Speaker 1: I've literally attained and accomplished any everything that a musician
Speaker 1: could dream to attain, and so I had to look
Speaker 1: myself in the mirror and say why. And I've purposefully
Speaker 1: slowed down so that I can focus on my mental
Speaker 1: and physical health, so that I can focus on being
Speaker 1: there for my child and my wife, and that I
Speaker 1: can love and enjoy this life and this house that
Speaker 1: I've spent the last seventeen years of my life building,
Speaker 1: and it is terrified Jane. Everyone, welcome back to On Purpose,
Speaker 1: the number one health podcasts in the world. Thanks to
Speaker 1: each and every single one of you that come back
Speaker 1: every week to listen, learn and grow. Now, this has
Speaker 1: been a year where we've been so fortunate to sit
Speaker 1: down with some incredible artists to share their stories, and
Speaker 1: they've opened up vulnerably, and you've responded as a community
Speaker 1: by sharing those episodes, loving those conversations. And today's guest
Speaker 1: is someone that I've wanted to speak to you for
Speaker 1: a long time. I've been fan of his music, been
Speaker 1: a fan of his flobe, been a fan of his lyrics,
Speaker 1: and today we're talking about his brand new book, which
Speaker 1: I'll introduce you to in a moment. But I'm talking
Speaker 1: about none other than Bobby Hall aka Logic, a Grammy nominated,
Speaker 1: platinum selling recording artist, author, actors, streamer, and film producer.
Speaker 1: In addition to his three number one albums, ten platinum singles,
Speaker 1: and billions of streams, holds debut book Supermarket made him
Speaker 1: the first hip hop artist to have a number one
Speaker 1: New York Times best selling novel, and today his new
Speaker 1: book that we're talking about is called This Bright Future
Speaker 1: by Bobby Hall. Bobby, thank you so much for making
Speaker 1: the time. Dude. That was the coolest intro every It
Speaker 1: feels so cool now, thank you. That's very kind. It was.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a great intro because it's all true,
Speaker 1: and so I feel like if the intro was called
Speaker 1: and the life must be really cool because you had
Speaker 1: to live it to make it real for sure. But
Speaker 1: we were just we were talking about this before. The
Speaker 1: only time we've ever met is when we bumped into
Speaker 1: each other at an airport, which I because I saw you,
Speaker 1: I already knew who you were, and so when you
Speaker 1: came up to me, I was like, this is so cool, man,
Speaker 1: Logic stopping me at an airport. But you can finish
Speaker 1: the rest of the story. Yeah, dude, I thought it
Speaker 1: was really awesome. And uh, and my security guard as also,
Speaker 1: he's just a huge fan of yours. His name is Pepe.
Speaker 1: He's literally freaking out right now, say what's up? Yeah,
Speaker 1: hey Pepe, what's up? Yeah? Oh man, he's so he
Speaker 1: loves you. Man who doesn't. And so yeah, I just
Speaker 1: I just saw it as a really cool opportunity to
Speaker 1: say hello and then use him as a scapegoat to
Speaker 1: also say hello. Really it was really cool. No, that's awesome, man,
Speaker 1: And lots of love to Pepe. But also I was
Speaker 1: a huge fan, and so it was nice to always
Speaker 1: just maybe it's always nice to just bump into someone
Speaker 1: in a very you know, natural way. This was obviously
Speaker 1: pre pandemic well, when we were all flying and moving around.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to start off just by asking you, like,
Speaker 1: what's this time been for you? Has this been a
Speaker 1: time of deep creativity and exploration? Has it been relaxing?
Speaker 1: I know you just became a father as well last year,
Speaker 1: Like what's this time being like for you personally? And
Speaker 1: it's kind of been a culmination of all those things
Speaker 1: for sure. So I had planned to take off twenty
Speaker 1: twenty anyway, just to be there for my baby because
Speaker 1: that's when he was born in February, and my wife
Speaker 1: and just really for the first time in my life
Speaker 1: kind of slow down, which I'd never done in my
Speaker 1: entire career. So I got a little lucky in that
Speaker 1: sense where I didn't have some big tour planned and
Speaker 1: have to cancel it and financially be dealing with, you know,
Speaker 1: situations that I'm glad I didn't run into, so that
Speaker 1: was nice. But also at the same time, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm constantly working. I was literally like they were like, okay,
Speaker 1: you got four minutes. I'm upstairs like polishing the script
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna shoot next year, which I'm really excited
Speaker 1: to work on, and so I'm constantly working. My biggest
Speaker 1: thing is balanced, I think, you know, searching for balance
Speaker 1: and trying to find balance is well, it's impossible, right
Speaker 1: because it's it's just is what it is. But I
Speaker 1: think the search is very important and that's where I've
Speaker 1: been and I kind of need to relax more, but
Speaker 1: my mind is always going crazy. But yeah, it's been
Speaker 1: full of creativity working on music books, you know, just
Speaker 1: but my big thing is with my family, I just
Speaker 1: love spending time with my family because obviously I didn't
Speaker 1: really have one grown up. So yeah, that's that's been
Speaker 1: my pandemic. Yeah, I definitely want to talk about that.
Speaker 1: And you know, if anyone who's listening right now, we
Speaker 1: are going to dive into Bobby's new book, This Bright Future.
Speaker 1: But I just recently found out that you can solve
Speaker 1: a Rubik's Cube while freestyling, and I was just like,
Speaker 1: that is the craziest multitasking opportunity I've ever heard of, Like,
Speaker 1: I've never thought of two things that are two different
Speaker 1: so different. Tell us about how you even discovered that
Speaker 1: you could do that. Well, I remember it was twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: and it was Thanksgiving and I was twenty four and
Speaker 1: I was in my room and I was looking at
Speaker 1: this Rubi's cube, and I feel like everybody has had
Speaker 1: a Rubik's Cube at some point. It's just kind of
Speaker 1: like a fun thing you have either when you're a
Speaker 1: kid it or older and you throw it on a shelf.
Speaker 1: And so I really wanted to learn how to do it.
Speaker 1: So I took to YouTube and looked up at tutorial
Speaker 1: on all the algorithms it's I swear to God, this
Speaker 1: is random that I have one here right now, like
Speaker 1: I promise you, and I'll probably really butcher it while
Speaker 1: I'm telling the story. But yeah, basically what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do was is I wanted to learn how to
Speaker 1: do it. And I'm a freak like anything that I
Speaker 1: want to get into, no matter what it is, whether
Speaker 1: it's acting, whether it's music, I mean just even video games.
Speaker 1: Like I love mastering things or at least trying to
Speaker 1: doing my best too. And so I sat down and
Speaker 1: I literally just studied this algorithm. And I mean at
Speaker 1: this point, it's like I was working on things until
Speaker 1: like these algorithms until my freaking fingers felt like they
Speaker 1: were going to fall off, which was insane, and like
Speaker 1: ten hours later or however long it was, I did it.
Speaker 1: And then I learned how to do it without actually
Speaker 1: having to look at the algorithms or how they were done.
Speaker 1: So then it had become muscle memory, which was really awesome,
Speaker 1: but it was a very it was intense and pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: And then I got into like speedcubing and different things
Speaker 1: like that, which is also very nerdy but also very
Speaker 1: fun and yeah, man, So it was basically Thanksgiving and
Speaker 1: before I knew it, I had learned to solve it,
Speaker 1: and then I just kind of did it constantly, and
Speaker 1: one day I was like, all right, I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: my nerds Sci Fi raps on the radio with Big
Speaker 1: Boys Neighborhood, and I'm also going to do a Rubis
Speaker 1: Cube Wally freestyle. And it could have ended badly because
Speaker 1: I could have been so nervous, which I was, that
Speaker 1: it didn't work out. But it did and that was
Speaker 1: really cool. I swear that's just right here. Next dude,
Speaker 1: just hold that up again, because that was incredible. That
Speaker 1: was amazing. Thanks man, that was phenomenal. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: for anyone who's listening and not watching the podcast, he
Speaker 1: just solved Bobby Hole logic, just solved a Rubik's Cube
Speaker 1: while explaining how he freestyles and Rubik's cubes at the
Speaker 1: same time. So for anyone who didn't get to see that,
Speaker 1: please go over to YouTube or Instagram and what's that
Speaker 1: pot is? That was pretty epic. But I love that,
Speaker 1: you know, I love the idea of mastery. That's something
Speaker 1: that's always been fascinating to me as well. And I
Speaker 1: can geek out about mastery, but when I look at
Speaker 1: your childhood, which I got to explore through this book.
Speaker 1: You describe yourself as an orphan with parents, and I
Speaker 1: think right now in society, we're at this time where
Speaker 1: a lot of people have started reflecting more on their
Speaker 1: childhood and how it formed their habits, their behaviors, their ideologies.
Speaker 1: What are some of the before we dive into your
Speaker 1: childhood specifically, or let's actually let's dive into that with parents,
Speaker 1: and then what I really want to hear about is
Speaker 1: what were the ideologies that were created from that that
Speaker 1: you found healthy and then ones that you found that
Speaker 1: were unhealthy. I want to hear about both. So, so
Speaker 1: tell us about growing up as an orphan with parents. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my dad's black, my mom's white, but I'm the only
Speaker 1: one who looks white. But it's like, it's my culture,
Speaker 1: it's my people, So I fit in there was it
Speaker 1: was never an issue. It's never anything. It just was
Speaker 1: what it was. It wasn't really more so until I
Speaker 1: got into entertainment and hip hop that people wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of put you into this box. My father was
Speaker 1: addicted to crack cocaine. My mother had also done various drugs.
Speaker 1: She fell into prostitution when she was young, alcoholic. It
Speaker 1: just really wasn't a good a good thing. She was
Speaker 1: very mentally unstable, bipolar, i'd like to think borderline schizophrenic,
Speaker 1: which was really crazy too. And yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: was surrounded by drugs and violence and guns and shooting
Speaker 1: guns and cooking crack and my brother's selling crack to
Speaker 1: my dad and them running around in the street and
Speaker 1: it was just a really not like a good place
Speaker 1: to be. But the craziest thing is as I am
Speaker 1: the only child between my mother and father, so I
Speaker 1: was like an only child, although I have eight brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters, which is really crazy on both sides. But
Speaker 1: we were never together. It was never like a family situation.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean, growing up, I think i'd like to,
Speaker 1: you know, people say, oh, well, how did you how
Speaker 1: did you make it out of that? How are you
Speaker 1: who you are today? And I always say it's like
Speaker 1: God and common sense. And I will further go on
Speaker 1: to say, like, I'm not really a super religious guy,
Speaker 1: but I also don't. I don't hate on religion. I
Speaker 1: don't hate on people's faith. I think it's very important.
Speaker 1: I think it's beautiful. I don't see it as like
Speaker 1: sky Dad like some white guy with a beard sitting
Speaker 1: on a cloud. I don't really, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's a it's a guy, it's a girl,
Speaker 1: it's this, it's a that. But I do believe in something.
Speaker 1: I believe in a higher power, and I think that
Speaker 1: mixed with common sense, was like, oh, maybe don't smoke crack.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, seeing my mother being beaten and bloody
Speaker 1: by men, Oh, don't put your hands on a woman.
Speaker 1: It was just a weird thing where another any other child,
Speaker 1: or most other children would see these things and go, oh,
Speaker 1: this is this is life, this is what it is.
Speaker 1: You yell at a woman, you hit a woman, you
Speaker 1: do this, you do that. I was like, no, don't
Speaker 1: do that. And I don't know how or why, but
Speaker 1: I'm here and I'm definitely not smoking cracker beating my wife.
Speaker 1: So I think I'm doing all right. I think that
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. That resonates with me deeply.
Speaker 1: I always feel like, you know, if someone grows up
Speaker 1: with alcoholic parents, if you had twins, one of them
Speaker 1: could become an alcoholic and one of them could never
Speaker 1: drink alcohol. Right, It's like you get to make that
Speaker 1: choice when you have an experience, you made certain choices.
Speaker 1: Was there any lessons that you learned early from either
Speaker 1: of them? Do you think there was something that kind
Speaker 1: of gave you this desire for mastery, gave you this
Speaker 1: desire for figuring things out, for living life in a
Speaker 1: specific way, or actually was a lot of it just
Speaker 1: survival and having to find your own way at seventeen
Speaker 1: years old when you, you know, finally left. It's funny
Speaker 1: that you ask that, because I when it comes to mastery, yes,
Speaker 1: like I absolutely do love making something everything like just
Speaker 1: utterly allowing it to just engulf me. And I think
Speaker 1: maybe a lot of that is because my parents didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily do that. You know, my mother, she had a
Speaker 1: lot of hobbies and things that she was into. She
Speaker 1: was into writing, she loved music, she loved dance. She
Speaker 1: did love a lot of things, but she never really
Speaker 1: focused on one thing, with the exception of I guess,
Speaker 1: like reading the Bible. But she was also very hypocritical
Speaker 1: when it came to religion. And I'd also just like
Speaker 1: to say it's very important that I say this when
Speaker 1: you hear me talking about my family, I want you
Speaker 1: to know that in no way is it with malice
Speaker 1: or hatred or anger. You know, I've forgiven these people
Speaker 1: for what they've done, and I look at them, especially
Speaker 1: now I look at my son, and I'm like, I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I don't know how, you know, somebody could do this
Speaker 1: to a baby or a child, the things that I
Speaker 1: went through. You know, my mom called me and the
Speaker 1: rest of her kids the end word with a hard R.
Speaker 1: And I remember people saying like, oh, that doesn't really
Speaker 1: make any sense, Like that can't be true. That doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. And it's like, one, first of all,
Speaker 1: don't dismiss my truth. And second of course, it doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. And I've spent my entire life trying
Speaker 1: to make it make sense and then realizing, oh, it
Speaker 1: just doesn't. This is a mentally ill, broken person. This
Speaker 1: person is lashing out not only at her children, but
Speaker 1: at people around. I mean, think about it. It's it's
Speaker 1: kind of weird that my mother is systemically racism at racist,
Speaker 1: and yet all of her children are with black men
Speaker 1: because she finds black people so beautiful, which really just
Speaker 1: stems from her bringing a young black man home when
Speaker 1: she was a teenager and saying, this is my boyfriend,
Speaker 1: and then her parents being like, we don't mix with
Speaker 1: their kind. It's all really insane and there's levels of that.
Speaker 1: But back to mastery. Sorry, you'll find I go on tangent.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that she never necessarily focused on
Speaker 1: one particular thing made me want to focus on one
Speaker 1: particular thing. And when you're a kid, you try different things.
Speaker 1: She played basketball, baseball, you draw you dancy this year that,
Speaker 1: but there was always something about music, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to really make it my life. So I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: those examples that she kind of set or necessarily didn't
Speaker 1: set made me want to do that. Yeah, how do
Speaker 1: you get to that point? Bobby? When I'm hearing you
Speaker 1: talk about your family, and I loved what you said that, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm not you know, I'm not putting their dirty laundry
Speaker 1: out there. I'm not trying to put them down. I'm
Speaker 1: not being critical. I'm just sharing because I want to
Speaker 1: be vulnerable and share my truth and the experience. I
Speaker 1: think it would be very natural for people to have resentment,
Speaker 1: for people to have bitterness. You said, I've got to
Speaker 1: a place where I've forgiven them. Now I want to
Speaker 1: hear how did you get to that? What I loved
Speaker 1: something that you did there. Which was so beautiful was
Speaker 1: you were able to disconnect her behavior from it being
Speaker 1: personal to you. You were like, this is just how
Speaker 1: she was with everyone, because this was a condition she
Speaker 1: was struggling with. This wasn't about me, Bobby the kid
Speaker 1: being a loser, being useless, being bad. How were you
Speaker 1: able to get to that process of forgiving some of
Speaker 1: these experiences that you had? I mean, definitely just maturity growth.
Speaker 1: And I think my own personal journey as a as
Speaker 1: a young man and realizing what dysfunction is and was
Speaker 1: so it's like I was able to realize this is
Speaker 1: a sick person once again. God common sense, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I just knew, oh, this isn't right. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, I only had a few places
Speaker 1: of I guess neutrality, we could call it where I
Speaker 1: would go to like the skate park, and I would
Speaker 1: just see your normal average person, right, and that has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with wealth or money or this or that,
Speaker 1: but just your normal kind of regular, run of the
Speaker 1: mill kid and his parents, and I'd go, oh, like
Speaker 1: like I would. I was realizing, like you know, like
Speaker 1: my mother never really came to the skate park to
Speaker 1: watch me skateboard, and then this kid, you know as
Speaker 1: as his parents, coming of all races and colors and
Speaker 1: people and they're just there and I just saw this
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, this isn't right. But I
Speaker 1: also understand now. Don't get me wrong. There was times
Speaker 1: when I was angry, of course, like I'm angry, like
Speaker 1: I had to learn how to ride my bike by myself.
Speaker 1: I remember one of my earliest memories is choking on
Speaker 1: a sandwich and my mom then scolding me that I
Speaker 1: had thrown it up because I couldn't breathe, and she
Speaker 1: made me clean it up, and I'm like five years old,
Speaker 1: like no, I like you clean that up and then
Speaker 1: console me and hug me and tell me everything's gonna
Speaker 1: be okay, you know, Like I didn't have that. But
Speaker 1: I think while I was going through it, even though
Speaker 1: there was that anger, there was this these moments of
Speaker 1: like understanding, oh, there is something wrong here. And for
Speaker 1: a long time I was angry at her in her
Speaker 1: mental state and her this and her that. But then
Speaker 1: as I started to experience anxiety and you know, just
Speaker 1: normal things that you do as you grow an age
Speaker 1: and mature, I realized, oh wow, like this isn't really
Speaker 1: her fault, so it's but I'm also not here to
Speaker 1: excuse her actions by any mean. I mean my mother
Speaker 1: she almost she almost killed me when I was about
Speaker 1: seven or eight years old. She almost strangled me to
Speaker 1: death and then stopped in the middle of what she
Speaker 1: was doing and realized what she was doing. And I
Speaker 1: remember very vividly looking at her and seeing like, oh
Speaker 1: so much anger. And I didn't really do anything. I
Speaker 1: was just bouncing off the walls like a kid having fun,
Speaker 1: you know. I wasn't no matter what a child shouldn't
Speaker 1: be met with almost being you know, essentially strangled an
Speaker 1: inch from their life. And I remember crying and having
Speaker 1: tears in my eyes, and it was almost like I
Speaker 1: was looking at her, you know, through like underwater glasses.
Speaker 1: And then she stopped after realizing what she was doing,
Speaker 1: and I just told her, I said it's okay, mommy,
Speaker 1: like I love you, like it's okay. And I look
Speaker 1: back at that now and realize that. But I'm more
Speaker 1: sad for her than me, because I made it out.
Speaker 1: I made it out, so I don't know how I did.
Speaker 1: But this woman still has to live with herself, and
Speaker 1: I wish I could have a relationship with her so bad.
Speaker 1: And I'm kind of on and off with my dad.
Speaker 1: Like one of my dad's last requests was eight hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars so he could buy himself a studio for
Speaker 1: him in his band, some house. Like it's just like
Speaker 1: it's ludicrous. It's like, hey, Dad, can I maybe like,
Speaker 1: can we just talk about life for a second. Every
Speaker 1: time I talk to my father, it's always music this
Speaker 1: and music that. But I also realized that very much
Speaker 1: so like my mother, with my dad, that's all he knows.
Speaker 1: So he talks to music about music to everybody, not
Speaker 1: just me. But I just think it's funny that I
Speaker 1: started to get a lot more phone calls once the
Speaker 1: name logic started getting bigger. I thought that was weird.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to forgiveness and having this site,
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I don't know. And writing this
Speaker 1: book was very cathartic and very beautiful, and it allowed
Speaker 1: me to forgive even more. But I know, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: cop out. I just don't know. That's that's not a
Speaker 1: cop out. I appreciate the honesty and I love what
Speaker 1: you said there because when you look at forgiveness. It
Speaker 1: doesn't excuse the other person of their behavior, it just
Speaker 1: exits you from the baggage of carrying it. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that distinction is really important that
Speaker 1: you made there that Hey, you know, I was put
Speaker 1: in pain, I was almost killed. This is as bad
Speaker 1: as it when. But I don't want to carry all
Speaker 1: of that with me. And I think the zooming out
Speaker 1: and the broader perspective of hey, this is just how
Speaker 1: they're interacting with everyone, it's not just me. I think
Speaker 1: those are really practical steps actually that whether you took
Speaker 1: them knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously, they're really powerful
Speaker 1: things for everyone to take away. I wonder now as
Speaker 1: a father, you know, you've you've got your adorable son.
Speaker 1: We see a picture of him in the back of
Speaker 1: the book, a little bay. Yeah. I wonder now when
Speaker 1: you're as a father, which is such an amazing step.
Speaker 1: And you said it was February last year, so he's like,
Speaker 1: well eighteen months old now, yeah, yeah, nineteen months old.
Speaker 1: Tell us about how you're approaching parenting. I want to
Speaker 1: hear about as a father, how you're thinking about it.
Speaker 1: What are some of the values or principles that you're
Speaker 1: hoping to teach him more or you're hoping that he'll learn.
Speaker 1: My biggest thing is communication. I think it's so very
Speaker 1: important to be able to communicate with your children and
Speaker 1: also not getting amnesia. My godmother Mary Joe, who took
Speaker 1: me in for a nice time in my life when
Speaker 1: I was a teenager. He told me that, like, you
Speaker 1: can't get amnesia, like you can't forget that like kids
Speaker 1: do stupid things, or kids, you know, like even just
Speaker 1: I don't know, if you're in seventh grade and your
Speaker 1: heart gets ripped out by some boy or some girl
Speaker 1: that you were dating for like eight days and it
Speaker 1: feels like the end of the world and they broke
Speaker 1: up with you just before the school dance and your
Speaker 1: life is over. And it's like, as an adult, it's
Speaker 1: so easy to brush that off and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: shut you're fine, you'll be fine. Shut up. But it's like,
Speaker 1: even though that's true, and even though you should say that,
Speaker 1: maybe not as callous, you know, but it's like, don't forget, man,
Speaker 1: don't forget that you were there and that seventh grade
Speaker 1: is your child's entire world. So it's kind of having
Speaker 1: those things in my mind, while moving forward are very important,
Speaker 1: spending time with him is very important, and yeah, but
Speaker 1: I think communication really is the biggest thing. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people will just get mad when like
Speaker 1: he's in a slight hitting phase right now where he'll
Speaker 1: kind of like if he's frustrated, he'll throw something. But
Speaker 1: it's and somebody could be like, no, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't throw things. You don't. But it's like he's so
Speaker 1: frustrated because he has he lacks the ability to be
Speaker 1: able to communicate with us. So it's like, Okay, stop, pause,
Speaker 1: let him know, no, we don't do that, Like you
Speaker 1: don't throw things. No, you can say it sternly, but
Speaker 1: not choking them to death, like I think. I think
Speaker 1: that's what's really important. And once again, just seeing this little, beautiful,
Speaker 1: perfect slate of a human being is I just don't
Speaker 1: know how people can do some of the things that
Speaker 1: they do to children or that have been done to me.
Speaker 1: It's kind of very sickening. But I believe that it's
Speaker 1: up to me to break that cycle and be one
Speaker 1: of the first people in my family to do so,
Speaker 1: not the only one. There's some great people in my
Speaker 1: family who have made it out. But yeah, so when
Speaker 1: I look at him, I think about that love, compassion,
Speaker 1: communication and not gaining amnesia. Yeah yeah, I like that
Speaker 1: point about not gaining amnesia and the idea of I
Speaker 1: feel like one of the biggest mistakes we will make
Speaker 1: his humans is that we communicating people with people from
Speaker 1: where we are, not where they are, and so we
Speaker 1: forget that we were where they are right now. And
Speaker 1: if we just talk to them recognizing that that was
Speaker 1: us ten years ago, twenty thirty, fifty, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: that that would make all the difference. And now you
Speaker 1: have a vocabulary for it. We do. We understand mental
Speaker 1: illness better, we understand mental health. We understand these terms
Speaker 1: a bit better. We're getting there. When was it when
Speaker 1: you first started realizing that this was mental illness, this
Speaker 1: was mental health, this was their conditioning and challenges that
Speaker 1: were on a deeper level as a just more than
Speaker 1: just their addiction. I think, just simply, like I said,
Speaker 1: by being able to make the connection or lack thereof,
Speaker 1: between a friend of mins parents and my parents, like
Speaker 1: seeing your kind of normal person who can go and
Speaker 1: hold a job. I think my mom only ever had
Speaker 1: like two jobs. I think she worked at a supermarket
Speaker 1: for a little bit, and she worked at Chick fil
Speaker 1: A and she could not stand people telling her what
Speaker 1: to do. And I realized that, and yet then she
Speaker 1: would tell me what to do, and yet I had
Speaker 1: to just suck it up and take it. And then
Speaker 1: even with myself, like I said, me going through anxiety
Speaker 1: was like a big eye opener. And I remember my
Speaker 1: first panic attack. I was like thirteen years old, and
Speaker 1: it was really scary, and my mom had gone away, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, she just went to the store for like
Speaker 1: an hour. But I had this panic attack, and I
Speaker 1: started to realize I was I was dealing with like
Speaker 1: separation anxiety from my mother, and that a lot of
Speaker 1: our relationship was more based on brainwashing, which sounds crazy,
Speaker 1: but the having this feeling that I needed her and
Speaker 1: that if she wasn't there, like my entire world would crumble.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know how to deal with anxiety. And honestly,
Speaker 1: I only really learned how to deal with anxiety much
Speaker 1: later in life, like in my late twenties. I'm thirty
Speaker 1: one now, and even right now, Jay, like, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: pretty anxious right now. I don't know why. It's really
Speaker 1: weird I felt fine before I got on in front
Speaker 1: of the camera, and even right now, like, I have
Speaker 1: this feeling of anxiety. And maybe it's a number of things.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's I'm recounting my childhood. I just I have
Speaker 1: a book that's come out, you know, so many things
Speaker 1: that are going on in my mind. I'm fine, I know,
Speaker 1: I'm fine. I'm drinking water, I'm talking to an amazing
Speaker 1: human being. I'm everything is okay. And yet internally there
Speaker 1: is still is a part of me that feels a
Speaker 1: little jittery and a little nervous and a little this
Speaker 1: and a little that. And I've learned how to deal
Speaker 1: with that and instead of like freaking out, I just go,
Speaker 1: you're fine, it's okay. Feeling this way is normal. I
Speaker 1: remember speaking with my therapists and she told me, I
Speaker 1: was like, I hate the fact that I feel anxious.
Speaker 1: I was like, there's people out there that don't really
Speaker 1: They just have kind of general anxiety, but they don't
Speaker 1: have that anxiety where it can also affect them physically
Speaker 1: where they feel weird or they feel like they could
Speaker 1: pass out or this. And she was like, yeah, and
Speaker 1: then sometimes it happens to them like Tony soprano when
Speaker 1: or in their fifties trying to feed the ducks in
Speaker 1: their pool, and then that's just their life after that.
Speaker 1: And she said, the thing is is not like you
Speaker 1: have to accept that that's just who you are and
Speaker 1: that's the way your life is now, and do the
Speaker 1: best that you can to combat and deal with that
Speaker 1: anxiety and those emotions and the most positive manner possible.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't until I started truly understanding what anxiety
Speaker 1: meant and how much it can affect your day to
Speaker 1: day personal and professional life that I even grew more
Speaker 1: sympathetic towards my mother and all the things that she
Speaker 1: was dealing with. Yeah, well, I want to thank you
Speaker 1: for sharing that, and also just to say that I
Speaker 1: do think it's natural and extremely brave when you're sharing
Speaker 1: such personal accounts of things in your life and you're
Speaker 1: putting them out there, and we know the world we
Speaker 1: live in where everything we say is you know, it's
Speaker 1: natural for you to feel that way. So I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you even opening up and sharing that. And I
Speaker 1: just want you to know that I think you're sharing
Speaker 1: your story not just on this interview but in this
Speaker 1: book in a way that is going to help so
Speaker 1: many people with their perspective. So I want you to
Speaker 1: know that, and I also want you to know that, yeah,
Speaker 1: we all have anxiety. I officiated someone's wedding this weekend,
Speaker 1: the wedding the weekend that just went, and my wife
Speaker 1: said it to me. She was like, yeah, I've never
Speaker 1: seen you this anxious or stressed in your life with
Speaker 1: anything you do. And I was like, because it's someone's
Speaker 1: wedding day. I was like, And people were like, oh,
Speaker 1: but you've done this million times and you've done it,
Speaker 1: and I was like, it doesn't matter how many times
Speaker 1: I've done it. It's someone different and it's their wedding
Speaker 1: day and this is an important moment for someone. And
Speaker 1: what I've realized and I love what you said there
Speaker 1: because I do something similar. I've redefined my relationship with
Speaker 1: anxiety that I'm feeling anxious when I care. So I
Speaker 1: know that when I'm feeling anxious it's because it's something
Speaker 1: good about me is that I care. I'm a human
Speaker 1: that loves and cares and is compassionate and wants to
Speaker 1: serve these two beautiful people that I wedded, that I
Speaker 1: love and that love me, and I have a relationship
Speaker 1: with it's because of that. I'm not scared about what
Speaker 1: someone thinks about it or how it goes. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: anxious because I care about these two people and I
Speaker 1: feel they deserve something special. It's funny you say that,
Speaker 1: because another thing that I had dealt with for I mean,
Speaker 1: everybody deals with it is intrusive thoughts. You're aware of this, right,
Speaker 1: intrusive thoughts. So it could be the craziest thing. It
Speaker 1: could be your baby falling to it's death. It could
Speaker 1: be you, I don't know, punching a store clerk, and
Speaker 1: you're just like, oh my god, why would I think that?
Speaker 1: How could I think something so despicable or whatever the
Speaker 1: case may be, these dark thoughts. And I remember talking
Speaker 1: to my therapist and she was like, well, one, those
Speaker 1: aren't really your thoughts. You're not thinking that. She was like,
Speaker 1: that's kind of douchebag brain. And she put it, she
Speaker 1: was like, it's just these thoughts that pop into your head,
Speaker 1: and you need to understand that. That's that's also um
Speaker 1: like conscious, like your your conscious recognizes that and it's
Speaker 1: then terrified. And so I think when it comes to
Speaker 1: anxiety and the things you care about It's like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, if I think about my baby dying, because
Speaker 1: that's the most precious thing to me. If I think
Speaker 1: about I don't know, like I said, punching some clerk
Speaker 1: in the face, it's like violence. I hate violence. So
Speaker 1: it's these things that my brain is doing that I'm
Speaker 1: kind of then freaking out about. But it's about how
Speaker 1: we deal with that. If we then focus on it
Speaker 1: too much and obsessed why would I think that? Why
Speaker 1: would I think that? Why would I think that? Then
Speaker 1: every time we're in a situation where that thought is
Speaker 1: then triggered, then it just becomes more intense and the
Speaker 1: real The key there is to not really focus on
Speaker 1: it is to really not think about it. Understand that
Speaker 1: it's a thought. It's a disgusting thought that you didn't
Speaker 1: even think in your head. It just somehow popped in
Speaker 1: and you were like, oh my goodness, you know, to
Speaker 1: hell with you. And that's also how I feel about anxiety.
Speaker 1: I think there's a difference between legitimately like oh I'm
Speaker 1: starting to see stars or I feel like I need
Speaker 1: to sit down, Like that could be different, even though
Speaker 1: it may be anxiety. But it's like ask yourself, have
Speaker 1: you been working really hard? Have you drink enough water today?
Speaker 1: Have you eaten? Have you this? Have you that? And
Speaker 1: having the mind the mindset to be able to just
Speaker 1: ask yourself what is going on? And that was something
Speaker 1: I couldn't do for a long time. I was very unhealthy,
Speaker 1: both physically and mentally. And once I really learned how
Speaker 1: to utilize these tools, my life became better. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I still get anxiety, like it sucks, yeah, but it
Speaker 1: also is great. I mean, I'm not going to say
Speaker 1: anxiety is great. Anxiety just sucks. But it's look at
Speaker 1: this great conversation we're having because of it. I've made
Speaker 1: songs about it, I've written parts in scripts about it.
Speaker 1: I've like, I get it and I understand it. And
Speaker 1: because of that, it's actually allowed me to connect with
Speaker 1: people on such a deeper level and being willing to
Speaker 1: go because I'll tell you this, man, I love rap
Speaker 1: I love hip hop. It's a beautiful place. It's also
Speaker 1: a negative place, just like the world is. And but
Speaker 1: I've met a lot of rappers where I try to
Speaker 1: have like deeper conversations with them and they just don't
Speaker 1: do it because I think they're also scared and to
Speaker 1: internalize how they're feeling. But I did have one guy,
Speaker 1: and I'll never forget. He was like, bro, I wish
Speaker 1: I could be you. And I was like, what do
Speaker 1: you mean. I'm like the nerd rapper who solved rubscubes
Speaker 1: and wraps about sci fi. You're like, you're that dude.
Speaker 1: You know you got the cred even though Loki, I've
Speaker 1: shot guns and cook crack, so I guess I have
Speaker 1: the cred as well, but I don't really perpetuate that life.
Speaker 1: And he was like, look, man, he was like, I'm scared.
Speaker 1: He was like, that was so long ago. That's not
Speaker 1: who I am anymore. And he's like, I like video games,
Speaker 1: I like this, I like that. I wish I could
Speaker 1: just be myself. And when he said that to me,
Speaker 1: I realized that all the years and time, the times
Speaker 1: that I'd been made fun of in hip hop or
Speaker 1: this or that, well, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I may have been made fun of by a certain
Speaker 1: sect or quote unquote cool group or the jocks of rap,
Speaker 1: but at least I was always myself and never had
Speaker 1: to pretend to be somebody I was not. And then
Speaker 1: that led to, you know, just saying I'd rather be
Speaker 1: hated for who I am than loved for who I'm not,
Speaker 1: which I think, like Kurt Cobain or somebody said, yea,
Speaker 1: but yeah, there it is. Yeah. No, that's a beautiful message, man.
Speaker 1: I think that something everyone can relate to. And or
Speaker 1: you were speaking about there about the douchebag brain in
Speaker 1: the monasteryies to quote it, the monkey mind and the mind.
Speaker 1: See if the monkey mind that's you know, saying all
Speaker 1: these intrusive thoughts, as you said, saying all these self
Speaker 1: doubt anxiety, and then you have the monk mind, which
Speaker 1: is the calm, distill, the balanced, and to bring that
Speaker 1: monkey mind back onto control. And so yeah, for me,
Speaker 1: that was always that was always a fun way of
Speaker 1: thinking about it. It's just like, oh, I've just got
Speaker 1: this monkey that's jumping from bronze to brown to my
Speaker 1: head and you know, it doesn't know what it wants
Speaker 1: and it's confused and it's moving fast. But the monk
Speaker 1: mine can kind of ground it. So that aligns very strongly.
Speaker 1: I've always I always saw this guy who looks like
Speaker 1: I want you to imagine like a cartoon. There's this
Speaker 1: episode of Futurama. It's one of my favorite cartoons, but
Speaker 1: I forget the episode. But there's like this liquid guy
Speaker 1: and he's like blue and he looks like just kind
Speaker 1: of moving water and his head's all back and he
Speaker 1: looks kind of cool. I imagine that guy in a
Speaker 1: leather jacket sitting on a like a beach chair in
Speaker 1: my brain, and he's responsible for these thoughts. He's like,
Speaker 1: he said, the monkey mine, it's like this monkey. But
Speaker 1: it's like that's how I see this guy. And I've
Speaker 1: actually had conversations with this guy like get out of here, dude,
Speaker 1: like like what's like chill? Like stop, And then he'll
Speaker 1: say something to me that I hear and it almost
Speaker 1: sounds like I'm crazy, right because it's like I'm having
Speaker 1: a conversation with myself in my head. But I have
Speaker 1: had this and I'm like, no, like not today, man.
Speaker 1: And sometimes he really he'll he'll hit me with some
Speaker 1: crazy images or me freaking out or going to the
Speaker 1: emergency room or it's just all these things because I'm
Speaker 1: always constantly thinking about my health and I have to
Speaker 1: have those conversations until the water blob or monkey man
Speaker 1: or whatever to calm down and do my best to
Speaker 1: be in control, which is actually really funny because I'm
Speaker 1: not in control. We're not really in control, and I
Speaker 1: think accepting the fact that you're not in control in
Speaker 1: some weird way gives you a bit of control at
Speaker 1: the same time. But yeah, yeah, yeah, it definitely it
Speaker 1: gives you more control over what you can control, if
Speaker 1: it there's any of that that you can do. So no,
Speaker 1: I like that, and I love the Futurama reference. All
Speaker 1: of the futura references. Was what would you say was
Speaker 1: your earlier You referred to this earlier, so I'm bringing
Speaker 1: it back. What would you say was your earliest memory
Speaker 1: of becoming aware of racism? Uh, and and experiencing it
Speaker 1: for yourself or trying to understand it as a young
Speaker 1: person who obviously has a very diverse childhood, but people
Speaker 1: not being able to understand contextualize. I want to know
Speaker 1: what that's like from your perspective. Like I say in
Speaker 1: the book that that racism for me, when I first
Speaker 1: experienced it wasn't outside in, it was inside out right,
Speaker 1: Because it was my mother who used this word. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really disgusting, but but the way she would she
Speaker 1: would do it, she would do it in a way
Speaker 1: where it's just whatever would cut deep, you know, like
Speaker 1: if you were fat, she'd call you fat. If you're ugly,
Speaker 1: she'd call you ugly. If you were black, she would,
Speaker 1: you know, use these slurs anybody, any race, any of this,
Speaker 1: any of that, which I was just thought was so
Speaker 1: disgusting because she would like say this, and then next
Speaker 1: week she'd take me to the library and we'd be
Speaker 1: getting like Black History Month, like DVDs and vhs, and
Speaker 1: she's like, you need to be proud of your of
Speaker 1: your heritage, and I'm just like, what is wrong with you?
Speaker 1: So like there was that um and then the crazy
Speaker 1: thing about racism is like, Okay, first of all, it's
Speaker 1: one hundred percent, it exists. It's a real thing. But
Speaker 1: like especially kind of like in the hood and where
Speaker 1: I grew up, it's just different. It's like the white
Speaker 1: boys are hanging out with the brothers and and and
Speaker 1: you know, the Mexican cats and everybody. We're all just
Speaker 1: hanging out together. Like unless it's like gangs who are
Speaker 1: like just don't mess with a certain demographic of other people.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, man, like, oh, everybody was
Speaker 1: just hanging It wasn't really like that and then once
Speaker 1: you start growing up is where you realize like these
Speaker 1: sects and these like this division really comes in. So
Speaker 1: for me, it was very weird to to enter hip hop,
Speaker 1: a place that I love and loved and um is
Speaker 1: built on positivity and all the way from Sugar Hill
Speaker 1: Gang and KRS one and you know it's it is
Speaker 1: built on a message run DMC like be yourself and
Speaker 1: it was also a lot of fun braggadosha, but for
Speaker 1: the most part, it was like, you know, this is
Speaker 1: the story that we're here to tell, and so for me,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh wow, I can tell my story.
Speaker 1: So it's I was like there in these last ten
Speaker 1: years at the cusp of hip hop becoming like low
Speaker 1: key the most popular genre of music, and the more
Speaker 1: quote unquote pop that it got, the more attention was
Speaker 1: brought on all of the people who were heading it
Speaker 1: at the front line, and being one of those people
Speaker 1: received a lot of hate that was basically all based
Speaker 1: on my race, which was very difficult because it was
Speaker 1: like a double edged sword and there was really no winning.
Speaker 1: You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.
Speaker 1: I go in an interview and they'd say Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: so we here with this with this rapper name logic.
Speaker 1: So what's it like being white and hip hop and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and I have to go, well, first
Speaker 1: of all, I'm not I'm black and white, so I mixed.
Speaker 1: And then and then that turns into comments on the
Speaker 1: internet like why is he always got to be proven himself?
Speaker 1: Why has he always got to explain? Why is he
Speaker 1: alway getting It's like, well, one, I'm just telling you
Speaker 1: who I am so first and foremost, like you know,
Speaker 1: you're for you to look at me and just claim
Speaker 1: that I'm one thing. No, I am proud to be
Speaker 1: this thing, which the double edged sword is. Then what
Speaker 1: if I never said it? And then you find out
Speaker 1: that my dad's black? And then a year later you're like,
Speaker 1: so what you was shamed to be black? You're trying
Speaker 1: to use this whole white thing to get And then
Speaker 1: it's that and you know, you have incredible artists like
Speaker 1: Kendrick lamar I, j Cole Killer, Mike Black Thought from
Speaker 1: the Roots talking about their black and every song they're
Speaker 1: they're happy to be black, They're proud to be black.
Speaker 1: I'm black, I'm black and black, I'm to blackest. And then,
Speaker 1: for the first time in my career, on my third album,
Speaker 1: after constantly being called this thing that I didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: identify with, on three songs, I go, hey, I'm biracial,
Speaker 1: I'm mixed, I'm actually black and white. And then they
Speaker 1: turned it into this like biracial meme. And then I
Speaker 1: have white kids and black kids and brown kids and
Speaker 1: all these other people trying to tell me what I
Speaker 1: am or what I'm not. And it was a very
Speaker 1: difficult time in my life until I realized it's literally
Speaker 1: just a meme. It has not thing to do with anything.
Speaker 1: The music is so good, the music is getting billions
Speaker 1: of streams, the music is platinum. That I'm in arenas,
Speaker 1: I'm selling out. Oh this is just a talking subject.
Speaker 1: It's it's low hanging fruit. It's easy for these people
Speaker 1: to try to identify me for what they claim me as,
Speaker 1: put me in that box and leave it at that.
Speaker 1: And that was a big part of me stepping away
Speaker 1: from the Internet and realizing, oh, it doesn't even matter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's almost like it's almost like you were repeating
Speaker 1: what you had to do as a child, Like as
Speaker 1: a child, he had to be like Okay, this is
Speaker 1: not my mom. This is her illness, this is her challenge.
Speaker 1: It's not about me. And so now it was like,
Speaker 1: mom is kind of like the Internet, where it's like
Speaker 1: look right, yeah, like whoa Actually like the way he said,
Speaker 1: it's kind of insane, because yeah, I then had this
Speaker 1: like very negative but also beautiful relationship at the same
Speaker 1: time with the Internet and social media and all this
Speaker 1: which in many ways was constantly berating me and harassing
Speaker 1: me and yelling at me and screaming at me the
Speaker 1: same way my mother did when I was a child. Wow,
Speaker 1: nice Pool, You're a genius. No, yeah, no, it's just interesting.
Speaker 1: I just I love seeing how like patterns repeat in
Speaker 1: people's lives and how we have to It's almost like
Speaker 1: you you've overcome the first challenge of their upbringing, and
Speaker 1: then it's like, well, here's the escalated challenge of it
Speaker 1: with now like millions of people who don't know you.
Speaker 1: And then, as you said, you're selling out Arenas people
Speaker 1: love the music, the music so awesome. You know, you're
Speaker 1: getting to see the real version of that. Tell us
Speaker 1: about how you with all of this that we've already
Speaker 1: talked about, and I saved this for this part of
Speaker 1: the interview. And you write a book called This Bright Future,
Speaker 1: which is your memoir, and I'm like, I love that,
Speaker 1: Like I just I want to know how much I
Speaker 1: love that? Like, how tell us where that title comes from?
Speaker 1: And why this bright Future? When was that a I'm
Speaker 1: asking this? Was that an imagination? Was that a vision? Where?
Speaker 1: Where did that come from? So there's a there's a
Speaker 1: band called Manfred Man's Band, and they have a song.
Speaker 1: I've actually had tried to sample them for years and
Speaker 1: years and years because they have some really cool stuff.
Speaker 1: No Id sampled who I'm Homies With, sampled them for
Speaker 1: a bunch of Kanye West songs and things like that
Speaker 1: back in the day, beautiful twist and fantasy, and so
Speaker 1: I've been searching and searching and searching, and finally in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, I found this sample and it's called Lies
Speaker 1: through the Eighties and there's this lyric and it goes,
Speaker 1: I saw a boy with no smile on his face today,
Speaker 1: whereas my bright future in this world or whatever. So
Speaker 1: I love that and I sampled that and chopped it
Speaker 1: up for a song called heard Him Say on my
Speaker 1: last album No Pressure, And that to me is like
Speaker 1: the epitome of what the book is about my place
Speaker 1: and rap is about hip hop, like it kind of
Speaker 1: sums that up. And then we just had this idea like, wow,
Speaker 1: what if what if? That was the title? And I
Speaker 1: love it because if you look at the cover, you'll
Speaker 1: see it's it's actually so the under Excuse me, the
Speaker 1: No Pressure cover is me kind of levitating in a
Speaker 1: basement that's breaking up into space. Now. Nine albums before
Speaker 1: that was my debut album, Under Pressure, and that was
Speaker 1: me in a basement in my homie Lenny's basement when
Speaker 1: I was broke in College Park, just trying to get
Speaker 1: a record deal, which I eventually got and we all
Speaker 1: moved to LA and that was awesome. So when you're
Speaker 1: looking at the No Pressure cover, you'll see I'm facing
Speaker 1: you and I'm levitating, and you see my feet in
Speaker 1: the air for this bright future. The memoir cover, you'll
Speaker 1: see it's actually from the back of my legs. And
Speaker 1: then it's a reflection. So I'm this grown man kind
Speaker 1: of like rising and heading in towards towards the light,
Speaker 1: you know, not the darkness, and then you see a
Speaker 1: child falling into darkness, which to me kind of represents
Speaker 1: my birth and where I spent my entire childhood. But somehow,
Speaker 1: falling into darkness, I levitated into lightness and I don't
Speaker 1: know or into the light, excuse me, and I have
Speaker 1: no idea how that happened. But that's what that all
Speaker 1: means to me. I love that. I want I want
Speaker 1: people to see that because I do think it's it's
Speaker 1: beautifully artistic and thank you and absolutely stunning. And I
Speaker 1: wanted to hear you describe that to everyone, because yeah,
Speaker 1: I just love symbolism and I love visuals that can
Speaker 1: make you feel something, and I think when you see this,
Speaker 1: everyone can. I'm looking at it right now and I'm
Speaker 1: going and I can relate in my own way to
Speaker 1: what it feels like to be that kid that's falling,
Speaker 1: and I can relate in my own way to what
Speaker 1: it feels like that person that's elevating. And I wanted this,
Speaker 1: you know, when I speak to you logic, I want
Speaker 1: to read the book, Bobby. It's like you have such
Speaker 1: a great understanding of psychology, thought, the mind. I want
Speaker 1: to when did you get fascinated with how this all works?
Speaker 1: What were you reading, what were you listening to? Who
Speaker 1: are you speaking to that help you understand that the
Speaker 1: way you speak is so structured and thought out, and
Speaker 1: you recognize where things sit and how they are. Where
Speaker 1: did that come from, Where did it get nourished, and
Speaker 1: how did you grow that? Um? Well, thanks man, you
Speaker 1: make me sound like smart or something. Dude, I meant it,
Speaker 1: I really mean it. I really mean it. I think
Speaker 1: I've always loved language, and I think it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: I wish I had a doper vocabulary like Neil de
Speaker 1: grass Tyson or something. I was hanging out with Neil
Speaker 1: de grass Tyson and he was like saying equivocal or what.
Speaker 1: I was just like, I need to step my game up.
Speaker 1: When I was younger, though, I saw the power of words,
Speaker 1: and I would study the dictionary and I would study
Speaker 1: the thesaurus. I also wanted to separate myself from any
Speaker 1: you know, of my contemporaries or even my predecessors in
Speaker 1: hip hop as well. Now I'm not saying that I
Speaker 1: think I'm this like you know, oh, I use words
Speaker 1: they don't use not at all. He take somebody like
Speaker 1: nas I mean this dude was doing the same thing
Speaker 1: back in the day in the projects and on Queen's Bridge,
Speaker 1: and he was using like the he was using words
Speaker 1: like cerebral, like nobody would say that like he would be.
Speaker 1: Other guys were just like, yeah, you know, take a
Speaker 1: shot to the head. He'd be like, take a gunshot
Speaker 1: through the cerebal cortex in the spot. And I'm just like, Yo,
Speaker 1: this is so cool. I also have always just been
Speaker 1: so inspired by Quentin Tarantino. And you know, he didn't
Speaker 1: go to film school. He just did it, and he
Speaker 1: was like, he made movies his life. He studied film
Speaker 1: in a way that you just couldn't even do at
Speaker 1: film school. He learned things like on the street. And
Speaker 1: that's how I felt when it came to I guess
Speaker 1: just my mentality about life, Like I looked at people
Speaker 1: like Alan Watts, who has one of the greatest quotes
Speaker 1: I've ever heard, personally says, anything you can be interested in,
Speaker 1: you will find others who are. And that, in and
Speaker 1: of itself alone is what inspired me to be me.
Speaker 1: Is to be this guy who did yes has come
Speaker 1: from being surrounded by drugs and guns and violence but
Speaker 1: wanting to wrap about anime and sci fi and I
Speaker 1: think studying great minds and reading and I'm mainly a
Speaker 1: visual audio person honestly, but yeah, taking the time to
Speaker 1: read and just study is what helped me grow as
Speaker 1: a man and a musician. I mean, I didn't even
Speaker 1: graduate high school, man, I got kicked out. So it's like,
Speaker 1: I think formal education is awesome and it's important depending
Speaker 1: on where you know the trajectory of your life and
Speaker 1: where you see your path going and your career. But
Speaker 1: not for me, man, School of Hard knocks dog Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know how it worked, but I'm glad it did.
Speaker 1: But I also think that it's like I'm just like
Speaker 1: a regular dude who made some kind of okay decisions.
Speaker 1: And I also love that. You know, I always hated
Speaker 1: teachers who spoke down on you that like, when you
Speaker 1: ask a question, they almost made you feel stupid for
Speaker 1: doing so. So it's like, I'm a professional at my craft.
Speaker 1: I'm a master at what I do. But in no
Speaker 1: way do I ever want anybody to feel either intimidated
Speaker 1: or like I think I'm so knowledgeable in my world
Speaker 1: that they feel like we can't even have a conversation.
Speaker 1: So I think there's levels to also the vocabulary that
Speaker 1: you use when having conversations with people because it's like, dude,
Speaker 1: you want to be down to earth, you want to
Speaker 1: be regular, but you also want to let people you know,
Speaker 1: know that you know what they're talking about. So yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, it's so it's it's a great I was
Speaker 1: literally just about to ask you about school off though,
Speaker 1: when you mentioned as going to say because you felt
Speaker 1: like school gave up on you, And I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of young people that feel that way where
Speaker 1: school gave up on them. And I loved what you said.
Speaker 1: You're not discouraging anyone from following a traditional school pattern
Speaker 1: or whatever it may be. But when when you think
Speaker 1: about school, I wonder if if if logic was to
Speaker 1: set up a school, inspire a school, what would be
Speaker 1: some of the exciting classes and lessons that would go
Speaker 1: on in that school? Video game testing. That's the number
Speaker 1: one I'm serious, man, because think about how long all
Speaker 1: these parents were always like video games will rot your brain,
Speaker 1: there's no future. And now you've got pro video gamers
Speaker 1: making millions, hundreds of millions of dollars playing video games
Speaker 1: and having fun and doing this thing. So it's like
Speaker 1: I sucked at math, but me and these teachers, we
Speaker 1: didn't speak the same language. You know. These are people
Speaker 1: who want to make a difference in a kid's life,
Speaker 1: but has no idea that his mother is suffering from
Speaker 1: this insane mental illness or how to deal with that.
Speaker 1: It's like there was no real line of communication and
Speaker 1: understanding between me and these people who are supposed to
Speaker 1: essentially teach me not only about you know, academics, but
Speaker 1: life in many ways. So I wish I had somebody
Speaker 1: who spoke my language. I wish I had somebody who understood,
Speaker 1: Oh wow, like this kid really likes video games. Have
Speaker 1: you ever thought about coding video games? What do you mean?
Speaker 1: What are you talking about coding video games? Well, creating
Speaker 1: this world? What are you talking about? Well, it's all binary,
Speaker 1: it's ones and zeros, it's math. Yeah, but if you
Speaker 1: actually focus on math, you could engineer an entire world
Speaker 1: that a video game takes place in. Well you don't say, like,
Speaker 1: it's like I never had that conversation. It was just
Speaker 1: do algebra or drop out, and that was very difficult. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's small. I couldn't agree more. I think
Speaker 1: I was grow up thinking I didn't know that any
Speaker 1: other industry has existed from medicine, law, and finance. Like
Speaker 1: beyond that, I didn't even know there was a potential
Speaker 1: to have another job because I didn't meet anyone outside
Speaker 1: of those industries, and I didn't know anyone who had
Speaker 1: been accomplished or successful outside of those industries. And so
Speaker 1: you end up just going, well, well, then these are
Speaker 1: just my three options. And I think there is such
Speaker 1: a limitation placed on that because you're just unaware when
Speaker 1: you think about now, obviously you've made it in an
Speaker 1: industry which is highly competitive, it's difficult, it's saturated. It's
Speaker 1: like every kid's dream to want to be a rapper
Speaker 1: out their music or their song be heard. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: you go back to the days when it wasn't working musically,
Speaker 1: what was the thing that kept you going? Was it
Speaker 1: that you were chasing a deal or a hit or
Speaker 1: was it that you just loved it so much that
Speaker 1: you just believed in any way? Where was that what
Speaker 1: kept you going? Probably craziness, because it's like you have
Speaker 1: to be crazy to think, oh, I'm gonna make it
Speaker 1: as a rapper. But the difference with me, though, is
Speaker 1: like I looked at it from a business standpoint, Like
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, if I could take a brand myself,
Speaker 1: be myself, be honest. I feel like there's not really
Speaker 1: a lot of me in rap, and there's not really
Speaker 1: a lot of me in major rap or major music,
Speaker 1: mainstream music. So I want to fill that void. And
Speaker 1: as I started to write these songs where I'm like,
Speaker 1: believe in yourself, peace, love and positivity. You can do it.
Speaker 1: You can be whatever you want. Like people started engaging
Speaker 1: with that and we're like, wow, this isn't just the
Speaker 1: traditional what is rap or what is this or that
Speaker 1: or whatever the case may be. And I don't say
Speaker 1: that any any negative connotation or anything. You know, It's like, literally,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of rap that's kind of negative. There's
Speaker 1: rap that's really good. But I felt this kind of
Speaker 1: nerdy sci fi me could break through. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I think it was insane that to even begin to
Speaker 1: think that, but it was just like week by week,
Speaker 1: little by little things were improving, whether it was ten
Speaker 1: extra followers on Twitter. I was also utilizing and using
Speaker 1: social media in a way that these platforms hadn't known
Speaker 1: about it or they weren't ready for what was coming.
Speaker 1: Because it was cats like me, Kendrick Lamar J Cole
Speaker 1: Macmiller was Khalifa. We were utilizing this as a space
Speaker 1: where we didn't need a major label and if we
Speaker 1: put out a song that was catchy enough, people could
Speaker 1: decide what they wanted to listen to. And so radio
Speaker 1: was dying, MTV, all that stuff was kind of out
Speaker 1: of there, and there was just this pocket of where
Speaker 1: you have these like blogs like this song is Sick
Speaker 1: and two Dope Boys, and people could go to a
Speaker 1: blog to find what they want and what they love,
Speaker 1: and that allowed me to shine and do it and
Speaker 1: the bigger I got. Yeah, there were certain things that
Speaker 1: I was chasing. I was chasing being able to go
Speaker 1: on tour by myself, being able to make a lot
Speaker 1: of money, hopefully having a hit record. But it's funny.
Speaker 1: I had a very slow burning career and I amassed
Speaker 1: a lot of fans. I I was playing arenas before
Speaker 1: I ever had a hit song with one eight hundred.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because when I gave up trying to
Speaker 1: chase the hit, I ended up making the song from
Speaker 1: my Heart the Last. Nobody would trust me. Nobody was
Speaker 1: like in the studio, like, yeah, song about suicide about
Speaker 1: to take over the club Dog, like nobody was thinking that. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I made this thing from my heart and it
Speaker 1: blew up. And then after that I was just kind
Speaker 1: of like, well, I'm here. I meane thirty million dollars
Speaker 1: that year, I was doing records with Marshmallow and Eminem
Speaker 1: and I was just like, let's go, go, go, go go.
Speaker 1: And then I realized after over a decade, I was
Speaker 1: on this hamster wheel and I was doing it, and
Speaker 1: it's like, how many number ones can you have? How
Speaker 1: many platinum plaques can you have? How many this can
Speaker 1: you have? How many that can you have. I've literally
Speaker 1: attained and accomplished any everything that a musician could dream
Speaker 1: too attain, with the exception of winning a Grammy, which
Speaker 1: is merely just a glorified pat on the back. And
Speaker 1: so I had to look myself in the mirror and
Speaker 1: say why. And I've purposefully slowed down so that I
Speaker 1: can focus on my mental and physical health, so that
Speaker 1: I can focus on being there for my child and
Speaker 1: my wife, and that I can love and enjoy this
Speaker 1: life and this house that I've spent the last seventeen
Speaker 1: years of my life building, and it is terrifying. Jake
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna be me and do me. And it's
Speaker 1: not about the money, and it's about value over fear.
Speaker 1: And I used to value money and success and being
Speaker 1: that guy over my health and I will never do
Speaker 1: that ever again. That's beautiful, mind, well said I. Actually
Speaker 1: I'd picked out a few of your lyrics that were
Speaker 1: my favor I want to read this one. It's from
Speaker 1: a Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. You said, sech if
Speaker 1: a blace only led me to seching for hits only
Speaker 1: led me to battle this press. I don't learn my
Speaker 1: lesson because fame never less in the pain. And you
Speaker 1: know that lyric for me is so powerful to what
Speaker 1: you just said right now, And I think you know
Speaker 1: for someone who has had so much success, it's it's
Speaker 1: incredible because I feel, no matter how many times you
Speaker 1: hear that you have to go do it for yourself, right,
Speaker 1: no matter the oldest successful people I speak to in
Speaker 1: the world, I'm like, every one of them feels exactly
Speaker 1: how you do. But every one of them will say
Speaker 1: I had to go there to be able to accept it.
Speaker 1: But it seems like you've really allowed yourself to accept
Speaker 1: it genuinely, and your family has become such a focus.
Speaker 1: I want to hear them more about it. What does
Speaker 1: it feel like to you to be a husband, to
Speaker 1: be a father? Like we started there when we were
Speaker 1: talking about your child. How have you prioritized that relationship
Speaker 1: in your life? Like, what does that mean to you to,
Speaker 1: you know, be in a relationship in a way that
Speaker 1: you'd never seen before growing up? Well, one, I just
Speaker 1: want to say, you quoted one of my favorite albums
Speaker 1: and an album that was actually commercially my least quote
Speaker 1: unquote successful album because of the things I was discussing
Speaker 1: on that album, and yet it's still to this date,
Speaker 1: my most popular album. It's really funny how that works.
Speaker 1: So I just want to say that my relationship with
Speaker 1: my son and my wife just family. It's the greatest
Speaker 1: thing in the world because when I was going through
Speaker 1: things or feeling a certain way, you just look at
Speaker 1: this child and you go, my kid is healthy. So
Speaker 1: so what if somebody on the internet's like, you're not black?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? It's like, my wife is happy.
Speaker 1: So what if somebody on the internet's like you suck
Speaker 1: at rapping? Like it's these things are so minuscule and
Speaker 1: they don't matter. And I'm looking at what actually matters,
Speaker 1: but it is difficult, once again to know. But it
Speaker 1: comes down to value over fear. There is fear that
Speaker 1: me stepping away, I may not be as big because
Speaker 1: I'm focusing on my family and my personal ment in
Speaker 1: physical and mental health. But I value that so much
Speaker 1: more than the fear of what could come. I mean,
Speaker 1: i haven't been on the Internet in two years, and
Speaker 1: I've only ever jumped in if I like grab my
Speaker 1: assistants phone just to like tweet something, and I could
Speaker 1: tweet something and as soon as it goes up, I
Speaker 1: get like auto responses. And a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: I was posting because I did the I narrated the
Speaker 1: entire book This Bright Future, and I posted something and
Speaker 1: somebody immediately was like, you fell off hard, And I'm
Speaker 1: in my head like I just dropped an album last
Speaker 1: year and it's sold two hundred and fifty thousand units
Speaker 1: in a week. Is that fallen off? Like? You know
Speaker 1: what I mean? And then I remember what the internet
Speaker 1: does to you, and it makes you question yourself and
Speaker 1: second guess yourself, and it's also very paid to play.
Speaker 1: The less time I spend on Instagram, if I have
Speaker 1: six plus million followers. Every time I post, I don't
Speaker 1: see the same mount of love or or or likes
Speaker 1: or views that I used to because I'm not constantly
Speaker 1: on it anymore. So now I literally either have to
Speaker 1: pay for ads and space to get all this. It's
Speaker 1: just kind of like a sick thing where if you
Speaker 1: pull away, you can't leave where you kind of left off.
Speaker 1: But once again, I look at my boy and I
Speaker 1: realize that it's the Matrix man, Like none of that matters. Also,
Speaker 1: I'm excited for that new Matrix movie coming out. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: shout out to the Matrix movie. But no, I really appreciate,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate hearing that from you, because I think
Speaker 1: as creatives, whatever space we're in, everyone everyone focuses on
Speaker 1: that feeling of being becoming irrelevant. And I personally believe
Speaker 1: that the time you take out to rediscover yourself allows
Speaker 1: you to reinvent who you are and your new creativity
Speaker 1: and define a genre and change a genre and upgrade,
Speaker 1: and I feel like it's all level right, Like you
Speaker 1: can have someone who does the same thing every day,
Speaker 1: all day, every year, or you see those people that
Speaker 1: have been relevant every decade because they took it to
Speaker 1: another level. Right, They did something different, they did something
Speaker 1: more innovative, they did something surprising, and both of them.
Speaker 1: I respect both of them. I'm not saying one's better
Speaker 1: than the other, but what I am saying, yeah, but
Speaker 1: I want the ladder Man. Yeah right, I want to
Speaker 1: be Bowie and Queen like I don't want to just
Speaker 1: you're right, like I don't want to just be out
Speaker 1: here like working myself to death. I'm sorry. I don't
Speaker 1: mean to cut you off, but I just so I
Speaker 1: agree with what you're saying, but it's just so scary,
Speaker 1: especially in rap, where it's like you're either on all
Speaker 1: the time or you're not. But I'm gonna be honest, Jay,
Speaker 1: like I haven't. I'm not excited. There's no there's not
Speaker 1: an ounce in me that feels like touring right now
Speaker 1: that feels like really going hard and like promoting an
Speaker 1: album like I don't want to do that. And if
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that, then I shouldn't. I
Speaker 1: should wait until the music is there. I am excited
Speaker 1: and I cannot wait to go out and do it.
Speaker 1: I think I've dropped up one minimum sometimes two projects
Speaker 1: a year for the last twelve years of my life. Wow,
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to chill out. Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: think that's the trade off, right, Like when people hear that,
Speaker 1: if you're at the beginning of your journey and you're
Speaker 1: listening to Bobby right now and you're going, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's right, let me just lay back and let me
Speaker 1: take my time, that probably is bad advice because at
Speaker 1: that time in your life, in that phase. And I
Speaker 1: always say that people don't look at what people are
Speaker 1: doing at their stage, look at what they did at
Speaker 1: your phase, Like, look at what they did in when
Speaker 1: they were your age, when they were in your time,
Speaker 1: when they were just beginning, because you know, that's the
Speaker 1: difference that you've now earned a platform you worked hard for,
Speaker 1: that you built that, and that now gives you the
Speaker 1: flexibility to adapt and reinvent and recreate and focus on
Speaker 1: your family, whereas there was a time when all you
Speaker 1: had to do was give it all you had because
Speaker 1: you had to be present. And so I and I
Speaker 1: think the mistake is what you said. It's almost like
Speaker 1: what you call like like broke mindset almost where you
Speaker 1: continue to live like you don't have anything right and
Speaker 1: if you continue to live that way mentally, emotionally, financially, spiritually,
Speaker 1: then you can't sustain that. And I think that's what happens,
Speaker 1: is that when you're on that journey upwards, if you
Speaker 1: don't at one point realize, oh no, now I do
Speaker 1: need to start investing in my health. I do need
Speaker 1: to start investing in my mind. I do need to start.
Speaker 1: It's like athletes. The athletes that have lasted are athletes
Speaker 1: that realized after they want everything that they needed to
Speaker 1: eat right, they needed to sleep right, they needed to
Speaker 1: change their fitness schedule, and that's where they people like
Speaker 1: Tom Brady still playing right, Christiano Ronaldo in Europe, if
Speaker 1: you're a soccer fan, still playing at thirty six at
Speaker 1: the top of the game. So I feel like that's
Speaker 1: what you see these shifts in leaders, if that makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just snapped so hard that's all the sets of
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that statement. Thank
Speaker 1: you man. Well, I appreciate you're gonna We're gonna go
Speaker 1: to You've been very generous with your time. We end
Speaker 1: every up a segment with a final five. So this
Speaker 1: is a fast five, rapid fire around where every question
Speaker 1: has to be answered in one word or one sentence
Speaker 1: maximum easy for a freestyle rapper and a musician, and
Speaker 1: you can answer in lyrics if you like to. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the first question is what is the best advice
Speaker 1: you've ever received or given? Be yourself? What is the
Speaker 1: worst advice you've ever received? Be yourself? I'm seriously so
Speaker 1: that depends on who you are. Now tell me to explain,
Speaker 1: explain the why it can be the worst. I'll give
Speaker 1: you up more words. I think it's the best, and
Speaker 1: it's really incredible because you are not a fraud. You
Speaker 1: are yourself. Undoubtedly you are you, and that is amazing.
Speaker 1: But also when you are yourself, at least in my genre,
Speaker 1: and you put your whole life in a book, and
Speaker 1: you put your whole everything that you are, your of
Speaker 1: your passion and to records, and it's you. It's not
Speaker 1: a persona, it's not you're not an actor playing you know,
Speaker 1: a role that just wasn't received well in this movie,
Speaker 1: and you're Brad Pitt and you go on to make
Speaker 1: a bunch of other like you're you. So when your
Speaker 1: highs are high, they're high, and when they're low, they're low.
Speaker 1: And when you are yourself, you're not always loved, or
Speaker 1: you might be kicked and you know, pulled down to
Speaker 1: the pits of hell. But at the same time, being
Speaker 1: yourself can open up Heaven's gates. So it's it was
Speaker 1: I know it's crazy, but you said fire off rapidly.
Speaker 1: Those two are difficult. Yeah, it's great, all right. Question
Speaker 1: number three. If you could have a dinner party, but
Speaker 1: three other people who denn are alive, who would they be?
Speaker 1: Be yourself? No, I'm just kidding. It would be Um.
Speaker 1: I would have to say Quentin Tarantino. Um, hold on,
Speaker 1: let me think dinner party. Oh m, Freddie Mercury. Oh man, dude,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, happy, I love Freddie Mercury and Queen I
Speaker 1: was not expecting the best, and probably Carl Sagan. I
Speaker 1: want to I want to be. I want to be.
Speaker 1: I want to be a fly on the one of
Speaker 1: that dinner, either either Carl Sagan or Malcolm X. That
Speaker 1: would be the most Y know, Tarantino and Malcolm X.
Speaker 1: That's a wild conversation. Oh yeah, anyway, that would be No,
Speaker 1: that'd be amazing. I was asked that question this week
Speaker 1: by I was doing a corporate event Q and A
Speaker 1: would target and rehab from Target asked me that question,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, that's a really cool question.
Speaker 1: I want to know who else everyone would want to
Speaker 1: sit down with, I said, was yours? I said, Steve Jobs,
Speaker 1: Einstein and Martin Luther King. Those are my three. I
Speaker 1: was like, those those minds in the same room would
Speaker 1: be would be fascinating. All right. Question number four, what
Speaker 1: is the biggest lesson you've learned in the last twelve months?
Speaker 1: Really being happy with yourself and knowing like knowing your
Speaker 1: self worth and just knowing what's important. And that's what
Speaker 1: my time, my family, my health. That's what I've really
Speaker 1: really learned in these last twelve months. I love that,
Speaker 1: all right. In fifth and final question, if you could
Speaker 1: create one law that everyone in the world had to follow,
Speaker 1: what would it be. There's so many things, but honestly,
Speaker 1: the first one that comes is to just abolish guns.
Speaker 1: I just wish guns didn't exist. I wish I didn't
Speaker 1: need them. I wish people didn't need them. It would
Speaker 1: be amazing if they were just all gone. It'd be
Speaker 1: a lot of stabbings, but at least, you know, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be like, yeah, so I would that'd be great.
Speaker 1: If if all these mass shootings and things like that
Speaker 1: could stop in wars. But I mean it's a fairy tale,
Speaker 1: but that's what I would do. Amazing. Thank you man, everyone,
Speaker 1: Bobby hall Ak Logic This Bright Future. That's the book.
Speaker 1: We're gonna put it the link in all the comments,
Speaker 1: the captions. I want you to go out and grab
Speaker 1: a copy, read it, devour it. You're gonna love it.
Speaker 1: It's it's poetry, it's it's vulnerable, and it's a book
Speaker 1: that I truly think is going to change the way
Speaker 1: people think about parenting relationships and how they spend their life,
Speaker 1: in their legacy and what they chase. So Bobby, I
Speaker 1: want to say a big thank you to you for
Speaker 1: not just doing this podcast, but for writing this book.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. I hope we get to bump into
Speaker 1: a few bump into each other a few more airports,
Speaker 1: but also some dinners and whatever else, and give my
Speaker 1: love to Peppe and the rest of the team and
Speaker 1: send me his address. I want to send him something.
Speaker 1: But thank you so much, man. I appreciate you and
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for this time. I just want
Speaker 1: to say thank you for having me, and thank you
Speaker 1: to everybody watching and listening. It means a lot. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I wake up I can't believe that I even get
Speaker 1: to have conversations with people like you. I feel lucky.
Speaker 1: I'm super blessed, and I just want to thank you
Speaker 1: all everyone involved, producers, people behind the camera, everybody. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for making this possible. And I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys. So hopefully we could do this again.
Speaker 1: And yeah, man, I'd love to have dinner sometime. Let's yeah, man,
Speaker 1: it'd be good to get together. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Thanks everyone for listening. I want to make sure that
Speaker 1: if you've heard anything from Bobby that resonated today, make
Speaker 1: sure you do tag us on Instagram and Twitter. Let
Speaker 1: us know what connected, what resonated, any of the wisdom
Speaker 1: bites that he shared with you. We'd both love to see. Well,
Speaker 1: he won't see it, but I'll definitely see it. I'd
Speaker 1: love to see what resonated with you. Thanks everyone for
Speaker 1: listening on purpose. We'll see you again next week.