Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Ben and Khalil. We'll be back with
Speaker 1: our usual episode next week, but in the meantime, we
Speaker 1: wanted to share with you a new show from Pushkin.
Speaker 1: We think you're really going to enjoy it. It's called
Speaker 1: Started from the Bottom. Host Justin Richmond interviews people with
Speaker 1: humble origins who managed to scale the summit of success,
Speaker 1: people who grew up on the outside, people of color,
Speaker 1: people who weren't part of the old boys network. Justin
Speaker 1: was the first in his family to graduate college, and
Speaker 1: he found himself at the beginning of his career looking
Speaker 1: for someone to guide him towards success. So he started
Speaker 1: asking black men and women at the top of their
Speaker 1: game what they did for a living and how they
Speaker 1: beat the odds while also beating away the feeling of
Speaker 1: being an impostor. Justin recently sat down with media firebrand
Speaker 1: Charlemagne the God. Over a twenty five year career, Charlemagne
Speaker 1: has out his way to the top of the radio industry.
Speaker 1: Justin asked the longtime host of The Breakfast Club, what
Speaker 1: it took for him, a young man suffering from anxiety
Speaker 1: constantly in and out of jail, to become an icon
Speaker 1: of modern Media. We hope you enjoy Justin's talk with
Speaker 1: Charlottayne as much as we did. If you do, you
Speaker 1: can hear more from Started from the Bottom wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts Pushkin. For me growing up, it was oh, oh, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the time join the morning show because you know,
Speaker 1: my mom was a school teacher, so we was up
Speaker 1: early early, so I was listening to the time join them.
Speaker 1: And then you know, Z ninety three played such a
Speaker 1: big role in my life because you know, their original
Speaker 1: morning show that I remember was The Breakfast Club, Baby
Speaker 1: Jay and Tessa Tessa Spencer. My guest today is someone
Speaker 1: I've wanted to interview for a long time because of
Speaker 1: what he's meant over the last decade to the culture,
Speaker 1: black culture, hip hop culture, internet culture, youth culture, all
Speaker 1: the cultures, you name it. But if I'm being completely honest,
Speaker 1: the real reason I wanted to sit down and talk
Speaker 1: to Charlemagne the God is to see if some of
Speaker 1: his confidence can run off on me. Most of my career,
Speaker 1: I've been terrified to bring my full self to work
Speaker 1: out of fear of rejection or fear that I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be enough. I don't know, I'm working through it with
Speaker 1: my therapist. But what I admire about Charlemagne is that
Speaker 1: he seems to not care at all about being rejected
Speaker 1: by his peers, his co workers, his audience, anyone. And
Speaker 1: that confidence has led to some of the most impactful
Speaker 1: and sometimes controversial interviews over the last decade. As co
Speaker 1: host of one of the most popular radio shows of
Speaker 1: all time, The Breakfast Club, Charlemagne made time to sit
Speaker 1: down with me in New York City to discuss all
Speaker 1: of this, plus his upbringing, parenting, and the criticisms that
Speaker 1: have come with his success and more. This has started
Speaker 1: from the bottom, harder and success stories from people like us.
Speaker 1: First time I ever saw you was it was you
Speaker 1: on the Wendy Williams radio show going toe to toe
Speaker 1: with Andrew Dice Club. Yeah. Yeah, that was like two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven. Yeah, it was one of the most
Speaker 1: amazing things ever. And even though you kind of got uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I feel like Andrew kind of put
Speaker 1: it on you that day. It was the way they
Speaker 1: edited it too, But it was like, yeah, I had
Speaker 1: some I had some good ones, but they didn't put
Speaker 1: all of them, and they put the one about me
Speaker 1: calling them a fat fans. That's all right, looking back,
Speaker 1: you actually did a lot better than I remember. At
Speaker 1: the time, I was like, dang, like like Andrew still
Speaker 1: got it. I remember been like, oh man, but then
Speaker 1: I kind of put you on my radar. And then
Speaker 1: I remember when the Breakfast Club came, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: makes sense, like this guy clearly clearly had it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to run through your radio trajectory, but first
Speaker 1: I to be good to start with growing up in
Speaker 1: Monk's Corner, South Carolina. UM. It's interesting, right because you know,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about that a lot more lately, only because,
Speaker 1: like you know, when I'm in therapy, I'm doing like
Speaker 1: a lot of um in a child work, you know,
Speaker 1: because I feel like a lot of the issues that
Speaker 1: you deal with as an adult, most of them directly
Speaker 1: connected something that happened in your childhood. And so I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about, like, what was that upbringing, like growing
Speaker 1: up in Monst Corner, South Carolina, and the word I've
Speaker 1: come to realize that it is associated with that that upbringing.
Speaker 1: It's simple, you know, Monst Corner when I was young
Speaker 1: created a sense of ease in my life that I
Speaker 1: feel like really helped me growing up because I didn't
Speaker 1: move too fast and I didn't move too slow. That
Speaker 1: still is a big, big part of me. So when like,
Speaker 1: you know, that anxiety that I've been feeling my whole
Speaker 1: life sets in, I feel like, Okay, I might be
Speaker 1: moving too fast, but then I don't want to move
Speaker 1: too slow. But then it's just a certain ease, like
Speaker 1: like baby bears part just just it's a just right
Speaker 1: level of ease that growing up in Monk's Corner gave
Speaker 1: me that I tend to tap into whenever, like things
Speaker 1: get really hectic. You mentioned some of the anxiety that
Speaker 1: you have. When did that start? Really Yeah, as long
Speaker 1: as I know. I mean, the first panic attack I
Speaker 1: remember having was first grade, my mom dropping me off,
Speaker 1: Like I can feel it right now, my mom dropping
Speaker 1: me off first grade, first day of first grade, and
Speaker 1: like I just cried uncontrollably, like like I just felt
Speaker 1: like abandoned, lost and just scared like that that that same,
Speaker 1: you know, unexplainable feeling of fear and panic and worry.
Speaker 1: And I think my mom even says that I might
Speaker 1: have cried for like the first week. I don't remember
Speaker 1: the first week. I remember that one particular day but
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, that's the first time I remember ever
Speaker 1: having like a panic attack. And I had him throughout
Speaker 1: my life, like I've been going to the emergency room
Speaker 1: thinking that I'm having a heart attack, you know, thinking
Speaker 1: that I'm dying, you know, And then you get there
Speaker 1: and the doctor's like, oh, did you have an energy
Speaker 1: drink today? And You're like, I did drink a Red
Speaker 1: Bull earlier, and it's like, oh, that's probably why your
Speaker 1: heart is doing that. That's the worst feeling, you know.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't until twenty ten that a doctor actually
Speaker 1: said to me, it sounds like you have anxiety. He
Speaker 1: was literally was like, it sounds like you had a
Speaker 1: panic attack the things that you're describing. And he was like,
Speaker 1: has this happened to you before? And I'm like all
Speaker 1: the time, And you know, he asked me what I
Speaker 1: stretched out about anything, and I'm like, hell yeah, because
Speaker 1: at the time, i had just been fired for the
Speaker 1: fourth time from radio, and I'm back living at home
Speaker 1: with my mom at like thirty one, thirty two years old.
Speaker 1: My daughter's like one or two. My wife is back
Speaker 1: living at home with her parents, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: in mom's corner. So It's like I was super stressed
Speaker 1: out collecting unemployment checks every week. So in my mind,
Speaker 1: all I had to do was get back in position
Speaker 1: and get me another je and all of that would
Speaker 1: go away. And that wasn't the case. You know. I
Speaker 1: ended up getting the breakfast club gig and having the
Speaker 1: most success I've ever had in my life. And it
Speaker 1: felt like all of those issues I had historically dealt
Speaker 1: with were magnified times a hundred now. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: And so that's what I decided to, like finally go
Speaker 1: get some help and like, go to therapy. What do
Speaker 1: you think do you see that? Do you see that
Speaker 1: same anxiety in your kids? Yeah? I haven't seen it
Speaker 1: show up as bad as mine was when I was
Speaker 1: at age. And I think the beauty of life now
Speaker 1: is not only do I have the language, I have
Speaker 1: the experience. So it's just like that, and I wish that,
Speaker 1: you know, somebody had put me in therapy when I
Speaker 1: was thirteen fourteen now me, I definitely needed it because
Speaker 1: I was getting sexually abused at eight years old. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that at the time. I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: was molestaia ntil I was twenty something years old. You know,
Speaker 1: at the time, I just thought I was eight year
Speaker 1: old kids the neighborhood, right, we would we would all
Speaker 1: a bunch of young men, We all be around having
Speaker 1: conversations about older women that we were messing with, you know,
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood, Like we all thought we were lying,
Speaker 1: but clearly we all would like telling the truth in
Speaker 1: different ways. Right, So, Um, when I was fourteen, I
Speaker 1: definitely needed to unpack some of that. Do you think
Speaker 1: you would have had it at that age? Do you
Speaker 1: think the trajectory would have been the same, Like you
Speaker 1: think you would have been ended up in the streets?
Speaker 1: Probably not, And the reason probably not, just because you know,
Speaker 1: even with the screetch, right, it's like a lot of
Speaker 1: that is, Um, you trauma bond with people, yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's all a bunch of individuals that are missing something,
Speaker 1: and like we all want camaraderie, we all want family,
Speaker 1: we all want a crew. And it's just sometimes men,
Speaker 1: we trauma bond over bullshit, you know, So we trauma
Speaker 1: bond sometimes over crime, you know, we trauma bond over drugs,
Speaker 1: We trauma bond over alcohol, you know. But most of
Speaker 1: the time it's like, yoh, we're all trauma bonding to
Speaker 1: do the wrong thing, like you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: like let's go rob this you know, individual, or go
Speaker 1: rob this store or breaking into this house, and let's go,
Speaker 1: you know, figure out a way to get some a
Speaker 1: pack to hustle. But it's like what we're all lacking
Speaker 1: is like togetherness. Like everybody, we're all tribal, and we
Speaker 1: all long for family, right And I think that's what
Speaker 1: that's what a lot of guys do when they when
Speaker 1: they click up in that way. So I think for me,
Speaker 1: I definitely was longing for like some type of family structure,
Speaker 1: even though I grew up in a house with the
Speaker 1: oldest sister, two younger brothers, and a younger sister. I
Speaker 1: was the second oldest. My oldest sisters like ten twelve
Speaker 1: years older than me, and my younger siblings are like
Speaker 1: ten twelve years younger than me, So I was kind
Speaker 1: of I didn't have on an island, yeah exactly. So
Speaker 1: I ended up kicking it with brothers and who are
Speaker 1: around my age, and we all ended up doing a
Speaker 1: bunch of dirt. And I don't even like to call
Speaker 1: it peer pressure because I don't believe there's anything I
Speaker 1: don't believe peer pressure exists. I believe we all just
Speaker 1: want to be accepted, you know what I'm saying. And
Speaker 1: I think that when somebody pushes you to do something,
Speaker 1: you do it because you don't want to let them down.
Speaker 1: So it's a lot of people pleasing that goals and age,
Speaker 1: especially at that age man, And it stays with you though,
Speaker 1: That people pleasing stays with you, Like, that's something that
Speaker 1: I had to unpacking therapy, like stop being a people pleaser, like,
Speaker 1: you know, because sometimes you'll be a people pleaser to
Speaker 1: your own detriment. Yeah, you know, I can't believe anyone's
Speaker 1: ever accused you being the people pleaser. Man, No, I
Speaker 1: think that a lot of that. Man. That's because you
Speaker 1: seem you have strong opinions, not scared of voice even
Speaker 1: if it alienates you. Yeah. Well, no, you're right, I've
Speaker 1: always been that way. But no, there's there's been plenty
Speaker 1: of times in my life where I just wanted to
Speaker 1: be down. Literally, I just wanted to be down. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be embraced. And
Speaker 1: you know, I can think about you know that time,
Speaker 1: at that moment, like I just wanted to be embraced
Speaker 1: by you know, my peers, you know. So that's why
Speaker 1: I started doing what a lot of my piers was doing,
Speaker 1: which was a lot of bullshit, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: because I wanted to be accepted some of that early stuff.
Speaker 1: A couple of couple of drug cases. Um, the last
Speaker 1: one was you were around the shooting the first one.
Speaker 1: The first one. The first one, I was in the
Speaker 1: backseat of a car and my homeboy was in the
Speaker 1: front seat. Somebody was driving, and we was in this
Speaker 1: neighborhood like like like a two neighborhoods over from where
Speaker 1: we are in Monst Corner, two towns over rather from
Speaker 1: where we are in Monst Corner, and we were just
Speaker 1: having you know, some conversations with some young ladies. Then
Speaker 1: some guys in the neighborhood didn't like that we would there,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm on my fake tough guy ship,
Speaker 1: my fake hardcore shit, so I'm acting like dough boy,
Speaker 1: and boys in the hood like got my hand under
Speaker 1: my shirt was up up yo, sup, because like the
Speaker 1: fuck that means, like what's up a problem? You know
Speaker 1: what I mean? And they, you know, drove off. Then
Speaker 1: we went to like I think it was Burger King McDonald's.
Speaker 1: I remember, I think it was Burger King, So he
Speaker 1: went to Burger King. As we were leaving, I see
Speaker 1: the truck that those guys were in pulling up behind us,
Speaker 1: and I say, I'd say tell him I dude, like, oh,
Speaker 1: as some guys from the neighborhood. And so they pulled
Speaker 1: up on the side of us. So I'm in the
Speaker 1: back seat of the car, dudes talking shit out the window.
Speaker 1: One of my guys pulled out and shot from the
Speaker 1: passenging seat, and you know, luckily nobody was in the
Speaker 1: fourth seat, so it was a driver passenger, and then
Speaker 1: somebody was sitting behind the driver with the bullet hit
Speaker 1: the headrest in the fourth seat behind the passenger seat,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Yeah, all praises do to
Speaker 1: God because you know, that could have been a situation
Speaker 1: where somebody got killed. Now we're all in jail for
Speaker 1: twenty thirty years, you know what I mean. So so
Speaker 1: even now when I think about stuff like that, I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, because I'm a big back to the future guy.
Speaker 1: You know, you watch those those time heist movies. People
Speaker 1: go back and little things change here and there and
Speaker 1: change the whole trajectory of everything. And so yeah, that
Speaker 1: was the first time I ever got arrested. Did it
Speaker 1: change the relationship with your parents? It didn't change my
Speaker 1: relationship with my parents. That actually made me realize my
Speaker 1: dad was right, because my dad was always telling me,
Speaker 1: if I don't change my lifestyle, I'm gonna end up
Speaker 1: in jail, dead or broke, sitting under the tree, you know.
Speaker 1: So when I came home, I really was just looking
Speaker 1: for positive things to do. Like, you know, I started
Speaker 1: working at a warehouse called Industrial Acoustics Company, and you know,
Speaker 1: from that point on, I wanted to keep a job.
Speaker 1: But I worked there for like two to three weeks.
Speaker 1: Got fired from there, you know, to supervisor, and I
Speaker 1: never forget her name. Her name was Gail cop Supervisor
Speaker 1: was like, you don't fit in here. You're not what
Speaker 1: we're looking for, and now mind you up. My job
Speaker 1: was literally like I was clearing out an area, like
Speaker 1: a wooded area. So I'm like, oh god, damn, I'm
Speaker 1: not fit to clean out a wooded area, you know,
Speaker 1: But she was like, you don't fit in here. So
Speaker 1: then I started working out a flower garden just because
Speaker 1: I was looking to do you know something positive and
Speaker 1: the flower garden literally and now that I think back
Speaker 1: on it, it was literally a bunch of like migrants
Speaker 1: working there, like you know what I mean. It was
Speaker 1: clearly a bunch of people who you know, weren't from
Speaker 1: this country, who were just looking for work. Now now
Speaker 1: looking back on it, that's what it was. It was
Speaker 1: literally just a bunch of like Mexicans and you know,
Speaker 1: who knows what else, like just working there, right, And
Speaker 1: so I was there for like two weeks never his
Speaker 1: name was Dominique, the same thing, and him got into
Speaker 1: a shouting match because I was just like it, shit
Speaker 1: feels like it was a plantation. It literally was a
Speaker 1: flower garden. It was actually called the Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: called it something plantation, flower garden. But it literally was
Speaker 1: just we were out there in the hot sun picking
Speaker 1: flowers and you know other types of shit. So I
Speaker 1: quit that and then that's when I started like flirting
Speaker 1: with the street, you know what I mean. That's when
Speaker 1: it was like, man, I forgot some ways to make
Speaker 1: money because you know, I still got to pay my
Speaker 1: probation officer and shit like that. And it was just
Speaker 1: a stupid mentality, right, because when you're on probation. You
Speaker 1: got to keep a job. That's number one, UM, and
Speaker 1: you gotta pay your probation fees. So I started just
Speaker 1: saying that I was working with my dad and I
Speaker 1: was doing tempt services, but also I got a fifty
Speaker 1: dollars slab. Fifty dollars slabs when you get fifty dollars
Speaker 1: worth of rock, and you know, I think you posted
Speaker 1: be like I think it supposed to be one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars off each Graham. So I think a slab was
Speaker 1: one gram that you paid fifty dollars for and you
Speaker 1: cut it up and you posted it cuts up into
Speaker 1: like one hundred dollars worth a rock. So that was
Speaker 1: the first time I liked dabbled in like, yeah, hustling.
Speaker 1: So yeah, did did I let my Did I feel like, well,
Speaker 1: how did my relationship my parents change? Yeah? I thought
Speaker 1: they were right, but I still was young and had
Speaker 1: to figure things out for myself, which led me, which
Speaker 1: led me back, which led me into actually hustling. You know.
Speaker 1: After the break, Charlotte Magne's gonna take us on a
Speaker 1: ride through his earliest experiences with radio and how that
Speaker 1: helped build his foundation in the business. When did radio
Speaker 1: enter your life, like not only not as a career,
Speaker 1: as a listener, like what's your earliest experiences with radio?
Speaker 1: Like for forever. And the reason I say forever because
Speaker 1: like when I said, small town monks going to South Carolina.
Speaker 1: So the radio station was Z ninety three Jams. We
Speaker 1: were always around the radio. If it wasn't ZE ninety
Speaker 1: three Jams, it was another station called wpa L one
Speaker 1: hundred point nine, and one hundred point nine was like
Speaker 1: more underground with it, so they were playing like underground stuff,
Speaker 1: not the mainscreen stuff. And like you know, there was
Speaker 1: always like boom boxes around, like my cousin, you know,
Speaker 1: my cousin Ty Sleuth. To my cousin Ty, he was
Speaker 1: the first person to let me hear like a real
Speaker 1: hip hop record. Like prior to that, my sister had
Speaker 1: her radio in her room. So my sister was listening
Speaker 1: to like Kiddn't Play and Salt and Pepper, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, stuff like that Hammer all the pop stuff,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But my cousin let me
Speaker 1: hear Eric B and Rock Kemp paid in full. Wow,
Speaker 1: and that changed everything. Wow. That was like I don't
Speaker 1: know what this thing is called hip hop, but I
Speaker 1: love it. It felt like rock Kim was saying stuff,
Speaker 1: like he was telling stories like you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just that is what introduced me to radio and always
Speaker 1: wanting to be around a radio. It felt like we
Speaker 1: might even have been around radio more than TV. You know,
Speaker 1: back in the day TV. It was certain shows we
Speaker 1: were watching, but we weren't just turning the TV on
Speaker 1: and keeping it on all day. If it wasn't like
Speaker 1: Nintendo or you know the radio man, we were outside, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you know what I mean, running around, playing around.
Speaker 1: So it's like for me, radio has always been in
Speaker 1: my life as a listener, like for the personalities are
Speaker 1: because like I know, like in LA and later I
Speaker 1: came to us, it was like syndicated, but you know,
Speaker 1: in LA always felt like it was like Big Boy
Speaker 1: was like was huge, you know, and I felt like
Speaker 1: our guy. For me growing up, it was oh, oh, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the time Join him morning show because you know,
Speaker 1: my mom was a school teacher, so we was up
Speaker 1: early early, so I was listening to the time Join Them.
Speaker 1: And then you know, Ze ninety three played such a
Speaker 1: big role in my life because you know, their original
Speaker 1: morning show that I remember was the Breakfast Club Baby
Speaker 1: Jay and Tessa, Tessa Spencer, and then you know, in
Speaker 1: the afternoons it was like, um a man, y'all need
Speaker 1: a rude boy. But then it was like you know
Speaker 1: the night shows, the Top nine at nine, you know
Speaker 1: you want to call in and request the song and
Speaker 1: hear your voice on the radio, shout out your school whatever, whatever.
Speaker 1: But yeah, those were the people like growing up, like
Speaker 1: people like Sean Dobe, like, those are the personalities that
Speaker 1: I would hear, Reggie c You'd hear these people and
Speaker 1: they were just like regular voices that you would hear
Speaker 1: all the time. Ken Moore like I don't even know
Speaker 1: if Kim was ki on Z. I don't know if
Speaker 1: ki was one. I just did the voices I remember. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, growing up like those voices, those local radio voices.
Speaker 1: Are you growing up the famous? Is anyone in the country? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Do you remember your first time on the radio? I
Speaker 1: don't remember the very first time, but it definitely one
Speaker 1: of the first times was my man Willie Will. There
Speaker 1: was a guy named Willie will He was the night
Speaker 1: jock there at the ninety three jams in Charleston, South Carolina.
Speaker 1: Me and him used to wrap together. I met him
Speaker 1: at you know, a couple of recording studios that were
Speaker 1: in Charleston when I got my internship up there. I
Speaker 1: would always just be up there and I'd be sitting
Speaker 1: in on his show, and you know, he would definitely,
Speaker 1: you know, call me to the microphone, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'd be on the mike talking. So definitely my first
Speaker 1: time on air, I'm sure was with Willie will And
Speaker 1: in some way, shape or form, because I remember one
Speaker 1: of the remember the program director telling him like, you know,
Speaker 1: you need to get a cardboard cut out of Charlemagne
Speaker 1: and put it in the studio because your energy goes up,
Speaker 1: you know when he's in here, you know, with you.
Speaker 1: I remember I remember him saying that to him, and yeah,
Speaker 1: which which probably ultimately led to me being on air
Speaker 1: because my man Ron White, you know, suth Ron White.
Speaker 1: Me and Ron still talked to this day. Round was
Speaker 1: like he just asked me one day, like, Yo, do
Speaker 1: you want to be on the radio? And I'm like, sure,
Speaker 1: why not? And so they started putting me on Sundays
Speaker 1: eleven am to three pm. When you say sure, like,
Speaker 1: was there a part of you that had was that
Speaker 1: just you playing the cool or were you really not
Speaker 1: even sure you wanted to be on the radio like that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I never had thought about it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I just was really happy to be working at Z
Speaker 1: ninety three Jams because it was like the most corporate
Speaker 1: thing I had ever done. Yeah, you know it was.
Speaker 1: It was the place. It was a place where, like
Speaker 1: in South Carolina, people saw you at ninety three, They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: he must be he must be doing something, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like he must be doing something with
Speaker 1: his with his life, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: for me being like a guy who was in and
Speaker 1: out of jail at the time and was getting in
Speaker 1: a lot of trouble and graduated from high school in
Speaker 1: night school, had gotten kicked out of two high schools.
Speaker 1: Like for me, that was a big deal for me
Speaker 1: to be like pulling up in most corner driving this
Speaker 1: station vehicle, like the big white band with the Z
Speaker 1: ninety three Jams on the logo, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: pulling it down my year old you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: hoping that some of the girls that lived on my
Speaker 1: road saw me, you know what I mean, Like that
Speaker 1: was a big deal for me back then. So yeah,
Speaker 1: just to be there felt like you did. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just was just happy to be there. Like, so when
Speaker 1: he asked me to be on air, like hell yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: whatever's gonna keep me here yea. And of course when
Speaker 1: you think radio, you think on air personalities. You're not
Speaker 1: thinking promotions or programming or anything like that. So hell yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd love to be on air. Now I can really
Speaker 1: say I work here and now I'm a personality. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I really loved it and appreciate it. How was that
Speaker 1: first show that you had? I was scaring all the
Speaker 1: church folks because it was what they had me do.
Speaker 1: They had me to do something called voice track, And
Speaker 1: when your voice track is when you record your voice,
Speaker 1: and you got to record your voice, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's like it's a time slot from like eleven to three,
Speaker 1: so you're talking like three or four times an hour
Speaker 1: and introducing songs, time temperature, stuff like that. So I
Speaker 1: didn't know how to do radio, you know, I really didn't.
Speaker 1: So I was just going in there talking like yeah
Speaker 1: I was. I was actually screaming. When I go back
Speaker 1: and listening to my old voice tapes, I was screaming.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because they all were telling me I
Speaker 1: was screaming, Like I'm not screaming. I was just I
Speaker 1: was just old you, I don't understand how we talk about.
Speaker 1: I was really yelling like ninety three jams R and
Speaker 1: being hip hop. My go by the name is Charlemagne Gods.
Speaker 1: I was yelling, like screaming at people and so like,
Speaker 1: you know, when I finally started listening to the people
Speaker 1: who actually do this for a living, I started to
Speaker 1: acquire a more conversational tone. You know, when in the beginning,
Speaker 1: I was just yelling, like yelling, like literally yelling at
Speaker 1: people on the radio, and That's what I was doing.
Speaker 1: And I did that. I think I might have voice
Speaker 1: tracked a few Sundays, and then Ron was like, all right,
Speaker 1: enough of that. You're gonna have your voice track on
Speaker 1: Saturday nights now seven to ten, and then you're gonna
Speaker 1: go live from ten to midnight. And I was everything
Speaker 1: because it's Saturday nights so I can have this high energy.
Speaker 1: But then when we go live or I could take
Speaker 1: phone calls, now it was like I'm taking phone calls
Speaker 1: and I'm working with people when they're calling then making
Speaker 1: jokes blah blah. So it's just like for me, the
Speaker 1: best thing that ever happened to me was I didn't
Speaker 1: know how to do radio. Nobody taught me how to
Speaker 1: do radio. I wasn't a person who came from, you know,
Speaker 1: doing college radio or nowadays you can have a podcast
Speaker 1: or a YouTube page. I was just fresh off the
Speaker 1: dirt road in Monks Corner, South Carolina, getting on the
Speaker 1: air in Charleston, South Carolina, on the biggest radio station
Speaker 1: at the time, ninety three, and that rawdness showed. I
Speaker 1: sounded different than everybody else because I didn't have that announcer,
Speaker 1: you know, background. So it worked for me. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: didn't have the announcer broadcast, yeah or whatever. Was just
Speaker 1: coming at it with your own angles. What was your
Speaker 1: journey after that? After z SO, I worked as an
Speaker 1: intern in ninety eight, started there in ninety nine from
Speaker 1: the promotions department to um being on there, and then
Speaker 1: a news station came into market, Hot ninety eight nine,
Speaker 1: much smaller station ran by a guy named my Man.
Speaker 1: George Cook was the program director. I was doing part
Speaker 1: time at z SO. I had some conversations with Hot
Speaker 1: ninety eight nine. They wanted me to come over there
Speaker 1: and do nights They wanted me to do Monday through Saturday,
Speaker 1: seven to midnight full time, and I was I think
Speaker 1: the pay was like nineteen grand a year, and at
Speaker 1: the time, that was a lot of money, and it
Speaker 1: was a salary. So just to be able to say,
Speaker 1: first time on salary that I didn't go to college,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, I graduated from night school,
Speaker 1: and like, so I didn't just oh I got a salary, now,
Speaker 1: like how much I'm making an hour? Like yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: just happy to be making nineteen grand a year Like
Speaker 1: that sounded like some shit, And so yeah, I started
Speaker 1: working there every night and it wasn't even about to check.
Speaker 1: It was about the opportunity to be on every night.
Speaker 1: And my man, George cook Man, who's still a great
Speaker 1: mentor to me to this day. He actually, George is
Speaker 1: not only the first person to give me a full
Speaker 1: time position on radio, he told me some information that
Speaker 1: just changed my whole life. And the information was, I
Speaker 1: want you to have a morning show at night. I
Speaker 1: want you to treat this night show that you have
Speaker 1: like a morning show at night. Parody songs and a
Speaker 1: lot of sketches and a lot of topics and a
Speaker 1: lot of interaction with listeners via the phone, and you know,
Speaker 1: playing new music, and all of that benefited me so
Speaker 1: well in the future because that's what I ultimately treated
Speaker 1: every single show like. I treated every single show like
Speaker 1: it was a morning show. So no matter where I
Speaker 1: went from High ninety eighty nine to the Big DM
Speaker 1: in Columbia, then it was Hot one of three nine
Speaker 1: in Columbia, then it was Wendy Williams Show, then it
Speaker 1: was my own morning show in Philly. By the time
Speaker 1: I got to my own morning show in Philly, I
Speaker 1: had approached every single one of those situations like it
Speaker 1: was a morning show. So by the time I was
Speaker 1: ready to do my own morning show, I was overprepared. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, so it was he planned to see early
Speaker 1: on on that basically stuck with me throughout my whole
Speaker 1: career and ultimately led to me being the morning guy
Speaker 1: I am. Now let me come back. You'll get a
Speaker 1: chance to hear what Charlemagne learned from the legendary radio
Speaker 1: host Wendy Williams and lessons he had to teach himself
Speaker 1: to achieve success. Tell me about meeting Wendy Williams, man Man,
Speaker 1: I met Wendy because I was doing radio in Columbia,
Speaker 1: South Carolina. Columbia had a really dope station called Hot
Speaker 1: one three nine. So Hot one with three nine started
Speaker 1: syndicating Wendy Williams in the afternoons, and so Wendy and
Speaker 1: her husband would come down for station visits, like they
Speaker 1: would come down and like see the market and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and so I just would break bread, you know.
Speaker 1: And I remember the first time I even tried to
Speaker 1: break bread with Wendy. Wendy was in the studio trying
Speaker 1: to do her show, which I totally under stand, now,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But I came in there
Speaker 1: with mixtapes and parody songs, all of this stuff I
Speaker 1: wanted her to hear. And while she was doing her show, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, but she was in between breaks, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. But now, when I under now understanding
Speaker 1: the hecticness of a syndicated show, it wasn't like breaks
Speaker 1: like us. But we break for twenty minutes, thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: and got time the bullshit she's on, like on on
Speaker 1: on on, like it might have only been like three
Speaker 1: minutes in between songs. Wendy goes, look, yo, yo, take
Speaker 1: that mixtape shit out. Of here. I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: my fucking show. Take that mixtape shit to my husband.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel offended by that. Yeah, I was just like,
Speaker 1: where's your husband? She's like, I think if he's in
Speaker 1: that room somewhere, like in the conference room across the hall. Cool.
Speaker 1: So I went across the room, gave him the mixtape,
Speaker 1: started pitching ship to him, you know, pitching shit to him.
Speaker 1: And then we started talking and we you know, kept
Speaker 1: in contact from there, you know, and I used to
Speaker 1: like give them the heads up on things that were
Speaker 1: going on at the station. So he invited me to
Speaker 1: come up to New York for a party. He was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: wan't you come up to New York. We're having a party,
Speaker 1: blah blah. And I'm like, all right. I went to
Speaker 1: the party just to kick it. And in the party,
Speaker 1: Wendy was like, oh shit, Charlemagne, Yo, won't you come
Speaker 1: to my show? How long are you in town? Like, oh,
Speaker 1: just for a couple of days. Come to my show tomorrow, Like,
Speaker 1: come to your show tomorrow. Can't tell me shit like that.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm going to be like, yo, all right, the
Speaker 1: who do I call? What do I do? And so
Speaker 1: I'm hitting cav like yo keV, Wendy said, come to
Speaker 1: her show. He was like, all right, I bet so.
Speaker 1: He just told me that. He told me to go
Speaker 1: up there, went up there, sat in the pink room
Speaker 1: to paint the office for a while. Then she invited
Speaker 1: me on the show and I was there for like
Speaker 1: twenty five minutes, and literally that evening they were offering
Speaker 1: me the position as her co host sidekick. And they
Speaker 1: was like, look, we can't pay you, but we can
Speaker 1: give you a place to stay. And I'm just like,
Speaker 1: all right, just let me go back down South and like,
Speaker 1: you know, figure some things out, like just let my
Speaker 1: girl know what I'm about to do and everything else.
Speaker 1: And That's what I did. You knew the opportunity, yo, man.
Speaker 1: You gotta recognize the opportunity even when it's not a
Speaker 1: paycheck attached to it. So my mindset was never I never,
Speaker 1: I never once was like how much I'm gonna get paid.
Speaker 1: It was like, we cannot pay you, but we can
Speaker 1: give you a place to stay. I'm out the opportunity
Speaker 1: to be on Wendy Williams Show Monday through Friday in
Speaker 1: the afternoon nationally syndicated show What are some lessons you
Speaker 1: learned on the Wonder William Show. That Wendy's a legend,
Speaker 1: no matter how you feel about her, No matter how
Speaker 1: you feel about her, bona farre legend, one of the
Speaker 1: most talented people, one of the most talented media personalities
Speaker 1: of all time. You know, one of the people few
Speaker 1: people who can like literally sit down in front of
Speaker 1: a TV camera and just go. Yeah, person who could
Speaker 1: just sit down in front of a microphone and just go.
Speaker 1: And you realize the reason she's able to do that
Speaker 1: is number one, she had does have just the natural
Speaker 1: gift to gab. But one of the lessons I learned
Speaker 1: that everything is show prep. Like a lot of times,
Speaker 1: you know, back the day, we would think that show
Speaker 1: prep is like just picking up the latest magazine, picking
Speaker 1: up the latest tabloid and just downloading what's in there.
Speaker 1: Wendy taught me that your whole life is show prep.
Speaker 1: Every single experience that you go through can be bought
Speaker 1: to the radio, you know, every single experience that you
Speaker 1: go through can be bought, you know, the television. I
Speaker 1: would watch her, I'd be out with her during the day,
Speaker 1: watch these things happen to her, and then watch her
Speaker 1: get on the radio and talk about these things like, oh,
Speaker 1: I was there, and of course he's making me part
Speaker 1: of the story because and Charlemagne said this. Charlemagne was
Speaker 1: right there, and Charlomagne acted like he didn't see it,
Speaker 1: and it isn't like and I'm like, god, damn, she's incredible,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like, he's just an incredible storyteller.
Speaker 1: So you know, she taught me how to tell stories
Speaker 1: via radio, even though I was already doing it, but
Speaker 1: I was doing it more so through sketches, but now
Speaker 1: just to make your life a story, to make the
Speaker 1: things that happened to you throughout the day a story.
Speaker 1: That was like one of the biggest things, like everything
Speaker 1: is show prep. And the other thing was like you're
Speaker 1: either going to be of the people or of the industry,
Speaker 1: because when you're of the people, you're always going to
Speaker 1: speak like for the people and you're gonna speak how
Speaker 1: the people speak. When you're of the industry, like you're
Speaker 1: gonna try to protect relationships and you're gonna try to
Speaker 1: you know, protect people, you know, so you're not gonna
Speaker 1: have those opinions that you that you probably once had.
Speaker 1: That was good advice at the time. I think that
Speaker 1: there's an adjustment to be made in that rhetoric because
Speaker 1: it's gonna come a time where like, you're going to
Speaker 1: be industry yeah you get too big, yeah yeah, and
Speaker 1: everybody around you is gonna be industry too. I've been
Speaker 1: in the game for twenty five years. So not only
Speaker 1: have I grown as a personality and a businessman, a
Speaker 1: media just everything right, people around me have to. Now.
Speaker 1: I got people who run record label, I got people
Speaker 1: who are in rs. I got people who work at
Speaker 1: these social media platforms, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: got friends that are artists and big celebrities. We all
Speaker 1: I've been doing it for twenty five years. We all
Speaker 1: came up together. And not only just the people I
Speaker 1: came up with those next generations of people that now
Speaker 1: I'm in position, But oh I see this person coming.
Speaker 1: Let me embrace this in the VILDI and brace that
Speaker 1: in the Viddle school. We're all industry, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. So your authentic self has to change. It's
Speaker 1: like reasonable doubt was authentic for jay Z or four
Speaker 1: authentic for jay Z today. What you just said hit
Speaker 1: it on the head because people don't pay attention to
Speaker 1: that like you saw me when I was one version
Speaker 1: of myself. If I had stayed that version and never
Speaker 1: grown into anything else, it's no way I'm being authentic, Yeah, Muhammad,
Speaker 1: Alis said. The person who's doing the same thing at
Speaker 1: fifty that he was at twenty wasted thirty years of
Speaker 1: his fucking Ain't I believe that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's just like you're I'm never going to be that
Speaker 1: version in But the only thing I could do is
Speaker 1: be the best version of my authentic self, whatever that
Speaker 1: may be, whatever I grow into, you know, And like
Speaker 1: that's why me at forty four, you god damn right,
Speaker 1: I'm not the same way I was at thirty one.
Speaker 1: I better not be. Yeah, I mean, I'm my true
Speaker 1: authentic self right now. And you know, you realize like
Speaker 1: the power of the platform, and what I mean by
Speaker 1: that is, like, man, this is certain things that we
Speaker 1: got to protect people from because we have these platforms,
Speaker 1: and sometimes the wrong information is viewed over the platform,
Speaker 1: you know, and people get hurt because of that, you know.
Speaker 1: And I'm not in the business of hurting nobody. I
Speaker 1: don't want to hurt nobody, and I don't want the
Speaker 1: person putting out the information to be hurt. Yeah, you know. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's interesting because and I don't know if this
Speaker 1: was necessarily this person being hurt by you. But after
Speaker 1: Wendy Williams, you get your own show in Philly and
Speaker 1: you get fired because you bring Beanie Seagull on a
Speaker 1: who's a Philly rapper. Ye tell me if I'm not
Speaker 1: getting the story right. But you bring on Beanie Segul,
Speaker 1: who's a Philly rapper at one point was signed to
Speaker 1: Rockefeller Records, came up under Jay jay Z and you
Speaker 1: do an interview with beans on the show and he
Speaker 1: said something about Jayla makes Jay mad, and you get fired. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the story. The story is that I got fired
Speaker 1: because Beanie Segul got on the air and aired out
Speaker 1: Jay Z. And I'm the one who recorded it and
Speaker 1: I put it on air. That's the story. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's true or not. Jay never has confirmed
Speaker 1: Jay Jay never confirmed or denied on air. Behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: he has said to me like that, did that really
Speaker 1: gets you fired? Like, you know what I mean? And
Speaker 1: that's the story, right, I don't. I doubt that's highly
Speaker 1: the case, you know what I mean? What I think
Speaker 1: back then I think, um, I had a new program
Speaker 1: director was hired, and I think that new program director
Speaker 1: just wanted to bring in his people, and that new
Speaker 1: program director like he don't know, he had his chest
Speaker 1: out a little bit. I remember the first time I
Speaker 1: met him, he was like, oh me, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to get along. So he came in there
Speaker 1: on something like snapping the whip ship, let me get
Speaker 1: this guy in line type thing, and I think that, um,
Speaker 1: it was a combination of just him being new and
Speaker 1: wanting to bring in his own people, but also a
Speaker 1: combination of people thinking they're doing the right thing for
Speaker 1: jay Z. But jay Z's not even thinking about this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's you know what I mean. It's one of those
Speaker 1: things like you know, I know Charlottagne did it, but
Speaker 1: we got rid of charlotage and you let Jay know
Speaker 1: I did it whatever whatever you know. So I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know. I do feel like maybe a higher
Speaker 1: up might have might have just pulled the trigger on
Speaker 1: that firing just to get in Jay's good graces, But
Speaker 1: I don't think that was a hey i'm jay Z,
Speaker 1: I'm offended, body, just get this guy off the air thing. No,
Speaker 1: I don't believe that at all. Okay, okay, but that
Speaker 1: does get you fired. And that was your own show.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's like your own show with Philly. That's
Speaker 1: like and if your first time happened like your own show,
Speaker 1: that's like, yeah, um, that's that big that I was killing.
Speaker 1: I was number I think two in the market. I
Speaker 1: was number two in the market at the time, and
Speaker 1: that was in a PPM world, So I was I
Speaker 1: was doing great and it was literally just me and
Speaker 1: my homegirl, Sa. I should su to Sasha Katie. That's
Speaker 1: the homie, you know what I mean. She we used
Speaker 1: to work together when I used to work at Windy
Speaker 1: at WBLS, and so when I got my own show
Speaker 1: in Philly, just asked, yo, you want to be my
Speaker 1: producer and she was like hell yeah. So we literally
Speaker 1: would drive from New Jersey every morning back and forth
Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania like like an hour and a half away.
Speaker 1: We would drive back and forth every day. Three I
Speaker 1: have to get up at three in the morning, pick
Speaker 1: her up by like four three thirty four o'clock to
Speaker 1: be there on time. And we did that every single day, wow,
Speaker 1: for like six seven months. The Funny Parties I got
Speaker 1: fired to day I was supposed to move into the
Speaker 1: townhouse because I was still living in Jersey, so me
Speaker 1: and my wife had got a townhouse. And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be great. Now, I gotta wake up
Speaker 1: sore early, like I won't have to drive, Like I'm
Speaker 1: in my baskets. I'm processing all this in my mind.
Speaker 1: We was living in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, on the
Speaker 1: outskirts of Philadelphia. Go and roll my daughter in school here,
Speaker 1: all of that type of ship. And the day I
Speaker 1: got fired, I literally had all my stuff in the
Speaker 1: fucking I had a two thousand two escalated with like
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty thousand miles on it, and I
Speaker 1: had all that in the in the car ready to
Speaker 1: move into the town house. And I got fired on
Speaker 1: that day, literally that day, and went back to South Carolina,
Speaker 1: back in Mosts Corner for a year. And what was
Speaker 1: going through your head at that point? Failure? I failed.
Speaker 1: I got to go back to the Monsts Corner. After
Speaker 1: being you know, on Wendy Show, after having my own
Speaker 1: show in Philly, after having these viral moments, after being
Speaker 1: on VH one TV with Wendy. Now, I got to
Speaker 1: go back to the Mons corner and collect unemployment for real,
Speaker 1: because I don't know when I'm gonna get another gig,
Speaker 1: and now I got a daughter. So I literally was
Speaker 1: in South Carolina from November two thousand and nine to
Speaker 1: November two thou and ten, so I was able to
Speaker 1: collect the year of employment. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I'm living at home with my mom, depressed this ship,
Speaker 1: you know, anxiety through the roof, just trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what's gonna happen. But you know, I used that
Speaker 1: opportunity to m There was a new station launching in Charleston,
Speaker 1: South Carolina. It was called The Box. I think it
Speaker 1: was like ninety two five The Box or something like that.
Speaker 1: So I was there with them, helping them launch the station,
Speaker 1: helping them write promos and creating imaging for the station.
Speaker 1: I did the voiceovers for the station. Like in my mind,
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I'm gonna end up getting a
Speaker 1: shift on ninety two five. I'm gonna make my twenty
Speaker 1: grand a year here in South Carolina, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: live a great life. Yeah that was my mindseting. But
Speaker 1: you know, clearly God had other plans because the Breakfast
Speaker 1: Club came shortly after that. How did that come? When
Speaker 1: I was in Philly, there was a there was a
Speaker 1: time where I had met with my man g Spend
Speaker 1: Before me and g Spend met in a restaurant or something.
Speaker 1: It was me and at the time my then uh
Speaker 1: my then manager named it was Kevin Wendy's husband, and
Speaker 1: you know, you don't have the best reputation in the
Speaker 1: business man, and so even though we met, g Spen
Speaker 1: wasn't really feeling it. And then later on that turned
Speaker 1: into a meeting with my man Cadillac Jack and keV
Speaker 1: was with me then and it was the same thing.
Speaker 1: Like literally I found out that after we left the meeting,
Speaker 1: mad people came from like the sales department and was like,
Speaker 1: you cannot Charlotta, Agne's great, but if as long as
Speaker 1: you know Kevin is his manager, you know we can't
Speaker 1: hire him, and YadA, YadA, YadA, the energy will be
Speaker 1: bad and terrible all of this type of stuff. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that, you know. And then you know, me
Speaker 1: and Kevin ended up having a fallen out parting ways.
Speaker 1: And so I was in New York because I had
Speaker 1: moved back to South Carolina, but I was in New
Speaker 1: York for a couple of days, and I remember just
Speaker 1: texting g Spend like, Yo, you know where you at?
Speaker 1: And he was like, I'm in New York. Where you at? Like,
Speaker 1: I'm in Jersey right now. I was standing Fort Lee.
Speaker 1: I was at the Double Tree in four League and
Speaker 1: he was like, yo, man, he was like, yo, come
Speaker 1: to the station. I'm like word, He's like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: come to the station. Come to the station right now.
Speaker 1: And so I got in the rental car drove seeing
Speaker 1: It took me like three hours to get there because
Speaker 1: it was like four o'clock in the after Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it was at the GW Bridge for what seemed
Speaker 1: like an hour and trying to get down the West Side,
Speaker 1: creeping down to Tribeca. But I finally get there and
Speaker 1: g spinn is like, yo, U my boss. Cadillac Jack
Speaker 1: has been watching your stuff all day long, watching you
Speaker 1: and Duval with the Hood, State of the Union, and
Speaker 1: listening under like some old interviews when you was on
Speaker 1: the radio in Philly. So I sit down with Cadillac,
Speaker 1: and me and Cadillac just have a great conversation. And
Speaker 1: one of the first things he says to me is like,
Speaker 1: you know is keV still you're managing. I'm like, nah,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's how the relationship started. So like
Speaker 1: a few months later I got hired on probably one
Speaker 1: or five one remember Cadillac saying like, how long can
Speaker 1: you wait for this job? And I'm like, for this
Speaker 1: job as long as it takes. And so like five
Speaker 1: six months later, you know, the wheels really started to
Speaker 1: move where you want him that whole five six months,
Speaker 1: like yo, like, oh yes, yeah, you couldn't just sit
Speaker 1: back and no, no, no, definitely stayed in touch. Would
Speaker 1: send him new episodes and me and the Ball Show,
Speaker 1: you know, just just anything anything that I was doing
Speaker 1: in that space, I would because we was early on
Speaker 1: social media. We was all over my Space and Twitter
Speaker 1: and everything else. So yeah, like I was definitely keeping
Speaker 1: in real touch with him and g Span, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, and sometimes popping up, popping up, you know,
Speaker 1: and be like because I knew kind of like the
Speaker 1: gig might be mine. So I was kind of like
Speaker 1: popping up and it felt bad because there was like
Speaker 1: people who I was like really cool with that work there,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't say anything, you know about the conversations
Speaker 1: me and Cadillac we're having you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: And I had to like lie to some of these people,
Speaker 1: and it felt bad, you know what I mean, because
Speaker 1: I just couldn't tell the truth because this business still
Speaker 1: to be handled, you know. So, but yeah, that's how
Speaker 1: I got there. It's amazing, man. And then basically from that,
Speaker 1: I mean, from that point, are you still there obviously
Speaker 1: Breakfast Club, Yeah, thirteen years later, man. And what's so
Speaker 1: interesting is that any of them would tell you. Angelie
Speaker 1: will tell you, NBA will tell you. Our radio consultant,
Speaker 1: Dennis Clark, G spend Cadillac, I was the guy saying
Speaker 1: We're gonna be one of the biggest nationally syndicated shows
Speaker 1: in the country. Like, like I just I knew it.
Speaker 1: I saw what this show had the potential of being.
Speaker 1: And like from day one, me n by Angela, we
Speaker 1: always recorded our interviews and put them online. That's how
Speaker 1: I was aware of what Angelie was doing. I was
Speaker 1: aware of what you know, Envy was doing. You know,
Speaker 1: people like my homegirl Kendred g DeBie Brown. We were
Speaker 1: all utilizing the Internet. And so when we got with
Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club, that's all. We didn't have no money
Speaker 1: from marketing they didn't have no money from marketing, no
Speaker 1: money for promotions. This was kind of like a last
Speaker 1: ditch thing to see if something will work, to even
Speaker 1: keep the lights on that power one oh five one.
Speaker 1: And so all we asked for was a cameraman every
Speaker 1: day to come in here and record, you know, these interviews.
Speaker 1: And that's what we did. We started recording these interviews,
Speaker 1: putting them up online, recording these interviews, putting them on websites.
Speaker 1: And then at the time all these blogs and the
Speaker 1: world Stars and all of these different platforms, these websites
Speaker 1: existed sending our interviews out, they started posting them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: next thing, you know, it took off in a real way,
Speaker 1: and here we are. How do you how do you
Speaker 1: manage that? Like, how do you manage the expectation of
Speaker 1: how do you manage the success? How do you manage
Speaker 1: what is just out of reach at the moment that's
Speaker 1: that's gonna be coming up for you. I manage it
Speaker 1: just by like realizing all my daddy always says, you
Speaker 1: never as good as it say you are, and you're
Speaker 1: never as bad as it say you are. Like I've
Speaker 1: already had my moments of like ego, I've had my
Speaker 1: moments of like being that narcissistic, arrogant person that you
Speaker 1: know you can't tell anything too. Whether people realize that
Speaker 1: or not, I'm sure that they did, because I'm sure
Speaker 1: I projected it, you know what I mean. But I
Speaker 1: went through that, and I went through that at a
Speaker 1: time where, like God, knew I had to get over
Speaker 1: that in order to be where I am now. So
Speaker 1: I knew that I had to start doing some work
Speaker 1: on myself. I was really becoming everything that I said
Speaker 1: I didn't like. You know, I was looking in the
Speaker 1: mirror and really becoming my father. I loved my father,
Speaker 1: but I hated how my father's infidelity ruined his marriage
Speaker 1: with my mom, you know, and ruined our family right.
Speaker 1: So for me, I didn't want to do that, and
Speaker 1: I felt myself going down that path in a real way.
Speaker 1: So it was just like, let me check myself before
Speaker 1: I wrecked myself. You know, why n't you go? Man?
Speaker 1: Last question, if you could pick out one thing that's
Speaker 1: helped you be successful, that's sort of been with you
Speaker 1: through every period of your career, what do you you think
Speaker 1: that thing would be? Man? For me, it would like
Speaker 1: to really be authentic and what I mean by that is,
Speaker 1: you're not authentic when you're being a character to yourself.
Speaker 1: You're not authentic when you see something working for you
Speaker 1: and you're getting rewarded for it, so you start doubling
Speaker 1: and trippling down on that thing. You're not authentic when
Speaker 1: you're being a second rate version of somebody else instead
Speaker 1: of a first rate version of yourself. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that hurt me to mostly when they started
Speaker 1: calling me to hip hop Howard Stern. I love Howard Stern, right,
Speaker 1: but I didn't even start to think why they were
Speaker 1: calling me that. I just took it and ran with it,
Speaker 1: you know, and started giving them like all of the
Speaker 1: examples of Howard that Howard might not even be proud of. Now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, for me, it was like a lot of
Speaker 1: the the frat boy, creepy ass, overly sexual humor, you know,
Speaker 1: like the low vibrational energy is what I was really doing.
Speaker 1: The limbo with how low can you Go? You know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Like literally, like how low can you go?
Speaker 1: Like literally? And that's the type of shit I was doing.
Speaker 1: So like when you go online and you see like
Speaker 1: videos of me like sniffing chairs or like tying porn
Speaker 1: stars up and all of that. It was literally for
Speaker 1: the shock. Yeah, and so like that stuck with me
Speaker 1: for like, man, maybe maybe a year or two I
Speaker 1: was on that and then just started to eat me up, Like, Yo,
Speaker 1: this ain't making me happy. This shit is whacked. And
Speaker 1: you got your you know, your wife. You know I
Speaker 1: got married in twenty fourteen, so you got your wife
Speaker 1: on your head at the time. She's my girl, Like
Speaker 1: what the fuck are you doing? Like, you know, you
Speaker 1: out here wilding, you cheating like me, and you you're
Speaker 1: on the radio and you're, damn it bragging about word
Speaker 1: of the ball like it was that type of conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, are you tripping? Like you know you
Speaker 1: it's just entertainment. That was my life. It's just entertainment.
Speaker 1: But it's not. Yeah, it's really not, you know, because
Speaker 1: you know, but when you're influencing mad people, and in
Speaker 1: this case, I'm hurting somebody and hurting the person that's
Speaker 1: the closest to me, and you can start to believe
Speaker 1: your own bullshit. That's the worst. When you get into
Speaker 1: character and you start believing that you really are this dude.
Speaker 1: So it's like for me, man, That's what made me
Speaker 1: like really start like going to therapy and like doing
Speaker 1: the work because I did not like the version of
Speaker 1: myself that I was becoming. So my advice to anybody
Speaker 1: would just to just be authentic, Always leave yourself open
Speaker 1: to growth, and don't be afraid of where that growth
Speaker 1: takes you. I don't give a fuck what people like
Speaker 1: about you today. If you're growing into something else tomorrow,
Speaker 1: follow that shit, you know what I mean, Because if
Speaker 1: you don't, you know, you're really just stunting your growth
Speaker 1: and you really don't know how big you could possibly be.
Speaker 1: You're putting a cap on you, Like you're literally putting
Speaker 1: a limit on how far you could possibly grow, how
Speaker 1: big you could get, because you're like, Nope, that's what
Speaker 1: they like about me, So I'm gonna keep it here,
Speaker 1: as opposed to just leaving yourself open to see what
Speaker 1: else is out there and how much more you could
Speaker 1: continue to grow. So that's what I tell people. Be authentic, man,
Speaker 1: and just don't be afraid to grow. Yeah, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: thanks for bringing your authentic self to everything. Man. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you. Thanks, man. Appreciate Charlemagne through the ups and downs,
Speaker 1: are building a media career and one of the most
Speaker 1: cut throat of mediums radio has shown up ready to
Speaker 1: bring his full self to whatever it is he does,
Speaker 1: and the brilliance of that is he's been impossible to ignore.
Speaker 1: I want to thank him for that confidence and for
Speaker 1: taking the time to talk with me. I plan on
Speaker 1: spending more time working on my fear of being rejected
Speaker 1: just for being me. Thanks for listening to start it
Speaker 1: from the Bottom, I'm out. Started from the Bottom is
Speaker 1: produced by David Jah, edited by Keishaw Williams, Engineered by
Speaker 1: Bent Holliday, booked by Laura Morgan with production help from
Speaker 1: Lea Rose. The show's executive produced by Jacob Goldstein, who's
Speaker 1: not all up in the videos for Pushkin Industries. Our
Speaker 1: theme music's by Bentaliday and David Jaw featuring Anthony Aggas
Speaker 1: and Savannah Joe Lack. If you like your show, please
Speaker 1: remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app.
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond. That was a preview of Started from
Speaker 1: the Bottom, a new show from Pushkin Fine Started from
Speaker 1: the Bottom. Wherever you listen to your podcasts,