Speaker 1: Welcome to All the Smoke, a production of The Black
Speaker 1: Effect and our Heart Radio and partnership with Showtime. M
Speaker 1: hm m. Welcome back to another edition All the Smoke. Jack,
Speaker 1: what's good Baby, back at it? We got a good
Speaker 1: one today, Man, back at it. You know, season three
Speaker 1: wanted to start bringing more versatility to the show Man
Speaker 1: and this man speaks more legend uh to what we're
Speaker 1: looking for. Man, that's welcome to the show. Wood Harris
Speaker 1: appreciation you. Good to see you, Good to see you.
Speaker 1: What's going on right now? I know you're working on
Speaker 1: this new Lakers series. Let's get right to it. Talk
Speaker 1: to us about this Lakers series you're working on. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're doing the Lakers eighties right now, which is is
Speaker 1: um showcasing on like the success of the well the
Speaker 1: ups and downs of the Lakers and a lot of
Speaker 1: back stories. And I'm like, I portrayed Spencer Haywood shut
Speaker 1: so yeah, So I got to meet the actual Spencer.
Speaker 1: I told a shock that I I finally I went
Speaker 1: pro with the Lakers. But you know it's all good.
Speaker 1: So Spence, uh correct me from Spence was he tried
Speaker 1: to jump right, He was the first one to try
Speaker 1: to jump. Yeah, Spencer Haywood is the reason why people
Speaker 1: come out of school early, and not just him, but
Speaker 1: there were a few different athletes at that time who
Speaker 1: ended up having go all the way to the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court with their case to be able to go pro.
Speaker 1: And from that point, I would say that Spencer Haywood.
Speaker 1: All the pros know who Spencer Haywood is, but I
Speaker 1: don't think he like I don't think he's as known
Speaker 1: as he probably should be. All right, So, um, so
Speaker 1: his story is in this story some it's not. It's
Speaker 1: not completely with his story. We don't go into the
Speaker 1: whole court case that's mentioned again. It's about the Lakers,
Speaker 1: and it's dealing with the relationships of all the teammates,
Speaker 1: UM and behind the scenes as well. So it's a lot.
Speaker 1: It's a lot. So what is it like to to
Speaker 1: to work I mean historical teams such as the Lakers, um,
Speaker 1: you know, playing such a historical character. They had a
Speaker 1: lot to do with how Kobe came in the game,
Speaker 1: Kevin Garnett came in the game, some of these other
Speaker 1: stars that you know kind of ran the league for
Speaker 1: a while. But what do it like to play in
Speaker 1: a situation like that man. Um, you know, I'm prepared
Speaker 1: for it that I would say as as a as
Speaker 1: a as an experienced talent. You know, just I'm kind
Speaker 1: of prepared for it. You know, I play a lot
Speaker 1: of real life people, so I kind of had my
Speaker 1: own method. And but it's large though. It's the shot
Speaker 1: epically too. It's shot in film. Most things that shot
Speaker 1: digital was shot in film. So it's a really epic,
Speaker 1: epic HBO series dealing with the Lakers. It's a little
Speaker 1: pressure though, because you know, I mean, Spencer Haywood is
Speaker 1: intense on know if you guys know he's intense. You know,
Speaker 1: he's intense, So you know, I want to get it right.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, you know, it's not all
Speaker 1: about Spencer Haywoods, but I want to get it right.
Speaker 1: He's very intense, So you know, it's a little preciure.
Speaker 1: When does that you guys know that, I think I
Speaker 1: think early next year, in March or so. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think in March's gonna look out for that definitely. So
Speaker 1: take us back Chicago, Illinois, son of Maddie and John.
Speaker 1: That's it. I grew up on the West Side, West
Speaker 1: Side of Chicago. Um, yeah, you know, me and my mom,
Speaker 1: my bro, my dad. Um, you know, very uh what
Speaker 1: do I you know, I mean typical, I guess ghetto
Speaker 1: type situation as they say, you know, Um, but we
Speaker 1: had a lot of basketball influence. You know. We went
Speaker 1: to the same grade school in high school as I
Speaker 1: Saiah Thomas, and my brother was close with that with
Speaker 1: Isaiah's family. So my brother and Isaiah's nephew were best friends,
Speaker 1: are our best friends. So as a kid, you know,
Speaker 1: I was around Isaiah Thomas and just basketball was just
Speaker 1: every It just was every It just was everything. With
Speaker 1: the school system that I went to. I went to
Speaker 1: the same high school as Hoop Dreams. If you have
Speaker 1: private school with coach Paint who I think he died
Speaker 1: last year. But um, so we had a strong connection
Speaker 1: to that, Hoop Dreams and whatnot. Like that's what it
Speaker 1: was like growing up. It was very much but those days,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm in the eighties. I mean it was
Speaker 1: heavy street, you know, heavy street influences, So a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of a lot of streets, um, dominance
Speaker 1: and those in the community I grew up in. What
Speaker 1: kept you on that path? Really? My brother, my brother
Speaker 1: is an actor, Steve Harris, who Um, people know him
Speaker 1: from his show in the Practice and he also did um,
Speaker 1: just many movies and he's on BMF two Family. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's my older brother, and so you know, I always
Speaker 1: say like he's my older he's my older brother, older
Speaker 1: enough to be a real older brother, you know. Like
Speaker 1: so I think he ended up being sort of like
Speaker 1: a guiding light for me in a sense where I
Speaker 1: could have been um drawn to you know, the dark
Speaker 1: side of the moon and ship my brother kind of
Speaker 1: like no, no, not still on the list side of
Speaker 1: the moon, bro, your brother. My brother's is a cop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he got a ball head. His name is Steve Having.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, I've been around for a minute. Awards. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you obviously basketball being a heavy influence. The arts
Speaker 1: came into your life early to what what what got
Speaker 1: you doing that? It was always just very artistic just
Speaker 1: as a person. I still am, you know, a painter, musician,
Speaker 1: different instruments. I just was always are just very artistic
Speaker 1: and just that's just just my own thing, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't think those communities make a lot of arts centers,
Speaker 1: and you know what I'm saying, So, um, you know
Speaker 1: what what happened with me is. I just had a
Speaker 1: great interest in acting, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: was just drawing to it, watching the TV and just
Speaker 1: being drawn into it as a kid, and um to
Speaker 1: get away from the community. One of the means of
Speaker 1: getting away with you gotta go. You gotta go to school.
Speaker 1: If you don't go to away. If you don't go
Speaker 1: to school, then you're probably gonna be there get a job.
Speaker 1: If nothing pulls you away, you're gonna be there. You
Speaker 1: gonna get a job. I probably end up having a
Speaker 1: baby or something. Boom, Now you're there, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. My brother went away to school and then
Speaker 1: he came and got me one weekend. Was like, now
Speaker 1: you gotta see like college life, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So I went. I went to his college for then
Speaker 1: I was there, this this ship cool, I could do
Speaker 1: some other shit, you know what I'm saying. Like, and
Speaker 1: so I auditioned for college and then I got a scholarship,
Speaker 1: and at that point that's pretty much money, you know.
Speaker 1: So I started to like see it differently, you know.
Speaker 1: And then I wanted to be skilled and not just
Speaker 1: using intuition all the time. So you want to be skilled,
Speaker 1: you can Like, I'm not a skilled painter, I'm a
Speaker 1: skilled actor. I can paint and I'm a skilled actor.
Speaker 1: Because what age did you fall in love with acting?
Speaker 1: Pretty young? You know? Whitey titis, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Cereal preteen, colorful, cereal black and white movies. You know,
Speaker 1: I like, I fell in love with some of the
Speaker 1: older black and white movies, um, with James Cagney and
Speaker 1: Humphrey Bogard and stuff like that. And then I was
Speaker 1: sort of like as a kid, you know, I would
Speaker 1: go in the other room and be acting like them.
Speaker 1: You know. So it was probably my niche really early
Speaker 1: on to be involved. And um, I really never said
Speaker 1: I never saw anything else. I never saw anything else
Speaker 1: as it for me as far as what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do. Um. And even though basketball and the sports
Speaker 1: in general is not just basketball when I say basketball
Speaker 1: is because but sports in general, you know, it was
Speaker 1: a lot because you can't go act, you gotta do something,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. That you just can't go
Speaker 1: do a play by yourself. So, um, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: competitive and I think sports that's why I mean, so
Speaker 1: it's just a mean a lot to me. I'm competitive,
Speaker 1: and acting is not really a competition. You know. Maybe
Speaker 1: you compete to get a role if you're in the
Speaker 1: process of auditioning, and well, that's the competition. But if
Speaker 1: I'm doing a scene with y'all, it's not a competition,
Speaker 1: you know, and we're telling the story. And I'm not
Speaker 1: really trying to be better than you. I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to outdo anything in the scene. Um, but my competitive
Speaker 1: spirit is just helps me. I think it just puts
Speaker 1: confidence in me. You had a really talented class at
Speaker 1: one point where a lot of people who went on
Speaker 1: and had some other success um in the acting space.
Speaker 1: What was it like being around those names at that
Speaker 1: time and did you see that in them? Did you
Speaker 1: guys see it in each other? Like you know we
Speaker 1: do the au shoipd that's similar to playing au ball,
Speaker 1: Like damn, they all played together at one point. Like,
Speaker 1: you had a class with several actors in it that
Speaker 1: all made it big. But you know, yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: like on the hindsight, you know, it's a hindsight thing now,
Speaker 1: but during during like in the moments of being in class,
Speaker 1: one of them was Mike Hall, who people know is Dexter.
Speaker 1: So we went to school together, went the same school
Speaker 1: with Jeffrey Wright. Uh Sterling k Brown. It's Sterling Kate Brown.
Speaker 1: Um uh ma hursal um. Yeah, but it didn't you know,
Speaker 1: it's just you just don't really know. So at that
Speaker 1: time it's just like the a you know, he cold,
Speaker 1: but still don't know. You don't know anything happened. So
Speaker 1: it's still that thing. All this, all this stuff is
Speaker 1: rock and roll. If it's basketball, music, acting, it's just
Speaker 1: rock and roll because it's it's it's got a hustle
Speaker 1: to it that it's just built into it's it's a
Speaker 1: hustle built into it. You gotta hustle as the individual
Speaker 1: and even the business aspect. If you don't learn it,
Speaker 1: you'll be hustled on. If you learn it, then you
Speaker 1: do the hustle, you know. So you know, it's not
Speaker 1: like it's rock and roll. You know, it's rock and roll.
Speaker 1: So Broadway career, you played Harold Mitch Mitchell and the
Speaker 1: Broadway revival of a street car named Desire. That's right
Speaker 1: by Tennessee Williams. What's different between Bara Away and film, Well,
Speaker 1: Broadway is like instant gratification. You know, It's like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, you got the fans right there. It's like
Speaker 1: you know, I always say that basketball. A lot of
Speaker 1: love about the sports is that it's theater in the
Speaker 1: sense that it's live. So that's the Broadway aspect of it.
Speaker 1: You know. Um, it's live and everything goes. So if
Speaker 1: you mess up, then that's gonna be captured for the
Speaker 1: people in the audience, you know. And as opposed to
Speaker 1: now they want to look at Matt Barnes shake the
Speaker 1: ball at Kobe. You know, it was that, but it
Speaker 1: was it was but that was live. I ain't no
Speaker 1: re enacting that. You too, then't want to see you
Speaker 1: y'all have your famous moments now it's just captured, you know, digitally,
Speaker 1: But it was live, so you know, you had that
Speaker 1: experience live, You had that experience. It's the same thing.
Speaker 1: You know, theater juxtaposed film or television is um it's
Speaker 1: dope because you just get the live, live experience, you know.
Speaker 1: And so if somebody is crying, you can hit them
Speaker 1: in the audience crying, you know, or laughing or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. You know, so you love them equally the same.
Speaker 1: I do. Yeah, I don't. I don't see one as
Speaker 1: you know, I don't see any To me, the arts
Speaker 1: in general are just it's really just um, like a
Speaker 1: box of crayons in a sense. So every kid had
Speaker 1: a box of crayons, and then I'm older than y'all.
Speaker 1: Some of y'all had the box with the damn with
Speaker 1: the glitter creons and ship. But I remember the little
Speaker 1: box with I think it's five colors and the eight
Speaker 1: colors types the basics, And so my imagination is just
Speaker 1: that I don't really see rap or acting or those
Speaker 1: things are all just how you use the colors that
Speaker 1: you have. It's your it's your use that you can utilize.
Speaker 1: So to me, I don't really see a difference in
Speaker 1: the arts so much. It's just can you, um manifest
Speaker 1: that from your imagination? Can your imagination bottle the performance
Speaker 1: or the painting or the song. It's coming from a
Speaker 1: place of kind of nowhere, so you know, figuring it out,
Speaker 1: it's a math to it. There's math to art, and
Speaker 1: all art is math. You know, a song is is math.
Speaker 1: So figuring that things out so that you have something dope,
Speaker 1: it's something else you know, um, And then that depends
Speaker 1: on the type of artists you are. If you the
Speaker 1: type that like, I don't you know, I don't really
Speaker 1: um listen to too much of what somebody says about
Speaker 1: a performance because I did it all, I did it
Speaker 1: already doesn't matter so much yes or no, meaning you know,
Speaker 1: whether they like it or not. So I usually just
Speaker 1: get people who tell me they love it or you know,
Speaker 1: pretty much they say they love it. And then occasionally
Speaker 1: you get somebody funk you. That's part of it. Thank you,
Speaker 1: somebody come and take you know what I mean. But
Speaker 1: but really though, like um ignoring the um, the yeas
Speaker 1: and the knees, it's a good thing to be involved with,
Speaker 1: ignoring what people think and yes, and I mean the
Speaker 1: good and the bad basically, but the roum big moment
Speaker 1: in my life, I know, big moment of your life too,
Speaker 1: from the movie to the soundtrack. How was it? Uh
Speaker 1: actually being in that move and also been along with
Speaker 1: the with the late grade park acting with him. Man, Well,
Speaker 1: I take Tupac first because Tupac in the in the
Speaker 1: moments of it just knowing him, you know, and I
Speaker 1: love hip hop and hip hop head but at the time,
Speaker 1: I uh, I mean, I wasn't the biggest fan of Tupacs.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of rappers to like, and they
Speaker 1: all were different and nothing like that. Today they're all
Speaker 1: the same, you know, But back then they were all different,
Speaker 1: and I was a fan, but I wasn't like, oh
Speaker 1: Man tupacet so I wasn't like sitting up there. When
Speaker 1: I first worked Denzel, I was like, damn. So I said,
Speaker 1: like he's a major influence on me. So at the time,
Speaker 1: that was my first first movie or first thing, first
Speaker 1: professional thingum of that, of that like in films that
Speaker 1: hell have I wanted to start with. Yeah, um, Park
Speaker 1: was always tell people he kind of like put himself
Speaker 1: out there. I can't tell you something different about Poc.
Speaker 1: You know that you couldn't think, I mean, you know
Speaker 1: what he was like, like it was honest to the
Speaker 1: where he was. But he did have a side where
Speaker 1: he could talk about like he was sudden talk about
Speaker 1: Lorraine Hansberry, who wrote the play, um a Raisin in
Speaker 1: the Sun, or talk about Gandhi, all in the same conversation,
Speaker 1: you know, you a one on one situation, you know.
Speaker 1: So he was And then I talked to him a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks before he died too, and that was
Speaker 1: different because it was just brief a brief Hello, what's
Speaker 1: up this and that? But my mom, man, this and that,
Speaker 1: excuse me. Two weeks later he died. He was killed,
Speaker 1: as everyone knows. But um, the film. Working on the
Speaker 1: film itself was you know, a dream, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I mean, I got a movie and it
Speaker 1: was my first thing I have an audition for, you know,
Speaker 1: so it was really a drug. That's the first one
Speaker 1: you ever auditioned for. This first of one again, my brother, right,
Speaker 1: my brother set that up because I can hoop, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Not like you got professional. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I always feel like outside to product tell
Speaker 1: your funny story. One time I had to when the
Speaker 1: NBA went on I'll get back to it in a second.
Speaker 1: But when the NBA went on hiatus and I think
Speaker 1: the Spurs one that year, what was that not not No?
Speaker 1: Nine nine? I thought I could be Like I tried.
Speaker 1: I tried to dunk on Robin one time, block my
Speaker 1: ship so crazy again, it was back then, I just
Speaker 1: like I just thought, like I thought I could be
Speaker 1: a professional basketball play. A lot of cats think they can.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you what snapped me out of it.
Speaker 1: So what I had to understand about it, right, because
Speaker 1: I wasn't conditioned. I have nobody to help me condition
Speaker 1: to be a professional athlete or even a top notch athlete.
Speaker 1: So all my stuff is just me, right, it's not
Speaker 1: even any trained stuff. Um. But in nine I'm in
Speaker 1: Philly filming a movie and the strike happened, so a
Speaker 1: lot of the players be from Philly. They found a gym,
Speaker 1: So I forgot who told me? Told me that the
Speaker 1: players got a gym? Going to the gym? What I
Speaker 1: could go to? I'm going to the gym. I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm gonna lose some of the names. Yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: forget something that all these cats went on to be
Speaker 1: so legit pros so. But the one I had to
Speaker 1: stick right, So I don't want to stick somebody in
Speaker 1: my hand like six three, six four, Right, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pass my shoes. I'm about six four and so change
Speaker 1: right if I have to, I come in the gym.
Speaker 1: The only Canama on my height is Coatino mopening. It's
Speaker 1: a long day's coming out with Rhode Island. At that point,
Speaker 1: anint know who he was. You know he was humble,
Speaker 1: he was chilling. Oh yeah, hen't say ship to me,
Speaker 1: he was just like, okay, cool, what when I tell you? Cat,
Speaker 1: It was like, not only was he just nice, you
Speaker 1: underestimate how much work it is happening on the court.
Speaker 1: When you're watching it. It It just looked like they're floating
Speaker 1: on the court and ship no man, that is And
Speaker 1: even the pickup games, you know, he expected to pick
Speaker 1: up game. When I play a pick up a civil
Speaker 1: a civilians pickup game, there's resting moments. I have a
Speaker 1: resting moment, bro, my pattern of resting moments I could
Speaker 1: I was, I literal thought I was gonna know, I'm
Speaker 1: not kidding. My heart never be so hard as to guard.
Speaker 1: And that was Katina Mobile And he was dope, I
Speaker 1: went on to be at least I said it was
Speaker 1: him right, at least it was anyway, Um, he's still dope,
Speaker 1: Yeah he still he is still though, But anyway, Um,
Speaker 1: it was above the rim and so, um, just getting
Speaker 1: back on that for a second, Um, and what were
Speaker 1: just talking about the process of it just being there? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean it was. It was a dream come true.
Speaker 1: At the time though, I had gotten into ny U
Speaker 1: because I really expected to do a lot more theater
Speaker 1: and just like I told you I was looking for skill,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, just like in basketball, you got at
Speaker 1: some point you gotta have skill, which means you gotta
Speaker 1: work on something. People think they can act without skill.
Speaker 1: It does require skill. And you can't just go get
Speaker 1: a ball and shoot around and become at least a
Speaker 1: good free throw shooter, you know what I'm saying. If
Speaker 1: you can do that on your own with a basketball,
Speaker 1: but in acting, how do you get How do you
Speaker 1: manifest skill? So you kind of almost have to learn
Speaker 1: it through experience, which is what you have to go through.
Speaker 1: You have to learn through experience or you have to
Speaker 1: be taught like um. Or you can have both of
Speaker 1: them happen, you know what I'm saying. Same with doing
Speaker 1: directing or working in these things. It's not as easy
Speaker 1: as looks, just like on the screen, right, UM, So
Speaker 1: expect things to be different because there's pressure when it
Speaker 1: goes three to one. Action different than this pressure pressure
Speaker 1: of memorization, pressure of um yeah, getting it right, because
Speaker 1: it's not just memorization. You gotta get this glass, simple ship, right.
Speaker 1: You gotta take this glass to the sink and say
Speaker 1: your lines. That's nothing action, but it's the action part
Speaker 1: Stephen Jackson Glass. I think I grabbed it like this.
Speaker 1: It turns a road like a person never smoked a
Speaker 1: cigarette before. Right, they get a scene, they got a
Speaker 1: smoker square in the scene. They hold that mouth all wrong.
Speaker 1: It's looking like that to them, right right, They're not
Speaker 1: calm and cool with it. If they gotta do something
Speaker 1: with the join us. If I'm even drinking, you know,
Speaker 1: they have to be drunk. They don't really drink though,
Speaker 1: or they never smoked the joint, someone like dude, I
Speaker 1: don't know where are we all? That type of ship,
Speaker 1: which is a bunch of bullshit. But you want authenticity
Speaker 1: when you when you were doing a portrayal at bare minimum,
Speaker 1: just like you want to have an easy part is
Speaker 1: to have like conversational reality. You can only sound real.
Speaker 1: Somebody could have written something handed to you and you
Speaker 1: can make it sound real. So a bare minimum, you
Speaker 1: want to have conversational reality and authenticity with regards to
Speaker 1: the story, trying to tell so from both sides, both sides.
Speaker 1: When did it hit you? I mean that cast, it
Speaker 1: was a great cast. When did it kind of hit
Speaker 1: you that that wasn't going to be a classic movie?
Speaker 1: Both the rim I mean much later, man, it was.
Speaker 1: It was after Tupac was um, I mean died tragically
Speaker 1: and it became it though you know you're not really
Speaker 1: she just become what it becomes. Y'all know that well.
Speaker 1: But that's one of them when that ship first drop
Speaker 1: everybody at the moment. Soundtrack. First of all, people used
Speaker 1: to go to the theater and now we sound like crazy,
Speaker 1: right the right, and the soundtrack used to be like
Speaker 1: what boosted the film stuff that they don't really do
Speaker 1: so much anymore. But so that soundtrack was dope ahead
Speaker 1: of course they had Tupac head. It just had everybody
Speaker 1: paying song by Tupac, Yes, that was the ship. That's
Speaker 1: the ship soundtrack is actually a dope, dope dope sounds
Speaker 1: like that's a missing part of the form. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like just like you don't have record covers anymore
Speaker 1: and nothing like that, none of the art. You just
Speaker 1: have the song. You don't even have the song. You
Speaker 1: got the MP three right, you have nothing, Okay, nothing,
Speaker 1: Let's figure out how to sell nothing a lot they
Speaker 1: do it well, and they do it well. The basketball
Speaker 1: scenes in the movie. I was taking off on those
Speaker 1: marks a lot of them casting because I had hops
Speaker 1: back then. I still could. I'm still dunking. I'm doing
Speaker 1: all that stuff like I'm trying to be Spenter Haywood.
Speaker 1: So you know I had to you heard of Um,
Speaker 1: I had to do knees of the toes. You're still
Speaker 1: dunking right now that I'm still dunking. My man from
Speaker 1: these over toes got me straight. And it's like this, uh,
Speaker 1: because I toring my achilles twice, my right leg, so
Speaker 1: you know, that's really a deal ended for my generation.
Speaker 1: It was a deal now people come back, but it
Speaker 1: used to be this over like it's crazy. You told twice.
Speaker 1: It's like cash him out, shoot the horse, same lag,
Speaker 1: same legs, same legs, saying both whoping just doing nothing
Speaker 1: really too, because but I had warned out so much
Speaker 1: that you know, you know, you get up with that
Speaker 1: mad that stiffness, well I would get up with that
Speaker 1: ship warm and uh you know, and then go playing
Speaker 1: in the stiffness and the stiffness that's rigidity that's liable
Speaker 1: to snap at some point. That small little cuts and
Speaker 1: stuff that I don't give a what Birdie says. I
Speaker 1: would bury the both of you, Mick, but you don't
Speaker 1: know stuff classic just to answer that, you don't do
Speaker 1: you see that ship? You see that ship? It you
Speaker 1: got to be Motherfucking's soldiers. Now drive nigga want to act?
Speaker 1: You spoke on Denzelum. Remember the Titans Class Classic. You
Speaker 1: received a nomination from the NCP Image Awards Outstanding Supporting Actor.
Speaker 1: Like you said, you were in awe when you got
Speaker 1: in the presence of Denzel. What was that experience? Like, man,
Speaker 1: it was like it was it had a surreality to
Speaker 1: it for me, because you know, if I was a fan,
Speaker 1: I am a fan of many of different actors, so
Speaker 1: one of them is, of course Denzel. He's more than
Speaker 1: a fan. I wouldn't say a fan as much as
Speaker 1: I was just inspired by Denzel to be trying to
Speaker 1: be great. Not everybody gets that, you know. So I
Speaker 1: would see him and just be inspired to learn more
Speaker 1: about the craft, you know. And so when I got
Speaker 1: the opportunity to meet him. Um. I first worked with
Speaker 1: him on The Siege. I was in school at the
Speaker 1: time he did this film called The Siege. So I
Speaker 1: had a small little role in the film of the
Speaker 1: Siege where I was this kind Yeah, Gene Hackman, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and Denzel and I, Um, spoke to Denzel in
Speaker 1: the scene. You know, I was like ship but I
Speaker 1: didn't really meet him. And then he he directed a
Speaker 1: film I was up for, which was Antoine Fisher Story.
Speaker 1: So I was a proud of the process of the
Speaker 1: audition process, and that came down to me and other people.
Speaker 1: I don't know all the people went to Derek Luke though,
Speaker 1: so I got to know him then. And then the
Speaker 1: third time was remembered the Titans. So, you know, I
Speaker 1: al would say that the acting gods love me because
Speaker 1: they showed me like they give me, they give me,
Speaker 1: they light my path in a way, because I think
Speaker 1: if I had to just jump into a movie with him,
Speaker 1: then I probably would have been just kind of like
Speaker 1: feeling him. But instead I was like, I crafted my
Speaker 1: own self. I'm just me. I'm me too much. Now
Speaker 1: I can't like Alan Iverson, big fan of Jordan's, but
Speaker 1: I've been looking at these videos he dropped in Joing
Speaker 1: forty four. I don't think nobody gave Jordan numbers like
Speaker 1: Allen Iverson, and I'm not exaggerating. I don't think nobody
Speaker 1: gave him consistent number. I think Alan Iverson I'll score
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's almost in every competition that the Bulls and
Speaker 1: Philly played, which is only a set number of times, right,
Speaker 1: even if Mike had forty one and hey, I still
Speaker 1: had funny. First of all, I love Alan, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a huge That's one of my favorite people, of course,
Speaker 1: And just I just and in his game and stuff.
Speaker 1: I just I just I'm a big fan. I love
Speaker 1: him as a person. That was the first time you
Speaker 1: saw an athlete with a baby at the stand. And
Speaker 1: you know, Alan Iverson did that. Some people just do it.
Speaker 1: Let me just show you know, my my lifestyle. And
Speaker 1: I was and just like you know, he loved that.
Speaker 1: He's like, I love people for real. You know the
Speaker 1: baby there because he loved the baby. It wasn't even
Speaker 1: so that the camera could have a baby. Now, he
Speaker 1: was the first to do so much cool ship. He's like,
Speaker 1: he's like a Spencer Haywood. And since just walls and
Speaker 1: he had to be persecuted for ship. They do normally
Speaker 1: not motherers have tats like written on their grills, I'm
Speaker 1: pro now on their face. And he had what do
Speaker 1: he had? I mean he had whatever he had. But anyway,
Speaker 1: him and Rodman, people who just really stepped outside. They
Speaker 1: stepped outside of the barriers. But watching the game, I
Speaker 1: watched a lot of the the older, older stuff just
Speaker 1: to watch it because when we talk about the goat
Speaker 1: and all that I've been wanting to see Mike again.
Speaker 1: You can forget when I look at Lebron with no reference,
Speaker 1: even me, when I look at Lebron James and some
Speaker 1: of these basketball players the way they played now, which
Speaker 1: is just unbelievable, by the way, uh, without the reference
Speaker 1: to Michael Jordan's they do look like the best because
Speaker 1: right in that moment, they're the best you ever seen.
Speaker 1: Kobe bryant Um and Lebron James are the best you've
Speaker 1: ever seen in the moment, and so is Michael Jordan.
Speaker 1: But when you go look back at Michael Jordan compare
Speaker 1: them to the rest, then you start having like an
Speaker 1: evaluated process that like, because I couldn't believe how quick
Speaker 1: he was when I go look at if you haven't
Speaker 1: been looking at Michael Jordan, go look at Michael Jordan's footage,
Speaker 1: whether you like basketball, and go look at Michael Jordan's
Speaker 1: foot because Michael Jordan's it's so inspiring to see to
Speaker 1: see him because it's all work. That ship is work.
Speaker 1: It's dedication at work. And if you you know, you know,
Speaker 1: and I like I like those players. Like those players
Speaker 1: like that because they like my Denzels where it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, they make me feel like I want to
Speaker 1: oscar or something like that, when the oscar don't really matter.
Speaker 1: You know, it matters the moment in the process and
Speaker 1: the film or TV thing that you're doing that matters.
Speaker 1: The business that you do. You support your family with this,
Speaker 1: that matters. But the trophies those are TV shows and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. But um, Denzel, um, he just is
Speaker 1: like that person, not just Denzel. I'm using him almost
Speaker 1: like you know, Sydney Portier's Denzel was. There's a few
Speaker 1: ones clumping them under Denzel in a sense put Dezi
Speaker 1: at the top. But it's a little pyramid of people
Speaker 1: who um are inspirational because you want to be a pro,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Because acting can be very hobby,
Speaker 1: like the whole process can, because especially nowadays, technology make
Speaker 1: it so you can make the ship on your phone,
Speaker 1: so you know, there's no there's no reason that you
Speaker 1: can't do it. I'm a crier, so I gotta ask
Speaker 1: about Yeah, I just want to ask, remember The Titans,
Speaker 1: did any get did you ever get to any moments
Speaker 1: in that movie where y'all broke down on set? Because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of real moments in that movie. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean there's a scene I cry in one scene
Speaker 1: on there, and that's real. Um, you know that's a
Speaker 1: process or a skill process though, so I making myself
Speaker 1: crying that moment, but it's real and they don't know
Speaker 1: the other actors, Like if I'm doing working with y'all
Speaker 1: right now, and like I had to look like this,
Speaker 1: You guys don't typically see me with like gray hair
Speaker 1: and all that. Just say it was a scene everything
Speaker 1: you would only see me pretty much like this, the
Speaker 1: make up, this stunt. To me, that would be probably
Speaker 1: the only way you saw me, even if it was
Speaker 1: fro the whole time I'd be working with y'all. Wouldn't
Speaker 1: be letting you see me with Harris necessarily, you know.
Speaker 1: So in the process, Uh, I forgot why why why
Speaker 1: I mentioned that? But in the process, I tend to
Speaker 1: be that way where I'm engage each with it so
Speaker 1: much that you're in the moment. Yeah, I'm just in
Speaker 1: the moment, like I'm not going to be um chopping
Speaker 1: it up too much because when you watch great movies,
Speaker 1: like you get into that moment too. And I really
Speaker 1: like I was into the movie and I really was
Speaker 1: believing the bond that you and your hat, you know what,
Speaker 1: by a car That dude you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: That dude is dope. I'm super I'm telling myself kind
Speaker 1: of guy, you know what I'm saying. But I'm blessed.
Speaker 1: I know, y'all, I know people. I'm just bless the
Speaker 1: nomad just like great people. You know, I know cool people,
Speaker 1: and I know people who I feel like ideologically, you know,
Speaker 1: I vibe with you know what I'm saying. So I'm lucky.
Speaker 1: I'm just a reclusive person that's just like to be
Speaker 1: by myself or not likes to. But somehow that's how
Speaker 1: it goes. Um. But but i mean remember the Titans.
Speaker 1: As far as trying to being emotional in the scenes
Speaker 1: and being emotional on the set, we can't because in
Speaker 1: between action and cut, you know, it's only about forty
Speaker 1: five seconds you're mastering, you know, this little component of
Speaker 1: time that small within the space. So like you know,
Speaker 1: they say action, there's forty five seconds maybe sixty seconds
Speaker 1: of before you say cut. You just want that no
Speaker 1: matter what you're doing on the outside of that minute
Speaker 1: of time or forty five seconds to a minute of time,
Speaker 1: you want to be able to be relaxed and committed
Speaker 1: and prepared memorization or whatever else, characterization, whatever else for
Speaker 1: that sixty seconds. Some other funers could, you know, go drink, chill,
Speaker 1: they said, action, We'll be right into it. Or they
Speaker 1: can be you know, dancing and ship Like. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna do none of that necessarily, but some people just
Speaker 1: go get on their phones and ship and just okay,
Speaker 1: right now I'm doing fucking candy crushing ship. They said action,
Speaker 1: be right into it. You know, I'm not really like that.
Speaker 1: So for me and for each individual, you do find
Speaker 1: your you find your rhythm, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Some actors they can drink, they can smoke, they can
Speaker 1: do whatever, and they still can do a great job.
Speaker 1: I think it's similar with sports. Yeah, you means some
Speaker 1: people have to lock in, be quiet, don't talk, headphones, whatever.
Speaker 1: Some people are rapping, talking, ship, texting. It's but as
Speaker 1: long as you whatever it works for you, really, I
Speaker 1: probably would have the headphones on in that situation, you know,
Speaker 1: I probably have the phones on the corner. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a it's different. That would be cool though. I
Speaker 1: would come lap up and say whatever, you get locked in.
Speaker 1: Everybody get locked in different because that's at sixty seconds
Speaker 1: on the court too, it was forty forty minute, forty
Speaker 1: eight minutes, so it's an hour, not even of time
Speaker 1: to master. You know. If you're putting into that perspective,
Speaker 1: then you know, then you want to do the best
Speaker 1: you can in that moment, you know, in that moment.
Speaker 1: So I've sort of like programmed myself over the years
Speaker 1: to just commit to that sixty seconds of time, especially
Speaker 1: I'm playing Spencer Haywood, do you least from Remember they're
Speaker 1: real people. Avon from the Wire is a real person.
Speaker 1: Ace from painting for as a real person is a
Speaker 1: real person. I met, I met all the people their families,
Speaker 1: and I met the living people, you know, So it
Speaker 1: feels like there's something, you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: do a disservice to these people, you know. So I
Speaker 1: do feel like there's pressure for me to be you know,
Speaker 1: um highly engaged. So I don't really hobnob around now
Speaker 1: that much. Even during the process where I've been shooting
Speaker 1: this lad thing we shot, We've been shooting for months now,
Speaker 1: several months. I don't feel like I can do much
Speaker 1: of anything else, saying with Broadway. On Broadway, you have
Speaker 1: to memorize the entire play, so you know, when you're
Speaker 1: doing your scenes, you're gonna come in with your day
Speaker 1: planned out. Your day is planned out and memorized, and
Speaker 1: the stuff you have memorized, like I said, it's only
Speaker 1: gonna be you know, sixty seconds of stuff. You can
Speaker 1: go do that and you can figure out everything you
Speaker 1: need for that sixty seconds and stuff. Why not? Why
Speaker 1: wouldn't you be able to do that? You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So when you're doing that, you want to
Speaker 1: highly commit yourself to it. All the processes that you
Speaker 1: already did. Your preparation matters so much, you know, So
Speaker 1: for me, I tend to just keep it to myself.
Speaker 1: Paiding full another classic, again portraying a real life person.
Speaker 1: Um what was it like working with that team of people,
Speaker 1: the people who brought the project together, dame in the crew,
Speaker 1: and again looking back on it being another culture classic,
Speaker 1: you got to go bbs is on this um Man
Speaker 1: It's just like, I'm super blessed to being all this
Speaker 1: stuff just to hear you saying it back to me.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of classic stuff, you know, paiding full.
Speaker 1: Um uh, you know it's it's it's beautiful to me,
Speaker 1: paiding full because it matters to people. Man. I just
Speaker 1: love that the stuff that we're talking about actually master
Speaker 1: people and um yeah and helps out people like walking
Speaker 1: my dog. The other day, this cat came up to me. Man,
Speaker 1: whish I could remember his name because he's gonna see
Speaker 1: this is probably like wish I would remember his name.
Speaker 1: But he came just random cat on the street and
Speaker 1: he stopped me and he was just like, man, you
Speaker 1: know you got me off the street with pay them full.
Speaker 1: And this happened to me before. You know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: the first time. But that's what I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's I'm just man, I feel blessed to be that
Speaker 1: type of personality that have an influenced like that. That's
Speaker 1: really good. Like I'm gonna do a master class in
Speaker 1: the prisons, man, tell you this, you guys just ahead
Speaker 1: of time to do this. It's gonna be filming and
Speaker 1: all that master class with the prison acting people really
Speaker 1: acting prison, which is in prison, the lowest recidivism rate
Speaker 1: is that class of people, people who engage with theater
Speaker 1: in prison. So I'm just gonna do a master class
Speaker 1: and that's beautiful because you know, Common did, what did
Speaker 1: he do? A student? What did commen do? Music studio?
Speaker 1: Music studio? And I'm gonna make sure we we we
Speaker 1: It's just gonna be dope. It's gonna be something we do.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be episodic, and make sure we make some
Speaker 1: episodes out of it because I think it could just
Speaker 1: be something important. It's gonna be fun too. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be fun because I can't wait to see I can't
Speaker 1: wait to see some of the stuff. It's gonna be dope.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be done. What was it like working with
Speaker 1: Cameron and uh mackay? Oh man, I love him. No,
Speaker 1: my bros. You know, I'm lucky to have chemistry with
Speaker 1: them cats, you know, like easy chemistry. Mcca McCay like
Speaker 1: my bro for real. I already knew McCay prior to
Speaker 1: pay them full Um. McCay helped me out in the
Speaker 1: process something I don't know if he even remembers, but
Speaker 1: early on in the process. He gave me some uh
Speaker 1: don Diva magazines and stuff because I didn't really know
Speaker 1: much about about Ace right, and I'm more easy as
Speaker 1: his real name. And so when I started learning, I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, this opportunity, this is like, this is a
Speaker 1: great opportunity. It's a real story. It's a true story. Um.
Speaker 1: Charles Stone, who directed it, had done like a lot
Speaker 1: of the trip called Quest video, so I knew the
Speaker 1: approach was going to not just be a simple approach.
Speaker 1: I knew he was gonna be an imaginative director, you know.
Speaker 1: And and then when I met a z it really sealed.
Speaker 1: It sealed the kind of they sealed the cap on
Speaker 1: it all. And then we started feeling the process of
Speaker 1: meeting camera Cameraon was in character, so you know, y'all
Speaker 1: know who the character was. So Cameraon was a character.
Speaker 1: So you know, I got stories. You know, I got
Speaker 1: a lot of gives. Come on, I want to hear
Speaker 1: some stories because he was on one in that movie.
Speaker 1: Let me see, can't tell a story. Let me go
Speaker 1: to my camera story. See if I can tell his
Speaker 1: Tarra story. Cap Puerto Rican category. What's the point of
Speaker 1: having soldiers You ain't gonna use him the story that's
Speaker 1: my dog. I respect that camera story's on this Hell no.
Speaker 1: But the process was was dope. Charles Stone the way
Speaker 1: he is, he's pretty magical director. He's seamless, like you
Speaker 1: don't feel him there. I'll tell you something that happened
Speaker 1: on the set with Cameron. There's a scene in a
Speaker 1: movie where you see we on the block New York.
Speaker 1: Camera see to do drive up and it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be drying the streets in terms of drugs. Is driving.
Speaker 1: So dude say something to camera. Camera goes to the window,
Speaker 1: still on him. So that's not scripted like that. You
Speaker 1: know he actually tagging them. Boy, oh he really he's
Speaker 1: supposed to just like he's supposed to open the door.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I mean, he ain't supposed to
Speaker 1: do that. It just says, you know, you know, gets
Speaker 1: him out of the car. Cameron, his acting was there.
Speaker 1: So that's what I mean. He was committed. He was
Speaker 1: he was He was not just being cameraon like cameeron
Speaker 1: is different than that portrayal. That was a really great
Speaker 1: portrayal of of of a character who he was supposed
Speaker 1: to be out pole. Do you realize I don't know,
Speaker 1: like like we always talked about you in the middle
Speaker 1: of it, But do you realize how many movies that
Speaker 1: are our culture classes that you're part of. I do
Speaker 1: that in these moments, but I don't. I don't do
Speaker 1: just I don't really think about it so much. That's
Speaker 1: a big part of our show we give people you
Speaker 1: don't I don't know. If you don't know, now you
Speaker 1: should know. Realize this different soundtracks that we grow up to.
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of movies that you in that's
Speaker 1: like the soundtrack to our lives. Bro, that's crazy. And
Speaker 1: you realize when I when I when I hit you
Speaker 1: the other day for the show and I put it
Speaker 1: in the chat. Jack was Jack, don't get excited for
Speaker 1: no one. We've been blessed to have everybody, and Jack
Speaker 1: he was excited to have you. And it's just like
Speaker 1: like it's really we really funk with you as a culture.
Speaker 1: And to me, like I said, I mean, obviously you
Speaker 1: get your respect, but I just think you're under ready
Speaker 1: from the standpoint of what you've done for us as
Speaker 1: a culture, you know what I mean, and not just us,
Speaker 1: just for everybody, but you know, in particularly us, it's
Speaker 1: it's just the honor to be able to you know,
Speaker 1: me getting a chance to know you. A couple of
Speaker 1: years ago and we was, you know, we was chopping
Speaker 1: up the whole tree and three shout out. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: remember I was in with Tony Jeffries and staying of
Speaker 1: Manica trying to shout out Tony. He hit me on
Speaker 1: the d M. Just some boxing training because I had
Speaker 1: to learn the training aspect of the box and not
Speaker 1: the boxer aspect. So Tony Jeffrey shout out, was working
Speaker 1: with me and Matt for a day over it like
Speaker 1: yeah here, yeah, yeah, so yeah, so that was that
Speaker 1: was then we was talking about to the whole before
Speaker 1: the whole Black Panther thing came to life with Ryan
Speaker 1: and me, and I said, I was like, what, I
Speaker 1: got an idea, I got some people, let's do this.
Speaker 1: Man and puts the whole plan and it came into
Speaker 1: fruition like all I was saying, It's like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you basically like right, verbatim, everything that didn't occur
Speaker 1: with regards to all of that, including Ryan the story. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you were definitely ahead of the head of
Speaker 1: the pack with's your idea about that. We had something
Speaker 1: but I mean it ended up working out. Definitely ended
Speaker 1: up working out. Oh, Avon Boxdal The Wire, Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I get excited about that. You know. Uh I think, Um,
Speaker 1: with me, the reason why I fell in love with
Speaker 1: The Wire and your character and the whole thing is
Speaker 1: because I grew up in that type of environment. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying that the dope game, the projects,
Speaker 1: the killing, the robbing, the setups, the backstabbing, the whole
Speaker 1: nine police all that. So when I was able to
Speaker 1: see y'all bring this to TV, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: and constantly make it real life scenarios like it was
Speaker 1: big for people and our demographic. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: How did you bring Avon boxed at it to life?
Speaker 1: And what was your thoughts? We got that role? When
Speaker 1: I got that role, um, I think the first two
Speaker 1: people that they really assigned to be like, who were
Speaker 1: who were cast with me? An interest? So no one
Speaker 1: knew interests at the time, and and I didn't either,
Speaker 1: but the casting director was so happy about we two
Speaker 1: that I was like, man, I didn't know what was
Speaker 1: going on. I had done I think remember the Titans
Speaker 1: right before that or something like that. So I was
Speaker 1: in this other state of mind. Sometimes you get involved
Speaker 1: in characters, you'd be still floating in there, in there,
Speaker 1: and they vibe you know, before you get back to
Speaker 1: your own vibe or whatever. But and so that's what
Speaker 1: took me back to my advice. More like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm from the same type of environment. So, um, I
Speaker 1: didn't know much about Baltimore. I had never really been there.
Speaker 1: But when you hear Maryland, it don't sound like no
Speaker 1: bad place, you know what I'm saying. Baltimore, Maryland done.
Speaker 1: That sounds nice. I remember thinking, Okay, I'm gonna be there.
Speaker 1: We don't shoot the wires, probably gonna be the Baltimore
Speaker 1: special special place. It needs a lot of attention, you know,
Speaker 1: like Baltimore could use some good attention in real life,
Speaker 1: in real life, I mean just the city itself. And
Speaker 1: back then for sure, when I when I was filming there,
Speaker 1: I mean, it needed like a lot of attention. Um,
Speaker 1: it was a neglected city. And so um I commuted
Speaker 1: a lot, so did Interest for some A lot of
Speaker 1: the time that we were there, commuted from New York.
Speaker 1: I think he commuted from New Jersey or something like that. Um.
Speaker 1: And uh, because when you're there, you know, Baltimore was
Speaker 1: so you just would feel like you needed to be
Speaker 1: a part of something more than television. So I needed
Speaker 1: to be in character, you know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 1: didn't need to try to be you know, activistic I am,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, so I wanted to be um.
Speaker 1: I was excited about doing a series. I had never
Speaker 1: done a series. And then no one in the cast
Speaker 1: was more famous or less famous or anything. So it
Speaker 1: was cool. We were able to just have like a
Speaker 1: real brotherliness that we still have, just um and a
Speaker 1: lot of like love for each other. I just posted
Speaker 1: a picture me and it and just putting in a
Speaker 1: wire gang for life, you know what I'm saying that
Speaker 1: Michaelang Gang Gang Gang. Yeah you dig and Hassan Johnson
Speaker 1: and Andre roy Yo. Of course my man Michael Kate
Speaker 1: would love so much and interesting all of us. You know,
Speaker 1: I just love Michael lot. Though I kind of gotta,
Speaker 1: you know, not go there too much because yeah, Michael
Speaker 1: is a special person in general, and like I said,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're closing in person with these person people,
Speaker 1: it's different than people watching five players on the court.
Speaker 1: What I was saying, they don't know, you'all talking to
Speaker 1: locker room. They don't even know you're talking in the locker.
Speaker 1: They don't even think about that. When when an athlete
Speaker 1: walks through the tunnel, ship turns the channel, it's all
Speaker 1: you know, what's next. Yeah, yeah, they don't even know that.
Speaker 1: There's the moments of unlacing the shoe, you're sitting next
Speaker 1: to your man. You do that all the time. And
Speaker 1: y'all talk about life. And so that's what's good about
Speaker 1: the Laker series that I'm doing now. It really does
Speaker 1: go into their lives. It's like it's almost like being
Speaker 1: a you know, a fly on the wall type of way. So,
Speaker 1: and its epic epically shot in film in film. So,
Speaker 1: but the wire being as trend setting and historical as
Speaker 1: it was, and that the cash you just named to
Speaker 1: not be recognized, um during these awards seasons, how tough
Speaker 1: was that for that for you guys At the time,
Speaker 1: I don't think we were even concerned about it. We
Speaker 1: just were everybody was Yeah, we were just like yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it had good feedback, but also, um, none
Speaker 1: of with from Baltimore, so you know, we all had
Speaker 1: to be in Baltimore. You know, we were just in
Speaker 1: this sort of bubble in the sense we and I
Speaker 1: think that, at least myself, I didn't really think about
Speaker 1: the show and the show. I didn't think about, um,
Speaker 1: the magnitude of something. I just was just thinking about
Speaker 1: just doing it. I wasn't thinking about what could be.
Speaker 1: I'm really never I'm never thinking about what could be
Speaker 1: from something. But what happens. It's cool to feel in
Speaker 1: the moment without, you know, giving my mind a direction.
Speaker 1: So I'm just playing that game with myself for many,
Speaker 1: for a long time, to just be able to not
Speaker 1: impregnate my my ideas, to give myself an outcome. So yeah,
Speaker 1: like but still with I mean with that saying, I
Speaker 1: respect that approach. I mean again, as we sit back
Speaker 1: and kind of listen or list what you've been a
Speaker 1: part of. I know, as athletes, we never really get
Speaker 1: a chance to really appreciate because it's always what's next,
Speaker 1: next game, next season, how many seasons we're gonna be
Speaker 1: able to play? Similar I mean, you're gonna act to
Speaker 1: you don't want to act, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: So do you it's the same, I would say that's good. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's it's much like that. You know, you where you are,
Speaker 1: you're you segregating life, Okay. The athlete is something, the
Speaker 1: artist is something different than perception. Most of the time,
Speaker 1: people don't see the totality of who we are very
Speaker 1: often at all. So so it's difficult sometimes to be
Speaker 1: able to see yourself, you know, um and really own
Speaker 1: yourself because you know, the phone makes us talk in
Speaker 1: the mirror a lot. You know, we're just talking to
Speaker 1: the mirror when you really don't talk in the mirror
Speaker 1: that much, and when you do, you catch yourself talking
Speaker 1: in the mirror. So I don't know. We live in
Speaker 1: different times though, where I like old days, you know,
Speaker 1: pay phones and ship pay phones, pay phones. But it
Speaker 1: is what it is. What about your upbringing in Chicago
Speaker 1: helped you in a few different roles that that that
Speaker 1: you've kind of mastered over your career. Any character was
Speaker 1: that was from the street. You can always tell when
Speaker 1: somebody can't hoop and they're doing a basketball player or
Speaker 1: they you know, they're really not that tough, or they're
Speaker 1: not from the street. They don't even know nobody tough
Speaker 1: and they're playing a tough guy or being some kind
Speaker 1: of street or they don't know anything about drugs or
Speaker 1: they've never been in a dark dark side of the moon.
Speaker 1: Like I said, they do not all know that that's light.
Speaker 1: And so for any roles like that, then I think,
Speaker 1: I'm I've always felt confident or what. It just gives
Speaker 1: me confidence already because I'm like, well, I'm from there,
Speaker 1: like what above the rim My brother was like, man,
Speaker 1: this is perfect for you. It's like basketball, and like
Speaker 1: you know, it's urban right street, and so the audition
Speaker 1: not to get on the way back to it, but
Speaker 1: the audition had me playing basketball at one point. And
Speaker 1: then you know actors, they some of them can play
Speaker 1: now yeah, like total trash. So like anybody who showed up,
Speaker 1: I'm flying to the literally, the director came up with me.
Speaker 1: It's like two fingers, you got the roles. Literally he uh,
Speaker 1: that's literally happy. He ran on the court because the
Speaker 1: stuff I did in the movie, I was just doing
Speaker 1: it right there because that's just how I played. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they were slopped, so I'm I'm pulling t Max
Speaker 1: off the glass literally like backing off the glass because
Speaker 1: and so he ran on the court. Then I remember
Speaker 1: going home because I lived in New York at the time.
Speaker 1: I'm on the eight train, and I just got this
Speaker 1: role in the movie. You know what I'm saying, like
Speaker 1: like like, how is this gonna be? You know? So
Speaker 1: I'm about to go tell my mom, I got this
Speaker 1: role in this movie, and you're gonna tell these people,
Speaker 1: And it's almost like it's just not real until the
Speaker 1: first check is cut, even in the pros like I
Speaker 1: went pro. But then it's very real when the first
Speaker 1: check is cut first in the fifth Yeah, it's professional
Speaker 1: when the work is there, you know. But I was
Speaker 1: just telling us. I was like nobody knew that. I
Speaker 1: was like, man, I just told you I got a movie,
Speaker 1: and nobody yeah, but damn, like damn there. And later
Speaker 1: on that day, that night, I lead a crib and
Speaker 1: go to this bodega. That so I'm putting perspective for
Speaker 1: y'all synergy of things, Right, So I lead a crib,
Speaker 1: I go to bodega, and at this time, I'm living
Speaker 1: in Midtown, New York. So I'm living up the street
Speaker 1: from where Pop got shot. Right, I lived up the
Speaker 1: street from where you got shot the first time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I live on forty nine between eight and night, right
Speaker 1: up the street. So I go to bodega who are
Speaker 1: running too Marlon Wayans. He didn't know me. I had
Speaker 1: no films at all, but he had seen me because
Speaker 1: he's been to the production office and they had my
Speaker 1: picture on the wall. So Marlin funny dude, He's I
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm sure he remembers, maybe not, but he
Speaker 1: came up to me and say, Yo, your mota in
Speaker 1: the movie. I was shocked. I was like, Yo, this
Speaker 1: is real. This is real, like running into Pete time
Speaker 1: and time again, meeting people along the way who end
Speaker 1: up actually accomplishing the goals. Like I knew Omari Hardwick
Speaker 1: a long time ago, you know, and he came up
Speaker 1: to me randomly and was like, yeah, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: about to do that. And then like two years later
Speaker 1: he was in the Uh movie with me with me,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like two years after seeing
Speaker 1: them on the street, just coming to be like you
Speaker 1: know what, And it happens a lot, and most of
Speaker 1: the time that people don't really end up you know,
Speaker 1: you don't end up seeing them two years later, and
Speaker 1: they don't end up being on the series Power and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. So it's just synergy around
Speaker 1: the whole thing that you do, like when you know what.
Speaker 1: But it always boggles my mind when I hear athletes
Speaker 1: talk about other athletes that they know growing up. That
Speaker 1: seems like the weirdest thing, like Hardened and like Westbrook together,
Speaker 1: like growing up around each other or being around each
Speaker 1: other and each other's lives. It's's it seems like so bizarre.
Speaker 1: But you guys know each other forever already. You're competing
Speaker 1: against somebody you saw a teenager, yeah before they had anything, right,
Speaker 1: And it's weird to go from I always tell especially nowadays,
Speaker 1: and it used to be so much so. But the
Speaker 1: NBA is like a lottery ticket, I mean, like a
Speaker 1: financial lot of reatis that's that's what That's what you
Speaker 1: say though, it really is a lot of yeah, like yeah,
Speaker 1: you actually hit the fucking like and some of them
Speaker 1: be mega balls, right, Cat's be getting the megaball to
Speaker 1: the hund Ship. The hunter was the weirdest thing. I
Speaker 1: don't understand how they deal with that as young people, like,
Speaker 1: because I don't think I could deal with that as
Speaker 1: a young person. I couldn't. Yeah, I wasn't even making
Speaker 1: that much and I couldn't deal with it. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I would do I don't mean, I just
Speaker 1: couldn't imagine being with that much money. Sixty million, eighty million,
Speaker 1: hundred million years old, just try one at the nineteen
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. I was back to the Wire. As you say,
Speaker 1: you've played a lot of real life characters. How important
Speaker 1: was it you for you and the rest of the
Speaker 1: cast to embody like you said, no one was from Baltimore.
Speaker 1: How important with it to body that? The essence and
Speaker 1: in the grind of Baltimore, I mean, very very important.
Speaker 1: But the essence of it came from the writing. Because
Speaker 1: when you when you watch The Wire, you're almost seeing
Speaker 1: a verbatim. You know, a lot of it is exactly
Speaker 1: the script. You know, at least for me, it's exactly
Speaker 1: the script all the time. When you see me and something,
Speaker 1: it's probably exactly the script. You know. So um, I'm sure, um,
Speaker 1: you know, other characters do other things. But for the
Speaker 1: most part, the writing is the essence of it. It's
Speaker 1: so well written by David Simon and so well directed
Speaker 1: by really the crew. Not necessarily the directors rotate on
Speaker 1: a TV series. It's not typical to have one director
Speaker 1: for the entire series is rare. I think, true to
Speaker 1: Detective did that season when they had one director for
Speaker 1: the entire season the HBO show a true detective, but um,
Speaker 1: typically another director, another director. You've got ten episodes, you
Speaker 1: might have five directors or maybe you have ten directors, uh,
Speaker 1: depending on the contract that each director has. So on
Speaker 1: the wire m essence is really it's well done in
Speaker 1: all those ways, all the technical ways. Is the essences
Speaker 1: in the script, the words himself. Um. They lived at
Speaker 1: David Simon was writing in Baltimore. He created part of
Speaker 1: the creation with the corner, so they knew that stuff
Speaker 1: extremely well. They knew the ins and outs of it,
Speaker 1: um like anybody else. They knew the in they out
Speaker 1: perfectly new knew something. And so I give it up
Speaker 1: to them because they they they gave us that material,
Speaker 1: you know, um, and then they gave us a lot
Speaker 1: of freedom to because sometimes you do a series, and
Speaker 1: especially when people know it's really good, a lot of
Speaker 1: chiefs come out one of take like they just want
Speaker 1: to be a part of this good thing, you know.
Speaker 1: But it never really happened like that in my case. Um.
Speaker 1: It was always just um family, Like it's just it's
Speaker 1: a it's a real cool experience, you know, you're able
Speaker 1: to be yourself when I say family, you should be
Speaker 1: able to be itself at home, you know. So when
Speaker 1: I say family, I mean like that where you know,
Speaker 1: it just could act like ites Wood could be Wood. No,
Speaker 1: there's no um energy of celebrity. So he goes what's
Speaker 1: it like to see a young Michael B. Jordan's and
Speaker 1: then to see kind of follow his career and see
Speaker 1: him blossom into the actor yes today Just amazing man,
Speaker 1: just amazing man. And the person that he is in
Speaker 1: genuine genuine yeah. More importantly, like you know, no one
Speaker 1: deserves that more than somebody like him, a personality like his,
Speaker 1: and Mike is the genuine great person a great guy.
Speaker 1: Um watching him like mature, it's just amazing. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, he was on the wire, so I think
Speaker 1: mikel was maybe sixteen maybe sixteen, I think on the
Speaker 1: wire maybe fifteen something like that. And he's got like
Speaker 1: laser focus, So you know, if somebody had a superpower
Speaker 1: his focus, he's able to just like focus. I think
Speaker 1: as a young person too, especially as a sixteen year old.
Speaker 1: And when I say that, I mean because he could
Speaker 1: he could say and he's humble enough to be like
Speaker 1: all right, like you like a big bro. You interest
Speaker 1: you all my big bros. That's it. That's two big,
Speaker 1: cool big bros to have because interests his own self too.
Speaker 1: And I'm my own self. I'm not gonna be act
Speaker 1: like nobody else. It muld be me, and that's it.
Speaker 1: That's nothing. There's nothing else to be. So watching him
Speaker 1: become the sexiest man, watching him be you know, suited up,
Speaker 1: watching them be have such incredible I mean, I think
Speaker 1: the largest success you can kind of have in in
Speaker 1: in the world, at least in acting and film, in
Speaker 1: film and television. It's just awesome. You know, it's just awesome.
Speaker 1: If I didn't know him at all, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: damn stud got a lot going on. But knowing him
Speaker 1: and being able to see it all, it's just special.
Speaker 1: And then if you know him, you guys, I'm sure
Speaker 1: y'all met him. If not, he's down the earth, regular guy,
Speaker 1: just a regular guy with all that stuff to his
Speaker 1: in his treasure chest. You know, I would never know,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't really know, genuinely humble, well raised individual. Mm
Speaker 1: hmm BMF Pat. It's another good show, uh, you know.
Speaker 1: Executive produced by fifty Um Talk to us a little
Speaker 1: bit about what drew you to that role, and just
Speaker 1: you know what you knew about BMF going into the situation.
Speaker 1: I knew about BMF going to to the situation just
Speaker 1: over the years because it's notorious and we all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I didn't know in depth. I knew the names,
Speaker 1: I knew the activities. I didn't know a lot of
Speaker 1: the stories. I didn't know about Pat. You know, I
Speaker 1: didn't know a Pat character. Um, I'm from Chicago near Detroit.
Speaker 1: And then it's kind of a built in rivalry we have,
Speaker 1: so you know, we won't be checking for their gangsters
Speaker 1: like that. We've got enough gangs in Chicago of our own,
Speaker 1: you know. So I never was um drawing to go
Speaker 1: like in depth and learn more about being f F F
Speaker 1: until I got this situation. Well, well, maybe want to
Speaker 1: do it? My brothers in it number one. Just the
Speaker 1: first time you guys got to work together on on
Speaker 1: the project. It's not the first time we worked together.
Speaker 1: It's the first time like this where we're opposing each
Speaker 1: other's We actually played brothers before on a TV series
Speaker 1: called Justified. Um yeah, Justified, I think that's what's called.
Speaker 1: But um, so, working with my brother working with Fifty,
Speaker 1: who I'm friends with um At the time, I I
Speaker 1: was looking to have some work to do with fifty
Speaker 1: because people talk to me a lot. How come you
Speaker 1: ain't do you know, nothing with fifty in power and
Speaker 1: all they want to see me just be gangster, gangster gangsting.
Speaker 1: Well it's just like, I just don't want to do
Speaker 1: that so much, you know. But this opportunity I thought
Speaker 1: was a good opportunity to do something different with a
Speaker 1: gangster personality. You know, after a while, you know, you
Speaker 1: just be doing the same stuff, you know, And I'm
Speaker 1: not interested in I mean, it's true story, so you
Speaker 1: can it's going to be a different person, you know,
Speaker 1: But if it's a fictional gangster story, I'm not so
Speaker 1: interested in it necessarily. You know. I got like an
Speaker 1: email that just got gangster scripts in it. So don't
Speaker 1: want to let you know what I'm saying exactly, so
Speaker 1: you know, but but but but but no, But I
Speaker 1: love I mean, I love that world. I would rather
Speaker 1: still do that than to be playing like the good
Speaker 1: guys sort of speak, because it's definitely more fun to
Speaker 1: portray the bad guy. Definitely, it's just more fun, more
Speaker 1: fun to be the bad guy in real life is
Speaker 1: more fun to portray the bad guy in real life
Speaker 1: fifty getting involved. I knew that, you know, it would um,
Speaker 1: it would be cool to be around fifty fifties energies,
Speaker 1: a real building energy, you know, Um, at least with me,
Speaker 1: you know of a good friendship with him, and and
Speaker 1: Tasha Smith who who who is a producer and directed
Speaker 1: at all. So she actually I've known her from a
Speaker 1: long time too, So I knew all the people involved.
Speaker 1: And that's when I spoke to him. Russell Hornsby, who's
Speaker 1: his places father on the show. I just knew all
Speaker 1: the people. So it was a no brainer in the sense,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, yeah, I like it. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: what the third the third episode just dropped. Um, you
Speaker 1: mentioned something in port important and I wanted to touch
Speaker 1: on it. And you've been type cast on me into
Speaker 1: the bad way, but you just played a lot of
Speaker 1: streets legend gangster roles. Do you ever get tired of it?
Speaker 1: Or is it hard for you to step out of
Speaker 1: that role and be seen in a different light earlier
Speaker 1: on in your career? Now you're obviously you're proven, but
Speaker 1: was it was it hard to get out of that
Speaker 1: lane at all. Um, I don't know, you know, I
Speaker 1: like I, Um, I'm I'm so in my own bubble
Speaker 1: that I just never really engaged with the idea of
Speaker 1: me so much. So I'm just now engaging with the
Speaker 1: idea of how I'm perceived, you know. So I don't
Speaker 1: really watch the stuff I'm in. I don't really interesting
Speaker 1: listen to. So, you know, my bubble is like not
Speaker 1: a bubble. It was more like a force field, you know,
Speaker 1: because I like anonymity. Here's the thing, you're famous, I'm famous,
Speaker 1: or we're known out here visibly, known by our face alone.
Speaker 1: And that's just no anonymity. There's a negative to it
Speaker 1: to me. Some people like it because they want to
Speaker 1: be on the red carpets and ship like that, but
Speaker 1: I don't, you know, I don't want to be on it,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. So it just made me a lot
Speaker 1: more reclusive than I probably would have been if I
Speaker 1: wasn't a famous or recognizable face. I don't even like
Speaker 1: saying it. I don't like saying it, you know. I'm
Speaker 1: self conscious about that, you know. And when Mike, when
Speaker 1: Mike died, I realized something. I'm here now and I'm
Speaker 1: able to be typically, I don't even know if I
Speaker 1: could even do this stuff. I'm more nervous doing this
Speaker 1: than I am my job, you know, because I um,
Speaker 1: I'm just talking about me, and I don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about me. I just don't. I don't. But Mike,
Speaker 1: maybe I realized that Mike live with like a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of uplifted energy and spirit that uplifted
Speaker 1: like he could go to like Mike Kay Williams I'm
Speaker 1: talking about, he could go to like a park in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: random Park. They got the music plan and just sort
Speaker 1: of dance with everybody, And they made me realize that
Speaker 1: I'm kind of like an ostrich and essential where you know,
Speaker 1: you stick your hand in the ground. You don't realize
Speaker 1: your body is out anyway. Bro, I can't. You can't,
Speaker 1: like you can't be Your anonymity is something that has
Speaker 1: gone for real. It's like a death. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I um, it just makes me a lot more reclusive
Speaker 1: and I'm not the hot. I just like the way
Speaker 1: it feels to be not famous, that's all. But you can't.
Speaker 1: You can't undo, you can't und, you can't become. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't undo it, especially me. I don't even I'm
Speaker 1: tatted on people, and it's remarkable how um much stuff
Speaker 1: is of me, you know, to me, people send me
Speaker 1: me tatted on them, like tons of it. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not me, it's the character though, I understand, but
Speaker 1: still me that on that face, let it face. So
Speaker 1: you know that gets to me. So I just ignore it.
Speaker 1: So I'm better off because of it makes me feel
Speaker 1: just like I felt when I was eighteen and unfamous
Speaker 1: until somebody had the red light of saying something to
Speaker 1: me or I'm doing an interview. I really I don't
Speaker 1: really think about it, you know, I try not to
Speaker 1: at this point in your career. Anyone else you still
Speaker 1: want to work with it you haven't worked with yet? Uh,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a lot of people, you know. I Um,
Speaker 1: I can't think of anyone off the top, you know
Speaker 1: that I would definitely just I mean, I always want
Speaker 1: to work with a lot of different talent. I'm not
Speaker 1: work with like somebody like Sean Penn is just amazing. Uh.
Speaker 1: I'm a Lawrence Fishburn. I work with Lawrence Fishburn in
Speaker 1: one capacity, but I would like to work with him
Speaker 1: what's another in another way? Lawrence Take he's a friend
Speaker 1: of mine. I mean, these people are my friends, you know,
Speaker 1: lawrenz is and so I would like to work with
Speaker 1: Lawns and Mackay again. See what we did come up
Speaker 1: with again? Um. I like to work with Charles Stone again,
Speaker 1: see where we come up with something different to show range?
Speaker 1: You know, Um, I can't think of any too many
Speaker 1: more individuals. I mean Jeffrey Wright, don Cheatle. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: love all those guys. I love them, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. They they show you the spirit of like um,
Speaker 1: they keep the high energy up and make you want
Speaker 1: to be good and great at what you do. So
Speaker 1: I like I like them a lot. We want to
Speaker 1: work with those cats. Do you think it's possible to
Speaker 1: do a reboot of Above the Rim, a West Coast
Speaker 1: version of that? Or is that the idea you are
Speaker 1: you topping off on you popping off bang bang bang
Speaker 1: something going on? Do you think this? Uh? Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: it's all about how you do it. How it's done.
Speaker 1: It's done, Yeah, how it's done definitely, because imagine, like
Speaker 1: you get me so easy to do, Like Kendrick is
Speaker 1: dope as Kendrick was dope or power. Actually he was
Speaker 1: Kendrick is a dope being Yeah, dope. If you can
Speaker 1: get Kindrick do something, do it be birtie Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then yeah I got Kendrick doing that, that would be
Speaker 1: dope and just crafted up, make it up dope. That
Speaker 1: sounds pretty cool. You should work on that. So what's
Speaker 1: it like a normal you know, we have our routines
Speaker 1: as and you kind of test us a little bit
Speaker 1: as athletes for the game day is like for us.
Speaker 1: You know, for me, I would go to shoot around,
Speaker 1: I come home, smuggle joint, taking that shower, go to
Speaker 1: a game. What's up? What's a work day for you?
Speaker 1: Days to be so long, you know, like um shooting
Speaker 1: schedules to be you know, minimum of twelve hours. So
Speaker 1: when covid um it's extended to more like thirteen and
Speaker 1: a half hours because you have to get test every
Speaker 1: day and you have to wait for an hour of test.
Speaker 1: So like say if you've got a five o'clock call,
Speaker 1: now you've got like a three five am, maybe like
Speaker 1: four and an hour or so. So it ain't no life,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like a life. You know, like
Speaker 1: it's just that you just do that. You just go home.
Speaker 1: I'll be wired. I pretty much juiced up on four hours,
Speaker 1: so I try to get in a light life and
Speaker 1: two hours or whatever. Yeah, but that's it don't work
Speaker 1: so well. Yeah, I go watch you motherfucker's and watch
Speaker 1: a few different things and try to catch up in
Speaker 1: life and what it's like. Yeah, so so so I
Speaker 1: watched mostly sports document reason stuff, so I go find
Speaker 1: out what's going on Eastpans and sho didn't go to sleep. Man,
Speaker 1: that's really it. What was your favorite role as far
Speaker 1: m That's hard. I don't know. I don't no, Man,
Speaker 1: that's a hard one too. It is hard to answer.
Speaker 1: I don't think I had a favorite one, but I
Speaker 1: think probably like that Jimmy Hendricks thing was dope because
Speaker 1: it's just so off kilter. Even when I hear myself said,
Speaker 1: it's like, damn, I can't believe I did that right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I played guitar left handed. I learned a
Speaker 1: lot from Jimmy Hendricks. So I met his father, met
Speaker 1: his his uh sister, his brother um, I mean not
Speaker 1: SI to his niece, his brother UM. Just to have
Speaker 1: anything to do with that part is really the most
Speaker 1: interesting thing I think about me because it makes sense
Speaker 1: for you to see me in above the rim, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't really make sense for you to see me
Speaker 1: as Jimmy Hill. And then that process was dope. Like
Speaker 1: I said, I learned the guitar. Um, I mad secluded
Speaker 1: myself and I got to rent it this little house
Speaker 1: and lost feelers and just at the bottom of this
Speaker 1: damn hill, I just was in there my fucking loan,
Speaker 1: just yeah, zoning out, trying to figure out Jimmy his
Speaker 1: without the drugs. Is so much drug folklore about him,
Speaker 1: and then come learn the truth. He wasn't really know
Speaker 1: drug head like that, but at that area he was
Speaker 1: a typical person, that's all. But being a rock and
Speaker 1: roll figure, then that was amplified, you know. Media wise,
Speaker 1: it was sort of blowing out. All the rocksters were
Speaker 1: blown out to be sort of like drug heads. And
Speaker 1: when I learned he wasn't just no incredible drug head
Speaker 1: like they spread that information, m false information. Um. I
Speaker 1: really got into him a lot, you know. Um, so
Speaker 1: he really changed my life. I'm already a musical person,
Speaker 1: so he made me even more musical. Um yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm lyrical. He makes me lyrical with a delivery and
Speaker 1: a role, So I like, I'll see a role in
Speaker 1: now at this level, I'll be trying to be lyrical,
Speaker 1: you know, like rather than just to say the lines,
Speaker 1: you can say the lines and meet it and you
Speaker 1: still can sound good. But intonation going up and down range,
Speaker 1: voice tone, just architecture of a role, taking these notes,
Speaker 1: driving jam right, and I think it's I think it's
Speaker 1: stages of that. Like I don't think that's necessary. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm having just fun doing it, but that's not necessary.
Speaker 1: You know, you can just catch the feeling of the
Speaker 1: lines and deliver the line. It'll have the lyric in
Speaker 1: it because you know you could feel the lines, but
Speaker 1: you also have a great control if you're able to
Speaker 1: do that within the line though precisely so you want
Speaker 1: to be able to do that, like if there was
Speaker 1: a story about y'all that two cats had to go
Speaker 1: do move and act this out right, be y'all on
Speaker 1: the set and just be y'all. Right now, it's a
Speaker 1: way to be you. It sounds like you in a
Speaker 1: way to sound like you, that's very um. You don't
Speaker 1: have to wing it. In other words, you know, I
Speaker 1: can sound like you. You can study us. I can
Speaker 1: study you, and I can talk like you because you
Speaker 1: know you when when you try to invitate you, I
Speaker 1: don't want to do it. I can invitate you bother
Speaker 1: I would be off. But take a person like Godfree,
Speaker 1: who I grew up with god Godfrey from Chicago to
Speaker 1: I've known Godfrey super talent to childhood. Right, so um uh,
Speaker 1: it's kind of what he's doing. You know, he's able
Speaker 1: to catch the speed that you talk. You talk fast?
Speaker 1: Do you know? You talk fast? Man? You do, and
Speaker 1: you still slow slow, try to do so much and
Speaker 1: trying to slow down. It just don't work. Oh this
Speaker 1: is the slow. I gotta smoke more. He's like, but
Speaker 1: you talk and it's not just fast. You have um
Speaker 1: distinct patterns to the way you speak. So when you talk,
Speaker 1: you might say like, so when you was doing this thing,
Speaker 1: but I can hear like put the word behind that.
Speaker 1: After a while I'll be talking like you. But so
Speaker 1: you can um insane with you, you know you just
Speaker 1: first I would just see what rhythmically you sounded like,
Speaker 1: because you have a cadence that you know, it's a
Speaker 1: drum that you go to both of y'all, So find
Speaker 1: that and then I know how y'all are as individuals.
Speaker 1: So I can understand beyond the technical part, so I
Speaker 1: can lay it back now, to lay it back and
Speaker 1: not just be a generic version of mad or generic
Speaker 1: version of you or caricature of you. I could probably
Speaker 1: be a lot more genuine to you and the process
Speaker 1: and feel good about it. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So which character you know? Obviously? Picking you? You said, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: But picking one is hard. What character you still recognize
Speaker 1: the most part? Would you say, Uh, that's probably um
Speaker 1: Ace's it probably Ace? Or if it's not Aces, then
Speaker 1: a Von. But I would think it would probably be
Speaker 1: Ace only because of the tattoos and carpets and furniture
Speaker 1: and t shirts and there's so much stuff Jim shoes
Speaker 1: and there's so much stuff on that to be surprised.
Speaker 1: It has a whole universe that the wire has. But
Speaker 1: it's different. It's just different current NBA. What teams are
Speaker 1: you watching? Players you checking out while I'm watching I'm
Speaker 1: watching everything now, So I'm watching all the early stuff
Speaker 1: that I can. You know, man, I'm a mellow fan
Speaker 1: East Coast mellow, young mellow, young mellow. He's pretty cold
Speaker 1: blooded to me. I like, I'm He's like, you must
Speaker 1: see I think John maranis must see in terms of
Speaker 1: young fellas. Um, it's a lot of critical stuff going
Speaker 1: on in NBA. I mean critical to meaning stuff you
Speaker 1: can criticize and talk about. Not that it's urgent because
Speaker 1: it's basketball. How urgent could it be? But it is
Speaker 1: critical in terms of Brooklyn and nets So I wanted
Speaker 1: to see that team and what they mature to be.
Speaker 1: It looks like they won't have Kyrie, so it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a different thing going on over there for the
Speaker 1: most part, at least for now. Um, the Lakers lost
Speaker 1: every I think preseason games, so that don't feel good.
Speaker 1: You know. I know that they're they're all veterans and
Speaker 1: all you guys probably yeah, we don't give it. They're
Speaker 1: gonna be amazing. But from a fans standpoint, you're like, man,
Speaker 1: you know, every game though, every game because Kobe, Shack,
Speaker 1: Karme Alon and Gary Payton is a super duper team
Speaker 1: too older, is that gonna happen? So my head is like,
Speaker 1: is that gonna happen? I don't think Lebron will let
Speaker 1: that happen because I just think that I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm curious about the team now because
Speaker 1: history repeace itself too. If you believe that, then here
Speaker 1: we go again. As far as shock, Karme, Alon, Gary
Speaker 1: Payton and the great, this ain't this ain't this is
Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant. This is put six to you on you, Kobe.
Speaker 1: And they didn't have no success so and we know
Speaker 1: it when the talent that made the success not happened
Speaker 1: because Karl Malone. He who can stop Karl Malone? I'm
Speaker 1: not even talking about Kobe bron who could stop Karl
Speaker 1: Malone like he was a monster? Great defense. Look at
Speaker 1: that team defensively. I don't know what's gonna happen with
Speaker 1: the Lakers. I am rooting. I am rooting for them.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm living out here. I'm rooting for them.
Speaker 1: I'm a Bulls fan because I'm from Chicago. That's what
Speaker 1: my heart is. I love the way the Bulls look.
Speaker 1: Zoe looks so good and and he played like it's
Speaker 1: bro like he I think Zoe like he got all this,
Speaker 1: He got everything that both his brothers have. He's the older,
Speaker 1: he got everything they have. But he's utility. He uses
Speaker 1: I think his head differently. If he click over a
Speaker 1: little mellow, a little zone more free doing it now,
Speaker 1: playing like his little bree who got a license from
Speaker 1: Jordan to do whatever. Stop it already, bro stopping mellow
Speaker 1: is amazing. Yeah, and the young I guess the young
Speaker 1: boy didn't make that. I mean the middle kid didn't
Speaker 1: make that with his name. Yeah, but he called too though,
Speaker 1: like he's cold. All these guys are the best people
Speaker 1: in the world. Um, you know what he's saying, Man,
Speaker 1: are you growing up? And everybody make it? Everybody can't
Speaker 1: go gee. Everybody can't go gee. I don't think you
Speaker 1: gonna make it. You don't think I don't gonna make it.
Speaker 1: Let's not put that. He needed gy out there, bro
Speaker 1: keep it low, okay, didn't all right up over here?
Speaker 1: It's okay. He got a chance one more, one more
Speaker 1: good run if you don't happen after he was getting
Speaker 1: like he got sixteen in the precede. I think you
Speaker 1: get to a certain point. I think he should make
Speaker 1: one more hard pushing and then after that because he
Speaker 1: can make a lot of money over Okay, well yeah,
Speaker 1: but I can see that when I feel but they're
Speaker 1: still going in the exhaust all options here. First to me,
Speaker 1: I think he has one more good run. I think
Speaker 1: he was close to actually making you know, at least
Speaker 1: making the roster, but obviously he didn't. But yeah, I've
Speaker 1: seen a lot of people average twenty in summer League.
Speaker 1: Don't get on the NBA corp why though, see the
Speaker 1: politics don't be there. Numbers is called the numbers game.
Speaker 1: I got caught up in the numbers game before pretty
Speaker 1: what do you mean by that numbers? Put it like this,
Speaker 1: I got signed with the Spurs. I deserve to be playing, right,
Speaker 1: but you have Steve Smith, Steve Kerr. All these veterans
Speaker 1: are saying the number it's a numbers game, like many
Speaker 1: play already deserved. But where do you fit in? Right?
Speaker 1: You sit on the angel list the whole year and
Speaker 1: wate your turn and how much money do there? And
Speaker 1: then once you said just you say you sit on
Speaker 1: the bench the whole year. You might not get an
Speaker 1: opportunity next year, you know what I'm saying. So a
Speaker 1: lot of people get caught up in the numbers game.
Speaker 1: A lot of guys that belong in the NBA that
Speaker 1: could be nice and NBA chance, you never got that tunity.
Speaker 1: That's just a lot of brothers that just like a
Speaker 1: lot of brothers, I know in the pan that could
Speaker 1: have played in the league. I know at least three
Speaker 1: guys from my neighborhood that went to jail that could
Speaker 1: have played the league, at least three. It's it's hard
Speaker 1: to get into the NBA or into professional period things
Speaker 1: in life, Like, I don't know what what profession is
Speaker 1: it easy to get into that's legal? I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's not life changing, yeah, not life changing and not
Speaker 1: where you can amass any kind of wealth, right. I
Speaker 1: think you made a great point earlier though. But because
Speaker 1: it's a professional and something, whether it be acting, rapping, singing, sports,
Speaker 1: we make it that look easy, but we make it
Speaker 1: look doable so everyone thinks they can step in and
Speaker 1: being after all, I can play with them and realize
Speaker 1: you get on the court and you can't dribble. You know,
Speaker 1: all they see is the glitz, and I mean when
Speaker 1: they see it, they see just what they see something finished. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they always see is the you know, the shiny ship.
Speaker 1: And that's what people want to show for the most
Speaker 1: party show. You know, listen to the the NBA literally the
Speaker 1: fashion show before the god damn game. Excuse my French.
Speaker 1: It's a fashion show and it's great for the players
Speaker 1: because now that branding is amazing in the NBA. If
Speaker 1: I could choose to be any kind of athlete, of
Speaker 1: course it would be NBA. But I think if football
Speaker 1: players be feeling that way, like most of them feel
Speaker 1: that way, because look how it's set up, the NBA
Speaker 1: is good to the athlete as far as that goes.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all it's a limit to good sports
Speaker 1: ownership thing football, baseball, basketball, But the NBA is pretty
Speaker 1: damn awesome in terms of the ability to brand out
Speaker 1: even a look. When the bubble happened, lesser known players emerged,
Speaker 1: that stop because the big boys, the big boys already,
Speaker 1: that's how dope it was. Come on, man, and then
Speaker 1: and then the guy twelfth on the bench got an
Speaker 1: m Listen, man, where that's right? It's more. They got
Speaker 1: more than Dr j mm hmmm, the last player on
Speaker 1: the bench, Come on to dr j Crazy players we
Speaker 1: never heard of made more than the greats, some of
Speaker 1: the greats even um. I remember when I heard they said,
Speaker 1: uh what they said they said? I remember it was
Speaker 1: announced that Magic Johnson was getting a million dollars twenty years,
Speaker 1: twenty year, twenty million dollar dayal or something like that.
Speaker 1: Getting a million a year old everybody. It was like
Speaker 1: five years later Shot got a hundred and twenty MS.
Speaker 1: Then it was like whoa, that was the game him
Speaker 1: and Kevin Garnett. That's when it became so much about
Speaker 1: y'all's money, because before they don't give me, who care
Speaker 1: and nobody would care about y'all. Now there's care about it.
Speaker 1: That's different than interests. They care about your money. Not
Speaker 1: fair really, but um, that's something y'all have to deal
Speaker 1: with because it's a lot of money and this is
Speaker 1: a capitalist country and so you guys are small business.
Speaker 1: Business is donna make a million dollars a year? Your
Speaker 1: favorite business didn't make a million dollars, you know, just
Speaker 1: just like you touched on your side. You know how
Speaker 1: we make it normal. You know. On another note, like
Speaker 1: with trauma and in our neighborhoods, you know we deal
Speaker 1: with so much. We make that look normal too. That's true,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. That's why that's why people
Speaker 1: don't make a big deal. I was like, y'all've been
Speaker 1: dealing with it so long, and y'all don't make it
Speaker 1: look like a big deal. Why y'all complain so much. No,
Speaker 1: because we deal with it so much as we see
Speaker 1: it every day. It's normal the trauma that we go
Speaker 1: through every day. You know what I'm saying, that's the
Speaker 1: same thing. It isn't We have to normalize it to
Speaker 1: make to bear it like to bear exactly, be arrested
Speaker 1: by the traumatic thing. That's when you know, we see
Speaker 1: the people arrested by trauma. They show trauma, they show damage.
Speaker 1: Most people who can cope, I just don't want to
Speaker 1: show damage, so they can at least manage to not
Speaker 1: be looking damaged in around people. So we deal with trauma,
Speaker 1: but we haven't as a black culture goes. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of work to be done in it's complicated. So
Speaker 1: we don't have um an answer or any answers. So
Speaker 1: so it's difficult. You know, the thing is to make money.
Speaker 1: One thing is to make money. So and it's easier
Speaker 1: said that done when it's millionaires sitting on microphones and
Speaker 1: people watching us, you know, you know, and that's all
Speaker 1: they could because they count the money now, count the
Speaker 1: money now where even with me, they count you'all's money.
Speaker 1: So and they care. It's part of their fantasy to
Speaker 1: to at least be vicarious through the athletes, you know.
Speaker 1: So because you can't just become a basketball player. You
Speaker 1: can become an actor and you know you might not
Speaker 1: end up would or might not end up interest or
Speaker 1: Denzel Washington or whoever, but you can sort of get
Speaker 1: in there and do extra work and find and get
Speaker 1: a couple of speaking roles and not you. I mean
Speaker 1: when I say you, I'm talking in general. But you
Speaker 1: can't just become a basketball player. A lot of things
Speaker 1: got to go on your favor. Yeah, you need a
Speaker 1: lot of things, Yeah, a lot, especially nowadays, Like I
Speaker 1: don't know how they make it without being giants. So
Speaker 1: I don't understand how you even make it without being
Speaker 1: a giant. Little boys gone to you can have a
Speaker 1: big following. Now, that's true. See what I'm saying these days.
Speaker 1: That's some other stuff though. That's having a viral presence
Speaker 1: and having like these kids are big enough. That's not
Speaker 1: the same prime you do. You see someone that reminds
Speaker 1: you of your game in the league, in the league,
Speaker 1: I want to hear this. I show this because you
Speaker 1: throw you showed play like MJ. Your whole game. You're dogs.
Speaker 1: I modeled off the MJ because yeah, yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't say prime. I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: of something that you know, I was watching all the
Speaker 1: different I just watching the movie. I was watching the game,
Speaker 1: and that's Rutgers. Those are real realms, those real rims.
Speaker 1: There real rims. But um on the West side, let's
Speaker 1: see who we had. I'm gonna get back to that.
Speaker 1: I remember at the park one time I played against
Speaker 1: another pro. He end up a pro, but it was
Speaker 1: Nick Anderson and the young Nick Anderson, Like I thought,
Speaker 1: I was, you know, yeah, but I still had the ego.
Speaker 1: But the young people don't really realize until everybody thinks
Speaker 1: that they can go and play y'all and play to
Speaker 1: you guys. And it's another story, man, if you have
Speaker 1: an ego, ego crushing to see somebody so much better
Speaker 1: than you. Even though at that point I wasn't. I
Speaker 1: was like, I just I feel like I could get there,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean as a basketball player. But um,
Speaker 1: in the league now, I mean you say now right
Speaker 1: now or in general period. I mean I'm modeled myself
Speaker 1: out to Michael Jordan just in terms of just in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, you know, just um, I want
Speaker 1: to be just the best. So that's like Mike. So
Speaker 1: I just want to be the best. So so I'm
Speaker 1: like Michael Jordan's in basketball since um yeah, I play
Speaker 1: like Mike. I just want to be like Mike because
Speaker 1: we grew up Chicago. You've seen all the home games.
Speaker 1: I saw the maturation of Michael Jordan. Yeah w g
Speaker 1: and you've seeing all the You've seen I'm seeing all
Speaker 1: the local all all the games, so you know, um man,
Speaker 1: So I just love Ai because what I love about
Speaker 1: Alan Abbinson is everything I do. I love everything about Alans.
Speaker 1: You guys already got a chance to spend some time together.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I tell you. Let me tell you.
Speaker 1: I don't have a story. One day, I'm in New York.
Speaker 1: There's a quick story, quick with quickly, Okay, I'm in
Speaker 1: New York, right, I forgot what I'm working and working
Speaker 1: on something. But I'm telling I'm in New York City too,
Speaker 1: something in Manhat proper Manhattan. I'm in a hotel. One
Speaker 1: of my homies. We're about to get on the block, right,
Speaker 1: so we did. We're gonna We're walking down the street
Speaker 1: and you know, it's New York. So we're walking you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So I see this little area.
Speaker 1: They got this caution tape up. They got the men
Speaker 1: on one side of the street. It's kind of thugged
Speaker 1: out too. They get the men on one side of
Speaker 1: the street and the women on the other side. Though
Speaker 1: something had happened, right, This is a while ago to
Speaker 1: AI was in the league. This is not this is
Speaker 1: AI being in the least. It's a long time ago. Um.
Speaker 1: So I see I see the little security dude inside
Speaker 1: the point, inside the club, and it's it's it's caution
Speaker 1: tape all in the club and ship we're walking by.
Speaker 1: I see the fly. I picked it up. It's supposed
Speaker 1: to be an Allen Iverson party, right, So I'm like
Speaker 1: it was probably, but is it really? Or they're throwing
Speaker 1: them other name on some ship, pulling in the crowd,
Speaker 1: and you know what I'm saying, And get the money now.
Speaker 1: They cleared the club out. The fight happened. They cleared
Speaker 1: the club out. No, Allen Ibinson, who cares? We got
Speaker 1: all these people. So I see the security dude. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to keep game. I go ask him what's the game? Though? Bro?
Speaker 1: He knows who I am, you know, what I'm says.
Speaker 1: He recognized his So what's the game? Does this is
Speaker 1: this fake ship? Because you know I'm gonna keep it pushing.
Speaker 1: But is this fake? It's policing the policing there and everything, right,
Speaker 1: So he said no, this was really Alan Iverson man,
Speaker 1: this and that. So okay, cool, I leave me in
Speaker 1: the homie league. We did. We're walking down the street.
Speaker 1: When we get to the corner, I forget we're like
Speaker 1: on twenty three and something. We get to the corner,
Speaker 1: stretched white jag, right, it's a I. He dipped the
Speaker 1: window because I had met him before. Um, I want
Speaker 1: a reboked thing that I did. Um I did this
Speaker 1: rebok campaign with photo shoots and stuff. So I met
Speaker 1: him briefly before, so you know AI dipped the window
Speaker 1: down Boom boom wood. This isn't that yo. I jumped
Speaker 1: in the whip with him. So now we're chilling. We're
Speaker 1: driving when we kicked back, so I tell them as
Speaker 1: soon as I get in there, I was like, yo, man,
Speaker 1: caution taping that mother, that's it dead over there. Like
Speaker 1: we drove by, We've seen the crowd all like it was,
Speaker 1: and we gets kept it pushing, right, So we end
Speaker 1: up driving around city of New York for like a while.
Speaker 1: I just talking, talking, talking, talking talk, chopping it up right,
Speaker 1: you know, and so and just having a good time
Speaker 1: and put you like that, having a good time. So
Speaker 1: he take me back to the crea. I go back
Speaker 1: to the hotel. Now it's probably like two in the morning,
Speaker 1: you know, it might be two thirty three in the morning.
Speaker 1: I go in the crib, I mean in the in
Speaker 1: the in the town boom. I watched a little tier
Speaker 1: false slip. I wake up. He on TV now right,
Speaker 1: they're playing Jason Kidd. He playing the nets. I think yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it was yeah, yeah, because he was only
Speaker 1: in New York chilling, not playing the knicks, but playing
Speaker 1: the nets. So he over the he over the water
Speaker 1: now playing the nets. So it's the Ai with the
Speaker 1: dark circles and the hair ain't done right. So I
Speaker 1: know that AI now when you see and the hair
Speaker 1: ain't done right. He might have had a good time.
Speaker 1: You might have had a good time to night before. Right,
Speaker 1: So we had a good time. But he put forty
Speaker 1: three and twelve. He had forty three and twelve, he
Speaker 1: had That's my story. He had forty three and twelve.
Speaker 1: If don't go out and have a good time, he
Speaker 1: might not play good. That's got his routine has to
Speaker 1: be the same. He just different, bro, It's super different
Speaker 1: but different. I ran into Ai when I was in
Speaker 1: Philly to shooting Creed um one I think, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I ran into him at the hotel. He liked to
Speaker 1: hit the casino sometime and all that type of ship.
Speaker 1: I ain't do it, but yeah, I can't do it, alright,
Speaker 1: quick hitters. First thing to come to mind. Top five
Speaker 1: movies in your opinion all time? Top five movies off
Speaker 1: your top five? Well, I say, well, one of them
Speaker 1: is Hoop Dreams. Even though it's a documentary. I would
Speaker 1: put Hoop Dreams on there. That's my community. If you've
Speaker 1: seen Hoop Dreams, then I went to that high school
Speaker 1: at the Ages neighborhood. That's same thing. But Hoop Dreams
Speaker 1: are just amazing. There's nothing like it. So I really
Speaker 1: love that film. Um. I like a lot of older stuff.
Speaker 1: So that The Sting and which is a Robert Redford
Speaker 1: and Paul Newman film. It's like a heist sort of movie.
Speaker 1: It's called The Sting. It's a classic. UM. Paper Moon,
Speaker 1: which is another classic film. Um, and then I like
Speaker 1: I like some of I like some of the thrillers
Speaker 1: that are out now, Like the Korean thrillers are dope.
Speaker 1: There's one called The Whaling. It's one of my favorite
Speaker 1: films already. And uh, I'm pretty hard on the films man,
Speaker 1: I don't even like watching most of them. I get
Speaker 1: discouraged looking at a lot of stuff and make me
Speaker 1: feel like I'm wasting my time. So I don't have
Speaker 1: a long list of favorites in in acting and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But favorite line you ever said in the
Speaker 1: movie that you can remember acting points of paper line,
Speaker 1: I would bury the both of you. Motherfucker's take that.
Speaker 1: I take it. I take it. I take it, I
Speaker 1: take it. I would have to think back. I take that.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you could save me. I think that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I bet both of you. Mother, that's real, quick, quick, sot.
Speaker 1: I just want to ask, because I think you're around
Speaker 1: the same time at least Benji Wilson a little bit
Speaker 1: older than you, a little bit older than me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you remember him everything? Um? In fact, the document
Speaker 1: the thirty thirty is me. I narrated his thirty on him.
Speaker 1: Coody Coody and Cheek, who directed it, also directed the
Speaker 1: upcoming Kanye Um doc for Netflix, which is phenomenal and
Speaker 1: it's kind of like Hoop Dreams in the sense that
Speaker 1: this they have because Coody grew up with Kanye, so
Speaker 1: he's known him since prior to him even being signed,
Speaker 1: and so it chronicles all the way from not signed
Speaker 1: to like a billionaire in real time. So it's not
Speaker 1: just a bunch of interview. It's gonna be dupe. Shout out, Coody, chicken.
Speaker 1: But what was question? Right now, I forgot you narrated that.
Speaker 1: But Wilson and what kind of like that struck the
Speaker 1: city like it was a thunder clap on the city,
Speaker 1: like an earthquake on the city when he died, You know,
Speaker 1: um because he was all around good kids. I know
Speaker 1: the person who actually killed him, now okay, he's gotten out.
Speaker 1: I know him because of the documentary and I G
Speaker 1: and things like that, and decent person. You know. Big mistake,
Speaker 1: very big mistake. He was carrying a gun. He was young,
Speaker 1: and you know back then, back then, you know, you
Speaker 1: could bump into a dude and catch one, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Or you can get killed over some
Speaker 1: kicks or starter jacket or that's just ever in time.
Speaker 1: You know, you might have on a nice something nice
Speaker 1: person actually kill you for for something nice, even a garment.
Speaker 1: So that's what the streets was like in Chicago. I
Speaker 1: think the guy who ended up shooting and killing him
Speaker 1: got bullied, and I think that's what the story was
Speaker 1: telling us. So he end up he was carrying a
Speaker 1: gun sometimes it was a twenty two when he clapped,
Speaker 1: when he clapped, ben Um, they got into it outside
Speaker 1: of a store, literally bumped into him and being you know,
Speaker 1: like man, whatever this and that Bob and dude little
Speaker 1: man just let it rip. But that's not how he died.
Speaker 1: He died because he was left on the gurney in
Speaker 1: the hospital. So what happened is trauma units weren't existing
Speaker 1: at the time. So the bigger cause, the bigger thing
Speaker 1: taken away from his death is the advent of trauma
Speaker 1: units in Chicago. There weren't any. He died because he
Speaker 1: was missed, he was neglected. He didn't die from the gunshop.
Speaker 1: He bled to death from the neglect of care. They
Speaker 1: took him to a local clinic like thing, and he
Speaker 1: bled to death or died as a consequence of the
Speaker 1: of negligence. So so it's not what people think. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you know, um, but he was. He was amazing
Speaker 1: And it's it's funny man. You got those stories too,
Speaker 1: you know, it's the gift and the cursed story of
Speaker 1: its greatest like a lot of those types of stories.
Speaker 1: Who what was the one Reggie who was Boston and
Speaker 1: he died coble Reggie Lewis A uh, that's in Reginald Lewis.
Speaker 1: But there's more than a part thing. But lambias was
Speaker 1: then biased than biased than biased. Yeah, that's like Hank Gathers.
Speaker 1: You know, there's always a nominated person in that way,
Speaker 1: in that way, did you guys ever hear? Probably not.
Speaker 1: But George Robinson was a guys No. Five star of
Speaker 1: course on the five star so early on in five star.
Speaker 1: Now he has a plaque that's dedicated to him, and
Speaker 1: think it still may exist, the George Robinson Award. So
Speaker 1: he was a kid who went to school with me
Speaker 1: and in grade school he died, Um, I mean not
Speaker 1: in grade school. He died in as a high schooler
Speaker 1: who would have been bound for the pros. He basically died, Um,
Speaker 1: of pneumonia. He just died of pneumonia. He died of
Speaker 1: health condition related to UM like I saw him the
Speaker 1: day before he died. You know, he died of circumstances.
Speaker 1: But you know that stuff be it, be it be
Speaker 1: in the system for athletes, like somebody. You know, not
Speaker 1: everybody's gonna come back from the trip. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Um, we are the lucky ones or the
Speaker 1: blessed ones for sure. Absolutely. Uh five dinner guests that
Speaker 1: are alive. M M damn these tough questions, I would say, Um, dinner,
Speaker 1: guess I'm bad at this type of stuff, Matt five.
Speaker 1: Then I guess man. Uh, I'm gonna say jay Z
Speaker 1: because I want to chop it up with jay Z.
Speaker 1: Even though I probably could talk to jay Z anyway,
Speaker 1: but I would love to just chop it up with him,
Speaker 1: see how pick his brain on peculiar things that I
Speaker 1: have questions for. Um, I'm like, it's gonna sound like
Speaker 1: hip hop less really because it's like I would like
Speaker 1: to chop it up with like big punt. I'm a
Speaker 1: big punk fan. I mean, I definitely want the historical figures. Uh,
Speaker 1: and so many come to mind. That's difficult to narrow down.
Speaker 1: Maybe the real actual Jimmy hendrickx. Um, that's three good.
Speaker 1: I'm an L L coo J fan, like I'm inspired
Speaker 1: by L. L coo J as a young person, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I love L coo J. In terms of this is
Speaker 1: a young l L was very inspirational, UM and l
Speaker 1: L in general. But when I was young and and
Speaker 1: watching Young l L, it was very inspirational. Tossa. But
Speaker 1: I guess I'll say, um, Bob Marley, but I was
Speaker 1: talking up Richard pryor Bart. I want to sit down
Speaker 1: with these cats and just talking. But yeah, would you
Speaker 1: ever want to expand your career outside of acting? It's
Speaker 1: not directing, definitely, I'm already doing that. Yeah, Um produce
Speaker 1: some things you may have seen actually next day air
Speaker 1: one of them. But um, definitely directing. Talk to fifty
Speaker 1: about directing some of his some of the episodices of power,
Speaker 1: so that may happen. Um, and even outside of that,
Speaker 1: just to do other things in general, just to put
Speaker 1: a magnifying lens on Like I was telling you all
Speaker 1: about going and doing them. I mean, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make that a series to watch at least a
Speaker 1: six part thing in terms of going to the prisons
Speaker 1: engaging with the inmate theater. Well, again, the lowest recidivism
Speaker 1: rates among the people who involve themselves with theater in prison,
Speaker 1: which is amazing if you really think about it. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm going with San quentin Um likely to start
Speaker 1: there and yeah, shoot shoot that out as like a
Speaker 1: little episodic, don't Yeah, uh you plus four in the
Speaker 1: black top? Anybody? Oh? Man four? All right? Jeez man,
Speaker 1: who do I like to play with? That's really what
Speaker 1: that's about. You know, I woulda say me, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna be the shooting guard, but I can miss everything
Speaker 1: because I'm gonna make the team straight, so I can
Speaker 1: miss everything. But we got Jason Kidd because I just
Speaker 1: want to see how he plays. Jason Kidd. I was
Speaker 1: a person with Jason Kid. I think would be a
Speaker 1: different experience play on the court with Jason Kidd. I
Speaker 1: know I can get some open layups because he'd be great.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, manne a couple of buckets, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be He's want to be a two with
Speaker 1: me and I can miss though, I can miss, So
Speaker 1: it's gonna be an our little group, but as a
Speaker 1: motley crew because I kind of like Rashi Whilace on
Speaker 1: my squad. Why not, you know what I'm saying, I
Speaker 1: might need somebod own events because he might. He gonna
Speaker 1: get it, He's gonna get checked out. But I like
Speaker 1: Raschi Wallace to be on my squad. He could hit
Speaker 1: the outside jumper, tough enough, tough on the inside. I
Speaker 1: can't get anybody on this on my team. Man, I
Speaker 1: made myself too. I'm gonna have to take myself off
Speaker 1: this team and coach, firing myself off this month. You
Speaker 1: can coach coaching. I gotta hoop, gotta gotta this. You
Speaker 1: plus four. I should probably made Mike the two and
Speaker 1: I could have been the one because I gotta do
Speaker 1: is get a rock up. I'm gonna do that. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna change it. I don't change it. I'm gonna change it.
Speaker 1: So I'll be the one. I'll be the one. I
Speaker 1: be the one. I might get the two. I still
Speaker 1: got Rashid. I can't do Jason kids like that. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go back. I got Mike, Mike and just be Mike.
Speaker 1: So it's me, Mike, Jason, Rashid and shock. Oh, that's dope,
Speaker 1: it'd be fun. I know I'm get some buckets. Everybody.
Speaker 1: We actually win some games without me participate. All I
Speaker 1: do is say my energy for defense. We're already gonna
Speaker 1: know what's gonna happen if y'all don't in the bag.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, But playing with somebody like Jason Kidd or
Speaker 1: Rondo or like that type of golf three CP three,
Speaker 1: I know I'm gonna get a bucket running line though.
Speaker 1: I know I can listen to. I know they run
Speaker 1: those like he's those dudes tough man. Yeah, Mayah, they're
Speaker 1: basketball Jesus extreme. Yeah. This last question, I just remember
Speaker 1: before I ask you this question, you have to help
Speaker 1: me with your answer. Okay, you have to help us
Speaker 1: with your Who do you want to see on All
Speaker 1: the Smoke? Snap? Who do you want to see on
Speaker 1: the show? Help you with? Mike been on here my gaps?
Speaker 1: M h that's a good yeah, Mike apps see what.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you, man, appreciate you. All over West with
Speaker 1: Harris is going to start working on that here. Yep,
Speaker 1: that's a rat man. All the Smoke with Harris, Thank you, James,
Speaker 1: Good Little Room can Showtime Basketball YouTube and the I
Speaker 1: Heart platform Black Effects see y'all latter. This is All
Speaker 1: a Smoke, A production of The Black Effect and Our
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in partnership with Showtime