WEBVTT - Malcolm Gladwell 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:07.640 The Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeartRadio. Good people, 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:11.640 What's up? How you doing? Today's episode is actually the 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:17.119 very first episode taped as the Quest Love Show. It 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:21.160 was with author podcast hosts and my pal Malcolm glad Well. 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:24.480 We did this live on stage at the iHeart Cafe 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:28.120 in can France back in June, and you'll hear me 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.840 explore with this format, asking some random questions to get 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.680 to know people in new ones. Malcolm seemed to have 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:36.880 fun with it, and along the way we discussed his 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:41.280 latest book, Revenge of the Tipping Point. So please enjoy 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:44.840 this episode and let's go back live to the iHeart Cafe. 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:53.720 All right, all right, who's excited to hear a great 0:00:53.720 --> 0:01:00.120 podcast tonight? About five years ago we hear it. I 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.480 Heart had the chance to begin working with one of 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:05.880 the great podcasts out there. By the way, I'm Will Pearson, 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:08.160 President of iHeart Podcast. We are so happy to have 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:13.160 Well was that what that was about? Just was great, guys. 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:14.800 I'm just gonna sit down and chat for a bit. 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:18.480 Thank you now. But I'm pleased to introduce one of 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:22.560 our favorite podcasters, a true cultural powerhouse. Of course, he's 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:25.560 a founding member of the legendary roots. Let's give it 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:29.280 up for the roots. He's a best selling author. He's 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.920 gonna do the wander up here. He's never patient. He's 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:35.080 not a patient man. He's a historian, he's a creative 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:39.600 visionary and as of three years ago, an Academy Award winner. 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.800 Let's give it up for the Academy Award winner for 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:46.800 Summer of Soul, about the nineteen sixty nine Harlem Cultural Festival. 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:50.240 If you haven't checked out this year's documentary that he 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:53.720 did about the brilliant sly Stone. Unfortunately we lost him 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:54.680 just last week. 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:55.240 It is a. 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.440 Brilliant documentary as well. He's of course an incredible DJ. 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:00.240 I don't know if anybody got to hear Him's not 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:04.160 up at Hotel do Cap an incredible setup there, but 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:08.040 we here love to celebrate his genre hopping podcast, where 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:11.399 he gets the chance to chat with people such as 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:15.040 Michelle Obama, Chris Rock, Shaka Khan. The list goes on 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:19.080 and on and on. He's the ultimate multi hyphen it 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:23.600 and he is interviewing someone also incredibly interesting. Please join 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:26.000 me in welcoming the one and only Questlove. 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:37.720 How's everyone out there? All right? I was handing to 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:41.640 this le boo boo like five minutes ago. So I 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:43.440 know most of you don't know who this is, neither 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:47.560 do I, but I just learned what a lobuobu was. Well. 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:51.680 First of all, welcome to can Lyon. Thank you for coming. 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:56.639 Shout out to my iHeart family for organizing and putting 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.600 this together. Shout out to the two one five family 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:05.760 as well. So basically this platform is primarily known as 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:11.680 where I dissect music or musicians. Occasionally an actor, director 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.480 and author comes on the show, occasional politician. But we're 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.600 going to do something different today pretty much. I'll say 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:23.560 that our guests thinks different and probably specifically to me, 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.560 but for a lot of us. He taught me how 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:29.280 to think different and didn't think about the power of 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:33.760 critical thinking probably until the beginning of the aughts in 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:37.720 the early two thousands and whatnot. And I know he 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:43.160 hates all this attention, but no, he's really changed my 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:47.200 life as far as me understanding my personality for wanting 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.840 to practice or knowing the science of what's behind things 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.440 and whatnot. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Malcolm Gladwell to 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:59.960 quest Love Support. How you doing, man, I'm good, Okay, 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.400 delighted to be here. Well, let me start off asking 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:05.280 because you know, when I first met to you twenty 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:08.800 years ago, like both of us were arriving at a 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:12.600 new place where you know, we kind of reached our 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:15.720 prominence at the same time. Now that it's twenty twenty 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:18.520 five years later, I'll just ask you just off the cuff, like, 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:22.320 does it ever get exhausting when people are always running 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:25.880 to you for answers or how to explain things? 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:29.560 Well, it'd be worse if they didn't do that, right, 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.240 So you always have to think about the flip side 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:35.760 of it. If you produce stuff and no one it 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:40.040 never caused a ripple, that would be worse. Okay, So 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:41.560 this is a problem I'm happy to have. 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:45.520 Okay, I can accept that. Normally I start with a 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:49.400 music related question, but I know that's not your forte, 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:50.880 But I'm going to ask you anyway. 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.160 It's unfair to say it's not my forte. I don't 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:55.839 know next to you, I don't. 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.360 Know what about it. Okay, Well, I mean you told me before. 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:00.760 That, Well, I was worried you were going to start. 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.600 You know, That's why I'm asking this question, all right, 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:07.680 What was your first musical memory in life. 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:11.880 Oh, I know exactly what it was. We had just moved. 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:16.360 It was nineteen sixty nine. We just moved to Canada 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:19.800 from England. We did not have a television, but my 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:22.040 parents decided to buy a record player. 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:25.480 But we had no records, and so I went. 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:28.480 With my mother to the public library and we checked 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:33.240 out two records Peter PAULA. Mery Greatest Hits, which I 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:33.920 listened to once. 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:36.040 It was like EH and. 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:41.120 Bridge over Troubled Water, which Simon and Garrom Simon and Garfunkle. 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:43.000 I know, the a Wreatha Franklin version, so. 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:46.240 Which you know, if you think about sort of serendipitous 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:50.160 moments in your life, if that was really the the 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.520 first album I ever listened to, really the first mut 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:57.520 We didn't listen to the radio except for like news radio, 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:00.000 and we didn't have a TV. I had no exposure, 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.679 your zero to popular music. And the first popular music 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:06.120 I was ever exposed to in a concentrated way was 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:07.480 one of the greatest albums of all. 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:09.479 Time, which is pretty over Trouble. 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:09.880 Okay. 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.560 That's like if the first novel you read was War 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:16.840 in Peace, or the first scientist you met was like 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.400 Einstein or you know what I mean, it's like incredibly 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:24.200 lucky and that I was. To this day, I remember 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:27.440 exactly what it was like to listen to all those songs. 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:28.920 Well, I was going to ask you, what was it 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:32.840 about that record that spoke to you at the time, it. 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:34.800 Was It's funny because I didn't. 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.719 Later forty years later did an audiobook with Paul Simon, 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:43.000 who I interviewed him for like forty hours, and which 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:45.800 was this great sort of full circle. But I think 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:51.320 it was I hadn't realized how much joy there could 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:54.800 be in pop music. Remember, I had no exposure to it, 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:56.840 and if you have no exposure, you have no emotional 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.400 context for it. So I didn't know what pop music 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:01.480 was supposed to be. Was it supposed to be? All 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:05.320 I knew was church music. I knew music that was 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:09.200 supposed to be kind of ceremonial and formal and kind 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.920 of waited with moral meaning. I didn't know joy in music. 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.240 I knew Nursey rhymes, but they were silly, they weren't joyful. 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:21.400 That album is you know Cecilia and that drum solo 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:24.560 and on and on, and then the kind of in 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.920 the middle of it they dropped the bomb of Bridge 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:30.320 over Troubled Water, which is like a full on gospel 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.880 song sung by two Jewish guys from Queens, and like, 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:40.160 even then is genius. You discover the genius of a backtrack. 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:42.840 I grew up in a household that was a cultural contradiction, 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.679 a black mother and a white mother and a white father, 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.200 and I was aware of the fact that was a 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:51.320 discordant idea in the culture. I didn't know anyone else 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:55.560 who had that combination. And then I come across this 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:59.800 record which has a similar discordant thing. I know, I 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.200 know what gospel music was, and this was a gospel 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.880 song sung by two Jewish guys and queens. 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:07.240 Like that's in if. 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:12.120 You're seven six, that's really interesting and you're kind of 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:13.000 a student of this. 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:15.520 So even at the age of six, you had the 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:22.680 wherewithal the bandwidth to sort of differentiate emotion or well. 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:24.400 Remember I was well churched. 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:30.200 So I've been growing up in the evangelical churches of Jamaica, 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:34.520 the you know, the formal churches of England. 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.680 The so I knew if you if you're. 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:42.079 Well churched, you you quickly become acquainted with a whole 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:43.840 range of kind of cultural forms. 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:47.440 Was the air quotes secular music not allowed in the 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:49.840 household or did they frown upon it or not. 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.280 It's not that we was frowned upon, it was we 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:53.559 never got around to it. 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:55.680 You just never knew existed. 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:58.880 My mother, the first. 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:05.839 Movie she ever watched in its entirety was the movie 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:09.880 remember the Melanie Griffith movie Working Girl. Yeah, my mom 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:11.199 watched that with the sound off. 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:14.079 Because she did that was like late eighties. 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.559 My mother was born in nineteen thirty two. The first 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.560 movie she saw, It's full was on a plane and 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:25.079 she didn't realize she could buy the sound so she 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:30.200 just watched it, right, And her comment was, so we 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:34.000 didn't have a TV, so she was really encountering a 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:35.600 movie that form for the first time. 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:37.880 She was completely blown away by it. And I remember 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:41.240 as a kid thinking that is deeply hilarious that. 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:45.280 She thought, this is this is magical without the sound 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.840 mind you right, this is magical. Welcome that was an 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:52.400 extraordinary film. It is the is the comment that she goes. 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:54.800 But like, we didn't have a rule against it. We 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.280 just we just didn't do TV and we didn't go 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.959 to the movies, and we didn't buy records. 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:06.319 Okay, so I have a theory that boredom is necessary. 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.680 Oh yeah, wait, I said I had a theory about 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:13.960 You're the one that showed me that theory. I think 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:15.440 your own theory. 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:17.439 No, it's my mom's theory, because I would say to 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:20.560 my mom repeatedly, I mean, I'm living in this what 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:24.000 I consider to be a cultural desert in the middle 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:26.400 of rural Canada. And I would say to my mom 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:28.880 every day on bored and she would say, Malcolm, that's 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:29.560 a good thing. 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:32.720 Your mind needs a rest. 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.640 I agree. Did you agree with her at the time. 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.600 Or I do now. I was aware of. 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:43.440 How I was forced to manufacture my own fund and 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.480 I grew to really, really love there was a kind of, 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:50.440 in a wonderful way, a pressure to make my own 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:53.480 fun and I would the hijinks I did as a 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:58.520 kid were so elaborate and so complex and so ironic 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.240 in kind of many layers that it was the result 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:01.559 of that. 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.760 So no cousins or siblings on the other side of 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:07.240 the town you never knew about, or. 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:11.600 We're living in the middle of rural Ontario. 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:16.320 In our neighbors are Old Order Mennonites who drive horses 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.880 and buggies and don't have electricity, And like I said, 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:24.040 we have no TV, and we don't. 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:24.640 Go to the movies. 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:27.640 We don't really ever go to restaurants. We go to 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:32.040 Jamaica once a year at Christmas, and we read a 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:32.680 lot of books. 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:34.480 That's what's going on. 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:37.640 So give me an example of how you would entertain 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:38.760 yourself in your childhood. 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.080 Well, my best friend was a guy named Terry Martin, 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:44.720 who I was again, just as I was lucky to 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:47.720 have encountered Bridge over Trouble Water as the first real record, 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:50.760 my first really close friend was this guy Terry Martin, 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:53.840 who was another Neither of his parents went to college. 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.680 He grew up his dad was a chicken farmer, he 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:58.280 grew up down the road. He's now, by the way, 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:03.320 a tenured professor at Harvard. But that's the luck. He 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:07.040 happened to be the guy I ran into in elementary school. 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:11.720 And he's genius, okay, And he had a sense. He 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:16.960 thought that all rules should be broken. And we convinced 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:19.360 our moms that this was true because our moms knew 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.000 each other, and so our moms basically let us do 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.599 whatever we want, including not go to school and wait. 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.080 You would tell them that you're cutting school. 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:31.880 Oh, my mom was complicit. We had a thing. 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:34.880 Terry and I decided that it was too easy. We 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:37.520 were recompetitive. It was too easy to compete on who 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:39.400 could get the best grades, because like, how hard was that? 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:41.800 Because no one my school, like ten people went to 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:44.240 college every year from high school. So we decided what 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:46.199 we would do is we would create I never forgot 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:49.439 what we called it. But the number we cared about 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:55.040 was your average times a number of absences you had 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:57.439 that year, and the winner was the one with the 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:00.480 highest number. So we competed not only to get good grades, 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.120 but to see how many days of school we could skip. 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:06.600 It was fantastic. That's an example of the kind of 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:09.320 shit that we were doing. And so you seem like 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:13.960 it's no, but it's not. The genius was it's rebellion, 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:18.240 but it's highly constrained, institutionalized rebellion, because the point was 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:22.680 to excel at school while never going there. Right, that 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:26.160 it was the contray that interests That's what interested it. 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:27.440 I'm so smart that I was. 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.200 We're not gonna we're not blowing off school. On the contrary, right, 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.520 we're like, we intend to ace out while never showing up, 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:39.160 and then I terry won that. But then I decided 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:41.839 what I would do is skip a year of high 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:48.360 school basically without telling anyone. So I just enrolled in 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:52.120 one year ahead classes in my senior year and no 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:55.120 one appeared to notice, which tells us about Canada in 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:55.720 the seventies. 0:13:56.280 --> 0:14:00.400 And wait, Charlotmagne's face right now, like, I'm that, how 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.440 is this scientifically possible to happen? 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:03.800 Well? 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:06.080 No, So the key I thought about this a lot 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:09.920 when I was a kid. I realized that the only 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:12.200 subject matter where this was going to be hard was 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.880 math because math was sequential, right, So if you were 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:18.760 going to skip junior year math is what I was 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:21.480 intending to do, then you might have a problem. 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:23.360 But then what's my ace in the hole? 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:27.680 My dad's a mathematician, so I just had him like 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:29.720 whenever I had a problem, I was like, Okay, what 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:30.400 am I missing here? 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:32.000 And he'd say, oh, yeah, it's just this, this, this. 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:34.240 I don't know why I'm going on about high school years, 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:37.120 but they were such fun. I also realized you didn't 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:41.400 have to graduate from high school once that in Canada 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:43.480 at the time you did, they were loopholes which I 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:46.040 was too boring to go into. But I had this 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.200 insight at fifteen that I didn't have to get a 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:51.640 diploma to go to college. And once I realized, I 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.640 was like, well, all that's are off. That means why 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.040 I don't have to show up for school. I don't 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:00.480 have to take my junior year. It all kept skated. 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.560 But did you generally just not like school? 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:03.680 Like? 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:05.440 What about the whole social angle of it? 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:07.000 All came later? 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:11.040 Nevermind I didn't like it, So what would you consider 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:17.120 your first foray into this cold world we have outside? 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:20.240 Like if you're inside of an isolated bubble where yeah, 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:25.040 you know, you're allowed to cut school and without repercussions. 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:27.960 Or yeah, you know, I think I'm still inside the bubble. 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.400 I don't think i've ever I'm not. You have to 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:36.880 to backtrack. I was raised to believe and it was 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:40.400 a correct belief, and my greatest frustration with people in 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:43.800 my positions they don't recognize it, which was I was 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:50.000 a middle class male growing up in a developed country 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:55.000 in the seventies who had came from a healthy, happy 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:59.800 home life. The world was constructed for me. The whole 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.320 architecture of western society was constructed so the people who 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.920 were like me would succeed, Like you had to really 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:10.480 work hard not to That was my I think that's 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:13.440 the correct positions. Why I have such frustration with like 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:17.960 people in my position who whine about their lives. It's like, 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:21.600 I'm sorry, Like the whole world was built for you. 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:23.600 You have no business whinding about anything. 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:29.280 Ever, there were no obstacles, like institutionally every obstacle. All 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:31.960 around me were people who faced obstacles, but not me. 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:36.920 By three, I had a fight or flight situation, you know, 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.680 like growing up in my neighborhood where you instantly had 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:45.760 radar of which route was safe to go to school, 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:50.560 go home, Like growing up in crack Era West Philadelphia. Yeah, 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:54.040 so you never had a fight or flight existence. 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:58.200 My mom was like friends with the principal, and if 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:01.920 I got in trouble, she would lecture in about like 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.639 wait wait what oh yeah, she would call him up. 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.320 Same was Roger Millican. She knew Roger. She'd call him 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:08.280 up and say what are you doing? 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.040 Like you have bigger problems than worrying about Malcolm, which 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:16.439 I think was a correct position. Wow, she's now in 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:18.439 a nursing home. But she's still like doing battle with 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:22.080 the Nursing Home administration. Still, oh yeah, you can't like 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:28.320 the West Indian Lady is an is an indefatigable and implacable. 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:44.960 Force for you. What were your aspirations of did you 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:47.119 know from the gate that you wanted to be like 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:49.400 in the social structure? 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.199 I didn't think about it. 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:55.719 Never occurred to me to think about the future in 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.399 that way, and I still don't in a I'm not 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.040 someone who I'm not a plan and I'm not a 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:04.720 I don't really think beyond next week. 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:06.920 I assume or even tomorrow. I assume. 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.400 I'm optimistic enough that I assume things will work out. 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:14.440 So you've always lived in the present, Yeah, I don't. 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:16.960 I'm not someone who once the day is over, it 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:19.080 is erased. 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:24.239 From my living in this administration, Yeah, forced me to 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.080 start living in the present like right now. Ever, since 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:30.000 November seventh, my only goal in life is to have 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:36.280 the best June seventeenth, of twenty twenty five that I 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:38.439 can have. So will mean I'm not doing it, no, no, no, no, 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.760 I'm not doing a four polow some thank you. But 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:47.960 previously my thing was literally strategic planning, like professionally, as Questlove, 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.720 my life is planned in three year increments, where I 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:56.320 at least know that I still have work booked until 0:18:56.600 --> 0:19:01.080 twenty twenty eight. But like living day to day, like 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:06.240 the undoing of waking up every morning thinking like financially, 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:12.520 like my bills, my staff, growth, my survival, and so 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.680 for you, is this always like twenty four hours a day. 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.240 I probably have, on an unconscious level all the same 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:23.920 anxieties you do, but I have, as a psychologist say, 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:27.480 I'm probably better defended. Living in the present is my 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:31.800 way of warding off those anxieties. If I open that 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:35.679 door and start thinking about next year, I worry that 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.439 an avalanche of things will bury me. 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.080 So when you release a book, you're not instantly thinking 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:44.280 what's my next project in two years? 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:49.479 Or no I have I know what I'm working on now. 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:53.480 But what I know is that the process of inspiration 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:59.600 is so serendipitous and unpredictable that it's just foolish to 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:01.960 try and plant it out. It will always like I 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:05.160 was doing this thing this, I'm doing this big podcast 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:09.080 right now, which is this long series about a true 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:13.520 crime thing about a murder in Alabama, And I thought 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:14.639 I was going to do it one way. And then 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:18.560 I go and make a reporting trip to Muscle Sholes. 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:22.439 It'square the stake place in the Quad Cities. Muscle Sholes 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:27.320 is Alabama. Yeah, Florence, Discumbria. And I'm sitting in a 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:30.840 coffee shop in Florence, Alabama, and a guy comes up 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:32.399 to me and says, hey, you're Malcolm Melalla. 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:33.440 What you What are you doing here? 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.399 Oh, I'm doing this thing about this murder took place 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:39.080 forty years ago. He goes, oh, yeah, yeah, you know 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:42.040 you should talk to my friend Grant. I was like, okay, 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:44.280 So I call up Grant. He's like, oh yeah, I 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:47.439 know all about that. And Grant fixes me up with 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:51.280 like fifteen people who knew everything about this murder. And 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:53.080 then I go back in the second time and I 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:54.760 meet some of those people, and then one of the 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.920 guys says, Oh, my friend Ricky, who I have breakfast 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:01.760 with every morning, he actually investigated murder. 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:03.200 I thought everyone who investigated with dad. 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:04.960 So I just like get in my car and drive 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:06.919 one mile and there's Ricky and Ricky tells me everything 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:10.280 like if that's your that's to my mind, is the 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:12.800 way not just the world works. But it's the way 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:17.840 that creative process works is you just put yourself in 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:22.640 harm's way of something and things will hit you. And 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:27.960 I kind of, on some level have a confidence. The 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:30.960 reason I went there is on some unconscious level, I 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:32.880 knew that I would have an encounter like that one 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:35.480 in the coffee shop. Maybe it was I didn't inveage 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:37.880 in that particular thing, but I knew if I went 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:40.760 there something would come out of it. 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:41.920 So I went there without a plan. 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:47.000 I like, what's your creative ecosystem, Like, are you just 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:49.960 a circle of one? Or do you least have someone 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:52.760 that bounce ideas off of someone that says that's not 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:53.320 a good look? 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:57.480 Or I have Informally, I think I have a fair 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:03.120 amount of that. I'm operating within and Pushkin my audio company, 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:07.200 where I have a built in ecosystem of editors and 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:09.679 when we have you know, table reads where we and 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:12.280 where I read stuff alout and get feedback. 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:14.040 And I've realized how valuable that is. 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:17.199 What I've always believed is that if you have an idea, 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:19.919 what you should do is talk about it obsessively. So 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:22.560 the minute you have what you think is a special idea, 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:23.800 the first thing you should do is share it with 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:27.520 as many people as humanly possible, which is counterintuitive, right, 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:31.280 because your instinct is to hold on to something that 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:33.720