Speaker 1: Yet you know boys is back and redod it all
Speaker 1: in your mind. Yeah, now, deep throating. This is for
Speaker 1: the streets, the real the reilroading, the distenfranchise, the truth, escapegoating.
Speaker 2: And they ain't know when we speak the truth, so
Speaker 2: they ain't quoted because we wrote it. The North South
Speaker 2: East coaches, the ge be not for keeping your head bobbing.
Speaker 2: It ain't no stopping and once to be drop said
Speaker 2: by and then the system is so corrupt they threw the.
Speaker 3: Rock out their heads and then blame it on us.
Speaker 1: Don't get it twisted on coding. We danced it. Put
Speaker 1: no butterment biscuits. It's Willie d y'all, Ghetto Boys in
Speaker 1: the House back with another episode of information and instructions
Speaker 1: to help you navigate through this wild, crazy, beautiful world
Speaker 1: in the studio. D one one the number one, y'all.
Speaker 1: It's a special significance to that. I think I know
Speaker 1: what it is, but I'd rather have you explain.
Speaker 4: That, of course, brother. Yeah, man, I got my name
Speaker 4: in college. I went to a Division I school, LSU
Speaker 4: dand Ruge, Louisiana. And you know, if you play college ball,
Speaker 4: you know D one is like significant because it's like, oh, yes,
Speaker 4: you top not you know what I mean. But not
Speaker 4: only that, my birth name is David. My Mama named
Speaker 4: me David. And when I started to get into the
Speaker 4: REP game, I felt like I was the one that
Speaker 4: was chosen to be in this thing. And I felt
Speaker 4: like God shows me like, man, you in a group
Speaker 4: with twenty other people, but you the one, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. So instead of V one, I took
Speaker 4: the d from David. I said, I'm d one.
Speaker 1: That's dope. That's dope. And that's how you came up
Speaker 1: with David and Galaid. That album that you put out,
Speaker 1: yeah that was that was dope.
Speaker 4: There you go. That was my first album.
Speaker 1: Yeah that was your debut debut album. Man, you know
Speaker 1: you made a lot of noise really fast, really fast,
Speaker 1: and then it was like you just stopped. Did that
Speaker 1: happen like intentionally? Do you switch gears?
Speaker 4: Nah? I don't think I stopped. I think I'm richer,
Speaker 4: I'm I'm more well known now.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying. What I'm saying is that like you're moving,
Speaker 1: You're you're still doing stuff, but I haven't seen you
Speaker 1: doing like like the what would they say the mainstream
Speaker 1: the mainstream stuff. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So when I first jumped into the game, I was independent.
Speaker 4: I was fresh out of college. I got a job
Speaker 4: as a middle school teacher, so I got a nine
Speaker 4: to five bag and band ruge. I'm teaching and one
Speaker 4: of my math teaching Math, yeah, math teacher, and I
Speaker 4: taught life skills too. I can't leave that when I
Speaker 4: taught a subject called life skills. So I'm teaching math
Speaker 4: and life skills. And while I'm teaching, I do a
Speaker 4: song called j fifty and Wheezy where I'm calling out
Speaker 4: jay Z, fifty cent and Lil Wayne. I'm not dissing them,
Speaker 4: but I'm holding them accountable for their lyrics and for
Speaker 4: the message they sending because I'm seeing how the impact
Speaker 4: of they lyrics is affecting my students. One of my
Speaker 4: students came in class one day and had a tattoo
Speaker 4: that said MOB on it. You know, MOB stand for
Speaker 4: money over right. I asked him. I said, man, you
Speaker 4: know what that tattoo mean? He was like no, sir.
Speaker 4: He looked at me and I said, well, why did
Speaker 4: you get it? Because his favorite rapper, Lil Wayne, has
Speaker 4: it tattooed on her. And when I realized how powerful
Speaker 4: these Brothers lyrics were. I said, I I could choose
Speaker 4: to remain a teacher or I could get into the
Speaker 4: rap game to be a teacher. So I'm still a
Speaker 4: teacher at heart, but instead of mister Augustine, I'm d
Speaker 4: one now. And because I'm in the rap game, I'm
Speaker 4: able to reach way more people. That music video went
Speaker 4: viral for j fifty and Weasy. At the time, MTV
Speaker 4: Jams was like the Holy grail. If you could get
Speaker 4: a video on MTV Jams, it was like, man, you
Speaker 4: made it, you know, bro As an independent artist, as
Speaker 4: a middle school teacher, I'm looking and I got a
Speaker 4: song that's on the top twenty on MTV Jams and
Speaker 4: on BT and all this stuff, and people looking like, man,
Speaker 4: how you doing this? So I'm getting mainstream looks, but
Speaker 4: I'm still an independent all this with a job, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. So then after that that led
Speaker 4: to like a little situation where different labels wanted to
Speaker 4: sign me. So cash Money ironically was one of the
Speaker 4: labels that wanted to sign me. So I mean talks
Speaker 4: with burrow Man and Slim, they flying me out to Miami.
Speaker 4: I never forget this meeting I had with Slim at
Speaker 4: the Rich Carlton Hotel and he talking to me. And
Speaker 4: I grew up on these dudes, you know, so at
Speaker 4: the time I'm looking at Slim something.
Speaker 1: Don't talk Slim.
Speaker 4: It's not perfectly man Slim. You know, he talked real slow,
Speaker 4: you could tell his words are real calculated. And he
Speaker 4: said he liked me. Man. He said he liked my
Speaker 4: my authenticity, you know, he liked he liked it. I'm
Speaker 4: not trying to be somebody. I'm not, so they wanted
Speaker 4: to bring me over there. But in the back of
Speaker 4: my mind, I was always like, man, I just did
Speaker 4: a song that got real popular. Well it's calling out
Speaker 4: jay Z, fifty cent and Lil Wayne, Like how that's
Speaker 4: gonna work, you know. And the whole time that they
Speaker 4: would courting me and talking to me, I never met
Speaker 4: Wayne in person, right, So I was like, this don't
Speaker 4: feel right, man, you know what I mean, Like I
Speaker 4: didn't I didn't been around the block enough, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm like I could be getting set up to get shelved,
Speaker 4: you know. So, so I didn't end up signing that deal.
Speaker 4: Long story show, I didn't end up signing that deal
Speaker 4: because I really knew what my purpose was in this game.
Speaker 4: If your name is Cash Money Records, what you think
Speaker 4: you in this game to do primarily make money? Right,
Speaker 4: I'm in this game to be a teacher. I'm gonna
Speaker 4: make money. But after I get to teach, so it's
Speaker 4: impact over income for me. If it's income, and then
Speaker 4: if we make a little impact for you, then we're
Speaker 4: not in the game for the same purpose. I recognized that, Bro,
Speaker 4: you got two types of artists in this game. You
Speaker 4: got the hustlers and you got the teachers. Some people
Speaker 4: get into the game like, man, I'm just trying to
Speaker 4: make some bread. I'm a hustler. I'm gonna figure out
Speaker 4: how to use the rap game to make money. What
Speaker 4: you don't read as a rapper, you're automatically a teacher though,
Speaker 4: because hip hop is so digestible, it's so much information
Speaker 4: inside of your lyrics. Then it rhymes, then it's repetition.
Speaker 4: What does that equal? That equals retention? So people are
Speaker 4: memorizing these lyrics. I guarantee you, me and you both.
Speaker 4: We could wrap the lyrics to songs that we liked
Speaker 4: over twenty years ago, but we could still wrap the
Speaker 4: lyrics word for word. That's because of the higher retention
Speaker 4: rate of hip hop. So if you're a hustler primarily
Speaker 4: getting into the rap gam you're gonna end up being
Speaker 4: a hustler primarily, then a teacher, and then you're gonna
Speaker 4: entertain people in the process. Right, If you're a teacher
Speaker 4: getting into the rap game, then you're trying to teach.
Speaker 4: You're gonna make some money if you're successful. You can't
Speaker 4: not make money in the rap game if you're successful,
Speaker 4: and you're gonna entertain people in the process. I learned
Speaker 4: early on, I'm a teacher that's getting into the rap
Speaker 4: gam to teach. I've made money by the grace of God,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, in a cool position. And
Speaker 4: of course I entertain people. I got hundreds of thousands
Speaker 4: of fans all over the world, like that's great, probably millions.
Speaker 4: But I'm not a hustler that's just trying to get
Speaker 4: into this game to figure out how I could just
Speaker 4: make money by any means, And unfortunately a lot of
Speaker 4: people are yeah, and and that you're always gonna clash.
Speaker 4: So I didn't sign with cash.
Speaker 1: Money and that was did you ever meet Wayne?
Speaker 4: No? You want to know something crazy bro, I was out.
Speaker 4: Wayne had a concert out here last night. I was
Speaker 4: on the tour bus. Still didn't meet Wayne.
Speaker 1: You was on his tour bus.
Speaker 4: Wayne got it. We ain't got two tour buses. He
Speaker 4: got his tour bus. He got a tour bus for
Speaker 4: all his clique, his crew. Right, So they all know me.
Speaker 4: We got songs together, like we is New Orleans. We're small, bro,
Speaker 4: we all know each other. I'm friends with I'm cool
Speaker 4: with all these dudes. They see me, they embrace me,
Speaker 4: They dap me off, gutta gutta macmain. You know all
Speaker 4: these people. Yeah, Wayne is on the other tour bus, right,
Speaker 4: all these dudes know me. I'm thinking that was Wayne
Speaker 4: to a bus. So I'm thinking I'm about to meet him.
Speaker 4: We about to after all these years, we about to
Speaker 4: be able to you know, chop it up. It's gonna
Speaker 4: be cool because I got no hate towards this brother,
Speaker 4: you know, nothing like that. I'm just in the game
Speaker 4: to be a teacher, and Lil Wayne was one of
Speaker 4: my teachers, whether he knows it or not, because I
Speaker 4: grew up listening to so much of his lyrics. Come
Speaker 4: to find out, he wasn't on that bus. He was
Speaker 4: on the first bus. Bro, We always right. When I
Speaker 4: realized that, and I got off one bus to walk
Speaker 4: to the other, I saw this big circle of people
Speaker 4: walking towards the entrance at the House of Blues that
Speaker 4: was Wayne, and all them just missed them. Not that
Speaker 4: I'm like like searching out to like, oh I gotta
Speaker 4: meet Wayne, but we always just barely miss each other.
Speaker 4: You heard me, So I did all that, Bro. So
Speaker 4: to answer your question, yeah, I got some mainstream looks
Speaker 4: before I ever signed. Then I did sign with RCA.
Speaker 4: RCA Records signed a major record deal with them. Of
Speaker 4: course they helped get me some big looks, you know.
Speaker 4: So if you see me on TV, if you see
Speaker 4: me on a lot of award shows, performing BT hip
Speaker 4: Hop Awards, all this type of stuff, that's when I was.
Speaker 4: But I can't even say that it was because of
Speaker 4: the label. It was really because of my hustle. It
Speaker 4: was really because of my hustle.
Speaker 1: Bro.
Speaker 4: I didn't have music videos go viral. I did a
Speaker 4: song about paying my student loans off called Sally May Back, and.
Speaker 1: Then you use the proceeds to pay off your student.
Speaker 4: I used the proceed I used the proceeds from my
Speaker 4: record deal to pay off my student loans. Bro, And
Speaker 4: that song got so popular and when so viral that
Speaker 4: people looked up and they saw d one on the
Speaker 4: Real the daytime talk show. Right, it was either the
Speaker 4: Real or Wendy Williams. I had a choice to go
Speaker 4: on either one. I went on the reel, performed, got
Speaker 4: interviewed like this, millions of people around the country seeing me, right,
Speaker 4: they see me on ESPN, ESPN doing an interview with
Speaker 4: me right, national television.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: That wasn't the regular label. That was my hustle, And
Speaker 4: that was my anointing from God to be honest with you,
Speaker 4: because I realized that even hustle ain't enough to open
Speaker 4: doors that God just don't want to open for you.
Speaker 4: So this game for a reason, Bro, I've been knowing
Speaker 4: that for a while.
Speaker 1: Why did you choose the Reel over Wendy Williams.
Speaker 4: Why Because Wendy Williams. When I think of her name,
Speaker 4: I instantly think a mess. That's why your reputation is
Speaker 4: so important in this game. When I thought of the Real,
Speaker 4: I was like, okay, you think of them, you think
Speaker 4: of something like bright and more positive, a friendly atmosphere
Speaker 4: with Wendy Williams. It seems like if you ain't got
Speaker 4: no drama or no gossip, like you're not really gonna
Speaker 4: click too well with her. And I never met her
Speaker 4: in person, but from a distance, you know the energy
Speaker 4: that's given off, you know.
Speaker 1: Well, the real To be fair, they've had their fast
Speaker 1: share of gossip and mess, you know, drama. What do
Speaker 1: you think about First of all, that's been an uptick
Speaker 1: of teacher student fight videos the internet. Fair, there's a
Speaker 1: myriad of them out there if you look on the internet.
Speaker 1: What do you think about this volatile situation we find
Speaker 1: ourselves in with teachers and students in the classroom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the part that you're leaving out is
Speaker 4: the role that parents play, because if your parenting your
Speaker 4: child properly at home, there's no way in the world
Speaker 4: that they would have the audacity to go to school
Speaker 4: and talk about wanting to fight their teacher. Students going
Speaker 4: to school nowadays thinking oh, it's cool to threaten my teacher,
Speaker 4: it's cool to call my teacher's hands because it's gonna
Speaker 4: make my classmates laugh. And that's because of bad parenting.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Man, at the end of the day, I had one
Speaker 4: student I had one student who, no matter how hard
Speaker 4: I tried, this dude did not like me at all
Speaker 4: at all. And I knew at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: I knew that if he had the opportunity, that he
Speaker 4: would have fought me. And because I knew that, I
Speaker 4: also had the maturity as a man to say I'm
Speaker 4: not going to do anything. Ain't to take it to
Speaker 4: that level. So that was a time where I literally
Speaker 4: had to sit in front of the door. I sat
Speaker 4: in the desk in front of the door, blocking the
Speaker 4: door so he couldn't get out of the classroom. Because
Speaker 4: I was like, brother, I said, we're gonna set the
Speaker 4: list right here, right now. And that don't mean I'm
Speaker 4: calling your hands. That mean we're gonna sit down as men,
Speaker 4: or as a man and a young man, and we're
Speaker 4: gonna talk through this, bro, because you don't like me,
Speaker 4: and you don't have to like me, but we're gonna
Speaker 4: get to the bottom of why you don't like.
Speaker 1: Me, and we get to the bottom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we got to the bottom.
Speaker 1: And what was the bottom the bottom he.
Speaker 4: Was going through head at home. Man, it had nothing
Speaker 4: to do with me. This brother broke down crying by
Speaker 4: the end of our session. We're sitting there talking. He
Speaker 4: having daddy issues. So when he comes in the classroom
Speaker 4: and he see another black man, me trying to exert
Speaker 4: some level of authority over him, it just automatically wasn't
Speaker 4: making him feel like he wanted to respect or listen
Speaker 4: to anything. I had to say this dude, daddy had
Speaker 4: him out here trying to sell dope. And this man
Speaker 4: was a middle school student. This man was all messed
Speaker 4: up in the head in terms of like who to
Speaker 4: really look up to. And that's why mentorship is so important, really,
Speaker 4: Like it's so important whether you're a parent or whether
Speaker 4: you're a rapper.
Speaker 2: Bro.
Speaker 4: In the rap game, we got all these people that
Speaker 4: we call OG's, but I feel like we got we
Speaker 4: got horrible, horrible examples oftentimes of people who are just
Speaker 4: super irresponsible. Man, just because you're an elder statesman in
Speaker 4: the game, don't mean you're a real o G. You're
Speaker 4: probably a DG. That means you're a disappointing, grown up,
Speaker 4: straight up bro. You can't just call somebody an OG
Speaker 4: just because they're old. You're a DG man, straight up.
Speaker 1: Good boys. Reloaded podcasts will be right back after the
Speaker 1: squat Man, let's go back to on Monastery School.
Speaker 4: Well, you did your research.
Speaker 1: Let's go back, man, let's go back. These are your
Speaker 1: formidable years. What do you remember about walking the hallways
Speaker 1: of Audibond Man?
Speaker 4: First of all, I grew up on the East side.
Speaker 4: I grew up in the Ninth Wall in New Orleans, right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: So where I grew up at it's a lot of
Speaker 4: poverty and you know, you see a lot of violence.
Speaker 4: That's the known for us, right all black. I remember
Speaker 4: going all the way across town, like forty minutes, you know,
Speaker 4: to get to the other side of town to go
Speaker 4: to Auduburn that's near Tulane University. And by the time
Speaker 4: I catched the Lake Forest bus to the street called
Speaker 4: Canal Street and finally get there, I'm like, man, I
Speaker 4: didn't have to walk past million dollar houses on Saint
Speaker 4: Charles to get to school. I didn't have to see
Speaker 4: all these luxury calls in order to get to school.
Speaker 4: It showed me that there's more to life than just
Speaker 4: my hood. That was big for me because I was like, man,
Speaker 4: I am not just a product of my environment. My
Speaker 4: environment can become a product of me if I apply
Speaker 4: myself right in school, So, man, when I was at
Speaker 4: that school, I was around white students, I was around
Speaker 4: Asian students, I was around black students. And it showed
Speaker 4: me that just because your parents might make more money
Speaker 4: than mine, you're not any better than me. Because I'm
Speaker 4: in the gifted classes, y'all, not even in gifted classes.
Speaker 4: I'm smarter than you, and you got ten times the
Speaker 4: money I got power. That's when I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: this's a weapon right here my brain. Oh man, that's
Speaker 4: that's gonna be my ticket out straight up. And I
Speaker 4: knew that from an early age. Bro, Like shout out
Speaker 4: to my daddy. Man, my daddy had to camp out
Speaker 4: to get me in that school. Bro, it's a public
Speaker 4: school in New Orleans. You know, you ain't got to
Speaker 4: pay a dime to go there. But it's so like
Speaker 4: sought after for people to go to this type of
Speaker 4: school back then that my pops had to camp out
Speaker 4: just to get me a spot in line to be
Speaker 4: in a lottery to potentially be able to get into
Speaker 4: this school. So he camped out in a tent overnight
Speaker 4: on the street corner in New Orleans. Because they said
Speaker 4: the first one hundred people had an opportunity to get
Speaker 4: into the lottery.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, I don't even believe because black
Speaker 1: men don't take care of their kids like that. We
Speaker 1: we abandoned our kids. We ain't. We ain't. We're not that.
Speaker 3: We're not, we're not, we're not present. False, We're not
Speaker 3: that false. Your daddy did that for really false? Man,
Speaker 3: My daddy did that.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: They need to stop acting like black men don't take
Speaker 4: care of their kids. Bro, you take care of yours,
Speaker 4: damn skippy. Then you go, look, he's so cont only
Speaker 4: somebody from Texas and City.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you. Let me tell you something, bro. Uh,
Speaker 1: I don't even understand how a man could have a
Speaker 1: child born into this world and not be there for
Speaker 1: the arrival of that baby. I can get it if
Speaker 1: there's some type of circumstances that that are beyond your control,
Speaker 1: But you know a child, your child is being born
Speaker 1: to see that you planted in this woman and it's
Speaker 1: this baby is coming into the world, and you know
Speaker 1: it's going down, and your silly ass is sitting at
Speaker 1: home watching the game, or you at the bar, kicking
Speaker 1: it on the streets or whatever you're doing. To me,
Speaker 1: that is the most uncivilized thing it's amongst the most
Speaker 1: uncivilized thing that a person can do. Like you're talking
Speaker 1: about bringing a human being into the world, and you're
Speaker 1: responsible for their development, and it's that what you produce
Speaker 1: gets to go out into the world and reproduce, you know,
Speaker 1: and to just act like you ain't did nothing, like
Speaker 1: you ain't had no parts in it. That right there, bro.
Speaker 4: Bro Bro. So, I knew from early on that I
Speaker 4: was different because I not only did I have my pops,
Speaker 4: but I had my grandpa, you know, and my grandpa
Speaker 4: is currently ninety three years old. That's my hero right there,
Speaker 4: that's my main man. Like people who follow me on
Speaker 4: social media, they feel like he's their grandpa because I
Speaker 4: post him a lot on my social media and they
Speaker 4: just like, oh, man, I wish he was my papa,
Speaker 4: you know, they yeah, bro, And I I realized that
Speaker 4: that wasn't the norm for my friends. Like a lot
Speaker 4: of my friends, I look around and they ain't had
Speaker 4: their daddy. They ain't had their daddy and their grandpa.
Speaker 4: And I had both of them. So you know what
Speaker 4: that meant, I had no excuse. I know what it's
Speaker 4: like to respect a woman. Bro. I see my daddy
Speaker 4: do it with my mama every day. Grandpa and Grandma
Speaker 4: married sixty six years before she passed away recently. I
Speaker 4: saw this. So because of that, I understand the importance
Speaker 4: of mentorship and leadership. So when I get into the
Speaker 4: rap game, I knew off top man, I got a
Speaker 4: responsibility to my audience. I'm not just here to entertain.
Speaker 1: You heard me. You know, even if you had an excuse,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't use an excuse if you wanted to better yourself.
Speaker 4: That's a good point. You know.
Speaker 1: I wasn't raised with my father. I probably saw my
Speaker 1: father every other year or so. Sometimes, you know, when
Speaker 1: he was closer to where I lived, I may see
Speaker 1: him multiple times in one year, but very seldom. I mean,
Speaker 1: he definitely did not play a role in my development
Speaker 1: as far as a man. I never had a heart
Speaker 1: to heart with him until he was on his deathbed. Basically,
Speaker 1: so everything that I picked up was trial and error.
Speaker 1: It was through watching other men who I admired, you know,
Speaker 1: and some other man that I admired were unlearned, right,
Speaker 1: so I could have easily said, well, I'm this way
Speaker 1: because my daddy was this way. You know, I behave
Speaker 1: this way. I'm gonna do this because my daddy did it,
Speaker 1: but I wanted better, so I never used the excuse. Like,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, your excuses ain't gonna
Speaker 1: matter if you walk into If you then let's say,
Speaker 1: sell some dope and you end up in a court room,
Speaker 1: the judge's gonna be like, you think the judge's gonna say, hey,
Speaker 1: not bring him over here, a young man.
Speaker 4: Tell me, how did you have it?
Speaker 1: How hard life was you know when your father wasn't there?
Speaker 1: And I can understand, So you know what, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let you get back out there and try it again.
Speaker 1: You know, good luck, son. The judge's gonna be like,
Speaker 1: I got me another one. Here's another one. Yeah, five years,
Speaker 1: ten years, twenty years, thirty years, seventy years, eighty years,
Speaker 1: hundred years. They don't give a damn. And because you're
Speaker 1: going into a courtroom and you're asking for mercy from
Speaker 1: people who were hired to show you no mercy.
Speaker 4: They were hired to show you no mercy, and you're
Speaker 4: asking you asking for mercy. Yeah, that's man, that's messed up.
Speaker 4: Was even more messed up, is well? We make music
Speaker 4: that glorifies this type of behavior. Yeah, We make the
Speaker 4: soundtrack for the lifestyle that someone would want to live.
Speaker 4: When they say, Okay, I want to sell Dobe, we
Speaker 4: make music that makes it sound appealing. We got all
Speaker 4: these gray hair clouds, chasers, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: People with gray hairs, but they still chasing cloud because
Speaker 4: they're still like, I want to be relevant with the
Speaker 4: young boys, you know, I want to make music that
Speaker 4: the teenager is gonna feel. You're not supposed to be
Speaker 4: making music that the teenagers gonna feel, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. You're not supposed to be trying to fit
Speaker 4: in with them. You're supposed to be setting an example
Speaker 4: for them. And when I hear these people that have
Speaker 4: been rapping about selling cocaine, you know, we could call
Speaker 4: them out by name if we wanted to bro and
Speaker 4: go viral right quick. But they know who they are,
Speaker 4: and the fans listening to this know who they are.
Speaker 4: Like you and your thirties, your faulties, your fifties, if
Speaker 4: you still rapping about cocaine or killing people, even if
Speaker 4: you sold that, even if you shot somebody before, there's
Speaker 4: a difference between narration and glorification. And I just feel
Speaker 4: like in the rap game, it's too much glorification of
Speaker 4: things that's gonna get us locked up or get us
Speaker 4: six feet underground.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you. I'm glad you clarified that, you know, narration, glorification,
Speaker 1: because that has always been my.
Speaker 4: M O.
Speaker 1: You know, not to glorify, you know, but to narrate,
Speaker 1: and sometimes not to glorify but horrify. At the end
Speaker 1: of the day, we're gonna speak about it, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you I can. We can talk about that
Speaker 1: chop in the trunk, but let me tell you also
Speaker 1: about what's gonna happen if you get caught with that
Speaker 1: chop in the trunk, you see, And that's that's what
Speaker 1: that's what a lot of us fail to do. Like
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, like we're we got
Speaker 1: to have all hands on deck, like we're in a
Speaker 1: crisis situation. And I personally, when it comes to music,
Speaker 1: I personally don't try to like I wouldn't try to
Speaker 1: police what a person says because I know, especially the youngsters,
Speaker 1: because I know at the end of the day, they're
Speaker 1: not going to be the same person tomorrow as they
Speaker 1: are today. Like I grew you know, like even when
Speaker 1: I was writing music. When I was considering myself painting
Speaker 1: the narrative, I still wasn't as sharp as I am today.
Speaker 1: And I know now that some of this stuff need
Speaker 1: to be even clarified even more, because some people only
Speaker 1: hear one thing and they take a lot of people
Speaker 1: have cognitive dissonance. They hear that one thing that they
Speaker 1: want to hear, and that's it. For example, I wrote
Speaker 1: in the verse my mind and the Mind Playing Tricks verse,
Speaker 1: I said, I make big money. I drive big cars.
Speaker 1: Everybody know me. It's like I'm a movie star. But
Speaker 1: late at night, something ain't right. They didn't hear it.
Speaker 1: They didn't catch that part at all. They just I
Speaker 1: make big money, I drive That's all they heard. They
Speaker 1: didn't hear the whole piece. While I said, but late
Speaker 1: at night, something ain't right. I'm paranoid out here in
Speaker 1: these streets. I'm busting left in the pop pies and
Speaker 1: bell dot quit, you know, and I'm thinking this is killers.
Speaker 1: And they jump out this three blind, crippling, crazy senior citizens.
Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying. They missed that part. And
Speaker 1: I'm telling you that happened for real, Like it wasn't
Speaker 1: a situation where three blind, crippling, craziest, three senior citizens
Speaker 1: hopped out the car. But it was a situation where
Speaker 1: a little five year old kid came around that corner
Speaker 1: and I thought it was a shooter and he almost
Speaker 1: got clapped, you know. So that that's that paranoia, and
Speaker 1: it's it's that, it's that that constant, that constant sense
Speaker 1: of being on the edge. You can't live like that, bro,
Speaker 1: That ain't no where to live.
Speaker 4: Man, Bro, you said cognitive dissonance. I want you all
Speaker 4: to go. If you watching this, go look that up.
Speaker 4: I did a song about cognitive dissonance and I didn't
Speaker 4: use I didn't use that vocabulary. I just called it.
Speaker 4: People don't want the real, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: I say people don't want that real? They just say
Speaker 4: that they do. Now. People don't want that real. And
Speaker 4: I'm one of them too. I'm so easily entertained by
Speaker 4: ratchet activity. Violent negative imagery always seem to interest me.
Speaker 4: I tell myself, no more music glorifying evil, selling drugs, womanizing,
Speaker 4: killing our people. Then I hear a song with a
Speaker 4: tight beat and can't deny it. The hook is catching,
Speaker 4: so I subconsciously memorize it. Next thing, you know, I'm
Speaker 4: reciting all the lyrics, and my day don't feel complete
Speaker 4: unless I hear it inviting darkness in my spirit. This
Speaker 4: can't be light. I'm craving what I'm supposed to be fighting.
Speaker 4: This can't be right. I must be blind to the effects.
Speaker 4: This can't be sight. Death is in the power of
Speaker 4: the tongue, and this can't be life. Be careful what
Speaker 4: you get involved with. You can't support a cause but
Speaker 4: then hate the effects that it causes. When we listen
Speaker 4: to this and we would say I make big money,
Speaker 4: I drive a big cause. Everybody, if that's all we
Speaker 4: want here and that's all we want to focus on,
Speaker 4: then we can't get mad when the stuff we got
Speaker 4: to do to make that big money and the stuff
Speaker 4: we got to do to drive them big cause backfire
Speaker 4: is on us and we're like, dang, I had to
Speaker 4: do some illegal stuff to make this big money. So
Speaker 4: what happened when you do illegal things that judge be like,
Speaker 4: come here, yong man.
Speaker 1: It's that simple certain time. It's the same thing I
Speaker 1: remember growing up. Man. People used to say, you can
Speaker 1: be whatever you want to be. Just go to school,
Speaker 1: make good grades, listen to your parents. You can't even
Speaker 1: be president of the United States. But they didn't tell
Speaker 1: me I couldn't be beating up my classmates and okay,
Speaker 1: I couldn't still out the store. They didn't tell me
Speaker 1: that part. They just told me, just go to school.
Speaker 1: I did. Went to school. I made some good grades,
Speaker 1: you know, to my parents sometimes, but I like I
Speaker 1: like options. I like to have options. I don't like
Speaker 1: to have my options limited. And if somebody would have
Speaker 1: told me you can't be beating up your classmates and stuff,
Speaker 1: and you can't be stealing out the store, I probably
Speaker 1: would not have stolen out the store or something. Because
Speaker 1: I like my options. I would have been like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I probably wouldn't be able to bounce back
Speaker 1: from this if I get caught up, So let me
Speaker 1: not do this. You know I was. I was that
Speaker 1: intentional growing up as a kid. I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: I wanted to do something, and I put my mind
Speaker 1: to do it. I did it good or bad. I
Speaker 1: would do it. And so for you, you grew up
Speaker 1: in the household with your mom and your dad, and
Speaker 1: who who who was the disciplinary in your family?
Speaker 4: Your dad the disciplinarian was my mo Mama. They used
Speaker 4: to call my mama the exorcist?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, who was.
Speaker 4: My friends used to ca Yeah, my friends used to
Speaker 4: call my mom the exorcist because that's the type of
Speaker 4: energy she gave off when she got mad. It's like
Speaker 4: you was scared that, like, oh, David, mama is possessed
Speaker 4: straight up. So she was the person who I feared
Speaker 4: getting her mad at me. Man, my pops, bro, My
Speaker 4: pops only got two switches. It's either zero or a hundred.
Speaker 4: So I only seen my daddy get mad at me
Speaker 4: one time in life. And I'm still scared to this
Speaker 4: day thinking about when he got mad and when he
Speaker 4: looked at me and pointed at me and told me,
Speaker 4: and it was it was basically me not not coming
Speaker 4: home on time because what was I doing? I was
Speaker 4: doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing.
Speaker 1: How old are you not? Fourteen fifteen?
Speaker 4: Yes, that's exactly I tell you, all right, man, And
Speaker 4: you know, I don't know if my people going to
Speaker 4: watch this or not, so I'm like, I don't know
Speaker 4: if I should say what I was doing, but I
Speaker 4: was definitely doing something I wasn't supposed to be.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: When I finally got home, my pops looked at me,
Speaker 4: that look in his eyes, him pointing at me, and
Speaker 4: him like I never forget him banging his fists on
Speaker 4: that table and sit you get here, when you get
Speaker 4: here after school? When when I when I tell you too,
Speaker 4: or when you're supposed to. Man, when he did that, bro,
Speaker 4: his hands hitting on that table like literally made my
Speaker 4: heart go, you know what I mean, And that feel
Speaker 4: made me say, Man, these people do too much for me.
Speaker 4: They too, They too cool for me to be bringing
Speaker 4: out this other side, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 4: never wanted to see that side of my daddy again,
Speaker 4: my mama. That's a little more of like all right,
Speaker 4: mom's mom's, mom's always gonna find some reason to get
Speaker 4: mad at me. I think that's just that. But overall,
Speaker 4: it wasn't me being afraid of them as much as
Speaker 4: me not wanting to make them look stupid. Man, these
Speaker 4: people people sacrifice so much for me, Bro, They got
Speaker 4: they got so many stories. Yeah stuff I haven't even
Speaker 4: talked about publicly yet of what my parents have done
Speaker 4: for me that definitely changed the entire course of my life.
Speaker 4: And I you know, I'll speak on that stuff one day.
Speaker 4: But why would I want to make them look bad,
Speaker 4: they didn't did so much.
Speaker 1: Dude, you just blew my mind with that statement, because
Speaker 1: I didn't feel that I had to make my mother
Speaker 1: proud because she was abusive towards me. So I didn't
Speaker 1: care what she thought if I go out into the
Speaker 1: streets and I did wild, reckless things, because you know,
Speaker 1: I probably get an ass whooping anyway for something that
Speaker 1: I didn't do. I didn't you know, she thought that
Speaker 1: I did or whatever. Right, So, when you have when
Speaker 1: you when you have parents that you feel that truly
Speaker 1: have your best interest at heart, and they love you,
Speaker 1: and they're showing you examples daily, they're showing you examples
Speaker 1: of their love daily, you're less likely. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: you won't do it, but you're less likely to do
Speaker 1: things to embarrass your family, to do things to disappoint them.
Speaker 1: You know less, you're less like. And I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: ahead and say this. I might get in trouble for this,
Speaker 1: probably gonna get in trouble for this right here. But
Speaker 1: this is why when I date women, I date women
Speaker 1: who have good relationships with their mothers and fathers. M
Speaker 1: women who have good relationships with their mothers and fathers,
Speaker 1: and they come from good stock. They typically are not
Speaker 1: going to go out and do something to embarrass themselves,
Speaker 1: are you? If they get into it with you and
Speaker 1: y'all have a problem, it's gonna be private. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be a private matter. They're not going to the internet
Speaker 1: and harry you out. They're not gonna go write a
Speaker 1: tale all book then doing that type of stuff. But
Speaker 1: a woman who just comes from a family where you know,
Speaker 1: anything goes and you know, just do you and whatever
Speaker 1: and not be concerned about how it affects others, they're
Speaker 1: capable of doing anything in same way with mad. But
Speaker 1: that's the way I That's the reason why I move
Speaker 1: the where I moved.
Speaker 4: When it comes to dating, they call crash dumbies, that's
Speaker 4: what we call them where I'm from. Like, you're not
Speaker 4: a crash dummy when you know you got something to lose,
Speaker 4: But you're a crash dumby wheen you just like, oh word,
Speaker 4: I ain't get my way today, or you made me
Speaker 4: mad today. Oh I'm about to air everything out. I'm
Speaker 4: about to just who knows what's gonna happen, But it
Speaker 4: don't even matter what happened, because I'm just gone. I'm
Speaker 4: just going to the internet with everything. I'm just I'm
Speaker 4: just I'm willing to do anything. Males off females. Bro,
Speaker 4: you want to avoid crash dumbies in life, you want
Speaker 4: to that could be. That's why one of my nicknames
Speaker 4: coming up was the one Man on Me, d One,
Speaker 4: the one man on Me, cause I was just like, man,
Speaker 4: I can't have people rolling with me and I'm responsible
Speaker 4: for if they do something when we out of town
Speaker 4: at a show or something like that. If they do something,
Speaker 4: it's gonna come back to Oh that was d One's people,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. And unfortunately you got a
Speaker 4: lot of crash dumbis who they don't think about it
Speaker 4: like that. They think about it like, man, I'm grown.
Speaker 4: I never forget being in a car getting pulled over
Speaker 4: late at night, coming from a show I had in
Speaker 4: Saint Louis, Missouri, and getting back to New Orleans and
Speaker 4: we get pulled over and my partner and I'm still
Speaker 4: cool with him to this day, but it's just like
Speaker 4: the energy he had from the passenger side of the
Speaker 4: seat for the policeman, you know what I'm saying, was
Speaker 4: just something that it's like you about to mess it up.
Speaker 4: For both of us. Bro, I'm the driver and I'm
Speaker 4: the public figure right now, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: And I also know how to defuse this situation. Did
Speaker 4: I run the red light? I did? I really did.
Speaker 4: Am I mad that I got caught? Yeah, I'm mad
Speaker 4: I got caught. But when these brothers come up to
Speaker 4: the car, I'm not going to be an antagonist, and
Speaker 4: I'm not going like, oh, try to you know, go
Speaker 4: above and beyond. But when you are passenger's side antagonist,
Speaker 4: it's like that could be dangerous for all of us.
Speaker 4: And lessons like that just taught me, Like, at the
Speaker 4: end of the day, I can't tell another grown man
Speaker 4: what to sell or what to do. People going to
Speaker 4: be themselves at the end of the day, but I
Speaker 4: can determine who I'm going to have in that closer
Speaker 4: proximity to me.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you feel me. Just mentioned when you was fourteen
Speaker 1: fifteen years old, you came in the house late, and
Speaker 1: I told you, I'm gonna tell you how I knew
Speaker 1: you was around that age. Typically for young men, when
Speaker 1: they're about fourteen fifteen, it's when they try their father
Speaker 1: or that mother for the first time, but especially their
Speaker 1: father because they are now in the high school range.
Speaker 1: And when you're in high school, you are around boys
Speaker 1: who are often your father's size. Some of those seniors
Speaker 1: and juniors are as big as your daddy, and you're
Speaker 1: sizing them up. You're competing against them for girls. You're
Speaker 1: competing against them for a spot on the basketball team,
Speaker 1: the football team, the wrestling team. You have to be physical,
Speaker 1: and you feel like oftentimes if you can take them,
Speaker 1: perhaps you can take dad. Bro.
Speaker 4: You just spoke my life, bro, Yes, you just spoke
Speaker 4: my life.
Speaker 1: Bro.
Speaker 4: I got into I got into it with Johnny James.
Speaker 4: He was a senior. I was a freshman in high school.
Speaker 4: On the basketball court, it's the big center. I'm the
Speaker 4: little point guard, you know what I mean. But when
Speaker 4: I got into it with him, and I came out
Speaker 4: and my nose wasn't bloody, and I was like, man,
Speaker 4: I held my own against Johnny James, like just not
Speaker 4: in a fight. I'm looking at it. He's six ' five,
Speaker 4: My daddy only sixty three, you know what I'm saying, right,
Speaker 4: And so yeah, I think I got a little a
Speaker 4: little outside my top And at that time.
Speaker 1: You're right, Yeah, my step daddy used to kind it
Speaker 1: smelling your piss.
Speaker 4: That's funny.
Speaker 1: Are you still a Catholic?
Speaker 4: I'm Christian?
Speaker 1: Okay, you switched it up.
Speaker 4: I'm Christian.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: When I got to college. When I got to college,
Speaker 4: that's when I went from just going to church because
Speaker 4: my parents told me this the church we go to,
Speaker 4: and this's what we believe in and that's what we do,
Speaker 4: to being like I got to form my own relationship
Speaker 4: with God. For those who don't know, my freshman year
Speaker 4: was one for the books.
Speaker 3: Bro.
Speaker 4: My freshman year in college, one of my best friends
Speaker 4: got murdered back in New Orleans. My roommate in college
Speaker 4: started selling dope. You heard me, My girlfriend in college
Speaker 4: cheated on me with a football player on LSU's team,
Speaker 4: and I got cut from LSU's basketball team. All in
Speaker 4: one year. All this stuff happened to me. So a
Speaker 4: lot that I was building my identity on and a
Speaker 4: lot of stuff that was giving me my confidence at
Speaker 4: the time. That stuff all got taken away from it rapidly.
Speaker 4: So that's when I had to lean on God in
Speaker 4: a way, not just like, oh, God is just some
Speaker 4: random phrase that we just named. I had to really
Speaker 4: form a relationship with God and have an understanding of
Speaker 4: who God was, why God chose to create me, and
Speaker 4: what God put me here to do. All that stuff
Speaker 4: happened that year, bro. So that's when I was like
Speaker 4: I found Christianity and not just saying oh, I'm just
Speaker 4: Catholic because that's just what my family is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, girdle boys revoted podcasts when we right back after
Speaker 1: this sport. So you jump out, you start rapping in college.
Speaker 1: That's a late start, very rapper, very late college. But
Speaker 1: you find success relatively early, like, and so you start,
Speaker 1: you start to rapping. What happens when the people around
Speaker 1: you who've been knowing you for a long time finds
Speaker 1: out you're rapping. You're in college to go out and
Speaker 1: take over the world, do something great, add to humanity sometimes.
Speaker 4: But what were you majoring in business marketing?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: What do your parents say when you decide, Hey, Dad,
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna rap. I'm going to do this
Speaker 1: rap thing.
Speaker 4: There you go. I didn't do the a mom, Dad,
Speaker 4: I'm about to wrap. I didn't tell him at first.
Speaker 4: I didn't tell him. So I was like living a
Speaker 4: double life with my parents because they're like, all right,
Speaker 4: how your grade's going and how your class is gone,
Speaker 4: and I'm thinking, how this mixtape going that I just dropped,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, And they don't have any idea.
Speaker 4: One of my mama's co workers, her son went to
Speaker 4: high school with me, and he found out that I wrapped,
Speaker 4: and he gave his mom my mixtape that I dropped,
Speaker 4: my first mixtape when I was in college. She must
Speaker 4: have went back to my mama at the job and said, oh,
Speaker 4: I ain't no, David was wrapping. Now, Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 4: Like my son gave me his mixtape and gave it
Speaker 4: to my mama. And when my mama showed me the
Speaker 4: mix tape that I had dropped that I didn't tell
Speaker 4: them anything about. That's how they found out I was rapping.
Speaker 1: But by this time, they're not tripping because you're still
Speaker 1: in college. Like you dropped out of college to rap.
Speaker 4: Still in college, still in college?
Speaker 1: And did you you didn't get your degree? Right?
Speaker 4: I did? I graduate?
Speaker 1: Bro?
Speaker 4: I don't know if you know right now, but you
Speaker 4: know I'm teaching at Harvard University right now. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: Like I like, so I got my degree a long
Speaker 4: time ago. And when people on the internet here that
Speaker 4: I'm at Harvard right now, Like, I'm up there teaching
Speaker 4: courses on hip hop. Man, I'm doing a fellowship at Harvard,
Speaker 4: a hip hop fellowship that literally like has me at
Speaker 4: an Ivy League school representing hip hop. So I got
Speaker 4: my bachelor's degree a while ago.
Speaker 1: You know, right, what is the ex girlfriend who left
Speaker 1: you for the football player doing? And also what is
Speaker 1: this guy who was your roommate that was selling dope?
Speaker 1: What happened then?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so he got kicked out of school, he got
Speaker 4: kicked off campus, he had to do some jail time,
Speaker 4: all that type of stuff. He didn't end up dying, thankfully,
Speaker 4: nothing crazy like that. Last time my song was a
Speaker 4: few years ago in New Orleans and he was balltending somewhere.
Speaker 4: So I was in me and my home and went
Speaker 4: in a spot to watch the game playoff game or something,
Speaker 4: and I turned around and the dude who was taking
Speaker 4: our food order was my boy. I was like, wow,
Speaker 4: So yeah, we just made a small talk. We ain't
Speaker 4: have no big huge like, oh my goodness, Bro's been
Speaker 4: up all these years. It was just kind of like work,
Speaker 4: I ain't. I'm glad to see he's still alive.
Speaker 1: You know what, I mean, and what about the ex girlfriend?
Speaker 4: So that's another story. Brother. So with her, I.
Speaker 1: Learned her married.
Speaker 2: Bro.
Speaker 4: After that, I was not. I learned like I learned
Speaker 4: that man. That level of heartbreak made me realize that
Speaker 4: if I'm doing my best, because oh my goodness, I
Speaker 4: was doing my best, bro, that was my first love.
Speaker 4: If I'm doing my best, say my best ain't enough
Speaker 4: for a woman that ain't the woman for me. I'm
Speaker 4: not gonna keep pursuing that man. And I learned that
Speaker 4: at an early age when that happened to me in college,
Speaker 4: when I got cheated on and it wasn't even a
Speaker 4: star football player she cheated on me with He was
Speaker 4: like a fourth string, like bench walmer, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. So I was just like, whatever it is
Speaker 4: you saw and this dude, if me giving my all
Speaker 4: to you ain't enough cool, So it's no beef because
Speaker 4: it's because of her that I started rapping. Like I
Speaker 4: wouldn't even be rapping, you know. I went to I
Speaker 4: went to college to make good grades, playball, and figure
Speaker 4: out what kind of career I was gonna have. I
Speaker 4: got a late start with rapping, but it came after
Speaker 4: she cheated on me and you know, you don't go
Speaker 4: to therapy when you're a college student, and especially back then,
Speaker 4: therapy wasn't like this buzzword like it is now. So
Speaker 4: my therapy was, Man, I gotta be able to talk
Speaker 4: to these beats. I gotta be able to talk to
Speaker 4: these instrumentals and just get all these you know, all
Speaker 4: this hurt and all this paying out.
Speaker 1: That's the name of the song you wrote about her.
Speaker 4: It was called Wanna Be Good to You. That's what
Speaker 4: it's called. It was called Wanna be Good to You
Speaker 4: because and you know, I didn't have original beats at
Speaker 4: the time, so it was definitely like instrumentals. It was
Speaker 4: an old Kanye West instrumental that I wrapped over and
Speaker 4: it was basically saying how she cheated on me, she
Speaker 4: messed over me, broke my heart. But then she tried
Speaker 4: to double back and she realized like, oh I made
Speaker 4: a mistake, Like that was a good dude right there,
Speaker 4: and she wanted to try to come back. And also,
Speaker 4: I want to be good to you, David, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, And so the song was about that.
Speaker 4: But it was just saying like now it ain't no beef,
Speaker 4: you know, but I'm good on you, because this is
Speaker 4: what you did. This what you put me through. And
Speaker 4: you know what, in the weirdest way possible, thank you
Speaker 4: for putting me through that. Because since you put me
Speaker 4: through that, I didnet tapped into a whole nother side
Speaker 4: of myself that I ain't know existed. I got some
Speaker 4: real grit, now, you know I got. I got, I
Speaker 4: got the ability to use this gift of hip hop
Speaker 4: that really I started using because I was heartbroken. But
Speaker 4: now I see how this gift could change people's lives.
Speaker 4: And that literally was the birth of d one.
Speaker 1: When you taught math, you taught for what two years?
Speaker 4: I taught two years?
Speaker 1: Okay, and then you quit? Did you quit to pursue
Speaker 1: your rap career?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? That's when the fifteen Weezy video went viral?
Speaker 1: Right? Was there any trepidation about quitting the teaching profession
Speaker 1: because you know, we always say we need good teachers,
Speaker 1: and then we got one. Yeah, and now he's talking
Speaker 1: about going to rap.
Speaker 4: Talking about want to be a rapper. Yep. So I
Speaker 4: made a promise to my students. I said, listen, y'all,
Speaker 4: mister Augustine, gonna stop teaching at the end of this year.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go out here and pursue my career as
Speaker 4: a rapper. I said, I've never made any money off
Speaker 4: of rapping before, but people are starting to know my name.
Speaker 4: I'm buzzing in New Orleans. I'm buzzing in the streets
Speaker 4: of bad and rouge. I said. One thing I promise
Speaker 4: y'all is that if I'm gonna make it in the
Speaker 4: rap game, I'm not going to compromise the stuff I
Speaker 4: stand for.
Speaker 3: So my motto is three is up. And I know
Speaker 3: you know that, I know it, know you three. Let
Speaker 3: me get it, let me get what you got. Be real,
Speaker 3: be righteous, be relevant.
Speaker 4: That's it, my writer, I got you what. That's it.
Speaker 4: You know what my hood is and everything right out. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 4: I appreciate you on. You're a OG, bro, You're not
Speaker 4: a DG. You're a OG. You ain't one of them dgs.
Speaker 4: So I told my students, if I make it in
Speaker 4: the rap game, I guarantee you I'm gonna be the
Speaker 4: same dude that's in here as y'all teacher. But I'm
Speaker 4: just gonna have a bigger platform because I'm d one
Speaker 4: instead of mister Augustine. So all these years later, yeah, bro,
Speaker 4: I've been successful for a long time in rap. I
Speaker 4: don't brag, I don't boasts, you know about what I
Speaker 4: have and what i've a master or you know all
Speaker 4: this time you kind of threw me a curve ball
Speaker 4: when we started the interview when you ask me about
Speaker 4: like what happened as if like I'm one of them
Speaker 4: stories of a dude who got on and then fell off. Bro, Like,
Speaker 4: I'm in such a great position right now and I'm
Speaker 4: talking about I'm sitting here about I just performed at
Speaker 4: the New Orleans Jazz Fest. I'm sitting here looking at
Speaker 4: fifteen toy days we got coming up over the summer.
Speaker 4: I'm teaching at Harvard University. You hear men getting paid
Speaker 4: to be up there teaching on hip hop and doing
Speaker 4: a fellowship at Harvard University. Like I'm at conferences speaking
Speaker 4: on financial literacy, speaking on empowerment with doctor Boyce Watkins,
Speaker 4: and you know that's our partner and all that. Like,
Speaker 4: I just realized that some people, not you, but some
Speaker 4: people their lens of what they deemed successful is who's
Speaker 4: on the radio when I turn on ninety seven point
Speaker 4: nine in the box every day, whoever I hear on
Speaker 4: there that's who's popular. You know what I'm saying, Oh,
Speaker 4: that's what's popping. And it's like, you want to talk
Speaker 4: about who wealthy. You want to talk about who got
Speaker 4: peace of mind and could walk around without security. You
Speaker 4: want to talk about who really is making an impact
Speaker 4: in their community to where people's lives are better because
Speaker 4: of their music and because of their partnerships with different programs.
Speaker 4: When I partner with Sally May, we gave away three
Speaker 4: hundred thousand dollars over the course of our partnership to
Speaker 4: get other to black and brown students were and some
Speaker 4: white students too, but just students in general who wanted
Speaker 4: college scholarships. Like I want us to start redefining what
Speaker 4: success looks like in the rap gam because if more
Speaker 4: people were like That's why I loved that, I got
Speaker 4: three hundred thousand followers, four hundred thousand followers online, that
Speaker 4: type of stuff. I love that, not because that matters
Speaker 4: to me, but because when I go and speak in
Speaker 4: a middle school or a high school, them kids look
Speaker 4: and they see that blue check, and this ain't the
Speaker 4: blue check I gotta pay for her, This ain't the
Speaker 4: fifteen dollars a month of verification that anybody could buy.
Speaker 4: Now this is like I had this for years, that
Speaker 4: stuff don't matter to me. But that's how they determine
Speaker 4: what success is. So what this is my goal that
Speaker 4: is very important. I've wanted to be the person in
Speaker 4: the rap game that confuses people when it comes to
Speaker 4: what success looks like. Because on one hand, you look online,
Speaker 4: D one is always booked. I know, he getting paid
Speaker 4: to do all these shows, speak at all these colleges,
Speaker 4: do all this stuff. So D one is always busy.
Speaker 4: He got a lot of followers. But on the other hand,
Speaker 4: D one drives a hind of a cord. D one
Speaker 4: don't wear no big expensive jewelry. D one that's not
Speaker 4: on here stunting and flashing with his material possessions. So
Speaker 4: is he successful because success don't normally look like driving
Speaker 4: a hind of a cord. But I look online and success
Speaker 4: definitely look like all these numbers and all these views
Speaker 4: and followers and all this getting booked all over and
Speaker 4: I want people to see that, like, yes, success doesn't
Speaker 4: have to look like this narrow definition of what one
Speaker 4: percent of the music industry shows us, which is iced
Speaker 4: out everything and pull up in the maybag. Pull up
Speaker 4: in the Bugatti that don't have to be what success
Speaker 4: just looks like.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I already know you're successful. I know
Speaker 1: you personally, so I already know you're a good business man.
Speaker 1: And what's going on with the watches?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's I man having to go to court
Speaker 4: right now? What you want to know? The truth? Unfortunately
Speaker 4: with look, bro, just because everybody your skin folk, don't
Speaker 4: mean they your kinfolk, bro. And you know I wasn't
Speaker 4: in that en devil by myself, you know what I'm saying. Unfortunately, Yeah, Bro,
Speaker 4: that that's something that went left field. And I'm I am.
Speaker 4: I don't even know what I should or shouldn't speak
Speaker 4: on because it's literally a legal situation. But man, just
Speaker 4: know that I got messed over bad, bad by a partner, bad,
Speaker 4: really bad. And I see how, Bro, I see how
Speaker 4: some people when they get messed over on a certain level.
Speaker 4: I see how some people end up making a mistake
Speaker 4: that lands them in jail or something like that because
Speaker 4: they put hands on somebody, because they physically I see it.
Speaker 4: But thankfully I'm in a position where it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: you really messed over me. But I'm really blessed like
Speaker 4: like so blessed overall in so many ways that the
Speaker 4: ways in which you messed over me financially, the ways
Speaker 4: in which you yeah, messed over me legally, like all
Speaker 4: this stuff. That's what they got lawyers for, you hear me.
Speaker 4: And I got lawyer money, you hear me. So that's
Speaker 4: going to handle itself. Just take a long time when
Speaker 4: you go to that route. But I get it how
Speaker 4: our people in the streets who it's like, man, this
Speaker 4: was my lifeline. This is all I had gone for myself,
Speaker 4: and now you done stole this and you done did
Speaker 4: this and you didn't maneuver it like that. I see
Speaker 4: how people be like, man, we're finna go put that
Speaker 4: black mask on the night and we finnah go. You
Speaker 4: know what I mean, catch us when I get it now, bro,
Speaker 4: because that stuff didn't happen between that and me being
Speaker 4: in the music industry for all these years with all
Speaker 4: these people who try to steal from you and record
Speaker 4: labels and what they do in terms of like playing
Speaker 4: with your creativity, playing with your manhood. You know, I
Speaker 4: don't have people in the music industry before like males
Speaker 4: like tell me like if I if I perform sexual
Speaker 4: favors for them that you know they'll put me on
Speaker 4: Like that really happened, Bro, I got a song about
Speaker 4: the car.
Speaker 1: You gotta call them out. Man. You got names, Bro,
Speaker 1: we gotta get We gotta get names to help the
Speaker 1: next generation.
Speaker 4: To help the well. The good thing is this dude
Speaker 4: ain't relevant, no, Bro, he was relevant when I was
Speaker 4: first first getting out of college, saying.
Speaker 1: In his heart then, man, he already down. Let's kick
Speaker 1: him whley down. What's his name?
Speaker 4: Man, I ain't gonna call his name out. He ain't
Speaker 4: even worth the he gonna get popular of he's gonna
Speaker 4: get relevant again off of that, Like, I ain't gonna
Speaker 4: do it. I almost want to call out the names
Speaker 4: of these these all this tool bro who just like
Speaker 4: they just intentionally ignorant. Bro, it's not unintentional ignorance. It's
Speaker 4: intentional ignorance.
Speaker 2: Bro.
Speaker 4: And I promise you, I'm just like, oh, you wanna
Speaker 4: go viral right quickly? He called his name out, call
Speaker 4: his name out like I said, I called him gray
Speaker 4: hair clout chasers because you're literally so old that you
Speaker 4: got gray hair now, bro, but you're still clout chasing
Speaker 4: or you sitting here like one thing I didn't enjoy
Speaker 4: was Joe Budden when NBA young boy who's from my state,
Speaker 4: did an interview on Billboard. I don't know if you
Speaker 4: saw it. He was like, man, he was almost in
Speaker 4: tears in the interview. Man, I realize how many people
Speaker 4: I led astray with my music, and I really want
Speaker 4: to do better. You know what I'm saying. This is
Speaker 4: what he's saying in the interview. He's shaking in the interview,
Speaker 4: his voice trembling, and everything he talked about all I
Speaker 4: heard he experienced coming up and he want to do
Speaker 4: better now. Me as a teacher, I'm looking at it
Speaker 4: like that's how a student looks when they are having
Speaker 4: a vulnerable moment and when they're scared and they terrified.
Speaker 4: Y'all just so happen. They had the cameras rolling and
Speaker 4: catch that. But this is when mentors need to come
Speaker 4: to be next to a person like this and to
Speaker 4: be able to like nurture that energy and help, you know,
Speaker 4: help that be something that they continue to move in
Speaker 4: that type of direction. I saw Joe Budden come out, man,
Speaker 4: being a young boy lying to y'all. Man, he's just
Speaker 4: trying to go viral. Man, He faking man, like he
Speaker 4: ain't finna do that. Da da da da da. And
Speaker 4: I'm just like as messed up.
Speaker 1: Bro.
Speaker 4: You know, I was a Joe Budden fan when he
Speaker 4: was a rapper. He rap about being in group homes,
Speaker 4: He rap about all the emotional distress he went through
Speaker 4: as a kid coming up, all that type of stuff.
Speaker 4: What if people gave up on him like that? You
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I know how long ago was this interview?
Speaker 4: Oh, this was a few months ago. I've taught on
Speaker 4: this in my in my classes up at Harvard. Bro,
Speaker 4: Like I showed this interview. I want to say. It
Speaker 4: came out in January on Billboard. I sent it to
Speaker 4: your phone. Yeah, oh bro, when you see this interview,
Speaker 4: We're gonna watch it right after this interview, and I
Speaker 4: want to know your thoughts on it, Like cause, Bro,
Speaker 4: I'm from the streets. Bro, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I'm not no dude that was participating, but I'm from
Speaker 4: that element, so I know. Also when somebody is just
Speaker 4: stunting for the camera or they trying to play a role,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, versus like, man, he having
Speaker 4: a real moment right now. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I didn't really taught to students who I'm on the
Speaker 4: phone yesterday with my former student, you know, Fredo Bang.
Speaker 1: Absolutely what fred that's my.
Speaker 4: Student, bro, Yeah, that was my student. That was my
Speaker 4: middle school student.
Speaker 1: That's my dude.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: Man, I'm on FaceTime with him yesterday talking brother. Me
Speaker 4: and fred are talking about financial literacy, were talking about investments,
Speaker 4: were talking about paying up, paying taxes, were talking about
Speaker 4: payroll and staff and team and just grown man stuff. Bro,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, grown man business. Like It's
Speaker 4: amazing for me to see that and to understand that,
Speaker 4: like this brother trust me, This brother trust me.
Speaker 1: I got it.
Speaker 4: So even when he make mistakes or do things that
Speaker 4: I disagree with, just like sometimes you might be like,
Speaker 4: oh Diadan jumped out there on Instagram and said this
Speaker 4: or say this about this issue. You might not agree
Speaker 4: with everything I do, but it's still important that you know, man,
Speaker 4: D got a good heart. So I ain't gonna just
Speaker 4: denounce everything D stand for, cancel D because I disagree
Speaker 4: with one thing he done did with Fredile, I see
Speaker 4: that this man trust me, This man, you know, is
Speaker 4: willing to be open with me and vulnerable. The worst
Speaker 4: thing I could ever do is to be like just
Speaker 4: so I could go viral right right quick, is to
Speaker 4: try to talk down on somebody like that.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: So when I saw Joe Budden doing that with the
Speaker 4: NBA young boy and stuff, I ain't respect that at all.
Speaker 4: I ain't respect that at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you ever feel like doing Christian rap holds
Speaker 1: you back?
Speaker 4: You think I'm a Christian rapper?
Speaker 1: Are you a Christian rapper? You're a Christian? You rap?
Speaker 4: That makes me a Christian rapper?
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're a Christian and you rap, you're
Speaker 1: not a Christian rapper.
Speaker 4: I don't know. Man, if you're if you're a Muslim
Speaker 4: and you wrap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Educate, educating.
Speaker 4: I'm a priority rapper. I rap about it.
Speaker 1: Putsairs on that one.
Speaker 4: I'm a priority rap. I rap about what my priorities
Speaker 4: on life. God is my top priority in life. God
Speaker 4: gave me life, God created me. What's not my priorities
Speaker 4: is my jewelry, my cause, and my clothes. Man, that
Speaker 4: ain't high priorities. So you ain't gonna hit me rapping
Speaker 4: about that too much? Well, I mentioned it, sure because
Speaker 4: I got all all of the above, but God is
Speaker 4: my top priority. Love relationships, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Understanding women, Understanding how to make an impact on the youth,
Speaker 4: understanding that prioritizing black love the black community. That's my priorities.
Speaker 4: I'm a priority rapper, bro. You feel me, but.
Speaker 1: I love it. But I love it.
Speaker 4: I never tell somebody don't call me whatever they view
Speaker 4: my art to be, you know, based on listening to it.
Speaker 4: I say, I said, what's the point of writing all
Speaker 4: of these lyrics if I'm rapping to an audience that
Speaker 4: ain't trying to hear it. They rather me blow a
Speaker 4: bag than rap about building wealth. They rather me get
Speaker 4: some brain than rap about mental health. Don't censor me, eventually,
Speaker 4: try to make sense of me. I don't need your dollars.
Speaker 4: I need you to think sensibly you feel good now
Speaker 4: that you're vegan, or that's funny if you're still supporting garbage,
Speaker 4: you just a healthy dummy. My city don't even love me.
Speaker 4: I'm calling it how it is. I'm a threat to
Speaker 4: the power structure that's brainwashing our kids. I'm fracturing all
Speaker 4: the egos of illegitimate heroes. I only look up to
Speaker 4: one man because he died, then he rolls. I keep
Speaker 4: it too real because life don't last too long. If
Speaker 4: everybody likes me, I'm doing something too wrong. Maybe in
Speaker 4: time they'll appreciate my words like nipsy till then I'm
Speaker 4: gonna see how far keeping it real gives me. That's
Speaker 4: my mindset, Oh man, that's how That's how I approach you.
Speaker 4: So if people hear all that and they see the
Speaker 4: moves I'm making, and they see me he at Harvard
Speaker 4: and he performing in colleges, clubs and churches and all that.
Speaker 4: And but because he reped God, he a Christian rapper,
Speaker 4: I am what you perceive me to be.
Speaker 1: Your independent grind is unmatched. I was looking at some
Speaker 1: of the things that you was doing, and you know, uh,
Speaker 1: some of the people that you've worked with, like you
Speaker 1: work with like so many damn artists, Like I mean,
Speaker 1: you work with Drake and you tour it, you toured
Speaker 1: with who was that? I saw it. I saw you
Speaker 1: did a song with Juvenile YEA. I saw this stuff
Speaker 1: with Manny Fresh.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You've worked with Acon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Loop and Fia School, you create.
Speaker 1: And you yeah, Bigret. In fact, Joe, you and you
Speaker 1: and you and uh loope, y'all really cool.
Speaker 4: Huh real cool. Yeah, that's my briter right there. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's my britter right there.
Speaker 1: So I can see that, y'all be imagining with you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So you know, I'm at Harvard right now. He's
Speaker 4: at mi T that's ten minutes away from Harvard University.
Speaker 4: So we both up there in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and he
Speaker 4: teaching that MI I T. And I'm doing my program
Speaker 4: and teaching at Harvard.
Speaker 1: Bro. Too cool, crazy.
Speaker 4: Crazy bro. And we don't toured the country together. We
Speaker 4: went on tour together. We got music together. So now
Speaker 4: for us to be up there, it's powerful and it
Speaker 4: shows the possibilities of rap in academia. You know, rap
Speaker 4: turned how old ffty this year, right, hip hop turned
Speaker 4: fifty years old this year. We just getting started, baby,
Speaker 4: were just getting started. We're in Ivy League schools right now. Man,
Speaker 4: I just was teaching last week on how hip hop
Speaker 4: took over the world and what lessons it has taught
Speaker 4: the black community on Harvard University's campus. Man, when the
Speaker 4: people seeing and when I go to Harvard, I'm the
Speaker 4: same dude you're seeing right now. Well, I'm not going
Speaker 4: there like, Hi, guys, my names are d David Augustine
Speaker 4: and I'd like to but I'm me. I get to
Speaker 4: be authentically myself.
Speaker 2: Bro.
Speaker 4: That is powerful, and we don't celebrate that in hip
Speaker 4: hop thor if I say, like, man, I'm a top
Speaker 4: tier rapper and I'm also at Harvard University right now.
Speaker 4: Not there's no student, no disrespect to the students. That's amazing,
Speaker 4: but I'm up there doing a fellowship. I'm up there
Speaker 4: teaching and doing research on hip hop. In hip hop,
Speaker 4: we don't look at that like that's a flex, like
Speaker 4: oh oh, you're doing that. But if it's like, man,
Speaker 4: that boy D one was in what's one of your
Speaker 4: strip clubs? Y'all got out here? What's the name? I know,
Speaker 4: you know what's one of the names. He gonna act
Speaker 4: like him.
Speaker 1: Don't go to him. I don't do strict, but I
Speaker 1: do know the names.
Speaker 4: All right. One was still the boy D one was
Speaker 4: in IX last night will Willie d them boys threw
Speaker 4: fifty rags of people with.
Speaker 1: Somebody else.
Speaker 4: Man was not with me.
Speaker 1: But see that if I did see you flexing, uh yo,
Speaker 1: bro hold on, man, hold on, because you're o g
Speaker 1: like saying man, you know we can do with that money, man.
Speaker 4: Because you're o g It takes courage, It takes really
Speaker 4: I don't want to call his name, bro, but a dude.
Speaker 4: I grew up listening to looked up to him.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 4: I'll never forget being in the studio with him and
Speaker 4: we have an intelligent conversation just like this. He's older
Speaker 4: than me, he around your age and definitely where I'm from.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, he's a legend and I don't
Speaker 4: even I think we need to use a different word
Speaker 4: other than legend nowadays too, because everybody we call a
Speaker 4: legend ain't a legend. But we're in the studio having
Speaker 4: a talk like this, and his engineer was like, I
Speaker 4: have such a such a I got to be pulled up,
Speaker 4: you know, going there, you can spit your verse. We
Speaker 4: go from having this type of talk about fatherhood and
Speaker 4: black love and the community and financial literacy. As soon
Speaker 4: as he go get in that boot, man, he won't
Speaker 4: spit the most ignorant I'm gonna kill you and y'all y'all,
Speaker 4: and all your home is and da da da, and
Speaker 4: I got kilos of cocaine and da da da da da,
Speaker 4: And I'm a big like just that quick, bro, Bro,
Speaker 4: I witnessed this stuff. I can't make these stories up.
Speaker 4: So when I witness this type of stuff, I'm just
Speaker 4: I'm not numb to it. I'm like, oh something man,
Speaker 4: right about this? Bro? Like, people are getting in character
Speaker 4: when they are rappers. Meanwhile, as a real man, you
Speaker 4: totally different And that's not cool, Bro, I just want
Speaker 4: to be the same dude on and off the mic.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it's a lot of dudes that are like that.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 1: You know some of the biggest artists out there who
Speaker 1: these people respect, they have no eyes idea that you know,
Speaker 1: dude ain't who they think he is, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. Like so, but the thing is, because
Speaker 1: here is the deal, bro, Like, if if you really
Speaker 1: that you all of that, and a street cat with
Speaker 1: credentials want to check, what's the first thing you're gonna do.
Speaker 1: He gonna call your hometown and he's gonna ask somebody
Speaker 1: on the ground about you. And that person on the
Speaker 1: ground that he asked gonna give him the real So
Speaker 1: everybody else, you know, they get the uh, they get
Speaker 1: the you know what they call it, the reperence, the reference,
Speaker 1: the representative representative. Yeah, you know. But the people that know, yeah,
Speaker 1: they get the real They really know, Bro, they really know.
Speaker 1: And the people that know the one really know the
Speaker 1: real people know you know, David Augustine, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. We know you real, but we know
Speaker 1: you solid and we really do appreciate what you bring
Speaker 1: to the table. And you know absolutely you know, no
Speaker 1: disrespect whatsoever when it comes to uh, you know, your
Speaker 1: contributions to this game. You know what I'm saying. You're
Speaker 1: one of those guys that when the people your I
Speaker 1: always say, like, when your peers respect you, you're doing
Speaker 1: something wrong. Your peers respect you. Thank you, man, Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. It's been an honor man to sit down
Speaker 1: and have a conversation with you.
Speaker 4: I waited a year for this, bro. I know you
Speaker 4: know I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: And what's up with that gear? Man? Like you cold
Speaker 1: blooded with the gear on the gear game? What's up
Speaker 1: with that?
Speaker 4: Because you make way more money on merch than you
Speaker 4: do on streams. It's like if you're independent. But it's
Speaker 4: like me, you gotta know, man, like it's a lifestyle
Speaker 4: that you gotta be pushing the people. The music is
Speaker 4: the soundtrack, but you got to head a gift for people.
Speaker 4: So Mission Visionlifestyle dot Com is my website. I got
Speaker 4: a whole store there, man, And you see me rocking
Speaker 4: Mission Vision right here. That's my movement. That's also my ratulation,
Speaker 4: Mission Vision Music, Mission Vision Music. That's the label baby.
Speaker 4: So yeah. So if people want socks, they want sweatpants,
Speaker 4: they want hoodies, they want T shirts, tank tops, we
Speaker 4: got all that, and we actually got much more on
Speaker 4: the weast. So thank you for allowing me to give
Speaker 4: that plug Mission Visionlifestyle dot Com. Willie d actually be
Speaker 4: wearing my merch. I got pictures of him, y'all, and
Speaker 4: I'm gonna post them. Just if y'all think I'm lying.
Speaker 1: Post the man post it. Put it in their face.
Speaker 4: That's it, brother, Thank you man.
Speaker 1: No more talk.
Speaker 4: This episode was produced by A King and brought to
Speaker 4: you by
Speaker 1: The Black Effect Podcast Network at iHeartRadio