SPEAKER_02 1:45

Welcome back to the Hilltop Glove Podcast. Today we are thrilled to have the esteemed DJ Chuck T with us. As a revered pioneer and trailblazer in the Carolina hip-hop music scene, his influence is nothing short of legendary. DJ Chuck T began his musical journey back in 1998 as a recording artist known as Priest. His debut album, 843 Baller, quickly made waves in South Carolina, establishing him as a notable figure in the industry. Before retiring from the mic in 2001, DJ Chuck T collaborated with prominent Southern artists like Pastor Troy and 36 Mafia, even catching the attention of Epic Records ARs. After stepping away from the mic, DJ Chuck T spent two years honing in his skills in producing, engineering, and artist management. His passion for DJing was ignited during this time as a production assistant at Charleston's Hot 98 radio station. Investing in a pair of turntables, he immersed himself in the art of DJing, creating mixtapes, DJing parties, and earning coveted spots on BET's Rap City and MTV's Mixtape Mondays. His mixtapes have been featured in prestigious publications like The Source Magazine, The Foundation Magazine, DXL Magazine, Ozone Magazine. In 2019, DJ Chuck T founded the Foundation of Music, an initiative dedicated to educating aspiring artists in the music business. He travels across the Southeast independently and within schools and colleges to share his knowledge. In 2021, he made history by organizing and hosting the NBA's first ever music industry night for the Charlotte Hornets, a successful event that continues to thrive to this day. He continues to innovate and inspire, cementing his status as a legendary figure in the world of hip hop. Stay tuned as we dive deeper into DJ Chuck T's extraordinary journey and contributions to music during this episode. How are you doing today, my brother Matt?

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Man, I'm doing great. You know what I'm saying? I love that bio. You know what I'm saying? Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. Touched on pretty much everything. You know what I'm saying? I appreciate that. It feels good to be here with y'all this morning.

Growing Up In Charleston And Family Roots

SPEAKER_02 3:46

We're happy to have you. No, seriously, it's our pleasure. It is a pleasure. Yes. Now I know we we usually begin each episode. Your big name, but still begin each episode, but with asking our guests, where did you grow up? Did you have any siblings?

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Mm-hmm. So naturally, my name uh is an ode to where I'm from, Charleston, South Carolina. Better know it. You know what I'm saying? People really be thinking that my name is Charles. You know what I'm saying? They really think my name is Charles. And uh when they go on Facebook and they see my name is David Thrower, they're like, okay, where did you get the the Chuck from? I see the T for your last answer. No, no, no, no, no. You're you're completely wrong. You know what I'm saying? So uh I grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. DJ Chuck T was DJ Chuck Town. Yes. And then I shortened it to Chuck T. Um, and you know, I come from a uh a pretty mid-sized family. I have uh three older uh siblings. I'm the youngest of four. Wow. Uh, you know, naturally, I grew up in a very traditional home. You know, my dad was in the military, naturally being in Charleston. Yeah. You know, he he did he did 28 in the Navy. Um, and my mom, uh, whenever we were really, really young, she used to work in Belk. You know what I'm saying? So she's a master seamstress, so she used to do alterations in belt. Um, and then from there, she got a degree, went on to become a teacher. So, you know, dad in the military, mom a teacher. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's starting to come together. Exactly. You see, you see the discipline, and then you see how I teach. You see how I educate. Yeah. So, you know, your environment always shapes you as a person. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 5:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

In a good way or a bad way. Thank God mine was in a good way. You know?

Church Training And Learning To Speak

SPEAKER_02 5:30

So now, all right, so we got some background. Um, what inspired you growing up? Because obviously you have your parents that are very strong role models, obviously. But who in or what in your community inspired you? Especially, and I will say this living in Charlestown, the Chuck, the Chuck long enough to understand and see my folks and my people there and being involved in the community, I get to see a lot of what happens. Yeah. So could you explain what inspired you?

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Man, I'm gonna be honest with you. Uh I had a lot of different experiences and um a lot of different situations growing up, and you know, just hopping around from one area of Charleston to the next, and you know, being in the hood and being in the church, and then being around, you know, the blue-collar workers, you know, being around teachers. Um, all of that has sort of, you know, uh shaped who I am. You know, I have a very religious background, grew up in the church. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? My my uh my mom kept us in the church, you know, uh, and that's why, in a lot of ways, I I literally was just telling somebody last night, you know, who brought up, you know, how I'm not scared to speak, different situations. You know what I'm saying? I I'm I'm I'm eager to grab the mic. That comes from being in church and my mom making us lead songs, making us do praise and worship. I feel you, you know what I'm saying, making us do morning announcements, you know what I'm saying, making us do the memory verse in front of everybody, you know, being plays doing church plays, being in the youth uh youth day program, and we didn't have a choice. You know what I'm saying? It was like this what you gonna do. So, you know, uh that definitely shaped who I was as far as being a speaker, you know, uh knowing how to uh articulate my feelings and my thoughts, you know, not being afraid to be in front of crowds of people, not timid, not timid at all, not at all. Um, and then just the discipline that comes from my dad in the military side. You know what I'm saying? Um in uh not necessarily being aggressive or assertive, but you know, being that person that says, hey, look, don't worry about it, I'm gonna take care of it, I'm gonna do it. You know, uh, you know, my pops was always one of those people who was like, look, you can either sit back and make excuses or you can change your situation. You know what I'm saying? You can sit back and you can be lazy and let somebody else carry the torch, or you could carry the torch yourself. Which one is it gonna be? You know what I'm saying? No excuses, you know, ain't no crying. You know what I'm saying? You suck it up, you get to it, you make it happen, you work through it. Um, and that right there is literally, you know, the key to my success. And then, you know, my mom, my grandmother, uh, they were big on education. So education was always pushed on our household. Like I said, my mom, uh, she went to college later on in life and became an educator. She became a teacher, she was an English teacher. Um so I've always been, you know, pretty sharp as far as education goes and, you know, just being educated and seeing the value in education. And um, there was uh uh my uncle had a brother. Um, my uncle, one of my uncles on my mom's side, his name was actually Uncle Brother. That's what we used to call him. Uncle Brother. I lied to you not, Uncle Brother. But Uncle Brother had a library. Um he was one of the first black men that I knew who had an actual library. And my mom and my aunt used to take me over there and drop me off at his house, and we would just talk for hours about his books, his library, you know, and his library was full of black history. You know what I'm saying? We're talking about W.E.B. Du Bois, um, Malcolm X, um uh the autobiography of uh of um oh man, Frederick Douglass. That was the first book that I that I really read from cover to cover, the autobiography of Frederick Douglass. Um and he didn't loan out his books. I'm the same way now. I got a library, I don't loan out my books. They won't come back, you know. So so Uncle Brother used to sit there and he would let me read his books and then we would talk about the books as well. And that's how I got my appreciation for who I was and my knowledge of self. You know what I'm saying? And and my and and and that's where I got my my uh my civic duty to take care of our people from reading about the greats in our culture, you know what I'm saying? George Washington Carver and all of them, yeah. Like like he pushed that, and that always stuck with me to to be in service of our people, you know?

The Ethiopian Bible And Power

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Yeah. So the question I got. So, what's the last book you read?

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Oh man, the last book I read. Uh to be honest with you, you know, completely honest with you, it's the Ethiopian Bible. So I bought the Ethiopian. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Ethiopian Bible was reading it yesterday morning. I meant to read it this morning, um, but naturally I got up and had I knew I had to come here. So, you know, I had to get in the get in the mindset of being interviewed. But uh, the Ethiopian Bible, so you know that is the oldest and most complete Bible that there is. Say it one more time. The Ethiopian Bible is the oldest and most complete Bible that there is. Um, a lot of the books of the Bible that have been left out in the King James Version and the New International Version, they are in the Ethiopian Bible.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Exactly. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

So it's missing a lot. Oh, it's missing a lot. We're talking about 20 to 30 books. 25 to 35 books. That exactly is a lot about us. It does. Yep, yep. Um, and a lot about Christianity and the life of Christ, and you know, uh, you know, you start to see how religion was used to control. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And we're not we not even talking about just slavery and the international slave trade, but we're talking about, you know, prior to that, yeah, you know, how religion was used to to control different places in different parts of Europe. You know what I'm saying? In the Mideast, and how the story of Jesus and his life and you know uh the disciples, all that, you know, things have been manufactured and changed so that people could use it as a way to get power, gain power, and uh keep power. Exactly. You know what I'm saying? And if you can try to use God as an excuse for enslaving somebody or, you know, keeping somebody down, then you know, you've pretty much won. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

You see what I'm saying? Because there's there's nothing that is gonna supersede God. Exactly. I had a professor, they used to tell me this. They said, if somebody starts an argument or a discussion with you, a debate, and they and their first, the first thing they bring you is the Bible, and God says, leave it alone. Said you ain't gonna that's the reason they know it's it's a Trump car. It is that's that's a joker. You throw that joker down, that's it. You you supposed to follow with that last. You don't supposed to start with that. You should move.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

You know what I'm saying? Because I I want to know morally why you feel the way you feel before you try to start bringing in the Bible and all that. Because you know, a lot of people don't know. Um, well, a lot of people they do know I am an ordained minister. That's okay. You see what I'm saying? I am an ordained minister. So I be liking when people try to bring the Bible in because I'm like, boy, I'm about to whip your ass with this Bible now. You know what I'm saying? Like, you you you you thinking that you got one up on me, boy. You but you really about to get smoked. You really about to get smoked. Yeah, about to get smoked with that Bible, bro. That is that is the smoke you don't want. Exactly. You know what I'm saying? But I I like it because you know I love a challenge. Yeah, you see what I'm saying? I love a challenge.

Ordained Young And Searching Beyond One Faith

SPEAKER_02 13:26

And we want to ask about that. So, like, you're becoming an ordain man. Can you can you speak to our our audience about what age that occurred at and and and how you use that moving forward?

SPEAKER_00 13:36

So, like I said earlier, you know, my mom kept us in church. Yeah, um, my older brothers, they started to sort of go astray at one point. Um, and they started, you know, dibbling, dabbling in the streets. So my mother sort of saw that uh happening and she knew that eventually I would probably take that same route. So she put me deeper in the church. She kept me. Yeah, she kept me there. Look, every last single, you know, youth service, every last single office, being a deacon, a junior deacon, a usher, whatever, she made me do that, hoping that, you know, that would keep me preoccupied and keep my mind on something other than going out in the streets. And it worked for for a lot. You know what I'm saying? For a for a long time it worked. Um so just being in the church, you know, uh, it was really like the natural progression of things. I think I was uh I was an ordained elder at maybe 13, 14. Wow. So I was I was the the youngest ordained elder in the Seventh-day Adventist church at 13, 14. I was preaching. I was yeah, I was preaching, I was giving Bible studies, I was doing all that, you know, and then um as I got older, uh they wanted me to go to Oakwood College, which is a huge Seventh-day Adventist College in um Huntsville, Alabama. Okay. They wanted me to take up theology, be a uh be really be a minister, have my own church. Yeah you know, um, but uh um one day after I had got out of the pulpit, I wasn't preaching that day, but I was on the service. I went outside, get a breath, breath of fresh air. One of the uh one of the church members said something to me. He said, uh, brother thrower, um I listen to you talk, I listen to you speak, you know, I I listen to your sermons. You're very sharp, you're very educated. He said, but you sound like everybody else. So I'm sitting here like, okay, well, maybe I need to switch my style up.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

You see what I'm saying? Maybe I need to switch my style up. I get it, you know, when you when you have people teach you how to preach, you know, you start mimicking and gain they style. And the Lord said, you know, but it got style. You know, so I'm thinking that's what he's talking about. But then he said, I don't think you hear me. He said, You sound like everybody else. What I need you to do is you need to find God for yourself. You know, you need to figure out how your relationship with God is going to be versus what other people's relationship with God is going to be. You know what I'm saying? That's a one heck of a question. Yeah, and somebody and I thought about it for a while, and I was like, you know, they did say, you know, people were gonna come who were close to you and try to drive a wedge between you and God and this, that, and the other. Um in all honesty, you know, uh it stuck with me. And after a while, I started saying to myself, you know what? I do need to form my own relationship with God. I was maybe seven, sixteen, seventeen. You're so young. You know what I'm saying? I was really yeah, I was I was still young, impressionable. Um, once I figured out that he wasn't talking about my style of preaching, you know. Um, so I really just started doing a deep dive into just religion in general, moving outside of Christianity, figuring out what Judaism is, and uh figuring out where Islam is, and reading about Buddhism, you know, and just really, really um finding God for myself. Yeah, you you know what I'm saying? And that's when I because Christianity is so restrictive that they don't even want you to consider Islam or Judaism, they're all looked at as being bad. The Jews killed Jesus and the Muslims, they don't even believe in Jesus. You know what I'm saying? Uh so you know, in in Buddhism and all the other ones, you know what I'm saying, they don't even believe in God.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

It's crazy because if anybody knows, you you know this when you just study, like Judaism and and um Islam, they all are Abrahamic religion.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Bingo. So that's what I learned. That was the first thing I saw my mind that that Christianity with the Old Testament of the Bible, the Torah, and the Quran are really three sides of the same story. It's like three different perspectives of the same exact story. Yes, you know, and and that's what really blew my mind. I'm sitting here thinking, man, this my whole life, I thought it, I thought that these other religions were just completely blasphemous. Yeah, you know, and then you start realizing that Muslims actually believe in Jesus. They believe some people do, yeah. Yeah, you know, they don't believe in the last part of his life where you know he he rose from the, you know, but they do believe that he was a messenger sent from God. That's it. You know what I'm saying? Um, and what really, really made me do a deep dive into other religions was when my older brother uh came home from jail and he was Muslim, he had converted, he was uh part of the Nation of Islam. So he used to play Farrakhan speeches every day in his room. It was just Farrakhan all day, all day, all day. My mom used to get mad. I was gonna say, I know she was hot. You know what I'm saying? Um, and he used to put up pictures in his room of prominent black figures, Marcus Garvey. You know what I'm saying? He had Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois, Frederick Douglass. But he came home from jail with a higher knowledge of self and of us as black people. And then, you know, my mom used to be on him so much about playing Farrakhan all day that just me. Yeah, for real. That I know that I started feeling bad for my brother. So I would go in the room with him while he was listening to Farrakhan, just as moral support. Like, mom literally just came in the room, told you, cut this shit off, get it out my house, yada yada. I'm like, man, he's he just came home from jail. Like, you know, this is something different. Like, he was drug dealing, he was scamming, he was doing all this other stuff. So a Farrakhan is gonna be what keeps him straight. You know, the Farrakhan. Yeah, whatever it takes. But mom wasn't trying to hear that. So, you know, me being a little brother, you know, I always idolize my older brothers. So I'm like, man, I'm seeing my older brother, and I'm seeing that he he sort of, you know, he's getting close to relapsing now. You know what I'm saying? The streets right here. You know what I'm saying? He can he can go grab a pack in no time. You know what I'm saying? All he needs is a printer in somebody's check, and he can goddamn run them checks up. He's right. He just need them numbers off the bottom now. You know what I'm saying? So I'm already seeing, like, okay, it's not looking good for, so let me go in the room, holler at my brother. He needs some some type of moral support from the family. Yeah, you know, so now I'm in here listening to Farrakhan with him. I'm like, oh, Farrakhan dropping knowledge. Yeah, right. That sounds correct. And he's preaching out the Bible. Yeah, that's the crazy part. Muslims being a Christian.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Like, hold up. 70% of his sermon, he's referencing Jesus and preaching out the Bible. So now I'm really over here, like, find God for myself. I'm finding him. You know what I'm saying? Like, I didn't even have to search too far. Um and that's what not necessarily kept me from going on to become a minister or a pastor, but that's what let me know religion divides.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

All right. Man, that's a large bomb to drive me.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

It was. Religion divides, and we're talking about I was gonna be going to school for free. Like the people in my church were like, yo, we're gonna make sure we get the bread up to take care of your tuition. Like, you know, if you can't get a scholarship, don't worry about it. We got you. Wow. So uh I ended up turning it down, you know, telling my grandma and all of the elders and you know what I'm saying, and the deacons and deaconesses, like, yo, y'all don't gotta take up no collection for me. That's not what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_03 22:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

You know, so it sort of hurt her. You know what I'm saying? My mom and them too, it's it sort of hurt. But um, man, uh I'm I'm still saving souls to this day, just in a different way.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

So, you know, everybody happy at this point. I'm honest. You know what I'm saying? Look, mama love me, mama love everything that I'm doing, my dad love everything that I'm doing. My family, my neighborhood, my community, my big homies, the little homies. You know, everybody loves what I'm doing. And um, you know, to be honest with you, that is one of the things that I have noticed uh is the key to my success that a lot of people don't have. People always ask me, what do you feel like separates you from everybody else? Yeah. Excuse me. And it's the fact that everybody around me has always believed in me, they've always pushed me. I didn't have to grow up with people around me trying to hate on me or feeling jealous. Yeah. Like everybody has always pushed me. Everyone.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Why do you think, why do you think that's so?

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Man, I I don't know. You know what I'm saying? I I I couldn't tell you. I mean, I know the big homies say you always been sharp, you always been smart. You know what I'm saying? We always have have have seen something in you. You know? You know what it reminds me of? What's that?

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Um, you know, recently Teddy Riley dropped his um book.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Got you. I had I didn't I haven't I haven't got a chance to read it yet, but no, I heard it.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Of course, when people drop books and stuff, you know, they do the whole media run. Yeah. And I was listening to episode, I forgot what podcast he was on, but he was one of the things he mentioned was, and even in the book, he mentioned I listened to the book, I've read the book last week. And one of the things was he was like, there were despite growing up working. He grew up at, there was always that community that's so those big homies that were like, nah, you need to go over here, you need to do that. I didn't give them that money to stay off the block. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Nobody gave me any money to stay off the block. But but but when I did hit the block, they gave me free product. See. You see what I'm saying? I ain't have to rob nobody. See? You know what I'm saying? R.I.P. to my homie Mizer. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. R.I.P. to bruh. But you know, uh, my plug definitely show love. You know what I'm saying? Because he already knew I wasn't going to be no career or lifetime drug dad. Exactly everybody always knew that I had an exit plan, that I had bigger plans. I just needed something uh a little extra to make them plans come come into fruition. Because at that point in time, y'all remember, she minimum wage was$5.15. People don't look.$5.15 an hour. They don't realize they were paying pennies pennies. Well, I'm I I told people, well, I used to have I built everything I have today off of$5.15 an hour and a quarter pound of weed. Boy, look, I'm the master flipper. Look. Oh, you're talking about a hustler. Wow, look, look. He was anointed. Anointed. Look in the grace of God. In the grace of God. Yes, sir. You know what I'm saying? But but that's another thing. You know, I was telling somebody the other day, I said, boy, you want to know one of the main reasons why I feel like I never went to jail? And they were like, Why, why, why you feel that way? I said, Because boy, I used to pay tithe with my drug money. They're like, are you serious? I was like, yes. I used to take 10% out my profit, and I used to put that in the in the in the offering bin. You know, they were like, bruh, that's an oxymoron. Like, that's that's backwards. I'm like, no, it's not, especially now that weed is legal. You know crazy. Weed is 100% legal. It's crazy. 100% legal.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

You know what I'm saying? Because here's the thing, I tell people this all the time, man, all money ain't good money. It ain't. It ain't. And all money ain't clean money. But if you can't, just because it's legal, just because it's legal, doesn't mean it's clean. If you could take that money and you can put it into something that's positive, what Kanye West say, well, if my money goes to helping the stripper get through college, is that okay? Hey. You gotta get a blessing from something.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Exactly. Look, that drug money kept the lights on at the church, man.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 26:21

It went to paying pastor's salary. Come on. You know what I'm saying? Look, it went to feeding the homeless and save. Yep, and visiting the sick and shutting. And that's just real.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

You gotta look, and I tell people, and we grew up in the church, and I'm telling you, this is a funny story. Fact that you said that. We grew up in the church, and one of the pastors that we grew up in the church with both of his both of his sons in the church were D-boys, right? Yeah. Both over. And it used to be typical. Typical, right? And it used to see that shit, and they'd be like, this is because we go by go by the little spot and they be at the spot and whatnot, and they'd be like, hey man, we're gonna see y'all in church Sunday. I'm like, yep, see you in church Sunday. And we and that's how it rolls. Yeah. Say it like this, because you have to live in a real world, and you can live in a religion, but you gotta live in a real world. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

You know what I'm saying? You you were correct. Um, I feel like uh right now with church, church is just is so out of hand. Um because they just they just let any and everybody in there do any and everything. It's like any type of rule, structure, whatever is out of there. You know, like I used to, I never used to openly, you know, put out there what I was doing. Nowadays, people will openly put out there what they doing, legal, illegal, with the doctrine, against the doctrine, you know, and I feel like that's the issue with church now. Like they let everybody in, uh, whether, you know, they keep the commandments and keep the doctrine and keep the rules or not, you know, and they don't never convert them over to keeping the rules and keeping the doctrine. It's more so, you know, like a free-fall in church. At the end of the day, it's about growth. Exactly. You supposed to grow. You know what I'm saying? You supposed to resist the devil. I'm coming to church so that I can resist the devil, not so that I can use God as an excuse, you know, or Jesus said, oh, Jesus loved everybody, no matter what I do. Jesus loved the, you know, Jesus loved it. Yeah, he loved it, but he also said you probably need to chill. You need to stop, bro. You know what I'm saying? I love you, come on, but yeah, you ain't about to keep doing this around me, though.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

That's uh I'm gonna say this one thing and then I know we'll move on from the subject. But I we had to bother you about it because we were. We had a uh pastor, um, Brother Fulton, and he used to talk about repentance all the time. And he said what people fail to realize is yeah, you repent and you get forgiven for your sins, but people forget that last step. Turning away. Bingo, bingo. Blow it up. They're like, oh, okay, okay. That's the hard part when it comes to the hard part.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

I mean, that's that's that's what anything, you know. Uh correction. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Correction is always um hard for a lot of people. You know, especially when everybody around you is uh is still doing what you're doing. You gotta remove yourself from those circles. Yeah. Um, I remember Russell Simmons saying in a DMX documentary that when DMX really started getting bread off of music, they couldn't find them anymore. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, bro. Like, you know, you you you you you you are not just a platinum artist, but you a megastar right now. Yeah, you're different. Like you disappearing, you relapsing on drugs, you know, and God rest his soul, you know, that's how he ended up going out. But they were like, bruh, you know, you gotta chill. He like, no, I gotta stay authentic. I gotta go to the hood. You know what I'm saying? I can't leave my niggas behind. So he said one day they were looking for DMX, couldn't nobody find DMX. So he knew where DMX was at. So he went on the block, found DMX, and he told him, he said, Hey, look, man, listen. We know you wanna stay authentic, we know you want to keep it real with your homies. This is how you do it. Bring them with you. You don't need to go to them.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

That's true. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

Bring your homies with you on the road, bring them to the studio, bring them, you know, to your shows, bring them to interviews, let them see a different side. You gotta be the influence. You being out on the block is gonna tear everything down that you work for. You know what I'm saying? If you're really trying to help your homies, bring them with you, give them a job. You know what I'm saying? Yes. And that's when he bought that huge house in Arizona, you know, or that ranch. DMX had a huge ranch in the middle of the desert. Yeah, a huge ranch in the middle of the desert, and all his homies used to be there all the time. You know what I'm saying? And and it and it worked for quite some time. It did.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

You know what I'm saying? It worked for quite some time. Didn't he have the reality TV show?

SPEAKER_00 30:46

Yeah, he had a reality TV show, yep.

Mentorship And Why Authenticity Matters

SPEAKER_02 30:48

That was the reason why I'm man. That's the that's a good point. We're gonna make sure put a button on that one too. Definitely. Um, now going into this question, we gotta ask this because obviously this is a part of what you do now. Teaching. Yeah. Right? So, as a pioneer, you helped build the culture of what people see now, especially like mixtape-wise, stuff. Because brother riding up, listening and stuff, and I was hearing your drop, and I was like, man, I remember hearing that drop off. Yeah, bro. I was everywhere. I was everywhere. How vital is it for us to mentor the next generation so they can stop chasing trends and start mastering their own authentic?

SPEAKER_00 31:21

So authenticity is what hip hop is built on.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

If there is no authenticity, if everybody is copying what the next person is doing, trying to ride a wave, then hip-hop is gonna die, and we're starting to see that now because look, we have no hip-hop records in the top four on Billboard. None. Oh, that's crazy. You know what I'm saying? And it's been that way for a few months. You know what I'm saying? We haven't really had any number one hip-hop albums until Cole came around. Um and if you look around, you see all of the older rappers are coming back and people are gravitating towards them. T.I., Juvenile, like those are really the last. Well, J. Cole, Drake, and Kendrick, you know, are the last era in future, they're the last era of authenticity in rap, if you ask me. You know what I'm saying? They all have distinct styles, they all have distinct uh songs, the way they make songs. Um, even if they use the same producers, you can't tell. A lot of times, damn, I didn't know Metro Boomer made this. Oh, I didn't know Mike Will made this. You know, you hear the tag, and then it's like, yeah, but you know, uh, they all use those those beats in different ways, and they all pick different beats from those producers and use them in different ways. Um, but the new era is all copycat, all right? And in all in in just complete honesty, art used to imitate life. Uh-huh. All right. Nowadays, you have life imitating art, and that's why all these artists are crashing out. Because they see their their first off, they live in a lifestyle that's not them. Yeah, and they're rapping about things that they haven't done. Yeah. So now when they get challenged on it, they feel like they gotta go do it. So that's why you got people who are are uh you know, rich, multimillionaires, multimillionaires, yeah, super duper successful, over here crashing out, yeah, paying for people to get killed. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, paying for pay paying for for for for for weed and drugs and pills and all that credit cards.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

Millions of dollars.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Yeah, because they're feeling like I gotta I gotta live up to what I'm rapping about.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

So what we need to start doing is making sure that we are only letting in the authentic rappers. Yeah, just because this person may sound like somebody else and we like it, we like it because he sounds like somebody we like, not because we really like him. You see what I'm saying? So without that authenticity, we're seeing hip-hop just get bashed from all levels. You know what I'm saying? You're seeing people in the in the industry. I sh even Kylie Jenner said something the other day about hip-hop, and it's like everybody sound the same. Ain't no creativity.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

You a darn skimpy on that. Nah, nah, it's getting wild out there, man. You know what I'm saying? Threw some barbs at it. Yep. What's my name? Post Malone threw some barbs. Yeah. People like jelly rolls. Because they're white runner and why a lot of these artists, too, especially a lot of them, they're they're transitioning from hip-hop into other things. Exactly. But they're taking the the hip-hop flavor with them.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Oh, oh, they definitely have. Definitely have been. And hip-hop is how you know the post Malone's and the jelly rolls and Miley Cyrus. That's how they got hop. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

Tell people about jelly rolls. I'm like, nah. Yeah, no, no, no, no. That's not the guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

That's not the person. This stuff is really gutter. Like, I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, what country singer you know got all them tattoos on his face? He looked like a Y-in. You need to go backwards and listen to some of his first music. Like before he's transitioned to the country. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like, don't think that he got them tattoos on his face. Uh you know what I'm saying, from riding on the fucking track and riding horses now. You know, that's not what country artists do now. You know what I'm saying? He got that from being in the streets. Yes, he was. You know what I'm saying? So what do you mean? I'm like, Yeah, don't let the the God, Jesus, all his other stuff. Don't let that fool you. Don't let that fool you, bro. You know what I'm saying? And there's nothing wrong with it. Yeah. But at the same time, he he never acknowledges his hip-hop roots. Never. Never. You know what I'm saying? Um, but if we don't get back to the authenticity, um, if we don't get back to people actually letting life imitate the art, you know, we're never gonna be anywhere. So how do we how do we shift them back? Like how do we? We put the spotlight on the artists that are really, really talking about real life. The currencies, the big crits, the Larry Jones, LaRussell. Are you right? You know what I'm saying? We we have to to to to put the the spotlight back on them. Not just keep them on the underground. You know what I'm saying? I mean, you still got people like uh Star Leto and Don Tripp.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

You know, who will still give you that street flavor you need, but they gonna give you some bars and they're gonna talk about some real shit. Trans Lee, all of them. We gotta put the spotlight back on them. Yes, it is cool to still play the sexy res, the boss man D Lowe's, the little baby, duh baby, because they're authentic.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

They are.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

They they are authentic. You know what I'm saying? They may be a little extra, but they are very authentic. That is who they are. But when we start playing all the artists that sound like Dirk and sound like Chief Keep and the imitation boss man D Lowe's, and you know, in the imitation the babies. Now you're making it seem like it's okay to be unauthentic and bite somebody else's face.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

You said the word I was waiting for you to say in hip hop. Biting was never cool. Never cool. When did it become cool to do?

Copycat Sounds And Honest Critique

SPEAKER_01 37:06

You know what I'll say. And you might have a little bit, you might have a better perspective on it than me. I think a lot of stuff changed. And I think it started in the production world. Because probably around, I would say probably about late, about like 2013, 2014. And you saw this probably before then, but I just remember just even just like as a beat maker, you always would see things like makeup, I need an artist, but I need a beat like this. That sounds like such type. And I don't, and I think that was kind of like where the seeds started getting laid, because it's like, hey, if I make a sound like, let's say, if I make a beat, like I make a beat for like Little Dirk, then of course the artists, they're gonna hear it, they're not gonna go on rapping like them.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

They're gonna Yeah, you're gonna hear Little Dirk on the beat. I say, I say that all the time on the reverb music review. Whenever uh I'm reviewing people's songs, I can tell from the beat, oh, this is a gunner type beat. They love them gunner type beats. They love that YSL shit, bro. They love it. You know what I'm saying? Because they got that whole melodic flow, you know, and then stuff starts sounding like one long song. You know, and artists get mad at me when I tell them, like, bro, I've heard that song like 50 times. They don't get what I'm really saying. You know, not that I've heard that beat before. It's letting them know. You literally sound like the next person who stole it, and the next person who stole that, and the next person. And sometimes I do hear the same beat with them internet beats. You know what I'm saying? Them YouTube beats. Sometimes I hear the same song, literally the same song. You know, like, bro, I've there's been like 12 artists who've used that same beat and submitted it. So when I say it sounds like the same, like, and they and like I said, they get hot when I say like, bro, we've heard that song 50 times. Gotta be honest with you. You know what I'm saying? Like, oh my pills, oh my pills, I wanna kill myself. Like, I've heard that song 50 times, bro. Why is every I look, I can show you a text message, uh, an artist. I I did a show mix for him, and I'm gonna say his name, I won't put him on blast. Cool as hell. I did a show mix for him. And I just did the show mix, send it to him, and I was like, I pray he doesn't ask me what I thought of the songs. Sure enough, he hits me back. Hey, big bro, boy, the show mix sounds great. You know, I I definitely uh ain't gonna sound like the rest of these local niggas out here. And I'm like, hell yeah. Then he said, by the way, which song did you feel like was the hardest? I said, dang. So I acted like I didn't, I didn't read it. I didn't get it yet. Ten minutes later, he hits me with a bunch of question marks, like, bruh, I asked you a question. So I'm like, you know what? Fuck it, he gotta hear this. All right? I said, bruh, all of them started to sound the same to me after, like, maybe song number three or four, bro. Dang. Like, you really gotta switch up your flow. Lay off the auto-tune. That shit is dead now. Pay attention to what you hear on the radio and in the clubs. The auto-tune shit been dead five years now. Like the heavy whole, like, you sound like a robot. I don't, I don't said this to him. I said, bro, you sound like a robot. I don't even know what you sound like. Talking to you on the phone and then hearing your music, I can't even tell you the same person. I said in there, switch it up. Every song is about fighting demons and popping perks. Every fucking song. And he replied, it took him a while, then it replied, lol, okay, OG, I take that into consideration. Um, and I know he probably wanted to say something. Even the cameraman laughing. But it's the truth. Like he he wanted to, I know he didn't like the feedback. But he was like, This is Chuck T. What can I really say? And then I asked him and he gave me his beat. He didn't offer it. Yeah, I tried, yeah, I tried to save him. I tried to save him, you know, but he he like I said, he pressed me on my opinion. Here it goes. Um and I and I hope that he takes constructively constructive criticism and he takes my advice to write. That's what it is, isn't it? It changes up.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

This man from love. Yeah, because if not, you would have You would have given given him what he wanted to hear. Exactly.

Scammers In Music And Drug Culture

SPEAKER_00 41:13

And I feel like that's why uh that's another reason why hip hop is where it is now. Because we have so many people who just tell artists what they fucking want to hear, tell these producers what they want to hear. Everybody's money hungry. This is turned into hip hop has turned into a haven, a safe haven for scammers. You know what I'm saying? You're saying that. It is really. He's been waiting for this. He's been waiting for this. Seriously, he's been hitting for this. Hip-hop has turned into a state haven for scammers and dream sellers. Yeah. Right? Because people saw how profitable hip-hop was over all of the jobs. You gotta remember, until last year, hip-hop was the number one selling genre of music for over a decade. We're talking about 13, 14 years, hip-hop dominated the charts. That is right. You know what I'm saying? It started with Nelly now. Yeah, yeah, but look, because she, I look, I put my I put my stat on and my booty. It's coming. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, you know, but Southern Soul has always been around. Yeah, that's a the line dancing has always been around, but now it's prominent. You know, being from South Carolina, being in South Carolina, we, you know, my pop's been on the Southern Soul. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 42:23

Star 99.7.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Yeah, you know, he's been, you know, the the Johnny Taylor, Bobby Blue Bland, you know what I'm saying? Roy C, Marvin C. Yeah, go ahead, bro. Pop's been on that now. You know what I'm saying? Um, but yeah, hip-hop has become a safe haven for scammers because people saw that there was so much money in it, and because a lot of the artists were uneducated. All right. That's why so many people went to the hoods, went to the slums, went to the projects to find talent. You know, we we had a lot of educated talent in hip hop. You know what I'm saying? But niggas ain't about to put on Talib Kwali in Black Thought because you you can't get over on Talib Kali Black Thought. You know what I'm saying? But you can get over on Kodak Black.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

You can steal those numbers.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

You can you could you can definitely pull the wool, pull out, pull the wool over the eyes of Kodak Black. You could definitely do that. You know what I'm saying? And juice world and all them, who really just wanted to make music and really just wanted to express themselves. You know, and I be telling people, you listen to Kodak Black, Kodak be splitting out, be splitting that real shit now. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? But the the the further away from uh reality that you can keep some of these artists, the more you can scam them.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

You know what I'm saying? That's part of why they use like they use the drugs on them. Always especially with Kodak Black, and I'm happy you said that because I was a Kodak Black fan from Project Baby, like all the way back, right? Yeah, you see, it's pointing when you saw what happened. That's my point. I'm like, okay, they got you. They got you. They grabbed him. He took my man changed his name to Bill Capri and stuff. And then I saw how much drugs they were feeding to him. Because I'm like, did he never look like this before when he looked in the gutter? Yeah. He didn't look like this in the gutter. And if you tell me you ain't doing those drugs in the gutter, why are you doing them now when you aren't? Like you said before, you're a millionaire now. Why are you reaching bags?

SPEAKER_00 44:16

Exactly. You know what I'm saying? And we see we see it happening now with finesse two times. Oh. You know what I'm saying? Finesse two times, when we first started really, really, well, I had been on him. Yeah, but when the world started getting introduced to him, everybody was like, boy, you be spitting that real shit. Boy, that boy, that nigga spitting that real shit. You know, and then slowly but surely he started doing goofy shit and more and more goofy shit. And more and more goofy shit, and more and more goofy shit. And now we can clearly see he's on drugs all the time.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Yeah, they got him drugged out.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

All the time. You know, when he first came home from jail, I tell people a lot, when people, when people come home from jail, they are extremely sharp. You know what I'm saying? Because ain't clean. They they they really don't have no drugs. Bingo. But thank God Gucci had his woman and other people around. He had a great support system to keep him from relapsing. But obviously, finesse two times doesn't have that. Um, but when people come home from jail, they're extremely sharp. Because all they do in there is read and work out. You know what I'm saying? Read, work out. They may get a little weed back there or something, you know what I'm saying? But for the most part, their mind is clear. And we saw when he came home from jail how how his work ethic was and whenever he spoke, how he talked. I mean, he's over here apologizing to money bag, yo, and apologizing to this person and that person and saying, man, I was fucked up, this that. Now he back over here starting beef, being crazy, wild and Crashing out, it be them drugs, man. It beat them drugs.

Junkie Rap And The Business Mindset

SPEAKER_02 45:49

I'm gonna say this because I've heard this elsewhere, and I want you to speak on this, and I know we'll we'll keep moving, but so we went from hip hop where it was the D-Boy, you sell drugs. So now they're using them. Yeah, you junkie rap. Yeah. How do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_00 46:05

Junky rap. I've I've I'm not obviously I'm not a fan because I'm from the era of we about to flip this bread.

SPEAKER_02 46:11

We don't get hot on supply.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

We don't get hot on supply, you know what I'm saying, and we about to turn all this drug money into legal business. Exactly. You know, I'm from the Master P era. Yes. Where you take all that illegal bread you got, you start a regular label, uh a real estate company, you got merch, you do movies, you do all that. You know, I'm from the the Suave House Tony Draper era. I'm from the Taylor Lucas slip and sly era. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? I'm from a look, I'm I'm from the the the as much as people may not like them now, the P. Diddy era. Yeah. I'm from the D and Wadine Rough Rider era. I'm from the Dame Dash Rockefeller era with a motor oil company. Exactly. You know what I'm saying? These are the people that I looked up to. These these businessmen, the J. Prince era. You know what I'm saying? A lot of these artists, they're from the junkie rap era, and that's all they look up to is fucking junkies that use them.

SPEAKER_02 47:09

You think they all Lil Wayne's children? A lot of people say that. A lot of people say that these are all Lil Wayne's children.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

Yeah, yeah. People gonna feel people gonna feel some type of way because you know they know me from leaking the car to three and all that. But to be honest with you, he did sort of start that whole, oh, I'm a rock star, I'm I'm getting high, still going out here and performing, and like you say, I'm on the lean and I'm popping perks and uh Zans and blah blah blah. And then people started following, started following him, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:41

Rap started to change and hip-hop started to change, and people are like, Well, I'm just gonna try to make a song that sounds like him. Exactly. Do I need his influence to do it? So now I'm we get some this this uh dirty sprite. Exactly roll up and we gotta move.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

Yep, I want to dress, I'm gonna have my double cup, you know what I'm saying, with my activists. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, tattoos on my face, I'm gonna sag my pants down to my knees and have my ass out, and then I'm gonna put a wallet chain on. Why you can even got you don't even carry a wallet, you carry a purse, nigga. Y'all niggas carry purse. Seriously. But uh, but but no, um that that that Lil Wayne, I'm a rock star era, it it did spiral all these all this shit out of control. It did.

SPEAKER_02 48:30

And like I said, if it's one person doing it and that's that's their style, that's their aesthetic, I get it because you know, uniqueness in hip-hop. But once everybody's doing it, yeah, it's different.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

That that influence, because when Lil Wayne uh blew up, I mean we we know him from the block is hot. That's true. But when Lil Wayne actually blew up, hip hop was at its height. So he was the most influential artist. Michael Jackson. He was definitely a Michael Jackson type figure. He was, he was, and everybody followed him, and and now here we are trying to, you know what I'm saying, fix shit. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And Lil Wayne was one of the first people. Oh, I'm not a role model, and you know, rappers used to love being in the community. They did. We go into schools, like rappers used to to to have to fight. Trick, love the kids. Yeah, exactly. It's for the kids. They run DMC on Reading and Rainbow. Like, we we're from an era where no matter what we may have spoken about in our rhymes, we try to set a positive example outside of you know what the lyrics may have said. But that's because during those times, the lyrics were about what we were really going through. That's a good point. What we had really been through. Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Remember when I used to eat sardines for dinner. You know what I'm saying? Nowadays, people are actually trying to live the lyrics. You know, like at one point in time, our artists were really just rapping about what they had been through. Hip with with the with the uh cameron say hip-hop was the CNN of the hood.

SPEAKER_02 50:07

It was.

SPEAKER_00 50:08

Do you see what I'm saying? It was the CNN. Now, you know, everybody's out here trying to live these fairy tales, and man, we got these young boys out here dying, man, to for clout to fulfill fantasy. Like, like that be their fantasy. Like their fantasy is to commit suicide and be idolized.

SPEAKER_02 50:26

Go out, what is it saying go out with a um, I know Jay-Z says in one of his lyrics, but die young with a pretty face. Like, go out on top, don't ever see age, but I lived my life. I I did everything I could. Uh if it's a penitentiary chance, fine. If I gotta spend the next 90 years in jail, cool. But I did what? I slept with all the baddest ones, I did all the drugs, I w I drove the cars the fastest, I went everywhere, I had all the money in my pocket and did it for five years. Just five years stint, and I'm done.

SPEAKER_00 50:55

Yep. Because like he said, you you know, Jay-Z, since we talked about him, he talks about that white hot space.

SPEAKER_02 51:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:01

You're in the white hot space, but you're only there for a little bit. A little bit. You know what I'm saying? The goal is to take the white hot space and create enough art and build enough of a career to where you last outside of the white hot space. And that's why we have so many of the elders and the OGs still at it.

SPEAKER_03 51:21

Coming back.

SPEAKER_00 51:21

You know what I'm saying? Still at it. You know, uh, people always talk about, like, oh, why do they put an age on hip hop? Well, first off, hip-hop was always a young man's game because it was a young genre. We just had the 50th anniversary what, two years ago? Three, two, two years ago.

SPEAKER_02 51:37

I mean, no grandfathers.

SPEAKER_00 51:38

Yeah, yeah, no grandfathers. If if hip hop is 52, bro, you know what I'm saying? I'm 44. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, like, it it will it was a young man's game because it was a young man's game. It was a young genre. We didn't give it enough time to not be a young man's game. Um, and when we talk about uh hip-hop being a young man's game, I tell people, no, once you're in, you're in. There's no reason to stop rapping at 50, 60, 70. No reason. Yep. Yeah, there is a barrier or or or uh uh uh it gets harder to get into it if you haven't broken by a certain age.

SPEAKER_02 52:18

That's different.

SPEAKER_00 52:18

Yeah, that's that's totally different. You know, like yeah, you don't want to be 40 still trying to rap. By 40, you need to have a catalog. Even if you haven't blown up by 40, exactly. Um, it's it's it's it's a hobby. I make a little bit of bread off of it, I'm good. But in my opinion, once you get a certain age, like bro, you don't want to start rapping at in your late 30s, bro. Yeah. In that sense, by far. Yeah, no, my nigga, stop. Stop. Trying to start at 37, 30, just stop, my boy. Stop. But no, if you if you 37, 38, you started rapping at 16, you got all these mixtapes out, you you got albums out. Yeah, that's totally different. No, bro, keep going. Keep going.

Choosing Respect Over Short Fame

SPEAKER_01 53:07

Yeah, but before we wrap up, I did have a closure question for you. Okay. And um, the closure question for you is what what would you choose if you're gonna want fame or respect?

SPEAKER_00 53:20

Hmm, definitely respect. All right, because fame doesn't last long. You see what I'm saying? Especially nowadays. You know, we in the social media area. Look, your fame may only last 60 days.

unknown 53:34

Damn.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

It may not even last 60 days. And it depends if they even like it. Exactly. You know what I'm saying? You could do something goofy as fuck and be famous, and now you're famous for that goofy shit. Yeah. And no matter what. Yeah, six. You know what I'm saying? And now all of a sudden, you know, here you are three months later, and somebody, ha ha, you're the guy that used to be. Oh, yeah, that's that guy that used to be on this. Oh, he used to be, oh, he went viral five years ago. Oh, I remember. Yeah, so now it look, so in the way how these kids just clown everybody, they make you want to fight them. They do. So, like you last thing you want to do is be famous and fall off. They'll they're quick to call you a fall off, they're quick to call you a has been, you know, washed up, all that. So give me my respect because with the respect, I can turn that into fame, long-term fame. You know what I'm saying? That respect is gonna help me feed my family. That respect is gonna put me in in positions where I can blow up and I can sustain myself. You see what I'm saying? Um, so yeah, give yeah, give me respect any day, all day.

Awards As Motivation And Career Pivoting

SPEAKER_02 54:40

Now, um, I know we're about to close, but I gotta ask one of these two questions that you gave because I think this is a good, especially when we're talking about like legacy um awards. Do you feel that awards are still meaningful these days since we're in the cloud era? And you have over 45 awards. And I know from looking at your stuff in the infinite, and this is one of the reasons why exactly why we were happy to see you today, too. Wow. How do you explain that?

SPEAKER_00 55:05

So, in my opinion, um awards did more for me internally than outward. So my awards let me know I was doing something right, I was heading in the right direction. You know, what you're doing out here is actually impactful. People recognize you, all right? Keep going. You know, because in hip hop and in the music business in general, it's easy to get discouraged, especially as you get older. You know, and as you you grow and you you you're not that that that that white, you're not in that white hot space anymore. Yeah, you know, when mixtapes died, um, you know, I felt like I was dying. I was about to ask you because you know when mixtapes mixtape made. Yeah, when mixtapes died, I felt like like I'm the king of pivoting. I've always been a hustler, thank God. So I had already started pivoting in so many different ways because I saw it coming. I've been a businessman before anything.

SPEAKER_03 56:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:05

You know, um, but when I started slowing down, when the mixtape started slowing down, you know, uh it really took its toll on me. Yeah, you know, uh emotionally, financially, all that. You know, so as I'm pivoting, I'm starting to feel like, well, am I going in the right direction? Am I doing the right thing? You know what I'm saying? Like, like, what do I need to be doing? I'm doing all these things and I'm maintaining, but you know, I don't have that success. So then I started being recognized for actually being a DJ for my DJ skills. Yeah. So now I'm like, okay, all right, this is where I'm going. Now I'm winning awards, I'm getting nominated for club DJ of the year. You know what I'm saying? Street DJ of the year. So now I'm seeing, okay, this is good. I'm headed in the right direction. People are recognizing the transition and seeing that, you know, I'm dope on the turntables. I know how to control the crowd. You know, because there was a rumor for the longest that I couldn't DJ. Well, you know that's the thing with the DJ. You know what I'm saying? DJ. A lot of mixtapes could never DJ. You're right. But um, with me, it was, it was, it was a mixture of hate and it was a mixture of the just the overall, you know, preconceived notion that mixtape DJs were just button pushers we couldn't DJ. You know what I'm saying? So uh yeah, who can started it? He embraced it and then pushed it out there. Like he owned it, you know what I'm saying? Um and he really can DJ. But he just owned it, you know, because he was with 50, and it was always good to be the bad guy. You know? He was 50 Cent's first DJ, so being the bad guy was cool. But um with me, you know, I became the bad guy, and it wasn't because I wanted to, it was because I just was one of those people who always spoke my mind. But um, the awards let me know that I'm doing something right, keep going, and it was motivation. So awards to me let you know more than anything. People want the awards to like show off and show the people, oh, I got this, I got that. You know, a lot of times people are like, all right, you know, that's cool and all. Do you know what I'm saying? But I've always used the awards for my motivation. Um, and awards don't really, you know, bring in any real extra money, even though people try to say, like, yeah, the price going up now. I don't want a Grammy, price going up. That's cool and all. You know, but you know, yesterday's price ain't today's price. But, you know, your skill, your networking, uh, uh, and your talent is what's gonna drive up the price. You know, the awards, they're good, they're great. I love all my awards. You know what I'm saying? Shit. All 45 of them motherfuckers. I love them. I ain't giving them to nobody. You know what I'm saying? I and I wouldn't hand them over. I seen people like, oh, you know, I can't accept this award. I feel like so-and-so deserves this. I'll never in my life do that shit. Nah, I work way too hard. It's my shit. If the people voted for me, nigga, this mine. You know what I'm saying? Uh, but uh, but but no, awards, in my opinion, they definitely still matter. But I feel like people want to use the awards for clout because we are in the clout era. True. You need to use those awards to let you to motivate yourself. Go harder, go, go fat, pause. You know, go harder, pause. Um, it definitely lock in even more. You know what I'm saying? Every award I get, even nowadays, it lets me know I your foot is on next. Keep keep your foot on them motherfucking necks.

SPEAKER_02 59:36

You know? Man, shoot, man. This conversation was awesome. Yo, we need more time. Yeah, we gotta have to break. Yeah, we have to break it up. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_00 59:44

Look, I'm ready. You know what I'm saying? Y'all just let me know, man. You know, if I'm available, I'm here.

Social Media Bans And Staying Findable

SPEAKER_02 59:48

Yeah, man, because we have some other things we want to talk about. We'll get to that later. But man, we thank you for being on the podcast today. Definitely thank you for the Hell Talk Love podcast. We really want to thank you. Um, as we're wrapping up, this is DJ and what? Skip. Maya in the other room. And then our esteemed guest, Chuck T. Man. Yeah, tell people how to find out.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:07

Man, uh man, they look, so at one point in time, I would say everything is at DJ Chuck T, but um, man, I ended up getting my my Instagram page taken. Damn when I got my man, when I got my Instagram page taken, they took all five of the other pages I had. The Foundation of Music, Hornets Music, Industry Night, Spin My Hit. Then they took my connected Facebook pages, my personal Facebook page. Yeah, just stuff all the time. Yeah, and yeah, and they took my uh my uh my Facebook fan page. Um, and it's crazy, all right, because you know, I've been a strip club DJ forever.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:43

All right? Um, so I was DJing at Bliss, which shut down not too long ago, which makes it even worse that I lost my page over a club that's not even there anymore. But I DJ one night, and when I tell you, the asses was shaking, the booties was bouncing, the titties was all over the place, the money was flying, it was going crazy. I pull out my phone like hell yeah. You know, and you know, as a DJ, as a DJ, you want to show boy not only am I killing it, but the club crazy killing it. Boom. I'm over here recording, hey, hey, the girls popping that ass. I post the video, look, nothing, looking. I was good. Post the video, video going up. I'm good to go. You know what I'm saying? Easily three, four days later, I go open Instagram, boom, I get hit with a violation. I'm locked out my account. So this has happened before now. This has happened before. So I just challenge it and usually my page comes back up. That's what happened. I challenged it, boom, page came right back up. An hour later, I go back on Instagram, boom, another violation. I'm like, what the fuck? This is the same pose. So I challenge it, boom, page comes back up. An hour after that, go back on Instagram, boom. Now it says it's locked. So now I gotta go through the motions, this, that, and the other, enter, take a picture, ID, all this other stuff. This, that, and boom, boom, boom, boom. And it's still locked. So I'm like, wait, hold on, this has never happened.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:12

Yeah, this is something. So I so so high level stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:14

So then I go to my Facebook, and I'm on my Facebook, boom, my Facebook gets shut down. Like, this page has been connected to a page that has been locked. I'm like, what the fuck? So then I go to my other page, boom. It lets me log in. I'm on there scrolling, boom, it hits me with that. I said, oh my God, they shutting down all my social media. Right? So so look, I appeal it.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

All right, boom. They said, nah, it's a rap. You permanently are banned. Your sexual exploitation. I'm about to say, you like the Taliban. Yeah, I'm like sexual exploitation. I ain't I ain't exploited a motherfucker ever. Yo. I ain't never took nothing. Yeah, you are not. They thought I was Diddy, yeah. They thought I was Diddy. So, so luckily I have a backup page, and that was my at IMDJ Chuck T Paper. That's what I was wondering. So, over the years, they have all this this started back during the protests in 2016. All right. So I was under investigation from a few government agencies because I was protesting. We was out there going crazy. We weren't we weren't the ones who were like, we want peace, all this. We throwing rocks and bottles at cops. Fuck you. Real protests. Fuck you, pig. We going in. That's how I lost my job in real estate. Oh. We'll talk about that for another podcast. Yeah, yeah. We got questions for the next one. So at the time I was a real estate agent, we going crazy in the streets. We we we fighting with the police. We throwing rocks and bottles at the cops, all this other stuff. We the first people ever that I know of in modern times to make the police retreat. I like the video. I'ma show y'all a video. They retreated. They retreated. We we pushed the we effectively pushed the the police out the community that day. And they was in full riot gear, everything. Because we were peacefully protesting. We wasn't doing nothing. Then all of a sudden y'all gonna come. And I'm talking about they had the helicopters, they had the fucking tanks, they had all that shit. And we was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, bro. We just over here speaking our mind to each other. Like, we not even like going crazy, we not demanding nothing. Yeah, exactly. So they they got they got they got feisty. We got even more feistier. Um, but anyway, that's just another story for another day. So around that time, they was always hitting me with the violations, they was put me in Facebook jail. So I created the backup pages because I knew at some point they were gonna take my pages. Okay. So that's why the transition was seamless. A lot of people already were on the IMDJ Chuck T wave. But um, yeah, they shut it down and uh they permanently banned me, never got my pages back. Thank God I had the backup pages. But the same video that I posted was in circulation on everybody's page. That's what I'm saying. So just imagine me losing my page. I'm scrolling and I'm seeing all the strippers reposting it. Girl, we was lit that night. Look at all the money in the club. The club is reposting it. Make sure you pull up on us at Bliss. It's like this every Friday. And I'm like, oh my God. Like, why they ain't getting violated, but I uh why am I like why am I Diddy? Why am I Epstein and nobody else's Diddy? No why, no why, you know what I'm saying? I feel like it was all accumulation of it. Yeah, it was. They were just looking for a reason, like, like, okay, we can't really get, we'll be called racist if we pull his pull his accounts for protesting, but we can get them right now, especially now, during the Epstein and the Diddy. That was like during the Me Too? Yeah, the meet, yeah. So we can get them now. So uh if you want to find me online, uh it's it's I am DJ Chuck T on Facebook and Instagram. TikTok is still DJ Chuck T. Um, and then for whatever, DJ Chuck T.com. If you just can't, if you don't want to deal with social media, because a lot of people are giving up social media these days, you can get my contact info. You can book me everything from off of the website, djchuck t.com. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:12

Awesome. Well, like I always tell everybody, tell somebody next to you that you love them and you appreciate them. Always to the next episode. Peace.