaker 5: we bought a tryod to make the camera steady, one
Speaker 5: of my homies cameras, and like it was, you know,
Speaker 5: it was just like yo. I had called like ten
Speaker 5: homies like yo, you stand right here, you stand right here,
Speaker 5: you stand right here, you walk behind the camera, man,
Speaker 5: make sure he doesn't fall. And then we just shot
Speaker 5: this video on my friend's block and the video went
Speaker 5: like it was like, you know, whatever the version of
Speaker 5: viral was in twenty fifteen, it was like it popped
Speaker 5: up on YouTube, popped up on Tumblr, it went crazy
Speaker 5: on SoundCloud, et cetera. And at that point, that's when
Speaker 5: I first started getting like phone calls from the label's,
Speaker 5: phone calls front of different companies, managers and everything. And
Speaker 5: then it started to feel real. It was like, oh,
Speaker 5: I'm getting interviews, like people are asking me who I am.
Speaker 6: That was the start of something bubbling.
Speaker 5: That was the first moment where I felt like I
Speaker 5: can actually do this, this thing, this thing I've been
Speaker 5: telling people that I'm gonna be one day, It's like
Speaker 5: it's not as far as I thought it was. I
Speaker 5: remember we went on we had got the call to
Speaker 5: go on tour that fall with a Big Crip. It's like, yo,
Speaker 5: we're gonna go on tour for a couple of days.
Speaker 5: And the first night we're like, we're like, I think
Speaker 5: seventeen eighteen years old and Big Crid is.
Speaker 6: Like thirty five. I don't know, Like his audience is
Speaker 6: way older than I am.
Speaker 5: And I know the first night we went out there,
Speaker 5: we like hype jumping around my DJ he throws water
Speaker 5: in the crowd, misses the entire crowd.
Speaker 6: Gets it all over the equipment.
Speaker 5: They kicked us off toward the first night, and I'm
Speaker 5: just like, wow, this is a quiet car ride home
Speaker 5: back to Philly, Like oh man, that was salty and
Speaker 5: you know, and but we still had.
Speaker 6: This like we was riding on the high, ride on
Speaker 6: the high.
Speaker 5: And then that following year, I got the phone call
Speaker 5: that my father I had just we had a show
Speaker 5: in Philly, and I was like, let me just go
Speaker 5: and invite my dad. Me and him was like we
Speaker 5: weren't on the best term, so let me go invite
Speaker 5: him to the show, just like let by guns be
Speaker 5: by guns. And when I pulled up, that was when
Speaker 5: I found out that he had cancer and he was
Speaker 5: going through chemo. It was like really like you know,
Speaker 5: and like and it's terminal stages of like you know,
Speaker 5: it's only a month or two left to live. And
Speaker 5: I just remember that that like crashing, halting moment where
Speaker 5: like everything just stopped. We get so so like I
Speaker 5: explained it to you, like that was the first moment
Speaker 5: where I I remembered that I was real, if that
Speaker 5: makes sense, Like like I've been so lost in this
Speaker 5: journey of I'm going to be a rapper one day,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna be a star, I'm gonna be at this
Speaker 5: or that. That was the first moment where it like
Speaker 5: it pulled me out of that world and it said, wait,
Speaker 5: this is I'm actually still just OURMANI I'm Lee's son,
Speaker 5: I'm Donna's son, I'm this kid who grew up around here,
Speaker 5: and these things are happening in the real world that's
Speaker 5: actually affecting me and this like I can't write a
Speaker 5: song that's going to fix this. I can't, like you know, yeah,
Speaker 5: like like that was so IOK. I took a step
Speaker 5: back just from everything music related. I took a step
Speaker 5: back from everything music related in twenty sixteen. It just
Speaker 5: like I wrote, I wrote it out with him until
Speaker 5: he passed that June, and honestly after that just took
Speaker 5: a break from music and Philly like all together.
Speaker 6: I just I moved out to U, I moved out
Speaker 6: to LA.
Speaker 5: Moved out to LA for a couple of years from
Speaker 5: the end of twenty sixteen up until I want to say,
Speaker 5: like the end of twenty eighteen, I was just I
Speaker 5: just couldn't Like it was like a I don't know,
Speaker 5: a demon on my back kind of thing. Anytime I
Speaker 5: came back to Philly, it was this idea that was
Speaker 5: like just it's something that was haunting me, that just
Speaker 5: didn't allow me to be in the city and feel
Speaker 5: good and feel comfortable until I, you know, I finally
Speaker 5: came back.
Speaker 6: Twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 5: It was like, you know, like let me just kind
Speaker 5: of face my fears and staying on top of whatever
Speaker 5: it is that's like haunting me right now, and you know,
Speaker 5: and from there, I think from there on was where
Speaker 5: things started to kind of there's honestly, it's just again
Speaker 5: it's just these these like it's.
Speaker 6: Never a linear path.
Speaker 5: Because I came back to Philly and everything was going good,
Speaker 5: the pandemic.
Speaker 6: Happened, and we had a house fire.
Speaker 5: We had a house fire in twenty twenty and just
Speaker 5: when I'm thinking everything is cool, this house fire happens
Speaker 5: and they charged us for arson for the house fire.
Speaker 5: And it wasn't like, you know, like there was there
Speaker 5: was no no intentional house fire nothing. It was literally
Speaker 5: like a fire got called a fire called something called fire,
Speaker 5: and we called in, we called nine one one whatever
Speaker 5: whatever they got to taken care of nothing, no real damage,
Speaker 5: nobody hurt, but they charged us for arson. And this
Speaker 5: is like pandemic times. It's like we don't know if
Speaker 5: we're ever getting out of jail. We don't know like
Speaker 5: they you know, they're not giving nobody bails. Like it's
Speaker 5: just so we got warrants out. We like I'm literally
Speaker 5: like in my mom's living room, like anytime somebody rings
Speaker 5: the doorbell, I'm terrified. I'm like, I won't know who
Speaker 5: that might be. Like it was, it was bad for
Speaker 5: like a month. We're just trying to figure short lawyers.
Speaker 5: Like I'm like, I can't get pulled over. I get
Speaker 5: pulled over, they gonna find it. Like it's like, you know,
Speaker 5: we're trying to figure this out for like a month,
Speaker 5: and we finally just had to we had to turn
Speaker 5: ourselves in go to jail. And I'm you know, and
Speaker 5: I'm just thinking about it from the perspective of like
Speaker 5: if I go to jail and like, you know, I've
Speaker 5: built this like clean image for so long that like
Speaker 5: everyone just disappears. Everyone's like, ah, you know, how fickleed
Speaker 5: this these these entertainment industries are.
Speaker 6: It's like, you know, like you can.
Speaker 5: Nobody ever takes an account that you're a human who
Speaker 5: sometimes makes mistakes or things happen, Like it's just like, ah,
Speaker 5: you got.
Speaker 6: A bad strike against your name.
Speaker 5: I don't really want to, you know, So I'm just
Speaker 5: thinking about all of this, Like, yo, everything I've built
Speaker 5: for all of these years is just gone from one
Speaker 5: you know, somebody putting a a a warrant out for me.
Speaker 5: That doesn't even make sense to have, you know. And
Speaker 5: so we went through that, We went through that moment,
Speaker 5: finally made it. We made it out of the jail,
Speaker 5: and a year later we went to trial or pre
Speaker 5: trial for it, and it threw our case out and
Speaker 5: now was like I've been it's been greener pastors ever since.
Speaker 5: Like that was like the moment where I finally like
Speaker 5: just you know, started to soar because at that moment,
Speaker 5: I really was like, you know, we made a project
Speaker 5: called Things We Lost in the Fire, and it was
Speaker 5: really just like about taking that moment and the house
Speaker 5: fire I had.
Speaker 6: As a kid and just making a piece of music.
Speaker 5: Like almost like a journal entry that like that just
Speaker 5: kind of talks about the things that I've been running
Speaker 5: from for the past ten years, past fifteen years and
Speaker 5: just really get it off my chest to really speak
Speaker 5: about it, really just be vocal, be open, honest and.
Speaker 6: Vulnerable about it, and get past that.
Speaker 5: Moment so I can just get back to making fun music,
Speaker 5: having fun with music, enjoying myself with the things that
Speaker 5: I'm creating. And that was right after that, that was
Speaker 5: the Billy Eilish moment. That was when we walked into
Speaker 5: that Billy Eilish era.
Speaker 2: It's crazy how in order for you to get to
Speaker 2: the moment of you know, where everything takes off and
Speaker 2: everything starts.
Speaker 4: To get good. It's like it feels like there's.
Speaker 2: A sense of it doesn't seem like I can escape
Speaker 2: this pain. It doesn't seem like I can escape bad
Speaker 2: things happening to me. Like you talk about being real
Speaker 2: and you can't escape the pains of life as a
Speaker 2: human being. But for you, it's just like it feel
Speaker 2: like an avalanche, Like it's just like it won't stop.
Speaker 2: Like did you feel like that.
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 6: It feels like. I'm gonna make a make a football reference.
Speaker 5: It's almost like it felt like anything good, anytime something
Speaker 5: good happened, you just kind of had to plant your feet.
Speaker 6: You had to plant your feet, lean forward.
Speaker 5: You was like, yo, just kind of breash yourself for
Speaker 5: the impact because something I don't know what it is,
Speaker 5: but something bad is around the corner, like uh and
Speaker 5: and you know, like even and we've been I've been
Speaker 5: dealing with it a lot more amicably and just like
Speaker 5: a lot and a lot healthier every way because it's
Speaker 5: a slower process. But like we I was fighting, fighting,
Speaker 5: fighting to just get this project out, just like you
Speaker 5: know this Rod Casablanco ep just out the way so
Speaker 5: I can start working on the album. And the moment
Speaker 5: we finally do, I'm like, wow, I can finally wosa,
Speaker 5: I breathe, I got the tour dates is done.
Speaker 6: Like I'm good. I can sit back for a second, relax.
Speaker 5: I get a call while we're on the press run,
Speaker 5: I get a call from my uncle that says, yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, we just we just found out that Grandpa
Speaker 5: Lee has terminal lung cancer and you know, they're giving
Speaker 5: them a few months or like up up to a
Speaker 5: few months left. And I'm just like god damn, Like
Speaker 5: it's like, at what point does like the good not
Speaker 5: come with the bad?
Speaker 6: And that's that's where I say. It's like when these
Speaker 6: things happen when you get these really high highs, like
Speaker 6: I just plant my feet at this point, I'm like,
Speaker 6: I don't know what it is.
Speaker 5: I don't know where it's going to come from, but
Speaker 5: I know at some point, like there's something that if
Speaker 5: I feet aren't playing, it can knock me over, you know,
Speaker 5: if I'm not embraced, if I'm not ready for it.
Speaker 6: I'm not ready for that embrace, if I'm not ready
Speaker 6: for that impact, and it could knock me over.
Speaker 3: If we go back to I just wanted to circle
Speaker 3: back about the conversations around your dad. What did you
Speaker 3: learn about death and maybe grief the process of death,
Speaker 3: and then also maybe what you how you could have
Speaker 3: handled it better and what you learned in the process
Speaker 3: of actually processing the loss of your father.
Speaker 6: My dad.
Speaker 5: For a lot of people who have their father and
Speaker 5: their lives, their dad is like the strongest person, like
Speaker 5: as is your kid.
Speaker 6: You know, you you kind of idolize and view your dad.
Speaker 6: It's like the strongest man.
Speaker 5: The words Superman and watching my dad have cancer, it
Speaker 5: broke a lot of spells and like there were good
Speaker 5: spells and bad spells that I learned from him, and
Speaker 5: it was just like this idea of fearlessness, this idea
Speaker 5: of bravery, which he instilled in me. But I think
Speaker 5: I learned bravery in ways that weren't all there, weren't
Speaker 5: actually braving, but I mean by that's like in those
Speaker 5: moments of weakness, he showed me bravery from a different
Speaker 5: perspective that it was okay to cry, it was okay
Speaker 5: to lean on someone, it was okay to have help,
Speaker 5: and it was okay to have family. And that was
Speaker 5: a new level of bravery that I learned just dealing
Speaker 5: with his transitioning and when he ultimately transitioned, because you know,
Speaker 5: like dealing with something like the house fire in two
Speaker 5: thousand and six, I went down a dark path because
Speaker 5: I didn't know how to channel that energy, that energy,
Speaker 5: I didn't know how to process it, and I didn't
Speaker 5: know how to express it. And one of the you know,
Speaker 5: one of the rawest things I could have did when
Speaker 5: my father passed.
Speaker 6: Was just cry, you know.
Speaker 5: And it's like, and it sounds crazy like because because
Speaker 5: you know, like everybody you know, like have has that emotion.
Speaker 5: But for me, it was just like that was a
Speaker 5: hurdle just to be able to cry, just to be
Speaker 5: able to let that, like let that expression out and
Speaker 5: and dealing with like dealing with losing him. I just
Speaker 5: I got really really comfortable with just the idea of crying,
Speaker 5: like being okay with crying, being okay with being expressive,
Speaker 5: being okay with like not like not having a calculated response,
Speaker 5: but just having a raw emotional response when it comes
Speaker 5: to the me, the people I love and the things
Speaker 5: I love and how it's affecting me.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 6: And that was that was a real that was a
Speaker 6: really really really sharp learning curve for me.
Speaker 3: What did what did grief teach you? Did you ever
Speaker 3: go to grief therapy or counseling or get outside help
Speaker 3: through this process?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: We we? Uh, Like so again I think I did,
Speaker 5: like I did grief grief counseling, and then there was
Speaker 5: a level of therapy. There's a version of therapy that
Speaker 5: I did not that long ago, but even you know,
Speaker 5: and even just talking to doctors and talking to therapists,
Speaker 5: like having like just like you know, free conversation a
Speaker 5: lot of it.
Speaker 6: What I always get back is like a lot of
Speaker 6: this is in you.
Speaker 5: And and for me, what people would tell me is
Speaker 5: that you're just an open book you're an open mind
Speaker 5: and you're just like an open thinker. Like as long
Speaker 5: as you're able to put yourself in an environment where
Speaker 5: you can think all these things through and think all
Speaker 5: these things out loud, then it's not so much of
Speaker 5: like the external help that you really need. It's just
Speaker 5: like you being comfortable with like speaking it out loud.
Speaker 5: You know that that was for me that you know,
Speaker 5: and I'm not speaking for everyone, but for me, that
Speaker 5: was what was most helpful. Grief counseling. When I did
Speaker 5: it was like I want to say, seventh grade, there
Speaker 5: was so much that was going on, like seventh and
Speaker 5: eighth grade. There was there was the house fire I had.
Speaker 5: There was like my sister's boyfriend he had just got shot.
Speaker 5: There was we had a friend out, a friend in
Speaker 5: Kwadir who had just got killed, and just and there
Speaker 5: was like that that was something know like that was
Speaker 5: really like a I don't know, it was a weird
Speaker 5: thing for me because he was playing football. We was
Speaker 5: just he was at practice and like I think, you know,
Speaker 5: somebody was tackling them and it's their foot kicked them
Speaker 5: in the head too hard or something, and he you know,
Speaker 5: like the trauma killed him on impact, and you know,
Speaker 5: even for that, it was weird for us.
Speaker 6: It was like he just died doing something that he loved.
Speaker 5: It didn't do anything wrong, you didn't do any you know,
Speaker 5: but it was in that moment, It was in that
Speaker 5: phase of my life where it was like, you know,
Speaker 5: you just got to pick it up and keep going.
Speaker 6: Whatever it is that you're dealing with, you just got
Speaker 6: to pick it up and keep going. Pick it up
Speaker 6: and keep going.
Speaker 5: So much so that like all of that unrolled and
Speaker 5: like this this the processing of like external pain just
Speaker 5: taking it out on everybody else. When when when I
Speaker 5: did grief counsel and I'm not sure, I'm not sure
Speaker 5: if I even listened. You know, I was a kid,
Speaker 5: you know, I was a kid. I was just kind
Speaker 5: of like, all right, yeah, like this person is saying
Speaker 5: things to me, and I don't you know, maybe it
Speaker 5: makes sense or maybe it doesn't.
Speaker 6: I don't know, But.
Speaker 5: Honestly, I'm you know, sometimes I might even just be
Speaker 5: like I'm I'm very hard headed. Sometimes it might even
Speaker 5: just be a process of like me being a slow
Speaker 5: learner and a sense of like I'm just being a contrarian,
Speaker 5: like you know, just being like just just being a
Speaker 5: contrariant to whatever it is you're saying, even if you
Speaker 5: are making sense. And then like three or four years
Speaker 5: down the line, when I don't have you and I
Speaker 5: realized I need you, I'm going to remember everything you
Speaker 5: said and it's going to make sense and it's going
Speaker 5: to steer me in the right direction. And I think
Speaker 5: a lot of which because when I turned it off,
Speaker 5: when I turned off the I want to be a
Speaker 5: hood kid, I want to be the street dude whatever.
Speaker 6: When I turned it off, I turned it off. I
Speaker 6: have no interest in it, Like it doesn't excite me.
Speaker 5: I'm not you know, like it's not even the yeah,
Speaker 5: I want to buy all these guns for protection or whatever.
Speaker 6: Like it's like I turned it off like.
Speaker 4: It was done.
Speaker 6: And so I think, but I think a lot of
Speaker 6: it was because.
Speaker 5: I had these small, small seeds planet throughout the process
Speaker 5: that didn't really like they didn't grow, they didn't sprout
Speaker 5: until years down the line. But when they sprouted, they
Speaker 5: finally like you know, like when a moment like my
Speaker 5: father passing happened, all those things that didn't make since
Speaker 5: then made since Now that's.
Speaker 2: That's a beautiful realization to come to man, And I
Speaker 2: love how you talked about you felt like you had
Speaker 2: to dig your heels in right now that you're seeing
Speaker 2: a lot of your dreams come into fruition and there's
Speaker 2: abundance of blessings coming into your life. Do you still
Speaker 2: feel like you got to dig your heels in even
Speaker 2: though things are going great? Or have you escaped that mindset?
Speaker 2: Are you still trying to find your way out? Like
Speaker 2: how are you dealing with that now?
Speaker 5: I mean even with my grandpa. My grandpa was that
Speaker 5: was recent, That was real recent. So like it's it's
Speaker 5: a little bit of it. It's a little bit of
Speaker 5: a digging my heels in, But I don't know, like
Speaker 5: like it's like I try not to.
Speaker 6: I try not to like be so so.
Speaker 5: Invested on this idea that something bad is about to happen,
Speaker 5: because you know, it might, it might, it might stifle
Speaker 5: you on like create a cloud over all the good
Speaker 5: things that's happening. I just I kind of focus on, like, Okay,
Speaker 5: what's in front of you right now? What can I like, Uh,
Speaker 5: there's a there's actually a quote that I've seen and
Speaker 5: like it's like an old old episode of Oprah. I
Speaker 5: think with my mom watching it as a kid.
Speaker 6: But it was this guy was selling a book and
Speaker 6: I don't I don't know why this one moment stuck
Speaker 6: with me.
Speaker 5: This guy was selling a book and he said in
Speaker 5: this book, it was a quote that said, you're only
Speaker 5: in control of two things in life. It's how you
Speaker 5: prepare for what's about to happen and how you reacted
Speaker 5: with just happened. And so like a piece of me
Speaker 5: is always digging my feet in and saying, Okay, I'm
Speaker 5: prepared for whatever is about to happen, whether it's good
Speaker 5: or bad.
Speaker 6: But at the same time, I'm reacting to all the
Speaker 6: good that is happening, because it's.
Speaker 4: Just a lot of good. You know, that's beautiful.
Speaker 3: Man, What are your what are your practices today as
Speaker 3: far as being able to stay in the present and
Speaker 3: not time travel or future trip too much or go
Speaker 3: back to the past, Like, what are the practices you're
Speaker 3: doing today to keep you there, to keep you present?
Speaker 5: I think, you know, Like what I learned a lot from,
Speaker 5: especially with my father passing, is how important family is.
Speaker 5: Family is quantified, Like you don't you know, you don't
Speaker 5: get another mom, you don't get another dad, You don't
Speaker 5: get like a lot of these things. So it's, uh,
Speaker 5: it's just like I value that's so much value, like
Speaker 5: the importance of family, Like what I now you know,
Speaker 5: with these with this newfoilnd career, with this money whatever
Speaker 5: it is, like what I now can do for these
Speaker 5: people because I don't you know, like for me, I'm
Speaker 5: so you know, just setting focused, laser focused on what
Speaker 5: the goal is that like I don't even think about,
Speaker 5: you know, if this person is dealing and struggling with
Speaker 5: this bill and this is something that I can easily
Speaker 5: help with. That literally does not it doesn't changed my trajectory.
Speaker 5: It doesn't hurt me, Like I literally wouldn't even you know,
Speaker 5: I wouldn't even realize if you.
Speaker 6: Took it from me.
Speaker 5: Like I'm like, but that one little thing I can
Speaker 5: do could change somebody's entire day. I just try to
Speaker 5: do that as much as I can for the people
Speaker 5: that's like that's around me, and I try to find
Speaker 5: little ways, little pockets to stay human. Like I'm at
Speaker 5: the end of the day, I'm just like a real
Speaker 5: big kid at heart. So like I might just I
Speaker 5: might just ignore my phone for the whole day and
Speaker 5: watch Dragon Ball z like I might, you know, like
Speaker 5: just little things that like make me still feel like
Speaker 5: in my raw essence, I'm the kid that didn't you
Speaker 5: know that that that just did everything that he wanted
Speaker 5: to do and didn't like conform to whatever everybody wanted.
Speaker 6: Me to be.
Speaker 2: I think staying human is so important, man, because we
Speaker 2: see so many people rappers, athletes, like when they reach
Speaker 2: a certain level of success, it's like it leaves. It's
Speaker 2: like the humility may may leave, like just the passion
Speaker 2: for creation or whatever their craft was may leave, and
Speaker 2: it's like they change almost And it's like, how do
Speaker 2: we continue to achieve all of our goals and our
Speaker 2: visions that we have set out for ourselves, but don't
Speaker 2: change in the process, continue to still be ourselves, continue
Speaker 2: to grow and change in the ways that we need
Speaker 2: to change, but just foundationally who we are. We don't
Speaker 2: change in that way though, And that's it's beautiful to
Speaker 2: hear you say that.
Speaker 5: No, I think I think it's just important as far
Speaker 5: as like like you just said, like humility, being a
Speaker 5: human being, like being present in this because what you
Speaker 5: got to like what I understood and learned to understand
Speaker 5: is like like this this idea of the entertainment world
Speaker 5: is so like it's all about the side honestly, like
Speaker 5: like the success, the the trajectory, the longevity of it.
Speaker 5: It's like, Yo, did you buy this Shane? Did you
Speaker 5: get this car? But you know, there's there's pages that
Speaker 5: that can can count up how much outfit is worth.
Speaker 5: There's like there's all about the besides so much so
Speaker 5: that it's like you don't really get the chance.
Speaker 6: Like nobody's talking about the goods.
Speaker 5: Somebody did Nobody thought, you know, there's no there's no
Speaker 5: trophy for you know, for for for waking up on
Speaker 5: time and taking care of somebody I don't know, like
Speaker 5: if likes a lot of times I might, I might
Speaker 5: pay for the car behind me a chick forl Like
Speaker 5: nobody nobody hears about this, Like you know what I'm
Speaker 5: saying is but these it's all the little things that
Speaker 5: just make you feel human, make you feel real. If
Speaker 5: you just went to the park to like throw a
Speaker 5: frisbee around, if I just you know, if I just
Speaker 5: sat outside and put my feet in the water, like
Speaker 5: these these little things that like we completely throw throw
Speaker 5: away sometimes because getting the chain is cooler, or like
Speaker 5: you know, like I need I need forty girls to
Speaker 5: pull up with me at this section of the club for.
Speaker 6: The I don't know, It's like, like none of these
Speaker 6: things really exciting that much.
Speaker 3: Darren and I talk a lot about finding your center, right,
Speaker 3: I think we all have a center. We all get
Speaker 3: pulled off our center from the world's demand for the
Speaker 3: attention of our minds and YouTube specifically if we're talking
Speaker 3: us three, because of the platforms you have, you know,
Speaker 3: I know you mentioned that you'll often pay for maybe
Speaker 3: a family member's bill, But I think there's a balance
Speaker 3: between also setting boundaries where there's a lot of people
Speaker 3: wanting certain things from you.
Speaker 6: So where do you find that balance?
Speaker 3: Like what are you doing to protect your mental health
Speaker 3: and your energy these days? And do you have practices
Speaker 3: like meditation or any movement practices that actually bring you
Speaker 3: back to your center.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I go through the gym.
Speaker 5: It's like that's like my meditation, that's my you know,
Speaker 5: And Dre tell me, tell me, I'm if I'm just
Speaker 5: making this stuff on my head.
Speaker 6: But there's like a certain level of I feel like,
Speaker 6: I like, for me, it's on a bench.
Speaker 5: If I'm a bench person and I'm small dude, I'm
Speaker 5: like one seventy, but like I can bench to twenty
Speaker 5: five now like tive couple of times. But that idea
Speaker 5: of the weight of the world on me and I
Speaker 5: just pick it up and put it off of me
Speaker 5: is like I feel like I could accomplish anything, you
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: And so that's like that's my.
Speaker 5: Real you know, that's like my real hyperbolic time chamber
Speaker 5: where I can kind of go in and just like
Speaker 5: and be at peace, be centered, be training, be focused.
Speaker 6: But at the same time, when it comes to you.
Speaker 5: Know, like the demands, what I realized that family and
Speaker 5: people with other like who aren't in this world don't understand.
Speaker 5: There's like there may be a day where thirty thousand
Speaker 5: dollars comes in and at the same time that that
Speaker 5: day that thirty thousand came and it gets broken down
Speaker 5: like say it's for a show that showed Godless show
Speaker 5: amount got broken down to like maybe eight thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: And at the same time, just in other expenses, I
Speaker 5: spent about another I don't know, twenty thousand, and like, yeah,
Speaker 5: we had to set this up for the sprinter, We
Speaker 5: had to set that up for security we had to
Speaker 5: set that up, so like you know, like thirty thousand
Speaker 5: might have became I don't know, like negative twelve thousand.
Speaker 6: Like I went on tour for it for two months.
Speaker 5: I went on tour with two months and I'm made
Speaker 5: twenty five thousand, and we spend about sixty just staying
Speaker 5: aflut you know, and so like.
Speaker 6: But the people who don't, who aren't in this world,
Speaker 6: don't understand that concept. So I don't know.
Speaker 5: When somebody asks me for money, I'm broke. I mean,
Speaker 5: I'm holding out on that as long as I can.
Speaker 5: I was like, yeah, I'm broke, I'm super broken.
Speaker 2: No. I can relate to both of those examples, especially
Speaker 2: like in the weight room. It's, uh, there's something that
Speaker 2: that's trained in your mind. When there's like something providing
Speaker 2: resistance to you and you're able to push through it
Speaker 2: and overcome it, like it translates into your character. It
Speaker 2: translates into your everyday life. When you make that a
Speaker 2: habit of your life, experience that becomes your character becomes
Speaker 2: it gives you the strength to put your heels in
Speaker 2: the ground, like when it's when it's healthy too, and
Speaker 2: when you and when you have no other choice and
Speaker 2: anything difficult that comes. There's, like you said, just trying
Speaker 2: to stay afloat or things aren't where exactly where you want.
Speaker 4: Them to be.
Speaker 2: I push through because I don't quit. And there's also
Speaker 2: the family side and the money. It's like, you know,
Speaker 2: you got to be willing to have that courage to
Speaker 2: say like this, this isn't what it is, Like I
Speaker 2: love you and in ways that I can, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: bless you. But yeah, it's like people see my name
Speaker 2: go across the bottom of screen. It was like three
Speaker 2: year fifty one million. It's like that's really just an extension.
Speaker 2: It's like they put fluff on the contract, like I'm
Speaker 2: really only making twelve this year and then I'm out
Speaker 2: in New York now, so it's taxes on that. So
Speaker 2: it would be like six, like fifty one my account
Speaker 2: right then and there tax free. Like a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't yeah, yeah, don't understand.
Speaker 5: That's you see and yours is fifty one. MINS is
Speaker 5: like I think I don't know what that number is,
Speaker 5: and other people say is, but like MINS was was?
Speaker 6: I think it was like six million total or something
Speaker 6: like that.
Speaker 5: It's like, I mean, like and people think that six
Speaker 5: million line is like, oh, you have six million dollars,
Speaker 5: Like nah, I got like a couple hundred thousand. It's
Speaker 5: like that was that was before, like you said, before taxes,
Speaker 5: and then I took care of this. I had to
Speaker 5: take care of that. Then I had that, like you know,
Speaker 5: like it was things that we were still taking care
Speaker 5: of on top of just like now my image is
Speaker 5: a lot higher.
Speaker 6: I have to pay for it, you know, like I
Speaker 6: have to look the part a little bit.
Speaker 4: Either get a.
Speaker 5: Chain or get just get little things like that just
Speaker 5: make me look like a rapper now. And like just
Speaker 5: the living expenses on top of it. I'm like, yea,
Speaker 5: you have no idea how much money I don't have
Speaker 5: as opposed to whatever that number was you've just seen
Speaker 5: on that press release.
Speaker 6: Like cuz you guys.
Speaker 3: Both well, ARMANI you were talking about resistance or Darren
Speaker 3: you were too with the working out, but I was curious.
Speaker 3: We've had a previous guest on named Steven Pressfield. He
Speaker 3: wrote the book The War of Art, and the whole
Speaker 3: book is about resistance and how resistance gets in the
Speaker 3: way of our creativity. So for both of you, because
Speaker 3: you guys both write music. How do you deal with
Speaker 3: resistance when it shows up as like writer's block or
Speaker 3: you know, wanting to put pen to paper and you're
Speaker 3: just like not coming up with anything.
Speaker 5: It's like, for me, what I learned, for the most
Speaker 5: part when I'm having writer's block is really just a
Speaker 5: a lack of experience.
Speaker 6: That's for the most part.
Speaker 5: And like sometimes it's maybe something different, but a lot
Speaker 5: of times it's like I don't know what to write
Speaker 5: about in this environment or with this particular song because I'm.
Speaker 6: Not living it.
Speaker 5: I have to sometimes a lot of times I have
Speaker 5: to just go outside, you know, I have to go
Speaker 5: outside and like breathe air. Especially if like I'm writing
Speaker 5: a record that's like relative to I want people to
Speaker 5: enjoy themselves, have fun, I have to go outside, have
Speaker 5: fun and just like and you know, and just because nowadays,
Speaker 5: when we're writing music, we're not writing something that's abstract
Speaker 5: art anymore. We're writing something that's relative to people. We're
Speaker 5: writing something that's the soundtrack to people's everyday lives, and
Speaker 5: we're writing something that's just like relative, it's relatable, you know,
Speaker 5: So we have to like we almost have to go
Speaker 5: out and be the person that we want to put
Speaker 5: in this song so that the person we want to
Speaker 5: hear this song can feel like they know that person,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like for me, it's like not trying
Speaker 2: to put like a certain timetable on a project or
Speaker 2: an idea, but allowing the idea itself to dictate when
Speaker 2: it's done, not have to rush to a result or
Speaker 2: rush to put something out to please somebody or to
Speaker 2: or to get that that clap or that ovation. But
Speaker 2: it's really just like keeping in mind as much as
Speaker 2: possible that I love the creation aspect of this, so
Speaker 2: I'm going to pour into that as much as possible,
Speaker 2: And whenever I try to force something on the record,
Speaker 2: it ain't going like's not they won't be a line
Speaker 2: on the paper, you know. But I feel like some
Speaker 2: of the best things are so simple and they come
Speaker 2: naturally and they just flow out of us because it's
Speaker 2: like that was meant to be for that moment, And
Speaker 2: sometimes that idea can come out instantly, sometimes it may
Speaker 2: take months. But being okay with however long that process is,
Speaker 2: and not trying to force my will or my desires
Speaker 2: or any type agreed I may have in my heart
Speaker 2: into the music. But just keeping the process as pure
Speaker 2: as possible.
Speaker 5: I'd say, mm hmm, absolutely, And I think I think
Speaker 5: that's like, you know, and it's funny that like for me,
Speaker 5: you know, you I walk into this building and then
Speaker 5: the question is, you know, how do you how do
Speaker 5: you write?
Speaker 6: How do you make music? Like what's your creative process?
Speaker 5: And I'm like, I like the I like the kind
Speaker 5: of mad scientists like I like to just you know,
Speaker 5: like we may make a beat in the studio together,
Speaker 5: I may come up with an idea whatever, but when
Speaker 5: it's time to make the song, I want to be
Speaker 5: by myself. I want to be able to just like
Speaker 5: completely just free flow just thoughts like let him let
Speaker 5: everything out and just you know, like brainstorm with it
Speaker 5: and a lot of times because the industry is in
Speaker 5: such a microwave society thing now, like now it's just like, nah,
Speaker 5: just come down to the studio and just make a
Speaker 5: song on the spot. And I'm like, wait what, you know,
Speaker 5: like it's like I'm not doing that. If you ask
Speaker 5: the producer to do it, he's not doing that. Like
Speaker 5: you know, like they come in with like five to
Speaker 5: ten beats that they all just made. They didn't make
Speaker 5: any of these beats on the spot. Why do I
Speaker 5: got to make something on the spot? Like you know?
Speaker 6: So, like I agreed exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 3: Man, I'm I'm sensing or I'm my intuition is feeling
Speaker 3: a little collab between you two.
Speaker 6: Nobody.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've heard any of Darren Darren's music.
Speaker 3: Darren humble to a fault, but he is crazy talented.
Speaker 3: I was just playing his music for some of my
Speaker 3: girlfriend's friends and to Loom this last weekend. And anybody
Speaker 3: that I play his music to, they're just like blown away.
Speaker 3: You know, they're probably expecting something and then what they
Speaker 3: get with the creativity and.
Speaker 4: Trash. Let's let's let's not expect something.
Speaker 3: Another another athlete trying to wrap. But yeah, man, it's
Speaker 3: uh yeah, super talented.
Speaker 5: The both of you are absolutely, I definitely you know,
Speaker 5: like I'm I'm I'm definitely in a collaborative world right now.
Speaker 5: So and and if if this is as fire as
Speaker 5: you're saying, you're making to Loom music, then yeah, we
Speaker 5: definitely got some music.
Speaker 3: His music isn't a tu Loom vibe, but I could
Speaker 3: see I could see I could see.
Speaker 6: Some loom to loom vibes.
Speaker 2: Hey, wherever it's meant to go, it's meant to go. Yes, well, man, appreciate,
Speaker 2: appreciate you coming on here today, man, and and just
Speaker 2: being so open about your story and your journey and
Speaker 2: just sharing wisdom and experience and strength with the people.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: And it's it's awesome to get them to see this.
Speaker 2: Side of you because they see the turn side, they
Speaker 2: see all the different records that you put out, but
Speaker 2: to see your human being and a great human being
Speaker 2: at that. Man, it's been a blessing to talk to you, brother.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 6: It's been a blessing to be on the platform. I
Speaker 6: appreciate y'all both having me on it. Yeah, man, thank you.
Speaker 3: There's nothing greater for me to sit and sit back
Speaker 3: and observe. You know, you got an athlete, NFL football
Speaker 3: player and a rapper and we're talking. We're not talking
Speaker 3: really about those things. We're talking about the real stuff,
Speaker 3: mental health, you know, taking care of ourselves, protecting our energy,
Speaker 3: and that's everything to me. So thanks for showing up
Speaker 3: and being real today.
Speaker 4: Nah.
Speaker 5: I appreciate y'all. I had I want to even I
Speaker 5: even add on to saying that I had a guy.
Speaker 5: I was doing a session in California, like around the
Speaker 5: time when my father passed, and he was we were
Speaker 5: just kind of like, like I was telling them, I
Speaker 5: just took a break from music. He was like, I
Speaker 5: just took a break for the same thing. You know,
Speaker 5: I had my girlfriend just broke up with me. So
Speaker 5: I was kind of, you know, just really depressed in
Speaker 5: my world them whatever whatever. And I was like, oh man,
Speaker 5: you know, I hope, like, you know, you kind of
Speaker 5: come out of it. He said, well, what's what's going
Speaker 5: on with you? And I was like, well, you know,
Speaker 5: my father passed and I kind of just had to
Speaker 5: get away from the city. And he was like, oh wait, no,
Speaker 5: like what I'm going through is nothing on what.
Speaker 6: You got going on. But I told him, in that moment,
Speaker 6: I realized, We're dealing with the same volume of emotions.
Speaker 5: It's just two completely different you know, stories, two completely
Speaker 5: different reasons, two completely different you know, backgrounds, but the
Speaker 5: thing that we're feeling is the same.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, what we're going through kind of binds
Speaker 6: us and puts us all in the same box.
Speaker 5: So like, I think, you know, this is this was
Speaker 5: really beneficial and helpful for me just to like, you know,
Speaker 5: kind of create that coalition and so like, yeo, whatever
Speaker 5: it is that I may have been dealing with, whatever
Speaker 5: it is that you you have been dealing with in
Speaker 5: the past, or what deal with in the future.
Speaker 6: Like, we're not that far apart from each other that
Speaker 6: we all go through things and we all just you know,
Speaker 6: have our comeback stories and get back on top.
Speaker 4: Again.
Speaker 2: Thank you, appreciate everybody joining us and listening to another
Speaker 2: episode of Comeback Stories. Hope you guys keep coming back.
Speaker 2: You know how we do comebacks in our DNA. Check
Speaker 2: us out anywhere if you download podcasts, subscribe, leave a review,
Speaker 2: and check us out on the Inflection Network on YouTube
Speaker 2: as well, and we'll catch you guys next week.
Speaker 1: Comeback Stories is a production of Inflection Network and iHeartRadio.
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