Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
Speaker 2: Breakfast Club.
Speaker 3: Ye's the most dangerous morning to show to Breakfast Club.
Speaker 3: Charlamagnea god, just hilarious, envyous out but law and Ross
Speaker 3: and we got some special guests. Uh, The Vall and
Speaker 3: Kadeen Ellis are here. Good morning, my people, Blessed Black
Speaker 3: and Holly Favor.
Speaker 2: How y'alleel.
Speaker 4: I'm happy to be back home.
Speaker 5: It's a globe that I feel like I have the
Speaker 5: minute I hit the Guardia Airport.
Speaker 4: It's just being back home in Brooklyn. I feel like
Speaker 4: it brings us to life again, New York room. I do.
Speaker 2: I do have enough to move back to.
Speaker 5: Come and get my little fixed, you know, get my
Speaker 5: baking nugg and cheese like I get.
Speaker 4: I get back there.
Speaker 2: You go, there you go. Now, y'all are here for
Speaker 2: a bunch of different things.
Speaker 3: But y'all rebranded the Dead Ass Podcast to Ellis ever
Speaker 3: after discussed discussed the growth for that title.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it was it was a lot for us.
Speaker 1: So when we first started that Ass podcast, it was just,
Speaker 1: you know, it was like we were joking about versus
Speaker 1: women and what husbands feel versus wives feel. But over
Speaker 1: the course of six years, we watched how that kind
Speaker 1: of exploded on the internet, And we don't want to
Speaker 1: take credit for being a reason why there's a man
Speaker 1: versus women debate, but the shit is annoying. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: kind of just feel like we want to put out
Speaker 1: content that people can say, let's elevate and move forward.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about topics that really affect us. For example,
Speaker 1: we we will take credit for this. In twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: we've blogged our third son being born at home right,
Speaker 1: and we've blogged the whole process for about six months,
Speaker 1: and a new study came out that as of twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: home births in black community have gone up, and we
Speaker 1: feel like that's a direct correlation for us showing young
Speaker 1: black girls like there's a different option. And the reason
Speaker 1: why that happened was because with our first child, we
Speaker 1: almost lost k and she had to have twenty four
Speaker 1: stitches of survven my bad, let me not take me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she had to have emergency surgery right after pregnancy. And
Speaker 1: we did a lot of studies on black maternal health
Speaker 1: and were like, let's just use our platform to focus
Speaker 1: on positive So we said ELI several after was to
Speaker 1: change because this is us after we've evolved as humans
Speaker 1: on the therapy, working on being a better couple, working
Speaker 1: on being a better people. So that's what it's about.
Speaker 3: So had nothing to do a moving out of New
Speaker 3: York and not even using the term dead ass no.
Speaker 2: More were still.
Speaker 5: And the crazy part about it, we had to fight
Speaker 5: for the name dead Ass initially because you know, if
Speaker 5: you're not from New York and if you're at these
Speaker 5: companies that have you know, mostly white folks that we
Speaker 5: don't know what that means. How will we ever get
Speaker 5: ad dollars behind a name like that? They're not going
Speaker 5: to subscribe to that.
Speaker 4: So there was a lot of explaining that had to
Speaker 4: be done. But we start, we stayed true to it.
Speaker 5: I think part of us really didn't want to detach
Speaker 5: from that New York persona for a long time, but
Speaker 5: it's time.
Speaker 6: I do like that.
Speaker 1: Who made that exectively, I'll take credit for it, but
Speaker 1: we always do everything collective, even dead Ass, Like we
Speaker 1: sit down and talk about it and we're like, what
Speaker 1: you think about this? What you think about that. We
Speaker 1: had a couple of the options. We also liked House
Speaker 1: of Ellis. We liked that list of a rafter because
Speaker 1: it was the evolution of after what after all the bullshit,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, after all the talking about
Speaker 1: what we had to do to get to this point,
Speaker 1: and if you ever followed us, that's what we're known for.
Speaker 1: We're honest about what we've been doing, what we've done.
Speaker 1: We don't hold back, So tell us what we want
Speaker 1: to keep doing.
Speaker 5: Three years in the game, almost fifteen married. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: people have literally watched us over the past maybe what
Speaker 5: decade on social media, just putting our life out there,
Speaker 5: sharing with people and hoping people can relate.
Speaker 7: Y'all are definitely the rougherence point for a lot of
Speaker 7: people because even my son's dad Rome, Oh my god,
Speaker 7: my first done.
Speaker 6: My first son's dad man, he man you and you
Speaker 6: got to listen with this one, y'all.
Speaker 7: Even y'all shows. He follows everything y'all doing. He has
Speaker 7: five kids by five different you know minds, you know,
Speaker 7: and he likes to he'll listen to one of y'all
Speaker 7: poll gusts and he'll be calling them telling him no, no, no,
Speaker 7: because with developing coady said Dave David, you know, and
Speaker 7: while he gets home, creates a lot of arguments, but
Speaker 7: he hain't the developed type.
Speaker 6: You just tell him listen to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I don't try to preach you ain't, but it's.
Speaker 8: Right because y'all real life though, like y'all the way
Speaker 8: you've been going through stuff on y'all. I watched y'all
Speaker 8: channel a lot. Way y'all deal with stuff. Y'all were
Speaker 8: the first time that I saw a young black couple
Speaker 8: that was still like regular, like.
Speaker 9: And like, I was like, oh, they probably hang U.
Speaker 9: I will go at and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: And we still do. Yeah, we walk around and people
Speaker 4: be like, why y'all without security? Why y'all? And I'm like,
Speaker 4: cause it's my hood, Like what you mean?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 8: I felt like he could relate to y'all because that's
Speaker 8: like a big thing for your audience.
Speaker 1: I will say this about Room, like the vow now,
Speaker 1: wasn't the the vour when I first started. Okay, the
Speaker 1: divour when I first started was probably close to the
Speaker 1: room I was. I don't know him, but I was immature.
Speaker 1: I lacked emotional intelligence. I didn't understand you know what.
Speaker 1: But I take pride in showing the growth because I
Speaker 1: don't want anyone to ever be like I got to
Speaker 1: be perfect to be accepted. Nahu all that I was
Speaker 1: never perfect. I'm not perfect. I'm a fuck up again.
Speaker 1: Hopefully y'all give me grace if I fuck up. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. That's what I want people to
Speaker 1: walk around the earth feeling like you don't got to
Speaker 1: be perfect for people to just accept you. And if
Speaker 1: you expecting everybody to accept you, that's a problem anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, to be honest, we almost just didn't do the
Speaker 4: podcast anymore.
Speaker 5: So last February we had a bunch of live, sold
Speaker 5: out shows Apollo.
Speaker 4: It was like historic, it was great. So we're like,
Speaker 4: you know what, why don't we go out on a high?
Speaker 4: You know, we did all we've done.
Speaker 5: I feel like we've spoken aloud, you know, dealt with
Speaker 5: our issues publicly as a form of therapy through the podcast, right,
Speaker 5: and we felt like we've done all we had to
Speaker 5: do in the podcast space, and people literally like, you
Speaker 5: guys cannot do this.
Speaker 4: And to your point, we meet people on the.
Speaker 5: Regular the airport, random places and they're like, y'all can't
Speaker 5: stop doing this because you have saved my marriage or
Speaker 5: you've showed me that I'm able to open up to
Speaker 5: my partner and bring up these topics that are once
Speaker 5: taboo or uncomfortable to discuss, you know, and people say,
Speaker 5: if they wanted the value, you have to be a
Speaker 5: Kadeen and vice versa.
Speaker 10: So tell Row make sure that he's on the straight
Speaker 10: and era.
Speaker 3: And I think one thing that is great about what
Speaker 3: y'all do is just open lines of communication. That's it now,
Speaker 3: regardless if you're in a you want to start a podcast,
Speaker 3: that's what you should have with your partner.
Speaker 2: If y'all want to just.
Speaker 3: Sit in y'all living room every day and say, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're gonna talk for two hours, but we're going to talk.
Speaker 2: We may not recording and put it out, they're going
Speaker 2: to talk. It's just about.
Speaker 4: Communication encouraging that absolutely.
Speaker 1: And you know what's funny, most people when we first
Speaker 1: started the podcast thought it was so crazy. Y'all talk
Speaker 1: to each other. And I'm like, you talk about sex,
Speaker 1: you talk about money, you talk or how could.
Speaker 4: You talk to her like that? Like people were offended.
Speaker 8: For me, they felt like you were like the super controlling,
Speaker 8: like arrogant this is all about me.
Speaker 4: And I'm from it, but I get it right.
Speaker 1: And I had to accept that because you have to
Speaker 1: show people over time, right. You can't expect people when
Speaker 1: you first put something out to say know who I am.
Speaker 1: It took years. We did our podcast for seven years
Speaker 1: fifteen seasons, won a Webby Award, but it took time.
Speaker 1: In the beginning, it was so much like pushback of
Speaker 1: the arrogant, the violent asshole. He always talks down. But
Speaker 1: what I realized they weren't used to seeing an educated
Speaker 1: black man speak about his emotions. And it triggered a
Speaker 1: lot of women. You know what I'm saying, Like that's
Speaker 1: the fact, Like I'm not going to sit back here
Speaker 1: and not say what I need and require, because I'm
Speaker 1: also going to ask her what she needs and require,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to deliver on that. But now this
Speaker 1: is my turn to talk about it. And a lot
Speaker 1: of people didn't like it. But now it's come more normalized.
Speaker 1: Like I used to when we lived in New York,
Speaker 1: I heard Charlamagne every morning talk about mental health. My
Speaker 1: sons now know about mental health. It's not taboo anymore,
Speaker 1: and they speak their feelings. Mom, I don't feel good
Speaker 1: about this. I'm nervous about that. Now we want to
Speaker 1: keep showing young men like that's okay.
Speaker 5: You know what, especially within our community, black men and
Speaker 5: women are always pitted against each other. And if we
Speaker 5: want our black men to open up to us, why
Speaker 5: not create a space for them to do that. So
Speaker 5: I'm like, Devout, I want you to be honest with me.
Speaker 5: It doesn't have to be a little honesty, but I
Speaker 5: want you to be honest and transparent about how you feel,
Speaker 5: because I'm not trying to guess. Like, the good thing
Speaker 5: about Deval and I for the years that we've been
Speaker 5: together is that we've always given each other a choice,
Speaker 5: and the choice happens because we are fully communicative about
Speaker 5: the things that we want and need.
Speaker 4: So every morning I wake up with the choice to
Speaker 4: be here, and I decide to be here. And it's
Speaker 4: been working for us.
Speaker 3: You know, y'all been together twenty two years. Me and
Speaker 3: my wife been together twenty six to be twenty seven.
Speaker 3: I want to ask the ball, when did you and
Speaker 3: it's gonna sound crazy to some people listening, when did
Speaker 3: you realize Kadeen was a safe space for you to
Speaker 3: be your absolute most vulnerableness.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a good question. And I always preface I'm
Speaker 1: a preface by saying this. The first five years of
Speaker 1: our marriage was terrible, right, And it wasn't terrible for
Speaker 1: the reasons people think it was terrible. People automatically assume
Speaker 1: it's terrible because of infidelity or money, But that wasn't it.
Speaker 1: It was terrible because I did not feel safe telling
Speaker 1: her how I felt about things, so I bottled it up.
Speaker 1: I suppressed it. I would go in the bathroom, sit
Speaker 1: on the toilet, turned the shower, and I'd be crying,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out where, you know, what I was
Speaker 1: going to do with my life. Because I just come
Speaker 1: from being in the NFL making a lot of money.
Speaker 1: I had to start all over again, and I felt
Speaker 1: like less of a man. But I can't tell that
Speaker 1: to my wife. And it was one day she was
Speaker 1: pregnant with Cairo, and I had said to her, we
Speaker 1: were having a whole argument about stuff, and I was
Speaker 1: just at the point, and you know how it is
Speaker 1: when you're a man, you get to the point where
Speaker 1: you just don't care no more. I was done. We
Speaker 1: was getting divorced, and I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: you lazy, don't You don't trust me, you don't believe
Speaker 1: in me, don't do all this and She's like, if
Speaker 1: I'm not lazy, I'm fucking pregnant. And I was like,
Speaker 1: the hormones, like the attitude, like the nausea. She was like,
Speaker 1: I was trying to find a way to surprise you
Speaker 1: and tell you. And I said, well, why didn't you
Speaker 1: just tell me? And then when I said why didn't
Speaker 1: you just tell me? It hit me. Why don't I
Speaker 1: just tell her what I'm going through? That was the
Speaker 1: moment I wrote about it in our book We over
Speaker 1: Meet New York Times best seller, by the Way, But
Speaker 1: it was that moment I said to her, why don't
Speaker 1: you just tell me? And then it was like, why
Speaker 1: don't you tell her? And from that moment on it
Speaker 1: was twenty and sixteen. The minute I feel something sometimes
Speaker 1: she don't be in a mood. I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: we gotta sit on talk and she'd be like, and
Speaker 1: I tell her. And the minute we've done, we've made
Speaker 1: a decision that we're not going to argue about it.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna harbor no resentment. If we don't agree.
Speaker 1: We don't agree. But that's how I feel, this is
Speaker 1: how you feel, and we work towards, you know, being better.
Speaker 3: That's why I asked, because it doesn't matter how long
Speaker 3: you're with a person, and it don't have anything don't
Speaker 3: do with you.
Speaker 2: It really just us as men. Absolutely, when do we realize, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is a safe space.
Speaker 3: Is this woman that I have devoted my life to
Speaker 3: the mother and my children is a safe space for me.
Speaker 2: It's hard for men to find safe spaces. Man, we don't.
Speaker 1: I can't even find safe spaces amongst my boys. Forget
Speaker 1: a woman. If I go to tell my homeboy that
Speaker 1: I'm feeling a way nigga, you soft jazz, and it's like,
Speaker 1: am I you know what I'm saying? You asking? Am
Speaker 1: I you know what I am? Let me tough en up.
Speaker 1: So if my homies feel like that about me, I
Speaker 1: can't tell my girl I'm going through it. It took maturity.
Speaker 1: It took me to realize that I chose this woman
Speaker 1: and she chose me to spend the rest of our
Speaker 1: lives together. What my homies think don't matter, what the
Speaker 1: world think don't matter as long as we can get
Speaker 1: on the same page. So she's always the first person
Speaker 1: I go to now. But it wasn't always like that,
Speaker 1: and that's when we struggled the most.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's a resilience there because think about it,
Speaker 5: we could have thrown in the towel a long time ago.
Speaker 5: So when we meet people now and they're dating phases
Speaker 5: and they're just like, what should we do?
Speaker 4: They're writing for advice on the podcast all the time, and.
Speaker 5: We're just like, I feel like this generation at least
Speaker 5: coming up, nobody wants to put the work in. Nobody
Speaker 5: wants to tough things out, Nobody wants to be honest.
Speaker 5: You show up as a representative of yourself and you're
Speaker 5: expecting someone to be honest with you. You know, it's
Speaker 5: really hard out there.
Speaker 4: So we went through that.
Speaker 5: Together, and it was hard as individuals trying to grow
Speaker 5: at seventeen, eighteen years old.
Speaker 4: Now we hit the fourth floor, y'all, you know, forty one.
Speaker 5: It's like so many years of trying to grow together,
Speaker 5: to respect each other's space, figure out who we are,
Speaker 5: grow as individuals, raise children at the same time. I mean,
Speaker 5: when I look back on our years, it's it's insane.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I love how transparent y'all are with the public and
Speaker 7: even with y'all fans, Like you know, y'all built so
Speaker 7: it's like a fan base for like marriages and you
Speaker 7: know people who been even divorced, like look for y'all,
Speaker 7: look to y'all for advice because y'all put it out there,
Speaker 7: the highs and the lows.
Speaker 6: Right. How do y'all handle disagreements in front of your kids?
Speaker 5: Though?
Speaker 7: Because if y'all y'all real with us, right, how is it?
Speaker 7: And then you know, parents, you got two types of
Speaker 7: like situations like that. A lot of parents don't like
Speaker 7: their kids to see them like it's not realistic.
Speaker 1: Though, So we handle disagreements as a family spot on.
Speaker 1: If we disagree on something and the kids are there,
Speaker 1: we're going to have a discussion. And the minute we
Speaker 1: have a discussion, I will go to Jackson and say,
Speaker 1: you see how I spoke to your mom? You see
Speaker 1: how I don't got to be disrespectful. You see how
Speaker 1: I don't got to raise my voice. Do you understand
Speaker 1: what it means to have empathy towards someone who thinks
Speaker 1: differently than you? And they be like, yeah, I see it,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, now I understand this. Me and your
Speaker 1: mom may disagree, but that's my wife. Because they going
Speaker 1: to be somebody's husbands someday. They have to see what
Speaker 1: it's like. So I never wanted to put my kids
Speaker 1: in a situation where I was. My parents never argued
Speaker 1: in front of me, but then they would go in
Speaker 1: the room and be screaming and hollering. I'd be like, yo,
Speaker 1: what is going on? Then your pops come out. You're
Speaker 1: like that, why are you talking to mom like that?
Speaker 1: He looking at you, like, boy, that's my wife. I'm checking.
Speaker 1: I'm like all. But then that didn't give me any
Speaker 1: emotional maturity to deal with my wife for the first
Speaker 1: five years. So there was a couple of days where
Speaker 1: I came home and I was making making money, she
Speaker 1: wasn't working, and the fool wasn't ready because she had accident.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what's going on? Because I'm thinking that this
Speaker 1: is what a man is supposed to be, and she
Speaker 1: was like, from well, that's not the response.
Speaker 10: Starts to go in.
Speaker 1: It just started to realize that that's what that wasn't
Speaker 1: the way like the stuff that we saw growing up,
Speaker 1: and we just felt like if I emulate this, I'll
Speaker 1: be successful. Wasn't making me feel good.
Speaker 2: We didn't know no better we did it.
Speaker 3: I mean that's what you was learning from just observing,
Speaker 3: like there's no manual that comes with any of it.
Speaker 3: That's why, you know, I give my father a lot
Speaker 3: of grace because when me and my father had a
Speaker 3: real conversation and he told me about his mental health
Speaker 3: issues and I knew about his substance, it just made
Speaker 3: me realize, Oh, he just the man trying to figure
Speaker 3: it out, like I was.
Speaker 1: Two months ago.
Speaker 4: My dad stayed with us to help with the Oh yeah,
Speaker 4: that's a story.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna try to talk about this without crying
Speaker 1: because I watched my dad and my mom came and
Speaker 1: it was the same thing happened, and my dad was
Speaker 1: kind of short with my mom and I was in
Speaker 1: the car, and now I'm grown, so I'm and my
Speaker 1: dad gets short with my mom and I'm like, yo,
Speaker 1: you having a little tantrum for no reason. I need
Speaker 1: to chill right, And my dad looking at me like, nigga,
Speaker 1: I'm still your pops. But he's still like, you know what.
Speaker 1: We talk about this later. We go in the living
Speaker 1: room and we have like a three hour conversation, and
Speaker 1: just like your dad, he was telling me all the
Speaker 1: things he'd been through, all his fears, all his worries,
Speaker 1: and for the first time I saw my father as
Speaker 1: a human and I said, Yo, you were just trying
Speaker 1: to do that. You got married at twenty one, you
Speaker 1: had me at twenty two to my brother at twenty four. Wow,
Speaker 1: Like who taught you? My grandfather was an army guy,
Speaker 1: didn't talk much. You know what I'm saying, Dudes, I
Speaker 1: say not as I do, following my lead, like nobody spoke.
Speaker 1: So after speaking to my father, man, my heart got
Speaker 1: so big because I saw him as a person, like
Speaker 1: now he' my dude. Now like, yo, pops, just talk.
Speaker 1: And here's the funny part. He said to me at
Speaker 1: the end of it, I got to be better for
Speaker 1: your mom. I was like, that's why I said, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do it, not cry, because my mom is
Speaker 1: my heart. You know, you grow up in the house
Speaker 1: and you my mom's small on status. She's five too,
Speaker 1: and my dad is six footy, big right, And I
Speaker 1: see sometimes my mom's be like I'm like dealing with
Speaker 1: him today. And I told her my mom don't have
Speaker 1: a voice in his house because sometimes you don't give
Speaker 1: her a voice. And he looked at me and said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do better for your mom and for the
Speaker 1: rest of the week I saw him try. Now, he
Speaker 1: still had to slip ups like we all do, like
Speaker 1: I do, you know, but he tried, and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is making me feel good because it's not always
Speaker 1: about paying it forward. Sometimes you got paid back. Teach
Speaker 1: that generation how we do things now, and he's open
Speaker 1: to it.
Speaker 4: Our podcast even we meet people who are older than
Speaker 4: us and they will be like, wow, you guys.
Speaker 5: You guys are younger, but you guys are talking about
Speaker 5: things that I've experienced my entire life. We've actually opened
Speaker 5: up the gates for discussions too. With my side of
Speaker 5: family as well. I've been from a careeran household, like
Speaker 5: having discussions about how you feel about things like that
Speaker 5: wasn't really a thing. And my mom has opened up
Speaker 5: to her son, she hasn't even opened up to me.
Speaker 5: I feel like as a family unit, intergenerationally, we're starting
Speaker 5: to just heal so that way we can pass sat
Speaker 5: down to our boys, you know, and to piggyback off
Speaker 5: of deval with your question, Jess. They see sometimes the disagreements,
Speaker 5: but there's such an abundance of love in our house
Speaker 5: that we sometimes.
Speaker 4: Get flat for about you know, grabbing my ass or
Speaker 4: you know, walking past.
Speaker 5: And kissing and you know kiro our second, So we'll
Speaker 5: be like getting away from each other. But the love
Speaker 5: is so abundant that the moments that we may have disagreements,
Speaker 5: it far is like outweighed by what they see between
Speaker 5: mom and dad and.
Speaker 4: The love that we share.
Speaker 8: Now, you said that your mother in law's talking to
Speaker 8: you now like differently, now, like what are the conversations
Speaker 8: like now at this stage of the of the marriage.
Speaker 9: This is where they were.
Speaker 1: Prior once again understanding where to meet my mother in law.
Speaker 1: My mother in law is a West Indian woman from Jamaica,
Speaker 1: came here when she was seventeen. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: intersectionality between West Indian people and American people, right, but
Speaker 1: there's also a lot of disconnect right coming here, a
Speaker 1: lot of West Indian people just thought that Americans were
Speaker 1: lazy because we wouldn't do the jobs that they were
Speaker 1: willing to come over here and do. And I had
Speaker 1: to explain to her I thought process as black Americans
Speaker 1: and what we fought for, but us even talking about
Speaker 1: history as black people led to me understanding like why
Speaker 1: did you come here? She's I came here from seventeen
Speaker 1: from Jamaica looking for a better life. I came here
Speaker 1: by myself, had to live with my mom's friends. If
Speaker 1: I came home late from working at Burger King, I
Speaker 1: had to sleep in the hallway on the floor because
Speaker 1: they thought that I was out gallivanting. I started to
Speaker 1: see her. When I started to see her and realize
Speaker 1: who she was and realized how she protected the things
Speaker 1: she loved, I understood why she was so hard on
Speaker 1: me when I was coming after and courting her daughter.
Speaker 1: So once I was able to put my wall down
Speaker 1: because I saw her, I was able to understand. And
Speaker 1: then once I put my wall down, she put hers.
Speaker 1: And now in the house. That's my biggest ally because
Speaker 1: when she's my mother in law will be like Kadeen,
Speaker 1: when that last time me going on the dates, it
Speaker 1: be like I'll have the kids. She'll tell her like, yo,
Speaker 1: go put on something nice, go take And I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is the things that when people people need to
Speaker 1: see that because we hear all of the messed up
Speaker 1: stuff you live with your in laws that'shit crazy. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, but maybe it's not. Because maybe I
Speaker 1: could take my wife on a date because the grandkids
Speaker 1: are taken care of by their grandparents and people that
Speaker 1: I never thought about it like that, Yeah, their grandparents.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're able to survive. That's why we're here today,
Speaker 4: you know, back home.
Speaker 3: Also, man, just everything I'm here to just just have
Speaker 3: conversations with your parents, have conversations with your in laws,
Speaker 3: like they had a life before they were yours, and
Speaker 3: there's so much you can learn from that about where
Speaker 3: you are.
Speaker 7: Yes, absolutely, I look more about her by speaking to
Speaker 7: her parents.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think we worried about that in the book
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 5: By speaking to the in laws, you're able to kind
Speaker 5: of get a better understanding of your spouse and the
Speaker 5: things that make them tick and why they are the
Speaker 5: way they are. There's certain things about develop like oh
Speaker 5: that was a.
Speaker 4: Direct correlation between what happened with your mom or why
Speaker 4: your dad.
Speaker 1: Is the way he is.
Speaker 4: So it's just about getting to have a better understanding
Speaker 4: across the board.
Speaker 8: I watched you on The Lover's Yeah. One of the
Speaker 8: things that y'all talked about. I was like, you guys
Speaker 8: are so honest about this. The conversation when he wanted
Speaker 8: you to dress up like the main Yeah, it was
Speaker 8: a maz right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it'd be a different character.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, because it but when you said that, you
Speaker 8: like y'all were talking about the fact that when he
Speaker 8: actually do it, he was like, I don't really know
Speaker 8: about that, but we can meet in the middle.
Speaker 9: And he was like, no, this is what I want.
Speaker 8: And I'm like, Yo, if I had that conversation in
Speaker 8: my group chat, my friends probably would hate my person
Speaker 8: after that because they would feel like, hold on, what's
Speaker 8: going on here? Because you should be able to make
Speaker 8: your choices. But for you, it was like, well, I
Speaker 8: want to make sure that my men, you know what
Speaker 8: I mean, Like.
Speaker 4: Because who are we trying to appease the group chat
Speaker 4: or man?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm saying but even talking about that publicly, I
Speaker 8: was like, oh, like they y'all be really getting to
Speaker 8: the ships.
Speaker 6: Well, Lauren, don't she don't have a man.
Speaker 4: Like the group chat.
Speaker 3: She was with girls this weekend in Atlanta. We had
Speaker 3: the Black Podcast Festival. She was surrounded by and she
Speaker 3: went to Magic City got with a scripple.
Speaker 8: Like you said, do you guys discuss how far you're
Speaker 8: going to go in those real conversations, because getting into
Speaker 8: the bedroom, I was like, dang, nothing's off limits.
Speaker 5: I mean really Yeah, everything's pretty much been on the
Speaker 5: table with us, like there's nothing that's and we feel
Speaker 5: like if we show up as our true shelves, nobody
Speaker 5: could hold nothing against me, nobody.
Speaker 4: There's no room for you to create a narrative.
Speaker 5: You know. It's funny we have with the evolution of
Speaker 5: the podcast now a new segment that we've introduced that
Speaker 5: people are loving so far, and it's called op or
Speaker 5: no op, and it's pretty much do you have an
Speaker 5: opinion about this better?
Speaker 4: Or do you not? Okay?
Speaker 5: So we've realized that with social media, everybody got a phone,
Speaker 5: everybody got so everybody got an opinion sometimes about things
Speaker 5: you have nothing, no knowledge about, no facts, no expertise,
Speaker 5: but everybody wants to comment on something. So we're trying
Speaker 5: to now push forward about the bat the sexes is done.
Speaker 5: Now we're trying to push forward, thinking to myself, do
Speaker 5: I am I a sound mind? Do I have the
Speaker 5: facts to be able to comment on something and have
Speaker 5: an opinion? Or can I just let some things go?
Speaker 4: You know, like let's start that as a culture, we
Speaker 4: don't always have to have an opinion about something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you don't.
Speaker 3: I don't need to know if you think you can
Speaker 3: be the gorilla's.
Speaker 4: Doing that, Like, what do I think about? I don't
Speaker 4: know what's the scenario of this is happening right now?
Speaker 1: Anything in and the Barack Obama stuff.
Speaker 6: Oh and Kanye said, you know he was talking his
Speaker 6: cousin's pens.
Speaker 4: Somebody.
Speaker 1: How you feel about that? I don't feel about about Kanye.
Speaker 1: I'll go do interviews, I'll go do press, and it'll
Speaker 1: be pressed about the book, right And the first thing
Speaker 1: I sit down is like, you have a book coming out,
Speaker 1: Kanye West said, And I'm like, what the fuck does
Speaker 1: that with my here? And they like, what do you
Speaker 1: think about it? Don't think about it?
Speaker 5: Then?
Speaker 1: Until you told me about it, I didn't know what happened,
Speaker 1: So I don't have an opinion on it. And it's
Speaker 1: like you don't get from that he was, because let's
Speaker 1: think about the world.
Speaker 10: I wouldn't.
Speaker 8: I would coming on the family tip like, well, Kanye
Speaker 8: said he can't see his kids because he came out.
Speaker 1: I would have asked, well, I mean that's that's how
Speaker 1: they tried to like yeah, but ultimately is clickbait because
Speaker 1: what they wanted was to be like d Val talks
Speaker 1: about Kanye Yep, that's ultimately what they wanted. So we're
Speaker 1: trying to create a trend where it's like, say, for example,
Speaker 1: sel Main just asked anything about it, and then the
Speaker 1: interview goes, I don't have an opinion.
Speaker 6: And then now you're disappointed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to talk about that. I don't
Speaker 1: want to talk about any of that. I do want
Speaker 1: to bring up something though, what's that? Because Lauren brought
Speaker 1: up about the sex thing, and I do want to
Speaker 1: bring up this point. Right, if a man says this
Speaker 1: is what I required, this is what I want. The
Speaker 1: first thing in the group chat all the girl is
Speaker 1: not you should be able to have a choice, right,
Speaker 1: But as her husband, I asked her, what do you want?
Speaker 1: What you required? In the minute she says what she
Speaker 1: wants to require. There's no negotiating. So for us, what
Speaker 1: we're trying to show people is that there doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be a battle of the sexist. She said that
Speaker 1: her man wants this, she's gonna do it. He said,
Speaker 1: his wife wants this, he's gonna.
Speaker 4: Do Why would we not want to do that for
Speaker 4: each other.
Speaker 1: I'm not pledging allegiance to my gender. I'm pledging allegiance
Speaker 1: to my partner, like this is make sure I get
Speaker 1: that on Camelon what I'm saying when I've seen that,
Speaker 1: my God, make sure you get that and make sure
Speaker 1: you're zooming real quick what I said again, because I'm
Speaker 1: not pledging allegiance to my gender, pledging allegiance to my
Speaker 1: partner partner.
Speaker 5: But no.
Speaker 1: But seriously, though, that's why it's easy for me to
Speaker 1: just be honest, because it's just like if your boys
Speaker 1: are upset, man, you said that, yeah, so like we
Speaker 1: ain't working, Like, well, you're not gonna do nothing for me,
Speaker 1: so yeah, so my wife wants this. This is what
Speaker 1: I'm doing.
Speaker 2: I could if you let me, do you like.
Speaker 8: What happens in those moments though, where you or her
Speaker 8: are like yeah no, but I'm just sitting on it.
Speaker 9: I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: Then we talk about it and see there's been times.
Speaker 1: There's been times like I'm like, yo, yo, you ain't
Speaker 1: gonna dress up. She's just like.
Speaker 4: I'm like word raine check check, like range check rae.
Speaker 1: But then in the morning, I'm gonna wake up and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be get a tap and I'm gonna open
Speaker 1: my eyes and she's gonna be in that nurse outfit
Speaker 1: or something, because sometimes she's not. We don't understand that.
Speaker 4: Man, business is this stuff going on?
Speaker 1: You know you ain't trying to the night? Okay, there
Speaker 1: go the rest of our life.
Speaker 2: Bro.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I'm saying, Like it's never a
Speaker 1: deal breaker, Like if you wan't doing this tonight, then
Speaker 1: you want to be a problem. You don't want to
Speaker 1: dress up tonight? Fine, well sometimes she'll be like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I ain't dressed up tonight, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: bless you though, and ill dress up tomorrow. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying that we talked about.
Speaker 6: You know, has there ever been a role that you
Speaker 6: ain't want to play? Like I ain't doing that.
Speaker 9: That's not not.
Speaker 1: I got I got stories, bro, anything like it was like,
Speaker 1: you haven't dressed like a white girl, and he dressed
Speaker 1: up like the black guy like doctor she was. I
Speaker 1: was doctor Umar and my bad Doctor Umar. I know
Speaker 1: that's not sacrilegious to me. I don't want to go
Speaker 1: that would actually be a really good role player, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I just want to California.
Speaker 1: Yes, I know that's what he was doing.
Speaker 4: Bro. I was very specific, what did you ask for?
Speaker 10: It was like, down to a detail.
Speaker 5: I had color contacts, and I think I had done
Speaker 5: like a photo shoot or something.
Speaker 1: This is fun this is funny, right, she had did
Speaker 1: a photo shoot with you now, but she had on
Speaker 1: these hazel colored contexts on this big curly.
Speaker 10: Like yeah, it was a big looked like different.
Speaker 1: She didn't like herself like somebody else. I was like yo.
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, I want you to put on
Speaker 1: a cheerleader outfit.
Speaker 10: Bomb right.
Speaker 1: So now she's like, I got you, babe. This was
Speaker 1: this was New Year. We were at our parents' house.
Speaker 1: We was having quiet sex for a couple of days.
Speaker 4: It was over it.
Speaker 1: I want I'm trying to back back.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So we get home and Kelly, right, I'm sitting at
Speaker 1: the edge of the bed. I'm waiting she come out.
Speaker 1: There's no weave, there was no contacts, and she had
Speaker 1: on the leotar.
Speaker 10: It was this real cute sava.
Speaker 8: It was.
Speaker 4: With it and I was like this and he was like,
Speaker 4: that's not what I asked for.
Speaker 2: She walked over all seductively.
Speaker 1: She had music. We had a fireplace. She put the
Speaker 1: fireplace on.
Speaker 2: She's I'm sitting like.
Speaker 1: This, right, So she get down, she got her hands
Speaker 1: on my knees. She going down like then she gets
Speaker 1: to the bottom and she like what's up?
Speaker 2: Like this is like, what's this not for you?
Speaker 5: Sir?
Speaker 1: I'm like with the contact, she's like the vout. I'm
Speaker 1: downstairs right now handling business. I said, no, we've no contact.
Speaker 1: And you got on this dirty ass leotard.
Speaker 10: That's this dusty ass leotar.
Speaker 4: I'm like, first of all, it's not a leotard, it's
Speaker 4: a teddy.
Speaker 10: And I had a stain.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: Because it wasn't what I wanted wanted.
Speaker 1: I was just mad.
Speaker 4: I was just mad because you did not get exactly
Speaker 4: what you asked for.
Speaker 1: I'm still here to do the job.
Speaker 2: And she didn't even have heels on.
Speaker 1: So I got mad, right, So I got up and
Speaker 1: I go in the bathroom. Right, But it just so happened.
Speaker 1: When I walk in the bathroom, I seen all her
Speaker 1: heels lined up in the closet and we just moved
Speaker 1: to this big house. I said, you got all these heels,
Speaker 1: yet you ain't put no heels on. So going there
Speaker 1: and I threw all the heels off the closet.
Speaker 10: The thing I'm standing up.
Speaker 4: I was like, you gotta pick every shoe up? Are
Speaker 4: you kidding me?
Speaker 1: She says to me, look at your stupid ass in
Speaker 1: there throwing heels around and your dick's still hard.
Speaker 2: That's what broke me out of it.
Speaker 1: I looked at her, I started laughing and we sung.
Speaker 2: After that.
Speaker 1: It was a wrap. It was just like look a
Speaker 1: look at us, like look at like, look at us.
Speaker 4: And I was picked all the shoes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's the shoes.
Speaker 2: We said that, we picked the shoes up, and we
Speaker 2: got time.
Speaker 4: Like he asked for one thing and I was like, here,
Speaker 4: I'm doing something else.
Speaker 6: Cute and he was like yeah.
Speaker 1: He was.
Speaker 2: Sounded like a tyler per.
Speaker 4: Ye did y?
Speaker 7: Y'all never thought about doing the reality show.
Speaker 4: We've turned out it.
Speaker 9: On YouTube channel, So why not crazy because.
Speaker 1: We control everything everything. One thing I fear because we
Speaker 1: sat down with it and I don't want to put
Speaker 1: producers out there. We've sat down with number of producers, right,
Speaker 1: this is always the first thing.
Speaker 5: This is.
Speaker 1: So and so I know, I know, y'all, look you're perfect.
Speaker 1: I get it right. So there's nothing that you don't
Speaker 1: have Anybody like she's not there, and I'm like, the
Speaker 1: first meeting, you're coming to me and asking me things
Speaker 1: that disparaging things that I can say about my wife
Speaker 1: may get a funk on my face. I'm not doing this.
Speaker 1: I got I got four sons, and that's what you
Speaker 1: want me to do. No, I personally, I know this
Speaker 1: is going to get some slack, But I love Bill
Speaker 1: Cosby right, not for the things that he did, but
Speaker 1: for what he represented. This man was so brilliant in
Speaker 1: the fact that he had a black psychologist on the
Speaker 1: set of The Cosby Show every day to make sure
Speaker 1: that everything they put out didn't show black people in
Speaker 1: a disparaging way. Right, Like when you think about The
Speaker 1: Cosby Show, a different from world, Lil Bill, this is
Speaker 1: the content we want to create. We have a cartoon
Speaker 1: series that we've been pitching for about our kids called
Speaker 1: The Elisis and the time Machine because we wrote a
Speaker 1: book called The Lysis and the Time Machine. Why do
Speaker 1: we have to say black lives matter? And it's an
Speaker 1: animated series about history. These are the things I want
Speaker 1: to do. I don't want to get on television and
Speaker 1: argue with my wife about trivial stuff. I'm also not
Speaker 1: going to include my friends right, for example, your friends
Speaker 1: with just hilarious?
Speaker 5: What she like?
Speaker 1: I know that's the stuff they ask and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that. So it's like we're not doing
Speaker 1: the reality show thing unless we own it.
Speaker 8: How y'all deal with people trying to bring out the
Speaker 8: like what like the negative or whatever? Because I remember
Speaker 8: when people were a lot of people do still a
Speaker 8: couple goals? You guys, but I remember you guys had
Speaker 8: a conversation I think you had it again on the
Speaker 8: Lovers by shampodcast too, about how when people post y'all
Speaker 8: as couple goals, people instantly are like, it's no way,
Speaker 8: it's as happy and as good as it was all
Speaker 8: the time.
Speaker 5: And people it's funny because we have a contingent of
Speaker 5: people who've been following us for so long, literally since
Speaker 5: our Brooklyn apartment days when that was holding up his
Speaker 5: iPhone to now we have people who will jump in
Speaker 5: and be like, no, don't come for the aalysis like
Speaker 5: if you're new here, clearly you don't understand the track
Speaker 5: record that they have and what they've shared over the years,
Speaker 5: and it hasn't always been perfect, but they've actually led
Speaker 5: us in to have a front row seat to see
Speaker 5: them work through their issues.
Speaker 1: I will say this though, when you learn to have
Speaker 1: empathy for people, right, I can understand that if you
Speaker 1: grew up and you've never seen a positive black family
Speaker 1: and all you've seen is just despair and violence and anger,
Speaker 1: when you see this on Instagram, there's no way you're
Speaker 1: going to believe this is real. So I understand that.
Speaker 1: That's why I don't get upset at it. I got
Speaker 1: to look at some of my family and they look
Speaker 1: at me. These are people who know me and be
Speaker 1: like you and King really always happy, all y'all, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, NA, were not always really have people We
Speaker 1: talk about the stuff and they're like you really talk
Speaker 1: And these are my family members. So if a stranger
Speaker 1: who's never met me before feels that way, then I
Speaker 1: understand you've never seen it. How could I be mad
Speaker 1: at something that you've never seen before.
Speaker 8: I have empathy to ages a part of it, because
Speaker 8: like for me, I never before I got here and
Speaker 8: saw like Charlotmagne and be be young in a marriage
Speaker 8: and the happy and I don't know young people who
Speaker 8: are just like happily married.
Speaker 9: Maybe you're like it's like they're old.
Speaker 8: That's why they're happy, because they're like, it's where else
Speaker 8: you're gonna go, right, Versus y'all are young, living life,
Speaker 8: your kids are growing up.
Speaker 9: Y'all doing things. Y'all both for working and y'all are
Speaker 9: figuring it.
Speaker 5: Out, absolutely figuring out. And then people always ask us
Speaker 5: to why how do you guys keep this up for
Speaker 5: so long? I mean, you've been in the social media
Speaker 5: game doing all this for ten years.
Speaker 9: Y'all work?
Speaker 4: How do you keep it up?
Speaker 5: And it's like, this is not a facade, there's nothing
Speaker 5: to keep up. We're not trending on something or I
Speaker 5: legit love her to death, Like this is just us
Speaker 5: literally recording and putting out our life.
Speaker 4: Oh you put out so much? You gotta share everything?
Speaker 1: We don't.
Speaker 4: We share a sixty second video that's in a day.
Speaker 1: If you go back and look, there's one four hundred
Speaker 1: and forty minutes in a day, right, I share one
Speaker 1: minute video that means you know, one one thousandth of
Speaker 1: what happened my day.
Speaker 2: You don't know these people get that, don't But we
Speaker 2: also got.
Speaker 1: To understand that they don't know us. So if they're
Speaker 1: commenting they're commenting from their own experience. Oftentimes it's projections.
Speaker 1: I'm never going to let someone else is projecting projection
Speaker 1: define my day, Like I can't sit back and look
Speaker 1: at the comments and then just be like all these people. No,
Speaker 1: unless you know a hit dog holla and you feel
Speaker 1: seen and you're doing something unsavory and I was like, damn,
Speaker 1: they see me. That's when you kind of feel a way.
Speaker 1: But I don't I know what my intentions are. So, hey,
Speaker 1: you feel this question.
Speaker 3: When it comes to personal issues between y'all, do you
Speaker 3: feel like you have to work it out in the
Speaker 3: public because of how much of y'all lives y'all.
Speaker 1: Share with the audience.
Speaker 10: Definitely not.
Speaker 5: No, there's a lot of things that happen behind closers. Again,
Speaker 5: to davals point, you see a portion of what we share,
Speaker 5: you know, but we may after the fact talk about
Speaker 5: it on the podcast, like, hey, guys, we were going
Speaker 5: through this in this moment. Here's how we were able
Speaker 5: to internally process it, deal with it, overcome it, agree
Speaker 5: to disagree, and then we'll share it on the podcast
Speaker 5: and say, hey, guys, has anybody ever been in a
Speaker 5: position where this has happened, and then more times often
Speaker 5: than not, you realize, damn, I'm not the anomaly here
Speaker 5: in the situation.
Speaker 4: There are other couples, there's other.
Speaker 5: Men, there's other women who are dealing with the same things.
Speaker 5: We've even realized that sometimes there's women who are more like.
Speaker 4: I agree with the val on this one.
Speaker 5: Sorry, k like happen with me all day, or vice versa.
Speaker 5: The guys would be like, hey, you, my girl, I
Speaker 5: felt you when you said this. So no, you know,
Speaker 5: some things we do still believe are for private places
Speaker 5: and other things can be for public consumption.
Speaker 7: Because people will feel like they know your life based
Speaker 7: off that one minute that you would.
Speaker 4: Tell for sure, and then they create a whole narrative around.
Speaker 7: A whole narrative, like when I'm fourteen, our second my
Speaker 7: cousin Dick, he could have been on the honor roll,
Speaker 7: he could have won the basketball game that day in school.
Speaker 2: People listen, man, the ball ellis.
Speaker 3: I love talking to y'all because growing as individuals is
Speaker 3: a lot by itself, but growing as a couple is insaneess.
Speaker 3: Not constantly communicating, you know, you might wake up one
Speaker 3: day and not know who that person is.
Speaker 2: So we can learn anything from y'all. Constantly communicate with
Speaker 2: your part.
Speaker 4: Yes, indeed, and thanks for growing with us.
Speaker 5: To Charlemagne, I mean we've been on the Breakfast Club
Speaker 5: a couple of times of course the years A third time.
Speaker 4: I appreciate you for always rocking with us.
Speaker 6: Appreciate it so great to.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 6: That's work.
Speaker 1: Thank you and y'all making other people the same thing here,
Speaker 1: like the things y'all are doing here talking about mental health.
Speaker 1: I can't stand politics because it gets on my nerves.
Speaker 1: But bringing the information to people, that's all we can do.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: The greatest thing you can give humans is inspiration, and
Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club is inspiring people. I hope y'all know
Speaker 1: that we appreciate y'all and this has been a part
Speaker 1: of our lives since living here.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Yes, my kids know y'all too.
Speaker 4: We keep them still very very New York.
Speaker 2: It's the ball Dean Ellis.
Speaker 3: Make sure you subscribe to the podcast ELI ever After
Speaker 3: if you're not subscribed already.
Speaker 2: It's the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 1: Wake that ass up early in the morning. The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 5: M HM