Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
Speaker 2: I'm your host Coley Wick, and today.
Speaker 1: We have very special guest author, filmmaker, musician Nick Brooks
Speaker 1: in the building.
Speaker 2: How are you doing.
Speaker 3: I'm doing well. Thanks for having me excited to make
Speaker 3: some roto.
Speaker 2: I felt like a radio host.
Speaker 1: If you don't know Nick Brooks, he has this is
Speaker 1: a novel called Promised Boys. And then you have Up
Speaker 1: and Smoke that's coming out in May. You have an
Speaker 1: album that's dropping accompanying the book in May. And then
Speaker 1: I did read somewhere and you could dispel the rumor
Speaker 1: or not, but I did read that this was also
Speaker 1: picked up by Promised Boys, was picked up by Netflix.
Speaker 3: It was Obama's and produced.
Speaker 1: That's what I wanted to highlight, and produced by the OBA.
Speaker 1: So this is a really big deal. I want to
Speaker 1: cover all that. I want to cover all those moments.
Speaker 1: But before we get into a Nick, you gotta tell
Speaker 1: me what you're gonna be cooking me for breakfast today.
Speaker 3: Man, you got a great breakfast coming up. This is hotel,
Speaker 3: something I was introduced to in college. It's essentially just
Speaker 3: ground meat, turkey, beef, whatever, melted cheese, and tomatoes.
Speaker 1: Awesome, very simple, very easy. I love me a broke
Speaker 1: dish because the broker, the story broker, the dish, the
Speaker 1: real of the story, the better the story. That's what
Speaker 1: I've learned on this shed. Anytime I get a dish
Speaker 1: that has a million ingredients, you already know the story
Speaker 1: ain't gonna be.
Speaker 2: So go ahead, start whipping me up my breakfast.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay.
Speaker 2: And while you're.
Speaker 1: Whipping up this breakfast, you can't go ahead and take
Speaker 1: me back to what was going on during.
Speaker 2: The roteal days. Wait, yeah, you already went through the grees.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, yeah, the hotel days. I'll take you back.
Speaker 3: Like I said, I was introduce to Rotel in college
Speaker 3: and I'm from DC. Initially went to school in Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma,
Speaker 3: so it was a huge culture shock. The way I
Speaker 3: got there is because, like you mentioned, I'm a musician
Speaker 3: and I was rapping. I was in a group and
Speaker 3: then we were trying to figure out what we were
Speaker 3: gonna do, and was trying to get out of the city,
Speaker 3: trying to get out of DC. And I got into
Speaker 3: the school did I get into? I got in North
Speaker 3: Carolina and t and I wanted to go to Hampton,
Speaker 3: didn't get into Hamptons and my man who was rapping
Speaker 3: with he got into He got into Hampton, but not
Speaker 3: North Carolina, and so it was like, okay, that's not
Speaker 3: gonna work. And then suddenly we got a.
Speaker 2: Visit Fumus because wanted to stay together.
Speaker 3: Because we was rapping, and we was like, okay, it's
Speaker 3: one of those things. Like my mom, she was a nurse,
Speaker 3: she was real practical. Same thing with his family. He's like, oh,
Speaker 3: you got to go to college. So he was like, okay,
Speaker 3: we'll go to college, but once we get there, we're
Speaker 3: gonna still make this rap thing work. And a recruiter
Speaker 3: came to our school talking about the school Oklahoma University,
Speaker 3: which I had never heard of, and I think probably
Speaker 3: at that point I don't even know if I had
Speaker 3: been on a plane, and they took us out there
Speaker 3: to visit the school. It was an amazing experience. It
Speaker 3: was great, and turns out we both got in and
Speaker 3: we was like, we're gonna go to Oklahoma, and so anyway,
Speaker 3: that's how because people always ask me, like, Oklahoma's random
Speaker 3: from DC, but that's how we got in. That was
Speaker 3: the school we got into, and we wanted to go.
Speaker 3: We wanted to make music.
Speaker 2: And were childhood friends.
Speaker 3: Childhood friends. Yeah, it's my god brother.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure your parents were very at ease knowing
Speaker 1: that they sent the set.
Speaker 3: For sure, for sure, for sure, for sure they were.
Speaker 3: And I've always been a very independent Like I was
Speaker 3: super independent. My mom remarried at like when I was
Speaker 3: like nine, and she had three daughters, so like she
Speaker 3: had a lot going on. So I was always independent.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, with her, with my stuff. If I
Speaker 3: was just doing my own thing. I started working at
Speaker 3: thirteen type shit. I was always on my own. So
Speaker 3: it's funny because my little sisters, they all went to
Speaker 3: school right My mom didn't want them to go nowhere.
Speaker 3: They all right around DC. But for me, she would like,
Speaker 3: wherever you're gonna go, you know what I mean, which
Speaker 3: was fine. I ended up it turned out okay. But
Speaker 3: so yeah, we ended up in Oklahoma and I met
Speaker 3: and I started to meet different people. That's a good
Speaker 3: thing about college. I do think some of it is
Speaker 3: a little bit of a sham, but you meet people
Speaker 3: from all over the place, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I got to meet people from the South, I got
Speaker 3: meet a lot of people from Texas primarily, And so
Speaker 3: I'm in school and Rotel. Of course, you in college.
Speaker 3: Nobody has money in college from when I ended up
Speaker 3: having to train for the Howard which I'll get to,
Speaker 3: and those kids had a little bit of money. But
Speaker 3: we're in college and trying to figure out, just trying
Speaker 3: to figure it out, and we get introduced to this
Speaker 3: this It was two dishes that people made a lot.
Speaker 3: It was in Rotel. That's where it started. And now
Speaker 3: you know what, I actually know what the first time
Speaker 3: I had it. The first time I had I was
Speaker 3: at a kickback and it was out. I tried it.
Speaker 3: It was amazing, and it's like, yo, what is this?
Speaker 3: I just never had it? And it was like, it's
Speaker 3: called rotel, And so they told us it's just cheese, meat, tomatoes,
Speaker 3: and boom.
Speaker 2: You get and then the crazy on the tomatoes. It's
Speaker 2: called rotel.
Speaker 3: It really but I didn't notice that.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 3: I had never I never realized.
Speaker 2: That maybe that's why they called it.
Speaker 3: Of course, of course I never realized that it's got
Speaker 3: to be right. It's too much of a coincidence. Yeah,
Speaker 3: But of course, like you said, how you just realized
Speaker 3: that today. It took me a while to realize that too.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so it's like, okay, cool with it. That's
Speaker 3: essentially where it started. It's like I was at a
Speaker 3: kickback in college in Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, of all places,
Speaker 3: and it's the first time I had this dish and
Speaker 3: it was amazing, and I made it. We probably made
Speaker 3: it once a week and it would last us the
Speaker 3: whole week. You know what I'm saying. Make it will
Speaker 3: make it every probably every Monday, last us the whole
Speaker 3: week through the weekend any parties. It's also a great
Speaker 3: drunk food, you know what I'm saying, because it's the meat,
Speaker 3: it's the chips. You could do it for snack, do
Speaker 3: it for dinner. It's good when you're drinking. Like, it's
Speaker 3: just versatile. It's cheap, that's the main thing. It's cheap.
Speaker 3: So it's just a versatile meal, easy to pack up,
Speaker 3: easy to take, easy to store, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So that's where rotel started.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're in college, you're with your wrap mats.
Speaker 2: Yes, what are you going to school for?
Speaker 3: So at the time, I was going to school for nursing. Again,
Speaker 3: if you remember, my mom was in there. She was
Speaker 3: the most scesful person I knew, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: She my dad worked on the railroad, and then my
Speaker 3: grandfather Will I spend a lot of time with if
Speaker 3: he was a pastor. So these was really as far
Speaker 3: as adults like these, my mom was the most selfriend cool.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'd be a nurse, which I would have made
Speaker 3: a terrible nurse because I don't like people all that much,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. But I ended up going
Speaker 3: into so yeah, I was doing nursing.
Speaker 2: And your mom was probably happy to hear that too.
Speaker 3: Again, security and she's practical. She And here's the other thing,
Speaker 3: it's all my mom knew for real, like she because
Speaker 3: that's just happened to be what she went to school for.
Speaker 3: I don't even think she really had too much of
Speaker 3: a concept of all the possible possibilities, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. That's something that again, when you like from
Speaker 3: the city like DC, is like you're not always thinking
Speaker 3: about the possibilities. You're thinking about what's easy, was practical,
Speaker 3: and that's what she was on, and that's that's what
Speaker 3: she wanted me to be on, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: But I was creative, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 3: I just did nursing because again that's just what I
Speaker 3: knew was and so that's what I That's what I
Speaker 3: initially was majoring in.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're where did the ships come in? You
Speaker 1: realize in the middle of class that you didn't like
Speaker 1: your classmates.
Speaker 2: You said you were no.
Speaker 3: So what happened was, so I was doing like I said,
Speaker 3: I was doing nursing, but we still was trying to rap.
Speaker 3: And so what we were doing was we were rapping.
Speaker 3: We were doing a lot of college shows. We both players.
Speaker 3: Was in fraternities, so we're doing step shows, We're doing
Speaker 3: college shows, were on the radio all the time, doing
Speaker 3: features with people in the city, like making music videos.
Speaker 3: We was buzzing in this region. And so what happened
Speaker 3: was I got a call one day from actually another
Speaker 3: nursing students funny enough, and she was like, yo, like
Speaker 3: I got something to tell you. Don't tell nobody. I
Speaker 3: saw your video and I want you to know that
Speaker 3: Kanye West is my cousin. So of course I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. Like at that time, cap
Speaker 3: wasn't a word.
Speaker 1: But it's Okay, cap, right, but tell me more if
Speaker 1: I would even thought cap because why she didn't want
Speaker 1: to tell you. Okay, so go ahead, but I'm interested.
Speaker 1: I want to hear this phone call.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the first thought I had was like bullshit.
Speaker 3: And it's one of those things when you're a artist
Speaker 3: and you're trying to be an audist, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying that or people always giving false promises, you
Speaker 3: know how it is. Anyway, I'm like cat, but tell
Speaker 3: me more. So, Kanye's my cousin his family. He's actually
Speaker 3: from Oklahoma, his family from Oklahoma, and we're all still
Speaker 3: pretty much here and he's working on a new album.
Speaker 3: And I sent your video your latest real It was
Speaker 3: a song called Robot that was doing pretty well. It
Speaker 3: was on the radio, dollar we made a video to it.
Speaker 3: She said, I sent you a video Robot to one
Speaker 3: of our other cousins, this guy named Tony Williams. Now,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you're familiar with Tony Williams, but
Speaker 3: world famous Tony Williams is like somebody who still works
Speaker 3: with Kaye's to this day. Is Kanye's cousin. He sings
Speaker 3: on if you listen to college drop out. All the
Speaker 3: vocals are tony or let registration. All the vocals are tony.
Speaker 3: This is it was a pretty big deal at this time.
Speaker 3: So I'm like again, all right, now it's starting to
Speaker 3: make sense. Right, so I'm like, okay, put us in touch.
Speaker 3: Then you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So she said, she said it. He liked it.
Speaker 3: She said he liked it. She said he liked it.
Speaker 3: They're working on a new album. They're working on his
Speaker 3: first album, Good music Play is also working on an
Speaker 3: album which I later learned what I'll tell you what
Speaker 3: album I later learned it was. So I sent it
Speaker 3: to him or I was like, yo, connect this and
Speaker 3: we'll see what happens. Because again I'm not just happens.
Speaker 3: You run into people who make these promises and you
Speaker 3: get disappointed. And again, mind you, at this time, I'm
Speaker 3: skipping a few things. But I was accepted to you
Speaker 3: on the academic probation, meaning like I had to maintain
Speaker 3: a certain GPA. Right, I've already played semester players. I
Speaker 3: got a point to GPS, so I had to exactly.
Speaker 3: So I had to go to to pay some bills,
Speaker 3: so I had to go to summer school and all
Speaker 3: types of I'm just laying some foundations so you just understand.
Speaker 3: And we're also doing all this music. I'm not really
Speaker 3: focused on nursing for real. I'm only doing nursing because
Speaker 3: I'm just have to be in college. I get a
Speaker 3: call a number I don't recognize. Hello, Yo, it's Tony right.
Speaker 3: So Tony Williams caused me, and I'm like, oh shit,
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 2: So it's becoming less cat.
Speaker 3: It is becoming a budget less cats. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: what's up? What's up? You saw your video, heard a
Speaker 3: few of y'all records, heard y'all been doing your thing.
Speaker 3: I want to take you to our studio in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 3: It's called Diamond Studio. So boom and now so now out.
Speaker 3: We're hitting the home and he's heard some bruhs. Bro,
Speaker 3: we need to ride to Oklahoma City. So we go
Speaker 3: to Oklahoma City meet Tony and it's incredible. So he's
Speaker 3: giving us the rundown. It really is him. He got
Speaker 3: on his the Jesus the Good Music chain, he got
Speaker 3: on the Jesus piece and everything, and we are huge
Speaker 3: eyes because we were like, what the fuck is going on?
Speaker 3: This is because just when we just came from DC
Speaker 3: to fucking Oklahoma thinking like and hear and that were
Speaker 3: bumping into good music. That's crazy, right, it just feels
Speaker 3: so kiss me. So we're there. We So what ends
Speaker 3: up happening is we end up working with Tony on
Speaker 3: a bunch of songs for his first album. We write
Speaker 3: two songs for him for his and this is a
Speaker 3: project's coming out on Good Music, and he ends up
Speaker 3: doing a song for us for one of our like
Speaker 3: a mixtape we were doing at the time, Average Joe's,
Speaker 3: and so as we building, he starts to say, Okay,
Speaker 3: you know what, I never forget this. It was one
Speaker 3: session that we went to Nate was in the booth,
Speaker 3: I think, and Tony took off his chain. It was
Speaker 3: a song that Tony was fucking. He was like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is hard. He took off his chain, the good
Speaker 3: Music chain, and you put it on me. He was like, yo,
Speaker 3: y'all better get just get ready, now, just get you this,
Speaker 3: get used to wearing this. I'm like, bro, this is crazy,
Speaker 3: and he's yo. We're in Hawaii right now recording the
Speaker 3: album My Beautiful Dog Twist the Fantasy.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, favorite record.
Speaker 3: But so at the time of course, I'm like, I
Speaker 3: don't know what that is, but yes, get us to
Speaker 3: Hawaii's all want to take you to Hawaii, introduce you,
Speaker 3: like I think this is I think this is a match.
Speaker 3: And then around this time, Big Sean has just signed. Right,
Speaker 3: he has been signed for a little bit. Sean was
Speaker 3: probably there like my key artist at the time. Right,
Speaker 3: he don't want to get y'all on the song with Sean,
Speaker 3: Big Sean all of this right, So again we're like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, this is crazy. So this is all happening,
Speaker 3: and I'm getting I'm slipping further and further in my
Speaker 3: schoolwork because again I'm thinking, it don't matter anyway. I'm
Speaker 3: about to get signed. I'm about to leave like this
Speaker 3: don't even you know what I'm saying. I don't even
Speaker 3: need to be here.
Speaker 1: I made it.
Speaker 3: And so it's time to put out Tony's project. Like
Speaker 3: he's getting this project the joint that we wrote wrote
Speaker 3: them records for. I'm time to put it out or
Speaker 3: getting ready to put it out, and he's hitting me
Speaker 3: and he's yo, he needed something like the vocals were
Speaker 3: off for. Basically, he needed the engineer to send him something. Right,
Speaker 3: I'm in I'm trying to focus. I'm on academic probation,
Speaker 3: and so he keeps calling me, and I step out
Speaker 3: of class and I a little bit, snap a little bit,
Speaker 3: and I'm clas d d D D dah, And I
Speaker 3: never forget the worst he said to me. We had
Speaker 3: a long conversation, but the worst he said to me,
Speaker 3: he was like because basically, I was like, Yo, that's
Speaker 3: your engineer, Like you hit me, Like, just hit your engineer.
Speaker 3: And he was like, Yo, in life, if you're going
Speaker 3: to do something, you gotta be all in one and
Speaker 3: then two if you want to If you're trying to
Speaker 3: do something, you need to make sure that you don't
Speaker 3: want doing it. Like you can't rely on somebody else
Speaker 3: to do something for you, you know what I mean, when
Speaker 3: it's an opportunity. That's called when you get an opportunity. Basically,
Speaker 3: don't rely on somebody else to follow through an opportunity
Speaker 3: for it. You need to be there to follow through
Speaker 3: on yourself. And he hung up and he never spoke again.
Speaker 3: He never stopped answering our calls, stopped answering our emails.
Speaker 3: I was hitting up the engineer Chris Cutter at the
Speaker 3: Diamond studios, couldn't get in touch with nobody. And I
Speaker 3: always learned a few things from that, Like one it
Speaker 3: was like one I had, it was ego, right is
Speaker 3: to be honest, I felt like in that conversation when
Speaker 3: he had first hit me, he was like screaming on
Speaker 3: me a little bit, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 3: I it was ego. It was all ego. And it
Speaker 3: was also those lessons that Tony said, you gotta if
Speaker 3: you want something done, you gotta make sure you there
Speaker 3: to do it by yourself or do it for yourself.
Speaker 3: And if you're gonna be in something, you gotta be
Speaker 3: ten toes in. And my boy is so crazy because
Speaker 3: my boy Nate, he was confused. He's like, Yo, why
Speaker 3: this nigga not hitting us back. I just told Nate
Speaker 3: that story maybe six months ago.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, you was playing like.
Speaker 3: You didn't well up, but you didn't. To be honest,
Speaker 3: it all clicked and I was like, I don't think
Speaker 3: at the time, I was ready to say, damn, just
Speaker 3: from that one conversation, he's just gonna stop sucking with us,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. I don't. I don't know
Speaker 3: if that was like the thought. So I don't think.
Speaker 3: I definitely wasn't trying to lie in and be like
Speaker 3: oh shit. But but when it all did click in
Speaker 3: and I really okay, I took accountability for maybe the
Speaker 3: way I responded in that moment. I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: it makes sense. I was just I got I'm just
Speaker 3: to him. I'm probably just a young nigger. He just
Speaker 3: be like, who you talking to? Like that? So anyway,
Speaker 3: but I just told that story then Nate six months ago,
Speaker 3: and he was like, damn, bro, you should have just
Speaker 3: because here's the other lesson I learned. You should have
Speaker 3: just asked for help. Because I was in the group.
Speaker 3: I was like taking on the leadership role, right, so
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm getting all the stuff printed, I'm the
Speaker 3: one going to the rate like it's a lot on me.
Speaker 3: So it's probably also just stress. And everybody responds to
Speaker 3: stressed differently, especially at certain phases in their life, certain
Speaker 3: phases of their career. And I think the way I responded,
Speaker 3: I was probably stressed. Whatever. But another lesson I learned,
Speaker 3: and even this is just Nate telling me this role.
Speaker 3: You should have just asked me for help. You should
Speaker 3: have just told me yo, Tony need this. I can't
Speaker 3: get to it right now. Can you just handle it?
Speaker 3: And he was like, I would have just handled it,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. So anyway, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Did you end up finishing school?
Speaker 3: Okay, So all of that happened, all that sacrifice, and
Speaker 3: then at the end of the semester, I get a
Speaker 3: letter from you saying I can no longer say I
Speaker 3: have to go. And so again, this is my this
Speaker 3: is everything, this is our whole. Basically, this is the
Speaker 3: moment where it's funny because this is where their meals started.
Speaker 3: But this is like when my rap career back, the
Speaker 3: first phase of it ended because I got a letter
Speaker 3: saying you because of your grades or whatever, like you
Speaker 3: can no longer continue unless you change a major start
Speaker 3: all over, you know what I'm saying, which at that
Speaker 3: point I was there for three years. So what you're
Speaker 3: telling me, I gotta literally And are.
Speaker 1: You telling your mom all this news? You're keeping it
Speaker 1: all yeah, like come on, let's have common sense.
Speaker 3: Come yeah, yeah, I'm keeping it up. But again, and
Speaker 3: this is why I was just trying to lay the
Speaker 3: felt I was real. I'm always been independent. It's not
Speaker 3: like my mom. I was paying my tuition or nothing
Speaker 3: like I had. I worked two jobs, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying while I was in school. On top of
Speaker 3: doing the music and making money doing music, I was working,
Speaker 3: which is another reason probably why my grades wasn't.
Speaker 1: You're juggling a lot, make it man.
Speaker 3: So I'm still Jamaica. I work hell of jobs now
Speaker 3: but all day, you know what I'm saying. But so anyway,
Speaker 3: they got that letter, told my boy I gotta go,
Speaker 3: and that was that, you know what I'm saying that
Speaker 3: that that was the end, the beginning and end. We
Speaker 3: had really tried to pursue RAP for all of those
Speaker 3: three years, and yeah, it went up in the ball
Speaker 3: of flames, as they say, Hold I turned this one down,
Speaker 3: this one, Yeah, there we go. So yeah, after all
Speaker 3: of that, but here's the thing. So that happened, and
Speaker 3: again how things just work out. My mom happened to
Speaker 3: be a nurse at Howard's Student Health Center. So I
Speaker 3: did tell her. Of course, I'm like, yo, I don't
Speaker 3: think I'm gonna stay here.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 3: I don't think. I was like yo, I don't think
Speaker 3: this is what I was. I don't think I'm gonna
Speaker 3: stay here because the tuition's going up and I don't
Speaker 3: know if I can cover it. And so she was like, look,
Speaker 3: I work here at Howard. I've been here for two
Speaker 3: years now. If an employee works at Howard for two years,
Speaker 3: the children can go to Howard for free. So she
Speaker 3: was like, if you want, you can come finish here.
Speaker 3: And so what I did was I told her. I
Speaker 3: was like, I don't know if I get in. You
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. Can you help me? And so
Speaker 3: she talked to the She was like, I know the
Speaker 3: people in the nursing department. So I had to transfer
Speaker 3: to Howard under as a nursing student. The dean of
Speaker 3: nursing saw my transcripts was like, Crystal, I'll accept him in.
Speaker 3: But when he come in, he got to change his major.
Speaker 3: So I got into Howard, got to go to for free,
Speaker 3: and was able to change my major and just do
Speaker 3: another two years psychology psychology.
Speaker 2: So I ended up graduating, getting closer to the novel land.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sorry if minueis tell.
Speaker 2: Me you no, it's good. I'm trying to.
Speaker 1: So I got the musician. I feel like the promise
Speaker 1: Boys is coming soon, right.
Speaker 3: It's just around the corner because I can skip over
Speaker 3: a lot here. So when I get to Howard, basically
Speaker 3: the music's done. I'm focusing now on what I'm gonna
Speaker 3: do for my career.
Speaker 2: And your boys stayed back and he.
Speaker 3: Stayed in Oklahoma. Yeah he's still out there. He's in Dallas,
Speaker 3: Texas now. But so now I'm at Howard and now
Speaker 3: it's time to focus and really lock in. Fuck, So
Speaker 3: what I'm gonna do. So what I ended up getting
Speaker 3: into with education, I did a program at the college
Speaker 3: called Teach for America, started teaching in DC, and I
Speaker 3: got put in. I got placed in the kindergarten classroom.
Speaker 3: While I was at Howard, I was teaching the middle
Speaker 3: of high school boys, which is a lot of what
Speaker 3: Promised Boys like. A lot of what I pulled from
Speaker 3: that experience is in Promise boys. But after school, I
Speaker 3: started teaching, and I was teaching kindergarten at first, and
Speaker 3: I quickly realized, again me being Jamaican, as you call it,
Speaker 3: I didn't say and that you said it. But again
Speaker 3: I'm hustling, right, I'm like, Okay, I'm teaching. I'm reading
Speaker 3: these kids these books that are very easy to write.
Speaker 3: The dog jumps, the dog runs.
Speaker 2: That's how I feel. What I read to my daughter
Speaker 2: right now, who wrote this.
Speaker 3: It's like I could write this though, I could write
Speaker 3: this book. And so that's what I started doing. I
Speaker 3: started writing children's books, and I started finding pictures online
Speaker 3: and match the words that I was writing. And my kids,
Speaker 3: my students, was taking to the books so much that
Speaker 3: in the principal so she's like, yo, like we should
Speaker 3: pitch this to the whole child network. And so I
Speaker 3: pitched a children's book series to the Titter Network and
Speaker 3: before I know what, they gave me a check to
Speaker 3: put my books in all of their schools across the country.
Speaker 3: My children's books. Yeah, so that was the That was
Speaker 3: like the first entry into and so get me being
Speaker 3: a hustle, I'm like, oh shit, that was Yeah.
Speaker 1: You can never as an entrepreneur tastes one drip of blood. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, like, Oh, that's possibility.
Speaker 3: Exactly, there's something over here.
Speaker 2: So I'm getting excited, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So that's what I So that happened and I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: let's run this up. And so I started writing children's
Speaker 3: book and while I was in Tea for America. They
Speaker 3: also had me get a master's in curriculum and instruction.
Speaker 3: So I doubled down and write a curriculum manual to
Speaker 3: go along with the books, and I started consulting. I
Speaker 3: started selling the books in the curriculum to schools all
Speaker 3: across the country. Texas, Alabama, California. It's going crazy.
Speaker 2: You you the gangs, the kindergarten teachers.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 2: She was like, I'm not just taking this teacher.
Speaker 3: Salary's they gotta pay teachers more. That's really what it is.
Speaker 3: They gotta pay teachers more. That's a whole other conversation.
Speaker 3: But so I'm doing that. I'm doing that. I'm doing that.
Speaker 2: It's really brilliant.
Speaker 1: Actually, if you think about to put it together, a
Speaker 1: curriculum with the.
Speaker 3: Kids with a little black girl on the front. You
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, year is this?
Speaker 2: This is before COVID.
Speaker 3: Oh for sure, this is twenty I was doing this
Speaker 3: like twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: And the only reason why I want to highlight that
Speaker 1: is because during COVID there was this big spike in
Speaker 1: supporting black businesses. Oh what you were able to accomplish
Speaker 1: at the timing that you were able to accomplish, I
Speaker 1: would say would be considered a really big fea for sure.
Speaker 3: No, I appreciate that now. It was definitely ahead of
Speaker 3: his time, ahead of his time. For short.
Speaker 1: Shout outs to you for thinking outside the box and
Speaker 1: even taking the initiative to write the books for the kids.
Speaker 1: It showed that you really cared about the kids, for sure,
Speaker 1: because even I'm not gonna lie, I've been low key
Speaker 1: writing some kids books because some of the kid's books
Speaker 1: sucks so bad. Yeah, I'm like, can we at least
Speaker 1: have an underlying message and story? I want to hear
Speaker 1: the hero's journey but with the three letter words. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree because I used to think Doctor Zeus was great,
Speaker 1: and then I got kids and a daughter, and I said, oh.
Speaker 3: I was wondering eating this.
Speaker 2: Sense, you know, And.
Speaker 1: And I don't even want to take us off track
Speaker 1: too much, but Baby Shark happens to be one of
Speaker 1: those songs where it's like the deer ran away with
Speaker 1: the lion or whatever. You're like, why what, what sense
Speaker 1: does this lie even make? One day she's gonna grow
Speaker 1: up and go The dere and the lion are not friends.
Speaker 1: The needs there like you know what I'm saying, See
Speaker 1: these things and you're like, why even make up this lie?
Speaker 3: It doesn't make sense? And that's what I'm.
Speaker 1: Glad you saw it and you solved the problem and
Speaker 1: you got your hands thirty.
Speaker 3: I was just about to say something because I go
Speaker 3: around to like colleges and and stuff all the time.
Speaker 3: It's something I always say, is it's the four p's.
Speaker 3: It's passion, it's purpose, it's prosperity, and then it's proficiency,
Speaker 3: which is what are you good at? What are you
Speaker 3: talent to that? What are you passionate about me? I'm
Speaker 3: passionate about writing, I'm passionate about storytelling. Purpose, These kids
Speaker 3: need books with characters that look like them. Prosperity again,
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, like, okay, all of these is one hundred
Speaker 3: books in this class, it's five classrooms in the school.
Speaker 3: If I'm writing, you know what I'm saying, booming, that's
Speaker 3: money there. And then proficiency. I'm good at writing because
Speaker 3: I spent all of my formative years writing lyrics. So
Speaker 3: I put so that's when I approach it is I'm
Speaker 3: putting these four piece together. Like wherever those intersect, I
Speaker 3: think is where you're gonna find your niche. So anyway,
Speaker 3: so I did all of that. But now even though
Speaker 3: I'm writing the Chordan's book, because once I wrote books
Speaker 3: in the curriculum, it's kind now I'm just selling right
Speaker 3: now my salesman. And I'm also very much in education,
Speaker 3: which is still not necessarily my bag. I want to
Speaker 3: be an artist. I want to so anyway, So that's
Speaker 3: how I got into books. That's the taket stuff. It's
Speaker 3: going to come back. Then I saw a movie. I
Speaker 3: saw a movie called Foodville Station.
Speaker 2: I remember in that movie, and I'll tell you why
Speaker 2: I remember. Yeah, you already know what I'm about to say.
Speaker 3: Tell me m b Oh, my goodness, you don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that has been my crush forever since that movie. No,
Speaker 2: I've like Michael B.
Speaker 1: Jordan shout outs to the true ones that really had
Speaker 1: a crush on him since he was on I think
Speaker 1: it was All My Children or one of those soap
Speaker 1: opera shows from the Wired days.
Speaker 3: I knew he was also in this movie called Chronicle.
Speaker 3: Some people know that movie Chronicle.
Speaker 1: I don't know all his movies, yeah, because I like
Speaker 1: him more for his looks than But alright, let's stay.
Speaker 3: On top of and so I guess it's like maybe
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen or so. So anyway, it hit me so hard.
Speaker 3: It's about Oscar Grant and around this time is when
Speaker 3: a lot of the you Got Trade my Mad Mike
Speaker 3: shit was just happening. It's still happening right all the time, man,
Speaker 3: and so it really hit me. But this movie particularly
Speaker 3: hit me. And it's like, yo, who made this? And
Speaker 3: so I went to look up the filmmaking. Of course
Speaker 3: I come across this guy, Ryan Cooger, cool and the
Speaker 3: way he spoke. I was watching his interviews and everything,
Speaker 3: and it's like something about him like I connected to
Speaker 3: and just knowing his background, how he was like, yo,
Speaker 3: I didn't come from making films. I came I was
Speaker 3: an athlete, college athlete. Again, it just connected with me,
Speaker 3: I was. It made me feel like, it made me
Speaker 3: basically made me feel like, oh shit, like it's possible,
Speaker 3: like I could become a filmmaker. Like I've always been
Speaker 3: a huge movie buff. So I was like, Okay, maybe
Speaker 3: that's a thing. Maybe I could be a filmmaker, right,
Speaker 3: maybe I could write stories. And so anyway I heard
Speaker 3: he went to the school USC which is supposed to
Speaker 3: be the best film school in the world. So I'm like,
Speaker 3: all right, Bell, I just go to USC too.
Speaker 2: Then was cracking up these degrees.
Speaker 3: Boy bruh, I got Yeah, I went from a point
Speaker 3: to nine to hold in. Yeah, I'm about to go.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go back and get I'm gonna get my
Speaker 3: doctorate soon. But yeah, so I make my first you
Speaker 3: gotta make a movie to get an se. I made
Speaker 3: my first movie. It did surprisingly well. It was featured
Speaker 3: in place in four thirty Under thirty all of this stuff.
Speaker 3: Not only did I end up getting in the sc
Speaker 3: but I got a full ride from George Lucas.
Speaker 2: But you had to do the film before you even
Speaker 2: get in.
Speaker 3: Yes, you got to make a five minute film before
Speaker 3: you even get in.
Speaker 2: Jesus.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But it again, like you said earlier, when things
Speaker 3: when you know when something's going well, you lean in.
Speaker 3: So when I got in and got the scholarship and everything,
Speaker 3: and read my letter from George Lucas and all of this,
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, Okay, there's something here, and so I
Speaker 3: go to SC. I make a bunch of more movies,
Speaker 3: write a bunch of scripts. I actually real quick before
Speaker 3: because this is about to take us into to present day.
Speaker 3: But while I was at SC, I got to work
Speaker 3: for Lebron James. So I worked over at spring Hill
Speaker 3: when I was there, while we were making Space Jam,
Speaker 3: which of course one of the producers on Space Jam
Speaker 3: is Ryan Coogler.
Speaker 2: Okay, and so get real close to Ryan.
Speaker 3: So this is the thing, is like, now I'm looking
Speaker 3: at the signs too. You know what I'm saying. Now
Speaker 3: I'm driving him around on the w B lot. This
Speaker 3: the same guy that I saw his interview You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying four years ago that made me even
Speaker 3: want to become a filmmaker. Now I'm driving him around
Speaker 3: on the w B lot. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: Like it's it's crazy. So anyway, so I did that
Speaker 3: while I was at SC, write scripts, made some movies,
Speaker 3: all did pretty well, and then I graduated from SC
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty. Of course, twenty twenty Boom, Pandemic hits,
Speaker 3: Everything go crazy right KOs madness said, la man, it
Speaker 3: is what the fuck is going on? And that happens.
Speaker 3: And again in retrospect, particularly when you like talk through
Speaker 3: these type of things, you had these little realizations. But
Speaker 3: like for me, my whole thing was like all right,
Speaker 3: I gotta write, like I just want to write now.
Speaker 3: I know there was like probably just anxieties, yo, I
Speaker 3: gotta just you know what I'm saying, just my brain
Speaker 3: trying to do something. But I started writing every single
Speaker 3: day pretty much all day, all day. So twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: I'm doing that.
Speaker 2: How are you supporting yourself through the pandemic?
Speaker 3: Shit? The government?
Speaker 1: Oh you're doing the unemployment checks like the highest paid unemployment.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I didn't unemployment.
Speaker 3: Man, you should have? Should you should? I tell everybody
Speaker 3: they get a chance to eat off the government, do
Speaker 3: it because they gonna get off you.
Speaker 1: Back, and we're gonna make that a little clip, you know.
Speaker 3: What I'm saying. So yeah, So I'm writing every day
Speaker 3: and twenty twenty one comes around. I ended up getting
Speaker 3: a gig working on Mandalorian, which is again because my
Speaker 3: stage name is ben Kenobe, so it's which I pulled
Speaker 3: from Star Wars. So all of this is George Lucas
Speaker 3: Kalla ship and working on Mandalorians all just cool shit.
Speaker 3: While I'm working on Mandalorian, a lot of that writing
Speaker 3: idea started to pay off. I sold my first book series.
Speaker 3: The first one was Ethan Fairmont. It was a middle
Speaker 3: grade series. The second one was Promise Boys. Right now.
Speaker 3: Promise Boys was really unique because Promise Boys was the
Speaker 3: biggest publishing deal for young adult debut author ever. It
Speaker 3: was like a huge publishing deal. And the way I
Speaker 3: got into that was basically, I was writing a bunch
Speaker 3: of scripts a.
Speaker 1: Huge publishing deal for Breakthrough but not and I like
Speaker 1: to ask this, not with the category black at.
Speaker 3: It, no, no, but young adult though young.
Speaker 1: Adult no that, but that makes a difference another incredible feed. Yes,
Speaker 1: So that's bigger than just micro.
Speaker 3: Targ for sure, especially coming from like self publishing, my
Speaker 3: own you know what I'm saying, my own Chorgre's books
Speaker 3: all fucking Vista print or whatever I with Lulu or
Speaker 3: something I was using. But yeah, so the book goes crazy,
Speaker 3: like really crazy. I never forget. It was interesting because
Speaker 3: when the announcement was made about the book on set
Speaker 3: on Mandalorian, I was an assistant to one of the EPs,
Speaker 3: one of the showrunners, and so when you're in the
Speaker 3: you have a certain kind of role. But when the
Speaker 3: news came and about the deal and the size of
Speaker 3: the deal, it was just interesting how I never forget
Speaker 3: just how I felt like dynamic started to change about
Speaker 3: how people were looking at me on set. It was
Speaker 3: just interesting. But that's Hollywood, and so that happens. And then,
Speaker 3: of course, because of the size of the deal, it
Speaker 3: goes on to be sold as a TV show.
Speaker 1: I told myself I wasn't gonna whole bad questions, but
Speaker 1: go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 2: How much?
Speaker 1: What was the size of the deal? Can you wreak
Speaker 1: it down?
Speaker 3: Please? It was a seven figured deal. There's a seven
Speaker 3: figured deal, and I think, man, I'll leave it that.
Speaker 3: It was a little over m yeah, in a quarter
Speaker 3: or something like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, And you got the call to get this deal. Okay, set, yep,
Speaker 1: we're gonna rewind. So you get the deal. How exactly
Speaker 1: did you end up coming pitching and getting into this position?
Speaker 3: Okay? So while all of that writing I was doing,
Speaker 3: I wrote a script. Me and my co writer. We
Speaker 3: wrote a script. And my core writer is also a novelist,
Speaker 3: and so I think this is probably done by the way.
Speaker 3: I think I can probably mix this. Yeah, go ahead then,
Speaker 3: and he's a novelist, and so we wrote the script.
Speaker 3: This is not gonna taste good. I can tell.
Speaker 1: You, you know what, your story is really good?
Speaker 2: So it's okay, I'm just going to eat there you.
Speaker 3: Go, please do. I don't want to make you sick.
Speaker 3: So he's a novelist. So we're writing scripts, and I
Speaker 3: came across this property, this IP, and Hollywood loves IP,
Speaker 3: and I get it in some cases some type of cases,
Speaker 3: I don't. But I came across this property, this old comic,
Speaker 3: it's the first black comic book ever happens to be
Speaker 3: in public domain. And so we wrote a script based
Speaker 3: on that, and we sent it to his agent to
Speaker 3: figure out. Before we knew it was in public domain,
Speaker 3: it was just trying to get some clarity.
Speaker 2: What does that mean? Public domain?
Speaker 3: It basically means anybody can use it for free. You know,
Speaker 3: typically you got a license or you gotta pay somebody.
Speaker 2: How does it end up in public domain?
Speaker 3: It's typically if basically time period if it comes out
Speaker 3: before I forget the exact year, but it's a certain
Speaker 3: time period if it comes out, if it came out
Speaker 3: at a certain point, anything that comes out a lot
Speaker 3: of people don't know. A lot of Disney shit is
Speaker 3: public domain. Little Mermaid is actually public domain. Like me
Speaker 3: and you can write a Little Mermaid, but the freak out.
Speaker 3: I'm not kidding. We can't use like some of the
Speaker 3: same elements that Disney had put into their stuff. But
Speaker 3: the concept of Little Mermaid or I think also Jungle Book,
Speaker 3: a lot of it is public domains. So anyway, public
Speaker 3: domain means you can use it for free. Essentially, that's
Speaker 3: the short, shortes short.
Speaker 2: But you can't use the characters. Stop visiting with your mic.
Speaker 3: Oh my fault. I even realized that was the mic
Speaker 3: my fault.
Speaker 2: What is this thing?
Speaker 3: Yeah? No, you can use as long as it's not
Speaker 3: a character invented by Disney, right, or a character invented
Speaker 3: by whatever.
Speaker 2: So you can use like the synopsis of the book.
Speaker 3: Or exactly the basic premise, the basic premise you can use. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so we can. Yeah, we could go write the Laddin.
Speaker 3: We can write in a Latin book if we wanted to.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you so you see this black comic.
Speaker 3: Which is great because then yeah, so I see this
Speaker 3: black comic is in a public man like huh. I
Speaker 3: got an idea, And again I love mysteries and it's
Speaker 3: about a detective. I love that type of ship. The
Speaker 3: first book I really read that got me in the
Speaker 3: reading was a guy named Walter Mosley, who did Devil
Speaker 3: in the Blue Dress. But anyway, so we did that,
Speaker 3: we send it to this agent to see to inquire
Speaker 3: about the rights before we learned it was in public domain,
Speaker 3: and she was so interested in the voice of the script.
Speaker 3: And so she asked her client who I was working with,
Speaker 3: who did you write this with? Because it's a black character.
Speaker 3: My co writer is white, and she I think she understood.
Speaker 2: Like your writer a guy or girl?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so yo, who did you write this with?
Speaker 3: And so he told her about me, and she is
Speaker 3: a more established book agent. So that's how the whole
Speaker 3: thing came about. It's like she had me meet with
Speaker 3: another one of her clients and we talked about some
Speaker 3: ideas and they pitched me a couple of ideas and
Speaker 3: asked me and see, this is why I gave that
Speaker 3: all of that context, because they were already trying to
Speaker 3: crack a mystery set in all boys school. So when
Speaker 3: I tell you I worked with all boys, it was
Speaker 3: like when they heard my story and they heard that
Speaker 3: I love, They're like, oh shit, you are the guy
Speaker 3: for me. So anyways, that's how writing the book came about.
Speaker 3: And then from there it was pretty traditional. I wrote
Speaker 3: the book, did a treatment, and then they just took
Speaker 3: it out. They took it out to town and people
Speaker 3: just went crazy over it was a bit and wool.
Speaker 3: So that's how it all came about. And look at me,
Speaker 3: I watched it.
Speaker 1: Definitely looks like it's going to be a dishmade by man.
Speaker 3: It is that. But so that's how that happened.
Speaker 2: Right, Should he pour some water in it or something?
Speaker 1: I feel like you should add Is that what it's supposed.
Speaker 2: To look like?
Speaker 3: No, not really.
Speaker 2: I think if you add water or something to it.
Speaker 3: Okay, maybe I had a little bit of water. Shut
Speaker 3: So we just saying thank you, thank you. Someone looks stupid.
Speaker 1: You can never look so just you talking it makes
Speaker 1: it impossible stupid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's the deal right again. Because of the
Speaker 3: size of the deal, it goes on to be sold Netflix, Obama,
Speaker 3: all of the cool headline stuff, and it sounds really cool.
Speaker 3: Only that, so I think we ended up wrapping up
Speaker 3: the deal in the end of twenty twenty two. Twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three comes and we are stating up the room
Speaker 3: to write the show. But now Hollywood goes on strike.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's right.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, you know what I'm saying. So I'm
Speaker 3: thinking I'm about to get my big I'm about to
Speaker 3: write my first show. I was about to go crazy
Speaker 3: boom right or straight and so at this time. So
Speaker 3: now I'm like, all right, So now TV stopped. And
Speaker 3: by the way, in this amount of time, we also
Speaker 3: sold another TV show, a separate one that I could
Speaker 3: go on all these different tangents. But we sold another
Speaker 3: TV show to c W. But again that one's just
Speaker 3: stopped too, put halt to everything.
Speaker 1: And again me and the show was picked up was
Speaker 1: just stuck. And that's a risky thing because I've heard
Speaker 1: stories getting picked up and then something like this happens
Speaker 1: and then it just goes done. I know this because
Speaker 1: Nick Cannon told us he bought a house and ended
Speaker 1: up basically broke again off of a deal that got
Speaker 1: picked dropped.
Speaker 3: Yep, that's what happens, right, And this is what and
Speaker 3: this is what we're worried about at the time. And
Speaker 3: so that's happening. Our shows are done. I'm like, okay, fuck,
Speaker 3: what's going on with Hollywood? Is it going to be TV?
Speaker 3: Is it gonna be movies? So I started writing my
Speaker 3: next again. I start writing my next book, which is
Speaker 3: up Big Smoke. So this is twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: I start righting, So Promise Boys is out, probably the
Speaker 2: book is out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it come out TV.
Speaker 1: The TV on the Promised Boys is on hold.
Speaker 3: It's on hold.
Speaker 2: Okay, now you're like on to the next on them
Speaker 2: up in Smoke and Smoke.
Speaker 1: Okay, Before we get to Up and Smoke, can we
Speaker 1: talk about the Obama's getting involved with the Obama production
Speaker 1: company get involved. We cannot skip over that.
Speaker 2: That's huge. Yeah, So take me back to what was
Speaker 2: going on during that time.
Speaker 3: So this is around again. This is like towards the
Speaker 3: end of twenty twenty two. Much like the book, the
Speaker 3: bidding war going on. You meeting with all these different publishers,
Speaker 3: similarly the show all these different publish or all these
Speaker 3: different production companies production pods.
Speaker 2: And are you getting in front of them because of
Speaker 2: the booking agent.
Speaker 3: I'm getting in front of them because really because of
Speaker 3: the size of the book deal everybody. So it was
Speaker 3: a big article, right, So of course again it's that's
Speaker 3: the Hollywood things. Like it was hot in this one
Speaker 3: moment and so we shout.
Speaker 1: Us to all the publishers out there that make sure
Speaker 1: that you.
Speaker 3: Know what I'm saying. Shout out to Mai my publishers
Speaker 3: over at McMillan and Morgan. And then so at that time, yeah,
Speaker 3: they it was a big article about the size of
Speaker 3: the you. And so because of that, all of the
Speaker 3: production companies are like, yo, who is this? How do
Speaker 3: we And then of course the article is like emerging filmmaker,
Speaker 3: big deals. So now they're like, oh, not just an author, filmmaker,
Speaker 3: oh usc oh George Lucas koala, Oh you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, A bff, you know what I'm saying. All
Speaker 3: of these things start to just line up. So all
Speaker 3: of these publishers or all of these production companies excuse me,
Speaker 3: are wanting to meet. And so of course we met
Speaker 3: with some I'm trying to I'm also in this, in
Speaker 3: this fame, trying to think like what I can't say,
Speaker 3: what I can't say, But there were there were some
Speaker 3: people that I was hoping, there were some other a
Speaker 3: lot of people that we met with, and there was
Speaker 3: probably two people at the top on my list. It
Speaker 3: was I think I can say this, It was the Obamas,
Speaker 3: and then it was Jay Z And so these are
Speaker 3: the two. So I'm meeting with all these productions and
Speaker 3: I'm like, yo, all right, this is an Obama whole,
Speaker 3: Obama whole. Like these are like our dads, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, these are both our dads.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness of all things, I did not expect
Speaker 1: you to say, oh, Pama or jay Z. I promise
Speaker 1: you I would have been doing that same dance and
Speaker 1: I would have been saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it was something I would have because they're
Speaker 3: both first families. Ear to ear, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: The heights of happiness. I don't know how you even
Speaker 1: keep your feet on the ground because you try not
Speaker 1: to get your hopes up to it.
Speaker 3: All right, Yeah, they both first fans you got hold
Speaker 3: of and B and then you got pro for Yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm just like these are too. These are just iconic blackness.
Speaker 3: And so anyway, so it's like long story short, Higher
Speaker 3: Ground and also just coming to call Temple Hill, which
Speaker 3: has a lot of adaptation, particularly hya they coming out
Speaker 3: on top.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and they came out on top. Because I
Speaker 1: have to know what was the deal breaker.
Speaker 3: There was a few different things. One at the time,
Speaker 3: Higher Ground had a deal with Netflix, so it's like cool,
Speaker 3: like this is really cool, I think. Also, again I'm
Speaker 3: just trying to choose my words the right way. I
Speaker 3: think it's like just thinking about who do because then
Speaker 3: you got to consider who do you feel like move
Speaker 3: the needle at a particular place more more? You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, You think like.
Speaker 2: A pure businessman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like, which has the most leverage in the
Speaker 1: game exactly if you move the names aside, which resume
Speaker 1: clears out exactly?
Speaker 2: And I can imagine, to.
Speaker 3: Be quite transparent, there was a lot of other players
Speaker 3: in this. It's not this is just Nick Brooks's thing, right,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of the players. Is the the agency, Like,
Speaker 3: there's people who put this whole package together, a lot
Speaker 3: of other players, some of which like got nicer watches
Speaker 3: than me, you know what I'm saying. So it's like
Speaker 3: there's a lot of it's a lot of it's a
Speaker 3: lot of cooks.
Speaker 2: I'm going to use that, you know.
Speaker 3: So it's not just because I might have said hole
Speaker 3: to be honest, but it's a lot. It's a lot
Speaker 3: going on. So yeah, so that happens. But then again
Speaker 3: we get to so yeah, so new're high ground, Timple Hill,
Speaker 3: We're at Netflix, that's what they're I want to say, overall,
Speaker 3: I think they had overall there at that time, and yeah, boom,
Speaker 3: that was that. So I'm like, cool, I'm about to
Speaker 3: be I'm about to have a TV show. Shit, I
Speaker 3: might direct the pilot, like I'm going crazy in my head.
Speaker 3: But then twenty twenty three rolls around and it's like
Speaker 3: the industry shuts down again.
Speaker 1: Yeah I remember that.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, And it's like now everybody's out,
Speaker 3: people again, losing jobs, executives getting cut left and right,
Speaker 3: and now we're like, yeah, so now what is it?
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, which again is why Okay,
Speaker 3: I go back into my just like how because one
Speaker 3: thing I skipped over is when twenty twenty happened, I
Speaker 3: didn't only start writing books again. I started making music again,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, And so that was helping me.
Speaker 3: I had got a few salt like I did music
Speaker 3: for I had a song on like a Clone tip
Speaker 3: ro big Netflix movie shout out to Joel, and I
Speaker 3: was putting out EPs and so I was doing little things.
Speaker 3: But then the TV stuff started to take off on
Speaker 3: like boom, But then Pandemic or then the strike everything
Speaker 3: clops again. So now I'm back and let me go
Speaker 3: right again, make music again, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So it's just like you know what I'm saying, jump rope.
Speaker 3: So before you.
Speaker 1: Get into music, let's sit down. Come sit with me.
Speaker 1: Do you want to serve us up?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I guess I played us up. We're gonna eat your
Speaker 2: your rotale. Yeah, cheers.
Speaker 3: Oh it ain't too bad. Real, What did you think?
Speaker 3: You know what?
Speaker 2: I thought it was gonna be salty because you were
Speaker 2: going in on that. He was going in on that. Lorries,
Speaker 2: I said, boy, at the heavens, please, but no, it's great.
Speaker 2: Oh you were killed us. You ain't gonna take just
Speaker 2: one bite.
Speaker 3: It's actually.
Speaker 2: Like that. It's pretty good.
Speaker 3: That's a pretty good.
Speaker 2: I know this is a crunchy meal guys for all
Speaker 2: your listeners, but it's good.
Speaker 3: S r M whatever, right R.
Speaker 1: I saw this girl on the one of those channels
Speaker 1: and she was slurping, and I was like, looked at
Speaker 1: her views and I said, damn, I could totally be
Speaker 1: a slurper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could totally.
Speaker 3: You can make money off anything now.
Speaker 1: And I was watching her eating and the only thing
Speaker 1: against me the most on those videos is like where
Speaker 1: they buy their.
Speaker 3: Food.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm like, where did you find this gigantic crab?
Speaker 1: Like what story is selling these?
Speaker 2: But take me back to you being and you're getting
Speaker 2: back into music.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I said, Yeah, when twenty happened, I didn't
Speaker 3: just start writing every day. I started making music again
Speaker 3: just again or release as an artist, as a musician,
Speaker 3: just this is what I love to do, not thinking
Speaker 3: anything of it. And then I'll put out.
Speaker 2: My first project and this is solo homie from.
Speaker 3: Solo, So this is my first Yeah, this is now
Speaker 3: just been Kenobi solo artists and yeah, I would to
Speaker 3: be honest, I was just doing it for fun. It's
Speaker 3: really nothing to report other than because and this is
Speaker 3: why I just like doing stuff like and people again people,
Speaker 3: when people ask me about my story and my journey,
Speaker 3: I always mentioned, like one, just doing just put yourself
Speaker 3: out there, but also just being flexible like and a
Speaker 3: lot of these points when there was an obstacle or
Speaker 3: a barrier, it's just about how you pivot. That's what
Speaker 3: I call it. The pivot. What's your pivot? The art
Speaker 3: of the pivot, what's your pivot? Yeah, So when that happened.
Speaker 3: I just I was making music. But because I was
Speaker 3: making this is what I was gonna say. Because I
Speaker 3: was making music, I caught the attention of a director
Speaker 3: who I actually had met at spring Hill when who
Speaker 3: was writing on Space Down. His name is Joelle Taylor.
Speaker 3: Just a brilliant guy. He's also the director of They
Speaker 3: Clone Tyrone. But he heard my music just because we
Speaker 3: had tapped in when I was working from when I
Speaker 3: was working at spring Hill. He was like, Yo, you're
Speaker 3: actually really dope. Like I want you to work on
Speaker 3: the soundtrack for They Clone Tyrone. So now all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, oh the soundtrack.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a really big check.
Speaker 3: So you know, I got invited to the writers camp
Speaker 3: to work on the soundtrack. I did about and again
Speaker 3: this is one of those moments where you think, oh shit,
Speaker 3: Like by this time, I'm jaded, so I don't nothing
Speaker 3: excite me, to be honest, nothing excites me.
Speaker 2: Really, you know what I'm saying in a different way.
Speaker 3: Oh no, just like as far as like thinking oh
Speaker 3: this is my big break, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: That is just not your numb now yeah it doesn't.
Speaker 3: It's just it's like whatever.
Speaker 1: But at this point, all your endeavors are leading to
Speaker 1: a life that is more stable or do you feel
Speaker 1: like it's still rocky in your finances.
Speaker 3: It's definitely stable, it's just not what I envision or
Speaker 3: what I want. You know what I'm saying. I have
Speaker 3: a really big dream both, so it's certainly stable, but
Speaker 3: it's just yeah, it's just I'm not where I want
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 1: Now you're doing the music for the soundtrack, are you
Speaker 1: starting to work up on.
Speaker 2: Up and smoke?
Speaker 3: At this time? I'm focusing on the music, thinking that's
Speaker 3: gonna pop. And of course, all the songs I worked
Speaker 3: on at the writers camp, none of them got picked
Speaker 3: for the soundtrack. Yes, exactly, see, and that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: It's like that, you know, that's where God, you're jaded
Speaker 2: at that point, you.
Speaker 3: Know what I'm saying, because it imagine I was like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I'm about to But here's the cool thing,
Speaker 3: because again, because of my relationship with Joelle, he actually
Speaker 3: hit me and was like, Yo, do you have anything
Speaker 3: from your own catalog that we can use? And so
Speaker 3: again this is why it's so important to just do stuff,
Speaker 3: because had I not just started making music, I would
Speaker 3: have my answer would have been no, I just would
Speaker 3: have been shut out of luck. But because I had
Speaker 3: been making music, I seen him a few tracks on
Speaker 3: my own and one actually got selected. So I ended
Speaker 3: up did having a song in the movie. So again
Speaker 3: it's just how you move. But anyway, so now I'm
Speaker 3: doing that, right. This is all leading us back up
Speaker 3: to twenty twenty three write a Strike. So now, because
Speaker 3: the TV show's not going and we had, like I said,
Speaker 3: we had two shows that I thought I was going
Speaker 3: to be consuming my time. Because that all stopped, I'm
Speaker 3: now writing Up in Smoke. So twenty twenty three, I
Speaker 3: start writing Up in Smoke. I did the first fifteen pages,
Speaker 3: then the first thirty pages, then the first fifty pages.
Speaker 3: I was like, yoah, fuck with this, and I sent
Speaker 3: it off to my editor at McMillan, who edited Promise Boys,
Speaker 3: and he was like, Yo, this is really great. We
Speaker 3: want it. And so then I had another publishing deal, right,
Speaker 3: So I sold Up in Smoke in twenty twenty three
Speaker 3: to McMillan.
Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, and that's your second book to that's.
Speaker 3: My second young adult novel. It'll be my fifth novel.
Speaker 3: Wow yeah, it'll be my fifth novel.
Speaker 2: Under them no fifth in general exactly.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, but yes, my second one with them with McMillan, Wow, yeah,
Speaker 3: I smoke and so this is all twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, boom up in smoke. That's gonna be
Speaker 3: my next one. But I'm also again, because I'm not
Speaker 3: doing the shows, the TV shows, I'm like going back
Speaker 3: to the music, and so I'm making music, and it
Speaker 3: dawned on me it'd be a really cool idea. Another
Speaker 3: thing I do is like multiple POV. So Promise Boys
Speaker 3: is three boys, he's three protagonists. Is that what means
Speaker 3: points of view.
Speaker 2: Points of view POV? Yeah, three different points.
Speaker 3: Of view, three different like I don't ever seen like
Speaker 3: vantage point or what's some other ones. It's a ton
Speaker 3: of them that like rotate these or what's the one
Speaker 3: I think fiction.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is a good example of POV,
Speaker 1: but where the five boys the way they wrote that
Speaker 1: script where the five boys, we're in the park, Yes,
Speaker 1: when they see us, when they see yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: thought that that was really a great one.
Speaker 3: It's really cool that you pulled that out because when
Speaker 3: they see us was actually somewhat of a count for
Speaker 3: Promise Boys. Particularly the TV show. So yeah, yeah, you're
Speaker 3: totally right. Yeah, when they see us.
Speaker 2: So that's a good example of POV.
Speaker 3: That's a good example of of multiple POV.
Speaker 1: So you try to write with three po and minimum
Speaker 1: of three just.
Speaker 3: Multiple just in general. It's not it's no number, no minimum,
Speaker 3: just it's just particularly for mystery. It helps hide secrets
Speaker 3: and clues like for mysteries and makes it more compelling.
Speaker 3: You take a movie like knoves Out, We're the classic
Speaker 3: is clue. You have all of these different people with
Speaker 3: all their own povs. They all see things differently, they
Speaker 3: all have secrets, they all are hiding things from each other.
Speaker 3: That just helps create like a compelling space for mystery.
Speaker 3: So that's why it's cool to do it, and particularly
Speaker 3: in pros and novel form. So Promised Boys is three
Speaker 3: POV's Up and Smoke is two Cooper and Monique. But
Speaker 3: I thought it'd be really cool to include a third
Speaker 3: POV in the form of a rap album and have
Speaker 3: the rap album have clues to the murder in the book.
Speaker 1: Okay, oh, so that's so Up in Smoke and your
Speaker 1: album go together.
Speaker 2: It's a package deal.
Speaker 3: It's a package deal.
Speaker 1: And so when you purchase Up and Smoke, does the
Speaker 1: book come with a downloadable.
Speaker 3: Not necessarily, but we are doing We're doing certain things.
Speaker 3: So for example, we're doing a pre order campaign right now.
Speaker 3: If you pre order Up and Smoke now, you will
Speaker 3: get a free you'll get a track, you'll get unreleased
Speaker 3: tracked from the album.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, and then that will point to a
Speaker 1: clue in the book exactly.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was out somewhere in Texas and I saw a
Speaker 1: bunch of people following each other with their phones out
Speaker 1: and I saw I was like, he must be chasing
Speaker 1: up Pokemon. So I feel like when they read Up
Speaker 1: and Smoke, it's like a similar engagement where if they
Speaker 1: listen to it they can.
Speaker 2: Figure it all out, stuff out. That's pretty amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think, very hard to do.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of writing. It's fourteen tracks on the album,
Speaker 3: so hell a lot of writing. And it's just a
Speaker 3: cool idea. And like my whole thing Promised Boys are similar.
Speaker 3: Is like I want to pull in what the industry
Speaker 3: will call like reluctant readers or edit reluctant readers, kids
Speaker 3: who just don't typically pick up a book. And I
Speaker 3: get Again, I get asked a lot like what makes
Speaker 3: like why don't kids read it? Or are there books
Speaker 3: for all kids? Of course they're all like the only
Speaker 3: reason why a kid is not reading book is because
Speaker 3: they haven't found the right book. And so I like
Speaker 3: to write books. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: like to write books that feature again that I'm from DC.
Speaker 3: I grew up in DC, and so I write books
Speaker 3: that I know kids who growing up in DC would
Speaker 3: respond to. I'm putting things in the book that either
Speaker 3: I've experienced, our friends have experienced, or kids that I've
Speaker 3: taught have experience. I used to coach Little League football,
Speaker 3: Like I know these kids. I know these young men.
Speaker 3: So I'm trying to write books for them for real,
Speaker 3: and it is working. I have gotten calls from grown
Speaker 3: men who have been like bro, like my fifteen year
Speaker 3: old son is reading because of you. Thank you. You
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. So I say that to say,
Speaker 3: it's like for me, putting the album with the book
Speaker 3: is another way of like, how do I engage? How
Speaker 3: do I engage? How do I make this interactive? How
Speaker 3: do I open up? How do I connect both dots?
Speaker 3: How do I connect people? To my music. How do
Speaker 3: I connect people to my books? On both fans?
Speaker 1: And that's what I was about to say next. I'm
Speaker 1: a huge jay Z fan. Yes, gigantic, gigantic. There's a
Speaker 1: painting of jay Z in.
Speaker 2: Yes about that when I was like twenty four and
Speaker 2: had a shift here.
Speaker 1: But I brought up jay Z because if you were
Speaker 1: to say, if you're out there listening and you want
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, I'm not necessarily ready to read up
Speaker 1: and smoke, but you buy the album, then after listening
Speaker 1: to the album you made, you're gonna want want to
Speaker 1: read the book. And I only reference that to Jay
Speaker 1: because a lot of times if you even get a
Speaker 1: micro nugget of what was going on and he was
Speaker 1: writing record, you're like, oh my god, that's what I
Speaker 1: was having in There is some parallel. So I like
Speaker 1: that you did try the music route, because, especially in
Speaker 1: the black and brown market, we definitely find I think
Speaker 1: find our relatability more in music than yes books for
Speaker 1: whatever reason. But yeah, I like that they could either
Speaker 1: pick the music, yeah, or the book.
Speaker 2: And you tell me the reason.
Speaker 3: The reason is because in music and when you say
Speaker 3: black and brown and you know it's also from particularly
Speaker 3: particular neighborhoods, often lower social economic status neighborhoods. The music
Speaker 3: calls to exactly our day to day life, what'll be
Speaker 3: going through. It's familiar, and I think sometimes with books,
Speaker 3: people are not empowered to write those same things. I
Speaker 3: think it's I'll give you an example for me, something
Speaker 3: I hear from my purpose I didn't necessarily hear from
Speaker 3: my publisher. But sometimes what they imply is that that
Speaker 3: black boys don't read, and the reason is because we're
Speaker 3: not writing books like Promise Boys, or we're not writing
Speaker 3: books like Up and Smoke. It's like a chicken in
Speaker 3: the egg. The reason people aren't writing those books is
Speaker 3: because publishers are not publishing them. You know what I means, Like,
Speaker 3: the reason the kids are not reading again goes back
Speaker 3: because they don't have the books that are familiar to them.
Speaker 3: So when you say it's like, for whatever reason, we
Speaker 3: relate more to the music, because well, people are making
Speaker 3: familiar music. People are not necessarily writing familiar books for
Speaker 3: all types of people. You know what I'm saying from
Speaker 3: all these places that we come from, and hopefully that's
Speaker 3: what I'm trying to do with Promise Boys, Up and
Speaker 3: smoke and all the things that I do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you do a really great job of
Speaker 1: also letting your light shine and allowing others to do
Speaker 1: the same.
Speaker 2: I think what can be said.
Speaker 1: To a company what you just said is like seeing
Speaker 1: a young black author have a huge writing deal, someone
Speaker 1: that also started in music, something that they can look
Speaker 1: at and say, oh, I can do it. I had
Speaker 1: an interview previously where the guy said he wanted to
Speaker 1: be a kindergarten teacher because he only had one black
Speaker 1: male kindergarten teacher in the school. So he was just
Speaker 1: like that one guy had such a huge impact. So
Speaker 1: it is a chicken in the egg situation that a
Speaker 1: lot of opportunities weren't given to us for such a
Speaker 1: long time. And the fact that you can go on
Speaker 1: camera and someone, whether it's one person or two people
Speaker 1: or five million people, hear this interview and say, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, I can be like him, or like how
Speaker 1: Ryan Coogler had inspired you. Wait a minute, that one
Speaker 1: interview at the right time.
Speaker 2: So kudos to you.
Speaker 3: All the young kids who like kids who rap you
Speaker 3: can write books and you just don't know they can
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of people don't even think I had enough.
Speaker 1: I love the idea of having authors because it switches up. Originally,
Speaker 1: when we were going to do the interview, I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to stay away from the music because it's
Speaker 1: to me, has become like the standard stereotype. But to
Speaker 1: say a best selling author who has had so many
Speaker 1: pivots and relatability, it's a beautiful story, and I see
Speaker 1: why the book and the music are tied together in
Speaker 1: your mission. But I really appreciate what you've done here,
Speaker 1: and your cooking is not too bad. I was only
Speaker 1: choosing not to eat at all, guys, because I didn't
Speaker 1: want to chew in the ears. But look at to
Speaker 1: that camera and tell everybody where they could keep up
Speaker 1: with everything.
Speaker 3: Nick Brooks, Ye, yeah, you can find me at my
Speaker 3: website just benickbooks dot com, t G and I see
Speaker 3: kb r o ks dot com. Find your Instagram Official Nickbrooks,
Speaker 3: TikTok Official Nick Brooks. You could google Nick Brooks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very he's very Google Google.
Speaker 3: You can google Nick Brooks.
Speaker 2: And then up in smoke drops.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: May six, So you guys, by the by the time
Speaker 1: this interview drops, the books, we'll try to make sure
Speaker 1: it releases around the same week.
Speaker 3: There we go.
Speaker 2: That'll be the goal we shoot for me. There we go,
Speaker 2: so we can help push the promotion.
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, guys, and then also right now out on
Speaker 1: shelves is promised.
Speaker 2: Boys. I am not a huge fiction reader, but I
Speaker 2: will be reading this book.
Speaker 1: Guys, there we go, so it looks let me know
Speaker 1: what you think. Yes, and I'm into thrillers, so I
Speaker 1: know I'm gonna do this book even though it ends
Speaker 1: in murder.
Speaker 3: And you can pre order Up and Smoke Lamb. So
Speaker 3: if you go to the website.
Speaker 1: And you can order the music first. If you don't
Speaker 1: order the buck getro vice versa. Remember that, guys. All right,
Speaker 1: thanks for tuning in. Peace out, y'all. Peace for more
Speaker 1: eating while broke from iHeartRadio and The Black Effect, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.