SPEAKER_03 1:48

Welcome to the Hill Pop Love Podcast. I want to interview guests and discuss topics such as business, current events, and pop culture. The motivational podcast for the hip hop millennial. Good morning, good morning, and welcome to the Hilltop Glove Podcast. Being woke and adulting is a challenge. If you're in a hip hop or motivational talk, this is definitely the podcast for you. I'm one of your hosts today, DE DJ and Watt, and I'm going to be joined by Tamaya today. How are you doing today, Tamaya?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

I'm doing good. How are you?

SPEAKER_03 2:29

I'm excellent. I'm feeling great this morning. I know we're going to have an excellent conversation for our listeners today. We have a fantastic guest, Preach Jacobs. He is a DJ, an MC, a journalist and columnist, a podcaster, and an overall influencer in arts and culture here in Columbia, South Carolina. He has been a powerful ambassador of hip hop and culture here in the Capitol through events like Colo-Con and Mo Better Soul. And he has continued that work through the pandemic in creative and inventive ways. Good morning, Preach. How you doing today, brother man? I'm good.

SPEAKER_04 3:01

You're going to give these listeners like too high of expectations of the conversation.

SPEAKER_03 3:09

I hold you up in such high regard, man. I had to put you in the proper, proper level for the folks. So when they come through, they see. Yeah. Yeah, man. Like they said, we got to give people their flowers while they're here. So I'll let you know how much we appreciate you, man. Look, man, when I keep my holding.

SPEAKER_04 3:22

What happens in Columbia that you ain't got something to do with any of that? That's my point. Exactly. Look, man, you know, when I get my NAACP image award, I want you to present it just like that.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

Yes, sir. No, of course. I'm for real. I'm for real. Give me a call. Be like, hey, I want I want him to introduce me. They'd be like, who's this guy? No, no, just let him introduce me. I appreciate it, man. Excellent. I just wanted to welcome you to our show today, man. Let you know how much we appreciate having you here today. Of course, we we have conversations with a myriad of people from different fields, experiences in life, professional avenues, and et cetera. And your hand on the pulse and finger on the pulse here in Columbia is one of the things that it made me extremely excited about this interview. And I know coming from Charleston, being uh first actually meeting you and seeing what you do and how you make things happen here. I remember Kevin just talking so much good stuff about you. I was like, yo, I gotta meet this guy. They preach, I gotta see what he does, what's going on. Because he went to so many of the different events, how you set up at events, how you pull together different classes and groups of people to make sure that they have a good time. There's some power in that. And always like seeing that positive um vibe and that being influenced on people, wherever, whatever walk life they come through. But first things first, as we do with all our guests, I must ask, man, and for you it's gonna be a little different, but I just want you to give our listeners some background on how you became preached and your journey to where you are right now in the in the cultural uh aspects of Columbia and all the movings and goings about.

SPEAKER_04 4:55

It's it's weird, man, because it's like I've been doing this for a long time, and I'm not saying that to say like people be like, I've been doing this for years, but it's like my my my first show that I ever did, I was like 14 years old. Wow and I'm and I'm torn and doing shows and putting stuff together, and so like so when I tell people I've been doing you know this shit for like 20 years, it's this now no joke, it's no hyperbole, like it's straight up over 20 years. Now, have I been doing it well for 20 years? It's a whole different conversation. And I say that, and I say that lovingly, right? Like I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example. Like I I was doing a film series called Super Soul Cinema, and we were focusing on black splatation movies, where I'll play, I'll put my turntables out and play like 70s music, and we'll show like all of these really, really crappy black sportation movies. And and I'm gonna tell you, they weren't they weren't good, but they were endearing. Because if you think about it from the perspective of black people in Hollywood, you didn't have black directors, black producers, black boom mic holders. So when the movies are really fucking bad, like if you watch the Mac, there's literally a scene where there's a boom mic in the shot. You know what I'm saying? And I can imagine they were looking through the footage and they was like, fuck it, keep it. Because we don't have the money. We don't gonna have the money to go back, you know? We can't afford to put this, you know, to record this again. Fuck that. All this all these costumes and people and these extras, man, we ain't doing that.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

But it's like film cost money back then, too. Film costs money.

SPEAKER_04 6:28

Exactly. And the way I feel about it is, you know, that was us seeing us figure this shit out. You know what I'm saying? So even if the movies were bad, I love the endearing effect of like, yo, we want to tell our own stories for the first time. And so if that means that we don't know how to direct and we figure this out on the fly, fuck it. That's why I love the movies, no matter how bad they are. Hip-hop for me, and hip-hop specifically in Columbia is the same way. Like, the amount of times we're doing shows and events, you know, not knowing how to make our flyers, not knowing how to do, you know, we had to learn early on before we could like have our music on laptops or Serato that instead of like rapping over CDs, you gotta use mini discs because CDs will skip. I mean there's so much, there's so much stuff that we just learned kind of on some trial and narrative, you know what I'm saying? And we're still figuring it out. You know what I mean? So, you know, it's been a while, but the preach name, I would say two things. I was just a dork in school, and I used to be obsessed with black history. And, you know, kids, kids are mean, you know, like like like you know, they try to they try to be funny, but it but it stuck because it was like, you know, the teacher was talking about black history. She'll say something about black history, and she'll look at me and she'd be like, is that okay?

SPEAKER_02 7:41

And I'm like, you may proceed.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

No, I know he's a game teacher. And uh, and and they'd be like, oh, preach to him, you know. It was like, okay, you know, but then and then there was also Cooley High, which is like my favorite movie of all time growing up. So like, so like it just eventually just became a thing. So I remember as early as like 12 or 13, the name just kind of sticking with me. You know what I mean? So so that was pretty much it. And and I adopted it because I really felt like, especially being a creative here and a writer here, when when we talk about like hip hop culture, when I put Colo Khan together with hip-hop and comics, the the synergy, the synergy made so much sense because rappers are just like superhero stuff. Like, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, those are superheroes. Yeah, when I saw Ghostface, I'm not calling him his government name. He's Ghostface. Exactly. You know, and sometimes you have to have that separation. You know what I mean? Like Clark Kent and Superman. I mean, yeah, I mean, and and so like when my family calls me the government, like I know that I'm in a safe place with them. Whereas where as an artist out here, you give so much, and a lot of it, you give up a lot of your privacy. You know what I'm saying? And and and that's kind of the deal that you make. When you're like, all right, well, I want to be involved in the community. I want to be involved, whether it's music, whether it's political, whether it's column writing, and you're being a voice for a community out here, you know, you offer up some of your privacy. And and so like the stuff the times that I can keep hold of a little bit that I have, I'll fight for it. So yeah. And a nutshell that is me.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

That's a good way to express it. That's good. And that's like you say, man, preach, bruh, preach.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

That's like ego.

SPEAKER_04 9:25

Plus, it's funny because like, you know, people used to buy my stuff thinking I was a gospel rapper. And I'm like, nah, no. Seriously?

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Seriously? I'm listening.

SPEAKER_04 9:33

I'm talking sorely, sorely. I'm talking a bunch of stuff, man. I had a song where I shouted out Jada Fire. What up, Jada Fire? You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 9:40

So, like, listen to that podcast, too. I listen to that episode.

SPEAKER_04 9:48

Well, listen, you say episode singular. Keep listening to the podcast. We talk all the time.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah, preach. I really enjoy your podcast, though. So you're gonna have to get all of us on it. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Let me know. Listen, pull up.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Okay. So one of the issues we look at in the podcast is the role of the citizen journalists, people speaking about their community, as opposed to sensationalizing, polarizing theater that we get from traditional media or just plain fake news on the internet. You're a local writer. You are published regularly. Recently, you wrote a story about the incident at 701 Whaley Center of Contemporary Arts in Columbia, South Carolina, where an artist in residence uh was approached by the police basically for working on his exhibit while black. So, can you give us a quick recap for the listeners about that incident?

SPEAKER_04 10:38

Well, from what I know, and there's a lot of like moving parts with that, and also full disclosure, I'm a board member of 701 CCA, so it might get a little touchy. But from what and for what I know, and and what I talked about, the way that I talked about the column, I I brought that issue up, and it was more or less about black interaction, brown interaction with law enforcement. So it's still something where I think I think literally the day that that story came out, it was like the one-year anniversary of the George Floyd murder. Oh, wow. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it was. And so, and so I said to myself, I was just like, you know, when when when that happened last year, when George Floyd murder happened last year, Columbia exploded, I was in an emotional state. And I asked myself, I was like, a year later, do I do we feel better about our relationship? You know what I'm saying? It's like it's like it's like if a married couple go through a married couple go through a huge fight and they argue and they have this big blow-up, at some point you're like, you know what, maybe I feel better. I'm glad we went through this. You know what I mean? Like, we don't have that relationship here with law enforcement. It's it's it's just like I think with black culture, we're just kind of designed and built to just get over things but not work our way through it. And only that can happen. Yeah. Because you have to have a willing party on the other side to make things right. Repeat, repeat that part again. There has to be a willing party on the other side to make those things right. And that doesn't, and that doesn't happen. And that's why stories like uh what happened to Mr. Sims at 701 happened. It's it was a situation where you know cops pull up and and they handcuff him while he's an artist and resident. And and it's like, no, his show is here, his artwork is here, the the cops were basically like, yo, they were like, oh, we didn't know people lived here. Like, that's impossible. Right. Yes. That's impossible.

SPEAKER_03 12:31

Totally impossible. I've known that for the past five to seven years.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

How many residents have stayed here?

SPEAKER_03 12:37

I don't, I didn't I haven't lived here before.

SPEAKER_04 12:39

Yeah. And so it it puts it puts a lot of like it puts a lot of pressure on us because all of a sudden now that became a national story. And and and instead of we instead of Columbia getting credit for being able to house such an amazing art show, because the art show is worldly, right? Instead of us getting the credit for being able to have that show here, we're we're having those discussions on a on a national level about uh-oh, good old South Carolina again. You know what I mean? And so, and so I talked about in the article, you know, the South Carolina dealings with that. Because you know, we have we have that issue there, we have the incident that happened in 2015 in Charleston when an officer shot shot a black man and threw the taser on him, and and you had uh a young black man film it and and and exposed it. And so the conversation was more or less like, do we feel better? Like I I remember, and I talked about this in the story, this happened to me maybe Christmas 2016, Christmas 2017, I can't remember, but it's it's literally Christmas morning, like two in the morning. I'm starving, and the only place open at the time was like a McDonald's, like in West Columbia. So I go to McDonald's, I'm driving back home, and while I'm driving back home, I'm on like Gervais, and I see a woman on the ground, like laid out. And I'm like, I stopped my car immediately, and I'm like, did she get shot? Did she have a heart attack? I don't know. So I stopped my car at a down 911, and I'm like, yo, there's a woman laying down like on the side of the street, she's not moving, and I'm talking to the to the operator. She says, Where are you? I tell her where I'm at. And I'm freaking out because I'm like, you know, a part of me is afraid that maybe she got shot. Is the shooter still around? But another part of another part of me is like, what if I can get out and she's choking and I need to turn it to the side, you know what I mean? Like something that I can do to help. And so I say to the operator, I'm like, yo, I'm gonna get out and I'm gonna take a look. And she pauses because she sounded, she could tell I was black, and I can tell she was black, and I could tell she was black, and she was like, yo, yo, nah. Bad idea. Don't do that. And and we had, we spoke this shorthand, and she immediately was like, she was, she was immediately like, yo, tell me what kind of car you're driving so I can let the cops know what you're driving. And so it put me in this situation where I'm like, even when I want to help Good Samaritan, I'm so terrified, I could be, you know, mistook as the perpetrator.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Yeah, at any point.

SPEAKER_04 15:10

Yo, that's that's some real shit. That's some real shit. And and truthfully, the woman she turned out to be okay. I'm glad that happened. What if, but what if the woman that passed away and it was like, oh, if somebody would have just, you know, did this and ran up to her and did blah, blah, blah. She could have I I would have had to eat that. And I would have had to be like, well, I was afraid that and that's real. And that's something that that I think that when we talk about black and brown involvement um with law enforcement, it's not something that's this grandiose thing that happened in bigger cities. It's not something that happens, oh, this is a New York problem. This is an LA problem. Like, no, we have that all around. And to this day, I haven't seen anything that makes me feel like I feel better. Like, it's not like I'd be like, all right, I feel all right now. Like, I'm telling you, like, PTSD. Even look, you would think that I got birds in the car the way that I feel when a cop pulls up behind me. You know what I'm saying? You would, you would think that I was like, exactly. I'm trying to tell you. Like, yo, you know, and I and I drive a Toyota Highlander. Like, I'm scared. Like, come on.

SPEAKER_03 16:13

Oh man. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, you shouldn't even be looking like a quote unquote a perp, but that has to sit in the back of your mind. I like how you just dissed my car, too.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

It was like I was about to tell you the year, but I'm not gonna do that now, Mr. Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 16:32

No, but you know what I mean. It's not like you're riding around in some random looking Maserati.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:39

But that also brings up another thing where a few years ago, Chris Rock had this like social experiment that he put on his Instagram where he basically started filming every time he would get pulled over.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Wow. Right?

SPEAKER_04 16:49

Like, and it'd just be like, because he drives a nice fucking car because he's Chris Rock. And I remember corny ass Isaiah Washington, who used to be on Gray's Anatomy, the black actor, try to blame Chris Rock. So you know what? You know, Chris Rock, you know, you drive a nice car. I drive a Prius. That's why it'll happen to me. He's like, fuck you, right? So, like, like, why are we blaming the victim?

SPEAKER_03 17:14

From the victim's own group, which is you see how that's that's another point that can be made on that fact that that's even weirder about it, so insidious, is that it has even it has festered into our own community to the point where we don't even trust ourselves. And we we will go ahead and put the blame on us and say, Hey, he must have been doing something bad, he must not be where you're supposed to be at. Well, well that that's media, man.

SPEAKER_04 17:38

That's that that's that global media force. Well, that there's a term for that, right? Because I talked about this too a few times. It's something called uh respectability politics. And and and that happened with the George Wood stuff that happened last year, where if you think about the theory of respectability politics, the idea is basically anytime you look at the footage during the civil rights movement of us being attacked by dogs or sprayed with water hoses or beat by cops, you notice one thing specifically. Black people are well dressed. Yes. They're wearing their Sunday bests, and that was by design. The theory was if we look nice in our Sunday best and the world is beating up on us, or you know, these people are beating up on us, the world will look at this and say, why are you beating these people up? They're so dressed nicely. Like, why are you doing this? So, because we thought there would be a shame that would be attached to it. And so what ends up happening a lot of times, I mean, it trickles over. Is that, you know, when when George Floyd was murdered, there were these conversations, and I've had some of these conversations. People like, oh, well, you know, what if he was wearing a suit? You know what I'm saying? I'm telling you, it's it's it's yo, I may say as ever nigga with gold for the fall, is every nigga with dreads. I can't remember how you said the line, but basically saying like these appearances that that we put on each other, you know, we want to we want to look at somebody and say, oh, well, this black person had gold teeth in their mouth, they had tattoos, like what? They don't deserve to live.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Right, they have teeth on their head, like, what? You can't wear a hoodie?

SPEAKER_04 19:10

Yeah, and I mean, and and and we do that to each other more than anybody else. And so that's one point, exactly. Yeah, we're horrible with that. And that's why, like, for the past year, not only because of COVID, but kind of as a formal protest, I just wore sweatpants everywhere. I said, fuck it. Because I'm like, because I'm like, if you know, when I was doing interviews and Zoom calls from news stations, I'm wearing a hoodie and sweats. My hair's gonna be nappy because I need to have the opportunity for people to say, all right, he might be dressed in sweats, but does that take away from anything that he's saying? When we look at Steve Jobs, that dude had mom jeans and a turtleneck on. When you look at Mark Zuckerberg, he has a gray t-shirt and and sweats, or you know, jeans or whatever. Nobody ever says that, you know, the things they talk about is diminished because of what they're wearing. It only happens with us. So, you know, that that's something that I want to fight against too. I I definitely think that black folks, and and I'm not saying, I'm not accusing black folks of anything because it sounds like these thoughts come from people that look like, you know, my dad's generation, my dad, you know. We watch the NBA game, got all them tattoos on. It's like, so what? What does that matter? Yeah, you know? So it's something that happens with us as well, and and it's and it's not far from home. And those are things that we have to work on with ourselves too.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Yeah, it's like engraved in us because it comes so naturally.

SPEAKER_03 20:28

Mm-hmm. I think part of that too, you're we're dealing with irrationality. So you're dealing with somebody like with an irrational group that is putting you in a position of danger. So, like normally when you could just talk it out or explain what's going on, or et cetera, just like the gentleman he was up there where he was supposed to be at, the police show up. The easiest thing you could have done is contact the folk who run the place. Say, hey, is this gentleman supposed to be here? Before you got into anything else, you make a call, you contact somebody, you could you connect the dots.

SPEAKER_04 21:02

It goes a step further. If he was a white artist and resident, they wouldn't even have to make the call. I know. I know.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

That makes me think about last week before we were trying to do this whole podcast. Remember Mike mentioned what about if he called the police on himself?

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Yes. So let me let me turn up the controversy on this. Turn it up a little bit. Give it to the white guy that started drama.

unknown 21:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Look, I strongly believe that everybody needs a crazy ass white friend that don't give a fuck and won't take anything.

SPEAKER_04 21:34

Well, you don't worry. You're gonna talk to the cops when they show up. I'm gonna stand, I'm standing in the background.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

Might go talk to him.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

He's my lead counsel. So, so, all right. So when I first heard that story, I was like, well, yep, fuck 12.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Right?

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Because that's just where I come from. Because I've seen the cops do a whole lot of shady shit. Not saying there's not good cops out there. There are. I've met a few. But as a whole, my experience has been cops are bullies, and the policing training situation encourages that hyper masculine, dominate every situation. Don't hear anybody's advice, you know, don't hear what anybody got to say until they are completely submissive. It's an authoritarian thing. And and that's not that's un-American. Like well, that's a problem.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

I think I think that's so American, that's what the problem is. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:24

The history of policing is a different subject. That's another time. Yes, it's a whole other podcast. A whole nother podcast, but yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

So your story comes out, right? And and and I'm like, oh yeah. And so then, you know, this is this is right after I got my vaccine. So I'm going around, I'm seeing everybody I ain't seen in a year, and all of this stuff, and you got to be talking about what's going on. So it came up several times. Yo, did you hear what happened at 701? And I guess probably at least two or three people, separate situations, but they were all white, were like, dang, I'm not saying he did this, but it would be smart. You know, that would be good marketing if an artist called the cops on themselves, considering the kind of work that they're doing.

SPEAKER_04 23:13

This dude is uh crazy. It's it's one of those things, he's world renowned, he don't need attention. And the funny thing about it is, you know, those are things that happen with us all the time where we're not allowed to be like victims, right? Like, for example, I could take I could take a small example. I was I was I was listening to Serena talking about how she almost died giving birth to her daughter. And and one of the underlying things that came up with the conversation was she would talk to her doctors about how much fucking pain she would be. In not just through like the labor situation, but just on a regular basis of her being this professional athlete. And what would happen is she was misdiagnosed or she wasn't taken as seriously as possible when she's talking about the level of pain. And one of those things that happened was we noticed statistically that more black women die in childbirth in America. It's like a ridiculous number that's compared to, you know, their counterparts. And what happens is because when black women say that they feel pain, or black women say that they they feel something that's not right for their bodies, they're trust it more, um, then they're not trust it as much as other people. As if, oh, you know, somehow, some way you can handle pain better than anybody else, or whatever. And so what happens is it's just a transition of our pain isn't isn't uh respected, right? Or yeah, you know what I mean? It it always has to be something trickstery about it. You know what I mean? Always like, mmm, you know, you know, like look at how the country treats LeBron, like he's sneaky. Yes, you know what I mean? You know, but it's something, but it's something that it's something that trickles down with with everything. And especially like, you know, we're talking about, and specifically it's funny when we talk about pro-athletes, because all of a sudden the conversation changes with pro athletes where it's like, oh, you make a lot of money, shut up and dribble, or this and this, and that. And it's like, I don't care how much LeBron makes, he's the labor force compared to the owner of the team. You don't think about it from that perspective. But what usually happens is we're not allowed to be victims. And and more so than that, when we are victims, we have to be poised. We have to be like, anytime you see one of these black men murdered by the cops or killed by the cops, the mothers, when they speak, you know, they have to be the most civilized, most calm people ever. I mean, look, don't get me started on that. Where look, uh, no, man, look, this shit ain't none of the questions y'all had ready to go. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Like that aspect though, I think is real important. That that like there's a different narrative going on. And and the fact that I and a part of me thinks that it's like, you know, like like white people want to believe that there's something else going on because if if they just wake up one day and realize that like all of the people controlling all of our lives don't give a shit about any of us, yes, then that's terrifying. So as long as you believe that the system's here for you, it's a little bit better.

SPEAKER_04 26:19

Well, I think I think the conversation shifted a little bit. The conversation shifted a little bit last year, I think in a good way, because when we talk about law enforcement involvement with black and brown people, we've been saying this this shit for years. What you saw happen during the protests nationwide last year is that you saw law enforcement fuck everybody up. Right? Like there was there was footage where there was literally a cop that pushed a 75-year-old white man on the ground, hit his head. Like I saw the footage, hit his head, and blood started coming out of his ear. You know what I'm saying? And I'm like, yo, and it's not one of those things where it's like, yo, I'm glad it's happening to other people. No, but what it is is that we're like, it's like the it's like the monster movie when you tell a nigga's like, yo, there's a ghost in this motherfucking house. And they're like, nah. And as soon as Jason come out with a motherfucking chance on, you like, see? You know what I mean? And so I think that conversation changed a little bit, right? And when we talk about, and we talk about law enforcement, and people are bringing up the fucking police and things like that. I'll give you an example, and people get caught on the language of it, but I can tell you a very succinct situation that I've dealt with. And this is why, like, me as an artist, a hip-hop artist, everything is seen through that lens of being a young black hip-hop artist. Regardless if I'm a journalist, regardless if I'm in rooms of politicians or trying to run for city council, which is a whole nother story and entire. I'll give you an example. I was, I had to DJ two separate events that were probably like a week or two away from each other. So one of the events that I did, I did this event that was done by the Richmond County Sheriff's Department where they were trying to like raise money for this thing, but what they were doing was the cops were bringing the police dogs out to do like demonstrations and shit for the kids, right? So you got these German shepherds, and and this shit was kind of scary. Like they speaking in German, like that ain't beast, I ain't, you know, that's a bit PTSD. Right? Stop add. So, anyways, so the dogs are the dogs are really cute, the kids opposing with the dogs, you know. You got the sheriff coming talking, like that thing about coming on out, blah, blah, blah. It was a sweet event. It was very, very nice. A week or so later, I had to do. I gotta read something to you in a second that I just got sent. But a week or so later, I had to do, I had to do an event that was at the um, what was it? It was like a Latin festival thing that they were having off of Decker. It was like a little pull-up thing that they had. So you had like vendors outside and stuff like that. So the police department was out there again. The same, same jurisdiction, same police department. We're out at this event again. They had, one, they had this vehicle called the Peacemaker. And what the Peacemaker was, it was reuse militarized tank, pretty much. You basically had this huge fucking fucking tank painted black, and they painted, you know, Peacemaker on it and put, you know, the logo of the law enforcement thing there, right? And and the fun activities that they had, the fun activities that they had for the black and brown kids, they didn't have the dog, they didn't have the dogs doing tricks. They had little things out there to say, hey, get your thumbprints done. I'm not gonna. My lord. My lord. Fuck that. Yo, I'm not, I'm not, I'm sense of humor, anybody? I can't make this up. And so when we talk about the big fucking tank, I remember like when when we had the flag issue in 2015, when the flag was taken down and we had the clan rally, I'm looking at the cops at this thing, and I'm like, yo, why does it look like these motherfuckers are in tactical, not in tactical police gear, but looking like they're about to be like, you know, their soldiers going into war-torn countries. And that's what it is. So when we talk about the fund of the fund of police, what happens is you have law enforcement agencies or law enforcements like locally here and little small police departments around the country that will basically buy surplus military military items for their local police force. There should be no reason for the police.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

That's where that stuff came from last year. I mean, the U.S.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

But to get even weirder in that it's not even that they're actually purchasing it. They're getting these these governmental grants and money from taxpayers to only buy those things back from the military because they overproduced and couldn't sell them to anybody else outside of the U.S. or other country, so they have to sell it back to us. Well, as you can't in your industrial complex. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:56

But the thing is, too, is that you know, you have a politician say we're tough on crime, and you show like the 1980s where you have like tanks going into look, there's a Harado Obera video where you basically out of the 80s during the crack epidemic. He's like, we're about to smash this person's house with this tank. And this nigga's excited. Like he's jumping over a fence for them to tear down houses. So when you look at those militarized things, you have a certain position of the population here that it's just like, oh, we love it. It shows that you're tough on crime and this and this and that. And when you think about that, they're not, they're not pulling up in Wildwood with that shit. You know what I'm saying? Like, like when they think about that, they're not thinking about law enforcement coming into their areas like that. They're like, oh, go to them. You know, so so yeah, so when we say things like the fund of police, we're saying that, yo, man, instead of spending like these millions of dollars on buying fucking tanks, could y'all like spend more money on training or could y'all spend money where where you could hire, you know, counselors, mental health experts that if you get a phone call, you know, I I have an autistic sister. And so I think about mental health differently. Where there was a story that happened in South Carolina too, um, that I wrote about in an article recently at a Charleston again, where there was a man that was um special needs man that was suffocated and killed while in custody in jail. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Sounds ridiculous. Because if he's special needs, you don't need to have, you know, the the squad coming in with batons and putting somebody in their headlock. Why don't you spend some of that money to hire professionals to come say, hey, maybe we need to have a different approach? Because the thing too is you'll hear cops say, you know, you know, we're communicators and we're therapists and we're this and we're that. No, you're not.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

There's no possible way you can be all of that.

SPEAKER_04 32:45

And while we're on it, side note, something else that irritates me. It's the same thing with motherfuckers on Instagram talking about their life coaches. Look, dog. Look, look, look, look, look. It's listen, I I understand positivity, but it can be toxic posity, and sometimes it drives me fucking crazy. But I say that to say this, I say that to say this, and I bring this up because I was speaking to uh a therapist friend of mine, where she said the problem with that is that there's a difference between life coaching and needing therapy. So if a life coach is like, all right, well, let's look at the stuff that you got going on with your life and let's figure out next steps. Now, if that person is saying, I can't get out of bed in the morning, I don't want to move, then you can't just say, Well, you gotta keep going. You don't say you gotta be motivated. Because it's a whole different conversation. Right. If you think you think you're giving you giving good advice, but it's but it's misguided advice. And that's what I'm saying about what happens with a lot of these cops thinking that they're doing certain stuff that shouldn't be on their purview. It shouldn't be on your plate because you're not a therapist. You know what I'm saying? So, so I would say spend some of that money towards that. Like there's a lot of people looking for work.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

There's a lot of people. I'm gonna interject, I'm gonna interject and say this too. And this is another one of the issues where you're spending the money and whatnot. A lot of it is due to the fact we have such a large military force and we train people to go out and to fight wars, and what we have been doing, we've been getting very good, and this is just insight just from reading military magazines and et cetera, going on to the other side, as they would say, and researching. But they spent so much money on that stuff, and they found ways to fight wars with technology. So you need less boots on ground, but they prepared hundreds of thousands of troops. So these people come back and they don't have jobs and they don't have certain skills that you can put directly into normal places of business. The easiest place to put these these folk, these soldiers coming back from war is into police departments, law enforcement. They're coming back with PTSD, they haven't had proper counseling themselves, they don't know how to engage civilians who aren't in a war, in a nation that's in a war situation. And they don't give them time either. I'm talking three months from coming back from being deployed, going through a quick police academy training to popping out in the streets. And it's not community policing either, which is where I think they should spend the money. They don't spend it on people and programs in the community so that they can then go police themselves. No, they take somebody that came from Hoboken, Wisconsin, and they put them in North Charleston, South Carolina, right off Sprural. They don't know these people, they don't know why they're talking like that. They don't know why everybody got dreads and gold teeth. They just they're afraid. And so they're put in these positions and told to react. It's you're they're creating a kettle. Like you're creating a bad situation by doing that.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

But I read an article that said in 2030 most of the soldiers are going to be robots.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

That's my point. That's what I'm saying. So, what are you gonna do with all these people that you've been preparing for since for the war on terrorism? We've been creating soldiers, producing people, sending them, etc. They still have to live and eat. So that's another one of those weird things, but that goes along with that military-industrial complex. They're trying to repurpose bodies, and it's a weird situation. So we're having to deal with that back here at home.

SPEAKER_04 36:02

I mean, yeah, I think that the other thing about when we look at America has a reputation worldwide of just being bullies. Like we can so the idea of negotiating our ways into peace, that's never an American way. And you see that kind of trickles down, right? So, so essentially, when we look at the civil rights movement, if we look at like a lot of these other things that happen within the country, there's never a time where, you know, when we talk about government, it's like all the trickle-down effects. You know, it's not just the police that enforce the laws, people that make the laws, the politicians that that you know, that might argue about them and whatever, whatever. Nobody ever said there's a problem with this country. Let's hear them out. You know what I mean? And that's and that's with everything. It's like we we look at, I think it's a hundred-year anniversary that women had the right to vote in this country. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 36:54

White women.

SPEAKER_04 36:56

Yeah, right, exactly. Like, yeah, let's be highly specific about that. And so, and so when we look at those things, like, you know, the progress that America tries to brag about, it they came in kicking and screaming. You know what I mean? And so it was never a thing where America did it based on a moralistic thing, like, you know what, we were pretty fucking wrong about this, you know? And so what we see, what but so what we see is, you know, we we see so many things happening now, and people think that, oh, there's much more of this stuff happening. Like, no, we we're able to document it more. You know what I'm saying? Um so it's it's like black folks have been talking about police harassment and brutality for years, but niggas got phones. So it's like, you know, we can we can film this stuff now. And so now I think that there's this, there's I think some good and some bad. I think that there's there's more dialogue that's happening with it. There's more black and brown people running for public office, there's there's more people that that I think that are getting into these situations where they see there's problems. There's a lot of people that got involved in politics that never would have thought they would have gotten in it, and they're like, well, look, who else is going to do this? And and I'm encouraged by that, you know. One of the columns that I wrote was talking about the black and brown people running for mayor and running for city council, and I think it's a great thing because I think a lot of times, you know, we'd be in these situations where we have people governing what happens in our city, what happens in our states, what happens in our country, and nobody looked like you in the room. Um so that's so that's a big deal. And and and you know, we're not gonna solve the world's issues within a podcast. Matter of fact, they're gonna shut your shit down. Right. So this episode ain't gonna play when you're gonna have to have a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Oh Lloyd. Okay, yo. All right, we got the internet.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

We'll just try another one. Say it again. All right, Thomas.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

The cornerstone of journalism is supposed is supposedly to be unbiased and objective. But over the past few years, have you as we've seen national media completely abandon the ideas of being unbiased. I've heard more people saying the idea of being unbiased was always a dilution. And the deputy of the and that the deputy of the journalist is to do the work, get the facts, and also look at all the sides, but call bullshit when you see it. Basically, that we don't be polite about saying what needs to be said, and we don't have to give the other side the equal voice if the other side is spitting bullshit. How do you feel about that? And how do you balance reporting the facts while also clearly trying to show people your side if they see it, if they ever get to see your side?

SPEAKER_04 39:28

There's there's a few different conversations with that that has to be broken down. Number one, I'm a columnist specific. My job is to speak my opinion, right? So so you know, there's there's different things, right? So anytime I anytime I write something like when I wrote this column about Jamie Harrison and talking about like, you know, all the racism of Lindsey Graham, the state, when they ran that article, it's like this is the opinion of pre-shakups. Don't get at us about it. You know what I mean? So like you know, so so there's a there's something that's effective with editorial slash column work that's designed in that way. And that is a lane that I feel that I'm most effective in, right? Now, when you look at other facets of journalism, I would say anybody that that supports real journalism, take your money and support the places that do great things. You know, I know the free times slash postal career has a paywall. Pay for that if you can pay for it. You know, when when Trump got elected, I wrote a column about the first three things that I was gonna do. And one of those three things, I'll tell you the three things I said I was gonna do. I said I was gonna subscribe to all the publications that I that I support. So New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic, the state newspaper, Free Times, I'm I'm paying for that because you have to protect journalism. And the second thing I was like, nigga, I'm getting a pistol and a CWP.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

Right.

SPEAKER_04 40:45

You know, and and and the third thing was to support like your local chapter to NAACP, become a member, that type of thing, and try to be involved in the community. And so when we're talking about journalism, you know, hardcore journalism, where you're talking about investigators and reporters and things like that, that's a sanctity that needs to be protected. But that's not what people are talking about when they see, when we're talking about news and misinformation, things like that. Here's what you have that happen. Let me break this down, and I think it's really, really interesting. Is that, and I break it down from a record store position and I'll and I'll filter it back to journalism. I used to work at Sounds Familiar before I worked at Papa Jazz. Sounds Familiar now is the name of my record label. I used to work at Sounds Familiar like maybe 10-15 years ago. And we used to be up the street from a Best Buy. So here's how CDs used to work back in the day. Let's say Kanye's graduation comes out, and we have to buy the CDs from the record label. And so we're like, all right, the record label says we'll sell you these Kanye CDs for $9 a piece. Like, all right, cool, $9.99 a piece on the record label. So our sale price is $12.99, and when it's not on sale, it's $14.99. That's your standard markup that you would have in the business, right? Now, best buy up the street, they're buying the CDs at the same price as we're buying them from the record labels. They buy them for $9.99, but they'll spend, they'll sell it for $7.99. They'll literally lose two bucks on that shit. And they do that because they do that because people say exactly, oh, I'm gonna come in here for the cheap CDs, I'll stay and buy a watch machine. So they're operating, they're operating under a lost leader. And a lost leader basically meaning we're gonna lose money on this shit because we know it helps the greater good of the company. Here's how that applies to journalism. When you look at the CBS's, NBCs, and ABCs, your news division operated under Lost Leader, which basically meant, hey guys, the journalist department and the news department, y'all don't fuck with us. Leave us alone, let us do our fucking work, and we'll give you the news. And that was that was effective because you basically had reporters and a system of people that was just basically like, yo, we don't have to worry about turning a profit, so we can do our job. And and the networks understood that it was it was an importance to it. Now what ended up happening was Interruper Murdoch. I mean, I wouldn't listen, I wouldn't I wouldn't even go there. I would go Ted Turner. I mean, because all of them did it. Because the I 24-hour news cycle. Exactly. When you have a 24-hour news cycle, all of a sudden, if you got a network that's going 24 hours with news, then all of a sudden the conversation changes into profit margins. Then the conversation turns into advertising. Then the conversation turns into how's this show gonna make money and have viewership? Nobody ever gave a fuck about viewership, you know what I'm saying, on CBS News in the 1960s. You know what I'm saying? You know, that conversation this didn't exist. And so when you're looking at what happened with news and journalism, or maybe you just say, you know, television journalism, what you ended up happening was as soon as somebody had a 24-hour news market, then it just started all popping up. So Fox News is basically like, well, we're gonna have our version. And M SNBC, we're gonna have our version. We're gonna have this, we're gonna have that. And so what ends up happening is you're basically gonna go to the people that side with your sensibilities, right? Like you're basically gonna be like, all right, I'm gonna listen to Richard Maddow versus Tucker, I can't stand that motherfucker, Carson. You know what I mean? So like people will find the places that that echo the things that they're looking for. And a lot of times, you know, people try to be like, oh, I want to hear the other side, but it's none of it, none of it is real. So when you try to go to the Fox News side, you're not gonna hear anything real. So what you're gonna have to depend on that I urge is support those publications that that have the money and the time for investigative reporting. Because, you know, the New York Times and the Washington Post, those are like the real reporters, and and we have the state has some great writers as well. Free Times has some real great writers as well that are basically beating the streets and that have to tell these stories that are doing that real reporting that you're talking about. And so, you know, they all play their part, right? Because sometimes I'm a reporter, sometimes I'm a columnist. And and sometimes one works more effective than the other, you know, and sometimes you have to put the work in. And a lot of times you can't have reporting if you don't have a publication with a budget that will let you do your work. So like if you ever seen that movie Spotlight, they would talk about like finding it Spotlight was a movie that took place in Boston, and it was based on a true story of how I think it was the Boston Globe exposed this huge racket that was happening in the Boston and in the Massachusetts area of priests molesting children. It was like over 200 of them. But one of the things they talked about in this in the movie was the Spotlight Division. They were like, yo, it might take. A year and a half for us to do this story. And you had the publication saying, alright, we got a division of five people. We're going to leave you the fuck alone, right? And let you do your job. And they want a Pulitzer. You know what I'm saying? So, like, those are the things that's important too. Is that we also have to give these publications the resources in order to do their job. So that's why I say, I know there's paywalls a lot of these publications, but pay for it. Because that helps. That helps as well. And so that's so those are the things that you can kind of help combat that. Is that when you see people doing great work, try to subscribe and and you know, and find those people that that challenge you. Find those people that not only say the things that you might agree with, where you're like, wow, this person is in my head and they're articulating this better than me. Find those people that have those opinions that are well thought out that you don't agree with. And work on and work on your perspectives on a lot of that stuff. You know what I'm saying? But as far as like 24-hour news cycles, it's it's it's all mush. You know what I mean? Like, like there's some stuff that you might be like, I'm good, I can watch this, and some stuff is just like I just gotta stay away from it altogether. But actual real reporting, support the actual real reporters.

SPEAKER_03 46:53

So it's like it's like going to the bootlegger for your CD as opposed to going to Papa Jazz.

SPEAKER_04 46:59

I mean, pretty much.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

I mean, like Tucker Call, they those people that you talk, those media heads, they're taking other people's stories and they're filtering, refiltering it again to give you some kind of bias on the story. And like you said, and I I understood this too, just adulting, I always like to tell people, like, it's hard to adult, but when you realize why it's necessary to do so, you'll do it. I realize like now I don't have any bootleg stuff. I don't bootleg music, I don't bootleg anything that I watch, I don't bootleg any services from anybody, I'll pay for it. And I realize, like you said, there is that value in doing it because you support the actual foundation so that those people can take care and they can continue to bring you good content.

SPEAKER_04 47:41

I I affiliate. Listen, I ain't paying for no damn Mayweather versus No, no, no, no. I'm messing with you. I'm messing with you. But I tell you, I tell you this though, from an artist's perspective, you know, the it was funny because it was that was kind of the question that we had like back before like music streaming back in the day, where we would talk about like bootlegs versus like the digital media, and we were talking about the reason why bootleggers kind of like really affected us is because those people were still buying the content as opposed to people that was just getting it for free, you know. Yes, um but but I always say this, like as an artist, as things kind of come full circle. I don't I don't care about selling music digitally anymore. I'm basically like, you know, when I put music out digitally, I just expect y'all to have that for free. So my thing is like, all right, well, I'm gonna do fly creative shit. Like, here's limited edition vinyl, buy the vinyl. Here's you know, these these stories these dope Prince t-shirts I got, or this dope merch that I have out. Because when people support you and they rock with you, they're gonna come back and and and and help out. You know what I'm saying? But you have to you have to train the public as much as possible. Because like Columbia, you gotta train the community how to support artists, right? Because what happens in Columbia specifically is that this is a a town that focuses on, I call them like bar music, right? Where you got like the Wild Wings and you got like the Buffalo Wild Wings or whatever, those places that aren't music venues, but the places that it's a bar that happens to have a stage on it. There you go. And one thing that happens in particular with those places is the band might get paid by the bar, but the public gets to see those shows for free. And it beats it into the public's heads like, oh, art and music is free out here. So that's not how it's supposed to be. And so you have to train the public. So it'll be certain things where I'll do an event and I'll charge like a very, very low cover just to put it in their heads, like, yo, you gotta pay for this. You gotta pay for this. You know what I mean? I remember, I remember there was one year, years, years ago, I was I was brought on a board for a music event, and they had a budget of like six figures to put this music event together, and they and they brought me on this board, and they were gonna pay me to be on this thing to help out. And it was like, look, we want to see if you can help get local talent that will perform for exposure. And I tell them, I was like, guys, we have over a hundred thousand dollars budget. There's no way I'm gonna ask local artists, me being a local artist as well, to perform for free when you got the money for it. You know what I mean?

unknown 50:14

Huh?

SPEAKER_04 50:15

Show or so some respect. I don't like that. That was my last conversation with him. But so so my thing was this, I said, look, you have to make a habit of paying these artists. I don't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck what you agreed to. I don't care what dollar amount you have on it, but you have to make it a habit to tell these artists that their time is worth being paid for. And when you train the people, they get it. You know what I'm saying? So, so though that's a that's a uphill battle, but that's something that you gotta gotta deal with too as well.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

Well, since we're on the topic of music, let's go to the next question. So, music has played a key role in social activism in various rights movements throughout history. Humans raise their voices to highlight injustice, inspire action, and achieve lasting change. How has the culture of activism changed over the generations? And do you think we are using our platforms properly to engage and promote change? In what ways do you use your platforms to educate and impact others?

SPEAKER_04 51:11

It's it's interesting, Ryan, because like I never want to be in a situation where I'm telling somebody how they should be involved with social issues. You know what I'm saying? It's like it I I get to speak like for myself where quote unquote activism and art never felt like they had to be separated, right? So, like one of the things that happened when the Floyd murder happened last year and all the protests were happening nationwide, I started getting hit up by like a lot of these publications around here talking to me about the music that I was making and the stuff that I was doing. And they were like, you know, they were like, oh, you know, how can you use your music as an art form to talk about social injustice? I was like, yo, I've been doing this shit. Right. Like my my column, my column for the free times is called Fight the Power. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And so, but but to me, that was never something that I felt like had to be separated because I grew up in a culture where all the people I look up to are the people that spoke out. You know what I mean? Like the Ali's of the world or or or even like the music that hip hop I grew up on. The public enemies talk about those things and you know, exactly. So to me, I come from a culture where none of that stuff was separated, you know what I mean? So so to me, I don't I don't see it as protesting, I just see it as, hey, you have a responsibility, right? So there's a there's a Chris Rock joke where he basically said to white people, Tom Hanks is a great actor, but Denzel is a god to his people. And there's something that happens where when you put in these situations, whether you're an artist, whether you're a writer, whether you're an actor, where some people feel that social responsibility, like, yo, I can't just do this shit and be successful and not speak out against this stuff. And then you got other people that's just like, yo, I'm gonna make my money and fuck all that shit. And I can't, and I can't yell at them dudes because like, you know, do you? You know what I mean? Like I used to get mad about that stuff, you know. I, you know, that conversation about Jordan, you know, Republicans buy shoes too, and all that type of stuff. It's like, you know, I mean, really, like I had a I had a long drawn-out conversation about that. I wrote about it. And and I'm like, you know, instead of me getting angry about about what Jordan didn't do socially or politically, why don't I champion the people that are speaking out against that stuff, right?

SPEAKER_00 53:25

Because we talked about that in the podcast. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:31

Absolutely. And that's where and that's where I feel like people gotta give Braun as props compared to Jordan, because LeBron never thought about how me speaking out against this shit was will hurt my bottom line. LeBron has never done that, right? But but you also gotta look at the opposite side of that, right? Whereas that that responsibility is something that happens specifically with black athletes, where Larry Burr came from French Lake, Indiana, and French Lake, Indiana has an opioid crisis going on.

SPEAKER_03 53:59

That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_04 54:00

Nobody's like, oh, where's Larry talking about the pills going on in French Lake? You know what I'm saying? No, no. You know, you know, nobody expects that of the white athletes. And it's one of those things where it's kind of funny because it's basically like, you know, it when we talk about the Colin Kaepernick shit, we keep talking about the black football players to say something. I'm like, yo, where the fuck is Tom Brady? If Tom Brady said, yo, yo, matter of fact, that nigga can do whatever he wants at Tampa. If Tom Brady said, yo, make Kaepernick my backup.

SPEAKER_03 54:32

Oh, it's done. It's done. Argue with him. You know what I'm saying? And that's my favorite, well, my that's my favorite football player, too. That hurt my feelings. But you're right. He can Tom Brady, if he said it, it's gonna go. And I have to agree with you. There's a there's a different level of accountability and responsibility. But it's more so, it's it's it's like that little Spider-Man quote, you know, you you have all that, you have all that power and that responsibility. And for and for us, being in the minor quote unquote, in the minority of power, who whoever amongst us has a little bit of of influence. We give them so much weight on their shoulders. Yeah, I've been very, very kind to LeBron. I understand what he's doing, I understand how hard it is. Even with Jordan, part of the reason why he didn't do what he did, people don't realize is like the pressure that was under him. He was holding up the league by himself from the from through the whole 90s. It was just him. He took his little time off, they did a little Lajuan thing, but it mainly was Jordan all through the 90s. It's a lot of pressure.

SPEAKER_04 55:38

I mean, and that's what that's what I want to have some grace with it, right? Because again, when we argue about the people that aren't being out there, we we take away from the people that are doing it. So I would rather highlight things like doing it than to go to somebody be like, you should say something. You know what I mean? Because so when I wrote about the Jordan thing, right? Here's how, here's how I I made sense of it in my brain, right? If you got this, if you got this scale on the bottom end of the scale, as far as like black athletes, as far as like involvement in the community, on the bottom end of the scale, you got motherfucking OJ. Right? On the highest end of that scale of black athlete involvement, you got Ali. Jordan's somewhere in the middle. That's it. And that's fine. And that's fine. And that's fine. Like, you know what I'm saying? That's fine. Like, like, whatever. You know what I mean? So, so my thing is as far as like being an artist and being socially active, that's just something that I want to do. I had to, I had to lighten up over the years too, because it's like, you know, when you go to the strip club, you don't want to hear the roots. You don't have to answer the room.

SPEAKER_02 56:47

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 56:47

There's a time place for everything. So, so I so I had to lighten up on that stuff as well, where I'm basically like, you know, like who gives a fuck about Ja Rule at a time like this? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 56:58

Like, you know, it's like that shit is real.

SPEAKER_04 57:02

It's like 9-11. Why are we calling Ja Rule? And it's like, you know, I I get it, and that's not a disja rule, but like maybe maybe maybe it is. But like, yeah, but that but that's my thing, is it's that there's moments where, you know, we be wanting these people to speak out, and as soon as they say something, like, no, no, no, don't say nothing again. Call it back, exactly. You know, so my whole thing is like, you know, if you if you want to say something, say it. You know, if you don't want to say it, we got this. Like, stand back, we got this. You know what I mean? So, so that's how I feel about it. It's it's like, it's something that that I just feel that's just how I'm built. You know what I mean? Like, that's just this something that's just normal to me. Like, that's the that's the music that I make. All the art and the music that I love the most over the years, it's not just entertaining, but it's also there's a social awareness to it. Absolutely, you know?

SPEAKER_03 57:52

I want to build on that point that you just made. I have to agree with you, man, to the to the total to totally that I'd rather have people speak on things that actually care about it and have been informed than somebody just responding based off of emotion or because people told them that they have to. Exactly. Because then you get you get you get what you don't want from it and it's not effective. Yeah, but what you got white America on social media. Well, I think this. That's the thing, you you ready? I've and that's something hard, and that's this that's something new because social media got to deal with it. But I'd rather have something that is consistent and that's focused, and that you can see as, hey, every time I go back and look, yeah, these people over here talking like that, that's their echo chamber. But when I come over here, it seems like stuff's curated. Like they know what they're doing, like they're putting out this information on purpose and it's coming from the right way. Like, I don't want money bag yo talking to me about social conditions and how to create how to correct them after I've been listening to his music. Because it it's not gonna, it's it's gonna be like hearing that crazy person yelling on on social media about how they need to change this or that without any understanding of what's going on. I'd rather just go to somebody who's been doing this information, doing this work so I can know, hey, what I'm getting is a good product.

SPEAKER_02 59:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:09

You know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:10

I mean, and that's I think I think when people come to their conclusions, right, as far as who they want to be as artists, they just have to know that unless you go to that, go through that moment where you're saying, I want to speak out against these things, if you don't choose to do that, you can never, you can never be God like status or goddess-like status. All the people that we admire that are on those higher levels, they use their platform to speak out against that stuff. Jordan is just an odd puppy where it's it is such a he proves how rare he is because nobody else is going to be that big without saying anything. That's why I like it. That's why, you know, and black culture as a whole, we just love to see black people do well, even if, even if they don't reserve our love to all.

SPEAKER_02 59:56

I mean, seriously, like all seriously, think about this, think about this.

SPEAKER_04 59:59

The the only other person that I think was Jordan-like in their in their field that never said shit was Tiger Woods. And black people just embrace Tiger Woods. We love Tiger Woods, don't know what the fuck a parfort means, but we all excited. You know, and we just because we just embraced that. And there was nothing in the history of Tiger Woods, even now, that ever said that he gave a fuck about black community as a whole or the struggles we deal with. He was like, look, man, I'm at the masters, Donald Trump gave me an award, let's go.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:33

He's copper cuckoo blazer.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:35

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:37

But do you think it's selling your soul if you don't speak for your rights? I can't do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:43

I can't, I can't I can't do that because I can't say that, right? It's hard to put that in the world. I just I just hope if I was ever given that situation that power, I would just handle it differently, right? Because think about it, because think about this. Tiger's like, nigga, I just want to play golf. He didn't know if all this other stuff was gonna be involved with it. And so, and so, you know, just like Naomi Osaka.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:05

She just wanted to play tennis. She didn't want to, she didn't want to go and talk to these people afterwards about some bull.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:10

Yeah. Yeah. And so and so I I and so I get it with the tiger thing. Now, that might not mean that I'm gonna put him on my shoulders and and salute him because he's proven, because he's proven he doesn't deserve a lot of the embracing that a black community has done. You know what I'm saying? I mean, because say they have an OJ. Like OJ made it a clear point that he ain't fuck with black people for years. And all of a sudden, after he was acquitted, that motherfucker wearing dashikis and talking about like you my people. Like, no. No. No, no, no, no, no. You know, so so like the tiger, the tiger thing is just that's why it's just it's just interesting and more.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:46

It's a very good example though. It's weird. It's a good example though, because it further poo's like that weird point where I'll, and this is why I try to give black people the same freedoms everybody else has. If you're a white person and you and you're out here topping your field, whatever the field may be, you don't have to technically go out there and fight for quote unquote white people's rights. You don't have to. You can live your life, that's part of the privilege. You can live your life, you can enjoy yourself, make your money, and you will not be judged. Yeah. And nobody's asking Aaron, Aaron Rodgers to do anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:17

No. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:19

You know what I mean? And so, but so that's so that's kind of the burden that happens with you know, anybody that's black that's in a public situation. And it doesn't even have to be a it doesn't even have to be something famous national level. It's like, you know, I I know, I know that it's being in Columbia is not huge, but I understand, like, yo, like I'm one of the few, if not only, black columnist in the city. I take that seriously. You know what I'm saying? So it's something that I take to heart when I want to write about something, where it's just like, despite what people might feel about me, they might not like me personally, they might not can't stand me, they might think I'm too beige. They cannot call me. They cannot they cannot call me a Tom. They cannot call me a Tom. And I and I stand on that shit. That's something that I that I depend on, where I'm like, yo, every every aspect I've ever had where I can speak out anywhere, we're doing this podcast. I'm talking about police brutality against black or brown people. You know what I'm saying? Every platform I've ever had, I've done that. And maybe if I didn't do it as much, I'd be further along. Who knows? But however I'm built, I'm always talking about that. So people can say what people say what the fuck they want about P. He's no time. Not doing that.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:31

You know, do you have that Huey P. Newton slash Malcolm X syndrome? You know how they always say light-skinned brothers gotta go real hard.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:37

Well, listen, I talked about this in my I talked about this in my show, uh, Black as fuck. I call it uh I call it Beige Brilliance. So I like that. I like that. But but there's a there's a theory to it, right? Yeah, and I and I believe this. I I feel like when you look at the Malcolms and Huey P's, the Farrakhons, or even in hip hop culture, you look at the commons who was all like self-righteous at some point, and he I don't know, sweatings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dig it die, think it died, get die. But but what happened was I I think what happens is best way I can explain it. I used to write for this uh hip-hop publication in South Africa called Hype Magazine, and one of the women that worked for the publication was a black woman, and and we used to joke because she was a light-skinned complexion black woman, and her last name was Jacob, so we joked like you might be my long-lost South African cousin or something. And and she was telling she was telling me that, so we had this great conversation, she was telling me that she said, You need to come out here. She said they'll fucking love you. You're a hip hop artist, you're from South Carolina, you know, you're not from South Carolina, but you're from a hip-hop artist, you're from America, so they don't know what the fuck South Carolina is. And she said, I mean, you know, they don't give a fuck. You're American. You're American. They don't give a fuck about what state you come from, unless it's like, you know, New York. Other than that, they don't give a fuck. But but she's basically like, they'll invite you in their homes, they'll love you, they'll feed you. She's and she said, but they'll call you colored. And I'm like, what's colored? And she said, Oh, I'm colored. She said, that's the terminology they give to white-skinned black people in South Africa that basically says, We see European blood in you. And she said this to me. And she said it so casual, she didn't mean it as an insult. She says, you know, they'll have you in their homes, they'll feed you, you can chill here. She's like, but you're never family. Right? And she said it so matter-of-factly because she even puts herself in that category. Yeah. That she's basically like, oh yeah, that's just how it is. And so I feel that light-skinned black folks, they feel that, right? Where you have the idea of passing, where the idea of being light-skinned is this, oh, this advantage to get further along in the white world because, you know, there's a difference between Joe Lewis and Jack Johnson. You know what I'm saying? And there's a historical aspect to that too. I'll touch on that in a second. But it's like, you know, where in other facets, the whiter you are, the more comfortable white people feel because they feel like, oh, I see myself in them. But when it comes to embracing your black roots, you might feel like your blackness is always being questioned. So maybe psychologically, you're like, all right, well, shit, let me read the autobiography of Michael Max when I'm eight years old and wear dashikis and talk out against this shit. Or, you know, the difference between Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. Yes, yeah, you're right. Where Bob becomes this global icon because maybe it was a complexion thing. You know what I'm saying? So those are like real questions that happen. I'm not saying that Bob didn't speak up against those things, you know, but maybe he was in a position where he could have because he was embraced like that. So, you know, Jack Johnson's my favorite boxer of all time, and Jack Johnson is the first black heavyweight champion in 1910. And the terminology, the great white hope, came up because of Jack Johnson. Jack Johnson won the heavyweight championship. They wanted to take it away from this black dude. Jack Johnson wasn't just black, he was black. Like he was, when I say that, I don't mean just black, black, he's black, black. I don't mean I don't mean just complexion. There was a the terminology, there was an article written that said that Jack Johnson had unforgivable blackness, right? Oh my lord. So so that was the name of the documentary that came out about him. Unforgivable blackness. So imagine he's dark skinned, he got gold teeth, he's fucking around with white women, he's driving sports cars. They were like, yo, we have to get somebody to take this belt away from him. And so that's where the terminology, the great white hope, comes from, where the boxing commission tried to find any white person that beat him, and they ended up finding this six foot eight farmer. He wasn't even a boxer. They found a six foot eight farmer that weighed over three hundred pounds to fight him. And there was a fight that happened in Havana, Cuba.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:43

It's like a hundred degrees outside. Yes, he had. Crazy conditions.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:47

There's a picture that you see where after the fight, there's a lot of stuff that ended up happening where Jack Johnson wanted to come back to the United States because they tried to like send him to prison and all this type of stuff. Look, they tried to send him to prison with this thing called the Man Act. And the Man Act was this law that basically said, because he had a white wife or a white girlfriend at the time, and they took a train from one state to the next. But they basically said, oh, he she couldn't be your girlfriend because she's white, so we're going to treat her as a prostitute. So you took a prostitute from state to state that violates the man act. Let's send him to federal prison. So he runs away. He goes overseas, he goes to Canada, whatever. And so his mom gets sick, he wants to come back to the states, and they basically say, Alright, you lose this fight, we'll let we'll drop the charges. So he loses his fight in Havana, Cuba, and after he loses the fight, the Boxing Federation says, Alright, we're never gonna have another black champion boxer ever again. So they cancel that. So you're gonna have like the colored boxer division and all this type of stuff, whatever, whatever. So here lies Joe Lewis 20, 30 years later, because it's like 1930s popping up. Joe Lewis is the colored heavyweight champion, and he's fucking everybody up. And so what they do is they stage a fight, not for him to get a title fight, but for him to fight the second person, number two on the list. And it ended up being Jimmy Braddock, the guy that won that was the movie Cinderella Man was about. Joe Lewis fucks this guy up, right? And so all of a sudden the Boxing Federation is like, all right, the Boxing Commission is like, we'll let you fight for a heavyweight championship, but we gotta we got a set of rules for you. They were like, if you knock somebody down, if you knock a white man down, you can't smile, you can't cheer, you can't put your hands up, you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't be photographed of white women without somebody present. They have all these fucking rules for Joe Lewis. And and he agreed to do it, and that's how Joe Lewis became heavyweight champion. And so when you look at how he how he got in there, they basically was like, you can't be like Jack Johnson at all. That's it. And then when World War II happens, there becomes this thing where he's fighting this German boxer and it's like, oh, America, America versus Germany. And Joe believed that the country was behind him. But then after World War II, like we know on coming to America when they talk about that shit, Rock and Rock Shada, fuck Joe Lewis up, whatever, whatever. What happened was he's he's overseas helping with the war effort, doing exhibition boxing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like he's in the military helping, helping the war effort. And they ended up saying that he owed a bunch of money in taxes, which was bullshit. They could have waived it off or figured this thing, this thing out. He couldn't work, you know? So what happened was he had to get in the boxing ring to pay his taxes off. He was too old. He was almost 40 years old. Yeah. 74 years old. He fought, he fought against a 26-year-old Rocky Machiana, and Rocky Machiana was just like, I don't even want, I don't want to hit him because he was just so but I say that to say Joe Lewis found out kind of in the long run that as much as he tried to adjust to appease the boxing uh commission and thinking that America was going to embrace them, that after the war they had no use for him anymore. You know, and Joe Lewis is one of the greatest boxers of all time, and I love him to death. I'm a I'm obsessed about that. But but that's the Jack Johnson-Jee Lewis theory. You know what I'm saying? And so, and so they embraced Joe Lewis more because he was a light-skinned, beautiful dude, light-skinned dude, and they're like, oh, he's light-skinned. I could see myself in him. You know, Jack Johnson, mm-mm. They can't see that shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:13

So he had the nigga nose and the nigga lips and the nigga skin. Yeah, like he was like he was from Charleston.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:20

Yo, and he would not, and he would like smile about it. He would knock people out and laugh about that shit. You know what I'm saying? So that was that was the biggest thing. It wasn't just his complexion, it's just that you can't beat these white boys up and be happy about it. You know what I mean? So that was insulting.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:34

Imagine if you scored like a touchdown and then you started celebrating it. Like that would just destroy the sport. They won.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:42

They did that. That's what they they removed celebrations. And this was in the modern era. This is seven years ago. Seven, eight years ago.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:49

Listen, this is why when when white people tell me, you know, Tim Duncan is a great guy. Fuck you. You like Tim Duncan because he never said anything. Like Tim, Tim, it was like Tim Duncan, I've never seen Tim Duncan. Tim Duncan is droopy. He won a championship. He's like, I am so happy. Thank you. Like, I've never seen Tim Duncan cheer a day in my life.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:12

Yeah. Oh man, that was good. That ain't gonna lie, though. That's that's right on the money. He has it.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:19

Let's uh go into the lyricism. So, as you know, lyricism is the art of someone expressing their emotions in the imaginative and eloquent way. When you look at today's mainstream hip-hop artists, many believe that lyricism is gone. Most rappers believe they they are great storytellers. But what about weaving the tale? Do you believe that lyricism dead and gone? And what are your views on the way the new age generation present their music or come across? Do you feel like we grew up in a more authentic time period? And also, how important do you believe in affirmations and intentions in reference to what you believe and speak becomes reality?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:59

Does she go with it? I mean, you know, I'll be quick because I think I gotta go to work soon. But I never want to be that guy that is the old hip-hop dude punching his chest saying, like, it was better back in the day. I mean, because think about it like this. This is the way you gotta think about it. The era that we grew up in, right? When we grew up with the Wu-Tang shit, imagine, I remember to this day, the first time um I heard a cream, and it blew my fucking mind. I had no clue who these guys were. I was a kid listening to it on a tape that my cousin sent me from New York. Alright? I say that to say the way that we embrace Wu-Tang. Could you imagine the previous generation, the generation, how they might have looked at Wu Tang? Oh, you thought that thing was crazy. It made no sense. Yo, you you you feel you feel what I'm saying? Could you imagine Curtis Blows like, what the fuck is this? You know what I mean? Could you imagine Kumo D just being like, you know, Ray Kwan? His name ain't even Ray Kwan. Ray Kong, exactly. So so it's something that always happens, right? We just think our era is better because we just we're biased, you know? And so when I look at a lot of the stuff that's out now, if I don't, if I don't like it or if I don't fuck with it, that's fine. I'm not supposed to. That's the way I look at it. That's the way it's like. It's not made for me. It's not made for me. Exactly. So my argument is different, right? Like I do something every Friday on my on my Facebook page where I'm like, what y'all hoes listening to? Friday playlist. Because what I wanted to do was, I got sick of, and especially a lot of hip hop people that I know, we'll spend so much time complaining about shit we don't like, that as soon as you ask people, like, all right, well, big up what you are listening to, they don't know what to do. Yeah, right? Like, like, like people are so caught just wanting to be negative that they don't know how to salute and support what they're fucking with. So I don't talk about nothing I don't fuck with, right? And so the kids are gonna be alright. I think, I think they have um great lyricists, great artists out there. But I also but I also feel like, you know, hip-hop is sort of like it's sort of like, you know, life expectancy is different, right? Because it's like back in the day, you know, like Hallibury, man, Hallibury, 50 something years old, founding a motherfucker, right? Back in the day, back in the day, a woman's a woman turned 40, you're like, oh my gosh, she's on her way down. Like, no, nah, you give me a 40-year-old woman, like, we fucking, you know what I'm saying? So I say that the same way, I'm saying this jokingly, but I say that the same way with hip-hop, where it's just like back in the day, you couldn't see hip hoppers in their 30s rapping and their 40s rapping. My favorite rap is in their 40s and their 50s. So, so there's a career for all of these people out here. Like Benny the Butcher got put on at 37, so it's like 36. So, so what I feel with hip-hop culture is there's so much stuff out there I think that's I think that's important. That that you can make the music that you want and don't have to feel like you have pressure from a label because Roselda's made a career of never making a radio hit. Yep. You know what I mean? The conversation about music and how you consume it and how you make it is is totally different, right? So I think the kids are all right. Like I was listening to the little baby record, and I was like, all right, these niggas is rapping. I get it. You know what I mean? You know, let me let me go back to my feral munch. You know what I mean? So it's like, you know, I I embrace the things that that I really like. I do my my little DJ sets, I do something called law sessions that I've been doing at my house. And they're fine. Well, I just appreciate it. I make mixes and I put like just fly shit in there because I just I just want to embrace just dope music. And my whole thing is like I'm never gonna discourage young black people from creating. Because the more these young black kids are making music, the less they break it into my house taking my shit. Look, so please go record. Please stay out of my house. Don't leave me alone, right? And as far as like affirmations and stuff like that is concerned, I, you know, I know I was being facetious a little bit earlier. I do believe in that, right? I I do believe in putting your energy and and positive, yeah, positive reinforcement and direction. But I also feel that, you know, I do the I Ching and all that type of stuff. You know, I'm I'm a hippie at heart with a lot of that stuff, but I do feel that it has to be a balance to it, right? Where I feel like, I feel like there's this misguided thing that people make about their relationship with God, where they're basically like, you know what, you know, if I pray for it, God got me. And I don't think that's it. I don't think that's it. I feel like, I feel like God is gonna look at your work ethic, right? So if I say something that I want, you can be like, oh, well, I'm just gonna wait the God give it to me. God, like, all right, well, are you working towards this goal? Are you pushing to make this happen? You know, because there's a saying that goes, if you see a car broken down on the side of the street, people standing out by a broken down car. You're gonna drive past it. But if you drive it on a Straddle Street and you see people pushing a car up a hill, you're gonna come out of it, you're gonna get out of hell. Ooh, that's dope. You know what I'm saying? And that's how I feel about affirmations. It's like you gotta put yourself in a position where people see that you're trying to do it, and then they're gonna be motivated to help you. To just sit there and just think somebody's gonna save you from this shit. That shit don't happen, bro. You know what I'm saying? So, and I believe I believe that with the higher power too. Like, like God knows your heart, but God also looks at your work ethic. God's like, all right, are you working towards this? Are you really trying to figure this out? All right, well, let me sprinkle somebody in your life that's gonna help out with this. Let me let me give you a little bit on that scratch off. Big bang to help you buy that microphone or whatever. You know what I'm saying? So it's it's it's a lot of that stuff that I think it just it's it is a continuum. It has to work together with it. It's not just one thing. You know what I'm saying? So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:36

And I will I'm gonna chime in with this. I will say this, especially when it comes to hip hop. You gotta imagine the art form has only been around since 1978 in a commercial way, right? So, very much still babies in the game. This is why, like, it's our is we're gonna be the first generation that really gets to see a lot of our the people we watch like grow up and become grown and have children and move on to elder age, etc. And that's a gift as well. Also, you gotta remember, too, and I tease about this all the time: technology has made it easier. Like, we hip hop came from a place where basically they took all the music out of the school, they didn't have no instruments or anything like that. They were forced to rely on certain ways to create music. They made it happen anyways. As we continue to move on through generations, instruments came back, technology came back, access to studio time, etc. That stuff came back. So the music sounds gonna change the way people produce it, and it's also cheaper to produce music. So you have a lot of we have a larger influx of different ideas and creativity into the music cycle. Back in the day, they had a pretty locked locked grip on who they would allow through and who they wouldn't allow through. Nowadays, thanks to Soldier Boy. Soldier Boy, the internet rapper, it he changed the game. I'm telling you, every young rapper out here right now always tease about it, but they do they do owe him some respect because he gave a different way for you to actually take care of yourself and get your music out there to um to the masses. But I don't I don't fault them for for what they do or what they produce, but my big thing is this, and it is working on what you were saying about affirmation. A mantra. If I have people walking around 24-7, my music and my music and my mantra, all my music is about hurting people and stealing their chains. Somebody's gonna get their chains stolen and someone's gonna get hurt shortly. Because it is, I always tease, music is power, music is like a spell. So it's almost as if you're creating an incantation to put out there on wax or CD or digital, whatever it is, and it's gonna go out and it's gonna make its rounds. Whoever it touches influence, it will, and whoever it passes by will pass by them. But I say that to say, enjoy what you want to enjoy. Make sure you're taking it in, but just do so with some kind of balance and a key eye for what it is.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:59

Well, if that's the case, man, I've been rapping about motherfucking, I need to be rapping about having like a Ferrari and a million dollars that look, it's just like Joel Osteen with that with Joel Osteen, how he preaches.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:11

I always teased about this. That's why rappers back in the day used to say they just fake it until they make it. Like literally, that's what they would do. They'd fake it until they had that car. But there is some, there's there's power behind that. But like I said, I can't hate on the young folks, man. I can't hate on them at all.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:24

Absolutely. Kara Sworn talks a lot about that. He's an esoteric master now. Like he on that, he's on that deep, deep now.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:32

Well, yeah, well, he talked he talked about like making criminal minded and and Scott LaRock getting killed. You know what I mean? That's the point. Yeah. And so I I get it. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:40

So that's what's cool about it. It's it's not dealing with just this generation. It goes back. It goes back. They they were dealing with this back during when they were doing white lines. Like doing cocaine. Everybody was doing cocaine, having fun at the parties.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:53

Like, but you know, but but also as a journalist perspective, it's like if if I'm covering some terrible shit that's going on, that doesn't also mean that I'm um, you know, endorsing it, right? I think the problem.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:05

Yeah, you're incredible mantra from that.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:06

But but but I do but I do feel like this as far as like the way that uh Neil Brennan had his joke about slavery, where he was basically like, what ends up happening when white America doesn't believe that we're in so much pain, like when we're talking about the Serena Williams stuff and stuff like that, is that when we talk about our pain, that shit be sounding jamming, right? So it's just like the problem. It's like, but but but he said this, but he said, but he said, but think about this. He says, you know, you know, the one of the ideas that slavery is really tough is that he's like, we they had to make slave songs while while working in the field. He's just like, do you know how bad your work gotta be that you gotta start singing songs to get through that shit? You know what I'm saying? And you know, but he's like, but just imagine like the overseers is like, well, I guess they're cool, they're singing. You know, the gift and curse, the gift and the curse. Yeah, so so there's that balance with that stuff too, and that's why it's just like, oh, you know, when Kendrick is singing all right, oh, he said they're gonna be all right and they're dancing. He's like, no.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:10

That's all, because it balances that that idea perfectly. Um but but moving on, I know we don't want to hold you too long, and this is a great question dealing with that. Being a creative, of course, it can be a gift and a curse. Um, the gift is usually you're able to have unli see unlimited possibilities in the mundane. And the curse is being able to find the time to create. Oakley, you're well known for showcasing your talents, but not a lot is known about how you manage your time. And I know you're about to be busy and you got to get ready to go, but what are some ways you deal with time management and how has it affected your creative pursuit? I don't have any time management, and I mean that. Seriously, thank you being honest, thank you for being truthful.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:48

It's a podcast that you will understand.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:50

Like, I mean, I mean, because because, all right, there's there's two, there's two schools of thoughts when when being a creative, and and I'm gonna tell you the one that I adopted. Like back in the day, I used to feel like, yo, I'm gonna write every day. I'm gonna write music every day, I'm gonna try to, you know, record every day. Like that theory of like trying to work this and work this and work that. The other school of thought that I've learned is that, you know, every I say everything that I write or everything that I do is a love letter to their ancestors. So they gotta talk to me. And so what I do now is I create when I'm inspired. And so when it hits me, I'm ready to do it. So like back in the day, like, you know, when you listen to my podcast, I used to try to do it every week, every day, every day. Now I'm like, look, man, if I don't feel like fucking doing it, I'm not gonna do it. You know what I mean? Like, you know, and but but I do that in the sense of art, you know, I have to treat art in a way where I give it the proper respect that it deserves as opposed to treating it like treating it like, all right, well, you gotta put this out. Like, you know what I mean? Like, all right, we gotta do this, you gotta do that.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:51

Make it some levels.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:52

Yo, but I can't approach it like that. Some people can, like, right? You're you know, some people can make a party record like it's nothing, they can produce like it's nothing, whatever, whatever. And it probably in a in a financial situation where they can do that consistently or be in the environment where it can work like that. But you know, I got real nigga problems, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:07

Like I got I got I got bills.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:10

I got cut that out.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:13

My bad. I got bills. I got I got real nigga problems.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:20

You know, I got bills, I got work, you know. I have a family that that I'm looking after. I have a father that just got done with treatment for prostate cancer that I was keeping on the low about it, but his treatment is done, so I'm I'm gonna talk about it soon. And so, and so there's a lot of that stuff that happens, is where at the end of the day, you don't want to create, but you're always a creative, right? Like you're always like, all right, when the right time is for this or that, I'm gonna figure this out. You know what I mean? So that's how I look at it. So there's no managing of the time where it's like, hey, there's just discipline, I'm gonna be focused on this. But at this point, my creativity don't work like that anymore. It's like it I know it when I know it. Like when it's when it's time to bunker down and work on some shit, I know, I know when it hits me. I know, I know when it happens. And then when that happens, you don't see me for weeks, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:07

So explain it.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:08

Yeah, you know what I'm saying? So so my approach to it has been totally different. It's not something that I can have like militarized, set in time, that type of thing. And I feel like the work and the art is is better because of that.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:19

Yeah, well, wrapping up, I do want you to let some let our uh listeners know about some current projects you're working on. And also, if you could, of course, you got to do the social media roundup. If you can let our folks know where they can find you, where they can keep up to date on things that you're doing here in and around town. This stuff that I'm working on. I'm finishing an album up.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:40

Hopefully it'll be done soon. I'm working on Tall Black Guy, so we'll be finishing mixing the mask with these last couple of crack uh tracks. I have a 45 that's out right now, a song called Baptize off my analog project. It's limited edition baby blue vinyls, and then I have a record produced by Tall Black Guy featuring Sky Zoo called The Black. It should be the vinyl should be here next month. So please buy that. That's also gonna be linked to the ball.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:03

Hold me a copy of that blue 45. I almost forgot. I gotta go there and order my thing, man. Uh alright, I got you. I got you.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:09

I appreciate it, man. And you don't have to go to the website because the website charges shipping. So just cash at me. Just cash at me, and that's gonna you and save you a few bucks. But but yeah, you know, I I have these uh I have gear and merch on mobile to soul.com, M-O-B-E-T-T-A Soul.com, buy a shirt, black owned business, all that good stuff, or you can go to my website, preachjacobs.co, where I have my DJ, my DJ stuff that I do on there. Um law sessions, I used to go to literally to a law from throw these shows, but because of COVID, we couldn't go out anymore. So I just started filming me doing these little DJ sets on my crib. They're all free, they're all streamable. If you go to the website, you can see a video of the latest one, but you can also click on sessions and you can stream them from SoundCloud and even download them. My music videos are on there, all that other fly shit. If you want to donate to the cause, you know, cash out, dollar sign, more better soul, buy a brother a cup of coffee. Ain't gotta be nothing crazy. You know what I'm talking about. I drink it. You know what I'm saying? I get something dunking for three dollars, you know what I'm saying? My medium iced coffee is $2.96. I have exact change. You know what I'm saying? Yes, sir. Support your local artists. Yeah, support your local artists, you know. You know, and and um, you know, and and that's it. There's a lot of other stuff that I'm working on. Y'all see me DJing out here doing some stuff or or or performing really, really soon. But just keep up, follow me on all my social media. It's preach Jacobs on uh all my stuff. So Instagram and Twitter, the tweets and all that stuff. Yeah, just hit me up.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:28

Excellent. Well, this is gonna wrap up our episode today, a special Sunday episode of the Hilltop Glove Podcast. We want everybody to go out, be better, be good, have a great week. Stay safe out there, everybody.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:41

Yo, one last thing. I still got my pajamas on. I gotta get ready to go to work in five minutes. So I really love y'all that y'all got your got your boy. You know what I'm saying? So, yo, thank y'all so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:51

Peace. That's it for today's episode of the Hilltop Club Podcast. Make sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and other platforms. Also follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Hilltop Club.