Speaker 1: Hello, Welcome to another edition of Club Shah, and my
Speaker 1: guest today is father, husband, actor, activists, rapper, the Og,
Speaker 1: Mister ice Cube himself. All my life, running all my life, sacrifice,
Speaker 1: hustle back, Chris one a slice, got the bron dice
Speaker 1: swathing all my life. I've been running all my life,
Speaker 1: all my life, the running, all my life, sacrifice, hustle back,
Speaker 1: Price one slice got the dice swathing all my life.
Speaker 1: I've been running all my life. Cue. How are you
Speaker 1: doing today? Yeah? What's suddenly? Man? How you feeling shading?
Speaker 1: I'm good, bro? I mean, are you getting ready for
Speaker 1: doing Remaker? Tom Hayes The Black cast Away? What's going on? Hey?
Speaker 1: You know, you know I had to let it grow. Man.
Speaker 1: You know that's that's that wisdom coming through then. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, that's that wisdom coming this wisdom
Speaker 1: coming through the chin right here. Bro, I really appreciate
Speaker 1: if you give me a few moments of your time today.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. I know you're very busy, but
Speaker 1: to give me a few minute minutes of your time today,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. Now. I appreciate you doing it, man,
Speaker 1: you know I love you know what you're doing TV.
Speaker 1: You know, to meet you one of the best personalities
Speaker 1: on TV talking sports and just human. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: just get down, you know what I mean, just just
Speaker 1: telling it like a t I is and I love
Speaker 1: you on TV. So man, I'm glad you got this show.
Speaker 1: Now you can keep it going. Thank y'all really appreciate it. Well,
Speaker 1: let's start you we'll get back to where the origins.
Speaker 1: But let's start with the basically the hot thing of
Speaker 1: what's going on today, and that was the murder of
Speaker 1: George Floyd and what's the tensions and the uprising the
Speaker 1: emotions that we're starting to see spill out in the
Speaker 1: black communities. And a lot of people I think don't
Speaker 1: realize where you got your start from. You were in
Speaker 1: a group called NWA, and so I think people are
Speaker 1: a little surprised shock because they think you had gotten
Speaker 1: away from that. Talk about your emotions and why you've
Speaker 1: been so active the resurgence of the IQ of the
Speaker 1: original o G. Well, you know, with my music, I
Speaker 1: talk about and I've always talked about, you know, the
Speaker 1: things that's happening in our communities. You know, I call
Speaker 1: it street knowledge, and uh, I've always been kicking that
Speaker 1: from day one. But in my movies, you know, I
Speaker 1: felt like when somebody spends you know, maybe a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars when it comes to them, they want and getting
Speaker 1: something to eat, parking driving, it might want to have
Speaker 1: a good time, and it might not be about just
Speaker 1: the struggles of being black in America. Some of my
Speaker 1: movies are usually fun, but I've always had a passion
Speaker 1: for our condition in this country and what needs to
Speaker 1: be done and to do it from you know, my
Speaker 1: bandage point, you know, which is art. But when this happened,
Speaker 1: I felt like it was time for me to step
Speaker 1: up as a OG. You know, I felt like it's
Speaker 1: my generation's turn to take the man on when it
Speaker 1: comes to not just civil rights, but human rights, just
Speaker 1: human dignity, economical, uh, you know, freedom. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's hard time to step up. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: step out outside of music in movies and just speak
Speaker 1: as a as a man, as a father, you know
Speaker 1: now grandfather, and I just you know, can't see this
Speaker 1: perpetuate and keep going on another you know whatever years.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that George Floyd murder hit her
Speaker 1: so different? Because they're with Eric Gardner. There was Philando Castile.
Speaker 1: There was Alton Sterling, there was Walter Scott, there was
Speaker 1: Sandra Bland. There was Tamerror Rights. There was Treyvard Martin.
Speaker 1: There've been so many. Why did this resonate so much,
Speaker 1: not only in the black community, but seemed to grip America? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, we as a people never accepted slavery, correct,
Speaker 1: We never went for that. You know, I don't care
Speaker 1: what they tell you. That was never cool with us,
Speaker 1: and we wasn't never down with it. We tolerated it,
Speaker 1: we lived under it, but we didn't accept it. No,
Speaker 1: we had to, you know, to survive. And so when
Speaker 1: when one one of us would get out of hand,
Speaker 1: they would pull everybody around to watch the discipline take place.
Speaker 1: And we've seen that in movies countless of times. This
Speaker 1: was a replay of that, seeing this man uh begging
Speaker 1: for his life, even to his mama, and so to
Speaker 1: have a man on top of him with his hand
Speaker 1: in his pocket, looking right at the camera. Let us
Speaker 1: all know that our life means nothing, and that's unacceptable
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. It was unacceptable back then, but we
Speaker 1: couldn't do nothing about it. Now we can do something
Speaker 1: about it and we're not going for it. And you know,
Speaker 1: I always said the country has got to change, or
Speaker 1: we will change it. And that's what's happening right now.
Speaker 1: We're in the process of changing it, and it's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: And so you know, that's why now is the time.
Speaker 1: Why is it so hard for those outside of our
Speaker 1: communities to hear our cries to see us as human
Speaker 1: not less? Then why is it so hard for people
Speaker 1: to accept that there's something raw in America and we
Speaker 1: won't change it. Why is it so hard for them
Speaker 1: to see that? Well, I mean, it's not happening to them.
Speaker 1: You know, usually people are really concerned about their own situation,
Speaker 1: their own family. It's not easy for the average wide
Speaker 1: American today. So he maybe feels or she maybe feels like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is part of it, you know, this is part
Speaker 1: of the struggle of pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
Speaker 1: But if they realize we've never even had a pair
Speaker 1: of boots to pull ourselves up by, so speak as
Speaker 1: a as a community, and even when we tried to prosper,
Speaker 1: it was stumped out in uh, you know, different places
Speaker 1: across the country like Tulsa and you know, and other
Speaker 1: wood roads, wood other communities that we know about and
Speaker 1: hear about, and the ones that we haven't heard about.
Speaker 1: So you know, our progress and side avertaged in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. It's a systematically fixed where you know,
Speaker 1: that's why they're so surprised when one of us get
Speaker 1: through and get ahead and and don't count me and
Speaker 1: you we we we go through the path that's at
Speaker 1: least resistance, which is entertainment in sports, right, you know,
Speaker 1: we gotta look at you know, how many people you
Speaker 1: know are not Ice Cube and Shannon Sharp and how
Speaker 1: can they get through? So, you know, just to end that,
Speaker 1: I just think it's people that just look at their
Speaker 1: own situations and if it's not happening to them, it's
Speaker 1: hard for them to understand. But as you mentioned, is
Speaker 1: that when when people look at you and I and
Speaker 1: they think that all black people, well Cube you made it,
Speaker 1: Shannon Sharp, you made it, Oprah, and you got Lebron,
Speaker 1: you got Denzil. But we're the only race for people
Speaker 1: that if you can succeed and they say, well you
Speaker 1: did it everybody else. But that's not how White America
Speaker 1: views it. White America doesn't look at and say, well,
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezo has one hundred and eighty three billion, so
Speaker 1: everybody else is good. They say it's not. We need
Speaker 1: to get everybody up to get economic prosperity. You look
Speaker 1: at the Asian community, you look at the Jewish community.
Speaker 1: Everybody is about pulling everybody else up. But in the
Speaker 1: Black community, say well, if you feel you get out,
Speaker 1: you good. Yeah, that's that's just not true. And even
Speaker 1: we've had help. You know, I couldn't have made it
Speaker 1: without at the time of Record Company just distributing the
Speaker 1: record and putting it out. You know, Easy had the label,
Speaker 1: but he had to go through Makola as a distributor.
Speaker 1: So you had to you know, play on the broncos. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that don't make you a bad guy, and the
Speaker 1: Ravens to you know, to do your thing, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So, but you but those organizations were
Speaker 1: still in place. So that's a form of health and
Speaker 1: our community. Of these we got businesses that if they
Speaker 1: could get a loan, if they can get some just
Speaker 1: a little capital, a little help, they can grow that
Speaker 1: business and hire more people and expand and and and
Speaker 1: and have different franchises. And but when we can't get
Speaker 1: that initial spot of capital to help us jump start
Speaker 1: even a home loan. You know, we're shut out. We
Speaker 1: only get three percent of all the money in the
Speaker 1: bank loaned out to black people in their businesses. Now
Speaker 1: ninety seven percent go to other communities. Now we're thirteen
Speaker 1: point five percent of the country. If they just bump
Speaker 1: that to thirteen point point five percent, loan out and
Speaker 1: you know where guys can borrow, not not unqualified guys.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about prime lending. No, we we'd all it
Speaker 1: help us catch up, because the gap is what's killing
Speaker 1: us right now. Every for every dollar a white person
Speaker 1: is worth, a black person is worth ten percent, and
Speaker 1: that just can't stand right now. We can't survive off
Speaker 1: off of that wealth gap. And it's not getting smaller.
Speaker 1: It's grown, it's growing. And the thing is is that
Speaker 1: you know, look, I'm not saying, and I think you're
Speaker 1: echoing is saying the same thing I'm saying. I'm not saying,
Speaker 1: helped me because I'm black, But please don't deny me
Speaker 1: because I'm black, thank you. I mean, just like you know,
Speaker 1: three trillion dollars was given to two companies, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean six hundred dollars was given to some Americans,
Speaker 1: but for the most part, they built out all these
Speaker 1: different companies and uh and these different you know, billionaires.
Speaker 1: But how many black companies were built out with that
Speaker 1: three trillion dollars? With thirteen point five percent of the country.
Speaker 1: We should at least got thirteen point five percent of
Speaker 1: that three trillion dollars to help our companies. Forty two
Speaker 1: percent of black companies went under during this COVID situation.
Speaker 1: And that's that's a shame when they're helping companies. That's
Speaker 1: that's been built out over and over and over and
Speaker 1: over again with the American people money, and thirteen point
Speaker 1: five send me that money's ours. So uh, you know,
Speaker 1: of course the numbers shift here and there, but you
Speaker 1: get my drift, You get my point. You have something
Speaker 1: a contract with America. You said you want to address
Speaker 1: racial economic inequality. So in your contract, how do you
Speaker 1: how does America make it right with black America? Man,
Speaker 1: It's a lot of simple things they could do, you know,
Speaker 1: just take government contracts. If we got thirteen percent of
Speaker 1: the government contracts out there, that would give our communities
Speaker 1: a big boots. Like I said, with lending, you know,
Speaker 1: lending money, you know other things that we need to do.
Speaker 1: Of course, we need to reform policing, but also the
Speaker 1: justice system and the prison system. You know, if you
Speaker 1: don't reform all three, what it happened is you reform
Speaker 1: the police and then you know, if you do get arrested,
Speaker 1: you get a bad DA or you know prosecutor that
Speaker 1: don't give up the evidence and give up all the
Speaker 1: the the discovery and do all these games. Now they
Speaker 1: don't railroaded to the prison. Prison got their own games
Speaker 1: where if they're not feel to the top, the prison
Speaker 1: have to pay money, so they're gonna make sure they
Speaker 1: feel to the top with guilty and innocent people. So
Speaker 1: it's a thing where this is a business ran on
Speaker 1: off off you know, our pain, not just black people,
Speaker 1: but brown people. It's off our hand read people off
Speaker 1: our pain, and these systems, you know, continue to thrive
Speaker 1: and grow and people get big money off them. So
Speaker 1: all these things got to be reformed. If we're treated fair,
Speaker 1: you don't have to defund the police. If you just
Speaker 1: get good guys and make the bad guys accountable and
Speaker 1: get them off the force, then we would love the
Speaker 1: police like any other community. But when you keep the
Speaker 1: bad guys and they come abuse us and beat our
Speaker 1: head in. Of course we don't want them then, right,
Speaker 1: And the thing if you mentioned bank and finance reform,
Speaker 1: is that we play a higher lending. We play a
Speaker 1: higher rate on the loan, but we're quicker to get
Speaker 1: floor clothed on all that. You know, every game in
Speaker 1: the book is played off us. We pay more, I mean,
Speaker 1: we pay more in taxes, property taxes for the police,
Speaker 1: and then they the ones beat our head in. So
Speaker 1: all these little games that's being played on our backs,
Speaker 1: that's relegated us to the bottom of this economic pyramid.
Speaker 1: We have to sniff them out and cut him out
Speaker 1: and and things would flow and you won't see so
Speaker 1: much frustration. You know, people with that cold pay their
Speaker 1: bills and do their thing and and you know know
Speaker 1: where their next meal coming from. Don't think about going
Speaker 1: out in the street looting. So cute that seems to be.
Speaker 1: It seems to me doctor King said, riots is the
Speaker 1: language of the unheard, And it seems it seems to
Speaker 1: me that black people say the only time you hear
Speaker 1: is is that when we burning stuff down where we're
Speaker 1: blessing out of windows. We were crying for four hundred years,
Speaker 1: and it seems to be when you get the sixty
Speaker 1: five or watts right, or you get ninety two, or
Speaker 1: you get the Ferguson, or you get Baltimore, or you
Speaker 1: got the uh what we just had George Floyd, he said,
Speaker 1: that seems to be the only time that you hear us.
Speaker 1: Why can't you hear us before we burn down stuff?
Speaker 1: Why can't you hear us before we look and steal stuff?
Speaker 1: Why does it take that to get your attention? I
Speaker 1: mean that's a good point. I mean, these things that's
Speaker 1: in the Contract with Black America, they're not new concepts.
Speaker 1: It's not like we came up with something that you know,
Speaker 1: people haven't talked about and studied. People a lot smarter
Speaker 1: than us have put their whole life around some of
Speaker 1: these issues. And so it's the political will. It's it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, people knowing what they need to do, but
Speaker 1: they don't want to rock their own boat, right, So
Speaker 1: we have to force people to have the political will.
Speaker 1: And it's really all these people are scared to not
Speaker 1: get reelected. So if we if we harness that energy
Speaker 1: and harnessing our vote and sniffing out people who don't
Speaker 1: want to help us, that's in high places, that's been there,
Speaker 1: and get them out of there and replace them with
Speaker 1: people that's better. Well, you know, we'll continue to run
Speaker 1: into this problem. We have to use our real power
Speaker 1: and you know it's silent, but it's deadly because you
Speaker 1: get somebody out of there and they know you're gonna
Speaker 1: get them out of there, You're not gonna vote unless
Speaker 1: if they unless they support your platform and your agenda.
Speaker 1: Then that's that's really real power come from. That's where
Speaker 1: real change in this country come from. The looting, riding
Speaker 1: and all that will only get you so far. Correct
Speaker 1: the end of the day, we got to change policy, legislation,
Speaker 1: hearts and minds, you know, and that's that's that's when
Speaker 1: you know, when it's all said and done, that's the
Speaker 1: only thing that really, you know, gets people out of
Speaker 1: this pain. The one thing that we know about power
Speaker 1: Cube is that people in power want to stay in power,
Speaker 1: and power Caun sees nothing without demand. Nobody said, you
Speaker 1: know what, I've been in power long enough. I think
Speaker 1: I want to go. You know what, I want to
Speaker 1: be fair about this, You have to demand it and
Speaker 1: you have to take actions. Yes, that's why, you know,
Speaker 1: the Contract with Black America was a necessary foundation of
Speaker 1: taking action, of acting for things that we need, you know,
Speaker 1: as a whole. You know, I don't hit everything. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a section that I believe that we need to
Speaker 1: do on Black women when it comes to the Contract
Speaker 1: with Black America that need to highlight the things that
Speaker 1: you know, our women are going through, you know, when
Speaker 1: it comes to the workplace and in America period. So
Speaker 1: you know, it's room for improvement, and I want suggestions.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not a legislator, so I really want
Speaker 1: the people whose job it is to do this to
Speaker 1: grab this thing and run with it. So to me,
Speaker 1: we have to you know, first of all, spread the word.
Speaker 1: Make sure everybody going to uh c WB A dot world.
Speaker 1: You know, we got a four page version of a contract.
Speaker 1: We got a twenty three page longer version of the contract.
Speaker 1: Make yourself familiar with either version and push forward, because
Speaker 1: this is what we can do to to make these
Speaker 1: candidates that's running in November do something and not just
Speaker 1: hold them take our both for granted, and you know,
Speaker 1: leave us. You know, have you ever walk in in
Speaker 1: the club with some people and they supposed to get
Speaker 1: you in, they forget to look back. Yeah, they get
Speaker 1: in themselves, but they leave you standing. Yeah, they get
Speaker 1: to look back and uh they I thought you was
Speaker 1: right behind me. And that's how they've been doing us.
Speaker 1: We get them in office and you know, they get
Speaker 1: in and get to look back sometimes. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: make sure we grab them out on them and say
Speaker 1: hey man, we with you. We're going in with you,
Speaker 1: and uh, we need you to do the things we
Speaker 1: need done them cut. Why is it is that when
Speaker 1: we say we want this, why does why they're like
Speaker 1: the black community says, Okay, we want our we want
Speaker 1: our voices heard, we want our voting rights. We won't.
Speaker 1: We won't economic equal, we want economic equality, we want
Speaker 1: us racial and social justice. Why does it if we
Speaker 1: feel if a certain demographics feels like if we get
Speaker 1: those things, we take something from from you. It's all right,
Speaker 1: we're not taking. It's not like we get you give.
Speaker 1: It's just that it's supposed to be. Well. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you got people who've been taking advantage, they want
Speaker 1: to they want to keep getting their extra you know,
Speaker 1: decimals and dividends and whatever. They you know, really like
Speaker 1: get off on you know, not help people. But let
Speaker 1: me tell you this, money don't trickle down, No, it
Speaker 1: doesn't trickle up. The trickle up I mean everybody at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the pyramid. When I say the bottom,
Speaker 1: I mean the bottom of the economic pyramid. If you
Speaker 1: gave them money today, they would go buy something right
Speaker 1: from somebody rich, right who has it. So the money
Speaker 1: trickles up, it don't. It might not ever trickle down
Speaker 1: to the bottom, but it will trickle up to the top.
Speaker 1: So I don't understand why it's so hard to understand
Speaker 1: that if they supply our community with the capital that
Speaker 1: it's that that old just a fair share of the
Speaker 1: money we put into the kiddy, then the money was
Speaker 1: still making its way up to the Bezos and the
Speaker 1: these and the day you know, it would still make
Speaker 1: it up to them. It just might take a little longer,
Speaker 1: and it might make people a little happier. I mean,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with that. There's a reason why Jeff Bezos
Speaker 1: and I don't begrudge him. I happened. I've made him annoying.
Speaker 1: There's a reason why he made seventy seven billion dollars
Speaker 1: in five months because the stimulus money that you were
Speaker 1: getting you needed things. You needed cleaning supplies, you needed things.
Speaker 1: So that twelve hundred bucks that they were sending you,
Speaker 1: guess what. As soon as you got it, guess what
Speaker 1: you had to do. You had to go buy something,
Speaker 1: You had to go grocery shopping, you had to buy products.
Speaker 1: So guess what. The money that you got it went
Speaker 1: right back to him, Thank you, And but you still
Speaker 1: got your product that you needed to sustain your family.
Speaker 1: So you don't mind that, you know. If but if
Speaker 1: you never see nothing at the bottom and he just
Speaker 1: making seventy eight billion at the top, and you haven't
Speaker 1: gotten what you need and you what your family needs,
Speaker 1: you're pretty upset that somebody can get all that and
Speaker 1: you have nothing. In a place like America, it just
Speaker 1: shouldn't happen this way. As you mentioned to you, people
Speaker 1: at the bottom don't have what they call disposable income
Speaker 1: where you can invest. When people say the economy is good,
Speaker 1: it's good for people that can invest in the economy.
Speaker 1: If I don't have any money in stocks and bonds,
Speaker 1: what DoD is the economy roaring? Does me? I'm trying
Speaker 1: to make is is me? I gotta pay rent, I
Speaker 1: gotta put food on the table, if I got a
Speaker 1: car payment, if I got if I got to catch
Speaker 1: the bus. So how does the economy benefit me if
Speaker 1: I can't if I can't read the benefits from it. Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a thing where you know, some people
Speaker 1: are are at the bottom and they're not gonna starve.
Speaker 1: They're not gonna go hungry, No, let go provive. They're
Speaker 1: gonna survive. And hopefully they don't survive off somebody who
Speaker 1: has investment in something or has you know, it's like
Speaker 1: these you have to help. You know what I call
Speaker 1: our you know, weakest link. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: the weakest link in our chain is our people in
Speaker 1: poverty because they are hurting and frustrated and they can't
Speaker 1: get the basic things they need to thriving this society.
Speaker 1: And there's plenty to go around, but the greed that's
Speaker 1: going on is keeping people from thriving in this society.
Speaker 1: And it causes riots, it causes fresh stations because it's looting,
Speaker 1: because it's things like that. And you know, you can
Speaker 1: call the black community all kinds of names for the
Speaker 1: things that they have to do to survive, but I mean,
Speaker 1: you would do the same thing if you were in
Speaker 1: our shoes or the same thing. Q. There have been
Speaker 1: a lot of the monuments have been coming down Stonewall Jackson, Robert,
Speaker 1: if you leave, they're taken down, the Confederate flag. What's
Speaker 1: your thought on those? Do they go far enough? I say, Look,
Speaker 1: symbolic gestures are fine, but tell me get down to
Speaker 1: the meat, get down to the nitty gritty. What are
Speaker 1: you going to do to help the minority community these times?
Speaker 1: I don't care about I don't care now about no statue.
Speaker 1: I don't care no about no flag. Yeah that's fine,
Speaker 1: take it down. But I'm saying, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, if you take that flag down, if you
Speaker 1: take those monuments down, and blacks are in the same position,
Speaker 1: what have you done? You know, I think every gesture
Speaker 1: in this situation count you know, would take the small
Speaker 1: victories and the big ones. I don't think you should
Speaker 1: promote traders of of you know what this country is
Speaker 1: and what has grown to be. You know, we don't
Speaker 1: have any you know, German soldiers or you know, we
Speaker 1: don't have any that I know of, no Japanese soldiers
Speaker 1: from World War Two who fought against us around Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm wrong and you know, so, I don't understand the
Speaker 1: necessity for those you know, so I would love to
Speaker 1: see him go. You know, do I have to see
Speaker 1: him go. I'm not worried about it. I really would like,
Speaker 1: you said, see some real uh systemic change that's gonna
Speaker 1: really help people, you know, live a better life. You know,
Speaker 1: that's the most important thing. Feeling good for a moment
Speaker 1: or you know that, don't do anything. It's really about
Speaker 1: what can we do generational because the situation that we're
Speaker 1: going through, the wealth gap, is a generational thing, correct,
Speaker 1: So we have to start to build generational wealth, correct
Speaker 1: through ownership, homeownership, a business, ownership, being able to pass
Speaker 1: some land, correct, being able to pass things down. That
Speaker 1: is the true Promised land. But if you notice, you
Speaker 1: they only remove these statues. They only retake down a
Speaker 1: Confederate flag after tragedy. If you look at the Confederate
Speaker 1: flag coming down in South Carolina, what did it take
Speaker 1: Dealing Ruth to go into the church and kill nine
Speaker 1: parishoners at Mother Emanuel. It took George Floyd. It takes
Speaker 1: things you're not doing that out of the kindness of
Speaker 1: your heart. See that's the main Yeah, and see What
Speaker 1: they're hoping is that if we do this just a
Speaker 1: little bit and then they'll get distracted and they'll start
Speaker 1: talking about something else. They'll think about a car, or
Speaker 1: a bag or a band, and they'll forget all about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's the whole that's been the game.
Speaker 1: It's to calm them down, hear them out right, give
Speaker 1: them nothing, you know, that's the that's been the playbook.
Speaker 1: You know. I know, you know you make a living
Speaker 1: covering sports. But me, I didn't want sports to come back,
Speaker 1: you know, to me, you know, I want us to
Speaker 1: deal with this issue on a why basis. I understand
Speaker 1: it's the need, it's and necessity, but I really wanted
Speaker 1: people to shut it down because until there's some kind
Speaker 1: of economic threat, they'll continue to do the same play,
Speaker 1: which is commers down here south and give us little
Speaker 1: or nothing. So until we figure out economically to shut
Speaker 1: systems down that don't want to cooperate, it will continue
Speaker 1: to happen because nobody's doing anything out of the kindness
Speaker 1: of their heart. It's all will, political will, or you know,
Speaker 1: the will of the almighty dollar. Right, So you you
Speaker 1: don't believe that like the guys that are in the bubble,
Speaker 1: the basketball players and they wearing the Black Lives Matter
Speaker 1: T shirt and they say say her name to keep
Speaker 1: mentioning Brianna Taylor the w NBA. Do you believe that's
Speaker 1: had an impact? Do you when they kneel for the
Speaker 1: national anthem, do you believe that like some obviously there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people in the black community understands
Speaker 1: why they're kneeling, why they're wearing the T shirts. But
Speaker 1: do you believe that that some of that is trickled
Speaker 1: into the white community and they're asking themselves, we really
Speaker 1: have a problem here in America that we really need
Speaker 1: to deal with that we hadn't adequately dealt with before. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's it's it's working on a lot
Speaker 1: of levels. Yeah, it is bringing a lot of awareness.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a double edged sword, uh, in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, because it is you know, keeping people
Speaker 1: looking and seeing it visually, you know, in their face.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's also you know, kind
Speaker 1: of getting back to normal. And you know, back to
Speaker 1: normal is a bad word to me because I don't
Speaker 1: want to go back to before George Floyd right now,
Speaker 1: I don't I'm not trying to go back there, you know,
Speaker 1: I just want to go forward. I want to go
Speaker 1: to the future, and back to normal ain't the future.
Speaker 1: So that's what I just don't gig back to normal
Speaker 1: feel of it. But it is, you know, creating more awareness.
Speaker 1: And you know, we get frustrated because things don't happen
Speaker 1: as fast as we want them to. But I'm feeling
Speaker 1: that a lot of people understand the need to change
Speaker 1: that didn't even want to hear it, hear us out
Speaker 1: before George Floyd. They do now understand that it's a
Speaker 1: need for change because this protest went all over the
Speaker 1: world and it's still going. It's still going, and it's
Speaker 1: still growing and up in places where they thought it
Speaker 1: was settled down. So you know, they know any little
Speaker 1: thing can have people back in the streets and have
Speaker 1: us back in square one, so to speak. But they
Speaker 1: had four hundred years to try to figure this out.
Speaker 1: But see, here's the thing. The problem, a lot of
Speaker 1: problems that I have is this is that they always
Speaker 1: will what do you want us to do? You never
Speaker 1: you never asked the victim, well to tell the perpetrator,
Speaker 1: Now this is what what could I have done? To
Speaker 1: so make sure you don't harm me. What you could
Speaker 1: I have done to make sure you don't victimize me.
Speaker 1: But that's what they ask us, Shannon, What do you
Speaker 1: want us to do? You put us in this situation.
Speaker 1: Go back, go back to sixteen nineteen, when you brought
Speaker 1: us here, robbed the fuzz our humanity, robbed us of
Speaker 1: our dignity, robbed us of our name, robbed the fuzz
Speaker 1: our religion, of our of our language, treated us less than,
Speaker 1: told us we were less than, gave us nothing. Let's
Speaker 1: go back. Let's start with that treat us. You say,
Speaker 1: all men to created equal. You you hanged on the Bible,
Speaker 1: you say, oh the Bible, say love that neighbor as
Speaker 1: that self. You you, you, you, you do do all
Speaker 1: this stuff. But then when it comes to a black man,
Speaker 1: you treat it less than it. And you've always treated
Speaker 1: them left dand but now you want me to tell
Speaker 1: you how what you can do to make it right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's part of what I call a stall game.
Speaker 1: You know, It's like keep stalling, keep figuring out a
Speaker 1: way to perpetuate the same thing. You know, keep the
Speaker 1: status quo or whatever you give them, take it back systematically,
Speaker 1: you know, in the years to come, right, So there's
Speaker 1: always been a trick, there's always been of you know
Speaker 1: something where they could really pull back on anything they
Speaker 1: give because it's people who want to perpetuate this system,
Speaker 1: a system of white supremacy that you know has have
Speaker 1: them feeling superior. And you know, people give you a
Speaker 1: lot of things, but it's hard to people to give
Speaker 1: you power. And that's what they have to give up
Speaker 1: a little bit of power because we're not power hungry people,
Speaker 1: you know, we're we're not people who just want to
Speaker 1: run everything. And now we see we're people who don't
Speaker 1: mind enjoying sometimes when other people run it as long
Speaker 1: as we get what we need. And so I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's a worry, but you know, exploiting us
Speaker 1: is lucrative, and so a lot of people want to
Speaker 1: keep those systems in place because it's lucrative. Because here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Let's just say for the next four hundred years,
Speaker 1: black people rolls the power and did to white America
Speaker 1: what they did to black and other minorities, the Native
Speaker 1: American communities. They're like, oh, they couldn't stomach it. You know,
Speaker 1: it would never happen because it's not in our nature. No, no,
Speaker 1: people like that, that's not how we're very forgiving people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would never happen. So that's something that we couldn't
Speaker 1: We couldn't conjure up something like that to uh, to
Speaker 1: do people like that. So that that's a worry that
Speaker 1: that they can just forget. They can sleep good at
Speaker 1: because if you look at the situation where the female
Speaker 1: police officer I think it was dollars and she goes
Speaker 1: into the gentleman's house, both of them john, and she
Speaker 1: kills it. And the brother at the trial walks over
Speaker 1: and hugs her, says, I forgive you. Do you leave?
Speaker 1: If the shoe was on the other foot, that would
Speaker 1: have happened to you. You never know, man, You know
Speaker 1: some people they break free of all this, you know this,
Speaker 1: these chains of racism, So you never know. But I
Speaker 1: know we are very giving people, and you know, we
Speaker 1: just want to do something to be ce. Do I
Speaker 1: have to forgive you to borrow? Can it take like
Speaker 1: six months? Can it take a year? Me? You know,
Speaker 1: somebody kill my people. I don't know if I'm gonna
Speaker 1: forget it. But it's some forgiving people out here. It is.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, you know, when it comes to
Speaker 1: us as a people, if you give us our fair share,
Speaker 1: we're extremely loyal and you know some of us won't
Speaker 1: lead a job were standing in fifty years if you
Speaker 1: keep us exactly. And so that's just the kind of
Speaker 1: people we are. You treat us right, we're very loyal,
Speaker 1: and you treat us wrong with a problem. So I
Speaker 1: don't understand why they haven't figured this out. Before we
Speaker 1: move on, you mentioned police reform. The police unions are
Speaker 1: very very powerful to you. It's the problem death and that.
Speaker 1: But these police unions are gonna be hard to break,
Speaker 1: and I believe that is the prous of your problem. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean I love unions until they abuse the system too.
Speaker 1: You know, people union up so they can you know,
Speaker 1: make sure they're being treated fair by the company or
Speaker 1: an employer or whatever. But when they get the numbers,
Speaker 1: if they start doing the same thing, or if they
Speaker 1: start taking advantage because they got the numbers and you
Speaker 1: can't fire nobody and these type of things, uh, it
Speaker 1: just defeats the purpose, and you know, they become the problem.
Speaker 1: And so police unions, you know, you play with a guy,
Speaker 1: did you play with Bill romomous I did play Romo
Speaker 1: Romo when he was on your team. You probably loved them.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. We we had issues because I think, and
Speaker 1: you know the thing is, I would talk, I said,
Speaker 1: and I was I was like Romo, a lot of
Speaker 1: the things you do are unnecessary. But it wasn't until
Speaker 1: the incident with J. J. Stope, which was the breaking
Speaker 1: point for me. And although he did not do it
Speaker 1: to me, he did it to a man that looked
Speaker 1: like me, and I think, so we had a conversation
Speaker 1: even if we had a team meeting to you, we
Speaker 1: had a team meeting to god boy, that thing with Fraction.
Speaker 1: I had to have a twenty thirty minute combo with
Speaker 1: Romo outside of the team meeting because I was so
Speaker 1: upset being Maybe it just hit me differently. I think
Speaker 1: being from the South and having a man spitting your face,
Speaker 1: especially a white man, it does something different to you.
Speaker 1: It does something that that crossed the line. That crossing
Speaker 1: the line. Let's go up to the games before that incident.
Speaker 1: You know he would be when he played with you.
Speaker 1: You know he got on the same helmet you got on.
Speaker 1: You could tolerated a little, yes, okay, and on the
Speaker 1: other team, you're doing it. It was like I was
Speaker 1: doing an official with Robo was holding or grabbing someone's
Speaker 1: faith mask. He on my team. It wasn't like I've
Speaker 1: let in to the official. He's holding it, he's grabbed
Speaker 1: his faith mask. So so it was just one incident
Speaker 1: where you had to you had you couldn't let that
Speaker 1: go because it was being football. Correct. Now, So I see,
Speaker 1: you know the police, they're taught to win all the
Speaker 1: civil rights stuff and I know my Constitution all that.
Speaker 1: They want to go home at night, right, that's the
Speaker 1: that's winning the game, right, So if they got a
Speaker 1: couple of Roman nooskies, that's gonna help them go home
Speaker 1: at night, they'll tolerate that, right. But when you know,
Speaker 1: you know Bills. I don't want to drag his name,
Speaker 1: but I'm just saying, when you got a guy his
Speaker 1: plan a little outside the lines, you'll tolerate them when
Speaker 1: they on your team, and you won't tolerate them when
Speaker 1: they and not on your team. So what I'm saying
Speaker 1: is sometime that mentality goes into the force and they
Speaker 1: see a guy doing a little somebody, Hey, this guy
Speaker 1: helping me make it home, and not after that, not
Speaker 1: to cut you off. After that conversation, Romo and I
Speaker 1: had a better understanding, and he knew and like I said,
Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't know what's in his heart,
Speaker 1: but I think our relationship changed after he saw how
Speaker 1: upset I was about that incident and and the things
Speaker 1: that he was doing that I thought was unnecessary. So
Speaker 1: he and I formed a referendship and a relationship after
Speaker 1: that was a lot better than before, because, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think he got he got the good stuff. Like you
Speaker 1: know what, I might have a problem in my own
Speaker 1: ranks if I continue this type of behavior. There you go,
Speaker 1: he got some understanding. And it's nothing wrong with getting
Speaker 1: some understanding, right, you know. That's what's trying to happen
Speaker 1: here between the community and the police departm Like we've
Speaker 1: had enough. I hope that they understand that, and I
Speaker 1: hope they change and get the bad guys out the
Speaker 1: ranks and then come to us with the good guys
Speaker 1: who can still do their job. And every black person
Speaker 1: I know something happened to them, they don't want to
Speaker 1: call the police to get it settled. So this is
Speaker 1: a situation where if they clean up the guys that
Speaker 1: they send to us, it won't be an issue. If
Speaker 1: they want these you know, these you know bullies, you
Speaker 1: know these these racists, these dudes who they know have
Speaker 1: no love for the community whatsoever in their heart. They
Speaker 1: keep sending those dudes, it's gonna be pushback, pushback, push back,
Speaker 1: because you think about it. You look at the police
Speaker 1: department as a team. You look at a football team.
Speaker 1: I played on a team. If you had a bad apple,
Speaker 1: what did the team try to do? Que They try
Speaker 1: to get them up out of there because they don't
Speaker 1: want that to you know, to infiltrate the team. And
Speaker 1: then you have especially if the guy as a leader.
Speaker 1: If the guy's a leader and he's a bad person,
Speaker 1: you really need to get him out of there because
Speaker 1: what he can influence others. Well, if you if you
Speaker 1: got officers that's been their team fifteen years and they're bad,
Speaker 1: what can they do? They become influence on the younger guys,
Speaker 1: and then when the younger guys get ten fifteen years,
Speaker 1: what they've been taught the behavior, Now you keep a
Speaker 1: cycle going. That's what happens, you know, and you've made
Speaker 1: a good example while you gotta get it bad a
Speaker 1: player that won't play right out there, the off the
Speaker 1: team because what is he gonna do At a critical moment,
Speaker 1: He's gonna cost you fifteen yards or more, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, At a critical moment, he's gonna cost
Speaker 1: the whole team. And that's what's happening. These bad apples
Speaker 1: are cost him the whole team. You got good cops
Speaker 1: out there being called names and being harassed and not
Speaker 1: respected because of the bad guys. Right Well, you know
Speaker 1: for me is that James Baldwin once says it, like
Speaker 1: the police officer he said, he might be a nice guy,
Speaker 1: but I ain't got time to figure that out. All
Speaker 1: I know if he got a badge and a gun,
Speaker 1: and he can take my freedom and he can take
Speaker 1: my life. So my job is can try to get
Speaker 1: him on his way as quick as possible. But if
Speaker 1: you assume every black is a threat, why shouldn't I
Speaker 1: assume every cop is bad? Because you make that assumption,
Speaker 1: I threat when we see you bring white guys in
Speaker 1: that kill people that have a R fifteens, we see
Speaker 1: our homes that shot up Denver the movie theater. They
Speaker 1: take him alive. We see Dalan Ruth, they take him alive.
Speaker 1: We see these guys that kill up that hoot people
Speaker 1: in these playing parenthoods. They bring him in alive, a
Speaker 1: guy they think, well, he made a suspicious move or
Speaker 1: he had a cell phone and you kill him. Huh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's uh, it's the value on on our lives.
Speaker 1: That's why we gotta walk around, you know, with a
Speaker 1: slogan like Black Lives Matter. You know it's it's it's
Speaker 1: the devaluation of black life from day one in America
Speaker 1: that we're still trying to fight. I'm trying to figure out,
Speaker 1: how are you nervous? How are you on edge? You
Speaker 1: got a tailor, a baton, a gun, a bulletproof vest,
Speaker 1: and a flashlight, but you view me as a thread
Speaker 1: in jeans and a T shirt. Shouldn't I be the
Speaker 1: one that's on edge? Yeah, you should be the one
Speaker 1: on edge. But you know when they you know, they
Speaker 1: got something called qualified immunity you give, you give a
Speaker 1: racist police the h the license to kill with no repercussions, right,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna take that one day. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: because because as you mentioned, qualified a mute, because they
Speaker 1: Supreme Court says you have to put yourself in that
Speaker 1: man shoot at that moment, not right now, at that moment. Well,
Speaker 1: anything that he view they say, anything that's viawty of
Speaker 1: the threat real or imagine shoe just imagine I'm in
Speaker 1: the grocery store. Oh you gave me a bad look.
Speaker 1: I filed for you. Well I felt threatened. You can't
Speaker 1: do that, but yes, for the police you can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's it's ridiculous and it's getting a lot of
Speaker 1: people killed. Yes, because officers are quick on the trigger
Speaker 1: because they't know nothing that's gonna happen, and they kill
Speaker 1: people they don't have to, and they know they're gonna
Speaker 1: walk home and not get anything done to him. So
Speaker 1: you put that in the hands of a racist officer,
Speaker 1: you got a dangerous man a woman on your hands.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the beginning. You growing up instead,
Speaker 1: you grew up in south central LA. Yeah, And if
Speaker 1: Cuban growing up, what did you what did you want
Speaker 1: to be when you became an adult? Uh? You know,
Speaker 1: when you're young, it's of course football player, play a
Speaker 1: little full back, little outside linebacker. So you know, I
Speaker 1: wanted to play football, and you know I really got
Speaker 1: to the music young about thirteen fourteen, you know, we
Speaker 1: started to you know, spray paint and pull out cardboard
Speaker 1: and try to break dance and do all the stuff
Speaker 1: that we've seen everybody else doing. And so I started
Speaker 1: getting into music real early. Never thought I could make
Speaker 1: a living at it because all the professionals to me
Speaker 1: was on the East Coast. It was in New York,
Speaker 1: a New York driven game back then, and so you know,
Speaker 1: I just thought, you know, I could just get a
Speaker 1: regular job that just don't pay off. I went to
Speaker 1: school for architectural drafting because I liked drafting when I
Speaker 1: was when I was young in school. I ended up
Speaker 1: after high school, ended up going to a trade school,
Speaker 1: and so that was cool. But the music started to
Speaker 1: take off, and that's really where my heart was, and
Speaker 1: I started to just wrong with it. So how old
Speaker 1: were you when you joined the group and how did
Speaker 1: the NWA come about? I was probably about seventeen when
Speaker 1: I when I joined in WA. We we were all
Speaker 1: in different groups. Everybody everybody without in a different group.
Speaker 1: Everybody else was doing their own thing. So how did
Speaker 1: you guys decide to come together? Well, a group that
Speaker 1: that Dre was in called Directing Crew. Dre and Yellow
Speaker 1: was in that group right, and they were kind of
Speaker 1: like they was making the most noise in La out
Speaker 1: of all of us. The world last which the Recking
Speaker 1: Creup World Class Wrecking Crew. So Linzo, who ran the
Speaker 1: Wrecking Crew, really wouldn't let Dre do the hardcore records
Speaker 1: that he really started to want to do, right, So
Speaker 1: so me and Drey started doing mix tapes and I
Speaker 1: would do the hardcore raps on the mix tapes, talking
Speaker 1: about the neighborhood. Well Easy with his Drey's old friend
Speaker 1: got one of the tapes, trapped Dray down and was like, Yo,
Speaker 1: you know I've been hustling on the street. I don't
Speaker 1: want to flip some of his money, so I want
Speaker 1: to start. I want to I want to have a
Speaker 1: label and I want to call it Ruthless Records. And
Speaker 1: so he had these groups that he was trying to
Speaker 1: get on Ruthless Records. But but he asked me to
Speaker 1: write a song for him. I wrote a song called
Speaker 1: Boys in the Hood and the group didn't want to
Speaker 1: do it because they was from New York. So Drey
Speaker 1: convinced Easy to do the song. So Easy ended up
Speaker 1: doing Boys in the Hood the song, and he was like,
Speaker 1: we should do an all star group. This is what
Speaker 1: Easy said, we should do all star group. We'll take
Speaker 1: the best out of you know, I'll be easy. We'll
Speaker 1: take Drey and Yellow out of the record crew, will
Speaker 1: take Q out of out of a group called CIA,
Speaker 1: take QUB out of that, and then we don't, you know,
Speaker 1: we just do the side group hardcore records, you know,
Speaker 1: and then y'all can't go back and do you know,
Speaker 1: slow jams and whatever y'all was doing. So we ended
Speaker 1: up doing that record, and man, it just started to
Speaker 1: pick up a minium and it was just sounding better
Speaker 1: and better and better. So we all ended up quitting
Speaker 1: our groups and just stay with art, you know, with
Speaker 1: us forming this all star group. And uh, one day
Speaker 1: they came to pick me up and Easy was like,
Speaker 1: what we're gonna call you know, he was saying what
Speaker 1: we're gonna call the group? And I said, what we're
Speaker 1: gonna call it? He said in wa I'm like what
Speaker 1: that means. When he told me what it meant, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, we're about to start some ish
Speaker 1: right now. So you know, from there we just was
Speaker 1: tight and we just was just figuring out what we
Speaker 1: need to do to start making noise in the hip
Speaker 1: hop scene. Did you know that when you joined this group,
Speaker 1: you guys were going to become What you became is
Speaker 1: that you guys are really the originator of the gangster rap,
Speaker 1: the hardcore rap. Did you know that at the time?
Speaker 1: Not at all. At the time, you know, we thought
Speaker 1: those records were gonna be They had a section in
Speaker 1: the record store what they would play all the dirty
Speaker 1: comedy records like Richard pryor you could get Eddie Murphy
Speaker 1: record over there, Red Fox. It was this dirty rapper
Speaker 1: by the name of Blowfly Dolomite. You can get all
Speaker 1: them kind of records. So we thought our record was
Speaker 1: gonna be over there in that dirty section. So when
Speaker 1: they started to put it out front where all the
Speaker 1: regular hip hop was and people just start buying it,
Speaker 1: we knew we had a style that that was unique,
Speaker 1: that was different. But you know there was other people
Speaker 1: who who was dibbling and dabbling and what I would
Speaker 1: call gangster rap. You know, you had Iced Tea out there, right,
Speaker 1: Scoomy d h. He had a song called psk Uh
Speaker 1: and then you had you know, Boogie Down Productions had
Speaker 1: did a record called Criminal Minded that he's loved that record.
Speaker 1: So it was a few people who had dibbled and
Speaker 1: dabbled in that style, right, I mean that became Iced
Speaker 1: Tea signature style. Think Iced Tea and n WA where
Speaker 1: the first two real jump offs, and then the Ghetto
Speaker 1: Boys came through, right, you know, and it was other groups.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, you know that's kind of how it
Speaker 1: jumped off and that's how it started. So when you're
Speaker 1: in a group, how do you determine who's gonna be
Speaker 1: lead on a particular song or is it like you know,
Speaker 1: like Teddy Pendagraphs when he was with you know, the
Speaker 1: blue note, like Teddy was always out there was it
Speaker 1: was you know, Harold Melbourne feature Teddy pendagraph and then
Speaker 1: Teddy got bigger than Hal and then he wanted to
Speaker 1: put him out. So how do you determine who's gonna
Speaker 1: be lead on a song? I mean you got a
Speaker 1: producer like Doctor Dre, who you know, usually arranges who's
Speaker 1: gonna wear you know, what rhyme is gonna go wear,
Speaker 1: and so you know, just kind of leaving it up
Speaker 1: to him. You know, he was a master at it
Speaker 1: on who's gonna lead Some records, I would go first,
Speaker 1: some records, Easy was on. He would go first and
Speaker 1: it was just really on him. Sometimes it determined who
Speaker 1: wrote the rock, you know. You know, I wrote a
Speaker 1: few songs that I was so long, and then we
Speaker 1: would just have Easy on at the end, Like I
Speaker 1: did a song called Gangster Gangster and Easy just comes
Speaker 1: in at the end. So we was just being real experimental.
Speaker 1: But you know, Drey was the lead producer. He would
Speaker 1: kick you off that joint if you didn't you didn't
Speaker 1: come with the right lyrics. You he'd be like, you
Speaker 1: ain't on this song? You all? So, so Drey was
Speaker 1: really like Dray way back then. Yeah, yeah, without a doubt.
Speaker 1: You know, him and DJ Yeller were they was like
Speaker 1: mad scientists with it and Drey he was a perfectionist.
Speaker 1: So if you didn't come with dope lyrics, if you
Speaker 1: didn't come with a dope delivery, he would kick you
Speaker 1: off the record. Like getting almost records, so you so
Speaker 1: you had to so basically you had the brain. He
Speaker 1: you had to bring five Yeah every time you hear
Speaker 1: the record, right, yeah, so the record is he and
Speaker 1: then you know, so a few a few times he
Speaker 1: sent us back to the drawing board. You know, he
Speaker 1: was like, man, you know, I like the first half
Speaker 1: of that rhyme, but the second half you gotta do
Speaker 1: a little say something, you gotta talk about something difference. So,
Speaker 1: you know, he was a real he was a great producer,
Speaker 1: and he just got better and better with each album.
Speaker 1: You know that he would do. He would just get
Speaker 1: better and better. You know. Now he's you know, the man.
Speaker 1: So anytime you have success and there's a group, eventually
Speaker 1: they're gonna be some bickering, They're gonna be some fighting,
Speaker 1: They're gonna be some issues. Who's getting what, who's doing what.
Speaker 1: Why did NWA break down fall apart? I think it's
Speaker 1: really because, you know, Jerry Helen, who was the manager
Speaker 1: at the time, was really loyal to Easy. You know,
Speaker 1: Easy was his guy. You know, we were like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just kind of the group, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, and and so I just think he underestimated
Speaker 1: what we really meant to the whole you know, success
Speaker 1: of Ruthless Records, right, So he just was and Easy,
Speaker 1: you know, was learning the business basically at the same
Speaker 1: time we were. When it comes to me, him and Ring,
Speaker 1: we're all learning at the same time. Even though he's
Speaker 1: older and dre and yelling at me. The business a
Speaker 1: little bit more, but nobody was experts, you know, right,
Speaker 1: so right people leaned on Jerry to you know, make
Speaker 1: make things right. And it just was a you know,
Speaker 1: one or two things that just didn't smell right. And
Speaker 1: you know, when somebody starts to, you know, lie when
Speaker 1: there's no reason to, he just makes you suspicious, okay,
Speaker 1: And then you know, the more you look, the more
Speaker 1: you find. And you know, I confronted him and they
Speaker 1: they'd rather, you know, make me the enemy, and instead
Speaker 1: of rectifying the situation, and so I left so when
Speaker 1: you could you could run to Jerry Heller, the rest
Speaker 1: of the group turned against you. Well, Jerry talked too
Speaker 1: easy right and Easy. You know, he was the head
Speaker 1: of everything. So once Easy was against me, you know,
Speaker 1: Jerry convinced Easy I was a trouble maker. So then
Speaker 1: Easily started to talk to everybody and then you know,
Speaker 1: pretty soon I was the eye man out at right
Speaker 1: end of the day. But they didn't kick you out
Speaker 1: and fast I left. I left because I was like,
Speaker 1: this ain't gonna work. They're not gonna fix it. You know,
Speaker 1: all he had to do is fix it. And what
Speaker 1: did Garry Heller need to do to make it right
Speaker 1: back you. I think he was you know, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, he was trying to give me
Speaker 1: to sign a contract that my lawyer never read. Okay,
Speaker 1: So to me, that's a bad business and it's a
Speaker 1: bad contract. You don't want my lawyer to even look
Speaker 1: at it. And you know I have a lawyer. He
Speaker 1: kept ducking me and saying, you know, I'll say it,
Speaker 1: I'll send it, I'll send it. Uh before I had
Speaker 1: the lawyer. Before I told him I had the lawyer.
Speaker 1: I had the lawyer, but I didn't tell him. I
Speaker 1: was just trying to get the contract. So I told him,
Speaker 1: I said, just send it to my mama. I thought
Speaker 1: he was gonna think, all right, send it to her,
Speaker 1: saying I know what she's looking at. They're gonna sign it,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna get it back. But he wouldn't even
Speaker 1: send it to her. I'm like, man, damn, you won't
Speaker 1: even send it to her, right you know, So we
Speaker 1: knew something was fishy, Like he can't if he can't
Speaker 1: send us the contracts, definitely can't sign nothing. Were you
Speaker 1: the only one in the group that had a lawyer
Speaker 1: outside of rufus record lawyer. I think so, but I
Speaker 1: had offered that whatever my lawyer tell me, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you guys. And you know so y'all my lawyers like,
Speaker 1: y'all law y'alln't have to get a lawyer if you
Speaker 1: don't want to, I would advise you to. But but
Speaker 1: I'll tell y'all what he's telling me. So I would,
Speaker 1: you know, talk with Ran a lot. Me and Ran
Speaker 1: the same age. We would talk a lot. Who was
Speaker 1: the youngest in the group, right, and uh so Ran
Speaker 1: knew everything that add that my lawyer was telling me,
Speaker 1: which was don't sign nothing, don't sign nothing, and so
Speaker 1: it was time to sign. I was like, I can't
Speaker 1: sign that. And it was the best move I ever.
Speaker 1: Did you leave the group? You strike out on your
Speaker 1: own death? Did they did you first? Or did you right?
Speaker 1: No vaseline me first? They did you first? Yeah, they
Speaker 1: dissed me on a record card one hundred Miles and Running.
Speaker 1: It was like an EP that they released after straight
Speaker 1: out of Compton. It was a it was a disc
Speaker 1: but it wasn't It wasn't like heavy hand. It was
Speaker 1: like a line, like a little line. So okay, it
Speaker 1: back to him. I gave it back to him a
Speaker 1: little bit on the jacket for Beats. Right at the
Speaker 1: end of Jacket for Beats, it's one line where I
Speaker 1: mentioned one hundred miles and I have your hundred miles
Speaker 1: and running right. And so when they did uh their
Speaker 1: next record, they dissed me real good, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, call me Benny to Arnold, all kind of
Speaker 1: all kind of names. So what happened? Okay, they dissed
Speaker 1: you on the line, you kind of dissed them back
Speaker 1: on the line. Did you think it was over? Okay?
Speaker 1: You said, Jordan, I said, man, I'm done, let's move
Speaker 1: on them. You thought it was over? Yeah, because I
Speaker 1: still liked them dudes. You know, they were still you know,
Speaker 1: I had a problem with Easy and Jerry, but I
Speaker 1: still I'm still cool with Dre and Yella and n Wright,
Speaker 1: DLC and them dudes. I was still hanging around. I saw.
Speaker 1: I was just surprised that they would like take again.
Speaker 1: So they dissed you heavy. I mean, they came with it,
Speaker 1: you like, I got to come back hard. How long
Speaker 1: did it take you to write no Vassili? It took
Speaker 1: me ninety minutes. Ninety minutes ninety minutes. So that so
Speaker 1: another word that had been brewing. You knew, you knew
Speaker 1: they were gonna come back. If it only took you
Speaker 1: ninety minutes, you knew they were gonna come back. So
Speaker 1: you've been plotting, You've been lading and waiting. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like that. It was I was. I was mad. I
Speaker 1: had build up, right, I was on a boat that
Speaker 1: the one of the heads of Priority Records. He took
Speaker 1: me on a boat because you know, I had went
Speaker 1: in there with a bat and and like tore up
Speaker 1: the company, like right, So we was trying to smooth
Speaker 1: things out. So he was saying, I want to play
Speaker 1: this for you. I want to be the first one
Speaker 1: to play it for you. And he played me to
Speaker 1: this that they did to me. But we still had
Speaker 1: two or three hours on this boat, which I didn't
Speaker 1: want to be on no more. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: take me back. I'm ready to ride a rhyde take
Speaker 1: me back. So I had like two or three hours
Speaker 1: to build up. For about a time I got to
Speaker 1: my room, to my equipment, pain and pad. It just
Speaker 1: all came out and I got interrupted a few times.
Speaker 1: So it probably would I probably would have wrote it faster.
Speaker 1: My sister didn't interrupt me a few times. So how
Speaker 1: was your style different than Easy, different than Drade? What
Speaker 1: was your style? I mean who who did you draw inspiration? Bro? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I used to like hardcore rhynders. You know, I would
Speaker 1: like Mellie Mail like a iced tea caress One Chuck
Speaker 1: D Run from un DMC. You know the ferocious rappers,
Speaker 1: the riders that that really kind of came at you.
Speaker 1: You know, it was a style that you know, those
Speaker 1: different styles floating around, you know rock Him and EPM
Speaker 1: dy Usher than that's that that calm, you know style
Speaker 1: of rhyman where you didn't have to be as ferocious
Speaker 1: in the mine. And you know, then you had the
Speaker 1: rappers who were smooth, you know, the heavy ds of
Speaker 1: the world, you know, salting Peppers, you know people who
Speaker 1: were you know, just a little more style. You know,
Speaker 1: slick Ricks of the world who were and Dan and
Speaker 1: Danes were super creative. So you know, so that that
Speaker 1: would be my style. You know that that Carras one
Speaker 1: Chuck d you know, ferocious in your face kind of
Speaker 1: hip hop. Who are you? Who are your top five
Speaker 1: greatest rappers of all time? And I just named them
Speaker 1: all I got. You know, it's hard to put him
Speaker 1: in the greatest of all time, you know, but but
Speaker 1: like our favorite m sees in the world are melody
Speaker 1: male because he ushered in you know, a serious you know,
Speaker 1: a commentary about the neighborhood heist tea. You know, a
Speaker 1: dude from LA who put La on the map when
Speaker 1: it comes to being you know, top notch pro MC
Speaker 1: like like there was all through New York Chuck d
Speaker 1: because of subject matter right and delivery carras one, you know,
Speaker 1: once again styled delivery flow subject matter you know l
Speaker 1: coo J just to me the young femine. You know,
Speaker 1: he was all Lebron, right, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: He was all lebron just you know, sixteen seventeen, eighteen
Speaker 1: years old, just at the height of rock, you know,
Speaker 1: so and and had sustained it his whole career as
Speaker 1: far as you know, just being able to you know,
Speaker 1: transcend eras and you know he's still the man on
Speaker 1: TV now, you know, and still can you know we
Speaker 1: did uh this little see kings out of mac back here.
Speaker 1: You know that that was you know l headline, me
Speaker 1: Publican and me and day our souls so you know
Speaker 1: that's that's like creaming the crop when it comes to
Speaker 1: hip hop. How different is it writing a throng as
Speaker 1: the post to writing a movie? I mean, you failed,
Speaker 1: it took How long did it take you the right Friday?
Speaker 1: For If it took me about three months to write Friday?
Speaker 1: You know I had I had a help of course
Speaker 1: from DJ Pooh, but also had had a lot of
Speaker 1: help from from a manager I had named Pat Charbonet.
Speaker 1: She's also a producer on the movie, you know, between
Speaker 1: cool and her. Uh, you know about three months of us,
Speaker 1: you know, me writing, sending the pages, then giving me feedback,
Speaker 1: and you know, the process take about three months till
Speaker 1: we had something we felt okay, this is a movie
Speaker 1: we can go shoot. So how long So it take
Speaker 1: you three months to write Friday? How long would it
Speaker 1: take you to write an album, A complete the song,
Speaker 1: an album? You know, I don't really put a time
Speaker 1: limen on right now album, you know, I don't. I don't.
Speaker 1: I just kind of go with the inspiration. You know,
Speaker 1: when you've been in the game as long as I've
Speaker 1: been in the game, you don't really want to reach
Speaker 1: for inspiration. You want it to just come to you right,
Speaker 1: you know, and then you do songs as the inspiration comes.
Speaker 1: So so you might write a song, so it might
Speaker 1: take I write one song one day and then take
Speaker 1: two or three days off write another, or you might
Speaker 1: go half a song. So it's not like you're just
Speaker 1: fitting down every single day, putting pain the pad. No. No,
Speaker 1: I think that's forcing it. And I think you know,
Speaker 1: a song will come to you. And to me, the
Speaker 1: best songs are the fastest that you write. You know,
Speaker 1: if it take if it take you a long time
Speaker 1: to write the song, it's probably not as good as
Speaker 1: a song that that you can write like that, because
Speaker 1: you know, it's just to me, that's just how the
Speaker 1: inspiration comes. When you've got a good song, it just
Speaker 1: pours out. When you're forcing it, you have to, you know,
Speaker 1: dig it out. And I don't like digging out songs.
Speaker 1: I like to I like to write a song, let
Speaker 1: it flow, and then go record it, you know, find
Speaker 1: the music for it, go record it, and then I
Speaker 1: might sit on that song. I might sing on a
Speaker 1: song for the year two three years. What yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because well, you know, put it out when it's right,
Speaker 1: or when the time is right, or when the out,
Speaker 1: you know, make that part of an album. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to just throw songs out every time
Speaker 1: I'm finish them, right. Sometimes I like to keep them
Speaker 1: and make sure that they first of all, I like
Speaker 1: to make sure they're gonna stand the test a time
Speaker 1: for me, you know, and then then I'll put them out.
Speaker 1: So I got different, different styles and different techniques, but
Speaker 1: always let it flow. How different is the rap game
Speaker 1: that you came up in compared to the rap game today. Well,
Speaker 1: when I first came up, there was you know, people
Speaker 1: who would usher you into the game. There was certain
Speaker 1: avenues that you felt like you had to go through
Speaker 1: to even be taking serious. So you know, people weren't
Speaker 1: rocking around pressing records up, you know, just without without
Speaker 1: really thinking long hard pressing you on the record, making
Speaker 1: sure the record is is good enough to press and
Speaker 1: just really running you through the ring. And before you
Speaker 1: could do a record right, you know, as hip hop
Speaker 1: came and more independent labels came out, that became a
Speaker 1: little looser. So that was the game back then. Now
Speaker 1: you know, you could be in your own you did
Speaker 1: the track, and you can put it out all over
Speaker 1: the world. That man so there's really nothing holding a
Speaker 1: hartist back from being creative. Uh might hold you back
Speaker 1: from from chasing the money and finding the money, but
Speaker 1: being a creative person and putting something out in the world,
Speaker 1: nothing is holding you back. And when we were coming up,
Speaker 1: it would be obstacles that if you didn't cross, or
Speaker 1: it was threshold you didn't you didn't cross, you wasn't
Speaker 1: going to be heard or seen. You're just gonna have
Speaker 1: a demo. So it's just a new game, man. You know,
Speaker 1: anybody can to be creative and put our music. So
Speaker 1: do you need a record label, do you need a deal?
Speaker 1: Or can you do all of that on your own?
Speaker 1: You know, everything is promotion and you can do it
Speaker 1: on your own. But if you don't really have the
Speaker 1: money to promote it, it's gonna be a big uphill battle,
Speaker 1: which is finn. You know, some artists got to do
Speaker 1: what they gotta do, right. Most artists want to be
Speaker 1: discovered by the label and and a lot of a
Speaker 1: little or the dirty work is done for you, right,
Speaker 1: and you kind of come in on a different plateau, right,
Speaker 1: and so you can try to go up from there.
Speaker 1: So but to me, it's no magic formula, man, you know,
Speaker 1: Soldier Boy became a star from creating that, you know,
Speaker 1: the Superman in his room, right, you know, and so
Speaker 1: there's nothing that that can hold you back if you're
Speaker 1: super creative and people just got to hear your stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, if you got that time make yourself known.
Speaker 1: You obviously you've been in the game and you understand
Speaker 1: the game. But it seems to be now that the
Speaker 1: rappers and the artists today like realize that only your
Speaker 1: masters's where it's at. And it seems to me that
Speaker 1: they're trying to incorporate that. Whereas before, guys, I just
Speaker 1: want to I just want to produce, I just want
Speaker 1: to sing, I want to do music. I want to
Speaker 1: get an album out, and they forgot about that. Is
Speaker 1: that worth? Is that worth hitting? Now? Well? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if you really look back and think about it,
Speaker 1: you know, most people come in the game and not
Speaker 1: even think about masters or thinking of think about They
Speaker 1: just want to be on the radio, they want to
Speaker 1: be at the cancer, they want to do a video,
Speaker 1: you know, do those things. And once you're in the
Speaker 1: game a little while, you realize, you know, why is
Speaker 1: everybody getting money except me? And then you realize if
Speaker 1: you don't own the masters or the publishing, the money's
Speaker 1: gonna go elsewhere. But I think artists have discovered that
Speaker 1: from the beginning of the time. You know, you have
Speaker 1: artists going all the way back and fighting for their masters.
Speaker 1: You know, you have artists, you know, they come into
Speaker 1: game owning their masters, you know, like the Masterpiece of
Speaker 1: the World and uh uh Luke, you know, Luke Skywalker,
Speaker 1: Luke Campbell, Luke the Campbell owning his master's easy, you know,
Speaker 1: owned his masters. So you know, death Row and and
Speaker 1: and you know, I believe James Brown owned a lot
Speaker 1: of his masters. So artists have fought for this from
Speaker 1: the beginning of the time. But it's just you know,
Speaker 1: either have the leverage to to get it or you don't.
Speaker 1: If you, you know, are doing something on your own
Speaker 1: and they come to you and need to get it
Speaker 1: from you, like they had to do with Master p
Speaker 1: who's doing his own thing, then you can walk in
Speaker 1: there owning your masters from day one. You know, if
Speaker 1: you go sign with a label, they're gonna own the
Speaker 1: masters because they're putting up all the risk. So it
Speaker 1: depends on you know, independent there's a hard way, but
Speaker 1: you you start off own and that's the key, owning ownership.
Speaker 1: So I think it's something artists can always fight for,
Speaker 1: you know, to the end of end of music. So
Speaker 1: what who do you like today? If you're in your car,
Speaker 1: you're riding around, who are you listening to? Man? You know,
Speaker 1: thank god I got the eye, uh you know that
Speaker 1: the iPad, so I can listen to oldies. I'm listening
Speaker 1: to everything. That's what's cool. You know, I can listen
Speaker 1: to everything right now. And you know I'm still you know,
Speaker 1: bumping that easy Brother's greatest hits. So you know, I
Speaker 1: ain't really worried about the new artists right now. That's
Speaker 1: how I listened to the grooves. I listen to the
Speaker 1: old stuff, but I ain't got it there anymore. Cube,
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna even like, don't worry about it. Man,
Speaker 1: you know, you know what you like and man, as
Speaker 1: long as it's still around, then then you're a happy man.
Speaker 1: You're doing the music. You're good in the music. When
Speaker 1: did you know you wanted to do acting? I didn't know,
Speaker 1: you know, I was just stubborn by John Singleton. He
Speaker 1: really saw me, you know, as dough boy, and he
Speaker 1: saw me like, yo, I'm doing this movie and you
Speaker 1: perfect for it. And that's how he came at me.
Speaker 1: And for two years I kind of didn't take him
Speaker 1: serious until he finally sent a script and and when
Speaker 1: I walked in and saw that he was actually shooting
Speaker 1: this movie, that's the first time I said, okay, okay, damn,
Speaker 1: I I guess I'm gonna be an actor. And so, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, thank God for John Singleton, rest in peace
Speaker 1: that he uh, you know, he pursued me, you know,
Speaker 1: and he did that with a lot of dudes. You know,
Speaker 1: busting rhymes put him in a movie, and you know,
Speaker 1: he worked a lot with too Pok. So he he
Speaker 1: was always going to the artists, and you know, they
Speaker 1: put Jane Jackson in the movie. He always saw in
Speaker 1: artists movie stars. And you know, thank god, even Tyrese.
Speaker 1: You you put Tyrese in the movie who came from music.
Speaker 1: So this dude just saw something in us as entertainers
Speaker 1: and stepped up and made us movie stars. So once
Speaker 1: you got cast in that movie, the acting bug hit
Speaker 1: it bit. Yes, yeah, man, I mean boys in the Head.
Speaker 1: This is my first movie. The movie went to the
Speaker 1: can Film Festival in the South of France, right so
Speaker 1: you know, we young, and I got my wife with me,
Speaker 1: see my girlfriend at the time. But we're in the
Speaker 1: South of France. Man, you live loved life right now. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh man, I'm a movie star. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like ROSI and we did a screening. I was
Speaker 1: nervous at the screening because here we was showing a
Speaker 1: movie that I wasn't sure that America would get, you know,
Speaker 1: Boys in the Hood. Here it was about to be
Speaker 1: shown with subtitles in French. So I'm like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: these people ain't gonna understand what this movie is really
Speaker 1: trying to say. Eddie Murphy was there, Quincy Jones was there,
Speaker 1: and they showed a movie and we get a Standing
Speaker 1: innovation man, And so I was like, okay, this the
Speaker 1: movie has power that the music has. It has the
Speaker 1: power to show people a world that that they have
Speaker 1: never seen before. So from then on, I wanted to
Speaker 1: do movies. But one is through worth, the other through picture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's you know, I do music, but when it
Speaker 1: comes to movies, there's no bigger canvas and artists can
Speaker 1: can paint on the you know, in a movie screen.
Speaker 1: When you say you took you took your three months
Speaker 1: to write Friday. Did you know Friday was gonna be Friday?
Speaker 1: I was hoping it would. You know, when you grow
Speaker 1: up in the Hood, you got your classics, you got
Speaker 1: your yeah, you know, your uptas Saturday Nights, you got
Speaker 1: your coolie hides. Yep, you know what I mean. You
Speaker 1: got car wash movies, car washs. These movies are kloeen.
Speaker 1: That's just staples in your in your household. You know that,
Speaker 1: you know, these are movies that that your family love,
Speaker 1: you love you can watch over and over again. Right, So,
Speaker 1: right when I start getting in the movies, I said, man,
Speaker 1: we need a Hood classic. We need we need one
Speaker 1: of the movies that they love us for Like we
Speaker 1: love car Washing, right, we love you know ron On
Speaker 1: Neil Right, they're super flyer. He was a king, you
Speaker 1: know to us. You know. So so we was like, man,
Speaker 1: we gotta have one of those. You know. I felt
Speaker 1: Boys in the Hood was a good a good one,
Speaker 1: but I wanted one that was a comedy that that
Speaker 1: people can laugh and have fun with. So we went
Speaker 1: out to write Friday for it to be that Hood classic.
Speaker 1: We never knew that there would be so many people
Speaker 1: around the world that would love that. That that real
Speaker 1: Hood classic. You know, Brouh Friday is the godfather of
Speaker 1: the Hood classics. If every if it everybody's top five,
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't matter that's in the top when
Speaker 1: you say, okay, give me a top five. You know,
Speaker 1: when we talk amongst ourselves, Friday is in there. Friday
Speaker 1: in there. People like Friday and House Party. I love
Speaker 1: Players Club. I bet hey, but you gotta you gotta have.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of the people that you've cast.
Speaker 1: You've casted some great comedians. You had Bernie Matt, you
Speaker 1: had Witherson John Witherspoon when you did you and this
Speaker 1: was before Bernie Mac came Bernie Matt. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I love to put people in a position to win
Speaker 1: and so they can showcase their talent. You know, Russell
Speaker 1: Simmons was doing it with Death Comedy Jam, you know,
Speaker 1: introducing a lot of people who you probably would never
Speaker 1: see unless you went to a black comedy club. You know.
Speaker 1: So I saw Bernie on and Chris Tucker on that
Speaker 1: Death Comedy Jam, and I'm like, man, these dudes need
Speaker 1: to be an emotion pitch. If I ever have power
Speaker 1: to do a movie, I'm putting these dudes in the movie.
Speaker 1: And I saw the same thing with Jamie Fax with
Speaker 1: Players Club, you know, and I'm one of the first
Speaker 1: guys to kill Jamie in the movie. So you know,
Speaker 1: I just would see these you know, hilarious people that
Speaker 1: I thought, like, yo, I'm not a comedian, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna surround myself body's top comedians and let them go
Speaker 1: off and let them do their things. See that's the key,
Speaker 1: Like if I was a comedian, I was feel intimidated
Speaker 1: by how many laughs this one is getting in, that
Speaker 1: one is getting it, So I would suppress that, make
Speaker 1: sure I was getting on the laughs. But by me
Speaker 1: not worrying about that, I let this guys shine, you know,
Speaker 1: for Cat Williams, my gaps. You know, just let them
Speaker 1: go and blow and do their thing, and you know
Speaker 1: they're going on to have great careers, man, and I'm
Speaker 1: really proud of But the thing about a comedian is
Speaker 1: that they really at that beast when they add live
Speaker 1: with the improvisation. So how much do you let them
Speaker 1: go as opposed to what you've actually written. I always,
Speaker 1: you know, think you gotta start with a great script.
Speaker 1: You know, if the script is not making you laugh
Speaker 1: out loud. You should keep writing because a comedian a
Speaker 1: great comedian and not only take that line you wrote,
Speaker 1: but he'll piggyback off that and continue to ride with
Speaker 1: the ad libs. So if you give him a great
Speaker 1: jump off point, then they'll start running with the ad
Speaker 1: libs and then they'll come back to the script. Right,
Speaker 1: And so that's the that's the key to my movies.
Speaker 1: And so I would say about seventy percent of it
Speaker 1: is written, but thirty percent is you know, letting guys
Speaker 1: do what they do. Because when I look at when
Speaker 1: I look at Bernie Mack and playing Dollar Bill in
Speaker 1: the Players Club, yeah, he and Jamie Foxx playing Blue
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. You know, that's one of the most underrated
Speaker 1: performances of Bernie Mack in the Players Club. He went off,
Speaker 1: they went off, you know. And so I wrote the
Speaker 1: movie with him in mind. You know, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't have nobody else in my head, but uh but Bernie, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'm glad he took it and he ran with it.
Speaker 1: And no, I'm just proud probably to be a part
Speaker 1: of their career and proud to show people, you know
Speaker 1: what they got. You mentioned you put a lot of guys,
Speaker 1: from Jamie Foxx to Bernie Macncat Williams to John Witherspoon,
Speaker 1: Michael Clark, Duncan began Good U, T J. Johnson. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many. I mean, I'm thinking back. That might
Speaker 1: have been their first pace in the movie business. It
Speaker 1: is when you put them over. Yeah, I mean we
Speaker 1: was learning together, you know, it's it's their talent. Really,
Speaker 1: they put him on, you know, I just thank god
Speaker 1: I was in a position to showcase it right, and
Speaker 1: you know, and you know, I look at him and
Speaker 1: I see them doing their thing, you know, and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm extremely proud that they were able to take that
Speaker 1: run with it. The only thing I hate, Cube is that,
Speaker 1: uh Chris Tucker got so big he didn't come back
Speaker 1: with number two, but that the one. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if somebody's gonna ever come out with
Speaker 1: a Hood classic better than Friday, I don't know, because
Speaker 1: I don't know how they do it. I really don't hate,
Speaker 1: you know. Like I said, we did that movie in
Speaker 1: twenty days and it was magic. Every day, Like every
Speaker 1: day we felt like, damn, this is special, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like because everybody, everybody is funny in the movie,
Speaker 1: from from from from Smokey to you, to to Dad
Speaker 1: to a big worm to uh, Smokey's mom. Everybody is funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everybody got a chance to do the thing. And it
Speaker 1: was beautiful to do and and and to see it.
Speaker 1: You know, this is the first movie that I ever
Speaker 1: wrote and produced, so it was it was new to us,
Speaker 1: and and so we were we were really just having fun.
Speaker 1: And and you know, lucky we had somebody as good
Speaker 1: as Gary Gray to capture it and shoot it and
Speaker 1: direct it. And you know, we were just like, man,
Speaker 1: this is this is a movie we want people to
Speaker 1: watch every Friday if they want to, you know, kick back,
Speaker 1: and this is just gonna be one of those movies
Speaker 1: that you gotta keep in your rotation. If it comes
Speaker 1: on TV, I'm watching it. If it comes on I'm white,
Speaker 1: I don't care. I can't be flipping the channel. Then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden that movie is on because I'm up,
Speaker 1: say there. I mean, it's a special movie in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. You know, it's a movie that most
Speaker 1: people don't detect, but it's it's the day the bullet
Speaker 1: gets beat up and everybody remembers and loves that day
Speaker 1: when the bullet gets finally get it what he deserves.
Speaker 1: So that movie has a lot of special specialness to
Speaker 1: with just on other tips that people don't even really
Speaker 1: detect most of the time. Oh yeah, and Regina King
Speaker 1: was in the movie. The a longer than the movie. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But let me ask you a question. When you have
Speaker 1: such great success and you write Friday and it's beloved,
Speaker 1: do you run into the things like I gotta write
Speaker 1: another Friday? Because a lot of people say what happened
Speaker 1: to Michael is that when he wrote Thriller, he was
Speaker 1: always looking for the next album to sell twenty five million.
Speaker 1: And that's not always the case. Sometimes you have it,
Speaker 1: you have you write something, you do something that you're
Speaker 1: never gonna be recreated, and you have to be okay
Speaker 1: with that. That doesn't mean you stop trying, but that
Speaker 1: means you have to be okay with that. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's a moment in time right now, you catch
Speaker 1: lighting in the bottle as they say, you know, I
Speaker 1: had violent mont to even do another Friday, but the
Speaker 1: fans had loved it so much right that I said, Well,
Speaker 1: if I'm an entertainer. My job is to get the
Speaker 1: people what they want, entertain the people, not just what
Speaker 1: I want, to give them what they want, right, So
Speaker 1: I worked hard at work, right, and you know the
Speaker 1: next Friday, which introduced Mike Ups, you know, and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know Peaky, you know all the other you know
Speaker 1: characters that you end up loving. So, you know, but
Speaker 1: I never felt that I was chasing the first one,
Speaker 1: even with you know the barber shops, right, you know,
Speaker 1: we did that. The first one was yeah, it was
Speaker 1: it was, you know, a home run epic in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. But with two or three, I never
Speaker 1: felt I was chasing it. I always felt like, I
Speaker 1: need to do a standalone movie. So if one never existed,
Speaker 1: two has to stand on it and be a comprehensive
Speaker 1: its own thing and not just borrow off the jokes
Speaker 1: from the first one. And so that's what I really
Speaker 1: worked at doing, is making each movie standing on his
Speaker 1: own funny and not just regurgitate jokes from the last one. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, the only thing you're gonna see in all
Speaker 1: of them is you got knocked up out, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. You see that in all of them.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, you can watch three and
Speaker 1: never seen two or one, or you can watch two
Speaker 1: and never seen either of them and still and still
Speaker 1: enjoy the movie as as its own than I love
Speaker 1: Rowie Fanclaus through Ricky Smiley. Yeah you know Ricky. You know,
Speaker 1: he a comedian. He wasn't used to doing all that
Speaker 1: physical comedy. So by the end of me whooping him
Speaker 1: with that Christmas tree, Ricky was about done with my ass.
Speaker 1: He was like, man, man, how many more times you
Speaker 1: gotta hit me with this trip? We gotta gave another angle, man,
Speaker 1: a couple more angles and we'll let you go. Man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he was the man, and you put Terry Crews in, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Terry Crews. I had met him on next Friday. He
Speaker 1: was doing security right outside my trailer and we just
Speaker 1: talked and he's good dude. And now I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, if I ever need a big I
Speaker 1: ever need a debot part two, I'm I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: this dude. So when we when we thought of Damon
Speaker 1: as you know, the landlord's son who just you know,
Speaker 1: it was like, yeah, yeah, he's perfect, he's perfect. So
Speaker 1: what's what's next. I know the pandemic is going and
Speaker 1: so there's not a whole lot of production going on.
Speaker 1: So what's next for Q? Is it? Is it a record?
Speaker 1: Is it a movie? What do you have on the horizon?
Speaker 1: Got a couple of things, you know, up under my
Speaker 1: under my sleeve, working on something. I can't really talk
Speaker 1: about it right now, but it's it's real cool and
Speaker 1: it's on the music tip. But as far as movies,
Speaker 1: we we was in the middle of a movie called
Speaker 1: Flint Flint Strong, you know about the Clarissa Shields who's uh,
Speaker 1: you know boxing female boxing was her story and I
Speaker 1: was playing, uh, Jason Clutchfield, who who's a trainer, and
Speaker 1: so we was in the middle of that or just starting,
Speaker 1: so you know, hopefully we'll be able to jump back
Speaker 1: on that song, finish that movie up. Talking to DJ
Speaker 1: Caruso about doing another movie called The Killers Game, but
Speaker 1: we'll see how that come come about. So you know
Speaker 1: that that is like what I'm doing on the professional tip,
Speaker 1: But personally, it's really all about, you know, fighting with
Speaker 1: this contract with Black American trying to get trying to
Speaker 1: get some freedom and equality for our people here, and
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just fighting that with all my heart.
Speaker 1: A few more thankful, I let you go cue. Your
Speaker 1: son follows your footstep. I think a part of us
Speaker 1: all want our sons to do what we did. If
Speaker 1: you're a lawyer, you want your son to be a lawyer.
Speaker 1: You're a doctor, you want to be a doctor. I
Speaker 1: professional athlete. You would like to see him following your footsteps.
Speaker 1: Did you ever think your son would follow in your footsteps?
Speaker 1: I never thought that. You know, I've never pushed my
Speaker 1: kids to be a part of entertainment. You know, I
Speaker 1: think that's something that you It's a dream that you
Speaker 1: have your own right in your own and and then
Speaker 1: you do what it takes to get it. You know,
Speaker 1: with this situation, you know, we had an opportunity to
Speaker 1: do the straight out of Company movie. Right I knew
Speaker 1: they were casting it. I knew I had took my
Speaker 1: son on a lot of tours with me, and then
Speaker 1: he jumped on stage and he can he can wrap
Speaker 1: my songs, you know, not as good as me, but
Speaker 1: damn there. And so I knew he had the chops
Speaker 1: and the personality to do it, but would he take
Speaker 1: it serious? And so I put him through the ringing man.
Speaker 1: You know, two years of training and you know, acting
Speaker 1: coaches here in la and in New York and just
Speaker 1: getting them ready. And he came through and he did
Speaker 1: a great job in the movie. And really because he
Speaker 1: looks he looks like you. I mean, I mean people
Speaker 1: they actually thought it was you. He sounds like you.
Speaker 1: I mean, he did a great job. Then he showed
Speaker 1: me he was serious, which is most important because you know,
Speaker 1: to see a finished movie is cool, but to see
Speaker 1: what somebody has to go through right actually do the
Speaker 1: movie is growing. And so he ran the full marathon
Speaker 1: with a smile on his face and and happy to
Speaker 1: be a part of the business. So as a family
Speaker 1: who was just real proud of him. And then he
Speaker 1: started to get more movies off of what he did
Speaker 1: was straight out of confidence. So you know he's a
Speaker 1: bona fide actor. He working more than me. Now that yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the movie is Denner Thieves. I thought he
Speaker 1: did a job of that. I think you yeah, he
Speaker 1: was great. Now, you know that movie was a little
Speaker 1: tough to watch for me because you got these these fake,
Speaker 1: fake police. But but but you know, in the end,
Speaker 1: you know he's the man. So I'm proud of him.
Speaker 1: You know, the whole family is you say that cube
Speaker 1: is that people look at the finished product. They see
Speaker 1: the movie. And that's what I tell all you do
Speaker 1: is see the people that with an athlete winning the game.
Speaker 1: But you don't understand the off season. You don't understand
Speaker 1: the practices, you don't understand the meetings what led to
Speaker 1: the winning of the game. Man, most you know, most athletes,
Speaker 1: I play the game for free. You're paying them for
Speaker 1: all that other stuff you got them to do to
Speaker 1: sending and you know, dealing with all the books the
Speaker 1: BS is, that's what he's taking the money. Folk. But
Speaker 1: you know most you know, most of the time, you know,
Speaker 1: we enjoy to do the finished product. You know what
Speaker 1: we enjoy showtime, game time right now, that's when we
Speaker 1: know it's time to get the people what they pay for.
Speaker 1: And when you got that mentality, you always do your
Speaker 1: best and get hunting ten. And so that's the most
Speaker 1: important thing is is uh, we don't take the work
Speaker 1: for granted. That's why the finished product comes out the
Speaker 1: way it does. Cuba had a coach if we were
Speaker 1: at meeting, and he said, what I love about Shark,
Speaker 1: if that shark would play the game for free, And
Speaker 1: I said, yep, Coach you're right, but I neven know
Speaker 1: if he played for free, because I don't playing for free.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. You know, if we're all playing
Speaker 1: for free, I love I love, I love some freedom.
Speaker 1: But if we're all playing for play, I love some paydom.
Speaker 1: Exactly before I left, you go, Cube, I want to
Speaker 1: get you on this one. You know, Uh, I don't
Speaker 1: know how well you know Kanye. I think he's a
Speaker 1: great writer, he's a great his songs. I love his music,
Speaker 1: or maybe should I say I love his music? But
Speaker 1: now he's running for president? What do you make a
Speaker 1: Kanye running for president? You know, I think he, you know,
Speaker 1: started off a little too late, you know, for people
Speaker 1: to really take him all the way serious. And you know,
Speaker 1: I just hope that that you know, he's not being used,
Speaker 1: you know, and that is his decision. If it's his decision.
Speaker 1: You know, this is a free country. You can do
Speaker 1: what you want to do. But if you know people
Speaker 1: are pushing him to do it, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think that part is cool. But yeah, I just think
Speaker 1: you started off too late to really get in the
Speaker 1: gag for real. And so, you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: a moment that's gonna end up passing them by. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what are the Lakers gonna do? Everybody's bullish on the Clippers.
Speaker 1: Everybody said, Clippers got this Clippers. The Lakers gonna go
Speaker 1: out in the first round if they play Portland. Everybody's
Speaker 1: saying the Lakers are going out in the first round. Now,
Speaker 1: the Lakers won't go out in the first round. We're
Speaker 1: not worried about the Zippers. You know the Zippers, you know,
Speaker 1: they they try to steal the thunder. They try to,
Speaker 1: you know, pretend like they got a squad that can
Speaker 1: really go to the home. Mind, I've never seen him
Speaker 1: do it. So you know, they gotta show me something.
Speaker 1: The Lakers are showing you that they can make it
Speaker 1: to the top of the mound. So I'm believing in
Speaker 1: that old purple and gold. Your team is no longer
Speaker 1: in California, the team that you root for, that you
Speaker 1: admired as a kid. If you go to the game,
Speaker 1: you have fill real black, you have half, you have jacket,
Speaker 1: you have all the all the paraphernalia. Now they're in Vegas.
Speaker 1: What do you what's your rate is gonna do this season?
Speaker 1: You know, I hope they you know, at least make
Speaker 1: it to the playoffs. You want a good way, stop playing.
Speaker 1: We're gonna stop. We're gonna stop that. Uh them horses
Speaker 1: out there. Well, first of all, you know you got
Speaker 1: that that guy. They got a young quarterback in Kansas City.
Speaker 1: But homeboy, people, we'll be a wild car. No, we'll
Speaker 1: be y'all not gonna even win nine games, y'all, not
Speaker 1: even with y'all might y'all might not even win eight
Speaker 1: games que every year. You know. Terrible horse shit, that's
Speaker 1: all I got. Now we all the time we do
Speaker 1: beat We beat you guys when we really didn't have
Speaker 1: even good team last year. Imagine we're gonna be better
Speaker 1: this year. He y'are coming in new stadium. What y'all
Speaker 1: wipe the damn feet off and none of that horse
Speaker 1: stuff on your feet when you stepped into that new stadium. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: first of all, look, I mean, y'all should be used
Speaker 1: to playing in front of with no fans because there
Speaker 1: wasn't a whole lot of people showing up anyway, y'all
Speaker 1: keep moving. You moved to LA, moved to Oakland, moved
Speaker 1: back to LA, moved back to Oakland. Same thing. So
Speaker 1: now you and we still got more fans, and we
Speaker 1: still got more fans than Broncos. Moving away. They still
Speaker 1: love us, They still love us. Man. We can't do
Speaker 1: no wrong. Thank you, Matt. I appreciate it all the best.
Speaker 1: Moving forward, Thank you for giving me a few moments
Speaker 1: of your time today. Enjoy bro and man double less
Speaker 1: man you the man man much love. Appreciate you, Appreciate
Speaker 1: your brother. Yeah, all my life, running all my life,
Speaker 1: sack fights, custle, pricing. One slice got the brother dice
Speaker 1: swap all my life. I've been grinding all my life,
Speaker 1: all my life, running all my life, Sack fights, hustle,
Speaker 1: back prices, one slice got the broll dice this way
Speaker 1: all my life. I've been running all my life.