Speaker 1: Let us the Freedom was like a novella that I wrote, Yes,
Speaker 1: any cool examples of it? And I was just writing, yes,
Speaker 1: let us the freedom, give us an example? Can you?
Speaker 1: Like I wrote, Freedom was my girlfriend, So I wrote
Speaker 1: letters to Freedom about the advancement, how she changed, how
Speaker 1: she lived life different. I see more spinner, experimental and
Speaker 1: just doing her. And I was like basically telling her,
Speaker 1: like I miss you. You know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: can't wait to, you know, experience all the things you
Speaker 1: learned since I've been going. And when I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the experiencing things she learns how I was born, I
Speaker 1: was talking about the growth and women out here, like
Speaker 1: how they you know? How they you know? And it
Speaker 1: was like I used to just write letters to her.
Speaker 1: Today we have Wallace Wallowed two sixty seven, people's on
Speaker 1: the show. Wallowed two sixty seven is an activist, cultural
Speaker 1: change maker, speechmaker, philanthropist, podcaster, and social media influencer. After
Speaker 1: serving twenty years in prison, he has made it his
Speaker 1: mission to show the world that there are no straight
Speaker 1: lines to success or healing. He uses his life experiences
Speaker 1: and various platforms to inspire people to overcome their challenges
Speaker 1: and commit to transforming their lives day by day. In
Speaker 1: this episode, we cover Wallow two six seven's early life,
Speaker 1: his current mission, and his impact on young people and
Speaker 1: the hip hop community. So, without further ado, I bring
Speaker 1: you Wallow to sixty seven Walls Wallow.
Speaker 2: Too six seven. People's welcome to the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: Yes here, I'm I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2: So good to have you here. You are so many things, right,
Speaker 2: You wear a lot of hats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some people say that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well on your website as a whole bunch of hats.
Speaker 2: You're activist, cultural change maker, speech maker, philanthropist, podcaster, social
Speaker 2: media influencer. Now you weren't always all these things.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, And it took a lot of work
Speaker 1: to get there, a lot of work. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So why do you tell me what February eighteenth, twenty
Speaker 2: seventeen felt like to you?
Speaker 1: It was a scary ass day because you know, I'm
Speaker 1: walking out of prison and for the first time, I
Speaker 1: got to be somebody that I never was. I gotta
Speaker 1: be a law boding citizen. But not just that. I
Speaker 1: told my grandma or family members and anything that I
Speaker 1: was a different person than I had changed when I
Speaker 1: was incarcerated. But I never that change has never been
Speaker 1: challenged yet to see if it's really change. So I'm
Speaker 1: scared of shit coming home from jail. I think that's
Speaker 1: the scariest day, coming home from prison. That's the most
Speaker 1: scariest day because you got to be somebody you never was,
Speaker 1: and it's just like it's the unknown, like never before.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you were happy you got McDonald's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got that grub, I got the little breathfast
Speaker 1: saying where I was cool and I saw and I
Speaker 1: stopped in the well, I think stopped somewhere. I got
Speaker 1: some razors because they had like one blade razors in jail,
Speaker 1: and they like they like, you got to keep using
Speaker 1: it to the new it's just bulls. I stopped, guys,
Speaker 1: and I was just happy seeing just seeing little things,
Speaker 1: you know, on a ride that oh yeah, well, you.
Speaker 2: Know, there's so much of this new book you wrote
Speaker 2: goes through your childhood and the things that you went
Speaker 2: through and things you felt compelled to do. Right and uh,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of these kind of stories you
Speaker 2: talk about where you uh were attempting robbery, right, It
Speaker 2: wasn't always armed robbery, no, not always.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so it.
Speaker 2: Kind of you worked up like no one's born, you know,
Speaker 2: like doing things right, Like you know, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of series of steps and stages and can you kind of.
Speaker 1: You just keep evolving and in whatever where will you win.
Speaker 2: I am a huge hip hop fan. It used to
Speaker 2: be a professional breakdancer, okay. Yeah, And and I just
Speaker 2: I like in grad school, I watched B. E. T
Speaker 2: every day of my life.
Speaker 1: So if you was it uys B Street before, Yes,
Speaker 1: so this is breaking yeah, first groove, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Top tigger. This was back in like two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: two thousand and six, so like every day and like no,
Speaker 2: it was like.
Speaker 1: That was late in the game though, I know, I know,
Speaker 1: usually go back to the eighties.
Speaker 2: Better late than never. I wasn't yeah, but like you know,
Speaker 2: this is like I couldn't like resonate like at Yale,
Speaker 2: Like no one was like talk to me about it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And like every day I was watching this. So I'm
Speaker 2: a big hip hop fan.
Speaker 1: So that's one thing.
Speaker 2: And you have done a lot for the hip hop community,
Speaker 2: and you have a podcast you know, on this topic.
Speaker 2: But it's really interesting kind of like you can you
Speaker 2: see your whole life there kind of in front of
Speaker 2: your eyes right now. Kind of all these these steps
Speaker 2: that led up to things that has made you a
Speaker 2: role model now. But in a lot of ways, would
Speaker 2: you do you even regret those things? I mean, there's
Speaker 2: one sense you regret them, but there's another story of.
Speaker 1: The victimizds of my victims, you know, it's victims of crowns,
Speaker 1: and you know you don't regret that. But like anything else,
Speaker 1: like you live and you know a lot of your hardships,
Speaker 1: a lot of your experience and the journey get you
Speaker 1: to where you are now, you know, And even as
Speaker 1: things you know, you just you just don't know because
Speaker 1: you're growing up and you're trying to figure life out.
Speaker 1: You're taking all these l's, these losses, not knowing their
Speaker 1: lessons for later, you know. So it was like it
Speaker 1: was a lot, man, I don't you know, And it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't you can't take back. If any if any
Speaker 1: of us take a lot of this stuff back, we
Speaker 1: ain't gonna be where we're at today.
Speaker 2: That's the thing, Like, you wouldn't be this change maker.
Speaker 2: It's kind of fascinating how life works like that. You
Speaker 2: don't see you don't see it in reverse, right, But
Speaker 2: I mean, imagine if you you know, you didn't enter
Speaker 2: the life of crime whatsoever in your early childhood. Let's
Speaker 2: say you had this, Let's say you lived. I don't
Speaker 2: know what the word you is boring. I'm trying to
Speaker 2: think like a boring childhood, you know, like you probably
Speaker 2: would not be as motivated to do what you're doing today.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know where I would be.
Speaker 2: Where would you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, never know, you don't know. We go figure out,
Speaker 1: we could hope and wish and wish it could have been,
Speaker 1: would have been, But you know, you just don't know.
Speaker 1: You don't know, you know, you don't know.
Speaker 2: You said, I'm I'm gonna quote you a lot today.
Speaker 2: You say, I make it my life's work to show
Speaker 2: the world that there's no straight line to success or healing.
Speaker 2: And that's why writing this book is so important to me.
Speaker 2: I want to inspire others to overcome their challenges by
Speaker 2: sharing through my experience the commitment and sacrifices it takes
Speaker 2: to transform your life day by day completely. So do
Speaker 2: you go around you do you give talks to like
Speaker 2: inner city Yeah?
Speaker 1: I do that, inner cities, the juvenile facilities, and just
Speaker 1: regular people that I just went into you know, and
Speaker 1: I just try to share and share with them the
Speaker 1: best knowledge that I have of overcoming hardships and getting
Speaker 1: out of that funk, you know what I mean, and
Speaker 1: understanding that the world is bigger than the environment that
Speaker 1: produce you, an environment you might spend most of the
Speaker 1: time in. So you know, but it's different walks of people,
Speaker 1: different nationalities, different genders. So you know, it all depends
Speaker 1: on who I'm talking to at the moment, know, but
Speaker 1: I just think that everybody need a little push. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So what do you do when a young kid comes
Speaker 2: up to you and you're like kind of seeing a
Speaker 2: younger version of yourself. And let's say he's like chosen
Speaker 2: a life of crime, let's say whatever it is.
Speaker 1: I talked to him straight. I let him know, I
Speaker 1: let it, and I you know, i'd be straight to
Speaker 1: him in a way. It wasn't always straight to me.
Speaker 1: I give it straight, Like listen, man, you're going to
Speaker 1: jail or somebody gonna kill you. Yeah, Like, you got
Speaker 1: to be realistic with him, especially because right now there's
Speaker 1: a real time what was going on with him, and
Speaker 1: at any moment, you know, they could just be in
Speaker 1: a different place. I mean, so you know you got
Speaker 1: to give it to him right then there, bang, here
Speaker 1: it is. This is what it is. You know.
Speaker 2: So for our listeners that aren't aware, So what what
Speaker 2: got you into jail?
Speaker 1: Like what was the too on row rees? Too fire
Speaker 1: on violations? But I've been in jail before that. That's
Speaker 1: what got me the larcense. But I've been in jail
Speaker 1: most of my life. June thirty, nineteen ninety up. When
Speaker 1: I first got arrested, I was eleven for a couple
Speaker 1: of days and a few days and farm for robbery
Speaker 1: and I went on spent five years juvenile facility, went
Speaker 1: from there, seventeen, caught the big cases, got certified as an adult.
Speaker 1: They sent me to the penitentiary twenty years. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's like this was about my life. It was the
Speaker 1: life that I was living.
Speaker 2: You know, and it just kept escalating.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it always do you know? Crime is like
Speaker 1: you always get you find new ways, you try to
Speaker 1: make it quicker. It's always gonna be a way that
Speaker 1: you're gonna find.
Speaker 2: You said something, There's a quote that really gave me
Speaker 2: a pause, and I was like, huh, that's so interesting.
Speaker 2: You said this life of crime. Wasn't the life I wanted,
Speaker 2: but it was all I knew? Yeah, why was it
Speaker 2: all you knew? Because it was like It's like it
Speaker 2: was the education of the street culture. And I've seen
Speaker 2: it in America. They respected successful criminal more than anybody.
Speaker 2: Like a lot of people just you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of people.
Speaker 1: Will say, oh, why, oh, why this? So I'm looking
Speaker 1: at it as a kid, and I'm like, anytime the
Speaker 1: drug dealer pull up in the Mercedes Bens with diamonds
Speaker 1: on his pinky rings and a nice clothes on, coming
Speaker 1: to get the most beautifullest girl in the neighborhood, and
Speaker 1: everybody speak to him. They don't speak to the guy
Speaker 1: that come home from work looking at the janitor what's name?
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, you can ask any judge,
Speaker 1: any United States attorney, district attorney, FBI agent, c I
Speaker 1: A agent, DEA agent, what's your five favorite movies? All
Speaker 1: of them Ahead, Good, Fuck, Good, Godfather and Scarfacing them.
Speaker 1: They love Scar, they love they love Michael Cooleion, they
Speaker 1: love Tony Soprano.
Speaker 2: So there's something about like the seductive appeal of power
Speaker 2: that really drives a lot of it.
Speaker 1: It's something about the idea of wrong. I think wrong
Speaker 1: is like wrong. It is like worship more than they
Speaker 1: anything out here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we fetishize it.
Speaker 1: Wrong is powerful. So so when you're looking at it wrong,
Speaker 1: you're looking at it like I gotta have some some
Speaker 1: sort of wrong in my life. Yeah, And people, even
Speaker 1: if it's I work out, but I'm a cheat with
Speaker 1: this food, even if it's different sexual acts, even if
Speaker 1: it's oh, it's a lie, but it's a white lib.
Speaker 1: Even if it's a it's always something that whereas though
Speaker 1: its people have a craving for it somewhere in their life.
Speaker 1: But sometimes the movies, the music, But you get to
Speaker 1: everybody in some way. They love the successful criminal, they
Speaker 1: love the bag. I hope you get away.
Speaker 2: Well. You know a lot of this kind of motivation
Speaker 2: for power often comes from when someone's in.
Speaker 1: A state where they feel powerless. So I'd love to
Speaker 1: know more about your state of mind at that time.
Speaker 2: Did you feel you said, this is the only way
Speaker 2: you know, So were you feeling like like lack of
Speaker 2: control at the.
Speaker 1: Time, always a black of controller. It was just that
Speaker 1: I want to steal an American dream because I didn't
Speaker 1: think anybody that really had anything substantial work for it.
Speaker 1: I've never seen a person that worked for twenty years
Speaker 1: with a Mercedes Benz, Like that's one in a million.
Speaker 1: You're like, you got to work on Wall Street or
Speaker 1: some shit like that, and how many of them ain't
Speaker 1: stealing you? So I'm sitting there looking like, damn, I
Speaker 1: ain't seen nobody do it right when? And it's at
Speaker 1: a young age. I'm peeping this and I'm like, hold up,
Speaker 1: how she how he worked all the years and in
Speaker 1: his fifties ain't gotten U. But this guy is twenty
Speaker 1: something figured it out in sixteen months and living the life.
Speaker 2: Do you think a lot of it comes down, like
Speaker 2: to the role models that are available to you, like
Speaker 2: in your immediate community.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know it was something, but they was out numbered.
Speaker 1: That's what it sounds like. Listen. You got to understand
Speaker 1: that they was outnumbered by the Marketing' not wrong right right,
Speaker 1: the marketing the wrong the box office movies and when
Speaker 1: they come out the movie, everybody's saying that everybody know
Speaker 1: about these movies and these you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like you know when you look at you look
Speaker 1: at Goodfellas, and I think it was ray Leola and
Speaker 1: He had the one part of Goodfellas, if you go back,
Speaker 1: you were a movie buff. We gonna see you go back.
Speaker 1: And it was a time when he was a little
Speaker 1: kid and he went in there to blow the cards
Speaker 1: up and he said, by the time I was fourteen,
Speaker 1: I was making more money than all the grown ups
Speaker 1: in my neighborhood.
Speaker 2: So when you look at that, it's like, well, it's
Speaker 2: very seductor.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know me as a kid. You know me.
Speaker 1: Or if you look at you look at a movie
Speaker 1: like he and they tell you, you know, remember what's
Speaker 1: the name? Told us back in the joint, never get
Speaker 1: attached to anything. You can't walk out on thirty seconds flat
Speaker 1: if you feel it. He coming around the corner and
Speaker 1: he told Robert de Narrow that when he's sitting across
Speaker 1: the joint hill. And Robert Narrow was a cop, I
Speaker 1: mean Opportuno was the cop and he's all and he
Speaker 1: all suited up, but he wasn't the one that was attractive.
Speaker 1: He didn't have enough attraction around him in his role.
Speaker 1: He was just this cop that used to drink, couldn't
Speaker 1: get it right with his wife. You're not showing up whatever.
Speaker 1: And you see Robert and hill coming through smooth, got
Speaker 1: his life, no kids, spend a bunch of time in
Speaker 1: the joint. He dealing with the library and girl he
Speaker 1: just he come through.
Speaker 2: The library, the library or the librarian, the library or
Speaker 2: whatever the whatever.
Speaker 1: She was the one that was in the library when
Speaker 1: he went into the bookstore. Okay, No, she was in
Speaker 1: the bookstore. He worked in the bookstore, I think. Okay,
Speaker 1: And you remember he go to get the book, he
Speaker 1: meet her, and he went against he went against his
Speaker 1: whole rule in the end, why you get killed. But
Speaker 1: the whole thing is like you're looking at this guy
Speaker 1: like this, this fucking guy is the greatest guy in
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah. Yeah, So so much of that is
Speaker 1: like it's crazy.
Speaker 2: You're also what your values are, like what did you
Speaker 2: want to achieve in your life? So much like you
Speaker 2: don't listen to that much rap these days that are
Speaker 2: like I'm trying to think of example, something that's the
Speaker 2: opposite of ego, you know, like you hear a lot
Speaker 2: of ego even in these days.
Speaker 1: Ego. Ego is life out here these days. Ego and
Speaker 1: right now to a lot of people right now is god.
Speaker 1: Social media teach you right now, they worship right now,
Speaker 1: I meaning I need that shit right now, not tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And people don't look at your story. They look at
Speaker 1: your glory, they don't look at you know, they didn't
Speaker 1: look at my page, like oh wollow winning right now
Speaker 1: while IO doing this at third is you going back then?
Speaker 1: How many thousands and thousands of posts I had when
Speaker 1: I was living in any middle room? And I showed
Speaker 1: you that I never took nothing off of my page,
Speaker 1: and I do that, but mine's go all the way
Speaker 1: back to when I was in prison. I was posting
Speaker 1: in jail. I never took nothing off of my page.
Speaker 1: So they gave you, they let use the phone. No,
Speaker 1: I had to illegally. So so so when you go
Speaker 1: back and you look at that, I showed you my journey.
Speaker 1: Nobody's going to look at that. They're looking at right now.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, he went and look at that. And that's
Speaker 1: and that's how life is now. It's about right now.
Speaker 2: So it's a big message of yours to young people
Speaker 2: that to have a different value system, the nicest and
Speaker 2: you had.
Speaker 1: It, Oh man, you better have one because you can
Speaker 1: make it happen now you could do you could living
Speaker 1: right is man can take you to the moon these days,
Speaker 1: did you know you got to think about it. That's good.
Speaker 1: I could find somebody. I could come up with an
Speaker 1: idea right now. I could find somebody overseas to develop
Speaker 1: the app or the technology for me. Pay them a
Speaker 1: few thousand. Maybe once I get it, go pitch it
Speaker 1: to some vcs, get the funded, and be off to
Speaker 1: the races.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, I love it.
Speaker 1: Just think about that though, and I could do it
Speaker 1: all on my phone.
Speaker 2: I need to learn a little bit from you, man.
Speaker 1: You got it. I think you got.
Speaker 2: It, okay, okay, just got to implement it and you
Speaker 2: got it.
Speaker 1: You know what you okay?
Speaker 2: So would you be upset if I called you a
Speaker 2: little movemoo yo, little wow move moom move Okay, that's wow.
Speaker 2: What do you be okay with that?
Speaker 1: That was my childhood nick your childhood nickname. I know
Speaker 1: that's crazy.
Speaker 2: Gowing up in North Philly, right, North Philly? So North
Speaker 2: Philly around that time. Just can you just like plan
Speaker 2: a visual of what North Philly was like in the eighties?
Speaker 1: No Philly was it was? It was fun. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you why it was fun Because outside
Speaker 1: of the poverty and all that, the ingenuity that we
Speaker 1: had to figure out ways to be happy. Wherever it
Speaker 1: was a black party, wherever it was going in somebody basement,
Speaker 1: listened to some some rapper albums, or wherever it was
Speaker 1: me listening to some dirty some dirty uh comedy albums
Speaker 1: with my uncle. It was it's just the physical fun
Speaker 1: was just we our imagination back then and how we
Speaker 1: created so many things and that physical fund like being
Speaker 1: outside playing basketball in the crate, the milk crate, and uh,
Speaker 1: it was just like, I mean, it was just different, man,
Speaker 1: because it's like we didn't have nothing, but we had
Speaker 1: everything because we had each other. That's the thing is
Speaker 1: like some of these other communities that maybe are more affluent,
Speaker 1: don't have the community. You know, there's something special about
Speaker 1: that community that you had and.
Speaker 2: That you grew up. You grew up it was your
Speaker 2: poor would say poor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we wasn't rich. Yeah, you might as well say it.
Speaker 1: You know, you're trying to figure it out.
Speaker 2: And so you were out a lot, you were out.
Speaker 2: I feel like you were on the streets a lot, yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah yeah. And so what were you like in school?
Speaker 1: I wasn't that good a school. So at school, I
Speaker 1: would I remember I was going to the school in
Speaker 1: the logan section, and every time the teacher would get
Speaker 1: around to me to read or something, I go to
Speaker 1: the bathroom. They get close because you know, you read
Speaker 1: a packer. If you rea, I'd be like, I got
Speaker 1: used the bathroom, Shoot to the bathroom and go utilize
Speaker 1: and use the bathroom. So it was always like it
Speaker 1: was just different, you know, Yeah, what do you matter
Speaker 1: fast what high school you went to? I went to
Speaker 1: high school. I went to I ain't gonna say I
Speaker 1: even went to Germantown like that. I went to high
Speaker 1: school really in jail. I was in prison already.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's right, age seventeen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was in prison.
Speaker 2: Got my ged that was age seventeen though. But you know,
Speaker 2: you did go through a lot of these different uh
Speaker 2: situations where you put in like why didn't you stop
Speaker 2: like after a certain number of being in attendent center?
Speaker 2: Like what like why didn't Why do you think you
Speaker 2: just kept going even after being put in detention centers?
Speaker 1: I never got punished. M I see all of them
Speaker 1: juvenile facilities. They was like going to a school for
Speaker 1: boys that was like a college slash. They feed you good,
Speaker 1: you got all the sports in the world. You got
Speaker 1: games and going home passes.
Speaker 2: It wasn't nothing, but there was a certain drive that
Speaker 2: you had then. Like you're not a fundamentally different person,
Speaker 2: but it seems like you channel a lot.
Speaker 1: Of it into good Yeah I had to.
Speaker 2: But you had talents then, like even though some of
Speaker 2: it was a legal and you still got away with
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh, without a doubt, definitely did.
Speaker 2: I mean, let's be honest, you were talentsed criminals. There
Speaker 2: must have been some that weren't as good as you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: not trying to glamorize it, but I'm just saying there
Speaker 2: were talents. There was a skills that you have. Now.
Speaker 2: I'm so curious how you channel into what you do well.
Speaker 2: I was talking you a trick about this one thing
Speaker 2: you're very very good about. You're very good at marketing.
Speaker 2: I heard a story about that you were in wah Wah, right,
Speaker 2: and you convinced everyone in wah Wah to buy to
Speaker 2: buy your brand so you could, like on a dime,
Speaker 2: you know, bring like be really good.
Speaker 1: At marketing anything. You know, I could do a little
Speaker 1: bit of anything, you know when it comes to marketing,
Speaker 1: because I believe in whatever I'm representing. Yeah. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I'm a marketed to the death. So when did you
Speaker 1: start getting interested in marketing? Uh? You know. I was
Speaker 1: in cell right, and I used to always watch commercials religiously,
Speaker 1: to the point where I used to watch commercials and
Speaker 1: I said that McDonald's the sandwich, that big Mac, that
Speaker 1: shit never looked like that anytime. I got well mh.
Speaker 1: Then I realized, oh well, Then I realized that the
Speaker 1: brands didn't make these commercials, it was an advertising agency.
Speaker 1: Start doing researching on that. Then I ran across his
Speaker 1: book called Damn Good Advice by George Lewis. Then I
Speaker 1: realized that George Lewis was the guy that made the
Speaker 1: TV show The mad Man about that. So I'm reading it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh man, so I just and I feel
Speaker 1: as though I was a marketing when I was writing
Speaker 1: on walls growing up because people like, oh you wallow, yeah, wallow.
Speaker 1: So it was like I was like, this is my
Speaker 1: thing because I ain't got you know, I ain't. I ain't.
Speaker 1: And then I was thinking about Crazy Eddy back in
Speaker 1: the day. You remember Crazy Eddy. Yes, that was my
Speaker 1: favorite dude on TV. I used to love this.
Speaker 3: I remember crazy Yeah, I'm crazy at it. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: was like, I thought about crazyety since eighty four. Listen,
Speaker 3: crazy Eddy was a marketing legend. Yes, yes, you see
Speaker 3: what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, I'm sitting here, I'm like, that's the
Speaker 1: type of market Like, I ain't got no problem. A
Speaker 1: lot of people it's too cool to market their own product.
Speaker 1: They think they're getting on people nerves. I realized, now
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep it out there.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, So I mean there's got to be a
Speaker 2: continuity somewhere of skill set there from you know, I
Speaker 2: don't know what it is, do you know? Do you
Speaker 2: know what?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What do you think is the core of your skill set?
Speaker 2: If you had to describe it. I believe my skill
Speaker 2: set is just going after it, go getting it. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go get it, and I'm gonna go get it great.
Speaker 2: Whatever I put my mind to, I'm gonna go out
Speaker 2: there and get it. Especially about believing it. I'm not
Speaker 2: waiting for nobody. M Yeah you there. I think you
Speaker 2: say in your book you have this one, this realization
Speaker 2: that no one's gonna save you.
Speaker 1: Ain't nobody coming to save me, So I gotta go
Speaker 1: get it.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about a topic I'm really interested in, which
Speaker 2: is a victim mindset, because I see it a lot
Speaker 2: in the young people these days. You see it too,
Speaker 2: do you see it?
Speaker 1: They created this world whereas though judgment is lost in culture,
Speaker 1: back in the day, if you did something, it was shamed,
Speaker 1: though shame was important. If you was a junkie, they'll
Speaker 1: say you were a junkie. If you was but miscious,
Speaker 1: they'll call you a whore. If you was whatever, they
Speaker 1: would they would put it on you and they'll shame
Speaker 1: you for it. So other people that's witnessing won't do
Speaker 1: the ship. Now they got a way to whereas though
Speaker 1: if you judge somebody, if you shame them, you're bullying me.
Speaker 1: So now this gave people away out to not be
Speaker 1: accountable in this culture of now. So what happened is
Speaker 1: you got a bunch of people running around here doing
Speaker 1: all this goofy shit and then and then if you
Speaker 1: call them out about it, oh, you're you're bullying me.
Speaker 1: And no, you just did some dumb shit. You just
Speaker 1: and I'm telling you that you did some dumb shit
Speaker 1: in this document, and as you did some dumb shit,
Speaker 1: and I told you about it, and now you're the
Speaker 1: victim and I'm the bad guy. This victim shit is
Speaker 1: unbelievable out here. It's rampant, like in this this overly
Speaker 1: it's like this, man, I don't even understand it. I
Speaker 1: don't like this. It's like you can't even you can't
Speaker 1: even check nobody when they were on. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's gonna weaken the universe. Well, you have
Speaker 1: the opposite mindset. Oh no, if I do some dumb shit,
Speaker 1: I want you to tell me about it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I call it an empowerment mindset. You know, like you
Speaker 2: want to be better, right, you want to learn, you
Speaker 2: want to grow, but you also realize no one's going
Speaker 2: to come save you.
Speaker 1: That's when made me get up and go hard every day. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So when you were actually how long were you in prison?
Speaker 2: By the way, twenty twenty years? You were in prison.
Speaker 2: When you were in prison for two twenty years, Like,
Speaker 2: did you think to yourself? Like, actually, not only think yourself?
Speaker 2: You wrote letters, right, freedom?
Speaker 1: Letters that us the freedom?
Speaker 2: I love that. Okay, tell us a little about those
Speaker 2: letters of freedom.
Speaker 1: Let us the freedom was like a novella that I wrote. Yes,
Speaker 1: any cool examples of it? And I was just writing, Yes,
Speaker 1: let us the freedom give us an example, can you
Speaker 1: Like I wrote, Freedom was my girlfriend. So I wrote
Speaker 1: letters to Freedom about the advancement, how she changed, how
Speaker 1: she lived life different, how she more spinn her experimental
Speaker 1: and just doing her. And I was like basically telling her,
Speaker 1: like I miss you, you know what I mean, I
Speaker 1: can't wait to, you know, experience all the things you
Speaker 1: learned since I've been going. And when I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the experiencing things, she learns how I was born. I
Speaker 1: was talking about the growth and women out here, like
Speaker 1: how they you know, how they you know? And it
Speaker 1: was like I used to just write letters to her.
Speaker 2: I mean when you walked out as a as a
Speaker 2: pretty much free man, right, eventually in twenty seventeen, you
Speaker 2: were aware of that the odds were stacked against you.
Speaker 2: You were aware of the civic dism rate, and you
Speaker 2: that in a way that kind of motivated You're right,
Speaker 2: You're like, I'm not gonna I'm going to defy the odds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna just I'm I'm gonna do it up
Speaker 1: for real. Yeah, you know, And I just went at
Speaker 1: it a day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And did you think about that a lot in
Speaker 2: prison about how like when I get out of here,
Speaker 2: I'm going to.
Speaker 1: I'm not coming back. Yeah, yeah, I know it's more
Speaker 1: for me out there, and that's what I really tabbed into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, talk about some of the things that you're
Speaker 2: up to these days, because I know you you have
Speaker 2: your hands in a lot of things.
Speaker 1: You know, first and foremost you got on with good attentions. Yes,
Speaker 1: the memoir, you got airplanees's a hotel on my clothing line.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: You got a Wildow two sixty seven foundation, which is
Speaker 1: my foundation to show support and create resources for juvenile
Speaker 1: people that's in the juvenile system coming home, because you know,
Speaker 1: I think about the resource that I ain't have and
Speaker 1: things that could have prevented me from going keep elevating
Speaker 1: the crime. You got pure a few my highdration drink
Speaker 1: right there. Yeah, yeah, go ahead, do your think Fisher
Speaker 1: drink and a Fisher Iretion drink. A full of your
Speaker 1: seventy six is in Chicago sky. So you know, I'm
Speaker 1: just doing a lot of different things. Man. You know,
Speaker 1: do you work with Meek Mills? Yeah, refort.
Speaker 2: So tell me about Reform Alliance.
Speaker 1: Or Reform Alliance and something that me cooking up with uh,
Speaker 1: Michael ruve me and bring me over there. Did my
Speaker 1: thing you know over there?
Speaker 2: You know, and jay Z is part of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So so you advocate for criminal justice reform. Yeah, what's
Speaker 2: tell me something's wrong with the system right now.
Speaker 1: No, it's just a you know, probation parole. People is
Speaker 1: getting these lengthy sentences after the time, you know, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of violations. People getting violations got to
Speaker 1: go back up top you then me because of them. So,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just a lot you know, other things
Speaker 1: are working on. Like it's just you know, sometimes I
Speaker 1: don't even talk about the things that ain't materialize yet.
Speaker 1: I just like to focus on, you know, what you
Speaker 1: can see, what you can feel, what you could touch,
Speaker 1: what you could get right now. And you know, I
Speaker 1: just keep developing other things until I make it pop,
Speaker 1: until I get my proof of concept. I just really.
Speaker 2: That's not But then YouTube Avenues what is that?
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm the cultural advisor YouTube Okay. I created a
Speaker 1: person program called YouTube Avenues, whereas though we go to
Speaker 1: cities in the cities of America, put four or five
Speaker 1: hundred people in a room and educated my how to
Speaker 1: start their YouTube how to scale on YouTube, how to
Speaker 1: monetize their YouTube.
Speaker 2: Is that just for working with young people or.
Speaker 1: Now that's whoever? You could come, anybody could come.
Speaker 2: Can I come?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you come, we come into New York City. I'll
Speaker 1: make sure you get an invite.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I'm dead serious.
Speaker 2: Well I'm dead serious and saying thank you so much. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that'd be incredible. Just something you know, you're big in
Speaker 2: the in the hip hop community. Watched the podcast. I
Speaker 2: love the episode of fifteen, and you know, there's something
Speaker 2: interesting about you because like I'm sitting next to you
Speaker 2: and like I see, you know, I see a little
Speaker 2: bit of this tough extereer, but I also see this vulnerability.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and uh, and you.
Speaker 2: Put a lot of that in this book. But I
Speaker 2: don't feel like on the whole the hip Hop Commuty
Speaker 2: embraces vulnerability. I feel like it embraces like the tough
Speaker 2: exteer a bit more so, like what do you like?
Speaker 2: What do you say to your fellow colleagues and hip
Speaker 2: hop community and trying to like make a call to
Speaker 2: have this more expansive view of.
Speaker 1: Like I think the best thing I could do is
Speaker 1: just be myself and lead by example. Yeah, and because
Speaker 1: I'm always going to be open up to what I'm
Speaker 1: experienced when I'm going through what I'm feeling. And I
Speaker 1: think sometimes people going it got to be in you,
Speaker 1: you know, if it ain't in you, it ain't in you.
Speaker 1: It got to be who you are. And I just
Speaker 1: be me. So hopefully that you know those that's that's
Speaker 1: that's who they am, it's going to show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because there is a lot of v ability in
Speaker 2: a sense, like a lot of rappers talk about where
Speaker 2: they came from, right, So that's for sure, But is
Speaker 2: there a lot of vulnerability in terms of like, like
Speaker 2: I feel insecure, you know, like there's so much ego.
Speaker 1: I think nobody want to say that that. I think
Speaker 1: as humans, we all had insecurities. Yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Yeah, So I just think it's about I.
Speaker 1: Even when I was in prison, right and I realized
Speaker 1: that I was going bald, I was like, shit, I
Speaker 1: was really I was really insecure about that. When you
Speaker 1: were going, oh ball, gotcha, I was like, damn shit,
Speaker 1: I'm getting old, you know.
Speaker 2: And I started going bad when I was like twenty seven.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if it was like meanestosterone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if it was distressed. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the fun was going on.
Speaker 2: I'm like, shit, yeah, but.
Speaker 1: Just even just talking about like feeling insecure, feeling like
Speaker 1: that's here.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean I feel like those messages need
Speaker 2: to be a little bit like be celebrated a little
Speaker 2: bit more, and.
Speaker 1: Then you know, I understand.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So who are some other big influences in their life?
Speaker 2: I well, first of all, I loved your book and
Speaker 2: I enjoyed reading just even like just different people in
Speaker 2: your life that you really admired, right, like your older
Speaker 2: sibling Stevie.
Speaker 1: About Steve God, that's my brother rest in peace. He
Speaker 1: was just that God to me. Man. I used to
Speaker 1: sit there on the bed and watch him get dressed,
Speaker 1: listen to the media that he introduced me to hip
Speaker 1: hop because he had you know, I'm looking at them
Speaker 1: cassettes over there, so just imagine all them slots fill
Speaker 1: times too. That's how many tapes he had, right, because
Speaker 1: we was cassette tape warriors back then, and I used
Speaker 1: to be in there, wouldn't even getting dressed and listening
Speaker 1: to different tapes. I'm making my own mixtapes, especially when
Speaker 1: the double cassette came out, well you could record. I
Speaker 1: was like, you played the one songful pause, it put
Speaker 1: out a tape in there like No, that was my
Speaker 1: guy man, you know, he was just he was that
Speaker 1: he knew how to move, you know.
Speaker 2: So there were others that were big influences on you, right,
Speaker 2: anyone else you want to shout out to right now?
Speaker 1: It was many, you know, but Steve was the one
Speaker 1: that was really really that.
Speaker 2: So another big message you talk about well and boy,
Speaker 2: by the way, yeah, the one who I wrote your
Speaker 2: forward Mama Yanla Leanna Vanzade. She says she's so proud
Speaker 2: of you, right, yes, yeah, yes, that must feel good.
Speaker 1: That felt extraordinary, being as though when I was in prison,
Speaker 1: I used to have a book called the We used
Speaker 1: to call it the Purple Books Acts of Faith. It
Speaker 1: was this purple book, right small, put in your pocket,
Speaker 1: give you a little daily inspirations. So for me to
Speaker 1: connect with her, I remember when the first time she
Speaker 1: DM me out of nowhere, I almost dropped the phone.
Speaker 1: I was like shit, and I told her like yo, wow.
Speaker 1: And then for us to connect, I went to a home,
Speaker 1: had a great meal and she just showed me so
Speaker 1: much love.
Speaker 2: Beautiful. You have a lot of people that support you
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's a blessing. I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: you give love. Then I feel a lot of love.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Another big part of your message is about seeking
Speaker 2: where to seek your validation?
Speaker 1: Right? Do you seek it externally? Do you seek it
Speaker 1: through money, women and cars? Or internally? And you're pert
Speaker 1: your messages internally? Right you better or what? You know?
Speaker 1: What I mean? You're in trouble, It kind of leads
Speaker 1: you down to different path. That's where it's at. Man.
Speaker 1: You gotta tap into tapping with fin Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: it's about. Yeah, and you do that every day every day.
Speaker 1: I'm on a mission. M M.
Speaker 2: Tell me more about your mission.
Speaker 1: You know. My mission is to help people, give people
Speaker 1: the help that I wanted when I was down. Everybody
Speaker 1: wants somebody to help them, but they don't help nobody.
Speaker 1: Think about this ship. I don't help me. You did
Speaker 1: you help? Who did you do something for? Everybody? Quickly
Speaker 1: play the victim? Anybody helping me? Anybody support me? Anybody
Speaker 1: who did you helping? Support? Everybody just takers out here.
Speaker 1: So it's is deep. But I just try to lead
Speaker 1: by example. Help people in real time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you teach, you teach this message that the
Speaker 2: more you give, the more you actually get in it's better,
Speaker 2: you know, in a lot of ways. I mean a
Speaker 2: lot of people might think the only avenue to receiving
Speaker 2: things in life is by taking, and.
Speaker 1: That's like, no, you're not gonna get what you truly
Speaker 1: want by doing that. You've got to work for the
Speaker 1: shit and you got to work smart, that hard. I
Speaker 1: love it. And you got to figure out your thing.
Speaker 2: You do a lot of grit, and I think a
Speaker 2: big part of the message here of your life is
Speaker 2: how you've channeled. It's not like you've you've just completely transformed,
Speaker 2: but you've you've channeled. I'm gonna we could end the
Speaker 2: interview now and I'll end with a cult which I
Speaker 2: think really summarize a lot of this. You were thinking
Speaker 2: this February eighteen, twenty seventeen. If I could transfer the
Speaker 2: hustler's energy that I brought to robbing, stealing and dealing
Speaker 2: to motivating people to give one hundred to reaching their
Speaker 2: highest potential while staying out of trouble. I thought to myself,
Speaker 2: can't nobody fuck with me?
Speaker 1: My man? And they can't
Speaker 2: I