Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that's.
Speaker 2: What's up. Family. It's your girl to mek A D.
Speaker 3: Mallard and your boy, my son and gentlemen.
Speaker 2: And we are your host of t M I.
Speaker 1: Tamika and my song's information, truth, motivation and inspiration.
Speaker 2: I'm feeling you get about like a lot of people
Speaker 2: like t M I.
Speaker 3: What's that?
Speaker 4: I like?
Speaker 2: Like, I'm not already had anyone say I don't think well,
Speaker 2: actually moste mallories like I like street politicians.
Speaker 1: I don't understand why I'm what you are, but you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you gotta grow. We always gonna street polists, always always.
Speaker 2: But I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it.
Speaker 2: What's up family out there? Thanks for tuning in for
Speaker 2: yet another week of t M I.
Speaker 1: The Week of tm You know, it's been a long week.
Speaker 1: It's been along a couple of weeks. A lot of
Speaker 1: things been going on. So I'm really just back into
Speaker 1: my whole workout thing. You know, probably working out like
Speaker 1: three or four days a week, and my body is
Speaker 1: just really sore, like really really sore. But I've been
Speaker 1: working out with my little brother. I've been taking him
Speaker 1: to the gym and you know, a lot of these
Speaker 1: young boys think that they can really do it until
Speaker 1: they actually get in the gym. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You get him in the gym and he's talking to yeah, come,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go work out. And after about we jogged
Speaker 1: for about ten fifteen minutes and he's like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: got this. Next, you know, we do two workouts. He's
Speaker 1: about to pass out in the gym. He drinking water
Speaker 1: every five seconds. He's sitting out. We've been all hard
Speaker 1: and it's crazy just to watch. And I see this
Speaker 1: happen all the times with younger individuals. They just think
Speaker 1: because you're older, that they got more energy than you.
Speaker 1: And I'll be trying to tell you, I can't just
Speaker 1: come to that gym playing around. You know, it's a
Speaker 1: serious thing in that gym. So, you know, that's been
Speaker 1: the thing I've been doing, like really getting back into.
Speaker 3: Health because health as well.
Speaker 1: You know, I used to really you know, I used
Speaker 1: to be a personal train I used to do all
Speaker 1: those things. In probably the last couple of months, I've
Speaker 1: got that love for working out again.
Speaker 3: So young boys coming to gym with me, you may
Speaker 3: be ready to work out.
Speaker 2: I love for work it out.
Speaker 3: It's a little it's extreme. Love is a love thing.
Speaker 2: I do it. I like it, but I don't know
Speaker 2: about loving it. I don't know about loving it. But
Speaker 2: what I am doing that you know, I've really been
Speaker 2: focusing on for the last several months, is really trying
Speaker 2: to find a balance between craziness at work and your
Speaker 2: own personal peace of mind. That has been that, that's
Speaker 2: like the next thing, get the workout together. I got
Speaker 2: the scheduling around that together. But now it's more so
Speaker 2: like people like, how do you balance to two? Because
Speaker 2: every I used to be and I used to live
Speaker 2: by the idea that there is no balance. And I
Speaker 2: still know that the idea of balance sounds really good,
Speaker 2: but it's not necessar severally realistic because at times, either
Speaker 2: your family life, your personal life, your work life, all
Speaker 2: of those things require a little bit more from everybody.
Speaker 2: So balance is real difficult, but you have to do.
Speaker 2: You do have to have a balance over your peace
Speaker 2: of mind, and that through therapy, through going through so
Speaker 2: many trials and tribulations, I began to understand that the
Speaker 2: balance of peace of mind is not the same thing
Speaker 2: like balancing work and play or work home life. I'm
Speaker 2: talking about being able to control how much you sit
Speaker 2: and obsess over getting things done, responding to everybody, and
Speaker 2: how you could just be okay with the fact that
Speaker 2: maybe this person is going to be upset. I may
Speaker 2: not have I may not have shown up for all
Speaker 2: the things the way that people wanted me to, But
Speaker 2: when it got to the point that I felt it
Speaker 2: was too much, I pulled away. And that for me,
Speaker 2: is a very difficult task. It's a very difficult task,
Speaker 2: but it's something that I realized I have to work on.
Speaker 2: And I wouldn't say it comes with the privilege since
Speaker 2: we're talking about age. It comes with the privilege of age,
Speaker 2: because when you're younger and you're trying to find your
Speaker 2: way in the world, you just kind of like go
Speaker 2: not just young in age, also young in time in
Speaker 2: a space. So you're the new hairstylist, you the new whatever.
Speaker 2: You going hard trying to get yourself known. Once you
Speaker 2: come to a place where you have already established a brand,
Speaker 2: you do have to find a way to back yourself
Speaker 2: up a little bit to and also to have ability
Speaker 2: to get a vision for what life looks like going forward.
Speaker 1: I think for me, you know, my experience in my
Speaker 1: life experiences being incarcerated and losing out on a lot
Speaker 1: of things, a lot of different opportunities. I think my
Speaker 1: mind stay, it's hard for me to do that, right
Speaker 1: because when you when you're twenty years old and you're
Speaker 1: on the custom of being the next big, biggest hip
Speaker 1: hop artist, and then it's taken from you and you
Speaker 1: spend seven years in prison, right, you never get that back.
Speaker 1: You don't even know what it looks like. And then
Speaker 1: you become content with that reality. You just say, hey,
Speaker 1: that's what happened. That was God's plan. But you don't
Speaker 1: ever want to lose any other opportunities, So you don't
Speaker 1: want to stop doing anything or stop working. Wow, you're
Speaker 1: creating what you're creating, so you don't even know what
Speaker 1: it's like to be able to sell O care. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna step back from some because there's no guarantee. I
Speaker 1: realized in my life that there's no guarantee. There's no
Speaker 1: guarantee to anything and certain there I don't think I'm
Speaker 1: in a position where I've created generation of well like,
Speaker 1: if I don't work for a few weeks, if I
Speaker 1: don't do things or create things, there's a strong possibility
Speaker 1: that I won't be able to survive in real time.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of us that come from
Speaker 1: you know where I come from. That's how that's the
Speaker 1: way that we operate. So it's hard. So I hear
Speaker 1: people say and I see people do it all the time,
Speaker 1: and to me, it's kind of like a luxury because
Speaker 1: it's a luxury that I would love to be able
Speaker 1: to say, you know what, let me just deal with
Speaker 1: my mentor I don't even know what that looks like,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Hard, it's a real hard
Speaker 1: thing to do because I want to be able to
Speaker 1: just but every day I'll be like, Okay, I gotta
Speaker 1: figure this out, and I gotta move in this and
Speaker 1: I gotta work, and I gotta figure these things out.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's a lot.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that it's also a tool of white
Speaker 2: supremacy to make us believe that we have to be
Speaker 2: on a hamster will all the time, because I think
Speaker 2: management of our time and management of our money better,
Speaker 2: because we as American and probably everybody over in the world,
Speaker 2: there's so much waste if we really just look at
Speaker 2: like the difference between how often we cook, which by
Speaker 2: the way, groceries is ridiculous. But just saying how often
Speaker 2: we cook versus how often we eat out, you know,
Speaker 2: whether or not. My dad will say in a minute,
Speaker 2: y'all need to learn how to do your own hair.
Speaker 2: Like why y'all always got to pay people to do
Speaker 2: your hair? Whatnot? Right, So I know we're not gonna
Speaker 2: do those things. It's not gonna happen. It's our guilty
Speaker 2: pleasures and whatever else. But if we just look at
Speaker 2: how many times we drink during a week or two,
Speaker 2: how much gas we spend without just walking to a
Speaker 2: place or whatever. If you if you add it up,
Speaker 2: you will find that there are resources there for us
Speaker 2: to be a little bit more like, Okay, I don't
Speaker 2: have to kill myself, but we want to live with
Speaker 2: the luxuries of LFE. It's actually the opposite, and my
Speaker 2: opinion of what you're saying. The luxury is that we
Speaker 2: want to have these things and go these places because
Speaker 2: I'm not going to miss one thing that somebody invites
Speaker 2: me to that I want to go to. So I
Speaker 2: have a schedule from April all the way until July. People,
Speaker 2: my cousins, this thing, somebody having this that I want
Speaker 2: to go. So what am I going to do in
Speaker 2: order for me to get there? I gotta spend money,
Speaker 2: I gotta be able to pay my credit card. I
Speaker 2: gotta be able to do all these things. So it
Speaker 2: does make me hustle. But if I took if I
Speaker 2: just said, you know what, I'm just gonna sit at home,
Speaker 2: make sure I do the bare minimum and then I
Speaker 2: can focus on my mental health and whatever, I could
Speaker 2: actually probably do that.
Speaker 1: But the idea is, but I hear what you're saying,
Speaker 1: and I mean cut you off. What is that actually
Speaker 1: you doing what you want to do?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: Because if you're saying that I'm not going to miss
Speaker 1: none of these events, right, because that means.
Speaker 3: That you want to go to the events.
Speaker 1: But it's a sacrifice, you sacrificing what for what you
Speaker 1: second for your men's comfort, for your mental health?
Speaker 2: Well yeah, because because because because mental health is a
Speaker 2: different type of thing. I'm saying that, yes, your comfort
Speaker 2: is a part of the enjoyment that helps you find peace.
Speaker 2: But if you are working yourself literally to death where
Speaker 2: you are not able to calm down and relax for
Speaker 2: a minute and have days where you just lay still
Speaker 2: or you just sit quietly and you're not on the
Speaker 2: time clock. If I gotta answer the phone, do the thing,
Speaker 2: get it up. That is a problem. It's an issue,
Speaker 2: and it's a lot of us. It's not just the
Speaker 2: black thing, it's not just whatever. The reason why I
Speaker 2: say it's a toulo white supremacy is because we have
Speaker 2: been taught that being an overachiever is what makes us
Speaker 2: a great example of you know whatever, and that that
Speaker 2: mindset is actually not helpful. It's also a tool of
Speaker 2: white white supremacy to make us believe that we have
Speaker 2: to be perfect, right, perfection, all of these things, they
Speaker 2: have been tools that make you feel like you're a
Speaker 2: failure when you're actually not. You're not a failure because
Speaker 2: you're not you. It's okay to be missing sometimes from
Speaker 2: the conversation. You don't have to be at the front
Speaker 2: every time. It's something that we're driven by because we
Speaker 2: believe that if we're not, then we're going to be
Speaker 2: out of what you call it, out of sight, out
Speaker 2: of mind.
Speaker 1: It's also it's also what we see, right, It's what
Speaker 1: we celebrate. It's who we celebrate, right, we don't the
Speaker 1: people that we celebrate and we call successful in our
Speaker 1: culture are the people who are always present, right or
Speaker 1: when they present, or that when they are present, it's.
Speaker 2: Damn But that's the thing, and that that what you
Speaker 2: just said is exactly the point, and thank you for
Speaker 2: bringing it home. It's that sometimes the more you do,
Speaker 2: the less quality that is existing because you don't have
Speaker 2: time to prepare. Right, you're moving from one place to that.
Speaker 2: I've been in that where I'm moving from this place
Speaker 2: to that place. I feel tired. I'm not myself. I
Speaker 2: walk in the room, my speech is not finished. I
Speaker 2: don't feel as confident. But when I have time to
Speaker 2: focus on the big things. And that's why I shout
Speaker 2: out to Marvette Brittle, publicists and brand manager forever for
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of people, from Ria, Carrey, the you
Speaker 2: name it. She's worked with the greats. She will tell
Speaker 2: you that it's important, like you can't take everything that
Speaker 2: comes your way. And a lot of times we find
Speaker 2: ourselves we want the fifteen hundred dollars, the three thousand,
Speaker 2: the five thousand, to twenty thousand and twenty five thousand,
Speaker 2: and instead we should really be again sacrificing. It's saying
Speaker 2: no to some things, not the things that's important to you.
Speaker 2: Some people don't got money to pay you a lot,
Speaker 2: But the things that are important to you you have
Speaker 2: to do. But the things that are not you kind
Speaker 2: of say no sometimes so that you could focus on
Speaker 2: being your best self when you do get the ten
Speaker 2: thousand to five thousand, two twenty five thousand dollars speaking engagement,
Speaker 2: because if you're running yourself ragging, you're not showing up
Speaker 2: as your best self. So I'm just trying to figure
Speaker 2: out what that looks like. Because what we do with
Speaker 2: this work that is constantly trauma and going and going.
Speaker 2: It's not easy to tell some a family or not
Speaker 2: to be present in places. But I am finding a
Speaker 2: way to be okay with not being there and not
Speaker 2: sitting at home beating myself to death that oh my god,
Speaker 2: I should have gone, I should have done it, I
Speaker 2: should have wanted it, not because I would make myself
Speaker 2: feel bad. So anyway, it's not something I have an
Speaker 2: answer to. But my therapist says that it is very
Speaker 2: necessary because if you don't do it, you find yourself
Speaker 2: spiraling backwards. And then his other point has been that
Speaker 2: when you finally get to a place where you can't
Speaker 2: where you're not in demand, or you're not whatever. You
Speaker 2: don't even know what to do with yourself at that
Speaker 2: point because you're so used to being out. So you
Speaker 2: have to train yourself that it's okay that sometimes y'all
Speaker 2: don't hear from me. You know, there are many viral
Speaker 2: videos out there that shows bouncers, club, bouncers, security body
Speaker 2: slamming people doing whatever. I've had my own, you know,
Speaker 2: I have literally gotten into almost physical altercations with a
Speaker 2: number of bouncers, and I've had experiences that other people
Speaker 2: that I know or places that I've been, they have
Speaker 2: been significant, significant issues. And of course, as I said,
Speaker 2: there are viral videos. I think it was a video
Speaker 2: just in April with some women was into it with
Speaker 2: the bouncer or the bouncer whatever, whatever, and the bouncers
Speaker 2: started slamming them, went out into the parking lot to
Speaker 2: continue to deal with whatever. Once they get you out
Speaker 2: the venue, it should be done from their perspective, and
Speaker 2: now you're in the street, So then at that point
Speaker 2: there should be no reason for a bouncer to even
Speaker 2: be behind you or with you at your car, or
Speaker 2: down in the parking lot or any of that. This
Speaker 2: last week, a young person that I know in Atlanta
Speaker 2: was beaten and followed by the way. Even the uber
Speaker 2: driver says, no, no, I was already outside. I watched it.
Speaker 2: It didn't just happen right outside the door. Three bounces
Speaker 2: followed this young man into the parking lot, which was
Speaker 2: disconnected from the bar where he was, and they commenced
Speaker 2: to beating him up and whatever, and it all. I
Speaker 2: understand that when you are in an environment where people
Speaker 2: are intoxicated, if you don't maintain a certain level of
Speaker 2: discipline and control over a space, it could get out
Speaker 2: of hand. It's unsafe for everybody, including you as security
Speaker 2: as well as other patrons. Things could get completely out
Speaker 2: of hand. And people do drink a lot, so when
Speaker 2: it go out, you're not as and I know it's
Speaker 2: happened to me, you're not as aware. Your self awareness
Speaker 2: certainly tampered or whatever you call it. It's it's not
Speaker 2: at the level that it should be when you have
Speaker 2: been drinking alcohol, right, and then some people are doing
Speaker 2: other drugs, so it's a lot of things that goes
Speaker 2: on right. However, there is an issue with the emotional
Speaker 2: intelligence and the level of de escalation skills that bouncers
Speaker 2: have across the country, and it is a problem. They
Speaker 2: start more ship than they actually do to diffuse and
Speaker 2: keep things under in control. Now there are some places
Speaker 2: where there are bouncers and and and very very much.
Speaker 2: I would say that one of the groups that a
Speaker 2: group that has let me, a group that has produced
Speaker 2: many of the bounces that we see out here, people
Speaker 2: who are supposed to be security or whatever. One of
Speaker 2: the groups that has produced lots of them is the FOI,
Speaker 2: which is the food of this mom.
Speaker 5: They have.
Speaker 2: And you can tell when you are being approached by
Speaker 2: someone that is FOI who is working at a club.
Speaker 2: You can tell the way in which they speak to you.
Speaker 3: Sister.
Speaker 2: You know, I need you to calm down. You guys
Speaker 2: have to move out the way. They're not to say
Speaker 2: that they're pushovers, because we all know they're firmed, but
Speaker 2: it's a certain way that they deal with you, and
Speaker 2: you can tell. But these other people that somehow are
Speaker 2: beget I don't know, and I need to do Oh
Speaker 2: by the way, I'm going to do the research because
Speaker 2: I'm going to be the person that is going to
Speaker 2: fight for whether it be legislative changes or for there
Speaker 2: to be some way that people can hold no. I
Speaker 2: want to see venues held responsible for incidents with their
Speaker 2: bounces in a stronger way. It's not as much as
Speaker 2: it should be. There are a lot of these owners
Speaker 2: that either close the door, don't answer the phone calls,
Speaker 2: and their security people are treating people with a level
Speaker 2: of disrespect that is not okay. It's not okay.
Speaker 3: It's a liability, so they should be.
Speaker 1: They should be liable if you're doing something where you're
Speaker 1: violating people's rights, and.
Speaker 2: There should be a way to determine when people's rights
Speaker 2: are being violated. I believe that we may even be
Speaker 2: at the point where at a lot of these popular
Speaker 2: nightclubs or whatever, some of these bounces need to have
Speaker 2: body cameras on them because the way, and by the way,
Speaker 2: the terminology bouncer, I don't know where it came from,
Speaker 2: because this is all the research that I'm seriously gonna do.
Speaker 2: My friend's son, he is a young boy who is
Speaker 2: not problematic, and what happened to him is dead wrong,
Speaker 2: and by all accounts of the people around, the bouncer
Speaker 2: was an antagonist. He was basically picking on this young kid.
Speaker 2: And I have seen it happen so many times and
Speaker 2: and and the way in which you you know people,
Speaker 2: especially when you know people have been drinking, you have
Speaker 2: to actually get your tone and the way in which
Speaker 2: you're approaching them, you know, in a manner that allows
Speaker 2: them to feel respected while being able to move them.
Speaker 2: I don't know who's training them.
Speaker 5: I don't know where they're where there, what accreditation they
Speaker 5: have or.
Speaker 2: But it must it must change.
Speaker 1: Then it is different criterias, right, So they got you
Speaker 1: got the guys are just big, so they just say, hey,
Speaker 1: you can be the security, have any criteria.
Speaker 3: Then you got off duty police officers who don't who.
Speaker 2: Have the same mindset as on duty ones that we
Speaker 2: already have.
Speaker 1: So you're dealing with You're dealing with those things right there.
Speaker 1: And they think they especially when they're in that situe,
Speaker 1: they just think they're all way above the law. They
Speaker 1: still got the street element because now on they're outside,
Speaker 1: they ain't got they they're not tied to the uniform
Speaker 1: as much, but they still know that they got their badge.
Speaker 3: So they dealing with you from that aspect.
Speaker 1: And then like you said, people are intoxicated and nobody
Speaker 1: wants to be told to sit on the line or
Speaker 1: way to move so you got to understand that. And
Speaker 1: there's no real training. I'm telling you. I know, I
Speaker 1: know people who've been bouncers that's never done anything. They
Speaker 1: just the bouncer at the club.
Speaker 2: That's not that That to me is unhealthy. It doesn't work,
Speaker 2: and there has to be some way that that is changed.
Speaker 2: And I am going to investigate and be reporting on
Speaker 2: what it looks like. And I know there are a
Speaker 2: lot of people that's like, oh, there you go, like
Speaker 2: you now all of a sudden, you know, here you
Speaker 2: come into an environment when these people, some of them
Speaker 2: just coming home, some of them are coming from different situations,
Speaker 2: can't get this job, need extra pay, And I think
Speaker 2: we should do all of that. I think that you
Speaker 2: know that as a space that especially a lot of
Speaker 2: men are in where they could get income. I support
Speaker 2: it one hundred percent. But it does not mean that
Speaker 2: people need to be abused or that you're going to
Speaker 2: you should be able to bring that nastiness that too
Speaker 2: many of these people have and the way in which
Speaker 2: they treat people. There has to be and I think
Speaker 2: that yes, absolutely the actual security person needs to help
Speaker 2: be held accountable. But the way to actually address it
Speaker 2: is to make the owners of these properties, the owners
Speaker 2: of these clubs, make them responsible when these issues come up,
Speaker 2: and I and going forward, I'm going to make myself
Speaker 2: available to be more involved in cases where people feel
Speaker 2: they have been harmed, discriminated against, or whatever, because that's
Speaker 2: a call that in the past, if I get a
Speaker 2: call about, you know, a bouncer beat me up or
Speaker 2: something happened, it's not necessarily something that I would get
Speaker 2: to involve them because I don't have the capacity. But
Speaker 2: I am definitely going to make myself available going forward
Speaker 2: because I hear about it too often and when people
Speaker 2: are like, well the patron, they was drunk the while
Speaker 2: they was doing a list. That is what happens when
Speaker 2: you work somewhere. And it's the same thing that we
Speaker 2: say about police officers. If the police officer and the
Speaker 2: civilian are acting the same way and carrying on the
Speaker 2: same way and have the same attitude, and the civilian
Speaker 2: or the police officers responding to the civilian without the professionalism,
Speaker 2: then what the hell do we need the police officer?
Speaker 2: Officer for the point of having the police officers. You've
Speaker 2: been to the training, you have a weapon, you have
Speaker 2: a responsibility. So when you pull over a civilian who
Speaker 2: is late to work or not in the mood, or
Speaker 2: maybe they have done something wrong. It is not your
Speaker 2: responsibility or even your privilege to be the judge, the
Speaker 2: jury and every adam executioner in some instances, right there
Speaker 2: on the spot. You have a job to do where
Speaker 2: you are supposed to be professional. And it's too many
Speaker 2: of the culture of the security guards. Because, by the way,
Speaker 2: a lot of people don't have power in their own life,
Speaker 2: in their own world where they traveling from one place
Speaker 2: to the next, they.
Speaker 3: Have no power.
Speaker 2: They have no power. So therefore, when they get into
Speaker 2: environments where they've been given a little badge or a
Speaker 2: flashlight or something, now, all of a sudden, you the
Speaker 2: big guy, and because you got muscles or whatever, or
Speaker 2: some of these females, because you're in a position of
Speaker 2: power now it gives you. It makes you feel you
Speaker 2: have the right to be disrespectful and harmful to people.
Speaker 2: It's correction offices. It's all of those people that are
Speaker 2: in that lane around security. And there's so many cops
Speaker 2: that are on the beat at night at these clubs
Speaker 2: that they end up becoming friendly with the club owners.
Speaker 2: And therefore, when you have a complaint. They don't even
Speaker 2: want to like in this particular situation, the young man
Speaker 2: was abused and the report says nothing about what he states.
Speaker 2: They automatically called him the aggressive and if it were
Speaker 2: not for the uber driver saying no, I saw with
Speaker 2: my own eyes, he would have nobody to back him up,
Speaker 2: because you know, the club's gonna say they lost the footage.
Speaker 2: They don't have the footage. It renews every night, and
Speaker 2: he wants the bouncer arrested and he should be.
Speaker 1: You know, I have a lot of experience with bounces
Speaker 1: in the club. You know, a lot of them go
Speaker 1: away above and beyond. A lot of them want to
Speaker 1: impose it well, especially when you have some level of
Speaker 1: notoriety in the name, they want to show that they're
Speaker 1: tougher than you. It's a lot of things that they're
Speaker 1: going to that and I think definitely, you know, the.
Speaker 3: Establishments need to be held accountable for that.
Speaker 1: They should be They should be forced to hire the
Speaker 1: proper kindages training. There should be protocol, they should be training.
Speaker 1: There should be you know, levels of ds just like
Speaker 1: anybody else. I want to give a shout out to
Speaker 1: officer who pulled me over this morning. You know, I
Speaker 1: was fumbling with my phone and then a little bit
Speaker 1: of traffic on the George Washington Bridge. He pulled me
Speaker 1: over and I explained to him here, I was fumbling.
Speaker 1: I was trying to get an address. I apologize, you know,
Speaker 1: and he looked at me and he was like, I'm
Speaker 1: going to give you a warning, man, because you respect
Speaker 1: for it.
Speaker 3: You know. I don't want to hold you up.
Speaker 1: And he's like, you know, you just need to be
Speaker 1: more careful, more mind phone. I said, I appreciate you, officer,
Speaker 1: and it was respectful, and so it just goes to
Speaker 1: show you that it is possible. And they are office.
Speaker 1: I don't know the officer's name, but they are officers
Speaker 1: will respect you. And he probably doesn't want his name.
Speaker 1: But he had his camera on so he wasn't out
Speaker 1: of the skin. He didn't do anything illegal, but he
Speaker 1: just realized I have the discretion to be able to
Speaker 1: give you a warning based on the way that you
Speaker 1: handle the situation, based on just the situation in general.
Speaker 1: And it shows that there is the possibility that there
Speaker 1: are are officers who understand.
Speaker 4: Of course, there are security guy exactly said the nation,
Speaker 4: like I go to spots and I see the nation's
Speaker 4: security and the first thing they say is hold on, brother,
Speaker 4: how you doing?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Wait, no, not, you know.
Speaker 1: There's no levels of aggression. These are big strone dudes.
Speaker 1: They're not soft, but they humble. How you doing, brother?
Speaker 1: This kid, you give me a second cause you move
Speaker 1: to the sude because we're dealing with this and and
Speaker 1: I have no problem with you know, just respect, having
Speaker 1: respect and reissue and that respect. So you know, shout
Speaker 1: out to the offices who do it right. But and
Speaker 1: we got a hold accountable those who do it wrong
Speaker 1: for sure. So that brings me to my music segment.
Speaker 1: You know, there's something poet of our newer segments, and
Speaker 1: we highlight music either from up and coming artists or
Speaker 1: established artists that has like a positive message good. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's good and positive. It's reality based, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, because I think a lot of
Speaker 1: music is not reality based. And being an artist, I
Speaker 1: know that positivity doesn't look the same in everybody, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So when like when I thought
Speaker 1: about Slipping and Falling and Dmax the song him telling
Speaker 1: his story and how you related to that, like damn
Speaker 1: I went through all that. Some people are like, damn,
Speaker 1: the situation to them might have been crazy, but it
Speaker 1: was something that I was able to relate to.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's something that a lot of people from our communities
Speaker 1: were able to relate to, and it actually got you
Speaker 1: thinking outside of just, you know, the normal things that
Speaker 1: we see in our communities, and it woke you up
Speaker 1: to certain realities that people are dealing with. So this
Speaker 1: song right here is from you know, one of my
Speaker 1: young boys, five year four Rent, and it's Cooled Storytime,
Speaker 1: and it's him telling the story about a guy that's
Speaker 1: in the hood. You know, he gets locked up and
Speaker 1: he goes through all types of things in jail, and
Speaker 1: you know, you just I want you to go look
Speaker 1: at the video.
Speaker 3: You don't if you haven't seen it.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to give the whole story with
Speaker 1: but it's a it's a real compelling telle that if
Speaker 1: I was a young boy and I'm following the drill
Speaker 1: scene and all listen and I hear five year who's
Speaker 1: one of like the premier drill artists, and he gives
Speaker 1: this perspective, it would make me just listen, Damn, it's
Speaker 1: called Storytime.
Speaker 3: Storytime. Go look it up.
Speaker 1: Man shout out to five years for this video. You know,
Speaker 1: five years. Like I said, he's one on my young boys.
Speaker 1: I always kick it to kick it with him from.
Speaker 3: Time to time.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he's a little you know, he goes on the
Speaker 1: customers some saying some things that I don't always agree with.
Speaker 1: But I'm into counsel culture that cancel culture. So a
Speaker 1: lot of times I sit and have comps. I might
Speaker 1: da him as, hey, you know, just understand that this
Speaker 1: is what your platform is. And when you say such
Speaker 1: and such, you know you're inspiring and motivating these type
Speaker 1: people or these type of activities.
Speaker 3: So I do that to him a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean every time we have been in space with him,
Speaker 2: he seems to be just a very just a good guy,
Speaker 2: you know, a nice kind person. Of course, when I
Speaker 2: heard him say recently, first of all, I'm gonna go
Speaker 2: listen to a storytime so I can be up on
Speaker 2: these these songs, I think it's like you said, it's
Speaker 2: a message, whether or not everybody thinks it's a positive
Speaker 2: message or I'm not saying storytime isn't. I'm just saying
Speaker 2: whatever in this segment. The message, whether you think it's
Speaker 2: positive or not. Sometimes it's just what someone needs to
Speaker 2: hear in order for them to make a change or
Speaker 2: to keep going in a difficult situation. So for our
Speaker 2: Women's History Month segment today, I'm really into this topic
Speaker 2: because you know, online there's a lot of people who
Speaker 2: have so many opinion You know how I feel. I
Speaker 2: think I feel like every week I'm talking about the
Speaker 2: opinions on the internet. But there's a difference between the
Speaker 2: opinions of those of us who are somewhat more mainly
Speaker 2: inexperienced in areas and people who actually have experience, who
Speaker 2: are actually doing business and who have actually grown businesses
Speaker 2: from start to finish and really you know, got themselves
Speaker 2: into these places that become a beacon for the rest
Speaker 2: of us who are working towards it. And so today
Speaker 2: there is a black woman that we're bringing on who
Speaker 2: has a brand that is well known to black people.
Speaker 2: You're not going to really know, even though she might
Speaker 2: have some tips for you too.
Speaker 3: You don't know.
Speaker 2: Yes, anyway, See this is why I can't, I really can't.
Speaker 3: But we are.
Speaker 2: Just because your grandma, anyway, can we talk about it?
Speaker 2: And so we're bringing a beautiful woman on today with us.
Speaker 2: Mahisha Dellinger and Mahesha launched Curls, a beauty brand that
Speaker 2: began in two thousand and two. I know curls, like
Speaker 2: all the girls know curls, especially you know Black women
Speaker 2: who have natural hair or like to wear their locks
Speaker 2: and their curls. She started this brand in two thousand
Speaker 2: and two from her home in her garage in Sacramento.
Speaker 2: And at the time, there were no textured brands, like
Speaker 2: textured hair aisles. So when you go into the store,
Speaker 2: you know, they got everything for everybody else but us.
Speaker 2: But that's changing. And I like to think, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure you know, as we bring Mahisha on, she can
Speaker 2: talk about how her brand was one of those to
Speaker 2: sort of begin the process of people paying attention to
Speaker 2: the kinks, the coils, the curls, and our hair, our
Speaker 2: actual natural texture. And today I'm really excited that this
Speaker 2: woman who has built an empire of estimated to be
Speaker 2: over twenty million dollars in this haircare world in one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand stores.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Huge, huge, So let's let's let's welcome our guest. Ms Dellon,
Speaker 2: Jermis Mahisha to the show today and I love it
Speaker 2: too because she's got a black name like Tamika Mas.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, Thank you Black Month, and
Speaker 2: we just finished Black and Black Month and now it's
Speaker 2: Happy Women's History.
Speaker 5: Yes, Happy Women's History months, all my beautiful black women.
Speaker 5: And otherwise red is your colors. Thank you, darling, thank
Speaker 5: you so tell us.
Speaker 2: Tell us. I mean there's so much that we can discuss.
Speaker 2: We ultimately want to get to this idea. You know,
Speaker 2: Black folks be like, why we why we can't just
Speaker 2: keep all of our stuff? Why we got to involve
Speaker 2: other people in our stuff? And you know, every time
Speaker 2: we see the my Ls and the main Choices and others,
Speaker 2: these brands that really came behind you, right when they
Speaker 2: scale they sell, you know, people feel a way about it.
Speaker 2: They feel the product has changed, They feel so many things,
Speaker 2: and we want to get into that. But before we
Speaker 2: go there, talk to us about your journey Sacramento in
Speaker 2: the garage. To get to where you are now, you
Speaker 2: have to have some faith and some talent.
Speaker 5: Yes, well, it was a lot of faith and a
Speaker 5: lot of frustration obviously in corporate America because I was
Speaker 5: dealing with the racist manager at Intel Corporation that targeted
Speaker 5: me and was helping on getting rid of me. Despite
Speaker 5: being an exceptional employee, despite you know, killing every single
Speaker 5: level of achievement I'm supposed to, despite being the first
Speaker 5: one in, the last one out, I was targeted. And
Speaker 5: so when I was put on a corrective action plan
Speaker 5: to get rid of me in six months, I was
Speaker 5: a young single mother without anyone to look for to
Speaker 5: help me. My mom love me, but she can provide
Speaker 5: a resources. Her dad left me when I was six
Speaker 5: months pregnant. It was all on me. So that really
Speaker 5: changed how I viewed corporate America how I viewed because
Speaker 5: I thought before that I was gonna retire from Mentel.
Speaker 5: I was a proud and tell employee. I was looking
Speaker 5: forward to doing all the things and just scale up
Speaker 5: that ladder quickly. And I was disillusioned really quickly, right size,
Speaker 5: left sized, ostracized in corporate America, and realized that that
Speaker 5: wasn't the path for me. So that experience ultimately led
Speaker 5: me to my destiny. And so I thanked this gentleman
Speaker 5: on Facebook because I saw how he you know, he
Speaker 5: steals an Intel. I found him and sent him a
Speaker 5: to word google our message and Facebook and said google
Speaker 5: me because I want him to know that what he
Speaker 5: tried to do wasn't gonna happen. I actually scaled to
Speaker 5: where I needed to be, So I thanked him for that.
Speaker 5: But you know, my journey was one that was because
Speaker 5: I felt my back was against the wall in corporate
Speaker 5: I had no one else to fall back on. I
Speaker 5: had to find another path and I was newly natural mother.
Speaker 5: As I mentioned, I had a young daughter. Was looking
Speaker 5: for products for me and my daughter. The aisle, as
Speaker 5: you mentioned and for us, was non existent, and the
Speaker 5: options we had were like pink lotion, breeze, Jerry Cole juice,
Speaker 5: all the things we've used going up. And sometimes my
Speaker 5: hair looked cool. Sometimes it would look like Jerry curl,
Speaker 5: sometimes it looked like all whatever. Right, It was never consistent,
Speaker 5: but most importantly I wanted something that was natural, and
Speaker 5: she was young. I don't want to call the chemicals
Speaker 5: on her hair.
Speaker 2: And that's how it was birth.
Speaker 5: So the frustration of corporate America, the lack of options
Speaker 5: on market, and being a consumer myself, that trifecta brought
Speaker 5: together the birth of curls. And I don't think that
Speaker 5: without that experience in corporate that I may have, I
Speaker 5: may I might have stepped out into that path. But
Speaker 5: I was pushed because I saw that in six months
Speaker 5: I was about to be let go and I had
Speaker 5: to start working out the path to get to something else.
Speaker 1: So what was that journey? Like, I hear the path?
Speaker 1: So when you first, what was the first thing you did?
Speaker 1: Because just meet this hearing. Okay, you know what, it's
Speaker 1: not the like a lot of people, especially people in
Speaker 1: our communities, we feel impression like we want to do things,
Speaker 1: but we see the end and we were like it's
Speaker 1: too hard.
Speaker 3: I can't. I gotta do this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do that. I'm gotta do this. So what
Speaker 1: what did you do? Like how did you just start
Speaker 1: and just get up and say look, I'm gonna look.
Speaker 1: Did you do some research?
Speaker 5: Like what was that process that I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 5: that process before? I want to say though that the
Speaker 5: black female entrepreneurs are the fastest growing segment of entrepreneurs
Speaker 5: because we are so disenfranchised with corporate that we're finding
Speaker 5: other ways to make our livelihood happen. But what I
Speaker 5: did was I started by doing my due diligence which
Speaker 5: was my research and I wanted to see, one, what
Speaker 5: does it take to start a business in hair care?
Speaker 5: And the first thing I learned, of course, I needed
Speaker 5: was a cosmetic chemist, someone that was going to make
Speaker 5: the formula of the recipe right. And finding that person,
Speaker 5: I was like, Okay, cosmetic chemists, Awesome, where I go now?
Speaker 5: So I went to the Society Cosmetic Chemists and joined
Speaker 5: that organization and met some chemists and interviewed through that process,
Speaker 5: and then from there I found someone and Gary Gallanti,
Speaker 5: I've never forget his name, Gary Gallanti, and I hired
Speaker 5: him and he started. We started with four initial products,
Speaker 5: just four, and we went through the process of R
Speaker 5: and D, which looked like, let's talk about what you
Speaker 5: want in the products, what don't you want in the products?
Speaker 5: And then it would sample them, send me batch samples
Speaker 5: of each like eight or so or ten each of
Speaker 5: the products. I would test them, give back feedback, and
Speaker 5: then we kept going. That was a nine month process
Speaker 5: right until we got it perfect it. And along the
Speaker 5: way as he was doing that, we created the website.
Speaker 5: We started to design the low go, the labels, you know,
Speaker 5: picking packaging all that. So during that whole process, of
Speaker 5: R and D, which is nine months. I'm doing everything
Speaker 5: else also, so then we're ready to launch right April second,
Speaker 5: turn the switch on the on the website. And it
Speaker 5: was funny, I had eight orders that day. I was like, whoa,
Speaker 5: I have eight orders.
Speaker 1: Yay.
Speaker 2: I was so excited, and it was.
Speaker 5: That was the beginning of it. It was an e
Speaker 5: commerce only journey for a few years, several years. And
Speaker 5: so one thing I do when I mentor my mentees,
Speaker 5: do not think when you launch a product and have
Speaker 5: something in the market two point five seconds, that you
Speaker 5: should go straight to retail. Retail can wipe you clean
Speaker 5: if you do not have a good structure in place,
Speaker 5: if you don't have the turns. Every store every week
Speaker 5: has to sell a certain amount. If you don't keep up,
Speaker 5: they will delete you. And with that deletion comes bill
Speaker 5: that will hit you in the post that will can
Speaker 5: take your business out. So I did it the conservative
Speaker 5: and strategic way, which was dot com for a while.
Speaker 5: Built up my demand, my consumer base understood her needs,
Speaker 5: wants and demands on what she was looking for, what
Speaker 5: she was missing. So we instantly went from just four
Speaker 5: to eight. We bought in the kids line and then
Speaker 5: from that we grew to like twenty five and then
Speaker 5: we kept going, so twenty five meeting between two lines
Speaker 5: of kids of blind and adult life, and then we
Speaker 5: perfected them before we're ready to be exposed on that level.
Speaker 5: So take the time, and I always say to take
Speaker 5: the time that while you're kind of obscure, to get
Speaker 5: those things right and understand your market, understand that you
Speaker 5: have enough of a base to support retail, and then
Speaker 5: go pitch. And that's the little proach I took.
Speaker 2: And you used your products on your yourself and your
Speaker 2: daughter for a while before you decide, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: friends or who never was in your your space that
Speaker 2: you could use it on. That's another thing that I
Speaker 2: notice that there are a lot of people who want
Speaker 2: to sell a product and they're so quick to try
Speaker 2: to get it out there right, But it takes time.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you were baking for a while and
Speaker 2: figuring it out that and I think social media has really,
Speaker 2: unfortunately given us the impression that the timeline can be
Speaker 2: so quick, and it doesn't give people an opportunity to
Speaker 2: build their business beyond their product, like you may have
Speaker 2: been using your shade, but a mixture for a while,
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean that it's ready to be sold
Speaker 2: to other people and that you have the capacity to
Speaker 2: take on what it looks like to have an actual business.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's what I hear you saying
Speaker 2: absolutely one hundred and ten percent. You have to have
Speaker 2: the systems in place, you have to have operations solid,
Speaker 2: you have to have a strong consumer monthly demand every
Speaker 2: single month. You have to to a point to know
Speaker 2: that when you're slow month sard. If you don't know
Speaker 2: that already, then you have been in business long enough.
Speaker 5: I'm slow between January and February, or I'm slow October
Speaker 5: and November, that's the time to re up. Or do
Speaker 5: you know more investment or I know that you know
Speaker 5: that my customer base is eighteen to twenty five and
Speaker 5: therefore they need X y Z for me. If you
Speaker 5: don't know your base, your processes, who you are, who
Speaker 5: you're selling to, and what your levels of commitment could
Speaker 5: be to a retailer because they're going to expect a
Speaker 5: lot from you, then you're not ready. And I just
Speaker 5: had someone come to me that went to retail and
Speaker 5: she her company got they brought them in during after
Speaker 5: George Floyd. Right, they carriated this, you know, this whole
Speaker 5: accelerator program for black brands. And now fast forward to today,
Speaker 5: no more focused. She's an indie brand and a sauce business.
Speaker 5: She has a sauce, a wing sauce brand, and they're
Speaker 5: deleting her. So the support went away. She's getting deleted now.
Speaker 5: I helped her negotiate to not have that chargeback feet
Speaker 5: I told you about that would let you come for
Speaker 5: your pocketbook. I helped to negotiate that out, so she's
Speaker 5: at least exiting without that big bill. That doesn't usually happen.
Speaker 5: But we're gonna use that story and her experience to teach.
Speaker 5: So we're gonna have this big We're gonna do a
Speaker 5: live We're gonna do an event to talk about retail
Speaker 5: readiness with a buyer that buys for a national retailer,
Speaker 5: so that we can help other brands blackbrass specifically know
Speaker 5: how to do this right.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask another question before we get
Speaker 1: into that. You know, you started your business before there
Speaker 1: was really like a big Internet presence and a lot
Speaker 1: of Internet marketing, and that was in two thousand and two.
Speaker 1: Do you do you think it's easier now or do
Speaker 1: you feel like it's helped your business or was it
Speaker 1: a lot better for you be forwards Internet because you
Speaker 1: were more into it, or there was a ground.
Speaker 5: What are you compared to I think it's definitely easier
Speaker 5: back then or worth you know, you can go hire
Speaker 5: an influencer or influencers to support your brand, your launch.
Speaker 5: It was definitely a lot more gorilla marketing if you
Speaker 5: didn't have the dollars supporting you to do the heavy marketing,
Speaker 5: which I did not, So it was a lot of
Speaker 5: definitely going where the consumer, was a lot of sampling,
Speaker 5: et cetera. But definitely it was before MySpace, I mean
Speaker 5: think about it. So it was a different approach then,
Speaker 5: and so the brand grew over time, and so now
Speaker 5: you know, after over one hundred and you know, eighty
Speaker 5: million dollars worth of sales. You know, over the course
Speaker 5: of the time, we've seen the different different the lifespans
Speaker 5: of this industry, from the life of the industry to
Speaker 5: technology to how to go to market, it's changed substantially.
Speaker 5: And so one of the things what was your.
Speaker 2: Marketing too then? Without so I feel like it means
Speaker 2: your product must have been and must be and of
Speaker 2: course I know it because I know your product, like
Speaker 2: you're a legend and your products are legendary. But you
Speaker 2: must have had some real good shit, because how did
Speaker 2: you get you know what I mean? It must have
Speaker 2: been a staple brand for people to love it the way.
Speaker 5: Well, you know a lot of things that people that
Speaker 5: we did then at the beginning was a lot of sampling.
Speaker 5: You we not those little packets you get when you
Speaker 5: go to like get in a magazine, No, I mean
Speaker 5: those premium two ounces. We invested in that because that's
Speaker 5: going to give you one enough of experience to feel it, right.
Speaker 5: But we know that if a black woman fought loved
Speaker 5: something and she loves it, so she'll buy it again.
Speaker 5: So we needed her to experience it. So we invested
Speaker 5: heavily and sampling and then went to where she was
Speaker 5: right So whether that be you know, concerts were sampling
Speaker 5: at or events wherever black women were didn't have to
Speaker 5: be hair related, just where audience was that that's where
Speaker 5: we would be. And so we were on the ground
Speaker 5: a lot, and we had lots of curls and backs
Speaker 5: that were out all the different cities doing a lot
Speaker 5: of sampling, and you know, no, no, no requirements, do anything.
Speaker 5: Here's you know the product, tell you about it, how
Speaker 5: you can love it, it's great for you. Hear what
Speaker 5: to do with it and where to buy it. And
Speaker 5: that turned over to continual and repeat customers. You spent
Speaker 5: a lot of money. Yeah, and I think it's an investment.
Speaker 5: I'm always you. You want people to really experience the brand.
Speaker 5: But then as they got to love the brand, then
Speaker 5: you need to bring it back to what is the
Speaker 5: brand offering for me beyond just a product. So that's
Speaker 5: where you know, bringing that DNA of the brand owner
Speaker 5: into the product. For me, it's giving back to black entrepreneurs.
Speaker 5: And I created my Black Women and Million's Academy. That
Speaker 5: academy helping women become millionaires is to help them when
Speaker 5: you launch a product, usher them to and through success.
Speaker 5: So that's a part of the DNA. What else am
Speaker 5: I going to do for my consumers besides give her
Speaker 5: a product? I can help her. She's the fastest growing
Speaker 5: segment of entrepreneurs become successful through this program. So, and
Speaker 5: it's something I was doing before curl LL before I
Speaker 5: became successful during Curls, helping people with their businesses. So
Speaker 5: I think it's twofold, and people really buy into when
Speaker 5: they see something authentic, right, you can't get that from
Speaker 5: a pantein. You're never gonna be the touch of panteen,
Speaker 5: you know, the founder that you're not going to be
Speaker 5: the connect. They're not going to care about the community.
Speaker 5: And I think supporting black brands and black brands are
Speaker 5: getting back should be where we place our money.
Speaker 3: So that brings me to my question.
Speaker 1: So we know that black brands have you know, we
Speaker 1: I listen to content a lot of times, although kindes
Speaker 1: are crazy, but he says a lot of things that
Speaker 1: I've realized that this seems to be a ceiling for
Speaker 1: black brands. There's always the siling for black brands. And
Speaker 1: no matter how big you are, how big you are,
Speaker 1: you don't reach to be the Pantings. You don't.
Speaker 3: They don't allow you to do that.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times what we do is we
Speaker 1: merge with other companies. We merge bigger you know, parents
Speaker 1: and companies, and sometimes it works up, sometimes it doesn't.
Speaker 1: What do you think is going to take, as somebody
Speaker 1: who's done probably everything possible in this business, is going
Speaker 1: to take for black businesses to emerge without the health
Speaker 1: of the you know, other organizations of other people.
Speaker 2: Would I like people, Okay, collaboration.
Speaker 5: Bottom line, we're gonna have to be the work together
Speaker 5: the way that other communities do. We unfortunately don't do
Speaker 5: that well. Yet some do, but I strive not on
Speaker 5: a big enough platform to impact change. If all of
Speaker 5: the people say, think about all the how many billionaires
Speaker 5: we have in our community? I know they're not a
Speaker 5: lot of billionaires in our community. How many millionaires? How
Speaker 5: many multi millionaires? Like it has to be a strategic
Speaker 5: approach to this that we want to build something that
Speaker 5: we can you know, others and also build others up.
Speaker 5: I think Richly was trying to do that, right, but
Speaker 5: we need more than just the one right? How many
Speaker 5: are doing that?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 5: Like what if what if Okay, Beyonce just created her
Speaker 5: hair Caroline right, I don't know if you try to yet. Okay,
Speaker 5: what if jay Z and they're not they're not cool anymore?
Speaker 5: But jay Z and Kanye came together and created some
Speaker 5: sort of platform that could bring together a whole bunch
Speaker 5: of black brands and the umbrella and lift them up
Speaker 5: and bring and give them a level of education, the
Speaker 5: level the access, the resource, the tools whatever they need
Speaker 5: to get to an acquisition, right from maybe another black brand.
Speaker 5: What if Magic Johnson bought black brands instead of his
Speaker 5: what all the different brands he's buying and Shaquille O'Neil
Speaker 5: and you know, the people who are investing in other
Speaker 5: white brands, we need them to invest in the black brands.
Speaker 5: That's what's gonna take collaboration.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I like that. I mean I see a
Speaker 2: lot of pushback of that out the mergers and the acquisitions,
Speaker 2: as you said online right, as we see some of
Speaker 2: the ladies and men. But it's generally, as you said,
Speaker 2: at this point, a lot of women brands, once they
Speaker 2: get to a particular place, they're looking to scale, they're
Speaker 2: looking to sell their bit. Especially you want to sell
Speaker 2: while you're hot, right, because that's that's the time when
Speaker 2: you're when you're going to be most successful. But there
Speaker 2: are people who feel like, why do we have to
Speaker 2: sell outside of our community? To Maison's point, like, and
Speaker 2: we know we don't have propit and gambles, you don't
Speaker 2: have those big things. Would you say, like, what is it?
Speaker 2: I mean, I want to articulate properly what I'm thinking
Speaker 2: It's like, what's the point if you build something and
Speaker 2: then you just have to sit in your in your
Speaker 2: small studio with it. Is it not the point that
Speaker 2: you're trying to grow to the to the place where
Speaker 2: you become a multimillion if not billion dollar brand that
Speaker 2: hires your own people, that allows other artists, talented whatever
Speaker 2: we want to call them, chemists and all the things,
Speaker 2: to then therefore start their own brands. But I think
Speaker 2: that a lot of people don't know is that even possible.
Speaker 2: Once these folks come in, they buy you, do you
Speaker 2: still are you still in a position to grow other
Speaker 2: smaller businesses once you get to that place or do
Speaker 2: you just kind of get knocked out the box and
Speaker 2: now it's just your face and someone else is running everything.
Speaker 5: Well, it can work different ways depending on whatever structure
Speaker 5: you put in place, right, but you could there For example,
Speaker 5: say I want to say before I go into an answer,
Speaker 5: when you create a business, you should have the end
Speaker 5: goal in mind. You need to know that the exit
Speaker 5: plan should be known when you launch. So if my
Speaker 5: plan is to launch a brand and I know that
Speaker 5: in five years, ten years i'm a scale and sell it,
Speaker 5: that's fine, Or is my goal to create this business,
Speaker 5: have generational wealth and have my children take it over.
Speaker 5: That's fine. Whatever your plan is, you need to know
Speaker 5: what the exit is because we don't live forever, you know, right,
Speaker 5: We're not we have mortality here, So figure out that
Speaker 5: exit plan out the gate. But can you like celebrate
Speaker 5: and then scal others? Absolutely, it's a choice of deciding
Speaker 5: how you use your resources, how use your talent, how
Speaker 5: use your treasures? Right, so, as you sell and you
Speaker 5: make your change and put some in your pocketbook, are
Speaker 5: you reaching back to up others? Are you gonna, you know,
Speaker 5: bring another another business to up? That's a personal decision
Speaker 5: and that's what I hope that we are able to create.
Speaker 5: And that was to my other point about collaboration. We
Speaker 5: need to find a way to do that. And each
Speaker 5: person has their own way and their own approach. And
Speaker 5: for me, it's always been to who much is given,
Speaker 5: much is required. So I have been doing this before
Speaker 5: the sell. Now I can do it a larger sale
Speaker 5: and a larger scale I can. I'm able to help
Speaker 5: more businesses with free resources and make when people partner
Speaker 5: with me, they know they're going have to give back
Speaker 5: to my community in some way, So it's gonna be
Speaker 5: it's gonna come to territory. We can ask that when
Speaker 5: you're on at the top of your game and you
Speaker 5: have buyers wanting you, you can then put that into
Speaker 5: your deal.
Speaker 2: Right, you can negotiate what's absolutely right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I like, you know, I totally If you're
Speaker 5: talking to me and you're bringing something to the table,
Speaker 5: you better believe you're gonna expect something that's going to
Speaker 5: be given back to my people as well, because that's
Speaker 5: just a part of my DNA.
Speaker 2: So what does it so do they control or is
Speaker 2: that something you can negotiate. Also, the integrity of the brand,
Speaker 2: because I think that's the critique that I hear the most,
Speaker 2: is that people feel like when they love the product
Speaker 2: and then it sells and now it's not the same
Speaker 2: product anymore. Talk about that process.
Speaker 5: Well, if you say your brand is sold, and they
Speaker 5: come together and usually these people are being counters, so
Speaker 5: they are counting the beans at a higher level and go, Okay,
Speaker 5: it's costing you, Mahisha fifty cents to make this amazing
Speaker 5: condition everyone loves. But if we move it over to China,
Speaker 5: we can make it for twelve cents. We're gonna say
Speaker 5: X amount of million a year, we're moving to China.
Speaker 5: They can do that, and a lot of times those
Speaker 5: bean counter decisions can negatively impact the business, the brand.
Speaker 5: It can negative impact the experience with the customer, and
Speaker 5: sometimes they don't care. So you have to be involved
Speaker 5: at the level where you go. I'm not changing my formalsts,
Speaker 5: I'm not changing my people. When Coma Coatreil sold pro
Speaker 5: Line back in the eighties, he was one of the
Speaker 5: pioneering brands you know of our time, right black brands.
Speaker 5: He sold all the you know, hair food, all the
Speaker 5: hair greases. We used to buy Coma control. When he
Speaker 5: sold to Lorel, he put in his deal that all
Speaker 5: his people had to go to Lorel with his company.
Speaker 5: So you can do those kind of things if you're
Speaker 5: looking out for your people, your brand, your products. It's
Speaker 5: a matter of if you Sometimes some people may say
Speaker 5: no and walk away from a deal. You just got to,
Speaker 5: you know, see if you're really about that life or not.
Speaker 3: Yes, And that's what I said.
Speaker 1: I said, you know for me, because we was having
Speaker 1: a conversation and I'm like, for me, like when I
Speaker 1: like a brand, you know, there's certain things I like
Speaker 1: about the brand and what I know, this is a
Speaker 1: lot of times when certain brands that you get, when
Speaker 1: they're in the infantry of you know, their production, the
Speaker 1: quality is just different, you know, and the once it's
Speaker 1: taken over about correlations, it just it just lacks a
Speaker 1: little bit of a lot of quality certain things that
Speaker 1: you enjoy about.
Speaker 3: You know. And so I understand.
Speaker 1: And then when we were talking about we understand that
Speaker 1: the price points and you know that the company gets
Speaker 1: in and they were trying to figure out how they
Speaker 1: make the most money to spend the less. I just
Speaker 1: think for me as a consumer, you know, we want
Speaker 1: to keep we want to keep the things as pure
Speaker 1: and natural from the beginning of it. So I just
Speaker 1: want I just my last question for you is what
Speaker 1: advice would you just give someone just entering into this
Speaker 1: as you know, ambitious as you are, you know, based
Speaker 1: on stakes, based on the things that you've done.
Speaker 3: That's right, just one good piece of advice that you
Speaker 3: would give.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, But before I do give that, I want to
Speaker 5: say that I don't want to scare some away, someone
Speaker 5: away from potentially selling by saying that your you know,
Speaker 5: your your formas could be impacted if you have the
Speaker 5: right partner that cares about it. You can have a
Speaker 5: great experience where your brand is not impact in a
Speaker 5: way that they're going to change your foremasts, because that
Speaker 5: hasn't happened for everyone, right, So I just want to
Speaker 5: make that clear because there are people who care about
Speaker 5: keeping that integrity there. And so if you're a brand
Speaker 5: owner and looking to sell, just your due diligence. And
Speaker 5: this is to my now to my my answer. If
Speaker 5: you're looking to sell, I have a few different pieces
Speaker 5: of advice. If you're a product owner and you're looking
Speaker 5: to sell, my biggest piece of advice is to court
Speaker 5: them like you're courting and dating for a potential husband
Speaker 5: or wife. Pray about it. Number one, lay it before
Speaker 5: God and see what their tensions are for your brand.
Speaker 5: Don't be so thirsty to take what you see on paper,
Speaker 5: but get an understand as to what they plan to
Speaker 5: do with their brand. Now, they're going to come with
Speaker 5: the money, but what happens after you signed on that
Speaker 5: dot line? Are they gonna protect what your legacy created?
Speaker 5: That is one thing that you want to be sure of.
Speaker 5: So you know, do your little happy dance. We see
Speaker 5: those zeros, but make sure you keep the integrative of
Speaker 5: your brand. Now, if you're starting out as a new
Speaker 5: brand owner of any company, the biggest thing I say
Speaker 5: is definitely do your due diligence. This sounds simple, but
Speaker 5: really a lot of people tend to have a great
Speaker 5: idea and then go to market and I see it
Speaker 5: time and time again. I mentor a lot of people
Speaker 5: and I have to remind them, like we'll wind it
Speaker 5: backwards and do your research to see is this a
Speaker 5: sustainable business?
Speaker 2: How many is it really is?
Speaker 5: It's a great idea, but do I have customers for it?
Speaker 5: Is there a customer demand for it? That's research that's
Speaker 5: going to be you diving in and figuring out who
Speaker 5: my competitors are. And if there aren't any competitors, that
Speaker 5: could be a good thing, or it could be a
Speaker 5: sign that that's not a need for that product that
Speaker 5: you have or a service. So before you launch, because
Speaker 5: eighty percent will fail within five years, make sure that
Speaker 5: take the time to dig into that research. And then
Speaker 5: another thing I want to say is your operations. So
Speaker 5: many great business leaders that I see that have so
Speaker 5: much potential and great products, but the operations it's like
Speaker 5: building a house on sand. The foundational work isn't done,
Speaker 5: and so you're spending money without knowing that you've overspent
Speaker 5: because you're not following these pos or knowing how much
Speaker 5: you should spend, and you're just throwing money at problems
Speaker 5: without knowing what you're doing. So the operational foundation has
Speaker 5: to be in place and strong, and I think that
Speaker 5: that comes with sometimes lack of experience. Also from us
Speaker 5: always feel like we are matriarchs and we should do
Speaker 5: it and go it alone and not asking for help,
Speaker 5: ask for help, don't. It's not a don't be prideful.
Speaker 5: Don't be prideful. Ask for help for things you'll know.
Speaker 5: You shouldn't know everything. You shouldn't. If you know everything,
Speaker 5: then you probably spread too thin. The hire people smarter
Speaker 5: than you to give you those answers that you need.
Speaker 5: The operations will matter. You can make twenty million and
Speaker 5: if you if you spend nineteen, then.
Speaker 3: What have you done?
Speaker 5: Okay? So I think those are two biggest things for
Speaker 5: the brand new owners. But then you know, I would
Speaker 5: love for us to also find a mentor that's really
Speaker 5: invested in your growth, join a program like my Black
Speaker 5: Women Make a Man's Academy that that's what we're doing
Speaker 5: is really helping women get to success, find a way
Speaker 5: to find people like you that you can touch and
Speaker 5: tap into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and we have to wrap, and I
Speaker 2: know you have to go. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: your time. And he said, I'm sitting here thinking as
Speaker 2: you're talking, and you've already answered this question. But the
Speaker 2: woman or the younger girl, woman who's in her garage
Speaker 2: right now, doing what you did, starting where you started,
Speaker 2: what would you say to her about the journey and
Speaker 2: having to have that faith to keep going.
Speaker 5: When you just don't know if it's going to work out.
Speaker 5: I would say to her, keep going, baby girl. The
Speaker 5: harder you work, and the more committee you are to
Speaker 5: your path and your journey, and the more open you
Speaker 5: are to receive help, you will get to where you
Speaker 5: want to be. Just don't be discouraged. You will have
Speaker 5: bumps along the way. It's part of the journey.
Speaker 3: Just receive it.
Speaker 5: But most importantly, do not let it any of those
Speaker 5: challenges or failures disrupt your heart or make you feel
Speaker 5: bad about yourself. Don't take it personally. Make sure you
Speaker 5: separate your your being and your feelings from those failures,
Speaker 5: and remember that failure isn't final. Failure is a lesson
Speaker 5: and a part of the journey.
Speaker 2: Legendary, legendary Mansiadllinger.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you continue, thank you, and you deserve all
Speaker 1: the flowers.
Speaker 3: You know, you've been doing this work for so long.
Speaker 3: And I know the brain even.
Speaker 1: Though I don't, you know, men know really most music.
Speaker 1: But I've seen it in sisters, mothers, everybody's house. Continue
Speaker 1: to be a household name and continue to break down areas.
Speaker 2: And men, can you really don't they didn't?
Speaker 5: We do? We tell you guys take it from there,
Speaker 5: the women's showers whatever.
Speaker 1: I've used it once in a while. I know I've
Speaker 1: used it because IVE seen it in the shadow.
Speaker 2: When you just put it in whatever you're saying, it
Speaker 2: hasn't been intentional. Well, we got the words the curls.
Speaker 3: I'm like that, I'm not I'm supposed to use this
Speaker 3: your sneaky using real quickly.
Speaker 5: Thank you guys for having me. This is a pleasure.
Speaker 5: I had a good time.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Thank you.
Speaker 1: A lot of people they do just listening to her.
Speaker 1: You tell her she's very intentional about wanting to, you know,
Speaker 1: pass the knowledge forward and you know, leave a legacy
Speaker 1: and see someone else be successful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah. I mean she talked about
Speaker 2: when signing deals, you have to make sure that you
Speaker 2: put in your deal that this partner, whoever you're working with,
Speaker 2: whoever is purchasing your brand or whatever, that they have
Speaker 2: to give back to your community. And oftentimes we're so
Speaker 2: it's not I'm not even gonna I will not judge everybody,
Speaker 2: because sometimes you just don't know. And that's one area
Speaker 2: that while we have learned how to be good workers,
Speaker 2: we've learned everything as black and brown people about being
Speaker 2: good workers. And we get some of our leadership qualities
Speaker 2: from watching how our grandmothers and grandfathers and how they
Speaker 2: had the little restaurant in the community and they did,
Speaker 2: you know, washing clothes for people in the back in
Speaker 2: the backyard, like we know, but no one has really
Speaker 2: sat us down and taught us business like real business.
Speaker 2: You can go to business school and even we know
Speaker 2: you go to people who go to these business schools.
Speaker 1: You know what you know, I want to say, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of before there was business, there was people
Speaker 1: who was leading, there were people who created. So the
Speaker 1: business model, I think that's something that has been created,
Speaker 1: I think, but I think the leadership and the willingness
Speaker 1: to do it has to be something that you're born.
Speaker 1: I don't think you could teach someone how to lead
Speaker 1: like you if you if you're teaching a bunch of
Speaker 1: fathers how to lead, they never going to be a lead.
Speaker 1: Like I've seen people who who you know, are in
Speaker 1: position leadership that just will you like, I don't even
Speaker 1: know how you in this position because you're not really leader.
Speaker 1: And then I've seen people who are not in position
Speaker 1: leadership that you can just tell a born leaders because
Speaker 1: they leave innate, because they just do what comes natural
Speaker 1: to them, because they understand.
Speaker 3: That the time is to lead. So, you know, you
Speaker 3: can teach people.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying business, that's what I'm saying. I'm saying
Speaker 2: that we learned leadership because, like I said, our families
Speaker 2: have always owned the local restaurant, the you know, like
Speaker 2: I said, cleaner services shoot without even having an actual
Speaker 2: cleaners building. Our families we had elderly people, or at
Speaker 2: that time they weren't necessarily elderly, but they were washing
Speaker 2: clothes for the neighbors in the in their yard or
Speaker 2: in their home, like we have always had businesses, but
Speaker 2: learning how to operate a business. She talked about operations.
Speaker 2: That's a very important thing. We know so many of
Speaker 2: our businesses. You try to go online, or you try
Speaker 2: to get your hand done, or you're whatever, and people
Speaker 2: don't have good business acumen. They just don't they their
Speaker 2: business skills and their and their communication and keeping the
Speaker 2: time being timely, you know, just all of that it's off.
Speaker 2: It's off the products, how they send things to you,
Speaker 2: making sure they follow up. It's really a challenge. And
Speaker 2: I think more that's something like what she was talking about.
Speaker 2: And you can tell this is a woman who knows
Speaker 2: what the hell she's.
Speaker 3: But it also was just just listening to her story.
Speaker 1: Right, she was working and she was doing and then
Speaker 1: she won't realize that I have to do something different, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's what the leadership because the business like it's so
Speaker 1: many different, you know, situations I can talk about. I
Speaker 1: was listening to an interview today about Anthony Davidson and
Speaker 1: Charles Balffley has said he's just never been a leader.
Speaker 1: And he's always been the top scorer on this team.
Speaker 1: He's always been, you know, the premium player, but he
Speaker 1: just lacked the leadership quality, and he never wanted to
Speaker 1: be the leader.
Speaker 3: And he said, he's like.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't have the I don't have the meaning,
Speaker 1: I don't have all the things that people might say
Speaker 1: as a leader. So I don't lead in that way,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to not be in So a
Speaker 1: lot of times people are pushing positions that they're not
Speaker 1: supposed to be in. But then a lot of times
Speaker 1: the people like her who identify leadership and then they
Speaker 1: they grab on to the business Appramen.
Speaker 3: They get talked about the business and they want to learn.
Speaker 2: Right, if you don't run, if you don't run the
Speaker 2: business of your home properly, more than likely when if
Speaker 2: you start a business, it doesn't transfer well, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying. So that's so you have to and
Speaker 2: that's what I'm saying. Other communities, from young they are
Speaker 2: learning about business and they're they're there, they are around
Speaker 2: and in environments that teach it as a second language,
Speaker 2: like it's just a part of their every day. With us,
Speaker 2: as black folks, we don't necessarily learn money management right as.
Speaker 1: Creatives, right because if you look at Black people just
Speaker 1: just historically, we're very creative, very creative, so we we
Speaker 1: are sold in the process of the creativity that the
Speaker 1: monetization of all those things we don't even think, we
Speaker 1: just we so well, that's creativity.
Speaker 2: That's why I always say it's important for us to
Speaker 2: understand from whence we came to know where we are going, right.
Speaker 2: I truly believe that because in all the environments that
Speaker 2: I've been in, where my teachings have come from, and
Speaker 2: the study of our elders, they always talk about understanding
Speaker 2: where we came from, and this is and this is
Speaker 2: and this is, this is important. The creative side of
Speaker 2: us was exploited, so they always encouraged us to be created, right,
Speaker 2: because they needed our creativity to build every damn thing
Speaker 2: that this world, everything we have. Somewhere along the line,
Speaker 2: African people or people of African descent were involved in
Speaker 2: how it came to be. They did not want us
Speaker 2: to read books stuff right. They did not want us
Speaker 2: to learn business acumen or to learn how to operate
Speaker 2: business because they did not want us to be educated
Speaker 2: in that way. So that's why I'm saying that other
Speaker 2: communities is just a part of what they do. I
Speaker 2: think about when we think about Linda, right, Linda Sarsua,
Speaker 2: our dear Muslim sister, and I just think about the
Speaker 2: way in which her mind works and how much she
Speaker 2: has taught me over time. You know that she was
Speaker 2: raised in a household where learning how to operate businesses,
Speaker 2: how to deal with money, you know, money management, all
Speaker 2: of that. That's something that was very, very much so
Speaker 2: ingrained in her. When she when she brings that to us,
Speaker 2: and then we have all the other components. It builds
Speaker 2: the soup. The pot is rich, and it's great. But
Speaker 2: but I'm just saying, we work. That's not something that
Speaker 2: they ever really wanted us to learn. It was actually
Speaker 2: stripped from us on purpose so that we would only
Speaker 2: be able to work for the man and help them
Speaker 2: build what they wanted to do.
Speaker 1: Because it was you took advantage something you've seen. You've
Speaker 1: seen how a person was, you know, pretty much cash cow.
Speaker 1: You're like, wow, this person is so talented. I don't
Speaker 1: even know how to exactly. Don't understand that they work
Speaker 1: millions and billions of dollars. So I ain't gonna tell them.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm gonna get them there and here sign this.
Speaker 3: You know you would me were good. You're gonna be good, and.
Speaker 1: You don't know how much you actually exactly by the
Speaker 1: time you realize that they don't have one hundred million
Speaker 1: and you don't have five hundred thousand, and all the
Speaker 1: time and music all the time, it's like, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I think, I think, I think we're at stage
Speaker 3: now as.
Speaker 1: Just you know, as creators, as business people, just as
Speaker 1: just individuals that we understand that.
Speaker 2: We're coming up. Oh no, that that whole. I mean,
Speaker 2: now you've got you have you have economic development becoming
Speaker 2: a part of the second language of us as well. Now,
Speaker 2: I mean there we're teaching kids. They are a program.
Speaker 2: I promise you that as soon as my grand daughter
Speaker 2: is able to talk, to speak well enough and understand
Speaker 2: she already understand, but to speak, she is going to
Speaker 2: be in some type of class for little people knowing
Speaker 2: how to use money, how to save money, and what's
Speaker 2: how to even invest these There are kids out here
Speaker 2: that are learning that now. And I love how black
Speaker 2: people are developing and growing in this area. But I
Speaker 2: just want us to be clear that as people are
Speaker 2: listening in, don't think that there's something wrong with you
Speaker 2: because you don't know. You should you need to be
Speaker 2: away that this was actually designed to be this way
Speaker 2: where we would only be as good as to help
Speaker 2: build something for somebody else. So yeah, so what you're
Speaker 2: donna get to that?
Speaker 1: So as me talking about music business, you know businessness
Speaker 1: online chatter ever since pretty much, you know, killing Mike
Speaker 1: one Grandmy, there's been just a lot of chatter here
Speaker 1: and there.
Speaker 3: They were talking about NAS winning, you know, willing to Grandy.
Speaker 1: Had the last Hip Hop Awards and I'm at the
Speaker 1: Greens and he won the last Grammys, and it's just
Speaker 1: been this chatter and it was based off you know
Speaker 1: something I heard Gilly said and who also is an
Speaker 1: elder the rapper, and he was saying, yeah, yeah, he
Speaker 1: started off rapping and and it's it's it's something that
Speaker 1: a lot of people say and they don't see why,
Speaker 1: you know, older hip hop artists are getting awards while
Speaker 1: they don't stop.
Speaker 3: And for me, what I.
Speaker 2: Don't get what do you mean why they gonna stop
Speaker 2: just pretty much stop rapping.
Speaker 3: They want No, it's not he didn't say that.
Speaker 1: I'm this is this is a common theme and it
Speaker 1: started out when we were young, you know, like I
Speaker 1: don't nobody want to hit the old rappers.
Speaker 3: You're too old. You got too old. You got too old.
Speaker 1: And what I don't get that's starting to be older
Speaker 1: and realizing that I can actually rap, I'll rap most
Speaker 1: of the young dudes in my mind is shopper. You know,
Speaker 1: It's not like a sport where you're playing sports and
Speaker 1: you physically can't move your knees hurt, you can't jump
Speaker 1: as high, you know what I'm saying, You can't play
Speaker 1: on the court that well. You can see that you're
Speaker 1: diminishing in your skills set. Why in hip hop is
Speaker 1: the only genre of music that we think that our
Speaker 1: artists as their age have to disappear or we want
Speaker 1: to discredit them, or we want to say that they
Speaker 1: need to retire, like you know, and all time I
Speaker 1: watched Kenny Rodgers winning awards at seventy years old winning.
Speaker 3: Paltrow is still getting very like.
Speaker 1: So for me, it's like, why do hip hop artists
Speaker 1: and and people of the hip hop culture want to
Speaker 1: tell older hip hop artists that they need to sound
Speaker 1: or they don't give them the same credit that every
Speaker 1: other form of music gives their elders. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I just really don't get it, and I think that
Speaker 1: we have to move past that and hip hop, you know,
Speaker 1: because first of all, it's a lot of older rappers
Speaker 1: that will wrap a lot of younger rappers around the pole,
Speaker 1: you know, And just there should be levels of respect,
Speaker 1: right if somebody's been doing something and they have a
Speaker 1: level of skill, and they've been doing something for long,
Speaker 1: there's a level of mastery that right. So not to
Speaker 1: knowledge the mastery that comes with age in an off
Speaker 1: form like music, it's crazy to me, Like you, those
Speaker 1: are people you should want to learn from, you know, you.
Speaker 3: Should want to sit up and listen.
Speaker 1: Because they probably forget not more about it, probably about rapping.
Speaker 1: You probably will ever know the things that I've learned
Speaker 1: over the last twenty plus years about music that I
Speaker 1: didn't know, that I possibly couldn't have known. That I
Speaker 1: was taught by elder individuals, that people like DMX taught
Speaker 1: me about cadence and taught me about infliction and taught
Speaker 1: me about you know, just doing so many different things.
Speaker 1: Double Triple On Turna just taught me about everything within
Speaker 1: hip hop.
Speaker 3: The things that you can learn from somebody that's been
Speaker 3: here long enough, Like.
Speaker 1: You should want that, and we we should never wanted
Speaker 1: to violate the ends and people who've done because it's
Speaker 1: a violation, because if you tell me, I would say, well,
Speaker 1: I think it's a violation to me because if I've
Speaker 1: been if it's like your grandmother, right, good grandmothers gave
Speaker 1: you don't know nothing, grandmother.
Speaker 3: That's a violation to me.
Speaker 2: Well that's but that's not well. I mean, I listened
Speaker 2: to some of this commentary in different places, and I
Speaker 2: don't think that people are saying you don't know anything.
Speaker 2: I think they're saying that as the younger generation is
Speaker 2: coming getting you know, the younger generation is coming into
Speaker 2: their own, there needs to be things and a celebration
Speaker 2: of their art form as well. Right, and and that
Speaker 2: at some point, which I do understand, you give people
Speaker 2: flowers when their time, when they're in their prime, and
Speaker 2: therefore it makes room for more people to be acknowledged.
Speaker 2: I think one of the biggest issues, and I think
Speaker 2: we're talking about two different things, is that is that
Speaker 2: the Grammys, in and of itself, it is just way
Speaker 2: too important.
Speaker 3: It's not so much. I don't think it's that. I
Speaker 3: think it is.
Speaker 2: I think it's.
Speaker 3: But the thing is.
Speaker 1: That the hip hop artists be talking about now they
Speaker 1: created what it is to win it bring me in
Speaker 1: that category. Right, So this new sound and the sub
Speaker 1: gene that the new kids, they have to define what
Speaker 1: that is like, you got to create your own. When
Speaker 1: when hip hop first came out and they was doing
Speaker 1: it wasn't accepted in the Grammy.
Speaker 3: There wasn't there wasn't no Hip Hop War Awards in
Speaker 3: the Grammar. And they still they still fighting for that.
Speaker 1: So what I'm trying to say is in order for
Speaker 1: you to be celebrated for what it is that you do,
Speaker 1: you have to make what you do something that they
Speaker 1: feel like they need to celebrate.
Speaker 3: So the BT was not no it is it is
Speaker 3: And that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So what happens that the BT Awards takes at the
Speaker 1: new genre of rap that they come They have their
Speaker 1: own categories, right, That's why you you you listen, you
Speaker 1: very rarely are going to hear older rappers in those
Speaker 1: categories because it's more pop music, and it's more extream,
Speaker 1: it's more what's popular to the new the culture right now,
Speaker 1: and and and you know, in contrary to what the
Speaker 1: world has already gravitated to. So what has to happen
Speaker 1: is I think that the young artists who are paving
Speaker 1: their way and hit are hot. You gotta get hot
Speaker 1: in Europe, you gotta get hot in Germany, you gotta
Speaker 1: get hot in Dubai.
Speaker 3: Right, the sound that you have has to go over
Speaker 3: there and be like, No.
Speaker 2: I'm saying that because because the pushback that I got
Speaker 2: on the Killer Mike piece was he can't be better
Speaker 2: than Drake, right, which you know, now there is debate
Speaker 2: about whether Drake is even hip hop but whatever, but
Speaker 2: Drake was nominated for But that's the thing, right, So
Speaker 2: that's what they're trying to say. They're like, why would which,
Speaker 2: by the way, I still think killing. I know that
Speaker 2: you conserve it, but I'm just saying what.
Speaker 1: Happen is this. Let me explain to you. There's pop music,
Speaker 1: and there's grammy music. There's substance music. Like Drake put
Speaker 1: together a body of work that was to disappeal to
Speaker 1: people who like pop music.
Speaker 3: He put he didn't there's no there's no real substance.
Speaker 3: It's dope music.
Speaker 1: When you listen to it, you can go to covet
Speaker 1: but there's no direction, right, There's no there's no movie
Speaker 1: in it. There's nothing in this in Drake's new album.
Speaker 1: That's gonna tell you something about Drake we didn't know before.
Speaker 1: That's gonna make you feel like, damn, I connect through
Speaker 1: Drake on a different level. When you listen to Grammy music,
Speaker 1: it's like it's just like going to the Oscars when
Speaker 1: they want you to play a role that when they
Speaker 1: look at it, people identify.
Speaker 3: People might cry about it, people are like, damn you,
Speaker 3: that touched me in a different way.
Speaker 1: So if you just putting out a body of work,
Speaker 1: that's okay. I know the sounds that everybody want to hear.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm put to get all these beats and
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna put some dope raps on him, put
Speaker 1: the features that I want to put on him. That's
Speaker 1: not what the Grammy looks for. The Grammy's gonna look
Speaker 1: for that in music. So it's not saying he's better
Speaker 1: than Drake. Will not better than Drake. It's just the
Speaker 1: body of work that he put out. Wasn't a Grammy
Speaker 1: nominated by his work. And it's a lot of artists
Speaker 1: that make good music. I'm not saying that they don't
Speaker 1: make good music. I'm just saying, if you're looking for
Speaker 1: a criteria that comes with the Grammys.
Speaker 3: There's a certain day.
Speaker 1: Explain to you the the guy who wanted who you know,
Speaker 1: is the Grammy, the person who's in charge of Grammys.
Speaker 1: He broke down exactly what they look for when they're
Speaker 1: looking for albums and rings, when they're looking for songs
Speaker 1: and rings.
Speaker 3: If you are not checking those boxes, you will not win.
Speaker 3: To grant me.
Speaker 1: So what I'm trying to say is, well, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying they're always right. Of course, it's a lot because
Speaker 1: you know why, because hip hop culture is black culture.
Speaker 1: Black culture is black people are thirteen percent of the population.
Speaker 1: That's just the reality of what it is. And it's
Speaker 1: moved past that. The reason why they have t acknowledge
Speaker 1: because we've infiltrated into every other population.
Speaker 3: So what I'm trying to say is the new subgenre of.
Speaker 1: Hip hop has not integrated that far into the culture
Speaker 1: to different cultures. Yet they're still deigning what the drill
Speaker 1: music is and they still they hear it and it's great,
Speaker 1: but it has not infiltrated into the culture like pure
Speaker 1: hip hop and what we call pure hip hop is.
Speaker 1: And that's why you see a lot of this pushback
Speaker 1: from pioneers and hip hop. They're saying, well, you know
Speaker 1: that's the music, but they need to call it something
Speaker 1: different because it does.
Speaker 3: It just doesn't have the same appeal. It doesn't have
Speaker 3: the same thing.
Speaker 2: I mean all the time, I want to say this.
Speaker 1: But we don't call Louise music and R and B
Speaker 1: the same thing. Lose and R and B is something different.
Speaker 1: And even though they came from hip, r and B
Speaker 1: came from blues and it came from rhythm.
Speaker 3: But if they don't call it the same thing, they
Speaker 3: don't just keep putting everything in one category. And I
Speaker 3: think that's what.
Speaker 2: The problem is different from hip hop exactly. So that's
Speaker 2: what you so you wouldn't get nominated in the category
Speaker 2: because it's hip hop, Well, then the Grammys is wrong
Speaker 2: because they should be. I'm find a way to make
Speaker 2: it that they.
Speaker 3: Need to do.
Speaker 1: The thing is also we need to do better too,
Speaker 1: because you know what, if they're not respect they're just like,
Speaker 1: if they don't respect what you do, you got to go.
Speaker 3: Do it harder.
Speaker 2: If people want to create your own and really focus
Speaker 2: on it, and that's a whole other. When I say
Speaker 2: your own about your own award shows your own likes
Speaker 2: and people have to actually show up take it seriously.
Speaker 2: Got to create it, people have to show up. They
Speaker 2: have to take it seriously, be invested in it the
Speaker 2: same way they are when they win the Grammys.
Speaker 1: Or how people feel like if you created something and
Speaker 1: you expected somebody to be more serious about what you create.
Speaker 2: You know, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying
Speaker 2: is that the experiences like these award chills and what
Speaker 2: we put into it right. Because you hear people talking
Speaker 2: about the BET Awards and a lot of people go
Speaker 2: and people do take it seriously. I'm not saying they don't,
Speaker 2: but it'll be like, uh, you know, it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to the BET Awards. Now You've got
Speaker 2: folks showing up at the BET Awards dressed like, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know what this stuff is.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: You're not going to the Grammys with that same attitude.
Speaker 2: When people go to the Grammys, they act like they're
Speaker 2: going to the biggest moment of the life, like this
Speaker 2: is it. So we have to approach our own things.
Speaker 2: If it might not be to b ET Awards, but
Speaker 2: whatever it is, which I think it should be. But
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to be whatever it is. We need
Speaker 2: to approach it like it is that type of quality,
Speaker 2: because when we put that much interest into it, the
Speaker 2: world will recognize it, and therefore we get an opportunity
Speaker 2: to acknowledge and do all the things for all the
Speaker 2: different genres and all the things that our people are
Speaker 2: interested in. But when we are so quick to celebrate
Speaker 2: and to hold up a hold so high something that's
Speaker 2: been created by somebody else that made their definition of
Speaker 2: what it should be, then we're beholding to their standards.
Speaker 1: So I agree with that. I don't know first of all.
Speaker 2: Yes, Mahisha Deelinger of Curls of.
Speaker 1: Curls, she's amazing just what she's done, you know, and
Speaker 1: I know she's inspired so many others to do the same.
Speaker 1: So continue to do what you do, Queen. We appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Another great episode with tm my. You know what I'm saying, formally,
Speaker 1: three politicians, new new name.
Speaker 2: My song information to marriage could say my whole government email. No,
Speaker 2: but that's not in the title. The title is my song.
Speaker 3: It's not oh, it's not you, it's Tamika and my songs.
Speaker 3: So we'll get into that.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna always be right to me, is not
Speaker 1: gonna always be wrong. We're both always and I mean
Speaker 1: always that.
Speaker 3: Please check out the.
Speaker 5: Video version of t M every single Wednesday on I
Speaker 5: Woman dot TV.
Speaker 2: That's how we are on me