Speaker 1: What's up, family, it's your girl to Mika D.
Speaker 2: Mallory is your boy, my son general and we are.
Speaker 1: Your host of street Politicians, the place.
Speaker 2: Where the streets and politics.
Speaker 1: Means my son, lennond I. Because of our scheduling today,
Speaker 1: we have our guests coming on a little earlier than
Speaker 1: we thought, so we're gonna have to cut some things.
Speaker 1: And that's okay with me because I have one thing
Speaker 1: in my thought of the day that I would like
Speaker 1: to talk about today on this year show.
Speaker 2: Well, are you trying to get straight to the nitty
Speaker 2: gritty going to.
Speaker 1: Make some people upset? I believe in holistic wellness. I
Speaker 1: was a kid growing up, my parents rarely gave us
Speaker 1: medication because they believe wholeheartedly in holistic wellness. Right now,
Speaker 1: when we travel to Africa, we learn that in the
Speaker 1: garden they grow different types of medicines that are currently
Speaker 1: being used for things that we use in terms of
Speaker 1: actual medicine, not just holistically.
Speaker 3: Today, well, the ingredients pretty much the ingredients medicine.
Speaker 1: So anesthesia is growing in the gardens of Africa, specifically
Speaker 1: in Ghana. And you know that if you go to
Speaker 1: get a leg arm amputated, you two full whatever baby
Speaker 1: have a not a baby. But certainly if you have
Speaker 1: termination of pregnancy, if you have any type of search
Speaker 1: be that requires you to go under, you have to
Speaker 1: use anesthesia in order to be able to do that.
Speaker 1: And stesion can be very dangerous too, which is why
Speaker 1: when we were in in the botanical gardens in Ghana,
Speaker 1: the gentleman said, you can't touch it, play with it
Speaker 1: tasted nothing right until and I asked the dumb question, well,
Speaker 1: how do you just have it out here? What if
Speaker 1: someone puts it in their mouth? And he's like, well,
Speaker 1: why would anybody be eating trees? And I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: See again, those are negative or stereotypes that get into
Speaker 1: your head about Africans. And it came out of me
Speaker 1: right there in the park in the garden. But if
Speaker 1: you're going to get something serious surgery done, you need
Speaker 1: your anesthesia so that you can not die from pain.
Speaker 1: I think there are people in our society that need
Speaker 1: to take their medicine, or if they don't know that
Speaker 1: they need a medicine, they need to get it. And
Speaker 1: if there is a holistic way to approach their conditions,
Speaker 1: then they need to go heavy into that as well.
Speaker 1: And sometimes holistically we might not have the right formulas
Speaker 1: or whatever. But you need your medicine. People need their
Speaker 1: insulin right once they have diabetes that gets to a
Speaker 1: certain level, they have to be able to take their insulin. Yes,
Speaker 1: you could clean your body. My mother definitely with her diabetes.
Speaker 1: Her and my father got on an extreme workout schedule,
Speaker 1: seven miles a day, walking in the morning. They ate better,
Speaker 1: They did all the things you could think of, and
Speaker 1: they were able to change your trajectory of her diabetic
Speaker 1: situation very much so. But she still needed her medication
Speaker 1: to help with some of the other challenges. She was
Speaker 1: seeing things on her hand, you know, she was feeling
Speaker 1: like when she was cooking, it was worms and different
Speaker 1: things because she was having hallucinations because of the diabetes.
Speaker 1: So I'm saying today that there are people out here
Speaker 1: that need to take their medicine. And I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about will Wile Willie who's running up and down the street,
Speaker 1: because you know, we often will say, okay, people need
Speaker 1: to take their medicine, and we assume were associated with
Speaker 1: somebody who's just you know, out of control. They look
Speaker 1: like they tripping, and we say they need to take medicine.
Speaker 1: There are people who are high functioning, depressed, they have anxiety,
Speaker 1: they are dealing with mental health issues. They're high functioning,
Speaker 1: they look wonderful, they look perfect, got it going on,
Speaker 1: dressed nice and all of that, but they nasty, nasty attitudes, miserable, negative,
Speaker 1: damn there, ready to die by suicide, eating disorders. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of signs that people are dealing with mental
Speaker 1: health challenges that are not getting addressed. People do not
Speaker 1: have the right formula, and as a result, we are
Speaker 1: dealing with a lot of crazy things. And I of
Speaker 1: course can't tell the story of right now or at
Speaker 1: all of what it is that I experience that made
Speaker 1: me feel this way, but it really is on me
Speaker 1: that we have to start encouraging people to seek professional
Speaker 1: help for a variety of issues that you may be
Speaker 1: dealing with and get the type of help necessary now.
Speaker 1: At one point, I had a doctor that wanted to
Speaker 1: put me on riddily when I was really depressed, and
Speaker 1: I chose not to do that. But we found something else,
Speaker 1: and I take that medicine and it is very helpful
Speaker 1: to me to keep me balanced so that my anxiety
Speaker 1: does not take over to where I'm aggravating you, aggravating everybody,
Speaker 1: lend everybody around. I got an attitude. I'm snappy, I'm
Speaker 1: not feeling good. I can't rest. People need to take
Speaker 1: their medicine.
Speaker 3: I mean, I agree, I agree, you know, I also
Speaker 3: agree that a lot of shit is mind state.
Speaker 2: Right. There are a lot of different individuals. There are
Speaker 2: some individuals.
Speaker 3: That they required that they're not going to be able
Speaker 3: to fix it theirselves.
Speaker 2: Right, They're not going to be ald a dollar back. Right.
Speaker 2: There are some people that need to go to or rehab. Right.
Speaker 2: There are some people that don't need to go to rehab.
Speaker 3: Some people say I'm gonna kick this ship by myself
Speaker 3: and then completely stop doing it. Some people are sick
Speaker 3: that you they've been diagnosed with sickness and they've been
Speaker 3: able to holistically change their their trajectory. Other people can't
Speaker 3: do it. So I think it's it's individual based, right.
Speaker 3: I think you have to know you. I think you
Speaker 3: you you have to be able to make proper assessments
Speaker 3: of yourself like and then and then if you, if
Speaker 3: you have the right doctor, then they'll be able to
Speaker 3: make that assessment. Right, They'll be able to make an
Speaker 3: assessment and say, wow, you've been doing what I don't.
Speaker 2: Maybe you don't need this medication.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe they be pharmaceutical companies are not inclined.
Speaker 2: To tell you nothing. Now I'm not telling doctors.
Speaker 1: Work for the pharmaceutical companies.
Speaker 3: Depends on the doctor that you have, right if you
Speaker 3: if you have somebody that you you believe in that's
Speaker 3: properly invested in you. I've I've had doctors that have said,
Speaker 3: don't take that medication. You know, doctors that have said, oh,
Speaker 3: they said, give the kids, don't give them that ship.
Speaker 2: No, we not prescribe. I mean you none of that.
Speaker 3: Just let that baby do this and take the baby
Speaker 3: home and give them this and make sure they eat
Speaker 3: this way. So there are doctors who are personally invested
Speaker 3: in your safety over then just selling medication.
Speaker 2: So like you know, like you said, there are people
Speaker 2: who need it.
Speaker 3: There are people who are not going to be at
Speaker 3: a function with all medication because it's the way that
Speaker 3: they're wired. I'm myself, I'm a person that's very rarely
Speaker 3: had medication, Like with the exception of me having a toothache,
Speaker 3: Like the toothache was probably the only thing that I've
Speaker 3: ever said to myself, I got to take some painkillers
Speaker 3: for because the shit was dramatically or allergies, with the
Speaker 3: exception of me taking xytext because the shit is just
Speaker 3: my eyes is watering to the point and there's no way,
Speaker 3: no shit I could do the issue to the point.
Speaker 3: With the exception of those two things, there's very rarely
Speaker 3: a time that medication was.
Speaker 2: Something that I was into.
Speaker 1: Well maybe, and that's okay. I'm not suggesting that everybody
Speaker 1: needs medication, and I'm not suggesting that they are not
Speaker 1: again holistic ways to deal with your issues, because there
Speaker 1: certainly can be, because I you know, one thing I
Speaker 1: know for sure is that when dealing with my son
Speaker 1: typer activity when he was young, the main thing the
Speaker 1: doctors kept saying to me is, if you don't want
Speaker 1: to put him on medication, you have to stop the
Speaker 1: sugar in take. You can't let him have a bowl
Speaker 1: of cereal at home or a French toast with syrup
Speaker 1: and then send him to school, because when he gets
Speaker 1: to school, he's gonna be high and then low, and
Speaker 1: there's all types of agitation that goes on in between it.
Speaker 1: So you gotta do vegetables. You got to start out
Speaker 1: with an egg sausage, you know, cup of milk, whatever
Speaker 1: it is that helps them to feel better and not
Speaker 1: be you know, feel full, but not be so rouled up.
Speaker 1: So I understand that. I'm just saying that there are
Speaker 1: some people who have not even because you made a
Speaker 1: powerful point, made an assessment of what's wrong with them.
Speaker 1: They don't even understand the issue, but they just go
Speaker 1: out in the world making other people's lives miserable. And
Speaker 1: I just think, you know, there's just got to be
Speaker 1: it's just got to be a better way. So I'm
Speaker 1: just suggesting that people find out what you mean. Right
Speaker 1: if you and your family members saying, wow, like you're
Speaker 1: so mean, or you're in the workplace and you feel
Speaker 1: like people don't really want to deal with you for
Speaker 1: some reason, or you find yourself feeling like you're always alone,
Speaker 1: like in your you know, you're always like at odds
Speaker 1: with the people around you who you should have positive
Speaker 1: for the most part, relationships with, or you know, you
Speaker 1: find yourself constantly hearing from people that you offended them,
Speaker 1: or you upset them or whatever. You try to find
Speaker 1: out is there something going on with Maybe I'm dealing
Speaker 1: with depression and therefore it makes me negative. Maybe I
Speaker 1: think negatively all the time. That's actually an issue. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say it's a mental health crisis, but
Speaker 1: it's an issue. You automatically come from a negative place
Speaker 1: when you respond. That's not healthy, right, And a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't even know because we've never been taught
Speaker 1: about the signs of mental health challenges. We've never been
Speaker 1: taught about anxiety. Like white folks know that is a thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: they get medicated for anxiety, they get therapy for anxiety.
Speaker 1: Black folks have been dealing with anxiety for eons and
Speaker 1: we've never been taught that. We never knew what it
Speaker 1: meant to have hypertension issues as a child. We never knew.
Speaker 1: And we really do need to try to get to
Speaker 1: the core of some of the issues we have. And
Speaker 1: if you need medication, take it. And if your medication
Speaker 1: makes you feel funny, because some people when they take
Speaker 1: medicine it makes them feel tired or not themselves, they
Speaker 1: can change it. But you have to be committed to
Speaker 1: trying different things and figuring out what is the right
Speaker 1: formula for me. You can't take one medicine and be like,
Speaker 1: that's why I'm not gonna do that anymore. And you
Speaker 1: have to do your research, but you got to be
Speaker 1: committed to your well being and your mental wealth for real.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 1: Well on that note. Our guest is already here, so
Speaker 1: let's bring them in and introduce them. Okay, family, So
Speaker 1: speaking of our friends, you know, you hear us all
Speaker 1: the time with our inside outside joke that so many
Speaker 1: of our friends are doing powerful things across this nation,
Speaker 1: and we bring them on as our guests.
Speaker 2: Why not.
Speaker 1: It's our show, So we do it how we want,
Speaker 1: and we invite our friends to come and talk about
Speaker 1: the work they're doing. And you know, we have an
Speaker 1: incredible change maker who's joining us today who is a
Speaker 1: friend to us personally as well as a friend to
Speaker 1: the community in New Jersey abroad, the entire New Jersey,
Speaker 1: but of course in Newark. And that's Counselman Do Pray Kelly,
Speaker 1: who is better known to most of us as Do
Speaker 1: It All. So we're gonna get into some special things
Speaker 1: about what this gentleman has been able to do going
Speaker 1: from being a platinum selling artist to the first the
Speaker 1: first person to go from being an artist at that
Speaker 1: level to being elected to a political office in the
Speaker 1: city of Newark, New Jersey, and so, as I said,
Speaker 1: he's making waves across the country, certainly across the state
Speaker 1: of New Jersey, but specifically focusing on his activism which
Speaker 1: has turned into his political career in the city of Newark,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. Thank you so much, Counselman for joining us today.
Speaker 4: Thank you Tamika, Thank you Mice for having me.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate all the work that you guys have
Speaker 3: been doing over the years.
Speaker 5: You know, it's very special as needed. So I salute
Speaker 5: you guys as well and say thank you. And before
Speaker 5: we even begin, man, I just want to say, we
Speaker 5: just got some bad news here in Newark, New Jersey.
Speaker 5: I just want to say rest in peace to our
Speaker 5: Lieutenant governor. You know, Oliver passed away today.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you both of you probably met, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: and I think she you know.
Speaker 5: She's all about that woman empowerment and having our black
Speaker 5: sisters do their things. So I know she was a
Speaker 5: big fan of yours to meekause that's why I just
Speaker 5: wanted to say rest in peace today to her and
Speaker 5: her family and condolences to her family.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's so sad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go out to her and who hosted in New
Speaker 2: York City. York Man, it's crazy New Jersey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, So let's get all into it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know that folks are going to want to know
Speaker 1: about some of the specific work you're doing there in Newark,
Speaker 1: But I really want to hear first of all as
Speaker 1: do it or I want to hear from Do It All.
Speaker 1: I'm about that transition, and it was their transitional. It
Speaker 1: is just another stage and level in your life. And
Speaker 1: you still feel extremely connected to the culture, to the music,
Speaker 1: which I believe that you do. But what it feels
Speaker 1: like to be the first to go from being a
Speaker 1: platinum selling artist to now being an elected official. What
Speaker 1: are the great things about it? And what are some
Speaker 1: of the areas that you feel are a little difficult
Speaker 1: and challenging.
Speaker 5: You know, first of all, I'm never going to stop
Speaker 5: being hip hop ever, you know, I tell people that
Speaker 5: I am with hip hop looks like growing up.
Speaker 4: You know, I get to govern in the same blocks
Speaker 4: that I grew up on. I mean, born and raised
Speaker 4: in these areas.
Speaker 5: I get to governose streets where I jumped gates and
Speaker 5: ran from police and was involved in mischief, and also
Speaker 5: those same blocks where I learned how to galvanize people
Speaker 5: and you know, pass out community events and get involved
Speaker 5: in community events. And it's the same area that myself
Speaker 5: and Red Men set on.
Speaker 3: My porch and we talked about when we were ten
Speaker 3: years old. We talked about the changes we were going
Speaker 3: to bring to our community.
Speaker 5: That's why manifestation and words are powerful because we talked
Speaker 5: about that. And it's only really powerful to me just
Speaker 5: because in hindsight of actually living it and doing it now.
Speaker 5: So it's just an amazing thing that I get to.
Speaker 2: Allow of.
Speaker 5: You know, I've done some things that made my mother
Speaker 5: have a you know, disgusting her face when I was younger,
Speaker 5: and I was able to see that, I guess the
Speaker 5: the you know, lack of better word, see that frown
Speaker 5: turn upside down, you know. And and through my work
Speaker 5: in the community, through my work as a hip hop artist.
Speaker 5: I have to give a lot of props to my
Speaker 5: first manager, Hot Feast for Reid, who managed Laws of
Speaker 5: the Underground Muslim brother. You know, when you think about
Speaker 5: Laws of the Underground, we didn't really curse too much
Speaker 5: in our records. We never really called women the B word,
Speaker 5: and you know, which was good when I started the
Speaker 5: campaign because they didn't have anything negative to reflect on
Speaker 5: from my hip hop career.
Speaker 4: And he really he really kept us on point.
Speaker 5: You know, here he has three three black males, three
Speaker 5: black men who come from single mother homes, who didn't
Speaker 5: have fathers in the house. He became our dad on
Speaker 5: the road. And then you know, we got money early.
Speaker 5: So you know, especially when you get money, it doesn't
Speaker 5: come with instructions, especially when you never had any money.
Speaker 5: So he was that guy that kind of kept us grounded.
Speaker 5: And he would say stuff like this. You know, if
Speaker 5: I said something with a B word in a song,
Speaker 5: he would say, oh, that's dope. Who are you talking
Speaker 5: about your mother? Your grandmother? And I would get defensive,
Speaker 5: like you me and my grandmother. He said, well, see
Speaker 5: just the way that you just swollo up when I
Speaker 5: when I asked, was that about your mother? People are
Speaker 5: gonna if you disrespect women, that's how they're gonna feel
Speaker 5: when they hear that word.
Speaker 4: Or so he challenged us.
Speaker 5: But he never told us to change anything, you know,
Speaker 5: he just challenged us to be better, to think differently,
Speaker 5: to change the mindset.
Speaker 3: And one time, you know, in this documented I've been
Speaker 3: wearing Nork on my power and clothes for you know,
Speaker 3: since I was nineteen.
Speaker 5: I'm fifty two now, you know, so it was just like, uh,
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, it.
Speaker 4: Was you know.
Speaker 3: So one day he asked me in the studio, he said,
Speaker 3: what have you done for Nork Lady.
Speaker 4: I got defensive again.
Speaker 6: I'm like, oh, I wear NOWK on my hast, I
Speaker 6: got it on my clothes. I always represent on every
Speaker 6: television show. He was like, no, I didn't ask you
Speaker 6: about representing. I asked you, what have you done for
Speaker 6: the city of North Lady. And I really didn't have
Speaker 6: an answer, you know. And it hit me like, wow,
Speaker 6: here it is.
Speaker 5: I'm bragging about my city and I'm pulling and taking
Speaker 5: away from my city, but I'm not pouring it back
Speaker 5: into my city, you know. And I started to take
Speaker 5: my hip hop money, you know, and try everything right, everything.
Speaker 4: From community you know, the book bag drive, the turkey.
Speaker 5: Giveaways, all of the low hanging fruit stuff, which is important,
Speaker 5: but in the community world, it's really the low hanging fruit.
Speaker 4: Stuff, you know.
Speaker 3: And I just started to do that, and by doing that,
Speaker 3: it started putting me at the doorsteps of the residents.
Speaker 4: And my friends and my family.
Speaker 5: Again and they started to see that I was serious,
Speaker 5: and they asked me to be the voice. Just asked
Speaker 5: me to be the voice through hip hop, you know,
Speaker 5: talk for them and use hip hop to get the
Speaker 5: message across in the you know, in the community.
Speaker 4: And that's what we did, just just through hip hop. Man.
Speaker 4: So the neighborhood that I'm from, you know, Rod Diggers.
Speaker 3: From there, Queen Latiz was from there, Redman's from there,
Speaker 3: the artifacts, it's just so many people. So, like I say,
Speaker 3: it's you know, this is what hip hop looks like
Speaker 3: growing up.
Speaker 4: It was just a natural transition. And on the other.
Speaker 5: Hand, you know, people love you until they don't. You know,
Speaker 5: everybody wants you to win, and you guys know about it.
Speaker 3: People when you're doing great things, you assume that, oh,
Speaker 3: we're doing great things.
Speaker 5: Everybody's going to be happy. And then when you get
Speaker 5: into it and the other one, then you start to
Speaker 5: understand and respectfully, how Malcolm X was killed, Howard Martin
Speaker 5: was killed, because you would think, like, wow, why would
Speaker 5: somebody want to hurt somebody that's doing something good? You know,
Speaker 5: But you know, you have your opposers, and people with
Speaker 5: your opposition and people with different you know, mindsets and
Speaker 5: different views and ideas that just don't match up with
Speaker 5: your So I think, you know, for me, going from
Speaker 5: hip hop to community.
Speaker 4: That's cool.
Speaker 5: That was that's that's easy in the sense I did
Speaker 5: realize that community has a ceiling to it. When you're
Speaker 5: doing community things and when it comes to fostering change
Speaker 5: and then governance, I had to find my footing, you know.
Speaker 5: To be honest, it's been a little over a year.
Speaker 5: I had to find my footing and I'm still learning,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm still learning. But the politics is the
Speaker 5: part that is I'm not really happy with it. And
Speaker 5: I know my team always tell me stop saying that
Speaker 5: you don't like politics in politics now, which is true.
Speaker 5: But I still don't like the movement of it at times,
Speaker 5: you know, because I don't I don't come from the politics,
Speaker 5: but the politics is in all of those things.
Speaker 4: So it's a it's.
Speaker 3: A it's not an easy task, but it's a worthy task.
Speaker 4: It's worth it, you know, I tell people all the time.
Speaker 3: You know, my partners, my DJ, he lives in a
Speaker 3: beautiful mansion in Miami. My other rap partner, he has
Speaker 3: a beautiful home in northern California, I live in one
Speaker 3: of my buildings on right in the hood, right in
Speaker 3: Central Avenue in Newark, New Jersey, and I'm right in
Speaker 3: the mix. How is that? How does that like? How
Speaker 3: does that feel like? Being amongst the people?
Speaker 2: Is that is?
Speaker 3: Do you feel like they receive you better? Do you
Speaker 3: feel like like, how do you feel living amongst the people?
Speaker 4: I love it. You know, I don't have to be here.
Speaker 4: I have to be here.
Speaker 1: And you said it's your own building, so.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm in partnership with you know. I
Speaker 5: don't even tell everybody some of the things that I'm
Speaker 5: in partnership with the city because.
Speaker 4: We got a lot of haters.
Speaker 5: But you know, yes, yes, you know it's our properties,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. So we're working, man, it's
Speaker 5: us being part of our own community. And to answer
Speaker 5: your question might sound like I love it because I'm
Speaker 5: right there with the people. And it can be difficult
Speaker 5: at times because this you're so accessible and you have
Speaker 5: to be careful, you know, because you can't think that
Speaker 5: everything is good, because history has showed that your own
Speaker 5: people would be the ones that to get you up
Speaker 5: out of there. And I mean, like I said, it
Speaker 5: goes from all of our people that we love, our advocates,
Speaker 5: the people who fought for us, down to Nipsey Hustle.
Speaker 5: You know who is writing his own neighborhood and you
Speaker 5: would think, oh, you're safe in your own neighborhood.
Speaker 3: So I'm always aware and the way that I interact
Speaker 3: with them is firm, it's fair, and they know me,
Speaker 3: but don't. I don't take anything for granted, you know,
Speaker 3: because anything is possible.
Speaker 5: I don't have twenty security guards rolling with me. I
Speaker 5: don't have one security guard role.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: I gotta a couple of.
Speaker 5: My dudes who when we go to certain things that
Speaker 5: make sure that I'm good. The neighborhood makes sure that
Speaker 5: I'm good, But I make sure that I'm not in
Speaker 5: those places unless I have to be in those places
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 3: You know, what do you think it's been your biggest challenge,
Speaker 3: the biggest challenge making that trend?
Speaker 2: What is your biggest challenge you feel, and then what
Speaker 2: is the thing that you that you enjoy most.
Speaker 4: That's a great question.
Speaker 3: My big My biggest challenge is navigating through the politics
Speaker 3: my sign and ta Miika Mallory has a different opinion
Speaker 3: than me on one thing that doesn't mean, I don't
Speaker 3: like them or like they're there, what they're doing. We
Speaker 3: just disagree on maybe one thing. But if that thing
Speaker 3: is goes against the team.
Speaker 5: Of whatever team I'm associated with, and I take a
Speaker 5: picture with you guys, it's like, well, why do you
Speaker 5: want to picture with me?
Speaker 3: Game? My son?
Speaker 4: You know what I don't I don't like that, you
Speaker 4: know what I.
Speaker 1: Mean, Like that's a real thing. That's a real thing
Speaker 1: that you're saying.
Speaker 5: It's a real thing, you know, And it's just kind
Speaker 5: of learning how to maneuver through the politics.
Speaker 4: Of it all.
Speaker 5: That's that's that's my biggest task, you know, when people
Speaker 5: are I never had so many.
Speaker 3: People scream at me or you know, I've had people
Speaker 3: not like a record. We still give each other a pound,
Speaker 3: We keep it moving. They might still buy the record
Speaker 3: or still come to the show. I have people say,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: I ain't really feel the record, but when I saw
Speaker 4: you on stage.
Speaker 5: Man, it's not that way. In politics, they just you know,
Speaker 5: I was in office for a mom and they were
Speaker 5: just hating me, you know what I mean, like some people.
Speaker 3: And then you got to realize that those are five people,
Speaker 3: or those are people who don't even vote or those
Speaker 3: are people who don't even do anything themselves.
Speaker 4: So you got to learn how to quiet out the noise.
Speaker 3: And I had to learn, you know, I used to
Speaker 3: be in council meetings responding everything, well it's that, and
Speaker 3: then they you know, I had to learn that I'm
Speaker 3: just fueling them to continue their instead of just not
Speaker 3: you know, just kind of blocking out the white noise.
Speaker 4: And keeping the receipts for the work that I do
Speaker 4: and showing up and.
Speaker 3: Being present, you know, because you can say you don't
Speaker 3: like something, but you can't tell me that it's not
Speaker 3: my truth.
Speaker 5: You can't tell me that I'm not president. You can't
Speaker 5: tell me that I'm not putting in the work, whether
Speaker 5: it we you know, produces a great result, a minimum result,
Speaker 5: a small result. You can't tell me that I'm not
Speaker 5: doing things to push it forward. And as long as
Speaker 5: I keep the receipts, you know, I'm cool. And the
Speaker 5: thing that I do like mice is that to see
Speaker 5: the smile, to see the difference that I make when
Speaker 5: I do the work. And I'm talking about from the
Speaker 5: smallest thing to autism signs to getting the bus stop
Speaker 5: moved for Miss Williams. Because she's elderly and she has
Speaker 5: to walk in from three blocks, but getting it moved
Speaker 5: to the middle of her block just makes it comfort
Speaker 5: for her to put stop signs on a block where
Speaker 5: a lady in the motorized wheelchairs is moving along, to
Speaker 5: actually creating orders that help our residents fight against greedy
Speaker 5: landlords and.
Speaker 4: Things of that nature.
Speaker 5: So it's so many different things that on the municipal
Speaker 5: level that I love. I really think that the local
Speaker 5: politics actually trickle up, you know, because I think that
Speaker 5: the things that we do here makes the state react.
Speaker 4: The things that we do here makes the county react.
Speaker 5: The things that we do here ultimately makes the federal
Speaker 5: government react.
Speaker 1: I think that's one hundred one is well, you can
Speaker 1: answer that second. The first question is how does having
Speaker 1: a mayor who supports your vision. I'm sure maybe not
Speaker 1: all the time, but he ultimately has an empowerment agenda
Speaker 1: and he comes from activism himself. How does that help
Speaker 1: you or how does that make you feel when you're
Speaker 1: out trying to do your work that you're not in
Speaker 1: opposition to the leader of your city, because there are
Speaker 1: many council members who are fighting to get things done
Speaker 1: to change as you said, the city ordinances, the bus stop,
Speaker 1: all the things you talked about, which seems perfectly common sense, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's just common sense these things should happen. And then
Speaker 1: you're up against a mayor who does not have the
Speaker 1: city's best interests at heart from your perspective. So tell
Speaker 1: me one about that, and then I'll ask my second question.
Speaker 3: I want to say man salute, double salute to the
Speaker 3: honorable Mayor j Barako. I was out with Raz, fighting
Speaker 3: with him when we were just young lords of the underground.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: He would call on me to have social media like
Speaker 3: that back then, so he would call on me, he
Speaker 3: would call on red Man, he would call on us
Speaker 3: to galvanize the people.
Speaker 5: Yo, I'm shutting down the street. He was just a
Speaker 5: young activist. I'm shutting down this street. We're gonna be
Speaker 5: talking about this. I'm making a list of demands. What
Speaker 5: are some of your demands in your community? Because we're
Speaker 5: giving this to the administration, you know.
Speaker 3: So to see him go from that a list of
Speaker 3: demands to actually putting the people in place and feeling
Speaker 3: check doing check check marks, checking off some of those
Speaker 3: things that were on that those demands is amazing to
Speaker 3: me to have an ally and not an op as
Speaker 3: they say out here, is beautiful. It's a lot of
Speaker 3: reasons why I ran, but I knew that I can
Speaker 3: add value to the administration of who team Morokka is.
Speaker 4: You know who they are, and he knows that.
Speaker 5: Even when I lost in twenty eighteen, that wasn't before
Speaker 5: a meeting with him in and he was like, dude,
Speaker 5: I'm you know, politically, my list is already filled up,
Speaker 5: My team is already filled. But you will make a
Speaker 5: great council councilman in this city and I will back you.
Speaker 5: You know, he's always been supportive when he was an activist,
Speaker 5: He's been supportive when he was a mayor. He was
Speaker 5: supportive of my nonprofit organization, and when he asked me
Speaker 5: to be on his team ultimately he was He's supportive.
Speaker 5: I just I literally just came out of a meeting
Speaker 5: with him and him being supportive, me talking to some
Speaker 5: personnel here in the city hall about things that we
Speaker 5: need in our community and me having more tension with
Speaker 5: them or going and not bad tension, just about the
Speaker 5: process of getting those things done.
Speaker 4: And this guy is fighting for me, this mayor, he's
Speaker 4: fighting for me. Like, no, we need to get this
Speaker 4: to happen.
Speaker 3: And he's one that stood alongside me and fought for
Speaker 3: a rapper to become an elected official.
Speaker 4: Like he's forward thinking and you're right to me.
Speaker 3: I might not agree with everything with you, but we
Speaker 3: have conversations about it too. You know. I'll give you
Speaker 3: an instance, because I think it was blown out of proportion.
Speaker 3: There's a George Floyd. There's a George Floyd statue on
Speaker 3: the steps of our city hall. I am for the
Speaker 3: George Floyd movement one thousand per cent, right, and I
Speaker 3: stand with it and fight with it.
Speaker 5: I just had a different ideology about where the statue
Speaker 5: should be because of the impact. So I said, maybe
Speaker 5: we should have and maybe I should have did it
Speaker 5: a little more privately, you know, but like I'm learning,
Speaker 5: But I said, maybe we should put it on our
Speaker 5: new police academy, so when all of those new police
Speaker 5: officers come in there, they see that as a reminder
Speaker 5: of what not to do and what to be a
Speaker 5: part of.
Speaker 3: And he came back and said, I respect that, dude,
Speaker 3: but I put it on the steps of our of
Speaker 3: our city for a reminder of.
Speaker 4: The people who has the poor in.
Speaker 3: This city and and and I was just like, wow, okay,
Speaker 3: I knew what he was talking about, you know, and
Speaker 3: I was and I respected what he what he said.
Speaker 5: I didn't agree initially aware the placement, but in reality
Speaker 5: we both agreed when it comes to George Floyd, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean, things like that.
Speaker 3: Man and crazy because I was I was literally in
Speaker 3: the off in city city Hall having a meeting with
Speaker 3: Mitty when you when that happened here.
Speaker 2: Sending in him text.
Speaker 3: He's like, oh my god, what happened with do And
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, He's like, oh man, they don't want he,
Speaker 3: don't they saying he don't want George Floyd.
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, I don't think. I can't believe.
Speaker 1: And you talked about that. You also said something else
Speaker 1: that I think is powerful, and I don't think that
Speaker 1: we can, you know, sort of blosso over that there
Speaker 1: are also people from the state of New Jersey who
Speaker 1: have unfortunately experienced abuse, murder at the hands of police,
Speaker 1: and even placement as well. And you know, I don't
Speaker 1: disagree with that. I think that's also true. And so
Speaker 1: perhaps the meeting of the minds is to create some
Speaker 1: type of memorial outside of the Academy that has the
Speaker 1: names of local New Jersey residents who have also experienced
Speaker 1: the same type, maybe not exactly as George Floyd. We
Speaker 1: know that George Floyd is bigger than George Floyd. I
Speaker 1: mean he represents that moment, represents a moment in history
Speaker 1: where the entire world has had to acknowledge the racial discrimination,
Speaker 1: the oppression, the abuse, you know, state sanctioned violence, all
Speaker 1: of those things at once. But there are other people
Speaker 1: who need their voices lifted as well. And I think
Speaker 1: that your idea is something that in the next council
Speaker 1: you should be pushing some type of memorial outside of
Speaker 1: the Academy that that you know, really looks at some
Speaker 1: of those other individuals and their stories. I think the
Speaker 1: point is that we should. And one of the things
Speaker 1: about politics that I think upsets a lot of people,
Speaker 1: makes them feel that they don't want to participate, is
Speaker 1: one that compromise is very difficult for people in their
Speaker 1: regular lives, in their regulars. And I know that you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things I was gonna say to you earlier,
Speaker 1: but you were saying, you know, you were speaking, it
Speaker 1: was so good that I didn't want to cut you off.
Speaker 1: But you know, I know that that even though y'all
Speaker 1: didn't say a lot of Curtis words and whatever, you
Speaker 1: definitely were not people that need to be played with. Right.
Speaker 1: So now when you're trying to talk to people and
Speaker 1: they talking crazy to you, you kind of like, yo,
Speaker 1: like like I don't know where I'm gonna go with this,
Speaker 1: Like I'm trying to be the counsel person, but but
Speaker 1: you're trying to take me to an old thing that
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get away from. So that's an issue
Speaker 1: because in compromise, you know, sometimes it's difficult for people
Speaker 1: to hear one another, to respect one another and compromise,
Speaker 1: and then what happens is the whole system shuts down,
Speaker 1: and the voters, the frustrated voters of our society see
Speaker 1: the shutdown and they are like, to hell with it.
Speaker 1: You shut down, and I'm going to shut down too.
Speaker 1: So everybody has a shutdown. So the thing I think
Speaker 1: about Ross or mayor Baraka that we appreciate is that
Speaker 1: he is very good at navigating tension.
Speaker 4: Yes he is.
Speaker 1: He is well moving despite the fact that there may
Speaker 1: be difference of opinions and a lot of different issues
Speaker 1: because He's dealing with a lot of people coming from
Speaker 1: the most radical to the most conservative side of the spectrum,
Speaker 1: all all of them trying to come together, and he's
Speaker 1: really good at navigating that. So I think you're in
Speaker 1: a great city to be your first year as a councilman,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I think because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of other places. If you were here in New
Speaker 1: York under Mayn Bloomberg, you might have been in jail.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: And you know, I just want to I just like,
Speaker 3: once again, I want to thank them, because don't I
Speaker 3: don't walk like them, I don't talk like them.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't even dress like them.
Speaker 3: But I can see my inspiration and my influence starting
Speaker 3: to influence the entire city hall. And that's just it's
Speaker 3: not just me, it's the culture that we come from,
Speaker 3: that hip hop culture.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I got wearing sneakers with suits with from Russell Simmons go,
Speaker 3: you know, and I just did it.
Speaker 5: I didn't make it up, but I tell you this,
Speaker 5: My mayor now does it. Everybody in this building does it.
Speaker 5: And that's just to say that the power of who
Speaker 5: we are as people who we are in the community
Speaker 5: and and my my my governance now me as an
Speaker 5: elected official, I just pray that that not only to
Speaker 5: the people in city Hall, but to the people who
Speaker 5: are outside of city Hall, the people who are in
Speaker 5: the neighborhoods. Because I think when you change your mindset,
Speaker 5: you change your viewpoint, you change advantage point of different things.
Speaker 5: And I just believe like when you can change that
Speaker 5: into love, When you love something, you treat it differently, right,
Speaker 5: you know, when you love your city, you can change it.
Speaker 5: That's what I believe. But a lot of people don't
Speaker 5: love themselves. And sometimes when you don't understand something, you
Speaker 5: push it away, you know, you shun it.
Speaker 4: Like, oh no, I don't I don't. I don't eat that,
Speaker 4: but you.
Speaker 5: Never taste it. Oh I don't want to go there,
Speaker 5: but you've never been there. I don't want to, you know,
Speaker 5: So it's we push it away. And I think that
Speaker 5: a lot of people they really don't understand the process
Speaker 5: of politics in our city.
Speaker 4: So you know, you'll get people coming to the council
Speaker 4: meetings and they're.
Speaker 3: Loud but wrong, you know, I mean very loud, and
Speaker 3: the people like yeah, and I'm like, yeah, what Google
Speaker 3: is It's not just it's not just your city, it's politics, period, right,
Speaker 3: Because people don't understand politics. They just think, we want
Speaker 3: this to go this way, and it should just be
Speaker 3: you be able to snap a finger. We voted you
Speaker 3: in and you need to just be able to do this, right.
Speaker 3: And I used to be one of those people, right
Speaker 3: until I started having friends like yourself, having friends like
Speaker 3: Jimiani Williams, who is the Public Advocate of New York,
Speaker 3: Natasha Williams who's also city council in Queens, and just
Speaker 3: a plethora of other individuals who work in government. I
Speaker 3: started to understand that the things that we wanted weren't
Speaker 3: as simple as we thought they were. You know, it's
Speaker 3: not just you snap a finger. We vote you, and
Speaker 3: you should be able to do whatever you want. And
Speaker 3: when you start understanding that reality, you start looking at
Speaker 3: things different. So I've had those conversations with people, you know,
Speaker 3: and I've had it and they be like, nah, you
Speaker 3: don't and I'm like, no, you don't understand.
Speaker 2: Is the process that it goes through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have to continue to push our elected officials
Speaker 3: and make sure that they advocate on our side and
Speaker 3: make sure that they're doing what they said, but it's
Speaker 3: not I'm always up to them the ship that you
Speaker 3: think supposed to So you can't just put all the
Speaker 3: blame on them.
Speaker 2: But people don't want to hear that when.
Speaker 3: When you living in the community, when people are frustrated,
Speaker 3: people are hungry, they pour it's a lot of things
Speaker 3: going on.
Speaker 2: Me and to me was having this conversation yesterday that
Speaker 2: it's a lot going on with people.
Speaker 3: People are in so many different it's so many like
Speaker 3: we get calls, DMS, emails, so many different people that's
Speaker 3: dealing with so much different trauma and stress, and you
Speaker 3: know things are not going right, and they looking for
Speaker 3: somebody to blame. You know what, I'm a lot of
Speaker 3: times we get to blame account old accountability.
Speaker 2: You just want accountability.
Speaker 3: But there's also some people that just want to blame
Speaker 3: people too, So there's a there's a balance between both
Speaker 3: of them. Like we get we get thrown under the
Speaker 3: bust of shit that we got nothing to do with.
Speaker 3: Like if I if I advocate for one person because
Speaker 3: I know their story, and it was like, oh, you phony,
Speaker 3: because you ain't talking about Jojo who got shot here,
Speaker 3: But you're gonna talk I'm like, well, I didn't even
Speaker 3: know Joe. I don't even know Jojo got shot. How
Speaker 3: you holding me accountable? I don't know nothing that got
Speaker 3: to do with Jojo. But but this is how people
Speaker 3: start putting things in their mind. So I'm never wanted
Speaker 3: to do politics based on that because I watch what
Speaker 3: you actually have to deal with, and I want to
Speaker 3: be able to say and do what I want when
Speaker 3: I want. I hear you. I love I love the
Speaker 3: fact I've actually evolved, right, But I still want to
Speaker 3: be able to say, look, yeah, but I still want
Speaker 3: to be able to say, you can't talk to me crazy,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna take you around the corner and we're gonna
Speaker 3: have to get fired. I want to be able to
Speaker 3: do that. That's the reason why I want to go
Speaker 3: into the phone to go off.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But I think you.
Speaker 1: Are an example, though, of why more black men should
Speaker 1: consider running for office to make the change that they're
Speaker 1: looking for in their local communities. Right, you think about
Speaker 1: a Congressman, Jamal Bowman in New York. This man is
Speaker 1: a teacher, principal turned now a congressman, and he's going
Speaker 1: to go further. I know he is right, and I
Speaker 1: think and of course there's a side of me that
Speaker 1: is in that that that has to push back even
Speaker 1: on what I said, because black women certainly need to
Speaker 1: run for office more, but the support that's necessary for
Speaker 1: a black woman to win is very challenging and then
Speaker 1: for her to stay in position because the system so
Speaker 1: easily comes up against black women, and you know, people
Speaker 1: just kind of like, oh well, I mean if you
Speaker 1: think about the list of black women from Kim Fox,
Speaker 1: who's the state's attorney in Wiskim in Chicago, to Maryland
Speaker 1: Moseley in marriag Caryland, and the list goes on and on,
Speaker 1: and how they are being ripped to shreds, literally ripped
Speaker 1: to shreds. It makes other black women run. But I
Speaker 1: think you, counselmen Kelly, are an example of why people
Speaker 1: should run. They need to. But you can't just run
Speaker 1: for your one seat. You got to look at the
Speaker 1: entire city because now when counsel will at the time,
Speaker 1: when do it all helps ros Baraka become mayor, right
Speaker 1: then you run for counsel and you have other friends
Speaker 1: that run for assembly, you start the corner off your
Speaker 1: community and be able to make the type of change
Speaker 1: that you're looking to do. So I think more black
Speaker 1: men should certainly gather with that thought process in mind.
Speaker 5: Yo, that's an amazing example. You just did to make it,
Speaker 5: because that's really what it is. We helped Rise become mayor,
Speaker 5: and in turn, he helped me become counselmen, you know.
Speaker 5: And I think that with us going back and grabbing
Speaker 5: each other. And we have a woman council president and
Speaker 5: Lamonica mcguyver and.
Speaker 4: He was her fifth grade teacher when she was in
Speaker 4: the fifth grade, ras was her teacher. Now she's the
Speaker 4: president of the council and part of his team.
Speaker 5: I think that people are not really looking at the succession.
Speaker 4: And we have to prepare for that too, right.
Speaker 5: You know, we have nine council members on here in
Speaker 5: Jersey and some people, you know, in different states, different cities,
Speaker 5: there's a different body of municipal council.
Speaker 3: But here in north we have five, one that represents
Speaker 3: each ward. We have five wards, and then we have
Speaker 3: four at largest.
Speaker 5: So I represent the ward that I grew up in,
Speaker 5: which is about seventy thousand residents.
Speaker 4: You know, in some places, seventy.
Speaker 3: Thousand residents is the whole entire city, you know, So
Speaker 3: I really have a mini city that I have to
Speaker 3: govern over. And one thing I can really say is
Speaker 3: that Mayor Baraka allows me to govern over.
Speaker 4: That city, over those residents and all of us.
Speaker 3: So when it comes to talking about bringing people along,
Speaker 3: we have to.
Speaker 4: Set up a farm system. You know. One of the
Speaker 4: reasons that I am.
Speaker 1: Counseling farm system. A farm system.
Speaker 4: Farm system, yeah, farm system, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So the reason, one of the reasons that I am
Speaker 3: counseling is because of a conversation that I had with Tupacs,
Speaker 3: your corps back in nineteen ninety two in a motel
Speaker 3: in Orlando, Florida, while on tour.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: And it's crazy because that conversation.
Speaker 3: I'm on POC laws and the underground and Tupac was
Speaker 3: sharing a sixteen passenger van.
Speaker 5: We wasn't even on tour buses yet, you know, and
Speaker 5: we was in a motel where you had to go
Speaker 5: in the room outside not inside, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: So, but just to fast.
Speaker 5: Forward the story, Pot came to my room, and you know,
Speaker 5: we had an altercation before that day. He came to
Speaker 5: my room first of all, like a man to squash it,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. So he came to my
Speaker 5: room and through that conversation. Through that we got into
Speaker 5: this conversation. He said, dude, we have to turn millions
Speaker 5: of record biers into millions of voters.
Speaker 4: And then once we do that, and he.
Speaker 5: Started naming all of the rappers that was popular back
Speaker 5: in ninety two. You know, he would say, Common has
Speaker 5: to do it in Chicago, you entrench you and Redman
Speaker 5: need to do it in New it Tresh needs to
Speaker 5: do it in East starch Ice q to do it
Speaker 5: in Central Los Angeles.
Speaker 4: I'll do it in Baltimore and Oakland.
Speaker 5: And he just started naming all of these people and
Speaker 5: he started to talk like a.
Speaker 4: Twenty twenty one year old and I've never.
Speaker 5: Heard talk like that before, you know, and saying that
Speaker 5: we have to be accountable and start youth organizations and
Speaker 5: youth groups and protect our women and protect our senyers.
Speaker 4: I mean, he was blowing my mind.
Speaker 5: And then he said, you know, we have to do
Speaker 5: something that we might not want to do because you know,
Speaker 5: all right, rappers were against politicians. He said, we might
Speaker 5: have to become legislators. Almost didn't know he was talking
Speaker 5: about it. I was legislators, man, we rappers.
Speaker 4: He was like, yeah, but.
Speaker 7: If we don't make the laws for us, or if
Speaker 7: we're not at the table making laws or thiss and
Speaker 7: colds for us, then they will make it for us
Speaker 7: and it won't be for us.
Speaker 1: Before us, you know, and talk to you for the
Speaker 1: rest of the son.
Speaker 3: But we could definitely stay and told to you tonight.
Speaker 3: But I just want I just want to show what
Speaker 3: hip hop is. It's so big and the culture of it.
Speaker 3: Like just looking at the connection of you and Ross.
Speaker 3: People don't know that Ross is so loves hip hop
Speaker 3: and he actually has a hip hop album that you
Speaker 3: guys could be that I've watched him, you know, see
Speaker 3: I'm saying and listening to his little you know that
Speaker 3: he's so influenced by the culture.
Speaker 2: And now it's time for the.
Speaker 3: Culture that influences this world to dictate and govern this world.
Speaker 3: And that's what is showing. It's showing like and it's
Speaker 3: not just that it's just government. When you look at
Speaker 3: Newer it is a model for governments all around this world.
Speaker 3: Like the way that you guys deal with violence and
Speaker 3: the way that you deal with community is a model
Speaker 3: for the world to look at.
Speaker 2: I'm not just saying it shows the culture.
Speaker 3: When you are culturally competent and you have respect in
Speaker 3: your community, when you take community leaders in community credible
Speaker 3: messages and you connect those back to the communities that
Speaker 3: they're governing, you will see the change.
Speaker 2: So that's something that inspires me when I watch you guys.
Speaker 3: It inspires me to do the work that I do
Speaker 3: because I know the work that I do. Even if
Speaker 3: I'm not one of those government officials, I'm inspiring someone
Speaker 3: who's going to be in the next who's going to
Speaker 3: be there, They're gonna say, Okay, I've seen what my.
Speaker 2: Song does in this community.
Speaker 3: I want to take that and I want to put
Speaker 3: it in these political offices, even if it's not what
Speaker 3: I do. So I just want to say, what you
Speaker 3: do and where you come from is so motivational, inspirational
Speaker 3: for a lot of us.
Speaker 2: Man. So continue, you know, continue to do what to
Speaker 2: work you do. We salute you. You know you my brother.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna be my brother with.
Speaker 2: You all the time, working with you all the time.
Speaker 3: I just want you to give us, you know, one
Speaker 3: last word that you would give us before you leave.
Speaker 5: Before I leave, I just want to add on to
Speaker 5: what you're saying I know you guys gotta go. But
Speaker 5: just talking about Nork being a model and having a
Speaker 5: leader like rash Jay Baraka in the seat who does
Speaker 5: things that really push our city forward. Today, we just
Speaker 5: in our pre counsul tomorrow we'll vote on it. But
Speaker 5: he bought the Temple of hip Hop to North New
Speaker 5: Jersey and gave it a home. Harent One is now
Speaker 5: opening the school of the Temple of hip Hop.
Speaker 3: And I've seen him try to open this in Harlem.
Speaker 3: I seen him try to open it in the Bronx.
Speaker 3: Rasbarakas gave this guy a building. The Temple of hip.
Speaker 5: Hop is now located in North New Jersey Southward.
Speaker 4: That amazing to me.
Speaker 5: We got the teacher here that's gonna be running programming.
Speaker 4: Out of our city.
Speaker 3: That's an international hub now in New Jersey.
Speaker 4: That's like, that's just for me. That's just like bringing
Speaker 4: Prudential or.
Speaker 5: Mars or you go to the building one of those corporations.
Speaker 5: He just bought a solidified value to our city and
Speaker 5: the teacher with Karris want in the Temple of hip Hop,
Speaker 5: that are gonna do.
Speaker 4: Many great things.
Speaker 5: So man, Nework is definitely becoming a model for a
Speaker 5: certain man you know. And one last thing too, mice
Speaker 5: when you talk about our men in our communities. I
Speaker 5: just started this thing called Men Talk Sundays, where we go.
Speaker 3: Into the parks and I grab all of the men,
Speaker 3: all of those and.
Speaker 5: I guess that's why I still have certain relationships with them.
Speaker 5: I go to these communities and I tell them, I
Speaker 5: need you to come talk.
Speaker 4: I need you to what. It was inspired by one
Speaker 4: of the big gang banger.
Speaker 3: Here who I have a relationship, was mad at me
Speaker 3: because I wasn't returning his phone calls.
Speaker 5: But he don't understand. I'm just really busy. So anytime
Speaker 5: somebody has an issue, I go right to him. So
Speaker 5: I went right to him.
Speaker 4: What's up? What's the problem with nah?
Speaker 3: I do?
Speaker 5: I don't want you to get no big head but
Speaker 5: being no, it's not that. But look, I want you
Speaker 5: to come with me for the day now. I want
Speaker 5: you to work with me. I want you to build
Speaker 5: with me and see what I do. And he came
Speaker 5: with me. We went to lunch.
Speaker 4: Yet we had an amazing conversation. But with that conversation
Speaker 4: showed me was that we need each other.
Speaker 5: I learned something through that conversation by him pointing into me.
Speaker 5: I'm pointing to him, and it inspired me to grab
Speaker 5: all of the dudes from the neighborhood put.
Speaker 4: Them in the park.
Speaker 5: I have Red Man as my keynote speaker talking about
Speaker 5: facing your fears. And when I said this man did
Speaker 5: amazing people like you have Red Man as your keynote speaker.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, he has experiences about facing fears. Anybody you
Speaker 3: know can't tell another man about his experiences. So I
Speaker 3: put Man when I tell you he inspired these brothers. Man,
Speaker 3: and I say that because August twenty seventh is our
Speaker 3: next men talk Sundays in the Park and Mince, I
Speaker 3: would love you to be my keynote speaker for that day.
Speaker 3: If you available Man, August twenty seventh and we can talk.
Speaker 2: We're gonna try.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna try because August August, either August twenty sixth
Speaker 3: or twenty seventh, I do my annual day in my
Speaker 3: in the Bronx, so it's Merriam Day I usually do
Speaker 3: my annual days. I had to push it back to
Speaker 3: either the twenty six or the twenty seventh, so I'm
Speaker 3: gonna decide if I do it on the twenty six.
Speaker 2: What happened and I ain't available that day.
Speaker 1: She looked right, I say a thing, I just just.
Speaker 2: It might not work.
Speaker 4: So I don't even get one day if that don't go.
Speaker 3: Definitely, definitely, Because I'm actually doing the men's talk inside
Speaker 3: in September.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do a big I want to.
Speaker 3: Hold about five hundred men where I'm sitting down with
Speaker 3: five hundred minute We're gonna we're gonna iron out, and
Speaker 3: we're gonna decide how we're gonna govern our communities, how
Speaker 3: we're gonna take back our communities, how we're gonna love
Speaker 3: on our young kings, how we're gonna raise that, how
Speaker 3: we're gonna show them with real right to passages, what
Speaker 3: manhood manhood really is.
Speaker 2: So it is a line.
Speaker 3: You know, the work we do is definitely a line.
Speaker 3: So we're gonna figure it out. We'll figure it out, definitely.
Speaker 1: Man, Thank you so much for being with us today.
Speaker 1: You know we just need to go. We got to
Speaker 1: go to Nework and sit down and talk as we
Speaker 1: have in the past, do it again because it's so
Speaker 1: much to be said. And I think, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: having prophecy moments here. I think you really do need
Speaker 1: to be doing videos and things encouraging people to run
Speaker 1: for office and telling them your story, right like short
Speaker 1: clips of videos. This is what I did first, second, third,
Speaker 1: this is how I did it. This is what you
Speaker 1: need to be involved with in your community prior to running.
Speaker 1: Because there are people who ask me all the time
Speaker 1: I want, but I just don't know what to do
Speaker 1: and how to do it. And I think coming from you,
Speaker 1: because you know people are attracted to success, So coming
Speaker 1: from you, who is successful at selling music, I think
Speaker 1: you will also be successful as selling getting our people
Speaker 1: nationally to be more involved in.
Speaker 4: And before you go, I have been doing that.
Speaker 5: So I started my election tour last week and I
Speaker 5: started in Charleston, West Virginia. An election tour talks about
Speaker 5: how arts and entertainment can foster change in community through
Speaker 5: policy and politics, you know.
Speaker 4: And I started in Charleston.
Speaker 5: I have Tampa, Orlando, Milwaukee, Winston, Salem, and Charlotte coming
Speaker 5: up next.
Speaker 4: We're doing it.
Speaker 1: That's what we need and we want to help you
Speaker 1: promote it. We got to go because we've got to
Speaker 1: end this show. We would never end if we let
Speaker 1: you continue to stay. Gyms. Thank you counselmaning Man real.
Speaker 4: I'm definitely a supporter.
Speaker 1: Thank you, counselmen. Do pray Kelly who is better known
Speaker 1: as do it.
Speaker 4: All all right and Mike as we're gonna be all
Speaker 4: we're gonna talk about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely we can get you all right.
Speaker 2: All right, can't peace Man.
Speaker 3: Shout out to my brother duprey do it oh. Kelly
Speaker 3: Man one of the realist dudes. Man one of my
Speaker 3: favorite hip hop artists. If you don't know, the Lords
Speaker 3: of the Undergrounds and a lot of y'all young dudes
Speaker 3: probably don't know, but go look it up.
Speaker 2: You know, they got some of the dopest music.
Speaker 3: He's one of the dopest artists man, And just watching
Speaker 3: his evolution is inspirational to me, you know, with the
Speaker 3: work he's doing, you know, not only just the work
Speaker 3: he's doing, the way he's doing the work. He's doing
Speaker 3: it in his authentic self. And a lot of people
Speaker 3: don't understand that. A lot of people think that you
Speaker 3: have to look a certain way, sound a certain way,
Speaker 3: you know, you have to capitulate to a certain narrative
Speaker 3: in order to do the work.
Speaker 2: And he's not.
Speaker 3: He's not that individual like he says, he walks in
Speaker 3: there with suits and sneakers. He got his newer cat on.
Speaker 3: He comes, he brings the culture of hip hop with
Speaker 3: him into you know, the Councilman's So he's motivational to
Speaker 3: me because I always want to be authentic in myself.
Speaker 3: I always want to bring the streets of the New
Speaker 3: York City in the Bronx and and bring the real
Speaker 3: voices of my community into any space. And I don't
Speaker 3: want people to think that you have to sound or
Speaker 3: look a certain way. So he's motivational to me. So
Speaker 3: shout out to him for the work he's doing. You know,
Speaker 3: we we we had a good interview. So I don't
Speaker 3: really I don't really have a I don't get.
Speaker 1: Maybe you don't. I have plenty of I don't get it,
Speaker 1: but we can save one.
Speaker 2: I mean I do have a I don't get it.
Speaker 3: I just don't get how they had a fight that
Speaker 3: was heralded as the biggest fight in the century.
Speaker 2: Well, one of the boxes looked like he was an amateur.
Speaker 3: And there's no no disrespect because I'm an aerospence fan
Speaker 3: and I think he's a dope boxer. But I'm just
Speaker 3: trying to say I don't know. I do not get
Speaker 3: what happened. Like there's been a lot of things I said.
Speaker 3: If you look at my Instagram page, I said, I
Speaker 3: think he was high because he looked high. I was
Speaker 3: heard what.
Speaker 1: You was talking about, you know, my challenges.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was just like, man, he just looked high
Speaker 3: to me. And then somebody, one of my friends who's
Speaker 3: also an aerospince fan, sent me something that said that,
Speaker 3: you know, he was hit by he was thrown out
Speaker 3: of a moving car at one hundred miles an hour,
Speaker 3: so he was he was he had he was in
Speaker 3: serious injury, and he boy, he came back to fighting
Speaker 3: you know's and he's had a few fights since. But
Speaker 3: they're saying that he's dealing with neurological you know, injury,
Speaker 3: and they can tell based off that. So this was
Speaker 3: what some quote unquote neurologists were saying on the incident.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I just don't get. Like I've
Speaker 3: been watching boxing my whole life. My father used to
Speaker 3: have me sitting in front of the TV watching boxing
Speaker 3: matches my whole life, and I've never seen someone who
Speaker 3: was that top tier of a fighter lose that bad.
Speaker 3: I just never and and it's not taking nothing away
Speaker 3: from Budd Club because I have already said that I
Speaker 3: felt Bud was the better fighter.
Speaker 2: I thought Bud was gonna win the fight.
Speaker 3: But the way that Aerospence fought or didn't fight, to
Speaker 3: me was just mind boggle.
Speaker 2: So I don't get it.
Speaker 3: Maybe people can whatever it is, he's either high, he
Speaker 3: was either dealing with some neurological or he really just
Speaker 3: needs to retire. But a lot of people talking about,
Speaker 3: oh a rematch. I do not want to see that
Speaker 3: Erospence that walk into that that ring fight again ever,
Speaker 3: So I'm.
Speaker 2: Not interested in seeing that.
Speaker 3: I want that man because if he goes in there
Speaker 3: with that level of fighting again, he might really really
Speaker 3: because he was his face was really he was really
Speaker 3: beat up bad. If he goes in there and fighting
Speaker 3: like that again, he can really suffer some real brain
Speaker 3: damage or something.
Speaker 2: So I don't even want to see him fight like
Speaker 2: that again.
Speaker 3: I don't want to diminish his legacy with him.
Speaker 1: That's powerful just to say I don't because I thought
Speaker 1: you were gonna say you don't want to diminish the
Speaker 1: value of boxing.
Speaker 3: No, his legacy. He's too good a boxer. He's too good.
Speaker 3: I've watched some box and I've seen him. He's one
Speaker 3: of the most aggressive, punishing, like the way he fights
Speaker 3: to fight like that, it diminished because people was mad
Speaker 3: at me because I put my top fight five boxers
Speaker 3: right now and I didn't.
Speaker 2: Put him in people's like, and I was like, because
Speaker 2: the way that he fought.
Speaker 3: It took him completely right until he does something else,
Speaker 3: like if I never seen him happen, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I'm saying, that's what happens. Like you you lose.
Speaker 3: That fight was the worst fight I ever seen any
Speaker 3: top tier fighter ever have. Like I've seen top tier
Speaker 3: fighters lose that wasn't supposed to lose, that got upset.
Speaker 3: I've seen Mike lose. I've seen you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: Wilder lose.
Speaker 2: I've seen it.
Speaker 3: But they was all in the fight, like even when
Speaker 3: they were lost, they was fighting. Like you could tell
Speaker 3: some of them got a little slower, they got older things,
Speaker 3: but they didn't get beat, beat beat beat like that.
Speaker 3: I've never seen something like that where the man probably
Speaker 3: landed maybe three punches of significance, like nah, not.
Speaker 1: An eight round How many rounds did they fight?
Speaker 3: Theyfore eight rounds? He got knocked down three times, and
Speaker 3: then in they fought nine rounds. They four nine rounds,
Speaker 3: he got knocked down three times and then the knife
Speaker 3: round they stopped the fight.
Speaker 1: It's pretty sad. I mean, you know, I didn't watch it,
Speaker 1: but I saw it. Sure, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: chatter about it on the internet. But I do appreciate
Speaker 1: that you said you want the man's legacy too good
Speaker 1: he's and some of our leaders. There's a similar conversation
Speaker 1: that happens as you see. You know, look at now
Speaker 1: what has happened with revend Jesse Jackson, who's now passed
Speaker 1: the baton to uh the to Reverend doctor Freddie Haynes,
Speaker 1: who is my dear other, our friend and Freddie, and
Speaker 1: let me say that, say that again now, you know,
Speaker 1: we talk about making sure you preserve your legacy. You see,
Speaker 1: even in this moment where Reveren Jesse Jackson has passed
Speaker 1: the baton of leadership of Rainbow Push Coalition, which is
Speaker 1: his organization, to our friend and brother, doctor Freddie Haynes,
Speaker 1: the third out of Dallas, Texas. And we know it's
Speaker 1: very clear that Reverend Jackson is dealing with severe illness.
Speaker 1: He's not the same as he was when he was younger,
Speaker 1: or even just five years ago. He's changed, you know,
Speaker 1: because of his condition. And I think it was important
Speaker 1: because he's talked about passing the baton in the past,
Speaker 1: and we all have that, we all, every single one
Speaker 1: of us who has ever led something, whether it be
Speaker 1: a company, even your toy that you had when you
Speaker 1: were young, a shirt that you love, you hold it
Speaker 1: so dear, but you look crazy now that you've grown
Speaker 1: to a big woman's size and you still trying to
Speaker 1: wear this same shirt that used to do it for
Speaker 1: you at the club when you was young, and now
Speaker 1: you outside with your stomach hanging over and people looking
Speaker 1: at you, and you're embarrassing yourself. So you have to
Speaker 1: learn how to pass things on to the next person
Speaker 1: that's gonna take care of it and love it and
Speaker 1: treat it the same way that you had to preserve
Speaker 1: your own legacy, even more so than theirs. But it's
Speaker 1: to make sure that you don't have yourself out here
Speaker 1: looking crazy because you still trying to keep up with
Speaker 1: the old you, and the old you is not the
Speaker 1: new you. And I think, listening to what you said,
Speaker 1: I know nothing about the boxer you spoke of but
Speaker 1: I think that what's most important is your health. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. I think we have to start
Speaker 1: putting our health first and not taking opportunity first and
Speaker 1: then trying to figure out how to back into the health.
Speaker 1: And I know I'm speaking as a person who doesn't
Speaker 1: always listen to that, but I think this is an
Speaker 1: example of that type of situation pretty much.
Speaker 2: And with that said, thank you for coming out.
Speaker 3: We love you brings us to the end of another episode.
Speaker 3: Thank y'all for being with us. We love you brings
Speaker 3: us to the end of another powerful episode. The Street
Speaker 3: Politicians shout out to do pray do it all, Kelly Counselman,
Speaker 3: do pray do it all?
Speaker 2: Kelly my guy for.
Speaker 3: Coming here, dropping some gems, giving us a lot to
Speaker 3: just ponder on. Man, it was a dope episode. Hit
Speaker 3: us up at Street Politicians Pod. Let us know what
Speaker 3: you like, let us know what you don't like, tell
Speaker 3: us you love us. Continue to make us the number
Speaker 3: one podcast.
Speaker 4: In the world.
Speaker 3: Because I'm not gonna always be right, Tamika, the marriage
Speaker 3: is not gonna always be wrong, but we will both
Speaker 3: always and I mean always, always, always be authentic.
Speaker 4: Peace.
Speaker 1: Listen to Street Politicians on the Black Effect Network on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: And catch us every single Wednesday for the video version
Speaker 3: the Street Politicians and for I Women Dot TV.
Speaker 2: That's how we own it.