Speaker 1: The volume.
Speaker 2: All right, Roy, we are back, joined again by a
Speaker 2: familiar face, friend of ours, friend of the studio, friend
Speaker 2: of the show, not the studio. Uh, it's been a
Speaker 2: while since we spoke to this gentleman. He has an
Speaker 2: album coming out this Friday. Yes, and this the first
Speaker 2: time in some years that he's putting something out. I
Speaker 2: think people are going to be happy to receive it.
Speaker 2: I listened to it the last two days. Music sounds incredible,
Speaker 2: music sounds great. Today we are joined by singer songwriter
Speaker 2: rapper and when he's not doing any of those things,
Speaker 2: he's saving lives on highways. Today we are joined by
Speaker 2: the legendary Chicago's own Chance to Rap.
Speaker 3: Thank you man.
Speaker 4: That was one of those things like I felt like
Speaker 4: was in the simulation when you guys reminded me like
Speaker 4: remember when Chance saved somebody's lives.
Speaker 1: I was like I forgot, I got us like like
Speaker 1: I'll just be catching people. I got all types of
Speaker 1: random stories of me saving people. I'm that lady in
Speaker 1: the elevator. We just was at some ship. Bro, We
Speaker 1: was just at some ship who was at a haunted hotel.
Speaker 1: So we went to this haunted hotel. This lady was
Speaker 1: helping us, like taking us to and it's like a
Speaker 1: real hotel. It's called the What is that called throw
Speaker 1: my Mom? You ever heard that shot throw mom in
Speaker 1: l a right that the one with the girl died,
Speaker 1: and I think.
Speaker 3: Hell of people died at this ship. I'm sorry. If
Speaker 3: this ends up being bad, we can take it out.
Speaker 3: But I think death is great.
Speaker 1: But basically, basically we was this lady was taking us
Speaker 1: downstairs to like I think, to leave, and we and
Speaker 1: when we was waiting in the room, she like knocked
Speaker 1: on the door.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, I heard somebody knock. Let's go check.
Speaker 1: When I opened the door, the lady is literally getting
Speaker 1: crushed by elevator. That's one of them old elevators too,
Speaker 1: Like not like a censor. It ain't no censer on
Speaker 1: this joint. It's just it's like it was. It was
Speaker 1: crushing her in the door, and I had to use
Speaker 1: my Spider Man strength to pull that ship off of her.
Speaker 1: But merch, I saved somebody's life this year, like less
Speaker 1: than three months ago from what you was talking About's
Speaker 1: one of.
Speaker 4: Those things in the plot in the movie, he goes
Speaker 4: to lobbying and that that elevator hasn't worked.
Speaker 1: Like literally, that's what I felt like Lady felt she
Speaker 1: died like thirty years.
Speaker 3: But she hasn't been a lot of those large marks
Speaker 3: since your moments.
Speaker 2: Did. But it's good to see you, man, last six years,
Speaker 2: where have you been?
Speaker 5: It's so much we like, so much has happened in
Speaker 5: the last year.
Speaker 2: Hasn't as a as a person, as an artist, I'm
Speaker 2: sure things are a lot different. But how you feeling
Speaker 2: the album is done? It's completely I know for artists
Speaker 2: that's like a journey in itself, it feels. But it's
Speaker 2: been a while for you, six years, but you you've
Speaker 2: worked on music, You've written music in the meantime, I've.
Speaker 3: Been releasing with my fans.
Speaker 1: Like, so, six years is a long time, and every
Speaker 1: time I hear that, it sounds so crazy to me,
Speaker 1: but like so much of that time, it's.
Speaker 5: A long time, But it's really not.
Speaker 1: It's not like he's telling me, like, man, the last
Speaker 1: time you dropped, I was in grade school.
Speaker 3: I'm a grandfather, like it was, Like, so, it does
Speaker 3: feel like a long time, especially in.
Speaker 1: That now that I'm getting closer to the release, I'm
Speaker 1: getting back to like that feeling of like you know,
Speaker 1: people just coming up to me in the street being like, Yo,
Speaker 1: I'm excited for your project and that shit, that's a
Speaker 1: great feeling. So I feel like but I feel like
Speaker 1: in this time from you know, all the little like
Speaker 1: Lucy releases that I put out, all the art collaborations,
Speaker 1: we were in museums, We put on a festival in
Speaker 1: Ghana for fifty two thousand people. We did a lot
Speaker 1: of things that were all still in line with this
Speaker 1: album and what the album talks about. With the album's
Speaker 1: promoting and so like it feels like we were in
Speaker 1: like a hyperbolic time chain, but like training at hardest
Speaker 1: fuck and doing little side missions. But then like now
Speaker 1: the pop out, Like when now people will see it
Speaker 1: and it's like damn, he just damn near came off
Speaker 1: a mountain, Like he just like he just came back.
Speaker 1: And with this, I feel like the right end. Y'all
Speaker 1: heard a lot of the subjects, but even the I
Speaker 1: think it takes a few listens to hear, but like
Speaker 1: a lot of the literary references, a lot of the
Speaker 1: like you know, poetic references, like especially for I think
Speaker 1: some of my fans that are like in the literature
Speaker 1: in the writing or in the poetry, Like you'll see
Speaker 1: that I'm pulling from a lot of areas that I
Speaker 1: wasn't pulling from in my earlier works. So I feel
Speaker 1: like the six years has been me like doing push
Speaker 1: ups for six years straight.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's by far the best rapping
Speaker 4: you've ever done. Yeah, I mean music is subjective, but
Speaker 4: as far as just rapping, definitely.
Speaker 5: The music incredible than rapping you've done.
Speaker 3: Was it six years? Was that a conscious decision or
Speaker 3: that's just how lifele No.
Speaker 1: I definitely wanted to be less than that for show.
Speaker 1: But I feel like what I was trying to do
Speaker 1: was I was trying to create moments. There was I
Speaker 1: feel like I look at it in like three sections.
Speaker 1: So there was the film Journey, which like and all
Speaker 1: of these like they like you know, permeate throughout the
Speaker 1: whole thing. But I was learning a lot about cameras
Speaker 1: and like getting to like figure out how I wanted
Speaker 1: to see myself in my music, because like music videos
Speaker 1: is like the best way to get to people. It
Speaker 1: don't got necessarily a huge financial return on investment, but
Speaker 1: in terms of like how people hear music for the
Speaker 1: first time, A lot of times it be on Instagram.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: The other side to it is hearing it in the club.
Speaker 1: But like you're gonna see that shit on TikTok, youre
Speaker 1: gonna see it on Instagram. You'renna see a music video
Speaker 1: before you just hear it here, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So I focused a lot on like learning how to
Speaker 1: use a camera, how to you know, direct, how to edit,
Speaker 1: how to cinematography. Is like the big thing that I'm
Speaker 1: like really into now is like learning how to like people,
Speaker 1: learning how to like how to like frame it and composition.
Speaker 1: So I spent a long time doing that. That's when
Speaker 1: I started doing my first I guess you could call
Speaker 1: singles for starline was self directed videos for like singles
Speaker 1: and stuff. And then I feel like around like twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, twenty twenty three, I started focusing a little
Speaker 1: bit more on like how do I like make big
Speaker 1: moments for these singles. So I started working with museums.
Speaker 1: I started working with painters and like, you know, people
Speaker 1: across different mediums to figure out how, like I just
Speaker 1: said that visual element, how do I make it so
Speaker 1: that people can feel this music beyond what I'm writing,
Speaker 1: because it's very dense versus like even what people like
Speaker 1: on their first listen. Like, you know, my family and
Speaker 1: my friends have lived with this music for a long time.
Speaker 1: Some of these songs have been around since twenty twenty
Speaker 1: or twenty twenty one. I mean, and they'll tell me
Speaker 1: five years later, like, bro, was you saying this on
Speaker 1: this song?
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, They're like, Bro, I feel you now.
Speaker 1: So I think it's like like it's very compacted. So
Speaker 1: it's like I started working with artists and like different
Speaker 1: people that just understand visuals a little bit better than
Speaker 1: me on how to like you know, have a more
Speaker 1: layer conversation on something I'm trying to talk about. And
Speaker 1: then I feel like just this final little last piece
Speaker 1: of it has been you know really just like I
Speaker 1: guess figuring out how to bring my fans in.
Speaker 3: So I started working with.
Speaker 1: What they call sensory experiences, so like doing you know,
Speaker 1: a V or audio visual experiences where I use like
Speaker 1: projectors and lighting and you know, I'll be having my
Speaker 1: wraps on the screen now, Like that's my my literal
Speaker 1: visual language, like putting people in a room literally with
Speaker 1: my words, with lights with a sound system that me
Speaker 1: and my friends designed, headphones on a beanbag, and like,
Speaker 1: just go through this music I'm working on and that's interesting.
Speaker 1: And it was like, I'm gonna send you all some
Speaker 1: video of the ship. It's actually crazy. I'm so good
Speaker 1: at it now that is like I'm literally Walt Disney
Speaker 1: like I could put some ship together.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I just realized everyone that I.
Speaker 1: Was not thinking jobs.
Speaker 3: I just that's so crazy. I promise you I was
Speaker 3: not thinking about folks.
Speaker 1: But you say, like some like building an experience for somebody,
Speaker 1: creating a world in a context around these things that
Speaker 1: I'm making up in my head and then I'm pulling
Speaker 1: from real life.
Speaker 3: But like Starlin, now that you've heard it, like I
Speaker 3: wish that.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like, once this project comes out, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be like probably around like fifteen hundred I think
Speaker 1: is probably around the amount of people that I showed
Speaker 1: this experience in the past two years. Like there's gonna
Speaker 1: be like fifteen hundred people that come out. That's like,
Speaker 1: y'all should have been the writings on the wall that
Speaker 1: was the name.
Speaker 3: Of the thing that I was doing.
Speaker 1: It was like it was like a little secret thing
Speaker 1: I did in New Orleans, DC, Chicago couple times, like LA,
Speaker 1: like a bunch of random cities, and I just I
Speaker 1: got this texting list and I text like, you know,
Speaker 1: it'll be like four thousand and five thousand fans in
Speaker 1: a city that signed up for this little thing, and
Speaker 1: tell them, you know what I'm saying, slide through, and
Speaker 1: then I put on this whole like real experience that
Speaker 1: nobody's experienced, like expecting with the new music, with everything
Speaker 1: at the end, it's like like the way that people
Speaker 1: feel about it. Obviously the music is good too, but
Speaker 1: this whole thing around it, it's like it's a three
Speaker 1: sixty experience. It's like fucking crazy.
Speaker 4: How did it differ with having like in real life,
Speaker 4: direct to consumer.
Speaker 3: Feedback on your music?
Speaker 1: That shit is like you really can't get anywhere else.
Speaker 1: I'd start looking down the camera because I know as
Speaker 1: rappers and like creatives watching it, like you've got to
Speaker 1: go to the people.
Speaker 3: Like you've got to go to the people.
Speaker 1: You can never get a real understanding of how people
Speaker 1: feel from you know, analytics or social media or nothing.
Speaker 1: Like people come and tell you a story about they
Speaker 1: little sister's life getting saved by your music or some
Speaker 1: you know, like them their baby being born, like whatever,
Speaker 1: Like they people have stories that they can't share with
Speaker 1: you really in detail through social media or through a
Speaker 1: view or a like or a comment.
Speaker 4: Like another subconscious question, do you think you went that
Speaker 4: route based off just a specific part of Twitter that
Speaker 4: reacted to the big day the way they did.
Speaker 3: On the timeline?
Speaker 1: I'm so like, let me not go so far in
Speaker 1: times to start it, Ryn, let me actually answer the
Speaker 1: first question first, like yes, because I think, like my
Speaker 1: shit has always been grassroots, like I really was a
Speaker 1: street team nigga, Like I know how to like work
Speaker 1: a project because I've been doing this since I was fourteen.
Speaker 1: So my relationship to the fans and that the way
Speaker 1: that that looks to the outside.
Speaker 3: I know the value of both of those things, Like
Speaker 3: I know the.
Speaker 1: Value of like having a person that will silently say
Speaker 1: I love you and I'll buy a hat.
Speaker 3: And I know the value.
Speaker 1: Of the of the perception of people seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of people wearing a hat, like they both have their
Speaker 1: own separate values. And I saw what was like you
Speaker 1: know this whatever, you know what I'm saying, I've seen
Speaker 1: what was happening, and I'm like, I need to tap
Speaker 1: in with the people that support and show them, like,
Speaker 1: you know, give them a pride. Because that's also a
Speaker 1: thing like you if you love an artist, right, especially
Speaker 1: from a young age, a lot of times you kind
Speaker 1: of like you start to feel connected to them in
Speaker 1: a way that's like I represent this person, they represent me.
Speaker 1: So when you see an artist that you fuck with
Speaker 1: getting trashed, like even if it's not conscious, subconsciously, it
Speaker 1: makes you dissociate and it makes you and sometimes it
Speaker 1: could like you have like an actual emotional reaction to it.
Speaker 1: And so it's like if I love this artist a
Speaker 1: lot and I love their music, and then I see
Speaker 1: like people are trashing it whatever that next music is,
Speaker 1: I want to see people love it, right, you know
Speaker 1: that matters to me separate from how much I love it.
Speaker 1: I could love it just as much as I love
Speaker 1: the last thing, but I want to see other people
Speaker 1: love it, And so I can't control how whatever their
Speaker 1: perception of what other people see is, but I can like.
Speaker 3: Bring them in.
Speaker 1: And so that's what I was really like doing, was
Speaker 1: like you know, these would be small rooms, like fifty people,
Speaker 1: sometimes eighty people, eat some in New York. Some more
Speaker 1: key ones in New York at the Choco Factor. Those
Speaker 1: are like our biggest ones. And they was like I
Speaker 1: think like maybe eighty eighty five to ninety people, but
Speaker 1: it's like intimate. I spend like some time afterwards the
Speaker 1: room just talking to people, and I'll give them these
Speaker 1: composition notebooks, like the same notebooks.
Speaker 3: I'll be writing it.
Speaker 1: And let them like write notes or you know, tell
Speaker 1: me their favorite songs. A lot of them will write
Speaker 1: me letters. And then I found out a lot of
Speaker 1: my fans has.
Speaker 5: Been writing this during the session.
Speaker 1: Send They're sending a bean bag, basically laying down. They
Speaker 1: got headphones on, right and in the room. Don't nobody
Speaker 1: still my design. I've been doing this for a while already.
Speaker 5: I'm almost back.
Speaker 1: It's okay, It's okay, but they know, they know where
Speaker 1: his mind is, Like I got more ideas to the
Speaker 1: room is is like surrounded by these subs, these big
Speaker 1: ass subs. So it delivers these loads that give you
Speaker 1: vibration to your seat that makes it feel like I'm
Speaker 1: you know, on a roller coaster or something.
Speaker 3: So uh that mixed with the visuals, the av the text.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, the text the lyrics, like it puts you
Speaker 1: in like really inside the music, and like there's no
Speaker 1: like loss of frequency in terms of how I'm giving
Speaker 1: it to them, like what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: But it's also like.
Speaker 1: A real visceral like reaction to like a base drop
Speaker 1: being felt in your seat and in the floor, like
Speaker 1: you're at a concert while still getting all the high
Speaker 1: end frequency that the headphones give.
Speaker 5: That's that's how I sort of Last Fast and Furious.
Speaker 3: You said you saw the Last Fast and Furious with
Speaker 3: some headphones on.
Speaker 5: No, but the seats was moving in Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: It's not that I ain't got it to that level.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a roller coaster at some point.
Speaker 3: It sounds like my sound journey.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, definitely, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 2: But so now you give them the notebook, and you
Speaker 2: take the notebook back at the end, and you need
Speaker 2: all everybody's.
Speaker 1: I asked them to tear out whatever they want to
Speaker 1: leave me with and keep whatever they want to keep
Speaker 1: for themselves. So like you know, sometimes people write personal
Speaker 1: things like I don't always tell them I'm gonna collect
Speaker 1: it either, So at the end I'll be like, hey,
Speaker 1: if there's any note that you wanted to give me.
Speaker 1: You could tear it out, but I want you to
Speaker 1: still keep journaling because a lot of my fans a
Speaker 1: creatives too, so like they'll be I.
Speaker 3: Was just saying, like so many niggas, I'm telling them
Speaker 3: write me notes.
Speaker 1: It's hell a beautiful portraits and shit that they're drawing
Speaker 1: in the dark, like in the room, because they for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, a lot of my fans is be on
Speaker 1: some creative.
Speaker 5: A different level of connection to your to your audience stuff.
Speaker 1: No, it's nothing like anything I like I see in
Speaker 1: the market, but it is like in the line of
Speaker 1: like how I feel like a lot of my fans
Speaker 1: feel connected to me. It's a little more personal than
Speaker 1: you know. It's a lot of people that just fuck
Speaker 1: with me from Afar on, some like oh I like
Speaker 1: his raps, But a lot of people know something else
Speaker 1: about me, or has some other connection to me, or
Speaker 1: felt some like I said, like this permeating thing from
Speaker 1: a song where they were like, oh, that's what you beyond,
Speaker 1: That's what I be on. And then I'll just feel
Speaker 1: that love when I'm walking around in New York, walking
Speaker 1: around in any city, and people like yo, they don't know.
Speaker 1: I got a fucking whole CD about to come out,
Speaker 1: but they just get that love love brother like whatever.
Speaker 1: You you know what I'm saying, we support type.
Speaker 2: So now six years has been six years. Six years ago,
Speaker 2: I remember Rory and myself we kind of was the thing.
Speaker 2: Is it's chance really independent to go through that whole
Speaker 2: thing that was like the chatter? But now with all
Speaker 2: of this that you're doing, this is really an independent thing,
Speaker 2: and you're funding this and you have all these ideas
Speaker 2: as a creator. How frustrating is it at times when
Speaker 2: you have these ideas in these in these thoughts in
Speaker 2: your head and you want to get them out, but
Speaker 2: you're independent, and it's like, we know things cost.
Speaker 5: It's like, but I have this visual.
Speaker 2: Once you have a vision, is it like I'm doing
Speaker 2: this no matter what, or do you have to kind
Speaker 2: of call it audible every now and then and adjust
Speaker 2: to the.
Speaker 1: No, It's like we just go and like that's just
Speaker 1: how it's been since I first started.
Speaker 3: Like I like.
Speaker 1: I love I guess I just love being happy, So
Speaker 1: I don't invest anything that's gonna make me happy.
Speaker 3: That's like, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: In terms of family and personal things like but like
Speaker 1: the music, like I always I've seen I've almost been there,
Speaker 1: always seen money as being for my pursuit of music
Speaker 1: or to be flipped so I can have money to
Speaker 1: pay for the things other things in my life that
Speaker 1: I need to take care of.
Speaker 3: But that flip is going to happen through music.
Speaker 1: So I feel like there's never really been a point
Speaker 1: where I was like, oh, like, I mean, I'll get
Speaker 1: that that's not a good investment because I just got
Speaker 1: to look at my actual life, like all my money
Speaker 1: is more money basically, so it's like the it definitely
Speaker 1: like what I have is going to make a decision
Speaker 1: and like what I can do. But I also say
Speaker 1: this all the time, like I go broke all the time.
Speaker 3: I go broke and.
Speaker 1: Get it back because also I believe in Jesus. But
Speaker 1: like there's like a certain you know, investment in self
Speaker 1: that I think every artist that really loves this shit feels,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And I think the only
Speaker 1: time that people don't is like, you know, we do
Speaker 1: be natural creative, So some people just fall into rap
Speaker 1: like they be naturally creative. They fall into it they
Speaker 1: see it as a business opportunity to do other things
Speaker 1: and there's no.
Speaker 3: Fault to it.
Speaker 1: But then there's also people that's like I was doing
Speaker 1: talent shows since they was a kid, and like, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like that's where I come from.
Speaker 1: I come from open mics, talent shows, being a nigga
Speaker 1: that wanted to, you know, to share my art and
Speaker 1: felt like it was important for me to be in
Speaker 1: front of a mic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I argue that, So, I mean, was the approach
Speaker 4: different with this one based on any feedback not only
Speaker 4: with what you were doing with your fans, but also
Speaker 4: the perception of people that maybe aren't even a chance
Speaker 4: the rapper fan, but they are a social media fan.
Speaker 4: And we'll just add on to the mob mentality of
Speaker 4: when something catches you know, I'm being.
Speaker 1: Honest, Like I feel like, content wise, it didn't. I
Speaker 1: think it's something that like weighs on my mind sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, because like I'm a I'm a front facing person,
Speaker 1: Like I'm a like I've made the decision, even if
Speaker 1: it was at a young age, I made the decision
Speaker 1: that I wanted to be famous, So how people feel
Speaker 1: about me kind of does determine like how I can
Speaker 1: move through the world and like how I feel on
Speaker 1: a daily basis when it comes to the raps. I
Speaker 1: feel like I I and I think it shines through.
Speaker 1: But it also like I'm just saying my point basically,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like a lot of the content on
Speaker 1: the record is more you know about the world at large.
Speaker 3: It's not a lot of Like.
Speaker 1: There's like one song kind of where it's like y'all
Speaker 1: tweaked on me, but like and even in that, it's
Speaker 1: still very like looking internally and looking at how Like.
Speaker 3: So there's a song. The song is called Speed of Love.
Speaker 1: It's me and Jazmine Sullivan, and on the song, I
Speaker 1: talk about like being a literal kid who got famous,
Speaker 1: Like we don't say it, but I'm basically a child star.
Speaker 1: I think anybody that gets on like from the age
Speaker 1: of seventeen, not saying I was even on, but I
Speaker 1: was touring with childish game, you know, as a kid,
Speaker 1: Like I have my first legal drink in Canada like nineteen,
Speaker 1: so I'm like, you know, I'm having Hella access, Hella excess,
Speaker 1: like just having my wais shit on the flow and
Speaker 1: I'm but I'm a kid, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like I still haven't like and then you know, you
Speaker 1: add on having a baby, you add on like all
Speaker 1: these other things. So on the song, I'm really just
Speaker 1: talking about, like how all children in this first verse,
Speaker 1: all children, but especially the ones that went to do
Speaker 1: talent shows and open mics and wanted to be famous
Speaker 1: and like kids like Bieber that was playing drums as
Speaker 1: a kid, Like we searching for love, Like we really
Speaker 1: want love, probably more outwardly and proudly and openly than
Speaker 1: the average person. And because we get so much adoration
Speaker 1: or adilation, like we one of those words is wrong,
Speaker 1: so sorry, I don't know which one it is, but
Speaker 1: because we get this other form that's like it is love,
Speaker 1: but it's a different kind of love, like it can
Speaker 1: like it presents challenges for us just in like interacting
Speaker 1: and operating at how we present ourselves and sometimes it's
Speaker 1: like it's not a boohoo story, but like just because
Speaker 1: of capitalism, just because of like consumerism, just because of
Speaker 1: how we present to these cameras, like people look at
Speaker 1: us like trading cards, Like our value goes up and
Speaker 1: down based on our takes and our most recent song
Speaker 1: and like and so like within that, like you feel
Speaker 1: a certain like you feel commodified or like dehumanized a
Speaker 1: little bit, especially if it's negative. Like when it's positive,
Speaker 1: then it's like, yeah, it's love. It's like, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Even if you get tired of the
Speaker 1: meet and greets and tired of everything, it's like, I
Speaker 1: gotta be grateful, grateful niggas of me. But when niggas
Speaker 1: start saying a lot of things about you or you
Speaker 1: feel these niggas ungrateful, it's not even ungrateful.
Speaker 3: It's like for a nigga that's.
Speaker 1: Like, like I said, like if you really grow up
Speaker 1: in it, then it's like, well, what's wrong with me?
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. And I feel like that's
Speaker 1: something I had to work through. So overall to answer
Speaker 1: the question, I feel like a lot of the songs
Speaker 1: are still pointed like I'm on this star Line journey,
Speaker 1: and when you listen to it, you hear the radical,
Speaker 1: you hear the self determination, you hear self love, you
Speaker 1: hear a lot of those things that are like within that,
Speaker 1: like that journey that I've been pushing to my fans
Speaker 1: and like the story I'm trying to tell. But then
Speaker 1: there's still like it's that vulnerability will interweaven be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this these are places that I fucked up. These are
Speaker 1: places that I want to grow. These are things that
Speaker 1: or this is how y'all tweaked on me, Like this
Speaker 1: is where like even to my friends, that same song
Speaker 1: Speed to Love has like a whole verse about my
Speaker 1: friends and where they chose to how they chose to
Speaker 1: use their voices or to like support me in certain
Speaker 1: times and like, to me, this is the best place
Speaker 1: to do it, even though I won't be saying names
Speaker 1: in it, but even though it's public, it's like sometimes
Speaker 1: especially for the creative, like you got you gotta put
Speaker 1: that shit on wax, like you gotta like you gotta
Speaker 1: not just express yourself and not just record yourself, but
Speaker 1: you gotta publish, Like, yeah, gotta put it out.
Speaker 4: I mean you tied it in with the I do
Speaker 4: quote on that record. Yeah, how's the exact.
Speaker 5: Borgo with that?
Speaker 1: Man Erkobadu one of my favorite poets, favorite lyricists, favorite
Speaker 1: obviously vocalist performers everything. She has a piece that she
Speaker 1: did on Deaf Poetry Jam called Friends Fans and Artists
Speaker 1: must Meet and at the beginning of each verse she
Speaker 1: says that same mind friends, fans and artists must meet.
Speaker 3: Which one are you? Which one are me?
Speaker 1: The first, the first verse or first section of the
Speaker 1: poem she talks about She says it from the perspective
Speaker 1: of a fan, and they're like, man, I just want
Speaker 1: to meet her after her show.
Speaker 3: I loved her new song. It was dope.
Speaker 1: Ooh, Like I hope she don't forget about me when
Speaker 1: she gets so big. The second verse is from the
Speaker 1: perspective of her friends, and her friends on it is
Speaker 1: like this bitch want us to carry her luggage. She
Speaker 1: lay for all the trips, she got all this money,
Speaker 1: like she ain't go I no money when I shit
Speaker 1: don't sell like it's like and then the third verse,
Speaker 1: my favorite one. She like flips the notepad in the
Speaker 1: air and she's speaking from her perspective or from the
Speaker 1: perspective of an artists, and she's like, niggas don't know,
Speaker 1: like when after taxes come, I be back broke, trying
Speaker 1: to figure sit out.
Speaker 3: People don't know the struggles I go through.
Speaker 1: Just trying to write a verse that will appeal to
Speaker 1: all these different people that you feel responsible for, Like
Speaker 1: they don't know all of these things and this is
Speaker 1: my perspective, but I just I always loved that piece
Speaker 1: since I was a kid, and so like that really
Speaker 1: drove the like the that was my closest connection to
Speaker 1: how I felt was like, you know, I have to
Speaker 1: address different things that I feel important to talk about,
Speaker 1: not necessarily just the things that people think I need
Speaker 1: to you know, like.
Speaker 3: I got it. Like I said, I got a lot
Speaker 3: of fans.
Speaker 1: It's like, y, you better put out a record that's
Speaker 1: stepping on their next, And it's like this is stepping
Speaker 1: on their next, stepping on everybody. But like it's also
Speaker 1: like I'm doing how I want to do it, and
Speaker 1: I'm talking about what I want to talk about, right yeah, And.
Speaker 4: I mean I think you're addressing what a lot of
Speaker 4: people were curious to hear six years later. But also
Speaker 4: on back to the Go, you addressed some shit that
Speaker 4: I feel like the world has been wanting to know.
Speaker 4: And what's fucked up is I had to make peace
Speaker 4: with this too, that because we are in the public eye,
Speaker 4: I put my personal life out there so people are
Speaker 4: allowed to ask me about shit where I'm like, that's
Speaker 4: none even fucking business to begin with.
Speaker 5: What it is.
Speaker 3: But it is.
Speaker 4: I made the choice of even putting it out there,
Speaker 4: So how could I react to somebody being like, well,
Speaker 4: we're invested now you address the divorce, everything that's happening.
Speaker 1: What was that transition, like even it's a transition still now,
Speaker 1: like it's like we are you know, we're young, like
Speaker 1: you know, maybe not to the Wians, but were young,
Speaker 1: like you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 1: I was twenty one when Kinsley, when my first kid
Speaker 1: was born, very you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So like we we.
Speaker 1: Like you know, are growing and we just two people
Speaker 1: that like definitely love each other and definitely I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm explaining it to my kids right now, like listen,
Speaker 1: not but like it's.
Speaker 3: I didn't think it was.
Speaker 1: No, no, it's just but it's like the reality of
Speaker 1: it is is like everybody you know deals with their
Speaker 1: family different with the family I come from is very
Speaker 1: very close, like very very tight, and you know it's
Speaker 1: very important for us and for her and her family
Speaker 1: for us to be tight.
Speaker 3: So we you know, we still travel together, we still like.
Speaker 1: Still yeah, we still have family forever, like and it's
Speaker 1: just a you know, it's a different format of it.
Speaker 1: But like we've been through every format. We didn't get
Speaker 1: married until I was twenty six, so you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like we've we've been through these things, and
Speaker 1: like I ain't going to act like it's not tough.
Speaker 1: I ain't going to act like it's perfect. And we
Speaker 1: just was like we shook hands and did like it.
Speaker 5: Was Like, what's the toughest part about it?
Speaker 1: Though it's weird, I think everything is like the same
Speaker 1: level of toughness when it comes to like situationally, I
Speaker 1: think the toughness is that it's a reality. I think
Speaker 1: that's the toughest part is that you might feel like
Speaker 1: you're over it and you and you're not over it,
Speaker 1: or you might you know, be used to a certain
Speaker 1: pattern of operating and because it don't work like that,
Speaker 1: like you have to like allow yourself grace to deal
Speaker 1: with that and operate in reality.
Speaker 3: And so I feel like.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a it's not every I don't want
Speaker 1: to say it's every day thing, like every day we
Speaker 1: get into it or every day were good. It's really
Speaker 1: just like you know, we we try and always remember
Speaker 1: the importance of like supporting each other, loving each other,
Speaker 1: you know, not just for the sake of our kids,
Speaker 1: but for the sake of each other's sanity, for like
Speaker 1: the fact that we have respect.
Speaker 5: For y'all grew up together. Yeah, like me, ya grew
Speaker 5: up together.
Speaker 1: And we like it's like if you knew Chicago, like
Speaker 1: the way Chicago works. And I hate to say shit,
Speaker 1: like high school, I sound like the nigga that would
Speaker 1: be like I was a quarterback, But like, everybody.
Speaker 3: Still know each other.
Speaker 1: We all still go to the same places, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I see her at like at least every other week,
Speaker 1: and that's what as a nigga that travels a lot,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So I don't have the
Speaker 1: same I don't want to make it seem like it's
Speaker 1: so easy because I don't have the same story or
Speaker 1: the same relationship. I know people that they do not
Speaker 1: even recognize that they bem or the bed is alive,
Speaker 1: you feel, Yeah, And that's not how we That's just
Speaker 1: not how we move.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean even you're saying we have to accept the reality,
Speaker 4: like shit, I'm co parenting now and it's been a
Speaker 4: tougher breakup just because there is no out of sight,
Speaker 4: out of mind, Like then you start arousing. Maybe I'm
Speaker 4: not over this, or maybe I like it for the
Speaker 4: family like that. Shit is a very difficult thing to
Speaker 4: go through with a breakup because other ones, Yeah they tough,
Speaker 4: but you can just like block the person and just
Speaker 4: not see them. We got to talk every goddamn day, yeah, man,
Speaker 4: and it has it'll drain you if it's not a
Speaker 4: good at least co parenting.
Speaker 3: That's the thing. It's like, kids is for the rest
Speaker 3: of your life. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah, it's not even the rest of it's kind
Speaker 1: of the rest of their life. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: God willing, It's like it's the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: You will be connected, no matter what, emotionally to this being,
Speaker 1: physically to this being always.
Speaker 3: So like.
Speaker 1: If you then y'all in a vent diagram, y'all both
Speaker 1: connected to the same thing, y'all plug.
Speaker 3: So I think we both are.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying we the most emotionally mature people, but
Speaker 1: we both I think at least have that vantage point
Speaker 1: that allows us to never go too far, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying in any direction, And I'm grateful that
Speaker 1: I got somebody that is like that, you.
Speaker 3: Know, to their vantage point. This is family.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the exact example you mentioned on that record
Speaker 4: as well that you felt sometimes like an absentee.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Dad, Yeah, that's like.
Speaker 1: And I love the word play on this song, like
Speaker 1: there's so many good ways to like, you know, talk
Speaker 1: about a home or like going back home and that
Speaker 1: in that verse, I yues like I there's so many
Speaker 1: Like I think like everybody, like I said, everybody operates differently.
Speaker 1: They think of things like the importance of certain things differently.
Speaker 3: Like, Man, I miss my kids.
Speaker 1: Right now, like this time going out of town because
Speaker 1: of how much work I've had. I just had them
Speaker 1: for the last two weeks, Like the amount of time
Speaker 1: that I had to lean on my mom. Like it
Speaker 1: like I ain't gonna cry, but I'm just saying, like
Speaker 1: that shit, just thinking about it, it makes me feel
Speaker 1: a way, you know what I'm saying. But like they understand,
Speaker 1: like they're both super emotionally intelligent kids.
Speaker 3: And I had a whole, which long conversation. Yeah it is.
Speaker 1: I'm so blessed that I got girls because they are very,
Speaker 1: very smart. And I had like a long conversation with
Speaker 1: my oldest started yesterday and she was just like completely understanding.
Speaker 1: She was just like like, let's she like I al't
Speaker 1: talk to my mom like I'm gonna figure out, like
Speaker 1: we could do something when you get back type shit.
Speaker 3: And I think there's a weight that I.
Speaker 1: Believe is attributed to anything dealing with like developmental you know,
Speaker 1: going like like certain things happening in my kids life
Speaker 1: that I don't want to miss a first day of school,
Speaker 1: a birthday or a birthday party of you know anything,
Speaker 1: and just in you know, just in working, I miss
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that doesn't include my personal life
Speaker 1: that doesn't include you know, now the now of like
Speaker 1: we got to take turns like and sometimes against that
Speaker 1: family dynamic. It feels like you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: like give me my kids back type shit, and.
Speaker 3: So that creates a separation and stuff too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean you did mention your personal life too,
Speaker 4: and we can bring it back to a little light
Speaker 4: because I'm a cry as well. Yeah you did have
Speaker 4: like definitely a dad trip where you're off the map,
Speaker 4: Josh weel that video. This was one of those personal
Speaker 4: lives like dad needs a weekend.
Speaker 3: Look but look at the is this rewind one time?
Speaker 3: This is how is that carnival? Look at look at me,
Speaker 3: look at the camera.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then and then look oh, and then look
Speaker 1: at the look off like I didn't see the camera.
Speaker 4: There's like this may affect when this came out, I
Speaker 4: defended you online because we definitely defended you.
Speaker 2: Well, it's the culture. It's carnival chances. He's interested in
Speaker 2: the culture. This is what you do at cart Yeah,
Speaker 2: here's the truth. I regardless, I was tripping. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: was tripping. Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Why do you think you were tripping?
Speaker 5: How do you think he was tripping? I think I
Speaker 5: was thinking he was tripping.
Speaker 1: No, I think I was tripping because nobody knew that
Speaker 1: me and my wife were separated, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: So I have you don't rather BM your wife friend
Speaker 1: making friend, don't let your lady look stupid with them.
Speaker 3: So some reason I thought that was after there was
Speaker 3: the no.
Speaker 1: That was the big deal about it where everybody was tripping,
Speaker 1: was was like, it's this appropriate behavior for somebody that's married.
Speaker 5: Okay, So that's what that lookof wasn't like oh shit, it.
Speaker 1: Was like damn, like I'm putting our business out there. Basically,
Speaker 1: it was my birthday and I was. I'm not ever
Speaker 1: gonna say anything else, but I'm saying like it was
Speaker 1: my birthday. I'm lit and with all my guys, it's carnival.
Speaker 1: That was my thirtieth birthday. I'm not trying to make excuses.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, like I'm paying the scene for you,
Speaker 1: like but basically, yeah, I mean that is that is
Speaker 1: you know, Caribbean culture. That is like you know, uh
Speaker 1: a thing. But like at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: like I feel like I was glad when that ship
Speaker 1: was homework because my phone was blowing up the next
Speaker 1: day about that shit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I feel like your man that was
Speaker 4: holding you up on the dub, it's classic move.
Speaker 3: Maybe he should have been grabbing phones. Yeah, it's carnival.
Speaker 3: Part of it was like everybody was lit.
Speaker 1: Like everybody that was probably the like the cleanest wine
Speaker 1: I caught, Like.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, like lucky they censor. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the other wines I was catching when down you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But it's like what the truth is like like I said, like,
Speaker 1: don't don't have anybody looking stupid and I went out
Speaker 1: there for fun like.
Speaker 3: We're I think at the end of the day, Like.
Speaker 1: I do wish that that shit didn't happen that way,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, And I wish that I was,
Speaker 1: you know, more protective of her. But like I think
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's it's in the past. That's the reality.
Speaker 1: That's part of It's like you deal with realities. You
Speaker 1: go through like all of these different decisions that get you.
Speaker 1: Every single decision that we all made got us to
Speaker 1: sitting on these couches right now. So it's like okay,
Speaker 1: like I gotta deal with whatever comes with that, and
Speaker 1: also like do whatever I can to like make up
Speaker 1: for that. And also I gotta like I can't like
Speaker 1: make it seem like, oh, I've got to build a
Speaker 1: fucking time machine.
Speaker 4: Like yeah, yeah, I mean, what was that conversation like,
Speaker 4: because nothing's worse than like especially your thirtieth birthday, Like
Speaker 4: you just start phone just start ringing like that.
Speaker 3: You don't even know the videos up, just phone blowing up.
Speaker 1: Like no, it's like really, it's like your I got
Speaker 1: a lot of people that love me, like and a
Speaker 1: lot of people that love me.
Speaker 3: But don't necessarily know everything that's going on in my life.
Speaker 1: So like it's mainly like friends, family, team press, Like
Speaker 1: everybody hit my along, like yo, this you're going viral,
Speaker 1: Like you got to take your birthday.
Speaker 3: You're supposed to just catch the line, don't smack it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the fuck is it doing?
Speaker 1: But like you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: they gonna end. Man, yeah, I'm thirty two now, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Yeah, sorry, listen.
Speaker 2: Why when it came out, I was like, listen, man,
Speaker 2: he's a carnival.
Speaker 5: This is what goes on. This is what happens. And
Speaker 5: everybody was like, nah, he wild.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: The women was having he.
Speaker 2: Wold for that, and I was like, I get it,
Speaker 2: but it's carnival, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel the same way. But this is where
Speaker 4: I believe double standards exist. If my if it was
Speaker 4: flipped and my girl did that was like no, but
Speaker 4: it's carnival.
Speaker 3: I'd be like, standards is real.
Speaker 5: We know that.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's always gonna be gender wars because
Speaker 1: there's stud genders.
Speaker 3: Sorry wait, whoa, whoa, All right, let's take it. Let's
Speaker 3: take a step as a Republican is a republic? The
Speaker 3: episode a step back. Let's take a step back, Republican
Speaker 3: step back. Let's take a step back. Okay.
Speaker 1: What I'm trying to say is that the c I A, yes,
Speaker 1: my brother, yes.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's so funny how you say that and you catch
Speaker 2: it so like, wait, WHOA, I don't even say.
Speaker 3: The word gender office.
Speaker 1: It was like, and once I heard myself talking, I
Speaker 1: was like, no, what am I talking about?
Speaker 3: You now, what I'm talking about right now, we are,
Speaker 3: right now in your relationship, there was two genders. That's
Speaker 3: what you were getting. What I was saying.
Speaker 1: What I was saying is like, no matter what, if
Speaker 1: something happens with some celebrities, there's gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: of people that tag onto the conversation in pushing whatever
Speaker 1: their belief or stance on something is. And even whatever
Speaker 1: happened is going to be presented to you by the
Speaker 1: blogs or whatever, Instagram pages or whatever in a way
Speaker 1: to make you have to have a you know, hot
Speaker 1: or cold opinion on what's going on. And so sometimes
Speaker 1: I think the people that's involved in those stories don't
Speaker 1: even like we don't take the time or give ourselves
Speaker 1: the grace to realize, like, this shit not really about me,
Speaker 1: It's about niggas. Wanting to go get go catch a
Speaker 1: wine as somewhere else, like this shouldn't got nothing to
Speaker 1: do with me, But unfortunately I'm tied into this conversation
Speaker 1: now and it's going to you know, it'll only last
Speaker 1: as long as I keep talking about that shit. So
Speaker 1: I kind of got that. You know, Yeah, it happens, drugs,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, It happens.
Speaker 3: Did I do that?
Speaker 4: I mean, listen if you got to get called doing
Speaker 4: something in carnival.
Speaker 2: So you've been you've been, uh, you've been writing. What
Speaker 2: is your relationship like today with uh?
Speaker 5: With Kanye?
Speaker 2: Because I would you didn't put nothing out album wise
Speaker 2: the last six years, but you've been writing a lot.
Speaker 2: You've been working a lot, specifically with Kanye. Where's the
Speaker 2: relationship like today with ya? Like, where do y'all stand?
Speaker 2: Do you still speak to them often? You still work
Speaker 2: with them? Are there any sessions left off? Any music
Speaker 2: that came from those sessions that are on this album?
Speaker 3: No, there's nothing from from those sessions on this album.
Speaker 3: There was one that would have could have been wrong,
Speaker 3: but no, there's not any on this out.
Speaker 1: And I was gonna say so, honestly, is the best policy.
Speaker 1: I haven't talked to him in a long time. Okay,
Speaker 1: He's one of the most influential people in my music.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: He was at my wedding, He's you know, our kids
Speaker 1: have hung out together, so like, you know, I always
Speaker 1: love Kanye. Yeah, And but just being honest, I haven't
Speaker 1: talked to him in a while.
Speaker 3: I feel like.
Speaker 1: I've been hella busy. I'm working on shit. He's obviously
Speaker 1: been busy. He's been working on shit, so like you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like nah, but also like I'll
Speaker 1: be trying not to take opportunities to like this. Motherfuckers
Speaker 1: are like add too much to the story. So like people, chances, whatever.
Speaker 5: Genuinely just want to know.
Speaker 1: I haven't talked to him in a long time, but
Speaker 1: like you know what I'm saying, Like that's just that's people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, would that be a conversation you'd want
Speaker 4: to have once you know, everything gets a little less
Speaker 4: busy after the release and.
Speaker 3: A conversation.
Speaker 1: So the way that I think about my world is
Speaker 1: like i'd be thinking about my day, so like what
Speaker 1: I got to do that day and what I'm working
Speaker 1: on for the next two weeks, maybe six months, but
Speaker 1: more likely what I'm just thinking about that day.
Speaker 3: There's be a lot of shit going on.
Speaker 1: So my relationships and how I view people as friends
Speaker 1: and stuff is just have I loved this person? And
Speaker 1: have they ever like, you know, willfully and intentionally betrayed me.
Speaker 1: And so I got friends that I haven't talked to
Speaker 1: in five or six seven years, and so it's like
Speaker 1: it's not like I'm anticipating some conversations. I'm like thing
Speaker 1: where it's like, all right, now, it's my time to
Speaker 1: fix you and tell your ask what you've been tweaking on?
Speaker 1: No ship like that? You know that's what that was
Speaker 1: one of my co hosts.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying up to folks too, John
Speaker 3: leg be trying to fix Kanye through Twitter.
Speaker 2: You've got his number that ain't gonna work, That ain't
Speaker 2: gonna get it, That ain't get it.
Speaker 3: Like you know his address you could just go to man,
Speaker 3: just pull up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know what they got going on. Also,
Speaker 1: a lot younger than them, niggas, like you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So I feel like there's also like different
Speaker 1: ways that people can even have friendships because we're not
Speaker 1: necessarily peers, you know what I'm saying, Like we you know,
Speaker 1: like I I.
Speaker 3: My first like.
Speaker 1: Album that I consciously wanted to have was The College Dropout,
Speaker 1: So I have a different reverence for him or or
Speaker 1: just understanding of like how my life went and how
Speaker 1: it influenced things I do. Like I think most rappers
Speaker 1: got a rapper that was their first album and probably
Speaker 1: from they city, you know what I'm saying. So imagine
Speaker 1: if yours was Kanye West, right, so, and imagine if
Speaker 1: you worked with them, and imagine all that shit. So
Speaker 1: it's like for me, I think I just begin that,
Speaker 1: you know, I let people be people. I always gonna
Speaker 1: have my own opinions, and I'm gonna always state my opinions,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Not necessarily on camera usually,
Speaker 1: but like but like you know, for the most part,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just I'm just be me.
Speaker 3: I'm let people be them.
Speaker 1: And so no, there's not like a time where like
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I gotta make sure I hit up
Speaker 1: Kanye before I put this album out, or after I
Speaker 1: put this album out, or anybody, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like I'll be thinking about like who's in the rack
Speaker 1: like who am I gonna hang out with today?
Speaker 3: Who's going? What business do I have to do today?
Speaker 3: Is more of my like Emma, I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, listening to the album, I was happy to hear
Speaker 2: Vic vic mint on that. Yeah, yes, because that was
Speaker 2: one of the guys I was going to ask you about,
Speaker 2: Like what's your relationship? Like obviously y'all working together. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but over the years it's kind of been like you said,
Speaker 2: I don't you have friends that you haven't spoken to
Speaker 2: in five six years?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Was that what it was with Vic?
Speaker 1: It's different because Vic me and Vic really really really
Speaker 1: grew up together. Yeah, really did a lot of like
Speaker 1: first time Vic was in the studio and maybe my
Speaker 1: second time ever being in a studio, first time ever
Speaker 1: actually being my session was together, like rapping together as
Speaker 1: fourteen year olds, so like we super know each other,
Speaker 1: so like we us falling out like we didn't been
Speaker 1: jumped together like we had Like that's really my nigga.
Speaker 1: So I think of I feel like our relationship we
Speaker 1: randomly used to get into it.
Speaker 3: Now we're both grown, we both got kids.
Speaker 1: Like it's a different dynamic and a different sense of
Speaker 1: urgency and understanding like, oh, my success is really your success,
Speaker 1: and your success is really my success in a positive
Speaker 1: way like we used to just you know, naturally we.
Speaker 5: A lot of people would never admit that though. That's
Speaker 5: dope that you just said.
Speaker 1: That we it's like it's true, like we like when
Speaker 1: Vic is when people are finally thinking of Vic, they
Speaker 1: finally thinking of me, And when they finally think of me,
Speaker 1: they finally thinking of Vict And we know each other
Speaker 1: so well, been in so many of the same after
Speaker 1: school programs and just being honest, and I've said this before,
Speaker 1: like a lot of things that happened for me came
Speaker 1: from a snowball effect of being a roadie for Kizzies Days.
Speaker 1: Vic used to be in a band called Kizzies Days
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve, and really.
Speaker 3: No before that.
Speaker 1: When we were in high school twenty ten, twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, there was a band called Kizzies Days and
Speaker 1: it was Nico Sagall, who's like one of my producers,
Speaker 1: one of my best friends still to this day. Liam, everybody,
Speaker 1: it's nine people in the spand so I gues shut
Speaker 1: out everybody, Maycy shout out, May see everybody, Greg, who's
Speaker 1: still you know what I'm saying, plays drums for me
Speaker 1: and was one of my producers. But we all grew
Speaker 1: up together. They started getting on They was like on
Speaker 1: Conan O'Brien. They was doing south By Southwest. We in
Speaker 1: high school, by the way, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So like Vic used to let me come in like
Speaker 1: help set up shit. But then he'd put me on
Speaker 1: stage four verse for a song that I wasn't even
Speaker 1: on their recorded version of.
Speaker 3: But I'll come and do a verse.
Speaker 1: And I got you know, my my first person that
Speaker 1: I worked with who was my publicist, he was he
Speaker 1: was their publishers. He saw me perform and he suggested
Speaker 1: me go on tour as a as a feeling opener
Speaker 1: for Donald Glover, and that really took a lot of
Speaker 1: things off. So Vic put me in position in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways when we were younger to like have
Speaker 1: big moments. Yeah, and you know, and I did the
Speaker 1: same thing for him. But then we were also have
Speaker 1: like little moments where like you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: I don't know, we just like we'll snake each other,
Speaker 1: I guess, like just being honest, Fred.
Speaker 4: The balance of you do something for me, I'll do
Speaker 4: something for you when I'm hotter at the moment, you
Speaker 4: out of at the moment.
Speaker 5: Well not snake shit because friends don't do snake shit.
Speaker 1: Well we niggas, you know what I'm saying. Like we
Speaker 1: was like we like also you got to know, like
Speaker 1: I'm love you know what I'm saying. I was a
Speaker 1: I'm really from Chicago and I really used to just
Speaker 1: be running around so like we like in terms of
Speaker 1: homies doing snake shit, like you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like Chicago is the king of that shit, Like you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like for real, So like I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, like it's it's just about like how you
Speaker 1: grow through that shit and what like I guess ultimately
Speaker 1: decisions you make. So there were times where we wasn't
Speaker 1: really on the same page, we wasn't talking as much.
Speaker 1: And then really, I would say around twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: into twenty twenty two, me and Vic started getting closer,
Speaker 1: started recording the together more and doing different stuff and.
Speaker 3: Who reached out to who.
Speaker 1: I reached out to Vic. What happened was now I'm
Speaker 1: remembering everything. It's so crazy. I had a dinner where
Speaker 1: I invited all my people that I that have supported
Speaker 1: me in Chicago that are like real people that I've
Speaker 1: known since I was a kid, but have you know,
Speaker 1: also got successful. Yeah, Joe fresh Goods, my homegirl Mary mckem,
Speaker 1: who runs saft. Shit, we were all kids and the
Speaker 1: shit Joe's a little bit older than us, but like
Speaker 1: we all like kind of you know, around I not
Speaker 1: to do my own horn, but around the time between
Speaker 1: as rab and Color and Book Chicago, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, And that's also because of so many artists,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, releasing at the same time.
Speaker 1: But in this time period, a lot of artists and
Speaker 1: a lot of like adjacent you know, you know, creatives
Speaker 1: all had this big surge and we all, you know,
Speaker 1: grew from that. And so I called up all the
Speaker 1: people that I knew, I had worked with, that had
Speaker 1: supported me in the past, and was like, y'all, I'm
Speaker 1: about to start working on the project. It's crazy that
Speaker 1: that was five years ago now. But one of the
Speaker 1: people that I reached out to was Vic because it's like,
Speaker 1: I do my best versus when I know I have
Speaker 1: to go against you on a song, and I would
Speaker 1: love to like just have your discipline What Vic has
Speaker 1: that I don't necessarily always have is he's a very
Speaker 1: disciplined This nigga meditates like he does certain things. That's like,
Speaker 1: since we were kids, that was just always weird to me.
Speaker 1: And when now we're old, I'm just being honest, and
Speaker 1: now we're older, and now I'm like.
Speaker 3: I wish I had that discipline.
Speaker 1: And so me and Vic started like we would take
Speaker 1: trips out to La together and just like be at
Speaker 1: this house that I was running there and just be
Speaker 1: making songs, making songs, making songs. So my newest single
Speaker 1: tree is from a session in like twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: with Smino or Smino came through the crib and kicked
Speaker 1: it with me, and Vic brought his producer groove. They
Speaker 1: just played through some beats and me and and Vick
Speaker 1: is just like pick beats, like pig beats and right,
Speaker 1: pick beats and right like we grew up in this
Speaker 1: program all young Chicago authors when we was kids, and
Speaker 1: we used to have prompts and you basically come to
Speaker 1: the after school program. You get to chill for a
Speaker 1: second and then they gather everybody at this table and
Speaker 1: they like, okay, these are the two prompts for today,
Speaker 1: it's either you know, speak from speak from the viewpoint
Speaker 1: of you know, a chair that got left in the attic,
Speaker 1: or you know, tell us your tell us your deepest feet.
Speaker 1: And these those are weak ass prompts. I'm not a
Speaker 1: real teacher, you know what I'm saying. But like we
Speaker 1: grew up in this program where we used to have
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes to write either a poem or a rap
Speaker 1: or whatever to this thing and then get on stage
Speaker 1: in front of.
Speaker 3: Our piers and have to spit that shit.
Speaker 1: And so Vic brought it back to that really like
Speaker 1: Vic was like, we need to do prompts, like we
Speaker 1: need to be that and I'm not one hundred.
Speaker 3: Percent correct on that.
Speaker 1: That's Vic and Ajimoney, who was also in a lot
Speaker 1: of those programs with me.
Speaker 3: So we just spent time like writing.
Speaker 1: And then the thing that really changed everything was at
Speaker 1: the end of that year when I was first starting
Speaker 1: to kind of just like feel like I was having trouble,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, like personal life, like just
Speaker 1: going through things. I had Vic, because he's Vica is Ghanaan.
Speaker 1: He's half Ghanaan, so he's been going to Ghana since
Speaker 1: we were kids. And now I don't know if y'all know,
Speaker 1: but like Gona's like popping Ghana kind of looks like
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Like there, it's like it's
Speaker 1: like they got some shit going. So it's like I'm
Speaker 1: seeing what I'm saying, bros in Africa doing And that's
Speaker 1: back when my mind was like Africa, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Like now I'm much more educated. I understand
Speaker 1: a lot of things I didn't understand. But I'm like,
Speaker 1: damn me in Africa lit as fuck, like and I'm
Speaker 1: here going through depression or whatever the fuck this shit
Speaker 1: feels like, And I just hit him like, bro, I
Speaker 1: just need to come out there, like and so I
Speaker 1: went out there just me, no security, Me and my
Speaker 1: homie Peter Cottontail, who produces most of my music, went
Speaker 1: out there dolo like three days from when he said
Speaker 1: yes popped up And that really like shaped a lot
Speaker 1: of the project.
Speaker 3: It was other outside factors.
Speaker 1: My grandmother having a phone call with me that made
Speaker 1: me like really understand a lot of like my purpose
Speaker 1: as a writer or who what lineage I come from?
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Meeting but a lot of the things that happened in
Speaker 1: Ghana that even like connected to my grandmother, Like if
Speaker 1: I didn't go out there with with Vic, like a
Speaker 1: lot of the direction came from that, like the use
Speaker 1: of visual arts, the connecting, the diaspora, the you know,
Speaker 1: the the you know. I had learned right before I
Speaker 1: got out there that my family had a history of
Speaker 1: Garvyites and people that followed Marcus Garvey and they was
Speaker 1: all on some like on some Black Starshit and so
Speaker 1: when you know, and I fucked with Black Star with
Speaker 1: most definite quality. But I don't know nothing that I
Speaker 1: didn't learn nothing from that show. When I was I
Speaker 1: was hearing that as a kid, so I really didn't
Speaker 1: know what they was talking about. And right before I
Speaker 1: went to Ghana, my grandmother called me and had this
Speaker 1: long talk with me about how important it is to
Speaker 1: tell the truth about our histories and don't wait till
Speaker 1: my daughters are too old to like give them the
Speaker 1: you know, some of the harsh realities of the world,
Speaker 1: and just like this whole thing.
Speaker 3: And then I'm like, when did you get so radical?
Speaker 1: She was like, well, I used to you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, be with stokely Carmichael and I used to
Speaker 1: be with this and I used to be with that.
Speaker 1: I'm like, damn, And she's like, oh, you don't know,
Speaker 1: like going all the way back to this. Somehow it
Speaker 1: got said that I was going to Ghana, and when
Speaker 1: I said that, she was like, you know, your whole
Speaker 1: family been going to Ghana since the seventies. You know
Speaker 1: that we, like your great grandmother started one of the
Speaker 1: first black churches in or first Church of Gods in
Speaker 1: West Africa.
Speaker 3: Did you know this? This? This? This, this? So I'm like,
Speaker 3: are we connected?
Speaker 1: Like now I'm not feeling like I'm going somewhere foreign
Speaker 1: now I really feel it's like, you know, this connection
Speaker 1: and a recent one. Not like I'm being honest with you.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, I'm be honest with you. I still
Speaker 1: ain't never went to the slave castles. You know, that's
Speaker 1: like a big thing when black folks, when African American
Speaker 1: folks go there.
Speaker 3: It's like it's like a tourism thing, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And people have told me that it has this profound unity,
Speaker 1: like physical reaction into it. I begin I don't want
Speaker 1: that ship, like I'll be watching the color purple for fun.
Speaker 3: I don't watch The Killer Purple if I need to, but.
Speaker 1: Like I'm getting that, I'm learning all this recent history
Speaker 1: about the dude that made Ghana free, the guy that, like,
Speaker 1: so Ghana is the first country in Africa to not
Speaker 1: have colonialism, to kick the British out, and they did
Speaker 1: it with this dude Kwame and Krumer who became their
Speaker 1: first president and he was on some Garviism ship. So
Speaker 1: that's why they got the black star and they flag,
Speaker 1: and so I'm looking at all these connections.
Speaker 3: I'm like, damn, this is a lot of stuff speaking
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 1: And I got to figure out a way to like
Speaker 1: to to tell the story to platform what I'm learning.
Speaker 1: And then I'm like, I'm dumb as hell. I'm a
Speaker 1: whole rapper, Like let me learn, let me collaborate, let
Speaker 1: me grow in this time and continue to produce work.
Speaker 1: So the whole time I'm doing that, I'm dropping some
Speaker 1: of my greatest music. I think the Highs and the
Speaker 1: Lows is one of my greatest songs. I haven't made
Speaker 1: that sounds like four years old, five three years old now,
Speaker 1: but like I still feel like I made that in
Speaker 1: this vein of like this road that I was going on,
Speaker 1: the same thing with y'all know, same thing with you know,
Speaker 1: the Vulnerability and uh three three three three, Like there's
Speaker 1: all these songs that like kind of you know, kept
Speaker 1: checking in with my fans as I was growing, but
Speaker 1: still taking the time to like craft something that they
Speaker 1: could hear.
Speaker 3: That's new.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean you brought up the conversation with your
Speaker 4: grandmother and her saying you have to give harsh truths
Speaker 4: to your daughter's right away. Is that where some of
Speaker 4: the energy went into with Letter from Chance, which is
Speaker 4: you know, not unexpected. You and I talked off Mike
Speaker 4: on Texas. You know, I grew up Irish Catholic, which
Speaker 4: I've talked on this pot about.
Speaker 3: My mother was my Sunday school teacher.
Speaker 4: Yeah, super Irish Catholic, and I've had reservations where I
Speaker 4: went and studied other religions, tried to find other denominations
Speaker 4: just because it was a very weird experience once I
Speaker 4: got a little older. Yeah, being that you have had
Speaker 4: I wouldn't even say the stereotype, but you have obviously
Speaker 4: that gospel in your music since acid rap. Yeah, it's
Speaker 4: it's how did you feel putting that record?
Speaker 3: Together.
Speaker 4: That doesn't contradict because I just think it's reality of
Speaker 4: the church. But saying those things and kind of airing out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard putting it out. I would say it
Speaker 1: was harder than writing it, but actually that's not true.
Speaker 1: I felt I do remember like there was what's funny
Speaker 1: about me? And I found out that like other like
Speaker 1: some of my peers don't do this. But I'll be
Speaker 1: coming up with concepts long before I have the version
Speaker 1: of the song. And sometimes I'll make three versions of
Speaker 1: one concept over completely different kind of beats, whole new words,
Speaker 1: still the same thing I'm trying to get across, just
Speaker 1: maybe a different way. And when I like, one of
Speaker 1: the things that greatly inspired me when I was making
Speaker 1: this project, being honest, even before I went to Ghana,
Speaker 1: was reading this dude named James Khne and James Cone.
Speaker 1: Basic is like he's a what do they call him,
Speaker 1: a theologist, A theologian, I don't know, theology theologist that
Speaker 1: in the sixties that was like he invented what they
Speaker 1: call black liberation theology. And so it's basically a you know,
Speaker 1: everybody that's a pastor, any of your pastors for the
Speaker 1: most part, unless they were grandfathered in, they went to seminary,
Speaker 1: they went to school, and just like when you go
Speaker 1: to college, you pick a master, you pick like a
Speaker 1: certain study. It's going to come from a certain lens
Speaker 1: and have a certain principle. So all of these different
Speaker 1: not just denominations, but also all of these different theologies
Speaker 1: come from how they learned the Bible and who taught
Speaker 1: it to them. What's the most important thing? Is it,
Speaker 1: you know, a gospel of long suffering? Is it a
Speaker 1: gospel of forgiveness? Is it a gospel of evangelism? Is
Speaker 1: it a gospel of what's the one that they got
Speaker 1: on TV? Prosperity gospel? Is it about the riches that
Speaker 1: you could obtain in this life? Joe Olstein with facts zoologists,
Speaker 1: there's a lot.
Speaker 3: Of like that's a capitalist, That's what I'm saying. But
Speaker 3: that's that is what it is.
Speaker 1: That's literally But but I'm not going I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to do nobody seology. What I'm saying is like I
Speaker 1: first started learning about black liberation theology because my grandmother
Speaker 1: got me this book and it's basically this dude who
Speaker 1: at the time was young, he was a theologist that
Speaker 1: was friends with Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm Max Martin, Luther King.
Speaker 1: Right at the turn of this like new you know,
Speaker 1: when they made Black Sail Out, I'm Black and I'm proud,
Speaker 1: Like that was super radical, Like niggas did not want
Speaker 1: to be called black at that time, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So, like black people go through these different
Speaker 1: you know, sort of revolutions and identity of being like,
Speaker 1: oh no, we're not niggas no more. Oh no, we're
Speaker 1: not colored people no more. Oh no, we're not African
Speaker 1: American noma. Oh no, we're not Afro American no more.
Speaker 1: Oh no, we not you know, negroes whatever. Like But
Speaker 1: but that's an important thing. Self determination is like a
Speaker 1: part of living, like you want to be identify how
Speaker 1: you see yourself. And when James Brown, like black back
Speaker 1: power basically came out as like a like a thing
Speaker 1: niggas were screaming at rallies that had people just as
Speaker 1: scared as Black Lives Matter, or it's not more scared
Speaker 1: because it's a response to white power.
Speaker 3: So they like, oh, which you mean black power?
Speaker 1: Like, so when James Brown did that, it kind of
Speaker 1: like changed the whole culture and how a lot of
Speaker 1: people talked about everything like, oh, we could be proud
Speaker 1: to be black, which is at this time basically like
Speaker 1: the N word, Like we could be proud to be that. Okay,
Speaker 1: that shit starts to reverberate in all these other different
Speaker 1: spaces and in the world of like the black churches
Speaker 1: which are now starting to organize with King starting to
Speaker 1: you know, the mosque in Chicago's starting to organize with Malcolm.
Speaker 1: This dude comes starts writing these books, one called Black Liberation,
Speaker 1: Black Power, and Black Theology, one called The Crossing the
Speaker 1: Lynching Tree, which was the one that really like it
Speaker 1: is kind of like gave me the basis for a
Speaker 1: lot of the album, but he just made me like
Speaker 1: start to read the gospel in a different understanding and
Speaker 1: different like you know, sense of self and self determination.
Speaker 1: And so that song was like something that I knew
Speaker 1: I needed to, Like, if I'm talking about all these
Speaker 1: different aspects of my black experience and what I see
Speaker 1: in the world and what I see wrong and what
Speaker 1: I see right, and how I see myself, how could
Speaker 1: I not speak on the church right? And I got
Speaker 1: to speak on it at large and as small. So
Speaker 1: the first verse is about my own family church, and
Speaker 1: just how I've watched my church, you know, essentially whither
Speaker 1: because of certain politics of certain you know, just how people.
Speaker 3: Treat each other.
Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to like I ain't trying to
Speaker 1: put my church on blast, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: But I have to come from the internal first before
Speaker 1: I could be talking about other people. So I talk
Speaker 1: about my church a little bit in the verse. Then
Speaker 1: the second verse, I talk about the megachurches.
Speaker 3: I talk about the.
Speaker 1: Joe Losteins and the people that denied shelter to people
Speaker 1: when they have mega stadiums, and the people that, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, other mega church asters that would
Speaker 1: you know, spit in their hand and put in on
Speaker 1: somebody's face as a demonstration. Like I'm seeing these things
Speaker 1: that contradict with other things that they do, and it's
Speaker 1: a It's not an issue with the person at all.
Speaker 1: It's about the action and like what does it mean
Speaker 1: to be the body of Christ? So I'm examining that
Speaker 1: for those two verses, and then the third verse, I
Speaker 1: talk about the Black Church and talk about the things
Speaker 1: that we've seen happen. We know that they bombed four
Speaker 1: little girls in a church. We know that, just as
Speaker 1: recently a couple of years ago, a man walked into
Speaker 1: a church in Buffalo and killed these innocent, none people
Speaker 1: that's praying so and we know you know that they
Speaker 1: used to the people that were doing lynchions. If you've
Speaker 1: got to if you got any of those photos or
Speaker 1: the lynchons, if you turn the camera the other way,
Speaker 1: it's the entire church congregation that's putting on this public lynching. Right, So,
Speaker 1: at what point do we the black church which does exist,
Speaker 1: like it is a thing, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: We could say that we don't want to discriminate by churches,
Speaker 1: but there is a black church, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: How do we not ignore that? How do what do? What?
Speaker 3: What does? What is? What does God tell us? You
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying? And I don't. And I think like.
Speaker 1: The all of those parts of the song are still
Speaker 1: like an examination. They're not statements, you know, they're not
Speaker 1: meant to be statements from me.
Speaker 3: I'm playing a character.
Speaker 1: There's this, you know in the Bible, at the end
Speaker 1: of the Bible, like there's a lot of if you
Speaker 1: ever heard of Romans or Thessalonians, or Galatians, or like
Speaker 1: any of the ones that end with Ann's at the end, Corinthians.
Speaker 3: These are letters to.
Speaker 1: To corinth to the to So these are the Corinthian letters,
Speaker 1: or these are you know, these these are letters from
Speaker 1: this dude, Paul, that were chastising the churches in these
Speaker 1: different cities that were not practicing the Gospel the way
Speaker 1: that they were supposed to. And so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of jokes on some Christians, like if we want to
Speaker 1: get into like Christian jokes, like people always talk about
Speaker 1: like the letters that we would receive if if Paul
Speaker 1: was to write a letter to the Church of America,
Speaker 1: like if this was America's in the Bible, that whole
Speaker 1: thing would be a scathing letter. So it's like I
Speaker 1: write those three verses from that perspective, and then the
Speaker 1: last one I just kind of examine what it means
Speaker 1: to be the body of Christ. And so, to answer
Speaker 1: your question short, it was very hard to, like, I think,
Speaker 1: publish the song because I know that there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a visceral reaction from people that feel like you talking
Speaker 1: about the church and you're talking about my God. And
Speaker 1: there's also going to be you know, people that'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: right message, wrong messenger or whatever. So like publishing it
Speaker 1: is hard, and then I think, yeah, like taking certain times,
Speaker 1: like I'll make a song and then go back a
Speaker 1: million times and like, you know, oh I wasn't going
Speaker 1: hard enough, or oh I might have been saying going
Speaker 1: too hard on.
Speaker 2: The music on this on this, on this album is incredible.
Speaker 2: I was telling Rory last week because I think you
Speaker 2: had sent it in the chat and then had to
Speaker 2: send it again.
Speaker 3: Because it kept updating too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was like, I was listening to it
Speaker 2: last night that I listened on the way to studio today,
Speaker 2: and the first thing, like.
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 5: It's weird the way I listen.
Speaker 2: To albums and artists. I don't hear the words the
Speaker 2: first listening.
Speaker 3: Most people do. It's just music.
Speaker 2: So I'm listening to the music and I'm like, damn,
Speaker 2: like this is some of the best music I've heard
Speaker 2: from Chance, Like I can digest this, Yeah, like I can,
Speaker 2: I can hear this.
Speaker 5: I'm like, okay. So then now I'm listening to the lyrics.
Speaker 2: I'm finding the lyrics more and I'm hearing certain little
Speaker 2: things and little and I'm like, okay, but I was
Speaker 2: really listening because it was like, you're one of the
Speaker 2: artists that I always felt like. It's talented, like super
Speaker 2: super talented. But I have this thing where me personally,
Speaker 2: you can be the most talented, amazing artist, but I.
Speaker 5: Don't listen to your music.
Speaker 3: I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 2: You understand I'm saying. It's like I don't know where
Speaker 2: to listen to it. I don't know what time when
Speaker 2: I have time to listen to it. Everything is consumed
Speaker 2: in my phone, YouTube and whatever the fuck else, dinner
Speaker 2: and you know me, family.
Speaker 4: There's artists that's just cool to say you like them,
Speaker 4: you don't really be listening to shit.
Speaker 1: That's what the Street team and thing like that's what
Speaker 1: like I'm doing right now with this album and like
Speaker 1: really working it and like going to the people and
Speaker 1: popping up places with my CD is like you have
Speaker 1: to meet people where they are. In this world, everything
Speaker 1: is made to be super accessible and promotional.
Speaker 3: So like you you.
Speaker 1: Could spend however much money you want on recording and
Speaker 1: editing and mixing a song and making a music video
Speaker 1: and doing a radio campaign, but it's like you ultimately
Speaker 1: giving that music away for free at some point at
Speaker 1: some point that music is going out to people. So
Speaker 1: it's like, how do you like get in front of
Speaker 1: somebody and say, hey, person a.
Speaker 3: Person, if you support me, if you rock with me
Speaker 3: by my CD.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, And like, you can't get
Speaker 1: that across without being there, I think with the people,
Speaker 1: like I'm in a space were like I really just
Speaker 1: I love being out and being able to like talk
Speaker 1: to the people because they got stories and they've got
Speaker 1: and it's been a journey like this is I dropped.
Speaker 1: I dropped ten Day in twenty twelve, so that project
Speaker 1: is like thirteen years old? Is that gonna have thirteen
Speaker 1: years old? So like I'm basically a vet. I'm thirty two.
Speaker 1: I'm a VET in this shit.
Speaker 5: Supporters are different, Fans are different.
Speaker 2: They've grown, they've gotten older, they've had families, They've a
Speaker 2: lot has changed.
Speaker 1: They and they and they feel a lot of the
Speaker 1: things that I had to feel early. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Like like I said, I got married
Speaker 1: young and had my kids young. I got you know,
Speaker 1: I got on young, like.
Speaker 5: iMusic out young.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. So it's like when you
Speaker 3: when you.
Speaker 1: When you're growing with your fans, you gotta you gotta
Speaker 1: let them know like, hey, I'm right here, Like I'm
Speaker 1: right here.
Speaker 2: Are we feeling this together, experiencing these things together? Fact
Speaker 2: where you're at in your life with your family.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm gonna ignore Josh again and ask one more question.
Speaker 4: You being one of the first people that got, if
Speaker 4: I remember correctly, the first exclusive Apple Music deal.
Speaker 1: I don't think I was the first, but I think
Speaker 1: I was, like I was, I was probably I was
Speaker 1: the unsigned dude, I was the flagship.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in retrospect, do you feel like, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: not what you did just do? Just the streaming war
Speaker 4: that was between Apple, Spotify and Title and even Title
Speaker 4: at the time when it was bringing in everybody. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's craziest press releases ever, bad marketing, but he had
Speaker 4: every artist like he was trying to get.
Speaker 3: And almost not talking bad about anything. Jay Z ever
Speaker 3: did no, no, not on that.
Speaker 4: But do you think the fans are the ones that
Speaker 4: suffered from that entire few years?
Speaker 3: The artist? For sure?
Speaker 1: What think about paying ten dollars a month for all
Speaker 1: the music in the world. Here's where I feel bad
Speaker 1: or I feel like my space in it and while
Speaker 1: I'm like pushing so hard to like get my.
Speaker 3: Physical CD to a fan.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's kind of the way.
Speaker 1: It's this was like this was our our you know exchange,
Speaker 1: Like I made something for you.
Speaker 3: Here, hold it in your hand.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Take it home, put it
Speaker 1: in the car, burn a copy for somebody type shit.
Speaker 3: And I did that hand in hand.
Speaker 1: And when I you know, got to the age I
Speaker 1: put out tend I think I was nineteen. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know SoundCloud, that peth audio Mac, all these streaming spaces
Speaker 1: were YouTube were all like you know, coming up in
Speaker 1: terms of like how people wanted to access music, even
Speaker 1: though the iTunes store still was dominating how people access
Speaker 1: stuff in stores, physical mechanical sales were dominating. It was
Speaker 1: like I could put this shit up here for free,
Speaker 1: get way more people that aren't going to wait for
Speaker 1: getting behind the paywall or whatever. Like I could get
Speaker 1: these people right now to hear it, and then they'll
Speaker 1: want to then they'll want to buy a shirt, you know,
Speaker 1: they want to buy a ticket to the show.
Speaker 3: And uh, there was a like.
Speaker 1: A dissonance when I was trying to because there was
Speaker 1: a point where I was trying to get a label deal,
Speaker 1: like where I was going to label meetings right after
Speaker 1: ten days, What.
Speaker 5: Do you think about going with.
Speaker 1: Whoever has some money, Nikka, Like I ain't have no money,
Speaker 1: they have no money. So like you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: whoever I can get some money from. And those deals
Speaker 1: were awful, They're terrible. And I decided, like you know,
Speaker 1: because it was costing me money just to receive the contracts,
Speaker 1: like you got to have a lawyer that's just reading them.
Speaker 1: You getting paid just for him to read the ship, right,
Speaker 1: I was like, I told them, don't send me no
Speaker 1: more contracts till after I dropped my my project in
Speaker 1: the spring. That's when I dropped Asserrap. And once I
Speaker 1: dropped as Rap, I was like, oh I don't need
Speaker 1: this shop on to it. But the the that streaming
Speaker 1: time that I was on depif and Aldio like wish
Speaker 1: I did for Assirap too, ass Wrap also was not
Speaker 1: on iTunes or no ship like yeah, and so it's
Speaker 1: like that level of like straight to my fans, I
Speaker 1: fucked with that. I didn't think about like my whole
Speaker 1: point when I was saying that and I interviews, what
Speaker 1: I was saying it was like I don't think it's
Speaker 1: fair that I have to sell it at this market
Speaker 1: price of ninety nine cents, because what if I think
Speaker 1: my song costs more than that, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And so I was like I was outside the system
Speaker 1: in that way, and nobody wanted to give me a
Speaker 1: deal without giving me mechanicals. So you have to have
Speaker 1: a budget and your record deal for how much they're
Speaker 1: going to press up of your mechanicals, and you want
Speaker 1: them to press more so you have more stores, but
Speaker 1: you also don't want them to press a bunch because
Speaker 1: that's the budget. So now they owe them money. So
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, I want every every deal I'm
Speaker 1: coming in. I'm just like a kid, and I'm like thinking,
Speaker 1: I'm so fucking smart, I talk well, and I'm like, well, well,
Speaker 1: I was like blah blah blah, no mechanicals, No three sixty,
Speaker 1: and they're like, hell no, that's not how this shit worked,
Speaker 1: like in are building. But I championed that streaming thing,
Speaker 1: and then what happened was being honest, like it got
Speaker 1: commercialized and a bunch of you know, people put their
Speaker 1: money together. Labels, other people put their money together, like hey,
Speaker 1: we can offer full catalogs and music and basically, you know,
Speaker 1: make this thing because people are like, basically, the music
Speaker 1: is always gonna move faster than the industry, Like the
Speaker 1: ability to put out something is gonna move faster than
Speaker 1: the ability to figure out a way to capitalize off
Speaker 1: of it. But it's kind of a short space behind.
Speaker 1: So we used to have music and compositions where people
Speaker 1: will send like sheet music around. Then you know, record
Speaker 1: companies were like, or publishing companies like, well, we will
Speaker 1: publish the music for you. And then people are like, okay,
Speaker 1: we're making vinyl records. We got recordings, and then somebody
Speaker 1: who owned the labels like, let's buy all the vinyl
Speaker 1: press and plants, so now we the record industry. And
Speaker 1: then it just keeps going like that. You know, Napster
Speaker 1: fucked up the industry for a second. And then that's
Speaker 1: when they was like, okay, well we need an itune.
Speaker 1: So like, so somebody figures out a way to make
Speaker 1: the music accessible to everybody, and then somebody has to
Speaker 1: figure out a way to make money off of it.
Speaker 1: And when it got to the Apple Music shit, I
Speaker 1: really was like, you know, I'm thinking about myself in
Speaker 1: the moment I'm thinking about, like, Okay, they finna give
Speaker 1: me some cash, you know what I'm saying, I'll still
Speaker 1: own my masters. I still It's really just this is
Speaker 1: a beef between them. That's how I'm really thinking about it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, there's a beef between Apple and Title.
Speaker 3: And all them. This shit don't got nothing to do
Speaker 3: with me.
Speaker 1: Like if Tidal had give me a bag first, or
Speaker 1: if this person give me a bag first, I.
Speaker 3: Didn't even think I was in that space, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like the people that was getting those exclusive deals was
Speaker 1: like Frank Ocean, Like you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: He found the greatest loophole level, you know what I'm.
Speaker 1: Saying, Like like those kind of people were then, and
Speaker 1: then like they tightened the reins on that too, so
Speaker 1: like now it's like you can't really do an exclusive
Speaker 1: with anybody because they were saying it's sucking up the
Speaker 1: money between them. But what I did by doing that,
Speaker 1: by becoming like, you know, this flagship artist for streaming
Speaker 1: and having the reputation that I have, everybody's like streaming
Speaker 1: is good, but like I'm sure that y'all read somewhere
Speaker 1: that's streaming not good right for the artists, like absolutely.
Speaker 3: And so just like I think it's funny that I'm
Speaker 3: always kind of like anti.
Speaker 1: I'm not a contral but I'm like, I see something,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, oh, I want to go this opposite direction,
Speaker 1: and then sometimes that will become the popular idea, and
Speaker 1: then by the time that happens, I'm like, well, actually
Speaker 1: this shit, I'm not really like that, like I would
Speaker 1: like that. So yeah, definitely buy my album from me.
Speaker 1: You feel me like it's gonna be on streaming. Stream
Speaker 1: it up. I appreciate all the streams, but like, come
Speaker 1: to my website, Chance Stuff. I literally package them up
Speaker 1: and put them in boxes and mail them to you myself.
Speaker 3: That's real nigga shit.
Speaker 2: Starlin August fifteenth, Incredible project. The music is fire, love
Speaker 2: the love, the features you got on there. Good to
Speaker 2: hear you and vict working again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Where can they get it at?
Speaker 1: You can get it at chancestuff dot com. So I'm Chance,
Speaker 1: this is my stuff. He's Chanced, that's his stuff. Go
Speaker 1: to chance stuff dot com.
Speaker 3: You will order.
Speaker 1: We send it straight to you. And just so you
Speaker 1: know this, this is a new kind of technology. It's
Speaker 1: called an NFC time. Let me show you this actually,
Speaker 1: so basically most niggas don't have CD players, but there's
Speaker 1: this thing called the nf SEE technology. It means near
Speaker 1: field communication. What you do is when you put the
Speaker 1: album directly to your phone to populate a little link,
Speaker 1: open the camera. No, no, no camera needed. That's like you,
Speaker 1: that's in two thousand and late. It's like this, like
Speaker 1: brand new that's twenty twenty, twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Five, and I can finally see all the most text
Speaker 3: messages so.
Speaker 5: Right now on the album CD.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So when you when you get the album and
Speaker 1: I mail it to you and you get in the
Speaker 1: car and you remember you don't got a CD player,
Speaker 1: tap your phone to this.
Speaker 3: You can bluetooth it straight off of that and the CD.
Speaker 3: That's crazy. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I closed the site and still play it. So that's
Speaker 4: the most important thing. You can close the sime still
Speaker 4: play it. If you got Safari on your phone, it'll
Speaker 4: still work.
Speaker 1: But the key is like I want people to have
Speaker 1: something from me that like when I'm gone. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like you have something that came directly
Speaker 1: from me, and get it from a story and it's
Speaker 1: not like in your cloud or something like that. This
Speaker 1: is you can only get this from me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fire, all right, man, what chance. We appreciate
Speaker 2: you coming.
Speaker 5: Back, man, It's good to see you.
Speaker 2: Good to have this project this Friday.
Speaker 3: Thank y'all.
Speaker 1: Hey, let me also say this place is incredible, Like
Speaker 1: place is so nice, like niggas be having sticky floors
Speaker 1: and shi.
Speaker 3: This is a huge studio and it's beautiful. Y'all got
Speaker 3: the wrong set up.
Speaker 5: Thank you, bro. We appreciate you for coming by.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 5: I'm that nigga.
Speaker 3: He's just ginger. A chance to wrap it, U