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Speaker 1: Welcome, one and all to the Professional Homegirl Podcast. Before

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Speaker 1: we begin today's episode, we want to remind you that

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Speaker 1: the views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those

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Speaker 1: of the hosts and guests and are intended for educational

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Speaker 1: and entertaining purposes. In this safe space, no question is

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Speaker 1: off limits because you never know how someone's storyline can

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Speaker 1: be your lifeline. The Professional Homegirl Podcast is here to

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Speaker 1: celebrate the diverse voices, stories and experiences of women of color,

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Speaker 1: providing a platform for authentic and empowering conversations. There will

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Speaker 1: be some key king, some tears, but most importantly a

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Speaker 1: reminder that tough times don't last, but professional homegirls do

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Speaker 1: enjoy the show.

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Speaker 2: Hey guys, welcome to the Professional Homegirl Podcast. Ishigara Ebana

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Speaker 2: here and I am super excited to introduce a brand

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Speaker 2: new series called pah Unlock. Now. In this series, I'll

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Speaker 2: be sitting down with some notable figures, celebrities and more.

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Speaker 2: But with a twist, my guest gets to choose whether

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Speaker 2: or not they want to conceal or reveal their identity.

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Speaker 2: And yes, child, we will be destroying their voices, so

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Speaker 2: there's no cheating. You don't want to miss out on

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Speaker 2: these exclusive conversations where we dive deep into their stories,

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Speaker 2: all while keeping you guessing who's really behind the voice.

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Speaker 2: Get ready to unlock some incredible stories only here on

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Speaker 2: a Professional Homegirl podcast. But before we begin, let's do

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Speaker 2: a little housekeeping. Okay, make sure you follow me at

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Speaker 2: the PHG podcast on Instagram and at the Professional Homegirl

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Speaker 2: on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, And don't forget to leave

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Speaker 2: your girl a five star review on Apple Podcasts and

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Speaker 2: or Spotify. Hold me Down, don't hold me up up

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Speaker 2: Now on this episode of PhD Unlock, I am so

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Speaker 2: excited to speak with a storytelling powerhouse who's been a

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Speaker 2: trailblazer in urban fiction. Known for creating one of the

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Speaker 2: most iconic female characters in literature, this guest has penned

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Speaker 2: multiple bestsellers that have shaped a generation. His debut novel,

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Speaker 2: written at just nineteen, y'all, became an instant classic, and

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Speaker 2: his work continues to inspire readers and writers alike. Will

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Speaker 2: dive into his rise to fame, his passion for storytelling,

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Speaker 2: and how his upbringing has influenced the narratives of black

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Speaker 2: culture in America. Now, get ready to find out whether

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Speaker 2: the mastermind behind one of the most unforgivable books in

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Speaker 2: modern fiction will conceal or reveal his identity. Starting now,

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Speaker 2: all right, to my guests, thank you so much for

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Speaker 2: being on the show. How you doing, How you feeling?

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Speaker 3: How you doing? How you feel?

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Speaker 2: I feel good. I'm excited to speak to you. One

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Speaker 2: of my favorite authors from when I was growing up,

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Speaker 2: so I'm really excited to have you on the show.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Every time you guys say that, man, for like I'm

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Speaker 4: one hundred years old, I'm like, I'm not that old.

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Speaker 3: You like when y'all was growing up, y'all grown now,

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Speaker 3: I'm not that old. No, you should be proud.

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Speaker 2: You've raised a lot of people and you encourage a

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Speaker 2: lot of people to read and have a love for literature.

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Speaker 2: So you should feel old.

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Speaker 3: You should be blessed.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, but you gotta say that, like y'all be

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Speaker 4: grown now. I've been reading your book since middle school

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Speaker 4: and you grown. I'm like, okay, that's that's a long time. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Now, can you tell us about your childhood and the

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Speaker 2: neighborhood you grew up in.

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Speaker 4: I grew up in West Philadelphia. I was the oldest

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Speaker 4: grandson my mother was the oldest of eight. My father

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Speaker 4: was the oldest of four. And I grew up in

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Speaker 4: Philadelphia at a time where they had the baby boom

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Speaker 4: or so we had a lot of family members, a

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Speaker 4: lot of cousins, a lot of aunts and uncles and

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Speaker 4: all that kind of stuff. And I the youngest, and

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Speaker 4: so I was always around family members and they always

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Speaker 4: had stories, and so I was a natural storyteller from

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Speaker 4: like five years old, not always been around stories.

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Speaker 2: I was going to ask you, is that the reason

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Speaker 2: why an influence your writing? Being around a lot of

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Speaker 2: older people.

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Speaker 4: Not writing. I was a verbal storyteller. They had no

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Speaker 4: influence on writing at all. I didn't start writing until

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Speaker 4: like late high school years and teenage, you know, in

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Speaker 4: college years when they forced us to write, you know,

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Speaker 4: when the teachers asked me to write and then asked

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Speaker 4: me to write stuff that I had to explain. Once

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Speaker 4: I got a chance to start writing stuff where.

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Speaker 3: I can control what I'm explaining.

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Speaker 4: If you asked me a question about my neighborhood, what

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Speaker 4: I like, what I'm doing, where I can answer on

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Speaker 4: my own, and it's not something about Shakespeare's something I'm

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Speaker 4: supposed to read, then I get a chance to be

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Speaker 4: a storyteller. That didn't happen until high school and college,

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Speaker 4: and so that's when I found out I could write.

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Speaker 4: But before then, I was a verbal storyteller like most

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Speaker 4: black people. You're telling stories verbally, this is what happened,

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Speaker 4: and then this happened, and that happened, and I could

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Speaker 4: do voicing and all that like the comedians do. So

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Speaker 4: I wasn't a written storyteller until late high school and

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Speaker 4: then college. And then once I got to college, it

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Speaker 4: took off because they're forcing you to write, because you

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Speaker 4: got writing assignments and you got English assignments, and then

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Speaker 4: I took creative writing and that was it.

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Speaker 3: I just kept rolling with it, right.

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Speaker 2: Who were some of your favorite storytellers when you was

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Speaker 2: growing up? From your family?

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Speaker 3: Okay, I had an uncle Andre, who he was the bomb.

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Speaker 4: Andre was a comedian, so he would just make jokes

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Speaker 4: at anybody. We called it busting in Philly. You know

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Speaker 4: what I mean. I guess y'all call it screaming in

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Speaker 4: New York while you sounding on me, screaming on me

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Speaker 4: and Philly we called it busting when you're making jokes

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Speaker 4: on people talking about their mom and the cousins and aunts.

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Speaker 4: Andre was a monster dude. He just point out a

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Speaker 4: person and he'll make up something and just keep flowing

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Speaker 4: with us. So we would draw out like food, comic

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Speaker 4: book men, and then he draw like these these heroglyphic monsters,

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Speaker 4: and then he was painting on the walls and stuff.

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Speaker 4: And so yeah, Andre, he was the main storyteller, and

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Speaker 4: then he was the main movie dude too. He always

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Speaker 4: wanted to go to the movies, so I was always

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Speaker 4: going to the movies with Andre and Mante. They were

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Speaker 4: my two middle uncles. My oldest uncle was Jose. He

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Speaker 4: hung out with all the old heads, so I wasn't

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Speaker 4: around him as much. And then my youngest uncle was Joe,

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Speaker 4: and Joe wasn't much of a storyteller. We just got

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Speaker 4: into a lot of stuff. But the main storytellers was

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Speaker 4: Andre and Mante. That's where I got all the stories

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Speaker 4: and stuff from them. But then I just picked it up,

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Speaker 4: so I get stories from being about everybody.

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Speaker 3: But Andre was the main dude. That was the beast

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Speaker 3: with it.

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Speaker 2: Now, who are some of your favorite authors growing up?

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Speaker 3: Oh? My favorite authors? All right? Now, we got a

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Speaker 3: cat in the hat.

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Speaker 4: You know, the bands, them bears, George. Yeah, so I

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Speaker 4: don't know who the authors were, but they were my

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Speaker 4: favorite books as a kid. I didn't have no favorite

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Speaker 4: books as a teenager because I wasn't reading no books.

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Speaker 4: So all the people that's out there always reading this

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Speaker 4: out it, I wasn't reading no books. I was hanging

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Speaker 4: out with all the other dudes in Philadelphia, plants, football,

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Speaker 4: teasing girls, born and parties, all that kind of stuff.

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Speaker 4: I wasn't reading no books, but I was telling stories verbally.

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Speaker 4: I would say about everything we got in trouble with

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Speaker 4: at the playground, with the girls at the mall, what

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Speaker 4: happened in the movie. I was the one verbally telling

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Speaker 4: the stories. But I wasn't reading. I wasn't writing, and

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Speaker 4: I wasn't in the stories and all that library stuff.

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Speaker 3: None of that.

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Speaker 4: It just happened because I ended up being good at

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Speaker 4: telling stories and then I want to do that stuff

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Speaker 4: later on in the college is. But I wasn't no

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Speaker 4: storytelling with no pen until college.

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Speaker 2: You know who, I used to love reading. I used

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Speaker 2: to love Donald Goyn's.

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Speaker 3: Books as a teenager.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I didn't read them until college. Until after college,

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Speaker 4: you know, I wasn't in the reading like that, but

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Speaker 4: I'm an information dude, so I didn't have to read

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Speaker 4: to have information. So a lot of times, you know,

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Speaker 4: you can have more information than people that read because

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Speaker 4: you are always taking information in. So once I started reading,

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Speaker 4: I'm a monster then, because now I was already a

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Speaker 4: sponge naturally. And now when I start reading stuff, well,

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Speaker 4: you read it and forget. I read it and memorized.

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Speaker 4: That's the difference. So I had photographic memory. Yeah, anything

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Speaker 4: I read and get my hands on, I become an expert.

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Speaker 4: So of course I was a straight A student too,

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Speaker 4: because all I gotta do is memorize the stuff. So

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Speaker 4: you couldn't really test me with the easy stuff. You

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Speaker 4: got to try to mix it up. Otherwise I just

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Speaker 4: memorize it and get straight a's I called it.

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Speaker 3: I called it photographic memory. Phone numbers and on that

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Speaker 3: give me a phone numbers.

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Speaker 2: Looking back at your upbringing, what are some of the

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Speaker 2: key life lessons you learned early on that you carry

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Speaker 2: on with your career as an author and entrepreneur.

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Speaker 4: Well, I wanted to play football because you know, like

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Speaker 4: in Philadelphia, we love sports, and I was playing football,

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Speaker 4: and then of course boxing. We grow up boxing in

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Speaker 4: Philadelphia but you know, that's a hard, lot of hard

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Speaker 4: work in the gym boxing, so most of it we

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Speaker 4: rather do street fighting, you know what I mean. We're

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Speaker 4: getting a quick fight, beat somebody up or whatever. But

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Speaker 4: boxing's a whole lot of work. But football, that was

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Speaker 4: my main sport. You know, I've watched football religiously. Man,

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Speaker 4: it's football season now, so I'm loving it. But that's

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Speaker 4: what I wanted to do. But once I fell out

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Speaker 4: of you know, like you know, the practice with it,

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Speaker 4: and once I knew I wasn't gonna go pro with

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Speaker 4: the college level because it's real competitive at that level.

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Speaker 4: You got to be all about football, and I was

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Speaker 4: more academic than being all about football. So that's when

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Speaker 4: I started writing and thinking about writing books, and that

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Speaker 4: was going to be the only career I was going

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Speaker 4: to have.

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Speaker 3: Football and entrepreneurship.

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Speaker 4: I was always going to be a hustler, you know

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Speaker 4: what I mean, No matter what I did, I wanted

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Speaker 4: to own my own stuff and do my own stuff,

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Speaker 4: make my own rules, my own decisions, and so I

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Speaker 4: was going to do that regardless.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Now you've written about the black experience, especially in urban communities,

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Speaker 2: So how do you approach creating characters that resonate with

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Speaker 2: your readers, and why do you think it's important to

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Speaker 2: continue telling these stories.

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Speaker 4: Well, again, I grew up in Philadelphia where we had

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Speaker 4: a whole lot of characters and wes Philly, and so

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Speaker 4: I was used to studying black people. I know black people,

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Speaker 4: and Philadelphia is very urban, extremely urban. So yeah, when

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Speaker 4: you grow up in Philadelphia, we got what it called

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Speaker 4: row houses where you right next to people and you

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Speaker 4: got like four hundred people on your block. So you

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Speaker 4: ain't getting away from stories in Philadelphia. You ain't getting

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Speaker 4: away from urban people in Philadelphia. And so that's real

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Speaker 4: easy for me to sit on my step all day

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Speaker 4: long and study people in Philadelphia because they write in

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Speaker 4: front of you all the time, and they got very

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Speaker 4: strong personalities. If it comes very easy to write people

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Speaker 4: in Philadelphia. So you imagine Kevin Hart and Will Smith

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Speaker 4: very strong personalities. All you got to do is watch

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Speaker 4: them dudes, and you can write stories all day about them.

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Speaker 3: The same thing with Gilly.

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Speaker 4: If you think about Gilly and Wallow, very strong personalities,

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Speaker 4: that's just Philadelphia, man.

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Speaker 3: You know, got very strong personality.

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Speaker 4: So that's just how we are. It was natural for

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Speaker 4: me to write characters and stuff from the urban setting

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Speaker 4: because of where I grew up in. You know, you

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Speaker 4: grow up in Chicago or LA or New York or

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Speaker 4: you know what I mean, Detroit, places where black personalities

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Speaker 4: are very strong, Atlanta. It's going to be easy to

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Speaker 4: write urban stories. So I never had a problem with it.

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Speaker 2: But did you feel a sense of responsibility to tell

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Speaker 2: these stories?

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Speaker 4: Well, if you have the ability to do something with

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Speaker 4: them where people can learn something, then yeah. But if

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Speaker 4: you just telling them stories for drama's sake, which a

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Speaker 4: lot of authors started doing, then I mean it's not

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Speaker 4: really helping people. You know, you're just putting the spotlight

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Speaker 4: on the negative. But if you got some way in

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Speaker 4: which they can learn from it, which my books always

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Speaker 4: do that. You know, I don't want to be a preacher,

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Speaker 4: but you're trying to teach something soho people can learn.

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Speaker 4: I think that's responsible. And you know, since I had

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Speaker 4: a degree from Howard University, you know you got to

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Speaker 4: use that. You know, that's the purpose uplifting the people,

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Speaker 4: not just putting stuff out there that's already negative. You

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Speaker 4: try to put a spin on it where they learn

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Speaker 4: from it and possibly can change, you know, the things that.

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Speaker 3: Are negative in our community.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, I had a responsibility to do that, But

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Speaker 4: I don't know how other writers feel.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, are you ever surprised by how many people love

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Speaker 2: your work?

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Speaker 4: No, I'm not surprised. I'm surprised we haven't been able

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Speaker 4: to do a movie yet. I'm surprised by that.

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Speaker 3: But nah.

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Speaker 4: Once I knew I was good at doing it and

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Speaker 4: people kept responding to it, I was fine with that

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Speaker 4: because you know, I understood I was good and doing

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Speaker 4: it verbally. So then when it came granted doing it

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Speaker 4: with the pen, you know, it wasn't a surprise for me.

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Speaker 4: I just wanted to do it bigger. So it was

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Speaker 4: a surprise that I couldn't get brothers to read. They

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Speaker 4: still don't want to read, and so that the biggest

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Speaker 4: surprise for me now was is how hard it is

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Speaker 4: to get a film situation.

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Speaker 3: Done with capital, very very very hard, you know.

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Speaker 4: But the reading part that wasn't surprising me because I

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Speaker 4: was already good at it. So it was just a

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Speaker 4: thing of getting it more people was hands.

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Speaker 2: Now, what's one piece of advice you wish you were

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Speaker 2: you would have received at the story of your career, Like,

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Speaker 2: what's something you wish somebody would have told you when

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Speaker 2: you was first starting off.

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Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you what.

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Speaker 4: When I got that naac PMAG award, you know out

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Speaker 4: there in California, they had to tell me nothing.

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Speaker 3: That award was blagged. I had never won awards.

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Speaker 4: I was like, yo, dude, you never get awards for

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Speaker 4: being smart and intellectual. You know, they give you awards

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Speaker 4: for black people, you know what I mean, for dancing

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Speaker 4: and singing and sports. But the intellectual awards they hard

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Speaker 4: to get. Man, that's you in school getting scholarships or something.

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Speaker 4: So you know that NAA c pm IS award that

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Speaker 4: was huge in two thousand and one. You didn't have

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Speaker 4: to tell me nothing on that. But other than that,

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Speaker 4: you know, people telling me stuff. I think that they

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Speaker 4: started reading because of my books, that that would be

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Speaker 4: the biggest thing where people didn't want to read, and

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Speaker 4: so they reff so that that's like huge, And people

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Speaker 4: continue to tell me that now.

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Speaker 3: So that's that's pretty cool. Now.

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Speaker 2: Many writers have cited you as a god urban fiction.

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Speaker 2: How do you feel about the legacy you're building in

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Speaker 2: the world of literature.

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Speaker 4: Well, I came up with that whole concept of urban

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Speaker 4: because I copied black radio, and black radio stopped saying

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Speaker 4: black and they started seeing urban top forty, urbanness, urban that,

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Speaker 4: and so I caught on to that.

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Speaker 3: And now I'm like, okay, you know what the cool

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Speaker 3: word urban instead of black. Yeah, you ain't talking about black.

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Speaker 3: So I'm like, all right, they're using the urban instead

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Speaker 3: of black.

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Speaker 4: I said, I'm gonna do that with my books, and

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Speaker 4: so I started calling them urban classic books instead of

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Speaker 4: black books. And it took off, man, and then all

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Speaker 4: the younger people started calling their books urban street and

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Speaker 4: street lit and all that. But I started that in

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Speaker 4: the early nineteen nineties.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, so you created it create the whole turn.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, well yeah, I started that, but I never called

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Speaker 4: my book street. That was the you know, people coming

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Speaker 4: out of jail writing books, they started calling their street

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Speaker 4: and then they added on to urban, then became urban

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Speaker 4: street lit. But I never called my books street. I

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Speaker 4: may have had people out in the streets, but I

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Speaker 4: never looked at it being street life. It's just urban life,

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Speaker 4: you know, because they still lived in houses. I didn't

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Speaker 4: have people living on the street. So I didn't want

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Speaker 4: to use that word Streetlet I let you know, the

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Speaker 4: jail birds was using that I just called mine urban, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 4: I had that title for a long time, so I

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Speaker 4: had are other people that wrote in the city books,

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Speaker 4: like Donald Goring's Iceberg Slump.

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Speaker 3: But what called urban back then?

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Speaker 4: You know what I mean, It's just called street hood books,

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Speaker 4: whatever you want to call them. I was the one

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Speaker 4: that started that term urban, specifically for books.

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Speaker 2: Now, this is the moment we've all been waiting for.

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Speaker 1: This is the moment of truth. Will our guests reveal

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Speaker 1: their identity or keep it concealed? The choice is yours

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Speaker 1: to reveal or conceal? What will it be?

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Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, you go in and conceal it.

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Speaker 4: I mean, not conceal it, reveal it. I'm saying the

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Speaker 4: wrong thing. You can reveal it.

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Speaker 2: They talking to So please introduce yourself.

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Speaker 3: Allow me to introduce myself.

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Speaker 4: Oh him to the a yard eyr to the double

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Speaker 4: e oh march reed man in Philadelphia, you know, doing

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Speaker 4: this same age as jay Z. I'm older than him.

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Speaker 4: His birthday is in late sixty nine minus in April.

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Speaker 4: You know, Puffy was sixty nine to Jennifer Lopez sixty nine,

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Speaker 4: ice Cube sixty nine. What's the other boy named Tyler Perry?

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Speaker 4: I think it's sixty nine, so we got a whole

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Speaker 4: lot of us great minds born in nineteen sixty nine.

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Speaker 3: Oh mart S reed from Philby.

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Speaker 2: All right, right, round of applause, everyone, round of applause. Now, Omar,

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Speaker 2: what are some of the unique challenges you face in

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Speaker 2: the world as a black author and how have you

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Speaker 2: navigated those obstacles?

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Speaker 4: Well, trying to get media attention is very hard, you know,

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Speaker 4: especially now, Yeah, media attention is very hard. You gotta understand,

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Speaker 4: if they don't read the books, then they don't have

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Speaker 4: questions prepared for you, and they don't feel comfortable, and

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Speaker 4: they never read the books, so they never.

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Speaker 3: Really feel comfortable.

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Speaker 4: But you know, I've always just jumped on the show

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Speaker 4: and just talk about the books and the subject of

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Speaker 4: the books.

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Speaker 3: You don't have to ask me a question already ready.

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Speaker 4: But if they're nervous about asking you questions, if they

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Speaker 4: don't know what you're talking about, you know, if they

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Speaker 4: don't want to do the show, getting media attention is

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Speaker 4: all and hard for authors. And it's not the sexiest

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Speaker 4: you know, entertainment feel you know, you got actors and

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Speaker 4: directors and rappers and all that they become more sexy.

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Speaker 3: They get more interviews and whatnot.

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Speaker 4: And so getting interviews has always been hard, and so

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Speaker 4: I've always been extra happy to be on a podcast

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Speaker 4: or interview or any radio show or television show, and

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Speaker 4: I've always done an excellent job with a lot of enthusiasm.

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Speaker 4: But that's always been a hurdle marketing and interviews and

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Speaker 4: all that for books, because our community is still like books.

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Speaker 3: You're gonna invite them on for books.

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Speaker 4: I don't read books, you know, And guys immediately tell

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Speaker 4: you I don't read books.

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Speaker 3: Brother, you gotta put it in a movie.

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Speaker 4: You gotta put it in the audio, Give it to

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Speaker 4: my girl, give it.

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Speaker 3: To my mom, get it to my aunt.

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Speaker 4: Guys really still don't want to read no books. And

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Speaker 4: so those are the biggest pitfalls, you know, in the

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Speaker 4: author's life, getting marketing, interviews and brothers to know what

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Speaker 4: you're doing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. I have a lot of

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Speaker 2: friends that are authors, and they was telling me how

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Speaker 2: it's really difficult with the book game, like you have

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Speaker 2: to really hustle.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, But I got a lot of energy. So

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Speaker 4: that's what I was doing, hustling and selling books. But

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Speaker 4: now I don't want to hustle as much as I

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Speaker 4: used to with selling books all the time at events

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Speaker 4: and whatnot. Now I'm trying to set up bigger events

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Speaker 4: than that and put out other people's books because I

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Speaker 4: know what I'm doing now, So I want to, you know,

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Speaker 4: kind of phase out that stage of being at every event,

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Speaker 4: you know, selling books handed foot. I want to just

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Speaker 4: sit behind a desk and have those books moving.

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Speaker 3: So I'm going to.

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Speaker 4: Set up other people where they got big events with

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Speaker 4: make the books move. I'm setting that up now, with

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Speaker 4: trying to get sponsors and marketers behind what I'm doing,

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Speaker 4: because that makes it easier when people already know what

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Speaker 4: you're doing, as opposed to you jumping out announcing it

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Speaker 4: by yourself.

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Speaker 3: And that's what happens when you don't have the marketing capital.

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Speaker 2: Right now, fly Girl has become an iconic novel within

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Speaker 2: urban fiction. What do you think is it about Tracy

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Speaker 2: Ellis's story that still resonates with so many readers today.

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Speaker 4: It was a young urban girls story told from the

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Speaker 4: young urban girls perspective, and it had all the young

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Speaker 4: urban slang in it, and we weren't used to that.

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Speaker 4: It blew people's minds who wrote this book. Who told

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Speaker 4: this person they can write this way. Who allows you

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Speaker 4: to put the slang in it? Who allows you to

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Speaker 4: put the hip hop in it?

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Speaker 3: Who allows you to put everything we wore in it?

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Speaker 4: And I'm like, well, I'm a store eacheller and that's

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Speaker 4: what I grew up. Man, Why would I do something different.

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Speaker 4: This is how we spoke, this is how we dressed,

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Speaker 4: just what we did, and I.

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Speaker 3: Have to write. But I was the first one to

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Speaker 3: do that. And so it's just blue people's minds.

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Speaker 4: And then girls are more willing to read than boys are.

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Speaker 4: And so the sister book was fly Girl instead of

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Speaker 4: fly Boy. If I had written fly Boy, it wouldn't

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Speaker 4: have done as well because girls wouldn't have been into

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Speaker 4: the boy's story as much as they were into.

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Speaker 3: Their own story.

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Speaker 4: And so one of the amazing reasons why fly Girl

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Speaker 4: took off. Girls are way more willing to me than

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Speaker 4: gods are. I didn't know that at the time, but

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Speaker 4: thank god that happened, because had I wrote it from

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Speaker 4: a god's perspective, it wouldn't have did the same thing.

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Speaker 4: But as a guy, I was chasing fly girls anyway,

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Speaker 4: So I'm gonna write about the thing I was chasing.

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Speaker 3: I'm not writing about the guy I was hanging out with.

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Speaker 3: We writing about what the goal is.

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Speaker 4: I want that girl right there, that one right there,

438
00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:43,720
Speaker 4: and we want that one, you know. So you wrote

439
00:20:43,720 --> 00:20:46,920
Speaker 4: about it, but it blew people's minds because they weren't

440
00:20:47,040 --> 00:20:51,439
Speaker 4: used to our slang, our dress code, our music in

441
00:20:51,520 --> 00:20:54,160
Speaker 4: a book. It was like wow, and it was timely.

442
00:20:54,520 --> 00:20:57,200
Speaker 4: I wasn't writing about the sixties and seventies. I was

443
00:20:57,240 --> 00:20:59,639
Speaker 4: writing about the eighties. And the book came out in

444
00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:02,119
Speaker 4: the early nineties, so it was right next to us.

445
00:21:02,119 --> 00:21:04,119
Speaker 3: It was like five very fresh.

446
00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:08,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and you wrote that at nineteen. So the

447
00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:10,879
Speaker 2: girls that you were chasing was that your inspiration.

448
00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:15,119
Speaker 4: Inspiration or wherever was the inspiration. Not just the girls.

449
00:21:15,160 --> 00:21:16,800
Speaker 4: Guys would fly too, you know what I mean. We

450
00:21:16,840 --> 00:21:18,719
Speaker 4: had to be fly to talk to them. We had

451
00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:20,560
Speaker 4: to get money to talk to them. We had to

452
00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:22,479
Speaker 4: have game that ofalfen up. We had to get our

453
00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:25,040
Speaker 4: haircut right, we gotta get our gear right. Ain't no

454
00:21:25,080 --> 00:21:27,399
Speaker 4: fly girl talking to you. If you busted, you gotta

455
00:21:27,440 --> 00:21:30,680
Speaker 4: get yourself together. And so girls kind of raised your

456
00:21:30,720 --> 00:21:33,879
Speaker 4: profile because you knew back then, I can't talk to

457
00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:35,680
Speaker 4: her if my game ain't right. And so when the

458
00:21:35,760 --> 00:21:39,000
Speaker 4: girl was flyed, she kind of took herself out of

459
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:42,320
Speaker 4: the whole, you know, being hollered at by cornball dudes

460
00:21:42,440 --> 00:21:44,520
Speaker 4: because you knew, I can't get with.

461
00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:45,960
Speaker 3: That girl unless my game is right.

462
00:21:46,119 --> 00:21:49,480
Speaker 4: And so when you became fly you elevated the type

463
00:21:49,480 --> 00:21:50,879
Speaker 4: of guys that's gonna talk to you.

464
00:21:51,119 --> 00:21:52,440
Speaker 3: And that's why she ended up with.

465
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:55,280
Speaker 4: The flyers dude who broke her down, because when you

466
00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:58,280
Speaker 4: attract them kind of dudes, if you're gonna get your medicine,

467
00:21:58,320 --> 00:22:09,119
Speaker 4: and she got her medicine.

468
00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:12,280
Speaker 2: Are you surprised because I'm like, this book was not

469
00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:15,000
Speaker 2: intended for children, but are you surprised by how many

470
00:22:15,040 --> 00:22:16,760
Speaker 2: people said that they read this book when they was

471
00:22:16,800 --> 00:22:19,760
Speaker 2: in middle school or when they were teenagers.

472
00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:23,600
Speaker 3: Well, the book started at six years old.

473
00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:26,679
Speaker 4: He had a birthday party at six, and then it

474
00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:28,600
Speaker 4: really took off, or I would start the film when

475
00:22:28,640 --> 00:22:31,160
Speaker 4: she turned thirteen. That's when it really took off, when

476
00:22:31,200 --> 00:22:34,760
Speaker 4: she really started chasing and getting in trouble with that book.

477
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:37,880
Speaker 4: You know, they put young cover on it, young can

478
00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:40,679
Speaker 4: girl on the cover, and it got younger and younger

479
00:22:40,760 --> 00:22:44,160
Speaker 4: because it was dealing with teenagers. And once people started

480
00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:47,320
Speaker 4: getting that it was young, it started getting passed down

481
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:50,439
Speaker 4: to younger people. Now I didn't expect it to be

482
00:22:50,520 --> 00:22:53,320
Speaker 4: in middle school, but you can't stop people from reading

483
00:22:53,320 --> 00:22:55,600
Speaker 4: what they want to read. And the thing is girls

484
00:22:55,600 --> 00:22:57,520
Speaker 4: reading the middle school without being told to read.

485
00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:00,640
Speaker 3: That's a good thing. They reading on their own, that's special.

486
00:23:00,840 --> 00:23:02,840
Speaker 3: But then you know, some of the parents were like, well,

487
00:23:02,840 --> 00:23:04,320
Speaker 3: this is too machure for my girl.

488
00:23:04,640 --> 00:23:07,439
Speaker 4: I didn't write it for, you know, middle schoolers. I

489
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:09,520
Speaker 4: was writing it for people that was my own age,

490
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:11,679
Speaker 4: because it's my group. So when I wrote it as

491
00:23:11,720 --> 00:23:14,040
Speaker 4: a college student, I was writing it for girls that

492
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:16,520
Speaker 4: was in college with me, guys that was in college

493
00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 4: with me.

494
00:23:17,119 --> 00:23:19,080
Speaker 3: I wasn't writing it for middle school people.

495
00:23:19,280 --> 00:23:22,240
Speaker 4: But once you put a book out, you can't determine

496
00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:24,600
Speaker 4: who's going to read it. So now I'm twenty eight

497
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:28,080
Speaker 4: and the readers are fifteen. Now I'm thirty five and

498
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:31,080
Speaker 4: the readers are fifteen. Now I'm forty five and the

499
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:34,320
Speaker 4: readers are fifteen. Now I'm fifty five and the readers

500
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:36,800
Speaker 4: a fifth. There's nothing I can do about that. But

501
00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:39,639
Speaker 4: they're reading it because it's about young people. And then

502
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:41,800
Speaker 4: when some of the parents was like, well, you can't

503
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:44,680
Speaker 4: put this in a young book. It's too sexual. It's

504
00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:47,159
Speaker 4: to this, it's to that. I said, wait a minute,

505
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 4: did we do that as teenagers? Or am I lying

506
00:23:49,280 --> 00:23:49,680
Speaker 4: in the book?

507
00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:51,960
Speaker 3: Well? You not lying, but you can't put that in there.

508
00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:53,119
Speaker 3: Look here, if.

509
00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:55,480
Speaker 4: I'm not lying and I'm telling the truth, then it's

510
00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:57,560
Speaker 4: going to stay in the book. You got a problem

511
00:23:57,600 --> 00:23:59,159
Speaker 4: with it because you don't want to deal with the

512
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:02,680
Speaker 4: truth now. And so what y'all think? Charlamagnea god, got

513
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 4: a book out. He called it a get iron us

514
00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:07,199
Speaker 4: and die Lion, And that's what it is.

515
00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:09,639
Speaker 3: It's the truth. So fly Girl has the truth.

516
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:12,679
Speaker 4: And you can complain about how young it is. But

517
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:15,159
Speaker 4: we have some girls that started doing it early and

518
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:16,360
Speaker 4: some girls that did it late.

519
00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 3: That's just reality.

520
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:20,639
Speaker 4: And so I said, look, as long as I'm not

521
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:22,919
Speaker 4: lying in that book, you're gonna have to deal with

522
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:23,840
Speaker 4: it with your daughter.

523
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 3: And everybody had to deal with it. But daughters didn't

524
00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:27,240
Speaker 3: get in trouble.

525
00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 4: They learned a lot more and they were a lot

526
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:32,320
Speaker 4: more thoughtful about what was going on when they read

527
00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:34,880
Speaker 4: the Fly Girl book, and they got straight a's if

528
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 4: you ask them questions.

529
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:36,679
Speaker 3: About that book.

530
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 4: Boy, they was with Flying Colors because that was a

531
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:40,840
Speaker 4: book they studied and focused on.

532
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:45,640
Speaker 3: So they all got straight a's with fly Girl, right, everybody.

533
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:50,960
Speaker 2: Got now the number one million dollar question, why hasn't

534
00:24:50,960 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 2: Fly Girl been made into a movie? I know you

535
00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 2: get this question so many times.

536
00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 4: Well, if I had Will Smith and Kevin Hart money

537
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 4: and Salad Perry money and we'll pack of money, they

538
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 4: would have already been a movie. It'd been a movie

539
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 4: years ago. But writers, we don't make that kind of money.

540
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:11,920
Speaker 4: So we gotta get them to partner with us. Now,

541
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,360
Speaker 4: when they try to partner with us, they look at

542
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 4: the content.

543
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 3: Now here we go again. They don't read. They don't read.

544
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 3: They don't read, so they don't really know the content.

545
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:26,120
Speaker 4: They get hearsay, I heard Flight grows this, I heard

546
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:28,720
Speaker 4: Flight grows that. But until they read it, they don't

547
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:31,919
Speaker 4: really know what it is, right, And so now I

548
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 4: can't really push it to people that don't know what

549
00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:36,360
Speaker 4: it is. They only want to move off of height,

550
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:38,800
Speaker 4: and then they want to do it cheaply. We want

551
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:41,400
Speaker 4: to do fla Girl for two million. I'm like, yo, dude,

552
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:43,880
Speaker 4: it's gonna cost more than two million. It's a real

553
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 4: busy book with a lot of stuff. Well, we want

554
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 4: to do flag going ninety minutes, Yo, dude, we can't

555
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:51,440
Speaker 4: do ninety minutes. This book is long. We got to

556
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:53,399
Speaker 4: do at least two and a half hours. We can't

557
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 4: do ninety minutes. That ain't gonna work on us joint. Oh,

558
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:58,680
Speaker 4: we want to do a television series. Now we gotta

559
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 4: write a lot more to do with television series because

560
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:03,639
Speaker 4: it's not set up as a Sullivan's series. And so

561
00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 4: we had a lot of disputes back and forth at

562
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:09,400
Speaker 4: how we're gonna do the book, how we're gonna make

563
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:12,359
Speaker 4: the book, who's gonna start in it, what city we're

564
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 4: gonna shoot it in. Now you know it's the Philadelphia story,

565
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 4: But guess what happens. Oh, Philadelphia is too expensive to

566
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 4: shoot in. We want to shoot in Atlanta. Now I

567
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:26,400
Speaker 4: sold you earlier. Philadelphia has a specific setup called row houses.

568
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 4: There are no row houses in Atlanta. Nothing in Atlanta

569
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:33,160
Speaker 4: looks like Philadelphia. So now you're gonna try to make

570
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 4: Philadelphia out of Atlanta to save.

571
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:36,600
Speaker 3: A couple hundred thousand dollars.

572
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 4: And everybody in Philadelphia will immediately look at that and

573
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:43,880
Speaker 4: say that ain't Philadelphia because you can't duplicate Philadelphia in Atlanta.

574
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 4: Baltimore looks like Philadelphia, but why would you go down

575
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:49,200
Speaker 4: to Baltimore to shoot the Philadelphia movie?

576
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 3: You know.

577
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 4: So it's just a lot of nonsense that comes in

578
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 4: a way of making a movie.

579
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, we.

580
00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:58,639
Speaker 4: Don't have the money, and getting it from the people

581
00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:01,440
Speaker 4: that do is the prim problem because they're not as

582
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:04,040
Speaker 4: passionate about that movie as you are.

583
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 3: Damn you know.

584
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,199
Speaker 2: That's so messed though, because I can only tell I

585
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 2: can only imagine how frustrate.

586
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:15,480
Speaker 3: You are with this. Oh yeah, frustrate, Yeah, there definitely.

587
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:19,400
Speaker 4: That's why I wrote this new novel Control, because with Control,

588
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:23,280
Speaker 4: I had no control over what Hollywood decides to do.

589
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:27,639
Speaker 4: And I spent a good twelve to fifteen years flying

590
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:30,639
Speaker 4: out the Hollywood trying to negotiate stuff, and it just

591
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 4: wasn't moving. Now, everybody tells me, Omar, you can't be

592
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:37,280
Speaker 4: in control out there, just let it go, just let

593
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:38,480
Speaker 4: them do what they want to do.

594
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:39,679
Speaker 3: And when you do.

595
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 4: That, they end up messing up your movie. And then

596
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 4: everybody asked you questions about it. So then I end

597
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:48,280
Speaker 4: up having a respond to everybody's question about why they

598
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 4: did this wrong?

599
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 3: Why they did that long? That would frustrate me too.

600
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:54,680
Speaker 4: Right, So we're in a situation where we just got

601
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 4: to wait it out to find the right people that

602
00:27:56,560 --> 00:27:59,080
Speaker 4: believe in what we're doing. But we got fly Girl

603
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:01,879
Speaker 4: coming out again next we got some new things happening

604
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:03,480
Speaker 4: with it. So let's see if we can get the

605
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:06,360
Speaker 4: momentum again next year to get money people behind us,

606
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 4: because that hasn't happened yet.

607
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:13,399
Speaker 2: Now, every successful person experiences setbacks. Can you share a

608
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:15,960
Speaker 2: time when you face failure or disappointment in your career

609
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 2: and how you overcame it?

610
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 4: Well, right now, I'm still working on my career. I

611
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:22,200
Speaker 4: got some new things I'm working on now. I want

612
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 4: to have an endpoint where I'm putting out other people's books.

613
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:27,480
Speaker 4: I want to do more sports and celebrity books because

614
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:29,440
Speaker 4: they can sell a lot more and get a lot

615
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 4: more exposure. I want to do more movies adapted from books.

616
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:34,480
Speaker 4: There's a lot of stuff I still want to do.

617
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:37,360
Speaker 4: Now it's just about me staying alive. We'll see if

618
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 4: the Lord give me more years. And wish to do

619
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 4: all that, but the frustration. I wrote a book called

620
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 4: Control that's on the market right now. That deals with

621
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 4: a lot of people's frustrations when you can control what

622
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 4: you want to do in life, and none of us

623
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 4: really controls what happens. We can control as much as

624
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 4: we can, and then we got to let the rest

625
00:28:57,240 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 4: of it go and pray to God that things happen

626
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 4: favor And so that's what I have to do. Stop

627
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 4: the frustration and just understand that you're not going to

628
00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 4: be in control all the time. But you can read

629
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 4: that book controlled by Omar Tyree on a market now

630
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 4: and you'll get the feeling of how frustrating it can

631
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 4: be when you're not in control of a lot of things.

632
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, over the years, how has your perspective on

633
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 2: the publishing industry and the types of stories it promotes change, Well, you.

634
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 4: Know, it's up to the people to read and write

635
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 4: those stories. I've always written stories that are there to

636
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 4: uplift people, educate folks, inspire folks, you know. But the

637
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 4: popular books are the ones that are going to impact

638
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 4: people the most. And so it's about having popular books,

639
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 4: books that you can market and again getting the interviews

640
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 4: so you can relay it the content of your books

641
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 4: over to a larger audience and if you can get films,

642
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:52,080
Speaker 4: you can relay the content of your books and to

643
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 4: a larger audience as well. And so right now, if

644
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 4: I get a chance to get the endprint that I'm

645
00:29:56,880 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 4: fighting for, You're going to see a whole lot of

646
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:02,120
Speaker 4: creative marketing, a lot of power marketing, a lot more

647
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 4: marketing for books that we're not seeing right now. You're

648
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 4: going to see more book events than giant arenas, and

649
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 4: a lot of events the same event I met you at,

650
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 4: you know what I mean that the INVESTM Festival in Aga.

651
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 4: I would love to have books set up down there,

652
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 4: like with the whole platform and announcements for the authors,

653
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 4: you know. So it's a lot of events where you

654
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 4: got a lot of people where you want to make

655
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 4: sure they understand that they're there for books and they

656
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 4: don't want await from it. So I want to set

657
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 4: up a lot of books where book events where you

658
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 4: come in knowing that you're gonna get a book and

659
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:35,200
Speaker 4: you're gonna walk out with a book and you're gonna

660
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 4: listen to book talk. And I would like to have

661
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 4: that thousands of people, And so I'm working on that

662
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 4: to get thousands of people to come to a book

663
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 4: event and walk out with books where they happy to

664
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 4: be there. And so that's the kind of stuff I

665
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 4: want to work on and show publishers how to do that.

666
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 4: Charlemagne and God has been doing some of that with

667
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 4: his books and his popularity, and we want to take

668
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:58,440
Speaker 4: it to the next level with athletes and entertainers and

669
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 4: make it even bigger. So it's not bookstores, it's book events,

670
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 4: giant events, and that's what I want to focus on.

671
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now, have you noticed the shift in how black

672
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 2: stories are received today compared to when you first started?

673
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 2: And also have you noticed the shift in the stories

674
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 2: since being told by black authors.

675
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 4: When I was coming up writing books in the early nineties,

676
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 4: Oprah Winfree still had.

677
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:20,600
Speaker 3: A book club.

678
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:25,120
Speaker 4: Okay, Essence Magazine still had the Essence book of the Month.

679
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:27,479
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oprah store had a book club in the nineties.

680
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 3: In the early nineties, Oprah.

681
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 4: Was still on TV with her books and she was

682
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 4: pushing books majorly.

683
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 3: So we had, you know, and then bookstores.

684
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 4: Black bookstores were more popular than we had more white

685
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:39,960
Speaker 4: chain bookstores. We had Borders back then, we had water

686
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 4: Books back then, we had Crown back then. Now we

687
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 4: got a lot of bookstores that closed down because they

688
00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 4: couldn't compete with what's going.

689
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:51,240
Speaker 3: On right now. Amazon. You can order books from Amazon

690
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 3: all the time now, and so yeah, a lot of

691
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 3: bookstores closed up.

692
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 4: And you know, my generation, when I first came out,

693
00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 4: we were like the glorious age of book. Now it's

694
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 4: harder to get it's not as sexy. People don't know

695
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 4: our names anymore. You know, people knew Harry McMullan, you

696
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 4: knew Elan Harris, you knew Walson Moseley, you knew you

697
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 4: know Michael Bezen, you knew old Mars Tyrie. We had

698
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 4: names Maya Angelou, Tony Morrison, Alice Walker. Now people saying

699
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 4: stuff like the guy that wrote that street book about Detroit,

700
00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 4: the guy that wrote that.

701
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 3: They don't even know the names anymore, you know what

702
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 3: I mean.

703
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 4: So it was a very good time when we came

704
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 4: out in the early nineties. Now it's just different, man,

705
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 4: because you're competing with social media stars and podcast stars,

706
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:39,040
Speaker 4: in reality stars and comedians and then YouTube stars. Everybody

707
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 4: got a platform somewhere, and so now you can't pay

708
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 4: attention to everybody. So it's just a lot of distractions

709
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 4: that stopped the books from being as prominent as they

710
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:49,280
Speaker 4: used to be.

711
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 2: Now, how do you feel urban fiction has evolved since

712
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:54,160
Speaker 2: the early days of your career and where do you

713
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 2: see it going in the future.

714
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 4: Well, again, with the future, we got to have more

715
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 4: books that are translated in the For black books, you know,

716
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 4: like Black Panther from a comic book became gigantic, you know,

717
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:09,800
Speaker 4: first billion dollar book or a movie rather black people.

718
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 4: But it wasn't gonna get done by black people. Oprah

719
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 4: Winfrey one won't pay one hundred and fifty million to

720
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 4: do Black Panther.

721
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 3: Nobody black was gonna do that.

722
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 4: So if it wasn't Marvel, Comics and Disney, we would

723
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 4: have never had that. And that's what the problem is

724
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 4: again when we start talking about black art and creativity.

725
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 4: That's why Flyag Growl and For the Coldest Winterever have

726
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 4: not been done yet.

727
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 3: We're still tight on our money and we won't spend

728
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 3: like that.

729
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 4: Even though we know that both of these books are

730
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 4: gonna be winners at the movie theaters. We still got

731
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 4: people with money that's nervous and don't know the content

732
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 4: and won't do it.

733
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 3: So the future is about, you know, the stuff.

734
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 4: I'm trying to do getting more movies and get more

735
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:53,480
Speaker 4: promotions for books, and then making book writers.

736
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 3: More sexy, accessible, acceptable.

737
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 4: And hotter.

738
00:33:57,880 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.

739
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 4: You got to push book writers out there more, and

740
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:02,840
Speaker 4: so I'm going to be doing that if I can

741
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 4: get the endprint that I'm fighting to get right now.

742
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:08,160
Speaker 4: So the paperwork is already sent off and were waiting

743
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 4: for the discussions, and we're going to be in those

744
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 4: discussions for the rest of the month and the rest

745
00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 4: of the year. So I get that imprint because I

746
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 4: know how I want to push books, and that's going.

747
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:17,240
Speaker 3: To be the future.

748
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:20,399
Speaker 4: How you push books strongly to people who weren't used

749
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:21,839
Speaker 4: to books being pushed in their face.

750
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 3: Because that's what I'm going to do. I'm gonna push

751
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:24,360
Speaker 3: it right in your face.

752
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 2: Now, can you share how your relationships with other black

753
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:29,600
Speaker 2: writers have influenced your career, because I feel like you

754
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:31,800
Speaker 2: had a really good relationship with a lot of writers

755
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 2: that was coming up with it said, well, you know, with.

756
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 4: The new writers, I have relationships with older writers.

757
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 3: I was the youngest at the time. Now we got

758
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 3: a lot of.

759
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 4: New writers that I don't know yet, but if I

760
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:45,480
Speaker 4: get imprint, they'll popping the way I want.

761
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:47,279
Speaker 3: I'm going to end up meeting a.

762
00:34:47,239 --> 00:34:52,759
Speaker 4: Lot of writers, including journalists who write sports and entertainment,

763
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:55,480
Speaker 4: because I'm going to be leaning on them to write

764
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:57,239
Speaker 4: some of the sports books I want to do because

765
00:34:57,239 --> 00:34:59,520
Speaker 4: I can't write everything as a publisher. You're putting books

766
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 4: out now, So now I have to hire people, and

767
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 4: then I have to hire entertainment journelists so they can

768
00:35:04,719 --> 00:35:08,240
Speaker 4: interview people like Lord Roller, people like Ice Spice, people

769
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 4: like Cardi b if I want to do books with them,

770
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 4: you know, I said, all right, but I need an

771
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 4: entertainer writer that can have with them and get the story,

772
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:17,280
Speaker 4: and then I'll show them how to write a whole

773
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:19,719
Speaker 4: book because they're used to doing interviews, but now I

774
00:35:19,760 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 4: got to get them structured on Okay, you got to

775
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 4: interview long and multiple times to get a book, and

776
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 4: that's how you put a book together.

777
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 3: But I'm still going to be interviewing and meeting a

778
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 3: whole bunch of.

779
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 4: Entertainment writers and then sports writers and then other young

780
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 4: fiction writers. And so that's going to happen where I'm

781
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 4: going to meet a lot more new people writing books

782
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:38,560
Speaker 4: that are going to end up on my team.

783
00:35:39,560 --> 00:35:42,279
Speaker 2: But who were there other black authors who were any

784
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:44,440
Speaker 2: other black authors that they mentor you or influence you

785
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:45,239
Speaker 2: as you was coming up.

786
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 4: Uh not really, I mean I was again hanging out

787
00:35:48,040 --> 00:35:50,480
Speaker 4: in the streets. I wasn't paying attention to black authors,

788
00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 4: you know. So the biggest black author when I was

789
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:57,000
Speaker 4: coming up was probably what of course Alex hell you

790
00:35:57,080 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 4: with Rooths, because we came up with roots. But then

791
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 4: he also did the autobiography of Malcolm X that was

792
00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:05,120
Speaker 4: from by Alex Hilly. And then of course Tony Marrison

793
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:08,400
Speaker 4: was out, and Alice Walker had that colored Purple book.

794
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:09,240
Speaker 3: And that was huge.

795
00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:12,239
Speaker 4: And then after that Harry mcmilland blew the thing off

796
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 4: the Hinges, and then Walter Mosley came out, and then

797
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 4: we had May McCall and then we had Nelson George.

798
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 4: So we had a lot of authors that came out

799
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:22,239
Speaker 4: in the nineties. But when I was coming up, I

800
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:23,680
Speaker 4: wasn't paying attention to authors.

801
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:24,439
Speaker 3: We ain't had a many.

802
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 4: I remember that when I first went to school in college,

803
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:31,520
Speaker 4: Bill Cosby had a whole botch of psychology books and

804
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 4: stuff that he had on the marketplace.

805
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 3: But other than that, you know, we wasn't reading a

806
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:36,479
Speaker 3: whole lot.

807
00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:38,719
Speaker 4: Of books in the seventies and eighties. You know, he

808
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 4: had to be older. I wasn't paying attention to books.

809
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 4: I was listening to music and watching movies and stuff.

810
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:45,759
Speaker 4: So it wasn't a whole lot of authors that got

811
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 4: me until I got to college.

812
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:50,840
Speaker 3: And then those authors were the classic authors.

813
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 4: Richard Wright and Donald Bowings and Iceberg, Slim and what's

814
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:56,560
Speaker 4: the other brother Chester Halm's.

815
00:36:56,800 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 3: You know, those guys.

816
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:00,840
Speaker 4: Were from the Old School, so they weren't recent aufice.

817
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 4: But I didn't start reading them until I got to college.

818
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:06,160
Speaker 2: But did you meet any of these authors eventually?

819
00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 3: Like you?

820
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 2: Did you become friends with them?

821
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:08,160
Speaker 3: Yeah?

822
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:10,800
Speaker 4: I mean I was cool with Elon harris Er, Tremont Dickty,

823
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 4: Michael Bazin.

824
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 3: I've been around Terry McMullan multiple times. Yeah.

825
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:16,400
Speaker 4: So you end up going to a lot of events

826
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 4: and you meet up with them. And then I met

827
00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:21,719
Speaker 4: up with the younger authors Kwan and Asky and your equavings.

828
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:24,360
Speaker 3: I've been around sisters, told you a few times. You know,

829
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:25,839
Speaker 3: I've been around a whole lot of them.

830
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:28,399
Speaker 4: Yeah, So after a while, you're gonna end up meeting

831
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:30,359
Speaker 4: up and being around them because you end up at

832
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:33,160
Speaker 4: the same book events and whatnot. Down at Essence, out

833
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:35,839
Speaker 4: at library events in Las Vegas, up in New York

834
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:38,319
Speaker 4: at the Harlem Book Festival. So you're gonna do enough

835
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 4: events where you end up bumping heads and then everybody's

836
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:41,719
Speaker 4: cool with each other.

837
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 2: Right now, Out of all the books you've written, which

838
00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 2: one had the most personal impact on you? And why?

839
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:51,399
Speaker 4: Michaelm X the autobiography. That's why my name is Old

840
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 4: marras Shi tyree. Right now I changed my name is Michael.

841
00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:58,560
Speaker 2: You didn't write that book, Hi, I said, you didn't

842
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 2: write that book. I said, of all the books, you written.

843
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 3: A lot of books I written.

844
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:08,319
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, all right, just say no was my favorite.

845
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:11,719
Speaker 4: Leslie was my favorite character. Then I had a New

846
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:14,439
Speaker 4: York book, The Last Street Novel, which I was trying

847
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:16,879
Speaker 4: to shut down all the streets talk. Then I had

848
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:19,919
Speaker 4: a business book, The Pecking Order. I got a lot

849
00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 4: of books. I like Fly Girl Up because of Philadelphia.

850
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:23,880
Speaker 3: So you know.

851
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:26,800
Speaker 4: Sweet Saint Louis was a black on black love story.

852
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:29,880
Speaker 4: I wrote Single Mom to deal with the families. I

853
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:32,719
Speaker 4: wrote Do Right Man to deal with the disrespect that

854
00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:36,320
Speaker 4: good brothers get from people. That's always sweating bad people,

855
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 4: you know. So I wrote a whole lot of books

856
00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 4: that were on point. For the love of money. This

857
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 4: fly Girl sequel was talking about how we can go

858
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 4: astray trying to get money and try to try.

859
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:47,360
Speaker 3: To do art. Boss Lady.

860
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:50,280
Speaker 4: I talked about women trying to control their own brands

861
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:53,399
Speaker 4: and their own career. Every book I came out with, man,

862
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:57,080
Speaker 4: it's just did something different for the community, a different topic.

863
00:38:57,320 --> 00:38:59,279
Speaker 4: So I love all of them, and you got to

864
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:00,080
Speaker 4: read all of them.

865
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:02,800
Speaker 3: And go to Google and google my name Old mart Tavary.

866
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 3: I got a whole bunch of books.

867
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:07,320
Speaker 4: People get stuck on fly Girl, But I've been writing

868
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:10,040
Speaker 4: a lot of content for the black community that does

869
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:12,440
Speaker 4: a lot for the Black community if we're willing to

870
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 4: read and pay attention to what I wrote. Even this book,

871
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 4: Control deals with mental health and inserpersonal relationships because if

872
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 4: you always trying to control stuff, your mental health is

873
00:39:23,320 --> 00:39:23,879
Speaker 4: going to be all.

874
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 3: You know, when you're trying to control stuff all the.

875
00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:29,799
Speaker 4: Time and you go overboard, it can get out of

876
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 4: hand because you're not going to be able to control everything.

877
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:35,280
Speaker 4: But these individuals show that they want to control everything

878
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:37,439
Speaker 4: to the depth of them, and it ain't gonna happen

879
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 4: that way, and then you can get in trouble sometimes

880
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 4: when you end up with too much control and you

881
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:43,759
Speaker 4: end up spasting out with what you do.

882
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:56,160
Speaker 2: Now, which book was the most challenging to write and

883
00:39:56,280 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 2: why the hardest?

884
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:02,759
Speaker 4: The most challenging? H I ain't really, that's good. I

885
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:05,120
Speaker 4: ain't never really had no challenging books. It's just like,

886
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:07,840
Speaker 4: it's just time. I'm gonna get to it, make it happen.

887
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:10,320
Speaker 4: None of those books was challenging to me. I think

888
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:12,799
Speaker 4: it wasn't my book. But I wrote a book with

889
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:17,040
Speaker 4: Mary and Barry, The Math for Life, the autobiography, that

890
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 4: would be the most challenging because it wasn't my book.

891
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:21,600
Speaker 4: So I had to wait for him to give me

892
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:24,440
Speaker 4: the information, and a lot of times he was tired,

893
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:27,360
Speaker 4: and so one time I was waiting at his office

894
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:29,919
Speaker 4: for three hours. I finally get a chance to talk

895
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:31,399
Speaker 4: to him and he says, I'm tired.

896
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:34,479
Speaker 3: Oh, Mary, you gonna have to come back tomorrow. I'm like, what,

897
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 3: I just waited three hours to stuff like that?

898
00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 4: Man Like yo, dude, like that was the hardest getting

899
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:44,360
Speaker 4: somebody else's book that you know, he had dialysis and

900
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 4: health issues, so.

901
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:48,480
Speaker 3: You know, waiting and waiting and waiting to get the information.

902
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:50,919
Speaker 4: You can't make it up. You gotta get it from him,

903
00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 4: and said that was the hardest thing to write. But

904
00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 4: when I'm writing my own stuff where I can get

905
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 4: my own information on my own time, none of it's

906
00:40:57,640 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 4: hard for me.

907
00:40:58,120 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 3: It's just time. How much time do I need to do?

908
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:03,399
Speaker 4: But yeah, that was the hardest book, Marrying Barry's Man

909
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:05,640
Speaker 4: for Life because I had to wait for him to

910
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:07,520
Speaker 4: give me the information and.

911
00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 3: A lot of time where I was like, come on,

912
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:10,680
Speaker 3: come on, come on.

913
00:41:10,640 --> 00:41:12,640
Speaker 4: You know, as I would have done it a lot faster,

914
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:14,640
Speaker 4: but I can't make up his story.

915
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:16,320
Speaker 3: I gotta wait for him to give it to me.

916
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:19,000
Speaker 2: You know, I've been hearing his name a lot, So

917
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:21,319
Speaker 2: I'm gonna definitely order his book and so I can

918
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:23,200
Speaker 2: read it. But where were some of the key lessons

919
00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 2: you personally took away from his.

920
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 3: Story Marrying Barry's story.

921
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, when you talk about people being gangster, and he

922
00:41:30,560 --> 00:41:34,040
Speaker 4: was gangster because he had heart. Man, he told white folks,

923
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:37,920
Speaker 4: you are not getting this downtown building contract unless you

924
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 4: put some black people on a job, and he meant it.

925
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:43,840
Speaker 4: And to say that the white people that got millions

926
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 4: of dollars. You know, he was like, look, I'm the mayor,

927
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:49,160
Speaker 4: and you not getting this contract for millions of dollars

928
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:51,719
Speaker 4: from my office unless you put some black people on

929
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 4: the deal. And so he got so many black people

930
00:41:54,680 --> 00:41:57,320
Speaker 4: deals from that because white people couldn't get.

931
00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 3: The money when he's the day on mayor without Okay

932
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 3: in it.

933
00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:04,360
Speaker 4: And so a lot of black lawyers, the black bonds people,

934
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:07,879
Speaker 4: all these people end up getting on paperwork that they

935
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:11,040
Speaker 4: didn't have before, and ended up having experience that they

936
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 4: didn't have before, getting money that they didn't make before

937
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:17,839
Speaker 4: because of Maryon Barry and his bravery. So he cut

938
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:20,319
Speaker 4: down a whole lot of red tape and got a

939
00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 4: whole lot of black people opportunities that they wasn't getting

940
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 4: in the past. And I look at that and I

941
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 4: say that that's a brother with heart, that's a brother

942
00:42:28,560 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 4: with couras. That's against it, that's against right there, that's

943
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:32,440
Speaker 4: gonna make it happen.

944
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:33,919
Speaker 3: He ain't scared that less.

945
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 4: So I ain't never scared who I ain't never scared

946
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:40,680
Speaker 4: a lot of black people in DC to make money

947
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 4: the way they should have been making money because they

948
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:46,120
Speaker 4: were the dominant population in DC, and so yeah, maryon

949
00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:48,319
Speaker 4: Barry Man. He did his thing, dude, and he was

950
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 4: a regular dude that wouldn't do all that red tape

951
00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:52,440
Speaker 4: if he liked what you was doing. We did his

952
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:55,239
Speaker 4: deal in five minutes. I have an outline for him.

953
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:57,319
Speaker 4: He said, you wrote this outline. I was like, yeah,

954
00:42:57,480 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 4: He said, this is a good outline. How much do

955
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:01,280
Speaker 4: I need to pay you? I told him my mount.

956
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:03,959
Speaker 4: He agreed to it. We shook on it and we

957
00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 4: went to work. Man, it wasn't all that nonsense. I'll

958
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 4: call you back.

959
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:08,759
Speaker 3: I got talked to my team all that nonsense, or I

960
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:09,319
Speaker 3: got talked to.

961
00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:11,680
Speaker 4: My manager, none of that. We made the deal in

962
00:43:11,719 --> 00:43:13,919
Speaker 4: five minutes, right in his office. And after that we

963
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 4: was just chilling and talking and we went right to work.

964
00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:18,919
Speaker 3: So I love that man. That dude was straight, straight deal.

965
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:22,400
Speaker 2: How did y'all meet? Like, how did the conversation come

966
00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:23,479
Speaker 2: about for you to write his book?

967
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:27,160
Speaker 4: Zain had the book deal? Za Ain't everybody know for

968
00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:29,239
Speaker 4: a rotic fiction. She had the deal because she had

969
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 4: an imprint. And so she called me up one day

970
00:43:32,120 --> 00:43:34,320
Speaker 4: and asked me, hey, oh, mar you went to Howard.

971
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,360
Speaker 4: You was in DC with Marion barrying him, would you

972
00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:38,880
Speaker 4: like to write his autobiography?

973
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:41,879
Speaker 3: And I was like, hell yeah, you kidding me? Hell yeah?

974
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:43,799
Speaker 3: You know, you know because we was all in the

975
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 3: city when he got in trouble, so we all knew

976
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 3: how bad the government wanted to take him down, how

977
00:43:48,239 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 3: bad white people wanted to get him. We all knew that.

978
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:53,800
Speaker 4: We went to an HBCU, so we on his side.

979
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 4: So I'm like, hell yeah, I would write that book.

980
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 4: So I told him, I said, I will protect you

981
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:00,359
Speaker 4: for the rest of your life because I know how

982
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 4: bad they were out to get you, you know.

983
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:05,719
Speaker 3: So when I sat down and wrote wrote write the book.

984
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:07,840
Speaker 4: With him, it was like Zain had it and I

985
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 4: sat down in his office in DC. They flew me

986
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:12,799
Speaker 4: in for a one day meeting and flew me back out.

987
00:44:13,120 --> 00:44:15,440
Speaker 4: We did the deal, and then after that I had

988
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:17,759
Speaker 4: to keep driving back and forth up to DC to

989
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:19,560
Speaker 4: sit down with him and get the story.

990
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 3: But that's how it happened. Zain had the deal. She

991
00:44:22,640 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 3: caught me up on it. I agreed. They flew me

992
00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:25,840
Speaker 3: up there to d C.

993
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:28,799
Speaker 4: I met with him, he liked me, he agreed to

994
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:30,319
Speaker 4: do it, and we went right to work.

995
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:33,840
Speaker 2: Now, how long does it take you to write a book, like,

996
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 2: what's your process?

997
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:37,520
Speaker 4: You always got an outline. I always start off with

998
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:40,960
Speaker 4: the title. I start off with a title and a subject.

999
00:44:41,400 --> 00:44:44,680
Speaker 4: Always you know what is the title? What is the subject?

1000
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:47,520
Speaker 4: And I always keep my title simple. I don't like

1001
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 4: no complicated titles because it becomes harder to market when.

1002
00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:53,560
Speaker 3: People got to keep asking what's that about?

1003
00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:56,279
Speaker 4: What's that about? What's that about? So my titles have

1004
00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:59,719
Speaker 4: always been straightforward. A do right Man is about a

1005
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:03,080
Speaker 4: dou right man. Single mind is about a single mound

1006
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:06,319
Speaker 4: about what fly girl?

1007
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:08,040
Speaker 3: What is Leslie about?

1008
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:13,160
Speaker 2: Leslie girl in New Orleans?

1009
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 3: So I don't pick no crazy title, just say no.

1010
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:20,000
Speaker 4: Discipline you know what I mean? And you artists, you

1011
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:23,400
Speaker 4: can't say no. So I keep books simple. Control is

1012
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:26,960
Speaker 4: about control issues. I keep them very simple. I'm working

1013
00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:29,719
Speaker 4: on a book right now called American Football. What It's

1014
00:45:29,840 --> 00:45:34,719
Speaker 4: about American Football? I do straight marketing, and then I

1015
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 4: come up with the subjects. Then I come up with

1016
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 4: the characters. What characters do I need in this particular

1017
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:42,799
Speaker 4: book to do the things that I need them to

1018
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:44,920
Speaker 4: do to make the comments that I want to make

1019
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:45,800
Speaker 4: about these people?

1020
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:47,080
Speaker 3: And so that's my process.

1021
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 4: I always come up with the title, first, the subject,

1022
00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 4: then I come up with the characters. Then I build

1023
00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 4: a storyline from there on how many things that I

1024
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:58,360
Speaker 4: want to happen from beginning to ending to give you

1025
00:45:58,400 --> 00:45:59,160
Speaker 4: a great story.

1026
00:45:59,320 --> 00:45:59,799
Speaker 3: And that's my.

1027
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 2: Now, do you recommend for someone who's starting off to

1028
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:06,280
Speaker 2: go with a publishing company or is it just self published?

1029
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:09,239
Speaker 4: I started off self published because you got to put

1030
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:11,399
Speaker 4: it out there. If you got a publisher that wants

1031
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:13,799
Speaker 4: to publish you right out the gate, then take it.

1032
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:15,799
Speaker 3: But most of us don't have that. You got to

1033
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:16,880
Speaker 3: prove yourself first.

1034
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 4: So it's just like a rapper whear, where you got

1035
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:21,560
Speaker 4: to put out a mixtape first and then get the

1036
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:24,719
Speaker 4: viral people follow on you and then jay Z like

1037
00:46:25,120 --> 00:46:27,239
Speaker 4: I heard your record, I want to pick up your record.

1038
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:29,200
Speaker 3: I heard your record's hot. You know, you got to

1039
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:29,960
Speaker 3: hear it first.

1040
00:46:30,120 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 4: So it's real hard to take your books straight to

1041
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,080
Speaker 4: a publisher and they immediately want to publish you.

1042
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:36,960
Speaker 3: They want to know that you got an audience that

1043
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:39,439
Speaker 3: you can write first. So I published my first three

1044
00:46:39,520 --> 00:46:40,680
Speaker 3: books in DC.

1045
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:43,280
Speaker 4: If I had a book called Colored on White Campus

1046
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:45,799
Speaker 4: that's now called College Boy, then I put out Fly

1047
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 4: Girls second, then I put out a book called Capital

1048
00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:51,439
Speaker 4: City because they called DC the murder Capital for three

1049
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:54,440
Speaker 4: years because the drug selling was that rough in DC,

1050
00:46:54,920 --> 00:46:57,440
Speaker 4: and I was down there doing them three years. But

1051
00:46:57,520 --> 00:47:00,840
Speaker 4: if you wasn't selling drugs, they wouldn't buy you in DC.

1052
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:03,959
Speaker 4: But if you selling drugs on that corner, you're gonna

1053
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:04,680
Speaker 4: lose your life.

1054
00:47:04,719 --> 00:47:06,440
Speaker 3: And they don't care who you are. They don't care

1055
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:09,840
Speaker 3: if you from New York, Philly, Chicago, you selling drugs

1056
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:13,239
Speaker 3: on my corner, Shorty Young Young and Joe, I'm gonna

1057
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 3: kill you Shaw, and they meant it.

1058
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:17,319
Speaker 4: And so I got all the slang in DC. I

1059
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:20,200
Speaker 4: knew all the hospital and you don't sell no drugs

1060
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:22,839
Speaker 4: in that hot spot, dude, Do not do it because

1061
00:47:22,840 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 4: they gonna take your life. And so I wrote that book,

1062
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:27,719
Speaker 4: and those three books came out before I got a

1063
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:30,719
Speaker 4: deal with Simon and Schuster with fly Girl, because they

1064
00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:33,799
Speaker 4: wanted to republish fly Girl. And when they did that,

1065
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 4: that's when my career blew up. Everybody got fly Girl,

1066
00:47:36,719 --> 00:47:39,239
Speaker 4: but I started off self published because you got to

1067
00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:42,080
Speaker 4: prove that you're a writer, and you got to prove

1068
00:47:42,480 --> 00:47:43,400
Speaker 4: that people want.

1069
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:44,280
Speaker 3: Your book first.

1070
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 2: Do you have any regrets?

1071
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:49,359
Speaker 4: My regrets and more personal family stuff. You know, I

1072
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:52,120
Speaker 4: wish I hadn't done this. I wish I did less

1073
00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 4: of that. I wish I changed my mind on this. Yeah,

1074
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:57,000
Speaker 4: you have regrets on personal stuff.

1075
00:47:57,200 --> 00:47:59,480
Speaker 3: Career wise, not really.

1076
00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:01,160
Speaker 4: I did a lot that I wanted to do with

1077
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:04,400
Speaker 4: my career, but personal wise, you know, the family members

1078
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:06,560
Speaker 4: and you know relations and all that kind of stuff,

1079
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:10,359
Speaker 4: your kids, stuff that you made bad decisions on. Those

1080
00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:12,960
Speaker 4: are the regrets that I have now, Not so much

1081
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:16,640
Speaker 4: about the career, but the personal regrets that you know

1082
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 4: what I mean, you wish you could take back fifteen

1083
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:20,719
Speaker 4: twenty years and change.

1084
00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 2: And we're almost done. But when you got your first

1085
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 2: big check, what was the most what was the first

1086
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:30,759
Speaker 2: thing you bought? All right, I know you was outside I.

1087
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:32,320
Speaker 3: Got I gotta think about it.

1088
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:36,600
Speaker 4: I was in Delaware when I got the first contract

1089
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 4: from Simon and Schuster, And wow, that's a good question.

1090
00:48:42,719 --> 00:48:45,680
Speaker 4: So I'm thinking about I already had an apartment. I

1091
00:48:45,680 --> 00:48:49,880
Speaker 4: didn't buy my house until the second contract. So the

1092
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:53,080
Speaker 4: first contract. The only thing I can really think about

1093
00:48:53,360 --> 00:48:56,879
Speaker 4: is getting the SUV. Back then, it was a Ford

1094
00:48:56,960 --> 00:49:00,960
Speaker 4: Explorers that was pretty new to probably been the SUV

1095
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:02,000
Speaker 4: Ford explorer.

1096
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:04,680
Speaker 3: Uh, but I didn't buy it outright, I.

1097
00:49:04,640 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 4: Was leasing it, So I didn't really buy anything big

1098
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:08,560
Speaker 4: with the first check.

1099
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:09,759
Speaker 3: It wasn't gigantic.

1100
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:12,400
Speaker 4: But yeah, I think you know, I pretty much banked

1101
00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:14,759
Speaker 4: it and kept doing what I was doing. It wasn't

1102
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:17,920
Speaker 4: until the second, you know contract where I bought the

1103
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 4: house in Delaware. But yeah, the first one, I don't

1104
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:23,640
Speaker 4: remember like going out and splurging or nothing like that.

1105
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:25,080
Speaker 3: I don't remember doing nothing.

1106
00:49:24,840 --> 00:49:28,840
Speaker 2: Like that, okay, because I know you was outside.

1107
00:49:29,080 --> 00:49:30,719
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't do nothing of that. You know, it

1108
00:49:30,760 --> 00:49:33,239
Speaker 4: wasn't It wasn't that big amount. It wasn't like you

1109
00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:35,720
Speaker 4: getting football and wrapper money, you know what I mean.

1110
00:49:35,640 --> 00:49:38,200
Speaker 3: Like you get like fifty thousand dollars.

1111
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:40,799
Speaker 4: It's good money, but it ain't money where you going

1112
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:43,120
Speaker 4: on the shopping spree like that. And then I'd never

1113
00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:46,040
Speaker 4: been like a physical shopping. I'm not gonna buy a

1114
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:49,239
Speaker 4: bunch of jewelry and clothing. I'm not gonna buy that.

1115
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 4: So if I do splur it's gonna be a house

1116
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:55,480
Speaker 4: or a car or something big, not not just personal

1117
00:49:55,520 --> 00:49:56,480
Speaker 4: items on your body.

1118
00:49:56,480 --> 00:49:58,880
Speaker 3: And I'm not doing that. No, that's featherweight.

1119
00:49:59,560 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 2: Yeah. And last but not least you accomplished so much.

1120
00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:05,560
Speaker 2: So what's next for Omar Tyree?

1121
00:50:07,120 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 4: Like I was saying, I'm trying to do that enprint

1122
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:12,120
Speaker 4: deal and publishing. I'm working on two books right now,

1123
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:16,480
Speaker 4: actually three books. The American Football book. The Eagles just

1124
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:20,000
Speaker 4: played the Packers in Brazil, so that's the whole storyline.

1125
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:22,120
Speaker 4: I got all the research on that, writing about them

1126
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:25,120
Speaker 4: being in Brazil to make it an international football book.

1127
00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:27,080
Speaker 3: Because the NFL is really blowing up.

1128
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:29,799
Speaker 4: It's the number one sport in America, the number one

1129
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:32,200
Speaker 4: sport on TV, and it keeps getting stronger.

1130
00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 3: And now they're traveling to all these countries for games.

1131
00:50:35,200 --> 00:50:39,560
Speaker 4: They in Germany, they're in London, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, They're

1132
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:43,400
Speaker 4: going to Spain next year. They're looking at Africa in Asia.

1133
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:46,160
Speaker 4: So football ain't front man. So I wrote that one.

1134
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:48,239
Speaker 4: And then I got a book about social media that

1135
00:50:48,239 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 4: I'm working on, but I'm not going to say that

1136
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:52,440
Speaker 4: title because I don't want nobody still in the title

1137
00:50:52,600 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 4: before I.

1138
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:55,319
Speaker 3: Put that out there. So I'm working on that too.

1139
00:50:55,600 --> 00:50:57,960
Speaker 4: And then I got a black man's non fiction book

1140
00:50:58,080 --> 00:51:00,319
Speaker 4: that I want to put out because at my age,

1141
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 4: I got enough to say about black men and our

1142
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:04,880
Speaker 4: issues right now? You know what, I mean to go

1143
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:06,880
Speaker 4: ahead and put that out and talk about it for

1144
00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:09,520
Speaker 4: brothers in an age where we about to vote for

1145
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:12,239
Speaker 4: a black female president because we got to. We got

1146
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:14,560
Speaker 4: to vote for her, so we got we do so

1147
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 4: we have to have a black female president. And so

1148
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:19,600
Speaker 4: what the brothers feel about that? How do we feel

1149
00:51:19,640 --> 00:51:22,480
Speaker 4: about everything we're doing in this era as brothers? And

1150
00:51:22,520 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 4: so I want to do that book too, The Black

1151
00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:26,440
Speaker 4: Man's Perspective in twenty twenty five.

1152
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:28,640
Speaker 3: So those are three books that I'm putting together.

1153
00:51:28,800 --> 00:51:30,840
Speaker 4: And then you still got to get the movies, and

1154
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 4: it's still a lot of other, you know, entrepreneur things

1155
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 4: that I want to do. So as long as I'm

1156
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:38,160
Speaker 4: healthy and strong and still alive, I got some more

1157
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:39,120
Speaker 4: things that I want to do.

1158
00:51:40,440 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 2: Well, Omar, thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation.

1159
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:46,600
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you, you know, but yeah, we did a

1160
00:51:46,640 --> 00:51:47,480
Speaker 3: good job with it.

1161
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:49,359
Speaker 2: Tell everyone where they can follow you at.

1162
00:51:49,600 --> 00:51:53,080
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm on Instagram at only one old mart Tare.

1163
00:51:53,320 --> 00:51:56,239
Speaker 4: Use the number one only one Old mart Tare then

1164
00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 4: you can get me on everything else. It's just old

1165
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:04,920
Speaker 4: mark sadre TikTok x Facebook, what else, YouTube, everything awesome,

1166
00:52:05,080 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 4: just Omar tare. But Instagram is the most important right now,

1167
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:11,759
Speaker 4: the most followed, and that's only one the number one

1168
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:13,960
Speaker 4: old martare where you can find me.

1169
00:52:14,200 --> 00:52:16,279
Speaker 3: And then I also have a website that you can

1170
00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:16,640
Speaker 3: go through.

1171
00:52:16,680 --> 00:52:18,919
Speaker 4: My all of my websites or all of my links

1172
00:52:18,960 --> 00:52:22,960
Speaker 4: can go to with Hotlava Entertainment dot com. You can

1173
00:52:22,960 --> 00:52:25,919
Speaker 4: get that through the Instagram or any of my other

1174
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 4: social media Hotlava Entertainment dot Com where you can read

1175
00:52:30,760 --> 00:52:32,760
Speaker 4: all the stuff I'm working on and all the stuff

1176
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 4: I'm doing.

1177
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:36,640
Speaker 2: All right, Well, thank you so much, Omar. I really

1178
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:39,240
Speaker 2: appreciate you. I'm pretty sure once people hear this conversation,

1179
00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:41,319
Speaker 2: they're going to be so excited. I only told a

1180
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:43,759
Speaker 2: small few because I wanted to keep everybody surprised, but

1181
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:46,480
Speaker 2: I know they gonna really enjoy this conversation. So thank

1182
00:52:46,520 --> 00:52:47,719
Speaker 2: you so much for coming on the show.

1183
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:49,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me.

1184
00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:52,239
Speaker 4: Next time, I got to sit next to you in

1185
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:54,319
Speaker 4: Brooklyn and we just sit down and do like a

1186
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:55,000
Speaker 4: regular radio.

1187
00:52:55,280 --> 00:52:57,000
Speaker 2: Don't tell people where I live at Omar.

1188
00:52:58,320 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, I will be back up there.

1189
00:52:59,719 --> 00:53:02,520
Speaker 4: I just just got invited up to New York and November,

1190
00:53:02,760 --> 00:53:05,240
Speaker 4: so I'm gonna be up there for a book club

1191
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:08,600
Speaker 4: group November to fifteenth. That's a Friday, So let's see

1192
00:53:08,640 --> 00:53:10,680
Speaker 4: if I can get up there and we do another

1193
00:53:10,719 --> 00:53:13,480
Speaker 4: podcast with what I got popping by in because I'm

1194
00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:16,200
Speaker 4: gonna have some new reports by then when the November hit,

1195
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:19,440
Speaker 4: I'm gonna have some new reports and some new news,

1196
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:22,480
Speaker 4: I guine it. I'm working on some stuff right now.

1197
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:24,759
Speaker 2: All r right, and to the listeners, if you have

1198
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:27,160
Speaker 2: any questions coming to concerns, please make sure to email

1199
00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:30,680
Speaker 2: me at hello at the psgpodcast dot com. And until

1200
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:34,879
Speaker 2: next time, everyone later, all.

1201
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:35,879
Speaker 3: Right, thanks for having me.

1202
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:47,520
Speaker 2: The Professional Homegirl Podcast is a production of the Black

1203
00:53:47,520 --> 00:53:51,520
Speaker 2: Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the

1204
00:53:51,560 --> 00:53:54,719
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

1205
00:53:54,760 --> 00:53:57,840
Speaker 2: favorite shows. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show,

1206
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:00,560
Speaker 2: and you can connect with me on social media at

1207
00:54:00,600 --> 00:54:01,880
Speaker 2: the PhD podcast