00:00:01
Speaker 1: What's up?
00:00:02
Speaker 2: And welcome back to another episode of No Sealer's Podcast with your hosts now fuck that with your low glasses, My love. So I remember talking to back ten, right, this is when I had my deal with with cash money and watching them try to control like what's about to happen, like them controlling with Universal Music Group all the way down and you watching it, it's like, hella interesting, you know what I mean?
00:00:29
Speaker 1: Like it's the thing about the production thing is it's so many fucking people and unions and you know what I'm saying, like everything is a big deal.
00:00:41
Speaker 2: So like we had that little situation saying about that, bro, why should ain't that professional? It's all good.
00:00:48
Speaker 1: We're trying to get there though, Jim Bob, I can't. I'm disrespecting classes so that it's all good. Jill Gacall like motherfucker's from Common. That's my man. I'm here. So what happens is not only the like it's a three hundred person machine sure, and everybody is the king of their own little kingdom and they got their little fight them right, and these motherfuckers, like I'm saying, like you gotta imagine, like let me name an imaginary department the head of TV. Right, the head of TV brings with him twenty five people. Sure, all the motherfuckers got union jobs. Every time the head of TV gets a job, twenty five union members get a job. Right, is it separate unions too? And they're separate unions, that's right? And they all showing up with they twenty five right, So these is warlords are all creative or whatever. Right, And then there's the rules, and then there's that motherfucking meter. That's what makes everybody crazy. It's that that money clock is burning. And so if you drop this right, you're like, oh, my mother, someone's worried about this. Yes, that's right, and people start getting scared and it creates that tension. And that's what I think. I was not all the way prepared for what's like that group tension coming at you. You know what I'm saying.
00:02:18
Speaker 2: I think you're doing a good job. I mean, and this ain't just being ignorant. I just think it's what exactly is supposed to be. But I think you manage you will dog like not saying that because you're working together. I just watch people, no, because I've watched people try to control monsters. It's a tough task, but sometimes you all let going. Sometimes I think you do a good balance of it. Like they let me see the kind of the pilot, and I'm like, I can see what's frustrating because I can see when you're there what it looks like. Yeah, as a writer, right, and this is where I can relate to you the most, Like you know why you don't need certain type of delivery like right, Like it's like if I write a song for Macten, if I write a song for Bird, mean, if I write a song for somebody, you don't got to say it like that when I'm what I'm what I'm writing is already dynamic enough to where if you just deliver it everything Kashan. But it's like trying to tell somebody that's it's so many people telling the story that like that's.
00:03:15
Speaker 1: The shit, Like I was talking a problem about, Like, once you've done like the movie he made right, you did it, bro everything motherfucking Spielberg does. You did, and and then what happens is you start to get these warlords up under you that elevate all your decisions as you move up to chain. Right, But these motherfuckers be telling stories with like what's at the table and what you're wearing and what the lighting is, and that's the one you be like, why is it that some shit just be great? It's because all that shit is coming together for the same global story and that's rare, but and you feel it, you know what I'm saying, And the people like the Wire is everything coming together together? Everything, Like I mean even the ol g's they got from the neighborhood.
00:04:05
Speaker 2: And shit people talk about how like I've heard that reference so many times and like in like TV storytelling, like that show got to be amazed. I never watched The Wire, it has to be, but I've heard a lot of writers reference to Washington as like a very dope point of like what's happening.
00:04:25
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, like you can't say it's a it's a goat of the NBA, but most people will say Jordan's meaning that there's people that's gonna say Will and people that's gonna say Kobe, and people write all that, But when you add up all the votes, more people have said Jordan right. I would bet And I don't have no science behind this, but just from like my experience, I would say, the Wires probably regarded as the go to TV show. You know what I'm saying it that, man, it just came, it came together. You gotta watch it, bro. I watched if I'm just saying though from it's just shit, don't be coming together like that where it feels real but it feels operatic and it's it's it's it's it's human, but it's unflinching. And that's one of the coldest things he does, like when they get into them seasons on the education system. This is something I learned. It helped me grow as a writer, Like by him not taking an opinion on shit, He'll just be like this, here's the machine that grinds up little black kids. Right, no cut though, here's all the reasons. Why who the fuck fault is it? You can't even tell because people are trying. And then he instead of saying this is what I think would be or whatever, by leaving it raw like that, it actually makes his point better. So it's just it's like a novel, man, It's just it's a motherfucker like. I enjoyed it.
00:05:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be rambling a little bit, bro.
00:05:58
Speaker 1: So that's what I do with you.
00:06:03
Speaker 2: Man like as I respect you like way more than you can understand. Right, because even when you think, even when you're rambling, I'm getting like the ship is transcending. So I need to hear it. As a writer, just listen to how you respect the wire. I guess if there's a show I feel like that about, it's probably OS.
00:06:23
Speaker 1: That's how I really well. But you gotta understand. You got to go back in time. You got to see it. Remember first, kid, I remember when it first came out.
00:06:31
Speaker 2: I thought I was that old. I thought OS was like the greatest idea. The first year, the first season, I thought it was great. But then the second season they started pulling and stuff for storylines. Well, it's tough because eventually, like you know how many times you're gonna tell a story, like, you have to start looking you gotta start looking like is that.
00:06:52
Speaker 3: The hardest part after the first season is to try to pull the storyline in another direction.
00:06:56
Speaker 1: Y'all know the term jumping the shark? No, I don't you never heard that term, man, bro It's just funny something today. Yeah, So, and it like this ship is as common as the term ghost writer is in your world. Right. So jumping the shark. It's a famous, famous term and it has to do with the season where so Happy Days gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and the story you know, the famous team show with the fawns, right, and it gets goofier and goofer as it goes, like the fun Star Mechanic in the beginning and by season whatever, like sevens there's a shark in the middle of the water and the fauns has to jump over the shark. Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, And every show, if it stays on long enough, they're gonna jump. They have to jump the shark. It can happen in season two, and it can happen in season ten. That's what happened. Sayle was telling me his story of Snowfall where the tigers in the backyard. He wrote that episode. That's right, that's jumping the shark, right right. I will say this. They pulled it back like what but it is what you just said. You start searching for stories and you start trying to top yourself or it's just a drift that happens, you know what I'm saying. Like, if you don't, I would imagine as an MC if you aren't challenging yourself, you will start to turn your art form into a product. And once you do that, so you inherently have to water it down to mass produce it. And then you jump it over a shark. Okay, I like that. Yeah, I'm gonna remember that. I'm gonna watch that episode of Fine exclaiming that the term is like in Hollywood, I would assume most of most of white America, however in Hollywood know that Hollywood. Definitely that's a term. Okay, jump to the shark.
00:08:44
Speaker 2: He fine jumping, So he got sealing the jacket on in the ocean, going on on the jet skis.
00:08:50
Speaker 1: He's wearing the leather jacket.
00:08:51
Speaker 2: Bro, So no ciilings jail. I got my brother King here. One of my favorite ride man somebody I really enjoy watching craft man Michael Spelman, Really dope. What's something you haven't done that you like to do? And I'm not one thing about nose sellers is not an interview. Like what works for me is it becomes these conversations that people just get to be privy to and like I would be the worst interviewer. Like I'm working on trying to figure out if I ever wanted to but I wouldn't. But what's something to me that you would like to write that you haven't got been able to write?
00:09:31
Speaker 1: If there's anything? I think? I have a project that is that it's basically like the concept of first Contact, which is the movie Arrival Close Encounters of a third time kind the movie Contact. You know, aliens like alien stuff. Yeah, one hundred percent of them are through the gaze of white suburbia, right, And so I have a project that I developed with somebody with a network and unfortunately didn't want to make it. And it's that same story but through the lens of a family and watts and everything starts to change as soon as you do that, right. So I want to be in the sci fi space sci fi bro, Yeah, I just sense it about sci fire.
00:10:18
Speaker 2: So far as the ship though, so far as shit makes me immediately think of signs.
00:10:23
Speaker 1: So what have you done? That movie? He said? What you have? You don't want to do? What have you done? Because I don't know everything that you've done so far? Written for it? Put out what have I done or haven't I have done? I've written a few I've so here's the fucked up thing? Most of like the first fifth I've been working for twenty five years, is right, right, professionally for damn near a decade before then trying to get in. I'm old as fuck, bro, I just don't worry about it. Come on, yeah, well yeah, well don't worry. We at young, don't.
00:10:57
Speaker 2: So, yeah that as long as you've got to say, you relevant, you know what I'm saying. Once you once you stop having opinions and being tapped in with what's happened, that's what's breathing my degree and money.
00:11:09
Speaker 1: I ain't got to worry about either one. I'm tapped in and i'm but so let me just do it quick. So I broke in with what's called a spec sale, meaning I was living in my apartment. I wrote a script and sent it to people, and it got around and someone bought it, right, So that's how it broke into Hollywood. I got real hot because that's a rare thing, you know what I'm saying, for somebody to buy your script like like that. Yeah yeah, yeah, especially this was like the beginning of the end of the spec market. Like in the nineties, you could really make a living like that. But now that shit has done. So that got me some heat. My career dies. I break back in after five years of nothing, and I got to work on our family wedding over at Fox, which you know whatever. I'm just one of many on that one. Fuck dude video game stuff I did. The ship that people know about is Empire Truth Be Told on Apple Falcon Winter Soldier of course. That's you know, really proud of that one. Hip Hop un Covered, which is a documentary series. I worked on him in the original ideas by Jimmy Jim Bob Chris, who's another friend of ours. He'll be in a minute, him and draws and them. But I was in it.
00:12:36
Speaker 2: Remember I told you they dragged me to Kavanilla Park at like one in the morning.
00:12:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, we've got issues with that one.
00:12:42
Speaker 3: I wanted to come over there. Yeah yeah, that was I wanted. I wanted to be there. See I missed that special moment.
00:12:48
Speaker 2: It was at one in the morning, because why am I Campanella Park at one.
00:12:51
Speaker 1: In the morning.
00:12:53
Speaker 2: But it worked out though. It was because that saying looked crazy. It looks and and that's the I see this. It is offity, you know what I'm saying. It's in the air.
00:13:02
Speaker 1: Did that? I did the Captain America movie. I did bel Air and now I'm doing Snowfall. It's you know, it's I've been grinding a long time. And the way my career it doesn't it hasn't literally worked out like this. But if you look at my twenty five year career to let you know how hard this shit is because I push, right, I get something made once every five years.
00:13:24
Speaker 2: Is it somebody that getsh it made more besides dig Wolf I got?
00:13:29
Speaker 1: I got see dig Wolf on a small crew, Okay?
00:13:36
Speaker 2: And is it is it like partnerships with like networks at that point?
00:13:39
Speaker 1: No, it's just hot Boys Club and favoritism and all that. Yeah, I mean, and and you know, these are some of the Some of them are the best writers or filmmakers in Hollywood, and some of them aren't. But there's there's a level you can hit and then you have a large percentage of what you do is work only on things that get made. They bring you in when they're gonna make it, you know what I'm saying. And I've gotten to do that. I won't name the project it's obvious, but in general, I'm not in that pool. And I don't know if anyone maybe Joe Robert Cole is maybe, but that that's a serious pool and and them motherfuckers is working on ship that gets made. That's it basically, No.
00:14:30
Speaker 2: Man, this has been a process that really helps as a writer as a storyteller, just watching it and then just going back to look over different things and watching it and you know, watching you coach people like I think, I think you give yourself a hard time. And I mean I would imagine if you are to get better, bro, it make you better. Yeah, only make you better as a as a as a as a leader.
00:15:01
Speaker 1: It's interesting, bro, like watching you in the room. So here's the thing that like, there are elements of shit that can't be taught right and are like I do think that a certain level of intellect and just basic creativity a person can be taught to screenwrite on a professional level. But that still takes some in a talent. And then there's motherfuckers that come along and you just be like, goddamn, where did that come from? Right? Like, there's ship and that's just called It's just it's in you, Like when you be coming in the room and drop into the conversation and it don't make our skin crawl that's a gift that you're intuiting the code. So here's our go In a writer's room, it's like five, you know, five of us all talking at once on trying to move the story an inch an hour, right, and you need these voice is coming in, you know, ping pong and shit, and if the wrong voices come in, it fucks up the vibe. And glasses is able to come in and fall into the rhythm of that. And you got to know when to talk what to talk on and no one can teach you that, you know what I'm saying.
00:16:17
Speaker 2: Most of it is just most of it is listening. Yeah, because you're watching, You're watching, You're watching somebody create a world. I would imagine it's like God working. Yeah, I'm put this right here and put these mushrooms. It's that serious because you're watching people create something that don't exist. Like sometimes I'm listening and it's like, remember, so I'm there every other day, So I'm listening.
00:16:44
Speaker 1: I'm like, so, now I got to catch up to this day.
00:16:47
Speaker 2: So for the most time, thirty minutes I'm shutting the fuck up because I'm like, let me catch up, and then i gotta listen. Then it'll be like, Okay, God, I see where we're at, and then it just starts to make sense.
00:16:58
Speaker 1: But man, watching then put it together. King is.
00:17:04
Speaker 2: I started street racing when I was like five, and my dad started taking when off street racing I was five years old. Drag racing is like my first love gang banging education, Like I was great. I got all these ap classes, thirteen two mess atis gang banging. I kind of had to find my way into it. Walking into there is the first time I felt like I found my people.
00:17:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, you was fit, man. That's what I'm trying to say is honor that it's a very rare thing, even for the pros, even the pros. I'm telling you, man, it's really like I don't want to say no blastom of shit because that would require me to mention everyone, right, but please don't mention him. I'm I'm just gonna say, yeah, please don't. In the pantheon of players who people say are the goats, there is one who you could say, there's no way you can't say he ain't a goat. Sure, but I never felt like he fits in the rhythm of the game where it's just coming organ like, you know, like he underrated, is like, uh kd man, what you.
00:18:10
Speaker 2: Need fifty or twelve fast? You know the way it's gonna be at sixty it's nothing. And he's just with the flus. Why fit in with the warriors?
00:18:18
Speaker 1: And now he's over there and uh okay, see you know what I'm saying or no, anyway, you you should know man. You know I wouldn't say that if it wasn't true. It really is very organic for you, bro, And that's great man, It's it was. It was. It was one of the things where I was like, you know, so Jimbob brought brought him, you know, putting some people in, some gay people, some gatekeepers around me because I'm fucking with LA culture and I'm from Cali but I'm not from La so I got the right people around me to make sure shit is right or right as it can be. And watching him watching Glasses like just drop into the vibe like that, especially as I know him, so there's a more street wrapper. It was just like it fucked me. All of it fucked me up, the whole glasses thing.
00:19:04
Speaker 2: Intellect Yeah, first time I felt like I found my peoples, like storytellers, Like.
00:19:10
Speaker 1: It was a room full of storyteller.
00:19:12
Speaker 2: Yeah you feel and so like from the assistance to the showrunner, it's like, damn, this is like my people's and like you in here listening, so now you're listening to wiser storytellers, so you like, oh ship and it's like, damn, I never thought about it, and it just it's like this great. It sounds fun, fat, intense when it is, but it's it's like your people, like you could see it. This is the first time I ever walked in somewhere and felt like I found my people, Like this is my people, Like this is where my people, you know what I mean. And it was like I could sit back and not say nothing and be just as like amazed as speaking. It's like everybody, it made sense. How long do you see now this is gonna get you. I try to get people into trouble, but this is a deep question. How long do you think at this level of big production that's Hollywood have left. I know that's something you got to think about as.
00:20:17
Speaker 1: A I keep not being scared because the grandness of what we do is there's just like when YouTube came out twenty five years ago, right there, it's like that's it for Hollywood, right and everyone even back then was like, man, there's there's fifty great writers and they're gonna find their way into this system if that's what you're trying to do.
00:20:44
Speaker 2: So I think what we do, whether it evolves or whatever, it's satisfying in a way.
00:20:50
Speaker 1: Like I said, what what what's gonna replace us? When it's like Hollywood's performing at this level. But what it's doing is it's plugging glasses and problem and me and the random you know, the Jewish dude all into the one thing. Whatever's gonna take us out is gonna have to be operating at that level. So it's gonna be something similar anyway, you know what I'm saying, Because and I'm not shit isn't better than the other. It's just the bigness of what Hollywood does. It's specifically for that to be big, you know what I'm saying. Even if it's motherfucking the Shy, the Shy feels bigger than what's that ship that like everyone watched it back in the day, like money and whatever, just some serious So I do think like Hollywood's the worst it's ever been ever, right now, that's by that was by design, by you know some people who came from another world, the tech industry, and didn't give a fuck, and they did it like.
00:21:53
Speaker 2: They did this a music. Yes, I give Hollywood credit. They fighting back. Yeah, it's a tough fight. Music didn't fight back, like music kind of got colonized by it and then it just got stuck. And now you watch it all happen. Hollywood is fighting back. They're making some better decisions, like they're not making their titles all available, they're still holding back Music kind of conceded titles. They conceded all the albums, and now you can get any album. It's no way I should be able to get Jay Z's blueprint album, like I get this or Hollywood like so when we So I think I didn't tell you what I was working on this idea I was writing this. I did call Chris Rusus Dragon. It's a really dope idea and I'm almost to the end. So it's so it's super dope. I got a whole little dumb shit, right, but it's fired though, right, So dragons and cribs fucking great. But anyway, it's like I was trying to find nights, right, No, no, because so part of my part part of my journey hip hop is trying to like humanize the street life because I feel like it's just people, but for some reason, you get this thing like you're the Joker or Batman. So I wanted to make these slashers and the slashers is just like it's crips, but you're not really tripping at their crips because like, but you you start to figure out ways to do it. And this was just an idea, but the point was I was going to I start searching for a Nightmare on Elm Street and like I had to pay for it, you know what I mean. I start I start searching for certain screens I had. I had paramounts, so you know I had paramount but I noticed things that I was looking for they were still behind walls. Music conceded, like we gave all our titles to Spotify.
00:23:38
Speaker 1: Y'all got caught up in the beginning, exactly.
00:23:41
Speaker 2: Hollywood fought the whole time. So Hollywood could be in a little trouble, but it's it's it's.
00:23:47
Speaker 1: You. They got a chance. I didn't want to. I wanted to just sort of say, like you ain't wrong in this way. I'm gonna show you a chart later on. But this ship is down. It's probably by more and half and I don't think it's ever coming back like that. And I was, yeah, it's just it's too much other ship now. And it's just too much other ship. And also, Hollywood is no longer in the hands of people who give a fuck about it. You know what I'm saying. They like as a culture.
00:24:19
Speaker 2: It's economic, so economically it's in the hands of people money and not so much the creative.
00:24:27
Speaker 1: I'm not even I'm saying beyond that, bro, it's in the hands of people head funds and stuff. Yeah, like it's there, it's there. They just don't care what's gonna make my money. But you know that to me hurts the money when you're dealing with cultures like music, fashion, movies, and TV, the most money comes in that sweet spot where the commerce and art are working together or whatever. I don't know what you're saying is true. Some deep motherfuckers would shoot me there, that's true.
00:25:00
Speaker 2: Like, I don't think no d motherfucker will shoot you down there. It is because you get the greatest, biggest things, and there's a purity and art, but obviously the greatest thing, the chronic These are the greatest things ready to life at the death. You know, these are the greatest things where are in commerce mix?
00:25:17
Speaker 1: Yep? That's those are the things that you know.
00:25:20
Speaker 2: Create doors and lines and lines and lines and lines of people at the door for the product.
00:25:25
Speaker 1: So I think that's fair to say. I remember that was the biggest advertisements at one time. What's that you know, movies and TV shows and stuff? Well, my brother and now ten years ago, up until ten years ago, so I don't think. First of all, let me be very clear with whoever's about to hear this shit. I have don't know what I'm talking about, sure, but there's a fundamental truth to what I'm talking about, which is they don't make movies and TV shows no more. And what kings talk matters. So what happens in the business, let me try and explain it from a bone head, is movies were made at a certain budget, put into theaters where you see a certain percentage on the dollar, and in a great situation, you make a profit in theaters. Let's say, right then they live again on cable whom then they live again and all those things, right, and as it goes down to like starts to appear on like just Bay, you know TV like Channel thirteen.
00:26:30
Speaker 2: When you get now you're just getting left back.
00:26:33
Speaker 1: And now that channel is using your paying you for your movie so that they can play it and charge for commercials. Right that. So TVs and movies were a product that generated money. That's done. What's a sign for the record? Yep? And now it's a stock mark meaning this. I don't know it works, but it don't matter what these things make. What matters is these people's stock shares. Yeah, it's all the market share guy.
00:27:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's that's how it is with records. So like in the record business, one song made you your money back.
00:27:11
Speaker 1: Right right, I remember here, like one he could set you for life in a way.
00:27:15
Speaker 2: So one song made the label their money back the album itself. So one song is the theater. The single is I See what You're doing?
00:27:23
Speaker 1: Yeah?
00:27:24
Speaker 2: Then right, you go to as we talked about, what's after the theater before home media?
00:27:30
Speaker 1: It's home media second? Or is it cable second? Yeah?
00:27:34
Speaker 2: Or DVD's I think your home media So home media is right. Home media would be the album. So by that time they had already made their money back. So the album is like bonus money, you know what I mean, and then publishing checks from all of this other work, all of these things start coming in long term blah blah blah.
00:27:51
Speaker 1: But ever since they have the value.
00:27:53
Speaker 2: So I guess it's the fracture between the movie and the theater, like for the industry, for it, like the value of the record to the album, the single.
00:28:02
Speaker 1: But also this is the same people control y'all industry. Now, these streamers or whatever are partially right the same way. Sure they can't possibly keep this thing healthy when they are born from something that has nothing to do with it, Like there's no vinyl pressing plan, there's no motherfucking radio station, there's no nothing. There's some people with a technology who decided the value of what and by not knowing like meaning this, I've seen Joe Budden say this. This has maybe ten years why I started fucking on this podcast. He said abo to Joe. One day these people came up and said, fifteen hundred streams equals one record sell And Joe said, since who says who? How do you say that right? How do you declare that? Well, the person who declared that, I guarantee you don't give a fuck about music or anything or culture, so he don't know how to value he or she doesn't know how to value it or even care to value it. And once you put that in, once you put that poison into the culture, which is it's an alien thing. Like the gangsters who whipped off musicians back then. Love music came from music. The mob guy who wanted to be around musician will come yeah, right like these is, and they're just as evil except for their part of the cult. They love the music, these motherfuckers, and they don't care if it dies. They're so big whatever if don't know what next week again, they're gonna stream our thoughts whatever. That makes sense. It is that type of money. Hmm. Shit. I got a question. Did you go to school to become a writer? No? You just did it, just just you did as a kid growing up and just started writing. I man, I got into it. I always wanted to be a writer. I thought I was gonna write a book and then I've seen boys in the hood. Fat you know what I'm saying. But I didn't get serious with it until I quit drinking. I'd gotten in some trouble and it was just that point, like I had started writing God to teach myself how to type. You know, we didn't know that kind of shit growing up, and so it was. It wasn't until I was like, I gotta admit I got a late start. I think I broke in in my early thirties or maybe at thirty or something like that. Right, So, like, just to give you a sense of that, people like Mindy Kaling are already TV stars and have created fifteen million shows by the time day that age. You know what I'm saying. They like, you know what I'm saying, it started, really you started? Yeah? They just yeah, so no but no school, but just you know, you work. I'm serious, you know what I'm saying.
00:30:49
Speaker 2: I just got serious with it so far outside of this project right that we're not talking about I just don't want because it's not even that you don't want to. I get why you don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it, no matter how many streams like I have to keep my stream going, but I don't want to talk about it. I want to see it through and then we can talk about it after you see it. What was your favorite project working on? And I think I asked you this before, but before this particular experience.
00:31:19
Speaker 1: Probably it's a tie. It's a tie Falcon Winter Soldier because it just transformed my career. It was the it was the one that finally did it for me. Empire was the Empire made my career, but the Falcon Winter Soldier took me out of that whatever realm just right. He could just write this to m yeah and put me there. But I'm telling you, I think before this one, it was hip hop and covered.
00:31:48
Speaker 2: It really was, and that was an underrated thing because that was a dope thing, Like how was that?
00:31:52
Speaker 1: How was that whole experience? I mean, people don't appreciate like we kept out all the solationship because that's what we are there seeing where shit was going. I think the way people I feel like most of the docs that I see now are imitating our ship, not in a bad way. Made an imprint. Hey, we established the official timeline with Jake right, no go, you will not find it in nothing like connecting connecting, connecting uh uh uh, meaning Jake being the first murder where it's like this wasn't street beef a nothing rap shit turned into a murder of a street dude. And then what that did you know in that ripple all the way through the biggie We everyone does that now, but we did so I'm you know, I think it's gonna last. I think it's gonna last. That is a dope.
00:32:45
Speaker 2: That's a low key. We don't talk about love, but that was a dope. I watched the whole thing and I was really impressed. I was like, man, this is kind of dope.
00:32:53
Speaker 1: And they was the real folks back then, and they was treated like you like what you were saying. They were treated like human beings, you know what I'm saying. And that was a Portfolob has always been a scholar. Yeah, drawl has always been good. Yeah, really dope people. Yeah, I like that. I thought that was dope. What's your greatest fear in all of this shit? Because I'm sure you don't have a ton.
00:33:16
Speaker 2: As a writer, right, you got some regular ones, But what's your greatest fear where you kind of get caught up working on this.
00:33:23
Speaker 1: As you're working on and right, like as it pertains to that certain project. No, as a writer, it's you talking to the like, I don't know how to describe to you what the fuck happened? To me. Let me give you a quick Summaryate, I'm on feeling the probation, living in a shithole. And then my phone rings and it's Cia saying I want to represent you. I'm driving to your house now at nine am. And then if Fox and MTV Films is saying we want to buy your script and it's off right now, by some people standards, I never did shit, But by the standards I come from, that's how shit was. That's fucking crazy, right, And it was like that for three and I'm talking about famous people that like, meaning again, I'm living in a garbage hole. I didn't even get out of it before I went broke again, right, because it happened so fast to like the biggest filmmakers you know, calling you out to be. I don't even know how they got my number, right, because I'm not. I don't have no mentors or nothing like that. So and then bro nothing for a five motherfucking I didn't do nothing wrong. I didn't get it. It was just done. Bro, you think that happened, just that's how it be. That's how cold this business is you going? And then the you know, God turns his head with something for a second, I make no missed to noning. It was just fucking done. I mean I lost my agent, that the duck couldn't get no work, was back in the streets. It was all the shit, bro, So that can't be young greatest figures already happened. But that shit be haunted me too, So I'm always I'll never forget it. I'm always ready for it. But when you see me like I was that day, that probably is part of what's feeding that energy. Is I feel that wolf on my heels all the.
00:35:13
Speaker 2: Time, but I don't even think even Look, maybe you're right, I am forging fire a lot different.
00:35:20
Speaker 1: I didn't think it was that bad. I do that king all the time, probably talking about.
00:35:25
Speaker 2: What where you're gonna be stream at me and stuff that he not even that bad, Like like you pressure to get through it and you're trying.
00:35:33
Speaker 1: To get to it. That's how you got That's because he forged the fire too.
00:35:43
Speaker 2: Like it's one thing if I stepped past down and start insawing with this space, but like I'm frustrated because I'm trying to make the impossible possible force and so I get it.
00:35:51
Speaker 1: So you're right like me and Pete come from a world where that's.
00:35:55
Speaker 2: Been a dynamic like we but we also come from street urvan culture the same what where we all wards in that fire. So certain things now shout out to the out to the homie that we talked about any question, Yes it might he not be forced same you're a brilliant person, but we come from that fire like that. Like you're talking about that when you was you was in that five years and that medal, You was being in that metal horning iron, and shit was like, what the fuck is going on? And you still gotta keep pushing that, and you gotta push that and you gotta eat. We all come from that. So it's just different. And I realized everybody don't come from that.
00:36:28
Speaker 1: And it takes hell along because we still keep it around us. Bro, you don't understand. It took me years to figure out I was being too harsh or aggressive or whatever. And I'm not particularly I'm a you know, cupcake. In our world, it is it is. This is also twenty five years as a professional writer. You can imagine I was different twenty five years ago. You know what I'm saying, But I agree it is. There is a certain power that comes with it too. When you put it on the table with people, you don't do it a lot, and you don't do it. I'm not talking about threatening nothing, but when you remind people that, Yo, whatever the fuck this is, it ain't shipped to me with a certain tone, that reminds them that whatever their consequences they're feeling about this, I dodn't already been through. Yeah.
00:37:26
Speaker 2: I tell people all the time like maybe that's like when all the shit was happening, was like going to gym, I'm like, bro, shiit, what the fuck y'all talking about? Like I'm not tripping to jail. To them, that was like a thing, and I'm like, the fuck are y'all talking about? Like I'm not tripping? And you can tell they're not used to people being forging that fire.
00:37:45
Speaker 1: Jim, what up? You could tell people not forging that fire? Yeah?
00:37:49
Speaker 2: But nah, Watching, like I said, it's something, it's something to tame, it's something to really tame. It's something to watch. And like I'm saying, it's impressed to watch, not in this kind of our way because it's so many things happening at once, like watching you know, one hundred and fifty people do one thing at once.
00:38:08
Speaker 1: It is fucking insane. It's it's it's fucking mind blowing something. This is by far the biggest production. Nah bro motherfucking Marvel Goldy. Yeah, that shit is. But it's a different it's a whole different vibe too, Like sure, ship, just move. It's just as chaotic, but there's a power structure over your head that in a way you're so submissive to it. This is different, Like this is on me. So this is by far the biggest thing ever on me. So you're moving, you have to move to people as a whole. Yet not only that, I will for short, like if this didn't go, it is on me, like the room around time, So you control everything touch his name. When we say control, we mean I'm in a position to but someone else who knows more about it controls it. It's just they they there's his room for me there. I ain't gonna say they're reporting to me, but it's just me. It's he's decide. If it doesn't work out, it's all him. If it weren't here the head writer, I'm not the head writer. I'm the show runner. So look at it like this.
00:39:16
Speaker 2: If it works out, if it doesn't, work out, it's all his fault. If it does work out, it's about ten people, including his So it's a showrunner runs the show.
00:39:27
Speaker 1: It is you decide. Like when I say where the money is gonna go, I don't mean I count the money, but they're saying, all right, you only got enough money to shoot a scene with either glasses or king. Right, I'm the one who they're gonna decide that, or say get all them lights out of there so I can get them both, or like you decide everything, you decide who gets hired or fire. You know what I'm saying to some degree, like.
00:39:52
Speaker 2: As much as he can be yes, Yeah, and I listen to what I just said. If it doesn't work out, If it doesn't work out, it's all his fault. If it works out, he's a part of the ten peoples who actually got it right.
00:40:09
Speaker 1: Right, That does that make sense?
00:40:11
Speaker 2: That's crazy? I may say this when that's crazy. If it doesn't work out, it's all escapegoal.
00:40:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you got and you gotta have one because someone's cutting the check. Ultimately, Like this is what you start to learn, right, I wouldn't even called a scapegoat, right, someone got to cut a check to get this shit going, everybody want to say, well, you gotta blame somebody, and that's just natural. That's not negative. Like you're like if your captain tells you to go out and shoot protesters, right, and then you go to jail for it as a cop, the first thing you're gonna say is, my captain told me to do that, right, And then the captain's gonna say, I got that order from the mayor. And at some point it's gonna stop, right, that's me and less it works, right and now when.
00:40:56
Speaker 3: It works, everybody wants to collective of people up and down.
00:41:01
Speaker 1: And that's cool though that's not a bad Yeah, I agree. Like one thing about it is you would not be a writer if you wanted to be out like like, it don't mean shit. In the end, the quality of the thing and the experience is really all that matter. So that's the great thing is like writers tend to be motherfuckers that don't need to be seen. They want to hide, they will, you know what I'm saying. So I'm out going for a writer, and I got no desire to be you know what I'm saying, Like, I don't be writing no cameos, for myself and I'm not doing none of that, you know. No, that's just dope.
00:41:33
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate it. I didn't wanted to drag you. I just felt like it was cool.
00:41:37
Speaker 1: Man. I'm honored, Bro, I'm not I man glad to be the fucking with this dude.
00:41:41
Speaker 2: Man has been man right, mutual dogg We built something, bro, Yeah it really, I'll tell you what, man. I never I sware to God like homies, street races. No, I never felt like I found my people until I sat down in them chairs and I've seen all of these people and I was like listening to them create ideas.
00:42:03
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, this is my people.
00:42:05
Speaker 2: Like every time I go there, like sometimes it sucks like I have to go do this other thing that I'm really great at, but like here is something that natural. It feels like breathing air. They don't even have to try. I can just listen. I want to give one idea, and I know I'm.
00:42:19
Speaker 1: Supposed to be there.
00:42:20
Speaker 3: Well I could see that because during all the years of knowing you, the different show ideas You'll tell me about the different movies, and even up to the videos, you make it look like movies.
00:42:30
Speaker 1: You know, what I'm saying.
00:42:31
Speaker 2: So now you need to always push, always touch bird man, all the people that let me do more stuff. Like I shot a video in twenty ten with film when nobody was using film, right. I remember when I talk wanted to use film. They was like what I'm like, Yeah, I want to use film. And I always thought like.
00:42:47
Speaker 1: That, yeah, curious. You want to see my story and it's not. It doesn't come with everybody, just like you know Paul, and I sure Paul is a fucking savant with them numbers. Wow, you know what I'm saying, you can see it. He could you know what I'm saying, the schedule and to the motherfuckers in the matrix right to the point that he can make the numbers work for you creatively, Like when you like, oh fuck, I'm stressing I can't afford this or that, that motherfucker is able to blend that with your creativity.
00:43:18
Speaker 2: Right, So for you you are on the story side, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, shit, all right.
00:43:24
Speaker 1: My man? All right, folks, all right.
00:43:30
Speaker 2: And looking out for tuning into The note Seller's podcast, Please do us a favorite, subscribe, rate commentist share. This episode was recorded right here on the West coast of the USA and produced by the Black Effect podcast network and not Hard Radio year
Speaker 1: What's up?
00:00:02
Speaker 2: And welcome back to another episode of No Sealer's Podcast with your hosts now fuck that with your low glasses, My love. So I remember talking to back ten, right, this is when I had my deal with with cash money and watching them try to control like what's about to happen, like them controlling with Universal Music Group all the way down and you watching it, it's like, hella interesting, you know what I mean?
00:00:29
Speaker 1: Like it's the thing about the production thing is it's so many fucking people and unions and you know what I'm saying, like everything is a big deal.
00:00:41
Speaker 2: So like we had that little situation saying about that, bro, why should ain't that professional? It's all good.
00:00:48
Speaker 1: We're trying to get there though, Jim Bob, I can't. I'm disrespecting classes so that it's all good. Jill Gacall like motherfucker's from Common. That's my man. I'm here. So what happens is not only the like it's a three hundred person machine sure, and everybody is the king of their own little kingdom and they got their little fight them right, and these motherfuckers, like I'm saying, like you gotta imagine, like let me name an imaginary department the head of TV. Right, the head of TV brings with him twenty five people. Sure, all the motherfuckers got union jobs. Every time the head of TV gets a job, twenty five union members get a job. Right, is it separate unions too? And they're separate unions, that's right? And they all showing up with they twenty five right, So these is warlords are all creative or whatever. Right, And then there's the rules, and then there's that motherfucking meter. That's what makes everybody crazy. It's that that money clock is burning. And so if you drop this right, you're like, oh, my mother, someone's worried about this. Yes, that's right, and people start getting scared and it creates that tension. And that's what I think. I was not all the way prepared for what's like that group tension coming at you. You know what I'm saying.
00:02:18
Speaker 2: I think you're doing a good job. I mean, and this ain't just being ignorant. I just think it's what exactly is supposed to be. But I think you manage you will dog like not saying that because you're working together. I just watch people, no, because I've watched people try to control monsters. It's a tough task, but sometimes you all let going. Sometimes I think you do a good balance of it. Like they let me see the kind of the pilot, and I'm like, I can see what's frustrating because I can see when you're there what it looks like. Yeah, as a writer, right, and this is where I can relate to you the most, Like you know why you don't need certain type of delivery like right, Like it's like if I write a song for Macten, if I write a song for Bird, mean, if I write a song for somebody, you don't got to say it like that when I'm what I'm what I'm writing is already dynamic enough to where if you just deliver it everything Kashan. But it's like trying to tell somebody that's it's so many people telling the story that like that's.
00:03:15
Speaker 1: The shit, Like I was talking a problem about, Like, once you've done like the movie he made right, you did it, bro everything motherfucking Spielberg does. You did, and and then what happens is you start to get these warlords up under you that elevate all your decisions as you move up to chain. Right, But these motherfuckers be telling stories with like what's at the table and what you're wearing and what the lighting is, and that's the one you be like, why is it that some shit just be great? It's because all that shit is coming together for the same global story and that's rare, but and you feel it, you know what I'm saying, And the people like the Wire is everything coming together together? Everything, Like I mean even the ol g's they got from the neighborhood.
00:04:05
Speaker 2: And shit people talk about how like I've heard that reference so many times and like in like TV storytelling, like that show got to be amazed. I never watched The Wire, it has to be, but I've heard a lot of writers reference to Washington as like a very dope point of like what's happening.
00:04:25
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, like you can't say it's a it's a goat of the NBA, but most people will say Jordan's meaning that there's people that's gonna say Will and people that's gonna say Kobe, and people write all that, But when you add up all the votes, more people have said Jordan right. I would bet And I don't have no science behind this, but just from like my experience, I would say, the Wires probably regarded as the go to TV show. You know what I'm saying it that, man, it just came, it came together. You gotta watch it, bro. I watched if I'm just saying though from it's just shit, don't be coming together like that where it feels real but it feels operatic and it's it's it's it's it's human, but it's unflinching. And that's one of the coldest things he does, like when they get into them seasons on the education system. This is something I learned. It helped me grow as a writer, Like by him not taking an opinion on shit, He'll just be like this, here's the machine that grinds up little black kids. Right, no cut though, here's all the reasons. Why who the fuck fault is it? You can't even tell because people are trying. And then he instead of saying this is what I think would be or whatever, by leaving it raw like that, it actually makes his point better. So it's just it's like a novel, man, It's just it's a motherfucker like. I enjoyed it.
00:05:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be rambling a little bit, bro.
00:05:58
Speaker 1: So that's what I do with you.
00:06:03
Speaker 2: Man like as I respect you like way more than you can understand. Right, because even when you think, even when you're rambling, I'm getting like the ship is transcending. So I need to hear it. As a writer, just listen to how you respect the wire. I guess if there's a show I feel like that about, it's probably OS.
00:06:23
Speaker 1: That's how I really well. But you gotta understand. You got to go back in time. You got to see it. Remember first, kid, I remember when it first came out.
00:06:31
Speaker 2: I thought I was that old. I thought OS was like the greatest idea. The first year, the first season, I thought it was great. But then the second season they started pulling and stuff for storylines. Well, it's tough because eventually, like you know how many times you're gonna tell a story, like, you have to start looking you gotta start looking like is that.
00:06:52
Speaker 3: The hardest part after the first season is to try to pull the storyline in another direction.
00:06:56
Speaker 1: Y'all know the term jumping the shark? No, I don't you never heard that term, man, bro It's just funny something today. Yeah, So, and it like this ship is as common as the term ghost writer is in your world. Right. So jumping the shark. It's a famous, famous term and it has to do with the season where so Happy Days gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and the story you know, the famous team show with the fawns, right, and it gets goofier and goofer as it goes, like the fun Star Mechanic in the beginning and by season whatever, like sevens there's a shark in the middle of the water and the fauns has to jump over the shark. Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, And every show, if it stays on long enough, they're gonna jump. They have to jump the shark. It can happen in season two, and it can happen in season ten. That's what happened. Sayle was telling me his story of Snowfall where the tigers in the backyard. He wrote that episode. That's right, that's jumping the shark, right right. I will say this. They pulled it back like what but it is what you just said. You start searching for stories and you start trying to top yourself or it's just a drift that happens, you know what I'm saying. Like, if you don't, I would imagine as an MC if you aren't challenging yourself, you will start to turn your art form into a product. And once you do that, so you inherently have to water it down to mass produce it. And then you jump it over a shark. Okay, I like that. Yeah, I'm gonna remember that. I'm gonna watch that episode of Fine exclaiming that the term is like in Hollywood, I would assume most of most of white America, however in Hollywood know that Hollywood. Definitely that's a term. Okay, jump to the shark.
00:08:44
Speaker 2: He fine jumping, So he got sealing the jacket on in the ocean, going on on the jet skis.
00:08:50
Speaker 1: He's wearing the leather jacket.
00:08:51
Speaker 2: Bro, So no ciilings jail. I got my brother King here. One of my favorite ride man somebody I really enjoy watching craft man Michael Spelman, Really dope. What's something you haven't done that you like to do? And I'm not one thing about nose sellers is not an interview. Like what works for me is it becomes these conversations that people just get to be privy to and like I would be the worst interviewer. Like I'm working on trying to figure out if I ever wanted to but I wouldn't. But what's something to me that you would like to write that you haven't got been able to write?
00:09:31
Speaker 1: If there's anything? I think? I have a project that is that it's basically like the concept of first Contact, which is the movie Arrival Close Encounters of a third time kind the movie Contact. You know, aliens like alien stuff. Yeah, one hundred percent of them are through the gaze of white suburbia, right, And so I have a project that I developed with somebody with a network and unfortunately didn't want to make it. And it's that same story but through the lens of a family and watts and everything starts to change as soon as you do that, right. So I want to be in the sci fi space sci fi bro, Yeah, I just sense it about sci fire.
00:10:18
Speaker 2: So far as the ship though, so far as shit makes me immediately think of signs.
00:10:23
Speaker 1: So what have you done? That movie? He said? What you have? You don't want to do? What have you done? Because I don't know everything that you've done so far? Written for it? Put out what have I done or haven't I have done? I've written a few I've so here's the fucked up thing? Most of like the first fifth I've been working for twenty five years, is right, right, professionally for damn near a decade before then trying to get in. I'm old as fuck, bro, I just don't worry about it. Come on, yeah, well yeah, well don't worry. We at young, don't.
00:10:57
Speaker 2: So, yeah that as long as you've got to say, you relevant, you know what I'm saying. Once you once you stop having opinions and being tapped in with what's happened, that's what's breathing my degree and money.
00:11:09
Speaker 1: I ain't got to worry about either one. I'm tapped in and i'm but so let me just do it quick. So I broke in with what's called a spec sale, meaning I was living in my apartment. I wrote a script and sent it to people, and it got around and someone bought it, right, So that's how it broke into Hollywood. I got real hot because that's a rare thing, you know what I'm saying, for somebody to buy your script like like that. Yeah yeah, yeah, especially this was like the beginning of the end of the spec market. Like in the nineties, you could really make a living like that. But now that shit has done. So that got me some heat. My career dies. I break back in after five years of nothing, and I got to work on our family wedding over at Fox, which you know whatever. I'm just one of many on that one. Fuck dude video game stuff I did. The ship that people know about is Empire Truth Be Told on Apple Falcon Winter Soldier of course. That's you know, really proud of that one. Hip Hop un Covered, which is a documentary series. I worked on him in the original ideas by Jimmy Jim Bob Chris, who's another friend of ours. He'll be in a minute, him and draws and them. But I was in it.
00:12:36
Speaker 2: Remember I told you they dragged me to Kavanilla Park at like one in the morning.
00:12:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, we've got issues with that one.
00:12:42
Speaker 3: I wanted to come over there. Yeah yeah, that was I wanted. I wanted to be there. See I missed that special moment.
00:12:48
Speaker 2: It was at one in the morning, because why am I Campanella Park at one.
00:12:51
Speaker 1: In the morning.
00:12:53
Speaker 2: But it worked out though. It was because that saying looked crazy. It looks and and that's the I see this. It is offity, you know what I'm saying. It's in the air.
00:13:02
Speaker 1: Did that? I did the Captain America movie. I did bel Air and now I'm doing Snowfall. It's you know, it's I've been grinding a long time. And the way my career it doesn't it hasn't literally worked out like this. But if you look at my twenty five year career to let you know how hard this shit is because I push, right, I get something made once every five years.
00:13:24
Speaker 2: Is it somebody that getsh it made more besides dig Wolf I got?
00:13:29
Speaker 1: I got see dig Wolf on a small crew, Okay?
00:13:36
Speaker 2: And is it is it like partnerships with like networks at that point?
00:13:39
Speaker 1: No, it's just hot Boys Club and favoritism and all that. Yeah, I mean, and and you know, these are some of the Some of them are the best writers or filmmakers in Hollywood, and some of them aren't. But there's there's a level you can hit and then you have a large percentage of what you do is work only on things that get made. They bring you in when they're gonna make it, you know what I'm saying. And I've gotten to do that. I won't name the project it's obvious, but in general, I'm not in that pool. And I don't know if anyone maybe Joe Robert Cole is maybe, but that that's a serious pool and and them motherfuckers is working on ship that gets made. That's it basically, No.
00:14:30
Speaker 2: Man, this has been a process that really helps as a writer as a storyteller, just watching it and then just going back to look over different things and watching it and you know, watching you coach people like I think, I think you give yourself a hard time. And I mean I would imagine if you are to get better, bro, it make you better. Yeah, only make you better as a as a as a as a leader.
00:15:01
Speaker 1: It's interesting, bro, like watching you in the room. So here's the thing that like, there are elements of shit that can't be taught right and are like I do think that a certain level of intellect and just basic creativity a person can be taught to screenwrite on a professional level. But that still takes some in a talent. And then there's motherfuckers that come along and you just be like, goddamn, where did that come from? Right? Like, there's ship and that's just called It's just it's in you, Like when you be coming in the room and drop into the conversation and it don't make our skin crawl that's a gift that you're intuiting the code. So here's our go In a writer's room, it's like five, you know, five of us all talking at once on trying to move the story an inch an hour, right, and you need these voice is coming in, you know, ping pong and shit, and if the wrong voices come in, it fucks up the vibe. And glasses is able to come in and fall into the rhythm of that. And you got to know when to talk what to talk on and no one can teach you that, you know what I'm saying.
00:16:17
Speaker 2: Most of it is just most of it is listening. Yeah, because you're watching, You're watching, You're watching somebody create a world. I would imagine it's like God working. Yeah, I'm put this right here and put these mushrooms. It's that serious because you're watching people create something that don't exist. Like sometimes I'm listening and it's like, remember, so I'm there every other day, So I'm listening.
00:16:44
Speaker 1: I'm like, so, now I got to catch up to this day.
00:16:47
Speaker 2: So for the most time, thirty minutes I'm shutting the fuck up because I'm like, let me catch up, and then i gotta listen. Then it'll be like, Okay, God, I see where we're at, and then it just starts to make sense.
00:16:58
Speaker 1: But man, watching then put it together. King is.
00:17:04
Speaker 2: I started street racing when I was like five, and my dad started taking when off street racing I was five years old. Drag racing is like my first love gang banging education, Like I was great. I got all these ap classes, thirteen two mess atis gang banging. I kind of had to find my way into it. Walking into there is the first time I felt like I found my people.
00:17:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, you was fit, man. That's what I'm trying to say is honor that it's a very rare thing, even for the pros, even the pros. I'm telling you, man, it's really like I don't want to say no blastom of shit because that would require me to mention everyone, right, but please don't mention him. I'm I'm just gonna say, yeah, please don't. In the pantheon of players who people say are the goats, there is one who you could say, there's no way you can't say he ain't a goat. Sure, but I never felt like he fits in the rhythm of the game where it's just coming organ like, you know, like he underrated, is like, uh kd man, what you.
00:18:10
Speaker 2: Need fifty or twelve fast? You know the way it's gonna be at sixty it's nothing. And he's just with the flus. Why fit in with the warriors?
00:18:18
Speaker 1: And now he's over there and uh okay, see you know what I'm saying or no, anyway, you you should know man. You know I wouldn't say that if it wasn't true. It really is very organic for you, bro, And that's great man, It's it was. It was. It was one of the things where I was like, you know, so Jimbob brought brought him, you know, putting some people in, some gay people, some gatekeepers around me because I'm fucking with LA culture and I'm from Cali but I'm not from La so I got the right people around me to make sure shit is right or right as it can be. And watching him watching Glasses like just drop into the vibe like that, especially as I know him, so there's a more street wrapper. It was just like it fucked me. All of it fucked me up, the whole glasses thing.
00:19:04
Speaker 2: Intellect Yeah, first time I felt like I found my peoples, like storytellers, Like.
00:19:10
Speaker 1: It was a room full of storyteller.
00:19:12
Speaker 2: Yeah you feel and so like from the assistance to the showrunner, it's like, damn, this is like my people's and like you in here listening, so now you're listening to wiser storytellers, so you like, oh ship and it's like, damn, I never thought about it, and it just it's like this great. It sounds fun, fat, intense when it is, but it's it's like your people, like you could see it. This is the first time I ever walked in somewhere and felt like I found my people, Like this is my people, Like this is where my people, you know what I mean. And it was like I could sit back and not say nothing and be just as like amazed as speaking. It's like everybody, it made sense. How long do you see now this is gonna get you. I try to get people into trouble, but this is a deep question. How long do you think at this level of big production that's Hollywood have left. I know that's something you got to think about as.
00:20:17
Speaker 1: A I keep not being scared because the grandness of what we do is there's just like when YouTube came out twenty five years ago, right there, it's like that's it for Hollywood, right and everyone even back then was like, man, there's there's fifty great writers and they're gonna find their way into this system if that's what you're trying to do.
00:20:44
Speaker 2: So I think what we do, whether it evolves or whatever, it's satisfying in a way.
00:20:50
Speaker 1: Like I said, what what what's gonna replace us? When it's like Hollywood's performing at this level. But what it's doing is it's plugging glasses and problem and me and the random you know, the Jewish dude all into the one thing. Whatever's gonna take us out is gonna have to be operating at that level. So it's gonna be something similar anyway, you know what I'm saying, Because and I'm not shit isn't better than the other. It's just the bigness of what Hollywood does. It's specifically for that to be big, you know what I'm saying. Even if it's motherfucking the Shy, the Shy feels bigger than what's that ship that like everyone watched it back in the day, like money and whatever, just some serious So I do think like Hollywood's the worst it's ever been ever, right now, that's by that was by design, by you know some people who came from another world, the tech industry, and didn't give a fuck, and they did it like.
00:21:53
Speaker 2: They did this a music. Yes, I give Hollywood credit. They fighting back. Yeah, it's a tough fight. Music didn't fight back, like music kind of got colonized by it and then it just got stuck. And now you watch it all happen. Hollywood is fighting back. They're making some better decisions, like they're not making their titles all available, they're still holding back Music kind of conceded titles. They conceded all the albums, and now you can get any album. It's no way I should be able to get Jay Z's blueprint album, like I get this or Hollywood like so when we So I think I didn't tell you what I was working on this idea I was writing this. I did call Chris Rusus Dragon. It's a really dope idea and I'm almost to the end. So it's so it's super dope. I got a whole little dumb shit, right, but it's fired though, right, So dragons and cribs fucking great. But anyway, it's like I was trying to find nights, right, No, no, because so part of my part part of my journey hip hop is trying to like humanize the street life because I feel like it's just people, but for some reason, you get this thing like you're the Joker or Batman. So I wanted to make these slashers and the slashers is just like it's crips, but you're not really tripping at their crips because like, but you you start to figure out ways to do it. And this was just an idea, but the point was I was going to I start searching for a Nightmare on Elm Street and like I had to pay for it, you know what I mean. I start I start searching for certain screens I had. I had paramounts, so you know I had paramount but I noticed things that I was looking for they were still behind walls. Music conceded, like we gave all our titles to Spotify.
00:23:38
Speaker 1: Y'all got caught up in the beginning, exactly.
00:23:41
Speaker 2: Hollywood fought the whole time. So Hollywood could be in a little trouble, but it's it's it's.
00:23:47
Speaker 1: You. They got a chance. I didn't want to. I wanted to just sort of say, like you ain't wrong in this way. I'm gonna show you a chart later on. But this ship is down. It's probably by more and half and I don't think it's ever coming back like that. And I was, yeah, it's just it's too much other ship now. And it's just too much other ship. And also, Hollywood is no longer in the hands of people who give a fuck about it. You know what I'm saying. They like as a culture.
00:24:19
Speaker 2: It's economic, so economically it's in the hands of people money and not so much the creative.
00:24:27
Speaker 1: I'm not even I'm saying beyond that, bro, it's in the hands of people head funds and stuff. Yeah, like it's there, it's there. They just don't care what's gonna make my money. But you know that to me hurts the money when you're dealing with cultures like music, fashion, movies, and TV, the most money comes in that sweet spot where the commerce and art are working together or whatever. I don't know what you're saying is true. Some deep motherfuckers would shoot me there, that's true.
00:25:00
Speaker 2: Like, I don't think no d motherfucker will shoot you down there. It is because you get the greatest, biggest things, and there's a purity and art, but obviously the greatest thing, the chronic These are the greatest things ready to life at the death. You know, these are the greatest things where are in commerce mix?
00:25:17
Speaker 1: Yep? That's those are the things that you know.
00:25:20
Speaker 2: Create doors and lines and lines and lines and lines of people at the door for the product.
00:25:25
Speaker 1: So I think that's fair to say. I remember that was the biggest advertisements at one time. What's that you know, movies and TV shows and stuff? Well, my brother and now ten years ago, up until ten years ago, so I don't think. First of all, let me be very clear with whoever's about to hear this shit. I have don't know what I'm talking about, sure, but there's a fundamental truth to what I'm talking about, which is they don't make movies and TV shows no more. And what kings talk matters. So what happens in the business, let me try and explain it from a bone head, is movies were made at a certain budget, put into theaters where you see a certain percentage on the dollar, and in a great situation, you make a profit in theaters. Let's say, right then they live again on cable whom then they live again and all those things, right, and as it goes down to like starts to appear on like just Bay, you know TV like Channel thirteen.
00:26:30
Speaker 2: When you get now you're just getting left back.
00:26:33
Speaker 1: And now that channel is using your paying you for your movie so that they can play it and charge for commercials. Right that. So TVs and movies were a product that generated money. That's done. What's a sign for the record? Yep? And now it's a stock mark meaning this. I don't know it works, but it don't matter what these things make. What matters is these people's stock shares. Yeah, it's all the market share guy.
00:27:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's that's how it is with records. So like in the record business, one song made you your money back.
00:27:11
Speaker 1: Right right, I remember here, like one he could set you for life in a way.
00:27:15
Speaker 2: So one song made the label their money back the album itself. So one song is the theater. The single is I See what You're doing?
00:27:23
Speaker 1: Yeah?
00:27:24
Speaker 2: Then right, you go to as we talked about, what's after the theater before home media?
00:27:30
Speaker 1: It's home media second? Or is it cable second? Yeah?
00:27:34
Speaker 2: Or DVD's I think your home media So home media is right. Home media would be the album. So by that time they had already made their money back. So the album is like bonus money, you know what I mean, and then publishing checks from all of this other work, all of these things start coming in long term blah blah blah.
00:27:51
Speaker 1: But ever since they have the value.
00:27:53
Speaker 2: So I guess it's the fracture between the movie and the theater, like for the industry, for it, like the value of the record to the album, the single.
00:28:02
Speaker 1: But also this is the same people control y'all industry. Now, these streamers or whatever are partially right the same way. Sure they can't possibly keep this thing healthy when they are born from something that has nothing to do with it, Like there's no vinyl pressing plan, there's no motherfucking radio station, there's no nothing. There's some people with a technology who decided the value of what and by not knowing like meaning this, I've seen Joe Budden say this. This has maybe ten years why I started fucking on this podcast. He said abo to Joe. One day these people came up and said, fifteen hundred streams equals one record sell And Joe said, since who says who? How do you say that right? How do you declare that? Well, the person who declared that, I guarantee you don't give a fuck about music or anything or culture, so he don't know how to value he or she doesn't know how to value it or even care to value it. And once you put that in, once you put that poison into the culture, which is it's an alien thing. Like the gangsters who whipped off musicians back then. Love music came from music. The mob guy who wanted to be around musician will come yeah, right like these is, and they're just as evil except for their part of the cult. They love the music, these motherfuckers, and they don't care if it dies. They're so big whatever if don't know what next week again, they're gonna stream our thoughts whatever. That makes sense. It is that type of money. Hmm. Shit. I got a question. Did you go to school to become a writer? No? You just did it, just just you did as a kid growing up and just started writing. I man, I got into it. I always wanted to be a writer. I thought I was gonna write a book and then I've seen boys in the hood. Fat you know what I'm saying. But I didn't get serious with it until I quit drinking. I'd gotten in some trouble and it was just that point, like I had started writing God to teach myself how to type. You know, we didn't know that kind of shit growing up, and so it was. It wasn't until I was like, I gotta admit I got a late start. I think I broke in in my early thirties or maybe at thirty or something like that. Right, So, like, just to give you a sense of that, people like Mindy Kaling are already TV stars and have created fifteen million shows by the time day that age. You know what I'm saying. They like, you know what I'm saying, it started, really you started? Yeah? They just yeah, so no but no school, but just you know, you work. I'm serious, you know what I'm saying.
00:30:49
Speaker 2: I just got serious with it so far outside of this project right that we're not talking about I just don't want because it's not even that you don't want to. I get why you don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it, no matter how many streams like I have to keep my stream going, but I don't want to talk about it. I want to see it through and then we can talk about it after you see it. What was your favorite project working on? And I think I asked you this before, but before this particular experience.
00:31:19
Speaker 1: Probably it's a tie. It's a tie Falcon Winter Soldier because it just transformed my career. It was the it was the one that finally did it for me. Empire was the Empire made my career, but the Falcon Winter Soldier took me out of that whatever realm just right. He could just write this to m yeah and put me there. But I'm telling you, I think before this one, it was hip hop and covered.
00:31:48
Speaker 2: It really was, and that was an underrated thing because that was a dope thing, Like how was that?
00:31:52
Speaker 1: How was that whole experience? I mean, people don't appreciate like we kept out all the solationship because that's what we are there seeing where shit was going. I think the way people I feel like most of the docs that I see now are imitating our ship, not in a bad way. Made an imprint. Hey, we established the official timeline with Jake right, no go, you will not find it in nothing like connecting connecting, connecting uh uh uh, meaning Jake being the first murder where it's like this wasn't street beef a nothing rap shit turned into a murder of a street dude. And then what that did you know in that ripple all the way through the biggie We everyone does that now, but we did so I'm you know, I think it's gonna last. I think it's gonna last. That is a dope.
00:32:45
Speaker 2: That's a low key. We don't talk about love, but that was a dope. I watched the whole thing and I was really impressed. I was like, man, this is kind of dope.
00:32:53
Speaker 1: And they was the real folks back then, and they was treated like you like what you were saying. They were treated like human beings, you know what I'm saying. And that was a Portfolob has always been a scholar. Yeah, drawl has always been good. Yeah, really dope people. Yeah, I like that. I thought that was dope. What's your greatest fear in all of this shit? Because I'm sure you don't have a ton.
00:33:16
Speaker 2: As a writer, right, you got some regular ones, But what's your greatest fear where you kind of get caught up working on this.
00:33:23
Speaker 1: As you're working on and right, like as it pertains to that certain project. No, as a writer, it's you talking to the like, I don't know how to describe to you what the fuck happened? To me. Let me give you a quick Summaryate, I'm on feeling the probation, living in a shithole. And then my phone rings and it's Cia saying I want to represent you. I'm driving to your house now at nine am. And then if Fox and MTV Films is saying we want to buy your script and it's off right now, by some people standards, I never did shit, But by the standards I come from, that's how shit was. That's fucking crazy, right, And it was like that for three and I'm talking about famous people that like, meaning again, I'm living in a garbage hole. I didn't even get out of it before I went broke again, right, because it happened so fast to like the biggest filmmakers you know, calling you out to be. I don't even know how they got my number, right, because I'm not. I don't have no mentors or nothing like that. So and then bro nothing for a five motherfucking I didn't do nothing wrong. I didn't get it. It was just done. Bro, you think that happened, just that's how it be. That's how cold this business is you going? And then the you know, God turns his head with something for a second, I make no missed to noning. It was just fucking done. I mean I lost my agent, that the duck couldn't get no work, was back in the streets. It was all the shit, bro, So that can't be young greatest figures already happened. But that shit be haunted me too, So I'm always I'll never forget it. I'm always ready for it. But when you see me like I was that day, that probably is part of what's feeding that energy. Is I feel that wolf on my heels all the.
00:35:13
Speaker 2: Time, but I don't even think even Look, maybe you're right, I am forging fire a lot different.
00:35:20
Speaker 1: I didn't think it was that bad. I do that king all the time, probably talking about.
00:35:25
Speaker 2: What where you're gonna be stream at me and stuff that he not even that bad, Like like you pressure to get through it and you're trying.
00:35:33
Speaker 1: To get to it. That's how you got That's because he forged the fire too.
00:35:43
Speaker 2: Like it's one thing if I stepped past down and start insawing with this space, but like I'm frustrated because I'm trying to make the impossible possible force and so I get it.
00:35:51
Speaker 1: So you're right like me and Pete come from a world where that's.
00:35:55
Speaker 2: Been a dynamic like we but we also come from street urvan culture the same what where we all wards in that fire. So certain things now shout out to the out to the homie that we talked about any question, Yes it might he not be forced same you're a brilliant person, but we come from that fire like that. Like you're talking about that when you was you was in that five years and that medal, You was being in that metal horning iron, and shit was like, what the fuck is going on? And you still gotta keep pushing that, and you gotta push that and you gotta eat. We all come from that. So it's just different. And I realized everybody don't come from that.
00:36:28
Speaker 1: And it takes hell along because we still keep it around us. Bro, you don't understand. It took me years to figure out I was being too harsh or aggressive or whatever. And I'm not particularly I'm a you know, cupcake. In our world, it is it is. This is also twenty five years as a professional writer. You can imagine I was different twenty five years ago. You know what I'm saying, But I agree it is. There is a certain power that comes with it too. When you put it on the table with people, you don't do it a lot, and you don't do it. I'm not talking about threatening nothing, but when you remind people that, Yo, whatever the fuck this is, it ain't shipped to me with a certain tone, that reminds them that whatever their consequences they're feeling about this, I dodn't already been through. Yeah.
00:37:26
Speaker 2: I tell people all the time like maybe that's like when all the shit was happening, was like going to gym, I'm like, bro, shiit, what the fuck y'all talking about? Like I'm not tripping to jail. To them, that was like a thing, and I'm like, the fuck are y'all talking about? Like I'm not tripping? And you can tell they're not used to people being forging that fire.
00:37:45
Speaker 1: Jim, what up? You could tell people not forging that fire? Yeah?
00:37:49
Speaker 2: But nah, Watching, like I said, it's something, it's something to tame, it's something to really tame. It's something to watch. And like I'm saying, it's impressed to watch, not in this kind of our way because it's so many things happening at once, like watching you know, one hundred and fifty people do one thing at once.
00:38:08
Speaker 1: It is fucking insane. It's it's it's fucking mind blowing something. This is by far the biggest production. Nah bro motherfucking Marvel Goldy. Yeah, that shit is. But it's a different it's a whole different vibe too, Like sure, ship, just move. It's just as chaotic, but there's a power structure over your head that in a way you're so submissive to it. This is different, Like this is on me. So this is by far the biggest thing ever on me. So you're moving, you have to move to people as a whole. Yet not only that, I will for short, like if this didn't go, it is on me, like the room around time, So you control everything touch his name. When we say control, we mean I'm in a position to but someone else who knows more about it controls it. It's just they they there's his room for me there. I ain't gonna say they're reporting to me, but it's just me. It's he's decide. If it doesn't work out, it's all him. If it weren't here the head writer, I'm not the head writer. I'm the show runner. So look at it like this.
00:39:16
Speaker 2: If it works out, if it doesn't, work out, it's all his fault. If it does work out, it's about ten people, including his So it's a showrunner runs the show.
00:39:27
Speaker 1: It is you decide. Like when I say where the money is gonna go, I don't mean I count the money, but they're saying, all right, you only got enough money to shoot a scene with either glasses or king. Right, I'm the one who they're gonna decide that, or say get all them lights out of there so I can get them both, or like you decide everything, you decide who gets hired or fire. You know what I'm saying to some degree, like.
00:39:52
Speaker 2: As much as he can be yes, Yeah, and I listen to what I just said. If it doesn't work out, If it doesn't work out, it's all his fault. If it works out, he's a part of the ten peoples who actually got it right.
00:40:09
Speaker 1: Right, That does that make sense?
00:40:11
Speaker 2: That's crazy? I may say this when that's crazy. If it doesn't work out, it's all escapegoal.
00:40:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you got and you gotta have one because someone's cutting the check. Ultimately, Like this is what you start to learn, right, I wouldn't even called a scapegoat, right, someone got to cut a check to get this shit going, everybody want to say, well, you gotta blame somebody, and that's just natural. That's not negative. Like you're like if your captain tells you to go out and shoot protesters, right, and then you go to jail for it as a cop, the first thing you're gonna say is, my captain told me to do that, right, And then the captain's gonna say, I got that order from the mayor. And at some point it's gonna stop, right, that's me and less it works, right and now when.
00:40:56
Speaker 3: It works, everybody wants to collective of people up and down.
00:41:01
Speaker 1: And that's cool though that's not a bad Yeah, I agree. Like one thing about it is you would not be a writer if you wanted to be out like like, it don't mean shit. In the end, the quality of the thing and the experience is really all that matter. So that's the great thing is like writers tend to be motherfuckers that don't need to be seen. They want to hide, they will, you know what I'm saying. So I'm out going for a writer, and I got no desire to be you know what I'm saying, Like, I don't be writing no cameos, for myself and I'm not doing none of that, you know. No, that's just dope.
00:41:33
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate it. I didn't wanted to drag you. I just felt like it was cool.
00:41:37
Speaker 1: Man. I'm honored, Bro, I'm not I man glad to be the fucking with this dude.
00:41:41
Speaker 2: Man has been man right, mutual dogg We built something, bro, Yeah it really, I'll tell you what, man. I never I sware to God like homies, street races. No, I never felt like I found my people until I sat down in them chairs and I've seen all of these people and I was like listening to them create ideas.
00:42:03
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, this is my people.
00:42:05
Speaker 2: Like every time I go there, like sometimes it sucks like I have to go do this other thing that I'm really great at, but like here is something that natural. It feels like breathing air. They don't even have to try. I can just listen. I want to give one idea, and I know I'm.
00:42:19
Speaker 1: Supposed to be there.
00:42:20
Speaker 3: Well I could see that because during all the years of knowing you, the different show ideas You'll tell me about the different movies, and even up to the videos, you make it look like movies.
00:42:30
Speaker 1: You know, what I'm saying.
00:42:31
Speaker 2: So now you need to always push, always touch bird man, all the people that let me do more stuff. Like I shot a video in twenty ten with film when nobody was using film, right. I remember when I talk wanted to use film. They was like what I'm like, Yeah, I want to use film. And I always thought like.
00:42:47
Speaker 1: That, yeah, curious. You want to see my story and it's not. It doesn't come with everybody, just like you know Paul, and I sure Paul is a fucking savant with them numbers. Wow, you know what I'm saying, you can see it. He could you know what I'm saying, the schedule and to the motherfuckers in the matrix right to the point that he can make the numbers work for you creatively, Like when you like, oh fuck, I'm stressing I can't afford this or that, that motherfucker is able to blend that with your creativity.
00:43:18
Speaker 2: Right, So for you you are on the story side, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, shit, all right.
00:43:24
Speaker 1: My man? All right, folks, all right.
00:43:30
Speaker 2: And looking out for tuning into The note Seller's podcast, Please do us a favorite, subscribe, rate commentist share. This episode was recorded right here on the West coast of the USA and produced by the Black Effect podcast network and not Hard Radio year
