Speaker 1: What's your family, is your girl to meet A D.
Speaker 1: Mallory and it's your boy my son in general, and
Speaker 1: we are your host of street politicians the place with
Speaker 1: and politics going on, my son Lennon oh Man, long day,
Speaker 1: long nights, all types of craziness for weekend too. Just
Speaker 1: so much that's been going on the internet is over.
Speaker 1: I want to know, it's not. It's really it is.
Speaker 1: It's gonna We're gonna have to it's gonna have to
Speaker 1: be something new developed as a communication mechanism. I think
Speaker 1: we gotta put some sage on the internet. It's it's
Speaker 1: what they say when y'all well, I can't say y'all
Speaker 1: because I don't want to put you in this category.
Speaker 1: But some men when like a woman has what like
Speaker 1: when they'll say a woman is she's she's like um,
Speaker 1: like like you know, she's she's she's done, like she's
Speaker 1: been too many people are some stupid thing that y'all
Speaker 1: say or not you. But people say there's a word
Speaker 1: that they use. They say it's um. It's no, I
Speaker 1: can't think of it. But there's a word that I've
Speaker 1: heard that I would like to reapply to this and
Speaker 1: take off of women um. But I've heard it be
Speaker 1: said like she's done or done for or something like that.
Speaker 1: Something something like that. That shouldn't be said again about women.
Speaker 1: But we applies to the Internet. The Internet is used
Speaker 1: and abused. It's a rat it has bubbled, it's out
Speaker 1: of control, it's unsafe. Um. The Internet is really actually
Speaker 1: a very violent place. But it's a major distraction for
Speaker 1: your life, Like if you're supposed to be working on
Speaker 1: something and really building, especially if you are in a
Speaker 1: social space, you can find your mind being consumed with
Speaker 1: people's thoughts and conversations versus being able to accomplish whatever
Speaker 1: your goals are. And I think folks really have to
Speaker 1: be careful about that because it's dangerous on the net.
Speaker 1: It really it's at one time, No, you're right, and
Speaker 1: I think I think it's it gives us access to
Speaker 1: information at such a fast rate. But I think that
Speaker 1: the danger, the biggest danger for me on the Internet
Speaker 1: is misinformation and people who have big platforms who constantly
Speaker 1: spell misinformation right. And I think the danger in that
Speaker 1: is when there's nobody a challenge or correct the misinformation.
Speaker 1: Because unfortunately, we live in the town where most of
Speaker 1: these people get their information from the internet. Right, there
Speaker 1: are people who because they follow a star or something
Speaker 1: that has twenty million view I mean followers, and the
Speaker 1: star says something, they take it as law, They take
Speaker 1: it as it got to be true because this person
Speaker 1: said it right. And if there's nobody to combat that ship,
Speaker 1: it becomes it gets so dangerous and it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it shows in the way that the youth moved right,
Speaker 1: because the youth again information and they follow the biggest
Speaker 1: stars and they follow people have these big platforms, and
Speaker 1: a lot of them are sending off the wrong messages.
Speaker 1: You know what, what they what they glorified. What they
Speaker 1: only focus on is how much you have? What you have?
Speaker 1: How do all the things that and you can see
Speaker 1: that transformed into our babies. So for me, as much
Speaker 1: as I hate the Internet and and I see it,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna always speak truth to problem. I'm you're not
Speaker 1: gonna get over on on me like I'm gonna use
Speaker 1: my little files when it does and followers and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell them the truth and hopefully they can, you know,
Speaker 1: spread the truth to somebody else. But I'm just not
Speaker 1: gonna I can't sit back and allow people to just
Speaker 1: make up ship and lie and spread misinformation on my watch,
Speaker 1: I just can't. I try to too. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it's all about balance, you know, And that's all
Speaker 1: I'm gonna saying. It's all about balance. You know. You
Speaker 1: lean in, but you also gotta figure out how to
Speaker 1: lean out, and not just lean out a few times
Speaker 1: a day, but actually lean out on some days completely
Speaker 1: and really focus on building whatever else it is that
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be doing that The internet is uh uh,
Speaker 1: the Internet becomes a place to in my judgment, it
Speaker 1: becomes a place to showcase a finished product. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things that you have to do. But
Speaker 1: I go back, social media becomes a place to showcase
Speaker 1: a finished product, maybe pick up a few tips along
Speaker 1: the way. But there are other ways on the Internet
Speaker 1: that you can build what you're trying to accomplish. And
Speaker 1: I think we have to focus on one, you know,
Speaker 1: not so much on social media, just as people in general,
Speaker 1: because it's becoming accessable. But anyway, I was saying though
Speaker 1: that this weekend, Yeah, the past weekend, it was really
Speaker 1: busy with a lot of things that happened, you know,
Speaker 1: one just Jeezy who we must make sure we get
Speaker 1: him on our show. Uh. He was actually ready to
Speaker 1: do it in the past and we just for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: it never was confirmed. But he had his annual Snowball,
Speaker 1: which is his gala for his foundation, which is also
Speaker 1: also coincides with his birthday. UH. And the foundation UM
Speaker 1: does a lot of great work with youth. They're focused
Speaker 1: on young people from impoverished communities. UH. And you know,
Speaker 1: it was a great event. A lot of UM people,
Speaker 1: but celebrities and business in the you know, business folks,
Speaker 1: just different types of people came out to support him.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, my thing with with Jeezy
Speaker 1: is that he's such a solid or authentic person, Like
Speaker 1: every time I speak to him, the same he reached
Speaker 1: out to me to say, hey, I want you guys
Speaker 1: to be there. You know, it's not a through his assistant. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, you call him and you can't get him
Speaker 1: on the phone, and he not he's not really trying
Speaker 1: to engage. No, he's like and and several times we've
Speaker 1: called him and he's shown up at things. So I
Speaker 1: don't feel you know, I I uh invested at the event,
Speaker 1: I donated, and I don't and I feel good about
Speaker 1: that investment because I know that whatever he's trying to do,
Speaker 1: he's gonna authentically do it. And of course Genie mine
Speaker 1: my girl was there, who I love so so much
Speaker 1: now it was it was a beautiful event. Man, Just
Speaker 1: Jeezy is the definition of evolution, Like just watching somebody
Speaker 1: evolved from pretty much the bottom and go to that
Speaker 1: next level. You know, he's one of He's one of
Speaker 1: the interviews that I want to do for my sit
Speaker 1: down with the stand up you know, serio is that
Speaker 1: I want to do because he's pretty much like a
Speaker 1: poster boy for that. Like somebody came from nothing, you
Speaker 1: know that literally he came from backyards a bunch of people.
Speaker 1: That's route like he tells that story. So watching him
Speaker 1: evolved into this, you know, this man that's doing business,
Speaker 1: was focused on helping kids and evolved even involving his
Speaker 1: message in his music. Right, you know, he is not stagnated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we know where you come from. He still
Speaker 1: speaks to the realities and the row, the royal things
Speaker 1: in the street. But there's so much music about black
Speaker 1: empowerment and and and and move into the next level
Speaker 1: and you know all of those things. So this is
Speaker 1: watching him you know, I've always been a fan of
Speaker 1: his music. But when you meet it's very few, it's
Speaker 1: very seldomly that you actually meet a lot of these
Speaker 1: artists and then who that you thought there was, you know,
Speaker 1: and Jeez is one of those individuals. Man, So shout
Speaker 1: out to Jeezy man. Yeah. Absolutely. Uh So, then we
Speaker 1: went to the b ET Awards at Joe who was
Speaker 1: our brother. He's hilarious. He was the host, and I
Speaker 1: think Joe did a good job. You know what. The
Speaker 1: funny thing about it is, as I was watching him
Speaker 1: up there, and you know, I have the same thing
Speaker 1: where I have these moments when my brain just freezes
Speaker 1: and I'm like, wait a minute, which I'll say I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to say what huh? And I realized me just
Speaker 1: getting older, right like, so at this point you're doing
Speaker 1: the best, give me the line, huh. Joe just be
Speaker 1: having a good time. Man. It's crazy that at this
Speaker 1: age and the stage in his career, you could tell
Speaker 1: that he's probably having more fun than ever. He's enjoying himself,
Speaker 1: he's telling his stories, he's around people, he's he's getting acknowledgement,
Speaker 1: and he's actually he's actually increasing like as a lot
Speaker 1: of artists, you know. And that's what I told people.
Speaker 1: Hip hop started out in the seventies, a lot of
Speaker 1: people before it wasn't an older person's game, Like people are, oh,
Speaker 1: you old, you out of hipp No. Now, the people,
Speaker 1: the pioneers of hip hop, they weren't able to really,
Speaker 1: you know, be celebrated because hip hop was so young. Right,
Speaker 1: But now hip hop has sixty and seventy year old fans, right,
Speaker 1: it's it's six fifty year old people who grew up
Speaker 1: on hip hop. So as you mature in hip hop,
Speaker 1: there's an audience for you, right, and and and as
Speaker 1: you mature, and you still stay connected to the youth,
Speaker 1: you you you like the balance you and so you
Speaker 1: get the best of both worlds. So Joe is one
Speaker 1: of those people that personifies what that looks like. Right
Speaker 1: when you watch him, he's growing gracefully, he's enjoying life.
Speaker 1: He's able to mingle with the youth and able to
Speaker 1: go to the main the you know, the adult events
Speaker 1: and and just merge those two worlds. So just watching
Speaker 1: Joe Man, seeing him up there doing hip hop awards,
Speaker 1: knowing how much he enjoyed it and how much he
Speaker 1: was honored to do. It was dope. And then my
Speaker 1: boy Nori got his first Simple Up award. Man, it's
Speaker 1: my brother. Man. I just I was happy, you know,
Speaker 1: and to be there in the building to shake his
Speaker 1: hand and telling my love him after you know, always
Speaker 1: been my guy. Man. It's like one of the first
Speaker 1: people in this industry from the beginning. I tell always
Speaker 1: tell people about the battle with me and Sean and
Speaker 1: Normy was right there. Man. He was always one of
Speaker 1: those people who supported me and showed genuine love man
Speaker 1: throughout my career. So well. Shout out to Connie Orlando
Speaker 1: and her team, um even uh our brother Jesse for
Speaker 1: a great show because it actually was a really good show.
Speaker 1: I was want to see the show because we did.
Speaker 1: We watched the show there, but I haven't seen which
Speaker 1: meant it was two damn long. It was. It was
Speaker 1: a lot was going on. Man. You did honor tren
Speaker 1: that she got her you know, her flowers, you know,
Speaker 1: the young girl Glo Rilla. She was probably like the
Speaker 1: star of the the night. Everybody was loving her. She got
Speaker 1: her five old statement when people were trying to say
Speaker 1: he was robbed, and he put out a statement that said,
Speaker 1: I wasn't robbed that Glorilla one because she deserved it
Speaker 1: and I'm proud of her and I support her. And
Speaker 1: I thought that was very very just dope man. And
Speaker 1: I love Favo and and I wanted to see five
Speaker 1: yo win that award. I stayed. I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think Fabo, but he didn't. And as like a true
Speaker 1: g you know New York individual who put his work in,
Speaker 1: he you know, he accepted it, and I know great
Speaker 1: things coming for five year old man. He continues to
Speaker 1: work hard. I love him as and he's like one
Speaker 1: of my little brothers. Man. Every time I've seen me,
Speaker 1: like big bro, we give me Hub is real genuine
Speaker 1: love and he's a good person, you know, so shout
Speaker 1: out to him. It was it was just so I've
Speaker 1: seen so many different people I hadn't seen a while.
Speaker 1: It was just it was a dope vibe. Man. It
Speaker 1: was a good good It was a good man. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was you know, I have things that I wanted
Speaker 1: to say, So I'm going to meet with Connie so
Speaker 1: I could talk to her about some stuff that I
Speaker 1: think could help make it even better. Um, because you know, again,
Speaker 1: I have no critique to say this was terrible or
Speaker 1: how could this be? But I can't say that are
Speaker 1: stronger deliberate and intentional focus on some of the educational
Speaker 1: pieces that we need has to be, you know, should
Speaker 1: be rather built into the show. Shout out some joyy
Speaker 1: bad ass who had one of my favorite performances. Man,
Speaker 1: and all of them, young Jesus, all of them, all
Speaker 1: of them. Even though I'm in the hip hop era,
Speaker 1: you can put me in the blues and the and
Speaker 1: the the R and B and whatever is before R
Speaker 1: and B because I like that kind of music. So
Speaker 1: I'm more to play with little thing MP came out
Speaker 1: there that was one of like, huk, I ain't gonna
Speaker 1: lie on man, I grew up on gangs to rap.
Speaker 1: How about I'm more of a soul train of words,
Speaker 1: uh person. But I still enjoyed this show, you know
Speaker 1: what it's if there's so many things happened. It was
Speaker 1: hard to pick things to talk about today that you know,
Speaker 1: I know our folks wanna hear about, you know, and
Speaker 1: I don't have any intention on talking about Jeffrey Dahma,
Speaker 1: but just watching between Jeffrey Dahma and this and that
Speaker 1: and dad and this and this and that it was
Speaker 1: just so much happening this week again, you could really
Speaker 1: you can't focus if you understood on social media or
Speaker 1: that you can't do no work, you can't make no
Speaker 1: no money on doing what you're supposed to be doing.
Speaker 1: If all you if you read in comments and following
Speaker 1: the Shave Room and ball Alert and Jasmine Brand and
Speaker 1: all hip hop and this one and that one, and
Speaker 1: then my song is breaking it down and helping people
Speaker 1: understand that you want to go over this you could
Speaker 1: get some authentic information maybe to meet and Mallory jumps
Speaker 1: in the chat Tesla and Figure Road got something going on.
Speaker 1: Breakfast Club is dropping their perspective. That's a lot of information.
Speaker 1: It's an overload of in for mate shown. But there
Speaker 1: was a few There was a few things that I
Speaker 1: thought we should mention, And one is how devastating Hurricane
Speaker 1: iron Um has been in Florida and other places that hurricane.
Speaker 1: But you know, and I thought because I saw on
Speaker 1: the news. I don't know which student. We were somewhere
Speaker 1: and the news was on, and I remember you saying, well,
Speaker 1: how can there be a tropical storm if it's doing
Speaker 1: this much damage? And then I saw later on that
Speaker 1: it had been upgraded to a or it was being
Speaker 1: re established as a category one hurricane. But when I
Speaker 1: was talking to Trade Trade, the truth I was explained,
Speaker 1: you know, asking him about it, and he said, no,
Speaker 1: it hit landfall at some point, and it was a hurricane.
Speaker 1: It was a category four. And he said that it
Speaker 1: went out wherever into the water and came back and
Speaker 1: basically did more damage. So this was a real serious hurricane.
Speaker 1: And it seems that there were a lot of people black, white,
Speaker 1: up down left right, poor rich that were not necessarily
Speaker 1: prepared for it. And then all the boats, Like when
Speaker 1: I saw the boats, I knew right there that we
Speaker 1: were Like when I saw the boats piled up on
Speaker 1: top of each other, on top of one another, pushed
Speaker 1: into buildings on the grass, I knew right then, like,
Speaker 1: oh no, they're black folks that must have been hit
Speaker 1: hard if the rich people's stuff was gone in that way.
Speaker 1: And you know, some of these people worked their entire
Speaker 1: life to get those boats, their entire life. That's the
Speaker 1: one thing they're gonna retire with a boat. I know, man,
Speaker 1: it was, it was. It was real devastating and just
Speaker 1: looking at the news seeing people go through what they
Speaker 1: went through. Man, I pray for them once again. Trade
Speaker 1: was out there man doing what he did. That's what
Speaker 1: it's him in the relief game, you know, shout out
Speaker 1: to Trade and Elite Shapiro, who was a woman that
Speaker 1: we met during the Women's March. She went out into
Speaker 1: her own community in Naples, Flarida, which is a place
Speaker 1: where a lot of rich people. A lot of rich
Speaker 1: people live in Naples, um and I mean it's a
Speaker 1: rich town. But she went out and tried to find
Speaker 1: the shadows. Really, that's what that was the language she
Speaker 1: used that if okay, if this we were in this
Speaker 1: rich area, but there's gotta be pockets somewhere where there
Speaker 1: are people who have been hard. And of course she
Speaker 1: found some housing developments, housing projects as we always have
Speaker 1: called them. And she found some other areas where black
Speaker 1: people and brown people live, garbage piled up, cars, ruined,
Speaker 1: medicine being thrown out because there's been no power for days,
Speaker 1: no elected officials going to their areas, no real relief
Speaker 1: services coming in. And she set up shop there. And
Speaker 1: so Alitia and now some of my other friends is
Speaker 1: the Vanessa and others. They are, you know, working in
Speaker 1: this particular community. It's a lot. It's a lot. My
Speaker 1: prayers go out to everyone who was effective. Man. I
Speaker 1: hope you know they get the relief they need. Families
Speaker 1: who lost loved ones, My condolences, man. These these are hurricanes. Man, Like,
Speaker 1: that's that's one thing for me. Like I love to
Speaker 1: visit Miami. I love all of these beautiful places, but
Speaker 1: I don't want to live there, like I don't really
Speaker 1: Like you were telling me about Hurricanes Sandy, and don't
Speaker 1: that they did this to you. I don't recall New
Speaker 1: York ever having I just don't. It was one. I
Speaker 1: don't know if this has ever happened before, but you
Speaker 1: should look it up because Hurricane Sandy was very devastating
Speaker 1: in New York, especially of course in the Rockaways because
Speaker 1: that's where the water is. But people who live in
Speaker 1: housing developments lost power. There was flooding in certain But
Speaker 1: in fact, I used to be a consultant for UM
Speaker 1: East Coal uh Heating Company and well they basically installed boilers.
Speaker 1: So East Cole Boiling Company, a boiler company something like that.
Speaker 1: But anyway, East Cole was that was the name he
Speaker 1: called at all the time. UM and they they were
Speaker 1: because of Sandy. They had to go out and like
Speaker 1: installed boilers all over the place because the water had
Speaker 1: ruined boilers in many of the Nightsia housing developments across
Speaker 1: the city, and of course in some of the homes.
Speaker 1: So it was like a real devastating situation. People lost property, people,
Speaker 1: I think people died. I can't remember how many. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't it wasn't a good thing. The global warming
Speaker 1: is a real issue, you know, climate change. You know
Speaker 1: things that some of the folks that people ask us, well,
Speaker 1: why did you vote for Stall and so, Well, we
Speaker 1: would like to see that someone invests in trying infrastructure
Speaker 1: and other things that try to help us save lives
Speaker 1: in these moments when you have hurricanes. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: so many issues. Anyway, that's a whole other conversation, a
Speaker 1: whole different thing. Louisiana Senator John Kennedy. I don't think
Speaker 1: he's um related to the Kennedy's he but you know,
Speaker 1: I can't say for sure if I was just saying
Speaker 1: I don't think so. He made a statement in an
Speaker 1: ad that was released that if you hate cops and
Speaker 1: you need help, call a crackhead. So since you don't,
Speaker 1: you don't call the cops call a crackhead, and I
Speaker 1: don't even understand what a crackhead like. I wasn't the
Speaker 1: I am trying to draw the connection between the police
Speaker 1: to crackheads. Wow, No, I mean I am too, just wild,
Speaker 1: That's all I can said. As well. And I was
Speaker 1: watching it. When I watched it, there was a lady
Speaker 1: who was a covering crack at it. It was it
Speaker 1: was offensive, like, you know how, like this is somebody
Speaker 1: in leadership and you use that to the mean people
Speaker 1: who have real addiction issues there. Okay, I can see
Speaker 1: if you say, if you want, and why do you say,
Speaker 1: called an opioid user, right, because I bet you they
Speaker 1: have more people using opioids today than there are people
Speaker 1: using crack, right, I would I would have. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure because a lot of people have turned
Speaker 1: away from pipes and all of that and they're taking pills.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm wrong that it's not a majority, but hey,
Speaker 1: if you're going to zero in on something, why not
Speaker 1: zero in on a drug that too many people using.
Speaker 1: By the way, white folks use crack as well. So
Speaker 1: cut the ship, cut the ship. But I do. But
Speaker 1: here's what I will say, is what I will say,
Speaker 1: the fact that from policing, I could go to call
Speaker 1: a criminal, call a murderer, call but the crackhead piece,
Speaker 1: it's very intentional and I don't have a real answer.
Speaker 1: But I'm trying to figure out what made that come
Speaker 1: to life for him. Well, I think when it may
Speaker 1: come to life for him, was that he was stupid.
Speaker 1: Stupid ship. Yeah, sometimes we we just we can't really
Speaker 1: give the answer to stupid ship because it's stupid ship.
Speaker 1: And when we try to answer stupid ship, we sound stupid.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I just don't want to, nor do I have
Speaker 1: the capacity to make sense out of, as you said,
Speaker 1: ignorant stupid ship and moreover, that extreme racism that exists
Speaker 1: within so many. But when I think about it, it
Speaker 1: kind of brings me to my thought of the day
Speaker 1: because talking about connections and drawing sort of lines and
Speaker 1: and and and being able to understand things, it's really
Speaker 1: troubling to me. M It's troubling to me that people
Speaker 1: are either intentionally or mistakenly trying to allow this idea
Speaker 1: around Black Lives Matter movement versus organization to be misconstrued.
Speaker 1: That for me is I see people who I thought
Speaker 1: or think um are intelligent, thoughtful individuals who claim to
Speaker 1: love black people, who claimed to be about black lives,
Speaker 1: who claimed to believe that black lives do in fact matter.
Speaker 1: And when I see people say that you know or
Speaker 1: or lean into this concept that black lives matter is
Speaker 1: a scam, it really is troubling to me. It also
Speaker 1: also in every organization that I've ever been a part of, right,
Speaker 1: there's always an internal conflict, especially when it comes to
Speaker 1: an influx of money coming in the door. There is
Speaker 1: internal conflict, always has been, always will be. That does
Speaker 1: not mean, and what that means is that sometimes you
Speaker 1: get it right, sometimes you get it wrong. You gotta
Speaker 1: go back to the drawing board. You gotta try to
Speaker 1: figure out how to correct some of the things. You
Speaker 1: make decisions and think back while maybe we shouldn't have
Speaker 1: done this, we should do that. That happens in businesses, organizations, households, families,
Speaker 1: anything you do. You even walk out your house sometimes
Speaker 1: and say I'm going ten blocks away and get distracted,
Speaker 1: and somehow I'll end up doing something over here and
Speaker 1: not where you were supposed to be. And then you say, oh,
Speaker 1: ship man, I gotta turn around, and I was supposed
Speaker 1: to be over here, there's resets, there's room room for
Speaker 1: mistakes and what what have you along the way, Right,
Speaker 1: that's the way that I feel every organization has had
Speaker 1: internal conflict. Some internal conflict has come down to the
Speaker 1: point where people have actually accused one another of real crimes.
Speaker 1: So when I hear people say even this, this idea
Speaker 1: that Black Lives Matter as an organization is a scam,
Speaker 1: I'm still trying to identify who are the individuals that
Speaker 1: declared that. Where did it come from? Mhm? How was
Speaker 1: it declared that? Go ahead, you were gonna say something, No,
Speaker 1: I mean, And that's a good question. And you know
Speaker 1: how I was declared? Right? It was declared by people
Speaker 1: who clearly have an interest in dismantling and discrediting a
Speaker 1: movement that was so powerful that it shook the core
Speaker 1: of this nation, just like the you know what they
Speaker 1: did with the Women's March, that has been proven right
Speaker 1: when we when they did the New York Times article.
Speaker 1: If you haven't read the New York Times article where
Speaker 1: they showed how Russian bots had intentionally targeted one of
Speaker 1: our co founders, Come Until Freedom, which was one of
Speaker 1: the four coaches of the Women's March. Then to start sault,
Speaker 1: which eventually just branched off into the dismantling of the
Speaker 1: Women's March. It's intentional, right, so they once they see
Speaker 1: power in something, when you know, the movement of Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter had people in the street every day saying,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna stand for this. You're gonna have to
Speaker 1: give us equity. You're gonna have to give us justice.
Speaker 1: Were tied to being this and and and it shifted
Speaker 1: this country, shifted the consciousness of this country, the world,
Speaker 1: the world, I mean the world is shifted into where
Speaker 1: every corporation realized that we we can't just have a
Speaker 1: diversity inclusion. We have to put black people in leadership,
Speaker 1: in power, right. Blacks are not just gonna be comfortable
Speaker 1: just being in buildings, right. And everybody wanted to do
Speaker 1: the right thing because for the first time they were
Speaker 1: able to see what we were talking about, and they
Speaker 1: were able to feel the anger of the nation. And
Speaker 1: that's not something that people wanted to do. And the
Speaker 1: and the and and and this is my but it
Speaker 1: was very and I know that I know that there
Speaker 1: are people even among our close teams that will say
Speaker 1: to Mika, stop, you know, explaining about an organization that
Speaker 1: you're not a part of. You don't get money from
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter, You're not a part of the organization.
Speaker 1: You have nothing to do with that organization, So stop
Speaker 1: speaking on it because you are putting yourself in the
Speaker 1: midst of something that you have nothing to do with.
Speaker 1: But see to the point that you made. You have
Speaker 1: made several times that we have to be careful with
Speaker 1: how information gets out there, because once information begins to spread,
Speaker 1: it does not It's like having cancer in your stomach.
Speaker 1: If it is not addressed, the cancer will move into
Speaker 1: a woman's reproductive system and the next thing you know,
Speaker 1: it's all over your body. So you can't sit back
Speaker 1: and allow lies to be told on an organization, a movement,
Speaker 1: or anybody that is in close proximity to what you do.
Speaker 1: And beyond that, my son, I am becoming an elder
Speaker 1: in this movement, believe it or not. When you think
Speaker 1: about Mary pat Hector, Nyla and Chelsea Miller and Tiffany Loften,
Speaker 1: Steve even Green, all of these younger people that we
Speaker 1: work with, they are coming into the movement and and
Speaker 1: really becoming leaders in their own right. And us forty
Speaker 1: something and beyond we're moving towards fifty, We're moving towards
Speaker 1: our own level of being sort of an elder in
Speaker 1: this movement, especially for someone like me who's been doing
Speaker 1: this work for thirty years. So I can speak to
Speaker 1: what I see happening around. It's not so much defending
Speaker 1: or not, but we need to be honest in what
Speaker 1: we say. So when you have people out there who
Speaker 1: are using words like it was a scam and it
Speaker 1: did terrible things to us and all of that, I
Speaker 1: want to know who's determining that. How is that? And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I'm not saying that I can change
Speaker 1: anyone's mind. There are people who have fundamental ide ideological
Speaker 1: issues with BLM, the organization, how it got started, and
Speaker 1: what the women who led the organization stood for, and
Speaker 1: what they were pretty much proponents of. But you but
Speaker 1: I I feel and and and what I would say
Speaker 1: is there are people who feel that way about almost
Speaker 1: every organization and movement. They feel the same way. There's
Speaker 1: ideo ideological issues, right, people didn't like the dr King
Speaker 1: was trying to integrate black people into American society. They
Speaker 1: didn't like that, so there was conflict about that issue.
Speaker 1: There has always been confidict. But what you cannot do
Speaker 1: and what I just can't sit by and allowed to
Speaker 1: happen on my watch while I'm alive and I have
Speaker 1: influence and amount. It's for people to erase the fact
Speaker 1: that three women came up with a slogan that they
Speaker 1: came up with this is their slogan. You can say
Speaker 1: whatever the hell you want, Oh, I don't like this
Speaker 1: one and that one. And they came up with a
Speaker 1: slogan that helped us to communicate to the world our
Speaker 1: affirmation of self. Which is a slogan, which is which
Speaker 1: is the child Black Lives Matter is the child of
Speaker 1: I'm Black and I'm proud. It is the child of
Speaker 1: the Black Power movement. These are in direct connection, one
Speaker 1: after the next. We have always had powerful slogans. Now
Speaker 1: perhaps they may have. Maybe in another life, the organization
Speaker 1: could have been named you know something else to separate
Speaker 1: the two. But it wasn't. And I am hoping that
Speaker 1: people who claim to be intellectual, intelligent individuals, that they
Speaker 1: would not sit and uh and and and and denigrate
Speaker 1: an entire movement because they are either too egotistical, too
Speaker 1: lazy to learn, or are part of the same damned
Speaker 1: system that's trying to oppress us. To be quite honest,
Speaker 1: because co and Tell pro operates in all levels of
Speaker 1: this movement, that we would not be able to clearly
Speaker 1: state the difference between the two things and the importance
Speaker 1: of upholding something of such value like black Lives Matter,
Speaker 1: that has meant so much to so many. So that's
Speaker 1: what I that's my rant for the day, you know.
Speaker 1: And and I said I was done with my rent,
Speaker 1: but I'm not. I'm gonna take it to my own
Speaker 1: live later today. But you know, the same tactics of
Speaker 1: divide and conqueror is happening to us right before our eyes.
Speaker 1: We are falling into the same track. And there are
Speaker 1: individuals who believe they have the answers. They believe that
Speaker 1: they have the answers for what needs to be done.
Speaker 1: See I've never said that, right, I've never said I
Speaker 1: have all the answers. What I've said is we're playing
Speaker 1: our role, We're putting forth our effort, and this is
Speaker 1: the way in which we choose to show up. And
Speaker 1: this is what is This is our passion and what
Speaker 1: God has given given us the strengths and talents to
Speaker 1: do well. Right, But I've never said we have the answers,
Speaker 1: because if I had the answers, if I knew everything
Speaker 1: and I was the smartest, the brightest, the best, and
Speaker 1: the most knowledgeable, and and everybody else stuff is fake
Speaker 1: or not whatever. If that was mine, if that was
Speaker 1: the situation, I would have fixed it, because I've been
Speaker 1: doing it for long enough. None of us have all
Speaker 1: the answers to any of this stuff. None of us
Speaker 1: we are. We are a work in progress, and we
Speaker 1: are best in my judgment, when we unify and figure
Speaker 1: out ways to push multiple ideas, concepts, thought processes, tactics
Speaker 1: all at the same time, and that we respect one
Speaker 1: another and go offline to have conversations about what we
Speaker 1: could be doing better and ways that we can find
Speaker 1: tune the process, but to just go out and feed
Speaker 1: into what these people want from us anyway, And we
Speaker 1: sit there and say we don't want to feed into it,
Speaker 1: but all of us are feeding into it. So it's
Speaker 1: are we not or are we? Which one are we
Speaker 1: gonna do? So? I am very disappointed and discouraged by
Speaker 1: some of what I have seen in the aftermath of
Speaker 1: Kanye because the only reason why Kanye West matters is
Speaker 1: because he has an international, a global, a super a
Speaker 1: super powerful platform. Anybody else, it's a damn right. People
Speaker 1: can wear white lives, green lives, all lives, whatever they want.
Speaker 1: But when you have the attention of our youth and
Speaker 1: our people and you do it, it means something. And
Speaker 1: for him to go put to Mika Palmer's name, Brianna
Speaker 1: Tailor's mother in the midst of some attention seeking menstrual
Speaker 1: show bullshit. It shows you even more how he will
Speaker 1: use anybody and anything when he feels that his back
Speaker 1: is up against the wall. We people say. We had
Speaker 1: people say white lives matter to us with guns in
Speaker 1: their hands while we were protesting. It's not a little thing.
Speaker 1: And I think that I think that's what my response
Speaker 1: has been. I think that's the reason why I responded
Speaker 1: in the way that i've and in the amount of
Speaker 1: times that I have, because I need clarity on every level.
Speaker 1: Everything that you say right, And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: it's sad. I think Kanye has his own issues. You know,
Speaker 1: he's a black man, and I don't want him to
Speaker 1: deal with he's dealing with. But I think that is
Speaker 1: dangerous because people are hailing him as a genius right.
Speaker 1: So when you start calling people a genius and the
Speaker 1: average person here is that, then they take what you
Speaker 1: say as some level of law. They take it as
Speaker 1: it has to be correct. So when you when you
Speaker 1: when people are classifying a person as a genius whose
Speaker 1: ideologies they're not just flawed with their wrong right, his
Speaker 1: his his facts are wrong. Right? When when when he
Speaker 1: utilized his his platform to to bring shock value to
Speaker 1: post you know, because that's pretty much what it is,
Speaker 1: is shock value, and he wants to get the internet
Speaker 1: talking and it once again, it makes him be more relevant,
Speaker 1: able to sell proud of ups and have a level
Speaker 1: of power over this era. When he does that and
Speaker 1: he s fused misinformation, it's harmful and and and and
Speaker 1: and a lot of times I dis ignore. But when
Speaker 1: you go into the realm in which I live my
Speaker 1: life in right where we put out our lives on
Speaker 1: the front line, when you start talking about activism and
Speaker 1: you start talking about white lives matter, when you do
Speaker 1: what you just said as how white people, white supremacists
Speaker 1: have been and I would miss with guns screaming white
Speaker 1: lives matter. You know, where we had to we had
Speaker 1: threats on our lives and they were talking about white
Speaker 1: lives matter, and he and he kept doing it, right
Speaker 1: when we know how triggering that is and how those
Speaker 1: phrases have been used to perpetuate acts of potential violence
Speaker 1: against us. Right, it's not just okay, it's not just
Speaker 1: Kanye can wear a T shirt. Right. And then when
Speaker 1: you realize after after that doesn't work in the backlash,
Speaker 1: then you want to attack a whole old movement. Right.
Speaker 1: You want to attack a movement and say that it's
Speaker 1: a fake and it's a scam because you want to deflect.
Speaker 1: You want to deflect because you thought you were doing
Speaker 1: something that was gonna be embraced and you was gonna
Speaker 1: get something. And then when when the kitchen gets too hot,
Speaker 1: it goes to, oh, well, you ain't saying that when
Speaker 1: he was taking my kids? Oh yeah, yeah, even what
Speaker 1: about my kids? I went to your offer. Hell, oh
Speaker 1: you know what black Lives matter scam? Even Brianna Taylor's mother.
Speaker 1: You just started saying anything anything you can to get
Speaker 1: the pressure off the bullshit you did. Right. So it's
Speaker 1: a strategy, but it's not okay for us because Brianna
Speaker 1: Taylor's mother is somebody that we call our sister, Right,
Speaker 1: that we cried with that We've been on the front
Speaker 1: line and we understand what it is that she represents right,
Speaker 1: and she wanted to know, does my daughter's black life
Speaker 1: not man exactly? She wanted that's the that's the that
Speaker 1: is actually the parameter for which we thought, does Brianna
Speaker 1: tail is black life? Man? When you say white lives matter,
Speaker 1: guess what. All the white people involved in the case,
Speaker 1: they were protected protected them. The black attorney general protected them.
Speaker 1: Some of the people the white supremacists protected them. They
Speaker 1: protected themselves. The system in general protects police all the time.
Speaker 1: So there's no issue about whether or not white lives matter.
Speaker 1: And we don't need to say it to trick this.
Speaker 1: Some ship don't never need to be changed Dr King's
Speaker 1: speeches that he made, speeches that have been made from
Speaker 1: leaders ROSA Parks, and what she was doing when she
Speaker 1: sat on that bus. Those things don't need to be
Speaker 1: changed up by black people who have influence in order
Speaker 1: to make some other type of points. But we need
Speaker 1: to go into our guests today. One thing though, before
Speaker 1: before we go into I just want to I want
Speaker 1: to clarify this because this is this is really important
Speaker 1: man to utilize your voice in your platform to diminish
Speaker 1: the real fights and sacrifices that people made without even
Speaker 1: proper education is one of the most dangerous things. You
Speaker 1: can't do. To call yourself a leader, to call yourself
Speaker 1: uh freese mind, to call yourself God, whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call yourself, to call yourself any of these things.
Speaker 1: But to utilize your platform to try to lessen somebody
Speaker 1: else's it makes no sense. And we don't have we
Speaker 1: don't have the luxury as black people right now, we
Speaker 1: don't have that luxury. We don't Even when you say
Speaker 1: free thinger, if you're free thought contribute to the demise
Speaker 1: of our people, then it's actually free, right, What is
Speaker 1: it actually cost him? Because if you're freely thinking and
Speaker 1: you can contribute to the demids of black the black civilization,
Speaker 1: then it's costing way too much, you know. So for me,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna sit there and allow it. I'm always
Speaker 1: gonna speak truth to power. You know. Hopefully our brothers
Speaker 1: can understand that and stop being attention hors and stop
Speaker 1: seeking to, you know, to have a hit minute and
Speaker 1: say anything to get a viral moment. Hopefully, well we'll
Speaker 1: get to that point where that's not more important than
Speaker 1: the liberation and equity of our people facts. I think
Speaker 1: that's great. It takes us right to the business of
Speaker 1: street politicians. So let's get into our guests. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I love how we've really been trying to
Speaker 1: focus on this financial education thing. I mean, I've been
Speaker 1: learning so much from the tax uh what she attacks advising.
Speaker 1: I have some other women in that area that I
Speaker 1: met recently as well that I want to bring on.
Speaker 1: And then just people who have been talking about credit
Speaker 1: like I literally have been applying the strategies, and I
Speaker 1: know you have as well to some of my own
Speaker 1: stuff from the credit card like when you're supposed to
Speaker 1: make the payments to UM, you know, the issues around
Speaker 1: taxes and how to deal with your finances and all
Speaker 1: of that, and then of course recently a lot around investments.
Speaker 1: And so I hope that people who have been listening
Speaker 1: to the show that they're actually like tactically applying the
Speaker 1: strategies because I think a lot of times what we
Speaker 1: do is we listen and we we hear it, but
Speaker 1: then we don't do anything with it. So I think
Speaker 1: that's you know, for me, I'm just telling y'all listening
Speaker 1: out there in the world that I am actually applying
Speaker 1: the strategies based upon all the folks that we've been
Speaker 1: interviewing for the last however longs. Yeah, I have to,
Speaker 1: and I've been very intentional about focusing on finances, investments,
Speaker 1: you know, understanding credit, understanding, you know, crypto, all of
Speaker 1: the things, because I understand this is the future. And
Speaker 1: a lot of times, as activists and artists, we focus
Speaker 1: on just the work we do. Right Like, as artists,
Speaker 1: a lot of times you just focus on making your
Speaker 1: music and putting out the art and and we don't
Speaker 1: focus on the financial aspects of And that's why you
Speaker 1: see a lot of issues with artists now talking about
Speaker 1: people jerked them. A lot of a lot of artists
Speaker 1: didn't get jerked. They just weren't financially a stupid so
Speaker 1: they didn't know to do certain business, They didn't know
Speaker 1: to make certain investments, they didn't know to put their
Speaker 1: money in certain places. You know. So what we're doing
Speaker 1: right now this you know, financial revolution that we're entering into,
Speaker 1: and we're utilizing and combining the finances with activism and
Speaker 1: making it cool for activists to focus on money and
Speaker 1: being able to be financially stable and being able to
Speaker 1: have wealth. You know, it's just I think any people,
Speaker 1: the people who fight for our people should never be
Speaker 1: destituted broke, and we should not even normalize that. So
Speaker 1: I'm glad that we're taking these steps in focusing on
Speaker 1: finances and utilize that our platform to educate our listeners
Speaker 1: on the same thing. Yeah, we're not doing broken destitutes
Speaker 1: not happening. It's a new day. We believe that we
Speaker 1: should have um, we should be plentiful, we should have wealth,
Speaker 1: we should have resources, uh, and that our families should
Speaker 1: be left with something. The one thing that we have
Speaker 1: to break down, if you will, is this idea that
Speaker 1: the way Dr King died was you know, honorable. It's
Speaker 1: not honorable even for us as as a people to
Speaker 1: be okay with how he left this earth. And so therefore, um,
Speaker 1: you know, we just we just ain't with it. We
Speaker 1: we are one against the idea that being a leader
Speaker 1: means that you have to be broke in order to
Speaker 1: be authentic. But anyway, in that same vein today we
Speaker 1: are being joined by two brothers that we love, that
Speaker 1: we trust, um, you know emphatically, we know what they
Speaker 1: do and how much they love and care for the
Speaker 1: black community. UM, and I'm happy to have them here.
Speaker 1: This is the first and we've been talking for months
Speaker 1: about something that they're doing that is revolutionary, UM, and
Speaker 1: today we get an opportunity to bring it before our audience.
Speaker 1: And I'm excited to have on street politicians for the
Speaker 1: first time, but certainly not nearly the last. Uh Fahim
Speaker 1: and Michael of Oasis Investment Group, Thank y'all so much
Speaker 1: for joining Street politicians. Thank you Tamika and my sign
Speaker 1: for having us. We we appreciate. We're excited. Like you said,
Speaker 1: it's a long time coming. So uh, we just we're
Speaker 1: ready to get right into it. So yeah, Bridge, where
Speaker 1: this Oasis? Where did you guys come with the name?
Speaker 1: How do we How did you guys say yourself? You know,
Speaker 1: we want to create this investment group and you know
Speaker 1: who is the target market? Like give us give us
Speaker 1: the rundown or is that the always his investment group
Speaker 1: is okay? I mean started well, uh like you was saying,
Speaker 1: you know, to make a you know, economics is a
Speaker 1: part of the movement. It took a while for us
Speaker 1: to get here, and I think we took all the
Speaker 1: necessary steps as a people, we had to go through
Speaker 1: what we had to go through. But as you also
Speaker 1: mentioned Martin, you know, uh Mr Dr King, you know,
Speaker 1: towards the end of his life he was getting the
Speaker 1: economics and at a certain point we have to have
Speaker 1: a discussion about economics. Uh. It goes hand in hand
Speaker 1: with the social movement. It goes hand in hand with
Speaker 1: the revolution. It has to be financed, and we can't
Speaker 1: rely on others to finance the movement for us. So
Speaker 1: in these conversations that we've always found human I we've
Speaker 1: always been into I guess you can say social justice,
Speaker 1: making our communities a better place to live. And in
Speaker 1: this mission, it just came like, you know, we have
Speaker 1: to buy our communities. These are stuff that these are
Speaker 1: terms that we've been hearing at least a decade, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. But even more all the way back,
Speaker 1: we got to buy our community. We need ownership, all
Speaker 1: these terms, but there's actual steps you have to take that.
Speaker 1: It isn't something that just happens by saying that. You
Speaker 1: can say it for five to twenty years and then
Speaker 1: you know, I walk by my street in l A,
Speaker 1: Manchester and Vermont, the street that I'm very familiar with,
Speaker 1: and it's been looking the saying for twenty years. I
Speaker 1: walk by it's like, damn, but we're talking all this stuff,
Speaker 1: but nothing changes so far. Human. I said, you know,
Speaker 1: what is an actual step into buying our community? What's
Speaker 1: an actual step into putting grocery stores? Um? And that's
Speaker 1: where the term oasis come from, because an oasis it's
Speaker 1: a place of refuge in the middle of a desert.
Speaker 1: It's it's life, it's hope, it's beauty. And our communities
Speaker 1: are deserts. You know, food deserts, educational deserts. Uh, anything
Speaker 1: you can think of that we need. We're deprived of
Speaker 1: it with this deserts. So we want to start building hope, uh,
Speaker 1: life in the middle of these deserts. So when we
Speaker 1: looked at it and we said, you know, step by step,
Speaker 1: what is the first step we can do? Um, Fahim
Speaker 1: had the idea of, man, let's just start real estate.
Speaker 1: Let's just put our little money we have businesses. And
Speaker 1: it started were just putting our own money together and saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, let's just buy this property. Um. And
Speaker 1: doing that it grew into for us something that we
Speaker 1: didn't expect because we kept putting our money in, putting
Speaker 1: making the profit, putting the money in, until we bought
Speaker 1: one property, four property, dozen properties, and the portfolio started
Speaker 1: to grow, and we said, you know, look at what
Speaker 1: we can do, and look at we're just we're just two,
Speaker 1: three or four people, you know, and every now and
Speaker 1: then we brought someone else in UM and we've seen
Speaker 1: that this is something we can logically do the steps
Speaker 1: to do it as far as just saying those words,
Speaker 1: if you want, yeah, I think we captured it. You know,
Speaker 1: that was it. It was like we you know, as
Speaker 1: you know, we we we all met, we all connected
Speaker 1: because we wanted to make a difference in our communities.
Speaker 1: So like that's been a driving force behind most of
Speaker 1: what UM you will see us doing, and Oasis was
Speaker 1: no different. We we saw, of course, the opportunity to
Speaker 1: generate money and make money, but then we saw in
Speaker 1: that there was like job creation, there was changing of
Speaker 1: the communities. There was this opportunity to give people a
Speaker 1: place to live that never lived in these type of places.
Speaker 1: So you started seeing all these other results of the
Speaker 1: work that we was doing. It's like, yo, this is
Speaker 1: actually something that's pretty impactful. Um to the point now
Speaker 1: where we've created dozens of jobs, we you know, made
Speaker 1: so many families and gave them opportunities to live in
Speaker 1: these type of environments, and ultimately that changes the way
Speaker 1: people think and live. You know what I mean? When
Speaker 1: you got these little five six year old children in
Speaker 1: Chicago is different, Like, you know, these sisters are still
Speaker 1: having eight babies out there. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: it's a trip. Like so you're seeing all these young
Speaker 1: children and they're coming from the slim lorerd type of
Speaker 1: properties into our properties. Um, it's hard to even call
Speaker 1: it social justice because I look at it like, man,
Speaker 1: if if your cousins or your family or somebody was
Speaker 1: funked up, you want to look out for them, you
Speaker 1: want to take you wouldn't call this nothing. You would
Speaker 1: just do what makes sense and what was right in
Speaker 1: that moment. And I think in the basic sense, that's
Speaker 1: kind of what Oasis is like, it really just makes sense.
Speaker 1: And then we're able to do it on a larger
Speaker 1: scale when there's more people invested in it. So we
Speaker 1: we did what we did, and we could continue to
Speaker 1: do what we're doing, And we said, how would this
Speaker 1: look if there were ten of us, How would it
Speaker 1: looked up there was a hundred of us. How it
Speaker 1: looked there's a thousand of us, all pooling resources, which
Speaker 1: coming back to the group group economics. Then I'm glad
Speaker 1: you guys brought up some of your your your backgrounds,
Speaker 1: and you talked a little bit about it. Uh Michael,
Speaker 1: But I would love for you to to tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the inspiration, like how did
Speaker 1: you to grow up and and what does that mean
Speaker 1: in terms of when you got a little bit of
Speaker 1: change you said, oh I want to go and do
Speaker 1: this thing and to make my community better. To talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about that, because you know, people are
Speaker 1: really connected when they learned that you know and understand
Speaker 1: where they come from. And I think we have a problem.
Speaker 1: We face a challenge of folks thinking you've got to
Speaker 1: be you know, some big celebrity, some big rich person,
Speaker 1: somebody who came from wealth in order to start creating
Speaker 1: past um for your community and for your own family.
Speaker 1: So talk a little bit about where you come from.
Speaker 1: Find him and I, um, we've been We pretty much
Speaker 1: grew up together. Our parents knew each other, you know,
Speaker 1: our parents were students of the Honorable minutes to lo
Speaker 1: as far kind together. So when you know we grew up,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, just being around each other. Um, and
Speaker 1: we start we first started doing business together. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: And this is a whole crazy story. But he was
Speaker 1: in college and I was working for Michael Jackson, which
Speaker 1: is a story itself. But I because I know him
Speaker 1: and I trust him, I wanted to put people I
Speaker 1: trust around MJ because he's such a beautiful soul and
Speaker 1: gets taking advantage of man. You know, I called fighting.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't really reach out to a lot
Speaker 1: of people. Um, but I always had a love and
Speaker 1: admiration for him. Just growing up. We've always just been solid. Um.
Speaker 1: We fight sometimes I always win because of my power
Speaker 1: and strength of my will. But outside of that, you
Speaker 1: know me and fighting is just solid. So I called him.
Speaker 1: He left school. He had like one semester left and
Speaker 1: he left school to come work for m J. He
Speaker 1: ended up in his degree for everybody like he left school.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't he got it. But ready to say, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, what happened we were working out. I was
Speaker 1: about to say for him, you was about to go
Speaker 1: back to school next week. So that's all we needed
Speaker 1: that's a whole crazy story too, how like that was
Speaker 1: a that's a whole story. But yeah, it worked out
Speaker 1: where I got with a degree. Um, I was able
Speaker 1: to have that experience working with m J. And Uh,
Speaker 1: I mean ultimately and let us to where we had. Now.
Speaker 1: You know, we grew up. You know, you hear the
Speaker 1: stories of like you know, we grew up no different
Speaker 1: than probably ninety percent of young black people in America.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, fathers incarcerated or fathers and
Speaker 1: you know, and mothers just trying to struggle. His mother
Speaker 1: had three children. My mother had three children. Um, but
Speaker 1: they were friends and they still maintained their friendship to
Speaker 1: this day forty plus years. You know they've been fred
Speaker 1: before we were born. But you know, growing up and
Speaker 1: I grew up in Watts, California, went to high school
Speaker 1: and Watts Inglewood. Just these these areas, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Where you have these experiences, um, where especially
Speaker 1: a storm being students that are minister you, you develop
Speaker 1: a passion for one to change what's your experience in
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And UH and I and
Speaker 1: UH I grew up he grew up in South Central
Speaker 1: my mother moved us south to suburbs. So I was
Speaker 1: raised around a lot of Asians, had a lot of
Speaker 1: Asian friends, but on weekends I was with them, so
Speaker 1: I got to see how communities on one end in
Speaker 1: the suburbs were beautiful and build and then I would exit.
Speaker 1: That's why I mentioned Manchester and Vermont. That would be
Speaker 1: the exit we would take. And it would be depressing
Speaker 1: every time I hit that block because I just came
Speaker 1: from the beautiful suburbs and now I'm over here in
Speaker 1: the hood. And that really always stuck with me. And
Speaker 1: like our communities are, They're gross and they never changed
Speaker 1: decade after decade, year after year. UM. So us just
Speaker 1: working together. We've always had that passion of like how
Speaker 1: can we help? And we done different things. We've had
Speaker 1: different careers, built businesses. Um. But I think what's important
Speaker 1: is trust. We trust each other and but we had
Speaker 1: to build that through work. And I think one thing
Speaker 1: our people have to learn how to do is how
Speaker 1: to work with each other. You know, we have to
Speaker 1: sometimes force that work because it's not easy. There's trust issues. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's years and generations of being taken advantage of. So
Speaker 1: by nature, you know, we're a little insecure when it
Speaker 1: comes to working especially with our with our own UM.
Speaker 1: So we had to find a way to make it work.
Speaker 1: But it started with trust, It started with respect, started
Speaker 1: with integrity UM. And what we wanted to do was
Speaker 1: show what two people can do UM. And now we
Speaker 1: have a whole team who works together of people we
Speaker 1: grew up with and then people knew UM. But we
Speaker 1: have to learn how to work together. And that's what
Speaker 1: FA him and I figured out how to do. It's
Speaker 1: been a great team effort, but it starts with with
Speaker 1: with trust, with inte pretty and with just just jumping
Speaker 1: out there and I can imagine YouTube to making my
Speaker 1: side have an idea of what I'm talking about is
Speaker 1: working together and struggling together. When you do that, and
Speaker 1: when and when you do that, you build that camaraderie
Speaker 1: that is needed to UH to be successful UM. And
Speaker 1: that's what we want to encourage people to do as
Speaker 1: far as pull your resources, because what I'm doing I
Speaker 1: couldn't do by myself. Why he's doing he couldn't do
Speaker 1: by himself. You know, we I probably would have made
Speaker 1: it pretty far. I would have did pretty good for
Speaker 1: myself and he would have did good for himself, but
Speaker 1: we can go so much further together, which is why
Speaker 1: we push unity and group of economics. So we're just
Speaker 1: an example of what we want to uh inspire others
Speaker 1: to do. Just listening to what it is that you
Speaker 1: guys established is beautiful, you know, just just the demand
Speaker 1: state right, demand state up saying you know, I want
Speaker 1: to utilize resources that I have. I want to do
Speaker 1: it with somebody that I trust and build for people
Speaker 1: that I know don't have as much, you know, And
Speaker 1: and I think that's what a lot of us want
Speaker 1: to do, you know, but a lot of us are
Speaker 1: scared to do it. I know most people don't. They
Speaker 1: don't like the process. Right. A lot of times people
Speaker 1: be like, yo, I want to do this, but nobody
Speaker 1: wants to go to that process. So at first I
Speaker 1: want to commend you on just doing it, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: so what what would it look like? How? What is
Speaker 1: it that you guys want to do? Do you want
Speaker 1: to bring on a bunch of people? Do you want
Speaker 1: to just have people that you know when you trust,
Speaker 1: to invest with you? Are you looking for ten people?
Speaker 1: Are you looking a hundred people to create like this
Speaker 1: this black oasis that everybody can be involved in, Like
Speaker 1: what is what is the goal? Well, the goal is big,
Speaker 1: the long term vision is big. But like I said
Speaker 1: in the beginning, we are doing it step by step,
Speaker 1: break by break. So in the as of right now,
Speaker 1: before for Human Eye brought this, you all are our
Speaker 1: first park official podcast, by the way, so thank you
Speaker 1: for having us, you know. But before we reached out
Speaker 1: to anyone, we wanted to see like, hey, does this work?
Speaker 1: Can we scale this? So we started with of course
Speaker 1: just me and him, uh, investing our own money, then
Speaker 1: bringing in another person uh and seeing like okay we
Speaker 1: can get ten units. Hey that we have twenty units,
Speaker 1: let's try to get four or five more. Let's bring
Speaker 1: two people. So once we've got a formula that works
Speaker 1: as far as investing, because now we're talking about investing,
Speaker 1: we have different We got the job creation. We have
Speaker 1: to beautify the community. But if we're talking just the
Speaker 1: business side, it's investing with us and what we do.
Speaker 1: We have an entire team who goes to work, purchase property, renovate,
Speaker 1: rent out all all that good stuff. Um, so right now,
Speaker 1: what we're looking for after we tested it for nearly
Speaker 1: three years, built a nice multimillion dollar portfolio has not
Speaker 1: have a nice size uh the nice units on the
Speaker 1: south side of Chicago, and want to mention that right now,
Speaker 1: we're focusing on Chicago UM for several reasons. And I'll
Speaker 1: quickly touch on why Chicago. UM. We know the area.
Speaker 1: It's a great market, UM, business wise and runners wise. UM.
Speaker 1: We have a construction partners out there. UM. So we
Speaker 1: know that we're able to deliver on two investors. You
Speaker 1: know we can give it. We can. We know we're
Speaker 1: confident we can get a return. So that's our first thing.
Speaker 1: We have to build up trust in our community. So
Speaker 1: people who are investing with us, we want them to
Speaker 1: have a great experience as far as getting what we
Speaker 1: said we would give them as far as a return.
Speaker 1: But to answer your question, my son now is a
Speaker 1: long way of pretty much saying, UM, we are open
Speaker 1: for the mass majority to invest. We did the groundwork
Speaker 1: with a few people, dozens of people UH investing. We
Speaker 1: got them to return and we said, you know what,
Speaker 1: let's build this up so we can open it up
Speaker 1: to the public. So we qualified with the SEC. That
Speaker 1: was a heck of a process, you know, UM, going
Speaker 1: back and forth, and they tightened it up over the years.
Speaker 1: But we have a great team, great lawyer team, great
Speaker 1: legal team, great business team, was able to push that through.
Speaker 1: And shout out to Jay Morrison. We're the He's the
Speaker 1: only one that we know, someone black was able to
Speaker 1: accomplish such a feat. Uh see why a lot of
Speaker 1: black old companies don't do it. It's very difficult, but
Speaker 1: but we did it. We qualified and we're actually ready
Speaker 1: to accept investments. So we are accepting investments UM as
Speaker 1: they come. We're capable to accept them by the hundreds
Speaker 1: and by the thousands UM based off building this foundation
Speaker 1: for the past few years UM and I think so
Speaker 1: that that's and that's where we're at right now. So
Speaker 1: we have what they called regulation, a fund that's open
Speaker 1: people can go to always just dot build. They can
Speaker 1: invest in the fund. UM. Short term, we want to
Speaker 1: acquire ten thousand units doors apartments between single family homes
Speaker 1: multi family homes in the Chicago area. That's our short term.
Speaker 1: That's like UM one of our goals, big long term
Speaker 1: vision is to take this formula and apply it into
Speaker 1: down trotten neighborhoods across America. So take the same away
Speaker 1: to the formula and bring it to New York, Bring
Speaker 1: it to Los Angeles, bring it to Atlanta, bring it
Speaker 1: to the areas where job creation will decrease the violence
Speaker 1: that's going on the streets. Um changing the way people
Speaker 1: are living will change their mentality. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: When these young brothers right now, when they're living in
Speaker 1: Chicago or from Chicago, they come, they get a chance
Speaker 1: to work on these houses and we teach them about equity,
Speaker 1: teaching them about land ownership and the value of that.
Speaker 1: It changes the mentality. And we're just doing it by
Speaker 1: fuse right now. So as the program, you know, ten
Speaker 1: thousand our homes, that's a lot of renovation work, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's on the thousands of jobs. So now you've
Speaker 1: got a lot of people eating and a lot of
Speaker 1: people that are physically invested in the community. Like not
Speaker 1: hold long. We're not shooting here because we live here.
Speaker 1: We built that. We just painted that, bro, Why would
Speaker 1: you shoot that? You know what I'm saying. So we're
Speaker 1: we're looking to it's a multi tiered approach. Well how
Speaker 1: this this is gonna affect people. But long term we
Speaker 1: want to take awaysis and bring these homes into the
Speaker 1: communities across America that need it. And then we have
Speaker 1: another piece that we're rolling out UM and we're working
Speaker 1: with a couple of major Chicago organizations. We don't mention
Speaker 1: them now for someone government whatever, but we're gonna be
Speaker 1: helping these people get into home ownership. So some of
Speaker 1: these same tenants, we have a program where now we'll
Speaker 1: be taking people who have been on Section eight for
Speaker 1: ten twenty years and we'll be able to roll them
Speaker 1: into home ownership, which is a whole another topic. And
Speaker 1: it's like there's a lot going on right now in
Speaker 1: the house of market. I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: them that you see as far as interest rates UM,
Speaker 1: as far as UM what's happening. But there's a lot
Speaker 1: of major funds that have been school been up, particularly
Speaker 1: single family houses like the thousands. You know, there's some
Speaker 1: major companies and this is a big difference between like
Speaker 1: what was happening in the two thousand and eight and
Speaker 1: what's happening now. Single family homes are considered an asset
Speaker 1: class for big money for hedge funds UM, so people
Speaker 1: are these companies are buying them up by the thousands,
Speaker 1: which means these homes are not going to be available.
Speaker 1: So like right now you know, you can still get home.
Speaker 1: But in ten years, twenty years, this may look completely different.
Speaker 1: If things continues to go as they are. When you
Speaker 1: start having funds that are backed by billions of dollars
Speaker 1: on the single family homes, yes, but you're not going bankrupt,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. They're not They're not getting
Speaker 1: rid of that inventory. So that inventory when it's not available,
Speaker 1: particularly in the black community, Now you don't have homeownership
Speaker 1: on a on a high level. And as we were talking,
Speaker 1: there's this thing going on called the Great Transfer of Wealth.
Speaker 1: I don't remember the number. I think it was like
Speaker 1: seventy killion dollars. It was like a astronomber, Yeah, astronomical number.
Speaker 1: Most of it is tied in the real estate. Um,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be happening because the the baby boomers who
Speaker 1: are sixties, seventies, and eighties are going to be dying off.
Speaker 1: They have all this real estate they own, and it's
Speaker 1: going to be transferring down into our generational generations below us.
Speaker 1: So there's this opportunity here for Black people to level up.
Speaker 1: And if we're aware, um, if we're united, um, if
Speaker 1: we snatch this stuff up, particularly with something like a
Speaker 1: fun like when we have where we could raise up
Speaker 1: the seventy five million and it's one fund which could
Speaker 1: represent tens of thousands of homes, UM and then do
Speaker 1: it again, duplicate the process and then release the inventory
Speaker 1: back into our communities. Um. You know it's a great thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could go into what being a homeowner
Speaker 1: has done on a personal level, how access to that
Speaker 1: homeline equity line of credit has helped me scale up
Speaker 1: other businesses. Um, have an access to be able to
Speaker 1: just go and get liquid when you need it, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? You know, cash flow is keen
Speaker 1: in these businesses, and there's a lot of little things
Speaker 1: that just having a property, owning the property can do
Speaker 1: for you on a personal level, to allow you to
Speaker 1: grow your wealth. But once that opportunity is gone and
Speaker 1: there's nothing available for purchase for our people which is coming,
Speaker 1: then how will we be able to do some of
Speaker 1: the other things that have an access to that equity
Speaker 1: would allow us to do. So we're attacking this. It
Speaker 1: really is a war. It's a financial war because we're
Speaker 1: being attacked. Don't even know what A lot of us
Speaker 1: are just asleep, UM, not understanding what's happening on the
Speaker 1: back end, and what's happening with this big money that's
Speaker 1: all in our communities already? Is we speaking? I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it, you know, I mean it sounds it's
Speaker 1: very clear. It's not you know, to me, I'm very
Speaker 1: clear as to what you're saying. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if you mentioned this earlier. Um, but how will this
Speaker 1: impact those people who are formally incarcerated and specifically people
Speaker 1: who may have felony convictions? Haven't thought about that in
Speaker 1: our data? Yeah? Definitely. Yeah, Well we'll we'll jump right
Speaker 1: into a program that we have, the build programs. So
Speaker 1: one thing that finally mentioned is job creation. And it's
Speaker 1: one thing to say, and I know, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: we're fighting on different fronts. You know, we were asking
Speaker 1: the government to pass bills and some jobs happy they
Speaker 1: created through that, um uh. And this is a different
Speaker 1: angle as far as Okay, while we're fright fighting over here,
Speaker 1: because they owe its jobs, they should create jobs, how
Speaker 1: can we also create jobs ourselves? So one thing that
Speaker 1: we found was renovations of these properties. Now there's tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of properties in Chicago alone, fifty vacant properties
Speaker 1: and This isn't vacant cities. These are properties on nice
Speaker 1: streets here and there where we're able to buy them
Speaker 1: and renovate them. So someone coming out of prison, you
Speaker 1: may have a felity, it may be difficult to get
Speaker 1: difficult to get a job. However, we partnered with one
Speaker 1: of the best training schools in the country, Genesis Construction
Speaker 1: Training Center, and what they do is they accept students.
Speaker 1: You learned all the trades from carpentry to h VAC
Speaker 1: to lighting and too. Uh I can't name them all,
Speaker 1: but you know they're training. You can certify you in
Speaker 1: these and you get paid to fix our properties, so
Speaker 1: you're actually learning and not only learning, you're getting certified.
Speaker 1: So now you're a skilled worker. So now you can
Speaker 1: actually get uh work elsewhere. But you can build our properties.
Speaker 1: Every property we buy, we try to buy them dilapidated
Speaker 1: so we can fix them up. So we're creating jobs.
Speaker 1: And you know, one property may create five six shots,
Speaker 1: so imagine what tens of thousands of property. And that's
Speaker 1: just one aspect, because then you've got the management aspect,
Speaker 1: you got the administrative aspects, You've got all these aspects
Speaker 1: to what it takes to fix these homes. Now, this
Speaker 1: is just one angle, but it's angle that works, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: And we actually have already started um and you know,
Speaker 1: I think it'd be different than to try on what
Speaker 1: we've done with the bill program, because it's not just
Speaker 1: that's one thing. Our brothers and sisters incarcerated who are
Speaker 1: coming home and need work. That is, you know, we're
Speaker 1: able to help accommodate that the more we're able to buy,
Speaker 1: but also our students who are coming out of high school,
Speaker 1: who who may not uh go to college or don't
Speaker 1: feel like they're able to go to college. So we
Speaker 1: experimented with the program called the Build program. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I just on the incarcerated piece. I'll touch on the
Speaker 1: real quick. So we have two brothers now forming incarcerated
Speaker 1: who wouldn't otherwise probably be working, that are on the
Speaker 1: team that work daily, um, and actually living in some
Speaker 1: of our property. So we're gonna attack that from a
Speaker 1: couple of different agles. That's probably another twelve to eighteen
Speaker 1: months out, but we're gonna be opening up what they
Speaker 1: call halfway houses. And we've already been in touch with
Speaker 1: some of the prison ministries in Chicago who are ready,
Speaker 1: you know, what I mean. So they have these pipelines
Speaker 1: people who need housing, need job, need these different things
Speaker 1: that will will be able to offer. But what what
Speaker 1: we did UM as a start the build program, we
Speaker 1: started with high school students, students that we knew who
Speaker 1: may otherwise you know that it's such a weird window,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, like that seventeen two twenty
Speaker 1: something where especially if you don't go to college, that's
Speaker 1: where you get caught, you know what I mean. So,
Speaker 1: knowing what we knew, UM, and then knowing that we
Speaker 1: had all of these young brothers that we have been
Speaker 1: in their lives since they was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, UM,
Speaker 1: we wanted to have something for them, especially the ones
Speaker 1: that weren't like on a college type of trajectory. So
Speaker 1: we we created the BILD program and UH, we bought
Speaker 1: a house, we renovated it, We moved them, some of
Speaker 1: them from different parts of the country Los Angeles, UM, Oakland.
Speaker 1: We moved them into that house and put them in
Speaker 1: that program. UM a year ago. So the program has
Speaker 1: been going for a year. It's six of them and
Speaker 1: us in there right now. UM. It's a five there
Speaker 1: room house. They all got their own space. But to
Speaker 1: see the growth and if you go to our I
Speaker 1: g H. You'll see some of the young brothers on
Speaker 1: that page and to see where they grow. Like I
Speaker 1: go out there here, we're learning from them now one
Speaker 1: year and he's a young man. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say that we're gonna necessarily downward or negative trajectory, but
Speaker 1: who knows. You know, you know what them years can
Speaker 1: do when you just out there and you've got time
Speaker 1: and you're not on nothing in particular, Um, it could
Speaker 1: it could just cause a whole lot of trauma in
Speaker 1: your life. So we want to scale that as well. Um,
Speaker 1: not just for the young men in our community, but
Speaker 1: for the young men in these communities that were operating
Speaker 1: in and uh and and catch them ones is eighteen
Speaker 1: nineteen not doing nothing, give them something to do. But man,
Speaker 1: the thing about that I learned, and I'm learning more.
Speaker 1: Our young brothers are not lazy, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They're not bad people. They're not negative people. They're not
Speaker 1: violent people. They're just in violent situations there and then
Speaker 1: you know, and they're fearless. And you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: They just stuff happens, you know what I mean? You know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure we could all attest to that. So when
Speaker 1: you give them something productive to do, like the young
Speaker 1: brothers that are with us, they wake up at five am. Um,
Speaker 1: they're out the door five fifteen and they're working until
Speaker 1: four o'clock, five o'clocks, six o'clock. It's not a lot
Speaker 1: of time for foolishness, you know what I mean. On weekends,
Speaker 1: I go out there sometimes we go to Chiclogo, just
Speaker 1: a kicking with them. They don't even want to kick it,
Speaker 1: like we're gonna rest up. We got a busy week,
Speaker 1: we got this renovation, we this, we started this new project.
Speaker 1: These are eighteen year olds, you know what I mean
Speaker 1: that I'm thinking like this. We started them their own LLFC.
Speaker 1: They got tens of thousands of dollars saved in their LLC.
Speaker 1: We're buying them their first property that they're going to
Speaker 1: own before this year. Is how we We may do
Speaker 1: it earlier in the next year, just because we're looking
Speaker 1: at the rates and everything that's happening depending on the deals.
Speaker 1: But nevertheless, we put them in position with an LC
Speaker 1: today owned to buy their own property, and we're going
Speaker 1: to continue to do that. We're teaching them ownership. We're
Speaker 1: giving them what no one was able to give to us,
Speaker 1: like the game, Like this is the game. This is
Speaker 1: how you do it. It's how you leverage it. It's
Speaker 1: how you put the money out. This is what you
Speaker 1: do with the money when you get the money out.
Speaker 1: We're not even buying them with We're not buying jewelry,
Speaker 1: none of that. We're gonna get another property and then
Speaker 1: we're gonna do that again, and I'm gonna show you
Speaker 1: how to continue to leverage it where you're not over leverage.
Speaker 1: You know, you're under seventy for sent anything ever happens
Speaker 1: with the market, you in position to sell or whatever
Speaker 1: whatever you want to do. We would like to be
Speaker 1: able to put these brothers in position and do that.
Speaker 1: And if we had that at nineteen, where we got
Speaker 1: at thirty, where will we be at you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So our sons, we got sons, they'll have
Speaker 1: this at fifteen sixteen. It's just information and information is power,
Speaker 1: as we know. So that's that's our plan. That's our
Speaker 1: plan for our incarcerated brothers. That's our plan for you know,
Speaker 1: our young brothers coming up in our communities. There's trillions
Speaker 1: of dollars in this industry alone. We're not even talking
Speaker 1: about all the other industries. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that we talked about, particularly for the young dudes, is this,
Speaker 1: you can still go and be what you want to be.
Speaker 1: Like give us, like I was telling them, look, give
Speaker 1: us seventeen to twenty give us eighteen to twenty one.
Speaker 1: And then if you choose to go and do something
Speaker 1: totally different, You've got a couple of properties that you
Speaker 1: own so you financially stable. You've got the knowledge base
Speaker 1: that you gain from learning the trades and doing these
Speaker 1: different things, so you know you can always do hustling.
Speaker 1: Doing something negative doesn't even look like a Bible option. Now,
Speaker 1: why would I do that when I got five dollars
Speaker 1: a month. Brother in there, I'm free to think. I'm
Speaker 1: not in survival mode. I don't have to take these
Speaker 1: type of risks to be up. I can give my
Speaker 1: mom's money if she needed. There's no pressure, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, to go and do something illegal or
Speaker 1: something that catchs you up. So, um, you know that's
Speaker 1: kind of that's that's our game. Well, I love it, man.
Speaker 1: It sounds so much aligned with what it is that
Speaker 1: I do. And you know in the Boycutt Black Murder,
Speaker 1: you know initiative that I'm I want to utilize and
Speaker 1: bring around the world because we need those type of
Speaker 1: outlets and we need those opportunities for them boys. Just
Speaker 1: like you said, you know a lot of them don't
Speaker 1: want to do nothing negative. They just that's all they've
Speaker 1: been given. So when you have those type of opportunities,
Speaker 1: brothers like yourself, with stand up individuals that they can
Speaker 1: look like that look like them, understand the language with
Speaker 1: the uniform, then you know, are able to speak the
Speaker 1: language of the people. That's what we need for especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to our youth and and and a
Speaker 1: returning citizens. You know. So I just once again, I
Speaker 1: just want to commend you, brothers, because this is the
Speaker 1: work like this is the work that we talk about.
Speaker 1: This is what what it looks like when you transform
Speaker 1: in your community and you're buying back the hood and
Speaker 1: you're utilizing everything, and you're teaching one you know, the
Speaker 1: whole concept of giving me two to three years and
Speaker 1: then I could teach you how to fish. Now if
Speaker 1: you don't want to fish, after I teach you, you
Speaker 1: know how to fish. Your worst come to worst and
Speaker 1: you gotta hold another thing you want to do, but
Speaker 1: you always know how to fish, you know, So that's
Speaker 1: that's just that that mindset in itself is you know,
Speaker 1: it's just amazing man. You and I know your brothers,
Speaker 1: so you very detailed and very thorough. So I know
Speaker 1: that you took the tie and went through this very organized.
Speaker 1: So that's why I'm I'm gonna invest. I need to
Speaker 1: be involved in this, you know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 1: definitely want to be involved in this, and I just
Speaker 1: want to commend you. So how can people get involved?
Speaker 1: What is what is the steps for people to get involved?
Speaker 1: We have an app and the app you can uh
Speaker 1: search in the App Store or Google play Store. O
Speaker 1: Wastis Investments. You can download our app. That's the easiest way.
Speaker 1: You also can go to our website O Wastis dot
Speaker 1: build and you just click get started. And because we
Speaker 1: are an SEC qualified complying company. Um as you all know,
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm sure you've you've done something like
Speaker 1: this before. It's not it's not a cash app or
Speaker 1: a quick you know, send me something to help me
Speaker 1: some bread. You know, we gotta get we gotta note
Speaker 1: have know your customer laws and moneyline at time money
Speaker 1: lundering laws. So we need people's information. And the reason
Speaker 1: we did it like this is because you know, I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of trust issues in our community
Speaker 1: and we wanted to make sure that we built this
Speaker 1: company um as by the book as possible, and there
Speaker 1: was no further way the you know, uh qualifying with
Speaker 1: the SEC. So you gotta enter your information. Of course
Speaker 1: everything's gonna secure server um and then you invest. We
Speaker 1: have the minimum investment at a thousand dollars. And the
Speaker 1: reason we did that is you know, we know everyone
Speaker 1: kink uh it may not be in a position to invest,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. We want people to get in the
Speaker 1: mindset of starting to save and uh, this is something
Speaker 1: that's valuable. You know, this is something to work towards.
Speaker 1: And it's perfect time because as you mentioned earlier, this
Speaker 1: is a financial movement that's going on economic revolution UM.
Speaker 1: So a lot of education. You've got a lot of
Speaker 1: great people um from earn your Leisure and all these
Speaker 1: brothers who are doing for a part of this financial movement.
Speaker 1: Like you said, credit and financial literacy. So we're encouraging
Speaker 1: everyone to learn more and the sisters and man, thank
Speaker 1: you powerful systems. You know, Um, it's a whole movement
Speaker 1: that's going on. It's it's it's unity. It's beautiful to see.
Speaker 1: You know, I have to revote summit to make you
Speaker 1: did a great job. By the way, if to revote summit,
Speaker 1: and you know, and when one of the key things
Speaker 1: was for me, you know, unity over uniformity and at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, let's all come together. No
Speaker 1: matter what you're doing. You could invest. And one of
Speaker 1: the reasons we wanted it investments instead of the you know,
Speaker 1: normal donation or or some different ways for people to
Speaker 1: understand that, you know, this isn't just you doing something
Speaker 1: out the kindness of your heart. You this is something
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a return on. This is this is
Speaker 1: business as well. This is how we should we want
Speaker 1: to start eating our communities to think like this, to
Speaker 1: think down the line. Um, it's not an overnight investment.
Speaker 1: It's not the stock market where you can check tomorrow
Speaker 1: and you may have made fifty dollars or and we
Speaker 1: and we let people know clearly, that's not how wealth works.
Speaker 1: That's not how change works. Change takes time, you know, um,
Speaker 1: and we got to start learning these things as a community.
Speaker 1: As far as delayed gratification over instant gratification, UM, these
Speaker 1: are It all goes into why we picked a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars was very we we we thought about that, why
Speaker 1: we want to do that, um And everyone may not
Speaker 1: be able to make it right now, but eventually you
Speaker 1: may be able to. This is for those who are
Speaker 1: in a position where you have a few thousand dollars
Speaker 1: and instead of letting it sitt in the bank doing nothing,
Speaker 1: you invested and we put it to work. You see,
Speaker 1: you know, you see buildings transformed. You know. That's why
Speaker 1: we document everything. Our production team is very heavy in
Speaker 1: our company because we like showing you the tenants were
Speaker 1: like showing you the brothers and sisters working. We like
Speaker 1: the actual show the progress to see what your money
Speaker 1: is doing, whether it's besides sitting in bank of America Chase,
Speaker 1: it's actually working, it's going to work. And the thing look,
Speaker 1: American Chase are doing what your money what we want
Speaker 1: to do there doing the same thing you just yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's like your money's working for somebody, let it
Speaker 1: work for you and let us let like you know,
Speaker 1: and we know that there's a thing with trust in
Speaker 1: our community, and we overstand that. That's why I mean
Speaker 1: initially hated Yeah, I know, I know, you know, but
Speaker 1: but look, it took us years. You know. Itpects me
Speaker 1: like like I don't even you know, I never have
Speaker 1: done anything like this, but I'm passionate about it and
Speaker 1: it's real, and it took us years of like really
Speaker 1: build it up, being confident about it, seeing like all right,
Speaker 1: this is not something that we're guessing that we're not
Speaker 1: like trying to feed. We do this, this is what
Speaker 1: we do. This is what we've done. Track record speaks
Speaker 1: for itself, and now we're comfortable bringing other people to it.
Speaker 1: So like, um, we we want to we want to
Speaker 1: earn our people's trust. We don't expect it to be given,
Speaker 1: but we want the opportunity to do that because we
Speaker 1: have we believe we have a good formula. We've been
Speaker 1: on the ground doing this work and this is no
Speaker 1: different than the work we were doing six seven, eight
Speaker 1: years ago with you all. This is the same approach,
Speaker 1: same mentality. It's a solution to problems that exist in
Speaker 1: the community, and that's all that we're doing, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Of course, it's even better that we
Speaker 1: make money while doing it. It's even better that will
Speaker 1: be willing to help other people make money while they're
Speaker 1: doing All of those things are added botuses, But overall,
Speaker 1: our mission has always been to change the condition of
Speaker 1: our people. You know what I mean? I think I
Speaker 1: think for me right, just knowing you individuals you and
Speaker 1: knowing your personally and knowing how practical you are, right,
Speaker 1: like you ain't chasing no dreams. This ain't trying to
Speaker 1: like for y'all to be here and said that we
Speaker 1: come on podcasts and we're gonna put our name on
Speaker 1: something like y'all did the research, like you know, you
Speaker 1: ain't going out there there's some money. Three called Molly
Speaker 1: you and say put your money, not like this is
Speaker 1: something that y'all you're putting your name behind. So and
Speaker 1: I know that you both individuals are stand up or
Speaker 1: practical individuals. So I'm and I would I would advise
Speaker 1: anybody to you know, to get behind it because it
Speaker 1: sounds like what our people need. Man so appreciates say
Speaker 1: the the app again. And before you do that, let
Speaker 1: me just say I'm very proud, you know, because even
Speaker 1: though I'm probably I don't know if I'm older than
Speaker 1: y'all or not, but it feels like my brothers, my
Speaker 1: little brothers, are doing something really big. And I appreciate
Speaker 1: the fact that we're not looking at one another saying, well,
Speaker 1: this is the right way to get our people towards
Speaker 1: freedom and your way is wrong. Right. I think fall
Speaker 1: into a trap when we start looking at one another
Speaker 1: and judging and or trying to discredit and tear people down,
Speaker 1: and instead there are lanes for everyone. If we don't
Speaker 1: make noise in the streets, we would not even be
Speaker 1: able to get the type of attention necessary to push
Speaker 1: people in your direction. Right, Because folks that are protests
Speaker 1: and marching, frustrated, organizing, they're out there raising their concerns,
Speaker 1: voicing their opinion, and then they're looking for solutions. What
Speaker 1: do we do next? And there's a number of things.
Speaker 1: We've got black folks that are an elected office that
Speaker 1: it's important to have people on the front lines from
Speaker 1: that perspective that can vote for laws that that keep
Speaker 1: your community safe and clean and functioning. But then also
Speaker 1: there is a point that comes where legislators have to
Speaker 1: sit down and do work that is directly in line
Speaker 1: with what you all are doing because we could have
Speaker 1: people pass legislation that blocks us out of the system
Speaker 1: completely that red minds us again, or people have people
Speaker 1: passing legislation that will help to ensure that the policies
Speaker 1: put in place provide access for folks who would not
Speaker 1: generally have acts us. So there are multiple lanes to
Speaker 1: this movement. And I'm just proud to see you all
Speaker 1: in yours and still understanding the importance of collaborating with
Speaker 1: people like us and others. So tell us the website,
Speaker 1: Thank you brothers, thank y'all so much for him, Michael
Speaker 1: come back again, and we're gonna be investors. We've already
Speaker 1: talked about it, and we need to just follow up
Speaker 1: and figure out what we can do to get started
Speaker 1: right away. Yes, yes, man, Uh, I have to say
Speaker 1: I can't leave. I'm gonna go over the app. But
Speaker 1: I have to commence you to on the work you're doing, UM,
Speaker 1: And I'm glad you said that this is a war.
Speaker 1: We're fighting on multiple fronts and it's gonna take all
Speaker 1: of us together attacking from different angles. But what you
Speaker 1: all did, specifically the work you put in for our
Speaker 1: dear sister Um, who was murdered Brianna Taylor. The work
Speaker 1: you all did and the results you did prove that
Speaker 1: different avenues are necessary, different aspects are necessary. Um, and
Speaker 1: we want to and we're and we are honors to
Speaker 1: work and fight alongside of you all in this lane
Speaker 1: that can compliment your lane as your lane compliments this lane.
Speaker 1: But it's all the same struggle. So with that, thank
Speaker 1: you all. Appreciate both of you. The app is Oasis Investments.
Speaker 1: Check that in the app store, Google play Store again
Speaker 1: typing Oasis Investments, or go to our website Oasis dot
Speaker 1: build and we have dot build because that's what we're doing.
Speaker 1: We building, We're working. Uh, it's time for us to
Speaker 1: get busy, so we're gonna continue to get busy. We
Speaker 1: appreciate YouTube, um and like this is, but this is
Speaker 1: the beginning we're saying. We're saying, buy off the Zoom.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna get to work after this and we're
Speaker 1: gonna stay in touch. You know, we appreciate you and
Speaker 1: keep doing the work. Man can't wait. We want to
Speaker 1: We want to advice both of y'all to Chicago too,
Speaker 1: you know, so we want you to invest. Of course,
Speaker 1: we want you to come and see what we're doing.
Speaker 1: Meet the team, meet the brothers, get to understanding or
Speaker 1: what it is we're doing, how we're doing it. We
Speaker 1: would love to make that happen also, so we'll got
Speaker 1: that out. It's done, all right, all right? Man shout
Speaker 1: out to our brothers for he and Michael Man. Just
Speaker 1: watching these brothers evolve into this, you know, knowing them
Speaker 1: from being on the front lines and doing a lot
Speaker 1: of different works. Seeing this, like I said, this financial
Speaker 1: revolution and seeing your entry point different entry points and movement.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like you said, it's not uniformity, is
Speaker 1: unity and connecting what it is that we do, what
Speaker 1: you do. You know. I'm just in a good space.
Speaker 1: You know. I have to have to invest best. My
Speaker 1: mind just started to transform because I've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of people saying and doing things that I know I
Speaker 1: could do, but for some reason, we feel like we
Speaker 1: got this hold on us that we can't do and
Speaker 1: the process is too on And it's like anything else
Speaker 1: I'd say all the time, like when you got a
Speaker 1: dirty room. You walk into the room and everything's all
Speaker 1: over and you look like, yo, you just gotta pick
Speaker 1: some up, right. Just the thing is you just gotta
Speaker 1: pick some up and then you start put it away
Speaker 1: next to you know, it's getting clean. And I think
Speaker 1: that's what it is in this financial space. Man. You
Speaker 1: gotta just get involved. You gotta do your research. And
Speaker 1: I just jump in, But you gotta do your research.
Speaker 1: You gotta say, Okay, I want to do this. Let
Speaker 1: me find out what it takes to do this. Let
Speaker 1: me talk to people who know. Let me utilize my
Speaker 1: common sense along with knowledge that I'm learning, and say
Speaker 1: what is best for me? Where should I be investing?
Speaker 1: You know, what do I able to understand? You know,
Speaker 1: make sure that you're invest in things with people that
Speaker 1: you trust and also things that you can understand, right,
Speaker 1: because you want to understand the process of what you're doing.
Speaker 1: So I think what they just said to me broke
Speaker 1: it down so eloquently. It was good. It was really good.
Speaker 1: It was very very clear, and I feel like I
Speaker 1: walked away knowing exactly you know, what they're doing and
Speaker 1: how you can get involved. And then how people not
Speaker 1: just from a financial like you know, not just from
Speaker 1: a like ownership perspective, but how other people on the fringes,
Speaker 1: people all around the formerly incarcerated community, people getting jobs
Speaker 1: people from different perspectives. I mean, you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: they didn't. We didn't have enough time to really cover it.
Speaker 1: But insurance right now, there can be black insurance agents
Speaker 1: that can get involved. And of course that I do
Speaker 1: know that they have black contractors and you know others
Speaker 1: who work in the space. So anything that has to
Speaker 1: do with purchasing land and a home or renting homes,
Speaker 1: renting apartments, so what have you, from nuts to boats,
Speaker 1: from all the different aspects, you can learn and and
Speaker 1: get a trade in those things and then go work
Speaker 1: with Oasis Investment Group and other people. And I love
Speaker 1: the fact that they mentioned Jay Morrison, right because oftentimes
Speaker 1: once we start something, we try to act like it's
Speaker 1: the first time it ever happened. And I'm sure you know,
Speaker 1: Jay knows of other models prior to his where a
Speaker 1: collective came together to purchase property or purchase land, um
Speaker 1: you know. And so I I am I'm happy to
Speaker 1: see and we just know them to be those types
Speaker 1: of individuals that will always sort of pay homage to
Speaker 1: people who have already tried to figure out the model,
Speaker 1: um you know, and just and and that's it. So
Speaker 1: just good people. So that stand up individuals man, you know,
Speaker 1: and I woant to stay no shade to anybody, there's
Speaker 1: no shade. But Jay Morrison was the first person that
Speaker 1: I've seen doing financial literacy. Every I love all of
Speaker 1: I love, you know, I love the whole earner a Leisia.
Speaker 1: I love all of them, him, all of the brothers.
Speaker 1: I've watched them and they are dope. But what Jay
Speaker 1: was doing was revolutionary. He was going to he was
Speaker 1: given financial literacy and real estate literacy on the corners
Speaker 1: in the hoods, and he was and he utilized that model,
Speaker 1: and it was for us. And I had never seen
Speaker 1: or even understood any of that until Jay was doing it.
Speaker 1: So and I and and I appreciate that when we
Speaker 1: were at Arni Aalisia, we saw Jay there in the space.
Speaker 1: If we fall into the same traps that have been
Speaker 1: used and that has been imposed upon us by um,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, a racist society, white supremacy, and the
Speaker 1: tool of divide and conquer. In fact, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about this um for a few days on my
Speaker 1: live right because this idea of divide and conquer has
Speaker 1: been being used against us since any movement you you name,
Speaker 1: the movement, and it's always happened. And so people who
Speaker 1: think in this moment that they are the brightest and
Speaker 1: the best and the realist and everything else is fake
Speaker 1: and this and that and the third, the same tools
Speaker 1: that have been used to destroy us will be used again,
Speaker 1: even in this moment, and even what they are trying
Speaker 1: to do will be destroyed, because there is no community
Speaker 1: that can be great when people within it who claim
Speaker 1: to be leaders spend time trying to tear down and
Speaker 1: destroy other people. So when you talk about Jay Morrison,
Speaker 1: it's important for us to uplift his name and make
Speaker 1: sure that the that the Tulsa Real Estate Fund is
Speaker 1: a part of the conversation around how people started thinking
Speaker 1: about sort of putting their resources together to buy these
Speaker 1: properties and do some of these things doesn't mean it's
Speaker 1: the first time it was done. It just means Jay
Speaker 1: was bring He was really pushing us to per anticipate
Speaker 1: in that in this generation some time ago, and of
Speaker 1: course they the tools always work. The SEC and the
Speaker 1: FBI launched an investigation against him, and I can remember
Speaker 1: friends people who I know have also been through their
Speaker 1: own investigations and they want people to side with them
Speaker 1: and understand that the system is just working against them.
Speaker 1: These same people said, oh yeah, I knew something was wrong.
Speaker 1: It was a scam. I knew it wasn't right. And
Speaker 1: of course both the SEC and the damn FBI came
Speaker 1: out and said they didn't find anything and for them
Speaker 1: folks to go ahead and continue to do their work.
Speaker 1: So with that being said, my only advice in this moment,
Speaker 1: and you know this is my second time talking about
Speaker 1: this in the show. Already know, but I have to
Speaker 1: say it again because you know, repetition maps. We cannot
Speaker 1: be so cocky and our approach that we think we're
Speaker 1: the only ones that had the answer, because guess what
Speaker 1: if you got the answer, fix it by yourself. Fix it.
Speaker 1: I think, I think what happens is in everything, the
Speaker 1: ego plays a part. And I think as you grow
Speaker 1: you start to realize that, as you get older, you
Speaker 1: start realizing that when people when people start to get
Speaker 1: a level of success and notoriety and they get celebrated,
Speaker 1: what happens is you start to believe your own height.
Speaker 1: Moving along brings me to my I don't get it.
Speaker 1: The internet has had some crazy things that I haven't
Speaker 1: even chose to discuss, didn't want to discuss, But this
Speaker 1: right here took the cake being the father, you know,
Speaker 1: being someone interested in helping the youth evolved and giving
Speaker 1: them Jews and all those things. When I found out
Speaker 1: that the alleged shooter of pnb Rock was actually driven
Speaker 1: two the robbery by his father and the father drove
Speaker 1: him to get away, I think that was one of
Speaker 1: the boasts biggest confusions I've been in a long time,
Speaker 1: Like what father? They said that the father was there
Speaker 1: and pnb Rock came, the father drove to go get
Speaker 1: his seventeen year old son to commit a robbery. After
Speaker 1: the son did shot pnb Rock and left for the chain,
Speaker 1: the father then was the getaway dropped. And I'm so
Speaker 1: confused as to what what part of fatherhood is that
Speaker 1: I don't know the father just shoot him himself. But
Speaker 1: this is what I'm trying to see, my things. If
Speaker 1: you thought you you was one to throw your life away,
Speaker 1: you was this tough guy. You want why you didn't
Speaker 1: just completely throw your life? Why would you take your offspring,
Speaker 1: the person that you brought into this world, that you
Speaker 1: want to have a better life than you, that you
Speaker 1: want to be successful, Why would you bring him in
Speaker 1: complete chaos to destroy his life. It was gangster, he
Speaker 1: was all at What made you go get your child,
Speaker 1: your seventeen year old child, to throw his life away.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, but I think it's a
Speaker 1: real serious question. It's it's it's it's it's what I
Speaker 1: call coward culture, right, because you wanted to be you
Speaker 1: wanted to do all this. You was tough. I think
Speaker 1: it's a dumbishi in the world. But if you make
Speaker 1: a conde decision as a man, adult man, that you're
Speaker 1: willing to take that risk and do some dumb ship,
Speaker 1: why you didn't do it? Why would you involve your
Speaker 1: child in some bullshit like that? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And then people like your's, people that grow like anybody
Speaker 1: that grows up like that, it's being this. That's child abuse.
Speaker 1: It's complete. And this is why I'm for the right
Speaker 1: to choose, because everybody shouldn't doesn't supposed to be a parent.
Speaker 1: They're just not supposed to. And it's a classic example.
Speaker 1: I would definitely rather someone to board the fetus then
Speaker 1: bring a child into this world where you throw his
Speaker 1: life and put him in prison for the rest of
Speaker 1: his life. I just that's just my personal opinion. Everybody's
Speaker 1: not gonna gree but everybody has to understand that everybody
Speaker 1: is supposed to be parents, and this man it's not
Speaker 1: supposed to be a parent. Man. It's the it's the
Speaker 1: biggest miscarriage of manhood and misdirection and just or everything
Speaker 1: wrong was in how society happened that day, Everything that
Speaker 1: that I call us wrong and I will never get it.
Speaker 1: And anybody who condones this is stupid. You're not a man,
Speaker 1: you know. Anybody who thinks this is a culture that
Speaker 1: people should live by and take my son and do
Speaker 1: some negative ship to destroy his life is it's not
Speaker 1: even a man's Well here, here's the deal. It's not
Speaker 1: just a man bringing his son right. There's there are
Speaker 1: mothers that have their daughters out, you know, basically pimping
Speaker 1: them to make money and to attract uh certain types
Speaker 1: of men. I mean, I think that. And you've got
Speaker 1: people who will, um you know, get their kids involved
Speaker 1: in drug dealing. In fact, that happened within my own family.
Speaker 1: UM So I think you know, I don't have much
Speaker 1: to say about it other than to make the point.
Speaker 1: Then we just as a people, we just have to
Speaker 1: find a way to move closer to consciousness because we're
Speaker 1: so you know right now is just it's just such
Speaker 1: a level of m just dis joining to your point,
Speaker 1: a lack of kind justness. And not to say that
Speaker 1: these things weren't always happening, but when you see it
Speaker 1: in the side in the light of the PM but
Speaker 1: PM b Rock situation, it just really makes it's sad.
Speaker 1: And as a community of people, just as black folks
Speaker 1: in general, you know, we have to look at that
Speaker 1: and say, where are we going wrong? And look to
Speaker 1: your family and neighbors and others and really do a
Speaker 1: gut check on whether or not this is the type
Speaker 1: of behavior that exists around you. I was too young
Speaker 1: to deal with the fact that, you know, I had
Speaker 1: a family member who was allowing their children to get
Speaker 1: in the drug game, one by one by one. And
Speaker 1: I'm talking about maybe five or six kids, including something
Speaker 1: that are in prison right now and their dad has
Speaker 1: gone on UM. But I was too young to do anything,
Speaker 1: if you will, about that. However, I know that it exists,
Speaker 1: this pipeline to incarceration, death failure, uh that exists within families,
Speaker 1: and I think we just have to call it out.
Speaker 1: I think we do, man, And with that said brings
Speaker 1: us to another episode of Street Politicians. Shout out to
Speaker 1: fa him and Michael. You know, make sure that you
Speaker 1: invest in our a system brothers. They got it all
Speaker 1: set up and I can't wait to put my money
Speaker 1: in it. And a lot of issues that we talked
Speaker 1: about today. Man, our people, I'm gonna have to deal
Speaker 1: with it, so I love you. Make sure you'll make
Speaker 1: Street Politicians the number one podcast in the world. We're
Speaker 1: gonna keep doing what we do. I'm not gonna always
Speaker 1: be right, Tonka Mallory is not gonna always be wrong,
Speaker 1: but we will both always and I mean always be authentic.
Speaker 1: Listen to Street Politicians on the Black Effect Network on
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and catch us every single Wednesday for
Speaker 1: the video version of Three Politicians or I Women dot
Speaker 1: TV that's own