Speaker 1: You're listening to Jojassee One now with me Jojo Seua
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio podcast. Welcome back to Jojo Just See One now.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, let me just say, doing this podcast,
Speaker 1: seeing you all listening, watching it, just it makes me
Speaker 1: so happy. I'm I'm so grateful. I feel like I've
Speaker 1: learned a lot about myself doing this podcast. I've learned
Speaker 1: a lot about my friends on this podcast.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Speaking of today, I am going to get to chat
Speaker 1: with one of my favorite people in the world. We
Speaker 1: originally met on Dancing with the Stars season thirty just now.
Speaker 3: Two years ago, which is absolutely wild.
Speaker 1: Everybody, please welcome mister Iman Schumpert to jojaswa now the man,
Speaker 1: the guy, the only one on Dancing with the Stars
Speaker 1: who whooped my ass? Mister aman, how are you? I am?
Speaker 1: I'm so good. I'm so happy here. Thank you for
Speaker 1: doing my podcast. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: I love you.
Speaker 4: Thank you for Can you feel at home? I love
Speaker 4: you too?
Speaker 5: And I feel at home because I told you this
Speaker 5: is like already looks like my daughter's room, Like how
Speaker 5: she does a little Jojo the pink stuff. I mean, now,
Speaker 5: it's not it's less, it's less about that she's older
Speaker 5: a little bit now, but I've had she's got.
Speaker 3: Changes of what's her what's her vibe? Now? What's she until?
Speaker 4: Right now?
Speaker 5: Junie is reading, so the books are sort of taking
Speaker 5: her imagination on a little run.
Speaker 4: So every day is something new.
Speaker 5: She either wants to go fishing or oh then she
Speaker 5: wants to what does she said? She's been on this
Speaker 5: Bahamas thing, just I don't know where it is. She
Speaker 5: wants to go back to the Bahamas and do a
Speaker 5: boat trip.
Speaker 4: I don't know what it.
Speaker 3: Is about the Bahamas.
Speaker 5: Anytime they start reading, they just their their mind sort
Speaker 5: of just takes those those nice long rides into the.
Speaker 1: Mine.
Speaker 3: Has the cutest little girl in the whole world.
Speaker 1: I remember getting to meet her on Dancing with the
Speaker 1: Stars and just little ball of energy, so cute. Knows
Speaker 1: exactly who she I mean at the time. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen her really since then, but.
Speaker 4: Oh a whole lot more learning is she?
Speaker 3: She just so cool, so spunky.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm on, I we met on Dancing with
Speaker 1: the Stars. We did season thirty together. Not salty at
Speaker 1: all that you beat me? What did you do with
Speaker 1: your newberal trophy? Is it in your house? You did
Speaker 1: give it to your mama.
Speaker 5: Got it, said, and she got it on the little stand,
Speaker 5: she got the little goal thing behind it.
Speaker 3: She had to love that. Does your mom live here? No?
Speaker 4: No, no, in Chicago, still in Chicago.
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 1: That makes me happy. That makes me happy that your
Speaker 1: mom has it. Anyways, we met on Dancing with the Stars,
Speaker 1: which was incredible.
Speaker 3: I have so.
Speaker 1: Many, so many memories about you that I cannot wait
Speaker 1: to go through, so many funny things that I would
Speaker 1: overhear in rehearsals. I have this one story of Danny
Speaker 1: and you in rehearsals. I can't wait to talk about.
Speaker 1: So many memories of just you and your trailer, hearing
Speaker 1: you and your trailer that I can't wait to talk about.
Speaker 1: But before we get into that, I want to hear
Speaker 1: like your your beginning of life, well like your childhood
Speaker 1: than how you I mean, you are one of the
Speaker 1: biggest NBA stars in the whole fucking world, and so
Speaker 1: I kind of want to just like this podcast Joe
Speaker 1: just even now is all about you, know, your where
Speaker 1: you started and where you are now, and so in
Speaker 1: a nutshell give me like the rundown of in mon
Speaker 1: as An eight year old, little dude, like, what's your childhood?
Speaker 4: Eight years old?
Speaker 5: I was really like out the way, if you didn't
Speaker 5: have a rim and a basketball, I ain't really care
Speaker 5: to have a conversation, which you would have thought. I
Speaker 5: was more quiet, like don't I have fun with my friends?
Speaker 5: I was very serious about getting good enough to be
Speaker 5: at my name into the NBA.
Speaker 3: Like I'm like you always knew that, Like that was
Speaker 3: I gotta go there?
Speaker 1: What was your first Like how old were you when
Speaker 1: you had your Like I'm gonna I want to be
Speaker 1: a basketball player, like this is my drake?
Speaker 4: What was it was like three or four?
Speaker 5: We saw some video of Michael Jordan's pulling up to
Speaker 5: the arena and he got out of his corvette and
Speaker 5: I just remember seeing in that boxing that boxy suit.
Speaker 5: His suit was super boxy and he got out and
Speaker 5: I remember thinking, why he's so he's too tall to
Speaker 5: be in that little car, like you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 5: the car fire like, And my father explained to me, like, nah,
Speaker 5: it's got more room than it looked, like you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying, that's.
Speaker 3: The Did you want to play basketbroller? Did you want
Speaker 3: the car in the box.
Speaker 5: It was the whole, It was the whole vib It
Speaker 5: was the fact that he played basketball so good, like
Speaker 5: him him wonting that competition of basketball landed him correct financially,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying. So like something I want
Speaker 5: to do anyway, it is about to make me more
Speaker 5: money than anybody that does anything they don't want to
Speaker 5: do thinking they're going to make more money. It's people
Speaker 5: all the time that don't want to be a lawyer.
Speaker 5: They just think that's where the money is. So I'm
Speaker 5: going to be a lawyer, like it's the top job,
Speaker 5: but you really don't want to do it.
Speaker 4: So there's there's, there's that.
Speaker 5: And I saw Jordan happy to play basketball and making
Speaker 5: money to where you can help people. And then I
Speaker 5: saw the big houses on HGTV and my dad was
Speaker 5: like yeah. I was like if Michael Jordan by that
Speaker 5: and Dad was like yeah, yeah yeah, but he was
Speaker 5: looking at like NBA players, that's that house is nothing,
Speaker 5: So I could understand where it was, like where it
Speaker 5: was on the statrum, Like I'm like, how much money
Speaker 5: do they have?
Speaker 4: And yeah, he like, well that ain't nothing.
Speaker 5: Like but that's before we had the internet, super running
Speaker 5: like this where you could just look up an NBA
Speaker 5: contract like oh yeah, Like I didn't know how to
Speaker 5: research it back then, Like I wasn't good with it
Speaker 5: like that. But my father explained to me, like when
Speaker 5: you get there, if you get good enough, you're able
Speaker 5: to get a house or car, whatever you want. And
Speaker 5: that comfort is kind of what drove me though.
Speaker 3: So your dad was really supportive of you growing up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he put challenges in front of me. Dude, was like, could.
Speaker 1: You have us?
Speaker 3: Uh, what's it called? Because in dances called like a
Speaker 3: stage mom or a stage dad?
Speaker 4: What's it called?
Speaker 3: The basketball? Like is it like a like.
Speaker 5: I mean, we don't really call it anything. It's like
Speaker 5: you either have a mentor or like you'll have a vet,
Speaker 5: like you have a veteran when you get to the NBA. Ye,
Speaker 5: Like Mellow is my veteran, Carl Anthony is my vet,
Speaker 5: Like he takes you under the wing. Everybody kind of knows.
Speaker 5: You know, we go to dinner on the road and
Speaker 5: you're a rookie, like Mellow gonna, he's gonna pay for dinner.
Speaker 5: He gonna you know what I'm saying, Like that's what
Speaker 5: we have, but we don't we don't have like a
Speaker 5: coach besides our coach. You don't really have nobody.
Speaker 3: With a small title.
Speaker 1: But okay, wait, so you you realized at three or four, yeah,
Speaker 1: that you wanted to be a player, a baller.
Speaker 3: But when so you're you're growing up.
Speaker 1: Obviously at four you can only be so good at something,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? At what point for you
Speaker 1: were you playing basketball at at the local? I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't I should know more about basketball, but you know,
Speaker 1: dance world and basketball two very different worlds. But at
Speaker 1: what age were you on a team and you were
Speaker 1: like a ship.
Speaker 3: I'm better than everyone else? When did that happen? When
Speaker 3: did you get advanced?
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 3: If you are not listening, smile right now.
Speaker 4: Like the its like actually deal with me.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So high school yeah, like five foot eight right, yeah,
Speaker 5: and I have a gross spurt. So my second year
Speaker 5: in high school, I'm actually like sloppy, Like, yeah, I
Speaker 5: wasn't great, like all that dancing with the starship was
Speaker 5: out the window. Yeah, but I ain't have control of
Speaker 5: my body though. I was growing so fast. And next
Speaker 5: thing I know, I look up and I'm six three
Speaker 5: and I worked that whole time. I work my ass off.
Speaker 5: You know, my body was hurting. I was just like,
Speaker 5: I gotta get right, like I gotta be better. I
Speaker 5: got to be better. And I'm still working out as
Speaker 5: if I'm five seven eight, like, because I'm trying to
Speaker 5: do that. I'm a guard. I'm a point guard. And
Speaker 5: then I grow and then I finally grew into my body.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 5: And I've actually never told this part of the story,
Speaker 5: so I'm gonna tell it on here. We played every
Speaker 5: man for theirself and which is you play the thirty
Speaker 5: two by twos. Yeah, there's no free through in between scoring,
Speaker 5: and anybody could play. So before we start playing, to
Speaker 5: warm up, it might be thirty people under one rim
Speaker 5: and whoever has the ball checks up. Thirty people could
Speaker 5: guard you at once if they wow, you know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying. When you got game point, everybody, Yeah, everybody's
Speaker 5: just gonna come. They collect on each other's things. They're like,
Speaker 5: we don't want him to win, but if I steal
Speaker 5: the ball from him, we all gonna guard you exactly,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying. So it's like that's the game,
Speaker 5: and it's really to warm up because it's it could
Speaker 5: get so crazy it's damn near impossible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like it's so many people.
Speaker 5: But I remember the game getting a little like a
Speaker 5: little more turned like people at first they're just warming up,
Speaker 5: but then everybody starts sweating and it's going now.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I got to game point.
Speaker 5: I did a lot of stuff to get the game
Speaker 5: point that I was just like, yeah, like I'm definitely
Speaker 5: getting better, like it's working. And then we got to
Speaker 5: game point and I remember everybody like up to stop me,
Speaker 5: and I remember backing up and then attacking everybody and
Speaker 5: being like they can't, Like y'all are slow, Yeah, y'all
Speaker 5: are you know what I'm saying? Or I'm like you're
Speaker 5: why did you go? Like I would do a movie,
Speaker 5: like why would you go for that?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: You just like kind of realized like.
Speaker 5: Everything click for me, and it was going real slow,
Speaker 5: and it was kind of cool because it was every
Speaker 5: man for themselves. So I'm like, none of y'all like,
Speaker 5: for lack of a better way to say it, none
Speaker 5: of y'all could fuck with me.
Speaker 3: None of y'all can.
Speaker 5: No y'all, Yeah, like this is it's tough for y'all now, Like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm tall, so the time while I'm driving it.
Speaker 4: At the end, I should lay this up, but I
Speaker 4: went up and I.
Speaker 5: Dunked it, and I remember looking at people like, instead
Speaker 5: of trying to block it, they kind of were looking like, damn,
Speaker 5: you could dunk like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they were kind of looking at me weird.
Speaker 5: When I landed and I realized that, Like in that moment,
Speaker 5: I was like, I can't act.
Speaker 4: I can't act regular with y'all no more. I have
Speaker 4: to kill you. Yeah, I have to kill you.
Speaker 5: Like it's not even like a laughing matter, Like, yeah,
Speaker 5: now I'm gonna be pissed off if y'all get close
Speaker 5: to even a little bit close to beating me, I'm
Speaker 5: gonna get mad at myself.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And I became more and more and more focused on
Speaker 5: just like playing higher competition. So after that, it was
Speaker 5: like my father taking me State the States. All right, well,
Speaker 5: they the best team over here. You gotta beat them.
Speaker 5: They're the best team.
Speaker 1: So your dad, your dad had you. Your dad is like,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll get you out. Michael Jordan's Carr challenge.
Speaker 5: He just he just always yeah, Like you know, everybody's
Speaker 5: got parents that they say stuff to you, and you
Speaker 5: think in that moment. They're trying to correct my behavior,
Speaker 5: They're trying to control me, They trying to do this,
Speaker 5: and it's like nobody ever sits back and just be
Speaker 5: like he just challenged me to do something right that simply.
Speaker 4: All he did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then it worked.
Speaker 5: Somebody will say that and it'll be like people, I
Speaker 5: don't want to do that with my life. It'd be like, bro,
Speaker 5: you don't have to do that with your life. Yeah,
Speaker 5: what's wrong with being qualified in ten areas? Right? No?
Speaker 3: Absolute?
Speaker 4: What's wrong with that?
Speaker 5: Like I'm not left handed, but I've worked on so
Speaker 5: much stuff so that my left hand works.
Speaker 4: What if I ever break my right hand? Ye? You know,
Speaker 4: use it.
Speaker 5: You know. We do these things where you try and
Speaker 5: sharp especially with your children. You try and put everything
Speaker 5: into them to try and sharpen all these things. And
Speaker 5: I feel like that was my biggest advantage was I
Speaker 5: clicked for me early watching my older brothers get into
Speaker 5: it with my father. I was just like, bro, all
Speaker 5: he said was get good grades, and good grades is
Speaker 5: like I got straight a's. I'm like, bro, all I
Speaker 5: gotta do is it? Like I was damn near doing
Speaker 5: my homework in class while the teacher's talking. Yeah, I'm like, bro,
Speaker 5: this is the best time to do my homework. Yeah,
Speaker 5: because you're given the lesson. Bro, Like, what do you mean,
Speaker 5: I'm finna do it right here just in case I
Speaker 5: got a question, I can ask it right here, right now,
Speaker 5: two minutes before this class in. I got the three
Speaker 5: questions right here that I can't get right this my homework.
Speaker 5: Now I'm going to be doing it on the bus
Speaker 5: on the way home. Get time I walk into the door. Like,
Speaker 5: people just think I'm crazy. I'm like, bro, No, I'm
Speaker 5: finna get every minute I can on this basketball court.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
Speaker 1: That's very or smart as you made it so that
Speaker 1: way you could go home and then focus on what
Speaker 1: you really loved.
Speaker 4: That was my one rule.
Speaker 5: They say, if your homework done, you go outside. Really,
Speaker 5: if your homework is done, if your grades is good,
Speaker 5: you can go outside.
Speaker 4: And you just got to be back before.
Speaker 1: It's docz theres like back before the street lights are on.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was. I'm the very end of that.
Speaker 1: Very end of that generation because it stopped for me
Speaker 1: when I was like, God, I I sound psychotic when
Speaker 1: I say this, but I got my first phone when
Speaker 1: I was like seven or five or seven, and so
Speaker 1: like when I was it would have been seven, because
Speaker 1: like when I was five and six, that's I've still
Speaker 1: lived by, like come home in the street lights are on.
Speaker 1: But then once I was seven, eight nine, I had
Speaker 1: a phone, and so it was like I'll text you
Speaker 1: and to come check.
Speaker 3: The time when it come home. Like it just changed.
Speaker 3: That's a weird life.
Speaker 5: It's a different lifestyle type of kid right here. Man,
Speaker 5: I'm just letting y'all know. She just said that, like
Speaker 5: that was so regular. Nobody else turned seven and eight
Speaker 5: and text their mom and dad when they're coming home.
Speaker 5: I tell my daughter, still she has a phone, she said,
Speaker 5: This lady here is living a different lifestyle.
Speaker 3: Was there a moment when you were a kid.
Speaker 1: I have two questions for you, going off of what
Speaker 1: we just talked about. Was there a moment for you
Speaker 1: when you were like fuck this, I don't want to
Speaker 1: do it anymore?
Speaker 5: With basketball? Yeah, yeah, you have the moments you usually
Speaker 5: come you win. Yeah, you just you win. There's a
Speaker 5: there's very much. There's so many moments I can remember
Speaker 5: in my career where I'm like, bro, I'm doing this
Speaker 5: and that the individual success that I need isn't happening
Speaker 5: for me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Where else like it's frustrating yea where it'd be like
Speaker 5: I gotta wait my turn again, like y'all said, wait,
Speaker 5: I did, Nah, I gotta wait again?
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you have a backup? Like what was your like?
Speaker 1: Not doing this anymore? Don't want to be a baller anymore?
Speaker 1: Not in basketball? I want to Oh.
Speaker 4: No, no, I don't.
Speaker 5: I didn't really ever have that where it was like
Speaker 5: I'm gonna take a different career path. I never had that,
Speaker 5: But I'm very much so I'm very comfortable and knowing
Speaker 5: I've sharpened other areas to where if I attack anything,
Speaker 5: if I go full throttle at it, Yeah, like you're.
Speaker 3: Gonna have to you commit, you met, Yeah, I'm like, if.
Speaker 5: I commit to something and I'm gonna go wholeheartedly into it,
Speaker 5: I'm like, it's gonna be successful and I hang my
Speaker 5: hat on that. Just like saying if you put the
Speaker 5: hours in and the energy in, it's just gonna work.
Speaker 4: Like I know how it works.
Speaker 5: Like that, guys, but but it just does. I promise
Speaker 5: you it does hard work.
Speaker 3: Eventually, Eventually, pays off.
Speaker 1: Some things take longer than I But straight up, is
Speaker 1: there anyone that you grew up playing with, grew up
Speaker 1: learning with that made it as big as you did?
Speaker 3: Are you the only.
Speaker 5: Evan Turner played middle school ball with me? Ten year
Speaker 5: career in the league, maybe twelve years?
Speaker 3: Damn?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, still doing well, does podcasts, now coaching. Yeah, but
Speaker 5: we're still still close, still check in with each other.
Speaker 5: He's still bothering me about shit that happened on the shot,
Speaker 5: Like I.
Speaker 4: Was watching the shot, Bro, what are you doing? How
Speaker 4: you miss how you miss him?
Speaker 5: It's just all all all of all of the childhood
Speaker 5: memories and stuff that we're able to talk about and
Speaker 5: then reflect on NBA memories. It's just really cool to
Speaker 5: have somebody around that's, you know, been through what you've
Speaker 5: been through, seeing what you've seen, and now like me
Speaker 5: and him, especially like we feel like, especially when we
Speaker 5: go back home, it's like, y'all don't have any ecuse
Speaker 5: no more.
Speaker 4: We had an excuse.
Speaker 5: We really didn't see anybody make it out like we
Speaker 5: didn't see it. Like nobody from where we was from
Speaker 5: was like, yeah, I went to the NBA and this
Speaker 5: is what's going on and you could work on this
Speaker 5: move and work on that move. We had nobody liked that,
Speaker 5: but it's like now your body back in opak is
Speaker 5: like y'all really don't have no excuse, Like y'all gotta
Speaker 5: rock with you, gotta work hard and get there, and
Speaker 5: now we've shown you this is the road. Yeah, you
Speaker 5: can get out. You can't hit us with the excuse
Speaker 5: like we don't get enough exposure. Bro, we ain't getting
Speaker 5: no exposure. We just went over there and beat everybody.
Speaker 5: That's what you gotta do. Beat on people.
Speaker 3: The show that I'm on right now is Special Forces.
Speaker 3: I heard something.
Speaker 1: We didn't hear it while we were out selection, but
Speaker 1: we heard it as it was airing on the show.
Speaker 1: They said, winners will always find a way to keep
Speaker 1: going and quitters will always find an excuse to stop.
Speaker 3: And like, that's that is. I mean, it's such a
Speaker 3: true thing.
Speaker 1: Like if you if you really do want something, you're
Speaker 1: going to figure it out, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure there was days where you had to
Speaker 1: make a makeshift rim somewhere and a makeshift ball somewhere,
Speaker 1: and you fucking did.
Speaker 5: That's what That's what's gonna happen. It's like a like
Speaker 5: an artist. Artist you see that you throw them in
Speaker 5: a room, you give them I don't know anything like you.
Speaker 5: It work seriously, like they'll take a cigarette and use
Speaker 5: the ashes and draw some and use it for shading.
Speaker 1: Your ability to make something work out of nothing is
Speaker 1: it's so important to success.
Speaker 5: It's amazing how often people because it's that becomes a
Speaker 5: simplified version. If you were if I put you in
Speaker 5: a cell and all I gave you was a little ring,
Speaker 5: some tape and some paper over there, It's like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm taking the ring, I'm putting it over there now,
Speaker 5: rim and you're.
Speaker 3: Gonna make a ball with paper and tape, and you're gonna.
Speaker 4: That's what I'm gonna do for the whole day.
Speaker 5: All I can do is simplifies the man putting yourself
Speaker 5: in the idea behind Yo, I'm gonna.
Speaker 4: Hone in on this.
Speaker 5: This is gonna be all I'm doing is podcasting, And
Speaker 5: for the large majority of the day, I'm gonna listen
Speaker 5: to my voice on here so I know where to stay.
Speaker 5: Where do I sit? Okay, this is the best sound
Speaker 5: for me. What do I do the excited voice? Or
Speaker 5: do I want to give the cams.
Speaker 3: I like to call mom voice not deep.
Speaker 5: In fluctuating me though, like sometimes I get a little
Speaker 5: too excited. But as far as like becoming a professional
Speaker 5: in any lane, it just becomes and putting the hours
Speaker 5: in and understanding what to do when it goes wrong.
Speaker 5: Like it's incredible what you can see out of people
Speaker 5: once they just lock in and they say, I don't
Speaker 5: care if I fall on my face.
Speaker 4: I'm going full full you know what.
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like, and also you are going to fall
Speaker 1: on your face, it's just however you're going to get up.
Speaker 5: There some people that get up and smile and exactly
Speaker 5: and then we keep going. Or there's some people that
Speaker 5: trip and be like, but they did you see there
Speaker 5: was a rock?
Speaker 4: We didn't see. All we saw was you fall.
Speaker 3: And I always care about is you get back up?
Speaker 4: Are you okay? Cool?
Speaker 3: But keep pushing.
Speaker 4: Telling us it's a rock there? Thanks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's what people do that where it's like instead
Speaker 5: of naming that problem or naming the thing that's wrong,
Speaker 5: it's like we all can see what's wrong. It's the solution.
Speaker 5: What do you keep doing? What are you pushing? What
Speaker 5: are you what are you trying to accomplish and nobody's
Speaker 5: nobody should laugh at that.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't think anybody in the world should sit in
Speaker 5: the audience and laugh at somebody trying to accomplish something.
Speaker 5: That is literally one of the best things to watch.
Speaker 5: That's the entertainment people. People say, what is the entertainment
Speaker 5: industry is people watching people go do what they They
Speaker 5: still hesitant, not even scared, just like I'm gonna wait
Speaker 5: until I get enough money so that I can You
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: It's like, that's like a two three year and then
Speaker 4: you just want to.
Speaker 5: Talk either positively or negatively on somebody that has done it.
Speaker 5: But at least you have a DNA to say these
Speaker 5: are pros, these are cons because I have an example now.
Speaker 5: So that's what's the entertainment business. And it's why you
Speaker 5: gotta chill, like, let you gotta let let comments live.
Speaker 5: People are literally just telling you if they like the
Speaker 5: content or not. People will be like, man, I don't
Speaker 5: like how you saund when you rap. It's like, man,
Speaker 5: you may not like it. Now in a year now
Speaker 5: that I'm practicing it. Yeah, now I'm practicing and I'm
Speaker 5: hanging out a little bit more and I'm around these people,
Speaker 5: and these people yeah, like I see a vibe that
Speaker 5: everybody likes.
Speaker 1: You have to start somewhere with everything you do. You
Speaker 1: have to start at square one. And I always I have.
Speaker 5: This like, well, you started at square one, likes soon
Speaker 5: as you popped out Jojo Entertainer.
Speaker 3: As soon as I popped out, family was like, all
Speaker 3: right here.
Speaker 4: We dancing color in her face. It's I told you
Speaker 4: that my.
Speaker 5: Favorite thing was seeing you on tour and seeing y'all
Speaker 5: have fun on the videos because we saw you on tour.
Speaker 5: And then my daughter just takes the rabbit hole with
Speaker 5: the YouTube.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then.
Speaker 4: I'm like, bro, they're playing hide and seek.
Speaker 1: Every venue we played Monopoly in every single venue. We
Speaker 1: played hide and Seek all the time. On stage, even
Speaker 1: during the concert, we used to play tag. And there's
Speaker 1: a fun game we play.
Speaker 3: Yeah, on stage.
Speaker 1: During the choreo, you would have to tag like and
Speaker 1: I would play, the crew would play, the dancers were playing.
Speaker 3: Was a massive game.
Speaker 1: We also would play this game on so much fun
Speaker 1: we played. This game is even worse. There's two other
Speaker 1: games we would play. The one is an animal game
Speaker 1: and I my dancers played it all the time. I
Speaker 1: couldn't play the animal game because you have to make
Speaker 1: verbal noises. So like everybody there's one dragon, all right,
Speaker 1: and then everybody else is an animal in pairs, so
Speaker 1: like me and you would be pigs, right, she and
Speaker 1: her would be wolves.
Speaker 3: And then you would have to find your matching You
Speaker 3: have to have your your, your, your your.
Speaker 1: You have to find your matching animal before the dragon
Speaker 1: rars at you.
Speaker 3: So like, we don't know, so you draw out of
Speaker 3: a hat. Someone's the dragon.
Speaker 1: So the dragon goes roaring at people, and then you
Speaker 1: have to be like dead if the dragon roars at you.
Speaker 1: But you have to go up to people and you
Speaker 1: have to make your animal noise to see if they're
Speaker 1: an animal.
Speaker 3: And so I would go up there.
Speaker 1: And be like now and you'd be like and like
Speaker 1: you'd like snore at me. If you were the pig,
Speaker 1: then I'd be like, shit, gotta go find the animal.
Speaker 2: You know what?
Speaker 3: That one sucked?
Speaker 4: What anybody playing?
Speaker 3: I like that game would be successful in the NBA because.
Speaker 4: Y'all way were making this what no giddy?
Speaker 3: The other game y'all could never play in the NBA.
Speaker 3: Your hands the.
Speaker 4: Tag during something serious.
Speaker 3: I love so oh, this one's worse.
Speaker 5: I would love to play tag game. If I could
Speaker 5: remember to play Tag in the ABA, gay, I totally
Speaker 5: would have been would.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean pass it on to the next gen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, honestly, no, don't. If if that happens in the game,
Speaker 5: that is JoJo's, there's gonna be just clean. That is
Speaker 5: her fault. That's not my fault. I just said if
Speaker 5: I was in the league deal, I would do it.
Speaker 5: I'm not advising y'all to do it, though, don't do that.
Speaker 3: I would do it, full said. There's another one called pasta.
Speaker 1: We take a small enough object to be able to
Speaker 1: hold it in your hand and you just have to
Speaker 1: pass it to people throughout like the performance, and whoever
Speaker 1: or ends with it loses.
Speaker 3: But if somebody like passes it to you.
Speaker 4: Have to take it and you don't know who has it.
Speaker 3: No, you never know who has it, and then you
Speaker 3: just keep going.
Speaker 4: Y'all keep the fastball the whole time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, all the time. There's like this
Speaker 3: funny picture of me with this. We used to play
Speaker 3: with this little tiny baby and I got past it.
Speaker 1: I turned by a photographer and I just was holding
Speaker 1: up this little tiny baby in my hands.
Speaker 4: I would I would have played past the past.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was fun. Past the Yeah, and then you
Speaker 3: can pass.
Speaker 1: I mean some people pass pennies, but like say a song,
Speaker 1: like a song, average song two three minutes, it probably
Speaker 1: gets passed around ten times per song.
Speaker 3: Like you just keep passing it.
Speaker 2: It is so fun. Yeah, we're a master. You gotta
Speaker 2: keep it in just and on the way to end
Speaker 2: of these games. He's just dying laughing right now. Past
Speaker 2: the it's creating.
Speaker 3: All right, all right, we traveled into a little bit
Speaker 3: talking about NBA. But what give me your beginning? How
Speaker 3: old were you when you got drafted?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Where were you? What? What was what was your mom
Speaker 3: and dad's Reactually I was twenty one, you were twenty one.
Speaker 5: There's a video actually on YouTube of me getting drafted.
Speaker 5: I was supposed to go to the draft. I ended
Speaker 5: up getting a late invite because originally I was projected
Speaker 5: to go like second round, and then I went through
Speaker 5: all the draft workouts and they was like, oh, I
Speaker 5: think he should be a little higher type of vibe.
Speaker 5: And when I knew that I was gonna get taken
Speaker 5: either thirteen through seventeen, I guess.
Speaker 4: They was like he should come to be there in
Speaker 4: New York, and.
Speaker 5: I turned it down because I was like I felt
Speaker 5: like I afterthought, I was like, yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Didn't want to do it no more. And my father
Speaker 4: had them.
Speaker 5: Shut down this this Mexican restaurant favorite food tacos, and
Speaker 5: uh yeah, I was twenty one back in Chicago waiting
Speaker 5: waiting for my name to get called.
Speaker 4: He calls my name.
Speaker 5: Everybody like all my family, like my friends, everybody was there.
Speaker 5: They said my name. The moment he said e mon
Speaker 5: like he ain't even finished. He was like I couldn't
Speaker 5: hear shit. Wake up in the morning. They was like
Speaker 5: damn the Knicks boojo. Everybody in New York was like boom,
Speaker 5: like who is that? Like what are they doing? Because
Speaker 5: I played in the A SEC they was like focused
Speaker 5: on the Big East, but it was it was all
Speaker 5: love and shit.
Speaker 4: I wasn't dripping after while.
Speaker 5: I was just it was just crazy to have so
Speaker 5: much genuine love around me that I didn't even notice
Speaker 5: that y'all boomed me Like I didn't know that nobody
Speaker 5: was happy in New.
Speaker 4: York, Like I got people around.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I got drafted to the next but I still
Speaker 5: felt like Chicago made it.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, that's something that's really interesting about I think
Speaker 1: all all worlds of the entertainment industry is people could
Speaker 1: love you, people could brew you, people can hate you,
Speaker 1: but your bubble that is around you personally matters so much.
Speaker 1: And like that's a that moment's a true testament of that.
Speaker 1: You know, like sure whatever the people, the people were
Speaker 1: bringing you, but your people knew that, like this is
Speaker 1: your fucking moment and they were there to celebrate you.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's that that moment.
Speaker 5: And then like you said, going through the league and
Speaker 5: you know, ups downs all that to eventually to eventually
Speaker 5: win a championship.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that bubble.
Speaker 3: That you say, yep, like that matters.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 5: It was the whole time, Like, yeah, bubble, I lived
Speaker 5: in that bubble. I keep those people around me, Like
Speaker 5: I still I still get my hair braided by Keys
Speaker 5: every time I've had hair, because I cut my hair
Speaker 5: off all the time. But every time that I have
Speaker 5: hair is like Keys, where are you at?
Speaker 3: Where you're at?
Speaker 4: Real talk?
Speaker 5: Because it's just like having that comfort and having that
Speaker 5: just feeling like a foundation is under you, like a
Speaker 5: solid foundation and people that will look at you when
Speaker 5: you get off track and say, hey, I don't know
Speaker 5: this version of you. I don't know this ship. Like
Speaker 5: stop you doing. I don't care what you got going.
Speaker 5: I don't care how much money you make. Brother, don't
Speaker 5: do that no more. I'm not walking with you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you get off off the bus, like you.
Speaker 4: Know what I'm saying. Like my friends from college still
Speaker 4: around me.
Speaker 5: They saw them when we was out here doing what
Speaker 5: your call but uh Alan and Taco like the.
Speaker 4: Man, accountable man.
Speaker 5: They be like, dog, I'm not standing next to you
Speaker 5: doing that. Like I'm not doing that with you, bro,
Speaker 5: Like we didn't know. I'm not doing that. Like I
Speaker 5: don't know what that is. I don't know who you
Speaker 5: learned that from. But we're not doing that with you.
Speaker 3: All right, all right, sense or sense we're talking about this.
Speaker 2: You are.
Speaker 1: Pick picture peak peak moment in your career, right, you
Speaker 1: are on top of your fucking game. You're still on top, right,
Speaker 1: but like I'm talking, like the moment where you're where
Speaker 1: you're young, you're fresh drafted, you're the new ship, right,
Speaker 1: you're on the team. What is one thing that you
Speaker 1: look back at a one moment or stilly memory and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do the flip side of this in a
Speaker 1: in a second.
Speaker 3: But one thing that.
Speaker 1: You did or or that you look back and you're like,
Speaker 1: am on, you fucking idiot, Like, what is one thing that,
Speaker 1: like young young adult a moan that you're just like, bro,
Speaker 1: skip that face.
Speaker 3: Skip that, skip that night, skip that party, skip that.
Speaker 3: What is one thing there's there's something circling in his
Speaker 3: brain right now?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll try to think because when I was younger,
Speaker 5: especially when I first got in.
Speaker 4: The league, a lot of that was a blur.
Speaker 5: The uh we were playing three games in four days,
Speaker 5: sometimes four games five nights. We played I think back
Speaker 5: to back to backs. I always love playing in the
Speaker 5: United Center. When I hear that, yeah, it make it
Speaker 5: give me chills. Like it's like when you play that,
Speaker 5: I could cry like it's some it's some ship that's
Speaker 5: attached to that sound. That is like it's a whole
Speaker 5: different emotion for me is different. It's like when you
Speaker 5: play that, it's just like it's complete control of me
Speaker 5: at that moment. But yeah, when I got in the lead,
Speaker 5: I say, my my biggest, my biggest, Like what the
Speaker 5: fuck was doing? Moment.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'll give you one. This was uh, this is
Speaker 4: one of.
Speaker 3: My favorite parts of the podcast. It's getting me stories.
Speaker 4: There was a.
Speaker 5: Time I was basically I basically it was you know
Speaker 5: how you have these invincible moments.
Speaker 4: There was this was my emon is invincible, and.
Speaker 3: Then you got real hard. I'm guessing.
Speaker 5: I ended up. You know, had a had a night,
Speaker 5: had me a night. You know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 5: had a night. Should have went home, didn't you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying, got practiced, looked at the clock and
Speaker 5: knew I was gonna be late, still tried to make it,
Speaker 5: stepped on the gas, did it. I ended up getting
Speaker 5: a ticket, but I ended up getting held for longer,
Speaker 5: Like it seemed like I was trying to duck and
Speaker 5: died them. I'm like, the cop stopped me. But it's like,
Speaker 5: you know, it was like it sounded like the dog
Speaker 5: h of homework type of you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It was like, Okay, the cop did stop me.
Speaker 3: Yes I was out super late. Yes I should have
Speaker 3: gone home.
Speaker 5: Yes I fucked up, But I was going in like
Speaker 5: trying to prove and I had this moment all at
Speaker 5: once when Mellow uh, I think mellow and Amari was like, like, bro,
Speaker 5: you a grown man. You was late, that's it. Pay
Speaker 5: your fine, come to practice like you sitting here explaining it.
Speaker 5: And it's like they was laughing.
Speaker 3: No one cares anymore.
Speaker 5: We don't care, brother, we don't care. You can't pay
Speaker 5: for your time you was.
Speaker 4: You was late.
Speaker 5: Every minute after that is pay your fee and get
Speaker 5: out here and work off because we need to.
Speaker 4: We got a game tomorrow. Like I just felt like
Speaker 4: a little kid.
Speaker 5: That's why I felt dumb, Like you feel like a
Speaker 5: little kid explaining yourself.
Speaker 1: Mister Ahmon, you know you mean the freaking world to me,
Speaker 1: and I'm so grateful that you are here for Joges
Speaker 1: who now, But I gotta cut.
Speaker 3: Us off, but only for a second. Everybody.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do a part two. We're gonna keep asking
Speaker 1: him on the burning questions. We're gonna keep talking about stars,
Speaker 1: his family, his life, all the things. An you stay
Speaker 1: right here with me, Everybody.
Speaker 3: Go check out Part two. Thank you so much for listening. Everybody.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok at
Speaker 1: Jojesua Now podcast. Be sure to write us a review
Speaker 1: and maybe if you're feeling to leave us five stars.
Speaker 3: I'll see you next week.