WEBVTT - QLS Classic: Dr. Mathew Knowles 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.040 Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:09.520 What's up, y'all? This is Questlove And in our recent 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:13.080 finale episode of Team Supreme, I mentioned that one of 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:17.439 my most underrated episodes of QLs is this particular one 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:24.360 right here, This QLs classic conversation with doctor Matthew Knowles, 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:29.440 father too, Beyonce and Solange, and oh I love this 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:32.120 twenty twenty one episode for so many reasons. You know, 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:37.720 doctor Knowles got incredibly real, speaking openly about the trauma 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:41.000 he's faced and how therapy helped him and heal and grow. 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:47.480 He also shared very powerful moments about physical, mental, emotional health, 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:51.360 and this one kind of resonated with me a little 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:54.639 too much. Got emotional, which is nothing wrong with that, 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:57.720 and I believe it's going to help you too. So 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:03.520 here's an encore and recap redo of the Doctor Matthew 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:05.520 Knowles episode of Question Love Supreme. 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:23.000 Enjoy, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Quest 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:23.679 Love Supreme. 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.080 I'm your host, Quest Love. We have Teams Supreme with 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:41.440 us right now. Uh fanto, how are you? I? 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:46.360 I'm Ernest and Juliaglo's brother. That's exactly now. 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:47.360 I'm good Man I'm good. 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.480 I'm chilling. I'm still still down stills down thirty one. 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:52.400 I kind of hit like a plateau, so I think 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:54.800 I'm kind of like I wait in the same thing 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:55.440 like every week. 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:57.840 But normally when I do that, the next week is 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:00.840 like I have a big drop. So I'm seeing but 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:01.520 I'm still on it. 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:05.840 Man. Yeah, I'm there with you, bro. I'm doing a 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:09.240 quarter pounds a week, so that's all. Really, That's what 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.960 I'm hitting up Flatfield right now. I'm trying to hit 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:13.800 the last sixty. 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:15.840 So but you down like, should you love them there? 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:16.360 A hundred though? 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:22.120 Right, like, yeah, one, I'm going I'm going for in 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:24.200 total one eight. I'm trying to get two hundred. 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:26.840 You're trying to come out of the house looking like 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:28.240 it's just chestnut nigga? 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:34.799 Yes? Is that why? Burn's just that's trending today? Office 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:40.840 sudden alcoh Blue. Anyway, Steve, how are you hello? Everybody? 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:42.320 Nice to be here. That's good. 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:44.000 I'm doing fine. 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:46.079 You know, I gotta ask you how you're doing. 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.880 Yeah, I'm doing good. I'm just waiting for people to 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:51.079 applaud after you say my name. 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:54.840 But that didn't happen, right, that's that's your golf clap 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:58.040 right there. Uh layah, Yeah, you're fine. 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.880 I'm good and I'm necative. I'm good as yet last year. 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:02.840 Yeah you. 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.440 Still, Yeah, because I visited a couple of places last 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:09.120 week and I was, like I was in Nashville. 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:14.040 He's a little nervous. Yeah, you know, I I'm one 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:16.240 of those people that fell I'm one of those people 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:20.320 that fall asleep, and I'm too lazy to change the 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.359 air conditioning situation. And you know, if you're a couple 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:29.680 that really doesn't agree on the proper temperature of a 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.919 particular room, you know, I'll go to sleep, sneak and 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:35.560 put it on air, and then I'll sneak and put 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:37.960 it on heat and whatnot. Yeah. So last week I 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.880 woke up with the flu, and you know, I was 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:42.880 out of my mind, right like I got it. But 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:44.720 you know, basically. 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:48.200 Old and you're still blaming the flu and stuff. 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:52.160 Like that, Okay, or maybe I got it. I don't know. 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.160 I took like six no, I took six steps. I 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:00.400 definitely don't have it. Ladies and gentlemen, I will say 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:04.240 that we've been on the air. What this this is 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:09.080 our fifth anniversary almost Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's kind 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.000 of weird that we've been doing this for five years. 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:14.000 I still feel like we're on our second or third year. Anyway, 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.960 we've been We've been on the air for about five seasons. 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:21.479 And I'll say that the seed, uh, the seed of 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:25.520 this episode was probably Planet I know that Salon's was 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:27.520 definitely one of the first twenty episodes. I think she 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.560 was like episode fifteen or early yeah, yeah, And she 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:36.520 planted the seeds in that episode basically that her her 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:42.960 dad wasn't just some random backstage dad, but rather an 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:46.680 accomplished gentleman with both his his his NBA and his 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:52.120 and his PhD and business like doctor that yeah, doctor 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.240 and master. But she also let us down the rabbit 0:04:55.240 --> 0:05:01.200 hole of his involvement in the Civil rights movement and 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:06.040 basically just told us other struggle and the sacrifice that 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:12.320 it took to ensure that the Knowle's legacy lived on 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:14.800 forever in the history books, not only with her sister, 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:17.719 but yeahs as in her father and the rest of 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:22.760 the family. I'm beyond certain that they are in mission 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.120 accomplished land right now. One hundredfold as far as being 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:30.000 in the history books. He is the creator of music, world, entertainment. 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:35.000 He's a movie producer, a college professor, a successful kids 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:40.520 label in print exec recording studio mogul, real estate tycoon, 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:44.320 cannabis company owner, Oh. 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.479 Wow podcast, did everything a president exactly. 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:51.320 He even has his own podcast. Like our first conversation 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:56.039 was me being a guest on his podcast. Not to mention, 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:01.640 you know, he is a cancer survivor, breast cancer survivor 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:05.960 and you know, yeah, incidentally father of two of the 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:12.400 most dauntless, indomitable artists recording music today. Whoever those two 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:16.080 people are, I don't know. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:23.040 finally to Course Love Supreme Doctor Matthew Knowles, Sir, Hey 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:24.240 quest Love. 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:30.360 Thank you for the introduction. Brother. I have much respect 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.919 for you, so thank you for allow me having this opportunity. 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:36.320 It was a little tough. We had a little start 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:37.760 to stop, but that's like. 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:41.680 We do the best you can in the pandemic. 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.480 Bro. Yeah, it was a commitment. I will say that 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:49.400 you you made the introduction easy because sometimes I have 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:52.720 to add a lot more broth to the to the 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:59.800 to the soup than you know deserve. You know, you 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:02.679 can became well stocked, you know, I didn't. I didn't 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:06.599 have to add any more flourishing words to your tier 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:10.440 and pressed a resume. Where are you speaking to us 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:10.840 right now? 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:16.640 From You're California in my office. We have a corporate 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:21.240 home here as well as in Houston. But I'm just 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.680 I love here because I get to you know, when 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:28.000 I was I was just shared this story today. Fifteen 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:31.440 years ago, I was in my office at Sony at 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.720 five fifty Madison, you guys know where that is. And 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:38.480 the president told me they had just hired head of 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:42.600 an R paid them five million dollars a year. And 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:44.120 I asked him, I said, why the hell did you 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:49.160 hire this guy? And he said to look out the window. 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:54.480 And it took me five about seven years to understand 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.600 truly what he meant by looking out of the window. 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:02.840 That creative space we all get into. And here it 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.400 allows me to just look out the window. 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.600 And you're saying that that that sort of environment of 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.600 looking out the window and that's where the ideas come 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:14.200 into play, or. 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:18.560 Just absolutely that's what the ideas come. That's where you know. 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:22.200 I work now, my biggest thing that I work on. 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:26.720 I'm very grateful the success of my kids and the 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:30.080 success I had in corporate America and the music industry. 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:34.160 But I work. I work on happiness. That's the number 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:37.200 one thing I work. I work on each and every 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:38.439 day is happiness. 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:41.160 How long it take you to figure that out? 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:45.880 It took me, Dawn near sixty some years to figure 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:46.240 that out. 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:47.080 Uh. 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:49.960 You know, we work so hard to get plaques and 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:53.600 b number one, and then we find ourselves in a 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:59.680 space that we lack happiness. And that's what I work on. 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:02.920 How can I be happy? And part of that is 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.360 gratitude and not doing a damn thing I don't want 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:07.600 to do. 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.000 Man, listen, Oh wow, that's Mantra. 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:14.000 That's the episode right there. Thank you very much that. 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:18.600 I remember. 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:18.920 Man. 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:21.280 I remember watching your interview you when you were on 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.440 Breakfast Club, and you know, you were talking with Charlamagne 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:26.280 and you were saying the way it was when you 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:28.679 just put out your book, which I really enjoyed, The 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:32.240 DNA of Achievers, the one did you and you were 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:36.120 talking about how, you know, people compare Beyonce versus Slange 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.000 or whatever, and you were saying how every artist has 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:42.079 to develop success on their own terms for what they 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.280 mean to be successful. And I was curious, like how 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:48.240 did you learn that lesson in your career? Like, how 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.720 did you you know, how did you make that realization? 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.959 Well? I have really great parents and they were poor, 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.839 but I never knew we were poor until I got 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:02.120 older in life, and they instilled in me the same 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:04.800 thing that I instilled in my kids, and that is 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:09.640 you can dream and dream big because the same efforts 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:12.920 and energy on a little small idea, it's the same 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:17.160 energy and efforts on the big idea. So my parents, 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.960 you know, I watched them work their day job but 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:25.440 yet be entrepreneurs on the weekends and at night. My 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:30.720 daddy was a truck driver by day, working for white folks, 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.559 and by night he convinced the white folks to let 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:35.480 him use the truck all the time, and he would 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:39.480 tear down houses and sell the metals and sell the woods, 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:44.040 scrap and yeah, scrap metals. Yeah, I see. You know that. Man. 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:47.720 I'm from North Carolina, so this is home for me. 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:55.160 The gall well, we make wine. So now I'm familiar. 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:57.400 What did your mother what was her gig? You said 0:10:57.520 --> 0:10:58.720 your dad, Well. 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:03.200 My mother was a color a colored maid. My dad 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:07.679 made thirty dollars a week as a truck driver. My 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:12.079 mom made fifteen dollars a week as a colored maid. 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:16.040 She convinced the white woman she worked for to give 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:20.520 her all of her hand me down clothes and own 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:23.920 and convinced her to ask her her friends to give 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:26.400 her the hand me down clothes. And on the weekend, 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.480 my mom and a couple of her best friends would 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:35.880 make these beautiful quotes and sell them. So I saw entrepreneurship. 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:40.760 My grandfather was on both sides and grandmother on both 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:45.840 sides were entrepreneurs. So entrepreneurship is part of our tradition 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:46.720 and our family. 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:47.960 And where did you grow up? 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:48.000 What? 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:49.640 Where's this? 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:51.600 Gaston, Alabama? 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:52.640 It's Alabama. 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:55.319 Got a little small town, you know. I grew up 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:59.600 on a dirt road with an outside bathroom until I 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:02.439 was about thirteen, fourteen years old. 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:09.080 An outhouse outhouse. Wow, Okay, yeah, I have a question. 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:11.960 You said something really crucial at the top. Well, you 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:16.079 said two crucial things. One to fine happiness, which you're right. 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.240 That's that's something that we learned later in life. I 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:23.080 noticed I think last week I forgot what I was watching. 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:28.000 But I will say that one of the biggest mistakes 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:33.080 that I think the average black household instills. And you 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:35.280 know this is not strictly just black households. I know 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:39.679 this is a universal thought. Is oftentimes parents will tell 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.240 their kids, you know, it's better to be safe than sorry. 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.520 Are you know, have have a plan, B, have a 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:51.200 bland C. But you know, oftentimes when you said that, 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:56.680 you know, following your dreams, especially when you're living kind 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:01.599 of in a poverty level or at least below what 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:06.240 the what the average what the average income is for 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.920 survival for whatever time period you're speaking of. I know 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:15.560 that oftentimes when people are in fight or flight modes 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:19.760 for survival, they often think that daydreaming is kind of 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:22.560 a waste of time. I sort of, I sort of 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:28.000 grew up in my family structure was definitely more about 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:33.000 survival than anything. My actual inner family, like my mother 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:34.960 and my father, of course they were like the dreamers 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.160 of My father was like one of nine kids, so 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.480 you know, kind of like I'll say that his family 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:47.320 was more or less about survival and in terms of 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:51.199 getting a good job, making good money, surviving, and he 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:55.160 pursued his dream. So how much of a risk is 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:59.160 it when you are living in a situation in which 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:01.760 you might not know where your next meal is coming 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:05.959 from or that sort of thing. Yeah, like most people 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.160 can't or it feel as though they can't afford to 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.280 daydream when they have bills to pay, that sort of thing. 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:16.080 So how do you like how what was different about 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:19.080 your situation than the average household? 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:24.480 Well, I share what my parents did. I like to 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:32.120 use the word rather than survival survival determination. Uh, they 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:37.920 were determined. They weren't passionate about doing their day job. 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:42.280 That was more determination to provide just like you just said, it. 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:43.160 Was a means to an end. 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.520 Right. But but my parents, you know, I think in 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:51.120 the day daydreaming process, at least for me with my kids, 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:55.000 it was always about finding that thing you were passionate 0:14:55.040 --> 0:15:01.480 about and how soon and how early you can find 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:04.600 that passion. And if you think about when we think 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:10.360 about the Williams sisters or Michael Jordan or Michael Jackson 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:16.480 or Tiger Woods, they found their passion very very early. 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:21.520 And so my parents gave me that that space, gave 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:27.360 me that that ability to daydream and supported it, just 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:31.360 like I supported my kids with whatever their passion. And 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:34.680 I always say, you know, had Beyonce or Clanche both 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.400 said Daddy, I want to I want to be a doctor. 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:40.360 I would have supported that. I would have sent them 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:43.680 to a school of that had science. I would have 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:47.240 gone to the you know library, let them read about 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:50.560 science and medicine and surround them with that. But I 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:54.920 would have said, though, once you get your your your 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:59.440 license and graduate from med school, your daddy would will 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:03.640 have a hospital. Think about that. It was never you 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:08.320 gonna work for somebody. It was you're gonna be in 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:14.280 a position of entrepreneurship and wealth, which black people we don't. 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:19.600 We always hesitate and are shy about talking about building wealth. 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:21.400 Not even. 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:23.200 Right. 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:27.640 Yeah, yeah, I you know, I meant that in my 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:32.640 personal situation, like you know, and even now I still 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.760 wrestle with that because you know, I come from West Philadelphia, 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:38.680 and I mean, like you can attest to this, like 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.840 I'm when I'm in Philadelphia, I still feel the need 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:46.520 to drive my first raggedy car. I have sentimental value 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:48.360 to it. But of course, you know, I also have 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:51.360 a grown man's car. I have a may Bat, but. 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:56.440 And you have an Oscar winning documentary puts right. 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:02.480 We're trying to play broke, nigga. 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:04.760 Trying to play broke and also break us down. How 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.160 you diversify because some of us are trying to get 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:08.879 there because it's dope the way that you do the 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:11.960 way you do with the product job. 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:13.760 Yeah, he got it, Matthew. 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:18.240 Here's the thing though, here's okay, So again, you two 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:20.879 have been following me the last year, so you know, 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.000 I kind of been running the same narrative on the show. 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:28.919 I'm now learning that, Okay. When I when I was 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.960 doing the nineteen job thing where I said yes to everything, 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:36.680 Ye'll do that, I'll produce that. No, no, no. According 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:42.440 to someone nameless, she said that that was me being 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.760 the mayor. She's like, you enjoy being the mayor, Like 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:47.439 the mayor is the person that is sort of like 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.680 the super of the apartment, you know, like bookmen like 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.280 fixing the pipes and I'll fix your electricity d D. 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:58.600 And she's like, first of all, you know, because you're 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:02.000 in fight or flight mood, you know, that's why you 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.320 keep saying yes to everything. And she's like, it's the 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:08.600 moment you let those things go and give yourself a 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:10.520 chance to breathe and look out the window. Which is 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:13.000 why when he said looking out the window, I knew 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:18.119 exactly resonate because you know, I finally discovered that lookout 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:19.960 the window moment during the pandemic. 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:22.880 You know, not a person who said this was this 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:25.440 that their names start with G and rhyme with race. 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:27.080 Yes, it was race. 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:31.320 So why didn't we pick up on this looking out 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:33.520 the window thing when Good Times came on? Because we 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:38.400 knew that what they were motivator. Yeah, that was depressing 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:41.120 just looking out of the window watching the as far. 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:46.280 It's daydreaming. You know what, there's a really interesting episode 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:51.119 of Soul Train in seventy five, Don Cornelius asks, you 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:56.159 know this point, Michael Jackson's like seventeen, and you know, 0:18:57.160 --> 0:18:59.399 it's like his senior year of high school. So you know, 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.919 Donn is joking with Michael Jackson about like him and 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:05.239 Danny Botten JUGI in the same high school and how 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:07.760 Danny always gets in trouble and Mike doesn't get in trouble. 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:11.080 And you know, he asked Mike, like, what are you 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:13.440 doing in your spare time like as a seventeen year old, 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.359 And Mike had a very very interesting answer that he 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:20.359 used to always laugh at until now. Mike's first answer was, 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:25.080 you know, I'd just like to sit in daydream, which right, 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:29.159 that sounded silly, but I didn't realize the importance of 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:33.040 day dreaming. That that puts your mind space in the 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:36.359 space of achievement. And if you you know, if you 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.600 follow Michael Jackson's career, especially in the Spike Lee documentaries, 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:43.479 like he was world famous for like documenting his day dreams. 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:45.639 One day, I want to achieve the Internet and then 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:49.359 I want to be the dinner. So I'm realizing that now, 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:53.560 you know, in this late stage of my life. But 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:58.240 you know, I I really wish I could I could 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.600 hone in and tell people at least listen to this 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:07.160 episode how it's so important to encourage your kids to dream, 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:11.800 to you know, really really take the time out to 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:15.600 sit in silence into to daydream, because you know, I 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:17.520 kind of came from a school where it was like, 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:20.440 you know, burn the hand, be's doing the bush and 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:23.720 you know, you know, if you don't work, you can't eat, 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:26.080 like all those idioms that my grandmom used to stay 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:29.080 like wait, how boy, you know it ain't gonna feed itself, 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:31.200 that sort of thing. Like I grew up in that 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:33.600 sort of household when my parents were on the road, 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.840 and you know, I always thought, like you can't afford 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:40.280 to daydream, like you gotta work to survive, and now 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:43.280 I'm realizing it's the the opposite. 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:50.360 So and daydreaming allows us also to visualize, to visualize 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:54.399 where we can be in the future, because if we don't, 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:58.280 if we don't visualize and see it, like people ask 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:00.040 me all the time, like did you ever think I 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.200 think that you know, Deskin y'all or Beyonce or Solange 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:07.400 would be as successful. Absolutely, I used to visualize it. 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.359 I actually used to see it. And that's one of 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:17.520 the things that daydreaming and just taking time out sometimes, 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:20.760 just like you just said, quest love just to take 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:24.080 time out. And the older I get, and I think 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:26.280 it also has to do as you get older and 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:32.320 experience life more, you begin to see life differently. I'm 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:37.080 you know, I'll be seventy years old than five months, 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:44.160 and so I'm a reality I'm in reality mode that 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:50.320 you know, time is my window is getting short, and 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:53.200 so I see life differently as well. So that's part 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:53.520 of it. 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:57.239 Well, you just reminded me that it's going to be 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:01.960 twenty twenty two in five months. In my mind, right, 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:05.240 it might be made I was doing minute now you 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:07.679 was born in January, that's like next year. And now 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:08.760 I'm realizing that. 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:11.720 January is next year exactly. 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.119 Can I ask a question about your upbringing a little bit, 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:18.600 because I know that one of the things that brought 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:21.600 folks to the attention of how kind of dope you 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:24.280 are for lack of a better term, was the Solange 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:27.240 album And when you do the piece, yeah it's got 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:30.320 the right to be mad, which she wrote, but it's 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:32.800 your story and it made me think about you talking 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:35.520 about fantasy and how you basically were raised and yeah, 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:38.359 you can fantasize, but you also have this reality in 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:40.560 your face of being like a first Can you just 0:22:40.600 --> 0:22:42.439 talk about like that piece? 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:50.480 And yeah, I tell you, people just don't know Solange. Solange. 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:52.600 You know, we made a big, big mistake on her 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:56.480 first album. You know, Solanche was fifteen. 0:22:57.440 --> 0:22:59.119 Was that the Hadley Street Dreams record. 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:05.480 No No, No, that was a great record, solo star. 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:09.280 You know, I made a big mistake. Columbia Records made 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:13.400 a big mistake of trying to make her something she 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:18.719 really wasn't and trying to make her a pop artist. Uh, 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:22.399 and that's not really who she is. And it was 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:27.480 with Hadley Street Dreamed dreams that she really took a 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:33.639 stand about her artistry and she was right, and she 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:39.080 wrote her way and performed her way out of the 0:23:39.119 --> 0:23:42.560 shadow of her sister. You know, we used to say 0:23:43.080 --> 0:23:47.320 and Beyonce the little sister Solange. People don't say that anymore. 0:23:48.080 --> 0:23:52.200 And people don't even know that Kelly Rowland's first album, 0:23:52.800 --> 0:23:55.760 which people don't know Kelly Rowland either. Most people don't 0:23:55.760 --> 0:24:00.720 know Kelly Rowland's album. First album sold four million records 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:05.760 outside of America, four a million, and that album half 0:24:05.840 --> 0:24:12.560 of it Solange wrote, right, or the songs she wrote 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:16.920 for Beyonce or Destiny's Child or all the other mini artists. 0:24:16.960 --> 0:24:21.879 So you know, I really, uh look back. You know, 0:24:22.240 --> 0:24:24.960 it's crazy because the next book I'm doing is called 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:28.080 When I Look Back. But when I look Back. That's 0:24:28.119 --> 0:24:31.880 the one thing I'm proud is that Solange stood up 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:37.720 for her artists, her artistic expression and to become part 0:24:37.800 --> 0:24:41.880 of the process. Because you know, when you're small, you're young, 0:24:42.040 --> 0:24:45.120 rather you don't become you don't really get an opportunity 0:24:45.200 --> 0:24:49.080 to be part of the process. So I'm proud of Solunge. 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:51.240 I still wanted you to just talk about the interlude, though, 0:24:51.560 --> 0:24:53.480 with you got the right to be mad, and how 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:54.200 you felt. 0:24:54.000 --> 0:24:57.679 When she came Oh that well, it was it was 0:24:57.760 --> 0:25:06.440 really an interesting moment. What you don't know is Solons orchestrated. 0:25:06.680 --> 0:25:12.360 I had never seen my former wife from since our divorce, 0:25:13.680 --> 0:25:18.040 and we actually didn't know it, but we walked into 0:25:18.080 --> 0:25:21.280 a room in New Orleans and so that that was 0:25:22.240 --> 0:25:26.480 a special moment in itself. You know. You know Solane 0:25:27.200 --> 0:25:31.840 with her creativity, she knew how to I think she 0:25:31.920 --> 0:25:36.200 knew also how to bring something out of me. Uh 0:25:36.560 --> 0:25:42.440 and took me back to my childhood, which as a child, 0:25:43.520 --> 0:25:47.480 I never went to a black school growing up in Gaston, Alabama. 0:25:47.720 --> 0:25:55.280 George Wallace l the governor al Lingo my my age 0:25:55.280 --> 0:25:58.679 from Alabama. You know that name, because this guy was 0:25:58.880 --> 0:26:02.520 over the state. True, you know, it was really tough 0:26:02.520 --> 0:26:05.919 for me being the very first one of the first 0:26:06.000 --> 0:26:10.840 and going to a Catholic elementary school in Gaston, Alabama. 0:26:11.680 --> 0:26:17.360 Who does that? I mean, who does that? And then 0:26:17.480 --> 0:26:21.280 going to a junior high school with a thousand white 0:26:21.440 --> 0:26:25.320 kids and first days. You know, George Wallace had this 0:26:25.440 --> 0:26:28.440 thing about freedom of choice. You can go to any 0:26:28.440 --> 0:26:32.560 school you want to, but you own your damn own 0:26:33.640 --> 0:26:38.959 don't ask me to save, you support tect you protect you, 0:26:38.960 --> 0:26:41.879 You own your own, So that those were tough times, 0:26:41.920 --> 0:26:45.959 being one of the first. And my mother was so 0:26:46.040 --> 0:26:48.800 frightened in my junior high that she actually took a 0:26:48.880 --> 0:26:54.480 job in the UH at the school, in the elect 0:26:54.600 --> 0:26:57.760 room so that she could be there as a cook, 0:26:58.320 --> 0:27:01.360 so she could be there with her. Because we never 0:27:01.440 --> 0:27:03.919 knew what was going to happen. We got in fights, 0:27:04.240 --> 0:27:07.720 you know, the white kids would circle us and here 0:27:07.760 --> 0:27:10.560 we are in the middle of a fight. We didn't 0:27:10.600 --> 0:27:12.240 know what was going to happen that day. 0:27:12.680 --> 0:27:14.639 And mister Nosle, you're only child at the time. You 0:27:14.680 --> 0:27:15.879 have any brothers and sisters? 0:27:16.040 --> 0:27:19.560 Well, you know, I have my brother, it has passed on. 0:27:19.880 --> 0:27:24.800 He was nine years older, and my sister, who my 0:27:24.920 --> 0:27:29.879 parents adopted, is nine years younger. So we all in 0:27:29.920 --> 0:27:32.080 a way we're the only child. 0:27:33.320 --> 0:27:35.120 There's always experiencing stuff by ourself. 0:27:35.480 --> 0:27:43.880 Yeah, right, when do you consider Solons made a lot 0:27:43.920 --> 0:27:48.119 about your involvement in the civil rights period? Of course, 0:27:48.240 --> 0:27:52.400 you know, when if you're in Gatsa in Alabama as 0:27:52.440 --> 0:27:56.480 a elementary school student, I'm certain that every day was 0:27:57.359 --> 0:27:59.800 a day for civil rights. But when do you con 0:28:01.119 --> 0:28:07.159 your actual entry into participating in the civil rights period. 0:28:07.760 --> 0:28:10.919 It would be my first demonstration. You know, most people, 0:28:11.600 --> 0:28:15.440 of course love don't realize how young we were as 0:28:15.640 --> 0:28:21.960 kids participating in demonstrations. And when the state troopers were beating, 0:28:22.920 --> 0:28:27.680 they didn't care of you a woman, a man, or child. 0:28:28.280 --> 0:28:35.159 And so that period of leaving your church, going to 0:28:35.720 --> 0:28:40.840 a Penny's store and sitting at the counter there in 0:28:41.400 --> 0:28:47.880 the cafeteria and state troopers companying people running screaming, those 0:28:47.880 --> 0:28:51.320 were the experiences. I've been beaten, I've been spit on, 0:28:52.320 --> 0:28:55.000 I've been electric pride, and those of you that don't 0:28:55.000 --> 0:28:59.560 know what that is, it's like a tool of the battle. Yeah, 0:28:59.560 --> 0:29:03.200 that's you for cattle. And they used that a lot, 0:29:03.280 --> 0:29:10.200 that electric product on us, and it was really time. 0:29:10.240 --> 0:29:13.560 I remember one time I was demonstrating and they made 0:29:13.600 --> 0:29:17.920 the older men take off their shoes and walk barefoot, 0:29:18.720 --> 0:29:22.000 and it was like a hundred degrees, so you can 0:29:22.040 --> 0:29:26.640 imagine that. Or when we would demonstrate, I remember many 0:29:26.680 --> 0:29:30.360 times at night we would demonstrate at the courtroom and 0:29:30.920 --> 0:29:35.680 we had no outside facilities. The ladies had to surround, 0:29:36.480 --> 0:29:40.600 the men had to dig holes in the dirt. We 0:29:40.640 --> 0:29:43.480 did what we had to do. To survive. People don't 0:29:43.520 --> 0:29:48.800 realize what really went through that civil rights movement and 0:29:48.960 --> 0:29:53.160 how people risked their lives to get us to where 0:29:53.200 --> 0:29:55.880 we are today. That's why I get I still hold 0:29:55.920 --> 0:30:00.920 people accountable because COVID and a lot of what's happened 0:30:01.400 --> 0:30:05.600 is because when Donald Trump ran for president, black folks 0:30:05.640 --> 0:30:09.880 we didn't vote like we did eight years previous. And 0:30:09.960 --> 0:30:14.640 I'm most always hope and remind black folks the accountability 0:30:14.680 --> 0:30:14.920 of that. 0:30:16.920 --> 0:30:18.600 I had to take it more more of Sunce just 0:30:18.600 --> 0:30:23.760 to just to iggest that in terms of, well, when 0:30:23.800 --> 0:30:27.280 you were knee deep in these protests or whatever, like, 0:30:27.760 --> 0:30:31.240 did you you're saying you did this at a young age? Correct? 0:30:31.800 --> 0:30:36.000 Yes, I'm talking twelve years old around that age. 0:30:36.200 --> 0:30:39.520 So even then you had the wherewithal to even comprehend 0:30:40.960 --> 0:30:42.960 what you were doing and why you were doing it. 0:30:43.560 --> 0:30:46.200 Did you, and you're at twelve, did you feel as 0:30:46.200 --> 0:30:50.239 though there was going to be an endgame or a 0:30:50.280 --> 0:30:54.200 time period in which you wouldn't have to do this anymore? 0:30:55.040 --> 0:30:56.480 Or I just feel I just. 0:30:56.440 --> 0:31:01.240 Knew it was wrong. I was a child. My mother 0:31:01.480 --> 0:31:05.720 was an activist. My mother grew up in Maryon, Alabama. 0:31:06.840 --> 0:31:10.320 My mother went to high school with Coreta King and 0:31:10.320 --> 0:31:13.479 Andrew Young's wife. They all went to high school the 0:31:13.560 --> 0:31:18.000 same grade, Lincoln Memorial High School and Marion and Alabama. 0:31:18.560 --> 0:31:21.760 By the way, we don't know the proper story now 0:31:22.000 --> 0:31:27.400 Martin Luther King and Andrew Young married these two women 0:31:27.480 --> 0:31:34.800 from Marion, which is about eight nine miles from Selma. 0:31:35.840 --> 0:31:39.200 We don't know about brother Jackson who got hung and 0:31:39.320 --> 0:31:43.800 Marian because of what you know, we talked about Selma. 0:31:44.200 --> 0:31:47.840 It really started at Marion. But not to get on that, 0:31:47.920 --> 0:31:52.360 but my mother was really engraved in the civil rights movement, 0:31:52.560 --> 0:31:56.160 so I understood a lot. We're a kid, you don't 0:31:56.200 --> 0:32:00.520 totally understand it, but you know wrong and you know 0:32:00.680 --> 0:32:04.920 you're being treated differently. And I had to go to therapy, 0:32:05.200 --> 0:32:11.520 years of therapy, years of therapy for racial trauma. And 0:32:11.680 --> 0:32:17.479 if today women can talk about things that happened thirty 0:32:17.640 --> 0:32:21.840 forty fifty years ago and sexual trauma, then we have 0:32:21.960 --> 0:32:27.320 to acknowledge that also racial trauma impacts us. 0:32:28.040 --> 0:32:29.800 When would you When did you start that journey of 0:32:29.840 --> 0:32:31.480 going to therapy and addressing that boy? 0:32:31.520 --> 0:32:32.120 How old were you? 0:32:32.840 --> 0:32:36.600 Well, this was my adult I'm talking in two thousand 0:32:36.560 --> 0:32:38.840 and four or five. 0:32:40.560 --> 0:32:42.680 Yeah, definitely a new trend for black men to talk 0:32:42.720 --> 0:32:44.959 about going to therapy. 0:32:44.720 --> 0:32:49.080 I was in therapy for I mean back to back 0:32:49.880 --> 0:32:55.400 weekly therapy for almost ten years, and at the beginning 0:32:56.280 --> 0:33:00.120 didn't quite understand it because I had this personality and 0:33:00.200 --> 0:33:02.120 still have to work on it, still have to work 0:33:02.160 --> 0:33:09.280 on it, this compulsive, compulsive personality, you know, Uh, I love. 0:33:09.760 --> 0:33:14.120 I don't know if that impacted cranes in the sky, 0:33:14.280 --> 0:33:19.080 but when line say I drank too much, dance too much, 0:33:19.920 --> 0:33:23.000 a party too much, that was me. You know, I 0:33:23.040 --> 0:33:24.920 did everything to damn much. 0:33:25.920 --> 0:33:26.480 Try to drink it. 0:33:28.160 --> 0:33:33.040 Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, And so that that was me 0:33:33.200 --> 0:33:36.800 and doing that period just compulsive, gotta do more, gotta 0:33:36.880 --> 0:33:40.360 do more, gotta do more, got to do more, not enough, 0:33:40.800 --> 0:33:42.480 And so I had to come to grips of that. 0:33:42.600 --> 0:33:46.680 It actually cost me my marriage, uh that that behavior, 0:33:47.400 --> 0:33:52.479 and I hold I take responsibility and accountability for that. 0:33:53.640 --> 0:33:56.080 I don't run a high from that, but you know 0:33:56.240 --> 0:34:00.160 it was up. When I finally met and got a 0:34:00.360 --> 0:34:03.720 black male therapist, things change for me. 0:34:04.720 --> 0:34:14.680 You find one of them, Oh my god. 0:34:12.160 --> 0:34:16.160 Yeah, that's that's one in Dallas, Texas. A brother there 0:34:16.239 --> 0:34:20.959 that uh really really impacted because I had been going 0:34:21.000 --> 0:34:25.720 to a Jewish, white woman from New York who was traditional. Uh, 0:34:26.200 --> 0:34:32.759 you know all the acromyms. Uh. And and this brother said, no, no, 0:34:33.400 --> 0:34:36.759 let's go back to your childhood from a different perspective. 0:34:37.280 --> 0:34:41.200 Let's what was the trauma. And the trauma was you 0:34:41.239 --> 0:34:45.279 were a kid fearful of your life. The trauma was, 0:34:45.920 --> 0:34:50.360 you know, you were taught to feel not as as 0:34:50.600 --> 0:34:54.440 as equal, less than that. You had to do all 0:34:54.480 --> 0:34:58.480 of this stuff to get acknowledgment. Uh. And it's when 0:34:58.520 --> 0:35:01.960 I began to understand that better. And I still have 0:35:02.040 --> 0:35:05.840 to work on it. I can see up touches up touching. 0:35:08.400 --> 0:35:11.440 I'm gonna tell y'all, this is almost I want you 0:35:11.440 --> 0:35:14.960 to to take over this interview because, like you don't know, 0:35:15.640 --> 0:35:17.279 in my head, in my head right now, I'm like 0:35:17.320 --> 0:35:21.720 really trying to hold back the team, like this is ship. 0:35:22.080 --> 0:35:27.480 I wish, like my my main regret was like right now, 0:35:27.520 --> 0:35:33.320 I'm just really overwhelmed talking to hear an older black 0:35:33.360 --> 0:35:38.000 man talk this way, because like I'm in my head, 0:35:38.040 --> 0:35:40.759 I'm like, damn man, like this is ship. This is 0:35:40.800 --> 0:35:44.760 the evolution I wish my dad had went through before 0:35:44.760 --> 0:35:47.760 he passed away, Like he kinda he kind of landed 0:35:47.760 --> 0:35:51.160 the plane nicely maybe in like the last sort of 0:35:51.160 --> 0:35:52.800 like the last year of his life when he knew 0:35:52.880 --> 0:35:55.040 he was gonna leave, you know, and then we finally 0:35:55.160 --> 0:35:57.799 like you know, because like black men just didn't talk 0:35:57.840 --> 0:35:59.239 about feelings. 0:35:59.440 --> 0:36:03.200 Boomers, especially boomers, like I have math, doctor Knowles is 0:36:03.239 --> 0:36:04.479 the exception to the rule. 0:36:04.800 --> 0:36:08.680 But yeah, like this is really I really have no 0:36:08.760 --> 0:36:09.920 questions left, Like I'm just. 0:36:12.400 --> 0:36:14.120 And I just asked, Okay, so this is my question 0:36:14.160 --> 0:36:16.600 because you said you did some racial therapy, and it's 0:36:16.600 --> 0:36:18.680 interesting because I thought about something when a mir said 0:36:18.719 --> 0:36:21.640 said something about the way his parents raised him about 0:36:21.680 --> 0:36:24.200 not being daydreamers and stuff, and it seems like the 0:36:24.239 --> 0:36:26.480 reason to go toward the racial part is because and 0:36:26.480 --> 0:36:30.080 the reason sometimes for a black therapist is because it's 0:36:30.120 --> 0:36:33.279 so the trauma is so deep and generational that you 0:36:33.320 --> 0:36:37.319 need to understand why that generation before didn't allow for 0:36:37.400 --> 0:36:39.320 day dreaming because they didn't feel like it was allowed. 0:36:39.480 --> 0:36:40.840 That was how to protect themselves. 0:36:41.520 --> 0:36:44.440 Everything that we do has such a cause, and a 0:36:44.480 --> 0:36:46.200 lot of us just don't even we think that it's 0:36:46.200 --> 0:36:48.320 just something fresh and new and something wrong with us, 0:36:48.400 --> 0:36:50.800 but it's so generational and generational trauma. 0:36:50.880 --> 0:36:55.200 It's just and every generation is Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. 0:36:55.120 --> 0:36:57.520 No, no, no, no, you're all on the right path here. 0:36:58.480 --> 0:37:03.160 And again I I I learned and and and learned 0:37:03.200 --> 0:37:06.120 so much. I mean, there was a part of me, 0:37:06.640 --> 0:37:09.560 a chaotic part of me, and I think we all 0:37:09.680 --> 0:37:13.359 have a chaotic part of ourselves that we have come 0:37:13.480 --> 0:37:17.080 to come to grips with. And in that process was 0:37:17.200 --> 0:37:21.000 just a lot I learned, Uh, like a rotticized rage. 0:37:21.080 --> 0:37:22.720 Probably a word you never heard before. 0:37:24.800 --> 0:37:27.719 Rage, Yes, okay, got it? 0:37:27.760 --> 0:37:33.120 Okay, sure, he's a therapeutic term. I because I was 0:37:33.800 --> 0:37:37.919 the skinny black kid. The coaching junior high school asked 0:37:37.960 --> 0:37:40.920 me to play basketball. And I was always the last 0:37:41.000 --> 0:37:43.080 kid to get picked on the sand loot with the 0:37:43.120 --> 0:37:45.800 black kids. But he thought I could play, but I couldn't. 0:37:46.280 --> 0:37:52.359 Uh, but you looked the part. 0:37:52.560 --> 0:38:01.520 But yeah, like. 0:37:59.160 --> 0:38:01.920 Black talk of must playing basketball. But you know, I 0:38:01.960 --> 0:38:06.760 picked up kind of quickly and and and then something happened. 0:38:07.760 --> 0:38:13.200 I understood quickly that by being a basketball star, it 0:38:13.320 --> 0:38:18.000 gave me privileges, and so I started dating white girls, 0:38:18.520 --> 0:38:25.399 and started dating white girls only in Alabama. But it 0:38:25.480 --> 0:38:29.680 was you know, it wasn't over. You couldn't just be 0:38:29.840 --> 0:38:34.640 out there with it you know, but it made me 0:38:34.800 --> 0:38:38.640 and my mother was a good mom, but some things 0:38:38.680 --> 0:38:42.120 as all of us. She used to tell me, and 0:38:42.160 --> 0:38:46.160 it was embedded, don't you ever bring no black napping 0:38:46.239 --> 0:38:48.360 head girl in my house? Trauma? 0:38:51.600 --> 0:38:53.480 So from so hearing it from your and you were 0:38:53.480 --> 0:38:56.279 hearing that from your mother. Your mother told you not 0:38:56.320 --> 0:38:58.319 to bring no not to bring no black girls home. 0:38:58.400 --> 0:39:03.960 Right, no nappy, But she would have been okay if 0:39:04.000 --> 0:39:05.400 she was light complexion. 0:39:06.680 --> 0:39:08.520 She passed the paperbag test. 0:39:08.400 --> 0:39:11.560 Then right, mister knows you're making me so happy with 0:39:11.600 --> 0:39:12.919 this conversation right now. 0:39:13.440 --> 0:39:17.879 Yeah, this is the first. I didn't even think conversations 0:39:17.920 --> 0:39:22.480 like this could happen with any black person, at least 0:39:22.640 --> 0:39:25.719 not born before nineteen seventy five. 0:39:27.760 --> 0:39:30.120 Because are you basically admitting that she had an effect 0:39:30.160 --> 0:39:34.080 on your choices in that way too, like subconsciously, because yeah. 0:39:34.000 --> 0:39:34.080 She. 0:39:36.320 --> 0:39:42.040 Understood that, you know she, but a lot happened, a 0:39:42.080 --> 0:39:46.680 lot happened to black folks that we don't understand those impacts. 0:39:47.200 --> 0:39:51.200 And I'll just let you guys ask the question, because 0:39:51.239 --> 0:39:54.200 this is is going to a place, this conversation that 0:39:54.280 --> 0:39:56.640 I think the universe wanted it to go. 0:39:56.840 --> 0:39:57.919 I think so. 0:39:59.440 --> 0:40:04.240 For it serious question. 0:40:05.760 --> 0:40:08.960 I got, so how did you okay? 0:40:09.000 --> 0:40:11.759 So in this and throughout this journey, one thing that 0:40:11.800 --> 0:40:15.880 came to mind was once you got to the point 0:40:15.880 --> 0:40:18.719 where you were successful and you know, you got your 0:40:18.719 --> 0:40:21.080 girls careers kind of off the ground, and Deston Strode 0:40:21.160 --> 0:40:24.680 was pointing everything, how did you fight against that? I 0:40:24.680 --> 0:40:27.960 guess that survivor's guilt or that survivors were more kind 0:40:28.000 --> 0:40:31.000 of like seeing how far you've come and realizing like, 0:40:31.080 --> 0:40:33.920 oh my god, like I actually made it, so to speak, 0:40:34.040 --> 0:40:37.040 you know, how did you fight against when you talk 0:40:37.080 --> 0:40:41.080 about just those old traumas, old uh no, bad behaviors. 0:40:41.320 --> 0:40:44.680 How did you stop from I guess self sabotaging yourself 0:40:44.680 --> 0:40:47.040 in that way or were you able to you know. 0:40:47.040 --> 0:40:51.160 I had to go through this process of understanding why. 0:40:51.800 --> 0:40:56.000 Like I said, it cost me dearly. But to your 0:40:56.120 --> 0:41:02.200 question of feeling guilty about success, you know, my dad 0:41:02.239 --> 0:41:06.640 again my parents, My dad was a volunteer fireman. He 0:41:06.760 --> 0:41:09.520 wanted to be that was his dream, was to be 0:41:09.600 --> 0:41:14.879 a fireman. But you couldn't be a fireman in Alabama, Gaston, Alabama. 0:41:15.160 --> 0:41:20.680 We're talking the sixties if you were black. So my 0:41:20.840 --> 0:41:25.759 dad used to my dad was six or four hundred pounds. 0:41:25.920 --> 0:41:27.120 Call him big mac. 0:41:29.239 --> 0:41:29.479 Oh. 0:41:30.120 --> 0:41:36.320 And there's one word to describe my dad gentle. Gentle. 0:41:37.040 --> 0:41:41.279 All he did was help people. So this whole thing 0:41:41.320 --> 0:41:45.280 about giving back, I don't feel guilty about success because 0:41:46.760 --> 0:41:49.719 I learned as a kid watching my parents give back 0:41:49.760 --> 0:41:54.880 to their communities and giving back to help people. So 0:41:54.960 --> 0:41:58.040 I can I can say I never felt guilt guilt 0:41:58.920 --> 0:42:01.759 from success because I worked very hard for it and 0:42:02.440 --> 0:42:09.880 was fortunate to find my passion early in life, which 0:42:10.080 --> 0:42:15.440 was the ability to communicate effectively. 0:42:14.239 --> 0:42:16.399 In the early days when y'all were when you were 0:42:16.560 --> 0:42:18.680 when you were misnos and y'all were working with the 0:42:18.680 --> 0:42:23.120 girls and doing Justin's Child. How did you learn, I guess, 0:42:23.120 --> 0:42:27.040 to kind of differentiate between being the dad and being 0:42:27.200 --> 0:42:30.120 the manager, being the coach. You know what I'm saying, like, 0:42:30.160 --> 0:42:32.000 how did you know? How did you kind of, I 0:42:32.000 --> 0:42:33.760 guess compartmentalize all those roles. 0:42:33.880 --> 0:42:35.680 Well, that was That's a good question, you know. I 0:42:36.120 --> 0:42:40.880 have to say I'm guilty of last night watching Jermaine Dupries, 0:42:41.800 --> 0:42:44.080 the show called something. 0:42:43.800 --> 0:42:46.440 Rap the Kids, the one with the Kids. 0:42:49.760 --> 0:42:54.560 I mean I watched six or seven episodes. In every 0:42:54.600 --> 0:42:56.920 episode had about five or six I mean, I was 0:42:57.040 --> 0:43:00.960 up about four hours. I couldn't and they had the 0:43:01.080 --> 0:43:05.480 parents and the kids. They were all between twelve and sixteen. 0:43:06.200 --> 0:43:09.040 You know. Fortunate for me again, I did twenty years 0:43:09.080 --> 0:43:13.880 of corporate America, so I brought a different skill set 0:43:14.080 --> 0:43:19.080 to the music industry than most. And you know, most 0:43:19.120 --> 0:43:23.680 people and media would have what I call the Jedi 0:43:23.840 --> 0:43:27.120 mind trick. Have you to believe that I left corporate 0:43:27.120 --> 0:43:32.200 America to be Beyonces manager and that's not true. I 0:43:32.360 --> 0:43:36.080 left and they always say Xerox. Well, I left Xerox 0:43:36.120 --> 0:43:38.719 in nineteen eighty eight, and then I was one of 0:43:38.760 --> 0:43:43.440 the first blacks, and in my life have followed this 0:43:43.560 --> 0:43:47.400 pattern of one of the first blacks, So listen to 0:43:47.440 --> 0:43:51.160 me through I was fortunately and grateful to work at 0:43:51.239 --> 0:43:54.200 Xerox Corporation in the eighties, which was a number one 0:43:54.280 --> 0:43:59.200 corporation for blacks, and I was the president of Minorities 0:43:59.280 --> 0:44:04.040 United and othern Region, which was about four hundred black employees. 0:44:04.160 --> 0:44:06.920 I was a president of that organization for three years. 0:44:08.280 --> 0:44:11.760 I was fortunate to be the number one sells rep 0:44:12.239 --> 0:44:17.760 worldwide at Xerox Medical Systems three out of four years. 0:44:18.560 --> 0:44:22.640 To be the first or one of the first blacks, 0:44:23.080 --> 0:44:27.719 I'm not sure to sell mri CT scanners in America 0:44:28.320 --> 0:44:33.560 what and to be a neural surgical specialist with Johnson 0:44:33.600 --> 0:44:37.640 and Johnson. That's how I ended my career. People don't 0:44:37.680 --> 0:44:45.000 know my career is a neurosurgical specialists. I would work 0:44:45.080 --> 0:44:51.640 with neurosurgeons and implants and certain surgical procedures dealing with 0:44:51.680 --> 0:44:52.439 the head and neck. 0:44:57.480 --> 0:45:01.080 Okay, we kind of went way eep into the future 0:45:01.080 --> 0:45:06.759 of the eighties. But one question I had one When 0:45:06.800 --> 0:45:10.439 did you leave Gaston, Alabama? And how did you wind 0:45:10.520 --> 0:45:11.280 up in Houston. 0:45:11.880 --> 0:45:18.440 I left Gaston, Alabama in nineteen seventy. I was fortunate 0:45:18.520 --> 0:45:22.360 to have a number of scholarships and my mother wanted 0:45:22.360 --> 0:45:25.280 me to stay close to home, so I accepted University 0:45:25.360 --> 0:45:30.800 of Tennessee. That's where I played basketball for two years 0:45:31.719 --> 0:45:35.279 and then transferred because I had never been to a 0:45:35.280 --> 0:45:38.880 black school. And we had scrimmage. You know how major 0:45:39.239 --> 0:45:43.120 white school scrimmage a little small black schools. We had scrimmage 0:45:43.200 --> 0:45:49.080 Fisk University in Nashville, and coach Ronald Lawson, when he 0:45:49.200 --> 0:45:53.040 was leaving the floor, whispered in my ear knows if 0:45:53.080 --> 0:45:56.680 you ever want to come to black school, you have 0:45:56.719 --> 0:46:00.759 a full scholarship, and so I ended up ansferring to 0:46:00.920 --> 0:46:06.720 Fist University, uh and and graduated there in seventy four. 0:46:07.480 --> 0:46:11.240 Worked at AT and T for a year and a half, 0:46:11.440 --> 0:46:14.160 and then me and my frat brothers a Miliga five 0:46:14.239 --> 0:46:15.080 for Turner. 0:46:14.840 --> 0:46:21.000 T blowing up. What was amazing before we go? What 0:46:21.040 --> 0:46:22.600 was what did you study in this? 0:46:23.080 --> 0:46:25.920 I had a degree in economics and one in business okay, 0:46:26.000 --> 0:46:30.200 got business administration. Uh and we we actually, me and 0:46:30.280 --> 0:46:34.120 three frat brothers got in my ninety eight ozamobile at 0:46:34.120 --> 0:46:37.279 the University of Tennessee. Gave me you know, used to 0:46:37.360 --> 0:46:40.799 get cars and stuff. It was legal work there back 0:46:42.280 --> 0:46:44.839 back in the seventies. You know, you can do that. Uh. 0:46:45.280 --> 0:46:51.759 And we Tennessee State played Texas Southern and we got 0:46:51.800 --> 0:46:55.480 to Houston and we were like, man, wait a minute, 0:46:56.000 --> 0:46:58.799 something's wrong. These frat brothers got these good jobs, man, 0:46:58.840 --> 0:47:04.200 and they weren't even smart as us. So I just 0:47:04.239 --> 0:47:08.680 got in the car December sixth, nineteen seventy six and 0:47:09.680 --> 0:47:15.000 made one stop, which was a crazy stop, but got 0:47:15.040 --> 0:47:19.440 to Houston and had a job. I mean I literally 0:47:19.520 --> 0:47:22.960 worked at the Near Business Products and Pidney Bowls at 0:47:23.000 --> 0:47:27.320 the same time for a month for the same at 0:47:27.360 --> 0:47:30.319 the same time for a month. Because what they used 0:47:30.360 --> 0:47:33.440 to do was to give you a big book and 0:47:33.480 --> 0:47:36.120 you would go and study at your apartment and then 0:47:36.160 --> 0:47:38.520 they would send you to training. So I wouldn't. I 0:47:38.520 --> 0:47:41.279 would say, wait a minute, I could do that at 0:47:41.280 --> 0:47:44.040 my apartment and get paid by both of them. So 0:47:44.320 --> 0:47:46.359 I got paid by both of them, and then I 0:47:46.440 --> 0:47:48.399 ended up taking the Pitney bowls job. 0:47:50.520 --> 0:47:56.759 They used to be the leader, and you used to 0:47:56.840 --> 0:47:59.799 have to if you were in a business, you had 0:47:59.800 --> 0:48:03.560 to machine that did the mailing and postage. 0:48:03.719 --> 0:48:09.040 It was still envelopes and stamp stamp envelopes. It was 0:48:09.120 --> 0:48:12.640 like the number one leader in that area, but it 0:48:12.280 --> 0:48:14.360 was I was. I was in sales and marketing. 0:48:15.280 --> 0:48:17.719 You're telling us you're like the ultimate salesperson, and I 0:48:17.719 --> 0:48:21.359 think oftentimes people don't realize the talent that it takes 0:48:21.400 --> 0:48:25.000 to be a sales person like that, like especially on 0:48:25.120 --> 0:48:27.680 equipment and things of that nature, Like that's a whole 0:48:27.719 --> 0:48:31.360 nother talent that now I see the transitions well into management. 0:48:31.400 --> 0:48:34.520 Now you're selling yourself. You ain't selling the product. You 0:48:34.640 --> 0:48:34.960 hit it. 0:48:35.120 --> 0:48:39.359 You hit it on the head. People by you then 0:48:39.440 --> 0:48:43.200 your product. And in the music industry always tell my 0:48:43.360 --> 0:48:47.279 artists you. I call it the three second rule. When 0:48:47.320 --> 0:48:50.279 you see a new person for the first time, in 0:48:50.440 --> 0:48:54.399 three seconds, your brain comes up with what you think 0:48:54.440 --> 0:48:58.720 about them. You say they're attracted, they're not so smart, 0:48:59.080 --> 0:49:03.359 or whatever. It is your brain in three seconds, and 0:49:03.400 --> 0:49:07.400 it's hard to change that opinion once someone has opinion 0:49:07.480 --> 0:49:10.680 of you. Hmm, three seconds. 0:49:10.719 --> 0:49:16.600 Okay, So okay, if you apply that, I'm certain that 0:49:16.719 --> 0:49:19.600 you well, you're at least in a field in which 0:49:19.600 --> 0:49:22.800 you know you have to make an impression. It's okay 0:49:23.000 --> 0:49:26.160 now that you say that. Now I really regret a 0:49:26.200 --> 0:49:30.200 lot of life decisions because in my profession, now, I'll 0:49:30.239 --> 0:49:34.239 be honest with you. In my profession, I thought our 0:49:34.440 --> 0:49:39.560 advantage was if you underestimated me. And that's a lesson 0:49:39.600 --> 0:49:44.120 that Richard taught me. Because here's the thing. My late manager, Richard, 0:49:44.160 --> 0:49:47.920 who passed away from leukemia. He rich rich was a 0:49:47.960 --> 0:49:52.080 guy who's I mean to say mensa. To say mensa 0:49:52.160 --> 0:49:55.600 level genius would be an understatement when it comes to 0:49:55.719 --> 0:50:00.080 rich But because of rich also taught me the value 0:50:00.200 --> 0:50:05.920 of what he would call primitive exotica, which was he 0:50:06.000 --> 0:50:11.960 knew that there was a sort of curious fetishize factor 0:50:12.760 --> 0:50:19.880 about him that interest certain prominent white people. Here's a 0:50:19.880 --> 0:50:23.160 great example, Norman Lear creator. 0:50:23.800 --> 0:50:26.120 I mean I met him and yeah. 0:50:26.000 --> 0:50:29.200 Yeah, Norman is actually ninety nine now, like he's still alive. 0:50:30.440 --> 0:50:33.239 We happen to be at an event in la and 0:50:33.360 --> 0:50:36.239 Rich is the kind of guy that, you know, like 0:50:36.320 --> 0:50:39.360 when white people discover like that smart black guy that 0:50:39.480 --> 0:50:41.799 really impresses them, almost like it's like their new toy, 0:50:41.920 --> 0:50:43.920 that sort of thing, like that's the person that Rich was. 0:50:44.040 --> 0:50:47.560 Rich was the guy that read science books and all 0:50:47.560 --> 0:50:50.040 these things, and so you know, he would sort of 0:50:50.120 --> 0:50:54.680 just work his stick, knowing that people were underestimating him 0:50:55.400 --> 0:50:59.320 as he spoke, but realizing like wow, how amazingly smart 0:50:59.320 --> 0:51:01.319 he is. And next thing, you know, like Norman Lear 0:51:01.440 --> 0:51:04.640 literally said, can you go on tour with me? And 0:51:04.760 --> 0:51:07.200 Rich trying to explain like no, I'm actually a manager 0:51:07.320 --> 0:51:09.439 of like a band and I have a real job, 0:51:09.480 --> 0:51:11.960 but Norman's like, no, I just I want you to. 0:51:12.680 --> 0:51:15.000 And Rich actually spent two weeks with Norman Lear in 0:51:15.080 --> 0:51:18.680 Beverly Hills and Norman just took him to every all 0:51:18.719 --> 0:51:21.200 this friends, like look at my new I know this 0:51:21.280 --> 0:51:23.960 sounds really weird, like it's the update of the toy. 0:51:24.320 --> 0:51:26.719 But I know Richard looks like and rich is a 0:51:26.800 --> 0:51:30.520 nice chocolate brother with locks, and it's very right. 0:51:30.600 --> 0:51:34.000 But Rich also knew that the scary factor, like the 0:51:34.040 --> 0:51:36.560 fact that if you see rich in the first three seconds, 0:51:37.200 --> 0:51:39.920 you're thinking of the scariest thing, and then you know, 0:51:40.040 --> 0:51:44.000 he starts with this Harvard you know, intelligency a thing, 0:51:44.239 --> 0:51:48.920 and that just totally throws you off. And I don't know, 0:51:49.080 --> 0:51:53.200 like I think in our service, I'm now trying to 0:51:53.320 --> 0:51:57.479 unlearn everything that rich taught me. And because the way 0:51:57.520 --> 0:51:59.719 that we entered through the gates was to always be 0:51:59.800 --> 0:52:02.759 under estimated. Like people see the roots and like, oh 0:52:02.800 --> 0:52:05.280 my god, what are you all like arrest development PM 0:52:05.360 --> 0:52:09.640 doing like yellow whack wearing birkenstocks and all those things. 0:52:09.760 --> 0:52:12.400 But then we start playing and be like, you know, 0:52:12.440 --> 0:52:15.799 it's like when when Dame Dash shit on Kanye's Westing, like, 0:52:15.800 --> 0:52:18.800 oh shit, it's not whack, Like, oh, these guys are good. 0:52:19.520 --> 0:52:23.320 We I sort of used that factor for the longest. 0:52:23.680 --> 0:52:26.680 Instead of trying to make a good impression, I would 0:52:26.680 --> 0:52:27.320 always try. 0:52:27.200 --> 0:52:30.719 To go through the door to make lower the expectation. 0:52:31.480 --> 0:52:35.120 Yeah, Like I lived life trying to lower expectations and 0:52:35.160 --> 0:52:39.520 then I'm now noticing now thirty years later that maybe 0:52:39.600 --> 0:52:41.240 that didn't serve me too well. 0:52:42.160 --> 0:52:45.719 Well, you know, we all learned and and I'm sure 0:52:45.719 --> 0:52:49.120 he was a really really good manager, but we have 0:52:49.280 --> 0:52:54.040 different perspectives. I think for me, it's the reveal, just 0:52:54.080 --> 0:52:57.160 similar to when you see an artist for the first 0:52:57.200 --> 0:53:00.200 time come out on stage. You know, we have use 0:53:00.200 --> 0:53:04.120 the world we work on that reveal those first three seconds. 0:53:04.160 --> 0:53:06.880 Think about it for a second when you see Solange 0:53:06.880 --> 0:53:10.400 and Beyonce, what happens in the first three seconds of 0:53:10.440 --> 0:53:10.960 their show. 0:53:11.480 --> 0:53:14.359 Dude, you don't even have to tell me. Matter of fact, 0:53:14.440 --> 0:53:17.480 the first time I ever met you, the first time 0:53:17.520 --> 0:53:22.520 I met you, you know, Beyonce was starting her uh 0:53:23.600 --> 0:53:25.920 her first solo tour, the one that she did with 0:53:25.920 --> 0:53:31.399 Missy and Alicia and my first yeah, first tour. 0:53:31.719 --> 0:53:31.919 Yeah. 0:53:32.000 --> 0:53:37.239 And by that point I had seen maybe three of 0:53:37.239 --> 0:53:39.279 her shows, in which you know, I always told her 0:53:39.320 --> 0:53:41.640 like I was, really, I'm really impressed with your interests, 0:53:41.760 --> 0:53:46.080 like you do these amazing The way that you enter 0:53:46.160 --> 0:53:50.840 the stage is really, you know, crazy, like I So, 0:53:50.840 --> 0:53:53.759 so when they came to town to Phi, I'm from Philadelphia, 0:53:54.760 --> 0:53:56.520 right before she goes on, I was like, Okay, so 0:53:56.640 --> 0:53:58.719 what's the interest, Like, She's like, you're gonna see run 0:53:58.719 --> 0:54:02.120 in the audience, stay stay by the soundboards. I didn't realize. Okay, 0:54:02.160 --> 0:54:04.680 So she did the thing where she entered from the 0:54:04.719 --> 0:54:09.520 back of the stadium with the gentleman carrying her on 0:54:09.560 --> 0:54:17.160 the right. And the thing was is that I came 0:54:17.480 --> 0:54:19.920 just to see how she was going to enter the stage, 0:54:19.960 --> 0:54:24.799 because by that point, next to Michael Jackson, I've never 0:54:24.840 --> 0:54:31.160 met anyone that really really concentrated hard on making a 0:54:31.239 --> 0:54:34.920 first one, like a good impression on the first minute. 0:54:35.040 --> 0:54:39.279 And I also I learned another thing that show at 0:54:39.360 --> 0:54:42.279 least five minutes later. Okay, So the way that the 0:54:42.320 --> 0:54:46.200 stage is set up at one point, if you if 0:54:46.360 --> 0:54:49.240 those who were listening to the podcast, if you remember 0:54:49.280 --> 0:54:52.360 like those old like sort of like Vegas review shows 0:54:52.360 --> 0:54:55.680 where the person's name would be spelled out in lights 0:54:55.719 --> 0:54:58.680 like a bunch of light bulbs. There was one light 0:54:58.719 --> 0:55:05.160 bulb out on the letter oh of Beyonce, and I 0:55:05.239 --> 0:55:09.839 saw you lose your mind in the sound and then 0:55:09.920 --> 0:55:13.640 suddenly I stopped watching her show for like twenty minutes, 0:55:13.680 --> 0:55:17.360 and suddenly I'd never seen like this is my Malcolm 0:55:17.600 --> 0:55:20.080 X moment where the guy goes up to him in 0:55:20.080 --> 0:55:21.200 the cafeteria. 0:55:21.520 --> 0:55:26.600 Talk police like that exactly, like I've. 0:55:26.480 --> 0:55:33.680 Never seen one person bark in order and sent twelve 0:55:33.719 --> 0:55:36.520 people absolutely running to the hills for their lives to 0:55:36.600 --> 0:55:40.400 fix one light bulb on stage. I've never seen that 0:55:40.440 --> 0:55:40.960 in my life. 0:55:41.600 --> 0:55:46.840 And and you know why, because that light bulb was blinking, 0:55:47.360 --> 0:55:49.919 which could affected Beyonce's concentration. 0:55:50.320 --> 0:55:53.560 Oh yes, hit at the show. 0:55:53.760 --> 0:55:58.520 Yeah yeah, I watched you for the next twenty minutes 0:55:58.560 --> 0:56:03.160 because you know, normally, Matt Setting, I'm on stage, and 0:56:03.719 --> 0:56:07.839 I'd never get to see, you know, the running by show, 0:56:07.880 --> 0:56:10.240 because if I'm at a concert, I'm watching the show 0:56:10.840 --> 0:56:13.000 or I'm on stage. So this is one of the 0:56:13.080 --> 0:56:16.480 rare moments where I'm watching someone run the show in 0:56:16.520 --> 0:56:17.920 a way that I never ever. 0:56:17.800 --> 0:56:25.520 Ever And most people don't realize Destiny's Child entire performance 0:56:25.600 --> 0:56:33.200 career Beyonce's first three or four world tours, so lunge 0:56:33.719 --> 0:56:37.160 first tours, I did the front of the house sound, 0:56:38.040 --> 0:56:42.880 Oh wow, And I did that because Destiny's Child did 0:56:43.280 --> 0:56:47.560 if their first tour was with Boys to Men, And 0:56:47.600 --> 0:56:53.200 when you have four ladies singing and everyone played a 0:56:53.320 --> 0:56:57.319 role one person in between songs, that's who talk to 0:56:57.360 --> 0:57:01.080 the audience, and so I would in and out, punch 0:57:01.160 --> 0:57:03.600 in and out vocals, and we had the back ground 0:57:03.680 --> 0:57:10.200 tracks on the tape. And so the engineer back then 0:57:10.280 --> 0:57:13.920 you paid the junior engineer fifty dollars a show, but 0:57:14.040 --> 0:57:17.160 he didn't know who was singing and when he didn't 0:57:17.200 --> 0:57:22.919 know the show, and so it sounded awful. And I said, hey, 0:57:23.000 --> 0:57:27.240 teach me, teach me. And so from that point when 0:57:27.280 --> 0:57:29.880 we're doing TV tracks, and then when we got to 0:57:30.320 --> 0:57:33.680 when Beyonce was doing band, I didn't do the band, 0:57:33.880 --> 0:57:37.720 but I always did Beyonce's and vocals. 0:57:37.920 --> 0:57:39.880 How long did it take for you to master that? 0:57:41.160 --> 0:57:45.200 I mastered it quick. I mastered like two or three 0:57:45.240 --> 0:57:50.560 shows because I just knew when to put the delays, 0:57:50.760 --> 0:57:52.840 when to punch in, punch out. I mean, these are 0:57:52.920 --> 0:58:01.760 things people don't know about mequest Love. You know, they 0:58:01.760 --> 0:58:02.720 don't know this at all. 0:58:03.440 --> 0:58:07.479 Okay. So the thing is is that, Okay, so when 0:58:07.520 --> 0:58:10.360 you when you get to Houston, I don't know the 0:58:10.400 --> 0:58:11.960 exact year that you moved. 0:58:11.920 --> 0:58:17.160 But December sixteen, sixty seventy six, okay, all right, nineteen 0:58:17.160 --> 0:58:17.720 seventy six. 0:58:18.880 --> 0:58:22.480 When you are developing, first of all, how do you 0:58:22.600 --> 0:58:27.240 know that the talent that your kids have, how do 0:58:27.280 --> 0:58:31.840 you know that? It's it's beyond just like performing at 0:58:31.840 --> 0:58:35.919 family functions and Thanksgiving Like I used to be called 0:58:35.920 --> 0:58:37.560 to the table all the time to do the robot. 0:58:37.640 --> 0:58:41.439 I mean, do the Michael Jackson real quick. That's where 0:58:41.480 --> 0:58:44.440 it comes from. Every parent has that story where they 0:58:44.520 --> 0:58:47.160 you know, they wake up the kid from sleep and 0:58:47.280 --> 0:58:49.040 you know they're having a party downstairs. All right, A right, 0:58:49.120 --> 0:58:54.600 go singing reatha Franklin. Right, Wait what you. 0:58:54.480 --> 0:59:02.080 Saying, Teddy? You My parents was good parents. 0:59:02.520 --> 0:59:03.280 I know what I'm saying. 0:59:03.320 --> 0:59:05.520 What I'm cur I'm just trying what song did you sing? 0:59:05.560 --> 0:59:07.720 I'm trying to hear what keys like? What he've been singing? 0:59:09.480 --> 0:59:11.120 Oh you would sing close the door. 0:59:11.360 --> 0:59:16.200 I don't know what I'm saying, close the door. You 0:59:16.240 --> 0:59:18.600 would get that load, you could get that deep. That 0:59:18.680 --> 0:59:20.520 was I was waiting all day long. 0:59:21.120 --> 0:59:22.680 That was your point. You would have to know what 0:59:22.880 --> 0:59:24.120 Keitt did she say? That is. 0:59:26.840 --> 0:59:26.880 What? 0:59:27.160 --> 0:59:30.000 Did I knew the words? It's that I knew the words. 0:59:32.360 --> 0:59:35.800 I think you just might have won the animated the 0:59:35.960 --> 0:59:38.920 real like you're seeing closed the door and ship. 0:59:41.280 --> 0:59:44.440 That wasn't that was Teddy made pendograss. 0:59:46.480 --> 0:59:52.080 You I have jokes. 0:59:52.320 --> 0:59:56.640 I'm quick if I jokes man, what's your sign? I'm sorry, 0:59:56.680 --> 0:59:57.800 I'm just coppricoid. 0:59:59.040 --> 1:00:02.440 Indeed, yes, indeed, where's your birthday? 1:00:02.560 --> 1:00:03.280 January night? 1:00:03.800 --> 1:00:05.720 Okay German, I'm December twenty eighth. 1:00:05.960 --> 1:00:11.480 Yeah, Capricorn. Sorry, Steve, we are, yeah, we are. Steven's 1:00:11.720 --> 1:00:14.120 your birthday soon? Right? Yeah? 1:00:14.560 --> 1:00:19.280 September sixth, Virgos, We're amazing people. We just can't figure 1:00:19.280 --> 1:00:21.000 out what to order in a restaurant. But other than that, 1:00:21.360 --> 1:00:23.320 it's pretty great. 1:00:23.840 --> 1:00:26.480 You are amazing people. Beyonce September fourth. 1:00:27.080 --> 1:00:30.440 Damn ye, what's there? 1:00:30.480 --> 1:00:38.640 You go? All right? So when how do you know 1:00:38.960 --> 1:00:43.280 that this is much more than yeah, just you know, 1:00:43.680 --> 1:00:45.800 good for good for the church choir? How do you 1:00:45.920 --> 1:00:50.040 know that? Okay, my my daughter might have something. 1:00:50.600 --> 1:00:55.800 So parenting, you know, my I think the role of 1:00:55.880 --> 1:01:01.240 a parent with their kids is to surround them with 1:01:01.560 --> 1:01:04.640 as much as they can. I would take the girls, 1:01:04.920 --> 1:01:07.240 and me and my former wife, who would take the 1:01:07.280 --> 1:01:10.240 girls to, like I said, to the library. We would 1:01:10.240 --> 1:01:15.200 take them and support their science fairs. We would get 1:01:15.200 --> 1:01:19.640 them in dance lessons and so that they could figure 1:01:19.800 --> 1:01:24.200 out and we could see what they gravitated towards and 1:01:24.640 --> 1:01:29.280 both Solange and Beyonce gravitated towards music, and so then 1:01:29.440 --> 1:01:34.040 we surrounded them even more with support. So for Beyonce, 1:01:35.080 --> 1:01:39.560 she was in the she was eight years old. She 1:01:40.200 --> 1:01:43.840 was in a talent show against twelve thirteen year old 1:01:43.960 --> 1:01:47.320 kids and we were sitting there. It was her first 1:01:47.320 --> 1:01:52.400 time performing, and she said, mom, dad, I'm ready to go, 1:01:52.600 --> 1:01:55.200 so we can go eat because I need to win 1:01:55.240 --> 1:01:58.880 one hundred dollars and get my trophy. And we said, well, 1:01:58.960 --> 1:02:01.920 how do you know gonna win this talent show? And 1:02:02.400 --> 1:02:06.800 we weren't paying attention to a practicing or anything, and 1:02:06.880 --> 1:02:09.160 she said, I just know, I just know, And sure 1:02:09.280 --> 1:02:13.120 enough she got a stand innovation. Well, after she won 1:02:13.680 --> 1:02:21.080 thirty one consecutive talent shows, we then start thinking, huh, 1:02:21.320 --> 1:02:25.880 maybe maybe this is what she really likes and maybe 1:02:25.920 --> 1:02:31.280 this is what she might be one day entertainer. And 1:02:31.280 --> 1:02:35.440 the same with Solon's, the same kind of story. I 1:02:35.440 --> 1:02:40.840 gotta say this, Solon's did something really different. Solons when 1:02:40.920 --> 1:02:45.920 she was about nine. One day we came home, she 1:02:46.040 --> 1:02:50.120 was with the maids. She dismantled about twelve of Beyonce's 1:02:50.120 --> 1:02:56.080 trophies totally completely dismantled them. I understand it now as 1:02:56.120 --> 1:02:57.800 a parent, she would say, what about me? 1:02:58.160 --> 1:02:58.840 What about me? 1:03:00.160 --> 1:03:00.200 What? 1:03:00.600 --> 1:03:01.920 Trophies don't mean nothing? 1:03:02.680 --> 1:03:04.520 Wow? 1:03:05.800 --> 1:03:10.680 Okay, so I know that and and sort of that, 1:03:10.960 --> 1:03:17.760 uh what's his name? Blink? And the tipping point, Oh, 1:03:17.840 --> 1:03:22.720 Malcolm Gladwell, Malcolm Gladwell out yeah, and outliers that you know, 1:03:22.760 --> 1:03:27.720 he says that ten thousand hours of preparation equals genius. 1:03:28.400 --> 1:03:32.040 I've seen, you know, some clips about you know, camp 1:03:32.120 --> 1:03:37.600 Knowles or whatever, how you would train them how? Okay? 1:03:37.640 --> 1:03:42.840 First of all, can you explain about the decision to 1:03:43.040 --> 1:03:49.680 leave your cushy comfort job as as a salesman. 1:03:50.960 --> 1:03:52.439 How your wife worked that out? Yeah? 1:03:52.800 --> 1:03:57.320 Yeah, and yeah, what's the what was the decision to 1:03:57.560 --> 1:04:01.400 really make the leap into Okay, I'm going to now 1:04:02.120 --> 1:04:06.200 steer this, steer this empire to where it should go 1:04:06.400 --> 1:04:07.800 so that we can have a legacy. 1:04:08.040 --> 1:04:11.840 So you know, when I was at Xerox Medical Systems, 1:04:11.960 --> 1:04:15.680 I told you I was highly successful there, highly successful 1:04:15.720 --> 1:04:19.880 at Phillips, not so much successful at Johnson and Johnson 1:04:19.920 --> 1:04:26.440 and that neurosurgic position. I didn't like it because you know, 1:04:26.720 --> 1:04:30.440 I came from selling a five million dollar piece of 1:04:30.480 --> 1:04:36.280 equipment to selling a whole bunch of thousand dollars instruments. 1:04:36.960 --> 1:04:39.600 And I didn't like that. I didn't like on the 1:04:39.640 --> 1:04:43.160 weekends going to the operating room and having a pager 1:04:43.720 --> 1:04:46.760 every other weekend. I just didn't like getting up at 1:04:46.880 --> 1:04:48.840 four in the morning going to surgery. 1:04:49.800 --> 1:04:50.160 And so. 1:04:51.600 --> 1:04:55.560 One of the hospitals in the medical system center after 1:04:55.600 --> 1:05:00.280 a procedure, I got paid. So I thought, did the 1:05:00.280 --> 1:05:03.800 patient die? Did I say something wrong? Did I do 1:05:03.880 --> 1:05:08.160 something wrong? So I run up to the neurosurgeon's office 1:05:08.200 --> 1:05:10.760 and he tells me, miss knows, I can't use your 1:05:10.800 --> 1:05:14.520 instruments anymore. And I asked him why. He said, showed 1:05:14.560 --> 1:05:18.640 me the letter that if he didn't reduce his cost 1:05:19.000 --> 1:05:22.720 per procedure. If he didn't reduce that he was not 1:05:23.000 --> 1:05:27.320 he was going to lose his privileges at that hospital. Wow, 1:05:27.560 --> 1:05:33.600 And no surgeon wants that because that's their livelihood. At 1:05:33.640 --> 1:05:38.439 that point, I call Tina, my former wife, and said, 1:05:38.480 --> 1:05:41.360 I can't do this shit anymore. Quote That's exactly what 1:05:41.440 --> 1:05:45.840 I said, because I was like, I'm not selling quality, 1:05:45.880 --> 1:05:49.200 I'm selling costs, and I just can't do that. I'm 1:05:49.240 --> 1:05:51.960 not really ready selling a whole bunch of little stuff, 1:05:53.160 --> 1:05:56.080 and I just didn't like what I was doing. So 1:05:56.240 --> 1:05:58.960 I realized at that moment that was a defining moment, 1:05:59.000 --> 1:06:01.400 and we all have the any moments in our lives 1:06:01.880 --> 1:06:03.800 that I had to do something else. I was gonna 1:06:03.800 --> 1:06:08.120 get fired anyway. So I knew I had to do 1:06:08.160 --> 1:06:11.440 something else, and I decided I wanted to change my career. 1:06:12.480 --> 1:06:14.800 What people don't know is when I was a kid, 1:06:15.720 --> 1:06:19.439 my dad had four hundred pounds, could dance his butt off. 1:06:19.880 --> 1:06:23.400 And they would go, my mom and dad on Sundays 1:06:23.800 --> 1:06:26.160 into the living room that had that plastic on it. 1:06:26.240 --> 1:06:27.520 Y'all too young to understand. 1:06:27.680 --> 1:06:34.320 Oh no, we're talking about my grandma still got plastic 1:06:34.360 --> 1:06:35.240 on the couch now. 1:06:35.480 --> 1:06:39.480 So they would go in there. Man, they started dancing, 1:06:40.000 --> 1:06:43.240 and my job was to put. I had a nickel 1:06:43.280 --> 1:06:46.640 of diamond a quarter, and we had vinyl, and my 1:06:46.800 --> 1:06:50.440 job was to put and look at that vinyl and finally, 1:06:50.680 --> 1:06:53.280 you know more, I heard it. I knew so it 1:06:53.280 --> 1:06:56.439 went scratched because my dad would get really mad when 1:06:56.440 --> 1:07:00.520 he was dancing if the record scratched. And so I 1:07:00.600 --> 1:07:05.120 then start reading the line of notes and I didn't realize, 1:07:05.160 --> 1:07:08.680 but I became a DJ every Sunday. They did this 1:07:09.200 --> 1:07:13.040 every Sunday, you know they I knew I could tell 1:07:13.080 --> 1:07:17.760 by my dad's emotions what songs to play, and that's 1:07:17.840 --> 1:07:21.640 really what the DJ does. Anyway. I knew peaches and earths, 1:07:21.760 --> 1:07:26.120 closed my you know I do. I better put close 1:07:26.240 --> 1:07:29.920 my eyes on right now. Fast, fast dumbino. You know 1:07:30.280 --> 1:07:32.960 that was one of his jams. I knew if he 1:07:33.000 --> 1:07:36.560 wanted to do some tempo, I better do fast dumbino. 1:07:37.040 --> 1:07:41.520 But and most people not mostly hardly anybody knows that. 1:07:42.240 --> 1:07:46.320 In high school, I was actually we had a boy group. 1:07:46.600 --> 1:07:49.400 You know, back in the day, talent shows was a 1:07:49.440 --> 1:07:52.440 big thing in the black community. Uh but at our 1:07:52.520 --> 1:07:56.080 high school, we had a talent you know. We we won. 1:07:56.240 --> 1:08:00.600 Actually we did Psychedelic Shock by the tim Taste Temptations. 1:08:02.920 --> 1:08:03.560 That's where it's at. 1:08:03.760 --> 1:08:07.720 Yeah. And I just love music. I always love love 1:08:07.800 --> 1:08:12.080 the music. And so I decided. And at the same time, 1:08:13.040 --> 1:08:18.160 Beyonce was in this girl group called Girls Time. All 1:08:18.240 --> 1:08:21.160 I did because my former wife was we owned a 1:08:21.240 --> 1:08:25.080 hair salon and so on the weekends was her big days, 1:08:25.120 --> 1:08:29.559 and that's when the girls would practice Fridays and Saturdays. Uh, 1:08:29.680 --> 1:08:32.960 So I would drop her off at practice, go play basketball, 1:08:33.400 --> 1:08:37.040 come back and pick her up. Uh. And then they 1:08:37.080 --> 1:08:40.280 got to Star Search, which is like American Idol, and 1:08:40.320 --> 1:08:43.000 they lost, and I'm there. They asked me to come 1:08:43.080 --> 1:08:46.960 to bring all the wardrobe because the then managers thought 1:08:46.960 --> 1:08:49.479 they were gonna win for a month and had a 1:08:49.520 --> 1:08:53.120 whole room just for the wardrobe. And then when they lost, 1:08:53.360 --> 1:08:56.080 I came up. I went up to air McMahon. I said, well, 1:08:56.160 --> 1:08:59.760 these kids are crying their hearts out. What what do 1:08:59.800 --> 1:09:03.519 I do? And he said, I don't know why, mister know, 1:09:04.400 --> 1:09:08.200 Actually I don't know why. He had a Don Conelia's voice. 1:09:08.520 --> 1:09:11.960 He said, but everyone that consistently win on the show 1:09:12.720 --> 1:09:17.040 professionally go on to do nothing. It's the people that 1:09:17.360 --> 1:09:24.519 lose Aliyah justin timberlay Usser Alanas Marce said, I can 1:09:24.600 --> 1:09:26.840 go on and on that lost, they went on to 1:09:26.880 --> 1:09:34.040 be successful because they recommitted, rededicated, changed their organization. And 1:09:34.120 --> 1:09:37.880 I never forgot those words, and that. 1:09:37.520 --> 1:09:40.040 That makes sense because people that win think they want 1:09:40.120 --> 1:09:42.920 they think, oh I made it, and right, you didn't. 1:09:42.920 --> 1:09:50.439 Ray and so it's so it's interesting. It's like eighteen 1:09:50.520 --> 1:09:53.800 A list artists google it. Sometimes you'd be surprised all 1:09:53.840 --> 1:09:59.240 the people. But but, but I actually ended up because 1:09:59.280 --> 1:10:02.320 I have always believe in knowledge is power. So I 1:10:02.400 --> 1:10:08.040 went back to junior college, Houston Community College here in Houston, 1:10:08.600 --> 1:10:13.639 and on the weekends I took artist management, music production, 1:10:14.400 --> 1:10:19.640 and I took publishing on the weekends on Saturdays, and 1:10:20.600 --> 1:10:25.040 over a year period and went to every seminar I could, 1:10:26.840 --> 1:10:29.439 and I would be the guy you want to shut 1:10:29.520 --> 1:10:33.080 up because I keep asking every question. Everybody's shy and quiet. 1:10:33.439 --> 1:10:35.120 I'd be like, oh well how about this? And why 1:10:35.120 --> 1:10:39.439 do you do this? And and I understood relationships. Now 1:10:39.520 --> 1:10:44.200 this is what's going to surprise you. The first artists 1:10:45.560 --> 1:10:51.480 and Google is the first artist that I ever signed 1:10:51.800 --> 1:10:55.760 to a major record deal. And the first artist that 1:10:55.960 --> 1:11:00.639 I signed as a manager was not Destiny's Child who 1:11:00.760 --> 1:11:06.120 was it Little Old? His single is Can't Stop. He 1:11:06.280 --> 1:11:09.679 was signed to m c A Records in the peak 1:11:10.320 --> 1:11:14.720 when they had Mary J. Blige, Joessy P. Diddy. I 1:11:14.760 --> 1:11:20.120 can go on and on, little, oh, little Little, and 1:11:20.200 --> 1:11:24.160 the single is called can't Stop and it features Destiny. 1:11:24.760 --> 1:11:28.000 How the hell did I convince m c A Records 1:11:28.320 --> 1:11:31.360 to put a Columbia Records artist that didn't even have 1:11:31.479 --> 1:11:36.720 a record on his first single, but I did, but 1:11:36.880 --> 1:11:41.640 Little Oh was my first artist, a rap artist. The 1:11:41.680 --> 1:11:43.080 sample is loose ends. 1:11:44.280 --> 1:11:46.240 Wow, yeah, you can't stop the rain. 1:11:48.160 --> 1:11:51.439 Wait question, okay, because I didn't ask this about your 1:11:51.520 --> 1:11:57.920 Xerox thing, But who is is your communications expertise? Is 1:11:57.960 --> 1:12:02.519 that self taught or is this something you learned in college? 1:12:02.560 --> 1:12:06.160 Because yes, I do know that the key to a 1:12:06.160 --> 1:12:12.000 successful business person is one that remembers names and you know, 1:12:12.040 --> 1:12:15.800 it's personable as a people person, all things I kind 1:12:15.800 --> 1:12:18.960 of don't like about this industry. But I realized that 1:12:19.120 --> 1:12:25.040 I have to jump in the pool someone begrudgingly, but like, 1:12:25.120 --> 1:12:29.200 who taught you the art of communication? You know? 1:12:29.320 --> 1:12:35.040 My foundation is and was from Xerox Corporation. And if 1:12:35.080 --> 1:12:41.519 you reach the search, there's been so many presidents of corporations, 1:12:42.040 --> 1:12:48.559 black men and women that in the eighties talking back 1:12:48.600 --> 1:12:51.479 in the day seventies and eighties that worked at Xerox 1:12:51.760 --> 1:12:55.920 in Leedsburg, Virginia. There was actually a college that we 1:12:55.960 --> 1:13:01.360 would go to. I credit Xerox Corporation or all of 1:13:01.400 --> 1:13:07.960 my success and communications and understanding people and understanding how 1:13:08.000 --> 1:13:13.439 to sell myself build relationships. I always will credit them 1:13:13.520 --> 1:13:19.719 because they taught me and many others foundation that is unparallel. 1:13:19.840 --> 1:13:24.200 But it doesn't get exhausting like remembering names and terrible 1:13:24.240 --> 1:13:25.920 with that have have to. 1:13:28.320 --> 1:13:30.840 I remember faces faces I would never face. 1:13:31.200 --> 1:13:35.519 I remember sales calls, and I would have everybody come 1:13:35.560 --> 1:13:39.040 into the to the to the meeting in a comforence 1:13:39.120 --> 1:13:41.840 room and I have on a piece of paper a chart. 1:13:42.240 --> 1:13:44.880 Well I had everybody's names. I can remember their name. 1:13:45.640 --> 1:13:48.760 See thea art. I'm terrible with names. I'm still bad 1:13:48.760 --> 1:13:50.000 at names. That's what it is. 1:13:50.600 --> 1:13:52.600 Some people get the joy out of you don't remember me, 1:13:52.680 --> 1:13:55.160 do you? And I just now I'm just blatant, like 1:13:55.439 --> 1:13:56.160 absolutely not. 1:13:56.280 --> 1:13:57.000 I don't remember. 1:13:57.240 --> 1:14:01.880 Yeah, absolutely terrible with names. But you know that's where 1:14:01.880 --> 1:14:04.600 I learned it. I learned from Zeros Corporation. 1:14:06.400 --> 1:14:09.760 Can you talk about pounding the pavement actually landing a 1:14:09.800 --> 1:14:10.360 record deal? 1:14:11.200 --> 1:14:15.799 Yeah, I can, because uh were I got a number 1:14:15.800 --> 1:14:20.599 of letters that said we formerly passed on your group 1:14:20.800 --> 1:14:24.880 called Destiny Stahl. Uh. Then you know the group went 1:14:24.920 --> 1:14:28.880 from Girls Time, then they signed with Darryl Simmons l 1:14:28.960 --> 1:14:31.800 A and Baby Face Partner still to the day in 1:14:31.880 --> 1:14:37.200 writing UH and Solid Partner production. They got dropped by 1:14:37.280 --> 1:14:41.200 Electra Records. Sylvia was the president. Then she hates when 1:14:41.200 --> 1:14:45.800 I say that. He hates when I say that. But 1:14:46.040 --> 1:14:52.840 but it was she she literally Daryl had a new 1:14:52.880 --> 1:14:56.759 production deal and he had three artists. H the girls 1:14:56.840 --> 1:15:01.160 were called the Dolls, a name I really dislike then, 1:15:01.840 --> 1:15:05.600 and she ended up ending the production deal. But she 1:15:05.680 --> 1:15:08.080 had the right to continue with the girls. But I 1:15:08.160 --> 1:15:11.840 understood that she had this girl group called InVogue, and 1:15:12.040 --> 1:15:16.120 so why the hell would you want another girls group 1:15:16.160 --> 1:15:19.800 and a bunch of parents. I get it, So I 1:15:20.400 --> 1:15:25.040 understand that now. But yes, the girls, you know, I 1:15:25.640 --> 1:15:28.320 came up with this idea when they came back from Atlanta. 1:15:29.040 --> 1:15:31.639 I changed the name to something fresh, and then we 1:15:32.040 --> 1:15:35.240 did a photo shoot and I sent out packages. I 1:15:35.320 --> 1:15:38.759 used to spend a lot of time way I didn't 1:15:38.760 --> 1:15:41.439 have a clue. Then I would have a package with 1:15:41.640 --> 1:15:46.960 maybe twenty pages, photos and all kind of stuff, not 1:15:47.160 --> 1:15:51.080 understanding less was more, uh, And then I would get 1:15:51.240 --> 1:15:54.360 these past letters. And then I came up with another 1:15:54.520 --> 1:15:57.120 name of the girls. And then we came up with 1:15:57.160 --> 1:16:01.720 the name Destiny, and then Destiny came Destiny's child. So 1:16:02.400 --> 1:16:07.200 this this started, this journey started when Beyonce was eight 1:16:07.360 --> 1:16:11.480 years old and she got signed. When she was fifteen also. 1:16:11.760 --> 1:16:15.000 So you're telling me that you would get a round 1:16:15.040 --> 1:16:19.160 of news and then your idea was, Okay, we're going 1:16:19.240 --> 1:16:21.559 to come back as another name, Like how do you 1:16:21.600 --> 1:16:25.720 convince them? Like, okay, let's let's regroup and this time 1:16:25.720 --> 1:16:28.000 we're going to call ourselves this and do it all 1:16:28.040 --> 1:16:28.599 over again. 1:16:28.920 --> 1:16:32.600 Yeah, it was a bad idea. 1:16:33.280 --> 1:16:36.680 And I would assume that you would also try to 1:16:36.720 --> 1:16:39.919 do the usual pavement pounding at the jack the Rappers 1:16:39.920 --> 1:16:45.320 of the world and all those commissions. 1:16:43.240 --> 1:16:46.360 All of those, all of them. I was there. I 1:16:46.560 --> 1:16:50.479 was there with a whole stack of business cards, you know, 1:16:51.080 --> 1:16:56.040 but a whole stack of CDs. So who actually had then? 1:17:01.439 --> 1:17:06.200 I'm amazed that you never gave up, because from the 1:17:06.240 --> 1:17:09.280 story that I'm hearing is that you have to make 1:17:09.320 --> 1:17:13.160 a few rounds to the same labels over and over 1:17:13.200 --> 1:17:17.760 again with new names or you know, like a new 1:17:17.800 --> 1:17:22.479 an R that fits. And I mean you never once 1:17:22.520 --> 1:17:28.200 worried about like the proverbial eye roll of whoever is 1:17:28.240 --> 1:17:31.120 at you know this particular Oh god, Matthew, no matt 1:17:31.160 --> 1:17:33.360 Noles again. Okay, I'll take the car. 1:17:33.320 --> 1:17:35.439 Y, But you gotta remember about my background. I was 1:17:35.479 --> 1:17:38.839 the number one sales up in the world. It sells 1:17:38.880 --> 1:17:42.679 you're gonna hear No, No, it's just I didn't present 1:17:42.720 --> 1:17:46.919 it correctly. That's when I get to know. It's like, Okay, 1:17:47.120 --> 1:17:48.320 I didn't present that right. 1:17:48.240 --> 1:17:51.360 And there was and the girls weren't taking this person 1:17:51.479 --> 1:17:54.720 or any of those things like you just like, how 1:17:54.720 --> 1:17:57.800 do you break it to them that it didn't work 1:17:57.800 --> 1:17:59.720 out or it's not our time that like, how how 1:17:59.720 --> 1:18:03.120 do you break bad news to them that doesn't break 1:18:03.160 --> 1:18:03.679 their spirit? 1:18:04.600 --> 1:18:08.320 Well, it was being honest, first of all, and they 1:18:08.400 --> 1:18:14.559 weren't I mean, in reality, they weren't ready. They really 1:18:14.600 --> 1:18:18.839 weren't ready. And they accepted the fact that they weren't ready, 1:18:19.040 --> 1:18:22.840 that they had to improve, they had to grow, they 1:18:22.960 --> 1:18:26.000 had to practice, they had to get more focals. This 1:18:26.240 --> 1:18:31.120 was their passion and they accepted that and they did 1:18:31.200 --> 1:18:34.599 the things because they also were best friends and they 1:18:34.640 --> 1:18:37.360 got to spend time and had a lot of fun 1:18:37.520 --> 1:18:39.120 as little girls do together. 1:18:39.680 --> 1:18:42.360 Can I ask, because I'm now realizing I have a 1:18:42.439 --> 1:18:45.599 rare chance to ask a question of this manner that 1:18:46.320 --> 1:18:49.280 I probably wouldn't have. You know, it comes into twenty 1:18:49.360 --> 1:18:51.960 years ago to ask you, and I'm kind of jumping 1:18:52.120 --> 1:18:59.720 ahead a little bit, but that that period between like 1:19:00.640 --> 1:19:05.559 nineteen ninety nine in two thousand and one where you're 1:19:05.560 --> 1:19:10.639 making personnel changes and whatnot. And I know, you know, 1:19:10.720 --> 1:19:12.840 just from the line of work that I come in, 1:19:13.000 --> 1:19:16.599 how discipline, rigorous discipline. 1:19:16.439 --> 1:19:16.839 And. 1:19:18.320 --> 1:19:19.840 You know, you kind of have to be on your 1:19:19.920 --> 1:19:22.920 p's and q's in this business and oftentimes you might 1:19:23.000 --> 1:19:27.120 have weak links. I mean not to just dismiss people 1:19:27.120 --> 1:19:29.920 as weak links or whatnot, but you know, I know 1:19:30.040 --> 1:19:34.160 that especially pre or the beginning stages of the Internet, 1:19:35.600 --> 1:19:38.520 a lot has been said of your sort of backstage 1:19:38.640 --> 1:19:43.599 dad control of the group. But what is the biggest 1:19:43.640 --> 1:19:49.519 miss perception of your role during that period in which 1:19:50.479 --> 1:19:54.439 you're changing personnel, like right before Michelle Williams came into 1:19:54.479 --> 1:19:59.639 the group, what do you feel the of course, now 1:20:00.080 --> 1:20:03.280 you know post two thousand and one and two thousand 1:20:03.280 --> 1:20:05.479 and two, two thousand and three, like post Survivor then 1:20:05.600 --> 1:20:08.760 you know, now it's like, you know, your dad of 1:20:08.800 --> 1:20:12.759 the century. But there was that period where we didn't 1:20:12.840 --> 1:20:16.080 know what was happening, like was was this going to 1:20:16.120 --> 1:20:19.840 be a dream girl's supreme situation or was it going 1:20:19.920 --> 1:20:23.880 to be a destiny fulfilled situation? But what did you 1:20:23.960 --> 1:20:28.520 feel during that period was a major sort of misconception 1:20:28.720 --> 1:20:34.120 of just like how that situation went down. 1:20:34.840 --> 1:20:40.599 Yeah, I just never I just never really cared what 1:20:40.800 --> 1:20:47.520 people said about me. I understood again from Xerox's leadership 1:20:48.000 --> 1:20:53.439 and what true leadership really means. People aren't gonna and 1:20:53.479 --> 1:20:57.080 when you're a visionary, people aren't gonna get that most people. 1:20:57.920 --> 1:21:01.360 Matter of fact, I'm glad most people don't get it, 1:21:01.680 --> 1:21:05.840 because for those of us that are visionaries, if everybody 1:21:05.920 --> 1:21:10.720 got it, to make it really tough to be successful. 1:21:10.960 --> 1:21:14.680 So I had a vision, I had leadership, I had 1:21:14.720 --> 1:21:19.800 amazing team, and I just said earlier, the team has 1:21:19.840 --> 1:21:24.280 been together for a long time, from road manager to 1:21:25.360 --> 1:21:33.759 accountants to you know, music directly publicist Yvette Noel Shore 1:21:34.320 --> 1:21:38.680 twenty plus years. These guys have been together, and so 1:21:38.720 --> 1:21:42.360 I built a really good team. It wasn't just me, 1:21:42.520 --> 1:21:46.120 but we had our own vision. You know, Tina, my 1:21:46.200 --> 1:21:50.280 former wife, did an exceptional job on the imaging. You know, 1:21:50.360 --> 1:21:56.519 back then those girl groups were in boots and baggy jeans, 1:21:56.560 --> 1:22:02.920 and we wanted to do glamour and bring back the Supremes. 1:22:04.680 --> 1:22:08.120 We always had a vision that we had and we 1:22:08.200 --> 1:22:12.280 didn't stray from that. And if you know, anyone quest 1:22:12.360 --> 1:22:15.880 Love that actually really worked in the record label and 1:22:16.200 --> 1:22:19.559 really was there, I think you would get a totally 1:22:19.720 --> 1:22:25.919 different perspective of the role I played and what really happened. 1:22:26.800 --> 1:22:29.759 I mean, fans, you know, we are in the industry, 1:22:30.040 --> 1:22:33.360 fans are you know, fans are gonna have their perspective, 1:22:34.040 --> 1:22:37.400 but they don't really know. Fans don't really know what's happening. 1:22:38.280 --> 1:22:38.479 Yeah. 1:22:38.479 --> 1:22:42.080 From an outsider's perspective, I my I think my kind 1:22:42.120 --> 1:22:44.840 of Matthew knows moment. I had heard like all the 1:22:44.880 --> 1:22:46.760 Desert Child stuff and you know, I were going through 1:22:46.800 --> 1:22:50.680 the group change and everything. For me, I understood the 1:22:50.720 --> 1:22:52.880 type of businessman you were when I saw you signed 1:22:52.960 --> 1:22:55.760 Daylight Soul. When when you signed them, I was like, 1:22:55.920 --> 1:22:57.120 word the fuck up? 1:22:57.280 --> 1:22:59.880 Yes, like you get it, you know what I'm saying. 1:23:00.360 --> 1:23:01.559 I was so happy to see. 1:23:01.400 --> 1:23:05.719 You like that first single shopping Bags. Yeah, people don't 1:23:05.760 --> 1:23:08.400 know this about me. You know that, we mean. 1:23:08.560 --> 1:23:12.639 Me, We don't know, we know, we know everybody else 1:23:12.640 --> 1:23:14.120 about to know, we don't know. 1:23:14.200 --> 1:23:17.160 In two thousand and two, I sold music well it's 1:23:17.280 --> 1:23:21.160 you can google it for ten million dollars and thirty 1:23:21.200 --> 1:23:25.679 million in stock and we Sanctuary was at that time, 1:23:25.720 --> 1:23:29.439 in two thousand and two, the largest independent record label. 1:23:30.360 --> 1:23:33.160 Rock was their thing. They had all the major Rocks. 1:23:33.160 --> 1:23:35.640 And we formed the Urban Division and I was the 1:23:35.640 --> 1:23:38.679 president of it, and we had the Urban Record Label, 1:23:39.439 --> 1:23:43.439 the largest urban management company in the world. You know, 1:23:44.680 --> 1:23:48.000 we had Nelly young men. I made all these these 1:23:48.080 --> 1:23:50.759 kids were all in their twenties. The men, I shouldn't 1:23:50.760 --> 1:23:54.320 say kids. These young men were all in their twenties 1:23:54.360 --> 1:23:58.960 and became millionaires. And when I look back and I 1:23:59.600 --> 1:24:02.920 see at you know, can do Isaac's you know, we 1:24:02.960 --> 1:24:06.200 brought him on board. He was at that time producing 1:24:06.240 --> 1:24:12.599 for Mary j Uh. We brought in from Philadelphia. Uh, 1:24:12.680 --> 1:24:17.240 doctor doctor, God's basketball player. I just had a mental. 1:24:18.240 --> 1:24:26.760 Julius Irving the third Yeah, they had Floor Tree and 1:24:26.479 --> 1:24:32.439 they had Eve. I brought those guys only Carter and 1:24:32.560 --> 1:24:36.800 Troy Carter, who was my number one draft pick. When 1:24:36.840 --> 1:24:41.880 I tell you this young man, absolutely And just the 1:24:41.920 --> 1:24:45.120 other day I heard on one of the social media 1:24:45.160 --> 1:24:50.080 platforms he talked about it. Uh, where Troy was my 1:24:50.280 --> 1:24:53.720 number one The first person I brought on board. I 1:24:53.760 --> 1:24:57.920 didn't know Jay Irving at that time, but I had 1:24:58.400 --> 1:25:02.000 really followed this kid with Eve and he had a rapper. 1:25:02.040 --> 1:25:04.360 They had a rapper also, I can't. 1:25:04.120 --> 1:25:11.719 Remember his name, but journalists, Yes, that's a journalist when 1:25:12.200 --> 1:25:14.160 he was journalist. 1:25:14.680 --> 1:25:18.000 And then I brought in the management for D twelve 1:25:18.680 --> 1:25:22.080 and so this is who what I management roster was. 1:25:22.560 --> 1:25:27.320 Now you'll understand when they had the MTV tour and 1:25:27.400 --> 1:25:32.400 Destiny's Child Nelly and Eve was only now you understand 1:25:32.479 --> 1:25:35.920 why now you understand Kelly and Kelly, Well I was. 1:25:37.520 --> 1:25:40.559 I was just about to say, now you understand that 1:25:40.720 --> 1:25:43.840 just wasn't happenstance. That was because they were part of 1:25:43.960 --> 1:25:50.040 music World, I mean Sanctuary Music World, Sanctuary Urban Management. Uh. 1:25:50.120 --> 1:25:54.599 And then on the record labels side, we I signed 1:25:54.640 --> 1:25:55.479 earth Winner Fire. 1:25:55.760 --> 1:25:57.600 I say, you did the Illumination record. 1:25:57.400 --> 1:26:03.280 Right, Illumination ray J's biggest hit one wish you know. 1:26:04.439 --> 1:26:07.439 I did a deal with ray J and his mother. 1:26:08.600 --> 1:26:13.439 We did the Ojays cooling the game. I convinced Shaka 1:26:13.520 --> 1:26:17.040 Khan to go to London and do a standards records 1:26:17.800 --> 1:26:24.320 with the London Symphony. You know, we did a whole 1:26:24.400 --> 1:26:28.880 lot there. Now, as the media on the record label side, 1:26:28.920 --> 1:26:33.679 they gave me the black eye because Sanctuary ended up 1:26:33.880 --> 1:26:38.960 going downhill. Obviously they always looked for Who's going to 1:26:38.960 --> 1:26:41.720 be Escapegoat? But on the record label, on the management side, 1:26:41.760 --> 1:26:44.400 we made plenty of money. On the record label side. 1:26:44.479 --> 1:26:48.000 You know, it takes time to recoup those you know, 1:26:48.160 --> 1:26:52.000 I spent money with these artists. I believe in spending 1:26:52.080 --> 1:26:54.600 money with my artists, and it takes a minute to 1:26:54.640 --> 1:26:59.040 recoup those investments. But it was a great, great time, 1:27:00.040 --> 1:27:04.920 wonderful time that I had got a little too a 1:27:05.040 --> 1:27:08.960 little too, like we talked earlier, questlove had too much 1:27:09.000 --> 1:27:14.040 going on uh at the time. UH. And during this 1:27:14.200 --> 1:27:19.479 period is where I began to unravel, when the stress 1:27:19.560 --> 1:27:22.960 came with all the travel. Because I had an office 1:27:23.000 --> 1:27:27.080 on Sunset Boulevard, I had an office in New York. 1:27:27.280 --> 1:27:29.680 I had two offices in New York. I had an 1:27:29.680 --> 1:27:33.320 office of Sony at five fifty Medisine. I had an 1:27:33.360 --> 1:27:37.320 office downtown in New York. My corporate office was in London. 1:27:37.360 --> 1:27:40.519 I was in London then near every other week. We 1:27:40.560 --> 1:27:44.080 had an office my fifteen oh five Hatley, which is 1:27:44.120 --> 1:27:48.600 where Hatley Street dreams, because that's where we own the 1:27:48.640 --> 1:27:53.599 whole block with records, labels, studios, rehearsal. You were there, 1:27:53.760 --> 1:27:55.400 you been there, You've been there. 1:27:55.520 --> 1:27:56.759 How did you know I was there. I was about 1:27:56.800 --> 1:28:02.320 to say compound. I went there for some reason. I 1:28:02.360 --> 1:28:05.200 forget why I went down there, And it wasn't even 1:28:05.240 --> 1:28:06.200 to work with your daughters. 1:28:06.240 --> 1:28:09.080 But yeah, it was something we did with one of 1:28:09.320 --> 1:28:12.719 you know, we used to rent it out to different good. 1:28:12.880 --> 1:28:14.640 That's right, because when you were saying that, I was like, 1:28:14.680 --> 1:28:18.000 wait a minute, did not visit music worlds. 1:28:18.080 --> 1:28:19.599 It was one of those power drinks. 1:28:23.000 --> 1:28:27.559 Yes, yeah, right now, that was like to see that 1:28:27.680 --> 1:28:31.400 was that was important for me to also see the development. 1:28:31.840 --> 1:28:34.080 Like when I went inside Music world I was really 1:28:34.840 --> 1:28:39.200 impressed because the only other oh god, okay, I'm gonna 1:28:39.240 --> 1:28:42.240 I'm a prince basis about to come down on me 1:28:42.280 --> 1:28:44.320 for this statement. I mean, the last time I went 1:28:44.360 --> 1:28:47.040 to something as close to that was Paisley Park, and 1:28:48.080 --> 1:28:52.679 during that time period, you know, it wasn't that well kept, 1:28:52.760 --> 1:28:56.280 and you know, it was basically just by that point 1:28:56.439 --> 1:29:02.679 just his vanity studio, Like it was far from the utopia. Yeah, 1:29:02.680 --> 1:29:05.120 it as far from the utopian vision that I think 1:29:05.160 --> 1:29:07.960 that he envisioned where it was like a full scale 1:29:08.000 --> 1:29:11.200 video in a Latinot video like a arsal spot and 1:29:11.280 --> 1:29:14.240 a club and all those things. But like to see 1:29:14.240 --> 1:29:18.920 it in real time, like in full operation. I was 1:29:19.080 --> 1:29:23.880 very I was really impressed with how that that operation was, 1:29:23.920 --> 1:29:25.360 what was running down there. 1:29:25.680 --> 1:29:28.920 Yeah, and then we had you know, we had not 1:29:29.040 --> 1:29:34.799 only we had the we built the largest gospel label 1:29:35.040 --> 1:29:38.160 only Sony. Sony beat us out one year by like 1:29:38.720 --> 1:29:44.280 ten and market share. You know. We did a partnership 1:29:44.320 --> 1:29:49.360 with B. E. T. Sunday best Leandrea Johnson, Grammy Award 1:29:49.400 --> 1:29:55.639 winner number one Female Gospel Trinity five seven, six six 1:29:55.800 --> 1:30:03.320 records on them. That's I'm soft, I'm strong. I can 1:30:03.360 --> 1:30:08.120 go on and on. We had a real burgering gospel label. 1:30:09.840 --> 1:30:13.040 Most people don't know this stuff, you know, they just trophy. 1:30:13.720 --> 1:30:19.719 They just know I'm Beyonce. That's not a bad thing. Yeah, 1:30:20.280 --> 1:30:22.680 that's not a bad thing at all. But but I 1:30:22.880 --> 1:30:24.640 you know, at one point we had one hundred and 1:30:24.680 --> 1:30:28.360 forty employees. At one point, my overhead was three hundred 1:30:28.439 --> 1:30:33.880 thousand dollars a month's business a month. And as you know, 1:30:34.000 --> 1:30:37.200 Ques Love, Uh, you know, I'm very proud as a 1:30:37.240 --> 1:30:40.960 black man we own the city block. Let me change 1:30:40.960 --> 1:30:43.639 that when I say when I say we, people think 1:30:43.680 --> 1:30:52.000 Beyonce and sluntch I fucking own a city block. In 1:30:52.200 --> 1:30:53.559 downtown Houston. 1:30:54.120 --> 1:30:57.439 Yes, look and the land that it says on too 1:30:58.000 --> 1:31:03.920 grow right. People don't understand about that lane heavy land 1:31:03.920 --> 1:31:06.040 from Alabama owning his land in the corner. 1:31:10.760 --> 1:31:15.960 I'll ask how hard or how easy was it for 1:31:16.240 --> 1:31:21.679 you to let Beyonce, in the last stages of her 1:31:22.160 --> 1:31:27.839 caterpillar period, blossom into a butterfly and basically go handle 1:31:28.840 --> 1:31:31.479 her business on her own, which, well, I. 1:31:31.360 --> 1:31:35.920 Think it was the same for Beyoncelunge and even some 1:31:36.040 --> 1:31:36.960 other artists. 1:31:38.400 --> 1:31:41.080 Well, I'll ask how hard was it to not walk 1:31:41.120 --> 1:31:43.040 away but to let your artists fly? 1:31:43.479 --> 1:31:48.840 Yeah, I always say we forget that most artists I 1:31:48.880 --> 1:31:53.200 worked with, not most, I would say half of them 1:31:53.280 --> 1:31:58.320 were teenagers. You know, how you manage a fifteen year 1:31:58.400 --> 1:32:02.400 old in the business is different than how you manage 1:32:02.400 --> 1:32:05.479 her thirty five year old or a thirty year old 1:32:05.479 --> 1:32:08.640 in the business. As you know, I always say this, 1:32:09.720 --> 1:32:14.080 We don't in the industry let fourteen fifteen year olds 1:32:14.560 --> 1:32:19.200 make million dollar decisions at all on the business side. 1:32:19.960 --> 1:32:25.160 So I managed them differently. But my kids got to 1:32:25.160 --> 1:32:28.000 see their mother on the business, their dad own the 1:32:28.080 --> 1:32:33.599 business be in corporate America. They got to grow as 1:32:33.640 --> 1:32:37.120 they got older, and I hope, and I've seen them 1:32:37.160 --> 1:32:40.000 say it now and I'm very proud of even Beyonce's 1:32:40.040 --> 1:32:43.439 on the cover of magazine. She just just recently said 1:32:43.479 --> 1:32:47.760 that it was me that instilled in her to be 1:32:47.840 --> 1:32:50.840 a writer, to be a producer, not just to be 1:32:51.560 --> 1:32:56.120 a singer artist, but to be an entertainer. But to 1:32:56.240 --> 1:33:00.880 watch them grow and as they got older they got 1:33:00.960 --> 1:33:05.360 more information. When they were younger, wanted them to focus 1:33:05.479 --> 1:33:09.559 on their artistry, not on the music business, because the 1:33:09.680 --> 1:33:13.200 music business is most of this stuff, and if you're 1:33:13.240 --> 1:33:19.000 trying to do both at eighteen nineteen twenty two, it's 1:33:19.080 --> 1:33:22.000 gonna fail. It's just too much. At the level of 1:33:22.080 --> 1:33:24.759 success that they had. That's why we had one hundred 1:33:24.760 --> 1:33:29.000 and fifty employees. How does one person who understand marketing, 1:33:29.400 --> 1:33:37.080 understand the international marketplace, understand all the financial nook One 1:33:37.200 --> 1:33:40.880 artist at seventeen, eighteen years old can do that. So 1:33:40.920 --> 1:33:46.600 it's ludicrous when people say that, well, he was controlling. 1:33:47.280 --> 1:33:51.680 That's what you do when you manage teenagers. You control 1:33:51.760 --> 1:33:55.759 their business, and as they get older, they get involved 1:33:55.760 --> 1:33:59.000 as they understand it. That's why I teach this in class. 1:34:00.120 --> 1:34:02.519 I have a in my classes. I've been doing this 1:34:03.200 --> 1:34:06.360 in a classroom for fifteen years. There's one hundred and 1:34:06.479 --> 1:34:11.200 ninety three definitions starting with A and R going all 1:34:11.240 --> 1:34:15.839 the way through. Like a lot of people, ninety percent 1:34:15.880 --> 1:34:18.520 of all the people in the industry don't know it. 1:34:18.520 --> 1:34:21.759 It's a lot to know on the business side. 1:34:22.520 --> 1:34:25.040 So they so when they kind of went and when 1:34:25.080 --> 1:34:27.719 beyond sat Silan's gotten to that point where they wanted 1:34:27.760 --> 1:34:30.280 to control their careers or have more of a say, 1:34:30.560 --> 1:34:31.479 or however you look at it. 1:34:31.840 --> 1:34:32.840 You just saw that. 1:34:33.120 --> 1:34:35.720 As like a natural progression, like you kind of anticipated 1:34:35.720 --> 1:34:36.520 that coming. 1:34:36.240 --> 1:34:39.320 To It was a combination. It was a combination of that. 1:34:39.840 --> 1:34:44.880 And it also, as I spoke candidly earlier, there was 1:34:44.920 --> 1:34:49.040 a period in those mid two thousand that I unraveled 1:34:50.280 --> 1:34:54.760 as a father, as a husband, and that impacted it. 1:34:55.320 --> 1:34:57.479 You know, when you when you're a father and you 1:34:57.520 --> 1:35:00.519 have daughters, they look at you way more than just 1:35:00.560 --> 1:35:01.479 as their manager. 1:35:02.080 --> 1:35:03.760 That's why I felt so full circle. I feel like 1:35:03.800 --> 1:35:06.840 at a certain part of their careers Beyonce with Lemonade 1:35:06.960 --> 1:35:11.280 and the songs and Solange with Cranes, it felt like 1:35:11.320 --> 1:35:13.960 such a full circle moment for y'all family. Just as 1:35:14.000 --> 1:35:16.040 a person who don't know y'all, but just kind of 1:35:16.040 --> 1:35:18.320 been watching for a long way, but it just felt 1:35:18.360 --> 1:35:20.439 like a like you said, that moment of you being 1:35:20.400 --> 1:35:22.640 in the studio with Miss Tina and just hearing your 1:35:22.680 --> 1:35:26.160 words and hearing your story and them now embracing those 1:35:26.200 --> 1:35:27.880 stories as a part of their art form. It just 1:35:27.880 --> 1:35:31.320 felt like such a full circle like moment, right. 1:35:32.080 --> 1:35:35.800 And you know, I always say that when we make mistakes, 1:35:36.800 --> 1:35:41.360 we have failures, it's an opportunity to grow, not a 1:35:41.400 --> 1:35:46.040 reason to quit. And most of us we first don't 1:35:46.120 --> 1:35:48.519 face up in the knowledge that we made a mistake. 1:35:50.240 --> 1:35:52.519 That's the only way we grow is first of all 1:35:52.520 --> 1:35:56.719 saying hey, I fucked up, and then go get help 1:35:56.760 --> 1:36:00.439 and grow from it. And I'm fortunate that I'm, you know, 1:36:00.720 --> 1:36:06.360 my eighth year married to an amazing woman that has 1:36:06.479 --> 1:36:09.960 impacted my life, Gina. I would marry Tina and a Gina. 1:36:10.479 --> 1:36:16.080 Sometimes I sometimes get confused. 1:36:17.439 --> 1:36:22.960 Man, you knows me like my former wife, so I 1:36:22.960 --> 1:36:24.519 don't have to even say the names, right. 1:36:27.600 --> 1:36:32.599 But you know, Tenda and I are really friends. She's 1:36:32.600 --> 1:36:37.160 an amazing woman and I will always honor her. I 1:36:37.240 --> 1:36:41.680 never use that word X because I think that diminishes 1:36:41.800 --> 1:36:44.920 and it's a negative uh, and out of respect, I 1:36:44.960 --> 1:36:48.160 don't use that word. Just say my former wife and 1:36:48.320 --> 1:36:54.479 Gina Jena was Vanessa Williams assistant and international road manager 1:36:54.520 --> 1:37:00.439 for ten years. Uh, my former real model, So she 1:37:00.600 --> 1:37:05.439 has experience in entertainment. And our co key is we 1:37:05.479 --> 1:37:11.960 don't talk business unless unless I need a sounding board. 1:37:12.160 --> 1:37:16.800 But we don't talk business. And that can really devastate 1:37:16.800 --> 1:37:21.320 a family when you you can be talking about dinner 1:37:21.360 --> 1:37:24.559 and that becomes yeah, but what about this song? What 1:37:24.600 --> 1:37:27.080 if we did this? Yeah? 1:37:27.800 --> 1:37:29.439 And that's what I was asking earlier. I'm like, Yo, 1:37:29.479 --> 1:37:30.679 how do you draw that line? 1:37:30.760 --> 1:37:36.719 Because it's so work with business? Yo, I just working 1:37:36.760 --> 1:37:39.639 with family, Like Yo, that is so oh my god, 1:37:39.680 --> 1:37:40.559 that's such a. 1:37:42.280 --> 1:37:47.599 And that that became a real challenging and our family 1:37:47.720 --> 1:37:52.679 dynamics is separating the two. When are you a dad 1:37:53.280 --> 1:37:58.280 and when are you a manager? And especially it's easy 1:37:58.400 --> 1:38:00.879 with all my other artists because I was their manager, 1:38:01.200 --> 1:38:04.879 or actually I was, most people think I was the manager. 1:38:05.040 --> 1:38:08.920 I did more record label stuff than the management. But 1:38:09.840 --> 1:38:13.320 which you're with Destiny's Child. It was difficult because I 1:38:13.360 --> 1:38:18.559 have a fiduciatory duty to all four of the ladies 1:38:18.640 --> 1:38:23.719 or three of the ladies and actually Beyonce actually probably 1:38:23.720 --> 1:38:28.120 got hurt more than anybody because I was tougher on 1:38:28.320 --> 1:38:30.040 her than the others. 1:38:30.880 --> 1:38:32.679 I appreciate you all this evolution. 1:38:33.960 --> 1:38:38.479 You can tell when somebody's lying. Man, I'm just giving 1:38:38.479 --> 1:38:38.960 you truth. 1:38:40.120 --> 1:38:40.320 Yeah. 1:38:40.360 --> 1:38:42.800 It sounds so easy, but it's not easy for everybody. 1:38:43.200 --> 1:38:55.400 Yeah, hey, doctor knows. Can you talk about your your 1:38:55.520 --> 1:39:00.240 battle with cancer and how you've handled it and you know, 1:39:00.280 --> 1:39:02.439 to be honest with you, it's it's very rare that 1:39:02.479 --> 1:39:05.040 I hear men speak of breast cancer. I didn't even kind. 1:39:05.080 --> 1:39:08.000 I didn't know that was a thing. Mm hm, Can 1:39:08.040 --> 1:39:11.439 you and I most of us didn't even know that 1:39:11.479 --> 1:39:13.920 you were going through this. Can you walk us through 1:39:13.920 --> 1:39:17.639 the process of your discovery of it? And how? Yeah? 1:39:18.000 --> 1:39:21.280 I love to I love to you know. Oddly enough, 1:39:21.320 --> 1:39:23.679 when I was the number one sales rep at Xerox 1:39:23.760 --> 1:39:28.760 Medical System, oddly enough, what I sold was zero radiography, 1:39:29.240 --> 1:39:32.120 which in the eighties was the leading modality for breast 1:39:32.200 --> 1:39:39.840 cancer detection. Go figure, wow wow, Okay, And even back 1:39:39.840 --> 1:39:43.920 in the eighties we realized and talked about men and 1:39:44.000 --> 1:39:48.920 breast cancer. I'm really about messaging, so I chose not 1:39:49.080 --> 1:39:55.360 to message as male breast cancer but mail chest cancer. 1:39:56.320 --> 1:39:59.120 And I've gotten support but from the medical communities and 1:40:00.560 --> 1:40:04.120 every man that I've talked to, because a lot of 1:40:04.160 --> 1:40:08.880 the stigma and it brings the embarrassment for men to 1:40:09.000 --> 1:40:13.040 use that word breast and also in respect to women, 1:40:13.720 --> 1:40:19.360 because it's three four guys now and one woman. None 1:40:19.360 --> 1:40:22.920 of us would be other guys would think hardly twice 1:40:22.960 --> 1:40:26.360 to take our shirt off. A woman's not gonna do that. 1:40:26.360 --> 1:40:30.439 That's a special sanctuary place for a woman. So I 1:40:30.560 --> 1:40:35.040 choose to say male chest cancer and a lot of 1:40:35.040 --> 1:40:37.759 that stigma, And the way I make it really come 1:40:37.840 --> 1:40:43.599 home is for women, if you are going to have 1:40:43.680 --> 1:40:48.800 to open a door that said male prostate exam, I 1:40:48.840 --> 1:40:53.320 think you'll be quite embarrassed. And for men, when we 1:40:53.439 --> 1:40:57.439 have to open a door that says female breast center, 1:40:58.160 --> 1:41:02.240 a women's breast center, that's quite embarrassing. That's not something 1:41:02.280 --> 1:41:05.080 you feel good about. So first of all, I like 1:41:05.200 --> 1:41:10.680 to just really on the messaging of how we say it. 1:41:11.040 --> 1:41:15.080 The second thing for me, I knew because I sold 1:41:15.160 --> 1:41:20.360 the equipment and I had I used to wear I 1:41:20.400 --> 1:41:23.439 still do white T shirts a lot under my shirts, 1:41:23.960 --> 1:41:28.320 and I noticed one day a dot. So imagine you 1:41:28.400 --> 1:41:31.280 had a white sheet of paper and you had a dot. 1:41:31.520 --> 1:41:34.160 I didn't think anything. I actually thought my wife had 1:41:34.160 --> 1:41:35.960 bought some new T shirts and maybe it was just 1:41:36.320 --> 1:41:41.200 a little manufacturing malfunction. The next day I noticed five 1:41:41.280 --> 1:41:44.800 or six dots. Then I the next day I said 1:41:45.240 --> 1:41:48.360 to my wife. I was like, Hugh, did you buy 1:41:48.360 --> 1:41:50.880 some new T shirts? I see these little red dots. 1:41:51.439 --> 1:41:54.599 And she was like, that's interesting because when I cleaned 1:41:54.600 --> 1:41:57.719 your sheets today there was a bunch of red dots 1:41:57.720 --> 1:42:02.559 of blood on your side of the bed. Again, just 1:42:02.680 --> 1:42:06.519 imagine several dots, like on a white sheet of paper. Well, 1:42:06.560 --> 1:42:11.280 through my training of selling zero radiography, that is a 1:42:11.439 --> 1:42:16.360 very common sign for men, and so I knew that. 1:42:16.840 --> 1:42:22.040 And when immediately got a mammogram, then got a biopsy, 1:42:22.560 --> 1:42:27.600 and then literally a week later, had surgery. That's not 1:42:27.680 --> 1:42:31.320 the end of the story, that's just the beginning doing surgery. 1:42:32.920 --> 1:42:35.919 And there was a delay. We should have done this before, 1:42:36.040 --> 1:42:39.800 but we didn't. I won't get into that. But when 1:42:39.800 --> 1:42:45.679 we did the pathology, it turned out that genetically, which 1:42:45.720 --> 1:42:49.840 is where medicine is going, that I had a genetic 1:42:49.960 --> 1:42:57.720 malfunction and because of that genetic malfunction, called BRAKA two 1:42:58.000 --> 1:43:02.479 mutation means that for men that we have a higher 1:43:02.560 --> 1:43:11.400 risk of prostate cancer, mal chest cancer, cancer, pancreatic cancer, 1:43:12.320 --> 1:43:17.360 and melanoma from a genetic standpoint. And so a lot 1:43:17.400 --> 1:43:21.800 of men are walking around thinking prostate when the real 1:43:21.960 --> 1:43:26.760 cost of it, real cause of it rather is because 1:43:27.240 --> 1:43:31.439 they have mal chest cancer. And we're finding this out. 1:43:33.120 --> 1:43:37.280 And I'm part of research at the University of Pennsylvania. 1:43:37.400 --> 1:43:43.040 Actually I've come been there. That's where I'm part of 1:43:43.040 --> 1:43:46.720 the research there. This is my second year of recovery. 1:43:47.800 --> 1:43:51.400 I always say today I'm cancer free, but it also 1:43:51.600 --> 1:43:54.679 meant a lifestyle change, and I get really excited quest 1:43:54.720 --> 1:43:58.280 love when I hear you talk about weight loss. It's 1:43:58.320 --> 1:44:02.200 a sensitive subject in a Black cammunity. My dad was obese. 1:44:02.760 --> 1:44:08.559 I've been obese myself. I was up to to sixty eight. 1:44:09.520 --> 1:44:12.360 I'm now at two thirty five. My goal is to 1:44:12.400 --> 1:44:16.240 get to to thirty, which is easy, you know, should 1:44:16.280 --> 1:44:19.760 be something that I can obtain. It meant also in 1:44:19.800 --> 1:44:27.040 that lifestyle change stopping drinking alcohol. It also meant in 1:44:27.160 --> 1:44:30.320 that life because of the sugar and because also just 1:44:30.360 --> 1:44:33.480 the effect of being crazy on alcohol. 1:44:33.640 --> 1:44:35.200 So you're a big drinker. Was that was that a 1:44:35.200 --> 1:44:36.320 thing for you, A big drink. 1:44:37.120 --> 1:44:41.120 I wouldn't say a big but celebratory drinker. But when 1:44:41.160 --> 1:44:45.720 I did drink, I drank. You know it meant it 1:44:45.880 --> 1:44:51.760 meant changing my diet. I don't sell them. I eat meat, 1:44:51.800 --> 1:44:56.160 and what I do is only chicken, a fish this week, 1:44:57.240 --> 1:45:02.400 most weeks is many vegetables. So I changed my eating habits. 1:45:03.479 --> 1:45:06.760 I exercised. I just got a knee replacement four and 1:45:06.800 --> 1:45:10.519 a half months ago, which is doing really good. Just 1:45:10.600 --> 1:45:14.639 my basketball days. But I was up to jogging two 1:45:14.680 --> 1:45:17.600 miles a day and I'm getting there. I'm on the 1:45:17.640 --> 1:45:19.320 bike five miles on the bike. 1:45:19.640 --> 1:45:23.280 Back peloton, a peloton only. 1:45:23.040 --> 1:45:28.920 If it's the Beyonce version. You know, you know. 1:45:29.160 --> 1:45:31.080 The one thing I'm selling, the one. 1:45:30.880 --> 1:45:33.559 Thing I brought to the music industry was branding an 1:45:33.640 --> 1:45:39.400 endorsement which the industry was selling records. I was selling 1:45:39.439 --> 1:45:42.160 a brand which is totally different. But to get back, 1:45:42.800 --> 1:45:47.200 so admit the lifestyle change for me, and I've accepted that. 1:45:48.240 --> 1:45:52.559 I've seen the results. Every six months I've been getting 1:45:52.680 --> 1:45:55.679 a mammogram MRI. I sold MRI. 1:45:55.920 --> 1:45:58.080 So is it more painful for you? Doctor knows? Because 1:45:58.080 --> 1:46:00.800 I was wondering for men and a mammogram. I'm gonna 1:46:00.840 --> 1:46:03.240 just have a truthful moment. I'm having my first one. 1:46:03.280 --> 1:46:05.559 I'm having my first one this year, and my biggest 1:46:05.560 --> 1:46:07.960 fear is just how painful I've heard that it is, 1:46:08.000 --> 1:46:10.400 but especially maybe if you don't have a lot of 1:46:10.439 --> 1:46:12.640 tissue up there. So I imagine that. 1:46:13.320 --> 1:46:17.599 Well, I put things in perspective. If I can save 1:46:17.680 --> 1:46:23.640 my life because of two minutes of fucking pain. 1:46:23.479 --> 1:46:28.559 Okay, you and get tested. 1:46:31.160 --> 1:46:31.920 I don't want it. 1:46:32.680 --> 1:46:33.439 I just don't want it. 1:46:33.720 --> 1:46:40.559 Bus it ain't gonna it's not gonna bunutes. 1:46:39.600 --> 1:46:47.679 Two minutes, two minutes each one, I mean at most, 1:46:47.720 --> 1:46:51.479 but it's based on the different angles. Well overall it'll 1:46:51.520 --> 1:46:55.040 be about twenty minutes. But that's about it. But we 1:46:55.120 --> 1:46:59.879 put it in perspective, just the rewards and early detection 1:47:01.320 --> 1:47:04.679 and and this is for men and women. As medicine 1:47:04.720 --> 1:47:08.680 is changing, we'll understand I say we. I'm not a 1:47:08.720 --> 1:47:12.760 medical doctor. I just say we, as I'm a cancer survivor. 1:47:13.880 --> 1:47:19.600 Are understanding family history? We know black people. We don't 1:47:19.960 --> 1:47:23.519 pay attention to our family history. It's right there in 1:47:23.520 --> 1:47:26.240 front of you. If you just take a moment to 1:47:26.520 --> 1:47:29.200 ask what the mom and them and uncle nem and 1:47:29.240 --> 1:47:32.960 Grandma and them died of You might see you might 1:47:33.120 --> 1:47:34.519 see a common thread. 1:47:36.320 --> 1:47:39.920 Sugar Steve, how you doing in your uh your journey. 1:47:41.000 --> 1:47:42.519 There's a reason we call him sugar Steve. 1:47:42.960 --> 1:47:49.120 Oh yeah, yeah, everything as long as you manage stuff, 1:47:49.640 --> 1:47:51.920 you know you can. It's something you can live with. 1:47:52.200 --> 1:47:54.599 I got the diabetes doctor. 1:47:55.280 --> 1:47:59.360 Well, well you understand weight loss and diet and you 1:47:59.720 --> 1:48:01.360 under standing the exercise. 1:48:01.880 --> 1:48:03.960 Yeah, try and trying to be good. 1:48:04.640 --> 1:48:06.559 No, we don't try, ship Sugar Street. 1:48:07.160 --> 1:48:07.800 We don't talk. 1:48:08.880 --> 1:48:13.480 We don't use trying our vocabulary. We fucking do. 1:48:12.640 --> 1:48:14.240 Do or do not? There is no trying. 1:48:14.439 --> 1:48:17.240 Yes, you don't try. 1:48:17.439 --> 1:48:19.920 Your daughters? Can Can I get adopted in this family? 1:48:20.080 --> 1:48:20.160 Like? 1:48:24.880 --> 1:48:25.960 Don't? There is no. 1:48:26.240 --> 1:48:29.360 I always thank you. I I can't begin to tell 1:48:29.439 --> 1:48:33.000 you how grateful I was to see that time when you, 1:48:33.400 --> 1:48:36.360 out of all the people in the world, you say 1:48:36.400 --> 1:48:38.680 the ten people you like to have dinner with, and 1:48:38.720 --> 1:48:43.760 you said me, I was like, what why you. 1:48:43.880 --> 1:48:48.719 Just the backstories? Basically I did this thing, and oh 1:48:48.720 --> 1:48:51.360 when I did, uh when I when I did my 1:48:51.120 --> 1:48:55.840 my my food book, uh up mixtape and New York 1:48:55.880 --> 1:49:00.200 Times asked me to name. I'm known up here for 1:49:00.320 --> 1:49:04.439 my dinner parties, and uh so they asked me, you 1:49:04.479 --> 1:49:07.040 know who who that I think would make an interesting, 1:49:07.760 --> 1:49:10.479 uh dinner guest. And you know, at the time when 1:49:11.560 --> 1:49:15.000 Solons really really sold us on you, it was doing 1:49:15.040 --> 1:49:18.439 that period. And then I just really went down a 1:49:18.520 --> 1:49:21.080 rabbit hole of like all of your interviews and I 1:49:21.120 --> 1:49:24.360 was just like, yo, like he really he has a 1:49:24.400 --> 1:49:28.800 story to tell that I really wasn't expecting because I 1:49:28.840 --> 1:49:32.120 think men in your position, like we we've been sold 1:49:32.880 --> 1:49:35.439 all of our lives. We've been sold the hustler, you 1:49:35.439 --> 1:49:38.559 know what I mean, the hustler that you know, even 1:49:38.640 --> 1:49:41.800 even the hustler like wins the game and that sort 1:49:41.840 --> 1:49:45.080 of thing. But we we haven't been sold like the strategist, 1:49:45.640 --> 1:49:50.960 visionary or yeah, that sort of thing. And and that's why. 1:49:50.000 --> 1:49:52.439 Because black people can't vision, they can't do that, right. 1:49:54.000 --> 1:49:57.040 That's the media, you know, that's the Jedi man trick. 1:49:57.280 --> 1:50:01.160 That's you know, behind the decision and making a TV 1:50:01.479 --> 1:50:05.760 and you know it's typically a white person. Uh you know, 1:50:05.800 --> 1:50:09.439 I just uh, this summer, this is my second summer 1:50:10.760 --> 1:50:14.680 going to Harvard and taking professional development, and so I 1:50:15.040 --> 1:50:22.280 took this summer cultural Intelligence, which really increased my awareness 1:50:22.560 --> 1:50:24.960 of how culturally different that we are. 1:50:25.600 --> 1:50:27.599 And these are classes that you're taking that you're. 1:50:28.040 --> 1:50:33.040 That I took ethical leadership last summer. You know, you 1:50:33.120 --> 1:50:35.080 get to know me. I'm not the guy that they 1:50:35.200 --> 1:50:43.000 picture at all. We know I I see I played 1:50:43.040 --> 1:50:45.040 the media like they play us. 1:50:46.160 --> 1:50:48.559 Okay, okay, talk about it. 1:50:48.960 --> 1:50:57.240 I won't get into that one. But you know, they 1:50:57.360 --> 1:51:01.840 want to always paint a picture of who we are 1:51:02.320 --> 1:51:05.679 and success that it can't be because as you said, 1:51:06.680 --> 1:51:11.600 that we're strategists or that we're smart. It has to 1:51:11.640 --> 1:51:14.360 be or we had a vision. It has to be 1:51:14.439 --> 1:51:18.519 with swing. Golly, you know, We've got to always be that, 1:51:18.960 --> 1:51:24.479 you know, and that was always Black radio. My challenge, 1:51:24.520 --> 1:51:27.400 the Black radio and when they used to have like 1:51:27.600 --> 1:51:32.320 an entertainers segment and and it would always be negativity 1:51:32.760 --> 1:51:36.960 on black artists. That look, guys, we need you to 1:51:37.000 --> 1:51:42.760 do the reverse. But unfortunately, how social media has impacted 1:51:43.240 --> 1:51:48.160 our young people negativity and the Jedi mind trick is 1:51:49.120 --> 1:51:51.320 how they're played every day. You know, I've sat in 1:51:51.400 --> 1:51:54.960 meetings our young people have no idea how and when 1:51:54.960 --> 1:51:59.160 we learned through the last election Russia, we found who 1:51:59.200 --> 1:52:02.479 did they go to Black people on social media? 1:52:03.000 --> 1:52:03.160 Right? 1:52:03.360 --> 1:52:06.160 You know, we get played on this social media stuff. 1:52:06.280 --> 1:52:11.080 It's not news anymore, It's it's social conversation. 1:52:12.640 --> 1:52:17.600 I gotta know, I mean really like, you know, I 1:52:17.880 --> 1:52:21.479 haven't I haven't had goosebunk moments like this from someone 1:52:21.520 --> 1:52:25.639 talking since like my mom used to religiously like watch 1:52:25.720 --> 1:52:30.960 less brown talk less brown boy, and that's brown. Yeah. 1:52:31.000 --> 1:52:31.639 I like less. 1:52:31.720 --> 1:52:32.720 I like less a lot. 1:52:33.680 --> 1:52:37.720 Yeah, and I know my well, yeah, I do know 1:52:37.760 --> 1:52:41.599 that you've done TED talks and you're teaching universities and whatnot. 1:52:42.600 --> 1:52:47.240 But I mean, have you really considered like motivational speaking. 1:52:47.760 --> 1:52:48.600 I do a lot of that. 1:52:48.920 --> 1:52:53.439 I'm about to say, where can we see you? Because yeah, even. 1:52:54.120 --> 1:52:56.439 Talk my TED talk is a motivational is on the 1:52:56.560 --> 1:53:02.439 DNA of achievers and what is that? I mean I talked. 1:53:02.479 --> 1:53:08.680 I do a lot of motivational stuff on even in entrepreneurship, 1:53:08.960 --> 1:53:13.880 you know, and motivating our people and understanding the who, 1:53:14.000 --> 1:53:16.600 the what, the why, who is the customer, what is 1:53:16.640 --> 1:53:18.720 the product and why does somebody should buy it? And 1:53:18.880 --> 1:53:24.799 motivating them to understanding that process. You know, we've been gosh, 1:53:24.920 --> 1:53:27.320 we go back to the culture of black people and 1:53:27.360 --> 1:53:31.200 slavery and how it still impacts us in a negative way. 1:53:31.760 --> 1:53:36.280 You know, policing came about through slavery. If you go back, 1:53:36.360 --> 1:53:42.679 you see in eighteen hundreds, just post slavery, BAM policing started. 1:53:43.080 --> 1:53:47.240 You know, this whole thing of colorism started in slavery. 1:53:48.120 --> 1:53:50.920 When it got off the ship. There was babies that 1:53:51.040 --> 1:53:56.760 came out looking white. It's just such a cultural conditioning 1:53:57.320 --> 1:54:01.800 that we have to overcome as black people, cultural conditioning. 1:54:02.800 --> 1:54:05.000 You we're speaking on that colorism too, because I know 1:54:05.040 --> 1:54:07.639 that you in the media even try to speak on that. 1:54:07.720 --> 1:54:12.800 But it's things that we need to talk about and don't. 1:54:13.479 --> 1:54:19.599 We don't grow without being uncomfortable. My job in life 1:54:19.680 --> 1:54:24.560 is to make people uncomfortable. And I had fun with Charlemagne. 1:54:24.640 --> 1:54:27.880 I kicked his ass. You did, you spanked his ass, 1:54:27.960 --> 1:54:31.160 actually just spanked his ass all over the room. 1:54:34.080 --> 1:54:37.480 That Charlamaine episode was because it was the moment, the 1:54:37.520 --> 1:54:40.600 moment where it went left, like the moment I saw. Listen, 1:54:40.640 --> 1:54:41.920 I'm telling you the moment. 1:54:42.560 --> 1:54:44.920 You know the recap so like Charlamagne is doing and 1:54:44.960 --> 1:54:47.520 it's a piece of Charlemagne. He in Carolina, He's South Carolina. 1:54:47.520 --> 1:54:50.160 But you know all of that, you know what I'm saying. 1:54:50.200 --> 1:54:52.840 So it's all whatever but listen though, now. So they're 1:54:52.880 --> 1:54:55.200 going for whatever, and Charlemagne is kind of trying to 1:54:55.200 --> 1:54:58.040 get at him. So mister Knowles just stops and he's like, 1:54:59.400 --> 1:55:02.920 you really sad? Why are you so sad? 1:55:03.600 --> 1:55:07.480 And Yo, the look on Charlomagne, she was like, oh ship, 1:55:07.520 --> 1:55:10.920 I wouldn't expected like it was so it was. It was, 1:55:11.320 --> 1:55:12.879 Oh god, it was so brilliant. 1:55:12.920 --> 1:55:16.560 I was like, yeah, Jabs and yeah he was. 1:55:17.480 --> 1:55:21.880 He was left and left and left and yeah. And 1:55:21.920 --> 1:55:24.560 I asked him, I said, you know, Charlemagne, this mama, 1:55:25.280 --> 1:55:27.040 what feelings are coming up for you? 1:55:27.360 --> 1:55:28.560 That's a black man in therapy. 1:55:28.640 --> 1:55:32.440 So he already know and that's a black man at therapy. 1:55:33.280 --> 1:55:37.480 And we continue to talk and I said, Charlemagne, you're 1:55:37.560 --> 1:55:40.560 on that short bus, brother. And by the way, you 1:55:40.640 --> 1:55:42.040 got too much fucking makeup on. 1:55:45.840 --> 1:55:49.320 Lazy Get your dad. 1:55:51.280 --> 1:55:52.920 Come here, come here, come get your daddy out of 1:55:52.920 --> 1:55:59.400 the paint. Huh No, okay, So why are we talking 1:55:59.400 --> 1:56:01.880 about it? So being that you, you know, you manage 1:56:01.960 --> 1:56:02.440 your daughters. 1:56:02.440 --> 1:56:03.560 You were over their careers. 1:56:03.960 --> 1:56:06.520 You know you're going they're gonna write songs that are 1:56:06.560 --> 1:56:09.200 personal and you know, may talk about family stuff and 1:56:09.360 --> 1:56:12.640 all that. How what was your response to Eliminade and 1:56:12.680 --> 1:56:14.240 hearing that record, what was your thought on it? 1:56:14.920 --> 1:56:18.840 Well, I think everybody should occasionally have a glass of 1:56:18.920 --> 1:56:22.000 lemonade and have a seat and have a seat at 1:56:22.000 --> 1:56:22.440 the table. 1:56:24.080 --> 1:56:26.400 Always marketing. It's about the brand. 1:56:27.000 --> 1:56:28.520 It's about the brand. 1:56:30.080 --> 1:56:32.960 Okay, Well, I ain't got to eliminade. I got me 1:56:33.000 --> 1:56:34.440 some ging a. 1:56:34.880 --> 1:56:37.320 You should have a seat at the table there. 1:56:38.200 --> 1:56:40.640 I want you, thank you, thank you. 1:56:41.080 --> 1:56:46.760 This has been fun. You just got me unapologetically. 1:56:46.840 --> 1:56:48.600 You know, I knew what it was gonna be. 1:56:48.720 --> 1:56:50.920 Take all this appreciation, and it represents at least a 1:56:50.960 --> 1:56:53.760 million black folks that have been appreciating you, like for real. 1:56:53.680 --> 1:56:58.880 Like I know, and I thank you for acknowledging. 1:56:58.240 --> 1:57:03.600 That the work, your rigorous, honesty, your your your messaging. 1:57:04.480 --> 1:57:07.880 You know we should, we should, you know, happiness and 1:57:07.880 --> 1:57:09.600 and enjoy. 1:57:10.360 --> 1:57:13.480 Just the work you've done on yourself. Man, the work. Yes, 1:57:13.560 --> 1:57:14.520 it's very common. 1:57:15.200 --> 1:57:19.400 I'm really this was not the phone call the conversation 1:57:19.560 --> 1:57:21.400 that I did. 1:57:22.960 --> 1:57:25.360 Right here. 1:57:26.320 --> 1:57:30.160 I'm just you know, thank you. This was me watching 1:57:30.160 --> 1:57:32.360 this episode. I don't even feel like I participated. 1:57:35.040 --> 1:57:39.320 Happened when you know, when you interviewed with me. I 1:57:39.360 --> 1:57:42.760 got to listen to your journey, and it was similar 1:57:42.800 --> 1:57:45.720 because you shared your journey well. And I think the 1:57:45.840 --> 1:57:49.640 more we share our journeys with people and let them 1:57:49.720 --> 1:57:53.640 know the challenges that we have to overcome, that we're 1:57:53.720 --> 1:57:58.160 no different than anybody else, no better, none of that. 1:57:59.320 --> 1:58:01.280 We wake up in the morning and we go to 1:58:01.320 --> 1:58:06.200 bed at night hoping for another day. And the beauty 1:58:06.240 --> 1:58:10.480 about that is I like to always leave you know. 1:58:10.560 --> 1:58:12.320 I travel, as you know, a lot. And I was 1:58:12.360 --> 1:58:14.520 in La back in the two thousands and I was 1:58:14.560 --> 1:58:17.800 going down an escalator at lax and there was a 1:58:17.880 --> 1:58:22.200 non for Mexico who gave had a jar that said 1:58:22.240 --> 1:58:27.040 please give to the missionary. And I learned not to 1:58:27.280 --> 1:58:32.880 be judgmental. I give when people ask. And she gave 1:58:32.920 --> 1:58:36.760 me a card and literally because I used to have. 1:58:37.040 --> 1:58:39.960 You know, you can imagine in the heyday how many 1:58:40.000 --> 1:58:43.600 business cards and CDs people were giving me. And I 1:58:43.720 --> 1:58:46.240 finally looked at that card. It might have been a 1:58:46.280 --> 1:58:50.000 month later. And that's what I like to leave you with. 1:58:50.160 --> 1:58:54.480 It said, pray not for a life free from trouble, 1:58:55.480 --> 1:59:02.280 Pray for triumph over trouble. For what you and I 1:59:02.320 --> 1:59:11.280 call adversity, the universe, God, whatever name calls opportunity for 1:59:11.400 --> 1:59:16.959 what you and I call adversity the universe God Allah 1:59:17.440 --> 1:59:21.000 calls opportunity. We pray too much that bad shit ain't 1:59:21.040 --> 1:59:26.920 gonna happen. It is. Look when it happened, what is 1:59:26.960 --> 1:59:30.280 the opportunity. When I came with mel chest cancer, it 1:59:30.400 --> 1:59:35.360 gave me the opportunity to share that with other people, 1:59:35.760 --> 1:59:40.000 hopefully save some lives just by being honest about it 1:59:40.040 --> 1:59:43.800 and open and for everybody. When bad stuff happened, look 1:59:43.840 --> 1:59:46.360 at it as an opportunity rather than oh, I man, 1:59:46.560 --> 1:59:47.680 and bad shit happened. 1:59:48.800 --> 1:59:50.760 Listen those how do you in the artists that you 1:59:50.800 --> 1:59:53.600 work with when you're working with younger guys. Because I'm 1:59:53.640 --> 1:59:55.640 just sitting there listening to this conversation now, and I 1:59:55.680 --> 1:59:58.000 mean I'm forty two now, so now a lot of 1:59:58.000 --> 2:00:00.480 this shit is resonating with me. But had I heard 2:00:00.520 --> 2:00:02.960 it at twenty two, you know, maybe not so much. 2:00:03.320 --> 2:00:06.160 So with all just the experience and knowledge and game 2:00:06.200 --> 2:00:08.640 that you have, when you're working with younger artists, how 2:00:08.640 --> 2:00:10.959 do you make that knowledge palatable to them? 2:00:11.480 --> 2:00:14.000 Well, you know, I don't know. I'm done with that 2:00:14.080 --> 2:00:19.360 side with that. I'm quickly eager excited to say I'm 2:00:19.400 --> 2:00:22.160 done on the music site. I do have three or 2:00:22.200 --> 2:00:26.640 four film and TV projects that we're working on. You know, 2:00:26.800 --> 2:00:29.200 when I was in the business, it used to really 2:00:29.240 --> 2:00:32.360 surprise the artists. They come to music World and ready 2:00:32.400 --> 2:00:37.000 to sing rap, have their band, and I wouldn't do that. 2:00:37.240 --> 2:00:39.720 I would want them to sit down on the sofa 2:00:39.760 --> 2:00:42.400 in my office and I wanted to talk to them. 2:00:42.920 --> 2:00:46.320 I wanted to get to know and understand is this 2:00:46.680 --> 2:00:52.879 really truly your passion or a hobby? And for most people, 2:00:52.880 --> 2:00:57.280 poor boy, it's hobbies. And that's what I always look 2:00:57.400 --> 2:01:01.880 for if they were passionate. If they were passionate, then 2:01:02.560 --> 2:01:06.240 I could work with that. But most people really aren't 2:01:06.280 --> 2:01:10.040 passionate because they don't know what their passion. They don't 2:01:10.160 --> 2:01:13.120 understand when you live this thing called passion that you 2:01:13.240 --> 2:01:16.160 never work a day in your life. They don't know 2:01:16.680 --> 2:01:21.120 what coexists with passion. It's work ethics. You find somebody 2:01:21.160 --> 2:01:25.480 that passionate, they work their butts are because they love it. 2:01:25.600 --> 2:01:28.720 And when even quest love when you said it earlier 2:01:29.720 --> 2:01:32.120 about all the things you were doing, I was asking, 2:01:32.280 --> 2:01:35.280 but was he passionate about that? Because if you were, 2:01:35.600 --> 2:01:40.440 it wouldn't work. To you it was fun and I 2:01:40.520 --> 2:01:45.760 see my girls and Beyonce and Salons, and they work hard, 2:01:45.800 --> 2:01:49.320 but they actually love to the core. What they do 2:01:50.000 --> 2:01:50.919 to the core. 2:01:52.720 --> 2:01:55.400 What a blessing through your journey. That's what your babies 2:01:55.400 --> 2:01:56.640 can do. That's what a blessing. 2:01:57.280 --> 2:02:01.280 Yeoh, just thank you, Doctor knows that appreciate it. I 2:02:01.320 --> 2:02:02.800 gotta wreck this episode up, man. 2:02:03.240 --> 2:02:05.800 Now, this is this is service. This, this is this 2:02:05.880 --> 2:02:06.840 is sermon right here. 2:02:07.240 --> 2:02:09.920 I say this a lot. I'm definitely sticking to it. 2:02:10.000 --> 2:02:12.560 This is in my top five episodes of this five year. 2:02:13.440 --> 2:02:15.520 I don't know, maybe since today I don't know the 2:02:15.520 --> 2:02:17.880 moon whatever I needed. 2:02:18.720 --> 2:02:19.520 Thank you. 2:02:19.600 --> 2:02:21.560 I needed to hear this today for real. 2:02:21.600 --> 2:02:22.440 This is necessary. 2:02:22.600 --> 2:02:26.640 I'm gonna call my mom and my girlfriend right now. 2:02:29.120 --> 2:02:31.760 So he's not gonna cry old Air. 2:02:33.280 --> 2:02:36.400 He's gonna cry in the car he was. He's gonna 2:02:36.400 --> 2:02:39.120 try the car. 2:02:42.000 --> 2:02:45.040 Won't sugar Steven Finiclo. 2:02:45.160 --> 2:02:47.360 And when you come this way, we gotta get together. 2:02:47.600 --> 2:02:49.920 And if I come your way, let's promise we go. 2:02:50.120 --> 2:02:51.480 Let's promise we're gonna have a mill. 2:02:52.240 --> 2:02:55.600 Yes, I will contact you through like I promised. I 2:02:56.120 --> 2:02:59.200 really needed this conversation. Thank you very much, Doctor Knowles. 2:02:59.240 --> 2:03:01.840 This is quest Low. We will see I don't even 2:03:01.880 --> 2:03:04.000 think we need to do no more episodes. 2:03:03.520 --> 2:03:04.440 Like this might be. 2:03:05.920 --> 2:03:07.760 Right, No, no no. 2:03:08.160 --> 2:03:11.120 On the series finale, West Love Supreme starting about to know. 2:03:11.680 --> 2:03:15.000 Yes exactly all right, Thank you guys. We'll see you 2:03:15.040 --> 2:03:15.800 on the next go around. 2:03:15.880 --> 2:03:22.480 Thank you, yo. What's up? This is Fonte. 2:03:22.800 --> 2:03:25.040 Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at 2:03:25.160 --> 2:03:27.120 QLs and let us know what you think and. 2:03:27.080 --> 2:03:29.040 Who should be next to sit down with us. Don't 2:03:29.040 --> 2:03:31.920 forget to subscribe to our podcast, all right peace. 2:03:40.480 --> 2:03:46.120 West Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For 2:03:46.200 --> 2:03:49.320 more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, 2:03:49.520 --> 2:03:52.560 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.