Speaker 1: And his Drink Chas motherfucking podcast. He's a legendary Queen's rappers.
Speaker 1: He's is your boy in O R. He's a Miami hippoper, mioneer.
Speaker 1: What up is d j e f N? Together they
Speaker 1: drinking up with some of the biggest players in the
Speaker 1: most professional unprofessional podcast. And your number one sorts for
Speaker 1: drunk back rich Mother is new Yez. That's his time
Speaker 1: for drink Champs. Trick up mother Mother? Would it goold be?
Speaker 1: Hopeles would sooner be? This is your boy in O R?
Speaker 1: What up is d j e f This is drink Champs?
Speaker 1: Yapp y'all gonna make up now now Eve. When it
Speaker 1: comes to entrepreneura, he spell. Don't know when it comes
Speaker 1: to a person. When I've read that his first job
Speaker 1: was handing out flyers, I've read that the man the
Speaker 1: rand worked in Red Love Stuff. Why he was owning
Speaker 1: a very fortunate company. He has grinded. He has continue
Speaker 1: non stop board in Brooklyn, but raised in Queens and
Speaker 1: we and Queens, we claim him, we claim him, quote
Speaker 1: and um. He's relentless. He's has one of the biggest
Speaker 1: shows that won the Emmy Emmy Award. Run We got
Speaker 1: at all. And if you don't know what we talk about,
Speaker 1: we're talking about the shop. Take first person. Thank you
Speaker 1: for being here. You're definitely one of the people that
Speaker 1: when I think of arentrepreneur, I think of you. I
Speaker 1: think of how devin there you are, like, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, how uh put together? I think that
Speaker 1: I think it should be more of you. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like, I think you're like a great
Speaker 1: role bottel for us. Thank you, brother, appreciate that. So
Speaker 1: would that being said, Let's take it from the beginning right,
Speaker 1: because I read that was that really your first job
Speaker 1: handed out flyers had on hand on flyer Colosseum hall,
Speaker 1: so that years old, but that the Colisseum hall was
Speaker 1: was being opened up, so hand out flies. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't hold along. So you're telling me
Speaker 1: the Colosseum wasn't even open, wasn't even used because like Mazee,
Speaker 1: that didn't went Bankruph. So I was hand out flies
Speaker 1: to that and I did every job I could write,
Speaker 1: you know, like during the winter, I shovel snow in
Speaker 1: the in the in the in four rake leaves. But
Speaker 1: when I was shoveling snow. I had so many people
Speaker 1: that wanted me to get to the sidewalk that I
Speaker 1: would give the other kids in the neighborhood. Half the
Speaker 1: money that I would make to go and shovel the sidewalks,
Speaker 1: I could sit at home and you know, so, um,
Speaker 1: then I's going to find bike watch on the street
Speaker 1: and before you know, the two months, i'd have a
Speaker 1: fully assembled bike through they through the shot out. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been trying to hustle ever since. And
Speaker 1: then I started working the churches, ride chicken, and then
Speaker 1: I worked at the popcorn stand, and then I worked
Speaker 1: through a lot. Do you remember church? Some suicies about churches.
Speaker 1: So so I've been working since day one. So so, um,
Speaker 1: what was your first successful business, like besides food? Obviously,
Speaker 1: what was the first one that you just like, you
Speaker 1: know what this is busy business is where I belonged?
Speaker 1: Or even what's probably the better questions, what was the
Speaker 1: first business that failed to help you learn what you
Speaker 1: need to learn for the first successful? Even better? I
Speaker 1: think I think those are those are those are both
Speaker 1: great questions for two different reasons. Number One, the first
Speaker 1: business I got into was I had this idea about
Speaker 1: buying crash cars because at that time, we buy a
Speaker 1: crash car, your boys will find a pause for it,
Speaker 1: you know. And buying in the auction. I don't know
Speaker 1: how they found the problem. They just so and and
Speaker 1: then you would put you so you buy there into
Speaker 1: it and you sell it in fifty right. So I
Speaker 1: had the plan, you know, I was about sixteen, seven
Speaker 1: years old, and I like to say that, you know,
Speaker 1: I did my numbers, and I looked at at sixteen.
Speaker 1: If I keep doubling down on that, i'd be a
Speaker 1: millionaire by twenty. However, Mike Tysons, you know, he has
Speaker 1: that saying, you know, everybody got a plan until they
Speaker 1: get punched in the face. Life touched me in the
Speaker 1: face and about you know, six months and um, and
Speaker 1: I didn't have any money. Now. The reality of what
Speaker 1: I realized was I didn't like to fix cars. I
Speaker 1: don't know how it was. I was so busy thinking
Speaker 1: about the money that I didn't like what I was doing.
Speaker 1: So I had no urge to get up or I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to do it again. All right, fast foward.
Speaker 1: Now what I started to do. I get this this
Speaker 1: vand this piece of crap jump ye over and a
Speaker 1: fifteen passenger, and I started running up and down, guy,
Speaker 1: are broad of Merrick Boulevard and Rockaway picking up people
Speaker 1: for dollar driver in the world. So listen to this
Speaker 1: inspire and I was it was you that was the driver.
Speaker 1: I was the driver show. So I'll show you at
Speaker 1: this point right at that point about seventeen, trying to
Speaker 1: start off at Parsons Boulevard, go down god Rod at
Speaker 1: the Rose, all the way Rockaway Beach one sixteen. And
Speaker 1: so let me just explain, because keep you let me
Speaker 1: just think we're talking. Yeah, I don't know. This is
Speaker 1: a sertain part in a certain part where the trains
Speaker 1: don't go, and there's certain parts even busses don't go.
Speaker 1: So what happens is it's these vans that they come
Speaker 1: and they pick up a whole bunch of people. Yea,
Speaker 1: we call them dollar vans because it would be a
Speaker 1: dollar at the time, and then they would take it
Speaker 1: to the parts that the trains don't go, especially in
Speaker 1: Queen's Queens a big barrel. So so you got a
Speaker 1: person on there for a dollar. By time, you know,
Speaker 1: you have fifteen people on. By time people go on
Speaker 1: and off you go all the way down. You could
Speaker 1: have forty fifty dollars. You can have three hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: During the course of the day, however, I'll go to
Speaker 1: areas where a lot of the band drivers do wouldn't
Speaker 1: to go. I'm going deep into far rockaway. Why you know,
Speaker 1: my man had the ratchet on the side because security.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you something the first time. Here's what
Speaker 1: happened about fifteen people in Bend. I picked him. The
Speaker 1: fifteen dudes I picked up from the subway, they just
Speaker 1: got came from tunnel or something like that. Right, they're
Speaker 1: getting the van and I get always last stop. And
Speaker 1: you know, we all got nicknames in the hood. So
Speaker 1: one was like, gets out the bed, your crime got it,
Speaker 1: Your crime got it. Your crime got about trying got there,
Speaker 1: but you're crime, you got He was like your ho
Speaker 1: crying no pain. And I realized I needed that. I
Speaker 1: needed a catch yourself. Yeah you know, so we're gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna salute to you. I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know a ball our show. Our show was about salute
Speaker 1: with a legend, like to give you your flowers while
Speaker 1: you hit. Because a lot of people want to say
Speaker 1: how great people are when live when they're gone and
Speaker 1: they passed away, we want to tell you how great
Speaker 1: you are. We gonna until you doing anything than you
Speaker 1: then just supposed to make some lawyers. Man, let's do
Speaker 1: it again. So hold on. So you did the dollar
Speaker 1: ban now and thenn't and you got crying paid that time?
Speaker 1: So what what? What? What was your next after that?
Speaker 1: So so that one is actually successful one. But I
Speaker 1: looked at three or four years of doing it, and
Speaker 1: I realized that I didn't actually make money. I didn't
Speaker 1: net anything because after paying for it was a junkie man.
Speaker 1: They after paying for it, breaking down the tickets, insurance,
Speaker 1: I was netting nothing. And I had to physically be
Speaker 1: there to make a dollar. I mean that dollar wasn't
Speaker 1: ringing when I was sleeping. So I go back to
Speaker 1: a lobster. I take that ban, I take all the
Speaker 1: seats out of it. I started putting t shirts in it.
Speaker 1: I started sleeping in it sometimes. Right now, I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm going to other people get anything for them. Actually,
Speaker 1: the first printing company, the first thing I ran off
Speaker 1: really was a shirt that said, um, what they did
Speaker 1: to Rodney King, they would do to you. That's the
Speaker 1: first one I started selling on the treats um and
Speaker 1: I was working to Red Lobster. Now we're working the van.
Speaker 1: Now I we're using the van uh to carry my
Speaker 1: clothes around and all that kinds of like the Rodney
Speaker 1: King Churchy. You're investing into what you're doing, and were
Speaker 1: lots of money. I'm chilling at the moment, and then
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, the idea of food who
Speaker 1: comes around because I started hearing the brands didn't respect
Speaker 1: whether hip hop African Americans in our city kids, and
Speaker 1: they didn't value them. And it wasn't Mad the main
Speaker 1: company at that time. They weren't on They're not don't
Speaker 1: want the same one now. Also described that at the
Speaker 1: time there is no rocket wear them to exist and
Speaker 1: they had already inspired me. However, they were very West
Speaker 1: Coast and a lot of times growing up, you know
Speaker 1: in our community, if you wanted to show without saying
Speaker 1: that that you were wearing something of African Americans, it's great.
Speaker 1: Ship used to be used to be the rooms that
Speaker 1: you've been flowing off. Were you respecting and sure you
Speaker 1: had love for African African Americans. It was always can
Speaker 1: take colors, even cross colors. It was always purple green yell,
Speaker 1: and I was like, yo, man, why do we why
Speaker 1: do we gotta be that? It was last super loud,
Speaker 1: I can'tn't wear something cool and then cats know that
Speaker 1: that it's us. So so that's when I came up
Speaker 1: with food for us bias right and then okay, and
Speaker 1: that that was four of y'all correct. It was always
Speaker 1: five of us originally, but the fifth member never stayed around.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's why you see big go five on
Speaker 1: all the jerseys. But that fifth member would never say.
Speaker 1: It would be like, yo, just work for six months
Speaker 1: and put in putting uh ten hours a week, but
Speaker 1: nobody ever saw division. So five years we ran through
Speaker 1: five separate all though the fifth member was our else
Speaker 1: no no, I always wanted to access just question, okay,
Speaker 1: so GAT has this commercial right, it's a GAT commercial gap,
Speaker 1: but it's got the right. Is that the first like
Speaker 1: and he said in it for us by us on
Speaker 1: the low. So it was that the first time like
Speaker 1: foodoo got national recognition. We had already had a little
Speaker 1: bit of national recognition because I think a couple of
Speaker 1: people a warden won their video videos, um CODB Mrs Jones,
Speaker 1: TODB um, who else Method Man and a couple of
Speaker 1: people have already warned all brand Nubian. So so they
Speaker 1: had already when they warn an ice cream video and
Speaker 1: a lot of a couple of other things. And I
Speaker 1: think ll Award in the Hey Love of video, he's
Speaker 1: sitting on the rock and queens and then but that's
Speaker 1: when we had already had our distribution deal and Gap
Speaker 1: called of LLL and he didn't really he didn't value them.
Speaker 1: He didn't like the way they spoke to him. They
Speaker 1: spoke to him pretty much like listen, LLL, whatever your
Speaker 1: name is or what are you? What do you want
Speaker 1: of those rappers? Right? So we we need when we
Speaker 1: didn't get to a little hippy hopper kids, you know,
Speaker 1: and I know that you know that. I remember the
Speaker 1: dude say something like, Yo, I'm white. My daughter sixteen
Speaker 1: years old and white. She's running around house talking about
Speaker 1: fight the power and after police. So I think we're
Speaker 1: big enough now hip hop is big enough, So can
Speaker 1: you come in and do this, uh this commercial. That's
Speaker 1: why I always say something about L meaning like you
Speaker 1: know a lot of people want influencers and brand, you know,
Speaker 1: people like that, but you can't have somebody your PEPSI.
Speaker 1: You can't have them drinking Coca cola. L L live right. Um, now,
Speaker 1: how how did that? How did that come from you?
Speaker 1: You're l didn't grow up together? Oh? Was was that? Like?
Speaker 1: Was that like your person? You thought of the model?
Speaker 1: Now we we we all grew up in the same
Speaker 1: neighbor So we're all working hot okay, okay, And the
Speaker 1: funny story is else from Farmers right on pharm But
Speaker 1: but I lived on Farmers, Billboard and Queens, so you
Speaker 1: had obviously L Salt and Pappa run DMC s fight
Speaker 1: d all of the job. We all live in the
Speaker 1: same neighborhood. And it's funny. I used to be a
Speaker 1: roadie and we used to always skip out of school
Speaker 1: or like fourteen years old to go on tour and
Speaker 1: raising hell and all and pushed speakers around. He went
Speaker 1: on those tours, one of those toys, and I had
Speaker 1: three other friends. When the tour's that's we're gonna But
Speaker 1: I always say I was, So I had three other friends.
Speaker 1: I was like, Ye're gonna be the biggest dude in fashion.
Speaker 1: My other dude was like, I'm gonna be the biggest
Speaker 1: dude in movies. My mother dude was like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be the biggest dude in music, and my mother dude said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be the biggest drug dealer. The dude who
Speaker 1: it was so with me. The other dude who said
Speaker 1: movies was Hype Williams. The other dude who said records
Speaker 1: was is IRV Gotti. And the other dude ended up
Speaker 1: becoming the biggest drug deal because Hype wrote a movie
Speaker 1: about him called Belly and he's still in jail. So
Speaker 1: at fourteen years old, we kind of all had had
Speaker 1: this desire. We didn't know what it was gonna be,
Speaker 1: but we all, you know, aspired to be the top
Speaker 1: of our industry. You know. Now you get these brands
Speaker 1: out right now right, Um, it's a big controversy right now.
Speaker 1: Got product. Yeah, you got Gooch who was very is
Speaker 1: very disappointing to me personally because of the Dappa Dan association.
Speaker 1: Uh and who else is it? Mount Clay? I believe
Speaker 1: is it? Is it? So? How how does a person
Speaker 1: like you who has so much success and you you
Speaker 1: could probably a person could probably say that you can
Speaker 1: be out of touch because of you know, how many
Speaker 1: how do you like? How does how does the person.
Speaker 1: How does the coucci you boys ship like that? How? How?
Speaker 1: How do how do people even make mistakes like that?
Speaker 1: I guess you know. I I have two hats to
Speaker 1: put on that one. There's about fifteen steps to go
Speaker 1: through to make a make a garment, and it's hard
Speaker 1: figure And normally when we make a garment, like see
Speaker 1: the poem piece wearing, I have the same piece with
Speaker 1: the big cat on it. You make you can make
Speaker 1: what we call a capsule. Okay, just the shift team
Speaker 1: or twenty pieces. You don't just make different you know.
Speaker 1: This is the this is the theme right now. So
Speaker 1: the half that I have one that said that they
Speaker 1: didn't know what they were doing is the hat saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, we can't be conscious of every single sensitive
Speaker 1: thing to every single person because these people are in Italy.
Speaker 1: It's like me if I decided to put Indians and
Speaker 1: call redskins on something, and all of a sudden, because
Speaker 1: I Native Americans have been prosecuted and treated so bad,
Speaker 1: they take offense to it, or I put up I
Speaker 1: put something on these or something like that, or yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Uh, and so so the
Speaker 1: in sensitive part in some aspects. I I don't know
Speaker 1: what they were doing, but I don't know if they
Speaker 1: knew what they were doing. Some people say, well, they
Speaker 1: only came to the Japanese. Well, I've been to Japan
Speaker 1: when I've seen I've seen the Japanese kids wear black face.
Speaker 1: Where next Jersey's Yankee has and breakdance because of homage
Speaker 1: to the clouds where they go dressed. They go there
Speaker 1: and they are saying we want to be black. So
Speaker 1: I don't know on that side. However, if you usually
Speaker 1: make a capsule collection and you only make one piece,
Speaker 1: okay when you say capsule pieces in it, because you're
Speaker 1: gonna like, you know, like my line is a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty pieces. This year I got fift team capsule collections.
Speaker 1: One's going to be Army, one's going to be whatever, whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, VOTs whatever. If you only put one black
Speaker 1: face on one item, that sounds like I need somebody
Speaker 1: to talk about this. So I don't know really when
Speaker 1: the intent was a company of white issues, it's someone
Speaker 1: that green liant that one particular item. That is because
Speaker 1: I can't say that question again because I just guess
Speaker 1: don't want to just say something, but because I can't
Speaker 1: see Gucci as a as a brand that knows, like
Speaker 1: you know, rock Camp has been you know, rocking it
Speaker 1: since the eighties. I can't see them being that. But
Speaker 1: after saying token, why is there is people on the
Speaker 1: board like, well, the board don't get to see it.
Speaker 1: I mean because when the board is thinking right now
Speaker 1: about how many stories are we gonna open globally? Who else?
Speaker 1: So we're gonna acquire how our sharehold is dealing with it.
Speaker 1: The designers are usually probably going to be young kids
Speaker 1: who are designing for a while. Then they go to
Speaker 1: a design director. The designed director sends it to a
Speaker 1: manufacturer in Italy, most likely in Japan and Hong Kong.
Speaker 1: Stuff like that. You probably didn't run across African Americans
Speaker 1: throughout that whole process if you're an Italian company, so
Speaker 1: it may have slipped through. Okay, And what was I mean?
Speaker 1: You kind of answered, I'm saying, is it is it
Speaker 1: a company wide problem? Or is it one person that
Speaker 1: green lit that one particular item? Didn't the one green land?
Speaker 1: You know? And when I saw it, isn't it wasn't
Speaker 1: it like a rolled up here? How do we even
Speaker 1: know they ever saw the turtle that rolled up. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Now however you got product going now on
Speaker 1: the running way with a noose hanging on a shirt?
Speaker 1: Who was that? That was Burberry losing Berberry product? Burberry bad.
Speaker 1: I don't want, I don't want to brush the product
Speaker 1: with the wrong brush. But it's it's not often contrived
Speaker 1: and really thought well out when you come into art
Speaker 1: and design, it's really not right. Um what what? What?
Speaker 1: Damn them? Kind of kind of guy? I mean, but
Speaker 1: should should? I don't think that anybody in within the
Speaker 1: hip hop culture should be surprised at those companies making
Speaker 1: those kind of mistakes. I don't think we should be.
Speaker 1: I think I think I got to my personal opinion,
Speaker 1: surprise day of time been showing that much love to
Speaker 1: those companies. It should be more of your companies and
Speaker 1: companies like yours in this day and time. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know from before too. I don't know if you know,
Speaker 1: but we call ourselves. We say were the digital food.
Speaker 1: We've been saying that, and why is it? Why is that? Like?
Speaker 1: Because again when I Google you, I don't know if
Speaker 1: it said that you got spent six billion dollars worth
Speaker 1: six billion dollars, But we we we sold. Over the
Speaker 1: course of our existence, we sold six billion dollars worth
Speaker 1: of retail sales. So thank everybody that help. So why
Speaker 1: isn't there? Why isn't there more brands? Like? Why isn't there?
Speaker 1: Like immediately, like one thing that I did like, uh
Speaker 1: not one thing. This is amongst many things that I like.
Speaker 1: Is when jay Z went and stepped to a um
Speaker 1: Chrystal Christal gave Brazilion resistance. Crystal didn't want to be
Speaker 1: down with him. Immediately, jay Z had alternative, Let's go
Speaker 1: with a space. A space is a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of people's budgets. I realized, how, why why everybody
Speaker 1: couldn't switch from Chrystal Ace. But at least there was
Speaker 1: an alternative. Right now, what is the alternative to Gucci?
Speaker 1: What is the alternatives the product? What is the alternative
Speaker 1: to mont Claire? Oh, there's They're there is plenty. Like
Speaker 1: I'm seeing it. I'm seeing it more and more every day.
Speaker 1: I'm seeing a lot of young people of various different
Speaker 1: shades and colors. I'm seeing them create small lines. You know,
Speaker 1: you know, back then you have these brands with the
Speaker 1: huge numbers. You know, when I got into the business,
Speaker 1: I think Levis was doing like eighteen billions. I think
Speaker 1: they're doing now three billions. And why when you've got
Speaker 1: a lot of kids that you see at home making
Speaker 1: their T shirts and sweatshirts and they're doing a million
Speaker 1: of piece, but they're doing it off their iPhones and
Speaker 1: you got a meal your kids doing that. So it's
Speaker 1: there in some way, and you know in the street
Speaker 1: where and the akator, it's still there at some level.
Speaker 1: You're just seeing a lot of the heavy advertising and
Speaker 1: marketing by the only the couple of brands that are
Speaker 1: lasting these days, because look at retail, retail is almost dead, right,
Speaker 1: where's anybody going to buy retail? Correct? Yeah? So I'm
Speaker 1: line right. So you're only seeing the advertising and in
Speaker 1: the branding by them, and it doesn't just happen an
Speaker 1: African American or or or colors of mine orn. I mean,
Speaker 1: where is Benetton these days? I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't let's say teeth at least, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like, where are those brands? So a lot
Speaker 1: of time we want to we want to act like
Speaker 1: you know, it's only one way or another, But it
Speaker 1: happens to everybody in one way. Or another. And when
Speaker 1: we look at Goucci when we were talking, we're talking
Speaker 1: about the unicorns, Nike. You we're talk about unicorns, man.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, you know, it
Speaker 1: really happens. And trust me, I'm not this whole. I'm
Speaker 1: not trying. I'm not trying to fight in Gucci's defense.
Speaker 1: I'm just laying it down. So when we're walking the
Speaker 1: room and we talk to other people with don't have
Speaker 1: that chip on our shoulder like everything's happening us know
Speaker 1: what's happening to other people too. But you're just feeling
Speaker 1: it more. And I respect that, you know. And you
Speaker 1: guys got a new deal poople, Right, Well, um, who
Speaker 1: is it? You go? We have a we have a
Speaker 1: lot of you sent me. We just did something century
Speaker 1: Century twenty one. I think we're doing also a Ladies
Speaker 1: line with Forever twenty one. Um, and these are all
Speaker 1: small collaborations, you know, we're just trying to get with whoever.
Speaker 1: We like. This cool because the resurgence, all brands come
Speaker 1: back twenty years for a little while, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people just want to feel about the field the
Speaker 1: nineties and the two thousand's, Right, did you ever get
Speaker 1: slacked for acquiring the Cougie brand, and because you know
Speaker 1: the reason why I say that probably bugging like slack,
Speaker 1: because everyone kind of looked at Cougie as like Italian brand,
Speaker 1: right right, you know what I'm saying, because originally that's
Speaker 1: what it was, right, Italian and in Italy and Australia.
Speaker 1: And now now they gave us love. I mean because
Speaker 1: initially when we when we purchased Cougie was in bankruptcy
Speaker 1: and you can only they only had eight hundred dollars sweaters.
Speaker 1: And then we started making more affordable stuff. We still
Speaker 1: have that was heavily woven sweaters because there's only two
Speaker 1: machines in the world that can knit that sweater. However,
Speaker 1: we started to make other stuff and and actually Cougie
Speaker 1: ended up becoming really really good for us, so we
Speaker 1: never got slapping and that stuff. Okay, yeah, you do
Speaker 1: you do on Cougi And how what year was that
Speaker 1: that was? That wasn't what Biggie was. We Couji no
Speaker 1: no no. We around two thousand and three, and at
Speaker 1: first nobody wanted to wear it. And I was doing
Speaker 1: all the product integration for these three girls named the
Speaker 1: Kardashians and nobody knew about And I remember going around
Speaker 1: all the brands. I feel like you love that floor,
Speaker 1: love that flaw. I remember going around all my friends
Speaker 1: with the brand. I was like, yo, s they'll wear
Speaker 1: your clothes for the whole season for seventy five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: And it's like, now, it ain't gonna be nothing. So
Speaker 1: if you look at the first three seasons of Sin
Speaker 1: when they just launched the real yeah, when you look
Speaker 1: at the first three season Kardashians, they weren't all cooji
Speaker 1: because I was like, man, I'm sorry, girls, I can't
Speaker 1: really you know, getting all the people behind you, but
Speaker 1: I got you here you go because I knew you're
Speaker 1: gonna be something. How how do how do you how
Speaker 1: do you determine things like that? How did how did
Speaker 1: you you know? Because l L is like a different
Speaker 1: type of person, like you know, for you to allow
Speaker 1: yourself with l L. And this is a guy who's
Speaker 1: you know, been around for thirty thirty five years. Yeah
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So how do you allign
Speaker 1: with people like that? How do you see star is
Speaker 1: m in a person? Well? L was always a big
Speaker 1: star to me. He was he was already a huge
Speaker 1: star show. It wasn't me having an opportunity in regards
Speaker 1: to me helping him out. It was him reaching down
Speaker 1: and helping me out. Um. And like whenever we go
Speaker 1: after mentors or other people, it's what's in it for them,
Speaker 1: you know. I had to make it very advantageous to him.
Speaker 1: So what I had to do was dress everybody around him. First.
Speaker 1: I dressed all the bodyguards, the big dudes with the
Speaker 1: five exits who would never nobody ever made anything flo show.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, they're wearing it now, and they're
Speaker 1: wearing it more because you dressed a little skinny kid
Speaker 1: with the funny mustache, you know, the skateboard. He throwing
Speaker 1: it away a week later, but you dressed the big
Speaker 1: dude who can't get nothing. He winning it for a
Speaker 1: year straight after that. And then he always in front
Speaker 1: of the club or pushing somebody out the way to
Speaker 1: walking Bill. Yeah. So after that, L was like, hey, yo, baby,
Speaker 1: what's up with me? And I didn't want to bother you. Baby.
Speaker 1: I didn't bother but I got a couple of shirts
Speaker 1: you right there. So I had to make it really
Speaker 1: flopped at him. And then I went after you always
Speaker 1: go after the local lead. I went after round me
Speaker 1: getting everybody always sorry, yeah everybody, Yeah, don't worry about
Speaker 1: I don't make sure the law of that. Everybody always
Speaker 1: wanting what's that? What's hell? Partner was? He was? He
Speaker 1: a Parker. That was the little part of my spokes
Speaker 1: first and who who who are who? Who got to
Speaker 1: partake in any profit afterwards? And it was because he's
Speaker 1: a smart businessman. He was like, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be around with the losses there. I won't only be
Speaker 1: around in the case apart deal kind of like rosy
Speaker 1: deal on the upside of stuff. And he and he
Speaker 1: that's why he went out and busted his ass. And
Speaker 1: that's why obviously, um we were very beneficial of that
Speaker 1: because after he wore everybody want to wear, everybody want
Speaker 1: to rock out? You know that was Flatform and Russell
Speaker 1: involved at any point or did you ever trying to
Speaker 1: get through because Platform was a company to that. Flatform
Speaker 1: also existed first. But Russell came to us and was
Speaker 1: like a man, you know, I know the rector business.
Speaker 1: I don't know this business that well. And because Russell's
Speaker 1: a legend to me, you know, we um we actually
Speaker 1: distributed his clothes and in Europe, and then we hooked
Speaker 1: him up with the guy who would end up really
Speaker 1: helping him so um so, and then we were obviously
Speaker 1: very happy about that. We always wanted to see other
Speaker 1: cats who were part of the world be able to
Speaker 1: benefit off of it, you know, so so we would
Speaker 1: because you know, you know, listen, man, you can't stop
Speaker 1: anybody already got dried, and you know you always want
Speaker 1: to be part of the bridge if you can. That's
Speaker 1: what all the hate is out there. Who don't realize that.
Speaker 1: Was there any rival reason amongst these these brands that
Speaker 1: were kind of competing for the same market. Absolutely, and
Speaker 1: you know, so we were able to really you know,
Speaker 1: cross colors and Calk and I broke around for us.
Speaker 1: They inspired us, they opened the door. We came in
Speaker 1: and took it to another level. And we came in
Speaker 1: right after they were slowing down a little bit, right
Speaker 1: before Paul Russa really got to blast. So we had
Speaker 1: a really good run at it. But when we really
Speaker 1: saw it going and they saw to get going, of course,
Speaker 1: there's only limited space in any store for any brand, right,
Speaker 1: so of course they would they would be the rivalry.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be a rivalry in the streets with us.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't have no issues. You know. We wasn't like
Speaker 1: y'all caps will be like yo man, East Coast, West Coast.
Speaker 1: You know, I would be like extra sec. I'm not,
Speaker 1: but you know, but of course it was a friendly robbery.
Speaker 1: I mean, I put you know, I introduced Paul to
Speaker 1: a guy named Jeff Tweete who runs his company, because
Speaker 1: you know, I knew I couldn't take Jeff Tweete on
Speaker 1: and I wanted him to help up. I didn't think
Speaker 1: Puff was gonna be that hot. But again, you can't stop.
Speaker 1: You can't stop people. But yeah, of course it was
Speaker 1: always a friendly business. I'm showing your businesses, who's selling
Speaker 1: a song? This is my man, but he's killing it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, on my own evil what
Speaker 1: she's killing it. And it seems that these brands, the
Speaker 1: brands you mentioned, they learned off for you guys, because
Speaker 1: the partner's stores weren't carrying like hip hop clothing until
Speaker 1: like tail end of the nineties, early two thousand. Because
Speaker 1: I had a clothing store, and I remember I had
Speaker 1: to I went out of business once locally was bird
Speaker 1: Iss and then became Macy's. When they started carrying it,
Speaker 1: I couldn't even compete with those marks happened. So so
Speaker 1: first of all, a lot of those big stores wouldn't
Speaker 1: carry our brand. I even heard something like, Yo, there's
Speaker 1: who are black guys on the hang tag? People don't
Speaker 1: come and have shootouts, they're gonna start shoplifting. But a
Speaker 1: local store like, yeah, we would support always the local entrepreneur.
Speaker 1: Because the local entrepreneur, they it would tell they why
Speaker 1: ambassador they were, They would as soon as they sell
Speaker 1: stuff in one week they called back, I need more
Speaker 1: Macy's or one of the big guys are gonna call
Speaker 1: back every quarter or whatever the case it. What they
Speaker 1: found out is like two years into it, they found
Speaker 1: out the guys like you, who had one store now
Speaker 1: had six, and they were like, yeah, we're missing the mark.
Speaker 1: And that's why they kind of let us all of
Speaker 1: us kind of in at the same around the same time,
Speaker 1: because they were like, we need this section because we
Speaker 1: can't have the kids going down the block or staying
Speaker 1: in the hood and not coming here. So that's how
Speaker 1: you know, everybody gets on everything and something like what
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency today and see today everybody's gonna it's gonna take
Speaker 1: a while to bubble and then you know they're gonna
Speaker 1: they're gonna get on it. Now, what did food will
Speaker 1: Ever do? Like because you see how like if we're
Speaker 1: a rocket where they sold like they say they sold
Speaker 1: it from like two hundred three hundred million, like the
Speaker 1: food Boever soup never, So we never so we always
Speaker 1: we still have the brands. Yeah, so we know we
Speaker 1: never sold a brand. We sold. We sold the territory
Speaker 1: of China. Know in Japan, I think China and Korea
Speaker 1: that just the territory like that means we can't distribute those,
Speaker 1: just that those so they can make whatever they put
Speaker 1: that only that specific area and that area. Poolble was
Speaker 1: more like a skate type of brand. Oh god, they
Speaker 1: reinterpreted a different way over that. You you ever looking
Speaker 1: at that and be like you look at you know
Speaker 1: it probably see like where it goes and be like
Speaker 1: because essentially it's like it's like an album. It's like
Speaker 1: it's like how we make an album, like after we
Speaker 1: give it to the world, it's not ours. No thought
Speaker 1: we would be more than maybe a little closing store
Speaker 1: where well my friends and I, you know, we can
Speaker 1: all work together and feed out families. I never thought
Speaker 1: we have anything bigger than that. What was the moment
Speaker 1: where you was like, holy ship, we're here. Um. We
Speaker 1: had just opened a couple of store in South Africa.
Speaker 1: And I remember I didn't go on that trip in
Speaker 1: South Aba. I didn't go on that trip because I
Speaker 1: always saw at the first hit pop pop like yeah,
Speaker 1: we're done year three, we're done year four, and it
Speaker 1: lasted probably about eight years. Super hot, right, And I
Speaker 1: remember I didn't go on that trip. I had to
Speaker 1: do something else. And I remember Mandela calling my partners, Okay, y'all,
Speaker 1: y'all right. One of my only regrets. Man. You know, man,
Speaker 1: we can slow down there. You get the clubhouse, I'd
Speaker 1: all those Yeah, the real chair colongs with me bad
Speaker 1: bring so bad calls, called my boys and they're going
Speaker 1: me Mandela and I never got to meet him, um,
Speaker 1: but I realized at that point, yeah, we're making some noise. Wow.
Speaker 1: Did you ever get to be tupac Na? Damn me neither.
Speaker 1: When he got super hot, I was, I was East
Speaker 1: Coast dude. And the only time I almost it got
Speaker 1: to meet him. I forgot what happened, you know, we
Speaker 1: were throwing a big party on the West Coast and
Speaker 1: think for like Lenny slewis for somebody, and I was
Speaker 1: I was dressing, you know me, I was dressing everybody.
Speaker 1: But all of a sudden, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: East Coast castle I forgot if it was Grammys or whatever,
Speaker 1: and I had to make a decision that I wouldn't
Speaker 1: allow um death row at the party. And just because
Speaker 1: we were dressing everybody, we didn't want the last we
Speaker 1: want the thing to be heard that something happened at
Speaker 1: the foodal party. And that was the only time that
Speaker 1: I don't want him. Did you Detroit from Pop thousand
Speaker 1: and one that work for footballs? No? No, no, not
Speaker 1: Troy no more. He Actually Troy did work for all
Speaker 1: of us in some sense, because when we would do
Speaker 1: these seventh or six fashion shows that we've never had
Speaker 1: an opportunity to do, we would need somebody to make
Speaker 1: the clothes in a week and just front like that
Speaker 1: was the new line coming out, and Troitan Potots the
Speaker 1: one wouldn't make all the clothes and we'd be like, yo,
Speaker 1: that's a new line, and then we'll see who we
Speaker 1: get press off of. And then we would run the line.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't actually be designing that line until we see
Speaker 1: how many times we get pressed off this one piece
Speaker 1: of that piece, and then we make like I said
Speaker 1: that capsules. It's like um with me, right, It's like
Speaker 1: I got kind of like two different life, right, I
Speaker 1: got the Wrapper life Love the Rapper life, and now
Speaker 1: I have this after Life after rap uh uh, this podcast.
Speaker 1: Like we're doing around and often people always ask me,
Speaker 1: like what what which one you like more? If you
Speaker 1: which one you like more, the shock Tank Life or
Speaker 1: the fool Boo Life Shock Tank Life. Okay, damn you
Speaker 1: said that, mad fast. You're gonna take some time, you know,
Speaker 1: because when when when food was really had, I had
Speaker 1: three hundred four hundred employees and then globally I had
Speaker 1: about twelve hundred. And I think it's supposed to make
Speaker 1: some noise for that. And when you become a shrink
Speaker 1: shrink opose Okay, okay, when you said you shrink, where
Speaker 1: we've come, fri you've been you've always you've always been
Speaker 1: concerned with why you didn't get to make it where
Speaker 1: you thought you deserve, whether because you were female, because
Speaker 1: you were personal color, because you didn't have a regular education.
Speaker 1: So I would go out and I would want my
Speaker 1: employees to know if I had to fire them, I
Speaker 1: had to fire them, or I had to give them
Speaker 1: an advance. To give my advance, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: know it was on the merit of who they were,
Speaker 1: not the color of their skin. And I never wanted
Speaker 1: to hand it down to other uh mental management, because
Speaker 1: you don't know how they were going to convey your message.
Speaker 1: So you become a shrink, right you you start to
Speaker 1: worry about why people are working or not working. Now,
Speaker 1: shark tank, I get to invest in other companies who
Speaker 1: they already were founded a year or two years, five
Speaker 1: years before they even met me. Ten years with those companies, right,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a minority. Uh stay colder. I get to
Speaker 1: just work and deal with you off your performance and
Speaker 1: the DNA that you had already set for your company
Speaker 1: was none of my business. Also, I think that you
Speaker 1: know Sartank one of the top shows watched UM Kids
Speaker 1: and Parents Together, that's one of the top shows watched
Speaker 1: or network kids five to fifteen years old. And we
Speaker 1: don't often see people like us who are successful and
Speaker 1: they didn't have this great education and they didn't go
Speaker 1: out in the streets and do some crazy shit. And
Speaker 1: if I can, if I can let it. If the
Speaker 1: next Damon John, excuse me, and not even Damon John
Speaker 1: sque me if the next Oprah was Steve Jobs or
Speaker 1: Bill Gates is in their house and their little pajamas,
Speaker 1: eating some cheerios, watching me on TV. Like I did
Speaker 1: my job, right, So I think that that. And I
Speaker 1: don't have any inventory. Before I used to worry about
Speaker 1: moving a million pairs of jeans. Now my inventories right
Speaker 1: here and right here, all right here, that's my inventory.
Speaker 1: And um, you're in the food come putting right now
Speaker 1: right food company, al Baba Bagas Bonus rips. That got that?
Speaker 1: That's a time twister. You try that after three more? Well?
Speaker 1: So was it ever like an investment? You can't brush
Speaker 1: over it? Like the beginning of Shark Tank, Like I
Speaker 1: want to know, Yeah, did that whole this show even
Speaker 1: start like it was? Mark Cupids? Are there? No? No? Not?
Speaker 1: Mark Burnett produced like he had he has survival practice
Speaker 1: all that, And it was already a number one show
Speaker 1: in Japan, in London and Canada. It's called dragons Den
Speaker 1: and they and they brought the format over here. It's
Speaker 1: a Sony format. They brought it over there. Mark is
Speaker 1: a brick so he loved it already from London, and
Speaker 1: then he brought the show here and renamed the Shark
Speaker 1: Tank because I think they had it in another country,
Speaker 1: I think Australia. At first they had it under dragons Den,
Speaker 1: and the way knew what the hell of dragon was
Speaker 1: in that country, And if you would have brought it
Speaker 1: here named the dragons then it was already hard enough.
Speaker 1: The name of Shark taking exactly show. So absolutely, that's
Speaker 1: how I started. They called me if they saw me,
Speaker 1: I think on Donnie Deutsch or CNBC or MSNBC talking
Speaker 1: about business, and they're like, yo, you know this guy
Speaker 1: knows how to break down the pitch. He has a
Speaker 1: couple of bucks, he's an investor. I want him on
Speaker 1: the show again, something else like Booble that I thought
Speaker 1: would never work. So they approach you with this idea,
Speaker 1: now that you gotta shoot the pilot first, or you
Speaker 1: guys go straight into the season. Now we go to
Speaker 1: shoot the pilot. But first they tell me I can't
Speaker 1: be on any of the show. And I already promised
Speaker 1: the Kardashians I'd be on the show. So I told him, no,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do it, and then I get uh. Then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the produce of the Kardashians like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't want you to show them more. You don't
Speaker 1: really appeal to the people, you know that we're trying
Speaker 1: to get the hell out of. So you get cut
Speaker 1: out of the Kardashians. However, you know what I found out,
Speaker 1: Chloe found out that I was going to turn down
Speaker 1: Shark because of her ah and then she says she
Speaker 1: would never get in my way. Let's make some noise
Speaker 1: for Chloe got I think that's noise and at all.
Speaker 1: Two three A sweet story. Man. I'm glad to hear
Speaker 1: to hear a person like you of your statures come
Speaker 1: on here and speak, you know, uh, positivity towards that way,
Speaker 1: because it's I just don't hear it. I don't know
Speaker 1: what I'm me listening. They're screwed up people out here,
Speaker 1: and they you know, there's a lot of foul people
Speaker 1: out here, but you got to give it up when
Speaker 1: you know somebody's doing it the right way, you know,
Speaker 1: and Christiana doing the right way. And I ain't mad
Speaker 1: at them. You know, they're getting their paper and why
Speaker 1: while we getting mad at them? Right exactly. You have
Speaker 1: opinion on Kanye and like sometimes his thoughts being out
Speaker 1: of this world, you know, not really, Um, I think
Speaker 1: that you know he I think he's already said everything
Speaker 1: he needs to say about himself by emotionally he goes Shuler.
Speaker 1: I think the man is a genius. Um. I think
Speaker 1: has he said some wrong stuff that I've been offended?
Speaker 1: That absolutely? But you know what if the cameras were
Speaker 1: on me all the time, of course I said some
Speaker 1: wrong stuff too, right, But but I'm not one of
Speaker 1: the biggest stars in the world. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So you got a motivation, you know album coming up?
Speaker 1: I got a motivation the track I got someone like
Speaker 1: spoken Wren. I do a couple of speeches or people scorting.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna insult true artists or somebody that's you.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm doing my speech because you know what
Speaker 1: I think. I think a lot of times when I'm
Speaker 1: when I'm doing the tracks, like when I want to
Speaker 1: do these speaking engagements. If you hear it once, you've
Speaker 1: heard a million times to me. But I remember I
Speaker 1: was driving down the street one day of mlk's birthday,
Speaker 1: and I heard obviously one of the greatest speeches that
Speaker 1: I ever been written. Somebody did some crazy beat to it,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I can hear that Mark Luther
Speaker 1: King's speech on the treadmill train. I'm driving the car.
Speaker 1: It's getting me amp you want to kill it? That day,
Speaker 1: so I gave a bunch of producers a lot of
Speaker 1: my speeches and it's obviously never gonna compare to m okay,
Speaker 1: but um, they put some stuff together and just started
Speaker 1: getting good responses and people like and I give them
Speaker 1: away with my books or you know, the people people perchasing,
Speaker 1: whatever the cases. But I always wanted to add more
Speaker 1: than just my books. You know that Obama appointed you
Speaker 1: the brand ambassador. Yeah, Obama appointed me um Presidential Ambassador
Speaker 1: Global Entrepreneurship. Okay, but how did this happen? They did
Speaker 1: he call your phone? And did you hang up when
Speaker 1: you say it's Obama? Because you like, come on, I
Speaker 1: would like I wish I could play a big time
Speaker 1: like that. It was his band's man, Man's Man? Who
Speaker 1: are me? I was removed? What you what you're damn?
Speaker 1: But I did get to go with him to Kenya.
Speaker 1: I want him to Cuba, I want with him to
Speaker 1: another conference. Um and yeah, in in California. And my
Speaker 1: job as a presidential abassador is to let people understand
Speaker 1: and they can pick up their iPhone and make a
Speaker 1: million dollars or or if you're in Kenya, you need
Speaker 1: only twenty five dollars a month to keep the lights on.
Speaker 1: If if we can show you what entrepreneurship is and
Speaker 1: how to how to do it, then domestic violence is
Speaker 1: going to go down. Right if you need twenty five
Speaker 1: dollars a month, Like if your wife keeps telling you, listen,
Speaker 1: I need money to take care of the baby, to
Speaker 1: take whatever case, and you and you stress you ain't
Speaker 1: got it, a lot of things gonna happen. And then
Speaker 1: also the people are gonna pray of for you. They're
Speaker 1: gonna be like yo, just like they do whether it's
Speaker 1: in the gang in New York City or in California.
Speaker 1: It's like, Yo, you need some money, take this and
Speaker 1: go down the block and do this for me. They're
Speaker 1: gonna do that too to other people. Right. So, but
Speaker 1: if you show people there's real ways to make money,
Speaker 1: then they don't become liabilities, they become taxpayers. They become
Speaker 1: mentors in the community. We see it happen all the time.
Speaker 1: So that was my job globally to to to do
Speaker 1: that for the president bottom and so you you you,
Speaker 1: but you got to be them. Yeah yeah, traveling, traveling,
Speaker 1: getting smoking blog with them like no, no, no, But
Speaker 1: now you know, random bastard of Spotify to how are
Speaker 1: you getting music money as well? Spotify? Yeah that's Shopify,
Speaker 1: shop by that Spotify, oh ship. Yeah, definitely I wrote
Speaker 1: it wrong. I was like, you know all the music
Speaker 1: nig Yeah, you know, I used old mistakes to president
Speaker 1: like yo, yo, you know what Shopify the platform, anybody
Speaker 1: had to have something when they're trying to sell something
Speaker 1: that's that's like the on store Shopify they can open up, Yeah,
Speaker 1: shopping for Holy ship, you are just getting money from everywhere?
Speaker 1: Do you like? Um? How how because they say a
Speaker 1: millionaire has to have seven uh forms? Is that something
Speaker 1: you agree with? Yeah? I mean I do. I don't
Speaker 1: know a counter like what's the seven? I always say,
Speaker 1: how are we maximizing what we're currently doing here? You know? So? Um,
Speaker 1: give example, like if the books are doing really well,
Speaker 1: then I'm gonna come out with the curriculum to follow
Speaker 1: us up with the books that I'm also put the
Speaker 1: tracks to follow up with the books. I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: hopefully some kind of dock or show off of it,
Speaker 1: and then you know, I may do one all the
Speaker 1: or all the two things off of it, but we're
Speaker 1: gonna try to maximize. You know, this is open that
Speaker 1: that brand I was trying to say, But don't don't
Speaker 1: forget we have some future entrepreneurs. It takes you're wanting,
Speaker 1: no problem. They both white, they both fights. Got damn
Speaker 1: it because we all celebrate whatever that was. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the brand new one. Go ahead, dad, god damnit
Speaker 1: me your wait, hold on, hold on hard okay, okay,
Speaker 1: hold on, hor because I'm gonna do it more a
Speaker 1: real one. This is a real This is a real one.
Speaker 1: I don't believe in these nicks at all. They're gonna
Speaker 1: embarrass the whole attack of you on this show right now.
Speaker 1: And we all know this. This is a real one
Speaker 1: right now now, now listen, please, this is something that
Speaker 1: I've been working on personally. Right I didn't want to
Speaker 1: go to anybody for help because I just wanted to
Speaker 1: do it on own, just like like a record there,
Speaker 1: so you got it. So what I proposed this this
Speaker 1: I wanted to come out with my own sneaker line right,
Speaker 1: my own, my very own, that's my prototype, that's my
Speaker 1: very own. These are called the Hamptons because this is
Speaker 1: what you now. It's not gonna be black, It's gonna
Speaker 1: be white because in Hamptons, you know, the Hamptons. That's
Speaker 1: version of mallible. Right. So, but it doesn't stop here.
Speaker 1: This is obviously a no repair of sneakers. But I
Speaker 1: want to be like the first company. I want to
Speaker 1: be Nike, meaning I want to give I want to
Speaker 1: give everybody who's not gonna give people a deal, but
Speaker 1: who has hundreds of thousands of fans, um like like
Speaker 1: like a Jim Jones. I don't see Jim Jones ever
Speaker 1: be and it will be in a Nike being or
Speaker 1: with new Balance. But guess what what if I give
Speaker 1: him Jones his own sneakers under my brand? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: like it, you know what I'm saying? Like label deals
Speaker 1: in a sense, ye, like I would imprint imprint, Like
Speaker 1: do you think that could exist in this day in time? Absolutely? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: But you know the question is gonna be you know,
Speaker 1: how how are you going to do that? Right, like,
Speaker 1: how are you going to set up the supply chain?
Speaker 1: And who's gonna fund that supply chain? Okay, because you
Speaker 1: look at it today. If you look at the sneaker,
Speaker 1: you know, sneakers on like they're not like T shirts
Speaker 1: a T shirt. We can we can all put You
Speaker 1: can put obviously something on the T shirt and it
Speaker 1: really means a lot to people because they follow you
Speaker 1: put two parts there. You go, right, you can make
Speaker 1: that T shirt in two days. You can go print
Speaker 1: it and ship it over to you that you can't
Speaker 1: that's gonna take ninety days. You don't know if you
Speaker 1: can customize it. And then your inventory is gonna be
Speaker 1: massive because how many eights, eight and a half nines
Speaker 1: against colors. So now you gotta look at how much
Speaker 1: inventory you're gonna have to have, and that can suck
Speaker 1: up a lot of cash because the more inventory you have,
Speaker 1: the more you gotta pay for warehousing and quality control.
Speaker 1: And if you put out this, because we all know
Speaker 1: the sneak crowd, if this sneaker is hot for ninety
Speaker 1: days or one season and it is cold, now, if
Speaker 1: you paid whatever three dollars a unit and you've got
Speaker 1: three million dollars worth of units in your warehouse. If
Speaker 1: it don't become a collector's item, then when you go
Speaker 1: and try to sell them, people are gonna pay the
Speaker 1: normal price to pay for They're gonna pay half the price.
Speaker 1: So you just gotta really set up the supply chain
Speaker 1: in the right way where you can deliver it faster
Speaker 1: to people at a time. Like my idea was, instead
Speaker 1: of me coming out with one, I wanted to come
Speaker 1: out with three at a time. I wanted to come
Speaker 1: out with the nor like a Jim Jones and a
Speaker 1: bad Joe. Right, So this way, so this way, I
Speaker 1: COO are putting all the revenue into it. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: playing for everything, but no one knows. It's all under
Speaker 1: one company. But no one knows who owns this company
Speaker 1: or whatever the company is. But I got got Joe
Speaker 1: out on the Bronx promoting, I got Jim Jones in Miami,
Speaker 1: and I'm in l A or something like that. So
Speaker 1: so the flip side of the best way to do
Speaker 1: that because you have such a great relationship with them,
Speaker 1: and they have such a great relationship with their audience.
Speaker 1: It's it's a pre order situation exactly. That's what I
Speaker 1: was thinking, You guys, so don't even don't even make
Speaker 1: the product until we get that order. Don't make it
Speaker 1: until but but you have to have a customer who's
Speaker 1: ready to wait for Yeah, we're only were rocking out
Speaker 1: with five thousands. If it goes round when you're not
Speaker 1: gonna have a loss because you know now you just
Speaker 1: gotta be reduction is good because you already got a
Speaker 1: dance on pre selling right now now, he was It was, uh,
Speaker 1: this is all serious, Like I'm not even none of
Speaker 1: this was I was like playing around with But one
Speaker 1: of the things I was going, I'm actually going to
Speaker 1: l A this Wednesday, is I got this all done
Speaker 1: in China, right And I had to go to China
Speaker 1: because I didn't know no other wound and I didn't
Speaker 1: want to know health to tell the truth, I just
Speaker 1: I wanted to do something hundred percent on my own,
Speaker 1: like like for real, and rad Alan helped me, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, But nope, we're not with no
Speaker 1: money though everything was on me. So what I thought
Speaker 1: about it was I had running can ye and I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to meet with Kanye this week, and I think
Speaker 1: he thinks I'm going to meet with him for drink chaps.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that I want to meet
Speaker 1: with him as for Yo, listen, I want to pay
Speaker 1: you the same ship I was gonna pay China to
Speaker 1: make my sneaker. I just want to make it here.
Speaker 1: Would would that make a difference if it's American made
Speaker 1: and then it's made in Calabasas or some ship as
Speaker 1: opposed to China. Yeah, it is, but the pricing may
Speaker 1: be different because we don't even know if they have
Speaker 1: too main factories set up here to make to make footwear.
Speaker 1: You know, technology sometimes been in those areas, or you
Speaker 1: can get components made. You can say I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: the soul over there, and you know, make the upper
Speaker 1: over here. You know what you know when you want
Speaker 1: to really make those sneakers, you know, like those they
Speaker 1: they're like car builders who make those thnaks like we
Speaker 1: own the Brandy Tonic and to take a long time
Speaker 1: to make apparent sneakers. Yeah, okay, wow, okay, I didn't
Speaker 1: know what t is still out Yeah I still wanted
Speaker 1: about six years ago. Okay, okay, god you know money
Speaker 1: tic Oh no, I do, I do, actually, but I
Speaker 1: do so now shock take right, they come to you
Speaker 1: with this idea, and I imagine one of the things
Speaker 1: that could have been a turn off at first as
Speaker 1: they're saying, you invest into your own money? Do you
Speaker 1: all day? Because you have to say, that's what I
Speaker 1: want to understand. It doesn't make sense to me the
Speaker 1: financials of that. How does that work? Like there's no
Speaker 1: match processing it and products nothing. If if they will,
Speaker 1: maybe if I would spending ABC money, everybody in this
Speaker 1: room have a deal because the show, I'm thinking maybe
Speaker 1: it's a match situation. You know, mad nothing right, So
Speaker 1: this is a one of them. Then when this is
Speaker 1: what I'm asking you. So when they approach you, they
Speaker 1: say we're gonna make a show and you're using your
Speaker 1: own money, Like and I thought these dudes was crazy,
Speaker 1: but it was. It was oh eight when they approached me.
Speaker 1: I had ten brands and eight of my brands with
Speaker 1: dead and nobody. When people in old eight couldn't pay
Speaker 1: their morgan, the last thing they were doing was buying
Speaker 1: a new T shirt or sneakers or jeans. They were
Speaker 1: their jeans forever. And I was like, yo, I'm only
Speaker 1: getting pitched or the cloning companies because you know when
Speaker 1: people think who we just thought that they think you
Speaker 1: know nothing else. And I was like, but yo, the
Speaker 1: skill set that I have is not making clothes. The
Speaker 1: skills that I have is selling products. So I want
Speaker 1: to be able to go to a department store and say, yo,
Speaker 1: you know me already. You know I'm in the men's section.
Speaker 1: But I got some lotions that I can say can
Speaker 1: take some real estate up in the lotion area and
Speaker 1: the bedding in the kitchen area. So I said, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be a diversify my portfolio, So let me go
Speaker 1: on the show. And that was the main reason I
Speaker 1: did the show. Are the are the different people that pitch?
Speaker 1: Is there a vetting system that make sure that you
Speaker 1: know they're just they're just not full of ship completely there? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: but the betting system has changed, right, you know, Like, um, so,
Speaker 1: I think there's forty thou applicants online for the show.
Speaker 1: I think that they end them narrowing it down to
Speaker 1: a thousand. They see they're seeing me in outside castings,
Speaker 1: or we don't know anything about them, or they'll they'll
Speaker 1: they'll they'll see him on the news, like you know,
Speaker 1: a little Timmy gonna lemonade and stand you know whatever, um,
Speaker 1: and then then they'll bring us one and we'll finally
Speaker 1: see two hundred people, and only I think a hundred
Speaker 1: will air. And but the vetting process has changed over
Speaker 1: the years. The sharks have gotten smarter and the casting
Speaker 1: directors gotten smarter. It's like, we do a production in
Speaker 1: here right now, right there's a lot of smart people
Speaker 1: in here who can walk me around the block ten
Speaker 1: times when I'm talking about angles, cameras and equipment. However,
Speaker 1: the first season, when cast is talking to us and
Speaker 1: they were like, yo, doing about thirty million dollars sales,
Speaker 1: and I got one employee the casting director was a
Speaker 1: casting director. They didn't know to ask the question like, Yo,
Speaker 1: what are you selling crack? You got hot right now?
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Like, but after seeing all
Speaker 1: these pictures, just like America has gotten smart and find
Speaker 1: out what the word royalties is in marginal retribution, the
Speaker 1: casting directors have to seeing hundreds of pitches. Now you
Speaker 1: go to them, they sound like me, Kevin Olire, you know,
Speaker 1: They're like, yeah, come on, man, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So um so, so that's the real deal. And the
Speaker 1: show you see eight minutes of a two hour pitch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's two the pictures two hours, and it takes us
Speaker 1: anywhere from six to nine months to close the deals.
Speaker 1: And we and we and we generally close about eight
Speaker 1: of the deals. You see us, do mhm? Have have
Speaker 1: um passed on something that it was like fuck? You
Speaker 1: know what? At first couple of years I I thought
Speaker 1: like that right? And then I'll tell you what happened, Laurie.
Speaker 1: This guy walks in, falls on the ground as part
Speaker 1: of the skid. He gets up. He has his little
Speaker 1: pin that he puts his glasses in it, and he says,
Speaker 1: I got this pen ten dollars. You put your glasses
Speaker 1: in it, and you can put it on all your shirts.
Speaker 1: I was like, it's garbage because I've been putting cold
Speaker 1: on my shirts. There Tommy Hill doing that, I mean
Speaker 1: Tommy like a Tommy Bahama. I'm like, yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna work. Laurie goes off and there's a seven
Speaker 1: million dollars in sales and that stupid ass pen. You
Speaker 1: know what, I realized She've been selling reading glasses for
Speaker 1: fifteen years on her show. She has millions of people
Speaker 1: that mess with her because they're reading glasses and that's
Speaker 1: who she sold it too. So I realized that chasing
Speaker 1: money like that is like back in the days when
Speaker 1: I was trying to chase that car game. If I
Speaker 1: don't have the customer, I don't know the business, how
Speaker 1: do I know if it's gonna sell. And that's why
Speaker 1: I'm doing really good and baby back ribs because I
Speaker 1: know baby back right. Is there anything that you invested
Speaker 1: in that that you personally believed in that it didn't work? Yeah,
Speaker 1: every every single thing that has failed. Oh wow. But
Speaker 1: I just generally I don't talk about the entrepreneur wire's
Speaker 1: failed because a lot of times the entrepreneurs are going
Speaker 1: to a different stage, like, um, it may not be
Speaker 1: working right now, and then two or three years later
Speaker 1: may pop. But I've learned I was behind the camera
Speaker 1: with food for the most part. I learned that if
Speaker 1: I go out and say, well, yo, this entrepreneurs sucked
Speaker 1: and this company sucked, that person may not get an
Speaker 1: investment or a job later on for various different reasons.
Speaker 1: Because my, my, my, my words bring them up to
Speaker 1: the top of the search. So um, and most of
Speaker 1: the time, entrepreneurs who have done more own by us.
Speaker 1: They don't have that intent. They just don't have enough
Speaker 1: knowledge and they go out there and do wrong things,
Speaker 1: you know, because some of them think, listen, I got it,
Speaker 1: and it didn't happen to me, but it happened to
Speaker 1: one of my guys. They I think he said he
Speaker 1: invested five hundred thousand dollars. A woman went off and
Speaker 1: paid off all her bills and brought herself in you call. Now.
Speaker 1: She didn't intend to steal, but her theory was, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm paying interest in all these bills. Well it's credit.
Speaker 1: Let me pay that down and I'm gonna get around
Speaker 1: this old piece of ship car. I got wow. But
Speaker 1: the theory was the wrong thing to do for the business,
Speaker 1: of course. So you know, it's pretty hard when you
Speaker 1: when you when you when you're in business dealing with
Speaker 1: a lot of different personalities, egos. You know, is it
Speaker 1: every anything that you ever like invested in that you
Speaker 1: didn't believe in personally? Like you said, like I I
Speaker 1: but I can see the other people that were funk
Speaker 1: with this, like like like, for instance, if I was
Speaker 1: an investor, like I give you a better example. I
Speaker 1: know for a fact, lies don't eat pork. But if
Speaker 1: you go to his restaurant, sweet check. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of pork or that man, So you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: it's like he don't believe in that part of it,
Speaker 1: but he um is there something like that. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: two guys. They have a company called Bomba's Socks, And
Speaker 1: I like the guys personally, but the socks is trash.
Speaker 1: But the socks I was like, know, the socks themselves
Speaker 1: are good, but I was like, yo, I got a
Speaker 1: million dollars worth the old football socks in the warehouse.
Speaker 1: You wear them, nobody can tell what you're wearing because
Speaker 1: it's on your feet. They in buckets at five dollars
Speaker 1: a piece at the store. This ship is never gonna
Speaker 1: work exactly. They're doing a hundred million dollars a year
Speaker 1: now a year and direct sales to the to the
Speaker 1: to the customer. And the best thing about him is
Speaker 1: that the most comfortable socks I've ever won. But every
Speaker 1: time you buy a pair of socks, they donate a
Speaker 1: pair to the homeless shelter because that's one of the
Speaker 1: biggest challenges the homers have or complaints they have, and
Speaker 1: they've proven then you can take anything in the world
Speaker 1: and if you do with the right way, listen and
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I should have known better.
Speaker 1: I just made a T shirt. I didn't put three
Speaker 1: sleeves on the T shirt. They made a suck. One
Speaker 1: of the biggest company in the world today is something
Speaker 1: that sells a sugary, sugary bubbly water. It ain't another
Speaker 1: heart vowel they're selling. Simplicity is some of the best
Speaker 1: things ever to sell people to. All these people are
Speaker 1: here trying to create, you know this next heart vow
Speaker 1: Sometimes they should think about the simplistic things that everybody
Speaker 1: can require every single day. We want to try to
Speaker 1: do a tack of bone. But I want to I
Speaker 1: got another question. I want to hear what's ahead. So
Speaker 1: let me ask you something. Right when you see these
Speaker 1: big companies like um a Gucci hiring a Dapper dam
Speaker 1: and then a Louis Bitton hiring like a virgin, Like,
Speaker 1: is that something you ever wanted to, like, like to
Speaker 1: do like with one of these higher in brands, and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would design robolex food watch. Yeah. I mean I think, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that if I felt that if
Speaker 1: I just as some fly ship, I don't even know
Speaker 1: how fly that was. I just said, remember my bad,
Speaker 1: my bad, Okay you no, Absolutely if I think that,
Speaker 1: I think it made sense and I think that it
Speaker 1: could be authentic. Yeah if they if they just slap
Speaker 1: somebody name on it, then it's not gonna happen. But
Speaker 1: the way they messed with Dappa, they're letting Dappa be
Speaker 1: Dapper Dad. You know what I'm saying. We've seen brands
Speaker 1: that having work because they slapped some name on it,
Speaker 1: but not absolutely. Yeah, if it was something that would
Speaker 1: set you to maybe something that was you will be
Speaker 1: looking forward to, Like if someone called you some of you,
Speaker 1: it would have to be branded our support. So I
Speaker 1: love I love y three, um tom Ford, but he
Speaker 1: too talented for me. Man, you know Tom Tom run
Speaker 1: service around me. But I love Tom Ford. Um um,
Speaker 1: let me see why cell that I said, why three pooma?
Speaker 1: Definitely I'm already hy three and XEL is not the
Speaker 1: same thing, right east Link you mean he said, or
Speaker 1: why three y three? That's not that's that's the deeds
Speaker 1: uh high in the high Oh okay a cool cool.
Speaker 1: I definitely watched brands. Um yeah, like you ever like
Speaker 1: you ever see like um, the cars like they're like
Speaker 1: they have like like the Eddie Bower Edition, Yeah edition
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, so I would love and the artists
Speaker 1: have done didn't Jay do something? She wagons and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, because I don't know what the artists that
Speaker 1: have had some signature vehicle thing. No, I don't really cool.
Speaker 1: I don't think we have Jay designed a huge blow
Speaker 1: or something like that, and he designed like, were you
Speaker 1: gonna do something with Pitt? What? What about? What? You know?
Speaker 1: Who You're gonna do something though? Right, that's my product.
Speaker 1: We've done a lot together. That's my that's my man
Speaker 1: stuff Togeah, we worked together. We still have working relationship.
Speaker 1: You know. I think he's um again, like you're talking
Speaker 1: to me about artists and people that I've worked with
Speaker 1: in the past. You know, the same the same, you know,
Speaker 1: l Pitt and part Ashians have the same exact model.
Speaker 1: Lennox Lewis think we wake up before it way they
Speaker 1: go and sleep after everybody. They over analyze their customers,
Speaker 1: they think outside the box. They don't get related with
Speaker 1: two many things. That's super particularly they're they're extremely well
Speaker 1: versed business people. So um, you know, you know when
Speaker 1: you know you know, you know, you know when you
Speaker 1: know the type to Pete, I think you'll feel that
Speaker 1: way about Mr Lee when you talk to a right
Speaker 1: right now now. One thing that before we because this
Speaker 1: is the second part of the show. We gotta get it.
Speaker 1: But one thing that I wanted to ask you because um,
Speaker 1: you're a black man. I'm a black man. Uh, you're
Speaker 1: from Queens. I'm from Queens. My wife is Latino, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. And your wife is his wife.
Speaker 1: Have you ever like received any type of criticism for
Speaker 1: that because because of the whole for us by us,
Speaker 1: you know the thing and like people try to like
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, you know the funny thing. Um, I
Speaker 1: posted a picture for for a birthday or waiting photos
Speaker 1: and ninety five percent of the comments for extremely We've
Speaker 1: been together twelve years, have have a three year old
Speaker 1: little baby girl and um. But but you know, I
Speaker 1: was always proud of the negative commons because the negative
Speaker 1: comments came from people of color, like always, and it's funny.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't really know my history. My history
Speaker 1: is that my father left when I was ten. My
Speaker 1: stepfather came into my life where I called my stepfather.
Speaker 1: Happens to be of the Jewish faith, his and and
Speaker 1: they had nothing to do with this whole thing in
Speaker 1: Foobo in South Africa. But his brother was a lead
Speaker 1: attorney over here in America for helping to free Mandela Um.
Speaker 1: And he always told me one thing you always said,
Speaker 1: you know, David always be pro black, but never I
Speaker 1: anti anything else. And I learned something about him. I loved.
Speaker 1: I learned that love doesn't come into color or agenda.
Speaker 1: And I learned that white people are just as fucked
Speaker 1: up as all of us, right, they had the same problem,
Speaker 1: the same challenges. So my first wife is Dominican. I've
Speaker 1: dated a lot of females of all colors and races
Speaker 1: and religions. And when I found that that people people
Speaker 1: they're so busy trying to fight to avoid racism, prejudice
Speaker 1: and things of that nature, but they're becoming the person
Speaker 1: they're trying to fight against. And and I was fascinating,
Speaker 1: not because I was fat, you know why. I was
Speaker 1: fascinating because why does that person care about who I love?
Speaker 1: And every single thing, every time changes happened in our
Speaker 1: country and most likely the world, it took people of
Speaker 1: all colors, all right, There was a lot of people
Speaker 1: of all color in every match that Martin Luther had
Speaker 1: those white people with in those marches. But then again,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be the optimistic person. I think the
Speaker 1: people that don't have access to people of other colors
Speaker 1: and cultures don't know what they don't know. So what
Speaker 1: you're carrying a tiki torch down in charles Ville or
Speaker 1: whatever the cases, or you're hating on me online because
Speaker 1: the person that that that I happened to love, who
Speaker 1: has now a half the child of color whatever, and
Speaker 1: then they're sitting there yelling at me. I'm going, do
Speaker 1: you think that she ain't been called the nigger LoVa?
Speaker 1: You know what she's been through as well, and do
Speaker 1: you want that? Damn? You? Like, we're in the room
Speaker 1: here and there's a whole bunch of people a lot
Speaker 1: of color here, and you probably work with them because
Speaker 1: they're the best, and they work with you because they
Speaker 1: believe you're the best. What the hell is who I
Speaker 1: got to do with anything? So I was finding fascinating
Speaker 1: and I learned from the people in the army when
Speaker 1: they said, do I really care who that man don't
Speaker 1: want to praise to God? Or who they have sex
Speaker 1: with when I'm on the front line and I need
Speaker 1: them to have my back. So I find it fascinating.
Speaker 1: Don't try, don't hate something and become the thing that's
Speaker 1: So that's the really thick because it's like, um, I
Speaker 1: got I got six children, most five five of them
Speaker 1: are you know, I want to say mostly blacks, mostly
Speaker 1: said most of the most. I mean because you know,
Speaker 1: my my new wife, she's very light skinned, like she's buried,
Speaker 1: and people get that missing. Yeah, But what I'm saying is,
Speaker 1: and I understand that the thing is you fall in
Speaker 1: love with who fall in love, but you shouldn't have
Speaker 1: to explain that or you know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I see human being
Speaker 1: and then I see asshole after that, And did I
Speaker 1: see your race? So I see you as a human
Speaker 1: and did I see you as a person and then
Speaker 1: I see your race? You know what I'm saying. So, um,
Speaker 1: if you're a great person, I probably don't it probably wasn't.
Speaker 1: Probably your race probably won't matter, just doesn't. But if
Speaker 1: you're a dick, if you're if your race don't you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, You're just a dick. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm you also when you don't even getting happened
Speaker 1: to be you know, in talking about an intimate relationship,
Speaker 1: you expand you you expand your network and your access
Speaker 1: to things when you work with people of all colors.
Speaker 1: And that the whole issue we say, Gluci is having
Speaker 1: a challenge with me. So when you're open to everybody,
Speaker 1: like we all we listen, man, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: be all or woman fun. But we we got we
Speaker 1: got more things that we talk, more things all over
Speaker 1: the world in common, and we have against each other.
Speaker 1: We just want to feed our families. You know that
Speaker 1: we don't get judged prematroity some ship we ain't do
Speaker 1: and work hard. It's just like it's just like you
Speaker 1: know when I go through the airport, like now, like
Speaker 1: what the Gucci thing and you know what the Trump thing.
Speaker 1: It's like I get nervous immediately when I see somebody
Speaker 1: with a Trump had, you know, because I know they
Speaker 1: might play for the other side. I know they might
Speaker 1: not they might not funk with me, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Like, so I immediately just you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. But when you see like I don't remember
Speaker 1: like we came to me the Russia at one time,
Speaker 1: and it was crazy because me and fam we had
Speaker 1: to deal with this soth. It was somebody can't pick
Speaker 1: us up in Russia. And they got buttons on their
Speaker 1: shirt and it says Russians against racism. Now you know
Speaker 1: where you at if they got to where that on
Speaker 1: a motherfucking shure, like we was dead meat, Like this
Speaker 1: is how racists they counted. It literally say how racists
Speaker 1: they were. This is how you know that racist there
Speaker 1: is when they didn't even look at me in my face,
Speaker 1: like at least look at me in my face and
Speaker 1: be like fuck you, like they looked they looked away
Speaker 1: like they was like, oh ship, nigger, nothing, just like
Speaker 1: I was like, oh ship, you separated for like five
Speaker 1: minutes compa, you know. And this is like when the
Speaker 1: phones like like they didn't know how to connect to
Speaker 1: in the Moscow you know. I mean, so, I mean
Speaker 1: it's real life ship, you know. Um that happened. So
Speaker 1: when you see like I follow you on Instagram and
Speaker 1: I got to see your daughter playing with a bi
Speaker 1: racial baby dog and and um I thought that was
Speaker 1: dope because I mean you gotta spread that. You gotta
Speaker 1: spread what happens. You gotta spread you know who you
Speaker 1: fall in love with. This is your business, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. But you shouldn't hide that at all. Exactly.
Speaker 1: You should be how you want to be and continue
Speaker 1: and continue to do that. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Because because um um Dre
Speaker 1: got a white wife. Isn't she white? Dr Dre? She's nice?
Speaker 1: She white? What's she white? Though? And he said she's
Speaker 1: back and there ain't nothing wrong me. Like, listen, man,
Speaker 1: as long as we because sooner or later we're all
Speaker 1: gonna be one race. We keep sucking each other, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna all gonna be one race anyway it's gonna
Speaker 1: be called that's not race, It's gonna be you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So hold I'm going to a break
Speaker 1: because we're gonna take it back from break. We should
Speaker 1: live and then we're gonna let do their page all right, cool?
Speaker 1: Hold on, let me go to take a brack. Do
Speaker 1: you need to mike them? Guys? We're back like a
Speaker 1: half time crap by umt man, she's just going down
Speaker 1: before we get into continuous pictures. Because I've been the
Speaker 1: detecrity of the show's gonna go right out to window
Speaker 1: right now. I think there's a billion dollar deal. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be a shot too. But I'm gonna be honest.
Speaker 1: I'm investing. If I invested, it's gonna be my my
Speaker 1: money out of the monopoly money, my kids. But I
Speaker 1: believe you because I don't trust either one of these guys. Right.
Speaker 1: But before we get into that, I want to get
Speaker 1: I want to ask about Damon on Demand. Now, Now,
Speaker 1: what is that? How could the consumers and the people
Speaker 1: be a partner show? Show? Damon run Demand is as
Speaker 1: I was talking about my books I have with a
Speaker 1: digital curriculum and it's eight hours of basically all the
Speaker 1: things you need to know about starting the business. How
Speaker 1: do you get funding, who's your target audience, and all
Speaker 1: those things you need? What do you do when you
Speaker 1: go to the bank. When do you need funding? Because
Speaker 1: the main reason why small businesses and startups fail is
Speaker 1: actually overfunding. They raised too much money too quick to
Speaker 1: sit there and say, you know what, I want to
Speaker 1: open up a bakery because my grandmother's cupcakes with the
Speaker 1: best in town, and I'm one of a bakery. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go get a hundred thousan dollars and I gonna
Speaker 1: open up a bakery. But they never sell a cupcake ever, right,
Speaker 1: So they go and open up a bakery. They got
Speaker 1: the register look like a damn cupcake, the couch looks
Speaker 1: like a cupcake. They got everything looks like a couple.
Speaker 1: They never sold a cupcake though. Then they got software,
Speaker 1: the bad software. Now every time they opened up and
Speaker 1: they try to sell a cupcake. The little kid, every
Speaker 1: time he sells a cupcake, he sticks the other one
Speaker 1: in his pocket. They find out that, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a little kid in the preschool or down the block.
Speaker 1: They got a peanut allergy. They gotta close off half
Speaker 1: a block for And they find out there's a little
Speaker 1: grandmother that work in the church that she sell cupcakes
Speaker 1: like crack every week. Now they got a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: all alone, and they haven't figured out how to move
Speaker 1: their business. You see, because when you start with business,
Speaker 1: or whether you whether you're in the music business, whether
Speaker 1: the podcast, and you got to build a customer base first.
Speaker 1: You can't. Money only highlights your weaknesses. If you got
Speaker 1: crappy advertising, then go buy a million dollars worth of
Speaker 1: more crappy advertising. You got ship as shirts, go buy
Speaker 1: more inventory of shitty as shirts. So that's what usually
Speaker 1: happen because people think that money is the solution when
Speaker 1: it's really building an audience and people who are gonna
Speaker 1: go out and fight you the LLL who's gonna put
Speaker 1: your name in the gap at the people that used
Speaker 1: to come from Detroit to Queens to my shitty house
Speaker 1: and Queens and go back to Detroit and be like, Yo,
Speaker 1: I'm the fool dude, I'm the fooloo girl in Detroit.
Speaker 1: You need that army the same as the people who
Speaker 1: are listening right now. Those people become smarter every day
Speaker 1: after they listen to the podcast and they share it
Speaker 1: that information. They're the smartest person of the watercooler Monday morning.
Speaker 1: So that's what Damon the Man is showing you how
Speaker 1: to navigate and go through those mistakes. But it's not
Speaker 1: something you just watches on the computer. So what happens
Speaker 1: is you feel out of you, you feel out think.
Speaker 1: So it's just like, Yo, you just took this test.
Speaker 1: Do you need this funny? Because this is that if
Speaker 1: you say no and it's supposed to be yes, it
Speaker 1: kicks you back to you start old again, because repetition
Speaker 1: sinks in, it sings in. Are you starting to learn
Speaker 1: the mistakes? You don't just go, oh yo, I read
Speaker 1: the book. I'm done because you may have interpreted that
Speaker 1: book a hundred different ways wrong too. It kicks you back.
Speaker 1: And so so I'm gonna end up. We're gonna do
Speaker 1: something together with We give people a special access code
Speaker 1: only for checking us out here, and we just want
Speaker 1: to empower people. That's make some noise for that man.
Speaker 1: Now again, we're s some noise for how many of
Speaker 1: those are called blunts? Yes? Yes? How many mother that? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Now listening with the joints right there. I totally don't
Speaker 1: know what's going on right now. I'm totally I just
Speaker 1: know that we we we were big fans of shark tank.
Speaker 1: We was trying to create drink tank or tring tank
Speaker 1: or it didn't work out like that, we did. You
Speaker 1: know what we go from? Two of them are craziest,
Speaker 1: two rightest, brightest, shouldn't say brightest s failure. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go with the Haitian guy first. HATI guys about
Speaker 1: saying that I used the microphone ware here? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: we got to play some you you were, Mike du Bluddy,
Speaker 1: we're here. Yeah, welcome to Chin Tank a K drink tank. Okay,
Speaker 1: you gotta say your name and where are you from?
Speaker 1: Sudden they be to you right here? Goddamn you call
Speaker 1: your people. Yes, I gotta like there. It's a little
Speaker 1: he asked you the question. Yeah, your life. He has
Speaker 1: to pitch your head. God, we don't even know what
Speaker 1: the I you just saying with your art? Hey man,
Speaker 1: what you got here? What is here? It's simple, like
Speaker 1: the concept of it's kind of like a uber but
Speaker 1: it's um but it's uber. Listen the dogs walking uber
Speaker 1: that might example with their dogs. Oh no matter what's city,
Speaker 1: anywhere in the world you are. You hit the uber
Speaker 1: and there's already someone there that he was ready to
Speaker 1: walk your dogs then use at your hotel. Exist. I
Speaker 1: think that exists. I don't know that it exists. I
Speaker 1: don't think so. I haven't seen it. Does it? Does it? Yea? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like T shirts existed at that. It's just how how
Speaker 1: are you gonna how you're gonna build it? It's not
Speaker 1: a bad idea, right, You're gonna create a better mousetrap,
Speaker 1: But how are you gonna build it. Well, I haven't
Speaker 1: thought about all that. You've got two languages. You're here.
Speaker 1: It's like I said, it's already is this call wag,
Speaker 1: So let's speak the languages in every other country. You
Speaker 1: gotta go back, don't you go? Liten shrug industry right
Speaker 1: now there to go back to the listen man. You
Speaker 1: gotta give it up the people who standing there, and
Speaker 1: you all just save him a lot of money represented
Speaker 1: happy happy at her story of all follows, say your
Speaker 1: name and what you fun? But I'm miss something. I'm
Speaker 1: from New York when I leave in my hand man
Speaker 1: Miami right now the Latin from the Latins. See how
Speaker 1: a lot of the thing those like guys they're doing
Speaker 1: the eyebrows. Now, I guess there's a lot of money
Speaker 1: there to me. You can't so you get your eyebrows done?
Speaker 1: Does that's true? It's true. We gets the eye eyebrows
Speaker 1: like you coming with us with something that they can
Speaker 1: you know, for guys to come here like girls go
Speaker 1: to the barber, I mean the pet part of the dude.
Speaker 1: They get their hair done, they get the eyebrows. So
Speaker 1: I said, they just do it. Funding up to those
Speaker 1: for the guys, so so shows the purpose that you
Speaker 1: feel a guy doesn't want to really go into the
Speaker 1: shop and you want to do it at home, so
Speaker 1: simple ways that he's not looking feminine when he's doing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really don't think that's what he meant. Did you
Speaker 1: get that? Because I would think, here's a guy I
Speaker 1: want to go into the shop. But I mean some
Speaker 1: of them are embarrassing. No, but in Puerto Rico, and
Speaker 1: in his defense, in Puerto Rico, if you go to
Speaker 1: a barber shop, that's one of the first things they domatically,
Speaker 1: automatically go to your eyes. Okay, so you want to
Speaker 1: do it at home and they were like coming to
Speaker 1: your Oh they're doing at your crib? You really been? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a good idea, runner, dude, but I ain't gonna
Speaker 1: start it. I mean, that's no. What's the name of
Speaker 1: your business? On my own job? What's what's your name
Speaker 1: of this business? Man? The creative rum? I tell you
Speaker 1: the best and bright shot? What's your head sales? What
Speaker 1: are you listen? You know what? You should have pieced too?
Speaker 1: Because I look like you got hit easy in your net.
Speaker 1: You see you should you should have remover? How about that?
Speaker 1: About but about the eyebrows ship, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: You know, it sounds like it's best. Huh. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about it. I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 1: How to go to commerce your break because I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about that, I'm lacking a lot. That's one thing about
Speaker 1: the Latino race is they get different type of haircuts,
Speaker 1: like they come like like if you go to the
Speaker 1: Black bobber shop. They're not touching your fucking eyebrows. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Most of the time, I don't
Speaker 1: even touch your nose heads. You got accidental touch about
Speaker 1: nose here, you know what I'm said. But with that,
Speaker 1: but but but but but usually successful entrepreneurs of people
Speaker 1: that see a need in the market that's not being
Speaker 1: fully addressed. Again, going back to when I I did
Speaker 1: the car did the cars. I wanted money, but I
Speaker 1: did food because something needed to change. And he's seeing
Speaker 1: a need in this show. I'm not being funny. It's
Speaker 1: you see the ship. They got face on their eyebro
Speaker 1: Caesar's baby affron thrown out. Yeah, we'll think about yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: think about that. I'm yeah, I'm not how could you
Speaker 1: do that? One? That now onto the side, like aside
Speaker 1: from sneak, I was serious, but you know, my guys
Speaker 1: are playing. But how many how many? How many times
Speaker 1: a day are you walking on a day like people
Speaker 1: just coming up to Yeah, I get you wouldn't elevator
Speaker 1: and somebody get patched. Probably about I was eight times
Speaker 1: a day. Probably about that one was that catch your attention?
Speaker 1: Not at all. I'll tell you how you don't catch
Speaker 1: They don't have my attention because they may have good ideas,
Speaker 1: but they don't wonder how the first is gonna execute.
Speaker 1: And I don't have time. If I had time to
Speaker 1: make everything hot, then people would be Nike. I only
Speaker 1: have a limited amount of time. Show I can't do
Speaker 1: it because then I'll draw on an opportunity. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's just it's challenging. But I don't get mad at
Speaker 1: people pitching me because all they want to do is
Speaker 1: they want to do is change their lives. So I
Speaker 1: ain't mad at it. But yeah, I get pitched a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's that's funny because I'll be like walking through
Speaker 1: when Dixie and publics and people but he can run.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, they don't even wait for me to
Speaker 1: say I'm busy, they just start spitting. I'm like, so
Speaker 1: like that's that's MC. And I can imagine like people
Speaker 1: were like look at you like they're gonna think it
Speaker 1: gonna be a big person in president. Let me I
Speaker 1: got any times in person, it's about twenty or thirty
Speaker 1: and then all the stuff, the emails calls and okay,
Speaker 1: has has um uh? Has it got every boys at
Speaker 1: one point or you you still look at it like
Speaker 1: you know, this is your job and this is the
Speaker 1: nine never gets unbearable. I know the cameras are there.
Speaker 1: I have the opportunity to leave Shark Tank about one um.
Speaker 1: And again it's not like in your situation or you know,
Speaker 1: somebody want to be a model or somebody want to
Speaker 1: be an artist, and they just start builting out songs
Speaker 1: like these people. A lot of people really have well
Speaker 1: through thought out ideas. They may be good idea, Like
Speaker 1: you've said, how many investing I just don't have time,
Speaker 1: But you have to meet some people that haven't. Their
Speaker 1: ideas can get I mean I mean some, I mean
Speaker 1: some like that is frustrating to a degree. We'll know
Speaker 1: it's frustrating when I go how much time on money
Speaker 1: you put into this and they'd be like, no, I'm
Speaker 1: here for you to do that, like they just did.
Speaker 1: I don't know who, he would saying, I want you
Speaker 1: to direct me, but I'd like, yo, but don't you
Speaker 1: think I came up with my own ideas today? You
Speaker 1: know that's it. I ain't got time to do. You know.
Speaker 1: That's the funny thing about even even us, as people
Speaker 1: think that there's a they think they're putting on as
Speaker 1: a button. They didn't like, I put you on, and
Speaker 1: like but yeah, and then they just put on No,
Speaker 1: I can put you on. You still have to work
Speaker 1: for you to be there, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people just don't get that, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, harder even when you get put on.
Speaker 1: I see the other day, you know, I seen the
Speaker 1: other day it was Lebron meet mal and they were
Speaker 1: all talking about how they had to like, you know,
Speaker 1: give things to certain people or certain people felt like
Speaker 1: that that that that that they deserved it. Because it's
Speaker 1: like right now, right if I was to ask, I
Speaker 1: was to ask my man right here right as just
Speaker 1: saying what was your name again? I'm so sorry Alex,
Speaker 1: I would say, Alex, can you want me to the store, right,
Speaker 1: I want nobody. Alex doesn't give a funk, he would
Speaker 1: never bring up me. Welcome to them the store. But
Speaker 1: I become this big popular a guy. Then two years
Speaker 1: from now Alexe is like I remember he had to
Speaker 1: want to walk with the shore and now Alex because
Speaker 1: I'm famous. You know, like have you ever had you
Speaker 1: know that level of successful? People just feel like because
Speaker 1: you slept on a girl's couch one night in sixth
Speaker 1: grade that you know what I'm saying that, like you
Speaker 1: older girl now like oh yeah, you know there's a
Speaker 1: old saying what's the old said? Success? Had had a
Speaker 1: lot of parents bail years in offing, right, And you
Speaker 1: know I hear it all the time, and I give
Speaker 1: thanks to all those that help me, Like you won't
Speaker 1: see me here front of like there wasn't calling on
Speaker 1: a cross cold before me. L didn't l reached out
Speaker 1: to help me because he didn't need me around me
Speaker 1: Daniels over here. I don't mind doing that, but yeah
Speaker 1: it a random cats who as tidn losing it. We're
Speaker 1: doing the Puma collection, releasing the Coloseum probably about six
Speaker 1: months ago, and the three dudes and then I don't
Speaker 1: even know these dudes. I ne's running around the starts
Speaker 1: one like yeah, yeah, who cats can make the hood.
Speaker 1: I had him shook, you know, I used to have
Speaker 1: him under pressure, so you know, and I think you
Speaker 1: know my executive security grim next Naci, look like he
Speaker 1: breaks for breakfast. You won't go here? What you just
Speaker 1: saying on him? Like no, no, no, I don't want
Speaker 1: to know what to dude. I never really met him,
Speaker 1: you know, but they were just walking around. It's like
Speaker 1: crazy for new reason, right, So it'll cat we just
Speaker 1: brushed by. You wouldn't say, you know, I remember that cat.
Speaker 1: But you know what, man, listen, man, it's an opinion.
Speaker 1: It's a theory. And I always say everybody got two
Speaker 1: things in the world, asshole and opinion. They both stink, right,
Speaker 1: So you know they're gonna say about you, and this
Speaker 1: is what it is, you know, goddamn it. Now. One
Speaker 1: of these things is um when you like Google, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, you're very successful, man, very very very successful,
Speaker 1: and you don't really wear a lot of jewelry at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like is that purpose or is that because you're just
Speaker 1: not into it? You know, I grew up in that
Speaker 1: world and I wore it a lot, and I loved it.
Speaker 1: I grew up when I saw I used to hear
Speaker 1: it riding to the top playing Supreme Team with the
Speaker 1: walking like you missed a t And I was like,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to be in that world. And I
Speaker 1: work for a long period of time. And then I
Speaker 1: started walking into the other rooms where there was people
Speaker 1: with substantial wealth. We're talking about Mark Cuban talking about
Speaker 1: Bill Gates, and I know this Cuban dressed bumby to
Speaker 1: everybody in this room, pancake battle on and joining everything.
Speaker 1: I walked and I was like, yo, I mean they
Speaker 1: do shoes is curled up, you know, looking like Peter
Speaker 1: Pan joints. And I'm like, and you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: I pay a hunted dollar for this watch. And I
Speaker 1: realized that they don't care. They don't care about that stuff,
Speaker 1: you know. I'm yeah, I'm not a lot of rules
Speaker 1: of people. I've been in one room where a lot
Speaker 1: of calfs do we know and may have even more
Speaker 1: money than me, have been talking about how much money
Speaker 1: they spent at a party. When we travel the president,
Speaker 1: you were around a lot of billionaires and you in
Speaker 1: a certain group they don't sayd much they spend on
Speaker 1: the party. They say how much they were able to
Speaker 1: give away this year, And it's way more than the
Speaker 1: cats that was I was talking about hearing on the party.
Speaker 1: I'm talking talking about we raised and gave away five
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars this year. And what we're talking about
Speaker 1: the chain I got on. You know so, because they're
Speaker 1: looking at you and they're saying, how close you know?
Speaker 1: How are you thinking? Because I'm not saying anything better
Speaker 1: than you? They may even say I like what you think.
Speaker 1: And you're younger you in this world? You know when
Speaker 1: when don't we talk about what we could do together?
Speaker 1: You know So, I've just been in different rooms and
Speaker 1: and it just educated me. It's relationships. Um So one
Speaker 1: of the most important things in this game, in the
Speaker 1: game that the relationship is the most important game period period.
Speaker 1: No matter what I told you. The number one reason
Speaker 1: why entrepreneurs failed, the number one reason they succeed is
Speaker 1: they all have a mentor. That's the one that's the
Speaker 1: number one real mentor who is not part of their business.
Speaker 1: Because mentors are gonna do three things. They're gonna tell
Speaker 1: you not to take in capital too soon, they're gonna
Speaker 1: tell you not to spread yourself too thin, take your
Speaker 1: money to can't give you example why in a minute.
Speaker 1: They're gonna tell you not to spread yourself too thin,
Speaker 1: meaning you know, I want to make a thousand different
Speaker 1: styles in my world. And they're also gonna tell you
Speaker 1: not to scale too fast, meaning all right, I gotta
Speaker 1: order for a hundred, but I'm gonna go and buy
Speaker 1: a thousand pieces. Don't jump ahead, don't jump ahead. And
Speaker 1: that's what that's exactly, um what mentors do. Not I
Speaker 1: said something earlier. That's something we get back to one something.
Speaker 1: But the way it huh, first, we're not taking money
Speaker 1: too soon, because I'll show you example another way that
Speaker 1: people go broke. If you want to open. And let's
Speaker 1: say one of you when you guys, I think we
Speaker 1: really like the business. And I said to the guy
Speaker 1: right there, to the eyebrobbins, yo, I'm gonna give you
Speaker 1: fifty tho dollars fiftyent of that business. All right, I'll
Speaker 1: give you gut around. So but let's say let's say
Speaker 1: and I got fifty percent in business. Let's say that
Speaker 1: business he starts to franchise, that license it out, that
Speaker 1: thing he comes to the next to dry ball for males, right,
Speaker 1: and now he's doing a million dollars in business. Now,
Speaker 1: who wants to go and open up a bunch of
Speaker 1: locations or a bunch of software or now and he
Speaker 1: needs four dollars. Now, I ain't giving him a piece
Speaker 1: of my fifty percent that I just got. So now
Speaker 1: you gotta go raised four hundred thousand dollars. And maybe
Speaker 1: that's another before you know that after you keep raising,
Speaker 1: you keep growing, you want five percent of the business
Speaker 1: you work for everybody else, So don't take in capital
Speaker 1: too soon because you're saying that fifty thou already gave
Speaker 1: you fifty percent, so you're taking money. He raised more,
Speaker 1: he's selling more shares more. But if he would if
Speaker 1: he would have went out and just did a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollar worth of business over three years and said, listen,
Speaker 1: I need you to help finances or the bank finances,
Speaker 1: he may have been able to go out and get
Speaker 1: a get a three hundred thousand dollar alone at six
Speaker 1: percent interest, not six percent of his company, because you
Speaker 1: already have proof of sales. So these are the things
Speaker 1: that we grew up in the hood. We didn't know.
Speaker 1: We were to our Listen, don't trust the bank. Go
Speaker 1: to the go over to the check cash in place.
Speaker 1: You pay six or eight percent for them to cash
Speaker 1: your check. That's eight percent of your salary. You're getting recovery.
Speaker 1: Cash your check, right, Hide all your money underneath your bed.
Speaker 1: Don't trust anybody with your money. If you would, if
Speaker 1: you would, if you would have buried a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars the nineteen seventy five today and can barely buy
Speaker 1: you a g wagon, right, But if you would have
Speaker 1: taken that money and bought a diamond today, that diamond
Speaker 1: would have been worth two point seven million house. You see,
Speaker 1: money is a depreciating asset. Unless you put it to
Speaker 1: work for you, then you're gonna lose on right. So
Speaker 1: the other thing we talked about, damon the man. These
Speaker 1: are things that the hood is. We grew up, they
Speaker 1: didn't know any better. So you said, you're saying a
Speaker 1: hundred twenty five in the bank is always gonna be
Speaker 1: worth more than a hundred under your bag. Of course, yes,
Speaker 1: because you're gonna get interest in and a hundred twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars that you went and put on a house,
Speaker 1: and now you have a house for three hundred, four
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars that something, and the morning you're joined
Speaker 1: that house is about But somebody's paying you thirty two
Speaker 1: hundred a month to stay in that house. Now it's
Speaker 1: gonna make you way more money after you add depreciation
Speaker 1: to it and over the course of the year. You know,
Speaker 1: you know real people who will make a lot of
Speaker 1: money and invest a lot of money. They have other
Speaker 1: people paying for their assets and making a profit off
Speaker 1: of it. Like you're in the real estate as well.
Speaker 1: I'm in the real estate a little bit. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: You know those are the people who instead of going
Speaker 1: and buying a big house, they buy four small house
Speaker 1: an airbnb or rent them out and then they rent
Speaker 1: the house they staying. They own what they rent out,
Speaker 1: and they rent what they staying so they could write
Speaker 1: that off. He's like, that's what this is, is what
Speaker 1: he's doing. I'm trying to like because I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get these properties in Vegas and Airbnb m just just
Speaker 1: for that, because um Vegas. You know, I actually know
Speaker 1: they were recreational with marijuana. But the thing about it
Speaker 1: is they kind of you can't you can only smoke
Speaker 1: cigarettes indoors and they're not allowing you to smoke uh
Speaker 1: cigars or so I figured, y'all get an Airbnb crib
Speaker 1: and I allow that, like you just just I promoted
Speaker 1: as that, like you can smoke in this crib because
Speaker 1: it's not something I want to ever live in. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, I'm just gonna be out. But
Speaker 1: you just posted child smoking this ship. God, I was
Speaker 1: thinking about even saying this is Norriy's crib. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, like like, yeah, this is Nor's baby, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Norri's crib because you can smoke as much as the
Speaker 1: funk you want. And this motherfucker it should be called
Speaker 1: the cataracts. And now is there anything that you ever wished?
Speaker 1: First off and four before? Because I was like a
Speaker 1: super ending type of question, what did you want? L
Speaker 1: L you guys all relationships standard at this point because good,
Speaker 1: my own, my three partners, my other three partners amazing dudes,
Speaker 1: um and we're like brothers. I met my first I
Speaker 1: met one on when I was six years old. Other
Speaker 1: two I met one out twelve. Um Ella talked to
Speaker 1: him the other day on the phone, and you know
Speaker 1: he was like, YEO, I see the heat on the brand,
Speaker 1: what's up? And I was like, listen, I don't need
Speaker 1: to call on the big guns yet, you know, because
Speaker 1: I know you got to TV shows. You're l cool.
Speaker 1: J Let us get to this point because no matter what,
Speaker 1: no matter what lever are, you still got to prove
Speaker 1: your market. Let's get to this point. Let I follow him,
Speaker 1: get strong enough in this day and eighth, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a new following. And then if I need to
Speaker 1: call you in, can I call you and don't use that?
Speaker 1: Don't you let me not let me call that. Don't
Speaker 1: put Jordan in the game. Don't put Jordan in the
Speaker 1: game because we're still we're still play in high school game.
Speaker 1: You know, we're still in high school right now. So
Speaker 1: that's really humble of you actually going to talk that way. Well,
Speaker 1: thank god it is. However, let's look at let's look
Speaker 1: at the other side. I can't call him for no
Speaker 1: more papers if you use use this up. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: every him where man in my life, everybody will pick
Speaker 1: up the phone for me once I don't come through.
Speaker 1: You're being very helpful people people on the phone for you.
Speaker 1: Five steps now have to mess up the bag. You
Speaker 1: know that's what I'm saying right, because I'm a call
Speaker 1: for something real and I'm a call for it really
Speaker 1: and now I'm at and you know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: They're gonna call me back for another favor. On the
Speaker 1: flip side, is there any time you have mess up
Speaker 1: in the bag? Like you you've invested in something that
Speaker 1: didn't and you kept going. Yeah, listen, I am, I
Speaker 1: did keep going. I messed up. I missed it the
Speaker 1: bad a couple of times here and there. Um, but
Speaker 1: thank god the black I I messed up. We had
Speaker 1: already made a lot of money prior in barrious different areas,
Speaker 1: you know. But um, but some of them are calling
Speaker 1: me now, like yo, I got do remember when you
Speaker 1: had that night? You gotta answer that call alright? And
Speaker 1: is it over? Is it worther? Uh? Absolutely? Man. You
Speaker 1: know I questioned myself a lot of times. You know,
Speaker 1: when my first marriage, I got two little to two
Speaker 1: baby girls with the twenty five now and and that
Speaker 1: didn't thank God, right and that didn't go right. But
Speaker 1: because I was working so much on foobu second marriage
Speaker 1: to yeah, yeah, you know, my first marriage and a
Speaker 1: little while and out a little bit you don't give
Speaker 1: you don't give a guy thirty years old a couple
Speaker 1: of million dollars in the bank. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: flying over the Asia and coming over, you have got
Speaker 1: that good. But then I say to myself, if I
Speaker 1: was doing a city job, if I was working in
Speaker 1: red lobster, I still would work like that. I still
Speaker 1: would have felt like I gotta keep going to make
Speaker 1: the best right. So because you can't, I can't keep
Speaker 1: going pull with regretting what happened. So yeah, but but
Speaker 1: is it worth it? Absolutely? Man, God is good. God
Speaker 1: It's got the goods. Now you have bolted horse in
Speaker 1: the cryptocurrency race. What do you need thoughts on that?
Speaker 1: On that whole, I think crypto was gonna come back.
Speaker 1: I think it had a bubble exactly like it was
Speaker 1: going to have a bubble. I think you should buy
Speaker 1: it now. I do think so. I think I think
Speaker 1: it will be a digital currency. Um, But I don't
Speaker 1: think it's like how people said credit cards were that
Speaker 1: when they first start. Yeah, I say, don't bet the
Speaker 1: farm on it. I mean the theory and the theory
Speaker 1: and investing is putting money up whatever you can afford.
Speaker 1: If the money doubles. Take the money off the table.
Speaker 1: So then you're playing with the house is money, and
Speaker 1: if it's affordable. Now, if you feel, I don't know
Speaker 1: where you're sating down training the four thousand or three
Speaker 1: thousand or two thousand, whatever it is, buy a little
Speaker 1: bit of what you can, but make sure it's money
Speaker 1: that you are able to lose. Don't put your last
Speaker 1: on it. You know, how about is a restaurant a
Speaker 1: good business? Have your restaurant is the worst possible business
Speaker 1: to get into. Everybody keeps saying that, and I need
Speaker 1: to understand why have you invested in the restaurant? And
Speaker 1: if I never had? But I worked to Red Loster,
Speaker 1: and I tell you something, my soul everything nothing. I
Speaker 1: got a bottle srimps, You just throw them in the
Speaker 1: guard at the back pool, but beat up the bad
Speaker 1: round pick those bottles, shrimp up something to the Chinese restaurants.
Speaker 1: Don't know, man, waits yourself, redines the shrimp to the
Speaker 1: Chinese restaurant. That was all that was all. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't not mean you do doing I was like this,
Speaker 1: So you know, when you're work in the in the
Speaker 1: in that business, man, it's so many people with your
Speaker 1: hands in your pocket, right, and everybody's not gonna have
Speaker 1: a good experience on how to you know, you can
Speaker 1: make the safe for a hundred different people as a
Speaker 1: hundred different experiences on that. So that's one of the
Speaker 1: people that I was one of the business. If a
Speaker 1: person asks you to recommend you number one business that fails, Wow,
Speaker 1: how about a bar bar right in the same area. Man,
Speaker 1: this is the same but not as bad because you
Speaker 1: don't have all those perishables, room the food. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: you can get here on the time you're gonna be there. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: that that's the question on you know, a bar bar
Speaker 1: is not as bad now like a startup company. H
Speaker 1: what is probably like for a person who wants to
Speaker 1: be an investor, person that has a hunde grand or
Speaker 1: something save they they job money or save whatever money
Speaker 1: they had, got a honey grand, still making money? But
Speaker 1: how does the hunt grant to invest How would you
Speaker 1: recommend that day? Go about? Um, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: live the life that you live. What do you what
Speaker 1: do you do for free today? You get paid off
Speaker 1: and whever that is, educate yourself in that business. So
Speaker 1: if you like, if you if you got a crew
Speaker 1: like us, a friend of people may know you'd like
Speaker 1: to talk ship and blow your brains out like that,
Speaker 1: no problem. You want to do a podcast and people
Speaker 1: gonnau with you or invest in Cannada because that's my
Speaker 1: next thing, because you want to smoke everything. You got
Speaker 1: no right, by the way, he's very right. But that's
Speaker 1: the reason why I invest in companies like I don't
Speaker 1: even invest with like I invest in companies. I don't
Speaker 1: even want to say that thing because my side partner
Speaker 1: on one and then I have my other companing. I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I did not sign a contract again, but I didn't
Speaker 1: want to blow that up that you have like that,
Speaker 1: you know you you blow, you blow, you say, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I got a business with them, and they're like okay,
Speaker 1: and someone else coming and yeah, you know I've done that.
Speaker 1: I've seen that, like you know what the craziest ship
Speaker 1: in the world is I've done. I can't again, I
Speaker 1: can't say these companies. I've done great business with this
Speaker 1: company for two years, right, but it was d a middleman. Right,
Speaker 1: it was due to middleman and this company, big Hollywood
Speaker 1: company that can't say who that and they contacted me directly. Yes.
Speaker 1: He said, yo, yes, Tod. I said, yo, you know
Speaker 1: I heard you got this different show. So I said yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: And they said we would like to meet with you.
Speaker 1: So I said all right, cool, and this is they're
Speaker 1: a big company. He was like, but we're meeting with you,
Speaker 1: not with these these guys. And I was just like
Speaker 1: I expected that from nickas holy Ship, like I kid,
Speaker 1: you know. I was like, damn, like this is some street.
Speaker 1: Like they're like, yo, you know what we did business.
Speaker 1: They broke you us. That is That's basically what the
Speaker 1: conversation was. They broke you us. We had a successful
Speaker 1: running with them. Now you have something else that we're
Speaker 1: interested in, but we want to deal business directly with you.
Speaker 1: And it was just so it was so mind boy
Speaker 1: bobbling to me because I'm like, that's kind of like
Speaker 1: that's how the streets go, like like if you're sunk
Speaker 1: with me, these guys ut me to you. I don't
Speaker 1: really need these guys. Yeah, losing the connect and they
Speaker 1: did that Hollywood just now. But I would wonder why
Speaker 1: they want to deal directly with you because I would say, well,
Speaker 1: what is the purpose, because I may have to say
Speaker 1: they may go listen, you don't know about all the
Speaker 1: stuff we dealt with with the situation, And I would say, okay,
Speaker 1: or why am I gonna believe you? So let me
Speaker 1: go back to these cats over here. If we do
Speaker 1: a deal, if you don't want to deal with them
Speaker 1: no more, we gotta cut them a little something, something,
Speaker 1: would do something right by them. You gotta find out
Speaker 1: that all the side of no, if they just snakes,
Speaker 1: you be like, nah, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: The other side is that they know that they could
Speaker 1: communicate with me, and they felt like I think it
Speaker 1: in the beginning, I was just wild. You know Porto
Speaker 1: Rican black guy that you know smoke sweed and one's
Speaker 1: around with you know, twenty five guys. They don't understand
Speaker 1: that I have a sober life. Yeah, I wake up
Speaker 1: in the morning. And when they didn't realize that, they said, oh,
Speaker 1: we could do with them direct. Yeah, but then they're
Speaker 1: trying to cut the guy out of it's not right,
Speaker 1: It ain't right, yeah right, whatever said it was right now.
Speaker 1: I never said it was like, oh I said it
Speaker 1: was no, no, no, you tell you something. The corporate
Speaker 1: gags all of them are white, way way worse. Should Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I got out of you know, when I got
Speaker 1: out of you know, really dealing with the hook. You know,
Speaker 1: the uh so cat at really measured me when I
Speaker 1: was coming up because in eighty nine where eight eight,
Speaker 1: You're like, yo, I'm gonna start being a designer. They
Speaker 1: was like yo, you're like man, you know, because that
Speaker 1: time designers are usually flamboyant cats didn't want to see this.
Speaker 1: Catch was like, I don't gonna be around these cats.
Speaker 1: When that BIB article came out and said food did
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty million dollars, this yere there dumberhood dudes,
Speaker 1: was like, yo, we didn't get to get our clothes
Speaker 1: on these Something is trying to escape that world because
Speaker 1: I was never trying to be like that. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: I saw more in the bathroom, when I found out
Speaker 1: the Italian mob was there, I found the triazz is
Speaker 1: over in China. I found out all the gangsters that
Speaker 1: were in that world, I was like, yo, just I'd
Speaker 1: rather go back to the street. This is worse than
Speaker 1: the street. If they don't come at you the same
Speaker 1: way she's doing the street come at you would have gone.
Speaker 1: They come out you and say something. You in that
Speaker 1: world you find out something random, you just already gonna say.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say that would happened to me, But
Speaker 1: you got ten million dollars worth of clothes coming in
Speaker 1: for the season. If somebody you know called, you'll be like, yo,
Speaker 1: you won't miss two million dollars worth of those clothes
Speaker 1: on on the water. They're gonna disappear. And I don't
Speaker 1: want you to say nothing. You better call the insurance company.
Speaker 1: I ain't never happened to me, But that's the stuff
Speaker 1: that happens. They control the ports, they control the ports
Speaker 1: the company. It's called organized crime for so the corporate
Speaker 1: gangster is away and a lot of things I found
Speaker 1: out five and ten years later happened. I don't even
Speaker 1: know that the gangster was going on like that, which
Speaker 1: is what we have. This is why you always get
Speaker 1: this guy that comes to the hood that's a real
Speaker 1: official Ja Vinci and real official Gucci. But this ship
Speaker 1: is eighty dollars. I mean, so, how many times in
Speaker 1: the business when they talking about advertising and promotion for
Speaker 1: a record you found on that advertising promotion wasn't a billboy.
Speaker 1: That was somebody had to get kicked off somewhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was terrible. When are you serious? You know even
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you something. I never knew the ugly
Speaker 1: truth until a week ago. To the week ago. I know,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about someone emailed me something by my stake
Speaker 1: and I'm talking about the ugly truth was so written
Speaker 1: on it as he was emailing someone trying to blackmail
Speaker 1: someone else and emailed me wrong by my stake. Employed
Speaker 1: our copy and paste, damp motherfucker. I don't knew how
Speaker 1: to copy and pat that moment I copy and pasted
Speaker 1: said oh what Wow? Did it made that noise? Right?
Speaker 1: I was? I was like, oh, ship and I got
Speaker 1: to see like how it was most of the DJs
Speaker 1: that you know that you have integrity for people that
Speaker 1: you think has love and respect for this game. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm messing up. I funked it up. I was separate
Speaker 1: there alright, bad um, that you have love and respect
Speaker 1: for this game. Um, and when they was on that
Speaker 1: payroll list, that should kind of sucked me up, the
Speaker 1: kind of suck me up. I'm gonna tell you. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you who super impressive. I know I can't
Speaker 1: tell you the list because I might need to pay
Speaker 1: that as well. I mean, but I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 1: the super impressed me. Flex wasn't on need not one
Speaker 1: list at all. Now I'm telling what I was. It
Speaker 1: was three of them, not one. And I'm looking because
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, I'm expecting when the Flex is
Speaker 1: my man, but still like I'm expecting maybe this is
Speaker 1: false documents. So if it's a false document, you would
Speaker 1: put the guy in there. And he wasn't on. No, No,
Speaker 1: that's impressive. And I was like, you know, Flex has integrity,
Speaker 1: you know, so yeah, this's the end of the day.
Speaker 1: We may call it the hustle it. Maybe it may
Speaker 1: be corporate gangster, but what's going on and when there's
Speaker 1: a lot of money going around, well, any money going around,
Speaker 1: someone's trying to skim it. Somebody somebody trying to skim it.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been like approached to like st Street
Speaker 1: dudes like saying, yo, you know what, could you help
Speaker 1: me with my street clothing line or something like that,
Speaker 1: You mean, like trying to put me into pressure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I had already gotten already gotten covered and already
Speaker 1: had the circle around me. And I also never really
Speaker 1: moved like that, you know, I wasn't on that dude. Um,
Speaker 1: so no, but I got a lot of people who
Speaker 1: ask me to help. I'm like, I can't help me, man.
Speaker 1: But but I only had I beat honestly, Oh, probably
Speaker 1: my last twenty five years, I've probably only had two
Speaker 1: or three people that came at me a little sideways.
Speaker 1: And then because I knew a lot of people growing
Speaker 1: up in the streets, some of you know, pull the
Speaker 1: coach him like yo, man, he's good people. He part
Speaker 1: of you know, he family leave alone. So God has
Speaker 1: been really good, you know. And um and and a
Speaker 1: lot of I'd be like a lot of the hood
Speaker 1: had in my back. God bless you know. What's your
Speaker 1: favorite thing about this whole game? If you if you could,
Speaker 1: if you could adolize one thing and just say, you
Speaker 1: know what, if there wasn't for this, just it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be here. I'm just showing people. Um, you know I
Speaker 1: already said, already kind of said man being able to
Speaker 1: influence people. Man. And then we went come to me
Speaker 1: like you thought I've seen you. I didn't, you know.
Speaker 1: I wanted set of my own business. But also like
Speaker 1: I was, I went to the Oscars, the Bandy Fair
Speaker 1: Oscars after party the other day it was a big
Speaker 1: noise for the flaws. Don't you know you have to
Speaker 1: spend that back a little bit for a second. I
Speaker 1: went up there. My name wasn't on the list, but
Speaker 1: my boy and we don't know the chance he know
Speaker 1: everybody and they actually knew what I wasn't, like, you know,
Speaker 1: and I've been told about three times. But every time
Speaker 1: I go up, I'm in the call. I leave the
Speaker 1: window walk because I'm like, you know, so they go sorry,
Speaker 1: you know, you're came like drive off expecting his ride
Speaker 1: walk because you know, like John Travolton and Captain and
Speaker 1: say to jump like everybody. Everybody's in there. It's the
Speaker 1: harder party to get into. But one of the great things.
Speaker 1: I walk into the Oscar Awards or the Vanity Fair
Speaker 1: party afterwards. That means a party that only holds two
Speaker 1: hundred people spit and I don't know so much money,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not getting because I don't know what
Speaker 1: the funk you're talking about. Book walk in there, Kobe
Speaker 1: and then Jade and Beyonce. I see a Taylor Swift,
Speaker 1: I see all these actors and I'm walking up to that.
Speaker 1: Spike walks in with his with his his his oscar,
Speaker 1: you know this year. I'm talking about the days ago
Speaker 1: and he walk in and I'm like, and some of
Speaker 1: the people you know older, so I love Spiking. I'm like, Yo, Spike,
Speaker 1: you know, let's take this picture, let's get this done
Speaker 1: on this part. I like the what the crazy dudes
Speaker 1: that be in the in the commercial, let mean, will
Speaker 1: be in in a movie like Operating the Fries or
Speaker 1: something like that. But like, yo, I know you. And
Speaker 1: the fun thing is like I woke up to other
Speaker 1: really well known aim lists of everything they'd be like yo.
Speaker 1: Like Katherine Data Drones said to me one time, me
Speaker 1: and Michael Douglas watch your show every night. I'm like
Speaker 1: Wall Street, it's wreckonable, you know what I'm saying. And
Speaker 1: I think that is one of the things that surprised
Speaker 1: me all the time. It's like huge, yo. But it's
Speaker 1: surprising to me because I'm just doing TV, doing what
Speaker 1: I normally do. I'm having a negotiation. I can't put
Speaker 1: words together, I can't harm not I'm not an actor
Speaker 1: and actress. And I walk up to these cats and
Speaker 1: they're like, yo, I know you, but I got an idea.
Speaker 1: That's when I like, I ain't with your I steel
Speaker 1: like movie. That's what it is. Ship man. Let me
Speaker 1: just tell you something, man. I want to tell you
Speaker 1: how how real. Um the homie is right here. I
Speaker 1: happened to come to a party. I've seen them. I
Speaker 1: gave him a five and I said, Yo, man, he said,
Speaker 1: I got here. I don't even think you. Let me.
Speaker 1: Let me finish my sentence, because you already knew what
Speaker 1: I was asking. I was like, Yo, think I got you.
Speaker 1: We exchanged numbers. You're a man of your word, superman
Speaker 1: your world. And let me just tell you something. I've
Speaker 1: been in this game for going on twenty one years. Um,
Speaker 1: anytime I've ever reached out to fool Boo, you guys
Speaker 1: have held me down. Anytime I've reached out the Coolgi,
Speaker 1: you guys have held me down. So I want to
Speaker 1: personally thank you because because not only for you being
Speaker 1: a part of hip hop, but for you holding down
Speaker 1: hip hop because it's it's it's a it's a one
Speaker 1: hand you know, watch the other bo and wash the
Speaker 1: face thing. Because one of the things that I admired
Speaker 1: about when I first saw a fool Boo was the
Speaker 1: fact that I was seeing fooboo like damn that sponsor
Speaker 1: people with videos. Yeah, so you you guys were coming
Speaker 1: in and we're I don't know, I don't know how
Speaker 1: you were doing it, but you guys were getting to
Speaker 1: people to wearing it, and it was it was a
Speaker 1: part of the culture. So the culture had grown together.
Speaker 1: And the thing about it is, uh, what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is the clothing and the music. So I'm
Speaker 1: so proud of your brand. Like I said, we we
Speaker 1: when we when me and E f N this is
Speaker 1: a DJ, I'm you know, a rapper. When we put
Speaker 1: this together, we wanted to say, you know what, we
Speaker 1: wanted to control hip hop. We wanted to control the
Speaker 1: media of hip hop. When people think of hip hop,
Speaker 1: we want to you know what, you hear it from
Speaker 1: two people who who is legitimate to twenty years in
Speaker 1: peace and we wanted to do that. And one of
Speaker 1: our models is we all the fool boo how this
Speaker 1: ship and what I'm saying that that's always the big
Speaker 1: you are and your brothers up all the other three
Speaker 1: and l L and there's quite five when we go,
Speaker 1: we gotta do a documentary about this. But um, I
Speaker 1: want to personally thank you. I want to personally Thank
Speaker 1: you for being a man of your word personally. Thank
Speaker 1: you for everything you did personally. Thank you for uh
Speaker 1: being an inspiration for people to know that you don't
Speaker 1: always have to be in front of the camera, even
Speaker 1: though a part of your job is is in front
Speaker 1: of the camera. But being you know that clothing line,
Speaker 1: being that brand that buying other brands and and and
Speaker 1: showing people that you don't have to be on the
Speaker 1: mic is whatever. You know what I'm saying. You don't
Speaker 1: have to rap, you don't have to wrap you, and
Speaker 1: you don't have the DJ or bi a producer. You
Speaker 1: could be something and be a part of the culture.
Speaker 1: I love the culture, and you're the epitome of that,
Speaker 1: my brother. When people look at the word are entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: they should see your motherfucking face. I'm calling the dictionary myself.
Speaker 1: They do that, and my brother, I'm so proud to
Speaker 1: know you. I'm so proud for that that you that
Speaker 1: every time I see you, we always smile at each
Speaker 1: other and we're always having fun. And I really appreciate
Speaker 1: the fact that you pulled up. I appreciate my man,
Speaker 1: big homie. And then always every time I see him
Speaker 1: holding me down, I appreciate a foo boo period. I
Speaker 1: appreciate what you did to them for the coach. I
Speaker 1: appreciate shark Tank. I appreciate you're not shutting down my
Speaker 1: sneaking because I'm really serious about my and I appreciate
Speaker 1: you coming to that holding down drink Chap. And just
Speaker 1: so you know, this Saturday, for everybody in the room,
Speaker 1: we got drink Champs. Appreciate your day. From eight to twelve.
Speaker 1: We gotta do eight to twelve, not six to nine,
Speaker 1: eight to twelve this Saturday, not se twelve. We got
Speaker 1: because we got daylight self at six at six, right
Speaker 1: at six six six. So yeah, man, we love y'all,
Speaker 1: Thank y'all, good night. You got, damn it your great interview,
Speaker 1: my friend. Yeah, you got