Vollständiges Transkript von VILLAIN ORIGIN STORES: House Fires, Arrests & Evictions — From Philly to BILLIE EILISH | ARMANI WHITE

Dark Side? 00:02:05.680 --> 00:02:06.480 It'd be a pleasure. 00:02:06.719 --> 00:02:07.040 All right. 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:12.800 So here at Dark Side, um, we're oftentimes forced to make very difficult choices. 00:02:13.039 --> 00:02:15.599 So I'm gonna present you with a couple choices. 00:02:15.919 --> 00:02:16.960 Answer truthfully. 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:18.639 There is no right or wrong answer. 00:02:18.960 --> 00:02:22.240 So whatever you decide to come up with is your truth. 00:02:22.800 --> 00:02:24.879 This first one is called the predictive prison. 00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:33.759 Scientists invent an AI that predicts violent crimes with 100% accuracy before they will happen. 00:02:34.159 --> 00:02:39.199 The government arrests a citizen because the AI dictates that they will commit a murder tomorrow. 00:02:39.759 --> 00:02:40.800 You are the judge. 00:02:41.439 --> 00:02:44.159 If you release them, an innocent person dies. 00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:49.520 If you lock them up, you imprison someone who has technically done nothing wrong yet. 00:02:49.919 --> 00:02:52.319 Do you release them or convict them? 00:02:55.759 --> 00:02:56.639 You release them. 00:02:57.120 --> 00:03:00.960 I feel like you don't you can't put somebody in jail for something that they ain't do yet. 00:03:01.840 --> 00:03:06.319 Um because if that was the case, like a lot of people would be in jail. 00:03:06.719 --> 00:03:15.280 And then at some point you gotta have that you gotta give human beings that fork in the road to decide if they gonna go this way or go that way, but you can't make that decision for 'em. 00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:16.879 Even if it was a hundred percent. 00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:19.439 But what really is a hundred percent though? 00:03:19.520 --> 00:03:21.039 Like you know what I mean? 00:03:21.520 --> 00:03:26.639 Like what what what's happened that you can say for sure that you knew was gonna happen beforehand? 00:03:26.800 --> 00:03:27.120 I don't know. 00:03:27.199 --> 00:03:31.840 It's not that many preventative measures that that could have stopped like a lot of tragedies from happening. 00:03:32.080 --> 00:03:39.759 Do you have any uh experience with maybe being demonized for something before you actually did it? 00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:42.400 Yeah, I was demonized for a lot of things. 00:03:42.560 --> 00:03:46.639 I was demonized for a lot of things in regards to the You understand. 00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:53.360 I grew up before I was the cool smiley guy with the bees, I was just a badass kid. 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:58.080 And then when my mom moved me from the hood to the suburbs, I was just a badass kid over there. 00:03:58.159 --> 00:04:01.439 So a lot of times I wasn't even the kid that you could hang with. 00:04:01.680 --> 00:04:06.159 Just because of predictive measures of like, oh, I know he's gonna do something. 00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:09.439 And this is while growing up in West Philly. 00:04:09.599 --> 00:04:09.759 Yeah. 00:04:10.080

--> 00:04:18.399 Do you feel like you being a bad kid was being a product of your environment, or was it just you as an individual? 00:04:19.120 --> 00:04:20.160 Product of the environment. 00:04:20.480 --> 00:04:21.439 Product of the environment. 00:04:21.519 --> 00:04:27.040 Like in Philly, it's really like a you just gotta eat or be eaten. 00:04:27.199 --> 00:04:29.680 Like it's it's one of those type of things, prayer be prayed on. 00:04:29.759 --> 00:04:37.120 So like when you was younger, we just thought of it like we didn't really think about what was going on, what we was doing, how it impacted anything. 00:04:37.199 --> 00:04:40.959 It was just like it was just a code of conduct and we was just following protocol. 00:04:41.120 --> 00:04:42.160 Like I was a good kid. 00:04:42.560 --> 00:04:43.920 I was a I was a weird kid. 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:45.360 I was a weird kid at heart. 00:04:45.519 --> 00:04:47.519 I was super weird when I was in the house. 00:04:47.680 --> 00:04:52.319 It was just that when I left the house, the people who I was around, it just ended up being that. 00:04:52.480 --> 00:04:52.800 Yeah. 00:04:53.120 --> 00:05:01.839 I think for me, I also at a young age just experienced what I grew up later and realized was trauma. 00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:05.920 But I didn't really, I had this feeling like nobody could understand me. 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:12.959 So if nobody could understand me, then nobody can correct me when I'm doing something wrong because they don't know what I've been through to make me do that. 00:05:13.279 --> 00:05:16.720 And not to jump ahead, but obviously I'm a black man living in America. 00:05:17.120 --> 00:05:31.199 You're a black man living in America, and there's a lot of prejudice and a lot of stereotypes and preconceived notions about the types of people that we are, regardless of the circumstances or the cars that we've been dealt. 00:05:31.360 --> 00:05:36.480 What has been your experience being a black man in America dealing with these types of prejudices? 00:05:36.639 --> 00:05:48.959 Because you've already said that, you know, to a degree, a lot of that stuff might have been true based on your circumstances where you come from, uh, the way that you had to behave or carry yourself in order to either fit in or to survive. 00:05:49.120 --> 00:05:55.920 So how do you feel like now as an older person, but still potentially dealing with uh some of that same backlash? 00:05:56.160 --> 00:06:02.160 And that's the thing is like I never got in trouble for this shit I should have got in trouble for. 00:06:02.560 --> 00:06:04.959 I'm so calm now, like I'm chilling. 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:06.879 I play Mario Kart and shit like that. 00:06:07.040 --> 00:06:10.560 But now, you know, just last year I got arrested for being black. 00:06:10.639 --> 00:06:14.000 My, you know, going to jail for just for like nothing actually happened. 00:06:14.079 --> 00:06:18.399 It's just, oh yeah, you on the side of the road in the wrong neighborhood and that's your skin tone. 00:06:18.560 --> 00:06:27.600 Um, you start to experience that where it's like, damn, nigga, like, man, if y'all would have pulled up maybe like 15 years ago, you might have a case, but like now it ain't really, you know. 00:06:27.759 --> 00:06:29.519 I had to, I had to learn that though. 00:06:29.680 --> 00:06:39.519 I had to learn that because in Philly you have, you have white people, but like white culture, I guess, if that's a thing, doesn't exist in Philly. 00:06:39.600 --> 00:06:45.600 It's like there's Italians, and then it's just everything else, like the what Philadelphia culture is Italians. 00:06:45.759 --> 00:06:54.079 There's like Phillies that say yews and shit like that, like that, like the ones that, you know, talk like they say uh water and shit like that, like those type of people. 00:06:54.319 --> 00:06:59.920 But then you have majorities, primarily black people, it's Muslims, it's like, you know, it's just a whole bunch of that. 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:04.560 So uh I never got to experience racism until later in life. 00:07:04.800 --> 00:07:05.279 You know what I mean? 00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:08.720 I didn't, I didn't really see, my mom moved to uh in high school. 00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:12.079 My mom was just trying to get me away from the bullshit. 00:07:12.319 --> 00:07:14.879 She didn't realize that I was the bullshit. 00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:20.879 And so she would move me from one neighborhood and I would just end up getting in something, then move me to another neighborhood. 00:07:20.959 --> 00:07:25.199 I just end up getting in stuff, and she moved me at some point to just like all white. 00:07:25.279 --> 00:07:26.160 It was all white. 00:07:26.319 --> 00:07:28.720 And at that point, we like out of the city. 00:07:28.959 --> 00:07:32.480 That's when I'm like, oh shit, racism is a thing. 00:07:32.560 --> 00:07:35.519 Like, that's like that's not just some shit y'all talk about, like in class. 00:07:35.600 --> 00:07:37.519 Like, this is still going on, you know? 00:07:37.759 --> 00:07:42.800 So you talked about your mom, you talked about growing up in Philly, um, moving to different areas. 00:07:42.959 --> 00:07:45.439 I'm from DC, so I've spent a lot of time in Philly. 00:07:45.519 --> 00:07:45.600 Yeah. 00:07:45.759 --> 00:07:46.879 I've had a lot of Philly nights. 00:07:46.959 --> 00:07:48.079 I know how it gets down. 00:07:48.240 --> 00:07:49.759 I love the culture out there. 00:07:49.920 --> 00:07:52.959 So this is uh this is a very interesting story for me. 00:07:53.199 --> 00:07:55.600 What was your household like growing up? 00:07:55.759 --> 00:08:01.439 So we talked about what it was like outside, but what was it like in your home, uh, your family dynamics? 00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:02.560 How did you grow up? 00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:04.879 I didn't have one house that I grew up in. 00:08:05.040 --> 00:08:06.000 So I grew up. 00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:10.319 Um, I

had my mom's house, obviously, uh, it's me and my sister. 00:08:10.480 --> 00:08:11.920 Then it was my dad's house. 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:13.759 And my dad's house was on Catherine Street. 00:08:13.839 --> 00:08:19.120 That's where I like that was where I had my childhood at was outside, like the whole block knew me as Jeep Jeep. 00:08:19.279 --> 00:08:20.720 That was my childhood nickname. 00:08:20.879 --> 00:08:24.720 And uh my mom moved around a little bit, and I had an aunt, um, my aunt Kathy. 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:30.800 She lived in South Philly for the majority of um of my childhood, and then she moved to um Southwest. 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:46.080 But those houses, all three of those houses, and my mom split between, like she, my mom was moving to a bunch of different houses, but uh she also had a place with my aunt Marmar on 50s, again on 52nd Street off of Cat, like three blocks down from Catherine on Addison Street. 00:08:46.159 --> 00:08:54.720 So I spent a lot of my time between Catherine and Addison Street, like a three, four block radius, and then South Philly with my aunt and with my mom. 00:08:54.960 --> 00:09:01.120 But yeah, it was a loving, I was a little more or less, but it was just like the love was dispersed. 00:09:01.519 --> 00:09:02.240 Yeah, for sure. 00:09:02.480 --> 00:09:12.960 I think, and I had I can resonate that with that a lot because growing up, I had to move from different places early in life, left living with my mom to go live with my grandparents. 00:09:13.120 --> 00:09:25.279 And I think at an early age, what that can do is cause you to grow up very quickly because you have to learn to be quick on your feet and adapt to different environments, even if it is your family members and a loving environment. 00:09:25.360 --> 00:09:27.679 So how old was your mom when she had you? 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:29.120 My mom was 28 when she had. 00:09:29.360 --> 00:09:29.679 28. 00:09:29.759 --> 00:09:29.919 Yeah. 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:35.440 I mean, you don't realize, like, I mean, now that we like 28 and shit, like you realize, like, damn, we still kids. 00:09:35.600 --> 00:09:36.240 You know what I mean? 00:09:36.399 --> 00:09:40.159 And so, like, when you're a kid, you look at a 28-year-old like a full-grown adult. 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:43.440 But I think it it makes that that's what happens often. 00:09:43.519 --> 00:09:49.120 It's like no real, you know, like how many people you think is like just, oh no, it was just me and my mom, and we just figured that shit out. 00:09:49.200 --> 00:09:51.039 Like, it's like most people spend time split. 00:09:52.159 --> 00:09:53.759 I I agree with that a hundred percent. 00:09:53.919 --> 00:09:56.399 Cause I'm I have uh an eight-year-old. 00:09:56.480 --> 00:10:00.240 Yeah, and uh he was born when I was really young. 00:10:00.320 --> 00:10:00.480 Yeah. 00:10:00.720 --> 00:10:05.600 And I'm like, dang, I'm older, I'm younger having a kid than my mom was when she had me. 00:10:05.919 --> 00:10:06.080 Yeah. 00:10:06.399 --> 00:10:10.240 When I was seven, eight years old, I thought she was like super old. 00:10:10.399 --> 00:10:10.879 You know what I mean? 00:10:10.960 --> 00:10:12.559 I thought she was super mature. 00:10:12.799 --> 00:10:22.480 And I think about what it would have been like to be in her shoes at that time, you know, as a black woman living in the UK, single, raising a boy. 00:10:22.639 --> 00:10:29.600 You gotta really look at your parents if they are the people that are present in your life and making those sacrifices and taking care of you as superheroes. 00:10:29.919 --> 00:10:30.960 You were living in the UK. 00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:35.200 I I was born in Rhode Island, but I moved to the UK when I was really young. 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:37.600 So I lived in the UK until I was about eight or nine years old. 00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:38.080 Gotcha. 00:10:38.240 --> 00:10:43.679 But it's great to know that even though you moved around, uh you were in a loving household. 00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:48.879 I would say, what did your household or your households, what did they sound like while you were growing up? 00:10:49.039 --> 00:10:50.559 What was the music that they were listening to? 00:10:50.799 --> 00:10:52.639 Uh about to say the household was chaos. 00:10:53.600 --> 00:10:54.399 The household. 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:55.759 They loved me, but it was chaos. 00:10:55.919 --> 00:10:57.039 It was tough love for sure. 00:10:57.200 --> 00:11:00.159 Um the music, James Brown. 00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:08.559 My mom only listened to, my mom only listened to James Brown, Kirk Franklin, Michael Jackson, and WDAS is the radio station out there. 00:11:08.639 --> 00:11:10.639 That was a shit Steve Harvey morning show. 00:11:10.799 --> 00:11:15.279 Um, and my dad was where I had to go find rap music. 00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:15.919 He listened. 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:17.759 That was where I got all my Eminem CDs. 00:11:17.840 --> 00:11:20.159 My mom would buy the clean version, he would get me the dirty version. 00:11:20.639 --> 00:11:25.200 And uh now I'm discovering now, I'm discovering like ludicrous, yin-yang twins. 00:11:25.279 --> 00:11:30.639 He had a um, he had a Jeep, and then he switched the Jeep over to the Specifica, but he cranked the shit up until you get tinnitus. 00:11:31.039 --> 00:11:33.600 Like your ears all the way, you know. 00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:37.519 Um, and so that was where I listened to a lot of that. 00:11:37.679 --> 00:11:43.679 And then with my aunts, my aunt Kathy, that was a little more like Philly had its own scene at the time. 00:11:43.759 --> 00:11:48.639 So you had Meek, you had Reed Dallas, you had Joe Giatt, like all of that like DVD scene. 00:11:48.799 --> 00:11:50.399 Um, we just listened to that. 00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:51.600 We had our own little culture. 00:11:51.679 --> 00:11:53.519 So it was like, you know, and it felt homegrown. 00:11:53.679 --> 00:11:55.039 It felt

like we were attached to it. 00:11:55.279 --> 00:11:58.080 Before we got on this point, you said that your house was actually chaos. 00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:00.080 I want to jump back into that real quick. 00:12:00.399 --> 00:12:02.080 Because that was that was a quick one. 00:12:02.240 --> 00:12:05.039 So it was a loving household, but there was a lot of chaos. 00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:06.320 Can you speak to what that chaos? 00:12:06.879 --> 00:12:09.679 They love they loved me. 00:12:09.919 --> 00:12:11.360 My household loved me. 00:12:11.679 --> 00:12:17.679 My household at the same time wasn't the most, I mean, it was just it was a single parent household. 00:12:17.759 --> 00:12:19.519 So you had to imagine something happened. 00:12:19.600 --> 00:12:30.559 Like, my father and my mom, they had a very tumultuous relationship that she she hates me even talking about it, but like they their thing was they just clashed a lot. 00:12:30.720 --> 00:12:38.799 So majority of my early childhood was me watching things be good and then be really bad, and then things be good and then really bad. 00:12:38.960 --> 00:12:55.039 What made me even f feel like writing music was me screaming for my mom, like, and my mom and my dad were arguing, get into a fight or whatever, um, not physical, but get into it, and I'm screaming for somebody to like stop, stop, stop. 00:12:55.279 --> 00:12:56.159 It never happened. 00:12:56.320 --> 00:13:00.320 And at that point, I was like, my voice doesn't work. 00:13:00.879 --> 00:13:05.440 My, you know, anytime I speak, it's not actually clicking, it's not connecting, so I stopped speaking. 00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:08.480 I just for a while, it was just like I I have nothing, no words. 00:13:08.559 --> 00:13:18.799 It wasn't until I started writing music that I felt like the voice that I was trying to, you know, portray or or like yell in that moment was actually coming back to me. 00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:26.639 But it was a lot of, I think it was it was tough love amongst the entire, like, just the community. 00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:30.720 It was because we weren't in like, my mom was in a uh, you know, very good situation. 00:13:30.799 --> 00:13:34.480 My mom twice graduated, I want to say, like, master's degree. 00:13:34.720 --> 00:13:37.440 So, like, like my mom, very educated woman. 00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:45.360 Uh, my dad dropped out of high school, um, he was selling drugs, like, you know, moving through the streets at one point. 00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:52.320 Um, and my aunt, she was, she had a uh heart on her for the most of, you know, for the majority of the time. 00:13:52.480 --> 00:13:59.840 So growing up between different households, it was like my mom was like sometimes a piece, you know, serenity, but a lot of times we just butt head. 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:04.960 So I would go away and go to the places that weren't as well built and put together. 00:14:05.200 --> 00:14:05.840 And yeah. 00:14:06.159 --> 00:14:15.919 That's a unique perspective, which I'm sure a lot of people can resonate with, but we always kind of talk about uh and glamorize and glorify what it's like to grow up in a two-parent household. 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:16.320 Yeah. 00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:26.080 But there is something unique there about when you do grow up with your parents being split up, there's almost like two different universes that you can kind of jump in and out of. 00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:37.840 I never really thought about the idea of like, okay, well, you know, because I my father was in my life, but I wasn't able to spend a lot of time with him, either because of distance or because of schedule. 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:44.720 So if me and my mom did butt heads, it wasn't a situation where I could go to like my dad's house, and it would be a different environment altogether. 00:14:44.879 --> 00:14:47.919 So I I think that's a really um unique perspective. 00:14:48.080 --> 00:14:48.559 It's it's cool. 00:14:48.639 --> 00:14:55.200 It's like, cause you gotta understand, like, my mom had moved to a suburb outside of Philly when I was in middle school. 00:14:55.360 --> 00:14:57.360 Uh, and I was still in Philly. 00:14:57.519 --> 00:15:02.639 So I'm taking trips back and forth to Philly to the suburb. 00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:06.000 When I'm in Philly, everybody doing this. 00:15:06.159 --> 00:15:08.960 Niggas is throwing, throwing shit at the cars driving by. 00:15:09.039 --> 00:15:13.679 We running out and doing this, this, and that, that, that home, he robbed niggas and he steal cars out. 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:21.279 So my mentality is like, if I do the little bit amount of shit, I'm not that bad because these niggas do a lot of shit. 00:15:21.360 --> 00:15:23.679 And I take that mentality to the suburbs. 00:15:23.919 --> 00:15:30.080 Now I'm fucking up because, you know, that ain't really what the like just the course of action is over there. 00:15:30.240 --> 00:15:38.559 So um, so then at a time, I start becoming a part of the seas being planted around what's making this area bad. 00:15:38.639 --> 00:15:39.440 You get what I'm saying? 00:15:39.519 --> 00:15:51.279 But it's really the root of it, is like you had, I found a lot of other Philly kids that was either moved there or, you know, like their the parents, they found a loophole of like I can get my kid out of the Philly school system and put them in this nicer school system. 00:15:51.360 --> 00:15:52.720 And that's what my mom did. 00:15:52.879 --> 00:15:55.679 And eventually, if the school system finds out, they kick you out. 00:15:55.840 --> 00:16:00.000 But for that little moment when they don't find out, we just riding a high and we just fucking shit up. 00:16:00.799 --> 00:16:01.120 For sure. 00:16:01.200 --> 00:16:07.519 Yeah, where I um went to middle school and high school, it's a place called Laurel, Maryland, in Peachee County. 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:08.000 Yep, I know where. 00:16:08.399 --> 00:16:11.200 And

uh, it's right in the middle of DC and Baltimore. 00:16:11.600 --> 00:16:19.440 So if you're like an inner city kid and you're the same situation, your parents are like, okay, we want to move to the suburbs, they tend to move to Laurel because it's like right in the middle. 00:16:19.840 --> 00:16:23.519 So we had a lot of kids that were from DC, from Southeast, from Northeast. 00:16:23.600 --> 00:16:25.440 We had kids that were from Baltimore. 00:16:25.679 --> 00:16:28.720 And uh it was it was kind of a melting pot in that way. 00:16:28.799 --> 00:16:32.879 It was like those were the kids that were coming, they would have that like inner city energy. 00:16:32.960 --> 00:16:37.279 Um, but then there were also kids from where we were from that wanted to be from where they were from. 00:16:37.440 --> 00:16:37.759 Exactly. 00:16:37.919 --> 00:16:42.080 So it was like uh, you know, everyone was kind of competing to see who could be like the hardest and stuff like that. 00:16:42.320 --> 00:16:43.200 So that's interesting. 00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:56.879 So going back to the music, um, your father, well, you both of your parents introduced you to hip hop, but I also think it was really special where you talked about the fact that when they would argue, your voice wasn't really heard in those moments. 00:16:57.039 --> 00:17:04.960 And how eventually you kind of turned to hip-hop as a place to express yourself and really voice, yeah, voice who you were. 00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:07.759 What was the content that you were rapping about? 00:17:07.839 --> 00:17:09.759 It says you started rapping in second grade, is that correct? 00:17:09.839 --> 00:17:10.720 Yeah, yeah, I wasn't rapping by. 00:17:11.680 --> 00:17:13.200 What was the content that you were rapping about? 00:17:13.359 --> 00:17:27.200 Were you rapping about what was happening in your household or just um a little bit, like I touch on it, but it was more like when I was in second grade, I thought that uh I still didn't have a separation. 00:17:27.279 --> 00:17:28.160 I still don't to this day. 00:17:28.240 --> 00:17:32.880 I still didn't I didn't have a separation between cartoon and reality. 00:17:33.200 --> 00:17:37.440 So in my head, when I wrote, I was writing as a cartoon character. 00:17:37.599 --> 00:17:46.400 I was like, my brain was like, at some point I'm gonna turn into a Super Saiyan, or like at some point in my life, I'm gonna go Super Saiyan, I'm gonna turn into Sonic the Hedgehog. 00:17:46.480 --> 00:17:47.519 I don't fucking know what it is. 00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:59.519 But I would write these songs almost as if I was these people or in these people's universes, and I would like go, can I put these Disney characters against these Cartoon Network characters and just make them like go to war with each other? 00:17:59.599 --> 00:18:05.599 And uh that that was more so like just exercising over time, that was where it started. 00:18:05.680 --> 00:18:21.440 By fifth grade was when I started

to rap a little bit more about like household and you know, and like I started to have form actual opinions, what's going on in my life, like what like I'm able to understand this and articulate it and vocalize it. 00:18:21.599 --> 00:18:28.400 And um, by then that's when the music became a little more like it started to describe the environment more than anything. 00:18:28.480 --> 00:18:30.160 It started to become the rough exterior music. 00:18:30.319 --> 00:18:32.000 50 Cent was cool as fuck at the time. 00:18:32.079 --> 00:18:35.519 So it was like, damn, this is like, this shit is cool. 00:18:35.759 --> 00:18:49.200 Um and it's fucked up because like, you know, now I see a bunch of, I'm glad watching like hip-hop evolve into this thing where everybody's more mature, niggas got girlfriends, niggas got, you know what I'm saying, fathers and shit. 00:18:49.359 --> 00:18:58.319 When hip-hop was hip-hop at my age, like a little ass kid, it was no girlfriends, no wives, and no dads, nigga. 00:18:58.400 --> 00:19:08.559 And like me and my dad was already, it was rocky, not because of our relationship actually being rocky, but their relationship being rocky, and I would just push that on to my dad. 00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:14.640 My mom would tell me not to, but I would still just be like, nah, nigga, you ain't, like, I just need an excuse to not like you. 00:19:15.039 --> 00:19:15.920 You feel me? 00:19:16.079 --> 00:19:18.960 And um, so I started to just rap about all of that. 00:19:19.039 --> 00:19:22.559 I started to put, you know, try and put those things, those thoughts in a paper. 00:19:22.799 --> 00:19:31.519 Most people know me as a singer, but um, I had a somewhat extensive early rap career, and I kind of started rapping in high school. 00:19:31.599 --> 00:19:38.720 I I like there were a lot of talented rappers that went to my school at the time, like local artists, and I wanted to be like them. 00:19:38.880 --> 00:19:48.640 So I would be in like computer class writing raps and stuff, and it would uh it would be anything that I could do to be more like Lil Wayne and what he did on like there. 00:19:49.200 --> 00:19:50.400 And all that was a thing. 00:19:50.480 --> 00:19:54.960 And you're right, to the point of like uh the role models that were presented to us. 00:19:55.039 --> 00:19:57.759 I think the only rapper that had a wife was Jay-Z. 00:19:58.079 --> 00:19:58.240 Yeah. 00:19:58.400 --> 00:20:00.000 And I mean, we know Beyoncé, yeah. 00:20:01.279 --> 00:20:06.799 So it was like if you're gonna have a wife, is gonna be the most successful woman in the music industry, essentially. 00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:13.440 So, but one thing that also helped me kind of develop my uh my skill set was rapping in church. 00:20:13.680 --> 00:20:19.359 So joined like if we had a little rap group in church or whatever, and I was kind of learned under the guys that were working. 00:20:19.440 --> 00:20:24.319 Um, it says here that you, your family had a presence in church and you kind of grew up in church as well. 00:20:24.480 --> 00:20:27.440 Can you talk to me about what that was like and how it had an impact on the church? 00:20:27.680 --> 00:20:28.319 I sang in church. 00:20:28.400 --> 00:20:29.680 I did the, I did the opposite. 00:20:30.559 --> 00:20:34.480 I sang in church, but then I um our church was in the hood. 00:20:34.559 --> 00:20:36.559 It was on 40th and Baron Street, still is. 00:20:36.720 --> 00:20:38.720 Um, and me and my homie Hawk. 00:20:38.960 --> 00:20:43.519 Um, Hawk lived in a project, or he lived in a street home across the street, but he hung out in the projects. 00:20:43.599 --> 00:20:46.319 He was like a, like he was of that environment. 00:20:46.640 --> 00:20:48.079 Hawk is who taught me. 00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:50.240 He taught me how to download instrumentals. 00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:51.920 He told me like where to find them. 00:20:52.000 --> 00:21:02.240 And he would just, I would download them on a CD, and then we just sit in my mom's car in the parking lot, and we just play the CD and rap, just go back and forth rapping songs or whatever. 00:21:02.319 --> 00:21:04.640 Then we go in the bathroom, we be rap in the bathroom. 00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:13.440 I got, I got a video on my old, I don't know what hard drive, what flash drive, but it's a video of us all in the bathroom just rapping uh at the church. 00:21:13.519 --> 00:21:17.920 But that was, that was a lot of where it started at with the rap, but I also, I was just singing. 00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:22.000 So I was, we had uh Greater Faith was um our church. 00:21:22.160 --> 00:21:29.759 We also split, my family grew up in uh House of Prayer churches, so I also split my time between Greater Faith, my first time being baptized, was in the house of prayer. 00:21:29.839 --> 00:21:39.440 I'm not sure if you're familiar with House of Prayer, but it's like like James Brown's and Braxton's and all of those, like they all go to the house of prayer, and they had like these big horn sections. 00:21:39.519 --> 00:21:43.759 So all of like, you know, my uncles, they all played a tr uh trombone trumpet. 00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:50.240 Um, grandfather, he played a trombone, like all of them played brass instruments in the house of prayer. 00:21:50.319 --> 00:21:54.319 And I wanted to play a brass instrument so bad when I was a kid, bro. 00:21:54.480 --> 00:21:55.119 But yeah. 00:21:55.440 --> 00:21:56.880 Did you ever end up playing? 00:21:57.119 --> 00:21:59.279 I tried trumpet for like three weeks, it was over. 00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:01.119 That's crazy. 00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:03.440 The bugs on my lips, I'm cool. 00:22:03.920 --> 00:22:04.480 Exact same. 00:22:04.640 --> 00:22:09.359 I I tried Trumpet as well, but they my family got tired of me making so much time. 00:22:09.839 --> 00:22:16.079 I think it's um, you know, something that we don't necessarily talk enough about is the impact of church in the black community.

00:22:16.559 --> 00:22:28.720 Now there's like there's a lot of good to be said about it, there's a lot of bad to be said about it, but uh regardless of where you stand on that, I think there is a lot to be said about how it is an incubator for um talent. 00:22:28.799 --> 00:22:30.319 It's an incubator for community. 00:22:30.480 --> 00:22:35.920 If you think of all of like the best musicians in the industry, a lot of them had their start in church, right? 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:49.519 We I had an interview uh with someone previously where we talked about how church was a community center and it was a space where for a lot of our parents, um it was probably their only source of social interaction with other people. 00:22:49.599 --> 00:22:50.799 So I never thought of it like that. 00:22:51.119 --> 00:23:00.799 So it's always cool to see um how church continues to have an impact on uh people and how they take the things that they learn there into their greater development. 00:23:01.119 --> 00:23:06.960 One of the deepest things I learned from church, um, I ran the soundboard at the church. 00:23:07.119 --> 00:23:15.200 But what that meant was not just running the soundboard on Sundays, that was running choir rehearsal on Thursdays, and that was running the funerals on Saturday. 00:23:15.519 --> 00:23:18.640 And I would be there every Saturday for a funeral. 00:23:18.799 --> 00:23:23.119 People come in crying, holding their moms, holding their grandparents and everything. 00:23:23.279 --> 00:23:28.079 And I'd be in the back, my my Nintendo DS, you know what I'm saying? 00:23:28.160 --> 00:23:31.279 Like playing and playing video games, playing it on the Game Boy Advance. 00:23:31.440 --> 00:23:41.200 And in that moment, I realized though, no matter how deep your tragedy is, what you're going through, there's someone in the world who doesn't care. 00:23:41.359 --> 00:23:48.480 Like they're just completely disconnected, completely like desensitized to whatever it is you're going through, because that doesn't mean anything to them. 00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:50.079 It doesn't impact their actual life. 00:23:50.160 --> 00:23:56.559 So I'm sitting in the room with the dead body of your loved one, and I'm in the back, like, man. 00:23:56.720 --> 00:23:58.559 I'm just trying to run this store real quick. 00:23:58.640 --> 00:23:59.519 Like, you know what I'm saying? 00:23:59.599 --> 00:24:04.079 And this is like one of the most painful days of your life, and I can't even connect to it. 00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:12.319 Uh, but I had to learn that in those moments, like, and it was, it was just helpful for me with learning how to like deal with my own trauma and like push it out. 00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:17.759 It's like, yo, you can try and be destructive all you want, but somebody doesn't care. 00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:20.160 You know, somebody's not that understanding. 00:24:20.400 --> 00:24:21.359 Yeah, there's two sides of that. 00:24:21.519 --> 00:24:24.640 One is

the side of like learning to have as much empathy as you can. 00:24:24.799 --> 00:24:25.200 Absolutely. 00:24:25.359 --> 00:24:30.559 Um, but the other side is that a lot of the things that you deal with and you go through are for you. 00:24:30.720 --> 00:24:35.039 And it doesn't necessarily matter how many other people want to share the same sentiment as you. 00:24:35.200 --> 00:24:39.839 I guess as long as you're able to express yourself, that's kind of the most important thing on an individual level. 00:24:40.160 --> 00:24:43.680 All right, church, church is definitely that's crazy the church being a community center. 00:24:43.759 --> 00:24:44.480 That's that's cool. 00:24:44.720 --> 00:24:48.640 At what point did you decide that you wanted to be an entertainer, right? 00:24:48.799 --> 00:24:55.039 So, like you got these reps singing in church, working uh on the sound team, media team, for example. 00:24:55.279 --> 00:25:00.079 Your parents introduce you to different music, you're rapping as a place of expression. 00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:04.079 When did you decide, okay, I actually wanna be a rapper? 00:25:04.559 --> 00:25:05.279 That early. 00:25:05.440 --> 00:25:07.680 I was like fifth, sixth grade. 00:25:07.759 --> 00:25:11.039 I was, I was trying to get, I started a rap group with all my friends. 00:25:11.119 --> 00:25:12.720 It was me, Malcolm, Jameer. 00:25:12.799 --> 00:25:14.960 Like, I remember it, and I was writing they raps. 00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:16.640 I'm like, yo, look, this is the group name. 00:25:16.720 --> 00:25:18.160 We used to call Bootleg Productions. 00:25:18.240 --> 00:25:24.079 I was like, this is the group name, and I need, you know, you gonna do this, you gonna rap about this, then I'm gonna rap about this, you gonna do the hooks. 00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:26.160 Uh, my homie Reese, he was gonna do the hooks. 00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:29.519 Like, right that early, I was like, I'm gonna be a rapper. 00:25:29.599 --> 00:25:32.000 I don't know how, I have no idea how this goes. 00:25:32.319 --> 00:25:36.240 Uh my mom, she knew uh Kenny Gamble. 00:25:36.319 --> 00:25:41.759 Uh, my grandmom knew Kenny Gamble, so they sent, like, they're there, she'd be like, burn a CD, I'm gonna bring it to Kenny Gamble. 00:25:41.839 --> 00:25:46.480 Like, you know, so in my head, I was like, somehow, some way, I'm gonna get to this point. 00:25:46.640 --> 00:25:51.200 I have no idea how, what the roadmap is, but that's the landing strip. 00:25:51.440 --> 00:25:51.759 Wow. 00:25:52.079 --> 00:25:56.880 Were your community members, your family, uh, your friends, were they supportive? 00:25:57.119 --> 00:25:57.680 Fuck no. 00:25:58.319 --> 00:25:58.720 What? 00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:02.559 Um, I had a homie named Keem. 00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:10.000 I had a homie named Keem who Keem used to uh sell weed with me at the gas station. 00:26:10.319 --> 00:26:12.799 And Keem would, we would take turns. 00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:17.839 His mom got him a uh a

mic, like a hundred dollar mic off of eBay. 00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:23.119 So we would take turns, one of us would like put it in little bags and press record, and the other one would rap. 00:26:23.200 --> 00:26:25.759 And we'd do it for an hour, and then be like, all right, yo, it's my turn. 00:26:25.920 --> 00:26:30.000 And then I and then I would rap, and he would bag it up and then take turns recording it. 00:26:30.079 --> 00:26:36.720 And I don't even know if I was actually, he might have been more probably pushing it more than I was, but like that was my studio setup at the time. 00:26:36.799 --> 00:26:37.839 It was like we was recording it. 00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:39.599 And back then you didn't have compressors and shit. 00:26:39.680 --> 00:26:44.240 You just recorded your vocals three times until it sounded big on the record. 00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:49.200 And yeah, but nobody, nobody made it, you know? 00:26:49.359 --> 00:26:52.880 Like nobody, no, nobody came out alive and was like, yo, we actually gonna be a rapper. 00:26:52.960 --> 00:26:57.119 King used to lie to me and tell me that, yo, man, like my cousin is in state property. 00:26:57.279 --> 00:26:58.720 I got it, as we gonna get on. 00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:05.359 Like, and you know, but it just, it was, it became a thing where it just started seeming further and further away from what was actually gonna happen. 00:27:05.599 --> 00:27:08.319 My uncle was a rapper. 00:27:08.559 --> 00:27:12.559 My other uncle, he was his DJ or producer or whatever. 00:27:12.799 --> 00:27:20.000 Um, other uncle is a singer, like music was just running through my entire family, but it never worked out. 00:27:20.240 --> 00:27:23.519 So by the time it got to me, I'm telling my mom that shit. 00:27:24.160 --> 00:27:25.839 Boy, if you don't shut the fuck up. 00:27:25.920 --> 00:27:26.480 You know what I'm saying? 00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:35.519 And it wasn't it was from a place of love, but it was just like, I've seen how many of my brothers waste their life trying to chase this thing and it not work out. 00:27:35.599 --> 00:27:44.480 I'd rather you actually have something set up for yourself rather than you just run at this thing and then nothing happens and you just sitting there like, oh, well, I gave it all, you know, I gave it all I had. 00:27:44.799 --> 00:27:53.519 What do you think it is that leads, I have I have thoughts, but what is it that you think leads us to want to chase those things? 00:27:53.680 --> 00:27:58.720 Because it's always, you know, we hear the thing, it's like it's always like become a ball player or become a rapper. 00:27:59.039 --> 00:28:06.799 From your experience growing up in Philly, what what do you feel like led your uncles and your brothers and your friends to want to try and chase those things as well? 00:28:07.039 --> 00:28:09.039 I think rap was popping at the time. 00:28:09.119 --> 00:28:09.920 Like rap was cool. 00:28:10.079 --> 00:28:15.119 Rap was, you know, my uncles, when they was doing it, it was the 80s and 90s, rap was like becoming rap. 00:28:15.279 --> 00:28:18.000 Uh, so they probably, they was watching it. 00:28:18.079 --> 00:28:20.480 My uncle would tell me, like, yo, you can go up on this corner sometime. 00:28:20.559 --> 00:28:28.480 Like, Will used to be up on the corner battling, him and the Overbrook boys, and then you we take a train up to New York and you see LL Cool J, and they was out there battling. 00:28:28.720 --> 00:28:34.880 So it was like, that shit, you know, that shit was like trading cars nowadays, or that shit was like, yo, we all going to a party. 00:28:34.960 --> 00:28:37.759 Instead of going to a party, we going to go link up in freestyle. 00:28:37.839 --> 00:28:44.400 Like, I still remember when I was a kid, this is where it's dying off, but like you, we went to the movies one day, and I'm outside, my mom is like looking for me. 00:28:44.480 --> 00:28:47.279 I'm outside because somebody was battling outside of the movie theater. 00:28:47.359 --> 00:28:48.720 I'm just out there watching it as a kid. 00:28:48.799 --> 00:28:51.839 Like, and I gotta be like fourth grade, fifth grade, but just watching the battle. 00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:58.799 But you, rap was still this thing, this phenomenon that lived and breathed in the outside world. 00:28:58.960 --> 00:29:04.960 So I think for us early on, or for them early on, that's probably what made them run to it. 00:29:05.039 --> 00:29:11.359 For me, everything that I was going through at an early age, I was like, this can't just be for me to know. 00:29:11.599 --> 00:29:20.960 Like this story that I have, it has to be able to help somebody else, you know, because there was no other person like me from Philadelphia. 00:29:21.039 --> 00:29:21.839 There was Will Smith. 00:29:21.920 --> 00:29:23.519 That was the only North Star that I had. 00:29:23.599 --> 00:29:27.599 But Will Smith was like, and you hear about it, it was like, Will Smith was the good kid. 00:29:27.839 --> 00:29:32.480 And I don't think like they did a really good job of keeping Will Smith away from the bullshit. 00:29:32.720 --> 00:29:33.839 He was the good kid. 00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:36.480 And for me, I was like, I'm the really good kid. 00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:38.559 They got in some bullshit. 00:29:38.720 --> 00:29:48.319 And I didn't want to be in the bullshit, but that was when you started to realize, like, this story hasn't been told yet, you know, and that's where I was like, I have to, I have to do it. 00:29:48.559 --> 00:29:54.960 Yeah, it's so cool to hear you kind of talk about uh, you know, some of the predecessors in Philly and Overbrook. 00:29:55.119 --> 00:30:02.240 Actually, when I first moved to LA, I was writing and producing for Will, for Jaden and Willow, uh working with Overbrook too. 00:30:02.559 --> 00:30:06.799 So I got a lot of those like early, you know, West Philly stories and stuff like that. 00:30:07.039 --> 00:30:16.880 So uh not to

jump fully ahead, but like what is your relationship now with people from Philly and also, I guess, some of the greats that have come out of Philly as well. 00:30:17.119 --> 00:30:17.920 There's always love. 00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:21.200 I like I think I was just with Black Thought uh a couple weeks ago. 00:30:21.519 --> 00:30:22.240 This is my favorite rapper. 00:30:22.400 --> 00:30:23.519 Yeah, my favorite rapper too. 00:30:23.680 --> 00:30:27.039 And it's funny because he watched me from being like, yo, uh Mr. 00:30:27.119 --> 00:30:28.160 Black Thought, can I get a picture? 00:30:28.400 --> 00:30:39.279 Watched me going from that to where I am now, and it's me, Black Thought, and um, and P Funk is uh one of the guys from um from Batcase Studios in Philly that was like where Meek and everybody recorded at. 00:30:39.359 --> 00:30:50.480 And P Funk remembers me from like, I was like, yo, bro, like I had a it was a competition they did in Philly, and I was like, man, like the ticket, there was like sell, sell, what is like sell 15 tickets to get a spot. 00:30:50.559 --> 00:30:51.119 Remember those shoes? 00:30:51.200 --> 00:30:51.359 Yeah. 00:30:53.039 --> 00:30:53.839 Oh man. 00:30:54.319 --> 00:31:02.160 I did one of them, and I was like, yo, I only sold 10 tickets, but I got some weed, I can give y'all some, I can get y'all some green, and then that'd pay for the rest. 00:31:02.319 --> 00:31:04.240 And he's like, man, nah, come on, don't even worry about it, man. 00:31:04.319 --> 00:31:04.960 I'll let you on. 00:31:05.119 --> 00:31:07.440 And I remember rapping my rapping my little heart out. 00:31:07.519 --> 00:31:08.960 I'm like 14 years old. 00:31:09.200 --> 00:31:13.680 And P Funk was like, yo, it's cool, man, but like, do you have a lisp? 00:31:14.319 --> 00:31:17.359 Oh man, nigga, that shit tore me to pieces. 00:31:17.599 --> 00:31:24.319 It tore, and then I didn't, I never even heard that I had a lisp until I went to the studio and tried to record it, and I heard it. 00:31:24.400 --> 00:31:26.720 I'm like, damn, I sound fucking crazy. 00:31:26.880 --> 00:31:28.880 Um, and I locked myself in a room. 00:31:29.119 --> 00:31:37.440 Locked myself in a room and just went, I did this for like a week straight until the lisp went away. 00:31:37.599 --> 00:31:41.440 But it was like, I was like, I can't like, I can't go out there with this list. 00:31:41.519 --> 00:31:43.440 They never gonna take me seriously, because that was the first thing you heard. 00:31:43.519 --> 00:31:44.559 You didn't even hear what I said. 00:31:44.640 --> 00:31:56.720 But I was, I'm saying all that because I was at Black Thoughts, I was uh a couple weeks ago out here, and um we all talking, and he asked his P Funk, like, yo, you know, what was it like watching Armani come up? 00:31:56.960 --> 00:32:05.200 And he's like, I remember, I remember uh my cousin Dietrich, Dietrich is like a part of the Roots crew, so he's like, I remember Dietrich kept saying, yo, you gotta check out my little cousin, you gotta check out my little cousin. 00:32:05.279 --> 00:32:09.839 Like, I remember I finally watched him, I finally paid attention, I watched it, and I watched him grow. 00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:15.839 And P Funk was like, man, I just remember like, man, this kid outworks everybody. 00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:17.200 He was like, he didn't have nobody. 00:32:17.279 --> 00:32:22.400 It's like he was coming to the studio, like, yo, man, I got the newspaper here, they want to do an article on me. 00:32:22.480 --> 00:32:26.160 He's like, he, but he was just working nonstop, just grinding, he coming in there. 00:32:26.240 --> 00:32:27.839 I used to, I used to sleep at the studio. 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:31.359 I used to sleep because I take my$50 in there and I just try and stretch it. 00:32:31.440 --> 00:32:40.400 I would try and take my$50, I would try and start my studio session at 3.30 so I can get all of three o'clock and four o'clock and get a get a hundred dollars worth of a session for$50. 00:32:40.799 --> 00:32:45.920 But I was just in there, I come in there, I record three songs in an hour's time, just like running through the lyrics. 00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:47.759 I bet, go to the next one, run through the lyrics. 00:32:47.839 --> 00:32:50.240 I already, I already mapped out where my ad lib's gonna be at. 00:32:50.319 --> 00:32:58.160 I just, I'm saying all that to say, like, it was cool watching them give me flowers, like, because I'm like, damn, I didn't even know I needed those flowers. 00:32:58.319 --> 00:33:04.640 I like in my head, I just always was like, I didn't even realize I was still trying to impress y'all, you know, however many years later. 00:33:04.720 --> 00:33:08.160 You know, I remember um when I was still living in Philly, Wallo pulled up on me. 00:33:08.240 --> 00:33:10.559 He just seen me, it's me and my girl, we outside walking. 00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:12.400 Um, we walking from a show or something like that. 00:33:12.480 --> 00:33:14.799 We walking home, Wallo pulled, he still had the van. 00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:17.519 He pulled up on me, he said, Armaday. 00:33:17.599 --> 00:33:18.960 I run, who the fuck is that? 00:33:19.039 --> 00:33:20.240 And he's like, it's Wallo. 00:33:20.319 --> 00:33:21.599 I'm like, oh, so I run over. 00:33:21.759 --> 00:33:23.279 Cool, I run over to the van. 00:33:23.839 --> 00:33:26.960 And he's like, yo, you gotta get the fuck out of Philly. 00:33:27.039 --> 00:33:27.680 It's over. 00:33:27.920 --> 00:33:28.559 It's over. 00:33:28.799 --> 00:33:30.400 And then I do the BET awards. 00:33:30.559 --> 00:33:31.519 Black Dog called me. 00:33:31.680 --> 00:33:32.799 Yo, it's over. 00:33:33.039 --> 00:33:34.319 Get the fuck out of Philly, it's done. 00:33:34.400 --> 00:33:35.039 You know what I'm saying? 00:33:35.119 --> 00:33:39.440 So, like, I like I seen it with all of the OGs, all the big homies, Gilly. 00:33:39.519 --> 00:33:41.279 Gilly's known me since I was in sixth

grade. 00:33:41.440 --> 00:33:45.119 Like, all of them is like, yo, man, I love seeing what you're doing. 00:33:45.440 --> 00:33:46.240 You gotta go. 00:33:46.400 --> 00:33:47.519 You're not one of them. 00:33:47.680 --> 00:33:48.799 You, you the other one. 00:33:48.960 --> 00:33:49.680 You know what I'm saying? 00:33:49.759 --> 00:33:53.920 And and so I yeah, it's like I said, it's still love to this day, anytime we talk. 00:33:54.160 --> 00:33:56.079 That's super inspiring, for sure. 00:33:56.160 --> 00:34:02.480 Uh inspiring for me, but I think inspiring for anyone, uh, especially an artist that's trying to make it. 00:34:02.640 --> 00:34:10.880 Because I've noticed even in my development, being from DC, a lot of the artists that I used to look up to growing up eventually became my peers, right? 00:34:11.039 --> 00:34:15.920 And then eventually it became a point where they're leaning on me to help them with the things that they're working on. 00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:20.480 So, like Wale, for example, obviously was the biggest artist that come out of the DMV area. 00:34:20.719 --> 00:34:21.119 I hope. 00:34:21.440 --> 00:34:25.039 Um, Logic was someone who I worked with early on in history. 00:34:25.599 --> 00:34:26.800 Just before he blew up. 00:34:27.119 --> 00:34:27.920 Both of them are my guys, yeah. 00:34:28.239 --> 00:34:43.760 Ari Lennox, you know, was an artist that uh, you know, we worked on a lot of her early music together and uh so many others, but to see artists like that uh grow and then later on in life, it's like you see them as your peers and you're able to uh collaborate with them is something that's really special. 00:34:43.920 --> 00:34:50.400 I think that a lot of the time that means more to artists like us from like, I'm gonna call them small cities, but you get what I'm saying. 00:34:50.559 --> 00:34:50.960 No, officially. 00:34:51.199 --> 00:34:53.199 Um, than like the adoration of the world. 00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:54.960 It's like, nah, that's who I looked up to. 00:34:55.199 --> 00:34:55.519 Exactly. 00:34:55.679 --> 00:35:00.719 You know, I didn't even see when I started going to Batcave, our North Star was Gilly. 00:35:00.960 --> 00:35:02.880 Gilly, this is before Million Dollars Worth of Game. 00:35:03.119 --> 00:35:05.440 Million Dollars Worth of Game before it was a podcast. 00:35:05.679 --> 00:35:11.199 It was Gilly walking into your studio session and then just disrupted it for 45 minutes straight. 00:35:11.360 --> 00:35:13.519 Like, because that was his home studio. 00:35:13.599 --> 00:35:17.280 So he'll pull up and he'll just get the poppin', and you can't say nothing because it's Gil. 00:35:17.519 --> 00:35:20.559 So he'll just get the popping with the engineer, then he starts tapping you. 00:35:20.719 --> 00:35:25.840 So now you in on the conversation, you just happy to be a part of the conversation, but you like, damn, I did just kind of pay for these hours. 00:35:26.400 --> 00:35:27.119 You know what I'm saying? 00:35:27.199 --> 00:35:32.400 And so, so um, but I was always like, damn, I want Gil to come in. 00:35:32.480 --> 00:35:36.159 He would always come in early in the session before I even get started, and he'll leave by the time I start. 00:35:36.400 --> 00:35:42.239 So I'm like, man, I just want Gil to come in to one of my sessions and be like, yo, that shit fire. 00:35:42.320 --> 00:35:42.800 Like, whatever. 00:35:42.880 --> 00:35:44.400 I don't, I just wanted the acknowledgement. 00:35:44.480 --> 00:35:47.840 I wanted it for so long, and it never happened. 00:35:48.079 --> 00:35:48.800 Never happened. 00:35:48.880 --> 00:35:50.079 I'm talking about years later. 00:35:50.159 --> 00:35:52.320 I kept my same engineer since I was like 15 years old. 00:35:52.400 --> 00:35:58.079 I kept the same guy that that same person I did Billy with, Billy Eilish, goaded, you know, all the all the big records. 00:35:59.039 --> 00:36:03.599 He goes, he tells me this maybe five years ago. 00:36:03.760 --> 00:36:06.559 I'm talking about, you know, like 10 years later. 00:36:06.719 --> 00:36:14.639 He uh he said, Gil one day came in the studio when you left, and he said, Yeah, that kid's special. 00:36:14.880 --> 00:36:18.159 Don't tell him yet, but that kid got something special. 00:36:18.320 --> 00:36:23.679 And he's like, I don't, he's like, don't tell him because I don't want his head to get blown up like all these other Philly rappers. 00:36:24.239 --> 00:36:25.440 And I never knew that. 00:36:25.599 --> 00:36:32.320 And I was like, I don't know what would have happened, maybe my head would have got blown up, but I know in that moment, it just kept me hungry. 00:36:32.400 --> 00:36:40.159 It kept me wanting that, like you said, wanting that adoration, wanting them to just acknowledge, like, yo, you're doing the thing, you're doing the thing. 00:36:40.239 --> 00:36:47.280 And it's like, I don't know if I would have stopped doing it if I got it, but I know not having it made me go, nah, y'all gotta see this shit. 00:36:47.360 --> 00:36:48.159 You know what I'm saying? 00:36:48.639 --> 00:36:52.079 And he probably knew that you wanted that from him. 00:36:52.239 --> 00:36:54.239 I mean, healy's a legend, obviously. 00:36:54.320 --> 00:37:00.079 So it's like, I'm sure he knows a lot of rappers coming out of that area wanted that acknowledgement from him. 00:37:00.159 --> 00:37:00.320 Yeah. 00:37:00.480 --> 00:37:03.280 But, you know, that's that's kind of like what the senseis always do. 00:37:03.360 --> 00:37:06.559 It's like they they see the potential, but they don't want you to know that you have the potential. 00:37:06.719 --> 00:37:09.519 Otherwise, it might change the uh how you continue to show up. 00:37:09.679 --> 00:37:10.079 Exactly. 00:37:10.239 --> 00:37:11.360 So, um, cool. 00:37:11.440 --> 00:37:18.079 So at this point, you're doing shows, you're in the studio, you're starting to get the acknowledgement of the people that that you want to get

it from. 00:37:18.400 --> 00:37:23.360 Um, before the career breakthrough, you had a pretty serious loss. 00:37:23.519 --> 00:37:23.679 Yeah. 00:37:23.840 --> 00:37:28.639 It says that your father had prostate cancer and he passed away in 2016. 00:37:28.800 --> 00:37:36.880 If you don't mind, can you talk about the process, I guess, leading up to that, how you found out, how you felt through the moment and after? 00:37:37.199 --> 00:37:37.679 Yeah. 00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:45.280 Um I first started getting my little like SoundCloud buzz shit happening and all that. 00:37:45.360 --> 00:37:48.159 And um, me and him wasn't speaking. 00:37:48.480 --> 00:37:54.400 So, long story short, I had moved to California with my uncle in high school. 00:37:54.719 --> 00:38:00.320 Moved to California with my uncle, but my mom and dad were in a custody battle at the time. 00:38:00.559 --> 00:38:07.280 Um, so I was like, I'm telling my dad, like, I live out in California now, it doesn't even matter what the custody is and all that shit. 00:38:07.360 --> 00:38:08.639 And he was like, I'm not going for it. 00:38:08.719 --> 00:38:10.320 I'm like, you're not gonna take my son away from me. 00:38:10.400 --> 00:38:11.360 And it was a deeper thing. 00:38:11.440 --> 00:38:15.199 I just see, like, I want to be in your life, and there's no way that I'm gonna let them take that from me. 00:38:15.360 --> 00:38:19.119 And I understand it now, but as a kid, I was like, man, now I'm chasing my dreams, man. 00:38:19.199 --> 00:38:20.159 Fuck you, dad. 00:38:20.400 --> 00:38:23.360 My dad sued my mom for child support. 00:38:23.599 --> 00:38:34.159 Not to actually get child support out of her, but he knew that if he sued her, I had to show up to court, which meant I had to fly back to Philly. 00:38:34.480 --> 00:38:37.119 And I resented him for it for so long. 00:38:37.199 --> 00:38:41.039 Because I was like, in my head, I was like, I was in California, like my dream could have came true. 00:38:41.280 --> 00:38:43.679 You pulled my dream from me to put me back here. 00:38:43.920 --> 00:38:50.960 And we just bickered about it for years and years, and we tried to mend the relationship a couple times, but it's just like I just was holding on to it. 00:38:51.039 --> 00:38:52.239 I kept holding on to it. 00:38:52.480 --> 00:38:54.800 And one day, I was like, you know what? 00:38:54.880 --> 00:38:56.159 I'm man enough, it's over. 00:38:56.239 --> 00:38:58.880 Like, I'm gonna drive by and just holler at him. 00:38:58.960 --> 00:39:02.400 My dad's a big guy, too, like a real big strong dude with breeds. 00:39:02.559 --> 00:39:04.320 So I'm like, man, I'm gonna just go talk to him. 00:39:04.400 --> 00:39:07.280 And uh, we just like, I'm older now, like it's over. 00:39:07.360 --> 00:39:10.400 Like the the fighting is over, it's no point anymore. 00:39:10.800 --> 00:39:14.320 And I went to turn down Catherine Street and I was waiting at the turning lane. 00:39:14.400 --> 00:39:22.400 I'm sitting there waiting to turn, but I see his car parked out front, and I see an older guy get out of the car and pick up my little sister. 00:39:22.559 --> 00:39:25.199 This guy's bald head and he's like very small. 00:39:25.360 --> 00:39:27.599 And I'm confused, like, who the hell is touching my little sister? 00:39:27.679 --> 00:39:28.559 It's not my grandpa. 00:39:28.719 --> 00:39:31.760 And I'm staring and staring until it clicks that that's my dad. 00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:34.079 And I was like, what the fuck happened? 00:39:34.239 --> 00:39:40.320 Like, I like I didn't see him in a couple months, and this is what I'm looking at now, and it broke me. 00:39:40.559 --> 00:39:41.920 I had a show in Philly that night. 00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:49.039 It broke me the whole night I was backstage in the green room just crying, balling my eyes out, because I'm like, how did I fuck this up? 00:39:49.199 --> 00:39:53.360 You know, because parents are like your superheroes growing up, you know. 00:39:53.519 --> 00:39:58.719 So it was like I never imagined a world where my dad, anything could have affected my dad. 00:39:58.800 --> 00:40:02.239 He was like, he was the bravest person, he's the most fearless person I ever met. 00:40:02.480 --> 00:40:03.679 And I pulled up on him. 00:40:03.840 --> 00:40:05.039 It was his birthday a couple days. 00:40:05.199 --> 00:40:06.239 I pulled up on him. 00:40:07.679 --> 00:40:09.599 And man, we just started crying. 00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:12.400 He just held me and I just I just fell down. 00:40:12.480 --> 00:40:13.920 I just started crying. 00:40:14.239 --> 00:40:28.960 And I think I was crying because like at that point I realized like that it was a time limit on our time together. 00:40:29.119 --> 00:40:32.400 Like it wasn't uh it wasn't a forever thing anymore. 00:40:32.480 --> 00:40:35.119 It wasn't like uh in foot to the foreseeable future. 00:40:35.199 --> 00:40:40.320 It was like, man, this might be for the next month, might be for the next two months. 00:40:40.559 --> 00:40:44.320 And um, yeah, I just stopped everything. 00:40:44.480 --> 00:40:45.840 Stopped all the music shit. 00:40:45.920 --> 00:40:46.880 I stopped going to college. 00:40:46.960 --> 00:40:48.639 I just I I couldn't do it. 00:40:48.800 --> 00:40:56.320 And I I sat at his house until um I sat at his crib until he went to hospice one day. 00:40:56.400 --> 00:40:57.920 I didn't even know what the fuck a hospice was. 00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:01.360 I just know they was like, he's at the hospital, but not the same hospital. 00:41:01.599 --> 00:41:05.679 And uh my my ex at the time, she was uh she was a nurse. 00:41:05.840 --> 00:41:10.559 So I told her, like, yeah, they said they moved into a hospice, and she was just like, I'm so sorry. 00:41:11.119 --> 00:41:12.800 I said, what the fuck is that meaning? 00:41:13.440 --> 00:41:24.000 And that was when I realized like, oh, this is the end, this is it, you know, and um that shit like it broke me.

00:41:24.239 --> 00:41:26.079 It changed something, it changed something in me. 00:41:26.159 --> 00:41:27.679 And uh like I was there. 00:41:27.920 --> 00:41:31.039 I was there, I held his hand until he stopped breathing. 00:41:31.199 --> 00:41:38.400 Like when he passed away, my hand was he was clenching my hands, so I felt the grip like loosen slowly. 00:41:38.719 --> 00:41:42.320 Um I don't know, man. 00:41:42.480 --> 00:41:47.679 That shit like I don't think anybody loses a parent and remains the same person. 00:41:47.920 --> 00:41:50.159 I don't I it's not possible, you know. 00:41:50.400 --> 00:41:53.039 So that shit changed my whole outlook. 00:41:53.119 --> 00:41:55.280 And like I'm the advocate now for everybody else. 00:41:55.360 --> 00:41:56.639 Like, yo, and then go talk to your dad. 00:41:56.800 --> 00:41:59.280 He's like, man, my dad, he on bush, I don't give a fuck. 00:41:59.440 --> 00:42:02.079 Like, my mom used to tell me that and I didn't get it. 00:42:02.239 --> 00:42:04.239 I was like, she's like, you only get one dad. 00:42:04.320 --> 00:42:05.840 And I'm like, man, all right, whatever. 00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:15.920 Like but when you lose that, it's like there's no correcting it, it's no figuring it out, it's no, oh no, like I'll get right back, it's it's over. 00:42:16.079 --> 00:42:16.559 You know. 00:42:16.960 --> 00:42:26.400 What was his demeanor, like his spirit, his energy in those last few weeks, months? 00:42:26.639 --> 00:42:32.480 What were some of the conversations that you guys were having having when you kind of knew it was getting bad? 00:42:33.119 --> 00:42:36.159 We had a long conversation about Nina Simone. 00:42:36.960 --> 00:42:38.159 I remember that. 00:42:38.400 --> 00:42:40.800 We had a long conversation about Nina Simone. 00:42:41.280 --> 00:42:47.840 Um, and then it was hard though, because he started reflecting a lot. 00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:56.880 And the more he reflected, I realized he was like going through the entire loop of this is the end, you know, from start to finish. 00:42:57.119 --> 00:43:02.639 And um, but he was still optimistic, and I'm not sure if he was really optimistic. 00:43:02.719 --> 00:43:06.400 I learned this, I learned from him to be a leader. 00:43:06.639 --> 00:43:15.519 And what a leader means is sometimes you could be scared out of your fucking mind, but the people following you can never know that. 00:43:16.079 --> 00:43:25.599 And so there was times like it's like if you in the woods and I got the torch and everybody's following the light in front of them, and I don't know where the fuck I'm going, I gotta figure it out. 00:43:25.679 --> 00:43:27.920 I can't turn around and say, yo, man, we lost. 00:43:28.079 --> 00:43:31.039 Cause at that point, nigga is fucking, he's a disaster. 00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:36.559 Um he'd tell me, yeah, like, you know, like like we going, let's let's plan a trip to Disney World. 00:43:36.639 --> 00:43:40.480 Man, let's go out to this place,

let's book a flight for here, let's go there and there and there and there. 00:43:40.559 --> 00:43:47.760 But he was still optimistic as if like this shit is not gonna, you know, like there's something we're gonna overcome, there's something we're gonna get over. 00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:52.400 And um shit was like, it was hard. 00:43:52.639 --> 00:43:54.960 Like it was the the hospice situation. 00:43:56.320 --> 00:43:58.559 The trickiest part about hospice, I never heard of it before. 00:43:58.639 --> 00:43:59.760 It was like, well, hospice. 00:44:01.599 --> 00:44:05.519 They kind of expedite the process for you, is basically what it is. 00:44:05.599 --> 00:44:07.280 You're paying for them to expedite the process. 00:44:07.360 --> 00:44:11.599 So it wasn't so much of the cancer that killed my father. 00:44:11.679 --> 00:44:14.159 It was the complications from cancer. 00:44:14.559 --> 00:44:18.320 And I say that because there was times I go to the hospice and he's fully awake. 00:44:18.480 --> 00:44:19.039 We talking. 00:44:19.199 --> 00:44:20.400 He asked me what I'm doing today. 00:44:20.480 --> 00:44:21.440 We just having a whole conversation. 00:44:21.519 --> 00:44:22.719 We watch TV. 00:44:23.679 --> 00:44:32.239 And then you hear like, you'd hear a syringe shot and a morphine that hit his veins, and his eyes would roll back and he'll just fall back asleep. 00:44:34.320 --> 00:44:36.480 This shit fucking rocked me. 00:44:36.559 --> 00:44:38.239 Like it cooked me at the time. 00:44:38.400 --> 00:44:40.079 Cause like I'd never seen him like that. 00:44:40.159 --> 00:44:43.119 This shit was like, I like I'd just be trembling all the time. 00:44:44.159 --> 00:44:47.760 Cause he'll wake up and have a conversation and then hit him again. 00:44:47.920 --> 00:44:51.360 And then one day, one day we was there, he was asleep. 00:44:51.599 --> 00:44:52.719 It's me and my brothers. 00:44:53.360 --> 00:44:57.280 He woke up from the morphine and he grabbed my brother and he's crying. 00:44:57.360 --> 00:44:59.920 And he's like, please, please take me out of here. 00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:01.199 They're gonna kill me. 00:45:01.440 --> 00:45:04.000 And and my brother's like, I guess nothing I can do. 00:45:04.079 --> 00:45:07.679 And he's like squeezing him, like, please, begging, and he's crying, he's bawling. 00:45:07.840 --> 00:45:11.039 And then the morphine hit and he just fell back asleep. 00:45:12.239 --> 00:45:21.119 And man, like I just at that point, I was like, I stopped going as frequent because I was like, it's no longer spending my last days with him. 00:45:21.360 --> 00:45:25.599 It's watching you guys like shorten the time span I got with him. 00:45:25.679 --> 00:45:27.199 And it's it was hard. 00:45:27.280 --> 00:45:28.320 It was hard to watch that. 00:45:28.559 --> 00:45:41.599 They say that a lot about people that are dealing with cancer specifically is that it's not the cancer that kills you, it's going through the chemo and going through all the treatments that uh, you know, deteriorate your body in other ways. 00:45:41.679 --> 00:45:41.840 Right. 00:45:42.000 --> 00:45:46.159 And then, you know, there's there's people that talk a lot about holistic ways to heal cancer. 00:45:46.239 --> 00:45:52.079 And um, you know, I have a lot of belief in those things as well, too, because you're kind of choosing, right? 00:45:52.159 --> 00:46:01.360 I can go this way that potentially can treat, treat this thing, but at the same time, it could be the reason why I I'm out of here like much faster. 00:46:01.679 --> 00:46:05.840 I had a girl I was dating that she beat cancer twice. 00:46:06.719 --> 00:46:14.320 She beat breast cancer and um the neck, no thyroid, thyroid cancer, she beat it. 00:46:15.039 --> 00:46:24.880 And I was like, damn, man, like she beat it twice, no medicine, no, no, or no, no, you know, not going to the doctors and all that. 00:46:24.960 --> 00:46:39.599 She beat it in holistic ways, and she's telling me all about it, and I'm just like, man, if I'd have met you like a couple years sooner, because, you know, like like with my dad, they was like, yo, this would have been 100% like treatable. 00:46:39.679 --> 00:46:43.119 It was definitely a thing that was like, maybe it could have been a remission thing. 00:46:43.360 --> 00:46:47.760 Um, but it was just if you caught it early enough, he just didn't catch it. 00:46:47.840 --> 00:46:49.519 He was, you know, brain was elsewhere. 00:46:49.599 --> 00:46:52.639 And then and our family was so severed. 00:46:52.800 --> 00:47:05.039 Our family was, so his relationship with all of us was so, so wacky that it was like there was nobody that was just allowing him to be an old man and checking on him and doing all of the, you know, all the due diligence shit. 00:47:05.199 --> 00:47:12.480 Um So what was the first 24 hours after he passed, what was that like for you? 00:47:12.800 --> 00:47:13.280 Numb. 00:47:13.760 --> 00:47:14.079 Numb. 00:47:14.239 --> 00:47:15.119 I didn't feel anything. 00:47:15.199 --> 00:47:19.360 I didn't even like when he died, when he died, I left. 00:47:19.519 --> 00:47:20.639 I didn't cry. 00:47:20.880 --> 00:47:21.599 I just left. 00:47:21.679 --> 00:47:23.920 And I didn't know what the fuck was going on. 00:47:24.079 --> 00:47:31.440 I had to-cause it's the first time you can't like, you know, like if you fuck up in a video game, you can just cut that bitch off and turn it back on. 00:47:31.519 --> 00:47:32.719 It was the first time you couldn't do that. 00:47:32.800 --> 00:47:33.760 I couldn't press undo. 00:47:33.840 --> 00:47:36.639 I couldn't command Z this, like it was, it was over. 00:47:36.960 --> 00:47:41.519 And um, at least like not the first time in life, but the first time with my father. 00:47:41.679 --> 00:47:50.079 And um I didn't know how to process it, and I had so much guilt because I was like, wow, like I held on to so much for no fucking reason. 00:47:50.159 --> 00:47:53.840 And and I

could have just, you know, spent the time with him. 00:47:54.079 --> 00:47:58.239 And um, I wasn't, I was numb. 00:47:58.320 --> 00:48:07.599 I was just, I just was numb, I was silent up until, and this is the dumbest shit ever, but up until like I was watching hoes. 00:48:08.079 --> 00:48:19.119 I was watching hoes, and it's like, you know, regular ass movie, but like when Zero met his mom at the end and they ran up and like hugged each other, and it was like, you know, everything all was forgiven. 00:48:19.599 --> 00:48:21.599 Boy, I just started bawling. 00:48:21.840 --> 00:48:30.559 I just started bawling because I was like, damn, like, I ain't never gonna be able to do that with my old man again. 00:48:30.639 --> 00:48:38.079 Like, I'm never gonna have that, I had that moment that just like like all this forgiving type of shit. 00:48:38.239 --> 00:48:41.599 So, yeah, I just started fucking crying. 00:48:41.679 --> 00:48:48.719 And I remember my mom came in the room and she started holding me, but that was when like that was when it finally like clicked. 00:48:48.960 --> 00:48:52.239 Like, oh shit, this is real, you know what I mean? 00:48:52.400 --> 00:48:55.360 Like, yeah. 00:48:55.679 --> 00:49:03.760 If you had an opportunity to say one more thing to him, either at that time or now, what would you say? 00:49:07.599 --> 00:49:08.400 Sorry. 00:49:09.679 --> 00:49:10.480 Thank you. 00:49:13.199 --> 00:49:19.440 I mean I said I said everything I had to say to him, you know. 00:49:19.519 --> 00:49:21.440 Like it wasn't it wasn't a sudden death. 00:49:21.519 --> 00:49:23.679 So, like, we got to talk a lot. 00:49:23.920 --> 00:49:28.480 Um, the only thing at that point was just it was Tom. 00:49:28.719 --> 00:49:34.079 It was just time that we didn't have to do all the shit, just like, bro, I did so much dumb shit. 00:49:34.159 --> 00:49:42.000 Like, he wanted to go to my graduation, but I was just mad that I was still graduating from this side of the world and didn't even let him go to my graduation. 00:49:42.159 --> 00:50:01.199 Like, I didn't like just silly shit, like silly kid shit that I was like, I don't know, like, you know, and I and I'm I'm at peace with it a lot now, but it's like that was the hardest part where it was like, damn, like, it wasn't even that deep, you know what I'm saying? 00:50:01.280 --> 00:50:08.880 Like, it wasn't even that deep, but you just, you being just a stubborn ass guy, I was just as stubborn as he was, and he was just as stubborn as his dad was. 00:50:09.039 --> 00:50:17.920 It's like, you know, because I lost, I lost my, I lost my grandfather, his father, a few years later. 00:50:18.079 --> 00:50:21.199 Same thing, to uh lung cancer. 00:50:21.920 --> 00:50:29.039 And they told me, he they called me when they found out, and he called me, hey boy. 00:50:29.199 --> 00:50:33.920 Like, you know, hey, but he like, he's like, I was like, Grandpa Lee, I got it. 00:50:34.079 --> 00:50:36.880 Like, this isn't the same situation as 2016. 00:50:37.039 --> 00:50:38.239 I can do something about it now. 00:50:38.400 --> 00:50:39.280 Like, I have money now. 00:50:39.360 --> 00:50:42.079 I can, I get you the best doctors, I'll fly you somewhere. 00:50:42.239 --> 00:50:43.920 I didn't, and he said, then what? 00:50:45.519 --> 00:50:48.880 I've been here this long, he said, so you gonna you gonna fix it for now? 00:50:49.039 --> 00:50:54.239 And then it comes back later, and then my life is all, like for the rest of my life, I'm just in pain and all these things. 00:50:54.320 --> 00:50:56.400 He said, Man, listen, I've been here this long. 00:50:56.480 --> 00:50:58.159 I done seen everything I needed to see in life. 00:50:58.239 --> 00:50:59.679 He said, just let me go. 00:51:00.400 --> 00:51:04.239 And it was like, fuck, I'm gonna argue with you. 00:51:04.320 --> 00:51:04.880 You know what I mean? 00:51:04.960 --> 00:51:11.840 I can't argue with you about like if you like, this is my time, I gotta accept that, but stubborn. 00:51:11.920 --> 00:51:13.519 We always just stubborn. 00:51:14.239 --> 00:51:15.280 There's a few things there. 00:51:15.440 --> 00:51:25.599 Number one, I think we all can resonate with, most of us can resonate with having lost someone and wishing that we took better advantage of the time that we did have with them. 00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:30.960 Um, and it's kind of like a lesson that this is a humanity lesson, right? 00:51:31.039 --> 00:51:38.800 It's like a lesson that constantly is being taught about taking the time to appreciate uh our loved ones and the the people around us. 00:51:38.960 --> 00:51:52.159 And um, I had an interview with someone previously, and she was just saying how she is grateful that she took the time out to make sure that everyone in her life knows how much she loves them. 00:51:52.480 --> 00:51:59.840 Because when that time comes, she has no regrets or no feelings about the fact that they maybe didn't know how she felt. 00:52:00.639 --> 00:52:11.360 Um, and to to what you said about, you know, the fact that it was a slow passing, I think that's there's often like a conversation about, you know, would you rather have a quick death or a slow death? 00:52:11.440 --> 00:52:17.199 But when it comes to people around you, I think, you know, obviously even a slow death can be painful. 00:52:17.360 --> 00:52:26.079 It gives you that time to be able to have those conversations and make those reconciliations and be able to like come to terms with it happening as much as you can. 00:52:26.159 --> 00:52:28.079 Because you never can fully come to terms with it. 00:52:28.239 --> 00:52:36.320 When I think about death or when I think about my family members or my loved ones, it's like we don't know what happens after this, right? 00:52:36.400 --> 00:52:39.039 We don't know if reincarnation is a real thing. 00:52:39.119 --> 00:52:39.199 Right. 00:52:39.360 --> 00:52:42.079 And even if it is, will I remember you the same?

00:52:42.159 --> 00:52:42.320 Right. 00:52:42.480 --> 00:52:47.599 Will I be able to know that you are someone that I knew in my past life in any way, shape, or form? 00:52:47.760 --> 00:52:59.280 Um, you see videos of people that deal with like Alzheimer's and dementia and how they can be around people who are their loved ones and not remember them, not know who they are. 00:52:59.599 --> 00:53:07.280 And so for me, that that signals that like the brain um has a huge part to do with who you are, the things you remember, all those things. 00:53:07.360 --> 00:53:18.559 So it's like even if we do go on to a a next life, will I ever be able to feel the same feelings that I felt when I was with my mom or when I was with my sister or my family members? 00:53:18.960 --> 00:53:26.239 And that I think is like probably the most crushing thing about death or about losing someone is the uncertainty of that thing. 00:53:26.320 --> 00:53:31.360 Because we can tell ourselves what we want to tell ourselves in terms of like, I see you again, but you never really know. 00:53:31.519 --> 00:53:39.360 And that just tells you it's so important to take advantage of the time that you have with people who uh who you love. 00:53:39.840 --> 00:53:42.079 Do the words keep in touch mean anything to you? 00:53:42.239 --> 00:53:42.559 Yeah. 00:53:43.280 --> 00:53:44.079 Tell me about that. 00:53:44.400 --> 00:53:49.280 That was that was my message to him. 00:53:49.679 --> 00:53:51.119 That was my message to my dad. 00:53:51.360 --> 00:54:12.639 It was like, I wanted to write a story, because, you know, when somebody passes, you hear all about them and who they were and what, and that was the first times, that was some of the first times my mom got to really open up to me about what it looked like when my mom and my dad started dating, what all of the like the feelings were with it, you know. 00:54:12.800 --> 00:54:19.920 And um, she's like, Yeah, I remember he was, I was like, uh he asked my number, and I just hurried up and rushed, rushed and gave him my number because I didn't even, I didn't think he would remember it. 00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:22.239 I just said set a bunch of numbers and ran off. 00:54:22.400 --> 00:54:24.960 And then he called back the next day at the two, whatever. 00:54:25.039 --> 00:54:35.519 And like, but hearing all the stories, I was like, man, can I write music that almost feels like the score of what this story was, what this feeling was. 00:54:35.679 --> 00:54:38.079 Even to the down to the tumultuous side of it. 00:54:38.239 --> 00:54:39.679 It was like, can I write music? 00:54:39.840 --> 00:54:44.639 Because, and I, and I ended it with um this song called Thanksgiving. 00:54:44.719 --> 00:54:48.800 And it was, reason being is like, it was one of the only songs I ever got to like. 00:54:48.960 --> 00:54:51.280 My whole music career was rebellion. 00:54:51.440 --> 00:54:57.760 And it was like this concept that I was like, I wanted to be my dad when I was growing up. 00:54:57.920 --> 00:55:01.440 Then I got older and I said, I'm gonna be better than my dad. 00:55:01.599 --> 00:55:09.840 And then in the back of my mind, the whole time, I just wanted that acceptance, like, was I better? 00:55:10.079 --> 00:55:12.400 But it could only come from him. 00:55:13.280 --> 00:55:19.039 And when he passed, I never got to get that acceptance. 00:55:19.119 --> 00:55:20.159 It went with him. 00:55:20.320 --> 00:55:26.000 And I, the only thing that I ever got to play for him was this record called Thanksgiving. 00:55:26.239 --> 00:55:32.719 Uh that was just like, again, it was still the hook. 00:55:32.800 --> 00:55:36.400 I was like, look around us, son, you finally got something to be proud of. 00:55:36.559 --> 00:55:45.039 But I was like, if I were to write a song that feels like the acknowledgement that I want from him, like, this is what the hook would be. 00:55:45.199 --> 00:55:46.639 There's like, yeah, I'm proud of you. 00:55:46.719 --> 00:55:50.639 Like, I want I just wanted to hear him say that he was proud of me for what I was doing. 00:55:50.880 --> 00:55:54.400 And it was one of the only songs I got to play for him. 00:55:54.960 --> 00:56:12.880 So that entire body of work was just built and rooted around that raw feeling of, could I write a score that that, you know, encapsulate like this, this really like, I don't know, this tall flower that grew in a really rough, a really rough patch of grass, which would have been my mom. 00:56:13.039 --> 00:56:26.960 And from that patch of grass came whatever, you know, like the the the person that takes that that stroll through the park and finds that flower and wants to grow and nurture with that flower, was that story that I was trying to create, we keep in touch. 00:56:27.119 --> 00:56:28.800 Um, but it was just like a message. 00:56:28.880 --> 00:56:34.880 It was like almost like a, I'm writing this to if you can hear me from the whatever happens afterwards. 00:56:35.119 --> 00:56:36.960 Um, and that's around. 00:56:37.199 --> 00:56:38.639 That was 2016. 00:56:39.599 --> 00:56:42.320 So 10 years ago when he passed. 00:56:42.960 --> 00:56:59.119 But all of my sixes was what had the rough time in life, and like I've been holding on to everybody in 2026, like, yo, I do not need any more people to go. 00:56:59.280 --> 00:57:04.320 Uh in 20, in 2006, oh I'm not sure if you know, you probably did if you've seen the research. 00:57:04.400 --> 00:57:07.119 Like, in 2006 was the house fire. 00:57:09.199 --> 00:57:26.000 And you talking about a kid, you know, you talking about a little kid that's like, when when I grew up, we're talking about this village that I had, that's one of the big cottages of the village is now taken away from you, and that's taken away with all the people inside of it. 00:57:26.239 --> 00:57:32.800 Um, because that was, you know, we went our our accordance, that was like a Thursday night. 00:57:32.960 --> 00:57:39.199 We would go

from my mom's house to go to my aunt's house, to then go to choir rehearsal at church, like you said, community. 00:57:39.280 --> 00:57:50.800 And then we go drop them off, either drop me off at my aunt's house, or drop, you know, uh uh, or just take my cousin back to my mom's house, and then whichever way we just go to school from there in the morning. 00:57:51.039 --> 00:57:55.199 Um, I had a cousin named Melinda, and Melinda was like my best friend. 00:57:55.280 --> 00:57:56.800 Like, we was like the closest in age. 00:57:56.880 --> 00:58:03.599 We was like, like, there was never a day where we wasn't either on the phone or together somewhere, but that was my best friend. 00:58:03.840 --> 00:58:08.800 Uh and she joined ROTC at high school. 00:58:08.960 --> 00:58:11.119 She joined ROTC, but she didn't tell my aunt. 00:58:11.280 --> 00:58:13.920 All my aunt knew was that she didn't come back home from school. 00:58:14.000 --> 00:58:15.039 It was like seven o'clock. 00:58:15.119 --> 00:58:16.320 She didn't come back home from school. 00:58:16.480 --> 00:58:18.239 My aunt is blacking out. 00:58:18.480 --> 00:58:23.280 So then they she called and everybody trying to call to school with who knows, who knows what. 00:58:23.599 --> 00:58:26.880 They finally, my cousin finally gets home. 00:58:27.119 --> 00:58:28.480 Instant punishment. 00:58:28.800 --> 00:58:30.000 Instant punishment. 00:58:30.719 --> 00:58:36.159 And that night, we were supposed to pick her up and go to choir rehearsal. 00:58:36.480 --> 00:58:37.280 And then go to church. 00:58:37.360 --> 00:58:39.199 My aunt was like, nah, she ain't going to choir rehearsal. 00:58:39.280 --> 00:58:40.159 She's stuck in that room tonight. 00:58:40.320 --> 00:58:41.679 She ain't doing nothing. 00:58:41.840 --> 00:58:43.440 So my mom was like, all right, well, bet. 00:58:43.519 --> 00:58:46.079 We'll just stop by after choir rehearsal. 00:58:46.239 --> 00:58:48.320 For whatever reason, didn't stop by. 00:58:48.400 --> 00:58:49.840 We just went straight home. 00:58:50.159 --> 00:58:51.039 Went straight home. 00:58:51.199 --> 00:59:03.360 And um, I just remember, like, again, you know, you have this concept that, oh, especially as a kid, you had this concept that like life is forever, it's eternal. 00:59:03.440 --> 00:59:06.239 Like, you know, like nothing bad can actually happen. 00:59:06.400 --> 00:59:10.960 Uh, I woke up from school, I woke up for school, my mom's like, come downstairs in the living room. 00:59:11.039 --> 00:59:12.800 I need to talk to you and your sister. 00:59:12.960 --> 00:59:17.519 So we both down there, and I don't, you know, like I'm thinking I'm in trouble. 00:59:17.599 --> 00:59:18.880 I don't know what the hell I did. 00:59:19.039 --> 00:59:22.320 And she's like, she's stuttering on the words, stuttering on the words. 00:59:22.400 --> 00:59:24.159 She's trying to find a polite way to say it. 00:59:24.320 --> 00:59:28.159 And then she just like, yeah, there was a fire last night in Southwest. 00:59:28.239 --> 00:59:33.039 And um, and she's stuttering and stuttering, and she just says, and everybody died. 00:59:33.360 --> 00:59:36.880 Aunt Kathy, everybody that was in the house is dead. 00:59:38.079 --> 00:59:41.280 And I was like, what? 00:59:41.760 --> 00:59:51.679 You know, like, and instantly again, like I just fell out, I fell apart because like behind her, the TV had the news plan with the house fire. 00:59:51.760 --> 00:59:54.639 You watching the fireman hose the house down. 00:59:54.800 --> 01:00:04.239 And I don't know that that what she's about to say is correlated to that, but I knew it was real when she said it because I see all of the context behind her. 01:00:04.480 --> 01:00:09.440 It wasn't a, it was no longer like a, you know, a like there was no, all right, stop playing. 01:00:09.519 --> 01:00:11.360 There was nothing like that that was that could come from that. 01:00:11.440 --> 01:00:13.920 It was like everything hit all at once. 01:00:14.000 --> 01:00:15.280 And Wow, okay. 01:00:15.440 --> 01:00:16.320 This is good information. 01:00:16.400 --> 01:00:20.000 Because here I have, I have that it was a fire that happened to your home. 01:00:20.400 --> 01:00:22.480 Fire happened to my home in 2020. 01:00:22.800 --> 01:00:23.360 Okay, different. 01:00:23.519 --> 01:00:24.079 Okay, different fire. 01:00:24.320 --> 01:00:24.639 Completely different. 01:00:24.800 --> 01:00:29.119 So in 2006, so you lose all all um all those people. 01:00:29.199 --> 01:00:33.840 I mean, where, and obviously, like someone who was the closest to you. 01:00:33.920 --> 01:00:36.000 I guess where did you go mentally? 01:00:36.159 --> 01:00:40.000 Was this your first time having lost people that were close to you? 01:00:40.320 --> 01:00:48.639 Yeah, I was the first, like, I was the, I mean, it's not, it wasn't losing someone, it was losing, you know, with what a foundation, a big piece of your foundation. 01:00:48.800 --> 01:00:52.559 The only person that survived was my older cousin who was living in the basement. 01:00:52.719 --> 01:00:55.039 Um, but it was like I lost everything. 01:00:55.119 --> 01:00:58.239 And my older cousin was like, he was a little gone. 01:00:58.400 --> 01:01:02.079 He was in the streets a little bit, so like, I started to follow him. 01:01:02.320 --> 01:01:06.480 So now he felt like nobody could understand him, and I felt like nobody could understand me. 01:01:06.559 --> 01:01:08.400 So now I stopped going to school. 01:01:08.559 --> 01:01:10.320 I'm just outside, and this is where we got. 01:01:10.400 --> 01:01:19.039 Like, now you have this good kid in a fucked up environment, but it's just like I'm trying to understand my pain in real time. 01:01:19.199 --> 01:01:29.519 I'm I'm not the person that self-harms, so I said, I'd rather harm other people because maybe it'll make me feel better about what I'm going through. 01:01:29.679 --> 01:01:31.360 And that's where all of the fighting came in.

01:01:31.519 --> 01:01:37.440 That's just like now we jumping people, we just doing whatever because why not? 01:01:37.599 --> 01:01:43.679 And for I don't know what everybody else's reason was, but for me, it was like, I was, I just was, I was trying to feel something. 01:01:43.840 --> 01:01:49.360 I was trying to, you know, I was trying to connect with whatever piece of me that was gone. 01:01:49.440 --> 01:01:51.760 And trying, and I thought rage was the answer. 01:01:51.920 --> 01:01:53.679 I thought like destruction was the answer. 01:01:53.760 --> 01:01:57.039 So I just started trying to break whatever was in front of me. 01:01:57.199 --> 01:02:01.920 You know, and it went, that was the that was the mentality for a while. 01:02:02.559 --> 01:02:10.400 And again, like I had to go to church and become the the sound guy to realize, yo, nobody cares. 01:02:10.559 --> 01:02:13.519 You know, and not that nobody cares, I think there's still empathy. 01:02:13.760 --> 01:02:24.400 Like, there's no one you could tell, like, yo, there's a four-year-old, a seven-year-old, 14-year-old um kid, kids, and uh, you know, and a 36-year-old mother who passed away in a fire. 01:02:24.480 --> 01:02:27.920 Nobody's gonna be like, oh, all right, whatever it is, what it is. 01:02:28.159 --> 01:02:31.760 Um, but it's just it's information. 01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:34.400 You know, to somebody else who didn't go through it, it's just information. 01:02:34.480 --> 01:02:35.679 It's context, it's a story. 01:02:35.760 --> 01:02:38.239 It's like, you know, the same way you read about whatever might have happened on the news. 01:02:38.559 --> 01:02:39.840 In a lot of cases, it's entertainment. 01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:41.280 It's entertainment, exactly. 01:02:41.440 --> 01:02:44.239 And it just, it just goes the it's it's lore. 01:02:45.119 --> 01:02:46.079 It's lore. 01:02:46.239 --> 01:02:49.360 And for you, you're like, nah, I have real feelings attached to this. 01:02:49.440 --> 01:02:57.840 I have real, you know, like there's real things that that live with those moments, but um, because that's what shaped me to be who I am today. 01:02:57.920 --> 01:02:58.719 That's what shaped me. 01:02:58.800 --> 01:03:00.880 That's how I learned how to like let certain things go. 01:03:01.039 --> 01:03:07.360 That's how, that's why I weigh things on a scale of importance when it's like my life is in or my earth is shattering in front of me. 01:03:07.440 --> 01:03:09.519 I'm like, well, is it this? 01:03:09.679 --> 01:03:11.519 If it's not that, then it's not that bad. 01:03:11.840 --> 01:03:14.719 Thank you for being so vulnerable with these moments. 01:03:15.039 --> 01:03:20.320 After your father passed away, you stepped away from music. 01:03:20.639 --> 01:03:24.400 What brought you back to music after that moment? 01:03:24.719 --> 01:03:27.119 There was a moment where I was running. 01:03:27.360 --> 01:03:29.119 One day I was like, I was helping my mom. 01:03:29.199 --> 01:03:29.920 I was some. 01:03:30.079 --> 01:03:37.280 My grandmom lived in the same uh suburbs that my mom had pushed us to uh middle school. 01:03:37.599 --> 01:03:45.519 And I was helping my grandmack some boxes, and something hit me, something in my mind just told me to run. 01:03:46.559 --> 01:03:49.519 And I just walked out the house, I left my phone, I left everything. 01:03:49.679 --> 01:03:50.880 I just started running. 01:03:51.039 --> 01:03:52.639 And I didn't know what the fuck was going on. 01:03:52.719 --> 01:03:53.360 I just started running. 01:03:53.599 --> 01:03:56.719 I started running, it sounded like a movie, but I was running, I was running. 01:03:56.960 --> 01:04:05.760 And when I finally got out of breath, I looked at where I was at, and it was the middle school that I used to go to. 01:04:06.000 --> 01:04:12.800 But there was like an astral projection happening in front of me, and it was like a different world, I swear to God. 01:04:12.880 --> 01:04:20.320 Like it was like I watched the kid version of me sitting outside waiting to go in for the school bell, and he was rapping. 01:04:20.559 --> 01:04:25.440 He had a bunch of papers sitting in front of him, and like he was rapping all the shit off the papers. 01:04:25.679 --> 01:04:31.199 And for whatever reason, he turned in my direction, he looked at me, and I hid behind a car. 01:04:32.400 --> 01:04:46.480 And that moment, it was like this outer body experience, but that moment made me feel I don't want to say pathetic is the word, but it made me, it made me look at what was happening, and I said, wow, like I'm running. 01:04:46.639 --> 01:04:47.840 I've never ran. 01:04:48.000 --> 01:04:57.679 And I'm not only am I running, I'm running away from a version of me that was younger than me that if he seen what I turned into, he would be, he'd be broken. 01:04:57.840 --> 01:05:01.599 He'd be embarrassed, he'd be shattered to see, like, damn, this is how this plays out. 01:05:01.679 --> 01:05:02.960 Like, I'm, you know, I'm scared. 01:05:03.119 --> 01:05:05.920 Like, like in 10 years' time, I'm scared. 01:05:06.239 --> 01:05:09.519 And I I manned up. 01:05:09.679 --> 01:05:10.480 I manned up. 01:05:10.559 --> 01:05:15.039 Like I stood up on two, you know, I stood back up on my two, and I had left. 01:05:15.280 --> 01:05:16.159 I left the city. 01:05:16.320 --> 01:05:29.199 That was one of the things that, like, with Philly, like I love Philly so much, but I have so much pain attached to Philly between the losses, between like, you know, just like the version of me that isn't really the version of me today. 01:05:29.280 --> 01:05:34.400 Like, it was so much pain and negativity attached to Philly that I left in 2016. 01:05:34.480 --> 01:05:35.760 I left a few months later. 01:05:35.840 --> 01:05:41.199 I came to California, came to LA, and I just got to breathe again. 01:05:41.440 --> 01:05:42.800 I don't even know if that makes sense. 01:05:42.960 --> 01:05:52.079 But like, I

felt like, oh shit, there's a chance, there's a moment, there's opportunity, there's like a, you know, you're now running into people, and I had my little SoundCloud moments. 01:05:52.159 --> 01:05:59.760 You're running into people who are familiar with you, but have no idea what you're going through because your moment that you're going through is really big. 01:06:00.239 --> 01:06:03.599 To you, but it doesn't even exist to somebody else. 01:06:03.760 --> 01:06:05.519 Nobody even knows what this is that you're talking about. 01:06:05.679 --> 01:06:07.199 You never met your dad, you know? 01:06:07.360 --> 01:06:10.639 And so I think that was like that was what got me into it. 01:06:10.800 --> 01:06:18.400 It was like, yo, again, that kid that was wall that was up there rapping on that step, he had a story to tell. 01:06:18.639 --> 01:06:21.280 The shit that was on that that was on that paper was his story. 01:06:22.320 --> 01:06:25.199 All you're doing right now is living the rest of this story. 01:06:25.360 --> 01:06:27.840 You gotta write it and you gotta speak it out. 01:06:28.000 --> 01:06:32.719 You can't just, you can't get consumed in the story because the book will close and it'll leave you in it. 01:06:32.880 --> 01:06:34.079 You feel what I'm saying? 01:06:34.320 --> 01:06:36.960 So I just got up and I was like, I gotta keep writing. 01:06:37.199 --> 01:06:39.840 That's the importance of conversations like this too, right? 01:06:40.079 --> 01:06:46.159 Because everyone has a story or catalyzing moments that led them to eventually being in the same place. 01:06:46.239 --> 01:06:46.400 Yeah. 01:06:46.480 --> 01:06:46.719 Right. 01:06:46.800 --> 01:06:49.039 So all we think about is the end result. 01:06:49.119 --> 01:06:51.519 Like, oh, we're all here in LA, so we're having a great time. 01:06:51.840 --> 01:06:53.599 Okay, everyone's following their dreams. 01:06:53.760 --> 01:07:00.960 But what are all of the moments that led to you making those decisions or making that decision to be like, I want something different for my life? 01:07:01.039 --> 01:07:09.920 That's why conversations like this are important because I'm sure there's a lot of people who know you for all the things that you are legendary for that don't know all of this backstory. 01:07:10.079 --> 01:07:20.320 They might think, oh yeah, he just was a rapper one day, decided to rap, everything worked out for him, but they don't know all of the backstory that goes into your artistry as a whole. 01:07:20.559 --> 01:07:25.039 So you get back to finding yourself essentially and wanting to stand on your own two feet. 01:07:25.199 --> 01:07:26.400 You moved to California. 01:07:26.639 --> 01:07:29.360 Did you continue your music career back there? 01:07:29.599 --> 01:07:29.760 Yeah. 01:07:29.920 --> 01:07:41.440 I guess let's start to get into, you know, when you started to get some traction, like with your career, when like you started to have breakthroughs and feel like, okay, like I'm about to become one of the next, you know, big. 01:07:42.000 --> 01:07:48.639 I started, I I went back to Philly and um when I was in California, I was working tireless. 01:07:48.719 --> 01:07:49.920 I wake up at 4 a.m. 01:07:50.159 --> 01:07:51.920 and I'd speak up until 1 a.m. 01:07:52.079 --> 01:07:53.199 And I wake back up at 4 a.m. 01:07:53.360 --> 01:07:57.199 I was doing three hour days every fucking day, and like eventually I would just pass out. 01:07:57.440 --> 01:08:05.679 Um, but when niggas was asking me why I was working so hard, like, damn, yo, you one of the hungriest people, I was like, bro, I'm scared, terrified. 01:08:05.840 --> 01:08:09.920 I wouldn't never tell anybody that, but I was like, I never wanted to go back to Philly. 01:08:10.079 --> 01:08:22.960 I didn't want to go back because it was like it would, it would, I seen what it was doing to me and how it how it was like breaking me down and breaking me apart and like everything that I was dealing with was consuming me. 01:08:23.279 --> 01:08:25.439 Out there, I felt like it didn't exist. 01:08:25.680 --> 01:08:31.680 And it still like it mattered and meant something to me, but it felt like something that I could talk about because I made it away from it. 01:08:31.840 --> 01:08:34.479 I came back to Philly though, uh eventually. 01:08:34.720 --> 01:08:38.479 I was staying on the couch, so eventually that, you know, that once that ended, I came back to Philly. 01:08:38.560 --> 01:08:42.640 We I stayed on this uh in this apartment in Susquehanna Street in North Philly. 01:08:42.800 --> 01:08:46.159 There's a kid on the corner, uh, I don't know what the fuck he was doing. 01:08:46.239 --> 01:08:47.039 He was just standing there on the corner. 01:08:47.119 --> 01:08:48.720 I can't say what he was or wasn't doing. 01:08:48.880 --> 01:08:56.399 But I know I walked in the house and seen him, whatever, walked in the house, closed the door, and as I'm opening the apartment door, I hear shots. 01:08:58.720 --> 01:09:00.560 And oh shit. 01:09:00.880 --> 01:09:03.359 So wait for a little bit, I go look out the window. 01:09:03.840 --> 01:09:05.119 Kid got shot in his head. 01:09:05.359 --> 01:09:07.439 It's like I think later on they identified him. 01:09:07.520 --> 01:09:08.479 He's like a 16-year-old kid. 01:09:08.560 --> 01:09:10.000 He got shot in his head. 01:09:10.479 --> 01:09:14.880 And in that moment, I was like, oh shit, I'm back. 01:09:15.199 --> 01:09:17.600 Like none of this existed when I left. 01:09:17.680 --> 01:09:18.479 I'm back. 01:09:18.720 --> 01:09:20.319 I gotta get the fuck out of here. 01:09:20.399 --> 01:09:21.279 Like, you feel me? 01:09:21.359 --> 01:09:25.680 Because like I'm not, I don't know, there's there's Philly and it's Philadelphia. 01:09:25.840 --> 01:09:29.199 Philadelphia is where you go get a cheesesteak from, you go watch the Phillies games. 01:09:29.359 --> 01:09:30.000 Then it's Philly. 01:09:30.079 --> 01:09:31.920 It's North

Philly, West Philly, South Philly. 01:09:32.079 --> 01:09:34.560 Like, and I was in Philly all of my life growing up. 01:09:34.640 --> 01:09:35.279 I've been in Philly. 01:09:35.359 --> 01:09:40.079 I ain't never been in like the Philadelphia nice house or none of that shit. 01:09:40.239 --> 01:09:43.840 So um, when I went back home, I seen the environment that I was in. 01:09:43.920 --> 01:09:44.800 Like it was, it was real. 01:09:45.359 --> 01:09:48.000 It was still what it what it was when I was growing up. 01:09:48.239 --> 01:09:50.319 And at that point, it was like, I gotta hustle. 01:09:50.399 --> 01:09:51.359 I gotta work, I gotta work. 01:09:51.439 --> 01:09:53.359 I went and staged a meeting. 01:09:53.680 --> 01:09:58.960 And um I had did a Pigeons and Plains did like a, they had, they had just got the Apple show. 01:09:59.039 --> 01:10:01.279 It lasted like a couple months, but they had an Apple radio show. 01:10:01.359 --> 01:10:03.439 And they was like, yo, do you got a song that you want to put on there? 01:10:03.520 --> 01:10:04.399 I was like, yeah, fuck it. 01:10:04.560 --> 01:10:06.880 I put this one song, it's like some random shit that was in my hard drive. 01:10:06.960 --> 01:10:09.199 We dropped it, we leaked it, we premiered it through them. 01:10:09.439 --> 01:10:12.960 And I remember I had one of the guys' emails from that moment. 01:10:13.279 --> 01:10:19.119 Never spoke to him or nothing, but I took a trip off a buddy pass back to LA. 01:10:19.359 --> 01:10:22.640 Took a trip off a buddy pass, and I went to Apple. 01:10:22.720 --> 01:10:31.439 I found the Apple address that was on the email, went to Apple, and I was like, hey guys, I got this meeting with this guy right here, his name is this. 01:10:31.520 --> 01:10:33.520 And they was like, oh yeah, I'll let him know that you're down here. 01:10:33.680 --> 01:10:34.319 So I'm like, cool. 01:10:34.399 --> 01:10:37.520 I'm just waiting in the lobby, and I'm like, I've never met, I don't even know who the fuck this guy is. 01:10:37.680 --> 01:10:39.680 And he comes down looking confused, like, who am I? 01:10:39.760 --> 01:10:41.920 But he's not going, he's like, I ain't about to play you in front of them. 01:10:42.000 --> 01:10:44.640 So I'm like, oh, yo, hey, man, good to see you, man. 01:10:44.720 --> 01:10:46.239 Like, hey, you want you want, you want to sit outside? 01:10:46.319 --> 01:10:46.800 Take the meeting. 01:10:46.880 --> 01:10:48.399 He's like, sure, I guess. 01:10:48.479 --> 01:10:49.279 Like, you know what I'm saying? 01:10:49.359 --> 01:10:50.399 So he takes us outside. 01:10:50.560 --> 01:10:52.159 At that point, I start spilling it. 01:10:52.239 --> 01:10:54.560 I was just like, yo, man, listen, I'm this and that. 01:10:54.640 --> 01:10:55.439 I got this going on. 01:10:55.520 --> 01:10:58.880 Like, my father just passed, but I'm like, I'm I'm gonna make it out of my situation. 01:10:58.960 --> 01:10:59.680 I'm working on this. 01:10:59.760 --> 01:11:03.439 I was working on keeping touch at the time, but I was like, this is all the shit that I'm doing. 01:11:03.520 --> 01:11:05.039 I did this, I did that, I did that. 01:11:05.760 --> 01:11:10.239 And he was like, wow, I just admire the fact that you was brave enough to do this shit. 01:11:10.399 --> 01:11:11.199 You know what I'm saying? 01:11:11.279 --> 01:11:18.880 Like, you, you was that fearless to just come, like, fly all the way out this motherfucker and just set up a fake meeting just to, you know, get in front of some niggas. 01:11:18.960 --> 01:11:22.079 He's like, I'm gonna do whatever I can to help you get where you gotta go. 01:11:22.399 --> 01:11:24.640 And from there, he helped me with distribution. 01:11:24.720 --> 01:11:26.720 He helped me figure out my distribution plan. 01:11:27.039 --> 01:11:34.319 Uh, I took a video, um, my first video was like this one take video in 2015 that went up on SoundCloud. 01:11:34.560 --> 01:11:37.039 So my next video, I was let us do the same one take thing. 01:11:37.199 --> 01:11:40.880 At the time, Apple was doing shot on iPhone um commercials. 01:11:41.039 --> 01:11:43.760 So I was like, yo, let's do a shot on iPhone music video. 01:11:43.840 --> 01:11:47.439 So it starts off saying shot on iPhone, but it's just us rapping in the car. 01:11:47.600 --> 01:11:54.880 And then we rapping in the car, and then the camera's just like in the middle of it rapping, the camera falls, and then we pick it up, and now we're doing some completely different shit. 01:11:55.039 --> 01:11:57.760 But then somebody runs in and robs us. 01:11:58.079 --> 01:12:08.000 Like somebody opens the car door and then they rob us, and everybody's scattering out the car, and a nigga takes the phone and then he runs it off, and you just see the guy running off, running off, running off. 01:12:08.159 --> 01:12:11.600 And I did that, I put it on Twitter, it went crazy. 01:12:11.680 --> 01:12:14.720 Like it had a million views when a million views was still like a thing. 01:12:15.039 --> 01:12:16.399 And it went crazy. 01:12:16.479 --> 01:12:22.720 At that point, that was when all the labels start calling me all of the, like, you know, and I was making my own little independent thing go. 01:12:22.880 --> 01:12:25.359 Um, and I was doing that for a couple years. 01:12:25.439 --> 01:12:27.039 Uh, I just didn't have no money. 01:12:27.279 --> 01:12:28.239 I had no cheese. 01:12:28.800 --> 01:12:29.760 I had no cheese. 01:12:29.840 --> 01:12:34.079 My guy, Jason from uh, he's from STEM at the time. 01:12:34.239 --> 01:12:37.680 Jason hit me and was like, yo, there's a Doritos competition. 01:12:37.840 --> 01:12:41.199 I don't know if you if you've seen this shit, but uh, it's a Doritos competition. 01:12:41.279 --> 01:12:44.800 They're giving away 50K to anybody that can rap about Doritos. 01:12:46.319 --> 01:12:48.000 I was like, nigga, what? 01:12:48.399 --> 01:12:48.960 You know what I'm saying? 01:12:49.039 -->

01:12:51.199 At the time, I was like, man, I'm too cool, bro. 01:12:51.279 --> 01:12:52.000 I'm a real rapper. 01:12:52.079 --> 01:12:54.079 They gonna look at me like I'm a gimmick, and da da da da. 01:12:54.479 --> 01:12:56.640 He's like, bro, it's$50,000. 01:12:57.439 --> 01:12:59.359 And you have none. 01:12:59.760 --> 01:13:02.239 You have$0,000 right now. 01:13:02.479 --> 01:13:03.920 He was like, just do the shit. 01:13:04.079 --> 01:13:05.600 So I got like he knew the judges. 01:13:05.760 --> 01:13:06.720 I knew the judges actually. 01:13:06.800 --> 01:13:12.159 It was like some lady from Doritos who loved, who's already a fan of me, my homie from All Def, and Busta Roms. 01:13:12.560 --> 01:13:14.800 And they all three was like, yo, he won. 01:13:14.960 --> 01:13:18.960 And we went out to Vegas, did the whole shit, and I was surviving off of that$50,000. 01:13:19.119 --> 01:13:29.439 That was the money that along with other little sink deals and shit, I used that to survive, just to eat and my PPP loan. 01:13:29.680 --> 01:13:31.039 Or not my PPP, my PUA. 01:13:31.119 --> 01:13:33.439 I had the PUA uh unemployment assistance or whatever. 01:13:33.600 --> 01:13:34.720 I didn't get the$20,000. 01:13:34.800 --> 01:13:36.720 I got like 9,000 or whatever. 01:13:36.880 --> 01:13:41.439 And I took that money and I paid for Billy Eilish with it. 01:13:42.319 --> 01:13:51.119 So all of that money, it survived me for like three, four years, and then that's when um actually that should survive me up until the house fire. 01:13:51.520 --> 01:13:51.840 Yeah. 01:13:52.079 --> 01:13:54.000 This is the house fire that took place in 2020. 01:13:54.239 --> 01:13:54.960 2020, yes. 01:13:55.199 --> 01:14:00.000 Me and my homie had an idea to do fireworks. 01:14:00.159 --> 01:14:05.279 Everybody was quarantined, and he was like, yo, he's gonna play the music, and I'ma shoot fireworks, whatever. 01:14:05.359 --> 01:14:06.880 But my dad used to always do fireworks. 01:14:06.960 --> 01:14:08.560 That was his thing, like on the block. 01:14:08.720 --> 01:14:10.000 Um, it's not like cool. 01:14:10.079 --> 01:14:12.399 It could be like a fireworks, like a Father's Day. 01:14:12.479 --> 01:14:14.560 It was like Father's Day and Juneteenth was on the same day or something. 01:14:14.640 --> 01:14:16.319 So that could be a Father's Day, Juneteenth celebration. 01:14:16.479 --> 01:14:17.680 We'll shoot the fireworks off. 01:14:17.920 --> 01:14:18.399 Cool. 01:14:18.560 --> 01:14:20.239 We shooting the fireworks. 01:14:20.399 --> 01:14:27.279 Um, and then when we finish, niggas at the bottom is like, yo, the cops, the cops, get down. 01:14:27.520 --> 01:14:32.000 So I'm like, all right, we're trying to smother the fireworks, but they like, yo, hurry up, the cops are coming, like, yo, get low. 01:14:32.239 --> 01:14:34.960 So we leave the fireworks up there and we run downstairs. 01:14:35.039 --> 01:14:36.319 They stand there at the door. 01:14:36.560 --> 01:14:37.680 Run downstairs and go talk to them. 01:14:37.760 --> 01:14:38.640 There's nobody at the door. 01:14:38.800 --> 01:14:43.199 But by the time I get downstairs, somebody else is like, yo, your roof is on fire. 01:14:43.359 --> 01:14:44.640 I'm like, what? 01:14:44.960 --> 01:14:50.640 So now we run back upstairs trying to stop the fire, but it just keeps growing, growing, getting bigger and bigger. 01:14:50.880 --> 01:14:59.760 Cops come, they put the fire out, and we're we thinking everything's good, but they're like, you know, uh, like the house got fucked up with them trying to put water, like shooting water in it and all that. 01:14:59.840 --> 01:15:01.119 So it's like you can't stay there tonight. 01:15:01.439 --> 01:15:04.000 Well, did you did you lose anything in that fire? 01:15:04.800 --> 01:15:05.119 No. 01:15:05.520 --> 01:15:06.720 Like, maybe my bed. 01:15:07.439 --> 01:15:12.239 My bed got fucked up, but like everything else was, you know, like I was, we were trying to move back in. 01:15:12.319 --> 01:15:14.800 So the only thing that really happened was the window got busted. 01:15:14.880 --> 01:15:19.680 They bust the window to shoot, yeah, but to put the uh put the fucking water hose through it. 01:15:19.760 --> 01:15:24.319 We didn't find out until months later, my brother got pulled over for his tents. 01:15:24.720 --> 01:15:28.720 And when they pulled him over, they said, you know, you got a warrant out for your arrest. 01:15:29.119 --> 01:15:31.439 And my brother's a, he's a convicted felon. 01:15:31.760 --> 01:15:35.840 So they just take him in immediately and they stick him there. 01:15:35.920 --> 01:15:38.800 Like in this pandemic, so you can't even get a court date, you can't get nothing. 01:15:38.960 --> 01:15:39.520 They just stuck him there. 01:15:39.600 --> 01:15:42.239 And they're like, yo, and you violated probation, so like you're here. 01:15:42.399 --> 01:15:45.119 Like you're you're cooked for another at least another year or two. 01:15:45.439 --> 01:15:48.079 And he wasn't even there when the fire happened. 01:15:48.159 --> 01:15:50.479 They just arrested him because his name was on the lease. 01:15:50.640 --> 01:15:57.760 So now my brother's calling me, yelling at me, cursing me out about it, and I'm like, oh shit, that means we all got warrants. 01:15:58.560 --> 01:16:00.000 I go get a lawyer. 01:16:00.159 --> 01:16:03.119 Um, I go get a lawyer, we're trying to figure the whole shit out. 01:16:03.359 --> 01:16:09.760 And the lawyer's like, well, I don't want it to be a conflict of interest between you and your friend if I'm going to be representing you. 01:16:09.840 --> 01:16:11.680 I'm like, nah, like we both are guilty. 01:16:11.760 --> 01:16:15.119 We're both on the defendant's side, so we're like both pleading not guilty. 01:16:15.359 --> 01:16:18.560 And um, you know, we both know what happened, we did it, whatever. 01:16:18.800 --> 01:16:21.680 My homie was like, Well, I ain't had nothing to do with it.

01:16:21.920 --> 01:16:22.880 You did it. 01:16:23.520 --> 01:16:24.880 I said, wait, what? 01:16:25.520 --> 01:16:26.319 You know what I'm saying? 01:16:26.399 --> 01:16:27.840 So that's in front of my mom. 01:16:27.920 --> 01:16:29.760 My mom looking at the nigga like, nigga, what? 01:16:29.840 --> 01:16:30.880 Like, you feel me? 01:16:31.039 --> 01:16:34.880 And so it turned into this whole thing between now me and my homie. 01:16:34.960 --> 01:16:38.720 Now we all separated, and he still like, well, ain't you gonna pay for my lawyer? 01:16:38.880 --> 01:16:41.039 This nigga go, fuck no, like you tripping. 01:16:41.199 --> 01:16:41.920 You know what I'm saying? 01:16:42.079 --> 01:16:46.399 And so, so now me and this nigga, we, he, I feel some type way about cuz. 01:16:46.479 --> 01:16:47.680 I'm like, man, I wanna take his head off. 01:16:47.760 --> 01:16:49.039 Like, I wanna fuck him up. 01:16:49.279 --> 01:16:53.920 Um, we kind of on opposite angles, and my brother's still in jail. 01:16:54.079 --> 01:16:57.279 And we finally get him out of there because we had to wait till court dates. 01:16:57.359 --> 01:17:00.079 They're not, they're not, nobody's meeting up because of the pandemic is going on. 01:17:00.159 --> 01:17:01.199 Nobody meeting up. 01:17:01.439 --> 01:17:07.199 And so we had to turn ourselves in to jail, sitting there in jail. 01:17:07.520 --> 01:17:12.560 I mean, in the Pennsylvania Commonwealth, arson is looked at like murder. 01:17:12.720 --> 01:17:14.960 So if you convicted for arson, it's 25. 01:17:16.000 --> 01:17:18.159 First degree arson is a 25 life sentence. 01:17:18.319 --> 01:17:22.800 Um, uh, or not maybe not 25 a life, but it's 25 years, mandatory minimum. 01:17:22.880 --> 01:17:24.640 Um, or a second degree is 10 to 20. 01:17:24.800 --> 01:17:26.319 Like, I was looking at to look this shit up. 01:17:26.399 --> 01:17:26.960 You know what I'm saying? 01:17:27.199 --> 01:17:30.800 So um, we sitting in there, you know, trying to go through the whole shit. 01:17:30.960 --> 01:17:44.399 We finally, we, we go turn ourselves in, and they like, yo, nigga, they let it was some nigga that he got arrested for selling crack and he was on bail for selling crack and then got arrested again with crack on him. 01:17:44.880 --> 01:17:46.479 Like while on bail. 01:17:46.640 --> 01:17:48.319 And they let that nigga walk. 01:17:48.479 --> 01:17:50.640 Like, we just hearing him while we taking our mugshots. 01:17:50.800 --> 01:17:51.760 They let that nigga walk. 01:17:51.920 --> 01:17:57.119 And then we we get in there and they like, yeah, okay, your bail is set at$100,000. 01:17:58.960 --> 01:18:01.600 I said, I ain't got that much Dorito money, nigga. 01:18:02.079 --> 01:18:07.039 And so my lawyer's like, Your Honor, this is like, this whole thing is blown out of proportion. 01:18:07.119 --> 01:18:08.479 It looks way crazier than it is. 01:18:08.560 --> 01:18:12.399 You talking about like some fireworks, the damage was less than$2,000. 01:18:12.800 --> 01:18:15.279 Like, this isn't a real situation. 01:18:15.359 --> 01:18:17.760 It's just a matter of negligence, if anything. 01:18:17.920 --> 01:18:19.680 Um, you know, we we should be able to work this out. 01:18:19.760 --> 01:18:21.039 She said, okay, understood. 01:18:21.279 --> 01:18:22.239 $100,000. 01:18:23.439 --> 01:18:32.319 And so they they take it down, they're doing the intake, and they asked my man, like, you and this last guy, you guys are really well spoken. 01:18:32.560 --> 01:18:35.439 Um, does your parents know you guys are in there? 01:18:35.760 --> 01:18:37.119 And he's like, no. 01:18:37.359 --> 01:18:39.279 She said, Oh, hold on one second. 01:18:39.439 --> 01:18:40.399 Call this nigga mom. 01:18:41.279 --> 01:18:43.760 Call this nigga mom while you're in jail. 01:18:44.079 --> 01:18:46.479 And so we end up bailing out. 01:18:46.720 --> 01:18:54.800 We end up bailing out and had to just literally like live on bail for the next like maybe a year for the next year. 01:18:54.880 --> 01:18:58.399 It was like, yo, you get into anything, couldn't leave the country, all that type of shit. 01:18:58.720 --> 01:19:11.439 Until um we got to court, and it was like, they had a uh fire marshal there that wasn't even there on the scene, but it was a fire marshal that was like, I know these guys, I've seen them before, and he's getting our names mixed up. 01:19:11.520 --> 01:19:20.560 He's like, that guy right there, that's Enoch Peterson, that guy's um uh Juwan Edwards or just saying random names. 01:19:20.800 --> 01:19:22.880 And the judge is a black woman. 01:19:23.039 --> 01:19:41.359 The judge was like, well, the reason this is the reason that's important for you to have black people, just people of color in these type of scenarios, is because you just told me that you can't identify any of these men because they all had buzz cuts and short hair last year, but now they all have really long hair. 01:19:41.840 --> 01:19:47.359 There's no way a black man can grow hair that long if he had a buzz cut last year. 01:19:47.680 --> 01:19:51.039 And she's like, just off that, I'm dismissing this case. 01:19:51.279 --> 01:19:57.920 And that was like, so we got to walk away from that shit, but yeah, that cooked me, nigga. 01:19:58.319 --> 01:20:02.239 That entire situation, did it have any effect on your public identity? 01:20:02.560 --> 01:20:06.159 It never really made it to, it never really made it super public. 01:20:06.399 --> 01:20:13.680 Uh, I think it was like, it was a wrongful, you know, like there was a little bit of a little bit of noise about a chat or about a wrongful, wrongful conviction. 01:20:13.840 --> 01:20:21.920 I think as, especially as more and more press came up, they just did, they went over time and making sure that nobody ever bought it up. 01:20:22.079 --> 01:20:26.399 Because they was like, you know, you're doing all of these like really pop facing things. 01:20:26.560 --> 01:20:36.720 We

don't want it to be any sort of a uh, you know, any sort of a felony case attached to your name and saying, like, oh yeah, you have felonies for uh for arson and you got out of it. 01:20:36.880 --> 01:20:39.600 It's like, nah, we want to keep you with this pristine image. 01:20:39.920 --> 01:20:42.960 I have notes here on something called Letter from Jail. 01:20:43.439 --> 01:20:43.600 Yeah. 01:20:43.920 --> 01:20:44.560 Free Blanco. 01:20:44.960 --> 01:20:47.680 I also have Things We Lost in the Fire. 01:20:47.920 --> 01:20:48.399 Yes, sir. 01:20:48.640 --> 01:20:50.399 Can you speak on both of those things? 01:20:51.119 --> 01:20:53.760 Um I wrote a letter from jail. 01:20:54.640 --> 01:21:01.199 I wrote a letter from jail, actually, like I didn't know what was gonna happen. 01:21:01.439 --> 01:21:06.479 So when we had to turn ourselves in, it was like, you know, they they they give you some problems, yeah, we'll get you out of here in a couple hours. 01:21:06.560 --> 01:21:08.000 But I was like, I have no idea. 01:21:08.079 --> 01:21:09.439 And like, it's stuck. 01:21:09.600 --> 01:21:10.560 Like everything is stuck. 01:21:10.640 --> 01:21:17.439 I never had to be in a situation where my life was not determined or decided by me and whatever it is. 01:21:17.520 --> 01:21:21.119 Like, if I'm like, yo, I want to go somewhere today, I'm going somewhere, I want to fly somewhere, I'm flying somewhere. 01:21:21.279 --> 01:21:25.039 It was never a moment where it's like, yo, you're turning over the keys to your life. 01:21:25.279 --> 01:21:26.399 Yeah, to your life. 01:21:26.479 --> 01:21:41.760 And so Letter from Jail was just like uh, damn, I'm writing this from this perspective of like it was, you know, again, I wrote it in the moment that we wrote that it was still in the in the keep in touch era. 01:21:42.159 --> 01:21:50.880 So a lot of the things that I would write, a lot of the things I was writing came from the perspective of if my dad was here to give me advice. 01:21:51.199 --> 01:21:54.960 And what my dad would say if he was going through the same exact thing that he was going through. 01:21:55.119 --> 01:21:59.039 And so I wrote that from the same perspective of father talking to son. 01:21:59.119 --> 01:22:09.359 Like, I hope you never have to go through some of the things I went through, like my dad's life in the streets, and especially me being able to, in some ways, mirror some of his mistakes. 01:22:09.840 --> 01:22:12.560 I started to see, like, all right, let me try and write this. 01:22:12.640 --> 01:22:25.600 Not only from what I wish he would have said to me growing up, but like, you know, in 10 years, 20 years, I had a kid, like, maybe they stumble across this song and they're like, wow, there's a message and there's a story behind what just happened. 01:22:25.680 --> 01:22:33.199 So I was speaking to my young, my future kid while also, you know, the other side of that was things you lost in the fire. 01:22:33.279 --> 01:22:38.000 And I was like, that was because it was so much time that went by. 01:22:38.079 --> 01:22:41.199 It was 15 years at that point of um the house fire. 01:22:41.359 --> 01:22:42.720 I never spoke about it. 01:22:42.960 --> 01:22:46.159 I was, and I like for so many years, I was scared to speak about it. 01:22:46.239 --> 01:22:48.800 Because I think speaking about it made it more real. 01:22:48.960 --> 01:22:50.880 It made it more permanent, more definite. 01:22:50.960 --> 01:22:58.640 Like I still, you know, as a kid, you're a kid, so you have this hopeful idea that's like, it's like when Frank Ocean dropped endless, and he was like, ah, okay, it's cool. 01:22:58.720 --> 01:23:00.079 But then the next day he dropped blind. 01:23:00.319 --> 01:23:04.960 Like, I was waiting for my blind moment, like, oh, JK guys, this is the actual thing. 01:23:05.119 --> 01:23:10.640 Like, and the more I spoke about it, it was like, all right, nah, this is actually a real thing. 01:23:10.800 --> 01:23:18.880 So when the house fire happened, it became a loop where I was like, I feel like this is my moment to actually, you know, uh talk about it. 01:23:18.960 --> 01:23:23.680 And then, and I met a guy, I met this guy named Steve Chandy that kind of sparked it. 01:23:23.760 --> 01:23:26.159 He was like an Ed Sheeran type of guy on the guitar. 01:23:26.560 --> 01:23:31.760 And we used to just like, he, I met him singing in a park on Rittenhouse, uh, Rittenhouse Square in Philly. 01:23:32.000 --> 01:23:34.399 He'd just be in there barefoot playing a guitar. 01:23:34.479 --> 01:23:36.560 Like that was a shit, little Bahranian guy. 01:23:36.720 --> 01:23:40.319 Um and we used to talk and he's asking me what I was going through and things like that. 01:23:40.399 --> 01:23:44.159 And I think when I told when I met him, I was like, it's my cousin's birthday. 01:23:44.239 --> 01:23:48.079 Uh she passed away when I was a kid, and I was fired. 01:23:48.159 --> 01:23:51.760 His whole thing was like, tell me what you're going through, I'm gonna write a song about it. 01:23:52.239 --> 01:23:57.119 And he had wrote this song in the moment. 01:23:57.439 --> 01:24:00.239 And it was like, it was about my cousin Melinda. 01:24:01.119 --> 01:24:04.960 And the song was maybe four bars total. 01:24:05.279 --> 01:24:09.600 But when he did it, everything came back up, and I just fell. 01:24:09.680 --> 01:24:11.520 Like I like, like, I just broke. 01:24:11.600 --> 01:24:12.800 I started crying and shit. 01:24:12.960 --> 01:24:16.159 I was like, music's never made me cry before. 01:24:16.399 --> 01:24:22.800 You know, music there's never been a song that I heard or like a message that happened where like it actually brung me to tears. 01:24:23.600 --> 01:24:27.119 And I was like, man, like I'm I'm an open book type of person. 01:24:27.359 --> 01:24:32.560 And anytime I recognize that there's something that somewhere where the book is closed at, I'm like, I gotta bring this up.

01:24:32.640 --> 01:24:34.239 I gotta get off this, I gotta get this off me. 01:24:34.319 --> 01:24:39.760 I don't wanna be the guy that's like, yeah, I need a therapy to say all the things that I wanted to say. 01:24:39.840 --> 01:24:43.039 It's like that as well, but can I just speak? 01:24:43.199 --> 01:24:44.880 Can I just openly and freely speak? 01:24:44.960 --> 01:24:49.920 And the more I can speak about it, the better I can be, and the more at peace I can be around it. 01:24:50.079 --> 01:24:52.960 Um and that's where things be lost on the fire spawn. 01:24:53.199 --> 01:24:58.640 It's crazy, uh like to have not only one experience with fire in general, but two experiences. 01:24:59.199 --> 01:25:05.680 One that was not a joke, but it happened, it was something that playful that turned into something serious. 01:25:05.840 --> 01:25:13.199 And but another thing that was like catastrophic, you know, and kind of the the contrast between those two things, yeah. 01:25:13.359 --> 01:25:14.000 I can't imagine. 01:25:14.079 --> 01:25:20.960 I've never been in a fire like that, but I've you know I've had a couple close, close, close moments, and I've been like, it's it's terrifying, honestly. 01:25:21.119 --> 01:25:24.239 So the fact that you've even been through that is a story in itself. 01:25:24.399 --> 01:25:26.399 So this happens in 2020. 01:25:26.479 --> 01:25:26.640 Yeah. 01:25:26.800 --> 01:25:28.960 Um you mentioned it because you were you're on your way. 01:25:29.119 --> 01:25:31.199 I think you were on your way to talking about Billie Eilish. 01:25:31.600 --> 01:25:35.199 Talk about coming out of 2020 pandemic, you got your freedom. 01:25:35.600 --> 01:25:36.479 I got my freedom, yeah. 01:25:36.560 --> 01:25:37.119 You got your freedom. 01:25:37.359 --> 01:25:38.399 Walk out the courtroom. 01:25:38.479 --> 01:25:38.640 Yeah. 01:25:38.880 --> 01:25:43.600 Um, in that moment again, I walked out the courtroom and I thought the same way I thought in 2016. 01:25:43.680 --> 01:25:55.039 I was like, I just don't want to ever, I want to keep writing a story, and I don't want to ever be in a spot where I'm like, I guess at that moment I realized how quickly freedom can be removed. 01:25:55.359 --> 01:26:01.279 And and then when I felt that, I was like, well, I need to take advantage of every single day I have to be awake. 01:26:01.520 --> 01:26:06.319 And mainly because some of the people who I would love to still be awake aren't anymore. 01:26:06.479 --> 01:26:08.479 They don't have this opportunity to take advantage of it. 01:26:08.560 --> 01:26:11.600 So every day, we just woke up and I worked at something. 01:26:11.680 --> 01:26:12.640 I was learning it all. 01:26:12.720 --> 01:26:15.039 Like I was trying to figure out how to work TikTok. 01:26:15.119 --> 01:26:17.520 I was like at the time, yeah, TikTok was just starting at the time. 01:26:17.600 --> 01:26:20.640 I'm trying to figure out how to do this thing, I'm trying to figure out how to

do that thing. 01:26:20.800 --> 01:26:29.840 And um, even like, you know, a record like Billy Eilish, when it happened, I had no idea how to do this, the samples and all that type of shit. 01:26:29.920 --> 01:26:31.039 I had no idea how to do anything. 01:26:31.119 --> 01:26:35.199 I just knew like if you upload a song here, like, you know, if it goes well, whatever. 01:26:35.439 --> 01:26:46.720 Um, once that happened and it moved, once that happened and it worked and it moved, um all I had was the money that I took from Doritos. 01:26:47.119 --> 01:26:58.800 I had the pandemic money, and I had like, it was these little sync checks that I would get$2,500 here,$2,500 there, these little$2,000 brand deals I do for like a water bottle or whatever, you know. 01:26:58.960 --> 01:27:08.399 Um, and I took all that, and that was what I used to fund the video, that was what I used to fund um the clearance, that was what I used to do the marketing and promotion. 01:27:08.479 --> 01:27:10.560 Like when it first dropped, it dropped independently. 01:27:10.640 --> 01:27:14.319 So everything at that point was just me just trying to make it make sense. 01:27:14.640 --> 01:27:20.560 Where were you when you first realized that that song was moving differently than your other songs? 01:27:20.800 --> 01:27:22.319 I was in a crib, right? 01:27:23.199 --> 01:27:28.800 We had just got, I had a meeting and I had a studio session that night. 01:27:29.039 --> 01:27:33.439 So I had a meeting with some shit called, it was like Warner Mute Media X or some shit. 01:27:33.520 --> 01:27:33.760 I don't know. 01:27:33.840 --> 01:27:35.119 It was like some little thing they were starting. 01:27:35.199 --> 01:27:36.399 It didn't even last that long. 01:27:36.560 --> 01:27:38.239 But they were like, they were interested. 01:27:38.399 --> 01:27:41.680 And then we got on the phone and it was like, yeah, it's too early. 01:27:41.840 --> 01:27:46.800 So I'm like, damn, how long am I gonna be going through life when niggas just keep telling me it's too early? 01:27:47.039 --> 01:27:51.279 And I went, I went to the studio that night and I recorded, uh, I recorded Billie Eilish. 01:27:51.439 --> 01:27:53.520 And I was like, I'm uh I'm doing that. 01:27:53.600 --> 01:27:56.159 We do the video in the studio, we all in there dancing, laughing. 01:27:56.239 --> 01:27:57.920 I'm like, yo, y'all don't think this shit crazy? 01:27:58.079 --> 01:27:59.439 And they like, I mean, it's cool. 01:28:00.159 --> 01:28:00.399 It's cool. 01:28:00.479 --> 01:28:01.199 I play it for my brother. 01:28:01.600 --> 01:28:02.159 Yeah, it's cool. 01:28:02.239 --> 01:28:04.399 Like it ain't really, you know, all right, whatever. 01:28:04.560 --> 01:28:06.079 And I'm playing it for like everybody. 01:28:06.159 --> 01:28:08.000 Like that whole next day, I was just playing it for people. 01:28:08.239 --> 01:28:10.239 Nobody was like, you know, it was all right. 01:28:10.560 --> 01:28:13.600 At the time, we was getting evicted from our apartment. 01:28:13.840 --> 01:28:20.960 We was getting evicted, and the roof in my bedroom had um, it was raining so bad that the roof fell apart. 01:28:21.119 --> 01:28:23.840 So every night that it rained, water would just leak through. 01:28:23.920 --> 01:28:25.520 So it was like a big bucket on my bed. 01:28:25.680 --> 01:28:30.479 It was a bucket on the uh on the couch, or not the couch on the um, on the carpet. 01:28:30.640 --> 01:28:33.119 And I was asleep on the couch downstairs. 01:28:33.359 --> 01:28:36.720 So I just, I remember the night we had a couch that was broken in half. 01:28:36.800 --> 01:28:39.680 Uh like one of us asleep on one side, I sleep on the other side. 01:28:39.840 --> 01:28:43.600 I uploaded it and I fell asleep on the little half of a couch I had. 01:28:43.840 --> 01:28:45.439 And I uploaded that TikTok. 01:28:45.520 --> 01:28:47.840 The next morning, it had a million views. 01:28:48.159 --> 01:28:50.960 I was like, hey guys, I think this shit moving. 01:28:52.159 --> 01:28:56.800 And the whole time, I'm at the gym, but I'm just looking at the shit like, yo, it's at 1.5. 01:28:57.199 --> 01:28:58.560 Yo, it's at two million. 01:28:58.800 --> 01:29:06.960 And so then everybody who, everybody who I was um, who I was in contact with, I was talking to and all that, they all started hitting me back. 01:29:07.039 --> 01:29:08.239 Yo, man, what's this song, bro? 01:29:08.399 --> 01:29:08.960 What we doing? 01:29:09.119 --> 01:29:13.119 What we, the WMX people, he's back, yo, hey guys, like, you know what I'm saying? 01:29:13.199 --> 01:29:15.840 And so um, it became a thing. 01:29:15.920 --> 01:29:18.880 That was when it we first started realizing it was moving, but I didn't have anybody. 01:29:18.960 --> 01:29:23.439 I had no manager, I ain't had no, didn't have a label, didn't have, I had nothing. 01:29:24.000 --> 01:29:30.640 I had one old guy that was like, he used to be in digital 20 years ago or something, and he would just give me advice sometimes, but nothing. 01:29:30.960 --> 01:29:31.920 You feel me? 01:29:32.079 --> 01:29:37.359 Um, but I was like, again, the main thing that made that song work was fear. 01:29:37.600 --> 01:29:39.760 I refused to let that moment go away. 01:29:39.920 --> 01:29:48.319 And I was like, that the idea of that moment slipping away from me, the idea of, yo, I could fuck this up, it scared me. 01:29:48.560 --> 01:29:51.760 Terrified me to the point that I was like, I'm not waiting, I'm not going to sleep. 01:29:51.920 --> 01:29:58.560 I'm gonna spend every waking moment doing something to push this, to drive this home, to get people excited, to get people paying attention. 01:29:58.800 --> 01:30:00.399 And it worked out. 01:30:00.880 --> 01:30:03.520 The song, I I've heard the song, The Song is a banger. 01:30:03.600 --> 01:30:05.840 I think it deserves to be as popular as it is. 01:30:06.079 --> 01:30:13.920 Why do you feel like that song took off more as

opposed to maybe songs that you had made before that? 01:30:14.239 --> 01:30:19.279 I used to steal salmon out of this grocery store down the street from my house. 01:30:19.439 --> 01:30:21.279 You could, you could self-check out it for free. 01:30:21.439 --> 01:30:25.680 Um, and I remember I was there, and this girl was like, yo, I know you. 01:30:25.920 --> 01:30:28.079 Like, you're you're like a rapper or something, right? 01:30:28.159 --> 01:30:29.680 And her friend was like, he ain't no rapper. 01:30:29.840 --> 01:30:31.680 And I'm like, nah, I am a rapper. 01:30:31.760 --> 01:30:35.600 And she's like, no, he's not like a rapper rapper, but he's like, you're a conscious rapper. 01:30:35.680 --> 01:30:38.319 And I was like, wait, bitch, don't talk about what the fuck? 01:30:38.399 --> 01:30:40.960 Like, and conscious rap wasn't cool at that time. 01:30:41.039 --> 01:30:44.479 So I'm like, she was like, yeah, but like, you know, you rap about more serious stuff. 01:30:44.720 --> 01:30:46.720 I'm the most playful person I know. 01:30:46.800 --> 01:30:48.800 Like, I'm just like the most goofy person. 01:30:48.960 --> 01:30:58.000 But I was realizing, I was like, I'm so, I've been so on the plight to make the best song ever, that I stopped having fun making music. 01:30:58.079 --> 01:31:02.319 I was just making shit that I thought was good or I thought was compelling. 01:31:02.640 --> 01:31:12.960 I said, well, why don't I just make something that just innately has my, you know, personality and energy in it, and it feels like the song feels like a day hanging out with me. 01:31:13.119 --> 01:31:14.000 So I did that. 01:31:14.079 --> 01:31:23.119 That was the Billy Eilish was the first time I ever did that, where I just made him made a record that felt like, oh, this just me and him on a random Thursday, you know what I mean? 01:31:23.279 --> 01:31:26.319 And so I think that's what really captivated it. 01:31:26.399 --> 01:31:31.920 It was like the, even when you looked at the visuals and everything, it gave you FOMO because it just felt like niggas having fun. 01:31:32.000 --> 01:31:34.000 It didn't feel like, yo, this one made for the clubs. 01:31:34.079 --> 01:31:35.279 I don't go to clubs and no shit like that. 01:31:35.279 --> 01:31:36.720 I don't even know what the fuck they play in clubs. 01:31:36.960 --> 01:31:41.279 But it was like, this just feel like a bunch of niggas enjoying themselves. 01:31:41.359 --> 01:31:46.800 And now I'll watch this video of a bunch of niggas enjoying themselves, and then everything that revolves around people. 01:31:46.960 --> 01:31:49.359 I remember the first time me and uh me and Tizo met. 01:31:49.760 --> 01:31:54.159 Tizo was saying this, and he's like, yo, you just look like you're having fun. 01:31:54.399 --> 01:31:58.800 Like everywhere you go, you just look like you're having so much fun, and it's like, it's infectious. 01:31:58.960 --> 01:32:07.199 Like, and he's like, it inspires me because like it makes people want to have that kind of fun, whether whether they're listening to you or they're just like in their own day-to-day life. 01:32:07.359 --> 01:32:11.039 So, you know, that was, I think that's what really drew people in with the record. 01:32:11.279 --> 01:32:13.199 Off the record, I was just with Tito yesterday. 01:32:13.439 --> 01:32:15.199 Well, we actually, we actually were talking about you. 01:32:15.520 --> 01:32:16.239 Funny enough, yeah. 01:32:16.479 --> 01:32:16.800 No way. 01:32:17.760 --> 01:32:20.239 I was telling him that we were, we were gonna be doing this today. 01:32:20.319 --> 01:32:31.119 And I was just saying, yeah, yesterday, he's also one of like the most creative artists that like has a lot of fun and enjoyment in his, at least in his process, um, even in the music that he puts out too. 01:32:31.279 --> 01:32:33.920 So I I think with you, there's there's there's a theme. 01:32:34.159 --> 01:32:35.199 I love teaser, that's my brother. 01:32:35.680 --> 01:32:46.319 In in terms of like the um the the music that you've put out even since uh Billy Eilish, there's a lot of joy and excitement in your sound. 01:32:46.479 --> 01:32:50.399 And it sounds like, at least my interpretation of it was like joy is resistance. 01:32:50.479 --> 01:33:01.680 So like you've been through so many of these things that it's like it never, even though it changed maybe who you were at your core, like your personality and the way that you express yourself has like stuck through all of that. 01:33:01.920 --> 01:33:12.880 And I think it makes a lot of sense that um the breakthrough happened when you decided to actually make your personality uh synergetic with your with your sound. 01:33:13.039 --> 01:33:28.479 I would say, given that you had spent all of this time trying to make the quote unquote best song ever, was there any frustration that the song that people love the most didn't contain like aspects, like the heavy aspects of your story? 01:33:28.640 --> 01:33:32.079 Or were you just you know happy that there was success with this record? 01:33:33.119 --> 01:33:33.920 Both, I guess. 01:33:34.000 --> 01:33:38.479 Like I I I I I cared that people looked at me like the greatest ever. 01:33:38.560 --> 01:33:39.039 I still care. 01:33:39.119 --> 01:33:40.079 Like that's the goal. 01:33:40.239 --> 01:33:43.600 Um, I never wanted to make music just to make things that people think are fun. 01:33:43.760 --> 01:33:47.600 I wanted to make music that people are like, wow, this is fucking groundbreaking. 01:33:47.840 --> 01:33:51.520 Um I needed to go through the other side of it first though. 01:33:51.840 --> 01:33:55.439 Because I wasn't making, I'll say I wasn't making shit that was listenable. 01:33:55.600 --> 01:34:03.279 I was making shit that was like, we had a conversation where we was like, yo, good rap is like fine china. 01:34:03.439 --> 01:34:10.800 Like, if you come to somebody's house, you see a China, fine China in the middle, it's a

centerpiece on a table, it's a cabinet full of this shit. 01:34:10.960 --> 01:34:12.319 You can look at it and admire it. 01:34:12.399 --> 01:34:15.760 Your grandma probably got like 10 of them fucking bowls that nobody touches. 01:34:15.840 --> 01:34:17.439 You like, damn, that's really dope. 01:34:17.680 --> 01:34:24.720 But when you want to eat, nigga, it's porcelain, it's styrofoam, you know, it might be a little ceramic bowl or some shit like that. 01:34:24.800 --> 01:34:28.720 But it's nothing like the fine china that you actually spent a lot of money on. 01:34:28.880 --> 01:34:30.319 And that's what good rap was. 01:34:30.479 --> 01:34:36.399 It was like, there's a room where you can appreciate it and really acknowledge and uphold it to a certain standard. 01:34:36.720 --> 01:34:41.600 But if niggas is trying to eat, they don't need fine china to eat. 01:34:41.680 --> 01:34:44.159 You know, like on a day-to-day, can I just enjoy myself? 01:34:44.239 --> 01:34:45.520 They don't want fine China. 01:34:45.760 --> 01:34:49.439 And I think there, to be honest though, it's not to say that it's bad. 01:34:49.680 --> 01:34:52.880 I just think there is a moment for fine china in your career. 01:34:53.039 --> 01:34:55.359 There's like, Childish Gambino is a good example. 01:34:55.439 --> 01:34:56.880 There's a, there's a camp. 01:34:57.039 --> 01:35:04.079 There's a, you know, a royalty and all these things before the, because the internet's or the awaken my loves happened. 01:35:04.159 --> 01:35:12.960 Like, if you just come out, awaken my love, and people can't understand it because they haven't seen like the evolution of you grow into that, you're trying to do it too early. 01:35:13.119 --> 01:35:15.760 I was trying to do my chapter five on chapter one. 01:35:16.079 --> 01:35:21.600 And so I think that was what was important was just like, let's scale this back. 01:35:21.760 --> 01:35:28.399 What do I sound like without all the bells and whistles, no organs, no rose pianos, no nords, no fucking like none of that crazy shit. 01:35:28.560 --> 01:35:32.800 What do I just sound like just completely stripped down me having fun? 01:35:32.960 --> 01:35:36.159 Can I make someone fall in love with what it is that I'm doing? 01:35:36.319 --> 01:35:41.760 And then from there, can I compound and build off of that into what the bigger picture is? 01:35:42.079 --> 01:35:46.560 Like, you know, so some of the stuff was it was just stuck in that beginning phase. 01:35:46.720 --> 01:35:55.279 But the other stuff is like, okay, now can I level it up and show you what I'm actually trying to do and not what I've, you know, what I achieved with the first record? 01:35:55.359 --> 01:35:56.640 So I think both sides are important. 01:35:56.800 --> 01:35:57.359 Yeah. 01:35:57.680 --> 01:35:59.680 You executed that well for sure. 01:35:59.920 --> 01:36:02.479 Then labels come knocking, labels come knocking. 01:36:03.520 --> 01:36:05.920 Pulls up, you end up signing with Def Jam. 01:36:06.000 --> 01:36:06.239 Yeah. 01:36:06.399 --> 01:36:16.000 Uh, what did that moment mean emotionally for you being an independent artist for so long and finally getting not just like the acknowledgement from the world, but from, you know, the industry? 01:36:16.800 --> 01:36:18.960 I signed to Tungji. 01:36:19.520 --> 01:36:20.640 I signed to Tunji. 01:36:20.800 --> 01:36:22.640 I didn't, I like to be honest. 01:36:23.680 --> 01:36:25.359 It was never a Def Jam thing. 01:36:25.439 --> 01:36:28.800 Because like before Tunji, Def Jam was in fucking hell. 01:36:28.960 --> 01:36:34.319 I mean, Def Jam's for Def Jam since 2013 or 14 or 12 or something, it's been in hell. 01:36:34.399 --> 01:36:35.199 Probably, you know what I mean? 01:36:35.359 --> 01:36:45.920 So it's like, I signed because I was like, Tungji was the kid, or Tunji was the guy that took this kid when he was, you know, went out there the first moment, 2015, took me out to dinner. 01:36:46.079 --> 01:36:48.399 Or we always there for when they signed Gold Link. 01:36:48.560 --> 01:36:53.119 I'm out there, I'm out there in New York with them, and and they giving, they're getting dinner for everybody. 01:36:53.199 --> 01:36:55.039 And Tanji's like, all right, well, I'll pay for this kid. 01:36:55.119 --> 01:36:56.720 Like, but I just never forgot it. 01:36:56.800 --> 01:36:58.640 And I don't know, it's just like nobody ever bought me dinner. 01:36:58.720 --> 01:37:02.239 It's like, it's like holding a door for a girl that don't get, you know, nice things done to her. 01:37:02.399 --> 01:37:03.680 She like, oh, I love this guy. 01:37:03.760 --> 01:37:07.520 Like, I think at the time I was just like, no one's ever bought me dinner, so it mattered. 01:37:07.680 --> 01:37:16.159 Um, and we just stayed loosely in touch for so long, and I was like, now that you're having an opportunity to flagship something, I want to flagship it with you. 01:37:16.399 --> 01:37:18.720 Um, and that was the most important thing about it. 01:37:18.880 --> 01:37:22.720 Like, when I signed, I was fully prepared to just go independent. 01:37:22.800 --> 01:37:41.039 I was like, I want to sign to somebody, but like I said, I want a 50-50 deal, I want no licensing, I want um, I want no back catalog, and I want a short amount of albums, um, and I don't want a 360. 01:37:41.760 --> 01:37:44.319 And they was like, Yeah, we'll call you back. 01:37:45.279 --> 01:37:46.399 And he said, we'll call you back. 01:37:46.479 --> 01:37:48.479 My lawyer was like, my lawyer, God rest the soul. 01:37:48.640 --> 01:37:50.239 He said, yo, what are you doing? 01:37:50.399 --> 01:37:56.000 Like, man, if you if you turn this down, like just take all of this, they just not gonna give you the license, but they'll give you everything else. 01:37:56.159 --> 01:38:00.319 But if you turn this away, then I don't know if any label is gonna come back knocking. 01:38:00.399 --> 01:38:01.680 I said, okay. 01:38:01.920 --> 01:38:07.439

Like I was like, worst case scenario, this song still does way better than anything I dropped prior to this. 01:38:07.600 --> 01:38:08.239 You feel me? 01:38:08.479 --> 01:38:11.840 So I drop it, nobody comes knocking. 01:38:12.079 --> 01:38:15.359 First day, it does like 230 out the gate. 01:38:15.600 --> 01:38:18.000 And then, you know, it does the little weekend dip, right? 01:38:18.079 --> 01:38:21.359 Like, but on the weekend, instead of dipping, it did 280. 01:38:21.600 --> 01:38:25.600 Then on that Sunday, when it's supposed to take the lowest dip, it did 315. 01:38:25.920 --> 01:38:31.039 330 on Monday, niggas call, hey, hey, hey, what was that thing you said you wanted to hurt up to sign this goddamn paper? 01:38:31.199 --> 01:38:32.239 Like, hey, you feel me? 01:38:32.319 --> 01:38:34.159 Like, so that was, it was cool. 01:38:34.239 --> 01:38:36.960 And it was cool because like, I ain't need nothing. 01:38:37.039 --> 01:38:40.800 I was like, I just need enough money to I need enough money to give my mom some. 01:38:40.960 --> 01:38:43.840 I need enough money to get myself a car, and I need enough money. 01:38:43.920 --> 01:38:44.960 I was wearing the same clothes. 01:38:45.039 --> 01:38:47.680 I was just in the, I'm a Philly nigga, so I was just wearing sweatpants all day. 01:38:47.760 --> 01:38:52.560 I was like, I need enough money to just get some clothes and maybe somewhere to stay at, but I can just stay in my mom's cradle. 01:38:52.640 --> 01:38:53.359 I don't give a fuck. 01:38:53.439 --> 01:38:55.840 Um, I was just so like, I just want to work. 01:38:56.159 --> 01:39:04.000 Um, and that worked out because, bro, like I think, I think on the out of the whole label, I'm the only one that recouped. 01:39:04.159 --> 01:39:05.520 You know, like I'm the only one. 01:39:05.600 --> 01:39:11.439 I had a, I nobody else had a had a, you know, nobody else got a got any checks from that shit after after the signing. 01:39:11.520 --> 01:39:16.640 Like, I'd have recouped, I recouped, took more money out, recouped it again, took more money out, recouped it again. 01:39:16.800 --> 01:39:19.680 I had a guy, it was a guy, his name is Mr. 01:39:19.760 --> 01:39:24.720 Herb, and we used to make music in my homie Kill's basement, and Herb lived right behind him. 01:39:24.800 --> 01:39:28.239 And Herb, he, nah, he'd come outside, knocking on the garage door uh one day. 01:39:28.319 --> 01:39:31.680 He's like, man, hey man, you know, y'all kids, man, y'all making that music. 01:39:31.760 --> 01:39:33.119 He said, I want to show y'all something. 01:39:33.279 --> 01:39:37.600 And he was like, he came back, he had this paper in his hand, and he was like, You see this? 01:39:37.840 --> 01:39:39.199 This is a royalty check. 01:39:39.359 --> 01:39:41.199 You'll probably never see this in your life again. 01:39:41.520 --> 01:39:44.640 But he said, you know, back then we used to always get royalty checks. 01:39:44.800 --> 01:39:48.560 And I always remembered that because I was like, I want a royalty check. 01:39:48.720 --> 01:39:50.960 Like I would just, you know, one of them acknowledgement things. 01:39:51.039 --> 01:39:53.920 I want to be able to prove him wrong and say, nah, I got a royalty check. 01:39:54.079 --> 01:39:58.159 I carry one of my royalty checks in my wallet every day. 01:39:58.319 --> 01:40:01.600 Just like, you know, it's whatever the numbers is on it. 01:40:01.680 --> 01:40:06.079 But it's like I carry a royalty check in my wallet every day from UMG recordings. 01:40:06.159 --> 01:40:10.079 Just I got I got half of the shit blocked out and all that. 01:40:10.159 --> 01:40:18.560 But this is my this is my royalty check, the UMG recordings to Legend Bell LLC that just show you, like, yeah, nah, I I did it. 01:40:18.720 --> 01:40:21.520 And this is one of, you know, I get these quarterly. 01:40:22.399 --> 01:40:30.000 With you being able to now uh do these things for your family, your your friends, and also for yourself, how did success change your relationships? 01:40:30.159 --> 01:40:36.479 Because I think a lot of people talk about, you know, success doesn't necessarily change you, it changes the people around you. 01:40:36.960 --> 01:40:38.000 Changed the people around you. 01:40:38.079 --> 01:40:39.199 I lost everything. 01:40:39.520 --> 01:40:40.800 I lost everything. 01:40:40.960 --> 01:40:47.600 I I I made uh that album, I hate that album, but that album was about, it was about the change. 01:40:47.840 --> 01:40:59.520 It was like before success, it was, I remember it was me, it was my DJ, my homie Christian, uh, my brother, my girl, my my other homie who used to do my hair. 01:40:59.680 --> 01:41:01.520 She was the one that put the beads in my hair and all that. 01:41:01.920 --> 01:41:05.439 It was a whole little, like, a little cluster, a little conglomerate of people. 01:41:05.680 --> 01:41:07.840 One by one, it just started falling off. 01:41:08.000 --> 01:41:09.359 Me and my girl was the first thing. 01:41:09.439 --> 01:41:14.079 It was like, me and the homie that did my hair, they got closer. 01:41:14.319 --> 01:41:19.439 And as they got closer, me and my girl got further away from each other. 01:41:19.760 --> 01:41:32.880 And I was dealing with everything in the moment, and I think she was dealing with me, like this new version of me, and trying to like, trying to balance out the celebrity version of you with the the you I know you as. 01:41:32.960 --> 01:41:36.000 And I think things already was Rocky prior to all of it. 01:41:36.079 --> 01:41:38.960 So it just like, it's compounded and compounded. 01:41:39.039 --> 01:41:44.399 And I was holding on to that for so long, and I came back from the road. 01:41:44.560 --> 01:41:49.359 I came back from the road, I came to her house and I just started crying. 01:41:49.520 --> 01:41:52.800 I don't even be, I be, I'd be saying this all day, I don't even be crying like that. 01:41:52.880 --> 01:42:01.760 But like, that was like

a I'm calling it quits with somebody that I never could imagine myself calling it quits with. 01:42:02.000 --> 01:42:07.439 Um and that that affected the relationship next to it. 01:42:07.520 --> 01:42:13.760 I took all the homies on the road with me, and one by one, all the homies on the road, it started, you know what I mean? 01:42:14.000 --> 01:42:15.199 Like everything started crumbling. 01:42:15.279 --> 01:42:16.640 This person feels away about that. 01:42:16.800 --> 01:42:18.319 This person feels away with this. 01:42:18.399 --> 01:42:23.199 Like, and then I just started watching it all, and I came out here the second time when I moved out here. 01:42:23.439 --> 01:42:26.800 Um, I got a place for everybody. 01:42:26.960 --> 01:42:30.000 I was like, yo, we all gonna move to LA. 01:42:30.239 --> 01:42:36.560 By the time the lease was signed, I was in the middle, standing in the middle of that bitch, like the last episode of Fresh Prince. 01:42:37.199 --> 01:42:39.439 I'm just like, damn, where everybody go? 01:42:39.520 --> 01:42:40.800 Like, you know what I'm saying? 01:42:41.199 --> 01:42:47.439 Um, and that was like, that was just a harsh reality of like, wow, there was so many people here. 01:42:47.520 --> 01:42:52.720 Like, there was a whole community, it was a tribe of people here, and now it's just me. 01:42:53.119 --> 01:42:59.600 You know, and I didn't have to deal with that because as everybody fell off and fell off and fell off, I was still on the road. 01:42:59.760 --> 01:43:06.399 I was still on the road, and I'm like, I'm witnessing it happening, but I'm like, I haven't had a chance to sit down and process everything. 01:43:06.479 --> 01:43:07.279 You feel me? 01:43:07.439 --> 01:43:08.800 Um, yeah, it changed everything. 01:43:08.960 --> 01:43:10.319 It changed my relationship with my mom. 01:43:10.479 --> 01:43:11.520 We good now. 01:43:11.760 --> 01:43:19.680 But for that first, like, that first little bit of time, it was just, it was, I think she didn't understand how record deals work. 01:43:19.840 --> 01:43:22.319 So it was like, oh nigga, they gave you that much money. 01:43:22.560 --> 01:43:24.239 They must be giving you some more money too. 01:43:24.399 --> 01:43:26.239 And they must be giving you some like, what's up? 01:43:26.399 --> 01:43:27.039 Nigga, bring something. 01:43:27.119 --> 01:43:28.960 I got, I got this, I wanna get done, that I wanna get done. 01:43:29.039 --> 01:43:30.720 And I'm like, hey, mom, time up. 01:43:31.920 --> 01:43:33.840 You know, and it was this is before tours. 01:43:34.159 --> 01:43:35.600 I'm like, I ain't got shit else. 01:43:35.680 --> 01:43:37.199 Like, what I gave you is what I got. 01:43:37.279 --> 01:43:39.119 I still gotta figure out my other shit. 01:43:39.359 --> 01:43:54.079 Um, that changed like a lot of shit between me and her, and it and it got mended later on down the line, but um, it just was, it was tricky because nobody, you know, you can't, you can't really explain this to anybody. 01:43:54.239 --> 01:43:56.720 It's not what what we're doing doesn't make sense. 01:43:56.880 --> 01:43:57.520 You know what I'm saying? 01:43:57.600 --> 01:44:01.520 It's like, yo, I had an idea, I wrote it down, and it worked out, and now there's a hundred thousand dollars. 01:44:01.680 --> 01:44:07.119 Or, yo, there's a million dollars right here because I I did a thing and just go do another thing. 01:44:07.279 --> 01:44:09.520 Um I remember it's like, oh, this song wasn't playing on the radio. 01:44:09.680 --> 01:44:11.760 Monty, you should really call the radio station and see if it. 01:44:12.479 --> 01:44:15.760 I'm like, man, you know, but they just don't understand it. 01:44:16.000 --> 01:44:16.399 For sure. 01:44:16.479 --> 01:44:22.239 The value of money is a conversation because I think before you have money, you think it's this completely unattainable thing. 01:44:22.319 --> 01:44:22.399 Yeah. 01:44:22.560 --> 01:44:28.000 And then once you actually start to like get money, you realize how how much, like you realize that it's everywhere. 01:44:28.159 --> 01:44:32.800 And that if you do the right things, you definitely can make money. 01:44:33.039 --> 01:44:33.279 Exactly. 01:44:33.439 --> 01:44:38.239 But then once you actually have it in your hands, you realize how fragile it is. 01:44:38.319 --> 01:44:38.720 Exactly. 01:44:38.880 --> 01:44:45.439 And how there's never a guarantee that you might be able to come across this amount of wealth in the future. 01:44:45.920 --> 01:44:52.800 So uh you you know, you go through your cycle of like overspending and you're like, that easy come, easy go is a real thing. 01:44:52.880 --> 01:44:56.479 Like you're like, wow, I blew through X amount of dollars and X amount of time. 01:44:56.640 --> 01:44:56.800 Yeah. 01:44:56.960 --> 01:45:01.920 Um and it just I guess financial maturity is the is the is the name of it. 01:45:02.000 --> 01:45:05.439 Like you start to learn how to actually manage your assets over time. 01:45:05.840 --> 01:45:12.640 The problem is you're learning this by yourself, and maybe people that never got to that point are not also learning these lessons. 01:45:12.720 --> 01:45:16.239 So they're like, okay, well, you you know the dream happened. 01:45:16.479 --> 01:45:18.880 Why everything should be good now? 01:45:19.039 --> 01:45:20.720 Like the the pot should be infinite. 01:45:20.800 --> 01:45:23.439 Like you said, you should be able to keep going back to the well and getting more. 01:45:23.680 --> 01:45:23.840 Right. 01:45:24.000 --> 01:45:27.279 I don't think that, I don't think they teach financial literacy to black people. 01:45:27.439 --> 01:45:28.159 I don't think they do. 01:45:28.319 --> 01:45:31.119 And like the way I learned it was way before all of this shit. 01:45:31.279 --> 01:45:32.720 I used to throw parties in Philly. 01:45:32.800 --> 01:45:34.560 We had like a bunch of little party groups and shit. 01:45:34.640 --> 01:45:43.439 So like we

had uh I was a part of Fuck It Up Boys and TFO, and like there was like um Rise of Stars, a bunch of like these little party groups, and then we did like a cluster West Philly thing. 01:45:43.600 --> 01:45:58.479 Um, but we throw it all in a pot, yo, five people put up 200, and then you know, the party is sell out, we make 10,000 so everybody get, you know, um 2,000 back, and then you know, we we we take some money, go shopping, take the rest of the money, throw it in, throw it in the pot. 01:45:58.560 --> 01:46:04.479 But you see, I'm I'm coming across, I'm 14, 15 years old, coming across$2,000,$2,500. 01:46:04.880 --> 01:46:11.680 And then when party scene died, though, I looked at how much money I had left and then where it all went. 01:46:11.840 --> 01:46:15.520 I bought all these Abercrombie shirts that my mom shrunk in the washing machines. 01:46:15.600 --> 01:46:16.640 I can't even wear them no more. 01:46:16.720 --> 01:46:22.800 I bought all these Armani Exchange shirts and they all shrunk, they're skinny as shit now, mosquitoes, bit holes in them and shit like that. 01:46:22.960 --> 01:46:30.079 And I'm like, yo, I never want to lose my money like this again, just trying to play keep up and catch up with everybody. 01:46:30.159 --> 01:46:35.760 We buying, we 14, 15 years old, buying$300 prod of shoes,$400 pride shoes. 01:46:35.840 --> 01:46:37.199 It's like, for what? 01:46:37.439 --> 01:46:38.159 You feel me? 01:46:38.239 --> 01:46:44.000 And so in that moment, when I got uh I got in a car accident afterwards, and that car accident, I got$15,000. 01:46:44.239 --> 01:46:47.760 I stretched that$15 for like two years up into the Dorito shit. 01:46:48.079 --> 01:46:49.760 The Doritos, I got$50,000. 01:46:50.000 --> 01:46:51.279 I had a manager at the time. 01:46:51.439 --> 01:46:53.600 I said, hey, I'm not touching this. 01:46:53.760 --> 01:46:54.880 Can you take this from me? 01:46:55.119 --> 01:47:00.640 Because I'm genuinely scared of what the fuck I would do if I had access to the money. 01:47:00.800 --> 01:47:03.840 And it just like we put it in a separate account for years. 01:47:03.920 --> 01:47:08.479 I was just like, I it was like I was only chipping out$1,000 out of that account. 01:47:08.560 --> 01:47:10.319 Like, you know, it just if I needed it. 01:47:10.479 --> 01:47:12.239 $1,000, chip it out of that account, chip it out. 01:47:12.399 --> 01:47:14.159 Because I had no way to put the money back in. 01:47:14.319 --> 01:47:15.840 I just had a way to take the money out. 01:47:15.920 --> 01:47:21.199 But that was how I learned financially, like you just said, like I learned it from a perspective of I never had a job. 01:47:21.359 --> 01:47:22.239 Never had a job in my life. 01:47:22.319 --> 01:47:24.239 I had to work at Chipotle for 30 minutes. 01:47:24.399 --> 01:47:24.960 You know what I'm saying? 01:47:25.039 --> 01:47:26.960 So I never had a real job. 01:47:27.199 --> 01:47:38.880 Um so there was never a moment in my life where it was like, yo, this money's coming this week and it's gonna come next week, and it's gonna come the week after that, or every two weeks, or whatever the however nigga they paid at work, I don't know, but you know what I'm saying? 01:47:39.119 --> 01:47:45.199 Man, it's crazy when you when you find that success, uh, how it comes with a whole it's like going to school all over again. 01:47:45.359 --> 01:47:47.840 But it's also money, especially out here. 01:47:48.000 --> 01:48:02.479 Like you think about, like, I don't know, like if say rent is$5,000 or rent is$10,000, like, you know, you think about how much money we spend in a month out here, versus, you know, you tell somebody, like, they like, yeah, I need this much money, it's like, nigga, you know what I mean? 01:48:02.560 --> 01:48:15.680 Like, it's like the the amount of money that we go through just to survive over here is like, yo, like, you know, I know it sounds crazy that we blowing through$10,000, but$10,000 ain't even that much in this motherfucker. 01:48:16.079 --> 01:48:17.039 It costs money to make money. 01:48:17.359 --> 01:48:25.680 Because essentially, for you to have proximity to the opportunities that create that type of wealth to begin with, you also have to play ball, you gotta spend the amount of money. 01:48:25.760 --> 01:48:35.039 So um, even though it's it's cool that money can go a longer way in other places, it's like you still have to manage yourself because you have to take care of yourself at the end of the day. 01:48:35.119 --> 01:48:40.000 If you're not good, then there's no way that you can help the other people around you, otherwise, otherwise everything goes away. 01:48:40.159 --> 01:48:46.800 So going back to relationships, how did uh Billy Eilish impact your relationship with Billie Eilish? 01:48:48.159 --> 01:48:49.199 I mean, it started it. 01:48:49.680 --> 01:48:49.920 Yeah. 01:48:50.800 --> 01:48:56.079 Um I was, yeah, I like to be honest, Billy doesn't like meeting people before shows and stuff like that. 01:48:56.239 --> 01:49:02.560 Um, but there was a, I'm like a couple years prior, right before the pandemic, was when I had wrote the idea. 01:49:02.640 --> 01:49:06.720 Um, or like I thought about like I had the initial thought, and a couple years later I wrote the idea. 01:49:06.880 --> 01:49:10.800 But um we played Austin City Limits the same day. 01:49:10.960 --> 01:49:13.920 And I remember being like, yeah, I want to meet her, I want to meet her. 01:49:14.159 --> 01:49:17.039 And they was like, yeah, she don't really do the whole. 01:49:17.199 --> 01:49:19.520 But I was like, why she got them big ass clothes on? 01:49:19.600 --> 01:49:21.359 Like she had just like walking around big ass clothes. 01:49:21.439 --> 01:49:22.960 That was her like her big clothes era. 01:49:23.359 --> 01:49:33.039 Um and I was like, I'm like, damn, like, you know, back home, like on some them franchise boys era, like when them niggas wore big clothes, it was

because they had some shit on them. 01:49:33.119 --> 01:49:39.039 Like, and I was laughing, like I wrote the, like, later on, I was sitting on the toilet, I wrote the idea as a joke. 01:49:39.279 --> 01:49:47.920 And once we made the, you know, we made the song, I had um, we made the song, I had, you know, it happened or whatever, and she she had liked the message, reposted the shit. 01:49:48.000 --> 01:49:48.720 That's how we got it clear. 01:49:48.800 --> 01:49:52.399 It was like her reposting it was we took that to UMG and was like, yo, she fucks with it, nigga. 01:49:52.479 --> 01:49:53.439 Give us a green light. 01:49:53.680 --> 01:49:59.760 Um, but you had to go, it wasn't until October of that year. 01:50:01.039 --> 01:50:05.600 I've heard, I heard like Bad Guy, and I heard uh it was like some song from My Boy. 01:50:05.680 --> 01:50:07.359 It was a song called My Boy and my homie Troy. 01:50:07.439 --> 01:50:08.960 Uh, Troy Boy had done a remix to it. 01:50:09.039 --> 01:50:09.840 So I heard, I heard it. 01:50:09.920 --> 01:50:11.600 That was the first time I heard it was through that. 01:50:11.760 --> 01:50:20.000 Um, and then like Oceanize or whatever, like on like a SoundCloud link a while prior to that, but wasn't really familiar fully with the catalog. 01:50:20.319 --> 01:50:29.520 Uh I was in, I was in Germany, and it was when me and my girl were officially like kind of at the end, at the end of the road. 01:50:29.600 --> 01:50:42.079 I was in Germany, we was in a real bad argument, and I hung up, and I'm sitting in the hotel at three in the morning, and I'm like, you know, I done went all the way around the fucking world yelling this woman's name. 01:50:42.239 --> 01:50:43.920 I never actually listened to her music. 01:50:44.079 --> 01:50:44.720 You know what I'm saying? 01:50:44.880 --> 01:50:48.800 So I was sitting like, let me just dive into the catalog. 01:50:48.960 --> 01:50:52.319 Like, other than the four or five songs I know, let me dive into her catalog. 01:50:52.560 --> 01:50:55.840 Um, and I played uh happier than ever. 01:50:56.239 --> 01:51:03.359 And it, the way it hit me in the moment when it happened, like I just got off the phone arguing with uh my girl. 01:51:03.600 --> 01:51:09.520 And then the first lyric was like, when I'm away from you, I'm happier than ever. 01:51:10.800 --> 01:51:12.720 Man, right here, hit me right here. 01:51:12.880 --> 01:51:16.079 I was like, oh shit, nigga, she's spitting. 01:51:16.560 --> 01:51:17.359 You know what I'm saying? 01:51:17.520 --> 01:51:20.079 So um, but it I think it affected me. 01:51:20.159 --> 01:51:31.439 Like, even, you know, the funny thing is that I say I tell that story because when we first met was when we did this show on stage together at Oshega, and we were just talking about playing Uno together and then playing and doing playing rocking go-karts and shit like that. 01:51:31.520 --> 01:51:33.199 And then she's like, yo, but you want to come out on stage? 01:51:33.279 --> 01:51:36.319 I'm like, fuck yeah, why wouldn't I want to come out on stage? 01:51:36.560 --> 01:51:44.239 Um, she uh uh we get when when I get there, I go out there and I do the show. 01:51:44.319 --> 01:51:48.159 I do the little like, you know, I run out, it's like we break internet history and all that shit, like this big moment. 01:51:48.399 --> 01:51:48.720 It was insane. 01:51:48.800 --> 01:51:49.680 I've seen the video. 01:51:49.920 --> 01:51:53.119 It was like, you know, I didn't even realize how crazy it was in the moment. 01:51:53.199 --> 01:51:56.239 I was just like, you know, it was like it hit me as soon as it happened. 01:51:56.319 --> 01:51:58.319 Like, I mean, right after it happened. 01:51:58.640 --> 01:52:02.720 But right after I got on stage off the stage, what song does she play? 01:52:02.960 --> 01:52:05.279 When I'm away from you. 01:52:05.680 --> 01:52:16.880 And I got to see the difference of like, here's a bunch of people who know your song versus here's a bunch of people who feel your song, like, who feel like they wrote that song for themselves. 01:52:17.039 --> 01:52:19.760 Um, and it changed my perspective on writing. 01:52:19.840 --> 01:52:28.159 Because I was like, yo, the shit that you're writing is like, it's almost like you're sitting in the middle of your crowd and you're writing out what everybody's feeling. 01:52:28.239 --> 01:52:35.520 You're looking around you and writing out what everybody's feeling, versus like I'm standing above a crowd and I'm writing about myself. 01:52:35.600 --> 01:52:37.520 I didn't want to write about myself anymore. 01:52:37.680 --> 01:52:41.840 I was like, nah, like I wanna write, I wanna strip all this shit down. 01:52:41.920 --> 01:52:44.720 Like, nigga, I stopped, I said, fuck this jewelry, fuck everything. 01:52:45.039 --> 01:52:54.800 I want to just be me, the me that relates to people, the me that is like, you know, when I when I looked at Kanye West when I was a kid, it was like Kanye was fearless. 01:52:54.880 --> 01:52:59.600 I was like, I want to be fearless, but at the same time, Kanye felt like a weird kid from Chicago. 01:52:59.760 --> 01:53:03.359 He felt like a weird kid, you know, take Chicago out of it, just from the hood. 01:53:03.520 --> 01:53:07.119 Yeah, weird kid from a from a neighborhood that was familiar to me. 01:53:07.279 --> 01:53:10.159 Um, but he wasn't just the neighborhood. 01:53:10.319 --> 01:53:14.239 He wasn't just the nigga with a flip phone and, you know, like, like, you know, talking to the whatever. 01:53:14.319 --> 01:53:27.920 He was like, he was creative, he was explorative, and like that's where I was like, damn, when I look at the Billie Eilishes, like, she's mending with her tribe, mending, like, like mending a language and a culture with the people in the community. 01:53:28.079 --> 01:53:29.119 And that's what, you know. 01:53:29.359 --> 01:53:33.279 Yeah, I'm saying a whole bunch about what the our relationship

though, outside of that was. 01:53:34.560 --> 01:53:36.239 Yeah, our relationship outside of that was great, though. 01:53:36.560 --> 01:53:43.119 There's a moment where when she won her Grammys and all that for like the Barbie shit, we uh she had told me to come to our Grammy party. 01:53:43.359 --> 01:53:55.439 Whereas the funniest shit because it's like, Billy, like, I like I remember telling her, I'm like, yo, like, I ain't know you, know you before this, but like to know you is to know, like, you really a cool ass nigga. 01:53:55.520 --> 01:53:57.359 Like, but like, like a nigga, like you know what I'm saying? 01:53:57.439 --> 01:54:03.520 Like, like obviously she's a white girl, but like, she like on some cultural shit, she fucked with rap and fuck with hip-hop and shit. 01:54:03.600 --> 01:54:09.119 We at her party, it's just me, her, it's two of my homies, and I think Zane. 01:54:09.279 --> 01:54:18.399 And we in the middle of the field, we in the middle of the floor, rapping, Waka Flocka, hard in the paint, like word for word going back and forth, like Lee, you stinking. 01:54:18.560 --> 01:54:19.840 What the fuck you thinking? 01:54:19.920 --> 01:54:35.279 But like all of her, like the people around her, like her big herd of, you know, media people, person like Blabo and all that, they sitting there like I mean that that goes to show you like how hip hop has just a massive impact and influence worldwide. 01:54:35.359 --> 01:54:35.439 Yeah. 01:54:35.600 --> 01:54:39.920 But regardless of who you are, and it's like, you know, obviously the type of music that she does. 01:54:40.000 --> 01:54:44.560 I think there's a lot of there's a lot of influence there, and obviously the style of dress and everything like that. 01:54:44.720 --> 01:54:45.039 Yeah. 01:54:45.279 --> 01:54:48.800 Like you said, pulling straight from them franchise boys, things like that. 01:54:48.960 --> 01:54:54.800 So um I think that's why there's able to be such a uh a connection and synergy between the two of you. 01:54:54.880 --> 01:54:54.960 Yeah. 01:54:55.119 --> 01:55:00.880 Because imagine if she wasn't that type of artist and she heard somebody do a song called Billy Eyelish, she might have been like, what the heck? 01:55:00.960 --> 01:55:02.079 Like, I don't want anything to do with that. 01:55:02.319 --> 01:55:02.560 Exactly. 01:55:02.800 --> 01:55:10.399 So even the fact that she was willing to embrace you in that way, I think says a lot about who she is as a person and um a lot of her early influences as well. 01:55:10.479 --> 01:55:13.920 So it'd be good to eventually hear more about that from her also. 01:55:14.239 --> 01:55:17.199 Um, just a few more questions and then we'll get out of here. 01:55:17.359 --> 01:55:32.399 Uh, I guess going back to what you were saying about being influenced by that moment on stage, I actually had a question about having a song that was that is as successful as Billie Eilish and it blowing up in the way that it did on TikTok.

01:55:32.560 --> 01:55:34.079 It's a joyous song. 01:55:34.239 --> 01:55:40.720 Um, the question was going to be I guess, how does that influence the way that you make music going forward? 01:55:40.880 --> 01:55:44.880 Do you feel like you're trying to chase another moment like that again? 01:55:45.039 --> 01:55:53.039 Um, but based on what you're saying, in terms of like you want to make more meaningful music, I see the artistic kind of progression, right? 01:55:53.119 --> 01:56:08.239 It's like you have who Armani White is, the things that he's been through, um, but then wanting to make music that is more joyous, shows his personality more, you find success there, and now you're in a place where it's like, okay, well, I want to make music that's more artistic. 01:56:21.600 --> 01:56:27.600 I have no problem being the like fun person or the person that brings light to people's lives. 01:56:27.920 --> 01:56:31.520 My uncle Tyrone was the guy who told me to do the music. 01:56:31.600 --> 01:56:33.039 Like, like I was like, my mom. 01:56:33.199 --> 01:56:34.640 My mom did not want me to do music. 01:56:34.720 --> 01:56:35.920 My mom was not fucking with it. 01:56:36.000 --> 01:56:38.239 She was like, go to college, fuck that music shit. 01:56:38.479 --> 01:56:42.399 My uncle said, your mom's not going to understand it because it's not real. 01:56:42.640 --> 01:56:43.840 You have to make something real. 01:56:43.920 --> 01:56:46.239 You have to make it really happen, and then she'll get it. 01:56:46.399 --> 01:56:48.800 My uncle Tyrone in 2014 was killed. 01:56:48.880 --> 01:56:51.680 He was shot and killed in uh Northeast Philly. 01:56:51.920 --> 01:56:56.560 And in that moment, I went to the studio and I said, I just need to make the funnest fucking song I can make. 01:56:56.720 --> 01:56:58.640 That it just gets my mind off of it. 01:56:58.800 --> 01:57:05.199 When my dad, when I went to pull up on my dad and we held each other and we cried, after a while it got so overwhelming that I left. 01:57:05.439 --> 01:57:08.640 And at the time I became friends with uh this white boy named Louie. 01:57:08.720 --> 01:57:10.079 Louis is still my friend to this day. 01:57:10.239 --> 01:57:11.439 And I went to Louie's house. 01:57:11.520 --> 01:57:19.359 I didn't tell him what was going on, but I said, I need to make the funnest fucking song I can possibly make right now to just remove me from what's actually going on. 01:57:19.520 --> 01:57:24.079 And we made this song called Rewind, which ultimately, like, he took me on the road for it and all that shit. 01:57:24.159 --> 01:57:27.439 It kind of, it ultimately changed the trajectory of what was going on in my life. 01:57:27.760 --> 01:57:34.479 But the, I guess what's more important now is less about being like, oh, I don't want to make fun shit, I want to make like more meaningful shit. 01:57:34.560 --> 01:57:39.840 It's just like, even if we make something that's fun, it's like you understand that the fun

is coming from a place of pain. 01:57:40.000 --> 01:57:45.439 It's like, you know, like I'm I'm dancing, I'm crying, I'm dancing, I'm laughing, I'm enjoying myself. 01:57:45.760 --> 01:57:50.479 But to escape what this reality is, because that's the thing that people can relate to. 01:57:50.560 --> 01:57:56.640 It's like, so when a lot of people talk to me and they say, like, yo, like, you know, your music, it gives me hope. 01:57:56.880 --> 01:58:00.000 That's what I want to, that's, you know, I'm selling hope. 01:58:00.079 --> 01:58:06.239 I'm selling the meaningless drug of hope to the person who believes in hope and they believe that it can change. 01:58:06.319 --> 01:58:10.720 Because a lot of times it's never the situation, it's just your outlook on the situation. 01:58:10.880 --> 01:58:17.760 And sometimes I need to be that version of like, when you look at the kid who lost everything in 2006, it's a kid. 01:58:17.920 --> 01:58:35.920 When you look at the person who held his hand, held his father's hand until he was no longer there, the the uncle that was the guy who really believed that it can work out, and he was the one that was giving you the, you know, the battery in your back, and he's taken from you, all these things are taken and pulled from you and pulled from you, and you still stand up and say, I can do this, and it works out, that's hope. 01:58:36.000 --> 01:58:36.640 You have hope. 01:58:36.720 --> 01:58:47.359 You and and and I I stand to test the time and be that beacon of hope for somebody that's looking at me that says, Wow, if you can enjoy yourself with everything that you're going through, I hope no one goes through what I went through. 01:58:47.520 --> 01:58:53.680 But if I can instill and stand up and enjoy myself, make a joke, laugh, whatever, then I feel like you can too. 01:58:53.840 --> 01:58:54.239 You know. 01:58:54.399 --> 01:58:57.359 So Well, that lends itself to your emotional support, homie. 01:58:57.600 --> 01:58:57.680 Yes. 01:58:58.239 --> 01:58:59.920 Yeah, yeah, for sure. 01:59:00.079 --> 01:59:01.439 Uh, which I think is dope. 01:59:01.520 --> 01:59:03.920 And I think even what you said about selling hope. 01:59:04.079 --> 01:59:09.680 I think about like meetings that I've had with labels or just what I know about the industry, they're always asking you, like, who's your demographic? 01:59:09.760 --> 01:59:11.600 What is the message you're trying to get across? 01:59:11.680 --> 01:59:15.680 And I think that's a really great and succinct way to articulate that. 01:59:15.840 --> 01:59:19.520 But it also goes back to what I said about joy as resistance for you, right? 01:59:19.680 --> 01:59:27.760 Like who you are, your personality, the type of music that you make being the counter to the traumatic experiences that you have had. 01:59:28.000 --> 01:59:38.479 So the last segment I want to go into, um, your relationship with the justice system didn't end after the quote-unquote arson situation. 01:59:38.960 --> 01:59:50.159 Um, I want to get into criminal justice reform, but before that, tell me the story about when you tried to shoot a music video on a highway and got arrested. 01:59:50.479 --> 01:59:53.520 So, plot twist. 01:59:53.680 --> 01:59:57.039 I never tried to shoot a music video on a highway. 01:59:57.199 --> 01:59:58.880 We pulled the car over. 01:59:59.199 --> 02:00:04.479 The driver was tired, and he was like, yo, man, you know, like you're just trying to find a shit. 02:00:04.560 --> 02:00:07.520 You don't want to get like some videos or something with pictures or whatever. 02:00:07.760 --> 02:00:09.840 And I was like, okay, I mean, I guess we can get a video. 02:00:09.920 --> 02:00:15.600 Like, we can get a picture of some shit just on the on the side of the highway, not like in the highway, not on the street or anything like that. 02:00:15.760 --> 02:00:19.039 On the side of the highway, just get some pictures, take a couple flicks or whatever. 02:00:19.279 --> 02:00:21.359 Um, and we barely was out there. 02:00:21.439 --> 02:00:23.600 Like, we, I'm talking about, we probably pulled over. 02:00:23.680 --> 02:00:25.520 We were sitting in the car, we're still on the phone with my mom. 02:00:25.600 --> 02:00:29.119 So we were sitting in the car longer than we was actually outside of the car. 02:00:29.359 --> 02:00:35.520 Uh, and we did a couple things, and man, next thing I know, I just see like three cop cars coming down. 02:00:35.600 --> 02:00:38.399 And they're like, boy, what the hell are you doing on this side of this road here? 02:00:38.560 --> 02:00:40.800 And I'm like, Because we're this is in Kentucky. 02:00:41.039 --> 02:00:41.760 Kentucky, Kentucky. 02:00:41.920 --> 02:00:44.399 And we're like, yeah, we're and I'm again, I'm from Philly. 02:00:44.479 --> 02:00:46.239 I never seen racism, racism. 02:00:46.479 --> 02:00:50.800 Like, I've seen a little bit of it, but I've never been like in some like, yo, you got nowhere to go. 02:00:50.960 --> 02:00:52.640 It's you, you and me, boy. 02:00:52.720 --> 02:00:54.560 Like, I ain't never seen that type of shit. 02:00:54.880 --> 02:00:58.880 And so I'm like, nah, yo, we was just, you know, we headed out to Atlanta. 02:00:58.960 --> 02:01:00.880 He's like, oh, well, you're headed to jail now, buddy. 02:01:01.039 --> 02:01:02.479 I said, huh? 02:01:03.119 --> 02:01:05.680 He said, yeah, you put your hands behind your back and woo-woo. 02:01:05.840 --> 02:01:06.800 And then he goes sit me in the car. 02:01:06.960 --> 02:01:09.359 And I'm like, there's no way this is real. 02:01:09.520 --> 02:01:10.880 There's no way this is. 02:01:11.039 --> 02:01:17.359 And, you know, and I and I say that because like, obviously, I get in there, we do, like, the whole shit happens or whatever. 02:01:17.520 --> 02:01:27.039 Um, I take the dumb mug shot, and the mug shot was really like, the importance behind the mug shot was I was like, I know I'm being criminalized for something that is

not criminal. 02:01:27.279 --> 02:01:33.600 Um, I know there's a chance that this could even make it across the internet, which it did, but I know this it might even make it on the news, which it did. 02:01:33.680 --> 02:01:38.239 And I was like, maybe I'm overshooting and thinking of myself more important than I actually am, which I wasn't. 02:01:38.560 --> 02:01:40.880 All of it happened exactly how I thought it was. 02:01:41.119 --> 02:01:48.560 And I was like, I refuse to make a mug shot, I refuse to let a mugshot of me exist in a world where I'm just sitting here like on some mean shit. 02:01:48.640 --> 02:01:50.960 Because then you type my name in and that's exactly what pops up. 02:01:51.119 --> 02:01:55.359 If you type in a mug shot and I'm in that bitch, like, now's a story. 02:01:55.520 --> 02:01:57.119 But what the fuck actually happened here? 02:01:57.279 --> 02:01:58.079 And nothing happened. 02:01:58.159 --> 02:01:58.880 You wanna know? 02:01:59.039 --> 02:02:05.600 To be honest, if you you look my name up, I walked out of there with a parking ticket or a traffic violation. 02:02:05.920 --> 02:02:11.439 A$50 traffic violation is I got arrested for a$50 traffic violation. 02:02:11.760 --> 02:02:13.439 They didn't even, they I didn't even sit in jail. 02:02:13.520 --> 02:02:14.720 I sat in the little lobby area. 02:02:14.800 --> 02:02:16.720 I was on the phone the whole time, ordering Uber Eats and shit. 02:02:16.800 --> 02:02:17.680 Like, you know what I'm saying? 02:02:17.760 --> 02:02:21.119 Like, but I sat in there for a$50 traffic violation. 02:02:21.199 --> 02:02:25.520 I'm like, damn, like, y'all really was just trying to make a point. 02:02:25.680 --> 02:02:28.079 And and, you know, shout out to my guy Trent. 02:02:28.159 --> 02:02:29.840 Trent, Trent thought he was doing something cool. 02:02:29.920 --> 02:02:32.399 He's like, yo, look, I'm the one up TMZ that got it posted. 02:02:32.479 --> 02:02:34.159 And I'm like, why the fuck would you do that? 02:02:34.479 --> 02:02:37.119 You the reason that's all over the internet right now. 02:02:37.279 --> 02:02:51.520 Um, but I think, yeah, I think that was, it was one of those things, one of those moments because it wasn't really me that even wanted to be out of the car, but it's one of those moments just like, you gotta remember that you're the leader and you can't be the one that is allowing certain shit. 02:02:51.600 --> 02:02:54.000 You gotta be the nigga that just be like, man, you know, I'm falling back. 02:02:54.159 --> 02:02:54.960 You know what I'm saying? 02:02:55.039 --> 02:02:56.640 And and have enough revisions. 02:02:56.960 --> 02:03:07.920 Yeah, I mean, I personally I think there's a lot that is powerful about the fact that you did the smile, you know, on the mugshot and how how like far that went, how many people saw it. 02:03:08.159 --> 02:03:23.600 And I think the message got across in terms of like, you're not gonna demonize me or make me into the villain or the

delinquent that you want me to be just because I'm a black man in America, kind of like what we talked about in the beginning of our conversation. 02:03:23.760 --> 02:03:33.359 Um and yeah, I think when when people look at that, they can't do anything but smile at it because, you know, you're not telling a sad story of you being in there. 02:03:33.439 --> 02:03:37.760 You're telling a story of like, I'm still who I am, regardless of what you guys try to paint me up to be. 02:03:38.079 --> 02:03:39.199 And that's extremely powerful. 02:03:39.359 --> 02:03:46.239 It's a it's an extremely powerful thing to do without saying anything, without necessarily doing anything, right? 02:03:46.319 --> 02:03:50.560 You did what they wanted you to do, but you did it in your in your own way, and they had to oblige to that. 02:03:50.800 --> 02:03:55.840 So tell me about, I'm I'm guessing, did this inspire the Bell Project? 02:03:56.239 --> 02:03:58.720 Um if it did, tell me about the Bell Project. 02:03:59.199 --> 02:04:01.199 I did it inspired to working with the Bell Project. 02:04:01.279 --> 02:04:10.239 I I still get it's it's tough though, because I get DMs and stuff or like I get messages, mentions and all that, where it's like somebody that the Bell Project was working with, they helped Bell it out. 02:04:10.319 --> 02:04:11.520 They like it was somebody recently. 02:04:11.600 --> 02:04:13.840 They just, they just murdered a wife, things like that. 02:04:13.920 --> 02:04:21.439 And it's like, it's, you know, it's always tricky being in those, you know, being in those situations where you're trying to stand up for somebody. 02:04:21.520 --> 02:04:31.199 Like you say, like where you're like, I'm gonna stand behind and support the person who may not commit, may not have committed the murder yet, but will commit the murder. 02:04:31.439 --> 02:04:36.399 Um, it get tricky because, you know, you try to, you try to just see the good in everybody. 02:04:36.479 --> 02:04:40.239 You try to like hope for the better, hope that somebody's gonna like turn this shit around. 02:04:40.319 --> 02:04:47.760 Like I've I've known, you know, can't call it by name, but I've known people who've been convicted of murder. 02:04:47.920 --> 02:04:50.399 I've known people who have been acquitted of murder. 02:04:50.479 --> 02:04:55.680 I've known people who may have never even seen anything regarding murder, but they probably did some shit. 02:04:55.840 --> 02:04:59.439 And you get to watch those people grow up, mature, change their life around. 02:04:59.520 --> 02:05:03.680 You get to watch these people like go through the thing and turn into a completely different person. 02:05:03.920 --> 02:05:09.600 And sometimes it's for the bad, but not always does that turn into a negative scenario. 02:05:09.840 --> 02:05:13.039 So I try to be like, you know, I try to be hopeful. 02:05:13.199 --> 02:05:13.760 You understand? 02:05:13.840 --> 02:05:19.840 Like, some of my closest family members

is like, I've heard a story of this person took someone's life. 02:05:20.000 --> 02:05:23.520 And I had to grow, I heard the story after I loved this person. 02:05:23.680 --> 02:05:24.399 You know what I'm saying? 02:05:24.479 --> 02:05:33.199 I heard the story after I've already grown to know who this person is, not as a murderer, but as a family man, as a, you know, as a whatever it may be. 02:05:33.439 --> 02:05:44.399 So when you think about that, I'm just like, that thing, whatever that incident, that moment was that happened, it didn't portray who this person was on the full, you know, the full scale of their life. 02:05:44.640 --> 02:05:46.399 It portrayed what happened in that moment. 02:05:46.640 --> 02:06:01.600 So I try to, I, yeah, I I just try to be open-minded, but um, you know, and that's where the Bell Project kind of thing uh came to life, is just trying to be open-minded, but you have these m instances where it doesn't always pan out that way. 02:06:01.680 --> 02:06:05.279 And I'm not mad about what I did in terms of like supporting the Bell Project. 02:06:05.359 --> 02:06:21.520 But I think initiatives like that are always necessary because especially now that we have updated technology, we we're seeing so many instances of people that were, you know, um locked up uh for the wrong reasons, or um, you know, it was a crime that they didn't actually commit. 02:06:21.680 --> 02:06:33.600 Uh, and they're finding out 10, 20, 30 years later, uh, you know, we're seeing what's happening with people that were locked up for nonviolent crimes, with drugs being legalized and all those types of things. 02:06:33.680 --> 02:06:45.760 But then also just police brutality being accused of something just because you are, you know, a minority, drugs being planted on you by police officers, things like there's so much corruption that's happening in the justice system. 02:06:46.079 --> 02:07:01.600 My brother was arrested, he did four and a half years for robbery, and later on was arrested for home invasion that he was not involved in, but he just so happened to be in the area when it happened. 02:07:01.760 --> 02:07:10.640 And because he was already a convicted felon, and he told me, yo, I can do, they gave me a deal for doing four and a half years. 02:07:10.720 --> 02:07:14.159 I don't have enough money for a lawyer, but I can fight this. 02:07:14.399 --> 02:07:17.760 The only thing is if I lose, it's an automatic 10 to 20. 02:07:18.239 --> 02:07:28.399 And obviously in that situation, you're just like, well, you have to take the four to you know, the four and a half years, versus like, if you fuck this up, it's 10 to 20 years gone. 02:07:28.560 --> 02:07:31.199 And, you know, so there's those situations. 02:07:31.279 --> 02:07:35.119 So I got a friend, uh, I got a little homie, he's like a little brother to me named Kether. 02:07:35.279 --> 02:07:38.880 Kether is a good kid, never did anything. 02:07:38.960 --> 02:07:42.560 Like he grew up in the

suburbs, you know, full family and everything. 02:07:42.640 --> 02:07:43.600 I knew his sisters. 02:07:43.760 --> 02:07:46.800 Uh, and Kether played basketball in high school and all that. 02:07:46.880 --> 02:07:50.800 He um started working, I don't know, whatever, like one of them little plant jobs and shit. 02:07:50.880 --> 02:07:58.800 And one of the guys that he was working with was um weed, like he was like a little street nigga, like little street kid, whatever. 02:07:59.039 --> 02:08:04.560 Um, he tried to rob Kether, tried to set Kether up one day. 02:08:04.640 --> 02:08:07.760 He was like, Kether let him hold some money, and he was going to go get the money from him. 02:08:07.840 --> 02:08:10.079 He's like, Yeah, bro, just come in the house real quick, I'ma just get it for you. 02:08:10.720 --> 02:08:14.079 So Kether's walking up to the house, and from behind him, he tried to shoot him. 02:08:14.239 --> 02:08:16.960 He tried to he tried to take his life, and it's gun jammed. 02:08:17.119 --> 02:08:27.760 It's gun jammed, but when it happened, they get to scuffling, he's running, Kether's running, and Kether pulled his gun out, licensed to him, but he pulled his gun out and he just started shooting behind him and he ran off. 02:08:28.399 --> 02:08:33.760 He ran off through the back of the house, made it around the corner, came back around, he's bleeding out and all that. 02:08:33.840 --> 02:08:39.680 And he gets to his car, he drives to the nearest gas station, and he's like, yo, can somebody please call the cops that got shot? 02:08:39.920 --> 02:08:42.159 The cops come, everybody comes, and woo-woo-woo. 02:08:42.479 --> 02:08:49.520 But as the cops get there, they then get report that there was sh a shooting somewhere close by, and there's a man dead. 02:08:50.800 --> 02:08:52.479 Keller didn't know he killed anybody. 02:08:52.640 --> 02:08:56.399 He was just, he was, you know, he was fighting, like fighting for his life in that moment. 02:08:56.640 --> 02:09:04.479 Keller now is in his last year of an eight-year third-degree murder sentence. 02:09:04.720 --> 02:09:12.159 Only because he didn't have representation, he didn't have a lawyer at the time, he didn't have, you know, he didn't have anything to actually stand up and defend his. 02:09:12.399 --> 02:09:18.960 He got a public defender, or no, they had a, they had one lawyer, the lawyer ended up actually working for the other guy, and then it was a public defender situation. 02:09:19.119 --> 02:09:22.880 All this shit fell apart, and it just became, yo, take this third degree and move on it. 02:09:22.960 --> 02:09:26.720 Because you didn't tell the cops what happened in that moment, but because you were scared at the moment. 02:09:26.800 --> 02:09:29.760 At that time, George Floyd was happening, and the cops was killing black people. 02:09:29.840 --> 02:09:31.600 So he's like, I don't know what to say to y'all. 02:09:31.680 --> 02:09:32.640 I I just can't speak. 02:09:32.720 --> 02:09:34.000 I'm scared, you know what I mean? 02:09:34.079 --> 02:09:44.479 But that was why I supported Bell Project, is because like I was seeing these things in real time where I'm like, there's people who aren't in my scenario who don't have, you know, the means to even just get out. 02:09:44.560 --> 02:09:48.399 Or like when I was in, when I was in there, they they gave me a sign-out bell. 02:09:48.560 --> 02:09:51.600 And all they really wanted was the story to say that they they arrested me. 02:09:51.680 --> 02:09:52.079 You know what I mean? 02:09:52.159 --> 02:09:54.960 They gave me a sign out, but I didn't have to pay any money to get out of the jail. 02:09:55.119 --> 02:09:57.199 Um, I just had to pay$50 afterwards. 02:09:57.279 --> 02:09:59.439 They was just like, yo, we'll keep this shit on quiet. 02:09:59.680 --> 02:10:05.920 Um, and I did all of that though, and was able to, you know, maneuver. 02:10:06.000 --> 02:10:08.640 There's not that many people that are in the same situation as me. 02:10:08.800 --> 02:10:10.399 So I did that to support that. 02:10:10.720 --> 02:10:18.560 My last question for you is based on everything that you've been through, who would you say that you are now? 02:10:19.199 --> 02:10:20.720 What's next for you? 02:10:21.439 --> 02:10:24.079 And how would you like to be remembered? 02:10:26.000 --> 02:10:33.920 What I experienced as a kid changed my childhood, but it made me a child internally. 02:10:34.079 --> 02:10:38.319 And I think that's the bright side of it, that's the silver lining in it. 02:10:38.479 --> 02:10:51.920 Was for better or for worse, in that moment, I lost so much of my childhood that I've been spending the rest of my life chasing it and chasing that moment of child of blissfulness, of ignorance, of just freedom, of happiness. 02:10:52.079 --> 02:10:59.600 Like, and I have happiness, but there's a moment of happiness, there's a feeling of happiness that you'll never be able to get again after certain losses. 02:10:59.840 --> 02:11:05.359 Um, so it always makes me want to just keep keep prioritizing that feeling of happiness. 02:11:05.600 --> 02:11:15.600 Uh so I started writing this album called Kids Don't Die because that was the biggest change in my life was when I found out kids could die. 02:11:16.159 --> 02:11:32.880 And in that moment, everything afterwards was about keeping the kid inside of you alive because you don't, you know, that is the moment when you feel the most enriched, the most pure, the most yourself is like when you feel like the kid nature inside of you popping out. 02:11:33.039 --> 02:11:36.880 Um and I want that to be, I want that, that to be a signal. 02:11:37.039 --> 02:11:43.680 Because I I think the hardest thing we realize as we go through our adult life sometimes is that we forget that we are the cool kid. 02:11:43.760 --> 02:11:45.600 We're the cool adults to the kids now. 02:11:45.760 --> 02:11:57.840 We're the Kanye's, we're the, you know, whoever was cool to you, the MMs, the Andre 3000s, like we're that for a new group of kids that's growing up being like, man, I hate adults, except for these guys. 02:11:58.479 --> 02:12:11.920 And so um, it's just about being the coolest fucking adult now to this little Armani that didn't put bees in his hair yet, and he's still somewhere running around on Captain Street or Addison or something, and he don't even know who he is yet. 02:12:12.159 --> 02:12:17.359 Um, it's it's to, you know, just to inspire that and create and create the way for that. 02:12:17.520 --> 02:12:20.319 Um I'm trying to remember all the questions you asked. 02:12:21.279 --> 02:12:24.079 The last part of it will be how do you want to be remembered? 02:12:24.560 --> 02:12:25.600 A legend, bro. 02:12:25.680 --> 02:12:57.359 Like I think to change the, to change the tie of music, and I think we're in a really pure time to do that with with hip hop being so curious as to what the future looks like in it, but to change the t of music in a way that's like, oh shit, like when you remember when, like you said, when you was you was young and rapping, like you remember when Wayne burned the path this way, and Ye burned the path that way, and you know, and 50 burned the path, M burned the path, like they all burned these paths, and like that's what I think we haven't had it in so long. 02:12:57.439 --> 02:12:59.920 So it's like to burn the path for the next legacy. 02:13:00.079 --> 02:13:05.039 Uh, I mean, for my legacy and for the next generation to remember it is the goal. 02:13:05.439 --> 02:13:08.319 Well, uh I think you're well on your way to doing that already. 02:13:08.560 --> 02:13:09.039 Yes, sir. 02:13:09.279 --> 02:13:12.319 Um, thank you so much for being here. 02:13:12.479 --> 02:13:20.239 Thank you for being so vulnerable, being so open and so thorough uh with all of your answers and all of your stories. 02:13:20.640 --> 02:13:26.239 So we will definitely be reviewing your application and we will reach out to you soon. 02:13:26.479 --> 02:13:27.680 I appreciate that.